If you do, why do you believe in God?
If you do, why do you believe in God?
As simple as possible to summarize the best way you can, first, please. Feel free to expand after, or just say whatever you want lol. Honest question.
For most, it's indoctrination.
In some sort of greater being yes, in any kind of church or following no.
I find I have my own belief in some unknown cosmic entitys, something along the lines of energy is always in a state of flow, life and death, rocks to dust, consciousness to the sprawling reaches of the universe a bit of new age spirituality stuff,
I believe in all gods, much in the same way I believe money, justice, and math exist.
Doesn't mean I follow any or all of them, yahweh is a dick and so are a few others, but some are chill.
For me, God is a character stronger than me.. Someone whom I call upon in times of despair. That's it. No deeper meaning than this.
I do not, no proof. If there was a god such as in the Bible why give us reasoning abilities when they give no proof? And if so, then I put forward the idea that if there is such a god, they don't care if we believe so why bother?. Not to go all gamer but like the Sims, they made us and took out the pool ladder and saw what happened.
If there is a god that has such powers and cares, well fuck them cause they ain't helping us it seems. If they are well we're too far off course for it to matter, this playthrough is spiraling and it doesn't matter if we believe or not cause we may be circling the drain.
So seems easier not to believe because if you do it's more depressing.
If there is a god or something like a god, it has to be the sun. The sun makes all life possible and has near infinite energy, I can not think of anything more deserving to be god. Will it save us or help us as individuals, i don't think so, its a god we are insignificant in comparison and will burn when staying in its presence for two long. Also its real.
Another idea I had was from Einsteins quote: "to believe in god you have everything to gain and nothing to lose." So by that logic you better believe in all gods for maximum gain. There are a bunch more suns aswell ;)
DMT
I used to believe because of how convinced other people were. I thought they had a good reason. Turned out they had not
Sort of, but it's more a comforting theory rather then a true belief. I came up with it when I was younger, doing a lot of psychedelics, and meditating often on the nature of existence and reality.
My theory is that God is everything. The earth, the stars, our fellow beings. All of reality makes up a complex web that I loosely refer to as a "consciousness" for lack of a better word. The nature of this "consciousness" is incomprehensible to us. It does not activly intervene in our daily lives, and operates on a scale beyond our comprehension. Mostly, it simply is. It is the oblivion from which our consciousness was once plucked, and it is where we will one day return.
In essence, each of us is a tiny fragment of reality experiencing itself. The meaning of life is to experience it. All of it. Joy, pleasure, and suffering. It is all a part of the whole of existence. When we die and return to the infinite our individuality is lost, but maybe God learns something about itself.
You cannot have a painting without an artist. A sculpture without a sculpture. A tool will never use itself, it takes a user.
Imagine a blank and static universe. Someone had to add or move something to start the initial reaction even if they never play a part in the events after.
In some sense there is a creator. I just don't know in what capacity.
Because it sometimes makes me feel better about there potentially being some purpose to us if we were created intentionally, provides a placeholder explanation for what's out there besides the universe, makes life more fun, and does not harm anyone (I'm not religious).
We seek tangible proofs, of intangible things, in a tangible world, using intangible consciousness, thoughts, mind and reason, called the "Self" or "I Am", in order to determine if an intangible being could possibly exist. You are your own proof of such things, amongst 8 billion other proofs. We are the intangible being we may or may not believe in. All of us are.
For me "God" isn't some person with wits and thoughts.
It is just the circumstances in where we live. The time the physics the vibration and energy filling the matter and thoughts.
There is no need in praying to it (except for you self). We're in a happy stream full of energy filled with feeling "souls" going into the same direction in time and filling this strange place where we feel energy as matter, waves and colors.
Personally I'm a huge fan of the Alcoholics Anonymous understanding of "god" and I think it applies more widely.
In AA it is supposed to be A-religious so as to accommodate as many people as possible. To them, god is whatever higher power you need to put your faith into to do better. An entity who you are striving to make proud or you are asking for guidance or help, etc.
This genericized god idea kinda gives up the game to me as an atheist, but it doesn't mean it's bad. In fact it's made me believe in god as an idea.
There are plenty of studies on "manifesting" goals and how saying out loud to yourself or to someone at all substantially increases your chance of succeeding in your goal. This is just prayer or a magic spell or whatever else you wanna call it. I call it a ritual.
The fact that god is a made up idea has been uncontested in my mind for eons, however the psychological power of a belief in god is new to me and makes me appreciate the systems of religion more (doesn't excuse a lot of their bullshit).
The pattern looks like a boxershorts or Lederhose
In times of peace, I'm agnostic. In times of christofascism, I'm militantly atheist. People go to church or talk to God because it is an existential crisis. They are just scared of dying. Momento Mori.
I'm LDS some people might call us Mormon.
The short of it is I asked God and I felt his presence. Not like any earthly feeling, more like the burning the bible / new testament describes.
But even without any of that I'd still have believed / known. I just, always have if that makes sense? I might've gone a different direction in my beliefs but I'd still have known he's there.
