do you believe there is a GOD?

College Life
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<p>Medium Answer </p>

<p>@manayy their are alot of things that are mysterious to me, some of the things in the bible dont make sense/dont seem possible in my opinion. I really wish their was a book that could answer all my questions about everything in general. their are so many things that are unanswered; i feel that the bible doesnt explain everything in enough detail. </p>

<p>I think that majority of the people in the world believe/would like to believe in GOD. its just we all have so many questions that are unanswered.</p>

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<p>nice
The only problem is an arbitrary definition of evil.
I could type a really, really long post, but instead I’ll just say this:
All the time things happen that seem bad or evil, but there’s no way of knowing how they will turn out in the end.
One simple and more or less obvious example. The Second World War seemed like a terrible thing, and it was—don’t get me wrong. But it also ended the Great Depression and gave us the UN.</p>

<p>In short, the riddle of Epicurus cannot really be used to logically disprove theism if one takes into account the possibility that everything happens for a reason.</p>

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<p>I’d consider myself to lean atheist (though in all honesty I simply don’t care about the question - we’ll find out soon enough if this ‘God’ thing is relevant, am I right?) Can a spiritual, cognizant entity called God exist? - well sure, why the hell not</p>

<p>That being said, I’d like to give everyone who mentions the flying spaghetti monster a swift kick to the balls. Mentioning that is about as dumb and juvenile as asking the question “Do we actually live in the Matrix? There’d be no way of knowing, GUFAW GUFAW!”</p>

<p>Anyway, I lean atheist because there are some issues with the generic ‘God’ story in all religions.</p>

<ol>
<li>Free choice - is it an illusion? If you read evolutionary psychology and economics, it pretty much is. You’re actions are determined by your genetics and the synapses in your brain. Sure, assigning blame and responsibility is useful in our society - it controls people. Some people it cannot control - mentally disturbed individuals. But really - can you send someone whose actions were predetermined to hell? Sounds a little unfair. </li>
</ol>

<p>And really, what’s the purpose of punishment? Detterence, yes, and retribution. The concept of hell is an effective deterrent while people are on Earth - but why actually HAVE one then? The mere idea is enough to deter. Then there’s retribution. But isn’t that just to satiate are need for vengeance and payback on Earth? To quell our negative emotions? What need does God have of that? How can an action, spawned in the heat of the moment maybe lasting 5 minutes - can damn a man to an eternity of eternities of milleniums of eternity in hellfire?</p>

<p>Finally - the afterlife ------ it just seems like it doesn’t work. First of all, what if you died while you were a baby? Or born severely mentally ■■■■■■■■? Or died after sever Alzehimers? Are you still that way in heaven? Sounds a little unfair and pretty terrible.</p>

<p>For that matter, how does cognition or thinking work in heaven at all, if you without a brain?</p>

<p>If you are somehow able to exist, outside of a mind - well, that may be possible, and maybe its great, I don’t know.</p>

<p>However, your memories - such as of all your friends, family members, and experiences -are all tied up with your physical brain and its physical structures. Hell, your very concept and idea of who you are - your identity - that you were a man, a woman, or whatever - are all linked to your physical brain, which presumably would be gone in an afterlife.</p>

<p>If you somehow believe that your physical brain (or its capabilities) transfer with you to an afterlife - well, what if you had severe brain damage? Does some ultimate arbiter deterimine what “brain” would be best to give you when you are reborn? And what if you did something like murder someone or cheated on your wife— will you have to live with that for an eternity? Again, what if you died a baby? Do you have an eternity of idiocy?</p>

<p>Things like this give me pause.</p>

<p>Oh, and God seems impossible because of this simple fact.</p>

<p>Every mind is governed by rules - otherwise it would be completely random, by semantics. If it’s not random, it’s guided by principles, or rules - and if its guided by principles or rules, then there is not choice aka its predetermined.</p>

<p>Our minds are governed by nature - God’s mind would be governed by nature - hence he is not God after all.</p>

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<p>alot of people believe in REINCARNATION</p>

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<p>I do believe in God.</p>

<p>But I dont believe that recreating the big bang will get us any closer to him.</p>

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<p>“It… gave us the UN”</p>

<p>… You should have stopped at “ended the Great Depression”.</p>

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<p>manhattan - you should check out the argument from evil. it might have stemmed from epicurus, i don’t know, but it’s an actual philosophical argument about the existence of god. seriously interesting stuff.</p>

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<p>I’m a senior in HS, and two years I ago I converted to the Catholic church at Easter. My family didn’t go to church until I was in elementary school, when we started going to a Unitarian Universalist congregation. It was a very liberal, non-denominational church, in which the majority of those attending were pro-choice and agnostic/atheist (I know the two aren’t the same). </p>

<p>We attended UU for many years, but my Mom found something lacking,and began to drift around. She was definitely on some type of spiritual trip, and eventually settled on the Catholic Church, which both she and my Dad had been raised in but drifted away at one time or another. She brought the family with her.</p>

