Originally Posted By: Virtual_Starin the end, there's no point in arguing. The existance of God is going to go on and on and there will always be two sides. I agree. God exists or He doesn't exist. And He either exists or doesn't exist apart from what I think, believe, or argue. If He exists, He doesn't need me to believe in Him to continue existing and doing His thing. And if He's that big, He can handle doubt and disbelief. Shoot, I'm a believer. I'm a Christian. I believe in God, Jesus, the Gospel, all that stuff...staunchly. But there are moments when I go WTF?!? And I struggle to believe and to hold on to faith. But ultimately I do. And the cool thing is, my life is not only enriched by the times when I struggle to believe, it also greatly enriched by folks (many who are here) who consistently don't believe.
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It's extremely hard for me to believe in a God.
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It's good to see you back as well, damien!
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Maybe its just me, but wouldn't the need to "struggle" to believe not be any kind of indication that there is something, ya know... just not exactly right?
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Originally Posted By: OldFolks Originally Posted By: bobaliciousWow, a big fat religious "argument" and it had nothing to do with me. How strange.... Perhaps a reminder that none of us are so important to the cyclical movements of the life that continues beyond us and that what we offer is our own reward. Not at you bobo, just a random thought that strayed across my fucked up head.I'm very glad to see you back, bobo. I hope you stick around. I just find it funny because I was accused of starting all these kind of arguments, to the point where I, apparently, drove people away from the forum. But fuck it, I'm joining in anyway! I haven't had a good debate in a while, and this is one of my favourites!
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Originally Posted By: bobaliciousMaybe its just me, but wouldn't the need to "struggle" to believe not be any kind of indication that there is something, ya know... just not exactly right? You're absolutely right, it is an indication there is something not exactly right...with me. The problem isn't with the object of my belief, it's with my ability to believe consistently. Like I said earlier, if a thing exists, it does so apart from my belief or disbelief.
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god exsists purely on faithif everyone just stopped believing, there would be no faith and no god.if someone difinitevely proved the exsistance of god, there would be no faith and no god.weeeeeee!
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I don't understand why someone would leave based on the fact that there's a debate that goes against what they believe. Especially on a forum that isn't dedicated to debating. In fact, I prefer when I'm faced with rebuttals that are difficult to refute, because it means that I have over-looked something that I need to check into. Unfortunately, the only forum I go to which has quite a few debates has people much more qualified for the topic than I am, so I usually will read the debates I'm interested in as opposed to participating in. Although, I once was in a hunting debate once four years ago there that lasted ~100 posts and had essentially me vs., and I thought I did well. I looked back on the posts and was disgusted by my grammar and poor debating skills >.> I tried reviving it so I could offer better points, but no one seemed to want to debate it anymore Anyways... I should go to sleep.
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Originally Posted By: unsupervisedgod exsists purely on faith ???That makes absolutely no sense. It's absurd to me to think that the existence of anything depends on a person's faith in that thing. That's like saying my left thumb exists only if I have faith that it exists.Please say more and help me understand what you are meaning.
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Well, I don't have faith in the fact that my right thumb exists anymore; oh shit, now how will I eat food? Thanks a lot damien, now I can't eat very well.
Oh yes, I don't remember if I said this before (at least clearly), but there are more than two sides to the existence of a god. Either you believe one exists, you believe one doesn't exist, or you believe that it could exist.
On a slightly unrelated topic, I find that there are some ideas in fiction that seem really interesting and are possible. One example being Men in Black, where the Universe (or galaxy?) is nothing but a marble to certain aliens. Another one that interests me is the idea of the forerunners in the Halo series, which basically says that humans existed for a much longer time, but eventually faced some extinction of some sort and made sure that they would live on even afterwards, though it would take a long time to get as advanced. Anyways, I should go to sleep and stop rambling.
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there has been a lot of scientific and phylosophical effort put into the concept of "perception"the world we see is as we percieve it. you see one world, I see another. You see god's influence when you look around. When I look around, I see that there is no god.yet, you and I see the same things... or do we
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When I look around, I see whatever is or isn't,... is or isn't with no regard to me or what I believe. As long as an individuals beliefs or lack thereof are within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of other to have their own beliefs, then, to me, what another believes is of no consequence.So, the more important question is not whether God exists, or what we see when we look at the world, but how can we co-exist with respect for the beliefs of the contrary. Which is a sentiment that is easily spoken but much harder for societies to put into practice.
