Do you believe in a supernatural creator, God or gods of any sort?

[Suzanne]

Suzanne wrote:
God has given us all the answers. The universe was created in seven days and is only a few thousand years old. Adam was created from God's image and Eve from a rib. I choose not to except those answers.


Was this in response to my question?
If it was, you didn't address the question.

Yes this is in response to your question and I do believe I addressed it. Everything I am supposed to know about the world, people, how I am supposed to behave, who I am supposed to love and hate are written in a book. The words contained in this book explain to me everything I need to know. All answers are given, and all commands are given.

Quote:
The God, and gods that have been presented to me cannot explain the majestic universe or the differences between people sufficiently for me.


Why should s/he?
If there is a god, why would we all suddenly be entitled to answers?

We have always been entitled to answers. We are also entitled to logical answers. God tells us how the universe was created. It was created in six days.

They KNOW for certain there is no god because, well, they just do

Well I know for certain the universe was not created in six days. Everything I need to know is in that book, anything else, best left up to God, only God should know, God will take care of it.

"If there is a God", those are your words. My words were, "The God presented to me" is unacceptable. Religion is unacceptable to me. How we all got here, I have no idea. I have never once said I KNOW for certain how I came to be sitting here in my living room typing on a computer except to say I didn't come from anybody's rib.

[Chris OConnor]

Can we have a third category please. for those who don't give a toss one way or the other?

The degree to which you care about the question is not a 3rd category. Either you believe in a supernatural creator, God or gods or you don't. After answering that question feel free to share whether you care or don't care whether a supernatural creator, God or gods actually exist.

[Cattleman]

Chris, but what if my answer is an honest "I don't know."

[Dexter]

Here's what I think - nobody knows for sure because of our limited intelligence and limited senses.

But of course atheists know with certainty because they are not like the rest of us. They KNOW for certain there is no god because, well, they just do because if there were a god s/he certainly would have been discovered by now. Sorta like discovering a new insect, or planet.

Once again we have a burden of proof confusion.

Somehow people putting forth a sky daddy -- and nearly always a very specific sky daddy -- to explain the world are the reasonable ones, and the people doubting that story are the arrogant ones.

[johnson1010]

Magical gods, no. Any of the gods of our religions specifically, almost certainly not.

Advanced consciousness that far surpasses our own? Probably. And they might even appear godlike in their knowledge or power over physics, but that isn't a god.

[Interbane]

The biggest puzzle for me earlier in life was that people would believe in something that was demonstrably false, then go on to make the same mistake again after realizing their error. It was an epiphany that people aren't well equipped to arrive at the truth, and make the same mistakes time and again on a worldwide scale. This made me read a great deal about science and epistemology and religion, with a critical eye on each.

The best I think we can do as humans is use a process to arrive at the truth. A process that is designed to minimize our stupidity. A structured set of steps or methods. Science does a decent job, but it's still a process that doesn't entirely eliminate human error or bias. No such method exists yet. Philosophy is great for filling in the gaps, and acting as a checksum for science.

I haven't ever found an argument or line of reasoning for the existence of god that doesn't break from process. Everything is either fallacious, unsupported, or rests on an axiom that's taken on faith. Meanwhile, half the world still believes. This makes me think that the idea of a god is something that would exist no matter whether there truly was a god or not. We are inclined as a species to believe in such an entity, due to agency detection and the anthropomophic leanings in our explanation even when the phenomenon is mechanistic. There are many other factors of course.

Due to the lack of evidence of the supernatural claims in the bible, and the silliness of it's contents, I'm atheistic towards such a personal god. There is likely no such thing. As far as a deity that created the universe and went dormant; that requires agnosticism, even though if I were to stake a claim it would be atheistic.

[youkrst]

as my dad used to say

i am god
i have always been god
and i always will be god



as the universe is the body of brahman so your body is the body of atman and atman and brahman are one.

in christian mystic terms "i and the father are one"

and you, all of you are that too

you cant see god because you have forgotten that you are god. you forget because you identify with the body not the atman that the body is merely a house for.

can the eye see itself except in a mirror?

[johnson1010]

Refering to inanimate things as though they have intentions seems hard to escape. People name their vehicles, ships are referred to as "she", people who don't believe in a god call the universe "god".

Personalizing these things makes them more sympathetic. Something easier to relate to.

[youkrst]

this struck me as a statement of faith:

There is no political solution
To our troubled evolution
Have no faith in constitution
There is no bloody revolution

We are spirits in the material world

Our so-called leaders speak
With words they try to jail you
They subjugate the meek
But it's the rhetoric of failure

We are spirits in the material world

Where does the answer lie?
Living from day to day
If it's something we can't buy
There must be another way

We are spirits in the material world

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

nice congregation!

[Olivia22]

I guess you can say I'm agnostic. I'm open to the possibility of a supernatural creator. However, I don't think that humans would be able to understand this creator. I honestly don't understand why some people think they understand how this creator wants us to live and what "laws" s/he would like us to follow. I think that if this creator is real than s/he would be such a complex being that no mere human could possibly understand s/he's motives. I constantly tell my students that I think faith is a good thing but religion is not... this is just my opinion.