<p>First of all, let me say that this topic is really interesting to me.Since I really became aware of religion and God I’ve read books about both and read a lot more on the internet, and it is probably the most intellectually stimulating topic I’ve come across. Which, I think, is the key, especially for proving God existence’s in a secular setting. Though you can think of God in so many ways - spiritually, emotionally etc… - you CAN (and should) approach the existence of God intellectually.</p>

<p>I believe in God. This belief is informed by my faith, of course, through two thousand years of Catholic teaching and Biblical writings, and primarily through the Gospels. It is also, though, informed by writers, philosophers, and the great minds of the past 2000 years who have argued intelligently and logically for God’s existence. </p>

<p>St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and countless other philosophers have all come up with serious, complex and logical arguments for God’s existence. (The argument from contingency, the first mover argument for example).</p>

<p>Also, science and religion are NOT mutually exclusive. Though they have come into conflict in the past, that should not be their natural state. As a Catholic I (along with the Church) believe in Darwin’s model of evolution and the Big Bang. Isaac Newton was a devoutly religious and a deep believer in God (though he had issues with doctrine). The man who first postulated the Big Bang theory was a Catholic priest.</p>

<p>I could write more but I’ll wait for some replies. Finally, if you’re at all interested in this subject, PLEASE go to YouTube and search “Father Barron”. He is a Catholic priest who does commentaries on everything from the New Atheism to Bob Dylan songs to The Matrix. He’s one of the the most dynamic, articulate people I’ve ever heard, and he presents an intelligent view of Christianity that is too little seen.</p>

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<p>If I ever became a Christian I’d go to either a Baptist church or one of those megachurches. Singing gospel seems a lot more fun than the Catholic services I’ve been to.</p>

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<p>I’m agnostic. I don’t know if there is a god and I don’t understand everything. There’s so much more proof in science. Religion doesn’t make sense. Who created god? And if he is real then why doesnt he provide proof? Everyone all around the world thinks they’re right. That’s not really possible.</p>

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<p>No idea what’s wrong with the catholic church but 90% of the people I know who went to catholic schools are no longer religious and it seems that the church has tons of problems on it’s own.</p>

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<p>ikillers,</p>

<p>What argument for God’s existence do you find most appealing?</p>

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<p>@ Toward, Yes World War II was bad and yes the end of the great depression was good but I can argue against the “everything happens for a reason” from two different standpoints.
First, do you feel that ending the great depression was worth the price of millions of lives? Wouldn’t the great depression have eventually been resolved without these people dying? Was there sole purpose of being put on earth to die to save people from their debts?</p>

<p>Second, the “whence cometh evil part” doesn’t just deal with the evil of here and now, it goes all the way to the beginning of time. And evil is generally seen as something that causes the unnecessary pain and suffering of another person.</p>

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<p>@NonAntiAnarchist- I think a lot of them are compelling and convincing, and do make a lot of “sense” that some people think is only found in science. The first mover argument I think is good, basically that something had to be the “first mover” of the universe to make it into being, and that first mover is God. The argument from contingency I can understand also, which is a bit complicated, but puts forth the idea that because everything of this Earth is “contingent” as in it does not exist of its own volition, but of something or someone else’s, it then logically follows that there must be some “non-contingent” being that created a “contingent” world.</p>

<p>On a more spiritual level, what might be most compelling is the argument from desire. As humans we are perpetually unsatisfied. We are itching creatures, never truly at peace. (Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord. -St. Augustine) No matter the material possessions we amass, no matter the carnal pleasures we partake in and no matter the loving relationships we gain, we will always have a desire for something more, a sense that our life is unfulfilled. In a way, I think this desire proves God’s existence as well as anything.</p>

<p>I’m getting a lot of this info from Father Barron’s videos on YouTube. I really, strongly suggest you go check them out, they are diverse and insightful.</p>

<p>This one is on belief in God:
[YouTube</a> - Why do we believe in God?](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP2rLgrBtTI&feature=related]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP2rLgrBtTI&feature=related) </p>

<p>In many others he speaks about atheism and the relationship between science and religion and the most common arguments against God’s existence that he comes across on YouTube. (“Against the YouTube Heresies”) He’s helped me a lot in my knowledge of God and the faith.</p>

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<p>The “first mover” or “initial cause” argument is a pet peeve of mine. If you believe that the universe needed an intial cause to come into being and posit that cause as “god”, then where did god come from? What was his creator or cause? If you say god doesn’t need a cause or has always existed, then why can’t you comprehend a universe that also had no first cause or has always existed? You are basically saying that since the universe cannot exist without an initial cause it must have been created by something that exists without an inital cause.</p>

<p>Also, “argument form desire” hold no water either. One, you are assuming every human has this unfulfilled desire, which is arrogant to assume and impossible to know and extraordinarily dubious. I for one do not feel my life is unfulfilled as you describe, which invalidates your claim from the get go. Secondly, even if such a desire were to exist and be demonstrable, it would still in no way prove the existance of god (anymore than it proves the existance of fairies or aliens), it would only show that such a desire exits. You are simply making tremendous logical leaps that are completely unfounded.</p>

