The ultimate question !

[lukec]

That reminds me, did you manage to find a copy of Evolution by Prothero yet?

[CoxRox]

Hi Leo, I've ordered it so may take a few weeks to arrive. Will give me time to finish the Blind Watchmaker.

[leo-rcc]

you meant Luke I guess, but nice to know anyway.

[CoxRox]

Ooops. I did indeed mean Luke. Actually they've just phoned and said should be with me in a few days so I'd better get a move on with TBW.

[leo-rcc]

Don't rush it, take your time. It's not a 10ct romance novel you are reading there.

[CoxRox]

I know that for sure! I usually read for a good hour in the bath but TBW requires dictionary checks plus I'm underlining stuff I want to remember, so no, it's not the sort of book you can rush.

[Psalm 23]

I have been an atheist for about 14 years and as the years go by and my knowledge on religious matters continue to grow I have become sure that God or gods do not exist.The one question that I have tried to answer is the one question that leaves religion in general without a satisfactory answer for the skeptic.

No one can be sure if God exists or not. That is an impossible task.

The question is:"If God created man,then who created God?"It's simple enough but upon further inspection it is a dead end.Lets see what the bible has to say to help answer this question.

God is eternal. He was not created or born. Here are some verses to help you understand God's eternal being;

"No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began."
1 Corinthians 2:7

"This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time."
2 Timothy 1:9

"The hope of eternal life, which God... promised before the beginning of time." Titus 1:2

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."

That's right! God is telling John he is eternal. He has been here since the beginning, and he will continue to live after the end of time.

Using the scriptures as our guide does not give us much.We are supposed to believe on faith that the biblical God has manifested himself on Earth as God the father, the son,and as the holy spirit.The previous scripture says he is eternal the actual beginning.

The book of Isaiah in the Old Testament foretold the coming of a Messiah in Israel, and this Child's name shall be "Immanuel" meaning, "God is with us." In ancient Hebrew "El" is God, "Immanu" means, "With us." Jesus=God.

If we are to accept this then we must accept that God just somehow poofed himself into existence and later began his labor of 6 days of creation of which he was so tired in the end that he needed that 7th day to rest.If you ask me,everything that the bible states about God and his beginnings are absolutely rediculous,and make the so called Godly inspiration of the Bible more suspect then ever.I invite my fellow atheists and theists to try and come up with a better and more convincing argument for the origin of God.

You are not understanding what "rest" meant in ancient Hebrew. It meant, "To quit, to stop creating." It did not mean God was exhausted. You have been misinformed.

It is my honest opinion based on just pure study and observation of the worlds religions,that God was created first in the mind of mankind.Before you state that the above scripture was a referrence to Christ I will assure you that it is.But remember that Jesus was also called the Word and the bible states the following:
John 1:1-3 1 "In the beginning was the Word."

That is correct. Jesus was was considered, "The Word" in the New Testament.

"For there are three that bear record in heaven, The Father, The Word, and The Holy Ghost, and these Three are One." - 1 John 5:7

[Daystar]

I have been an atheist for about 14 years and as the years go by and my knowledge on religious matters continue to grow I have become sure that God or gods do not exist.The one question that I have tried to answer is the one question that leaves religion in general without a satisfactory answer for the skeptic.

Eventually is the atheist not presented with the same conundrum? Matter had to have come from somewhere? Did it just spring up from nowhere?

Jehovah God wasn't created he is without creation. Revelation 1:7-8 doesn't say anything about it. Verse 7 refers to Jesus and verse 8 to Jehovah. They are not the same. Jesus had a beginning. He was created. Jehovah was not.

Jehovah didn't create himself.

It is my honest opinion based on just pure study and observation of the worlds religions,that God was created first in the mind of mankind.Before you state that the above scripture was a referrence to Christ I will assure you that it is.But remember that Jesus was also called the Word and the bible states the following:
John 1:1-3

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2The same was in the beginning with God.

3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made

According to these verses we are speaking of one and the same entity.

