Do you believe in God? why or why not?

Question

Skinhead-1979 · Accepted Answer

Yes, I do... Or Gods, I am not clear on that.

I reject 'Organised Religion' and I got plenty of reasons to explain why... but I will not resort to that now.

I am, if anything, a Deist:

Deism is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe. More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God (often, but not necessarily, a God who does not intervene in the universe after creating it), solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority. Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology—that is, God's existence is revealed through nature."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

I came across this a little while ago on Quora, and it gives a good explanation in my opinion:

WHAT IS A DEIST?

"A deist is a person that believes in a Creator of the universe, and in English we use the term “God” to label said Creator. Other languages will have a different term (Hebrew = Elohim, Arabic = Allah, Latin = Deus, etc.) so don’t get hung up on the name. Focus on the concept. From this point forward I will use the term “God” since English is my primary language.

God is seen as the creator/designer of all that exists in the universe. Nuclear fusion, gravity, thermodynamics, evolution, life, laws of nature, etc. However, it is important to understand that the deistic concept of God has nothing to do with any religion, holy book, or divine revelation. The Abrahamic version of God is too small in scale and scope. Earth’s biggest religions were invented by people prior to the development of telescopes and microscopes. We know that Earth is not the only planet, it is not the centre of creation, and humans are not the pinnacle of creation. We’ve known that since Galileo pointed a telescope at the night sky and saw the Rings of Saturn.

So if deists reject organized religion and holy books, then why do they believe in God? Valid question and here’s the answer: because we choose to! I know what you are thinking, so I’ll dive into this further. Deists tend to study nature and/or the cosmos through observation, personal experience and science. We see design in the world around us as well as throughout the universe. There are far too many things that are too complex to have just happened randomly. For example:

-DNA. This little seed of life is so mind boggling complex, that many geneticists have stated that it had to be designed. There’s no way that star dust and elements came together, threw in some heat and just created DNA.

-The complexity of life itself. Physicists have calculated that the odds of life forming randomly on Earth are 1 in 10 to the 40th power (some say 45). That is 1 in 10 with 40 zeroes behind it! For all practical purposes, an impossible task…yet here we are.

-Evolution (which I accept). While evolution appears to happen naturally over LONG periods of time, there are elements of evolution that would require some intervention. Take eyeballs and sight, for example. How and why would organisms from billions of years ago, develop sight? The theory is that eyeballs and sight developed as those organisms mutated in order to find sunlight for survival, but that does not explain WHERE the blueprint came from. What, Mother Nature just made it happen? It seems as if Mother Nature has some divine intelligence to it! Deists tend to think that God created the laws of nature and set everything in motion, and it is those laws that govern things like evolution. God does not need to be steering the ship, so to speak.

As far as rejecting organized religion, deists have come to terms with the massive size of the cosmos. Our Sun is a star, and it has 8 planets in orbit around it (sorry Pluto), and those planets have moons in orbit around them. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the visible universe. To think that our little mud ball is the only planet with life is just absurd. Our problem is that we are mere infants when it comes to space exploration. We lack the technology to go beyond our little single star solar system.

Earth based religions tend to be geocentric. That means that Earth is viewed as the centre of creation. Back in the day, that belief made sense because you would stand on the ground, look at the sky and it appeared as if the Sun, Moon and stars revolved around the Earth. We now know that those other astral bodies “move around” our planet because the Earth rotates. The Sun rises in the east and sets in the west because the Earth is spinning counter clockwise. Once geocentricity was proven false via telescopes (thanks Galileo!), religions had to take a step back and do some serious belief alterations.

Not to mention that many religions, especially those with Abrahamic origins, are so blatantly obvious male chauvinistic. Men are superior and women are inferior. Women can’t teach men or talk at Temple. Women don’t need an education and are expected to be submissive to their husbands. Women were viewed as property. Barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen…what a load of shit! Only a group of primitive, human males would come up with that nonsense!

Deists do not proselytize or throw guilt trips around. We don’t use scare tactics and fear mongering. We are respectful to ALL people and want everyone to come together for the betterment of the entire planet. We’re all on “Spaceship Earth” as the human race, and should be united toward our future. Do we pray? Some of us do, but it’s not to ask for something. We just give thanks for life. Do we believe in an afterlife? Some of us do, but we know that nothing can be proven beyond death, so we try to live morally and hope for the best. Meanwhile, enjoy life!

