Do you believe in God?

[compass]

I do not believe in God.

Why not?
Well, to begin with my attitude to this question (i.e. "Why not?") probably makes me a "chronic" unbeliever. For me the right question is "Why?" (or rather "Why should I?" in expanded form), not "Why not?".

So, would anyone want to answer the "Why should I?" question?

In the meantime, here's some of my Why NOTs:

1. Top of the list by far: It is not necessary to believe in God in order to explain enough of the universe/world/environment so that it enables me to successfuly function. Alternative, logical, natural explanations allow me to leave my life reasonably well and predict future events to a degree of accuracy that is in no observable way any worse than the people that use God to explain some or all of life's phenomena.
2. In particular for the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, there are so many contradictory statements, percepts, principles espoused by the writings and the adherents of these religions that I cannot take them seriously in a debate. These religions, or rather the collected ideas of them, are simply not consistent.
3. History and religion's role in it... Hmm, I stop here as I'm afraid of offending people, this is just my second post and I should be meek (as I plan on inheriting...)

Frankly, I am still amazed at the number of people that still passionately believe in God in this day and age...
I am in fact a bit sad and pessimistic about this every time I am reminded of this, as I have been reading this thread.

[loveispoison]

I do not believe in God.

Why not?
Well, to begin with my attitude to this question (i.e. "Why not?") probably makes me a "chronic" unbeliever. For me the right question is "Why?" (or rather "Why should I?" in expanded form), not "Why not?".

So, would anyone want to answer the "Why should I?" question?

In the meantime, here's some of my Why NOTs:

1. Top of the list by far: It is not necessary to believe in God in order to explain enough of the universe/world/environment so that it enables me to successfuly function. Alternative, logical, natural explanations allow me to leave my life reasonably well and predict future events to a degree of accuracy that is in no observable way any worse than the people that use God to explain some or all of life's phenomena.
2. In particular for the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, there are so many contradictory statements, percepts, principles espoused by the writings and the adherents of these religions that I cannot take them seriously in a debate. These religions, or rather the collected ideas of them, are simply not consistent.
3. History and religion's role in it... Hmm, I stop here as I'm afraid of offending people, this is just my second post and I should be meek (as I plan on inheriting...)

Frankly, I am still amazed at the number of people that still passionately believe in God in this day and age...
I am in fact a bit sad and pessimistic about this every time I am reminded of this, as I have been reading this thread.

dont get me wrong but its not you who is saying all this its the devil talking from within you your one of the unbelievers and your saying you dont believe and the u explaind
why you dont believe in god,
got made us so perfect example our dna and explain it to me i mean isnt it a perfect creation of god how perfectly its created if u dont believe in god what is your motive and why your here-meaning in th is world how can you explain that to me our to any 1 if you look at every living thing or dead thing they have a purpose and there is nothing in this world that does not have a purpose and our purpose is??? not to believe in god or believe in him and pray so we dont go to hell

[zen-r]

dont get me wrong but its not you who is saying all this its the devil talking your one of the unbeliever and your saying you dont believe and the u explaind
why you dont believe in got look the got made us perfect look at our dna and explain it to me i mean isnt it a perfect creation of god and dont u ever wonder why your here if u dont believe in god what is your motive and why your here how can you explain that to me our to any 1?

I didn't understand a word of that. A bit of punctuation & correct spelling might make it half-way intelligible.


I still find it hilarious how people who are arguing for the existence of a god want endless proof from the non-believers as to how anything could exist without there being a god.

And yet they never have & never will provide any proof of their own that there is a god. Double-standards?!!

Just because you guys can't comprehend how anything so complex as animals, plants, DNA etc could possibly have evolved, doesn't mean it hasn't. The limitation is in your imagination, not in the actual processes which occurred to create these things. If you were to show anyone from a few thousand years ago something like a TV or a mobile phone, they'd have thought it could only have been made by gods. They would also, like you, think that those objects were too wondrous & magical a creation to have been made by mere explainable processes.

Why is it so hard to imagine that the universe has always been here, or has been produced by a Big Bang, or some other process, & yet you have no trouble in thinking that your all-powerful god has always been here? Who made him? Tell me....I want an answer.

(Excuse my tone, but the nonsense being spouted throughout this thread by so many people really winds me up!)

[davejh]

Zen-R, why do you find it easy to believe in an eternal uncreated universe, and yet not an eternal uncreated God? I'm sure you will understand my questioning, who made this eternal universe? It is the same reaction you have to my belief that there is an eternal uncreated God.

This is my first post here, as you have guessed, I am a christian. I grew up in a christian family, but didn't accept the faith as a family tradition, I found it for myself at the age of 18. I am currently in Ecuador (I'm from the UK) as a short missionary for God, every day I see more and more of God. At home, life is easy, we don't need a god anymore. We have a situation where we can look for alternative theories.

