AIBU to ask your opinions on God?

[Violetduck]

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?

I agree that God’s eternal system of the scales of good and evil doesn’t necessarily live up to AIBU’s standards. Not sure He’s going to appreciate hearing that from me, though. If he exists, He can be as narcissistic as He likes and I can do precisely naff all about it. I can reject Him, but that might - might - mean an eternity of fire and brimstone.

Yes I believe in god cause you have to to get your kids into the best primary schools in london!

Yes I believe in god cause you have to to get your kids into the best primary schools in london! 😂

^ and doesn’t that tell you what it is really there to do. Maintain the hierarchy, at all costs. Of course knowledge becoming widespread is a threat to it.

I absolutely believe in God and am a Christian.
There is a serious of debates between Christians and athiests called Unbelievable which I have enjoyed. I have linked to a talk by Justin Brierley who hosts these debates. The talk is aimed at a Christian audience but he describes the reasons that I find belief in an Intelligent designer more believable than the thought that we are all here by chance.

@flaviaritt

But you can prove a negative. An ultrasound of my empty uterus will prove there's no fetus in there.

You can, yes. Just not this one.

I find this thread frightening in terms of the arrogance displayed by so many posters. Hundreds of people proclaiming with absurd confidence ‘There is no God.’ They literally do not know and there is no way they ever could know. The universe is vast and its nature may be beyond our comprehension. We are specks. How the hell does anyone arrive at this hubristic position where they think they can declare, from their armchair, the metaphysical limits of the cosmos?

I don't see why saying there is no god is any more arrogant than saying that there is a god, or making statements like @80sForever's "the OP is making a thread about God because there is something niggling on the inside telling her there is a God."

God exists in the sense that enough people believe in it and therefore "god" has consequences in life

I don't think a divine being exists, but god exists conceptually and significantly enough that it's actual existence is irrelevant

I absolutely don't think there is a a god. If there is one I would think it's of the "created this then stopped interfering in any way" type some Deists talk about. I find it impossible to take the abrahamic religions seriously, with the insistence that the creator of the universe is so focussed on the doings of a handful of people in a tiny patch of land on a small planet circling one of approx 300 billion stars in a galaxy that is one among (at least) trillions, and really really cares about what clothes people wear and what they eat and how they conduct their sex lives and so on.

No I don’t believe he existed. I believe in science and not make up fairy stories.

There may or may not be a god/creator. I just have a problem with religion itself which is a bunch of bollocks. Abrahamic ones especially.

I don't see why saying there is no god is any more arrogant than saying that there is a god

I think I saying you believe there is/isn’t a god is fine.

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 don't find that odd. You believe and you would, I assume, tell someone you'll pray for them. He was being kind, surely? When someone says "I'll pray for you" to me, I don't say "Who to?" as that would be rude. Unless there's more to your relationship with your brother.

@flaviaritt

I agree that God’s eternal system of the scales of good and evil doesn’t necessarily live up to AIBU’s standards. Not sure He’s going to appreciate hearing that from me, though. If he exists, He can be as narcissistic as He likes and I can do precisely naff all about it. I can reject Him, but that might - might - mean an eternity of fire and brimstone.

Rejecting abusers is a good thing. And anything that says 'accept, obey and worship me or experience eternal agony' is abusive. So if that concept of god is real, it is not worthy of much but contempt.

@flaviaritt

I don't see why saying there is no god is any more arrogant than saying that there is a god

I think I saying you believe there is/isn’t a god is fine.

But people on this thread are stating that there is a god just as much as that there isn't one.

I personally don’t believe

Because I was told from a very young child the idea was nonsense

I’ve bought up ds to decide for himself I wish I had been bought up to decide for myself

I think to believe in God can be very challenging I don’t thinks it’s as simple as you can’t believe in both God and science and I know many who do (and work in medicine)

I also think that a large part of the opposition to a belief in God is because of the conduct of so many who claim to be Christians. It’s like anything their provokes strong feelings, there is usually a minority who shout the loudest but whose views are more likely to drive people away than to draw them in, and the people who just believe and just want to go about their lives don’t want to be seen to be a part of that and therefore the only view that is seen is the judgemental one.

We have the same with e.g. radical feminism, climate change, etc.

I went to a school abroad which was owned by the church and who very much upheld the view of fire and brimstone. I had friends who told me if i didn’t believe I would be going to Hell. After the challenger exploded a teacher said that because there was a teacher on board God obviously believed this was wrong and that was why it happened.

I went to church with My BF once and afterwards the congrigation were asked to stay for a talk about the finances of the church, and this was a large church, certainly not short on money. And the pastor stood there and said: “we shouldn’t judge those who give of what they have. The ones we should be judging (his exact words) are the ones who give but could give more.”

Since then I have got together with my DP who is a Christian but we don’t talk about it. However, friends of his have told him that as I am not Christian he shouldn’t be with me, that if he chooses to be with me he will forego the ever lasting life. In my life I have never been judged quite as much as by people claiming to be Christians.

