Is there a god/Allah/Supreme being?
Discussion
vixpy1 said:
At no point in my previous posts did i say i believed in ONE supreme being. There could have been an entire world of them, but we WERE created buy something.
So how did the first become created. Who/what created the first matter, that created/evolved into somthing that can/could create a universe.
Where did anything come from. How did a supreme being materalise.
andy mac said:
A whole planet of supreme beings? Hmmm... lets hope they do not have a civil war then. If you were a supreme being, would you live on a planet?
Why do you believe we were created by something? What makes you think that we had to have been created, and not jsut evolved froma primeival stew? What made the things that created us? The line goes on, so that there will never be a supremem being. Something had to of created everything, thus something must have created the creater, which was made by a creator, and so on. There is no individuual thing that sparked off life, because by definition, it must of had a life of some sort before it decided to do some creating... see what i mean?
Only if you view existence using our limited understanding and our limited senses. Perhaps the "Supreme" being is not limited to such constraints as time, energy and space. Action/reaction may not apply?
andy mac said:
A whole planet of supreme beings? Hmmm... lets hope they do not have a civil war then. If you were a supreme being, would you live on a planet?
Why do you believe we were created by something? What makes you think that we had to have been created, and not jsut evolved froma primeival stew? What made the things that created us? The line goes on, so that there will never be a supremem being. Something had to of created everything, thus something must have created the creater, which was made by a creator, and so on. There is no individuual thing that sparked off life, because by definition, it must of had a life of some sort before it decided to do some creating... see what i mean?
Thanks, i read that, and my head has fallen off !
Did someone call for me? 
OK, my tuppence worth.
Religion was "invented" way back when to explain away the unexplainable at the time. Early man got more than a little spooked by lightening, famine, pestilence etc as were very fashionable at the time. So some bright spark has an idea to explain it all away with a bloke called "God" (moi).
All was well with the world. Early man was happy with the notion that "God was displeased" when the crops didn't flourish and mans natural dislike of a lack of knowledge was appeased.
"The church" could take money and gifts from the peasants to make god happy again. When the harvest failed yet again, the church would take even more money, as the peasants were obviously stingy. Eventually, as we all know now, the harvest would come along.
Religion flourished and was to prove so succesful it was eventually franchised. Some of the better known franchises were run by the catholic church and the muslims. Each religion had slightly different names for their "God" figure to avoid copyright issues. Obviously none of the peasants were aware of any other religion. Can you imagine the confusion?
One day however, global travel was invented. All of a sudden the franchisees didn't have carte blanche to print money. This led to a lot of in-fighting amongst the franchisee's as they were obviously not keen to see their income stream diminish. They hit on the idea of using their own subjects to eliminate the other franchisees. Their thinking was that with the competition gone, "the church" could continue to opperate very profitably.
Peasants were despatched on Jihads and crusades and all manner of other religious quests with a goal of becoming the only religion.
And that brings us neatly up to date. The franchisees are still locked in a bitter battle for global marketing rights and ultimate financial supremacy. Very little is known of this. There is no point googling, it will not reveal the truth.
Feel honoured that you have been privy to this audience, take the knowledge with you, but tell no-one of what you have heard.
Alternatively, Darwin got it right and I just can't explain the bit before
t! 
BliarOut said:
OK, my tuppence worth.
Religion was "invented" way back when to explain away the unexplainable at the time. Early man got more than a little spooked by lightening, famine, pestilence etc as were very fashionable at the time. So some bright spark has an idea to explain it all away with a bloke called "God" (moi).
All was well with the world. Early man was happy with the notion that "God was displeased" when the crops didn't flourish and mans natural dislike of a lack of knowledge was appeased.
"The church" could take money and gifts from the peasants to make god happy again. When the harvest failed yet again, the church would take even more money, as the peasants were obviously stingy. Eventually, as we all know now, the harvest would come along.
Religion flourished and was to prove so succesful it was eventually franchised. Some of the better known franchises were run by the catholic church and the muslims. Each religion had slightly different names for their "God" figure to avoid copyright issues. Obviously none of the peasants were aware of any other religion. Can you imagine the confusion?
