Do you believe in God?

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Thanks Edenthiel, that's really interesting - I always figured I couldn't possibly have been the first person to think like that. Always nice to have some new ideas for a rainy day's Googling!

The Scriptures have shown that God is not dependant on our existence and adulation. But one reason to consider is that if God is the highest good and perfection, then the only right thing is to always have our hearts aligned with such a holy being. Anything less is to desire that which is not good and this defying the very nature of a perfect being.

Consider that perhaps a perfect and holy intelligent being may want to have someone to be social with and to share with.

And how can a perfect loving being show His love of there is no one to share it with?

Since God is merciful, He often allows us a lifetime to turn our hearts to Him to spare us from receiving what we deserve for our sins and all the reviling and scorning that we humans do against a Holy God.

Jesus was sent to provide a way for us to be forgiven of all that, to make also a way for is to be cleaned and made holy from the inside out through the Holy Spirit.

There's much more I could expound upon, but I've got to get back to work.

Taking that at face value...
- God created humanity (just for a bit of company apparently; maybe angels are really boring company)
- God gives humanity, or at least allows humanity to acquire, free will (thus the ability to be disobedient)
- God gives humanity some rules to follow (one of which is that we have to love him)
- We get a lifetime to come around to God's rules.
- If we don't do what he says, we have "sinned" and are therefore not loving enough, and so are punished.

You've just agreed with the exact argument that I put forth to begin with.

A perfect being has no deficiencies & thus no need for someone to be social with or to share with to be/feel complete. In fact it can have no needs or wants whatsoever as they indicate something imperfect or missing. To imbue the Christian god with such shortcomings as ours is to extend our very human adaptations to something which does not need them, and thus makes it less than perfect. That is creating God in our image instead of the other way around.

Actually, when God first created Adam and Eve, what was the ONLY rule He gave?

Do you remember?

Since when did having a "want" become a deficiency? Who defines that exactly?

Or sin, whatever, same thing.

An omniscient, omnipotent being would already know and have everything, what could there be to want? To paraphrase William S. Borroughs, If God is control, why does control need to control? It implies that something was out of control, and that would be impossible.

My argument against the a priori / ontological existence of God (that I thought up just now so let me know if it has any obvious formal logic fallacies):

"If God was perfect, why would it need or want to make the Universe? This directly implies that before the Universe was created, God was indeed imperfect. Also, if the existence of the Universe makes God perfect (since before God was lacking the Universe), God is not complete without it and therefore again is not perfect."

I'm agnostic. I don't believe that God is possible in the way that it's described.

To not eat the forbidden fruit.

But that was the rule for Adam and Eve, not part of the dogma applied to the rest of humanity subsequently. I fail to see how that changes the debate in any way.

Just to mention,

If you read either the Christian or Hebrew Genesis, you'll find that God only gave that rule to Adam, before Eve was made.
There is no mention of Adam ever telling Eve of this rule.
Ergo,
Eve was set up & the Fall was actually Adam's fault.

I stand corrected - thankyou.

You get constant references in the media to that

The forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil is symbolised by an apple

You get Apple computers, the Beatles published their records on the Apple record label.

On magazine covers you constantly get someone photographed offering an apple , the custom of giving an apple to teacher is probably symbolic because teachers give knowledge.

All across the media there are constant biblical references, rock songs are all about hell and demons.

I'm an atheist/agnostic.

I don't believe in a God who knows it's a God.

Nor in any gods, spirits, supernatural beings conscious of their status.

Who knows: there might be some Force, unconscious of its own existence, which would be called the Great Impetus--the one which started it all.

Then again, I tend to believe in Infinity....so there is no "start" nor a "finish."

My thoughts on this are simple: we not only dont really know, but we probably CANT know.

We cant even get out of our own stupid little solar system, or even really get off of this ONE damn planet. We cant even fully understand our own bodies. When you think about it, isnt that more than a little pathetic?

Yet because humanity is a big pile of arrogant louts, there's always the assumption that OF COURSE our science and/or logic and/or whatever is almighty. OF COURSE we can instantly, RIGHT FREAKING NOW, know the answers to the "big" questions. Of course! We're just that darn great.

So when it comes to things like this, or anything of this nature, my response is always the same: I havent the foggiest damn clue if such a thing exists. I prefer to simply admit this. All I usually see is just people arguing about it, as if this'll accomplish anything. I'll occaisionally state my thoughts on it if I'm *really* bored (as I am right now), but other than that... I dont really think about it much.

The one thing I *dont* like though is when you get people hopping into conversations where they're not wanted (an atheist hopping into a religious conversation between those who believe, or the other way around) and starting fights or whatever. Cant stand watching that happen. If someone does believe something... who knows, maybe they're right! It's fine to state your own thoughts, but too many times, people cant just leave it at that, and result to insulting or belittling others just because they believe in something (or because they dont). I'm glad to see nobody is doing that in THIS thread. I just popped in here out of sheerest boredom, and I fully expected a raging flamewar, but... that is not happening. The planets must be aligned or something. Or we just have a severe lack of jerks here. Hope it stays that way.

I've forgotten where I was going with this. Or if I was going anywhere at all. I've had WAY too much caffeine.


I think Mark0bot, if I spelled that right, has heard all of this from me before though. Maybe. Or I"m just rambling. I dont even know anymore. REALLY shouldnt have had that much caffeine. Got to stop doing that.


Anyway, just my random thoughts on it, because I can. I'm now off to... to... do whatever the heck it was I was supposed to be doing at this time. Involves some sort of driving.