God.. hah.. had to reply to this. Now for once, I'll be on Switch's side and agree that God is nothing. I used to believe there was possibly a being greater than us. Yes.. oh how I hoped everything would be so much better one day, the day God decides to make it better for whoever that needs it. Heh.. over the years, I've learned that nothing good comes because God decided to give it to us. Most things you had to get yourself and it wasn't God just controling you to make stuff better. If God wants it all good, why does he create pain in ones soul? pfft.. dont tell me its some kind of devil who did that. It just human emotions taking over. Depression has taken over a bit of my life in the past and I hoped that if God existed, he'd make things better.. they never got so much greater. If he existed, why would he let someone take away his life when he was a very good man (my brother...). Whatever. I aint here to talk about my life but I dont believe in someone being there.. supposedly looking over us. It's all bulls*it...........

The thing that gets me, is that God is all powerful, but he wants us to worship him. Why? If I was all powerful I'd be too busy watching girls get undressed and throwing lightning bolts around to give a crap about us worthless losers giving "thanks" for what he's given us.

If there was a God, then there's no way I would have spent £70 on an eight hour round trip to watch Birmingham City draw 0-0 with Southampton yesterday. No way.

hahahaha owch. 8 hours.
i was discussing this with my mate over a lot of drinks last night. we kind of concluded that believeing in a greater being is weak. people dont face their propblems or hardship, they just say to themselves "god is working here, i may not be able to see it, but this is all for the greater good". they hide behind their beliefs. i cannot believe in a mighty power. it just doesnt make sense to me.

you could easily argue the opposite though. those who dont believe in a higher power have no moral obligation to do what would be considered right and wrong. someone who doesnt believe in a higher power after life will have no real reason not to rape or kill someone if they think they can get away with it. often times, serial killers and many other criminals only regret the crimes they have made because of a god of somesort. and it has even been documented that people have stopped commiting crimes because they were afraid not of law on earth but because of something more powerful.

so, perhaps its weak to not believe in a higher power because it is much easier to reason doing horrible acts when you dont have to answer to a higher being.

^ except that we have our own morals not tied into religion. you can't denounce a person's moral values simply because they don't believe in god. I don't believe there is a god, and I still am able to see right and wrong, so your reasoning doesnt quite work.

but he does have point there. i dont entirely agree with it, because as jibber said, i would be quite capable to discern good from bad in deeds such as rape, the personal turmoil and conscience would be enough to turn most people away from such evils.
you dont need to believe in a greater power to know that rape and murder and whatnot is wrong. theres always going to be the extremes that do, as with anything though

we being aetheists? thats being somewhat stereotypical. not every single aetheist has moral values just the same as not every single christian or jew or muslim or what have you has moral values regardless if they are tied to religion.

i will not try to change ones views because i respect them fully, but you cannot say that believing in a higer power is weak. i dont believe that being aethiest, agnostic, full on bible beater, is a measure of ones strength by any means, it is a belief. thats all.

:laughing: David Frost are you saying you belive in god

There's a difference between aethism and non-believing though. Aethists hold the value that there is not, and cannot be any form of spiritual power, whereas non-believers simply contend that they do not know whether there is or isn't, as God cannot be either proven or disproven. The story of creation in the Bible has been disproven by the existence of fossils and of the evolution of the natural world, however to disprove the existence of God and to disprove the factual background of the Bible are two wildly different things.

I'd wager that the majority of people who don't believe in God are non-believers rather than being aethists, as aethism takes the same amount of "faith" (or lack of) as following a religion.

that would be agnostic.