do you believe in God?
 

A real quick survey, feel free to elaborate on your view as much as you want, or just put an answer up. Im curious how it stands, this is a site that seems to have an association of being dominated by atheists or the anti-religious, but my feeling is that the majority here believe in God - but we will see

And by "God" I dont mean necessarily Allah, or Jehovah, or Yeshua pr any specific diety... just do you believe in one supreme creator who has power over all things....

and if this is already posted I apologise, but I couldnt see it

No, as I said in an other Thread I see the concept of "god" as highly irrational.
“Religion is an insult to human dignity.”

Good simple question. And rather timely ina weird sort of way.
Interesting how the responses are 50/50 (at least tonight they are)!

PS - My God wants me to be totally happy with life.
Therefore I am glad to be visiting my friends here... :)

Absolutely I believe in a God.

Any specific faith... no, not as such.

But yes, I do believe in God.

My perception of TFP at large was that the majority believed in God, as such, but did not subscribe to any particular religion. Of course, we have a fairly significant compliment of atheists and agnostics, but there are also a number of Christians and assorted believers. 50-50 sounds about right to be.

Wow, no third option for us agnostics?

I neither believe nor disbelieve.

I honestly don't care if God exists or not. The only thing I believe is that you don't need religion to have a good foundation of morals and values to live your life by. Dunno if that makes me agnostic, or actually atheist. I think if God does by some odd chance exist, that he is unnecessary. So yep.

I would point out that you may not get a 'representative sample' of the TFP by posting here on the philosophy board, as this is a board not neccessarily visitied by the majoriity of TFPers (read the threads, you tend to find the same names appearing).

I have a really hard time believing that there is this "man" sitting on a chair with long white hair and a beard waving his staff saying "you're coming up here with me," and "nope, you're headed down there, buster". To simplify the basis for my non-belief. I believe that what you give out to the world will come back to you, but I make my decisions on what I feel is right for me and others around me, not whether it will help me in an after-life. And, again, that's just the simplified version.

i neither believe nor disbelieve...the question of "god" has no particular interest for me.
from within the judeo-christian frame, which i was raised in and which to a certain degree i cannot escape, i think pascal was right---on its own terms, christianity posits a god that human understanding cannot access, cannot know at all. nietzsche, for that matter, was also right in his repetition of pascal.

so it follows that god is simply a noun--a peculiar type of proper noun that does not name but which can be invested in as if it did.

i think the noun exists, as an object and as a peculiar type of proper noun that does not name but which can be invested in as if it did.

The idea of "god" just shifts all the tough questins into a nice box called "faith".

It doesn't actually answer everything.

Bt mainly I do not belive because I have never had an experience that made me believe - nothing I have ever seen or done or heard of has left me feeling that it couldn't have happened as a result of the action of physics, chemistry etc.

I was neither here nor there

bit of an illogical statement, do you not have to naturally fall into one of the camps - since one automatically negates the other and there seems to be room for only a yes or a no answer.

I know I'm going to regret asking this

If I flipped a coin, but didn't show you the result, and then asked you "do you believe that this coin landed heads up?", what would you answer?

How you answer would really comes down to how you interpret the words (as do many 'philosophical' problems). One approach could be:

If I don't believe "the coin landed heads up", then I automatically believe "the coin did not land heads up". Since I have no reason to believe either "the coin landed heads up", nor "the coin did not land heads up", I insist that I neither believe nor disbelieve the statement.

Alternatively:

Just because I don't believe "the coin landed heads up" does not automatically imply that I believe "the coin did not land heads up". Again, I have no reason to believe that "the coin landed heads up", but disbelieving it this time around does not have any 'adverse consequences'. Hence I state outright that I don't believe that "the coin landed heads up" (without necessarily implying that I believe it landed tails up).


I think the latter use of language is clearer, and more closely mirrors logical reasoning ('I do not believe that X' is not equivalent to 'I believe that not X'. But many people would argue along the lines of the former, which also seems acceptable.

well, thats how I looked at it. Either you believe in God, or you dont... whether the lack of belief is a definite belief there is no God, or just that you dont really know... I dont see there is any real middle ground.

