by Paralipomenon 29 Replies latest jw friends
I don't know if there's a "God" I never seen him. I don't know anything about him. The bible says he's loving and that he kills people too! He kills good and bad people. It's hard for me to believe in that kind of God. He abhors wickedness, but wickedness is all around us! He keeps his believers confused too. They say they love God, but do evil things to one another. He did say he made them in his image? Whatever that is?
I don't know who God is?
I do believe in the "Chaos Theory"or "Butterfly Effect". What does that make me?
Labels that's all it is. I don't beleive in a god, I don't even know exactly what the word god means, because it may be used in so many different ways. Am I agnostic or an atheist, who knows? there are so many different ways people understand these words. Anyway I don't like labels when it comes to me and what I beleive or don't beleive. Labels once you put one on yourself tends put you in a box.
As far as uncertainty goes, isn't that what a deeper look at the universe reveals, on the quantum level you have the princible of uncertainty, where electrons are waves of propability, and on a much bigger scale galaxies for all we know could be microscopic parts to a being something like ourselves but on a much grander scale, and we would never know it.
Does the universe have to have a begining, should time always move forward, does infinity go in both directions of time, and space? In this day and age, we have explored our universe enough to make an informed person reject ancient myths about our earth, planets, sun, and stars, along with rejection of mythological gods. Yet we still don't know what is the "first cause", or if there is any first cause. Could very well be there is no first cause, but because our minds have evolved to operate in this middle world, and not in very tiny quantum world(where time and space operate much more differently, that we can't get past the idea of time moving forward, and idea of "cause and effect", and the symbolisms that our mind uses,, be it either programed into us by culture, or from the collective human consciousness. Being that we are used to looking at the world this way we form many conclusions based middle world observations, when in actuality the answer is not comprehendable by the human minds with all its middle world symbolic thinking.
I'm a militant agnostic.
Our motto is:
I don't know.
And you don't know, either.
I would think that with the exception of science in most cases, its all ambiguity! Always two camps, for or against, having two or more possible meanings. Not clear; indefinite; uncertain ; vague; obscure. God exist's, no he does not. I can prove it, no you can't. I have had a personal experience with The Lord. Its all in your head. etc.
Those who claim that they have had a personal experience with the Lord, have no ambiguity with their own personal experience. To them its a very real touching feeling of having communion with The Lord, namely, Jesus Christ. Of this they are certain. I wish that I had this experience.
Then there is the myth of certainty. Jesus was a historical person, no he was not, he was and is the son of God, no he isn't, he is God, he is only a man, he never existed at all. On and on it goes. Books and books and more books on any given subject, take your pick. On this site there are endless topics on all of this, we each have to decide for ourselves in the end what is and what is not to be believed based on our own life experiences.
Its been said before: I know that the more I know, the more I know that I don't know. Is this being ambiguous?
Blueblades
My question is the following:
How is it possible for God to exist if His existence can be debated in such a lively manner?
There are intelligent people on both sides of this issue.
But God's existence should be something so amazing and sublime that it's reality is inescapable.
It is not.
Tetrapod,
Whats this thing about zeus not existing? He does!
The last route for me to polytheism is philosophical. The Gods exist. That statement may merely be tautological. The number "2" exists, but I never ran into Him on the street. There is a sense in which anything we can think of exists, because, certainly, that encoding and representation of information exists. Clearly, there is a spectrum of existence. An atheist might propose that the Gods exist in the same sense that Don Quixote exists. (Interestingly, a pantheist would probably say that Don Quixote exists in the same sense that the Gods exist.) The existence or non-existence of incorporeal beings is only relevant to the extent that these beings are seen to act within the world as we know it. Does Yhwh exist? All we know for certain is that a whole bunch of people act as if He does. Therefore, even the most obsessive materialist can accept the pragmatic criteria of judging religions: there may be no materially manifesting Gods walking across the face of the earth, but, nevertheless, the beliefs and consequent actions of the various adherents to different beliefs do directly impact the material world, and, therefore, belief systems can and should be judged according to that impact. It is precisely in this sense that even strict monotheists refer to Jesus, Buddha and Allah as separate Gods.
