How Much Do You Doubt God's Existence?

[Sargonski]

What terms are required for something that doesn't exist?

And another straw man, you are so good at them.

BTW, your wet dreams of my failure are just thar, wet dreams.

No strawman -- I put no words in your mouth my young apprentice .. you cry out "Something that does not exist" unable to define your terms and then having the "Wet Dream" as you call it that you are winning = making a valid argument.

but you have not.. .. your post consisting 1) assumed premise 2) strawman fallacy -- I never put words in your mouth that were not already there - and thus just plain false accusation 3) "Wet Dreams"

and thats it friend .. a big pile of nothing .. your one assumed premise -- already shown to be false in previous posts .. more than once.

"Something that does not exist" -- The Sun Exists Christina .. believe in the Sun .. and it may rise from the dead and shine on you tomorrow.

What part of the Sun is Real .. is not part of that "Wet Dream" you want to tell us all about so badely ?

 

[chinu]

The universe is energy. So if energy is God, then how does God (which is energy) get created? What exists that isn't energy/God that acts to create it?

I have no nearest analogy other than sleeping an awake God.

You win, I lose. Thank you

 

[Aupmanyav]

The Sun Exists Christina .. believe in the Sun ..

That is an appearance, not a fact. What exists is a condition in the force fields. Sun has no 'atta' (substance).

 

[Aupmanyav]

So if energy is God, then how does God (which is energy) get created?

Atheist. No God in my dictionary.
Existence and non-existence are phases. It is a switch from one phase to another (according to RigVeda). That is the best explanation that I can give.
"Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent."

Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 10: HYMN CXXIX. Creation.

Rig Veda, tr. by Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1896], full text etext at sacred-texts.com

sacred-texts.com

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Is there any room in your belief to doubt God exists?
Or do you believe in God with 100% certainty?

If you're agnostic does that mean you believe there is a 50% chance God exists and a 50% chance he doesn't?

If you don't believe in God or gods are you 100% certain there is no God(s)? 90%, 70%?

If you believe in more than one God are there some gods you don't believe in? How certain that these gods you don't believe in don't exist?

What do you base this percentage of non-belief on?

First of all, there are very very few things I would consider 100% certainty about.

As for god(s), I doubt their existence about as much as I doubt the existence of ghosts and magic (actual magic, like harry potter style magic; not david copper field style magic).

In percentage, I would say it's about 99%, if not higher, but certainly not 100.

Note that when I speak of god(s), I'm referring to god concepts that I have been presented with (in literature or by people in person).
Supernatural entities that "do" things.

As for what I base that one.... I base it on many different independent lines of evidence.
In random order a few examples:
- many times things are attributed to gods, they turn out to be no more then arguments from ignorance, special pleading, etc
- zero independently verifiable evidence for any god
- every time science and religion go head to head to explain some phenomenon, either science wins or the question is left unanswered. Never does religion win
- human psychology (tendency to engage in superstition; tendency to engage in type 2 cognition errors etc)
- direct observation of religions / gods being invented (rastafarianism, scientology, that religion on that remote island where they think prince (now king) charles is god, etc)
- the many many many many phenomenon around which entire religions were build which today have common natural explanations
- ....


From whatever angle I look at it, god beliefs always look / smell / feel like sheer superstition.

For all practical intents and purposes, we can live our lives assuming gods fall in the same category as ghosts, leprechauns, extra-dimensional unicorns,.....

Things with no detectable manifestation whatsoever are irrelevant and look exactly like non-existent things.
So I could also say that even IF gods exists - they matter not.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There are gnomes living in your garden. They only come out when you are asleep.

Except when there are hidden camera's trying to catch them on film

 

[Tomef]

Except when there are hidden camera's trying to catch them on film

Exactly. You need magic cameras for that, and those are hard to come by.

 

[PureX]

But then giving attributes to it is wrong, falsehood.

Just as we humans use words to represent our experiences for each other, we use stories and images to represent our ideals to each other. Representations are not "falsehoods". They're artifice. They only become false when we refuse to recognize them as representations.

God likes this, does not like that. God will help, God will punish. Heaven, hell, judgment, redemption.

