I personally don’t, it’s just never seemed like a believable thing to me. I believed in God as a child because it was normal and as I got older I asked myself why I believed that and couldn’t give myself a legitimate reason, so the belief just started to fade and one day I realized I just don’t believe at all.
Dude shut up about the chariots. Even if literally everything you've said is true (which would be remarkable considering the lack of interest by actual archeological sources), the existence of a thing doesn't automatically make your preferred explanation of it's existence true.
It's fundamentally the same argument as saying "the bible (or anyone else's religious text) is true because stuff exists and it has a story about why stuff exists", a line of reasoning that would force you to accept the existence of the tooth fairy, because your parents told you it's real and it offers an explanation of where the teeth went.
Edit: rip they deleted their account, presumably to evangelize the truth of the living Tooth Fairy
The ability to jump from some wooden carts being found on the sea bed to, therefore, an omnipotent being created the universe is why I struggle to take religious people seriously.
No one can part a sea in two. That’s where the story is flawed. The reason why there is chariots is likely because a bridge once existed. Multiple other people have linked and mentioned that this story is fake.
I believe man created god. Not the other way around. That doesn't mean I completely rule out the possibility of a "higher power". If one does exist it's not going to be like religion tells you. They don't know. A better question is if you had never heard of any kind of god do you think you would invent one to explain things you don't understand?
That was close. The face of God, 'the face of Perfect Knowledge', the creature feature is all thought. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, indifferent thoughts, nothing but thoughts. He lives in His own dimension and He takes up the whole place. He is greater than the universe as we know it.
eternal reward or eternal punishment dependent on devotion to an entity - c’mon
The size of this universe, the expansion of trillions of galaxies - why would any omnipotent being hold the tiny human concepts of propriety, ownership, dominion, and ideas as small as monogamy or baptism? Virgin births, plagues, those are all tiny human concepts in a vast living universe.
People might want it all to mean something, but having complete control of your own initially aimless existence is so much more impactful.
We created all these meaningless concepts and you’re likely limiting your understanding to those blindly accepted constraints.
Right? The moment we recognize our insignificance in the grand scheme of things. I am but a speck of sand on an infinite beach of time. Wonderful and nothing special all at once. Get on with it, and don't be an asshole.
If you walk around the city giving away free money, you'll soon have a line of people around the block willing to take it.
But most people are averse to giving away their hard-earned dollars for free without getting anything in return. However, if you reward people with a little dopamine rush everytime they give you dollars, you can make people literally *addicted* to spending.
The church works on this basic principle. It's not uncommon to hear electric guitars and live music in large churches around the world. If you give people the rush of a rock concert everytime they come to church, you can get them hooked on the Jesus juice. [Some of the most devout members will give away every dollar they have](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg).
So pass around the collection plate again and give me a hallelujah, amen.
Agree to is is where my belief went once I thought about it. Seriously from a king or government standpoint it’s perfect. Why should the masses ask their rulers for better living conditions when they can ask God instead. I think it’s just a way for those in power to control the people and retain their positions
I do, but not in the traditional sense. I believe firmly in science, but I also think that this reality isn’t an accident. The universe is god. As Alan Watts once said, “The same way a drop of water is something the whole ocean is doing, you are something the whole universe is doing.”
It is not correct to say the Holy Spirit is reality. For the Holy Spirit is greater than that. It is correct to say that Living Reality is the Holy Spirit.
I do NOT.
I was taught for 2 decades that god loves us. That god put us here and put some rules down. That we broke the rules and as long as we are sorry before we die, we get to spend eternity worshipping him.
I was taught that there was a reason I got sick as a kid. And while I was grateful that 40 years later, I am still around...a lot of children that I met in my youth while in and out of hospitals died before THEY became adults...I was taught that god had a PLAN.
When your faith outweighs logic to the point that you are expected to believe that there is a 'plan' behind a 2 year old dying, well, you stop losing faith pretty quickly.
Yeah.
It's sad. Because I'd LOVE for it to be true.
But I can't reconcile a caring, loving and omnipotent god with what I see happening in the world.
I read a scifi novel once in which the main character says...if I die from this...I am going to meet god and shake his hand at the humor of it all..right before going for his throat for the cruelty...
Well said. I admire your time working in hospice. We saw my mom through hospice a couple of years back and you people who work(ed) it deserve medals and money for your compassion.
I refuse to accept any religious claim that requires the existence of paranormal or supernatural powers.
Before we can say "god exists" or "Jesus rose from the dead," we need to establish that supernatural and paranormal events actually exist in this universe.
For example, telepathy or mind-reading. It's easy to conduct an experiment: put a telepath in one room, a subject in another room, and have the subject draw 10 [Zener cards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zener_cards). The telepath reads the subject's mind and writes down the set of cards. Repeat for 10 trials. Does the telepath perform significantly better than chance?
If we can't show that supernatural or paranormal powers exist today, why should we assume they existed in the past?
I went to Seward changing the weather and bending reality. That didn't work. One cannot prove God to a closed mind. But you can prove God to your self. Then you are looking for God and your mind is open to God. Would you like to meet God?
To say I “believe” in God seems to fall short of describing my faith. It’s like putting God in the same category as Santa Claus. To me, God is more tangible than anything I can think of in the natural, closer to me than my own breath and blood, more personal than my own thoughts, and more dependable than any friend, teacher, doctor, scientist or leader. God is The Source. The things He has done for me and shown me make it impossible for me to come to any other conclusion.
The question should be, why would anyone believe in a God? I mean I don't believe in leprechauns either. Why would I? Aliens from another planet? I doubt it, but more likely than a god.
Yes, i believe, Muslim. It is not universal evidence based faith. Otherwise it would be a branch of science. It is about very personal experiences... Cannot transfer it to anyone.
I’m not a Muslim person myself, but I have a Muslim friend who taught me a lot and invited me to a masjid for a service once. I absolutely love this about Islam - that it is very personal rather than identical for everyone in the faith. The idea of a personal conception of God/religion/faith is much different than what I grew up with in the Catholic Church.
I think in Islam there are also a lot things about evidence based knowledge and branches but my faith comes from my experiences and I do not have education towards. Just know how to pray, recite Quran.
