Quote (Twi)
I... honestly choose Miek's answer. I believe that some supreme deity made the universe, but I've always wondered HOW. He/she/it could've merely used something like the Big Bang to not leave too many traces of itself in the universe upon it's creation.
Why? What exactly makes you belive there is a supreme deity behind it all? And perhaps even more important, why only one deity?
Quote (Gearpunk)
I don't think that whaterver-you-call-it has to act outside the rules of physics to do anything. It created the way things work, and it should be perfectly capable of working within the rules it imposed. I've encountered a miracle or two myself. Maybe that's just because I'm mentally conditioned to write coincidence off as divine intervention, but I doubt it.
Well, that is pretty hard. To create something out of nothing is to break the laws of physics (as we know them). Either, matter had to exist before God, or God has to be able to break the laws of physics by creating energy and matter, or our laws of physics are wrong.
Quote (Zane)
I'm going to just stick to my religion. The 7 days and 7 nights things sounds true enough. Who would make a whole big book with so many chapters and series telling us about it over and over, so you know someone went through the effort to make that known. Oh god, now I'm curious on who wrote all those bibles! XD
Why would somebody write the Quran? Or the Gilglamesh? Unless you belive ALL religions are correct, a lot of holy books are written wrongly.
Quote (Sharmandra)
I always wondered if life was matrix-esque thing. I menan, we use like 8 percent of our brain, what if the entire world was some kind of hallucination? And it wouldn't be too much to handle for the brain, because it would only need to generate what was relevant to YOU at that exact moment.
I don't really believe that, but its an interesting possibility.
If I had to pick something, some force, probably like god, but without a conscience or anything, made the laws of physics and stuff, then let everything be. It didn't influence the big bang, it didn't create all creatures, that stuff just happenned to happen because of the laws of the world. Again, this opinion will probably change in 5 minutes.
That we only use 8-10% of our brain is an urban myth and is not even close to being true.
Would you really call such a being God? Only starting but doing nothing after that?
Quote (Leon)
Pretty much no matter how you roll it, some greater being had to start things going.
Such as by making a bunch of gasses and such for the big bang.
As for life, same deal. The greater power made a base set of animals, bacteria, lizards, reptiles, humans, etc. Then after instituting the laws of nature, this 'base set' evolved over the eons into what we have today.
How so? Why does there have to be
one greater being? Why not several? And why does it have to be a being? Why not a mindless force, such as gravity? We could call it "Creation Force" which does nothing but create things, for no purpose or meaning. Why do you pick one over the other? Is it just preference or do you really have a direct reason to belive that there is one greater being, and that he is personal and not mindless?
Quote (Zolem)
I chalenge people, give me one good reason God is not in anyway shape or form responsible for the universe.
Impossible. God has never been proven, so for me to disprove God would be impossible. This is because you can't prove a negative.
Let me show you an example: "Can you disprove that Goblins made the universe?"
It is impossible for you, since I have not given any evidence for you to work on.
Quote (Zolem)
Inteligent design. God made evolution.
Sorry Zolem, but that was stupid. The Intelligent Design movement says that there is NO evolution, and that God made everything in it's today form. That is what Intelligent Design means. It means that "life is Intelligently Designed, not evolved".
So, you have it 180 degrees wrong ^^;
The word you are looking for is Theistic Evolution. That say that God created evolution.
Quote (Leon)
The law of energy states it can't be created nor destroyed, only changed between forms. So, assuming that the big bang did occur, where did all the energy come from? Energy can't come from nothing, correct? Nor can matter, yes? Even if you could the anti versions of everything, they're likely held by the same laws, correct? So clearly, someone or something had to put it there to start with.
And, seriously, how much in breeding and cross species pollination would you need to evolve something like the duck-billed platypus? I think that was just God's way of saying 'Yeah. If you don't believe it after seeing this, you're blind.'
If "someone" had to put it there to start with, who put that "someone" into existance? And if you claim he doesn't need a start, why does energy need a start? The laws of energy could be wrong.
As for the duck-billed platypus, it's a mighty strange creature. However, it IS mapped up in the evolutionary tree. The thing is that just about all species that are closely related to the platypus has died out, and it has by luck survived. Thus, it looks really out of place and strange for us.
Just think about it. If all birds except the duck died out some millions of year ago, then we would be equally suprised by the duck. It has a beak, strange feet, it can fly, and it says "quack!". It would almost seem like God is sending us a message though this strange animal.
Quote (AdamX)
Maybe the world was created by the Big Bang, but a diety or being who was already there, since the beginning, had to make it. So, in some way, there is a diety, but whether he truely is the idea of God that any of us believe in is not to be known until (if ever) we meet him/her for ourselves.
Yet again, I must ask you. Why just one God?
Quote (Gearpunk)
It's weak to support your argument with the argument itself.
To my knowledge, nowhere do any of the holy books say that good people are entitled to effortless living in this life, nor that wrongdoers will be spontaneously killed by bolts of lightning.
Not sure if I've said this before, but let's say you've just become a parent. You love your child. Do you keep the child completely safe from harm and consequence for all his life, or do you let him make his own mistakes, learn from them, and grow as a person? In some ways, we thrive on adversity.
Plus, how do you propose you rebel against something that by your own admission is all-powerful?
Ah, but this "parent" created the whole world. Why did God decide that the most poor struck areas of the planet should face lots of natural disasters too?
And what kind of responsible parent would create hurtful things anyway? Would I be a good parent if I installed spikes everywere in my house, and then told my kids not to touch them?
I agree that if there is a God, blaming him for every evil would be stupid, but, as it seems, he made a lot of things that could easily be abused. What sort of purpose could vocanoes that burries entire cities have? Why would he make it so?
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There, that was all my quotes. Now for my own point ^^
We think that everything used to be nothing, and then something came about, and we are arguing about what made this come about, as for example God.
However, why do we asume that there was nothing in the start? Do we have anything that tells us things must start at blank?
Why couldn't the start have been be full of energy and matter? I'm not talking about that when the universe started, lots of energy and matter just popped into existance, but, rather, when everything started, the energy and matter was there from before, as the default setup.
Same with the laws of physics. I've often heard, "if there are laws, there must be a lawmaker". However, why is this? What if the default isn't "no laws", but rather, "some laws"?
It's a very hard consept to think about. But, I'll try to explain it in pictures.
Think of your calculator. When you start it up, it has 0. Nothing. Then you can add things to it. If we add 5, we have created 5 in our calculator universe.
However, what if when you start your calculator, instead of starting at 0, it starts on 3?
When existance began, the ball that exploded into the Big Bang was there as the start?