I suppose technically, if you aren't sure, then you don't believe, but the implication of answering no in that case, is that it skews the results of the poll. If we have equal numbers of believers, non-believers, and people who aren't sure, and those that aren't sure click no, then it's going to be heavily in favour of the no catagory. In fact, if you repeated this poll with the question "Do you believe there is no god", it would once again say no because of this. I really think it needs another option.

I don't know if this will make sense to anybody else, but I believe in A god, but I don't believe in THE god that is dominant in the world's beliefs today.
I don't believe in a single figure, but I do believe that there must be something governing the world, maybe not a diety, but something. If you look at it a certain way, the laws of physics could be considered a god, they govern the universe, and people certainly place a lot of faith that they will always react a certain way. What more is needed for them to be considered a higher power?

works for me.....heh

I believe that there is God. Only one, and He made the heavens and the earth. I believe that the heavens represent the realm that isn't man, and earth is the realm of man ( not 3rd rock from the star we call Sun ). I don't package that belief up with the label of any specific religion, though I do follow the Ten Commandments, for as a personal belief I choose to believe these are the direct words of God. I don't attend church/synagogue/mosque on a regular basis, in fact it has been over a year, yet I pray almost daily.

cheers
--tenchi

I have been trying to figure out the best way for me to answer this. I cannot. I cannot say "Yes, there is a god" and I don't feel I can say No, either. I have been arguing this with myself for quite some time now. I believe everything happens for a reason, and what comes around goes around. Not sure if that means I believe in a god. Maybe a higher force that encompasses all living creatures, but not one particular "being" in control. Hmmm.. Did I just answer the question without realizing it?

I couldn't agree more, and I know God exists in my life. There is nothing rational about a belief in God, IMO.

yeah i believe.

but sometimes wonder if god has given up and is trying elsewhere.

Zephyr66:

I agree almost on par with what you stated...if there was/is a God, then He was the one that made these rules, IMHO.

If there were no way to ever prove the result one way or the other, then the question "do you believe that this coin landed heads up?" would be one that I could not prove one way or the other and could only answer on faith alone, if there were nothing to suggest to me that it landed heads up I would answer the question "do you believe that this coin landed heads up?" - no,
but I would also answer the question "do you NOT believe that this coin landed heads up?" - no because there would be nothing to suggest it not land heads up.

do you believe in god? - no
do you not believe in god? - no

are not contradictory, so you can answer "no" to this poll, however Zyr is right and it means that the "no" will also mean "don't know"

I think some people get angrier with agnostics than with out and out atheists.

The agnostic has simply not come to any conclusions yet; the atheist and the believer have, for those having trouble with the concept.

Yeah, this was pretty much the point I was making. But I was also showing that people often do not use language in this sense, but rather in the sense described in the first example. E.G. take the common phrase "I don't believe it!". Hence the reason for the confusion about the poll.

No, I do not believe in "God". Not the god that is presented to me in the Holy Bible, anyway. I believe that God is a well perpetuated myth. Just as Ra, Anubis, Brigit, Morrigan, Odin, Tyr, Zeus, Apollo, Quetzlcoatl and Inti were all myths. I have yet to be presented with credible evidence to convince me otherwise.

Reminds me of a quote from Richard Dawkins:

"Modern theists might acknowledge that, when it comes to Baal and the Golden Calf, Thor and Wotan, Poseidon and Apollo, Mithras and Ammon Ra, they are actually atheists. We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

Same here.

Yes. I am blessed beyond belief :)

It seems logical to assume that something doesn't spring out of nothing but if there wasn't something how could one define nothing. If there is a god, what was here before it and does it have a creator as well. This stuff just doesn't make sense and we are (or at least I am) too ignorant and need to know a lot more about our existence and this universe before assigning responsibilty to a god.

I suspect that if there is such a thing as god that it is probably not one of the desert gods from the middle east, but who knows, maybe there is some truth in all of the world's religions since we seem so determined to want to believe in one. I left the poll unanswered which means none of the above.

You cannot conclude decisively on a matter in which there is no evidentiary proof for either side. It makes far more sense to avoid making a judgement until further evidence is presented, since this is not excactly a time-critical decision. People only make decisions based on airy assumptions when they're rushed or they are under the delusion that the assumption is correct. I choose rather to avoid assuming at all, and wait for accurate evidence to be presented. If no evidence ever comes forward (I presume none ever will) then it's no "skin off my balls" because I know that among many who jumped to conclusions, I never made a rash assumption and chose a side. Effectively, I'm never wrong; whereas if there is a God, atheists are wrong, and in God's absense, theists are wrong.

