Here's a conversation that I had on another forum earlier on:


Hooded Ranger

Here's part of a conversation that I had on another forum:

NOTE: This is not intended to offend anyone.

I do not think God exists. I read 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' When I was much much shorter than I am now and one thing stuck in my mind. The Bable Fish theory.

Here it is. The bable fish is to good to have evolved naturally. So.


QUOTE
GOD: 'I cannot prove that i exist, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

MAN: 'But the bable fish is a dead give away, it proves you exist therefore you dont.'

GOD: 'I never thought of that' *GOD VANISHES IN PUFF OF LOGIC*



However. There is the problem that the bable fish does not exist, so i looked at this through another prespective.

Say that god created everything. If he did, thats proof. So we can substitute 'Bable Fish' for creation of life. This preduces the same effect as above in dening faith destroying God.

BUT

If God did not create life then the basis of the bible becomes unstable and thus, Jusus would be proved a liar, futher undermining all other Christian beliefes. Therefore it would be inpossibe to place true faith in anything as it has no basis and is in all likelyhood distored by the lies of Jesus. And to quote above 'Without faith God is nothing.'

This proves that God does not exist in my opinion. However. I would apretiate any feedback on this.

King'O'Roff

Oh, very philosophical....being catholic, I would have the right to have a go at you, however, I have another theory:

The bible is a piece of propaganda. It is both hypercritical and contradicting to both itself and others. Otherwise, how the hell would there be more than one Christian Faith?
Of course this is open to interpretation - BUT you cannot deny the fact that we, humans are the only species intelligent enough to create complex machines. Now according to the theory of evolution, another species should have developed intelligence at the same rate as humans (about 2-5 million years) long before we arrived at the scene, so how the hell has it taken 4.6 BILLON YEARS for a sentient species, such as humans, to exist?!
Which brings me to my next point - the we all know that Life is supposed to be random - however the laws that goven and control life are nowhere close to being random. Gravity, the water cycle, respiration - all logical physical, chemical and biological processes that need some degree of logic in order to function. Hence - life itself, the random object, cannot function without logic. Therefore, God, or a close approximation, DOES EXIST IN SOME FORM.

Also the fact that religion itself is based on a lie must come into the spotlight. ALL RELIGIONS (including Hindu - their many gods are aspects of the one god or "being" that controls the universe) believe in ONE god. Cocincedence? I don't think so. Perhaps what we think as a "God" is someone who looks like human may not be what this "God" is.

But then again this is just a theory and you're welcome to interperate it in any way.


What do you lot think?

The lord exists as long as people believe in him.

++moved from the Philosophy forum. I felt it fit better here.++

Careful now. The Indian traditions of Buddhism would negate the idea of one God--indeed of deity in general.

:huh:

Can you elaborate that please?

also I think (perhaps this is my flawed understanding of Hinduism though) that you're a bit off the mark with your generalization they believe in one "god" or "diety."

I'm pretty sure Hinduism believes in many dieties, but one life force or consciousnes (athman) that connects them. People pick one diety that they have an affinity for or worship with a special devotion that contains one or two aspects of that athman that are heightend or exaggerated. However there are many deities that make up this athman as well as you or I. It's a bit like Buddhism in that sense (and if I remember my history course of religions in India from last year... buddhism came after hinduism)

Indian and even Zen Buddhism reject the idea of a God. The Buddha was not God. Buddha is in no way a "supreme being." There is no supreme being in these traditions.

These traditions instead seek to negate not only the existence of "God," but really the existence of "self." Zen Buddhism, along with types of Chinese buddhism, talk about "consciousness" as the only reality, but Indian Buddhism would negate even that. "Enlightenment" occurs when one can be free of attachment to any idea, concept, or thing.

It took 4.6 billion years for all of the species to produce humanity. At that point, our species killed off all the other hominids that were even close to our level of development, and have asserted our dominance to the point that we kill off anything else that might begin to achieve intelligence on our level.

That's what I was talking about...sorry for being unclear :)

Hmmm...you have a point. :ermm:

Monkeys have a high brain capacity

For some excellent atheist examinations on the nature of religious belief, read Freud's "Future of an Illusion" and Nietzche's "Geneaology of Morals."

Not high enough to save them from having their habitats destroyed by humanity, and the survivors relegated to Zoos for display to humans (or to run free through the streets of India).

would if I could, but I doubt the driffield libuary has them...but I'll keep searching

This is one of my theories considering the existance of God, mores trying to answer the question: What is God?

