There are a lot of great, well thought out posts in this thread, on all aspects of the "God" question.
I'd like to know if anybody reading here has found any of it to be influential at all in their thinking, and especially if anyone has actually felt they could change their mind.
Sometimes, as I read through long threads like this on an issue where a lot of passion seems to be prevalent, I get the feeling that the more clear a post is, the more resolve is mustered up in those with opposing views. So we see the same things being said in many different ways, almost. And again, we see this coming from both (all) sides.
Believers: have any of you felt like you need to rethink your faith/beliefs, that maybe you're just kidding yourself or whatever?
Non-believers: have any of you felt like you perhaps could open up to what the believers are saying here in this thread about God being real, etc?
Not changed my mind. Far too many issues with religion and God. Like, why does he take kids and innocent people, yet he allows the drunk driver that killed them to live and escape harm? Why tornados and floods and locusts that kill innocents?
Who created God and who created that person, and who created THAT person?
Which religion is true? Only one can be truly true so who is going to say that Mormonism is BS and the Jews have it right? Or that the Catholics are full of gas and the Druids had it right all along?
Why would a truly just God allow Justin Beber and rap music to thrive, yet completely ignore Bob and his Banjo or his soon to be delivered Les Paul (Yeah!) and Leslie Speakers (Double Yeah!)? Come on God, fill me with the talent you gave Earl Skruggs, Charo, and Danny Gatton. Beber is a munch and rap directly violates every stinking commandment you gave us. Put up or shut up, sir.
Why is it if I decided to live by, and I truly believe in the Old Testament, I would be sued or go to jail for acting on the OT and its teachings? We only believe in God when it suits us and not one blessed Christian lives according to a strict interpretation of the bible. They pick and choose what to do and believe, which is to say, they ignore Gods word and profess all the while to be good Christians.
We are told to live by the teachings but if we try, we go away; usually we first end up in court, where we put our hand on the bible and swear to God to tell the truth. Can you see the irony? You must swear to God, with a hand on his book, and then you are tried for doing exactly what the good book you are swearing on told you to do in the first place.
Too many difficult questions and too many simplistic and pat answers like "It's God's Will." Which is easy for many to say but say it out loud and you become a terrible person. Like "so what if floods ruined Louisiana, it was God's will, get over it you hell bound sinners."
I believe this: what some call God, I call The Great Mechanism; a collection of natural laws of biology, chemistry, electricity, physics and other laws we might not have discovered yet that created life on this planet. Not some kindly old man sitting in heaven that got bored and so he created us in seven days.
God was created by people that did not understand physics and chemistry and evolution and wanted a simple way to explain how things work. And some, like the estimable Galileo Galilei dared to bring science to God's doorstep and he suffered. The public was scared to die so Heaven was created. People were told that they go to hell and so hell was a way to help control their behavior. Paying homage to the Church was a way to continue to live a life free from death.
And churches were created so a few people could control everyone else, and they protected their turf. It became a power game and they put to death those that tried to take power away from Rome. For example, translating the bible so the masses could understand it would get you killed because it was God's will and only God spoke to you through his officially appointed leaders, like Pope Alexander VI and various Cardinals, Nuns and other officials of the Roman Catholic Church that organized and participated in the largest, most depraved sex orgy ever recorded in the history of humanity. That the sex orgy for the purpose of promoting Satanism did involve several hundred people and did involve the ritualistic murder of a significant number of innocent people including frequent acts of cannibalism.
Like God would approve of that kind of thing.
Lots of gods and Gods out there today and scattered throughout history. I have a personal relationship with my God, Thor.
Bob
I shouldn't have to bring you down to my level, sorry. I could rant about the education system for hours, but that's not the point. (Not because I'm not excellent in English, I personally take the blame for that, simply about the fact that good students need to adapt their "speed" to the slower students.)
