I believe that most of us want to know God, but a myriad of things get in the way (btw God said it would be that way). Then there are some people who can admit they don't want to know God and just want to live their lives without thinking about it and die with the hope if there is a God then maybe I could tell God that it was his fault for not forcing himself on me LoL. Then there are some who choose to directly oppose God, gaining wealth and power from some evil source of energy (hmm that's very strange). But if God doesn't exist? Then whoopdy do. That's pretty much the definition of ridiculous. What a waste. This Cosmic anomaly spinning and spinning and spinning with no pilot. With no Master Placer? Then messy randomnesses is all we are? Meaning we are our own limited gods and death is the end, where we turn to worm food and eventually become worm poop LoL "holy crap" I just thought of that. Own gods=worm poop=holy crap. Pun intended *wink*wink*. But that's it. Those are the only options right? So why not use everything we've been given to seek God? Just because He has his own way of doing things and you don't get a say in what He does. Doesn't mean you should write it off completely. We need to see what's in our hearts. God does not. If God exists, then by default there is a plan (hmm I wonder what that could be?) and a design. Why not put it to the test for as long as it takes? Let's lay down our defenses for a minute and nitpicking every last detail. God or no God? Only one has severe incorruptible consequences. Only one has importance. Only one has all the answers and the other has a maybe. God or no God? What's your final answer and your best why?
These are some serious thoughts that we all face. Maybe it would be wise to consider the how and the why of things. Seeing how our numbered days seem to be getting shorter by the day. Btw if you believe "by faith" that there is no God? Then you had better not be wrong lol. But then again, what would that accomplish?
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Hi Great Hope,
What valid evidence exists that supports you claim the god exists? Why has no valid evidence been produced during the last 2,500 years to prove unequivocally that god exists?
Hello, Alembé
That is what it always boils down to, isn't it. The evidence *cynical Chuckles*
There is not going to be an answer that you like. I used to want "special treatment" and for God to give me solid evidence that everyone in the world would deem acceptable. But then there wouldn't be much of a choice. I believe God left an open-end for us to figure out what we really want. What's really in our hearts. We were given a life that we didn't ask for, in a world we will never understand, where history repeats, and a death with a choice made. That's all the evidence we've been given. Until Time Runs Out.
So I'm going to use my time to seek the possibilities and test the wants of my heart. And I want nothing more than to have a life where I can be of the greatest of help to suffering people and for a plan that leads us all home. So I like to live in the possibilities. That's my final answer. If I'm wrong about any of that? Then nothing changes, right?
Hi GH,
Yes it boils down to the evidence versus the leap of faith (no cynicism implied).
O.K. Let's try this. Yahweh became Jehovah became God became Allah. And according to Christian belief, this same God created the Heavens and the Earth - Agreed? The only problem is that Yahweh was just a jumped up warrior god, one of the pantheon of gods the ancient Hebrews worshiped. He had a wife, Ashera and a buddy Baal. These three and other gods were all equivalent in power and subservient to the greater god El (as in Israel). And yet Yahweh/God created everything. Please explain.
Don't mean to interrupt; I'm just interested in your sources, given that scripture presents Baal and Asherah as Canaanite in origin and adopted by the Israelites. Asherah is viewed as the female consort of Baal (Arnold & Beyer, 2015). So I'm wondering where this alternative narrative of Asherah being the wife of Yahweh, and Baal being a buddy, derives from.
Reference:
Arnold, B. T., Beyer, B. E. (2015). Encountering the old testament: A Christian survey (3rd ed.). Michigan: Baker Academy.
Hi John,
In late 2014 when I was researching the origins of Yahweh, the version I described above was a synthesis that I derived from disparate and at times conflicting sources. I relied heavily on Wikipedia, however, re-reading that source today I believe it that it has been edited since that time.
Thus, while the interpretation of scant, and at times conflicting, data has changed, the overarching theme then and today is the polytheistic nature of religious belief at that time and the evolution of belief to monotheism under human influence.
