Did the gods really exist?

First topic message reminder :

This question always used to haunt me since I had involved in various rituals and religious chores.
Sometimes I felt that all the theologies were the offsprings of the saints or great philosophers of times and ages. But sometimes I had a deep belief of their real existence. So what do u people really think of this troubling question?

eveningpolestar wrote:

well, nihilism is not that bad in my view. It addresses the truths of our existence though hard to digest , they are quite true. I personally would rather believe in nihilism than some supreme being. Once a person fully understands nihilism , he/she is rarely going to be disappointed in life I guess.

yes, i agree nihilism will rarely disappoint us. but that's just because nihilism doesnt give us any hope in life. and when there is no hope, there is no chance of being disappointed. once again i'm gonna say 'i rather be disappointed than hopeless'.
explain to me your view of nihilism if u still think i am wrong..

deepesh wrote:

eveningpolestar wrote:

well, nihilism is not that bad in my view. It addresses the truths of our existence though hard to digest , they are quite true. I personally would rather believe in nihilism than some supreme being. Once a person fully understands nihilism , he/she is rarely going to be disappointed in life I guess.

yes, i agree nihilism will rarely disappoint us. but that's just because nihilism doesnt give us any hope in life. and when there is no hope, there is no chance of being disappointed. once again i'm gonna say 'i rather be disappointed than hopeless'.
explain to me your view of nihilism if u still think i am wrong..

i don't mean you are wrong but for me nihilism is an ideology of courage ...courage to face the fact...nihilism disappoints to the extreme and I used to be extremely depresses once but as the time passed I found that i felt less disappointed with small tragedies in life due to the nihilistic thinking instilled within me...feel sth like desireless in most of the situations...

eveningpolestar wrote:

i don't mean you are wrong but for me nihilism is an ideology of courage ...courage to face the fact...nihilism disappoints to the extreme and I used to be extremely depresses once but as the time passed I found that i felt less disappointed with small tragedies in life due to the nihilistic thinking instilled within me...feel sth like desireless in most of the situations...

dude!! any specific reason for depression??i.e. if you dont mind me asking

well, the reasons were mostly related to families, personal life...sorry can't elaborate them....by the way why not start a new topic about "Nihiism" ...this thread about god's existence is going a bit out of track i think....

I got it on the web. Six reasons to believe that god really exists..

Please check out this link to kno abt god's existence.
http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

devil wrote:I got it on the web. Six reasons to believe that god really exists..

Please check out this link to kno abt god's existence.
http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

I read that article but I couldn't quite agree at any of the facts presented over there. All the qrguments presented there are contestable...I will be explaining why these arguments are not valid...by the way being a devil yourself I guess you don't believe in god ...do you

Now.... how can you simply attribute all the goddamned wonders to god. It is simply an excuse..... and a reasoning that is very immature.

well I am much satisfied by the way in which the debate is goin on. However n whatever be the belief on which each debator has stand on, they lack to find a way in which all of their standings has a good explanation.
For example: Nihilism means everything start from nothing and hinduism statifies that god is the creator of everything. Nihilism has no good explanation for whereabout of the enery for which contradicts the conservation of energy and hinduism have no good explanation for the physical existence of the god.
This was the same reason for which there had been a great dispute among the atheists and theists. But my question is what can be the core idea that can support the whole old and evergrowing new concepts. With this I would like to end this debate topic I would like all of the debator and observers to take a new step in finding the real and ultimate concept.

Nastik= can u prove where ur god exist?
Astik= can u prove where god doesn't exist?

Razor, I do not think Nihilism would want to explain god because Nihilism would mean an out straight rejection of anything related to 'god'. The word won't even matter to a nihilist and a nihilist as such doesn't care to explain anything about the word or the system. It simply won't matter.
In fact, there is no need of a debate. The best thing would be to remain indifferent and carefree.

There can be no real or ultimate concept. In fact, every concept goes wrong. Whatever I myself bluffed till now and am bluffing is all bullshit and yet life goes on bluffing. This topic will not end no matter what theory comes up.. what concept evolves... whatever happens. There is no new step that can ever come close to the answer because the answer lies in indifference and is attainable by the unquestioning mind.

And COFILTH... I am not sure what you are trying to mean...but is it an error.. I mean I have a doubt you got nastik and astik all wrong... and yet it doesn't matter!

eveningpolestar wrote:

devil wrote:I got it on the web. Six reasons to believe that god really exists..

