Why I don't believe in God

[sealybobo]

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Spirituality is an ability to detach from physiology to prosper without death for an indeterminate amount of time.

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So its a mechanism for humans to connect with what they fear? The unknown?

 

[Dhara]

You cannot INVENT something to make you happy. It simply doesn't work because your brain knows you invented it an it isn't real. If we had such a capability there would be NO depression... Ever! We'd simply invent something not real and make ourselves happy!

"Ignorance is bliss" still isn't making any sense here... we shouldn't be the least bit distressed by death because we can be blissful in our ignorance... but we're not that way. We are consciously aware of something greater than self... immortality... that is the reason we are distressed about death. It's also why it's unique to our species.

You make a good point. No one really truly believes. Ever see anyone looking forward to death? Or happy when their loveone passes? Hell no! We tell ourselves they are in a better place and one day we will see them again.

Sorry boss but you are trying too hard. You're over thinking this. What you think is improbable or impossible is indeed true. You've invented something in your head. You talk to it and you think it's involved in your life. And it's the most generic vague definition of God. Only you believes the shit you're saying.

A moon is greater than self. The universe is greater than self. What you're doing is thinking you are greater than you actually are. You're just the smartest animal on this planet. But really not that smart yet. You/we have a lot of evolving to do.

And in 5000 years we will still be debating this but I suspect all the ancient religions(Christian Muslim Jewish) will be abandoned

I'm not "over-thinking" anything, just applying basic logic and biological science. We tell ourselves the dead are in a better place because we are spiritually-aware creatures who believe in a better place where our immortal spirit goes... this is an intrinsic and inseparable belief humans have always had and it defines our species. You've fooled yourself into believing this is something we invented even though the evidence shows we couldn't have invented it. It defies nature and logic for this to be something we invented. You can find evidence for when humans invented anything other than spirituality. The reason for that is simple, we didn't invent it... we couldn't have... if we had, it would have quickly become obsolete as our brains figured out it was futile and pointless to believe an invention of something fake. Other than 'novelty' you can't just think up something from imagination and have it serve some vital tangible purpose... it doesn't work. I can believe in fairies and gnomes but I can't cause them to serve some vital purpose in reality.

The moon is not "greater than self" and you demonstrate you don't comprehend what I am saying. I'm not talking about a physical greatness in quantity. I am talking about a power which transcends the physical. I assume you do believe in love, right? That would be an example of something non-physical that can be greater than self. That's not the moon or the physical universe. Does the moon make you love someone or not love them? Does the universe make you desire to leave a better world behind after you're gone? Those are spiritual inclinations driven by your spiritual awareness.

You have no idea what the future holds for our species. You can speculate based on assumptions but you have no crystal ball or way of knowing the future. If we still exist in 5k years, we'll still be spiritual creatures for the most part, just as we always have been... it defines our species. Religions are man-made constructs which CONFIRM our spirituality... they may come and go, they always have. Spirituality is a constant for our species. It will never happen but IF we wiped out all human spirituality, we'd cease to be human. We would devolve into highly-intelligent predatory beasts operating by the laws of the jungle and self-preservation... I promise you, it would be a bad world.

I have no idea what the future holds but you do. Got it. Lol

I don't know any more than you, I speculate based on the assumption we will continue being what we've always been.

I think there might be a creator but believing one exists is not a requirement.

You can believe there is a God but anything beyond that is just wild human speculation. What happens when you die? What happens to bad people vs. Good? Who knows. The Greeks imagined average people didn't to to heaven and we imagined they do, if they are "good". Christianity says good won't cut it. No one is good so we have to believe a story. Very clever.

So we imagined up heaven and most likely God too

Have you considered that instead of "imagining" Heaven and Hell as actual "places" we "go to" heaven and hell may be states of mind?

 

[Boss]

How did your gods create themselves?

How many times do I need to answer this, Hollie?

Spiritual things don't require physical creation.

To "create" something is to bring something into physical state of existence.

Spiritual things are not physical things. This is why you have such a difficult time understanding God... you keep wanting to imagine God as a physical being of some kind.

