Why I believe in God?

[MarkBastable]

God does not want us to suffer, but he must let us have our own free agency (right to make independent choices) in order for us to become more perfect beings. All of the terrible things that have happened have happened because of human error, and that's okay. When we as humans go through things that are difficult, we have a responsibility to grow from those diversities. It is like a refining fire, we are tossed and turned and burned so that we can become more like God. When a couple goes through tough times, and they try to correct their mistakes and solve their problem, their relationship gets stronger. When natural disasters happen, others rush in and try to help and serve those who have been affected, those people involved can become more like Christ in his perfectness. When someone close to you dies, you have the chance to realize how precious life is. We are on Earth to learn and grow and to be tested. What determines our happiness is how we decide to respond to the trials that are put in our way, will you become bitter with hate or will you try to refine yourself?

So God allows terrible things to happen in order to give us the chance to improve ourselves? He came up with the fabulous idea of childhood leukaemia to make it easier for bereaved parents to aspire to a state of Christ-like grace?


It's becoming increasingly obvious to me during this discussion that if God exists then I don't like him much. I have serious reservations about his methods and I'm not prepared to adopt the attitudes and behaviours that are apparently necessary to gain his approval.

...what would be the point of Earth at all, then?

Well, quite possibly none. Which seems to me much more likely to be true than any other suggested possibility.

And because there's no ultimate point, the way you live your life matters on a human scale - you have to exhibit kindness, companionship, fair dealing, charity, all that stuff.

Here's the scary part though. If you decide not to be humane, there's no ultimate punishment. There's no wait till your father gets home comeuppance. You have to be good simply because it seems the right thing to do. There's no payoff, no threat, no reckoning.

That's a much tougher requirement of human beings, in my opinion, than the God-led alternative where the good children get a long holiday in Paradise Resorts, and the bad children are locked in the cellar forever.

It's hard work being an atheist. It's not an easy path to follow- but I think it's a more responsible one.

[laidbackperson]

So God allows terrible things to happen in order to give us the chance to improve ourselves? He came up with the fabulous idea of childhood leukaemia to make it easier for bereaved parents to aspire to a state of Christ-like grace?


It's becoming increasingly obvious to me during this discussion that if God exists then I don't like him much. I have serious reservations about his methods and I'm not prepared to adopt the attitudes and behaviours that are apparently necessary to gain his approval.

Well, quite possibly none. Which seems to me much more likely to be true than any other suggested possibility.

And because there's no ultimate point, the way you live your life matters on a human scale - you have to exhibit kindness, companionship, fair dealing, charity, all that stuff.

Here's the scary part though. If you decide not to be humane, there's no ultimate punishment. There's no wait till your father gets home comeuppance. You have to be good simply because it seems the right thing to do. There's no payoff, no threat, no reckoning.

That's a much tougher requirement of human beings, in my opinion, than the God-led alternative where the good children get a long holiday in Paradise Resorts, and the bad children are locked in the cellar forever.

It's hard work being an atheist. It's not an easy path to follow- but I think it's a more responsible one. .

Even if our final fate is just to be born, to procreate and die, with enjoyment or suffering thrown in in-between to varying degree for different persons, then also I agree with you that right way of living is with kindness, companionship, fair dealing and all such stuff. To understand this is very important.

All your ego trips, flaunting of power or money, physical attraction and charms, prizes, adulation, knowledge etc should not have much meaning, for ultimately like all others who have gone before us, each one of us alive here have to leave all this and die.

As for your doubt about connection between suffering and God do please read my post (#300) at last of page 20 of this thread.

May be, if you see the things from recarnation angle & everything-is-God's- play, you will be able to get at some answer.

[marxengels2012]

All the way back to Epicurus and Lucretius ("On the Nature of Things"), the ancient Greeks found that disbelief in "god(s)" was a very liberating experience. Religion has always been "the opiate of the masses" long before Marx and Engels. I am today a non-theist (atheist) who has found that slavery to religion generally is the worst of slaveries. During these hard economic times, more and more people are lining up at the "churches" for comfort and salvation, but are finding that they "come out the same door as in [they] went" in the words of Omar Khayyam. The "God" of the Bible is a tyrant in every way; he is for fratricide, ethnic cleanising, and hatred of women. Read the books of Joshua and Judges and then tell me about the "love of God."