And the sad fact is that many actual Christians recognise this and the fact that so many who claim to be Christian are so judgemental and quick to stab one another in the back. yet nobody stands up to this. And therefore it is the judgemental attitude, the wanting to rule by fear, that is the overriding message given out by many Christians, and the truth is that you are never going to convince people that that is something good to believe in.

I don’t believe in God and I’m not superstitious in the slightest. I’m not unhappy thinking that this is my only shot and there’ll be no afterlife or anything. It makes me enjoy the life I have more tbh.

@Babdoc

If you deny the existence of God, you still have the problem of explaining how the universe came into being. Logically, there should just be nothing here at all! The laws of physics say that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. And yet the Big Bang created an entire universe of both - and scientists still have not explained how that occurred. I am a Christian, and believe that God, who is beyond the bounds of the space time continuum, created the universe with His “Let there be light”. Once created, He gave it free will to evolve. Knowing that evolution would eventually produce creatures able to respond to Him and to make moral choices. We are free to choose either to love God and our fellow humans, or to reject love and choose evil. Without that freedom to choose, we would just be robots, programmed to behave perfectly. Our good deeds would be meaningless. That is why there is evil in the world- the option has to be available.

Our good deeds would be meaningless.

Why do good deeds need to have meaning? This sounds like you do good things as a reward from God. Surely, we do good things because it is either altruistic (the "right thing to do" - see support for Marcus Rashford) or because it will benefit the group/community and thus you? (see Marcus Rashford - fed kids = better able to learn kids = better outcomes for the wider society).

I do not believe in any individualistic deities, just as I do not believe in a continuation of the individual after death.

I am open to the idea that after death that part of who we are (re)joins a sort of universal energy that we living cannot yet perceive and that that energy could possibly have some influence on the observable universe that could be interpreted as a deity or divine force. I do think some monistic philosophies can combine our current scientific understanding of the universe with pantheistic religious beliefs. I think religious philosophies can be a good way to look into how human societies and our perception of human nature differs over time and place.

I have no vitriol towards all believers of individualistic gods or religious ideologies. I have vitriol towards those who handwave corruption in religious or any other ideological institutions they take choose to take part in.

One can have religious beliefs and know all institutions have issues. Many religious people work hard to try to correct problems in the organizations they worship in. #EmptythePews brough evangelicals and ex-evangelicals together to discuss and fight against institutional abuse and 'protection' of church employees and their families that is too often ignored. We can happily work together.

The ones I have an issue with are those who like to act that the good done by those of the same faith is like a credit against the debts of horrific actions and refusal to prevent suffering they had the capacity to help. The ones who quote 'honour your mother and father that it may go well with you all the days of your life' and similar as an excuse as to why they did not take any steps with a known abusive parent, and many other cases that most of us are likely aware of where a person's alleged faith was more important than their actions to the institution. Anything where subservience to a text or religious authority requires behavioural, informational, thought, and emotional control and 'mysterious ways greater good' of ideological purity is placed over trying to prevent harm and do real good is something I have no time to work with.

@Barkspawn if the OP was secure in her beliefs about there being no God she wouldn't have started a thread...there is nothing arrogant about this statement...simply restating the obvious

Dopamine is pretty powerful...

I'm in NI and you can't get away from religion. It's every bloody where. Not once, not ever, has any atheist ever approached me and tried to 'convert' me (I'm an atheist anyway!!) but plenty of Christians have accosted me in the street, thrusting pamphlets into my hand before continuing to bark into a loudspeaker about how everyone who doesn't believe in Jesus is damned to Hell. This is occasionally accompanied by some very dodgy singing, but anyway .... ! I know that the majority of Christians are not like this. I consider those people shouting and yelling on street corners to be 'militant'. And yet, as I said, not one atheist, militant or otherwise, has tried to persuade me with the power of their 'rhetoric' (and singing).

Just my personal experience.

But those who are claiming that atheists are more vocal and aggressive, perhaps that seems to be the case on a discussion board, but I don't believe that it is the everyday lived experience of most atheists who, like most Christians, get on with their lives and keep their opinions to themselves, unless asked.

Rejecting abusers is a good thing. And anything that says 'accept, obey and worship me or experience eternal agony' is abusive.

I’d love to see how this argument plays out if/when you get in front of the Creator. Truly. Keep us informed.

But people on this thread are stating that there is a god just as much as that there isn't one.

True. It’s the mocking, arguing-the-price-of-fish-with-the-Almighty posts that I find arrogant. Atheism isn’t an issue.

@flaviaritt

Rejecting abusers is a good thing. And anything that says 'accept, obey and worship me or experience eternal agony' is abusive.

I’d love to see how this argument plays out if/when you get in front of the Creator. Truly. Keep us informed.

I'll come back and let you know if I'm wrong about there not being a God. Yours is an interesting point though - you seem to imply that it's possible that God is an abusive narcissist deity, but you worship him anyway. So what value does your worship have if it comes from fear? I'd rather live my life free of God. Satan might be a better fit for me anyway.

I also have to take issue with babdoc's point about good deeds. As an atheist, I don't do good things to get a reward in the hereafter, because I believe there is none. I do things to help other people. Out of altruism. Because I believe if I am able to make other people's lives a bit better, I should do it. So my lack of faith makes all that meaningless? That is just plain offensive.