God - do you believe?

[aimlessgun]

I'm not sure what the question even means, to be honest. What the hell is 'god' anyways.

[Sci-2]

I'm confused by the "God has a plan for you" and "Whatever you need to be a better person" answer ->

If someone believes in religion X, do they end up in better place than those that don't? Because I know plenty of people in religions X, Y, and Z who deserve worse than many atheists I know.

[Elder Sister]

Yes, I believe in God.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Eponine,

I love mushrooms sauted in butter.

That said, I do see your point.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

If you ridicule someone who has an imaginary friend, you could ridicule religious people, but truly, it's a childish reaction, and their belief doesn't define who they are, it's just a part, an hopefully small one.

More often than that.

Well for one I don't think imaginary friends are something to be ridiculed about. maybe some from of action is needed if the imaginary friend is in some way harmful. for that matter my Grandfather died when I was seven, Infact the day he died he walked me and my brother home from school but didn't come in the house when Mum told us he had died. In fact I still occassionally see him today. I don't really care if he's just a figmant of my imagination, and my need to remember him, or if its really him. He's real enough to me and has been a great comfort in times of need.

But I do kindof get your point about "god" possibly being an imaginary friend, but then you need to define what God is. If God is not something the person see's or hear's then they are not imagining him, just chosing to believe in him.

edit

I agree wth Eponie We really do need to know Scott's views on Mushrooms. I mean he claimed earlier that he has never knowingly partaken any weed, but what about mushrooms?

[Datepalm]

Nope. I don't even have a story or a journey or whatever. I never believed in god like I never believed in Santa Claus - I knew some people did, but it was both obviously not true and a bit...someone elses culture. I wasn't raised by rabid atheists or anything either. I don't remember having any conversations about religeon with my parents as a kid, actually - I just never developed that particular curiousity at all, apparently.

[Darth Visenya]

Mushrooms are the real spawn of evil, they are disgusting.

[Nas!]

In a linguistic sense, yes.

In any other sense, I have reconciled myself with the inextricable mystery and just try to get on with things.

[Lord Toblerone]

I'm not a fan of religion.

I hate when kids are forced into being a Christian or Catholic or whatever when they are too young to know where they stand on the matter. That is the only reason why religion exists today, if everyone wasn't born a Muslim, Christian or whatever and made up their own mind what to believe they would look at the evidence and realise a supernatural power controlling us is very unlikely.

Without religion there would be no, Catholic - Protestant conflict, no Hindu - Muslim , Jew - muslim, Isreal - Iran and no Christians vs muslims. For good people to do bad things you need religion.

I also hate how Religion makes it seem like people are different, we're special and go to heaven. We're all animals and actually 70% identical to plants - do they have an after life too? No, they rot just like we do. It's also one of the reasons how people instead of holding the planet sacred hold their bible or god sacred.

Like we're on this planet and from all the millions of universes, and planets and, solar systems and stars - we're just far enough from the son with the right properties to support life - so a cell formed then divided and from evolution here we are. Yet somehow that's less amazing, despite science and overwhelming evidence you believe in magic. It's god that created all of this as part of a plan - i'll believe in god and miracles when i see one...

Years ago when no one knew any better i bet someone asked the question 'why are we here' and the only logical answer was that a higher power created you and put you here. But now we know better - it's evolution by natural selection - so religion should surely be forgotten as is happening in some countries.

I just think that some people waste their lives believing they will have an eternity in some sort of afterlife as written down by some ancient scribblings, plus even worse when they kill in the name of religion it's unbelievable the odds of you being alive is like however many billion to one and that's taken away because of this mad belief.

Great things can happen because of religion i know, i accept that people because of a belief in god stand by their morals - go to church and think how they can help less fortunate people than themselves. That's good but i just believe the negatives overwhelmingly outway the positives.

I do not like the fact that SOME religions and religious people assume that morals and ethics and living a good, honest and fair life has a direct correlation to religion. I live by all those means due to a conscience nothing to do with a belief in God. I also believe the theory that 'be good to others and good will happen to you' but relate this to simple psychology rather than the intervention of a deity.

I'm more comfortable describing myself as atheist than I was a few years ago. I'd philosophically accept a possibility for a cosmic clockmaker type God, a being that transcends the universe who set it into motion, because even if evidence for such a being existed, how would we recognise it? But I don't think that's necessary or desirable.

I reject completely any notion that the human imagination has a window on the true nature of reality. All the big guys in the sky we invented are just that, inventions.

Yes, I believe in God and consider myself a Christian. Like Ser Scot said, if you don't that's fine. Maybe one day you'll change your mind and see things differently. That's what happened with me.

Were you raised with a lot/a little religion?

You drifted away and came back, right? Did you ever think of yourself as atheist, or just agnostic?

Personally, I was raised a Catholic, and it gradually made less sense to me, to the point where I simply didn't feel any need for it anymore.

I'm interested in this stuff a little bit, religious people becoming atheists and vice versa.

I would think that it depends on the definition of "bad things". Whoever wrote that piece probably would argue that either they were fueled by a "religion" or that they were not bad. (the great leap forward being "bad" is actually not a consensual opinion, nevermind on the same level as a genocide, by the way. Your anti-communist american kneejerk is showing :P)

Steven Weinberg: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg

I'm deeply dubious on the notion that all that separates us from Utopia is religion. Makes less sense to me than religion in fact.

