Religion Vs Atheism

This is the topic to discuss your beliefs and why you believe them. I hope to get some interesting discussions out of this thread, because I would love to get the mindset of different Religious individuals. I am an Atheist, and am happier now than when I were a Christian. When I was a Christian, I lived in a state of fear that a person in the sky was watching everything that I do and judging me, and when I die this person would send me to hell for all eternity because I have sinned and broken commandments, like we all have. Then I grew up a bit and realised the whole story is hogwash in my opinion, and that I shouldn't fear something I can't prove is real.

So what are your beliefs or opinions?
What are your reasons for believing what you believe?
Do you ever doubt them?
Do you live life by your beliefs?
Have you gone against your beliefs?
And any others that you can think of

Note: This is a topic for discussion and possible debate, not angry attacks on each other. Please respect each others beliefs and don't criticise them for it (e.g you are stupid for believing/not believing) and don't try to convert each other (You should be a Christian/Atheist because...)

Go at it!

 

I believe in God, well actually I know that there is a God. Life had to come from somewhere and evil people have to be punished. If there was no hell, then there would not be anything wrong with a man raping a woman if there was no hell to be punished with. I don't belong to any religion. I don't know the entire nature of God such as if there is one God or several Gods. But that doesn't matter. What matter is being a good person so that the world can be peaceful and so we can go to heaven

 

Honestly, I can't say I'm either. Do I believe in God? Yes and no. I believe in something bigger than us but a God, not really. I do think we're all connected, there's no way we can't be. I don't believe in people evolving from monkeys or fish or whatever the hell people are saying we evolved from. I don't care if there's all this scientific information that proves our dna is like 99.9% the same as a monkey. I don't believe in that. But I'm not atheist. I'm not Wiccan either, although my friends mom likes to think I am. I'm not. I don't believe that this Goddess and that God are present and blah blah blah. Idk if there's even a name for what I believe. We are all connected, even though there are people who think that they are superior to others. Scratch that: all life is connected. Idk if I just confused any of you but it makes sense to me :dunno:. Lol. I don't really know if I believe in a heaven or hell either. And as for sins, I don't see stupid things like feeling jealousy for another person's spouse as being a sin because we are human. We will all feel things that we can't control. I see sins as harming anything. If you kill someone, that's obviously a sin. If you molest/rape someone, you're harming them, that's a sin. Any type of abuse, to humans or animals, anything that's alive, is a sin. That's just my point of view though and I'd never put someone down for what they believe in.

 

I was raised as Roman Catholic and have felt more at peace since becoming an athiest.

To me, God is too obviously a man-made construct.

However I think religion is mostly a force for good, bringing strength and a sense of community and purpose etc to many people.

I believe in spirituality, syncronicity and psychic ability as I experience these to some degree.

 

My stance might be frowned upon, but I don’t believe in a god <Mod Edit:shades-insulting>. Being religious is one of the only traits which I don’t respect others for.

I believed in God as a kid because I was afraid of going to hell. Then when I was about 7 I was watching t.v, something about ancient Egypt, and learnt they had their own gods. Then I learnt about Greek gods the next day.

Until that point I thought everyone in the world believed in the same god, so believing in God made sense to me. When I found out that ancient civilizations had their own gods and even current societies had different gods, and that each had the same amount of evidence to back up their beliefs, I came to the conclusion that it was all made up and that 2,000 from now, people will think our gods are just as silly as we think Zeus, Thor, Rath, etc are.

Of course since then I've learnt much more to reinforce my belief that there is no god. But that was when I stopped believing.

 

So what are your beliefs or opinions? I'm an Agnostic Athiest
What are your reasons for believing what you believe? Logic
Do you ever doubt them? Sometimes, but then I think logically and all doubts are gone
Do you live life by your beliefs? Or lack of... Yes
Have you gone against your beliefs? No, I never truly believed even when I was Protestant growing up
And any others that you can think of? Religion and it's followers unnerve me

 

Please do not resort to name-calling and insults, per guidelines and rules section of the site!

 

I don't believe in god. I used to as a young child (7/8 years old) because I was attending a christian primary school at the time. But over time I started to realise just how fundamentally flawed the bible, god, and anything else related to religion really is.
It is clear why it was concieved into society thousands of years ago; to keep order, people don't want to make mad an all-powerful being who has supposed control over the world, but this was mainly due to their lack of scientific knowledge, so such a thing was believable.

Science has proved religion wrong again and again and continues to do so. Religious people try and shake the arguements off with "how can something come from nothing", "The world is too beautiful to have been an accident" and other such nonsense. The same arguements would have been put forward 2000 years ago about people trying to explain the weather, or the seasons, or the sun, which in time each has been proven to come from a non-divine cause and most of which are completely predictable by individuals educated in that field.

There is no valid arguement at all that supports the idea of a god, and even so, god is a completely man-made concept, created by people in authority thousands of years ago to scare monger people into socially acceptable manerisms. The thing that bothers me most about religion though, is the large percentage of the world who <Mod Edit:shades-insulting> believe in god, it's one of the only things that really makes me think less of the human race as a whole.

As much as I despise the thought of people believing in god, I think the above is very true, religions encourage good will, generosity and respect. And in that sense I'm happy they exist, but I think WAY to much emphasis is put on worshipping something that isn't there, than caring and looking after every other human being, god doesn't influence your life, the inhabitants of the earth do, so how about people pay them as much respect as they do to something fictitious.

