Why do/don't you believe in a higher power? (Any HP)

[Alvecia]

I believe in God because God is a Father who created the world and everything in in, for example:Have you ever wondered how it is that you exist in this world as a man or a woman and why do you exist as such, we're not on this planet by our own will and strengh but because we have been created as such. And as for the concept of Heaven and Hell i hope you know the Gardnen of Eden story about Adam and Eve, Satan tricked Adam(All of humanity since according to Christianity Adam is the ancestor of all of man and woman that live today) into defiyng God's Words and since Adam did not listen to God that seperated Adam from God just like sin in real life obstructs our communication with God, thus creating a large impassable chasm called Hell whereas Heaven is following Jesus Christ's path to Salvation and accepting his sacrifice on the Cross which is atonement for our sins and wrongful deeds.

I hope i made my point clear enough for folks to understand because im really bad at making a point online.

Not really. It just reads like "I believe in god because god exists".
Your example isn't an example, it's just an explaination of Christian theology.

[The New California Republic]

I believe in God because God is a Father who created the world and everything in in, for example:Have you ever wondered how it is that you exist in this world as a man or a woman

There are many intersex people, and there are many species that do not conform to binary gender, which spectacularly contradicts what the Bible says.

we're not on this planet by our own will and strengh but because we have been created as such.

Formed by evolution over eons.

And as for the concept of Heaven and Hell i hope you know the Gardnen of Eden story about Adam and Eve

There is considerable scientific evidence related to evolution to debunk the Adam and Eve story. The genetic similarities between primates and humans has been firmly established by the Human Genome Project, indicating that an evolutionary relationship exists between primates and humans.

[Salandriagado]

So all of you who refuse to believe in God, because of lack of evidence, where do you stand on aliens?

I believe aliens exist.

I am one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(law)

No you aren't. You're a sheep. You can't fool me!

I believe in God because God is a Father who created the world and everything in in, for example:Have you ever wondered how it is that you exist in this world as a man or a woman and why do you exist as such,

I'm not convinced that I do. The answer, in as much as "why" is even a reasonable question, is "because sexual reproduction is a massive evolutionary advantage": it allows for much higher DNA mixing rates, and therefore much faster evolution (in terms of numbers of generations).

we're not on this planet by our own will and strengh but because we have been created as such.

Nope. We're here because of some fancy physics/chemistry/biology.

And as for the concept of Heaven and Hell i hope you know the Gardnen of Eden story about Adam and Eve, Satan tricked Adam(All of humanity since according to Christianity Adam is the ancestor of all of man and woman that live today)

This absolutely did not happen.

into defiyng God's Words and since Adam did not listen to God that seperated Adam from God

God did a fucking awful job of making humanity, then, didn't he?

just like sin in real life obstructs our communication with God, thus creating a large impassable chasm called Hell whereas Heaven is following Jesus Christ's path to Salvation and accepting his sacrifice on the Cross which is atonement for our sins and wrongful deeds.

This says literally nothing.

[Erbilstan]

I don't believe in a god because religion has been forced down on our throats during the Age of Exploration. So... there.

[The World Capitalist Confederation]

I believe in God because God is a Father who created the world and everything in in, for example:Have you ever wondered how it is that you exist in this world as a man or a woman and why do you exist as such, we're not on this planet by our own will and strengh but because we have been created as such. And as for the concept of Heaven and Hell i hope you know the Gardnen of Eden story about Adam and Eve, Satan tricked Adam(All of humanity since according to Christianity Adam is the ancestor of all of man and woman that live today) into defiyng God's Words and since Adam did not listen to God that seperated Adam from God just like sin in real life obstructs our communication with God, thus creating a large impassable chasm called Hell whereas Heaven is following Jesus Christ's path to Salvation and accepting his sacrifice on the Cross which is atonement for our sins and wrongful deeds.

I hope i made my point clear enough for folks to understand because im really bad at making a point online.

So, to clarify, you believe a magic man in the sky created 2 people who violated his own rules whilst being forged in his own image? If anything, that's an indictment of God as a hypocrite and generally as an evil man. Also, the fact there were only 2 people at the beginning means there was a whole lot of incest, which is prohibited in the Bible. Why do you think he, of all people, did it? Why couldn't it be a teapot or a Flying Spaghetti Monster?

