Does God Exist?

Just think about this: these rekigions have been around for a ver long time, which means in the minds of many that they carry more weight. The fact is that the authors of these texts were many different people, written over many hundreds of years.

Also bear in mind this: if anyone today claimed to have had a vision from God and recorded the contents of said vision claiming it was the word of God you would think this person was absolutely insane.

So why do these accounts from religious books carry as much credibility as they do, but today people claiming such things are recognized as sufferring from a mental illness and are given thorazine? Could it be that psychology is much more developed and understood today, as well as the education level of society? Delusions of any type, and especially religious delusions are a hallmark of mental illness, although religion itself isnt [yet] officially recognized as a delusion by the American Psychiatric Association.

According to the DSM-IV criteria most religious beliefs are clearly delusions. The only thing that exempts most religious people from being considered delusional is that line in about beliefs that are accepted by ones own culture. I promise you though that most psychiatrists would call it a delusion if you had claimed to have actually been contacted by God or claimed to be possessed by evil spirits...no matter how real it felt to you. Delusions by definition can seem as real as anyone else, it doesnt mean believing such things is sane though.

 

I didn't know that. There is no saying of the Prophet I'm aware of that forbids translating the Qur'an. Of course the Qur'an was originally written in Arabic, and as we know from the Christian experience, when we go translating scripture into languages different from the original, mistakes are inevitable. But where did you hear that translation of the Qur'an is a sacrilege?

 

Paul Davies says something quite different in The Mind of God and in his other writings. He seems to think an intelligence is responsible for the integrated complexity of the universe. Maybe you should read him again.

 

Once again God sent representatives.

 

Do you put much trust in the psychiatric profession? Why? Freud considered religion to be an "illusion", which he carefully distinguished from "delusion", so maybe the DSM is just being sloppy. Anyhow, the DSM has revised its thinking about various things over the years, most notably about the pathological nature of homosexurality. Jung had considerable respect for religion, but the American Psychiatric Assocation gives more weight to its founding father, Freud, who was a militant atheist. Doctors and their fathers. But as you say, religion itself isn't considered a delusion. You seem to be trying to say that it should be.

 

No. Just an allegory.

 

Why must there be a god?
is it necessary?

 

This is what I find with a quick search:


Translating the Qur'an
Comments and Quotations

H.A.R. Gibb wrote:

• "Muslim orthodoxy has generally been opposed to the translation of the Koran even into other Islamic languages, although the Arabic text is sometimes accompanied by interlinear translations in Turkish, Persian, Urdu, and so forth.1 This attitude is SUPPORTED BY THEOLOGICAL REASONING which is quite self-consistent but possibly rationalizes to some extent objections derived from rather differernt considerations, for the Koran IS ESSENTIALLY UNTRANSLATABLE, in the same way that great poetry is untranslatable ..."
  1: "The ulema of al-Azhar now take the view that the use of translations of the K for non-liturgical purposes by non-Arab Muslims is permissible ... The opposite view is strongly argued by the Salafi Shaikh Rashid Rida ... in his treatise, Tarjamat al-Qur'an (Cairo, 1926)."
  (H.A.R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam, University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 1947, pp.3,4; emphasis mine)
  

The point is this: orthodox Islam, for the greatest part of its existence, has left the Qur'an untranslated because of its view of the Arabic from Allah.

 

Thats what id like to know, why do we feel that one must exist despite the fact that there is no evidence to suggest that's the case?

There may not be any evidence that explicitely proves God does not exist, but theres no evidence explicitely disproving the existence of fairies and leprechauns either; of course there is no evidence to support the existence of fairies and leprechauns either.

So why do we not insist that fairies and leprechauns are real? After all there isnt any proof that they aren't except the fact that you wont find a single one anywhere you look. Im sure you can find plenty of old books with stories about them though.

 

Why do you consider this issue important to you?

There are probably people who believe in fairies or leprechauns or maybe even both but I don't spend a lot of time trying to convince them that they don't exist even though I don't believe they do.

 

Faeries exist.I am proof of that.

 

Like I said, I'm not going to spend any time trying to disprove it.

 

NeonspectralToast's 48 hour request for God to post in this thread and the subsequent no show response certainly provides evidence to disprove the existence of a God with the particular qualities of powerfulness, sentience and goodness (respect) as we understand them.

 

You can't change that there is one, with that being the case. Wouldn't you want to know about him and his ways? Apathy is not the best route either, considering whats at stake.

 

God post in this thread NOW or i will never believe in you! I mean NOW!

These strawberries are great, the weather is perfect, i think i will just lie down here in this green grass under this shade tree and take a nap.

 

Go enjoy nature.

 

One of the examples he gave was to predict the events over the next 48 hours and such a description was supplied.

 

From God? I must have glossed over that one ol dopey, you mind quoting it? Link us to the particular post.

 

neonspectraltoast, on 20 Mar 2015 - 6:08 PM, said:

I can tell you that in the next 48 hours you will experience a series of sensations one followed by the other, some of which you will find pleasant and some not so.

Now for the rest of the request. Which religion is right, all phenomena are lawful. What the hell did those inspired mean by their words, they meant to communicate a perception/perspective.

 

As long as you believe in a god, that should be enough for you.....