Yes, God exists, He is the essential, we are the optional.
Love
Leroy
FTR That absence of evidence/evidence of absence quote is something Rumsfeld picked up from Carl Sagan, a la Dragons of Eden.
I think there has to be a God b/c we have souls - if there weren’t a God, there would be no reason for our purpose in life to include bringing forth that unique truth which resides within each of us. Simply being machines would be far more efficient - we’d just eat and reproduce.
At their best, all religions are an attempt to make sense out of that desire, channel and use it, and help people get along - they are not in themselves God. But because each religion has to pay the rent somewhere & get new recruits to sustain themselves, they have to concoct a literal God that they can sell in a sound byte to everyone. And fear is a big seller (all emotions come down to fear or love). Which is why all of those versions of God are so flimsy and debatable.
I think the best way to find your experience of God is to pray a lot, privately, when you’re happy & when you’re scared. Be guided by the presence you feel, your dreams and intuition. Open yourself to a sense of belonging.
Of course, all of this is IMHO.
How did you get to know about god? It comes from the holy book of your culture.
And about what Rumsfield tells us. Does not prove god exists.
Now that´s a most interesting question, we have a purpose in life… do we?
Um, don´t think so, I beleive we are here just for the shake of it. You see, the whole universe exists because it exists, there´s no purpose in it. Things are this way like the could be other completely different.
I don´t think we got a reason to be here, we just… are here, that´s all.
Oh, and don´t get me wrong on this but, how do you now we got souls? What is a soul like?what does having a soul mean?
Define “more powerful.” How can we always tell that thing A is more powerful than thing B. Hulk Hogan could beat up Albert Einstein - is he more powerful? The existence of a most powerful thing is not clear, and, even if there was such a thing, it would not necessarily have godlike powers, however that is defined.
How many times do I have to tell you people that the answer is no?? :mad:
Animals have souls too, just more primitive versions of a soul. What is a “soul”, anyway? It’s like saying there’s a God. What is it, first of all?
I think a soul is something that allows beings the capacity to love. And love is a necessary part of life on earth (if we all hated, we wouldn’t bother to reproduce with each other).
The only thing us humans have that’s special is a bigger brain, thus the ability to percieve our own existence more distinctly.
I really think God, as a concept, is a reflection of the human ego. Or maybe human stupidity.
And here I was thinking “love”, (as well as all other emotions and feelings), was a function of our brains.
I see life as if it were no more “mechanical” than creations of our own. We feel, but that’s how we are wired. Why do you think we can alter are feelings with certain drugs? What do these drugs do? They fudge with our brains. Whether it’s Prozac or LSD. They don’t target your soul.
Sort of a downer, I guess…
I guess I just don’t believe in ‘free will’, period. (could be wrong, but for now I have NO idea how anything could convince me otherwise.)
Now, about the OP and God. Even if I MET God, I probably could never be 100% on his/her/it’s existence.
So you feel that the God of the Bible is simple, ugly and probable? If not, how can he exist without an even higher power, about which the same question can be asked?
As many other people have already said: define your terms.
If by “God” you mean male, semi-translucent bearded fellow, immortal, individually cognizant, able to create universes by calling them into being, able to create dysfunctional disobedient sentient primates by patting river mud into manshapes and breathing spirit into them, known for somewhat foul temper, residing up in the sky in a place called ‘Heaven’, my answer (and that of many others on the board) would be “no, that one’s mythical”.
But if you mean something different when you say “God”, it makes no sense for you to get into arguments with people who say that God is a mythical creature, because the “God” they describe as mythical is more likely than not a variation on the one I described above.
A good working definition of “God” would be sufficient to enable you to say to a self-described atheist, “Ah, but you do believe in what I believe in, you just don’t use the word ‘God’ to refer to it!”. Can you delineate what “God” is to you in such a way that we can speak of God without using the word “God”?
In my own theological and academic wanderings, I have found the following to be relevant—
•_Questions of Intentionality, Causality, and Purpose—Is anything “for a reason”, for a preplanned purpose, distinguishable from being no more than the results of prior object locations and energy levels and momentum? Is everything in the world, right down to the matrix of chemical synapses in your neural tissues that we call “thought” and the historical-cultural-socially constructed set of patterns we call “beliefs” and “values”, no more than a massively complex system of prior cause yielding to current effect? And if not, where does original intent exist, come from, manifest itself? Is this not God? Can there be God and not this?
