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From	Message
rilke 28-May-05, 13:22	Does God exist? It has been many debates about the existence of God,which is the truth.Is he the God impersonal as Spinoza claim once in his book.Is he the God of Mohammed spoke, or the Jehova as Judaism explains.Is he the benevolent father that Jesus and christians preach? Or there is no God, such is the claim of Ahtheism. For them there is no afterlife,no reward, no punishment,similar view as the Existentialsm:the live has no meaning, life is ABSURD...such is the statement of Camus and Satre. Buddha never mention the word GOD, but he spoke of Nirvana.Is Nirvana our state of peace.Hinduism believes in many GODS,including Reincarnation.Meaning i must live many lives as possible until I reach my maximum stae of perfection.What do you think?Was Nietzsche also correct in Zarathustra?God or no God that is the question>>
baseline 28-May-05, 14:58	a question that man in all his many manifestations has been grappling with since the dawn of time.
standardpoodle 30-May-05, 08:01	Poodles are special. I suppose I have a hard time accepting that I am simply the result of genetic mutations. Darwin had a point but was unable to see the wood for the trees. The Poodle.
baseline 04-Jun-05, 23:47	there is quite a heated discussion of Creation Science at "The Lost Social Forum" Science cannot explain the spark that ignited the Big Bang and Evolution says all life evolved from earlier forms of life but can not explain the spark that created life in the first place.
rilke 05-Jun-05, 00:07	Science will look for answers in their rationalistic point, which is logical.But how limited is Science for the mystery of the Universe.As the great Humanistic Scholar "Erasmus de Rotterdam call Science"...."those private secretaries of the Universe. Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is to get know thyself. We are the macrocosm and the Universe the microcosm of Life.
evgraan 17-Mar-06, 00:50	I believe in Jesus I for one, believe in Jesus and the God of the Bible. I've had too many prayers answered, too many trespasses forgiven, heard too much evidence, too many prophecies fulfilled and experienced too many wonderful meetings with God to ever think otherwise ; )
artjones 17-Mar-06, 08:14	"Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have only come up with two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I'm not Him." Father Cavanaugh in the movie Rudy. "Darwin Loves You" from a populor bumper sticker "Wether there is a God and how he manifest's in your life is determined by your faith in which case you will always be right or left." art in Gameknot
astalablasta 17-Mar-06, 12:51	The Great question. Im a dyslexic insomniac agnostic, I often lay awake all night wondering if there really is a Dog.... Is that the right question? or are we really concerned about wether there is an afterlife, so we create God in order to comfort us from the looming possibility of cosmic loneliness......just a thought...Mark
wanttaja 17-Mar-06, 16:59	Deleted by wanttaja on 04-Apr-06, 23:44.
pagodapanicdog 18-Mar-06, 20:40	absolutely not!... ..if by the word "God" you are suggesting an invisible sentient being that has our own personal affairs at his(or her) most basic concern, that this being will provide us with knowledge of right and wrong, and will preserve ourselves and everything we love after we die. This beleif stems from the fact that we humans are animals with enough inteligence to be able to think about such ideas as 1. where did everything come from. 2. what happens after we die. 3. what is right or wrong action. These are tough questions for most of us to just let be unanswered. It is psycologically difficult on us to not know the answers to such questions. Eventually out of need for answer to the questions isnt it logical that some of us will think up a conclusion given the discomfort of not knowing? As for the first two questions, I wouldnt give the slightest amount of credibility to ANY living creatures answer. It is easy to see that such things are unknowable. As for the third, logic can suffice nicely if anyone need an answer.
artjones 20-Mar-06, 09:26	Would we know light exists if we are forever in a shadow? I don't know but I can imagine that it does and make dicisions accordingly, right or wrong. Imagine that there is a God and he/she or it is so much more powerful than we can imagine and he/she or it created every thing we know, and have yet to learn about, in an instant. Imagine that this God does not interfear with your every movement but knew what it would be the moment of creation. Would you make your decisions differentley than if you believed this God whatched over your every move? and if you did what would you change?
evgraan 22-Mar-06, 05:38	morals / ethics Hi pagodapanicdog... With reference to #3 in your post, this is indeed an interesting observation. I would be interested in exploring the logic that could provide an answer re: what is right and wrong. If a moral code exists which we can all arrive at by logic, does that not point to an intelligence greater than our own that set it in place? What are your thoughts on this subject?
