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.....

Verybutchy the same could be asked who created the creator. Just because you can't understand the science behind the bmtheory of the Big Bang doesn't mean you can fill the gap with 'god'. Where did he come from?

but what created the universe/Big 💥 in the first place?

but the lack of an scientific explanation can hardly justify the existence of God, can it.

I do.
The world is too beautiful not to have had a designer :) I believe in evolution too, I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.
I don't understand suffering, it is a big question I wrestle with. I think it's source is evil not God.

Lots of scientists believe in God, i don't get the god versus science debate.

I don't. It's as feasible as believing in any ancient story.

I'm going for Centaurs if I have to pick a mythical being. Much cooler.

Theistic evolution is a nonsense.

Evolution by it's very process is one of chance and randomness, no control over the systems is needed or indeed helpful.

littlepea- do you therefore assume that animals go to heaven, have souls or are judged by god?
If not then at what of the human evolutionary process did god decide to insert souls into humans? Erectus? Habilis? Before that?

If you think animals have souls then which have souls- cats? Ants? Worms? Sponges?

Verybutchy the same could be asked who created the creator. Just because you can't understand the science behind the bmtheory of the Big Bang doesn't mean you can fill the gap with 'god'. Where did he come from?

I'm not a theist. So I'm not "filling" any gap.

I do, based on an experience as a young adult. I would not expect this to convince anyone else, nor would I seek to convince anyone else.

But what created the universe/Big 💥 in the first place?

That's one of those don't know/may never know/best theory based on evidence is ones, isn't it?

Not knowing is ok. It just doesn't point me to belief in the supernatural.

Not knowing is ok. It just doesn't point me to belief in the supernatural.

Nor me. But others do. I think that's okay too. Can't see what's to be gained by insulting them for it. (not suggesting you were doing that).

Nor me. But others do. I think that's okay too. Can't see what's to be gained by insulting them for it. (not suggesting you were doing that).

I'm with you there, on the proviso they don't expect special treatment (including by the state) because of their belief, to expect people to agree that it is logical or evience-based, to try to lay claim to human values as exclusive or caused by their religion or god/s, or try to convert others.

When those things happen, I do feel somewhat free to say 'ok, here's why that makes less than no sense.'

Well - it depends what you mean by god.......creator? personal friend? judge? executioner? the goodness in humans? omnipotent being?

Everyone's god is different; which convinces me that gods are a manmade construct, interpreted differently by each religion, and bearing a remarkable common thread of social control (usually also incorporating masculine supremacy).

If there were a supreme creator, such a being being is far more likely to have made that clear than to be opaque and obtuse and susceptible to miriad interpretations and accretions of petty rules.

I regard myself as being agnostic. I truly can see that it is currently impossible to explain how the universe(s) came about without some sort of explanation that makes sense to the human brain and mindset: hence god. The yawning gap in our knowledge - the "god-shaped hole", the "why not nothing" questions - are beyond our ken. As an agnostic I accept and embrace the not knowing as a central part of the human condition.

VeryButchyRestingFace

We don't know, but we can theorise and come up with likely scenarios based on lots of research.

Most science is theories until we have technology or a random fluke that can prove it. Look at Penicillin - before Fleming we knew about the antibacterial effects of penicillium but couldn't explain why. Then Fleming came along and - without knowing about the previous experiments - managed to create the same result just by leaving the lid off a sample accidentally and he was able to deduce what had caused it.

So the creation of the most important drug of the 20th Century was purely a fluke.

I don't take that as evidence of God, just of how insanely built on chance and randomness the universe is. Everything we do is, to some extent, based on chance and random events. I find that fascinating and to me, it points to evidence of no God, as if there was one, why would so much be based on luck and chance? Wouldn't it be better for things to work 100% of the time instead of only sometimes in specific sets of circumstances?

It's quite interesting sometimes the Byzantine arguments that people construct to possibly in some way allow for the possibility of a supernatural being for which no actual physical evidence exists whatsoever. It's amazing. I'm not saying people holding those beliefs should be insulted or ridiculed but they certainly shouldn't be treated with equal validity as those beliefs that are grounded in evidence. Otherwise anyone could make anything up and expect equal treatment for their beliefs, which is ridiculous

I can understand it must be very frustrating. I wish you well.

I said What are the odds of god?

Dawn said Fine, avoid the question.

I think I answered it implicitly about thirty pages back, Dawn. You're using spurious back of the envelope maths from a fundamentalist Christian website that believes Adam and Eve were two real people. The maths (and the history, genetics, geology etc on the site ) are not plausible.

For example, you (or the website) are obviously not aware (or don't care) about developments in science which make the calculation demonstrably wrong. Even in the last few weeks, NASA has demonstrated that the probability of finding exoplanets (outside our solar system) that orbit at the right distance round a planet to support liquid water and therefore life is far, far greater than was thought before.

A greater scientific understanding is slashing those back of the envelope odds. At what point do they become "possible" odds?

So, "What are the odds of god?" Can you quantify that?

The world is too beautiful not to have had a designer. I believe in evolution too, I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

You obviously don't understand evolution if you believe that.

I'm an atheist and scientist but somehow the more-rational-than-thou style of atheism leaves me feeling rather down.

Blossomdeary - thank you, I enjoyed your nuanced, humble take on the whole matter.

I'm an atheist and scientist but somehow the more-rational-than-thou style of atheism leaves me feeling rather down. Closed off to new possibilities which is sad, always good to keep an open mind I say.

I'm not closed off to new possibilities, I'm just extremely sceptical to the point of atheism (though I suppose I would have to describe myself as a strongly atheist-tending agnostic if I wanted to be honest, as I don't know what I don't know) about the existence of a god. And looking at the guy you linked to, that doesn't really seem to be about 'god' but more about a transcendental meditation type experience. Frankly I didn't want to pay him any money to sign up to find out more as that's right up there with charismatic Christian preachers.

I don't.

I remember as a child the horrible feeling that I was being watched and judged.
That alone was enough to leave it behind.

I'm not closed off to new ideas either - indeed, I'm fascinated by religion and the stories - and I'm a huge proponent of transcendental meditation which requires you to have an open mind, but I just can't put any faith in something which has no evidence at all. Nobody, anywhere, has been able to prove that the major miracles described in the bible actually happened.

We've been searching for Noah's Ark for 2500+ years and we can't find a single shred of actual evidence of it existing. Most of the stuff in the bible, like the general history and timeline of events is true, and we can prove that, but that's because we think it was written by people who were there at the time.

The miracle elements come into play because people sought reasons for things they couldn't understand, or wanted to provide reasons for awful things happening because of nature.

What we do know is there was a man called Jesus, and his followers believed he performed miracles. However, it doesn't mean he actually did these things, nor was he the son of God. His followers rewrote and wrote parts of the bible to fit their narrative - it's something we're still doing today with other parts of history.

It cements it for me that we're able to find so much information about Stone Henge (although not as much as we'd like) but we can't find even a tiny piece of evidence of Noah's Ark, The Ark of the Covenant or anything like that.

Hell, even the things the Bible are right about - like the destruction of the walls of Jericho - are described in the bible incorrectly and are about 150 years too late.

ohlittlepea - "the world is too beautiful not to have had a designer" - the world is a cruel cruel place, predicated on the survival of the fittest and full of non-stop killing of one species by another.

It is of course also beautiful, but that is not the whole story.

Ontopofthesunset I used to be an Agnostic too. Paying money and signing up, are you talking about Eckhart Tolle? Of course you can buy his books etc but I've never spent a penny, just listened to the Youtube videos, what he said made sense to me, if it hadn't made sense, then that would have been the end of it for me, with regards to listening to him anymore anyway.

major miracles described in the bible actually happened. Why do people keep harping on about stuff in the Bible, You'd be doing yourself a major favour if you didn't dwell on it. Try and move away from that man made doctoring.