Does God exist

I have no problem with that. Some folks would claim I'm not a Christian because I feel that a belief in God is not necessary to be good. Although I believe that there is a God, I also don't have any idea what/who God is. So, what do I believe it. All I can say is "something". I'm not an atheist. I believe in the teachings of Christ, but not necessarily that Christ was the "son of God", since I don't know what God is, nor what a son of one may be. But his message is a good one.

To your point, the key word in your statement was "tradition". I think I'd add, "a common understanding of right and wrong" and "some form of laws to enforce some degree of conformity to those understandings". Living in an "Anything Goes" world is not productive. It has been done. Every man for himself, etc., but people end up spending their lives protecting themselves rather than bettering themselves or others around them. That is why we have societies. God is a convenient concept, particularly when there were no books, philosophers, schools, or strong central governments. God is still convenient because most people are not deep thinkers. They want concepts to be spoon fed to them.

If there is a God, and he gets a chance to judge, and there are two people who come before him, one who has alway believed in God, but was selfish, took things he didn't deserve, and hurt people, and other guy who did not believe in God, but was humble, served people at every opportunity, shared what he had even though it was barely enough for himself, I believe God would look favorably on the one who did not believe and would look critically at the one who did. I know this for two reasons, one, if there is a God, I believe he is just. and two, I believe in a universal process. By that, I mean, I believe in absolutes. There is an absolute right, and an absolute wrong. I suppose that derives from believing there is a purpose to everything. If there is a purpose, things that advance that purpose are good, things destructive to that purpose are bad. We need to infer our purpose based on what we have, and what we see. I believe in evolution. Look at what came of it. How we progressed as a collection of species, and how we progressed as humans. If nothing else, our "purpose" is simply extending that process. We hardly have to think deeply about it. Of any choice we make, we simply need to ask what contributes to our existence better?

Does cheating on a spouse make humanity's existence better? Does stealing a car make it better? Does raping a child make it better? Maybe stealing a car so you can drive someone in need of medical to a hospital would make humanity better. Stealing a car so you could rob a store, not so much. But what's my point. This discussion is supposed to be about "Does God exist". My first reply to that question was that first, you need to define God and then you need to define what you mean by exists. I don't think any of us can actually define God. We've got ideas, dreams, visions in our heads, but I claim no one knows. Nor do they know whether that God is still around or not. They may feel God, or believe they've experienced God. They may have. Or they may have experienced something else. Regardless, I don't think it matters to determine whether there is a God, or whether folks have experienced God. What matters is we do things that make us happy, that helps others, that comfort us and others, and that gives us joy.

If you were to go to a Christian revival service, you would expect to see people "worshipping" God. If you ask those people what "worship" is. "What are you doing?" They may say, "sharing their joy". They may also say things more circular. Like "Getting closer to God", "Sharing God's word". etc. But ultimately it's that sharing of joy that is worship. If you go to a music concert that you and the entire crowd loves. They'll be singing, laughing, yelling, dancing. That is worship. Personally, I do not believe a Baptist revival has more worship than a country music festival. Actually, to me, I feel closer to "God" in a country music festival that I would at a baptist service. Because I will feel joy in the music and a cringe at the baptist service. Feeling joy is what a belief in God is.

I could simplify this entire discussion, probably in ways that you wouldn't all agree with, by simply asking you, "Are you happy? Do you feel joy?". If you're answer is yes, then God is present in your life. You don't need to answer the question "what is God?" nor do you need to answer "Is there a God"? No, All you need is to answer the question, "Do you feel joy?".

PS. Sorry for the long winded answer. I'm bored with work. Got carried awy.

 

I feel it's time to grab some images from pornpen.ai and add some captions, just for this post.

