So then can you a
So please answer two questions for me and they may be the last questions I ask. The first is why do we die?
I have just answered that in full. Are you not reading my posts? My answer has clearly been that we die because it is the nature of life to renew. I think you need to scroll back and read my previous answers.
And the second is do you believe in God?
Yes, I believe in God. I am an agnostic theist. You have asked this before, and I answered you fully. You said you intended to reply, but not that day. When several days went by and you did not reply, I sent you a post asking you if you still intended to reply, and copied that post into the new post so that it would be convenient for you. I am seriously wondering if you always read my posts. At any rate, I will now copy/paste and give you my reply a THIRD time. Please do reply to it.
***** pasting from the Four Dirty Secrets thread, post 633:
First, I don't KNOW for SURE that there is a God. God is a belief I have. Not knowledge. God can be neither proven nor disproven.
In the absence of any actual evidence one way or the other, what am I to do? Clearly I have to make some kind of choice, to either live my life as though God exists or to live it as though he does not. In such a case, I choose to go with my intuition.
Intuition is not the same as evidence. It works well enough that it increases our survival. But intuition is often wrong.
When I look at the awe of nature, I am really really moved. I contemplate the stars. I look up to the distant top of a sequoia tree. I give birth to a baby. And every fiber of my being shouts "God." For me, the design implies a designer. I INTUIT agency behind the universe, and I intuit it very strongly.
But I am simultaneously aware of just how often humans intuit agency when no agency is present.
Think of being out in the woods and a bush rustles. You think "wild animal!" and run away. Now let's say your intuition was incorrect, and it was just a branch falling. NO HARM DONE. But what about the flip? What if there were a rustling in the bushes, and you said to yourself, "Don't overreact, it's nothing" and it was in fact a wild beast? Well, you'd be toast.
So I have a very healthy respect for intuition. I just don't confuse it with evidence. If I had actual evidence that contradicted my intuition, I would go with the evidence. But I don't. So I feel free to let my intuition do its thing.
This is a form of what is called "Agnostic Theism."