JackJack Posted January 26, 2008 Posted January 26, 2008 Just out of curiosty, if you do not believe in God, what is it you believe in? Where do you feel we all derived from? In other words, where did we come from? Apes? Aliens? Or from some other way?
HokeyReligions Posted January 26, 2008 Posted January 26, 2008 I didn't used to believe in God, but now I do and for a variety of reasons. However, I still don't know what, if anything, to believe as far as the beginning of humankind. I don't think we will ever have the exact facts and I don't personally see a value in having that knowledge unless through it we can find ways to help our current lives. Understanding medical/health issues and social/behavioral issues and such may make knowing the exact origins beneficial. I do think that there is an answer that would satisfy everyone and that would take bits and pieces of every theory and would make perfect sense; but I highly doubt if that answer will ever be found. Unless or until that happens, what we have is our own limited understanding and faith.
lindya Posted January 26, 2008 Posted January 26, 2008 Just out of curiosty, if you do not believe in God, what is it you believe in? Where do you feel we all derived from? In other words, where did we come from? Apes? Aliens? Or from some other way? Not having a very scientific mind, I respect those who've immersed themselves in science sufficiently to come out with plausible, impressive sounding explanations of how we evolved. They sound more convincing and well researched than creationist theories....but the creationist theories appeal to the childish, fairy-tale loving side of me. Morally, I believe in empathy. Placing yourself in the other person's shoes when you're reflecting on something you've done that appeared to hurt or offend them - and using that to develop your boundaries and your personal moral compass. Working things out and refining my own moral code is, for me, one of the most important and absorbing aspects of life. If I was forced to submit to an externally imposed belief system in place of thinking things out for myself, that would be a major loss to the extent that I probably wouldn't feel life was worth living any more. That's why I just can't relate to fundamentalists. As much as they need to have a religion to give them some sense of identity, I need to not have religion imposed on me.
swansong519 Posted January 26, 2008 Posted January 26, 2008 I started a thread on a book called Coversations with God...apparently, no one here has read it...too bad. It bridges the gap between the different theories and science. As briefly as I can, I'll describe the theory. Although it's very difficult to explain this briefly...so it may sound disjointed. We all started our existence as perfect souls. Souls with all the answers to all the secrets of the universe. But it is not enough to know something. Without experience, knowledge doesn't mean much. Our purpose here is to remember who we really are...through experience. In the absence of everything else...who are you? If there was only you...how can you know yourself? We live in a relative world..where I am only tall because someone else is short...etc... In the absence of everything else...I cannot know myself. In the beginning God had the same dilema...how could he truly know himself in the absence of everything else. So to better know himself, God blew himself into a billion, trillion pieces so he could experience himself from many different perspectives. (the big bang...although the book never directly eludes to this). And many of those "pieces" are us. How can I truly know who I am unless I've lived life as a woman...or a parapalegic...or a black man...etc... the premise being that we continue to live multiple lives...as many as we need to truly re-member who we really are. And every experience we encounter is one more opportunity to better know ourselves and recreate our highest ideal of self. The book is amazingly mind expanding and I can't recommend it enough. Essentialy it seems to indicate that God did create the universe...and evolution did occur...but it was all part of the "plan". I could go on and on with this theory...but I would love it if someone read this darn book so we could discuss it...lol
taiko Posted January 26, 2008 Posted January 26, 2008 Just out of curiosty, if you do not believe in God, what is it you believe in? Where do you feel we all derived from? In other words, where did we come from? Apes? Aliens? Or from some other way? Realize many who do believe in a creator God or gods believe that evolution was the process He/they/it used. And in the Abrahamic faiths that God poured his spirit into Adam and Eve
norajane Posted January 26, 2008 Posted January 26, 2008 Seeing how mold forms on food left in the fridge too long, it's not very difficult for me to understand that life on this planet developed under the right environmental conditions, and that humans were another step in that evolution of life. I believe in love as a guiding force in my life.