That's what jumping to conslusions based on assumptions gets you; the chance to be wrong. And in this case, 50% chance to be wrong is pretty bad. Wait for better odds.

If the Atheist is wrong he goes to hell. If the theist is wrong nothing happens. If the Atheist is right nothing happens. If the theist is right he goes to heaven.

Are you agnostic about the existence of teapots orbitting jupiter? I mean, there's no solid evidence against such a thing. Right?

Quite a while ago, I started the following thread on a somewhat related topic: CSflim's Wager

The argument is also known as Pascal's Wager (or a variant of it). Just talked about this today over breakfast.

Holy shit, 59.5% don't believe in God?

What do you guys think?

Is it suddenly cool to not believe in God? Did I miss a meeting? You folks think it is an empowerment thing?

My faith in humanity is a little shaken, looking at the poll results. I need to go read the responses now.

I think age is a good predictor of the results. I'd like to see a poll like the one above, but broken down by age as well. I'm one of the old farts.

Yes. It's true. All I ever wanted was to be one of the cool kids.

You didn't read my thread ;)

I did, and I liked it! I mentioned it for the sake of those who don't have the time. As think about it, most of the people reading in Philosophy definitely have the time :)

Is it cool to train your brain so it believs in the barking mad and you become a religious person?
I think I look at religious people with the same suspicion that you look at atheists.

Some religious people would think YOU are the one who believes in the barking mad - a world without a God. What you consider "Barking mad" is highly subjective, depending what side of the fence you're speaking from.

Just saying!

There is something comforting in the logic of hedging your bets.
Of course the theist still has to choose the right religion or they may wind up in hell with the rest of us fence sitters.

Maybe we should embrace them all, then when we die and if we find out which is the true god, we can say "I was a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan who also believed in all of mankinds ancient religions. Me and you God, I was with you all the way." :)

If God existed, and futhermore was the type of being that was impressed by this thoroughly cynical 'believe-just-in-case-of-punishment' attitude, then he is so petty and small minded, that I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.

I take it that you are not impressed with the "worship me or I will send you to suffer in hell for all eternity" type attitude. :)

I was baptized as baby but my parents never took me to church, the only things I heard about God were little things my grandmother would say like “judge not ye be judged” and “the lord smiles upon you” and similar phrases. I grew up believing in God and Jesus Christ. I felt as my faith was born into me. I’ve been told that in baptism it is the Holy Spirit that entered me. I guess that’s it since I have no basis as to explain my strong faith.
As an adult I took a conformation class and belong to a church. I love going when I can; it gives me great comfort to take Holy Communion. I don’t judge people that don’t believe or that believe differently, that’s not my place. I’m not a debater so I won’t get into heated discussions; everyone has the right to believe what they want.

YES I DO BELIEVE IN GOD

Absolutely I believe in God. I just think that the problem with a perfect God is when any imperfect man tried to interpret him. Organized religion will be the fall of all faith.

Actually, Antikarma, that's one of the reasons I think that organized religion is essential. Yes, one of the problems is that we are imperfect, so our understanding will always fall short in trying to understand a perfect God. But it doesn't seem like the answer is to disdain organized religion. Surely trying to understand God on our own is going to be much more problematic than trying to understand Him in a group. In a group, we can all work to improve each other's understanding of God; within a tradition, we can draw on the understanding of wise and intelligent people who have come before us. On our own, we're limited to our own understanding, and so much more likely to be unjustly influenced by our own biases.

IMHO, the single greatest downfall of humanity is the notion that "God" is a separate entity from us.

I think that organized religion is the embodiment of our spiritual desires to seek God, but also the embodiment of all of our human corruptions as well. Organized religion isn't an oasis from all of our imperfections -- it's a collection of imperfect people seeking God in the imperfect world.

Faith sustains religion, not the other way around.

What does everyone think about Anselm's ontological argument? For some reason my brain can't wrap itself around the idea that the assumption that God does not exist leads to a logical contradiction.

My Philosophy professor provided the class with some objections Anselm's argument and demonstrated how each one of them failed (or would fail). I can't really get my brain around that either, it takes me awhile to collect my thoughts. I'm assuming that if you know about Anselm's argument, you know the objections. I might post my prof's examples a little later.

