To genuinely wonder how or why anyone believes in God?

[ChaosNeverRains]

Genuine question.

I was until fairly recently I think probably agnostic rather than anything else, having been brought up in a very church oriented school where the emphasis was all on sin and retribution and the need to worship this higher being and that if you lived every day then it was through God’s will - you get the picture. Until recently though I was prepared to believe that perhaps there was a higher being out there somewhere, and even now I can see that some could believe that there is a higher being out there or that there was at some point.

But what I don’t understand is why people seem to believe that there is a God who looks over them individually when everything points to that not being the case. People talk about the power of prayer when actually no such power exists. The man dying of cancer is no more or less likely to die if you prayed for him than if you didn’t. I know of some very devout Christians who have fallen victim to the most horrific illnesses and where the church have genuinely believed that praying for them means God will heal them, which of course he hasn’t. But when they die those same people are thought to be up there eternally worshipping the lord. Why?

I can see that a belief in God might somehow make people feel comforted that this isn’t the only life we will have, but what I can’t see is that a God who allows the amount of bad and suffering that goes on in the world, even on an individual level should be so worshipped. If a father treated his children in the way that the supposed Heavenly Father treats his, no-one would want anything to do with him. Yet worshippers of a God go to all and any lengths to ensure that they continue to do things in the name of the father and to not upset him for fear of the retribution they will receive.

I’m not one for dismissing belief as believing in the fairies and what-not (with the possible exception of the dinosaur deniers,) but I am becoming more and more curious as to how it is that people can believe in this individual God and actually believe that it is true when there is no evidence to suggest anything of the sort.

PS: I am talking about any and all religion not just one. My thought process being that if there were one God it would be the same God whether you are Christian muslim or Jewish but that the scriptures are defined by humans to make for the individual religions.

I'd be embarrassed if people were bowing down to me like that

So you should be! You are not god.

Honestly though, singing songs and celebrating him helps to focus your mind and stops you ‘loving’ and ‘worshipping’ everything else that takes up your thoughts. Money, family, the world.

Why does god insist that we accept the human sacrifice that he made in order for us to be saved?

Why doesn't he just save everyone? There are plenty good people who are non religious or from a different religion.

Why is he insistent on this point?

And I fucking know the answer even as I type- " god gave us free will"....... blah de blah......

It’s about accepting your sin. Many people think they don’t need to be saved in the first place. Even good people sin, we all fall short because we’re not divine. But Jesus did die for everyone. All you have to do is believe that not reject it.

I don't do human sacrifice.

Call me a stickler.

Jesus did not die for me. It it rocks your boat then go for it honey.

I also don't have sin- and my babies were born without it.

I don't "fall short" - I am human. Who wants to be perfect?

Funny how the original sin was the fault of a woman.

All because she discovered her clitoris.

Oh sorry, I thought you were asking why God didn’t just save everyone. And I was saying that he has. But we do have the power to reject that salvation. Which is a choice some people make.

But it just makes so little sense, Wallabaloo. Yes, humans do things wrong. Why does that mean they need 'saving'? And how does some bloke dying on a cross save anyone? Of course we are not divine, because there is no such thing.

stops you ‘loving’ and ‘worshipping’ everything else that takes up your thoughts. Money, family, the world

Well maybe loving families and worshipping the earth is the answer to all that's wrong. Worshipping to god is clearly not helping.

Interesting post. Haven't read the full thread, but wanted to comment. For background, . I myself do believe in God, was raised in a family which believes in God, but like most people I have had periods of doubt and questioning. However as I have progressed through life my belief in God has strengthened. As a health professional working with people through periods of illness, loss and bereaved relatives, I've noticed that people who believe in God tend to cope better with loss events, and less likely to become depressed. As deaths of loved ones, illnesses etc all become much more frequent events as we advance through the decades, it affirms my feeling that as human beings we have some innate need to believe in God and a general sense of purpose to cope with what life throws at us. Despite my having a strong scientific background, I can't see that this sense of purpose can't be rationalised by scientific arguments. I don't think a belief in rational scientific argument and a belief in a higher entity, are mutually exclusive at all.

*Funny how the original sin was the fault of a woman.

All because she discovered her clitoris*

So true.

On an individual level, religion is a crutch, helping people to deal with death in particular.

Organised religion is nothing but a way of keeping people in their place, either by fear of what will befall them if they don't believe or the promise of a better world after this one.

Praying to a God to help someone who's ill makes no more difference than hoping they were better.

And many of the poorest people in the world are the most religious. Thinking that a god will somehow help them is just naive in the extreme.