[Nazis in Space]

I do believe in God.

I believe in Yahweh. I believe in Marduk and Enki. I believe in Ra and Osiris, in Huitzilopochtli, Thor and Odin. I believe in Shiva and Zeus. And I believe in many more.

What I want to know is why there are people who believe only in some, sometimes even in just one of the many Gods that Man has worshipped over the ages.

Not worship - if you prefer one or several Gods over the rest, that's perfectly fine and fair. We all have favourites.

But to only believe in one amongst the myriad in existence? To deny the existence of every other God?

That, I cannot understand.

[The New California Republic]

I do believe in God.

I believe in Yahweh. I believe in Marduk and Enki. I believe in Ra and Osiris, in Huitzilopochtli, Thor and Odin. I believe in Shiva and Zeus. And I believe in many more.

What I want to know is why there are people who believe only in some, sometimes even in just one of the many Gods that Man has worshipped over the ages.

Not worship - if you prefer one or several Gods over the rest, that's perfectly fine and fair. We all have favourites.

But to only believe in one amongst the myriad in existence? To deny the existence of every other God?

That, I cannot understand.

There might be a problem with that, since Yahweh is a jealous God...

[The Blaatschapen]

I do believe in God.

I believe in Yahweh. I believe in Marduk and Enki. I believe in Ra and Osiris, in Huitzilopochtli, Thor and Odin. I believe in Shiva and Zeus. And I believe in many more.

What I want to know is why there are people who believe only in some, sometimes even in just one of the many Gods that Man has worshipped over the ages.

Not worship - if you prefer one or several Gods over the rest, that's perfectly fine and fair. We all have favourites.

But to only believe in one amongst the myriad in existence? To deny the existence of every other God?

That, I cannot understand.

So who is your favourite?

Beckenbauer?

[Olthar]

I do believe in God.

I believe in Yahweh. I believe in Marduk and Enki. I believe in Ra and Osiris, in Huitzilopochtli, Thor and Odin. I believe in Shiva and Zeus. And I believe in many more.

What I want to know is why there are people who believe only in some, sometimes even in just one of the many Gods that Man has worshipped over the ages.

Not worship - if you prefer one or several Gods over the rest, that's perfectly fine and fair. We all have favourites.

But to only believe in one amongst the myriad in existence? To deny the existence of every other God?

That, I cannot understand.

There might be a problem with that, since Yahweh is a jealous God...

That's why you send him a Christmas card but don't invite him to the party.

[Dogmeat]

I do believe in God.

I believe in Yahweh. I believe in Marduk and Enki. I believe in Ra and Osiris, in Huitzilopochtli, Thor and Odin. I believe in Shiva and Zeus. And I believe in many more.

What I want to know is why there are people who believe only in some, sometimes even in just one of the many Gods that Man has worshipped over the ages.

Not worship - if you prefer one or several Gods over the rest, that's perfectly fine and fair. We all have favourites.

But to only believe in one amongst the myriad in existence? To deny the existence of every other God?

That, I cannot understand.

There might be a problem with that, since Yahweh is a jealous God...

Like most Gods, he chilled out quite a bit after getting laid.

We really need to set up a dating service for angry deities.

[Adad Civilization]

There might be a problem with that, since Yahweh is a jealous God...

Like most Gods, he chilled out quite a bit after getting laid.

We really need to set up a dating service for angry deities.

Jesus was the son of the angel John Cena.

She's still a virgin because nobody saw him

[Australian rePublic]

Actully, God is genderless. Refering to God with male pronouns is because of a bad mistranslation

Actually, God *looks* like man. He made Adam in his image, and made Eve as a companion to Adam. Thus we can infer that God at least looks masculine, and we can judge that he is.

"Imagine and likeness of God means that our soul posses the same qualities, namely: freedom, wisdom, imoratality (pf the soul, NOT the body) and other things like that. It does NOT mean that we phyisically look like God

[Australian rePublic]

It seems like your whole problem with God is that kids get cancer. This is a very, very common argument against the faithand it really doesn't hold any kind of logical water if you think about it.

