Someone...

[Ambassador Pony]

It is more than just emotions, it is just certain things that happen in my life that I lack explanation for... I agree with you that I cannot provide this as evidence to shake you, but for me personally, this is just one of the reasons why I believe.

Did your religious inculcation occur prior to your interpreting of personal experiences as god related, or did the experiences force you to a search of beliefs / religions and ultimately to the type of belief you adhere to?

I ask because, almost always, god beliefs conform to the time and place you are born and raised.

[Star Stuff]

Well, narrowing your question down to that, which I wish you would have just done in the first place instead of being so vague,

Your inability to pick up on the obvious does not make my question "vague".

I have a relationship with God, yes, but I have not seen God face to face, so I do not know what God is comprised of in that sense.  I feel that what we each imagine God to be can greatly differ, and quite frankly we don't know for sure what God is, all that I can tell you is that I feel God's presence in my life, I feel God's presence in this universe

So it sounds like it is indeed all about feelings then.

...and I see God's intervention in this universe.

Here's what I see; no god intervening at all:






So if you feel that this god of yours takes the time to find you a parking spot, or a job, or just make you feel all cozy inside, yet fully ignores the thousands of children who die of starvation every day, you're a sick individual, and you need help.

Careful who you call the smartest people in the world. There are actually many scientists ("smartest people in the world") whose life work is to understand the universe that believe in the presence of a God.

  Precious few. Something like 95% of the Academy of Science (truly the elite of the elite) are non-theists. And when you actually hear what the remaining few have to say, they largely do not believe in a personal god, rather they may believe in some form of creating force or energy or some vague thing.

There are certain things that can be justified by reason and evidence in this reality, but there are also many things that are left up to personal perception.

That is a false statement.

[Azdgari]

I have never had direct contact with God if that is what you mean, but I believe that I have had indirect contact with God (experiences, felt presence, stuff like that I guess).

Assuming for a moment that something super-normal really was behind these experiences...how do you know it was not a demon trying to mislead you?

[WeZzZzRURR]

How come you are immune?

I don't consider myself immune? I just believe that all of those "different" Gods worshiped by other cultures are their interpretation of what God is.  I don't measure a person and their religion by what they think their God is, I measure them on what they do in their beliefs, which comes back to the idea of good and bad, which to me has always been a matter of opinion.

And why is it that I look at this world, and this universe, and see no sign of a deity? You and I both occupy similar pieces of reality, and you see your go while I see none. My lack of a god doesn't make me a bad person, any more than your having a god makes you a good one. Why do you suppose two people can look at the world so differently.

I guess its because we are two different people and have developed different outlooks on life.  I have had plenty of hardship in my life, and I am sure that there will be more to come..... But in the end, I am thankful for God giving me a chance to be a part of this beautiful thing called life.  I am not saying that your lack of believing in a God makes you a "bad" person, because by you not believing in a God, you are not affecting other people in a "bad" way.  Likewise, me believing in A god does not make me more of a "good" person, I would like to believe that I would still want to make a positive impact on this world if I didn't believe in a God, but what I do, I do out of thankfulness for God.

And just to be clear. My atheism is about as complete as it can be. I am well over 99% sure there is no god. Actually I'm 100% sure there isn't one, except that everyone thinks I'm silly for saying that. So while there are a few folks who are a bit more open minded than me around here, I would only be open to the existence of a god if the dude contacted me personally in a manner unavailable to mere mortals and said hello.

I said that to a person once and he said I was asking too much. I said I wasn't asking, just mentioning.

I would be really interested in talking with you more on your 100% sureness if you don't mind, whether on here or by personal message. =)

And nothing has ever happened to me that I lack an explanation for. Can you give us an example of something that confounded you? Praying for a job and getting hired soon thereafter doesn't count. I've been hired without prayer enough that such things will not impress. (I used that example because a recent theist said that such a thing had happened to him.)

I don't believe in the concept such as praying for a job... I believe there are circumstances where you ask and you receive, but I believe it is more about having the faith in God, knowing that God is behind you in everything you do, you make it happen.  Now that's not to say that it won't happen without God being there, its just to me, prayer draws our attention to things that need help in life, and provide us with hope, and in certain circumstances (which obviously I cannot prove to you), we ask and receive.

