Why? Why must God exist? Honest, even handed questions

[perro_sarnoso]

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Well, I can’t with regards to smell. Don’t have any. True story. But, to give you examples:

Goodness - someone opening a door for someone else. Giving another patron some extra money when they realize they’re short on their bill at the cafe.

Freedom - watching a parent being able to go home and spend quality time with their child(ren) rather than slave away at a company that pays less in taxes than they do. Being able to stand up to the church and flip 'em the bird and tell them that my sperm are not sacred, and that if I want to have fun with my wife with the explicit object being to enjoy ourselves and not procreate, then so be it.

Justice - seeing a criminal who’s wronged someone else or society brought to answer for their actions. Watching Wall Street bankers go to jail for their financial raping of the American public.

Love - sitting down in my living room with my one son on my lap and my other son in the next chair over, and the wife on the other side, while we watch a football game or a movie.

Any and all of those things I just listed are all possible. WITHOUT GOD.

Life and love aren’t the result of divine intervention. They’re the result of two people exchanging bodily fluids about 41 years ago, and then the subsequent experiences of my time here on earth and then a mutual attraction between my wife and I.

Again, I really do appreciate everything that’s been said in this thread and I don’t wish anyone ill will or anything like that. I just wish I could get concrete answers to my questions that don’t either come down to quasi-philosopical/theological answers, or worse yet, the typical “because God made it so” responses.

I suppose I’ll never get what I’m searching for, because I figure the answers I’m seeking can’t be comprehended or explained by a human mind, and if there is a God, he’s not talking to me. Believe me, it’d be so much easier to be able to believe. I’m tormented by my atheism. But I just can’t reconcile in my head and heart that there’s a God out there who would allow the things I’ve talked about to happen. At this stage, to me, religion is nothing more than the perfect con job. The ultimate form of control. Whip people into shape with fear of fire and brimstone or the promise of forever awesomeness, but once they’ve slaved away all their lives and gone hoping to end up in heaven—they can’t come back to be mad because they’re dead and there’s nothing left but eternal darkness.

God’s passive will makes all those things you say “without God” possible.

God doesn’t strong arm anyone to do or think anything they don’t want but His grace is still at work in you, me and everyone that will accept His grace.

We choose to accept His grace or choose to reject it.

In realizing that God allows certain things to happen makes us aware of His passive will. In accepting that God has the power to make things happen, makes us aware of His active will.

Neither action from God violates your’s or my free will. His grace is constant for the taking.

We can choose to believe that God created all that is visible and invisible or we can choose to think that nothing made everything].

I choose faith and hope and Jesus.

 

[JDaniel]

I can’t imagine that the absence of all else, i.e., everything else, had, and has, the capability of not only instantiating the universe/multiverse, but also, maintaining and sustaining the universe/multiverse, by an exquisite series of algorithms that merely occurred amidst such infinite nothingness. If there is no first efficient cause (impetus), no first thought and creation of these algorithms, there is only one thing left: infinite and unpunctuated nothingness. Eons and eons and eons of pure, infinite nothingness. To hypothesize that the universe/multiverse was an emanation of mere infinite nothingness is an absurdity of the grandest proportions.

To think it, belies an illness. It belies a sickness that results in an utter violation of any and all logic and an aberration of the principles of sound thinking. One can argue anything else one wants, such as do we owe the Lord God our fealty, love, worship, respect, etc., etc. But, we cannot argue that a Prime Mover-Sustainer cannot, or does not exist.

We are a composite of stuff that is not much more than 99.9 % nothingness. Everything that we are aware of consists of approximately 99.9% nothingness. Only intellectuality could have designed the algorithm(s) of the “creation” and “maintenance” of “things.” If this “intellectuality” is, in fact, infinite nothingness, or one of it determinants, what then is the difference between it and what I prefer to call “God?” Hmmm? What’s the difference?

