Do you believe in God poll

[oakpope]

^ Thank you

What I was trying to say and failed miserably ( )was that my belief is that it is God, what tells you inside you that you are doing something good. One may say that it is not a God, but morality, education, social interactions. I agree But I "believe" that it is a gift from God that comes with life, love and free will. I believe because I sensed it. It is very difficult to translate it with words, and I know it is not "reasonable", it is behind the reach of reason. I have made my studies in physic fields and I know reason is a wonderful tool for the human mind, but I "believe" that all that exists is not necessarily the realm of reason.

For those who think that one has faith because it conforts them, I find this very patronizing. What I find in my belief is not confort, but love for God. I am ever thankful for all His gifts. Why should I feel confort ? It is all the more difficult, because if I do wrongs, I am ashame vis-a-vis myself, society, but mainly Him for not reciprocating enough of His love.

 

[alli-berri]

I have made my studies in physic fields and I know reason is a wonderful tool for the human mind, but I "believe" that all that exists is not necessarily the realm of reason.

I love this! And your work sounds interesting

I very much agree with the bold part... Reason and spirituality should indeed work together, instead of contradicting one another. It's just as silly to explain all things in terms of faith as it is to do so with science.

Also, I love when you say that you "sensed" it. Our instincts can teach us so much.

 

[belamyi]

^ Thank you

What I was trying to say and failed miserably ( )was that my belief is that it is God, what tells you inside you that you are doing something good. One may say that it is not a God, but morality, education, social interactions. I agree But I "believe" that it is a gift from God that comes with life, love and free will. I believe because I sensed it. It is very difficult to translate it with words, and I know it is not "reasonable", it is behind the reach of reason. I have made my studies in physic fields and I know reason is a wonderful tool for the human mind, but I "believe" that all that exists is not necessarily the realm of reason.

If only people who try to be reasonable in the name of religion, and who try to prove by reason that God exists so that they can crush other people would listen that...
We may all agree that reason can not reach to and explain everything but, by the same token, the belief in God is out of the realm of words and reason and books, no matter how holy: faith is beyond all that, and is untransferable and unpreachable. You preach words, and then they may "lighten up other people's faith" or whatever you want to call it: that's it, that's all, and the rest is sheer godless bigotry.

 

[belamyi]

Aww - come, now. I'm not piety, but pity I'll fuck with - you're being bit harsh, don't you think?

I certainly don't blame someone for having faith. Religion is some comforting shit! And many people in the world need that comfort, however obnoxious it may seem to us "reasonable" folks (as belamo calls us).

Everybody WANTS that comfort: it's the means to get it what can be considered "obnoxious".
The miserable ones buy the greatest and finest ideals through the cheapest, lousiest ready-made sectarian pamphlets, and the well-to-do use those same ideals only to strengthen their own pride against the world, by feigning devotion to a superior being which is in fact nothing but the high opinion they have of themselves.

 

[alli-berri]

^
Well said!

 

[belamyi]

I've never understood this mode of thinking. It severely limits human potential.

An unknown always has to come before a known.

I beg your pardon? Does that mean what it says it means? We could never understand that mode of non-thinking.

 

[Telstra]

I've never understood this mode of thinking. It severely limits human potential.

An unknown always has to come before a known.

Actually religion is the one that limits human potential.
They already know god did it and therefore no need to do research.

And anyone who questions god would be punished.
Take stem cell research for example, they really limits human potential.

 

[Queerwitch]

I believe in the Giant Golden Penis in the sky, and in order to be saved by His Great Royal Stiffness, you need only say this Penile Prayer:



O Giant Golden Penis,
fill me up with the meat
of enlightenment.
Make me hard so that
I may withstand all trials.
Your Great Royal Stiffness,
hear me as I reach out
to you in faith, hoping
to feel your sacred touch,
and the thrust of your might.
Plant within me the
seed of goodness,
that I may be fertile with
kindness and generosity,
and that I may daily
walk erect on the
path of uprightness.

