Do you believe in God? Why or why not?
Anonymous
10:44:26 PM
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Do you believe in God? Why or why not?
Anonymous
10:44:26 PM
Published by
Swales
Tags: opinion, poll, popular post, religion, wondering
41 comments:
my life is so wonderful I have to thank someone for it.
Thank you God.
Yes.
Because I can't imagine a world without some sort of higher power. Because I don't think I ever would have met one of my best friends without divine intervention. Because sometimes, when I sing and mean it, I get this feeling that it is real.
I fell away from God a couple of years ago, probably when I needed Him the most. I only just "refound" Him about half a year ago. And I can tell you that I have never regretted that.
I believe because I feel that it is right. No more, no less.
No, because he doesn't exist.
I've thought about this a ridiculous amount, and all possible versions of a biblical God are absolutely abhorrent in my eyes. If he's all knowing and all powerful then he's an asshole and if not then he's not god. I can't bring myself to believe in something like that, and (sadly) I can't respect anyone who does.
No. That's not to say I haven't had many incredible life changing expereinces, I just don't feel the need to call them God. I don't think anyone should believe in something they couldn't have come up with on their own. If no one had ever told me there was a God, I would never think he/she could exist.
"It is not for you to reason about it; you should simply remember that God is omnipotent. There is but one way to answer these things, and that is to admit their truth. Nothing so puts the Infinite out of temper as to see a human being impudent enough to rely upon his reason. The moment we rely upon our reason, we abandon God."
The second people start talking like this I'm immediatley turned off, and all truly religious people share this sentiment to one extent or another. I refuse to adopt a world view that incorporates willing ignorance.
If there wasn't, I probably wouldn't be alive. I believe that someone has helped me thusfar
Go to:
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/
robert_ingersoll/talmagian_catechism.html
And read. Read critically and intelligently and see what you come away with. Think of it as a trial from God.
no because i am simply not interested. it doesn't matter to me that much. plus my experiences with organized religion have been fairly traumatic. (no i was not molested by priests)
yes
& no
& both
& neither.
& none of the above
& all of the above.. etc
Yes, I believe in God. Because it makes sense, and it gives me Hope.
I am no theological scholar, but...
God is omnipotent, omniscient, and loves humankind and the earth.
These three qualities seem incompatible. As Anonymous 3 said, if he's omnipotent and omniscient, then he let's a lot of bad stuff happen. And if He's not the first 2, why is He important? And if He doesn't love humanity, what's the point of getting to know Him, because He would hate us anyway?
I have two examples that helped me understand this. First, a hunter sees a bear stuck in a trap in the woods. The hunter tries to help the bear out of the trap, but the bear doesn't understand and tries to bite the hunter. We are not on the same level as God, assuming that we can understand His motives for doing things is absurd. It is ridiculous for us to try to guess the purpose and judge his creations.
The second one (admittedly taken from Angels and Demon's, but Dan Brown took it from a priest somewhere else). Pretend that you're a parent. You want to protect and help your children grow. Would you let your child skateboard? Even though he might come back with a skinned knee or a broken arm? If God protected the world from all danger, it would be like that kid who was never allowed to do anything.
Moving on, Anonymous 4, did you come up with electricity, or the wheel, or pre sliced bread? Do you believe in Atoms and Electrons, In Pluto, Saturn and Venus, In the Speed of Light, In the Laws of Energy and Matter? My friend, Humanity is a living organism, our greatest strength is the ability to pass on that which others before us have come up with, it is foolish not to consider what they have discovered. Without that ability, we would have to relearn how to make stone weapons every generation.
Anonymous 5, adopting a worldview without God is willingly ignorant. The vast majority of the world believes in God. If you do not acknowledge that you are willingly ignoring most of the world. Also We Do Not Know Everything. Any scientist will tell you that, at this point we are not able to explain everything with Science, We do not know everything about Our Universe, Our Planet, Our Matter, or what happens when we die. My friend, accepting that there is some higher power is not being ignorant, it is accepting that We cannnot explain everything with Science. Furthermore, God gave us reason. It would be a waste not to use it, but even more a waste to not realize that it is a gift.
I believe in God, because I have reasoned it out and believing makes much more sense to me than not believing.
Without God, our society is the construction of random chance. According to that creed, then we have no purpose and no responsibility, because we are just a random variation.
With God, our society was guided through evolution to this point. If you believe in this creed, then you believe that your life, on this earth, has a purpose, you were meant to accomplish something and in the end your existence will have meant something beyond random variation.
I choose God.
"my life is so wonderful I have to thank someone for it."
If your life was awful would you still believe?
I try to. I'll always have a doubt in me that there is anything meaningful but if I didn't believe all of this would matter, if I only believed that things were made of atoms, If I only believed what I could be sure of, I'd fall apart.
