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 have no faith. I dont know why some religious texts have survived and some become myths and legends.

I did believe, went to CofE schools etc.

Now I'm a grown adult, I no longer believe.

IMO religion, otherwise known as "my sky fairy's better than your sky fairy" causes nothing but trouble the world over.

The basic question 'Do you believe in God?' is meaningless because there is no such thing as God. God (with a small 'g') is simply an abstract construct that people create each for themselves to deal with psychosocial needs that can't be met in any other way. This is why people fight so viciously and mindlessly over beliefs. If you want to ask 'Do you believe in god?' or similar questions, you have to specify what kind of god, with what attributes, so that people have some idea of what you're talking about and what they need to be able to answer.

This was a topic I touched on in my doctoral thesis back in the late 1970s. James A Lindsay has written so much more fully and eloquently about this problem in his excellent book Everybody is Wrong about God.

I don't. I studied philosophy, theology, religious studies and philosophy of religion. Lots of deep study to come to the opinion that it's a lot of stories that make no sense created by people trying to work stuff out, but not getting it right.

I can't not believe in God. I'm not very good at actually believing in God either, and I tend to forget about Him in a regular basis, and then am confronted by unignorable divinity again.

What I certainly don't believe in, though, is a primary school style supernatural old man who makes ridiculous rules in implausible ways and puts people in a flaming naughty corner when they don't do as they are told. This seems to be the God that lots of people think Christians (and Muslims, and Jews) believe in, but I've never knowingly met anyone who does.

Skatingonthinice I was under the impression (from reading various sci fi novels ) that life as we know it evolved too quickly for natural selection to fully explain it. I'm thinking a Prometheus type situation lol. Happy for an actual scientist to correct me!

Not necessarily true, IMO. I think if you are one of the people who consciously decides that life has more meaning to you with a god in it, and devote yourself to it/him/her, you're not sheeplike. It must be quite hard in the face of lots of ridicule. Different story for those who just follow their parents and communities into church/temple/mosque going because of custom and tradition, though.

Those that can make you believe in absurdities can also make you commit atrocities.

The bible even refers to its believers as sheep, following blindly.

People tend to turn to religion If there is something missing from their life. However, I strongly believe the answers to all the questions people are seeking answers to are found within themselves. Not a book of fairytales.

I am undecided.

I don't think there's a big beardy man in the sky who cares what you do with your genitals.

After all, unless it's asexual reproduction (cloning) you need a male and a female to reproduce, so why wouldn't there be a female god too? Or a god who was both or neither gender??

I think there might be an entity around us, an energy, and my explanation for this I thought of the other day:

I think god is like a CEO at a company. You hardly ever see them, they're always in their office doing something. But no one knows what they actually do. People complain and say they get paid loads for doing very little. But they simply don't see what goes on behind closed doors. There's so much to keep the business (the universe) afloat.

I think god is doing so much stuff we can't even comprehend. For example souls and reincarnation, if this is true, the work to keep everything going and changing would be immense.

I don't think therefore god would have time to listen to prayers of each person, and even if they did they couldn't show favouritism.

People will say then why would they let people suffer, well okay, who's suffering? A 5 year old girl has terminal cancer. It's a natural phenomenon, death has to happen. Yes it's sad, but death is always sad. If we kept every body alive every body would suffer more from overcrowding, dehydration, starvation and disease.

Why do natural disasters happen? Well they're just that, natural. They're sad yes, but since the dawn of time, Ice ages, fires, plagues have all happened, population control.

But that's just my 2 cents.

Loup

Dh thinks that aliens added something to create us as we defy evolution according to him. He says dinosaurs were around a lot longer than we've been and never evolved that much.

Except that they did evolve "that much". That's why there were so many types of dinosaurs. That's why they were perfectly adapted to their respective environments until an asteroid took them out. That's why there were apex predators, and other dinosaurs who would've been easy prey.

I don't because it is fucking ludicrous.

I do. I became a Catholic in my late teens. Did a degree in Theology later in life. I believe because I have a day-to-day relationship with God.

I do.
Who can look at nature - anything from the tiniest frogspawn or insect to mountains and a beautiful landscape - without believing a greater power has made it? Whenever I see blossom, or new flowers, or the magic of nature it convinces me God is real.

