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Do you believe in God (or a supreme being higher than yourself)?
If you don't, then how come?
What is it that you believe as far as this is concerned?
Yes another fairy tale.And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.
And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.
Do you believe in God (or a supreme being higher than yourself)?
If you don't, then how come? What is it that you believe as far as this is concerned?
If you do, then how come? What do you call him? IS God a "him" or a "her"? And how many are there according to your belief?
Na, no god what so ever.
- No good evidence.
- I see no reason to believe in a given thing that can not be proven.
- The last time I put faith before reason, it destroyed most of what was good and precious in my life. I'm not going to be tricked like that again.
I believe in many Gods. There's 12 who are the most important, with Zeus being the supreme. But in totality, there's countless Gods, both named and unnamed. Mortals may also become deified.
I believe that because that's what makes the most sense to my perception of reality and I keep coming back to it regardless, anyway.
yes, I do. How come? Because it is logic. I refer the God with pronunciation He.
Maybe, but our anthropomoprhized caricatures are far off the mark.
It's the modern form of the ancient Greek religion. It has a number of names followers use - Hellenismos, Olympianism, Dodekatheism, Hellenic polytheism, etc.Out of curiosity, is there a religious belief systemn you follow that honors the gods of your speak of?
I believe in the Goddess, and that all things come from her.
welcome to the Forum!
Though I am certain there are things beyond our ability to perceive, comprehend, and understand, it seems to be a rather large leap to assume it's god.
Which part?Interesting comment. Would you explain why you think that?
It's the modern form of the ancient Greek religion.
Do you believe in God (or a supreme being higher than yourself)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_religionThank you. Sounds interesting. Could you explain a little more about what you mean by "ancient Greek" because my understanding of the true history of "ancient Greek" beliefs, philosophers and philosophies may be different from yours, so I'm just curious of your perspective on it.
NewGuyOnTheBlock said: ↑
- No good evidence.
- I see no reason to believe in a given thing that can not be proven.
- The last time I put faith before reason, it destroyed most of what was good and precious in my life. I'm not going to be tricked like that again.
Sister Cyber said:I greatly respect that answer! At one point in my life, those were my exact sentiments.
I don't think you read the whole thing.Yes another fairy tale.
Yes, because I have had too many experiences that lead me to believe that there is something out there greater than me, you and all of us. I do not use any name nor assign a gender to something that is greater than human concepts. And in my belief, there is one who can have many faces and appeal to any and all through various guises.Do you believe in God (or a supreme being higher than yourself)?
If you don't, then how come? What is it that you believe as far as this is concerned?
If you do, then how come? What do you call him? IS God a "him" or a "her"? And how many are there according to your belief?
I respect your opinion, which you have laid out rather well but I disagree that the discovery of conscious man is the pursuit of self-deification, insofar as, IMO, I have had too many experiences that are not able to be explained that indicate something greater. this is not to say that at some point these experiences will not be able to be explained through scientific means, or other means of explanation. Just that, at this point, they cannot be."God" exists in so far as God is the projection of our ignorance and powerlessness before the forces of nature and society. In the past we anthropomorphised these forces into "human" characteristics as possessing will and consciousness of their own. There are a great many forces outside our control that necessitate humility in recognising a power greater than ourselves, but they are all natural and physical rather than supernatural. We can master them and become as if we were gods but not without changing ourselves as we gain greater knowledge and power and become a force of nature equal and surpassing those around us. The loss of religious faith is the discovery of man as God all along and the conscious pursuit of self-deification.
In other words, I could have just said "no" but thats a really boring and uninformative answer.
Extremely well said and very much how I view these questions myself. Kudos.Yes, and no. I believe in and have experienced what I call God. But the notion or view of God as an "entity" or even "being" in the sense of being outside of yourself, or strictly "above" the universe is not exactly how I relate to it. Being "higher" than myself? Yes, of course, in the sense that my "self" is a limited conception, or lived reality. The ego-self is not the highest Self. I am more than my idea of who I am. And knowing that is knowing God. So yes "God" is higher than me, but not a "being" separate from me. Just simply unrealized. But that realized Self is "higher" than all as it is limitless, unbounded, free, and infinite. Yet not separate, as infinite cannot be "elsewhere". It is "all-where" and "no-where" in particular. It is both before and beyond, the ground and the goal, the source and the summit. That's what I call God, and yes I very much believe this as it is something I experience.
The reason I do, as defined above, is experience. Opening to the Infinite and experiencing it firsthand. All other reality dissolves in the face of this. It is *real* reality, all else we think or believe to be true shown to be an illusion of our minds, projecting ourselves on the face of "it" and calling that the real world. As it says in the Diamond Sutra, "Wanting nothing, with all your heart stop the stream. When the world dissolves everything becomes clear."
The reason I call this Infinite Reality, God, is because the term conveys Infinite Good. And that is how it is experienced. Infinite Good. Infinite Good, and Infinite Personal. But it is not a being apart from ourselves. And, key to understanding this WE are not beings apart from it. As far as personal pronouns go, I prefer to not use gender pronounces such as He or She and tend to use "it", but even that is misleading. This Infinite Reality can be experienced by us as humans as both Infinite Personal and Infinite Impersonal, both in Masculine, and as Feminine. "It" itself is an inadequate way to speak of "it", as "it" suggests an object outside ourselves in a subject/object dualism. There are really no words other than "IS" that come closer. "I AM" is not bad. But that "I AM" does not exclude us. Talking about "it" is both useful, as well as useless. It's useful as a 'looking forward' pointer, and useless as a explanation of what simply IS.
tagging @YmirGF as I talk about God all the time and like how I attempted to explain my use of it.
I do not understand people, especially scientific minded people who say 'there is no good evidence for God' and 'having no reason to believe in a given thing that can not be proven'. First there is good evidence for the existence of God*. There is more evidence that God exists than evidence that shows God does not exist.
* God; defined as a higher power or an intelligent agent that created the universe and that has attributes generally associated with God. etc.
Some Hindus have NDEs where they meet Yamraj, the Hindu God of Death. Does he exist?Yes God Exists! I believe in Gods existence for several reasons. I use fractions of 100% to assign numerical values of each 'evidence' or reasons that convinces me God exists. One quantifier for a reason I believe in God is the NDE many years ago, yes, God was there with me. So that NDE counts for about 10%. NDE's are somewhat under researched hence the low value give mine, plus my experience was not the typical type of NDE.
Science doesn't say the universe was created. Even the originator of the Big Bang theory doesn't say so.Next, I was into science (and Atheism) before I was a christian. So science and logic tells me the universe was created, and the creator was intelligent, ie God or as I call it GID which means 'God the intelligent Designer'.
"Cosmological Kalamity" http://infidels.org/library/modern/dan_barker/kalamity.htmlGID accounts for 40% of my 'God lives' conviction. Cosmological arguments, and other arguments for the existence of God, such as my favorite, the KCA (Kalam Cosmological Argument) accounts for 30% of the pie.