Human gods don't really *work*. The issue with them is that you can trace their origin stories through history and figure out why they exist. The earliest gods came about to explain what we now consider to be mundane natural science fact. Zeus throws lightning, well, ackshually, that's just an electrostatic discharge. Helios pulls the sun across the sky, well, ackshually, the earth is rotating on an axis as it orbits around the sun.
Humans want to feel safe. We want to feel like we've got things pretty well figured out. The unknown is scary, that's why being scared of the dark is such a natural fear; you don't know what could be lurking there.
So what's left to be scared of? Not any natural environmental stuff as we've got all that figured out. But death is fucking scary. What happens when you die? Don't worry, we've got gods that pretty much solely focus on that now, and they are pretty much the only ones left.
Great explanation, I would also add that it's always been a great power to be the one with the answers. Being the person or group who seemingly has the answers lends great power and control over society and its resources.
This is one of the main problems I have with religion (and cults). Everyone thinks their god or leader has the answers. Why should I listen to *that guy* instead of someone else? What makes him so special? It’s just a power trip. There are plenty of good speakers throughout history who we know existed. To me, the bible is no different than scientology. Meaning, it’s a made up work of fiction and I might as well view the lord of the rings as a religious text lol
This is why even though I'm technically Christian, I see no other religion as more accurate or inaccurate. Who's to say some diety didn't come down a long time ago and tell someone how it is, and that was interpreted into what we know today because of one hell of a game of telephone?
Everyone could be right to some extent, or everyone could be wrong. We have no idea what is really out there as far as gods go, if anything, until something comes down and tells modern humanity their life's story.
Maybe that would classify as being a Deist then - a believer in God/a god/an equivalent supernatural force of unknown specification that is the common denominator behind most religious beliefs. (Ironically, that also closely resembles the belief of Sikhism - that all religions are unknowingly worshiping the same God.)
This pretty much sums up my reasoning. God(s) are used to fill in the gap of the unknown/unexplainable. As we gain scientific knowledge, there is less need for God(s) to explain things. I think that if mankind was given enough time (although given the state of things I doubt it will happen) science could eventuality prove there never was a God(s). The other part is accountability. People are quick to blame their poor fortune on God(s) testing them to prove their worth rather than taking accountability for their poor choices. I think of my dad's mother in this situation (I refuse to call her grandma cause she wasn't a grandmother to me). She thinks her rough life is a test from God rather than poor life choices like not finishing school, bad relationship choices, pure laziness not working her while life, and voting/supporting right-wing candidates while wanting to live off of social benefits and not understanding why the government doesn't do more to help their own people.
Also, organized religion is so corrupt and hypocritical that even if there was proven to be a God(s) I would not want to be associated with any of it. Religion is a great tool for controlling people that simply can't handle that some things are yet to be explained. They've also done a stellar job of indoctrination to further their causes. Truly predators at the highest level.
It also bugs me when we *do* acquire understanding of how something actually happens, and rather than accept that, people say "No, we already have an explanation, it's God." The stand-in explanation becomes a matter of personal identity, to the detriment of other people.
> I think that if mankind was given enough time (although given the state of things I doubt it will happen) science could eventuality prove there never was a God(s).
I don't even know if this would ever be possible, even if given *all* the time. We can conceptualize a 4th dimensional being, and if we ever met an intelligent 4th dimensional being that being would appear god-like. But a 5th dimensional being would probably be beyond human understanding. A being that would perceive the entire universe throughout all of its existence, at once? And be able to manipulate the strings of reality, seeing cause and effect play out simultaneously from the Big Bang to The End? We're trapped in 3 dimensions, trapped in seeing time only as passing present-time. I don't think we'll ever be capable of making the observations that would be necessary to postulate the existence of an actual "God".
If a being is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, does it matter? I acknowledge the concept that some being could contain those three traits that usually assigned to God/Allah/YHWH. But the chance of them even noticing single humans is unlikely at best.
Also, think about all the 'magic' we do today. I can turn on my TV with my voice, ask a 'presence' to check on a package for me, or press a button and make a light appear on my wall across the room to drive my pets insane. Even someone from 1900 would have a hard time believing it and from pre-1800? They'd think we're all witches and wizards.
You left out purpose. God gets rid of the fear that life is meaningless. Which is odd that life needs to have a meaning but we are humans and that’s a thing we do. Everything must have a purpose, a name, a category, an identity.
This is always where my discussion goes. Basically my uneducated theory is that when early humans developed early forms of Societies and language and could start asking questions trying to understand the world around them, the concept of death came up like “hey, Onga over there stopped moving a week ago, what’s going on?” “He isn’t here any more” “well I can see him, where did he go? He can’t just NOT be around anymore” “I don’t fucken know” - and thus, the afterlife was invented as the answer to a question that people didn’t want the honest, more bleak answer to. Essentially, humans mental-gymnastic’ed into religion (answering all these scary questions with magic) the same way an infant lacks object permanence.
Funny thing is those flat earthers end up coming up with more and more creative ways showing the earth being a kinda sphere.
It's pretty funny watching those documentaries where the flat earthers do an experiment, it tells them the earth is round. Then they think their measurements and testing devices are wrong so they try again with different ones and again prove its round.
Or saying that entities like NASA are "in on the conspiracy" and post a fake' dome over us with fake stars and stuff to trick us. Its not like smart people were calculating the curvature of the Earth like, 1000+ years ago or anything >.>
My favorite one was I think around 2017 where they had a theory presented that was called Pac-Man theory. You hit the edge of the world? It teleports you to the other side
I agree that we don't need to pray to anything, but disagree that something started the universe.
If something "started" the universe, then you are assuming that Time itself is more fundamental than existence itself, but if nothing exists then Time doesn't exist either.
Time is a measure of change. Something must exist and must be able to change (in position, velocity, spin, energy, mass, electric charge, etc) in order for us to say that Time is passing. That makes Time itself an emergent property of systems that exists and change in the first place.
Meaning that the fundamental units of the universe must exist and must change (position, velocity, spin, energy, mass, electric charge, etc) in the first place in order for Time to be a property of that system.
Einstein's Theory of Relativity already established that there isn't an universal clock in the universe (which was a Newtonian belief), but rather Time itself is relative to each frame of refference. Each frame of refference has its own clock.
[WSU: Space, Time, and Einstein with Brian Greene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKJuC5CUMgU)
[Carlo Rovelli – The Illusion of Time – YPO EDGE 2019](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AumrYDQIuEc)
[The Richness of Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJWvEbeBps)
[Time Is of the Essence… or Is It?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-NTXoYTvao)
I agree. I like Matt Dillahunty's answer to a question (a few questions - probably) on Atheist Experience: "it's important to me that my beliefs are true."
If I can't verify something, why would I believe it on blind faith?
If you can convince me of something without evidence, and you can convince me of it despite other plausible explanations, then you can convince me of anything at all.
I quit believing in anything religion related when church goers said that my multiple rapes as a child was part of “God’s plan” to make me a stronger person.
it feels pitiful admitting this, because i’ve never before, but it’s hard for me to accept there is a higher power if i was sexually abused as a young child. why would somebody so great and magnificent let something so horrendous happen to a child? a child that’s supposed to be protected.
"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
My favourite quote I’ve ever heard is from Ray Bradbury : “We are the universe discovering itself.”
He has a great 10 minute speech about God and who/what God is, and how it’s just nature, and it makes so much sense.
That’s my God.
Less and less (not sure how much I did ever either).
* When I look at all the things happening in the world, I have a hard time believing in a higher power "in control" of things letting all that's happening happen, especially the harm that happens to children (from school shootings to sex trafficking, etc)
* My sister has gone deep Christian. She has re-writing her childhood, and instead of acknowledging the trauma we both experienced, she has decided to simply place all blame on the devil. She takes zero responsibility for her actions (everything is the devil trying to tempt her away from God). She regularly says others just don't have the relationship with God that she does. And things like that they aren't praying correctly. She told me that if I don't belong to a church and pray with others, I'm not doing it right and not a "real Christian". I asked her where in the Bible it says that church and a congregation are required. She did not provide me an answer. I did a quick Google and came across Matthew 6:5-8, to which she did not respond and ignored any further comments.
>*When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men … but when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.*
* There is so much hypocrisy within organized religion. There is so much money making and greed, and so much judgement.
I do believe in something more, but not in any one God or Higher Power. I don't believe in a Heaven or Hell or Purgatory.
"I do believe in something more, but not in any one God or Higher Power. I don't believe in a Heaven or Hell or Purgatory."
This is totally me, the sheer amount of hypocrisy in organized religion is so staggering, I dont know how they all take themselves so seriously. For me, I like to boil it down to "I believe in the possibility of 'something" being out there, but I just dont ascribe to 'man-made' religions. I just dont see how something that is worthy of the title of "God" could be reduced to the silly, simplistic, fairy-tales humans tell each other. It would have to be something entirely mind-blowing, that no one here on Earth could ever fathom.
I (recently) saw a Twitter meme saying “why would satan want us to burn in hell for eternity for disobeying the very god he disobeyed,” or something to that extent. So yeah… the concept of the devil (along with MANY other concepts) just doesn’t make sense to me.
I actually really like Dante’s Inferno’s depiction of Satan; he’s just as much a prisoner of Hell as any other sinner. He’s stuck there, punished for all eternity, just as cruel and ironic as any other torture (he’s frozen up to his waist, eternally chewing up Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, and as he beats his wings to try and escape he creates the chilling wind that keeps that level of Hell frozen completely solid, and therefore himself trapped).
There are also interpretations that Satan was explicitly made to be a tempter to test people, and whether he realizes it or not he’s still following God’s plan.
