Do you believe in God?

[Criptex]

Well this is my first thread in this section... so please feel free to comment if you have something to say!

This debate is about wheter you believe in God or not... and what you think about Him... and if you don't believe... explain your opinion... feel free to write your thoughts... but please write respectfully.

First of all... please debate, do not insult other people or beliefs and do not use offensive language and respect the rest of the rules...

But anyways... please take your time to comment because I think It is a topic that we don't talk about in the computarized world. and It will be interesting to hear your opinions... I personally believe in Him... and if anyone have any questions...I will explain why.
Enjoy!

[ichwar]

Hello Criptex
Yes, I do believe that God exists. We see evidence all around us for that. His handiwork is evident throughout creation. The more I study it, the more impossible it appears for it to all have evolved from random chance.

[truthguild]

no. i have never seen any evidence for any god ever. being the skeptical person that i am, i employ the null hypothesis to any positive claim i'm exposed to - if the evidence shows the null is wrong, then i adjust my view accordingly. on the issue of god, so far it hasn't.

[Kayos]

I've moved the posts that have not been on topic of the main post to this thread. This was due to the similarity in the nature of the conversations.

[Criptex]

you know... truthguild... you have a very acceptable point of view... but as you can see... the evidence that science provide to explain the the biggest mysteries in the world, is always changing, and is always a hypothesis..., they have to make experiments that cost millions of dollars, and once in each century... a brilliant mind discovers a principle, or a law, that God clearly specifies in a little book... with only 66 mini books contained in a collection called bible... just a little example:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
you know... if you read from verse 1 to 31... you'll notice that a book with more than 1,000 years of age... is clearly explaining the expansion of the universe.. the change of athmosphere... the natural distribution of water and land that happened millions of years ago.. it also explains a order in which each specie of animal appeared in the earth and it also makes a reference about extintion.. when the author of the genesis... said:
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
This means that God didn't passed to the other day until he saw that everything was perfect... and that includes the extintion of some animals that were a hazard for the human specie... because is common sense that we cannot live in a world with huge creatures trying to eat us.
But here's what's amazing about this... we took almost 200,000 years (age of first evidence of modern humans in africa) to realize that there was a big bang in the universe that created the earth from the pieces of a bigger planet... and that the earth once was covered in water... like the bible says... that we have material that is similar to the chemical composition of the ground... that there were animals that lived millions of years ago...
and there are many more evidence to write... but to be honest... when God decides that your eyes are gonna be open... you can't do nothing about it.. I'm a living evidence of that... I was a sceptic person... but now I can see God in everything I see, everywhere I go...and for me He's more real than us.

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense, it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure"
-Albert Einstein

[truthguild]

for starters, i notice you pick one of the 4 christian gods to believe in (ie. Yahweh), which begs the question - out of all the thousands of gods people have believed in, why would you pick that particular one?

anyways, regarding genesis 1:1-31...
(i'm going to condense it a bit as i go through)
right in line 1, we have about a 9.2 billion year gap - that's a pretty long time of details to leave out - about 2/3 of the time since the big bang.
then, he seperates light from dark to make day and night... interesting, since by the genesis account, he still hasn't made the sun which is the source of light from which we determine day and night. it's also rather apparent that the author wasn't familiar with the fact that the earth is a globe, where day and night are determined by where on the planet you are...
day 2 - he creates a firmament. the sky being a crystal dome over the earth was a popular belief during the bronze age - but it's not true.
day 3 - he seperates the waters for dry land. geological evidence doesn't support the entire land being under water all at once ever. also this day, he creates the land plants (grass, herbs, and trees) which is completely inconsistent with the order life developed on earth. water plants and animals preceeded land plants by quite a bit.
day 4 - and now he creates the sun moon and stars - which we also know is wrong. most stars are significantly older than earth, the sun is slightly older, and the moon formed at about the same time.
day 5 - now he makes water life (including whales) and birds. life was in the water long before it was on land. but birds and whales both evolved from land animals.
day 6 - makes the land animals. this should be before the whales and birds (but after fish).

no where in here does it even imply anything going extinct. also, extinctions aren't based on what would be harmful to humans, as many animals to go extinct weren't and many animals still around can and do kill people.

