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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:
user1274245 · 04/12/2020 22:21

the Bible in a year app

Does that include the violent parts?

TrainspottingWelsh · 04/12/2020 22:21

My opinion on God? The original embarrassing parent. Dressed his son in footwear so hideous that two millennia later 'Jesus sandals' is still a universal insult.

Also, Gandalf wore the beard better.

Moonmelodies · 04/12/2020 22:22

If there was a god why all the mystery, magic and faith? Wouldn't it be obvious and easily provable?

MaryMashedThem · 04/12/2020 22:26

I believe in God, and I don't think religious belief is incompatible with modern science.
For (a grossly simplified) example: science suggests there was a point in evolution where humans - or an ancestor of humans - began walking upright on two legs. To facilitate this, the shape of our pelvis had to change. But the trade-off was that childbirth became much harder and more painful. The Bible also suggests that there was a point early on in human history when childbirth became harder and more painful. I don't think every detail of every Bible story is necessarily true (was there a talking serpent who tempted Eve, or is this a literary device?) but I think the underlying message and a lot of the history is.
The more I learn about the natural world - everything from the water cycle to epigenetics - the more I'm convinced that the world was created by an intelligent designer who wished good things for their creation. Humans have screwed that up, not God.

karmadramallama · 04/12/2020 22:27

No he's a work of fiction.

EugenesAxe · 04/12/2020 22:27

I believe in God but it's a real struggle to reconcile to science sometimes, especially since my attempts to understand could be seen as very subjective or 'convenient'. I believe in evolution and all scientific theory, and I've certainly shut down evangelical Christians trying to foist 'evolution has been disproved' bunkum on me.

Essentially, I believe God created science and works within the boundaries he's created. He would not be the God he says he is if he did not set off the universe in a way that makes it self-regulating. We can choose to return to him - but it's our choice and things will pan out according to nature's laws if we don't, possibly with little earthly difference to the life we would have had, had we lived believing in Jesus.

Evil and bad things, so called, are due to external influences on the natural world that lead to some less favourable outcomes for humans.

I guess I believe in God ultimately, because I perceive his direction in my life. Also, because it's my belief that trying to 'understand' God is by definition, impossible for humans.

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 04/12/2020 22:29

I don’t believe in omniscient omnipotent gods, and I certainly don’t believe in a loving god. A loving god would not visit random suffering on his children. I have never seen any evidence of any higher power.

I’m open to the possibility of there being laws of the universe we have not discovered, but haven’t seen any evidence of that either.

PiccalilliChilli · 04/12/2020 22:34

I don't believe in God.

If you have faith, that's fine, but not for me.

BlackeyedSusan · 04/12/2020 22:35

I believe but completely understand why people don't.

RednaxelasLunch · 04/12/2020 22:36

By "science" you mean "scientific method".. and by "God" you mean... ?

I have a STEM degree and am very comfortably Christian. I see no conflict whatsoever.

Ken Wilber might be an interesting read for you.

MojoJojo71 · 04/12/2020 22:36

I don’t believe in God but sometimes I wish I did. It must be nice to have a firm belief in something that brings you comfort. Unfortunately I can’t bring myself to share that belief and think that God/religion/life after death is something that mankind has invented in order to be able to cope in the face of their own mortality.

CoronaBollox · 04/12/2020 22:37

I remember being incredibly stoned and talking to my flat mate about religion. He went on a rant about how God is like a rubbish parent, brings you in to this world, leaves you to it, doesnt stop bad things happening to you, even creates them sometimes yet we are supposed to Thank him? It made me chuckle tbh.

I'm not religious, but am more than happy to accept other people are and can actually see why it is comforting. But I feel there is too much suffering in this world for me to believe someone is up there watching it all.

Keratinsmooth · 04/12/2020 22:38

Trainspottingwelsh I love you. I hope that the second coming recruits Jimmy Choo

PontiacBandit · 04/12/2020 22:40

No, I don't have faith in God, I don't need religion in my life, my kids go to a CofE school only because it's across the road. It should be a personal thing.

Meadowland · 04/12/2020 22:41

Can you prove that there isn't? I don't believe that there is a god but it's as hard to disprove as it is to prove. People of faith believe in their god because they have faith that the god exists, they presumably don't need to prove it because faith doesn't need proof.

This.

Lexie365 · 04/12/2020 22:41

yes i believe in god, i would be lost without him. i really hope people turn back to god before it's too late. he has brought me so much joy and graces and strength.

Planty13 · 04/12/2020 22:42

No god doesn’t exist. Generally I choose not to take away from those who find comfort in religion but since you’re asking.....

It’s a story that has travelled through the ages due to lack of science. We know better now but what’s done is done. If anyone started telling me they believed in an unseen spirit that ruled the world I would think they needed psychiatric help.

farawayplanet · 04/12/2020 22:43

'If triangles had a god, it would have three sides'

Montesquieu

'God' is a projection of ourselves and created by us. The ultimate ego trip. A form of self worship.

itispersonal · 04/12/2020 22:44

I like the idea of there being a god, like I would there being a Santa Claus. But I don't believe, I verge on agnostic to atheist. Though I am moving more to atheist. I want to believe my df is up in the stars not necessarily in heaven.

Church talk turns me off religion, I don't believe children are born sinners and like said at my uncles funeral today, I don't think a man who was been good all his life needs God's mercy.

However, I do think believing does give people a comfort , that non believers don't have but I just can't.

whittingtonmum · 04/12/2020 22:45

My answer to the first question is yes.

Jojojo32 · 04/12/2020 22:48

No, I think it's crazy that in 2020 we still have this. Religion has caused wars deaths pain, think the world would be a safer simpler and happier place without it.

Babdoc · 04/12/2020 22:53

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.

Crankley · 04/12/2020 22:55

i really hope people turn back to god before it's too late.

Too late for what?

And how do i 'turn back' to something which doesn't exist, or at least I have no believe in it existing?

Cygne · 04/12/2020 22:57

Can you prove that there isn't? I don't believe that there is a god but it's as hard to disprove as it is to prove

Notoriously it is impossible to prove a negative. Therefore the onus of proof has to be on those who claim there is a God, because if that were the case there would be convincing evidence all around us.

SisyphusDad · 04/12/2020 22:57

I'm an atheist.

But if I were to believe, my only use for a god would be to hate it for what it's done to me and my family.