Is there a GOD?

[bulldoza]

I believe God exists and does love us all, regardless of what is going on in the world today. I also believe each one of us has the option to choose to believe in and accept God or to reject Him.

Blaming God for all the evil and disasters (natural or otherwise) in our world today or historically does not carry any weight for me because I believe our world was originally a 'paradise' but then Adam and Eve failed the test put before them by God (now whether the test was exactly or as simple as told in Genesis I don't know, but I believe some sort of test was given to them and they failed it) and consequently each one of us from then on now has to prove to God that we accept Him. I believe God is our creator and in his eyes we are all brothers and sisters. He has now given us this world with all its good and bad in it (natural or man-made) and how we react to and with each other on our journey through our lives coping with all the good and bad is a test from God so he can judge us all as to whether we will be worthy to share eternal life with Him or not when we eventually all pass on from this life.
Had Adam and Eve not failed whatever test was put before them by God, who knows what the world would be like today.

Now I can't prove my beliefs above are true any more than anyone else with diammetrically opposed views can prove their beliefs are true. Each one of us will make their own choice of beliefs, directly or indirectly through their actions and the way we live their lives.

 

[Wysiwyg]

Unfortunately for you I have to break two of my "commandments" because of your above post and I cannot let it go without comment.

That is right. Just another dream. Make a "connection" in mind and it's all clear. Simple.

The suggestion that we are "bad" and "things would be very different" is the guilt trip trotted out to try and assert control over a being.

 

[Mr J]

I've told this story before but it is worth telling again.

It's great you saw your friend one last time, and I can see why many people would believe in something greater after experiences like this. I've experienced many coincidences that would make most people wonder, as I'm sure we all have. However, we experience so many events day-to-day that coincidences are almost certain to happen occasionally. I'm not sure what you would think of this coincidence if your friend wasn't sick.

If we were to put this story down to the intervention of a higher power, what would be the motivation?

I also believe each one of us has the option to choose to believe in and accept God or to reject Him.

There are a lot of us that neither believe nor reject a god. I have no clue if a god exists, and don't pretend to know either way. If there is a rational god, I'm sure it will appreciate my position.

 

[Wysiwyg]

Can this question be answered?

Why belief?

Why not accept our relationship with reality for what it is? No imaginings or perpetuated stories. No belief of some entity determining human affairs.
Why not see the past and present observable universe for what it is?

 

[nioka]

If we were to put this story down to the intervention of a higher power, what would be the motivation?
.

1. To use the power
2. To demonstrate the power exists.
3. To show me that we have to make time available when we decide the time isnt there.
4. To demonstrate the value of friendship.
5,6,7 etc. The reasons are endless if you are prepared to think about it.

 

[bulldoza]

Mr J - yep, I can see where you are coming from. Perhaps I could have worded my comment a bit better. IMO we all have the option to choose to either believe in God or not. 'Reject' was probably not a good choice of words. But IMHO, and this is not a criticism, people 'sitting on the fence' are indirectly choosing to not believe in God. I don't see how someone can only half believe in something unless they are directly or indirectly picking which parts of that overall belief, faith (call it what you will) that suits their own ideoligies, way of life etc etc. to believe in.

Wysiwyg - from my point of view, if the Bible didn't exist then I would probably ask the same question as you do. The Old Testament was written about 600BC and for me, far too many of the predictions put forward by the various prophets have come true and written about in the New Testament for me to think that the Bible is a work of fiction or some sort of conspiracy by its authors to deceive and con the following generations for hundreds of years. I don't believe we can take everything in the Bible literally because when its various parts were written, the world and its ways of life were very much different to what the world is today. But the overall underlying message and teachings in the Bible are correct and reasonable IMO.

But as I am sure you are aware, there are many in this world who for whatever reason choose to believe the Bible is a work of fiction.

 

[Mr J]

1. To use the power
2. To demonstrate the power exists.
3. To show me that we have to make time available when we decide the time isnt there.
4. To demonstrate the value of friendship.
5,6,7 etc. The reasons are endless if you are prepared to think about it.

These are possible motivations, but you have to be prepared to believe in a god, and to believe it is willing to make one last gesture to a dying person and his friend, rather than a more significant contribution to a far greater number of people. I can't really continue this without sounding condescending, so we'll just agree that it was a good story.

I don't see how someone can only half believe in something unless they are directly or indirectly picking which parts of that overall belief, faith (call it what you will) that suits their own ideoligies, way of life etc etc. to believe in.

