Is there a god?

No

I'm not sure and it doesn't really matter to me.

I believe that there is some reason for all of this. Call it a god if you want to. But I have to believe that all of this is happening for some purpose. It's one of the few things that keep me sane.

Yes.

I believe so...

Is there a god? If I am allowed to read the question as "Is there a supernatural being that created life", then I am not sure. What I am sure about is that we are living beings, and it is our first duty as living beings to be on the side of life at all times. If there is a Creator, then I am on the Creator's side; if there is no Creator, this in no way changes my moral imperative to be alive, and to be on the side of life.

God: What do you think?

absolutely, although I have very little idea of its nature, and certainly no comprehension of it. However I know it exists because if it didn't I wouldn't.
So why doesn't it help when someone is in need? Their are three possible answers. 1) It is not able to because it does not have the power. 2) It could but chooses not to because this life is not really important. 3) It does, via the mind.

I can't offer proof obviously, so I have to assume the survey is simply asking for an expression of belief. I've come to believe that there must be one, although I fully understand those who believe there isn't, since I was one of them until quite recently.

I am living proof of the fact that there is.

"God is dead" - Nietzsche

"Nietzsche is dead" - God

Most definitely

I don't know but I don't think so

No god. Just posers.

"Nietzche is God" - The Dead

Sort of, but it's not the grumpy one mentioned in the bible.

DrJekyll - Possibility #4: The point of living is to experience life, which means feeling the pain as well as the pleasure. (In fact, the pleasure would be rather meaningless without any pain in contrast.) So, no matter what we may think at the time, perhaps it's not really in our best interest for God to step in and fix things when times are rough.

SueBee: I think that I agree with your possiblity. I think that if there is a God, it steps in when it knows it should, but most of the time it lets you figure it out for yourself and lets you gain some knowledge from the experience.

To the 10 members of SC that say there is not a God. Give me your proof.......................................................michael

It is much easier to believe that there isn't a God. I have many friends who don't believe. I certainly don't fault them. They ask why doesn't He just show Himself and prove it to us all. Blind faith, I say. When you truly understand that, they you get it. It is probably the hardest thing for us sentient human types to do.

Michael: I have no need to give you proof of my beliefs. They are mine as yours are yours. I do not need proof there is no God; I have faith and faith is enough.

Mykal, I don't need to show you proof.

Like any good Xtian might respond when asked how they "Know" there "Is" a god...I say, "I know there isn't a god because I have faith that there isn't!"

Now can you show proof that there is a god?
I think not.
You might point to some crusty old book written by "men"
or say
"Oh, look around at nature, how can you admire the beauty of a sunset and still say there is no god?"

One word, science.

Just because I believe there is no "god" does not mean I do not believe in good.
I believe in the good and bad nature inherent in all humans. It is a natural thing. Not supernatural. Not connected to what happens to us after our bodies stop working and that there is no judge ready to send us "UP" or "DOWN" once we die for what we experienced and chose here on earth.

We are all gods in a sense, why do we have to keep trying to take that fantastic potential, place it outside of ourselves, and turn it into some all knowing all wrathful being ready to condemn our most basic human drives?

I do believe in unicorns though;)

God is good. God is all powerful.
But, these 2 statements conflict with each other because there is suffering in the world. Therefore, God is either not good or not all powerful. One way to explain God's potential lack of power (to do good) is that Satan exists with a similar level of power to God. ...but, then there are 2 gods.
OK, so maybe God is all powerful, but is both good and evil. Well, that seems pretty pointless as well.
My point is that the more one thinks about what God is, the more God doesn't make much sense. God is a feeling, you either have the feeling or you don't.
Ah, I just thought of a couple more God surveys - hold onto your hats!

Why is suffering incompatible with good?

Oh sure, a little suffering is cool - but what about the really really evil things that have happened? There's no value in needless sadistic torture that leaves the victim scarred for life. What about bad things that happen to very small children? (e.g. rape). What good is there in violating innocence?

While I do think God is both all-powerful and good, I don't think he micromanages. He gave us free will, and we get to use it, whether for good or evil. I don't think it's his job to stop someone from being raped, unfortunately, but only to help them to survive the experience in the best way they can.

