Do you believe in God?

[NAD]

there is no spoon.

[/lame]

 

[MajestikMøøse]

ok. I'll shut up now.

 

[Sadguru]

i mean really, you can't understand why ice crystals look the way they do, but you think you're in any position to discuss GOD? does anyone else see the fucking irony at work here

Have you honestly considered the question or are you just trying to prove yourself to be right?

Why the snowflakes is the way it is? Science can't say for sure. All they have is tiny bits of information from which they can draw some approximations. The more a scientist look closely to a given phenemenon, the more he has to include its environment. Believe me, it's a real mindfuck. With the exemple of the snowflakes, the scientist will have to consider the wind, air pression, temperature, etc. and even after THAT, he'll still have an infinitely small portion of the answer. You're now starting to realize why this snowflake article explains nothing at all.

I didn't want to spent too much time on the snowflake, that's not the point here. On the other hand, I'll agree with you that this kind of question can't be grasp by our tiny minds, I'm 100% with you on this. Btw, I don't know where you get the idea that I try to understand God.

 

[Demilich]

I guess I'd fit in closest with agnosticism, but I don't want to willingly identify myself with any religious "movement," because I'm far from having experienced enough in my life to even come close to taking a stance on such things. I lean closest at the moment to there being something incomprehensible out there, but I'm in no rush to try to comprehend any facet of it until the unlikely time in my life when its existence or lack thereof concerns me.

 

[cthulufhtagn]

why the fuck should we?* why does anyone need to know these things for certain? it pisses me off how people can't accept that things are as they are and live their fucking lives because believe me you will lie under 6 feet of moist earth in 80 years and knowing why snowflakes all are unique isn't going to help much at that point.

it is absolutely fucking horribly ignorant to think that our tiny, useless brains are the be all end all of intelligence, that we can and should know everything, and that if a "GOD", universal consciousness or other divine power existed we even could BEGIN to comprehend its essence. just fucking LEAVE IT ALONE. these things are not for the human brain to meddle with.

abso-fuckin'-lutely, people are so obsessed with what goes on after they'll be dead they don't focus on WHAT'S GOING ON RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM. i think this is a lot of the problem with humanity. i firmly believe that when all of us die, if there is some kind of consciousness after death, we will LAUGH at how utterly insignificant our perception of reality was as mortals. and if there isn't an afterlife, then what the fuckin' hell are we doing wasting our precious time worrying about how the big imaginary man in the sky will think about us beating off?

 

[Sadguru]

abso-fuckin'-lutely, people are so obsessed with what goes on after they'll be dead they don't focus on WHAT'S GOING ON RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM. i think this is a lot of the problem with humanity. i firmly believe that when all of us die, if there is some kind of consciousness after death, we will LAUGH at how utterly insignificant our perception of reality was as mortals. and if there isn't an afterlife, then what the fuckin' hell are we doing wasting our precious time worrying about how the big imaginary man in the sky will think about us beating off?

So true.

 

[E-bortion]

I think it's short-sighted to not consider what awaits, but agreed. One sholdn't waste their life on the possibility of an afterlife. Death is beyond the construct of our logic, so for the most part, it's trivial to question.

 

[NAD]

i'd love to live the rest of my life without dying.

 

[Sadguru]

Boards of Canada rules! I want their new album.

 

[E-bortion]

Boards of Canada rules! I want their new album.

It's fucking miraculous.

 

[Conspicuously Absent]

I think it's short-sighted to not consider what awaits, but agreed. One sholdn't waste their life on the possibility of an afterlife. Death is beyond the construct of our logic, so for the most part, it's trivial to question.

yeah, but if theres an afterlife and you were a GOOD person. I honestly feel that if there is some kind of god-type-figure, it's not so vain as to go "OMFG YOU DIDN"T WASTE YOUR TIME ON A WOODEN BENCH 4 HOURS A WEEK"

so I'll live my life my way, and whatever comes, comes.

 

[cthulufhtagn]

^yeah. and if there is a god like christianity says, i'd rather burn in hell for all eternity than serve him, straight up. fuck that. not just to be cool, but so much of that is total garbage. hate to repeat myself but if god didn't want us to have sex why did he give us the equipment and the desire

i really like that one B.O.C. song that somebody posted

 

[KILL TULLY]

God loves my pals die you faggots. mmmmmm Steel Reserve.

