Does God exist?

I don't know.

Guess know when I'm dead. Be a fun surprise.

But then you'll be in hell. There's a weird rule that we go there for not believing in him despite there being people born and raised to worship different Gods. I dunno.....if that's true then that puts a lot of innocent people into inevitable damnation.

He might not be happy when you get there.

Yeah, just gotta let go of what the world is saying to you and see what you really feel.

@SOedipus: Memes exist, yes. Does God?

I believe so. We exist, why wouldn't God. If you don't believe you are created to exist from something you probably have something wrong with you.

I believe He does; I'm a christian. I become more convinced of His existence as the years go by.

Right on!

Religion is an interesting component of history and civilization, but there is no God in that sense.

You can argue that an event like the Big Bang and rapid expansion of the universe has some of those properties. It created time, the space we call the universe, and the life within it. That was just an event though, and it is not aware or omniscient.

Not sure. I wouldn't rule it out. There are different theories like the big bang theory and there's so many gods that people believe in.

If you lot think god exists, then who created god? And who is god's creator? Why do we exist on this planet? There are so many mysteries out there and there isn't a rock solid proof.

I'll 100% believe it till I see it. Until then, I dunno what to believe in.

If by God you mean gravity then yes, gravity is God. It's the entire structure of the universe and how planets form in the vacuum of infinite space. As far as a Christian God absolutely not. There are so many plot holes in the man made scripture It's wild. Plus, even if the Christian God was real I actively wouldn't worship him, especially the Old Testament God. That dude's a cruel, genocidal, and maniacal asshole.

If the Big Bang occurred, how did it happen? What started it?

There are many gods that people believe in, yes. But what do you yourself believe in?

God is the creator of all, so nothing created Him. He is the Alpha and Omega. Before all, there was only God, so naturally, nothing created God.

We exist because God, being the creator, obviously wanted us to exist. As simple as that.

There are many mysteries, no argument there. But as for rock solid proof, just look at anything. Literally anything. From a house, to a t-shirt, to a person, rock, leaf, etc. Everything was put together from building blocks, arranged in different forms. We don't look at a house, built of wood and nails, but ultimately built of atoms, and think, "nobody created that". Why would you look at, say, a stone, built of the very same atoms that a house is built of, and think, "nobody created that"? Just because you can't see who created it, does not mean that nobody created it, right? If nature created it, who created nature? Who created science?

If God does not show himself, he obviously does not wish to show himself, at least not in the way you might prefer. In my experience, simply talking to Him will show personally that He does indeed exist. It's not empirical; it's more than a feeling. It is knowing, but that comes in time.

The Bible itself warns against making religion your god.

Can you point out one of these plot holes?

Whatever religion and holy book you follow, that God specifically absolutely doesn't exist.

@nod_calypse: Noah's arc is impossible. It could not have been built at that size in that amount of time. There's no way all the millions of every species of animal on earth could fit on a giant boat, let alone everything and everyone be fed for 150 days during God's mass flood genocide. Oh, and if Adam and Eve where the first humans on earth then all of mankind is a product of incest.

Depends what God you're referring to. I'm assuming you're referring to the Judeo-christian God. As someone who follows Jesus, it's not so much that someone goes to hell for not believing in Him. I'll go into that shortly. The issue stems from that the Christian faith teaches that there is only One God. The monotheistic religions of the world that are the most "followed," and I use that term loosely, are the Abrahamic religions; Islam, Judaism, Christianity. So if there is only One God, as the religion boldly claims and which goes against mankind's wishful hope that all paths lead to God, then worshipping another false God, which the LORD in the OT says is actually the worshipping of demons, then it would make sense for someone to be eternally separated from this God. Now if we're talking Christianity, which affirms that Jesus was the promised Messiah that the Islam and Judaism religion denies, then what actually sends you to hell is that everyone has sinned.

Going to the reason why lack of faith, or trust is the better translation, is that we've all broken every single one of the Ten Commandments; do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, etc. Now we don't do this once, but we all do this multiple times a day, for however long we live. Now if there is a Law given by the Law Giver and we violate that Law, one gets punished according to what the Law demands. Jesus came, because of His great love for mankind, to save us from our sins. Because we can't avoid sin, it's our nature. But that doesn't excuse us when we sin, for one who actually believes in Jesus actively tries to obey Christ out of love, not out of requirement. "The wages of sin is death." It is by faith because the bible says it pleases God to use the foolishness of the cross to save people. He does it so that no one can boast in His sight. One may say, how is eternal punishment fair when we're mortal? My response would be, how is it fair that God had to come in human flesh and die for us in order to save us? I think it says a lot about the seriousness of our fallen condition that God had to put on flesh and die for us to be saved.

