POLL: Is there a God ??
- Thread starter megablue
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Raised Catholic and went to Catholic school for 22 years. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover. It’s about as believable as Hans Christian Anderson or Brothers Grimm fairy tales.
Even if this is your position, you have to explain some things intellectually. How we got here, all things living, the complexity and creativeness.
I just don’t understand why people argue over it. It doesn’t matter what anyone believes, by the time any of us know the answer it’s impossible to convey it back, so why bother arguing over something no one can prove?
The longer I’ve been on earth and experienced life the less and less of a shit I give about this question. Just believe what you want and leave everyone else TF alone
Evolution explains it pretty well. A lot more believable than everything being created in 6 days.
If anyone is on the fence and interested, read The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel. When he started research for the book he was an atheist and the book had a different title.
WildcatfaninOhio
All-American
It wouldn’t matter if it made most people nicer, more accepting, and less violent. But it seems to do the opposite. Far too often it causes people to slaughter people of other faiths. Far too often it makes people fly planes into sky scrapers. Far too often it causes lawmakers to inject their religion into public policy. Far too often it causes emotional pain when family members are ostracized or disowned for believing differently. Far too often it divides us by whatever sect we belong to, instead of being us together by virtue of being fellow humans.
It matters!
One can believe what they choose. We have free will. I have seen and experienced way too many things in my life to pass it off as a coincidence. I don't thump my Bible over others heads. Yall do yall. And that's your burden to bear. I can still get along with and talk to anybody. I know what I believe. I hope and pray everyone finds the peace they are looking for. Whether one wants to believe it or not, we're all searching for it. I've seen miserable "happy" rich people and incredibly humble, happy, and content "poor" people. In my experience, the only peace I have found is in Christ Jesus. Sure there are lots of times I stumble and backslide but that's when I feel it in my soul that I'm missing Him. There is no perfect Christian. If anyone gives off that air, then it's best not to even listen to them. There's only been one perfect "person" ever. Come as you are warts and all. Hope yall have a great rest of your day.
People are dipshit assholes, whether they’re religious or not. Atheists, agnostics, Christian’s, Muslims, Jews, etc have all killed people. The only commonality is they’re people. Why people care so much about what the guy next to them thinks I’ll never know.
Are you going to go to Catholic High School?
God works in mysterious ways, the ultimate cop when it comes to discussing the existence of god.
As humans we tend to anthropomorphize everything, especially that which we don’t understand. The worst of us make up explanations for the unknown and try to foist those lies upon others, often through fear or just sheer force.
Because we think in terms of “beginning and end” and “cause and effect” doesn’t mean that those concepts have to be universal. We do not rule the Universe. We do not determine the rules of physics or existence.
It doesn’t require “blind faith” or just faith to understand that there may not be a beginning or end. We want it to be so because we could better understand it. It would fit into our tidy logic about existence.
It’s best to keep an open mind about the possibilities. Quantum mechanics has shown us that the logic of our experiences can be turned heels over head and that the physics of micro-existence is completely counter-intuitive to the existence we perceive via our senses.
It may well be that the physics of macro-existence (that which is outside and beyond our Universe) is just as counter-intuitive as is micro-existence, relative to our point of view. It didn’t require faith to discover the quantum world, just research.
The same attitude should apply to the study of what is bigger than our existence. Don’t go nuts trying to fit everything into what we know and understand. Just plod on with the theories and research and accept the discoveries as unique additions to a total, comprehensive existence.
I don't believe a word of what he said. ANYONE who knows Catholics and I do....knows that the Catholic Church over the years has "discouraged" their parishioners from actually reading the bible. You will find veeeerrrrrry few Catholics who are familiar with the stories in the Bible especially anything in the Old Testament, and their meaning. So I call BS.
This hit hime with me.
I can remember back 20 years ago when my wife and I were engaged. I was a an out of practice Catholic (meaning raised Catholic but dipped out on religion completely the day I left the nest) and she was raised some kind of Baptist where an angry man cut wrestling promos about hell and said “Brother” a lot. I think it was supposed to be scary.
My family didn’t care about the difference in faiths, other than wondering if they could drink at the reception.
She had several relatives who refused to attend the nuptials because of my Catholicism. Several of them never spoke to her (or us) again until their deaths and disinvited us from family functions … all because I was raised in a different religion. Hateful old f—ks.