Also, when I hear or see anything amazing that people have made - when I hear a wonderful singer, see a ballet, listen to amazing music - I know that God gave these people their talent.

I don't. Religion and God where there to explain our existence when science couldn't. They were a way to make sense of a world that was incomprehensible.

If you did believe in a God which one? What makes you think that yours is the right one? Zeus, Allah, Buddah there have been so many with so many different 'instructions' on how to live. How are you supposed to know which one is the real one? It just never made sense to me.

I don't. I'm no scientist, but I don't understand how people do still believe in this day and age. It's a way of controlling people. It's clearly a comfort to people though, in tough times, this thread has shown. My mum is a non believer but lost three children before me and nearly lost me, she had me christened, she said said that at that time it was something to cling onto at a difficult time (she had septis and nearly died after having me, leading to a breakdown). She massively regrets it now, but TBH it means absolutely nothing to me that I'm christened.

I don't. I can't believe in something there is absolutely zero evidence far and I am utterly baffled that anyone else does.

I think the only religious people I have any vague respect for are people who are mentally fine and who have "found God" as an adult.

I often ask religious people "why are you Muslim/Christian etc?" They respond because "I believe in allah/God etc" then I ask "if your parents where atheists or any other religion, would you be the religion you are now?" Usually there is silence or and honest person says no.

I can't deal with people being indoctrinated as children.

It's not a question of belief. It is self evident to me that there is no god of any variety. The whole notion seems entirely ridiculous. There is nothing that requires the existence of a deity to explain and nothing that would seem more plausible if a god existed.

The universe may one day have a great laugh at my expense, but I don't think so..

I try really hard to respect religious belief but it is sometimes hard as I really don't get it at all.

I don't. I did for a long time, mostly because of my education - my parents weren't religious, but my secondary school put a lot of emphasis on it - and I suppose I was just reluctant to let go. I reconciled myself to a lot of the contradictions by heavy reliance on the concept of free will. However, there were always aspects that I simply couldn't reconcile. I remember sitting bored to tears through hours of compulsory church wondering why on earth we had to go through this ritual when surely we could, if so minded, pray anywhere and at any time.

Over the last 15 years or so I think I just moved to accepting that I simply could see no reason or evidence whatsoever for believing that there is a god. I became increasingly impatient with some of the sheer nonsense that the religious spout, particularly suggestions that awful things like children dying in agony are permitted by god as some sort of test for the rest of us. Ultimately I realised that the only logical answer for that type of problem is, quite simply, that it happens because of basic biological and other flaws and that no entity exists who can prevent it.

Summer "For those who don't believe, could I ask what you make of fulfilled prophecy and historical accuracy in the bible"

I don't believe in god and have no clue about the above. I'm interested that you've linked them because if I did believe in god, surely I could still not have knowledge of those things?

My definition of god is all seeing all knowing all good. With that definition there cannot be one because not all is good. I see no evidence for that being but I realise others will be working with different definitions.

I like Loup's honesty, I've seen you before saying that you need to believe. I find that refreshing, rather than having people present "evidence" or saying "it just is".

No evidence of god(s).

Lots of strong psychological and sociological reasons for us to want, to believe in an afterlife; and for some people to seek ways to influence lots of others' behaviour. Religion is one way for them to do that.

It's not arrogant not to believe in things that religious people believe in.

No, I don't believe in God any more than I believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, they're all about as plausible as each other. I remember being very young and learning about God/Jesus and all the rest of it and just thinking 'errr, no'. I find it impossible to comprehend how any rational adult can truly believe in the existence of an invisible sky-fairy. Mass delusion I guess, which was the original aim of organised religion. I just find it boggling that the myth has persisted into this day and age. I get that some people get a kind of comfort from it but to me it's just self-delusion.

I don't.
I wasn't brought up in any faith. I wasn't christened or anything and none of my family or friends went to church when I was growing up, so religion has never really been part of my life.

I find it hard to understand how anyone truly believes nowadays, but I would never give people a hard time over what they believe as long as they keep it to themselves.

It's a silly question.

It's like asking why don't you believe that circles are square.

Just a nonsense.

It's up to believers to justify their faith if they feel the need to.

We are all born atheists. It's the default position.