Do you believe in God?

[Satchboogie3]

I simply refuse to believe that there "Is an imaginary man... who lives in the clouds... who knows everything and watches you and he has a list of 10 things he does not want you to do... EVER and if you do any one of these things he has a place filled with fire and brimstone, torture, pain, and suffering and he will send you here to burn and suffer until the end of time... but he LOVES YOU! and he always needs more money!". Taking a page of George Carlin.

On a more serious note, I do think it's a ridiculous thought. The universe is HUGE, I mean, no one can even comprehend just how big it is. It's truley mind blowingly big. Heck, there may even be more than one universe, there could be infinite universes! To believe that there is some being that is a creator of all and watches one insignificant species during a spec of time on one planet out of trillions is absurd. It just doesn't make any sense.

Also, I think the overwhelming majority of Atheists are open to the possibility of some supreme being, we just think it's practically impossible. I mean, if someone told you "Hey, the Raiders are going to win the Superbowl this year" you would laugh until you couldn't breathe. Is it possible? At this point, sure. It's it likely? 1 chance in a million. It's fine to like the idea of winning a championship if you're a Raiders fan (ie, the idea of a loving God and afterlife) but actually believing in it is simply delusional.

 

[Nikolai]

I'm a yes, and I cannot explain it sufficiently, so I'm not going to try. If people don't want to believe, that's fine. I would contend that it's more important to be moral than religious/spiritual anyway.

Quick question for the atheists: Have you set your position against the Christian god only? Most of the arguments I see from atheists in America seem to stem from disbelief in the Christian concept of divinity and base rejection of divinity on that model.

 

[gomezcat]

I'm a yes, and I cannot explain it sufficiently, so I'm not going to try. If people don't want to believe, that's fine. I would contend that it's more important to be moral than religious/spiritual anyway.

Quick question for the atheists: Have you set your position against the Christian god only? Most of the arguments I see from atheists in America seem to stem from disbelief in the Christian concept of divinity and base rejection of divinity on that model.

All of them. I don't believe in any God.

 

[Satchboogie3]

I'm a yes, and I cannot explain it sufficiently, so I'm not going to try. If people don't want to believe, that's fine. I would contend that it's more important to be moral than religious/spiritual anyway.

Quick question for the atheists: Have you set your position against the Christian god only? Most of the arguments I see from atheists in America seem to stem from disbelief in the Christian concept of divinity and base rejection of divinity on that model.

Most atheists don't like the ideas of religion, but it has nothing to do with why we don't believe. We don't believe in any God of any kind because there is no reason to. As rational people, why should we believe something that has no evidence, no basis, and doesn't even make logical sense. Adding God into the equation makes an explanation for everything more complicated, not less. I mean, there's about as much reason to believe in a God as their is vampires or unicorns.

 

[Nikolai]

Most atheists don't like the ideas of religion, but it has nothing to do with why we don't believe. We don't believe in any God of any kind because there is no reason to. As rational people, why should we believe something that has no evidence, no basis, and doesn't even make logical sense.

I'm not disagreeing, but I would like to hear more about your perspectives on the illogical nature of divinity. I'm not trying to goad you into frustration, but I enjoy hearing people's perspectives on such matters.

Adding God into the equation makes an explanation for everything more complicated, not less.

Depending on how it's done, it can be. This is what I'm talking about with antichristian-centric atheism. Adding God into the equation as a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim might does indeed complicate matters, but I am personally inclined to allow scientific discoveries tell me a bit about who God might be, rather than view science as the enemy. I can say for certain that while I am in the minority, there are still a great many people who think likewise. No one has all the answers, not Christians, Muslims, agnostics or atheists.

I mean, there's about as much reason to believe in a God as their is vampires or unicorns.

Interesting comparison. I assume you are talking of "magical" unicorns and not the allegedly misidentified "unicorns", such as rhinos, narwhals, etc. The problem with the dichotomy is that neither vampires or unicorns hold much power in the human imagination because we can somewhat easily trace the origins of those beliefs, whereas the belief in a higher power predates recorded history. As such, the idea of divinity exists in a much murkier water than ideas about other mythological creatures.

Just throwing some fodder our there...

 

[Satchboogie3]

Any sort of "supreme being" that is in control of the universe would contradict a lot of scientific discoveries/theories. Trying to use God to explain the origin of the big bang would complicate the issues, not make it easier. Personally I think that String Theory explains the origin of everything better than any other possible explanation. The important thing though is that we don't need God in any of the possible explanations for the origin of the universe.

I don't like the "spiritual" reasons for believe because I'm not superstitious. I know many people who believe in God simply because they had "coincidence" that they believe must have been God "listening" to them. The human brain tries to make connections/patterns out of everything. Just because something highly unlikely happens doesn't mean it's due to anything but chance.

