Insurance companies "we don't pay out for acts of God"!

While their neighbour died. The egotism!

Yes

Then why do we need a god? If he's neither helping or answering our prayers when we are in dire need, why does this god feel the need to be so important to us?

He does help and answer- he made us for relationship with him

Happiness and joy and success ARE promised by God. They are just not subjective and transitory. In this world we WILL have trouble… does it break you? Make you defeated? Or are you resolved and confident "this too will pass"?

I will pray for you!

God answers prayers, but he isn't going to solve everything and make life all full of joy. He limits his power and allows free will and lets things happen, rather than overuse his power. Think about it- if there were no challenges in life, and we were always happy without working for it, would we really appreciate anything? Life isn't perfect, and some people are less fortunate and I understand why many people oppose religion- they don't see a point, and they don't trust God for an understandable reason. But my point is, God helps but won't make everything perfect because there would be no point of faith, nothing to appreciate if life was perfect.

Alright bet. I think the assumption that a good God would eliminate all suffering is a little unrealistic. If you have good, you have to also have bad, otherwise how would you know what good is? In order to have life, you also have to have death. It has to end at some point. Pain is inevitable. When we blame pain or death on God or the absence of a god, it's misplaced. There's nothing to blame when something that happens to every single person ever happens.

Disagree. There is a philosopher who used this same argument (that you need to have “good” in order to recognize “bad”) as proof of the existence of a god, and for the life of me I can’t remember his name, of course. But even “bad” and “pain” can be subjective. I very clearly don’t believe in a deity though so I neither blame nor thank anything nebulous. *handshake* Edit: I also realize you’re speaking of ying and yang.

Understood. To quote, uh, the Bible, there's nothing new under the sun. I don't think there can really be "proof" of God, that's what faith is for. Anyone trying to make arguments that there's proof of God's existence is making s**t up. But on the other side of the coin, I also don't think that arguments that say "this proves God doesn't exist" are flawed as well. No one can prove it one way or another. In the end, we all chose to believe what we want to believe. *return handshake*

All the gods are pretty much as you described, lol, just read the bible, the Torah, the Quran. I have read all three from cover to cover (curriculum requirement).

The deity in the three scriptures you list are the same. The god of the Tanakh/Torah is YHWH. Christianity adopts and adapts YHWH and Judaism. The same for Islam. Allah is both YHWH and God the Father (from New Testament). To make your 1st statement, you need more than 1 god.

Well, that's mighty big of him, considering he supposedly could stop that suffering. Or maybe he just likes pulling the wings of flies...

Shaktism and Maiism for two. (I couldn’t reply to James’ comment as I think it’s been reported.)

Christians believe in "God the father" hence male...

@Adrian, Judaeo-Christian cultures are historically, and to some extent still, patriarchal, so it makes sense that they would assume the ultimate expression of authority must be male.

@James Stevenson: someone hasn't seen The Shack. Also, it'd be hilarious if God came down and clarified her pronouns. Also also, I really doubt that God has a gender period, but that's okay.

@GhostlySnail, I agree. I'd go a step further and argue it does *not* make sense for an all-powerful cosmic creator spirit being to have a gender, at all.

If you mean God from the Bible, it says that god was the father of jesus,

It also said God is sexless, gender less both male and female. I've heard that the Aramaic words 'he' and 'it' are interchangeable, I don't know if that's true, bit someone here probably does.

"And man was created (In OUR image)"

There are plenty of religions that have female deities. And we don't know what gender "god" has.

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James, I don't know why you're getting downvoted, you're right...

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And I'm getting downvoted, too. So many ignorant morons posting here...

Because you were both proven wrong??? Edit: @Adrian