I guess all I'm trying to say is I have no effing clue whether or not there is a god. (but I sure hope so)
"First, a hunter sees a bear stuck in a trap in the woods."
So God is clearly trying to love us and help us by creating cancer and HIV, we're just too stupid to understand it?
"Pretend that you're a parent. You want to protect and help your children grow."
But isn't it completely different with God? When you're a parent you know evil exists and you want to prepare children for it so they can better cope with all those things antagonistic to human nature (skinned knees, diseases, and the like). God on the other hand purposely created all the evil in the world and then created weak humans right in the middle of it. He made us flammable and then made volcanoes to burn us, he made us breathe air and made hurricanes to drown us, he made lions to bite us, mercury to deform us, diseases to cripple us, and worst of all a mind that would understand and abhor all these things. Why? Because he loves us.
"The vast majority of the world believes in God."
Just because people believe something doesn't make it true. People worship and believe all sorts of false crap (the lottery, slavery, American Idol), just becasue they're a majority doesn't make them right.
"accepting that there is some higher power is not being ignorant, it is accepting that We cannnot explain everything with Science."
But the second that we try to explain things with faith rather than facts the whole system of scientific progress and inquiry breaks down. A thousand years ago everyone was quite sure that illness was caused by sins or devils. Today though, by ignoring faith and investigating phenomena from a secular point of view we now understand that bacteria and viruses are to blame, and that antibiotics and vaccines will have much better results than incense or prayer. If at any point in history, humanity had thrown in the towel and agreed that anything they didn't understand at that point was the unfathomable work of god all scientific progress would have ceased completely. Religion doesn't "explain" anything, it just fabricates false assumptions to convince you to stop looking.
"our society was guided through evolution to this point."
Evolution?! Then you believe the bible is just a series of stories and not the absolute truth of God? Well if it's just a bunch of stories written by man, then who knows how much of it is false? If the world wasn't made in seven days then we might as well admit that all religions are equally viable and that nothing, not even God's existence is for certain.
In the end all of your arguments are saying, not that it's True to believe in God, but that it's easy. You might choose God, but I was never one to take the easy way out.
If you want to ask the question "Does God exist?" you have to answer, "Why won't God heal amputees?
http://whydoesgodhateamputees.com/
Angry Anonymous (13),
You take many points out of context. Quickly however:
1) Yes, God may have created HIV, Cancer, Volcanos, Hurricanes, etc. etc. to help us. I don't know how. Maybe as a way a test us. I do not presume to place myself on the same intellectual level of understanding as a being who created the entire universe (or atleast guided the creation of it), and is not bound by time or space. Maybe you're just a lot smarter than I am.
2) If you or any other human on the planet can scientifically explain what will happen to me (as in my soul, my being) after I die, then maybe science does have all the answers. But until then, I will stand by the fact that We do not know, and will never be able to explain everything with science.
3)Assuming the earth was created in 7, 24 hour days is a fallacy. God created the earth. He is not bound by time, so how can we confine him to 7 days, 24 hours a day, 60 minutes an hour, 60 seconds a minute? Time is a human concept.
Finally, Yes You are right. Believing in God is easy. However that's just the first step. If you stop there you have gone nowhere. You're better off as a fiery atheist. Just believing in a "God" is like standing on the foot of a path that leads into the horizon, to something great, and just standing there, unwilling to take even the slightest step off of your front porch. The hard part comes when you take that first step, and the next one. When you try to decide Who God is and What He or She or They want, and you try to live by that.
no, because I can't.
I can't disbelieve in God either.
Worlds with or without God are both very sensical worlds.
I would say it makes no difference whether he's up there or not, assuming that he has no hand in our daily lives.
On the other hand, if he does indeed, and casts miracles for people... then he's pretty sick. If he believes in the nietzschean "Whatever does not kill you, makes you stronger" then God is... monstrous. Look around, why is so much pain necessary? No, it is much more comfortable to not believe he has a hand in everybody's existence.
I would say that people depend on their belief in God/god, not the actual being itself. Therefore, I have faith in faith. I believe in the belief, and simply choose to not directly believe myself.
No, I do not. Though science does not have the answers, it is providing a whole lot more information then God does. Sure I don't know what happens after death, but I don't think we go to some heaven or something of that nature. How do we know that there is some soul, that does move on? I think it is just as plausible that there is no soul, and that death is just the end.
Reincarnation is just as hard for me to believe in. It seems like an endless cycle, and the only way to get out of it is to be "really good" (for lack of better terminology). And when you do get out, then what? Some sort of heaven? I just can't believe it.
