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

onagar, if you find her/his post funny, just proves my observation that a lot of atheist delight in offending. You have just joined the numbers. Why?

Why can we not have a civilized grown up discussion without stooping down to childish pranks to take mickey of Christians ?

Because I'm not stupid , maybe ?

seraphine, I am completely baffled by your posts.

Well, I';m not stupid either - and I thought it was funny. However. Move on everyone, nothing to see here. Back to the nature of prayer.

THere's a convincing argument that god is simply a replacement parent, which helps relieve the human psyche of the possibility that we are all, in fact,'unutterably alone'.
It's frightening that the buck stops with you, so I can understand that it might be reassuring to believe there is some higher parental, paternal type being out there.

unquietdad "Anyway I simply don't accept your initial premise that the existence of evil shows a god of pure good to be a self-contradiction and a logical impossibility (without "evil", a thing called "good" would be meaningless) and that therefore to believe in this logical impossibility somehow gives you more "options".

I'd go further to say that the existence of pure evil is very suspect. Take a look at the childhoods of dictators and murderers. As I said, I'm a person who doesn't believe in God because I cannot fathom that horrific events like the Rwandan genocide can be allowed to take place.
But even I would say that pure evil doesn't exist. As far as I can see "Evil" in a person, or a nation, is a culmulative effect of many factors that, looking back, and tracing the history, could have been avoided.
And I strongly believe that nations who allow other nations to commit genocide are just as evil as the country doing the killing. For me doing nothing is condoning. Like the Western world did with Rwanda when they stood back and let it happen; and like they continue to do as they stand back and watch all the countries in poverty or at war because doing nothing, or selling arms to those countries, serves the benefit of the rich countries.
So evil is not just an "entity", and I don'T believe newborn babies are born evil.

seraphine, your answer about why god doesn't answer prayers was one of the things that made me glad to be an atheist when my daughter died.

Another for the stats, not the discussion, yes I do believe in God. I'm a Christian and have been since the age of 18.

Sammyuni - you are right, of course

"religion does not kill people, people kill people"

and I am sure that this thought was a great source of comfort to all those burned at the stake or maimed during the Inquisition or beheaded for not being Muslims and so on.

Non-religiously motivated conflicts may well have killed a larger number of people. But I don't see how this excuses those who died because of other people's religion. Two wrongs don't make a right. And quite frankly I think it is a logical fallacy to use the comparison. It's like you are trying to say "well it's ok that religious types have killed people, because atheists have killed more."

Sakura - I agree very much with your last post. Very nicely put, especially about condoning by apathy.

I think the reason so many of the superstitous are so quick to take offence is because they know deep down that their superstition is a ludicrous crock of shit, but to admit that they have been conned, that they have wasted their time and money, have actively done harm to others (discriminated against them, prevented them from accessing medical treatment), supported hideously abusive people, missed out on many wonderful things because their imaginary friend 'wouldn't like it' is kind of too horrible to contemplate.
It's like all these woo-peddling con-artists with their quack medicines and eagerness to sue: you can apparently spend years 'studying' homeopathy, to admit that you;ve wasted that time and money would be awful. FFS I could teach you how to make a living out of that shit in ten minues - mix chalk and water and develop a good line in eye-wibbling bullshit then sit back and count your money.

sakura - yes,can't really argue with that on the "evil". Bad Things exist, whatever we choose to call them. I'm inclined to think calling them "evil" (and ascribing them to the devil, as some Christians do) is just a way of removing the horrible responsibility for these things from human beings. Either way, it doesn't advance or refute the existence of god.

diplodoris - shall we say I won't be holding my breath?... Believe me, if I see a miracle, you'll all be the first to know. (England beating Germany on Sunday will not count. Even if we could do with the Hand of God in the penalty area!)

Seems from this thread that it's ok to be gratuitiously offensive about people's religious beliefs. Which is odd, considering that many of the same people would be up in arms at a 'fat people are so disgusting' thread, or 'why are chavs so stupid?', or any number of other things.

'No' is not good enough as an answer to this question, it has to be 'No, and anyone who says yes is a stone age idiot who believes in Santa'

I'm with SomeGuy. Why isn't it possible to have a debate without resorting to insults? I'm an atheist. Some people are not. Live and let live. Or, even better, live and let other people broaden your mind with their opinions (even if you don't let them change it).

Does anyone know the 'score' of for and against yet?