Please check out this link to kno abt god's existence.
http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

I read that article but I couldn't quite agree at any of the facts presented over there. All the qrguments presented there are contestable...I will be explaining why these arguments are not valid...by the way being a devil yourself I guess you don't believe in god ...do you

i think god and devil aint a creature like humans n animals...
god's just a positive feeling of heart n devil's jus negative....

thats why i named myself devil....full of negative feelings...

blazeofglory wrote:Razor, I do not think Nihilism would want to explain god because Nihilism would mean an out straight rejection of anything related to 'god'. The word won't even matter to a nihilist and a nihilist as such doesn't care to explain anything about the word or the system. It simply won't matter.
In fact, there is no need of a debate. The best thing would be to remain indifferent and carefree.

There can be no real or ultimate concept. In fact, every concept goes wrong. Whatever I myself bluffed till now and am bluffing is all bullshit and yet life goes on bluffing. This topic will not end no matter what theory comes up.. what concept evolves... whatever happens. There is no new step that can ever come close to the answer because the answer lies in indifference and is attainable by the unquestioning mind.

And COFILTH... I am not sure what you are trying to mean...but is it an error.. I mean I have a doubt you got nastik and astik all wrong... and yet it doesn't matter!

I don't know why u feel so upset about.
I don't know about u but if u don't move on the quest of finding the ultimate answer then how in earth would u define urself as a completely know everything person.
My fren then the dream u have in becoming the happy person with no question is questionable.

I am not at all upset. Moving on a quest...a never ending one.. could have made me upset.
I dont know anything... I dont know things as much as u do.
I don't want to know. Everybody's life and opinions are different. And dreams too.
Everything is questionable... and unquestionable too.

My friend the only suggestion I would like to give myself and all other living in the world is to find the purpose or life or create one.
Hope and Faith are two things that are the weapons for every mankind.

How much do we really know about ourselves so as to even dare to know GOD??. What do we really know about that being which looks through our eyes and listens through our ears, feels through our hearts and thinks through our minds??ON the superficial level, everyone claims it's ME, but what is this "me"?? beyond bones and blood?? who is it that dreams at night?? that subjectifies a perception?? Who is it really that is reading this text?? Can we really separate ourselves from our body?? is there a spirit???Who knows?? no one does, well except the ghosts, and they seldom post replies in forums.

So all we have are beliefs, quasi intellectual beliefs that can change anytime.However truth is always a constant. So , perhaps , rather than trying to know god, one should venture to know oneself.

Razor Blade... your suggestion could prove costly.

Hope is the worst of all evils that prolongs the torments of man. (Nietzsche i think)
Faith is another dangerous enemy. Faith disrupts the system. With faith rose Hitler.

VforVendetta,
On the whole I agree to what you have to say... but I need to...dissect and filter out what I agree and what I don't.

How much do we really know about ourselves so as to even dare to know GOD??.

What is "Dare" and where does it even come from? Does it reason fear? Does it show agony? Does it express anger? Or, is it mere mockery?

What do we really know about that being which looks through our eyes and listens through our ears, feels through our hearts and thinks through our minds??ON the superficial level, everyone claims it's ME, but what is this "me"?? beyond bones and blood?? who is it that dreams at night?? that subjectifies a perception?? Who is it really that is reading this text?? Can we really separate ourselves from our body?? is there a spirit???Who knows?? no one does, well except the ghosts, and they seldom post replies in forums.

"God" and "Me" are words that denote the super-being and the self.
The concept would be to attribute God as another self, an alter ego, to a higher position...something Nietzsche called "Superman", something man should reach out to become. A higher being categorized by enlightenment.
ME refers to the self that we know all about and the very self we, all our life, as a nature, are concerned about. The self we are set to groom.

knowledge is redundant..so is the quest to ... so-called overcoming ignorance.
The answer to "god" and "self" directs to mortality, immortality, rebirth.... and what not... and comes again... a chain of questions...as if through a nuclear fission.

Clever opinion leads nowhere.
The way we mold opinions... create them, bake them, alter them, personify them, alienate them. Its all futile. Not a single step nearer to what you call "truth". There is no truth.

So all we have are beliefs, quasi intellectual beliefs that can change anytime.However truth is always a constant. So , perhaps , rather than trying to know god, one should venture to know oneself.

How do you know whether truth is a constant or not? What else is constant? Is time constant? Is life constant?
One needn't venture anywhere. One needs to be. To feel. To be!

What is "Dare" and where does it even come from? Does it reason fear? Does it show agony? Does it express anger? Or, is it mere mockery?

Dare simply implies our tendency to try to run before being able to properly walk. it doesn't reason fear or agony or anger, but merely a sense of naiveness that people hold on to when dealing with such ultimate realities as god.

