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Do you believe in God? (pg. 7)
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| Jem_hadar |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
No no no, you have it wrong. God is the source of love as God is love. To accept love is to accept God, whether you identify that as what you are doing or not. To enter the state of hell one must reject all love thereby rejecting every form of God. If there is any truth to the tennents of christianity then your happiness is dependant on your acceptance of God's love in some form, however, your choice is independent. You choose love or you don't but happyness cannot exist in the absence of love and love cannot exist in the absence of God. |
You are misguided in your thoughts. That is an absurd notion, IMO. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jem_hadar
You are misguided in your thoughts. That is an absurd notion, IMO. |
How so? Please elaborate. |
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| Jem_hadar |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
How so? Please elaborate. |
The idea that love is something that IS god or stems from him/her/it or whatever is ridiculous to me.
Love is simply a state of feeling. An emotion. Same as hate. Same as jealousy. It just exists bc we exist and are capable to feeling as such.
(same as you believe god just exists -- something i differ with you on)
there is not higher power in the universe that formed . |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jem_hadar
The idea that love is something that IS god or stems from him/her/it or whatever is ridiculous to me.
Love is simply a state of feeling. An emotion. Same as hate. Same as jealousy. It just exists bc we exist and are capable to feeling as such.
(same as you believe god just exists -- something i differ with you on)
there is not higher power in the universe that formed . |
What you are stating is that the idea of the existance of god (of any description) is ridiculous to you. That's fair enough, you don't have to believe, however, that does not negate my earlier statement. Whomever I was responding to was questioning the existance of hell.... which is an idea from the Christian tradition. My post was meant to clarify what hell is in the Christian tradition so that people may know exactly what it is they are questioning the existance of. |
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| Jem_hadar |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
What you are stating is that the idea of the existance of god (of any description) is ridiculous to you. That's fair enough, you don't have to believe, however, that does not negate my earlier statement. Whomever I was responding to was questioning the existance of hell.... which is an idea from the Christian tradition. My post was meant to clarify what hell is in the Christian tradition so that people may know exactly what it is they are questioning the existance of. |
So you were explaing what you know hell to be (for those that believe in hell).
Gotcha. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jem_hadar
So you were explaing what you know hell to be (for those that believe in hell).
Gotcha. |
I was explaining what the christian tradition defines hell as, my beliefs are not necessarally reflected by my posts on the subject. |
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| zokissima |
| Even though I was raised an Orthodox CHristian, I don't know if I believe in God in the classical Church, or other religious sense. I believe in science, and am more intrigued by the religious aspects of Budhism and other religions that place more emphasis on the human than on some all-knowing-all-powerful God. Having said that, I think that there are all sorts of everyday occurances that are taken for granted, such as love, that indicate our existence to be limited by the perspectives of our senses. I think that the universe is a vast space, that can play host to all sorts of consciousness, existing on a multitude of levels outside our own. |
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| zokissima |
| I think the above discussion is part of a reason why so many people don't believe in God. Perhaps religions take a too rigid stance on what God really is, and how such a being functions. There are many things in our life that are so beyond our control, that are so epic in their scope, that the mere experience of being able to be aware of it is to call it god-like. Maybe god is just an energy form, responsible for the turning of all the elements in the cosmos, and is a result of all this randomness taking form as a human being. You gotta admin, there's an awful lot about what makes us human, that science cannot explain. Can not these atributes of love, hate, courage, and a plethora of other absurd, uniquely human, characteristics be a result of god, and god itself in this instance meaning that something which is beyond our understanding, and beyond our comprehension. I think people today are too preoccupied with some ludicrous notion that they have to be in full control of their life. Here's a question; if you don't believe in god, do you believe in fate...have you ever been trully in love...have you ever seriously contemplated hating someone so much to wish their existence to end? If you don't consider yourself a believer of god, do you consider yourself to be a spiritualistic person? |
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| perpetuous |
| quote: | Originally posted by shanny
There are a number of arguments such as intelligent design and the ontological argument which make it very hard to argue that god doesn't exist.
However in any argument I came across what is proven is that the existence of an all perfect being exists. I never read anything that suggests that the type of god you might want to worship, like the gods depicted in many organized religions exists. |
I was just about to post this, I took a course called "God, Reason and Evil." We read Hume, Kant, and a few others, and then the professor had us apply these theoretical ideas to life, using the example of the Holocaust. (ie. if there is a benevolent God, why would He allow such an event.)
Having said that, the course didn't exactly convince me either way. I suppose I'm agnostic, if only because I really, really like reason. |
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| nacarter |
The problem with doctrine is that it must be based from a specific interpretation of what God is.
At the most general level, doctrine is going to be fundamentally different if you take a negative theological viewpoint (God isn't...) versus a positive theological stand (God is...)
Conservative Christians are all extremely theistic, eliminating any abstract notions of what God is or isn't. This creates a feeling of comfort in that the ability to grade whether one's life is a positive or negative on creation can be measured and compared relatively easily to an idealised version set out by a theistic God.
As a panentheist, I don't have such concrete boundaries. Panentheists believe that God exists, but not in the traditional hierchical form. God is a base from which all creation springs forth. God isn't directly involved in the living of life and does not perform supernatural phenomenon in order to prove his existence or power. Philosopher and Theologian Paul Tillich probably has the best explanation: "God is the ground of all being, the source of love and the source of life". |
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| zokissima |
| quote: | Originally posted by nacarter
As a panentheist, I don't have such concrete boundaries. Panentheists believe that God exists, but not in the traditional hierchical form. God is a base from which all creation springs forth. God isn't directly involved in the living of life and does not perform supernatural phenomenon in order to prove his existence or power. Philosopher and Theologian Paul Tillich probably has the best explanation: "God is the ground of all being, the source of love and the source of life". |
Interesting. I'm going to have to read up on this. |
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| Jem_hadar |
| quote: | Originally posted by zokissima
Here's a question;if you don't believe in god, do you believe in fate... |
No. Don't believe in fate at all, either.
| quote: | | If you don't consider yourself a believer of god, do you consider yourself to be a spiritualistic person? |
No. I am most certainly not spiritual to any extent. |
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