The True God

I'm a religionless person I beleive in myself and there is no such thing as a higher up force controlling our actions, you yourself are the one who will make things happen and you yourself are the one to seek guidance with.

With that said if I was to beleive in a true god then God himslef must have split his personality into a lot of different aspects like Haruhi, Odin, Zeus, Buddha, Osiris. I mean if you have all the highest powers of each cult then you got yourselves gods which outpower all the gods combined in Valhalla and Mount Olympus.

My reason for dislike towards religion is quite simple. I think that far too many people are using religion as an excuse to achieve power over others and are using it to dominate the way people are living. It is like placing shackles on people to use their mind freely and getting rid of those shackles is hard. Nothing is easier than influencing children to stop using their reason by injecting ideas from religion into them that are biased. The only "religion" I think is making sense in at least a good part of it's beliefs is Buddhism, as it is more of a philosophy or a way of life than a religion.
Religion, be it the Islam, Christianity with all it's sects etc. is in my form an antiquated form of trying to keep people in a row and have them obey their leader. In a modern scientific enlightened society, there is only limited need for these things. The main reason why lots of people believe in god is, because they need someone to talk to that doesn't talk back. In my opinion it is flawed to pray, revere or obey something, while it would be better to find a person that is willing to listen to you and can give you an answer, once your ready, without any archaic form of make-belief.

Regarding the second part, I am not claiming that god is evil, I am saying that it is childish to claim that god is good, loves everyone and treats everyone equal, when, at least in the christian bible, he is clearly showing, that he prefers people his own way and makes his wishes come true more like a tyrant than a wise ruler.

Did anyone else catch the irony of quoting Deuteronomy in defense of the Bible.

Honestly, I'd like to spread a little wisdom about the Bible, but its hard to find the time or patience to sit down and write a quality wall-of-text detailing the epic failure of Christianity and all the groups that "follow" the teachings of Jesus.

That's not religion's fault, now is it?

I have a Christian friend, and whenever we talk about faith and its impact and existence in the world, we always bring up one point. It's something we both agree with, even though we're on opposite sides (so to speak) - people are uneven and screw up religion; religion does not screw up people.

Of course, one way of knocking this down is to quote scripture that reflects poorly on religion, like all the stuff about enslaving daughters and killing gay people. But it must be remembered that that stuff was written by people, and they had a reason for writing it. Not every word in the Bible is meant to lead people to happiness through God. A lot of it is history and antiquated rules that don't apply to us anymore. It's like the old law books that say that alligators can't wear hats. Just because that stuff is in there, it doesn't mean that the whole institution is worthless.

About Eranikum's example of religion being used to control kids, it can be, but who decides to control their children with religion? The parents decide. The fault lies with them. Parents can also use stories of disease and pregnancy to "place shackles" on the legs of their children and keep them from having sex. Does that mean that teaching kids about AIDs is wrong?

If religion were not taught to children, and only adults could learn about it, would you have a problem with religion? Would you still see it as a form of brainwashing if a 35-year-old man decided to become a Christian, of his own free will?

You are basically voiding your own argument. People are creating religions, therefore, people use religion to control others, until a certain point is hit, where a rule doesn't apply anymore.
Yes, parents do teach kids about religion, but in my opinion, I think that religion is like a toxin. Sure, it might not be all too harmful if you keep it on a low dose, however things start to mess up if you up the dose. Now parents, that are fanatical Catholics, like to tell their children all the stories about god they believe true and heard from the priest. That child will absorb those stories and the same shit repeats over and over again, until finally one is smart enough to realize, that gambling for a beer with a few friends isn't devilswork, but a nice way to spend time.
Another fact is that children act like sponges, they soak up about every knowledge they can, but aren't able to effectively filter it yet. I have seen youths, that were scared of a simple projector because their parents told them that everything that isn't tangible was created as a method of deception by the devil.
The problem here is easy for you to see. There are a few humans that claim to be enlightened, a psychological phenomena that is highly unlikely, writing down stories they encountered in several delusional states... and seeing that it was a few centuries ago... there is sadly no point in proving it either.
Fact is, as you say, the bible is written by humans. Fact is that there is no proof whatsoever that god had any influence in any of it, as sadly, they couldn't include hard, tangible evidence in the bible just yet. Fact is aswel, that anything that humankind makes (except maybe Anime, Manga and Hentai) is flawed, thus basing religion on the bible and the spoken word is nothing but a matter of a psychological credit reward in form of "You will be rewarded with heaven if your a good boy / girl."
Regarding the AIDS argument, I think you couldn't have chosen anything more controversial. While AIDS is scientifically backed up, is researched, proven lethal and is a reality, religion is something unscientifically, is researched but can't be proven, yet it can lead to death if a fanatic parent brainwashes its child (Islam and also Christian extremists have proven that fact very nicely.)

Lol, the argument about religion is rather intense now...

Well, guess I'll say something. I'm an atheist, and I chose to become one because to me religion are either contradictions or empty claims. I've heard lots of religious people using the "but you can't disprove god, can you?" thing and well, to those people, go read about Russell's teapot. I'm sure you can get the message...

For those who argues about believing in religion for the good values it preaches for, well, I'll just say it's enough for people to take just the good moral values without also believing in the false beliefs brought on by religion. Honestly to me if you can even determine which values preached by religions are good and which are bad, that means your moral standards lie somewhere outside the religion itself, and that's a good proof that people don't need religion to have a moral sense and judgment, and also to be a moral person.

Religion isn't necessary for some people, but not everyone is the same. When you speak to one with the mind of a child, you should do so in such a way that a child may understand.

Religion isn't meant to be taken at face value, you are actually allowed to think about it. Just remember that you don't have to believe something to approach it with an open mind.

