From the beginning not only man has demanded answers to his questions related to a supreme entity but also concerning his own origins. All he saw above and around him was nature and celestial bodies–the Cosmos. He developed his own answers based upon what he saw. Arguments over the question of whether God exists or where did it/he come from are ancient. The whole concept of gods/God is just an idea (an imaginary being dreamed up by humans) that went gradually evolving throughout the years into a whole composed of interrelated parts. An idea that had been influenced by superstition, fear, ignorance, and lack of knowledge of primitive men. Man's belief in a god/God is surely based on the collection of cultural beliefs and attitudes that have passed on from generation to generation.
There has not been any scientific evidence that a supreme entity exists. The belief of his existence are just speculations and ideals. A figment of the imagination born from the evolution of society.
There is no credible evidence that God does not exist. There is no rational explination for existence period, if one seeks to explain existence without God. The concept that God is an ideal of humans, is an excellent ideal, far too advanced for the human mind of the early centurys. It is an ideal I accept as reality, and I hold no problems with what I have accepted.
Because without there being a God, then life, as we know it, is just a meaningless temporal cycle, which will eventually play itself out, or destroy itself. I do not see how a rational mind can conclude that there is nothing greater than man out there.
Microscopic organisms are things I believe were created by God himself, to manipulate them is nothing to him. I also have accepted that God has created beings for the sole purpose of manipulating humans, thus giving them ability to appeal directly to our microscopic system, and appeal directly to us at that level. Which is why they can remain , for the most part, unknown to us.
I believe God himself will appeal directly to our brain cells, and lead us in whatever manner he so pleases. In Romans 11:32, it explains that God has " Shut up all humans into disobedience", I thus believe that humanity has been appealed to at the microscopic level, and that sin has been placed inside of us, and that there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
I accept this as the only rational explination of human behavior,as we know it. God has locked us into a pattern of living, and we are only living it out, and can do no more. Which is why I also see a better future for humanity, because I know that God is responsible for our past and present condition.
I just can't understand why people keep quoting from the Bible and saying "God says this, God says that, he's doing this, he's doing that, etc, etc. if those books were put together by "men" influenced by their "imagination", written by tribes of people in an intent to explain their own understanding of the world around them and to justify their actions. And it was men who gave a mystical interpretation to their legends, myths, and fables that were passed down from early generations. The idea of "personalizing" God sits well with the idea that Gods are invented by people to "explain" unknown things. You hear the same type stories just over and over. How would you distinguish between, say, Ra, Zeus, Yahweh, Jove, Jupiter, and Brahma? I'm sure that every religion would say that their god is the true one and that the others are just idols invented by men. If god/gods created everything that exists, what did these gods do and how did it/them exist prior to existence? Who created it/them? That makes no sense whatsoever. There is no logic and absolutely no evidence to support the god theory. It is just as false and imaginary as all the rest of the thousands of gods that other belief systems have invented.
Well I can understand that also. If I put my belief in a bug as being a " God", then what can anyone do about that. The choices are clear; believe in nothing, believe in something, or simply hold no belief period, and I can understand anyone doing any of the three, or developing something outside of those three.
In my view, there is no logic or evidence that even comes close to convincing me that there is no God, and there is no human religon that I am aware of that God supports, so I hold no belief in none of the human created Gods neither. But now the bible, now that book is just far too convincing to me, far to superior, far too uncanny, far to supernatural in its information, to just be ignored and passed off as a complette work of humans. Not to me. If its one thing I can do, its read. I think it would be impossible for the humans of those times to write those things on their own.
This bible book has over 40 different authors, who lived, mostly apart from each other, during a span of 1500 years. They all had different occupations, and held no kind of union to compare notes with. But yet the book holds an uncanny cohesiveness, and predicts far too many things, that have come true, to be " Just a work of men". The bible is a fascinating literary work, and it has impacted humanity , like no other book ever written, I would dare say that the bibles impact on humanity, far outweighs the effect of the sum total of all other books combined. No Logic, no Reason, no intelligent thought can readily excuse that to be" Just happenstance", but I still can understand if they do that, the bible is conversely perhaps the most hated and misunderstood book ever written. It still outsells any written book on earth, it still is the most translated book, and the most international book on earth. And it is the most feared book on earth. Although some may dispute these facts, they are just listed reasons why I accept the book as something God has tampered with himself.
