How I know there is no God

[ArchaicTruth]

Dear Drifter 5,

Actually you may think God knows who I am, but the fact is how is that possible? Because there are over six point five billion people alive today, and there are over six billion people who have ever lived in the history of the human race, is it even possible God would know who I am, without physically meeting me? Think about it, how is it possible? Just one more post to go.

Now, Thomas, I've come to respect you, but come on, this is just a bit disappointing to me. No matter what the nature of his existence, if God exists, then he is omnipotent, and therefore, all understanding.

 

[dlamberth]

...if God exists, then he is omnipotent, and therefore, all understanding.

As a lover of God, the only way the image of God being omnipotent works for me is that God is all, and being all, God has power over all. It's an image of God being united, whole and One with the very fabric of life itself. And that's where God's power lies.

I know that Christians, for the most part, have an image of God as separate from His own creation. If in fact that's true, at that point I don't see how God can be omnipotent.

.

 

[DailyBlessings]

As a lover of God, the only way the image of God being omnipotent works for me is that God is all, and being all, God has power over all. It's an image of God being united, whole and One with the very fabric of life itself. And that's where God's power lies.

I know that Christians, for the most part, have an image of God as separate from His own creation. If in fact that's true, at that point I don't see how God can be omnipotent.

.

Not all Christians. Both panentheism and predestination have long pedigrees in Christian thought. Nevertheless, omnipotence is possible without these two, as the term implies that God is all-powerful, but not necessarily that he exercises that power in all situations.

 

[phsyxx]

Now, Thomas, I've come to respect you, but come on, this is just a bit disappointing to me. No matter what the nature of his existence, if God exists, then he is omnipotent, and therefore, all understanding.

ERm......wouldn't that be omniscient?
Omniscient = all-knowing
omnipotent = all-powerful
benevolent = all loving.

Just thought those terms might help.

 

[phsyxx]

Not all Christians. Both panentheism and predestination have long pedigrees in Christian thought. Nevertheless, omnipotence is possible without these two, as the term implies that God is all-powerful, but not necessarily that he exercises that power in all situations.

See to me, DailyBlessings, if an all-powerful being chooses to let something happen - then isn't that just as much an expression of their power as not letting something happen?

Remembering that all-powerful means with all the power - therefore there can be no other power than that of God.
Meaning, if God chooses NOT to save someone - that is still as much God's will as saving someone.

You get what I'm getting at?

 

[drifter5]

"Souls in danger look above, Jesus completely saves, He will lift you by His love, out of the angry waves. "

 

[ArchaicTruth]

ERm......wouldn't that be omniscient?
Omniscient = all-knowing
omnipotent = all-powerful
benevolent = all loving.

Just thought those terms might help.

yeah, my bad, it's all good to me, though omnipotent and omniscient kinda go hand in hand.

 

[DoubtingThomas29]

Dear Archaic Truth,

This is where the understanding of the God concept can get more sophisticated for you. How can a being called God be omnipotent and even ominiscient for that matter?

To be omnipotent he would have to be able to make a boulder so heavy even he could not lift it. But if that is possible, then there is a boulder he cannot lift. He would have to be able to make it possible for all married men to be bachelors, but that is impossible. Because Bachelors are men of marriable age who have never married except the pope.

For a being to be omnisicient he would have to know everything, and how is that possible? How is God going to know the names of everyone who has lived is living now and ever will live? There is just too many of us for that to be possible.

You could have a being that knows to the finest details how the physics of the universe works and how life works on a planet, but really not to the point where it is aware of all that is living, like even insects for goodness sakes.

Think about it.

 

[dukifluff]

if you dont beleive in god why join a christian website??

 

[dukifluff]

Dear Archaic Truth,

This is where the understanding of the God concept can get more sophisticated for you. How can a being called God be omnipotent and even ominiscient for that matter?

To be omnipotent he would have to be able to make a boulder so heavy even he could not lift it. But if that is possible, then there is a boulder he cannot lift. He would have to be able to make it possible for all married men to be bachelors, but that is impossible. Because Bachelors are men of marriable age who have never married except the pope.

For a being to be omnisicient he would have to know everything, and how is that possible? How is God going to know the names of everyone who has lived is living now and ever will live? There is just too many of us for that to be possible.

You could have a being that knows to the finest details how the physics of the universe works and how life works on a planet, but really not to the point where it is aware of all that is living, like even insects for goodness sakes.

Think about it.

god isnt a living thing
god is a spirit
therefore he doesnt not need to lift a boulder
also it is possible for god to know everything, this is hard for some to understand because they cannot know everything, its like polar bears can smell things for up to 100 miles but some humans find this hard to understand because humans cant.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

if you dont beleive in god why join a christian website??

I can't answer for anyone else, but I registered because I wanted to join the Creation/Evolution debate. I quickly expanded into the other areas of the 'Discussion & Debate' subforum.
Notice that The Rules do not require one to be a Christian. Indeed, there are Christian Only sections for people who get scared by non-Christians.

If we make you uncomfortable, perhaps you'd like to go to such a place?

 

[DoubtingThomas29]

Dear Dukifluf,

It is a good question that deserves a good answer, I'll try to keep it short.

I am so glad to hear people say Christianity has a lot of traditions in it that are man made and that the bible is wirtten by men not God really. I mean just look at Leviticus 21:9 and Matthew 5:7-9 or 17-19, I can't remember which on the Matthew part right now, but that clearly shows no great humanitarian wrote the Bible.

So part of me has an agenda, and that is to see the Jihad come to an end, and muslim people come to this web site, and frankly people are more open minded to atheists and agnostics here than I can imagine at a muslim site.

So I have a lot of free time, and i feel like I can do some good by getting more religious people to agree to be a moderate and give up the superstious fears of ghosts, demons, hell and saton. I feel the world would be a better place without those ideas.

I would like to see the Theory of Evolution taught in all fifty states and not regard Natural Selection as a swear word in our public school system.

I know it would take a major disaster for there to be a mass apostasy, such as a terroist organization blowing up Mecca or Medina, that would do something that would ultimately put Religion on the decline. There probably would be a huge Jihad after that, but eventually people would get the idea, there just is no God out there. Hopefully it won't come to that.

But I sincerely believe that if religious beliefes become less organized and more individualistic then we will be closer to world peace even if someone destroyed Mecca and Medina.

 

[quatona]

if you dont beleive in god why join a christian website??

If you are not interested in discussing your religion with non-believers why create a forum for that very purpose?
I was invited here. Consider my presence a selfless service to those who expressed their interest in discussing with non-christians.

 

[DailyBlessings]

See to me, DailyBlessings, if an all-powerful being chooses to let something happen - then isn't that just as much an expression of their power as not letting something happen?

Remembering that all-powerful means with all the power - therefore there can be no other power than that of God.
Meaning, if God chooses NOT to save someone - that is still as much God's will as saving someone.

You get what I'm getting at?

That's actually what I was getting at.

 

[DailyBlessings]

Dear Dukifluf,

It is a good question that deserves a good answer, I'll try to keep it short.

I am so glad to hear people say Christianity has a lot of traditions in it that are man made and that the bible is wirtten by men not God really. I mean just look at Leviticus 21:9 and Matthew 5:7-9 or 17-19, I can't remember which on the Matthew part right now, but that clearly shows no great humanitarian wrote the Bible.

So part of me has an agenda, and that is to see the Jihad come to an end, and muslim people come to this web site, and frankly people are more open minded to atheists and agnostics here than I can imagine at a muslim site.

So I have a lot of free time, and i feel like I can do some good by getting more religious people to agree to be a moderate and give up the superstious fears of ghosts, demons, hell and saton. I feel the world would be a better place without those ideas.

I would like to see the Theory of Evolution taught in all fifty states and not regard Natural Selection as a swear word in our public school system.

I know it would take a major disaster for there to be a mass apostasy, such as a terroist organization blowing up Mecca or Medina, that would do something that would ultimately put Religion on the decline. There probably would be a huge Jihad after that, but eventually people would get the idea, there just is no God out there. Hopefully it won't come to that.

But I sincerely believe that if religious beliefes become less organized and more individualistic then we will be closer to world peace even if someone destroyed Mecca and Medina.

