to be saddened when people tick the 'no faith' box.

[Funsponge]

on forms when there is a Religion or Faith box and people put none.

No faith.

Realy?

No faith in anything?

It makes me feel sad for them. How empty and meaningless and small they must feel. Poor things.

Twinkletwirl...if that is true please could you explain something to me.

My great aunt devoted her entire life to the salvation army, yet she got dementia in her last years, lost her mind, had to be fed through an NG tube & went through hell for at least the last 4 years of her life. How could God let this happen to one of his loyal followers?

Bit of a bloody coincidence that basic human decency is the same across the planet though, innit.

Don't murder, don't steal, don't lie. Those are the biggies, in essence. Wherever you go in the world, it's more or less the same.

Bugger all to do with Christianity and more to do with how a society can function to the benefit of all its members. I rather think that is why early Christians came up with these rules. And all other religions ever.

God's hands are tied? Really? By whom?

Honestly twinkle, did you ever stop to actually think about this crap you keep spouting?

(Actually, I think you might be my sister-in-law).

Is it really a thing that God WOULD help if he could, but SORRY, it just so happens that unless EVERYONE believes, I can't help.

Es tut mir leeeid (in my mind, God is definitely German, no-one else could come up with such a hair-brained scheme.)

Agatha

This is to answer your previous question.

Is heaven overcrowded ? Do you even know that our universe is vast beyond comprehension ? Billions of galaxies, we never found the end of it.
It is not exactly the heaven we're talking about but gives you an idea.

I'm very happy for your sister in law that she has faith.

Twinkle, you seem to be tying yourself up in knots with God being all-powerful, oh but look that's only if humans do certain things correctly else his hands are tied; look, there's this tragic death of an entire Polish family which is the fault of all you people who don't believe in the afterlife- no, nothing to do with God, and anyway death's not so bad...

Or alternatively, things happen as a result of chance and the decisions people make. Sometimes the combination of chance and decision making has an unhappy outcome. It'll take more than cat angels to convince me that it's down to God, I'm afraid.

That big then?

Not much chance of me bumping into Elvis if when I get there then

Here's the difference as I see it. Being an atheist does not describe how I should live my life or the values I should subscribe to. Being a Christian does. Christianity is built on the bible. Not one Christian I know holds true to all of the morals and values put forward in the bible. Not one!

I can understand that people want to believe in a higher power, but for the life of me I just don't get people can reconcile what the church tells them as opposed to what the bible does.

Who ties his hands then? Is there a God of God?

And anyway - a vicar once told me that a (non-believer) friend (of mine) who had died would have a lovely surprise because they will have been 'welcomed into the kingdom of heaven whether they believed or not'.

Therefore I'm not going to waste my lovely Sunday mornings in bed with a cuppa trudging off to church when I don't need to - because apparently it doesn't make any difference

The biggest crap people are spouting is that all this world around us and people in it came from nothing, absolutely nothing, and for no purpose whatsoever apart from fight to survive for no reason whatsoever .

And why do things like trees have to be beautiful or why do we find them beautiful ? And how on earth mindless evolution came up with music,poetry ?

Seven years ago today I walked out of hospital, having said goodbye to our first baby, a wee girl with anencephaly. I was atheist then, and I'm atheist now. I feel at peace with my daughter's death - I miss her, and losing her broke my heart, but I see her in everything around me - the river between my house and the hospital where she was born and died, the sky, plants, etc, and I actually like to think about her atoms forming part of everything I see. People spoke to me of angels and heaven at the time, and it just made no sense to me.

twinkle - if your faith makes you feel secure and happy, I'm genuinely glad for you. But have the grace not to pity or patronise those of us who don't choose that path. I did christianity for the first 20 years of my life, but only really felt more at peace with the world and my place in it - and feel genuinely able to deal with the pretty bloody awful thing that happened to us - when I accepted that believing in god just didn't make sense for me.

fwiw, I think cory's earlier posts were v accurate. I don't like either unthinking atheism or faith. And placing faith in reports from 500 years ago is dodgy, tbh - you'd be surprised how many miracles have occurred at politically opportune moments...

Because everything, twinkletwirl, is just neurons firing off.

Besides, would a loving God really come up with Justin Bieber?

If anyone's interested, Richard Dawkins will be on radio 5 live at 2pm, talking about his new book which seems to say much the same as everyone here except the OP and Twinkletwirl.

twinkle, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not true - eg evolution. I don't really understand gravity, but I still don't step off cliffs.

I'm glad you have found some peace habbibu.

Twinkle, like habbibu, I have no problem with your faith. But please don't pity me because I don't believe. I have questioned religion a lot, not just Christianity, and I just don't find anything in it.

I look out across a beautiful Yorkshire country side, marvel at the sun and the rain and how the plants grow. I see the children playing, growing,learning and setting out on their journey through life. I hear the sound of music and laughter in the air and the smells of home and of the country side.

I sit back and close my eyes and reflect on all these things and at no point do I feel the need to imagine a big bloke in the sky creating it all in 7 days.

Do I sound like I feel empty? I might feel a bit small looking up at a mountain, but that's just a matter of being smaller than a mountain, I feel considerably bigger than our pet dog though.

Yes, twinkle, my SIL has 'faith' (whatever that actually means).

She is also massively attention-seeking, arrogant, unkind and uncaring to just about everyone she comes into contact with (this is by her own admission as she recounts all the various hurtful and cruel things she has said to people frequently), a compulsive liar and a general trouble maker.

I actually think that she believes that having a direct phone line to god gives her the get-out-of-jail-free card that enables these behaviours.

And in answer to your question, of course I am aware that the universe is vast. I'm actually amazed that god has any time for the awsome animals and people on earth - his time must be seriously stretched tending to all of the other galaxies he is CEO of, not to mention nipping in to heaven and hell from time to time.

But then Christians are always saying he DOES intervene. They're always praising God for his various miracles, sickness being cured, babies being born and other things that can also be explained by science.

MrsHels

Jesus suffered. He was more good and innocent than anyone, including your aunt. All saints suffered.Suffering can be redemptive.

Oh my word...did I just read that correctly?