Does god exist ?

And why should that influence our lives in any way ?
Why should we worship such a being ?

There are stars with planets in our own galaxy 4 billion years older than the sun… if on just 1 of those planets life evolved how advance would a civilisation be if it had 4 billion year more than life on earth did ?
Should we worship them in that case ?
Having power and knowledge is not an excuse to deserve worship… only absolute power and absolute knowledge could possibly “demand” worship… but i believe that such absolutness cannot exist.

  1. The Fundamentalist

Must i say anything about this god ? I think we all know enough about crusades and suicide bombings to agree that this god is not our friend.
If this god actually existed… i would be a satanist because i would immediatly understand “Satan”'s viewpoint and his “legacy”.
This is a god to fight against… this is a god to have a revolution against even if that means joining “evil”.
In this sense i completly understand “Satan” and his reasoning.

sweet mary-shelly with a cherry on top.

Errrr, a popped cherry.

  1. The Fluffy White Kind of Something

This is the one god i could live with… doesn’t ask for followers, doesn;t requier that you give your life for him and most importantly doesn’t need “the church”.

This god is decent cure for the cosmic loneliness we all experience because it comes into our minds and we feel stronger and maybe not as lonely as before.
Being a human means that you could be in a room filled with other humans and still be lonely as hell… How many of you here on this forum agree with this statement ? I’m willing to bet that everyone here does and everyone here has felt infinitely lonely even though he’s surrounded by other people.

Even so, this god is nothing more than an imaginary friend; opium for the depressed and Self-Hypnosis.

As cures for the cosmic loneliness we all experience i propose art, literature and love.

  1. The Old Man With a Long Beard

For me this guy is nothing more than a “heavenly father” that people like to think is up in the clouds and takes care of us. Although he’s been absent from his job for ever since we humans can remember.

A more complex projection of the “alpha male” found in other mammal social communities.

We’d like this god to show us the light, rule over us as a sheppard…

I’m sorry i don’t find this idea attractive either.

Uccisore… any questions ?

It’s interesting to see that the notion of god… can’t just be divided into 5 types of “gods”; i think each and every one here on this planet (exept atheists) believes in a different type of god.

We should scan their technology somehow :wink:

I’m going to reverse this to make a point.

  1. Is George W. Bush above logic and rationality?

  2. Can George W. Bush make 1+2=3573473473849846346 in N?

  3. Could George W. Bush make a 2D triangle in Euclidic geometry with the sum of its angles more than 180 degrees?

Do we take George W. Bush to be the omnipotent first cause of existence ? ?
What point are you making ?

He’s just going off topic. :wink:

Just one.

Are you all done claiming that an omnipotence means being able to perform logical/mathematical impossibilities, or do we still need to debate that? I’m not moving from that point until it’s resolved.

Better to just Accept that your life is essentially meaningless and move on

.

Am i ? You’re the first theist i know that supports this view point.

Mate… :d i know more about Richard Dawkins than you ever will. :smiley: He and I are in the same struggle.

Are you what? If you’re only prepared to argue theism vs. atheism with theists who think God can do logically impossible things, then just say so and I’ll get out of your hair.* Otherwise, what does the 'I’ve never met someone with your views!" comment have to do with anything? You’ve met someone with a more developed theism than you expected. Isn’t that why you came here?

Anyways, did you really want to talk about this, or not? Weren’t you that ‘organized debate’ guy from a couple weeks ago?

*EDIT: Just realize you aren’t attacking the same concept of God that many theistic philosophers hold. In fact, I don’t know any modern ones that do.

Nevermind the “am i”… dunno how it slipped in there.

Ok; i will accept that you have a more developed theism than others for the sake of this argument. I can here to find someone who can refute my claims.

Yes i was that “organized debate guy” but people didn’t show much interest and i was lacking the free time to do it.

Just lay in front of me any concept of god and i’ll do my best to speak against it. I’ve presented 5 “instances of god” all very true for this world; nobody took any time to comment on either one of them.

Also we seem to still be stuck on my first post here even though i posted “The Problem of Evil” and my very own “How much is enough” argument.

I will also accept your point of view that god cannot change the laws of logic and mathematics but if i do so you will have to let go of the ideea that god is a “first cause” to existence because logic, mathematics and the natural laws of physics are very much a part of existence;

What do you say ?