astalablasta 25-Mar-06, 07:56	Its turtles all the way down who made the maker. You can & its a proven fact go bonkers about this subject. Morals & ethics are these subject only to the human race? I suppose some apes posses a level of them some other animals too ?
pagodapanicdog 27-Mar-06, 11:22	logic / right and wrong behaviour Good points evgraan. The first assertion I would make would be to say that if we rule out a sentient divine being that holds the code of moral behaviour for our species, the logical result of such a conclusion would be that there are no inherantly good or evil actions. That leaves the question of "what are people to do?" - allow anything? I make a series of logical conclusions that provide an answer. A living human being chooses to live, continue living, and live without suffering be it physical or psychological. This is probably true for all living beings with mental capacity to process such notions. If we use this as a basis for what actions a human should or shouldnt take, we can concieve of actions that work towards such a goal, and actions that do not. Either course of action is neither good, bad, sinful, or righteous. I will call actions that preserve life and freedom from suffering as positive action, and ones that work against it negative action. A society can work towards the positive by creating laws restricting negative action. Laws can be created not with a sense on good or bad, but with our logical goal in mind of protecting life and freedom from suffering, not out of morality, just for the desicion that this is what we will do. A govenment should hold true to this formula. Even in a democracy like the U.S. we still have a constition to which laws cannot(should not)violate even by vote of the people. We have as our basis, the rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness- all very much in line with my assertion of positive actions. * As for the observation that a moral code exists, thereby suggesting greater purpose to life, and the existence of God, please note, that I am not stating morals at all with my line of thinking,..just choice of behaviour. Along this line of thinking, there are no actions taken that have any effect on the individual in a "cosmic" (for lacking a better word) sense, be it "good" or "bad". * Logical thinking as a way of deciding behaviour produces most of the commonly held beliefs of right and wrong behaviour that most religions endorse. But there would also be exceptions, and debate on the more subtle issues.
evgraan 06-Apr-06, 01:34	logical behaviour Thanks pagodapanicdog! I found your thoughts very interesting and would like to add some of my own. Looking at the first assertion (since the rest stand or fall thereby) I wonder what your thoughts are on these considerations: 1) The logic of ruling out a sentient divine being. Even disregarding the volumes of evidence both factual and experiential that point towards a divine sentient being, following logical reasoning and deduction one cannot prove that a God exists, neither that He does not exist. Working with probability, it is difficult to then decide 'on the balance' of subjective information. I.e. which criteria should we select in using our logical reasoning to determine which one of the two options (God exists or He doesn't) is more likely looking at subjective information (since objective reasoning cannot give us a conclusive answer). If for example we decide to take the majority vote, then a large % of people (> 2 billion) believe in Christ, and (correct me if I'm wrong) I think about a billion believe in allah, and many more in other gods. I.e. majority vote would be that there is a God. In other words, looking at pure logic, we cannot really make any assertions by ruling out a divine sentient being, since we cannot logically justify ruling out such a being. At best, the odds are 50-50 that He exists, or does not ; ) 2) I wonder whether it is safe to assume that a human being innately chooses to live and continue living without suffering of any kind. If we look at psychology, we see that any given individual not only suffers from physical / emiotional pain to him/herself, but also from the suffering of others. This can also be seen in cases where people are not in relationship with the person(s) suffering. Yet, most of the suffering in this world is induced by humans themselves. In a world-view that has no moral right or wrong, any action that would benefit me would be viewed by me as a positive course of action, yet people committing crimes that benefit them in some way or another find that the guilt and remorse actually leads to much suffering later. This seems illogical if there is no right or wrong. Having said all this, my question becomes: if human beings innately choose to live and continue living without suffering of any kind (including that of others), why is our world in the state it is? Surely if it is the majority of people that choose to live so, the minority which don't (and are 'abnormal' in this sense) would not be able to create a state such as our world finds itself in? Another problem that arises with this view is that it is clear that there is some other driving force in human beings that takes us beyond choosing to simply be happy with living. We want to live, but to live with more and more... more status, more money, more pleasure, and often at the cost of others. Who has not seen the effects of greed of all kinds not only on an individual, but also on others and societies? For example, in our capitalist societies, surely if our basis are innately as you describe, we will all sell our 2nd