^^With the two main religions on reincarnation (hinduism and buddhism) you're trying to reach something. With hinduism (as far as I understand) you're trying to become one with Brahman (the stuff that makes up the universe). This Brahman is what transfers from body to body but never changes, so you're essentially trying to lose all aspect of yourself. The upanishads dictate that you do this via intense meditation, and later texts said that it could be accomplished via becoming completely focused on one task (you know that feeling when you get consumed by musical instruments or video games or whatever when you're "in the zone." In essence it's a loss of self. The Kama Sutra also takes this idea but translates it to losing yourself in sex essentially). The Buddhists believe in shedding all of your karma which is what reincarnates you. There is no central "self" in buddhism, indeed they believe that your current self is different from the one five seconds ago, so in a sense you're just a string of different living beings (where you becoming a rabbit or lizard starts to make sense.) Once you reach this shed karma state you have reached "Nirvana" which means that you are never reincarnated and in essence sense nothing for the rest of eternity (essentially what a lot of the agnostics/atheists believe happens no matter what), but because all life is suffering (in Buddhism) this release from suffering is considered good. You do this through losing your desires (which are the cause of suffering).
And as to your scientific talk, it seems to me that the world has been moving out of religion but will now start to move back in. It used to be we couldn't explain things so various gods and religions were created to explain things. Then the scientists came along and created star charts and maps and thought about cells and genetics and created physics and calculus. Many decided "in this emperical world there is no place for a god." But now with M theory and quantum mechanics (alternate dimensions? holes that infinitely small yet infinitelly massive and so massive that they suck in light? time being relative?) that we're moving into a very strange realm of science we never thought of that might possibly have a place for God.
That's just my opinion though.
Actually, Pchis, the Kamasutram is not all about sex. Yes, it outlines methods, positions, etc. but it is very much about physical pleasure in general (which yes, brings you closer to Brahman in the end).
Also, the Kamasutram is a "Teaching on love" rather than a "Teaching on intercourse".
That is sort of what you said, but there are many Sutras, as that merely refers to a teaching; thus, the Yogasutrams which are teachings in the Vedic(Hindu) schools of thought, etc.
I don't think it matters, honestly. And I think it's stupid when people try and convince each other one way or another.
well time has to end or we have to have an after life to even exist so there has to be some kind of higher being.If time goes for inifite and we only live ~80 years then our life span in relaation to infitne would be infintiely small and therefore not exist at all. so unless time ends and is not infinte or after life exist where we exist to infinte( both a result of a higher being) then we would not exist at all.
Personally, I find the whole "heaven and hell" as physical places that hold all the souls of everyone who has died... physical places... one "up there" one "down there"... and they take up 0 space. Oh well, science be damned. Not that it explains everything but.... Meh.
I'll find out when I die.
I am going to say Yes. I believe in God.
But once people start trying to convince others of the existence of God and explaining their own reasons why, you've missed the point.
I am in a cult, and have ascended the ranks in my desperate search for meaning.
I currently hold the title of "Grand Blood Drinking Purifier of the Heathen Masses", and it is incredibly illustrious, with many responsibilities.
I also allow a pygmy sloth to dangle from my right arm, while my left arm uses an antique sacrificial dagger to... well, what else? Sacrifice. All of god's creatures are equal in my sight... for sacrifice.
And he loves it.
"If time goes for inifite and we only live ~80 years then our life span in relaation to infitne would be infintiely small and therefore not exist at all."
Just becasue there are an infinite number of integers does that mean the numbers from one to ten don't exist?
No, simple. Just no.
Actually as a Hindu, I have never heard that we are trying to lose ourselves. Instead we are trying to become one with Brahma, the universal spirit that permeates throughout the universe in all living things. So in reincarnation, we are trying to perfect ourselves, and become one with Brahma. Pchis, I really liked how you incorporated Hinduism and Buddhism in this string.
The stuff we learn in school about Hinduism is a lot different than Sunday school stuff, because the religion has soo much to it. Basically we try to be the best people we can be, because karma is what goes around.
^^well a clarification. I did say Hinduism is becoming one with Brahman, but because Brahman is the universe it's sort of like losing the idea that you are a singular person and becoming one with everything.
"But now with M theory and quantum mechanics that we're moving into a very strange realm of science we never thought of that might possibly have a place for God."
People fall back on God as a crutch when they don't understand things. It's a terrible everpresent temptation to simply say, "God did it", "It is the way it is, so there!" but it's one that must be resisted.
The discoveries made after the intellectual liberation of the enlightenment were crucial ones but with a few years of high school and college education most anyone can understand them. Things like evolution, optics, universal gravitation, and photosynthesis can be learned in only a few months or years, but now things are a bit more complicated. With these amazing complex theories of quantum mechanics it may seem to the large brunt of humanity like complete fantasy, a magical tale requiring faith rather than reason, but really all it would take to understand wormholes and relativity would be a few decades of intense study and a PhD in Physics. To a physics major who really understands these theories faith or God has no role whatsoever, but to those of us who don't we once again fall on faith to answer those nagging questions that we're to lazy or selfish to answer for ourselves. Just as people did a thousand years ago to explain the wind and sun, we choose God, not because it's right, but because it's easy.