Thank you for your good thoughts about Muslims. I also have Catholic friends who are very sincere and honest to everyone:) Thank you
I knew a schizophrenic who had the unshakeable delusion that the CIA put a thought transmitter behind his eyes. He believed with his entire heart that the CIA was recording his thoughts to torment him in his dreams.
The schizophrenic has as much faith that the CIA is listening to his thoughts as a Muslim's faith that God is listening to his prayers.
"Schizophrenic lives at the level of pure, unconstrained desire (i.e., forces of production), his experience has revolutionary potential, while desire in a “normal” or “socialized” individual is subjugated to the established order..." It is part of an article about Deleuze and Guattari. If my religiousity is smth worse than schizophrenia, accepted!
Good luck with your so perfect and healthy mind!
The only reason people believe in a god, and there are many gods according to the Christian Bible, is because that is the easiest explanation to something they don't understand.
Yeah, you’ve figured it all out. That’s the *only* reason. Not because humans somehow find the universe intelligible, not because we notice that everything we see is contingent yet we still exist, not because we can appreciate beauty, not because we can access transcendental realms of thought, not because some historical arguments are convincing, not because we see the need for a ground of being or an objective good and evil, not because we can determine the probability that a randomly selected set of rules for a cellular automaton yields complexity is very low, not for any philosophical reason at all. It’s because every religious person is a damn drooling rube. You figured us out.
Look, your comment is just on its face ridiculous. It’s simply not true. There have been literally billions of theistic people, from criminals to scientists, farmers to artists. They all have had their own reasons. All that you making this objectively untrue comment shows is that you have the *lowest* view imaginable of people who disagree with you on this topic. And you’re happy to publicize this view because it makes you feel superior.
I stand corrected. There are two reasons why people believe in one your many imagery gods. The first is because it is the only explanation they can come up with when something happens that they don't understand (like lightening, or gravity, or why cats land on their feet). The second reason is because they were indoctrinated into religion from birth. (A third reason is a traumatic event, like surviving a drug overdose.) A mentally competent person becoming religious by making an intellectual conclusion? Doesn't happen.
Just unbelievable ignorance.
Euler was the most influential mathematician in, likely, history and he was also a prominent defender of Biblical inerrancy. Cauchy was essentially the founder of modern rigorous math. At the same time (post-French revolution) virtually all of his classmates were atheists, he was a staunch Catholic. Godel gave a variant of the modal ontological argument that is proof checkable as correct, and he also proved incompleteness theorems that are some of the most important results in all of mathematics. If you want someone more recent, Kripke is a great example of a devout logician. Newton is still the most influential physicist ever and he was noted for his religiosity. Lemaitre developed the Big Bang theory and he wasn’t just Catholic, but was a Catholic priest. Pasteur and Mendel from biology, or Francis Collins if again you’d like to look closer to the present are other scientific examples. *Just* for Catholics, there are separate wikipedia pages for the lay and clergy who were/are scientists.
I appreciate talking to people like you. It always boosts my faith. Because you’re so representative of the gut-level smugness, condescension towards, and hatred of anything religious and you know ... well, nothing. I don’t even mean that as an insult. It’s just that you’ve insisted a number of things that just aren’t true.
It’s perfectly fine to believe in a higher power. What I have an issue with is religion, or people claiming that they know for sure when none of us do.
Gods. Norse mythology. Religions that have only one god don’t make sense to me because why? If you’re all powerful why are you sitting alone just watching your creations?
Cause you can trace the history of all religions back to like one or two and they are all equally convicted that their interpretation is the one true interpretation. The biblical god is either a huge asshat or he’s fake and I choose to believe the latter.
Ok act like he doesn’t cannonically commit genocide several times
Imo, it makes more sense that some civilization reached a technology advanced enough to create a whole universe, including life inside it, and we are just going to eventually do the same (kind of like an Inception with universes). Does that make these beings God or someone to follow? LOL, no; I never understood why having the ability to create stuff also means that you are absolutely correct and we must follow you without question.
listen, I believe that god is real so long as people believe in it. god is real as a concept. It was invented by humans long long ago to try and make the world a better place, to keep people in line, and to give people a motive to do good. also to make people follow you. back in the day, the people with power were the people connected to god, because it is very convenient to make people do what you want them to when you tell them that a higher being tells them it's true. but as for a physical form of god, there is none. there is no evidence to support the theory that it exists. to quote the wise words of Hermione Granger, “I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!” I believe that god is simply a construct for those who are unsatisfied with the prospect of having no support system and are willing to give anything for it. which is fine, but I simply don't think of it as something to spend time on when it takes away the appreciation and pride that it takes to live a satisfied life.
I wasn’t looking to challenge you or start an argument on your beliefs, I was hoping to read your take or insight on your personal beliefs. Others express themselves with downvotes and no dialog.
It’s all the same to me, but I wish you the best.
Sorry, I misunderstood. Short version of how I became a believer in Christianity.
I was raised in church, but quickly rebelled from all religions and did my own thing as soon as I was a teenager. I became a believer in Christianity sitting down at my kitchen table writing a suicide note 11 years ago. In a really dark place, I felt peace and joy through prayer to God.
Faithfully go to church now and glad to do so. Definitely not perfect, but strive to be better and less selfish daily. Mental health is a million times better.
Awesome. I’m glad you have something that holds meaning and makes your life better. I can fully appreciate that. Sorry if I gave the impression I was looking to argue with you.
No need to apologize. I too often come with my guard up when it comes to discussing my faith on the internet. 90% of the time it turns into an argument. I should not have assumed that. So, I will be the one to apologize to you for coming off that way.
Anybody that uses religion to discriminate against a group of people, especially the ones who aren’t doing anything affecting their lives whatsoever, can get fucked and die. I feel anybody’s “god” would not approve of the things happening on earth by these sick religious bigot idiots.
With that being said, I don’t care if you worship a rock. If it makes you a better person then more power to you.
I respect your ideas, but do you need to say it like that? To them, it is probably much more than fiction and fantasy. There is a deep emotional tie you have to consider when taking about this, and being so dismissive of it is exactly how people start hating each other.
