Why is it, exactly, that you believe what you do?

This is just a curiousity, not an attempt to convert myself or others. It's just, I honestly cannot comprehend why people believe in religion. So, I want to ask you why.

Why do you believe that there is no god?

I've just never saw any need for it. If I believe in some sort of higher power, it doesn't do anything. Nothing changes either way.

As well, if there were a singular God, why would they not present themselves? Prove they exist, denouncing other religions.

Really, there is no factual proof that makes one religion more true than another. There's no way to prove that Islamic faith is more true than Norse mythology.

So in the end, I've never found a need for it. So it's hard for me to understand why it has such a prevalent place in society and in people's lives.

I myself have chosen to not be anything. To have no faith either way.
I don't wish to be faithful, because if I do I'll be placed in with the overzealous nut jobs that prance around in the streets with picket signs.

I choose not to be an atheist because I'd be placed in with the thick rim glasses wearing, muse listening, hipster cock suckers that prance about trying to denounce every belief ever.

But its quite understandable why people believe in a god. Hope.
They hope that they will go to a heaven, they hope that they won't simply vanish from a conscious plain when they die, they hope for a greater being that loves them and cares about them no matter what.

I've seen many people in my time who where joyous and caring people simply because they believe in god.
I've seen religion band millions together to achieve great things. But I've also seen people die for it, becoming martyrs in hope of salvation.

Religion is a double edged sword. On one side you have loving, caring people. On the other evil, murdering fanatics. and in the middle people who simply live with it.

I have honestly seen more happiness brought from religion then pain and suffering.
Which is more then I can say about atheists.







in b4 pseudo-intellectuals/butthurt

Myke, that has to be a great explanation. Gold Star for you man.

As for myself, I dunno.

I believe in my religion because I believe of that higher power up there that explains a lot of the unexplainable in the universe. Until science can really prove those things, I'm going with that.

I can also chalk it up to my family. Now, I understand that, that isn't a good excuse, because people have the choice to choose their own religion and what not. I'm just more familiar with it.

But that is my excuse as to why I have religion in my background. That and the whole thing Myke said of hope and what not.

I used to be a big Christian, ish. Scince about two years ago, I've never really seen any proof that the Christian God really exists. Now I believe that yes, there is a God, he just stopped caring, or something like that. Or he has bigger things to deal with; hell, it may even be the Christian God who exists, he's just doing something really important at the moment and me not believing in his existence is a big part of that. But there is a God, or we're all in the matrix.

Atheism doesn't make sense to me, either because I was raised a Christian and there being no divine superpower is just to awful of a thing to realize, or because science hasn't proved me wrong. It seems proof of there being a God or not being a God isn't firm enough for a decision to be made based solely off of science, so I base it off of what makes me feel more or less comfortable.

Man on the way home from the store today I was thinking about the world and how it came to be, did a super being really create the universe, if evolution is real, if god isn't real then where did the idea of god come from. No wonder people fight over this shit.

Hey FUCK YOU BUDDY.

Religion and believing in God(s) are two different things. The word religion implies rules. I don't call myself religious even though I believe in a higher power, because I'd rather find my own interpretation of this power than follow someone else's. I don't think it has a true name, but I call it God for the sake of convenience.

Basically, everyone who sees God sees it in a different way. Maybe it's a guy dressed in white with a huge beard, or a beautiful woman, or a multi-armed elephant-headed creature. The people who see God tell other people what they've seen, acquire followers, and a religion is born. God, Odin, Vishnu, are all names that we humans have given to this nameless force.

As for how much input this force had in creating our universe, who knows for sure. It's pretty much impossible to deny evolution unless you're really delusional, but what about before Earth existed?

I like to think that this thing, if it is sentient at all, appreciates being worshiped, but for the most part doesn't care that much about us.

That pretty much sums up what I was gonna say.

Well you see Zod. The universe was created in quite an unusual fashion, to be quite honest.