 

[Night Mare]

yeah, but if theres an afterlife and you were a GOOD person. I honestly feel that if there is some kind of god-type-figure, it's not so vain as to go "OMFG YOU DIDN"T WASTE YOUR TIME ON A WOODEN BENCH 4 HOURS A WEEK"

so I'll live my life my way, and whatever comes, comes.

That's very similar to my standpoint, I am not going to follow a specific set of rules, because when you think about it, the chances of them being the RIGHT rules are infinitely bad. I would rather live life as it comes, and probably the same in the afterlife, if there is one.

Slightly off topic, but I think the best thing that could happen to humanity is for everyone to be told they have one week left before the earth is destroyed. I am not saying this from a misanthropic standpoint, quite the opposite. I think that if everyone thought they had only one week left, whether or not it was true, then people would spend that week living the way they always wanted to live, doing the things they always wished they had time to do, saying things to people that they have always wanted to say, and so on. After one week of this, the earth would most likely be in ruins, I know my house would, but the majority of people would have made some sort of peace with either themselves, or whatever God they worship, and therefore solving a lot of the worlds problems. I know this theory could easily be ripped to shreds from a logical point of veiw, but I am extremely bored, and it's not often that I post anything remotely deep, so fuck off.

Another advantage of the apocalypse/comet situation is that I wouldn't have to force myself away from the forum and make a start on the ridulous amount of assignments piling up around me...

 

[Ellestin]

 

[Russell]

I used to be like NoLordy and shun even agnostics but then I smartened up, because there is no decisive proof of anything. Even all of science is merely a theory, and can come tumbling down at any moment if one of its foundations are shifted.

A theory is a hypotheisis proven through experimentation/evidence. As such it's not gonna collapse - at least at a base level - ever. Other than that I'm in agreement; nothing can be proved, a fact which most people tend to forget. As such I go for the most likely explanation, which always boils down to science (and thus atheism), from my experience.

 

[Sadguru]

i didn't say "understand", i just said "discuss". i mean, if you get to the conclusion that we can't fully understand something as trivial as a snowflake, then why even TRY to discuss whether there is a god or not? if something exists it's rather obviously beyond the limits what we can prove and observe, so why bother?

This thread was meant to discuss the beliefs about God, not God itselfs. Then again, questioning the meaning of life is not a sign of insanity. As human beings, it is perfectly legitimate to question our existance. It is also proved that those who has a strong faith in their God lives more peacefully than the average person. Their God may or may not exist, that is not the question, the fact is that they live a better life. Anyway...

 

[MajestikMøøse]

A theory is a hypotheisis proven through experimentation/evidence. As such it's not gonna collapse - at least at a base level - ever. Other than that I'm in agreement; nothing can be proved, a fact which most people tend to forget. As such I go for the most likely explanation, which always boils down to science (and thus atheism), from my experience.

You pretty much got it. Maybe my example of striking at the foundations is too strong of a comparison, but yes, nothing can ever be proved. I'm not contesting the usefulness of science. It is quite good to have on the purely material level. However, the idea of using science to postulate metaphysics will never provide a solid doctrine, since it will be constantly changing as per the whims of the scientists.

just as an unrelated note: I'm starting to become a little anti-science lately just because of the sort of intellectual myopia it tends to produce. Like E-Bortion correctly remarked in a private conversation I had with him earlier, the last words on earth are probably going to be something like "hey! it worked!" in a lab somewhere as some scientists try to recreate the big bang in a test tube. So sorry if I seem a little too whacked out to everyone else if I don't regard science as the be-all-end-all of human knowledge, but rather the product of a crude and simplistic kind of mind that needs to see everything, or try to get an ego boost for wanting to be regarded in history as the next Galieo or Newton.

 

[Nico]

However, the idea of using science to postulate metaphysics will never provide a solid doctrine, since it will be constantly changing as per the whims of the scientists.

You just hit the nail on the head with a neutron hammer. 110% agreed.

 

[Will Bozarth]

Why is it that I think Matt uses big words to try to confuse us?