One last thing…many scientists (and numerous atheists) now believe that invisible dark energy permeates the universe, while rejecting an invisible God that is omnipresent (oh, the hypocrisy!). Deists do not think of God as an immortal human, complete with male anatomy. God is not some Big Sky Daddy. If anything, God would be some type of incorporeal force of nature…perhaps energy. If that dark energy does exist, and it has some type of transcendent intelligence, that would be the very deistic concept of God! Sorry atheists…"

mattthefatbat · Accepted Answer

The belief in God is very different dependent on your culture and can change from person to person, even people that believe can have different beliefs about that same God which frankly makes it all really confusing to me.
But pretty much the only reason I believe in God is because my parents have been raised by church minded parents and since my parents have helped me all through my life i take what they teach me seriously. I would believe in God a bit more if the rules that are taught by the Bible actually had immediate consequences but unfortunately beliefs are only beliefs as far as I can tell. Multiple lessons in the Bible were broken all through out America's upbringing Back in the days of the Early settlers of America, they first found native Americans, in the beginning some did live peacefully alongside them for years which was a good thing, but as more settlers came over and started wanting to claim north America as their own they pushed away the natives from their own homes, and as the expedition expanded west the more killings of natives happened. Sure practically in those times everyone was killing eachother but the killing done by the early settlers wasn't done only in defense it was just done to wipe out as much of the native Americans as possible and to force christianity as the only religion, and for those natives who cooperated and walked the trail of tears were left with a much smaller place to live on reservations, hopefully now a days natives are able to be welcomed back into living with communities and people anywhere in America they would like but back in the east and southern part of America things weren't really any better, as more of the world was trading spices and foods, slaves were also a hot commodity being sold from africa to buyers in America the descendants of settlers at this point needed workers to do work for them so they used the slaves they shipped from Africa as their tools to do the job, technically the settlers could have listened to the bible and treated the ones they bought as slaves, as well as their fellow neighbors, yknow equally, but not really, same ones that also went to church every Sunday even took their children to go see a run away slave get hanged in the middle of town and most female slaves that were at a age to bare children had their own children taken from them. But sense those slave owners decided that white people are "superior" compared to ones that are born black, that mentality stuck with the descendants of those slave owners and have become passed down to further generations. Which now brings us up to present day sundown towns. Which makes you think sundown towns don't have anything to do with believing in God, well it's really contradicting when you have a town of people that are actively excluding groups of people usually people of color from their towns which you have to remember murdering and m forcing people away still go against the bible. Honestly I really didn't think former slaves would decide to believe in the same God as their slave owners believed in but that is where we are now the descendants of the oppressed through out history have united to live with the oppressors descendants sure eventually we can all look past the tragic history, and the racism and learn that what makes a community, town or city truly great is by doing what's right. But learning the true raw details of history and the lesson of bringing unity first before division is something that has to be taught to young ones anywhere, especially in america if you're supporting people who want to change and exclude that from being taught then you're not in support of a better future, you're only in support of the distant past we worked hard to improve from.

coxoabean · Accepted Answer

Yes, I believe in God! I believe in him because even though I haven't seen his physical body, I have seen him working in my life! I see him in almost everything! He created the world, no matter who likes to believe it or not, he is the creator of this universe. I believe in him because He has changed soooo many lives. I have watched people go from broken, hopeless and feeling defeated, to joyous, happy, and living such amazing fulfilling lives. I have seen people have peace that passed ALL understanding when they trusted in God. I have seen his mighty hand do miricales when it looked like no miricale could be done. When things looked hopeless, he was there. When life was horrible he was there. When I've seen people feel like giving up, he was there. It only takes yet but a small amount of faith to move mountains as the Bible says. Not literal mountains, but I like to think of these mountains as the storms and mountains of problems we face in life. Without Faith it is impossible to please the Lord. He wants us to trust in Him no matter what and he promises to take care of the rest for us. I know that some people do not believe in God, or have a hard time believing in God. I DO NOT believe that people always never believed in God, but that everyone is born with the knowledge that he DOES IN FACT exist. Everyone has the knowledge of him. What causes people to stop believing is the things they go through, they feel God wasn't there for them, and therefore, of he wasn't there, maybe it's because he isn't real they think. No, though, that isn't the case. God Is real. Sometimes we go through bad things to make us stronger, or to build character. Also too, God gave us the Bible for a reason, and when we disobey his commands, that's what causes pretty much all the problems in our life. For example, God says to not drink, when we do, it messes up our thinking, and there have been so many problems that could have been avoided if people didn't drink. There are certain things in the Bible that the government has chosen to not follow and go against, therefore causing more problems for people. Sin should be dealt with. Rapists, murders, child molesters, thieves and so many other criminals don't get the punishments they deserve, and God said how to prevent these people from running rampid. Unfortunately though, because American has strayed so far from God, he's being taken out of everything, people aren't fearing him hardly anymore like they should, sin runs wild. Problems run wild, then we want to blame God for problems that could have been prevented if we stopped sinning. God wants to be in our life, he wants to help us, but if we actually sit back and think, we push him out more than we let him in. Then when we are in trouble want him to help us. But at that point, he lets us learn on our own. He lets us face some heartache to realize, we need him more than ever! So you see, I believe in God, it wasn't that long ago that more people actually believed in God and honoured him, more people went to church, actually worshipped him. Now what do we see, churches closing down, having less and less service times. Changing service times from sermons that people actually need to hear, to fun centers. Doing activities instead of reading the Bible. Having games for kids, and activities instead of actually teaching them the Bible. I've seen it happen to so many churches, and the kids go off to the world. They aren't being taught how important God really is, and why we really need him in our life. Look at people who don't God in their life, verses those who do and actually follow the Bible. There's a big difference. So yes, I believe in God and always will

Crimsyjo · Accepted Answer

I have a theory that yes there is "a God" but just not in the form and idea that we humans understand or visualise.