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<p>@Punkchique your idea is one that is central in the argument from evil, which essentially comes down to the idea that “if there is evil that can be eliminated without preventing a greater good or bringing about a greater evil, then god does not exist.” so when you ask whether “ending the great depression was worth the price of millions of lives”, you seem to claim that the specific evil you refer to is unjustified, which would lead to the conclusion that god does not exist. however, the crucial question is this: if god did have reasons for allowing the evil that actually exists to occur, would we be able to tell what those reasons were? some people say yes, some people say no.</p>

<p>@CloseToTheEdge i don’t know the “first mover” argument, but the way you describe it, it seems to be similar to the cosmological (or contingency) argument. the rationale behind that argument is that all things are either contingent (exists in at least one, but not all possible worlds) or exist necessarily (exists in all possible worlds). the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) purports to show that all contingent things are caused to exist by something outside the contingent thing (some people try to reject the PSR with quantum indeterminacy). premise - the whole series of contingent things is itself contingent (if a whole is composed of contingent things, it make sense for the whole to be contingent; if a basketball team is composed of 5 different contingent players, then the basketball team is itself contingent). using the PSR once again, we see that there cannot be only the whole series of contingent things (every contingent thing needs a cause, so the whole series - being itself contingent - needs a cause). premise - not everything can be caused to exist by other things. conclusion - there exists at least one necessarily existing being. </p>

<p>i apologize that this is so long and probably very unclear. i’m in a philosophy or religion class currently, and these are some of the interesting arguments we’ve discussed. the cosmological argument has several additional motivating premises, etc., but my description probably isn’t clear as it is, so i figured i would stop now.</p>

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<p>I used to be a strict theist. I went to a catholic middle school and I took it seriously, more seriously than most of those around me, even though I was never actually confirmed. </p>

<p>My junior year of high school I became deist. A year later and I’m now an atheist. My family always asks me how I can’t believe, how I can live with myself thinking that there is no heaven to see my family or whatever. Believing isn’t a choice, and there is just no way I can believe in God. </p>

<p>“But then nature loses its beauty!”</p>

<p>Nah, it is even more beautiful when you think of it as just natural, no reason at all, just happened that way. Amazing really. </p>

<p>But yea, believing in any sort of supernatural omnipotent god figure seems like a complete joke to me now. It seems just like Santa Claus to me now, seriously. It completely dazzles me how people can really believe in the Bible and all of that; I was young so I guess I sort of had an excuse? haha.</p>

<p>It doesn’t really bother me that other people believe that way, it just seems so juvenile to me, almost like a joke.</p>

<p>edit: Oh, another thing that makes it really difficult to believe is when you have good knowledge of all the logical arguments and stuff against it. When the strongest theological arguments can’t ‘prove’ God in any way, or specifically answer the question “Why would an omnibenevolent creator create mankind with the predisposition to sin? Oh, and then create a place that is the embodiment of ‘bad’ and send them there.” it is really difficult to believe. </p>

<p>I can argue for hours with someone schooled decently in theology, but really that single, basic root question cannot be successful rebutted without sacrificing qualities that are essential to this God figure, namely omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience.</p>

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<p>I was raised a roman catholic. I, however, DO NOT believe everything they say at church. I believe that the whole “priest” concept is a bit of a joke. Ok, I understand that he preaches, but him “Blessing” the bread and wine…</p>

<p>I almost think him doing that contradicts the bible in some ways…hes acting as God.</p>

<p>Anyways, I believe there is A God. Why? Because SOMETHING CANNOT come out of NOTHING. The Universe. I believe that he set up the big bang in such a way that it would result in our solar system, and that it would result in earth having the right conditions for earth to develop.</p>

<p>Just think about it. Try and think about what is OUTSIDE of the space-time continuum. Hard to imagine, right? Now try and explain how a Universe formed from absolutely nothing.</p>

<p>Now, also consider that God is not in space time (thats my belief anyhow.) Therefor, time does not apply to him, neither does physical matter like skin. He is litteraly unimagineable. Seeing him would be like taking a two dimensional character and picking him up. He would be seeing the 3D world. He would not be able to explain it to any of his 2D friends.</p>

<p>Also consider how mind-boggling HUGE the universe is. Did you know that there are more stars in the universe than there are GRAINS OF SAND on the earth? Think about that real hard. Each star has some planets around it. THAT IS A LOT OF PLANETS, which means lots of opportunity for life. I have NO DOUBT that there are civilizations out there, some probably being millions upon billions of years old with extremely advanced technology. As to whether we will ever see them, I do not know. </p>

<p>Think about this. To us, an ant is an insignificant creature. Not advanced in any way no technology nothing. Now, to super advanced extra terrestrials, I bet the that the human race ARE THE ANTS. Therefor, they have no reason to contact us.</p>

<p>Life besides us is inevidable and probably very common. Then again, most will probably self destruct. With great power comes great responsibility.</p>

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<p>Neptune, if you accept the premise that something cannot come from nothing, then your argument fails. If something cannot come from nothing, then from what does God come?</p>

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<p>Yeah, I think the cosmological argument has gaping logical holes. Furthermore, even if it were true, it does not necessarily prove the existence of a deity.</p>

<p>Anybody ever heard the tautological argument for “God”? It’s so fallacious, but it sure is an interesting attempt at a proof, to say the least.</p>