We have to stand for something, or we will fall for anything. Right now God is a " Brick Wall", and nothing or nobody can either see through it, or get around it.
But there is somethingelse about the Bible. I think God is Galactic, Superior and interplantary. I think he is interdimensional and multicomplex, and I think so is the Bible. It goes beyound earth, but yet, it can streilize human nature itself, it can effect change " Inside" of a persons mind. A book that can do these things is extraordinary. The Bible can be like a spounge, and " Soak the persons entire life into it", and it can also drive one batty. Strangely powerful, but yet still just a book. I think theres more too it tham meets the eye of our minds or belief.
As far as where God came from, its just a brick wall. God told humans once before;" I Am that I Am", which sounds like a person telling others, that he will tell them NOTHING about who or what he is. He simply told them that he exist, and he has said nothingelse since then.
Now thats one thing I do not like about God, he does not give out much information. Strange egnigmatic being for sure.
To pmickiel....Do you believe that everything written in the bible is true?
To everyone….why hasn't the bible been updated lately, why hasn't god spoken to anyone and told them to add new passages to the bible? This seems odd to me. Oh wait, he does make himself visible in grilled cheese sandwiches and such….because that makes sense!!!
[quote]To everyone….why hasn't the bible been updated lately, why hasn't god spoken to anyone and told them to add new passages to the bible? This seems odd to me. Oh wait, he does make himself visible in grilled cheese sandwiches and such….because that makes sense!!![/quote]
Because He set all that up years ago. He never intended to add new pages. He said all that needed to be said in the New Testament. He told how the world is gonna end. God says everyone’s faith will be tested. No matter the circumstances you must not lose faith in Him!
Do I believe everything in the Bible is true? I really cannot complettely answer that question, because I have only read maybe slightly less than half of it, because thats all that intrest me. I believe what parts of it I have read is true, but I also certainly believe that much of the way it has been interpited is false. And some of the way it was translated has not been how it should have been.
Listen, I am no bible expert, and hold no desire to be as such. And I disagree that God has not updated the bible. In my view, the Bible is a " Living Book", and the updates that God does give, exist within the living minds of those who understand it. And those, whoever they may be, are few and far between.
As far as God manifesting himself within a grilled chesse sandwich, I think he can do that if he so pleased. God has already done that with rocks, trees, animals, fire, water, earth and wind. And the bible does show he has done it with food.
I am not trying to mock your mockery, I am just suggesting that using grilled chesse is not outside of his range. I don't think anything is outside of his range. Nothing is impossible for him, because thats just how he is.
The question of where does God come from, I think needs to be viewed from the " Concept of a beginning". Having a beginning ourselves, we just need for God to have one also. But I begin to think that simply IS, what God is, the beginning. Whatever the " Beginning" of something is, it must hold all the necessery ingredients of that which it will produce. And this is what I think God is.
He is the beginning of all things, holding within himself all necessary componants of all that he has produced. There is then no " Orgin" of God, God IS the Orgin himself. Does this mean he created himself, began himself? No, the Orgin can have no beginning. The Orgin IS the source, that from which all things proceed. God exist independant of his own original creative Consciousness.
God is the Source of Life, the orgin of Life, it came FROM him. He is the very root of existence. Kind of makes my head swim. How could he be that! How can he just always have been there?
The more I consider God, where he came from, the more complex of a being I see he must be. I then think it more correct to not even call him " He", or him, or " It", goodness, I don't really know what to call God, God is what he is, and is simply beyond definition. Which brings up some questions.
Remember the expression, " That blew my mind", which is a common expression. The more I consider God, what he is doing, I think he must be aware of the fragile human mind. Because what he is doing, certainly borders on the edge and could certainly blow peoples mind. I mean we can only take so much, we are not computers. But if anything comes remotely close to describing what Gods mind must be like, it is a computer.
Its kind of frigthening to me to think of humanitys greatest computer on earth, and then to consider that it doesn't even come close to Gods mind. So I hope that God knows what he is doing, and I trust that he does.
I favor the existence of such a being as God, as opposed to other theorys of our existence. It makes more sense to me, to believe we came from life, not from death, or things that somehow evolved from nothing, then life evolved from there.
