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.....

Why would someone who has decided to design a beautiful world also design major flaws in it such as earthquakes? Why would he design things like plague viruses, or the capacity for evil in man?

The Earth is developing, part of that is having earthquakes. Evil, free will and all that (I'm not quoting the Bible there btw, best to make that clear). I think suffering in one way or another leads to truly feeling and appreciating the opposite. Life is truly cruel at time, terrible unimaginable cruelty humans inflict on one another. But can you imagine this world if everyone really had unconditional love for one another. Now, what a ideal that would be.

DevelopingDetritus

Because it's the corner stone of nearly all religions. It's the thing you read/sing from when you go to church.

But even if we don't take the bible into account, where is your evidence for God? I can give you evidence for parts of the big bang, for evolution, for why the sun sets the way it does, why certain things have evolved the way they have, but not a single shred of evidence exists for the proof of God.

The Bible and the likes doctoring is too deeply ingrained it seems, which is such a shame.

But if the world was designed by an omnipotent designer, why would he design in massive flaws like the capacity for earthquakes?

I really hate the explanation for suffering that it happens for the good of non-sufferers or to test them or similar. I cannot conceive of a supreme being so utterly evil that he would ever decide to do that; and if he does exist, I simply do not understand why you would want to spend your life praising and worshipping him.

I'm also not impressed by the idea that humans are responsible for suffering whilst god is responsible for the good stuff. Not only is it a cop-out, it is demonstrably not true. In addition, you come hard up against the difficulty of a supposedly beneficent being with the power to prevent suffering who chooses to do nothing about it.

Try and move away from that man made doctoring.

Many of us on this thread have done just that - in that we don't believe in any gods and think the best explanation for people's belief is that they are a man-made construct.

I don't in the same way I don't believe in Santa, the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny. It's brainwashing and it's dangerous.

Yes believe in God. I always have. It makes more sense to me and have had several experiences that have convinced me. As someone up thread says, the world is too amazing to just come from nothing. Like the poster above I too have stillbriths and it brings comfort too.

The "experiences" are back. Experiences that cannot be described. But they are evidence. Because the select few that have experienced these inexplicable experiences are telling us so.

No doubt faith brings comfort just as it can drive men to kill.

No doubt people find solace in prayer.

Nobody is questioning what emotional and sociological resources you can draw from a belief you choose to hold.

What people are questioning is the matter you believe in. Which is non existent.

Hang on. Of course not. For you have had "experiences".

I can't believe in a god that can do things like give babies and children cancer and have people all over the world starve to death. If he does exist then he's an arsehole

This

Carrie those things are apparently man made.

People have deep needs to believe. They find solace in believing they have had "experiences". It gives them comfort to pray to think someone is listening. The need is so profound that one day the object of their belief becomes real to them. They "find" god. They are born again.

However hard I try finding an iota of respect for these delusions is beyond me.

all atheist fundamentally must believe they dont have any control on there life as sam harris says he believes theres no god and in determinism but strangely they do nothing about the criminal justice system weird!

The reason i believe what i believe is very simple and exactly the same as for everyone else.
It's because I want to.

sweets - is it a choice?

I couldn't simply decide to believe in god by making a simple decision.
I don't think it works like this.

Of course you could if you wanted to because it would suit you better.
People always believe what they want to. Will set up and mould their belief systems to suits themselves. That's exactly how it works and also why people have such a hard time agreeing with each other.

spend your life praising and worshipping him. none of that going on here. A "Him", no, no Him.

We wouldn't have mountains if it weren't for earthquakes.

Someone mentioned up thread the "select few", everyone has the capacity for this, people aren't selected.

the world is just too amazing to just come from nothing
So what about god, why can he/she come from nothing? I really do not get that particular argument.

And what about dinosaurs, were they just some project that god got bored with and wiped them out?

The "experiences" are back.

Yes, and the tone resembles the ones of the believers on the 'woo' threads -- that people will only believe once they've also undergone these mysterious experiences. Which, curiously enough, can usually be put down to coincidence, sleep paralysis, children's imagination, things glimpsed in poor visibility, suggestibility, wishful thinking, and people failing to apply rational thought to cold rooms, electrical faults, squeaky floorboards, squirrel/rat infestations, the fact that most non new-build houses will have had deaths in them etc.

The main difference is that the people on the woo threads are only too pleased to fill everyone in on the room that was always cold/the visit from the dead cat/ the information the psychic couldn't possibly have known, whereas the 'religious experience' claimants are rather more coy.

To be fair to the people who have had experiences, different things make different people believe and sometimes they can be quite personal. The various things that both of my parents have said made them convinced absolutely that there is a god would just not be enough for me, but it's enough for them.
So that's great that they can have that comfort, some people need it.
I don't feel I do and I can't believe without more physical evidence.
Each to their own and I believe that no-one should attempt to convince or persuade someone else away from either religion or atheism etc.
I refused to read any 'anti' religious stuff when I was confused, I read source material like the bible and I found the flaws for myself, I didn't need anyone to dictate or decide for me, I came to a non believing decision by myself and in my own time.

We wouldn't have mountains if it weren't for earthquakes.

But the mountains are there and we are still having earthquakes. Haven't we got enough mountains? There are an awful lot of people who wouldn't be dead if it weren't for earthquakes.

At the end of the day, people will continue to believe this rubbish because they've had "experiences" and until we start telling people that their experiences aren't facts, they'll continue to push their woo on us.

Anyway, if you're going to believe in God, why the boring old Christian one? I personally find Zeus, Odin and Jupiter much more interesting.

I do always laugh at the idea of a friendly, omnipotent God though who just wants the best for us. I mean, have you read the Old Testament? He can be ruthless!

As an atheist I fully believe that there is a scientific explanation for everything and if there's something we can't explain yet, it's because the technology hasn't been discovered yet. Like I keep saying, we couldn't explain things like DNA properly until 60 years ago. It was just a theory until then and we had to wait for technology to be used in the appropriate way before we could prove how it's structured.

The Higgs-Boson (God Particle) was first written about in the 1960s as a theory and it took until 2012 before we could actually prove it exists to 99.9999% certainty.

In fact, now more than ever you have less reason to believe in God. We have more information about how the universe was created, with a lot of scientific evidence, than ever before. There really is no excuse for not believing it.

I just can't get my head around how people can argue a point even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

But the mountains are there and we are still having earthquakes. Haven't we got enough mountains? There are an awful lot of people who wouldn't be dead if it weren't for earthquakes. The planet doesn't work that way, it's constantly evolving and changing.

I've put a link to a 3 minute Youtube video on the shifting continents if you're interested.

why the boring old Christian one? I don't personally.

I think suffering in one way or another leads to truly feeling and appreciating the opposite*

I sometimes let my dd forget to take her PE kit because turning up at school and not having it is a good way to help her to remember to organise herself. However I've yet to starve her and beat it.

I just can't get my head around how people can argue a point even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Yes but I have found the evidence inside myself. I can't show you unfortunately, I wish I could, honestly. If the evidence was on the moon we'd all have found it by now but that's the problem, it's too simple, the potential is inside everyone, it's just tapping into it. I know it's so maddening. I used to get so frustrated with people that knew. I have a major problem with the religions of the world but not spirituality.