It's just so convenient to grant your gods and magical spirit realms special dispensations with the classic "...... because I say so", commandment.

These dispensations and exceptions must therefore apply to all the other gods and all the other magical spirit realms.

Tell us what uniquely separates your gods and your spirit realms from those of the Greek gods.

I don't know that it's "unique" it may not be. The Greeks may have contemplated the very same spiritual force and their incarnation of "Gods" to explain this are all we have evidence of today. I can't ask the Greeks, they're all dead now.

There is no "dispensation" here. The spiritual simply doesn't require physical creation which is what you asked me about. The spiritual exists (in a spiritual sense) because of logic. Something had to create physics and physical nature. It defies logic that it created itself.

From what I just read about people who are spiritual, it seems you are arrogant and instead of answering to a god, you think YOU are the god. The power is within you. No god necessary. Man this is just silly. So obvious what is going on in your head.

Well, I don't see how I have been arrogant. I humbly admit that I may not be right about there being no deity God. But that's the thing-- no one knows until they die. We can THINK we know but we won't know for certain until we die.

I don't think I am the God... I am certainly not Spiritual Nature. It's something bigger than me... bigger than you.. bigger than humans in general. Bigger and greater than a physical universe and reality that it created and made possible for us to experience. And with that, it is also bigger and greater than anything our minds can conjure up and call "God".

There is no God necessary to be Spiritual. All it takes is being human.... and using logic. If you have those two things going for you, then you can be Spiritual. And being Spiritual doesn't mean you have to abide by some man-made religious doctrine and believe in some man-made incarnation of a jealous and scornful deity who expects us to follow commandments and obey dogma.

 

[Boss]

How are your appeals to gods and spirit realms justified in light of those gods and spirit realms subordinate to more authoritative claims to gods and spirit realms?

Here's the thing.... Let's take someone like Billy Graham.... We're talking about the 97-year-old Christian evangelist, Billy Graham. He does not know what happens after you die. He believes certain things... that is his faith. But he won't know if he was right or wrong until he dies. No one does. Not Graham, not Neil DeGrasse Tyson, not anyone. That's just how things are.

I can't change that. I can't say that my viewpoint is superior or subordinate to another... I don't know. All I can ever go on is my personal experience and what I believe is true. And that's all Graham and Tyson can go on as well as yourself and others. We can certainly ARGUE about it... these threads are endless and they go on for page after page making the same points over and over. BUT-- Until we die, we aren't going to know for certain.

 

[Dhara]

As a teenager, I went to a Billy Graham rally at Shea Stadium accompanied by my two best friends, a Jew and a Native American.
After the talk, everyone was invited to come forward and "Surrender yourself to Jesus". It was curious, so the three of us went forward.

When I heard someone tell my Jewish and Native American friends that it didn't matter how good a person they were, they weren't going to Heaven unless they "took Jesus as their personal savior", I knew internally that Christianity was over for me.

 

[Boss]

As a teenager, I went to a Billy Graham rally at Shea Stadium accompanied by my two best friends, a Jew and a Native American.
After the talk, everyone was invited to come forward and "Surrender yourself to Jesus". It was curious, so the three of us went forward.

When I heard someone tell my Jewish and Native American friends that it didn't matter how good a person they were, they weren't going to Heaven unless they "took Jesus as their personal savior", I knew internally that Christianity was over for me.

I can relate to that experience. When I was a child, my family went to church every Sunday... we were Baptists. I was "saved" and baptized just as my brothers and sisters were because that's what you did in a Baptist family. It made my mother happy and until the day she died, I obliged her by attending church whenever I came to town.

But I can recall when I was probably about 14 or 15... thinking... Man, when I die and go to heaven, God is going to know what's in my heart... because, he's God, right? So he is going to know that I think all this stuff about Jesus being God's living son is bullshit. I can't lie about it... I can't be dunked in some water to prove it... God will know what's really in my heart and I won't be able to hide that.

