Does God Exist?

Quote: Nareed

Can you say whether Ra, the Sun God, exists or not?

I totally believe all the Norse god's exist, that goes without saying..

...in the halls of Valhalla where the brave may live forever.

Quote: ItsCalledSoccer

But it would be nice to hear a "point" from the no-gods that cannot be simply mirror-imaged and claimed by the yes-gods with similar veracity.

Really, that's all I'm asking for. But the "proof" is coming in the form of "wow, aren't these nice fractals pretty and don't they look a lot like things we see in nature" (never mind that the computers drawing those pretty fractals were designed and created by powers higher than themselves, which more closely resembles the yes-god side than the no-god side).

You're invoking a false dichotomy between "yes-god" and "no-god". It leaves no room for "I don't know" and "I'm not sure it matters". Holding *either* of the "yes-god" or "no-god" views is an act of faith, not of science. Lack of disproof is not proof -- in either direction.

And it is a gross mischaracterization of my prior post to suggest that I was offering "proof" of anything. I was pointing out that I can find beauty in seemingly complex, random phenomenon, and even more beauty in distilling simple mathematical rules which reproduce that complexity. I do not share the view of the prior poster that life without god is necessarily ugly or sad. I think god and sadness are orthogonal. As proof (there's that word, and I mean it this time) of this, I offer Exhibit A, a man who has god and is sad:



and Exhibit B, a man who does not have god (as that term is being discussed herein) and is not sad:



Exhibits C and D, people who have god and are happy, and people who have no god and are sad, are presumably acknowledged.

The days of the week, Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday, are all
named after Norse and Roman god's. I mean, c'mon. Do you need any more proof
that the Norse god's are real?

Quote: FrGamble

To believe that you and I and all around us is here just by some random chance is to make a sunrise with golden rays of light no more important than a roll of the dice.

The spider kills the fly, and eats it; the bird kills the spider and eats it; the wildcat kills the goose; the -- well, they all kill each other. It is murder all along the line. Here are countless multitudes of creatures, and they all kill, kill, kill, they are all murderers.

Quote: ItsCalledSoccer

(If FrGamble's post is offensive) why isn't (EvenBob's post) offensive?

I didn't say it was. My statement of...

Quote: Face

Religion talks are awesome, until someone (either thiest or athiest) gets all uppity.

...was clearly attempting to keep offensiveness down on BOTH sides, as these discussions can be good when people are civil.

I also see nothing wrong with Mosca's post whatsoever. When HE sees no evidence, when HE sees no actions, him stating that he doesn't see them is a statement of 100% true fact. That's neither arrogant or him taking the moral high ground, he's telling you what HE sees. Personally, I also see no evidence, I've seen no actions. That is absolute, bet-my-life-on-it fact. It's NOT proof in no-god, it's NOT fact that there is no god, I HAVEN'T won the discussion. It's simply a statement - "I have not seen god". Seems you kind of went off on him for no reason.

A "point from the no-gods" is useless, just as much so as "a point from the yes-gods". Opinions can be discussed, but points need to be proven, and alas, we can't. For either side.

Personally, I'm a definate "no-god". I 100% admit I cannot prove it. Do I believe I'm above the crazed eye, bible thumping, blind sheep of the hyper religous? To put it out there, yes. In the same way I feel above the furrow browed, red faced, screaming athiests. Extremism kills productivity, in my opinion. Any mind so clamped down on an idea cannot be open to allow stuff in (also in my opinion, and personal experience. I used to be the crazy athiest type). In almost all cases, I accept religion for what it is. Hell, the Jehovah's caught me unawares a few years back and I had a stimulating 90 minute conversation with the young men. But for me, religion does not work. The idea of creation, to me, is silly at best. The teachings of the Bible, from that of which I know, doesn't jive with what science has either proven, or has hypothesised about. And it might have been you, ICS, who stated sometimes it's not a thinking thing, but a feeling thing. And I don't feel it. That's not to say I'm the cold, lifeless and loveless example some of the religious peg as typical athiests, on the contrary. The pleasure of existence in and of itself is beyond comprehension. I just don't feel I was "made" this way by a higher power.

