How many people believe in GOD.

[MHarrigan82]

I come from a very conservative christian background. I believe in GOD but believe that the bible is not 100 percent literal like most christian do. I don't believe if you are gay you are going to hell or an abomination like so many christian. Most gay people that I have been around have treated me with respect and class than hetrosexual people. I believe in good and evil and some of the so called christian conservatives are the most evil people around. Stealing money from people molesting kids. I believe GOD judges your heart not sexual orientation.

[loveboof]

I don't believe in God. Would this be better conveyed through a poll?

[trish]

According to this link

Demographics of atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism)

Nearly everybody believes in a god, a spirit or a “life force”. Though 25% of Germans do not, 27% of Belgians do not, 39% of Swiss do not, 40% of Bulgarians do not, 48% of Icelanders do not, 53% of Swedes do not.

If you were looking for a more personal response to your inquiry, I do not.

There are a few religions (or more properly sects) in direct conflict with what I take to be verifiable facts; e.g. the age of the Earth, the process of speciation etc. These are easy to eliminate from consideration.

There are a number of religions that propose physically unlikely entities; e.g. omnipotent gods who take a personal interest in individual humans, communicates with them telepathically, judges them and interrupts physical law to perform favors for those who are worshipful believers. These are pretty easy to dispense with as well.

There are a number of religions whose gods demand we worship them, who command we observe ridiculous rituals, who command we not practice birth control, or indulge in sodomy or any kind of sex not directed toward propagation of the species. These too are easy to eliminate.

Easy for me anyway. I realize that almost any religion offers good advice along with the bad. But then one has to use one’s own judgement to pick out the good stuff from the bad. So what good does believing in God do? I maintain it’s wrong to kill someone to gain what’s in their pockets. Suppose some religion maintains there a God who agrees with me on this and commands us not to kill and rob. If according to that same religion that same God commands that I stone my wife if she was a victim of rape, then I really can’t use that God’s commands as a basis for any moral belief.

After these eliminations there are certain quasi-religious systems that remain; e.g. the sort of pantheism that maintains the universe is God. If you catch me in a generous mood I might agree, the universe is God....but only because it’s a vacuous statement.

Here is where it gets a little tough. Gods, who they are and what they are, are delineated by their religions. If one jettisons religion and just believes in the gods, then one has the problem of defining who and what the gods are that you believe in. Frankly I find this to be a fruitless task not worth the effort.

There is also the moral question, "What do we owe to a being whom we believe created us, the universe and everything?" Do we really have to worship the dude? Can we really know it (the being) has our best interest at "heart" and we're not just a lab experiment? Etc. etc.

Ultimately I count myself an atheist (in the same way that people who have no morals are counted as amoral) because I do not believe that not everything in the universe (or the multiverse) isn’t a god (in the sense that I think the OP of this thread intends the meaning of "god"). The purpose for the strange and knotty locution of “nots” is to make clear what that I’m using “existence” as a quantifier and not a verb. More succinctly and with that caveat: I do not believe that there are entities in the universe (or the multiverse) who are gods.

[yosi]

believing in god is the human desire to be on the right side , contrary to the others who don't believe like them who are on the bad/wrong side.( it's so good to be on the right side , isn't it?.......)

the problem with that is that it's a black and white perspective , no other colors exist .

poeple who believe in god tend to try to force others who don't believe like them , some called it inquisition , others call it jihad , if such god exists , he needs to go urgently to see a shrink.....

..... for these last words there is a certain group of those who believe in god who will sentence me to death for insulting their god.

if such god exists , who needs him?

[danthepoetman]

If you pray enough, if you proceed to certain gestures or actions, if you pronounce certain words, if you want it with all your “energy”, some thing will happen… It’s magic. To invoke a being that’s above what is, over it, and completely different from it, to explain it, if you imagine an immaterial being to explain the material world, you put yourself in the exact same frame of mind: magic.
God lives of our fears and of our feebleness this world of contingency.
Then again, we can’t help giving emotional charge or intent to meanings. We think through evocations and symbols. Can we get rid of God? Not sure. It usually comes back to bite us in the ass in any other form.

How many people believe in God? The answer will always be: too many. I call myself an agnostic.

[Prospero]

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position. To believe that there is or isn't a God depends upon a certainty which cannot be proven.

[robertlouis]

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position. To believe that there is or isn't a God depends upon a certainty which cannot be proven.

I agree with that, although I wonder how many people class themselves atheists because of the increasingly extreme and strident voices of believers, whatever the creed.

Which is to say, I'm also agnostic, but for the purposes of debate in emotional terms I might call myself an atheist!

[Prospero]

The burden is on those who believe to offer proof. Without that I'll live in doubt.

[robertlouis]

The burden is on those who believe to offer proof. Without that I'll live in doubt.

But they can't offer proof - you have to share and/or accept their blind faith.

I tend to agree with Patrick McGoohan on this one....

[Prospero]

And what did our famed Prisoner have to say?

[robertlouis]

And what did our famed Prisoner have to say?

I am not a number, I am a free man! Somewhat Cartesian, to continue our intellectual exchange from elsewhwere.

[Prospero]

Where duh... intellectual? When I hear that word i reach for my water pistol

[robertlouis]

Where duh... intellectual? When I hear that word i reach for my water pistol

This is only Goering to get worse.....

[martin48]

Put me down as an atheistic - I have no proof of a deity and suspect that such proof is unobtainable through evidence-based observance of the world.

I would take the position of Bertrand Russell

"As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a god. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a god, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."

[Prospero]

But maybe Russell was wrong? Maybe there are many Gods. The hindus have millions. I am agnostic about that also - to a philosophic audience and to the man on the Clapham omnibus.

[trish]

The burden is on those who believe to offer proof. Without that I'll live in doubt.There are very few claims in this life that are susceptible to absolute proof. Certainty is a bugaboo.

Did the early masons have absolute proof that the Churches they built were architecturally sound? They had faith that God would hold it together, they had the evidence of experience that certain structures built of certain materials would be sound and they had an understanding geometry and statics that was current to their times.

Absolute proof and absolute certainty are never available. Unless one is a True Believer, there is always doubt. So what reasonable burden is actually placed upon a reasonable believer?

Well first let's ask what is a belief? To believe a proposition like "This building will stand," means one is willing to act on the proposition; i.e. build the structure and encourage a whole congregation to stand within it. In this case the burden on the believer is that the actions based on his belief do not lead to disaster.

I step up to the cross walk. I look up the street and down the street. No cars in sight. Here lack of evidence for the existence of cars on the road is evidence that it's safe to walk across the street. I look again... and while crossing I continue to check my hypothesis. The degree of my vigilance is proportional to the degree of my doubt. Nevertheless, I cross on the belief that no cars are approaching and that belief is based on the evidence (or lack thereof) and on my experience with cars, their relative speeds and the habits of drivers.

The burden of proof, is not a burden to provide absolute certainty and remove all doubt, but a burden to provide a sufficient preponderance of evidence (or lack thereof) and to provide a theory or an understanding that together invoke in a reasonable (and in certain circumstances a professional) critic a willingness to act as if the hypothesis in question were true.

I act all the time as if gods don't exist and I think in my first post I outlined sufficient reason for doing so. I have no problem with calling myself an atheist. Could I be wrong? I won't say, "No," but I will say, "My level of doubt is so low I continue not to believe 'gods exist'. "

[Prospero]

Indeed. I fully understand this principle Trish. That is why I asked for believer to prove though perhaps i should have said offer some evidence that will sway those who are agnostics and even those who are atheists. I agree that almost nothing can be proved to be true - the very basis of science is to offer hypotheses that hold until someone disproves them.

However perhaps we should all go for Pascal's wager - that we might as well believe in God (even if we really doubt that he exists). The alternative after all, should he or she or it turn out to exist would be unnacceptable - i.e. we will go to hell.

[trish]

I think Pascal was on the right track (all assertions of belief are wagers to act or not to act) but I think his analysis is way too simplistic. It only depends on a handful of payoffs that he pulled out of thin air and placed into a two by two payoff matrix. Evidence from the natural world, from science, from other cultures, other religions, from literature, from philosophy etc. are all irrelevant to his analysis of the wager.

Again, for the reasons I outline earlier, I think the net result of all these considerations goes against the existence of gods.

But each person must weigh the evidence on their own and make their own wager: Should I act as though gods exist(and if so how does that play out in my life...what would my behavior look like)? Or should I act as though gods do not exist (and hows does that play out...how would I behave if I acted under that belief)? Or should I act like I'm in doubt as to the existence of gods (and what does that look like)?

[Prospero]

Tricky - because of course, if an omniscient being did exist he'd know you were just gambling and you'd still fry! (pre-supposing a Christian god that is. )

[trish]

Indeed, Pascal's wager is a cheat. Belief in a proposition is not just a brain state, it is a willingness to act upon the truth of the proposition. This means the cost of believing is the cost of acting as if one believed, it is not merely a matter of changing your mind or assenting to the truth of a proposition.

[Prospero]

So you better start attending the church of your choice.

[muh_muh]

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position.

i highly doubt that there is anyone who truely doesnt lean one way or the other
even if they are agnostic and not opposed to the idea that they could be wrong

[trish]

Ah, but the rewards of non-belief outweigh the gains belief (an immortal life of servitude in heaven); I get to stay in my warm bed on Sunday mornings...or sit by my window, watching ducks on the lake while I sip my coffee and contemplate the riddles of the universe and the pleasures that preceded the day.

[martin48]

Ah, but the rewards of non-belief outweigh the gains belief (an immortal life of servitude in heaven); I get to stay in my warm bed on Sunday mornings...or sit by my window, watching ducks on the lake while I sip my coffee and contemplate the riddles of the universe and the pleasures that preceded the day.

I'm sure you can do all that with a religion - here's one for you http://www.venganza.org/2011/06/billboard


If you wish to hear a robust and reasoned argument against religion, play this.

The Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens debate.

Christopher Hitchens vs Tony Blair Debate: Is Religion A Force For Good In The World? - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddsz9XBhrYA)

Here's a little of Hitchens's opening piece


Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well. I’ll repeat that. Created sick, and then ordered to be well. And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea. Greedy, exigent, greedy for uncritical phrase from dawn until dusk and swift to punish the original since with which it so tenderly gifted us in the very first place.
However, let no one say there’s no cure, salvation is offered, redemption, indeed, is promised, at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties. Religion, it might be said, it must be said, would have to admit makes extraordinary claims but though I would maintain that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, rather daringly provides not even ordinary evidence for its extraordinary supernatural claims.
Therefore, we might begin by asking, and I’m asking my opponent as well as you when you consider your voting, is it good for the world to appeal to our credulity and not to our scepticism? Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs? To appeal to our fear and to our guilt, is it good for the world? To our terror, our terror of death, is it good to appeal?
To preach guilt and shame about the sexual act and the sexual relationship, is this good for the world? And asking yourself all the while, are these really religious responsibilities, as I maintain they are? To terrify children with the image of hell and eternal punishment, not just of themselves, but their parents and those they love. Perhaps worst of all, to consider women an inferior creation, is that good for the world, and can you name me a religion that has not done that? To insist that we are created and not evolved in the face of all the evidence. To say that certain books of legend and myth, man-made and primitive, are revealed not man-made code.
Religion forces nice people to do unkind things, and also makes intelligent people say stupid things. Handed a small baby for the first time, is it your first reaction to think, beautiful, almost perfect, now please hand me the sharp stone for its genitalia that I may do the work of the Lord. No, it is — as the great physicist Stephen Weinberg has aptly put it, in the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.

[Prospero]

i highly doubt that there is anyone who truely doesnt lean one way or the other
even if they are agnostic and not opposed to the idea that they could be wrong

You are probably right. I was a catholic as a child and I am sure there is a god shaped hole left there when I fell out of faith. Give me a child until the age of five as the Jesuits say....

[Prospero]

I would take issue with Hitchens. The Christian faith dictates that we are created sick and then made well (the idea of the fall) but I don't think Hinduism, as one example, does this.

[trish]

Speaking of servitude in Heaven, I’ve been wondering what sort of government they’ve got up there. Is it a democracy based on a free-market based economy? Is there a parliament as well as a King of kings? How easy is it to set up a small business there? Are there any pesky governmental regulations? Could I, for example, barter for souls up there, or would there be a regulation for that? I was thinking I could escort up there. Advertise the best piece of ass in an lifetime (an eternal lifetime) for one single soul. Sounds fair, right? I should be able to make a small profit. Oh wait, as I remember the Old Fart in Heaven was never to hip on sodomy. Damn, I bet there’s a regulation against it. Man, don’t you just hate BIG GOVERNMENT?

[Prospero]

Well God forbid you'd meet people like Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, The Reverend Jim Jones, Jessie Helms, Ann Coulter, Billy Graham and all those ghastly tele-evangelists etc etc... that's oe reason to hope to go to the other place (though in truth I suspect that would really be where they are bound.)

[martin48]

Speaking of servitude in Heaven, I’ve been wondering what sort of government they’ve got up there. Is it a democracy based on a free-market based economy? Is there a parliament as well as a King of kings? How easy is it to set up a small business there? Are there any pesky governmental regulations? Could I, for example, barter for souls up there, or would there be a regulation for that? I was thinking I could escort up there. Advertise the best piece of ass in an lifetime (an eternal lifetime) for one single soul. Sounds fair, right? I should be able to make a small profit. Oh wait, as I remember the Old Fart in Heaven was never to hip on sodomy. Damn, I bet there’s a regulation against it. Man, don’t you just hate BIG GOVERNMENT?


I like this joke - it was in a cartoon.

Man arrives at Heaven's Gate and St. Peter says "where's all your stuff?"

"What stuff?" says the man.

"You are empty-handed," says St. Peter

"Well, they said I couldn't take it with me."

"A common misconception," replies St. Peter

[trish]

Good one, martin.
I just came across an amusing algorithm for scoring the worth of scientific papers and their authors

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

.

[martin48]

Good one, martin.
I just came across an amusing algorithm for scoring the worth of scientific papers and their authors

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

.

Sadly this one is what we really do DO to increase worth of our humble contributions to human knowledge

http://www.enallagma.com/wordpress/2012/07/want-to-increase-your-impact-factor

[trish]

Depressing...and be sure to cite me on that.

[Dino Velvet]

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position. To believe that there is or isn't a God depends upon a certainty which cannot be proven.

I think I'm in that camp. Atheism is too much of a leap of faith for me.

[danthepoetman]

But they can't offer proof - you have to share and/or accept their blind faith.
I tend to agree with Patrick McGoohan on this one....

And what did our famed Prisoner have to say?

I am not a number, I am a free man! Somewhat Cartesian, to continue our intellectual exchange from elsewhwere.

This is only Goering to get worse.....
Then, every time he tries to run away freely, a big, inflated, bouncing ball comes and gets him, not unlike the Gods for our societies. The metaphor isn’t bad at all! :)
But indeed, matter is the immediate evidence. It took us everything to eventually find ways to explore its nature. Anything that is said to transcend it should be what needs to be demonstrated. But we took the opposite route: we had to vanquish our spontaneous way of thinking it, which is symbolical, by founding methods to abstract ourselves from their emotional charge and magical value, starting indeed with Descartes, and also Bacon, kepler, Galileo. Even the very way we extract moments from the even flow of time, and events from the chaotic and infinite chain of what happens, to simply tell a story, is performing the same kind of magic the evangelist John identifies as the work of the Verb: we create worlds... It’s going to take a lot of house shaking and mind rumbling to get rid of the Gods without loosing what’s the best of who we are. And we’re far from achieving it yet.
I guess that's why I personally hold to my agnostic (do you say "agnosticist"?) position...

[robertlouis]

Then, every time he tries to run away freely, a big, inflated, bouncing ball comes and gets him, not unlike the Gods for our societies. The metaphor isn’t bad at all! :)
But indeed, matter is the immediate evidence. It took us everything to eventually find ways to explore its nature. Anything that is said to transcend it should be what needs to be demonstrated. But we took the opposite route: we had to vanquish our spontaneous way of thinking it, which is symbolical, by founding methods to abstract ourselves from their emotional charge and magical value, starting indeed with Descartes, and also Bacon, kepler, Galileo. Even the very way we extract moments from the even flow of time, and events from the chaotic and infinite chain of what happens, to simply tell a story, is performing the same kind of magic the evangelist John identifies as the work of the Verb: we create worlds... It’s going to take a lot of house shaking and mind rumbling to get rid of the Gods without loosing what’s the best of who we are. And we’re far from achieving it yet.
I guess that's why I personally hold to my agnostic (do you say "agnosticist"?) position...