God created the universe apart from Himself. That means He gave up some level of His complete control in doing so. Cancer is just a thing that occurs in this Universe, which follows Newton's laws. It isn't like God created the whole fucking universe to just make cancer, haha. He created it so that we could exist within it, and then choose Him.

You had a lot more to say, but the only issue with the faith I could really distinguish was this, so, I'm glad to try and offer a refutation to any other theological claims you'd like to make against the Church.

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it a million more, there's no argument against the Catholic faith which can't be refuted.

Agreed. Disease=/=God does not exist

[Australian rePublic]

Here are my reasons for Belief in God (Ironically my nation is Atheist) :

-The bible is too unique to have been made up, although it can be interpreted to be aligned with scientific fact. For example, the bible says that the world was created in 6 days and on the 7th day God rested. Our vision of a 24 hour day could be a lot different than those who actually wrote those accounts. Those "days" could be a multiple millenniums.

-There is tons of archaeological proof of a prophet who came to save sinners

-It is not possible for the universe to spontaneously explode through the "Big Bang" without something triggering it

The bible is hardly unique. Many fo the stories are based on legends that have long since existed (look at Noahs flood). Second your saying the day was different so it could mean millenia is simply interpretation, it is not what the bible actually says, and so it cannot be said to be scientifically accurate.

There really isn't

Show that something is a god, show that it could not have happened spontaneously.

Point Number 2: Nope. The Bible, in the original Hebrew, uses the word "Yom". "Yom" can apparently mean any number of things , a physical day "24 hours" (the most common translation), an unspecified amount of time, an unspecified consistant length of time, millenia, or anything else, really

[Nazis in Space]

So who is your favourite?

Beckenbauer?

I don't think that senility is a sign of divinity.

[Jolthig]

The bible is hardly unique. Many fo the stories are based on legends that have long since existed (look at Noahs flood). Second your saying the day was different so it could mean millenia is simply interpretation, it is not what the bible actually says, and so it cannot be said to be scientifically accurate.

There really isn't

Show that something is a god, show that it could not have happened spontaneously.

Point Number 2: Nope. The Bible, in the original Hebrew, uses the word "Yom". "Yom" can apparently mean any number of things , a physical day "24 hours" (the most common translation), an unspecified amount of time, an unspecified consistant length of time, millenia, or anything else, really

That is interesting because Arabic has a similar word called "Yaum" which is also used in its creation references, and it basically has the same meanings as Yom

[Australian rePublic]

Here are my reasons for Belief in God (Ironically my nation is Atheist) :

-The bible is too unique to have been made up, although it can be interpreted to be aligned with scientific fact. For example, the bible says that the world was created in 6 days and on the 7th day God rested. Our vision of a 24 hour day could be a lot different than those who actually wrote those accounts. Those "days" could be a multiple millenniums.

-There is tons of archaeological proof of a prophet who came to save sinners

-It is not possible for the universe to spontaneously explode through the "Big Bang" without something triggering it

The big bang was not an explosion. Try not to place too much stock in the semantics of the event.

Then let's use the same arguments that most atheists have used here against God. If it's not an explosion, why is it called "Big Bang"

[Page]

You had a lot more to say, but the only issue with the faith I could really distinguish was this, so, I'm glad to try and offer a refutation to any other theological claims you'd like to make against the Church.

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it a million more, there's no argument against the Catholic faith which can't be refuted.

Where in the Bible are sins categorized as venial or mortal, and what is the scriptural basis for Purgatory?

Figured I'd give you a difficult one, I'm an ex-Catholic so I already know all the apologetics for more common questions like the problem of evil.

[The World Capitalist Confederation]

It seems like your whole problem with God is that kids get cancer. This is a very, very common argument against the faithand it really doesn't hold any kind of logical water if you think about it.

God created the universe apart from Himself. That means He gave up some level of His complete control in doing so. Cancer is just a thing that occurs in this Universe, which follows Newton's laws. It isn't like God created the whole fucking universe to just make cancer, haha. He created it so that we could exist within it, and then choose Him.

You had a lot more to say, but the only issue with the faith I could really distinguish was this, so, I'm glad to try and offer a refutation to any other theological claims you'd like to make against the Church.

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it a million more, there's no argument against the Catholic faith which can't be refuted.

