I'm an atheist. I guess I can't get a grip on anything strong enough to hold on-especially a religion. But I believed in god once, and honestly I'm doing a hell of alot better without him.
And I gotta go with what feels right, and I right now I feel pretty right.

People question God because there is evil in the world, wrong reason to question him if you ask me.

But as far as the faithful go: Your God Doesn't Allow Evils To Exist, That's What Your Satan's For.

Something else you might ponder...Since I do not believe in god, there has to be a reason for these bloody evils: Free Will.

...I think that if there was a god, he would have to communicate with us somehow, he couldn' just speak directly to us, he would have to find an ulterior medium-And Pain Is That Medium. Pain tells me when to get f*cked up, pain tells me when somethings wrong. It's My Fault I Don't Listen.
Good thing we've got Pain eh? Maybe, I shoulda stuck with god...
Pain's my teacher, and I treat him just like I did all my other ones...
Oh well, I've been through enough to know that I can't keep f*cking up in one way forever. I'll Move On, sorry for being so morbid-
It Was My Sisters Birthday,
I hope she's in Your Heaven.

I hear alot of, why do people die? Why must god make us sad? If you have faith then you have run across a common anomaly. If god is compassionate, then why must we die?
And if this is compassion, then why is he compassionate?
I think that your god isn't compassionate and as a creator he would be better without it anyway.

Animals, you must always remember that humans are still animals. And we kill other animals, and we live in a non-partisan world. If he favored us, there would be no Aids, no death, and with that no Life. Death makes life, without it you would not be entertained by life-you would be without personality, cold and condascending as a Tolkien Elf.

Suffice it to say: If You Do Not Die, You Do Not Live.

A god would be oriented to the future of the species, and then most importantly the future of ALL species. To say that it is uncompassionate to let ONE person die because it hurts YOU is the very nature of the ailment inflicting every human, egocentricity.

In the scheme of things a god would HAVE TO hold This Truth Evident:

You Are Unimportant To His Plan As A Whole

It is the same reason Generals are able to endure the responsibility and duress of sending men to their deaths-they deface the value of their men and are then able to cope.

If He Sends That Toy Soldier Across The Map And It Gets Beaten Back, He Has No Need For That Toy Soldier...granted that this is only a weak remedy, and the weight of their responsibilites always catches them.

Another explanation for a "God" thinking this is that he has seen the death of billions of individuals and a "God" would go on to see the death of our race, and then only have to nourish the cockroaches. People are = to cockroaches.

The definitions of a god must be reshaped in order for the existence of one to be logical:

1. God Is Neither Your Friend Or Enemy, God Is Your Creator-Nothing More But Never Less.

2.God Does Not Care In The Long Run, He May Be Affected-But He Will Always Look Out For The Future, Ignore The Past, And Prepare To Ignore The Present.

3. God Is Not A Humanoid. He Probably Rules Other Planets And Other Races, Making Him Even More Busy Than Would Be Logical for one person much less a humanoid to deal with. In Fact A Polytheistic Religion Might Make More Sense In Terms Labor Division, And: Why Should There Be ONE of any being?

4. God Was Probably Created By Another Divinity If You Do Think He Exists.

5. He Does Not Have A Plan.

6. He Still Has No Reason To Exist.
(The last two are derivative of my own oppinions, but still likely)

I look back and see that this was intended to be aiding, but could be taken as very cold and to calculative by a theologian. I'm sorry if I have transgressed in too far, I merely got thinking and so I put it down. Thoughts are really all you have sometimes, so I might as wel get a stockpile of yours going: What About God?

Sorry, but I really cannot answer those questions. I look at history. I look at the pain caused over religion. I remain agnostic, and optimistic that there is a religion out there for me that I have not found yet.

error, sorry-delete.

I really didn't ask any questions other than: What Do You Think About God? And even an agnostic can Think about god.

I remained agnostic for the longest time...I wanted to believe in a god. God was for me what he was for every kid, a bedtime prayer to a benevolent ruler. It was always accepted that he was there, just never thought about. I would pray for my wishes, then worry I was being to demanding and pray that he was doing fine-I remember I prayed my dad would come home alot. And I always wondered: if Jesus was the son of God-then who was God's Father?

I just couldn't keep believing though, as I grew older I grew more pragmatic and less sicophantic. I began to explore science with curiosity, and it did not take long for the very idea of A god to seem obseletrious.
I wanted to believe, but I never had much of anything in the way of faith.
Never was strong enough to give trust in something there was no technicalities to. That's just Me though.

