A Debate About God.

[tigerclaw1000]

Any one?

Doesn't really excuse my point that aggressive posting generally doesn't do well.

After all, I've gotten VERY annoyed by this sort of thing many times, but I still endeavor to keep my posts civil and polite, because that's more conductive to fulfilling the forum's mission statement, and helps encourage actual discussion rather than verbal peeing contests.

You are right

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I know, I got that. But we don't use idioms without meaning.

I'm asking what do you see as a "personal motivation" in the universe, if God is conscious.

This will take a while to type if you wanted full explanation, probably take a few pages of a book.

But to sum it up (xD) I'd say, from the order of things:


Part 1 - Meaning of Life God didn't intentionally design life. There are so many things where living things can't be. So life wasn't supposed to happen, there wasn't supposed to be conscious beings. It wanted to make lifeless beings, unlike itself. We are the only life forms in what we've discovered so far. Not saying there aren't more out there, but there are more things lifeless than living.

Part 2 - Why Things Go the Way They Do The order of events are determined to become one together again, into another singularity (eg the force of gravity) but evolve into that (everything evolves). Unnatural disturbances are us. Nature destroys viruses in itself and makes them into something totally different. The conscious beings are a virus but ones with the ability of reason (like us using it more than other beings) are outmastered. We are a continually growing virus and will not stop disturbing the natural.

God wants everything to come together but also wants to eliminate the viruses of nature (unnatural disturbances such as conscious beings, destructive forces like antimatter, etc.) The things we perceive as destructive forces (volcanoes, meteorites, tornadoes, etc.) are actually defense mechanisms of natural phenomena.

 

[1137]

Hello. I am an atheist wishing to have a debate about the existence of God with those who believe in him. However, this forum does not need to be limited to the Abrahamic Gods of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

To start this off, I would like to know why you (the believer) believe in God. When I say this, I do not mean little details that may only make sense with God, but the core reason that convinces you that a God exits. If, however, you believe solely on faith, then I wish to know why you believe faith in your religion than in others.

Great. Now lets see where this thread goes .

I believe in god simply because it seems philosophically logical to me. A never ending series of contingencies does not make sense to me. I believe there has to be a necessary being / uncaused first cause / whatever you want to call it. But I do not think god is something we can fully understand.

 

[tigerclaw1000]

I believe in god simply because it seems philosophically logical to me. A never ending series of contingencies does not make sense to me. I believe there has to be a necessary being / uncaused first cause / whatever you want to call it. But I do not think god is something we can fully understand.

Yea shore but how can you know its God and not some natural phenomena, You can fit god in there because he is defined to fit there it dosent prove he exists.

And you can put this god as an explanation to any phenomena and voala you have no progress, we would be stuck in the stone age if people wore all satisfied with the supernatural (explanation)

 

[1137]

Yea shore but how can you know its God and not some natural phenomena, You can fit god in there because he is defined to fit there it dosent prove he exists.

And you can put this god as an explanation to any phenomena and voala you have no progress, we would be stuck in the stone age if people wore all satisfied with the supernatural (explanation)

Well that is kind of what I believe god is. God is a natural thing, as only what is natural can exist. I do not believe in a god that loves us or intervenes with us. I am not even sure if god cares or not. I have a panendeistic view of god, which means I think everything natural is a part of god, but god is also infinitely greater. Whether we cannot explain things without god, or we cannot explain the god that explains things, my belief in god is not a cop out. It is just another question. However, since I believe in the big bang and start of time and such, I also believe that something had to be there before. But me believing in god is such a small part of my beliefs, you really need a bigger picture to understand fully. I am not for relying on god, and I do not think god's existence even really changes anything.

 

[kerravon]

To start this off, I would like to know why you (the believer) believe in God. When I say this, I do not mean little details that may only make sense with God, but the core reason that convinces you that a God exits.

Core reason is something unverifiable, that gave me the computer simulation model for the universe.

Backup reasons are that even as an atheist I was deeply suspicious about the time we lived in. We live in a quite interesting period of history with world freedom within technical reach in our lifetimes, and nuclear war making it simultaneously dangerous. In the past it was just one boring dictator taking over from another boring dictator. I'm glad I didn't live back then. With the computer simulation model, I don't believe anyone actually lived back then - the history was all faked as part of the simulation.

As an atheist I was also somewhat worried about the failure to produce life from raw chemicals. It hinted that maybe there was a god who could endow a "life force". I was hoping that scientists would invent life so that we could put another nail in the coffin of religion. In the end it was my atheism that received the nail.

Something happened that I consider to be a miracle.

I also found a scientific reason for "love thy enemy" (ie treating your enemy the same way as you would a beautiful lion that had just eaten your child). I had previously rejected that in the strongest possible terms. Once I accepted that radical philosophy (instead of thinking it was useless and impractical and wrong), I realized that it was deliberately hidden among all the other junk in the bible, and is not the sort of thing I think humans are capable of inventing themselves.