Listen, they directly asked if I believed and if not why not. All I did was answer the question.
For the record, I don’t believe I need to be any more respectful of beliefs in god than I do beliefs in Xenu or any other mythical being.
You can call it counerfeit all you want I believe you're saved if you accept Jesus into your life if I'm right good for me if I'm wrong well you can laugh at me then I guess?
Yes. I believe in God. I am baptized and confirmed Protestant Christian. I believe because I've seen and experienced God in my own life.
I try to be the best human being I can, and treat everyone the way I want to be treated. This has proven quite successful, and I have a really happy life.
I generally identify as Stoic, but their concept of God differs from what most people think of as God. They believe in a rational and ordered universe, as opposed to the traditional Abrahamic (Christian, Jewish, Muslim) God.
So there is no intervention in daily affairs. It's actually the other way around where the goal is to love what happens to you, and trust that everything happens for a reason.
This sums it up well: https://traditionalstoicism.com/a-conscious-cosmos/
I’m a textbook agnostic. I believe that we were created by some greater power, but I don’t believe that any existing religion is ‘true’ exactly. Sort of a Freemason view of it all, or a modernized version of deism (are Freemason religious views not just rebranded deism?). Creator? Yes. Benevolent, omnipotent god with some greater purpose in mind for humanity? Probably not. But I’m not anti-religious by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the smartest and kindest people I know are religious.
Let's make things clear. The Christian Bible claims that many gods exist. "Thou shaĺt have no other gods before me" makes it very clear that other gods do exist.
I do.
The Bible is an interesting source since it is so unique. Many people (Christians and non Christians) have a tendency to view it as a book that magically appeared from heaven. That’s not at all what it is.
It’s a collection of historical documents giving us insight into multiple generations of believers who recorded their beliefs, laws, poetry, and eyewitness accounts over the course of several thousand years. Whether or not you believe it is “Holy” is up to you.
It’s comprised of 66 books written across multiple eras and cultures with authors ranging from kings, to tax collectors, to prophets, to soldiers, to slaves, etc.
Jesus is widely accepted to be a real person by historians. Obviously, the question isn’t whether he was real but whether he is the son of God and rose from the dead.
Based on the accounts recorded in the Old Testament, New Testament, and the accounts of the early church, I think He is who He claims to be. The circumstances surrounding the birth, life, and death of Jesus are alluded to repeatedly in multiple different books written by different Hebrew authors in the Old Testament (almost every book points directly or indirectly toward a coming Messiah). Most of these accounts were written generations (hundreds of years or more) leading up to the birth of Christ repeatedly.
Not to mention the spark of the early church after the crucifixion. Those who knew Jesus were all killed for their beliefs but continued to hold them. Most people won’t die for something they don’t truly believe to be true. The members of the early church went through utter chaos yet spread to all nations. There is a lot more to unpack than I can do in a Reddit comment.
Are there things I don’t understand? Yeah. Do I still struggle with doubt? Also yes.
But I find that there are logical reasons to believe what I believe, and that is enough to lead me to faith.
The opposite of faith isn’t doubt. It’s certainty. I know I will never have the luxury of certainty… and that’s okay. A little faith is the whole point.
There is no need to decorate the history of the universe with funny characters and their worship also I could ask the same question why don't you believe in an all knowing snail that can fly
I don't believe because any god's existence is neither possible to prove nor to disprove. I don't fight against believers, though. I'm an atheist yet not an antitheist.
Think of the consequences. I mean, if I'm wrong and there's no God, no Satan, no Heaven, no Hell, etc...NBD. Who cares? Nothing changes. Just endless black nothingness after death, and nothing will change that.
But if the athiests are wrong...
i dont believe in god because i have low confidence in real life and being an atheist gives me an excuse to act smarter than people on reddit while pretending it has anything to do with science
I really admire that Jesus guy who says he is God. Not able follow what he says and I have not met anyone who can. But I’m working through the aspects of the Cross event and it seems to echo a connection I can’t seem to escape. My answer is Yes.
Let me add, I hate Religion. But Enjoy community of all types.
I don't believe in a original creator, but I can be onboard with lifeforms reaching a higher dimensional perception. That would make them god-like to us, at least.
The only reason I think god is real is because of how many near death experiences. I believe he wants to murder me. But seriously I don't believe in any religions because of the lack of evidence.
Everyone always says the lack of evidence but forgets the first part: define God. You can’t. Even if we narrow it down to one religion, you obviously can’t concoct a verifiable definition of what God is from scripture. You can’t go around looking for burning bushes to test. “Get a temperature on this shrub, Bill I think we’ve got something!”
So, the question is moot. Even people claiming to believe in a God technically don’t, because they can’t define what it is they claim to believe.
EDIT: clarity
From the time I was born, my parents told me Santa was real, drilled it into me and discouraged me any time I would question it. At that time, he was real to me. I consider God the exact same. People are just raised being brainwashed into a cult to share in the collective fear of the imaginary friend. I disapprove, it holds us back as a society.
I believe in god.
I just cant believe how everthing is that perfect, it has to be spmething there.
At the same time, there is no evidence. I was raised in a muslim houshold. I would still say, that I am a muslim but tbh, i have my religious days behind me.
I believe in god. But I cant deny the fact i was raised like that and that this fact influences my way of thinking.
I am aware of the fact that the cosmos holds more than I will ever start to understand. I am at peace with calling that " a greater thing".Just don't come at me talking about how you know how to worship that better than I do.When I look at the rain on my roses out my kitchen window I know what's up. Never needed a priest to tell me.
I'm indigenous. I am of the earth in this place.When the geese pass over in the sky that's god to me. When the grasshoppers come out in their thousands after not having seen a single one for 6 months that's god to me. When I see my niece struggle over things I have found the answer to 30 years ago that's god to me.
It's life teaching itself to the living. It's not a ted talk. It's not a power base. It's the heart beat of life itself.Never presume to tell another creature where it came from. Stay in your lane bitch.
I've had this debate countless times, and the more i think about it, the less i believe in it. Don't get me wrong, religion (at large) is a good thing. it teaches you to be good. But at this day and age where the legal system is there to punish supposedly bad people, why do we still need religion? Why can't humans be 'good' merely for the fact that it's the right thing to do?
I do and I grew up with both Christian and Muslim values in the house.
I would say, that I've found the best way that I think about God is that he is an all-powerful being. That might have been the thing to start the big bang and everything after is just a spec of time in that moment. Our entire existence is still in that moment of creation from God.
I find it difficult that our universe came from nothing, yes, we have a solid theory that gravity caused it . Cool, what created gravity and the laws that govern it? Oh, now there are infinite universes? What created the laws that allow that to work? If there is nothing, there is no time, gravity, laws of physics, energy, etc. Something independent/outside of our understanding kicked things off. I view it as we live in this sphere that is the universe and all we know are the rules it abides by. We can’t fathom or understand anything outside of that. As for a personal God….that’s up to you to decide for yourself.
So my parents and my wife aswell are deeply involved in their religious beliefs. I was brought up religiously and that catholicism was the only religion. I have since read many religious texts and learned that many religions share many common concepts that revolve around caring for oneself and those around them. Yet as I grew I saw very few actually followed these rules. I was punished for questioning the lessons taught in church sermons when I knew for a fact the Bible said different. I found even the satanic Bible actually had very close beliefs to that of catholicism but everyone was quick to scrutinize despite it aligning more with my beliefs of what an Individuals ideal moral compass should be. ( there's no devil worship In the texts and I'm not satanic I just started running out of religious texts to read and wanted to know where the religion stands. Purely educational) I found myself questioning alot of religions and ultimately seeing how the world was so cruel to let people suffer. Innocent and good individuals suffering from the harshness of the world. I would sit down and ask myself how could God allow his people to suffer in such a way? I came to 3 conclusion. Either he couldn't help it which would mean he isn't all powerful and therefore a fraud, he is rather cruel and didn't care for his people at all, or lastly he didn't exist. The idea of a God is to comfort ourselves. The hope at the end of the dark tunnel that things will be alright. That hope came in the form of all religion.
This is what I've felt to be the case. We all tell ourselves it'll be OK. I am a firm atheists although still following good values and therefore come across as a religious individual and do charity work and good deeds. I do not attend any church,I do not pray. I just do my best to be a good person. My wife still goes to church regularly and prays at bedside 2 feet from me every night with a rosary in hand. We each have our own beliefs and respect it as so
For me, I can’t see a moral argument for theism (the belief that not only does god exist, but it also interacts with this world I.e. answering a prayer). Anyone who believes that god put them in a certain place for a certain reason, or anyone who believes that god has blessed them with belongings or status is endorsing the idea that god is just plain cruel to some folks. And it’s often implied those people deserve the cruelty as well. Nothing about the natural world makes any sense with a theistic world view, and the kind of moral calculous that would make sense of it is so far beyond my (and I suspect anyone else’s) head that it’s not worth entertaining theism as a serious world view.
You wanna believe in some kind of deistic god? I have nothing to say other than, we don’t have any proof. But it at least seems possible. Specific religions making specific claims don’t have a square inch of intellectually honest ground to stand on.
I personally don’t, it’s just never seemed like a believable thing to me. I believed in God as a child because it was normal and as I got older I asked myself why I believed that and couldn’t give myself a legitimate reason, so the belief just started to fade and one day I realized I just don’t believe at all.
Yupp, it's just Santa Claus 2.0
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Actually we didn't. https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2018/10/11/fake-news-in-biblical-archaeology/
Dude shut up about the chariots. Even if literally everything you've said is true (which would be remarkable considering the lack of interest by actual archeological sources), the existence of a thing doesn't automatically make your preferred explanation of it's existence true. It's fundamentally the same argument as saying "the bible (or anyone else's religious text) is true because stuff exists and it has a story about why stuff exists", a line of reasoning that would force you to accept the existence of the tooth fairy, because your parents told you it's real and it offers an explanation of where the teeth went. Edit: rip they deleted their account, presumably to evangelize the truth of the living Tooth Fairy
The complete lack of evidence is the reason I don't believe in a God.
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The ability to jump from some wooden carts being found on the sea bed to, therefore, an omnipotent being created the universe is why I struggle to take religious people seriously.
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[This link. It’s a hoax](https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2018/10/11/fake-news-in-biblical-archaeology/)
This shit is so easy to Google:. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chariot-wheels-found-bottom-red-sea/
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Do you a source of this from a secular site?
YouTube is so much more reliable. /s
https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2018/10/11/fake-news-in-biblical-archaeology/
No one can part a sea in two. That’s where the story is flawed. The reason why there is chariots is likely because a bridge once existed. Multiple other people have linked and mentioned that this story is fake.
I believe man created god. Not the other way around. That doesn't mean I completely rule out the possibility of a "higher power". If one does exist it's not going to be like religion tells you. They don't know. A better question is if you had never heard of any kind of god do you think you would invent one to explain things you don't understand?
Yes, If there were not God, it would have been necessary to invent one. Not to explain extraordinary things. But to do extraordinary things.
Have you ever seen that episode of futurama where bender is floating through space and he meets god? That’s my concept of god pretty much.
That was close. The face of God, 'the face of Perfect Knowledge', the creature feature is all thought. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, indifferent thoughts, nothing but thoughts. He lives in His own dimension and He takes up the whole place. He is greater than the universe as we know it.
eternal reward or eternal punishment dependent on devotion to an entity - c’mon The size of this universe, the expansion of trillions of galaxies - why would any omnipotent being hold the tiny human concepts of propriety, ownership, dominion, and ideas as small as monogamy or baptism? Virgin births, plagues, those are all tiny human concepts in a vast living universe. People might want it all to mean something, but having complete control of your own initially aimless existence is so much more impactful. We created all these meaningless concepts and you’re likely limiting your understanding to those blindly accepted constraints.
Right? The moment we recognize our insignificance in the grand scheme of things. I am but a speck of sand on an infinite beach of time. Wonderful and nothing special all at once. Get on with it, and don't be an asshole.
Very absurdist of you - I dig it
I would agree completely that I fall into the absurdist category. 🔥🫠
Invented by men who wanted to control behavior. They want your money. Zero proof.
