Do You Know Why You Don't Believe?

[doppelganger]

No one answers the question. None of you are willing to admit that you don't know why you don't believe.

I said nothing of the sort. Talk about ego!? I asked you some questions that are a necessary threshold to answering your questions.

Just answer the questions and quit dodging the issue.

 

[Yes Man]

No one answers the question. None of you are willing to admit that you don't know why you don't believe. You say "Show me the evidence" when the evidence is the universe, the evidence is the earth and life.

The reason you don't believe in God is because He can't fit in with your ego. You are much too important to yourself.

So wait. You're saying I am denying the evidence which (according to you) is the universe. Then if such a God exists why did he create so many flaws? And complexity does not imply design. A snowflake or a diamond is a complex object not created directly by an intelligent being. Have you tried looking here? Teleological argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well I'm sorry I may seen selfish. And I am, I see nothing wrong with that. And if I did believe that there was a creator god existing right now, maybe I would devote some time to understand and maybe even worship such a being. But I don't, simple as that.

 

[Panda]

What is the reason you don't believe in God? Or the reason you're not absolutely positively sure God exists?

I'd guess the number one reason is because people see bad things happening all around them and can't understand why God would allow it to happen.

How would you rate the other reasons not to believe?

Now the key question, where would you rate your own ego as a reason and do you realize it's the main reason?

I see no proof of God existing therefore I conclude he does not exist. Why do you think he does? You should have to justify and give evidence for the existing of God, and I mean real evidence. The bible is not evidence it is a book. I want scientifically documented proof of God performing miracles, like parting the sea, bringing people back to life or maybe put writing in the stars to say something like "Hey I'm God I am real btw." However until there is proof of him I will not believe as their is no proof.

 

[YmirGF]

Ego is actually the reason for believing rather than non-believing. "God" imagined as "Creator" is a shadow cast by the "God"-observer's self-consciousness. Everyone's "God" bears an uncanny resemblance to themselves . . . but if horses had gods, they'd look like horses.

As far an non-belief goes, I'd like to hear someone clearly define what it is I'm supposedly not believing in . . . That would be the threshold question.

Is "God" a thing? If so, what kind of thing? If not, what sense does it make to talk about the "existence" of a non-thing?

Precisely. Well done, as usual, Dopp. :bow:

 

[Buttercup]

Also, it's not required, or even wished, that you believe in God at this time. Live your life as you wish. Hopefully you have adopted strict morals and set them into stone. If so, you will be just fine. You may even beat me to the finish line.

Why does belief in God always come back to an adherence to strict morals? Your God doesn't sound any different than the Abrahamic God.

I asked you before but you didn't answer......let's say I believe in this vague version of God you present, then what?

 

[YmirGF]

Why does belief in God always come back to an adherence to strict morals? Your God doesn't sound any different than the Abrahamic God.

I too can only gasp at the relationship between morals and gods. I just don't get it. My sense of morals comes from within me and to my understanding god is not especially concerned about such primitive human value judgments.

I asked you before but you didn't answer......let's say I believe in this vague version of God you present, then what?

My guess is that you would be heading to your local Wal-Mart to pick up one of those nifty "dimensional ladders", my sweets.

*Keeps watching for Buttercup to come walking down the driveway on her morning walkabout*

Oh well, enough of this piffle. It is time to go get dirty.

 

[Buttercup]

*Keeps watching for Buttercup to come walking down the driveway on her morning walkabout*

Ahhh, so you did name her after your street. Good choice. A great name for a doe if I do say so myself

Oh well, enough of this piffle. It is time to go get dirty.

Enjoy! It's lovely here today and I assume there too!

 

[Super Universe]

So wait. You're saying I am denying the evidence which (according to you) is the universe. Then if such a God exists why did he create so many flaws? And complexity does not imply design. A snowflake or a diamond is a complex object not created directly by an intelligent being. Have you tried looking here? Teleological argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well I'm sorry I may seen selfish. And I am, I see nothing wrong with that. And if I did believe that there was a creator god existing right now, maybe I would devote some time to understand and maybe even worship such a being. But I don't, simple as that.

God did not create flaws, you did.

A crooked tree was never meant to be straight, it's supposed to be crooked! Fix yourself! Fix your incorrect view. Everything is made to be broken.

Why can't you understand that? It should be obvious.

Worship? Sigh... Humans haven't earned the right to worship God. How can you attempt to worship something when you don't even understand 1% of it?