Who is winning?

lamplighter - I don't think the intention was to have a competition. A simple yes-no tally would be dull. Much more interesting to explore people's actual reasoning.

Well, despite UQD, I did a quick count-up. Allowing for missed posts etc, I have it as....

People who believe in a higher being or beings:

70(ish)

People who do not believe in a God or Gods of any kind:

100(ish)

People who are on the fence/not sure/believe when it suits them:

About a dozen.

Oh I wanted to hear the 'reasoning' as well but I still wanted a yes or no at the end of each post.

Psammead

You are one of my favourite MN posters!

Thank you

(Must round up some more agnostics)

Give or take about 3 either side of those numbers.

Not sure about the agnostics. I guess this kind of topic brings out those who have quite strong opinions on either side. I guess those who don't care, wouldn't necessarily post. Probably in reality the number of those people is a lot higher.

That's a good point - even the Daughters Of Satan Needlework Group of East Frinton believe in God.

Habbibu
I am sincerely sorry for the loss of your daughter.

My answer to why God often doesn't seem to respond to prayer was just skimming the surface. There is a lot more to it. I myself realized quickly that trying to explain fully my belief on the subject would have to result in a long long essay which I simply do not have time to come up with !
I am a slow one finger typist ( my husband keeps taking micky of this one )and also English is not my first language, and I often rewrite paragraphs as they don't seem to convey well what my thinking was.

I, too, lost a daughter, to stillbirth at 23 weeks, only half a year ago.
Personally, I cannot imagine going through this without faith . Knowing the pain, I just cannot. That's my experience.

As a Christian I could have chosen to be very angry with God. I didn't. I felt great anger/ frustation towards my medical care providers as she was lost because of their neglect/mistakes. God now helped me deal with these feelings that do have a very destructive nature.

In the midst of the worst pain I experienced real ( felt like ) presence of God when praying, a presence of love impossible to describe. I experienced on a couple of occassions being absolutely at the bottom pit and then, after calling on God , being surrounded by complete and utter peace in an instance, literally a second..

Now, just a few months later, I am a very happpy person,blessed in life in so many ways, occassionally sad about what happened but not in pain, not bitter, no depression in sight, I absolutely enjoy every day, my faith is stronger and I genuinely believe I am a better individual, mother, wife, sister etc.
And as much as I enjoy this life to the full, I actually look forward to the day of my death ( but not yet please, have got much to do here still ) as I know it will be fab!

Sorry this is from very far back in the thread - nickelbabe's comment that people survived Auschwitz because of their faith in God... I really have to comment. That period is of course passing beyond living memory and I am no authority on it, but the books I have read on it (e.g. Primo Levi) are fairly clear that those who survived, survived because of certain advantages, physical, social or psychological - e.g. they were of working age, they went to a work camp like Auschwitz-Buna instead of a death camp like Treblinka, they recognised early that the system was designed to kill them within three months if they kept the rules, so they started to break the rules and 'organise' themselves additional resources... Faith in God could certainly be one of the psychological factors that helped survival, but really, to say that those who survived did so because of faith in God is just IMO not true.

If God could not intervene in Treblinka, then I can imagine believing in God, though I have not found it possible to do so. If God could have, but didn't, then I really hope he doesn't exist.

SolidGold...

I was actually not at all offended by the posts, just sad that they were so obviously intended to offend.
Sad in a way of ' why do people feel the need to behave like this '

I expect a lot of people for whom the question of a god or gods is utterly irrelevant don't bother posting on this kind of thread, either. People for whom the question might as well say "Do you believe the earth is flat?" The answer is so self-evidently No, to all but a bunch of demented wackos, that there is no point in getting involved in the conversation. It would be a bit like me, as a self-declared golf hater, going on a thread to debate whether (plucking names at random here) Nick Faldo is a better golfer than Tiger Woods.

I'm quite sure a lot of people carry on their lives in this way - the idea of having a supernatural belief system is so absurd that it never even enters their heads to consider why on earth they might do so, and there is no reason why it should. Nine times out of ten, I'm content to be one of these people.

I thought twice before contributing myself, because I have covered it all so many times before. But I'm motivated to do so partly by SIWOTI and partly because I quite enjoy a good argument. In the latter case, I expect I share this with a lot of people on here...

i'm a bible-bashing, fundamentalist, evangelical born again Christian.