Is god real?

[ZellDincht]

So following free will, humans control how much evil is in this world. Why need a God? It is a shame that Hitler was not taken out earlier, but eventually he was taken out because the allies were knocking on his front door. God certainly did not stop this, if so this would violate free will.
"You must be the change you want to see in the world."-Ghandi

[Drostie]

I like you. Can I ask what your religious beliefs are (if any?)

You're certainly a very educated fellow/woman.

Sure. My religious beliefs don't have a name, and they are not on any of the conventional maps that you might like to locate them on. I want to keep away from preaching too much, though, because this thread is not really the place for it.

I am a sort of religious atheist. I believe that our lives are oriented around change and that this forms a purpose for our existence: to change for the better. If you like, I see us all on a sort of heroic journey. I see the point of religion as reminding us of things that we already knew; and to that end, I remind myself of what 'better' or 'heroic' means by saying a daily devotional of five commitments. This in turn, helps me when I find myself in a crappy situation: each commitment helps to suggest a whole course of action. I also believe in a principle of balance: that everything comes at a price. Maybe the easiest place to see this is with my niece and nephew, who received a lot of toys for Christmas presents this past year, but who now often become very unhappy when the other one takes their toys to play with them: the price of material happiness is attachment to the material things which make you happy. Similarly, the price of passion is pain, and the price of progress is anxiety -- for progress always requires that your circumstances are changing, and it is only natural and healthy to be anxiously wondering whether you are doing the right thing, whether you are indeed moving forward, and so on. In order to remember the five commitments and the principle of balance, I wear the knot 10_123 on my main hand: it has a 5-fold rotational symmetry and is the exact same as its mirror image, if you turn it inside-out.

I do not believe in a supernatural realm that exists alongside us, which is why I call myself an atheist. It's broader, though, and means "no conventional gods, no ghosts, no telepathy, no chi/qi/life-energy, no talking to the dead", and so on. I do believe in transcendence and enlightenment, but my transcendence does not "live on" in some airy-fairy realm: it lives and breathes in every step that I take. On the other hand, calling me an "atheist" is perhaps a misnomer because I do not a priori rule out the question of a cause of existence as a whole. I'm suspicious of the question, and my commitments bind me to a humility that forbids me from painting a human face on the answer, but I'm not dogmatically convinced that we can't ask "why is there something rather than nothing?"

My religious beliefs have some present limitations which are worth disclosing. I'm still not sure how to think of death, as it seems to be a topic which most people content themselves with not thinking about. As William Saroyan put it five days before his death, "Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?" To put it poignantly, there seems to be a great liberty and yet a great existential angst that both come from the fact that, 5000 years from now nobody will remember your name, or anything you've ever done or planned; your genes as part of an extended family will be just a statistic, and quite possibly everybody will be so content with their new virtual or android bodies that they'll have forgotten that people were ever fleshy in the first place. Even assuming that we don't wipe out ourselves as a species somehow, the future seems even more indifferent to our existence than the present. There is a transcendent joy of knowing that you can't screw up, but it comes at the price of an existential angst that you can't truly succeed.

I'm also not sure how well my beliefs work politically, and what systems they favor or abhor. There are some systems which they cannot accept -- for example, systems which systematically avoid looking at the world honestly, like libertarianism, and systems which are only viable in a utopian dream of the distant future when we all have an army of robot slaves, like Marxism. That's really why I'm playing NationStates at the moment -- to see how a theocracy devoted to my five moral principles would manage in a simulacrum of real political issues.

[Pawn and King]

I like you. Can I ask what your religious beliefs are (if any?)

You're certainly a very educated fellow/woman.

Sure. My religious beliefs don't have a name, and they are not on any of the conventional maps that you might like to locate them on. I want to keep away from preaching too much, though, because this thread is not really the place for it.

I am a sort of religious atheist. I believe that our lives are oriented around change and that this forms a purpose for our existence: to change for the better. If you like, I see us all on a sort of heroic journey. I see the point of religion as reminding us of things that we already knew; and to that end, I remind myself of what 'better' or 'heroic' means by saying a daily devotional of five commitments. This in turn, helps me when I find myself in a crappy situation: each commitment helps to suggest a whole course of action. I also believe in a principle of balance: that everything comes at a price. Maybe the easiest place to see this is with my niece and nephew, who received a lot of toys for Christmas presents this past year, but who now often become very unhappy when the other one takes their toys to play with them: the price of material happiness is attachment to the material things which make you happy. Similarly, the price of passion is pain, and the price of progress is anxiety -- for progress always requires that your circumstances are changing, and it is only natural and healthy to be anxiously wondering whether you are doing the right thing, whether you are indeed moving forward, and so on. In order to remember the five commitments and the principle of balance, I wear the knot 10_123 on my main hand: it has a 5-fold rotational symmetry and is the exact same as its mirror image, if you turn it inside-out.

