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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

How can you possibly believe in a benevolent God

886 replies

partialderivative · 30/04/2015 23:01

Once more, acts of 'god' have left communities blown apart.

Does any one really feel these vilages deserved it?

God's a bit of a cunt at times.

OP posts:

headinhands · 05/05/2015 06:50

I just hate it when some people make fun or insult other people's beliefs, sexuality, life-style etc.

Sexuality isn't a choice. The others are, so people should have reasons why they believe what they do. No belief is protected from ridicule. Would you respect someone's belief that black people should have less rights, or that women should not work? No, you wouldn't so this idea that you are somehow superior because you blankely respect beliefs is nonsense and is trotted out to make robust challenge seem rude when as we have pointed out you do not practice what you preach.

Hakluyt · 05/05/2015 07:28

"but I cannot believe that mankind is as good as it gets"

You are, of course, at perfect liberty to belive that and live your life accordingly. You are not- or should not- be at liberty to expect other people to modify thir behaviour to fit in with your belief.

JassyRadlett · 05/05/2015 07:41

but I cannot believe that mankind is as good as it gets

I feel similarly but see it as an argument against there being a god. Seriously, people as the centre of the universe, the beings that a deity focuses on above all others? A deity was creating a whole universe (or the conditions for a universe, depending on personal theology( and decided to put crazy, fucked up, amazing, irritating people at the centre of it?

I don't think we're the centre of everything, and I don't think we're the finished product. I'd desperately love to know what happens next in evolutionary terms.

I find it curiously narcissistic when people make assumptions about the nature of the world/universe (and then extend that to deities) based on current humans.

fulltothebrim · 05/05/2015 07:58

I'd desperately love to know what happens next in evolutionary terms

It may not be as exciting as you think!! Fatter, lazier, dumber.

Hakluyt · 05/05/2015 08:02

This seems an appropriate moment for my favourite passage on the subject- courtesy of Brian Cox. With the wonder and magnificence of humankind and the universe we live in, why do we need to add the supernatural? Isn't the natural glorious enough?

"Our story is the story of the Universe. Every piece of every one and every thing you love, of every thing you hate, of every thing you hold precious, was assembled in the first few minutes of the life of the Universe, and transformed in the hearts of stars or created in their fiery deaths. When you die those pieces will be returned to the Universe in the endless cycle of death and rebirth. What a wonderful thing to be part of that universe – and what a story. What a majestic story!"

FreudiansSlipper · 05/05/2015 08:41

When we die we become part of the earth we are recycled (I guess not in all cases if we are cremated)

So we are still part of the world part of the universe and part of us can be still part of our world

I have been surprised by how many atheists have taken comfort in this thought after the death of someone close our finality can have meaning

I do not really understand the need to put others beliefs down the comparing god to Santa or calling god a cunt a god that you actually do not beloved in. No one is going to read this thread and think wow they are right I have been wrong all this time. Satire is different when it is cleverly done

fulltothebrim · 05/05/2015 08:41

Hak I totally agree.

The Universe is majestic, the intricacies are magnificent on so many levels, the sheer size and power, the detailsed workings of the quantum particles, the beauty and grandeur is awe inspiring.

For me having someone behind the scenes creating all this would vastly diminish my feelings, it would cease to be authentic and lose its worth.

It would also ceate far more questions than it anwers.

I would hate to think that some old geezer is making the Universe work like a hand up a cheap glove puppet.

FreudiansSlipper · 05/05/2015 08:42

Believe in
Not beloved

fulltothebrim · 05/05/2015 08:54

*I have been surprised by how many atheists have taken comfort in this thought after the death of someone close our finality can have meaning
*

Arrogant.
Life can have "meaning" on many different levels, and that meaning will differe depending on who we are.
For atheists life has no religious meaning.

JassyRadlett · 05/05/2015 08:55

t may not be as exciting as you think!! Fatter, lazier, dumber.

Yes, but I want to know!

I do not really understand the need to put others beliefs down the comparing god to Santa or calling god a cunt a god that you actually do not beloved in

And here, for me, is the problem wit the way non-believers' arguments are presented and misrepresented on threads like this - the Father Christmas analogy was talking about comparable standards of proof/evidence and about the logical fallacy of negative proof. In that context it's an entirely valid analogy, comparing what the poster sees as two mythical beings. What comparator would believers not find offensive? As far as I can tell, the bar is set extraordinarily high. It's a question I asked earlier - why expect people to treat their deities with the same sacred respect as they do? How do they speak of Buddha, Ganesh and other gods sacred to other faiths?

