I have absolute proof that there is no God.

[seeker]

I've just seen in our local paper that a little girl who lives in our town has died. She has been the focus of much prayer since she was taken ill last year. Her parents were thoroughly good Christian people who trusted God absolutely.

The is no way that a loving, omnipotent, beneficent God who notes even a sparrow falling would not have answered these people's prayer.

So, if I had even a scintilla of doubt, it is now gone. There is no God.

Sorry that should be to Cote not Crikey.

headinhands well in some senses yes. I believe in an ultimate justice that will fairly retribute for all the utter shit that man has forced upon man throughout history. Do we not all have a sense of justice? When we read the papers and hear the news, do we not cry out for those wronged and hope that the perpetrators will be brought to some kind of justice? What about when we see justice is not done, when we see genocide, rape, female circumcision, children sold into slavery, and nothing is seen to be done? I believe something will be done, and more than something, that full justice will come about, that what our hearts cry out for will be done. And that it will be fair.

As for hell, I do not know what that is, but fully believe that God looks at everyone's heart. That is why I have no time for the 'well what about those who have never heard of Jesus' argument, or the arbitary 'everyone who isn't a Christian goes to hell.' God is Just.

I suppose this leads into your post as well, singersgirl. It's an interesting way of looking at it, imagining God at God's little laptop controlling us like a cosmic Sims-esque reality game, or Big Brother show. The difference to me is relationship. I believe God created people because God loves relationship. There was a precedent for relationship in Godself before people, in the Trinity. God creates us and loves us fully and radically and recklessly. Free will is an extension of that love, because by making us without such freedom God would not be demonstrating an unconditional kind of love. God would, in fact, be much more like that Sims player, making characters how God wants them, without any kind of will or freedom to do as they choose. As it is, God made us and set us free. To have freedom is to choose rebellion and darkness as well as light and reconciliation. But God didn't then just leave us to it. God sent Jesus. So we have a choice to reconcile with God, not through our own efforts.

There is so, so much more to say, but I don't want to turn this into a tedious essay.

headinhands of course you can ask :) I grew up in a Christian home, which may of course throw some of you straight into the brainwashing line of argument. I would like to point out that I began questioning fairly early on, and never stopped, being an awkward kind of sod

As a teenager I almost lost my faith through various traumatic events, but was brought back to it through seeing the reality of God working in people's lives in some fairly amazing ways. I then made the decision to study theology at a (secular) university, thinking that it would in all probability make it or break it.

It certainly tested it big time. This was no cushy bible college version. I embraced the debate and rigorous engagement with Christianity and decided to read around enough to make my own decision, regardless of my background and even attempting to put experience aside I did this for four years and came out a more convinced follower of Jesus than I went in. In this time I studied other religious systems in a fair amount of detail.

The reason I 'chose' Christianity over the others, then. You could say I couldn't know unless I had followed these religions as I did Christianity, but as I see it, if you are looking for something and find it, and find that it satisfies you in a way you couldn't have imagined, why would you then look further? In other religions, I did not find the answers that satisfied my longing for justice and relationship with my creator. The Christian faith, for me, is different because it is about relationship at its very centre. Not about rules, regulations, controlling, or in any sense submission or suppressing what I am as a human being. Instead it's about fully releasing me to be even more fully human, in worship of my creator, in relationship with the one who loves me more than any other. God showed this in Jesus. A sacrifice of love for those God longs to be reconciled with. It not only made more sense to me, but I found that I experienced God as so much more than some far off bloke in the sky. You could argue that many claim to experience God in many forms, but I can simply offer my own standpoint.

See, I like a lot of what you say there mhd (and I know we've met before on the simpler, less contentious, christian prayer thread, which I've also enjoyed being a part of) ...

... but I just wonder if religion and sacred story is a way to share deep human truth with one another about the nature of life, how to live well, and how to have hope, courage, and compassion on life's journey. And not necessarily true in the same sense as apple dropping from the tree gravity, and the like ?

But don't you see madhair that the very things you say about your religion are the things people of other religions say about their religion and in turn why they reject other religions including Christianity.. Do you actually suppose a Muslim feels that Allah is anything other than deeply personal to them?