I do not believe in a supernatural realm that exists alongside us, which is why I call myself an atheist. It's broader, though, and means "no conventional gods, no ghosts, no telepathy, no chi/qi/life-energy, no talking to the dead", and so on. I do believe in transcendence and enlightenment, but my transcendence does not "live on" in some airy-fairy realm: it lives and breathes in every step that I take. On the other hand, calling me an "atheist" is perhaps a misnomer because I do not a priori rule out the question of a cause of existence as a whole. I'm suspicious of the question, and my commitments bind me to a humility that forbids me from painting a human face on the answer, but I'm not dogmatically convinced that we can't ask "why is there something rather than nothing?"

My religious beliefs have some present limitations which are worth disclosing. I'm still not sure how to think of death, as it seems to be a topic which most people content themselves with not thinking about. As William Saroyan put it five days before his death, "Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?" To put it poignantly, there seems to be a great liberty and yet a great existential angst that both come from the fact that, 5000 years from now nobody will remember your name, or anything you've ever done or planned; your genes as part of an extended family will be just a statistic, and quite possibly everybody will be so content with their new virtual or android bodies that they'll have forgotten that people were ever fleshy in the first place. Even assuming that we don't wipe out ourselves as a species somehow, the future seems even more indifferent to our existence than the present. There is a transcendent joy of knowing that you can't screw up, but it comes at the price of an existential angst that you can't truly succeed.

I'm also not sure how well my beliefs work politically, and what systems they favor or abhor. There are some systems which they cannot accept -- for example, systems which systematically avoid looking at the world honestly, like libertarianism, and systems which are only viable in a utopian dream of the distant future when we all have an army of robot slaves, like Marxism. That's really why I'm playing NationStates at the moment -- to see how a theocracy devoted to my five moral principles would manage in a simulacrum of real political issues.

Your idea's seem quite similar to mine. Especially the bit about how impermeanant everything I do is; and ultimately I have been struggling to see the point of living. Why do I go to lectures? Why do I study? Why should I get a job, and do what society expects me to do, when only a handful of people will ever know me: I should do something worth living for, something I enjoy, rather than sitting in my room with my nice view of London studying Russian.

See, I'm an agnostic, in that I don't rule out the existence of God, but I do see it as unlikely. At the same time, though, I have my own God. I'd consider music to be God, if I ever had to define it. Music has this omniscience in how interconnected to every aspect of life it is - this is doubly true for me as I have sound/colour synthaesia. It has the omnipotence over the emotions of humanity, it can destroy ("every time I listen to Wagner I feel like invading Poland" showing this emotive quality of music) or, create, like early polyphony which developed Baroque, Classical and Romanticist styles. It has an omnibenevolence, in that music, as harmonics or melodies, does not cause suffering.

So that's why I like to defend religion/God. Not neccessarily because I believe in the big cheese in the sky, but because I like to defend the validity of my ideas through these theodicies or whatever.

So it's nice to know there's at least someone else out there vaguely similar to the beliefs I have; forgoing a conventional deity for one that makes sense on an individual basis.

[Jedi8246]

I appreciate that others accept a form of creator, even if not the Christian/Jewish/Muslim one.
I may disagree with you on the exactness of your belief, but as I always say, agnostic is better than atheist.

[Big Jim P]

I appreciate that others accept a form of creator, even if not the Christian/Jewish/Muslim one.
I may disagree with you on the exactness of your belief, but as I always say, agnostic is better than atheist.

Apathetic Agnostic is best: Don't know, don't care.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I appreciate that others accept a form of creator, even if not the Christian/Jewish/Muslim one.
I may disagree with you on the exactness of your belief, but as I always say, agnostic is better than atheist.

Why, according to you, one is better than the other?

I think they're neither bad nor good. They're just ways of considering something. The only people who ascribe them the terms of good or bad are those who can't help but label.

[Luna Amore]

Why does being remembered equal happiness? And even if you aren't remembered 5,000 years from now, your actions will affect that future.

[The Alma Mater]

I appreciate that others accept a form of creator, even if not the Christian/Jewish/Muslim one.
I may disagree with you on the exactness of your belief, but as I always say, agnostic is better than atheist.

Agnosts can be atheists or theists. So please explain what you mean

[Farnhamia]

Why does being remembered equal happiness? And even if you aren't remembered 5,000 years from now, your actions will affect that future.

True enough. And it is possible to be remembered, not only by name but by visage, over thousands of years. Witness my old friend, Gudea of Lagash.

[Thracknor]

I Don't believe in him, but neither argument can be proved

[Farnhamia]

I Don't believe in him, but neither argument can be proved

The case against him gets better all the time.

[Grave_n_idle]

First, rubbish - I'm assuming the capitalised G in God means we're discussing the Judeo-Christian Jehovah God character, who does an awful lot of direct (hardening pharaoh's heart, for example) and indirect (the Flood, for example) fucking with people's will.

Second, rubbish - the ability of an allegedly omnipotent god to interfere with free will is not going to make free will redundant - indeed, it would only be evidence of the 'miracle' of intervention. If you like that kind of thing.



Plantinga's theodicy is rubbish (and scripturally suspect).

Applying the sins of the sinner TO the sinner is no more of a confusion of the theology of 'will and consequence', than the idea of sins hidden under the blood of Christ is.



Rubbish. That's exactly what it does.

First, I suppose so.

