"without the bible, the evidence of God is (for me) the magnificent and perfect complexity of the human body, the complexity and unity of nature itself,, the beauty of trees, the very existence of the world around me,,,, "

Apparently you didn't get the concept of that question, for without the bible you would never have known "God" as you call him, existed. You may still be spiritual in nature and think that there's something powerful out there that created us, but without religion pushed onto you since youth, you would be much more likely to have a logical mind about it all and not simply believe that we are all the inbreed children of adam and eve. Oh, and fun side note, a lot of bigots like to use the phrase "it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." when in truth it was apparently Seth and Cain as no other children of Adam and Eve are mentioned, and only god knows how they spawned kids.

plenty of things I wouldnt never know without books.....I dont get the point you are trying to make,,,

and the sidenote also makes sense, since it was adam and eve who had seth and cain

and since adam lived 930 years,, begetting 'sons and daughters',,,,,its not really so mysterious how other children coulc be born,,,

they were instructed to be fruitful and multiply,, and it makes sense to me that living hundreds of years,, they did just that,,,

It has been a long time since I've read into the bible, but according to that book, you are correct(I do remember hearing of what you speak).

People do learn a lot from books, but would you base an entire belief system around any of the other books you read? Also the other books generally gather their information from reliable sources. those that don't are considered science fiction and fairy tales.

As far as biological science is concerned, the entire theory of Adam and Eve still makes no sense. In order for humanity to have made it past the stage of Adam and Eve, their children, brothers and sisters, would have needed to have kids together. So basically the bible suggests that all of humanity is an inbred species, which is biologically stupid/impossible.

And the entire argument of calling non-believers bias to their belief is ludicrous. I as a non-believer would still give everything I have in this life for but a shred of real evidence that god actually exists and if the only "evidence" there is, is what I tell myself then I'll tell myself that invisible mythical dragons exist and leave it at that, cuz that to me sounds like a much more interesting fairy tale.

Adam and Eve were humans genetically engineered to go out and eventually breed with other perhaps more primitive humans and I think there is even something in the Bible about how they went out of Eden to find wives in another land.

There were apparently other humans on the earth. If anyone believes literally that there were not, they need to do a reality check.

Some have said that there were other genetic labs creating and upgrading the human species. This was done by several different advanced races of beings or aliens(gods.) Earth was apparently a free for all in the experimenting with genetic engineering on the perfect human. The idea of a superior master race of humans has been present in our society for a long time. Genocide is still practiced as the gods practiced it when they created a race of humans they considered were not up to standards.

The Urantia book goes into a lot of detail about how the creator gods had the right to use genocide to get rid of what they considered to be inferior races.

the difficulty is in defining what would be 'proof' to an atheist outside of God hiself speaking to them which they may still dismiss as a result of something else,,,,

I wasnt speaking in generalities regarding non believers, what I said was that EVERYONE Has a bias based upon their unique collection of experiences and knowledge, and that doesnt EXCLUDE non atheists who continually call the religious 'bias'

we are all free to come to our own conclusions,, my conclusions arent merely the result of a book, they are collectively because of my life experiences, knowledge, perception which are only REINFORCED by things that are written,,,,and things that are written are reinforced by many of the experiences and much of the other knowledge I have gained in life,,,

Does "God" exist?
If so, where is the proof?

I would like to comment on that.

God is like Love. Does it exist, if so, where is it? What is it?
Some say that love is simply hormones or an emotion. I'm not on board with that. Some say God is a supreme being who created the heaven and the earth and all the little humans in it. I'm not on board with that either.

So before you ask the silly question if God or Love exists, you need to define what the hell you are talking about.

So I will define what I feel is God and Love.

God is the creative force.
Love is the creative force.

They are the same thing. Neither is an emotion and neither is a deity or supreme being. It is a creative intelligent conscious force the engulfs and permeates all things.

Does it exist. Hell yes it does.

The evidence?

I exist. You exist. All of this and that exists. That's the evidence.

So this is a topic for another thread.

Define God. Show your evidence.
http://mingle2.com/topic/show/357407

How about "That which created life.." Or "That which manifested life."

To call God "He" places human attributes on the creative force and is misleading.

Also, if you are a Christian, your God has an actual name. The common name is Jehovah, who is said to be a jealous God who enlists humans to go to war for him. Other Christians have other names for God and believe that he has human attributes and human form.

That is why I ask people to define what they mean by "God."

Yahweh

The origins of the worship of Yahweh are obscure, but reach back at least to the early Iron Age and probably to the Late Bronze Age.[1] His name may have begun as an epithet of the god El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon ("El who is present, who makes himself manifest"), or he may have been a god from northern Arabia (the Kenite hypothesis).[2] In either case, the name appears to have been unique to Israel and Judah, and is not clearly attested outside the two kingdoms.

Jehovah

Jehovah /dʒɨˈhoʊvə/ is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָה, a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, which has also been transcribed as "Yehowah" or "Yahweh".


So Yahweh and Jehovah are the same God.

MY GOD, knows who MY GOD is,,

so when I pray to HIM, I dont really consider if others recognize the name I am using ,,,,,,and MY GOD/MY FATHER suffices for him as far as I am aware,,,,,

My question is this then, do you have your own religion or do you follow the Bible who names God as Jehovah?

Is your God Jehovah or not? Why can't you answer this question directly?

why is this an important question? my relationship with God is with God, so if he doesnt require me to choose a formal name,, why should anyone else

God, who created life,, MY FATHER IN HEAVEN,,,,is MY GOD

I understand that a lot of people have faith in a higher power and they have their own concept of God.

It is an important question because the future of the world indicates that humans will abandon Biblical myths and form personal relationships with the divine.

It is important because so many people have faith in God and yet still make the claim that they are Christians or Muslims or Jews and they fight over petty details and myths.

In the future all religions will be personal ones. Relationship with the Divine will be personal and there will be no more religions or names of Gods or wars over petty mythical stories and ideas.

That is why it is important.

I think it is wonderful to have a personal relationship with God. But stop calling yourself Christian if you are inclined to deny that the God described in the Bible called Jehovah is not who you worship.

I know most new Christians want to worship Jesus, but the Church has tied him to the character in the old testament called Jehovah and there are a lot of untrue stories about that character.

He was not a nice God, he was a ruthless God of war according to scripture. Scripture is man made, not written by God. People need to admit that and break out of that prison.

Christ suggests we pray to 'our father',,,,what OTHER people do is not a part of why I pray to the Father or how I address him

so , to me, this remains an insignificant question


Gods reverence is in many things , any time I akcnowledge him as my creator and father, that rules it down to a 'specific' God,,

the debate over names , imho, is a way to further divide people who believe against each other

if we give reverence to our creator,, our creator knows who we are giving reverence to,,,,,that is the beginning and the end and 'other people' dont really come into play


and people will always gather together to give him reverence, as much as the world tries to wipe out religion,,,,,

God is all things, and all these things can coexist together


HE is loving and HE can ALSO be angry, and he can also bless and forgive, and he can also serve 'ruthless' justice,,,

these things are not exclusive of each other in one person, nor in one CREATOR

You reposted my post but where is your response?

the site is acting up for me,, my apologies

but I see my response above us now,,,

I certainly agree with that, but it is not fundamental Christianity.

Okay you can have your own personal religion. I am all for that. Most people do. But at least ADMIT that it is your own personal religion and stop pretending to be a Christian or Methodist, or Catholic or whatever denomination you are a member of.

Be a member of your own personal Church with your own concept of God and I'm all in favor of that.

I think we posted at exactly the same time I was editing a misspelled word and something weird happened.