Do you believe in God?

[VirtualPA]

I am interested to know what the majority of people belive.

I personally believe in a Christian God, Heaven and hell etc.

I raised a strict an athiest

oh ps I'm a namechanger so I have said it before under different names!

"It is a necessity to believe in something that can be disproved. "

This should read: "Faith is a necessity if one is to believe in something that can be disproved".

Getting ahead of myself there.

Cyteen, that's the sort of thing people say when they can't think of anything cogent to contribute.

Got anything more intelligent to offer? Being one of the most rational people on the planet?

I've already said I'm quite happy being irrational. All humans are. I'm also happy with people's choice or need to believe, and happy with my own belief that there is no god. Not really sure why that's a problem for you.

As stated before - I do not believe in God. Happy for others who do.

There's no doubt about it though, religion inspires greatness. Can you imagine life with no religion at all? The beautiful manuscripts never written and illustrated, the masterpieces never composed, the paintings never painted, philosophy never considered, the buildings never constructed, the sculptures, windows, furniture, all the paraphernalia in this country an others which would not exist. Religion has enriched our culture. People argue that religion has also inspired wars and suffering and unfairness but in my opinion, those things would happen anyway. It doesn't take much for rivals to fight and for dictators to oppress, but it takes something truly great, like true faith, to inspire such creativity.

I don't believe in God, but I do believe in that most religious messages are not bad. And I think the church plays an important role in the community.

That's not a problem at all, I just didn't think your beermat comment was up to much. It's nice that there are atheists like you as well as the obsessive abusive type.

Well, there are two types of people: twats, and not twats. Religious belief or lack thereof is just one of many details.

Yes, I believe in God. I was raised Anglo-Catholic and have been Church of England pretty much all my life. I'm now training to be a priest, and doing a degree in Theology as part of that (at a normal university, not a faith-led one).

I don't do biblical inerrancy though (not many Anglicans do!) . I'm specialising in the Bible academically, so I've learnt a lot about the socio-linguistic stuff going on there. It's fascinating! I love it! For me it hasn't weakened my faith at all - it's made it stronger and more focused. (I.e. I've realised that as a Christian I don't worship the Bible, I worship the God to whom the Bible points, and who therefore is by nature bigger than it).

Happy to talk faith with anyone...

And since this is the internet, I reserve my right to make light hearted responses to anything I choose. You will notice my lack of swearwords, faces or angry tone.

Generalisations about large groups of people are rarely useful or illuminating, although they are sometimes enjoyable.

In answer to the op, yes I do.
Roman catholic but rarely attend church. I would like to but can't seem to get there at the moment for personal reasons.

Yes I believe in God, not sure if it's an old man with a white beard sat in the clouds

or whether it's just a force/ highe power, howerver you would describe it but I do

believe life and the world are too amazing to have been an accident.

I don't go to church as I don't really believe in any one religion but I definitely

pray and believe in the after life.

Well SGB, your opinion is absolutely valid.

Just a shame you don't have the intellect to validate it.

No - too many grey areas for me.

I had a boss who was a devout Christian who thought fossils were placed on the earth by the devil to test the faith

Also why do we see paintings of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with belly buttons clearly on show.

Who gave birth to them? They wouldn't have needed belly buttons!

Lots of stuff like that really makes me think it is all a bit silly and how can people believe it all.

Blind faith?

Culturally am CofE and raising ds with an awareness of Christianity (and other religions, he was telling me about Hindu creation stories last night after RE lessons).

Intellectually am an atheist/agnostic depending on my mood. Spiritually am an agnostic with CofE leanings - kind of wistful and wish I could believe wholeheartedly. Basically am confused, which actually makes me pretty much bog-standard CofE as far as I can see.

Mind you, I had a pagan wedding in my rebellious 20s. But it's one thing to rebel against your own culture and the established order when that culture and order is dominant - more recently the CofE has been rather troubled so I feel more affection for it/more concern for it.

Lord no.

backtotalk - we need a Jesuit to deal with your post. BUT as a mere ignorant half-hearted CofE person, I seem to recall it's all to do with human beings having free will. And that dratted snake. (Adam was THERE when Eve was tempted by the snake, so I don't know where he gets off pretending it was nowt to do with him and it is all the fault of 'Woman'.)

Lamplighter, you're right - that kiind of thing is a bit silly, or incredulous to say the least.

But that's not the sum total of faith. It's easy to polarise extremes and therefore to be forced to one of them, but the truth is rarely that simple. I quite like shades of grey, personally - not that I doubt God's existence, but I believe that the whole business of God involving himself with humanity is inevitably going to be a messy, complicated thing, because we are messy and complicated people!

Christianity is just the religion which is currently faddy. It's only been around 2000 years. It's the equivalent of the Madchester scene with its floppy fringes and paisley shirts. With the benefit of hindsight, we will find it faintly embarrassing.

I just seem to think that all the religions of the world agree on a set of tenets that we should all live by. Thou shalt not steal, kill, commit adultery etc etc

Then we spend thousands of years blowing each other to pieces to prove who is living by that set of tenets 'correctly'

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bloss

We have at least 250,000 years of human history.

Christianity is a very, very new kid on the block am afraid.

Look at all the beliefs people held absolutely at the time and which we now look back at as "myths". I don't need to list them - we all know which ones they are.

Seriously, I'd need to have my brain deactivated before I started to believe any of it as anything more than a very interesting story.

Was raised church going c of w - atheist now.

Can't believe in god when children get cancer.

lamplighter - God didn't paint those pictures, you know! Belly buttons are illogical, yes - probably painted by a man who had never spent much time with young babies and didn't really know about umbilical cords! Or who was using religion as an excuse to practise his skills at painting life-like images.

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