If it comes to a choice between Prometheus and Zeus, I'm with the Titan every time.

Which makes me a Protestant atheist, I guess...

[danthepoetman]

If it comes to a choice between Prometheus and Zeus, I'm with the Titan every time.

Which makes me a Protestant atheist, I guess...
Feeble beings assembled around the fire he gave us, we know he’s having his liver eaten out while chained to a rock. As Nietzsche asks: can we face the truth? can we really face our own meaninglessness and the insignificant nature of our values and escapes? Can we face our own ignorance even in science? When the world of magic is still close enough to enlighten us with its reassuring façade? You don’t need to have someone who’s ready to kill and die to make a fanatic; we all are extremists of our convictions and certainties, down to the most common life. As said also Pascal (I’m becoming totally pretentious with my quotations), it’s either diversions (entertainment) or blind faith, for us; middle ground is unbearable.
I like protestant atheist: it has a nice ring to it. I could find myself to be a catholic materialist mecanicist with a belief in beauty. :)

[martin48]

A journalist, researching for an article on the complex political situation in Northern Ireland, was in a pub in a war-torn area of Belfast. One of his potential informants leaned over his pint of Guinness and suspiciously cross-examined the journalist: "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" the Irishman asked. "Neither," replied the journalist; "I'm an atheist."
The Irishman, not content with this answer, put a further question: "Ah, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?

From Richard Dawkin's book "God Delusion"

You are not first

M






Feeble beings assembled around the fire he gave us, we know he’s having his liver eaten out while chained to a rock. As Nietzsche asks: can we face the truth? can we really face our own meaninglessness and the insignificant nature of our values and escapes? Can we face our own ignorance even in science? When the world of magic is still close enough to enlighten us with its reassuring façade? You don’t need to have someone who’s ready to kill and die to make a fanatic; we all are extremists of our convictions and certainties, down to the most common life. As said also Pascal (I’m becoming totally pretentious with my quotations), it’s either diversions (entertainment) or blind faith, for us; middle ground is unbearable.
I like protestant atheist: it has a nice ring to it. I could find myself to be a catholic materialist mecanicist with a belief in beauty. :)

[Quiet Reflections]

I do not believe in god
Christopher Hitchens vs. God (god loses by the way) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogd-yh7orfo)

[sexyasianescorts]

I told god that if he can let me win 14 million in the lottery i will leave the industry.

I am still here with no 14 million so I can only assume he is happy and aprooves of my current career choice :)

Chloe x

[Prospero]

A good Catholic girl returned to her family home in Dublin after living in London for several years. After a couple of drinks she told her mother that she had something to confess.

Her elderly mother - a little hard of hearing - blanched when the girl spoke and said "Holy Mary, mother of Jesus... you cannot be serious? " she exclaimed. "A girl of mine. What shame to bring on the family. Why in the name of the sweet lord did you do that?"

The girl was upset and explained: "I am sorry mother... but I had to make a living. That's why I became a prostitute."

Her mother calmed down and replied. "Oh sweet girl - I misheard you.....

I thought for a minute you said you'd become a protestant."

[martin48]

I once prayed to God for a bike. But then I realised it doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and then asked for forgiveness.

[Prospero]

That reminds me of the man who killed his parents and then asked for clemency from the court - because he was an orphan

[Dino Velvet]

A good Catholic girl returned to her family home in Dublin after living in London for several years. After a couple of drinks she told her mother that she had something to confess.

Her elderly mother - a little hard of hearing - blanched when the girl spoke and said "Holy Mary, mother of Jesus... you cannot be serious? " she exclaimed. "A girl of mine. What shame to bring on the family. Why in the name of the sweet lord did you do that?"

The girl was upset and explained: "I am sorry mother... but I had to make a living. That's why I became a prostitute."

Her mother calmed down and replied. "Oh sweet girl - I misheard you.....

I thought for a minute you said you'd become a protestant."


That reminds me of the man who killed his parents and then asked for clemency from the court - because he was an orphan

Good ones.:cheers:

[Stavros]

Discussions about God tend to become pointless exchanges, because no conclusion is ever reached; the two sides continue to believe they are right, so the argument goes on, and on.

Nobody who believes in God is obliged to prove it, the concept of 'the burden of proof' is an option that can come into play when the more important issues, how rules and modes of behaviour are imposed on society in the name of God, are the suject of discussion. This is because something is being claimed by some human beings to exercise power over others, and that is where the difficulties lie. To claim that you cannot drink alcohol because God has forbidden it is a huge claim, lacking in evidence.

Nevertheless, since nobody alive can know what God is, or what it is that God wants, the fact that politics has been able to recruit God can only work because so many people, historically, have believed in one God, or many gods, and still do. If a social group does believe that there is an almighty God, then the fear of punishment can be as strong as the belief in complete and eternal redemption after death, and enable politicians to make short-term decisions with, allegedly, long term results. It also de-personalises the decisions by attributing them to God rather than to man, who can then claim to be but an instrument of 'God's Will'.

It is perhaps interesting that the Greeks believed that their gods were powerful enough to cause famines, floods, earthquakes, thunder and lightning; that they made people fall in love, or hate and go to war; that they blessed wine and song -yet were flawed. Greek literature is full of gods arguing with themselves, just as the wounded Philoctetes, refusing the gift of eternity from his god, establishes human society as the fulcrum of existence, in which gods are either optional or simply not important.

I suspect that God has moved on since creating the cosmos, and has better things to do than chuckle at the one-dimensional whimsy of Christopher Hitchens. The idea that God is ever present, above all, that you are being watched, is a useful tool to try and make naughty boys and girls behave, although it doesn't seem to work very well. My own childhood being one sin-filled example. I also don't know that it was God who claimed there was an heaven and hell; like the invention of the Devil, all that is part of the human record.

Churches, however, along with all forms of organised religion- that is something which can be usefully discussed.

[Lovecox]

Which god? There are so many.

[Prospero]

This man does - and is perhaps contending for a key job in Education under an incoming Romney administration. This is wise old Republican Congressman Paul Broun from Georgia.

Rep. Broun: Evolution, Embryology, Big Bang Theory Are "Lies Straight From The Pit Of Hell" - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rikEWuBrkHc&feature=player_embedded)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/paul-broun-evolution-big-bang_n_1944808.html

[martin48]

You sure have some objective and thoughtful guys on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Todd Akin's view of reproductive biology were interesting and informative as well.

[danthepoetman]

The most famous formula is that He’s “A circle which center is everywhere, and the circumference, nowhere”…
Saint Augustin…

[loveboof]

@ Dan, I thought that was Voltaire?

[Stavros]

@ Dan, I thought that was Voltaire?

Alain de Lille, in fact, as noted in this jewel of writing by Borges:


Pascal’s Sphere


Jorge Luis Borges


Perhaps universal history is the history of a few metaphors. I should like to sketch one chapter of that history.

Six centuries before the Christian era Xenophanes of Colophon, the rhapsodist, weary of the Homeric verses he recited from city to city, attacked the poets who attributed anthropomorphic traits do the gods; the substitute he proposed to the Greeks was a single God: an eternal sphere. In Plato’s Timaeus we read that the sphere is the most perfect and most uniform shape, because all points in its surface are equidistant from the center. Olof Gigon (Ursprung der griechischen Philosophie, 183) says that Xenophanes shared that belief; the God was spheroid, because that form was the best, or the least bad, to serve as a representation of the divinity. Forty years later, Parmenides of Elea repeated the image (“Being is like the mass of a well-rounded sphere, whose force is constant from the center in any direction”). Calogero and Mondolfo believe that he envisioned an infinite, or infinitely growing sphere, and that those words have a dynamic meaning (Albertelli, Gli Eleati, 148). Parmenides taught in Italy; a few years after he died, the Sicilian Empedocles of Agrigentum plotted a laborious cosmogony, in one section of which the particles of earth, air, fire, and water compose an endless sphere, “the round Sphairos, which rejoices in its circular solitude.”

Universal history followed its course. The too-human gods attacked by Xenophanes were reduced to poetic fictions or to demons, but it was said that one god, Hermes Trismegistus, had dictated a variously estimated number of books (42, according to Clement of Alexandria; 20,000, according to Iamblichus; 36,525, according to the priests of Thoth, who is also Hermes), on whose pages all things were written. Fragments of that illusory library, compiled or forged since the third century, form the so-called Hermetica. In one part of the Asclepius, which was also attributed to Trismegistus, the twelfth-century French theologian, Alain de Lille - Alanus de Insulis - discovered this formula, which future generations would not forget: “God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” The Pre-Socratic spoke of an endless sphere; Albertelli (like Aristotle before him) thinks that such a statement is a contradictio in adjecto, because the subject and predicate negate each other. Possibly so, but the formula of the Hermetic books almost enables us to envisage that sphere. In the thirteenth century the image reappeared in the symbolic Roman de la Rose, which attributed it to Plato, and in the Speculum Triplex encyclopedia. In the sixteenth century the last chapter of the last book of Pantagruel referred to “that intellectual sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere, which we call God.” For the medieval mind, the meaning was clear: God is in each one of his creatures, but it not limited by anyone of them. “Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee,” said Solomon (I Kings 8:27). The geometrical metaphor of the sphere must have seemed like a gloss of those words.

Dante’s poem has preserved Ptolemaic astronomy, which ruled men’s imaginations for fourteen hundred years. The earth is the center of the universe. It is an immovable sphere, around which nine concentric spheres revolve. The first seven are the planetary heavens (the heavens of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn); the eighth, the Heaven of Fixed Stars; the ninth, the Crystalline Heaven (called the Primum Mobile), surrounded by the Empyrean, which is made of light. That whole laborious array of hollow, transparent, and revolving spheres (one system required fifty-five) had come to a mental necessity. De hypothesibus motuum coelestium commentariolus was the timid title that Copernicus, the disputer of Aristotle, gave to the manuscript that transformed our vision of the cosmos. For one man, Giordano Bruno, the breaking of the sidereal vaults was a liberation. In La cena de le ceneri he proclaimed that the world was the infinite effect of an infinite cause and the divinity was near, “because it is in us even more than we ourselves are in us.” He searched for the words that would explain Copernican space to mankind, and on one famous page he wrote: “We can state with certainty that the universe is all center, or that the center of the universe is everywhere and the circumference nowhere” ( De la causa, principio e uno, V).

