# Yes, God.



## Nick (Apr 5, 2012)

-- Deleted --


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## grant-g (Apr 7, 2012)

Well put.  It would really take  further reading for me to develop a comment beyond, good work!


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## garza (Apr 7, 2012)

There's only one comment I dare make. Those who regard Dawkins and Hitchens as atheists do not understand atheism.


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## Draxia (Apr 9, 2012)

You do not have to concentrate so much on how to NOT be religious. It is not a hard leap to make. Concentrate more on what makes you believe in something else.


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## Rustgold (Apr 9, 2012)

It stands as a common persuasive piece in favour of a God, and is relatively decently written as such.  I won't comment about the fundamental flaws in this article (until it ends up in the debate section), except to praise how the article is able to remove a readers mind from them.  It's so clearly flawed, but it could be a piece previously written by God supporters, with its analogies directing readers in the intended direction; and in this premise this article succeeds in its goal.  The Jesuit touch in particular really does wonders for this piece.  And it doesn't nudge too hardly, relying on the reader being able to travel down the writer's selected route to the logical finishing point.


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## LaughinJim (Apr 10, 2012)

Deism is just a rung on the ladder. You probably have enough books under your belt by now to complete the final ascent. The question is: does God not love all or does it just appear this way? Clearly he favors some. Why? Once our characters lack their innate flaws through reduction in the crucible of life's experience, then we can acheive enlightenment and fully, or at least to the individual's intellectual capacity, why the world is the way it is. Keep thinking my friend, your doing fine.


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## Circle (May 1, 2012)

Dear Nick, a WF Veteran

I am not a veteran here and this is not a writing critique as such--a comment.

Indeed, what you point to in your final sentence relates to something much, much more than what the word "_GOD_" is dragged into _at every opportunity_, both by theist believers and atheists alike. To consider this unassumingly requires an effort towards greater comprehension and maturity-- a stepping away from the assumption that with the _word, _the concept is already understood -- a view that results in complacency and spiritual arrogance. People torment themselves far too much with the "yes or no" of "belief" or "disbelief", without considering the _what_. In such a world obsessed with definitions and rigid compartmentalisations it is possible that someone who considers themself to be an agnostic or even sometimes an atheist, could have a far greater conception of God than a confessed believer. Yet the same person would be regarded as lost by the those who have made up their mind and then closed themselves, and might even consider themselves to be.

Regards,
Circle.


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## jksmith (May 4, 2012)

Nick, I would have to say that was a mighty fine read. I was born Irish-Catholic so if you know anything about religion you should know how we think (and act lol). It sounds like you have a lot of knowledge in the field and the only real question  would be do you think there is a God (or gods depending on your religion) and do you think that if there is both- could the "God particle" and God could co-exist?


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## jeffrey c mcmahan (May 12, 2012)

Excellent example of an argument/persuasion type essay. Strong opening thesis. Strong voice throughout the piece. It engaged my attention and kept it. Statements were made and supportive with valid arguments, References were made to authoritative and accepted information. Use of paragraphs were purposeful. The final concluding paragraph closed the piece with inferences that were native to the information presented.

We may make a philosopher out of you yet. philosophers believe in god to, okay, maybe not, by the goarge, all of them, but, you get the picture.

Good Job

jeffrey


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## Divus (May 13, 2012)

*Time for a prayer:*


I felt it time for me to attempt a critique.   After all, some of  you viewers read my innocent ramblings about horses, dogs and grumpy old men.  I should return the favour. so  I connected with  Nick’s thread  entitled:  ‘Yes God’, which is all about faith and religion.     


I tried to read it and to understand the message.    It was written by an obviously well educated man  but I did not understand what was written nor the message implied.     I tend to be agnostic, indeed uninterested, in matters of religion.   There is always time to repent.

The grammar warranted no criticism.    The terminology - the theisms- are unintelligible to the masses.
   What can I comment?   Nothing.       
So when first I noticed  the thread, that  is exactly what I did.   I consciously left the article for the intelligensia of the WForum to read and to comment thereupon.      In the event, several of them did comment and eruditely so.   

Suddenly a day dream came to me.    There I was sitting in a seat on budget airline aircraft.    There has been a big bang.   The plane was going down, nose first  and fast.  Luckily I was strapped in.  The woman  who was sitting next to me had been ejected  from her seat and was laying against the opposite bulkhead screaming out some nonsense.   The forces of natural  physics determine that I cannot move to  help her.   I am pressed down against my seat.    
Across the aisle is a woman calmly chanting  ‘Hail Marys‘.     She is holding onto a cross attached to a necklace and she is kissing it.     The man next to her is wearing a funny bowler hat and he is nodding his head and muttering away in what sounds like gibberish to me.      The guy next to him is wearing a long white cotton dress, as turbanned Arabians are wont to do.       I have little sympathy for him.  No doubt  it was one of his kin that believed that self immolation is good for the soul.   What’s more that bomber is going to enjoy the sexual favours of fifty virgins.    I wonder if he is up to performing for all fifty and how long will it take? 
Over on the far side of the plane  is a very obvious business man.  He is tapping away into a laptop.   He is saying good bye to his wife, his kids and  his secretary.     He is clearing away his desk.   Effectively he has been sacked be it prematurely.

Meanwhile the air hostess is trying to make sure we are all sitting in our seats with safety belts attached.       

