Do you believe in God?

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AspieOtaku, I think that you will be glad to hear that none of us believe in a bearded man in the sky. This is exactly what I mean when I say the atheist typically has a childish concept of God. If, for you, God is analogous to a flying spaghetti monster, a flying tea pot, a leprechaun, Santa Claus, a bearded man in the sky, a unicorn, or if you define God as the god of the gaps, then you are actually discussing something different from what we are. God, if it exists, is something beyond the scope of our ability to have full comprehension and God is actually quite alien. You are thinking of God a physical entity within the universe. As I say, God is a theory. Given the raw datum of the experience of Being, it is perfectly reasonable to posit the concept of a Creator as an inference to the best explanation.


With regard to your continual spouting of drivel concerning the nature of science... Your entire spiel is made null by the fact that I, along with the other intelligent theists in this thread, do* accept science and reason. In fact, we use both to increase our confidence or trust (faith) in God. This is the last time I will say this, because, frankly, it is not worth my time to continue to repeat myself in correcting your trolling. Science is a methodology that allows one to investigate phenomenon and tease out descriptions of reality. These descriptions are then used to make predictions and continue the advancement of the descriptions at a deeper level. In other words, even if the entire universe were explained down to the point at which you could describe and predict everything, that would still do nothing to show that God doesn't exist. This is the nature of what the God hypothesis is. God is a meta theory. Just because you can explain what is going on, doesn't mean you can explain how and why. And if you want to say "Well then God isn't clearly defined... so you don't even know what it is... so why do you believe in it?".... then explain to me what Time is... and Energy... and go ahead and tell me what consciousness is. I will just say that you need to continue your education, and maybe one day you will be smart enough to figure out how much you don't know... and just how mysterious the cosmos is... maybe, through a eureka moment of intuition, you will catch a glimpse of the big picture... and maybe along the way you will gain the maturity required to cultivate some wisdom. Currently, you offer among the very weakest objections to the existence of God anyone has posted in this thread. You represent that group of atheists who wallow in ignorance and misunderstanding. I find that ironic, given that the atheist typically accuses the theist of being closed-minded and uneducated. The shoe is entirely on the other foot. The outside sources you have posted from are not respectable in the least. I saw another thread you posted the other day with some total jerk heckling a group of people about their religion. The video was titled something like "atheist owns theists"... I watched it, and all I saw was some guy being a pompous ass to a group of people, because he "knows" he is right... therefore, he had the 'right' to constantly interrupt them and generally talk down to them. This type of behavior is disgusting. You are not the "brights." In fact... s**t like that makes you look rather dim.

I don't have faith in the existence of God.

I can't exactly absolutely refute the existence of God.

It's all a matter of "faith," really. Arguments pertaining to the absolutely existence of deities, versus the absolute nonexistence of deities, don't go very far, usually. They usually end in accusations and in useless battles.

I'm not really hip on my theoretical physics, I must admit.

I do wish, though, that we could actually travel to these black holes and other regions of space beyond the Solar System, so that it can be proven that the laws of physics which applies HERE applies THERE as well.

I don't see any proof for the EXISTENCE , nor the NONEXISTENCE of some "superior force" "creating" the universe or universes, or multiverses, or whatever.

I just go by my faith in my atheism; though I do wish there was some sort of "heaven" waiting for me when I expire.

What you just said is a very reasonable and respectable position to take. This is what it sounds like when an atheist has the wisdom to understand that no one can have certainty and that everything is on balance... sooner or later the scales will tip one way or the other in your thinking and you will think there either probably* is no God.. or there probably* is a God. No one knows for sure.... and anyone who does claim to know with certainty is foolish. We should all strive to keep an open mind, while also maintaining a healthy diet of skepticism. So long as one side is not proclaiming the other to be intellectually deficient or inferior, theists and atheists should be able to get along. I am not one who thinks that everyone must* believe. My project is to show that theism is reasonable in a paradigm when people are becoming increasingly confused by the false dichotomy that is prevalent between science and God... or reason and faith. I believe the cosmos is a strange and mysterious place... and there is certainly more going on than meets the eye. Kant would say God is in the realm of the Noumenon, while all we have access to is the realm of Phenomenon.

Indeed,

We have limited access to phenomena which, frequently, is quite distant to where we, on Earth, stand.

I've studied some astronomy....and have found that conceptions relating to planets before they were actually explored were almost always refuted (or at least modified) once the planet was actually explored (to some degree).

It would be quite the miracle, frankly, if we were able to discover the full nature of any superior force or sentient deity who deigned to create (or created without any forethought) this present-day Universe.

We really need much more input than we have now. We, who are based in Earth, and never ventured beyond the Moon.

I don't believe there is a way to fully refute faith-based beliefs of any sort.

Discussions of this sort should take into account that notion, which I see as being fact.

I'll have to look at the video later.

But what Mr. Watts says about people complementing each other is quite on the mark.

We are not only dependent on ourselves, no matter what.

Shakespeare did not create his plays out of thin air. He had influences, and he adapted others' works.

I hope your personal beliefs give you peace.
Phil:4
"Finally, [b]believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart"