My difficulty with karma and reincarnation

God is the best security blanket, you hold onto your atheism and I will retain my belief in a Divine Creator who is both concerned and interested in his/her/its creation

Hi I dont need to go to any human source to find out if reincarnation is true or not. The Divine Christ Jesus said it was not true and that is good enough for me

Atheism isn't a belief. So what exactly is being held onto if the stand point is a lack of evidence? So if you don't believe in the existence of gremlins you are holding onto it as well? Silly Alan, even for you. If it truly is holding on then there are billions of things that are non existent that are being held onto.

Atheism isn't a belief.

So what exactly is being held onto if the standpoint is a lack of evidence?

So if you don't believe in the existence of gremlins you are holding onto it as well? Silly Alan, even for you.

If it truly is holding on then there are billions of things that are non existent that are being held onto.

The god concept is so convoluted.

No one can agree on any of the characteristics.

They say god has a plan,......

.....but if there were a plan then punishment would add insult to injury.

If god made me a rebel and at the end of my life punished me for being a rebel then it is not my fault I am a rebel so why punish me for it?

If there is no plan and there is no intervention into any affairs of our lives.

Then praying does absolutely nothing.

If there is a plan then wouldn't praying for a change effect that plan?

So it wouldn't really be a plan then if he can be petitioned.

I find it insulting when I hear someone say they prayed for some money and got in the mail the next day.

When there are thousands of starving children in the world. So if god really listened to you but ignored them, I wouldn't want anything to do with such a being.

A simple question that no one has ever answered but not because it is difficult to, instead because the question provokes a thought people who believe ignore. What was god doing before he created the universe? For all those eons of time, what was he doing? Nothing? Playing with himself? Or did he pop into existence a split second before he made the universe?

Just this question alone points out that humans created god and not the other way around. Why? Because a god needed humans? He was bored with his existence he wanted to create something he could lord over? Watch suffer? Place impossible expectations onto? Play mind games?

It is quite obvious that we invented god, not the other way around.

Okay, I'll concede for the time being. If you don't mind, if it is not a belief, then just what is it?

What evidence do you need? Do you assume that you know it all? Can you do that?

For one thing, he didn't say that, you did! To assume Alan silly for something you added is insulting and rude.

You have no idea of all that Alan is holding on to, and to assume you do is also rude.

Alan thinks the way Alan thinks and it is not for us to condemn anything he thinks as you assume to know all the evidence there is to know. So, as politely as I know how, cool it!

Name some..............for example, please? How do you know what is existent and that which is not.

Here, again, you seem to think you know all there is to know. Perhaps you do know all you are meant to know. That's ok. Stay there, if you wish. Just don't assume all others to be the same as you.

Sure it is. Do you know why? I would like to here what you think, please.

Again, why do you think that is? You make a statement and you assume it to be fact, please give "your" reasoning?

You say "they". They is a broad subject and is no way specific. Please, just who is "they"? Those you don't agree with? Or what? What about those you do, do they know it all? And who are they........exactly?

That depends on how you define punishment. Yes, we do punish others, what is it that makes you believe your definition is the same as god's?

Are you so sure it was god, who made you that? God, didn't make you a rebel, you did. It is comfortable to lay the blame else where, is it not?

You say that. How do you know what that intervention might be for you to assume such a thing?

You say that. How do you know that, if you don't mind? It's perhaps only you or anyone else who thinks that because you have, perhaps, in the past, prayed and did not get what you prayed for. That does not mean all can say that. Take me for instance, My only prayer has been for god not to abandon me and you know what...........................he hasn't! And I am the better for it, thank god. A just thanks, indeed.

Depends? We have no idea of what that "plan" is, now, do we? I can be concluded if one is lacking because of what others have taken from them, it, more than likely, will be restored to them if it was truly theirs in the first place. I don't claim to know that is true; it just makes sense, speaking of judgement and all, by our standards.

It is not a petition to ask for that you truly need. Unfortunately many don't appreciate what they do have as they are convinced by others, more is better. Many, who live in peace, are not so disjoined as to want what they do not have for they find a solace in that they do.

Considering what has befallen so many people who have suddenly been endowed with new found "money", it is definitely "not" an answered prayer, regardless of what "they" say.

People are starving in many ways; though money and the amassing of it does play a part, it is not the only thing. Greed and power have a lot to do with it and money definitely is a part of that which supports it. You can't blame that on god, that is all of man's doing, apart from that god.

Please, Krumple, what difference would it make if we did know that? That's why, specifically, we are not allow to remember our past. There is no future in it. All it does is allow us to bide our time because we have nothing else to do. How sad that is, don't you think? It does give us something to argue about though, doesn't it?

No, I think not, yet you are right to an extent. It's not that we created god, it is our perception of god that is skewed. We assumed god created us in "his image", that is the matter. It is impossible to know all that god is. Yes, as far as we are concerned, now, we are a new creation; that doesn't mean we ever were "not" a part of that. Like I said, that is why we are not allowed to remember our past. We couldn't deal with all that we once were. What ever that was, it is not in our best interest now.

Hopefully from what I have offered, you might think differently.

Krumple - I agree that God is often an incoherent concept, and all concepts are invented. The question remains, however, of whether there something which roughly corresponds to this concept. The Roman Church adopted a concept of the solar system that was wildly at odds with the facts, but it does not follow that the solar system does not exist.

Krumple,

I am not sure about reincarnation!! that is why I started this thread. I used the biblical quote that "a man lives once and then the judgement", just to bounce off the topic and get it going.

I do not think there is a single conception of God. It is more like Thomas Jeffersons notion that everyman has his own religion.

The conception of God as all powerful, all knowing and as some sort of divine tyrant or ruler is not one that I have found many people actually believe in.
That is the conception that is most frequently attacked (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc) usually on the basis of the obvious suffering in our world and the catastrophic nature of the universe and history but it is not a conception of God that is widely held to begin with.

That the universe does have a purpose and that life, mind and experience are not meaningless accident are widely held conceptions. Some conception of the divine is almost a universal feature of humanity, society, history and culture. Even the pragmatists think the concept of the divine is useful. One should consider there might be something to the concept of the divine more than self delusion, infantile wishing, and fuzzy thinking.

As for reincarnation we are all "recycled star stuff".

Obviously atheism is a faith if you have faith in it. If you believe it might be true it's a theory. If you believe that it is true it's a faith. If you can show that it's true it's the truth. What's the problem?

PS. I won't be around to discuss this for a few days.

If it helps our soul isn't nessersaraly from earth, all souls come from the and return to the great 'void'
This void is not the absence of everything, but a positive void.