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

Snobear the short version is that a large tree was travelling at speed down a slope towards me and a friend (sounds strange I know) and we hadn't realised. We were working at a place called Lee Abbey at the time (a Christian retreat/conference centre/community) and had prayed for safety before doing anything. Anyway, we tried to run out of the way but couldn't go fast enough. Next thing we knew, we were flung through the air to safety and the tree had bounced over us. I wasn't really aware what had happened, but there were lots of witnesses who all agreed as to what they had seen. I certainly never jumped and trees don't usually bounce, so I was very happy to give God all the credit for our escape. So, no obvious heavenly figure or anything like that, but definitely some unusual circumstances! Maybe it could be explained away, but I do believe it was due to God's intervention.

I loved Greek mythology. We had a 7-part TV adaptation of the Odyssey to watch... It was very exciting.

I'd suggest that, if the discussion is "primary school level" it's because the questions put to the religious at that level have not yet been answered. No point trying to progress people to algebra when they are still struggling with times tables. If your central premise is a fiction that my 10-year-old can see through, it's a bit rich to start asking for more sophisticated debate.

I've said above that I've been having the same discussions with Christians for about 15 years, and it's very telling that nothing has changed. It's not because I'm some kind of "militant" atheist (whatever that is - I think it's an invention), or an especially intolerant person. It's not because I refuse to engage with arguments. It's simply that nobody has given me - despite ample opportunity to do so - a convincing reason to believe in a god as anything other than a product of human imagination. Nothing changes apart from the level of passion with which people argue their case. And that, sadly, doesn't count.

Well that does sound like compelling evidence, Shieldbug. I'm off to be baptised post-haste.

And nobody has ever been able to explain satisfactorily to me why it's a good idea for children at state schools to be taught Christianity as fact and be asked to pray.

And many peopl seem unable to see the difference between being taught about religion and faiths and being taught to
do religion and faith.

snobear!

This is the problem with all "god did it" stories. They are all anecdotal, can all be easily explained by something else, and ignore the hundreds of millions of occasions on which nothing of the sort happened.

But UnquietDad, can you really not see that it is your interpretation of the "central premise" that is at a child-like level. It may well be that some Christians agree with your literal interpretation, but certainly not all will. It is both fruitless and nonsensical to choose the most child-like, literal interpretation of a particular religion and conclude that this is what all religion is like. And it gets us absolutely nowhere with regard to issues like state faith schools.

There is no such thing as coincidence - happy or otherwise - as far as I know. There is only God.

sarcastic emoticon regarding my baptism, I am afraid.

Here's what Terry Pratchett had to say about miracles:

"I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn't theirs."

seeker I don't think it is a good idea to teach Christianity as fact to children, but to present what it is that Christians believe in and let them make up their own minds in due course. Similarly, I have no problem with children being taught about what other religions believe.

Sorry, going to vanish for a while as I do some work! No responses don't mean I am ignoring anyone.

Come on, state faith schools have had plenty of threads on here and plenty of discussion as to how to deal with them. It's a red herring to say we are not discussing them.

Why is it a "literal interpretation"? It's not childlike to insist that the most basic questions are answered before you are allowed to progress to asking more complex ones. In this case, though, the most basic question is the biggest and most important one. If the religious can't back up their central premise with anything other than anecdotes and personal "feelings" it's a poor show.

shieldbug I like your last paragraph. I still don't believe, but I do like it.

misspollysdolly, no free will then?

Just a quick response to UQD. I'm not sure that I did ignore occasions when nothing happened. I don't understand why there are lots of times when people aren't saved from horrid things happening.

And even if it is "childlike", I refer you to The Emperor's New Clothes...

Sometimes you need to express things in the simplest terms to bring people back to their basic fallacy.

Oh, have somehow missed a page or two - shieldbug I meant the paragraph about suffering (ie that Jesus suffered too).

shieldbug - OK, but why ascribe that to "god" rather than the fact that there had been a full moon two days before, or a hen had laid addled eggs, or Mars was in Venus, or that you'd crossed your fingers? They're all equally irrational, and equally unconnected with the happy outcome.

Well OK, unquietdad, as long as you're getting something out of it. But I would have thought you would have a rather more satisfying time (as would everyone else) if you responded to what people actually say about their beliefs rather than to a caricature of your own making.

I have a strong Christian faith. I was raised in a C of E family and went to a C of E primary school.

My faith has got me through some really horrid times in my life, and the congregation at church are an extended family. I feel lucky to have something to build my life on and it gives me a framework to bring up my family in.

What I have disliked as a mother was the situation christian worship in schools has placed me in.

So dd (after no religious instruction from me) comes home from her C of E school praying and talking about Jesus feeding with the loaves and fishes as being taught as actual fact. She then prays. Comes out with stuff that jesus has said and says that God and Jesus know what she does, and can see when she has been bad.

I was doing a good enough job of teaching my daughter about morality without the school's heavy handed approach.

And what do I tell a five year old who starts praying? Stop doing that, it's lies and nonsense? Why do i suddenly feel bad about stopping this indoctrination of my child.

In any case, I didn't do anything about it. I thought (then, I wouldn't do the same now) to just leave it well alone. So I basically just stood back and let the school recruit her into Christianity.

She doesn't believe now, and I would say she is agnostic. But I still feel angry that due to the church's influence on education in this country, dd has been given a Christian grounding which I firmly oppose.

Also, dd was put off reading harry Potter for years - a Christian governor banned it from being in the school library as she thought it was witchcraft. After a huge protest this was overturned. Also a yoga club was stopped. What the bloody hell is wrong with yoga!

It's very easy to hide behind sarcasm and ignore what I am actually saying.

Let's see if you get an analogy. It's pointless progressing to discussions about dragons' claw length, wingtip span and ferocity of fiery breath - no matter how interesting these things would be in theory - when it has not been shown that dragons are anything more than fictional.

And anyway, with this reductive retconning of my statements you're ignoring the many points I have put to shieldbug, to bloss, to backtotalk, to seraphine - none of which has been satisfactorily answered.

getorf - I know what you mean - I've had the same problem. My DD has actually got very very cross and STAMPED HER FOOT at the suggestion that there might not be a god and that prayer is ineffective.

(Not unlike some people here )

In these threads we often don't know what the beliefs are of the other posters. Saying you are christian doesn't narrow it down much. There are nearly as many kinds as there are christians.

If I mention believing that the earth was made in seven days some will say "oh don't be ridiculous! only a fool would think that". Yet there are many christians who do and some of them have posted these threads. Some of them are currently trying to teach it in schools.

Another example is when I mention something in the bible that can be seen to be nonsense with modern knowledge. A christian will post "oh of course it is! how could they have known about such things".

Yet posters will say that the bible contains prophecies. This contradicts the christians who claim that the bible is not from god, but ordinary people putting down their feelings about god.

Many (most?) christians will say their faith tells them which things are from god and which are not. If they are right then those other christians contradicting each other on things as basic as the truth of the bible must not have that inner voice....

GOML - Christianity isn't an army.

I understand that you may want bring up your daughter in a certain way, but you had a choice to intervene or not. You could have sat her down and explained that other people have other faiths/beliefs. And you did choose to send her to a C of E school in the first place, what did you expect them to teach her?

I would point out that even non-CoE schools have assemblies with prayers.