@Alembé
Ya I don't know any of that stuff. If God exists, then there is massive works of evil and deception to confuse and distract. If God had a design, I believe it would be way more simple than we complicate it to be. You see, if a special secret hidden document or text could give us the formula for God. Then we would need the special secret hidden thing, not God. If that were the case, people would snatch that thing up and horde it to themselves and then use it to control people. Hmm, almost sounds like religion *palm in face*SMH*. The knowledge of God is already inside you. God is of the spirit nature so we have to use a little bit more than just our left brain mentality and special tailored evidence. So I have fun testing every part of who I am (spirit included)
Great hope, you wrote, “These are some serious thoughts that we all face.”
Nope.
I don’t face those thoughts. I think those thoughts useless.
@CyberLN
Yes, that's fine. That's going to be a lot of people's final answer. I hope your not wrong.
I concur, wild unevidenced speculation about unevidenced superstitious claims isn't important to me at all.
I attach no more importance to my disbelief in Jesus and Allah, than adherents of those Religions attach to their disbelief in mermaids and unicorns.
@Great Hope: That's my final answer. If I'm wrong about any of that? Then nothing changes, right?
Therein lies the rub. Evey religious fanatic throughout human history has been wrong, and if in their wrongness these misguided fools had changed nothing, it would just be a great cosmic joke. But the followers of all the countless gods spawned from ignorance in the fevered imaginations of priests and shamans have shackled humanity's potential and inflicted endless horror, pain, death, war, famine, and misery.
Only in the past couple of centuries, as the tendrils of these holy-monsters lose their grip, has humanity started to make real progress. When faith dies and reason thrives, violence wanes and poverty recedes. Life gets better. Religion is humanity's excuse for failure. We pray, and when the plague still takes away our loved ones we get down on our knees and cravenly mumble about god's will and god's great unseen plan. Fuck that. We are homo sapiens. We can make the world shine without fake gods.
@Algebe
Yeah I don't like religion either. Thank God, God never said be religious. Because then I would have to deny Him lol. And yes we can make the world a little bit better without God for a limited time. But history repeats and the rich elite that runs things is going to cycle through population control any day now and another world war is around the corner. Either way, it wouldn't even matter. We are all living in a countdown. Our time in this life is so short and eventually the sun will destroy our planet and the universe will collapse in on itself, maybe it will be like a pulse and start it all over again? Theory upon Theory lol but yeah religion stinks. So no God is your final answer? Because of religiousness?
@Great hope: God never said be religious
No god ever said anything.
Gods whisper in the ears of lunatics, and they speak through the mouths of fanatics and bigots.
God-ridden ignoramuses throughout history have been driven to share their "good news" with the rest of humanity by any and all means, so there's an inevitable causal link between the notion of a god and the formation of religions, followed by holy alliances between religions and tyrannies. Religions are a disease, and gods are imaginary viruses.
Humanity needs a specific environment to thrive. It's called the here and now. Once we start focusing on heaven and the afterlife, things really start to slide.
@Algebe
Ahh a perfect world sounds so nice. But, Shuck's we have too many people who won't cooperate. What are we ever going to do with our limited time? Maybe we can start a new world order?
@Great hope: Ahh a perfect world sounds so nice.
And that's the childish dream of the religious, isn't it--another world where there is no death or pain, where everyone lives happily ever after singing the praises of the Dear Leader.
Life is valuable because it's finite and singular. Religion and afterlife fantasies devalue life.
I don't know what to do with people who won't cooperate. Perhaps we should start an inquisition.
Without evidence there is no reason to place any more importance in your Iron Age mythology than any other. What you are asking for is special pleading.
