Just out of curiosity

[The Sherman]

I've always wondered this. I am an athiest and am pretty sure that there is no god/gods magical elephants that govern us. But I know I cant be sure for certain.
So question is what % would you give the possibility that there is a god?

I'll start and say i believe the chance of there being a god at about 1%
(oh if your going to answer could you let me know if your athiest, agnostic or what faifth you believe in thank you)

[naomi24]

I'm not with you, sammmo. If you saw a ghost, how would that prove the existence of God? Why do you assume there is a connection?

[keyplus90]

Ankou- i hope your wife did not show you a picture of Afghanistan and said it was Australia.

Sammo- Lets suppose that you see a ghost and then you believed in God (as you wished). How would you make other people believe? Afterall they may not trust you and not believe until they see one too.

[sherminator]

(I am also the Sherman!) to Chakka:

well the reason I ask is because i am curious to see who would answer 100% either Athiest or of Faith.
Its a mind set so removed from mine that I find it interesting to try and see how they got to that conclusion. For me personally there is so much doubt and contradictions in the bible for example I personally don't know how anyone can say they are of 100% belief that there is a god. I would love to see someones thought process on how they arrived there.

So yes assigning a percentage is rather silly but it does bring out who is absolutely convinced in the realness of god.

Also part of me expected say Theland and others to only say around 70% belief just because he has mentioned a lot of scientific research into evolution so it would have been interesting to see where he was with his faith.

p.s how bout you?

[naomi24]

Sherman, After many, many discussions with Theland over several years, I suspect he, like Keyplus, would say 100%. Odd how they're both so positive that they're each right, and yet they disagree. If God truly exists, then one of them has to be wrong.

Still don't get this connection between God and ghosts.

[Ankou]

keyplus, not with you, are you saying my wife is a dunce ?

[Ankou]

sammo, i would say on reading your post that you are not really 50% as you say you would love to see evidence of an afterlife, would love to see a ghost to prove the existence of god � and the devil. that to me sounds more like a �near believer� who just needs more proof or a personal experience. i would nudge you more towards the top end of the convinced scale. i am convinced neither gods nor ghosts exist and they can never be seen. i reserve a 0.1% margin as i can admit there is a possibility i may be wrong, but i doubt it.

anyhow its all just semiotics really.

[Davethedog]

I belive in empirical evidence and as such there is a no evidence yet of the existance of God. But just as there are theorys that are yet to be proved by science I am prepared to be suprised.

On the evidence so far submitted I cannot believe in god however as no proof has yet been found as to God's none existance there in is a possibility no matter how remote that god may exist.

I am far more open to the concept of other intelligence in the universe but this would not be quantified as god.

However as more and more scientific evidence changes theory to fact, God grows more distant by the day.

[sammmo]

I say i believe 50% because i do want to believe there is a life after death and if there is there must be a god making this happen..I do wonder what happens to say someone that is suddenly killed what becomes of all the energy that was in there body one second and then there is nothing.. what does happen to that energy.. ie there are thousands of men going over the top of the trenches during the first world war full of guts and spirit and energy two minutes later half of them are dead whats happened to all that energy? surely it can't just dissapear in a flash can it.. i would like to think it is collected somehow for a use sometime later..however its collected and taken somewhere because it cirtainly is'nt in the corpse is it.. these things make me want to believe but i want proof also to make me believe 100%

[Ankou]

the energy comes from the heart and other major organs. they just die as well. if they didnt we would survive. i dont really think i could consider a dead body having some sort of residual potential energy to project it into an afterlife. it just snuffs out.

id be more willing to 'consider' that any left over energy might find its way into a superenergy holding facility that is used for the creation of new life (i.e. babies being born). but that is the stuff of sci fi isnt it.

[chakka35]

sammmo, can you really mean it when you say that because there is no evidence either way, therefore the probability is 50%?

There is no evidence either way about the existence of unicorns, Cinderella's fairy godmother, Aladdin's genie of the lamp, Hercules' labours and the existence of the god Munjem Malik. Do they all, therefore, have a 50% probability?

As I said earlier, it makes no sense to use a mathematical concept like probability to express a mere opinion about a superstion. They don't mix.

[naomi24]

sammmo, i do want to believe there is a life after death and if there is there must be a god making this happen.

Why must there be a God making this happen? If it does indeed happen, perhaps something else, that we know absolutely nothing about yet, is responsible.

[sammmo]

if we ever did find out what it was.. a supperior race ,being god or whatever, that created us, and we actually saw them it or whatever.. I think we would all worship it like a god..one thing is for sure something must have started everything off at some stage or are we all here by accident?

[naomi24]

I really don't think we would all worship it/them like a God, Sammmo. Why would we? Technology has moved a long way since Biblical times. Surely these days we're intelligent enough to recognise superior intelligence without believing it to be something supernatural. If we did discover it/they had created us, then we are educated enough, and technologically advanced enough, to know that it/they had used science, and perhaps a little genetic engineering, rather than magic, to accomplish that.

[SnowTooth]

Firstly you cannot say your pretty show, but then contradict it by saying your 1% unsure; this means you not 100% sure, but 99% sure.

It seems that there is some kind of governing body in the spirit world; whether it is a God like in the bible I am not so sure.

The chance of thier being a governing body I would say is 90%/
The chance of thier beinh a God like in the Bible, 2%.

CREED

[Androcles]

Reading all these replies to the initial question leaves me asking one- What did the Sherman mean by "god"? We all talk (believers and non believers), it seems to me, of "God" being a sentient being of some sort, when the element to which we assign the name "God" may just be an empirical physical force - a burst of energy for example, which was the source of the Big Bang.

I must admit I struggle with the concept!

[naomi24]

We had a discussion a while ago, Androcles, as to what people mean when they speak of God, and it was the generally agreed that they mean the Abrahamic God, so I've assumed in my responses that that's what Sherman meant. The idea that God may merely be a burst of energy, rather than a supernatural, all powerful entity that takes an unhealthy interest in the affairs of each individual human being, doesn't go down at all well with the religious here.

[Androcles]

Thanks Naomi!

I can imagine the religious being uncomfortale with that, but applying probability theory to the existence of "god" also seems interesting. A bit like the atheist confessing to the priest on his deathbed, and when challenged about why, said that he always had 1% uncertainty about the existence of god so no point in unsetting anybody at this stage of his life.....