Is there a GOD?

imajica said:

all religions are essentiallly ideological and linguistic viruses which infect people who are vulnerable to accepting easy answers to unanswerable questions.

the church and the bible are manipulative tools for ensuring the flock don't stray too far.

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Very, Very good!

Have faith in ye my children, Ye who have no faith shall be stricken off thy christmas list LOVE Santa LOL

Garpal Gumnut said:

Very well said

It appears the bell curve of answers is skewed towards the heathens at present.

It would be interesting to run it in a bear market.

Enclosed is a chart of god superimposed on a monthly chart of the XAO

Garpal

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LOL...true!

church attendance increased 25% in the US right after 9/11.

Danish pastry is atheist.!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200306/s871560.htm I'm an atheist, pastor declares . A Danish pastor in the state Protestant Church has been suspended from his job after admitting he does not believe in God.

The Danish news agency Ritzau says Pastor Thorkild Grosboell revealed his religious beliefs, or lack thereof, in a newspaper interview published at the weekend. Bishop Lise-Lotte Rebel described the pastor's comments as totally unacceptable and suspended him for one week.

She says while the church has a lot of room for diversity, Pastor Grosboell's complete lack of faith has pushed things too far.

Pastor Grosboell has remained reasonably tight-lipped, saying he is sick and tired of preaching about his views.

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Sounds like his parishioners have as much faith in him as they do in the church - freedom of expression had been violated etc

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200306/s877813.htm Parishioners demand return of atheist pastor. Hundreds of parishioners in the Danish village of Taarbaek have come to the defence of their pastor after he was suspended for not believing in God and have demanded his reinstatement, Danish media reported.

At a protest, parishioners condemned the state Lutheran Protestant Church for its decision to suspend 55-year-old Thorkild Grosboell after he spoke of his lack of beliefs in a newspaper interview last week. "If there is no place for our pastor in this Church, then there is no place for many of us either," the head of the parish council, Lars Heilesen, told the gathering.

Some 88 per cent of Danes are members of the State church. Bishop Lise-Lotte Rebel suspended Pastor Grosboell, calling his comments "totally unacceptable" and ordering him to make a statement "clarifying that he did not want to sow doubt about the Church's confession but rather trigger a debate".

Since he has yet to do so, the suspension has not been lifted. The pastor and the bishop are due to meet on Friday.

"With his comments, the pastor has created confusion and uncertainty about what the Church stands for," Bishop Rebel said.

Denmark's Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs, Tove Fergo, has taken the Bishop's side in the matter, saying a pastor cannot work in the State church if he or she does not believe in God.

According to a study published in the religious daily Kristelig Dagbladet, 90 per cent of pastors agree.

However, a committee fighting corruption and abuse of power in Denmark has denounced what it described as censorship against the pastor, saying his freedom of expression had been violated.

It has filed a police complaint against the Church, accusing it of violating the Danish constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

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A few quotes I found on the subject:-

Faith - n, belief without evuidence in what is told by one who speaks, without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Faith - an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. HL Mencken.

Faith must trample unferfoot all reason, sense and understanding. - Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider it terrifying and absolutely vile. - Kurt Vonnegut

I had to set limits to knowledge in order to make place for faith - Immanuel Kany (1724 -1804)

The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder. - Albert Einstein.

myself:- we have no way of knowing, but most importantly let's avoid going down this particular road to blind faith at all costs :-

"Christians hold that their faith does good, but other faiths do harm. What I wish to maintain is that ALL faiths do harm. We may define faith as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. When there is evidence, noone speaks of "faith". We do not speak of faith that two and two are four, or that the earthis round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substiture emotion for evidence. We are told that faith could remove mountains, but noone believed it, we are now told that the atomic bomb can remove mountains, and everyone believes it" - Bertrand Russell.

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PS Let's tone down the faith, especially in the vicinity of atomic bombs.

I used to be a bit of an Atheist. For most of my life actually. Some may say I still am, but I feel I no longer am.

I always loved discussing this and was always on the "can't prove it, so dont believe it" side. But now it's more... "I can't prove it, but nobody can dis-prove it either. So there definately could be"

People who dismiss the idea completely because it sounds ridiculous or whatever are narrow minded. People who only believe in God without questioning it, also, narrow minded.

