Do you believe in God?

[((KvN))]

Actually, I was going to say that here and to myself also. It starts off as a debate or so, then flaming, then all out war. *walks away*

[Xaenn]

Nobody looks like they are getting dismembered here...

[TREKK]

If you call this a flame war, you are truly unexperienced in the arts of ORD (Online Religious Debates). This is actually one of the most peacefull debates I've seen on this topic for a loooooong time.

[Xaenn]

Yeah, religious debates at EP are generally quite civil.

[((KvN))]

lol, no, I didn't call this a flame war. Cause we have threads like these before (SPOIERS, OOPS) and most of them don't end up happy. Either locked [/spoilers] or, what not. Goo goo hahaha!

Or Xaenn could be right.

[Jaws]

I do believe in him but I don't. He supposed to be in control of everything. If he is, why is he doing this to all these people: civilians, soldiers...I mean; does he like seeing this?


This world is going to end over religion. The way people are in this world today. We're done for.

[Soeru]

People who go to church are more relaxed and there fore have a little less stress then people who dont go to church. People who go to church live life more safely with out drugs and shit..

This is biased narrow-minded bullshit. Read my own quoted post below.

i dont need an explanation i just wanna hurt an aethiest brain by making them think of an explanation

You should be more respectful of other people's beleifs. I can explain why I choose to beleive in what I do in such a detailed fashion that I dare say I could write something more comprehensive than the bible, but I have no need nor any desire to do so, as I don't go around indoctrinating people with my own belief and make people live the way I want them to. I already briefly explained my thoughts in my first post in this thread(I edited out irrelevant stuff):

... I don't see emptiness in the lack of afterlife or a supreme being. Since I don't believe in an afterlife, I'm not going to strive to be a role model in this life to later enjoy heaven... so I'll enjoy the life I have now and do as I please within what I find morally correct. I know it's going to end at some point so why not make the best out of it?

Atheists and agnostics can be very happy with their own life and the lack of faith. I believe I've never met a devout Catholic that didn't have any inner turmoils or big regrets about their lives, no one extremely happy about having their own life. I of course have my own regrets but they don't stop me from enjoying my life. Though I probably don't show it at all, I have a very optimistic attitude towards my own life and where it's going, and I don't need to believe in a God or an afterlife to make it better.

I don't agree with this "if there is evil there must be good"... because I interpret the words differently. In an old fashioned Christian community, any follower of pagan religion is considered evil and subhuman, and stuff like this still happens today, and is not exclusive to Christian societies. "Evil" is one of the many facets of human nature, but it's just a word. Ie: what is "evil" to you? Killing someone unarmed and innocent or killing someone in the name of your belief? It's murder, so they're the same to me, I don't pick around with that too much.

Here's a quirk of mine: I'm a pure atheist, but I think like an agnostic(or the other way around). I don't outright deny the existence of something supreme, but whatever it is I don't see it as a "God" or anything that can be personified as a human or creature. As cheesy as it sounds, if there is a "God" I believe he is a "force" that might explain some mysteries to the origin of our universe, I see God as a combination of matter, time, space, and the laws of physics. Definately it's not something that is alive that sees or feels or can even think at all, so it's not some guy in a throne judging humans or whatever.

But even my own little theory is something I doubt, hence why sometimes I fall back on the belief of pure atheism, which I back up with logic and science, and build my morals on personal experiences/history/etc., a bit like a Secular Humanist. I also don't feel like explaining this to everyone that asks me so I'll just spare them the boredom and say I'm an atheist and I don't believe in a God, much quicker.

Either way, I don't need to use a word like "atheist" to describe the kind of person I am or the way I think. I don't bother making claims since it's only going to limit what people will think of me as a human being, not to mention that atheists/agnostics don't belong to any organization so there's no point in me pointing out I'm an atheist/agnostic/whatever.

[Xaenn]

He supposed to be in control of everything. If he is, why is he doing this to all these people: civilians, soldiers...I mean; does he like seeing this?

If God exerted force over the world of course he could control it. He could've created man with the ability to inherently know only good and act in no wrong...But that would give us a meaningless existence. If we did not have free will faith would be meaningless. Our suffering is because of our own doing.

[pirates dc]

This is biased narrow-minded bullshit. Read my own quoted post below.