...and how does He help them survive the experience?
I see little evidence that God intervenes in a good way in our lives.

bill, Have you ever read "Conversations with god"?

It does a pretty good job of explaining the very questions you have just raised. It helped me see that suffering in itself is a valuable reward, if we use it as a tool to strengthen ourselves instead of a negative experience that can "kill" our spirit.
I now believe we are actually here in human form to experience the real concrete tangible emotions and circumstances that as beings of light we couldn't participate in.
It is as if "we" as one unified entity agreed that by creating a place where we could take solid separate form and "live" day to day lives full of positives and negatives, we could actually understand how wonderful our state as beings of light is, having something to compare it to.
It also helped me understand that there really is NO god. We are it, we are everything there is. Each of us joined spiritually and yet separate physically here on an earth of our own creation, a stage or playground, if you will.
There is no heaven, no hell. There is no good or evil, it's just what you perceive to be good and evil, like jen said, subjective.
The book reaffirmed and put into words what I had always actually felt, but couldn't pinpoint. What some religions brush or graze but then never really say....or carry too far and ruin.
We all know this deep inside. Many of us just do not remember, or remember small parts and spend our lives searching for answers to why we are here when what we really should be doing is "being here"....."feeling" "living" "indulging" "tasting" "trying" "failing" "touching" "experiencing"

Yes; there's two

Funny thing is, mandy and I basically believe the same thing. It's just that she doesn't consider the "beings of light" to be "God", but I do. I guess it's a matter of semantics.

I think life is like an amusement park ride for us. Some parts of it are really scary, but when we're done I bet we'll say "Wow! What a ride!" Some of us get the thrill from movies or books; others apparently have to live it.

SueBee: You are able to put thoughts and ideas that I didn't even know I had into words. Thanks!!! :)

Mariah - It's taken me years and lots of reading and conversation to get this far. It comes with being OLD! Although I still don't feel like I'm very good at putting my thoughts into words. I'm glad it's making some sense!

mandy you are unbelievable. You put into words what I like to day dream what 'it' might be. Reread my first post. You nor I can know what 'it' (god) is, we can only guess. However I like to believe this physical experience is as you say 'a play ground' for our real ethereal selves. So you see we agree, and you do believe in god, at least in the way I define 'it'......................michael

I don't call it "god". I suppose that's the only difference between me and most of the other people who believe as I do. That word has been so misused and sullied I can't even stand to use it to label anything I believe in. It leaves a disgusting taste in my mouth.

why should i believe there is a god? I can not prove there isn't one... but can you prove there is?

mandy, thanks. I agree with that way of thinking as well. I would classify what you are describing as an "Eastern" (Buddhist or Taoist perhaps - I'm not sure) way of looking at things.
I get carried away in trying to attack more Western ways of describing God. I suspect that I'm still exorcising some of my Catholic upbringing.
I don't think the idea of a being who is God and is all-powerful, all-knowing, and good (and sits in Heaven) makes any sense or holds much metaphorical value. I'm not comforted by something that doesn't make sense. So, instead I attack it for sport. I guess I want to make other people see it my way as well. That's probably not very cool though.
I do agree that just living your life is the way to go. I think deep-thought on metaphysical matters such as this can be a mental trap, when all we really should be doing is being. I think a little deep thought is good, but there's a point where it becomes a waste of one's life.

You know, seeing as how I basically study this stuff for a living, I am constantly surrounded by these sorts of ideas. It's interesting to me how so many people who don't believe in "god" per se all believe in this really similar human-nature-spiritual kind of thing. Not to berate that, since I pretty much fall into that category, too.
The other thing that I have learned is that you can argue until you're blue in the face, but you're not going to change anyone's opinion. Certainly not in a forum like this. There are plenty of times and places where people are more open to such ideas, and then they may decide they believe in god or not, but it is not likely to happen in a debate over whether god exists or not, especially when that debate largely consists of people saying "Oh yeah, prove he exists" and others wittily countering that with "Prove he doesn't exist!" I'm sorry to say this, but fourth graders use those arguments. You cannot argue with faith, and that is what is concerned here. You just go around and around in circles, unless you actually stop and listen to what the people you disagree with are really saying. Atheists need to learn that not all people who believe in god are nuts. And people of faith need to understand that atheists can be moral people. Otherwise all that results is a shouting match, and any attempt at discussing the topic is futile.

