Why I Believe in god(s)

This is for Scott....

I believe there is more beyond what we think is our world/reality. Weither it is a supreme(s) being (and I'm sure there are something like that somewhere in the cosmose) or a greater inteligence/organization it is simple arrogant to think we are the end of the line. Maybe they are aliens that visited and we are just a DNA breeding experiment.

God, gods, goddess,the givers of life, which I think may be more correct, a no sex omnipotent. I believe in a superior life force and it makes me feel warm and cozie.

I aspire to feel the connection to it as a source for me to draw on and live/grow towards as I make my transition some day (no hurry though) and be merge with. Spirit, emotion and thought transends to that state(s) allowing me faint traces of other realities.

Call it god. I'm OK with that.

@ Rickie The Grey...

I have had several of those same thoughts many times before. It's cool to see someone else talk about them.

Edit.
Maybe that means I'm not crazy? :ohmy:
Or we could be the same kind of crazy!?!? :blink:

hahahahhaha :woohoo:

Same kind of crazy. :woohoo:

I hope/wish more people would talk about stuff like that.

I feel it guys, I'll join in the "cozy-fest"...

I just call it 'Being', or 'awareness'...

Being 'awake'...

But some might call it God....

Rickie The Grey wrote: This is for Scott....

I believe there is more beyond what we think is our world/reality. Weither it is a supreme(s) being (and I'm sure there are something like that somewhere in the cosmose) or a greater inteligence/organization it is simple arrogant to think we are the end of the line. Maybe they are aliens that visited and we are just a DNA breeding experiment.

God, gods, goddess,the givers of life, which I think may be more correct, a no sex omnipotent. I believe in a superior life force and it makes me feel warm and cozie.

I aspire to feel the connection to it as a source for me to draw on and live/grow towards as I make my transition some day (no hurry though) and be merge with. Spirit, emotion and thought transends to that state(s) allowing me faint traces of other realities.

Call it god. I'm OK with that.

Interesting.

But lets take a scenario please.
In this scenario we are going to assume these thing to be true.
1: Aliens are real.
2: Aliens have visited the earth
3: Aliens created humans by altering DNA from APES lets say.

My Question is this.?
/ What created them aliens?

Same scenario above could be given to them.
Cycle it again and again and again,
but sooner or later you come to the 1st race.

/What created the 1st race?

It evoled.
OK No problem

Follow the logic backwards.
Through all the ideas of the universe.
You still have to come to a point where you have to ask

WHERE DID IT ALL COME FROM?
WHERE DID THE STUFF THAT ALL CAME FROM COME FROM?

Those two questions are additional reasons I believe in God.

The normal athiest response to this question is one of two things.
I don't know, or
Well where did god come from? (90% of the time said sarcastically.)
From nothing.
Well what is nothing? ( said even more sarcastically.)
Nothing!

The trap we get into with the whole "where did this come from" is the assumption that "things" exist.

There are no "things". There is only energy (a happening) which we perceive as "things".

Also is the illusion of linear cause and effect. One way we know cause and effect as an actual fallacy is the fact that no matter how far we go, it logically has no end. In the illusion's very nature, it cannot end to us. Therefore, there is no "first this happened, then that happened". That is only an effect of the limitations of our perception of time. Things are not linear, only our perception is.

All things are "happening at once", and in fact, in such an instantaneously singular point of time/space (maybe? i don't know what to call it), that in fact, it is also Not happening as well.

One other thing... I think the thread's title is more apt to say "About believing in God", since the OP is not explaining why you believe in god, only that you do, and that's that.

The normal athiest response to this question is one of two things.

I don't know

I find this is the most accurate and honest answer really.

It takes alot of humility to say I dont know.

However, that doesnt mean we wont ever know, or cant know.

We didnt know alot of things at one point.

Still, that does not give credence to the "God of the gaps", as that is a receding shore of faith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIFALPsI6AM

There may be a god...I don't fault anyone for believing there might be. I just haven't seen any evidence that's convincing to me that there is a personal god that gives two craps about what i or others do.