 

[Me Myself]

I also found a scientific reason for "love thy enemy" (ie treating your enemy the same way as you would a beautiful lion that had just eaten your child). I had previously rejected that in the strongest possible terms. Once I accepted that radical philosophy (instead of thinking it was useless and impractical and wrong), I realized that it was deliberately hidden among all the other junk in the bible, and is not the sort of thing I think humans are capable of inventing themselves.

I may be reading you wrong, but you are not implying Jesus was the first one to say love your enemy, right?

 

[kerravon]

I may be reading you wrong, but you are not implying Jesus was the first one to say love your enemy, right?

I was under the impression that the bible was the first to say that. Do you know differently? Note that I don't believe Jesus even existed.

 

[Me Myself]

I was under the impression that the bible was the first to say that. Do you know differently? Note that I don't believe Jesus even existed.

Yes, it has been said before, to the very least by Siddharta Gautma buddha, but U¿I would think it is an old (wise) concept. While the phrase I would think would not be the same, the concept of loving everyone with NO esceptions is absolutely in buddhism, and I am sure there are plenty of stories of saints that loved their enemies.

Furthermore, I believe there is more than oneBuddha story, where an enemy of Buddha was so moved and inspired by the Buddha´s love and compassion towards him, even when he was cruel to Buddha that he becomes one of his disciples.

BTW, then what do you mean that it could not come from this world or humans that pice of wisdom of loving your enemies?

 

[kerravon]

While the phrase I would think would not be the same, the concept of loving everyone with NO esceptions is absolutely in buddhism, and I am sure there are plenty of stories of saints that loved their enemies.

I don't consider "love everyone" to be the equivalent of explicitly specifying that you are obligated to love your enemy.

BTW, then what do you mean that it could not come from this world or humans that pice of wisdom of loving your enemies?

Bearing in mind that the model I use for the universe is that of a computer simulation, I believe the bible contains this explicit directive to set an incredibly high bar for humans. It goes against all obvious reason. Everyone knows that you're meant to vanquish your enemy. And indeed, that is still the case. But the concept that you're meant to love him even as you vanquish him is what I consider to be too radical for humans to have invented, and has been deliberately planted by God into the most popular "holy" book to give us direction while still hiding his existence.

 

[Me Myself]

I don't consider "love everyone" to be the equivalent of explicitly specifying that you are obligated to love your enemy

You´ll end up making me look around for the explicit phrases from other religions?

I also put the example of Buddha´s actions, when he was compassive towards his detractors. For now I don´t have specific quotes, but I know there exist around.

Bearing in mind that the model I use for the universe is that of a computer simulation, I believe the bible contains this explicit directive to set an incredibly high bar for humans. It goes against all obvious reason. Everyone knows that you're meant to vanquish your enemy. And indeed, that is still the case. But the concept that you're meant to love him even as you vanquish him is what I consider to be too radical for humans to have invented, and has been deliberately planted by God into the most popular "holy" book to give us direction while still hiding his existence.

Would you say the bible or the 4 testaments?

I would wholeheartedly say the 4 testaments have incredible bits of wisdom, but I´ve found Buddhism to be more detailed in a lot of things that Jesus only explains very straightforwardly and in a narrow way in the testaments. To my personal opinion, that he could not expand upon a lot of things is what makes most mainstream christianity to deviate from his actual teachings (but that is for another thread )

 

[kerravon]

You´ll end up making me look around for the explicit phrases from other religions?

I also put the example of Buddha´s actions, when he was compassive towards his detractors. For now I don´t have specific quotes, but I know there exist around.

Buddha forgiving his erstwhile enemies is not the same as followers being commanded to love (not even just forgive) those who are still actively fighting them.

Would you say the bible or the 4 testaments?

I would wholeheartedly say the 4 testaments have incredible bits of wisdom, but I´ve found Buddhism to be more detailed in a lot of things that Jesus only explains very straightforwardly and in a narrow way in the testaments. To my personal opinion, that he could not expand upon a lot of things is what makes most mainstream christianity to deviate from his actual teachings (but that is for another thread )

I don't know the difference between the bible and the 4 testaments. I consider the bible to be wall to wall junk, with just a few important things inserted, deliberately hidden amongst the junk. I don't look to the bible for guidance, I have an atheist mindset and I use secular humanism. Another important thing is the number 666. I consider the whole universe to be one elaborate practical joke. Along the lines of this model:

Brain in a vat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Daviso452]

I'll start this thread back up. The topic question is:

Do you believe that there is evidence of the existence of God? If you do, please share. If you do not think God requires evidence to be proven, please also share. Good luck!