ME refers to the self that we know all about and the very self we, all our life, as a nature, are concerned about. The self we are set to groom.

the ME that you are refering to is merely a factual necessity , the concept of segregation via bodily boundaries , so that one may work efficiently as a unit in the human society. So the attributes you refer to such as "life", "the knowledge" are merely gained and didn't come with us from birth and wont continue after death. So what i am concerned about here is not what the self APPEARS to be but what the self IS.That which trancends birth and death . that which cannot be acquired nor released, that which truly is the substance of "my" existence, the ultimate ME-ness.

Clever opinion leads nowhere.
The way we mold opinions... create them, bake them, alter them, personify them, alienate them. Its all futile. Not a single step nearer to what you call "truth". There is no truth.

"clever opinion leads nowhere", really?if it didn't then it wouldn't justify being clever, now would it?? and by the way, opinions were never meant to know the truth , it's merely a personalized
view, a perception uniquely one's own, though not absolute , does represent a facet of the truth , no matter how convoluted.

and how can you be so sure that there is no truth?? Again , isn't that an opinion?? or am i to ignore it simply?Perhaps it would be better to say "There is no perception of the truth just yet".

How do you know whether truth is a constant or not? What else is constant? Is time constant? Is life constant?
One needn't venture anywhere. One needs to be. To feel. To be!

how could it not be?? How could such universe stand on its own without an order that is fixed and immutable? Now lets expand our horizon here, You ask if time is a constant. Now according to relativity ,passage of time depends upon the observer's frame of reference right??, Now although the time may not be constant in itself, this "nature" of time being relative is itself a constant. Life changes every second, but the "change" is itself a constant. You can't change change.

Well, it seems ultimate knowledge cannot be seeked but only experienced.but that is not to say that one can get high and be enlightened,experience is only meaningful when accompainied by awareness, BEING is only meaningful when accompanied with wisdom.

VforVendetta wrote:

What is "Dare" and where does it even come from? Does it reason fear? Does it show agony? Does it express anger? Or, is it mere mockery?

Dare simply implies our tendency to try to run before being able to properly walk. it doesn't reason fear or agony or anger, but merely a sense of naiveness that people hold on to when dealing with such ultimate realities as god.

ME refers to the self that we know all about and the very self we, all our life, as a nature, are concerned about. The self we are set to groom.

the ME that you are refering to is merely a factual necessity , the concept of segregation via bodily boundaries , so that one may work efficiently as a unit in the human society. So the attributes you refer to such as "life", "the knowledge" are merely gained and didn't come with us from birth and wont continue after death. So what i am concerned about here is not what the self APPEARS to be but what the self IS.That which trancends birth and death . that which cannot be acquired nor released, that which truly is the substance of "my" existence, the ultimate ME-ness.

Clever opinion leads nowhere.
The way we mold opinions... create them, bake them, alter them, personify them, alienate them. Its all futile. Not a single step nearer to what you call "truth". There is no truth.

"clever opinion leads nowhere", really?if it didn't then it wouldn't justify being clever, now would it?? and by the way, opinions were never meant to know the truth , it's merely a personalized
view, a perception uniquely one's own, though not absolute , does represent a facet of the truth , no matter how convoluted.

and how can you be so sure that there is no truth?? Again , isn't that an opinion?? or am i to ignore it simply?Perhaps it would be better to say "There is no perception of the truth just yet".

How do you know whether truth is a constant or not? What else is constant? Is time constant? Is life constant?
One needn't venture anywhere. One needs to be. To feel. To be!

how could it not be?? How could such universe stand on its own without an order that is fixed and immutable? Now lets expand our horizon here, You ask if time is a constant. Now according to relativity ,passage of time depends upon the observer's frame of reference right??, Now although the time may not be constant in itself, this "nature" of time being relative is itself a constant. Life changes every second, but the "change" is itself a constant. You can't change change.

Well, it seems ultimate knowledge cannot be seeked but only experienced.but that is not to say that one can get high and be enlightened,experience is only meaningful when accompainied by awareness, BEING is only meaningful when accompanied with wisdom.

What ever u stated above seemed to give me just one thing to learn.
There is so much to learn and obviously we even have to learn to filter the right thing to learn. So the question lies what is the parameter to know whatever we are learning is true and worthy. To my view whatever we have viewed and seen will lead us to what we have to do. Evolution and the order are two things which are always dynamic. So everything will change but the frame through which change occur seems to be constant. What is that constant point?

V for Vendetta,

your calling "god" an "ultimate reality" is in itself a naiveness. God is an excuse for your so-called quest of finding out some eternal truth.

