JGMU wrote:


Your the theist and the only thing religion's good at is tip-toeing around past mistakes, the bible, the crusades, Cliff Richard, etc.

gesler0811 wrote:

I adhere to the philosophy that we have all the information we need in order to come to God by faith. God, in my opinion, made sure that if you came to him it was because you have faith in him.

JGMU wrote:


If everything that has happened in the last few billion years was reset and the universe began again, then everything would be created completely randomly, humans and for that matter Earth probably wouldn't exist. What ever harmony Earth may have is completely random, and this isn't an assumption it's a widely believed theory.

Also you are only using proof that supports your theory, you haven't mentioned the hundreds of other planets that have no life or any harmony.

gesler0811 wrote:



Essentially, the theme of the Bible boils down to faith. I can't understand his reasoning, but God's utmost desire seems to be that we have faith in him. To believe in him without being forced to believe in him, if you will. I compare it to how we try to surround ourselves with friends who want to be our friends. Forcing people to be your friends just doesn't seem as nice. To this end I believe God saw to it that he provided us with enough information and enough resources to come to believe in him, yet not in such an overt way that we felt forced to believe in him.

Or to put it another way, we have just enough information about God, in my opinion, that when we stand in judgment we will have no excuse for not having put faith in him. Essentially it's a big test, if you will, but not for facetious reasons, rather, God just wants to make sure that the people who come to him do so willingly and proved to him in life that they wanted to be a part of his plan.

To that end, the Bible is full of first-hand accounts of God interacting with the nation of Israel, but in the beginning at least I think he had to be more involved to get the ball rolling. Once the bell rang, so to speak, and the match was officially underway, God stepped back to watch, interceding occasionally to make sure his specific plans are carried out, only never in such a dramatic way as in the Old Testament, depending on your definition of dramatic.

So to answer your question, yes, there is enough information to know God, evidenced by the fact that so many people have come to know him. The people who are holding out are doing so largely for self-centered (note I didn't say selfish reasons. What I mean by self-centered is that in some way I think people who refuse to acknowledge God are doing so because the concept is either inconvenient, or somehow makes them uncomfortable.

Pride is our biggest enemy as a race, in my opinion. Just about any sin or crime boils down in some way to prideful emotions or acts. This same pride in my opinion is why people reject God. This pride manifests itself in many, many different ways.

1) We want to be gods. We want to believe we control our lives and our destinies. The thought that these things, which we consider our own, are outside our realm of control makes us feel weak and vulnerable. We want to control where and how we live, who we hang out with, what we do, where we work, what our activities are, etc. In short, we want to be in control. Yet what can we really control? Can I control what I will be doing ten seconds from now? The phone could ring any second with bad news and there goes that television show I wanted to watch. My infant daughter could fall and hurt herself and I could be stuck in the hospital the rest of the night instead of curled up with that good book. Could I stop Hurricane Katrina from destroying my house? I had it all planned out - I had the house, the white-collar IT job, the college diploma, the nice cars. In the span of one afternoon I had no home, no car, my diploma was good for nothing and I was shoveling sawdust in a lumber yard for some cash in another state because all my bank accounts were frozen. Tell me what exactly I can control in this world? Tell me what exactly is truly mine.

2) We like being sinful. It's fun to abuse alcohol and have pre-marital sex as often as possible for the sake of a good time. It's fun to tell inappropriate jokes and look at pornography. Maybe we like to steal. Maybe we feel like we have to cheat on our taxes to get a little extra money. The thought that a being that amounts to 'big brother' is watching makes us so rigid and uncomfortable that we just brush it off. We sacrifice the intangible for the sake of the tangible.

3) We believe we know what right and wrong are. We detest the concept of a supreme sentient being that allows us to endure hardships even though if the reports about him are true he should have the power to stop it. It's not fair, we say. As if we can even comprehend fair. As if it was fair that we stockpile money in bank accounts and fancy cars and big houses while people around the world are literally dying because they cannot find anything to eat. When the hurricane was hitting, and we were stranded in a motel without electricity or running water, and not a store or gas station was open for days, for the first time in my life I thought about what it might be like to literally not be able to eat. It's lot less fun than it sounds.

4) We are scared and run from the concept of accountability. As Bill Clinton can attest, people really don't want to have to answer for what they have done wrong. Might as well bury itand try to forget it.

5) Having to worship another being doesn't sound like our idea of fun. It makes us feel less special ourselves. It forces us to be humble and say "I am nothing and I realize that."

6) Church is boring, we say. Sleeping late is so much better. Do you know how late I was up partying Saturday night? Doesn't God know Saturdays are for partying? Why can't church be any day other than the day I am trying to shake off my hangover?

7) A lot of naive people believe in God and have never questioned his existence in their lives. But they are so naive. Look at how naive they are. Clearly they are wrong. If I refuse to acknowledge God, I can show them how naive they are. I can brag about how I go against the grain. I'll be part of an elite group that knows better. Science - that's the answer. Clearly an education will prevail over naivete.

And the list goes on and on and on.


You then ask if believing in God is morally right or just intellectually right? I believe that most people reject God for moral reasons, and a small percentage reject him for moral reasons with a thin veil of intellectual objections that serve as an excuse. I believe that our moral dilemma forces us to concoct intellectual objections. I don't think rejecting God is intellectually wrong in the sense that it should be a clear decision. Intellectually, it seems to me like 50/50. But morally, that's the elephant in the room. I'm not saying there aren't valid logical objections. I'm not even saying that some atheists aren't truly objecting at least in part on the basis of intellectual reasons. But I bet every atheist at some point in his/her life did something that he was ashamed of and thought, even if for a moment, that "it's a good thing there's no God to see what I just did." Intellectual objections? God knows there are. But that sort of supports my previous theory about it being about faith, doesn't it?

Long story short, there is no way to make an intellectual decision about God. Nothing in favor of or against his existence can be conclusively proven. We all make conjectures in some way shape or form to make our cases. I can neither show you a video of God drinking a soda in the mall nor can you show me a video of there not being a God. The true intellectual will not base his belief for or against God on his education or his brainpower or his deductive reasoning skills. So what is left? Basic morality. Right and wrong. So it very much is morally right to accept God.

gesler0811 wrote:



I consider creation as a whole when I make my arguments, at least I try to. Just because the other planets do not seem to have life to me does not automatically make them non-harmonious. I don't think we know enough about them really to try to use them as leverage in this debate. In their own way I think they do possess harmony in the natural sense. Each world seems to possess a consistency to its own nature, even if the effects of gravity are different or the atmospheres are composed of different gases or whatnot. I think the universe is beautiful.

But the thing you said about the universe being reset; It seems to me that this is again based on a presumption of there not being a sentient creator. Sure, if it was a given that the universe was randomly created, and it was reset, then it would work out differently. But if a sentient creator was the one behind it your theory does not hold up. This is why we will keep going in circles - there is no physical evidence either one of us can cite to 'prove' to the other one that he is wrong.