What is God, and why should we worship it?

[ard]

Alright, first question:

What is God?

Apparently, God is a dude. This dude created all this stuff for us to live in peace and harmony. So that means he created men, the sea, mountains, and marijuana. Because of this, if God is real, then he must be a frigen genious. Props to you, God.

There are two main types of god-based religions: Monotheism, and Polytheism. Now Monotheism is a religion pretty much focused on one big guy, like Christianity's God. While Polytheism involves a bunch of gods, such as Anglo-Saxon paganism (Thor, Odin, etc etc).

Whatever the case, all of these gods apparently created something big, like the wind or the sea. Some also created emotions, such as anger...or love.

Therefore, God is the paint brush, and the universe is the canvas. Presto.

Second Question: Why should we worship it?

Well I'm an agnostic atheist, which basically means no one can criticize my views, I'm a bit in the middle, per-se.

So I don't really worship any certain religion. But for those who do worship a religion, why do they do it? Some worship for advice and peace of mind, others worship for safety. And some...well...some worship so they can drink a bit of wine and a small peice of bread every sunday.

Now don't get me wrong, some take these religions more seriously than others, but think about it: These are people, just like you and me, spending their valuable time with an unseen force so they can get some invisible prize or answers to their questions. Now that's devotion!

But my friend Bob the Farmer gave me a thinker: What if this force doesn't exist? What if they're just spending all that time for nothing?

Well that's the thing, though. Even if the force they're praising doesn't exist, they use this fictional or nonfictional force to help them out. I mean, I play video games to make myself feel better...so why would it seem so crazy for someone to pray for their Almighty Father?

Now what I do get pissed off about, is that some religious peeps do not take kindly to criticism. Even if someone does not support their religion, they banter: You're going to hell! Or...Satan will devour your soul when you're sleeping!

THIS is the problem with religions: We are so divided in our beliefs, we physically and mentally separate ourselves from eachother. Religion can also cause violence in several different forms, including genocide.

So do I 'worship' a fixed religion? Not a chance. But does that mean people should not do so? Hell no. Though we, as human beings, need to cease abusing others with these beliefs, and we need to realize that we're so diverse that there will never be one certain religion or theism.

[mypallyowndu]

Well, I guess in a weak sense Jews are atheists w/r/t Jesus, etc. but that's not all that philosophically interesting.

Also, I don't really think it makes sense to call oneself an "atheist agnostic" or some other combination. Atheism (and theism) are metaphysical claims about things that exist (or don't exist) in the universe. Agnosticism is an epistemological claim, the claim that God's existence (or non-existence) is unknowable. You can't simultaneously claim that there is no God (atheism) while also claiming that the question of God's existence is unknowable (agnosticism).

So when someone claims to "know" that there is no God, does that mean she is claiming to be able to offer 100% solid evidence? Of course not. But that's because claims of knowledge just don't have to pass such a ridiculously high bar to actually count as knowledge. Bayesian probabalistic claims have completely taken over rational choice theory, talking about when it is (and isn't) rational to hold a particular belief. Technically, I don't have a 100% guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow but, surely, it isn't irrational for me to plan my day as if the sun were going to rise.

Hell, Hume showed us that our "knowledge" of causation was just blind belief when it comes down to it (even after the advancements made in physics since his day).

So, basically, I'd argue you can be either an atheist or an agnostic, but you can't be both.

[ard]

In my opinion, you can be both agnostic and an atheist. Epistemology, for example, basically asks what knowledge is. There is a large distinction between knowing something and knowing how something is true (knowing that and knowing how).

You see, I'm agnostic because I do not have definite knowledge that some god does not exist, though at the same time, I do not believe in the existance of this god. So though I cannot say for certain this diety does not exist, I do not believe in it. Therefore, agnostic atheism does make sense, and it does because of the distinction between what we think is true, and what we believe.
But many agnostic atheists lean morely towards atheism, soley because atheism can be proven more so than a certain belief in a spiritual diety. But, and just a side note here, being able to distinguish belief and truth is very important.