I think many people pick and choose to suit their own ideology. I don't think it's even what makes the most sense to them, but what they want to be true.

Half-believe? I'm not sure who you're referring to, those on the fence or those who say they believe but approach it seemingly half-heartedly? By the way, I wouldn't consider myself on the fence, as I'm not going to make a decision either way. I just don't have the information.

But as I am sure you are aware, there are many in this world who for whatever reason choose to believe the Bible is a work of fiction.

But is that any worse than choosing to believe the bible is non-fiction?

 

[Calliope]

As the most popular Christian religion the Roman Catholic church seems to do very well without concerning themselves too much about God,or his 10 Commandments. One of the most popular aspects of this religion is that mere mortals can grant absolution to sinners, with few strings attached, except for a cash down payment.

The Sicilian Cosa Nostra, among others, availed themselves of this facility to pursue their murderous activities with a clear conscience.

 

[bulldoza]

Mr J - IMO 'sitting on the fence' means both those who for whatever reason are not sure if God exists and those who say they believe in God but approach their belief half heartedly, as you put it, by selecting the parts of God's teachings that suit their ideoligies and life styles.

IMO God asks all of us to give Him full commitment according to our talents, skills etc that we have been born with by living our lives in the way His Son Jesus Christ showed and taught us. But as I commented earlier, we then all have the option to give that full commitment or not. And to be honest, consistent with our society becoming more secular every day most of my family and friends I would say are either 'fence sitters' or non believers in God. But I respect their choices in life and I assume they respect mine.

Regarding your question - "But is that any worse than choosing to believe the bible is non-fiction?" - IMHO the answer is yes. The reason I say 'yes' is because by believing the Bible is a work of fiction that person is essentially saying he/she does not believe in God, or at least the God the Bible is about.
Now that is not to say that all people who do not believe in God are bad or evil but I believe non believers are far more likely to give in to temptations, opportunities etc to do the wrong thing.

Those that believe in God and the teachings in the Bible will be aware that to eventually be judged worthy to spend eternal life with Him, God has asked us to both believe in His existence and to live our lives the way He has taught us through Jesus Christ. IMO, based on the Bible's teachings, 1 out of the 2 is not enough - ie. saying you believe in God but then only picking the good or easy bits of his teachings to follow.

 

[Wysiwyg]

Wysiwyg - from my point of view, if the Bible didn't exist then I would probably ask the same question as you do. The Old Testament was written about 600BC and for me, far too many of the predictions put forward by the various prophets have come true and written about in the New Testament for me to think that the Bible is a work of fiction or some sort of conspiracy by its authors to deceive and con the following generations for hundreds of years.
But as I am sure you are aware, there are many in this world who for whatever reason choose to believe the Bible is a work of fiction.

Thanks bulldoza for your thoughts.

Do you have evidence of these many predictions coming true? I see there was no conspiracy by the authors to con the following generations. There are many passages in the Bible that are helpful in guiding people on good human behaviour. This is the part of the Bible that is valuable. There is also a lot of nonsense and imagining which cannot be verified for fact or practiced in reality.

If someone one day extracts all the practically useful bits out then that would be a book with huge potential and mandatory reading for school.

Let's call it. The Guide to a Fruitful Life.

 

[bulldoza]

Calliope - yes the Catholic Church from the Pope down is made up of mere mortals, forgiving sins and administering the other sacraments but there is a huge difference between an ordinary person like me and an ordained priest and above.

Somewhere in the last few chapters of the 4 Gospels (please don't ask me to give chapters and versus) is described how Jesus said to Peter words to the effect - your name is Peter (meaning 'a rock') and upon this rock I will build my church. Here, Jesus made Peter the first Pope and God's representative on earth. Jesus then went on to say that what you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven and what is loosed on earth will be loosed in Heaven. This effectively created a binding bond between the church here on earth and God's Kingdom - Heaven.

The flow on effect of all this is that all the authority that Jesus had to forgive sins etc then flowed through to Peter and those that followed him through the generations. A side note, in the Catholic Church, yes sins are forgiven in confession but unless the sinner genuinely repents and tries to not commit the sin again then the sin will not be forgiven at judgement time.
Confession is not a 'get out of jail free' card. Eg...a robber cannot continually go to confession in between continually robbing banks and expect to get off scott free from God.

