So do you believe in God?

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Correct, because there are a thousand other people telling me different and contradicting things. No offence to you personally, but I have absolutely no good reason to believe you over all the other people.

 

To me, living as if there is a God hasn't got anything to do with heaven or hell or rewards in the afterlife. (I am personally not inclined to believe in a hell, or at least an eternal one.) On the contrary really means that whatever divine rewards or higher powers don't affect you way you behave morally, because you want to make things meaningful. You assert meaning onto the world -- which is my mind a senseless place. I believe that a moral system based on compassion and goodness is best for us. I may accept that the universe is a cold, callous place, but that doesn't mean I have to be a cold and callous person. I try to assert and live up to eternal values -- values God may want me to hold.

Really? If I somehow met God face to face, I think might be ecstatic because it would mean one great affirmation of the existence of love and goodness. But I believe I have to get along without God.

Although I think I have a better opinion of religion than most people on SP, it may just be because of the environment in which I live. In any case, I'm convinced that religion is responsible for awful things, but so is (for example) compassion. You can have a desire to help people and stop suffering, like Robespierre, and end up doing monstrous things because your compassion becomes the ultimate goal, the ultimate driving force that makes you justify murder and crime in the name of compassion. I believe in compassion, but I also believe in reason and self-examination.

[ September 05, 2006, 06:29: Message edited by: Oaz ]

 

Well, since God in any form doesn´t exist, it´s kinda hard to believe in him/her/it or whatever people claim God is.

 

God believer here. It is a matter of faith, and not a position that can be argued or arrived at logically. I was not here when the world began, I didn't see any one create it.

@HB, you sound like an Agnostic, you neither believe nor disbeleive, you don't think you can know.

 

Pascal's Wager only works if there is one God/religion/faith, or if all variations of God/religion/faith are mutually compatible. And, uh, that is not the case.

 

I believe there are as many gods as there are humans existing on this planet. The only one who I follow though is myself.

An all powerful being?

No

 

No. I believe in the core values that most religions stand by but not all of the divine crap that comes with it. If I havent seen it with my owns eyes or if it is not scientifically proven, it does not exist. E.g the parting of the water, healing powers, heaven and hell, I see this all just as a selling point to either scare people into joining or to get them to believe in what they believe. I know that the creation of the universe is yet to be determined to 100% but the big bang and the theory of evolution seem like much alternatives to me. If all the religions just cut the divine BS out and preached the core beliefs like the ten commandments (unless one of them is related to the divine in which case ditch that one). There is too much emphasis put on religion and that is why we have large scale conflicts over places like jerusalim (sp?) and gaza. Also, in most religions there is a varient of heaven and hell and as we cannot all be followers of every religion, we are obviously doomed to one hell or another.

As a side note I DO actually believe in the Gods. 4 of them in fact: Anthony, Flea, John and Chad

 

I belive in the theory of evolution and the big bang. But still I belive that Darwin didn't kill religion with his theories he merely understod how god thought when he "started" the universe.

However I don't belive that god is a allmigthy creature in our midst. I don't belive in a certain religion. Just that something must have started everything.

Religion however are for the weak that can't belive in the truth. Religion was invented so that the inventors could earn something as earthly as money and power. People are free to belive what they like and somebody should not atempt to controll people using religion.

I am howvere really inrtresred in religion and I ahve read the bible seven times (took that much to understand it). Something that I found out was that the hell don't exsist.

Lucifer was thrown out of heven when he and other angels with him revolted against god. He was forced to walk the earth together with us. These demos, as they are called, were striped of all thier powers and can only take physical shape in the form of another living createure. The only purpose they serve is to try to make us break the ten comandments. So there is no hell, except on earth. The only time demons are linked to fire are in the book of relevations where they burn to death in a lake of sulfur.

edit: typo

[ September 05, 2006, 11:16: Message edited by: Stardust ]

 

I believe in God, but probably not the same one that right-wing, pro-war, gun-loving racists worship.

Like Argohir, I only visit churches as a tourist.

 

I think this question is irrelevant.

Whenever it's asked, it diverts our attention from more important issues. It divides and categorizes people and that's never a good thing. For all those who think one way, but are tolerant towards people with different perspectives, there's enough of those who lack tolerance, are quick to anger and condemn other people who don't share their views.

 

@Rally..for some strange reason I pretty much agree with you, Sis.

One of the favorite questions on SP. Since I just got my Internet connection back I'll have to think about my personal response.

 

About an hour ago I decided that I fit strong atheism better than weak atheism. There are no gods.

The why of this is very simple (and I'm using the same arguement I used to turn me from agnostic to an atheist). I can positively state that there are no purple ninja monkeys on the dark side of the moon. Do I have evidence to support that there isn't? Nope. Do I need any? Nope. Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. The same is true for any god. There is no real reason to not just state that 'there is no god' rather than 'I do not believe in god'.

I really don't understand why most people believe in any kind of God. It makes no sense to me at all (and though I can respect beliefs which are 'just faith' without making any claims on reality easier - I think I understand them even less than those who claim to have seen miracles, that there's evidence for creation, etc etc.).

 

Extreme atheist here, with a facination of religion. Why do I claim there is no such thing as a god or divine being? For me, it goes against all possible logic and evidence to claim such. Anything that is impossible to disprove, IMO, should always be approched with a ten-foot pole. And a sharp one preferably.

At past stages in our history, religions and divine explainations have been needed. They have done a world of good for us in the past - even if they have also caused many negative things. When I speak about the bad religions have caused, I would not probably point to wars such as the crusades, etc, as negative effects of religion. Such things, IMO, would have occured whether or not there was religion division (or religion at all, for that matter). If there wasn't religion to fight over, it would be some other rediculas thing.

The main thing religion has done to this world, looking from a negative side, is (atleast in the past few centuries) its tendency to slow down progress. Mainstream religions, although they do evolve, tend to like to keep things as constant as possible. Looking back there are many many examples that can be pointed to, from the refusal to believe that the earth rotated around the sun to the current refusal of homosexual rights or the restrictions of contraception placed down by some religions. These things do no good for us at all, so in this sense religion is bad.

But then there certainly are (or have been) many benefits to religion. Other than teaching core values, it has been a symbol of hope. False hope, some may claim. But anything that is able to give hope in times of need cannot be false, in a manner of speaking. In the past people have needed to know that, even though their lot in this world may be crap, in the next world things can be different.

Now-a-days though, I believe we, as humans, have out grown religions. It is (and has been for the past half a century) time to move on. The benefits gained from religion are on a downward slope, as (a) we find scientific answers to many (previously) unexplainable questions; and (b) the average global living standards are raised. It's got to a point where less things are gained by religion than the costs. Atleast in my opinion.

[Edit - wow! I really do ramble when I'm tired...]

 

I am a Christian! Just like Gnarfflinger, I also believe in God the Father, His Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost.

@ Gnarfflinger, Ballrock and Chev
It is difficult when we take a stand for what we believe because there are those out there who give all believers a bad name.

As Gnarfflinger stated, it is not God nor the belief in Him which causes the ills of the world. It is men and women who selfishly use this belief for their own gains. If you truely look though you will find that in all aspects of life. How about firefighters who start fires just so they can respond to them and be heroes? How about people who raise money for a school or other great causes and then run off with it? We see the use of religion for personal gain as worse because it offers false hope to people who many times believe thay have nothing else but in truth it is no different. People of weak moral fiber take advantage of others in many ways to in some way increase themselves.

Yes, I find these people embarrasing. No, I am not a war-monger or a racist. I have always been taught that God loves all people no matter their circumstances. The Bible preaches to hate the sin not the sinner. What we DO may be bad but ALL people are loved by God.

 

I am an atheist so: No, I do not believe he exists.

 

Well, I'm not really sure what my beliefs are. I'm christian, true, but I'm not sure I'm truly believing in that god.
However, the whole universe seems to have too much meaning to be just coincidence. For example, atoms. It seems truly, incredibly, ubeliviably weird that something that complex would exist by random possibility.
It's quite possible that there is some higher being, or many such beings that created the world. It/they might have not been really even sentient, or possibly not even creatures in the real sense of the world. Or then it was something else entirely, something our minds couldn't understand in the slightest...

So, I don't necessarily believe in god, I just think that there's too much in this universe for it all just to be "luck".

 

I really want to debate these. But I will refrain.


And i did not mention in my first post that I consider myself an extreme atheist. As in I believe in nothing (in the religious sense). And I agree with Rotku on basically everything he said.

 

No, I do not believe in this god - and wont make a big deal of it, either.

 

Not really, and if I was it would be more along the lines of Spinoza's God. I like the original concepts of this guy Jesus before the christians changed them, basically that wouldn't it be nice if we got on with one another.

That's a cop-out, it's about as valid as a soldier saying "I was following orders" or a killer blaming society. The real cause of the world's problems are humans, they can't get on with one another beyond their own tribal unit of 20-30 people.

Does that mean we should punish the sin not the sinner as well?

 

No, it means we are all worthy of love and forgiveness. You must still accept the consequenses for your actions because you chose to act in a certain way but it does not mean that a particular sin makes you unloveable or unforgivable.