These are some of the ways that we humans perceive and experience God. So this is how we present our concepts of God to each other. They are only false if we ignore the fact that these are only individual concepts and experiences of God. They are not God, itself.

The Hindu Brahman idea is better in that sense. Did not create or do anything, it just seems to happen.

Better and worse are relative and subjective value judgements that must be left to the individual to determine.

 

[ChristineM]

No strawman -- I put no words in your mouth my young apprentice .. you cry out "Something that does not exist" unable to define your terms and then having the "Wet Dream" as you call it that you are winning = making a valid argument.

but you have not.. .. your post consisting 1) assumed premise 2) strawman fallacy -- I never put words in your mouth that were not already there - and thus just plain false accusation 3) "Wet Dreams"

and thats it friend .. a big pile of nothing .. your one assumed premise -- already shown to be false in previous posts .. more than once.

"Something that does not exist" -- The Sun Exists Christina .. believe in the Sun .. and it may rise from the dead and shine on you tomorrow.

What part of the Sun is Real .. is not part of that "Wet Dream" you want to tell us all about so badely ?

We are not talking about strawmen, we are talking of imagination. You can't get your head round that then tough, im done

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Just wondering -- did you always feel this way?

As far as I can remember, yes.

I've never seen anything myself that ever even hinted to me that God might be real.

This is in contrast to other "supernatural" things: when I was 11 or 12, I convinced myself for a while that I had psychic abilities; as a teenager, for a while I was sure that I seen a ghost on a couple of occasions. When it came to gods, I haven't even had that much.

I don't remember ever feeling like God is part of the explanation for how things are, or that my understanding of the world would be better if I assumed God existed.

The only thing that ever suggested to me that God might be real are other people who have seemed really sure that God is real.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..Somehow your God can exist without a cause but energy (which we actually know exists) can't?

Nobody is saying that .. we know that things don't usually happen without a reason .

Evolution is not a reason for things to exist .. it's a process.

 

[Kenny]

I do not want to meet him. I knew him and experienced him in my past and his followers, which is why I no longer follow him. I do not follow Zeus but know his mythology and how the birth of Perceus is similar to the birth of Jesus and showed you other examples. I so not see Zeus as any better nor any less than "him", they are all equals. There is no greater than god. There is no god greater than the goddess. This idea of a superior god is at the root of evil things happening in this world. It is the unbalanced. Now I do now some followers who see god as neither male or female but as both. But as predicted you did not take a stand on god as male. And for the statement "we willl find out or your will find out", this is used as a threat of eternal damnation to those who do not conform. I have experienced this threat and seen it used on others after living most of my life in the deep south. And it is used as an implied threat. The people using were the most hypocritical and often cruel. I learned to associate this with a cruel god. It took time for me to realize it wasn't the god that was being cruel but the people who used the threats and create fear. So please do not be a demon of this world and us that again with me. Thanks.

There was no trolling going on. That was your judgmental opinion. I was serious about the other virgin births in mythology.

Yet you don’t provide a confirming statement from the mythology.

In my view, you will meet him whether or not you want to (at least according to my signature)

It sounds like they gave you a wrong and unbiblical perspective - there is no fear in perfected love and God hasn’t given you a spirit of fear. The message wasn’t about fear but love.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Nobody is saying that .. we know that things don't usually happen without a reason .

The word "reason" is kind of a slippery slope though. A word with baggage. Baggage that isn't always warranted. And in the case of most phenomenon of reality, not warranted at all.

The word "reason" tends to imply a "why" in the sense of "purpose" in discussions such as this one.

"what is the reason the window broke?"
"well, a rock flew against it after a truck drove over it and send it flying"

The answer to the "why" here, the "reason", is a physical explanation. There is no "purpose". There is merely a chain of events with a deterministic result caused by speed, inertia, friction, and what-not. There's not "intent" or "purpose" there.

Evolution is not a reason for things to exist .. it's a process.

And as a process, it is the explanation (="reason") for why there is variation and different species among living things.
Evolution as a process also has its own explanation for why it occurs. And that explanation falls in the same category as the explanation of the rock flying through the window.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Nobody is saying that .. we know that things don't usually happen without a reason .

"Usually"?

 

[Godobeyer]

Debate is adversarial, with winners and losers. Notice how you were done, but came back. Humans are competitve and like to test our beliefs and abilities.

