God ?

[Maverick]

I was reluctant to enter into this very much as I figured it would be taken facetiously. I am gratified to see it is a good discussion.

to those keeping it civil.

I learned something tonight. I was under the impression that an agnostic believed that all religions had as much validity as any other. I guess I was wrong in that opinion. Thanks for the definitions guys.

My personal beliefs are thus: I do believe in a God. Not the jealous one or the one who needs our sacharine sweet devotions towards him, but a God that has no problem setting what we call natural laws in motion. Including the "big bang".

I do not believe in a biblical creation but have no problem in believing that God used a process consistant with nature and physics. After all, if you believe in a diety creating the universe why do you feel he was limited to 6 earth days to do so. How long are God's days after all? Perhaps His days are our geologic ages. I don't know but don't doubt that He could use those processes we are figuring out on our own now.

I do not believe in the version of heaven with the harps and white robes. I certainly hope it is more mentally engaging than that or eternity would be rather boring to me.

I do not believe in the bible as the unadulterated actual word by word transcription of the Almighty. It's been edited several times throughout history. Does it make a good guide for living? Yes it does. Could it have been inspired by God? Possibly if not probably, it all depends on if you want to believe it is or not.

There's that nasty word belief. It is an expression of faith, another nasty word not necessarily predicated on logic. You either believe or disbelieve and there are no real third choices on this issue. Either way until you die, you must take either choice as an act of faith since no one comes back from the dead to say otherwise. Please do not think I disbelieve in the Christ story, I do not. My personal beliefs allow that to be possible.

I do believe that God has allowed us to roam on our own and exercise "free will" in our lives. I do not believe in everything being preordaned by an omniscient diety. What would be the purpose of that in his plan??? If you already know EVERYTHING, why bother doing the "experiment". Since He would be the judge and creator it would be a waste of His time.

I also believe that we all have a certain amount of time on this ball of dirt based on whatever choices we make. The time, up to a point, is up to us. Choose wisely and you live to a ripe old age. Choose poorly and you can die young. Choices can also be removed from those who are incapable of making decision by others in their acts that involve people.

I do believe in good and evil. I have witnessed evil many times in my career and have been priveleged to be with good people as well. Not all of them were religious either.

I belive that God is not a one dimensional being that requires we all believe the same way and worship the same way. Since there are differences in people I cannot fathom that a diety that faith says created us in His immage, would be so narrow that only a select specific few, LUCKY enough to be born in the right spot with the right environment, could attain heaven and coexistance with God. Whichever way you take to Him that allows you to accept Him is the way you wil be most comfortable. There's that nasty faith thing again. The converse is that you are also free to deny Him and take another path of your choosing.

That's my position on this issue. It's not all "fleshed out" yet but then I'm not done with this existance either (I hope) and can make modifications to it as I am "inspired" to do so.

Please note that I am NOT being disrespectful of others beliefs in their own religions, particularly the "organized" religions. For those folks, their beliefs are just as valid as mine are to me.

[Frogm4n]

Reading up on the history of the christian church is quite interesting. It is hard to take any of it seriously after studying neo-platonic theory and Augustin.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by MrCoffee
So in steping away from cold science and philosophy and back into the area of faith. Abraham was asked to kill his only son, by God according to the bible. Would you of good faith, terminate your own son if asked by God?

Jesus comes along later in the bible.

Me, I would have serious problems with that. Thats my answer.

Jehovah is a jealous and petty god (and no, I don't believe in him).

I think belief isn't a choice at all. You either do or you do not. Sure, you can desire the belief and work towards it, but it's not something you can turn on or off with the force of will. I tried to be a christian... went at it for almost a decade and the belief never came. I just couldn't buy it. I am an atheist because it's the honest thing for me to be at this point.

If it's what gets you through the day, good on ya.

[MrCoffee]

Well said Maveric (though I agree with the latter part more in what you wrote), coming from a cop you have alot of real world experience I bet. I've read the bible, did so when I was a teenager. I admit it was sometimes boring and I did skip a bunch of chapters in th middle. It still confuses me and I find it the most abstract work of writing that I know of (Im ignorant to many other religions). Though I did take from it that there are alot of great lessons to be learned from it. Compared to the lives of some people, its a tame lesson in life . To others, it may be a harsh lesson. One of the lessons is that each man will find his god in many different ways. For some, its to the mountains, for others its to the dessert, and for some as a slave, etc... I was raised as Lutheran but could not say that I am one today. My own ideas on God are a bit more relaxed and less fixed than the average organized form of religion. I do respect the bible though as I respect all forms of religion. I personally do believe that there is a god but I keep my own definition of that very private to myself.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
The was no before the big bang... time did not exist, empty space did not exist. nothing.

The Big Bang created matter, energy and the expanding spacetime into which they could exist.

Interesting point of view. How long ago was the BB? If you can write down the year relative to our AD calendar, I can write down the number of the year before that... BB was an event. All events are linked to the time when they occurred. You said yourself "there was no before the big bang" But it occurred at a point in time, and therefore there was a point in time before that.

I cannot comment on space. It is infinite. I don't think that the human mind will ever be able to fully comprehend this.

[NUKE]

Beetle from his logic, the big bang might as well = God, since he is saying the big bang created everything.

Beet1e you stated very closely what I have been saying for years and years.....since highschool regarding the events preceding the big bang.

edit: I used to refer to the time before the BB as "negative time" in a joking way while arguing with a friend about how dumb the BB theory was, during highschool. My friend ended up  becoming as theologian and later, a minister. He told me years later that the discussions we had and my arguments were the main reasons he started to look down that path.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by beet1e
Interesting point of view. How long ago was the BB? If you can write down the year relative to our AD calendar, I can write down the number of the year before that... BB was an event. All events are linked to the time when they occurred. You said yourself "there was no before the big bang" But it occurred at a point in time, and therefore there was a point in time before that.

I cannot comment on space. It is infinite. I don't think that the human mind will ever be able to fully comprehend this.

Theory says the universe is about 15 billion years old.  

You can say 16 billion, but according to the theory it does not mean anything as time started when space started.  The theory says there was a true beginning of time.  

We observe a 4 recognizable dimensional universe, three physical and the one temporal dimension.  All four obvious dimensions, along with the 6 other curled up physical dimensions according to string theory, started in the bang.

Time stops on a photon and time stops due to the intense gravity inside a black hole so why can’t it stop at the beginning of time?  If there is a beginning of time, how can there be a before the beginning of time?

By the way, the theory says that space is not infinite…. It is boundless but finite; much like the surface of the earth has no edge but a known area, space has no edge but is finite in its volume.

The concept of nothing may be even harder to comprehend than infinity.

[Ecke-109-]

I believe the cosmos was created with intent and for a reason, by what and why I am still struggling with.

The big bang was nothing more than an accident in a laboratory of an unknown species which existed in an universe before the big bang happened. Some scientists made some experiments with materie and anti-materie (sorry, i dont know the translation for that), and something went wrong.
the idea of one single god is nothing else than a desperate attempt of a growing civilisation to explain certain unexplainable
 things.
Still nowadays we have several gods in use. Depending to the different cultures.
We are not far away from stone-age. As long as mankind is making war in the name of a god, god is nothing more than evil.
Barbarians we are, as long as we believe in god.

Ecke

[beet1e]

Holden, interesting...

I've seen TV programmes about that black hole stuff, and it is indeed mind boggling.

As for space being of finite volume, what is beyond that finite volume? If the answer is "nothing", does that mean that there is nothing beyond it, or that there simply isn't a "beyond"?

[Holden McGroin]

I think the closest we can come to understanding that concept is that there is not a beyond.

However as humans, we would probably envision empty nothing outside the bubble that is our universe.  We would envision being able to pierce the membrane which would be the boundary but there is no boundary to pass.    

Everything that we can witness is within the universe, and being part of the universe, we cannot escape to any conceivable beyond.

Outside the universe would not have any dimension, no spacetime... less than our best concept of nothing.

[MrCoffee]

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
Jehovah is a jealous and petty god (and no, I don't believe in him).

I think belief isn't a choice at all. You either do or you do not. Sure, you can desire the belief and work towards it, but it's not something you can turn on or off with the force of will. I tried to be a christian... went at it for almost a decade and the belief never came. I just couldn't buy it. I am an atheist because it's the honest thing for me to be at this point.

If it's what gets you through the day, good on ya.

Sandman, how I feel about organized religion is that its a good thing if that is how one chooses to worship his God. I think an organized religion is a tangable way or handle  that allows people to better understand, rationalize, and practice/worship in some orderly way with other like minded  people what is probably not ultimatly comprehendable by a human being. I dont think christianity or catholicism or hinduism, islam, etc.. are bad.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by MrCoffee
I dont think christianity or catholicism or hinduism, islam, etc.. are bad.

Likewise... I don't believe atheism is bad either.

[Wlfgng]

God and spirituality, Yes...

man-made religion, No

[Rude]

I believe in the God of the Bible.

[Nakhui]

There is a god and I CAN prove it.

And he/she/it/bot runs the internet.

On a day when I am in his favor... my find my porn with out annoying pop up adds and it downloads quickly and I have low ping rates when I play online games.

on a day when I have displeased him I cannot find my porn, pop up adds come up so quickly, I have to pull the power plug on my 3 Ghz computer, hackers and trojans plague my operating system and I get discoed just when I'm about to win the game!

How many of us deny there is a god now?