God

Yup, going into the big one. I personally am pretty tolerant about things like this, and I like to know people's opinions, so if you would like to, could you describe your personal religious beliefs? Just saying "Chuck Norris" doesn't count. I'm looking for honest in depth opinions.

The point of this is mostly to see how mature the forum can be. 90% of the time, things like this get into debates, then debates become flamewars, then flamewars end with everyone either banned or incinerated. So, give your opinions, discuss other's opinions, etc.

Obviously, comical beliefs can be included, but don't be a jackass/troll/b-tard/spammer/Tahsis/Narks.

My family all believes in god, everyone going as far back as my great grandmother did. My mother and brother do as well.

I simply don't.

I suppose this makes me Atheist, but I don't believe in a god. No I'm not trying to be one of those cool kids that does it because everyone else does. I truly doubt a god exist's. The though we were all created by some greater being rings as bullshit to my ears and the thought of thanking some unseen and unheard greater entity for -my- life and all of -my- success does naught but rub me the wrong way.

What gets me more is how people constantly try and force their religion on me, claiming I worship Satan because I don't believe in god. I honestly don't believe in any of this "Heaven and Hell" business. It's all spouted from one mans head to the next, giving people hope and something to cry to in their dire needs. A promise of life after death, the human mind needs a support to function and many choose 'God'.

A crutch for the weak is all I honestly view him as. The weak or the zealous, as a realist I refuse too and never will believe in a 'God', whomever your god or their gods may be.

Also, fuck Narks.

I've spent entirely too long thinking about this topic, to have come up with such an unsatisfactory answer. I believe that people are in no honest position to pretend for half a second that we could really know how things work, but if I have to make a more detailed answer, I'd say that I think that things go on for infinity in either direction. I believe that there are creatures that think of atoms as entire universes, and I think that there are creatures that would treat our gods as ants, and creatures that would treat those creatures as ants, and so on. I don't think there is a stopping point, anywhere. So no, I don't believe in any gods, but I do believe in many many things higher than ourselves.

Everyone has their own opinion on how they think things work, I've explained mine and you've explained yours, Loner.

I don't think I'm pretending I know how things work, I -know- how they work to -me-. And in the in, it's your own opinion that really matters.

Do I believe in things bigger then us? Of course.

Do I think these things that are bigger then us is a figure created out of desperation and need?

No, and I never will.

And my apologies if I'm tramping on anyones beliefs here, I'm just telling how I feel about the subject at hand.

Don't apologize... It's impossible to have an opinion on this subject and NOT trample on someone's beliefs.

Still no harm done in being polite.

Personally, i think the only reason people ever turn to a 'god' is fear. Fear that they will die and might be wrong on the subject. If you think about where all of this began, its easy to see how all of this could be started. You live in a very small village, where there is nothing but the farms, and the Church with a single priest telling you why everything is. You are GOING to believe him if your brought up in that kind of scenario.

I don't pretend not be to afraid that i might be wrong, most of me wants to believe there is nothing, another part wants to believe there is something. I believe that if there is something out there, all i need to do is live morally and decently. To me, that's all religion is supposed to be. A moral lesson.

Ice, that's a load of crap, in my opinion. Religions weren't 'supposed' to be moral lessons, perhaps with the exception of Buddhism. For most of the rest, or the big ones at least, thats just the happy little portrayal that hides a purpose of control and dictation. "If you don't do what we say, you'll burn in a fiery pit forever. Now open your wallets."

I said Religion, and meant Religion in genral. Not Christianity.

Ok, before I say this i'm telling you I mean this as my thoughts, nothing more. Just wanted to have that done.

Not to try to use science as "Ooh, scientists prove it , so it can't be wrong!" type of thing, but this is where I stand. I learned that scientists have proven (though it can still be denied) that as soon as you die, you lose weight. Now, whether this is the weight of the air leaving your body, or some supernatural thingy at work, I'll probably never know. But, I think that that little weight you lose might just be your soul. That "Matter cannot be created, nor destroyed" stuff and whatever. But, if that is true, it must go somewhere.