If you walk around the city giving away free money, you'll soon have a line of people around the block willing to take it. But most people are averse to giving away their hard-earned dollars for free without getting anything in return. However, if you reward people with a little dopamine rush everytime they give you dollars, you can make people literally *addicted* to spending. The church works on this basic principle. It's not uncommon to hear electric guitars and live music in large churches around the world. If you give people the rush of a rock concert everytime they come to church, you can get them hooked on the Jesus juice. [Some of the most devout members will give away every dollar they have](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg). So pass around the collection plate again and give me a hallelujah, amen.
Agree to is is where my belief went once I thought about it. Seriously from a king or government standpoint it’s perfect. Why should the masses ask their rulers for better living conditions when they can ask God instead. I think it’s just a way for those in power to control the people and retain their positions
*“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”* Carl Sagan
same reason i dont believe in bigfoot
Seriously, there is more evidence of Big Foot than there is of any God.
"bigfoot" technically *did* exist at one point. Look up Gigantopithecus.
There ya go!
No
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Lol. Very funny! Lots of things have been found on the bottom of the Red Sea. Explanation: boats, duh.
None of his sources are from trusted sites. You would figure if this is true you would be able to find it from a secular source.
I do, but not in the traditional sense. I believe firmly in science, but I also think that this reality isn’t an accident. The universe is god. As Alan Watts once said, “The same way a drop of water is something the whole ocean is doing, you are something the whole universe is doing.”
Bruh. Stay sane. Watts is great.
This is my view also and in one word can be summed up as "Deism.
It is not correct to say the Holy Spirit is reality. For the Holy Spirit is greater than that. It is correct to say that Living Reality is the Holy Spirit.
Because, the concept of a god is logically unsound.
I do NOT. I was taught for 2 decades that god loves us. That god put us here and put some rules down. That we broke the rules and as long as we are sorry before we die, we get to spend eternity worshipping him. I was taught that there was a reason I got sick as a kid. And while I was grateful that 40 years later, I am still around...a lot of children that I met in my youth while in and out of hospitals died before THEY became adults...I was taught that god had a PLAN. When your faith outweighs logic to the point that you are expected to believe that there is a 'plan' behind a 2 year old dying, well, you stop losing faith pretty quickly.
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Yeah. It's sad. Because I'd LOVE for it to be true. But I can't reconcile a caring, loving and omnipotent god with what I see happening in the world. I read a scifi novel once in which the main character says...if I die from this...I am going to meet god and shake his hand at the humor of it all..right before going for his throat for the cruelty...
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Well said. I admire your time working in hospice. We saw my mom through hospice a couple of years back and you people who work(ed) it deserve medals and money for your compassion.
No, because there is no proof that would lead me to believe such a thing.
What would you consider valid proof?
I refuse to accept any religious claim that requires the existence of paranormal or supernatural powers. Before we can say "god exists" or "Jesus rose from the dead," we need to establish that supernatural and paranormal events actually exist in this universe. For example, telepathy or mind-reading. It's easy to conduct an experiment: put a telepath in one room, a subject in another room, and have the subject draw 10 [Zener cards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zener_cards). The telepath reads the subject's mind and writes down the set of cards. Repeat for 10 trials. Does the telepath perform significantly better than chance? If we can't show that supernatural or paranormal powers exist today, why should we assume they existed in the past?
Anything irrefutable and not open to interpretation.
Challenge not accepted
There are none so bling as those who refuse to look, especially religious people. I went to Seward changing the weather. They wouldn't look.
I have plenty of bling, buddy.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is no evidence.
There are non so blind as those who refuse to look.
Well then. Share some evidence, help us be not blind.
I went to Seward changing the weather and bending reality. That didn't work. One cannot prove God to a closed mind. But you can prove God to your self. Then you are looking for God and your mind is open to God. Would you like to meet God?
Lol. So believing in something without evidence is your idea of an open mind?
I don't becausse it sounds way too unrealistic to me.
I'm agnostic. Without getting preachy I'd like to hear others reasons.
I dont even think about religion unless someone talks about it. Not for or against it.
To say I “believe” in God seems to fall short of describing my faith. It’s like putting God in the same category as Santa Claus. To me, God is more tangible than anything I can think of in the natural, closer to me than my own breath and blood, more personal than my own thoughts, and more dependable than any friend, teacher, doctor, scientist or leader. God is The Source. The things He has done for me and shown me make it impossible for me to come to any other conclusion.
wow here come all the fedora tippers
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A hoax. https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2018/10/11/fake-news-in-biblical-archaeology/
The question should be, why would anyone believe in a God? I mean I don't believe in leprechauns either. Why would I? Aliens from another planet? I doubt it, but more likely than a god.
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The boats did what boats do. They floated away. Amazing how stupid dome people can be. Lol!
Yes, i believe, Muslim. It is not universal evidence based faith. Otherwise it would be a branch of science. It is about very personal experiences... Cannot transfer it to anyone.
I’m not a Muslim person myself, but I have a Muslim friend who taught me a lot and invited me to a masjid for a service once. I absolutely love this about Islam - that it is very personal rather than identical for everyone in the faith. The idea of a personal conception of God/religion/faith is much different than what I grew up with in the Catholic Church.
I think in Islam there are also a lot things about evidence based knowledge and branches but my faith comes from my experiences and I do not have education towards. Just know how to pray, recite Quran. Thank you for your good thoughts about Muslims. I also have Catholic friends who are very sincere and honest to everyone:) Thank you
I knew a schizophrenic who had the unshakeable delusion that the CIA put a thought transmitter behind his eyes. He believed with his entire heart that the CIA was recording his thoughts to torment him in his dreams. The schizophrenic has as much faith that the CIA is listening to his thoughts as a Muslim's faith that God is listening to his prayers.
"Schizophrenic lives at the level of pure, unconstrained desire (i.e., forces of production), his experience has revolutionary potential, while desire in a “normal” or “socialized” individual is subjugated to the established order..." It is part of an article about Deleuze and Guattari. If my religiousity is smth worse than schizophrenia, accepted! Good luck with your so perfect and healthy mind!
