<p>Yes. Although the following question has little bearing on my Christian faith, I’d just like to throw it out.</p>
<p>How can something come from nothing? </p>
<p>Btw to the OP, this isn’t the best place to search for truth…</p>
<p>The difference between God and a Figther Pilot?</p>
<p>That’s easy</p>
<p>God doesn’t think She’s a Fighter Pilot</p>
<p>I would rather have an internal than external locus of control. I have outgrown the belief in a god, those who do need their childhood crutch, I suppose. Ethics and morals have nothing to do with any god belief. “Of course I believe”- that is as childish a response as it gets- no thinking involved, brainwashed at the proper age… How do god believers reconcile all the contradictions, both within and between religions? If anything, I would use the concept of god for the unexplainable, as we push the boundaries of our understanding so the idea changes- think of something very abstract for which no other term exists, or try explaining what is outside infinity… The all-everything god, why does he need worship? How can people limit the definition of such a being? This is the stuff of philosophy, psychology, sociology… Well, as they say, you have the right to be wrong.</p>
<p>Wis–did you even read what Epiphany said?–the fact that you revert to some kiddie view of what you think the God you are refuting consists of, when many people who do believe don’t have any such view, is interesting.</p>
<p>But, why the hostility? that I don’t get.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not difficult, actually. It involves understanding that most moral standards are based on the fact that people have to live together in communities to survive. This doesn’t work very well if we freely murder each other, steal from each other, cheat each other, destroy the environment where our community is located, etc. Thus, ethical principles develop. It isn’t necessary to postulate that “God” said “Thou shalt not steal” to understand that stealing violates ethical principles.</p>
<p>Yes, I do believe in God. Why? Because I experience God. Just like I experience music or humor or art or a beautiful math problem.</p>
<p>wis75: Believing in God has very little to do with the brain and in fact if you think about it too much then you get all confused…that is where faith comes in. Believing is really done with the heart…the soul…you know that part of us that lives forever and ever somewhere. It sounds like at one point in your life you did believe but something happened to change that, which often does and is called testing ones faith…which God expects but always hopes we will return to Him, it is up to us. Sometimes it is during a crisis in one’s life that a true belief is born, or reborn in your case. My faith was reborn through the experience of watching someone I loved very much die from a serious illness. She was a wife, a mother, a sister, a sister-in-law, a daughter, an aunt, she was 46 years old and was still raising a 17 year old daughter but her faith in God allowed her to let go gracefully knowing her loved ones would be taken care of…that was in '96 and just like God promised her, everyone is fine, her daughter is grown and married and starting a family of her own. When you stare death in the face whether it is your face or someone else’s, you will know. Then there was that angel that was seen the night after she died…but I won’t get into that here. PM if you want to know more.</p>
<p>I believe in God and that God’s creation of people was a piece of the universe necessary to complete or carry out what God cannot do solo. So it’s a partnership; I can’t do with God and God can’t do without me. (By me, I mean “people” not me the sole egotist.)</p>
<p>To describe it, it’s a constant belief that reassures, inspires, challenges, and frustrates me. </p>
<p>I spend most of my waking hours not considering my God theory, but rather trying to figure out how to make daily choices that are worthy of that partnership. </p>
<p>I don’t believe i have any kind of monopoly of truth, either and so I find concert with those (whether atheist, agnostic, or believers) who are also interested in working to make this world a better place. I have less patience for those who consider themselves ethical simply because they believe in God, which for me is just the starting square of the boardgame.</p>
<p>Belief interests me less than ACTIONS, in other words. But, yes I believe in God but could readily see why the next person would not.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know for sure, and sometimes wonder if I ever will. Does this mean “no?” I’m not sure. Sometimes I do, but other times it all seems so unreasonable.
