im not having a go..... but does god exist?

i have been religious for my entire life , being a stout beleiver in christ, however recently i have started to question my own beleif. :woohoo:

does god actually exist?? surely if he did then the recent giant waves wouldnt have happened? godly people give him the credit for saving a few people from the disaster, however if he takes the credit for saving their life then surely he must accept responsibility for causing the disaster.

And another (random) thing, was jesus black??

please take this post seriously, email if you wish i am looking for a serious debate on this issue.

Judas said:

does god actually exist?? surely if he did then the recent giant waves wouldnt have happened?

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That doesn't really follow. You're assuming God is benevolent. Maybe he enjoys seeing people suffer. Maybe he just doesn't care - it's a big universe, what's a few thousand people? Maybe he has other reasons.

Judas said:

godly people give him the credit for saving a few people from the disaster, however if he takes the credit for saving their life then surely he must accept responsibility for causing the disaster.

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Now you're talking sense. It always bugs me when people thank their god for saving people from situations he must have created (assuming he exists).

Godless Dave is right--you are assuming that if there is a god, he is benevolent. Obviously, the nice, merciful Christian God does not exist, because things like tsunamis don't make any sense.

surely if he did then the recent giant waves wouldnt have happened? godly people give him the credit for saving a few people from the disaster, however if he takes the credit for saving their life then surely he must accept responsibility for causing the disaster

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I agree that this is a very keen observation. If God is the ultimate power in this world, then nothing can happen without him allowing it. Even if the tsunami was caused by "Satan", god had to LET him do it.

I used to be a stout Roman Catholic, but about a year ago I relinquished belief in god entirely. I did so simply for reasons like this: many things contradicted our assumed nature of god, not to mention the things in this world which suggest that god does not exist.

As far as Jesus being black, I suppose that that's possible, but unlikely. If Jesus truly lived, (which is highly possible, however unprovable), judging from his hometown, religion, and ancestry, (assuming that these things are all as the bible says), he was most likely of middle eastern descent.

He exists to those that follow Him. Why would the yfollow something that does not exist to them

Maybe the question you need to ask yourself isn't so much does God exist or not but what does God mean to you. What does God mean to you in your life? What does a life without God in it mean? I am not always sure that the existance of anything matters as much as the meanings and importance we ascribe to it. Do we for sure know that anything really exists? Does it matter a ton? Who knows we are all living in the Matrix movies but despite what any reality may or may not be we have to make sense of it and get through the day. I guess if I were you, I would try and answer those questions rather than try to figure out if something is concrete or less concrete..... Some goes for Jesus's race. What would it mean to you if Jesus was black or brown or a natural platinum blond for that matter?

Good luck.

If you need to believe in a God(s)/goddess(es) etc. to explain the universe, or for you to try to understand life and death then you will believe in them no matter what. In a God does/does not exist debate you will look for any evidence/reason to justify their existence as I will do the same against the belief in them so "serious" debate on the does god(s)/ godess(es) exist does not exist is impossible. We will use the findings of scientists which, no matter how many things they have discovered IMO haven't even been able to scratch the surface of the full mysteries of the universe, there is no proof one way or another and probably never will be. I make my judgements on what is known and what I see with my own eyes. I am godless and I am happy to accept the reality that there are many things that I will never know so I do not feel the compulsion to attribute those things to phantoms, but believe what you wish or need to to understand your world.

As far as the Judeo Christian Bible is concerned, God specifically states that he is responsible for light and dark, good and evil "I the lord do all these things" (at least in the King James Version/interpretation) ISAIAH 45:7, I know there are different interpretations of the bible and some meanings of the old words are not the same but it seems pretty clear since the word "evil" is used numerous times elsewhere in the bible in the context of something less than desireable, so to me the context and meaning is the same there and elsewhere.

Good= Things that happen that we enjoy or benefit from

Evil= Things that we don't enjoy or we are harmed by

"Gods will" = Things we don't enjoy or we are harmed by and have no control over, but don't want to say god is bad or evil.

I don't see natural disasters as good or evil, it's just natural disasters- there was a large earthquake in Japan (I believe) a few years ago and some said that nature was fighting back- the problem was it wasn't the earth quake that killed anyone- (well, maybe a few that fell off a rock or something) it was primarily buildings that humans built falling on top of them- they were just too weak to withstand the pressure or built in the wrong place. Nature does it's thing but it doesn't make it "evil" or necessarily "good" it just does what it does and hopefully we don't get caught in the middle, but there are built in warning signs that we need no television or radio to tell us.

They say animals know when things are going to happen,sometimes days in advance they sense a change and their behaviour changes, I've seen this in my own dogs when tornadoes or extremely bad weather was approaching and they say the same thing happened in some animals before the Tsunami hit and other disasters- Watch the animals. I believe humans are nothing more than animals as well, but our ego's and realities we create for ourselves often times squash or diminish our natural instincts beneath a layer of garbage. Getting in touch with my natural instincts and animal traits through various methods is a major part of my personal philosophy/belief system.

Was Jesus black? Maybe, but not probably not, If I had to choose between a Nordic looking white man with blonde hair and blue eyes or a black man - I would put my money on black LOL!. I don't believe he was either, I'd say he probably looked like everyone else that lived in his region at the time. Dark hair/dark skin/ basically Jewish/Arabic looking.

I believe there is enough evidence that a man named Jesus existed around that time but as far as being a "messiah"- no. This Jesus may have believed he was a "messiah" as well as a few others but people have followed all types of "messiahs" throughout history and claimed them as Gods or something else. There are places in this world today where people will swear they see stone statues drink milk from spoons or see the face of "Mary" or "Jesus" in a newly washed office window or burned into a piece of toast- it's not that hard to physically see what you think you need or want to see to justify strongly held non-material beliefs.