One day however, global travel was invented. All of a sudden the franchisees didn't have carte blanche to print money. This led to a lot of in-fighting amongst the franchisee's as they were obviously not keen to see their income stream diminish. They hit on the idea of using their own subjects to eliminate the other franchisees. Their thinking was that with the competition gone, "the church" could continue to opperate very profitably.
Peasants were despatched on Jihads and crusades and all manner of other religious quests with a goal of becoming the only religion.
And that brings us neatly up to date. The franchisees are still locked in a bitter battle for global marketing rights and ultimate financial supremacy. Very little is known of this. There is no point googling, it will not reveal the truth.
Feel honoured that you have been privy to this audience, take the knowledge with you, but tell no-one of what you have heard.
Alternatively, Darwin got it right and I just can't explain the bit before
My own personal opinion is that the Church, and religion have very little in common anymore. the Church PLC is pretty big business now you know!
Jinx said:
A whole planet of supreme beings? Hmmm... lets hope they do not have a civil war then. If you were a supreme being, would you live on a planet?
Why do you believe we were created by something? What makes you think that we had to have been created, and not jsut evolved froma primeival stew? What made the things that created us? The line goes on, so that there will never be a supremem being. Something had to of created everything, thus something must have created the creater, which was made by a creator, and so on. There is no individuual thing that sparked off life, because by definition, it must of had a life of some sort before it decided to do some creating... see what i mean?
Only if you view existence using our limited understanding and our limited senses. Perhaps the "Supreme" being is not limited to such constraints as time, energy and space. Action/reaction may not apply?
So why wopuld such a creature bother with creating 1 planet out of billuions and billions of galaxies with life on. We DID evolve from single celled organisms. Is that the best the 'supreme' being could do?
This 'energy/space' independent being still does not explain the supreme being polava. A supreme being is supposed to of created everything. What created the supremem being? It may be beyond our comprehension, but if 'something had to have created everything' then equally something must have created the creator, no matter how incomprehensible it is. And if it was an alien rce that created us in an experiment, then that certainly does not make them supreme beings, worthy of worship.
Jinx said:
Only if you view existence using our limited understanding and our limited senses. Perhaps the "Supreme" being is not limited to such constraints as time, energy and space. Action/reaction may not apply?
If a supreme being existed outside time and space, they would be immune from causality and totally unable to create anything. Creation needs a start point for there to be a creation - cause and effect. If a supreme being exists outside the influence of time then they can't possible generate a point in time (the cause) from which their creation (the effect) starts, surely?
The "I don't respect people's views just because they are deeply held. I believe in science, in the scientific method, in doubt, in questioning, in facing truths, not hiding from them.
I don't believe in God but I admit I could be wrong. I don't believe in faith at all because faith is belief without reason, and reason is the only thing we have, the only thing I do believe in.
I think people have every right to believe in anything they want, no matter how ridiculous it might be, but I don't accept their right to coerce others into the same views. And I certainly don't accept any right they might think they have not to have their views challenged just because they're going to feel peeved in the process."
Iain Banks - Dead Air
Quite a good quote.....
What deeply upsets me about religion is the amount of death caused in the name of this that or the other god, what every religion is telling you its wrong to kill, yet its ok to kill non believers.....what a load of rubbish.
Religion is responsible for more death in this world than anything else, yet its is supposed to be the path to enlightenment??????
And as Blairout so cleverly put, religion has really only been created out of mankinds insecurities about death.
Personally, I think religion should be wiped out, people should start taking more responsibility for theirs own lives and place that belief in themselves.
I don't believe in God but I admit I could be wrong. I don't believe in faith at all because faith is belief without reason, and reason is the only thing we have, the only thing I do believe in.
I think people have every right to believe in anything they want, no matter how ridiculous it might be, but I don't accept their right to coerce others into the same views. And I certainly don't accept any right they might think they have not to have their views challenged just because they're going to feel peeved in the process."
Iain Banks - Dead Air
Quite a good quote.....
What deeply upsets me about religion is the amount of death caused in the name of this that or the other god, what every religion is telling you its wrong to kill, yet its ok to kill non believers.....what a load of rubbish.
Religion is responsible for more death in this world than anything else, yet its is supposed to be the path to enlightenment??????
And as Blairout so cleverly put, religion has really only been created out of mankinds insecurities about death.
