Pick6;644296 wrote:its not the same date every year though..

I know . Thanks O Trap . You give great views .

god is in fact not real. Human life as we know it is way to realistic and non fabricated to believe in such a dumb thing

wkfan;643616 wrote:Yes.

I have seen evidence in Him time and time again. From the look in my children's eyes to the beauty of a sunset to the compassion shown both of my dying parents.

He is real.

I'm not sure if God exists or not and I don't intend to flame but these kinds answers just seem to puzzle me. I'm not sure a laughing baby or a beautiful seascape leads to an inference of the type of intelligence we're normally thinking of when we think of "God" anymore than the fact that millions of children will suffer horribly graphic deaths this month supports a hypothesis to the contrary. And, even if we can infer God from the nature of the universe...all we can reasonably infer is that this intelligence has at least some power. We are a far cry from the omni-God who has personified himself simultaneously as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and manifested himself in the flesh so that he may bear the sins of man.

I don't mean to disparage theism as many people much smarter than I could ever believe our devout believers but for the best place I can get on this issue at this point in time is "I'm not sure."

wkfan;643616 wrote:Yes.

I have seen evidence in Him time and time again. From the look in my children's eyes to the beauty of a sunset to the compassion shown both of my dying parents.

He is real.

lol so gay...HE is dead

I have been an on-and-off believer/agnostic/atheist since I could think independently. I was raised a Catholic, and purely for tradition I don't see myself associating with another religion. I don't think the Catholic Church is perfect or even correct on many things. The Pope has made mistakes, he's not perfect. People are people and ~2,000 years of power-hungry clergy has taken its toll.

That said, I would currently say I believe in God. Jesus? Probably. I'm a "Doubting Thomas" so to speak. Since my name is actually Thomas, I've come to accept it.

Simply put, I don't think it will be possible to prove or disprove whether God exists. My roommate is a firm believer that God did this intentionally. He believes that God is so powerful that he made the earth look billions of years old, when it fact it happened just as the bible said some ~10,000 years ago. I don't necessarily but it, but he's an imaginative fellow so it works for him.

I personally think that science has continued to disprove what religious people have thought about the world, universe, and science as a whole. But it doesn't explain where we come from. It doesn't explain what the big bang is, or what was there beforehand. To me, it sounds similar to "let there be light." Science doesn't explain what the tiniest components of the tiniest electrons of the tiniest atoms are made of, and so on and so forth. You can simply keep breaking everything down and each time scientists say they "know it," there is another level to be researched. It will probably never stop.

O-Trap;643957 wrote:]
That's exactly the problem. Anyone who refuses to accept the existence of a supreme being of the universe based on a lack of evidence must also refuse to accept the existence of inherent value in the universe. As such, one cannot believe in something being inherently good or bad if one does not accept something based on a lack of evidence.

Well, I think a non-theist who refuses to believe because of a lack of evidence might still be able to ground their belief that certain things are good or bad into a foundation supported by evidence. It all depends upon their theory of the "good" it seems to me. For instance, suppose I'm a classical hedonist; all of life can be boiled down to what my senses perceive to be pleasure or pain. Pleasure is good and pain is bad. When I rub my eye my nerve endings send sensations to my brain that register as pleasureful. Since whatever brings me pleasure is good and rubbing my eye brings me pleasure, rubbing my eye is good. Seems to me if I'm some kind of strict empiricist I might be justified in believing this while also rejecting an affirmative belief in theism.

I once dated a woman who must have believed in God very much. Every time we made love, she would keep calling his name

Bigdogg;644525 wrote:I once dated a woman who must have believed in God very much. Every time we made love, she would keep calling his name

Don't quit your day job.

If he exist as some say,He must not be happy with all the abuse that is inflicted from the very people that are supposed to be his servents and supporters and not just catholic priest but minusters,preachers and then you have the scams and theft against innocent people from reverends and other religious quacks.I just don't understand why he would let this happen to people that do believe in him.

