God

By punk · Dec 3, 2010 · 457 · 3
  1. The following is a comment that I posted on somebody's blog the other day that had become much longer than I had expected. His name was Phil and he gave an extensive reasonable explanation to his problem with God... He claimed to be an agnostic because you can't really know if there is one. Today, I decided to feed my own ego and post this up here for your invading curiosity :D

    I'm up for debate, humiliation, what evs yo

    ----

    hey Phil, I'm a Christian. I was born into a Christian family and I've been to church almost every Sunday for the past 17 years, and I do not believe that the Christian god pulled the universe out his ass and built little people for the sole purpose of worshiping him. BUT i don't think that this denial of a deity possessing suspiciously humanistic traits means you're an atheist.

    It really just means you know your history, and history tells us that other ancient documents like the Iliad and Gilgamesh are strikingly similar to the Old Testament, and that, historically, the bible is very inaccurate and contradicting of itself. These facts I think disproves the existence of Zeus and the Christian god, but I don't think it disproves God himself...

    because God is just a word that could represent so many things, and to associate it with a human-like personality is just selfish. To me, God is the engine in nature, our emotional charges, and a series of fantastic sequences and equations and natural laws so complex that it is really just simple, and I don't think the Christian god, as cool as He could be (sometimes), really measures up to this infinite standard. It doesn't seem right to just say, "Oh, we're all here by luck" because of how beautifully balanced the universe is... and if it is by luck, then it seems we're all worshiping luck, not God; and there wouldn't be any problem with that, because luck did a damn good job.

    so yeah... you're right about not being able to prove God. I can't even prove myself. I might be yelling at a tree right now because my senses are fallible, and if everything I perceive is possibly incorrect, how can I prove anything? but the idea of God... the idea of Jesus of Nazareth, the perfect man, has inspired me to strive to be that perfect man. You can completely disprove Jesus to me, but I wont care, because Jesus is just the idea that I associate with perfection, the thing i strive for (but will obviously never achieve). Plato was right: everything physical could be false, but everything in the ideal world could never be more real. To me, at least.

Comments

Sort Comments:

Sort Comments By

  1. jonathan hernandez13
    First off, awesome avatar, I lol'd hard...

    Well I appreciate your boldness and candor, this is a sensitive topic, but it means alot to me because I'm an out-of-the-closet atheist after spending almost half my life as a Catholic. I was actually a functioning atheist for a long time but didn't realize it and was afraid to bring it up. Actually alot of people are atheists without realizing it, just like all animals are atheists, all people are born atheists until indoctrinated and turned into a theist or other.

    Atheist simpy means someone who lacks a belief in a god. It's possible to be both atheist and agnostic. I'm an atheist because I don't believe and an agnostic because I don't know. I can be both. I'm actually at the point where even if I did have proof in a god I would still not worship one, because any god who demands worship from me with the threat of eternal torment behind it is not worthy of me.

    Denial of a humanistic god does not make you an atheist, hell, you could say that god is nature, or the universe (alot of new agers say that), but if god is the universe, why call the universe god or vice versa? Why not just say, there is a universe, and refuse to assign any attributes to it (like intelligence or a will).

    You can't disprove any god hypothesis, that's why they're all equally silly to me. Actually, even without proof, there is little or no or contradicting evidence. I don't care if I can't disprove god, because I can prove that a god is unlikely, and then I can get on with my life.

    god cannot be alot of things, that is a very modern invention, in the same way that religion keeps reinventing itself every epoch to make itself more palatable to the masses, the gods were very real to the ancients. Now they are nebulous and spiritual. The only gods left are the gods of the gaps, and the gaps are quickly closing.

    Saying that god made the universe is an argument from ignorance. Saying that the universe without a god is just an accident or mistake is equally an argument from ignorance. The only reasoned answers we have for our origins are what we can prove with evidence, thank you blessed science. If we don't know it yet, then we don't know it yet. There is no need to appeal to higher powers and make up supernatural beings. Either we know or we don't, and sometimes we can make very well educated guesses.


