would like to discuss the idea of a creator with an atheist

I am a catholic and believe in God the creator.

I am not here to discuss the religions though. All the religions have their fault. I simply would like to discuss the existence of a creator or God with an atheist and get their views and give my thoughts on them.

I know this is hard for a political forum to do but please I would like to keep this civilized reframing form insults.

any takers?

 

sure, I'll take it..I was raised catholic, first communion and blessed by a bishop on my confirmation..I've even been going to mass with my soon to be ex wife of 7 years..I find it interesting and I like the community..good folks and charitable..

after I took my first LSD trip at the ripe old age of 14 back in 1968 I learned that religion and god do not exist..
why?? it's simple..you can't create something so vast and even if you could how would you say who's to live or who's to die..it's such idiotic nonsense and a crutch people use to feel good by..
there is no end or beginning..we are nothing but a bunch of turds that will eventually die and hopefully be in the hearts of family and friends that have grown to love us because we did the right thing..
cheers..

 

Great I appreciate it. It can be entertaining to read things that are in agreement with your own opinion at times however I think to really learn about something you get the most buy talking with the other side. Seek first to understand than to be understood.

ok fair enough you are right you and I can't create something so vast but the creator wold be something more powerful beyond our comprehension. The sciencetist believe we were created thought the big bang which I can go with however if that be the case when we look at the complexity of what happened I believe there is intelligent design involved and showed guided the results. God in other worlds created the big bang with the purpose and intellect of the creation of the universe in his image.

When I look at the complexity of the world I find it hard to believe that everything that exists today just happened by chance.

 

Do aliens classify as God?

 

If you think aliens created the world and life in it then idk maybe I guess. Like I said this is not as much about religions just the case of an intelligent creator.

 

What exactly do you define this God/creator as? Does it just have to have created the universe or do you also define it to be an object (as opposed to a process or pattern)? A being? An intelligent being?

There is a lot of semantics that one can play on this question. Therefore, I'd like to know exactly what it is you're trying to discuss. Too many times have I tried to discuss the existence of a god just to have the other person generalize their god into "the concept of existence", "nature" or other things I actually do believe exist.

 

I once asked this question some years ago to a Lutheran deacon at a social function.

It went something like this. "If the universe is infinite what did God do before he created the heavens and Earth? Did he just "float" around looking for something to do? Why did he pick that exact moment to create mankind? Why not a time before or after?"

The deacon couldn't answer me.

 

In the begining was the Word...the Word was with God and the Word was God.

That much I believe.

The rest of it...I just don't know.

 

I guess I would think of it like this.

God is something othe than and beyond human existence as we understand it. For instance when people say heaven well where is that? I think that perhaps heaven exists and is a place they is only reachable with your soul and God resides there. After death we are removed from our physical bodies and all that exists of us is the soul and only the could we see or understand the place that is heaven.

 

I guess something like the god christians believe in. Something that created nature and the systems instead of nature and the systems themselves.

 

I'm not even sure what the the term atheist means. It comes from the Greek and translates to "no god." But I can't help wonder if the current lot of atheists are really just against organized religion. I don't consider myself an atheist. But I do define god in a way that would cause religious people to recoil. To me god is mother nature, the first cause, the absense of chaos and the laws of physics. One minister once explained to me that my belief is called naturalism. Suits me. I'm a naturalist. To me assigning anthropomorphic characteristics to that is pretty silly although it makes things easy to understand. If god is all knowing, all powerful all whatever, that makes more sense to people than dealing with something as abstract as the absence of chaos.

The problem here is one of mystery and how one goes about solving one. The creation of the universe is a mystery. While the bible writes about it, it writes about it in a fashion appropriate for people living in the second century. They didn't know much about science so they dealt with the mystery in a way that would appeal to their readers. It had the additional benefit of giving to god authority and power. Any good author of religious text would do the same.

In the meantime science has worked to try to solve the mystery of creation through the scientific method. So far there are lots of theories and nothing truly definitive. It's hard to study something that happened billions of years ago. the comologists continue to work on it with enthusiasm. They may never get there and then again they may.

That's all just a roundabout way of saying that god the creator is a concept and a mystery. Always has been. May always be.

 

Only if you obtain an accredited independent panel of psychiatrists who will vouch for your sanity .

 

Christians believe in a great many things, different Christians believe in different kinds of Gods.

Something that created nature and the systems rather than the systems themselves? So if there is a perfectly natural cause of the world, that would still be God? If it turned out that turnips were known to spontaneously generate universes and that there was a turnip in the beginning of the universe which generated our universe, that turnip would be God? I'm not likening your god to a turnip, I'm just trying to see exactly where your god-concept starts and ends.

 

Well no not reall for instance if the big bang caused the creation of the universe I wouldn't consider that God. I consider God to start with the existence intelligent being that intended this to happen. For instance if the universe was created by the big bang I believe this all didn't happen by chance the big bang was caused by an intelligent being that made all that designed the big bang to develop this world w live in right now.

God would be The ceator of the world like say this message was created by me this string of words didn't happen by chance I pressed the keys on the touch pad of my iPhone with the intention of creating it. You believe something created and designed this instead of it happening by chance because of the complexity of sentence so that is how I fee about this world and God.

