[JRMurdock]

I too find it astounding that so many believe that Scripture is history. Do we believe that the Iliad and the Odyssey are completely factual? Why don't we worship Aladdin? Or Thor for that matter?

We've covered this ground too. The only evidence of anything in the Bible is historical locations. Yet Troy was found and therefore everything that happened in the Odyssey must by the same rights be true.

[Gary Wassner]

Fung , i enjoyed your interpretation. It is all rather nefarious, isn't it? But how else do you establish and maintain control? You bind someone in ways they cannot risk severing. And perhaps the new leader was more appealing than the previous ones. Life on earth was despicable anyway. The promise of the hereafter was compelling. Besides, what were they really giving away? Their souls? That alone wouldn't have bound them this long. Control. That's what they gave to the new zealots. Control over everything, including eternity.

[Amarisa]

Sorry, I didn't exactly lighten up there, did I?

I just get very passionate about the topic.

No need to say sorry, it's okay. I appreciate and enjoy your passion. The wide variety of opinions in these discussions make forums such a wonderful and fascinating place. Also, if someone can prove me wrong, I like it because it means I just gained knowledge and lost ignorance. :)


I have extreme difficulty in understanding how so many people can place undying faith into a book that was written by men during an era when all societies were witting their own books, none of them with any supporting evidence, all of them claiming to be the one true text. Each text proven to have mis-translations, excluded conflicting text, included contradictions, and hasn't been read by many of the people who hold the book high and claim it's the true word.

I think a lot of people's faith in God based more on a feeling in their heart or life experiences then words in a book. The book is something extra after you became interested for other reasons. It was like that for me at least.


The Bible should not be open to translation. It's the word of God. There should be one translation, one religion. Because there is not just shows how much man is in the book. According to the Bible, God is unchanging, but in reading the book, you can see his evolution. He's not human, yet so much humanity has been place in him that he is human, i.e. he's not a god at all.

I think it would be really hard to define what God is and what makes him God... for example, just because we have a beginning and an end doesn't mean he has to. But what if he did? Then who created the creator of our creator? Why did anything ever exist in the first place? Atoms colliding at random? Why was there atoms? Energy is non-linear, an infinite constant. It was, is and will be... why? Our souls are energy? Then we cannot un-exist... so the very concept of existence is an eternal cage in... in what exactly? How far does that "what" go? It's limitless? Then why do we have limits... It's so hard to wrap our brains around.

[Gary Wassner]

Without sounding too harsh, why do we presume he exists at all? That's the first step that baffles me. Short of wanting to believe, we have no reason to believe. No reason at all. Miracles? Bull. There's nothing about our world and the people who inhabit it that would lead an other intelligence to believe we were created by anything 'good' and 'all powerful', let alone according to a plan. Why do we assume we were?

One may feel empty and worthless and frightened without a belief in God. But that's not a proof. It's just an explanation of why one might believe in such odd notions! Take a step back and really think about what we have conjured God to be. How absurd a creature! And unfortunately he's failed miserably at his job. But that's the benefit of a being like this one - we can always attribute his failures to our lack of understanding his bigger picture.

[JRMurdock]

I was reading a news article today about the Omaha mall shooting. In one of the witnesses' quotes was this..

"I just kept praying to God that He would spare me."

I hear things like this all the time. People who thank God for winning awards or games, for saving their home from the hurricane or flood, for saving their child from tragedy, for any number of things.

If God saves people's homes from hurricanes, that means he also destroys the homes that were not saved. For if he must take action to save a home, his inaction condemns the homes that were not saved. He made the other team lose the game, he killed all the other people in the fire or earthquake that he did not save. God is omnipotent and if he can save one, he can save them all. Therefore everyone killed in a tragedy is a victim of God's inaction.

and how does the Church put its spin on it? With the great explanation of "God moves in mysterious ways" "It is not us to interpret what God has done." "We do not have all the answer of what God's plan is."

Uh... wait a second... what about this book that men wrote that's the WORD OF GOD? If men don't know what God means when he does something, how can this book, the translated word of God, be of any use if men don't understand God? Isn't it just men's word of what God wants? Meaning... isn't this just a book telling other men what those in power want you to hear?

If God makes a tree grow and cracks a sidewalk, does that mean he doesn't want that sidewalk there or does it mean he thinks a man needs a job to fix that sidewalk? If men of God cannot figure that out, how can we count on them to translate a book of what happens to the eternal soul after the body dies? A cracked sidewalk is a far simpler matter than eternal damnation. One exists, the other we cannot be sure of.

[Gary Wassner]

That's the seduction of faith, isn't it? It provides all the answers in the absence of answers.

[Amarisa]

Without sounding too harsh, why do we presume he exists at all? That's the first step that baffles me. Short of wanting to believe, we have no reason to believe. No reason at all. Miracles? Bull. There's nothing about our world and the people who inhabit it that would lead an other intelligence to believe we were created by anything 'good' and 'all powerful', let alone according to a plan. Why do we assume we were?

