The Debate on God

After my brother lost the use of his legs and looked like a skeleton just months before AIDS would take his life he considered suicide but even being a proud atheist his whole life he wouldn’t risk offending God if there is one. Most of the gays I have met are atheist. I blame the bible for this but think God and the bible are a paradox. I believe in God but realize he is most likely something undefinable like the human soul or love. My whole life I have had premonitions usually of conversations at a place I have yet to know that come true. I take the premonitions as proof there is something more than we live and die and that is all there is. I don't like or believe in the bible as it is out of context and without being able to think like people of that era it is just annoying.

 

I believe in something out there, whether it is God or not, I am not quite sure, I have personally had experiences of having made contact with someone from the afterlife, so this part I definitely believe in, which makes me happy that I will see loved ones again one day, after my Dad died, I watched the movie Ghost & I cried buckets at the end, this part I do believe

 

im undecied if there is a god, if there is he sure as hell doesnt give a shit about what happens to us, a quote i like that was said to have been writen by a jew in a nazi concentration camp said " if there is a god he will have to beg for my forgivness!" i hate when there is a tragedy and people say " god bless you" fuck that! if god was blessing us he would not have let it happen in the first place. The funny thing about christians is i can say i saw purple monkeys and pigs flying in the sky and write it down in a book and tell them they have to believe it because i saw it happen and its in this book, they would call my crazy and cart me off to the looney bin, but yet that is exactly what they are telling us to do when they say jesus was real and everything that is in the bible actaully happened, if they dont wanna just have faith that my story is real why should i about theirs? bottom line for me is none of us were there 2000 years ago and we have no idea what happened but im inclined to believe it didnt. My proof is with the dinosaurs they were not in the bible and we have sceinetific proof that they exsisted.

 

i dont believe in anything supernatural including god just because there is no proof of any of it

 

I'm an agnostic Christian: I believe in God, but I am aware that I may be wrong. What I don't like is either atheists or believers who are so sure of their opinion that there is or isn't a god. Saying that religion is a stupid hallucination is immaturity beyond reason, but so is saying that your religion is the only true, feasible one. The very extreme atheists and deists need to shut up, and let people have their own faith, as long as no-one is harmed. I also believe being forced into religion is immoral (I wasn't brought up to be Christian, and I never will try to convert others).

 

Well I did throw out there that I have always had a bit of esp fot the people to concider. As for my sister who witnessed the prayer being answered for the Buick, she will always beleve. It was not that I thought a white and blue car was comming up as she allready knew I prefer a white car with a navy blue innterrior and used to only drive Buick cars. Blue is my favorite color and white is cooler here in Florida. You seem to be a expert on things what is the percentage chance that a mile up the road from my prayer would be the answer with everything I asked it to be and put out the moment we drove by? Factor the color X-2,a/c,price, low mileage, brand,gas mileage, and reliability? I am not tring to sway anybody, but gave you 2 examples why I beleve what I feel is true to me. I dont care what you say the statistical chance of the Buick prayer being answered within a mile has to be astronomical! And as far as the truith only the two of us and GOD know for sure:icon_bigg! and trust me my sister did notice.... I knew when you could not say something smart to discount what I had to say, you would question my honesty or discount it as being a coincedence. Well again I ask you what is the statistical chances of the Buick???? Even if my esp or woman's intuition knew it was comming up, it still statisticaly to be the brand and color X2 and the rest has to be like one in a billion! I have seen the video "The Secret" and by what it says about attraction to be true in this case, WOW what service!!! LOL!