When I wake up in the morning, I think that my dog will still be in my house, but I can't be certain. It isn't until I actually see my dog inside that the belief of my dog being in my house turns into knowledge (terrible example, really, but the only thing I could think of). Sure, I do not have to offer X amount of evidence to tell someone why (insert whatever here) is true, though.

And agnosticism is not just one main thing, it really breaks into two streams. One being "soft", meaning not knowing whether or not a God exists, and "hard" agnosticism, meaning that we cannot know about the existance of God. Therefore, agnostic atheism can also be "hard agnosticism".

So that's pretty much why I'm an agnostic atheist. Take it or leave it.

[thecosmicfly]

Well I count myself as an agnostic, or whatever comes close to it. People give agnostics a hard time for not making a decision, but I ask you why should we? Athiesm and theism both make solid claims with little evidence to back up, or at least some people within those believes do. Where as agnostics at least have the balls to say, "Y'know, we dont know everything, so lets just move on with our lives instead of continuing to argue our believes which we don't even fully understand."

[Wednesday_R]

Dec 27, 2008 21:09:36 GMT -5 thecosmicfly said:

Well I count myself as an agnostic, or whatever comes close to it. People give agnostics a hard time for not making a decision, but I ask you why should we? Athiesm and theism both make solid claims with little evidence to back up, or at least some people within those believes do. Where as agnostics at least have the balls to say, "Y'know, we dont know everything, so lets just move on with our lives instead of continuing to argue our believes which we don't even fully understand."

You worded that better than I, thanks.

[xxtackyx]

[Darknezz]

You bumped an old thread with straw men. Congrats on failure.

[skyliner12]

So much stupidity in this thread I feel the need to post in it to somewhat bring the scales back in the favor of "people who can comprehend a debate topic".

I've read through all of the posts and it seems fairly clear that the debate has died down, but I'd like to move it in more of a discussion direction (as I think it should have started out as). I'm assuming that Nezz made this thread as a general "Who is your God, and why do you believe in It" kind of thing.

Nov 17, 2008 17:19:40 GMT -5 Darknezz said:

I pose a simple question to any theist:

What is God? Please, define your God to the best of your ability.

And then answer me this other question:

Why should I worship your God?

Honestly, I can see no reason to worship a God from any of the major religions, mostly because I can't make head or tail of Qur'an and the God from the Jewish and Christian bibles is a terrible God.

I don't fall into the 'theist' category by definition, but I want to answer anyway.

I've been reading and studying Mahayana Buddhism for a couple of years now. Which I don't consider to be my religion, I consider it a philosophical guide to life more than anything. I think this is a very good way to experience "religion", or the thought of something higher/stronger/better/bigger than yourself.

In a different branch of Buddhism there's a book called the Dhammapada, which is a collection of Gautama's thoughts and sayings, along with direct students of his. The first lines are these:

"Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow. "

However, there are parts of Buddhism that I don't agree with completely, but can understand why they're there. And I simply chose to overlook them. I pick and choose what I feel is appropriate to me and apply it to my life, making a sort of patchwork religion of my own. I've talked to fellow practitioners and they have agreed with me, explaining they have done the same themselves. Again, I want to point out, this is an awesome approach to accepting a philosophical life system.

The problem that I had with Catholicism and Christianity was the rules were always too tight for me. There's so much time and blood spent into protecting this one belief. And then after the belief is established, people have to branch out on it and make more and more assumptions or stories off of the belief. It's like.. building a massive dam and then when one part cracks, you put a hand over it. Another part cracks, put your hand on it. Another part cracks, you've really got to stretch to try to cover that one up.

I think I'm rambling. Uhm.

My sister is religious, she's an American Baptist. She actually is going to a seminary school to learn to become a reverend, she's that devoted. At first I had probably the same attitude many people just had as they read that, "What the hell, reverend? What a waste of time." And I did feel that way for a long time too, until I finally decided to be open to her decision (whoo Buddhism) and I came and visited her church.