That's just my little self-righteous sermon for the day. I'll step off my soap-box now.

Enheduanna: and people need to quit making bullcrap blanket statements such as "Atheists need to learn that not all people who believe in god are nuts." This atheist for one does not feel that way.

supplicant: and people need to quit making bullcrap blanket statements such as "people need to quit making bullcrap blanket statements such as "Atheists need to learn that not all people who believe in god are nuts."" This person for one does not make such bullcrap blanket statements.

That was a joke, by the way. ;)

bill...Is that why when I read the teachings of Buddha I went...OMIGOD!!! Life is a delusion! That's it!!!! :)

I couldn't believe that one four word statement could mean so much to me. I just totally relaxed, body and soul.

and now when I get uptight about any "little" thing, I try to bring that feeling back.
I tell myself, "Mandy, it doesn't matter. None of this matters."

It's so Matrix, man!

I guess because this all seems so real, this chair, the air I am breathing, the things I feel, I forget that I am actually making this all up as I go along and have the total power to change anything I do not like about my little playground.

*giddy*

I am so very glad that we've all been talking about this stuff. It's bringing me back to that way of thinking, talking about it and discussing differences in beliefs with others. I'd gotten a bit mired down in the day to day delusion of it all. I was starting to believe that some of this was actually real.
What a knucklehead! ;)

supplicant: I think what she means is, 'atheists need to learn to be open-minded, too.' Otherwise they are no better than people of faith who will not consider alternatives to their point of view.

Atheism requires just as much faith and commitment to an unprovable idea as does a belief in a diety. The primary difference in my experience is that many atheists pretend to be open-minded and try to use that pretense as a tool to convert god-believers.

Not that I am accusing you of that particular fault; however, if you have any distaste for diety-worshippers blindly following their faith and refusing to examine alternatives, you should perhaps glance in a mirror once in a while? If you believe they are nuts for having their beliefs, then you are no better than them.

anonymous: I love it when people prove my points in their rebuttals.

drdt: thank you.

I guess my main point here is that such discussions seldom if ever actually go anywhere because people can't see beyond their ideologies.

Nope.

bill, mandy and SueBee, you have gotta try to dream lucidly. I am convinced you will have a ball. I dare not post any of my lucid dreams at SC. You would think I'm ...........! ****CRAZY****

drdt: I know what was meant, I just don't like blanket statements that are simply not true :) I have no problem with a statement like "some atheists need to learn to be open-minded, too" for instance. As I said above I do not "believe [people of faith] are nuts for having their beliefs" - I think of my belief as being just as valid and unprovable, no more or less, than any religious faith. The only truly scientific objective belief is pure agnosticism in my opinion, but that's not for me :) I for one read that last paragraph of yours as "Not that I am accusing you of that particular fault; but actually I am."

I do dream lucidly on occasion...I don't even have to actually try. My brain just takes over and twists things to the way I want it. I direct little independent films in my head at night. I can sometimes change people and places and situations if I feel them going a way I do not like. The exception to this is nightmares. I cannot seem to change things when I am in the grips of a terror.
I have been doing this since childhood. The first time was when I had a dream of riding a horse(a very pleasurable thing)and it suddenly turned into a camel(ACK) I was so upset by this that I remember actually concentrating on the beast and trying to change it back to the horse! I was 5.

supplicant: Aha. I thought you were saying 'I do *not* feel that athiests should stop thinking [people of faith] are nuts.' Sorry for misinterpreting you.

And I was not, in fact, accusing you of using your athiesm as a bludgeon, or I would not have claimed not to be. I was accusing you of the somewhat lesser crime of refusing to see beyond your ideology, which you seemed to be doing.

Again, my apologies for misinterpreting your rather unclear statement in the worst way I could. Now ILF's remark makes sense, too.

Enheduanna - I, for one, am not looking for this to go anywhere. I actually enjoy hearing other people's thoughts on the subject. It's just that some of the closed-minded ones can be a bit frustrating.

miykal -I'm sure I'd enjoy lucid dreaming. I've never been able to do it, but I haven't tried much.

Enheduanna, loved your first post, critique. So what is your opinion, is there a god, what ever 'it' might be, or is there not a god? .

..............................................................michael

SueBee, I'm with you, I can talk about the possibility of god 'until the cows come home'. Love that phrase.
The trick to dreaming lucid is, you have to want to. Then its a matter of simply forming a habit. How often do you ask yourself during the day, 'am I dreaming?'. My bet is never. Well its that simple. Throughout the day you ask yourself, many times, the question, 'am I dreaming?' It must be at the very least 20 times. Having asked yourself the question you must now test to see if you are dreaming, because believe me in the dream you will not think you are dreaming. There are many tests you can do. My favorite is to push the middle finger of my right hand through the palm of my left hand. It takes a little bit of effort but the dream world is very unstable you see. Since you are a novice I suggest you try to push your hand through the nearest wall. The reason I do not use this test is because in one of my dreams I was in the middle of a desert. So during the day you ask yourself the question then do the test. What happens is you carry over into your dream world the habit you have established during the day. Within two to three weeks you will experience your first lucid dream. It will blow you away, and you will be there for only 2 to 3 minutes. You will then wake up.
I wish you all the very best if you decide to try. Believe me its worth the effort. If you succeed please email me miykal@hotmail.com

mandy, you are very lucky to be able to dream lucidly without even trying. So where have you been? The moon?, Mars?, Venus?' the Sun?, into a black hole?, into space?, down to the bottom of the oceans?. Have you been invisible?, able to fly?, able to breath under water?, been a man?. Walked through a mirror?.......michael

DrJekyll: Well, as I sort of mentioned, I really do agree a lot with the people who are describing a sort of spiritual connection with all human beings and nature, without calling it god. I basically just believe in people and life. I used to be more agnostic, because I recognized the links between what I believed and what people who believed in god believed, and I didn't feel that I could positively say that god does not exist. But now I am an atheist--my world view does not need a god to make sense of it. I am happy to leave unanswered questions as simply being mysteries of the universe. I like a little mystery.
The thing that really intrigues me and that I was hoping someone(s) would comment on, is how people who don't believe in god so frequently have such similar opinions about spiritual matters. Why is that? Does that mean that while spirituality may be very personal, there is also some transcendant element of it that manifests itself to people regardless of their faith? That's a pretty powerful idea, in my opinion.
The other thing I should say is sort of an apology, I guess. I have talks on this topic a lot and I tend to get a little tired and a little jaded by it, but I shouldn't just take that out on you folks. SueBee is right that such conversations don't have to go anywhere--just to have them is enough. On the other hand, I also see a lot of the conflict that comes with such discussions, and I get very frustrated by the fact that so little actually gets accomplished and people just keep fighting over their doctrinal differences. Religion just causes an awful lot of conflict, and I don't really like conflict very much...

drdt: ok, glad we got that one cleared up then ;) Hmm... I just re-read my original comment... and I can see that it is extremely ambiguous, I didn't think so at the time but it very much is :(

Enheduanna. I agree that religion causes a lot of conflict, and I can't see an end to. At least not for next 100 years or so.....................michael

Not sure, don't care. If there is one, he will forgive me, I hope. And if there isn't, I will go into the ground when I die just like everyone else. Why worry?

Most definitely...How else do you explain logically our existence??

Maggie - Believe me that I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but I have always found the concept that you (and countless others before you) have put forth frustrating. "I have no better answer, therefore God" strikes me as somewhat arbitrary. I have always found the admission that one does not know more satisfying. It reminds me of the people who claim that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy on the basis of "Well how do you explain such-and-such?" Unanswered questions, to me at least, are a sorry substitute for evidence.

Of course, I would never begrudge you your beliefs, and I must admit that I'm somewhat on the fence about the God issue. It's just the particular approach you chose to back your position that led me to respond. When it comes to the existence of God, evidence doesn't enter into it and any argument based on such a presumption is doomed to failure. Faith is faith, evidence be damned. In the end, I think very few people if any will ever know, but they will believe or not according to however much sense they need to make of the universe in which they live. And that's okey-dokey by me!

By the way, for those of you who have their obscenity filters turned on, no I did not say "evidence be darned" in the above paragraph. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to condemn my socks to eternal purgatory.

took me a long time to admit it

Maggie...believing in an invisible higher being who rules with fear and guilt...is not logical....it's mythological. Using logic in this particular area might lead us to something more based in actual FACT than blind faith. Using logic to answer this question would lead us to something more scientific and less supernatural.

