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

This

Personally I think part of becoming an adult is realizing that people can have different views from you, views you find utterly wrong and baseless, and still be intelligent. It’s a discomfiting thing to accept, but accept it you must as you meet smart people with views you profoundly disagree with.

I think people who refuse to accept this are submitting to the status seeking part of our evolved animal nature. We all want someone to feel superior to ( I used to volunteer at a homeless Centre and the alcoholics looked down on the drug users). I think this explains why some atheists need to hold onto, and clearly enjoy holding into, the idea that theists are less smart than them. They see it as a socially sanctified way they can feel superior to another group of people in society.

I hope there is no God, because if there is, we are all in trouble. Only a wicked psychopath would create a world like this. Every second of every day something is dying in agony. Right now a rabbit is squealing as a weasel rips its throat out, a child is being raped and tortured, an old man is coughing up blood as his cancer eats him alive...need I go on? (Isn't it odd that God ignores them yet helps a Christian pass her driving test!) Any God with any power would have destroyed this world and made something better.

It's a comfort to me to believe there is no God and no afterlife. The thought of spending eternity with the monster responsible for all this is terrifying. I'd much rather believe I'm just a cloud of atoms that comes apart at death.

If you don’t believe in God, you must think Jesus was either mad or a liar. How does that fit in with being a sterling fellow?

The Saints existed, they were real people who were later canonised. Men wrote the Bible, but the NT is an account of the sayings and actions of a man called Jesus.

There isn't an interventionist god.

There is no god.

In reality despite what historians write, there isn't hardly any evidence of Jesus, the first writing him were 30 years after his death.

Did you use the word ‘evolved’😁 (I’m guessing you are athiest?) I’m an athiest and although I find it strange that adults believe in a god I have known very smart people who believe so I know it’s not just a question of believers being less intelligent.

I was brought up a Catholic and although I never embraced religion or god it took me years to find the courage to say to myself that I was an athiest as there was still a part of me that worried I might be struck down for it. I don’t put that down to still having a belief (however small) but down to the brain washing and indoctrination I was subjected to as a child.

I don't think He went down too well when He was around which is why they killed Him. A troublemaker by all accounts.

Except for very popular religions based on his existence and teachings, which have lasted for thousands of years.

Pretty sure they were doing dna testings on old dead people they thought might have been relatives? May be talking out of my backside on that one though.

Of course there's no god. Religion is a man-made concept originating, in my opinion, for 2 primary purposes:

to help explain what was not understood
to control others/power.

The same two purposes explain its continuance.
(Doesn't mean its explanations are true.)

I believe in God. I am a Muslim.

In the Islamic tradition there is a very famous saying where Muslims believe God says

‘I am in the opinion of my servant.’

Obviously those of you who identify as atheists will take issue with the word ‘servant’ but Muslims have traditionally interpreted this as basically saying if you don’t believe in God, then you won’t find a single proof for God. You’ll see all the religious arguments for the existence of God false, meaningless, silly, etc as this thread has shown.

Conversely if you do believe in God you’ll find the smallest most insignificant thing boosting your faith.

In short God reveals himself to us according to how we already think he is.

Not looking to start an argument here… just providing a non Christian view if anyone is interested.

Just to clarify all the Anrahamic religions believe in the same god and they all say it us the same god. Judaism, then Jesus was a Jewish who brought Christianity, then Mohammed saw an angel and realised Jesus was actually a prophet not the son of God, hence Islam.

Other world religions have different god or gods or even no god such as Buddhism.

@MrsSchrute

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.

Personally I do not believe people who have faith are mentally unwell, but I work in a professional capacity with people who have delusional illnesses, and there is a large degree of crossover between some of the things that commonly appear in people with these illnesses, some of the things they frequently say, some of the things they genuinely believe despite there being no credible reason for them to do so, and the way that people with faith will defend their beliefs when challenged.

Again, I do not accept the claim that people with faith are suffering from a delusionary illness, but I can absolutely see why that claim is made because the two present in much the same way. If you contemplate a situation where someone appears and claims that lizards from a distant galaxy created the human race, and they commune with them telepathically, if you challenged them on this belief and they remained absolutely steadfast that this is the reality of it, you'd likely conclude that they were probably suffering through some sort of episode, but because the concept of 'god' and 'prayer' are familiar, we accept people claiming the same are just expressing what is accepted as religious faith.

The crossover I allude to is much more complex, subtle, and wide-ranging than that, and more about the common behaviours rather than the specifics of what a delusional person might believe (there are some surprisingly common themes between different individuals), but the extreme example I've given is just for demonstration.

Abrahamic even

‘The Saints existed, they were real people who were later canonised.’

yes thanks, I understand that most ‘Saints’ were real people - it’s the then being ‘saints’ bit, the canonisation that is made up.
I was brought up Catholic, I know the stories of the saints well. But that’s what they are - stories.

I don’t care if people believe in god, whichever version/s that may be. I only care when someone else’s religious beliefs impact on my, or other people’s, civil rights.

It’s funny really because just this morning I randomly started thinking about when people say you’ll answer to god when you die etc. every day people are dying so even that in itself must be a full on job having to ‘judge’ people all day every day and all the while having to listen to millions of prayers in thousands of languages every second of every day for eternity. God must be exhausted and bored out of his mind 😁

I sit on the fence.

I’m open to the idea but I need proof (but for the record I don’t think it can be proved or disproved so my butt has a lot of sprinters in it from being on the fence 😆).

You can also dismiss the idea of god, accept that jesus existed as a real human being, but also contend that the stories that have sprung up surrounding him and acts attributed to him are nothing but after-market embellishments invented by cultists desperate to construct a messianic figure, and that the jesus who walked the earth was just a perfectly ordinary, mundane human being rebranded as something he absolutely was not.

He doesn't have to be mad, or a liar, the messianic jesus could just be a marketing product created by lies and embellishments after the fact.

I just typed out a long reply @FourTeaFallOut but then lost it all! I've got a house to tidy now the toddler is finally asleep so I won't type it all out again. But my key point was that we are talking about people who were so confident in what they had seen (Jesus' miracles and him dieing on the cross, then being raised from the dead), that they testified to all of this - even though it had them being murdered in the most hideous, excruciating and humiliating ways. It's actually a bit hard for me to post on here because I'm facing ridicule for believing in God, but I'm tucked away relatively warm at home, and I'm safe. It's not costing me all that much to stand up. But think back to the people who claimed to have seen Jesus' 2,000 years ago. They were real people. Lots and lots and lots of very real people, with jobs, families, real lives. You've got to have witnessed something pretty incomprehensively important to go out and tell people about it, even though you know it's going to have you killed in the most gruesome ways.

On the point about people being unreliable narrators, we rely on eye witness accounts for so much of our understanding of history.

@boo

Indoctrination

You do realise these testimonies and horrific deaths are all part of the STORY of Jesus don’t you?

I'm of the opinion that faith transgresses reality and distorts truth. But I'm not ridiculing you for your belief - I just disagree with your reasoning. But I don't want to burst your evening with a sleeping toddler and clean home which, if your home is anything like mine at that stage, was as rare as the planters aligning. Enjoy your evening, you don't owe me a reply.