The only thing it accomplished was turning my wife into a pretty militant atheist and illustrating to me that religion is cancer because a lot of the sects are taught subconsciously to hate the other sects.
And there's the whole more blood has been spilled over religion than any other thing in human history. Some of the most hateful people I’ve ever encountered are deeply religious and are raging hypocrites.
I would say that the formally atheist Soviet Union, China and Laos that racked up tens of millions of dead...100Mil by some estimates....would find your statement to be at a minimum ill-informed. Oh, I know that the Puritans killed a few witches. My experience with deeply irreligious atheists is not good....so maybe it is the people rather than their religion or lack thereof.
I never said I read it because of Catholicism. I read it in spite of that. I had plenty of issues with Catholicism growing up and as soon as (like a previous poster said) left the nest, I didn’t look back on that upbringing. I married a Pentecostal woman which led to me reading the Bible cover to cover. She and I are no longer married. My experience with those two completely different religions showed me I have no use for organized religion. The hypocrisy in them knows no bounds and if there is a heaven , I’m much better off on my own in finding my way there.
Downplaying religious wars to the level of just a few witches burning at the stake is wild. The Reconquista, Crusades, Thirty Years War, just to name a few.
I wouldn't say religion is the primary cause for all war but the sheer amount of death that is the result of religious conflict seems to be quite the issue. War is supposed to be the antithesis of religion and yet...
Crusades
Muslim conquests
Seven Years’ War
Pakistan vs India (Muslims vs. Hindus)
Israel/Palestine my entire 40+ year lifetime
The Middle East since the beginning of time in what is now a 3-faith bout.
I could go on. Lots of people throughout history died over whose magic invisible friend was bestest and every side of every conflict were probably certain they were right to kill others in the name of their favorite deity. Seems stupid to me. That’s my whole point - hating someone else solely based on who they pray/don’t pray to is absurd.
And, yes, communist regimes were also bad. Don’t know why you felt the need to bring that up since no one touted the virtues of communism in this thread. I just mentioned some of my wife’s extended family disowning us because I belonged (barely) to a different cult. Oh well, they’re in the forever box now and we’re all better off that way.
Also, if this poll gets revisited, we need an “I don’t know” option.
I lean no, but am not fully confident in proclaiming a definitive yes or no because of lack of solid evidence for both stances.
I lean no, but am not fully confident in proclaiming a definitive yes or no because of lack of solid evidence for both stances.
You blame religion for territorial battles. Why not blame Christianity then for the the conquest of the Americas? Because most here are more familiar with the specifics of our history and that just doesnt work (except for atheists who in their irreligious bigotry hate Christianity in particular). We conquered for land, not to make the natives Christians.
Communists kill because they do not have a moral compass. Their atheism facilitates their brutality. 100-mil dead this past century. You, however, go into the way-back machine. Why not dredge up the Druids or the Egyptians or the Peloponnesian wars? Geeze.
You might want to go back and add up the total deaths from your list. The Atheist Communist regimes just the last century make your list pale by comparison. And blaming "religion" for territorial and trade route battles is dishonest at best and bigotry at worst.
I literally said that I didn’t think religion was the primary cause of war. I was just calling you on trying to say that religion only led to a couple of witch burnings.
The examples I provided are three of the most prominent disputes that are widely considered to be religious wars, don’t be silly.
Believing in Christ, or any other God requires faith. Faith in something you cannot see, hear, feel, touch, or even fully understand. Likewise, believing there is no God, requires just as much if not more faith; faith in more than 1 in a centillion odds of enough random events happening for life and civilization to exist. People say that science disproves the existence of God. Many of us think science actually proves the existence of God, that God and science are not an either-or preposition, but rather that God (the creator) created and uses science to create. People cite scientific theories as proof there is not God. But a theory does not prove or disprove anything, a theory provides a rational possible explanation of how something could have or may have happened. This is why/how there are lots of scientists in every dicsipline who believe in a God. Can they all be right in which set of theological beliefs are correct? No, not when many have at least some contradictions, even though they may agree much more than disagree. That doesn't mean one/some of them aren't correct. People say there is no God because of the bad (even horrible) actions that some (too many) who claim to be of certain religions. That same kind of logic is where Kentuckians got the stigma of being dumb, uneducated, cousin-marrying, ect... hillbillies. Or pick any other stereotype. There are bad people who deceive to get themselves into positions of power (whether political power, financial power, or religious power), but that does not mean all are like that or even support those deceivers. And there are good people who make mistakes/bad-choices. But most religions also promote forgiveness, because no one is perfect.
Maybe, but as religion fades the big question is becoming, “Are we alone?” This question has a much greater chance of being answered.
It harder to believe what they believe. That NOTHING created SOMETHING.
That’s a myth. The accurate phrasing of that concept is that there are some particles that can go in and out of existence relative to what we experience as our existence.
It doesn’t mean that they become nothing. They just become undetectable using our current knowledge and capabilities.
Oh, and who are they to whom you’re referring?
So you believe in NOTHING particles in order have SOMETHING to hang your hat upon. So where did the particles come from? That by definition is something...from nothing.
I don’t believe in anything. To do so means I’d accept something that is not backed with evidence.
Asking that question answers it, in a way. We know that something cannot come from nothing; unless, that is, if we define nothing as something which is as yet undetectable using our current knowledge and capabilities. So, one conclusion can be that there has always been something.
However, the lay community almost always thinks of nothing as an absolute absence of anything. In this context, nothing is not a scientific term.
No, it isn’t. That’s circular thinking and is meaningless.
You went a very long way to simply prove you have no answer. A partical is something. Someone or something had to have created the partical. That you cannot explain. It could only happen if "God" created the partical. It didnt simply will itself into existence. Your "religion" requires something from nothing. There MUST be a creator or your partical does not exist. 1000 words of spaghetti logic doesn't change that.
Do you believe in gravity?
Don’t be insulting, please. There’s no need for that. I haven’t insulted you.
That’s the “beginning and end” concept that invites the question, “Who created the Creator?”
There’s a competing hypothesis that says that something has always been and will have no end. It’s certainly counterintuitive to the way we think and behave but it’s gaining traction in the scientific community as exploration of the Universe and existence continues to make progress.
Again, I don’t believe in anything. I just can’t accept any idea that isn’t based upon scientific evidence.
Gravity, according to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is the effect that mass has upon spacetime. Objects having mass bend spacetime around themselves and cause other, less massive objects to move towards them.
So, gravity is an effect, not a thing.
Time is something we don't understand. Maybe it's cyclical. Maybe it's like trying to explain radio waves to a dog. There is just so much we don't understand. I certainly don't have the answers.
Time is a human construct that we use to measure change. Change is determined by movement and is thereby equivalent to it.
If there is no movement then there is no change and the concept of time is meaningless.
There are answers in science.
Intentionally disrespectful..I’d imagine you’re a Hitchens-style atheist.
Who then or what? Did they create themselves? That is totally illogical. Much saner to believe in a superior being than nothing becoming something on its own.
WildcatfaninOhio
All-American
Thank you! Comparing me to Hitchens is the best compliment I’ve gotten in some time. You’ve made my day.
I consider myself a non-believer as far as a invisible deity/creator goes, but I 100% believe we're not alone. I also believe when we die, we're just dead and that's it. If I could wish for any after death scenario, it would be for my ka to drift off slowly into space forever, along with a high quality digital version of my favorite playlists on repeat...
I agree with British astrophysicist Brian Cox about the frequency of intelligent species occurring in the universe. He thinks that there are two or three per galaxy.
So the Milky Way might have another civilization but Andromeda, which is a much bigger galaxy might have more.
Regarding death, I, too, think that oblivion awaits us when our consciousness subsides. As Edgar Allen Poe said, we experience little slivers of death every time we go to sleep. Also, when we’re anesthetized we experience oblivion. Death, to me, is like being anesthetized but never being brought back to consciousness.
Regarding consciousness, I think it happens in all creatures in varying degrees of sophistication based upon the complexity of the being’s stimulus processing capability. We, of course, have the most complex stimulus processing capability in the known universe. So complex, in fact, that it can be self-stimulating, as with reason and thinking.
I also think that each of us has been conscious multiple times and will be multiple times going forth in time. Not always as humans, of course, and certainly not as reincarnations of past human lives. Rather, I think that we have been, and will be again, all of the creatures that have been and will be in the future, from a blade of grass to the grazing animal that ate the grass.
I don’t think that memories of those experiences are magically retained and passed on to the subsequent creatures that we become. I think it’s a crapshoot as to which being we will be.
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