And as you probably suspect if you do agree my comeback will regard “the supernatural” and the question: If god is not a first cause, is not “in charge” and cannot control the universe why call him GOD and whi worship him ?

Also i just realised that you’re more of a free thinker than a theist. Theists usually go with the horde.

 Well yeah, look at how you presented them. Who in their right mind would try to defend anything like that? You're familiar with the term 'straw-man', yes? You've got a tendency towards that. You've provided potential theists with a limited selection of easily torn-down theistic comments to choose from, but until now, you've seemed unwilling to actually ask a theist virtually standing right in front of you what he thinks God is, and see if you agree or not. I'm not interested in defending any concept of God but my own, of course. 
 So, as for my own concept of God, you know most of it already- All Powerful, Benevolent, All-Knowing, Creator of the Universe.  All of these are general terms that will obviously require explanation if they look suspicious. For example, we already know my understanding of All-Powerful wasn't what you expected- but it couldn't be any other way. 
God can't do Impossible things because, well, they're [i]impossible.[/i] 
I've been at this a long time, I have to confess, and so I get used to certain trends from atheists I talk to. One common trend is to open up with a single argument to lure in a theist or two, and then when that argument is refuted, to immediately present half a dozen new, unrelated arguments instead of defending the original.  Think of yourself as a hydra. I cut the head off your "God doing impossible things" routine, but I have to burn the stump or else it will just grow back later while I deal with all these new heads you've sprouted. Perhaps you're so confident that your arguments have no refutation, that you aren't waiting to see how they are responded to? 
So then, let's consider the Omnipotence thing dead and buried.  What would you like to discuss next? The Problem of Evil? The state of Evidence? Or perhaps something about my concept of God?
I sort of agree with this. First, I'm not sure that logic and mathematics really exist outside of language.  Logic especially just seems to be a way to make sure that our sentences are really meaningful- rules of logic may just be rules of grammar. 
But lets assume that rules of logic and mathematics exist 'out there', like the laws of physics seem to. In that case, I would agree with you that God did not create logic and mathematics, just as He did not create His own goodness or His own Power. The properties of 'being logical', 'being powerful', 'being numbered' have always existed alongside God eternally, because He possesses those properties.

I think this would be quite a leap to take. Just because certain properties are co-existent with God doesn’t mean God is not ‘in charge’ and cannot control things. As to why a person ought to worship Him, that’s a moral question and a whole other bag of oranges. One thing at a time. :slight_smile:

Carpathian

I know you are aware of Newton’s first law of motion:

As you know the universe consists of matter and all matter vibrates at various rates of speed. The higher the frequency of vibrations, the finer the materiality.

My question to you is without the life force at the source of vibration, what is the impulse that created vibration if a body at rest stays at rest? It is easy for me to see the intentional slowing of vibration to create the necessity of the material universe. What already exists is being manipulated through universal laws. However, if there is no life force source or God, what is the source of vibration? By Newton’s law it cannot initiate by itself. What is the alternative to God?

an interesting thread, especially with Ucci here, A very credible creator of arguments a, true educator of thought.

a few items to interject if I may;

Why does god have to be the creator of the universe, and if he is, that means there is existence beyond, around, in just generally someplace or time other then what we know. So, who created that? Did you ever think that maybe Man’s Gods has gods or a god? Has any religious person ever given thought to God’s happiness and bring blessing to God? have you ever spoke to this god as a person? or perhaps a child talking to it parent? Or do you just primarily grovel and worship and beg for things? why not give thought to how god feels as a creature, did you ever think perhaps this god could be lonely and needing comfort instead of people begging for things constantly. It sure would get on my nerves to have needy and greedy kids all around me.

An adult is omnipotent to a toddler, but that does not mean the adult is perfect, that only means the adult is perfect to the child which is exactly what the adult wants in order to guide the child, at some point the child must become aware that the adult is not omnipotent and does screw up.
All parental and infant relations are like this for most species. Does that not give you pause for thought? Why would this lesson be all around us if we were not meant to use it or think about it.

This entire world is a playpen full of important lessons, we can use them or suck our thumbs holding a ragged old comfy blanket.