I didn't mean that to sound as though I believed because I couldn't come up with a better answer. I do believe there is a God and that he is coming back someday to rule and reign forever.


Twist - Can you show me any actual fact that disproves that there is a God?

No, I only have my faith.....
>

Hey Maggie, where are dinosaurs in the bible? i'm pretty sure there's some 'stone' cold evidence that dinosaurs existed...but i've never heard them mentioned in the bible...just curious

They are mentioned in Job. Leviathan is a dinosaur and so is Behemoth.

oh, that clears it up, amen, i've been saved *snicker*


wait, i have another question

do you agree that we are all descendents of adam and eve?
-wouldn't incest play some part? i mean eventually the gene pool would be pretty screwed up!

what about people that have never heard of god (certain tribes, or people in secluded areas)?
-do they automatically go to hell?

if adam was the first man, where the hell did the neanderthal come from?

back to the adam and eve thing, where's the diversity from?
by that, i mean the languages, skin color, beliefs...and don't give me the 'tower of babble' crap.

I am a Christian and I believe in God wholeheatingly. Of course!

"wholeheatingly"...are you on fire for the lord girl???...*snickers again*

obviously, we do not believe in the spelling checker though....

I've got wholeheating installed in my house.

Mag - I have answers to all the things you asked, but I don't think it would matter if I told you or not. You are still not going to believe and that is your choice. You are still going to ridicule me and I don't really care. I am not sure what I did to you to make you hate me, but oh well. So instead of wasting my time and yours I am going to ignore you from now on.

Maggie - magbast aside, I would be sincerely interested in hearing your answers. No ridicule, I promise.

1) Yes we did. I agree about the incest thing and I am not yet sure how that worked out. Let me look into it more.
2) No they will not go immediatly to Hell. In one way or another they have heard the truth. There are not many tribes that have not been met by modern man at one time or another. If they have sincerely not ever heard, them they fall under the child without understanding category along with mentally handicapped and such. Unless you have been given the chance to make a conscious choice, God will not send you to Hell.
3)Neanderthal man is just a badly developed man. Lack of vitamins and minerals will make any person look different from us.
4)Sorry, but the answer to the diversity thing is the Tower of Babel.

i don't mean to ridicule you...it's just they way i've been force fed religion my whole life...seems i never had a choice...and the tactics that were used i don't agree with...it's weird...some christians just freak me out...oh yeah, the question i asked about the neanderthal man, was...how do you explain his existence prior to adam...i'm not really well read up on the bible...when does the bible start tracking the date? is it the new testament?

by the way, thanks for just tossin me aside ILJ...

The answer varies by the definition of 'god'. Do you mean a benevolent spirit watching over us all the time & prepared to judge us? I don't believe so. Do you mean a creator-god that started the clockwork universe in motion and vanished/doesn't care/is busy doing other things? perhaps., though I'd characterize it as a creative demiurge that triggered the information lattice at the big bang, and no longer exists in any 'sense of the word that excludes being a part of everything as its legacy.
Then again, the concept of an extratemporal/extraspatial component to us is attractive; if the concept or crutch of a god is what you're asking about, then I believe in many of them.

I found the Tao and Bhudda via Richard Bach's writings, actually

The Bible starts dating at Adam. Neanderthal man did not come before Adam. The world is not millions of years old. Only about 6000 years.

Maggie is the Queen of Denial.

Queen of denial???

You're biblical arguments deny all the science has proven.

You haven't given me any scientifical proof.

and you have proof that the world is 6000 years old? Do tell.

I'd like proof that Adam existed too. Proof other than the bible, which I totally disbelieve.

Who is to say that Neanderthal man was not Adam??

You're joking right?

Do you have proof that says it is not?

Of course there is a God. God is the reason for our whole being. Look at the perfection of our human design. God is a God of order, look at the perfection of design around you. Of course, there is a god of confusion, which is Satan, he unfortunately, is the god of this world today. Our beloved God is in control, but we have been given choice.