• Questions of The Good, Absolute Value, Truth, and Meaning—Is there “truth”, either in the monolithic sense of “objectivity” (a rose is a rose is a rose, freedom is freedom, moral is moral) or in the relational sense of “intersubjectivity” (a rose is the sum total of all possible “rose experiences” as could ever be experienced by anything and everything that could experience a rose, freedom exists even if it defies easy definition, there is a true moral way even though no fallible mortal can ever claim to know it well enough to dare to condemn others for not following it)? Or are there only “acts of labeling things ‘good’”, socially “discursive” processes of thrashing out definitions of things, including their “goodness” and any other value-laden adjectives that would apply? Is there meaning, distinguishable from accurate or inaccurate perceptions of it, or is there only the attribution of meaning and the little powerplays of interchange in which bits of meaning are the currency of the day? And if there is meaning, in a final Ultimate Truth sort of way, a set of Answers to How It Is Supposed to Be, if you will, is this not God?
I can use or not use the word “God” in explaining what I believe about life and world.
What’s ridiculously unlikely about people? I’ve met some who were ridiculously unlikeable, but… 
The complexity of life is astounding. However, I happen to think that it makes sense. Given the conditions that exist in the universe, and on Earth, what we have here does follow logically, from where I see it. If you ignore certain things, you can assume we’re unlikely, but that hardly makes for a good case.
What makes you think we have souls? Stating a belief in a mind/body dichotomy, dualism is not going to hold water. It simply pushes back the question and still requires verification of both the existence of the soul and of the mechanism by which it interatcs with the physical world.
In reply to the OP.
No, next question please
What always surprises me with this question is that people go off on the ‘unknowable’ tangent or site the miracles and mysteries of nature and the Universe.
The Judaeo-Christian God is provable/disprovable by any good poststructuralist who can deconstruct the Holy Word with the assistance of a theologist and determine once and for all whether that particular God(s) exists:
- Does the Bible contradict itself? Then God cannot exist for He would not make such a gross (and public) error.
- Does the Bible contain abhorrent or ‘misguided’ instruction? Again a perfect Being would not be party to such conduct.
- Is the Bible in factual error in terms of history, genealogy, cosmology, geography?
- Is the Bible outdated? (ie keeping of slaves, status of women)
- Has the Bible led to terrible injustices being committed - not by charlatans deliberately or stupidly misinterpreting the Word (although that could be seen as problematic) but by any reasonable follower following the Word as it is written e.g. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”
These are the questions any serious Bible scholar should ask.
An Islamic scholar simply asks the same thing of the Koran (or would do if he/she worshipped a deity who encouraged a spirit of free enquiry)
Anyone who claims that the proof of (a) God’s existence is in ‘creation’ is not a Christian but a Deist (in the vein of Thomas Paine). And that is a lot more difficult to prove.
Oh, goodie, this conversation got interesting after all 
I’m intrigued that people disputed the soul - that’s not a response I expected. I’ve always been aware of my own soul so I can’t imagine not living with that knowledge.
In fact, I can’t even understand the basis on which such a claim would be disputed. I am aware of having an ego, desires that I act upon because of their relation to the public arena and my continued existence therein. And I’m also aware of deeper desires and drives, which have nothing to do with my membership in society yet also speak of me and my connection to the world.
To not have a soul? To never feel the pain of simple existence, or longings that have no object? You mean you people don’t get an answer when you pray? You’re not driven by mechanisms beyond your physical/emotional existence? You’ve never connected with a zing of truth, felt a shudder in your solar plexis that answered, or been comforted by a sense of presence when you could have been afraid? You’ve never let go of your ego? Frankly that baffles me.
VoteBaukinI think the Judeo/Christian God is just a way of describing the experience, so disputing that legend has nothing to do with the existence of God. Same with the Tao, the Koran, the Talmud & whatever else. Aren’t they all a product of their society’s concerns, a way of channeling the spiritual experience to ensure the survival of a people? I thought we were just using the term “God” as shorthand.
UnwrittenNocturne I’m having a hard time understanding your point of view. I don’t think I’m arguing a mind/body dichotomy. I’d postulate that human beings are a physical manifestation of God who behave individually and collectively to further their physical existence. Basically the same as all other creatures (I agree w/you tigsnort that they have souls as well - frankly I think the Earth has a soul). In my view it’s all God. And yeah, because of our bigger brains we’ve developed self-awareness, which is why we have egos & emotions & personalities & quirks, and a fear of death.