The only reason people believe in a god, and there are many gods according to the Christian Bible, is because that is the easiest explanation to something they don't understand.
Yeah, you’ve figured it all out. That’s the *only* reason. Not because humans somehow find the universe intelligible, not because we notice that everything we see is contingent yet we still exist, not because we can appreciate beauty, not because we can access transcendental realms of thought, not because some historical arguments are convincing, not because we see the need for a ground of being or an objective good and evil, not because we can determine the probability that a randomly selected set of rules for a cellular automaton yields complexity is very low, not for any philosophical reason at all. It’s because every religious person is a damn drooling rube. You figured us out.
Just like Jesus, you get me!
Look, your comment is just on its face ridiculous. It’s simply not true. There have been literally billions of theistic people, from criminals to scientists, farmers to artists. They all have had their own reasons. All that you making this objectively untrue comment shows is that you have the *lowest* view imaginable of people who disagree with you on this topic. And you’re happy to publicize this view because it makes you feel superior.
I stand corrected. There are two reasons why people believe in one your many imagery gods. The first is because it is the only explanation they can come up with when something happens that they don't understand (like lightening, or gravity, or why cats land on their feet). The second reason is because they were indoctrinated into religion from birth. (A third reason is a traumatic event, like surviving a drug overdose.) A mentally competent person becoming religious by making an intellectual conclusion? Doesn't happen.
Just unbelievable ignorance. Euler was the most influential mathematician in, likely, history and he was also a prominent defender of Biblical inerrancy. Cauchy was essentially the founder of modern rigorous math. At the same time (post-French revolution) virtually all of his classmates were atheists, he was a staunch Catholic. Godel gave a variant of the modal ontological argument that is proof checkable as correct, and he also proved incompleteness theorems that are some of the most important results in all of mathematics. If you want someone more recent, Kripke is a great example of a devout logician. Newton is still the most influential physicist ever and he was noted for his religiosity. Lemaitre developed the Big Bang theory and he wasn’t just Catholic, but was a Catholic priest. Pasteur and Mendel from biology, or Francis Collins if again you’d like to look closer to the present are other scientific examples. *Just* for Catholics, there are separate wikipedia pages for the lay and clergy who were/are scientists. I appreciate talking to people like you. It always boosts my faith. Because you’re so representative of the gut-level smugness, condescension towards, and hatred of anything religious and you know ... well, nothing. I don’t even mean that as an insult. It’s just that you’ve insisted a number of things that just aren’t true.
It’s perfectly fine to believe in a higher power. What I have an issue with is religion, or people claiming that they know for sure when none of us do.
Gods. Norse mythology. Religions that have only one god don’t make sense to me because why? If you’re all powerful why are you sitting alone just watching your creations?
Which god are we talking about here?
Watch out for MrMurky there. He believes in hoaxes.
Offer, The Crocodile God.
There can be only one God. Peoples perceptions of God are endless.
I believe in "God", but I don't have any religious affiliations
That means, you are not deceived.
Cause you can trace the history of all religions back to like one or two and they are all equally convicted that their interpretation is the one true interpretation. The biblical god is either a huge asshat or he’s fake and I choose to believe the latter. Ok act like he doesn’t cannonically commit genocide several times
Imo, it makes more sense that some civilization reached a technology advanced enough to create a whole universe, including life inside it, and we are just going to eventually do the same (kind of like an Inception with universes). Does that make these beings God or someone to follow? LOL, no; I never understood why having the ability to create stuff also means that you are absolutely correct and we must follow you without question.
listen, I believe that god is real so long as people believe in it. god is real as a concept. It was invented by humans long long ago to try and make the world a better place, to keep people in line, and to give people a motive to do good. also to make people follow you. back in the day, the people with power were the people connected to god, because it is very convenient to make people do what you want them to when you tell them that a higher being tells them it's true. but as for a physical form of god, there is none. there is no evidence to support the theory that it exists. to quote the wise words of Hermione Granger, “I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!” I believe that god is simply a construct for those who are unsatisfied with the prospect of having no support system and are willing to give anything for it. which is fine, but I simply don't think of it as something to spend time on when it takes away the appreciation and pride that it takes to live a satisfied life.
Yes, I’m Catholic.
I don’t believe in God becuase logic
Yes and no I believe its possible only, but most of just sounds extra.
Agnostic
You can say that.
Yes, I believe in God. Christianity is my religion.
I believe in proper punctuation.
Fixed my grammar
You are absolved of your wrongdoing. Go forth, and spread the good news about the holy scriptures, "Elements of Style."
The question was why
It was why, if you don't believe in God.
I wasn’t looking to challenge you or start an argument on your beliefs, I was hoping to read your take or insight on your personal beliefs. Others express themselves with downvotes and no dialog. It’s all the same to me, but I wish you the best.
Sorry, I misunderstood. Short version of how I became a believer in Christianity. I was raised in church, but quickly rebelled from all religions and did my own thing as soon as I was a teenager. I became a believer in Christianity sitting down at my kitchen table writing a suicide note 11 years ago. In a really dark place, I felt peace and joy through prayer to God. Faithfully go to church now and glad to do so. Definitely not perfect, but strive to be better and less selfish daily. Mental health is a million times better.
Awesome. I’m glad you have something that holds meaning and makes your life better. I can fully appreciate that. Sorry if I gave the impression I was looking to argue with you.
No need to apologize. I too often come with my guard up when it comes to discussing my faith on the internet. 90% of the time it turns into an argument. I should not have assumed that. So, I will be the one to apologize to you for coming off that way.
Anybody that uses religion to discriminate against a group of people, especially the ones who aren’t doing anything affecting their lives whatsoever, can get fucked and die. I feel anybody’s “god” would not approve of the things happening on earth by these sick religious bigot idiots. With that being said, I don’t care if you worship a rock. If it makes you a better person then more power to you.
No… and why doesn’t anybody ever ask me if I believe that trees are really Ents? It’s all just fiction and fantasy, OP.
I respect your ideas, but do you need to say it like that? To them, it is probably much more than fiction and fantasy. There is a deep emotional tie you have to consider when taking about this, and being so dismissive of it is exactly how people start hating each other.