PandorasBox Posted January 26, 2008 Posted January 26, 2008 Personally, I believe in God. However, I have a friend who believes in God, BUT she also believes we chose our own parents from birth, and they WE make our own choices in life and which direction we go in, that have nothing to do with God. I can understand US choosing our own path in life, but I do not understand the concept of, beleiving in God but thinking he did not put us in our mothers belly's and that WE chose who are own parents were etc. doesn't seem to go hand in hand. But I dunno.
shadowofman Posted January 26, 2008 Posted January 26, 2008 Well as far as humans, we are a branch in the evolution of primates. As far as life, we don't know, therefore I don't believe anything. It is a given that life originated at least once from non-living matter. How many times has this happened in the universe, we shall see. But there is no reason to believe in anything otherwise. Only speculate.
DutchGuy Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 In the beginning God had the same dilema...how could he truly know himself in the absence of everything else. So to better know himself, God blew himself into a billion, trillion pieces so he could experience himself from many different perspectives. (the big bang...although the book never directly eludes to this). And many of those "pieces" are us. Fascinating way to combine the idea of a god and the big bang. Ofcourse, the 'evil' in the world would have to be a part of god also and that's inconsistent with 'god' being good, nevertheless, nice brainwave. OT: Evolution.
a4a Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 I am not that arrogant to claim to know the origin of the universe. Peeps are forever working on that and I will leave that up to them. I am not that arrogant to think that certain aliens - a divine human like creature- a spaghetti monster- a bucket of fried chicken - created humans or our known universe either. But evidence which cannot be denied proves evolution does exist and is happening right in front of us at this very moment. I do not believe in heaven or hell... perhaps some sort of energy is left over, they say your brain continues after the body dies with electrical impulses for a bit. I do not believe in any religion man has created to explain away his fears and create a reason to exist. Maybe some aliens planted seeds here and abandoned the project because it was not cost effective?
Author JackJack Posted January 28, 2008 Author Posted January 28, 2008 So a4, are you saying you don't believe it when people see a face of Jesus in the grilled cheese sandwich? :laugh:
samsungxoxo Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 Just out of curiosty, if you do not believe in God, what is it you believe in? Where do you feel we all derived from? In other words, where did we come from? Apes? Aliens? Or from some other way? In what can be seen with your eyes and tested scientifically. Things with parsimous (meaning few) explanations with that are consistent when testing and basically all you do with your own effort. Example if you work hard then you start earning money, you can't be just lying there praying money will come from the clouds. We have evolve in stages, first we were hominids hunting for survival and slowing (as thousands of years went by), we have become homosapiens.
a4a Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 So a4, are you saying you don't believe it when people see a face of Jesus in the grilled cheese sandwich? :laugh: No but I once had a Cheeto that was in the shape of a cross...... I should have sold it on Ebay. Right at the moment my tub faucet is weeping..... is it a sign?
samsungxoxo Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 No but I once had a Cheeto that was in the shape of a cross...... I should have sold it on Ebay. Right at the moment my tub faucet is weeping..... is it a sign? Anything can have the shape of a cross, that doesn't mean anything. If you start selling it, then you'll probably have half the people asking you stuff while the other half is laughing at you.
Author JackJack Posted January 28, 2008 Author Posted January 28, 2008 No but I once had a Cheeto that was in the shape of a cross...... I should have sold it on Ebay. Right at the moment my tub faucet is weeping..... is it a sign? I think if it continues then its a sign.
lovelorcet Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 I would just like to point out that we did not evolved from apes but rather we share a common primate ancestor. There is absolutely no credible debate about evolution in the scientific world and as a developmental & molecular biologist I work with this every day. I just do not think humans are as special as they make themselves out to be and that where ever you have liquid water there is going to be a good chance for some form of life. It is really excited that humans may go to mars in my life time. I would not be surprised if they found some remains of bacteria there as there seems to have been water on mars. I think this will be a very humbling and positive experience for all humans.
