Do You Believe In God?

[Flame]

I believe in the soul and I believe there's much more life out in the vastness of the Universe because its ignorant to believe we're the only life that exists.

The deities that people worship and shoot/blow people up over, i'm not convinced.

you believe in the soul? I believe in the heart...


together we accept Arceus as our lord and savior.

 

[Seita]

I believe in God (not in the Christian way ) and I also believe in afterlife (heaven or hell).
I don't think faith means being a blind believer but there is an amount of uncharted realms of faith that we can only but believe; much like Darwinism when it claims that men were apes but no one has ever proved that with tangible evidence.
I am also amused at the idea that we're the fruit of coincidence. Has coincidence become a pattern that almost all people are born with the same organs and function the very same way? lol

 

[Issac]

I don't believe in any god, and not for any particular reason... I just don't.
I mean, a god watching over the tiny human race on one tiny planet in the entire universe? Nah. I am an agnostic atheist, I guess. I can't prove that a god doesn't exist, but I don't believe it does at this momenet at least.
I do believe in some supernatural occurences though, like ghosts.
For example, after my grand dad passed away, and some months passed, we celebrated easter. Big smörgåsbord and some aquavit (booze). My grand dad loved aquavit, and really enjoyed it the few times he drank it.
On the first toast of the dinner, the lights in the bookshelves all died, and then went back on after half a minute. I believe that was his way of toasting with us. (Many more things have happened in my life, similar to this).

 

[FAST6191]

much like Darwinism when it claims that men were apes but no one has ever proved that with tangible evidence.
I am also amused at the idea that we're the fruit of coincidence. Has coincidence become a pattern that almost all people are born with the same organs and function the very same way? lol

Where to possibly begin there, other than "biology, best to first try learning it before you dismiss it" anyway.
I assume by "tangible evidence" you mean nobody has dug down, found a skeleton, dug down a bit more to rocks from an earlier age found a different skeleton that was slightly different.... and ? million years ago here is the ape, or if you prefer the lack of a missing link/chain. It would be nice to see such a thing but comparative genetic analysis of apes/primates/Simiiformes and humans, retroviruses (viruses that get attached to DNA and replicated alongside "proper" DNA) all that jazz means there is no doubt in that one, evolution itself has been demonstrably observed in a lot of things.

On the organs thing had you said something like the evolution of the eye we could have possibly had a somewhat interesting discussion, even if it is more of a thought exercise used to teach people evolution and some of the more interesting concepts like parallel evolution. Anyway it sounds like we will have to overcome the puny human mind issue with large numbers (100000 seconds is a bit more than a day, 10000000 is 115 days), then we get to consider that if the human reproductive cycle (one of the longest in nature) is some 20 years then the several billion years that life has been on earth has been enough for a few such life cycles, now humans were not around that entire time but given you can stick a pig heart in a human and have it work then it is clear other animals have similar functioning organs, and if not then that they function in much the same way, use much the same chemicals and so on would.

Seriously though pick up a book on biology. There are many unanswered issues within it but your two examples are not even close to being ones.

 

[dimmidice]

the idea of the universe being somewhat sentient i could get behind. but the idea of god from christianity or the other major religions? nah it's too nonsensical to even contemplate.

 

[sarkwalvein]

I know my believes are a can of worms onto their own, but I don't believe in the Biblical God. I am however, a Theistic Luciferian Satanist, I do believe in a Satan and a Lucifer and that there are more Gods out there. I don't worship them, I see them are guides and teachers down the Left Hand Path.
I however, don't disrespect those who believe anything different from me. I am willing to admit that I don't know if I am correct, but I find my religion works best for me.
Personally, the way I see it, you can worship a rock, just don't hit me with it and I won't hit you with my rock.

I got you there.
I also believe in Lucifer, he is very real, he just beat my ass hard on Devil Survivor.

