To ask, what/who do you believe in?

[BecauseICan22]

Is it a God?

A higher power?

The Government? (I know).

Yourself?

Others? Family? Pets?

A new day? (I hear the song too).

When you are feeling desolate and beyond exhausted with it all, what pulls you back? Mash? Netflix? Mumsnet?

What can you ultimately rely on?

We live
We die
The end
My family mates and cat keep me sane

How hard can it be?
I can bear anything for an hour.
This too will pass.

Love of family.

I don’t think I believe in any sort of higher power but those 3 sayings keep me balanced when things are really hard. I’ve had divorce, redundancy, loss of a baby, terminal illness within the close family, chronic illness for myself. However taking it one hour at a time, reminding myself that it will pass, challenging myself to do things that look too hard…. These things have kept me moving forward one step at a time.

All has been held up by the love of my little family (parents, sister, kid, niece, nephew and latterly my new DP). It would be so much harder if we didn’t all band together when shit hits the fan.

I believe and trust in myself. Always.

I don’t believe in any higher power. In general I try to behave in ways which I feel make life as tolerable as possible for me and for other people.

@BecauseICan22 Oh that's simple then - I've died. Clinically, that is. I now know for 100% certain there is nothing after death, and that it's coming to us all. Therefore, nothing matters as much we thing it does, and we might as well enjoy ourselves as much as we possibly can. If I'm suffering, I know it is isn't permanent. All I have to do is wait for time to pass.
So I believe in finitude, and the impermanence of everything.

Life - be good while you're here
Death - the end
Compost - what we become

I believe that everything happens for a reason, even if that reason takes years to come to light. I don't believe in any god, but religions do fascinate me. My children and dogs are my world (and DH though it's usually him im pissed off with 😂) so it's them I go to/look at to bring me back to myself.

God, of course. Logically, or philosophically, there is no getting away from Him. (We traditionally understand "Him" as "Father" - it doesnt mean he is an old fella sitting on a cloud somewhere).

In the West today, religion is much diminished - because people have so many other distractions to lose themselves in, so much temporal pleasure to indulge in etc. And people are so deeply jaded in the modern day too, there is such great beauty, mystery and miracles all around us, every day, yet they do not see it, or dismiss it with a sneer like an overgrown teenager.

In the UK, after the failure of protestantism (CofE, CofS etc), people are happy spending their lives in front of the TV, or in the pub, or gym etc. Few people give any thought to how they will spend eternity.

It doesn't help that false religions only rush to affirm whatever secular society does or says, rather than challenge it in any way, or offer an alternative. People rightly see that as bogus and as offering them nothing they do not already have.

We have a fleeting existence in this world, we should be concerned about what will become of us in the next. We are born to know, love and serve God in this world - one of the chief ways in which we do this is to strive live according to His will (which is tough) - and be happy with Him forever, in the next.

Not to diss anyone's opinion, but oftentimes people dismiss God on the most frivolous of grounds. For example, people seem to think that because "bad things happen" then that means there could be no God. But, without bad or challenging things to overcome, what would this life be other than a meaningless puppet show?

One of the reasons bad things happen, if because God has given us free will - and some people abuse that gift to do wrong. And we should realise that there is great meaning in everything, even in suffering and hardship.

People also seem to think that they are capable of fully understanding God and that God must appear to be accountable and rational to their human mind. This is a great mistake - believe in God, or not, its not unreasonable to see that puny creatures such as ourselves could not fully comprehend Him.

And so, of course, there is much about life and God which we cannot fully grasp.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

I respect people being skeptical and asking questions etc, but I marvel at people who are happy just to bumble along through life and never give a second though about where they have come from, and where they are going.

Newsaint your beliefs contrast well with my humanist ones 🙂

I respect people being skeptical and asking questions etc, but I marvel at people who are happy just to bumble along through life and never give a second though about where they have come from, and where they are going.

I've come from two cells. Or from stardust, whichever way you want to look at it. I'm going to die one day, and my brain will die, and that will be the complete end of me other than what continues in other people's memories until their brains, too, die. The carbon from my body will continue on.

OP, I believe in the scientific method.

I grew up in a very conservative evangelical Christian tradition, but I lost my belief/faith then almost gradually deconstructed and reconstructed it into something completely different to what I knew. Hard to explain but ultimately, when I was in pain to the point of suicide, I heard a voice that said simply "I have felt this too.I am with you." It was totally different to the inner voice that I have and communicate with all the time, and that is what holds me together when things are hard. Knowing that who and whatever it was (I believe Jesus but know others might say Allah or some other type of consciousness) is with me is what I believe.

nothing matters as much we think it does

^This. We are small specks in the vastness of the universe. Our lives are barely a flicker in the hugeness of time.

There's a thing in one of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy books called the Total Perspective Vortex. It's used as the ultimate punishment. You are made to step into it and all it does is show you the minuscule speck that is you, set in the vastness of space and time. It's supposed to make people go insane or die if shock and horror! I've always thought it sounded quite pleasant though. After all, if I'm that insignificant, then how can any of my mistakes or worries be remotely important?