1990, Cote?! Cripes, no wonder scientific atheists and the church are at odds!

madhair - To me, that niggling feeling about things not being right, a thirst for ultimate justice, a hunger for reconciliation, a mourning for a world in chaos is simply an evolved human desire for the perfectly functioning society. I like this in humans. It seems a shame to give all the credit to an ethereal being.

You seem to have missed that many of us see the world as a place of 'blind pitiless indifference' full of wonders. Atheism does not exclude positive feelings, you know

Ah, Juggling, I always like your posts too :)

There's something in what you say, in that there is something integral to us all that we are attempting to explore through religion, about the nature of life, about compassion. Thing is, I believe that there is something underpinning all that this contains, and that something is the creator of the universe, and the reason we are able to have compassion, empathy and to explore living well and at peace with others. I simply cannot find an explanation for such key elements of who we are as humans if there were no design behind it, if, in fact there was mere indifference and accidents of nature. I'm afraid I do believe in an ultimate truth. I think that I would probably see it much like you if I had turned my back on it all - I'd long to see everyone's versions of truth as simply exploring how to be human together, and no more than that. I love your generosity coming across in your posts, the way you express understanding towards others and seek to weave people's views and beliefs into something nice, something explainable. But I believe in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I believe it fervently. :)

madas for god judging the heart. Jeremiah says The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?. If it all comes down to god knowing the heart and that's how he'll judge us, why bother with all the rules, animal sacrifice, Jesus dying on the cross etc.

headinhands - what many Muslims believe about God I find much common ground with. The notion that God is transcendent, majestic, God is one, God is loving towards his creation.

But there's a key difference between the Christian God and the Muslim Allah. The Christian God is portrayed as relational at God's very essence, in the Trinity. God, in this frame, was loving, relational, before God created people. God is a God of relationship. Allah is not portrayed as such, but as first and foremost transcendent.

I have no doubt that Muslims feel God is personal to them. I am not downplaying anyone else's experience. I am merely relating my own thoughts and what I have come to believe. I do not think that any other religion has at its centre a God who loves so much that God even sends God's own son to die for God's creation. There is something astoundingly beautiful about such a depth of love, love that death cannot overcome.

And it seems from the Jeremiah verse that god has already judged our hearts.

Ah, garlicnuts, I would never claim anything about what atheists think about anything. I was simply quoting Mr Dawkins, who, as we well know, is hardly representative of all atheists. Anyone, whatever religion or none, can of course appreciate great beauty. I would say that this is because we are all made in God's image and we all have glimpses of what beauty really is within us, we all have a deep longing for how things should be, and when we see beauty around us, something responds at a primal level. And because, well, stuff can be beautiful, can't it :)

I like it in humans too, that we have a thirst for justice, etc etc, and that we strive to make society fair and at peace. We haven't done a brilliant job thus far, though, have we?

Well thanks mhd - I think generosity is always a good impulse.

I like this thread a lot, encapsulated for me in posts like garlics where she incorporates some of your words mhd ...

"To me, that niggling feeling about things not being right, a thirst for ultimate justice, a hunger for reconciliation, a mourning for a world in chaos is simply an evolved desire for the perfectly functioning society. I like this in humans. It seems a shame to give all the credit to an ethereal being."

Great stuff, garlic - and mhd too !

Eh? Don't millions of ordinary humans feel love that death cannot overcome? Enduring love for grandparents, parents and children who've dies, for example?

HiH - that's precisely why Jesus came, though, or one reason, at least. So we can be free from the judgement that would say 'the heart is wicked.' God is about forgiveness and freedom at its deepest level. Animal sacrifice was simply a means of people struggling to placate God, when all God really wanted was a pure heart towards God. No one can really do this, but grace paves a way. It's bloody brilliant.

Of course garlic, and the reason I believe that love can be so enduring is that we are made for it. Made for love, for relationship, for something that lasts beyond death. And this is possible because of what God did. It's not simply about celestial point scoring, either, it's something I believe we can experience in this life, about a hope that encompasses so much and transforms lives in the here and now.

How could we have such enduring love for those who have died before us if there is not some source of such love?

There is a source of such love. Brain chemistry.