What does everyone think? I understand that Anselm's argument is preaching to the choir in a way, but some of it just seems to be begging the question.

believe... and have always considered Pascal's wager as an important rational support...I have lost little if I am wrong and have gained much if I am right.

I don't believe in "god."
I don't not believe in "god."

It doesn't matter to me one way or another if there is or was.

How's this: I don't believe in any of the gods that I have been presented with thus far. If anything, I believe in the Earth and the Stars and the Moon and the Wind and the Rain.

Oh.. one supreme creator? Hmmmmm... well, I guess that I don't, given that definition. But I did put "Yes". Have always felt that there was someone up there that loves me and to whom I should be grateful, but I'm not about to rule out the possibility of multiple dieties or a complete lack of diety and merely the presence of angels working for our good. Dunno. Definitely feel there is something more mighty than me going on.

I'm surprised that nobody's quoted Marx yet. Or Nietzche, for that matter.

I do have an observation to make, as well : sportswidow (unintentionally, I assume) reversed an old maxim by saying "what comes around goes around" instead of the commonly accepted "what goes around comes around". I kind of like it; the idea that you give what you get, rather than you get what you give. Of course, I've always figured one leads to the other, so it makes no difference to me.

If you want to know my personal beliefs, I am a strong agnostic, which means I hold central to all of my beliefs and decisions that not only do we not know what's ultimately out there, we cannot know. The knowledge you seek is impossible to find. This leaves one with two options; one may posit that in the absence of knowledge, faith takes over (and therefore believe) or one may, as I have done, conclude that the ultimate answer will present itself in due course once I've left this mortal realm, accept that the understanding of it is beyond my limited reach at the moment and move on with my life accordingly. Do I believe in God? No, not as such. I do believe that there is a strong possibility of some form of divine creator, be he God or Zeus or one of the African deities known only to some small Amazonian tribe. What form such a being would take and indeed if such a being ultimately exists is not for me to decide.

I don't begrudge those who believe their faith; please don't begrudge me my lack of it, whatever that may net me in the end.

"This eternal accusation against Christianity I shall write upon all walls, wherever walls are to be found - I have letters that even the blind will be able to see... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough, - I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race..."

-Nietzsche


Although I don't have a problem with people who do believe in god, I have an extreme dislike for the way some people interpret their religion. I don't believe in god, and if someone threatens me with their gods punishment, I don't like them. Religion and personal beliefs shouldn't be about what happens to people who don't follow god's every word, religion should serve to help people make better decisions for themselves and towards other living things. Sadly, I see myself following the important rules of religions more closely than most religious people I see do. I see far too many people treating religion and their god's forgiveness as an excuse to be able to do wrong, yet I just don't do many things they consider sinful in the first place, and I don't hurt myself or other people.

Many people don’t know that Nietzsche was a very religious person. He was the son of a priest and also his writing style in “Also sprach Zarathustra” is very similar to that of the bible.

For me is the best option to be an agnostic.

How sympathetic Nietzsche is to religion depends on what point in his life you're looking at. He was religious as a child, but dropped it fairly early. But he wasn't nearly as antagonistic towards Christianity in his early works as he ended up -- even The Gay Science has some good things to say about religious people. Of course, the question as with any interpretation of the later works is how much they are affected by his growing mental instability. In any case, see my signature quote for Nietzsche giving a positive reading to at least a couple important elements of Christianity.

simple.....i dont kno

i was raised in an extremely religious household... spawned right in the middle of the 'bible belt'.
like so many, the indoctrination started very young. i had religion force-fed to me while strapped into my highchair. ;)

as i got old enough to form critical thoughts of my own, i began questioning everything. neither my parents, my sunday school teachers, nor my pastor could really answer my questions, and people began to get really alarmed by this... ending up causing me a lot of grief throughout my childhood.
when i was about 13, i started studying other religions... which later led to my studying the evolution of religions, themselves.

the things i learned through this, coupled with what i learned through studying science, the geologic columns, the regurgitation or retelling of many of the same myths throughout different religions, etc. all led me to not believing in a god.

however the fear (of hell, getting 'left behind' behind to experience the horrors of revelations, etc.) that had been, literally, programmed in me from the time i was a little girl was much harder to shake.
it came down to a dream.
i dreamt i was in an airplane that was going down. in the dream i cried out asking god, if he did exist, to forgive me my sins and 'come into my heart'- you know the rhetoric. this disturbed me, upon waking up.
i felt like a hypocrite... holding on to this possibity of last-minute salvation, 'just in case'.
that is NOT how i live my life. i am very much a blatantly honest 'what you see is what you get' type of person.
so i did some more research, and came away more certain than ever.
i no longer have that little "what if" fear in the back of my head controlling me.