I believe in a god but it is strange lol. I will truly never understand the concept of being all knowing and powerful so my idea is he's either so bored with his existence he created us for entertainment or simply boredom. I imagine him similar to a comic book writer or tv show creator
Because of Nick Cave.
If you look at it very very loosely, many major religions are reaching toward the same general concepts and have enough similarities to suggest a consensus that there's a "something" up there.
We probably all have an imperfect idea of what that "something" is, but there are enough similarities (or echos of the same ideas) across many religions to suggest they're looking at the same indivisible thing and interpreting it differently.
I believe in God because I don't believe knowledge is possible without a transcendent being. (e.g. the impossibility of the contrary) Otherwise you are dealing with infinite regress or axiomatic circularity. Materialism breaks down with origin theories. Metaphysics aren't substantial yet exist. Math and logic aren't descriptors of the world but integral to how the world is structured. The Orthodox view is that these principles are a reflection of the divine mind.
(I am an Orthodox Christian)
I feel like religion is so corrupted by governments, cults, and sleazeballs. Not all of them mind you, that it’s just so difficult for a lot of people to put their faith in any religion. That’s why theirs so many atheists.
I think I believe in something more like… biology and physics working together in some way to create our existence. I had a near death experience once when I was in ICU for several months. I met, a… thing, it was like a large glowing spark but its light didn’t travel away from its self, its glowing was contained to its “body”. I asked “is that me?” and the “room” we were in was filled with a sense of “no” it’s taken me ten years to process that experience and be able to talk about it, idk what that spark was but I’ve come to accept I believe that is the All Thing, it’s the eternal spark all sentient life stems from, I do believe access to long term memory is critical for being a part of the All Thing not simply being animated biology, like a mosquito for example.
I think the All Thing animates biology as a way to experience the physical world because it must “live” somewhere and we are all avatars, our thoughts are only important in the sense that they lead us to experiences and forming memories. I believe in nonduality and that physics is actually the closest humans will ever get to describing a god, an All Thing
Gods, plural. But believe is a weird word.
I commune with the ancient gods of my ancestors, whether I believe in them is complicated though. I spent most of my life atheist after the christian church failed to grab me. I learned of my ancestral religion from my great grandmother and my great aunt. Grandma was Catholic on paper but still recognized the old gods. My aunt called herself a druid.
I choose to commune with the old gods because I have to believe in something. I've felt the call of spirit, the gaping void in my heart where spirituality was meant to be, but I do not trust organized religion. I don't trust the churches. I don't trust those who would hold power, enforced by faith, over those who do not know better.
By using our logic and from the experience of things around us we can say that it's impossible for something to come from nothingness. There is a consensus that the universe has a beginning which scientists call the Big Bang. But that cannot come out of itself, logic dictates that there is something which brought it about (energy/matter does not just compress itself into a singularity). Whatever that thing is or things if there is a chain of initiators/causes, must end with an initiator which is self-sufficient and which has not been caused by something else. Otherwise we go in an infinite regression of asking what caused that cause, and an infinite chain going backwards would mean the present never gets to happen, but we exist, and that is proof that the chain ends somewhere.
That's what is called the necessary being or the uncaused cause.
Now, by observing the universe we can surmise some characteristics that that cause must possess to bring it about, since it must possess them in at least an equal ammount. The enormous ammount of energy held in the universe shows that the initiator has immense power. The laws of the universe and its intricacies suggest that it must possess knowledge and wisdom etc.
No reason. I just do.
There are definitions of "God" that I feel are hard to prove, but others that are easy. For example, of your definition is "God is the ultimate cause of the universe" then it's pretty trivial that if everything has a cause there must be an end of the chain. Of course, this the could be a computer program running the universe simulation or even just the laws of physics themselves if those are truly causeless. But nonetheless, it's still a somewhat satisfying definition of "God" so I'm comfortable saying I believe in God. Harder definitions include "God is an omnipotent being" (which most of God's traditional attributes can be derived from) and "God is the being described in the Bible/Qu'ran/other religious text" which I feel like are unprovable.
A lot of religious apologists will make arguments in favor of the easier definition and then try to claim that this means their specific view of God is real. Personally I think that's insane. Like "there must be some end of the chain of causality therefore God became a Jewish carpenter in the ancient Roman Empire." Even if you're Christian that should be a bad logical jump.
TLDR; I'm vehemently agnostic.
I believe that if there is a "God" entity, that it is incomprehensible and not worth attempting to understand.
I also don't believe in an anthropocentric "God", in that "God" doesn't inherently value nor not value humans as somehow special nor damned. I also don't believe "God" cares nor doesn't care about humans or existence.
I also don't believe in inherent meaning, nor that there is some form of divine justice. Those are human lenses through which we interpret the world, and are unlikely to apply (at least in the same way as a human) to the supposed viewpoint of an eternal omniscient omnipotent entity that created the universe and will supposedly one day close the door on time and its own existence.
In short, I'm one bleak motherfucker and it doesn't matter if "God" exists or not. Either way, I don't get to survive death. What is eternal about me is inherently not a part of me. It is mortality, true mortality, mortality of the consciousness and the ego and the individual that defines the individual. When that dies, "God” or not, either way there is no individual to somehow surpass death.
Earthseed