right on the head. religion was created as an attempt to keep people in line.

To which "god" does the poll concern?

The christian "god"
or can it relate to ANY "god" in any pantheon?

Keep in mind that not believing God exists is not the same as believing God does not exist. It's a common logical mistake to assume that "not A" = -A" when this is not the case.

The agnostic and athiest beliefs are both "not A" in this instance, but only atheism is "-A". Both exist in the area of not believing there is a god, but only the latter makes the extra claim that none exists. As belief in God is an affirmative belief, anything "not A" is encapsuled by the "no" response. Which is to say, if you are agnostic, "no" is accurate, and does not imply an active belief that there is a God.

There are some belief systems that would be tricky to put in this. My sister is very religious and is also an agnostic. My wife is religious and believes in the existence of essenses separate from our physical bodies, but not necessarily in a single supreme being. The answer for both of them would be "no", in that neither Buddhism nor Shinto adhere to the Western idea of monotheism, and both are based in the idea of developing one's personal spiritual essense to its highest level.

Do I believe in God? Yes, though I'm not sure by what means or to what extend God is involved in the every day lives of humans. It's not something I'm capable of knowing, nor do I assume I'll gain that knowledge with death or what will happen to my essense when I die, so I tend to focus on developing myself as best I can for this life and let what happens afterwards take care of itself.

Gilda

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism.

-Albert Einstein, 1954.

From Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman.

It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been able to keep pace with such rapid progress in our acquisition of knowledge and power...It is no longer adequate to adopt the view that our responsibility as a society is to simply further scientific knowledge and enhance technological power and that the choice of what to do with this knowledge and power should be left in the hands of the individual...By invoking fundamental ethical principles, I am not advocating a fusion of religious ethics and scientific inquiry. Rather, I am speaking of what I call 'secular ethics' that embrace the key ethical principles, such as compassion, tolerance, a sense of caring, consideration of others, and the responsible use of knowledge and power -- principles that transcend the barriers between religious believers and nonbelievers, and followers of this religion or that religion.

-The 14th and current Dalai Lama

Source:
Dalai Lama Gives Talk On Science: Monk's D.C. Lecture Links Mind, Matter
By Marc Kaufman, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...111201080.html


Is this the future? Is this now? Whether we believe in gods doesn't matter, perhaps. But how do we answer the questions of morality? What is compassion and where does it come from? Who decides what is good and what is evil? What is the source of all of this? Is it human made? We can agree on these things only if there is an underlying set of principles. And to suggest that these are human by design would leave open the possibility of them being corrupted. Anything human in nature is susceptible to corruption.

good question, we all assume the poll is relating to the christian God, I don't believe in Thor, Odin, Woden or any Norse gods, I also don't believe in any of the Greek gods, roman gods or egyptian gods - the christian god is just one more of a whole scope and range of dieties I don't believe in. (If you do believe in the christian god, do you then have to give credence to all the others?)

no
 

i dont belive in god all creater all mighty also i dispise this place they call heaven when you die and you did many of good things you get rewarded for it in the after life like come off it its bullshit...yes you get rewared for good things you do when you do them ahhh good boy heres a loly pop get my drift?

I think so.

Although...I must confess that it would've been easier to "get" had you made use of some judicious capititalization. With, perhaps, a little punctuation thrown in here and there. ;)

One question though. How can you dispise[sic] a place in which you do not believe? What I mean to say is that if you do not believe in "God", or his Heaven, then how can you despise it? Or...is it simply the concept that riles you so? If so, that's fine. I just want to make certain that I'm clear.

well its just the fact that all the chruch junkies and stuff are like ohh if your bad you wont get into heavn youll go into hell where lil devils will stabb you in the back also im a bad speller so im sry i dont use periods and all that puncuation stuff:thumbsup:

Having the "church" shoved down your throat is quite a turn off.

My personal thought in the "Which God" part was... does it matter what you call one? Wouldnt they answer no matter what name you called them?

Some people call me Sage, they have for years but my parents dont. I answer to many names.

Just a thought.

To the god, I imagine not - to mankind it is the single largest cause of War we have ever known.

another idea if there is a god.( i dont belive in one so dont choke me)
like that sage person said or whatever maby it would anser to differnt names.
maby he will anser to differnt names but you must have tasted the fruit for him to do that pluse if there was a god i would say he hates us all.the fact that alll the things that are going on in the world today.has anyone herd the bush qout wheres hes like god came to me in a dream and said now george you get your troops to invade the terriost countrys and i did? WHAT THE FUCK dosent the whole god scean try and promoto good will to man and stuff? correct me if im wrong but wow/

The funny (or not so funny) thing is most of the religions I read up on when I was trying to find the one that made the most sense to me....

Most all religions have the equivalent to the christian "Thou Shalt Not Kill" rule. What does war do? I dont think I will ever understand people and I am not sure I want to at this point either. :)

Yes, I believe there's a God.

Many religions have distinct historic events which denote some type of central, All-Powerful being. For example, in the Christian and Mayan religions, they both believe that God sent a flood to destroy the inhabitants of the earth. If you take into account that these two religions lived independently of each other for around 1500 years-- On opposite ends of the world, mind you-- It's something worth noting.

Like for example all of the cultures that all believe in the 2012 prophesies?

I only know of one culture (The Mayans) who believe such (Not to say there aren't others, but I don't know of any). Of course, the Mayan's developed a strong case for their beliefs.

My Desktop Background is a picture of a sign I took in India that states The Allah of Islam is the same as the God of Christians and the Iswar of Hindus. If everyone had such understanding I think our world would be a much more peaceful place.

To answer the original question. I do not believe in a god, but I do believe that we all have a spiritual (subconcious?) energy about us.

I have several links if you would like some to read. Feel free to Pm me for them. :)

Kurty I agree with you! Simple understandings would go a very long way!

I'm sure every opinion I could have on the subject has been covered from multiple angles, but here it goes anyway:

First, I don't believe in God, usually claim agnosticism to avoid listening to extremists, and figure that if there is a deity of some kind governing the universe, she goes by the name Lady Luck and rolls dice to decide everything.

Evolution is all but fact. One might argue that evolution could have been guided by a higher power, but I just don't buy it. I think most of us feel a presence, which we like to associate with something more than our singular existence. However, the voice in your head is your subconscious, the feeling you get when you lose yourself in something is Zen, a hardwired aspect of humanity, and mankind is more capable than we like to give ourselves credit for.

I have to agree with Ch'i in saying that anything written over a millenia ago is simply too old to be taken literally. If you like to take the teachings of any religion or faith and respect them for preaching good ways to live, respecting your fellow man, and all that jazz, that's excellent. But don't claim that the reason you shouldn't steal or cheat on your wife or kill a man is because God frowns upon it. The reason you don't do those things is because as a society we need rules to govern ourselves. It's much easier to just tell children that someone even more important than Mommy and Daddy says we shouldn't do these things, so we don't do them. (I apologize if that comes across as condescending.)

The two things I like to cite most in this argument are the words of the remains of a lost deep-scace probe that collided with God in that episode of Futurama, "If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." and the notion that Democritus was known as the "Laughing Philosopher" because he knew that the life of any man, perhaps even all men is less than a blink in the grand scheme of things.

But that's just the opinion of some dumb college kid. :)

I might be wrong, but it seems to me as if most athiests/agnostics rationale for not believing in God is that if they can't prove he exists through rational or scientific means, then he doesn't exist.