Do you believe in God?

  • Thread starter Patrik
  • 24,487 comments
  • 1,139,377 views

Do you believe in god?

  • Of course, without him nothing would exist!

    Votes: 624 30.6%

  • Maybe.

    Votes: 368 18.0%

  • No way!

    Votes: 1,051 51.5%
  • Total voters
    2,042
My day comes every day - precisely because I am focussed on what I know (this life) over that for which I have no evidence (any other existence).
 
Playing with words is nice, but if what you are trying to imply is that an atheist lives fully everyday, more than a theist because one only believes what he knows and the other believes in more ... you are wrong. Wasted lives filled of wasted days can happen both to theists and atheists.
 
e30 freek
@Codename, i am Muslim i understand why you are in this thread to help people see the light, but there is no point doing it over the net because people just insult sometimes people dont know they are doing it and thats fine because they didnt know but i request to you (Codename) try not to discuss Islam on this try to do it face to face please dont feel disheartened (not pointing any virtual finger at any person on the thread)
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I feel like there are some periods and commas missing here. And if you think some of us are only being contrary this way because it is online, you are mistaken.
 
Famine
Clearly he never drove a car. Or had a concealed carry permit.
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Ouch, i had that coming lol

niky
That's not faith, but trust. Trust and will.

And once people understand that they can rise up and overpower an inferior force, they will if they have sufficient reason to.

A mob of customers will not likely rush a pair of gunmen robbing a bank.

But a planeload of people can, will and have rushed and overpowered terrorists since the 9/11 attacks... and even during the 9/11 attacks... remember the plane that missed?

"Insane logic" is to risk your life to protect monetary assets that can be recovered and rebuilt. And which are often insured, anyway.

It's not insane for people to risk their lives to protect other people if they view the lives of others as having value, or to better their own odds of survival.

Why should we risk our lives for money? Most people won't But if lives are at stake, there are people who can and do react.

Whether or not they believe in God.
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Again good points, but...

First, how can you trust someone if you dont believe them? The same goes for the other person. What then can one do? Have faith that they will do the same. If both have faith, then trust can come out of it. From there, you have your teams, state, boat crews, and so on. If you base it on evidence, it implies doubt. And if there is doubt, how can there be trust? One cannot have will if they dont believe, and thats simply obvious.

Second, insane logic is insane only when it is based on no evidence. You made this very clear when i didnt believe i have the right to live, someone kills me. Its logical, its true. Its not insane. Only when it is not based on evidence, how can it be true?

Third, you say when there is sufficient evidence people are willing to do whats right. True, but how sure people are willing to do it? In cases where the risk is high, if people see any kind of doubt, despite the evidence, who is willing to risk their life?

In the case of 9/11, what evidence was enough for people to stop the terrorist? Just people saying they're willing to help? How can they just believe in each other? They had faith in one another, not knowing what may come of their lives. And that was what they did to prevent the plane from crashing. Faith doesnt need evidence, and that was enough to stop the terrorist.
 
The fatal flaw of religions in general is in the assumption that the human brain can contain the meaning of 'it all/god/the universe' etc. A natural lack of humility of the most fundamental kind. Our being, all by itself, is not just bigger than we imagine it to be; it is bigger than we can imagine it to be. The same is obviously true for what we call nature.

Primitive people do not need to know about subatomic particles, electrons, or any of the rest of it. But the scope and mystery of nature exists whether its in a tremendous storm, or the dual-slit experiment performed with molecules.
God in the formal sense of the word is a strictly taught concept. Religion may be the glue of society, or it may be the chewing gum you accidentally step in- either way it is a taught set of concepts and can be removed from personal experience. No one forces you to believe in a formal god, except in unfortunate places lacking freedoms in general.
 
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Famine, I think the only people helped when preaching logic & reasonability are people that are agnostic. :nervous:

What logical argument can you invoke to persuade a person that does not value logic?
What evidence can you provide to prove something to a person that does not need evidence?
~Rough adaptation from Sam Harris


Some people choose to obey the commands of people that claim to have communicated with God.
Other people need better info before devoting their time to something.


