Does God exist?

All of this is speculative and a mystery, even the big bang theory. We do not know or witness the truth. Plus, what if god is female or has no gender? What if aliens are the ones who created this universe just to experiment us? (Another theory and speculation).

I am not sure how talking to god works... does he/she/whatever respond back to you?

I just believe in myself :D "Don't stop believin'"

I have nothing against peoples beliefs, they can believe whatever they want. I am just agnostic and have a billion questions as to which one is even real.

Yeah, it's not so simple.

I'm open-minded, I just don't take things on faith alone. So religion is just a no-go for me.

Honestly the simplest explanation is this (and I think it applies to most folks): I wasn't raised religious. My family never talked about faith. Outside of a handful of times I went with my friends after sleepovers at their house, I've never been to church (and I was really weirded out by church when I went).

Bigfoot.
Loch Ness.
Ghosts.
Dragons.
Magic.
God.

I don't believe in any of those, and I find believing in any of them equally silly. I shouldn't have to explain why.

Well, if you can't explain, fair enough.

But one thing certainly stands out from the rest in that list.

It really is that simple. The world tries to tell you otherwise, but that's the world.

God asks you to let go of the world. And church is church. Relationship with Christ is not religion.

Yes, he does.

Just try it, if you wish. Simply go somewhere quiet, close your eyes, think about the concept of God. Then move beyond the concept, and think of God as an actual real person. Try talking to him. You might be surprised at what happens. It may not happen at first, but I assure you, it will happen.

I can explain, I just didn't since you already know what I mean.

God is just another fairy tale. Not sure how it's different. Is it because it's more popular?

Seriously, I'm not presuming what you mean. Why do you think God is a fairy tale? Have you tried talking to Him?

Haven't tried talking to Bigfoot, so I don't see much reason to talk to "god".

Well, if you seek to disprove something, why not take experimental steps toward disproving it?

At the very least, you could try to talk to God, to satisfy yourself that He is not there. Who knows. You may get a reply.

I do not seek to disprove it.

Should be more polite of me to leave him alone considering there's a billion others wanting his attention.

Do you ever think about what happens when you die?

Surely you also understand the history of the Torah, and thus The Bible, begins with King Josiah? If you understand The Dueteronmic Reform you'll understand why these two verses are so separated, one in Duet. and the other in Psalms, but it's two ends of the same story. A very old story. Let's revert the proper nouns back to their Hebrew and take a look:

Duet. 32:7

Remember the days of old;

consider the generations long past.

Ask your father and he will tell you,

your elders, and they will explain to you.

When El Elyon gave the nations their inheritance,

when he divided all mankind,

he set up boundaries for the peoples

according to the number of the sons of God

For Yahweh’s portion is his people,

Jacob his allotted inheritance.

Here we see the father God, El Elyon (literally: the highest God), giving his inheretence according to the number of his sons (bene ha'elohim) which were 70. These are referenced in the Table of Nations in Genesis, again of which there are 70.

Two of El Elyon's sons are Yahweh and Ba'al, and Yahweh is taunted by Ba'al and comes before his fathers court.

Since it isn't so obvious in translation I'm going to add a bit of annotation for clarity in (), but again Hebrew proper nouns:

El Elon presides in the great assembly;

he renders judgment among the Elohim;

^{(Yahweh speaking to El)} How long will you defend the unjust

and show partiality to the wicked?

Defend the weak and the fatherless;

uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.

Rescue the weak and the needy;

deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

^{(Turning to his brothers)}The Elohim know nothing, they understand nothing.

They walk about in darkness;

all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

“I said, ‘You are gods;

you are all sons of El Elyon.’

But you will die like mere mortals;

you will fall like every other ruler.”

Rise up, O El, judge the earth,

for all the nations are your inheritance.

And this brings us right into the Elohim pantheon of the Canaanite. Now, it's not so confusing to see how the Canaanite mythos can pop up repeatedly in the Bible like this (there's more, so much more), once you understand one thing:

The Jews are the Canaanites.