I also accept that I cannot know. I know roughly how big the moon is. I can see it right know, and sort of almost imagine how far away it is. Many nights I can pick out Mars and have much difficuly imagining how far away it is. Comprehending the vastness of just our solar system is out of my abilities, let alone the entire galaxy and all the space in the universe. So the Big Bang Theory and all that came after it (science view of creation) is what I FEEL is correct, but I know I couldn't prove it. (Yes, I'm admitting my "no-god" is of equal amount of faith as "yes-god".) When trying to understand religion and comparing it to science, it always macro's into "if Big Bang was the start point, what created the start point?" Since that's bigger than the distance to the moon and I can just barely comprehend that, I am more than comfortable in saying I don't know. Again, I am athiest because it "feels right". Same reason why theists are theists. In other words, equal.

The reason I reacted to FrGamble's post is because I feel that the values I hold are what most people would consider Christian for the most part, and I can't understand how "no-god" translates into "bad person". I see no difference in when athiests claim the religious are weak and need their opiate of protection rituals to make them feel safe. Both are offensive and shouldn't really be included here in the House of Wiz. I'm even kind of surprised I reacted at all, hockey season must've got the testosterone all stirred up. Is there a God? Who cares. I much more like my first question. If it could be proven, would you want it to be known? This guy sure wouldn't.

You can look at the moon and tell how big it is? How? One cannot look at the moon with the naked eye on a given night and tell how far away it is without other facts. The greeks had to rely on eclipses to figure it out.

Nareed, the tooth fairy is not real because I put the money under the pillow when my kid loses a tooth. I don't discount the existence of other gods at all. Who "knows" that Jesus existed, sacrified his sins for us, and then was resurrected? What is the holy spirit? Being a Christian or a member of any other religion is inheritently an act of faith. I don't discount athiesm either. The fact is that we truly don't know. God has not been counted out. I believe that God doesn't exist in any physical form for if it did it would be measurable, quantifiable, etc.

That said, I was playing with them fractals 25 years ago when the formulas came out, plugged them into my beautiful loaned-to-me $5,000 color monitor and it was a sight to see.

If God does exist, it is only in a spiritual, non-physical, non-measurable form.

This seems to be a subject where a person can make what he feels is a reasonable and unoffensive assertion, then find out he infuriated someone. For the most part, the ones feeling offense just seem to be angry about the subject, IMO, with some exceptions.

The old advice not to discuss Religion seems to be holding up [unless you do indeed enjoy pointless argument].

I think odious has a point it is hard to talk about this stuff and not to get too excited or offended so again I've gotta say that I respect everyones beliefs and it is clear through some of the posts that they have been thought out and informed by personal experiences and are deeply held. In my limited understanding of atheism I just don't understand how something can have intrinisic value if it is truly a random act with no purpose or meaning behind it. A royal flush is a beautiful thing to see but it is just five random cards we could just as well play a game where the highest hand is 8h,10d,3c,2s,Js. If we say a fractal, or a tree, or a sunrise is beautiful but still hold to a philosophy that says it is all dumb luck than who is to say an ugly fractal or something not so pretty from nature is just as awesome? It is just another random conicidence. Again, if you and I are nothing but happenstance why are you or I more wonderful than a hippo or a bird or a spider? If in the long run we are all dust what real consequences, beyond the temporary good of society, are there to my actions or yours? I'm not attacking, I'm just trying to say this is my biggest hang up with atheism, if you remove God it seems to me that you remove the foundation of the most important aspects of life. What you are left with is naseuating to me but some guys like Sartre (yes I've read Nausea) and others can stomach it.

Quote: MathExtremist

Holding *either* of the "yes-god" or "no-god" views is an act of faith, not of science. Lack of disproof is not proof -- in either direction.

That's just wrong.

Belief in any type of god requires faith because there is NO evidence to back up such a belief. Lack of belief in any type of god does not require faith, precisely because there is NO evidence to back up the claim that gods exist.

Let's make a simple analogy. Some people beeive alien beings exist on Earth, based on no clear evidence at all. Now, do you ahve to have faith in order not to believe their baseless claims? Or can you just dismiss them and ask for real evidence?

