On 7/29/2020 at 9:25 AM, torturedsole said:

Muddying the waters with religious incarnations doesn't help the progress of humankind.

Doesn't really matter either way IMO. IMO humankind is well on the way to exterminating itself through overpopulation, war and pollution. Perhaps the next dominant species will do better.

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Smart enough to create life the universe and everything, which makes God a whole lot smarter than every human that ever lived and ever will live.

No. It makes Him much more powerful, but his creations are severely flawed. Even His most sophisticated creation, Mankind in His own image, often behaves worse than any animal. ????

17 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

No. It makes Him much more powerful, but his creations are severely flawed. Even His most sophisticated creation, Mankind in His own image, often behaves worse than any animal. ????

Have you ever thought about the complexity of the human brain? The fact that the sun is exactly the right distance from the earth to ensure life? How everything alive requires food, water and air in a body that moves with no thinking required? That all the requirements for life are here? How the moon's gravitational pull works the tides? This an many more creations might be flawed, but there's a reason for that. We aren't supposed to live forever. This short life is a test for the next one.

11 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Have you ever thought about the complexity of the human brain? The fact that the sun is exactly the right distance from the earth to ensure life? How everything alive requires food, water and air in a body that moves with no thinking required? That all the requirements for life are here? How the moon's gravitational pull works the tides? This an many more creations might be flawed, but there's a reason for that. We aren't supposed to live forever. This short life is a test for the next one.

so if you dont believe in God ,you fail the test?

10 minutes ago, bert bloggs said:

so if you dont believe in God ,you fail the test?

His test, yes

55 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Have you ever thought about the complexity of the human brain? The fact that the sun is exactly the right distance from the earth to ensure life? How everything alive requires food, water and air in a body that moves with no thinking required? That all the requirements for life are here? How the moon's gravitational pull works the tides? This an many more creations might be flawed, but there's a reason for that. We aren't supposed to live forever. This short life is a test for the next one.

It is physics law with billions of planets with potential for life. The only eternity is trough your DNA! Nothing else

46 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

His test, yes

so if your Bhuddist ,what then ,or a Hindu or in Viking times believed in Odin?

16 minutes ago, bert bloggs said:

so if your Bhuddist ,what then ,or a Hindu or in Viking times believed in Odin?

https://images.app.goo.gl/r79AnXjA3u7p42rw5                  Numbers 1 and 2 explain this

In regards to religion (any religion) I've learned to follow a few simple guidelines:

1. Never trust a person (or religion) that claims God prefers one group of people over another.
2. Never trust a person (or religion) who says he knows what God's intentions are.
3. Never trust a person (or religion) claiming to promote compassion and love, while at the same time discriminating against people of other religions, homosexuals or anyone slightly different than they are.
4. Never trust a person (or religion) whose central body of knowledge is concentrated in a book, rather than based on direct experience. 
5. Never trust a person (or religion) who claims he's the only way to reach God. 
6. Never trust a person whose posts are made up of endless quote from other people/books. 
7. Don't trust this post ???? 

@Sunmaster

 

That post sums it up! 10 points from the Norwegian jury

3 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

https://images.app.goo.gl/r79AnXjA3u7p42rw5                  Numbers 1 and 2 explain this

yes but what about the people thousands of years ago ,before God was invented ,they had never heard of him ,were they all doomed?

6 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

Have you ever thought about the complexity of the human brain? The fact that the sun is exactly the right distance from the earth to ensure life? How everything alive requires food, water and air in a body that moves with no thinking required? That all the requirements for life are here? How the moon's gravitational pull works the tides? This an many more creations might be flawed, but there's a reason for that. We aren't supposed to live forever. This short life is a test for the next one.

Its very easy to believe the Earth was created for the conditions of life.

Its very hard however, to understand how life evolves and adapts to the changing conditions of the planet. 

14 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

No. It makes Him much more powerful, but his creations are severely flawed. Even His most sophisticated creation, Mankind in His own image, often behaves worse than any animal. ????

Are you saying that mankind is the most important thing in the entire universe? LOL if you are.

The achievement of God is the universe that IMO accommodates untold billions of life forms, not individual humans. While mankind may be flawed, there may be ( ?will be ) better on other planets far, far away.

