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Do you believe in God?

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

I'd like to think I do. Light candles in a church for people that have passed away in my life. And I certainly identify as an Irish Catholic for ethnicity purposes.

Having said that, I'm firmly of the belief that when you die you're absolutely gone. If an afterlife does exist, it makes no sense how anyone would actually know what it's like there.

The church have been responsible for the most heinous crimes against individuals since the state got independence. And suicide bombers are mostly influenced by religion to carry out what they do.

I think I believe in God, but not in religion, while also thinking an afterlife doesn't exist.

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Graces7 wrote: »

A small reminder. The thread title asks if you believe in God
God is not the church; the church is not God. Jesus is not the church; the church is not Jesus. Religion is not God.
No human agency is God
I believe in God, in Jesus , in the Holy Spirit .

Can't argue with that, even JC isn't a 'God' but an likely (the most successful) 'agent of a God' (or universal creator) as other prophets (may) have been.

A God-'like' figure may also represent 'any non-earthly advanced-intelligence'.

The Universe is likely teeming with life-forms, 60,000,000,000 habital planets roughly, on the last estimate. Transportation issues is the only counter-argument to this fact.

railer201

smacl wrote: »

Ok, to bring it back on topic then, I reckon that a lot of people don't believe in god these days because the institutions that promote such a belief have time and again proven themselves untrustworthy. They're more vocal about it because they're no longer going to be victimised for voicing such an opinion.

I'm sure the people can tell us themselves what they believe or don't believe and the reasons why.

Drumpot

smacl wrote: »

I disagree. I think Irish society has become kinder and more tolerant for having stepped away from the archaic institutionalised morality doled out by the church. If you look at the results of the last three referendums for example, the people voted against the position of the church because the popular consensus was that the church was morally regressive.

It is worth remembering that the god that most people believe in is the god they're told to believe in. Born in Ireland you're most likely going to be Catholic, Middle East a Muslim, India a Hindu etc... To me this illustrates that religious belief is primarily a cultural artefact. I do think it has value to many people in many contexts, notably as a source of hope to those in abject poverty or the brink of despair, and as something that binds community. I also think it can similarly be damaging both to the individual and society and has been a source of great barbarism throughout history.

True, but a red herring and off topic.

You see a red herring, I see people learning nothing and swapping one institution for another. It suits you to purely focus on the negatives of religion and promote the positives. Great so the last referendum undid one of the travesty’s of Catholicism. And this means what? That we have corrected a few of the things that were Fundamentally bullsh*t. What replaces the good parts of religion? The community element, getting together? What about how religion can bridge racism and xenophobia gaps that are rearing the heads throughout Europe and USA?

But going back to Ireland , How empathetic are Irish people to drug or alcohol addicts? How empathetic are we to refugees? With all the wealth in the country, how have we got homeless people? How we treat families with children with disabilities? How do we treat our elderly? Politics now pushes social agendas/beliefs. The self gratification of ourselves because we have righted one or two wrongs is kind of sad.

Political correctness now trumps objective debate with hysterical reactions to comments or even mistakes that lead to pitchfork character assassinations. Nature abhors a vacuum, the decimation of religion forces people to find hero’s and villains elsewhere. We are not as progressive or clever a species as we lkke to think.

uck51js9zml2yt

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

I don't mind people believing in God but the bit that kinda annoys me is when people try to shoehorn God into an event no matter what.
In other-words if a person survives it is thanks to God. If a person dies it is God's will. The reason given if they were only children is that they are one of God's angel's too special for this world. It is like a mental trick of the mind so God has an excuse this time - but is for the greater good.
.

As a Christian I have to agree with you.

Relikk

No, I don't, and certainly not in the way that organised religions see it. There isn't enough hard evidence to support the theory of a god as we know it or as it's portrayed in religious texts. There might be something behind the creation of the universe, but that's completely unfathomable to all of us, and given the scale of the universe, it's extreme hubris on the part of the human race to assume that any kind of creator would give a toss about some freakish evolutionary mutations, or as something as insignificant as we appear to be. God is a primitive human construct to give some kind of meaning to death, so that we can live forever in an afterlife.