In the beginning? The Icebergs were melting in the dead of night.

Then? The Superstars got sucked in to the Supermassive. With me so far?

From that point on... well. The Queen of Superficial took her seat upon the throne of mankind.

Needless to say... I thought I was a fool for no one. But... damn. I'm a fool for her.

So I had to go watch a movie. But I have more to say.

Anyway, God probably has much bigger things to think about than us, most of the time. Even if we are it's children, there's billions of us and probably billions of billions of other life forms elsewhere. And maybe we aren't it's children; we might just be playthings or minor annoyances in its eyes.

It must care somewhat, though, since it occasionally reveals itself to people who want to find it. I don't mean the kid with the fundie parents who thinks that evolution means a monkey randomly giving birth to a human because he's never been taught anything else, or the atheist who sarcastically says that if God existed he would show himself. I'm talking about the meth addict who joins a church and tries to fix up his life, or the guy with a terminal disease who's slowly wasting away and just wants some reassurance that what awaits him on the other side is better than what he's leaving behind. Or the hippie who knows a bit of 'magic.' Whatever.

Of course, if you firmly believe that God doesn't exist, you won't find it. Maybe that means it doesn't want anything to do with you, or maybe it means that everyone who does believe in God is just looking for something that isn't there and making themselves see it.

Either way, fundies are crazy people.

I wouldn't call myself religious and I don't believe in God as a divine creator. The idea of god, to me, is the force(s) that move the world we live in and the universe forward in its cycle. I also think of the Sun, Moon, Stars as gods simply because our lives are dictated by them - we need them. In my opinion, that's divine power.

As for religion? Largely, I think it's either used by people as a way to hope for something better or as a weapon. Also for self-improvement, I suppose.

This minus the sun moon and stars. We touch the moon. We seek to fly past the stars, and the sun is a douche bag.

The sun's just a star, leave it alone :<

Well, just because you can touch something doesn't disqualify it from being 'divine'. I just define being divine as having a power greater than us. Without the sun, the moon and the stars, we'd be fucked. :<

I think there are more reasons as to why people don't believe in god, rather than people believing in him. From what I can tell, most people either grew up with religion in their family, found faith through hardship, facing their own mortality and they're scared, or some story where they felt there was a divine help.

Personally? I'm the "found faith through hardship," praying and having that community and feeling of god's presence helped me through some troubling times. I don't pray a lot, and when I do it's mostly for other people, or when I need guidance on an issue. He doesn't always answer, and not everything I want happens, but god, for me, has come through in his/her/it's own way.

It isn't that god doesn't care, that he doesn't notice us as a race. He gave us free will for a reason, so we could make our own choices, and face our decisions. We are gifted to be intelligent enough to even have rational thought, let alone be able to shape our own fate. God works in mysterious ways, and makes things happen for a reason. Besides, man made disasters, god has no control over, neither does he over natural ones. We should not blame our problems on god, and look at ourselves.

As far as what straa said

This is just my opinion so, don't take it like I'm bashing your beliefs or something.

God does not work or act like a human being. We, with the limited capacity and perception over events that the human race has, could never comprehend just what god was thinking. God, I assume, would not come down and show himself off, because that is something a brash human would do. Entire cultures are built off believing in a specific god, if he came down, the world would go into chaos. God is chilling up above humbly, because he doesn't need to come down. His "essence" is everywhere, in churches, in people, in everything.

And uh, as far as factual proof, I say we can rule out Greek and Norse mythology. In Greek mythology, Zeus came down as a swan, seduced AND fucked a chick, and had a baby with her. You, as a man of logical thought, must find that to be a bit false.

Yes, but, in Christian mythology, god impregnated a virgin with its own son, and let him chill it up with a hooker for a few years.

Same thing really, just, plus or minus a swan.

I know Islamic and Jewish faith don't believe in this. Yet they all have the same God. So why the difference? What makes one truer than another?

