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 used to, i prayed (and got solice- i always knew it was a way of thinking, not a list of demands). I loved the history of catholicism, and also the way that you act according to conscience, so being catholic without having devine patriarchial being was easy. I stayed for friendship, when that was no longer there, i left.

They might help people who are losing their faith in a positive way too.

Losing my faith completely has been one of the most positive things that has ever happened to me.

Listening to other believers trying to explain it very much helped me on my way because, over and over again it illustrated the reasons my faith was in the death throes.

We've moved on from this? yes i thought we had, i said it in answer to someone who said "shut up or you're only making yourself look more stupid"

Yeah but it can work the other way booli, i've had messages to say so.

Dawn, I had a longer post earlier that got eaten. I think I was getting close earlier to asking you to justify your faith in explaining why I don't buy those arguments as a decent argument for the existence of the Christian god; that was not my intention. If there was logic and consistency there would be less need for faith. So its graceless of me to press you for logic and consistency where I know none exists.

I think we're at a really interesting point in time in the history of Christianity. It's having to change so rapidly in the West in response to the unprecedented speed of change in cultural values and shared morality that, in redefining what God is, what he means and how he operates, and how the bible should be interpreted, some of the always-existent inconsistencies are being exposed and new ones introduced. I think the next few decades will be really interesting.

At the moment it seems like it's just me against the whole lot of you, where are all the rest of the believers, where've you all gone. .

Think i'll just have a rest and let some others do the talking for a change. On the whole it's been a fairly friendly thread but some have got a bit nasty and goady so leaving it for now, i've said enough.

I agree with you there Dawn . Some of it is unnecessarily personal. Thank you for a measured and honest discussion

This discussion goes nowhere because we are asking the believers for something they cannot provide which is proof, but there is no proof to provide.

Well I think this has been an amazing thread and one I will come back to several times. Over 800 Interesting and thoughtful discussions on both sides; the reason I joined Mumsnet despite being child free. Some of you are incredible thinkers and writers.
Totally off topic but needed to say it.

Summerbloom

You earlier wrote

"I would answer your question with the intricate design of our bodies, each cel harmoniously speaks to the other, our brain is faster and more brilliant than any computer ever built, how every nerve and muscle works together, the veins in every human body in which could wrap around the whole earth twice, our DNA manuscript..... as for people and children dying or naturally deformed in some way, I can't help but think that is due to generational disease, the environment which we have and continue to ruin, the spreading of disease etc"

So does this mean god designed us as we are now, or as previous mammal/clump of cells that grew into humans? At what did god let go of this new creation?

The fact the design failed after coming into contact with the environment he also created, suggests it was far from perfect.

where are all the rest of the believers, where've you all gone Maybe they've joined us on the darkside? :o

What's the Christian view on the dinosaurs at then moment then? I saw something that was basically saying that fossils were planted by atheists in order to back up our argument and that dinosaurs never existed at all. Is that the common view or is it that they were just a (very long running) experiment that god got bored with so rubbed them out to start again?

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

ISIS use the technology to spread fear and hatred
Haredi Jews hate technology, except air travel and flash phones
and presumably God did not exist before technology then?
Maybe Nikolai Tesla sparked him into existence

and if we are not animals, what are we ?

I can't stay and debate as I am preparing for Easter services but just a few thoughts.

I've suspected for a while that some people lose a childlike faith as children and then assume that all believers have a childlike faith because that is what they had. That isn't the case. Stages of faith theory hypothesises that we all go through stages of faith that start with a child like faith and changes as we age. It is only in middle age that there comes an acceptance of mystery and ambiguity. If you want to look it up it comes from James Fowler. This medium.com/a-little-aboutme/the-five-stages-of-atheism-6a6447c5d46d was interesting in the way that an atheist describes his journey of not faith.

Most Christians are not fundamentalists. The bible is not the literal word of God. Science and religion are compatible. Of course dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and did not coexist with people.

God is not a thing thus demanding that believers use the techniques of scientific theory to prove God exists is a category error. Philosophy 101 looks at epistemology and how we know what we know. It isn't taught in schools which is a real shame. We have to make a lot of metaphysical assumptions about the world to function in it. As a follower of Jesus I have had plenty of religious experience that supports my faith on a good day and loads of doubt on a bad one. But I keep going in faith.

