I look at this way. There is no way to prove that there is or is not a God. If believing that there is a higher power guiding you helps you get through life and be happy, great. If you feel the opposite way, that's great too.

What bugs me is when one side or the other either tries to force their beliefs upon other people or they get a sense of superiority because of their belief. To say that believing in God makes a person dumb is just an ignorant statement. At the same time, many religious people have many colorful ways of thinking about and referring to those who don't believe the same way they do.

Personally I know enough to know that I don't know if there is a God or not. I know I have never seen or been a part of anything that I would consider a miracle. I also look around and see all the suffering in this world and wonder why that is. This could all change. Perhaps one day something will occur that will change my point of view. In the meantime I try to live my life in a way where I treat people with respect and be a good person.

Well said :thumbsup

I love lamp

Most atheists are merely disappointed with the religions and gods of others because they fixate on what doesn't make sense to them - if god was this, he wouldn't do that, if god was that, he wouldn't allow this.

The more obsessive secretly pine for a fictitious god of their own making that supposedly everyone would be better off believing in. They never admit to it with words, but their actions betray them. Especially in Internet forums when they go on the warpath ridiculing theists.

The core of their argument 9 times out of 10 is that a real god wouldn't behave the way everyone elses does.

LOL

Rarely do you ever come across a true Atheist with a capital A that just doesn't believe because "there is no reason to".

Because it is written in American dollars! :1orglaugh

Such a deep question. I'm glad some "smart" people still believe in god. If they didn't I wouldn't make half as much money as I do....LOL

Universities often have all kinds of wing nuts come speak to students about all kinds of nonsense including religion, politics and philosophy. Spouting nonsense is not an accomplishment.

I disagree entirely. I would say most atheists do not believe in any form of deity because they have not seen or felt any reason to. I am an atheist, I have read the bible cover to cover, read books on various religions, I went to a religious school. I have not seen, heard, felt or read anything that has given me reason to believe in a god. I personally think FAITH is well and good. If you want to believe in the big beard in the sky, go right ahead. But ORGANISED RELIGION is bad. Very, very bad. Fucking evil in fact.

Beliefs are like your cock. It's fine to have one, it's fine to be proud of it, but don't get it out in public and don't try and force it on anyone. This goes both ways. I've met, and despised, militant atheists who were literally doing the very things they claim to hate about religious people. You can be a moderate Christian, moderate Muslim or Jew or Buddhist or atheist or WHATEVER and keep your personal shit to yourself and we'll get along great.

Life did not appear from nothing.

Watch the new show COSMOS with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Explains it and a great show.

I disagree in faith or religious beliefs being benign. Religion has been responsible for more death than any other reason you can think of combined with all those reasons you didn't think of.

Dumbing down humanity and our children with stories from the bible is nothing but blight from any intelligent, scientific or observable thinking.

And that's just the good part.

At worst it reinforces idiots with fundamentalist beliefs to do the unspeakable in the name of their god. They are by all accounts doing the lords work according to their scripture.

That's the scary part.

faith and a structured, organised belief system are not the same thing mate.

And who decides that?

Don't let it be me because I say you're wrong.

I mean faith by it's own definition is a belief system. Right? Maybe you organize it differently. No matter.

Hold on. I want to hear what she has to say. She right? Thats a little picture and I've been tricked before.

HAHA, maybe it is just my personal understanding of the two concepts but I do not equate a person with a general feeling of there being a higher power, who draws comfort from that feeling and a person who willing gives over control of their lives to a man on a pulpit thumping a book that was written hundreds of years after the fact and which contains many ommissions and alterations from original due to the votes of a council in the middle ages. The sort of person who goes out and pickets funerals or demands an entire school curriculum be changed to suit their belief system. You know what I mean? One is faith, the other is a structured religion.

Who created the creator?

There can be huge differences between them. I know people who believe in God, but they don't go to church, don't preach it, and don't push it on people. I also know people who are militant in their beliefs and go to church three times per week and the church comes first. If they move to a new city they don't make the move unless they have found a church there that they want to join.

A guy who believes in God and lives his life in a good way harms nobody. A guy who is part of an organized religion that preaches hate and encourages its members to harm those who don't believe is a very bad thing.

Religious wars aren't started by guys who believe in God and just want to be happy (meaning religious moderates). They are started by extremists who either feel that God wants them to do this or that they need to force their beliefs on the infidels. A person can be religious without being part of an organization or an extremist.

Yeah, that.

Where did the stuff that went bang during the big bang come from?

Thats the thing with science. They never figure it out 100% and consistently try and disprove it. That is scientific theory.

Religion is more like "If it was good enough for that illiterate, thirsty, hungry, desperate nomad I wouldn't know what to believe. But shit I was born in a society where christianity, budhism, hinduism, islam and what ever geolocation I popped up in believes in"

In Hollywood you'd be a scientologist. That one is extra special.

:1orglaugh

EDIT : :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I agree with what you say here.

I guess I was trying to point out that no matter if you believe in God or not it takes a bit of blind faith.

Either you believe that there is this all knowing, all powerful being that just is and it created everything or you believe that there was a bunch of shit floating around that nobody really knows where it came from and one day it exploded and created everything.

Was shit floating around or god floating around? Are we gods shit, blowing my mind , man.

I have no blind faith in my conviction either. It just is.

Horseshit.









































:2 cents:

Why ?

Chemical reactions are happening all around you with no help whatsoever from wizards ?