One thing I hear a lot about are the constants in our universe and the initial expansion of the big bang. Some people think that because our universe appears to be finely "tuned", there must be a "tuner". One of the clearest examples of this is the expansion rate of the universe. If it was altered even by the 15th decimal place, the universe would either expand too quickly for matter to cluster or expand slow enough for the matter to collapse back into a singularity. Some people think this incredible "luck" is too lucky to be due to chance.

There are a lot of explanations for the "tuning" of physical constants. The simplest is luck. We could just be extremely lucky. Another explanation is a multiverse. Personally I don't buy into any luck arguments.

The real answer is simply what I said before, there is no reason to believe in any sort of God. There's absolutely no evidence or reason to believe. I don't believe in things that don't have a good basis. For that reason, I don't believe in the paranormal, UFOs, conspiracy theories, God, and so on. I'm open to the possibility, but there isn't a basis for belief.

 

[Nikolai]

Fair enough. Thanks for sharing. You won't see me get worked up about it because I truly believe that this sort of thing, from either perspective, is far from a slam dunk.

All that talk of universes brings me back to my childhood, when I was a big nerd regarding space, planets, the universe, and the like. It also reminds me of the Futurama episode when the crew ends up with a box containing our universe.

 

[HarkDawg]

I am Catholic by definition.....




but I view God in a different sense than typical Christianity.



I believe there is an omnipotent being that created this universe.


He is God. Some of these religious fairy tales are far-fetched


I believe the spirit lives on and when you die you live again and are recycled into another life. (the spirit that is)

A Spirit grows w/ experiences and whatever it experiences in one life/ it will certainly get another perspective during another life.


Heaven and Hell seems unlikely. IDK what to believe.

To think..... ppl died over religious conflict and differences. It is outrageous.


when you bring other dimensions and time travel into the equation I do not know wtf to think??? It is trippy **** if you think about it.

 

[HarkDawg]

Nope. Not nearly sufficient evidence.

God is in your name... hehe

 

[Satchboogie3]

I am Catholic by definition.....




but I view God in a different sense than typical Christianity.



I believe there is an omnipotent being that created this universe.


He is God. Some of these religious fairy tales are far-fetched


I believe the spirit lives on and when you die you live again and are recycled into another life. (the spirit that is)

A Spirit grows w/ experiences and whatever it experiences in one life/ it will certainly get another perspective during another life.


Heaven and Hell seems unlikely. IDK what to believe.

To think..... ppl died over religious conflict and differences. It is outrageous.


when you bring other dimensions and time travel into the equation I do not know wtf to think??? It is trippy **** if you think about it.

There's only 1 problem with reincarnation, where do all the "new" souls come from? The population was down to just about 10,000 people many years ago... so where did 6 billions souls come from? What if the population suddenly drops to 5 billion, are a billion souls denied reincarnation? It just doesn't stand up to logic.

I also don't like bringing God into the conversation of "creation" of the universe. We can trace back the origin of the universe all the way to singularity of the big bang. That's really all that needs to be explained (big picture), how a singularity existed and what caused it to explode apart. You could say "Oh, God created the singularity", but it wouldn't help, it's not an actual answer.

Anyways, that's just my views. I LOVE thinking about the universe and all the crazy theories but I tend to not get attached to any one "theory" or possibility just because it sounds "good".

For me, it's less about actual religion and more about psychology. A lot of people believe things just because it makes them feel good rather than believing in something based on evidence/facts. It's the "I want it (feel it) to be true, thus it must be true". It drives me insane.

 

[bigcountry75]

I believe in God and besides being raised up in the church I heard this along time ago and still rings true to me today....

I would rather believe in God and find out there is no God than to not believe in God and find out there is a God.....Either way I win

Edit: Is that easier for you to understand satch.....

 

[Satchboogie3]

I believe in God and besides being raised up in the church I heard this along time ago and still rings true to me today....

If I believe there is a God then when I die and there is a God I win.....If I believe there is a God and when I die there is no God then I still win.....End result I win

But if you believe there is no God and you die and there ends up being a God then you Lose......

I would rather be in the win-win then the win-lose category

That's terrible logic right there. Terrible. Heck, you don't even follow your statement all the way through. What if there is a god, but it isn't the one you are worshiping?

Anyways, would you really want to be with a God that would be such a prick as to condemn those who didn't worship him? Sounds like Stalin or Hitler to me.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) has one of my favorite quotes on religious "Faith":
"You seem to be accepting illusion as fact, propaganda as accurate reporting, and falsehoods as truths. Faith is not the beacon of hope and lollypops you describe by any stretch of the imagination.. That said, you are correct that faith is not equal to ignorance, though faith does necessitate ignorance. Faith is seeing truth and denying it because you don’t like the truth. Faith is when one is faced with your beliefs conflicting with reality you pretend that reality must be in error.

Faith tells you that reason must be wrong, that critical thought is evil, that evil is good, and that anyone who believes differently is evil.. Faith tells you that you can never be free, that you are never actually responsible for your life, that you are merely a worthless flawed and evil creature not worthy of existence.

Faith is willful ignorance in the face of certain knowledge."