 

BTW, animals don't behave badly unless corrupted by humans. Animals in nature behave as their genes dictate, ergo normally.

Only humans have the free will to choose to be bad.

 

7 hours ago, Elad said:

Its very easy to believe the Earth was created for the conditions of life.

Its very hard however, to understand how life evolves and adapts to the changing conditions of the planet. 

LOL. Life evolved to fit planetary conditions, not the other way around, IMO.

9 hours ago, bert bloggs said:

yes but what about the people thousands of years ago ,before God was invented ,they had never heard of him ,were they all doomed?

Only if you believe the men with funny hats.

12 hours ago, bert bloggs said:

so if your Bhuddist ,what then ,or a Hindu or in Viking times believed in Odin?

That's religion.

The thread title says "do-you-believe-in-god-and-why", not "do-you-believe-in-religion-and-why".

14 hours ago, bert bloggs said:

so if you dont believe in God ,you fail the test?

God can set any test God wishes to. If God decides that non believers are doomed to eternal purgatory then yes. However I think God takes souls on their own merits- not whether they believed in Odin or Kali or Jesus. good people of any or no religion have nothing to fear, IMO.

We all have a choice- to be good or bad, to believe in an afterlife or not, to believe in God or not. Just don't complain after if you got it wrong.

On 8/2/2020 at 2:52 PM, bert bloggs said:

I have always believed that everything is predestined ,you live you die ,you go back to the earth just like the leaves and trees etc you become soil and fertilizer for the next batch of growth ,nice to believe in God and that you will see your relatives when you die ,but its just a dream .

Only your body dies, the soul lives forever, IMO.

13 hours ago, Tagged said:

It is physics law with billions of planets with potential for life. The only eternity is trough your DNA! Nothing else

and where did billions of planets originate, where did physics come from? Two choices IMO- nothing, which is a nonsense, or God, whatever God is- could be just a mass of intelligent energy. For sure God isn't an old man on a throne in the sky.

5 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

and where did billions of planets originate, where did physics come from? Two choices IMO- nothing, which is a nonsense, or God, whatever God is- could be just a mass of intelligent energy. For sure God isn't an old man on a throne in the sky.

 

 BTW, animals don't behave badly unless corrupted by humans. Animals in nature behave as their genes dictate, ergo normally.

 

 

We do not know what god is, so I can not speculate or state what he is.

 

 

We do not know either if animals have free will or not. Humans have limited free will. Most will do as told, if the pressure is great enough, and also if someone else is taking respinsibillity, we will do things we would normaly not do, of if everybody else do it, even we know its wrong. Humans do not necessery choose to be bad.

 

Complicated psychology and i guess for many animals it is the same. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

54 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Are you saying that mankind is the most important thing in the entire universe? LOL if you are.

The achievement of God is the universe that IMO accommodates untold billions of life forms, not individual humans. While mankind may be flawed, there may be ( ?will be ) better on other planets far, far away.

 

BTW, animals don't behave badly unless corrupted by humans. Animals in nature behave as their genes dictate, ergo normally.

Only humans have the free will to choose to be bad.

 

Man was created in God's image, and is the highest form of life in the universe. The reason God gave us free will is to see if we  would follow him, and so we aren't just "animals" following blindly. Even if there are aliens out there, which I believe, would God make them with free will or as blind animals? If the former, they would have the ability to hurt and cause havoc, rebelling against God like we did, and do. Would God have to make another Jesus so he could save them from their sins also? If life is better on other planets, and they have free will, how did they stay that way without the human nature to commit evil? Were they given a brain that doesn't think bad things? And as far as the animals, they do things by instinct, like eating one another in horrible ways. Is this bad? No, because carnivores need meat to survive. Did carnivores eat vegetation in the Garden of Eden? They don't have molars , or long digestive tracts, so they couldn't eat much plant material. Crocodiles eat people almost every week in India, and tigers do the same monthly. As do lions in Africa.  Are they being corrupted? Or should humans live elsewhere so the carnivores can just eat other animals? No, it's instinct.genes like you said. Man shouldn't put themselves in situations where they might be eaten. But with overpopulation and needing water from rivers and searching for food causing man to go further for these necessities, they put themselves in harms way. I guess you would say that we are corrupting the animals because we're encroaching on their habitat. Yet in the beginning, God gave “to every beast of the earth…wherein there is life” plants as food, not animal flesh (Genesis 1:30). Only after man sinned (Genesis 3) did human and animal death enter the world (Genesis 1:31; Romans 5:12; 8:20-22). So where did today’s carnivorous lions come from?   From this link...............https://www.icr.org/article/did-lions-roam-garden-eden

46 minutes ago, Tagged said:

 

 

We do not know what god is, so I can not speculate or state what he is.

