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4 ♥ IS THERE A GOD?

Is there a God?

(Everyone)

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Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.

Dr. Seuss

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Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it

is distinguished from revealed theology (or revealed religion) which is based on scripture

and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology,

theology from a priori reasoning.

Wikipedia

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The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling,

which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no

church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of

every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and

were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as

saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are

closely akin to one another.

Albert Einstein

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We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that

there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological

concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of

change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed

completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.

Thomas Jefferson

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The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation, that

He exists.

Blaise Pascal

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A partial list of friendly addresses, for individuals needing support in escaping from

religion …

The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support

scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural

world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and

suffering.

Richard Dawkins

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I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer

Douglas Adams

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EVOLUTION OF DESCRIBING GOD

Long before our ancestors crawled from the water there was a primal

connection to our sun, our solar system’s star. The great fireball gives life, as does the

water, air, and the soil. Little wonder exists that nature provided man’s first concept of

god.

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POLYTHEISM

Polytheism, the belief that multiple gods exist, fit ancient man’s thought that the

important and unexplained in nature was supreme. Polytheism would evolve into

elaborate mythologies in Egypt, as half-animal, half-human gods, and in Greece, as

superhuman (but all-so-very-human-acting) gods of Mount Olympus.

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MONOTHEISM

A small, little-known group of followers of a man named Abraham would begin

worshipping one deity, Yahweh, as one supreme god. Judaism would be the birth of the

great monotheism that is the roots of Christianity, Islam, and other faiths that currently

account for more than half of the world’s religious beliefs and traditions.

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DEISM

Monotheism is characterized as one god transcendent but involved, while the

alternate, Deism, is one god transcendent, but uninvolved after creation. Deism was a

significant belief of many of America’s founding fathers and is commonly thought of as

the “clockmaker god” who only created and wound his creation.

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PANTHEISM

The one thing that a fish can never find is water; and the one thing that man can never

find is God.

Eric Butterworth

Pantheism is the belief that god and the universe and/or nature are one in the

same. Many classical philosophers and scientists have been categorized as pantheists,

as are several Neopagan movements. Pantheists normally do not believe in

transcendental or supernatural aspects of god.

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PANENTHEISM

Panentheism, however, sees god as both transcendent and immanent, or “all in”

god. The universe is a subset of god.

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Parting your soup is not a miracle Bruce, it's a magic trick. A single mom who's working

two jobs, and still finds time to take her son to soccer practice, that's a miracle. A teenager

who says "no" to drugs and "yes" to an education, that's a miracle. People want me to do

everything for them. What they don't realize is THEY have the power. You want to see a

miracle, son? Be the miracle.

Bruce Almighty

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SEMANTICS

Most atheists don’t believe in god because most religious theists make it

prohibitive with their problematic notions of god’s nature. Most atheists believe there is

something bigger and more important than ourselves, but see the term “god” as a

mythological invention. Keep in mind that the first “atheists” were the early Christians,

according to the Romans, because of the Christian denial of the Roman gods. Many

scientists believe in the Laws of Nature as “god.”

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When I demonstrate that a particular God is rejected by the data, I am not proving that all

conceivable gods do not exist. I am simply showing beyond a reasonable doubt that a God

with the specific, hypothesized attributes does not exist.

Victor Stenger

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My title, The God Delusion, does not refer to the God of Einstein and the other enlightened

scientists of the previous section (Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, etc.)

Richard Dawkins

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A new concept of god: “something not very different from the sum total of the physical

laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field

theories plus a few other things equaled god. And by that all they meant was that here

were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal

that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature … that apply not just

locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow … Mars … the center of the

Milky Way, and out by the most distant quarters known. That the same laws of physics

apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any

of us.

Carl Sagan

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Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of

words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality—the

way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way

their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world.

Steven Pinker

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Deep down, atheism is the result of rejection of religion, not the supreme. If

religion wasn’t what religion is, and the definition of god wasn’t relegated to what is

common, atheists would number about 6,000 people in a world of 7 billion or

approximately 0.000001%—the same as people who are Satanists.

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RECONCILIATION

We still have to come to terms with the origin of the laws of nature. And the only viable

explanation here is the divine Mind.

Anthony Flew

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As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of

matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter

as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle

of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We

must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind.

Max Planck

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I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what

people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and

Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.

John Lennon

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SOMETHING BIGGER

There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything

and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the

conduct of living beings.

Mahatma Gandhi

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REASON FOR EVERYTHING

Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the

moments, and know EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON.

Albert Schweitzer

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The total absence of humor from the My religion consists of a humble admiration of the

unlimitable superior who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with

our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior

reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of

God.

Albert Einstein

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When a load of bricks, dumped on a corner lot, can arrange themselves into a house; when

a handful of springs and screws and wheels, emptied on a desk, can gather themselves into

a watch, then and not until then will it seem sensible, to some of us at least, to believe that

all these thousands or millions of worlds could have been created, balanced and set to

revolving in their separate orbits—all without any directing intelligence at all.

Bruce Barton

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Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

Abraham Lincoln

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In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able

to recognize, there are yet people who says there is no God. But what makes me really

angry is that they quote me for support of such views.

Albert Einstein

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Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows

through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

Wayne Dyer

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Amid the wonders of the cosmos and the miniscule exists the reasoning for

something greater, yet barely comprehendible.

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You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

Swami Vivekananda

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We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

Ronald Reagan

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The universe is God's son.

Dejan Stojanovic

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I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a

God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind …

Albert Einstein

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God is not so far away. He is not in the heavens above, nor in hell below. He is always near

you.

Sai Baba of Shirdi

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Truth is, something exists, and everything exists for a reason. Regardless if the

reason is known or unknown, knowable or unknowable, reason exists and can be

named.

Look around. See, there’s a reason for everything. Science is built upon finding

reason in everything. There’s a reason the sun rises. There’s a reason that dog is

barking. There’s a reason that car is blue. There’s a reason that girl is smiling, and

there’s a reason there’s something rather than nothing. Regardless of what exactly that

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is, that reason can be called god. We don’t know the details, but there’s no denying the

reason exists. It’s absurd to believe there’s a reason for everything, but there’s not a

reason for it all. There’s no denying the reason exists even if we choose to call it god.

Love is the benevolent concern for more than one’s self. Love isn’t self-centered,

even at the supreme scale. God loves more than god’s self; therefore, the universe exists.

The universe exists because of love.

Does love exist? Of course it does. Who, deep down, doesn’t believe in love? Love

is the supreme virtue, the supreme spirit. Changing the name doesn’t change the

existence. God exists. God is love, and love is god.

When Einstein said he was a “deeply religious non-believer” he was speaking

against the nature of the common view of god, not god’s existence! He could have used

the words “deeply non-religious believer” and meant the same thing. Scientists Carl

Sagan and Stephen Hawkins, and even renowned atheists Richard Dawkins and Victor

Stenger, lose their atheism in the face of pantheism, panentheism, and process theology.

Dawkins has issues with “personal god” and “supernatural.” Personal doesn’t

have to be an old man on a cloud—it can be love. Supernatural doesn’t have to be

paranormal ghosts and goblins, it can mean something hidden from nature—like the

reason we have the laws of nature.

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Reality requires the atheist to accept a supreme reality, while it requires the

theist to reject traditionally held mythological misconceptions of god’s nature.

Understanding the real nature of love and god allows atheists to believe. Love can

change the atheist to a believer, and a believer into an atheist. It’s simply semantics.