Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 05/12/2020 09:45

I do have to question the intelligence of people who believed in God. Sometimes I wish I believed and went to church, but honestly, anytime I have attend a service, I just feel that its all such gaslightining rubbish (to put it nicely). I just don't know how people can believe in something that is clearly made up. That goes for all religion.

BuggerationFlavouredCrisps · 05/12/2020 09:48

No, of course I don’t believe in ‘god’.

The idea was introduced to keep other people under the control of a small number of people. Nothing about that has fundamentally changed in thousands of years sadly.

I appreciate that some people find it easier to utilise the idea of god and religion to manage their own lives and if I was forced to choose a religion to follow, something like Buddhism would get my vote.

chomalungma · 05/12/2020 09:48

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 think part of that comes from the power that someone who is a believer in God has in this world.

Can you imagine a Prime Minister or a US President saying that they don't believe in God?

Especially a US President.

Faith still has a lot of power in the world. And the organised religion that comes with it.

I long for a world where organised religion does not have the power that it has at the moment.

LynetteScavo · 05/12/2020 09:50

Lots of people consider God (that they don't believe in) to have power over nature and human fortunes, which is not what I believe at all. God is just there, but not with control over who lives and who dies, or who suffers and who doesn't. I also think lots of people consider praying to be wishing very hard, when to me it's more about mindfulness.

PinkPlantCase · 05/12/2020 09:50

Can I share something hilarious. I thought I’d clicked on this thread but I’d actually clicked on the one above in active.

I got through the first paragraph thinking someone was being very funny about a metaphor for their relationship with god. FWB, heavy flirting etc. Then I got to the second paragraph and realised something wasn’t right.

Then I realised that I wasn’t reading the gif thread at all.

Have a read hope it makes you giggle.

AIBU to ask your opinions on God?
blanketbook · 05/12/2020 09:50

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

I do have to question the intelligence of people who believed in God. Sometimes I wish I believed and went to church, but honestly, anytime I have attend a service, I just feel that its all such gaslightining rubbish (to put it nicely). I just don't know how people can believe in something that is clearly made up. That goes for all religion.
This is a little offensive. It is highly likely you have relied on many smart people who have a belief in God at various points in your life.

I just don't know how people can relate this to intelligence.

FinallyHere · 05/12/2020 09:53

I'm comfortable with the idea that God exists, created by whoever believes in that god. God is created by people.

At one point in my life, I started to doubt that Santa was a real thing. It occurred to me that I might as well go along with the idea, as not, if there were presents in it.

There is clearly a tension between an omniscient God and humans taking responsibility for their actions. If God could already know the outcome, what about my free will?

A teacher who had a lot of influence on my taught us both classics and RE ( Religious Education). In classics, she would encourage us to look at how the descriptions of Gods illustrated very human traits. We learned about ourselves by reading the stories. As for the role of women ...

Next lesson, it's RE class and what is written is to be taken as 'gospel'. Even the part when Adam (first man) is asked why he did wrong and he says ... wait fir it .. it was her, the woman made me do it.

Well, if that doesn't sound familiar ..

It's fair enough for anyone to use religion for comfort. My mother certainly found it a comfort throughout her life. She showed a very happy, content face to the world. She had not had an easy life but I didn't even notice because she was always very content with her lot.

Using that 'story' to control someone else is a step too far for me. Lots of people and organisations using religion to control others.

And also ... working out the right way to treat other people decently is perfectly possible without an organisation religion. In fact, working it out for yourself is better than just following someone else's rules.

Gosh, that was a bit long, wasn't it.

savagebaggagemaster · 05/12/2020 09:53

I have often wished that I did, but I don't.
Blind faith is not something I have.
A good friend of mine who is a practising Christian told me that she knows that God exists and I just haven't found Him yet and she felt sorry for me.
I'm glad for her, but it made me feel shit.

DameFanny · 05/12/2020 09:53

[quote 80sForever]@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.

[/quote] No, people didn't eat batshit, and I'm not going to watch some silly YouTube video. You want to waste my time, at least make it quicker for me to see what idiocy you're proposing.

And aids? Which (since, bigoted) religious people also said was a judgment - you too?

DameFanny · 05/12/2020 09:54

Some, bigoted, not since, bigoted. Trying to make it clear that not all religious people are bigoted.

flaviaritt · 05/12/2020 09:54

If God could already know the outcome, what about my free will?

Maybe God simply knows what you will do with your free will?

OulDoll · 05/12/2020 09:56

I was a born again Christian for a few years, totally immersed in Christian ideology. I gradually stopped believing, partly through the sheer exhaustion of trying to reconcile faith in an invisible being with what my own senses and critical thinking were telling me. Christianity clearly wasn't for me because I just couldn't get past the glaring inconsistencies or set aside those doubts about the gaping holes which were supposed to be plugged by the magic of faith.

jessycake · 05/12/2020 09:57

If he does exist , when I get to those pearly gates I will be having words !

