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.

@CurlewKate I'm intrigued, what special treatment? I haven't come across anyone asking that as a Christian in workplaces etc. But as a Catholic yes there is history of persecution in the UK of that. It's literally what the UK was built on- bending everyone to switch to Protestantism to follow the Crown. It's why Catholic schooling exists, because it's important to us that our children learn the history of our faith so they can make an informed choice themselves, but initially all religious teaching was erased from education and people were indeed persecuted for teaching it. So we had to set up separate schooling for it and it's heavily funded by the church for that reason. In Scotland at the moment there is a push to teach sex education in a more blunt way from young ages (my view, again not everyone's and that's ok) There was no consideration of Catholic schooling within this and the statement they put out basically suggests that Catholic schools will have to do what the Scottish government says despite it being against all their beliefs.
I think there needs to be a happy medium, which currently there is. But there is definitely still a level of persecution that exists- though in a very nuanced way rather than the ways we might usually expect persecution to look like.
Sorry that was a huge answer and probably went off on a tangent! I also love these discussions though and it's always good to learn too.

people getting worked up on another thread about parents “lying” about Father Christmas. Lots of them probably believe in “God”. Hilarious.

You may look at much older monuments than that, prehistoric time over 10 000 yrs ago, which certainly required a lot of people.
They were often buildings for charting astronomical events over big timelines.

Skara Brae is astonishing. Ancient people were highly accomplished. Evidence of indoor plumbing!

@namechangenanny no need to apologise. I’m sorry if you thought I was speaking exclusively. I just said that I thought that most, which is not all, people think that way. This is my experience. I completely understand that you are not one of the ‘most’ and respect your choice/belief and realise with the circles you socialise in that you may have a different paradigm. That’s ok. Room for all. I do not think our society should be influenced by religion. It should be for the religious people only to partake and respect.

That statement is in no way hateful, since religions are, by definition, quite literally cults.

The only way it could be perceived as hateful is if you apply your own personal interpretation of the word "cult", but the commonly agreed definition of the word is no more derogatory than calling religions "clubs" or "groups".

@ErrolTheDragon

The notion that marriage is a religious institution seems quite historically and culturally blinkered. Civil marriages have been legal in England and wales since 1836, and (someone correct me if I'm wrong) there never was a requirement for religion to be involved in Scotland

Until fairly recently in Scotland (20 years or so), you could be married in a registry office by a registrar if you did not want a religious ceremony, but if you wanted a ceremony anywhere else, so any recognised public place with an address, a hotel, house, etc, you had no option but to have the ceremony performed by an ordained minister. The only place Registrars were permitted to marry people was in a Registry office. This has changed now, but the change was relatively recent.

I'd find it far easier to accept alien intervention in our DNA than there being any god.

The issue is with man's utter self righteous delusion that this planet belongs to them and everything is there for them to exploit.

Religion is control.
Mostly men controlling women.

Blind faith must be nice in a way as it clearly brings comfort to some.

Ancient civilisations were in some ways far more advanced than us and go back much further in time than previously thought. They knew about space and maths and engineering. They made things even now cannot be replicated.

We know so little yet think we know everything.
It's sometimes easy to dismiss religion as a concept, but I do believe there is just so much we just don't understand or can comprehend.

That fact that religion is still being used as an excuse for war in such a supposedly 'advanced' era of civilisation tells me it's all about power for men.

I really enjoyed our interaction, nice to be able to have different beliefs without ramming them down each other's throats. Hope you have a lovely weekend, sorry for late reply I've been out at a Christmas fair.

There are an estimated billion plus planets in the universe and people think there is a god who made them all but chose this one to put people on. Then allows small children to suffer from horrible diseases, which presumably he/she/it also created. They allow people to starve.

This deity is horrible.

And why just believing one when there are multiple cults and each thinks that its own god is best. In some cases, there are claims that it’s fine to kill others with different views.

If you have read all, and I mean all, of your chosen religious text and still think it’s true and/or right, I have to question your morality. Most cherry pick the parts they like and conveniently ignore the rest.

As a species we have dismissed all the other "Gods"

whar does this mean? 🥴 you do realise that people have diff beliefs?

I would hazard a guess that you yourself have also not read all of these texts either before forming your opinion. God is love, all the love. To live without love at the heart of what you do is to be without God. It's not as simple as just saying he created all the stuff it's that humans are able to do as we like here on Earth but humans often don't choose to do good things. But if it's easier for you to blame a deity than accept that humans are imperfect that is your right.

whar does this mean? 🥴 you do realise that people have diff beliefs?

I think it means "non-modern" religions, I think we'd call them the old pagan religions, such as the ancient Egyptian god, Roman, greek, Norse etc

God is love

I love my child and if I had the power to prevent her being sexually and physically abused or dying slowly of cancer, I would. Isn't God supposed to have that power, and all that love? Fuck him

I've always been fascinated with how religious people explain their god being real but all the other gods as not! I think if there was one universal god across the world it might the cause to b believable! And I certainly didn't get married because of religion. I'm an Atheist and belive in the commitment of marriage nothing about religion. And I'm sure gay people would also not nessasery do it for religion either considering they won't even able to marry untill fairly recently!

Atheist here. I was raised with superstitions and a strong belief in spirits living alongside us, but not god or Jesus.

I think people want their God that they believe in to be an all powerful singular being capable of stopping atrocities - but maybe it’s not like that - maybe God is a concept designed to assist in stoping these things when those who believe act in ways where these awful situations are avoided, but not everyone believes so it can never be.

I feel as well personally there’s so much religion v science but maybe it’s the same thing. Religion and its teachings were just early ways to try and explain things which we now know can be explained scientifically, and maybe things we can explain scientifically were created by some higher force ? So neither is ‘wrong’ but they are one and the same.

A friend of mine who is very religious said to me that it ain’t about God solving all the problems or stopping suffering that isn’t what she wants or expects from her god but simply to be given the strength to accept the terrible things can happen in life not for the pain to be taken away . That did make me think quite a lot

aint - isn’t , not sure why autocorrect is changing that!

I mean evil comes from the devil but the problem is, where does original sin come from ? If God created all, how was there sin/ evil before ??

No I don’t believe god exists. I stopped believing in fairy tales as a child.

Isn't original sin the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden apple in the garden of eden?

They eat the apple, realise they're naked, get booted out into the wilderness, have sex, she gets pregnant and that's the original sin thing that the almighty later arranged for his son to be nailed to a tree for.

I mean, he could have just said ok I was a bit harsh, I lost my temper, from now on you each are only held accountable for what you do.

But hey, nails through your son's wrists and ankles and hanging him from a massive cross until he bleeds to death works too. 🤷

Praise be the merciful lord. Not at all a psychopath in any way.

Metaphor - for people turning away from God. You're taking it far more literally than any religious person would.
I always thought it worked quite well whether you believe in God or not - how much human suffering is caused by humans turning away from what is right? (And unfortunately it's usually not the people acting selfishly who are the ones who end up suffering). Big pharma manipulating doctors to begin an opioid crisis. Countries going to war for oil or power. Men being violent toward women.

I thought religious people literally believed the religious books to be describing actual events. Isn't that the whole point of religion?

We can all read them as parables, metaphors, guides as to the rules of the day all told in ways the people of the time would understand (and fear). But a 'real' Adam and Eve, actual moses, virgin mary, jesus etc etc. aren't religious people supposed to believe all that - otherwise, what's the point of being religious? What's the difference between that and not being religious if they don't believe the books to be true?

And tbh anyone who needs a book and fear of eternal damnation in order to be a decent person is not actually a decent person. The good people are those who behave decently because it's the right thing to do, not because they're scared they'll go to hell otherwise.

God came down to earth as Jesus.
I meant if God was the start of everything where did even the possibility of sun come from .. originalsin