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What Is Your Belief In God?; Try this one - hopefully it works!
Topic Started: Oct 24 2004, 01:51 PM (674 Views)
cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
"He created both male & female as an expression."

And what a mistake that was! :groucho:


As Colleen points out it is difficult to get to the origins of such usage. A quick search turned up statements about how Moses wrote this or that--3 or 4 wrote those books, none of which was Moses, and, iirc, one of which may have been a woman. Going back further we have one writer of Genesis who has it God created man and woman at once--equals--and another story has it as man then woman from man--subservient. Something for everyone, no?
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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TexasShadow
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Jane
I believe in a personal God.
I think every human being seeks answers to the same questions:
how did I get here? why am I here? is there anything out there? does my life have any meaning beyond the here and now? would it matter if I'd never been born?
is there life after death?..and if so, is it any better than here, and if it is better, how do I ensure getting it?
Belief in a personal God satisfies some of these questions.
Religion has been called an 'opiate for the masses'....pie in the sky dreams of a paradise waiting for us.......
for the ordinary man whose real freedom is only an illusion...it's a pretty good opiate.
So maybe religion is a man-made thing...created by the powerful to keep the unpowerful in line.
Or maybe not.
I'm willing to live my life on the wager it is true.
Because I believe I'm a happier person for it than I would be if I didn't believe in anything.
Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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teryt
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Missing in Action Member
Well put, Jane.

It looks like fully half of us have responded that we believe in Christ. Does this mean we all believe in His resurrection?
My Boast is Christ :pray:
Soon to have MBA (I'll perhaps be smart then)
Recovering Perfectionist
Christian Hedonist

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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Jane, if you believe in a personal God and I believe in a personal God would you expect your belief or God to coincide with mine, be one and the same?

Just one argument against Pascal's Wager.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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olstuf
Bill
I'll let you folks figure this one out but a note to Chris. While employed by our very enlightened state of Wisconsin, we had to be very careful with the use of personal pronouns and not be gender conscious. Even the term "grandfather" in regards to something allowed because of its being previous to a code was supposed to be termed "grandparented". Take time for a big "SIGH". Just noticed this on a piece of paper on my desk. "July 10, 1982---Zimbabwe beats Bermuda by 5 wickets to win ICC trophy". I have no idea why that was on my desk.
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karmasasha
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Very well said Jane! I agree 100%.


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TexasShadow
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Jane
Chris........
if you believe in a personal God and I believe in a personal God would you expect your belief or God to coincide with mine, be one and the same?
_______________

yes and no.
I think we would/must agree on some things...just as most, if not all, the major religions/phillosophies appear to do......in word, if not in deed.

one need not believe in Jesus to be a ghandi, and yet, ghandi was very 'christian' in his appoach to oppression.
re-incarnation is not necessarily opposed to belief in an afterlife...the point is, life goes on....something of man is immortal.
Immortality might even be genetic, in that we are all 'carriers' of our ancestors, etc.
it seems to me that most cultures strive toward some kind of social equality...where everyone is subject to the same laws and beneficiaries of the same, basic needs for a relatively quality lifestyle.

I personally think it matters much much less what we believe than what we do, how we act. In action, I think we would agree that some things are wrong, and some are right...
As to why we behave the way we do, it doesn't matter so much if we think that God gave us the info or if we figured it out ourselves....the results are the same...we make good neighbors for each other.
And this, I think, is what God ultimately wants.
Like a harried mother with a houseful of kids....the mama just wants the kids to stop fighting and play nice. :)


Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
IMO, Jane, an excellent answer to a tough question. :thumbup: Take what survives space and time, from nation to nation, generation to generation, from religion, from philosophy, from good commonsense, that is truth.



Bill, to continue our aside, grandparenting would be an artifact, which I believe the he is in He.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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Colo_Crawdad
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Lowell
teryt
Oct 24 2004, 07:56 PM
Colo_Crawdad
Oct 25 2004, 12:58 AM
Question..  If I am willing to admit that man may have created God in his own image and that means that God exists, how do I answer the poll?

That makes you either a firm "Atheist" or an "other." By my definition, God is a Supreme Being, and isn't something we created. So if one thinks we created the idea of God, then He would not really exist, except in our imagination.

Anyone who believes in existentialist philosopy would absolutely disagree with you. If existence is in perception, the the existence of a God created by man is just as real as any other existence of God.

My own belief system would simply accept existentialism as one of many valid belief systems. It really doesn't concern me how or by whom God was created, just that he probably does exist.
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US." --- Pogo
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Peralko
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I find it interesting that the christian and the atheist/agnostic numbers are the same. Are the people on this board more intellectual than the average? Would that be a factor?
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
More intellectual or more reasonable? To me the answers reflect a basic difference between relying on faith and relying on reason.

The question would be truly much more realistic if it presented a spectrum from faith to reason. I predict you'd find most in the middle.

Presented that way I might vote.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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teryt
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Missing in Action Member
Picky picky. Can't please everyone it seems.
My Boast is Christ :pray:
Soon to have MBA (I'll perhaps be smart then)
Recovering Perfectionist
Christian Hedonist

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Colo_Crawdad
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Lowell
I'd kind of like to read some discussion of the acceptance of existential philosophy in terms of the existence of God. I didn't post my earlier comments to be flippant, but rather to find out what others felt. I remember many, many, many years ago when a sociology professor introduced the class to the theory that man created religion to answer questions that man could not answer for himself. A number of students got very upset as they felt that the theory challenged their religious beliefs. I wasn't bothered because I actually felt it irrelevant about how or by whom God was created. I reasoned that, if in fact God was created, then God exists.
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US." --- Pogo
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TexasShadow
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Jane
colo crawdad
Quote:
 
(it is) irrelevant about how or by whom God was created. I reasoned that, if in fact God was created, then God exists.


I don't follow you on this and can see how this would upset some religious folks.
If man has created God in his human mind, then there is, in fact, no covenant between God and man, no heaven/afterlife, no nothing but the here and now.
You just work your fingers to the bone and end up with bony fingers. :)

re purpose in being, yes, I can see where man can devise his own purpose...as a member of a social unit....unless he is despised by his peers (too ugly or handicapped, or too old, or sexually redundant.)
then what? how does this person find purpose in being alive?

Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
But, Jane, if what is true is what is common among and across time and space--the philosophies and religions and commonsense that survives, it admits many gods as well as morals and ethics without any, and there is no need for any particular God.

Man is then left to form covenants with others, or as a secularist might say, frame constitutions among men for governing themselves.

Being alive is necessary and could be sufficient.


What got me thinking was Lowell's saying "the theory that man created religion to answer questions that man could not answer for himself."

Paradox is the beginning of thought.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.
--Jean-Paul Sartre

We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the tree of knowledge, but also because we have not eaten of the tree of life.
--Franz Kafka
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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