Fact is, if God does exist, it does not mean that everyone who follows him will do good and that everyone who believes in him is doing the right thing. Another fact is that "right and wrong", morals, good nature and everything that makes us a "civil" race has been affected strongly by the teachings of the Bible. But that is a different question.

Does God exist Tech asks...

Well, nobody can prove the big bang theory. Evolution exists, but that DOES NOT counter-act or dis-prove that God exists either. Science does not prove God doesn't exist either. They are seperate entities. Science just works out why things work and how. It CAN run side by side with God.

On a side note, did anyone ever think that the whole "creation" story with Adam and Eve might not be so literal and that it just represents something else?


ps - Just because you believe in God, does not mean you believe in the Church. The Church is run by humans after all, which we humans are all flawed.

3 veiws of a secret said:

With all my travels I've always noticed ...poorer the country ,stronger beliefs in a God ,richer the country ,then not so much.

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its interesting... to beleive in God requires humility... civilisations that fail to be humble, eventually fail.

but back to the topic...
my views on religion have been aired before...

i believe the in the teachings of Jesus...
and from what i can see, a good a deal of the good in the world today is as a result of those teachings... the very freedoms that we now enjoy started from the teaching of Jesus, where he told his followers to NOT be afraid of anthing that man throws at them.

Ironically, a lot of the bad in this world has come from the dogmatic institutionalisation of those teachings... which actually actively restricted those freedoms that Jesus preached about...

Trade_It summed it up well

I believe Jesus had a vision of how we could all live with each other in a better way. I value his message.
Then the Europeans got a hold of it and turned it into a way to control the masses.
I also beleive Jesus would have been shocked at what we did with his teachings

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and as for God, who are we to question Gods existence...?

Why yes, I believe in Dog.

Q: Did you hear about the group of dyslexic devil worshippers in Sydney?
A: They sold their souls to Santa!

Bullion said:

On a side note, did anyone ever think that the whole "creation" story with Adam and Eve might not be so literal and that it just represents something else?

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Sorry but thats just stupid! and it sounds like many religious people I have met over the years, trying to twist words to create more confusion in order to win an argument about this very question
Please spare us of this type of rot!

Cheers

If there is a God, he doesn't like me trading.

Having watched people die in front of my eyes, there's always that strange moment of aura when the person gasps his last breath. I have always wonder in that final moment of salvation does the person accept his religion and his creator. On a similar vein to think of all the stars in our universe is greater than all grains of sand on earth is a shattering thought as to why are we so special.
Philosophy is not my strength, but we all have to serve somebody. Everybody lives on HOPE.

Is there a GOD???
If we look back in history we will find that there has always been a God, in fact lots of gods. Egyptians believed in gods, and backed their beliefs by preparing their kings for life beyond death by mummifying them. Three thousand years later those kings are still on earth, resting in museums around the world.

Then came Greek civilization with its own set of gods, to be followed by Roman civilization with their Roman gods, many of whom were borrowed from the Greeks. Scandinavian mythology had its cluster of gods, whilst on the other side of the world completely isolated from philosophies of the western world were Incas and Aztecs with their own gods. I googled up "inca gods" and got a list of some hundred and fifteen names. Then I googled "aztec gods" and gave up counting after reaching sixty. Back on our side of the world Israeli, Muslim and Christian gods (some say it is the same god) received very strong recognition and gained massive followings.

Conclusions?? It would seem that humanity needs that higher being to guide it in the way it should conduct its life on earth, and the process had very spectacular results - some very good and some disastrous. We are witnessing some of those effects right now, and they aren't pretty. Makes one wonder why gods don't take a more active role in the ongoing mess on earth.

anon

Rafa said:

...

and as for God, who are we to question Gods existence...?

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rafa,

power to you,

however, i would tend to answer that as

we are entities proven to exist

and my take on texta's original question

yes - and he is a member of asf - and he has lots of followers - and he is vengeful - and you must therefore never question him

and i note the gender inflection above

am currently reading several books on myths and the power of at the moment and have yet to decide who my god shall be

cheers

I have four books in front of me now.One is The Book of Mormon (the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints) , one is the Holy Bible-King James version (church of jesus christ of latter-day saints) , one is Holy Bible (placed by The Gideons) and one is Mankind`s search for God (jehovah`s witness).
I keep them because they have some good human traits and qualities to learn from...O.K. the book says this but humans do that and it is this contradiction, between right and wrong , that I have my thoughts on the question of Is there a GOD.

I believe the idea was created from human mind , so it is only a human mind that can believe the concept.

If humans had no thought then there would be no explanation and life would would continue on as it does now.Worse for life on this planet is yet to come with thinking man.The smart people , with their ideas and actions to make life easier for the us followers , are creating an unnatural planet.Me , you and everybody else are swept along with the flow.the bigger contributors are the ones who want four cars ,three houses, two kids and one dog with all the factory manufactured stuff that they can ill afford.Most want to `live it up` while they`re alive.

The question of a GOD has no conclusive answer , only billions of different perceptions (or however many people there are on earth right now) that are created in small mind.

These thoughts include all the other chappies who have laid claim to fame along the way too.Buddah and co.I watched someone die and that is all that happened , they died , so no half baked potatoe is gonna determine what happens to me when I cease to live.

happytown said:

rafa,
we are entities proven to exist

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yes, we DO exist...
(unless you believe the Matrix )

but do we know enough to be certain one way or another?

In my humble opinion, believing in anything with certainty is start of all problems, be it certain that GOD DOES NOT EXIST or certain that GENESIS is literally true!

One of the fundamental principles of science is the principle of uncertainty. Even Newtons laws of physics were at best an approximation.

Rafa said:

In my humble opinion, believing in anything with certainty is start of all problems, be it certain that GOD DOES NOT EXIST or certain that GENESIS is literally true!

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So you would say that believing with certainty that god does exist is equally as silly as believing with certainty that god doesn't exist?

Wysiwyg said:

I have four books in front of me now.One is The Book of Mormon (the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints) , one is the Holy Bible-King James version (church of jesus christ of latter-day saints) , one is Holy Bible (placed by The Gideons) and one is Mankind`s search for God (jehovah`s witness).

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What amazes me is that all these books were written hundreds of years ago, by people who had absolutley no idea. Specifically no science at their disposal to answer the unexplained in their big scarey world. Of course they needed gods to get them through.
eg especially when people were dying of any type of viruses we now have antibiotics for or there was a tidal wave , earthquake, fire, famine, locusts , shooting stars , comets tornadoes etc etc . I mean a thousand years ago the world was a scarey place and it was unimaginably big.
Just imagine there was no religion in the past and today you tried to introduce the idea of a god or almighty being. Science would have your guts for garters and you would be thrown into mental inst or worse called a terrorist!
The problem is that when you see someone who you trust and love, someone who you look up to, believe in religion , of course you naturally want to believe in it yourself.
If you were born into a muslim family chances are your a muslim. If you were born into a catholic family chances are your a catholic. Its not hard for children to become conditioned to the idea., etc etc through the generations.
Do the peolpe who become devout followers ever seriously investigate other religions ? Im mean what sought of religion road testing do followers really take on. How do you even qualify a religion against another one, apart from the fact my freinds /family follow it so this god /gods is the right one for me...oh and just take this tablespoon full of faith, that help you swallow it down!
Eg i have a friend who has married a jehova's witness and hey presto 5 years later he is a jehova's witness. Of course i couldnt help but say, if she had of been Indian he too would now be a hindu.
Hey but it would be hard to say to someone close "i think everything you believe in is a lie and you've been brainwashed like the rest of them, but i still want to be close to you."

stockGURU said:

So you would say that believing with certainty that god does exist is equally as silly as believing with certainty that god doesn't exist?

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Nothing to do with silliness IMO; how we can be certain/uncertain of something depends on what we formulate out of our experiences. Experiences are something very personal; you don't deride others' experiences (eg call them "silly") unless you know them well enough. I'm described as being too logical of a person many a time by others, yet I've seen enough that defies my logic to conclude that so much is beyond my comprehension.

