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

I believe in God and I am a Christian.

I also go to church regularly with my husband and children.

I was raised in a semi-Christian home and I drifted away when I became a teenager but I got back into church and married a Christian.

I think in a family setting if one parent believes in God then try to share it with the children. It is important that they have a basic understanding of God from parents
and then this will help them make up their
own minds later on as adults because you have something to compare it to. But I think not having any faith can be quite hard.

Also, Christians are not perfect and we don't have it all together, having faith helps you to make sense of the world and to discover what is important to you. Personally, I find great comfort in being at complete peace within myself and knowing that God is in control of my life and my life has purpose.

Also, church schools are great and from my point of view they are quite subtle in the way they even teach christianity but I think it is better to have an understanding as a child than nothing at all.

Why do children have to go to school to learn about 'their' religion.

Isn't that what the mosque/temple/chapel/church/synagogue is for? I find faith schools divisive - children at school should learn about all religions under the umberella of Religious Education and let them decide for themselves.
I also think it leads to a greater understanding of other cultures and beliefs.

Or maybe these two points are exactly what the parents are frightened of..........

Children at school should learn ABOUT Christianity - and about all other main faiths - but they shouldn't be expected to DO Christianity - or any other faith. This is my constant hobby horse. Children in state schools should not be expected to pray - that should be a matter for their parents.

I know as much about why the universe exists and whether it contains or constitutes a divinity as my cat knows about Schopenhauer. We just don't have the information or the faculties. You can take a position on the issue for your own comfort, whether as an atheist or a theist, but why anyone would imagine that they knew more about it than a person with an opposing view is beyond me.

I've heard several Christians over the years say "I have a relationship with god", and I'm still not entirely sure what they mean by it. Why not just say they believe in god? I'm not sure how you can have a relationship with something that cannot be demonstrated to exist.

What form does this relationship take? Because if I were in a relationship where somebody always told me what to do with no reciprocity, where I had to "worship" them, where they told me all the answers would be in this mysterious book which I had to read, and where they rarely, if ever, returned my calls, I'd be eyeing up somebody else or thinking about calling some kind of helpline...

Yes I believe in God.

I went to a fab faith school. I choose not to send my children to one, although we do practise a religious faith, because I don't think state schools should have selective admissions criteria.

"I know as much about why the universe exists and whether it contains or constitutes a divinity as my cat knows about Schopenhauer. We just don't have the information or the faculties. You can take a position on the issue for your own comfort, whether as an atheist or a theist, but why anyone would imagine that they knew more about it than a person with an opposing view is beyond me."

But all the evidence points to there not being a God. And those who believe in Him cannot come up with any proof that he does exist - apart from any other reason because seeking proof denies faith. And the simplest explanation is the one to go for until proved wrong.

No. I never have. As a child, I asked a couple of questions at Sunday School, came to the conclusion that it was all fibs (!) and told them so.

I've never changed my opinion.

Yes, to take the "not taking a position" issue means that, logically, you have to take this (non-)position on Thor, Zeus, fairies, leprechauns, invisible dragons, Indigo Children and all the other unproveable made-up stuff out there.

Fine if you do, but very difficult to police yourself doing this!

Actually, I can prove to my satisfaction that God does not exist. I know a lot of people who have, for example, prayed that their child will not die of cancer. Or that their son would not be killed in Afghanistan. Or that they would not lose their job and have their house reposessed. I have never, ever heard of any of these prayers being answered.

So, because God has said that He will answer prayers, by extrapolation, he does not exist.

And that is even before we start questioning Him about Auchwitz, Darfur, Chile, Dunblane.....

Yes I do have faith and believe in God. It has given me lots of strength when I needed it. I find it very sad that most of the posts are nonbelievers (not meanig to offend) who used to have a religion.

I have been a Christian all my life, brought up by an Anglican and an agnostic.

Over the years that faith has developed - as a child I accepted the teachings of the C of E as represented in my Parish Church unquestioningly, as I grew up I learned to question any literal interpretation of the Bible but that process happened alongside a growing awareness of the still small voice of God. UnquietDad is sceptical of "a relationship" but that is how I understand it - my desire to know and understand more about the world, its source and purpose and my tiny role within that, and the revelation I experience in this journey. I receive no dogmatic instructions from God as to worship or faith but I experience real joy in worship and prayer, and peace of heart through feeling heard and loved.

No-one told me what to believe or how to worship (or those that did were ignored) and I would like my daughter to have the same opportunities I did. Quite aside from anything else an instinctive understanding of Christianity makes literature, the Arts in general, other faiths, history, mythology and politics so much more accessible. I've just stared a Sunday School in my small parish Church and find children's spirituality inspiring and revelatory.