People would sometimes ask, "Are you a born-again Christian?" And I would respond that I was... but I knew that I didn't really believe like a Christian. I'm sure there are a lot of people in the Church like that as well. I could just never reconcile the hypocrisy in my mind... God is going to know that I am a hypocrite. What is worse-- saying you believe when you don't or not believing at all?

 

[sealybobo]

You make a good point. No one really truly believes. Ever see anyone looking forward to death? Or happy when their loveone passes? Hell no! We tell ourselves they are in a better place and one day we will see them again.

Sorry boss but you are trying too hard. You're over thinking this. What you think is improbable or impossible is indeed true. You've invented something in your head. You talk to it and you think it's involved in your life. And it's the most generic vague definition of God. Only you believes the shit you're saying.

A moon is greater than self. The universe is greater than self. What you're doing is thinking you are greater than you actually are. You're just the smartest animal on this planet. But really not that smart yet. You/we have a lot of evolving to do.

And in 5000 years we will still be debating this but I suspect all the ancient religions(Christian Muslim Jewish) will be abandoned

I'm not "over-thinking" anything, just applying basic logic and biological science. We tell ourselves the dead are in a better place because we are spiritually-aware creatures who believe in a better place where our immortal spirit goes... this is an intrinsic and inseparable belief humans have always had and it defines our species. You've fooled yourself into believing this is something we invented even though the evidence shows we couldn't have invented it. It defies nature and logic for this to be something we invented. You can find evidence for when humans invented anything other than spirituality. The reason for that is simple, we didn't invent it... we couldn't have... if we had, it would have quickly become obsolete as our brains figured out it was futile and pointless to believe an invention of something fake. Other than 'novelty' you can't just think up something from imagination and have it serve some vital tangible purpose... it doesn't work. I can believe in fairies and gnomes but I can't cause them to serve some vital purpose in reality.

The moon is not "greater than self" and you demonstrate you don't comprehend what I am saying. I'm not talking about a physical greatness in quantity. I am talking about a power which transcends the physical. I assume you do believe in love, right? That would be an example of something non-physical that can be greater than self. That's not the moon or the physical universe. Does the moon make you love someone or not love them? Does the universe make you desire to leave a better world behind after you're gone? Those are spiritual inclinations driven by your spiritual awareness.

You have no idea what the future holds for our species. You can speculate based on assumptions but you have no crystal ball or way of knowing the future. If we still exist in 5k years, we'll still be spiritual creatures for the most part, just as we always have been... it defines our species. Religions are man-made constructs which CONFIRM our spirituality... they may come and go, they always have. Spirituality is a constant for our species. It will never happen but IF we wiped out all human spirituality, we'd cease to be human. We would devolve into highly-intelligent predatory beasts operating by the laws of the jungle and self-preservation... I promise you, it would be a bad world.

I have no idea what the future holds but you do. Got it. Lol

I don't know any more than you, I speculate based on the assumption we will continue being what we've always been.

I think there might be a creator but believing one exists is not a requirement.

You can believe there is a God but anything beyond that is just wild human speculation. What happens when you die? What happens to bad people vs. Good? Who knows. The Greeks imagined average people didn't to to heaven and we imagined they do, if they are "good". Christianity says good won't cut it. No one is good so we have to believe a story. Very clever.

So we imagined up heaven and most likely God too

Have you considered that instead of "imagining" Heaven and Hell as actual "places" we "go to" heaven and hell may be states of mind?

That's exactly what they are! That's my point.

 

[sealybobo]

How are your appeals to gods and spirit realms justified in light of those gods and spirit realms subordinate to more authoritative claims to gods and spirit realms?

Here's the thing.... Let's take someone like Billy Graham.... We're talking about the 97-year-old Christian evangelist, Billy Graham. He does not know what happens after you die. He believes certain things... that is his faith. But he won't know if he was right or wrong until he dies. No one does. Not Graham, not Neil DeGrasse Tyson, not anyone. That's just how things are.

