do you believe in God

[chet]

Yes I do. I believe in God and his butterfly effect manner of driving the world. I mean God's will is in everything.

[Stween]

Say if you bought yourself a model plane, threw all the bits up in the air, along with glue and paint. What would come back down at you? A bit chaotic mess. Now imagine if you did that an infinite number of times with infinite plane parts, infinite glue and infinite paint. Statistically, on one time out of an infinite number of times, you would not get a chaotic mess, but rather a perfectly assembled and painted model plane doing a perfect three point landing right before your eyes. That is a statistical possibility, but an actual impossibility.

While the experiment you outline would never work (the pieces flying through the air wouldn't carry enough force to glue each other together before gravity pulled them back down to the ground), if it were possible, I'm tempted to say that statistically you'd have an infinite number of completed planes, and an infinite number of ill-formed planes.

Infinity is an unusual number; be careful what you use it for

(Are you saying that the Universe is infinite?)

And yes, it's "convenient" that our planet is located here. Convenient for us, for just now, that is. It won't be convenient for us at all in 1 billion years time. But at that time, elsewhere in the solar system may become convenient.

[WishIwasthere]

No. I do not believe.

Many years ago as a teen, I was very unhappy. I knew some Baptists who were full of life and joy. I wanted this badly and started going to church and involving myself in the Christian community. We had an ex prisoner who had "received the Lord" and had changed his life. I dearly wanted this to happen to me.
I spent two years going to church and living as a Christian but at no time did anything happen to me to convince me that there was a god. I felt like I was fooling myself.

Bad things continued to happen to me and I became convinced that there was no supreme being watching over me.

Later my life really turned to shit. Was I being punnished for not believing in god and stating that fact? Well if I was wrong, then perhaps I was being punnished.

However:

When my darling son was born and six weeks later, diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (a condition which he will most likely die from) was I still being punnished? What kind of god would punnish a person through another who had not even been given the chance yet to believe or not to?

I don't think any god would be that cruel. Therefore I revert to my conclusion that there isn't one. Relying on faith alone is not enough for me.

I have no wish to offend anyone who has faith, but I feel that believing in a supreme being is nothing more than a crutch created by humans to help deal with their existance. Something like the line in the XTC song, "Did you make mankind, after we made you?"

Having said all this, Both of my children attend Catholic schools as I believe that they have good principals besides offering a solid education. Also at no time have I ever tried to convince my kids that my views are correct. They know that they are each welcome to make up their own minds about their own beliefs. I actually encorage them to do so.

[moodyblue]

I personally don't believe in a 'God' as such.
I have often sat in churches and talked out loud to something when times have not been good but that's not because i 'believe'.
I am not religious at all but am much more into spiritual things.
We're a curious breed in so many ways. Most of us walk this planet believing in this god, that god or a higher being than ourselves. It's like we feel the need to be led by something or someone and are not strong enough to believe in ourselves for what we are.

[Stween]

We're a curious breed in so many ways. Most of us walk this planet believing in this god, that god or a higher being than ourselves. It's like we feel the need to be led by something or someone and are not strong enough to believe in ourselves for what we are.

It's a curious one indeed. Our brains seem to be rigged to ask "why?", and when (certainly in many civilisations prior to our own) we run out of explanations for things, we draw a line beneath what we know and write "God" on the other side.

The advance of human knowledge has been pushing that boundary line for many thousands of years, but we still don't know enough. We only have our current timeframe (minus what we can tell from whatever artifacts are left by previous generations, previous civilisations, previous climate conditions, previous species entirely) to figure things out, so it's no wonder that it's difficult to really explain where things came from, how things came to be, and why that was the case. For a truly inquisitive mind, the line doesn't have "God" written on the other side, it has "The Unknown".

Given exactly what I have just said, it's quite clear that faith and knowledge are not mutually exclusive, so long as a distinction is made between "what we don't know" and "what God created", and accept that these two may overlap at points. But to decide, for example, that we were created by a supreme being and to not explore our creation is silly. (It's entirely possible, should one choose to believe so, that a supreme being came up with the idea of evolution and left us to get on with things).

I choose to believe that there is no supreme being, but as a scientist don't instantly deride the idea that there may be one either. For as long as I don't see proof, I find it difficult to believe. If somebody considers our existence proof enough, then who am I to argue?

[Progfrog]

God? isn't that that guy who played guitar on Pros and cons..... ? (EC)

[mosespa]

Not to be inflammatory, but I see even more examples of people who decide to stop believing in God because He doesn't live up to their idea of what He should be.

"My child was born with a debilitating condition, ergo, there is no God."

"My spouse is an alcoholic...what God would allow such a thing to happen to me?"

"My father used to beat me, therefore, there is no God."

Here's what people are failing to grasp:

God is NOT a puppet master. The limitations that people try to put upon God (i.e., "if there is a God, then (blank) would never happen,") only underscore their failure to understand that there ARE no limitations to God.

It's a "Domino Effect," folks. If my grandchildren end up looking like dolphins...is it a lack of God's presence that caused this? Or is it all the acid that I did back in the 1990's?

