What gets me is the number of people who decide for themselves what god is. The OP has decided it is an intelligent force in the universe, Kanicbird has decided that god is love. Many Christians discard teachings of the bible or parts of religion that don’t fit into their worldview. Surely a moments reflection would reveal that if we are picking and choosing how we want god to be then we are just making him up. Sometimes based on old stories and beliefs and sometimes out of thin air, but made up all the same.
I can love others without believing in god.
Why should you though? What does loving others get you?
About God sometimes intervening but mostly not:
From Futurama’s “Godfellas”:
From “Bruce Almighty”:
Well I only literally love those who are close to me and its not something I do on purpose it just happens. For strangers though, I can be kind and caring because it helps society work and we, as a species, need our society for our own survival.
I don’t think comedy TV is a great cite for the existence of god. And JohnClay, those quotes pretty much just define a god such that a world with him is indistinguishable from a world without him. So why have a god at all, if he doesn’t actually do anything?
Which is just a way of saying that God is worthless, even if he existed. We don’t need a god to do things by ourselves. Nor do we owe any particular gratitude to a god that does less for us than any number of government agencies and charitable organizations, or even just our own relatives.
Really, that sort of argument is just all about trying to excuse away the fact that “God” no longer does anything detectable, the way he did back in mythic times when there weren’t cameras and skeptics to notice the distinct lack of any actual miracles.
BTW I’ve had another experience in which the universe seemed to have some kind of intelligence behind it.
Many years ago I attempted suicide - and I’ve only tried once.
I was in the process of gassing myself using my car’s exhaust fumes. I put on the radio to help the time pass quicker. I heard two songs. One was “Gamble Everything For Love”
I also heard “You Get What You Give”
I decided not to go through with it…
It is very unlikely that I’d hear two of the most appropriate/meaningful songs I can think of. Especially “you only get what you give”. I guess there could have been many people in my situation except I was just the lucky one that heard the right songs and ended up alive.
In that mental state I’d bet any song you heard would have seemed meaningful. The radio is filled with songs with superficially meaningful lyrics. I’m glad you didn’t go through with it though.
Look, you seem to be someone who desperately needs life to have “meaning” and you are looking for a way to fit the way the world is with how you’d like it to be. I understand that. Personally I find comfort in the thought that I am a tiny part of a massive natural process that is the universe and that after I die the matter that used to be me will be engulfed by the sun and become “star stuff” again the way it once was (thank you Carl Sagen.)
If the bible isn’t factually correct, what is it. Yes, god could have created old rocks and cosmic background radiation and redshift and all the rest. And he could have done it five minutes ago, creating us with all our memories, etc. That statement is irrefutable. It is even, from a point of entropy, more likely than the reality I believe in. So yes, we all have unprovable beliefs. I also believe mathematics to be consistent, for which there is some evidence but cannot be any proof.
As far as my religious beliefs, I am agnostic by certain knowledge but atheistic by belief. What I do think is that it would be a pretty piss-poor god who went to all that trouble to create all those old rocks, etc., just for the purpose of leading us into error.
One more thing. One claim for the existence of god is based on the question, “Who created all this, if not god?” To which I say, “Well then, who created god?” To which the usual answer is “God is so powerful, he created himself.” What a load of fatuous bull!
Isn’t that exactly the same thing as saying, “God exists, but he lies to us?” There’s all this evidence that the universe is a lot older than six thousand years, and that it didn’t need a god to come into existence… so if God exists, he’s the ultimate con artist.
Kind & caring is, of course, far different from loving them as you seem to acknowledge. So what is the point in saying “I can love others without believing in god.” when kanicbird was speaking of loving others including strangers?
Who says that the miracles of bending time and space in the Old Testament (as opposed to God working through others to provide miracles) weren’t just a gloss added on by the writer to emphasize the point or narrative license (such as saying when the sun stopped in the Book of Joshua it is more indicating how it seemed to the participants in the battle)? A way of emphasizing that the presence of God was felt, but to make it appear more real to the reader in a way that is more ‘true’ than a straightforward factual retelling (not that people wrote histories that way back then anyways).
In smaller ways perhaps God was working, as He does indeed today (and yes, I do think God continues to works in the world regardless of skeptics who tend to look down upon those who speak of healings or small miracles that occur), but the authors felt the need to emphasize it greater in the texts they wrote.
In my beliefs, I don’t think the Abrahamic God is true, because there is too many contradiction about who or what he is. The way the Bible presents him he is not a loving, caring father. If he is all knowing etc. the stories told about him do not come across as a loving or caring parent.I also find it hard to believe that this same being wants to be worshiped. I did not have my children so I could be loved, but wanted to be able to love and care for my offspring. God would have to be more caring and understanding than me. I can’t see or know all that my children needed or wanted,and since I didn’t expect my children to beg for their needs, or would I give them anything harmful to them I expect more of a Supreme all knowing ,loving Being than me.
I also wondered why this Supreme Being would favor one child or family over aniother, If he for knew everything, then I would think he would not let a child of his that he knew ahead of time, would kill a lot of his other children.Or why he would kill a lot of innocent people or have one of his children’s family kill another for land,or because their parents were bad. To me a good parent leaves no doubt in it’s childs mind of the fact that he exists. I can not think of any reason this being would just accept his existence on faith.