The Intellectual Infinite Nothingness has provided us practically all that we need in order to discern that He exists and MUST exist. Sickness, or incapacity of mind, or honest ignorance can say to us that we are so much more than mere puffs of nothingness (plus a quantity of dimensionless points). But that is arrogance; and further, a disbelief in science and physics. It belies an inordinate belief in matter alone in and for itself - without knowing what it is. Matter, which is nothing more than mere puffs of nothingness and dimensionless points!

Without the Master Algorithm Maker and Impetus, how else are we? Think it through. Without Him, as I prefer to refer to Him, we are not. The Advaitist believes that the purpose of beings is to BE. The Christian believes that the purpose of creatures is to be with the Creator.

The Creator’s infinite creation is souls. Souls, sometimes immersed in Infinite Nothingness (as angels), and sometimes in the s-gaps of incrementing s-frames (as matter/form composites, i.e, humans, for example).

God bless,
jd

 

[BOSS10L]

I read post #1.

It’s an atheist list of excuses for not believing in God.

I don’t call them questions because every topic has already been thoroughly discussed on these forums and many other places if somebody wants to look for them, and the writer says he’s 40 so he’s been around long enough to encounter the answers. Yet he lists all of these topics as if they’re brand new.

That’s not “questions”. That’s excuses.

Of course, they’ll have powerful impact on the young for whom they really are new.
That’s the real purpose of this thread.

Call them what you want. I know what my original intention was, and if I solely wanted to troll, I would have.

No, I haven’t been around long enough to encounter the answers, but I’ve surely been around enough bigoted, racist, homophobic wusses who use their “faith” as a shield to push their agendas.

I may come around some day (not likely though) to the idea of a higher power, but it surely won’t be in any form of an organized religion. Religion is nothing more than the single most evil, detrimental ideology ever invented. The Pope? Vatican? Bible? None of those things were even remotely close to what the supposed historical Jesus would have been about. They’re all man-made, a façade exerted on the people to keep them in line.

But keep telling yourself that I’m the bad guy. Just because I don’t particularly believe doesn’t mean that I’m evil. See, I don’t NEED an invisible god hanging the whole heaven/hell thing over my head to do the right thing and be a good person.

So you go on with your life. I’ll go on with mine. Thanks for yet again confirming my suspicions to what most believers are like.

To those who gave me a fair shake, I humbly thank you. I have taken your kind words to heart and struggle daily with the travails that have been thrust upon me. I wish you all great success in whatever your future endeavors are.

One last thing, Empther. I took the liberty of looking over your book summary. There’s a reason why no agent or publisher has contacted you back. I’ve met children that created better plot arcs, compelling characters and settings. Just because you give it a religious slant (a very banal and predictable one at that) doesn’t make it any better than the myriad drivel that’s come before it. That happens to be better written, I might add.

Ciao, all. Peace be with you.

 

[jochoa]

To those who gave me a fair shake, I humbly thank you. I have taken your kind words to heart and struggle daily with the travails that have been thrust upon me. I wish you all great success in whatever your future endeavors are.

Ciao, all. Peace be with you.

Thank you very much my friend for the great food for thought and consideration. Throughout the past month, I have been working on simplifying my understandings, and I want to send them with you on your way:

To know God, one must do a few things:

1. Want everyone to be able to experience happiness (contentment to intense joy) without ever losing any peace (freedom from disturbance).
2. Set out to master being unconditionally patient and kind so that your relationships and self may experience happiness without losing any peace. I recommend the first 10 days of the Love Dare to begin your journey to mastery.
3. Find the solution to the following problem:
   Given ALL the following:
   -You, as a thinking, feeling, acting, living being exist in solitude (Hint: It is best to think of yourself existing as a single-celled being, similar to how you first came to be).
   -There is nothing else in existence.
   -The only method to create something, living or non-living, is to first think of it in full detail.
   -You want to experience limitless happiness without ever losing peace.
   How do you make that happen? I recommend first thinking about what are the requirements and trying to figure out how to make those happen individually.

May the peace and joy of living be with you every moment, and I look forward to meeting up in Heaven sooner, than later!