Piss off, FSM, Pink Unicorn, and Cthulhu! You are mere idols compared to the Hard One.

 

[belamyi]

I've never understood this mode of thinking. It severely limits human potential.

An unknown always has to come before a known.

Belamo, listen brother, I'll give you an example.

We gays have had a notion for several decades that being gay was inborn. But we don't have the proof. That's an "unknown".

It'll be years, perhaps decades, before this "unknown" becomes a "known" by being proven by science. (So far, the evidence is merely circumstantial.)

So if all of the other "unknowns" are summarily dismissed by scientists, how will they ever become "knowns"?

Funny thing: gay people readily accept without proof the idea that being gay is inborn—but they won't accept without proof the idea of a Deity. Hmmm.

I understood what you meant. My doubt is if YOU understand and realize what you are saying.
All certainties limit everything, human potential included: that a certainty is stated and defended in the name of God or in the name of Science is exactly the same frozen shit.
All "unknowns" are dismissed by dogmatics, and dogmas have nothing to do with science, which is mere investigation.
A Catholic cardinal, Fred Phelps and Karl Popper all agree that the feeling of doubt and incompleteness about any concept, be it scientific or of any sort, completely destroys it in their eyes, because they precisely ignore that potential open to investigation and takes away all the frozen worth that they want to put somewhere... and that somewhere, of course, is their own sense of right and righteousness, be it a religion, a sect or just a pack of rumbling disquisitions.
Scientists, a real sicentist who investigates, never categorically "dismisses". That may be done by their Mr. Hyde dogmatic personae, or by other plain dogmatists. Even scientists may be good in their technical procedures of their specific field of research, but never had the time or opportunity to develop much thought about what they do, and consider it in perspective; but, at any rate, the only thing a decent and thorough scientist can say is that they have tried to make sense of elements and facts, and that some could be put together while others were left out, but THAT is DIFFERENT from stating that they MUST be left out. That "left out" is your "unknown", and NOTHING, can EXPLAIN all of that big unknown, not even religion or traditional "wisdom", because it is vague and, therefore, meaningless: it only gives comfort and peace of mind for restless ignorant minds.
True wisdom and religion is more often found in a researcher who has both a clear conscience of all that always remains to be explained and understood, as well as of the fact that the worth of any piece of knowledge doesn't rely on it being put forth as an explanation for it all, as a pandemonium that would in fact just be a meaningless placebo.

 

[oakpope]

Actually religion is the one that limits human potential.
They already know god did it and therefore no need to do research.

And anyone who questions god would be punished.
Take stem cell research for example, they really limits human potential.

Please, do make such generalizations. Not all religions are the same, not all religious people think the same, not all believers are utter fools.

There is nothing that Reason can do to make me "unbelieve".
There is nothing I can say or write that can "prove" that God exists.

I will not think that all agnostics are the same, neither the atheists. LGBT people among all should know that generalization is a dangerous thing.

 

[oakpope]

Belamo : we should not pit science and religion/spirituality against each other. They can be complementary.
There was/is a lot of researchers who were/are clergymen, the father of the genetics research by exemple if I'm not mistaken.

It may be too simplistic, but I was once told : "Science tries to answer the How, Religion tries to answer the Why".

 

[construct]

Aww - come, now. I'm not piety, but pity I'll fuck with - you're being bit harsh, don't you think?

I certainly don't blame someone for having faith. Religion is some comforting shit! And many people in the world need that comfort, however obnoxious it may seem to us "reasonable" folks (as belamo calls us).

There are so many mysteries we've yet to understand about our world, and if theological history has taught us one thing, it should be that explaining the inexplicable is simply human - and there is nothing arbitrary about the life of a person!

No, I don't think I'm being harsh. I'm not completely sure how obnoxious belief in a god is, but I do know that it is illusory.