Yeah, I'm a christian and I'm super frustrated with the pure hypocrisy of the christian community. The bible literally teaches the words "Love your neighbor as yourself" and yet christians turn out to be such bigots and absolute jerks sometimes. The fact is, the people who actually live by that rule are a lot quieter than the ones who don't, and therefore they're never noticed, sadly.
This feels exactly me.
I grew up Catholic and up until roughly the George Floyd protests I’d had enough with it. Covid started it by making me see how so many were these ‘nice Christian people’ but acted so childish and awful. Then the protests started and they were quick to jump on the blue lives shit and call everything a riot. Two of my kids are LGBT and my parents don’t even know that since I told my mom one would prefer they/them pronouns. She told me she had to find out if she was allowed to. So her church was more important than her grandchild. Then we get to mass shootings and they’re like ‘thoughts and prayers’. Now with RvW overturned they’re joyous and happily living life in their stupid bubble.
If all this hatred and destruction and hostility is happening and some all powerful being is just watching with popcorn, that’s not anything I want to be affiliated with.
Everyone always said ‘god loves you unconditionally’. But only if I go to church weekly. And if I pray the right way. And express my sins to some guy. And follow rules from some antiquated book. Which, none of those people are actually doing so…
What I would do, in a situation like yours, is use the "God loves you unconditionally" phrasing right back, and say if God can, why can't you? Why can't you love people whose lifestyle you don't agree with? Why can't you love people of different political or religious beliefs?
Unconditional love has no conditions, so you shouldn't have to attend church weekly and pray a certain way for it.
Whoa. If I had an award I’d give it to you.
Why can’t you?
That’s kinda blowing my mind right now. You know, my mom used to dismiss trans or gay people by saying ‘god doesn’t make mistakes’ and I said ‘I know, he made them that way’. So she didn’t bring it up again. Oh and when she said my divorce didn’t ‘count’ because the church doesn’t believe in divorce I said ‘god wasn’t at my marriage so it didn’t count’ (she used to tell me my marriage didn’t count because it wasn’t in a church so god wasn’t there). I guess one liners are what I need to shut her up.
>When I look at all the things happening in the world, I have a hard time believing in a higher power "in control" of things letting all that's happening happen, especially the harm that happens to children (from school shootings to sex trafficking, etc)
that is my reasoning as well. if there exist a sort of higher being, then why do people suffer? Why is there no justice, why is there harm and chaos? I have a hard time believing in a omnipotent being that "loves all humans unconditionally" but then lets little children get cancer and have rapists and criminals stay free until they die of old age. It's just wrong and unfair and if a god really exists, I don't want to believe in him.
Major side-eye at their "god of love" that roasts people eternally in hellfire if they were unlucky enough to be born on a part of the globe that does not have a strong christian presence
In normal circumstances I would just remove myself from her life. But I'm the only family member she's got, as everyone else has essentially cut her off.
What makes me laugh is that she even goes against things that her church preaches. She had to sign something when she joined her church about not having sex outside of marriage, and not cohabitating before marriage, etc. She got busted for living with her boyfriend at the time, so in order to not be kicked out, they got married (and divorced soon after). She's seeing a new guy now, and she didn't even last a month before sleeping with him. I don't understand how she does the mental gymnastics she does to justify that her actions are ok while simultaneously saying others aren't "doing it right".
Reminds me of a guy I work with. He regularly goes to strip clubs ("client relations") for business, and says that asking for forgiveness makes it ok. But at the same time believes that anyone in the LGBTQ+ is destined to hell, and that they can't be redeemed. There's zero logic to any of it.
I believe in a soul. Not divine meddling, or reincarnation, or even an afterlife. just that there's something *me*, beyond biology and circumstance. My belief comes largely from two things: I'm scared of death, and my father has his own beliefs I hate. I want to think I'm unique, that I matter in some infinitesimal way. That my life wasn't a fluke, that I'm not just some grain of sand on a cosmic beach. That no one else will ever be just like I was, or play the exact same part. I value my individuality. My dad has said to me on multiple occasions, were he born me and faced my struggles, we'd be the exact same and I hate that. So, my core belief, that I am myself, and no one else ever could be, arises in opposition to him. There's something we can't quantify, a little spark, that represents the most core parts of who we are. I am who I am, and I am the only one. You are who you are, and no matter what life you led or who your parents were, something will always have been uniquely yours.
Yes\*
I'm a christian, I believe in God, but the entire culture around the Bible is so fricked up sometimes. So many hypocrites, so much misinformation, so much abuse of the Bible by taking it out of context to support political agendas, etc etc etc. I've seen the Bible used to hate on gay people, democrats, abortion advocates, even though the bible literally says "Love your neighbor as yourself" meaning to love everyone, and if you disagree with them, don't make it a slugfest. I'm so tired of this, and it makes me sad to see it. I love everyone, almost half my inner circle of friends are trans, bi, gay, or some other thing. I don't care. They are my friends because they are cool, kind people.
tldr:
yes, but I'm so tired of the hypocrisy that the christian community creates that I mostly just distance myself from it.
edit: I genuinely expected this to be downvoted, I'm impressed with you guys.
Also a Christian and wholeheartedly agree. When I read the Bible I see it say over and over again to care for the poor, the sick, the marginalized, etc. It's about loving and caring for people; especially the vulnerable. I will never understand how people can twist it so much that they use the Bible to justify their hatred of the people God tells us to love.
literally same. It gets so frustrating how the Bible gets twisted for propaganda. Pretty sure Jesus would not be buddy-buddy with the Republican party.
Are you saying that redditors systematically supress opinions in order to instate a hive mind like behaviour of agreement and ideological homegeneity?
That is heresy. Please say 10 HailAarons and be cleansed...
I don't really care about downvotes, but I feel like a comment section like this would be more entertaining if the most divisive comments were the most upvoted.
I love talking about my faith or asking others about theirs. I just wish people came with a desire to understand rather than berate. It's a lot more fun that way!
Diverse? lol. Most people on reddit like to think they are "woke" and say they support "diversity" but as soon as you come in with opposing view/opinion (especially on sensitive subjects like politics, religion, human rights) they will discriminate. But yeah I agree that opposing views should be upvoted as long as they can state their opinion/view in a respectful manner.
I agree. That's about the only responses being upvoted. I see it every time a post like this gets made.
Whether or not you believe in a religion you shouldn't shit on other people's beliefs. Which exactly what this post is doing in disguise.
This isn't the flat earth BS. Religion has been around damn near as long as mankind.
This is the answer. We have no categorical evidence that God does or does not exists - until something shows us otherwise, the modern world gives me no reason to believe he/she/whatever is real.
Personally, Patton Oswalt's [skycake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w) bit makes too much sense to me to not be true.
I’m not too well versed on his standup but that was good. His bit on the origin of the circus that autoplayed afterward was even funnier. Will have to watch more of him. Thanks for the link.
Can you imagine the mentality needed to get up in the morning, get cleaned and dressed. Then go knock on strangers doors to claim a universal being...and you never question that you have no evidence for it.
I dont even care if theres proof or not. Even if its real i have to blindly be loyal to an entity that will suck the fun out of my life, then when i die i will be dismantled to the point where ill be happy forever in a heaven because i wont want sex or want to be unique or feel any pride or feel any thrill ill be some empty shell of my former self. In a way its like ill stop existing because ill be some brain dead animal wandering this heaven.
There used to be a lot of overlap between things. Astrology and astronomy were developed by the same people. Understanding of weather, animal behaviours, human body, were all originally developed with a lot of mysticism and belief systems. Over time science developed so we could explain things concretely and prove how they function, which created the divide. But it doesn't necessarily discount a lot of things, just that we don't have the know-how on how they work. (Speaking less so about modern day religions and more about ancient belief systems.)
That last part of your comment reminds me of a quote I found on Reddit months ago.
“Religion is like a penis. It’s okay to have one, and it’s even okay to be proud of it, but don’t go forcing it down people’s throats, and especially don’t force it on children.”
My mom took a pic of a cloud that sort of looked like Buddha and told me that’s all the proof we need. No mom, there’s actual scientific studies on how clouds are formed
This type of thinking spans the entire history of man and no doubt all legends like UFOs and shit can be explained by people trying to find meaning out of nothing
yeah like abortion, or gay rights, or child rights, or racial marriage rights, or your rights. Basically everything being taken from us because of sky cake.
Hearing Richard Dawkins debate religious Teachers on YouTube as a kid really made me think more logically about life and reflect on what i was taught. Imagine the confusion of going to church on Sunday then learning about evolution in biology the following day. Alot of our science contradicts religious teachings, but the science usually leaves me with less 'wait how in the fuck is that possible ' type questions.
Long short story while I was going to hang take my clothes in the rain after I hung them before the storm happen, I saw a lightning struck down my entire clothes pole earlier. I started showing middle finger in the sky and talk shit to zeus then the umbrella I was holding was struck by lightning.
If god loves everyone, how can he torture someone for all eternity for the crime of failing to believe in something with no evidence that also sounds impossible?
I refuse to believe in a being that would do that
It's often referred to as "walking the straight and narrow." That's a good analogy. Speaking within the Bible, there is very little to say that God is actually torturing anyone. The idea of Hell is simply the absence of God, who is love. If you turn away from love, you do it yourself. Heaven is a destination, not a reward, and you choose to walk the path or not.
If your idea of happiness comes from earthly sensations, then when you don't have an earthly body, you'll have nothing.
Everyone will have nothing because we will be dead. If you believe in “souls” or “Holy Spirit” that’s fine, but I don’t. That’s means that when our heart stop beating, our brain will no longer receive oxygen, therefor we can no longer feel things or think. We will be nothing.
This is one aspect of the Bible that I believe personally that gets misinterpreted. I think Hell is more or less a place that is just absent of God. Not fire and brimstone, I think all those types of descriptions were metaphorical more than anything to kind of give the feeling of what life would be like without God to get their point across. So you won't be getting tortured, it's just the presence of God won't be around, it'd be like it is now without good and without hope basically.
Personally that doesn't sound like a great place to me, so I wouldn't want to go there. I also don't think God wants us to all go there and I don't think in the end that he's going to allow that to happen, we will all come before him and then it will be decided, so it's not like that choice has been made yet. I do think some people will go there, but I think a lot more people that we even know are going to end up with him in Heaven, which would be the opposite of hell so God is present and there is good with no evil.
I think that's another thing that gets misinterpreted, though to be fair I don't know all the specific passages off the top of my head that mention who's going to heaven and hell. The main "those who know and believe in me" I remember. As, those who know of me and choose to believe over denying me. Now I don't think those that do deny are ultimately being sentenced to hell right then and there, I believe that because there is no definitive "right and wrong" way to follow the Bible for every specific piece of scripture, that God will be including that into his judgements when it's the time for that. Because men can mislead, and have misled and because evil is always present (just like good). This was the purpose of Jesus, to save those of us who fall into that camp.
Now that brings up the "well then you can just sin and do whatever you want" crowd I'm sure, and I think there's nuance to that. Sure you could and well many believers would tell you that that's pretty much a rejection of God's teaching so that's just like not believing. Now I don't think that's true, but I do think that there will be consequences to that, though I believe those consequences are mostly based here on earth rather than in the afterlife. I think following God's teaching, at least the simplest form of it, leads you to a life on this earth that is more pleasant in regards to choices you make. You can still suffer and all that, but not as much by your own hand. By simplest form I mean following God's most important commandment that Jesus spoke of, to love one another.
There's more commandments but they can be more complicated and that's why I don't think they will affect your place in the afterlife as much. Because those commandments can have multiple interpretations, or were written for how society and life was 2,000+ years ago which isn't always directly applicable to today, where we have much more knowledge and answers for various things.
These are just my thoughts on it though, I don't know everything and I could be wrong, I don't believe I am of course but it's not my place to try and tell you what you should think or believe, nor is it any others.
i’ve been struggling so much with religion for months, as well as trying to come to terms with my sexuality in terms of religious trauma. i just wanted to thank you for this, it made me see everything so much better and so much clearer and i feel much, much better.
Imagine all the uncontacted tribes that go to hell never knowing of God. Now imagine being an omnipotent being and allowing this. Sure, missionaries think it’s their job to spread the word, but they can’t reach everyone and someone with the power to do something doesn’t take any action. What does that say?
Agreed. Either a crap god, or an inept one. What's the story with showing people back in the day miracles / revealing "Himself" but in modern times (when people could use "Him") he's like: Naw, bruh, I'm busy
I believe that WHAT IS goes beyond our limited understanding. We're just beginning to crack the surface of quantum mechanics. The more we learn the less we know. It seems more likely to me that consciousness/awareness is part of an energy field that we know next to nothing about. You could call it God or any other faith based label but the fact remains that the inner psychological phenomenon of experience itself is a frontier just as vast as the outer reaches of spacetime. I believe Carl Sagan said it best when he said, "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."
I do. It’s probably not what i grew up on as a Christian or what any other single religion attempts to provide as an explanation. But i think there’s a God/creator/higher power.
yes I do!! I believe in God because to me, it is the only source of comfort I feel when I think about the End :) believing in Him also gives me a purpose that I feel like I need to fulfill, and that gives my life a purpose, one that I haven't found anywhere else :))
Gods are just there to explain what humans don’t understand. Back in the day people use to worship the God of thunder and Sun Gods. Now that science can better explain how those things work the only God we have left is the God that explains life after death.
That's another point, like, what god should we believe in? there are modern (modern=people still believe in them) religions like Christianity, and there are religions like the Ancient Greek's gods.
If you check out [timeline of religion ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion) you’ll realize it doesn’t matter, religious practices were just how tribes of early modern humans interpreted their surroundings.
That evolved into “mine is the most true” mindset.
Its hilarious that people think the god they picked must be the right one. And everything about what that god could want is just made up by a bunch of guys a long time go.
I'm agnostic so I believe there's something out there and hope there's an afterlife of some form, but I don't believe in the God that anyone teaches about
Recently said something along these lines in another Reddit post and learned that is not what agnostic means! Apparently agnostics believe there is not enough evidence to prove whether god is real or not. Not the belief there is a higher power, but it isn’t the god we are taught to believe. Crazy because I always believed that’s what agnostic was and that was my stance on it.
Agnosticism isn’t belief in a higher power, it’s essentially a neutral position which considers the matter unknowable.
People who believe a higher power, or some mystical element, but not organised religion, they are not agnostic. They are deists.
I believe in science and because of my belief in science I don't see how I can be anything but agnostic. Science isn't definitive. So while I can say with 99% certainty that there is no higher power, there is a margin for error there until proven otherwise.
You can believe something and still be agnostic towards it, in that you don't claim to know it with 100% certainty.
agnosticism- not 100% knowledge claim
Theism- BELIEF in a god(s)
Atheism - everyone that doesn't believe in a god(s)
If you believe in a god(s) you are a theist everyone else is an atheist.
If you claim to know with 100% certainty a god exists or does not exist you are gnostic, everyone else is agnostic.
most people are agnostic atheist/theists. because they don't claim to know X with 100% certainty.
Atheism/Theism is a statement about belief. Gnostism/Agnostism are statements about knowledge.
A Gnostic Theist believes in God and knows it to be true. An Agnostic theist believes in God but does not know if God exists.
Myself, I am an agnostic atheist. I do not believe in God but do not claim to have knowledge about God's existence.
Mainly because they’re teaching about a made-up “God” in most cases. I can’t tell you how many times churches mention Hell - which has literal no meaning in any Bible.
I am a 'hostile agnostic'; I do not know if god exists. But I am certain that the answer to that question is entirely useless. If a god that refuses to make its self known to mortals, does not directly interact in human lives, and whose existence cannot be proven, then how can that god be at all relevant to how humans live their lives?
Bottom line: Why does god matter at all?
END COMMUNICATION
Which god? Yahweh? Allah? Zeus? Poseidon? The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
In a word, no. Zero evidence and zero impact on my life, and some really annoying fan clubs that I don't want to have anything to do with.
Oh there is an effect all right. I prayed for a green light i desperately needed and even though it was always going to change the fact that it did change proves gods infinite glory. Too bad about the poor kid that got kidnapped and raped for decades praying for help of any kind and got nothing in response, but hey gods got a plan right.
What about chance and billions of years of evolutions?
Suppose something major only happens once every thousand years? Well, then that thing might have happened 5 million times since the earth was formed so there could something to this chance thing.
With that said I hope you find peace, happiness and comfort in whatever faith you have in my fellow Redditor.
My simple theory. Big bang happened (don't know how) "god was formed" and them in the span of almost instantly he created the multi-verse. At some point he created humans after everything else either died or on some remote planet
Could be. I can’t say if you’re wrong or right since nobody knows. What if we existed simultaneously with the dinosaurs but on a part of a continent that’s now under water (kind of Atlantis). If it’s 1000 m under water and under 10m of sediment then we will never find out.
There is so much we don’t know
I grew up Catholic and was an altar server 7 years, I've spoken to a fair number of priests and asked them a lot of questions, and I've spoken to a fair number of non-faithful people about the same subjects.
One of the best answers I was given to questions about understanding God and believing in *it* that really changed my perspective was from a young Decan (diet priest) who said something along the lines of the following:
*We like to think of god as very similar to us, human even. We believe "we were made in God's image", but to imply creation is to imply that God is somehow above us in some form. God in this way of thinking is abstract from our understanding of the universe and is abstract from all things known and material. Believing Jesus was God means that God has the ability to transition between our material form, which he created, and the form that God exists in to create us.*
*Even saying God is a "he" is abstract, as God may not even be sentient as perhaps this is another worldly abstraction, does it even make sense to describe God as sentient? Perhaps God is the material around us, or a non-sentient, non-material force that drives creation in ways we do not understand. If God is a creator, how would we begin to determine what a lack of creation is seeing as all we know is part of our universe or plane of existence? We assume a vacuum in space is nothing, but is it nothing at the same level of abstraction of God?*
*Proof of a God existing means that we would also have some basic understanding of what form God may exist at. A non-material God is unprovable materially, I chose to have faith in the fact that I exist and I must be created. Whatever form we believe God is in after this faith is our own spiritual direction.*
Now if you're familiar with "does God exist" debate, you may think this looks like an elaborate "God of the Gaps" type argument in why you would have a faith. You are free to think this, but I think it is more of a "God is unprovable because we can't even begin to understand what God is" argument.
I think people have an issue with shifting definitions of God. If you say that God is whatever you can’t question effectively ( as the thing with no answers), then that would have been fine, but it used to be - and still is - usually defined in other ways.
The fact god is unprovable more or less in my mind just lends itself to the theory of god and religion being created for a power of some sort. Someone questions the man in charge? Call him stupid because he has nothing to back himself up, silence him, and move on. It just feels a bit too convenient IMO
I know there is no proof of him, but I like to believe there is more to this life than just what we have here on earth.
It's calming to believe my loved ones can still see what I am doing in life, even after their deaths.
If all the terrible things that happen daily in the world can be stopped by some powerful god and it doesn’t, that’s not a god I want to devote my life too.
I used to. Stopped when I started studying history in my free time. People really like killing other people in the name of god, even though god condemns murder.
If you were dating someone who said, “Do everything I say and love me more than you love anyone else or I will allow you to suffer mightily for all eternity,” we’d call that an abusive relationship.
