It's good for a person to have faith in God, and to live by God's will, with his/her/it's guidance and support, but the idea of having a constant authority figure living in my head rent-free, like some kind of fucking Tulpa, is kind of a turn off. Having God involved in everything doesn't sound pleasant, living by and with God 100% of the time, in all aspects of life, doesn't sound pleasant. Is God a nessesity in life, or can one merely live under him/them/her/it, as opposed to by and with him/them/her/it? God loves his children, but I'm not sure I want that kind of love and presence, a second dad, pretty much. Do any anons have advice on this?
It's good for a person to have faith in God, and to live by God's will, with his/her/it's guidance and support...
John Cook
Alexander Adams
whether it's pleasant or not is perpendicular to whether or not it's true and if it isn't then it's of not consequence
unless you're dealing with people who believe it is, then it's just funny
Michael Morales
There is no god. All science and rational thought points to this conclusion. I wont say god is impossible, just very unlikely.
Anywho, I would argue youve been living removed from god your entire life, so that fact that you wonder if you need more or less of his presence is moot. I think you need to sit down and think about whats most important in your life as far your self interests go and as far as furtherering the well-being of our extended human family. Consider what youre willing to pay for and part with, what youre willing to fight and die for, but most importantly what youre willing to live for. I think gods presence is required for any of those decisions. If you still think there is a god thats fine, I just hope its a god that cares about our wellbeing. I hope you do too.
Luke Anderson
Gods presence is NOT required I mean to say. I hate posting at work, but it gets boring here sometimes.
Gabriel Hughes
Fuck science and rational thought, desu. That shit cannot explain the complexity of nature, the natural world, and the universe, it's a bunch of bullshit pseudo-intellectual garbage.
Thanks for your input on the rest of the post(s), though, even if it's kinda bullshitty, but hey, it's the exchange of thought, opinion, and perspective that counts. Don't get yourself fired.
Samuel Parker
> Is God a nessesity in life, or can one merely live under him/them/her/it, as opposed to by and with him/them/her/it?
Religion is whatever you make of it. If you want God to be a nice buddy who just sometimes gives you advice to steer you in the right direction, then that's who you should believe in. Every single believer out there already does this and all of them have their personal idea of god that conflict with the ideas others have. Nobody is truly concerned with adhering to holy texts because the holy texts are full of contradictions to begin with.
>Fuck science and rational thought, desu. That shit cannot explain the complexity of nature, the natural world, and the universe
You're really stupid, I hope you know that.
Dominic Williams
But it does have explanatory power. We know a great deal about nature including the universe. The exciting part is were a part of it all as well as exploring it. (God did it) just seems offensive when you can watch a billion year old star being born millions of light years away. We can hear black holes and we can almost see the dreams of other living things. All with science and rational thinking. (God did it) is such a cop out that offers no wonder beyond a stagnant, unchanging view of reality. If you read more books youll see its not pseudo intellectual bullshit, its life. And life, by virtue of us experiencing it, is awesome.
But OP was more curious about existential advice regarding god I think, rather than natural observations.
Isaiah Bell
I suppose you need to stop thinking of God as someone that's constantly watching you, waiting for you to make a wrong move and punish you for it. Think instead of Him as someone protecting you, loving you, caring for you. Yes, He is greatly disappointed when you sin, but He is going to forgive you for it because He knows that you're trying your best in life user. Good luck!
Zachary Powell
Spirituality doesn't require theism or deities. Pure Buddahism is actually atheistic for example, and focuses on attaining Nirvana, a kind of existence.
Parker Wilson
>All science and rational thought points to this conclusion.
All science is saying reality doesn't "really exist" until it has to. And that the Universe is extremely, finely tuned for life, in such a way that it cannot be a coincidence. How do you know that isn't "God" working his magic?
Religion is faith, Science is observation. Religion is completely outside the realm of science because you cannot observe something that is based in faith. The most you can say is that given all observations, "God" seems unlikely to exist. You can't prove God exists anymore than you can prove God does exist.
I don't even believe in God, but I hate atheists using physics as "proof".
Noah Perry
Through him with him and in him, in the unity of the holy spirit.
You are God, user. I'm not being facetious. However, everyone else is also God.
Go take a look at the Shobogenzo, if you get a chance. Read the chapter on the Great Pearl.
