OK, I can almost accept that there was some mysterious, unknown force behind the creation of the Universe. Almost. It's as improbable as there being nothing and then something or something, but there we go. I can't rule it out.

What really confuses me is this: This entity/power/force (call it "God" for want of a better word) created this infinite space filled with billions of galaxies and stars and planets. He waited around a few billion years. He/she/it then created the right conditions for life to evolve (I wholeheartedly subscribe to the theory of evolution, OK?) on one little, insignificant blue dot in one corner of a little, insignificant galaxy. He watched life take hold and evolve into dinosaurs, let them run around waving their little arms and going "RAAARRRGGH" for a while before wiping them out 65 million years ago, and then waited for humans to come along.

This is where it gets really confusing. He suddenly develops an obsession with hats, genitals and dietary habits, and makes up a set of rules for the humans to follow. OK. Whatever fries your bacon (unless you're Jewish/Muslim). But then he sends dozens of prophets down, talks from burning bushes and sends floods and plagues to try and get his message across. Problem is that the message hasn't really got across, and everyone says their version of the message is the right one. For someone who is meant to be omniscient and omnipresent, that sounds like a bit of a failure.

But hey, everyone's free to believe whatever they want. I'm free to shrug and say, "I don't really know for sure, but you know organised religion? It doesn't sound like my cup of tea."

Cheers. I'm off to bake some more muffins.

Hi Jimmy,

I'm in the 'well there could be, but I've no idea if God exists camp'

How about the idea that there are hierachies up there. The creator God at the very top is totally beyond our comprehension...he's beyond time or space, beyond hats & going to church.

However as we move down the hierarchies, things become more petty & human. By the time we're at the 7th level (to take an entirely random number that agrees with most religion's esoteric teachings)... we reach a 'god' some called Yaweh. He's jealous & petty & vindictive & cruel favours one human tribe over another. This 'god' has bizarre & arbitrary dictates about acceptable behaviour.

Unfortunately over the centuries the idea of these hierachies was lost (suppressed), so we think of their only being one 'god' & lump all his attributes together.

littlejimmy wrote:






Religion in all it's forms is to my mind a complete load of old coconuts.
They can't all be right and yet apparently they all are and everyone else is wrong and yet none of them has noted the glaringly obvious problem with this.
When I was about 7 (stop me if I've said this before )I was in school assembly gazing up at the ceiling daydreaming when I was supposed to be praying with everyone else.I got a resounding slap on the back of the head by a teacher and told to get my head down,my eyes shut and say my prayers.

I pretty much concluded in that moment that either god was a complete arse or, and this seemed the more likely conclusion, he didn't exist. The world is at once a most beautiful and terrifying place but I have yet to see the hand of god at work in it. Humans claiming they've got god's ear on all manner of things yes,plenty of them, but god, no not a dicky bird.

I'm with Karen Armstrong's The Case For God, which is a misleading title probably forced on her by publishers to make it look like she was leading the fightback against Dawkins et al.

Some good reviews on Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/Case-God-Religion-Reall...859&sr=8-1-spell

Basically, her view is that religion has been until recently more about practice than belief, but since the middle ages and especially with the rise of fundamentalism religion has been perverted by established churches (& synagogues, temples and mosques)into being more about blind faith and deferral to priests etc.

One of these statements is incorrect.

1. There is no God.
2. There is a God.

Unless you or anybody else knows differently. And there dear reader lays the problem.

Lazy Daisy wrote:

There is a God, and it's Schroedinger's Cat.

(from The Straight Dope)

Dear Cecil:
Cecil, you're my final hope
Of finding out the true Straight Dope
For I have been reading of Schroedinger's cat
But none of my cats are at all like that.
This unusual animal (so it is said)
Is simultaneously live and dead!
What I don't understand is just why he
Can't be one or the other, unquestionably.
My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
In one I'm enlightened, the other I ain't.
If you understand, Cecil, then show me the way
And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
Then I will and won't see you in Schroedinger's zoo.

— Randy F., Chicago

Cecil replies:

Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was."
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough shit.
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.'
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."'
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."

— Cecil Adams

littlejimmy wrote:


well, after all that time He was probably quite bored. creating humans and rules He is just taking the piss. a wee experiment to see what happens. and as humans and their rules have only been around for a mere speck of all eternity, it'll help pass the millenia until He finds something more interesting to do. a bit like burning ants with a magnifying glass on a summers day. you know its wrong and cruel, but its also quite fun. we are Gods ants, to be toyed with.

Your saviour lives inside your head and is not to be found in a church or a book.

Like the caterpillar says - "who are you?".

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Fuckin' hell it's me! I'm God. Well I never saw that one comin'!

Your saviour lives inside your head and is not to be found in a church or a book.

Like the caterpillar says - "who are you?".

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Fuckin' hell it's me! I'm God. Well I never saw that one comin'!

Worht saying twice No seriously.

I still find my self believing in Gods and universal forces but know that ultimately they are all my own creation, or might as well be.