Last week I saw a Facebook post thanking god for getting him home safely in the snowy weather. Nothing to do with the poor bastards who were out gritting and clearing the roads then? Same goes for those who think a god has cured their illness. Modern medicines and doctors are more likely to have done the trick.

It's all a load of cobblers and the sooner everyone realises that the better. Read Dawkins.

It's all a load of cobblers and the sooner everyone realises that the better. Read Dawkins.

Couldn't agree more, the man is a god to me

You need faith to believe in God, to me it requires a far bigger leap of faith to think we're all just here by chance. The odds of it happening by chance are too high to be counted. Atheists have a lot of complacency about where we came from and the impossibility of it happening through evolution alone, imo.

“Atheists have a lot of complacency about where we came from and the impossibility of it happening through evolution alone, imo”

There are’t any gaps in atheists’ arguments. Because all being an atheist means is that you don’t believe in a god or gods.

You can be an atheist and not believe in evolution. You can be an atheist and believe in all sorts of daft things. You just can’t believe in God.

Incidentally, why do you think it’s impossible that we came about through evolution alone?

But surely the chance of a divine being existing who could create the universe is equally improbable? Infinite regress and all that shizzle. Why is it more likely that a divine being was created from nothing than that the universe was?

Who says we are all here by “chance”, ”Logical”mum?

It is a deeply shameful thing that in 21st C Britain there are grown, presumably educated, women displaying extreme ignorance about very basic science on a public thread like this.

That’s another “sin” that can be laid at the door of religion - it makes people talk total rubbish while fooling them into thinking they are being profound and “open minded”.

The religious argument about that it can't be a chance is the wrong way around. As illustrated here:
commonsenseatheism.com/?p=12540

TabbyTiger

I was talking - quite clearly, I think - about the habit many have of attributing nice things that happen to them to God while shrugging off the lack of assistance he apparently offers to others as “all part of his plan”. That IS narcissistic.

If that does not apply to you, then I wasn’t talking about you. You seem to be seeking an explantion for your own troubles, which is not at all the same thing.

I don't know why people get so bothered by this. If religion gives people hope and faith then what is the big deal?

From my personal experience atheists tend to be a lot more pushy with their beliefs than anyone of a religious background.

It's also extremely ignorant to assume anyone who follows religion is stupid and doesn't understand/accept science.

I have a masters degree in medical microbiology and I still pray to god on a regular basis.

The problem with the whole 'God moves in mysterious ways' argument, which is being used here to justify why God allows bad things to happen, is that it answers one issue, but creates far more.

If we take bad things happening (earthquakes, disease, sexual abuse etc) as 'its all part of Gods plan, we can't possibly understand why, but its all for the best in the end. God can see all the outcomes, we can't'
then it logically means we can't make any judgements on the nature of God.

To explain further, how do we know God is good?

Well I suppose because he says he is. But surely the problem with that is that a good God would say they were good, but an evil God would also say they were good.

So surely we look at the world he is supposed to have created to make a judgement? Well if we follow the logic that 'God moves in mysterious ways', then we can't.

Its not logically consistent to take all the good things that happen in the world as evidence of God benevolence, but all the bad things as 'we can't hope to understand Gods will', because surely you can just reverse the argument and say all the bad things in the world are evidence of Gods evil, and all the good things are 'God working in mysterious ways'.

To be clear, I don't believe in God at all, but the whole 'God moves in mysterious ways' argument has always annoyed me, because it doesn't make any sense.

Caxie

I for one don't think religious people are stupid. Many of them are very intelligent, although religion in general generally correlates with lower levels of intelligence.

I think they are victims of a cruel confidence trick.

From my personal experience atheists tend to be a lot more pushy with their beliefs than anyone of a religious background.

So the church runs schools, are ingrained in our government, our head of state is also the head of the Cof E, are intertwined in our education system that we have to pray, sing about and study religion from an age when we don't know any better, and are regularly disturbed by the converted knocking on our doors inviting us to discover this Jesus bloke.

But Atheists are "pushy"

Regarding the earlier debate on atheism being s faith, this simply isn't true.

You don't need faith to not believe something, the onus is on the person making a statement to back it up with evidence, not on me having faith to not believe it.

There are plenty of militant atheists out there who follow atheism, however you do not need faith to do do, merely an understanding of fact based established scientific process to test and observe evidence, whilst comprehending the limitations of our knowledge without filling the gaps with the unprovable.

speakout “Funny how the original sin was the fault of a woman. All because she discovered her clitoris”.

And established religions still aim to controll female sexuality.