In the West today, religion is much diminished - because people have so many other distractions to lose themselves in, so much temporal pleasure to indulge in etc.

No, religion is much diminished because people aren't so easily fooled, or so easily cowed into doing what they're told by religious leaders (who are, after all, just human beings peddling their stories, often out of sheer self-interest and desire for power) . The decline of religions is hardly a new thing, so you can't really put it down to modern, Western distractions! I wonder how many religions have waxed and waned throughout human existence...

I respect people being skeptical and asking questions etc, but I marvel at people who are happy just to bumble along through life and never give a second though about where they have come from, and where they are going.

Surely there are many religious people who bumble through life not questioning tye religion they've been indoctrinated into brought up with? Going through life without a religion isn't bumbling.

Not G-d, but my religion - if that makes any sense at all.

We Jews have been through so much. There has to be something there for us to have prevailed so many times. The importance of ritual and community, perhaps.

The Universe. Oddly everything I've asked the universe for, as in big things I feel I have not much control off, I get. It might be a load of old twaddle for all I know but it's worked so far.

I believe in the Universe, in the soul, and the cycles of Mother Nature.

@FourChimneys

Different strokes for different folks (although such sentiments fall away after this life, for sure).

Is it not accurate to say humanists have no defined doctrine and so cannot be nominally regarded as a homogenous group like (for example) Catholics or Muslims.

As far as I can see Humanists are people who personally consider themselves to be "good" (who would not think that about themselves? very few).

Even I would be a humanist by that measure lol

@PoivronCochon
I'm going to die one day, and my brain will die, and that will be the complete end of me
Yes, we are all going to die (a lovely thought lol)
But you are so much more than your physical body.
If I was in an accident tomorrow, and lost my legs, would you genuinely believe that I was half the person I used to be?

@Fairislefandango

You make a good point that the decline of religions is hardly a new thing, but then that does not mean there cannot be a correct one where false ones have failed.

You say:

No, religion is much diminished because people aren't so easily fooled

Really? Are you sure?

Do not Godless people today believe that (e.g.) a man can turn into a woman, among other absurd beliefs which overtly deny science?

From abortion to transgenderism, it often seems that people are eager to fool themselves these days.

I agree with your point that some religious people may "bumble through life" but at least they do so with an understanding of why.....

I always think to myself that science changes its theories, so why is it seen as the only level-headed explanation?
Nature is a constant cycle and we see and know that, and it makes absolute sense to me that we are part of that cycle, so why would death be an end?
We know so little of our brains. It's certainly not beyond belief that we have a soul that journeys through cycles.
I would have been burned at the stake for my beliefs in times gone past. Perhaps I was?

But you are so much more than your physical body.
If I was in an accident tomorrow, and lost my legs, would you genuinely believe that I was half the person I used to be?

You aren’t more than your physical body. But your physical body contains extraordinarily complex wonders. If you lost your legs then you would be ‘half’ the person you used to be in one sense. But normally, as you well know, we tend to talk about people in terms of their personalities. Now if you were unlucky enough to have a brain tumour/injury which altered your personality - as has been recorded more times than I could possibly count, most famously Phineas Gage, then people would say not that you were half the person but that you were a fundamentally different person.

From abortion to transgenderism, it often seems that people are eager to fool themselves these days.

How is abortion fooling oneself? Abortion isn’t denying science.

Nature is a constant cycle and we see and know that, and it makes absolute sense to me that we are part of that cycle, so why would death be an end?

We are part of that cycle! The carbon cycle. When we die our bodies will decompose and return to the ecosystem. But that’s nothing to do with a soul.

@PoivronCochon

You aren’t more than your physical body.

Oh but we are, what of - for example - our minds, our imagination, our talents etc? Are these not bound up with "us" also?

I believe we are much more than just "biological robots" (if you will).

What would be the point of that?

Abortion isn’t denying science.

Like the other example, the discourse surrounding it is often full of statements which flatly contradict science, as well as lies in general.

But let us be careful we do not get sidetracked into a debate there - the point was that secular society believes a lot of things which are overt nonsense and can be shown to be such.

So do some religious people, of course - I was wanting to show that being "fooled" or believing rubbish is not the sole preserve of the religious. It is a human trait.

Indeed, it seems to be that secular people tend to believe what they want, rather than what is true. You hear statements like "my truth" - but no one has their own truth, there is only "the truth".

Acceptance of the truth - even when it is very difficult or challenging - is imo a central thing which either attracts people to, or repels people from, faith.

Why would a person accept a difficult truth, if they felt it was reasonable to instead just make up some bunk to suit themselves?

This is the root of modern censorship / "cancel culture" - many people have no interest in truth and actively hide from it, even claiming it is 'offensive' or even 'bigoted', which is nonsense of course.

Food for thought!

We are all made of the same stuff...stars. I believe this is real astrophysics. That's got to be special.