Do you believe in God?

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ruveyn
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29 Dec 2009, 12:30 pm

Henriksson wrote:

Amajanshi wrote:

To be honest, I don't like believing in things unless I can see it.

Can you see an atom?

Atoms are smaller than the shortest wavelength a human can see directly. But there is plenty of indirect evidence for atoms. While there not a smidgin of evidence, direct or indirect for the existence of the God the Christians worship.

ruveyn

Henriksson
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29 Dec 2009, 12:32 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Henriksson wrote:

Amajanshi wrote:

To be honest, I don't like believing in things unless I can see it.

Can you see an atom?

I figured the wording was a bit odd.

EDIT: No to mention that we "see" a lot of things that aren't there, as eloquently shown by optical illusions.

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pippilngstkngpr
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30 Dec 2009, 12:56 am

I am always being yelled out or people putting words in my mouth that I don't believe in God. I never said that ever. I was baptized a Catholic, and went to CCD school. Than I stopped that in 6th grade. I never was interested nor do I understand about religion. So, I don't have a religion, and since I have no idea who God is or anything about God. I won't say if I do or do not believe in him. I just don't have a religion.

I live my life without a religion.

I was told I am a Christian by heart, because I treat everyone with respect. I accept everyone who they are in the inside. And that I am a kind-hearted person. Though I knew lots of Christian's who were kind-hearted. So, I think it doesn't matter your religion, doesn't make who you are.

Redd
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30 Dec 2009, 1:35 am

Not to sound like a tight assed high school English teacher but the question was phrased in such a way that made my answer difficult. I dont have a creator/savior god but i do follow the teachings of the buddha who never claimed to be God and denounced the power of prayer so although i have no god, to many i would be seen as following a religion. i see it more as a philosophy not a religion though. but i grew up believing in God not because i thought of it as the logical thing to do but because it was the only thing i had ever been taught. i was raised as a Protestant Christian ( Southern Baptist) but i lost my faith in the omnipresent omnipotent God of Abraham when i actually studied him myself (instead of just goin to church and singing the vague songs with the organ player puttin everyone to sleep) because the whole concept doesn't make sense. If God is always right, loves us all, and can do anything then why does our salvation depend on accepting a man who lived 2000 yrs ago as our savior.
1. What about the poeple that lived in the time befor mass telecommunication who were on totally different continents than christ and his followers? According to the religion I was raised in all of them are burning in hell right now and always will be. But how can a just god let his children burn for ignorance of something impossible for them to know about.
2. why must God negotiate with Satan? The New testament (read it front to back when i was 14) insists the death of Christ was neccisary so that he could go to hell and "wrestle" with Satan for 3 days befor his resurrection to chain satan down for 2000 yrs and set up the rules differenty so that all who believe in Christ may enter the kingdom of god. How is it that an all powerful God is bound by these rules why can he not simply judge the sinners and the rightous himself and let their deeds determine passage into heaven.
3. Why does an all powerful God tolerate of his enemy's existence? why must he wait till the battle of Armegedon to enlist his son to destroy the devil for him.
if there is a God i find it highly unlikely that the Bible explains a single thing about his power, wishes, or his plans.

ruveyn
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30 Dec 2009, 4:48 am

pippilngstkngpr wrote:

I was told I am a Christian by heart, because I treat everyone with respect. I accept everyone who they are in the inside. And that I am a kind-hearted person. Though I knew lots of Christian's who were kind-hearted. So, I think it doesn't matter your religion, doesn't make who you are.

If that is being a Christian, how do you explain the Crusades or the blowing up of abortion clinics?

ruveyn

ascan
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30 Dec 2009, 4:56 am

ruveyn wrote:

pippilngstkngpr wrote:

If that is being a Christian, how do you explain the Crusades or the blowing up of abortion clinics?

ruveyn

Considering you and Sand are the most outspoken atheists here and that the most outspoken theists have over the years at WP been in their 20s or younger, it makes me wonder if this kind of thing is age-related. Were you ever a believer ruveyn?

Henriksson
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30 Dec 2009, 6:32 am

Redd wrote:

So...? There is actually no direct link between religion and theism.

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TheOddGoat
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30 Dec 2009, 9:06 am

oscuria wrote:

This is perhaps the first time I have ever heard anyone denounce God because of Spiderman.

Anyways, I began to question God when I was about 10 or so. I stopped questioning God at around 20 or so. Despite having had similar views as atheists before, I find it difficult to understand how a person can actually be an atheist and not be blind and deaf.

I find it difficult to understand how a person can actually be a theist and not be a rapist and murderer.

See what you did there now?

Redd
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30 Dec 2009, 5:09 pm

Quote:

So...? There is actually no direct link between religion and theism.

I suppose your right thx. So I guess im a religious atheist. I guess i assumed you must be a theist to be religious because here in the bible belt where i live most people are either fundamentalist Christians or Hard core atheist with the latter being a very small minority.

Giftorcurse
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30 Dec 2009, 5:10 pm

I have no reason to worship that as*hole, even if he does exist.

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Redd
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30 Dec 2009, 5:37 pm

Quote:

I cannot speak for them. But i myself was a believer for so long. The reason i think younger people are more prone to belief is the comfort it offers and because they have not seen as much of the world to test their faith. when i was a theist i took the bible ALL of the Bible very seriously and literally. My beliefs gave me comfort because it was like i had a friend that was always their. as I got older The result of my knowledge and faith in the bible was a constant state of anxiety once I hit puberty and started to notice young women. This was because Christ himself taught that thinking about fornication is just as wrong as following threw with it. So i went to bed every night trying so hard to force myself from having "unclean thoughts". Then I read a book about evolutionary Psychology called "Why Do Pretty People Have More Daughters?" and it talked about man as if he were an animal and explained how his natural urges were necessary in ancient times for survival of the species and how marriage most likely was invented to allow males to claim females like territory to ensure they don't get cuckold. It made so much more sense to me than "if your right arm causes you to sin cut it off and cast it away. If it is your eye that causes you to sin snatch it out and discard it. It would be better to go to heaven eyeless and armless than to Hell unharmed" So what i was getting at with all this was with age comes experience and my expirience in this life has done nthing but increase my knowledge of the REAL origin of man leading me further and further from the God my family expects me to worship.