Jaxon Anderson
>not knowing i am the one and only God
Nevermind user, one day, when you are ready, you will discover truth
Michael Gomez
>reality doesnt really exist
Dunno what that means. Science is confident reality exists
>universe is fine tuned for life
No it isnt. You are a puddle marveling at a pothole
>faith is outside science
Faith is useless for finding truth. Theres nothing you cant take on faith
>you cant prove god doesnt exist
I know. I just said it was unlikely.
>I dont believe in god
Same here m8
Henry Peterson
>Science is confident reality exists
It's confident reality doesn't exist until you measure it.
>No it isnt. You are a puddle marveling at a pothole
en.wikipedia.org
It's a big mystery in science. It's extremely, incredibly unlikely that we live in a one-off universe simply because of how fine tuned physics is for life. That implies either a God or a multi-verse. Scientists can't prove either way right now, but God is the unlikely answer.
>Faith is useless for finding truth. Theres nothing you cant take on faith
Science doesn't find truth. It makes observations and then uses those observations to find relationships that can be modeled to make predictions. Newton was wrong, Einstein was wrong. The Standard Model is also known to be incomplete, if not outright wrong as well.
Bentley Johnson
>his/her/it's
>him/them/her/it
A true follower of God's word would never acknowledge the existence of trannies, try again
Austin Jones
>Do any anons have advice on this?
Stop being a schizophrenic with narcissism so all-consuming that you start to believe you're pals with the artificer of reality.
Grayson Mitchell
>science cannot explain the complexity of nature
Grayson Garcia
>only real things are measurable
Dont know about that one. Theres a mathematical necessity for dark matter based on the amount of observable gravity, but we cant measure dark matter. It sounds like you dont understand how science is used. Science is the process we use to discover what is true about the natural. So, gravity for example was discovered by a variety of people and clarified by many more based on their work. We didnt just discover gravity, we merely learned to measure it and predict how it interacts with other stuff. Science is a process and sometimes we just dont know enough to complete that process. The process can be done wrong and then we end up with phrenology and eugenics. Just because Darwin got heredity wrong doesnt mean evolution is wrong too. Science isnt true anymore than a ruler is true. Science is a tool that is useful.
>fine tuned
talkorigins.org
This refutes any fine-tuning arguement you might have
ravingatheists.wikia.com
This describes your fallacious reasoning.
I am aware you believe the universe is fine tuned for you, but it isnt. We are the result of natural processes and mechanics that this universe features. Nothing more. Unless of course, you have evidence to the contrary I havent already heard
>science can be wrong
Thats the beauty of it. Its falsifiable, which means we can get closer to finding truth because things either are or arent. Sometimes, if you get all quantum. Theres still a lot we dont understand.
Faith is not falsifiable. I could take it on faith that unicorns exist. its just not true, but faith cant be falsifiable, so unicorns are real because I think so
Owen Thompson
Again though, OP was talking about how useful god is on an existential level
Adrian Turner
I meant to say you can believe the universe is fine tuned, but it isnt
im phoneposting
Brandon Watson
>Dont know about that one. Theres a mathematical necessity for dark matter
It's not about dark matter. Everything has a fundamental limit in how precisely you can measure something.
en.wikipedia.org
It's not a case of our inability to measure well enough, it's built into reality, and it is unavoidable. You can however push all the uncertainty into properties you don't care about. LIGO had to do this for example.
>This refutes any fine-tuning arguement you might have
No it doesn't. The first answer
>
We do not know what fundamental conditions would rule out any possibility of any life. For all we know, there might be intelligent beings in another universe arguing that if fundamental constants were only slightly different, then the absence of free quarks and the extreme weakness of gravity would make life impossible.
Is wrong. If the planck constant was even off by literally ~0.0000000000000000000000000000001 we could not exist, and matter as we know it would have far different properties. There's a reason it's called the "fine tuning" problem.
>If the universe is fine-tuned for life, why is life such an extremely rare part of it?
This is completely unknown. No one knows how uncommon or common life is the Universe and you should not listen to anyone who says otherwise.
>This describes your fallacious reasoning.
That's not fallicious at all. In fact he is describing a possible manifestation of the multi-verse, which is being tested RIGHT NOW.
en.wikipedia.org
It's possible we live in a region of the universe which has the properties it does because it's stuck in a higher energy state than the rest of the universe. If that's the case, it's entirely possible for our universe to random disappear, just like the puddle. We're just one of the many puddles out there if this hypothesis is correct.
>which means we can get closer to finding truth
Newton and Einstein weren't getting closer
Carter Brown
user, followers of Christianity will tell you that, that God is with everyone. All people are God's children, God is with and within everyone, that's no narcissism.