 

 

We do not know either if animals have free will or not. Humans have limited free will. Most will do as told, if the pressure is great enough, and also if someone else is taking respinsibillity, we will do things we would normaly not do, of if everybody else do it, even we know its wrong. Humans do not necessery choose to be bad.

 

Complicated psychology and i guess for many animals it is the same. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have unlimited free will, as years of killing and injustices has shown. Humans make a decision to do what they do. The only things that stop some are laws, conscience and fear. Others don't have a conscience and think they can do whatever they want and hurt whomever they want. That's a sociopath, and it's a choice.

23 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

We have unlimited free will, as years of killing and injustices has shown. Humans make a decision to do what they do. The only things that stop some are laws, conscience and fear. Others don't have a conscience and think they can do whatever they want and hurt whomever they want. That's a sociopath, and it's a choice.

No, you just jump to conclusions. Very few want to go to war, but most do when told. Most people do not want to kill, but do when told. Most people do not want to torture, most people do when told, and I can continue

 

Most people do not want immigrants who is not beneficial,,,,,,,,,,

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Are you saying that mankind is the most important thing in the entire universe? LOL if you are.

 

Are you saying that you are subservient to an imaginary alien in outer space. LOL if you are. ????

 

BTW, animals don't behave badly unless corrupted by humans. Animals in nature behave as their genes dictate, ergo normally.
Only humans have the free will to choose to be bad.

 

Really!! I think you mean that only humans can conceptualize what good and bad means, because of our capacity for abstract thought. In practice, 'good' is usually related to the survival and prosperity of the individual or group, and that which is perceived as a threat to one's survival, or the group's survival, is considered to be 'bad'. This applies to all animals and humans.

 

Most animals will kill to protect their offspring and/or territory, and/or feed themselves, and/or become the dominant male in a group by killing another male competitor. However, because humans are better organized, in larger groups and with larger brains and better skills, they can, and do kill with much greater efficiency and ferocity, in order to expand their territory and power, and/or defend the group from invaders.

 

All the wars throughout the history of human civilization demonstrate this instinctual characteristic of the human animal. Disgusting! We are the worst of all animals (apart from a few of us who are truly insightful ????  )
 

16 minutes ago, Tagged said:

Very few want to go to war,

LOL.

NZ sent only volunteers to Vietnam and in every previous war they had no shortage of young men queuing up to go fight. Rather a lot in fact.

 

4 minutes ago, Tagged said:

No, you just jump to conclusions. Very few want to go to war, but most do when told. Most people do not want to kill, but do when told. Most people do not want to torture, most people do when told, and I can continue

 

Most people do not want immigrants who is not beneficial,,,,,,,,,,

I never jump to conclusions. I'm stating things as they are. People have free will to do whatever they want. If ordered to do something, that's fear of reprisal. They can choose to walk away. If you join the military, you're taught to kill. It doesn't mean you have to aim to kill. Only from fear and a dictatorship, when you're forced to do evil, will free will be cancelled. It doesn't mean you want to do something wrong, it's because out of fear, you are being forced.

7 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Are you saying that you are subservient to an imaginary alien in outer space. LOL if you are. 

No I'm saying that there are uncountable billions of planets in the universe and to think that we are the only beings that have free will and perhaps intelligence is a nonsense. Of them, many will have evolved long before us and are undoubtedly more intelligent than we are.

5 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL.

NZ sent only volunteers to Vietnam and in every previous war they had no shortage of young men queuing up to go fight. Rather a lot in fact.

 

Is that a proof of free will? 

Just now, Tagged said:

Is that a proof of free will? 

Volunteer means free will. You made the choice.

Just now, Tagged said:

Is that a proof of free will? 

Yes. They wanted to go. I joined up during the Vietnam war I did a trade and didn't go there, but everyone else on my basic joined up because they wanted to go there.