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

So have you read CS Lewis' Mere Christianity then SGB?

Ultimately for me, I take Christianity seriously enough to believe that you do have to believe it, to practise it. I don't believe any of it. I don't believe that any human being was also a God. I don't believe in prophecy as a supernatural phenomenon. I don't believe that the man Jesus Christ was 'taken up in front of their very eyes'. I don't believe that any human being has ever been raised from the dead, nor that this would even be a good thing if they had. I cannot understand how eternal life is supposed to exist, nor again why it would be considered to be a desirable thing anyway. I guess 'I can't understand' is a better phrase to describe my thinking than 'I don't believe'.

At any period of my life when I have been reading the Bible regularly, especially the Gospels, I have found them to be chilling recitations of endless miracles which are neither believable nor even interesting, and careful positioning of the facts (I'm not disputing that there is historical fact involved - as a previous history student, I don't find this very decisive on its own) to fit the prophecies of the sacred Jewish texts. Interspersed with these are folk tales and fables of various kinds. St Paul is inspiring, Isaiah is a book you can get excited about, James is a practical manual for doing good in the world. But the Gospels - really not. And yet, I agree with Christians that without the impulse of belief, much of the goodness of the structure just withers away. I haven't found an answer to this.

Free will - my husband has serious mental health issues and it is partly genetic. He doesn't always have free will. Very few people have much of it IMO.

It would take more than a couple of hundred pages to go into detail about the law of gravity, but it's possible to say what it does in a sentence.

The main point I'm afraid is that there is no evidence and no reason to suppose that god exists. I have read and researched. I did find out for myself. All I found out there was circular reasoning and wishful thinking.

If a Christian says that god exists then they must have a reason to think so. They must know what that reason is without pointing elsewhere.

Religion is about excuses and changing the story to fit. When it become embarrassingly obvious that the 7 days of creation were just daft, Christians came up with "oh but the days were 1000s of years long".
After calling evolution ridiculous for so long many Christians try to say "oh god invented evolution" and so on.

Much of the bible is so indefensible on logical grounds that we are now told it's all metaphorical or written by people who had no idea what they were talking about. When it was realised it was indefensible on moral grounds too Christians started disowning the old testament and claiming that Jesus came to stop all that kind of thing.

I read an article once about the poles reversing (because some people think this is going to happen in 2012 or...something? I can't remember) Anyway, a scientist mentioned that he thought this had happened before and that this was why the sun stayed up longer than usual during the battle of Gideon. I think a lot of the happenings in the Bible are like that-there's some factual basis, but it's probably much distorted.

On another note, Gideon is a great name. Shall go put it on my shortlist...

Or maybe it wasn't that particular battle. But anyway! Something.

Or an axis tilt for the battle of Canaan? Well, now I can't find it.

"If a Christian says that god exists then they must have a reason to think so. They must know what that reason is without pointing elsewhere."

Our reason to believe is our assessment of the facts we've looked into, plus what we have experienced. I think it's fine to point elsewhere, suggest books etc. as it would take far too long on here to answer everything people seem to want in as much detail as they demand.

"it's possible to say what it does in a sentence."

The shortest summary I can come up with is that Christians have a relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ. But would you really be content with a soundbite and no further detail?

.... considering that every time someone gives a soundbite on here they're asked to expand on it?

I am Buddhist SGB - despite the fact that I don't believe in a God, so answered "no" to the original question, you have had a lot of fun being derisive towards me as well as all of the "Christians" on this thread.

Clearly, you are on this thread to poke fun at all the piggies - whether they be fish'heads or not. For the love of me, I just cannot understand why.

Actually, having looked back at this thread. I'll retract that.

SGB - to be fair you have never poked fun at me. Only at the Christians. I was so offended on their behalf, that I took personal offence.

Please ignore.

I don't have much interest in supplying anyone with evidence that God exists, I mean, what's the point.

I only joined in because you said it's impossible to prove that God doesn't exist.

But, basically, it's not impossible to prove that the Christian God cannot exist. A proof that you, as an atheist, are obliged to accept.

But you insist on looking at things empirically, as in "There is no more reason to believe in God than in fairies" etc etc. A complete irrelevance.

That's it. The fact that I bolt things on to the top of that basically, the belief that a logical impossibility does exist is irrelevant to the fact that atheists can prove to their satisfaction that the Christian God cannot exist.

The only reason the words "I accept that proof" stick on your sticky fingers and you can't write them is because you cannot admit you were wrong, because of your belief in the supreme rationality of atheists over Christians, and even this small thing is tremendously difficult for you, emotionally, to say. (Unless you just don't understand.) And then you'd have to stop patronising like mad people of faith that "amuse" you.

I mean, you can write an equation and do the math. If you don't accept that proof then you yourself accept the possibility that a logical impossibility can exist.

In which case, welcome to the club.

Actually, thinking on, it is a complete failure to understand or try to understand.

All this "come on, where's your evidence"

What is the point of evidence? To believe in God and Jesus Christ after witnessing a miracle where there is no other possibility but divine intervention -- well it's like declaring your belief in the existence of Waitrose while standing right there at the check out.

By the way: are you calling Christians stupid? If you are, I think you are very, very, very stupid for doing so. Stupid beyond belief.

