Is there a God?

[HAL9000]

A well-known Zen Buddhist Koan asks: is an agnostic behaving like a good Christian by piously nit picking on behalf of Islamic resurrection performing a mitzvah - or is this the sound of one hand clapping?

[mockney piers]

;-)

[Brendan]

HAL9000 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> mockney piers Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Islam isn't based upon resurrection

>

> I'd love to know where you and Hugo get that idea

> from - do either of you have a citation?

>

> Islam is predicated on the Day of Resurrection

> (Yawm al-Qiy?mah) when everyone will be

> resurrected and judged. This is derived from the

> Day of Judgement and End of Times eschatologies

> found within Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism,

> respectively.

>

> Edited for accuracy.

And it al has it's route in acient Egyptian belief. Or so I have heard postulated.

[HAL9000]

There is a theory that Judaism was founded by priests of the pharaoh Akhenaton (1380-1362 BCE) who were forced out of Egypt when his new monotheistic religion collapsed ? that may be what you are referring to? Or was it simply because the Egyptians believed in resurrection, too?

There?s also the enigmatic presence of a Jewish Temple on the Nile island of Elephantine in or around 495-399 BCE that tends to confuse everyone trying to make sense of Jewish history.

Anyway, the scribes who compiled the Old and New Testaments borrowed ideas, themes and texts liberally from the religions and cultures of other civilisations including the Romans, Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians and even Siberian shamanism and the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain beliefs - amongst others.

The parable of the widow's mite is derived from a Buddhist text. Psalm 104 is derived from the Egyptian Hymn to Aten. The relationship between Noah's Flood and the Sumerian Gilgamesh epic has been noted. The encrypted sacred mushroom references are shamanist in origin.

The NT contains direct quotes from ancient Greek authors such as Epimenides, Aratus, Cleanthes, and Menander - perhaps from other works too that have since been lost.

[darek4711]

God: The most popular scapegoat for our sins. ~Mark Twain

[HAL9000]

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

--Verse 51 of Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rub?iy?t of Omar Khayy?m referring to Belshazzar's feast.

Apparently, God didn't have an edit button - unlike rubsley/monkeymoo22!

[Huguenot]

Erm.... Gosh.

[mockney piers]

Cripes.

Accidentally caught a couple of minutes of the big question.

Orange order priest says "people asking how can a can a loving caring god allow [the tsunami] are just being irrelevant. If these people hadn't been overpopulating land by definition dangerous on a fault line...blah blah"

Am utterly gobsmacked.

[PeckhamRose]

http://bit.ly/eeoCAf

A great essay!

[aaliya]

Yes, GOD is every where, four sides of earth, and even inside of human being, GOD is every where, God is in your heart too. :)

[paphio]

Some say the whole universe(s) is but a little dream (or nightmare) in God's night.

My view is that we have not made anything but have only discovered and are discovering about stuff which is basically to clever for it to be a coincidence akin to throwing a dice googles of times and it falling every time on the same value...

question solved.

Please do not confuse the concept of God with the moral right or wrong slant of religion...an entirely different debate.

[mockney piers]

Eek, I'm just watching 'my favourite joke' on bbc3 and I've a suspicion that pretty much every thing I think was the fault of Dave Allen.

Still, I'm happy enough with that.......sharp guy!!

[maxxi]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Eek, I'm just watching 'my favourite joke' on bbc3

> and I've a suspicion that pretty much every thing

> I think was the fault of Dave Allen.

> Still, I'm happy enough with that.......sharp

> guy!!

Shit on the piano though - tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-tinkle- plonk!

[HAL9000]

The Mission: To put a 2 inch cross in space to orbit around the world.

"The Cross in Space was launched August 2, 2008 on Falcon 1 from the Marshall Islands. The Cross, Bible and Jesus stickers reached 217km or about 134 miles up into the heavens. The second stage seperation failed and the satallite did not reach orbit. ... The Cross, Bible and stickers were scattered over the Pacific ..."

[Disco_Paul]

there is a creator.

"Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci"

[Alan Medic]

Is there a God? Oh yes, he posts on the Forum.

[-Heinz-]

What if the knowledge acquired by scientifical method were there to prove rather than refute the existence of

something infinitely more clever and accomplished than we have ever dreamed...and what's wrong with calling it God?

[Huguenot]

I think that's a misunderstanding of science.

Science doesn't fabricate evidence with a purpose in mind, it simply makes observations and predictions based on tangible evidence.

If there were evidence of some supernatural being then this could certainly be explored scientifically.

The sum total of human investigation to date does not provide answers to everything, but experience suggests that most apparently mysterious or 'supernatural' events have much simpler explanations than the existence of a humanoid bronze age geriatric with a penchant for grandstanding.

Traditionally when you use the term God with a capital G, this is the Abrahamic figurehead to which you refer.

[-Heinz-]

I was not referring to the mysterious or supernatural specifically, just that what surrounds us, up to the crest of our

understanding is, in my book awesome enough; I also know you or I have not made it...So whatever clever force has, it is

good enough for me to call... God.

The moral wranglings humanity associates with this concept on the other hand....Different subject.

[Jeremy]

Heinz, I think you're contradicting yourself. You talk about a "clever force", which to me already sounds like some sort of supernatural belief (bordering on creationist, even).

I think the world around us - and the wider universe - leaves all semi-intelligent people full of wonder, but it doesn't need to be explained with some sort intelligent creator.

[Huguenot]

I think it's difficult to have a serious conversation about God if you're defining it however you want to define it.

Gods have always been moral arbiters and the personification of supernatural or poorly understood events.

You can't suddenly announce that your definition doesn't include morality or human characteristics and expect people to understand you.

You might as well say sausages are God, or Marmite.

[Marmora Man]

Marmite - now that's something this atheist can get to adore and even worship.

[Bessie1974]

.

[Moos]

I read the beginning of Daniel Deronda today and it reminded me of this thread:

"Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Even

science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe

unit, and must fix on a point in the stars' unceasing journey when his

sidereal clock shall pretend that time is at Nought. His less accurate

grandmother Poetry has always been understood to start in the middle;

but on reflection it appears that her proceeding is not very different

from his; since Science, too, reckons backward as well as forward,

divides his unit into billions, and with his clock-finger at Nought

really sets off _in medias res_. No retrospect will take us to

the true beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth,

it is but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which our

story sets out"

[-Heinz-]

Jeremy Wrote:

>

> I think the world around us - and the wider

> universe - leaves all semi-intelligent people full

> of wonder, but it doesn't need to be explained

> with some sort intelligent creator.

I think the wonder is a very valid reason to suppose the existence of an all pervasive clever order.