Why does it have to be a GOD that made the universe and the planets

[radwriter0555]

and earth and all the amazing stuff we know and don't know?

Why can't it just be a really cool BEING or entity that doesn't need genuflecting, worship and adulation?

[edward]

1. Wouldn't know who to punish.

[TEXASYANKEE]

2. Why can't it just BE?

Why can't the big bang, the universe, our planet, everything just be an event? Without the hand of anything behind it?

No sarcasm is intended. I am just asking.

[radwriter0555]

6. Exactly. I'm just asking too!

;)

[CO Liberal]

15. They've Isolated The Last Sound Prior to the "Big Bang"

It was "Ooops!!!"

:-)

[TEXASYANKEE]

19. Ha!

I always thought it was "oh SHIT!" :-)

[rbnyc]

3. You found me out...

...yes, actually, it was me.

:)

[TennesseeWalker]

17. Well, why didn't you go and save your Ten Commandments statue?

Not feeling all-powerful today?

[rbnyc]

23. Ah, because that stuff doesn't actually...

...have anything to do with me, the great creator. ;-)

[joshdawg]

4. Indeed!

Why call it a "being" or "entity"?
Why not call it a "force" or "power". Why? Because we are finite beings and the only thing we can relate to are finite objects, therefore, "God" is a "he" and "he" is a "being" and/or "entity".
Just 1MHO

[SOteric]

What makes you think its

God that requires those things, rather than the men who've interpretted God over the past 2-3 thousand years?

[kixot]

5. Heretic!! Blasphemer!!

Procede to the stake in the town square for burning!

[radwriter0555]

7. Can I get my hair and nails done first?

Wanna look good for my umpteenth roasted-at-the-stake event.

[arwalden]

8. Nobody And I Mean Nobody Is To Throw Any Stones Until I Blow This Whistle.

Even if they say "Jehovah".

-- Allen

[Boudicea]

10. Jehovah, Jehovah (dancing maniacally)

[kixot]

25. Stop it! Stop it! You're only making it worse for yourself!

[MoonGod]

9. It was Slartibartfast...

... at least the earth, anyway. I don't know about the rest of the universe.

Check out his beautiful award-winning work on the fjords.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

11. The only beings I know that need genuflecting, worship or adulation

are humans.

Why can't it be a god? Would it disappoint you if it were?

[opihimoimoi]

12. A goddess for that matter...l...

Why can't it be a SHE?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

13. Why can't it be a cockroach?

[GumboYaYa]

14. "God" is just a label.

Call it whatever you want if the word "God" upsets you.

[Maple]

16. Personally I think

we're a grade school experiment in 'Sims' for the youngsters in an actual civilization out past Andromeda.

[Don_G]

18. It Wasn't Rush Or Dimbo?

[AntiBushRepub]

20. The more physics and cosmology I read...

The more I study the works of Einstein and Hawking and those guys... the more I am a believe in there being some concept of a divine creator, some type of intelligent, supreme design...

In the words of Steven Hawking: "Why would the universe go through all the bother of existing?"

I'm not knocking anyones beliefs over here... this is just what I lean towards as belief...not because of being religious as much as personally mind and soul searching of my own over many years

I believe there is a God..

-An

[khashka]

21. Who Knows?

Not me at any rate.
I'm a Wiccan - not because I believe there's an actual Goddess out there somewhere hanging around and messing with stuff - but because it's a metaphore that makes sense to me. I find it aesthetically and emotionally pleasing. Of course I'm not a fundamentalist so depending on my mood I might be doing a pretty good imitation of a worshipper of Aphrodite or Kali. And when I'm really angry I do GREAT Voodoun and you should hear my angry prayers/tirades to Shango.

But that works for me - I don't expect it to work for anyone else.

Personally I don't really care how it all happened except on an intellectual level. I don't care if Someone said "Let there be light" or the Goddess gave birth or Marduk (chaos) was defeated or if a few random particles managed to get together in just the right way to start the whole thing rolling. It's all the same - the point is it's been rolling along for a few billion years so it's long past time that we got with the program.

It's all we got, kids. Best we make the best of it...