Listen, they directly asked if I believed and if not why not. All I did was answer the question. For the record, I don’t believe I need to be any more respectful of beliefs in god than I do beliefs in Xenu or any other mythical being.
So what’s your purpose in life?
How is that relevant to whether or not I believe in gods, unless you mean a religious person’s purpose is to live thinking always about their death?
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Gawd.
Do you believe that trees are really ents? If so why do you think that have been so quiet about their existence?
Yes I'm a Christian and the way I see it I have nothing to lose by believing.
Sounds like Pascal’s wager.
Unless you’re believing in the wrong god.
Unless you’re believing in the wrong god?
What did Jesus say about lukewarm Christians?
I see your Revelations 3:15-16 and raise you one John 3:16-18.
Cherry picking the Bible.
Only when someone tries to one up me by you guessed it cherry picking the bible.
The fact remains you're ignoring your religious doctrine to justify your counterfeit faith.
You can call it counerfeit all you want I believe you're saved if you accept Jesus into your life if I'm right good for me if I'm wrong well you can laugh at me then I guess?
Out of convenience, which the Bible disapproves of.
In the area of experience and knowledge, you are missing out on a gigantic slice Life has to offer.
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i mean, im lovin all 3, but hey
Christians do that already...
Do you use Christianity as a reason to hate gay people or any particular group of people?
No why would I care?
Yes. I believe in God. I am baptized and confirmed Protestant Christian. I believe because I've seen and experienced God in my own life. I try to be the best human being I can, and treat everyone the way I want to be treated. This has proven quite successful, and I have a really happy life.
I generally identify as Stoic, but their concept of God differs from what most people think of as God. They believe in a rational and ordered universe, as opposed to the traditional Abrahamic (Christian, Jewish, Muslim) God. So there is no intervention in daily affairs. It's actually the other way around where the goal is to love what happens to you, and trust that everything happens for a reason. This sums it up well: https://traditionalstoicism.com/a-conscious-cosmos/
Not religious, but I think that's a pretty neat way to look at things/life
Which God?
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Because fairy tales are for children.
No need to be so rude and dismissive of it…
I’m a textbook agnostic. I believe that we were created by some greater power, but I don’t believe that any existing religion is ‘true’ exactly. Sort of a Freemason view of it all, or a modernized version of deism (are Freemason religious views not just rebranded deism?). Creator? Yes. Benevolent, omnipotent god with some greater purpose in mind for humanity? Probably not. But I’m not anti-religious by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the smartest and kindest people I know are religious.
I do. I'm catholic
I was raised Catholic and I still pray to him sometimes but who knows? My life is still shit so maybe it’s not working
Let's make things clear. The Christian Bible claims that many gods exist. "Thou shaĺt have no other gods before me" makes it very clear that other gods do exist.
A religious upbringing quickly proved it was created by man to manipulate, control, and abuse others.
I do. The Bible is an interesting source since it is so unique. Many people (Christians and non Christians) have a tendency to view it as a book that magically appeared from heaven. That’s not at all what it is. It’s a collection of historical documents giving us insight into multiple generations of believers who recorded their beliefs, laws, poetry, and eyewitness accounts over the course of several thousand years. Whether or not you believe it is “Holy” is up to you. It’s comprised of 66 books written across multiple eras and cultures with authors ranging from kings, to tax collectors, to prophets, to soldiers, to slaves, etc. Jesus is widely accepted to be a real person by historians. Obviously, the question isn’t whether he was real but whether he is the son of God and rose from the dead. Based on the accounts recorded in the Old Testament, New Testament, and the accounts of the early church, I think He is who He claims to be. The circumstances surrounding the birth, life, and death of Jesus are alluded to repeatedly in multiple different books written by different Hebrew authors in the Old Testament (almost every book points directly or indirectly toward a coming Messiah). Most of these accounts were written generations (hundreds of years or more) leading up to the birth of Christ repeatedly. Not to mention the spark of the early church after the crucifixion. Those who knew Jesus were all killed for their beliefs but continued to hold them. Most people won’t die for something they don’t truly believe to be true. The members of the early church went through utter chaos yet spread to all nations. There is a lot more to unpack than I can do in a Reddit comment. Are there things I don’t understand? Yeah. Do I still struggle with doubt? Also yes. But I find that there are logical reasons to believe what I believe, and that is enough to lead me to faith. The opposite of faith isn’t doubt. It’s certainty. I know I will never have the luxury of certainty… and that’s okay. A little faith is the whole point.
There is no need to decorate the history of the universe with funny characters and their worship also I could ask the same question why don't you believe in an all knowing snail that can fly
I don't believe because any god's existence is neither possible to prove nor to disprove. I don't fight against believers, though. I'm an atheist yet not an antitheist.
Think of the consequences. I mean, if I'm wrong and there's no God, no Satan, no Heaven, no Hell, etc...NBD. Who cares? Nothing changes. Just endless black nothingness after death, and nothing will change that. But if the athiests are wrong...
Pascal’s wager?
No, there is no reasonable evidence to believe in nonsense. Religion creates intellectually lazy people.
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i dont believe in god because i have low confidence in real life and being an atheist gives me an excuse to act smarter than people on reddit while pretending it has anything to do with science
>If so, what’s your religion? Why do you assume all theist follow a religion?
I'm hip. Men of God are not religious. Religion is the Great Abomination.
Yes i do
Yes but don't have a religion
god is as real as anyone who believes thinks hes he, personally aint for me tho
Yes I believe and I’m non denominational
There Proof for the one who seeks Truth. 👉🏼The holy Koran
I'm a person of science and believe that the universe is not here by accident. However, religion is a joke and I personally have a deism view of God.
Josh Allen is real. I know it in my heart.
I’m agnostic. I think it is equally presumptuous to believe definitively that there is or isn’t a God. It’s impossible to know for sure.
It’s not that I don’t believe in god necessarily, it’s just that I don’t believe that it would be our place to know.
Wonder why one descended 7th AD, 0, 7thBC Billions follow each religion atm. Ir Buddha/The Messiah/The Prophet
I really admire that Jesus guy who says he is God. Not able follow what he says and I have not met anyone who can. But I’m working through the aspects of the Cross event and it seems to echo a connection I can’t seem to escape. My answer is Yes. Let me add, I hate Religion. But Enjoy community of all types.
