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

Seraphine - you ask how an atheist can accept that this is all life is. As an atheist I will try to answer.

This is all life is? This is fantastic. Look at it. Without being too trite, I look at the beauty everywhere. I take a huge comfort from the fact that there is an unfathomable expanse of universe far above us, which we do not yet understand. We are all made of the same selection of substances. There is immense beauty on earth, there is also immense pain and suffering, however we as part of the wider animal kingdom do not suffer any more or less than our fellow animals. We are all a consequence of the scientific development of our race and surroundings.

When I see a beautiful church, it does not inspire any awe in a god, in whom I do not believe. In fact, I wonder why people believe in a higher deity when we as humans are capable of achieving so much with our bare hands.

When I die, that will be the end of me, I will rot and turn back into the same basic substances of which we are all made. How fantastic to know that (elementally) we cannot be destroyed, we just turn into something else. To me it is a good thing that I turn into worm food - so i feed the worms, and hence the soil, and achieve a mortality that way. I do not need to believe in a supernatural afterlife to know that life goes on.

I meant achieve immortality.

I was raised a half-hearted Christian (went to Sunday School but parents have a problem with organised religion being used to justify people being crappy to each other) but haven't ever really had any faith as an adult. I've tried sometimes, when people die I try to hope I'll see them again. But I just can't make it fit with what I know to be.

I am a confirmed atheist these days.

Although I do put a lot of effort into believing Scientific theories. That makes me happy.

And Getorf has just summed up my views on life after death perfectly

lamplighter np

LOL - how old are you again, seraphine?

I respect your views, seraphine and to answer your question about how an atheist lives day to day without believing in the afterlife - well, for me personally I just don't need to think there is more to life. I look out of the window and see the blue sky and green grass and the birds singing, and I realise how privileged I am to be here and now. I guess it's living for the moment in a way (although I know many Christians do this too) and feeling that living that way is enough for me. I have lost loved ones too but it's good enough for me to think that their atoms have now returned to the universe and may be part of some flower, or a sun, or of my daughter etc. There is a finite amount of material in this universe and to imagine the dance it must dance over is enough for me to know that people I have lost ARE still here, in atomic form anyway. Their personalities still exist in my heart and mind. Sorry to any scientists cringing at my bad grasp of this, but that's how I think of it.

x-posts, GetOrfMoiLand

over time

Agree with everything Getorf said. Told you I was confused...

GetOrfMoiLand, we park our cars in the same garage [nods sagely] I'm happy with this world and the love I have in this life, because those things are extraordinary.

Lol at edam!

There is a beautiful passage in the Amber Spyglass, where people's spirits in heaven (who were unhappy) were led out into the open air, where the spirits disappeared into the air. I cannot describe it very well but it is incredibly moving and sits with my vision of death and the 'afterlife'.

Also applauds GetOrfMoiLand for a top class post ! No god, angels, devil, etc. camping on my pitch either, just a wonder at it all and all yet to come.

This is it (the whole awe-inspiring lot) - make the most of it and celebrate your place in it.

(I have to get this in).

Prof Richard Dawkins agreed with me on the webchat today.

I am (sad but true) thrilled at this. I haven't felt so chuffed since the bloke from The House of Eliot winked at me in gatwick airport circa 1993

No, the whole idea is just silly.

I had a boss who was a lay preacher, married with two DC's, ran a church group, tried to get all his (non-believing) staff to join his church and has now given up his very good job and salary to attend theological college.

He wants to be a vicar.

He was one of the most dishonest people I have ever met - that was when he wasn't feeling up the office juniors.

It makes me shudder just thinking about him -never mind him telling me how to live a 'Christian' life.

Yuck

getorf - isn't RD married to an ex-Doctor Who assistant, or am I getting confused? Vague memory I saw somewhere they were introduced by Douglas Adams.

seraphine - I'd say quite the opposite, i.e. that believing there is more than this life is very dangerous. At one extreme, that kind of thinking allows people not to put the full effort into enjoying their earthly life with full zest and passion, because they think there is an eternity coming. At the other extreme.. well, it leads them to commit unspeakable acts.

People think atheists have something against the idea of there being an afterlife. Don't get me wrong - it would be great. To have endless millennia to sort out all those things I wanted to do on Earth but couldn't - read the whole of Proust and Shakespeare, listen to the entirety of 1980s pop music, watch all the films I've missed in the past 10 years and have hot dirty sex with Cherie Lunghi and every single member of Girls Aloud and The Saturdays... fantastic! (Although I have a suspicion that at least some some of those things wouldn't be allowed in the version of Heaven which Christians wish to impose on us.) But there isn't one. These things are never going to happen. So it's very, very important to do as much as we possibly can in our limited time on Earth - and not emotionally and intellectually mislead our children by making them think that there is anything more after you go into the ground.

I don't think there is actually anything wrong with having myths, legends, stories about supernatural beings and the way things were created. But the Bible is no more a handbook of reality than Aesop's fables are, or Kipling's Just So Stories. They're all fine, as long as you don't fall into the trap of believing them.

edam - yes, he is married to the fragrant Lalla Ward who played Romana. She used to be married to Tom Baker.

UQD - how do you know all this stuff?

lol at you spending paradise in massive orgy with GA and Saturdays with soundtrack by Flock of Seagulls, or whatever. You filthy heathen, you.

And without meaning to sound like a patronising old cow, I think it is quite sad (as in the unhappy sense, not pisstaking) to feel disappointed with what happens in the here and now, and to think that the really good stuff happens in paradise when we are dead.

As UQD says - sad and dangerous

Is anyone keeping track of the score - for and against.

Maybe we ought to have a simple yes or no at the bottom of each post. Bit late though

Is it just me does anyone cringe when yet another trendy vicar comes along and tries to make the Bible 'cool' to children?

Did anyone see the video where all the disciples spoke in cod cockney and said things like "Oi Jesus, can I follow you mate?"

A clip was shown on the News at Ten a few years ago

Truly buttock clenching stuff.

No, though I've been more sympathetic to religion since I met my husband, who is a priest.

Yes I believe in God, am a Christian and go to church.

Yes I am a Christian.

I have a relationship with God (not a perfect one at times!)

He is real, I have felt his presence so closely on more than one occasion.

Just my personal experience

I'm a humanist. I respect other peoples beliefs and am quite happy to die and become part of the earth. I can't remember what it was like before I was born so I think death will be the same. My children can make up their own minds as they grow. To be honest, I don't think I'd want to spend an afterlife with all those 'good christian folk'but if it feels right to them to need to believe in a life after death then good luck to them.