If you read all of that, well done. I know speaking about these things can be uncomfortable. But if you're genuinely looking for the truth, you should be open to hearing opposing ideas. Started off atheist, LGBT, transgender, but came to Christ and reject all of that. I watch atheistic videos on arguments with Theists, always open to hearing opposing ideas, because again, if you're actually looking for the truth, you shouldn't be avoiding learning. Ultimately we all have a choice to make and base our decision on who we will trust. We're all trusting in something, whether that's a God, Gods, or nothing.

EDIT: I must also stress that Jesus says that the End will not come until the gospel has been proclaimed to all nations.

Okay, but that's not a plot hole. That's you saying it's logistically questionable. But all you have to do is look at etymology. Noah didn’t take two of every species on the Ark—only two of each “kind” of animal. The biblical “kind” is actually more like the “family” level of classification. That’s a lot fewer animals. Scientific studies have theorized that the ark would have carried between 1000 and 2000 creatures. That's pretty manageable. There are historical arks that carried thousands of humans, for example. This includes storage space for food and water. It is, to say the least, entirely possible to do this for animals.

Adam and Eve? They weren't related, so no, no incest. If anything, it means all of humanity is one big family. Past Adam and Eve, I could go deeper into generational drift in terms of population seeding if you want.

Proof?

The concept seems a bit silly.

That someone built something seems silly?

The various bibles do not have any significance for me personally.

You ask what created rocks. Well laszlo gave you an answer for that one. It was gravity. What provided the materials for this process? It was supernovae. Who created science? It is a product of humans creating a way to solve problems.

Personally, I think it is silly to justify ourselves and the universe as a product of a single, omniscient being. There are many, more plausible explanations. Just because there are things we don't know yet does NOT justify 'God', and to make such an assertion is, in my opinion, to abandon reason.

Who created gravity? Who created supernovae? Humans created science? Who created humans?

@nod_calypse: a plot hole I'd defined by an inconsistency, so by definition it is a plot hole, and im sorry, but that entire paragraph is mental gymnastics to make a narrative fit. Mincing words and using quotations to make it seem like that is what they really ment when man wrote the story doesn't make it true. Also, even if Adam and eve weren't related their children where. That's incest considering there no indication in the bible that the biblical God created any other humans.

@nod_calypse: The Big Bang created gravity and supernovae and humans.

What created the Big Bang? Well there are theories for that too, so God had better get in line and wait to be evaluated with the rest of them.

What do you mean mental gymnastics? Two of a kind, of a family, mathematically boils down to a couple thousand, perhaps a few, give or take. Again, this is not unmanageable in the least.

As for incest, you need to look at the seeding. Generational drift creates ill affects. However, a family must begin, and families must begin from families. Incest, in a negative connotation, implies the lack of necessity. This passage sums it up:

Though by many inerrantists the question of where Cain got his wife would not be considered a problem at all, this question is often used by those who try to demonstrate that the Bible is unreliable in what it claims. How could it claim that Adam and Eve were the first human beings who had two sons, one of whom murdered the other, and yet who produced a large race of people? Clearly, the Bible does teach that Adam and Eve were the first created human beings. The Lord affirmed this in Matthew 19:3-9. The genealogy of Christ is traced back to Adam (Luke 3:38). Jude 14 identifies Enoch as the seventh from Adam. This could hardly mean the seventh from “mankind,” an interpretation that would be necessary if Adam were not an individual as some claim. Clearly, Cain murdered Abel and yet many people were born. Where did Cain get his wife?

We know that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters in addition to Abel, Cain, and Seth (Gen. 5:4), and if there was only one original family, then the first marriages had to be between brothers and sisters. Such marriages in the beginning were not harmful. Incest is dangerous because inherited mutant genes that produce deformed, sickly, or moronic children are more likely to find expression in children if those genes are carried by both parents. Certainly, Adam and Eve, coming from the creative hand of God, had no such mutant genes. Therefore, marriages between brothers and sisters, or nieces and nephews in the first and second generations following Adam and Eve would not have been dangerous.

Many, many generations later, by the time of Moses, incest was then prohibited in the Mosaic laws undoubtedly for two reasons: first, such mutations that caused deformity had accumulated to the point where such unions were genetically dangerous, and second, it was forbidden because of the licentious practices of the Egyptians and Canaanites and as a general protection against such in society. It should also be noted that in addition to the Bible most other legal codes refuse to sanction marriages of close relatives.

