[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by gecko

isnt the idea of all powerful-ness adressed with-

can god make a stone so big he couldnt move it?

if he can, then he is not all powerful; because he cant move the stone. if he cant, then he is not all powerful either; because he cant make a large enough stone.

thats what always killed all-powerfulness for me.

Perfectly valid argument, excepting one has to ask whether things like mass, or even stones, are actually the same in God's reality as they are in ours.

Ofcourse, even if we remove ourselves from the specific issue of whether mass exists in God's world, there remains the more general question as to whether God is capable of creating a situation he is unable to change.

But, the point I was indirectly making is that in polytheist religions, none of the Gods are all-powerful, because each operates in their own domain, each with their own restrictions.

George

[JimBob]

This topic seems to be going nowhere. Personally, I do not care if there is or is not a god.

IF there is a god, it is beyond any human understanding or mental contrivances, including logic and anthopomorphication (which most of the discussion has had at its logical core and is thus a limitation of something which, by definition, has no limit).

It doesn't really matter if there is or isn't a god. All will have their opinion. It is tantamount to arguing how many fleas there are on all the dogs in Sweden.  8 quintillion or 8 quintillion and 1? It just doesn't matter. It is a personal, not a public, belief and arguing about it is useless.

My personal belief is that there are two forces inside me, one working to better me and another to create confusion and strife. Whether these force are connected to anything else in the universe just doesn't matter. That is something I must judge for myself.

God's existence is subjective and not objective. This thread is thus, logically, irrelevant.
 



The mind is like a parachute. It works best when open.  -- A. Einstein

[GOD]

At last. Someone who understands my irrelevance.

I am GOD..You are Not..I don't exist !!

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by JimBob

God's existence is subjective and not objective. This thread is thus, logically, irrelevant.

God's existence is subjective, but that does not make the debate about God's existence irrelevant.

The belief in God, as distinct from the fact of His existence or non-existence, is far from irrelevant, since it gives an important insight into the human psyche.

George

[Carolyn]

Hi everyone!  I got this e-mail today and thought it was funny.  It is not meant to make any statements about my religous beliefs, or offend anyone.  I just thought it was funny.

An atheist was taking a walk through the woods.
What majestic trees.  What powerful rivers.  What  beautiful animals
he said to himself.
As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in  the
bushes behind him.  He turned to look.  He saw an 8 foot Alaskan  grizzly
charge toward him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path, he looked over his  shoulder
and saw that the bear was closing in on him.
He looked over his  shoulder again, and the bear was even closer.  He
tripped and fell on the  ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear right on top of him,  reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.

At that instant the Atheist cried out: "Oh my God..."
Time stopped.  The bear froze.
The forest was  silent.As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice
came out of the  sky:

"You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist, and even credit the creation to a cosmic accident.  Do you really expect me to help you out of this Predicament?
Am I to count you as a believer?"

The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be  hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but  perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?"
"Very well," said the voice. The light went out.  The sounds of the forest resumed. And then the bear Dropped his right paw, brought both paws  together and bowed his head and spoke:

"Lord, bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord,
Amen."[]

Carolyn

[JimBob]

quote:Originally posted by another_someone

quote:Originally posted by JimBob

God's existence is subjective and not objective. This thread is thus, logically, irrelevant.

God's existence is subjective, but that does not make the debate about God's existence irrelevant.

The belief in God, as distinct from the fact of His existence or non-existence, is far from irrelevant, since it gives an important insight into the human psyche.

George

Exactly. Every psyche is different and it is thus a matter of personal  PERCEPTION, not a fact. Insignt in to the human psyche is far difference that the existence or non-existence of God. What is being discussed is logical proof, not a subjective belief. I DO believe in God, but that is not proof I am right. I have made a subjective judgement based on my life experience, not fact.

By the way, I am a hingh church person - a dyed in the wool smells and bells person. But it has NOTHING to do with logic. It is my Opinion[/] (and experience) that in order to reap the full benefits of belief that logic must be suspended for the experience of God to be manifest. Read Thomas Aquinas. I am not saying anything new here.







The mind is like a parachute. It works best when open.  -- A. Einstein

[neilep]

Certainly debating God leads to revelation (pun intended)...but revelation ,as has been mentioned ,of the psyche. Just like a debate on any subject about absolutely anything you like will also reveal these qualities.

A persons characteristics are open for display when any discussion is at hand. It is of course relevant to discuss god insofar that it serves it's purpose as a topic to debate.

 Communicating at length on a variety of subjects soon reveals the psyche and in some cases one can predict with some authority how a person will respond.

Circumstances have prevailed for all of us that we will think that we know how a person will react or what they will say in certain situations that offer conclusive answers to questions that meet the criteria for revealing the psyche.

[another_someone]

When I referred to the human psyche, I was not only referring to the psyche of the individual, since religion is a social phenomenon, and effects entire societies.

As you say, every personal psyche is different, and the precise nature and reason for each person's belief is subtly different, but there still remains certain beliefs that are more prominent in certain societies, at certain times in history, than in other societies and in other times.  Thus one must conclude that the belief is not merely a personal choice, but also a social choice that serves a purpose within the society itself.

George

[neilep]

I agree.

You can not ignore the influences culture has on an individuals' opinions and convictions.

Without a doubt, society, for which I am including the family, and it’s trends are  the single most influencing factor upon a persons beliefs and therefore their psyche.

However unique we may think our psyche is, we can not help but have it impressed upon by the society we live in and the fashions of the day. It is in fact a product of that society.


Men are the same as women, just inside out !