Robert Shortt wrote a really good book that addresses some of these issues 'God is no Thing' and Francis Spufford writes on what it feels like to be a Christian for anyone who is interested in learning what it feels like to walk in someone else's shoes rather than tilting at the windmills of 'All Christians are fundamentalists' and 'the God of the Christians is the Old Testament God' which has had an airing on this thread. Unapologetic is the name of that book.

If you don't feel the need to believe in God then fine. I don't preach that you are going to hell. You get a 4 day weekend at Easter and I'm working stupid hours. Blessings.

For someone who has never had any religious experience, even when seeking it, the whole idea of religious experience fascinates me. How do you know it is that and not another sort of endorphin mediated experience?

thegreenheart
Your faith is clearly moderate.
Others who say they read the same book are not.

And the question at the top of the thread was "Do you believe in God"
to which I responded early on
"Which God?"
as religious people tend not to read up about where their view fits into the wider view
hence why so many evangelicals home school in the USA

Lots of people say they have had these religious "experiences" where they felt the presence of God. But these must remain ambiguous and mysterious because, they are private. That's not useful is it.

So what are the experiences? A ray of light suddenly shone somewhere? You sat beside a dying individual and they healed miraculously? Or is it just the "feeling" on a wonderful Summer's afternoon that all is well and you are not alone?

Very often I hear this argument of - "rest assured, I have felt God." as if that in itself is the final answer and I should sagely and respectfully nod and say "oh of course, yes, indeed".

What are these supposed feelings of God?

It is fascinating that there are actually people who believe - that there is a God floating in the sky, inscribed into every life, whatever. While millions of others think a stone is God, my country vastly believes a Cow in God.

These people have all felt their own different Gods. How? Where? Who is in the sky? Allah? Jesus? the cow? who? Or are they all the same? One individual? What exactly do people believe is happening?

Yes, that's just it; I understand that you can't necessarily exactly describe how you feel the presence of God but surely it should be possible to give some indication of how you (believed you) felt his presence.

God obviously exists.

I'm right here guys.

I can't use people's feelings as evidence because people have feelings about all sorts of things and they can't all be right. It shows me that as humans we are capable of very strong feelings about things that we think are so. And thus have to discount personal testimony as permitting it could lead me to believe in all sorts.

I want to hold as many true beliefs as possible and as few false beliefs as possible so I'm being picky.

I think God was invented to make people feel better about dying, I do not belive in god, if there was a god there would not be as many people suffering in the world as there is today. I find it hard to understand why people invest in somuch that may not be real? like nuns for instance, they go through life without a lot of pleasures and what happens when they get to the end of the life and there is no heaven that was promised, what a waste of a life.

The human brain is a wonderful thing and we haven't yet unlocked all it's mysteries and power. I think that there is a possibility of inherited memory and all sorts of other things that people could think was divine experience.

My DH completely an atheist had a very physical experience which if he were religiously or woo inclined could be taken as a belief in the afterlife but is fairly and squarely the result of the brain under grief.

To describe, he was a teenager when his elder brother died, his elder brother used to hide inside the door of the house and jump on and play fight with DH when he came from school. A week or so after he died, DH was back at school and came home to have his DBro jump out at him and play fight with him. So much so that his DM shouted to ask what all the commotion was and DH then realised he was on his own. He physically felt his DBro was there. He knows he wasn't.

We've moved on from this? yes i thought we had

Any chance of answering the further questions I put arising from this, dawnviews?

This discussion goes nowhere because we are asking the believers for something they cannot provide which is proof, but there is no proof to provide

Not really. The question I struggle with is why you would carry on believing when there is not only no proof, there is no evidence at all. It really is just as logical as believing in the green spaghetti monster.

It's clear they can't provide proof. They even admit that. What they don't take on board is that there's no logic to believing in some things without proof -, at least, evidence - and not others.

Once you have sacrificed the requirement for evidence, you have suspended reason and declared all cognitive ability to be out of the window. You may as well believe in fairies, the Easter Bunny, tealeaf-reading and homeopathy as well.