What is God, and why should we worship it?

[kcdusky]

To everyone God means something different and it would be very hard for them to change what they believe God is.

Personally for me, I really don't believe in a God. Most people worship him out of fear or because they think it's the right thing to do without questioning. I never read the bible, even though my mother is very much Christian. She came from another country and the way people in America and people in her home country go about religion is completely different: she believes God is a loving god that will forgive all and noticed that many people in America believe god is a merciless powerful god that hates and judges many. There's just something not right about that but nonetheless, people are going to believe their God is like that stubbornly.

[thek213]

I feel that many of the guidelines mentioned in the Bible and similar books, including the Qur'an and Torah, can give a better and safer life experience (what with obvious social advice such as "Do Not Steal" and "Do Not Kill") and that is why I am a Christian. Why I chose to be Christian and not Jewish, Islamic, or other major religions, is simply the result of serendipitous thought.

[Darknezz]

This goes back to my arguments on page 20, Thek213. The Bible, the Qur'an, and especially the Torah are terrible moral guides.

[jargen88]

Jun 23, 2009 15:52:36 GMT -5 zekana said:

1. im not allowed to step into the local church in town. they know im an atheist and think its the biggest sin on earth.

2. again, why a church? it seems as if you could gain the same answers just from talking to friends or those outside of church about the same subject. what makes the church itself, a building crafted by man, so important to connecting with your god? thats what ive never understood.

or any religiously significant building for that matter. what makes them any more holy or important then any other building built by a guy? couldn't you do the same thing you do in a church in an office building? a school? whatever.

1. Some Church's are very stubborn and unwilling to accept I guess... It is not a sin to not believe in God because he is the one who gives you the choice to do as you please.


2. You could do that as well. If any of your friends are Christian, ask them to explain why they believe in God. Also about the Church. The Church may only be a building, but it is a place where you come together with others to worship. You could easily not go and still worship at your own home, but it is a better experience at church.

[Darknezz]

Jun 29, 2009 1:55:05 GMT -5 jargen88 said:

Jun 23, 2009 15:52:36 GMT -5 zekana said:

1. im not allowed to step into the local church in town. they know im an atheist and think its the biggest sin on earth.

2. again, why a church? it seems as if you could gain the same answers just from talking to friends or those outside of church about the same subject. what makes the church itself, a building crafted by man, so important to connecting with your god? thats what ive never understood.

or any religiously significant building for that matter. what makes them any more holy or important then any other building built by a guy? couldn't you do the same thing you do in a church in an office building? a school? whatever.

1. Some Church's are very stubborn and unwilling to accept I guess... It is not a sin to not believe in God because he is the one who gives you the choice to do as you please.

One of the bible's wonderful contradictions. Actually, it is the ultimate sin to disbelieve in God. I don't have the exact verse, but I think it was somewhere in Deuteronomy.

2. You could do that as well. If any of your friends are Christian, ask them to explain why they believe in God. Also about the Church. The Church may only be a building, but it is a place where you come together with others to worship. You could easily not go and still worship at your own home, but it is a better experience at church.

I do ask friends and even random strangers for why they believe in God. I don't do it in churches, because I'd rather not be dragged to the edge of town and stoned, nor do I want to disrupt sermons. I have yet to receive an answer as to why anyone would believe, let alone why I should believe.

[Loendrin]

Jun 29, 2009 2:08:34 GMT -5 Darknezz said:

Jun 29, 2009 1:55:05 GMT -5 jargen88 said:

1. Some Church's are very stubborn and unwilling to accept I guess... It is not a sin to not believe in God because he is the one who gives you the choice to do as you please.

One of the bible's wonderful contradictions. Actually, it is the ultimate sin to disbelieve in God. I don't have the exact verse, but I think it was somewhere in Deuteronomy.

One of the main reasons of being a Christian is to be accepting. That is why I differ from many other Christians. Instead of just reading the Bible and listening to a preacher like most Christians do, I take a closer approach to what God says.

As for the gay debate (and many other debates), in the bible it says that a only and man and woman may marry. Unrecognized by most people, the Bible was NOT written by God, it was written by the people that included all of their rules. It is also started that a man should be put over a woman, but you don't see many debates about that. God just wants us to be good and not try and make the world a worse place be complaining about ever single thing. The world is a much more evil place and we need to pay attention to those things and not just a man and a man.

[jargen88]

Jun 29, 2009 2:08:34 GMT -5 Darknezz said:

Jun 29, 2009 1:55:05 GMT -5 jargen88 said:

1. Some Church's are very stubborn and unwilling to accept I guess... It is not a sin to not believe in God because he is the one who gives you the choice to do as you please.

One of the bible's wonderful contradictions. Actually, it is the ultimate sin to disbelieve in God. I don't have the exact verse, but I think it was somewhere in Deuteronomy.

2. You could do that as well. If any of your friends are Christian, ask them to explain why they believe in God. Also about the Church. The Church may only be a building, but it is a place where you come together with others to worship. You could easily not go and still worship at your own home, but it is a better experience at church.

I do ask friends and even random strangers for why they believe in God. I don't do it in churches, because I'd rather not be dragged to the edge of town and stoned, nor do I want to disrupt sermons. I have yet to receive an answer as to why anyone would believe, let alone why I should believe.

1. again I say it is not a sin to disbelieve God.. He gives you the choice to do what you want and if that is not believing in him that is fine.


