Why you do or don't believe in God?

[summerbloom]

Interested to hear people's views on why they do believe in God or on why you don't believe in God.....

I don't believe in a or any gods.

Who are we as humans, to define how or why we were created. We only know, what we know through our perception. The human experience- the human point of view.

Just live and enjoy it. We could be gone tomorrow.

all touched out yes they really are.

@dawnviews

This is going to become boring quickly, but, no, they are not. You might not have kept up with the development of scientific knowledge and understanding over the past 100 years or so, but that doesn't mean no one else has.

Believe what you like, and may it bring you joy, but please, please don't assume that because you don't understand something, there must be a god and that everyone should believe in it.

I don't. I can't understand why people can discount actual real evidence for things like evolution yet be absolutely convinced of something which has no evidence at all.

I can't believe something with no evidence to back it up. You can't, you'd be obliged to believe in all kinds of random shit!

I get that a belief in god serves a purpose and is a comfort to many and I respect that and at times envy it. But I think we are sufficiently informed and scientifically advanced now that belief in god is becoming an increasingly less plausible option and think/hope in the generations to come we will find another 'crutch' to use when we have our all-too-human existential crises.

Can someone answer the repeatedly-asked question "But what about the diseases and disasters that are NOT man-made"? Anyone?
And anyway, surely EVERYTHING was made by god really, because he (supposedly) made the whole of creation.

I'm a teacher. I don't just deliver the contents of the lesson, leave them to it and refuse to help if they get something wrong! Why would god deliberately create imperfect beings, awful diseases, the potential for random natural catastrophes, then just sit back and watch people suffer while still expecting them to worship him?

And btw, saying "The world must have been created because it's too perfect to have happened by chance" and then saying "Bad stuff happens because god didn't want us to live in a perfect world " is a total self-contradiction.

I need to opt out of the thread but I luffs some posters on here a lot

No. If you believe the bible and that he created man in his image and loves us all so much then how the fuck do you explain the sheer volume of pain and suffering going on in this world. I would never allow my child to suffer like humans all around the world do. And quite frankly if he does exist and allows children to starve to death and good people to die agonising deaths then he isn't a god i want to know

Eolian, that question can't be answered, at least not with any logic. Gods and religion were created to control people, and the contention that those with faith are kinder than those without is laughable when you consider the amount of abuse that has been and continues to be uncovered, perpetrated by people of faith.

The mental acrobats on show by those of faith on this thread are astonishing, you should really have your own part at the Moscow State Circus.

Eolian: good question. Have a look at

www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/articles/theology/why-do-bad-things-happen-to-good-people.html?start=3

or

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8467755.stm

Well precisely, lokisglowstick - I just wondered if any of the believers on the thread might propose an answer.

My reasons for not believing are:

I have never believed. I remember going to church with primary school (talking 5 years old) and the vicar at the pulpit say "Let us ray" and at that age (and I was a quiet, very quiet child) - I thought "Sod off, let's not, I'm not closing my eyes and praying". So I kinda had some kind of inbuilt resistance or something to the concept!

Then of course there's the issue of evidence - I'm quite a logical thinker and I feel that evolution and geology explain things quite adequately.

And then there's the fact that religion doesn't achieve one of the key things it's supposed to do ie make people better people. Instead of having personal responsibility for your actions (for which religion/belief in any god isn't necessary) I just feel that the need for belief in a god or alignment to a particular religion is actually completely redundant and unnecessary.

I go with what Rush say: I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose free will.

For me, one of the nice things about believing is not having all the answers, and for once not having to question - for me having faith is enough. That has brought me immense comfort through some very difficult and agonising things in my life.

If it wasn't for my belief I would have lost my mind during a very difficult period in my life, my belief is my crutch. I choose not to question it.

For what its worth one of my good friends is a leader in the religion I follow, and he always encourages questions and says any religious leader who doesn't welcome questions shouldn't be a leader.

I am still interested on how the transmission of diseases can be blamed on the 'free will' of the individual.

"Hello, would you like AIDs?"

