A 'God' Thread

[Cooper]

But to say that you will NEVER believe in God b/c you are atheist is in my opinion a little overboard.

I once read this story (I WISH I remembered the guy that wrote it).

But he was an Art professor and was Atheist his whole life. "Atheist as fuck" if you will.

Anyway, he somehow died and came back to life. Claiming that he THEN believed in god.

He had a 'talk with him' and saw colors in 'the light' that were the most beautiful he had ever seen. Some colors that are not even known to man. (he brings it up b/c he is an art teacher). It helped make him believe.

How do you feel about Atheist that felt the same way about you, but had their mind changed b/c of a very personal reason.

I'm a positive atheist. I believe there is no God. If there was evidence, it would be different...but it would have to be proven like anything scientific does. It'd probably take more than the wild hallucinations of a dying brain tbh

 

[Casey]

Shadows, you may as well have just said this to me:

But to say that you will NEVER believe in a giant magical glittery flying monkey with a dolphin head and ten tails b/c you are atheist is in my opinion a little overboard.

Seriously. The entire concept of what you wrote, and what I just changed in your quote, they're both exactly the same to me. And as Cooper said, it would take more than the wild hallucinations of a dying brain.

In fact, I know exactly what it would take for me to acknowledge the possible existence of a god.

Do you know what it is?

I'll tell you.

Some motherfucking evidence. Seriously. Just a little bit, of hard, solid, tangible, evidence that cannot be denied.

 

[SiGh]

Question for all:

Whatever the first thing in this entire universe was (or is), where did it come from, according to you?

I'm talking about the very first molecule, atom, whatever it is you want to call it, after its been broken down and whatever. WHERE in your book did it come from? God? It was just there? No explanation? Tell me.

 

[ill-matic]

in the end, who the fuck knows?

im sure ants, although we coexist with them, aren't really "aware" that humans 'exist'. i dont think it enters their way of doing things. although we're there, their inability to comprehend our existence prohibits them from actually "knowing" that humans are here.

with that said, why can't we apply this same rationale to the possibility of a God existing. Maybe we can't see it because it's beyond our scope of thinking.. it's beyond our realm of consciousness - just like the ants not having the ability to be "aware" of the existence of humans.

I think mankind think's it is virtually the be all and end all. We only see what our eyes see. We only hear what our ears let us. Essentially our senses dictate everything.. But what if there are other senses which humans just dont have?

 

[Cooper]

Maybe the universe has always been here, or we are just one of many universes. Maybe the past 14 billion years are just a small period in a constant cycle of big bangs, followed by a massive contraction that has cycled forever and will continue to do so? What we observe as the universe may be the artificial construct of an alien race. Maybe they will never let us evolve to the stage where we understand the origins of the universe?

 

[Cooper]

But what if there are other senses which humans just dont have?

There are. :blink:

 

[_carmi]

I understand why it happens. However, you're saying the same thing regardless of whether you tack on that prefix or not. Sometimes, people NEED to feel that you are attacking them in order to get the message across. If you were truly passionate about the point, you wouldn't say it. I haven't said that phrase ONCE in my life, ever.

See I don't believe one has to be aggressive or attack to prove a point. That's your point of view. Fine. I am not going to debate on how to discuss or express an opinion.

If you REALLY wanted to be nice about an opinion that could offend someone, you would not say it in the first place.

I disagree. I voice my opinion because I feel the need to. It's not because it's different from others that it's necessarily offensive. And if both parties are able to discuss they should be able to handle the other person's opinion no matter what it is.

Hmm, judgemental much? You've just showed that you skim over most of what I write as opposed to reading it and letting it sink in.

When I post about meat, god, apple, etc, I'm generally not expressing opinions, I'm expressing FACTS. That's the difference between the way I debate and the way 99% of people on this board do. Every debate I've ever been in, I can back it up with evidence and facts, and there's no way that anyone debating against me will be able to pull out more evidence or facts than I do, because I don't debate topics that I'm not passionate enough about to know everything about them. The only person that can do that shit better than me on this board is Jokerman, and 99% of the time we see eye-to-eye on everything.

My problem is not what you believe in. It's how you express it like you hold the truth and everyone else is an idiot. Did it ever occur to you that people have different lifestyles than you? For someone who claims to be sooooo open I find you terribly close minded. (And this being said, I don't give a fuck about who you hang out with, don't give me some personal stories or some Prince stories, I don't give a shit).

If you think I'm simply expressing opinions in my debates, you have not been reading them properly, and if you haven't been reading them properly, then it seems fruitless to discuss them forthwith.