What would it take for non-believer to believe.
An appearance from an all powerful deity would be pretty convincing.

But, what would it take for a believer to not believe?.....

When nothing can change your views, I think there is a problem.

Btw, I am a newtonian gravitational physicist.
I reject Einsteins works. (not serious)
 
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Hun200kmh
Playing with words is nice, but if what you are trying to imply is that an atheist lives fully everyday, more than a theist because one only believes what he knows and the other believes in more ... you are wrong. Wasted lives filled of wasted days can happen both to theists and atheists.
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True. But judging by some of the comments in this thread I'm quite glad I'm not burdened by trying to please a mystical being. Or, to be more accurate, not piss him off.

At the same time, judging by many more of the comments in this thread from theists, I also have the joy of discovering, and having the potential to discover, more about the world every day unburdened by its effect on my non-belief of a mystical being. A vast area of human knowledge is open to me without it testing my non-faith.
 
Scaff
--
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Wah, I was ill the day I wrote that. To be honest, I became a bit confused about what I was writing even back then, but posted it nonetheless.

I see the point that, especially if it can't be proven true or false, it isn't backed up by any science and therefore science can disregard it as useless speculation (that is practically the same as "not true", although not quite as absolute - scientifically indeed a very improbable event). But since belief itself isn't science, can scientific argumentation even be used for it (unless someone would some day prove it scientifically)?


DainBrammage
The fatal flaw of religions in general is in the assumption that the human brain can contain the meaning of 'it all/god/the universe' etc. A natural lack of humility of the most fundamental kind. Our being, all by itself, is not just bigger than we imagine it to be; it is bigger than we can imagine it to be. The same is obviously true for what we call nature.
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It isn't only a fatal flaw of the religions. Many people can't understand how huge the universe, even what we can observe is. Our knowledge of it is less than a single blood cell in an adult human, a lot smaller than that. Due to the expanse of the universe we couldn't even reach all we can observe even if we could travel the speed of light, or at least we could never come back even if we lived forever. This is a problem of the people who pretend they know a lot of things, more so than of the attempts to explain the universe or religions.


Famine
My day comes every day - precisely because I am focussed on what I know (this life) over that for which I have no evidence (any other existence).
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Weird that people always use this argument while they also use the argument how even religious/God-believing, (eg. I wouldn't call myself exactly religious, I visit the church probably once in a year or something and I never start a discussion about beliefs), people can be immoral even to their own standards. Like religion really has stopped people from doing what they like.


Denur
There are no errors in Korans that are in other languages than Arabic?
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There is no other Qu'ran than the Arabic. They've decided not to use the translations as official Holy Books.
 
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XoravaX
Wah, I was ill the day I wrote that. To be honest, I became a bit confused about what I was writing even back then, but posted it nonetheless.
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Not a problem, it happens to all of us.



XoravaX
I see the point that, especially if it can't be proven true or false, it isn't backed up by any science and therefore science can disregard it as useless speculation (that is practically the same as "not true", although not quite as absolute - scientifically indeed a very improbable event). But since belief itself isn't science, can scientific argumentation even be used for it (unless someone would some day prove it scientifically)?
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Belief is by its very definition acceptance without proof, and it that regard I have no problem with it at all.

What I will always question is when someone crosses the border into stating it as fact, such as 'Evolution is nonsense and the Bible proves it', 'the Bible proves God exists', 'the Koran can be used as a scientific text-book', etc, etc. These move quite clearly away from belief and directly into factual claims, and as such should be treated with the exact same standard as any other factual claim.