Agreed. Disease=/=God does not exist

Or does it? You must either reject the fact he is omnibenevolent, making him still exist but not acceptable to worship (unless you're a coward, that is), or reject his entire existence altogether. An omnipotent being will still have complete control of the universe, due to the nature of omnipotence. Furthermore, if such a being were to exist, why can we not measure it? This makes it either infinitely weak (and therefore not omnipotent), magic (which is an impossibility) or not exist.

[Jolthig]

Agreed. Disease=/=God does not exist

Or does it? You must either reject the fact he is omnibenevolent, making him still exist but not acceptable to worship (unless you're a coward, that is), or reject his entire existence altogether. An omnipotent being will still have complete control of the universe, due to the nature of omnipotence. Furthermore, if such a being were to exist, why can we not measure it? This makes it either infinitely weak (and therefore not omnipotent), magic (which is an impossibility) or not exist.

(Not a Catholic or Christian; Ahmadi Muslim)

Because if you measured God, he wouldn't be infinite nor omnipotent. He would resemble more of a pagan god.

[Dogmeat]

The bible is hardly unique. Many fo the stories are based on legends that have long since existed (look at Noahs flood). Second your saying the day was different so it could mean millenia is simply interpretation, it is not what the bible actually says, and so it cannot be said to be scientifically accurate.

There really isn't

Show that something is a god, show that it could not have happened spontaneously.

Point Number 2: Nope. The Bible, in the original Hebrew, uses the word "Yom". "Yom" can apparently mean any number of things , a physical day "24 hours" (the most common translation), an unspecified amount of time, an unspecified consistant length of time, millenia, or anything else, really

This is kind of silly, since Genesis even defines what it means by day: "And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." So we're clearly talking about actual days.

But even if it were true that these are epochs or something, the story still gets the order of everything wrong. With God creating the Earth and plantlife before the sun and stars. So it doesn't matter how long the days are, the story is still clearly wrong.

Then let's use the same arguments that most atheists have used here against God. If it's not an explosion, why is it called "Big Bang"

Fred Hoyle came up with the name as an insult. It's not something scientists are committed to, it just sort of stuck.

[New Legland]

• First, if you look at our universe, it's hard for me not to think that is the result of a Creator. There are so many variables that could've been changed by the most minute of fractions and the universe and as a product would not exist.

If you look at the universe, it's incredibly chaotic. Only the smallest of an infinitesimal portion of the universe is remotely habitable for humans. Hell, the majority of Earth isn't even habitable for humans. As for the chances of our universe coming into existence, it had to happen. If it didn't happen, we wouldn't be talking about it right now. For all we know the same process that created our universe may have occurred trillions of times over until it resulted in one that was habitable enough for life.

Second, I like Pascal's Wager as an argument. If I believe in a god, and one does exist, it is a positive outcome. If I believe in a god, or if a do not believe in one, and no god exists, nothing happens and I won't live to tell the tale -- thus, a wash. If I don't believe in a god, and one does exist, then it is an infinitely negative outcome. Plus, it's not like religion is hurting my life in any way.

Pascal's Wager is incredibly fallacious in that it only assumes there to be one god to believe in. This is one of the most untrue untruths I've ever heard. In believing in Yahweh, you could be angering thousands of other gods, then where do you stand? Not to mention the fact that this argument implies that God doesn't care about the sincerity of your beliefs and also implies that you change beliefs at the flip of a switch. I don't know about you, but if someone told me to believe that unicorns existed, I would a hard time doing so.

Third and finally, without a higher creator, morals are subjective and human rights cannot be justified. I know many atheists who have morals, but those stem from a Judeo-Christian society.

And? Just because the universe doesn't have objective morals doesn't mean we can't impose our own essentially objective morals. In fact, basic "objective" morals concerning things like harm most likely formed because groups of organisms where individuals didn't hurt each other were more likely to survive and reproduce. Things like manners and other morals that vary across the world are just due to ignorance or personal preference.

[Segral]

Then let's use the same arguments that most atheists have used here against God. If it's not an explosion, why is it called "Big Bang"

Fred Hoyle came up with the name as an insult. It's not something scientists are committed to, it just sort of stuck.