I doubt all churches in her denomination are like this, but dude, if they are, I may sign up for it. A lot if it is very much like a Christian church meeting, some scripture is quoted but what her reverend does is sort of "translates" it to modern understanding. The time I went was actually their communion day (they do communion once a month) and the service was about keeping Sabbath holy. She spoke a couple lines from the Bible, and I wasn't especially impressed. Then she spoke a bit about a passage involving someone holy telling the people of Some Holy City that bread and fish would be available for them everyday, but to only take one day's rations. He then told them on a Saturday that the next day, there would not be loaves of bread or fish for them, that instead they must take what they need today and believe that God will take care of them for the next day.

That isn't very clear, so I'll explain what they did when the kids came from the back of the church where they were having Bible school. They put down five mats in the front of the pews, and the five kids stood around them. The reverend who plays the organ explained, "Okay, we're going to play a game like musical chairs. You guys know musical chairs, right?" They all nodded, and she went over to the piano and played a little bit, they walked in a circle, she stopped, and they all plopped down onto a mat. We all clapped our hands politely, and she came over and said something like, "Okay, let's go again, but I'm not going to take a mat. Can you guys do it?" The kids all nodded, she played the piano, they ran around, music stopped, and they all grabbed a mat. And then she came back from the piano and explained, "Everybody has a mat, right? Well that's how it is with God. If you ever need Him, He will be there for you."

The kids seemed confused as hell, but that was a very poignant moment for me as far as religious experiments go. And that's kind of how I like to look at the whole God situation as of now. We're all just playing musical chairs, and some people (fundamentalists) are trying to warn others that they think because they did this, or love this person, that God is going to take away their mat. But in reality, there's a mat for anyone who wants it. I personally applaud her church for approaching things that way.

That's probably the most disjointed post I've ever made, sorry about that. Hope you learned something interesting from my experiences, though.

[kakihara]

Regardless of what any of you think (and trust me, I don't care), let's think about this in a logical sense. What do you think religion has done most in this world: harm, or help? Simply count up all the statistics throughout history and make a decision.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm a devout atheist.

[Darknezz]

Feb 15, 2009 14:20:46 GMT -5 kakihara said:

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm a devout atheist.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, shows that this man is a fool.

There's no such thing as a DEVOUT atheist because atheists have nothing to be devout about! Atheism has no doctrine, no dogma, it is simply the LACK of belief in a God.

[kakihara]

Feb 15, 2009 14:50:57 GMT -5 Darknezz said:

Feb 15, 2009 14:20:46 GMT -5 kakihara said:

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm a devout atheist.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, shows that this man is a fool.

There's no such thing as a DEVOUT atheist because atheists have nothing to be devout about! Atheism has no doctrine, no dogma, it is simply the LACK of belief in a God.

No, you are false.
I strongly believe in the idea of their not being a god, which is where the word, "devout" comes into play.
I'm sorry, but I can't dumb it down for you anymore than that.

[Clone]

God is something that is.. unknown to me.
I, myself, tend to try my best to go on living with myself. Through all the bad and good, I believe I have the power within myself to get through it, not actual magical abilities, no, but knowledge. From the bad and mistakes, you learn how to get through it. I say the only time I start giving hope to a higher being, is when things are really pitted against me. Dying family member or so on. Sure, it could be because im stubborn, but I dont tend to live my life trying to answer these questions. While I could be sitting there, thinking to myself if there is a god, I could be doing so much for the world. I dont know if "God" created all of this, but what I do know is that we have to keep all of this alive, ourselves. I really dont know what to add to this statement, other than what Ive already stated, I tend to not even think about an existence due to trying to plan something out for the better of the future. I dont force myself away from religion, I just dont see any benefits on being in one.

[Darknezz]

Feb 15, 2009 14:56:33 GMT -5 kakihara said:

Feb 15, 2009 14:50:57 GMT -5 Darknezz said:

And that, ladies and gentlemen, shows that this man is a fool.

There's no such thing as a DEVOUT atheist because atheists have nothing to be devout about! Atheism has no doctrine, no dogma, it is simply the LACK of belief in a God.

No, you are false.
I strongly believe in the idea of their not being a god, which is where the word, "devout" comes into play.
I'm sorry, but I can't dumb it down for you anymore than that.

Not an atheist. You, sir, are again, a failure and a fool and an ignorant being.

Atheism is the LACK OF BELIEF IN A GOD.

Atheism is not the belief that there is no God.