For instance, humans can be proud of their many inventions to make life easier, eg the internet. But with these inventions come many side-effects, eg radiation, isolationism, etc. And neither has any of said inventions managed to change and more importantly, sustain our well-being for the entire existence of Planet Earth as what we are born with; in our birthday suit.

Just as science is meant to be a study as to how things work, these studies will, if done correctly and without bias, ultimately and unfailingly point to the intricacy and remarkableness of how things are. We could not have just existed out of thin air, nor could things past have. This remarkable excellence with which things are made alone points to a higher power at work; one which we cannot even begin to comprehend its brain power.

Things can't just exist and fall in place; they need something to move it. If you want to see your business get started, you go get it started; you don't sit and wait. Why then do the seasons come and go? Who could have motivated the change in seasons? Who could have put those systems in place?

Maybe the "who" should have been "what", I hear you say. Well then, how does this "what" enable us to care about these questions as we gaze at things created by this "what"? A "what" is an object; a "who" is a person. How can a "what" make us feel with our heart how amazing the wind, the sun, and the moon and the stars are? How can a "what" make us love another person, if that "what" created us all? The "what" has got to have feelings to give us feelings. We couldn't give of something we don't already have.

SUMMARY: This is where the "what" gives way to a "who". A mere object could not possibly have such power over both things of the mind and things of the heart. This power, this higher being, has gotta be something capable of relational powers. This has to be GOD...

Rafa said:

...

(unless you believe the Matrix )

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you found the hole in my argument a little too easily for my liking

interesting how all of us have approached answers to original question

is there a god

question seeking answer of fact v question seeking answer of belief

i know no facts and have no beliefs and am therefore without a box to tick

cheers

Looked up GOD on the asx and they told me the company doesnt appear to be listed. Therefore at this stage in my life I dont believe in GOD perhaps this will change later in my life but we'll have to wait and see

Personally I'm very inclined to the notion of a benevolent mother nature (non-interventionist) - although by that I probably just mean the miracle of hereditary knowledge handed down

e.g. I just posted something on the "videos that send a message " thread.

a great caterpillar minidocumentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWOC8trquFo BBC Worldwide: Attenborough - Caterpillars

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I mean , you look at that, then you eyeball the little critter that's doing it, and you can tell he has a brain the size of half a pinhead - and yet ... somebody told him how to make that little tent

"and I have felt a presence that disturbs me , with the joy of elevated thought" as Wordsworth used to say magic. !! (but in truth probably not a miracle, just damned clever - who knows).

Sorry to do this to you folks, but here's a repeat of a poem #154 on poetry thread.

INSTINCT SOULS and BIRDDOGS

I spied a brown hawk on a hovering stalk, As he straightened and swooped for some feast,
And I wondered who learned him, and what birthright earned him, The power and skills of the beast,
And it’s London to brick that he knew as a chick, Or perhaps from some parent deceased,
That you swoop or you die, with a sharp beak and eye, As your latent hawk skills are released.

I saw a white dove, that pure symbol of love, Who so gracefully slipped through the sky,
And she flew to her nest, to the ones she loved best, That her hungry young tribe wouldn’t cry,
And I watched oh so slow, as they formed a small row, On a wee little branch nearby,
And from somewhere within came a flight instinct grin - They somehow decided to fly!.

My dog watched them both with a soft whimpered oath, And she stopped in her tracks in the dirt,
-- Tail as straight as a die, -- and one foot bent and high ! Like a motionless arrow alert.
And I haven’t a clue where she learnt what to do, But it wasn’t from me that’s a cert,
And I guess some subliminal signal from mum, Has entrenched and refused to revert.

We learn half our ways under parental gaze, The other half’s there on day one,
And millions of creatures have dozens of features, And all someone’s daughter or son,
The lion kills true, as his parent’s did too, With a soul - cruel - akin to a gun,
While the soul of a deer knows only to fear, And its legs know only to run.
..............
And hawk and dove and parents may die , But the soul will live on in the son.
..............
And the soul of the dog knows to serve and to try, And to lick your hand – and have fun.

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