That is the name we gave it. Well that is what it translated to closest too in the English language. The eastern concept of God is this. If I could live for millions and millions of years, and I lived on only air as my food and drink. If I lived in a cave and never saw either the Sun or the Moon, and I never slept or even had a dreams - even then, I could not estimate Your value. How can I describe the greatness of Your Name? The True Lord, the Formless One, is Himself in His Own place. I have heard, over and over again, and so I tell the tale; as it pleases You, Lord, please instill within me the yearning for You. If I was slashed and cut into pieces, over and over again, and put into the mill and ground into flour, burnt by fire and mixed with ashes - even then, I could not estimate Your value. How can I describe the greatness of Your Name? If I was a bird, soaring and flying through hundreds of skies, I was nowhere in sight, and neither eat nor drink anything - even then, I could not estimate Your value. How can I describe the greatness of Your Name? O Nanak, if I had hundreds of thousands of stacks of paper, and if I were to read and recite and analyze them, and if ink were never to fail me, and my pen were able to move like the wind - even then, I could not estimate Your value. How can I describe the greatness of Your Name? (<a>Guru Granth Sahib Ji, 14</a>). He has given you a body, wealth, property, peace and beautiful mansions. Nanak says, listen mind: why don't you remember God and meditate on Him? The Lord is the provider of all peace and comfort. There is no other at all. Nanak says, listen mind: salvation is attained by meditating on Him (<a>Guru Granth Sahib Ji, 1426</a>). One God is the only treasure of peace; I have heard that He is eternal and imperishable. He is entirely pervading water, land and sky; He is composed in each and every heart. He looks alike upon the high and the low, the ant and the elephant. Friends, companions, children and relatives are all created by Him. O Nanak, one who is blessed with theNaam, enjoys Lord's love and affection (<a>Guru Granth Sahib Ji, 319</a>). By talking about your self derived believes from Vedas and Scriptures, you are not going to relieve the anxiety of your heart. If you only focus yourself on the Lord, even for just a second, then you shall see the Lord everywhere and in everyone. O human being, search your own heart every day, then there shall be no confusion or anxiety. This world is just a magic show, you won't obtain anything from it. People become happy by reading and criticizing other religions' scriptures and they deliver useless information. The Ever-present Immortal Lord is One with His creation; He does not reside within the statue of Krishna, He resides everywhere. God is within yourself running like a river; you should bathe in it. Meditate on God forever. See through the glasses of meditation and you shall see Him everywhere. The Lord is the purest of the pure; I would only doubt it if there was someone else like Him. O Kabeer says, one understands this when blessed by God; God alone knows all and does everything (<a>Guru Granth Sahib Ji, 727</a>).
You are assuming there is a reason, and asking how your assumption can be wrong. I am looking at your assumption, and asking how you assume it is correct. Most of the time, what the religious do when arguing for creation is something like this: they look at a chunk of ice in a freezer, and say that because the ice is solid it must have started out in a solid state even though the place where it started was a brick oven. They say "everything we know about came from somewhere so that somewhere came from somewhere too," and then of course it is over to special pleading from there. The main religious argument doesn't make a lot of sense, so either the nonsense is true or something else is true that might be just as confusing.
The only assumption I am making is that things exist. The reason for their existence, in the various forms existence manifests itself in can be attributed to God, for that is what the concept of God is. This does not imply linear causation, but the cause of change itself, which is not linear, it is constant. Existence itself and the manifestation of forms and their change through time denotes laws and a will. Nothing in our world acts without will. Everything is presented with a pathway of possibility, things can only move along that pathway of possibility, nothing can do what is impossible. Will is the only part of this universe that produces change. Will is the active component of our universe and it produces what we describe as probability or randomness.
You originally asked why we as atheists "picked" atheism and you got proper responses.. and replied with asshole-ish remarks and then again, got proper responses.. Meaning be an ass, get that back. You should be familiar with the whole "do unto others". We're atheists, most of us probably don't believe in real mind reading, so how the hell are we to know you wanted to know what belief system we live by when you asked why we chose atheism? Anyway, as an atheist, I of course don't have any belief in God, the spiritual realm, or the afterlife.. Pretty much anything that's mysticism, won't find it's way into my official view of life. Of course I can't deny the possibility of God and all that jazz, but in the same way I can't deny the possibility that Easter Bunny is actually real, or the possibility that we're hooked up to some kind of 3D universe while powering robots like in the Matrix.. Or the possibility that there is a planet out there right this moment where pirates and elves are at war with each other that got stuck in an infinity shaped orbit between 2 identical stars. It's only a possibility that is not falsifiable.. What I do believe in is.. well I don't know. I'm not an emotional person so I don't really have emotional beliefs. I believe that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only change form. That all the energy in the universe was always there in one way or another, no real creation or destruction point. I believe that the formation of the universe was order out of chaos, not that there is any being or force behind the order. I believe life formed through abiogenesis, just don't know the specifics of how. I believe that's the joy in life, is finding the answers rather than settling on one without anything real to support it. I believe we evolved from that simple life who's order was served through chaos.. I believe that every single thought, emotion, memory, sensation, pretty much everything about you, is located in your brain. I believe that what we consider our consciousness is a natural product of evolution and that most animals have one too, just that ours is many many many times more complex than even the closest animal in comparison. I believe that when you die, that's pretty much it. And that you should just live your life however you want without trying to impose it on anyone else. Out on the street, I could care less if someone believed in God or not, just keep it to yourself unless asked. I believe in the reality of cause and effect and that it is random at best, but shouldn't stop you from being a good human to other humans for the potential benefit of our species. I'm honestly not a fan of the label atheist. I mean technically I am, but that's just one of many labels. A naturalist, a theorist, a realist, a human being, an animal.. but if I had to pick a label, it'd be a humanist.. Be the human you are, treat others like the humans they are and all else will fall into place. Basically, treat others how you'd like to be treated with an occasional treat others how they're treating others to show them how it feels when they treat others that way. It's our evolutionary subconscious social mimicry in play..
Yeah but... that still refers to god as a "he" multiple times, which implies some kind of sentient being to me.
It only says he because that his how the language works. Every word is either feminine or masculine, in this case God is only referred to as a he because that is the closest it relates to in the English language. In essence, God is without gender, how can the primal and ultimate being have a gender?
"Being"... so you think it/he/she is a being. Which is kind of my point. I mean I'm not trying to knock your beliefs, just saying I don't personally believe in any kind of "being" that created this planet, life on it, the universe, or otherwise. I see it as random circumstance. The universe happened by means I have no knowledge of, this planet happened, and we all happened to evolve into these weird creatures that question our existence and get into debates like this.
im paranoid i wish i could not beleive its kind of annoying when it feels like an after life is right beside you nagging all the time
Man I wish I could believe, dealing with death would be so much easier if I believed that my dead loved ones are happily watching over me from heaven.
lol its probably just echoed thoughts melded together at at the end to make sentences that i think is coming from the unknown
Well everything is being. There is nothing that is not being. I can never find the right words to describe God, the English language fails in doing so. The difference between God is that God is timeless and eternal, his being is infinite, he cannot be described in terms that we know. He is formless and pervades all. My Lord of the Universe is great, unfathomable, primal, immaculate and formless. His condition cannot be described. His Glorious Greatness is immeasurable. My Lord is invisible and infinite. God is unrevealed, infinite and unlimited. He knows Himself. What should these poor creatures say? How can they speak of and describe You? Gurmukh who is blessed by Your Grace contemplates You. My Lord is great, unfathomable, primal, immaculate and formless. You, O Lord, O Primal Being, are the Creator, beyond limits; Your limits cannot be found. You are pervading and permeating each and every heart everywhere. You are in all of us. Within the heart is the Transcendent Supreme Lord, whose limits cannot be found. He has no form or shape; He is unseen and unknown. Only Gurmukh sees the unseen Lord. He remains in continual ecstasy day and night. He is submerged in the Naam (<a>Guru Granth Sahib Ji, 448</a>).
I also don't believe in randomness. Nothing is random, everything has a pattern and reason for it's occurrence or existence.
No problem. Contrary to popular belief, most atheists don't hate the idea of God, they hate the idea of people saying their idea of God is the truth and despise those who try to push it on others. At least in my case.. I love thinking up theories and ideas, and in theory God is a theory. Granted I don't take it very seriously because it's a theory that's existed for thousands of years and has yet to produce any kind of real evidence, but I still think about it. I even like the idea of the vengeful OT God.. Looking down and just being like "meh, you have a minor flaw.. time for a natural disaster". I also have a few theories on the afterlife if it were real, but it too is a theory. I could care less what a person's personal beliefs are, but if they voice them, they shouldn't get all hurt when I voice my personal belief.. and that'll usually be something they take offense to. Oh, and I also believe in an infinite universe.. and with an infinite universe the possibilities are endless. So why settle on one?
I think your main mistake here is assuming that atheists all have similar beliefs. The only thing atheists have in common is a lack of belief in gods. Beyond that, it's all up to individual beliefs. What one atheist believes is not always the same as what another atheist believes. It's the same as identifying all theists as the same because they all believe in a god. Doesn't mean they all hold the same beliefs about everything.
I'm not assuming anything. You should never assume someone assumes something. You'll just end up making an ass out of u and me. Where you say --it's the same as identifying all theists as the same, doesn't mean they all have the same beliefs just because of god.-- However, if you look at any group of people who are part of any religion and who may attend church together or separately. Generally share a majority of beliefs, because the beliefs that they have, for them, have originated out of the teaching of their chosen religion. So in that sense, all theist, who identify with any specific religion, are the same as others who are with that religion. Not always, but more often then not.
You are the most sensible person to post on this forum in a long time. I think myself sensible, but sometimes I get caught up in tangents and never express what needs to be expressed.
I'm always assumed to be assuming all sorts of things by all sorts of people and it gets very annoying.