Speaking of which, I don't believe in an afterlife, either. Your consciousness is stored in your brain. When your brain dies, your consciousness goes with it.

Marhay70

I don't believe in God as portrayed by the Bible or the Koran or any such like but I'm not averse to the possibility of a supreme engineer. Someone else touched on this earlier but I believe earth is cyclical, humans weren't there at the beginning and I don't think we'll be there at the end. Either self inflicted mass extermination or an event like that which spelt the end of the dinosaurs, will put an end to us and countless more species, and evolution will begin again. With that will go any notion of God until one of the new species becomes as advanced as we have and needs an explanation of where they came from
I don't however, see any harm in people believing in whichever religion they like if it gives them comfort, the only thing I ask, and it's a difficult ask for some of them, is that they accept that I don't want to hear about it.

briany

I beeleev in gwod.

xerces

What Is God? - A No Bullshit Explanation For Smart People

I’ve been watching Actualized.org’s weekly videos for about 5 years now and doing the reading and practices necessary to verify a lot of what he talks about in my own experience. Not saying anyone else should watch, the videos are long, this one alone is 2hrs 30mins, but thought I’d post it here in case someone finds it interesting.

dd973

HappyAsLarE wrote: »

I know God doesn’t exist, but I try to live like he does.

You know?

Erm, do you f**k. Nobody does. Neither Dawkins or the Pope.

Bobblehats

Yes I believe in good. And I believe in de evil

I believe they manifest themselves in people and I believe these ‘people’ are living breathing entities that walk amongst us. Crazy I know

storker

The White Wolf wrote: »

I did up until I was 19, when a couple of things happened that broke my faith.

I'm going against the grain here by saying I'm worse off without it. That's the truth for me personally.

I found the realisation that I was an atheist very liberating. Knowing bad things happen just because they happen means you don't have to worry what you did to wrong to deserve it, or what message you're being sent. Likewise you can pat yourself on the back for good fortune you brought about yourself, or be grateful for some random chain of events that brought you some welcome good fortune.

jaxxx

bogwalrus

I believe in dog which is god spelled backwards. Dogs are great. On a more serious level I think I have digestive enough material from all sorts of sources to finally come to the conclusion that life is great but on the grand scale of things what Is living on this planet right now is fairly insignificant. Some day it will all be gone unless we inhabit other worlds. There is no higher power looking down on us as if we are some science experiment.

The simplest explanation in my eyes is that we evolved into the species were are now and rather than develop to be huge with sharp teeth like the dinosaurs, we developed our brains to build spaceships etc. Knowing that the scale of the universe is unfathimly large I expect similar evolutions to happen elsewhere. Anyway, it's all a bit if a waste of time in my eyes to have an imaginary friend called god. Dogs are great.

Bobblehats

**** it; I believe in the power of good.

And yeah I like Stryper.

poisonated

I believe there is a God and I believe that faith can have great benefits(through illness etc). I also believe that people involved in the church, for the most part, are decent people and do kind things. Having said that, I don’t believe organized religion is a good thing. I believe that a lot of awful people have done awful things “in the name of religion”. However, maybe they would do those things anyway. Maybe they are just using religion as an excuse.

One eyed Jack

uptherebels wrote: »

Where are the protests and rallies for change in the church from its membership? For the hierarchy to go to police agencies first? They can set up these for protection of potential children, but not actual children.

There’s been plenty of change within the Church as a result of the efforts of it’s membership. There doesn’t have to have been any protests and rallies for change to come from within an organisation. Mary McAleese and Marie Collins are just two high profile examples of people who have campaigned for reform within the Church, from within the Church, as opposed to condemning from the sidelines. There are plenty more people who aren’t as high profile within the Church who work towards reform and don’t expect nor receive any credit for their efforts.

uptherebels wrote: »

You said men who rape, they as a group do not have organisations protecting them. that a few are in positions of power doesn't represent the group, unlike Catholic priests, but you know that already.

That’s right, I said men who rape, and the men I was referring to are protected by the most fundamental organisation in society - the family. As you would know, most rapes and sexual abuse is committed by family members against their own family members than by strangers to them, and those family members who commit abuse are often protected by their own families who choose to protect them, because those men have that kind of power and influence over their families.

