does god exist?

Actually no, they wouldn't.

Yes it is what you said and it is an example of you jumping to a conclusion.

So you say.

You think God is material? The being that created all things material is himself material?

And you expect God to sit around and let you run tests on him and what tests would you run? Do you really think that mankind has any kind of instruments that could test for God?

You may be thinking a little small, you're talking about a being that has the power to create the universe and you talk like you think you can even exist in his presence, so you can do some sort of empirical testing on him.

Perhaps you need to read a little more Shakespeare, there is more to heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

This is such a waste of time. You're actually pretending that I made the statement that there is a 0% chance of God's existence when in actual fact my statement is that there is unknown probability (and therefore no reason to believe in God). That is what I said and you refuse to even acknowledge that that is what I believe just so you can say that I'm jumping to conclusions. These are petty and intellectually dishonest thug tactics.

 

We find many disparate beliefs about the existence of God. All of these beliefs, yeah or nay, are equal in being substitutes for knowledge. We must believe because we cannot verify. We may find however, absolute agreement, that ideas about God exist. Of the things that we know exist, we may share observations of. Of things that we believe to exist, we can share nothing at all.

 

god exists. just not in the way everyone thinks.

 

Certainly, every word that we use has an embodied origin.

 

What you say is very thought provoking... I think a lot can be learned about philosophy, science, and theology through word origins.

 

Actually I'm pretending this is what you said:

and it appears that in that statement you are jumping to the conclusion that there is no reason to believe in God, especially since you are now saying you are not 100% certain that God doesn't exist. As I pointed out before, someone saying; there is no evidence, so I therefore neither believe or disbelieve the existence of God, would someone not jumping to conclusions. But instead you have jumped beyond that to disbelief and now you deny your jump to that conclusion.

Now, because I've taken the time to try and disabuse you of your "Leap of Faith" you fall back on name calling, honestly that's......what did you call it "petty and intellectually dishonest thug tactics".

 

You're treating the statement "I don't believe in God" as "I deny the possibility that God exists". This is not what is meant. What is meant is "I have no belief. Neither positive or negative belief". And because I have no belief I do not act in a particular way that would result from either the affirmative or negative position. A lot of Christians like to use the fact that there isn't 0% probability of God's existence to try and give some credence to their beliefs. But without evidence they aren't any more justified in their beliefs than if there actually was 0% probability. If something hasnt been perceived then there is no justification for believing in it.

if you don't understand what I mean and don't understand that this isn't jumping to conclusions then I have nothing to say to you because you are refusing to make an earnest attempt to understand my position and are pretending that "I do not believe in God" was meant to mean something other than what I meant.

 

Belief is not required for truth to be whatever it may be.

 

You should be able to understand my confusion on what you are trying to say since "I don't believe in God" and “I have no belief. Neither positive or negative belief" are not generally considered to be the same thing. Especially since twice I said that:

and you could have said that is more what I meant.

See now, there wasn't any need to start name calling if you had just explained what you really meant in the first place.

Why not? You make sound like the probability of God’s existence is .000000000001% but actual truth the probability of God’s is 99.999999999999% and yet you find this to be reason to not get off the fence.

You are the one saying there is no evidence. As I said before there are many Christians that believe there is plenty of evidence that God exists. I told you before I do not believe in “blind” faith, true faith is not credulity.

What do you mean by perceived?

Just because you haven’t seen, heard, felt or tasted God, does that mean he doesn’t exist?

Quarks haven’t been seen, heard, felt or tasted and yet many believe they exist. Why because the evidence seems to leave a hole that they fill.

Likewise there is plenty of evidence that God exists.

Have you actually thought about what caused the “Big Bang”? Are you really satisfied with the thought that at one point in time there was nothing and then in an "instance" there was this universe? Something, a lot of something from nothing?

I suppose you believe in evolution, again are you satisfied that something came from nothing? That animate came from the inanimate through some as yet "unknown" process?

And what about the Bible, are you satisfied to believe that such a book came about by man’s hand. A book made from perishable paper carried around by some 3rd world country for 3000 years, that today is the oldest book known to man and has survived many attempts to destroy it and yet is now available to 98% of all mankind.

And if that isn’t enough it is a book prophecy and not just the Nostradamus kind of vague prophecy that could apply to any thing but prophecy that names names and tells you exactly what will happen.

And if that is not enough proof for you, that’s okay, more proof will be provided for you but I’m not sure your going to like it when it comes.

 

Every word that we use has an embodied origin. When we say the word God, we must be speaking of something that we relate to on some level, in some form. We speak of God as cause. Cause is God. Our cause is our God, and everyone has something they are devoted to.

 

Yes I can see that. As long as you understand now.

I make it sound like the probability is undefined and therefore any belief or disbelief is arbitrary. Let me use an example. Say that I find a book in the woods entitled "The Magnificent Gnome King's Rules of Tea-time etiquette". It outlines some very exact and very arbitrary rules for tea-time and says that if I don't follow them exactly the great gnome king is going to come out of the sky and destroy me. Without actually having perceived the gnome king or his city in the sky I have no reason to follow the tea-time guidelines. Only once something has been perceived by somebody can I even begin to posit it.

As for the second part of your post, for belief in the existence of something it has to have been perceived by me or someone else and there has to be enough evidence for this to have an acceptable degree of certainty. For example, I haven't directly perceived the Taj Mahal, but there are pictures, and anyone who has seen is it certain of its existence. All evidence supports its existence and none denies it. One thing that I do require for suitable evidence is object permanency. That an object is there, when you look away and look back it will still be there and if you're perceiving it, you will remain perceiving it. God doesn't meet this criteria.

I'm not satisfied that something can come from nothing. However if God doesn't have to have an origin than that which God has supposedly created doesn't have to have an origin either. Religion doesn't explain anything, it pretends to know what it can't explain. I don't think there's good reason to believe in the big bang theory, but its proponents make a far more earnest attempt at it than religious people. Neither conclusion is sufficient for belief. Know that I don't have a problem with not knowing these things. I don't need to fabricate explanations for things that I haven't been able to explain, I prefer to look for the answers and if I can't find them I don't pretend to have.

If you want to have different standards for belief than scientifically-minded people I suppose I don't have a problem with that. It's not like the criteria for belief is set in stone and everyone has to follow it. I just call it irrational. Seeing as you don't subscribe to the contrived definition of what it is to be rational, it's kind of pointless of me to make that statement.

It's been a very long time and there's still no evidence for the existence of God. If ever God should come out of the sky and make himself known to me I will believe in him. Whether or not I will like it is up to how God is. If it's the old testament God, fuck that. New testament, possibly, although I think I would still disagree with a lot of Christian beliefs. Odin? Hell yeah. If God were to make himself known I don't think he would be like anyone thinks he would. There are far to many religions with conflicting views on how God would be.

 

There is no belief that speaks for the truth, beliefs only contend with other beliefs. Perception is not knowledge. Perception by its' very nature is ignorant as form is defined by negative space. Knowledge is, being shared. Perception is useful in negotiating corridors of refraction that come from and lead to a source.

 

Sure, unless you say that “I have no belief. Neither positive or negative belief" means something other than what it says.

I can see why you ignore the Gnome King, seeing as no one has perceived him but God has been perceived by somebody if fact he has been percieved by many people, so I don't really see the comparison.

Okay, that's has happened many times and we have their written testimony.

But God does meet this criteria, in fact he is more permanent than the universe, let a lone the Taj Mahal.

Sorry if I've already found the answer but good luck with that finding an other explanation.

Sorry again if I don't believe the Earth is Flat or that the that the heavenly bodies were fixed to the surface of solid, transparent spheres, with each sphere nested within another sphere. Supposedly the earth was on the innermost sphere, and the outermost sphere held the stars, or that human or animal excrement is a remedy for certain ailments, all of which were believed at one time by scientifically-minded people but not by those trusted what the Bible says. If that is "irrational" well then I'm happy to be "irrational".

There is plenty of evidence but for some reason you wish to ignore it.

Actually no, you would not believe in God because you would be dead, since no man can see God and yet live.

Do you really believe that all religions represent God? If so, it's easy to see why you don't believe in God. There are so many conflicting ideas about what and who God is in the various religions. But the truth is only one actually represents God and his purposes for the Earth.

 

There is a very important distinction between believing something about the identity of an object that can be perceived and has object permanence and believing in the existence of something that hasn't been perceived. Our perceptions and reasoning can be wrong, we could perceive the earth being flat and reason that it's flat. This isn't the same as believing in the existence of an object without having perceived it. Without perception we don't have grounds for the belief in the existence of something.

Have you ever perceived God and did he have permanence or was it a split-second visual perception of -something- or a vague, ambiguous momentary sensation that you concluded must have been God and couldn't have been physiological?

 

All human systems are devised as paths toward salvation. The bible doesn't say anything. The bible consists of symbols ensconced in some kind of storage device. These symbols, of necessity, require interpretation because they are meaningless absent their experiential associations.

 

Well, when you die, it won't matter. Because there's going to be nothing there.

Belief in god is a product of the human mind. Because we want something to be there when there is nothing. In this universe there are many processes that work together in tandem. We see this amazing process and say "That can't be the result of nothing!! There has to be something more!" Why can we not accept that there is nothing else in this universe?

 

That's just garbage. It doesn't do anybody any good to pretend to know that.

 

100% sure that god doesnt exist.

 

Why can't we accept that the universe was engineered with loving intent by a benevolent being?