But again, all of the above is probably a load of rubbish to those who choose to believe the Bible is fiction or to those who choose to pick out the Bible only the bits they want to believe or follow. It goes back to wheter we are a fence sitter or not.

 

[bellenuit]

I just happened on this video clip an hour or so ago and though the speaker makes no parallels between her experiences having a stroke and religion, it occurred to me as I listened how many of the sensations she went through in the immediate aftermath of her stroke were similar to sensations or experience others attribute to a belief of a God of some sort.

In particular, the sensation of calmness and tranquility that many experience the moments before death and often claimed to be the person seeing Jesus or Mary extending their arms to him/her in an invitation to enter heaven is probably just the left side of the brain shutting down. Other sensations the speaker experienced have similarities with apparitions and other supernatural occurrences that people often attribute to their religion.

Irrespective of one's opinion in the God debate, the video is well worth watching on its own merit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU

 

[bulldoza]

No problem Wysiwyg - no, I don't have any 'hard evidence' of the predictions coming true just like no-one will have any 'hard evidence' they did not come true. Like I commented before, it's a matter of each one us choosing whether to believe they are true or not.

But to give you 2 examples - In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah, and I suppose others, described in reasonable detail the birth of Jesus Christ and the circumstances under which it occurred. He also described in reasonable detail the death of Jesus Christ and the circumstances under which it occurred. Isaiah also described many of the miracles that Jesus will work throught His life. Isaiah's descriptions in the Old Testament and the descriptions of the actual events in the New Testament's Gospels are very similar.

Therefore, I personally believe them to be true but of course there are many
who for whatever reason exercise their option to believe they are not true or didn't happen etc.

 

[Mr J]

IMO God asks all of us to give Him full commitment according to our talents, skills etc that we have been born with by living our lives in the way His Son Jesus Christ showed and taught us.

But how do you know this? You're not only believing in a god, but believing a particular religion to be correct, and the teachings of that religion to be honest. I think there's a huge difference between believing in something greater, and believing in something specific. A god could exist without being the chrisitan god, and the christian god could exist without a connection to Jesus. I don't think you can know any of it is true, but you choose to believe it is true.

Regarding your question - "But is that any worse than choosing to believe the bible is non-fiction?" - IMHO the answer is yes. The reason I say 'yes' is because by believing the Bible is a work of fiction that person is essentially saying he/she does not believe in God, or at least the God the Bible is about.

I don't think that's necessarily true. I might believe that the image of God is correct, but not trust that the bible is the word of God.

Now that is not to say that all people who do not believe in God are bad or evil but I believe non believers are far more likely to give in to temptations, opportunities etc to do the wrong thing.

But it may not be the wrong thing - you believe it is because you believe that God's opinion is reflected in the bible. I can't make that assumption (though it may not be an assumption to you), and so I can't make assumptions about right and wrong. I think you're taking a great leap of faith to not only believe in a god, but to believe in a specific god, and then to believe that the words of men reflect its will and character. I can't suggest that none of it is true, but each step becoming increasingly unlikely.

How can you trust the words of men? How do you know that the god is God as interpreted by christians? Why not Allah? I don't think you can know, you just choose to believe what you like, and statistically in this country it is likely to be the christian god.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to prove you wrong. I admit I do think it's unlikely that a god exists, and very unlikely that it is specifically the christian god and that men haven't perverted the words for their own benefit, but I can't know it's not true either. There is just such little evidence and far too many questions for me to attribute a reasonable probability for it. But then that's the problem - my thought process obviously conflicts with what is needed to "believe".

1 out of the 2 is not enough - ie. saying you believe in God but then only picking the good or easy bits of his teachings to follow.

You believe that based on hearsay. I'm sure many people would suggest that God wants people to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions. Who is right? I don't know, but how can you? Again, my trouble is understanding how people can be so certain. I can respect the stance of anyone who suggests that they may be wrong, but I just can't understand how someone can be so certain.

I mean no offense by this, but I think you're ignoring an entire branch of possibilities. Imagine a tree where we call the base "belief there's possibly a higher power", and then we work our way up the tree until we get to the end of a twig labelled "Christian God". What about the rest of the tree, and what else may be? There are many other routes that may have been taken, many depending on when and where we were born. How can you be so sure that your route is the correct route?

Again, don't take this the wrong way, I like asking questions.

