It seems that all of your arguments for and against the existance of god are flawed.

1st--- I am non religious. I was a catholic for many years, taught sunday school and was an alterboy.

when I hit 17-18 (i'm 30) I renounced catholocism and Christianity as a whole. I study all religions now, islam judaism tao ect ect.



now on to my thoughts.....



GOD is not a being. PERIOD. GOD does NOT think act speak come go like or love. GOD is not a man in the sky.

Anthropomorphic characterisics are to help people to visualize and comprehend a concept as vast as GOD.

"God" is just a word for the forces at work that we cannot readily experience with our 5 senses. as well as the forces we can readily experience.

GOD is the unifying force in the universe.

It is what binds atomic structures,

it is what motivates your white blood cells to kill germs. its being horny, its laughter, its tears.

Quantum theory suggests that there is a force that unifies all matter.

It has been proven that if 2 subatomic particles interact then are separated, changes to one particle are instantly transferred to the other particle. eg "God sees all."

Science has also proven that there is an overwhelming "somethingness" to our universe. meaning there is "something" everywhere as oppposed to a universal "nothingness". Even the blackness of space is filled with a substance dubbed "dark matter" that fills the gaps of space. "God is everywhere"

Everything around us works with perfect precision. The galaxy, our planet, our bodies.

Laws of physics never fail. They only fail to find the source.

What is the source of life? What gives me the desire to continue living? or reproduce? What allows me to think independantly and not follow a prewritten program (animal instinct) like other species?

Speaking of preprogrammed.....isn't instinct proof of a plan or force that is larger than you? don't you sometimes feel like a cog in a huge mechanichal machine?

BUt.........

GOD IS REAL. GOD IS YOU. GOD IS ME. Believe in yourself. Believe in GOD.

All of the arguments you have seen apparantly you have deemed flawed. You know who's fault that is? Yours.

Listen to the arguments

quote:Originally posted by Merlinman2005:

All of the arguments you have seen apparantly you have deemed flawed. You know who's fault that is? Yours.

Listen to the arguments

did you listen to mine?

anyway....everyone has flaws even your arguments.

Then why even call it God. Just say its the unifying force of the universe. This isn't really religion, this is what scientists do. Try to find organized sets of rules by which the universe functions. By giving it a name like God you help to validate peoples anthropomorphic god figures. Don't even use the word god, and never capitalize it. If you do people will assume that you are talking about the chrisian "God". This is not a god, it is the beautiful balance of order and chaos that is the universe all around us.

As Taldier put it - then there's no true reason to even refer to this as "God."

quote:Originally posted by Frontier Psychiatrist:

As Taldier put it - then there's no true reason to even refer to this as "God."

quote:Originally posted by ILL-Kayda:



now on to my thoughts.....



Quantum theory suggests that there is a force that unifies all matter.

It has been proven that if 2 subatomic particles interact then are separated, changes to one particle are instantly transferred to the other particle. eg "God sees all."

Science has also proven that there is an overwhelming "somethingness" to our universe. meaning there is "something" everywhere as oppposed to a universal "nothingness". Even the blackness of space is filled with a substance dubbed "dark matter" that fills the gaps of space. "God is everywhere"

.......

What is the source of life? What gives me the desire to continue living? or reproduce? What allows me to think independantly and not follow a prewritten program (animal instinct) like other species?



Sounds like you & i are in a similar place, yesterday I Googled "There can't be nothing so there must be something" as a means of discovering what the source/cause of that 'something' is thought to be by others. I found that it is a question that has raged since Parmenides over 2,000 years ago. I'm still working thru that and maybe it has resulted in more questions than answers. At first I thought of this as being a possible proof against a personal god however I find several sites that argue it as proof of a personal being as the source or cause of the universe.

If you care to, here are a couple of links, it would be good to get some feedback and a second(third, fourth .. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif) ) opinion:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/parmenid.htm

quote: Parmenides goes on to consider in the light of this principle the consequences of saying that anything is. In the first place, it cannot have come into being. If it had, it must have arisen from nothing or from something. It cannot have arisen from nothing; for there is no nothing. It cannot have arisen from something; for here is nothing else than what is. Nor can anything else besides itself come into being; for there can be no empty space in which it could do so. Is it or is it not? If it is, then it is now, all at once. In this way Parmenides refutes all accounts of the origin of the world. Ex nihilo nihil fit.



http://everythingforever.com/ywexist.htm

quote: The principle that Non-existence cannot be, and therefore existence has always been isn't a formula, or an equation, or a first cause.

http://www .everystud ent.com/pd f/journey. pdf#search =%22There% 20cannot%2 0be%20noth ing%20so%20there%20must%20be%20something%22

http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/7b.htm

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1980/JASA3-80Craig.html

quote: To answer Leibniz's question of why something exists rather than nothing, we must posit three alternatives: the universe either had a beginning or had no beginning; if it had a beginning, this was either caused or uncaused; if caused, the cause was either personal or not personal. Four lines of evidence, two philosophical and two scientific, point to a beginning of the universe. If the universe had a beginning, it is inconceivable that it could have sprung uncaused out of absolute nothingness. Finally, the cause of the universe must be personal in order to have a temporal effect produced by an eternal cause. This confirms the biblical doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.



