Do you believe in God?

Again, I thank you all for participating. This thread was an experiment of sorts, though the question is entirely genuine. One purpose was to see if, despite stating that I was not seeking discussion, the thread would somehow manage to survive, which includes avoiding being locked. The result is evident: not only is the thread not locked, but it appears to have flourished due to the fact that those on both sides of the fence, as it were, and a few perhaps sitting upon the fence have kept the thread very much alive.

I love you guys. Have a nice day.

Reduc

Yes, of course.

No but I also don't care. Got real shit to do.

I have memories of living on a previous incarnation of the Earth, so God must be behind it.

@reduc_ab_: religious threads always have high post counts in plenty of forums and anywhere on social media.

The thread as been a little disappointing, as atheists have given reasons they reject theist claims, however thiests who have posted have either posted drivel or a simple yes.

I didnt miss that other half, my point was that when you said "there are ways....", this is a bit foreign to some people who will flip out simply because you don't share their belief. That you do not have to say anything other than "no" to receive this reaction, a reaction us non-believers tend to receive on a fairly regular basis (at least those of us in the south or midwest).

Okay.

Care to share?

I don't know, I just don't think it matters all that much.

If people want to live a good life and believe in god, fine

if people want to live a good life and be atheist, fine as well

It's when you start hurting or insulting other people because they DO or DON'T believe in your beliefs, that I start taking offense.

I don't like Christians murdering muslims in the medieval ages. And I don't like Muslims (extremists, don't feel I need to clarify but I will) murdering christians. Or any relgion killing someone from another religion or atheists killing believers or whatever.

Go ahead and believe what you want, you'll know when you die. Just let others live their own lives and believes in peace.

@kod:

Correct. But if you decided to engage or answer the question you have to be willing to accept the reaction. Will there be harsh reactions? I'd wager to say yes there will be harsh reactions but they are of course entitled to feel how they want to feel as you are entitled to feel how you want to feel. It is when you infringe on another persons right to belief or not belief that you cross a line.

Edit: At the end of the day this is what it should come down to. People should be able to lead good lives in the manner they choose. Continuing to be abrasive towards another group simply because of an experience you shared is also just continuing a vicious cycle. If you're willing to open up and listen to a believer or non-believers argument and disagree with it in a pleasant manner - Great! If not, at least just ignore it and move on. Misdirected anger based on previous experiences is never the solution.

"Disturbingly high" is simply based on my own personal experiences living in the Midwest and south. the numbers of crimes against nonbelievers in Muslims countries, and things like blasphemy laws around the world..... and btw, "Disturbingly high" is not a number. I intentionally left it vague because for me, its very disturbing how often this happens.

Yahhhhh. So, this is not something i was saying to religious people or in the guise of having a conversation on if and why someone believes. It was my opinion i gave to you when expanding on the topic. And even if this was the case, it is really just my experience with religion people. Coming from the bible belt and currently living in the south, not too many people ive ever met never question these things. This observation is also not even close to being on par with my experiences of answering "yes" or "no", and is definitely not on par with what we see in say.... Indonesia or Pakistan.

When it comes to specific religions i have no problems making a factual statement of if we know this god or gods exist. Simply because we tend to know the origins of most religions. We know exactly where they come from, who wrote the text, why they wrote the text, when they wrote the text, etc.

@kod: "You cant have a functioning brain and not realize how contradictory religious text and religious teachings are. Of course you also cannot have a functioning brain while also never questioning any of these things. "

Maybe you just don't recognize it. But you are insulting people. You can express your opinion and share your stories without insults.

@kod: "the US prevented a near genocide in East Timor that fundamentalist Muslims felt was their god given right to do." Ah so a +1 for the US. I don't have the time or energy to go into the amount of atrocities caused by the US in the past.

Youve missed the point.

@kod:

You quoting yourself does nothing to fix the fact that you are insulting people. Not through expressing your opinion but in the manner in which you choose to express it. Claiming a group or an individual lacks a functioning brain because of their belief is insulting.

I'm agnostic, so I believe that I have no way of knowing if there is or isn't a god. I acknowledge that both "yes" and "no" as possible outcomes as we can't prove or disprove it, so when people ask me that I usually say "I don't know" or "maybe?".

I still understand the reasons why people choose to definitively believe there is or isn't a god though, and I respect that. Your belief is yours and you have every right to it!

I believe in Rocko.

@baron_machina: agnostic does not describe a belief it's claim of knowledge.

You are either a theist or an atheist, there is no middle option.

From what you said you appear to be an atheist, if you don't know then you don't believe until the claim has met it's burden of proof.

@kod: Meh. Mentioning things like families rejecting a member due to their lack of faith/apostatised, fair enough. But adding a little political information in about the US' involvement to "help" another place regarding any reason including religion is quite frankly ridiculous. You may have had a bad personal experience with Religion, but how would you feel if rather than your family disown you, to have them blown to shreds instead. Look at the current joke of a President that is Trump, he ordered missile strikes and didn't even know what f****** country it was. Your little comment there is like saying "That Paedophile was involved in many cases of child grooming, but in terms of road safety, at least he drove slowly in school zones".

@thehig1: agnostic definition:

"a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God."

As for your statement, I suppose it might be possible to categorize me as agnostic atheist, although I don't think that's accurate as I consider God's existence to be an equal possibility. Agnostic atheists don't believe in god for the reason of not having information or proof. I'm someone who tries not to make a judgement until I have some form of context or input on a situation, and until then I try to take multiple possibilities into question. So for me, I believe that that the possibility of a God existing or not existing is about 50/50. I do actually see the value people take from religion though, a good deal of my family is actually catholic and it has had a positive impact on their lives. One of my best friends is also an atheist, and although he doesn't believe in God, he believes that each person's religion is true as it can have such an impact on their life and how they treat others, and in that it becomes real. I just don't feel I want to make a declaration that there definitively is or isn't a God without some considerable form of proof or information.

My "opinion" on the matter is pretty passive and I don't really know too much about religious practice terminology. So once again maybe your right and I'm technically agnostic atheist, although once again I don't think that's accurate given the nature of my views. I've been through some bizarre situations that were fairly spiritual and seen some things that seemed supernatural that I haven't been able to explain, so even I'm not fully sure where I stand on the matter. While I am interested in how people react to and view religion, it's more-so for understanding psychology and cultures. I just believe I don't and probably won't ever know everything, and I'm fine with that. So I'm fine staying in the middle on the God question.

So I'll just stick with agnostic. Thank you for your input, though.

I would defend believing in God is a form of psychosis after watching a program on TLC about psychotic drugged out 5 year olds. Most people aren't psychotic so they don't believe in God or never experienced a miracle. I tell a psychiatrist about my miracle and they give me klonopin. I don't take meds it's an example.

The highlight, example, was not politics, it was an example of what religion can be mad at you for doing. If you'd like we can erase that example and i can say... blasphemy or drawing cartoons or writing a book.

No, but i was hoping you'd understand that this is not something i was saying to someone in the conversations being highlighted or within the "yes" or "no" conversation. It was something said to you in a different conversation about how people react, not them in a religious conversation... and btw if you read what i said actually give religious people credit because i believe most do think about these things at some point in their life.

I'm too drunk to comfortably answer this question

@baron_machina: that's all well and good, but as I said it's agnostic is not about your belief.

People are either a theist or atheist it's that's simple.

An agnostic atheist is the most accurate description of your stance

I think your misunderstanding what atheist means somewhat, it's the lack of belief in dietes based on no evidence

It doesn't mean you think it will never be proven, just that it hasn't now so the default position is not to belief something until its met it's burden of proof, basic logic.

Agnostic isn't a middle ground answer, it answers a different question

I love you.

;)

No

Not sure if you've looked into it or not, but this falls into Pantheism.

@thehig1: Actually, that's the definition of agnostic atheist. The definition of atheism is the disbelief or lack of belief in a god or gods, for any reason what so ever. Your description is agnostic atheism, which is atheism based on a lack of information. The title of atheist means someone could disbelieve or lack belief in god for a number of reasons, while agnostic atheist provides that reason in the title. So no, I'm not confused about what atheism is.

I was more so confused by your statement that agnosticism has nothing to do with belief. While it doesn't on the level of someone being classified as a theist or atheist, it still serves as the reason that many use to form their religious beliefs. While it is formed by a lack of knowledge, it is by its very definition based in belief as well. So I feel like saying it has nothing at all to do with belief whatsoever is a bit too broad of a statement to make.

I actually decided to look it up out of curiosity, and I technically would be classified as agnostic atheist since I don't currently believe in a specific god, just the possibility that one may or may not exist. Even if I do believe the odds of that are 50/50, that doesn't really change the classification. So I concede that you were right about that. I also agree based on looking into it a bit, that agnostic does more so focus on the "why" of religious beliefs rather than the theist/atheist classification.

As I said before, I haven't done much research into religious classifications like this before, so this was an interesting conversation. It doesn't change the nature of my beliefs at all, but it was interesting to see a bit more about how the term agnostic is applied in certain circles as well as the exact classification I'd be under. I'm not a religious person, so I'd probably never look into it this much unless I were engaged in a conversation similar to this one. You seem to be fairly well informed on the topic, so thanks for having this discussion with me! I'm glad that there are still people who can talk about aspects of religion without getting hostile with each other.

@baron_machina: yeah good talk, I would classify myself as Agnostic Atheist, although I normally just refer to myself as Atheist to keep things simpler.

I am a Satanist. So No!

LOL WUT? The belief in Satan necessitates a belief in god.

I know. I still classify myself as a Gnostic Atheist since I'm not interested in fencing sitting on the issue, but this is more like answering "What if I wake up one morning and decided I wanted to believe there's a God" or "If someone points a gun to my head tells me I must choose a God to believe in if I want to live" scenarios. If any one of those circumstances occurred, I'd believe there was a God in the way I explained....

I don't know. There may very well be a god. But if there is, I suspect we would lack that ability to really understand it. Perhaps the current religions of the world are based on some aspect or exposure to that god, but they could very well be misinterpreting that god or its message. How can a simple person understand an infinite being or force?

@ferrari2001: No. Modern Satanism doesnt!

Not really many Satanist groups believe in the physical form, Christianity is more spiritual. Look up Anton Lavay.You're probably thinking of edgelords who think it's cool going against God any legit Satanist will tell you otherwise.

Used to. Don't anymore.

No, never have. But similar to what @and1salttape said, if I did, I'd probably reject any god's authority.

Yes.

But I also don't believe that this is a question that can be asked on the internet without trouble brewing.

I guess I'm leaning more towards believing there is a God or some sort of...something.

I have never been one of those people who puts all of their faith in science, I like to believe that there is such a thing as souls, and spirits, and magic.

Imagine what its like if you say "no" and you're outside of the internet....

Where Atheism Can Get You Killed: Secular bloggers are being butchered on the streets of Bangladesh.

There Are 13 Countries Where Atheism Is Punishable by Death

You don't put faith into science, faith is a belief held about something in absence of evidence, science is the opposite.

Science is just a method we use to study the natural world through observation and experimentation. Scientific claims are testable, no faith needed.

Your statement says to me you don't care about what is actaully true, you just want to believe in souls spirits and magic, which there is no evidence to suggest any of that exists.

No, I do put faith into science. I didn't stutter. I put some faith into science...that the motherf*cking scientists won't f*ck all of the sh*t up.