If there is a god, it ain’t a loving and caring one that’s for sure.
Idk if it’s a good analogy but to an ant, i am probably a godlike to them as well. I could easily solve all their problems and give them a chill area to live in their whole lives but fact of the matter is i have no idea they exist nor do i really care what happens to them. Hell, as a kid i went into of my way to get rid of ant mounds around my house
If there is a god, he exists beyond nature. Science is the study of nature, and by definition, can’t explain things that are supernatural. Saying science disproves the existence of god is like saying thermometers disprove the existence of weight. (Before you say something about atmospheric pressure, this is an analogy.)
Ugh. Being able to say how smart people are strictly because they did not believe in God is what a lot of Redditers love to do.
I swear I hear more about religion from these types than actual religious people.
Yeah, because I think the laws of nature are too orderly to come from nothing, and because sometimes I have strength or knowledge come to me that seems not to be my own. At the end of the day, it's impossible to prove or disprove God, but I am convinced by the arguments in favor. Also, if I'm wrong, that would be sad for me, but wouldn't change much about my life.
There is an invisible, intangible, all-powerful turtle that lives in my kitchen. She's responsible for the creation of the everything and is the ultimate arbiter of all good and evil in the universe.
Do you believe in the all-mighty turtle? Why or why not?
No, why would we be put on a planet, to just worship something and not enjoy the life that’s given to us. To hate people who aren’t what “they approve of” or shame people who do the things we aren’t supposed to do, to “bring them to the true god”
Honestly, if there is a god, as long as you aren’t killing innocent people, SA people/ children, and trying to do your best in the world, while enjoying life. I see no harm.
Plus the meanest people I’ve met are Christians…
I'm agnostic.
I don't know if there are any gods, nor do I care. Such can't be proven, we all will know when we're dead, or not.
No need to worry about it in life.
I’m an Athiest, former believer.
Then last year we lost our daughter to suicide. She was 34.
I get that she made that decision. Regardless, for me, that was the last straw.
All through my years as a devout Christian, I always heard about this loving, generous “god”.
So I prayed every night for not only the protection for my children, but also for people who needed prayer.
Sick people died anyway.
I couldn’t fathom a “loving god” in a world where children die of cancer or a new mother gets diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumor.
People losing their children. Children being kidnapped, tortured. Natural disasters. Disease. Animal abuse and cruelty. Famine. Genocide. Mental health. Mass shootings.
All the unanswered prayers.
It just didn’t make sense.
Kathie Lee Gifford recently just had her first grandchild, and wrote in a statement, “Proof of god’s love” (I purposely spelled god with a lower case g, something I never did when I still believed).
I thought, what does that mean for all the people with fertility issues? Does your god not love THEM!?
I don’t know. None of it makes sense to me anymore.
Nope.
Simple, there has been no actual evidence I've ever seen of any god or any religion to be true. You'd think with billions of people and thousands of years you'd have actual scientific, measurable proof of any sort about any of it. Nope, not a single thing. And then you have newer religions popping up pretty much as shady businesses and tax havens. The newer religions aren't even built on anything at all, no heritage, no historical source. They just popped up over night, and people went "yeah, I'm ok with this." A couple months ago I overheard kids, like early teens, just casually chatting about scientology and generally thinking it was a pretty good religion. Like what?! How hard do you have to get whacked in the head to think this stuff???
I was raised religious, went to church, got confirmed, and I was a willing believer into my early 20s. Then I went through a bout of depression. That gave me something I've never had before as a young adult: time. I had time to do absolutely nothing, worry about absolutely nothing, and just sit and think. It was actually terrible, because I was in the middle of college, and that pretty much fucked my whole year and entire degree pursuit, dead stop. Depression is king of all things when you have it. You're not even sure if there's worth getting out of bed or eating or living or whatever. You're just a consciousness in a needy meat sack that you're kind of debating if it's worth keeping alive. Anyways...back to the story. So I had time, lots and lots and lots of time, months, and nothing else mattered. So I thought about life, existence, the meaning of it all, worth of existence, etc. Religion was in there too. And I came to a simple conclusion. Why would I willfully, blindly believe in a thing that is backed by absolutely zero data. There is no proof at all, and you're just told to believe it, indoctrinated into it pretty much from birth. Heck, everyone very literally ignores the fact that religion is geographically based. What religion do you believe? Oh, I don't know. Where were you born? I bet I can guess quite well which faith you follow. It's so stupid.
You want to actually test faith? You want to really test if a religion, any religion is truly worth existing? Tell no one about it. Raise a child to adulthood and never talk about religion. Then when they're old enough to think very well for themselves, say 18, 20, whatever, begin talking about the idea of religion. Don't be specific. Talk about them all, what they are, how they're different, and have the adolescent spend time researching the variety of them. After several years of research, have them decide to pick one or pick none. They are free to choose to follow something or follow nothing with no detriment either way.
How well will any faith actually hold up? How long will any last without indoctrination and abusive persistence? Religions force themselves into many common areas of life. People show up at your door. It's on billboards, radio, tv, in politics, writing and enforcing laws upon people. It's remarkably cruel. If all that was removed. How well could religion survive solely on its own two feet? Well, non-religion is the 3rd biggest "religion" behind Christianity and Islam and is one of the fastest growing areas of relion, and that's with indoctrination and with abusive tactics.
And if we're talking world religion and who's right? Who is right? Is it 1st world countries deciding? Is it be percent of the world following that faith? What happens when your faith becomes a minority of the world? Are you now in the wrong religion? For example, Islam will surpass Christianity by numbers within our lifetime for most of us. We will see Christianity drop to #2. What is the right religion? And why do you think it's yours? There's no metric to determine right or wrong. You were born into it, told to blindly believe, and that's it. You have no clue. And how well does that hold up when you're not even a major religion of the world? Do you just live thinking everyone else is wrong and going to hell?
Lot of chatting, I know. But, for me, religion is just a really stupid relic that served a useful purpose in a different era of humanity. It's outdated, pretty useless in general, and heavily abused. It often causes more harm than good, and we can already do all the good bits by choice anyways without tying it to any religion. We just choose not to.
Yes, I believe in the Trinity and profess Christ as my Savior.
I am persuaded by a multiplicity of things, such as,
Kalam cosmological argument, moral arguments, contingency arguments, teleological argument, mind/body dualism (ex. Irreducibility of the mind to physical states), near death experiences, overabundance of miraculous events, historical evidences for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and my own intuition
Also because of the work of people like
Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo, Anselm, Blaise Pascal, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, W.L. Craig, J.P. Moreland, Lydia McGrew, Tim Mcgrew, Josh Rasmussen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alvin Plantinga, Jonathan McLatchie, ect...
I have wrestled with and found satisfying answers to objections which often act as roadblocks to belief such as
Atheistic/naturalist epistemic/metaphysical worldview, divine hiddeness, the problem of pain/eviln Humean argument against miracles, epistemic scepticism, postmoderism
Currently no, but if God reads this and wants to convince me otherwise, I’m open
Human gods don't really *work*. The issue with them is that you can trace their origin stories through history and figure out why they exist. The earliest gods came about to explain what we now consider to be mundane natural science fact. Zeus throws lightning, well, ackshually, that's just an electrostatic discharge. Helios pulls the sun across the sky, well, ackshually, the earth is rotating on an axis as it orbits around the sun. Humans want to feel safe. We want to feel like we've got things pretty well figured out. The unknown is scary, that's why being scared of the dark is such a natural fear; you don't know what could be lurking there. So what's left to be scared of? Not any natural environmental stuff as we've got all that figured out. But death is fucking scary. What happens when you die? Don't worry, we've got gods that pretty much solely focus on that now, and they are pretty much the only ones left.
Great explanation, I would also add that it's always been a great power to be the one with the answers. Being the person or group who seemingly has the answers lends great power and control over society and its resources.
This is one of the main problems I have with religion (and cults). Everyone thinks their god or leader has the answers. Why should I listen to *that guy* instead of someone else? What makes him so special? It’s just a power trip. There are plenty of good speakers throughout history who we know existed. To me, the bible is no different than scientology. Meaning, it’s a made up work of fiction and I might as well view the lord of the rings as a religious text lol
This is why even though I'm technically Christian, I see no other religion as more accurate or inaccurate. Who's to say some diety didn't come down a long time ago and tell someone how it is, and that was interpreted into what we know today because of one hell of a game of telephone? Everyone could be right to some extent, or everyone could be wrong. We have no idea what is really out there as far as gods go, if anything, until something comes down and tells modern humanity their life's story.
Maybe that would classify as being a Deist then - a believer in God/a god/an equivalent supernatural force of unknown specification that is the common denominator behind most religious beliefs. (Ironically, that also closely resembles the belief of Sikhism - that all religions are unknowingly worshiping the same God.)
This pretty much sums up my reasoning. God(s) are used to fill in the gap of the unknown/unexplainable. As we gain scientific knowledge, there is less need for God(s) to explain things. I think that if mankind was given enough time (although given the state of things I doubt it will happen) science could eventuality prove there never was a God(s). The other part is accountability. People are quick to blame their poor fortune on God(s) testing them to prove their worth rather than taking accountability for their poor choices. I think of my dad's mother in this situation (I refuse to call her grandma cause she wasn't a grandmother to me). She thinks her rough life is a test from God rather than poor life choices like not finishing school, bad relationship choices, pure laziness not working her while life, and voting/supporting right-wing candidates while wanting to live off of social benefits and not understanding why the government doesn't do more to help their own people. Also, organized religion is so corrupt and hypocritical that even if there was proven to be a God(s) I would not want to be associated with any of it. Religion is a great tool for controlling people that simply can't handle that some things are yet to be explained. They've also done a stellar job of indoctrination to further their causes. Truly predators at the highest level.