 

Then in my definition, you feel "it". But not that Abrahamic God you reference but the nebulous God that I describe that we don't know who/what/where it is. There are two spin off questions. One that you raise about the creator and the second, are humans the only ones that this matters to. Or relating that to my question of joy, are humans the only species that feels joy. When a dog sees their owner after a hard day of waiting by the door for him to come home, is that joy? It looks like joy. But is it the same that we feel. If it is, I guess I'd be saying that the dog knows God. And sometimes, I really do think so. Dogs can definitely show compassion, sadness, and love and it's not all pavlovian. But they don't ask themselves silly questions like does God exist. [But then again, who knows what they think about when they are waiting by that door all day. Maybe they know the answer to the question we've been asking].

And with your followup question. It's the kind of question where there is not a satisfactory answer. I would answer it this way. There are definitely pieces of creation/big bang/space time/etc. that we don't yet understand. Are one of those pieces God? We don't know yet. Imagine if we find out from some deep space exploration that there is a constant in all the equations of something. It's real, it's tangible, and nothing is possible without it. It came out of nothingness, nothing preceded it. It cannot be decomposed. It simply appeared. And we know of no way to duplicate it. Perhaps we'd call that God. All I know is that I don't know shit. And as long as I don't know shit, I'm happy to say that something created the universe.

 

Not to punt on the God question, but what I really want to know, is how can a guy stay hard and have unlimited orgasms and ejaculations. Oh, and gives their partner even greater pleasure than they are getting. They need to lock themselves in Chastity because it's the only way they can ever stop having sex. Personally, I do feel that would be a more productive question to answer than whether there is a God or creator. I may be curious about the answer, but it wouldn't have the same impact as how to be a sex machine.

 

There are less than 6-7% atheist lol. There isn't a proper servay about this what are you even talking about. What about atheist are more like to be a serial killer that has been proven by scientist ehat about that?

 

Believing in god is important. They don't have mortals mate. The current situation in usa shows that. Almost no one is property educate. They all swear and don't respect anyone almost only 5-9% of the people respect the elders that is far less compared to the religious group. Uk there's one thing if god doesn't exist we don't have anything if god exist then there would be afterlife you are fked. It's better to believe in god than not believing in him.

 

That's no different to telling your parents you love then when in fact you don't, just so as to not be left out of their will. It's completely dishonest, and selfish.
Is your god that stupid that he wouldn't know?

 

Who said that telling your parents you love them when you don't. You will love then because they raised you. I mean if you are atheist you shouldn't care about that lol. I mean 80% of the atheist leave their parents because they fear no one. We will get rewarded and it is also mentioned the heaven lies underneath the foot of your mother which means your have good relationship with you parents and take care of then when they get old you will be granted jananat. You can think no matter how much proof he shows me i will remain a atheist. Yeah that's your loss i am getting my rewards. It's upto you if believe in Allah/god or not but it's my duty to convey the message to others.

 

Ooohh I love statistics.

 

Careful, god is watching you.

 

You know nothing about me, and just as little about any of the thousands of gods that humans have created, one of which you believe in, the others obviously not as they're all different. You manke many assumptions, which I understand because people who believe only one option from thousands of unproven possible options seem to lack logical reasoning)
So let me tell you something...

In my life I didn't have a loving father. He was obsessed with religion but hypocritically acted like a heathen. He drove my mother to suicide, so far from loving him, I hated him and drove him out of my life. Except in my very early years I didn't have a mother to love or to love me because she was dead. I left the religion I was forcibly born into when I was eight years old. Neither my parents nor my school teachers made any sense when they tried to explain their religion to me, and when I asked them simple questions about it they couldn't explain why they believed what they did. And far from not caring about that, more than 50 years since my mother died, it still troubles me that I didn't grow up in a loving family.

What proof? There's no more evidence that god exists than the Flying Spagehtti Monster exists. One's in a very old collection of books written by humans, the other being more modern is on a website written by humans. What's the difference?

I've had a very good education, and very strong analytical and logic skills.
You say you "believe". You should understand what that word means...
"Belief is the assumption of truth without proof".
Provide me with the proof that you speak of and I won't just believe, I'll know.