Even more than all that, I trust GOD to provide for me and He always does. Being a woman stuck in this Man's body GOD provided me a mate that in it self is a miricle and I have our photos on my profile. Mike as a man into women only, to be in love with me when what he sees on the outside is male, is a minor mericle in itself! And more than enough to keep me thanking GOD weather he is real as I feel or not! So nothing you have said has changed my mind at all I am happy to say as I am sure you hold fast to I'm a lier in the back of your mind. I am sorry for you being so distrusting and negative. June

 

I am not a over religious Guy, I don't go to church or talk about religion much, in Ireland or even the UK, i think the rule in pubs is don't talk about religion or politics

Anyway it's my understanding that God was supposed to let people take over the world by themselves for 2000 or so years on their own, without the help of God or his intervention, so they would have wars, plagues & people would die unexpectidly & then there would be a 2nd coming of the Messiah & God will take control again, or something like that, maybe one of our more active Christian EC members could explain it better

 

I'm sure Sikhs and Taoists and Zionists and Pastafarians and Pagans and Buddhists and Hellenistics would disagree .

 

It's not my job to convince people that their religious beliefs are wrong. I can only speak for myself. I was raised as a Southern Baptist in a very rural conservative community. This was a time before the internet, so for a sheltered kid as I was that meant getting alternative view points was pretty damn difficult. I think most people here can imagine what that was like - not a very good (or healthy) experience for a gay child.

In a somewhat odd twist of fate, I was actually more religious than my parents growing up. I suppose that may have been to compensate for the fact that I knew I was gay, and was desperately trying to hide it as best I could.

Things changed when I became an adult, got access to the internet, and started to study the Bible in earnest. I mostly started to study the Bible because it had been used as a weapon against me my entire life, but in the end I just couldn't sustain my suspension of disbelief.

In short, it was like watching a romantic comedy and then suddenly there are aliens, killer robots, and dragons appearing in the movie without any explanation of why or how they got there. I honestly believe that a literal reading of the Bible is the best way to become an atheist, because the moment you read it and begin to question things it all starts to fall apart.

Of course, it may be different for people who weren't raised like me to believe that the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered, complete and literal word of God. Questioning even a single word of the Bible was tantamount to heresy. It was drilled into my head that it all happened - literally! Even the most whacked out stuff I was taught - like all the knots they tied themselves in to maintain that the Earth was really just 6,000 years old - none of that could have prepared me for what I encountered when I actually read the Bible for myself.

And even as abusive as the religion was to me, I didn't want to let go. I was like the kid at school who was last to accept that Santa wasn't real. I literally held on for as long and as hard as I could, and when I finally had to admit to myself that I no longer believed in God it was awful. It was like Christmas had been ruined forever - Santa was dead. Emotionally, it was like walking on a tightrope, looking down, and realizing that the safety net that is supposed to catch you if you fall was gone. I was terrified. I was thrown into an existential crisis - my entire understanding of the world, even myself, was turned inside out and upside down.

Though as terrifying and awful as it was at the time, it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me. I've never in my entire life felt more liberated and free. I also realized that I was viewing the whole tightrope thing all wrong. The net wasn't taken away, it was never there to begin with, and while believing it was there was at times comforting it also presented limitations and dangers.

I don't think I've ever met an atheist who went kicking and screaming into non-belief as much as I did... even after I acknowledged that I didn't believe in the Christian deity, I attempted to go religion shopping elsewhere. I was desperate to try and find anything that could fill the void left behind, but ultimately I just couldn't suspend my disbelief for anything else, either.

I often wonder how many Christians really do believe in a creation as described in Genesis, that the Earth is really 6,000 years old, that Jesus was born of a virgin, or in his literal resurrection from the dead. Because honestly, I think if most Christians were completely honest they'd have to say no - certainly, not all would say it, but many would. I think most people who are religious have some sort of vague spirituality that they draw upon. However, they don't literally believe, not truly. They may want to believe, and may pretend to believe, but there is likely always this nagging thought in the back of their mind that they could be wrong.

I think back to when I was a kid. I believed because everyone else believed. No one seemed to question it because questioning it was bad, and most had no reason to do so. I also lacked access to alternative points of view and information. However, I do not believe that even if I were not gay that I could have maintained my belief; I think there would have ultimately been a point where I was forced to question it.

