Do you believe in God and why

[CharlieH]

Just now, mauGR1 said:

True, and the ones who can manage to give their best efforts for positive values, can live forever. 

No need to name names, but we know plenty of people who left this earth long ago, and are still alive in our thoughts. 

Exactly ! And if you choose to "believe" there are other ways to exist than in the material body, like in thoughts and memories.

[mauGR1]

4 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

Exactly ! And if you choose to "believe" there are other ways to exist than in the material body, like in thoughts and memories.

Wow Charlie, I'm truly surprised, that's anthroposophic thinking !

 

[ColeBOzbourne]

39 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

But if you "believe" he can, he has no need to demonstrate i.t

If He did choose to demonstrate it, would He be capable of doing so?

[CharlieH]

1 minute ago, ColeBOzbourne said:

If He did choose to demonstrate it, would He be capable of doing so?

Why would he need to demonstrate it, if a person already believes he can. Anyone can play "what if".

 

[ColeBOzbourne]

2 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

Why would he need to demonstrate it, if a person already believes he can. Anyone can play "what if".

And anyone can avoid the question. It's only for fun, not to be taken seriously. Similar to the supposed catch-22 of the unstoppable force vs. the immovable object. A viable solution is that the force can move through the object. I'm interested if anyone has a viable solution for God and the stone.

[CharlieH]

9 minutes ago, ColeBOzbourne said:

And anyone can avoid the question. It's only for fun, not to be taken seriously. Similar to the supposed catch-22 of the unstoppable force vs. the immovable object. A viable solution is that the force can move through the object. I'm interested if anyone has a viable solution for God and the stone.

Not avoiding it at all, its just a matter of what a person "believes" , thats the point.

Things do not require proof if its what is already believed, thats why its called "faith".

 

Faith : "strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof."

[mauGR1]

34 minutes ago, ColeBOzbourne said:

And anyone can avoid the question. It's only for fun, not to be taken seriously. Similar to the supposed catch-22 of the unstoppable force vs. the immovable object. A viable solution is that the force can move through the object. I'm interested if anyone has a viable solution for God and the stone.

If God exists  he's omnipotent  so everything is possible, within and without our understanding .

[Skeptic7]

Been posted previously but seems very fitting again now...

 

[ColeBOzbourne]

A shame that faith in God so often seems to rob people of their sense of humor. There is a time to laugh.

One responsibility of Christians is to spread the word and recruit non-believers into believers. Tough to do when the believer gets offended by questions and the best answer he can come up with is, "Have faith." 

[mauGR1]

6 minutes ago, ColeBOzbourne said:

A shame that faith in God so often seems to rob people of their sense of humor. There is a time to laugh.

One responsibility of Christians is to spread the word and recruit non-believers into believers. Tough to do when the believer gets offended by questions and the best answer he can come up with is, "Have faith." 

Perhaps you're overthinking?

[Fat is a type of crazy]

3 hours ago, ColeBOzbourne said:

I ran across this catch-22 in a book this morning, it reminded me of this thread:  "Can God make a stone so big that He cannot lift it?"

It comes down to the definition of god. If a god is by definition all powerful with no limitations then the human who made the statement has erred in logic as by definition god can make any stone and lift it.

God can make a stone as big as he chooses. God can lift that or any stone.

If a god can be defined as non human but with limitations then God could possibly make a stone so big he couldn't lift. They are two different skills - making stones and lifting stones. 

It is about the definition of God. 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

10 minutes ago, ColeBOzbourne said:

A shame that faith in God so often seems to rob people of their sense of humor. There is a time to laugh.

One responsibility of Christians is to spread the word and recruit non-believers into believers. Tough to do when the believer gets offended by questions and the best answer he can come up with is, "Have faith." 

I don't think there are any Christians on here at the moment. Haven't been for a long time.

 

Also, this believer isn't into answering the same questions that have been repeated over and over by posters not willing to read the back pages. Have faith is a perfectly good answer.

[Skeptic7]

17 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Perhaps you're overthinking?

How would you know? ????

[Skeptic7]

11 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I don't think there are any Christians on here at the moment. Haven't been for a long time.

 

Also, this believer isn't into answering the same questions that have been repeated over and over by posters not willing to read the back pages. Have faith is a perfectly good answer.

Faith in what? Other than the deity in which you so fervently believe, but have never defined nor even have a clue what it is... what other aspect of your life do you perform based on faith? 

 

You may trust in a family member or close friend because they have always conducted themselves with the highest integrity...always been there for you and never failed or let you down. There's your knowledge of this person with a proven and demonstrable track record which has earned your trust. It's not faith.

 

You may have confidence in commercial aircraft and the pilots because they are  highly trained and both have succeeded the vast majority of flights. The safety records of jet aircraft and commercial pilots is extremely high. There are proven and demonstrable historical safety records to show this. It's not "faith" your flying on.

[malthebluff]

People need something to believe in. Somebody to blame or somebody to thank.  Unfortunately we are all conditioned from the second we are born. Babies dont know if they white black yellow or green with pink spots they are labelled by the peers ie white baby black baby and its the same with religion. 80 or so years ago mothers and babies where not allowed out until the church had blessed them. Then came the christenings for the babies names and then first day at school saying prayers so brainwashed from very early age.

If I was to ask somebody who believed in God is your god good they would say yes and the devil was there for temptations

If I asked could he do anything he wanted with a click of his fingers they would say yes to. And if asked could he make a pea the size of a melon they would say yes. If I ask can he make the pea so heavy that nobody could lift it they would say yes.

