Does God Exist?

The bible is a collection of the Jewish history, of myths and covers a span of over a thousand years. It's taken from the people who COULD write things down, so they were the "scholars" of the time. They are not the same person.

It's not a living and breathing document. It's a collection of stories written by several different authors. That's it.

It only breathes and lives for those who have faith that its words are divinely inspired.

 

It only breathes for those internalize it and relate it now.

 

So right away a problem comes to mind, since the bible is so convoluted, complicated and contradictory, many throughout history and today have "internalized" it to allow them to commit objectively horrible acts. Zooming out a bit, what I'm getting at is that whoever you are, that will greatly predict how you "internalize" the bible. It sounds like a fancy word for "read it then do whatever you want as long as you can convince yourself its all christian".

It sounds like a lazy way to get around the problem of having a religion constructed around such a poor document to construct a religion around.

 

Especially when it's constructed by construction workers who don't know what the construct should be.

 

Well put. I agree that's exactly what it is, and it can't be understood apart from its historical context. The emphasis on literal belief in the Bible as the sole authority in Judeo-Christian religion is a very Protestant concept, and increasingly an Evangelical/fundamentalist viewpoint. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and mainline Christian believers take a more historical-metaphorical approach and emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit acting through the Church.

 

it cannot and never can be known, any sort of absolute limits as to what can and can't exist. by the same principal, it is a very safe bet, that existence, and what can and does exist, is not, and cannot be, limited by or to, anything we think we know. even all of the knowledge of everything that is capable of knowing.

so the existence of something god-like, at least to our perception of it, is, by no means, unlikely. but its resemblance to any claims of knowledge about it, is.

 

Some gods exists because some law of Nature is to be again considered to be valid or not. I think that Clint Eastwood can't accept it that way because his law of Nature is hands on, Meryl Streep might go for the idea as the laws of Nature "are such a phony affaire."

 

sorry but i don't see how any personality is pertinent to the question.
i guess that must be some kind of a half way joke,
from my perspective, i don't really see a connection.

 

Good god; gods, as opposed to God, have personalities by definition. Just prostelityzing for no reason.

I know what. All existence is personal. Isn't it? So even Gods' existence is. But God's Existenz was not the question, buddy.

 

i believe in the existence of whatever there might wish to exist.

what i seriously question, is the likelihood of those things we insist upone imagining ourselves, in the abscence of reliable evidence, to know about them.

thus i trust science, the process of science, which is what science is, somewhat more, then the claims of organized belief.

when we name gods, and other nonphysical things, we are generally engaging in speculation and fantasy,
save for what the feelings of our own personal experience individually, might happen to be.

i believe there are non-physical things, and that their intentions are no less benign then our own.

i see no reason to assume however, that they are any more perfected then ourselves,
nor that they are engaged in any sort of massive battle,
nor that our fantasies might support or oppose some side in such an imaginary conflict.

there are right and wrong in as much as there is benifit and harm,
but i can observe no foundation for an assumption of non-physical hierarchies to rule over them.

rather what i can observe, is that the denial of reason, can in no way prevent, the causing of harm.

 

Everyone missed the crucial question: What exactly do you mean by GOD?

There are many definitions, for example some people define their GOD as the sun, in which case we all would have to agree that God does exist. Some people believe in the Christian doctrine version which would be a personal God who is a creator diety, who hears everyones prayers and occasionally answers them and created the cosmos only to have a relatioship with just one species of primates, and even though he has galaxies upon galaxies to attend to, hes especially concerned with what we do when we are naked! (thank you Sam Harris!).
So you can see depening on how you describe God, he/she is either reasonably probable or just plain ridiculous.

 

The Bible describes God in tons of different ways. He's in whom we live move and have our being. He is portrayed with female attributes. He can indwell people and become people in the case of Jesus. The Bible also says all of creation praises him. I think the problem is always with us trying to frame God in a tiny box so our mind can understand. The thought that we can have a personality yet an infinite God can't is laughable.

 

i think its kind of a paradox then because (in my opinion) the very nature of god cannot be understood, but at the same time the bible tells what he likes or doesnt like, what he wants us to do vs what he doesnt want us to do. i think that the christian doctrine doe try to frame god in a tiny box.

the poeple who wrote the bible (and im not very educated on who wrote it) seem to have alot of knowledge of god. how did they know all this? with all that we know about human psychology and our needs to understand the world around us, woudnt it be at least reasonable to consider that they could've made it all up?

if the bible was "inspired by god", what does this mean exactly? did the "holy spirit" somehow enter their brain and move their hands in order to write it? or did they just use an old story as insperaiton and just add to it?

if this is such an important document why wouldnt god just write it himself like he did on those stone tablets of the ten commandments? (exodus 34:1)

if there are so many authors who contributed to the bible over a period of time, and if they were truly inspired by god, why did god stop doing this?

