Is there a GOD?

[springhill]

I believe in the existance of GOD but refuse to follow the man made concept of religion, it is nothing more than a hoarding, money making exercise designed to control the will and thoughts of man, for the good of the few. Religious organisations are among the most corrupt and hypocritical "companies", because thats what they are, in history. I have no objections to the foot soldiers that work on the ground because they work out of kindness and the good of their fellow man. As for the guys in the ivory towers, throughout history, they are amongst the most evil that walk the earth, and i wouldnt piss on them if they were on fire . Kindness and humanity should be the one true religion, no matter of race, faith or disadvantage

 

[2020hindsight]

Famous quotes, from famous people:

"Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless"
..... Bertrand Russell ... atheist

"God doesn't play dice." ..... Albert Einstein

"Surely God would not have created such a being as man, to exist
for only a day ... !~! No, no, man was made for immortality. ..... Abraham Lincoln. ............happy days paul =====

http://www.whatthebleep.com/scientists/

Yogi - There are several of Einstein's quotes that some (you?) might argue work for "the believers" - in the first quote he's arguably on about lateral thinking - but whether he's thinking of "mystical" or "warped space / relativity theory spin offs" if open for conjecture... the second quote is pretty clear though...

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. - Albert Einstein

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science. - Albert Einstein

But your Einstein quote above (about dice) has been discredited. - as per Hawking's quote below :-

Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen. - Stephen W. Hawking

A few others - covering pretty much the full spectrum - obviously I'm with the technocrats on this - assuming I'm allowed to be a technocrat who loves mother nature that is ...

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity...and I'm not sure about the universe. - Albert Einstein

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. - Albert Einstein, in The New Convergence

Do you remember how electrical currents and "unseen waves" were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy. - Albert Einstein

He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. - Albert Einstein

I have yet to meet a single person from our culture, no matter what his or her educational background, IQ, and specific training, who had powerful transpersonal experiences and continues to subscribe to the materialistic monism of Western science. - Albert Einstein

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge. - Albert Einstein

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. - Albert Einstein

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details. - Albert Einstein

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force… We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.- Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning Father of Quantum Theory

Whoever talks about Planck's constant and does not feel at least a little giddy obviously doesn't appreciate what he is talking about. - Niels Bohr

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature. - Stephen W. Hawking

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. - Stephen W. Hawking

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. - T. S. Eliot

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.- Oscar Wilde

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become. - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. - William Faulkner, Nobel Prize acceptance speech

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. - Archibald MacLeish

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. - Chief Seattle

That which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it... We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself. - Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus

Quit thy childhood, my friend, and wake up! - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Curiouser and curiouser! - Lewis Carroll
Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. - Lewis Carroll

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. - Carl Gustav Jung

Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate, sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth…home. My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity. - Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and founder, Institute of Noetic Sciences

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced. - Aart Van Der Leeuw

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. - Democritus of Abdera

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on. - Winston Churchill

All great truths begin as blasphemies. - George Bernard Shaw

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. - William James

The spirit down here in man and the spirit up there in the sun,
in reality are only one spirit, and there is no other one. - The Upanishads

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. - Copernicus

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own. - Georg C. Lichtenberg

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it - always.- Mahatma Gandhi
etc

just some light Sunday afternoon reading, ...jumbled snippets of stuff that originated in the grey stuff between the ears of men .... brains which evolved from that first one cell protozoan in some primeval mud somewhere - 2020

 

[Woodchips]

Actually I'm not that cynical about churches really (my parents still attend, and it works for them)

Barney, interesting how you say that it works for your parents, its a good way of putting it. Thats exactly how I think about it, as a kind of cultural practice that works in that it provides people with a source of pleasure. The fact that people are so willing to take on the existence of God in blind faith suggests to me that it is in the act of believing from which people derive their pleasure - confirmation of the existence of a God is actually irrelevant. People from all different cultures seem to derive a sense of safety in believing that there is a greater purpose, somebody or something watching over them.

Bottom line here is I guess, ............... Those who choose to believe in God (Christian or otherwise), are unlikely to change their view based on others opinions, and vica versa for those who don't believe

........

That shouldn't necessarily be the case - once again the thing that distinguishes rational believers to those that believe purely on faith is that for the former, the existence of a God is still open to question. Rational believers can still be convinced otherwise, faith believers generally cannot.

I'm happy to stay open minded about things I don't really understand .......... I do know that I've had some "interesting" experiences along the way ......... and not while under the influence of amber fluid either .................................

Yes, my mum has had similar experiences and she is a believer, interesting though that I haven't. People that believe in ghost etc.. often say that you have to be willing to believe in it in order to experience it. But imo if something is real you should be able to experience it regardless of whether you believe in it or not. For example, if it is windy outside, you will still experience its presence whether or not you believe it is there. If you have to believe in something before being able to experience it, then my feeling is that your imagination is playing a big part in that experience. Imagination and reality are very different things.

cheers mate

WC

 

[Wysiwyg]

So ... after 643 posts there is god via agreement and there is no god via agreement.Seems the three letter word is still in the balance.

