To think that God doesn't exist and is a manmade concept

[Perimama]

As it is taboo to talk religion politics with people socially, I often wonder whether many people think like me. As a species we have dismissed all the other "Gods" ie Greek gods etc. What makes the Christian God any different? I wasn't born into a religious household although I was baptized Christian. The whole concept seems so unbelievable to me.

Are a third of state schools only available to christians? How did I not know this? None of those schools exists near me then because I’ve never heard of them.

I know of C of E schools with the majority of places going to children whose family attend CofE churches, with a small portion to other christians, then people of other faith.

Were you including catholic schools in these stats? The Catholic schools I know give majority of their available spaces to Catholics, and other christians have the same priority as everyone else.

The Bishops from cofE don’t represent all Christians. They are many varying views. In terms of the House of Lords seats, what about the over 90 inherited peers? They’re from a specific pool after all.

I was very interested to read about the christian privileges so disappointed to see these as the privileges you were talking about.

There are state funded schools for other religions too, with less inclusive admissions criteria. It is not a christian-only privilege.

I misread"manmade" as "marmalade". Now that's something to believe in.

It is a fascinating thought. Here's an excerpt from GotQuestions which I find a helpful site when my mind is wrangling with these thoughts:

Next comes the big question: does God exist? Atheists and naturalists (who do not accept anything beyond this physical world and universe) say “no.” While volumes have been written and debates have raged throughout history on this question, it is actually not difficult to answer. To give it proper attention, you must first ask this question: Why do we have something rather than nothing at all? In other words, how did you and everything around you get here? The argument for God can be presented very simply:

Something exists.
You do not get something from nothing.
Therefore, a necessary and eternal Being exists.

You cannot deny you exist because you have to exist in order to deny your own existence (which is self-defeating), so the first premise above is true. No one has ever demonstrated that something can come from nothing unless they redefine what ‘nothing’ is, so the second premise rings true. Therefore, the conclusion naturally follows—an eternal Being is responsible for everything that exists.

This is a position no thinking atheist denies; they just claim that the universe is that eternal being. However, the problem with that stance is that all scientific evidence points to the fact that the universe had a beginning (the ‘big bang’). And everything that has a beginning must have a cause; therefore, the universe had a cause and is not eternal. Because the only two sources of eternality are an eternal universe (denied by all current empirical evidence) or an eternal Creator, the only logical conclusion is that God exists. Answering the question of God’s existence in the affirmative rules out atheism as a valid belief system.

gotquestions bible - Search (bing.com)

I think the reason the idea of god exists is that it answers questions, gives comfort and structure and often allows people to be managed and exploited by other people.
People think the human brain is more developed than it is. I literally can't imagine space. I know it's there, I can sort of see it when I look up at night but the thought of it being so huge and old makes my brain struggle even though I know it's there. My brains cpu isn't powerful enough.

@TheBeautifulMoors Of course I'm including Catholics as Christians-don't you?

To be honest, if you don't regard the fact that a third of state funded schools offer priority to people of faith as a privilege, then maybe we have a different understanding of the word. And this is not even mentioning that all schools in the UK have, by law, to have daily "broadly Christian" collective worship. Obviously, many do not- but they are breaking their statutory duty if they don't.

And I object very strongly to any unelected legislators. We are though currently talking specifically there for religious reasons.

Millions and millions die and keep dying in the name of religion, Israel and Palestine the obvious one at the moment.

Who knows, if there was no religion maybe these people who commit atrocities in the name of gods would be even worse?

Yes, under Communism religion is banned and many millions have died under those regimes. I posted a link about that some pages back.

"you must first ask this question" says who?
A lot of presumptions in that text.
Many atheist would simply answer that they don't know how everything came to exist - only that they don't accept the 'god did it' explanation.

@TheBeautifulMoors And I do see a tendency among people of faith to say "Privilege? We don't have privilege! Oh, that! I thought you meant real privilege, not that old thing...."

Is this an attempt at proving the Bible is factual?

In that case, can I introduce you to a genre called 'historical fiction'?

Just in case anyone missed it- GotQuestions that @crikeymikeydoyoulikey linked to is a Christian site.

Earlier in the thread people were talking about whether the Romans had recorded a census, so thought it would be interesting to explore just what we could dig up referencing biblical events.

Oh yes, it's a Christian site! I suppose I should have said that!

If religion didn't exist, nether would Israel. And the vast majority of the people would have been very unlikely to move there. And so the space would not be so crowded and wouldn't result in the divisions of land that currently exist.

So while there might still be some fighting among people there, it would be unlikely to be nearly as significant.

The experiences that really interest me are those who have been lifelong atheists and then became believers.

Ah, that makes sense.

There should not be state-funded schools for any religion.

@CurlewKate clearly didn't say that faith schools are only available to Christians. What she said, which is entirely correct, is that your choice of potential schools is wider if you profess to be Christian because, obviously, it is so much easier to get into a faith school. Yes, most of them do offer some places to members of other faiths and non-Christians, but they come way down the order of priority in an awful lot of faith schools, so much so that with the popular ones your chances of getting in are close to zero if you can't produce that certificate from the vicar or priest.

Even when a faith school accepts a larger proportion of non-Christians, that is expressly on the basis that they have to accept the church ethos of the school. If you don't want to inflict that on your child that reduces choice also.

That's just a get out clause for blind faith though.

You do not get something from nothing.

Is that a fact? I think there are physicists who will disagree. There's also a huge problem with that argument about eternality - it doesn't seem to consider the fact that the evidence of Big Bang is the point at which time itself began. This is of course a difficult concept to understand but I don't think an 'eternal' supernatural power solves anything whatsoever in that argument - that would be the biggest 'something out of nothing' possible!

Bad science and bad logic.

On faith schools... I live in an area where there's a massive oversupply of faith schools - all CofE or RC - vs the proportion of the population likely to be Christian. Some are good, some aren't. So if you can't or won't fulfil their 'faith' criteria (baptism, church attendance) then your child is likely to be excluded from the better schools yet still end up having to go to a 'Christian' school! Does anyone think it's remotely moral for kids to be discriminated against because of their parents' beliefs or circumstances don't enable them to attend church regularly?
Thats an issue for another thread or two though.

Millions and millions die and keep dying in the name of religion, Israel and Palestine the obvious one at the moment.

Most of the time it's nothing to do with religion though. There will be a label/identity for the warring factions .... But it's about "resources*.

Something exists.
You do not get something from nothing.
Therefore, a necessary and eternal Being exists.

Why would it have to be a being?

Why do you jump to a being?

Because you can't imagine anything else?

Because you don't have the capacity to imagine anything else?

I was the same, and now I am often drawn to the Sea of Faith movement. Does anyone remember Fr Jude Bullock? Pilloried in the press as 'the priest who doesn't believe in God'. Had to leave the Catholic church but found a welcome in the C of E where he is vicar of St Anne's, Chingford. He has given talks to local faith groups including a Reform synagogue. The S of F position is roughly that God is a human creation, but a very valuable one. The Quakers are very open to some of their ideas.

@crikeymikeydoyoulikey I don't understand why, in the context of this thread, it's relevant that there are historically real people mentioned in the Bible. Could you explain,please?

How are you getting on with your search for atheists who converted to Christianity? I understand they are pretty rare....

Indeed.

It's actually reasonably sane and cogent, by the typical standard of creationist argument, but at this point it completely loses the plot and becomes nonsensical drivel -

This is a position no thinking atheist denies; they just claim that the universe is that eternal being. However, the problem with that stance is that all scientific evidence points to the fact that the universe had a beginning (the ‘big bang’). And everything that has a beginning must have a cause; therefore, the universe had a cause and is not eternal. Because the only two sources of eternality are an eternal universe (denied by all current empirical evidence) or an eternal Creator, the only logical conclusion is that God exists. Answering the question of God’s existence in the affirmative rules out atheism as a valid belief system

Atheists do not invariably claim that this universe is eternal, or an eternal being. It also posits only one possible definition of "eternal" with regard to the universe, oddly enough the one that suits the creationist argument, and makes no mention of the fact the "universe" can exist eternally via means the argument ignores entirely. It posits only two possible explanations for the origin and nature of universe, attributes one to Atheists irrespective of the fact it is not the only or default Atheistic position, discounts it, and then concludes the other must be true, a creator being, because its the only one left standing.

Utter tripe.