This next is a bit of a cat-pigeons effort, I fear, but you know the bible does not at any point say god is a trinity as churches define it. God has a holy spirit, a holy son and various other holy aspects. None of the texts describe the spirit as roaming about with a will of its own. Jesus does, obv, but wouldn't be the first or last man to say he "is" his father. In more feudal times than these, I imagine it could be a statement of great power.

I know that garlic, but there is widespread early textual evidence that God was worshipped as Trinitarian, and while the bible may not have an explicit verse using the word 'Trinity' there are enough signposts throughout to give a compelling case for a triune God. Throughout OT and NT. Early Christians worshipped God as such without the need to develop a theology of it as such - it was accepted as how it was.

Am thinking love has an enduring quality about it. That's just in it's nature ?

I think Christians used to struggle more with the problem of how to explain their 3 in 1 God. Trinity Sunday used to be particularly un-inspiring, though the Irish shamrock always helped a lot. Then more recently I've heard the idea of God being in relationship from the beginning, of love being at the heart of God's identity. I think that's rather good, quite compelling - I like the famous icon of the three persons of the trinity sitting around a table together (if you know it ?)
But still, it doesn't mean I'd take it literally.

Yes Juggling I agree that an enduring quality is in love's nature.

But I would wonder from whence that nature came. From an indifferent universe? From random matter? I believe that it is love's nature because it is God's nature and God is love.

But I can see us going in circles

Ah yes Trinity Sunday - I've heard some convoluted explanations in my time. I love the God is relationship at God's centre thing, and it seems to me to be reflected throughout the bible and through humanity's experience of God. Even the creation story mentions humanity being made in 'our' image from God's viewpoint...who is the 'our'? It also mentions the Spirit involved in creation. Now I am far from a creation literalist but I think elements of the story contain a lot of truth about humanity and the fall of creation.

I do think that it is very depressing to think of spending a lifetime loving somebody who shows no evidence of loving you back. And I can't imagine a loving God putting people in the position of doing that. Another argument against his existence.

See, I'm perfectly happy to view ALL religions as allegorical to the common human experience. In the case of christianity, it would go very like:
Jesus = the experience of having life in a physical body;
Spirit = the emotional-psychological experience of life (mind);
God = the sense of being part of an infinite process (evolution) and a greater whole (society).

I experience all this - and the mental states, social interactions and suchlike that are epitomised by multiple gods in other mythologies - without diminishing my personal agency or that of others. Neither do I inflate personal agency: I don't believe prayers, vibes or wishes can cure the dying but a donation or a helping hand might do it. I don't believe rewards and punishments are meted out by an invisible force. I believe we have morals (other thread) due to evolution.

I am sometimes tempted to say religions promote personal irresponsibility but know that's too simplistic and harsh. They are certainly used to further amoral aims, though.

...who is the 'our'? Whoo-hoo, I can answer that

The word was "Elohim", the Hebrew for god, generic. The word only has a plural form. Before you go drawing conclusions from that, bear in mind there are such words in English, eg scissors and physics.

Ancient Hebrew is one of the languages that uses the plural person to show singular respect - like "vous" in French. Dunno whether it still does.

I can't imagine a loving God putting anyone in such a situation either, seeker, notwithstanding 'dark night of the soul' experiences many go through (inc myself.)

In my, and countless other people's experience we know a loving God, a God who has shown God's love so very powerfully in Jesus and continues to do so in so many ways through our lives. Not a God who does all that we would want, no, or who answers all prayers, but still a God who loves so powerfully that 'depressing' is the very last word I would use to describe my relationship with God. In fact, words like joy, freedom, fullness of life, hope would begin to sum it up more. In the end, no words are enough to describe something so very profound.

garlic, yes, I can sympathise with a lot of what you say, and how you can make the triune God fit into social and societical constructs and ideas. They still wouldn't explain for me the compelling truth at the centre of it all; that of Jesus, and the effect on millions of lives throughout history.

The Elohim is an interesting translation and study in itself. It is the plural of a word (El? something like that) and means more literally 'powerful ones'. It can't be compared to plurals such as scissors and physics as it does literally mean more than one, whereas these can mean either one or more than. I've not explained that too well....

"or who answers all prayers"

Just one decent example of a prayer answered positively would do me. Something that could only have happened through divine intervention.

'Sokay, madhair, we did it at school :) There are parallels in many other languages, and English although now archaic.