Personally, I think religion should be wiped out, people should start taking more responsibility for theirs own lives and place that belief in themselves.
hornet said:
If a supreme being existed outside time and space, they would be immune from causality and totally unable to create anything. Creation needs a start point for there to be a creation - cause and effect. If a supreme being exists outside the influence of time then they can't possible generate a point in time (the cause) from which their creation (the effect) starts, surely?
Not if it was created within the Supreme being.
Dakkon said:
Religion is responsible for more death in this world than anything else, yet its is supposed to be the path to enlightenment??????
Personally, I think religion should be wiped out, people should start taking more responsibility for theirs own lives and place that belief in themselves.
Point one above - people kill people! you can't blame an idea for the actions of those that believe in it.
Point two - refer to point one.
Jinx said:So we are within the supreme being... Whoever siad we are a virus must be right...
If a supreme being existed outside time and space, they would be immune from causality and totally unable to create anything. Creation needs a start point for there to be a creation - cause and effect. If a supreme being exists outside the influence of time then they can't possible generate a point in time (the cause) from which their creation (the effect) starts, surely?
Not if it was created within the Supreme being.
Jinx said:
Perhaps the "Supreme" being is not limited to such constraints as time, energy and space. Action/reaction may not apply?
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Rather than say 'Why can't a supreme being exist?' - which as you correctly point out is completely unanswerable, given that by definition a Supreme Being can do anything it damn well likes - try 'Why should one exist? What can we observe, but cannot explain (and therefore requires some mystical being to have created it)?'
That's what I've always asked myself, and the answer is absolutely nothing. There is no reason at all to surmise that there is anything beyond the basic laws of physics and a very very long timespan.
mrwomble said:
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Rather than say 'Why can't a supreme being exist?' - which as you correctly point out is completely unanswerable, given that by definition a Supreme Being can do anything it damn well likes - try 'Why should one exist? What can we observe, but cannot explain (and therefore requires some mystical being to have created it)?'
That's what I've always asked myself, and the answer is absolutely nothing. There is no reason at all to surmise that there is anything beyond the basic laws of physics and a very very long timespan.
But the basic laws of physics don't always apply even within our limited scope of experiences - the rules do not fit at the extremes. We can already predict when the laws of causality break-down. There are points where time, space and energy are the same thing.
Isn't it naive to beleive there isn't a greater being that looks upon us as we watch the stimulus response of micro-organisms?
I think I'm too un-stoned for this sort of discussion, but still, here goes...
For the whole where did it all come from thing - I read a good article on a version of the old big-bang-explained-by-unified-theory-type-theory earlier:
[url]http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=538716[/url]
It basically suggests that the big bang was down to a collision of universes as opposed to just a explosion out of nothing. The ekpyrotic universe theory apparently.
About God... well, I'm not a religious person. Pretty much atheist. However, having spoken to various people from the other side (not dead, I mean believers!), they're argument comes down to belief. From what I can gather, the whole believing in God thing, is such a wild idea - it makes no sense to me for all sorts of science type reasons - but thats the whole point. Those who believe it, believe it because they have developed a faith that its true. And thats that. You can't prove or disprove it. You just gotta go with what you think. Us atheists believe that there is no supreme god thing, everything just happens for whatever reasons we think it does (maybe none of this is real, we've just had some very strong mushrooms...). The godbods go with their religious beliefs.
Thats that cleared up then!
For the whole where did it all come from thing - I read a good article on a version of the old big-bang-explained-by-unified-theory-type-theory earlier:
[url]http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=538716[/url]
It basically suggests that the big bang was down to a collision of universes as opposed to just a explosion out of nothing. The ekpyrotic universe theory apparently.
About God... well, I'm not a religious person. Pretty much atheist. However, having spoken to various people from the other side (not dead, I mean believers!), they're argument comes down to belief. From what I can gather, the whole believing in God thing, is such a wild idea - it makes no sense to me for all sorts of science type reasons - but thats the whole point. Those who believe it, believe it because they have developed a faith that its true. And thats that. You can't prove or disprove it. You just gotta go with what you think. Us atheists believe that there is no supreme god thing, everything just happens for whatever reasons we think it does (maybe none of this is real, we've just had some very strong mushrooms...). The godbods go with their religious beliefs.
Thats that cleared up then!
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