Do you believe in God? Every time I answer the question honestly I lose friends. Still I tell the truth: I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in the evolution either. I just believe we don’t have enough knowledge to know the world yet. Posted on 08/30/2010 7:28:32 AM PDT by Big Bureaucracy
Do you believe in God? Every time I answer the question honestly I lose friends. Still I tell the truth: I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in the evolution either. I just believe we don’t have enough knowledge to know the world yet.
If you are still reading, I appreciate your tolerance.
Glenn Beck’s answer to America’s troubles is turning to God. Where does it leave us: the non believers? Beck’s solution reminds me of my godmother, who is a nun in an Eastern Orthodox Monastery on the Balkans.
When I visited her she answered every question I had with: you have to believe, you have to have faith, and you have to pray. That was the only answer to everything. She and Glenn Beck could be soul-mates.
She sensed it is hard for me to believe so she tried to teach me something simple: Just try to be good and keep praying ‘Lord forgive my sins’. That was kind of a ‘safety net’ advice she came-up with while trying to save my lost soul.
I think this is the answer: just be good. Do not lie, do not cheat, do not envy, do not steal, do not kill, respect your parents, do not idolize people, repent your sins and try to be good.
Does it really have to be in the name of God? Or just for goodness sake.
Mike Huckabee often says that if we agree on 7-8 things out of 10 – we still can be friends. Can God be one of the things we disagree on?
Half of the Americans don’t even agree on ‘do not kill’ and support abortions.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigbureaucracy.com ...
Why would even murder be upsetting to someone who doesn’t believe in an Objective Morality?
Would they get upset that vinegar reacts with baking soda?
It takes perseverance, none are perfect in it..but Christ..
Rom 9:18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
Rom 9:19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?”
Rom 9:20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ “ [fn]
Rom 9:21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
I love America and I am proud to be an American. I don’t mind our laws to come from God (although I don’t believe in God). It is much better than the laws and rights coming from a politburo.
Thanks for posting this. I am very troubled by the “just put your faith in God” sentiment. It reminds me of the man and the flood story. It is an easy cop out to put your faith in God and then when John McCain wins and election the answer is “it is God’s will”. Balderdash. If many spent the time and energy organizing and working to get this country back on track that they do “praying” we would not be in the mess we are in. Leaving it to God is a cop out plain and simple.
Flame on.
I believe in the moral principles. I don’t have to believe in God to believe that to lie is wrong, to steal is wrong, to kill is wrong, to cheat is wrong - most people in the world agree on those despite different religious beliefs.
Why are all those things wrong?
If we are just the product of random, naturally directed chemical processes, there is absolutely no reason to treat your fellow humans with any sort of “fairness”, up to and including taking their life.
Like I said, you might just as well be angry at vinegar reacting with baking soda.
It is somehow self-evident that those things are wrong.
I am not angry at all. I am just sharing my personal difficulty with Beck’s plan.
Perhaps if people decided to live for this life rather than gamble on the possibility of a next life, we would all be better off. You want to live your life for Heaven, go cloister yourself.
Self-evident? Why?
Is there some Objective Standard perchance?
Perhaps this “self-evidency” is “written on our hearts”?
We can definitely be friends. I had many discussion with people of faith and absolutely respect their ability to believe in God. I tried but failed.
Usually when I say that Jesus was a historical person people run away. President Obama somehow got away with the same statement.
We can each answer for how we keep them personally, but I think our leaders have a lot to publicly answer for with regard to 8, 9, and 10 -- especially 10.
It appears to me that every day our politicians and leaders are working to lead us to hate our fellow Americans for some perception of what they have that we do not. This exploitation is abominable. Our leaders should be leading us to be better people instead of trying to incite us to be our worst selves.
Over and over, when I hear our politicians talk about white oppression or the top 5% not paying their share, or speak about a black man in the White House isn't enough, that there won't be peace until everyone has equal possessions, I think about this commandment.
I know I'm not expressing this correctly, but that's the commandment I hear reverberating in my head and heart every time I hear these guys speak.
My reference to “angry” was in regard to people feeling a sense of “wrongness” about lying, cheating, stealing, murdering, etc. If you’re upset about those things, you might as well be upset about an acid/base reaction, or one animal eating another.
There is no objective standard - I just believe it.
Perhaps this “self-evidency” is “written on our hearts”? Perhaps. Is it?
For me, faith is easy because I equate the beauty of this world as God's work. I think if things were left to nature all flowers would be yellow since that is the color that most attracts bees. But they are not.
Anyway, this is not the place to get into a long discussion about his. I just wanted you to know that many of us will not run because you say you do not believe.
It is not an answer for religious believers, but it is a perfectly good answer for a functioning civil society.
Glad we cleared that, because I am not angry.
The hardest thing is to make people agree on what is wrong and what is right. Different religions have different standards. Everybody tuning to God may lead to many disagreements.
What are the things that believers and non-believers agree on?
The notion of wrong implies that there is a natural order of ways things should be.
If there is not a Supreme consciousness who ordains that natural order the concept of “right” and “wrong” have no meaning other than “that which I like” and “that which I dislike”, which is fine, but although one’s personal likes and dislikes may be self-evident to one self, no one else is either obligated to agree or conform his behavior to them.
Right and Wrong are only universally “self-evident” because God’s existence is self-evident.
No flaming here. Totally agreed.
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