That was written exultantly in 1584, still in the light of the Renaissance; seventy years later not one spark of that fervor remained and men felt lost in time and space. In time, because if the future and the past are infinite, there will not really be a when; in space, because if every being is equidistant from the infinite and the infinitesimal, there will not be a where. No one exists on a certain day, in a certain place; no one knows the size of his face. In the Renaissance humanity thought it had reached adulthood, and it said as much through the mouths of Bruno, Campanella, and Bacon. In the seventeenth century humanity was intimidated by a feeling of old age; to vindicate itself it exhumed the belief of a slow and fatal degeneration of all creatures because of Adam’s sin. (In Genesis 5:27 we read that “all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years”; in 6:4, that “There were giants in the earth in those days.”) The elegy Anatomy of the World, by John Donne, deplored the very brief lives and the slight stature of contemporary men, who could be likened to fairies and dwarfs. According to Johnson’s biography, Milton feared that an epic genre had become impossible on earth. Glanvill thought that Adam, God’s medal, enjoyed a telescopic and microscopic vision. Robert South wrote, in famous words, that an Aristotle was merely the wreckage of Adam, and Athens, the rudiments of Paradise. In that jaded century the absolute space that inspired the hexameters of Lucretius, the absolute space that had been a liberation for Bruno, was a labyrinth and an abyss for Pascal. He hated the universe, and yearned to adore God. But God was less real to him than the hated universe. He was sorry that the firmament could not speak; he compared our lives to those of shipwrecked men on a desert island. He felt the incessant weight of the physical world; he felt confused, afraid, and alone; and he expressed his feelings like this: “It [nature] is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” That is the text of the Brunschvicg edition, but the critical edition of Tourneur (Paris, 1941), which reproduces the cancellations and the hesitations of the manuscript, reveals that Pascal started to write effroyable: “A frightful sphere, the center of which is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere.”

Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.

Buenos Aires, 1951.

[GoddessAthena85]

I follow a pagans path. Since the beginning of time. Half my tattoos are either anti Christ or anti government.

[Prospero]

Delighted to see Borges make an appearance on Hung Angels!

[danthepoetman]

Wow! nice text! I would certainly not argue with Borges, Stavros. :) From memory, I thought it was in pages Augustin wrote about time in “The City of God”, but my memory is anything but reliable –besides, a quick look back and I couldn’t find it again indeed. Borges wrote there an history of the concept. Very nice!


@ Dan, I thought that was Voltaire?
I think one of Voltaire’s best remembered sentences about God is that “if He didn’t exist, he should have to invent Him”… lol

[danthepoetman]

I follow a pagans path. Since the beginning of time. Half my tattoos are either anti Christ or anti government.
Lovely Athena, I can think of quite a few pagan rites I would love to perform with you…

[Stavros]

Wow! nice text! I would certainly not argue with Borges, Stavros. :) From memory, I thought it was in pages Augustin wrote about time in “The City of God”, but my memory is anything but reliable –besides, a quick look back and I couldn’t find it again indeed. Borges wrote there an history of the concept. Very nice!


I think one of Voltaire’s best remembered sentences about God is that “if He didn’t exist, he should have to invent Him”… lol

Borges, in my estimation, is one of the finest writers who ever lived, which sounds pompous and grandiloquent when set against just one sentence which contains so much, and is so typical of his concentrated mind:

Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.

[Prospero]

Borges, in my estimation, is one of the finest writers who ever lived, which sounds pompous and grandiloquent when set against just one sentence which contains so much, and is so typical of his concentrated mind:

Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.

We agree on something. (After your denunciation of Nabokov.) I wholeheartedly endorse your choice of the Argentinian. I've read everything he has written - many times.

[trish]

I recall a story of his about the construction of a map that was to be drawn to life size scale. Not sure if I ever understood the point of the story, but I loved the idea of planning your route by spreading out a life sized map. Perhaps Borges meant to convey that trimming away the irrelevant and abstracting the key issues and functional relationships are more important than coding up every observable byte of information. Knowledge is not a one to one copy of the world crammed into your head, but something else...more subtle.

[Prospero]

Try his wonderful essay "A New Refutation Of Time."

[loveboof]

I recall a story of his about the construction of a map that was to be drawn to life size scale.
That reminds me of Synecdoche, New York where there's a life sized model of New York in a warehouse in New York... lol

I haven't seen it, but as a fan of Charlie Kaufman I've been meaning to get round to it.

[danthepoetman]

Borges, in my estimation, is one of the finest writers who ever lived, which sounds pompous and grandiloquent when set against just one sentence which contains so much, and is so typical of his concentrated mind:

Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.
Beautiful! If you don't mind, Stavros, I might eventually use that one for my "signature"... :)
I love Borges too. A rare, absolutely universal mind whose curiosity and interest constantly surprises and stimulates.
Reminds me of something less profound, obviously, but still interesting, from Romanian born French author E.M. Cioran (I translate, pretty badly, I know): “Adjectives change: such variations we call progress of the mind. Suppress them all: what would be left of civilization? The difference between intelligence and silliness resides in the management of the epithet, which the undiversified use constitutes banality. God himself only lives through the adjectives we adjoin him; there lies the purpose of theology. Therefore, man, by describing always differently the monotony of his unhappiness, only justifies himself in front of intelligence by the passionate quest for a new adjective.” From “A Short History of Decay”.

[GoddessAthena85]

Lovely Athena, I can think of quite a few pagan rites I would love to perform with you…

lol Classy :). Thats how I got my job, While at a festival dancing naked under the may pole. How could I ask for a better group of people to work with.?