"Oh go on then"

"Great, it's also your lucky day, we also have a highly virulent strain of Ebola, you organs will be liquefying within the week, let me just prepare this lethal injection"

"Yay"

I can't believe in a god that can do things like give babies and children cancer yet let people who abuse children, beat their wives, murder, etc live to a ripe old age in good health.

I think people need to decide what they mean by 'free will'. As far as I'm concerned, it's as whimsical as the belief in God itself.

Certainly we believe ourselves to be free, but all our decisions are based on prior causes (with the possibility of some randomness) and none of this allows room for free will, things in nature just happen in the same way dominoes fall - we are part of nature and not separate to that. Even the most terrible acts people commit are essentially natural disasters.

I haven't for some time.

Why? To the believers I just say, think of something you don't believe in. Nobody can believe in absolutely everything, so there must be something. Whether it is ghosts, witches, UFOs, reiki, indigo children, fairies - whatever it is. Maybe you believe in God and also in some of these things too - I can see that's possible. But somewhere, there will be a line for you. There will be something which makes you think, "nah, I can accept this but not that." It may well be something supernatural, something with no evidence or maybe even another god - Zeus, Thor etc.

I don't believe in God for the same reason you don't believe in that thing.

Problem is though Pea some on here have breazily attributed the blame of war, famine and disease on people because they have the free will to prevent it as if it is that easy. Try telling that to some poor women in the eastern Congo who through no fault of her own has seen her husband and sons killed by roaming militia and has contracted AIDS through repeated rape. It's morallly bankrupt to hold such views.

I don't. I think you probably have to have it presented to you as something normal from a very early age by your family/people around you, for it to stick. I don't think it's coincidental that atheists who "go back" to religion later in life are returning to something they were a part of when they were children. I haven't heard of many people who were brought up as atheists becoming religious in their old age.

My parents and grandparents were all non-believers, so although I had to go through the usual praying and reading the bible stuff at school, I always thought of it as make-believe. I tried to believe in god when I was an earnest ten year-old, and again when I was in my early 20s, but I couldn't square the things I was being asked to have faith in with what seemed to me to be common sense (when you die, you die, etc.). It didn't help that I studied history and english at uni, so I approached holy books with a pinch of salt.

The best tenets to live by are the old ones - I'm talking about Greek philosophy. Lots of good stuff there.

I am still interested on how the transmission of diseases can be blamed on the 'free will' of the individual.
"Hello, would you like AIDs?"
"Oh go on then"
Well that's obvious - freedom to practice safer sex! You choose to have unprotected sex you risk getting something undesirable....

Most people dont believe, not really, not if they are honest with themselves. It gives people comfort to say that their dead relative is in heaven, or to tell a child their soon to be dead parent is going to heaven. But really we know its sill superstition. Once you understand evolution, basic physics and the orgin of many of the bible stories, you know it to be untrue.

Its obvious that religion had some kind of benefit in early times to try and explain the world around. Now we have far superior technology and most people are literate and educated. We have no need for religion we have evolved out of that superstitious mindset.

I have been through organised religion and come out the other side. One of the best books I've read is accessible from this link, and written by a former Muslim.

Well worth a look as he makes his points succinctly and with a lot of clarity. I'd recommend it for both those that believe in God and those who don't.

BTW I do not support organised religion in any form (however well meaning the practitioners may be) or religious schools.

www.atheistrepublic.com/blog/arminnavabi/why-there-no-god-quick-responses-10-common-theist-arguments

LadyPW

Well that's obvious - freedom to practice safer sex! You choose to have unprotected sex you risk getting something undesirable....

and if that unprotected sex and subsequent infection comes via the medium of rape are you still going to say that is 'free will' and its her fault?

Or if you subsequently get HIV from a blood transfusion or inherit it from your mother who was faithful to your father who slept with a prostitute without protection when working in a mine far from home?

Free will to me is being able to decide how I think and what I think and what I do - I don't need to be told firstly that shagging someone's other half is wrong, or that stealing is wrong - I can figure that out for myself, no religion or belief in God required. And secondly I don't feel I need the 'guidance' of a religion or belief that tells me anything about any of that because I can work it out for myself. That's what free will means to me as well, not being told what to think or how to act.

Ontopofthesunset

The mind boggles as to how she can maintain the 'free will' school of thought.