If there is a God, then (in my opinion) he'd be a psychopathic architectural genius with a 5 year old's sense of humor.

Ultrajeff : From a biological standpoint it would be to ensure the survival of our species, producing children. But I think that's a rather shallow way of looking at life. I'd say the meaning of life is whatever each person makes of it. For me it would be the pursuit of happiness without infringing on the happiness of others.

Religion isn't really our only source of morals, any healthy person is capable of empathy so we do have somewhat of an innate sense of morals. It also in general makes sense to be a good person because being good is usually the best course of action from a societal standpoint as well as often leading to people being nice in return. There are also things religion don't account for where we have to use our own judgement.

I think Humanity's goal is to unite and evolve ourselves. Of course Religion isn't my only morality; I'm perfectly capable displaying calm powers of judgement. I just want to say; thanks for your discussion. It really allows for some critical thinking, and it is interesting speaking with you. 

DerAxeEfekt :

That's a poor presupposition.

Lol another summon for mr zlinqx

Zlinqx :

Ultrajeff : Well you can see ensuring the survival of our species on different levels. On a more basic individual level it would probably be reproducing while a more complex way could be looking at it on a larger scale it might be dealing with threats to humanity as a whole like environmental problems.

The way you worded your post made it sound like you were wondering where else someone could get their morals from. So in that case I apologize for misunderstanding since a lot of people genuinely do think religion is the only source of morality and atheists "choose" to be atheist and reject religion so they don't have to be accountable. Of course that way of looking at it doesn't really make any sense since choosing to ignore something doesn't make it go away. Anyway if you found my post interesting or enlightening that is nice to hear I guess. I've really just been trying to give my own perspective as clearly as I can.

This is an interesting topic. To say the least the whole subject of "God" has gone on for allegedly quite some time. There is also the relative subjects of gods and goddesses as well. I think there are a lot of people who are into seeing is believing and that's all well and fine. The thing is though when it comes to anything relating to "God" or gods/goddesses in general you have to understand that really in this area it's a matter of faith and in one's faith can you answer the question...whether contemplatively or deeply or both ways. For example faithfully...I'm willing to believe "God" exists and even believe in God to an extent but, only in the effect that God is capable of handling what God handles. I do not worship God however, as that is not where I can stand in the essence of religion. When it comes to religion...you are making more of a commitment to that particular deity which is entirely between you and the deity themselves. Either way a person chooses regardless the last relative standpoint is language. In any given form of language we can express these and other sentiments as we so like. Everyone puts faith into language though they can choose to believe and or believe in something or not to. To put it mildly...to answer the question is to first communicate the question before then communicating the answer in language with which had we not had we wouldn't have even gotten this far. For all intensive purposes then regardless of what a person may believe you can answer this question with a yes. There is a catch however, as it is so faith is entirely personal and while the topic is interesting to debate about for fun when it comes down to the entire matter as faith is personal the only real way to generate an answer is to create discussion because whenever you debate something you only get debate.

There are two things I never discuss publicly: politics and religion. However, I'll make an exception to the latter for now for the same reason I don't discuss it publicly: religion as a whole is entirely abstract and mostly based on opinions. IMO, arguing about religion is one of the dumbest things humanity can do, simply because they do not know or understand this specific phrase. There isn't a "right" or "wrong" opinion, therefore, there isn't a "right" or "wrong" religion. Everyone believes in whatever he/she wants to believe and that's it. Here's my two cents:

I believe there is a supreme, powerful being or force out there in the uni(and, who knows, multi)verse. I consider this being/force as an it, not a he or she. The concept of "gender" is purely human. This being/force has absolute control of every single thing. Every time. The universe has a cosmological order thanks to this force. And no, I'm not sure I could call it "God", since naming things is, again, purely human. We are naming it "God, but it may not have a name at all. It just... exists. It is there. Simple as that.

We tend to over complicate things because we, naturally, don't want to (or simply can't) grasp simplicity as it is. Our endless questions about who we are, where we came from and what we're doing here blur the simplicity we cannot understand yet.

I know the vast majority of this board is Christian, and I respect that (probably because my religion is part Christian). But there are things that just... they just don't fit in my head. I prefer using logic over the Bible, but then, again, it's just my opinion. I see the Bible as a completely abstract book, people who take it seriously end up doing bizarre things. Say, at the same time I say this, I don't deny Jesus' existence, for example.

But. How could I know Jesus was exactly as he is described in the Bible? For all we know, Jesus could have been a hobo, a brothel owner, whatever, nobody knows the absolute truth. Thinking about it, we are not ready for the absolute truth, and I don't know if we'll ever be. Religion exists as a "comfort zone" for us until we are ready for it, because the truth certainly would be, for some, truly shocking.

Yet, I believe "God" exists. Probably like Giygas, "in a form we cannot grasp the true form of. Yet.". Faith is entirely personal. Some will agree with me, some will say I'm pretty damn crazy or even stoned. But this is what I believe. I believe in spirits. I believe we are subconsciously guided by a supreme force. If anyone is curious, I'm a kardecist. Search it up on Google, I find it pretty interesting and it managed so far to answer most of my questions among existence.

I do believe it is a serious possibility. But it's only a possibility of many.

I don't go for religion, I actually kind of hate religion itself. But don't get me wrong, It's not like I hate everyone whom follows a religion, I find that everyone should be free to practice what they want as long as it doesnt invole hurting others in the process. I just prefer to not be in a religion because people can take their religions so seriously. That they swear by whatever book they worship and are so strict on their followings, not opening their mind to society. Those are the people I'm not fond of.

While there isn't a definite proof to whether there's a God or not, I believe in his existence. There is a major difference between saying "There is a God" and "I believe there is a God". I believe there is a God, that means not sure about his existence, and it's not a fact. I believe in him, yes, but I don't know how to prove it. This makes me an agnostic theist: To believe in God, but have no idea how to prove it. However, I believe our evidence is the Quran. The main reason why is because the Quran has stated many scientific facts since more than a thousand years ago, and these days scientists are confirming them, which is really impressive.

I believe that God doesn't hate anyone, and he loves everyone in my opinion. I do not believe he makes mistakes. I believe he controls everything, and I think I know what he's doing. Oh, and I also believe in the karma: What goes around comes around. Do good, be good, and everything will come back to you. So I believe God will do the same thing. If a bad person does something bad, God will eventually punish that person.

I believe in a god. I really do, no matter what. But I cant say I believe in religion. Reason being is because I like to express my belief's my way in a sense. I don't want these traditions and practices forced on to me. Religion is taken to seriously, some people and churches are extremist when it comes to religion and like to indoctrinate the young as well as the old, into the thinking that if you don't go to church, essientally, your going to hell. I do not like that kind of mentality. 


Fyredove : She pretty much has what I am getting at lol

I want to believe,but I would think that an all-powerful being was up above,would he not be sorely disappointed in us? We are fighting over ideas,ideologies,and our own stupidity and for what? Someone else to kick our collective heads in later?

I think Dogma said it best. It is good to have a good idea and a way of living,but do not shove it down our throats. If they want to get people to be moral and righteous,how about kicking out all the people that misuse their knowledge to distort things? Then prove to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that it works and is worth it. But no one can do that. Not even P.T. Barnum could do that and he could sell the public on anything.

I think it boils down to oddly enough,"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". Be excellent to each other. And...Party on,dudes! You know the golden rule,folks. Treat others as you would have them treat you.

I'm a Christian, so I do believe there's a god. My main argument for this is just the world itself, I don't believe it's possible for everything on Earth to have been created or developed at random, really, there has to be some sort of omnipotent creator to have all of this, from a new born baby to a blade of grass to weather patterns to the oceans.

It's just incomprehensible to me that there isn't a divine creator, and while that could be a result of my upbringing in a Christian family, it's just the only thing that makes sense to me. Now, I'm not super religious or anything, I very rarely go to church and I occasionally read my Bible, but I still hold onto that belief, at least, because if there is no creator, in my opinion, then human life holds no meaning whatsoever, nor does anything we have, can, or ever will do, because if that's it then in the end we're just a bunch of numbers, and I can't believe that. I can't believe that there is no god when I hold a baby, because that, in and of itself, is a miracle. 

Those are my beliefs, hope you peeps find them interesting.

I have yet to see convincing evidence that ANY god exists. To quote Carl Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and it has never been produced. If YOUR god is the right one, how can you tell that ALL the others ever claimed to have existed in History and beyond - deities were talked about before writing - are fake?

I am opened to the idea there CAN be a god - I can not know everything there is to know about the universe, and science can only explain so much - but only solid evidence, i.e. that would be accepted in a court of justice, will convince me.

janus :

The extraordinary evidence is the entire universe. It exists, and science can't say why. We must abandon empiricism and move toward logic. Logic demands the existence of an unmoved mover.

Well the answer to this question depends on the perspective your looking at it from from a scientific perspective no but from a religious faith/belief perspective yes. Scientifically speaking there is no proof of a "God" and there won't ever be. But from a religious point of view "God" is all knowing everywhere and anything he's a ommunicent  being. God is a belief, it gives you hope when you have none, it gives you something to believe in when you don't believe in yourself. With that said I believe in evolution but I believe some being started the basic primitive life here on earth. 

Txgangsta : That's not a proof. People used to think that anything they couldn't explain was a manifestation of a god. But as reason and "logic" through the scientific method progressed, we were able to find out that there was an actual explanation behind those phenomena.

While there are only hypotheses, the creation of the universe also has a few explanations, the most common one being the Big Bang. But if it was created by God, who created god? In the real world, nothing appears spontaneously.

I believe in God.

The reason I feel like it's more than a faith and I don't need proof is because humans are really moronic... A god would be a figure we receive advice from,  or extraterrestrial creature that is wiser than human life and doesn't live on Earth.  I never quite grasp how people / humans can believe in alien / foreign life on other planets... but not believe in a God. Sure, we all have different definitions or relationships with God, but to feel like there isn't someone watching what we do each day is farfetched to me.

 If there are other universes, there has to be other life.

We can see and observe items on the moon (via satellites or rocket ships) but we don't expect other beings (aka God) to do the same to us?

I'm a fan of perception and reality.

One person can believe in God and you know what? God is in their world. He exists for them. They see it in the sunlight, the birds, the clouds, their convictions, and the every day actions of them and others.

Take another person who was never introduced to God as most of us understand Him. Those folks have their own interpretation, their own Gods, their own creation stories, and their own travels after life. And that's exactly what will happen for them.

Everyone is simultaneously correct about the state of the universe. From your place in the world, God exists, or several gods may exist, or no one exists and we're all on our own. And it's completely fine because that is your reality.

Is there a God? If you believe it, yes. If you don't, no.

How awesome is that?

I have just one piece to put into this debate, and it goes out to those who have the conviction that a God must exist.
So it is said the Universe could not have created itself, so somebody must have created it. Well how would the creator have been able to exist before everything was created?
If it is possible for a creator to have popped into existence, or always have existed, then shouldn't it be possible for the whole of the Universe to have done the same? And unless there's so weird glass wall sitting around outside of the solar system making it look like there's other galaxies out there, we have evidence to suggest that we are just one of an indescribable number of planets.
If we have a creator, and he has created this vast Universe then it's entirely likely that we are not the only life in the Universe, and with the thousands of religions we have on our planet, many believe all but theirs are wrong. Well if it's possible that we were capable of making and believing in so many religions, it could be possible they're all wrong, and the correct one is practiced on a distant planet.

No, there is no way to prove that God doesn't exist, but I'm certain there is no real way to prove that he does. And in all likelihood if there is no evidence that he exists, there never will be, so this debate is eternal really.