[Criptex]

Man, I like how you write... it seems like you are a very intelligent person... First of all... I don't believe in one of the gods... I believe in The God of Isaac, Abraham and Jacob,and I believe in Him, because the things he has done in my life, and because He can be love, and at the same time He's Jehovah of the armies, and he can be consuming fire... and He is 1 and 3 at the same time. lol. I know this may sound confusing, but He is God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit at the same time. and I not part of any religion... I believe in Him and that is it... but I also respect people that don't believe in Him, also people that believe in Satan, because you know what... God doesn't judge them, so why would I jugde them... and even tough they don't believe in them... he loves them like he loves everybody else... but regarding your commentary... the bible is written in a kind of code... and as the bible says... claim to me and I'll answer, and I'll show you great and unknow things that you don't know... so, If you try to read it literally... you'll find a lot of gaps... a lot of things that may not sound correct at this time... but the bible was finished almost 1700 years ago... so they didn't know a lot of things about modern science... but the light of genesis 1... is not the sun... is His spirit, that used to dwell in the waters... because His spirit is light. But anyways... I wish I had a brain like yours, to assimilate so much information like you... U remind me of a man called Saul... a very intelligent man... the difference is that his hobbie has to kill christians... but he had a brilliant mind, maybe one of the most intelligent men in the bible... and he believed in science... because he knew a lot of things... he obviously didn't believe in God, cuz when you believe in God... you have to choose... whether you wanna live by the evidence or by faith... but I think you know the story... one day when he was on his way to kill more christians... God appeared to him and made him blind with the light that came out of Him... and He said: paul why are you persecuting me? and paul believed, the thing is.. he had a great ministery... but he said in one of his letters to the churches he had fund... I left everything I knew because now I have something that doesn't compare to what I had before, now that is trash for me... so, I think He's great and believe in Him without questions, cuz I've seen his power.

[deaddevil]

I believe in god too, the very fact that i am living makes me believe so.
When I think of it, the world around me, the air, the trees, the birds all come from somewhere. There is an essence of life in the air that I smell. The ground(ofcourse there's a bed on it) that I sleep on, feels like the soft palm of someone who is allowing me to sleep peacefully.
Don't you ever feel to thank someone for the days of your life when you smiled, laughed, got that first look of love?
Do you feel that we just cease to exist after death?..... the very feel that we live for around 80 years , do somethings in life and then just wither away, makes me think are we here for that?. then whats the difference between a beetle and you. Why have you been given the top level status in this world, why aren't you a cat chasing a mouse.....all this just tends to the fact that there is someone that is responsible for our lives here. That person is god. i believe in god not just because parents say so, but because it just comes out from within. Besides there are a lot of evidences of extranatural powers existing, exorsisms , miracles etc.

[Criptex]

I believe in god too, the very fact that i am living makes me believe so.
When I think of it, the world around me, the air, the trees, the birds all come from somewhere. There is an essence of life in the air that I smell. The ground(ofcourse there's a bed on it) that I sleep on, feels like the soft palm of someone who is allowing me to sleep peacefully.
Don't you ever feel to thank someone for the days of your life when you smiled, laughed, got that first look of love?
Do you feel that we just cease to exist after death?..... the very feel that we live for around 80 years , do somethings in life and then just wither away, makes me think are we here for that?. then whats the difference between a beetle and you. Why have you been given the top level status in this world, why aren't you a cat chasing a mouse.....all this just tends to the fact that there is someone that is responsible for our lives here. That person is god. i believe in god not just because parents say so, but because it just comes out from within. Besides there are a lot of evidences of extranatural powers existing, exorsisms , miracles etc.

Good thought deaddevil, sometimes we only see the superficial things. and you know what... He is a practical God... He's not just the character in the kids books... He is real and even though we're far from being perfect... he takes care us anyways.

[Kayos]

I don't believe in one of the gods... I believe in The God of Isaac, Abraham and Jacob,and I believe in Him,

But with so many other "Gods" out there, how do you know it's the right one? Are the other "Gods" wrong to believe in? Why should we pick just one "God"?

Why wouldn't I take the Bible literally either? I don't think it's code for anything else. I think it was meant to be taken literally. Just think of the demographic it had for it's time. It's not like they knew any better in the first place. They took the book at face value.

That person is god. i believe in god not just because parents say so, but because it just comes out from within. Besides there are a lot of evidences of extranatural powers existing, exorsisms , miracles etc.

What evidence would that be?