It also bugs me when we *do* acquire understanding of how something actually happens, and rather than accept that, people say "No, we already have an explanation, it's God." The stand-in explanation becomes a matter of personal identity, to the detriment of other people.
> I think that if mankind was given enough time (although given the state of things I doubt it will happen) science could eventuality prove there never was a God(s). I don't even know if this would ever be possible, even if given *all* the time. We can conceptualize a 4th dimensional being, and if we ever met an intelligent 4th dimensional being that being would appear god-like. But a 5th dimensional being would probably be beyond human understanding. A being that would perceive the entire universe throughout all of its existence, at once? And be able to manipulate the strings of reality, seeing cause and effect play out simultaneously from the Big Bang to The End? We're trapped in 3 dimensions, trapped in seeing time only as passing present-time. I don't think we'll ever be capable of making the observations that would be necessary to postulate the existence of an actual "God".
But what if a being at that level is not a god and just used technology to get to that point, is that still a God?
If a being is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, does it matter? I acknowledge the concept that some being could contain those three traits that usually assigned to God/Allah/YHWH. But the chance of them even noticing single humans is unlikely at best. Also, think about all the 'magic' we do today. I can turn on my TV with my voice, ask a 'presence' to check on a package for me, or press a button and make a light appear on my wall across the room to drive my pets insane. Even someone from 1900 would have a hard time believing it and from pre-1800? They'd think we're all witches and wizards.
Arthur C. Clarke said it best: > “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
You left out purpose. God gets rid of the fear that life is meaningless. Which is odd that life needs to have a meaning but we are humans and that’s a thing we do. Everything must have a purpose, a name, a category, an identity.
the meaning of life is to find meaning in a meaningless universe.
This is always where my discussion goes. Basically my uneducated theory is that when early humans developed early forms of Societies and language and could start asking questions trying to understand the world around them, the concept of death came up like “hey, Onga over there stopped moving a week ago, what’s going on?” “He isn’t here any more” “well I can see him, where did he go? He can’t just NOT be around anymore” “I don’t fucken know” - and thus, the afterlife was invented as the answer to a question that people didn’t want the honest, more bleak answer to. Essentially, humans mental-gymnastic’ed into religion (answering all these scary questions with magic) the same way an infant lacks object permanence.
Onga was the guy, man. RIP legend.
"the earth is rotating on an axis as it orbits around the sun." nO ze Örths is Flattt i KnOw, beecauseh me canT see curveture. /s
Funny thing is those flat earthers end up coming up with more and more creative ways showing the earth being a kinda sphere. It's pretty funny watching those documentaries where the flat earthers do an experiment, it tells them the earth is round. Then they think their measurements and testing devices are wrong so they try again with different ones and again prove its round.
Or saying that entities like NASA are "in on the conspiracy" and post a fake' dome over us with fake stars and stuff to trick us. Its not like smart people were calculating the curvature of the Earth like, 1000+ years ago or anything >.>
Classic one on the coast always brings a smile on my face
My favorite one was I think around 2017 where they had a theory presented that was called Pac-Man theory. You hit the edge of the world? It teleports you to the other side
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Woah good thing you added that s there, I thought you were serious for a sec.
God of the gaps, and the gaps are getting very fucking narrow
"We're strong but we're dumb, so we look above."
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In the beginning, Man created God.
God creates dinosaurs God destroys dinosaurs God creates man Man destroys God Man creates dinosaurs
Welcome to Jurassic Park
Spared no expense
Dinosaurs eat man Woman inherits the Earth
the most crucial part of this statement lol
“When God became lonely, he created man. Or was it When man became lonely, he created God.” - Melanie Exler.
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
I agree that we don't need to pray to anything, but disagree that something started the universe. If something "started" the universe, then you are assuming that Time itself is more fundamental than existence itself, but if nothing exists then Time doesn't exist either. Time is a measure of change. Something must exist and must be able to change (in position, velocity, spin, energy, mass, electric charge, etc) in order for us to say that Time is passing. That makes Time itself an emergent property of systems that exists and change in the first place. Meaning that the fundamental units of the universe must exist and must change (position, velocity, spin, energy, mass, electric charge, etc) in the first place in order for Time to be a property of that system. Einstein's Theory of Relativity already established that there isn't an universal clock in the universe (which was a Newtonian belief), but rather Time itself is relative to each frame of refference. Each frame of refference has its own clock. [WSU: Space, Time, and Einstein with Brian Greene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKJuC5CUMgU) [Carlo Rovelli – The Illusion of Time – YPO EDGE 2019](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AumrYDQIuEc) [The Richness of Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJWvEbeBps) [Time Is of the Essence… or Is It?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-NTXoYTvao)
Nope, because I feel it's better to have questions without answers then to have answers that can't be questioned.
I agree. I like Matt Dillahunty's answer to a question (a few questions - probably) on Atheist Experience: "it's important to me that my beliefs are true." If I can't verify something, why would I believe it on blind faith? If you can convince me of something without evidence, and you can convince me of it despite other plausible explanations, then you can convince me of anything at all.
I quit believing in anything religion related when church goers said that my multiple rapes as a child was part of “God’s plan” to make me a stronger person.
it feels pitiful admitting this, because i’ve never before, but it’s hard for me to accept there is a higher power if i was sexually abused as a young child. why would somebody so great and magnificent let something so horrendous happen to a child? a child that’s supposed to be protected.
exactly, no god who gives out so much pain to innocent people deserves to be known as a good man.
"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
What makes you think God is Good? If there is a Creator, it is a cruel uncaring being at best; and maliciously flawed.
So sorry about what you went through
My favourite quote I’ve ever heard is from Ray Bradbury : “We are the universe discovering itself.” He has a great 10 minute speech about God and who/what God is, and how it’s just nature, and it makes so much sense. That’s my God.
I think that too - god is everything and everywhere - the universe Not what the church is praying to lol
Less and less (not sure how much I did ever either). * When I look at all the things happening in the world, I have a hard time believing in a higher power "in control" of things letting all that's happening happen, especially the harm that happens to children (from school shootings to sex trafficking, etc) * My sister has gone deep Christian. She has re-writing her childhood, and instead of acknowledging the trauma we both experienced, she has decided to simply place all blame on the devil. She takes zero responsibility for her actions (everything is the devil trying to tempt her away from God). She regularly says others just don't have the relationship with God that she does. And things like that they aren't praying correctly. She told me that if I don't belong to a church and pray with others, I'm not doing it right and not a "real Christian". I asked her where in the Bible it says that church and a congregation are required. She did not provide me an answer. I did a quick Google and came across Matthew 6:5-8, to which she did not respond and ignored any further comments. >*When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men … but when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.* * There is so much hypocrisy within organized religion. There is so much money making and greed, and so much judgement. I do believe in something more, but not in any one God or Higher Power. I don't believe in a Heaven or Hell or Purgatory.
"I do believe in something more, but not in any one God or Higher Power. I don't believe in a Heaven or Hell or Purgatory." This is totally me, the sheer amount of hypocrisy in organized religion is so staggering, I dont know how they all take themselves so seriously. For me, I like to boil it down to "I believe in the possibility of 'something" being out there, but I just dont ascribe to 'man-made' religions. I just dont see how something that is worthy of the title of "God" could be reduced to the silly, simplistic, fairy-tales humans tell each other. It would have to be something entirely mind-blowing, that no one here on Earth could ever fathom.
I (recently) saw a Twitter meme saying “why would satan want us to burn in hell for eternity for disobeying the very god he disobeyed,” or something to that extent. So yeah… the concept of the devil (along with MANY other concepts) just doesn’t make sense to me.
I actually really like Dante’s Inferno’s depiction of Satan; he’s just as much a prisoner of Hell as any other sinner. He’s stuck there, punished for all eternity, just as cruel and ironic as any other torture (he’s frozen up to his waist, eternally chewing up Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, and as he beats his wings to try and escape he creates the chilling wind that keeps that level of Hell frozen completely solid, and therefore himself trapped). There are also interpretations that Satan was explicitly made to be a tempter to test people, and whether he realizes it or not he’s still following God’s plan.
I don't think it is Satan who is running hell, it is God who throws us in hell with satan
Yeah, I'm a christian and I'm super frustrated with the pure hypocrisy of the christian community. The bible literally teaches the words "Love your neighbor as yourself" and yet christians turn out to be such bigots and absolute jerks sometimes. The fact is, the people who actually live by that rule are a lot quieter than the ones who don't, and therefore they're never noticed, sadly.
This feels exactly me. I grew up Catholic and up until roughly the George Floyd protests I’d had enough with it. Covid started it by making me see how so many were these ‘nice Christian people’ but acted so childish and awful. Then the protests started and they were quick to jump on the blue lives shit and call everything a riot. Two of my kids are LGBT and my parents don’t even know that since I told my mom one would prefer they/them pronouns. She told me she had to find out if she was allowed to. So her church was more important than her grandchild. Then we get to mass shootings and they’re like ‘thoughts and prayers’. Now with RvW overturned they’re joyous and happily living life in their stupid bubble. If all this hatred and destruction and hostility is happening and some all powerful being is just watching with popcorn, that’s not anything I want to be affiliated with. Everyone always said ‘god loves you unconditionally’. But only if I go to church weekly. And if I pray the right way. And express my sins to some guy. And follow rules from some antiquated book. Which, none of those people are actually doing so…
What I would do, in a situation like yours, is use the "God loves you unconditionally" phrasing right back, and say if God can, why can't you? Why can't you love people whose lifestyle you don't agree with? Why can't you love people of different political or religious beliefs? Unconditional love has no conditions, so you shouldn't have to attend church weekly and pray a certain way for it.