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These God arguments give me epileptic seizures. No wonder most wars throughout history has revolved around this topic. Even the non believers have an opinion. We just can't accept that we don't know, can we? We as humans always have to have an answer. Why? Can't we just admit we don't know? Fuck. No wonder we're headed for self destruction.
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The philosopher Berkeley said that existence was all about perception, and things existed only if they were perceived (objects) or perceiving (spirits). But it is striking much more by how much commonality there is between different people's perceptions. We have much more agreement than disagreement in what we perceive. Berkeley said that this was because "real" objects are those always perceived by God. Without God, it is hard to see how this philosophy could explain the commonality of perception.
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it's also arguable that there is no commonality at all. The concept of perception allows for 5 billion people to live in 5 billion different worlds and all assuming everyone else is in the same plane of perception.Our senses can percive an infinate combination of stimulae so there is plenty of room for each of us to perceive those combinations differently than the guy next to us.The only commonality is in the language we are forced to use to describe our perceptions to each other. You see something, you give it a name. You show it to me, I see something completely different but now I know it by the same name. i.e you're looking at a blue sphere, I'm looking at a red cube, yet we've both known it as an "apple" our whole lives.until we evolve beyond the ties of language, we'll never fully understand each other's perceptions
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Originally Posted By: unsupervisedthere has been a lot of scientific and phylosophical effort put into the concept of "perception"the world we see is as we percieve it. you see one world, I see another. You see god's influence when you look around. When I look around, I see that there is no god.yet, you and I see the same things... or do we Yes, I'm very familiar with this line of thinking and, actually, I don't disagree. But what you're talking about is perception. What I'm saying is that, while we may perceive a thing differently, the thing is what it is regardless of either of our perceptions.
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And all of you could just be a figment of my imagination, or something could be planting all this in my head and none of it really exists. Hooray for solipsism.
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[quote=damienYes, I'm very familiar with this line of thinking and, actually, I don't disagree. But what you're talking about is perception. What I'm saying is that, while we may perceive a thing differently, the thing is what it is regardless of either of our perceptions. [/quote]That is essentially Kant's position in his Critique of Pure Reason. But his larger point is that we can't know anything at all about that thing as it is (the noumena) apart from our perceptions of it: we can only know it as we perceive it (the phenomena). But Kant also addressed the point made by a few others. He did not accept the idea that we perceive differently. He believed there were transcendental characteristics of human consciousness that structure perception universally in humans. His "transcendental proof of the existence of god" is one of the more interesting of the classical proofs.
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I don't know much but if you think positively towards God, you can think of many reasons why things happen.For example: If illness like AIDS exist, it could have been as punishment for premarital sex. Or if disasters, storms or pain and suffering exist, it could have been to test our faith.The bible stated that God is the "Alpha & Omega" meaning He is the beggining and the end of all things.We know that God is a "He" because it is said in the bible that "God created man in his own image".I, myself, don't read the bible but i do read some part of it. I also want to believe in the paranormal (nothing special, just for fun ) but I feel it doesen't exist. I also believe in demons and that they appear as different types of "things" for different people because demons deceive.I also don't want to push my religion to anyone. I just want to let everybody know that He exists whether we believe it or not. And time will come that we will send Christ back to earth to judge us(revelations). But your faith depends on what you want to believe in so I will not try to convince you.(peace!) I'm a christian and I admit that I'm not a very good one but I try my best to become better one. Hope I didn't offend anyone cause I'm not trying to.
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do you really feel its needed to dredge up this old shit thats been left to sleep for over a month now?You say there is a god I say the only god is Joe Pesci because he answers as many prayers as god does and gets shit done, not to mention I can see him, I know hes real.When will people learn to let this shit die and stop bringing it back? There is no god winner! its just bullshit threads and posts that stir up shit and change no ones mind.
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"I say the only god is Joe Pesci because he answers as many prayers as god does..."Okay George,You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Joe Pesci. Two reasons; first of all, I think he's a good actor. Okay. To me, that counts. Second; he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that God was having trouble with. For years I asked God to do something about my noisy neighbor with the barking dog. Joe Pesci went with a baseball bat and straightened that cock-sucker out with one visit.That's one of my all time favorite bits.Here's another one of my favorites;I've begun worshipping the Sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the Sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate.