posted
I believe that God is a both a Father and a King, and that seperating either of those aspects from the other can lead us to misunderstanding His nature.
I believe he is Omniscient, but not Omnipotent. Specifically, I believe that God cannot remove human agency without removing our capacity to learn.
I believe that God knows each of us intimately. I believe that He is willing to reach each of us personally, but we must choose Him over other voices.
I believe God is good, but not particularly nice. I do not mean that He is unkind-- but we certainly cannot look at the pain He placed on Christ's shoulders and with any degree of seriousness, call God 'nice.'
(Christ's words, 'Father with thee, all things are possible. Remove thou this cup from me,' haunt me.)
I believe that God is utterly, and finally, merciful.
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posted
I don't think God's male or female, or exists as a separate entity from the universe. Perhaps it's easier to think of God inbedded in everything... Hard to explain.
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quote:I believe God is good, but not particularly nice. I do not mean that He is unkind-- but we certainly cannot look at the pain He placed on Christ's shoulders and with any degree of seriousness, call God 'nice.'
Reminds me of Lewis's description of Aslan as "Good, but not Safe."
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posted
Why do they put toothpaste in squeeze bottles? Its hard to get it out when its near the bottom of the squeeze bottle. You gotta do the finger shuffle thing to push it up, or roll it up from the bottom. They should put toothpaste in soap like dispensers, that would be more logical.
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quote: I believe God is good, but not particularly nice.
Perhaps you are meaning, as I believe, that God is just. Meaning He will still allow consequences based on actions. Sometimes doling out justice is not nice, but necessary.
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posted
I think there's a shade of difference there. Working for what is good is not exactly as working for what is just - it seems like it's a step higher. An end can be just, but not yet good.
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posted
true Tom, perhaps an infinite capacity for Mercy is a better description...
But then again, it may turn on a finer understanding of forgiveness-- i.e. that even God cannot forgive someone who refuses to admit they have done anything wrong... <shrug>
edit: LJ - yeah, I am a little out of sorts today... hopefully my edit helped some...
posted
I believe that sometimes God's followers will apply the term "infinity" where it is meaningless, simply to describe God in the most superlative language they can think of.
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posted
I believe that the concept of "God" was created by ancient mankind in an attempt to understand the world around them, and similarly to help find a meaning for living (and, probably more importantly, dying).
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posted
I believe in God as the creator of the universe, for the simple reason that when we try to figure out what caused everything to exist, we eventually run out of causes.
I don't know what God has been doing since the universe was created, or whether God interferes in the affairs of the world, or even whether God is an actual being or simply a purposeful force that creates. I don't think anyone can know these things.
(Edit to clarify that I'm really only using the term "God" for the sake of convenience. I don't know if there is a single entity that can be called "God.")
posted
I believe in the power of the memetic complex "God." That is, I respect and recognize that the series of beliefs about God, his nature and his role in our lives is a powerful tool for shaping human culture. Belief in a god can either be good or evil, but it is never trivial.
I believe that early animism (belief in the spiritual aspect of nature) led eventually to a matriarchal sort of goddesses worship in prehistoric times and that the matriarchal establishment of a sacred king for yearly sacrifice for the appeasement of the earth goddess eventually morphed in a patriarchal kingship and the imposition of a sky god as subjugating the goddess and ruling over minor spirits/deities.
I believe that a need to believe in something greater than us may actually be an integral part of our nature, whether biological or memetic in origin, and that those who seek to eradicate faith from human life are making a devastating mistake.
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quote:those who seek to eradicate faith from human life are making a devastating mistake.
Do you mean that people who are convinced there is no God do wrong when they try to persuade others of what you yourself believe to be the truth?
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To that, I'll add that I think that the idea of God is ultimately a giant metaphysic mirror to justify our own ideas and actions.
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posted
I have a question, how did you all decide what you believe about G-d? Is it something that just came naturally to you and you always knew what you believed, or just what your parents brought you up to believe? Was it a decision made in your head and you had to think about it to figure out what made the most sense to you? I'm so confused, I don't know what to believe in anymore.
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Personally, I was brought up in a household without God, but in a primarily Jewish neighborhhood. My frends were buth Christians and Jews; some went to "Sunday School," and some did not.
I discussed religious beliefs with my parents and my friends, and was not "forced" into any one belief. Obviously, one tends to pick up what one has at home moreso than anything else, and I am certainly no exception.
But I have thought about it deeply, and continue to do so. It's an important question, and I want to make sure I get it right.
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posted
I believe there are an awful lot of Mormons in this thread. Especially the beginning of this thread. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I was raised with the belief in God. So the idea never seemed foreign to me. But as I have grown up and become self-aware, and the more I learn, I have had to re-evaluate that belief multiple times. Logic appeals to me, rationality appeals to me, truth appeals to me. In order for me to believe, that belief has to make sense. I don't need to understand it completely, since I accept that there are things beyond my current wisdom or capacity to understand, but the basis needs to actually make sense.
In the end, I believe that my continued faith is choice on my part. I feel that there is evidence to support the faith I have, but I do not feel that I could prove it to someone else.
Do I find that belief comforting? Yes and no. On the one hand, believing death is not the end is comforting. Believing that this life is intensely important and heavy with purpose is also very satisfying. On the other hand, believing I am eternally accountable for all my thoughts, words, and actions is profoundly intimidating. As a result, I try to live a life that I won't be ashamed of and I try my best to rely on Christ to help me overcome the rest. Sometimes I don't feel I do a very good job in that last part, and that also is difficult for me.
So, in essence, having faith makes me feel deeply responsible and at the same time like I need to depend on something that is difficult for me to depend because it runs contrary to my nature to do so.
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posted
I am hoping that all the preconceived notions that I have about God and the universe are completely shattered, and that I was mostly wrong in my assumptions.
But what worries me, is that what God might do with my wretched soul once He has judged me...
So so summarize what I believe in a very vague sense, I believe that God wants us to have the good deeds far outweigh the bad deeds: Our credits must outweigh our debits.
I know that is overly simplistic, but that statement is not meant to answer all the questions of the universe either...
posted
I believe that God cares about the universe in general, but is not particularly concerned with human existence.
I believe that God may have put down the foundations of things, but isn't micromanaging much of anything. If we can't explain something scientificly it's because of a shortfalling of ours, and not because God wants to be mysterious or miraculous.
Jesus as a enternal being I have yet to really make a decision on.
posted
Thanks for posting those links, Bob. I had forgotten where my "fax-spamming God/Storming heaven one bit at at time..." post was--It's sacrilicious!!!, top of page 3.
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quote:I believe that God knows me, knows who I am, and forgives me when I fail after doing my best.
quote:i.e. that even God cannot forgive someone who refuses to admit they have done anything wrong...
I think when I ask for forgiveness he forgives me and forgets it. I've always been taught to "take my problems to the Lord and leave them there." Pretty nifty. He's probably thinking, "Dang it, not another problem from that one.
quote:I believe that everything good comes from God.
*nods*
quote:As a result, I try to live a life that I won't be ashamed of and I try my best to rely on Christ to help me overcome the rest.
Lovely. Couldn't have said it better myself.
I think that God is indeed merciful but I think he also punishes us sometimes. Let's just say I don't want to see what happens when I make him mad.
What exactly do mormons believe? about God, Jesus, the afterlife?
-just tryin' to get the scoop on other religions
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quote:Do you mean that people who are convinced there is no God do wrong when they try to persuade others of what you yourself believe to be the truth?
Yes, Destineer, that's exactly what I mean.
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posted
Tater: there's a thread going on about Mormon beliefs on the other side right now. You could also go to mormon.org for official answers from the Church.
posted
OK, I find that pretty weird, David. If you think believing in God is essential to living a good life, why don't you believe in God? And if you don't think it's essential to living a good life, why isn't it better that more people believe the truth?
I guess my own opinion is that in the end, nothing bad will come of people learning what the world is really like.
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quote: If you think believing in God is essential to living a good life, why don't you believe in God?
Well, the obvious answer is that David really believes in God, but doesn't want to admit it. A less obvious answer is that he thinks he's so much better than other people that he doesn't need the crutch he thinks they need.
I think the real answer, though, is that David feels that having people of deep faith around benefits him, and would like to see that status quo maintained even if it means maintaining a falsehood.
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quote:I think the real answer, though, is that David feels that having people of deep faith around benefits him, and would like to see that status quo maintained even if it means maintaining a falsehood.
Right, or that having people of faith around is beneficial to everyone. My problem with this whole approach is that if it's necessary for people to belief falsehoods in order to live well, we'll never be able to really have accurate knowledge about whether we are living well. That sounds kind of garbled, so let me try to unpack it.
Suppose that in fact there is no God, but people are much better off if they believe that there is one. Suppose further that if God does exist, to live well is to live according to His commandments, but if he doesn't exist then to live well is to live in some evolutionarily successful way, as David has suggested.
If all of this is true, then it will be impossible for people to live well and to know that they are living well. If they believe in God, they will believe that they're living well, but for the wrong reasons. If they don't believe in God, they might know what it is to live well, but they won't be able to do so. I guess such a scenario is possible, but it amounts to a sort of moral skepticism: if we're going to live worthwhile lives, we can only do so if we're ignorant of what it is to live well!
Again, I suppose I'm optimistic in assuming we can both know the truth about our world and live virtuous lives.
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quote:I think the real answer, though, is that David feels that having people of deep faith around benefits him, and would like to see that status quo maintained even if it means maintaining a falsehood.
I don’t know about this. I don’t think it benefits me personally in a direct way, as people of faith tend to look upon atheists with opprobrium. And, given the conflict between different peoples of faith, faith itself may not always be beneficial to the social fabric. However, I suppose to some extent I am inclined to believe that faith in a God is on average better for society than widespread lack of that faith would be, as I don’t think we have the structures in place for society to function smoothly without the cohesiveness the memetic complex “faith” provides communities. In addition, I don’t think there exists a well developed system for providing happiness and stability in people’s lives that comes anywhere close to being as successful as religious faith does. The fact that every atheist has to develop something on her own only underlines for me how impossible a world of atheists is at this moment.
quote: if it's necessary for people to belief falsehoods in order to live well, we'll never be able to really have accurate knowledge about whether we are living well. That sounds kind of garbled, so let me try to unpack it. Suppose that in fact there is no God, but people are much better off if they believe that there is one. Suppose further that if God does exist, to live well is to live according to His commandments, but if he doesn't exist then to live well is to live in some evolutionarily successful way, as David has suggested.
If all of this is true, then it will be impossible for people to live well and to know that they are living well. If they believe in God, they will believe that they're living well, but for the wrong reasons. If they don't believe in God, they might know what it is to live well, but they won't be able to do so. I guess such a scenario is possible, but it amounts to a sort of moral skepticism: if we're going to live worthwhile lives, we can only do so if we're ignorant of what it is to live well!
All of the above, in my personal view, is undercut by the inescapable fact that “living well” and “wrong reasons” will always be relative terms. As there is no cosmic “right” and “wrong” or “well” and “poorly,” and given the fact that, like it or not, every atheist and agnostic in the world lives by a moral code that is STRONGLY rooted in historical religious belief, for me to insist that people give up their faith in exchange for my “virtual truth” about the meaning and purpose of human life is not only arrogant, it’s insane. There isn’t a dilemma here: I’ve tried to say many times that, on the whole, the commandments of most gods and what is “evolutionarily successful” overlap, that the latter induced the creation of the former.
quote:Again, I suppose I'm optimistic in assuming we can both know the truth about our world and live virtuous lives.
And I’d point you at our recent rehashing of virtue and morality, and ask you whether you really, really believe that virtue would have evolved culturally outside the framework of faith. I assert that it could not have, and I don’t think we’ve reached the point that we can abandon faith, as a species, and hope to survive. I’m trying to imagine what pogrom would have to be implemented to convince 8 billion people to give up their faith. It simply is not going to happen. This is not the moment in our evolution for it. When it is time for us to move beyond faith, or more precisely, when faith evolves into something more powerful, then we will be closer to the atheist utopia that some of my friends naively believe could exist now.
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote: And where does that need to search come from?
I believe it is a function of intelligence or inquisitiveness. Our desire to answer questions about the world around us originally begat religion. I think that religion was a precursor to science. Please don't misconstrue this as any sort of attack on those of you that enjoy faith.
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posted
I believe that I'll eventually have to face everything I've ever done, good and bad. This is not a rational assertion, but more of a gut thing.
Whoever/whatever is in charge of that reflection (be it me, another being, some committee of beings, or what have you) would probably be what I'd call God.
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