Wait a minute, you think that extremism results from greater organization of religion? The exact opposite is true. Terrorists come from little tiny communities not accountable to anyone. If Islam had a central authority like the Pope dictating every aspect of faith, and everyone listened to that person, there would be no earthly-warfare-styler jihad at all; such ideas are plainly contrary to traditional Muslim belief. The very first targets of the Muslim Brotherhood were political figures whose ideas were regarded as too moderate. And no, religion does not come to a halt due to holy wars or the loss of sacred places: it gets more entrenched. Did belief in the Judeo-Christian God disappear when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70? Actually, it more or less took over the world. Reality contradicts your hypothesis.

By the way, there are many wonderful Muslim members here on CF- you should wander over to the Non-Christian Religion forum some time and meet them.

 

[DoubtingThomas29]

Dear Daily Blessings,

You're right I should meet more muslims, the only people I ever talk to are atheists agnostics and christians. I used to have a real good friend who's name was Shamshad he was a muslim and is part of the reason why I became an atheist.

He was married to a hindu lady.

I still feel though that tthe less organized religion gets the more moderate it gets and you get less extremists, but tthen again I am only conjecturing, you might know more about it than I do.

I do wish this Jihad would end and I think if muslims were brought up learning about a comparitive religion class that would help them with realizing a caring and loving God would not create hell.

 

[DailyBlessings]

I do wish this Jihad would end and I think if muslims were brought up learning about a comparitive religion class that would help them with realizing a caring and loving God would not create hell.

The more scattered and indivisualistic religion becomes, the less likely it is that anyone is going to end up in a comparative religion class. The biggest reason why American Christianity has gone over to End Times cultists is that preachers and church leaders left the organized denominations and stopped teaching that instruction in religious history is important. Most congregations have no higher authority than their own pastor, likely untrained, whose words they take to be absolutely binding. Thus they can say that Scripture instructs just about anything, and their congregation must agree. This is the result of increased individualism.

 

[MorkandMindy]

I still feel though that tthe less organized religion gets the more moderate it gets and you get less extremists, but tthen again I am only conjecturing, you might know more about it than I do.

I sort of agree with both of you

Toward the end of the Dark Ages the persecution by the established Christian Church became fierce once again, as it had from the late 300s until the collapse of the Roman Empire, and here and there in the intervening period as well.

It is the challenge to Christian domination that led to violence. From the arrival of works by Aristotle taken as the Moors left Spain, for two hundred years the Church used firstly heresy and then witchcraft trials to repress dissent.

But in the US as Daily Blessings commented, the disorganised Christian groups have no responsibility to put together a coherent Christian message or doctrine and are therefore preaching all sorts of different messages and causing a lot of friction. Just look in the Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism forums if you want to see a real war.

Those D... seem to be against everybody. I've had emails from conservative right wing American Fundies stating that Europe is all ungodly (mainly true, but a lot nicer than the fundies in America...), against rival christians who are Covenant theology, calling Catholics the Church of Satan, and then with whatever hate is left over, against Christadelphians, J Ws, Mormons, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Secular Humanists, Spiritualists, Unitarians, you name it they hate it.


So I guess there are two routes to peace:

1. The entire World should be Roman Catholic / Orthodox. They are big enough to make a workable theology and do of course have enough tolerance to get on with each other. That Catholics do stay together and Protestants keep fragmenting is clear evidence in favour of Catholicism as the way ahead.

2. The World can be split between RC / Orthodox and Buddhist / Humanist / Atheist. The Catholic Church is nothing like the monster it was a thousand years ago because it is now compatible with humanism. This is sort of like the balance of power, the Catholic Church now accepts that other religions can be beneficial. Talk about making sense.

 

[Plecto]

I haven't read the whole thread and perhaps this has been braught up before, but I would like a christian to answer this question.

As the author said, there has been so many different believs on our planet and there is still many believes left. If a truly dedicated christian is reading this, what do you think about that there is many people out there that has the opposit belief than you but as strong or stronger belief than you? Both of you CANNOT be right! How do handle this topic? That "there is a small chance that my beliefe is the real truth" or "all others are wrong"?

 

[phsyxx]

That's actually what I was getting at.

Cool. So we've reached a point of shared understanding. Cool.

God still has control over everything though.
Which means that if God chooses not to control something - surely He is responsible for the resultant consequences?

And if he is omniscient - surely he would know result?
Which means, surely, he is "using his discretion"?
As in - manipulating his creation as he sees fit?


Is that the kind of God you actually want to worship?