TimeForDinnerDinnerDinner · 05/12/2020 10:02

Whichever faith (or non-faith) you follow it's a personal thing. There's no point trying to convince anyone else you are 'right' and others are 'wrong'.
There's no proof any faith is the right one or wrong one, or that those who choose not to believe are wrong or right. To be honest not one of us knows for certain so no point attempting to prove or disprove our own or anyone else's theory to each other.
Personally I have faith there is a God and nothing anyone says will ever change my mind. I also accept others think differently to me about faith. Also fine. It's our differences that make us interesting to one another Wink

TheVanguardSix · 05/12/2020 10:02

I just find that the so-called non believes are particularly vitriolic towards believers

These are militant antitheists, masquerading as atheists and they give atheists and even antitheists a bad name. Above all, they're quick to show their hypocrisy. I've known a few who are front pew on a Sunday as soon as they want their child in an Ofsted outstanding faith school, happy to go on bended knee and pray to something they're opposed to for the sake of 'education' and opportunity. They run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They do not live in truth, just inside their own angry echo chamber.

Ffsnosexallowed · 05/12/2020 10:03

No i don't believe in God. I think religion has been used for a number of purposes, controlling the masses, filling gaps in knowledge, fulfilling the human need for comfort and having purpose. But it isn't real, God doesn't exist outside religion and faith.

Againstmachine · 05/12/2020 10:06

I just find that the so-called non believes are particularly vitriolic towards believers

Throughout history religion hasn't been vitriolic towards non believers then.

Mommabear20 · 05/12/2020 10:07

I believe in Santa 🎅😁

chomalungma · 05/12/2020 10:08

Throughout history religion hasn't been vitriolic towards non believers then

And vitriolic to people who have a different faith system
And vitriolic to people who follow Jesus but have a different Church.

Griefmonster · 05/12/2020 10:09

I think of God as a concept rather than a person/being. Then it is much easier to align with scientific discovery. Science is "God"

AlternativePerspective · 05/12/2020 10:09

People invented God because they didn’t want to believe that there is nothing after we die. Fact.

See what I did there? I can claim that God is all made up as fiction as a fact just as much as you can claim that God definitely exists. Saying “fact” doesn’t make it true. In fact it makes the person saying it appear incredibly condescending.

As for the giving thanks to God when good things happen, I presume you also have a go at God when bad things happen? After all, you can’t have it both ways, either he is responsible for everything that happens on earth, or he is responsible for nothing. But somehow people seem to attribute bad things to the failings of man, yet when good things happen it’s “hallelujah praise the lord.”

Even if people feel they believe in God, why would you want to? God is most certainly not a good individual. He is vengeful, abusive, narcissistic, in fact if you were writing about him on relationships board people would say things like “He threatens to kill me when I don’t do as he asks.He screams and smashes things when he gets into a temper. He killed my dog because he said I’d disobeyed him. But I don’t want people to think all bad things of him, he can be a wonderful father....”

In my view people who believe in someone like that have clearly been led into doing so in the same way a woman is led into an abusive relationship.

Griefmonster · 05/12/2020 10:11

I also separate God from organised religion and don't believe in Jesus and the holy trinity or any other project claiming to have direct access to the word of God.

speakout · 05/12/2020 10:11

*Even if people feel they believe in God, why would you want to? God is most certainly not a good individual. He is vengeful, abusive, narcissistic, in fact if you were writing about him on relationships board people would say things like “He threatens to kill me when I don’t do as he asks.He screams and smashes things when he gets into a temper. He killed my dog because he said I’d disobeyed him. But I don’t want people to think all bad things of him, he can be a wonderful father....”

In my view people who believe in someone like that have clearly been led into doing so in the same way a woman is led into an abusive relationship.*

Totally agree.

Love me or else I will hurt you.

Fieldofyellowflowers · 05/12/2020 10:13

@chomalungma

I've got my own personal experiences. That science cannot and will not ever explain. And I haven't just decided that God is the explanation because I can't think of anything else it could have been. Science doesn't explain everything, and in the bible, God warns of modern science. Millennia before it even existed.

blanketbook · 05/12/2020 10:14

@AlternativePerspective

People invented God because they didn’t want to believe that there is nothing after we die. Fact.

See what I did there? I can claim that God is all made up as fiction as a fact just as much as you can claim that God definitely exists. Saying “fact” doesn’t make it true. In fact it makes the person saying it appear incredibly condescending.

As for the giving thanks to God when good things happen, I presume you also have a go at God when bad things happen? After all, you can’t have it both ways, either he is responsible for everything that happens on earth, or he is responsible for nothing. But somehow people seem to attribute bad things to the failings of man, yet when good things happen it’s “hallelujah praise the lord.”

Even if people feel they believe in God, why would you want to? God is most certainly not a good individual. He is vengeful, abusive, narcissistic, in fact if you were writing about him on relationships board people would say things like “He threatens to kill me when I don’t do as he asks.He screams and smashes things when he gets into a temper. He killed my dog because he said I’d disobeyed him. But I don’t want people to think all bad things of him, he can be a wonderful father....”

In my view people who believe in someone like that have clearly been led into doing so in the same way a woman is led into an abusive relationship.

People do question God when bad things happen.
Swipe left for the next trending thread