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 think the idea is that humanity is supposed to stand together and choose to stop the bad people. The problem is that we don't.

So, given that this experiment of god's hasn't worked terribly well, you'd think any loving and reasonable deity would step in and sort things out a bit for his beloved creation, no? If you were him, wouldn't you feel a bit of responsibility for the welfare of the creatures you'd made? And maybe answer the undoubted and heartfelt prayers of innocent children and even not so innocent adults dying in wars and of diseases not of their own making? I would. Why should even one single innocent child die of cancer while one single murderer lives to a ripe old age if god presumably has the power to stop it?

The only possible answer to this is either "God doesn't exist", "God is not good" or of course "I dunno, it's probably all part of His grand plan. Ours is not to question why."

Thinking about a deity's imaginary genitals is more than a 'bit silly', imo. As is thinking that God must be male because 'hymns and carols' and 'priests and vicars in the pulpit' say so.

No you've missed the whole point, I didn't say that at all, but twist what i said to ridicule if you like. it's the pointless thing of saying him/her, not because carols say so, how absurd, but imagine the ridiculous sounding hymns, carols if they said him/. her each time, That was my obvious point, but in conversation it's ridiculous to say him/her , or he/she., just to make a point. It sounds daft. Apart from that God has always been referred to as God the Father. In actual fact God would be neither male or female.

Madame - sorry for the late reply, again, it's attributed to free will. Everyone is born with it, we can choose the kind of people we want to be and the kind of things we want to do. Over time, the cause and effect of evil can and does come to fruition most likely....

I pose another question - Do you believe in the existence of evil in today's world?

The attached image shows the Hubble Deep Field. In the wee red box beside the moon, the hubble telescope took a picture. It collected all of the light it could see. The image that is attached shows both galaxies and little dots of light. Every bit of light in this picture is a galaxy. Galaxies are full of billions of solar systems and billions of planets

Yes the universe is awesome and reaffirms to me just how awesome God is.

But if God is so awesome why is his plan for humankind so bad?

Genuine question dawn. Do you believe that he created billions of lifeless planets, or is he overseeing life on other planets too?

The Beginning of the Universe - a Singular Start

Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic, stated, "The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion. It was literally the moment of Creation. ...The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen."5 As stated, this conclusion is distressing to atheistic scientists. To observe a reaction and not be able to document the cause is unsettling.

Jastrow concludes, "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."6

Imagine the relief of these scientists when astronomers Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold, and Fred Hoyle advanced what became known as the "steady state" universe in 1948. Their theory was that the universe was infinite in age. Thus, no creation or no cause was needed.

Beginning of the Universe - Steady State Theory Proved False

However, in the 1960s, the steady state theory suffered a devastating blow when two radio engineers at Bell Labs (Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson) discovered mysterious radiation coming from space. It came equally from all directions. When the temperature of the radiation was measured, its source was confirmed. This radiation did not always exist, or come from one part of the universe. It came from that singular, original moment of creation.

Dawn, if your god created the universe and the bible is the word of your god, why did your god only think to mention the stuff that everyone living in the Middle East at that time already knew about?

After all, there were plenty of things in existence at the time that the various bible authors wouldn't have known about, but your god would if she/it/he had created them. Exoplanets, kangaroos, quantum mechanics,viruses. Your god only bothered to mention the stuff that everyone already knew, rather than the stuff which could very easily prove the existence of your god is he/she/it told the people what to look for. Funny that.

But if God is so awesome why is his plan for humankind so bad?
But why is his plan bad, quite the opposite.

It's not distressing to scientists to discover something we don't know the answer to / cause of -it's a challenge.

I don't. Have a look at the world. It's pretty sick to think that some all-loving, all knowing being not only created and oversees such misery but demands to be worshipped and obeyed for it. If there is a God a prosecution would be a far more rational response.

inertia i refuse to answer anyone using the ridiculous and so unnessessary he/she /it nonsense, especially after my above post.

So what is good about the plan? Some of us non-believers have already listed a few flaws with it (natural disasters, free will meaning that only one person needs to mess up for everyone's life to be ruined, congenital diseases, lack of intervention when people really need help, pointless request for faith without proof....)

Proof of the big bang is not proof of any god- it's evidence which supports the model that, at some point approximately 13.8 billiion years ago, the matter and energy of which the universe is now comprised was compressed into an incredibly small, dense state. We don't know how it came about, or even if that was its earliest origin- some theories suggest an oscillating expansion/contraction.

Scientific explanations about the origins of the universe are incomplete- that doesn't mean that a god of some kind must have created it.

Given that the clergy has sought to exclude women for centuries and that Eve is responsible for the downfall of mankind ( and as a punishment made to suffer in childbirth forevermore) it's a safe bet that god is a bloke.

Not so. God could quite easily be one of the women who poo poo feminism in order to try and appear "cool". On a more serious note I don't think of God of either male or female.

Or indeed any questions to which you don't have an answer Dawn.

I'll rephrase, given your pronoun preference:

Dawn, if your god created the universe and the bible is the word of your god, why did your god only think to mention the stuff that everyone living in the Middle East at that time already knew about?

After all, there were plenty of things in existence at the time that the various bible authors wouldn't have known about, but your god would if he had created them. Exoplanets, kangaroos, quantum mechanics,viruses. Your god only bothered to mention the stuff that everyone already knew, rather than the stuff which could very easily prove the existence of your god is he told the people what to look for. Funny that.

It's not distressing to scientists to discover something we don't know the answer to / cause of -it's a challenge.
Well good luck to them with that then, i'm sure they'd have discovered it by now. Maybe the word "distressing" should have been replaced with "gutting". Of course they would have been, they thought they were on the verge of some brilliant new theory about the beginnings of our universe after years of research.

dawnviews

What a poor understanding of science you have.

Why is it gutting? Think how much people have discovered in the last 100 years after 200,000 years of homo sapiens. Imagine what we can find out in the next 100 years. I wonder why the J-Christian God only decided to reveal himself a couple of thousand years ago.

dawnviews you wouldn't be able to post here without scientists.

Dawn what do you think science is?

I'm not sure that you understand what scientists actually do ...

I'm a true agnostic in that I'll admit that I don't know, it could be either (that there is a god or there isn't) and I'm usually ok with my position of not knowing.

Having said that, if I had to bet money on it I'd say there is a God as there's so much we don't understand, lots of paranormal woo which the sceptic would dismiss but me with my open mind, am... well,open-minded about.

I'd be really hacked off if all this life and suffering and joy and learning is all for nothing... but that's not a reason to say there is a god, just that I'd be hacked off if there wasn't one.

Inertia...The Bible isn't the word of God. It's meant to be written by man for man and divinely inspired it's also not meant to be a scientific text but a guide on how to live life. The new testament in particular goes to quite a lot of length to highlight the author and audience for each particular book to help you interpret it in light of that, alongside church tradition and natural law. I suppose I have a very catholic view of the bible and evangelicals might disagree but its not the quran in that the quran was said to be dictated by god to Mohammed. Doesn't make it any more true mind, but it does explain about the middle east thing.

Yes so much we don't know and understand yet ( but we know a lot more than we used to) , to justify god on that basis is nonsense.

You may as well ascribe our lack of knowledge to the invisible flying laser bear.

I don't believe. Don't really know why, just think religion is ridiculous and because it is religion that "describes" God, then perhaps by extension any idea of there actually being a God is ridiculous too.