I can't change that. I can't say that my viewpoint is superior or subordinate to another... I don't know. All I can ever go on is my personal experience and what I believe is true. And that's all Graham and Tyson can go on as well as yourself and others. We can certainly ARGUE about it... these threads are endless and they go on for page after page making the same points over and over. BUT-- Until we die, we aren't going to know for certain.

Who are you and what have you done with boss?

 

[sealybobo]

As a teenager, I went to a Billy Graham rally at Shea Stadium accompanied by my two best friends, a Jew and a Native American.
After the talk, everyone was invited to come forward and "Surrender yourself to Jesus". It was curious, so the three of us went forward.

When I heard someone tell my Jewish and Native American friends that it didn't matter how good a person they were, they weren't going to Heaven unless they "took Jesus as their personal savior", I knew internally that Christianity was over for me.

Imagine every forefather of yours dating back to Jesus. How many people is that? 4 grandparents 8 great grandparents 16 great greats and so on. Think of all those souls either in heaven or hell. Ridiculous.

Now think of every soul of everyone else's ancestors. And that just dating back to Jesus. Now go back to moses. And now go back to paleoithic and monolithic and kro Magnum. The number of souls is mind blowing.

I'll say one thing. The energy inside a star became us. The energy that is us will be recycled in the universe and who knows one day our energy may end up in another universe someday but me/I won't remember being me. I only have one shot at this life and I better make the most of it

 

[BreezeWood]

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... sorry everyone, there is a choice - of either death or the possibility before death to accomplish the goal in the pursuit of the Everlasting in either case everyone will know when the time has come.

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[Boss]

Imagine every forefather of yours dating back to Jesus. How many people is that? 4 grandparents 8 great grandparents 16 great greats and so on. Think of all those souls either in heaven or hell. Ridiculous.

Now think of every soul of everyone else's ancestors. And that just dating back to Jesus. Now go back to moses. And now go back to paleoithic and monolithic and kro Magnum. The number of souls is mind blowing.

I'll say one thing. The energy inside a star became us. The energy that is us will be recycled in the universe and who knows one day our energy may end up in another universe someday but me/I won't remember being me. I only have one shot at this life and I better make the most of it

Playing "devil's advocate" here... so to speak--

Numbers don't really mean anything spiritually. Numbers mean things to us because we live in a physical reality where math is numbers and everything in our universe is math. Time, math, matter, space, etc.... all these are elements of a physical universe and have no bearing on the spiritual. So "number of souls" doesn't matter. The same is true for your previous speculations on what God might have done before he created the universe... Time is not an element of the spiritual. It means absolutely nothing in a spiritual sense.

When it comes to trying to understand this stuff, I think religious and non-religious people both have a problem overcoming our human perceptions. To put it succinctly, we are unable to imagine that which we cannot imagine.

 

[sealybobo]

Imagine every forefather of yours dating back to Jesus. How many people is that? 4 grandparents 8 great grandparents 16 great greats and so on. Think of all those souls either in heaven or hell. Ridiculous.

Now think of every soul of everyone else's ancestors. And that just dating back to Jesus. Now go back to moses. And now go back to paleoithic and monolithic and kro Magnum. The number of souls is mind blowing.

I'll say one thing. The energy inside a star became us. The energy that is us will be recycled in the universe and who knows one day our energy may end up in another universe someday but me/I won't remember being me. I only have one shot at this life and I better make the most of it

Playing "devil's advocate" here... so to speak--

Numbers don't really mean anything spiritually. Numbers mean things to us because we live in a physical reality where math is numbers and everything in our universe is math. Time, math, matter, space, etc.... all these are elements of a physical universe and have no bearing on the spiritual. So "number of souls" doesn't matter. The same is true for your previous speculations on what God might have done before he created the universe... Time is not an element of the spiritual. It means absolutely nothing in a spiritual sense.

When it comes to trying to understand this stuff, I think religious and non-religious people both have a problem overcoming our human perceptions. To put it succinctly, we are unable to imagine that which we cannot imagine.

