@"If someone was to prove God existed, maybe they should do scientific studies on prayer or something, and see if it makes a noticeable difference.
"

Lots of studies of the effectiveness of prayer have been done. Things like praying for the ill, in numerous different ways (groups praying for individuals, individuals praying for groups... Pretty much every configuration you can think of; including minimising the placebo effect and maximising it...)

Not much evidece for the effectiveness of prayer has been found.

@kremmen, "I find any particular version of god contrary to common sense."

What about the pantheistic god of Spinoza?

Hey Dipbro Brainbomb, maybe you "trolled" yourself with all this "Give me a sign, please God, send me a sign that.....( fill in request here ).....blah blah " stuff ???
You don't need signs from one of the Gods or deities to validate a decision you've made or were contemplating, or to fix your problems. I forget your political position on stuff like how much should governments do for people etc, or should people "stand or fall on their own" , like do libertarians ? who don't believe in govt help then expect a god to help them ?....sorry iwas getting sidetracked.
I think that you, Dipbro Brainbomb, have what you need within yourself to sort out your problems, and if you need help, then get it from friends you can trust, or for say, as an example only, grief, sadness, see your doctor and ask him/her for advice on counselling services etc.
You are not stupid Brainbomb, you are a young blighter & have the abilities to resolve any problems that confront you, so please, quit whining to God. You tried it, without success.

Everton just beat Manchester City 4-0

Isn't that in like Revelations or something???

Actually it's in Lamentations 43:27 "And the Lord spoke, 'fuck you Manchester City and all your sports teams'."

perhaps it is the brainbomb who actually doesn't exist. existentially there is a chance that existence is just a figment of the imagination of God and that our reality is mere perception of that which doesn't exist at all.

everton won?!? oh darn!

I think chapter three in Lamentations speaks to the matter:
43 You wrapped yourself in wrath and pursued us, killing without pity;
27 It is good for a person, when young, to bear the yoke,

I see now some parts of the plagues of egypt never went away. We still have CAPT Brad's locust droning

For if you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. They will cover the surface of the earth, so that the earth itself will not be visible. They will eat up the remnant you saved undamaged from the hail, as well as all the trees that are growing in your fields.

hi BB! how are you today!?!

Im trying to survive ice storm jupiter which is about to drop 2 inches of ice on Omaha Nebraska. Grocery stores have emptied, and everyones scared

Mass power outages expected, zombies, who knows. Perhaps it will freeze me to death and I can leave you all alone finally.

and i will stretch out my hand over missouri and cause the water to freeze across the land and the brains to be eaten by a pestilence of zombies

So BB "God" can mean a lot of different things to different people. Even though most people claim to believe in "God" they obviously don't have the same ideas about what God is. So you get discussions like this...

It seems to me that any understanding of God has to cope with the basic reality that life isn't fair. People way more worthy than you and I have asked God for help with way worse crap than we have ever dealt with, and God didn't intervene to help them. So even if God is real, you can be pretty sure that God isn't going to intervene to resolve your issues of faith on a convenient schedule.

For me the best evidence for God is the sense we all have that there is something more to the world than what we can see and touch. Why do we have a sense that there's something out there? Why do we all have ideals that don't follow from anything that has ever existed? People try to make arguments for why idealism, a belief in free will, and a sense of purpose are evolutionarily useful, but they never really get to the point of how we got wired to benefit from a sense of purpose.

I've stuck with Christianity because it's the only religion, large or small, that really addresses the fact that life isn't fair. That's probably another topic.

"So BB "God" can mean a lot of different things to different people. Even though most people claim to believe in "God" they obviously don't have the same ideas about what God is."

If this is true, then I suppose a lot of people are in fact believing in something that they have made up in their own mind, and not God at all.

Or, Devonian, it could mean that different people perceive reality in different ways, and there is an extremely complex interaction between objective and subjective reality that no expert in any field has been able to disentangle.

God is who God is.

Our perception of reality doesn't change who God is.

And if someone's perception is a false perception, they are believing in a "god of their own making".


For example, using the OP statement: "I prayed about something recently. I asked God to give me signs. God gave me all the wrong signs. Therefore I submit this as Exhibit A, God is eother an asshole or doesnt exist."

This implies that, if God does not answer prayer in the way he expects, then God doesn't exist. (or he needs to revise his perception of who God is). Effectively, he is perceiving a "god of his own making", and he may in fact be correct in saying it doesn't exist.

Vanity, all is vanity

I absolutely think my prayers were answered on reflection. The signs I was given were not to cobfirm my greatest hopes but to warn me of impending doom

My initial anger at God is that I felt so overwhelmed to even ask, that when I felt I was being given actionable confirmation of things, I was incensed to learn truths.

@"For me the best evidence for God is the sense we all have that there is something more to the world than what we can see and touch"

Speak for yourself. I have no such sense, and i very much doubt anyone in my immediate circle of friends would agree with thst statement.

I'd just like to say that you cannot denounce the existence of God, or anything, just because it didn't do what you asked. Example; if I prayed to God, "oh Lord, could you please wipe all the Jewish people off the face of the Earth? I really just don't like them..." (I have no actual hatred for any race or ethnicity, just an example), I really doubt he'd do t because I REALLY wanted that to happen.

Now, this doesn't disprove the fact he is real or not, but because you didn't get what you want is not a good reason to say he doesn't exist. Also, saying the is or isn't is a waste of time. He obviously, going on basic facts of human life, isn't real. I am Christian, I have faith in God. But you cannot hear, taste, smell, or see him, right? Those are all we have to divide real things and fake things. God does not exist within our world, or possibly even our universe. But what if there is more than just what you can sense? Something that is right in front of us all but we can, and will, never see, feel, taste, hear, or smell? I'd explain all this semi-pseudo science, but I'm sure you all have better things to do than listen to my ramblings.

Total false equivalency. Asking God for signs that this woman is worth fighting for is not the same as asking god to exterminate a denominational group.

Did you literally pick the most absurd analogy or are you a trolling athiest.

BB, you've talked about that girl on this forum a fair amount. What kind of advice have you gotten?

Hey wait...just saw your comment about impending doom. I have found that when I get very clear understanding through prayer that I don't like the answer I get. Pretty much everyone has been telling you repeatedly that your relationship with this girl is not healthy, and you haven't listened to them. Arguably that IS your sign from God...a lot of people with radically different beliefs all giving you the same advice.

##concedes argument

"Total false equivalency. Asking God for signs that this woman is worth fighting for is not the same as asking god to exterminate a denominational group."

Have you stopped to consider that maybe she isn't worth fighting for?