It's the same thing with god, call it Ra, Jehovah, Tlaloc or anything else. With the sole exception that a very large amount of people profess belief in the Biblical god or something very much like it. And that is irrelevant. The existence of something, or the truth of a hypothesis, does not depend on how many people believe it.

Quote: boymimbo

The fact is that we truly don't know.

What is your evidence to support the notion that some kind of god may exist.

Quote:

I believe that God doesn't exist in any physical form for if it did it would be measurable, quantifiable, etc.

So in a universe full of concretes that exist only in a physical form of some kind, including force and energy, there is this sole exception for which there is no evidence, no indication, no hint, nothing, but we don't know if it isn't there?

Quote: MathExtremist

You're invoking a false dichotomy between "yes-god" and "no-god". It leaves no room for "I don't know" and "I'm not sure it matters". Holding *either* of the "yes-god" or "no-god" views is an act of faith, not of science. Lack of disproof is not proof -- in either direction.

Thanks. As I was reading thru this thread, I was groping for just such a way to say what you said.

ZippyBoy -
Thanks for those photos. I REALLY needed those laughs.

---

For those of you that remember, there was a thread that I started back in December which includes a poll:
https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/free-speech-zone/3893-do-you-beleive-in-god/

That was a fairly lively conversation.

Rather than repeat myself, I invite you to go back and review it.

That said, I will only repeat two small comments I made:

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I believe God is an invention of Man, not the other way around.

However, I respect differing opinions and beliefs - just don't try to change my mind for me.

Quote: FrGamble

What you are left with is naseuating (sic) to me but some guys like Sartre (yes I've read Nausea) and others can stomach it.

I guess my reference to absurd was too obscure. It was a reference to Camus famous statement in reference to Sartre's Nausea :

“This discomfort in the face of man’s own inhumanity, this incalculable tumble before the image of what we are, this ‘nausea,’ as a writer of today calls it, is also the absurd.”

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1975) 15.


Since you seem to equate Nausea with an upset stomach, here is what Sartre says:

"Atheistic existentialism, which I represent, is more coherent. It states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept, and that being is man or, as Heidegger says, human reality. What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be."

Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Humanism of Existentialism,” Essays in Existentialism, ed. Wade Baskin (Secaucus, N. J.: Citadel Press, 1965) 35-36.



You have to be careful what you write on this board, because some of the posters actually know something about the topics discussed.

Matilda -

It's not that one of us doesn't know about the topic at hand it is a question on how deep do we want to really go in our posts. I do try to keep things simple because we are not in a Sartre forum. However, you must agree that for him it is only for consciousness that the world appears as an intelligible system of distinct and interrelated things. The l'en-soi (the in-itself) or 'raw being' is as he describes it opaque, massive, undifferentiated, the nebulous background, as it were, out of which the world is made to appear. It is "without reason, without cause and without necessity" (JP Satre, "Being and Nothingness" trans. H. Barnes, p. 713). Being simply is, there is no reason for it, "To exist is simply to be there" (La nausee, p. 171, English ed., Penguin). As you quoted above man comes along and defines himself and existence. Therefore, man is thrown back entirely on himself, and he cannot justify his choice of making himself into something as ideal by appealing to a divine plan for the human race. My point is that if in fact there is no God who has created man for a purpose, to attain a determinate end or goal, there is no given moral order to which man can appeal to justify his choice. There are no absolute values in Sartre's system without God and since I don't seem to know what nausea means (or how to spell it) let me say that this atheistic existentialism just scares me.

Fair enough. It may scare you and be unlikeable, but it doesn't therefore imply there must be a God or Higher Power to make you feel better.

The world is full of uncomfortable truth's, some of which we discover, some of which are kept hidden. Whether they should exist or not is by-the-by, the fact they do is undeniable, and their existence is no requirement for God to exist or not-exist.

There just may not be any objective, absolute morality or beauty or reason. Doesn't stop me living my life as well as possible, making my friends and family happy, and trying to leave it in a better state than when I arrived. That's good enough for me, and it doesn't keep me awake at night that in 200 years they'll be little trace of me left in the world.

YES GOD does exist. The very existence of life violates the second law of thermodynamics. The fact you exist is a mathemetical impossibility yet there you are. From purely scientific point all evidience show that GOD exist.

