Is There a God?

(This is meant to be a survey of our forumers' spiritual beliefs. I'm not entirely sure the moderators will allow it, but I'm inclined to think they will, so long as we keep it clean and free from personal insults. Yes we can. ;) )

I come from one of the most non-religious countries in the world, where about 15% - 20% of people believe there is a God. It might well have much to do with our Soviet past. Religion was a strict no-no in Soviet times -- you were supposed to believe in Lenin! -- and it's only been 20 years since.

I'm an agnostic atheist. Why? Because I haven't seen any proof of God's existence during my lifetime, and I'm disinclined to just believe. Yet, noone can obviously prove that God doesn't exist, so I'm open to the possibility that He might.

What are you? And why?

Can we have a poll too, please.
Question: Is there a God?
Answer 1: YES; I am a theist.
Answer 2: PROBABLY YES; I'm an agnostic theist.
Answer 3: PROBABLY NOT; I'm an agnostic atheist.
Answer 4: NO; I'm an atheist.
Answer 5: Who cares? I don't.

Thank you.

Of course there's a dog.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...301_125008.jpg

Prepare for the charge of the 'Loud Brigade' for daring to consider other options than option 1, followed by a bloody battle and ultimatly the closure of another thread.

Should be fun :D

Anyway, in answer to your question, of course there's a Dog.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...301_125008.jpg

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Originally Posted by Knock-on

Prepare for the charge of the 'Loud Brigade' for daring to consider other options than option 1, followed by a bloody battle and ultimatly the closure of another thread.

Should be fun :D

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No, 'cause we talked about it in Forum Feedback, see. We're going to be nice to each other from now on. After all, we're one big happy family. :D

PS. Good-looking dog.

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Originally Posted by studiose

No, 'cause we talked about it in Forum Feedback, see. We're going to be nice to each other from now on. After all, we're one big happy family. :D

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Pardon me for being cynical. 10 years experience on here but if this thread goes off without a bun fight, I might become a Beliver :laugh:

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PS. Good-looking dog.

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And doesn't he know it. As far as he's concerned, he IS God!!

He's just lying on my toes at the moment keeping them warm so I won't say too much otherwise he might move ;)

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Originally Posted by Knock-on

As far as he's concerned, he IS God!!

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But God is clearly a cat, even dogs know that!

There is no God for Chirst's sake!

We are all Gods! Let's fix this mess up! Pronto!

:s mokin:

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Originally Posted by Malbec

But God is clearly a cat, even dogs know that!

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Shhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I've got cold toes :(

no God, but almost as many gods as humans - nearly everybody has his own, in their minds, created in their own images :)

There most likely isn't a God... but I wouldn't rule out the possibility completely, it would be arogant to think I know it all.


That said, there are some pretty interesting NDE stories.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRSjz...eature=related

Yes I know people of different faiths have different experiences but its interesting all the same.

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Originally Posted by race aficionado

We are all Gods! Let's fix this mess up! Pronto!

:s mokin:

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Brilliant. Kudos to you Race. I bow to your omniscience.

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Originally Posted by studiose

I'm an agnostic atheist. ...... Yet, noone can obviously prove that God doesn't exist, so I'm open to the possibility that He might.
Thank you.

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May I remind you that if reason is your means, logic is the method, and in logic you cannot prove a negative. It is incumbent on the arguer making the positve assertion to prove it with evidence. Logically, proof requires evidence, whether empirical or rational, and there can be no evidence for something which does not exist.

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Originally Posted by Breeze

Brilliant. Kudos to you Race. I bow to your omniscience.

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And me to yours. :)

No god, but I can understand why our non-scientific ancestors invented them to explain the gaps in their knowledge.

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Originally Posted by Dave B

No god, but I can understand why our non-scientific ancestors invented them to explain the gaps in their knowledge.

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Yep....Or did they have NDE's also that sparked off a belief in the supernatural ? ... I wonder what came first.

I believe in God for I am he :D

I don't personally believe that there is, but I don't mind if other people choose to believe (unless they try to force their beliefs on me or consider me to be lesser purely because my opinion differs to theirs)

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Originally Posted by Mark

I believe in God for I am he :D

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"In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Administrator, Amen." :p :

If a worldwide poll's outcome would look like what our poll results look now, we would be living in a better world.

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Originally Posted by ioan

If a worldwide poll's outcome would look like what our poll results look now, we would be living in a better world.

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"motorsportforums.com users, better than average people" :D

I'm unhappy with the options. I'm an atheist because I don't believe in god.

I can't disprove that god exists. Atheism isn't not believing because you have evidence that god doesn't exist, it is not believing because there is no evidence.

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Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

I'm unhappy with the options. I'm an atheist because I don't believe in god.

I can't disprove that god exists. Atheism isn't not believing because you have evidence that god doesn't exist, it is not believing because there is no evidence.