 

[Wysiwyg]

No problem Wysiwyg - no, I don't have any 'hard evidence' of the predictions coming true just like no-one will have any 'hard evidence' they did not come true.

Right there is the conundrum. Nothing can be proven factual so the claimant returns the question to the truth seeker.

 

[explod]

Therefore, I personally believe them to be true but of course there are many
who for whatever reason exercise their option to believe they are not true or didn't happen etc.

I prefer to base my reasons on the facts. Having been researched by more contemporaneous thinkers, the Bible and its associated scriptures have been found to be sadly wanting. Just one of the many serious flaws is the following excerpt from Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion' 2006 Transworld Publishers, at pp. 118/119:-

…“All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mention almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus’ life. All were then copied and recopied, through many different ‘Chinese Whispers generations’ by fallible scribes who, in any case, had their own religious agendas.

A good example of the colouring by religious agendas is the whole heart-warming legend of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, followed by Herod’s massacre of the innocents. When the gospels were written, many years after Jesus’ death, nobody knew where he was born. But an Old Testament prophecy (Micah 5: 2) had led Jews to expect that the long-awaited Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. In the light of this prophecy, John’s gospel specifically remarks that his followers were surprised that he was not born in Bethlehem: ‘Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?’

Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all. But they got there by different routes. Matthew has Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem all along, moving to Nazareth only long after the birth of Jesus, on their return from Egypt where they fled from King Herrod and the massacre of the innocents. Luke, by contrast, acknowledged that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazereth before Jesus was born. So how to get them to Bethlehem at the crucial moment, in order to fulfil the prophecy? Luke says that, in the time when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria, Caesar Augustus decreed a census for taxation purposes, and everybody had to go ‘to his own city’. Joseph was ‘of the house and lineage of David’ and therefore he had to go to ‘the city of David, which is called Bethlehem’. That must have seemed like a good solution. Except that historically it is complete nonsense, as A.N.Wilson in Jesus and Robin Lane Fox in the Unauthorised Version (among others) have pointed out. David, if he existed, lived nearly a thousand years before Mary and Joseph.
Why on earth would the Romans have required Joseph to go to the city where a remote ancestor had lived a millennium earlier? It is as though I were required to specify, say, Ashby-de-la-Zouch as my home town on a census form, if it happened that I could trace my ancestry back to the Seigneur de Dakeyne, who came over with William the Conqueror and settled here.

Moreover, Luke screws up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking. There was indeed a census under Governor Quirinius – a local census, not one decreed by Caesar Augustus for the Empire as a whole – but it happened too late: in AD 6, long after Herod’s death. Lane Fox concludes that ‘Luke’s story is historically impossible and internally incoherent’, but he sympathizes with Luke’s plight and his desire to fulfil the prophecy of Micah.”

 

[$20shoes]

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine"...best opening song line EVER!

Whatever one's belief, it seems it is absolutely inevitable, and you could argue essential, that a collective of humans, whenever they gather, form an ideology or supernatural beliefs.

From my reading it is the next human imperative after collecting food. That is, from a time where people could gather food as a collective of people , be they nomadic or settled community, they attribute their circumstance to the supernatural - a deity or something similar.

Sometimes these beliefs become institutionalised. For example, we had chiefdoms in certain areas of the world such as Hawaii, and the Incas for example, used their Gods to highly influence the Inca people's culture.

Once a collective belief becomes institutionalised, it can potentially mature into the fabric upon which a society could base itself. You often see this where communities have mastered agriculture or have limited migration - it can be used to justify the transfer of wealth for the betterment of their society; to assert power and subjugate others. It can be used to justify conquering and it can be used to develop armies and resist attack. As well, it can have noble benefits for its citizens and those they conquer. That is, it seems that in order to develop a society we actually use our tendency to the supernatural to form the very rules and structure we need on Earth.

But I would say that there has been a spiritual text held sacred for every institutionalised belief where a society could be influenced by such:

The Aranyakas, the Upanishads, the Koran, the Bible, the Confucian documents, Adi Granth etc.
The question is that why, irrespective of our time and place, we continue to formulate ideas about the supernatural/spiritual? There is an inner yearning that at its surface is anthropologically driven. But is there an essence of ourselves that knows there is much more than what we currently perceive?

What is strikingly similar in all institutionalised belief systems is this - there is a central deity or deities that oversees and governs how the people are to act. The elected leaders who propagate the belief system establish positions of authority. They have either elected higher powers than the rest of society or have an insight far deeper than the rest of their society. Once the belief system takes hold, the society binds to itself and respects its own laws. Only then can it hope to spread and conquer.