 

[Super Universe]

I see no proof of God existing therefore I conclude he does not exist. Why do you think he does? You should have to justify and give evidence for the existing of God, and I mean real evidence. The bible is not evidence it is a book. I want scientifically documented proof of God performing miracles, like parting the sea, bringing people back to life or maybe put writing in the stars to say something like "Hey I'm God I am real btw." However until there is proof of him I will not believe as their is no proof.

I should have to justify and give evidence for what I believe and you shouldn't?

Quite the ego you've got going there...

I never said the bible is evidence. I never said God performs miracles.

Why even respond if none of you are going to answer the OP?

 

[Super Universe]

Why does belief in God always come back to an adherence to strict morals? Your God doesn't sound any different than the Abrahamic God.

I asked you before but you didn't answer......let's say I believe in this vague version of God you present, then what?

I did answer...

How can anyone know? It is difficult to see the truth amidst all the lies told for centuries. I recommend using logic.

An example:
What is a fireball from heaven? A meteor. Meteor's hit the earth all the time but now we don't think of them as "heaven sent" so likely, the ancient priests were wrong and God did not send them.

If a storm floods your town tomorrow, would people blame God? Most would not, it's just a storm, it happens. So, likely God did not send any of the storms, or plagues, or killing, that He was blamed for in the bible either.

Also, it's not required, or even wished, that you believe in God at this time. Live your life as you wish. Hopefully you have adopted strict morals and set them into stone. If so, you will be just fine. You may even beat me to the finish line.

Belief in God has nothing to do with strict morals. I'm sure there are athiests, homosexuals, and even a few Catholics with strong morals.

To travel to New York, you have to know where it is and have some idea how to get there. To get to heaven, you have to know where it is and how to get there.

Heaven is not automatic. If you don't learn the universe, you won't find it.

 

[Buttercup]

Belief in God has nothing to do with strict morals. I'm sure there are athiests, homosexuals, and even a few Catholics with strong morals.

First you say I have to have strict morals then you say I don't. *sigh* I'm enjoying this thread, SU but you do confuse me.

To travel to New York, you have to know where it is and have some idea how to get there. To get to heaven, you have to know where it is and how to get there.

I've asked how to get to your God several times and you give me the run around. What kind of answer is this?

Heaven is not automatic. If you don't learn the universe, you won't find it.

Once again, how am I to learn about the universe?

 

[Jose Fly]

It's amazing how these "Does God exist"-type threads so often follow the same pattern.

"Why don't you believe in God?"

"Lack of evidence."

"There's all sorts of evidence."

"Where?"

"All around you."

"Be more specific."

"Ummm.....things just don't happen on their own, do they? So God exists!"

"That's not at all convincing."

Theist then proceeds to post bald assertion after bald assertion about what God is, how it operates, and how things work after you die...all of course without a shred of supporting evidence.

Non-believers are of course, unconvinced and say so.

Theist answers, "Well then, nothing will convince you. You're just too egotistical."


If I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times. Now, S-U suggest using logic to determine if a god or gods exist. Ok, let's do that....

--Many people assert the existence of a god or gods. Most claim direct revelation from this/these god(s).

--Virtually none of these revelations agree with each other, and the vast majority are mutally exclusive. Therefore:

a)

 

[KingM]

Can't you see that everyone tells us what God is "right"? What version of God is "true"?

Amazing how many people can look at the thousands of faiths/sects/beliefs and somehow believe that they are the ones privy to the secret knowledge about how the universe works. And yet they always say that agnostics and atheists are arrogant.

 

[Jose Fly]

Sorry. Still trying to get used to this message board format. Ignore the previous post....

It's amazing how these "Does God exist"-type threads so often follow the same pattern.

"Why don't you believe in God?"

"Lack of evidence."

"There's all sorts of evidence."

"Where?"

"All around you."

"Be more specific."

"Ummm.....things just don't happen on their own, do they? So God exists!"

"That's not at all convincing."

Theist then proceeds to post bald assertion after bald assertion about what God is, how it operates, and how things work after you die...all of course without a shred of supporting evidence.

Non-believers are of course, unconvinced and say so.

Theist answers, "Well then, nothing will convince you. You're just too egotistical."


If I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times. Now, S-U suggest using logic to determine if a god or gods exist. Ok, let's do that....

--Many people assert the existence of a god or gods. Most claim direct revelation from this/these god(s).

