A theory about God

Ok yes I know this is long, but this is probably the most important thing I have ever written and sums up all the thinking and research I have done in the past few years on religion and God. I know this is long, but it is the shortest way that I can explain the conclusion and the realization that I have come to. First, please watch these videos because I will refer to them and it will be easier for you to understand the point I am trying to make, but most importantly these are highly interesting videos:


here is the link if the above doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6ILZAaAMI

then watch this one:


link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IaudsdrPjY&feature=related

At the end of this episode, God tells Bender that he can only help a little bit. Then Fry accidentally sent a radio transmission to God wishing for Bender back. God got the message and sent Bender back to Earth, where he explained that God doesn't do anything and that only he can help the monks.

So from the first video, you can tell that prayer really has no effect. At the end they explained about the experiment where they had three groups of patients, one was prayed to, one was told nothing, and the other was told no one was going to pray to them, and all had the same survival rate. We can say that if you were in the group that wasn't prayed to and survived, then you survived by random chance, or if you died then you died by random chance. But if you were in the group that was prayed to, then you survived because of God, or died because God thought it was best. The conclusion of the experiment was that all three groups had the same rate of survival. So by mathematical laws, we can safely conclude that

God = random chance

So why do people pray then? Easy. They do it for comfort. The same reason many athletes have pregame rituals that they believe help them focus and play at their top performance. For the same reason, people pray to help them feel more relaxed and able to get through life easier. And then there's us atheists, who take comfort in logic and reasoning.

For instance, pretend a good friend is in the hospital. If you were Christian, you would sit there and pray for the well being of your friend. But if you were atheist, you would sit there and think about how this could have happened to your friend and how you can prevent this from ever happening again. Yet this is a rash generalization, but you can see where I am going with this: reason and action is more effective than prayer. I think this is what the Futurama episode was trying to propose. Since we already know that prayer won't help your friend, but will make you more comfortable, then why pray when you can have that same comfort in logic and reason and help your friend at the same time?

Turns out we are not much different from everyone else as we think. We (atheists) have faith just like Christians, but in logic instead of miracles. We tend to be ritualistic also, but ever so slightly. So we can safely conclude that faith and rituals aren't just part of religion, they are part of the human race as a whole. These two characteristics are built into our genes and without them we would not be human.

Now the only thing that is missing for us atheists is a God. Yes, having a God would contradict the very purpose of atheism, but then again it is the missing piece of the puzzle. What is our God then? What do we have faith in? It would be nothing but random chance. The random chance is why we are on this planet that is in the right place of the solar system that is in the right place in the universe to sustain complex life, the random chance of 1 in 1 trillion as calculated by some theoretical scientists. The random chance that we don't get in a car crash when we go out for a drive. The random chance that I won't get sick with the flu next week. We all hope that these event won't happen, so we engage in our faith in logic and reason to prevent these occurences from happening. We take measures to prevent our cars from crashing, as drink more coffee to stay alert, or get more sleep the day before. We take vitamins and consume a good diet to stay healthy and prevent disease.

All of these actions have the same calming effect of prayer plus they actually do something to help you, and you can increase the random chance of the good things happening and the random chance of the bad things happening simply by doing SOMETHING. That is the main difference between prayer and faith in reason and logic, you are actually doing something and in effect, altering the state of God (random chance), and he is helping you in return.

Religion is necessary for life. All the wars and the torture of past religious wars have scared atheists away from religion, and the God idea has been bluntly rejected by atheists. But we have been rejecting the wrong thing. We have been rejecting the idea of God as a whole, when we should have been rejecting the Christians perception of God, and creating a perception of God ourselves.

So the end result of all this is a combination of religion and science. We are all little pieces of God, and the only way we can get God to help us is by actually taking action and doing something. We need to get over our past and start thinking in the present, we need to compose a new Bible, or book of morals, to replace everything we have had in the past. We cannot keep using an outdated book of morals when we are living in this time period and when we have learned so much more about human nature and the universe in the past 2000 years. We need to create a religion that will help people understand the universe and themselves and help them better their lives. There will be no silly practices like bathing your children in holy water or drinking the blood of Jesus, but there will be practices to help better society and help explore and better understand our universe. This will be a religion unlike any other, fit for the people who live in these strange times and future generations to come, until someone else far down the line will find a better way of doing things.

 

About Prayers always being answer in 'Yes, No, or Wait'...

That's what I have thought since I was a little kid. It seemed to me to be an illusion, and that was it. This is the exact reason why I do not believe in God, and why there are a variety of religions. To me, it just seems like a way to brainwash others.

 

Did you read the rest of my post? If so what do you think about it?

 

Oh joy, more posts on "god".
You posted this twice son !
Anyways,
prayers.. I do not believe in them,
they are not answerd, its a 50/50 shot something will happen,
and if it does happen your like "Whoa, god MUST exist"

 

I posted it here once I realized I posted it in the wrong forum.

And please read the whole post and don't just try to get your post count up by posting here, there is more to it than the stuff about prayer, which isn't even the main point of this.

 

You say that God is random chance, and the people that where prayed to or what not doesn't have anything to do with it... God would've protected all three of them nomatter what prayers where said... And prayer is commonly thought to as hope, peace, and serenity..

 

You made a lot of good points in your post - I've been trying to explain to atheists that they do have FAITH, except it is faith in science/rationalism. Most don't understand that Atheism is basically turning logic into your God.

My only criticism of this is that logic is a CLOSED system of thought, it is self limiting, though so is religion. They are two sides of the same coin. Even though religion has been responsible for several wars over the years, the scientific/rationalist paradigm has been responsible for a lot of destruction as well, particularly the destruction of our planet, which is our habitat as a species.

Both of these options are destructive, I advocate a liberation from all pre-defined systems of thought - Atheism, Religion, etc, etc - any time you put a label on yourself like that, you limit yourself. I feel that it's best to look at the picture as a whole and pursue the things that make the most sense to you without limiting yourself with a label.

I actually agree with this portion of your post the most, however I don't feel that a new religion is the answer, that would only lead to more corruption - the last thing we need is another system of pre-defined ideology, on the contrary people need to get back in touch with the divine as a whole so they can EXPERIENCE it for themselves, without having to filter through the opinions of anyone else! The reason religion is so ineffective is because it doesn't allow many people to actually experience the true essence of the divine, and the individuals relationship to the cosmos is a highly personal thing that needs to be discovered by the individual him/herself, and not so that they can discriminate against people who believe differently.

When this happens, people develop morals automatically... who needs a book of laws/morals when everyone sincerely loves each other? That's what happens when you really touch the essence of the divine.

Peace and love man, and by the way, this was a really great post... very good discussion content.

 

all i see is white images?

 

same, i cant see videos =[

but in all fairness, this thread neednt be posted. basically the smart realise there is no god, the smart realise all this shit BUT the dumb cant comprehend shit so they use the excuse, sumone else did it, ie evolution... the dumb cunts cant understand it so they just say god created ADAM AND EVE, get fucked =D

oh nice post though
your a smart cunt =D

 

EXACTLY, omg yes, finally someone sees the point I am trying to make. I posted this on atheistforums.com and everyone freaked out and called me a fucking neo-hippie because they thought I was trying to combine religion and science. When in fact I was just trying to show that Atheism does have religious principles like faith, and they can't and are unwilling to accept my use of the term God to symbolize our universe, simply because it has something to do with Christians. That is the main problem, and why I agree with you when you say that the only problem with my idea is the "religion" aspect of it. If people have labels put on them, like atheist, christian, etc. it will basically close out any new ideas and other people who have new ideas.

But yeah the main concern of the atheists on the other forum was me saying that the universe is God, which really shows how much hatered and seclusion there is again religion, and how they think that all religion is stupid simply because people have been believing in the wrong things and taking advantage of people's beliefs. Non-conformist or blocking out ideas, to me, is probably one of the worst things you can be. It is almost as bad as being a crazy fundamental Christian.

Well I still think people's opinions should be preserved, so future generations can see what other people have though about and what seems reasonable to them. But opinions definitely shouldn't be forced upon anyone.

My main point of this whole entire thing is to get people to stop fighting about who is right. It is obvious that arguing really leads to nothing, because no one likes admitting defeat, and if they do admit defeat they will feel stupid and the winner will boast. After arguing with Christians for years, I have converted no one, and eventually came to realize that arguing is an ineffective method of showing people the truth. Really what I am trying to do is compromise, to show that we all inhabit the same planet and shouldn't be fighting each other, but to make this a better place to live for future generations.

But yeah thanks for your input and I am glad there are people out there who understand me lol.

 

Why not believe in God.

 

Why would you believe in God?

 

Comfort, hope, because everybody else does, because it can provide answers, etc.

 

comfort? comfort of being lied to?

hope? hope of what? that your going o be fine if you waste time in church?

because everybody else does? be a leader not a follower and just cause everybody else does doesen't make it ok alot of people smoke does that make it ok?

because it can provide answers? of what? tell me one answer it can give you?
because apparently in the bible gays aren't going to heaven so what does it tell you? be a homophobe? believe in god and live a life being lied to?

how bout you read up before you give an explanation =)

 

eh well im atheist, god doesn't exist in my theory, if he was real, why would he let us all live...? are lives are pointless... nothing good about them, havn't u realized that there is no meaning to life? except for the science shit like "to be living is to be breathing or moving on own." or something but its all retarded, god doesn't exist, try some tests, for those of you who belive in him, why belive? cuz something just randomly happend in ur best interest? it was just pure luck, not god

so in other words, im atheist, god doesn't exist, ur dum if u do belive (atheisim = no church = ftw?)

if i hert ur feelings or beliefs in any ways, i m sorry, didn't mean to (yes i did) so yah... have a great winter break!

 

Larry King: Do you believe in God?
Stephen Hawking: Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the laws of the universe.

Logic and reason can also provide comfort and hope. 500 years ago everyone also believed that the Earth was flat. And I don't remember Newton or Einstein saying anything about God or religion helping them find answers to nature's mysteries.

I've read up on some stuff recently and found that my beliefs closely match Pantheism. Basically pantheism is atheism if you define God to be a supernatural being, because we certainly don't believe in that. But we do believe and have great respect for the universe and nature on a more spiritual level, so you could say that we think the universe and everything it consists of is sort of like a God figure.

 

I look at it as God made this world and after sending Jesus the first time, he just left the world alone to run on its own. So really if you pray for something you're not going to get it because he left the world running on its own after the first coming of Jesus. Then, like the Bible says in Revelation, he will send Jesus again for the second time to battle Satan at Armageddon and that will be God's reign of Earth again because he comes back and claims Earth. That's what I think though, either that or you can't always get what you want. lol Rolling Stones Song

 

So what's the point of praying?

 

So logic is a God? Does that mean we believe our brains to be Gods? No thanks.

I, as an atheist, don't see logic as a God, only as a necessary step in understanding a situation. Would you say I idolize logic if I say 2+2=4, since that's also a use of logic? Does that mean EVERYONE who understands the basic principle of addition idolize logic, or are they just other people using that thing called a brain?


So, are you saying logic is unnecessary? Sorry, then, I guess you shouldn't be reading this, as logic is the basic foundation of understanding and interpreting patterns, such as communication through these symbols called "letters" in a language called "English". Reading this and trying to make another set of letters in this language to refute this is another use of logic, i.e. an idolization of logic.

Would you say you're making logic a God by not believing in Thor, Odin, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn?


Single-Sentence Refutation: Does everyone who can think believe logic is God?



As for the original topic, what you're describing is Pantheism. Everyone and everything is "God", so that leaves out the supernatural. That's kind of like Carl Sagan's views.

“A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.” - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

I, myself, am an Atheist in regards to a supernatural God, but I am a Pantheist in regards to my awe of this magnificent universe.

 

i saw that first video a while ago