Religion is pain, true. From the crusades to the Jihad, many men have died for their noble causes. During the Spanish Inquisition thousands of tortures and murders were commited in the Name Of God.
But I think you forget religion's Purpose:

Religion was invented to Soothe Men's Pain. It was there at first to provide us with explanations, and then we became attached to these deities. Mankind found solace in the promise of an after-life, spent in paradise with a perfect ruler. Whenever a soldier goes off to war, he goes with god's song in his heart-no matter whether or not the man he is shooting at sings the same song. Religion is what gives Humans the will to live in some cases, or an acceptance of death in others. Religion did not cause pain, Men caused pain. Religions just what we blamed it on.

Men did caused pain but if the world didn't exist without religion many people wouldn't care about anyone's life. We could say if no one had a religion the world would be a better place but that’s not entirely true. There are people out there that have no disregard for another person’s life. He wouldn't care if another man killed him as long as he could be happy when he is dead.

Double Negative, do you mean 'regard' for?

"didn't exist without" is a double negative and doesn't make sense.

I can't understand your writing through the grammatical errors, I tried to interpret your point, but I am incapable.

What Taizon wrote makes sense, he's talking about the value of religion as a deterrent for the immoral, which is a viable argument for the value of religion, at least from a utilitarian point of view, which is where most moral atheists and agnostics stand (i would understand if you objected to the concept of a moral atheist).
On reading this, i realised that many of your thoughts are nothing more than 'what ifs', although some of these what ifs are important arguments against the existence of god, for instance your point number 3;


3. God Probably Rules Other Planets And Other Races

regardless of the demands on his time (as the key point in your early argument is that God doesn't do anything anyway, and i'd quite like to keep that argument intact for the moment), this idea undermines the concept of God somewhat. However, if God can 'watch over' all life on earth, from amoeba to trees and humans, then he can surely do so for all other life. Such is the common philosophical view on the subject.

I suspect that whether God is humanoid or not is probably a moot point.

1. God Is Neither Your Friend Or Enemy, God Is Your Creator-Nothing More But Never Less.

this is an interesting point, and one that is quite hard to adequately defend against. Since God actually takes no noticable role in events, this is not really disprovable without resorting to dogma. and i wouldn't want to do that.

2.God Does Not Care In The Long Run, He May Be Affected-But He Will Always Look Out For The Future, Ignore The Past, And Prepare To Ignore The Present.

actually, the modern philosophical viewpoint (of course they're still bickering about it, but...) is that God takes a role 'outside' of time, and merely looks on. This DOES NOT advocate fatalism or determinism in any way, its just another theory of time.

4. God Was Probably Created By Another Divinity If You Do Think He Exists.

The we have merely assigned the name of 'God' to the wrong object. There would still be a god, just not the one we thought was God.


5. He Does Not Have A Plan.

6. He Still Has No Reason To Exist.

the first of these two in no way entails the second. Objects can exist without a plan. I exist without a plan. I have a vague conception of what im going to do when i finish this post (get lunch), but sometimes (eg: when i've just woken up) i have no plan whatsoever. I don't even have a long-term plan, i've no idea what im gonna do with my life.

Incidentally, there is a point of view that suggests that God does nothing but 'watch' (from an eternal viewpoint) the affairs of mankind. His lack of intervention is for a simple reason, because all of the disease, war, famine and pain that results is irrelevant when we die and go to heaven. Im not a subscriber to this view, or indeed to any Christian view, but tihs particular viewpoint is left unscathed by your criticism.

To finish this overlong post, heres a common philosophical proof against the existence of God;


1) God is an all-powerful being
2) There is nothing an all powerful being (a.p.b)cannot do
3) There is no stone too heavy for an a.p.b to lift
4) an a.p.b cannot create a stone too heavy for him to lift

therefore;

5) There is no such thing as an a.p.b
6)There is no God

this is not watertight, but it is still interesting.

I enjoyed writing this. I have some sympathy with your point of view, but im not sure i would go along with your arguments.

Thanks for reading.

ok so my thoughts on god...

Big guy up there in a white robe. whose supposidly the one that created life or some sh*t and then like..created allt he religious stuff..

actually. i never think of god. its just some other believe other ppl have on him...

I'm not sure if I should try arguing or not. Maybe that's just the wrong word to use. Debate? But I plan not to.

My thoughts? God exists. And I'm not just saying that because I was raised as a Christian. True that may be a part of it, but it's this feeling that I want to hold on to for various reasons.

God is also annoyingly quiet. For all I know, he's probably trying to speak to me in the same way that Satan and his angels do, with a silent whisper that your mind hears but your ears don't. But don't get me wrong, we have free will. We choose which voice to listen to, which voices sound better, or which voices sound right. Still, I wouldn't mind being able to hear God in an audible fashion.

In the meantime, it seems that God is there for me, as well as everyone else. Bad things seem to happen from time to time. Some cases it's a person's fault, some cases it's simply bad timing. Either way, to me at least, things seem to work out for the better. There's that whole "silver lining" deal going on. Whether that lining is a big wake-up call, or getting closer to people, or whatever.

People have to die, that's the law of this world. I just don't like it when it happens before one's time. Nor do I like it when people get sick or injured. I don't have an explanation for why bad stuff like that is allowed to happen, especially the getting killed part. God just has this thing about intervening directly I guess, and in some cases there is no "logical" way to save the person in the burning car wreck. Perhaps the sicknesses going on is just part of the world's decay in the "last days". I recall someone saying once that when they were younger, there weren't nearly as many "retarded children" around as there used to be. Perhaps mankind's immunities as a whole is weakening over generations. 'Course it doesn't help much if the pregnant mother is doing drugs of any sort.

I believe that God is forgiving, no matter what any person or religion says. Forget that whole "you have to believe in Jesus or else you're going to hell" crap, too. If that were the case, than easily half of the world's population is skrewed right there.

And that's pretty much all I can think of right now.

Oh, and in the case of how God came to exist, I asked that myself when I was a kid. The answer I've found was that God always exists. He essentially lives outside of time, outside the limit of the 4th or 5th dimension that we live in. In the Bible, when asked his name, he refers himself as "I AM" a few times. Kinda makes sense to me.

And of course, I think of more stuff as I read through these posts. Lesse, this is partly because of the Bible, but I believe that religion didn't exist at first, because it was already accepted that God existed. It wasn't until different beliefs came about (whether one was born and strayed away or whatever) that the term religion was necessary.

My Thought is that god exists only if you believe he exists. Yes I do go to church so what. See unless you cunfess your sins and ask for a repent and you believe, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. As a matter of fact, in the bible it states "Your body is your own temple" Meaning that you treat yourself like you want but puttin god in mind means that you don't need to go to church but alls you have to do is believe in him..

There was some in this tirade that was oppinionated and I apologize for trying to produce non-partisan judgement and then confusing it with my own thoughts (I read this now and see I came close to ranting in some places, but due to circumstances I did not have a clear head). For instance:

5&6 we're thrown on at the moment and really have no business being there.



1st: It wasn't intended as criticism, just comments to stir the neural passageways-and partially to vent what had been stirring mine.

2nd: I did not leave this subject alone, I simply wrote enough that you forgot I'd mentioned it: Your God Doesn't Allow Evils To Exist, That's What Your Satan's For.



This was not intended as linear, nothing was devised to lead into the next one so to speak. I was not trying to disprove or prove the existence of a god, espcecially not in the form of a proof. If you refer to the top of the list I stated that it was written only to state how a god (if one were to exist) would have to be in order to 'be'.

#4 on my list admittedly has little consideration-it was birthed of a belief that I framed wrong: God Cannot Be All Powerful=Nothing Ever Can.



I wrote what I wrote, and I wrote what I meant(for the most part, edits should be made as in spite of the length it is to shallow in explanation or misleading). I am not virgin to modern idealologies, I am writing this to make my own.

I was wondering throughout reading your entertaining response if I was going to here about my statements on polytheism, and it's logistical value. But I guess not.



All I meant really was that god is not a "God", more like a kid with an ant farm. We are all living, he just lives longer. We are all powerful, he is just more so. So your concept of a god doesn't mean he's divine, just that we pale in comparison to him. And you have to take into account with my theorizing that I was in fact theorizing, I wrote ideas as they hit me-I didn't try to write the primer for a new religion.

The we have merely assigned the name of 'God' to the wrong object. There would still be a god, just not the one we thought was God.



I'm not sure where you got that, I said I do not believe in the existence in one-but not even in my hypothetical ramblings did I say that he didn't do anything, if he existed he would do something I think-otherwise I might as well remain an atheist anyway.



As I am an atheist, everything is a what-if concerning a heavenly(or diabolical) being.



Thank you for interpreting, I was tired and not feeling up to making sense of it.

Religion defidently serves that purpose as well, but of course this does not entail that those without religion are amoral (A moral atheist makes perfect sense, while atheists are lumped into a demeaning stereotype most happen to be most stringent in their moral precepts and even more defined than most in the necessity of law and order, as we do not believe a god is there to do it for us, or take care of us for us).

Finally,



That was the premise of the entire text, thank you.

