Do you believe in god?

[Unicorndreams24]

i have recently been thinking a lot about religion and wondering how many believe in god and also what made you come to the decision of believing?

Asceticism is a factor in a disturbingly large number of religions. I personally find its extremes quite horrifying but there have been numerous people who seem to believe that suffering, even if it's self-imposed and ultimately pointless, brings them closer to god(s). Mother Teresa was allegedly quite keen on it albeit on the basis that it was other people suffering rather than herself. Hindu ascetics are also a phenomenon such as Amar Bharati and his followers. It's also seen in a somewhat milder form in Buddhism and many other religions.

I suppose if you follow many religions' beliefs that life in the corporeal realm is suffering and that one would then get ones reward in the afterlife as recompense, that it's somehow(?) logical to increase one's suffering today for greater rewards tomorrow. Or at least that today's limited suffering is infinitesimally small and thus irrelevant compared to eternal life after death. It doesn't add up for me but I know a lot of people buy in to it as an idea.

It is grotesque.

The trouble with religions is that they deal in fundamentals and are magnetically drawn towards fundamentalism... you see it all round the world.

Just live with love ...

Your post is an interesting one, thank you for sharing. “Just live with love” sounds great — but people disagree deeply on what love actually means. This thread shows that even without religion, people still hold strong fundamentals about morality, truth, and what society should be like. Which is not a criticism, but a natural truism of what human nature is, given that we all do it. So I am not sure we can argue that having a faith is what implements fundamentals. Everyone lives by core beliefs; the real disagreement would therefore be not whether love matters, but who defines it and how it’s lived out. And that brings us back to the point that we all have different belief systems.

Quote: So "I am not sure we can argue that having a faith is what implements fundamentals about morality, truth, and what society should be like. ."

Except of course that believers do say that morals etc for society do come from God. They insist that laws come from God. They even pass laws to enforce Gods laws, or what they think are Gods laws.

New Texas law requires 10 Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom - POLITICO

And this crowd in the photo below, that I have flagged as sensitive ( no blood or gore, offensive placards), most definitely saw morals and laws come from Jesus.

Thank you for your message. I certainly don’t dispute that many believers argue morality comes from God, or that some seek to legislate on that basis. But pointing to abuses, bad theology, or political overreach doesn’t negate the point that everyone, faith or no faith, operates from moral fundamentals — it just shows that fundamentals can be misapplied, distorted, or abused. Regardless of whether it is from a faith side or not. There have been implications that only people of faith have fundamental viewpoints. I would argue that it isn’t binary, as this thread has shown by people on both sides making fundamental arguments as absolute, and I think that is a reasonable point to make.

I think you’re making a rather different point, which I also see. The placards you’ve shared directly contradict Jesus’ own teaching (including his explicit rejection of collective guilt and his command to love neighbour and enemy). They’re an example of people using religion, not faithfully reflecting it. Which is incredibly awful and saddening too.

Quote : " I certainly don’t dispute that many believers argue morality comes from God, or that some seek to legislate on that basis."

I think you need to define what you mean by many. From my experience and observations, I would say that the vast majority of believers a insist that morality comes from God.

The Catholic Church for example.

Part Three Section One Man's Vocation Life In The Spirit Chapter Three God's Salvation: Law And Grace Article 1 The Moral Law I. The Natural Moral Law (vatican.va)

Right at the top :

"The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted"

Next bit, quote "I think you’re making a rather different point, which I also see. The placards you’ve shared directly contradict Jesus’ own teaching (including his explicit rejection of collective guilt and his command to love neighbour and enemy). They’re an example of people using religion, not faithfully reflecting it. Which is incredibly awful and saddening too."

Actually no Because based on the Bible alone, what the Westbro Baptists say is actually a perfectly valid interpretation of what is written in that book. It is YOU who interpret it differently from them. And from a literal reading of the Bible cover to cover, I would argue they are closer to what it actually says.

You and the Westbro mob are just putting different weights on different parts.

For example. Does this God hate Gay men ? Well, he certainly has enough laws that they be stoned to death. And nowhere in the Bible does it say they should not be stoned to death. But it is YOU who are deciding that a different part of the book negates that. You are applying different weights. That forgiveness is more important than the stoning.

Agree ?

And really, how difficult would it have been for Jesus, son of God and all that, just to go through the mosaic laws and strike his iron age quill through them ?

:-)

We need to move away from any idea that believers are more moral than anyone else.

If anyone thinks this, where’s the evidence?

