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 believe in God. I also know that science is true as well. Many people have the wrong idea of what God is like. The question that why does God let bad things happen is in my opinion a very immature view of what God is like. He's not a fixer - he tried that and we killed him! God has given us free will - he can't take it away. He can only act through those who are willing to listen to him and hear him.

The bible is there to tell us about God's relationship with humans not as a factual account of what happened.

My faith is strong, I've had bad things happen to me and it has made my faith stronger. I know that God is there with me. I know that one day I will be able to see my baby boy and until then he is safe in God's keeping.

In threads like this there are always a few people who make the point that you can't prove a negative, so the burden of proof rests with those who do believe in God.
But you can prove a negative. An ultrasound of my empty uterus will prove there's no fetus in there. Drone footage of my road will prove there's no swimming pool in my back yard. A photo taken out the window will prove there's no snow falling here at the moment. The courts use CCTV recordings to prove that an accused person wasn't at the scene of a crime.
We prove negatives all the time - I don't know where people got the idea that it can't be done, or why that idea is so prevalent

I repeat, if the god that Christianity, Judaism and Islam all believe in is ‘all loving’ why are those 3 religions warring against each other all through history? Why does this god allow such violence in his name to continue over thousands of years?
And, as for the bible, if it is god’s words why are there so many versions?
Why do people cherry pick what they choose to believe from the religious texts?

Unfortunately, you can’t use logical arguments against religion as it’s based purely on faith and not facts. Especially given the bible wasn’t written for 300 years or so after the ‘main’ events so no different to folklore. It helps some people make sense of the world around them or gives them some kind of hope. I don’t need that. There is no ‘purpose’ to life other than what I choose and I certainly don’t believe in an afterlife. I don’t live my life for the sole aim of what happens after, I live my life for what it means now.

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 am to old to still believe in an invisible friend

Yes, I believe in and love God.
There's no proof, it's called faith 😊

Atheist here - and lover of science - with Presbyterian heritage so a good dose of lack of respect for authority in general and religious institutions 😁

If there is a God they're a bit of a cunt for all intents and purposes. 🙄

You need to watch Billy Butcher talk about God in the boys he goes further than this.

Nope. Total fiction and made up fantasy.
It very much bothers me that this stuff is peddled still in schools.

I believe that agnosticism is the only logical position. To say there definitely isn’t is quite absurd in my opinion and there is no way to prove those claims. You could say the same for belief in religion (but then religious people would say it was due to faith).

@Madhairday

I believe in God and I do not see a conflict between God and science. It doesn't mean that I don't see any of the issues - suffering, evil, general rubbishness - but my experience is that God is in it with us and, as a Christian, my belief is based on something that happened in history rather than a vague needing to believe in something mystical and out there. My faith brings me much joy and peace like nothing I can describe.

I also find peace and joy in believing in God. I don't feel the need to prove or disprove anything, but I know what I know and what I have experienced.

There is nothing to suggest that a supernatural being exists. So I don't believe in any of the gods but if I did, Loki would be my favourite.

I believe there's some magic there, that miracles can happen

25,000 people die of starvation every single day - 10,000 of them children.

If we're all god's children, could he increase the miracle rate a wee bit?

25,000 people die of starvation every single day - 10,000 of them children.

This is truly awful, from a worldly perspective. But if there IS a God (like in the Christian worldview), then the idea (surely) is that we all die, and then we go to Heaven to be with God. So although I certainly don’t disregard matters such as poverty and suffering in the world (they’re awful), they are not an argument against the existence of God. Religion doesn’t promise freedom from suffering in the world.

Belief has nothing to do with reason or proof.

So if you are looking for any of those things you will never be a believer.

Yanbu to believe in something more.

Its nice to think that's there's more to life than this and that we'll be safe and content when we die. And maybe we will? We won't know until it happens so there's not much point worrying about it as long as we try to live a meaningful life and be excellent to each other. But I do think that gods and religion came about as ways to understand the world around us as well as human nature, and then obviously organised religion became more about power and control.
Do and believe what makes you happy, just don't hurt anyone in the process.

I was brought up as a catholic and totally believed in god, I even felt sorry for people who hadn't been brought up in a religion and been given the chance to truest believe.

Then in my 30s I started to lose that belief, I bought the book the god delusion and it sat on my beside table for about 18 months before I read it as I knew that once I read it all belief would be gone and I wasn't quite ready to let go.

I read the book and loved it, yes it took away the last strands of belief but it replaced that with a wonder of how amazing the universe is. I'm interested in spirituality, but totally believe there's no god and once we're gone, we're gone, that's it over and done, but that's okay because I'm not bothered about not being around for the things that happened before I was born, so why should I care about not being around for things later in time.

Religion doesn’t promise freedom from suffering in the world.

But if God can't or doesn't do anything about It I fail to see the point of praying or worshipping them.

But if God can't or doesn't do anything about It I fail to see the point of praying or worshipping them.

Which is absolutely fine, from the perspective that you can do what you like. But if you do actually believe what is claimed, the ‘point’ is a choice between eternity in paradise and damnation. So... 🤷🏻‍♀️

25,000 people die of starvation every single day - 10,000 of them children

To me this isn’t an argument against God more an argument against humanity.

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

It scares me how little people think about what will happen after death even though we will likely be dead for longer than we have lived

From a Science point of view, living things don't just die and perish. Life forms are an re - arrangement of molecules.
You die, your body is disposed of, it's broken down into molecules. These molecules will then form a new structure, be it plant mammal or reptile. No need for a God to explain it all.
Buddhism is the only religion that comes even close to this circle of life. But even they didn't quiet it right.

If you look at the history/anthropology of religion through hunan existence and across the globe, of course you would not believe, particularly in any fixed religion.

It is so obviously part humans trying to understand something bigger than themselves, part power and control, part community framework. How anyone actually believes it totally boggles my mind!

And I think generally, when people talk about all the bad things that happen that God ‘doesn’t do anything about’, they are forgetting (or are ignorant of) that basic theological position; there is good AND evil at work in the world. The physical world is conceptualised as a battleground for souls, a sort of wrestling ring for God and Satan. God isn’t meant to fight evil, we are meant to fight it. If there is starvation and poverty it is because too many of us are greedy, selfish and corrupt.

That’s the theory, anyway.

To me science, philosophy, religion are all different ways of trying to look at the world and understand. And as we delve deeper we find more we don’t understand. I suspect we never will. Religion uses stories and language to try and understand and explain things that were at the time beyond our comprehension. As we learn more our language changes.
I do believe in ‘god’ but not ‘him’. I don’t believe in a three tier universe with an old white man sat on a cloud above us. But I do believe their is innate goodness in the universe and god is that ideal - an inspiration and that Jesus is the example of God in human form for us to aspire to. Bishop Hon Robinson who redefined liberal theology in the 60s described God as ‘the ground of our being.
As scientists we cannot comprehend what came before the Big Bang - everything was created in that moment, even time itself. But just as matter is never destroyed and has always existed I believe there is some form of renewal. But we can’t comprehend how. Just like how nothing existed before the Big Bang we don’t have the knowledge to understand afterlife so we resort to simple picture language. Do I believe that we all walk round heaven up in the clouds just like now? No of course not. But do I believe that something of me in someway carries on. Yes. Plotinus - who was a pagan but greatly influenced early Christianity said ‘nothing that truly is can ever cease to exist’. I hope that in a tiny way I have left my imprint on this world and that is what carries on as the matter that is me carries on renewal and the adventure that is life.

Religion is rubbish because it is fallible men and women trying to understand and often getting it wrong.

No I don't. I think the bible is loosely based on some real events and people at various times but no magic of miracles. And science is gradually disproving much of it. But I do think in its day, before proper law and order, religion and the threat of hell were a way of getting people to behave.
My children have always believed more in the Tooth Fairy than god.