cars, our TV sets, our fancy clothes and eat a little less, using the money and food saved to provide food and cloting and shelter for everyone in the world? There is enough food for everyone, yet it seems as though it is very hard to let go of our luxuries and distribute evenly, despite the suffering of others... The further away (geographically) the suffering, the less it impacts us. For example, we can complain and launch activist rallies if a ship carrying nuclear waste docks in our harbours, or if a closeby forest we like walking in is chopped down, or if our children are disadvantaged in school in some way, but we supply guns and humanitarian aid to African countries that are resource rich at the same time (Many millions people have been killed in the Congo wars for example). People around the world are starving, and 'that's terrible indeed!', but we don't do much about it, since it's far away... and of course one can afford only so much... but what is too much. Surely our innate drives would drive us to sell our second car and buy food for Somalians? Why do we need 15 shirts and four pairs of shoes... Surely $10 a month can prevent a poverty-stricken family in Cambodia to sell their children for $10? Sorry, I get a bit passionate about these things : ) Well, this is all to illustrate that our living out our morals seems very subjective, based very much on personal driving forces, and that if the basis is as you describe, it does not seem to extend much beyond looking after ourselves. This brings me to my third question. 3) If such logical thinking as a way of deciding behaviour reflects most of the commonly held beliefs of right and wrong behaviour that most religions endorse, is it not logically an equally valid position to argue that logical thought is not setting these rules in place, but discovering these pre-existing rules as society grows in compassion and valuing life and freedom? I.e. the more we understand of physics, the more we can use it to our benefit, but we did not think up physics, it existed before we started discovering it. Perhaps just so with a universal moral code? Thanks for an interesting discussion! I look forward to exploring this some more!! : )
pagodapanicdog 07-Apr-06, 22:42	you make good points evgraan.. this has been a good thread, and I will add another long post in it. I am an objective person, and you have made valid points, I will try to add clarity to my views... regarding your last post: * you posted.... "Looking at the first assertion (since the rest stand or fall thereby) I wonder what your thoughts are on these considerations" ---my assertion that humans need to ask the question "what are people to do?" stands regardless even if I hadnt started by dismissing the existence of a divine sentient being, and my line of reasoning to find the answer will hold true even had I started with the opposite line of concept- (that God exists). This somewhat makes your points in "1)" less of a factor to my theme on how humans can decide on actions (interesting as your section 1 was, i will stay on course and proceed to your second point coming back to "1" later if you like) * regarding point 2) of your post: "I wonder whether it is safe to assume that a human being innately chooses to live and continue living without suffering of any kind." ---all your points in this are valid based on my word "chooses". My thoughts would have been better articulated had I said "desires". ,and even then there are people who do not desire to live, but even in those cases I would hold fast to the idea that desire for a lack of suffering is universal for all that lives. Certainly if all humans thought through all their actions to find actions that did not lead to suffering for themselves(and better yet not for others either), much of the human inflicted sufferings you have mentioned would be non-existent. The hopelessness of many people that do not find comfort in religion can lead to nearly any action, there is a deep void for such people. Buddhism is a religion that deals much with the subject of suffering. The main premise is that suffering is the result of attachment to impermanence. In other words, we desire that the things that bring us pleasure will never separated from us. This desire is the source of all our suffering. The desires for material things that you note in point 2 can actually even be applied to most religions. Is it not the same desire for "things" that a christian heaven offers? Even if it is only for permanence of other people or self or things, that the focus is? Do christians beleive in an afterlife of a complete void? In heaven, are there no material things to enjoy? no self, trees, people, houses, food,.. anything? Is there nothing of this life that is desired to have for forever? definately not! The lack of hunger for material and experience in this life is replaced by beleif that all those things will be eternally available to them, by beleif in God, hence no greed (in the devout beleiver-mind you). --- * on point 3) as with a theme of some of your other posts.. this is a very interesting line of thought that the discovery of "laws of physics or ideas" suggests a nature of reality and points to "God". I can agree on this, if not the nature of what many people think of as "god". This line of thinking leads to pantheism. The many gods of the hindu religion can be thought of as "forces of what our reality is". Such things are real. * I will not create a book here, so I will leave some things not said and wait for others to give their ideas..more ideas are welcome!

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