 

[wayneL]

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. - Chief Seattle

<irony>Those "red" men certainly came out with some outstanding quotes for simple "savages". </irony>

Makes me think they knew sumpin' about spirituality the whitefella misses in large part, and extremely remorseful for what we did to them.

I sometimes go to a on of there message boards and talk, even today with all their problems (similar to our indigenous folk) they "got" something we don't.

 

[Ageo]

In a nutshell whatever works for you......

 

[tech/a]

In a nutshell whatever works for you......

Yes I guess so.
One of the more compelling arguements!

 

[Pat]

and extremely remorseful for what we did to them.

I too feel this way, about many cultures. Makes me think of our mentality then, and now...
To worship mother nature seems more refined to me. I believe god is the energy within us all. Including plants and furry little animals.

 

[Sean K]

I too feel this way, about many cultures. Makes me think of our mentality then, and now...
To worship mother nature seems more refined to me. I believe god is the energy within us all. Including plants and furry little animals.

Pat, have you heard of a guy called John Seed, and Deep Ecology? If not, I think it might interest you. I first read about him in a book called The Future of God by Samantha Trenoweth where she interviews 10 of the worlds spititual leaders from all faiths, from Catholicism to Indigenous beliefs. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in God and religion actually.

Anyway, John Seed was one of the people interviewed. It was what I felt closest to at the time.

Deep Ecology

 

[chops_a_must]

Pat, have you heard of a guy called John Seed, and Deep Ecology? If not, I think it might interest you. I first read about him in a book called The Future of God by Samantha Trenoweth where she interviews 10 of the worlds spititual leaders from all faiths, from Catholicism to Indigenous beliefs. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in God and religion actually.

Anyway, John Seed was one of the people interviewed. It was what I felt closest to at the time.

Deep Ecology

Hate to tread on your toes Kennas, but eco-philosophy is probably my main area of study.

If you are really interested in Deep Ecology, it's Arne Naess that you want to read.

This philosophy is closely related to the gaia hypothesis, and has its origins in Spinoza's system (ecocosm) and his argument for god's existence.

But all three positions rely on one of only 2 "valid" arguments for "god's" "existence". So they are arguing a similar position, from different perspectives, whilst relying on the same basis. Not that I am condoning, or supporting this position; quite the contrary in fact.

I will come back to this later.

P.S. I honestly didn't think you would even take any notice of Deep Ecology Kennas...

 

[Sean K]

Hate to tread on your toes Kennas, but eco-philosophy is probably my main area of study....

I will come back to this later......

P.S. I honestly didn't think you would even take any notice of Deep Ecology Kennas...

'Main area of study'. Interesting!! I haven't looked into it any more than the book I mentioned before, and a few articles here and there, so I defer to your knowledge.....

From what I understand, I probably have a greater affinity to this spiritual idea of life on Earth, than any other 'religion', or philosophy of life. I think this comes from my most basic belief of humankind, in that we are just another animal species evolving on the planet. Just another critter trying to survive. Unfortunaley, we are destroying the Earth, and it's only a matter of time before the Earth strikes back!

In regard to your 'surprise' of my interest in Deep Ecology, well, perhaps I haven't represented myself well enough through these threads....

 

[chops_a_must]

In regard to your 'surprise' of my interest in Deep Ecology, well, perhaps I haven't represented myself well enough through these threads....

Well, I can't see why anyone who had an understanding of Deep Ecology could invest in Uranium for instance...

 

[Ageo]

Well, I can't see why anyone who had an understanding of Deep Ecology could invest in Uranium for instance...

Umm because whether you like it or not the world is going to use Uranium for power use and if thats the case why not benefit from it financially?

(sorry for being off topic)

 

[chops_a_must]

Umm because whether you like it or not the world is going to use Uranium for power use and if thats the case why not benefit from it financially?

(sorry for being off topic)

There are two words in my sentence you clearly haven't read.

 

[Sean K]

Well, I can't see why anyone who had an understanding of Deep Ecology could invest in Uranium for instance...

Do you have an understanding of Deep Ecology?

 

[chops_a_must]

Do you have an understanding of Deep Ecology?

Yes.

 

[Sean K]

Yes.

Do you ever wear leather?

 

[moneymajix]

I couldn't answer the poll with the choices offered.

I suspect we are all God or part of God (different expressions or manifestations of God or whatever you want to call it).

 

[chops_a_must]

Do you ever wear leather?

Only when I ride. Learnt that lesson..

 

[Sean K]

Only when I ride. Learnt that lesson..

No leather shoes, belts, seats in your car, never eaten an egg, your block of land wasn't cleared of trees, no concrete that you step on during the day, never take transport that uses coal, use gas, lights powered by the national grid... etc, etc....endless list. I have an affinity to Deep Ecology but unless I disgard my culture, my family, my friends, and life as I know it, I can not live it. So, I choose to live in my culture, and I invest in uranium stocks (now and then), which allows me to live the best life that I can in the culture I was born in to.