How I Can Believe in God

[curiousnorway]

This MyTake is a cliffhanger to the earlier one that I wrote that was about why people believes in a god. Here I'm going to write more about my personal opinion about the subject and not necessary about what people in general speaking thinks.

1) The cause of our existence

I think it's a cause of our existence and the existence of the whole universe. We can't come from a nothingness. Nothing can't create everything. I believe there's a cause and I'm calling the cause God. Regardless if it's personal or impersonal and on how it's - the cause created this result and that's my definition on god. If you choose to call it Yahweh, Allah, God or The Big Bang it's up to you. You've your beliefs and I've mine.

Without your parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc. you wouldn't exist.

Not only do many say there's no evidence for a god's existence, but many also says you can't observe it. You can't see, hear, smell or touch it, therefor some conclude it can't exist. But same thing apply to our great great great and so on grandmother who lived in the ancient time. You can't see, hear, smell or touch her either. In many cases it's not possible to get a DNA test either, so in that way we don't have any clue. But we think we can't come from a nothingness and that our great great and so on grandmother had to exist once time so we could exist too. It's just a conclusion we comes up with. So if we can come up with that possibility, I and other theists can come up with the idea that a creator is possible.

Many are associating evidence with the different senses. But we can't see, hear, touch, smell or taste our great great great and so on grandparents.

Another thing I would add is if I could just assume that everything I couldn't see, hear, touch or smell didn't exist, then I could also in theory assume my biological parents don't exist either. It's not uncommon to adopt away anonymously from the place I was adopted away from. People did it in secret so nobody would notice them and the only thing people on the orphanage saw was babies lying on the stairs. Therefor I don't know the names of my biological ones and it's not so simple to take a DNA test when the population in that country lies on almost 1,4 billion people. I still comes to the conclusion that my biological parents exist because I've to come from a place and every living beings on earth have to have parents to exist. So I don't need to see them to believe so. Same thing applies to God. I don't need to see it to think it was something that caused the existence.

2) Undiscovered things

When undiscovered and without any evidence, people didn't know bacteria existed and many didn't believe they existed either.

There's also a lot of undiscovered things in this uncomprehending universe with billions of galaxies. We've even not discovered everything on earth and nor do we understand everything either, so how would we know absolutely everything outside earth and understand it?

Before the bacteria was discovered people most likely didn't know about it and didn't believe in it. Before advanced enough technology it was difficult to find out it existed too and bacteria is something we can't see. If someone didn't know about it's existence, didn't know what too look after etc. people wouldn't think it might exist before it's discovered. Since there's so much we don't know about yet and don't understand, therefor it's a possibility a god exists.

You won't be able to tell if you don't know what to look after

Just because you can't verify it or do research don't mean a god can't exist. Something is just difficult to measure and not everything is measurable. You won't know how to do an experiment or how to do a research if you don't know what to look after or where to find it. Maybe you noticed something, but you wouldn't be able to tell because you don't know and can't imagine how it looks like or are.

When things are undiscovered or not verified, then you can't say it's a scientific fact, but that doesn't mean it's not true and that you can't believe in it. It can exist, but you just don't know what to look after.

3) Problem of evil

Problem of evilness; a world with sadness, pain and other suffering is an argument that have been used against God's existence.

Problem of evil is a common argument used in deity discussions. I've noticed that many agnostics and atheists brings it up. Sometimes they do it as an attempt to disapprove God's existence. Some are asking how evil can exist if God exist, but the thing is that that argument is flawed. It's some humans who believes and have said God have to be benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent. Just because they thinks so don't mean it has to be it and therefor it's possible it exists even if humans thinks the world has evilness in it. In addition what's right and wrong like many other things are subjective. Lack of these qualities don't prove it don't exist.

4) Advanced world

Most likely the cause or the source of our existence have to be intelligent. Maybe it's not the intelligence humanity is familiar with, but I doubt it's plain stupid. Even if something isn't flawless don't mean it's dumb. This world is built up of things scientists calls atoms, particles, molecules etc. We've advanced physics laws, biology, chemistry and so on too. Every species on earth have body organs which have their functions.

The brain, heart, nerve system, immune system and all of these other systems. Animals do also have instincts. The planet earth need many things to sustain life like sun, oxygen, water, atmosphere and many other things. Many planets don't have life, but the planet earth and probably some others too have life. If earth lacked one of these important elements, then there would be no life. If you've studied science, then you can see that the world is advanced. It's rocket science. I don't deny that randomness might occur sometimes, but I do believe somethings are properly designed in this universe. Everything in the world have a context.

The greenhouse effect is an example on how the nature works.

More about my belief and on what God is:

I don't believe God is how many people imagine it. It don't have to be visible, gendered or looking and behaving like a human.

I believe it's the cause of everything's existence. No designer; no design and no producer; no products. I'm not sure if it's personal or impersonal, what it's opinion, will, personality etc is. But I think it's an intelligent source and that being a creative designer is it's nature. Since what's right and wrong is subjective like many other things, I believe I can be agreeing and disagreeing with God. My free will gives me the ability to make my own opinions. Although I don't know if it's personal or not, I do treat it as if it's personal and do sometimes have conversations with it. I'm monotheist and I also believe in the possibility of an afterlife. But I'm not a Christian, Muslim or a Jew.

#God #Existence

[ladsin]

I told you before that you weren't an atheist and you told me you were XD Looks like I was right. I'm told you want my opinion on this subject so I'll give my thoughts on each point you made and maybe we can address them further.
1.) We don't know what "nothing" can or cannot do. We have never had a (n) "nothing" to observe. This is an old idea in latin it was, "nihilo nihil fit." We just don't know if this is the case. We've traced this universe all the way back to it's start, but we don't know what preceded it. We don't know that that question even makes sense. Causality is necessarily temporal, so the law of cause and effect wouldn't apply to "before" the big bang. The problem I have with you calling whatever "preceded" it a god is that the term god carries a lot of baggage, and when you say that word people have many different things come to mind. It seems to me that it would be far better to just explain your belief without giving it that title. Also we can trace or genetic code all the way back and find out that we all had a common ancestor. By extension I had to have had a 125th grandmother or whatever. I'm not sure what your point was here.
2.) It's certainly POSSIBLE I suppose that some god exists somewhere, but the time to believe in one is at such a time as it's evidentially proven. You don't believe in fairies just because we haven't discovered everything have you? That epistemology would lead to madness.
3.) You're right, the problem of evil isn't a blanket argument for all god claims, it only has to do with specific god claims. Ie all loving, all caring, all powerful types of gods.
4.) This is mostly just a bold assertion that isn't evidenced, but also much of what you stated is actually working backwards. It assumes that the purpose of the universe is our own existence, it's not. It's that we grew up in a universe that was hospitable to our life. This is hard to say over text so I'll leave an old analogy, "imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'"
Maybe we can discuss further. I'm tired so forgive me if I went on tangents, or missed things.

[curiousnorway]

Now I'm not an atheist, but I used to be one before. Here's the order I've been thing in: Protestant Christian -> Agnostic -> Nihilist atheist -> Agnostic -> Theist

[ladsin]

What convinced you of the theist claims. Most of what I've seen in this Take is an attempted rebuttal to some atheist assertions. I didn't see any evidence proffered for the god proposition.

[CubsterShura]

I have my own reasons to believe in God. Yet I feel like it isn't relevant to talk about proof/existence. We can never try to prove God's existence 100% in this way. But with pedigree there are several ways to prove our ancestor's existence. There is a reason why believing in God is faith but pedigree isn't.

[curiousnorway]

It's true you can't prove the existence of God and that we've no evidence. The point with this MyTake is how it's possible to believe in a god. Atheists have good reasons to not believe in it too. I can understand both points since I've been both in my life.

[CubsterShura]

I understand.

[slatyb]

Your position is a somewhat incorrect. Atheists don't "have good reasons to not believe in God". We don't need reasons to not believe in God. What atheists need are good reasons to believe in God. My position is that I don't care whether there is a God or not, there is no evidence supporting any religious practice.

[BlueCoyote]

I'm sorry curiousnorway, but this is a list of logical fallacies.

Let's begin with number one:
"We don't know the cause of our existence - hence it must be God" is a classical argument from ignorance fallacy. That's like saying "we don't know who killed the maid - but let's just say it was the butler". You can't just assume something simply because you don't know the answer. That's why many atheists will tell you that "I don't know" is oftentimes the most honest answer. There's absolutely nothing wrong or bad about admitting that you/we don't know something. It's much better than just randomly making assumptions.
Also, your assertion that "things cannot come from nothing" may not necessarily be true. Yes, in our normal, everyday life, everything has a cause and effect. But that doesn't mean this is a universal law. In fact, if you look at quantum physics, you will find that this concept breaks down completely on the Planck scale. Also, "cause and effect" is a law that is necessarily bound by time. First you need a cause, then comes the effect. However, we now know that space AND time were created during the Big Bang. So, if there was no such thing as time before this cosmic event, it doesn't even make sense to refer to the law of cause and effect.
And finally: EVEN IF you were correct, you're not actually solving anything. Because the next question would then be: who created God? Where does God come from? So, you're not actually offering a solution, you're just creating new problems with the God assumption.

Next, let's talk about your section on "undiscovered things". Here, you're making two major mistakes. Firstly, you're making an assumption without actually providing any evidence. Of course you can believe in a God, but if you are trying to talk about its existence, you're not getting any closer. Because that's like saying: "there are many undiscovered things - and that's why you can't disprove that I have a pink dragon under my bed."
This brings me to my second point: you're also committing the burden of proof fallacy. Whether it's in science or in general logics (or even in the legal system), the burden of proof ALWAYS lies on the person making an assertion. So, if I'm telling you that I have a pink dragon, it's not your job to prove me wrong, it's my job to prove to you that my claim is actually true. The same goes for the God-claim. Just because we can't disprove God's existence means absolutely nothing. The burden of proof lies on people (cont.)

[BlueCoyote]

like you, who claim that he exists.

Thirdly, your argument about evil. To be honest, I don't completely understand this one. It seems like you're saying: "evil exists... therefore God might exist too". If that is indeed your argument, it doesn't make any sense. That would be a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (from one follows the other). If I have a cold and a drink a Pepsi and I get better, it would be fallacious to assume that the Pepsi cured my cold. I first would have to actually establish that in a series of experiments.

Lastly, your fourth point seems to be a classical watchmaker's fallacy. This is one of the most popular fallacy among religious people.
http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/watchmak.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy

The problem is that we don't actually recognize creation by complexity or "beauty" but rather because we compare it to other things and former experiences.

[Fauzillic_Bolt]

@BlueCoyote
Burden of proof is a misnomer. It requires proof from both people claiming and disclaiming God is real.

'Atheists' don't know and you also don't know that there is not a God also doesn't mean by default it is a good assumption that there is not a God.

Description: Making a claim that needs justification, then demanding that the opponent justifies the opposite of the claim. The burden of proof is a legal and philosophical concept with differences in each domain. In everyday debate, the burden of proof typically lies with the person making the claim, but it can also lie with the person denying a well-established fact or theory. Like other non-black and white issues, there are instances where this is clearly fallacious, and those which are not as clear.

www.logicallyfallacious.com/.../Shifting-of-the-Burden-of-Proof

[Jenima]

@BlueCoyote You seem to be a very intelligent man. You said "Because the next question would then be: who created God?" For us, believer this question is not relevant at all because as soon as we assume that God is the direct reason of our existence and the direct power we depend on, there's no need to know anything else about that.
For the second point. I think what the author meant was that: you cannot say that God doesn't exist just because you have not been given any proof. He took the example of bacterias. Science and knowledge evolve with time. Just like we are totally aware of the existence of bacteria now, people in the past couldn't even imagine that because 1) they didn't know what to look for 2) they didn't have the necessary tools to look for it. The same way, it is absolutely pretentious to tell that God doesn't exist just because with our extremely limited understanding of the universe we cannot figure out His existence. The supposition of the existence of a God (...)

[Jenima]

(...) suppose somebody or something that is therefore above us and that probably we need more than just our five senses to comprehend. If we take your example of the pink dragon and if we try to stay "rationnal and critical thinking". If you tell me that you have a pink dragon. For me to tell it can't be true without having any proof that don't is completely subjective. I will rely on my "common sense" which tells me that pink dragons can only exist in fairy tale. But actually, I will not provide any rigorously logical reasoning to justify why I can't believe that you actually have one. We discover new things everyday, even thinks that seemed unbelievable some years ago are common nowadays. So why can't you have a pink dragon?

[BlueCoyote]

@Fauzillic_Bolt You have a fundamental misunderstanding about atheism. Atheism in the form almost all atheists profess to it (including myself) does NOT make any assumptions or claims. I DON'T claim that there is no God, I simply reject the claim that there is one. There's a gigantic difference between the two.
If in fact I did claim that for some reason I know there is definitely no God, I would indeed have to provide evidence. However, my position is not that; it is one of skepticism.

There is a good analogy to make this more obvious. Compare the discussion of God's existence to a court room. Believers make the claim that God is "guilty" of existing. As an atheist, I reject this proposal because I see no convincing evidence. That does NOT mean that I necessarily think God is "innocent", I simply see him as "not guilty" of existing. And just like in a court room, it is not the defendant (the skeptic) but the person making claims who has the burden of proof.