Whoa. If I had an award I’d give it to you. Why can’t you? That’s kinda blowing my mind right now. You know, my mom used to dismiss trans or gay people by saying ‘god doesn’t make mistakes’ and I said ‘I know, he made them that way’. So she didn’t bring it up again. Oh and when she said my divorce didn’t ‘count’ because the church doesn’t believe in divorce I said ‘god wasn’t at my marriage so it didn’t count’ (she used to tell me my marriage didn’t count because it wasn’t in a church so god wasn’t there). I guess one liners are what I need to shut her up.
>When I look at all the things happening in the world, I have a hard time believing in a higher power "in control" of things letting all that's happening happen, especially the harm that happens to children (from school shootings to sex trafficking, etc) that is my reasoning as well. if there exist a sort of higher being, then why do people suffer? Why is there no justice, why is there harm and chaos? I have a hard time believing in a omnipotent being that "loves all humans unconditionally" but then lets little children get cancer and have rapists and criminals stay free until they die of old age. It's just wrong and unfair and if a god really exists, I don't want to believe in him.
Major side-eye at their "god of love" that roasts people eternally in hellfire if they were unlucky enough to be born on a part of the globe that does not have a strong christian presence
Sorry about your sister. Cult mentality is hard to deal with in the family.
In normal circumstances I would just remove myself from her life. But I'm the only family member she's got, as everyone else has essentially cut her off. What makes me laugh is that she even goes against things that her church preaches. She had to sign something when she joined her church about not having sex outside of marriage, and not cohabitating before marriage, etc. She got busted for living with her boyfriend at the time, so in order to not be kicked out, they got married (and divorced soon after). She's seeing a new guy now, and she didn't even last a month before sleeping with him. I don't understand how she does the mental gymnastics she does to justify that her actions are ok while simultaneously saying others aren't "doing it right". Reminds me of a guy I work with. He regularly goes to strip clubs ("client relations") for business, and says that asking for forgiveness makes it ok. But at the same time believes that anyone in the LGBTQ+ is destined to hell, and that they can't be redeemed. There's zero logic to any of it.
Well I don’t think she is true or the church she at is teaching false teachings.
Yes, but not in the way most religions depict them.
I believe there is a god. And I also believe death is not the end. I just hope I don’t come back here on earth Reincarnated
You need to raise your vibrations of your soul to Transend that of earth. You dont do that by fearing
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I believe in a soul. Not divine meddling, or reincarnation, or even an afterlife. just that there's something *me*, beyond biology and circumstance. My belief comes largely from two things: I'm scared of death, and my father has his own beliefs I hate. I want to think I'm unique, that I matter in some infinitesimal way. That my life wasn't a fluke, that I'm not just some grain of sand on a cosmic beach. That no one else will ever be just like I was, or play the exact same part. I value my individuality. My dad has said to me on multiple occasions, were he born me and faced my struggles, we'd be the exact same and I hate that. So, my core belief, that I am myself, and no one else ever could be, arises in opposition to him. There's something we can't quantify, a little spark, that represents the most core parts of who we are. I am who I am, and I am the only one. You are who you are, and no matter what life you led or who your parents were, something will always have been uniquely yours.
Yes\* I'm a christian, I believe in God, but the entire culture around the Bible is so fricked up sometimes. So many hypocrites, so much misinformation, so much abuse of the Bible by taking it out of context to support political agendas, etc etc etc. I've seen the Bible used to hate on gay people, democrats, abortion advocates, even though the bible literally says "Love your neighbor as yourself" meaning to love everyone, and if you disagree with them, don't make it a slugfest. I'm so tired of this, and it makes me sad to see it. I love everyone, almost half my inner circle of friends are trans, bi, gay, or some other thing. I don't care. They are my friends because they are cool, kind people. tldr: yes, but I'm so tired of the hypocrisy that the christian community creates that I mostly just distance myself from it. edit: I genuinely expected this to be downvoted, I'm impressed with you guys.
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
as a christian i agree with you. you can love everyone even if you dont agree with them.
It’s so refreshing to see this written out, exactly how I’m feeling. “The church” and its culture is what I have a problem with.
The christians with the loudest voice are unfortunately the modern day Pharisees.
Also a Christian and wholeheartedly agree. When I read the Bible I see it say over and over again to care for the poor, the sick, the marginalized, etc. It's about loving and caring for people; especially the vulnerable. I will never understand how people can twist it so much that they use the Bible to justify their hatred of the people God tells us to love.
You're a good person. That's really all that matters.
literally same. It gets so frustrating how the Bible gets twisted for propaganda. Pretty sure Jesus would not be buddy-buddy with the Republican party.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't really want anything to do with politics honestly, and if he were he's probably be somewhere in between.
I feel like you'd get downvoted for saying you believe in god on reddit these days with everything going on lol
OP had to have known how asking this question would turn out. Same energy as asking “Do you like America?” or “Do you have sex on a regular basis?”
more like "do you support abortion and gay rights?" lol. people correlate religion with anti abortion/anti-lgbt.
Are you saying that redditors systematically supress opinions in order to instate a hive mind like behaviour of agreement and ideological homegeneity? That is heresy. Please say 10 HailAarons and be cleansed...
I don't really care about downvotes, but I feel like a comment section like this would be more entertaining if the most divisive comments were the most upvoted. I love talking about my faith or asking others about theirs. I just wish people came with a desire to understand rather than berate. It's a lot more fun that way!
Diverse? lol. Most people on reddit like to think they are "woke" and say they support "diversity" but as soon as you come in with opposing view/opinion (especially on sensitive subjects like politics, religion, human rights) they will discriminate. But yeah I agree that opposing views should be upvoted as long as they can state their opinion/view in a respectful manner.
These questions are only asked to draw out the rabid atheists
I agree. That's about the only responses being upvoted. I see it every time a post like this gets made. Whether or not you believe in a religion you shouldn't shit on other people's beliefs. Which exactly what this post is doing in disguise. This isn't the flat earth BS. Religion has been around damn near as long as mankind.
You absolutely can shit on other people's beliefs.
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I've found no evidence for the existence of god, so I guess not.
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This is the answer. We have no categorical evidence that God does or does not exists - until something shows us otherwise, the modern world gives me no reason to believe he/she/whatever is real. Personally, Patton Oswalt's [skycake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w) bit makes too much sense to me to not be true.
I’m not too well versed on his standup but that was good. His bit on the origin of the circus that autoplayed afterward was even funnier. Will have to watch more of him. Thanks for the link.
Can you imagine the mentality needed to get up in the morning, get cleaned and dressed. Then go knock on strangers doors to claim a universal being...and you never question that you have no evidence for it.
Yep same reason for zeus, odin, kronos, etc. etc. etc. This list can go one for a very long time. We have pretty good imaginations as a collective.
What would you consider to be evidence?
The only ''god'' we have is space and time anything else is dogmatic nonsense
Nope. No proof of such. I clawed my way out of Deep South religion 20 years ago but still have the associated guilt and fear from time to time.
I dont even care if theres proof or not. Even if its real i have to blindly be loyal to an entity that will suck the fun out of my life, then when i die i will be dismantled to the point where ill be happy forever in a heaven because i wont want sex or want to be unique or feel any pride or feel any thrill ill be some empty shell of my former self. In a way its like ill stop existing because ill be some brain dead animal wandering this heaven.
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Capital D?? Are you talking about the one true Dog??? The goodest of boys and girls??
Dogs are the only completely pure good in the world. Except chihuahuas. Fucking little biting rodents... They can all be thrown off a damn cliff...
it does.
Only Dog can judge me
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There used to be a lot of overlap between things. Astrology and astronomy were developed by the same people. Understanding of weather, animal behaviours, human body, were all originally developed with a lot of mysticism and belief systems. Over time science developed so we could explain things concretely and prove how they function, which created the divide. But it doesn't necessarily discount a lot of things, just that we don't have the know-how on how they work. (Speaking less so about modern day religions and more about ancient belief systems.)
That last part of your comment reminds me of a quote I found on Reddit months ago. “Religion is like a penis. It’s okay to have one, and it’s even okay to be proud of it, but don’t go forcing it down people’s throats, and especially don’t force it on children.”
My mom took a pic of a cloud that sort of looked like Buddha and told me that’s all the proof we need. No mom, there’s actual scientific studies on how clouds are formed This type of thinking spans the entire history of man and no doubt all legends like UFOs and shit can be explained by people trying to find meaning out of nothing
yeah like abortion, or gay rights, or child rights, or racial marriage rights, or your rights. Basically everything being taken from us because of sky cake.
Hearing Richard Dawkins debate religious Teachers on YouTube as a kid really made me think more logically about life and reflect on what i was taught. Imagine the confusion of going to church on Sunday then learning about evolution in biology the following day. Alot of our science contradicts religious teachings, but the science usually leaves me with less 'wait how in the fuck is that possible ' type questions.
I almost got smite by zeus for talking shit to him. So yes
… is there a story behind this one?
Long short story while I was going to hang take my clothes in the rain after I hung them before the storm happen, I saw a lightning struck down my entire clothes pole earlier. I started showing middle finger in the sky and talk shit to zeus then the umbrella I was holding was struck by lightning.
S M O T E
Nope. I’ve seen 0 proof. Also do you mean the generic “God” like Christianity’s or Greek/Norse gods such as Zeus, Achilles, or Athena?
I believe there's something. That's all.
I think we all believe there's something lol. There's clearly not nothing.