Thanks for posting your story, red0blivia. I've known quite a few people with similar stories to tell. It's really a form of child abuse, even though the parents and religious leaders usually have the best intentions.
I also know it takes a lot of inner strength to get past something like that, so you are definitely to be congratulated for making it.

I dont believe in god but... if there is a god its his/her/its fault i dont believe in it if they are the all powerful being that made everything they made me as well and made the way i think. Im more then willing to start believing in a god but if there was one i would expect them to show up and say hello every now and then. untill then i dont.

No. I believe in myself instead.

I also do not believe in Santa Claus, 9/11 conspiracies, or spontaneous human combustion.

I believe in God, but at times it is hard to believe in humans. I am Christian by faith, but many times I do not agree with what the people that walk in its faith believe. God placed rules with his covenant, and then realized that people were falling in to sin with no way to recover and being exiled by the lord’s covenant. So then the lord sent his son as a sacrifice to save those not born in his covenant. This destroyed judgment from people and left it only for god to perform. Yet to this day people still judge and act out against people that appear to be against what the Old Testament established. My belief comes from experience; I feel that even with all the evidence against god I feel him in my life. I see this the most when I view people when sitting around or taking the bus; it’s like a mist traveling through the sky.

No, I don't believe in god but I have nothing against people believing in it if they think it actually helping them... I respect all beliefs...

Also in my opinion religion is mainly for people in fear... fear of the unknow... fear of not knowing where we come from... fear of death...

I believe the notion of God, Heaven and Hell, the Bible, and all of that was created thousands of years ago by men in power to control the general population. Sure laws work, but eternal damnation works better. I bet if there was a after life they would be laughing their asses off, seeing so many years later that so many people still believe it.

Yeah, I too am a Pascal's Wager kind of guy.

But it's always seemed sort of paradoxical to me (given that you subscribe completely to it). I mean if you do believe in God due to the Wager, then that means if God does exist, and he is omnipotent (pretty much a given with his existence), then he's gonna know what you're really thinking, so it negates the whole point, in a way.

I dunno, it's just one of those things.

I prefer Sir Stephen Henry Roberts:

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer God than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible Gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

While I do not believe there is a god, I also do not believe there is no god. To put it more clearly, I have not seen anything that would give me cause to believe in a god, but I also have not seen anything that excludes the possibility that there may be a god.

I don't buy into Pascal's Wager because of the existence of multiple religions. If a god can accept being worshipped incorrectly then it should be able to accept not being worshipped at all. If not, if this god would condemn an otherwise good person for not following any religion at all, it's not really a god I would want to spend eternity with. Shallow people suck, even if they're omnipotent.

no agnostic option? come on!

No god. I do, however, believe in Nancy.


;)

But belief does not guarantee entry, nor is God necessarily tied to notions of "Heaven" or "Hell." Statistically, these Christian spheres of punishment and reward are in the minority of global religious thought.

But to answer the question: I don't believe in a humanized entity. I don't think there's an over-arching identity that created the cosmos. I believe the universe is the result of an opposing reaction to void.

That is not to say that we couldn't have creatures whose science, and understanding of the mind, transcend the limited sensory organs and higher brain fuctions of Man. Like Arthur C. Clarke once said, anthing sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. A species could eventually make itself god-like, and perhaps it already has. In a world that prompts more questions than it answers, we could have been created by this superpowerful race, then monitored. Or forgotten. Or monitored for a while, then forgotten.

That's a long way of saying that I think the popularly accepted notion of God is simplistic and absolute. I find the notion of a transcended species to be much more interesting.

Awesome answer.

To me, God is perfect. He sat down one day, and made a set of rules. He is not bound by them, but we are.

Physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology. Every element of science.

He (the royal He... I don't think of God being sexual) knew when he created the rules what the outcome would be. The planets, the environment. When He created the first spark of life, He could see the evolutionary process, He could see history in every second, from every angle.