[broncofan]

I was raised Jewish and bar mitzvahed. It was some commitment as I had to attend Hebrew school and learn to read, sing, and memorize Hebrew. Beyond the singing there was not much that I found enjoyable. I decided I did not believe in a supreme being and as a result I did not go to temple even for the high holidays. It was not easy because it is a family obligation, a social sort of communion for Jews. But I felt like a bit of a hypocrite going to services and pretending to be pious when I didn't have an ounce of belief. Nothing in particular leads me not to believe except the absence of evidence for the proposition that there is a supreme being; I'm not a scientist so I could go on a hunch, but I don't have that hunch either! I mean even if there were not good evidence I could be a believer if things really were serendipitous or worked out in a way that seemed the product of some design.

I think the more interesting question than whether one believes or not is the harm that believing and wanting others to believe does in a multi-cultural society. When you want to be governed by that which is sensible it's difficult to add religion to the equation. None of it is sensible. You would have to ask yourself why there are so many religions and all are mutually exclusive? It's easier to think all prophets are hucksters than that all except one are.

[Prospero]

Which God.....

[talldudeil]

There is documented evidence of roman emperors, kings as well as ancient scholars, there is however, no written evidence of a carpenter in any era that I have been able to find. The bible was written by people after "his" death and then translated. The universe is endless, why in the world would anyone believe in someone that can not be verifies where there are hundreds before his time that can be.

If you feel that you need a higher being go right ahead and believe, me I will fish for myself and not wait for someone to magically make fish and bread to feed the hungry masses.

[GoddessAthena85]

There is documented evidence of roman emperors, kings as well as ancient scholars, there is however, no written evidence of a carpenter in any era that I have been able to find. The bible was written by people after "his" death and then translated. The universe is endless, why in the world would anyone believe in someone that can not be verifies where there are hundreds before his time that can be.

If you feel that you need a higher being go right ahead and believe, me I will fish for myself and not wait for someone to magically make fish and bread to feed the hungry masses.

Have u been watching Zeitgeist ?

[martin48]

You wanted proof, I give you proof

[GoddessAthena85]

not that i'm an atheist.

[giovanni_hotel]

Yes lawd~!!! ;)

Believing in GOd isn't going to hurt you. Believing you are acting or speaking on behalf of the Creator is when you start fucking up.

Atheists are always trying to get more members into the club.
Maybe you should have a bake sale.lol

My fave atheist on this board is still Trish xoxoxo, (all respect to Prospero Stavros) and and I'd gladly agree to disagree with her by keeping my God love to myself if we were to meet IRL.

When believers get past the negative thinking that all atheists are spawns of the devil and not personally at war with your faith system, at least most aren't, there's less to be fearful about.

[trish]

Thanks for the fave. I'm sure that we are intellectually quite compatible...and probably in other ways too.
Btw. I'm not the spawn of the Devil, however the Devil and me are great friends. All you got to do is let him into your heart; the scales will drop away from your eyes and paradise will be assured. Just let him in.

[Stavros]

My fave atheist on this board is still Trish xoxoxo, (all respect to Prospero Stavros) and and I'd gladly agree to disagree with her by keeping my God love to myself if we were to meet IRL.


I have never claimed to be an atheist, Giovanni. I tend to find most discussions of God revolve around arguments which are actually about people. Systems of belief, call them religions if you want, try to explain why we are alive, and how we should live. The rules, the morals, the values that religions create can often be explained in material rather than supernatural circumstances -at some point in evolution, human societies realised that procreation within the family led to a deterioration of the genes of new offspring until survival itself was threatened -families then had to mate with families on the other side of the river. It may be that many -most?- ancient, pre-literate socieites believed that the forces of nature were controlled by supernatural beings -floods, earthquakes, rain, drought, and so on- so it may be that when proposing a change in the rules, as with procreation, the authority used to impress people was said to be derived from outside the social group, but from a force that everyone recognised to be more powerful than the group. Even today people admit they are powerless in the face of nature and the gods who control it -for some what appears to be fatalism is the weakest element in Hindu beliefs, to take one example of a religion which has many gods. It was once said that if you can persuade people that there is an almighty God, and that this God will punish you if you do wrong, that is in itself a form of power, it may from this aspect of God -or rather, religious belief- that critics turn away. And yet, secular society bans murder and theft; it is considered morally wrong to hate one's parents -and if someone does, it assumes an unfortunate childhood-, people who tell lies can acheve a lot, but many who are exposed lose much more; and in more than one social environment, the attempt to replace one political party by another has been punishable by lifetime imprisonment, or death. I think this is where the argument that you can teach morals/ethics/values outside religion comes from.

And it begs the question, if all human societies have basic rules on murder, theft, deception, and authority, does that invalidate, or consolidate religious belief?

None of this has anything to do with God, but it does have a lot to do with people.

[markyboy21]

There is a very interesting book on the bible by Victor Dunstan - The Invisible Hand. The book explains a lot of the bible using a very simple code 'times' means a year of years (365 years). Less a times = subtract 365 years. A lot of ages and dates suddenly make sense such as the occupation of the holyland by the ottoman empire. The Turks believed that they would only leave Jerusalem when the waters of the Nile flow into the city and the prophet of god arrives on the same day. When they surrendered during the first world war, without a shot being fired, General Allenby arrived in Jerusalem.His name can be translated as Allah en Neby, which means prophet of god(this is from memory as I read the book many years ago therefore the spelling might be suspect).The same day the Royal Engineers pumped the waters of the Nile 418km up hill to Jerusalem. A thought provoking book which is not easy to obtain as it was written by a Mason and sold inhouse.
As for myself, I don't follow any religion but I do believe in life after death due to family experiences with spiritualists, which have been very specific about things that were unknown outside the family.