[comradebillyboy]

22. most people want easy answers and

they want to be told what to believe and what to do.

beleif in god and membership in a religious sect accomplishes much of this

[Kat45]

24. There doesn't have to be. There just IS.

But I do think of God as a spirit; I suppose a "being or entity" could also be an apt descriptor. I think the image of God the Father is the human-type image God gave us humans because that's what we could relate to and understand (and being a spirit, God does not have a gender IMHO). I don't think our human minds are anywhere near capable of grasping the actual truth of what God is.

[Gore1FL]

26. I've believed for a while

That the Universe is the synergetic sum of the intelliigence of all life within it. At that level, the universe is God, and hence is a self-created phenomenon.

What is nice about that belief is that it does not discount religions, it just goes a long way to explaining them in a non-invisible-cloud-being sense. It can also go along way to explaining the merits (and shortcomings) of Astrology -- Whic in a sense is a limited view of the "organism" the controls and is made up of itself.

For example -- Creation can be evolution. Creation can be genetic manipulation by aliens, it doesn;t matter, because in the over all sense of it, if God equates to a Consciousness (for lack of a better word) of the Universe, then whether the source is subltle or overt, it is still the act of the universe.

I am sure I did a piss poor job of explaining it. It is the only "religious philosophy" that I have come to that doesn't disount religions, physics, nature, math, and observable trends, while at the same time does not emphasize some inexplicable supernatural power.

[Gore1FL]

27. Appendum

From Babylon 5 (fifth season -- sort of sums it up for me very eloquently:


The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.
The language is not Narn or Human or Centauri or Gaim or Minbari.

It speaks in the language of hope. It speaks in the language of trust.
It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion.
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice.

It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us.
And the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born.
It is the small, still voice that says we are One.

No matter the blood, no matter the skin,
No matter the world, no matter the star,
We are One.
No matter the pain, no matter the darkness,
No matter the loss, no matter the fear.
We are One.

Here, gathered together in common cause
We agree to recognize this singular truth and this singular rule:
That we must be kind to one another.

Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us,
And each voice lost diminishes us.
We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation,
The fire that will light the way to a better future.

We are One.

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/091.html

[Cheswick2.0]

28. call her Fred

all better now?

PS, adulation, genuflecting and worship are optional, based on human tradition not the wishes of Fred.

[Az]

29. Some would say that is god

Of course there are also those that say that you don't even need someone to make the universe as that sort of begs the question of where that someone came from.

Myself I actually find the notion that someone had to have made the universe as belittling the universe. It is far more amazing and beautiful to me as a natural wonder unto itself than to imagine it was just poofed into existance by some individual. But then some people accused science of destroying the beauty of the rainbow by explaining how it was made. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder as I find the rainbow just as beautiful if not more so because I understand how it is formed.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

30. May I ask you a question though as one of the more reasonable posters

on the subject?

Science usually forwards a hypothesis and then does everything they can to prove it wrong in order to validate the hypothesis.

Can you please explain to me why many of your fellow athiests on this board lack that scientific quality on this subject? I say this only because it seems to me they are ONLY interested in BEING RIGHT and have not done the scientific work necessary to prove their point but they seem to pretend that they did.

The religious (since it is clear religion is based in a matter of faith) are not held to the same standard simply because faith does not require it.

Science does.

[FlaGranny]

31. Since I decided sometime as a teenager

that I didn't believe in God - I've done a small amount of thinking on the subject of how we got here. Since I've learned about atoms and such, I've sometimes thought that the entire planet, solar system, universe is but a small part of some supernuclear detonation in the past, and that if we could look close enough, we might see similar universes and solar systems if we only had strong enough microscopes and telescopes. I guess that's one of the reasons I found "Men in Black" interesting. Infinite universes within universes. So, "god" might just be an accidental meeting of two so-called "atomic particles" which created our particular reality. Just an idea I've had for many years. If I try to explain it, some people think I'm nuts, and others have no idea what I'm talking about. I DO have the feeling that humans may be much more insignificant than some would like to believe and much too insignificant for a god, who may or man not be in charge of existence of all there is, to have any but a passing interest in us (one biological race of beings perhaps amongst billions).

[piece sine]

32. for an atheist...

no explanation will suffice; for a believer, no explanation is necessary. What's important is that we respect each other, especially in our disagreement.

[mvd]

33. Interesting point

I choose to show adulation, but I'm not sure God is even good - I'm just convinced God isn't evil. So I'm not sure how far everyone is getting. ;-)