John 1:1 is often mistranslated in an attempt to give support for the trinity. It should read the word was a god, rather than God.

"and the Word was a god (godlike; divine)"

Greek καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (kai theos en ho logos)

"and the word was a god" - The New Testament, in An Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome's New Translation: With a Corrected Text, London, 1808.

"and a god was the Word" - The Emphatic Diaglott (J21, interlinear reading), by Benjamin Wilson, New York and London, 1864.

"and the Word was divine - The Bible - An American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed, Chicago, 1935.

"and the Word was a god" - New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, Brooklyn, 1950.

"and a god (or, of a divine Das Evangelium nach kind) was the Word" - Johannes, by Siegfried Schulz, Göttingen, Germany, 1975.

"and godlike sort was Das Evangelium nach the Logos" - Johannes, by Johannes Schneider, Berlin, 1978.

"and a god was the Logos" - Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Jürgen Becker, Würzburg, Germany, 1979.

Here "a god," "godlike," or "divine" could be used but not God because the Greek theos is a singular predicate noun occurring before the verb and not preceded by the definite article. Its called an anarthrous theos. The God with whom the Word (Logos) was is designated by the Greek expression theos preceded by the definite article ho. That is an articular theos.

The articular construction of the noun points to an identity, a personality, but the singular anarthrous predicate noun preceding the verb points to a quality about someone.

When John says that the Word was "a god" he doesn't mean that the Word (Jesus) was the God with whom he was with because that would be silly and the language doesn't imply that.

What is interesting is that as difficult as this may sound (to me anyway) it really isn't. There are many cases of a singular anarthrous predicate noun preceding the verb that all translations have no difficulty with except for that one place because trinitarian translaters have a difficult time accepting that Jesus was a mighty god (Hebrew El Gibbohr - Isaiah 9:6) rather than Jehovah, God Almighty (Hebrew El Shaddai - Genesis 17:1).

Mark 11:32 - New World Translation - a prophet, King James Version - a prophet, An American Translation - a prophet, New International Version - a prophet, Revised Standard Version - a prophet, Today’s English Version - a prophet (also at 6:49 translations all real "a ghost," "a spirit," "an apparition."

John 8:44 - New World Translation - a liar, King James Version - a liar, An American Translation - a liar, New International Version - a liar, Revised Standard Version - a liar, Today’s English Version - a liar

The Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 92, Philadelphia, 1973, p. 85, 87 Philip B. Harner "with an anarthrous predicate preceding the verb, are primarily qualitative in meaning. They indicate that the logos has the nature of theos. There is no basis for regarding the predicate theos as definite. . . . In John 1:1 I think that the qualitative force of the predicate is so prominent that the noun cannot be regarded as definite."

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The only explanation theists give is that God is eternal, living outside of time. However, this also means that prayer is ineffective, since God already knows exactly what is going to happen (it can see all of time).

How is it that you have come to the conclusion that because God is eternal he knows exactly what is going to happen, because the Bible certainly doesn't indicate that.

[allan175]

How is it that you have come to the conclusion that because God is eternal he knows exactly what is going to happen, because the Bible certainly doesn't indicate that.

Are there not prophesies in the bible? I have seen other people talking about them (eg: psalm23 the recent new member has posted something about "end times").

[Tiberius]

No one can be sure if God exists or not. That is an impossible task.

That all depends on the definition of "sure" you use. I am "sure" in the context that I am certain God doesn't exist. This is very different to being "sure" in the context of knowing God doesn't exist. Hence my agnostic qualities.

How is it that you have come to the conclusion that because God is eternal he knows exactly what is going to happen, because the Bible certainly doesn't indicate that.

I never mentioned the God of the Bible. I mentioned that the common theistic argument is that God is eternal, living outside of time. Any being living outside (in a higher dimension) than time can see the entirety of time (in the same way a being of 3D can see the entirety of a 2D world). Prayer now becomes ineffective because if the God is all-knowing, everything it knows has already happened (from its perspective), and thus prayer doesn't change anything, it is merely a way of "hoping" something is predestined to happen.