Do you believe in a Higher power?

[HarveyWallbangers]

A large majority (myself included) of "religious folks" don't push their beliefs, and it takes a lot to get them to discuss them. I'm betting I'm one of the silent majority--especially considering these poll results.

[woodbuck27]

The Atheist - reason of sence and sensability.

Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture, and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind isn't occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw " from the statistical laws " that govern the lives of six billion human beings.

The same statistics also suggest that this girl’s parents believe -- at this very moment -- that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this?

No.

That is the respose of the atheist.

The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious.

Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle. The obvious must be observed and re-observed and argued for. This is a thankless job. It carries with it an aura of petulance and insensitivity. It is, moreover, a job that the atheist doesn't want.

It is worth noting that no one ever need identify himself as a non-astrologer or a non-alchemist. Consequently, we do not have words for people who deny the validity of these pseudo-disciplines.

Likewise, “atheism” is a term that should not even exist.

It's nothing more - than the noises reasonable people make, when in the presence of religious dogma.

The atheist is merely a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (eighty-seven percent of the population) who claim to “never doubt the existence of God”. . . .

should be obliged to present evidence for his existence -- and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day.

Only the atheist appreciates just how uncanny our situation is:

most of us believe in a God that is every bit as specious as the gods of Mount Olympus; no person, whatever his or her qualifications, can seek public office in the United States without pretending to be certain that such a God exists; and much of what passes for public policy in the US of A, conforms to religious taboos and superstitions appropriate to a medieval theocracy. Our circumstance is abject, indefensible, and terrifying. It would be hilarious if the stakes were not so high.

Consider the city of New Orleans which was recently destroyed by hurricane Katrina. At least a thousand people died, tens of thousands lost all their earthly possessions, and over a million have been displaced. It's safe to say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Katrina struck believed in an omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate God.

What was God doing while a hurricane laid waste to their city?

Surely He heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there. These were people of faith. These were good men and women who had prayed throughout their lives. Only the atheist has the courage to admit the obvious: these poor people spent their lives in the company of an imaginary friend.

Of course, there had been ample warning that a storm “of biblical proportions” would strike New Orleans, and the human response to the ensuing disaster was tragically inept.

It was inept, only by the light of science. Advance warning of Katrina’s path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery.

God told no one of his plans.

Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of the Lord, they wouldn’t have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces.

Yet, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that eighty percent of Katrina’s survivors claim that the event has only strengthened their faith in God.

As hurricane Katrina was devouring New Orleans, on another shore,nearly a thousand Shiite pilgrims were trampled to death on a bridge in Iraq. There can be no doubt that these pilgrims believed mightily in the God of the Koran. Indeed, their lives were organized around the indisputable fact of his existence:

their women walked veiled before him; their men regularly murdered one another over rival interpretations of his word. It would be remarkable if a single survivor of this tragedy lost his faith. More likely, the survivors imagine that they were spared through God’s grace.

Only the atheist recognizes the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the saved. Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs. Because he refuses to cloak the reality of the world’s suffering in a cloying fantasy of eternal life, the atheist feels in his bones just how precious life is -- and, indeed, how unfortunate it is that millions of human beings suffer the most harrowing abridgements of their happiness, for no good reason at all.

Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent?

There is no other way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved.

If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil.

Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God’s goodness in the first place. And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that. If He exists, the God of Abraham is not merely unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.

There is another possibility, of course, and it is both the most reasonable and least odious: the biblical God is a fiction. As Richard Dawkins has observed, we are all atheists with respect to Zeus and Thor. Only the atheist has realized that the biblical god is no different. Consequently, only the atheist is compassionate enough to take the profundity of the world’s suffering at face value. It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive.

That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion -- to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions, and religious diversions of scarce resources -- is what makes atheism a moral and intellectual necessity. It is a necessity, however, that places the atheist at the margins of society. The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

[Fosco33]

A large majority (myself included) of "religious folks" don't push their beliefs, and it takes a lot to get them to discuss them. I'm betting I'm one of the silent majority--especially considering these poll results.

Understood. I won't discuss this anymore - just interested to see what other people are thinking as I'm questioning my own faith (hence the title of the thread and the main purpose clearly stated early therein).

[HarveyWallbangers]

You can discuss all you want. I was just making an observation.

[the_idle_threat]

[woodbuck27]

I am directing this to Fosco33 - for the courage and strength in the man. I could PM him but this is a Forum and we are all Adults here, or at least most of us are of the age of consent. If you can't deal with this examine yourself.

Fosco33. Your question is not one of religion but of the existence of a Higher POWER. A presence for you to reach out too - to gain the strength you need in any condition of need, as a result of loss or repair ie Robert - but also to sustain you in strength on a daily basis.