^ way to restate things that have already been said in the odd 30 other posts. Just "putting in your 2 cents" eh?
Whateva.
You must really examine what you understand by the word "believe" before you can come up with anything resembling an answer to that question.
But when/if you do, you will understand that words will always fail you in this matter.
& THAT realisation will pain you & amuse you for the rest of your life.
No
there isn't anything that proves his existence to me. the stories in the bible are just that...stories. I tried turning to God in the past but it got me no where other than leading me to more heartache. if God doesn't help you out it is because he has a plan for youand that to me is just a way for the church to cover their ass. i don't mean to offend anyone by these words but this is just how i feel. once i receive some real proof he exists this is my stance.
wow, this is barely 24 hours old, and it's already sickeningly long and redundant... it definitely needs to move off the front page.
yea that is way too long.
I'm glad i was the first so everyone will read my comment.
but to respond to whoever questioned what I said. I beleive that since I beleive in God, my life will always be wonderful...no matter how bad things get. its actually really complicated to understand.
if my whole family gets killed in an accident and I'm the only one left. I will thank God fo the time he gave me with them in the first place.
even thought that's a bad example I think that you will always have something in your life that's good. no matter how bad your life is...friends, family etc. and if you don't...you can always be nice to someone and feel good. and then you can thank God for that.
:)
higher power yes. the god that watches our everymove and cares if we pray or commit sin no. The may be a force that flows through the universe but there isnt some great big guy up stairs frowing if you steal a cookie from the cookie jar. That god is only of peoples creation and exist because people live in its name. and no points dont exist until they go to infinite because they have no area and a point is nothing, to whoever said the thing about 1-10 existing.
thou art god.
*cough*heinlein*cough*
"To a physics major who really understands these theories faith or God has no role whatsoever, but to those of us who don't we once again fall on faith to answer those nagging questions that we're to lazy or selfish to answer for ourselves. Just as people did a thousand years ago to explain the wind and sun, we choose God, not because it's right, but because it's easy."
Sir that's not what I was saying at all. And just to clarify, it takes quite a lot more than a physics phd to understand M theory. Most of the current scientists working on it don't fully understand what it is (in fact there was an article in the NY times about how science moves in this motion where we realize something works, then we prove (mathmatically) why it works, and then we start to understand just what it means.)
I wasn't saying that we're using god as an excuse because we've reached the next realm of complicatedness.
I was using the term God to mean the all powerful creator of the universe, and there are a lot of questions about how such a powerful being could possibly exist (because you can't create nor destroy matter right?), but with such strange physics being proven I find the doors to some super powerful extradimensional being being thrown wide open.
I could just as easily be wrong as I barely understand the stuff my brother talks about and he hasn't even finished his masters, but what I'm saying is that the common thought that "what you see is what you get" (even with things as simple as atoms) is beginning to be disproven everywhere and so may this "scientific" talk of god not existing.
Has any other post in Tangst history gotten this much traffic?
Jesus Christ.
Oh Dear, when writing this post I was just curious as to what everyone's views on God were and why they thought. I wasn't expecting it to get this much traffic, though. And this much repetition.
What saddens me that people are displaying a my-beliefs-are-better-than-yours complex. I see a my beliefs are right, and yours are wrong, and you should believe mine going on. This wasn't meant to convince people of anything- to pursuade others that their opinions were wrong, to convince people to change opinions because mine is better.
The purpose was just because I was curious as to people's reasons why they believe so and what they believe in. Curiosity. And also, I'm wondering how crazy my beliefs are in accordance to yours. As for God's existence- I'm not so sure myself. Your reasons are helping me become more sure of what I believe in.
What I believe in so far is just a form of energy inside of you that helps you in some indirect way. A kind of "guardian angel force", perhaps. The kind of force that happens when you pull that extra energy to run faster than you can run- the kind of running when there is a car accross the road and you sprint to the curb for safety, what happens when you go somewhere and sense the atmosphere is unwelcoming, when you relize you're going the wrong way even though you've never been somewhere before, when you feel guilty when you do something you know is wrong, when you suddenly feel happy for no reason whatsoever- I believe this "guardian angel force" is what is causing these happenings. I guess the "God" I believe in is sort of an intuition mixed with endorphins spiritual thing.
Your ideas and reasons are helpful, though. And it's interesting to know what everyone's views on the topic are. Just please don't repeat something someone else said and please don't try to convince others that their opinion is wrong. People are entitled to their own opinion, their opinion is correct (at least according to them), and you shouldn't interfere with this.
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