And He saw that it was good.

Not good at every angle. Not good at every moment. There was pain. There was suffering. People would believe in Him, others wouldn't. People would commit crimes in His name. Others would be perfect creatures, yet never come to terms that He was responsible for the whole show. This did not bother Him. God took everything into account, and gave it His blessing.

Now, some folks came around and started talking about rules of humanity. They looked around and realized that order had to be established for the human race to prosper. People wouldn't listen to reason, no matter how often and how hard the rule makers tried to tell them. This left them in a sticky situation:

To establish order, people created a set of punishments that would befall every transgression, and a short list of rewards for obediance. You do well? You will be rewarded. You do bad? You will be punished.
Humans set these rules in place; Yet they were allowed to, because if these rules were to set everything off-balance, God would not have set things in motion. God saw everything, and judged the work as a whole.

Now the rewards were very sketchy. You get to go to heaven. If people could really sell it properly, it can sound like the best reward EVER. A reward so good that it will affect the way you behave, for the rest of your life.

The punishments were more on scale. Small crime equalled small punishment, while the big ones were really bad, and written down. These crimes were thought to be so severe that death could be the reward, and even then the folks thought of a deterrent. You didn't get to go to heaven. You were cast out, and sent to an evil place of pain and suffering.

God didn't write this stuff down. People did. God gave people free will. They can do whatever they want. He (and only he) knows what you are going to do.

As far as the Heaven and Hell debate, I don't know. I don't believe in it in the traditional religious sense. I even left out religion when telling my view. You can insert Christianity, Bhuddism, Muslim, Taoism, and Animalistic religions into my telling. You can look at it as an agnostic, and still understand my view. It stands up to each individual religion. It embraces all of them. It embraces scientific theory. Evolution is allowed.

I don't believe in God. For some time this was something that concerned me because I thought it was a sign that I was arrogant or immature. I decided I would give it a shot. Partly it was due to the fact the girl's family I was in love with at the time where extremely big on church, partly I just wanted to prove to myself that not believing in God was the right path for me. In the end for lots of reasons no matter how hard I tried it just seemed to me far too obvious that the Bible was written by people and that it was all an effort to overcome insecurities and influence one another (albeit in a mostly positive way).

One such moment came to me when a missionary spoke to our church and told us how he had been in Cambodia spreading the faith. He spoke of people so poor that they didn't have clean drinking water yet now because of his mission they believed in God and would be saved. I felt sick and I had to go for a long walk alone because I just found it hard to stomache that with the bigger problems the world is facing right now, like overcrowding, a significant if not majority of the population are actively doing nothing to help because they believe God will save them.

Another incident occured when we were sitting up the top of the church in a special area for singers. I was sitting up there with my girlfriend at the time because she was a classically trained singer. We had to fill out a survey by the Church about whether we believed in God and how old we were and so forth, and while we were filling it out one of the old ladies next to me confided in me that she was dying soon but that was she happy because she was going to meet the lord. I didn't know what to say - I struggle with empathy at the best of times and my brain cannot imagine being that deep into religion. Even now years later I don't understand this at all. How do you get through life where you need to make complex decisions and doubt your own logic every day and yet believe something you read in a book?

The final incident was at high school when a religion friend said to me that Jesus was a better person than me and that I sin every day. I said to him that I had never done anything to hurt him and that the times I had hurt other people I was really very sorry, I always try and be a good person and if I have failed simply by being human then I don't really consider that failing at all. I believe that being the best person that you can be qualifies you for being a good person and I only judge myself for that which I can control. I am colourblind and have trouble seeing the difference between the red balls and the brown balls on a snooker table, yet sometimes being colourblind allows you to differentiate some colours more easily than people with common sight and sometimes it can be an advantage (for more info look up colourblind soldiers in vietnam). In the same way, sinning everyday and being imperfect give me a better chance at perfection than Jesus ever had. He was a mean persecuted by his own perfection, yet I am a man attempting everyday to overcome my imperfections.

In short I made my peace with God by accepting that a truly loving God who loves me for how he created me will accept that I have chosen to accept that he may or may not exist, and in the form the bible presents almost certainly does not. I cannot stress that it is against everything I stand for to believe without conviction and I am highly distrusting, so either (A) God doesn't exist, (B) God made me wrong/I haven't yet found my true power to believe in things that are all around me or (C) God does exist but accepts that I don't believe in me and loves me anyway. Regardless people of faith have no right to judge me because either way this is really between God and myself.