[BlueCoyote]

@Jenima Hey there. First I'd like to clear up a misunderstanding about atheism that many believers seem to have. Atheism in the form most atheists (including myself) profess to does not actually make any propositions. So I don't actually claim that there is no God. Perhaps I should have been more clear about that. Instead, I reject the claim that there is a God (or Gods). So, like most atheists, I am at heart a skeptic.
Now, you are correct that I can't know for sure that there is no God. Just like you can't know for certain that I don't have a pink pet dragon.. But I assume you would agree with me that there are certain methods by which we can at least assess the likelihood of such statements being true. The reason you probably reject my pink-dragon claim is not due to some intangible gut feeling. It is due to your knowledge of the world and your understanding of how it works. You know that pink dragons don't actually manifest in reality and that we should be able to somehow (cont.)

[BlueCoyote]

detect them if in fact they did. That doesn't mean we have disproven the existence of pink pet dragons but we can at least say with a highly comfortable degree of certainty that they probably don't exist and that we can therefore safely reject my claim unless I bring forth convincing evidence to the contrary.
The exact same thing is true for a God. If a God does exist and if he has an impact on our natural universe, we must be able to detect him. However, people have failed to do so for over 2,000 years. In fact, EVERY single time someone proposed a supernatural explanation for something, it later turned out to be wrong (there turned out to be a natural explanation). That's why the asker's argument may be a reason to believe in a deity but it's not a GOOD reason. The concept "many things have not been discovered - hence I believe in x" is not a very logical one because it says nothing about the likelihood of x being real. I'm sure you don't believe in alien abductions although (cont.)

[BlueCoyote]

there are thousands of people out there who would tell you their story. I'm always baffled by the conviction of believers because I don't believe in any of these things but I would still say that pink dragons or even aliens are probably more likely to be real than some sort of supernatural, all-knowing, all-powerful God.

And in regard to the first thing you've said: if that is not relevant to you as a believer, you don't actually care what's true and what not. I mean, "because of God" isn't a satisfying answer. Of course you are entitled to your believe and I don't want to take it away from you. If you simply believe because it makes you feel good, that's great. Personally, I care about what's true and so I cannot possibly accept God as an ultimate answer because it doesn't actually tell us anything. To put it crudely: if Ben Franklin had simply taken God as an answer for why there are lightnings, he wouldn't have invented the lightning arrester.
Anyway, sorry this became so long!

[curiousnorway]

It exists different forms of atheism and theism. Some are agnostic, while others are gnostic. Just wanted to add this since BlueCoyote mentioned that atheists can't be hundred percent sure if god exists or not. So I wanted to add it's a word for atheists who don't claim they're 100% sure, but just have a lack of belief in God.
godlessmom.com/.../...tic-v-atheist-v-theist-1.png

[BlueCoyote]

@curiousnorway: Agnosticism hasn't anything to do with "being sure" or not. Rather, the two terms atheism and agnosticism address two completely different issues. Atheism (and theism) are about belief, gnosticism and agnosticism refer to knowledge. So if you're an agnostic about something, that doesn't mean you're "not sure", it means you lack knowledge.

Most atheists - including myself - are agnostic atheists, which means that we lack both the knowledge of and the belief in a supernatural deity.

[Fauzillic_Bolt]

@BlueCoyote
Then you're not an atheist.

[BlueCoyote]

@Fauzillic_Bolt Yes I am. And I don't need your presumptuous smartassing. I have read more than enough about this issue to be very well informed. You just don't understand the definition of atheism. If you knew Greek, you'd realize that it literally says what I've told you in the very word.

[Jenima]

@BlueCoyote "It is due to your knowledge of the world and your understanding of how it works."
Sure I have a certain knowledge of the world and how it works but you seem to have even more knowledge than me. That's just to say we, as human beings, have a quite limited knowledge of the world. Like I've said before, knowledge evolves with time. Some of the things we know as certain today are things that people couldn't even imagine years before. I think it is very presomptuous to reject the idea of something that is intrinsically superior to us, to our dimension because of our "knowledge of the world and [our] understanding of how it works".

[Jenima]

"(...) but we can at least say with a highly comfortable degree of certainty that they probably don't exist"
Your using a subjective tool here. How do you define your degree of certainty? What if my system of degrees of certainty is not the same as yours? Of course, it is easier for a pink dragon, we would probably agree on that since a pink dragon is a physical object. But when we talk about a spiritual being, your degree of certainty becomes much more arbitrary. My spiritual experience with that concept has nothing to do with yours.
"If a God does exist and if he has an impact on our natural universe, we must be able to detect him."
That depends on how you think you can detect it. How to you want to detect it? Through physical manifestations? Through experiments than can be carried out repeatedly? The problem here is similar to asking somebody to bake a cake but giving them sand and cement. You have already a bias since you want to detect it in the limited context of our knowledge...

