If there is a god and you dont believe

[Nichole]

I believe in God but recognize the possibility that there may not be one. I accept that. On the other hand what if there is a god. Someone who believes in God will be alright when they die. If there isn't a God then that same person will still be ok because they'll no longer exist. But if a person doesn't believe in God and there is a God there in trouble. This all assuming God is just.

What do you think?

[AntonioLao]

believe in God, you go to heaven. Believe in the devil, you go to hell. Dont believe in anything, you go nowhere. Believe in yourself, and have a happy life on earth. Believe in others, you find friends. Believe in the whole world, you find peace. Believe in doubts make you sad.

[PROFET]

i think im already known as the very religius guy around here so ill tell you what i think

if you decide to believe in god dont do it because you are afraid of hell,
although it might save you for all eternity, do it because you realise you own god something, for creating you and giving you freedom for giving you the art of science to think about the world you live in.

do it because you are sure you should.

alex

[Nichole]

Hi profet,
My old youth pastor use to tell us all the time you shouldn't believe in God just for fire insurence. Fortunately thats never been a problem for me. The post was just a discussion that come up among family.
I prefer to call myself spiritual rather than religious. Religion has not been able to allow to reach the closseness i want with God. It seems more of a boundery than anything. Religion has to many images of God. It seems silly to try and give god a certain image. God is more than any mere words we can give him. It's almost insulting to really consider him to be the words we describe him as . On the other hand we should except these as just
attempts to put his glory into words but it does not define Him. I was just reading a essay by Rav Kook, a dead rabbi. He puts it in the best terms i've seen. He writes "... there is a need to proclaim that indeed the letters, the words, the actions, are not the essence of the light, but they are vessels, the organs of a living body, which bears within itslef a soul". The is a quote from a essay called "The Pangs of Cleansing". So long.

Nichole

[Mr. Nobody]

The need to separate a benevolent intelligence from what we can sense and perceive, to elevate it to a "male" personality, to proclaim it our savior and healer, the one who makes everything alright is nothing more than man's attempt to tame the untamable, to put order in randomness, to seek sense in the senseless, to reduce the overwhelming influx of data to managable, measurable chunks. There is no absolute Good nor absolute Evil. Good and Evil are like colors. We perceive them through our senses, like wavelengths of light. We measure and compare it against a norm. But what is red to a blind man? Explain any color to the one who has never seen light, explain your perception of good and evil without including intelligence or conscience as taught by your parents, as taught by our society. Define Good and Evil in absolute terms outside the confines of civilization. Again these "terms" as well as bibles, korans, torahs, comendments and so on were created by man as he settled, a "how to survive and thrive guide" in order to guarantee a new society's survival, our cultur's survival. Is this need to catagorize common in all intelligence? I hope so. But that is all there is......perceptions, no absolutes, no absolute good, no absolute evil, nature knows no malicious intent, just survival of the fittest and the human ape may not be the pinnacle of evolution after all.

So, who and what is God? We all are, the whole cosmos is and we are its cells, nothing more.
I don't think there to be any interaction between God and us. If you want to know more about the roots of religions and the beliefs in a benelovent, interactive God, I urge you to get "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell.

BTW: some of the above is a repeat from me on another post

Just my humble imagination

[Nichole]

[QUOTE=Mr. Nobody]So, who and what is God? We all are, the whole cosmos is and we are its cells, nothing more.
I don't think there to be any interaction between God and us.

IN a sense I agree with this statement. However i would state it this way, God is all. He is every rock , cosmic spec, man , women, and particle. Apparently you take pantheistic view. I on the other hand believe in panentheism. I try to put my belief into clearer terms. I believe that we are only a cell in the whole body of God. We have a certain amount of freedom but still are apart of something bigger.

[subversion]

I agree with Profet that you should not believe in God just because you feel you have to, or you figure it is the best bet. To me believing in God is merely having a reverence for nature, an appreciation as Profet said. I can also agree with Mr. Nobody's ideas that there is no absolute wrong or right. However, there is popular opinion, and this by all intents and purposes serves as the unanimous functional "right."

So who and what is god? God is the cause of our universe. We have given an image to god, or rather, we say that god created us in his image. So we believe that God looks somewhat like us. We are "closer" to God than the rest of the animals, and that's what characterizes humans.
-sub

[PROFET]

sub,

you are right, but i expect you didnt just thought of that, didnt you?

because the bible already saids that god made us as him in image,

it aso says that he gave us a soul , but not to other beings,

so he made us closer to him that way,

just informing you,


alex

[Mr. Nobody]

I have an issue with proclaiming man to be more than animal. Who are we to elevate ourselves based solely on the premise of our sentience? I can see a soul in a monkey, hell I can see a soul in my dog. When did the human ape become divine? Was it 2.6 mil years ago or was it 10,000 years ago, when we invented the concept of interactive Gods, separate from us, watching and judging every move? What the bible says is inconsequential as far as I am concerned, since the bible was written by men for man.

[PROFET]

mr. nobody,

the word human, divine, soul, those words were invented to describe things that already existed, when did the human being became divine, those monkeys had the destiny of converting into the divine creatures we are, just in the moment we invented the word soul, and divine, in the first way of comunication, that was the moment.

we already were going to do all those things, we just didnt know to.


alex