Again, there can be no such thing as a "devout" atheist because there is no dogma, no churches, no set of beliefs to follow or be devoted to.

Also, this:

Hey Kakihara... .might want to think up a better argument than that. While it is easy to find how many people are harmed by religions, through war and what not, it is much harder to determine how many people on this planet are happier by being religous. I think you ignore that religion makes people happier everyday, or at least, sunday. So, i deem that arguement fallible, and VOID

[chocothunda]

Religion is a very dicey subject for me, even though I'm Catholic. I guess you could say that I'm not necessarily the best Catholic in the world (being that, I'm not necessarily keen on the bible), but the religion itself is pretty interesting for me.

The reason for that is based off of my experiences with it: most of my experience with Catholicism has been pretty positive. I don't read the bible that often (if at all) but after my confirmation (which was a long time ago, like...when I was 14, I think, I can't remember), I went to church (on sundays XD) quite often. This is because the specific church that I went to was...how to say...very lively. Out of all of the churches that I have visited during confirmation, this lively church gave me the most enjoyable experience. It's a black Catholic church, thus the atmosphere there is...a bit more happier, more spiritual than some other churches (once again, I'm speaking from experience; this is not meant to step on anyone's toes or anything).

This being said, I can also see religion can also be incredibly idiotic. This is evidenced by some of the born-again Christians that I have seen on my campus, who preach the "word" of God to those walking by them. Most people pretty much pass them up (including me), but some do listen to them. They have been known to harass students based on their religion or even their gender. The main reason why I don't listen to these particular zealots is because their overall message seems to be very much charged by hate, which comes into conflict with my vision of God, in that he is a loving one.

In short, I think one's level of worship of a particular religion comes from an individual's personal interpretation of the bible. Some view the bible in a spiritual sort of way, while others view it in a quite literal sort of way. The latter is something that I am not comfortable with at all, as this will usually produce a lot of the angry religious folk that you might see (which, IMO, gives religion a bad name).

I'd talk a bit more about this subject, but I feel that I'm sort of rambling at the moment (and also procrastinating in terms of studying for a quiz which'll be tomorrow), so I'm gonna stop here XD. Hopefully this wasn't too confusing.

[Darknezz]

Feb 16, 2009 3:55:52 GMT -5 chocothunda said:

Religion is a very dicey subject for me, even though I'm Catholic. I guess you could say that I'm not necessarily the best Catholic in the world (being that, I'm not necessarily keen on the bible), but the religion itself is pretty interesting for me.

The reason for that is based off of my experiences with it: most of my experience with Catholicism has been pretty positive. I don't read the bible that often (if at all) but after my confirmation (which was a long time ago, like...when I was 14, I think, I can't remember), I went to church (on sundays XD) quite often. This is because the specific church that I went to was...how to say...very lively. Out of all of the churches that I have visited during confirmation, this lively church gave me the most enjoyable experience. It's a black Catholic church, thus the atmosphere there is...a bit more happier, more spiritual than some other churches (once again, I'm speaking from experience; this is not meant to step on anyone's toes or anything).

You really should read the bible some time. First step on the road to being an atheist.

This being said, I can also see religion can also be incredibly idiotic. This is evidenced by some of the born-again Christians that I have seen on my campus, who preach the "word" of God to those walking by them. Most people pretty much pass them up (including me), but some do listen to them. They have been known to harass students based on their religion or even their gender. The main reason why I don't listen to these particular zealots is because their overall message seems to be very much charged by hate, which comes into conflict with my vision of God, in that he is a loving one.

Again, you should read the bible some time. The pulpit likes to say that God is loving and all that, but I'm pretty sure that the Old Testament begs and pleads to differ.

In short, I think one's level of worship of a particular religion comes from an individual's personal interpretation of the bible. Some view the bible in a spiritual sort of way, while others view it in a quite literal sort of way. The latter is something that I am not comfortable with at all, as this will usually produce a lot of the angry religious folk that you might see (which, IMO, gives religion a bad name).

When you get in to interpretations, and personal ones at that, you're no longer part of any religion. Depending on how you interpret the goddamn Bible, how much you're willing to bend its words, you can make it say anything.