1. ME is not a factual necessity. It is reality.

2. You agree that knowledge didn't come with birth and will not continue after death. I would like to unwantingly quote UG Krishnamurthi in this, "Knowledge is your enemy." It leads you nowhere but into the intricacy of questions and quests and the embodiment of ideologies and perceptions and hypotheses.

3. Opinion is a beautiful thing. It is what you can call your own. Opinion is what I am sharing and what you are sharing. Something... Dialectical. That is the even more beautiful. I cannot urge and I don't want to urge you into thinking about truth the way I think of it... And the way I bluff about it... the way you bluff about it.

4. The universe is not fixed. It is as dynamic as can be.
Relativity became a veer in ... everything. It changed everything. Change is the word that best describes truth, time and universe. When time changed from absolute to relative, the world was amazed with the change. When time to you and time to me and time to an astronaut in space doesn't become the same ... loopholes are created in hypotheses and theories we generate. (There is no constant point dear Razor.) There is no center. There is no focus. Change can never be a constant. How can change be a constant. Change signifies anything but a constant. What is not constant, it's change.

Wisdom has nothing to do with being. There are two points of life, (we may never attain) that outdo wisdom and knowledge. Zorba the Greek and The Buddha.

your calling "god" an "ultimate reality" is in itself a naiveness. God is an excuse for your so-called quest of finding out some eternal truth.

when did i ever refer to god as the ultimate reality??I simply mentioned god's name because it was the topic this thread , and further i never really said "god" was the ultimate reality. I simply maintained the argument so as to imply that to discuss things like "god" is to discuss about a reality that we aren't familiar with and that we should try to develop a perspective that goes beyond the ordinary.

1. ME is not a factual necessity. It is reality.

well ,now now, tell me what is this ME that you refer to so vehemently??Is it a name, a status, perhaps the body, thoughts??, but these are merely things , is it the combination of all these, then it's just an organization.How bout a soul? the aatma??Who is it that gets hurt when spoken ill of?? or is there anyone?? other than the feelings itself?? Please elaborate.

2. You agree that knowledge didn't come with birth and will not continue after death. I would like to unwantingly quote UG Krishnamurthi in this, "Knowledge is your enemy." It leads you nowhere but into the intricacy of questions and quests and the embodiment of ideologies and perceptions and hypotheses.

We're not playing the quoting game here,i can ctrl+C entire databases of quotes on the behalf of the contrary. However, understand that these quotes are all relevant and true to certain respects, but not all.Please don't make your stand based upon some dead guy's words. Think for yourself. Think, "Is Knowledge really your enemy?, really??"

3. Opinion is a beautiful thing. It is what you can call your own. Opinion is what I am sharing and what you are sharing. Something... Dialectical. That is the even more beautiful. I cannot urge and I don't want to urge you into thinking about truth the way I think of it... And the way I bluff about it... the way you bluff about it.

sure, opinion is indeed a beautiful thing, but it's temporal,it fades away with the passage of time, with the arrival of hard facts.so we should always be open to new ideas but not so open that our brains fall out.

4. The universe is not fixed. It is as dynamic as can be.
Relativity became a veer in ... everything. It changed everything. Change is the word that best describes truth, time and universe. When time changed from absolute to relative, the world was amazed with the change. When time to you and time to me and time to an astronaut in space doesn't become the same ... loopholes are created in hypotheses and theories we generate. (There is no constant point dear Razor.) There is no center. There is no focus. Change can never be a constant. How can change be a constant. Change signifies anything but a constant. What is not constant, it's change.

you are misunderstanding me. Let me elaborate.
Change doesnot signify a constant, neither is change a constant.but rather the FACT OF THE EXISTENCE of change IS a constant.That is , change has a "nature" to change, and that nature is a constant.just like, the blackness of black may vary in degree, but the black-ness is itself a constant. In calculus, the differentiation of sine gives cosine.Though there's a change from sine to cosine, this FACT that sine CHANGES to cosine is a constant.

Wisdom has nothing to do with being. There are two points of life, (we may never attain) that outdo wisdom and knowledge. Zorba the Greek and The Buddha.

I didn't quite understand what you were trying to say here. and how does these two fit together?

why is this thread dead in light of such an important topic?
Well, lets change the course of our discussion. I ask you this. do y'all have a reasoning basis to believe in existence of god?? or is it just faith and fear?
What arguments would you provide if you were to argue for the existence of god? please jot down in here.