And before you quote a old book written by men, that's not proof.
All they are, are collections of history, fantasy and out of date science.

There's one consolation for you if you're wrong about there being an afterlife.
You'll no longer exist so you won't have to live with the dissapointment that you were wrong, but you'll never be able to realise you wasted much of your short life on earth on religion.

The consolation for me if there is an afterlife is I'll be able to get answers to all those impossible logical dilemmas that the religious books have created, I'll increase my knowledge, and I'll exist for a lot longer than the three score years and ten I originally thought was all that I've got. Bonus!
I'm not going to believe in just one of thousands of illogical religions, and a logically impossible afterlife now, a human lifetime is far too short for that! These few years are all we have, I'm not wasting it.

Do note... Morality (which many atheists have plenty of) and religion are NOT the same thing.
Many people manage a lifetime using one without the encumberance of the other.
That's another of your incorrect assumptions, thinking that the two are the same, or that having or not having one implies the other. In my experience, most people only truely have one, not both.

Very few people believe in a different god than their parents, most believe the religion they were taught as a child. If you were born to parents of a different faith, would you have been brought us with your current religion... Unlikely.

There's a problem with the human condition in that our brains have not evolved to "unlearn" anything. We learn that water is wet, ice is cold, fire is hot, and biting teeth hurt. Those things never change. For all our ancestors, and us, once a fact is learnt, it doesn't change. A problem occurs if someone is taught something that isn't true. If an unskilled driver teaches a teenager how to drive, but badly so that they pick up bad habits, it's much harder for an instructor to correct that bad learning and train them to drive well.

The same thing applies for outdated science. The historical explanations for how the earth was created and how the universe is organised was the stuff of myth and legend, and these stories were written down and passed on. It was only a few hundred years ago, that christians were still killing people because they believed that the earth rotated around the sun! As the centuries pass by, we gain in knowledge, but why do some people insist that the "old knowledge" is still valid? I've just told you. It's because they were taught historical versions of science, and they not only refuse, but find it mentally through no fault of their own (all of us have brains that find it very difficult to unlearn things) very difficult to accept that what they were taught as a child is not the truth.

Those few people that do convert from one religion to another... Not very convincing is it?
One religion is impossible to believe, so in desperation, because they know no better being curturally conditioned to having a religion, they jump ship to another religion. As there's equivalent numbers doing that in each direction, it doesn't say much for any one religion being a more realistic option than any other, does it?

You know, the more I get involved with discussing religion with religious people, the more convincing the argument becomes that there is no such thing as a supernatural god.

(and we haven't even started discussing how a god (whichever one, take your pick) could create such an imperfect species that results in the situation in Gaza where the followers of each of two different gods are intent on killing the followers of the other.)

 

I'd say he is watching you masturbate, but...

 

I don't even has to give you the sources of have the sources in my country this is exactly what happens. People become atheist because they want "freedom" then don't care about their family. No you tell me why is that the lgbtq rate is higher among the atheist. If you become a part of LGBTQ i mean that already means you left your family. Go seach it it is among the highest that atheist people support LGBTQ.

 

I already mentioned that if you can show me a book like the Quran and debunked this verse

Quran 17:88 *"If all mankind and the jinn would come together to produce the like of this Quran, they could not produce its like even though they exerted all and their strength in aiding one another.’” *

I will become an atheist. Why are you guys making it long? Just make a book like it already. Or it's just that you can't do it lol. Allah already said that if this book is not from your god then make a book like it go do it. The challenge is as simple as that. I don't need anything to believe on god. The fact that no one has ever been able to do it is already the proof that god exists.

 

Can't cite statistics and going full blown anti lgbtq. Bold strategy cotton.

 

There are plenty of books written by men, I'm sure you can find one on your own.

The Tao Te Ching says the same, and was written long before some lonely dude in a desert copied the idea.

Also, I heard desert dude was white, spoke English, and was call Jeff.