Ronni_W Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 Fascinating way to combine the idea of a god and the big bang. Ofcourse, the 'evil' in the world would have to be a part of god also and that's inconsistent with 'god' being good, In 'Communion With God', Neale Donald Walsh does a nice job of further exploring the CWG series. (Or it could be in 'Friendship With God'.) Something like: God (or the "God Force" or "Universal Energy") is neither "good" nor "bad" -- it is neutral. The manifestations that we see/judge as "holy" or "evil" (love or hate) are simply the consequences of how the "billions and trillions of pieces" have used, misused and abused the Energy. It's not a theory that sits well with everyone. But it's fun to explore
a4a Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 Anything can have the shape of a cross, that doesn't mean anything. If you start selling it, then you'll probably have half the people asking you stuff while the other half is laughing at you. I may actually try this. I think that grilled cheese sandwich went for big $$. Just goes to show you that someones meaningless find can be anothers salvation. A4a is off to find religious symbols in food items. I do have faith that a Jesus face will never appear in Jello. Jello is evil IMHO.
a4a Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 I would just like to point out that we did not evolved from apes but rather we share a common primate ancestor. There is absolutely no credible debate about evolution in the scientific world and as a developmental & molecular biologist I work with this every day. I just do not think humans are as special as they make themselves out to be and that where ever you have liquid water there is going to be a good chance for some form of life. It is really excited that humans may go to mars in my life time. I would not be surprised if they found some remains of bacteria there as there seems to have been water on mars. I think this will be a very humbling and positive experience for all humans. I was just watching the Saturn exploration last night on TV - yeah I am a nerd. One of the Moons of Saturn supposedly has oceans below it's icy crust...... perhaps that is our origin? And thank you for the thread idea - is space exploration a waste of $?
swansong519 Posted January 28, 2008 Posted January 28, 2008 (edited) In 'Communion With God', Neale Donald Walsh does a nice job of further exploring the CWG series. (Or it could be in 'Friendship With God'.) Something like: God (or the "God Force" or "Universal Energy") is neither "good" nor "bad" -- it is neutral. The manifestations that we see/judge as "holy" or "evil" (love or hate) are simply the consequences of how the "billions and trillions of pieces" have used, misused and abused the Energy. It's not a theory that sits well with everyone. But it's fun to explore WOW! Someone who is familiar with the series?? I am very surprised that I haven't encountered anyone else on here that is familiar with it. I started a thread on it here and no one has posted to it...lol From the moment I started reading the book, I knew that it exactly mirrored my thoughts on "spirituality" although I had never been able to qualify them in the same way. Yes...neutral energy...the idea that "good" and "bad" and "right" and "wrong" are absolute terms that we use in our relative world. How much less stressful would our lives be if we could simply replace those 4 terms with "different"? Because honestly...we have little to no idea why the things that happen, happen. Someday we might...but it's only through the lens of reflection that we are able to ascribe any meaning to events. And I believe it is "Friendship with God" where he describes the scenario of "you" and the pure white room. I had never thought about life in those terms and I found it very enlightening. The books have had their detractors...mainly because it says... God doesn't really care what you do. He doesn't judge you. It's not his place to. The books fly in the face of the accepted religious theology, in that it states that God has no need, desire or intention to "punish" us for the "sins" we commit...because there really is no "good" or "bad"...just that which is... If you'd like to talk about the series some more feel free to post in the CWG thread. Edited January 28, 2008 by swansong519
xxscarredxx Posted February 14, 2008 Posted February 14, 2008 "I could go on and on with this theory...but I would love it if someone read this darn book so we could discuss it...lol" So the name of the book is "Conversations with God"? I will visit my bookstore and buy it. I would love to have discussion about it.
converse02 Posted February 24, 2008 Posted February 24, 2008 (edited) If you believe everything needs to be created, who created God? And if you say God doesn't need to be created, then why does the cosmos/multi-universe? We came from evolution. I don't "believe" in it. It is a scientific fact. I don't believe in God because God is not a coherent concept. Ask two ppl who and what God is, you get two totally and wildly seperate answers. Evolution is a coherent concept that is vertified by every scientific discipline (biology, geology, anthropology, radiometrics) in every scientific university on Earth. If you're asking how the universe came into existance...That's going to take a longer post talking about quantum mechanics and M-theory. It is still in the works. In a nutshell, the current universe may result from the fracturing of a timeless hyperspace. Being "timeless," it always existed. There is no need imagine the existance of Jesus, Allah, Zeus, or the Flying spaghetti monster to fill in the blanks. Edited February 24, 2008 by converse02
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