Posted on 11/27/2005 6:32:15 AM PST by machman
Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 ·
I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The Atheism part is easy.
But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.
Agreed.
Love is the only reality?
Then how do you explain Hitler, Stalin, and the Hussein family?
????
God is also wrath.
So is simple politeness.
I will point out that Penn and Teller make millions every year on decieving people and getting people to believe things that are not true. So consider the source of this article.
then let them do just that.
And besides, now this is off the record, OK? If the sex and jello aren't all there is, and I end up in front of some old bearded guy after all, I can always say that I did what I believed. He can't win in court on that one. So I got myself legally covered, and I still get the sex and jello. Plus I have a secret deathbed clause in my safe deposit box that no one knows about, just in case. You know lawyers, and well, you know where they'd work in the hereafter, that is if there was one.
Actually you're 100% wrong; they're magicians, but they actually are controversial magicians because they routinely explain how they do their tricks, which is taboo among magicians.
And they have a series on Showtime specifically devoted to debunking myths.
What an idiot.
1)God's, which is always for you.
2)Evil's, which is always against you.
3)Your's, the deciding vote.
God is no respector of persons, the rain falls equally on all. Punishment or reward is yet to come.
That hasn't been my observation. It seems He seldom gets praise when things go right. But He's always the first one blamed when things go wrong. How many people do you know who celebrate every gift of sunrise or every blade of grass? Those are His doings as much as every tsunami or hurricane.
What planet do you live on? I see it all the time.
I'd rather be decieved by a magicican who admits up front that he's performing a trick than a shaman who professes to be telling the Truth.
No, you're missing the point. If there is not God, then man is the measure of right and wrong. When man becomes the measure, then one man's opinion is as good as another's. Where there is not transcendent source of law, law becomes the arbitrary imposition of the will of one group over another. That's a scary thought.
I am a follower of Christian metaphysics and believe Jesus showed us the nature of reality.
Jesus calmed the storms and walked on water, i.e. man has the power to do the same, but does not realize it.
So, your paradox is an empty, confused statement from my perspective.
God is all powerful.
Anything that claims to have power, but is not of God, really has no power.
Natural disasters have no power, i.e. we have the power to stop them, as did Jesus, but we do not realize we have the power to do so.
A dull, asensate, spiritually inept man is no authority on even the smallest of things, let alone the extistence of God.
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