I avoid any post in which you debate cause I don't want you to try to brainwash us with your facts. It's good that you back yourself with facts but that doesn't mean that because you have facts that I have to take it and agree to it.

persuasion, notion, idea, impression. Opinion, sentiment, view are terms for one's conclusion about something. An opinion is a belief or judgment that falls short of absolute conviction, certainty, or positive knowledge; it is a conclusion that certain facts, ideas, etc., are probably true or likely to prove so: political opinions; an opinion about art; In my opinion this is true. Sentiment (usually pl.) refers to a rather fixed conviction, usually based on feeling or emotion rather than reasoning: These are my sentiments. View is an estimate of something, an intellectual judgment, a critical survey based on a mental examination, particularly of a public matter: views on governmental planning.

You're generalizing. I believe in myself. I don't "need" anything else to believe in.



I don't and I have no issue facing death or anything beyond my control. My mother died when I was 4 years old, and not once have I needed any sort of faith or belief in anything to "help me". People live, people die. That's it. It sucks when people die, but everyone else's lives go on.

To believe in something else having any sort of measure of control over your life is doing yourself a disservice as human being and preventing you from being all that you can be. I dislike when actors and musicians win awards and spout some nonsense about being thankful to god, when really they should be thanking the huge team of people that busted their asses in order for that person to be winning that award. The actor that wins an Oscar shouldn't be thanking a non-existent deity, he should be thanking the director, screenwriter, cameramen, producers, editors, other actors, crewmember, runners, etc .The singer that wins a Grammy should be thanking their producer, management and the marketing staff at their record label.




All religions, but more specifically cults and sects prey on the vulnerable. It's why you see Scientologists setting up tents at tragedy scenes.

Prince, for example, was brainwashed into the Jehovah's Witness cult at a time when he had lost his infant son, his mother, and had just been divorced and experienced a disappointing return on an album that he had put a lot of effort into, but was ultimately ruined by misguided interference by Clive Davis and Arista Records. A string of tragedies and misfortune like this would test most people's resolve, even if they are only slightly religious.

On some level, this happens to most people. People become more religious at hard times. It would never happen to me though, because I'm an atheist. The worst of events isn't going to convince me that there is a god, because my reasonings are based on factual evidence, or lack of it.

I am generalizing. Everyone thinks differently about God. I don't believe in God but who am I to tell someone who believe in him to stop? That's called respect of one's beliefs. It's not because you are an exception that you are the absolute truth.

 

[ill-matic]

There are. :blink:

i meant more in terms of senses which humans are not aware of. we see the world and things in a certain way. we are AWARE of seeing the world in a differnet way (e.g. nocturnal creatures etc). Well, these are things which we have OBSERVED using our existing senses. We are made aware of them via our senses - and my point was we are bound by this.. There is a possibility that there is something beyond it.

 

[ARon]

I dont believe in god, I dont think. I dont know if I should or shouldnt either. Ive always wanted evidence like most people, but at the same time Ive always been understanding that there could be evidence that we as humans cant understand. Im quite open to the idea that there could be a higher power, it doesnt even have to be a 'god' in the traditonal sense, could be a force like gravity or something similar for all I know. Im quite open to the idea that us on this planet are pretty much the luckiest things ever and that what we have is what we have and when we die thats that, its humbling. So really im not anti religion or pro religion. Im understanding of the fact that religion and atheism are the same exact thing, a way for people to try to answer what we are. Whether it be by believing in a god or by believing in nothing at all either answer could be correct, so its fact that one answer is just as good as the next. Its kind of weird cus I guess I dont believe in anything but then I dont consider myself an atheist either, whatever. You can define me as Agnostic maybe but even then Im not sure

 

[Casey]

Question for all:

Whatever the first thing in this entire universe was (or is), where did it come from, according to you?

I'm talking about the very first molecule, atom, whatever it is you want to call it, after its been broken down and whatever. WHERE in your book did it come from? God? It was just there? No explanation? Tell me.

"First" is a measure of time. Time was invented by humans. Time does not exist. There isn't a first, or a before, there just IS.

It's like saying "what's beyond the universe"?

Well, the universe, beyond the space where rocks, gases and remnants of the Big Bang have travelled, is NOTHINGNESS.

The very definition of nothing means exactly that - nothing. There cannot be anything beyond that because there is nothing there in the first place. If there were something beyond it then it would not be nothing.

And since time does not exist, there can not be a first thing.

 

[SiGh]

"First" is a measure of time. Time was invented by humans. Time does not exist. There isn't a first, or a before, there just IS.

It's like saying "what's beyond the universe"

How does us dating things work then?
Like the dinosaurs being so many years before us and our ancestors and stuff?

It was there before us, no?
We put a word to it?