[laidbackperson]

During these hard economic times, more and more people are lining up at the "churches" for comfort and salvation, but are finding that they "come out the same door as in [they] went" in the words of Omar Khayyam. The "God" of the Bible is a tyrant in every way; he is for fratricide, ethnic cleanising, and hatred of women. Read the books of Joshua and Judges and then tell me about the "love of God."

What about others few like Mother Teressa.

I once met her during her last years. As a young person, I stood in a que of teenagers for her autograph. As the person just ahead of me took her autogrph, the thought flashed through my mind, 'Let us see, what's so great about her?'

When my turn came, she looked at me with such compassionate eyes (as you can see in he so many photographs), the thought came unbidden in my mind, 'Well, she is different'.

I still carry that autograph with my I card as a good luck sign when I move out for town on offical tours.

Today I think of a single benevolent God for the entire humanity, and seperate religion and religions text and rituals from God. Still instead of basing your beliefs on fears, I think it is better not to believe. To each his own.

[marxengels2012]

Mother Teresa and Pope John-Paul II are much over-rated in today's world. There are many others who are doing even more than they did. Why pick out one or two "saints" to emulate when history is full of them, both within and outside the Catholic Church. And why a "good luck charm" from an autograph? Many teenagers are carrying the autographs and pictures of "rock stars" as "good luck charms" and none of this means anything at all. When will humankind grow up? Even the ancient Greeks saw through this guise of "religion" (cf. Epicurus and Lucretius). Mother Teresa was "possessed" by an "evil spirit" at one time, was she not? Was she "possessed" when you saw her and got her autograph?

[NikolaiI]

For all those conerned, I would like to quote a Sanskrit verse from the Vedas..


"Delight"

Anandadd hy eva khalv imani bhutani jayante,
Anandena jatani jivanti
Anandam prayantyabhisam visanti.


Translation

From Delight we came into existence.
In Delight we grow.
At the end of our journey’s close,
Into Delight we retire.

[Judas130]

For all those conerned, I would like to quote a Sanskrit verse from the Vedas..

Translation

From Delight we came into existence.
In Delight we grow.
At the end of our journey’s close,
Into Delight we retire.

Mothers experience pain in pregnancy, children cry in fright in birth
many grow through society, collecting and attaching, paying money and living in the state, raising families
When we die - death - can vary in pain or ease. Such practices as bodhicitta automatically bring calm at the time of death.
Is the delight that you refer to something which is attained, or something that is there by default? I've read some of thoughts of the present Dalai Lama, and much work is to be had to attain goals and ease throughout life: "let us take a moment to review how progress toward a meaningful life unfolds: first comes morality, then concentrated meditation, then wisdom." (How to practise - Dalai Lama)

Religion has always been "the opiate of the masses" long before Marx and Engels. I am today a non-theist (atheist) who has found that slavery to religion generally is the worst of slaveries.

Are you sure it is slavery? For if one does not wish to believe, then one will not. Do you not think instead that religion is an indulgent rather than a slavery? When you truly come to comprehend how little we are in relation to a universe of which we presently know little of, then such a thought that we are all alone in a great sea is a heartbreaking one. The thought that, even within our own galaxy, we cannot 'see' what is around us - indeed, what we 'see' is the history of our neighbouring stars, light years into the past - we can not know what the gallaxy, or the universe looks like - because all we see is it's history - thanks to the speed of light. To say "a galaxy is presently colliding' is wrong, for it collided perhaps 4 billion years ago. This is a further lonely idea to add to the arsenal of loneliness. Humans worship and have faith, we conclude and try to understand.