I think before God explains where he came from, he just has to prepare us to be able to handle such mind blowing things.
Read "Deserata" (not sure of spelling). It says among other things, 'believe in God whatever you conceive him to be'. Jesus said "believe in me". The whole concept of a supreme entity can, of course, not be proven but that is not the point. A concept of a God/god has pretty much been with us for millions of years and arguments to the contrary are actually pointless since it can't scientifically explained in the first place. So wheher you call him God, Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh makes no diference as the name reflects the language of the people not the entity itself.
Ummmmm, not to be difficult here or anything...But why is it completely "impossible" or silly to believe that God always just was..that there was no creation involved in that process, and yet it's not silly to believe in the scientific notion that all life and all things that ever were/currently are and will ever be magically sprang forth from the big bang? Pray tell, where did the matter that comprised the big bang and that "space" that it was contained within come from? Why does the argument that something just always was work when it's in reference to science (which, again not to be difficult- actually flies in the face of all science)-but is unacceptable and ridiculous when in reference to a religious discussion or thought?
Just for the record...I believe in the big bang..(in fact I don't undertand how anyone couldn't, and typing the words "I believe in it" was difficult for me to do. I think it's a fact) However science can only take me back so far, a fraction of a second after the big bang. If there's nothing and nobody out there, how was the big bang possible at all? God couldn't have always just been, but matter could? Maybe God made the big bang? Who knows.
My point is, I don't think it's right or "fair" to negate one side of a case when it presents the same logic/argument as the other side and claim that one is correct and the other is absurd.
Errr, hope that made some kind of sense. I really gotta stop posting when it's so late.
Many times we turn to religion when science cannot prove to us why something happens, happened or is. I can't remember who said it, but Faith is believing in something when common sense tells us not to. Believing goes deeper than just what is written on pages. It's like when a doctor tell you that you have cancer and only 2 months to live, that makes a dramatic change in one's outlook on life. Immediately you start to look for the existence of God or a Supreme Being...something more... A person might clean-up their act, pick up a bible to see what it has to say and find themselves starting to believe...and even pray...next thing you know the cancer's in remission. Now, you can say it was misdiagnosed, but if the doctor's diagnosis, tests and reports were proven true...this leaves questions and doubts. We seek to find answers because the unimaginable has happened and why? Those that truly believe initially do not blame God for illness, famine or wars, that is part of being human. We have the capability and resources to change these things, or give it our best efforts. My question then is why do those who do not believe wait until they are threatened by death before they seek him out? If you were stranded in the middle of the ocean with no help in site, would you pray or would you just float there and give up? Talk to the sharks that are circling you as their next meal? What if you prayed and then help came along, would you wonder? Or would you just write it off as a coincidence? If that was the case, why did you pray?
This reminds me of a story...
A man was an atheist. He was hiking through the wood admiring all the beauty that evolution had created and lost his way. Out of the bushes a hugh bear came charging after him and as the bear pounced on him, lifting his powerful paw to deliver the final blow, the man pleadingly screamed "OH MY GOD!. All of a sudden everything stopped - time froze. The bear stood motionless above him. A brillant light shown above him and God said in a thunderous voice, "You deny me all these years and tell others I do not exist. You credit creation to some cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?"
The man said, "It would be hypocritical to ask to be a christian after all these years, but under these circumstances, perhaps you could make the bear a christian?
Very well, said God. The light went out and the forest came back to life.
The huge bear dropped on his knees, brought both paws together, bowed his head and said.... "Lord, thank you for this food which I am about to receive. Amen"
To be honest, I don't think God came from anywhere. I think all things came from God. He IS where things began, so he couldnot have come from anywhere.
[quote]Why does the argument that something just always was work when it's in reference to science... but is unacceptable and ridiculous when in reference to a religious discussion or thought?...Maybe God made the big bang? Who knows? ...I don't think it's right or "fair" to negate one side of a case when it presents the same logic/argument as the other side and claim that one is correct and the other is absurd. [/quote]
When we consider science and religion together at the same time, it seems that one must be a metafore for the other. If God created the universe then all of our science: relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, are just metafores for the designs and thoughts of God. If science acurately reflects reality then god is just the anthropomorphic metafore of the natural laws and creative energy of the universe. You can't really have both at the same time.