[sologdin]

so, mushroom god is either zuggtmoy or psilocybin. which is it? scot? ep?

[Errant Bard]

I agree wth Eponie We really do need to know Scott's views on Mushrooms. I mean he claimed earlier that he has never knowingly partaken any weed, but what about mushrooms?

Truly, opinions on what someone likes to consume is more important than religious beliefs. I mean, we eat more often than we die.

... and someone who doesn't like mushroom is a culinary heathen as far as I am concerned, it's a most grievous sin.

Also, seems to me that amanitin, phalloidin and phallolysine and what bring you close to god the fastest. If you believe.

[Sci-2]

so, mushroom god is either zuggtmoy or psilocybin. which is it? scot? ep?

You forgot Psilofyr, god of mycanoids. Still, props for the Zuggtmoy ref!

[MisterOJ]

Were you raised with a lot/a little religion?

You drifted away and came back, right? Did you ever think of yourself as atheist, or just agnostic?

Personally, I was raised a Catholic, and it gradually made less sense to me, to the point where I simply didn't feel any need for it anymore.

I'm interested in this stuff a little bit, religious people becoming atheists and vice versa.

I'd say I was raised with a "moderate" amount of religion. We went to church most Sunday morning. Never went to Sunday night or Wednesday night services though. We took part in the "social" aspect of the church when I was a kid - Halloween parties, Christmas plays, VBS, that sort of thing.

But once we left the church, that was pretty much the end of my "religion" for the week. It was rarely, if ever, discussed at home. I was never pressured by anyone in my family to "get saved" or anything like that.

I believed most of what the church was selling when I was a kid, then I started questioning things when I was in college. And then went through pretty much all of my 20s as an agnostic. I'd say that by the time I reached 30 or so, I was pretty much a full-blown atheist. I didn't believe in God. Thought Christians were silly, misguided fools and whatnot.

So, yeah, I was an atheist. I totally didn't believe in a God. But, I eventually came around. I'm glad I did. And I really believe that God had this in mind for me all along.

[Nas!]

so, mushroom god is either zuggtmoy or psilocybin. which is it? scot? ep?

Yin and yang, perhaps?

[Rolex Baratheon]

To summarize a whole jumble of random thoughts, I believe in God because I believe that we do not have everything in existence figured out and I believe there's a lot of stuff within us humans that science cannot explain. Like emotions and all that (not just a couple of neurons firing off, need deeper explanations than that).

God resides in that area of doubt, I say. Again its hard to put into words.

[Scion of Valyria]

I believe everyone has their own path they have to walk. It's not up to me to decide what that path is. I believe that God has already laid that path out. And who am I to argue with God's plan for you? You'll wind up wherever it is you need to be in the end.

I understand that you don't mean any harm or offense by this, but certainly you could see why some more...staunch non-believers might have a negative knee jerk reaction to it, particularly coupled with the "change your mind" comment earlier.

Myself, I was raised in a Catholic household, but that just meant that my dad brought us to Church at seven o clock on Sundays up until the age of seven or eight, at which point I rebelled because there were no cartoons being projected onto the altar and thus I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. I went to a parochial school, so we had religion classes, but that always devolved into storytime as I read the awesome stories of the Old Testament complete with lovely illustrations. I remember a lot of the creation stuff seeming silly, along with the invisible person in the sky thing and that evolved into an atheism-lite mindset which I maintain now.

It is weird though, how lasting some of those lessons and feelings can be. I love Christmas, for example. Not just because the whole atmosphere is awesome, what with the snow and neat trees and delicious winter drinks. There's definitely an allure to the story of the Birth of Christ that I really get into around that time. Salvation, everythings going to be okay, all that. I don't believe it, but it certainly resonates with me (especially in Christmas songs, like the Little Drummer Boy or God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen) during December. That dries up around New Years Eve. Perhaps I'd feel the same if we were celebrating the birth of Frodo Baggins or King Arthur.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Alright i changed it to 'some' there are countless religious people i admire like MLK and Newton!

If everyone grew up natural then and looked at the evidence so took a rational decision i think Religious people would be in the minority. But the fact is that this doesn't happen and in America 80% of people are Christian and half of them don't believe evolution should be taught. It is almost impossible for an atheist or not believer to get elected into any form of politics

I don't.

That being said, I don't think you can cherry-pick religion to be the thing that makes good people do bad things. I mean, people will use anything under the sun as a pretext to do something 'bad.' Like money, fame, love, jealousy, wombats.

I do think it's really entertaining to talk to hard-core atheists or anyone that's really overly enthusiastic about their religion or lack of religion. I know it's kind of fucked up but I like to listen to them get all worked up.

See, I do bad things for entertainment purposes.

[Kairi]

This reminds me of a class discussion about Marx's statement on religion being the opiate of the masses. Yes I do believe in God but I also believe evolution to be true. And while I will concede that I may be a bit confused I know I am not a creationist. I just haven't worked out the details of the link between the two. Yet.

[polishgenius]

Yeah, I believe in God.

Years ago when no one knew any better i bet someone asked the question 'why are we here' and the only logical answer was that a higher power created you and put you here. But now we know better - it's evolution by natural selection -

That's the 'how', not the 'why'. Of course, it doesn't follow that we need a why, but it's also only a very small part of the how. Unless you can tell me where the Universe came from.

[Mexal]

I don't know.

:agree: