Okay, this topic is for everything about any god that you may or may not believe in. No claims without backup information. If you use ontological proof, don’t expect your post to be regarded very much. I want any proof for any stance on any god. Thanks.
~After Death~
My God is Money.
Without money I would be dead.
Yet I am alive.
Therefore my God Money is possible.
And I worship it and praise it every day.
So, your idea of investigating these issues is to have all theists line up, flatter you with explanations for their beliefs, and as long as you can continue to say “I’m not convinced” with a straight face, atheism ‘wins’?
Why don’t you first prove that you are a self-aware being and not merely an extremely complex conversation simulator- you know, just so we theists know we aren’t wasting our time?
I am an Agnostic, I am willing to accept any true proof, not your theist bullshit about the beauty of this world and stuff. I want real or convincing proof.
~After Death~
Are you looking for proof of the possibility of god? I would say that simply I have no compelling proof that god is impossible so there is a possibility for god. That of course doesn’t mean that god does exist, it merely means that I should not think it is impossible.
I’m a recently religiously recategorized. After years of atheism I took a german idealism class. I didn’t leave it with devout protestatism or even christianity but I had an experience reading Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit that felt like I had an affinity with the unknown. This opened up a space for god in my belief system, not determinations on god but a space for the possibility.
Give me an example. If you were going to prove the existence of something intangible but all-pervasive in your life, like say, your own self-awareness, how would you do it? Give us ground rules for what you're asking for. You say you want convincing proof. Do you mean, if it doesn't convince [i]you[/i] it must not be proof? It seems you are assuming that if there's a God, there would be a series of words someone could type on a screen that would make you believe it. Does that seem likely, all things considered?
I never said I had any. I want you guys to post your proof of God, gods, a god, a goddess, goddesses, or nothing. Post what you feel is proof, and I will tell you if it is good enough to be in this argument.
~After Death~
well im glad you can tell us all what is good enough saves me the trouble of having my own opinon THANK YOU
Thus you already admit to the possibility of God, god, gods, goddess, etc. The issue here is therefore the knowability of such gods and to distinguish between a true god and anything else that claims to be one.
Perhaps you want to share with us first how you arrived at agnosticism and you framework for knowing anything at all. Like what is “real” to you?
If I say spirit is real, you may disagree and I may not know why, and we cannot even start to talk, even less trying to convince you.
And also what is true to you? For example some do not accept historical truths. So for you are historical truths acceptable basis for knowing anything?
Also do you accept testimonies as valid means of knowing? For example have you seen the Great Wall of China or the deepest parts of the oceans or of a man named Mboktu who lives in the Kalahari desert? But if someone have been there and told you so would you take such evidence as real and convincing enough for you to believe it true?
Or do you only accept as true that which is logically derivable? Well as you may be aware by now there are limitations in logic. To name two, not everything that is true can be proved by logic (Goedel incompleteness principle) and all logic starts with premises, eg axioms, which are unprovable themselves.
I personally dont believe that God can be proven, logically or otherwise, for then God will be unfair as it then favours those who understands logic or proofs, which is clear not everyone does.
When you are a child and your parents told you things, how do you know and accept what they say as true, or otherwise?
And finally is language even necessary to know a truth?
The universe exists.
I think that is proof enough. How can something come from nothing, which there only is if there is not a universe. I think the only thing that can do so is a god.
*1-Yes, there is a possibility that a god, God, multiple gods, a goddess, or multiple goddesses do, indeed, exist. And as for being Agnostic, I want proof before I believe in it. I am not going to believe in something because it has a possibility of being true, two very different concepts that, on this forum, seem to be one and the same.
*2-Or, I don’t want to share, as I have stated multiple times, and you would like to share yours and I will tell you if it convinces me or is a logically valid assumption.
*3-If it can be proven to be 100% possible, it is a truth; if it can be proven to be 90%+ possible, it is a very likely possibility; anything under that cannot be considered even near a truth.
~After Death~
How did `God´ come about?
~After Death~
come about? it was always there. things like time and causality have no meaning outside of our universe where such a being would reside.
God’s existence can neither be proved nor disproved. It’s called faith for a reason and some have more than others. My faith leads me to believe there is Biblical corroboration to support the Judeo/Christian God which explains there is but one true God. However, much can be said for historical truths than can prove many events of the Bible actually happened. Also, a grand design of this God’s plan for mankind would not be plausible for the minds of the many different authors of the Bible over hundreds of years to make the stuff up. Of course having correct interpretations and a degree of faith is necessary to understand the truths found in scripture.
According to Christians, the New Testament sums up many mysteries of the Old Testament, and much in the Old Testament points the way to a new age detailed in the New Testament: the age of grace.
Dig this one thing for example of something cool that I just recently had been taught:
As the Jews were wandering around the desert having escaped bondage in Egypt, they would set up their camps along the way to the Promised Land in a particular way. According to their tribe’s numbers, there would be so many of this tribe or tribes to the east, so many to the west and so forth. Calculating exactly how much space would be taken up with the specific numbers given, looking down on how this would have appeared from above, one would notice the people on the ground were forming a cross. Who would have come up with that at the time of the people in the desert, or of the writers of this description when the text was actually written? Why would the Jews want to shape a cross deliberately when some guy years in the future claiming to be their Messiah would be put to death on the cross for alleged blasphemy? The Bible is full of such interesting and specific details that can be safely assumed were not created by men’s imagination, only to be backed up by other men’s imaginations at different points in time.
The teachings and writings of the other great religions of the world prove only that their writers may have been creative and helpful in documenting certain specifics of history, where the Bible is much more than a history book.
Why can’t we just say the universe was “always there” if we can just say God was “always there?”
Casuality within the universe is even in question. We don’t have anything that truly causes itself independently. The universe recycles … as far as we understand it.
then i guess the universe itself is my god
Where is this places, if i may ask? Is is above the fiery pit where non-believers are tortured for eternity?
A Story
There is a community of people lost in a jungle. They have heard from their forefathers that they have come from a City somewhere far beyond the jungle. And there are stories and tales about this City and about the people there. Some of these stories are told orally and some are written down.
But as there are no ways of verifying these stories, no one could separate the truths from myths that have evolved from these stories.
They are also in possession of something called a map. The City is marked on this map. But they do not know how to use the map, and neither do they have a compass, nor even the concept of such a thing.
There is also a story told, that the people in the City are aware of these lost people in the jungle, and that one day someone will come from the City to lead them back to their rightful place in the City.
Then one day someone do indeed appear to these lost people and claimed that he is the one sent from the City and that he has come to lead them out of the jungle. Of course these lost people, lost thought they may be, are not fools, and are skeptical, reasonably so.
For there have been many such persons before, some claiming to come from the City and some do not. Some even proclaimed that there is no City at all, and that one should not live life all the time waiting for it.
And yet there are others who profess they know what a map is, and able to interprete its mysteries, and to use it to reach the City. And yet there are some who made their own maps although they called it by other names like gizmii, wakawakado, the Book of the Only Way, etc etc.
And there are many followers of these teachers, even some found to be blatantly false, but yet people followed them, for people want to believe what they want to believe; and then there are even more seekers and searchers, unknown and unseen, each following a quest in his own heart.
Then of course there are also those, though skeptical but nonetheless, hopeful of there being such a City and even of reaching the City one day.
And so this new stranger owed it to the lost people of the jungle to prove who he is and that he indeed came from the City.
Thus he showed them stuff he brought from the City, stuff not found in the jungle at all, unimaginable and unconceivable to the lost people of the jungle; such stuff as beautiful cloths, food, drink, wine, and gadgets (like an iPod), Blues music, and portable DVD players with DVDs, etc. 
But most significantly of all he showed them a compass - what it is and how to use it together with the map.
So with the compass, he taught the people how to orientate a map, and to know where they are on the map. And not only that he showed how you could discover things about the land using the map, how to move from a point to another, how not to get lost, how they can plan their lives and their activities around a map, and even discovering gold, water and food
Further he could explain the myths and legends of the past, and revealed the distortions and fabrications that have been woven into these stories, and separate truths from lies.
He also could explain why the lost people were in the jungle at all, namely that their forefathers have offended the ruler of the City and have been expelled into the jungle until the time of the punishment is over, and then someone will be sent to find these people to bring them back to the City. And that he is that someone.
And so he asked the people do you want to return to the City? And if they do, not only will he tell them how to reach the City, but more than that, he will even personally accompany each and every one to the City.
But not all believed him, strange as it may appear so.
Some are so jaded by the many teachers, many proven false, and the other seekers and searchers of the City, that they dismissed him to be just another one of them.
And yet there are others who are so convinced that they already know the way to the City, and they do not need the help of another, even if he comes from the City itself and will lead them there.
And they are yet others who have resigned to life in the jungle, that the possibility of another life in another place no longer excite them, if it does not frightened them in the first place.
But there are some who do believe him and went on to follow him out to the City.
And of these that followed him out, all returned, to do what the original person from the City did, ie to convince, persuade and lead yet others out of the jungle, to the City.
Post_M
How about this one,
I am superior to the atheist because I can see god whereas he can’t
Thus I look down on the atheist as one who has not yet realised who he is and what this life is all about
Any good?
Hey Chanbengchin
You like ‘The Blues?’ I dig that music too. I shake your hand!
Don’t be sellin’ your soul to no gaddamned devil now - jus’ jokin’ 