--Virtually none of these revelations agree with each other, and the vast majority are mutally exclusive. Therefore:

a) God exists and communicates with humans, but does not communicate at all clearly, or

b) God exists and communicates with humans, but humans are terrible at understanding, captureing, and relaying these communications, or

c) God exists and communicates with humans, but gives conflicting messages to different people, or

d) God exists and doesn't communicate with humans, and humans simply make up/imagine these revelations, or

e) God doesn't exist, and humans simply make up/imagine these revelations.


Logically, if any one of these are true the first thing we must conclude is that we cannot rely on humans to tell us what God is, what it wants, how it operates, or anything else about it.

Ok, so we can't rely on humans. Let's consider the universe.

Theists like to assert that the universe itself is evidence that a god exists. But when we look at the universe, do we see a god? No. Do we see something resembling a god's signature? No. So what do we see when we look at the universe?

We see....a universe; a universe working all on its own, seemingly without any need for a "god" to explain its operation. Galaxies turn, stars are born and die, and energy is transformed all on its own. IOW, the universe looks completely natural.

Ah, but theists say, "What about how the universe came to be?" Well, the only honest answer right now is "we don't know how it came to be", but that by itself is no reason to posit a "god". So why exactly we should posit a god in the first place is unclear. Is there a means by which we can differentiate between a universe that was created by a god and one that "just is"? If there is, I haven't seen it.

So, using logic as S-U suggests does not lead us down the path of concluding that a god or gods exist(s). And of course, none of this takes into consideration the fact that "god" is--at best--a very poorly-defined term. What exactly is "god"? I suppose that's something the theists will have to answer (and not solely via bald assertion either, but with supporting evidence).

 

[Super Universe]

First you say I have to have strict morals then you say I don't. *sigh* I'm enjoying this thread, SU but you do confuse me.

I've asked how to get to your God several times and you give me the run around. What kind of answer is this?

Once again, how am I to learn about the universe?

I'll admit I am confusing at times. Mostly though, it's because people put me into the same group as the bible thumpers. I'm pretty distant from them though.

On the earth, you don't have to do a thing. Live your life. It may take a thousand, or more, lifetimes for your soul to build a personality that is unselfish and devoted towards the universe instead of itself but it's not a race.

How to get to God? You can't get there from here.

I'll be basic and specific, souls are fragments of God released from heaven to go out and experience all they can experience in the universe. Nothing in the universe can harm a soul so God is not worried one bit about you. Souls join with biologics to build a personality.

Too often souls build selfish personalities and thus they are not allowed to ascend up the dimensional ladder and return to heaven (God's Son controls the access) so they are stuck in a cycle of reincarnation. It takes a very long time for souls to over write their selfish personalities with unselfish ones. Eventually, you will be able to ascend up through the dimensions and return to heaven.

How are you to learn about the universe? Absorb everything you can. Become wise about many topics. Study people and also study yourself. How much do emotions control you and which ones have the most control? Once you recognize them you can then begin to control them better.

And eventually, when you get to the next dimension, we'll provide you with a much more advanced Theory of God and the Universe.

 

[Super Universe]

--Virtually none of these revelations agree with each other, and the vast majority are mutally exclusive. Therefore:

You did say "none...", I just left off the first word. Now, can we continue the discussion or are you going to nit pick wording and avoid the debate?

WOW, how did this end up ahead of your post? Strange things going on here...

 

[Jose Fly]

SuperUniverse,

None of these revelations agree with each other? Wrong.

Perhaps you should pay better attention to what I write. I did not say "none". Nevertheless, perhaps you could give an example of a revelation that all theists in the world agree to?

 

[KingM]

Too often souls build selfish personalities and thus they are not allowed to ascend up the dimensional ladder and return to heaven (God's Son controls the access) so they are stuck in a cycle of reincarnation. It takes a very long time for souls to over write their selfish personalities with unselfish ones. Eventually, you will be able to ascend up through the dimensions and return to heaven.

How are you to learn about the universe? Absorb everything you can. Become wise about many topics. Study people and also study yourself. How much do emotions control you and which ones have the most control? Once you recognize them you can then begin to control them better.

And eventually, when you get to the next dimension, we'll provide you with a much more advanced Theory of God and the Universe.

Sounds like a "just so" story. I mean, maybe it works this way, but I doubt it. And I don't see any evidence to suggest this is the way the universe works.

 

[Super Universe]

Sorry. Still trying to get used to this message board format. Ignore the previous post....

It's amazing how these "Does God exist"-type threads so often follow the same pattern.

"Why don't you believe in God?"

"Lack of evidence."