Imagine this. Your life after you die will be just like it was before the spirm in your dad's balls cracked that egg. And it was just dumb luck. One wrong move and you'd have never been born. Consider yourself lucky.

 

[Boss]

Imagine this. Your life after you die will be just like it was before the spirm in your dad's balls cracked that egg. And it was just dumb luck. One wrong move and you'd have never been born. Consider yourself lucky.

What if... after you die, the first voice you hear is asking you... "So, how was Heaven?"

 

[Steven_R]

Imagine this. Your life after you die will be just like it was before the spirm in your dad's balls cracked that egg. And it was just dumb luck. One wrong move and you'd have never been born. Consider yourself lucky.

What if... after you die, the first voice you hear is asking you... "So, how was Heaven?"

If this existence is Heaven, God has some real explaining to do.

 

[K9Buck]

As a teenager, I went to a Billy Graham rally at Shea Stadium accompanied by my two best friends, a Jew and a Native American.
After the talk, everyone was invited to come forward and "Surrender yourself to Jesus". It was curious, so the three of us went forward.

When I heard someone tell my Jewish and Native American friends that it didn't matter how good a person they were, they weren't going to Heaven unless they "took Jesus as their personal savior", I knew internally that Christianity was over for me.

Imagine every forefather of yours dating back to Jesus. How many people is that? 4 grandparents 8 great grandparents 16 great greats and so on. Think of all those souls either in heaven or hell. Ridiculous.

Now think of every soul of everyone else's ancestors. And that just dating back to Jesus. Now go back to moses. And now go back to paleoithic and monolithic and kro Magnum. The number of souls is mind blowing.

I'll say one thing. The energy inside a star became us. The energy that is us will be recycled in the universe and who knows one day our energy may end up in another universe someday but me/I won't remember being me. I only have one shot at this life and I better make the most of it

God says in the bible that he knew you before you were in the womb.

 

[sealybobo]

Imagine this. Your life after you die will be just like it was before the spirm in your dad's balls cracked that egg. And it was just dumb luck. One wrong move and you'd have never been born. Consider yourself lucky.

What if... after you die, the first voice you hear is asking you... "So, how was Heaven?"

If this existence is Heaven, God has some real explaining to do.

I disagree. I would thank god for the time I got. I was very lucky. So we're you. Don't waste the gift

 

[sealybobo]

As a teenager, I went to a Billy Graham rally at Shea Stadium accompanied by my two best friends, a Jew and a Native American.
After the talk, everyone was invited to come forward and "Surrender yourself to Jesus". It was curious, so the three of us went forward.

When I heard someone tell my Jewish and Native American friends that it didn't matter how good a person they were, they weren't going to Heaven unless they "took Jesus as their personal savior", I knew internally that Christianity was over for me.

Imagine every forefather of yours dating back to Jesus. How many people is that? 4 grandparents 8 great grandparents 16 great greats and so on. Think of all those souls either in heaven or hell. Ridiculous.

Now think of every soul of everyone else's ancestors. And that just dating back to Jesus. Now go back to moses. And now go back to paleoithic and monolithic and kro Magnum. The number of souls is mind blowing.

I'll say one thing. The energy inside a star became us. The energy that is us will be recycled in the universe and who knows one day our energy may end up in another universe someday but me/I won't remember being me. I only have one shot at this life and I better make the most of it

God says in the bible that he knew you before you were in the womb.

No God wrote that. Men did. Remember that

 

[K9Buck]

God knew you and I both before we were in the womb. I don't need the bible to know that to be true.

 

[sealybobo]

God knew you and I both before we were in the womb. I don't need the bible to know that to be true.

Of course you needed the bible to fucking tell you that.

How many times did you repeat this lyric before you became brainwashed as a small child?

Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;

And now you have the nerve to say you knew God knew YOU before you were in the womb as if that's obvious. How was that obvious to you?

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” – Mark Twain

 

[sealybobo]

Argument from wishful thinking. The primary psychological role of traditional religion is rationalizing the tragedy of death as a good thing to alleviate the anxiety of mortality.

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.” – Carl Sagan