Another thing: I believe at least something caused the Big Bang, if that theory happens to be true. I am not one of those people who thinks, "Oh, it just happened. There was nothing, and suddenly there was something. So I think if not God, or a god, or gods, or whom or what ever, I think something made it. So there it is.

Opinion voiced.

Since I started this, I guess it's a good idea for me to contribute.

I consider myself to have a relatively pragmatic idea of god, religion, and all of that. First of all, I do believe in God. I do not, however, believe that god is a sentient entity for any purpose. As for religion, none of the religions are quite correct, since they all are based around the teachings of morals, something that I think most people should be able to discover for themselves. Religion is instead a way for people of similar beliefs to reinforce their opinions while getting ideas of other people, too.

My theory with God is that it is a combination of the Unknowable force and Human potential. Unknowable force is the questions that are unanswered, and once answered lead to more questions. That's why God is ever changing. What is considered acts of god are in fact things that are not yet understood by modern science, but since the nature of science is that each door opened reveals thousands still closed, God is always there.

To the Romans, Gods were the cause of volcanic activity, the messengers of dreams, and the throwers of lightning bolts. They were pinpoints of light in the sky, and the explanations for a variety of folklore.

More recently, God is the performer of miracles, the judge of the afterlife, and the creator of the universe. The purpose of God as an entity is to explain things that are unknown to the believers. This also explains why for a while religion and science were at odds, for every time science answers a mystery, Gods need to be reformed and those in power need to change or be cast away.

Religion is about groups of people with similar beliefs reinforcing each other's faith, faith being their personal belief system. At some point, people in power realized that they could control people's thoughts and feelings through guiding their personal beliefs. That's why Charlemagne converted to Christianity; to be able to morph a religion that allowed more control over his empire. For a while in the Dark Ages, Popes and Patricians used religion expertly as a method of control. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. Religion is a tool that can be used to instigate a series of anti-semetic wars or to gain a people's equal rights. It can be a murderers inspiration just as easily as the inspiration of a Wonder of Architecture to this day.

With the rapid increase in scientific breakthrough seen recently, religions are having trouble keeping up with scientific research. Catholocism, for instance. has resulted to conservative ideas, refusing to be alongside progress in hopes to slow it's advance. On the other hand, there are a plethora of other religions being produced that try to encompass the multiple billions of people in the world. None of them are completely accurate, none of them ever will be, but they all try and they all do accomplish Religion's original purpose.

So, yeah, that's my thoughts. No, I don't fear death, or the unknown, or really anything else for that matter. My beliefs are more about a combination of Catholic Private School Upbringing and an extreme tendancy to tolerance and belief in scientific advancement.

On other notes, muffin, the "mass of the soul" is .007kg and was discovered by the fact that every person loses that same mass when they die. No more logical ideas have come to light about it, so it's a natural assumption that it's the mass of an invisible religious symbol.

The big bang theory is now really contested, and the currently tested theory is that of a multiverse created by a series of big bangs overlapping into the universe today.

Satanism is not as bad as most people think. That should be relatively obvious, what with the "worshiping the incarnation of Evil" being a weird concept when one considers that very few people deliberately do wrong for no other reason that to do it.

Atheist is what I am. One reason, there to many religions for one to possibly be correct, if there is a heaven and hell, I'd be sent to hell where I would make a new friend, Satan. Reason 2, Proof, suppose we get real proof god is real maybe.. (So, am I really Agnostic?) 3 is just for S&G, if the Christian god is real, would some agree he seems assish? He supposedly pre-determines ones fate so why make crime and send one to a supposed hell. <-- My viewpoint, apologies if I misunderstand that.

See, to be completely honest, I don't like atheism. I've never really understood the idea of no greater power. Denying the very existence of any kind of God, a thing that more than 95% of people in the world believe to be true, seems to be the kind of thing that would need greater proof to refute than just "it doesn't make sense." According to that argument, Gravity also doesn't exist, and neither does a bumblebee flying or more than a dozen different things.