We all are expected to be responsible as citizens and in personall lives. The Bible expects believers to be responsible too, just look at all the rules. As we see Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormonds, etc. all interpret the Bible differently. Heck, even Christians interpret it differently. There's no God coming forth to set all these believers right, so liberal Christians have their rules, moderates theirs, and conservatives their own and think theirs apply to everyone, including Hindus and atheists.

Atheists don't get mired in doctrines, sects, and interpretations. They follow their own moral sense and are accountable for their own moral judgments. No tricky mind games speculating on what a God might want or think is moral. We see plenty of religious folk act with violence against others because they believe their God demands it of them. Look at the Lutherans and Catholics of 1940's Germany who committed the Holocaust. Somehow their Christians beliefs did not inform them that murdering Jews was bad. Nor did the Baptists of the Confederate States understand that black people were fully human and deserving of equality.

What reality don't atheists "see"? Note that reality is something readily avaiable to the senses and reason, and doesn't require special assumptions and interpretations. So please explain your claim. Use facts.

So you believe the 3 year old daughter of one of my clients who was diagnosed with Leukemia, and after painful treatment for nearly 2 years she died a month after her fifth birthday was all planned by God? And meanwhile me as an atheist at 61 and suffer no medical problems at all is also God's plan? Explain the reasons that these plans suggest a moral and competent God. I'm really curious about the whole children dying of cancer and other diseases plans by God, and how these horrors suggest anything decent and good about a God who makes these happen.

So your God isn't a thing? Somehow your God can exist without a cause but energy (which we actually know exists) can't? Explain.

Hello i will comment for your points
Ah about win and lose debate.
Congratulations you won .

In Islam, Kids when die they enter paradise direct.

All will die soon or later. Expired bodies.

Why should God show Him self through shape of body to you, to believe on Him?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

you don’t provide a confirming statement from the mythology.

What does that mean? Maybe you can illustrate with a confirming statement from your mythology - creation myth, garden myth, flood myth, Tower of Babel myth, Job myth, Jonah myth, virgin birth myth, or resurrection myth.

In my view, you will meet him whether or not you want to

Why bother posting that? In my view, you won't experience anything after death. Do you care? What we believe is meaningless to others. What we know and can demonstrate to be correct if anything is of value to the critical thinker, but not the rest.

It sounds like they gave you a wrong and unbiblical perspective

It sounds like you think that if a perspective isn't biblical, it's wrong. But like your last comment, that's something that you have chosen to believe by faith, which is of no value to others.

The message wasn’t about fear but love.

But what is love in the Abrahamic religions? Look at the god of Abraham. That's the model for love. It orders genocides and condones slavery. It is intolerant of sin and punishes man for disobedience to its commands. It appears indifferent to human suffering, and in Christianity, made suffering a central tenet via a brutal and savage act of crucifixion somehow depicted as an act of great love. And this god is homophobic, misogynistic, and atheophobic. It also tells us that what we call wisdom is foolishness and its foolishness wisdom.

Both the polytheists (including the dharmics) and the humanists have healthier concepts of love. These are all earth-centric worldviews, which by itself makes them more loving that ideologies that rip divinity from the earth and exile it to some unseen realm outside of reality.

We are of this universe and this planet. They are our "mother," our source, our sustenance, the womb from whence we were formed and began to grow. Mother nature. This mindset is antithetical to the Abrahamic one, which is patriarchal, authoritarian, and other-worldly. That's not love or loving.

 

[Bear Wild]

Yet you don’t provide a confirming statement from the mythology.

In my view, you will meet him whether or not you want to (at least according to my signature)

It sounds like they gave you a wrong and unbiblical perspective - there is no fear in perfected love and God hasn’t given you a spirit of fear. The message wasn’t about fear but love.

So you cant answer a question. You use vague words like confirming statement which is completely unclear what you are wanting.