I'm not trying to convince anyone away from their beliefs. I'm quite hoping to change some of the insulting and offensive assumptions about atheists, and to challenge some of the factual fallacies that are sometimes expounded as a way of providing evidentiary proof for certain religions. And to demonstrate, hopefully, to some Christians that their faith is not the default, and that dismantling structural Christian privilege is a valid goal that does not constitute an attack on religion.

FreudiansSlipper · 05/05/2015 09:02

Why do you feel that is arrogant

I stated this was my experience. It's a different take on still being part of the universe part of our world there is nothing religious in what I posted

Sistermillyrose · 05/05/2015 09:11

I would hate to think that some old geezer is making the Universe work like a hand up a cheap glove puppet.
That must be one awesome old geezer then. Like you say the universe is awe inspiring. The positioning of themoon sun and earth are so perfect that the odds of it all happening by chance are so minimal as to be impossible. I read somewhere that for the sun and moon to be in the position they're in by chance is equal to a man looking for one coloured grain of sand in all the deserts and beaches of the world. The universe is still growing, that means it had to be created. The Creater of such magnificence is hardly going to be an old geezer with his hand up a cheap glove puppet.

JassyRadlett · 05/05/2015 09:12

I have been surprised by how many atheists have taken comfort in this thought after the death of someone close our finality can have meaning

This is a very broad statement open to numerous interpretations. Do you mean it in the sense of 'I'm glad Nanna's feetilising that tree and helping it to grow' or something more spiritual or ephemeral?

I personally find a lot of joy at the wonder of the universe, and the fact that my existence is a teeny tiny blip.

Hakluyt · 05/05/2015 09:13

"I do not really understand the need to put others beliefs down the comparing god to Santa or calling god a cunt a god that you actually do not believe in."

I am not trying to put down other's beliefs. I am trying to explain my own position.

JassyRadlett · 05/05/2015 09:14

The universe is still growing, that means it had to be created.

No. That's an entirely false statement.

Hakluyt · 05/05/2015 09:16

"The positioning of themoon sun and earth are so perfect that the odds of it all happening by chance are so minimal as to be impossible."

But that's the wrong way round. Life- well, the kind of life we recognise- evolved to fit the planet we live on. If the positioning of the sun and Earth had been different so would we have been.

DoraGora · 05/05/2015 09:16

No. That's an entirely false statement.

Clearly it was created by something. The argument, sometimes, is what it was created by. That there was a cause is not disputed. Ergo, it's not a false statement, entirely or otherwise.

Hakluyt · 05/05/2015 09:17

"The universe is still growing, that means it had to be created."

Why?

DoraGora · 05/05/2015 09:18

positioning of themoon sun and earth are so perfect

The Saturnalians would dispute that. We're having a heck of a time growing our tomatoes.

Chiggers · 05/05/2015 09:19

Dione, I took one look at the pictures and it dawned on me that because Adam and Eve were created by god, that they wouldn't have needed an umbilical cord. So that made me think that god didn't create them and they had mothers.

One question I would like to ask is: If god knows everything that is going to happen to each and every one of us, how do we have free will?
Also: if god made man in his image, either man is also perfect, or god is not perfect. Just asking.

Religion should be kept out of state schools TBH, and those who wish to go to religious things (sorry, I can't think of the word I'm looking for due to lack of sleep ) should go to church in their own time to praise god. State school should teach student about all religions, not just Christianity.

DoraGora · 05/05/2015 09:24

I think there's a growing belief that all religious schools ought to teach about a multiplicity of faiths. But, allowing children to be withdrawn from RE does make doing that difficult. I think it's a work in progress.

JassyRadlett · 05/05/2015 09:40

Dora, I think that depends on how you define 'create' and whether it implies outside agency or process outside nature. The very next sentence in the post I quoted made clear a definition of outside agency was intended.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 05/05/2015 09:40

People were arguing in the 1830s that the sun and the seasons proved there was a god, to counter all those pesky fossils and facts...

Chiggers · 05/05/2015 09:50

I've come across a lot of religious people who ask what the difference is between atheism and Christianity is. I tell them that one has faith, dogma, spiritual leaders and places to go to worship their god, whereas atheism has none of that. We deal with facts and reality, which should be the basis of any school.

Militant religious people have killed in the name of their gods, whereas militant atheists are more likely to be found having a pint down their local boozer .

DoraGora · 05/05/2015 09:59

Well, yes, atheism, rationalism and observation explain why scientists never disagree about anything. It's also why you never get religious scientists.

Where do I sign up?

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