Its worth nothing that I have only ever challenged those that put themselves into a position to be challenged in this manner, you can believe what you want and all I will do is discuss it as an interesting topic. Claim it as fact however and I will ask to see that validated (in exactly the same way I would with any claim - no subject gets a special pleading in this regard)
 
DainBrammage
The fatal flaw of religions in general is in the assumption that the human brain can contain the meaning of 'it all/god/the universe' etc. A natural lack of humility of the most fundamental kind. Our being, all by itself, is not just bigger than we imagine it to be; it is bigger than we can imagine it to be. The same is obviously true for what we call nature.

Primitive people do not need to know about subatomic particles, electrons, or any of the rest of it. But the scope and mystery of nature exists whether its in a tremendous storm, or the dual-slit experiment performed with molecules.
God in the formal sense of the word is a strictly taught concept. Religion may be the glue of society, or it may be the chewing gum you accidentally step in- either way it is a taught set of concepts and can be removed from personal experience. No one forces you to believe in a formal god, except in unfortunate places lacking freedoms in general.
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+1 totally..

but the bit in bold.. it's not so much just a religious thing, but a human thing to think there is a meaning to 'it all/god/the universe'.. when actually science shows everything in existence is the result of a reaction, or a reaction in process. It is all governed by variables, and is all explainable using equations... the question is are humans smart enough to observe and measure all the variables, can we figure out the equations, and are we clever enough to do the math.

If the answer to that is yes, then there is nothing in the Universe that cannot be explained and predicted, from stars being born - to why cats purr and why does being hungover make me randy (these are important questions).

hmm.... I'm really tired.
 
MatskiMonk
but the bit in bold.. it's not so much just a religious thing, but a human thing to think there is a meaning to 'it all/god/the universe'.. when actually science...
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Personally I trust science even if its just because it can admit they were wrong. The static universe theory was current until the mid 1900's; obviously they know better now, and in fact they know enough now that they can say our knowledge of the visible universe is (as another poster mentioned) on the scale of say, one blood cell is to our entire body.
Einstein jumped to conclusions or refused to accept that reality could be as weird as it is- so I'm not about to slavishly follow the scientific method in every area of my life (!) It takes you farther than religion, science does, even in the mysteries of life it has uncovered. Science-fact is far more perplexing and elusive than religious doctrine.

Schrodingers Cat is a thought experiment meant to illustrate that while subatomic particles exist in all their possible states 'at once', on our physical level of perception this is not true- even though we are made out of those same particles. How can this be?

To me such questions are the glory of science.. the open-ended and non-traditional admission that yes, apparently matter itself is made of characteristics beyond our ability to measure. The fact that science also gives us electricity and flat screen tv's is just icing on the cake :)
 
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It's been a while since I've heard the name. Why don't you stop being so hostile. And how exactly was I ignorant to.a religion due to a mistake? Seems like you're the ignorant one.
 
You know what's weird, I looked on google to see how many christains are on the earth, and it came to roughly 1/3 (33%).... look at the polls......
 
We don't need to religion to all get along...

We all live under the same sun...
we all walk under the same moon...
... then why, why can't we live as one????????
 
note to self - atheists think we don't live as one because of religion. Territorial disputes among termites must be due to termite Gods too.

It's so simple, so easy, it even gets amazing that religious folks can't see the light of scientific peace for all. Belief in God surely darkens the mind and prevents rational thought.

oh wait ...
 
Hun200kmh
Belief in God surely darkens the mind and prevents rational thought..
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Example: Dark Ages.

I'm the seeing is believing type. Unless the sky opens up & God strolls down to kick me in the balls I'm sticking to the we just rot in the ground belief.
 
What do the "Dark Ages" have to do with anything? If I recall correctly that term refers to the period in western european history that follows the fall of the western Roman Empire (christian empire, I might add) and the establishment of the many feudal lords and kings everywhere, with their endless wars.

If I also recall correctly, if it wasn't for the labour of christian monks everywhere, almost every bit of formerly existing culture (namely books) and science (agricultural and engineering) would have vanished.

But hey, blame it on the religious folks back then. They're dead anyway, rot in the ground long before our existence, I'm sure they won't mind their copist work being turned against them.
 

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