A bishop once, when confronted by an atheist proclaiming "There is no God" is reported to have said "How I envy you your simple faith". I have a lot of sympathy for that...

Message withdrawn

I'm inclined to agree with barristermum's bishop.

But Christianity as we know it started with Jesus Christ. The people who became his followers had been Jews. Hence Jesus was King of the Jews. You cannot be a Chriatian if you don't acknowledge Jesus Christ to be your Saviour - and you couldn't have done that before his Incarnation.

Yes. Raised Atheist, now Catholic and regular church goer

I'm a humanist and without any kind of god.

It's a beautiful liberation into a rational existence.

Highly recommended.

I've heard several Christians over the years say "I have a relationship with god", and I'm still not entirely sure what they mean by it. Why not just say they believe in god? I'm not sure how you can have a relationship with something that cannot be demonstrated to exist.

That is a really good question Unquiet Dad. Honestly, I had to think about the explanation myself...I can only explain it as being a proper relationship with someone ie that I have with my mum, who I talk to
every day, get replies from and feel love, acceptance and support from.

My uncle, well I have never met him...and I have no relationship with him, but I believe in him and know he exists...

The two don't compare

That's just my personal experience as I said earlier

God is a concept by which we all measure our pain...John Lennon.

Ps Seeker - he said he would answer prayers, he did not say he would answer them as you wish them to be answered....the answer might be yes or it might be no..

bloss - It's a bit like saying Thatcherism existed pre-Thatcher. Yes, something a bit like it may have done, in disparate forms, but we all recognise what we mean by that collective set of values, whether we agree with them or not. You're not going to get very far by retrospectively "claiming" all those millennia for Jesus...

vy - I find not having any faith pretty easy.

I'd have found the bishop in barristermum's story quite patronising, to be honest. It's a bit "oooh, well, I have a terribly deep and complex faith which you simple heathens can't hope to understand."

Getorf - I know, I spend far too much of my life on DW trivia and hopeless fantasy...

jaabaar - I don't find that fact sad at all. I find it quite hopeful. Shows people have had the courage to throw off the shackles of religion. It's healthy.

muriel76 - yes, but you have a set of empirical evidence that shows your uncle's existence is either as near to very very likely as to be the thing we call "true" - or, for some bizarre reason best known to themselves, your family have decided to construct the existence of a fictional member. In theis case, his existence is the more likely, because there is evidence. You can hardly compare that with god.

I also get very worried when people start using their own personal experience alone as "evidence" of something existing. We expect a little more than that when it comes to other supernatural thingummibobs - so why not god?

Cyteen: I was firing off posts without reading the in between ones so it looked like I was responding to you the first time when I wasn't. I wish it hadn't looked that way.

Edam: I should have responded earlier: yes free will: but the existence of evil "pre-dates" free will: it must have been there as a menu option for us to choose. In fact it's an even simpler proof than my first: if you believe God created everything and evil exists, then you believe God created evil. If God created evil then he is not all good. You have to believe two logically opposing things at once and that is why faith is an absolute necessity.

UQD: "All you have demonstrated is that the definition of the Christian god, as given by Christians, is a logical paradox. If we take it at face value. But I'm sure someone could argue, if they wanted to, that this didn't preclude it from "existing"."

Don't know why you think this proves your point, it doesn't. Yes, I have demonstrated that the Christian God is a logical impossibility. You, as an atheist, do not have the privilege of moving beyond that, because you believe that a logical impossibility cannot exist. So it is possible to prove that the Christian God does not exist and obviously I'm not the first to do so and obviously there is more than one way to do it. Come on this is basic stuff: it's playing in the sandpits of religious discourse.

"I don't think it really matters, anyway. If something is so, so unlikely that it may as well not exist - which is what all gods are - you may as well behave as if they don't. It makes no difference."

Er what are you on about. "If something is so so unlikely.." I'm not saying unlikely, I'm saying it's impossible. The Christian God is, I think, unique in being a logical impossibility. Other religions are empirically implausible but most allow for a god who is angry and can be evil. It's built in to the religion. Kali in Hindusim, the angry God of the Old Testament etc. Christianity does not do this: it says all good, all powerful, all knowing, creator of everything. But evil exists and was created.

You said : it is impossible to prove God does not exist. Plainly it is not impossible at all. Christians can move beyond that and still believe because of faith -- faith that a logical impossibility can exist. That argument is not open to you.

"Ps Seeker - he said he would answer prayers, he did not say he would answer them as you wish them to be answered....the answer might be yes or it might be no.."

You would have thought that just once in a while the answer would be "Yes" wouldn't you? And that He would cure something a bit more serious than a sense of mild low self esteem or a dodgy back?