Around us people are screaming.   The engine is making a loud screaming noise.   We are going down together.   
There will be a big bang, a tremendous explosion, a ball of fire and our human lights will go out. 
  At best our bodies will become bundles of  shapeless ash, that is if we don’t all go up in the pyre of black smoke.  
Will it hurt?      ,

Some of us will be believing that we are going to meet Our Maker.   
Some of us are sceptical.  To us the light will  go out and we shall lose the ability to feel and communicate.
We shall never know.

When back in this real world,  I sometimes give a thought as to what I might be thinking in such a situation.
    Will I be confessing my sins?    
    Will I be asking for forgiveness for my evil deeds?      
    Will I be reciting the prayers of youth which I have long since forgotten?       
Probably I shall be trying by thought transfer  to say good bye to my wife, to my brother, to my close friends, to my dog and to my horse.   
I shall ask myself:_ "how will they get on without me?"_ 
I shall be saying to them all  : “_look out for me in the next world”_ . 

Of course, I shall assume there will be another world which will allow me to enter into it.
I shall be hoping to meet my loved ones again even some of those who are already dead.
Of course the probability is that I shall not. 
  Anyway there is that other hot place should I be called to get on the red bus.

Some hopefuls believe I shall be in bed with a thousand virgins, not that I would want that chore; others think I shall be tilling the soil behind a plough.     None of us will be working in factories nor slaving behind a demanding hot computer. 
     I know that I shall  not be counting the pennies, because no one has ever mentioned a Bank of Heaven.

At such moments a few questions will arise:
     Will my two eyes be working as one?
     Will my prostate be behaving  or shall ll I still be dribbling the drops?
     Which language shall I be speaking?
     Will I look the same?
     Do they have washing machines in Heaven?
         Shall I meet with my father or even his father and where shall I look for them?
     Will we all live together in one big mansion?
     Will I have to fill in some forms to get through the Pearly Gates? 

       I think not.
        and 
     Do we all, Caucasian, Black, Yellow and  Mixed Race get equal treatment?

No, beleiving is all too much to ask for.   
I do not know and I shall never know the answers and certainly not during my rapid descent to solid earth.  
 Actually, all that really matters to me now is that after the lights go out, someone switches them back on.   
I shall have to cross my bridges when I get to them.

So Nick, nice article, well written by a veteran of the Forum but sorry not my scene. 
Your article reads way above my pay grade.

Dv


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## LaughinJim (May 13, 2012)

Ah Divus, my friend:

How very cynical and sad.

You have missed the undoubting faithful in the back of the plane behind you. Comforting those in their fear of the great unknown of death. Reassuring them that God promises that good souls shall be saved.

Another lost soul heard from. The product, no doubt of the C of E, founded by a vain lunatic King who thought he was above the laws of God.


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## Divus (May 13, 2012)

Dear Jim, indeed you have assumed correctly.   

On this Sceptured Isle, the babe was once  anointed ‘CoE’ at birth  almost by default.   I was born in an era when  one’s  personal values were being attacked by a European megalomaniac  bent on the genocide particularly, but not exclusively, of those of the Hebrew faith.      Henry‘s Catholic first Queen  and regal successor, Mary, had also believed  in burning  the disbelievers.  

At least all Henry sought by breaking with Rome was the freedom  to commit bigamy and to nationalise the substantial wealth of the monasteries    He never presumed to be an active  leader of religion partly because the clergy of his ‘new’ religion was already in place.      Mostly the priests  exchanged vestments and  gradually rewrote the Bible according to James.     Rome, who believed  it had an exclusivity on matters of faith, would not let Henry have his own way in an era when kings believed they had a divine right to rule as they sought fit.      Later, by the time of Cromwell, the Protestant fanatics were redirecting  their fiery intolerance towards the witches who, by healing the sick, were suspected of practising the works of the Devil.      

Reading English history teaches one the need for tolerance in matters of personal faith including the acceptance of those who elect not to believe.    Faith should  be a matter of choice for the individual.

Indeed in recent times perhaps the big mistake made by the CoE has been the remarkable tolerance it has  shown towards the non-conformists.    

Sadly, despite the lessons from history, we live now in an age  so much beset by unreasonable  intolerance towards all so called unbelievers or infidels, as  they  are sometimes called.


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## Winston (May 18, 2012)

I am a Christian because I feel that I know God by His love.  I can't explain this any better than any human can accurately quantify any emotional response.

However, I do take solace in your iterations of Swinburne, Paley and Heisenberg.  An honest scientist with integrity can't dismiss the complexity of the universe with the "It's a bunch of happy coincidences" argument.  Cause and effect.  Correlation. The more we learn, the more we understand how much we don't know.

If people have this rhetorical axe to grind against the Judeo-Christian theology, I get it.  Bigotry has been around as long as Man.  What I will never understand is the mind of an atheist.  Claiming that there cannot be a god is beyond the reach of arrogance.  Agnostics, I get. One of my favorite quotes is from Galileo: 
      “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
 Worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, if you must.  At Creation (The Big Bang, if you will)  _something_ was there, and _something_ started it all moving. Claim Marinara Sauce and the Holy Front Burner.  Do not just shrug and say "it just happened".  Someone's hand turned on the burner...


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## rebekahmichel (Jul 19, 2012)

Very interesting. You lost me at quantum mechanics (science has never been my strongest subject, English is) but interesting nonetheless.

I can relate to this inner struggle, I have been to both sides of the spectrum, I've been a christian who went to church every Sunday and I've been an atheist who dissected the bible and debated other people about it's validity. At this point in time I'm somewhere in the middle (otherwise known as a fence sitter).


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