If you doubt this look around and ask if this can have happened by accident. Can a random computer typing create the complete works of Shakespeare in a trillion*trillion*trillion years. How much more complicate is life that life just happened is more absurd than the existenceof GOD.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

Can a random computer typing create the complete works of Shakespeare in a trillion*trillion*trillion years?

No.

But then neither could Shakespeare.

At least not without the rest of us taking a look and recognizing what he did.

Without our own recognition of his feat, then it could be argued that a computer certainly COULD create something as monumentous. It just might not be recognized by anyone except other computers.

Quote: Nareed

That's just wrong.

Belief in any type of god requires faith because there is NO evidence to back up such a belief. Lack of belief in any type of god does not require faith, precisely because there is NO evidence to back up the claim that gods exist.

Let's make a simple analogy. Some people beeive alien beings exist on Earth, based on no clear evidence at all. Now, do you ahve to have faith in order not to believe their baseless claims? Or can you just dismiss them and ask for real evidence?

I think you didn't read what I wrote.

Not believing in a god is different than believing in no-god. The question of god is untestable, outside of scientific inquiry. Any affirmative statement that god does not exist is, by definition, one of faith and not of science. The reason your analogy is flawed is because, presumably, you can test for the presence of aliens and, having found none, you can conclude that there is no evidence for their existence. If you cannot test for the presence of aliens, then it does indeed become a matter of faith.

Life does not break the 2nd law of thermodynamics, as the earth itself is not a sealed and contained system.

Complexity does not require design.

"From purely scientific point all evidience show that GOD exist. " -> sadly, not true at all. Proofs of God existence via science fail. I've not seen a single compelling one yet. Most scientific hypothesis aren't concern with the existence of a higher power anyways, but trying to explain natural phenomena. These are often disproved and modified later.

However, most proof's of the non-existence of God via science also fail, as God disappears into the gaps.

The Higher Power is not a required and necessary force for 99.9% of scientific concepts, until we get back to "how did the universe come to be created", "what causes us to be self-aware" and other BIG picture questions, that there's plenty of theories and ideas why. Some of which can be investigated and explained right now, some can't but might be in the future, and other's... we may never know or can know.

I'll stick with occam's razor myself (the irony being William of Ockham was a monk and deeply religious man), and go for "there is no requirement for God to exist, hence he probably doesn't" and worry and read and learn about far more interesting things... like how raspberry plants grow, the causes of the 30 Years War, how to make my computer scripts work to automate some tasks, and how the genetic structure can express various different traits.

None of these need God. All of them are complex.

Quote: AceCrAAckers

YES GOD does exist. The very existence of life violates the second law of thermodynamics.

Life doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics. If you claim it does, please explain how.

Quote:

The fact you exist is a mathemetical impossibility yet there you are.

I've shown the probability of any given person existing is very small. But very small does not equal impossible.

Quote:

From purely scientific point all evidience show that GOD exist.

You've advanced two alleged pieces of evidence which were easily dismissed because they were wrong. If you know of any others I'd like to read about them.

Quote:

Can a random computer typing create the complete works of Shakespeare in a trillion*trillion*trillion years.

Perhaps. How fast does the computer type? A trillion-trillion-trillion years is a very long time.

Quote: FrGamble

Again, if you and I are nothing but happenstance why are you or I more wonderful than a hippo or a bird or a spider?

Why do you feel you are more wonderful than a hippo or a bird or a spider? Why do you need to feel more wonderful than a hippo, bird, or spider in order to be happy?

In fact, to claim that Shakespeare can't be written at random -> thus God is a fallacy, as Shakespeare wasn't written at random, and human being didn't appear at random either. Evolution as a process, and other processes can make random events selectable for fitness, and improved.

The question is, if there was a process to select various random tracts of computer type for being "better" than others (more Shakespeare like, say), then the works of Shakespeare... or at least something approaching the complexity of Shakespeare could be produce in finite and bounded time.

See the Weasel Program as a trivial example of this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_program

To quote : They clarify that the process that drives evolutionary systems — random variation combined with non-random cumulative selection — is different from pure chance.

You can indeed then claim that the Higher Power is "non-random cumulative selection" is there by design. However, this non-random selection occurs in nature, and does not require a Higher Power to act on it.

Quote: FrGamble

I'm not attacking, I'm just trying to say this is my biggest hang up with atheism, if you remove God it seems to me that you remove the foundation of the most important aspects of life.

Are you saying use my best judgement and pick a god or gods and I will be better off?

So, maybe I'll start working for Al Qaeda one day, who knows?

I admit, that might give my life a lot more intense directed purpose.

Quote: FrGamble

It's not that one of us doesn't know about the topic at hand it is a question on how deep do we want to really go in our posts. I do try to keep things simple because we are not in a Sartre forum.

I was not the one to inject Sartre in the discussion. To keep things simple is not license to misuse someone's ideas for selfish purposes. I suggest that you follow what catholics do. Confess mortal sins, , offer an act of contriction, receive absolution, serve pentence, and move on. (I do not pretend I have stated this correctly.)

Quote: AceCrAAckers

Can a random computer typing create the complete works of Shakespeare in a trillion*trillion*trillion years.

Yes. Open Source Shakespeare statistics.

If your "proof" of divinity is that some things in this world are too complicated for you to imagine them happening without intentional intervention, that's not proof at all. It says more about your imagination than it does the world.

Quote: boymimbo

You can look at the moon and tell how big it is? How? One cannot look at the moon with the naked eye on a given night and tell how far away it is without other facts. The greeks had to rely on eclipses to figure it out.

No. I said "I know roughly how big the moon is". This knowledge was taught by those who came before me, I just happened to read it. I said "(I can) sort of almost imagine how far away it is". In other words, this wasn't a statement that I could've figured it out if I were a caveman living 10,000 years ago, it was merely a point that while the size and distance of the moon are well known and visible, I can just barely imagine the scale of it. Something as huge as Big Bang vs Creation is so far out of my imagination's scope that I couldn't begin to explain it, so my belief of science over religion is faith, equal to that of religion.

Quote: FrGamble

...if you and I are nothing but happenstance why are you or I more wonderful than a hippo or a bird or a spider? If in the long run we are all dust what real consequences, beyond the temporary good of society, are there to my actions or yours?

Short answer, we aren't. In the grand scheme of things, I feel everything is of equal magnificence. The sweat on my brow right now came from water I drank, that came from a reservoir nearby, that was filled by rain that came from the other side of the world, that once was inside a dinosaur years ago, that used to be so many tiny molecules hurling around space in time beyond recollection. That's amazing. Watching the biology around me, I feel astonished. The way an ant colony works as one big individual. How a bird using nothing but it's biddy little wings can be in my backyard today and be flying past Nareed's house in a few weeks. You ever watch a spider build it's entire web from start to finish? It's nearly mind blowing. Objectively, my life as an individual doesn't really hold a candle to that which I see around me. The reason I "feel" special, is because, well, I'm me. There's a bias at work.

As for consequences beyond society...everyone, I think, thinks of the "after". Probably a product of our deep intelligence, but no one likes to think they spend their time here and do nothing, that our time is pointless. Society aside, I believe my actions will ripple through time for the remainder of human life. I look at myself, and I see my father. Like it or not, I've obviously learned from his habits, both good and bad, and am a continuation of his person, both physically and psychologically. Sure we're different, I am not, in fact, my father, but he has left his mark on me. Who I am and what I do in this world are in large part thanks to him. In turn, who he is and many of the things he has done are thanks to his father, just as who my son will become and the things he has yet to do will be an echo of what I do right now. I yearn for humanity to improve, so being a scoundrel, a sneak, a cheat or a thief, even if absolute that I could get away with it, are not things I would choose to do. In doing those things, I would become those things, and who I am is what guides my son into who he will be. The same I feel applies to anyone close to you, or who is in close contact with you. Had I been childless, my actions would not change because my interactions with people, friends, family, coworkers, forum junkies, all have an effect on those who experience it. Many topics here at WoV have opened my eyes to different things, caused me to reexamine myself, taught me a lot and effectively changed who I am to some degree, I feel for the better. Had everyone here been a pompous ass, rude to the extreme, and did nothing but CAPS LOCK all the time, all those benefits would not have existed.

It seems that under your beleifs, a life without God is one without purpose, and I can somewhat understand that. If one believes that God is the reason for everything, than one without God must have nothing. It makes sense, I suppose. But I assure you, happiness, worth, love and hope are possible in those that have no faith. It just comes from a different place. Different, but equal.

What are the odds that this centuries-old debate will be settled on the wizardofvegas.com forums?

Quote: ikilledjerrylogan

What are the odds that this centuries-old debate will be settled on the wizardofvegas.com forums?

Zero.

Next question...?

Quote: ikilledjerrylogan

What are the odds that this centuries-old debate will be settled on the wizardofvegas.com forums?

It will never be settled anywhere because we're debating CONCEPTS.
You can't prove or disprove a concept, all you can have is an opinion.

God is a concept, live with it..

Concept: A notion, an abstract idea.

Happiness is...

Anyway, one of the things I'm trying to point out is unless we force people to accept a particular version of god, (and is that what we really want to do? Really?!), there's no guarantee we will be happy at all. And we might make others lives worse with our particular belief, that ranges from everything from our happy philosopher to trying to wipe out infidels.

While as an atheist, one might also turn into Pol Pot or Stalin, but just saying belief in god is the way of contentment and purpose does not CUT IT, BABY.

SHAZAAM! There you go. (I just add that for emphasis, I don't believe in Mr shazaam either)

Now, if you're not going to let people use their own judgement to believe, well then where are we?

Quote: rxwine

While as an atheist, one might also turn into Pol Pot or Stalin,

So you think atheists have slaughtered more innocent
people than god fearing religious zealots? You can't be
serious.

Hard to say, Bob, I don't have statistics back through man's entire existence. That wasn't my point anyway.

...probably someone's added up who has done more killing god-driven, or god-less on average from what we know.

But on the other hand, that probably ignores common murder. Lots of people shoot, stab and strangle each other for no other reason than they're married. (that's a joke)

Quote: Nareed

So in a universe full of concretes that exist only in a physical form of some kind, including force and energy, there is this sole exception for which there is no evidence, no indication, no hint, nothing, but we don't know if it isn't there?

Of course.

Well, the known universe has a plethora of unknowns in it. Scientists can't find dark matter (maybe that's heaven). The forces have not been unified. Lots of theorized particles that make the current models of physics work have yet to be discovered. Really, science has got a really good grasp on Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism but is still really is at the basics of quantum theory.

We also don't know how the universe was created.

Quote: Rumsfeld

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.

.......

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Zero.

Next question...?

Ok. How do you go about convincing a believer?

I know fo three ways. Unfortunately none of them would do me any good.

1) God Himself comes down from heaven and declares He doesn't exist. of course that's a contradiction, but that's what it would take for some believers.

2) When the believer dies he finds an afterlife very different from what his holy book said, and there's no god present anywhere. this would work, but it would do me no good in this life. Besides I don't believe in an afterlife (I would like to, since that would be great, but there's no evidence for it)

3) When the believer dies, his consciousness simply stops as much as his heart does. he never again feels, perceives or thinks anything ever again. That's what I expect happens at death. This one doesn't really work, as there's no person left to prove anything to.

Okay I think the thread is winding down after Face's good comments and the frank question about the fact we are not going to solve this on the WoV forum. However, before we start talking again about the best way to play craps or continue to perfect the ace-five count or examine the newest variety of VP; I need to emphatically state that I did not misrepresent one of my favorite philosophers, Sartre. I have nothing to confess in that regard and I think you need to confess that you Matilda assumed you knew him better than you actually do. I also did not use his thoughts for selfish purposes as I believe that he is one of a few true atheist philosophers who are willing to take their ideas out to its logical conclusions and wrestle with where their belief leads them. Maybe that is what this little thread did for some, had us once again say what we believe and wrestle with the consequences of it - that is courageous, healthy, and a good discussion. Peace and God Bless!
oh by the way Matilda, don't worry I forgive you.

Quote: gofaster87

I have actually seen evidence of God.

Then you should be able to rpesent here, shouldn't you? Otherwise youre' just making noise.

Quote:

So whats your point? Still wouldn't change the mind of an arrogant panty waste like yourself.

Perhaps you should pray that God may grant you manners. Why don't you try that and come back when you have a civil tongue in your mouth? We've done rather well in this thread without personal attakcs. I see no reason why you should want to start now.

Quote:

You always bitch and moan about evidence of this and that yet when its produced you cant admit fault.

Cite one example. Better yet, cite one involving god.

Quote:

Unlike you I respect everyone's opinion and dont have to argue every point.

You're doing a smashing job showing it right now. Good show!

Quote:

4000 posts just tells everyone you have no life outside a forum that has do with gambling.

Your posts show you are and angry and bitter man, but it would be rude to point it out.

Quote:

What did you say in another post? "I only gamble once a year." WTF are you doing on this forum then?

Why are you discussing your deity in a gambling forum, Einstein?

Quote:

Im done with this subject.

If the Wizard permits, I'll bet you my woul, which he currently owns, that you'll post here again (but then sucker bets were not devised by suckers, were they?)

Quote: boymimbo

Well, the known universe has a plethora of unknowns in it. Scientists can't find dark matter (maybe that's heaven). The forces have not been unified. Lots of theorized particles that make the current models of physics work have yet to be discovered. Really, science has got a really good grasp on Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism but is still really is at the basics of quantum theory.

And so?

The effects of static electricity were known since the days of Ancient Greece. In fact the words electricty and electron derive from the Greek "Elektron," meaning, of all things, amber. Yet the properties of electricity, its nature and its relationship to magnetism, weren't known until almost two thousands years later. Now, does that mean that until we gained knowledge of electricity we should have accepted lightning and thunder as issuing from an angry god Zeus?

Arguing from ignorance is not a good idea. Given humanity's track record, it's a certainty we'll find dark matter, missing particles, etc etc, or we'll find explanations that don't require them. At one time scientists very logically believed in a substance of negative mass known as "Phlogiston." It took advances in chemistry to understand what fire was, and why phlogiston didn't exist, but it was a reasonable explanation given the state of knowledge at the time.

Quote: gofaster87

I have actually seen evidence of God.

Sorry, looking in the mirror doesn't count..

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Quote: Nareed

If the Wizard permits, I'll bet you my woul, which he currently owns,

The Wiz owns your Soul AND your Woul? What a bargain..

Quote: Nareed

Arguing from ignorance is not a good idea. Given humanity's track record, it's a certainty we'll find dark matter, missing particles, etc etc, or we'll find explanations that don't require them. At one time scientists very logically believed in a substance of negative mass known as "Phlogiston." It took advances in chemistry to understand what fire was, and why phlogiston didn't exist, but it was a reasonable explanation given the state of knowledge at the time.

The concept of god is far older than the concept of phlogiston. Do you think it will be possible through advances in physics or some other branch of human knowledge to demonstrate that god doesn't exist? At its conception, was god a reasonable explanation given the state of knowledge at the time?

Quote: gofaster87

Ill answer your post but not on the subject of God. I dont need to represent any facts because I cant produce what isnt in my possession but I have seen and touched physical evidence.

Good thing you're done on the subject.

I'll say this only once. Anyone can say there's evidence. But when he fails to produce it or even name it, he should rightly be regarded as a liar at worst and a tease at best.

The rest of your comments don't bear responding to.

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Maybe the concept of God is actually energy. Energy created the big bang. Energy exists in everything and is a need for life. So looking at God as a Man or divine person may be the reason people have problems. Energy flows from our bodies when we die. Where does this energy go? Maybe someone else gets hit with our energy and has deja vu. So maybe this endless supply of energy is actually God, having no outcome on anyones life.

Quote: luckyjackg

Maybe the concept of God is actually energy. Energy created the big bang. Energy exists in everything and is a need for life. So looking at God as a Man or divine person may be the reason people have problems. Energy flows from our bodies when we die. Where does this energy go? Maybe someone else gets hit with our energy and has deja vu. So maybe this endless supply of energy is actually God, having no outcome on anyones life.

Perhaps, but that's not the concept of God that Western religion deals with, and atheists don't deny that energy exists.