Does God Exist?

[Guest]

8 hours ago, RootsBooster said:

So...

Like I said,  what does he actually believe in?

(And what was he before the age of 14?)

What makes you think we have a purpose?

And what lies beyond what?

I don't think he was particularly following anything before other than that his family were Christian- he left that (as many do who become atheist) because of the confusion over Christian theology.

[RootsBooster]

25 minutes ago, Mr Fisk said:

I don't think he was particularly following anything before other than that his family were Christian- he left that (as many do who become atheist) because of the confusion over Christian theology.

So what is it that he believes in?

 

[Guest]

Having listened to him recently, he looked at other religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and had 'discarded' Islam as something foreign.

 

When he still didn't find any rational sense in Buddhism/ Hinduism as well as still not rationally satisfied in Christianity- he decided to read and look into the one he was ruling out.

 

He found his answers there and is now content. In fact he now helps other atheists who genuinely seek to know.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Guest

[RootsBooster]

21 minutes ago, Mr Fisk said:

Having listened to him recently, he looked at other religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and had 'discarded' Islam as something foreign.

 

When he still didn't find any rational sense in Buddhism/ Hinduism as well as still not rationally satisfied in Christianity- he decided to read and look into the one he was ruling out.

 

He found his answers there and is now content. In fact he now helps other atheists who genuinely seek to know.

Your answer is a little convoluted,  are you saying it's Islam?

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, RootsBooster said:

Your answer is a little convoluted,  are you saying it's Islam?

Yes- that is where it led him to (his questions, seeking meaning etc)

[Anna B]

17 hours ago, RootsBooster said:

So...

Like I said,  what does he actually believe in?

(And what was he before the age of 14?)

What makes you think we have a purpose?

And what lies beyond what?

We have to have a purpose or we become nihilistic, and life loses its meaning. That can be a personal purpose or a universal purpose, but a purpose nevertheless. It appears to be essential to our mental wellbeing,

 

Ever since we came down out of the trees we have had a burning curiosity to search, discover and learn; about life, the universe, everything.  This is far more than idle mental musings, we are prepared to spend billions on it, Astronomy, Space, the Hadron Collider, without any obvious rewards other than scientific exploration. What drives us? Why are other animals seemingly incapable of it? Why are we the only creature to sense our own mortality? Or that something lies beyond?

 

In spite of years of science there are many things/questions that defy explanation, that is what I mean by beyond.

What happened before the Big Bang? Where does matter come from? How many dimensions are there? What is the purpose of 'Dark' matter? What makes us Human? What is consciousness? Do we have a soul/ spirit / connection to something bigger than ourselves? Why are some are profoundly aware of it and others not? What is the power of the mind, and where does it come from? What about all things psychic, paranormal and supernatural: (taken seriously enough to be investigated by the military,?) What happens after death?  

It's strange to think that by the end of the Victorian era they thought that scientific investigation was at an end; they knew everything. Yet in reality the answers really just gave rise to more and more questions. We now know that we know next to nothing.

 

To me, it seems a bit arrogant to close your mind to all sorts of other possibilities. Including the possibility that the simplest answer might be a divine plan, or universal creator.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Anna B

[Annie Bynnol]

In 3000 years nothing has yet been explained by "...a divine plan, or universal creator."

 

Knowledge, understanding, explanation leading to technology and  invention has expanded exponentially over thousands of years through husbandry, farming, metalwork and trading. 

 

The use of "supernatural", mythology, ancestry, storytelling and "reward" is repeatedly globally and becomes in some cases highly developed. But religion and philosophy have struggled to redefine their role as knowledge, reason spread through education of the masses has resulted in independence of thought and freedom of speech.

 

No longer would people be fobbed off with catch words and phrases like"It's destiny", " its the law", "it's Gods' will", "be told", "divine right", heathen, ghosts, devil, creator, etc. all invented to  keep us in our place or accept control through guilt, economics and violence. 

 

Nothing 'defies' explanation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Box11]

Ants,cows,dogs,mice,rats, lion's, or any other animal or species on this planet has no idea that we humans go to work,watch tv,sit on a leather suite,wear designer clothes,talk on mobile devices basically they have no idea at all but yet in a way they are intelligent in Thier own world it's the same with us humans we can't understand or reason what is around us so we make it up as we go along to make ourselves feel more comfortable the general public 3 thousand years ago thought so differently to how we do now just as they will 3 thousand years in the future in fact when they look back on us they will probably think we weren't intelligent at all.....

 

 

Just a thought......

[staninoodle]

If you put your trust in a god,do you have faith in humanity.Humanity can lift itself above a god,where a god failed in such as Belsen and Aushwitz,humanity triumphed by liberating  those that would have surely perished,and that wasnt an act of god,it was an act of humanity,where was god for all the believers of aushwitz,he didnt save their souls they were burned,many while alive,and those not burned alive,had thier organs taken away but where still awake,conscious.Where was their god,or that of the innocent burned alive as witches.........theres no god.

This is a planet,of many planets that will support life in many forms throughout a VAST universe and beyond and in demensions human eyes cant see and never will,we are,as ants are,one of many wonders,across an undiscovered spectrum,we will never discover.

[Annie Bynnol]

Civilizations come and go but the vast majority of knowledge is retained, queried and built upon by the next one.

Religions and philosophies come and go and are swept away and vilified by the next one.

 

Our religions have ingrained in us the view that 3 000 years ago that people  were dirty, barbaric, heathen children with no civilization and therefore not entitled to the protection of "civilised" and therefore religious people.  After all a belief in our god was needed to become civilized.

 

So many times the colonization, exploitation and subjugation of peoples was justified through religion. That we were not intelligent 3 000 years ago OR in another part of the world is just another aspect of control.

 

Consider the intelligence needed to organize husbandry, cultivation, metalworking, food distribution, law, mathematics,  astronomy, engineering, architecture etc. These are all aspects of life 3 000 years ago and the evidence persists and will stand on the same timeline as density, circulation, gravity, force, evolution, relativity, electricity, genetics, AI etc, and the increasingly  expanding ability to observe,  explain and use our surroundings.