Let's go back, to Adam and Eve. Say they existed in the sense the bible portrays them. They knew God, they had a few beers with God. They knew, without a doubt, it existed. They got kicked out, but still knew God existed. They had children. Children had children (mmm incest). So on and so forth. Surely, coming from Adam and Eve, they all would have known about God.

It just seems odd to me how varying religions would appear throughout Earth, when at one point we all allegedly knew about God in the first place. Especially when they appeared before Christianity, Judaism, and Islamic faith, which all believe in the same God, just have different circumstances.

Take for example, ancient Egyptian belief. Theirs was over 3000 years before Christianity popped up. Greek mythology, about 630 BCE, six hundred years before Christianity. Judaism was also possibly introduced during this time as well, giving it a damn good head start on Christianity.

All I'm saying really, is that there is nothing, no evidence, nothing to support one religion being more true than another.

I'm not entirely disputing the existence of a God. That's pointless, really. If God is transcendent, then there is nothing we can do in our present state of existing to prove whether or not it exists. So, I mean, it is entirely possible that a God created the Universe and then just sat back, kicked its feet up and had a beer. Though my only problem with that then is where did God come from. But that's begging the question really, so let's leave it at that.

For those wondering, this curiosity is stemming from the fact that I plan on doing a Sociological research on religion.

-But all in all, I think we can agree that God cried when it saw furries.

The only true religion.

Roman Pirates?

EVEN BETTER!

Don't believe in the existence of a higher being, really. Especially not in the sense that the Christian belief has attempted to drill into the heads of so many people.

Granted, one can see why they'd be inclined to think that "He-Who-Is-Above-All" is a genuinely benevolent deity, can't help but feel it really doesn't care about its little project called "Humanity".

After all, there's been plenty of fuck-ups in the course of human history like The Spanish Inquisition, The Black Plague, and of course, The Holocaust. Yet, not once did the supreme being so many people have taken a shine to show its existence over the extensive period of the belief system being implimented.

Have taken a shine to the reasoning used by Mr. Neil Gaiman, and many other authors when it comes to the existence of deities and other celestial beings of omnipotence.

"Through the belief of their followers are they given manifest; Take that away and the being is no more", for the most part. But maybe YHWH is just too bored to deal with humanity/apathetic.

To honestly voice my opinions, I've never been partial to religion myself. It seems interesting in concept but I treat bibles and beliefs rather like articulately crafted fantasy novels- I find the idea of a being greater than: and creator of Humanity hard to stomach. It's not that I have a way of thinking things like 'I'll believe it when I see it' or other silly things like that. I simply think that the concept of a divine being is... distracting from the point.

As an adult human being, you should be taught responsibility, and the act of being able to take blame when you deserve it. I remember as kid once or twice I cried out 'The Devil made me do it' when I did something particularly punishment-worthy. But that may be part of why my view on it is stained. If you thank god for the happy moments in life and believe in some driving force such as destiny or fate for guiding you through the tough moments in life- that destroys the point. Completely. Entirely. I believe that you should accept that this is a world that was created through a natural process, rather than a single (or multiple, for pantheism) being. And everything past that, our own evolution, to the creation of society, civilization, war, art, concepts of love and taboo and everything ingrained in our society today... it was all made by us. Even our GODS were made by us. (Not to deny they exist foolishly- I'm simply saying most all representations of gods are humanoid, or some type of animal on earth, which is infinitely unlikely.)

But, that's where it becomes beautiful. For every terror, every murder and every crime it's simply an expression of our free will as a race. Because for all the bad parts, we can create beautiful works of art and incredible emotions in the form of Romance, forging our world as we collectively see fit. It's the world we made. I believe in the philosophy that it's our endeavor, that humanity as a race has to take blame for what it has been so ascribed by itself, and that to truly advance, we must be courteous, polite, and generally good Samaritans to others.

To put it simply, my god is the Categorical Imperative.

...I lol'd. I can imagine you doing that while like, stealing cookies or some shit.