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 am a scientist, there is vast evidence of how the earth was created and how it has evolved ever since, we understand it in great detail. There is not a shred of evidence for there being a God. It's really that simple in my mind. There are multiple religions with multiple Gods, they can't all be right!
Although it gives people comfort to have a religion, and as long as it does not lead to extreme views or the mistreatment of others then I see no harm in it.

I do and am amazed that so many don't. Am also amazed that people think God causes people to starve, have cancer etc.

If he is an all powerful loving being then he has some funny ways of showing it but I can't believe in something so crazy as God without proper evidence.

I don't - a big fairy story to keep the peasants quiet/under control

So many wrongs in the world have been done in the name of God/religion

This meme explains why I believe all organized religion to be complete nonsense m.9gag.com/gag/aeNNq5q/perspective-don-t-masturbate

BUT interesting the biologist above that believes in God as I had some serious self doubt when learning human biology at degree level. It is infinitely perfect and infinitely complex and it's very difficult to see how this can be simply by accident. I don't believe in God but neither do alternative theories have all the answers.

I do.
Because God is.

I don't. Because like a PP said, if you look at the history it's obvious religions sprung up to fit a politic need.

Plus science has come to explain all the things that religion tried to.

I'm glad I don't because I found it hard to fit in the immorality of Abrahamic religions with the more humane morality of (most cultures) today.

Dawn, I am amazed you are amazed as I know nobody who believes in the big G.

I do - for a similar reason to the first response. Where did the bits for the big bang come from?

However we were created though we have free will which is why people do shitty things to each other.

I believe.

I don't because I think there are far more sensible and rational explanations for everything we see around us.

Quite apart from the awful things like famines, tsunamis, childhood cancers, early onset Alzheimer's, earthquakes, wars....how can anyone say a child getting cancer is "God's will"?? Such bollocks.

However this doesn't mean life has no meaning. It means it has more, for me.

It is infinitely perfect and infinitely complex and it's very difficult to see how this can be simply by accident

Natural Selection explains everything and is simple but produces incredibly complex beings over time.

I don't.
Occam's razor - the simplest answer is usually right.

I think the idea of another level of intelligent supreme being, an invisible afterlife and all the associated rules and consequences are just too complicated to be real.

I don't, because there is no evidence. And because man has been using it as a tool for oppression practically since it was invented.

I find those that denounce it with certainty à la Dawkins to be arrogant.
Isn't this the same as those who believe, without being able to provide a shred of evidence? (Unless it's purely a human construct, of course.)

I don't because I'm not a sheep blindly following a set of rules written by men to control through fear.

Christianity is patriarchal whereas preceding Paganism was and still is Matriarchal.

Every Christian festival has been taken from an existing Pagan festival.

Because it's completely and utterly illogical.

Went to a Catholic school for 10 years. Thought it was a crock then and chose not to do my Confirmation etc.

Then went on to study Science at uni. That cemented my lack of belief. Science and religion are fundamentally incompatible.

I don't. I refuse to believe in any God that could allow such awful suffering as there is in the world.

I used to sometimes wonder why God would allow wars, famine, earthquakes etc to blight our planet. Now i realise that this life isn't meant to be perfect, we mustn't expect "paradise" till the next life. We are here to learn. Those are my beliefs anyway.

I just don't. Life is what it is. Sometimes it's beautiful, sometimes it's brutal. I don't think there is a higher power determining it.

I know many religious people who I respect enormously and can recognise that they are better people than me. I also have experienced the positive effects of religious rituals (confession, absolution, communion, religious funerals and weddings, Seder meal, Friday night blessings et al).

I am an atheist because I just can't make God plausible in my mind. Original sin is something I just can't believe in, and if you take original sin out of it, a lot of the theological structure of Christianity gets very weak. Reading the Torah and the Bible properly is also a very chilling experience. Very different aspects of God described in different books, and in the end it comes to seem like a patchwork of different human experiences given a single name - well in fact, given several different names but leave that aside. I admire that I have listened to many sermons trying to explain the Abraham/sacrifice/Isaac story because if I were running a religion I would have made that the first 'lost' scripture. Along with all the other ones. I used to sit there on Friday nights listening to and saying blessings about wanting to be like Rebecca. Then you read what Rebecca was actually like. She's not exactly a role model, put it that way. So did God make her like that? What about Zipporah and her genital mutilation of her son with a flint - i'll say it again, with a flint?

The only conclusion I could live with was that these are humans, behaving the way humans do, and you try to do the best you can and to encourage the best in others. If you start thinking God is involved, the bitterness and pain becomes too much.

I find it bizarre anyone would believe in something there is absolutely no proof of. I also can't accept the appallingly cruel and vile way people have treated other people in the name of religion. I choose to believe if there was a god then good people would be rewarded in life and cruel, nasty people wouldn't prosper and I've seen plenty of nasty people doing very well in life.

To clarify- i don't believe in religion. That's just cultural and societal.

It's more that there must be something- like pp says l, beyond our understanding. I don't think i believe in life after death either. But there is a reason.

I swing a little bit more to paganism and honouring nature, that seems a more appropriate way of expressing belief than a mystical "god".

I don't because God has a lot to answer for the horrible things that happen to good people. The idea that he could just turn a blind eye to genocide, famine and horrible acts towards children is beyond me. Also, my parents' relatives were religious and it seems like they turned to Jesus because no one else liked them and the horrible things they did to people throughout their lives.

LoupGaru -
*
Rocco* - I would have to disagree that believing means your 'lazy' or 'naive'. Very intelligent people can be believers too as seen on this thread already.

Scottish - could I ask what your thoughts are on the beginning of time? How do you believe things came to be?

Dawn - that also baffled me

Weebles - I understand what your saying but when you look at historical records of wars etc, only a minority are caused by religion...

For those who don't believe, could I ask what you make of fulfilled prophecy and historical accuracy in the bible?

Sukey - I don't think children getting cancer and famines are nessasarily God's will, I think rather its genetic mutations, a heavily polluted world, spread of disease throughout generations and perhaps even evil.

I don't believe.
No real reason why, I just don't. I had to go to church as a kid with my parents and I used to say the words in the prayers and feel absolutely nothing.