The thing is my sense of God is really vague - at base, it amounts to the energy behind the reason why life continues to perpetuate itself. Somehow it strikes me as a generally positive, forward-moving energy, an evolutionary turning whose big picture purpose I can’t begin to imagine.
I don’t think anyone can argue that life on this planet does continue to perpetuate itself. And that people have that drive, whether it’s perpetuation by breeding or by some form of self-expression, or by stating your personal truth on a message board. Why bother “fighting ignorance” when you could just turn your computer off? And it’s not just ego gratification when we’re aiming to connect with something larger than ourselves - we’d be fighting ignorance with bigger better ignorance, instead of aiming for “truth”.
Aren’t most people are drawn to life-perpetuating things and repelled by death? It’s not just a simple matter of physical survival, because what’s life-perpetuating isn’t necessarily expedient. That’s the point I was trying to make before - if we didn’t have souls, there wouldn’t be any reason to do things that aren’t just expedient & efficient. Art, music, sports, architecture, engineering - every human activity that can be done well, with beauty, reflects that. Yes, beauty is subjective - but a consensus isn’t really that hard to reach. Look at how expensive well-designed consumer goods are, clearly there’s a premium placed on them.
sickboy51(what happened to the other 50?) It’s interesting that you want a literal God who will make sure the world is well managed, and at the same time your view is that our existence is meaningless. I actually agree that our lives don’t carry a prescribed, specific, scripted meaning - which is exactly why I think there isn’t a literal God making sure that some particular purpose is carried out, beyond the perpetuation of life. To me that’s the only script, and on an individual level it’s largely self-created, because we can choose to pay it a lot of attention or ignore it completely.
Well, anyway, this is what I think. I realize this isn’t any kind of perfect philosophical treatise, it’s somewhat tautological, but the written form can only communicate so much. Putting something intuitive into words is like trying to throw a sunrise.
this goes to fessie:
I think I got your ponit.
First off let me tell you that I don´t think I got all the answers, but I try to look for them, just for the shake of it (I´ve nothing better to do, by the way ). To a furhter insight on efficiency, I strongly recommend Marvin Harris works (read “Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture”). Efficiency itself could be either a proposal from a higher being or a consecuence of “how things work”. I think the fact that we don´t stick to “highly efficient tasks” only, it´s just a side effect of our highly developed brains and our abstraction wit. Life tends to perpetuate itself without any God´s aid, it just “works that way”.
Of course it´s my humble opinion only, I´m not trying to convince anyone or show disrespect for other people´s beliefs.
Anyway, if such a God shuld exist and he/she/it doesn´t care for me… why should I care about him/her/(whatever)? I mean, if it exists or not, doesn´t change my life at all. Now, the other case (Bible´s God) would make a big difference in the same question.
Why do some people think that just because incredibly complex things exist that that shows there must be a God?
What is the reasoning behind this? Isn’t it possible that complexity exists but God doesn’t?
I’ve never understood this line of argument.
I’d be willing to believe that gods or multiple facets of one god do exist. I don’t know how much I am affected by the existence of such being or beings, though. I’ve had some really weird things happen to me that may be caused by god(s), coincidence or some sort of strong connection with someone else. I haven’t yet decided, though which that is. Too many weird things have happened to me, and on a very consistent basis, that I can’t really believe it’s coincidence. But as for deciding between the last two, that’s beyond me.
If I were to say that I were psychic or something similar, then that would be making myself omnicient. If I were to say that god(s) caused it, that would be proving my earlier supposition wrong that god(s) may be there, but does/do not really interact with us. What a conundrum. Hmmm… Dammit. Now I’m going to have to think.
Okay, so in my experience, there is something other than the visible. I’m not sure if it’s something that’s omnicient, like god, if it’s fickle, like humans (spirits are often said to be fickle, as well), or if it’s an extension of humans ourselves. I’d LIKE to believe that it’s something omnicient, more knowing than I am. That way there may be a reason things happen. However, I’d like to think that I’m happy enough and secure enough that, until the presence of a god/gods is proven (if such a thing is possible), I’ll live my life in such a way that I can get as much joy out of it as possible and live without any regrets (i.e., I’ll do all the things I want to, but will give my all to ensure that I never hurt anybody - and it harm none, and all that). And when the weird stuff happens, so be it - yup, it’s weird. Unless I really need to, I’ll try not to obsess too much about the weird stuff and will enjoy myself. After all, god may be watching. So that’s my take on it. It may be cheesey, but it makes me happy.