I agree with you that using that example as evidence to God's existence is unimpressive, because there is no proof that the prayer is what got him the job. 

As far as things happening to me, you guys might question what I say, but its just how I feel about it.

There have been so many times in my life where very terrible things were an inch away from happening to me, like it is seriously ridiculous how many....  I understand that luck, which is a whole other subject, could play a role in this, but I also believe that luck and religion intertwine.  No crazy life-altering situations where my life changed forever or anything, but just little things here and there that made me feel like someone (or something I guess?) is looking out for me. =)

[WeZzZzRURR]

Did your religious inculcation occur prior to your interpreting of personal experiences as god related, or did the experiences force you to a search of beliefs / religions and ultimately to the type of belief you adhere to?

I ask because, almost always, god beliefs conform to the time and place you are born and raised.

Good question, I was raised a christian, so its hard for me to say which came first because I have a hard time remembering my childhood due to repressed memories of my parents getting divorced, but I recall certain instances where I believed that God was looking out for me.  I am not the type of person to eat was is fed to me and accept it, I do question what I eat, and will be questioning plenty of things that you guys have now introduced me to, but I would like to believe that when I made that assertion, it was legitimately me. =)

[WeZzZzRURR]

Your inability to pick up on the obvious does not make my question "vague".

No it was not obvious, because the initial question could go in many different directions, not just asking what I perceive God to be as far as shape, physical being, etc.

So it sounds like it is indeed all about feelings then.

Which is more than just emotion, last time I checked.

Here's what I see; no god intervening at all:

Its easy to take man-made objects in this world and use them as an example, but even for such things, to me, I am thankful that God gave those people a chance to live and make those beautiful things.

So if you feel that this god of yours takes the time to find you a parking spot, or a job, or just make you feel all cozy inside, yet fully ignores the thousands of children who die of starvation every day, you're a sick individual, and you need help.

I don't believe that God takes time to do any of that for me, I do not believe that is what God does, nor have I stated that is what I believe God does....

I was waiting for the starving child topic to come, as this is a most famous one I have heard of, that pretty much has no end....  All I can say about my belief behind that, is that everyone will suffer in this world, some it would seem more than others... As far as if those children make it to the afterlife, I cannot say.  But I can show this argument:
You criticize my God for not intervening in the mortal world to fix problems that we are more than capable of fixing... The fact that you can sit behind your computer and criticize God for this baffles me, it is obvious to me that this is a problem in our world, along with many other things, but I believe that God wants us to do something about it, which we can do...  Its so easy for you to comment about the starving children in other countries saying they need dire help, THEN WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ON THIS FORUM WASTING YOUR TIME WHEN YOU COULD BE OVER IN THOSE COUNTRIES DOING EVERYTHING YOU POSSIBLY CAN TO HELP THEM????  This argument basically ends in saying that "if there is a God, he would make everything perfect, and fix all problems, and nothing bad would ever happen", basically robbing us of our own will....  We as humans can fix our problems, its not easy, but it can be done, and why do we have the ability to do this? Because God gave us the ability to do so....  Knowing that we have this ability, we should not look to God to solve our problems, but rather use what God has blessed us with to solve them ourselves.

Precious few. Something like 95% of the Academy of Science (truly the elite of the elite) are non-theists. And when you actually hear what the remaining few have to say, they largely do not believe in a personal god, rather they may believe in some form of creating force or energy or some vague thing.

I would be inclined to believe that many theist scientists would not only be pushed away from such club organizations, but rather have no interest in being a part of such organizations.....  It disgusts me how often someone is blacklisted due to their religion....

That is a false statement.

Elaborate.

[Star Stuff]

Its easy to take man-made objects in this world and use them as an example, but even for such things, to me, I am thankful that God gave those people a chance to live and make those beautiful things.

Pounds head on desk.

PLEASE LOOK IN THE CENTER OF THE IMAGE.

[Ambassador Pony]

Good question, I was raised a christian, so its hard for me to say which came first because I have a hard time remembering my childhood due to repressed memories of my parents getting divorced, but I recall certain instances where I believed that God was looking out for me.  I am not the type of person to eat was is fed to me and accept it, I do question what I eat, and will be questioning plenty of things that you guys have now introduced me to, but I would like to believe that when I made that assertion, it was legitimately me. =)

We are all the type of person to "eat what we are fed", it's a normal part of being a human child, it's how our culture is transmitted from one generation to the next, and it's how we survive.

Question answered, thanks for the courtesy.

You're doing a great job here by the way. I'll leave you to it, and please let me know if there is anything you need assistance with.

[Star Stuff]

I don't believe that God takes time to do any of that for me, I do not believe that is what God does, nor have I stated that is what I believe God does.

You said:

"...but just little things here and there that made me feel like someone (or something I guess?) is looking out for me."

I would be inclined to believe that many theist scientists would not only be pushed away from such club organizations, but rather have no interest in being a part of such organizations.....  It disgusts me how often someone is blacklisted due to their religion.

Oh my. You're now displaying your ignorance.  How old are you?  The Academy of Science is not a "club".

[WeZzZzRURR]

We are all the type of person to "eat what we are fed", it's a normal part of being a human child, it's how our culture is transmitted from one generation to the next, and it's how we survive.

Good point, but I can recall questioning my parents of what I was eating when I had the consciousness to question them.. Obviously as a baby I did not have that consciousness, and it was completely up to my parents to feed me, as it was up to my parents to take me to church as a baby, but when I developed the consciousness to question those things, I began at a very young age.

[12 Monkeys]

WEZZ,,,,why do you rely on self projection as God (SPAG) to fill in all those enormous gaps your God has left for you? to go from just being a god in a pantheon of gods (your god had a father in the very least from scriptures) then he has evolved for lack of a better word into a single God and creator of everything....if I ever believed I would have had doubt right there.

 Where is your doubts,or even a curious nature that leads to question the gaps in the story?

Sorry I missed this post..... I'm a little confused on what you mean, do you think you could elaborate a little more please? =)

How did God in the OT,go from being a god in a pantheon of gods(god in OT had a father) to being the only god? I think this is where your story gets fucked up....this particular god chose a particular people.....he was not the only god,just a god.  Suddenly the story changes and he is the only god,care to explain how this happened?

[WeZzZzRURR]

You said:

In certain situations I feel as if God is looking out for me, not when I go to park my car, not when I look for a job, not when I look to feel good inside. All of those situations I take into my own hands and make it happen, and I am thankful that God allowed me to exist, but I don't look to God as the reason why I get a parking spot in the front.

Oh my. You're now displaying your ignorance.  How old are you?  The Academy of Science is not a "club".

haha I like the picture...  Matter of my opinion, yes, it is a club.  I agree that those scientists are very smart people, but there are also different measures of what "smart" means (whole other topic)....  This is not an ignorant outlook, I understand that the academy serves a purpose, but it can also be seen in a club way....  And either way, being that you look at it as a club or not, I would still expect that many of the atheist scientists involved in the club would love to push away other theist scientists, just like I would expect that many theist scientists would not want to be a part of the academy...


And sorry I missed the middle picture of the animals, yes to me, that is proof of the existence of God, the beauty of living creatures.

[WeZzZzRURR]

How did God in the OT,go from being a god in a pantheon of gods(god in OT had a father) to being the only god? I think this is where your story gets fucked up....this particular god chose a particular people.....he was not the only god,just a god.  Suddenly the story changes and he is the only god,care to explain how this happened?

Well, like I've stated a few times, I have a lot of research of the bible to conduct for myself, so I cannot even attempt to handle this question right now.....  All I can say, which I stated earlier, is that my belief in God comes before my belief in christianity, if that makes sense =D

[Star Stuff]

I would still expect that many of the atheist scientists involved in the club would love to push away other theist scientists,

Um, no.  You live in a fantasy.

And sorry I missed the middle picture of the animals, yes to me, that is proof of the existence of God, the beauty of living creatures.

LOOK AGAIN - one is a child.

[pingnak]

Now explain to me why you don't have to prove to me that a certain God does not exist...

You make the positive assertion that there is a god - YOURS.

I merely rest with the default - No there isn't.  I should have thought the examples would be sufficient.

You say, "There's a giant space goat, it's going to eat the planet!"
Should I be lobbying congress for space weapons to drive it off?

You say, "God's gonna punish you for not believing!"
Why should I take this claim any more seriously?

[WeZzZzRURR]

Um, no.  You live in a fantasy.

Um no, actually you live in a fantasy if you believe that does not happen, research it for yourself, and see how many theist scientists have been driven away from organizations such as the academy.

LOOK AGAIN - one is a child.

ahhh, I see now.  Where are you in this picture? Obviously, by referencing this in your argument, you believe that children such as that need help... Are you doing everything, EVERYTHING you can to help them? I highly doubt it.... To have the ability to help a cause in which you consider important, but to not use that ability, but rather blame it on God, pretty compelling stuff.... You're a cruel and terrible person to say the least.

[WeZzZzRURR]

You make the positive assertion that there is a god - YOURS.

I merely rest with the default - No there isn't.  I should have thought the examples would be sufficient.

You say, "There's a giant space goat, it's going to eat the planet!"
Should I be lobbying congress for space weapons to drive it off?

You say, "God's gonna punish you for not believing!"
Why should I take this claim any more seriously?

Answer me this, by lobbying congress for space weapons to drive off the giant space goat, you are imposing a huge burden on a lot of people.....

By me simply asking you to believe that there is a God, what kind of burden am I imposing on you?

[Star Stuff]

ahhh, I see now.  Where are you in this picture? Obviously, by referencing this in your argument, you believe that children such as that need help... Are you doing everything, EVERYTHING you can to help them? I highly doubt it.... To have the ability to help a cause in which you consider important, but to not use that ability, but rather blame it on God, pretty compelling stuff.... You're a cruel and terrible person to say the least.

Mind your mouth junior.  I give monthly to an organization which aids the poor.  Given my other responsibilities in life, that is reasonable.  I am not blaming it on god, I am illustrating to you that your god is either callous and cruel as he watches such horrific events with folded arms, or he imaginary.  You are dodging the obvious.

[WeZzZzRURR]

Mind your mouth junior.  I give monthly to an organization which aids the poor.  Given my other responsibilities in life, that is reasonable.  I am not blaming it on god, I am illustrating to you that your god is either callous and cruel as he watches such horrific events with folded arms, or he imaginary.  You are dodging the obvious.

Are those responsibilities in life so overwhelming and so much more important that you can't lend more of your time, effort, and money, to help change something that you really believe needs to be changed?  Blaming your lack of effort along with the lack of effort from millions of other people like you to help make a change that is greatly needed on God is a poor way to attempt to demonstrate that God does not exist.  Using your "responsibilities" as an excuse to justify your lack of effort is ineffective, because chances are, without those responsibilities in life, you are probably still way better off than that kid in the picture is or was.

I am glad that you give monthly to organization monthly that aids the poor, and I trust that your intentions in doing so are solely out of good intentions... The problem with such organizations, is you don't truly know how your money is being used..... I'm not sure which organization you presently donate to, but many organizations are not of the good intentions in which we hope they are... In fact, many oversea organizations are taken over by a greedy dictator or rebel force, and all the money ends up going to them, thus making the lives of the children even worse...

[Star Stuff]

 I am illustrating to you that your god is either callous and cruel as he watches such horrific events with folded arms, or he imaginary.  You are dodging the obvious.

[WeZzZzRURR]

I am illustrating to you that your god is either callous and cruel as he watches such horrific events with folded arms, or he imaginary.  You are dodging the obvious.

And I am illustrating to you that you are a hypocrite in making that claim.

[Star Stuff]

And I am illustrating to you that you are a hypocrite in making that claim.

How so?  Your god would have the ability to ease or eliminate suffering, yet doesn't.  We could pretend that I am completely self-centered and don't care, your god still doesn't help.  Your feeble attempt at distraction fails.


Is god is willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him god?


Epicurus

[WeZzZzRURR]

Its not an attempt at distraction..... What I previously stated, is God gave us the ability to do something about it, yet most of us do absolutely nothing, yet those who do absolutely nothing (or close to nothing) then criticize God for doing supposedly absolutely nothing, when in reality, he gave us the ability to fix those problems ourselves. If everyone person who criticized God for not intervening in the starvation problem of children in our world focused their energy instead on taking it into their own hands, something that God blessed us with the ability to do, I bet we could solve that problem, like I stated, it wouldn't be easy, but if there's one thing I learned in life, great things don't come easily, and if they do, they are taken for granted.