 

[Casey]

How does us dating things work then?
Like the dinosaurs being so many years before us and our ancestors and stuff?

It was there before us, no?
We put a word to it?

No, it was not "there before us".

Time is a man made concept. It's all relative.

There are 24 hours in a day because at some point humans decided that there were.

So any reference to time before that like saying that dinosaurs existed xxxx million years ago is all based our understanding of what "time" is.

Time is a flawed concept because it assumes that you can just draw a horizontal line and say well, this is now, and you've got before and after. But based upon our knowledge of science, physics and theory, that's the best we can do right now.

There are likely whole other dimensions to our understanding of "time" that we haven't yet gained enough knowledge to understand. For example this is the horizontal line of what we understand to be time:

------------------------------------------

Where the centre is "now", the left is "past" and the right is "future".

What if you draw a vertical line through the middle of that? What parameters would that vertical line represent? Surely there are many, but we don't yet have a good understanding of them.

And the horizontal line isn't 1-dimensional either. Actually there could be infinite numbers of these:

--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------

happening simultaneously. That is something that some might understand as being the parallel universes theory, in which there are an infinite number of existences happening at the same time.

What if catastrophic natural events cause our existence to merge from one line into another?

All the mysteries of the world will sooner or later be uncovered by science and gaining of knowledge.

However, until religion is eradicated, we are holding ourselves back and are bound to repeat the same errors over and over again. Religion is an abomination.

I mean, which retarded fuckstain decided that, at some point, we'll forget civilisation existed and just begin again at year zero, based upon random writings of lunatics who insist there was a man born in that particular year (when there wasnt) that had magical fucking powers like walking on water and bringing himself back from the freakin' dead? It's retarded as hell.

We currently only have a limited 1-dimensional viewpoint of a concept such as time, because we invented it and that was all it was invented as. Our understanding of "time" means nothing once you are not on this planet, because obviously, different planets take longer to revolve around the sun and on their own axes.

For example, on some planets, a "day" (ie one full revolution of a planet on it's own axis, is longer than a "year" (one full revolution of the planet around the sun). So that right there throws our whole definition of times out of whack. It's hard to comprehend because as I said, time is a man-made, 1-dimensional creation.

 

[SiGh]

Thanks, you're awesome.

 

[Duke]

I consider myself agnostic in principle. I'm never going to fully deny the existence of a God, just because I don't know. But since this is a principal thing for me, I'm just as well never going to deny the existence of unicorns. I don't know about them either.


But in real life, until I see a bit of tangible, logical evidence, I'm not going to assume they are there.


Inexistant until proven real.



On time: It's both a real thing and a invented thing. Time as time is real, doesn't matter how it behaves and everything is influenced by it. But time as in our human timescale is an invention of course.

I don't quite see how it relates to the simple questions Sigh posted, though. It's important to make a clear distinction between time as a science marvel and time for us. Sure, time is relative but in the real world you're still going to meet at 4:30.



"What do you believe was there before the Big Bang etc?"

There is nothing for me to believe. This is a science problem. I'm no physicist or astronomer, I don't know. Results are pending. I'm gonna roll with whatever the science boys and girls come up with.


"How does us dating things work then?
Like the dinosaurs being so many years before us and our ancestors and stuff?"


Carbon dating for example. Set in the convenient timeframe that we made for ourselves. Gives us a timeframe.

 

[Glockmatic]

Forget what happened before the big bang, what was before God? How did God come into existence? Did another God create God? Who created that God? It's an endless question that has no end...

 

[Casey]

Forget what happened before the big bang, what was before Giant Magical Snail? How did Giant Magical Snail come into existence? Did another Giant Magical Snail create Giant Magical Snail? Who created that Giant Magical Snail? It's an endless question that has no end...

That's how I read your post.

 

[S O F I]

The funny/sad thing is, Casey is just as fundamentalist as those people who knock on your door and tell you about Jesus. Think about it.

 

[Casey]

The funny/sad thing is, Casey is just as fundamentalist as those people who knock on your door and tell you about Jesus. Think about it.

Not at all. If I don't believe in anything, how can I be a fundamentalist? There aren't different levels of being an atheist.

Besides, I'm not like this in real life (yet). But the more religious assholes enter my walks of life, the more likely it is that I'm go all Marilyn Manson on all of your asses. I love Marilyn. He pisses off those religious fucks without even doing anything, just from the way he looks. It's dope.

 

[S O F I]

You have a strict adherence to a set of principles. You're fundamentalist. There's nothing cool about that.

 

[Casey]

You have a strict adherence to a set of principles. You're fundamentalist. There's nothing cool about that.

Wrong again. What are my set of principles, then?

I'm the coolest motherfucka on this board without even trying.