I do believe there is a God, but if there is, he probably isn't like a caring father for us: the universe is way too large for that. But I do believe he is also neither malevolent or ignorant.

Whatever the case, I do believe that it is both impossible to prove that God does exist and impossible to prove that God doesn't exist.

A statement must be either true or false. So, of what value a truth you can't verify? I might as well say that anything that can't be verified must not be true.

This is correct. I am of a specific religion, however I will not say I am 100% flawlessly correct. It makes sense to me to believe there is a God because there is no way to disprove that one exists. I would rather die having believed in a God to find out he existed and that I was right than to not believe and find out I was wrong. Worst case scenario- I die and nothing happens.

That's a false dichotomy. It could still exist whether we can verify it or not, but the point is that there's no reason to believe that it does.

Pascal's wager....lol.


@Rbz: Lol, I noticed that after I posted too. But the fact remains that without any proof to back it up, the best we can say about such statements is "could be true" and will never become true. I prefer to think that without evidence, we know nothing.

I have a feeling half of the arguments on here are from people that would be too cowardly to present them face-to-face with real-life people.

Regardless, this logic holds no water. "This band is the best." Is neither true nor false. It is based on opinion. When it comes down to it, every statement is based on opinion...

Also, what of Mathematics or Science? In the field of mathematics, we base things off of "What we know" and so they are true based off of what we know. If what we know were to change, all the theorems and postulates would change as well. In the field of science things are similar based around "What we know." Who are you to say that any given statement is correct or false? This logic holds no water.

Nice, I'm guessing you also don't object to believing in fairies, the flying spaghetti monster, or even Freddy Krueger.

I started to think about God as being not the traditional gigantic bearded human (because why would he be human?) and rather as a super powerful alien entity. Like one that is so great and on so many levels that it transcends our capabilities to understand it and permeates all of us. So yeah, that's what I think about God.

Not at all. I don't believe in them not because there is nothing that says they do not exist, but because there is no support to support the theory that they DO exist.

A God on the other hand would only make things make sense. It doesn't make sense to say "Oh, yeah, everything is the way it is because that is the way it is." There is no point to this logic and the questioning ends there. If you ask why things are the way they are you may end up with varied theories of what "God" is, but most people would tend to lead back to a God. This is proven by the fact that even though many ancient societies had no way to communicate with each other, the one thing that most of them had in common was the belief in this concept of "God".

Also, just by looking at the universe and nature it becomes apparent to me that a God exists. After all, what are the odds of their being life on earth and ONLY on earth? Earth would have had to have hit the universal jackpot. We meet EVERY requirement for supporting life- We have water, we are neither too near the sun (or any star) nor too far from it, the air is not toxic to us...The list goes on. Are you implying this is all by chance? I would sooner base my opinion on a conclusion other great thinkers have come to rather than chance.

Okay, your feeling. Feel free.



So you're putting the existence of god as just a matter of opinion? I know religious people won't like that...well, whatever.

And I disagree about you saying that every statement is based on opinion. For example, the statement gravity is the force of attraction between two body of mass is verifiable and so no opinion is involved.



Yeah, and that "what we know" stuff is confirmed by the nature itself. Of course, given the nature of inductive reasoning no scientific theory can be proven to be true, but who are you to say is faulty anyway. One simple fact is that it works. And I'm not saying anything about any statement being true or false btw, all I'm trying to say that statements that can't be verified hold no meaning to them.

edit: It's interesting to hear that your reasoning for supporting the belief in god and not FSM is because of some old guys of ancient age believe in one and not the other. A convenient way to draw a conclusion, huh? Also interesting are your geocentric views of the universe.

I have never previously encountered arguments that show no respect for the other person apart from internet spats. Once the human element is taken out we become monsters.




That is just your opinion *wink*. I'm sure there are some loonies out there who shake their fist at science and defy the existence of gravity. That is also their opinion.



Not at all. Even the structure of an atom cannot be seen, yet I doubt you challenge it's existence. We simply say that "It makes sense for atoms to exist, and they help us form other theories. Plus we can perform various experiments to help further our cause." <--- Sounds suspiciously like religion to me! :]

(Also, don't even bring "Laws" of nature into this- After all..If there was no God, wouldn't nature be chaotic rather than orderly? It only makes sense that the very existence of order in the universe would help prove a God, but, whatever.)

We theorize, and then work on these theories to best explain what is around us. In this way science is no better than religion- It just has a better track record. I admire science's ability to change when it is wrong, however. *Thumbs up t RBZ for earlier picture*...Oh, and by the way, Christianity has changed greatly when proven wrong- Just throwing that out there. Enlightenment/Protestant Reformation/ Catholic counter-reformation anyone?


Are you saying that you are more intelligent than some of history's most brilliant mind? That sounds very narcissistic, man. Also, come back to me when you can prove intelligent animal life exists on another planet.

Edit: Well, I'm going offline. If anyone can come up with absolute proof God does not exist let me know. Until then- Thank you all for the amusing passing of time..If this thread isn't dead when I get back on I look forward to speaking with you later.

I would laugh my ass off but I think you're taking yourself seriously. I'll laugh anyway. Do you think the shit you wrote below is support for god? All the more funny.


And why the fuck not? Just because you can't fathom how things came to be doesn't mean that inserting some supernatural being into the equation helps. All you're doing is pulling an answer out of your ass.


Argumentum ad populem much? People lead to a god because they don't know what the fuck else to think so they pull an answer out of their ass: "GOD DID IT!"


How the fuck would you know? Have you already explored the entire universe before the rest of humanity?


Yes. Don't see why a supernatural being has to exist.


Too bad that logic of yours is so fallacious


Shaggy, I'm going to need that title back from you, since obviously you've got nothing on this guy. Adder, you sir, are filled to the brim, with shit.