 

[wormdood]

"this thread is like the biggest can of worms I've ever seen . . . .you can fit a small country in here . . .lol"

i don't believe in any god as you put it (and or gods and or goddess ect.)
most would then classify me as an atheist but i do have beliefs they just don't involve any type of omnipotent creator

 

[Pacheko17]

I believe in peace :^)

 

[rasputin]

I believe everything came into being by 10 cagiliandillian chance coincidences. Oh, also I believe, right now as I type this on my phone, that I'm shooting through the universe at 2.877 million miles per hour in all directions whist simultaneously spinning at @1000mph around the centre of this planet.


science!

 

[Deleted User]

No, but pretty much everyone in my family does in one way or another lol
I won't bug people about them being religious though. (unless they bug me about not being religious or something like that) Partially because I don't like stirring up shit

 

[yodamerlin]

I do not believe in a God, mostly because I don't think it is right to put all my belief into something written by a person. I don't think people nowadays can look back on older religions, such as Greek religion, and write it off as stupid without seriously looking at their own religion. If you believe in something with only the only proof being written by a person to prove it, then you probably shouldn't criticize others for having beliefs in things written by a person, like unicorns.

 

[BobDoleOwndU]

I used to think about this sort of thing all of the time. Then I thought too much into it and everything became confusing.

"If there's a god, what came before god?" "If there was the Big Bang what happened before that?" "How did something come from nothing?" "How does space-dust turn into life?"

Something must have always existed; but what is it that existed? And if something has always existed, it creates a paradox. "There can't have been an infinite amount of time before this point, because if there was, we would have never gotten to this point." Which leads to the question, is time real, or only a human concept? Events occur between other events, which shows that time should exist; but if something has always existed (for an infinite amount of time), time must be a completely different concept than how we currently think about it.

The other thing is souls. To have a soul seems very odd. If we are souls only using our bodies as vessels, then why does something like brain damage affect us? Technically we are our brain, which really dissuades me from thinking we have souls. People tell stories about ghosts. Ghosts would be evidence of a soul-like state, but are any of those stories true? I've never seen a ghost personally, so I'm inclined to say no unless I actually see one first-hand. Then the whole concept of death comes in. You can't imagine nothing. And if there's no afterlife, nothing is exactly what we get. It feels odd that life would just come to a sudden halt. Something's there, now there's nothing.

This was pretty much all of the things I thought of, when I did think about this stuff. Thinking about it would give me a headache and make me anxious from being unable to answer any of these questions; so I chose to stop thinking about it and move on. If there's an afterlife, I'll worry about it when I'm dead. Until then, I'm going to enjoy my life as a human.

 

[The Catboy]

I got you there.
I also believe in Lucifer, he is very real, he just beat my ass hard on Devil Survivor.

That will learn ya!

 

[FAST6191]

"How does space-dust turn into life?"
...
Which leads to the question, is time real, or only a human concept? Events occur between other events, which shows that time should exist; but if something has always existed (for an infinite amount of time), time must be a completely different concept than how we currently think about it.

The other questions are for philosophers, psychologists or scientists in a few hundred years/the AI that will replace us. The two sliced out are more readily addressed though.

For the purposes of this we will have to define life as the sort of stuff we see around here, mainly as thinking about how biology might play out in places where gravity different, air pressure is different, air makeup is different (air does not react the best, however if there is less oxygen is changes how a low of biological reactions work...), temperatures are different... is crazy hard. We can see some of this in extreme conditions on earth (stuff like the bacteria seen in volcanic vents, some of the stuff that grows in permanently dark places...) and by thinking how physics plays out (the material known as bone not being able to sustain a creature the shape/size of godzilla or something) but it would be more than present science does terribly well at. So ignoring that and going back to plain old earth there has been a fair bit of research done in "early earth" type scenarios, which take the sorts of chemicals you see floating around in space dust clouds (which is not just rock dust and meteorites) but will have all sorts of good stuff in it and then planets after they have formed and cooled down and see what goes. Evolution is the study of the (increasing) complexity or adaptation of life forms but field of study, the formation of life from non living matter, usually goes under labels like abiogenesis. From there various things form carbon compounds which do self propagate, mix in some partial oxidation, possibly some lightning strikes* and you can get some RNA, the precursor to DNA. It is still a very active area of study with all sorts of things happening to this day, not that evolution study is a slouch either, and I am more of a casual observer of it but if you want to go looking it is out there to read.

*unrelated but bacteria and lightning strikes is a good topic. There were some studies that observed bacteria gobbling up random chunks of DNA around points of lightning strikes, assuming they were close but not close enough to be killed.

On time we have to almost immediately go to physics, specifically the notions of space-time which are a bit longer than the stuff above so I will link instead http://www.ws5.com/spacetime/ but if you want to get really fun then some of the stuff that underpins chronons (your stats class would have taught you that time is a continuous variable, the idea of chronons asks what if it is not). A lot of things are doubtless coloured by the human perception of time though.

 

[DaFixer]

No.

 

[mgrev]

for those who did not understand if i meant yes or no in my previous post

no, i do not

 

[Seita]

Where to possibly begin there, other than "biology, best to first try learning it before you dismiss it" anyway.
I assume by "tangible evidence" you mean nobody has dug down, found a skeleton, dug down a bit more to rocks from an earlier age found a different skeleton that was slightly different.... and ? million years ago here is the ape, or if you prefer the lack of a missing link/chain. It would be nice to see such a thing but comparative genetic analysis of apes/primates/Simiiformes and humans, retroviruses (viruses that get attached to DNA and replicated alongside "proper" DNA) all that jazz means there is no doubt in that one, evolution itself has been demonstrably observed in a lot of things.

On the organs thing had you said something like the evolution of the eye we could have possibly had a somewhat interesting discussion, even if it is more of a thought exercise used to teach people evolution and some of the more interesting concepts like parallel evolution. Anyway it sounds like we will have to overcome the puny human mind issue with large numbers (100000 seconds is a bit more than a day, 10000000 is 115 days), then we get to consider that if the human reproductive cycle (one of the longest in nature) is some 20 years then the several billion years that life has been on earth has been enough for a few such life cycles, now humans were not around that entire time but given you can stick a pig heart in a human and have it work then it is clear other animals have similar functioning organs, and if not then that they function in much the same way, use much the same chemicals and so on would.

Seriously though pick up a book on biology. There are many unanswered issues within it but your two examples are not even close to being ones.

Since you decided to answer and make it a bit of a discussion, let me tell you that you have proven nothing in your lengthy post. Sure there are types of evolution and some were proven by evidence. I read more than you thought I do. But you cannot prove that evolution from species to another species has happened anytime in history. And I dare you or anyone else to prove that. You will only keep talking about billions of years ago or eons to come. But your idea is just speculation.
My two examples are fine by themselves unless someone is an evolution fanatic. Notice that I am not an old fashioned creationist.

 

[Seriel]

Religion topics on a forum is bound to go out of control.
Anyways, my answer is no.
I'm not atheiest, i'm agnostic.

 

[Haymose]

No. I grew up feeling like an outsider because all my friends were Catholics but I understand now that feeling was BS. I don't understand things (like religion) but I will not make assumptions, but I won't deny possibilities either. I just ignore it.

 

[DragorianSword]

I don't believe there is a God and if there was one he would be way beyond what we are able to comprehend.
It's certainly not impossible the Big Bang, which started the universe of which we are a lucky result, was 'created' (and not just came into being).
I mostly think it doesn't really matter if there is a god or not though. If there is one, he doesn't give a sh*t about what we do.
So if I would have to label it: I'm agnostic, but leaning really close towards atheism.

Since we're not made by a god (at least certainly not directly) I don't think there is an afterlife, but I wouldn't mind if there was