I need you to concede that your god does nothing to aid in the suffering of starving children.  All aid comes from empathetic human beings.  I'd like you to admit that you god is imaginary, but one step at a time.

Now, to add to that, I BELIEVE that there are also many great things that have happened to people without explanation (to pick one specific example, a friend of my dad's was crippled with terrible full body arthritis and cancer, was told by studied doctors that she would not be able to recover from both..... She would stay up night after night crying her eyes out of the excruciating pain she was going through..... She prayed to God nightly, others prayed for her as well, and sure enough, randomly, without explanation, she recovered from both).....  Now I also believe that there are other occurances that happen all over the world that go unnoticed because of different factors such as lack of media attention.  A lot of these occurances even happen without the specific use of prayer...

The point I am trying to make with the second paragraph is there are plenty of near "miracles" thought happen on a daily basis that go unrecognized all over the world.  Do you agree that if there is a God, it is possible that he played a hand in these?

Please tell me that you notice the error in the above.  You state that these occurrences of people getting better is without explanation, yet you then provide an explanation - god.

Please watch:

[Tinyal]

ahhh, I see now.  Where are you in this picture? Obviously, by referencing this in your argument, you believe that children such as that need help... Are you doing everything, EVERYTHING you can to help them? I highly doubt it.... To have the ability to help a cause in which you consider important, but to not use that ability, but rather blame it on God, pretty compelling stuff.... You're a cruel and terrible person to say the least.

There are many, many issues in your posts that I'd like to address, but I'll concentrate on this one for now. The issue of the child in the photo is an example of what's long been called (by long, I mean many hundreds of years, perhaps many thousands) The Problem Of Evil.  In a nutshell, what this means is that 100's of millions of people the world over, in many different religions (certainly 1000's of different christian denominations) make the blanket statement that their god is all good, all knowing, and all powerful - for shorthand, this is called an omnimax god.

My first (this is very important) question I'd be very happy to have you answer - do you believe god is all good, all knowing, and all powerful?  Please keep your answer to this question in mind as I continue this post.

To continue, from the perspective of millions of nontheists (or humanists, or atheists, or freethinkers, as well as other non religious people), non-good things happen all across the world every hour of every day (you might think of them as evil, or just bad,  things).  These are incidents like the child's picture referenced above (note:  that is a nobel prize winning picture, the author of which recently committed suicide, perhaps due to all the pain he witnessed and could not cope with.  It shows a young girl, who was trying to crawl her way to a UN/Relief agency food truck.  I believe she was about 8 years old at the time, and had spent her entire short life surviving on less than 1/4 bowl of rice a day, if even that.  Her and her mom were heading to the food truck, but her starving mother could not carry her anymore, and went ahead (only a few hundred yards) with the intention of bringing food back.  The girl in this picture died before her mom could get back.  Even the photographer, after snapping this picture, broke with all his training not to interfere (and knowing, as we all do, that we can't fix everyone), and tried to get food to this starving girl.  She died anyway, moments after the picture was taken).

(I keep several copies of this picture in my wallet, to remind me of what the christian god doesn't do, fyi)

To continue - it doesn't matter if any poster here isn't over there now feeding these children with whatever dollars they could bring, before they themselves became broke.  It doesn't matter (for this argument called 'The Problem of Evil') because any - any - omnimax god who (due to being all powerful, as the christians such as yourself believe) doesn't make sure this child got fed is either Evil, or not all powerful.  It doesn't matter because an all knowing god would know that not everyone can help this girl, and so why didn't He (capitalized on purpose) help her?  Would this be the action of an all loving, parent-like god, to allow this girl (as well as 10's of thousands like her, every fracking month, who die never knowing a full stomach).

That picture, I hope, gets stuck in your mind (like it has mine for years), and eventually sinks in.  Many bad things happen in the world that humans could never fix, and aren't the least bit to blame for - earthquakes, floods, attack by animals, locusts eating their crops so many starve, etc) - the answer you tried to use doesn't work - it doesn't explain why this god of yours, so full of allgoodness, so full of power, so full of knowing all from the beginning of time to the end - why He allows this to occur?

Once you parse the possible answers, there are only a few :

1. God is evil
2. God is uncaring
3. God is not all good and all powerful and all knowing
4. God doesn't exist.  <Bingo!>

This is only a sample of why many (certainly not all) atheists say with a certainty that the typical christian god - an omnimax god - does not exist.  100% sure it doesn't exist. 

Or, if it did, it's an evil god who makes Hitler look like a humanitarian.

If it did, that child wouldn't have spent it's entire short life in agony to die in some muddy field, food for the vultures.  Doesn't matter if heaven exists - what point could god have to punish this child so, just to send it to heaven afterward?  Why have it born at all?  Why not send it's soul (not that I believe in one mind you) straight to heaven?  What lesson could it possibly learn that would be worth the pain?  And the (also typical) answer 'my god works in mysterious ways' doesn't help either, that boils down to the same choices 1-3 above.

In closing for now - I'm 100% convinced god - as described (when they bother to describe him/her/it at all, which most won't - like you - do) doesn't exist.  It doesn't.

More later, as I get the time (and energy).

[Traveler]

...It is more than just emotions, it is just certain things that happen in my life that I lack explanation for... I agree with you that I cannot provide this as evidence to shake you, but for me personally, this is just one of the reasons why I believe....

This comes up quite often. I have no doubt whatsoever that you've had very interesting experiences, perhaps very moving, very emotional, perhaps very life-affirming or growthful or coincidental. The difference between you and I is this. You attribute those things to a god. I am content saying "I don't know." Let's assume for a moment that you've had a "spiritual" experience of some sort. Perhaps you heard "in your mind's eye" a voice/message/feeling to do a particular thing. Or encouragement, or to not do something that might harm you. You say its god. A psychologist might say its your subconscious mind. A native american might say its a spirit guide. A pagan that its the goddess. Or it might simply be a coincidence. You see the problem? Everyone has an explanation for what the experience IS, but all we can know with certainty is that you had the experience.

In other words, you and I might have a similar experience. Where you and I differ is in our interpretation of that experience. I say "I don't know," and keep my eyes open for further evidence. You say "god did it," and stop looking for further evidence.

[Star Stuff]

What the heck?!?  I just made a post (#109) and it is under WeZzZzRURRs name.


???

[WeZzZzRURR]

I need you to concede that your god does nothing to aid in the suffering of starving children.  All aid comes from empathetic human beings.  I'd like you to admit that you god is imaginary, but one step at a time.


Please tell me that you notice the error in the above.  You state that these occurrences of people getting better is without explanation, yet you then provide an explanation - god.

Please watch:

Please use your own account to post your own beliefs, don't edit my statement by inserting what you believe.... I would appreciate it if you removed this from my post and posted it on your own...

You just don't understand..... I don't know how many times I have to tell you.....  To begin, it is because of human error that those children are currently starving... They were conceived into this world by 2 people (or 1 insignificant asshole who decided to take advantage of another) who did not even consider the type of suffering that their personal satisfaction would bring to them.  To continue, a big contributing role to their suffering is the human error of dictators and rebel groups that rob them of everything they have, killing and severely hurting them.  To continue to that, it is because of human error that our world is falling apart and experiencing dangerous changes in the environment because of the pollution we have so easily engaged in.  To even add to that, it is because of the greed that those who have the money and the possibility to make a change, but choose to not do it.  Before your consider their suffering solely in God's hand, you might want to think about everything that has been leading up to that point.....

Now to say what I said, this argument against the existence of God cannot work for you, because unfortunately, you are not making every effort you possibly can do to help out. 

We are letting those children down, and in turn letting God down, that he would provide us with amazing abilities to make change, giving that we have to sometimes give up a lot to help others...

And yes, I stated that there is no worldly explanation as to why those people got better, the only explanation being of some divine intervention (i.e. God).

[WeZzZzRURR]

In other words, you and I might have a similar experience. Where you and I differ is in our interpretation of that experience. I say "I don't know," and keep my eyes open for further evidence. You say "god did it," and stop looking for further evidence.

I see, but in saying that God did it, I do not close my eyes... I keep my eyes open looking for other explanations for the happening, but other explanations never come...

[Avatar Of Belial]

What the heck?!?  I just made a post (#109) and it is under WeZzZzRURRs name.


???

It says you edited it, did you accidently Mod one of his posts when you wrote that?