Thanks for reading :)

My problem with religion is having to worship a person/place/thing.... who created God?

Until someone can explain that to me, I will remain quite content believing in my own spirituality and beliefs (a combination of Buddhism, Christianity, Lennonism and whatever else I learn along the way, that betters my life and how I treat others).

Yeah I was shocked to, but then I remembered this was Tilted Philosophy.:thumbsup:

I believe in "god" the question is what name do I call said diety?

I care not what any one person follows as a belief structure so long as that person lives by the golden rules of said belief structure.

It matters not to me who you worship or if you pray to the god of spork!
Kudos to anyone and everyone who adheres to their personal beliefs even in times of adversity and Kudos to the person who does not try to force their beliefs on anyone and...
KUDOS KUDOS KUDOS to those who can accept everyone as they are in a semi-zen kinda way!

i believe that there is more than what there appears to be, and that consciousness or personality has something to do with it, but that it is mind bogglingly complex and much harder to understand and more fitting and mystical and other things than a dude with magic powers

I have looked at this thread many times, and I have never been able to answer the poll. I feel I would betray myself if I did choose one or the other.

Perhaps that makes me an agnostic, I don't know... but I still feel connected to "god," the oversoul, what-have-you. I have a complex spiritual view, however... hard to explain here. It involved asymptotes... humanity always attempting to reach the axes, the absolute, but never actually able to do so. And yet, there exists an anchor within the veil that separates us from Truth... but so many of us deny its existence. I don't know the place of "god" in this worldview... but I don't have much reason to exclude god from the picture, either. Why would I choose to be so violent and exclusive in my own vision of the world, when I cannot tolerate the same actions in other religious views?

As an anthropologist, I cannot believe that my view is the only correct one... nor can I judge those whose views differ from mine. To me, there is no harm in simply believing in "god," and in fact, there is often a great deal of benefit to nurturing one's spiritual life (see numerous sociological studies, even those published in peer-reviewed journals). There is also no harm in *not* believing in god... so long as one nurtures the life of the spirit, I believe, and does not harm others or the self.

In any case, I was rather the opposite of redOblivia, in that I was raised as a good non-believer (with smatterings of Theravada Buddhism and Catholicism), but became a Christian at age 14. From then until I was about 22, I was a hard-core evangelical. This faith was never forced on me. I always chose it for myself; in fact, my parents actually converted because I took them to church, and not the other way around (we are talking about people in their 40's and 50's, here). I chose to attend an evangelical university, and I threw myself into those years with a great passion. Nothing would have turned me away from the Lord, I thought (and so did my friends, and parents)... unless I myself would choose to walk away.

Which I did, with great resistance in myself. Having taken in and swallowed evangelical Christianity throughout my teen/college years, I believed that to stray from the path was to give in to temptation, the corrupted self, and evil itself. It took many years of reverse brainwashing and reading of all kinds of scholarly thought, as well as simply allowing myself to *think* and *feel* and even pray and ask God for guidance, to grow out of that stage in my life. It was a natural evolution. I still value that time very much in my life, especially the degree to which I was able to immerse myself so fully in something... I really came to know it inside and out, something I have not been able to do since. But I would never go back.

And it's not that I've become an atheist, other than perhaps intellectually... but in my soul, I can never be an atheist. As many others have said here, there is just too much going on for it to be all about me, all about what's right in front of us. And yet... there is heaven, right there. Right in front of us, in the present, and simultaneously includes us while being a great deal bigger than us or our comprehension of it. In the words of William Blake: there's a world in grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower. Heaven is all around us, existing in each moment of the good life. Hell exists when we hurt one another. Do we need any more motivation to treat each other well?

If there's a god for me, it's that one... the god of Now, of the present. I don't mean to promote hedonism; maybe secular humanism is closer. I cannot believe in an afterlife of heaven and hell, or any kind of punishment-based system. If there is anything after death, I believe it will be more of an energy shift, from our humanly body into that of the earth or the universe at large. Perhaps without consciousness, or perhaps with. But it cannot matter right now, because all we have is the present. My god is the one I find here, now, today in front of me.