See, they were never lead into captivity into Egypt. The southern kingdom WAS conquered by Egypt, and the Jews were enslaved, but they weren't taken anywhere.

This is why all the books written in the Northern kingdom during this people don't mention the slavery of the Jews, it's only the books written in the Southern kingdom.

This said, once the Egyptians left the southern Kingdom Jews saw themselves as separate, and perpetrated the captivity in Egypt myth to set themselves apart from their Canaanite fathers and cousins. It's only now that they adopted Monotheism.

Well, not really. They adopted Yahweh and his Asherah (usually translated as Pole or Grove), who was El's consort previously. But Yahweh would go on to absorb more than just El's woman: he would later, after the dueteronmic reform, literally become El.

But there's thousands of years previous where El and Yahweh were clearly separate entities, and some of these verses persist in the Bible, as above.

To explore these stories referenced in The Bible requires leaving The Bible and expanding into both contemporary and earlier works.

Everyone does.

probably

So what do you think happens?

@br0kenrabbit: Again, dude, you need the Holy Spirit. The Alpha and Omega is not just a placeholder.

God is asking you to take him at his word. To know his Word, you need to know the Spirit. To know the Spirit, you need Yeshua.

Decomposition. lol

Well, yes.

But in the spirit?

Can only hope something cool happens. But just falling out of consciousness and cease would be more logical.

You are confusing NEPHESH for some part of you that goes on after death?

That's not how it works, even in The Bible. Hint: There's a reason the Bible states a PHYSICAL resurrection is necessary. Hint 2: Look at the last part of this verse:

God breathed the breath of life into Adam and he became a living soul.

Edit: Hint 3- Nephesh is used three times before that verse before it even gets to man. :-)

So you're hoping for something cool, as in good cool, I take it?

Yeah. Waking up in Nirvana with naked babes carrying ice cream or something.

Yes, my dude, perfection of the flesh in the hereafter is promised. But that's crystallization by the very hand of God.

Adam is death. Christ is life. They represent two contracts.

Nepehsh is literally a breathing body. The Bible says "The dead know nothing". According to the word of The Bible, those who are dead await resurrection. No one is in heaven (or hell which is a relatively modern addition, but that's another topic) according to The Bible.

Some people say "OH WAIT BUT HOW DID JESUS SEE MOSES AND JACOB ON THE MOUNT THEN"? He didn't. Notice the next verse: he comes down and wakes up the disciples and they are 'heavy with sleep', and he tells them not to talk about the VISION they had seen.

As for the Thief on the Cross, the comma does not occur in the Greek. Move it over one word for a proper translation, thus:

Verily I say unto you today, you shall be with me in paradise.

Hmm.

Do you believe you have a soul?

The walking dead, yes. Those that walk in Christ are not dead. They sleep.

"Not all of you here among me shall taste death before I return in my Kingdom." - 2,000 years ago.

Well, of course.

So who is still kicking? The Wandering Jew?

I don't know. No one knows, so naturally I don't either. I think it's likely that a lot people use the word "soul" where they should use "personality" though.

No, I don't mean the words. I mean the discussion outside of the Spirit. There is no understanding. Plus, there are motivations. As such, we can only talk at arm's length.

Well, I know! You do have one.

We are discussing the letter-and-word of The Bible. There shouldn't really be any confusion.

No, we're not.

It's living, dude. Alive.

I believe God exists. When I was born I was a 2 pound baby premature with the cord rapped around my neck. My mom had went down stairs and prayed to God to spare my life. She went back upstairs and everything was fine and I was breathing on my own. Also my dad has been in the hospital numerous times and by some miracle has come out even at near death.

Yeah, actually, we are. Or were. Until you started sounding all cult-like. Is there a secret handshake, too?

Ah, dude, I'm not antagonizing, I promise. The Word is the life. Do you understand? Beginning and end. He who operates outside of time is not bound by it. Any discussion, or half of a discussion, bound by time is not observing with a faithful eye. As such, the conversation can't go anywhere but where it is, around and around.

