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Author | Topic: A statement of my disbeliefs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CK Member (Idle past 4155 days) Posts: 3221 Joined: |
I thought that it may be interesting for those who don't believe in the christian god to outline what their views are on the existance of God or Gods.
ME: The more I experience and the more I read on those forums and other places, the more I am convinced that the God of the christians and the muslims is a deadend - a construction of the human mind. That does not mean that I have entirely discounted the idea of "God" but rather I have found those particular franchises to be wanting. It could be that I discover God in the Torah or some other place, who knows? So basically - God could exist but I currently don't see anything to convince me at present.
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AdminJar Inactive Member |
Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.
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nator Member (Idle past 2198 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: That sums up my view as well. Additionally, I also consider it possible that even if God exists, we have no reason to believe that we could understand of comprehend this entity at all.
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Additionally, I also consider it possible that even if God exists, we have no reason to believe that we could understand of comprehend this entity at all. I only differ in that as some part of my inner makeup I am utterly convinced there is a God, probably because I believe there's a higher reason for existence. It feels to me like there must be more than just you're born and then you die. Someone with these kinds of inner feelings might likely be expected to affiliate with some religion or another, but I am not a member of any organized religion - I'm a Unitarian! (I know I've used that line before, but I like it.) Even for a Unitarian my views are somewhat "out there", but since the local Unitarian churches have followed along with the national merging with the Universalists there is no longer much mention of spirtual issues during services, and I stopped attending long ago. The last service I attended was about keeping the right-wing hawks from nuking the pregnant and underpaid female handicapped whales. Reverend Dorothy Kimble, if you're out there, we need you back! Giving the wide variety of religions on the planet, each with a conservative faction insisting that theirs is the one, right and true religion, it seems unlikely that any of them are privy to information about the true nature of God, especially those whose views are still anchored in pre-scientific beliefs. I guess my views aren't entirely congruent with Krull and Schraf. Since I don't believe we know anything about God, I couldn't say whether we could comprehend him or not. --Percy
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
See, I'm pretty certain there is no god. Largely as a subset of being pretty certain that all that there is in the world is naturalistic. Of course, I'm also pretty certain that I can't be truly certain about anything.
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coffee_addict Member (Idle past 505 days) Posts: 3645 From: Indianapolis, IN Joined: |
I don't care if there is a god or not. If I ever take over the world (I'm serious) I'm going to make sure the very concept will be forgotten by everyone.
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mick Member (Idle past 5014 days) Posts: 913 Joined: |
I have to align myself with the atheists on this one.
I see no reason to believe in any God, and therefore I don't. It is not impossible that I might one day find God in the Torah, like you. But I can only imagine this would be due to some catastrophe in my life that damaged my reason (ie. sudden death of everybody I know, brain damage, near death experience, or what have you). added in edit: What I am trying to say is that I feel a belief in God would only result from some sort of psychological need to believe. I think deep rooted pscyhological needs underly many people's belief in religion. For some people it might be a need to believe we are not in a meaningless world, not alone. For others it might be a need to belong to a community (because there are real psychological benefits to belonging to a small cliquey church). For others it might be the glamour of Church traditions - the candles, robes and secret customs that outsiders can't understand. But at the moment I just don't have any of those psychological needs. Perhaps I fulfil them in a different way. I get the psychological crutch of a basically existentialist view of life, and a sense of community from my friends, family, science (and who knows, maybe even internet talkboards?) This message has been edited by mick, 04-25-2005 11:58 AM
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Primordial Egg Inactive Member |
Yeah to what Mr Jack said, pretty much verbatim. I don't believe in any deities as they've been defined for me, they smack to me of human invention.
Although, I am starting to come round to the idea that it may be far more probable that this Universe was created by something else, rather than arose naturally, just by a simple probability argument. If: - multiple universes exist- it is possible (in principle) to create universes in a laboratory I would find it difficult to believe that somewhere in the multiverse, there wouldn't be beings who would create these test tube Universes which would look exactly like the one we inhabit. Billions of them, in fact. I would tentatively argue that it is far more probable that we're living in one of these artificially created universes than a "naturally" created one. This does beg a few questions - where did these beings originally come from? Was there a "natural" beginning to the multiverse and what caused this? Could these beings be said to be effectively omni etc etc in our universe? I think these beings, if they exist, would come close to matching some description of gods. Ultimately this solves nothing, as the beings which created this universe would use the same logic to deduce that they (probably) were artificially created themselves. PE This message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 04-25-2005 12:23 PM
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riVeRraT Member (Idle past 444 days) Posts: 5788 From: NY USA Joined: |
I couldn't find God anywhere I looked either, until I searched myself.
It troubles me that you are looking for God on these forums, and "other places". I wish I had something of some significance to say to you, for once.
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I do not believe
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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CK Member (Idle past 4155 days) Posts: 3221 Joined: |
In regards to the forums I meant that what is discussed here just reinforces my own views on religion.
i'm sorry Riverrat - your christian god is just a bust for me. I'm not really that interested in exploring that avenue any further - it's a waste of resources.
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Tusko Member (Idle past 129 days) Posts: 615 From: London, UK Joined: |
I'm totally undecided on the existence of some kind of supernatural being. Seems possible; though whether it was all powerful or even conscious seems pretty hard to determine.
So what if, for the sake of argument, there really is a god or gods, who don't take kindly to non-belief? I take some comfort from the sheer number of contrasting religious dogmas. I think the odds are on my side in that respect. I'm going to be dismayed if there is a hell and I'm going to it, obviously. Like would happen say, if the Christian fundamentalists are right. In a sense, I think that if the rapture actually happens, it will be quite nice in the sense that it will at least offer some evidence of God's existence. I can really get cracking on the belief then, no problems.
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MangyTiger Member (Idle past 6381 days) Posts: 989 From: Leicester, UK Joined: |
So basically - God could exist but I currently don't see anything to convince me at present. Same here - I'm not ruling out the possibility but I haven't experienced anything yet to make me think there is one.
The more I experience and the more I read on those forums and other places, the more I am convinced that the God of the christians and the muslims is a deadend - a construction of the human mind. That does not mean that I have entirely discounted the idea of "God" but rather I have found those particular franchises to be wanting. Ditto again - I do strongly believe that if there is a God it isn't the Jewish/Christian/Islamic one. I also have to agree with schrafinator that if there is a God it may well be completely beyond our comprehension. The Tigers roared in Dublin - and I was there.
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MangyTiger Member (Idle past 6381 days) Posts: 989 From: Leicester, UK Joined: |
Is your avatar a snapshot from the credits to Monkey ?
The Tigers roared in Dublin - and I was there.
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
My guess was a submerged teenage mutant ninja turtle.
--Percy
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