Fuck that I would say the majority of the ignorant ass criminals out there always say they belive in god. Hmm....so this god really doesn't let bad things happen to his believers?

password;644740 wrote:If he exist as some say,He must not be happy with all the abuse that is inflicted from the very people that are supposed to be his servents and supporters and not just catholic priest but minusters,preachers and then you have the scams and theft against innocent people from reverends and other religious quacks.I just don't understand why he would let this happen to people that do believe in him.

because god has no control over what people do, only THEIR personal decisions affect them. Quit acting like something has control over everything, you sound like a wacko

DeyDurkie5;644772 wrote:because god has no control over what people do, only THEIR personal decisions affect them. Quit acting like something has control over everything, you sound like a wacko

I really don't think I am the wacko on here and I don't think god is the reason for the good or bad that happens to people.People need to start living life and accept the results of their actions good or bad because they choose to do something.Before you start posting crap about me being a wacko maybe you should try and find one post where I say that I believe god controls me.Their are a lot of people out their that can't make a move during the day without wondering what their religion would think or what they can do for their church because they think that god will take care of them.

PS. If god was real,Would he let JJ charge $12.00 for a membership?

DeyDurkie5;644467 wrote:god is in fact not real. Human life as we know it is way to realistic and non fabricated to believe in such a dumb thing

This seems like a very subjective and arbitrary reason not to believe. I can't blame that for personal conviction, but to suggest that it is grounds to assert something as fact is probably not founded.

BoatShoes;644511 wrote:Well, I think a non-theist who refuses to believe because of a lack of evidence might still be able to ground their belief that certain things are good or bad into a foundation supported by evidence. It all depends upon their theory of the "good" it seems to me. For instance, suppose I'm a classical hedonist; all of life can be boiled down to what my senses perceive to be pleasure or pain. Pleasure is good and pain is bad. When I rub my eye my nerve endings send sensations to my brain that register as pleasureful. Since whatever brings me pleasure is good and rubbing my eye brings me pleasure, rubbing my eye is good. Seems to me if I'm some kind of strict empiricist I might be justified in believing this while also rejecting an affirmative belief in theism.

But again, you're using something subjective to determine value. As such, it is not "inherent," which was the statement I was making.

I can say that all things which remind me of locks are bad, and I would thus be setting the parameters for good and evil myself, and then attributing those values to things in daily life. With this outlook, all one is doing is defining how something is good or bad, and then saying things are good or bad based on that.

Again, it goes back to the toddler with the shot. That brings pain to the toddler, so using the pleasure vs. pain test, the toddler ... again not having a full understanding of the purpose for a shot ... would simply chalk up a shot as being bad. He arbitrarily sets the standard for good and bad, then he applies it to things in life. Doesn't really MAKE them any more good or bad, intrinsically, though.

password;644740 wrote:If he exist as some say,He must not be happy with all the abuse that is inflicted from the very people that are supposed to be his servents and supporters and not just catholic priest but minusters,preachers and then you have the scams and theft against innocent people from reverends and other religious quacks.I just don't understand why he would let this happen to people that do believe in him.

I try to never answer the "why" of what God does and doesn't do/allow with any assurance, but I can spitball some conjecture (just letting you know that's all this is).

If you're comparing the length of time on earth and an eternity following it, what actually happens to us on earth, as wonderful or terrible as it may seem, becomes a speck ... almost completely insignificant.

So, if a God who can comprehend all time recognizes that what happens to us here on earth really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, maybe he can see that it isn't as important, even though it is the world to us. Again, I keep going back to the toddler and the shot. The toddler might perceive the pain of the shot as something that could end his world, and being a toddler, he can't be blamed for that. It's what he can perceive from experience. However, someone with a perception of a bigger picture can allow their child to get a shot because they see the good that can await them later if they undergo that shot.

Again, this is conjecture, but it's feasible.

Murdski99;644748 wrote:Fuck that I would say the majority of the ignorant ass criminals out there always say they belive in god. Hmm....so this god really doesn't let bad things happen to his believers?