To be perfectly honest, I'm an apathetic agnostic [or Apatheism]. I doubt there is a overseer who is omnipotent and omnipresent. Although, if you find a crucial bit of evidence of the existence of this said, "Deity". Then perhaps I'll give way, but I can only say that I heavily doubt he, she, it, they care for us in anyway. I mean, if you would kindly look towards third-world countries suffering from diseases that modern societicies have managed to at least cut them down rather mildly. Or, from the existence of vices and sins that a devious god/demonic being, creates. I would have thought they would at least given an effort to prevent this. But religion is organized over the concept of controlling the weak and dumb with fear of rotting, burning, spending an eternity, or whatever, in a godforsaken land that only we can nightmare about.


Although, I have some belief, if not minuscule, that a higher being is real. [I, for the point of time, do not believe that science can prove our creation.] Though, I'm dubious on this standpoint, due to the lack of evidence and the charity work of said being. I don't condole the Ku Klux Klan and other zealous group of atheists or spiritualists, but I can say that a God, or God's exist. Seeing as how we're horrible creatures, and we're supposedly made in the image of a God who's a saint. Yet we're filled with vulgarity, greed, violence, and other horrible vices that even the leaders of all religions act in with being discrete about it, but I'm Ninety-five percent sure that the average head-religious body, has committed some sin that they do not condole, nor support.

Just my two-cents and rant.

I've always believed in God and I stand firm on that. Now believe me,I'm not a church-going person by any means because frankly,the last time I went to church (Catholic) on my own accord was maybe 2. . .3 years ago?

However,I should say that for me,the term "God" is such a vague way to explain something that could be bigger than what we could ever comprehend.I have a similar belief with someone who already posted,in which our God could simply be a creation of a larger entity,and that entity created by another larger one,and so on,and so on.I'd never pledge my life to God like my parents did because if you look around you, there are so many terrible things going on in the world that disregards the fact of an all powerful spirit that watches over you--war, famine, poverty, genocide, etc.I also believe though that deciding to completely ignore even the bare idea of a God would be a hollow way to live (no offense to anyone).

When I was fourteen I read a book called "Searching for Alaska" which really dealt with religious belief and a deeper philosophical idea on morals and ethnics (Not to mention the occasional situations modern day teenagers are forced through.Haha.).There is one part of the book that really stuck with me after I finished reading it. That part was when the main character I believe was asked to write a 500 word essay on why people believed in God. The main character then summed it up in a few words:

"Because we're too afraid not too."

Don't rant on me if you've read the book as well and I completely through that part of the novel out of context, but I think you get the idea. Anyways, that quote really stuck with me for a long time, but I could never really put a satisfactory decipher to it. My first belief was that he refers to humans being afraid in the sense that the mighty God could strike us down at any moment. Another supporting factor into that fear could be the idea of knowing that there is something so much more powerful than us,yet we have no solid evidence into what it is,or even if it really exists. The big icebreaker however is the slightest idea of: What if God really existed?What if he did exist and we humans were just so oblivious to acknowledge that?In a simpler sense, it would be like being in a situation in which you were renting an apartment,and there were rumors that there was a mind reading, big guy with a shotgun in the attic.Are the rumors true?Who knows,but I'd rather not make the big guy with the shotgun angry if he ever does read my mind and sees that I wrote him off as a chump.

Later on as I matured (can't consider to be fully matured yet,I'm still 16.Haha.), I thought more in depth about it. I finally came up with the conclusion of us humans being afraid of this God because well, some of us just can't accept the fact not to believe. Some people just won't have themselves think that after you die, its just a big black nothing. They're too scared to hypothesize the idea that when you pass away, nothing happens. You live your life, get an education, get a boyfriend, get married, have kids, start a family, live the rest of your life well and to the best of your abilities,then BANG.You die.That's it. Zippo. Done.

I myself like to believe that when I die,I'll go somewhere.The road won't end after I pass away. The road won't end because, when I die, a greater being,a God out there has created a place in which dead ghosts can live in paradise.

I probably went off-topic (maybe a little too corny at some parts),but I've already typed too much to go back now .So in conclusion,yeah I do believe in God, just not in a way that could significantly disrupt my everyday personal routine.