I could say:
1)Everything is borne out of something else.Like i am borne out of my parents, my parents were borne out of my grandparents , this planet was borne out of cosmic events and all reality is borne out of the bigbang.So There is such an entity that gave birth to the first cause and that entity is god.And god itself gave birth to causality.

2)There is intelligence in the world and in everything we see.Things aren't random and obscure, they have an underlying sound foundation only possible due to planning of an intelligent being , thus god.

3)Such a vast universe when all its quirks and matter cannot possibly function well all on its own hadn't there been a all knowing, all powerful superviser to look through every detail of existence.Thus this omniscient, omnipotent superviser is god.

4)Every thing living has an urge to live and to keep on going.We didn't decide to go on living, we are just instinctively geared towards it. Thus this "force" is one undiluted evidence of divine intervention, thus god exists.

Please comment on the fallacies, if any, on these arguments or provide your own.

The first point is what I started this whole debate.
Thanks vandetta for wonderful inputs.

VforVendetta wrote:why is this thread dead in light of such an important topic?
Well, lets change the course of our discussion. I ask you this. do y'all have a reasoning basis to believe in existence of god?? or is it just faith and fear?
What arguments would you provide if you were to argue for the existence of god? please jot down in here.

I could say:
1)Everything is borne out of something else.Like i am borne out of my parents, my parents were borne out of my grandparents , this planet was borne out of cosmic events and all reality is borne out of the bigbang.So There is such an entity that gave birth to the first cause and that entity is god.And god itself gave birth to causality.

2)There is intelligence in the world and in everything we see.Things aren't random and obscure, they have an underlying sound foundation only possible due to planning of an intelligent being , thus god.

3)Such a vast universe when all its quirks and matter cannot possibly function well all on its own hadn't there been a all knowing, all powerful superviser to look through every detail of existence.Thus this omniscient, omnipotent superviser is god.

4)Every thing living has an urge to live and to keep on going.We didn't decide to go on living, we are just instinctively geared towards it. Thus this "force" is one undiluted evidence of divine intervention, thus god exists.

Please comment on the fallacies, if any, on these arguments or provide your own.

well,
For your first point " If everything comes from something then Where did the so called GOD came from then? And I wouldn't be convinced if you say GOD is an exception. Even if god existed there always then my question would be then when did he thought he should be there always?"

For your second point "There is intelligence in this world because we think there is. Since we haven't seen any other worlds how can we possibly be sure that there is intelligence in the world. It is just that we understand our world to be intelligent and that's why people perceive god as themselves. The world is just the way it is and we think it is intelligent."

For your third point "Same as in point two , we find the universe vast because we view from our perception. The perception of a phuchhe human beings who are just a tiny part of this universe. We find it complicated because it's a vast system and we are just a part of it. Comic forces is making it happen and we know that if there's is (likely to be in future) even a small imbalance , the universe might collapse. so where does the god come here?"

Fourth point "I object to your use of the word divine intervention, we are debating bout the divinity itself, so I find your argument invalid"

eveningpolestar wrote:
For your second point "There is intelligence in this world because we think there is. Since we haven't seen any other worlds how can we possibly be sure that there is intelligence in the world. It is just that we understand our world to be intelligent and that's why people perceive god as themselves. The world is just the way it is and we think it is intelligent."

How can oak trees give rise to apples ?, weed give rise to grapes?, Well, they can't Because oak trees donot have what it takes to be an apple, neither does weed.Apple trees give rise to apples, because apple trees are intelligent enough(or even more) to host apples.By similar assertion, how can the universe, supposedly dull and meaningless give rise to such a thing as intelligence, as human intelligence.Would it not be natural to conclude that the universe could itself be intelligent so as to give birth to humans?

Fourth point "I object to your use of the word divine intervention, we are debating bout the divinity itself, so I find your argument invalid"

By "divine intervention" i meant the inexplicable nature of existence itself.Consider this, why does anything exist? Would it not be easier not to exist at all ?Who is more relaxed, the one who is awake or the one who is asleep?Why keep on existing and face all the tension and face the vacillating nature of pain and pleasure? when you can just seep into the bliss of nothingness,neither pain nor pleasure.or as in Agent Smith's words:
"Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why, why? Why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something, for more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is, do you even know? Is it freedom, or truth, perhaps peace, could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without any meaning or purpose! And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself. Although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it Mr. Anderson, you must know it by now. You can't win, it's pointless to keep fighting! Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why do you persist?"

This question of why existence exists is as demanding as the question of god itself.It's almost as if someone, somewhere , somehow got bored and created universe to kid with himself.

V. i dont really care for your points , but thumbs up for quoting the matrix.