He certainly never said that. Hell, most of the prophets in the Old Testament were incredibly depressed, and some asked God to kill them. God's followers have gotten the shit kicked out of them for a long time, and they're never promised otherwise.

But again, in light of an eternity, it wouldn't matter so much.

DeyDurkie5;644772 wrote:because god has no control over what people do, only THEIR personal decisions affect them. Quit acting like something has control over everything, you sound like a wacko

Why? If something has control, that doesn't mean it exercises it at every turn, but why does that mean that it doesn't have control?

password;644840 wrote:. If god was real,Would he let JJ charge $12.00 for a membership?

I think JJHuddle is the result of the fall of man.

O-Trap;644845 wrote:Why? If something has control, that doesn't mean it exercises it at every turn, but why does that mean that it doesn't have control?

If I go out to eat, and get hit by a drunk driver would that make the drunk driver in control of that car or god in control of that drunk driver? I mean I don't get the logic is what I'm saying. Life is real, if I shoot you in the face you are going to die. I mean there is no in betweens when it comes to that, which is why I don't think their are things that we can't see nor have any sort of logical confirmation that control us. It's what we do that affects everyone in this world.

DeyDurkie5;644881 wrote:If I go out to eat, and get hit by a drunk driver would that make the drunk driver in control of that car or god in control of that drunk driver? I mean I don't get the logic is what I'm saying.

If I were to say, I would suggest that the driver had as much control as he was allowed to have. Honestly, I believe most things are done of our own volition, simply because that was how the world was set up, but that the Creator could, in essence, "pull rank" and take control if he so chose.

By and large, however, I would say that life is the way it is because that's just the kind of world we live in right now.

DeyDurkie5;644881 wrote:Life is real, if I shoot you in the face you are going to die. I mean there is no in betweens when it comes to that [...]

If things go the way the world is set up, then yes. That will happen.

DeyDurkie5;644881 wrote:[...] which is why I don't think their are things that we can't see nor have any sort of logical confirmation that control us. It's what we do that affects everyone in this world.

Careful with using the empirical senses synonymously with logic, as logic encompasses something completely different. I would contend that it is more logical to think that something super-physical and not bound by anything WITHIN the universe to create the finite physical universe in which we live. That's up for debate, though.

DeyDurkie5;644496 wrote:lol so gay...HE is dead

LOL....you are such a doosh to think that, because my feeling is different than you that my feeling is 'gay'.

That He is dead is your opinion...an opinion not shared by millions upon millions of people.

I would not have expected anything more from you.

wkfan;645091 wrote:LOL....you are such a doosh to think that, because my feeling is different than you that my feeling is 'gay'.

That He is dead is your opinion...an opinion not shared by millions upon millions of people.

I would not have expected anything more from you.

wk, be careful how you speak to others. You may disagree with what they say, but that same God tells us to speak the truth in love.

Yes I believe

So if everyone followed the Commandments and a great moral code, would there be any violence? Not everyone in the world had good moral standards taught to them, obviously.

"Life is real, if I shoot you in the face you are going to die. I mean there is no in betweens when it comes to that"


There are numerous stories of that happening and the person survives. Most recently The Arizona Congresswomen.
In all cases it's all part of God's ultimate plan, you can choose to believe that or not. Your personal relationship with God/Jesus also determines your level of understanding.

wkfan;643616 wrote:Yes.

I have seen evidence in Him time and time again. From the look in my children's eyes to the beauty of a sunset to the compassion shown both of my dying parents.

He is real.

This is not evidence. This is faith.

[video=youtube;yPDaz6uO9Ps][/video]

WebFire;645102 wrote:This is not evidence. This is faith.

I never said that it was evidence.........

wkfan;645110 wrote:I never said that it was evidence.........

Uh, yeah you did.

wkfan;643616 wrote:Yes.

I have seen evidence in Him time and time again. From the look in my children's eyes to the beauty of a sunset to the compassion shown both of my dying parents.

He is real.

WebFire;645134 wrote:Uh, yeah you did.

I guess my original post should have said "I have seen evidence to me......"