[Hadrian]

The original question was “Is God real or not?”    The word real means true, genuine, or valid among other things. If the indented question was Does God exist or not? Then this is one of the most thought about question of all time. There is an answer for everybody out there. The right answer for you for me for anyone who asks. God is, to the degree you believe in God.  

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[mcduke]

Do you mean God as in the most generic term. That there is just some form of intelligence out there that created/is part of everything? Even if all creation was done through trial and error? Well then, Yes!
Then again Dog spelled backwards is?
You guys really know how to over think things. lol

[Hadrian]

quote:Originally posted by mcduke

Do you mean God as in the most generic term. That there is just some form of intelligence out there that created/is part of everything? Even if all creation was done through trial and error? Well then, Yes!
Then again Dog spelled backwards is?
You guys really know how to over think things. lol

Well it all up to each of us to belive or not

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[daveshorts]

quote:Well it all up to each of us to belive or not

That sort of depends whether a tendancy towards skepticism is heritable or not I suppose... he says kicking off another debate

I have heard that an artistic temperament correlates with a tendancy to see patterns where there are none - I wonder if this has anything to do with religion.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by daveshorts

I have heard that an artistic temperament correlates with a tendancy to see patterns where there are none - I wonder if this has anything to do with religion.

I think that religion actually comes in a variety of forms.

Certainly, it has been said that certain types of religious experience can be linked to certain peculiar forms of epilepsy, but I don;t think that this correlates with the more common social aspects of religion.

Ofcourse, one could even suggest that science, in its own way, is a form of religion, and in some ways, has its own believers just as much as any other religion, and has its own social pressures for people to conform to the established doctrine of that religion.  Again, I think this is one way in which people approach religion, but other people have other reasons for being religious, and for them, merely accepting and belonging to the established doctrine is not the primary motivation.

George

[ZMIVI]

If you are saying that god is not real then are you saying some man 2,000 years ago made the book up? Someone who that long ago somehow knew about the evolution process that was proved to be chronologicly correct? Someone who just guessed on all of the events in the bible proven to have really happened? Even if you beleave much of it was made up HOW can you explain everything that has been proven right? Or the fact that the persons writing skills were as great as William Shakespears and as smart as Albert Enstien and new more than him before electricity was known to man?

[ZMIVI]

If you are saying that god is not real then are you saying some man 2,000 years ago made the book up? Someone who that long ago somehow knew about the evolution process that was proved to be chronologicly correct? Someone who just guessed on all of the events in the bible proven to have really happened? Even if you beleave much of it was made up HOW can you explain everything that has been proven right? Or the fact that the persons writing skills were as great as William Shakespears and as smart as Albert Enstien and new more than him before electricity was known to man?

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by ZMIVI

If you are saying that god is not real then are you saying some man 2,000 years ago made the book up? Someone who that long ago somehow knew about the evolution process that was proved to be chronologicly correct? Someone who just guessed on all of the events in the bible proven to have really happened? Even if you beleave much of it was made up HOW can you explain everything that has been proven right? Or the fact that the persons writing skills were as great as William Shakespears and as smart as Albert Enstien and new more than him before electricity was known to man?

Not sure exactly who you are responding to, or exactly what aspect of what you have read that this is a response to.

Firstly, there are two separate arguments, those regarding the truth of the Bible in general, and the specific questions regarding the existence of God.  Since there are many different conjectures in different religions, and even different sects within the same religions, as to what is and is not God, one can argue the existence/non-existence of God totally separately from the specific issue of whether the totality of the Bible is correct, or merely symbolic, or merely misunderstood, or a total fiction.

As for people's writing skills being as good as William Shakespeare's – which version of the Bible are you reading?  If it happens to be the King James Bible, then it would have been written within a few decades of William Shakespeare's death.  If you are reading the Bible is classical Greak, Aramiac, and the various other original languages, then it is another matter.  I have no doubt that there were some very good authors in ancient Greece, in Babylonia, and elsewhere in the ancient world; but I would not suppose to be a critic of their work, since I do not understand their native tongues.

It is folly to regard the ancients as stupid.  They were just as clever, and just as foolish, as we are today; they just did not have the material and intellectual infrastructure that we have upon which to base their work.  Hero, a Greek living in Alexandria around the time of Christ, invented the first known steam engine, almost 2000 years before anyone found any practical use for it – these are not the acts of stupid people.

Albert Einstein, smart as he was, got many things wrong; but no man who is willing to be as revolutionary as he was can reasonably expect to get everything right.

I am not sure what you mean by “ knew about the evolution process that was proved to be chronologically correct”?  In the first place, this seems to presume that evolution is a correct theory, which is something that some adherents to the Bible would argue goes against the teachings of the Bible.  What the writers of the Bible did assume was that the simpler parts of life were created first, and the more complicated came later – this is not an unreasonable judgement to make, no matter what the mechanism was that increased the complexity of life.

George

[mcduke]

It seems that the God of the bible, old and new testament, is the one being discussed. So, your choices are that you're either jewish or christian as far as your particular belief. The God of the old testament was pretty violent and harsh. The God of the new testament gave his only son and, well, you know the story. Does this mean that God evolved into what we need at a specific time in our existence? If everyone simply lived by the rules of christianity it would certainly be a wonderful world, if not overpopulated.
I wouldn't mind believing if I had some proof. Isn't that what science is all about? Proof!
So, how many in this discussion actually believe that there is a God (as per the bible)? And I actually mean believe, not think there is, or concider it a possibility.

[elegantlywasted]

My main problem with the bible is where do the women come from!? Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel, where does Cain's wife come from? If we are all decendants of Adam and Eve, are we all decendants of some odd incestouous (sp?) relationship?

-Meg

[Laith]

"I believe in a creator, but i don't believe in a personal God"
                                 Albert Einstein






Laith