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=polytheism
Sirona
Im an agnostic. I dont know. How can I know when no one else knows. Everybodys wrong about everything, at least regarding matters that are not quantifiable. I'm thankful for the atheist and I'm thankful for the theist, you guys have made my life intersting. You keep me thinking.
I dont believe in the god of the bible. And I dont believe given the odds to produce an ameoba that macro evolution is possible. I do believe in micro evolution, adaptation. I have some ideas about where we came from and where we are going. But my ideas are just like the atheist and theist ideas, they are not scientifically provable. So I will go to my grave like everyone else not knowing. Only I am honest enough to say I dont know.
Think about it when you were a witnoid you said you knew.
You know what? you were full of shxt.
Now you have gone to a new endeavor.
you have the same personality, either atheist or theist.
Once again your full of shxt.
Knowing is being able to prove by the scientific method and these matters ultimately cant be proved.
They are matters of faith.
Science is a wonderful thing. But in all its wonders it doesnt prove that life evolved from an amoeba.
I dont know, but I suspect there is another dimension and our interfacing with it makes believing in evolution and believing in the God of the bible matters requiring more faith than I have.
I think mathematically it is impossible for us to have evolved.
I dont think the god of the bible is love.
Evolutionsist say if god didnt have a begining why does man need a begining.
Where did the creator, god come from? I dont know. My guess another dimension.
Maybe God, creator evolved in another dimension, but not this one.
I think God is conciousness and we are part of that consciousness we are here spirits having human experiences.
If our brain is our conciousness then I may be wrong. If our brain is a reciever for consciousness then I may be wright.
I know about bocas brain from anantomy. I dont know, thats why I am agnostic. We being God have played a trick on ourselves. I hope.
If not when we die its all over.
When I left the watchtower in 83, It was traumatic. I had to rebuild my engine, recreate myself. One tool I picked up for the rest of my life was the i/e or I over E. When trying to make a decision keep intelect over emotion. I was a tool maker for 30 years. I was pretty good with math, practical math. not fuzzy math. The intelect over emotion tells me that the math does not support evolution.
I can be mad at a biblical god which is emotion. But the intellect says the odds are too astronomical for us to have evolved.
"I am pretty sure that if I could defend atheism, I would embrace it. And advocate it." Thats me making an emotional statement which I feel is true.
"But the math doesnt support it." That's me making an intelligent statement at least the best intelligence that I can muster.
Still I dont know.
I'm all for atheistic and scientific thinking and pushing the envelope. I am not a supporter of theistic dogma.
When the problem is solved there will be a mathematical proof.
There is for everything else.
nvrgnbk:
What would qualify an entity as "God" or "a god"?
What if we found a being that created humans but he himself had a creator, would he be God?
What if we evolved, but were adopted by a being that helped mold our development, would he be God?
Does God need to be interested in us to assume that title?
I'm not attempting to convert you to agnosticism, I just find it curious that as an atheist, which defines itself as "a belief that there is no God" doesn't see it as strange they they'd leave the possibility that there might be SOME God.
In my mind the two are mutually exclusive. You cannot deny the existence of a God, while being open to the existence of a God.
Am I misunderstanding your post?
Are you saying you are an Atheist to the Hebrew God, but Agnostic to the concept of a God?
An Atheist asserts a disbelief in a God(s) and/or the supernatural.I respectfully disagree Parli. Another broader definition of atheist leaves room for belief in the possibility of the existence of God, simply stating that no real evidence exists to support such belief.
An Agnostic leaves room for the possibility that those things may exist.
Technically, you are right nvgnbk. However, we agnostics sometimes tend to be a little more open to the possibility than atheism tends to allow for. I used to consider myself atheist for the reasons you mentioned, but I felt it to be a bit too confining.
j