But we can try.

Have you ever talked to God?

That's awesome. I'll share something.

When my dad was working on our old house, high up on an extension ladder, he was trying to shoulder a heavy box and the weight pulled him backwards. He was beyond reach of the ledge before him, fully falling. He cried out to God in a loud yell, asking him to save him. The way he tells it, as soon as he did that, he felt hands push him forward, so that he was able to take hold of the ledge. He was saved.

Religious people and athiests are happy to agree that gods don't exist. Show a religious person a list of every deity that has ever been worshipped in human history, pick a name at random, and they'll happily say "nope, doesn't exist, and no I don't need to prove it". The only difference is that the religious person will say "at least one god on this list is real", based purely on the culture they grew up in and what they've been told.

I don't even see the point of being undecided about god's existence either. I mean, I think we'd all agree that unicorns don't exist. We'd probably also agree that Snafflor the Giant Invisible Koala Who Rules Europe doesn't exist. We're not saying "oh, we don't know for certain that Snafflor doesn't exist, so I'm Snafflor-Agnostic". That line of thought just puts God and unicorns and Snafflor and Mickey Mouse in the same category - we're pretty sure they don't exist, but it's a big universe, who knows. There's no need to hedge your bets there. You can say with confidence they don't exist, and then move up to the undecided category if any tangible proof appears.

You've got to be kidding me. I'm a Christian. Yes, many gods exist. If you have even a modicum of occult knowledge you know that this is true. But there is only one God, and He is above all other gods.

I am, of course, talking about perception. Principalities exist, and they can and do fashion themselves to be gods or God, and people do fall for it. As such, they believe in these beings, which ultimately are false gods. Again, there is only one God.

There could be a reverse god that sends all people who believed in god to hell in the afterlife too though so who knows really.

Only when I was on a 10-strip of acid back in '95. But I'm pretty sure that doesn't count. Also, he couldn't stop laugh-crying, so probably different God, anyway.

My point is the stories in the Torah are mostly pulled, edited and adapted, from much older polytheistic stories. Even the Jews were polytheists until the reformation of King Josiah.

And Yahweh's representation in the oldest parts of The Bible echo back to the days of polytheism where he was a Storm/War God under the father God El Elyon.

It's all borrowed, from different religions, recut and reedited for a brand new audience! But in that reediting you lose a lot of the context and understanding of the original stories.

To truly get a context of the stories in the Bible, you need to understand the mythos of Sumerian, Akkadian, Canaanite and for later Christianity, Zoroastrianism cultures.

I don't care one way or another.

If god exists then we are expected to believe it created everything, knows everything, and lets everything happen or it causes everything to happen. Which includes a whole shitload of evil or simply bad (like natural disasters). But what kind of god either compells or allows serial killers to kidnap, rape, and kill children?

Therefore, fcuk off god.

Meaning, either god is accountable for everything or nothing and either scenario means irrelevance to me.

Also, the arrogance of humans to presume they could possibly comprehend the will of god amuses me.

But there sure are plenty of humans that want you to believe they do and the ones that best understand the will of god have TV shows, live in mansions, and tell you to donate.

@nod_calypse: I don't need proof to not believe in God like you surely don't need it to believe in it. But considering the amount of different gods, spirits, scriptures and interpretations, I'm pretty confident that god is a human creation, since all the evidence that you can get me is human in origin.

Sure you can follow what you believe to be its word, anyone is free to do so to any set of random human teachings. Ultimately I just find it to be unnecessary as it doesn't answers anything. Even the typical, "yes but who created the universe?" is devoid of any weight because it also doesn't address who or what created god.

Personally, what created god and sustains its idea, is ignorance. That which is unknown and unanswerable is god and as we unveil reality and understand it god's role became smaller and smaller and less of an active participant of everything that happens in every split second to that more of a rule setter. This constant necessity to adapt the nature and teachings of god according to the factual human knowledge of the times tells me two things. 1 God is a human construct. 2 That if there's a way to reach god is through a scientific approach.

