Can someone please give me a reason to believe in a personal god

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Lazerus
*tries to remember the quote along the lines of better to believe and be wrong then to not believe and find out others are right.


Damn NPC's ! do i get to give God a dumb quest to complete thats in riddle and takes him ages to figure out then i reward him with some piece of junk ?

Of course you do! Happens all the time! In this game, however, an NPC giving such a quest is said to be "praying."

[Odin]

There is no meaning to the universe, it just is. We are just one species out of millions on a planet orbiting a typical G2 star in one of the billions of galaxies in the visible universe. In the big scheme of things, we don't matter.

[GePap]

Read more philosophy. Read Aquinas, and Augustine, and Hegel and Schopenhaur, and Nietzsche of course, and Kant and so forth. Takes time, but I think you will be better of for it, and it might help you in thinking about those answers.

As for any one single religion, my argument against each and every one of them is that they are not the only religion.

[Bill3000]

God cannot make Himself nonexistent and then create Himself out of nothing again. In other words he can't make Himself exist and not exist at the same time.
If you could not make comparisons (good/evil light/dark) - there would be no existence or reality at all.

I can just refute this with two words - "Quantum Mechanics".

Plus, omniscience is impossible.

[Bkeela]

I don't think humanity is messed up. Providing you view them as nothing more than talking chimps.

Murder, war, rape, corporations - selfishness propels humans to survive.

Unfortunately there have been a few genius apes here and there, who have unbalanced our place in nature. Generally though, your average person is no smarter than a dog. I've seen some cockroaches smarter than people. Most humans are generally concerned with spawning, just like other animals.

[Flip McWho]

The thing about God and the whole creating everything thing I don't get is why bother? Why would God bother creating everything?

[Ted Striker]

God is just one of those things that comes to you in his own way. Nobody else can define God for you. Religions can be a guide but not the answer.

Even though I trolled Christians in the other thread, I believe in God, but I think when you're ready, he'll appear to you in a way that makes sense to you.

[beingofone]

GePap:

Read more philosophy. Read Aquinas, and Augustine, and Hegel and Schopenhaur, and Nietzsche of course, and Kant and so forth. Takes time, but I think you will be better of for it, and it might help you in thinking about those answers.

I would add to the list all great minds of religion. As much as the attempt to separate religion from philosophy is attempted, they overlap.
Jesus, Siddharta, and Lao-Tzu are probably the most penetrating minds in the realm of philosophy.

As for any one single religion, my argument against each and every one of them is that they are not the only religion.

I think the founders of the great religions would agree. To think that true spirituality is limited to one race, culture, or creed is to be like a beetle sitting on a railroad track and looking up, tries to analyze a locomotive.
There is however a common thread amongst all the highly regarded religions. If you can find that point of congruant thought, you may stumble onto signifigant freedom and experience.
Good Post


Bill3000:

Me: God cannot make Himself nonexistent and then create Himself out of nothing again. In other words he can't make Himself exist and not exist at the same time.
If you could not make comparisons (good/evil light/dark) - there would be no existence or reality at all.

Bill: I can just refute this with two words - "Quantum Mechanics".
Plus, omniscience is impossible.

How many realities do you experience?


Flip McWho:

The thing about God and the whole creating everything thing I don't get is why bother? Why would God bother creating everything?

What a superb question.
Perfection cannot be perfect without the potential for continuous perfecting. If something is truly infinite, there is nothing to compare itself to. When the desire for expansion transpires, out from Absolute stillness springs a self to experience comparisons through limitation.

This new creation experiences itself through the comparison of viewing itself by equal manifestations in essence as well as quality. A new mirror for itself so to speak.

The act of expansion by choice . Choice could only be made, by and through limitation of experience. Not in reality is the Absolute limited but by arbitrary perception of belief.

It forgets itself to find itself. In so doing expands the awareness of love/caring for all that is; the ultimate reality of the ancient Greek concept of the logos expanding through agape.

The only constant in the universe is change and flux.
It is like a hermit that lives in a cave for 20 years and then has the desire to see the world of people and new experience.

[Bill3000]

How many realities do you experience?

An infinite amount of realities as described by the probability distributions of the multiverse, until I make an observation, restricting myself to one observable universe, although I can see the effects of other universes if I observe things in the quantum scale.

Even if I don't use the many-worlds argument, quantum mechanics (and thus reality) is not digital. Plus, virtual particles pop in and out of existance, and considering that they are responsible for the fundamental forces, that stops your argument.

Not including the fact that "light is the opposite of dark" isn't true, as darkness merely means the lack of intensity of the visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves - there easily could be a high intensity in other parts of the spectrum.

The only constant in the universe is change and flux.

The fundamental laws of physics inside this universe is a constant.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by beingofone
Perfection cannot be perfect without the potential for continuous perfecting.

That makes absolutely no sense. It is like saying "a circle cannot be a circle without the potential for continuously making it more of a circle."

Originally posted by beingofone
If something is truly infinite, there is nothing to compare itself to. When the desire for expansion transpires

Pray tell, how does something infinite in all aspects expand?

[FrostyBoy]

I always love this saying, I forget who said it tho.


"If there is no God, for the sake of the people of the world, we would have to invent one".

[Flip McWho]

beingofone:

Perfection cannot be perfect without the potential for continuous perfecting

But how can perfect get more perfect?

Also doesn't wash well with God supposedly being all-knowing. God being all knowing would have no reason to create a world for new experiences seen as he already knows all there is to experience.

It forgets itself to find itself. In so doing expands the awareness of love/caring for all that is

I don't understand what you're saying here. Please explain further

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That makes absolutely no sense. It is like saying "a circle cannot be a circle without the potential for continuously making it more of a circle."

Actually, what he is describing is a fairly well known paradox. You're analogy doesn't apply at all.

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by Flip McWho
beingofone:



But how can perfect get more perfect?

Also doesn't wash well with God supposedly being all-knowing. God being all knowing would have no reason to create a world for new experiences seen as he already knows all there is to experience.



I don't understand what you're saying here. Please explain further

Hm, I actually like what you said; what is the reason behind God? Presuming God does exist. Why would God choose to create the universe? The reason itself must be greater than God, surely? Unless the reason IS God. All starting to make sense...

[Flip McWho]

Aye theres a few issues I have around here.

Why is there a God? Heck if you say there must be a reason that the universe exists there has to be a reason God exists. Otherwise why does the buck stop with God and not with the universe?

Personally as far as the whole creation thing goes I believe in a cyclical universe. That is big bang -> expanding universe -> peak expansion -> shrinking universe -> big crunch/big bang -> expanding universe. I admit there is some issues with this belief, for example the peak, peaking in something that is supposedly infinite doesn't bode well. Also there is no possible way to prove the repeatition, considering everything would be wiped out at the big crunch, and I mean everything, the next universe might not even follow the same laws of physics whatever constants are around in this one. Though it does allow for the possibility for life to evolve because of the infinite repeating of this cycle that one such cycle is bound to produce life.

In this case you could define God as the universe, though in religious ways God is usually defined as a sentient being of some description and well the universe is not sentient, or maybe it is, no way to prove that either. Maybe God (the universe) is just tripping and this is all the result.