Nature, the Cosmos: that is my god and most of us at this Temple call it the Force.

If society wants to believe in a personal god that's fine by me. Just don't tell me what that personal god wants me to do or pay to please him.

This video illustrates my inherent problems with belief God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovlrV7SoPCo

Mostly though, like Tyson, I really dont think about God, or Gods very often.

I just dont really think of it....

Does that make me shallow, haha.

Thing is, we can't know for certain, right now. I'm more of an agnostic atheist in that I don't know if there is or is not a god, nor will I live my life as if there is one; a freethinker, I call myself. That is until I find it undeniably obvious. I've often struggled with this as a child because I knew about cause and effect and was told that god caused everything. It led me to ask what caused god, and what caused that cause, and so on. It goes on ad infinitum. I even wondered if god had parents (lol). I don't know the answer, yet, and I won't pretend to know any more than I do. It's not ineffable, it just hasn't yet been described or illustrated in an adequate way. Or, perhaps it has and we just don't think it's there, hiding in plain sight. I think about this, sometimes, and I don't think I'll stop until I find something that satiates my curiosity.

Rickie The Grey wrote: ... it is simple arrogant to think we are the end of the line.

A couple of things on this:
First, why do you think that the alternative to believing that superior and/or supreme beings are real would be believing that we are the "end of the line"?
Second, we are, as a matter of fact, among the most recent living things. Now, are we the only ones? No. Are we any better than any of the others? Well, maybe in some areas. I'd say "unique" is what we are, rather than superior. Just as honey bees are unique for making honey. Arguably we are more unique than some other animals since we are the only surviving species of our genus whereas there are nine species of honey bees. But there is only one remaining species of giraffes, so even our uniqueness isn't a unique thing. So is it arrogant to consider that we are both recent beings and the last of our branch, if both happens to be true?
Third, and this is not about you specifically or anyone in particular, but there is a frequently reoccurring idea among the faithful that humans are a special creation or that their god(s) had a particular plan for them. Some even believe they can communicate with the divine. How is it arrogant to consider that you are one of the living, one of the incredibly lucky ones to experience a magnificent and breathtaking and yet vast and cold universe that will hardly even remember your petty existence on one spec of dust somewhere in its corner once you are gone, but then it is suddenly humble to believe that it was created for you, with you in mind, or let alone that you have a private channel to the mastermind behind it?

Moving on:
Scott, what makes you think that "the stuff that all came from" came from God, let alone your idea of God rather than the nothing you say your God came from? The reason atheists will ask where god came from is precisely that: Why would one add a step to an already complicated problem? The best one would be doing is just replace one mystery with another, and arguably an even more complex one than the former. The God-solution raises more questions than it answers. The I-don't-know solution, of course isn't a solution, but at least it doesn't make things worse. As Khaos said, it is sure more honest than assert knowledge none of us can possibly have. And there is always an opportunity to ammend that solution to a I-don't-know-but-let's-find-out-solution. Its honest, open-minded, and it works.
I personally usually would go a step back and ask why you'd think time transcends the universe. The cause and effect relationship takes time as a necessary condition to even consider. However, if there was no time when the universe didn't exist, it follows necessarily that it always existed, despite having had a beginning.

I even wondered if god had parents

I remember thinking this very thing at about seven.

It was sort of like the multiverse, multi multiverse, thing Tyson talks about.

As those parents had to have had parents, etc.

Then. my head exploded.

:laugh:

Proteus wrote: since the OP is not explaining why you believe in god, only that you do, and that's that.

I thought I did?

Gisteron wrote:

Rickie The Grey wrote: ... it is simple arrogant to think we are the end of the line.

A couple of things on this:
First, why do you think that the alternative to believing that superior and/or supreme beings are real would be believing that we are the "end of the line"?

I believe we are not the end of the line. I'm not sure what you mean by alternative?