2. When I say ask the people at the Church I do not mean during the sermons.. I mean after the sermons because everybody talks to one another after them to share there experiences or have a nice chat. Also we live in a Modern era in a more advanced country.. there is no more stoning in such areas... or maybe you live in an unadvanced country?.... either or your not going to get stoned.



and lastly... It is a personal experience that God gives you which helps you believe God is there. Also you make the question sound like you are being nagged about it and well...If you are just tell them to stop bringing it up or something.... People can't exactly tell you why you should be a Christian because people have different experiences with God. Believing in God is only a choice.. research things about him and create a full understanding and if you do not believe than thats your choice.. no ones stopping you.

[ares]

I am secretly Atheist and if my parents ever found out about that my parents would want me to have an exorcism . Now onto the discussion I don't believe in god or Christianity or any other religion because the thought of one "man" up in so called "heaven" created us in his image. One of the reasons I think that makes no sense at all is if he made us in his image then people would not be born with diseases that completely alter our body as of no arms,legs,organs ETC. I also hear a lot that "god is challenging us" which does not make any sense at all. If god wanted us to live and die happily then why is there all these murders,corruption,diseases,war and needless killing here?
One other major reason I do not like Christianity is because they think homosexuality is an "sin" which is awful to me. So god leaves us with a fucked world with all the diseases and disasters and we cannot even choose which sex we want to love with. Stupid.

[SnowOwl96]

One of the reasons I think that makes no sense at all is if he made us in his image then people would not be born with diseases that completely alter our body as of no arms,legs,organs ETC.

What the bible means is he created us with bone, skin, blood ect... he also created other creatures, insects and other horrible things such as disease and disasters (both natural and things that we as humans help cause). I don't believe he ever intended for us to be created perfectly. He helped make us individually, with our own thought processes. The nature's way of life and the food chain. We're somewhere at the top of the food chain and yet I'm sure there is something above us that threatens mankind. But that I think should be another thread.

As for your question on God's happiness and the killing. Once again we as humans are born with our own personality, with our own thoughts. God didn't just create a machine like brain for children with written procedures on how to make us good little people and then hand the remote to our parents and wish them good luck. For someone to kill another person they have to have a reason, a motive if you will. There will always be killing and war just as long as people believe in good and evil.

As for your question regarding people saying "He is challenging me." That's our way of discovering and learning things for ourselves. To determine wether or not something is right or wrong. If we should go left or right. When there is an obstacle to leap over, we make the decision from there what to do.

I'm not going to go into the homosexual thing in the bible.

[zekana]

Jun 29, 2009 12:47:52 GMT -5 Loendrin said:

Unrecognized by most people, the Bible was NOT written by God, it was written by the people that included all of their rules.

man supposedly interpretted the word of god and wrote it down but how does one know that man didn't simply write stories and then they were all conected through some bs way to make it seem as if it were the word of god when really, it was just the word of man trying to minipulate people into thinking something higher is up there and they wanted them to be brainwashed into believing it without a second thought?
(rambling)

um..... and really, what proof is there that god actually speaks to people and when its said that god did speak to them, they did bad things because of it and it gets discredited? i hear stories all the time of how someone claims god told them to choke their baby or drown their children. they are simply written off as insane bastards but how do you know that they weren't actually told by god to do so? no tests, no nothing. god simply wanted them to kill, is that just an impossible notion? people say that those people were insane and were just hearing voices in their heads' or having an odd feeling that told them to do this. just out of curiousity, why should we credit people who claim to have had experiences with god? it sounds more believable that they had a moment of tempory insanity or they just started hearing random stuff and thought it was god. why should personal experiences be counted if people count them?
(rambling)

[shortbus]

Jun 29, 2009 12:53:32 GMT -5 jargen88 said:

Jun 29, 2009 2:08:34 GMT -5 Darknezz said:

It is a personal experience that God gives you which helps you believe God is there. Also you make the question sound like you are being nagged about it and well...If you are just tell them to stop bringing it up or something.... People can't exactly tell you why you should be a Christian because people have different experiences with God. Believing in God is only a choice.. research things about him and create a full understanding and if you do not believe than thats your choice.. no ones stopping you.

I've never heard of a convincing argument for this. It's always been something that could easily be a coincidence. Like you think about a really old friend and the next day you get a phone-call from them. Things can get spooky but it doesn't make your god any more likely.

If you can, I'd like to hear some compelling stories that you have, if you have any compelling ones.

snowowl said:

As for your question regarding people saying "He is challenging me." That's our way of discovering and learning things for ourselves. To determine wether or not something is right or wrong. If we should go left or right. When there is an obstacle to leap over, we make the decision from there what to do.

Why can't we discover things for ourselves as biological living things, why do we have to have god looking over our shoulder? Our body already has mechanisms for telling us when things are going wrong. It's called pain, anxiety, and a few others. If you're putting something in pain, it's wrong. We don't need god looking over our shoulders, nodding or shaking his head when we do something good or bad - and by the way, how would we know that he is shaking or nodding?

What the bible means is he created us with bone, skin, blood ect... he also created other creatures, insects and other horrible things such as disease and disasters (both natural and things that we as humans help cause). I don't believe he ever intended for us to be created perfectly. He helped make us individually, with our own thought processes. The nature's way of life and the food chain. We're somewhere at the top of the food chain and yet I'm sure there is something above us that threatens mankind. But that I think should be another thread.

If the bible means to say we were created in his image, we WOULD be perfect. And we'd be perfect now if dumb old eve hadn't been convinced by the talking snake to eat the magic fruit from the forbidden tree. It makes perfect sense.

What does any of that, the thought processes and the top of the food chain, have to do with anything? He didn't give us those, we developed them over billions of years of Evolution. I suppose it's just a coincidence that 93% of scientists in the American National Academy of Sciences is atheist. There must be some huge conspiracy going on if all these bright guys are atheist.