[Jenima]

... and science. People who would have rejected the idea of bacterias before would have done so because they could not observe things on a microscopic scale. They were limited. Now, they have been proven wrong.
"(...) pink dragons or even aliens are probably more likely to be real than some sort of supernatural, all-knowing, all-powerful God"
Here again you are making a very subjective statement that is related to your way of thinking.
"If you simply believe because it makes you feel good, that's great"
No. I don't believe just because it makes me feel good. Saying such a thing is being completely ignorant about the concept of faith. Not knowing "what created" God doesn't discredits the existence of God. It's like saying not knowing what created the Big Bang discredits the theory of the Big Bang.

[Fauzillic_Bolt]

@BlueCoyote
Reading stuff doesn't change the fact that something that's impossible to make you an atheist changes into something possible to.

[BlueCoyote]

@Fauzillic_Bolt That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying: I know the definition of atheism because I am very informed on the topic. YOU ARE NOT. You're just pulling bullshit out of your butt based on stuff you've heard. If you claim that all atheists - or even a majority of atheists - make a statement such as "God does not exist" you're just FACTUALLY INCORRECT. And I'm done arguing with you because honestly, you could google this stuff in 10 seconds if you actually gave a fuck.

[BlueCoyote]

@Jenima You are making one big mistake here when you compare God to bacteria: bacteria, though they were not visible, were still a part of our natural environment and they had a direct impact on it. We may not have known that diseases are caused by bacteria but we found out later. And just like that, we found a natural cause every single time we looked for answers. Diseases don't come from God, lightings aren't produced by Thor, hurricanes aren't a product of Neptune, the sun doesn't rise because it's pulled upon the sky by Re in his carriage.

If God exists and he manifests in our natural environment, we must be able to detect him. If you deny this, you're simply wrong. It's very basic logics. Now, you try to come up with an excuse and say that we may not have the right tools but you're missing the point. If God was real and manifested in reality, we would obviously see the RESULTS of that. The problem is that every single "result" that has been attributed to a God so far was (cont.)

[BlueCoyote]

found to have a natural cause. For example God doesn't heal cancer because cancers do in fact have the natural ability to go into remission. And even for the things we don't know the answer to - say, where this universe came from - it would be fallacious to simply assume that it must come from God.

People have been trying to prove the existence of God for thousands of years now. The fact that nobody has succeeded speaks very much against the hypothesis. We have researched DNA for 15 years and now a multitude about it than we know about God. You would think that by now, we should have some concrete evidence amassed. Instead, all we have are anecdotal stories, people quoting Bible verses or saying stuff like "nature is so beautiful, hence God must exist". How come practically every religious person disagrees with every other religious person on the notion of God? From this I conclude that either, God does not exist or he doesn't care if we know whether he exists.

[Jenima]

"(...) bacteria, though they were not visible, were still a part of our natural environment and they had a direct impact on it"
I can say the exact thing concerning God. The problem is that the way I look at things is not the same as you do. I won't talk about faith because you can't understand how it feels for a believer to experience God in his life. You are looking from a mere physical point of you. Looking like that, you can acknowledge the impact of bacterias on your life. Some people also look from a spiritual point of view because not everybody limits themselves on flesh and blood. Some people are aware of their spirits and can see the impact of God from that point of view. I don't think I'm just made from atoms. I have feelings and conscience. That is an indissociable part of the human and a very interesting point of view.

[Jenima]

And please, we are not talking about what people say on God but on his existence. Even with bacterias people were arguing about opposites theories yet bacterias are real.

[Jenima]

All the natural phenomenoms you have listed doesn't discredit the action of God. A car runs because of the rotation of the wheel. But if you don't understand what is electricity, you will never know what is beyond.

[curiousnorway]

@BlueCoyote, "If you simply believe because it makes you feel good, that's great"
It's possible to believe in something if you're convinced enough to do so regardless if it's true or not, and regardless if it's to make you feel good or not. I didn't become a theist just because I wanted to feel good. For more than a couple of years I was a nihilistic atheist because I couldn't convince me otherwise, so if it was a simple choice, I would in theory be a theist then too.

[BlueCoyote]

@curiousnorway: But the question is: are you convinced of it for GOOD reasons? Saying "some things are not discovered yet" is not a good reason because that alone is no proof of god's existence. So if you believe in a god and you actually care about what's true, you should ask yourself this: are there any GOOD reasons to believe god exists?