The time of God preventing every sort of misfortune from befalling humans ended when (according to Christian Theology,) mankind fell from Grace (having discovered Good and Evil.) When that happened, a barrier was erected (by our own hands) between humans and God.

Now...I'm not trying to preach and I'm not trying to convert anyone. I'm simply approaching this discussion the same way I would any other. I have answers to your questions...you may not like those answers, but they are the answers that my own independent study has arrived at.

They may be the right answers...they may not be.

People speak as if they expect God to constantly be on standby to protect them from misfortune...and when misfortune strikes (and misfortune IS often the result of the Domino Effect of us making our own bad decisions,) they blame God and declare that he doesn't exist. Their only reasoning is that if God DID exist, then this thing wouldn't have happened to me.

Let me ask you this question:

Who the HELL (pun intended,) are YOU that God should drop whatever he's doing to keep you from experiencing life in all it's forms? Especially when you put such conditions on your relationship with God as "if You really exist, then my life will be one of ease and comfort. If it's not, then I'll stop believing in You."

How would YOU feel if your nearest and dearest friend said to you "I will only be your friend as long as it benefits me...when your friendship ceases to benefit me, I will no longer be your friend?"

I would feel that that person isn't much of a friend at all. In fact, I'm sure that everyone here is familiar with the term "Fairweather Friend."

Aren't Fairweather Friends something to be avoided?

If WE realize that...why shouldn't God?

[ironbaden]

As I sat in Church on Friday morning staring at that little white Coffin while my heart broke into millions of pieces .......the question answered itself for me My Nephew , who never even got to take a Breath has shown me.....

[WishIwasthere]

With regards mosespa. If you believe there is a god, then that god is not your nearest and dearest friend, he is the being who created us and as such bears responsibility for us.

The reason I do not believe in god is that how could someone who created us and is supposed to love us so much, turn his back on us and simply state that we have to find our own way.

I created my children and will protect them and help them until my dying breath. I will never turn my back on them and although they will have to make their own way in life at some point, I will never leave them alone when they need me.

I can't see any god allowing terrible things to happen to his people wether they believe in him or not. Therefore I can't believe there is one.

[The Ballad Of Pink Floyd]

I belive in God, but I can't say that I "belong" to any chourch.

[mosespa]

1. With regards mosespa. If you believe there is a god, then that god is not your nearest and dearest friend, he is the being who created us and as such bears responsibility for us.

2. The reason I do not believe in god is that how could someone who created us and is supposed to love us so much, turn his back on us and simply state that we have to find our own way.

3. I created my children and will protect them and help them until my dying breath. I will never turn my back on them and although they will have to make their own way in life at some point, I will never leave them alone when they need me.

4. I can't see any god allowing terrible things to happen to his people wether they believe in him or not. Therefore I can't believe there is one.

1. I beg to differ...He has no "responsibility" for us. WHO is there for Him to be held responsible by?

2. I'm not aware of God ever turning his back on us and saying that we have to find our own way. God TOLD us the way...it's us who've turned our backs on Him, you see.

You're proving this yourself whether you realize it or not.

3. This is how God views us. Again, I have to say that your meaning seems to be "if there was a God, then bad things wouldn't happen to people," and this IS NOT THE CASE.

"Heaven" is where bad things stop happening...not here on earth.

4. This is because instead of trying to understand what God is, you are insisting on God being as YOU think He should be.

That's now how it works, I'm afraid.

[grelch]

Life isn't black or white, yes or no, and neither too should be this question.

[Sonic Destruction]

The question about why God doesn't seem to hear or respond to our cries for distress is a tricky one. People have been debating it for at least 2000 years, and so I am not presuming to come up with a definitive answer. However, since I have become a parent, I have seen some things that have helped me to come to terms with what God may have been doing when it seemed like He was not going to help me out of whatever disastrous circumstances I was in (and, whatever people may say, I believe that awful things happen to believers and non-believers alike; a fair few have happened to me!).

I can remember my daughter's first day at kindergarten, and how she was screaming and crying, and terrified that I was abandoning her. There is no way that I could explain to her that this was something I had to do, and that my heart was crying out to just pick her up, take her home and stop the tears. I tried to explain that this was something that had to happen, but she was too upset, fearful, and just too young to understand what was happening. Leaving her that day was one of the hardest things I had done as a parent up to that time (although there have been plenty of times since where we have found ourselves in the same situation).

I see God's relationship with us as being a little bit like that; after all, isn't He "our Father"? Sometimes I can look back over my own life and think, "well, that was a really crap situation in my life, but I can see why I had to go through that", whereas other times even 20/20 hindsight does not give me an answer as to why something had to happen. I think it is down to trust. I need my kids to trust that I love them and I have their best interests at heart, even when it seems like I am not heeding their cries; I think God wants us to do the same.

This may not be much of an answer to anyone else's situation, but I have found it helpful for my own questions as to the nature of God (and believe me I have a lot of questions! If you are going to attempt to base your life on any kind of philosophy/theology then you want to really question it).

I will shut up now!

[Progfrog]

Just look at Stigmata...... the best movie ever.... and realise there is no god....(open a discussion)

[Sonic Destruction]

Read Stephen Hawking and realise that there is One!