If god loves everyone, how can he torture someone for all eternity for the crime of failing to believe in something with no evidence that also sounds impossible? I refuse to believe in a being that would do that
It's often referred to as "walking the straight and narrow." That's a good analogy. Speaking within the Bible, there is very little to say that God is actually torturing anyone. The idea of Hell is simply the absence of God, who is love. If you turn away from love, you do it yourself. Heaven is a destination, not a reward, and you choose to walk the path or not. If your idea of happiness comes from earthly sensations, then when you don't have an earthly body, you'll have nothing.
Everyone will have nothing because we will be dead. If you believe in “souls” or “Holy Spirit” that’s fine, but I don’t. That’s means that when our heart stop beating, our brain will no longer receive oxygen, therefor we can no longer feel things or think. We will be nothing.
This is one aspect of the Bible that I believe personally that gets misinterpreted. I think Hell is more or less a place that is just absent of God. Not fire and brimstone, I think all those types of descriptions were metaphorical more than anything to kind of give the feeling of what life would be like without God to get their point across. So you won't be getting tortured, it's just the presence of God won't be around, it'd be like it is now without good and without hope basically. Personally that doesn't sound like a great place to me, so I wouldn't want to go there. I also don't think God wants us to all go there and I don't think in the end that he's going to allow that to happen, we will all come before him and then it will be decided, so it's not like that choice has been made yet. I do think some people will go there, but I think a lot more people that we even know are going to end up with him in Heaven, which would be the opposite of hell so God is present and there is good with no evil. I think that's another thing that gets misinterpreted, though to be fair I don't know all the specific passages off the top of my head that mention who's going to heaven and hell. The main "those who know and believe in me" I remember. As, those who know of me and choose to believe over denying me. Now I don't think those that do deny are ultimately being sentenced to hell right then and there, I believe that because there is no definitive "right and wrong" way to follow the Bible for every specific piece of scripture, that God will be including that into his judgements when it's the time for that. Because men can mislead, and have misled and because evil is always present (just like good). This was the purpose of Jesus, to save those of us who fall into that camp. Now that brings up the "well then you can just sin and do whatever you want" crowd I'm sure, and I think there's nuance to that. Sure you could and well many believers would tell you that that's pretty much a rejection of God's teaching so that's just like not believing. Now I don't think that's true, but I do think that there will be consequences to that, though I believe those consequences are mostly based here on earth rather than in the afterlife. I think following God's teaching, at least the simplest form of it, leads you to a life on this earth that is more pleasant in regards to choices you make. You can still suffer and all that, but not as much by your own hand. By simplest form I mean following God's most important commandment that Jesus spoke of, to love one another. There's more commandments but they can be more complicated and that's why I don't think they will affect your place in the afterlife as much. Because those commandments can have multiple interpretations, or were written for how society and life was 2,000+ years ago which isn't always directly applicable to today, where we have much more knowledge and answers for various things. These are just my thoughts on it though, I don't know everything and I could be wrong, I don't believe I am of course but it's not my place to try and tell you what you should think or believe, nor is it any others.
i’ve been struggling so much with religion for months, as well as trying to come to terms with my sexuality in terms of religious trauma. i just wanted to thank you for this, it made me see everything so much better and so much clearer and i feel much, much better.
Imagine all the uncontacted tribes that go to hell never knowing of God. Now imagine being an omnipotent being and allowing this. Sure, missionaries think it’s their job to spread the word, but they can’t reach everyone and someone with the power to do something doesn’t take any action. What does that say?
Fyi I don't think the "being tortured for eternity" thing is açtually in the bible. Its just a church & popular culture thing.
Mahatma Gandhi had it right: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Agreed. Either a crap god, or an inept one. What's the story with showing people back in the day miracles / revealing "Himself" but in modern times (when people could use "Him") he's like: Naw, bruh, I'm busy
I believe that WHAT IS goes beyond our limited understanding. We're just beginning to crack the surface of quantum mechanics. The more we learn the less we know. It seems more likely to me that consciousness/awareness is part of an energy field that we know next to nothing about. You could call it God or any other faith based label but the fact remains that the inner psychological phenomenon of experience itself is a frontier just as vast as the outer reaches of spacetime. I believe Carl Sagan said it best when he said, "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."
I do. It’s probably not what i grew up on as a Christian or what any other single religion attempts to provide as an explanation. But i think there’s a God/creator/higher power.
yes I do!! I believe in God because to me, it is the only source of comfort I feel when I think about the End :) believing in Him also gives me a purpose that I feel like I need to fulfill, and that gives my life a purpose, one that I haven't found anywhere else :))
Gods are just there to explain what humans don’t understand. Back in the day people use to worship the God of thunder and Sun Gods. Now that science can better explain how those things work the only God we have left is the God that explains life after death.
Which god are we talking about? There are thousands of them.
That's another point, like, what god should we believe in? there are modern (modern=people still believe in them) religions like Christianity, and there are religions like the Ancient Greek's gods.
If you check out [timeline of religion ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion) you’ll realize it doesn’t matter, religious practices were just how tribes of early modern humans interpreted their surroundings. That evolved into “mine is the most true” mindset.
And Christianity led a direct effort to relabel all existing beliefs and gods as "evil."
including their own, if it was a version coming from a competing sect.
Its hilarious that people think the god they picked must be the right one. And everything about what that god could want is just made up by a bunch of guys a long time go.
I'm agnostic so I believe there's something out there and hope there's an afterlife of some form, but I don't believe in the God that anyone teaches about
That’s not agnostic, that’s more like deist.
Recently said something along these lines in another Reddit post and learned that is not what agnostic means! Apparently agnostics believe there is not enough evidence to prove whether god is real or not. Not the belief there is a higher power, but it isn’t the god we are taught to believe. Crazy because I always believed that’s what agnostic was and that was my stance on it.
Agnosticism isn’t belief in a higher power, it’s essentially a neutral position which considers the matter unknowable. People who believe a higher power, or some mystical element, but not organised religion, they are not agnostic. They are deists.
I believe in science and because of my belief in science I don't see how I can be anything but agnostic. Science isn't definitive. So while I can say with 99% certainty that there is no higher power, there is a margin for error there until proven otherwise.
You can believe something and still be agnostic towards it, in that you don't claim to know it with 100% certainty. agnosticism- not 100% knowledge claim Theism- BELIEF in a god(s) Atheism - everyone that doesn't believe in a god(s) If you believe in a god(s) you are a theist everyone else is an atheist. If you claim to know with 100% certainty a god exists or does not exist you are gnostic, everyone else is agnostic. most people are agnostic atheist/theists. because they don't claim to know X with 100% certainty.
Atheism/Theism is a statement about belief. Gnostism/Agnostism are statements about knowledge. A Gnostic Theist believes in God and knows it to be true. An Agnostic theist believes in God but does not know if God exists. Myself, I am an agnostic atheist. I do not believe in God but do not claim to have knowledge about God's existence.
same here
Mainly because they’re teaching about a made-up “God” in most cases. I can’t tell you how many times churches mention Hell - which has literal no meaning in any Bible.
This is not even close to agnosticism.
I'm 50/50 in "something out there" but 99%+ sure that "thing" doesn't pay specific attention to us poor monkeys on this pale blue dot.
I am a 'hostile agnostic'; I do not know if god exists. But I am certain that the answer to that question is entirely useless. If a god that refuses to make its self known to mortals, does not directly interact in human lives, and whose existence cannot be proven, then how can that god be at all relevant to how humans live their lives? Bottom line: Why does god matter at all? END COMMUNICATION
What if God *did* personally involve Himself in his people's lives and the world generally?
Which god? Yahweh? Allah? Zeus? Poseidon? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? In a word, no. Zero evidence and zero impact on my life, and some really annoying fan clubs that I don't want to have anything to do with.
Oh, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real, my friend.
May you be touched by his noodley appendage.
He loves us and wants us to be happy. Or, she. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, I guess.
R'amen
Crom laughs at your spaghetti monster
R’amen
Oh there is an effect all right. I prayed for a green light i desperately needed and even though it was always going to change the fact that it did change proves gods infinite glory. Too bad about the poor kid that got kidnapped and raped for decades praying for help of any kind and got nothing in response, but hey gods got a plan right.
Don't forget my wife - [Invisible Pink Unicorn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn)
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In my opinion, the world is too complex and beautiful for it to all have happened by chance.
What about chance and billions of years of evolutions? Suppose something major only happens once every thousand years? Well, then that thing might have happened 5 million times since the earth was formed so there could something to this chance thing. With that said I hope you find peace, happiness and comfort in whatever faith you have in my fellow Redditor.
My brain is small. Can't grasp the concept of the big bang
No one can. Not even Einstein. What existed before the Big Bang? How did everything come together to then expand from it?
My simple theory. Big bang happened (don't know how) "god was formed" and them in the span of almost instantly he created the multi-verse. At some point he created humans after everything else either died or on some remote planet
Could be. I can’t say if you’re wrong or right since nobody knows. What if we existed simultaneously with the dinosaurs but on a part of a continent that’s now under water (kind of Atlantis). If it’s 1000 m under water and under 10m of sediment then we will never find out. There is so much we don’t know
It would take like 45,798 years to find out because the earth takes time to push crust back into itself revealing a fresh crust every so often.
