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

No Brought up until aged 15 in Northern Ireland killed any little respect I ever had for religion.I do believe in the power of good withing individuals though and karma

Well, we had writing for a good few thousand years prior to monotheism even being thought of, yet the chap that most western people subscribe to as "God" didn't turn up for a while.

Prior to that, we had a plethora of pantheistic religions and nature cults. One of which, being a middle easten, agricultural god of the corn who was cut down and rose again...

What confuses me, is the duality of thought required to be a rational, educated person and believe in the supernatural. We have vast swathes of evidence disproving vast swathes of religious thought, none to prove it's validity yet people still believe.

Stuck - the bible says very clearly in Genesis that God was already there long before creation started.

And i do believe creation started more than a few millenia ago.

I take the bible as my guide but elsewhere it says that years in our lives are just an hour in God's time so I assume that God created earth in seven of his own days not ours.

God is love. I believe that, and can't believe how literally people take the Bible.

'We have vast swathes of evidence disproving vast swathes of religious thought, none to prove it's validity yet people still believe.'

But isn't that close to a definition of faith? Faith is what you have when there isn't rational proof, not when there is.

Btw, the earliest writing is really boring stuff like accounts, isn't it? I wonder if people then thought it was too mundane to write about whatever they believed in? You can't really imagine a cuneiform tablet with '4 sheep, 3 goats, and an epiphany', can you?

Oh and my dh combines being a Dr. in Theoretical Physics (quantum mechanics, time/space/curved whatits can you tell I'm not a scientist) - with being a priest. He sees no contradiction at all, and that's not through lack of thinking about it!

I'm a lawyer and one of my strongest skills is disseminating information and find what is true evidence and what will stand up in court - yet I have no trouble believing either as I have seen the evidence in my own life and in the lives of others.

I think my main problem is, that I cannot believe anything without some sort of rational proof. I like empirical evidence.

There is a great deal of early religious writing, from Egypt, what is now modern Iran and Iraq and from South America.

I have found that those who are heavily immersed in science (such as your DH willsurvivethis) tend to fall into the "God of the gaps" category. I'd be very surprised if your DH hasn't heard of this. Has he ever mentioned his take on it?

You don't get through the Church of England selection and discernment procedure to test your calling for priesthood with the God of the Gap theory .

DH like me is an evangelical Christian who takes the bible as the word of God and therefore the route to live by. He has simply never seen the so caled contradiction and says there is no evidence that God doesn't exist. Science has not disproven religion and Richard Dawkins makes him angry because the man can't reason properly and there are huge gaps in his arguments. In a nutshell

Oh, I see, Stuck. Sorry, I thought you meant that it was odd to see writing pre-date mentions of religion ... and you meant Judeo-Christianity specifically ... I should learn to read. Sorry, am a bit stressed and killing time atm.

I guess I think that we'd all like to find answers to things - we do it the best we can. I don't find it odd that people have beliefs in different gods and don't see how it makes a Christian God less plausible. I feel it's a bit like Newtonian physics - he was working along the right lines and it's a good working model most of the time, but for some few things relativity is better.

I don't believe for a minute that you would. However, I've yet to see an argument attempting to reconcile religion with science that did not boil down to "god of the gaps".

How do you and your DH reconcile them? I cannot.

Or, do you go for the "non-overlapping majisterium (sp?)" approach?

I don't believe in any god(s). I see it in the same way that I don't believe in fairies and unicorns - nice stories, but fundamentally fictional.

No. I'm not sure if I was encouraged or discouraged to believe in anything as a child (one atheist, one Christian parent).

Stuck, I'm no good with theories. I know God is there, I know Jesus is in my life, I've felt the Holy Spirit in my body. I've experienced healing, answer to prayer that canot be a coincidence, and I have heard God speak.

I make music for him - singing and playing guitar.

I know i wouldn't be here without Jesus.

That's me

Sorry if that disappoints

Nae bother [smile}

I'm just fascinated with the whole science vs religion business.

I'm an archaeologist - we're nosy, questioning buggers!

THe trouble is with the superstitious is that their argument always comes down to 'Waaah, my imaginary friend IS real, it just IS!'
Which is not an argument. The fact that you feel a commotion in your underwear when someone says the Special Word is not evidence of anything that can be demonstrated objectively.

THe Christian myth system is probably the one I have the most disdain for, but that may be because it's the one I have the most knowledge of due to being white and brought up in the UK in the 70s: it's a reworking of older myths (Osiris, Odin, various others about the sacrificed deity who rose again: basically a nature myth and an allegory for harvest and replanting) laced with misogyny, a hotchpotch of middle Eastern folk tales and (the main reason for its survival) very well suited indeed to being used as a weapon of war.

Lol, that's pretty much my take on it SGB!

No, I don't believe in God, but I think organised religion is a good thing. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work (for me) as a non-believer, though I tried for a while.

I do believe that the act of prayer can alter the praying person, and that the difference between that and meditation etc is minimal. But otherwise, the usual problems (why God would answer your prayer for your child/illness to be healed, while not answering others) stop me. I couldn't say that I will never believe though, I am very susceptible to being sold double-glazing etc so could well be converted in the future.

Sort of.

I believe in a force / energy concept- a bit like the basics of Brahmanic Hinduism without the rest, and with a strict Christian code of ethics.

A bit of heavenly energy in all of us that returns to it's source (god / Atman / Vivekananda type stuff) when we pass.

I think most faiths are just a way of expressing this and represent the many personality types, those in an organised religion are those who benefit from that sort of structure whereas i;d be mroe likely to be at a Quaker meeting as my own path is uisng the strict ethical codes I have to try and protect the most vulnerable in a non conformist sort of way.

I ahd no faith at all for a while after the boys were DX's with ASD, but then found my way into humanism: I found the pull of some form of higher power quite strong but it took a degree in world faiths for me to get some form to what I really believe.

My 'prophets / philosophers' of choice are Jesus Christ and Vivekananda, both people who ultimately preach love and acceptance.

No.

SGB

Thou doth speak much sense..

As usual..

But to be fair SGB, it would be a bit silly of Christians to do anything else, wouldn't it? If you believe in a God that is beyond your understanding, S/He/it is, er, beyond your understanding.

I don't see the problem as long as you don't brush up against the sort of quasi-Christian cults that expect you to take their assurance as proof.

Maktaktai: What on earth do you mean? Organised religion is humanity's worst invention: nothing but genocide, child abuse, misogyny, corruption and the holding back of scientific progress.

No but I loved EleanorHandbasket's post though!!

I don't believe in God in the traditional sense. I was raised an atheist but went to church in my teens (partly as a rebellion- my mum didn't like me being "brainwashed").
I gave up on religion because I couldn't get my head round the whole heaven/hell and original sin thing.
Now I tend to think that what people perceive as God (and I do believe people when they say they feel his presence) is actually part of our own consciousness. Prayer, like meditation, is powerful because it helps focus the mind and bring a feeling of peace.

SGB it's got all those things but it's not NOTHING but those things IMO. The non-existence of truly secular religion in this country is a huge pain but even though the religious origins of education are about 75% about indoctrination, social control and being able to read the sacred texts, IMO they are partly about a genuine wish to educate everyone (I know I'm talking about a long time ago here). It was a while until secular society got around to feeling the same way.

The most selfless people I know are atheists (by a really long way) but nonetheless I do think that selfish people can be helped by the structures of organised religion to at least act more like a selfless person.