Does God exist

Seriously?

 

The question isn't quite right. Not to parse words, but "exists" is tough. Exists implies active. In my case, something certainly existed that started things going. Even a big bang had energy to start with. So really, and sorry for coping out, but I place God in the "mystery" category. I don't know if he/she exists, ever existed, or what any of this stuff is about. I believe it is reasonable, therefore, to have respect for something unknown and to be stewards of what we have. Assuming there is/has been a God, I feel he/she is good and benevolent. But I don't believe he/she is dialed into me personally. I do believe Christianity lays out a good way of living. I try to avoid questions like, is everything in the New Testament divine? My only concern is to be a nice guy.

 

He/she? What? This needs its own thread. ‘If God exists, is he female?
The plot thickens

 

I know God exists because I have a relationship with him. I think most people who question His existence are really more mad at the religious institutions or they somehow attribute things in the Bible as condoned by God.

The Bible is a story of how broken the human race is and how God redeems us. Never forget that God butted heads with the "religious" more than anyone else.

 

I once met her, sitting in the toilet booth beneath me, she was drunk and asked for a tampon.

 

It's a little like Descartes. "I think, therefore I am". My variation is, I am, therefore there's a God. Sure, we could be result of a ton of highly improbable random electrons bouncing around. Even then, you need to wonder where all those random electrons came from. I think what has distracted folks is we were introduced to God as a guy with a white beard who hangs out in the clouds and has all these angels with wings flying around him. That Michelangelo view of God is highly suspect. On some other post I brought up one of my philosophical foundations. Ocam's Razor. "The simple solution is probably the right solution" (or some other translation). Said another way, of the two options: 1) all of the universe just popped into being one day, and all this cool stuff like atoms, and DNA, and water, and life just randomly came to be due to Darwinian type forces or 2) something unknown had a hand in it. I tend to lean towards the something unknown had something to do with it.

Of course, you could turn that around on me and say, OK, I grant you that some entity that we can call God, starting things off. But where did God come from. Genesis essentially says, God always was and always will be. Well, that's not very satisfying of an explanation. If God can always be, why not the Universe?

That's again why I chalk it more up to a mystery. My little brain will never comprehend something so big.

 

Wow, just what this place needs, another thread on religion.

 

DITTO THAT.
This question guarantees a divided set of answers, why post it?
To the OP...maybe muse on this question quietly yourself, whatever you come up with...keep it to yourself.

Psst...for those that really need to ask others on an online forum about God existing or not..

There is no God.

 

No, not at all. I don't believe in the existence of (a) god, yet I work for a religious institution.

I feel the proposed existence of a god is a bit of a cop out, a nice easy way to explain things we don't understand, rather than putting in the work to understand the universe better (if we ever can).

Religions are at their heart an attempt to make sense of life and to provide a template for living a good life. I don't see anything wrong in that in principle.

 

Good vs Evil.

 

I don't think you can proved God exists. For example, one person holding a bible speaks quotes "prooving" God exists, and another guy with another book is "prooving" the opposite. God reveals himself internally. Yes, sometimes that starts with words from someone else. Sometimes speaking words about you that there is no way they would know with out spritual revelation. Another I've seen is praying for instant healing for someone and standing there seeing them be healed. They're very convinced that God exists! I've seen this with my own eyes, not something on Youtube.
For me I was raised believing, but experiencing so much confirmation has brought more strength to that. One of my earliest memories was at around 6 years old I lost 5 or 6 coins which I was upset about. Looking around everywhere for them. I asked my mom if she knew where they were. It seemed like I was bothering her a bit and she just said, "why don't you pary about it". I thought that was a great idea and I remember standing by my trainset in my playroom and asked God. Then I looked and the coins appeared on the table before me stacked neatly. I was overjoyed. Grabbed my coins and went off to play. So many amazing things in my life that I could never believe that God doesn't exist. I experience His presence every day.

 

Do you exist?

That's a better question, especially if you ask the lower beings such as insects or vermin.

Maybe the insects are wondering whether you exist or not, and have a forum where someone just posted that question, with a limited subset of responses chosen by an insect that wrote a book and does paid interviews or interviews to promote their book "The Human Delusion".

I preferred Christopher Hitchens. Dawkins is such a whiny twat.

My answer; God exists if you want it to. Or not. Either way, just enjoy the experience of being human, go outside, and hug a tree or something.

 

God is a belief and as such is not provable. At most even the Pope will say it is a matter of faith. I am an Atheist even though I was schooled in gifted programs in Catholic schools. I have no problem with people who are religious as all my friends are. I draw the line on people who try to push their BELIEFS on me thinking beliefs are facts when they are not by definition of the word belief. Prayer has been proven by many studies to show the results are no better than random chance. In fact 10-20 million people are leaving the church due to disagreeing with their stand on things like LQBT issues, birth control, abortion, etc.. Most Christians I know are Christians by name only as they simple discard the sins they do not like and seldom attend church.

In history there have been 300 major gods that were thought to be real and for which humans fought and died for. We no longer believe in Zeus and Thor or any of the other 300, 18000 if you count minor gods, and yet despite history showing that gods that were believed enough to die for were not real, people still create gods and still cannot agree on one god was we do have several now. If there were proof of any god it would be world headlines and unite all religions into one and bring peace to the world. However as it is now, people kill other due to their religious beliefs. Go to Iran and try to tell them that their god is false and see what happens to you.

 

Consciousness is a human construct.

Do insects care for human constructs?

I think Dewey was on to something...

 

I don't believe in belief. Why do I need to believe in something ? It exists or it doesn't, what I believe makes no difference surely ?

 

I don't need to define it, you galloped off and answered your own question, so let's go with that.

Do you think insects care about your definition?

Do you care about theirs?

Do 2 dimensional beings, and I don't mean Yanks or muricans or their vassals, or those that visited epsteins island to hang with the kids, care about the interests of 3 dimensional beings? Do 4 dimensional beings care about the definitions of us mere 3d peeps?

 

You really believe that?

 

Believe it or not . . .

 

Do you?