Yet to think of atheism as liberation is an idea I cannot personally understand. In recent years I have thought long and hard, and the path of atheism is a cold and distressing one for me to have indulged in, I am a less happy person - it is, after all, the process of stripping away an in-built cognitive mechanism that allows one to believe and have faith - when people pray for example, or meditate, their senses are heightened, more of the brain is used. Religion has it's corruption yet religion is a natural part of society, it is conformity, clumping of groups with similar concepts and ideals - so that they do not feel alone, so that they can share the things they need: purpose, goals, love, guidance, safety. Faith, however, is the personal belief that comes separate to Religion (which is the congregation of similar faiths). Faith is the true liberation in this lonely universe, while atheism and explicitly nihilism, is the indulgent in cold, purposeless, and spiritless existence - it is slavery to the void, to isolation.

[NikolaiI]

Mothers experience pain in pregnancy, children cry in fright in birth
many grow through society, collecting and attaching, paying money and living in the state, raising families
When we die - death - can vary in pain or ease. Such practices as bodhicitta automatically bring calm at the time of death.
Is the delight that you refer to something which is attained, or something that is there by default? I've read some of thoughts of the present Dalai Lama, and much work is to be had to attain goals and ease throughout life: "let us take a moment to review how progress toward a meaningful life unfolds: first comes morality, then concentrated meditation, then wisdom." (How to practise - Dalai Lama)

This is just my interpretation, but I interpret the passage to be speaking about the soul. In Hinduism the soul is called Atman, its nature bliss and knowledge. This was my point. We come from the soul, actually we are the soul, not only the body. We are seeking for... what- peace? We are seeking for our source, and our source is Atman, the soul. And yet the soul is not somewhere apart from us or distant from us. The soul, the source, is the center from which we seek. We have gone however many twists and turns that we feel separate from ourselves, from the Universe, from Atman. Since we have encountered this ignorance of separation of Atman, we doubt it. I am saying, it is real.

[Stargazer86]

I was raised strictly Catholic. Throughout my childhood, I believed it all, no question. I remember when I started to really doubt my faith. I was in 7th grade and I asked my religion teacher, "If God is supposed to be our Father who loves us, and we're his children, why are we supposed to fear him?" Her response: "I remember being about your age, asking my religion teacher the very same thing." and then she just walked away...no answer. That's when I started to realize that I needed something more tangible in which to believe. The more I examined my religion from a different perspective, the more it horrified me. I find a lot of the hypocrisy, idolatry (worship of the Virgin and saints etc), and suffering to be very distasteful. After years of angry, bitter old nuns and priests, I was done. The Christian/Judeo God reminds me far to much of a Greek god. The anger, the jealousy, the suffering...and then all of a sudden, in the new testament, he becomes like this whole different entity entirely. If he was always perfect, why the change?
That's not to say that I'm an athiest; I'm not. I find it just as hard to believe that there's absolutely NOTHING out there beyond us. Religion is a good thing for some people. Kudos to anyone who is secure in thier faith. The problem comes in when people can't graciously accept that others have different beliefs that they hold just as dear as the next person does thier own religion. The violence, hatred, and killing that is carried out in the name of religion is completely unconscionable. Anyone who is truely spiritual (and there is a definate distinction between being religious and being spiritual) would never engage or condone such violence. What happend to Love thy neighbor? and the Golden Rule? Religious or not, anyone can agree on these general principles of morality.

Nikolai, I've enjoyed reading your posts. More and more I'm gravitating towards the ideas of Hindu, Buddhism, and Shinto. The idea of a soul, morality, and working to attain a higher sense of peace and knowledge. Beautiful.

Sorry for my writing being so disjointed with the misspellings etc. I'm operating on no sleep in the past few days.

[MarkBastable]

May be, if you see the things from recarnation angle & everything-is-God's- play, you will be able to get at some answer.

I already have an answer. That's what my post was - an answer. I was trying to help you get at it.

[Lynne Fees]

So God allows terrible things to happen in order to give us the chance to improve ourselves? He came up with the fabulous idea of childhood leukaemia to make it easier for bereaved parents to aspire to a state of Christ-like grace?


It's becoming increasingly obvious to me during this discussion that if God exists then I don't like him much. I have serious reservations about his methods and I'm not prepared to adopt the attitudes and behaviours that are apparently necessary to gain his approval.