Please keep in mind that I was typing pretty fast, so please ignore gramatical errors and spelling errors :lol:

Actually, being atheist doesn't mean you put yourslf above all others. I certainlly don't, I just don't belive there is a God of any sorts. I don't over credit humans or the like, merely do not belive in a higher power.

I was angered at the time, mainy because no one was considering the other's point of view. My point regarding atheism, from what I can tell, is that you still have a "God," but it happens to be your self-conscience or some other "voice" heard in the mind. A penny for your thoughts (not literally).

Hmm... :huh:

I guess I don't make much sense... :unsure:

I see what you're saying. In other words, even if you don't believe in a "higher power," you still have what Aristotle might call a "highest good." You have some end to which you direct your means (even if that end is yourself).

So, if you define "god" as "highest good," then you can still have a "god" even if you don't believe in "God." Is this what you're saying?

:huh:
*is that smoke coming out my ears?*

Yes this is pretty much what I said. But the others still haven't a clue... >_<

King O'Roff, what we mean to say that you can define "God" in different ways. Many people define God as "all-powerful, all-knowing, first prime mover that one should bow down and worship every once in a while." Deltasix does not believe in this type of God.

King Solomon says, well, let's say "God" stands for the "highest good"--or that thing that we think is worth living for. Well, if the truth is something that we think is worth living for, then we define "God" as "truth." Or let's say that you only believe that only you are worth living for, well then you become "God."

does this make sense?

I am persuaded to believe that Man made "God" out of ignorance and fear, and that people have faith in "Him" mainly because they are essentially reassured by the prospect of a caring and loving being.

Intifada, for a nice explanation of your point, see Freud's "Future of an Illusion." That's exactly what he says.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Have you read The Darwin-Wallace Theory of Evolution? It may point out some flaws in these arguments, such as why no other species has evolved to be as 'advanced' as we are.

(I wrote a really nice, detailed response to this, but my connection failed, and i lost it all, so I apologise for the abruptness of the post)

Wingfoot

Delta, are you saying there's nothing greater than you?

I can't say that without knowing more about the Universe that we reside in.

But as I said, I don't belive in a higher power, nor do I belive that humans in and of themselves are incredibly great. However I do not think there is any power above us.

Well if someone were to define "God" as "that which is greater" (rather than "higher power"), then I guess you would be an agnostic, not an atheist. Yes?

With just the 4 words that you gave me, I have no real understanding of "that person's" idea of a God.

Let me make that person me, just to make the discussion easier.

You say that you don't know if there's anything greater than you.

I say that there is something greater than I. I can't claim to know anything about that thing, except that it is greater than I am, but I call it "God."

Let me give a more specific example. The summation of reality is greater than I am. The totality of existence is greater than I am. What if this is my definition of God?

I don't belive in the essence of your God, so no.

And what I mean when I say
I can't say that without knowing more about the Universe that we reside in.
I don't mean in the supernatural, but rather in the natural

What do you mean you don't believe in the essence of my God? Are you saying you don't believe in the summation of reality? Or are you merely saying that you're not willing to give the summation of reality the label of "God?"

And why does "God" HAVE to be supernatural?

So would an alien race who is more advanced than you are be God to you?

I prefer having some sort of evidence that somthing exists before I would give it a thought to being a God

You're still trapped in the same conception of "God." Why does "God" need to be a singular entity?

The alien race example is a good point, so let me drop the definition of God as "that which is greater" and stick with the idea of the God as existence.

What do you think of defining God as reality itself--the ground, the very base and totality of all that exists?

You mean sorta like Deist?

That would mean that reality is imbued with an essence would it not?

Essence merely comes from Latin "to be."

Etymologically, "essence" is merely "being."

Is reality imbued with being? Well, isn't reality "being" itself?

Might "God" merely be "being?"

Oooo boy we're really sounding philosophical now....

Haha.

If in your question about God being "being" it would depend.
If existance in and of itself is your base for God, in order to disprove it, existance itself would need to be disproven. In order to prove it, existance would have to be proven. :wacko:

In that case, I dunno. Its an interesting way of looking at God, for when the term atheist comes it, it is normally in conjuction with the major relgions.

It is the way I like to look at God. When I think of God this way, sometimes Christian beliefs make more sense (and sometimes make a whole lot less sense). I'm not going to give examples just yet.

Anyway, it comes heavily from Buddhist/Christian cross-fertilization. it is articulated to some degree in Thich Nhat Hanh's "Living Buddha, Living Christ" and also in his "Going Home--Jesus and Buddha as Brothers." His conception of God is quite different from the way most people are accustomed to thinking of God.

I think you'd be interested, Delta.