There is no god

[OldKingCole]

Inspired by another thread … I was surprised by the level of atheism professed … as I always though I was in a tiny, tiny minority.
would be interested to see the MN response.

IABU - there is a god
IANBU - there is no god

I'm with Stephen Fry all the way

I don’t believe as I’ve never seen any evidence of a God’s existence. What has happened at your church?

Read what Jesus taught and read the Desert Fathers and the lives of the Saints.

Organised religion can get in the way and distort the core message of Christianity.

On a recent thread recently I noticed someone post Epicurus' trilemma which I thought was interesting...

1	If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not all-powerful.
2	If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not all-good.
3	If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?

Anyway as you can probably tell. I'm atheist though I find religious history fascinating...

Like christianity being viewed as one of many judean cults and didn't really become a thing until it reached the highest ranks of Roman society about 80-300years later - fascinating!

Of that Sikhism doesn't really have a creation story or and afterlife story like a lot of the main religions do.

Or indeed how fallible the Greek and Roman gods were.

All fascinating but at no point do I think, oh yeh there must a god.

And so often people who are religious are basically the religion they grew up with or near - how convenient. And given there are so many faiths and denominations what makes people so sure their one is the "right" one?

Anyway! It's a debate that rarely converts people on either side, so always feels a bit pointless.

some atheists decide they don’t believe when they’re a small child and never think about it beyond that, so their conception of God and religion is that of a small child.

I was brought up to believe in (and fear) god, but as I grew up and developed the ability to think critically, I realised he didn't exist, any more than Santa does. I see religious belief as childish, but each to their own, so long as people keep it private.

Yeah, something along these lines. Whenever you hear the ‘magic sky fairy’ you know you are dealing with someone whose opinion is identity based. They have identified as belonging to the atheist club, parrot the mockery they hear from their peers, and have never really explored or sought to understand the ideas they fondly imagine they are deriding. Their views are identity based not idea based.

I can’t respect that.

If people practised religion properly there wouldn't be all these issues, the fact is is a lot of religious are nasty and hateful.

Yes, if god was promoted as a vengeful one then I’d probably be more inclined to believe he might just exist. A kind, loving god? Definitely no such thing.

‘Read what Jesus taught and read the Desert Fathers and the lives of the Saints.’

I guess you can’t reason with people who think the bible is real and saints exist.

I believe in God. Lots of PPs have suggested that if you're educated, you'll 'see sense' and will be an atheist. I can actually totally understand that viewpoint. I grew up going to church but moved away from it in my teenage years, after I had lots of questions that were unsatisfied (including, if there's a loving God, why is my God-loving mum always so so poorly).

I used to think, like lots of you, that if you were going to be a Christian, you'd need to unzip your head, take your brain out, and leave it on the table. I thought you couldn't possibly believe in God and think intelligently about all sorts of other things. But actually, there's a huge amount of historic evidence that Jesus lived, died, and was raised from the dead. Of course that sounds crazy to us, but so so many intelligent, educated people such as doctors, testified to all of this 2,000 years ago, and were willing to die to testify that these things were true. Jesus lived, so he was either mad, bad or God (plain insane, evil in that he pretended to be God and would have been lieing and manipulating people and to what end, or he is truly who he says he is, the son of God). It's up to all of us to decide which one we think he is, but given the stakes are pretty huge (if there is a God, and the Bible is true, that changes everything!), it's got to be worth having a look at the evidence to make your mind up. A lot of very intelligent, educated, articulated people, like the 500+ people part of the city church I'm part of, have done that and come to believe.

I wish I had known earlier that choosing to believe and follow Jesus is not setting yourself up for a miserable, restricted life, but it's honestly the most freeing way to live. I've heard it described as living in black and white before becoming a Christian, and yet then when encountering Jesus, all of a sudden you can see the world in colour. I think that's a pretty good analogy of my own experience, and my Christian friends are actually by and large the most educated of my wide social circle!.

@AmazonianAvatar , actually religious believers are often happier than non-believers. It's the sense of having answers, and being cared about, that makes people less anxious.

Personally, I cannot live with a lie, so I have to just sit with my uncertainty and existential angst!

IANBU - it's a load of rubbish

‘If people practised religion properly’

And who defines what religion is? and which religion is right? And what ‘properly’ is?

People who believe in a God are mentally unwell?
So you believe that billions of people are mentally unwell? Because they disagree with you? Regardless of any other facts about that individual at all?
I don't mind at all people disagreeing with me, but I struggle with this level of disrespect.

Unless mistaken a lot of religions too, are not compatible with modern times e.g. Old testament, so therefore it's not God's words of humans keep rewriting what their religions are ment to be, because then it's never what God actually wants humans to achieve.

I don't believe in God or any supernatural being. My background is fairly agnostic. I've become more convinced of my view as I've got older.

I don't think religious people lack intelligence. I think religion can be a comfort and source of community to some people. On the other hand, the way organised religion discriminates against certain groups. But organised religion is not the same as a belief, or faith in something.

There is one way to consider all This, we need sam and Dean Winchester

@CharlieD2020 'But actually, there's a huge amount of historic evidence that Jesus lived, died, and was raised from the dead.'

For the former two.

There is actually pretty solid evidence that a man named Jesus, who claimed to be the son of god, actually existed. He might've even believed it too.

The 'rising from the dead', because his body had disappeared from the tomb, was likely a story that evolved as a result of his body going AWOL due to grave robbing.

I'd describe myself as an atheist but can't answer with those poll options.

I believe there is no god and I therefore obviously don't believe in a god. But I'm also a scientist so I can't agree with a statement that there is no god as it is pretty much impossible to prove that god (or god's) don't exist.

I thought you couldn't possibly believe in God and think intelligently about all sorts of other things. But actually, there's a huge amount of historic evidence that Jesus lived, died, and was raised from the dead. Of course that sounds crazy to us, but so so many intelligent, educated people such as doctors, testified to all of this 2,000 years ago, and were willing to die to testify that these things were true.

I could find you 2000 people with one provocative tweet on twitter that would testify that you can, with the power of thinking alone, morph from one sex to the other. So willing are they to testify to this, that they will threaten to publish your address, have you fired from your job and happily maim you for challenging this orthodoxy. Humans are not reliable narrators.

I can’t answer your either/or poll. I don’t think it’s so simple as yes/no. I do think our understanding is very limited and there’s a possibility that there are powers beyond our understanding.

Also back then, if they didn't realise he could of been unconscious, then revived on his own ?

Jesus was almost certainly real. The Son of God bit is the bit that isn't real.

That said, he sounds like a sterling fellow and I agree with lots of his philosophy.

Still don't believe in god.

What about other religions though? I’ve met devout Muslims who describe the same feelings of seeing the power at work etc. Who truly, wholly believe Islam is the only way to eternal paradise.