The number of Catholic priests who committed abuse isn’t representative of Catholic priests as a group either, but again you don’t appear to have acknowledged that research suggests the number of people who commit abuse within the Church is around 4%, whereas the number of men who commit rape among the general population is 7%. If your interest is actually in protecting children from being sexually abused as opposed to just using the sexual abuse of children as a means to take pot shots at the Catholic Church, I would suggest your aim is a bit off.

uptherebels wrote: »

I never claimed any ideology was immune to corruption, but the RCC had a unique position of power and privilege in this country. Any other organisation that committed the crimes of the church would be long gone or changed beyond recognition.

They wouldn’t, and they aren’t, because they weren’t the crimes of the Church, they were the crimes of a small number of people within the Church who used the organisational structure of the Church to gain access to people whom they could commit abuse against. If the Church were replaced by another organisation in the morning, there is no question that the same thing would happen again, and is still happening today, because people who want to commit abuse will always seek out opportunities to commit abuse. By their very nature the perpetrators of abuse are manipulative and deceptive, and that’s why in reality the real issue isn’t the Church, but the small number of people who use organisations like the Church to weave their way into positions of power and influence where they can portray themselves as pillars of their respective communities while at the same time committing horrendous acts of abuse behind closed doors, because they’re well aware that some people care more about the visuals and displays in public than what’s actually going on behind the scenes out of the public gaze. If you’re still wondering why I personally couldn’t care less about public demonstrations and protests and rallies, there’s your answer in a nutshell - I don’t care about appearances and how something does or doesn’t look to other people. There’s a term for that kind of behaviour - “virtue signalling”.

Deja Boo

I know no other reason as to how I've personally gotten through life, than this...

"Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come.
T'was grace that brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home."

...even in all my faltering disbelief, this stands.

Necro

It's an interesting question OP.

I'm not particularly religious anymore (youth, parents blah de blah, same as most kids from the 80s in Ireland probably). I don't really think I believe in God, or a God, or 70 gazillion Gods or whatever.

Though maybe I do? I kind of want to believe that there's something after death, that it isn't just the end and we're wormfood and that's it.

For me the one comforting part of religion is the insistence that John or Mary or in my case my departed close ones have gone on to paradise, or an afterlife, or something.

I kinda like that idea, and it's the one part that EVEN if it's complete and utter horsecrap, it gives comfort to a lot of people whilst they try and deal with the grief and loss of their loved ones.

And look, even if it's a total crock of sh1t, does it really matter? It's not like you can come back and tell us all about it.

nozzferrahhtoo

Zorya wrote: »

And yet from a purely empirical point of view research data regularly shows that religious people have better mental health than non believers. Better healing outcomes even. Roh well..... so much for presumptive weakness

I wonder if you can be clear to which research you refer here because my experience of the research people tend to cite when making this claim, is that it does not actually support that claim at all.

Rather what it supports is the correlation-causation error by selecting solely aspects that are only tangentially related to religion and missing the fact that it is THOSE things, and nothing to do with religion or faith itself, that are actually providing the benefits. It is an error akin to thinking all the benefit of Medicine is coming from the packaging the medicine tends to arrive in. While in fact only some of it does.

Zorya wrote: »

Since what you seek to know for certain is unknowable you can choose to believe however gives you most peace.

I think it is important to mention people like myself who are simply not capable of what you describe. This ability to "choose" to believe something is not an ability everyone has. Those of us without it can sometimes even view it as a super power that you have that we do not. I simply can not imagine what it even feels like to be able to do what you describe. How labile is your credulity exactly? Can you look at a patently empty box and "choose" to believe it full of money for example? If so.... wow. What is that even like???

I however can not "choose" to believe anything. I am entirely at the mercy of argument, evidence, data and reasoning. I did not "choose" to disbelieve the idea there is a god. I am simply incapable of believing there is one given no one has, in the history of humanity, come up with a single actual piece of argument, evidence, data or reasoning that suggests there is one.

Take this for example....