In this way, Christianity and Islam had the direct benefits of taking off at a time where industry and population allowed them to traverse vast swathes of the northern hemisphere.

 

[footlose]

I prefer to base my reasons on the facts. Having been researched by more contemporaneous thinkers, the Bible and its associated scriptures have been found to be sadly wanting. Just one of the many serious flaws is the following excerpt from Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion' 2006 Transworld Publishers, at pp. 118/119:-

Sad to see that Religious concepts are a subject on a stockforum.
This subject relates to Sunday church,let's talk "stock" the purpose fo this web site.If God invented the Stock Market we all would be making bug bucks.

 

[Julia]

There are a lot of us that neither believe nor reject a god. I have no clue if a god exists, and don't pretend to know either way. If there is a rational god, I'm sure it will appreciate my position.

That's as good a definition of agnosticism as I've seen. I agree.

Mr J - yep, I can see where you are coming from. Perhaps I could have worded my comment a bit better. IMO we all have the option to choose to either believe in God or not. 'Reject' was probably not a good choice of words. But IMHO, and this is not a criticism, people 'sitting on the fence' are indirectly choosing to not believe in God. I don't see how someone can only half believe in something unless they are directly or indirectly picking which parts of that overall belief, faith (call it what you will) that suits their own ideoligies, way of life etc etc. to believe in.

bulldoza, I appreciate that for someone who obviously has a strong belief in a God, you are trying to engage in a reasonable argument which is respectful toward the view of others.

But how you can say that agnosticism is "sitting on the fence" - a pejorative term in this discussion - is imo where your rationality falls over.

You believe in a god, you have faith that such an entity exists. That is quite different from knowing a god exists.
To know something is to have objective evidence of that thing/entity.
No such evidence exists.

Agnostics don't 'half believe' at all. We simply say that because we have no way of knowing, we accept that there may or may not be a God.

Wysiwyg - from my point of view, if the Bible didn't exist then I would probably ask the same question as you do. The Old Testament was written about 600BC and for me, far too many of the predictions put forward by the various prophets have come true and written about in the New Testament for me to think that the Bible is a work of fiction or some sort of conspiracy by its authors to deceive and con the following generations for hundreds of years. I don't believe we can take everything in the Bible literally because when its various parts were written, the world and its ways of life were very much different to what the world is today. But the overall underlying message and teachings in the Bible are correct and reasonable IMO.

So essentially you are picking from the Bible the bits you choose to believe.

But as I am sure you are aware, there are many in this world who for whatever reason choose to believe the Bible is a work of fiction.

I don't think it's necessarily a case of the Bible being (1) the ultimate absolute message from God, or (2) a complete work of fiction.
Maybe a collection of stories written by the people of the time, valued by Christians as being 'the word of God', something to support their belief system, which in turn provides them comfort in their daily living.

This may be a misinterpretation on my part, but it seems to me that the attraction of religion to many is the notion of 'everlasting life', i.e. it at least partly removes the fear of death.

Oddly enough, my father totally scorned all religion but nonetheless had a belief that human beings did possess a spiritual aspect which was sustained after the physical body died. This belief always seemed to me to be out of character with his highly intelligent, well educated and usually analytical approach to life.

I asked him to send me a sign after he died to prove this belief, but sadly in about 8 years nothing has come.

 

[Wysiwyg]

I don't doubt there was a man called Jesus Christ. He was prophesied to be named Immanuel in Isaiah's 7:14. The Tibetan Buddhist religion has a lineage of Dalai Lamas that are thought to be as follows.

Traditionally, His Holiness is thought of as the latest reincarnation of a series of spiritual leaders who have chosen to be reborn in order to enlighten others.

So there is a connection with this holy entity theory in other religions. Can either be proven or disproven as fact? Of course not. They are simply concepts from mind.

From my reading it is the next human imperative after collecting food. That is, from a time where people could gather food as a collective of people , be they nomadic or settled community, they attribute their circumstance to the supernatural - a deity or something similar.

Interesting read that shoes.

As do many species, we bond and form a hierarchy for survival. The species then has it's sub-groups of which there is also a hierarchy. From family to city to country there is apparent "order" and preferred sanity.

No different from other species and their survival characteristics.(apart from the supernatural bit)