Belief, fessie. Not knowledge. Totally different.
Well, if you define “soul” to mean “ego and desires”, then of course we all have a soul. If I define “homicidal maniacal tendencies” to mean “eyes”, then we all have homicidal maniacal tendencies. In other words, make sure we all mean the same thing when we say “soul” before arguing whether it exists.
I don’t pray, so no, I don’t get answers. I’ve obviously felt all the other things you describe, I’ve just never felt the need to invent a god in order to explain them.
Doing these things creates a slightly better world. It has nothing to do with God.
Promoting life and preventing death is expedient in one way or another. Note that many people happily promote death when they believe that’s what’s best, Christians not excluded.
Again, define “soul”. You seem to define “soul” as anything mental, in which case we do have souls.
Power of advertising. Manufactured needs. Not really an argument.
Priceguy if you don’t want to believe that you have a soul that’s fine with me, I really don’t care. I felt this discourse had room for many views so I added mine.
I would like to address a few of your comments. And I’ll easily allow that arguing such issues is somewhat futile - the route to spiritual knowledge is the knowledge itself, not a discussion of it. Logic and words aren’t the only medium for understanding, and sometimes not the best one. My points are only my own personal way of looking at these issues and understanding my own experiences - I’m not assuming any credentials or expertise.
You really have no basis for your first point - you don’t know anything about my knowledge of my soul and of God, so you have no way of disputing it. I’ll do some witnessing in the appropriate thread when I have a couple of hours to spare.
Your second point equates all human motivation with ego. Perhaps in your experience that is the case. In my experience there’s a distinct difference between actions based on my ego and those based on my soul. Personally I have made choices that satisfied my ego and violated my soul, and gotten sick as a result. Maybe that’s not something you’ve ever done.
Next I find it interesting that you don’t pray. To me, that’s like saying that a restaurant isn’t any good without eating there.
On the following point, but how do you have a sense of a “better” world? If there’s no God, no direction, no meaning, then how can there be a better?
My assertion that people avoid death in preference for life wasn’t a statement that Christians don’t go to war. My statement was vague, but I was thinking about more commonplace experiences, like seeing an animal that’s been run over, or watching a tree being cut down. Have you ever noticed that just about everyone swerves to avoid running over a dead animal, long past the point where it matters? OTOH People get excited whenever just about anything is born. People celebrate life.
My definition of the soul - hmmm. I’m sure a scholar of religion is really the one to ask. However since I’ve taken it upon myself to use the term (not realizing what a dispute would result) I would say that our soul is our spiritual battery, a direct link to God, the individual manifestation of God’s will, our most basic self. And I’d say that the ego mediates between the soul and our existence as human beings.
Mine’s a little different from Freud’s use of the term. I always liked the “Father, Son, Holy Ghost” trinity, but I see “Father” being the Superego & society’s presence in our minds, “Son” being the Ego and Id, and “Holy Ghost” being the soul. I figure religion is to God as the Constitution is to Democracy - a method of practice, always being revised.
Of course, this is only my own way of looking at things.
And I added mine.
Unless you explain where your knowledge of the soul comes from, I’ll feel free to refer to it as a belief, same as if you said you knew there are Invisible Pink Unicorns.
No. You’ve misread or misunderstood. My second paragraph was entirely about the definition, or lack thereof, of the word “soul”.
Not a clue, since you still haven’t defined “soul”. And, after reading your definition below, I don’t see how the soul can be violated.
Huh? Not praying is like talking about something of which I have no information? I cannot see the connection.
There are living beings in it, able to feel pleasure and pain. Pleasure, based on my own experiences (and I believe other people’s experiences tend to make them agree), is good. Pain, physical or emotional, is bad. A better world is one in which pleasure is maximized and pain is minimized. It has nothing to do with gods.
I don’t see the relevance.
You really shouldn’t need someone else to explain to you what you’re talking about, should you?
So your definition of “soul” requires a belief in a god. How can you then expect everyone to believe in a soul?