Zorya wrote: »

For example many who choose to believe there is no metaphysical reality also choose to believe that we will come upon alien life forms at some time in the universe.

..... while I do not currently believe OR disbelieve the idea we might find alien life.... it is not analogous to religious belief for me. Why? Because unlike gods... we have demonstrable evidence that LIFE exists. We are ourselves that evidence. So the idea of alien life.... unlike gods..... is at least off square one in this regard. We already know the universe contains life, we are just considering whether there may be more of the same.

Zorya wrote: »

Even if they are unsure about life elsewhere in the universe they mostly choose to believe that science will eventually explain everything - scientism.

I have yet to meet a single person who holds that position however. So I am myself unsure of who you are referring to here. The people I do know and meet seem to believe only two claims however. 1) Science has continuously pushed back the areas of our ignorance and 2) There is no reason at this time to think it will not continue in that direction for now.

More than that people I know have never claimed. I agree with you that anyone who is claiming more, has crossed into faith not fact.

nozzferrahhtoo

pearcider wrote: »

Christianity has been responsible for most of the good in the modern world and most of the people who led to our humane society today we’re devout Christians...

It is worth being careful with such statements as the fact many of the people who did such things WERE Christian does not mean the things they did had anything to do WITH them being Christian. For example I could just as coherently write the same sentence as you like follows:

"Christianity has been responsible for most of the milked cows in the modern world and most of the people who milked cows in our society today were devout Christians..."

The simple fact is that most people in most of history appear to have been religious. Or claimed to be. So it is an error to ever assume that what they did WHILE being religious was done BECAUSE they were religious. Especially as there are plenty of examples of non-religious people doing all the same things. Building schools and places of learning and hospitals? Have we not every reason to expect that would not have been done in our world either way? Even capitalism, which people on the thread have derided, would get you there.

You can likely not find a single moral action performed, or moral statement made, by a person of faith that can not or even has not come from a person without faith. Alas however finding heinous acts performed precisely BECAUSE someone was religious..... much easier to find.

As for "running charities" which you included in your list. That too happens entirely without religion too. Alas what religions like the Catholic Church have done is less about being a charity and more about being a Charity Broker. Which is, alas, a highly profitable business model. Nothing more. And they have done quite well out of it.

nozzferrahhtoo

Drumpot wrote: »

But it actually shines a light on another part of religion. The comfort it can bring and how can help heal a family. Those who detest religion will never really discuss this and will try to turn it around.

I have alas seen the dark side of that. If a person using religion to paper mache over their greif, later loses their faith, then they are forced to deal with the grief all over again. And one thing about dealing with grief.... many psychologists agree that the SOONER you do it the better, because many of the tools you have to deal with it fade over time. Such as your memory of the deceased. There is a reason, for example, that counsellors were flown into ground zero of disaster zones to deal with children who lost their parents ASAP. Rather than waiting until later when they were in safe zones. Time is a variable when dealing with grief.

I get that it can seem like religion is providing solace and comfort in the face of grief. But I fear often the reality is the opposite. That religion is being used to AVOID dealing with grief, while it festers. You could achieve some comfort from pain killer medication if you have an infection. But you are not dealing with the infection. Just giving yourself the capacity to ignore it. And that is not healthy. Lying to yourself that a dead person is not actually dead is NOT dealing with grief. It is avoiding it while mistaking that as "comfort".

We pretend that "self soothing" is useful I fear, because we tend to avoid emotions we imagine to be negative. There are better healthier ways of dealing with grief however and you can "talk to loved ones" for example, and derive all the benefit of doing that, without for one moment having to believe they are alive and can hear you. One can keep the baby and throw out the fetid bath water. That is what the "opiate of the people" quote ACTUALLY meant because most people never quote the entire thing and leave out the important part:

“Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.”

Drumpot wrote: »

But again, you are lieing to yourself and making uo an imaginary person. Do you not see the irony?

Only lying to yourself if you start to pretend the imaginary person actually exists. Just imaginingg a person, and being entirely aware it is imagination, is not lying to yourself at all.

Drumpot wrote: »

I can’t explain who I was talking to and I don’t feel the need to think about it.

It is indeed a beautiful mantra, and one that is just as powerful if you drop the "god" off the start of it. If you change the mantra to "I shall find the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." it is just as powerful. If not more so because it gives an internal locus of realisation of that goal, rather than off loading it to another, whether imaginary or not.

Internal Mantras of this form are very useful. They are a way to manipulate our story telling brain. I personally find the Bene Gesserit mantra from Frank Herberts Dune very useful in my life for example. It has helped me through many a dilemma in my life:

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."

Drumpot wrote: »

You can ridicule people who believe in an after life but the the truth is atheists don’t have any idea what the F**k is going on anymore then those who follow a religion. That’s why I find their “religion is stupid” stance so silly.

What is silly though exactly? The fact is, as you said, none of us know what is actually going on. Only one group is pretending to know however. And it is not the atheists.

We exist in this universe and I have no idea how this came to be. Every answer is open to possibility right now. The simple fact is however that the quantity of argument, evidence, data or reasoning on offer to suggest the answer is the machinations of an intelligent intentional agent..... is precisely zero.

nozzferrahhtoo

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Obviously it is clear you have your own agenda here nothing positive about religion etc. Which is a bit hyperbolic.

I am not sure that the thinking is, as you put it, that there is nothing positive about religion. Rather I would say there is nothing positive about religion that you can not get in other ways with much better cost-benefit analysis. I have no doubt some people get positives from religion. But at what cost? And is the cost worth it?

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

So you cannot see how some people find solace from it in times of need? Or how it can bring people together especially in times of need - community, support etc

MANY things that bring people together in times of need. In fact it merely being a time of need ITSELF brings people together. Nothing else is required. There is a great book about Hurricane Katrina for example and how people used a football club to "come together" in their time of need: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_McCool%27s_Football_Club

The point should not be whether X or Y or Z bring people together in this way. The question should be what the costs we pay for X, Y and Z are and whether the costs for one are worth paying if others achieve it just as well without such costs.

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

If you take away all the 'afterlife' stuff with religion there were some good stories in the bible - parables etc. Makes you think.

Agreed. The fact is humans are a story telling machine. We tell stories and we parse the world through the stories we are told or we tell ourselves. So oral tradition in itself is a wonderful thing, but is quite distinct from religion. Much like a common virus hijacks the biology we have for reproducing our cells.... religion is like a memetic virus which hijacks the biology we have for reproducing stories. It is more an infection in our story telling apparatus rather than a useful expression of it.

My favourite character in the Star Trek world after Picard was probably Chakotay. When moral or philosophical debate came up he always expressed his position through folk stories from his Tribal Traditions. I always thought that was written beautifully and it showed that even in a future where we throw off the shackles of religion, we will likely never throw off our capacity for story.

Terry Pratchett put this well. He pointed out that "Homo Sapien" was a terrible choice of name for us. It means "Wise Man". He suggests better would have been "Pans Narrans" or "The Story telling chimp".

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

I think the void religion has left though is mental health issues and the like.

I fear you might be making a correlation-causation error there. There may indeed be an increase in mental health and communication issues in our world. I am sceptical on that actually as there are many other explanations for why there might be an increase. Better diagnosis is one obvious example. The fact we RECOGNISE more mental health issues does not mean there IS more mental health issues.

But even if we grant there has been an increase, that does not mean it has ANYTHING to do with a fall off in religious faith. Correlation is not causation.

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Exactly some atheists seem to resent people who get enjoyment out of religion.
But if some people get the benefit out of religion and feel the better for it what harm?

The same question is asked about things like psychic healers, spirit mediums, and homeopathy. If people get benefits from these things, what harm?

The answer is simple, there are costs to these things. They do not exist in a vacuum. The benefits never come without a cost. The question is, what are the costs we as a society pay and are they worth it? And are there other ways to get the same benefits, but with reduced or no costs?

[Deleted User]

This will probably end up getting buried in the middle of the thread but the reason I believe is because life is the sickest, cruelest, hardest and yet most beautiful thing I can think of, just the whole concept from beginning to end blows me away.

I wouldn't be a churchgoer myself, but I don't think God is some old guy in the sky who throws you in the furnace if you've been a bad boy or whatever and I think a lot of people have that view and it turns them off to any concept of a God or higher power.

Woke Hogan

jaxxx wrote: »

God almighty that is so neckbeardy.

jmayo

Nah don't believe in a God or Gods.

And I think I was just out of national school if not before when I began to look at the whole thing in a logical factual way and thus unbelievable.

Also started to not like the catholic church at around same time.
The more I read of it's history, the more the whole thing rang shallow.
But raised in West of Ireland I still had dislike for the left footers, the prods, after again learning from our history and seeing the whole thing in Northern Ireland drag on.

Over time I came to despise all people who would be religious fundamentalists, most especially one particular religion where the vast majority are right wing conservatives.
Anyone fundamentalist, probably100% assured in their views and unwilling to compromise an inch are bad for the rest of us and often damn dangerous.

I also despise the agnostics, the atheists, the non believers who are quick to lambast their own former religion or the religion they are most familiar with and yet make untold excuses for an even worse one.
Yeah you know who you are.;)

But I can also see the value in religion or rather I suppose faith.
I have seen families and individuals suffer appalling tragedies and faith can often give them some solace.
I suppose it offers a hope.
So who am I to knock them and their faith.

Canis Lupus

Woke Hogan wrote: »

God almighty that is so neckbeardy.

The smack of tryhard off all your posts is neckbeardy.

bnt

My thinking on this question has evolved and is still evolving. It sounds incredibly snotty and patronising to say things like "well, I don't need religion, but the common man seems to get something out of it", but I have to admit that is a technical summary of my position.

You can see this in the speeches and books of Jordan Peterson: I think he has some good things to say about responsibility etc., so I'm puzzled when he goes on about Bible stories: on the one hand he seems to imply that the Bible stories are not entirely original and are based on older legends, while on the other hand he treats those particular stories as embodying some kind of universal truth. From that I can only conclude that his motivations are at least partly based on pragmatic psychology - the idea that people need structure in their lives, but he's not too concerned about whether that structure is based on universal truths. I guess I'm not really in his target audience.

Historically, religion has thrived when times were hard, and so it declines when times are relatively good, as they are now. There's the old saying "there are no atheists in foxholes", which, besides being untrue, is more of an argument against foxholes then it is against atheists. If we feel the need to appeal to a deity when times are hard, that says more about us than it does about the deity.

Woke Hogan

Canis Lupus wrote: »

The smack of tryhard off all your posts is neckbeardy.

What are you talking about?

73bc61lyohr0mu

Woke Hogan wrote: »

It's as much a part of the human condition to hope against hope for life after "the end" as it is to, say, participate in or watch sport. Virtually every society has believed in some sort of deity or afterlife, after all.

That's why I despise the obese, sneering internet atheists you will find on websites like this. The kind who giggle into their braided goatees about space teapots or flying spaghetti monsters. Their claims to be operating on a higher intellectual plain instead of jogging or believing in the supernatural rings a little hollow to myself when you see them indulging in their basest urges: sitting and eating processed food until they pass out. The kind with exotic colours and cartoon characters on the packaging.

I do respect that many people are desperate for comfort as they come close to death but ultimately there's no reason in my view to believe in god.

Every belief or lack of belief system has absolute dickheads. I'm athiest and I just get on with my life without bothering anyone. As long as another person's faith doesn't interfere in my life then leave them off. But Christians and Muslims have their own assholes as well, the ones screaming at you for being a heathen and saying you're going to burn in hell. Being an intolerant prick isn't exclusively for athiests.

LuasSimon

I’m not sure what happens in the afterlife but I like many get great comfort out of my faith , saying a few prayers every Saturday night and praying for whatever intentions are on mine or my family and friends radar at the time . Been part of a community each week and even simple peace be with you handshakes with other parishioners each week brings a sense of belonging and strengthens been part of a community . It’s estimated locally 30-40% attend mass weekly which ain’t bad these days . I find the whole thing therapeutic and good for the head as opposed to sitting on the couch at home .