Evolution itself has evolved a lot, it is so very different from Darwin's original theory. His theories seem to have been based on observed natural selection or perhaps micro evolution (I apologise if my terms are not correct, I am not a scientist). It appears to me that the idea of macro evolution is taken on by faith, in the same way that atheists see my belief in God. But because it is a theory of man and not a belief in a plan of God, they are happy to believe it. I firmly believe that if a new theory came about that was more solid than evolution, atheists would happily convert, leaving evolution as a previous way of thinking adopted by humans with less information available. As I say, evolution itself it always changing to try and fill the many holes.

Perhaps look at it this way, if you are right, there is no life after death, there is no purpose in my life other than to please myself whilst I last, I have lost nothing to live with christian principles, to have purpose (albeit purpose based on a god that does not exist) and to put others before myself. I truly enjoy giving as much, if not more than receiving. To make a good difference in someone's life makes me feel good. But, if I am correct in my faith in an eternal God who will forgive me the stupid things I do in life because of my faith in the death of his Son, Jesus Christ, then I will be certainly enjoying my eternity more than the unbeliever. I do not despise atheists, I pray that they have an open mind. Perhaps if they look into it with an open mind, they will find the same proofs I have found in the bible and in God and may one day find his purpose in their life, and his great love.

I do ask that atheists here do not state their theories as fact and make out that our faith is all made up and baseless. If you look into the faith of a christian with an open mind, you may find many scientific proofs that other ex-atheists have found.

I have looked at as much of this argument as I can with an open mind, I would not be a christian if I didn't believe it made the most sense from the options availble to me. I firmly believe there is more in this world to prove God's guiding hand than the evolution of pure chance from a chemical soup billions of years ago.

Another point, many people say that God can't have made the earth about 6000 years ago as Bible believers believe because the rocks are proved to be older. Well assuming we are reading the facts right, and assuming my beliefs are right for a moment, it would be possible for God to make the world with rocks that look old, wouldn't it?

And who was it that asked for proof of miracles? Surely a miracle cannot be scientifically proved to be possible due to the very definition of a miracle? And again assuming my beliefs are right, surely God who can create the entire universe can therefore understand and manipulate his universe as he choses in a way that makes so sense to a human, limited to a view of the world from the created's eyes, not the creator's?

I look forward to reading replies here as none I have read so far have said anything that prove to me that the alternative faiths out there are correct, and that mine is not.

[mjserv]

A lot of people tend to believe in God but they don't believe in the bible.

I do, and I can see why people forget or dont care because Jesus walked the earth along time ago, Can you fully understand the disciples and what they have seen. Reading Jesus's life through others.

example

It's like writing a book about "The King of Pop", Michael Jackson and telling children about how great of an artist he was without having technology, after generations and generations are kids really going to believe that anymore I know I wouldn't.

[tweek1]

Yes, I do believe in God. ("Christian")

Now notice I say I believe in God, but not this thing we pass off as being "Christian". The church today is nothing like Jesus would want it to be, I believe it is now a breeding ground for hatred. We go to church every Sunday and automatically think we are better than everyone else.

I believe in God/Jesus, but not Religion.

[compass]

Zen-R, why do you find it easy to believe in an eternal uncreated universe, and yet not an eternal uncreated God? I'm sure you will understand my questioning, who made this eternal universe? It is the same reaction you have to my belief that there is an eternal uncreated God.

First, you've asked your question of Zen-R and I am not Zen-R, so apologies to both of you if you think I shouldn't answer this, but my opinion on this is that a non-religious person can simply say "I do not know" and leave it at that.
It does not follow that for every "I do not know" we need to assign the answer to some supernatural, superhuman entity that only "exists" because of the events out there that could not (yet) be explained.
But this is a question of faith, individual belief; I have no problem with that.
I know of "Christians" who, desperately trying to reconcile their last shreds of faith with their logic, common sense and knowledge say they now believe that God "made" the Big Bang and then let the Universe get on with it (thus admitting all modern science postulates, cosmology, astronomy, biology, geology and physics).

But you say some things in the rest of your post which I strongly disagree with.

Evolution itself has evolved a lot, it is so very different from Darwin's original theory.

Not true.
The Theory of Evolution has grown, we now have a proper explanation for the biochemical mechanisms that allow evolution to exist but the actual theory based on natural selection, mutation and adaptation is as true today as it was 100 years ago.

His theories seem to have been based on observed natural selection or perhaps micro evolution (I apologise if my terms are not correct, I am not a scientist). It appears to me that the idea of macro evolution is taken on by faith, in the same way that atheists see my belief in God.