You should be more respectful of other people's beleifs. I can explain why I choose to beleive in what I do in such a detailed fashion that I dare say I could write something more comprehensive than the bible, but I have no need nor any desire to do so, as I don't go around indoctrinating people with my own belief and make people live the way I want them to. I already briefly explained my thoughts in my first post in this thread(I edited out irrelevant stuff):

WTF are you talking about? go take your fuckin meds and chill

[Soeru]

Re-read the post if you didn't grasp it. You're making a huge assumption that non-beleivers are more stressed and may be more exposed drug problems, that's a close-minded generalization. I have a more positive attitude towards my own life than anyone I've ever met, I'm no arrogant cunt but I'm happy with what I'm doing and where I'm going with my life.

3 of my friends are devout Catholics yet they drink themselves to a stupor every weekend and get high on mushrooms and marijuana on occasion. Several pimps, drug lords and other criminals are also deeply religious. But I don't make generalizations despite these scenarios.

My second claim was that nobody needs to explain why they beleive in what they do, I beleive that asking someone that is immensely rude. Though I seriously question the goal of a Christian lifestyle I keep those inquiries to myself, as believers would probably find it offensive. Not to mention that I don't care but sometimes I am intrigued as to what is their goal in life.

Lastly, I'm not on any medication, I'm merely annoyed that you arrogantly questioned other people's beleif and that you made a fatheaded generalization of atheists, whom you know nothing about.

[Toto]

Nup. I don't believe in any sort of being type person.

[karragh]

I'll put my vote into the census, I don't believe in a god, but I don't not believe in a god.
The consept is, when I die and go to hell, I'll think "Oh, well there's my proof then."

[J03]

*sigh* as much as I really do hate getting involved in these topics, I figure I'll make one post in this topic, then that's it, but I'll tell you what, I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, I believe in the Holy Spirit, and I am a Baptised Catholic. Now having said that, this should give you a good idea of my back ground... but what gives me reason to believe, is the fact of certain 'strange' things in this world, such as spirits, entitys, and the like. Now I'm certain most of us may have seen the exorcist (based on a true story believe it or not), or maybe The Ammityville Horror (also based on a true story) which would also make for a good example, but either than that, it cannot be denied that there are indeed spirits and the like in this world. now covering the fact that "If God's so powerful, why's there so much crap in the world" and other such complaints. Well, first of all, people do need to grow up. Keep in mind that the world is what we make it, you can't blame something that's your fault on somebody else, that's childish and immature, and it won't make things any better. Now while there are some really good people in the world, we're all guilty of a fault. Even I have faults (yeh, how about that, eh?). but if we want the world to be better, then we gotta make ourselves better as people. Now onto things like poverty, disease, and the like. If things like that didn't exist, then neither could good deeds of charity, selfless generosity, or unconditional acts towards strangers. Well, whether I've covered it all or not, I don't really care, there's my input and I do not wish to discuss it any further.

[Norgus]

'If god is all powerful why allow suffering?' as already stated is utter bull, if I were to run a realistic computer simulation of many lifeforms I'd make thenm at a basic level and let the simulation play out without going into the thing and alterring memory states to try and make my simulated beings 'good'.
What the hell would be the point in such a simulation if you are instructing your lifeforms on how to work, would it be more interesting to watch such things happening if there was not some contrast in behaviour of individual 'beings'?

good and bad (or evil, if you must use that stupid word) are totally subjective. In some video games the bad character/unit would be the one that can't efficiently kill opposing units and a good one would be one which kills/destrys a lot of your foes.
But in real life many (not even sure if you could say most for this) people have morals which say to the contrary that things such as killing other people is not something you should do.

So to sum up, if I was a creator in whatever little sense then I'd watch things play through as they would with free will or else there is no meaning.

[GundamGuy]

Now onto things like poverty, disease, and the like. If things like that didn't exist, then neither could good deeds of charity, selfless generosity, or unconditional acts towards strangers. Well, whether I've covered it all or not, I don't really care, there's my input and I do not wish to discuss it any further.

Are you really saying that Poverty, disease exist so that people can do good deeds and go to heaven

:EDIT: by saying this you Imply that we should not try to eliminate Poverty, and Disease so that Religous People can do good deads...