Basically, I just… don’t… know…</p>
<p>Wis, don’t confuse religion with God. Religions are man-made and are destined to be limited representations of God. And I don’t think God needs anything, as you surmised, but rather enjoys some things. For example, as a parent, I don’t need my kids to hang out with me and tell me what’s new in their lives. I certainly don’t need for them to show appreciation or love for me as their mom. But I love it when they do! I think God’s sort of like that with worship.</p>
<p>I believe in God.</p>
<p>Another no.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is possible to disprove the existence of a god, but my intense dislike of the evil that has been done in the name of man’s god, is enough to convince me that I can’t take a neutral position.</p>
<p>I also believe in God.</p>
<p>Religion = god belief. You just defined god, placing your limits on your vision of your god, whether it’s your own personal religion or some other social club. Sharon D- you have your crutch. If you needed it to survive a crisis, that’s your problem. Others can be just as emotional as well as being rational in such circumstances. Hypocrisy bothers me, religions are full of it. Faith is an excuse for being brainwashed; if it’s a “gift” such as “born again Christians” claim, I want nothing to do with such an arbitrary being. Like I said, I outgrew the religion bit- for the reasons in my previous post. Has anyone noticed how religion/faith/belief in a god always are for selfish reasons- they all have a benefit for the believer. Why don’t so many religious people give equal status to other animals? Etc. BTW, no one is going to get their minds changed in this thread. Hostility- you bet; the so-called believers sure don’t act what their churches preach–I would much prefer an honest “hell-bound” atheist to a supposed do gooder/believer who hurts people by their exclusivity…</p>
<p>When I was kidnapped, shot and almost killed at age 17, I had a revelation: There is no God.</p>
<p>
The “do unto others as you would have them do unto you…” is a pretty straightforward way to understand most ethics without invoking the supernatural. There are clearly some people who don’t believe in God who have high ethics and there some people who profess to believe in God who have low ethics. I don’t think believing in God is a prerequisite to having ethics or high moral standards.</p>
<p>wis75: Religion doesn’t equal God belief, Christianity does. Anyone that believes in God knows you cannot place limits on God because he isn’t like us…we are limited. Religion and Christianity are two different things and as long as we live on this earth there will be evil and hypocrisy, but that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist and that he isn’t at work in this world because he is. If he wasn’t, the world would cease to turn and the air we breathe would disappear. Believing in God isn’t a selfish thing, quite the opposite actually and it doesn’t mean that you won’t suffer at times, it just means that you won’t suffer alone. </p>
<p>Just because someone goes to church does not mean they are Christians…just as someone who might choose to sleep in their garage doesn’t make them a car. It isn’t what is on the outside that matters, it is a matter of the soul and whether you believe or not does not change the truth. The God that reigns in heaven even loves the Athiest…they won’t get into heaven but then again an Athiest would not want to be in heaven, they would be miserable…all that singing and praising God would drive them crazy. :)</p>
<p>26 and 27 have it right. It’s an experience. (People tend to believe <em>because</em> they experience, not because they go through a rational process.)</p>
<p>Post 35 illustrates the childish “God is in control” (Big Daddy) metaphor that many people grew up with and never grew out of or beyond. Sometimes that’s the religion’s “fault.” (A failure to guide seekers through the perplexities & contradictions of life, and within God; those who’ve studied Midrash understand what I mean.)</p>
<p>It was godless people who kidnapped & shot Bay; it wasn’t God who did that or allowed/disallowed it, because God is not in such a controlling position. (The Grand Multi-Tasker.) Nor is God the grand practical rescuer.</p>
<p>Some of us believe that God suffered with Bay & agonized with him at every moment.</p>
<p>“It’s not difficult, actually. It involves understanding that most moral standards are based on the fact that people have to live together in communities to survive. This doesn’t work very well if we freely murder each other, steal from each other, cheat each other, destroy the environment where our community is located, etc.”</p>
<p>What about people who live together in communities as thieves, pirates, and criminals? What are the ethics of a Viking or a Yakuza? What are the ethics of a Jihadist? Aggression is fine as long as it is directed outside the group.</p>
<p>Aggression IS the ethics of nature and by definition is directed against your own species whenever a species lives in communities. In fact animals that live in groups do so precisely so they can better compete for the ecological niche they occupy. It is as true for primates as it is for ants, bees, wolves, and fish.</p>
<p>One of the few things that could save us from this ethics of nature would be an externally imposed, call it unnatural ethics. A belief that an external power will exact justice on us individually for transgressions of his will.</p>
<p>If we don’t believe in God we may have to invent him to survive the 21st century. Science tells us that when we rule out what is impossible what is left has to be true. Science can’t rule God out yet.</p>
<p>Wis75,</p>
<p>I do appreciate the clarity–if not the ham-fisted anger–of your gnarly tantrums on cc. </p>
<p>And of course it goes without saying that everyone is entitled to affect condescension when mocked by feelings they cannot govern…whether theology, cosmology, neo-Darwinism or, for that matter, the civil luxuries of common decency…even love. It’s to be expected and pitied. </p>
<p>Besides, you are in grand company, if not the brute majority itself: there is, after all, scarcely a dime’s worth of difference between the harsh ignorance of the fundamentalist secular/atheist and the harsh ignorance of the fundamentalist Christian/Muslim/Jew etc–they are both, in their frustration, kicking the same empty can; arguing night after night with their smelly sock puppet. </p>
<p>Still, let it all out…that is, until your get tired of having to wear your socks on your hand or your psychosis on your sleeve.</p>