If one was to google the words Higher Power. Then you will discover several references to that - in connection to any number of Addiction Support Programs and their central tool -The 12 Step Program.

I was raised in a strong Christian Home, that was focused on LOVE through the direction and eyes of the Higher Power, Christians/ Jews refer to as God or YHWH (Yaweh) etc.

I am today at BEST, and in concert with other Christians - Ecumenical in my practise of worship of my Higher Power. I am also as an individual given to believe that my relationship with my Higher Power - is just mine.

It's personal, but I'm open to discuss /talk about what works for me, to possibly assist others to strengthen their spiritual lives. To decide in the direction that may work for them, to establish a well strength, especially at those times of more personal need, or when Life tests us.

Fosco33.You are only 26 years of age and young man I commend you. I like you,and many others in this Forum, have lost close friends to death at a similiar age as Robert was. When you rallied to support Roberts Family and Widow , the strength of some Spirit must have welled up inside of you. To support your needs - to add whatever solice you had to give to friends in need after a loss.

You demonstrated the strengh of LOVE that was all you needed for them. You passed a test Fosco33 and I believe, you even surprised your young self. Congratulations.

You had decided some time ago that a practise of atheism was the way. That was your choice and right as well.

Yet, when Robert died. Suddenly, life summoned more from what is inside of you, then it normally did and you got there. That is the proof that a relationship with your choice of Higher Power is - ONLY YOUR's.

Discussions on Religion per say are flat out the work of the Dark Side. People get all hurt and indignant and simply miss the central theme and commandment handed to us in Christianity - To - LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

The greatest hypocrits, are people wrapped in the false clock of some form or other of Religious Dogma. The central theme of their Religious persuasion is FEAR based. My inspection and trust in my Higher Power forces me to deny their ways. To simply put. Shake my head and move away from them with prudence and haste.

Fosco33, I believe, that as an adult. It is incumbant on us, to examine OUR Spiritual strength, solely in ourselves, and of course with decent input from other's, that is in no manner threatening.

The journey never left you Fosco33. You took a detour of your choice, of your mind, and Life led you back to itself.

What are your needs to sustain your future? That is your quest. That is your focus, Fosco33.

[Pack0514]

Boy, I hate that fucker

Yeah, but the guy is a hell of a football player. Have you seen some of the catches he's made?

[Deputy Nutz]

[woodbuck27]

Boy, I hate that fucker

Nutz?? To whom are you referring if I may ask?

I don't recognize the fella with the crown on. It looks like a wax figure.

[HarveyWallbangers]

The King, Woody. From the Burger King commercials.

[woodbuck27]

The King, Woody. From the Burger King commercials.

Nutz hates him?

hahahahahahah . . . way over the top too funny !!!

Guessing that Nutz is . . . a McDonalds Man? HaHaHaHa !!

[Deputy Nutz]

He scares me

[woodbuck27]

He scares me

Nutz. . . ??? You have no reason of FEAR - less understanding.

[jack's smirking revenge]

I believe in a "God" I talk to him regularly. I have faith in a higher being. I have NO faith in religion. Religion to me is a way to entertain the masses and keep them working a small life while I get rich. Its a form of control.

If you look at all the major religions there is a 'great flood' in them. This has been pointed to by scientists as cause to believe in human history there WAS a great flood.

I think that religion has bastarized faith and that is why millions EVERY year die in the name of such and such god. I think we all believe that we are all praying to the same God he just goes by different nicknames that humans have given him.

Faith and the afterlife I believe in religion I do not

You said what I was just going to. I am agnostic.

ag·nosti·cal·ly adv.
Word History: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnsis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things” hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals“ists,” as he called themwho had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

I do not believe in sons of god, avatars of a higher power...whatever you want to call those who are supposed offspring of a creator.

I don't deny that there had to be a "point A" to our existence, but organized religion is more about politics and money than it is about truth and spirituality. The Bible itself is a politically-assembled collection of stories about a man who may or may not have been who and what he is thought to be now. It was assembled over centuries through a less than democratic process, with gospels and truth purposely ommitted through the judgment of the Church. It is not all-truth to all people and allows for a massive fragmentation among the masses, leading to violent and barbaric treatment of human beings.

That aside, human civilization has existed for thousands of years. Organized religion (monotheism) forced the distrust and abandonment of polytheism, which allowed for spiritual and creative tolerance, cultural differences and variety.

Just my opinion. The answers are different for everybody, regardless of religious affiliation.

To me, the bottom line is this: either everyone is correct with their answer to the question of faith, or there is only one answer and everyone else is wrong? If an avatar does exist and there is only one correct answer, then God is evil.

Which leads into a greater existential discussion, more appropriate for C-E than the Packer Rats forum....

tyler

[CyclonePackFan]

He scares me

Nutz:

http://bedsidesurprise.ytmnd.com/