 

First: We know nothing about aliens. Second: What are we able to know about aliens? I can see in science fiction stories that we are only able to imagine aliens as if they would be a kind of human being - completly independent how mighty or animalic they are seen from the story writers. And I guess every intelligent alien would be able to understand the christian message "Make it like god - become human". They would know that "human" doesn't mean to be a homo sapiens sapiens but it means to become reasonable and lovefull. And so they would see immediatelly what our real problem is.

http://youtu.be/Y8Kf3_KJPtM

 

You are calling Catholics metally ill because you like to hurt us? A paradox situation, isn't it? Who told you to try to hurt Catholics whenever you can do so? Your own mentally ill Borg collective?

http://youtu.be/27f0vQ9Da8s

 

Sounds like fun to me. I grew up Lutheran, as you may have seen in my earlier posts, but then eventually reasoned myself out of it. When it comes to the creator concept, I accepted it because the belief system put to me required it, though honestly I never saw much need for it in the world around me. The universe is observably governed by rules, life is obviously a complex set of chemical reactions. Humans have a hard time grasping all of the complexities of existence, but that doesn't make a creator necessary. So, my challenge in getting beyond the creator was simply one of getting beyond the religion which demanded it, and that took admitting the apparent truth to myself in spite of the loss of the promise of resurrection and eternal life.

 

I think that a modern atheist is really just someone who does not believe in Yahweh or Allah, the two big mono-gods of the age. That tends to be what defines an atheist. No one talks about a-Zeusists or a-Odinists, but only because we don't have a prevailing belief in them.

 

Ok, so this god is required to be a being, and you also define him to be intelligent and have an intention. So you would not consider Mbombo, the African creator god who supposedly vomited up the earth against his will, a creator god? Remember, for the moment, I'm not interested in knowing what you think your god is or does, I'm interested in at what point you wouldn't agree that it was your god.

Right, I think I have a reasonable understanding of your god-concept. Ok, so what is it that makes you believe in this particular god?

 

The issue with god is it does not answer any questions.

Maybe god created the universe, maybe not. Neither answer gives us the mass of a neutrino.

 

I think it was Freud, possibly in Moses and Monotheism, who suggested that humans invented God as a father figure. I'm not sure if he held that view all his life but it makes sense to me.

I don't believe in God or gods or any form of supernatural creator. I don't believe in an afterlife.

I understand the basic human need to believe though and frankly sometimes I feel a bit envious of those who have firm beliefs about these concepts. The comfort that they provide is unquestionable.

Theology of various types is a wonderful invention by humans, it is able to heal the effects of cognitive dissonance among believers when a factual discovery seems to throw doubt on their faith. The need for comfort is repaired and possibly strengthened by theological responses to causes of cognitive dissonance.

As has been pointed out though, we'll never know - as a race I mean. Other animals don't even care. Humans, with out evolved intelligence, are paying dearly for that intelligence, we need our comforts so we create, maintain and defend them.

 

I find a creator very hard to believe, as the creator argument is that everything is complex thus there must be a designer. However the designer is the said to be so complex we can't imagine, then this defeats the first argument the creator is complex it must be designed, so who designed the creator.

I reckon that we most likely came into being due to many simple reactions. The way our bodies work day to day due to simple biochemical reactions, creating something complex. However I must maintain my agnosticism as there still is the chance of a creator it's just very slim.

 

Dear friend. The most people who are calling themselve Christians are believing what you say here - but indeed we are much more in a continuity with the ancient egypt culture and even older cultures. We don't believe that only a soul - imagined often as a kind of ghost and not as a power and way of love and life - will arrive in heaven. We will arrive there in a complete body including soul. We know nearly nothing about heaven - but I would say we are in continuity not only with the catholic (common, universal) faith but in continuity with all human beings beginning from the first stone ages, if we believe that we will arrive in heaven one day with our body. 'They' - I don't know exactly who in the moment - told us that our old body made of water will be replaced (recreated) in the last day with a new body made of fire - and it plays absolutelly no role what happens with our old body - our old clothing - our old universe - our old lifes - because everything what happens is written down in the so called "book of life" - and what we are calling often "judgement" is much more than only a judgement. We will be recalled, renewed, reorganized ... to be able to live our lifes in heaven - with a heavenly body and soul - both.

A strange story - I know. Some are calling us idiots and criminals because we believe in such a nonsense. Who cares. It's not our problem. Our enemies are our teachers - that's all. And do not forget: Only the might and power of love is able to build bridges to every place in every age and every life. Not the words of a demon - and not the words of an angel. Everythgin what you have to know is written in your own heart where you can see burn his light of life - your soul. God bless you.

http://youtu.be/IhdZqfnLYZs

 

A catholic deacon was not able to give an answer to this question? Strange. It was Saint Augustine who philosophed more than a 1500 years ago about this problem. Until the days he had lived the answer was somethig like: "Before god created the world he created the hell to throw the people in who are asking such confusing questions! ". But Augustinus found out hat god created time first and that the word of creation is not like a human word. Gods word of creation is a very mightfull timeless word. And since his days is existing a new problem what sounds as if modern phycicists had found it the first time: "Before" the universe was created was nothing existing. There was not even time existing. So it makes no sense to ask "What was before?" - becasue there was not "before". If the new modern physics asks what was before the big bang (there is no before) or what is outside the universe (there is no outside) then they are only able to speak so because they are thinking informations, words, thoughts are able to pass over in ¿not? existing times and spaces. It will be interesting to follow the physical research in the next decades and centuries.

http://youtu.be/PLxe14bA8og

 

Theology is logical fairlytale telling. If you come up against a problem then you think about it and provide a plausible explanation. Proof is not needed of course, just a convincing explanation. It's found in all religions. Metaphysical questions can be resolved by simple logic. It has no actual effect though, it's just a bunch of words to comfort believers. Take the proofs of God's existence - going back to Anselm, Acquinas and the other ontological arguments that followed. Words, just words, nothing proven, nothing demonstrated beyond a set of nicely argued premises leading to the desired conclusion.