I also try not to confuse axiology with ontology. They really are completely separate things. There is no inherent value in anything that exists. Value is an overlay that we put on top of the world. Some of the values are imposed, seemingly from without, through social constructs, but the constructs are not real. They are not inherent in the nature of things.

I am fundamentally no more valuable than a cat or a tree or a rock. I place value on people in general or this one or that one because I choose to, and to a certain extent my choice is arbitrary. Likewise the constructs of gods are as arbitrary as their adherents--or their enemies.

 

[leomendez93]

It is crazy, FOR ME, to think that there is no God. I do believe in a loving God, a merciful God that will embrace all who are open to Him.

 

[belamyi]

I see what you mean, belamo. But you're taking the debate well outside the scope of the thread.

What I'm referring to is within the focus of the thread. I find it odd that gays state categorically that "there is no God", while blindly accepting other "unknowns", such as the fact that we have subconscious minds (for one), or the fact that being gay is inborn (for two), and so on.

I bet you could come up with other examples, couldn't you?

Oh, am I? well, relating to my post above, it's not my fault if people pretend to contain in one phrase ALL meaning (or all the "important, fundamental" one, which is another way of saying the EXACT same thing) and then, upon, developing a little the topic exposed in that phrase, well, then oh, then it's going too far.
I could count myself happy that the topic I was starting to dissect was not a word-by-word quote of a most holy book...

 

[belamyi]

belamo : we should not pit science and religion/spirituality against each other. They can be complementary.
There was/is a lot of researchers who were/are clergymen, the father of the genetics research by exemple if I'm not mistaken.

It may be too simplistic, but I was once told : "Science tries to answer the How, Religion tries to answer the Why".

It may be your wish to go along a way which takes from what is commnoly referred to as "science" and "religion", but the very fact that you still use two separate etiquettes as referents leads you along the same old path of quarrel.

 

[oakpope]

It may be your wish to go along a way which takes from what is commnoly referred to as "science" and "religion", but the very fact that you still use two separate etiquettes as referents leads you along the same old path of quarrel.

I am very sorry, but I didn't understand you at all, could you please rephrase this in maybe something a little easier to understand for me ? Thank you

 

[oakpope]

No, I don't think I'm being harsh. I'm not completely sure how obnoxious belief in a god is, but I do know that it is illusory.

You "think" that it is illusory and it is your right. If it is a knowledge, please explain where it comes from, what were your experiences that produce results as clear as that ?

 

[belamyi]

I am very sorry, but I didn't understand you at all, could you please rephrase this in maybe something a little easier to understand for me ? Thank you

Here it goes:
You may wish to take what you think is "good and useful" from what you take as science and from what you take as spirituality/whatever, but by employing those two terms, you are in fact not following any new path, or keeping only "the good things" from them, because you still are following the old and more or less opposing views derived from those terms. "Science" and "spirituality" have come to represent very definite meanings, at least in their cores, so if you want to actually try some "reconciliation" of them, you should start by forgetting those terms and the history associated with them and follow only the same "pure" ideas that came to be manipulated and frozen into those opposing views of the world.
You most probably still won't get it, but I'll deal with it in the morning

 

[oakpope]

Thank you for explaining, I think I understand you now.

"You most probably still won't get it, but I'll deal with it in the morning", I am sure you didn't mean it as an insult, did you ? I may be seriously lacking humour at this hour

I will try to answer you later also, got to sleep

 

[belamyi]

Thank you for explaining, I think I understand you now.

"You most probably still won't get it, but I'll deal with it in the morning", I am sure you didn't mean it as an insult, did you ? I may be seriously lacking humour at this hour

I will try to answer you later also, got to sleep

I was just counting on the too usual worst scenario
I had thought of rephrasing that last part as implying that it's only my fault if others don't get me, since it's me the one not being able to make himself understood, but I just chose to leave that way to keep the game of "belamo-against-the-world" going