I am wondering if the planet Earth is actually God. It makes sense to me. So just like trees and plants can "feel" and "communicate" but in a different way to us I believe God is like this. Very far from any human concept. The planet created life. The planet is mysterious. The planet can have violent rages. Sometimes in retaliation for how we hurt it. And humans always say how at one they feel with nature. How connected if we walk bare footed on the land.

It's something I have been thinking about philosophically...

luvstoned4him · Answer

I believe in Jehovah because I've had many problems in life and when I cried out to him, he answered me. I have told him to let me die many times but he hasn't and I am grateful. I know that I am not perfect and still have plenty of growing to do but he is patient and faithful.

strateguy632 · Answer

Yes as a kid, because adults said god is real.

Now because logic makes god a logical necessity.

In fact even the most extreme DOUBTER descart who doubted if anyone even existed

He was the one not doubt god, but wrote a detailed proof that god existence is as CERTAIN as "2,4,6 are even numbers.".

StudyingAuthor · Answer

Yes I do. And quite frankly... I walk in opposition to him. I keep half of the commandments like "Thou shall not steal and thou shall not kill, thou shall not bear false witness (lying)" But some things he does I just don't agree with.

idonotlikeyou · Answer

If the bastard existed, I wouldn't have to choose between soap and bread. But he doesn't exist, and we have to manage our lives ourselves as best as we can. Or as worst. So, soap or bread?

EmmaMary · Answer

I'd sooner believe in the Dandy and Beano comics... At least they're real... Unlike all this other load of complete and utter fucking  Bollox .

snowboarder720 · Answer

No.
I’ve honestly tried my best to believe but it’s something I couldn’t find faith in myself to believe their existence. I’m a little disappointed because I love the idea of angels watching over us and ancestors keeping an eye on us.

Account · Answer

Not exactly in the way other people believe, and it is not exactly a belief. It is a thought I enjoy entertaining from time to time and it has nothing to do with any form of human-made religion.

Bovrilbaby · Answer

No, there are no gods. Never have been. As Descartes says…. if god wasn’t real it would be necessary for man to invent him.

Hannajenky · Answer

I do not believe in god because people who believe in god are schizophrenic

abbyjgriffin98 · Answer

I believe we were created by a God, but not necessarily the God in the Bible. I'm more so a Deist, not a Christian.

sdjaks · Answer

It’s hard for me to believe because I have never seen anything in my life that really convinced me God is real.

Dongie · Answer

Yeah. My question is do you have to believe in say gravity or does the force prove its existence. I've had the existence of God proven to me many times so I have to believe He is.

DishLady · Answer

Yup. Because He's revealed Himself to me throughout my life.

jshm2 · Answer

Yes. Because only God can create banal people like you, who cannot use search to ask something original.

normalice · Answer

No, because I have seen no claim of a god that required magic to produce.

Dargil · Answer

I do. Because G0d created everything. And I know that on faith.

lightbulb27 · Answer

I beleive the new testament view… God is and God is love.

OfDeath · Answer

I’ve answered this many times and no. The reason is that I have never heard a rational argument supporting the existence of god and I have just about heard every argument.

DJB72 · Answer

I don't believe  in  God, I  believe  God. The difference is subtle but. significant

FunkyMonkee · Answer

No. Because it doesn't exist and there's no proof that it exists.

SoJust · Answer

Yes I believe in God I am a follower of Jesus Christ I believe that Jesus was crucified for my sins and rose from the dead 3 days later

genericname85 · Answer

i do not believe in god, because god doesn't evidently exist.

OtterMan68 · Answer

Yes, I believe in God the creator. It's faith I admit.

Talea · Answer

No. Never seen any proof to make me believe.

Ladsin2 · Answer

No, I don’t see compelling evidence to support the god hypothesis

Hanife · Answer

I believe in God, but I don't believe in the God that people create themselves.

Anonymous · Answer

I believe in everything a little bit so I won’t go to hell

SweetJoyGirl · Answer

Yes, I believe in God.

Jay-_- · Answer

Yes I believe in God.

call_me_scar · Answer

No as I see no reason to believe in such a thing

Simslover92 · Answer

Yes I do.

Agape93 · Answer

I believe in several

jahaims · Answer

No, common sense

jjj101010 · Answer

Nope

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