Do you belive in god/ a god

BoroMart said:
I believe its a mixture of the human method of associating their patterns of behaviour to natural world phenomena. I.e. people from ancient times cowering on their knees when the sun disappears in the middle of the day and all turns black. They didn't know what was going on were frightened, dropped to their knees and wailed and shouted for the sun to come back. 4 years later there is another eclipse, so they do the same again, tell all to drop to their knees and beg for the sun to come back. And thus the first religions were born. It's an evolution from this kind of behaviour, to drop to your knees and beg (or pray if you like, same thing) an imaginary friend to make it a good harvest. Then to make you wealthy, or your grans cancer to disappear.



or non existent. But if they exist and are disinterested, then this galaxy can't have been for us


That's a postulation, an assertion but not one that holds much weight. Particularly when we start to understand that early universe can't have had physics that we don't recognise or fully understand today


It's really easy, and considering the hundreds of years they have had, we can pretty much discard the majority of what is written in scriptures, of all flavours, as mumbo-jumbo. That doesn't of course in itself mean there is no god, but I'd heavily lean on that side to the point of nearly absolute.
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I read one of dawkins books where he covered the popularity of religion, though not very well. The blind watchmaker, as I recall.

Anyhow, dawkins postulates that if religion wasn't driven by evolution, it wouldn't exist. He did have some theories as to why religion developed, and what benefits it creates for survival and all he could come up with was that it creates a shared sense of belonging, but then so does marriage and family and villages.

I don't think it's as simple as trying to understand the world around us and praying to the sun god so he comes back tomorrow. We would have observed that soo many times prior to a sun god being created.

Who knows.

I disagree on the idea that, if the universe never existed at one point in time, then came into being, then it could just be science we don't understand as postulation that doesn't hold water. Quite the opposite. For something to be created, something else has to create it. Everything in the universe can be traced back to very simple atoms, which can be created in a lab, with enough energy. That is well understood and we do it today.

However, if the universe wasn't, then was, that is a very big hurdle to get over without some kind of driving or creative force. I have read many theories such as the universe was created by an overflow from another universe via a black hole. Bumkum I suspect, but then Einstein thought quantum mechanics was a load of old nonsense, so I am in good company.

interesting conversation though.
 
NYboro said:
It's the mice.
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Hawkins tells a story in, I think, A Brief History of Time, where an old lady listened to one of his lectures and was speaking to him after the lecture and she told him he was wrong on the nature of the world and the wider universe. When he asked her for her theory she said the world was on the back of a giant turtle. He responded, but what is the giant turtle standing on. To which she replied, very clever young man, but its turtles all the way down.
 
BaronSmoggie said:
Agreed, but this has merit. The irony in sims (humans) themselves creating a game that replicates human life actually being sims themselves is not lost on me. There is another paper which I am trying to find which talks about mathematical coincidences in the Universe that could only happen inside a computer simulation. I am not for one second saying I am a staunch believer, but there is a lot of evidence to suggest that it has some merit in being real. If it is, it doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. It just means the end of the Universe is someone's hard drive finally borking :)
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The question is: do they play sims in sims? is it an infinite loop of simming?
 
redblood said:
Oh my god, for heavens sake, what a question. Hell no. ;)

I don't criticise, for those that believe, but, I think that if there is a god, He/ She or It is doing a very poor job of looking over and caring for us.

He/ She or It has sat back and watched us throughout mankinds history, invade, kill, maim, rape and imprison and enslave one another and often in the name of god.
He/ She or It has also watched as we, to this day, are still doing this not only to mankind but to creatures that He/She/It created, and many to extinction.
He/ She or It is also sitting back just watching us destroy the planet, the home that He/ She /It created for us.

It's certainly not a god that I would have any faith in if there were to be one.
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Parents sit back and watch their children take first steps knowing they are going to fall and hurt themselves, ride a bike and fall off, fall in love and get hurt, see them making mistakes but allow them to learn from it. You know, as a parent, all of this is going to happen yet you still allow it instead of wrapping your children in cotton wool to prevent it.
 
Laughing said:
I read one of dawkins books where he covered the popularity of religion, though not very well. The blind watchmaker, as I recall.
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I haven't read that one, I have read the God Delusion which was a good read with some interesting takes on the evolution and perpetuality of religion.

Laughing said:
We would have observed that soo many times prior to a sun god being created.
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well we don't really have the visibility far enough back to what they prayed to. We just know that for all history humans have prayed, to a number of deities. That dieties come and go out of fashion and nonen of them pop up to say hello and thanks for all the praying.

Laughing said:
I disagree on the idea that, if the universe never existed at one point in time, then came into being, then it could just be science we don't understand as postulation that doesn't hold water. Quite the opposite. For something to be created, something else has to create it.
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Plenty of scientists would state different. Technically the big bang and big crunch doesn't need matter to be created from nothing it also doesn't need a creator. All matter exists infinitely, it just happens to be infinitely compressed at the peak of a big crunch/big bang. The idea of multiverse theory gets away from the idea that our universe appears from nothing, it could simply be a transference of matter from another universe, which again negates the need for a creator. Then we get into the concept of what pre-big bang would mean in a physical sense and in a sense of laws of physics, a state of absolute entropy, we don't really know what that means and looks like or if that would prevent the generation of matter. We do know the laws of our universe break down in that state of singularity, so we cannot state with certainty that the universe cannot pop up from nothing. It's a head breaker.

But we cannot get away from the dichotomy of the god of gaps. Filling the gap of who created all the matter with a god, just creates another gap, who created god. I can't personally buy into the god of gaps hypothesis
 
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BoroMart said:
I haven't read that one, I have read the God Delusion which was a good read with some interesting takes on the evolution and perpetuality of religion.


well we don't really have the visibility far enough back to what they prayed too. We just know that for all history humans have prayed, to a number of deities. That dieties come and go out of fashion and nonen of them pop up to say hello and thanks for all the praying.


