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 , I do like hymns at xmas and I know the church would never turn their back on me if I needed comfort . I don't attend any church . I like knowing it's their tho x

majayjay

*Of course there's a God.

We wouldn't have the technology we do with out Gods power. We're not animals. We live in houses not trees.

As more and more people are leaving God behind, the more messed up this world is. People are choosing Satan over God.*

And the award for 'least convincing argument for the existence of god' goes to....

I have to think that you are joking when you write this. Is this your reasoning for the existence of a god? I can't believe that you seriously believe this.

As an atheist the point of prayer is to change the person praying - to change their thoughts, their feelings, their self-image, their views on how to help other people. And it works.

Look there are no rational or reasoned answers to questions like, 'why does god allow genocides and famine, war etc?'. Any answers just getting all wooly and twisty, as god-believes have to bend reality to fit the story.
So one person will say it's because 'god sets us challenges'
And another will say something different. It's all made up

So many typos...sorry..too tired to correct

JaneEyre70 You make a good point. I think suffering and whether you can make it through to the other side and still love helps you to find some of the answers and feel true joy.

"As an atheist the point of prayer is to change the person praying - to change their thoughts, their feelings, their self-image, their views on how to help other people. And it works."

Annadale as a Christian, I agree with you!

As far as "cherry-picking" goes, all religions of "the book" have done this. Judaism uses only the first five chapters of the Old Testament and Christianity, Islam and Catholicism vary from using 20 to 30 odd (you'll have to Google this if you're interested in exact amounts). In fact, of the Abrahamic religions, I believe that only the Greek Orthodox Church recognises every chapter in the Old Testament.

Just wanted to add that the reason people try to dispel views that differ from their own is because, like me, they wholeheartedly believe their view is the correct one.

I "know" my agnostism is right every bit as fervently as any theist, deist or atheist knows that I am mistaken and in fact their beliefs are correct.

Just faith I suppose. One of the famous retorts is "God allows murder/rape/3rd world famine, accidents and cancer"

Carefully picked there, e1y1. Yes, you could attribute those to man. How does that work with earthquakes and tsunamis?

Gods given us a beautiful planet with everything in it we need. If it gets fucked up it's definitely because of man. God must despair of us.

dawnviews, he is supposed to have created man. Did he fuck up by creating a beautiful planet that is capable of being messed up by man, or alternatively by creating an imperfect being that will mess up the planet? If he despairs, why doesn't he do something to prevent it - he is supposed to be omnipotent, after all?

We wouldn't have the technology we do with out Gods power. We're not animals. We live in houses not trees

I guess that makes foxes and rabbits not animals either, seeing that they don't live in trees.

dawnviews, why on earth shouldn't god intervene in relation to every one of those six million Jews killed by the Nazis? Are you seriously trying to tell us it's because it's too difficult for him? This is the being who apparently created the entire universe, after all.

I "know" my agnostism is right every bit as fervently as any theist, deist or atheist knows that I am mistaken and in fact their beliefs are correct.

An agnostic isn't sure. I don't think either atheists or believers would think an agnostic was 'mistaken.'

Do you really think there would be so much suffering in the world, babies and children dying of horrible illnesses if there really was a god?

When I was a child I actually used to lie in bed praying to god hoping that a family member wouldn't pass, he did and he was really young.

There is no such thing.

Megatherium
I should have known that statement would get misinterpreted. By that i meant if God was to intervene to prevent something awful happening such as rape or murder then he would surely have intervened to prevent 6 million jews from being murdered. He didn't, so by that we can take it that he doesn't always intervene.....and because of this many refuse to accept there is a God. That is people's expectations of God, that he should intervene for everything. Has the concept of that been thought through properly?

Has the concept of that been thought through properly?

Obviously not by those who claim to believe in an omnipotent, all-knowing, all-powerful god.

These threads always seem to go the same way. People arguing back and forth mainly about the Christian version of God. Dear me, going over and over the same stuff again and again, it's so old and so boring.

dawnviews, why would a supposedly beneficent god not intervene to prevent massive suffering? And why should people worship a being that is able to to intervene but refuses to do so?

Developing, you do know that there's a very easily remedy if you're bored by a thread, don't you?

so by that we can take it that he doesn't always intervene

He seems limited in his interventions by the surroundings of the person who needs help. He is much more likely to intervene with a health issue if that person has access to medicine and health professionals. Surely it should be the other way around. That he'd want to even it up a bit so that those in the third world got more miracles. But no, he lets them suffer and starve in millions. But white people find parking places.

EastMidsMummy, an agnostic believes that the answer is unknowable, i.e. beyond human understanding. There's no, don't know, not sure, mmm could be this, about it. Therefore, in common with everyone else, an agnostic believes you're all wrong (and by default, I'm right).

DevelopingDetrius, the Christian God from the old testament is the same God as the Muslim and Jewish God as these religions also use it as their source.

So do you have a more interesting insight from a different angle to add developing?

The threads may go the same way, but the people are different and personally it's always worth discussing.

It has crossed my mind how (largely) good natured this thread has been. Can you imagine that happening if this were (for example) an American forum!? I think we are lucky in the UK (mostly, I do know there are mnetters from all over) it is still possible to have a meaningful conversation with a wide variety of opinions on an emotive subject.

redeeminggod.com/gods-policy-of-non-intervention/

bootifooli God doesn't cause millions of people to starve.

Sorry, dawn, that is more biased mental gymnastics. The website is written from a pretty fundamental Christian viewpoint, even citing Adam and Eve as literal people. To people who don't believe in any god none of that makes sense at all.

And to the poster who said this is a typical tedious discussion about the Christian interpretation of God, perhaps you could make it more interesting by suggesting a different interpretation of God that might lead to a more fruitful discussion.