Yes it is your view but the statement of "you will meet him whether you want to" is the very core of the evil I experienced in Christianity. It is full of implied fear not love. And all of those who used it were steeped in biblical perspective. They always proclaimed love yet projected fear into others. I have experienced the fear for far to long so I will ask yo not to use that statement with me. I no longer want to be under the fear of a god. I rejected and now have found now finally found peace and love. I have finally experienced unconditional love in the goddess. If you want to meet him that is wonderful but do not tell me I will meet him. For me "him" is disconnected and jealous of the rest of the world so gives his followers the illusion of I am greater than when it does not exist. The I am greater than is at the root of evil and destruction of this world. Prove me wrong. Let me know that the other gods and goddess are equal and just different ways. I you will state that all gods are equal then I will listen. Otherwise keep your I am greater than god with you and do not imply I will meet him. It is about as effective as me saying you will meet the goddess in the end no matter what you believe in.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So you cant answer a question. You use vague words like confirming statement which is completely unclear what you are wanting.

Yes it is your view but the statement of "you will meet him whether you want to" is the very core of the evil I experienced in Christianity. It is full of implied fear not love. And all of those who used it were steeped in biblical perspective. They always proclaimed love yet projected fear into others. I have experienced the fear for far to long so I will ask yo not to use that statement with me. I no longer want to be under the fear of a god. I rejected and now have found now finally found peace and love. I have finally experienced unconditional love in the goddess. If you want to meet him that is wonderful but do not tell me I will meet him. For me "him" is disconnected and jealous of the rest of the world so gives his followers the illusion of I am greater than when it does not exist. The I am greater than is at the root of evil and destruction of this world. Prove me wrong. Let me know that the other gods and goddess are equal and just different ways. I you will state that all gods are equal then I will listen. Otherwise keep your I am greater than god with you and do not imply I will meet him. It is about as effective as me saying you will meet the goddess in the end no matter what you believe in.

@Kenny is far from the only Christian I've seen engage in empty threats and revenge fantasies like this. It seems to be a core aspect of the religion in the same way that, say, belief in the Trinity is a core aspect.

 

[metis]

the problem is when we add to what isn’t there. We can take our thoughts and strain it through the strainer of God’s words and throw out what doesn’t line up. In this case, we can throw out gay thoughts or adultery thoughts.

But that's assuming that the N.T. is "God's word" that is supposedly inerrant, and I simply cannot take that position. It is clearly not an objective text, plus the concept of inerrancy is not only impossible to prove but it also defies numerous "variations".

Also, why equate "gay" and "adulterer" as if they're on the same level? With adultery, there's a victim, but not so with gay relationships. And that distinction is crucial to me, as a gay relationship can hopefully be very loving, which is what Jesus teaches is important in his Two Commandments.

Anyhow, I'm just playing devil's advocate with you. My bad.

 

[Kenny]

So you cant answer a question. You use vague words like confirming statement which is completely unclear what you are wanting.

You made a statement and I answered it with “they are not like each other” unless you can give me a more definitive quote. I even googled it and didn’t find any similarity.

Yes it is your view but the statement of "you will meet him whether you want to" is the very core of the evil I experienced in Christianity.

Evil to meet him? Surely that is in your mind. I see it as a great meeting.

It is full of implied fear not love.

Only if you got the wrong message. When I see His hands and His side, I see love and not fear. As it is written, “perfected love casts out fear”.

And all of those who used it were steeped in biblical perspective. They always proclaimed love yet projected fear into others.

Broad brush. I’m not saying there aren’t any but hardly “all” and “always”.

I have experienced the fear for far to long so I will ask yo not to use that statement with me. I no longer want to be under the fear of a god.

You don’t have to be, in my book.

I rejected and now have found now finally found peace and love

Happy for you.

. I have finally experienced unconditional love in the goddess. If you want to meet him that is wonderful but do not tell me I will meet him.

I’m glad you found that love.

For me "him" is disconnected and jealous of the rest of the world so gives his followers the illusion of I am greater than when it does not exist.

OK… I don’t have a problem with you having your own viewpoints.

The I am greater than is at the root of evil and destruction of this world. Prove me wrong.

He died for you? No greater love has a man than this, that he die for his friend?

Let me know that the other gods and goddess are equal and just different ways. I you will state that all gods are equal then I will listen.

Again… I have no problem with people having their own god/gods/no god.

Otherwise keep your I am greater than god with you and do not imply I will meet him. It is about as effective as me saying you will meet the goddess in the end no matter what you believe in.

I said “according to my signature”. Did you read my signature?