But here is another issue to consider. If one accepts the evolutionary hypothesis as to the origin of the human race, has that really relieved the issue of incest? Not unless you also propound the idea of the evolution of many pairs of beings, pre-human or whatever, at the same time. No matter what theory of the origin of the human race one may take, are we not driven to the conclusion that in the early history of the race, there was the need for intermarriage of the children of the same pair?

So, who created the Big Bang?

Hint: God can wait.

More likely caused by the rapid singularity of another universe, or we are living in a simulation and 'God' is just the advanced civilization who built the computer. We'll tackle those two possibilities first.

@nod_calypse: I'm sorry I don't buy any of that. It does not boil down to anything manageable, even if it was just one species of every animal. And the entire four paragraphs boiling down to "this incest isn't incest because.... God..." isn't a counter point.

Your free to believe whatever you want, but I call bullshit, and that's perfectly fine.

Okay, taking those theories into account--

Who created the other universe? Who created the other civilization?

Incest in the negative implies genetic mutation. Adam and Eve, being created, had no such mutant genes. So, it was simply a natural way of spreading mankind. The negative incestual relations were outlawed when mutant genes became a problem. Logically, the design was intended to push humanity to spread far and wide, seeking out relations farther and farther from the bone, so to speak.

And yes, you are of course free to believe what you wish. You are even free to say someone else's personal beliefs are bullshit.

What an odd thing for a computer program to be thinking.

So, no answer.

You might have a bug in your code. We'll have to isolate this process.

j/k. You are free to believe what you want, but since you haven't proven god and I haven't disproved it, this is where we part ways.

You know quantum physics allows for retro-causality, right? Edit: It also allows (and indeed demands) creation ex nihilo; ie quantum flux.

As for Yahweh, if you're going to represent the Bible as his word understand this: The Bible is a VERY, VERY late addition to Yahweh's story, and I don't think you'll like what came before.

Want to get into it?

Well, I'm college educated, so, yes, I know these things. You need an understanding of "outside".

And we can't have a conversation about how late the Bible is without you having accepted the Holy Spirit.

Aside from that, I'll say this. God worked and works through vessels. The Bible arrived when it arrived on perfect timing. It is a test of faith to see not the vessels, but the living word.

Do you read Hebrew?

I'm sure you're aware Psalms contains some of the oldest writings in the Bible, predating the Books of Moses by about 700 years.

Have you read Psalms with the Hebrew proper nouns in place?

Nah I don't think so. I've never witnessed nor heard of anything factual happening that justifies believing in it.

I understand why people might, though. The world can be a truly wonderful place at times and at its best, it's really nice to have something/someone to direct your gratitude towards and "thanks, nature, for this sunrise" just doesn't have the same feeling as thinking "thanks, god, for this sunrise" 😋

It's a nice sentiment to feel that this paradise was, in fact, created especially for us by a benevolent being. But those moments are generally fleeting and for the most part life is not good enough nor bad enough to really justify believing in god 99% of the time.

I use Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, as well as personal teachers. Most importantly, I meditate on the Word, daily.

So, yes.

That's not actually how it works. I forgot the details but basically even agnostics are given one last chance post-death to finally be like "Woh, OK, you do exists. Sorry, was I good enough? Yes? Oh wow thanks God, you're cool".

My best friend's girlfriend told me I was going to hell haha. It was kind of offensive but she was a fundamentalist so it was easy to ignore her.

Also if you take these things literally, there's a line in the Bible that says "do not deny any god" so if you deny the hundreds of other gods in favor of a single Christian god, guess what? To hell with ye!

Pretty fracked up policy, though, right? Best to just sort of take the lessons from the Bible (or whatever) and don't take it literally.

It's sort of like the pirate code: they're more guidelines than rules.

No. Why are you implying that god is just "someone who built something"?

@mrbojangles25: You simply need accept the Holy Spirit. 3 in 1.

Which is not so simple, admittedly, if you find yourself unable to accept. Remembering God loves you helps, though.

God is a person, and He created things. All things, in fact.

But God is not "just" anything. He is unlimited.

Yeah, that's a bit silly.

Now wait just a minute. Let's have a talk about your Concordance.

That's a lexicon. Let me explain what a lexicon is.

If I see the word 'Auroch' and don't know it should mean 'Bull', so I use the term 'Unicron', then I would record in the Lexicon:

Unicron = Auroch

Even though that's NOT what Auroch means. Don't confuse a Lexicon with a tool for proper translation, it's a RECORD of translation, which is entirely different.

Yes, my friend, I know what a lexicon is.

I expressed that in concordance with personal teachings, meaning Hebrew etymology, but not in the strictest sense of a-b-c structure. (abc being, naturally, a placeholder) I work with mentors. You start with the framework, and branch out to interpretation. Meditation is the cornerstone, which is to say, Christ.

Why? How so?