‘For example. Does this God hate Gay men ? Well, he certainly has enough laws that they be stoned to death. And nowhere in the Bible does it say they should not be stoned to death. But it is YOU who are deciding that a different part of the book negates that. You are applying different weights. That forgiveness is more important than the stoning.
Agree?’

Apologies — I am not sure this was directed to me as I didn’t say this.

I will let someone else answer that according to their framework as I don’t think most Christians would subscribe to this view, as we believe all are flawed and have fallen short!

So basically Christians have no better morals than anyone else?

btw - I don’t think I’ve fallen short. You just behave as a decent person. Be good to others although if someone was to hurt my family, they would never be forgiven (ever).

Thank you for your question. Christians don’t believe we’re more moral than others. We believe we fall short of God’s standards — believers included.

The heart of the gospel is that when that relationship with God is broken, we can’t repair it ourselves by trying harder or being decent enough. Christians believe Jesus does what we can’t: he restores the relationship through grace.

I know we have different beliefs, and I’m just explaining how Christianity understands human nature and why Jesus matters to us.

Sorry, I meant do you agree on the whole westbro Baptist church thing also being based on the Bible, and it being closer to what the Bible actually says.

You definitely have a complicated life as a believer. I haven’t fallen short of anyone’s standards. What’s going to happen to you as you think you have fallen short?

god definitely does hate gay men. I only have two friends who follow any religion. They happen to be two gay men - two of the most wonderful people in the world.
They would like desperately to be married in their local church but have been refused as they are gay. Religion isn’t very inclusive. It’s discriminatory.

I’m so sorry you feel that way — I don’t actually find it complicated for me personally. For me, knowing that I’ve fallen short of God’s standards isn’t discouraging at all; it’s actually incredibly freeing. The gospel of Jesus Christ reminds me that I don’t have to earn God’s love or try to be perfect — grace covers me, and that gives me joy and peace every day. It’s not about being better than anyone else, just about experiencing this freedom and hope, and it’s something I’m really thankful for. I appreciate you don’t share that view, but I’m speaking personally as to my belief and joy.

why do your friends want to be married in church?

Because they are Christians and want to be married in their local church.

Yup. And exactly as I said above, the westbro baptist mob are closer to following the Bible than Christian posters here are. As are many other Churches .

Should they not be married in Church ?

In your version of Christianity I mean.

If you’re not perfect then, will that rule you out of going to heaven?

This discussion has moved miles away from "Do you believe in god?" and we are embroiled in the shackles of individual religions/sects.

A belief in a deity does not imply belonging to a particular religion with all its human-generated accretions based on the self-interest of hierarchies.

I have suggested that we should simply accept that we will never know the answer to the basic question and all we can do is to live by kindness and love. But someone upthread actually thinks that kindness needs defining within the parameters of particular religions! Sigh ........

This is a prime example of how religions, with their rigid self-interested doctrines, pull us far away from the fundamental need to be kind to others.

My church owns no property 🤷‍♀️

You don’t always get what you want. 🤷‍♀️

The constant attempts to claim hegemony over morality is one of the biggest things that grates with me when it comes to Christianity.

I'm not referring to individual Christians, more the way that Christian leaders still routinely act as if they have a right to impose Christian dogma upon all of us by interfering in public life.

You also see a version of it frequently on here with the assertion that "we are a Christian country, our laws are rooted in Christian values...." etc. This implies that prior to the advent of Christianity humanity was nothing but a lawless, murderous shambles and completely ignores two salient points -

1. There are multitudinous examples of pre-Christian human societies which had perfectly functional moral codes, laws, expectations etc, many of them no different to modern equivalents, so no, they are not "rooted in Christian values", more the case that Christianity simply co-opted values that were commonplace or universal in any case.
2. Human beings, by dint of the simple fact we are all human, can relate to other humans because we share the human condition. The concept of "do unto others..." is great, but it doesn't need a religion or a religious figure to remind us of it. Aside from outliers where there is perhaps a mental health or personality disorder in play, most of us know inherently how it feels to be treated poorly so we, generally speaking, try to avoid subjecting other humans to poor treatment.

This is not exclusive to Christianity, of course, but given that it is still the predominant religion here in the UK, and it's Christianity which is still given ridiculous and completely unmerited privilege to interfere in public life, then it's Christianity which most frequently attempts to intrude into my life and why I use it as the example.

The idea that we need religion to stop us being twats to each other is palpable nonsense, especially so when you see so many crystal clear examples around the world of people being twats to each other entirely because of religious difference. So no, I'm not going to sit and take lectures in morality from the religious or entertain this ludicrous notion that religion is what gives us our humanity.

As Christians why should they be treated differently from other Christians? Hardly a caring and tolerant attitude?