Do you believe in god?

[Grey Acumen]

The_vagabond7 said:

two things.
1. If god is perfect why did he create anything? Perfection would free one from need or desire. If you desire something, then it is because you are lacking something and wish to fill that need. If god were perfect he would have no need or desire. And yet he seems to desire a great many things, he even demands a great many things. How can he be perfect when he has so many needs and desires?

2.A question for Grey specifically. How is your man made religion superior to any other man made religion (or faith, since you don't seem to like the word religion)? As far as I can tell, the difference between your approach to the bible and any other religious group is that you're not trying as hard to get people to follow what you believe. You've still done the exact same thing as Church of christ, Jehovah's witness's, mormons, catholics, ect, that is to say you've re-intrepreted the bible to adhere more closely to modern sensibilities. You adhere to biblical relativism, while at the same time stating absolutes, and you are the one determining the absolutes. This part of the bible is true, this part of the bible is false. Which is greatly flawed seeing as how you yourself acknowledge that man can't comprehend God or his ways, but you seem to make the decisions for him.

I mean above, you're just making up doctrines and reasons for god to impose these doctrines. You believe in a purgatory of sorts? Because you need time to understand the wrongs of your ways? Just in case you repented but not soon enough? You're making god in your image, you decide what god would and wouldn't do, the parts of the bible that are and aren't true. How can you take such a relativist view while at the same time saying that every other religion is wrong? You could take the hindu vedas, change them up enough to fit modern sensibilities and poof Jesus is a lie, the vedas are true.

1.) You assume a very odd view of perfection. I'm sure you'll feel this is a little (or a lot) egotistical on my part, but I find that when you approach perfection, you find more and more joy in helping those around you to become more perfect themselves. That's just simply approaching perfection, what would be a more absolute sign of perfection than building an entire species from scratch and guiding them on the path towards perfection as well?

2.) Science is man made, do you think it is superior to religion, which you seem to feel is also man made? For those that do believe this, I'm willing to bet it's first and foremost due to logic, facts, etc. I do the same thing, but I allow the concept of god and religion to exist in my rational without needing them to be PROVEN, provided that they remain consistent.

For instance, what if god is not benevolent and created us as a race purely for his own ego and entertainment? A being that is powerful enough to create and control the universe doesn't worry about things like ego and would hardly find entertainment in seeing people suffer. i know this by observation, those that find pleasure in cruelty are invariably those who are weak and ignorant and are only able to feel powerful by seeing someone else in, or forcing someone else into, a weakened state.

then we can observe the 10 commandments, and their purpose:

I am the Lord your God You shall have no other gods before me You shall not make for yourself an idol

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God

Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

Honor your father and mother

You shall not murder

You shall not commit adultery

You shall not steal

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

You shall not covet your neighbor's house

You shall not covet your neighbor's wife

So what we have here is: "I'm god, not a god, but THE god. The base on which everything else is built, none of this stuff is opinion, it's fact, so don't go thinking you can modify these basic rules here. Don't make a little doll of me, cause no doll is going to be able to convey what I'm all about. Don't go adding your own personal shit and say that I endorse it, you're supposed to spread MY words, not the other way around. Make sure to set a day aside to remember all of this, cause it's IMPORTANT. Pay attention to what your parents say, they may not be up on the latest trends, but history does repeat itself and you're going to make the same damn mistakes your grampa did unless you actually take what they say with a grain of salt.
Don't murder people, society can't flourish if you keep killing off members of it that aren't doing anything wrong. Don't commit adultery, kids are hard enough to raise even with you and your partner working together, you don't need to go screwing up your ability to work as a team. Don't steal, if people steal everything they want, then no one'll have any reason to MAKE anything, so seriously, knock it off.
Don't try to get someone in your community punished for something they didn't do. You're trying to increase teh ratio of good people vs bad in your society, just doing that is going to be hard enough without you screwing it up and tipping the odds back in the favor of the people who deserve to be punished. Don't go trying to take some other guys wife or house. they worked hard to do that, and if you're just taking it for yourself, the best you can do is end up with you with the house and wife and the other guy with nothing, and it's a 0 sum game, worst that can happen is that you lose both and end up in the negatives. the goal is to make society flourish, so if you want a wife and house, get your own, and now that guy has his house and wife, and you have house and wife too, instead of 1 or 0 houses, you now have 2, society has flourished. Don't lust for another guy's wife or house or position and stuff. Every moment that you're going "I wish I could be that guy" you're NOT working towards attaining those thing for yourself. The things you have attained for yourself, you should be taking pride in. The grass always seems greener on the other side, but you pretty much never actually see what all goes into acheiving that awesomeness. Concentrate on your own wife and house and put effort into bringing out the awesomeness in that, not just expecting it to be there. It's not the wife or house alone that make things awesome, it's what you invest into it yourself, so concenrate on keeping your own affairs in order first.

So I look at this, and go, wow, that all makes sense. But then I go, wait, but if you screw up a little, then after you die,you go to hell, well, damn, if you screw up, you've pretty much got nothing to lose at that point, don't you?

Oh, wait, then in comes Jesus, cool, so in actuality, even if we screw up, as long as we understand what we're supposed to do, and do our best to stick to that, then we're okay after we die. Well, that sure helps a lot, not even if I mess up a little, I know there's still a reason to keep trying.

These basic fundamentals all make sense when you start out with the idea that god is perfect, and created the human race in his image, in other words, with the potential to follow in his path, flourish as a society, and reach towards perfection ourselves, ei understanding God and the Universe. All these rules address the primary detriments to society's rapid advancement physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually.

EDIT: i needed to revise the interpretation i had down for the "do not covet they neighbor's wife/house" i had initially interpreted it as if it had meant "don't take neighbor's wife/house" but should have also covered even the continued thought about it.