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Personally, I'm an apatheist. This means that, in my opinion, whether a god exists or not is irrelevant, as we do not have any way to know if he does exist and how he could influence our lives. Basically, it's like living inside a black box - you don't know if there's anything outside, and even if it does, you can't really know whether what is going on is caused by what is outside the box (God) or not.

Sorry if you think that was a poor analogy. I've tried to explain my view, but perhaps it isn't as clear as I wanted it to be.

This is an 11 minute video. It's all purely conjecture but worth discussion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY_ZgAvXsuw

I don't really like the position of hard-Atheism because logically I think it falls over.

If a hypothetical flatlander who exists in the second dimension, passes through the third, their capability of observing things is incredibly limited. Likewise, it can be supposed that we currently observe five dimensions (because time is linear) but anything beyond that is either difficult or impossible to observe.
Since science itself relies on the collection of empirical and measurable evidence, how is it supposed to deal with unobservable evidence? That isn't to suggest that the evidence isn't there though. What if God/god/s are/is a hyperdimensional being who exists in all dimensions or somewhere above?

Part of the problem with this entire debate is that people's perception is entirely skewed. Theists will take evidence as proof of the existence of God, whereas Atheists will take evidence as proof of the non-existence of God.
The word agnostic derives from the Greek "gnosis" which means knowledge and the "a" at the beginning is a negative qualifier. Agnosticism basically holds that there aren't rational grounds and/or reason itself isn't sufficient to prove whether or not God/god/s exist or not.

I myself am a Theist (a Christian) but for the reasons stated above completely understand why an Atheist would find my position just as unalienable. Given that my perception is also entirely skewed, it's entirely rational for both hard-Atheists and agnostic-atheists to reject my position outright.

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Originally Posted by Malbec

But God is clearly a cat, even dogs know that!

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Hmmm, sometimes I wonder....

They should do another OH GOD movie and have that little wee, wee, wee pig from the Geico commercials play god.

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Originally Posted by Breeze

May I remind you that if reason is your means, logic is the method, and in logic you cannot prove a negative. It is incumbent on the arguer making the positve assertion to prove it with evidence. Logically, proof requires evidence, whether empirical or rational, and there can be no evidence for something which does not exist.

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When it is found, then it does exist but universally only if everyone accpets it.
To those who do not, it does not exist.

They should do another [i]OH GOD[/b] movie and happy that little wee, wee, wee pig from the Geico commercials play god.

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Originally Posted by N4D13

Personally, I'm an apatheist. This means that, in my opinion, whether a god exists or not is irrelevant, as we do not have any way to know if he does exist and how he could influence our lives. Basically, it's like living inside a black box - you don't know if there's anything outside, and even if it does, you can't really know whether what is going on is caused by what is outside the box (God) or not.

Sorry if you think that was a poor analogy. I've tried to explain my view, but perhaps it isn't as clear as I wanted it to be.

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Carrying your idea a bit further, "and what if a god, 10,000 gods exist, what of it? What are we to do about it?
And conversely "what if Bogu doesn't exist? What does that mean we are to do about that.?"

In either case we still have just keep on keepin on.

Faith is faith. It does not need scientific evidence. Even so, it has plenty.

Yes, i believe in God.

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Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz

Faith is faith. It does not need scientific evidence. Even so, it has plenty.

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I'd be interested to know what scientific evidence there is for the existence of a god.

Dave,
Lets not get started on 'intelligent design'...

R E Li G I ON !!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Dave B

I'd be interested to know what scientific evidence there is for the existence of a god.

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Originally Posted by martynwayn@yahoo.com

R E Li G I ON !!!!!!

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Well quite.

Using that Logic, I'm going to enrol in Hogwarts :D

By the way, if anyone is interested in watching debates on this topic, there's the excellent Christopher Hitchens Youtube Channel.

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Originally Posted by Mark

Dave,
Lets not get started on 'intelligent design'...

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Mark is right. This is an old debate that we do not have to repeat. Those interested can revisit that thread.

Here I am more interested in the mental approaches to the issue. Sometimes it sounds like believers just believe while atheists tend to rationalize. I am not sure this is entirely true. There's plenty of theologists who rationalize God. On the other hand, those self-styled rational folks do not rationalize everything. They are simply not in a position to do so. Everybody has affinities, loyalties and sympathies that just are there because they are there. A human mind would just get overloaded with a zillion operations if we started rationalizing everything. I.e. there's a lot of things that even folks on the rational side take as is. In this case how could they be consistent when they question the existence of somebody just because they think they haven't seen the evidence yet?

I am a theist and i believe in god because personally i feel that god is everywhere and the smallest help i got from unusual means is by the wish of the god.

http://www.motivationals.org/demotiv...ster-13371.jpg


:D :p :

:rotflmao: