Do you believe in God/a higher power?

[CuriousAboutWhatYouThink]

Not religion. I have no time for organised religion and the associated man made rules.

But do you believe in 'something'?

For context, my grandad was a CofE vicar but my parent rebelled against it and we were brought up broadly l in the religion (eg we celebrated main religious festivals like Easter and Christmas) but not as practising Christians and without a particular belief in God.

As an adult, I have friends of different faiths and none and it's something we have discussed from time to time. It's also something I used to discuss with my grandma who had a very strong belief in God but also believed the Bible until she became older when she still had a strong faith but admitted she thought the Bible was largely nonsense!

I suppose I've always felt that there is 'something' but I refer to it as the universe. I don't know, I always feel that there has been 'something' looking out for me.

That doesn't mean bad things have never happened because they have and religion/belief doesn't protect anyone from that. And it doesn't mean my life is anywhere near perfect because it's not. But the universe has always seemed to 'step in' when needed.

I don't know. I'm going through a tough time at the moment but I have a feeling everything will turn out to be OK because it always does.

Christ alive - don’t do an Alpha course, I’ve tried it a few times they’re fucking awful and generally run by people who almost inevitably turn out to be Christian apologists

I don’t believe in anything. Not a dicky bird.

Li think there’s a higher power, but I think we create it - not as in make something up, but I believe each of us has something bigger than ourselves

I think most Christians are also waiting for the gaps to be filled in. “God did it” isn’t a refusal to be rational or evidence of blinkered thinking, it’s just that we are expecting God to provide the answers eventually, which He has promised to do. I suppose this is the substance of faith. It makes sense that if you don’t believe in God you are waiting on different answers.

Well, I can't say I entirely understand magnetism but I know enough to say that like poles always repel, opposite poles always attract and that the force between them always decreases at an inverse cube of the distance. That's enough to be able to make testable predictions which back up the claims about their properties.

None of the claims about gods I've heard are anywhere close to that kind of basic knowledge. I'm not talking about 100% understanding; something that at least is internally coherent would be a good start.

A famous philosopher. ( So famous I cannot remember his name 😀) said a logical person must believe in God, because if they were wrong, it didn't matter, but if they were right, it may matter.

I agree with the logic, but cannot bring myself to go along with it. So, it's a hard no from me.

No. In some ways I have more time for religion than actual deities. There are obviously some really bad things about organised religion, but it's a shame we can't seem to keep the good bits (cohesive communities, shared beliefs, passed down traditions, awe and wonder, ritual and festival etc) and ditch the bad bits (power and corruption, religious wars, bigotry etc) and the made-up deities!

Ok, let's assume there is something eternal that created the universe as we know it. Why ascribe intelligence to that eternal entity? Could it not be an eternal, unthinking, automatic process that just randomly buds off universes?

That's more-or-less Pascal's Wager, which entirely ignores the fact that there's a thousand different god claims to choose from.

Interesting post and I find myself more or less agreeing with it.

No.

Yes 💯 believe there's something. I call it the universe too. Or source energy.

So sorry to hear about your son. I hope he is on the road to recovery.

And I don't believe in any of the thousand. I still think their logic is brilliant, but I just cannot be persuaded to think something I don't believe is somehow ok to put forward, because it may, in another life, benefit me. Just feels too close to lying.

No one appears to have explained why God is considered "benevolent" (Christian God), but allows death, destruction, childhood illness, and all the rest of it.

Has anyone rationally explained that yet? And FWIW I know about the catch all cop out of the ridiculous nonsense called "Free Will". That's handy isn't it? No explanation required, it's all our fault at the end of the day for exercising free will, that God apparently gave us. Hands off so, and off you go, but mind my rules aswell. OMG!

He is, thank you.

Yes and it brings me a lot of comfort

I guess so, although I don’t think it’s the intelligence part of this question that causes the biggest problems. Our universe is so unbelievably complex and intricate and everything is fine-tuned to such a degree (we are the exact distance from the sun to ensure we are warm enough but don’t burn for example) that it kind of makes sense that if the universe was indeed created, it was by an intelligent being.

Yes. I have witnessed many people coming back from devastation through addiction recovery.

He’s spending a lot of time ensuring sportsmen score goals and touchdowns and making bullets swerve through air and judging people who use contraception which is why he’s not noticed all the other big stuff.

That's also the argument for reincarnation, which just happens to be my own belief

We try to live the best lives we can in order to learn and progress, but I fully accept this is unprovable too, so if it's nonsense at least we've done our best and if it's correct we may stand a chance of better lives in future

Edited to add it was Blaise Pascal who made the "logical" argument

There's an inconceivably vast number of planets in the universe, circling countless suns across trillions of galaxies. It's not a massive surprise that at least one happens to be at roughly the right distance from its sun to have liquid water and a convenient mix of chemicals that can sustain life. Roll the dice enough times and they're going to come up sixes.

Yes. I saw something many years ago so I've believed in 'something' since then whether it be ghosts or whatever. Been reading the Bible for a year and wish I'd done it sooner. I absolutely believe.

Yeah, that doesn't work for me.

A "god" to me, has to me made of something. I don't care what, atoms and molecules and all that crap might be specific to our universe, but any higher power must be made of something, no matter how alien it is to our primitive little brains.

And that stuff had to come from somewhere, so where did it come from?

It's just another later of turtles.

Good point but it’s just not for me.