    Yes, my senses can be fallible, I could be plugged into the matrix now. I don't have any reason to believe something so absurd, so I won't lose sleep over it. Some philosophical schools are more fuitful than others, the absurdist approach is a dead end, trust me.


    Jesus is more than an idea, he is supposed to be an actual person like me and you. To call him an idea is intellectually dishonest. Either he was ral or he wasnt. Either he did all those miracles or he didnt. A faith of over a billion people hinges on that idea, you can't just call it all good. Jesus said some crazy stuff too; he told people that it's better to mutilate your own body then let a part of it sin, that the world would end soon, that we would all burn if we dont accept him, he makes Stalin look like a saint.

    And that's how I feel, cheers:cool:
    jonathan hernandez13, Dec 4, 2010
  2. punk
    It is in our nature to turn to a higher authority to seek for answers that philosophy or science has either failed to answer or that we (for some reason) feel the need to reject and claim "God did it". I heard some time ago (not sure about the reference) that a monkey that had learned sign language watched a balloon pop, and when asked what happened to it, she signed "it went to heaven". I don't think this proves the almighty zeus, but it does show that we have a natural tendency or curiosity of the supernatural life after, and one could argue with this story either way: if we had such a premature knowledge of a supernatural quality of the universe, then there must be a supernatural quality to the universe, because if there was no antecedent, how would this idea pop into our brains? or you could argue: God does not exist because we continue to reinvent religion whenever we fail to see the scientific or philosophical answer for why something is how it is, just as the monkey did. I personally believe that there is always an antecedent, and that the idea is the truest and most real form available to us.

    Good! because really any solid proof of a truly infinite intellectual being would be flimsy at best, unless he descended from the clouds and set fire to Detroit, just like the bible says... which, by the way, I have lost all faith in. You mentioned that Jesus said some crazy stuff, but I'm less worried about what Jesus said and more worried about what the Romans in 400 AD wanted Jesus to say... Right after Jesus said "It is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven", he says "But through God, all things are possible." This made me laugh, because I didn't think of Jesus to be an oligarch who had just realized he was condemned to an eternal life in the lake of fire, and the only way to save his soul would be to change the rules... also "Give to God what belongs to God, and to Caesar what belongs to Caesar" sounds like a last ditch effort to get people to pay their taxes. The bible is so twisted that I just can't read it anymore... lol. And to call him JUST an idea IS intellectually dishonest IF i had solid evidence of his existence, which I don't... just like I don't have solid evidence of Barack Obama's existence because I've never walked up to him and shook his hand, only to find out he's a hologram created by those damn communists. But to call somebody an idea I don't think is intellectually dishonest. I have an idea of Socrates and of Plato floating in my head, and an idea of you and of Barack Obama. The idea of Jesus that has been implanted in my brain since Sunday school is a perfectly righteous human, and the goal that I continue to strive for is that of Jesus. You could rename him YHWH, Muhammad, click clook clack or Pikachu, but my idea of perfection and righteousness still exists and is still a very large factor in my day-to-day decision making. Of course, I will never reach that goal, because I'm an idiot; but I'd like to do the best I can to take care of myself and of the people around me, for humanity's sake.

    I think that some answers science can't solve, because if the universe is in fact infinite, than how can a secular and finite mind "crack" it? Unless the universe isn't infinite, but there's no way of knowing that... not yet, at least. That would make me a sad panda. But as for the answers that science can solve, I don't think they completely disprove a supernatural quality to the universe. I think that you would agree that nature is so beautifully connected on a molecular level and in the universe of thoughts and emotions, and that to say that there is no natural order or, to steal from Thich Nhat Hanh, "Order of Interbeing", would leave the question, "Where is the organization of events that set each other into motion in such a fluent and orderly fashion?" That's my current weak argument to try and say that there is always an antecedent, and I hate to belittle science in any way.

    Off topic, but why do Scientologists call themselves Scientologists? I would think they would find science to be the reason of the universe, not an alien Xenu thing?