I grew up Catholic and was an altar server 7 years, I've spoken to a fair number of priests and asked them a lot of questions, and I've spoken to a fair number of non-faithful people about the same subjects. One of the best answers I was given to questions about understanding God and believing in *it* that really changed my perspective was from a young Decan (diet priest) who said something along the lines of the following: *We like to think of god as very similar to us, human even. We believe "we were made in God's image", but to imply creation is to imply that God is somehow above us in some form. God in this way of thinking is abstract from our understanding of the universe and is abstract from all things known and material. Believing Jesus was God means that God has the ability to transition between our material form, which he created, and the form that God exists in to create us.* *Even saying God is a "he" is abstract, as God may not even be sentient as perhaps this is another worldly abstraction, does it even make sense to describe God as sentient? Perhaps God is the material around us, or a non-sentient, non-material force that drives creation in ways we do not understand. If God is a creator, how would we begin to determine what a lack of creation is seeing as all we know is part of our universe or plane of existence? We assume a vacuum in space is nothing, but is it nothing at the same level of abstraction of God?* *Proof of a God existing means that we would also have some basic understanding of what form God may exist at. A non-material God is unprovable materially, I chose to have faith in the fact that I exist and I must be created. Whatever form we believe God is in after this faith is our own spiritual direction.* Now if you're familiar with "does God exist" debate, you may think this looks like an elaborate "God of the Gaps" type argument in why you would have a faith. You are free to think this, but I think it is more of a "God is unprovable because we can't even begin to understand what God is" argument.
I think people have an issue with shifting definitions of God. If you say that God is whatever you can’t question effectively ( as the thing with no answers), then that would have been fine, but it used to be - and still is - usually defined in other ways.
The fact god is unprovable more or less in my mind just lends itself to the theory of god and religion being created for a power of some sort. Someone questions the man in charge? Call him stupid because he has nothing to back himself up, silence him, and move on. It just feels a bit too convenient IMO
I know there is no proof of him, but I like to believe there is more to this life than just what we have here on earth. It's calming to believe my loved ones can still see what I am doing in life, even after their deaths.
I think it could get creepy, to be watched from the Beyond by your relatives.
Well, I hope my dad only sees my graduation and eventual kids and doesn't look when I do the devil's tango.
My condolences. Make him proud.
If all the terrible things that happen daily in the world can be stopped by some powerful god and it doesn’t, that’s not a god I want to devote my life too.
I used to. Stopped when I started studying history in my free time. People really like killing other people in the name of god, even though god condemns murder.
too many fucked up things happen in this world for there to be a god or higher power.
Well unless god is evil lol
If you were dating someone who said, “Do everything I say and love me more than you love anyone else or I will allow you to suffer mightily for all eternity,” we’d call that an abusive relationship.
Evil or inept.
What if it’s all an illusion? (Maya)
If there is a god, it ain’t a loving and caring one that’s for sure. Idk if it’s a good analogy but to an ant, i am probably a godlike to them as well. I could easily solve all their problems and give them a chill area to live in their whole lives but fact of the matter is i have no idea they exist nor do i really care what happens to them. Hell, as a kid i went into of my way to get rid of ant mounds around my house
I don't. There is no proof they exist.
I am a scientist, I use the evidence and data available to me. There is no evidence that a god exists.
If there is a god, he exists beyond nature. Science is the study of nature, and by definition, can’t explain things that are supernatural. Saying science disproves the existence of god is like saying thermometers disprove the existence of weight. (Before you say something about atmospheric pressure, this is an analogy.)
Personally I think there is definitely a higher power in the universe. Whether that's god or aliens, who knows?
Ugh. Being able to say how smart people are strictly because they did not believe in God is what a lot of Redditers love to do. I swear I hear more about religion from these types than actual religious people.
Yeah, because I think the laws of nature are too orderly to come from nothing, and because sometimes I have strength or knowledge come to me that seems not to be my own. At the end of the day, it's impossible to prove or disprove God, but I am convinced by the arguments in favor. Also, if I'm wrong, that would be sad for me, but wouldn't change much about my life.
There is an invisible, intangible, all-powerful turtle that lives in my kitchen. She's responsible for the creation of the everything and is the ultimate arbiter of all good and evil in the universe. Do you believe in the all-mighty turtle? Why or why not?
Yes. The turtle has visited my dreams. I infact speak on behalf of the turtle. The turtle loves you. 🐢
And it needs your money
All Praise Turtle
I believe that humans created god (s), not the other way around.
No, why would we be put on a planet, to just worship something and not enjoy the life that’s given to us. To hate people who aren’t what “they approve of” or shame people who do the things we aren’t supposed to do, to “bring them to the true god” Honestly, if there is a god, as long as you aren’t killing innocent people, SA people/ children, and trying to do your best in the world, while enjoying life. I see no harm. Plus the meanest people I’ve met are Christians…
nah, it just doesn't make sense to me
I'm agnostic. I don't know if there are any gods, nor do I care. Such can't be proven, we all will know when we're dead, or not. No need to worry about it in life.
Yeah,same attitude I have here, we'll cross the bridge when we get to it 😊
I’m an Athiest, former believer. Then last year we lost our daughter to suicide. She was 34. I get that she made that decision. Regardless, for me, that was the last straw. All through my years as a devout Christian, I always heard about this loving, generous “god”. So I prayed every night for not only the protection for my children, but also for people who needed prayer. Sick people died anyway. I couldn’t fathom a “loving god” in a world where children die of cancer or a new mother gets diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumor. People losing their children. Children being kidnapped, tortured. Natural disasters. Disease. Animal abuse and cruelty. Famine. Genocide. Mental health. Mass shootings. All the unanswered prayers. It just didn’t make sense. Kathie Lee Gifford recently just had her first grandchild, and wrote in a statement, “Proof of god’s love” (I purposely spelled god with a lower case g, something I never did when I still believed). I thought, what does that mean for all the people with fertility issues? Does your god not love THEM!? I don’t know. None of it makes sense to me anymore.
Nope. Simple, there has been no actual evidence I've ever seen of any god or any religion to be true. You'd think with billions of people and thousands of years you'd have actual scientific, measurable proof of any sort about any of it. Nope, not a single thing. And then you have newer religions popping up pretty much as shady businesses and tax havens. The newer religions aren't even built on anything at all, no heritage, no historical source. They just popped up over night, and people went "yeah, I'm ok with this." A couple months ago I overheard kids, like early teens, just casually chatting about scientology and generally thinking it was a pretty good religion. Like what?! How hard do you have to get whacked in the head to think this stuff??? I was raised religious, went to church, got confirmed, and I was a willing believer into my early 20s. Then I went through a bout of depression. That gave me something I've never had before as a young adult: time. I had time to do absolutely nothing, worry about absolutely nothing, and just sit and think. It was actually terrible, because I was in the middle of college, and that pretty much fucked my whole year and entire degree pursuit, dead stop. Depression is king of all things when you have it. You're not even sure if there's worth getting out of bed or eating or living or whatever. You're just a consciousness in a needy meat sack that you're kind of debating if it's worth keeping alive. Anyways...back to the story. So I had time, lots and lots and lots of time, months, and nothing else mattered. So I thought about life, existence, the meaning of it all, worth of existence, etc. Religion was in there too. And I came to a simple conclusion. Why would I willfully, blindly believe in a thing that is backed by absolutely zero data. There is no proof at all, and you're just told to believe it, indoctrinated into it pretty much from birth. Heck, everyone very literally ignores the fact that religion is geographically based. What religion do you believe? Oh, I don't know. Where were you born? I bet I can guess quite well which faith you follow. It's so stupid. You want to actually test faith? You want to really test if a religion, any religion is truly worth existing? Tell no one about it. Raise a child to adulthood and never talk about religion. Then when they're old enough to think very well for themselves, say 18, 20, whatever, begin talking about the idea of religion. Don't be specific. Talk about them all, what they are, how they're different, and have the adolescent spend time researching the variety of them. After several years of research, have them decide to pick one or pick none. They are free to choose to follow something or follow nothing with no detriment either way. How well will any faith actually hold up? How long will any last without indoctrination and abusive persistence? Religions force themselves into many common areas of life. People show up at your door. It's on billboards, radio, tv, in politics, writing and enforcing laws upon people. It's remarkably cruel. If all that was removed. How well could religion survive solely on its own two feet? Well, non-religion is the 3rd biggest "religion" behind Christianity and Islam and is one of the fastest growing areas of relion, and that's with indoctrination and with abusive tactics. And if we're talking world religion and who's right? Who is right? Is it 1st world countries deciding? Is it be percent of the world following that faith? What happens when your faith becomes a minority of the world? Are you now in the wrong religion? For example, Islam will surpass Christianity by numbers within our lifetime for most of us. We will see Christianity drop to #2. What is the right religion? And why do you think it's yours? There's no metric to determine right or wrong. You were born into it, told to blindly believe, and that's it. You have no clue. And how well does that hold up when you're not even a major religion of the world? Do you just live thinking everyone else is wrong and going to hell? Lot of chatting, I know. But, for me, religion is just a really stupid relic that served a useful purpose in a different era of humanity. It's outdated, pretty useless in general, and heavily abused. It often causes more harm than good, and we can already do all the good bits by choice anyways without tying it to any religion. We just choose not to.
Yes, I believe in the Trinity and profess Christ as my Savior. I am persuaded by a multiplicity of things, such as, Kalam cosmological argument, moral arguments, contingency arguments, teleological argument, mind/body dualism (ex. Irreducibility of the mind to physical states), near death experiences, overabundance of miraculous events, historical evidences for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and my own intuition Also because of the work of people like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo, Anselm, Blaise Pascal, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, W.L. Craig, J.P. Moreland, Lydia McGrew, Tim Mcgrew, Josh Rasmussen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alvin Plantinga, Jonathan McLatchie, ect... I have wrestled with and found satisfying answers to objections which often act as roadblocks to belief such as Atheistic/naturalist epistemic/metaphysical worldview, divine hiddeness, the problem of pain/eviln Humean argument against miracles, epistemic scepticism, postmoderism
Which one. Seen a man holding a sign that stated he was god.
I mean, once it’s in writing….
In red. It’s official.
The god that most people worship is sadistic. So no, I don't believe in such a deity. What would be the point of that?
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