Macroevolution is simply microevolution over much larger periods of time. If you admit one you admit the other.
I have seen some puerile Creationist arguments of the kind “I will never believe a fish can give birth to a rabbit” that purpote to show how ridiculous (macro)evolution is.
Well, I don’t believe a fish can give birth to a rabbit either and I do not think there is one biologist who thinks so (while sober). That is NOT what evolution maintains.
If that is the usage you give to the word “Macroevolution” then of course it is taken on by faith but not by people who know biology.

I firmly believe that if a new theory came about that was more solid than evolution, atheists would happily convert, leaving evolution as a previous way of thinking adopted by humans with less information available. As I say, evolution itself it always changing to try and fill the many holes.

What holes? So far, what predictions were made by evolutionists have been verified in real life. So far, no holes.

Perhaps look at it this way, if you are right, there is no life after death, there is no purpose in my life other than to please myself whilst I last, I have lost nothing to live with christian principles, to have purpose (albeit purpose based on a god that does not exist) and to put others before myself.

What? Why do you think that atheists have no purpose in life other than to please themselves? Who said so?

But, if I am correct in my faith in an eternal God who will forgive me the stupid things I do in life because of my faith in the death of his Son, Jesus Christ, then I will be certainly enjoying my eternity more than the unbeliever.

Oh, so this is the “Faith as Insurance” argument.
Well, if God is indeed just and loving and all-knowing (and it exists) then I think it more likely that such a God should and would forgive people for being agnostics who have otherwise lived life with respect and care for others rather than favouring murderers, rapists, abusers, malicious slanderers, etc. that “repent” after a life of tormenting others.

I look forward to reading replies here as none I have read so far have said anything that prove to me that the alternative faiths out there are correct, and that mine is not.

Nobody can prove that your faith is not correct.
Nobody can prove that any faith is not correct.

That does not mean that these faiths are correct. Can you prove that the old Olympian Gods do not exist or did not exist? No, you cannot. Nor can I for that matter.

But do I need the existence of the old Olympian Gods to explain my life and my surroundings and to give purpose and meaning to my life?
And do I have even one shred of evidence that is not hearsay (books containing stories of "facts" that may or may not have happened and cannot be verified or repeated also count as hearsay) about the existence of the Olympians (or any other God)?

No, I do not. And that is why I do not believe in any God.

[merrillmck]

Perhaps look at it this way, if you are right, there is no life after death, there is no purpose in my life other than to please myself whilst I last

Logical flaw. You're assuming either this or that. Another alternative is to not believe in life after death and still follow the golden rule. Or to not believe in life after death but derive pleasure from putting others before yourself.

Plenty of alternatives to your binary world.

[archimatech]

God and the Da Vinci Code, It's all the same. The book of the Da Vinci Code is a roman and isn't true some of the fragments are linked bad and doesn't proof anything.

The Bible is not the same as a roman but is was more a code of law and a guide to live in that particular community i think. Some things ar historicly true and some parts of the book where added 200 years later and some things where skipped and matched over the years. It was also very handy for kings and kaisers to pick the bible up as code of law to control the people in their kingdoms.

Earlyer in history people had more gods.
The Maya, the Indians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Vikings, the Omaans did have multiple gods for each fenomen the didn't understand.
Christians believed that one god stood for all these fenomens ad a same time. But for almost everything their was a patron saint, so one god and many patron saints, or is it: many patron saints makes 1 god or 1 culture, just like the old Egypts had many gods in 1 culture just like the Greeks and the Romans.

Now a days more and more people believes in their selfs, in humanity because some things of the bible are just obsolete. Some other people believe in the old gods or has become a believer of old Gods and cultures. The new phonomen of this is the Maya Culture, very popular this days because they predict the end of the world on 12 december 2010 (read the article in dutch).

My websites:
http://articles.amt.pcriot.com
http://archimatech.amt.pcriot.com
http://cavalier.amt.pcriot.com
http://amt.pcriot.com

[fguy64]

....

Another point, many people say that God can't have made the earth about 6000 years ago as Bible believers believe because the rocks are proved to be older. Well assuming we are reading the facts right, and assuming my beliefs are right for a moment, it would be possible for God to make the world with rocks that look old, wouldn't it?

...

I look forward to reading replies here as none I have read so far have said anything that prove to me that the alternative faiths out there are correct, and that mine is not.

First point. Are you saying that you actually believe that the earth is about 6,000 years old? Does that include the sun and the moon and the stars as well? We could debate that if you want, but first let's clarify that you actually believe it's all just 6,000 years old. Then maybe make some kind of case for that, something other than "Maybe God just made the rocks look old"

Second point. I was gonna say the same.