I believe someone out there doesn't have to play by the rules. I believe I am far too awesome to cease to exist when I die. I consider myself a Christian (I believe in Jesus and all that) but accept the possiblity that when you have faith, you can be wrong.

And really, I'd be much more comfortable with Christianity if Jesus wasn't involved. :)

i can not say i think that we (as people or the things we evolved from) just one day appeared. i think there was one Being that created us all. i don't believe in one specific faith, but i believe that all faiths are worshipping the same Being. but us, the thinking beings we are, have broken that Being down into many different ideas, parts, and faiths; leading to many different churches.

that i can laugh at that becuase i understand, we may have traveled different roads, but we have stopped at the same bench

I absolutley beleive in God. My rational does not come from being force fed relegion but rather this: Life is too complex and intertwined to simply be a collection of coincidences.

It's kind of ironic, but I don't believe in God for the same reason you do. I feel that life is too complex and intertwined to simply be explained by (the Christian) God. For me randomness and chance provide a better explanation.

Brings to mind something I heard once, can't remember where.

"It takes just as much faith to believe in a thing as to Not believe in a thing"
--Unknown

We have no proof either way and defining my life based on a list of morals set down thousands of years ago just doesn't seem like a good way to go. I'll live my life the way I feel like it should be lived and should there be a god I'm hoping he likes my decisions. ^_^

To me, God left. He come, made a world, wacthed over it for a few thousand years, and like when the baby bird must leave the nest to find it's place in the world, it's our turn too. Maybe God(s) are off on other projects, or on vacation, but it's time to find our place out here.

No.

I honestly can't think why one would. I can't understand "blind faith". If God existed, why would he/she let so much injustice in the world occur? I respect religion, and I attend Mass with my wife and new baby due to that respect, but I have no faith myself. I simply don't understand how and why anyone would have.

It's a pity really. I'm not looking forward to dying, but that's life (if you'll pardon the pun).


Mr Mephisto

I believe God exists in exactly the same way that all other abtsract concepts exist . . . . . . like love, hate, jealousy, luck etc etc. but rather than split hairs I ticked 'no' in keeping with the presumed spirit of the question.

Even people who do believe in god dont actually believe God 'physically' exists . . . . . . . . . its like believing the earth is flat or the world is only 100,000 years old!

I do believe god exists. There are too many things out there that can't be explained by the sciences.

Such as? (Not trying to pick a fight, just curious)

No, I don't believe in God. I have no problems with people that do however.

I have heard this said before but I never quite follow the logic. If something cant be explained then it cant be explained. I dont think human beings should fear the unexplained and seek to invent explanation. Its a denial of our limitations.

MINCKEN
 

NO
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

Wow. There is a "Do you believe in God" thread that I haven't posted in?!

No I do not believe in God. Or rather I don't need to believe in God. This is how I think of it.

There are people who wish to end their pursuit of knowledge with an answer and those who are fine ending their quest with a question.

See, God gives you an answer, but even religious people know that you can keep asking questions. They simply choose to end things there and have "faith" that their answer is the only one they need.

I am perfectly happy ending my quest for knowledge with a question. Anotherwords I don't mind leaving things un-explained. Infact I can't imagine living in a world were everything was neatly wrapped up and understood.

Sure...I believe in God.....Just not "Your" God

I couldnt answer; because I cant say for sure one way or the other. I don't believe the Bible, Koran, or anything else written by men that dictate control through force and fear.

So much of science makes sense, but offers little comfort. When I try and think about what was before time, and what lies beyond the boundries of the expanding universe, I feel there maybe something higher than all of us.

I guess the best statement I can make is I want to believe in God.

I don't believe in God. Why? I can't see him. If he brings me a case of beer I might change my mind.

Seeing is believing folks. With the exception of photoshopped images.

I think the intelligence of the audience is also a good predictor of the results. Not to say all religious people are stupid, but in general most strongly religious people are somewhat less intellient that most atheists.

By placing the poll on a forum like this one, you are presenting it to quite a sophisticated, educated audience. If you were to apply the same poll to the general public, you would find around two thirds would believe in god.

I find it improbable that the authors of ancient holy written word, such as the Bible, Koran, or Dharma, were infallible. So I will always be open minded to personal vindication of his existence, and I believe he is very different from the way he is commonly described.

I do believe in God, but think he exists in a way I won't expect.