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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to ask your opinions on God?

999 replies

Violetduck · 04/12/2020 21:31

Do you beleive there is a God? I would like to, but how can he exist alongside modern science?

Aibu to believe in something more?

OP posts:
flaviaritt · 05/12/2020 09:22

So they deserved to die?

In Christian theology, we are all miserable sinners who deserve death, yes.

ZenNudist · 05/12/2020 09:24

God exists and he is good. I know this for certain. I am intelligent. It surprised me when he showed up in my life because I spent so many years atheist/ agnostic. I found religion boring and cringeworthy. Now I know I was wrong. There is still so much we don't understand.

Science doesn't disprove God. Look around! We live in a vast and beautiful universe designed in intricate detail which human ingenuity has enabled us to see . It's amazing. This didn't all happen by chance!

I think that God must love everyone. So even if you dont believe in God He believes in you. Just do what good you can in the world and if you can see your way to opening your heart to God and asking Him for understanding please do. The results may surprise you.

80sForever · 05/12/2020 09:26

Sadly this is true, we are all born into this world with sin (because eve ate the apple) and yes we deserve to die and it is by God's mercy we are saved from this death if we believe in him. So yes lot and everyone in the ark deserved to die because they refused to believe...simple as that really

Snog · 05/12/2020 09:26

If there is a god he is most definitely not a good god.

pointythings · 05/12/2020 09:27

I don't believe there is a God. That belief is incredibly comforting to me - it means that there isn't some entity that allowed the utterly shitty past 4 years of my life to happen and thought that was OK. It's far easier to just accept that sometimes shit happens. It also means that it's only up to me to be the best human being I can be - there's no reward or punishment afterwards, just me living with what's on my conscience.

I have very little regard for organised religion. Religious people - no problem at all, we are all entitled to our own beliefs. Religious organisations - hell no. Even if they aren't condemning people for being female, gay, from a different faith (and I have two gay DDs), they're preaching about how much they pity us poor unbelievers. Sod right off with that.

ThornAmongstRoses · 05/12/2020 09:28

Forgive me, but I find that very strange. Her reaction is entirely understandable and natural. I’m sure the brilliant people who operated on her tiny baby understand it.

And that’s fine - but as a non-believer I find it strange that the people who actually saved her baby’s life aren’t recognised for it.

I work as a children’s nurse and have seen on many many occasions the wonderful work that is done to save the lives of children - I am constantly in awe of what doctors and nurses (and others) can do when it comes to saving the lives of critically ill children.

Do I think God should be given the credit for the wonders they do? Absolutely not.

But like I said, I am a non-believer and so that’s my take on it. I do accept that the perceptions by those who do believe may be different and maybe they genuinely do think that the reason their child is still alive is because of God.

DameFanny · 05/12/2020 09:29

@80sForever

Just to add further the coronavirus began because a certain group of people disobeyed those said spiritual laws and now we are all suffering
This is batshit @80sForever. Quite literally for covid19.

Do you believe the same for AIDS?

MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes · 05/12/2020 09:30

Like Squeekums I find those who frantically try to justify the shit in the world, from poverty, cancer and starvation to kids being brutally raped and murdered by men, as a chance for good people to shine, beyond disgusting 🤢 🤮 .

@Fieldofyellowflowers, I am fascinated by the links to Egyptian history shown in the Bible. While much of what you came out with about what has been found are rubbish, that much is indisputable. The Bible is a collection of valuable ancient writings, incorporating truly ancient though jumbled motifs and we can clearly see the traces of the international world of the Bronze Age there. It doesn’t make your god real. The sun standing still was, for instance, no doubt a reference to the precession of equinoxes, which was well studied and well known throughout Bronze Age peoples.

flaviaritt · 05/12/2020 09:30

I do accept that the perceptions by those who do believe may be different and maybe they genuinely do think that the reason their child is still alive is because of God.

Sort of. Christians pray for the mercy of God, but whether or not (in terms of theology) God dispenses that mercy on request is a matter of huge controversy and religious dispute.

Either way, just as a person speaking of you and your reaction to a desperate mum on her knees to her God for her baby’s life, I find your response to her feelings lacking in the normal amount of empathy I would expect from anyone, let alone a nurse. She thanked God - so what?

ChasingRainbows19 · 05/12/2020 09:32

I don’t believe and I don’t follow a religion. But I do like looking into faith, ideology and religious practices throughout the world. There is sometimes theology or snippets of readings for example that we can apply to our own lives in the modern world: basic morality, charity, kindness. I’m not ignoring the negative though which of course people can find too, it’s often open to interpretation. I prefer to look at the positive.

I do sometimes envy those who have such a strong faith that it enables them to have comfort in tough times. On the flip side religion can also can be the basis of so much horror in the world too.

zaphodbeeble · 05/12/2020 09:32

‘If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness’ - graffiti in Auschwitz

Manolinette · 05/12/2020 09:33

Science and god are inherently compatible. Science will one day prove either that god exists or does not. Science will take us to the beginning of everything and to the end of everything and in doing so will prove that we are both finite and infinite. This will leave one truth staring back at us.

Mumofsend · 05/12/2020 09:33

I don't believe in God but I do have a very strong sense of faith in general.

chomalungma · 05/12/2020 09:35

Either way, just as a person speaking of you and your reaction to a desperate mum on her knees to her God for her baby’s life, I find your response to her feelings lacking in the normal amount of empathy I would expect from anyone, let alone a nurse. She thanked God - so what

You see God being thanked for lots of things - especiallly where people have prayed to God for help.

I hope that those people who thank God if their prayers are answered also thank the people who helped them, who saved them, who did their bit to ensure the 'miracle' happened.

If just God gets thanked, then that's a bit forgetful of those people who did all the hard work.

Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 05/12/2020 09:36

I don't believe in God. At my dcs school they teach them about Go, take them to church for religious occasions etc (not sure why as they are not a religious school) my youngest was fascinated for a couple of year, believed wholeheartedly. I let him fulfill his curiosity, answered any questions he had. We all did. He told me last week he doesn't believe in God anymore, because how could God let so many bad things happen in the world if he really did exist.

flaviaritt · 05/12/2020 09:36

If just God gets thanked, then that's a bit forgetful of those people who did all the hard work.

Her baby nearly died. She went through a profound trauma. Forgive her. Forget it.

Manolinette · 05/12/2020 09:37

Whoa....wait a minute!!

OP, I thought you said Dog. It was my dyslexia kicking in again. Of course science and dogs can co-exist.

80sForever · 05/12/2020 09:38

@DameFanny yes you are correct, it is because certain people literally ate batshit and all the other foods forbidden in the bible that we have the virus....and still people wouldn't believe.

madcatladyforever · 05/12/2020 09:39

I always believed in God when I was younger but the older and wiser I get it seems there are more and more reasons why God does not exist and this is it.

Againstmachine · 05/12/2020 09:41

@80sForever So yes lot and everyone in the ark deserved to die because they refused to believe...simple as that really

Sounds like God is a Narcissistic nasty peice of work then.

I thought the Devil was the bad guy.

Lampzade · 05/12/2020 09:43

My siblings and I were brought up as Catholic, As children we attended church every Sunday.
As we reached teenage years we stopped attending church. My sister and still believed in God. However, my brother stopped believing in God and in fact was quite vitriolic in his assertion that God does not exist.
A few weeks ago he phoned me up and asked me to pray him as he was going to be interviewed for a job. I asked him who I should pray to as he didn’t believe in God/ a higher being.

I just find that the so called non believes are particularly vitriolic towards believers. It is as though they want believers to feel stupid for believing in God, but at the same time these’ non believers want to believe in a higher power.

I don’t impose my faith on anyone. My faith is very personal to me. I don’t attend church (as I have an issue with religion) but I attempt to be a decent human being . I don’t think that I am any better than someone who doesn’t have faith as some of the nicest people I know are not believers.
However, I believe that believing in a higher power has brought comfort to me during difficult times and has shaped me as an individual

chomalungma · 05/12/2020 09:44

He told me last week he doesn't believe in God anymore, because how could God let so many bad things happen in the world if he really did exist

I think the standard answer is 'free will' and also 'God is in the response of people who try to stop bad things happening, in the people who save other people, etc'

Which seems strange - because those 2 ideas seem to contradict each other.

If we have free will, then it's free will that gets other people to help others.

If God is in those people who help, then where is God in those people who do awful things?

MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes · 05/12/2020 09:44

@zaphodbeeble

‘If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness’ - graffiti in Auschwitz
It is truly scary how this rubbish is coming back, even after that. Catherine Nixey ‘The Darkening Age’ is a good read. The insanity seems to mirror what’s happening now.
TriflePudding · 05/12/2020 09:44

People have believed in gods for thousands and thousands of year, the earliest record we have is the ancient Egyptians, I’m sure that there were beliefs long before then as well.

The universe is vast and mysterious and we know a tiny fraction about it, (I often wonder what science will discover about the universe in the next few hundred years).

Of course science and God/belief can exist together, why shouldn’t they?

flaviaritt · 05/12/2020 09:45

I thought the Devil was the bad guy.

The theology is that those who refuse to believe in God belong to the Devil. By killing them, God isn’t doing anything other than sending them to their natural fate (Hell), which, by choosing disbelief and evil, they are choosing for themselves.

The morality at the heart of Christianity is hard to understand. But it does mean ‘do what God says - always - or repent and be saved. If you don’t repent, you’re not going to be saved.’