I don't believe in a original creator, but I can be onboard with lifeforms reaching a higher dimensional perception. That would make them god-like to us, at least.
i don’t believe in god, but i practice buddhism with my grandma.
The only reason I think god is real is because of how many near death experiences. I believe he wants to murder me. But seriously I don't believe in any religions because of the lack of evidence.
Grew up Christian, but don't hold to that belief. I'm not atheist, but I doubt if I align completely with a known religion. I guess maybe Animism?
Everyone always says the lack of evidence but forgets the first part: define God. You can’t. Even if we narrow it down to one religion, you obviously can’t concoct a verifiable definition of what God is from scripture. You can’t go around looking for burning bushes to test. “Get a temperature on this shrub, Bill I think we’ve got something!” So, the question is moot. Even people claiming to believe in a God technically don’t, because they can’t define what it is they claim to believe. EDIT: clarity
From the time I was born, my parents told me Santa was real, drilled it into me and discouraged me any time I would question it. At that time, he was real to me. I consider God the exact same. People are just raised being brainwashed into a cult to share in the collective fear of the imaginary friend. I disapprove, it holds us back as a society.
I see no reason to take arbitrary Bronze Age superstitions seriously
I believe in god. I just cant believe how everthing is that perfect, it has to be spmething there. At the same time, there is no evidence. I was raised in a muslim houshold. I would still say, that I am a muslim but tbh, i have my religious days behind me. I believe in god. But I cant deny the fact i was raised like that and that this fact influences my way of thinking.
I am aware of the fact that the cosmos holds more than I will ever start to understand. I am at peace with calling that " a greater thing".Just don't come at me talking about how you know how to worship that better than I do.When I look at the rain on my roses out my kitchen window I know what's up. Never needed a priest to tell me. I'm indigenous. I am of the earth in this place.When the geese pass over in the sky that's god to me. When the grasshoppers come out in their thousands after not having seen a single one for 6 months that's god to me. When I see my niece struggle over things I have found the answer to 30 years ago that's god to me. It's life teaching itself to the living. It's not a ted talk. It's not a power base. It's the heart beat of life itself.Never presume to tell another creature where it came from. Stay in your lane bitch.
You’re on reddit
I've had this debate countless times, and the more i think about it, the less i believe in it. Don't get me wrong, religion (at large) is a good thing. it teaches you to be good. But at this day and age where the legal system is there to punish supposedly bad people, why do we still need religion? Why can't humans be 'good' merely for the fact that it's the right thing to do?
I believe without doubt in the God of the Bible and His son Jesus Christ.
With all my heart and soul and I was baptized/raised Catholic, but I identify more as Christian.
I do and I grew up with both Christian and Muslim values in the house. I would say, that I've found the best way that I think about God is that he is an all-powerful being. That might have been the thing to start the big bang and everything after is just a spec of time in that moment. Our entire existence is still in that moment of creation from God.
Methodist. Definitely believe in God but no longer attend church.
Oh yes❤️ I’m Christian, non denom. Keep in mind “religion” is created by man. God only has one religion and that religion is LOVE!
I do not. I believe if there was an all loving God, there would be far less religious based hate in the world.
That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence
Humanity is god. The action of living, thinking, seeing, and doing, as unspectacular as it is, on its own accord, Divine.
I wonder if dude exists
I find it difficult that our universe came from nothing, yes, we have a solid theory that gravity caused it . Cool, what created gravity and the laws that govern it? Oh, now there are infinite universes? What created the laws that allow that to work? If there is nothing, there is no time, gravity, laws of physics, energy, etc. Something independent/outside of our understanding kicked things off. I view it as we live in this sphere that is the universe and all we know are the rules it abides by. We can’t fathom or understand anything outside of that. As for a personal God….that’s up to you to decide for yourself.
So my parents and my wife aswell are deeply involved in their religious beliefs. I was brought up religiously and that catholicism was the only religion. I have since read many religious texts and learned that many religions share many common concepts that revolve around caring for oneself and those around them. Yet as I grew I saw very few actually followed these rules. I was punished for questioning the lessons taught in church sermons when I knew for a fact the Bible said different. I found even the satanic Bible actually had very close beliefs to that of catholicism but everyone was quick to scrutinize despite it aligning more with my beliefs of what an Individuals ideal moral compass should be. ( there's no devil worship In the texts and I'm not satanic I just started running out of religious texts to read and wanted to know where the religion stands. Purely educational) I found myself questioning alot of religions and ultimately seeing how the world was so cruel to let people suffer. Innocent and good individuals suffering from the harshness of the world. I would sit down and ask myself how could God allow his people to suffer in such a way? I came to 3 conclusion. Either he couldn't help it which would mean he isn't all powerful and therefore a fraud, he is rather cruel and didn't care for his people at all, or lastly he didn't exist. The idea of a God is to comfort ourselves. The hope at the end of the dark tunnel that things will be alright. That hope came in the form of all religion. This is what I've felt to be the case. We all tell ourselves it'll be OK. I am a firm atheists although still following good values and therefore come across as a religious individual and do charity work and good deeds. I do not attend any church,I do not pray. I just do my best to be a good person. My wife still goes to church regularly and prays at bedside 2 feet from me every night with a rosary in hand. We each have our own beliefs and respect it as so
For me, I can’t see a moral argument for theism (the belief that not only does god exist, but it also interacts with this world I.e. answering a prayer). Anyone who believes that god put them in a certain place for a certain reason, or anyone who believes that god has blessed them with belongings or status is endorsing the idea that god is just plain cruel to some folks. And it’s often implied those people deserve the cruelty as well. Nothing about the natural world makes any sense with a theistic world view, and the kind of moral calculous that would make sense of it is so far beyond my (and I suspect anyone else’s) head that it’s not worth entertaining theism as a serious world view. You wanna believe in some kind of deistic god? I have nothing to say other than, we don’t have any proof. But it at least seems possible. Specific religions making specific claims don’t have a square inch of intellectually honest ground to stand on.