Yeah, Big Bang is mostly just a name we cobbled together. It stuck because it was catchy, and became a public fixture, so no one ever bothered to change. Although not really sure how that's related to God...

For me, personally, I believe in God (or Gods, in case of my religion) because I think there is something above us that influences us. Yes, I believe that much of what we do is based on our own actions, but I think there is a higher power who is subtlely shaping the world. However, while I am spiritual, I am not religious. If we're God's children, I don't see why a father would make someone starve themselves through fast for good luck, and other things along that thread.

[Australian rePublic]

All I read in this thread is "cancer, cancer, cancer". Let me tell you a story. I almost died when I was 5 years old (not from cancer, but death is death). I don't even know how I survived this long. In addition to that, and seperate to that, I have a genetic disease called Thallasemia Minor, I have aspberger's syndrome. All of these don't mean that God isn't real. All of these don't mean that God is evil. Just because you don't understand why God does something, it doesn't mean that God is evil. I learnt that the hard way. (And no, before you strawman me, I am NOT saying that cancer is good. We should try to fight cancer as hard as possible, as we are doing, which is an excellent thing). Atheists keep talking about how morality is subjective, and indeed, 200 years ago, it was perfectly considered perfectly acceptable to think that one race was superior to other races, yet we changed our perspective of that, why? (Well, in all honesty, because Hitler took that concept way too far, causing the rest of us to see how idiotic it was.) Up until 200 years ago, slavery was perfectly acceptable, but then we abandoned it, why, I don't know. Now as for cancer, cancer is an evil and horrible thing, I rhink so, you think so and God thinks so. So why does God allow such a horrid thing to exist? I don't know. What I do know however, is that we humans cannot agree on what is good and evil, because we don't have access to the bigger picture, God who has access to the bigger picture, is capable of knowing how to run the universe, and has remained fairly consistant with His morality. Why does God allow cancer? Does He enjoy watch people suffer? No, of coarse not, in fact, it's the opposite, God suffers with them. So why does He allow cancer? I don't know. All I know ia that God is more knowlegable than me. Trying to argue that God is evil for the simple reason that you don't understand His will, is like trying to argue that your mechanic is evil because you don't understand why He changed the motor oil. Trying to argue that God is evil because you don't understand His will, is like trying to argue that your hotel receptionist is evil, because you don't understand why she's charging you for room service, etc.

[Jolthig]

All I read in this thread is "cancer, cancer, cancer". Let me tell you a story. I almost died when I was 5 years old (not from cancer, but death is death). I don't even know how I survived this long. In addition to that, and seperate to that, I have a genetic disease called Thallasemia Minor, I have aspberger's syndrome. All of these don't mean that God isn't real. All of these don't mean that God is evil. Just because you don't understand why God does something, it doesn't mean that God is evil. I learnt that the hard way. (And no, before you strawman me, I am NOT saying that cancer is good. We should try to fight cancer as hard as possible, as we are doing, which is an excellent thing). Atheists keep talking about how morality is subjective, and indeed, 200 years ago, it was perfectly considered perfectly acceptable to think that one race was superior to other races, yet we changed our perspective of that, why? (Well, in all honesty, because Hitler took that concept way too far, causing the rest of us to see how idiotic it was.) Up until 200 years ago, slavery was perfectly acceptable, but then we abandoned it, why, I don't know. Now as for cancer, cancer is an evil and horrible thing, I rhink so, you think so and God thinks so. So why does God allow such a horrid thing to exist? I don't know. What I do know however, is that we humans cannot agree on what is good and evil, because we don't have access to the bigger picture, God who has access to the bigger picture, is capable of knowing how to run the universe, and has remained fairly consistant with His morality. Why does God allow cancer? Does He enjoy watch people suffer? No, of coarse not, in fact, it's the opposite, God suffers with them. So why does He allow cancer? I don't know. All I know ia that God is more knowlegable than me. Trying to argue that God is evil for the simple reason that you don't understand His will, is like trying to argue that your mechanic is evil because you don't understand why He changed the motor oil. Trying to argue that God is evil because you don't understand His will, is like trying to argue that your hotel receptionist is evil, because you don't understand why she's charging you for room service, etc.

Some do people have hostile views. That's how a public forum works. We just gotta deal with it, and go after their arguments.