I would add: If Heaven s a perfect place of happiness,why would Satan rebel? If God i all knowing that would mean he also knew Satan and other angels would rebel.
From my perspective, this is really the crux of your issue right here. I, too, was raised believing in a literal interpretation of Genesis and I even believed the same thing, that either it was literally true or I had to have been wrong about God. The difference for me, though, was when I realized I had to reject the literal interpretation of Genesis, since my whole understanding of God was based on that, while I did reject that understanding of God, I realized that that was a false dichotomy.
In fact, one of the things I came to realize as I accepted evolution into my world view was that, if anything, the literal interpretation of Genesis actually made for a LESS intelligent and LESS powerful God than one that would use evolution. If time really doesn’t have a meaning to God, and he really is all knowing and all powerful, it actually makes more sense that he could create existence in a simpler state and wouldn’t need to be directly intervening. Instead, I relate a lot of those sorts of stories in the Bible to how a parent might explain things to a child asking questions where the answer isn’t something they can understand and isn’t really what they’re after anyway. For instance, if a 3yo asks where babies come from, explaining sex and genetics and all of that isn’t going to make sense. Rather, they’re coming to understand that babies become children become teenagers become adults, etc, and so they’re curious about that first link. In the same way, men thousands of years ago couldn’t understand biology and evolution, so expecting a literal interpretation to be accurate is missing the point.
In my case, when I had that realization, my faith was actually stronger than it had been at any point before, particularly since as I was simply going off of what I was taught, but after I had a greater understanding of it. In your case, you say you actually asked God for the truth, no matter how upsetting it may be, and sometimes that means taking a difficult and seemingly roundabout way to that lesson.
I think one of the issues a lot of people get wrapped up in, theist or atheist, is in trying to understand the nature of God, and if it doesn’t conform with what they think it ought to be it may either weaken their faith or reconfirm their non-belief. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it doesn’t really matter. For instance, Darwin was able to say a lot about how natural selection works without any understanding of DNA. In modern science, we’re not sure what dark matter is made of but we can model quite well how it interacts with things.
So, is God some entity that is completely external entity to the whole universe? Maybe God is the summation of existence, or of human consciousness. Maybe God is just an emergent pattern in a complex system we don’t fully understand. Maybe he’s just an appeal by our relatively ignorant minds in seeing patterns that aren’t actually there. But, from a spiritual matter, in how we relate to him, does it really matter? All that matters is how we relate to him.
To expand, let’s say I’m troubled and I pray or meditate on my troubles. Maybe God hears me and has things set up or somehow alters my perspective to see things so that I learn a lesson or feel comfort. Maybe, if he’s a summation of consciousness or whatever, by doing so I effect some change in consciousness that has an impact on the world around me. Or if he’s an emergent property, my conscious awareness of that issue changes the world around me. Or if he’s just my brain’s appeal to order that isn’t there, I’m simply drawing my attention to these things that I would otherwise miss. Does it really matter how the mechanization really works between prayer/meditation/thought and my awareness of how that has impacted my life. So, really, when you look at it like this, God exists if you believe he exists, even if he doesn’t exist in the way you may think he does.
And this perspective has also made me more present to the actual way in which I relate to God. If God is an eternal being with a plan and has it all perfect, asking God to change that plan is the epitome of selfishness, I shouldn’t be shocked at all if that answer is no. Or if he’s one of those other possibilities, it may be no for some other reason. But, regardless, if I am simply seeking knowledge and wisdom, regardless of what he is, whether it’s finding greater purpose in his plan, or simply making sense and learning a lesson even if it’s all random, I can still grow and learn from the experience.
Now, certainly, I have my belief about his nature, but rather focusing on how I can relate to my faith and in what I can benefit from in that, that we are driven to learn and to understand and to grow. That is what reaffirms my faith when it feels weakened.
I don’t believe Kanicbird literally loves strangers either. If he does he must be in perpetual emotional turmoil with all the births and deaths that occur every day.
This simpler, more rational explanation is that the whole thing was made up, just like all the other competing ancient creation stories.
I think only about 10-20% of songs would say something about not giving up and a much smaller number would say things like " you’ve got a reason to live". If you really believe any song could be seen as meaningful then give me an example of something from Britney spears or queen or something. What about “we will rock you” or “we are the champions”? How would those songs discourage suicide?
It may be an aspiration of his, to love others, even if they are strangers. Though he may fall short of his aspiration as we all tend to fall short of things we wish to do. The failure doesn’t make it less important to continue the attempt. And he may indeed love those strangers that come into his path. I tend to treat plenty of people whom I just met with love (esp if those strangers are met in a place that is well known to me or are introduced to me by someone I know).
Simpler, more rational doesn’t necessarily equal true (after all, even Ockham was religious being a Franciscan friar ;)) and I don’t think it does here either.
And of course, one can’t really say the whole thing was made up when archaeological evidence for a wall built by Solomon is found, etc. Some of it is indeed factual - I mean the entire history of Israel can’t be completely made up, even for those who consider themselves unbelievers.