Second, we are, as a matter of fact, among the most recent living things. Now, are we the only ones? No. Are we any better than any of the others? Well, maybe in some areas. I'd say "unique" is what we are, rather than superior. Just as honey bees are unique for making honey. Arguably we are more unique than some other animals since we are the only surviving species of our genus whereas there are nine species of honey bees. But there is only one remaining species of giraffes, so even our uniqueness isn't a unique thing. So is it arrogant to consider that we are both recent beings and the last of our branch, if both happens to be true?
Third, and this is not about you specifically or anyone in particular, but there is a frequently reoccurring idea among the faithful that humans are a special creation or that their god(s) had a particular plan for them. Some even believe they can communicate with the divine. How is it arrogant to consider that you are one of the living, one of the incredibly lucky ones to experience a magnificent and breathtaking and yet vast and cold universe that will hardly even remember your petty existence on one spec of dust somewhere in its corner once you are gone, but then it is suddenly humble to believe that it was created for you, with you in mind, or let alone that you have a private channel to the mastermind behind it?

Believing isn't arrogant. Insisting you are right is.

Moving on:
Scott, what makes you think that "the stuff that all came from" came from God, let alone your idea of God rather than the nothing you say your God came from? The reason atheists will ask where god came from is precisely that: Why would one add a step to an already complicated problem? The best one would be doing is just replace one mystery with another, and arguably an even more complex one than the former. The God-solution raises more questions than it answers. The I-don't-know solution, of course isn't a solution, but at least it doesn't make things worse. As Khaos said, it is sure more honest than assert knowledge none of us can possibly have. And there is always an opportunity to ammend that solution to a I-don't-know-but-let's-find-out-solution. Its honest, open-minded, and it works.
I personally usually would go a step back and ask why you'd think time transcends the universe. The cause and effect relationship takes time as a necessary condition to even consider. However, if there was no time when the universe didn't exist, it follows necessarily that it always existed, despite having had a beginning.

I am saying there is much we don't know or ever could know. Infinity will never be known by the finite. If you want to call that god or by anyother name I fine with that.

I am saying there is much we don't know or ever could know.

Which has no bearing on anything, as you dont know what we ever could know, or do know now.

You cant really argue that we cant ever know anything. Your speaking as a finite being in which, beyond your lifespan, that assumption, which is vague anyway, could be proven wrong.

As Newton thought he would replace God with his ignorance, others simply took the next step, but Newton assumed(wrongly) that we couldnt know things we do now.

Infinity will never be known by the finite. If you want to call that god or by any other name I fine with that.

So then, what reasoning is behind your belief in God(s)

You cant, by your own admission know. Given that God would be infinite yes? You are, unless I am sorely mistaken, finite. It seems in poor judgement to just fill in the blanks with God.

There is much we dont know, I will give you that.

To say we could never know it, not being able to quantify "it" in any regard, is a bit of a logical fallacy.

I am just a grain of sand on a beach, finite, on a world circling a star in a cosmos made up of billions and billions of stars. infinite, god is as close to a word as anything I can use.

God(s) is a word I use. I'm comfortable with and open to other terms some people use. Yes, it would be in poor judgment to fill in the blanks with the one word god and insist I am right.

I'll stick to the finite can never know infinite. We can know lots of stuff and we can, and I hope will, know more and more, just not everything. We will never know everything. I except my limits and embrace the unknown.

Yes I could be wrong and may very well be. My reasoning is I know I don't know and some day I will know more but will never know it all now or in the furture.

If we could quantify "it" then we'd know it.

Unknown and logic...peas and carrots, each different and both good for you.

Just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean that I believe that there isn't a God. They are quite different things.

The reason why I don't believe in god is, simply, there is no evidence of a god. I have not observed any phenomenon in the universe that the only explanation for its occurrence is that it was caused by a god. That's not to say that I claim to understand everything and That's also not to say there is no possibility of a higher being or god...I just simply don't need god to explain the happenings of the universe...

Also, despite some people's claims I do not need the belief in god to give me purpose or happiness in my life. I am perfectly happy finding purpose in the seemingly randomness of the universe as I currently understand it...

I really liked hearing Neil deGrasse Tyson's view...I hadn't heard much of his perspective before, but I like the way he thinks