Apologists and theologians who try to use Big Bang cosmology to argue that theism fits the facts of science better than non-theistic naturalism certainly do not intend to stop at establishing God as the 'prime mover' or 'uncaused first cause.' Their intention is to open the gate with their Big Bang argument then drive in the whole truckload of biblical inerancy and theology. They try to do this by arguing that the resurection of Jesus is a historical fact that sets their religion apart from all other mythical and man made religions. This is pretty easy for them to do with most audiences that are usually ignorant of any knowledge that would help them to critically evaluate their arguments.
Religion does not help us to do better science. How can religion lead us to testable, potentially falsifiale hypotheses when its core is faith in the untestable existence of god? Jesus warned us of the folly of putting new wine into old wineskins. Apologists and theologians who try to co-opt Big Bang cosmology to their cause are like so many shoddy hucksters trying to fill their old dried out wineskins to sell them to the next unwary customer.
[quote]They try to do this by arguing that the resurection of Jesus is a historical fact that sets their religion apart from all other mythical and man made religions.[/quote]
I find it funny when they do that as "godpeople" have been doing that exact thing long before Jesus showed up on the seen. It is a rather common theam in my faith. Persons who lived lives of great deeds can accend bodily becoming gods in there own right.
[quote]I find it funny when they do that as "godpeople" have been doing that exact thing long before Jesus showed up on the seen. It is a rather common theam in my faith. Persons who lived lives of great deeds can accend bodily becoming gods in there own right.[/quote]
Are any of you physicists? What do you think about the idea of 11 dimensions? Or is that still the going theory? There are so many branches of science I would like to study. Our universe is so fascinating. And then there is the human mind. I would like to study neurology as well. I really like this site because I don't like to speak of science apart from people of faith.
"The whole concept of a supreme entity can, of course, not be proven but that is not the point. A concept of a God/god has pretty much been with us for millions of years and arguments to the contrary are actually pointless since it can't scientifically explained in the first place."
The concept of God/gods is a relatively new feature in the development of mankind. Most of the time that humans and our hominid ancestors have walked the earth we have lived as nomadic hunters and gatherers. There is little surviving record of our prehistoric ancestors' spiritual or religious beliefs but what little there is suggests that they were practically focused on the cycles of nature and the and the animals on which their survival depended. Organized religion developed along with settled,agricultural societies. The monotheistic religions that are pervasive today,Islam and Christianity, are two of the youngest religions on earth. Judaism, the common ancestor of both, did not become fully monotheistic until after the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BCE. Most of the religions in most cultures that have passed over the earth have been polytheistic, pantheistic/animistic or non-theistic such as Buddhism.
So what does science have to say about our concepts of God and religion? There is the "opiate of the masses" theory which holds that encouraging people to transfer their hopes and aspirations to an otherworldly afterlife makes them easier to manipulate and control. There is the "social cohesion" theory to the effect that religion acts as a unifying and motivating force that can provide an advantage in warfare and other collective social activities. Most recently I have read (in Atlantic Monthly,don't have the full citation) about cognitive psychologists studying supernatueral belief - religion - in terms of categories of perception. Our belief in the supernatural arises out of the basic categories into which we organize our observations of the world. There seems to be some validity to each of these theories, but will we ever truly understand our proclivity to superstition, religion and mysticism? One can only hope that we will or that we won't - it depends where you start from.
If there were a single supreme creator God that wanted humanity to worship him and held a moral interest in human affairs, most human religions would featured such a god prominently. If our ancestors knew of God, but the hardness of our hearts and the violence of our lusts had caused us to turn away we would still see more early evidence of monotheism that had degraded and turned to polytheism etc. The widespread absence of belief in a single creator,ruler, judge deity throughout human history and civilizaion is the most persuasive evidence against the existence of god.
But if there is a God and He operates through evolution, why would our understanding of Him operate differently? Wouldn't spirituality gradually evolve over the millenium with unsuccessful or untruthful explanations of existance relegated to dust bins of history? We have a record of that spiritual evolvement in the Old Testament.
Joseph Campbell says that there is a kernal of truth in all myths. Instead of trying to disprove the beliefs of the ancients we should try to discover what that truth is.