Peace http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

Exactly what I believe in. You can personally experience the connnectivity to the universe using many psychedelic substances http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif).

quote:Originally posted by applepipe:

Exactly what I believe in. You can personally experience the connnectivity to the universe using many psychedelic substances http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif).

Salvia, ftw.

quote:Originally posted by ILL-Kayda:

What is the source of life?



That's a question that begs an answer, it seems unlikely to be abandoned any time soon, however the implications of the answer impact upon each and all. Is it as simple as there cannot be non-existence, so there is no alternative to: "I think, therefore I am"?

Peace http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ILL-Kayda:

[B]It seems that all of your arguments for and against the existance of god are flawed.

1st--- I am non religious. I was a catholic for many years, taught sunday school and was an alterboy.

when I hit 17-18 (i'm 30) I renounced catholocism and Christianity as a whole. I study all religions now, islam judaism tao ect ect.



now on to my thoughts.....



ILL-Kayda. Sounds like we share some common ground. Advice given to me has been to try and find what is "good" about religion. Use that and leave the rest.

Why call it God? Well we've got to call it something just so we can talk about it. God is just a name we assign to a human spawned concept. What so many fail ro realize is the inate restrictions on human ability to even describe the concept. Being human requires we assign names to things. Humans call it "God" simply to have a term of reference to use in their little human communications. If we could get everyone else to start calling it something else at the same time then we wouldn't need to call it "God" anymore. Anthropomorphism is just a small sign of these limitations.

I think the laws of physics/nature are the true laws of God. We apparently know just enough about them to destroy life as humans know it. Sometime back when the Tsunami hit Asia/Africa I saw questions in the media about the "hand of God". I told someone that it appeared to me these people were full of crap. In the first place all the people living below a certain elevation and in close proximity to water should have made some judgement as to the probability of being flooded and the risk associated. But then there's all kinds of ignorance.

Our understanding of everything is limited by our humanity. We can never know the jungle like the monkey. God is a human concept of something that exists both within humanity and outside of it.

Religion is a human fabrication. Archaeological information implies religion formed before recorded history. As a human fabrication it has "evloved" with them. Originally an attempt to explain natures forces, it evolved into a mechanism to control and regulate "society" as human populations increased and "civilations" formed. Mass numbers of humans living in close proximity required much more management than scattered bands of hunter/gatherers. At this point in human history, many societies are controlled by religious based government. Even so called "democracies" are heavily influenced by the religious aspect of their constituents.

How can we ever understand and categorize God? We can't because of the limits of humanity. I think if we don't soon recognize that the race has out grown religion and do something different, all our little musings will be irrelevant as we will pass into the history of God as we knew it.

Personally I would perfer using a different term, (if you still wanted it to sound all spiritual you could say universal unity or balance, or you could just say science or the laws of nature). If your going to use the word god in this sense then at least don't use a capital 'G'. Doing so generally implies that you are talking about some version of the Christian "God". Leave it to the Christians to call their god "God" so that it is now harder to maintain an intelligent hypothetical conversation on the topic.

quote:Originally posted by richard lizard:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ILL-Kayda:

[B] How can we ever understand and categorize God? We can't because of the limits of humanity. I think if we don't soon recognize that the race has out grown religion and do something different, all our little musings will be irrelevant as we will pass into the history of God as we knew it.

Asolutely! It's time we abandoned dogma and embraced change http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by Taldier:

Personally I would perfer using a different term, (if you still wanted it to sound all spiritual you could say universal unity or balance, or you could just say science or the laws of nature). If your going to use the word god in this sense then at least don't use a capital 'G'. Doing so generally implies that you are talking about some version of the Christian "God". Leave it to the Christians to call their god "God" so that it is now harder to maintain an intelligent hypothetical conversation on the topic.

Actually I was using a capital"G" simply because of naming conventions I thought were associated with the English language. What the fuck do I know anyway? My goddamn humanity just keeps getting in the way.

Instinct is your will to live. Which (ironically) is connected to your faith in something.

People fear death because it is such an unknown thing. No one really knows what happens after death.

Ignorance = Fear

God is air and everyone believes in air. I also define god as a ham sandwich. Everyone believes in ham sandwiches and air. So let's celebrate getting into heaven and sacrifice some animals. Stop commiting this fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation and conduct yourself with some fucking intellectual honesty.