[loveboof]

I do believe in life after death due to family experiences with spiritualists, which have been very specific about things that were unknown outside the family.

You were conned.

[Stavros]

There is a very interesting book on the bible by Victor Dunstan - The Invisible Hand. The book explains a lot of the bible using a very simple code 'times' means a year of years (365 years). Less a times = subtract 365 years. A lot of ages and dates suddenly make sense such as the occupation of the holyland by the ottoman empire. The Turks believed that they would only leave Jerusalem when the waters of the Nile flow into the city and the prophet of god arrives on the same day. When they surrendered during the first world war, without a shot being fired, General Allenby arrived in Jerusalem.His name can be translated as Allah en Neby, which means prophet of god(this is from memory as I read the book many years ago therefore the spelling might be suspect).The same day the Royal Engineers pumped the waters of the Nile 418km up hill to Jerusalem. A thought provoking book which is not easy to obtain as it was written by a Mason and sold inhouse.
As for myself, I don't follow any religion but I do believe in life after death due to family experiences with spiritualists, which have been very specific about things that were unknown outside the family.

What risible tosh is this? Why not Allenby = Allen Bey, something the Turks and Arabs would understand? The word for Prophet in Arabic, nabi is not quite the same (Messenger is rasul which is the word used for Muhammad) -and in what way was Allenby a prophet? A conqueror perhaps, but that's another story. And I believe the water pipeline across the Sinai ended at Khan Yunis in what is today the Gaza District -why would they need water in Jerusalem from the Nile in 1917?

[martin48]

There is a very interesting book on the bible by Victor Dunstan - The Invisible Hand. The book explains a lot of the bible using a very simple code 'times' means a year of years (365 years). Less a times = subtract 365 years. A lot of ages and dates suddenly make sense such as the occupation of the holyland by the ottoman empire. The Turks believed that they would only leave Jerusalem when the waters of the Nile flow into the city and the prophet of god arrives on the same day. When they surrendered during the first world war, without a shot being fired, General Allenby arrived in Jerusalem.His name can be translated as Allah en Neby, which means prophet of god(this is from memory as I read the book many years ago therefore the spelling might be suspect).The same day the Royal Engineers pumped the waters of the Nile 418km up hill to Jerusalem. A thought provoking book which is not easy to obtain as it was written by a Mason and sold inhouse.
As for myself, I don't follow any religion but I do believe in life after death due to family experiences with spiritualists, which have been very specific about things that were unknown outside the family.

Ah, yes, This is the same Victor Dunstan who makes the following claims - after "In-depth research". Complete tosh!!


* The Jesus family were WEALTHY people—Jesus WAS born in a manger but not because the Virgin Mary was poor! Victor Dunstan argues that the myth of Jesus' poverty was a convenient way for the Church to make the poor satisfied with their lot. Good 'sob stuff' religion!



* The disciples were all members of Jesus' family, or friends of the family and were property owners and businessmen and were either RICH OR INFLUENTIAL OR BOTH. Contrary to generally accepted teaching there were no 'SIMPLE FISHERMEN' among them!



* Though Jesus was a Jew he was possibly of ENGLISH DESCENT, there is evidence that his grandmother was born in Cornwall, England!



* Mary and Jesus did NOT LIVE IN PALESTINE except for a very few years when Jesus was a child!



* The Virgin Mary and Jesus DRANK ALCOHOL and attended 'high life' parties in Capernaum. They were quite unlike the 'po faced' characters depicted in religious art!



* Jesus DESPISED RELIGIOUS PEOPLE and constantly spoke against them but never once condemned the thieves, prostitutes and sinners with whom he frequently mixed!



* The Virgin Mary's uncle was a rich man, the Onassis of his day, and was a ship-owner, metal merchant and a Minister of Mines in the Roman Empire. He had EXTENSIVE BUSINESS INTERESTS in Britain!



* There is scientific evidence that the 'STAR OF BETHLEHEM' and the events of the first Christmas actually happened!



* The Jesus family was closely interlinked with British royalty and the uncle of the Virgin Mary FATHERED A BRITISH QUEEN!



* The 'SECRET SOCIETY' password given by Pilate to Jesus at his trial and why the Romans pronounced Jesus innocent on four occasions!



* Britain was a HIGHLY CIVILISED society hundreds of years before the Romans came here. There were, at the time of Jesus' birth, 40 universities here!



* The first Christian Church IN THE WORLD was established in Britain. There was a Christian Church in Britain BEFORE there was a Christian Church in Jerusalem or Rome!



*A member of the British royal family was THE FIRST BISHOP OF ROME!



* The Virgin Mary was NOT A LIFELONG VIRGIN, she gave birth to no less than seven children!



* The Druids of Britain worshipped a God named 'Jesus' hundreds of years BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN in Palestine!

* Paul, the apostle, was A FRIEND OF THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY and a half-brother to one of the Roman commanders in Britain!



* The grave of the Virgin Mary's uncle was FOUND AT GLASTONBURY!



* How the Virgin Mary escaped from Palestine by boat, under an assumed name, during the great persecution of Christians that followed the resurrection.



* The origins of the British and American peoples TRACED TO PALESTINE! * How SCOTLAND AND WALES got their names!



All that and much, much more in DID THE VIRGIN MARY LIVE AND DIE IN ENGLAND?