If I asked could he make the pea so heavy that not even god could lift it they would also say yes. And that would go back to they first question God can do anything but then he cant lift the pea

And again  unfortunately people not anylize just what religan us they just accept it. Not many churches have preach about Jesus's OLDER brother but he is in the bible but what of a virgin birth. also no schooling in them days and not many  could read or write plus tge language aramaic was only spoken in that area and people didnt travelto far no motorways then and if they did travel they could not communicate. But we still need something to believe in may it be aliens nature or gods 

[mikebike]

19 hours ago, Sparktrader said:

19 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

accept the consensus of science

Science is about facts not opinions. A consensus is like the Oscars. 

The epistemology of science is the process of induction and deduction, observation and experimentation, the development and testing of hypotheses and theories then publishing to peer-reviewed journals for critique. It is by definition consensual.

 

What you perceive as "facts" are just the predictable outcomes of good science. These "facts" can, and do, change and evolve over time.

[thaibeachlovers]

35 minutes ago, malthebluff said:

Not many churches have preach about Jesus's OLDER brother but he is in the bible

A quote from the Bible is in order if you are going to start introducing extra family members, and why is he significant?

[mikebike]

18 hours ago, Sparktrader said:

The more I study science, the more I believe in God. ~Albert Einstein

Albert said many things... like, “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me.”

[mikebike]

6 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

NB I say the basic principles, not the extraneous things added by fallible humans.

The entirety of the Christian bible, the new testament, was written by "fallible humans". What are you on about?

[thaibeachlovers]

4 minutes ago, mikebike said:

The entirety of the Christian bible, the new testament, was written by "fallible humans". What are you on about?

Only those principles preached by Jesus, so only the 4 books and none of the stuff added by Paul etc.

Everything he said was a guide to living in love and forgiveness, such as "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" etc. Doesn't matter who wrote them, as it's pretty obvious to anyone of good heart what is true and what is false. I'm pretty sure the Christ never said that priests should be celibate. As for prostitution, he wasn't against that far as I know.

[thaibeachlovers]

17 minutes ago, mikebike said:

Albert said many things... like, “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me.”

None of which says that he thought God did not exist.  In the absence of proof one way or another, a wise person would be agnostic about it, IMO.

[mikebike]

6 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If we really loved everyone, how could we commit crimes against them or kill them?

Your fantasy world apparently does not account for irrationality, heat-of-the-moment decisions, or mental illness. Unfortunately, all the above are embedded in the human experience.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

It comes down to the definition of god. If a god is by definition all powerful with no limitations then the human who made the statement has erred in logic as by definition god can make any stone and lift it.

God can make a stone as big as he chooses. God can lift that or any stone.

If a god can be defined as non human but with limitations then God could possibly make a stone so big he couldn't lift. They are two different skills - making stones and lifting stones. 

It is about the definition of God. 

 

If God can create the universe, I'm pretty certain that a big stone would be no problem.

[mikebike]

4 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

True, and the ones who can manage to give their best efforts for positive values, can live forever. 

No need to name names, but we know plenty of people who left this earth long ago, and are still alive in our thoughts. 

Huh?

 

History remembers at least as many monsters as it does the "ones who can manage to give their best efforts for positive values..."

[mikebike]

12 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Only those principles preached by Jesus, so only the 4 books and none of the stuff added by Paul etc.

Everything he said was a guide to living in love and forgiveness, such as "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" etc. Doesn't matter who wrote them, as it's pretty obvious to anyone of good heart what is true and what is false. I'm pretty sure the Christ never said that priests should be celibate. As for prostitution, he wasn't against that far as I know.

Trying hard to understand this.

 

So... fallible humans wrote the parts of the Bible you do not like, but infallible humans wrote the parts you like?

[thaibeachlovers]

6 minutes ago, mikebike said:

Your fantasy world apparently does not account for irrationality, heat-of-the-moment decisions, or mental illness. Unfortunately, all the above are embedded in the human experience.

I never said that love would happen for all, but just that if we lived by his principles we would have no war, for starters.

 

In your eagerness to poke holes in whatever I post you appear unwilling to consider what what I'm actually saying, but that's OK. I'm not out to convert anyone, and all are free to believe or not, as they choose. I'm just posting my opinions.

After all, believing doesn't make one happier or more successful, as if it did, everyone would, surely?

[mikebike]

12 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

None of which says that he thought God did not exist.  In the absence of proof one way or another, a wise person would be agnostic about it, IMO.

The point of the quote is NOT to determine whether AE believed in God or not (it seems fairly clear he did). The quote was only meant as a counter-point to the AE quote I was responding to.

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, mikebike said:

Trying hard to understand this.

 

So... fallible humans wrote the parts of the Bible you do not like, but infallible humans wrote the parts you like?

Hmmmm.

What I said was "Only those principles preached by Jesus, so only the 4 books" and "Doesn't matter who wrote them, as it's pretty obvious to anyone of good heart what is true and what is false."

I don't see any reference to fallability or otherwise. Just read the 4 books and the guiding principles for living a good life are plain to see. Things like caring about other people and forgiving are hardly bad, are they?

[mikebike]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I never said that love would happen for all, but just that if we lived by his principles we would have no war, for starters.

I already pointed out the logical inconsistency in the thought process. Repeating it is not helping. If everyone in the world "lived by his principals" it is doubtless that there WOULD still be war. Narcessistic meglomaniacs make up many of the world's leaders both past and present.

[mikebike]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I don't see any reference to fallability or otherwise.

So you are now rejecting you earlier premise of fallibility? Moving the goalposts isn't helping this discussion.