I enjoyed your responses.

If you don't believe in god, i find it hard for you to theorise in such depth as to what he would heve to be like if he existed. But i suspect you're right here. Damn, im stupid.



i quite like the modern philosophical viewpoint, being a modern philosopher. I wasn't accusing you of tagging along with the crowd.




Yeah, i know, i didn't treat it as more than the what-ifs i come up with sometimes. If my response seemed mechanical, its just the way i've learnt to do it.




I see, so your argument apparently then seems to prove the non-existence of God? Because nothing divine happens there must be nothing to make it happen?




I just suspected that arguments against the idea of a moral atheist could well exist. It depends slightly on the definition of atheist. Im just theorising here, but...

definition 1) An atheist is one who believes there is no God.
definition 2) An atheist is one who knows there is no God.

I would state that no human could ever reach state '2)', because there is no knowledge without proof (except the knowledge of experience, which is merely a catalogue of observed trends in the world). There is no proof of the non-existence of God.

'If God is dead, then everything is possible' Dostoyevsky (probably mispelled)

i would suggest that, faced with the immutable knowledge that death is the end, atheists would then act purely hedonistically (is that a word?).
Hedonism implies amorality. Thus all atheists under definition 2 would live amorally.

atheists under definition '1)' would have a very, very small conflict. They would believe, rather than know, that God does not exist. There is a very fine line between belief and knowledge, but it serves to keep most (not all) atheists away from purely self-serving lives.

There are loads of holes in this argument, but i like it anyway. Fire at will.



Sorry i forgot when i was writing my response. Well...

Im not a huge advocate of polytheism. It seems to magnify superstition, the ancient greeks, for instance had a God for just about everything, and ceremonies and sacrifices which only served to keeps the priests fed and employed.
an idea of labour division seems to pop up here. Why would any non-intelligent system create an arrangement that works straight away? this implies some sort of intelligent design itself, and seems to be an inversion of atheist thought.

Surely, this would look better like this:

1) There were not enough Gods.
2)Planets died out or did whatever they do in the absence of God until:

3)There was an acceptable ratio of planets to Gods.

That sounds more like evolution.


NLY, i like your theories, and to a certain degree agree with them, although i am cursed with that most mispercieved of socially acceptable evils, an open mind. Keep writin them, and ill keep reading.

Ill finish with a question for the next poster, its a tough one though.


How did the universe begin?

With very careful planning.

Damn, I wrote ALOT. Good luck.



Oh, but on the contraire atheists have considered this more than most theologians-it is simple enough if you consider that atheists are often pragmatically oriented and so we think everything out. It is a real tumult as well deciding whether or not to revoke a principle that has been ingrained into you since birth, or to continue playing follow the leader. Everyone has to decide, and if you care-it will take deliberation. This is really not birthed of spontaneity; it's more like a culmination of years of thought. I mean, I really tried to justify his existence as a kid. I thought I could explain away my doubts, I always got close. But even when you come up with plausible theories, it still takes Faith to back them-I guess I couldn't muster that faith.



If you recall I wrote-

yep, hedonistically is a word


'If God is dead, then everything is possible', everything is possible anyway-he supposedly gave you free will.



This is entertaining, but consider this. In all this discussion about the 'bigger picture' humans tend to forget that the individual controls the individual. There are many that would in the case of irrefutable knowledge countering gods existence hold their ground morally. Quite frankly if I did believe in hell I'd be going there in a hand basket, do you know why? Because every human is innately a hedonist. The Id makes us that way, we strive to look out for #1, and as the Ego, and the Super-Ego develop they grow desires and therefore the Id begins to cultivate not only basic needs-but wants as well. We are programmed with a certain degree of hedonism, and then our upbringing can instill or detract in particular amounts. It is impossible to obey everything in the 10 commandments. Impossible to go through 100 years and not commit at least 1 (indeed more) of the 7 Deadly Sins. Human nature is the embodiment of purity and at the same time hedonism, it is up to you the measure of balance between them.

So this view would possibly entail that humans are by nature evil...Hobbes might of known what he was talking about. But Hobbes was basing evil (I presume) off of these religious guidelines for What Morals Are, and if we are all held to this standard then hell would be flowing over as I type.

So here is my view on humans: Humans Are Humans-Good And Evil In The Flesh.

So to say that without religion we are hedonistic is merely saying that we would be exposed for what we really are, Human. God serves its purpose as a tool. Utilitarian it may seem, but God serves to make parenting easier. To easier instill the foundation that is necessary to exist as a society. God makes it easier, so he stays. The same morals could be placed in our youth, but what would be more effective: A threat of Spanking, Or a threat of eternal torture and damnation with a great diabolical demon? That's why religion is still here, it gives us hope and clarity and it provides us with an easy way out for many things.