To any of you who might be interested, there is a very good Bible teacher by the name of Pastor Arnold Murray, the Shepherds Chapel in Arkansas. He teaches verse by verse and really knows the Bible. You can contact the church on the internet, just ask for the Shepherds Chapel in Arkansas. He is the best teacher I have ever heard. I have heard a few good pastors in my life, but he is the best. By the way, from what I understand, Adam and Eve were not the first people on the earth.

i thought there was evidence (carbon dating) that fossils were well older than 6,000 years...i really need to look this stuff up...

Maggie: You're not even arguing the fundamentalist view very well. You are supposed to say that God placed dinosaur bones here and lead humans to discover carbon dating, etc. just to see if their faith would outshine their scientific discoveries.

One can also of course make the argument that the bible is just metaphorical and that a "day" is not really 24 hours, thus the world can indeed be millions of years old.

I could also make the argument that who knows what the Bible really says since it has been (mis)translated about a zillion times...

I'm sure there are other arguments to be made as well. You should either make them or give up, cuz right now you are losing badly.

Magbast, not only is there carbon dating but there are several other techniques which give comparable answers (one of the niftiest being cosmic ray tracks in crystals). For those who believe God created the world 6000 years ago, all that evidence just doesn't matter. You can't possibly prove them wrong because any evidence you find was just created that way by God to test their faith. Since we can't prove them wrong, maybe they're right.

Jeanne (re: "Look at the perfection of our human design.") - If our human design is perfect then why do I have to wear glasses, have two fused bones in my wrist, and have kneecaps that don't track properly thereby leading to excruciating bouts of tendonitis? I'm confused as to the definition of perfection that includes the human body even tangentially.

dab- thanks, saved me the trouble of researching it!

Very: you said "I could also make the argument that who knows what the Bible really says since it has been (mis)translated about a zillion times..."
What about reading it in the original? Saying it's been mistranslated is just not an argument.

Enheduanna - What original though? I was under the impression that there were no existing original texts of either Testament? Or are you referring to the earliest available texts?

ILJ: Well, the general, overwhelming consensus is that the Hebrew is the original (except for the few chapters which are in Aramaic). If it's not, then someone did a pretty bad job of translating it from whatever it was originally written in--there are enough difficulties in the text that you'd think the translator would have ironed them out a bit. Plus, there aren't really many other options for the original language at the time anyway. It certainly wouldn't have been written in Greek first, since it had to be translated into Greek later. And the Dead Sea Scrolls are pretty good corroborating evidence for the Hebrew text--there's very little variation from the other texts we have, and they date from pretty soon after most people think the original was composed. The rabbinic texts also support a Hebrew original. But it is certainly true that other than the Dead Sea Scrolls (which yes, I have also studied), the earliest Hebrew texts date from about the tenth century.

Oh, and I'm referring to the Old Testament, aka Hebrew Bible. The New Testament was written in Greek originally, and I doubt you'll find anyone willing to argue that it wasn't.

I believe that there is a *god* or *gods* or *goddess* but I believe *they* merely created the world..and just sit back and enjoy the show...

This past Friday night I had a conversation in the hot tub with several friends on the whole creationism vs. theory of evolution issue that had some illuminating points. In the Christian belief, the universe is a thing made by God, with certain rules. In the scientific method, the universe works according to certain principles (as expressed in theories, there are no absolutes in science, that's why it's the *theory* of evolution) that can be hypothesized and experimentally verified. In that case, where we don't know something is 'cuz we haven't figured it out yet. Now, both Christianity and the scientific method have some similarities in that there is an element of belief (faith) in each - a clarifying question for the scientific method is how can you go out proving your theory without having some belief in it beforehand? In any case, trying to take that core of faith in each and then comparing the structures built on top of them is an apples to oranges comparison. The faith of Christianity does not depend on repeated experiments and peer review, it just is. The creationist scientists are missing the point, as are the scientists and others who try to force evolution and everything else on Christians.

and....Scientists never send out flyers to Christian homes inviting them to come to the lab on Sunday and share a scientific experience(and coffee and cookies afterwards).

jonathan: where was I during this conversation?! Why wasn't I fetched?!
TwM: that's not totally true, actually. My university sends out plenty of invitations to lectures, with refreshments afterwards (although they're not usually on Sundays).

Enheduanna: We didn't want to interrupt your movie watching could be one answer. The other could be that the tub was warm and we'd have had to get out of it to fetch you.