[Jenima]

@BlueCoyote I can share with you why I believe. I believe in God because my human condition puts me in a such inferior position compared to the whole universe that I have to acknowledge that there is something superior to me and to all I can see. I also believe because I experience so much love, peace and joy in my heart although I've faced and continue to face very hard times in life. Those feelings cannot come from anything in this sad world. I also believe because I know that it is possible to love someone who hates you, to feel good for the success of others while you are completely down, to be truly happy whereas you lack your basic needs, to forgive all kind of hurtful deeds. I know it may seem naive but the Bible says that the truth has been hidden from the wise men and revealed to the fool. That is to say you CAN'T believe if you don't have faith. That's impossible. You must first be willing to. That's why I never try to convince an atheist about the existence of God.

[BlueCoyote]

@Jenima But none of those things are actually evidence for anything. As an atheist, I don't intend to convert anyone either. In fact, I doubt that's even possible. My intention is to help people understand how to think critically and methodically, so they can eventually drop their faith themselves.

The fundamental problem with faith is that - by definition - it is "to believe something without any evidence". Now, you can of course argue that you simply like to have faith because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. In that case, there's nothing I can say because then we just have a fundamentally different worldview. I care about what's true. That's why I am not just an atheist but, more importantly, a skeptic. I don't take anything on faith. I need evidence in order to at least consider something as possible. Unfortunately, there is not a shred of evidence for the existence of a god.

[Jenima]

We are saying the same things. My objective when I discuss with atheists is to make them realize that they are not as logical, realistic and rational as they claim to be not to convince anyone.

[BlueCoyote]

@Jenima The difference is, one of us is correct and the other isn't. How am I not being logical or rational? All I am doing is literally rejecting a claim for which I have heard absolutely no credible evidence. That's the very definition of being rational, I'd say.

[Jenima]

I've said all I had to say.

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

How can I believe in God? Simple. Intelligent design nor life can't come from a non intelligent source.

Anyone that says otherwise is a idiot. Period.

Romans 1:18-32:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions.

For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.

Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

[unboblievable]

i dunno about you, but life came from pretty unintelligent single celled organism.

well shit i'm now an idiot, F***

[slatyb]

Doesn't that just lead to an infinite regress? If a God is required to create the Universe, then don't you need an Uber-God to create the God that created the Universe? And then an Uber-Uber-God and so on ad inifinitum? Isn't it simpler to just say "The Universe is God" ?

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

@slatyb: God is infinite. He has no begining nor end. Do I understand it all? Nope. I can't think at the level of a God. But that's why He is God we are not.

[jacquesvol]

@Hispanic-Cool-Guy
"Anyone that says otherwise is a idiot. Period."
A new prophet has risen!
(It says a lot about the person stating it.)

[dizmuhjam]

Agnostic here. "Maybe god exists, maybe he doesn't. We dont know" is what agnostics say.

1. " If you choose to call it Yahweh, Allah, God or The Big Bang it's up to you" I agree with different names since they come from different languages except the big bang. The big bang can't be a god, since its something the human might be able to replicate in hundreds of years (as long as they keep studying it). Replicating god isn't possible. So if there is a god, he/it "build" our earth by causing a big bang as if its his/its method. Gotta happen somehow right? Earth couldnt possibly just be there like plop.

2. Agreed. We know nothing. We even said that god is allmightly without realising that the word allmighty is wrong in itself. We invented a wrong word. If god would be allmighty, he could make a stone appear that not even he himself couldnt move. However by creating a stone like that, he would take away his own allmightyness. So what we can say for certain is that he isn't allmighty because this is a wrong word. He either is "Very mighty" or "undescribable mighty". If he is the latter, Then this would already go beyond our limited logic. Because if he is undescribable mighty, he COULD build a stone he couldnt move, and then still move the stone. But that doesn't make sense to a human because our logic would say that "the stone wasn't unmovable in the first place then", with our logic it sounds wrong to say "to move an unmovable stone" because we can't imagine a power like that. It doesn't make sense to us. Its like imagining a completely new color we never saw and have no name for. We can't.
But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Because yes OUR logic works, with that we can send rockets to the sky, heal people, drive cars, gain or lose weight, BUT who says that another system of logic that we didn't discover yet (where an unmovable stone is movable for god) maybe out of thousands of logic systems that are also all correct doesn't exist? We just have discovered one and think that this is THE logic because it works. It doesn't have to be.

3. The usual "If there is suffering, poverty, tornadoes and all that stuff, why doesn't god help us? Why do little children die? Why?" is bs. God isn't our servant, nor is he our genee or slave. He also doesn't owe us something, he isn't in our dept. So why do you expect something? You can't question him or it. Maybe he just created our universe and now does something else. Another project.

4. No opinion to that, since we dont know.

[dizmuhjam]

@xButterflyKisses87x would like to hear your opinion to what I wrote.

[dizmuhjam]

@Hispanic-Cool-Guy would like to hear your opinion.

[dizmuhjam]

@wwwyzzerd would like to hear your opinion.

[dizmuhjam]

@oddwaffle Your opinion on my point 3 interests me alot!

[BobSansMal]

I think understanding religion as a means of explanation is a little misplaced. my opinion (sidestepping the question of absolute literal truth) is that it serves 2 important functions:
1) it provides a focal point around which a group of unrelated humans can coalesce, coordinate, trust each other, and cooperate.
2) it provides a way to live with death. Without some story about our permanence, why would humans decide to continue living? I suspect that those who do believe tend to outperform non-believers because their afterlife story provides more motivation. I base my assertion that believers outperform non-believers based on my understanding that there are more believers than non-believers, and, assuming that the goal of life is to create more life, this would fit my definition of outperform.

I choose to believe because belief enriches my life, solves the above difficulties for me, and because my faith just feels beautiful to me.

Now, to argue against the existence of an intelligent god for a moment, the universe, life in general, us, etc... can simply be examples of emergent order phenomena. There is always the difficulty here of the origin, but invoking god doesn't solve this either - it just moves the goalpost, begging the obvious question of what created god then...

[Douma]

Politics and law can never handle morality. Only religion can. And for morality we go to religion. So if we want morality we go to religion not politics where we go only for the law.
Religion is the purpose of morality since we like to have morality what is not a law case ever.
People have opinions but it has nothing to do with morality what is a different case. For morality we go to religion.
In religion we can learn a lot about morality. Why are people interested in morality? Why are dogs, horses and all animals walking real cute and gallant? Why are people and nature interested in being gallant and interested in morality and ethtics?
What is this devotion in peopls and natures deisre as the flowers look always in the direction of the sun?
Ok there is magnitism going here in the wrong direction when it comes to gravity.
That is why I like the song Lord I lift your name up high and other religions songs and christmass songs.

https://youtu.be/zVqWEtfpTgo

[Deathraider]

Been a long time, but I'm back!

Let me take a look.

Yeah, your first premise forgot to account for anthropic principle. And there is evidence for vacuum fluctuations. Empty space is never really empty no matter what.

Yeah, premise two is shifting the burden of proof. Most atheist criticize the claims of religion, but don't claim knowledge that there is no God. Just as anyone here don't claim to know for sure if a secret government operation exist, I don't claim to know if a God exist. But in both scenarios, I lack a belief in that. There's nothing to suggest these things are true. Furthermore, someone could claim a teapot exist between Earth and Mars and nobody would be able to show that they're wrong.

Again, anthropic principle. A better question to ask is why a deity would even make the universe so inhospitable if he wanted to create humans. I mean most of the universe would kill us due to lack of heat, water, oxygen, low pressure, radiation, etc. If he didn't want to create humans, then that brings us back to the start where humans are accident.

Well if everything require a creator, wouldn't that creator require his own even more so?

[oddwaffle]

#1 here is something for you: how do you know that there was nothing before? Are you God?

You don't. In fact, you don't have a clue. You are imagining it and bullshit it out.

"I think therefore I am" explain that.

#2 learn a bit more about discovery.

Let me ask you this was the iPhone discovered or created?

#3 so you say it's wrong but you don't have a clue how to answer it other than "God wills it". So we are suffering because this guy wants us to and he's a good guy. Are you mad?

So he's pure evil and get the kick out of watching human suffer by creating all this stuff. Prove that I am wrong.

#4 Right everything has a context. Even evil crazy things. And you're telling me this guy is good.

Let me ask you this: prove it. Give me proof.

[Mi2mi2a]

Great Take, it's my reasoning more or less to why God exist.
About Evil, I think of it this way, Darkness, in the world exist but that doesn't mean the sun doesn't exist, it's not the sun that brought darkness, but when there is no sun that darkness exists.

So God made the good, but when people get away of the good that evil creates. I as a theist believe that the evil in the world was not made of God but by humans that should learn to take responsibility of their actions as they have free will.

[curiousnorway]

Do that apply to earth quakes, diseases etc. too when talking about free will? I doubt it's a choice. A human can choose to hit someone, but a human can't choose if s/he would get cancer or not.

[Mi2mi2a]

When you believe in God, you believe in additional things.
If I have Cancer, what is the problem when there is greater life after my death, everyone will die wether it be with cancer or without, it's just that the word Cancer scares people more because it reminds them of the Death they forgot about.

They are clutching to life and they want to keep doing so as atheists as an attempt to get away of the truth, because it is harder.

[curiousnorway]

Interesting! Thanks for answer.

[Belgie]

"We can't come from a nothingness. Nothing can't create everything."

Well that's just not true. You can measure the Casimir effect in the lab, and that's caused by things coming from nothing.

As for nothing creating everything, there are several excellent hypotheses for how that could happen, including a quantum vacuum fluctuation, and a collision of m-branes in a higher dimensional space.

Just because you don't know something, doesn't mean science doesn't know it.
And just because science doesn't know something, doesn't mean "god" did it.

[Fauzillic_Bolt]

It also doesn't mean God didn't do it.

[Belgie]

@Fauzillic_Bolt by that logic it doesn't mean a magical flying spaghetti monster didn't do it. I've just as much reason to go with Pastafarianism.

Ramen.

[Fauzillic_Bolt]

@Belgie
Only a fool like you would compare God to a spaghetti monster. You're nothing but a mocker.

[Belgie]

@Fauzillic_Bolt I mock those who deserve it. Humor pricks the pricks.

[Duplants_TECH]

@Belgie
You mock the wrong person and they may happen to be an experienced hacker and they may seek revenge by hacking your account.

Only a wuss posts crap, then blocks, knowing who they blocked can't reply and defend themselves against what you said.

[Duplants_TECH]

@Belgie
You mock the wrong person and they may happen to be an experienced hacker and they may seek revenge by hacking your account.

[Duplants_TECH]

@Belgie
You mock the wrong person and they may happen to be an experienced hacker and they may seek revenge by hacking your account.

Mock the wrong person and they may knock your lights out too.

Wusses post crap, then block, knowing who they blocked can't reply.

[afs_99cent]

Nice take!, however I thought you should've added more.

You could use the argument of "Can [an omnipotent being] create a stone so heavy that it cannot lift it?"" First of all, if God could not lift the stone, then God is not an omnipotent, omnipresent being.

In addition to this, you could say how does one perceive light if there was no darkness. How does one know that there is darkness without light? (good and evil)

For the undiscovered part of your MyTake, you could mention that we as humans barely know anything about the Milky Way, let alone the Solar System, and we have yet to explore the billions of galaxies the universe.

Other than that, good job!

[curiousnorway]

Thanks! : )

[michellebrown48]

Ok so I don't believe in God, I'm an atheist, and I disagree with a lot of stuff you're saying. BUT I'm not here to say that.
I just wanted to pop in to say I respect your religion and I agree with a lot of things in the Bible. Of course there's stuff I disagree with but I think the idea of God is calming and it's nice to think you have an afterlife and a reason for everything. though i'm not religious, i understand why nobody wants to let go of their religion even if they are sceptical of the existence.

[Wwwyzzerdd]

i.pinimg.com/.../...b3--atheist-humor-religion.jpg

[unboblievable]

genius.

[chancellor]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z9GXI_9DXF0https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ0e8JRu_9U

[Fauzillic_Bolt]

Of course people will mock Jesus and not other gods because they know Jesus is the true God and they are a work of the enemy.

Disney is already glorifying pedophilia and will be accepted soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avydZyXohBc

Satan is mad and people who identify as atheist are not mature enough to understand that their denial of believing in God when they already knows He exists will be evident and there's an over abundant of acceptance of homosexuality. Also, the Bible foretold that in the last days, people would be accepting of this rather than repulsed by the wickedness and guess what? It's happening. They can't stop the Bible from being fulfilled.

[jacquesvol]

Why would you even want to believe in a god, the one people around you speak about?

https://i.imgur.com/lmYBjKa.jpg

[jacquesvol]

Your #3akes the case for a possibly malevolent deity.
What if your deity is only a hoax by Satan?

[jacquesvol]

Edit
Your #3 makes ___

[Shezadi]

Ask yourself who created the first human, the first angel, the first jinn, the first plant and the first animal.

[serious]

As per my knowledge, belief cannot be forced onto someone. Hence if you don't want to believe then you will not, simple.

[Revolver_]

I have a question: what created God? "We can't come from a nothingness" this works the same with God. Now, if something created God, you'd have to also question where that came from, so it'd be an endless cycle and that's impossible.

[Fauzillic_Bolt]

But you forget God is eternal and always was, is and in the future at all times.

[slatyb]

@Fauzillic_Bolt But you forget that the Universe is eternal and always was, is, and will be.

[Fauzillic_Bolt]

@slatyb
If you say so.

[genericname85]

i believe accepting that we don't know the "cause of everythings existence" is still better than just believing in something arbitary.

[LegateLanius]

Thank you for your thoughts. Another interesting viewpoint.