 

yes things about which no one knows jack exist. no none of them are obliged to resemble how anyone chooses to define a god.

yes there is something big, friendly and invisible. no it did not write anyone's book about religion.

 

whut?

lol after reading it a couple of times i finally understood what you ment (i think).

how u know its friendly?

 

The Bible's main objective is returning people to a right relationship with existence (God). I think that taking everything literally in the Bible makes it lose it's power and leads to a lot of unfruitful argument. A lot of people think God is some guy out in space, but that assumption ignores much of what the Bible says. The Holy Spirit is present in people who have invited God to take up residence inside themselves. Believing is recognizing and having reference for God's presence and relinquishing our position as master. Once this happens, God's characteristics can shine through like light through a prism and the fruits of the spirit (peace, joy, love, self-control, gentleness, patience) are experienced. To me this proves it's truth.

 

If you mean a god like the christian, jewish, or muslim god, as in some sort of supernatural entity, then no. I consider, but consider only, the possibility of one, but in the absence of any proof, it is only logical to assume that one does not exist. Belief based on faith (which is the belief that has nover been proven, or cannot be proven) only borders on psychosis.
I used to take the atheist stance, but that is the other extreme. There is nothing that anyone has put forward so far that either proves or disproves the existence of a god. In the absence of proof one way or the other, the only option that remains is the possibility of one.
If you mean the term god as used in ancient times where it denotes "a lofty one" or some person who holds a high office, then I would say that yes, there have existed people who held the title for some office they were put into, or claimed on their own. I vaguely remember articles on old kings who were supposedly considered gods due to the office they held, but I think those were pretty much assumed titles.

 

Good post! As a working definition of something which is admittedly ineffable, I think of God as a felt presence of a Higher Power--Something Big Out There, and/or In Here other than space). That leaves open the possibilites that God is some kind of external force or being, or that (S)he's entirely a product of the human psyche. I think reality is completely ambiguous, and belief in God is a risk-based decision based on experience, intuition, reason, and the available evidence. I have intense ecstatic experiences and religious intuitions that influence my life choices and reinforce my ideals and morality. I leave open the possibility that these are simply feelings or hallucinations, and rely on rational constraints to keep from getting into trouble. I've found belief in God to be a positive force in my life. Religion, specifically Christianity, provides a sense of meaning and purpose for my existence, and serves as the basis of my ideals and morality. I'm inspired by the teachings and example of Jesus, especially His concern for the poor and society's rejects. But I can't say the Apostle's creed anymore, because pregnant virgins, the walking dead, etc., are outside my experience--as are talking snakes and jackasses. At best, these are myths and metaphors, and as such have received extensive analyses that I find informative. The fact that highly intelligent people can have such different ideas about the particulars of religious belief and practice, or none at all, suggests the need for caution where the content of my own beliefs are concerned.

The Holy Books are the words of men trying to understand God and to get it right, but often getting it wrong because they're human. Where did they get their ideas? From dreams, visions, and intuitions, like the paleolithic shamans, perhaps sometimes helped along by hallucinogenic herbs and mushrooms. Sometimes their teachings were convenient in legitimating the positions of rulers and priests. Sometimes, as with many of the Israelite prophets, they challenged those positions and spoke truth to power. The memes that they generated were useful (along with commerce and conquest) in extending natural instincts of empathy and reciprocal altruism beyond their original biological bounds of genetic kinship to global associations. The ones that survive have proven their mettle in a rough neighborhood, but newcomers (e.g., radical Islam) are still joining the evolutionary competition.

And yet I note with awe and wonder how memes of universal human dignity and social justice have emerged in the course of human evolution to do battle with the more primitive forms left over from a less enlightened past. I find it hard to believe that the more progressive ideas are "just another", "no better than" the memes of intolerance, hatred, and mean spiritedness. And I still think it's spooky that Pikia survived the Burgess extinction and made intelligent life forms capable of debating this stuff possible. I think some kind of creative intelligence is at least as plausible as M-theory in explaining the integrated complexity of the universe. Life is a crap shoot. I'm betting on Jesus.

 

things about which we know nothing exist. this is inevitable because all we have ever seen of the universe that surrounds us, is so tiny a fragment as to be virtually negligible.
and that's just the physical universe. the things we call gods, need not, are indeed unlikely to be, physical at all.

thus the possible existence of one or more beings, who qualify in some way, as fitting the name and description of a god, is real enough.
the probability of such a being or beings, matching closely the claims and expectations of any organized, named, human belief, is much much less.

we have only the anecdotal "evidence" of personal experience and speculation.

in short, while a god is not unlikely, nothing we think we know about it, beyond what we each individually and personally experience, is of any supportable substance.

we may personally experience contact, with a kind of nonphysical affection, as i, and i believe many others have.
(something invisible that gives great hugs, to put it euphemistically)
its just that anything beyond that, is all just words, that people say back and forth to each other,
do to the inability of their egos to accept the possibility, the actual inevitability, of anything not being known, to them.