 

Personally I stopped believing in God as a kid, when I learnt that Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny and others were not real, even though they seemed as real as the ground I stood. And then I learned more of science and evolution which reassured my thinking, which was more comforting than the idea of a man in the sky watching everything that I do. Talk about invasive.

I don't have a problem with religion per se, I have a problem with how a religious person feels they need to convert others into their beliefs. In fact there is a piece of scripture that says it is every christians obligation to bring non-believers onto theirs side, for the sake of their soul. I see it as if they know some secret or piece of valuable knowledge and they want other people to know it because it is so great and helpful to them. Both christians and atheists feel this great force of truth and it empowers them, so they want more to feel empowered.

I think both atheists and christians (and other religious believers) can learn lessons from each other on how to act and what to believe in (I'm talking morality and ethics, not God), and we can create something better than religion for all men and women to live by, and not with punishment of eternal hellfire, but punishment of inprisonment and our own conscience and social seclusion etc. The sad thing is that the people in charge of the world don't want this, they want controlled, god-fearing people that will fall in line and do as they're told, and not realise that it is not the power of god but the power of ourselves that can bring about peace and revolution on earth. They don't want you to think you have any power, and that you have to pray to God for your dreams to come true.

Besides, even if there is a god, what makes you think that after thousands of years of human existence, he's even listening?

 

So what are your beliefs or opinions?I'm a Christian
What are your reasons for believing what you believe?Faith, hope and personal experience
Do you ever doubt them?Any Christian who says they don't sometimes doubt is talking rubbish.
Do you live life by your beliefs?I try to, although sometimes it can be difficult.
Have you gone against your beliefs?Increasingly less now I'm getting further in
And any others that you can think ofI don't understand the mindset of militant athists to always be right but to belittle people while they do it, there's just no need for it.

 

So what are your beliefs or opinions? I'm an atheist in the Richard Dawkins sense of the word.

What are your reasons for believing what you believe? My reasons for believing are the same for believing that I do not have a purple, invisible, omniscient dinosaur in my garage. While it's theoretically possible that I have such a reptilian friend cohabitating with my car, it is not likely nor realistic to accept such an absurd proposal.

Do you ever doubt them? I did doubt them for a six month period where I "converted" to Christian. What I found is that I couldn't reconcile what I knew to be true about the world, with any sort of religion.

Do you live life by your beliefs? It's hard not to, because my religious beliefs end at "There is no god".

Have you gone against your beliefs? Besides the brief six month period of cognitive dissonance, no.

 

Speak for yourself. I feel no such "force" and am not "empowered." I'm as uncertain about what truth is - if that even exists - as the average schmuck.

They want control, period. Whether it's in the form of religion or not, it doesn't matter. If religion were to be obliterated, it would be something else. The common thread being fear [as a means of control].

 

Agnostic, starting to turn into an Atheist though, I too use to fear "hell" and how god was observing everything we do, but then I realised how about for people who are born with mental disabilities or babies that die before they are born, where do they go? Were they simply created by god so people could be in reverence of his powers? Also, why would you want to torture your own creations, does god gain amusement from seeing people suffer, because of mistakes they've made. It also strips you away of your authentic reasons, because your opinions are based upon biblical references and you start marginalizing every person or group, whereas I find the Atheist viewpoint is a lot more open to others. I have gotten information from both sides, Religious and non-religious, in fact I go to a christian high school, they try to subtly influence you and then that made me think of the larger functions at work, other cultures and races in different nations also have this type of education about a different god, if there was a true god, why are other people raised to believe in a different one? Does this mean they go to hell too, because they have been brought up in believing in the wrong god?

 

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2ND (and last) warning to cease the NAME CALLING AND INSULTS PER SF RULES AND GUIDELINES. THANK YOU!
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Why does every religious debate have to turn into a vitriolic argument ? :dry:
Why on earth can you not agree to disagree and leave each to go their own path!
If this goes on I will suggest to rest of admin that we ban all such debates :rant:

 

Im a bit lost.

I was brought up as a Catholic and my parents are religious but not pushy. They believe in their beliefs if that makes sense but they dont judge anyone else on their religious beliefs. Up untill the age of 13 i went along with being Catholic, but then 3 significant people in my life died within a yr and my beliefs went out the window! I couldnt believe that a 'God' would hurt me so much and take lives that where not over.

My car was stolen last week (sorry if i keep going on about it) but for the strangest reason, i had this strong feeling and belief in God, its really hard to explain, something really bad happened me and i get a stronger feeling in God?? That just doesnt make sense. So at the mo im lost in religion or lack of, i just dont know.

Ok sorry - i contributed nothing to the discussion haha.

 

So what are your beliefs or opinions?Agnostic atheist
are your reasons for believing what you believe?I don't so much believe in my non belief, as I don't believe in other's beliefs.
you ever doubt them?I reexamine my opinions now and then, sure.
you live life by your beliefs?You can't really live by atheism, as it doesn't tell you how to live your life.
you gone against your beliefs?Can't really say I have.

 

I was very confused with the religion issue as a child, since my mother is a catholic and my father an atheist, but as long as I can remember I beleived in the spirit of the Universe, I think it's made of both material and unamaterial.

So what are your beliefs or opinions? I beleive in some sort of karma, or as christians say : "Do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you", some kind of a spirit of the Universe who is in everyone and everything.
What are your reasons for believing what you believe? No reasons I could explain, I just always felt it.
Do you ever doubt them? No.
Do you live life by your beliefs? I try to.
Have you gone against your beliefs? Not on purpose.
And any others that you can think of: No.

 

Question: Why is it 'absurd' to accept the proposal that there is a creator?