Eggman
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04 Jan 2010, 3:25 am

greenblue wrote:

Eggman wrote:

But you saying I worship him actually doenst make me worship him,.
Sorry to satter your belief system but I do not worship Darwin, and saying so is really just proving you are wrong

Believe me, you don't seem to have done anything to my belief system and you don't even seem to know what my belief system is for that matter. And regarding propositions in a given argument, the interpretation of said propositions are not related to belief systems as you put it, in earlier posts, but rather the logic of those propositions. In which case the fault for the misenterpretation of the message does not lie in the readers, rather in the poster.

Quote:

but its been fun making me lol. Thank you I needed it

well, quite fun, perhaps, it has been interesting I can say that.

Quote:

Sorry epic n0ob(nt saying you are new)

well, certainly this can be seen to be quite funny, I can tell from this that you either have not been here in the PPR forum that much to be able to actually see how much someone has been participated or contribuited in this forum (which in this case it would make YOU the noob), or could it be something else that may be questionable, and given the nature of the forum, on this particular site and pretty much anywhere when serious discussions take place, terms such as these aren't argumentative at all, and they don't provide anything, I mean, throwing such terms like that is pretty easy, and any idiot can do that, which actually becomes meaningless and fallacious, and very given this case, which makes the poster who use it look bad, in this place especially, because the place for it, isn't here, I can say it isn't.

Seing your belife system-what you belived in- inclused me whorshipping darwin, which must be sestroyed by the fact that I dont, it would seem that yes it has been shattered

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scorpileo
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04 Jan 2010, 5:28 am

I believe in God and have AS.. I dont take the bible word for word but theres are plain facts aswell as metaphores,
I find most athiests amusing as i find it illogical to rule out the posibitiy of a god..

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Irada
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04 Jan 2010, 7:38 am

scorpileo wrote:

A perfect spot to enter the thread D:<
Live life not in the dedication to god and not in the absence. Simply live life and let the thought of god into your heart.

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TheOddGoat
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04 Jan 2010, 11:55 am

scorpileo wrote:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

-Epicurus.

Its perfectly logical to rule out the possibility of there being a god because perfection relates to taste and purpose. A supreme being would need to be perfect and I have high standards that have not been met. For me, perfection requires that the perfect being had made the sky appear as blck and white stripes forever. This hasn't been done and so it isn't perfect for me, therefore the god isn't perfect because if it were it would have made it so. Now relating to purpose: god cannot be perfect at not being god, because then it wouldn'tbe god. But because it can't do that, it isn't god because it isn't perfect in every way.

I think you mean a demiurge.

But then you get into the realm of invisible pink unicorns and microscopic orbital teacups.

Also.... Facts don't really tell you anything, what's important is how they relate to one another.

tektek
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04 Jan 2010, 5:26 pm

no, i am an atheist.

please refer to my comments below, taken from the thread titled "Are you Christian?", (click)

tektek wrote:

bdhkhsfgk wrote:

What about you?

no, i am an atheist...

it is my opinion* that religion seems to be responsible for a high proportion of horror and atrocity. i believe that religion uses fear of the unseen and unknown, fear of missing out in the afterlife, fear of a "superior" being or beings (for the polytheists) as a tool to manipulate and in some cases breed fanaticism... fanaticism is not something that is unique to any one religion. in saying this, governments have long abandoned secular ideals and promote religion and religious doctrine, governments use religion as religion is able to manipulate the masses.

religion appears to have hijacked morality, and i challenge this hijacking by saying that one does not need religion to maintain a good moral code... and that acts of unconditional kindness and generosity performed without a conscious or sub-conscious fear of what lies beyond, without fear of who or what is judging, hold more weight than those performed through fear or desire to please one's deity (or deities).

furthermore, i feel that we (as all humanity) should give and do for the sake of doing, not for the reward that may or may not be... and not for the sake of fear.

Quote:

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(c. 4 BC – AD 65)

*as stated, this is my opinion... if what i have written offends i offer sincere apology and can only ask that you appreciate that we are all entitled to our individual opinions.

tektek wrote:

hi, OldPete. i appreciate your comments :thumleft:

, and it is certainly interesting to see you (as a Christian) draw a distinction between religion and faith.

i think that, purely on a human level, religion can offer good guidelines for being a decent human being - providing core moral values and an understanding of ethics, which are important.

in saying that, and as an atheist, my questions are these; why can't we just be good and decent without all the fire and brimstone, and without fear? why can't we be trusted and trust each other to do the right thing? because we can... because being good is a reward in itself.

furthermore, i think that faith in one's self is critical and it is something that is often overlooked in favour of placing faith in an external force... placing faith outside ourselves (from a distance) looks disempowering and almost represents a denial of faith in ourselves - by embracing a process that appears to discount our own capability... why would that be a good thing? :scratch:

as intelligent beings is it not right that we should be our own responsibility? it seems strange to handball the tough situations and tougher decisions elsewhere and to expect answers and solutions to materialise. can't we make good for ourselves? i know that we (as all humanity) are capable of creating mess!

:shrug:

as i stated in my earlier post in this thread, i am expressing my opinion - that is all... offending anyone is the furthest thing from my mind, and i apologise sincerely if i have done so.

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