Mmm, the flying spaghetti monster logic.

I'm agnostic, and I've grown to hate this argument more and more. It's a fallacy of false equivalence. You're dismissing an inherently unknowable concept with something that was clearly envisioned.

You can find evidence if a unicorn exists or not. Even if we haven't found it and very likely never will, you can at least assume what that discovery might be like. Fossil evidence, exploring a deep jungle, mutant radiation after we all blow ourselves up in the next 10 years. You can imagine finding the secret document bank that contains all of Snafflor's covert operatives and government plants. You believe they're fictional because they were made up by people, and you already know what evidence you would need to start believing these were actually real.

An entity on the level of a god would not be within the same level of rational conception whatsoever. There's really no conceivable scientific test within human understanding or any observable evidence that will ever tell us whether it exists or not, how it would think or feel, and what level of power or agency it has over the universe. I feel quite confident saying we as a species will never find such a test.

Maybe in a million years when we've evolved into gray aliens we can figure it out.

Or once we've escaped the simulation and go ask the quantum computer holding our universe.

Can’t recall who said it (perhaps Dawkins), but the statement was along the lines of,

“The world is exactly as you’d expect it to be if it were one without a caring, interpersonal deity overseeing it“.

That’s always hung with me. The more I live and look around, the more I go, ‘Yeah….this doesn’t quite reconcile with the concept of a loving creator‘. None of it does. And sorry, the excuses of original sin and free will don’t nearly cut it. This world is a messed up place, equally horrific and wonderful…..but wholly indifferent to our lot.

I would not worship a being that places me in such potential to either.

I've never experienced it, but I have seen people worship god at church and was weirded out by it. I actually visited the church twice this year out of curiosity. It was an interesting experience, weird at times, but people were very welcoming and nice.

Again, you don't understand what you're saying. The Father is not bound by time; you are. Your entire argument is bound by time. And I'm not kidding you when I say it feels as though I come across the same person, time and again, everywhere I go. This person posts walls of text, speaks of gurping in the past on whatever substance, speaks of repackaging, assumes one knows nothing, has done no reading, no meditation, no--anything. I know it's not the same person, but it really feels like it. Perhaps it is the same spirit.

Your sources are points in time. These points present amalgamations. I grew up with the occult. I was steeped in it. Sources present, points come across. Truth is so many mustard seeds, scattered throughout. The problem is, the seed is not the cornerstone. You are pulling half-truths from pots of falsehood, half-truth, which is falsehood again, and truth, with the former being the focus.

Not to say time does not play a role. Hence:

The Bible was written by many authors over more than 2000 years. St. Jerome, 400 AD, give or take. There, you have an assembling, 39 and 27, latin. The Vulgate. St. Jerome was hardly the first, however. He translated and compiled into a single volume.

Which takes us to...

The Hebrew Bible. Moses and his five books. Centuries of prophets and leaders. By the time of Jesus, the 39 books were of course the Scriptures, quote unquote. The early church was formed. Matthew wrote his historical records. Life and ministry; the Gospels. Paul and Peter sought to establish direction. Then, you have the letters, scattered throughout congregations in differing regions. The Epistles.

After the church formed, hundreds of books and letters appeared, explaining who Christ is, what he did, how to follow him. The problem was, there was no clear indication of which letter, which book to follow, and which to shun.

God put people in place, scattered throughout history. Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, the First Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381. Accounts taken into account based upon disciple status, witnesses to the ministry, such as Peter; interviewers of witnesses, such as Luke, etc. Writings from 1st century, AD. Consistent portions, devoid of contradictions from trusted elements of scripture. Councils upon councils, debating, weeding out. Taking guidance from Peter, Paul, Matthew, John, etc.

And then you have Christ himself, his words. Truth.

In a nutshell, my man, you are drinking from beverages comprised of oil and water.