"There's all sorts of evidence."

"Where?"

"All around you."

"Be more specific."

"Ummm.....things just don't happen on their own, do they? So God exists!"

"That's not at all convincing."

Theist then proceeds to post bald assertion after bald assertion about what God is, how it operates, and how things work after you die...all of course without a shred of supporting evidence.

Non-believers are of course, unconvinced and say so.

Theist answers, "Well then, nothing will convince you. You're just too egotistical."


If I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times. Now, S-U suggest using logic to determine if a god or gods exist. Ok, let's do that....

--Many people assert the existence of a god or gods. Most claim direct revelation from this/these god(s).

--Virtually none of these revelations agree with each other, and the vast majority are mutally exclusive. Therefore:

a) God exists and communicates with humans, but does not communicate at all clearly, or

b) God exists and communicates with humans, but humans are terrible at understanding, captureing, and relaying these communications, or

c) God exists and communicates with humans, but gives conflicting messages to different people, or

d) God exists and doesn't communicate with humans, and humans simply make up/imagine these revelations, or

e) God doesn't exist, and humans simply make up/imagine these revelations.


Logically, if any one of these are true the first thing we must conclude is that we cannot rely on humans to tell us what God is, what it wants, how it operates, or anything else about it.

Ok, so we can't rely on humans. Let's consider the universe.

Theists like to assert that the universe itself is evidence that a god exists. But when we look at the universe, do we see a god? No. Do we see something resembling a god's signature? No. So what do we see when we look at the universe?

We see....a universe; a universe working all on its own, seemingly without any need for a "god" to explain its operation. Galaxies turn, stars are born and die, and energy is transformed all on its own. IOW, the universe looks completely natural.

Ah, but theists say, "What about how the universe came to be?" Well, the only honest answer right now is "we don't know how it came to be", but that by itself is no reason to posit a "god". So why exactly we should posit a god in the first place is unclear. Is there a means by which we can differentiate between a universe that was created by a god and one that "just is"? If there is, I haven't seen it.

So, using logic as S-U suggests does not lead us down the path of concluding that a god or gods exist(s). And of course, none of this takes into consideration the fact that "god" is--at best--a very poorly-defined term. What exactly is "god"? I suppose that's something the theists will have to answer (and not solely via bald assertion either, but with supporting evidence).

How about this one, God exists, the communication is exclusive between He and your soul, revelation to your human personality comes either from another source (think guardian angel) or from reduced frequency memory insertion directly from your soul.

Do you see a God in the universe? I do. I see Him in children laughing. I see Him in a forest of Redwoods. I see Him in nebula's and stars. I see Him in a racist's tattoo's. You see what you wish to see.

A universe working all on it's own? Uh, not quite. I wonder why there's no life on Mercury, Venus, Mars, or the moon?

Energy is transformed all on it's own? Transformed into what?

The universe looks completely natural? Compared to what? How does complex organization form in chaos? It doesn't on it's own.

 

[Buttercup]

I'll admit I am confusing at times. Mostly though, it's because people put me into the same group as the bible thumpers. I'm pretty distant from them though.

Distant from bible thumpers?
"Too often souls build selfish personalities and thus they are not allowed to ascend up the dimensional ladder and return to heaven (God's Son controls the access)"
Your version of God has a son too? Doesn't sound so distant from Christianity to me.

On the earth, you don't have to do a thing. Live your life. It may take a thousand, or more, lifetimes for your soul to build a personality that is unselfish and devoted towards the universe instead of itself but it's not a race.

I'll admit I am selfish and try to remedy that daily. The most effective way to rid oneself of selfishness is to have children....you are forced to put another life before yours and before too long you become less selfish as a result.

I'll be basic and specific, souls are fragments of God released from heaven to go out and experience all they can experience in the universe.

I can almost buy into this line of thinking, sounds harmless enough.

Too often souls build selfish personalities and thus they are not allowed to ascend up the dimensional ladder and return to heaven (God's Son controls the access) so they are stuck in a cycle of reincarnation. It takes a very long time for souls to over write their selfish personalities with unselfish ones. Eventually, you will be able to ascend up through the dimensions and return to heaven.

I agree becoming less selfish is one of the higher hallmarks a human should strive for but I'm still confused as to how you know this benchmark is what gains you entrance into heaven. Who told you this? Did you make it up?

And eventually, when you get to the next dimension, we'll provide you with a much more advanced Theory of God and the Universe.

Ahhhh, so now you're a part of the Godhead?