@Nyarlathotep
What kind of evidence would you have in mind? I think it's safe to say everyone from every nation, tribe, language, and time period has questioned the how and why of life, death and the possible afterlife. That's the birth of Science. I wouldn't limit it to "iron age." Also I'm not pleading anything. You are free to believe anything you can come up with. If anything, I'm trying to get an answer with brevity to what people's final answer is? And why? How can anyone be so sure that God doesn't exist? I want evidence for that claim.
@Great hope: How can anyone be so sure that God doesn't exist? I want evidence for that claim.
How about a trillion unanswered prayers?
@Algebe
Others would say there is a trillion answered prayers. I guess you would need the perfect perspective to see how it all has unfolded. I'm not really sure how the hole prayers thing works completely. But I know I surely don't want to command God nor do I wish upon Him like a genie lol. I still don't know what your answer is? God or no God?
@Great hope: I'm not really sure how the hole prayers thing works
It's simple. When faced with a terrible challenge, you abandon all efforts to improve the situation, and instead you close your eyes and ask an omnipotent imaginary friend to suspend the laws of physics and causality for the personal benefit of you and you alone. Often people offer something worthless in return. "Oh god, please let me win the lottery, and I'll donate half of it to the legal support fund for pedophile priests."
I take it your use of "hole" rather than "whole" was accidental, but in fact "hole" is a good word here. Prayer is a black hole that sucks down human hope, courage, and dignity, and returns absolutely nothing.
I've never been taught to treat prayers like birthday wishes. The behavior is intended to lift the person up to God, not bring God down to the person. Even when prayer does take the form of a request, such as in the Lord's Prayer, you find that its requests are made on behalf of a collective, not an individual: Give US this day OUR daily bread.
You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer without asking for the blessing of those around you. To pray for the lottery goes against the very nature of prayer.
@John 61X Breezy: To pray for the lottery goes against the very nature of prayer.
LOL. It might be against the nature, but not against the practice.
I said the Lord's Prayer every morning for years in school assemblies. For me and all the other kids, it was just a meaningless mumble of words we didn't understand.
Kids are asked to do plenty of things that they find meaningless, like take baths. I'd be more interested in your thoughts as an adult than as a kid.
@John 61X Breezy: Kids are asked to do plenty of things that they find meaningless
As an adult, I see prayer in schools as an unethical attempt to brainwash children before they're old enough to develop the critical faculties needed to see through all the indoctrination.
Are you able to parse that further?
I didn't grow up having to recite prayer in schools; I grew up having to recite the pledge of allegiance. Do you consider both to be unethical attempts to brainwash children before their critical faculties develop?
@John 61X Breezy: Do you consider both to be unethical attempts to brainwash children before their critical faculties develop?
Yes. Don't you?
No.
"such as in the Lord's Prayer, you find that its requests are made on behalf of a collective, not an individual: Give US this day OUR daily bread."
I can't help noticing that poverty and starvation have remained unaffected. Indeed it's human actionthatvtries to tackle this kind of suffering not any supernatural miracle.
It's odd the bible depicts a deity that can and does interfere to commit genocide, but can't or won't spare the time or effort to stop children from starvingvto death ever single day, or dying from cancer or being raped by priests.
Of course this is precisely what one would expect to see if all deities were man made fictions.
As for the efficacy of prayer it's been properly tested and failed to produce any discernable result.
@Algebe
Lol so you answer is no God because of religiousness people and prayer holes?
Most of the people I know who pray have so much action in their lives that it makes me feel inadequate. I'm pretty sure that if you just pray and don't have action going on? Your pretty much just wishing upon a star lol.
The efficacy of intercessory is falsifiable and has been properly researched with double blind clinical trials. The research showed that prayer had no discernable effect whatsoever. The only anomolous result was a test group who knew they were bring prayed for, who actually fared worse than all the others.
The research suggests that group fared worse because of the pressure of worrying that the prayers would work.
Prayer doesn't work.
Great Hope
Here is your evidence no God is real.
I pray to God, God doesn't answer
I ask God to reveal itself, God remains hidden
Therefore God doesn't exist and I remain an Atheist.
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