But atheists being hedonistic because they know there is no god? I'm sorry but I think the more appropriate term for what you were trying to say is mayhem (assumption)...but if without a knowledge or possibility of god there is mayhem, to say that everyone would strive for exactly what they want and f*ck everyone else is interesting. But is God the right focal point? That is possible, but I think the reality is without Authority. Without authority we would forsake morals. Without authority we would regress to cretinistic levels. But god is no longer authority.
With definite disproving facts concerning god, we would not return to mayhem-because authority is government now. Whether it be Britain, or the U.S., or France-we are run by government. Government, it is true, was formed on the basis of religious principles-but government has become the higher authority. God is a shoulder to cry on, and government is authority. So you could take god and induce temporary confusion I believe, but to cause mayhem you would have to remove government. And then mayhem is no longer the appropriate word, anarchy replaces mayhem as mayhem replace hedonism for the slot of appropriate term. And god is replaced by government. Anarchy ensues without Government. This is true today, but one may never know how authority will manifest itself in the future. So for a chronologically encompassing statement: Mayhem Ensues without Authority. That is my conclusion.



Out of Ammo, you still alive? (I mean I could’ve bored you to death with how long this is)



Indeed, pondering possibilities is still legal I believe.



I like, but it seems to me that you were trying to tie evolution with creationism-I would not agree. I think if there is/are god/gods, there is a plan. There is intelligent design. But if you want to infuse creationism and evolution well...here I go again:

This one has more evolution-
1. There is a god.
2. He made a world, he made things(atoms and such)-things he knew would react.
3. He left the things to there own devices.
4. The things spawned us
It would seem that there is a god, he just does not concern himself with us. God made the atoms that were compacted, but the friction created heat, heat to explosion. Explosion of course being the Big Bang. That means that God would have made that which is the basis for Evolutionist theory. So they are one. Now if you want more Creationist involvement then you say that God helped the things react.

It is long, but you got me thinking-hopefully this does the same to you.

God...He depends on neither time nor space, for He created both. He controls everything all at once: the past, the present, the future - all eternity. He cares deeply for those He created. We know He exists because everything that is around us -the trees, the sky, the birds- is evidence of a Supreme creator. Trying to earn His favor will only get us in trouble because we are unable to live a life that pleases Him on our own. He knows this, though, and came to save us all.

Yeah, then why am I hearing stuff about "having to accept Christ as our savior" and "helping the poor, hungry, prisoners, etc." or else we go to hell? Sounds like us having to gain his favor to me.

That part is controlled by money hungry fanatics. Those are the types that crave attention so much that they would use religion to brainwash and enslave some weak minded fools. If some of them actually read the bible once in awhile they would know that telling some one that they would burn in hell is judging them. It did say not to judge them.

Yes well it's simple enought to dispense of 'fire and brimstone' preachings after all. I for one am thankful for the strength of mind to tell those imbeciles were to shove it and then help them along, but dogma is precluded fallacy in MY book at least.

What I mentioned is in the Bible in some form, though. It makes me question the Bible some. I mean, how much of it is what God wanted written, and how much of it is what man wanted written?

I'm by no means a Bible scholar, but I've been thinking a lot about what you guys have been saying. And believe me, everything I write here is me basically preaching to myself. I do not have everything together, and I really need the grace of God in my life. I'm so glad for it.
Draygone - regarding "having to accept the poor, hungry, prisoners, etc."
We try to do good works to kind of balance our good points against our bad points, so we can have more good than bad and go to heaven. The reality is, though, that we are all at a loss because of the Bible says that we are all sinners and without hope, except of course for as you said "having to accept Christ as our savior." When I try to good things in order to deserve Christ's sacrifice then I've missed the point. He came because we can't EARN it. Salvation is a gift of God. After someone begins a relationship with Christ, then the person wants to do those "works." So, it's got to be Christ first, then the good works come as a result, not the other way around.
Taizongames - The verse you were talking about is in Romans, chapter 2, verse 1 -"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things." I've got to be super careful not to condemn someone else to hell when I'm participating in the same negative activities that I'm condemning him/her for. In the same chapter the Bible also says, speaking of God's judgement, "...on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares." (verse 16) So God is the judge, and he will judge us through Christ.
Draygone - about where the Bible came from. There's a cool verse in 2 Timothy that says that "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (chapter 3, verses 16 and 17)
Alright well, just wanted to share those. Hope you guys have a great day.