One may feel empty and worthless and frightened without a belief in God. But that's not a proof. It's just an explanation of why one might believe in such odd notions!

Fair enough. But you don't have sufficient proof to say he doesn't exist either. Maybe man's perception of him has been less then ideal, but the concept of a God or a higher being... no one can prove it's not real.

You say people believe in God due to fear. I would like to suggest the same reasoning can also be applied to non-believers. Many people are frightened by the concept of an all powerful God. Many people are mortified by idea that their simple actions on earth may have stunning eternal consequences. So they may dismiss it as the nonsense of the "weak" and "ignorant" so as to relieve themself of the guilt that comes from sin, and the fear of it's consequences. Understandably so, however merely because some may fear to believe it does not prove he does not exist.

The concept of God may make some people feel little, weak, less intelligent and altogether without control in their life. It's no big surprise that faith is extremely difficult for many.


If God saves people's homes from hurricanes, that means he also destroys the homes that were not saved. For if he must take action to save a home, his inaction condemns the homes that were not saved

Not really. He is not obligated to help anyone. If people don't ask, it's their problem, not his. :p

[Fung Koo]

I think a lot of people's faith in God based more on a feeling in their heart or life experiences then words in a book. The book is something extra after you became interested for other reasons. It was like that for me at least.

I'm going to ask you some questions. (I rarely get good answers, but you seem fairly open to discussion, so you're my guinea pig at the moment. Any other believers in da house, feel free to chip in.)

1) Do you remember the very first time someone mentioned God either to you or in your presence?

2) Can you remember ever not having a conception of God?

3) Are you willing to concede that to any person without faith the possibility of the existence of God does not make sense?

If the anwer to the first two questions is No (even if those two No's contain a caveat or two), and the third question is Yes then:

4) Based on your understanding of psychology, is it more likely or less likely that the internal assurance of the existence of God comes from a subconscious developmental process which works to create a feeling of comfort in the face of confusion? In other words: Is it more or less likely that because God doesn't make sense, but everyone around children talks about God, that a child's brain simply accepts the lack of sense as a given in order to preserve sanity?

I've asked these questions before, and the usual answer is "You just don't get it because you don't believe." My answer is "It doesn't matter if I believe or not." In the end, everything that we know about the psychological development of children tells us that in order to make sense of the world around them, the child's brain is in constant conflict to figure things out.

A classic example is the Piagetean conservation task wherein two different sized glasses with the same amount of water is placed in front of the child. You ask the child "which glass has more water?" A young child learns a very basic lessons that Taller = More, and so answers that the glass which has the highest water line contains more water. The idea that a shorter and wider glass might contain more has not yet been learned by the child, and the idea that the same amounts could exist in both is equally as bizarre. The result in the child is consternation. This state of cognitive dissonance is resolved through experimentation and observation of the world around them to refine the stereotyped knowledge they possess.

This is the exact process we all went through to understand everything we understand. In modern western culture, societal cognitive dissonance in the face of science and multiple religions in a multicultural societies is what we call Moral Relativism. Moral Relativism allows us to parse multiple forms of conflicting information through our thoughts and proceed on our merry way.

This same reasoning can be applied to why we believe in God. Religious people HATE it when you apply science to faith, but if everything else in the world can be subjected to science and logic, so can faith. And if faith is warranted, then it will stand up to scrutiny. So, let's say a child observes something which they do not understand (let's say the death of a grandparent, or a pet). The provided answer is usually Heaven, God, etc... Even people on the fence about their beliefs usually use this answer because its a way easier answer than "fade to black."

The child's experience of the validity of God is always held in the abstract. As concrete proof in opposition to God-as-explanation appears, the child changes the way they think about God to accomodate the new information. God thus becomes a person who satisifies inner problems.

If you consider Santa as a God-like figure to a child (he possesses all the same qualities as God - everyone has to at least concede that), Santa's existence is proven every year. God's is not. As the child learns that items cannot magically appear, and that "praying" for that new toy, bargaining with God, etc... does not work, this also gets applied to Santa. So if Santa can provide the goods, why can't God? And suddenly the child's inquisitive brain considers that maybe someone else is putting the presents under the tree. This hypothesis is subsequently proved, and POOF! Goodbye Santa.

But if a child says "what about God, though?" very few will say "there is probably not a God. But we believe anyway."

So that's the line of questioning. Thoughts?

[Fung Koo]

But you don't have sufficient proof to say he doesn't exist either. Maybe man's perception of him has been less then ideal, but the concept of a God or a higher being... no one can prove it's not real.

AHHHHHHHHHH!

A lack of proof is not proof in favour!!!

For the love... Thems is fighting words. It's the worst of all possible fall back positions! There's no damn proof that the spaghetti monster exists either. IT IS NOT A VALID ARGUMENT.

PERIOD. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

[JRMurdock]

There's no proof of the invisible pink unicorn, but you can find the invisible pink unicorn vs the flying spaghetti monster on youtube :)