    Well anyway, please don't think of me as some religious fanatic, I really just wrote a lot here to put of doing my homework. I'm just glad that you don't believe in a Caucasian male that lives in the clouds and believe that sexuality has something to do with morality. As you can probably tell, I'm not your conventional Christian.

    Have a nice day sir :)
    punk, Dec 5, 2010
  3. punk
    It is in our nature to turn to a higher authority to seek for answers that philosophy or science has either failed to answer or that we (for some reason) feel the need to reject and claim "God did it". I heard some time ago (not sure about the reference) that a monkey that had learned sign language watched a balloon pop, and when asked what happened to it, she signed "it went to heaven". I don't think this proves the almighty zeus, but it does show that we have a natural tendency or curiosity of the supernatural life after, and one could argue with this story either way: if we had such a premature knowledge of a supernatural quality of the universe, then there must be a supernatural quality to the universe, because if there was no antecedent, how would this idea pop into our brains? or you could argue: God does not exist because we continue to reinvent religion whenever we fail to see the scientific or philosophical answer for why something is how it is, just as the monkey did. I personally believe that there is always an antecedent, and that the idea is the truest and most real form available to us.

    Good! because really any solid proof of a truly infinite intellectual being would be flimsy at best, unless he descended from the clouds and set fire to Detroit, just like the bible says... which, by the way, I have lost all faith in. You mentioned that Jesus said some crazy stuff, but I'm less worried about what Jesus said and more worried about what the Romans in 400 AD wanted Jesus to say... Right after Jesus said "It is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven", he says "But through God, all things are possible." This made me laugh, because I didn't think of Jesus to be an oligarch who had just realized he was condemned to an eternal life in the lake of fire, and the only way to save his soul would be to change the rules... also "Give to God what belongs to God, and to Caesar what belongs to Caesar" sounds like a last ditch effort to get people to pay their taxes. The bible is so twisted that I just can't read it anymore... lol. And to call him JUST an idea IS intellectually dishonest IF i had solid evidence of his existence, which I don't... just like I don't have solid evidence of Barack Obama's existence because I've never walked up to him and shook his hand, only to find out he's a hologram created by those damn communists. But to call somebody an idea I don't think is intellectually dishonest. I have an idea of Socrates and of Plato floating in my head, and an idea of you and of Barack Obama. The idea of Jesus that has been implanted in my brain since Sunday school is a perfectly righteous human, and the goal that I continue to strive for is that of Jesus. You could rename him YHWH, Muhammad, click clook clack or Pikachu, but my idea of perfection and righteousness still exists and is still a very large factor in my day-to-day decision making. Of course, I will never reach that goal, because I'm an idiot; but I'd like to do the best I can to take care of myself and of the people around me, for humanity's sake.

    I think that some answers science can't solve, because if the universe is in fact infinite, than how can a secular and finite mind "crack" it? Unless the universe isn't infinite, but there's no way of knowing that... not yet, at least. That would make me a sad panda. But as for the answers that science can solve, I don't think they completely disprove a supernatural quality to the universe. I think that you would agree that nature is so beautifully connected on a molecular level and in the universe of thoughts and emotions, and that to say that there is no natural order or, to steal from Thich Nhat Hanh, "Order of Interbeing", would leave the question, "Where is the organization of events that set each other into motion in such a fluent and orderly fashion?" That's my current weak argument to try and say that there is always an antecedent, and I hate to belittle science in any way.

    Off topic, but why do Scientologists call themselves Scientologists? I would think they would find science to be the reason of the universe, not an alien Xenu thing?

    Well anyway, please don't think of me as some religious fanatic, I really just wrote a lot here to put of doing my homework. I'm just glad that you don't believe in a Caucasian male that lives in the clouds and believe that sexuality has something to do with morality. As you can probably tell, I'm not your conventional Christian.

    Have a nice day sir :)
    punk, Dec 5, 2010
To make a comment simply sign up and become a member!
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Accept Learn More...
    Dismiss Notice