That last is meant for SGB. I suppose it could be meant for you, in that you implied Christians had deactivated their brains (will just mention that later to my devout rocket scientist pal) but you didn't actually use the word stupid. Though I haven't read the entire thread.

I am a christian and yes I really do believe in God.

This has enable me to experience love joy and peace.

I am aware that not everyone believes in God. God has given us the choice to choose.

Oh taste and see that the Lord is good......

I was raised in a christian home. Words are not enough to express how much I appreicate my parents raising me this way. Still I had to have a personal relationship with God for myself that is why i am a beleiver for over 35 years.

James, Peter, Paul, Thomas all got convincing physical proof of your god - why did they get them but we don't?

Doesn'tNeedToProveMyGodsExistAsIDon'tCareIfAnyoneElseAcceptsThemAsRealTiggaxx

backtotalk - what is your motivation in continuing to assert that the existence of god is a logical impossibility and that you have provided "proof" of this? I asked you earlier if this was a fair summation of your points, and you didn't confirm or deny:

1. The Christian god is pure good.
2. Pure "evil", however, somehow exists. (although people have questioned calling it this.)
3. Therefore god is a logical impossibility.
4. But Christians believe in it despite this.
5. This therefore gives them "more options".

So, is that a far summation?

If so, then there is - provided one accepts the massive assumption of premise 1 and the dodgy terms of 2 - a sort of logic, which I can see some people might accept, in going from those to point 3. But there's absolutely no logic in the leap from 3 to 4, and 5 is just airy-fairy nonsense. Why would I want the "option" of believing in something you can show to be impossible? I asked this before and the answer was a "speaking silence".

Your Waitrose analogy is straight out of the organic bananas aisle via the nuts. Exactly what "miracles" have you witnessed where there was "no other possibility but divine intervention"? Name one. No "miracle" has yet been demonstrated under observable conditions where there cannot be any other explanation. I'd much rather have imperfect science groping to understand the world and being honest about it, than charlatan religion pretending it has all the answers. One of my favourite Dawkins quotes:

"I believe that an orderly universe, one indifferent to human preoccupations, in which everything has an explanation even if we still have a long way to go before we find it, is a more beautiful, more wonderful place than a universe tricked out with capricious ad hoc magic."

And of course it's entirely possible to be highly intelligent and to be a Christian. Rowan Williams is a highly intelligent man who speaks several languages. I'm sure your rocket scientist friend is a very intelligent person too. It's possible for highly intelligent people to believe very daft things, you know. And this is - if you will pardon the obvious joke - not rocket science. It's very, very simple. It's simply a question of healthy scepticism for anything which does not have A SCRAP of evidence in its favour.

diplodoris - I have no interest in a one-sided, biased, "personal" account of why Jesus existed. For one thing, I don't have a problem - it may surprise you to know - with a popular preacher called Jesus Christ, or something like it, having existed at that time. The only problem I have is with accounts of his supposed divinity. I "believe in" Jesus the same way I "believe in" Julius Caesar or Cleopatra - doesn't mean we shouldn't exhibit a healthy scepticism for the evidence of what they actually did.

Onagar makes a very interesting point above - that, if you believe something to be true, you ought to be able to say why in two or three very simple, solid sentences or bullet-points akin to Newton's laws. Any other supporting texts should be there to elaborate, not justify the existence of your belief in the first place. Keep it simple. if you can't, you are simply over-complexifying to obfuscate.

God you are so stupid.

It's not a massive assumption. The Christian God is pure good by definition. Don't bother saying "I don't accept that" because we are proving something about the Christian God as Christians believe it.

Evil exists: now this is an empirical observation. But it is also a Christian premise. We are proving something about the Christian God and the theses surrounding it. Try to remember this (jeez this is unbelievable that you don't understand).

Therefore God is a logical impossibility.

The unwritten premise is "A logical impossibility cannot exist". If you don't accept that premise, fair enough, and welcome to the congregation. But as a proclaimed rationalist I am sure you do.

There is your proof that the Christian God is a logical impossibility. You can prove that the Christian God cannot exist.

I haven't seen any miracles. I don't care about that. You can't prove God exists through miracles anyway, they could be, probably are, some as yet unexplained physical phenomena.

What's all this about bananas? You are so missing the point. You are obsessed with empiricism and you are wrong, and just can't bear it.

Ahhh, I do so love it when someone loses the plot, their sense of humour, - and, POUF! in a cloud of smoke, the argument.

I could actually report that "God you are so stupid" and the rest, as it is a personal attack, and it would probably be removed by MN Towers. But I won't - I'd rather it remains there to embarrass backtotalk and show her true colours.

No, I've never believed despite growing up in a a society (Greek) that views faith as fact - I was considered abnormal and was often told I would just grow out of atheism. Well, I haven't.

It's just your dimwittedness is so profound. You just don't get the most basic principles of logic. I can't believe that someone who is so bad at this can spend three days on it, paddling in the shallow waters of derision and patronage. It's so knobby. I haven't lost any argument -- you didn't understand it from the beginning and you don't understand it now. It is utterly, utterly beyond you.

Another personal attack in lieu of actual facts or argument, which I shall again choose to leave up. Good, this, isn't it?