This I Believe There is / is not a God
 

There Is No God : NPR

Follow the above link and follow a format similar

Tell me\us all why you believe there is or there is no God.

I would request the mods delete any posts that use unwarranted put-downs, name calling asap.

This is a beautiful topic and none of us know the true answer so it'd be foolish not to hear someone out.

I would say I am a deist in my most spiritual moments. I like certain ideals of organized religion but it has been used for wrong reasons and spirituality is a more individual thing.

I still go to the Catholic Church in my town with my mom and brother but I do not believe in most of Catholic rules...I go there to feel more spiritual and have a time where I can be at peace and sit and think about whether spirits, god, afterlife, etc. are 'real'.

I do believe in a creator but feel religion is simply a way for us to understand the impossible to understand.
I always say it is 50/50 as there either is or there isn't.
There is no evidence. You know as far as ghosts and supernatural are concerned there really is nothing.
Photos are all fake. Stories are just anecdotal.
I looked on youtube and there was nothing at all despite all the cameras we have now.
But there is the notion that life seems so complicated and complex how can it be ordered?
but did you know today computers do more tasks then anyone can imagine and it all is planned and ordered the way we want it. yet looking at the complexity would seem impossible.
One interesting thing I read is that lsd under a microscope has light frequencies the same as quantum matter that many believe will uncover other dimensions.
There are other dimensions and time is not a constant.
What this could mean is that God and spirit is not in outer space or inside us but simply in another dimension as yet impossible to access.
But I feel religious stories are just that.
I mean, the longest ever religion on earth was the ancient egyptian religion and now it is just a quiz question and there have been other older religions that believed in a man who was betrayed and killed and rose again before Christ.
I always liked to entertain the idea that God is actually a future being who is manipulating life the way we manipulate science today.
This isn't impossible if we look at how computers are able to carry out trillions of tasks every millisecond in their infancy.
To conclude I feel God is another dimension and time is not a constant.

Speaking of the Christian god only..

I could never wrap my head around the beginning. Why put a fruit tree down if you don't want Adam or Eve to have it?

He/She/It can see into the future right? So he knew ahead of time that they were gonna disobey him, so it must have been his intention for them to have the fruit and to kick them out?

Why is he punishing people for something they did 3,000 years ago? Let it go!

I guess i just struggle to believe in the idea that god wanted us to have free will. Whats the point in having free will if you just get punished for doing anything that goes against gods will.

Thank God someone finally made this thread. Now, you fuckers - THIS SHIT STAYS HERE. I don't want to scroll through forty-five pages of self-glorifying tripe everywhere else.

As for myself, my most personal convictions will remain as such but to quote the immortal wisdom of an immoral man:

"Even though I've found God, I still love blow jobs, and I still say fuck." (Dave Mustaine)

Well said.

My beliefs:

There could be a "god", but i doubt it. This god is not some big man in the sky, nor does he/she/it oversea life on earth and keep tabs on all of our behavior. No one religion is "right." It seems incredibly closed minded to me to believe that there is only one path to take in life, and all others will burn in eternal hell if they do not agree with the doctrines laid out in that religion. Hinduism and Bhuddism are perhaps the most tolerant religions in this sense, believing that there are many paths to personal spirituality, though as with others, they do have strict moral guidelines to live by.

If anything, I believe in the possibility of karma and reincarnation. But that stems more from a universal source of energy than what one typically thinks of "god" as being. If you put good energy and good thoughts into the world, good will come back to you, and vice versa. Again, this is not because some being is keeping tabs on our actions and thoughts and punishing or rewarding us accordingly, but if you think positively, strive to help people and do your best to make positive changes in the world, people will want to do good by you. You will get satisfaction from giving to others, that in itself is a positive outcome. I don't believe that bad people will be made into tampons or toilet brushes in their next lives, but I do believe that some part of us is recycled in living form when we die, be it human, animal, plant, or anything else living.

As for the question of is there a god, or is there not a god, or what is our purpose in life, how did we get here etc. etc. Why does it matter? Isn't it enough to know that we're here? Isn't the fact that we're living on this earth enough to want to make the most of it? This quote sums up the last paragraph nicely.
"Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - Douglas Adams

beliefs will tear us apart

I do not prescribe to any religion...I do not believe in a god or gods, it seems illogical to me but i do not deny the possibility.
Self-conscious agnostic.

It actually depends on the person on how he thinks. We cant force anyone to believe that there is God nor there is no God. :nono:

I don't believe in a god or higher power whatsoever. I have no proof. If I get proof, that would probably change my mind. Seems like most religions have something very attractive to people(ex: christians going to heaven if they renounce and accept blah blah). It definitely sounds great. However, I deal with the concrete. It serves a purpose in this world, but I would say it does more bad than good. I see the world gradually shifting to non-believers in the future.

i have more but i cant think now

Back to the Christian God. The reason I don't believe in that deity is because of the story in the bible of the tower of babel. His people wanted to create a tower and could do anything when united and so he scattered them all over the Earth and jumbled their languages? That seems like such a petty and selfconscious deity to be ruling over the entire plane of exsistence.

I'm more of an agnostic. I believe perhaps something created the universe and let it do its own thing, not really caring at what happens to it.

Besides, you don't need a God to better human kind. We live such a limited life why not make our lives and the people's around us more comfortable before we die?

I never looked into organized religion and haven't, to this day, really cared to start. Nothing ever seems to add up, there's no proof for a scientific mind. I can't bring myself to believe in an almighty being that I have to spend my years fearing and satisfying so that I can have my place in Heaven, or just as easily in Hell. I did buy a "God Bless Johnny Cash" bumper sticker a while back though, ya know just in case.

I guess I've always believed more in fate and the concept of reincarnation. Neither can be proven of course but for me, my life itself and the roads I've taken are proof enough that fate is something tangible. Everything has to happen for a reason, otherwise what the hell is the point?

In conclusion: "If I was a bird and you was a fish, what would we do? I guess we'd wish for re-incarnation!" - Roger Miller <3

I don't believe in god. My reason is simply that I've never seen any evidence or heard a compelling enough argument to make me believe. I'm open to changing my mind if presented with an argument or evidence that is persuasive but presently I'm squarely in the non-believer camp.

I believe one of two things:

1. There is a supreme being/force/power/whatever. However, we have no real knowledge of it, so why concern ourselves with trying to figure it out?

2. As the cliche goes, something can come from nothing.


Either scenario completely messes with our normal way of thinking. In fact, there is a third option, namely, a scenario that is "real" but far beyond our powers to even imagine. Any of these scenarios is so contrary to what we tend to accept that it's hard to genuinely adapt one's philosophy to them. It's one thing to say "I believe in a higher being that created us and has unlimited powers over us"; it's another to actually live that way. Really, how can you?


I'm open to the possibility of a higher being presenting himself/herself/itself to us, but I don't think it's likely.

I'm a very spiritual person, but ritualized prayers and condemning other people's "morals" and actions is not spiritual for me. There is beauty and transcendent power in nature and music and art and a conversation with an old friend, not in saying whiny, selfish prayers or complaining about other people's sexual practices.

That was a really good post, WaspStar.

I don't believe any deities becuase there is no substantial evidence and with the current information available combined with Occam's razor it simpler to posit that everything either came from nothing or that everything has always existed. God is an unnecessary step for a natural process that works.

Also, one can not argue that the universe is so complex that a creator was needed. By that logic anything complex enough to fathom the complexity of the universe would also need a creator. It is a self damning argument. God indeed adds nothing to our understanding. It creates a situation that make argues against it's existence.

Sure, I can't prove there is absolutely no god, but it is counterproductive to believe in such nonsense. In other words, fuck spirituality. Its all about brainuality.

i don't buy into the idea of a specific 'god', but i do believe there is a lot more to me than my body.

my basic philosophy boils down to this, 'in order to be anything, one has to be everything, or one is nothing'. as such my body is little more than a metaphysical refracting point for my own specific existence, a reflection of all the light of the universe as refracted through my parents at the time of my conception.

from my perspective the individual human beings are little more than cells within the whole of the species and it's the ego that feeds the fear of the ultimate unknown of death and drives their desire to want more and strive to be 'right' for the reward of immortality.

the complexity of our universe is an outward reflection of the complexity of our thoughts. we are the ones who create more complicated ways of considering ourselves and our surroundings thereby expanding ourselves and our universe. i guess it's not that i don't believe in 'god' but that we are as much part of it as it is a part of us.

"i'm not religious i'm just really spiritual."

"well, i'm not honest but you're interesting!"


daniel tosh woot.

I believe there is no God/Gods. I dont care to bother how I got here, it is a waste of time. I enjoy being a sinner. Until there is proof, im a skeptic, about everything.

you want proof??
look at my profile then tell me there wasn't a higher force at work creating such beauty.
I rest my case.

I love your scientific outlook on everything the unfan.
I love the way you look for mathematical and scientific logic.
There was a man in Germany who ate another man's penis because they thought it was scientific.
You are a scientific human who looks for scientific patterns.
But science is a game that doesn't know the God/nature rule book.
I commend you to the highest of beings.
If you don't believe in God go to a botanical garden on lsd and believe me you will!!!!
Once you are removed from your own bodily attitudes and presented with nature.
I know there is a God.
We are all part of God.
We all came from the first human.
God created evolution so we could sustain ourselves.
Every living thing is part of God.
You and me are no higher or lower then an earthworm.
Death means nothing at all.
I have touched on God.
People who know me know I have touched on God.
They know as they see it in my eyes.
Bless you the unfan.