Secondly, the Old Testament God is supposedly a different one to the New Testament God. Jesus' sacrifice meant God didn't need to dick around with people again; any miracles since 46AD are absolute bullshit, or scientifically explainable; before that, well no valid sources.

Have you read Plantinga's theodicy? It doesn't rely on scripture at all, and isn't really a theodicy, being more a defence. It merely asserts that God can be all omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent and still be logically valid that evil exists. It doesn't rely on scripture at all.

A theodicy doesn't make excuses. It's a logical attempt to explain evil while maintaining Gods attributes. It's literally, a thought experiment with justifying God.

Jesus' sacrifice only meant that God could tolerate the presence of sin, it didn't strip him of his miracle-making properties. There'd be no point in a book of New Testament prophecy if all the rules were natural-order-only, now.

When I say the theodicy is scripturally suspect, I mean it doesn't match with scripture, rather than trying to say something about it being based on it. If you're claiming to talk about the God of the New Testament, but your version is not coherent with the scripture - your argument is a poor reflection of being scripturally Christian .

As for "A theodicy doesn't make excuses.... It's literally, a thought experiment with justifying God." Strikes me as self-contradictory.

[Grave_n_idle]

How does it change free will? That's nonsensical. It doesn't affect 'will', at all - only 'consequence'.

If you're trying to argue that dealing with the consequences of one's actions is somehow an infringement on will, this is going to be an... interesting.. debate. Especially in light of the current main thrust of the thread referring to the Christian theology and afterlife beliefs.

Accordingly to scripture, thought crime is just as valid a crime as committing the crime itself. Thus, on reflection, giving physiological empathy would be pointless if people are still going to think about the crime.

Not at all, because - while thought and crime are equal sins, only one of them harms the 'victim' of the thought - the version where the thought is realised.

A truly benevolent God might punish you for your thought-crimes (although I have trouble reconciling that concept with a benevolent god), but doesn't need you to explore those thought-crimes on someone else as well.

[Grave_n_idle]

I Don't believe in him, but neither argument can be proved

However, only one requires extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.

The two arguments are not equal.

[Caninope]

As I have told you guys definitively before, I am definitely real.

[Grave_n_idle]

As I have told you guys definitively before, I am definitely real.

You certainly seem to believe that.

*nods*

[Farnhamia]

As I have told you guys definitively before, I am definitely real.

For what you are, you are certainly real.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

As I have told you guys definitively before, I am definitely real.

No, you're not. You're a figment of my overactive and horrid imagination.

[Coccygia]

As I have told you guys definitively before, I am definitely real.

No, you're not. You're a figment of my overactive and horrid imagination.

Actually both of you are figments of my imagination, like everybody else. Get real.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

No, you're not. You're a figment of my overactive and horrid imagination.

Actually both of you are figments of my imagination, like everybody else. Get real.

In other words, we need to blame you for the whole God thing. Monster!

[The Alma Mater]

No, you're not. You're a figment of my overactive and horrid imagination.

Actually both of you are figments of my imagination, like everybody else. Get real.

How does one achieve reality, oh mighty Imaginer ?

[OrangeCats]

Jesus' sacrifice only meant that God could tolerate the presence of sin, it didn't strip him of his miracle-making properties. There'd be no point in a book of New Testament prophecy if all the rules were natural-order-only, now.

I hate to nitpick, but it's more like Jesus' sacrifice allowed for the sinful to tolerate being in God's presence.

/nitpick

Carry on.

[Ceannairceach]

I appreciate that others accept a form of creator, even if not the Christian/Jewish/Muslim one.
I may disagree with you on the exactness of your belief, but as I always say, agnostic is better than atheist.

Either way, both, and all non-Christians, go to hell in your fantasy novel holy book.

[Jedi8246]

I appreciate that others accept a form of creator, even if not the Christian/Jewish/Muslim one.
I may disagree with you on the exactness of your belief, but as I always say, agnostic is better than atheist.

Either way, both, and all non-Christians, go to hell in your fantasy novel holy book.

Not true! The self-righteous Christians may say that is what the Bible says, but in fact, the Bible does not say all non-Christians go to hell. That myth came about when it was an excuse used by the Spanish Inquisition to justify their torture of people.
In the Bible, Jesus himself says that you can avoid hell by doing good unto others. You don't have to believe in him. Believing in Jesus is a definite way to stay out of hell, but not the only way.

[Ceannairceach]

Either way, both, and all non-Christians, go to hell in your fantasy novel holy book.

Not true! The self-righteous Christians may say that is what the Bible says, but in fact, the Bible does not say all non-Christians go to hell. That myth came about when it was an excuse used by the Spanish Inquisition to justify their torture of people.
In the Bible, Jesus himself says that you can avoid hell by doing good unto others. You don't have to believe in him. Believing in Jesus is a definite way to stay out of hell, but not the only way.

Commandment one, to my knowledge, states that you must have no god before... Well, God. Therefore, every single non-Christian is breaking the first and, arguably, most important rule of Christianity. Atheists as well. Agnostics might have a shot, if God isn't pissy at the moment. Unlikely, but a shot.