Well, quite possibly none. Which seems to me much more likely to be true than any other suggested possibility.

And because there's no ultimate point, the way you live your life matters on a human scale - you have to exhibit kindness, companionship, fair dealing, charity, all that stuff.

Here's the scary part though. If you decide not to be humane, there's no ultimate punishment. There's no wait till your father gets home comeuppance. You have to be good simply because it seems the right thing to do. There's no payoff, no threat, no reckoning.

That's a much tougher requirement of human beings, in my opinion, than the God-led alternative where the good children get a long holiday in Paradise Resorts, and the bad children are locked in the cellar forever.

It's hard work being an atheist. It's not an easy path to follow- but I think it's a more responsible one.

God did not come up with the "fabulous idea of childhood leukemia." When man/woman sinned, and chose to choose putting themselves above God, God gave Satan certain power on Earth. Hence, death, disease, etc.
As far as "why are we here," I think you have hit the nail on the head. Using "good" and "bad" to decide whether a person goes to heaven or hell does not work. Hence, Jesus.

[MarkBastable]

When man/woman sinned, and chose to choose putting themselves above God, God gave Satan certain power on Earth. Hence, death, disease, etc.

There was a time when Christians would have burned you at the stake for saying that - because the implication is that God is not all-powerful.

And it's a real paradox. Either God is not all-powerful, which means that he's not, actually, in charge of the Universe. Or he is all-powerful, which means he could stop suffering but he chooses to give Satan free rein to screw with us.

If it's the latter, then he is ultimately responsible for childhood leukaemia, although he lets Satan take the rap.

If it's the former, then he's not in any position to save us from anything, including death, disease, famine or Jeffery Archer - which renders prayer a bit of a lottery really.

[Lynne Fees]

It's not that they cannot explain god scientifically. It is that there is no proof of god, and plenty of proof against god. In other words, believers argue (and here I am talking specifically about the Judeo-Christian tradition note, not eastern or world religions) that their belief is a product of faith, which is virtuous. That's rhetoric for they are too afraid to change their minds, when faced with overwhelming evidence against god.

I can respect religion to an extent, but this "I believe because it makes me who I am, and makes me comfortable," is pure rhetoric. That isn't a reason to believe in something, it just shows the inner cowardice of the believer.

In the spirit of valuing everyone's views, let's not use "coward." This reminds me of the old "religion is a crutch" argument. Let's stick to the facts.
The proof of God is in creation. I believe it takes more faith to believe that the butterfly, the elephant, the frog and people are just random happenings. Look at the brain. Look at the eye.

[billyjack]

God did not come up with the "fabulous idea of childhood leukemia." When man/woman sinned, and chose to choose putting themselves above God, God gave Satan certain power on Earth. Hence, death, disease, etc.

ummmmmm??? you're attributing the ebb and flow, death and life, disease and health of mankind to sin or piety. do you know how out of touch with reality that is?... to actually think that a mental phenomenon, such as the choice between putting yourself above or below god, could affect even the tiniest atom on this planet.

i know you're not saying that our mentalities affect minor physical phenomenon. you're saying that they affect the most important, large scale physical phenomenon in terms of our human value systems. making your stance that much more baffling.

[BienvenuJDC]

It's not that they cannot explain god scientifically.

What you mean to say...or what you should be saying...is that God cannot be explained empirically, which is to say that He cannot be explained by the experience of the five senses. He is not of a physical nature, so He cannot be measured by the scientific standards that man understands. That is why He gave us revelation, so that we could know more about Him. If there are those who choose to reject His message...well that is to their own detriment.

It is that there is no proof of god, and plenty of proof against god.

There is no proof that God does not exist. However, there are many proofs that the existence of the universe could only be by an Intelligent Creator.

In other words, believers argue (and here I am talking specifically about the Judeo-Christian tradition note, not eastern or world religions) that their belief is a product of faith, which is virtuous.

Many Christians argue the existence of God from a "scientific" stand point. Just because there have been some that have used such arguments, does not mean that all or even most use such arguments. If you want to look into the Christian Evidences that some use to establish their beliefs check out such websites as...http://www.apologeticspress.org/