Does God Exist?

[Amanda44]

The idea of a 'god' was born out of mans inability to understand the world around him. In early religions 'gods' were astral bodies and forces of nature, as we progressed and gained more knowlege about how nature works and deeper undertanding of what planets and stars were so religion too moved forward.
Once we had started to live in communities and work together religion was used as a means of controling the people via fear and has continued to do so throughout history, changing and adapting itself to fit in with changing attitudes and changing beliefs.
The christian religion, as one example, is made up of ancient beliefs and pagan customs that had to be incorporated into the religion in order to convert the people. It is still using the same tactics today - changing the 'holy' day from the original saturday to sunday, changing the 'birth date of jesus' to fit in with the pagan winter festivities and more recently allowing women and gay pastors (priests in catholicism).
Stating here that i personaly don't have a problem with either and i'm not religious but if you are and truely believe in the 'word of god' then you simply can't change it to suit yourself or the world around you.
If everyone took the time to study the universe and physics, even on a small scale, it would soon become apparent that God, if he exists, is not the one born out of mans misunderstanding and fear of mortality.
Imho.

[ValerieHallaway]

"God is redundant." -Steven Hawking

There are three ways in which I think of Religion.
The first is that it is and always was a way for humans, scared and huddling around the fire, to explain why they exist when nothing else besides them could think or reason. They had to make some sort of sense out of a big scary world out to eat them, and had to wonder what they did wrong to deserve such a troubling existence. If you look at a wide range of different religions you may notice that even though they were founded centuries apart, even though they have their extreme differences, they all are innately the same. One could say our higher power manipulates our religion, that they are all correct, and yet none have the full picture. One could say that religions that become founded after popular predecessors borrow and steal away things from the past, so converting masses to a new order is easier. Religion makes things easier for a 'true believer', religion makes difficult moral problems simple, black and white, good and evil, wrong and right.

Before I go on, there are very distinct differences between faith and religion. Religion is the institution, faith is the personal relationship you have to your god or however you feel. Everyone has faith in some measure, even the nihilists, even the atheists. I know that I can't turn my back on the fact I believe that the soul is a form of energy, the jump-start that makes a creature of circuitry and tubing start moving, then the rest is fuel for the fire so to speak.

The second way I think about religion is as an excuse. People have made religion to be a reason to slaughter, claim land, and have the common populous proud of their achievements. Religion fuels the war machine, it breeds misunderstandings and resentment. On a personal level, it lets people that follow a doctrine use loopholes so they can do terrible things, and never feel they must answer for their crimes. Being absolved for wrong doing because a man told you God understands, and believing that humans are inherently evil and sinful creatures by nature are gimmies.

The third way is that from now until the end of human existence, organized religion and personal beliefs in god/gods/something will exist just as fiercely as we do. It will evolve and change as Science develops, but even science needs a reason to exist. Humans love putting things neatly in organized boxes, and while this is not a bad thing, it means we'll never be able to cope with a big black hole in our logic and understanding. For now, I hope that less people rely on organized religion as a means to have a relationship with god.

To explain the quote I used directly, Hawking has hypothesized that a fluctuation of gravity may have triggered the Big Bang event. We have never needed a god to explain why the world turns after we figured gravitational forces out. You should definitely listen to his lecture on the subject, it's unprecedented at the very least.

Magic man, not all atheists are blockheaded assholes, just the ones out to piss others off and derail a decent thread.

[ninja_yodeler]

I change my mind, the Trinity is the true religion.

All mighty Loftorb. He who is Father-Who designed this world.
He who is Son- a carpenter who helped bring the design to life
And he who is the holy server, overlord among all.

[Jackard]

I believe the HnH community is mature enough to handle a debate of this magnitude.

[brohammed]

Religion is now personal, optional, and therefore irrelevant. Hooray!

[MightySheep]

Hi, I'm an antagonistic agnostic atheist & secularist

Religion annoys me a lot

It really makes being human just an embarrassment

Can you imagine if aliens came to visit us, they'd land in middle east and there would be bunch of dirty black people like "ALLAHU ACKBAR- you must believe that there is 1 god and muhammed is his prophet and that 'humans are the greatest of all creatures' and lock your females in a closet! - OR ELSE WE'LL FLY PLANES INTO UR SPACESHIP" (there honestly is a verse in the quran that goes something like "try to make the non-believers understand Islam, if at first they don't follow, try again, and if that fails use violence"

Or they land in Christian areas and get a bunch of people throwing 'holy' water at them like "YOU MUST REPENT, CONFESS YOUR SINS OR BURN IN HELL" and theyre like "wtf is a sin? lol" then crazy white dudes are like "you must waste every sunday in church!" (its actually a sin not to)

in fact there's just so many different religions everywhere each teaching different retarded nonsense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... traditions

aliens probably rather speak to the chimpanzees than the average brainwashed idiot human lol

[Jackard]

otoh http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/poster.gif

[haegemonia]

In my opinion? Yes and No.
Gods are the creation of man, a "God" being the externalization of Man's own ego. All subsequent worship of this God is also, by proxy, worship of the creator of that God. Why not skip the middle man? I am my own God. I worship myself, adhere to my own morals, dogma and ritual and face the consequences of my own decisions. I am a Human Being of utmost importance to myself, therefore the only being worthy of my worship is myself.

Yes, a bit narcissistic but that's my view on 'God'.

As far as the Abrahamic God, Yahweh, he can suck a chode. Same goes for all the other religions, if your particular flavor be whatever god, have at it, just don't involve me.

[Amanda44]

"God is redundant." -Steven Hawking

The first is that it is and always was a way for humans, scared and huddling around the fire, to explain why they exist when nothing else besides them could think or reason. They had to make some sort of sense out of a big scary world out to eat them, and had to wonder what they did wrong to deserve such a troubling existence. If you look at a wide range of different religions you may notice that even though they were founded centuries apart, even though they have their extreme differences, they all are innately the same.

People have made religion to be a reason to slaughter, claim land, and have the common populous proud of their achievements. Religion fuels the war machine, it breeds misunderstandings and resentment.

Humans love putting things neatly in organized boxes, and while this is not a bad thing, it means we'll never be able to cope with a big black hole in our logic and understanding.

Hawking has hypothesized that a fluctuation of gravity may have triggered the Big Bang event. We have never needed a god to explain why the world turns after we figured gravitational forces out. You should definitely listen to his lecture on the subject, it's unprecedented at the very least.

Magic man, not all atheists are blockheaded assholes,

Very well said, much better than me, lol, +10

[jesi]

"God" is not synonymous with "religion." It is possible to indulge a spiritual attitude toward the human condition without conforming to a specific religion or dogma. I like to think that we have not discovered all there is to human nature or to the universe. I don't "believe" that requires the existence of a higher power. Christian gnostics, as well as later christian mystics, sought to experience God by searching within themselves. Gnostic text have Jesus telling his disciples that each one carries God (literally or allegorically depending on who is doing the translating) within thenselves. My understanding is that this is not far off from Jewish mystical tradition as well. As for other traditions, others can speak to their mystical components better than me.