Plenty of scientists would state different. Technically the big bang and big crunch doesn't need matter to be created from nothing it also doesn't need a creator. All matter exists infinitely, it just happens to be infinitely compressed at the peak of a big crunch/big bang. The idea of multiverse theory gets away from the idea that our universe appears from nothing, it could simply be a transference of matter from another universe, which again negates the need for a creator. Then we get into the concept of what pre-big bang would mean in a physical sense and in a sense of laws of physics, a state of absolute entropy, we don't really know what that means and looks like or if that would prevent the generation of matter. We do know the laws of our universe break down in that state of singularity, so we cannot state with certainty that the universe cannot pop up from nothing. It's a head breaker.

But we cannot get away from the dichotomy of the god of gaps. Filling the gap of who created all the matter with a god, just creates another gap, who created god. I can't personally buy into the god of gaps hypothesis
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On your last point, I did caveat with if the universe wasn't then it was. I find the idea of a singularity being all the matter of the universe contained in an infinitely small point difficult to understand. Of course that doesn't make it untrue. Science specifically states that a singularity is just where our maths breaks down due to the use of infinity. The singularity of a blackhole, for example can be massive in size, but the way it bends space/time has the side effect of our maths not working.

God of gaps is a worrying argument for me. I understand that god existed everywhere once, he made the season turn and the sun rise. To use that argument to suggest that we will eventually have a theory of everything with no gaps.. Nah not for me, nor would we want that, I expect. I suspect there will eventually be an unknowable, and in that space, god will exist, at least for some.

I don't know, but then, who does!
 
Laughing said:
I find the idea of a singularity being all the matter of the universe contained in an infinitely small point difficult to understand.
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It's all a headbreaker after a long hard week at work :ROFLMAO:

Laughing said:
God of gaps is a worrying argument for me. I understand that god existed everywhere once, he made the season turn and the sun rise. To use that argument to suggest that we will eventually have a theory of everything with no gaps.. Nah not for me, nor would we want that, I expect. I suspect there will eventually be an unknowable, and in that space, god will exist, at least for some.
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God of the gaps is more about the statement 'God did it!' in answer to any gaps in scientific knowledge. That's the but that churns my stomach, makes my eyes roll, and pick up my keyboard :D .

I'm comfortable that many, many things are unknown, and that somethings will be unknowable forever. I just find 'god did it' presumption, avoidance of debate, and occasionally arrogant when people turn to that.

The real answer is we don't know, and that's fine, we can desire to know, we can postulate, and explore ideas, "Maybe god did it?", sure lets dive into that and see if it's got any evidence to support it, the answer is of course always the same "no, there is no evidence that god did it, but he might". And maybe the universe just sprung out of a giant intergalactic ducks ass, is just as likely.
 
Same_as_before said:
A brave lad on an message board takes Christ's name in vain and offends a lot of decent people. I do so much admire this sort of bravery. Probably the lad who ran away from the Derby fans outside the ground.
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Reading a bit much into it I think. I found it funny that he said Christ and then no.
 
I think you have to distinguish between God and organised religion. I have no problem with people who have faith, but Organised religion and worship is a different matter. Whos to say your God doesn't think your an utter fool for worshipping and going to church, whos to say god even wants churches and Mosques . For all you know your god might want you to cross your fingers as much as pray to him or her. Organised religion is mans interpretation of gods wishes, apart from it isn't, its a mechanism to keep the poor, the weak and the disadvantaged in line. You look at the wealth of the C of E and Catholic Church through the Vatican they have millions of pounds whilst people are starving all over the world, the thousands of lives ruined in ireland of the past centuries because of the catholic church. That's not gods fault but organised religion.
 
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expecting people to sit there and vocalise how thankful they are to you is pretty f$%$%n conceited like. That turned me off Christianity at about 8 even before I started to question what utter nonsense I was reading.
 
Same_as_before said:
Stick to taking the p iss out of my religion it's easy.
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I didn't. I commented once to say No, I don't believe it God. And the second was because I found it funny that he used something that signifies Christianity and then said he didn't believe in it. Thats what was funny, not that he didn't believe.

If you choose to believe, have at it, I don't particularly care either way, religion is for you and not for me and I don't have the inclination to mock people about it. If you go back and review what I have posted, you'll see that.
 
BaronSmoggie said:
I didn't. I commented once to say No, I don't believe it God. And the second was because I found it funny that he used something that signifies Christianity and then said he didn't believe in it. Thats what was funny, not that he didn't believe.

If you choose to believe, have at it, I don't particularly care either way, religion is for you and not for me and I don't have the inclination to mock people about it. If you go back and review what I have posted, you'll see that.
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You seem to care
 
BaronSmoggie said:
I care that you have a misperception of me, not that you are upset because of a perceived sleight against your religion.
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Don't worry about it, see my earlier post, I don't do religion. I believe in a God. I am Catholic simply because of my upbringing.


Hopefully it decides we stuff Millwall tomorrow.
 
BoroGold said:
Strict believers would all give the same answer/excuse in their argument FOR a God and that is, that he gives us all a free will and therefore the people who commit those heinous crimes do so by choice, thereby absolving their God.
I prefer to ask the question when I sadly see some terribly disabled people, WHY ! why can't they enjoy the same quality of life as the majority of us ? Their sad situation has nothing whatsoever to do with choice, or THEIR Free Will.
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Could you not just then argue that disability is the result of someone else's free will somewhere earlier on the causal chain?

Quite neatly absolving God of all and any responsibility for anything...
 
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