Huh? There were religious people murdered and raped in the name of their faith...the thing in Germany is clearly an outlier. That's not even scientific, that's common sense. Who eats a penis anyways? :nono:

There was a man in Germany who put an ad in the paper and a man responded and cut of his penis and cooked it with the other man and they ate it and the man died in tha bath from blood drainage.
My point to the unfan was to lighten up and listen to the floyd and go to a botanical garden with a few shrooms and learn to love and appreciate others.
Maybe roll a doobeee and sink a few beers and watch west hams greatest goals and do Frank Bruno impressions.
There is a famous quote that goes something like.
Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive.
Live and let live.
Chill and be at peace.
Eat drink and be merry.
And remember God had a sense of humour.

[insert your mom joke here]

Apparently the guys who decided penis eating was a good idea didn't have enough scientific outlook to remember that it would cause bleeding.

beer pot and mushrooms

are you trying to o.d. the guy? :rofl:

here
take all this
you will see God

i think someone else has already said this and its true

we all have to have faith in something

for some its science and scientific fact - the things they can sense and analyze

for others its the Creator - God - the intelligence that put everything together just so to insure that it would work for as long as He needed it 2

since i dont believe that science will ever be able to answer all of the questions correctly, and because im a basically trusting person

i believe in God.

why do we all have to have faith? i believe that there are a lot of questions in life that have no answers. i don't have faith in language, reason, science, metaphysics, or religion. these are all just fallible human constructs.

i think most people have religious faith because they need/want stuff to be explained, are brought up that way, or the thought of an afterlife/reincarnation is too good to be passed up.

i don't disagree with that, i'm just saying that there are plenty of us out there comfortable knowing nothing.

"raises hand"
but for most people it seems like they NEED it. :crazy:

most people do feel a need to have some understanding of the world around them and they believe all sorts of things to explain it

science

religion

philosophy

mysticism

take your pick

no thanks

Same here. I highly doubt they will find out any answers in my lifetime...so just live happily and stick to what you like. :thumb:

Faith is believing something with no rational evidence or proof. Sure, scientists believe in science, but they don't have faith in it. Science gives rationality and proof. In fact, we have the opposite of faith in science, we have skepticism. When science is wrong its a good thing and well celebrated. When we discovered we were wrong about the Earth being flat it wasn't faith shattering, it was fact finding and a neat discovery.

actually

ask the person on the street how electricity works and chances are they wont be able to tell you

but with faith (a belief in the trustworthiness of the idea)
day after day
they reach out to flip a switch and expect a light to come on

they also have faith in their ability to make the decision and in the decision they made
in this case to use electricity in their house rather than gas

their decision wasnt based on knowing exactly how electricity works

it was based on having first-hand knowledge of the effects of electricity in their home

thats what i was trying to say about all of us having faith in something

I'm not too convinced.

I see. So more of a "trusting belief" than "a faith".
Which is how I typically think of the word being used. Its an easy assumption and confusion on my behalf, especially since this is a fairly religious natured conversation.

No, that's "reasonable expectation." If I've learned from experience that a light comes on when I flip the switch, I can reasonably expect the light to come on the next time I flip the switch (unless the bulb's burned out or the power's out or...).

Similiarly, I don't have "faith" that the sun will rise tomorrow; based on my experience, I reasonably expect it to.

I believe in God/Jesus because I believe in Jesus's philosophy. For the most part, I do believe in a God with no proof at all, and it is entirely 100% faith. I was brainwashed by my parents into the religion of Christianity and have gone through its various forms such as, fundamentalism, having apathy towards reality, and where I now stand, in love with the religious truth of the Bible.

I look at Jesus's message and find it to be, perhaps, one of the most revolutionary of all time. It goes against all odds, applying pacifism, control over even ones wrong (at least what his opinion of what was wrong) thoughts, and the attraction to a life that is found in giving it away. Jesus is against coercion, and wants selflessness in his followers so that we may bring back the world to "shalom." This shalom is peace with all relationships, people, the environment, etc. Basically, the state of the "garden of Eden" (a story not meant to be taken literally.) While it is utopian and idealistic, I find it to be the only message that presents the message clearly. The God of the Old Testament, unlike what some people believe, was a peaceful God who did not do the things the Jews said he did. In the OT the Jews blame him for their punishments, for their victories at war, etc. These, however, were accounts written by the ethnocentric Jews at that time.

So, I believe in God/Jesus because I believe in his message

Isn't the idea of "believe in me or you're damned to hell" a form of coercion?