Setting aside for the moment all the things that can conclusively and unequivocally prove the Bible wrong - for example, carbon dating proves that the earth isn't 6,000 years old, and genetics and evolution proves that a literal interpretation of the Genesis story is just wrong. Set aside all that a moment. The stumbling block that ultimately tripped me up when it came to Christianity wasn't just one of science it was one of values and ethics.

There is basically a huge looming ethical question right at the core of Christian belief. That question is this: Is it ethical to believe that your crimes - your sins - can be forgiven by the punishment, torture, and ultimately the human sacrifice of another person?

I believe that the answer to that question is absolutely not. Just take a moment to think about the implications of answering that question "yes". Imagine that I've committed some horrible crime, and you being my good friend decided that you'd take the fall for me. "No, no." You'd say. "I'll go to prison for you." Now, don't get me wrong, I'd be incredibly grateful because I don't think I'd fair very well in prison. However, do your actions absolve me of my crimes - am I somehow washed clean of my "sins"? No, of course not. The very idea is absurd. It directly undermines everything that we collectively believe to be true about values and ethics, it strips me of my personal responsibility for my own actions by placing that responsibility on you. It doesn't matter that you accepted it willingly.

Assume for a moment that the Bible is completely accurate and true. It is indisputable. This means that we collectively had to play a role in the sacrifice of Jesus, because we are innately sinful and wicked. The notion of our innate sinfulness stretches all the way back to the original sin in Genesis. It was only through his sacrifice that you could be washed clean.

You have no say in this. This -MUST- happen. Even if you could stop it the consequence of your actions would be to condemn countless numbers of people to hell - to eternal torture. That includes yourself. Take a moment to think about that.

Let's concede that the Earth is 6,000 years old. On week one we have creation, sometime after that we have Adam and Eve's fall from grace creating original sin, and then we have Noah and the great flood. Now, all of this had to take place before 3,200 BCE because that's around the time when Egypt developed writing. We know that Egypt existed after the flood because it's talked about in the Bible explicitly, most famously in relation to Moses. So, that gives us 5,213 years from that date till today, which means all of that stuff happened 787 years before 3,200 BCE.

Try to imagine what those early years of humanity were like after being cast out of Eden. Imagine the barbarism, the wars, the genocides, and all of the ways these primitive humans suffered. Let's ignore all the things the Bible says God inflicted on people, and let's instead pretend that Yahweh is a wholly benevolent being. Let's pretend that all the plagues, the locusts, the curses and other horrors that the Bible says God inflicted on people was really the work of the devil or some other malevolent being.

In order to believe that, you'd have to concede that Yahweh sat idle for around 3,200 years and watched the suffering of humanity unfold before him. He's just sitting there on his throne and doing... whatever it is gods like him do... then suddenly after watching all of this unfold for thousands of years he decides to intervene.

But wait! He decides to do this by impregnating a virgin so that he can turn her son into a human sacrifice to cleanse us of our sins. What's more he has the perfect location - a remote part of the Middle East. So remote in fact that even 2013 years after his birth there are still parts of the world who haven't even heard of him.

I'm sorry, it may be offensive to say so, but that doesn't sound like a very good plan to me. I mean it outright sucks considering that's all he could come up with after 3,200 years of planning.

This is the very core of Christian belief, without it everything falls apart. In order to be considered a Christian you must, at a minimum, believe that God selected a poor Jewish woman in the middle of a remote part of the Middle East to give birth to a child who he intended to use as a human sacrifice to cleanse us of our sins. You can get rid of her being a virgin, you can even get rid of him being the son of God himself and instead believe that he was simply a chosen prophet of some sort. In the end, this would still be the core of Christian belief.

No matter how hard I try I just can't believe in that, because if there was a God I'd like to assume that it was more intelligent than that. This is not the only problem I have with Christianity, and the Abrahamic religions in general, but it cuts to the very core of the problem with Christianity.

 

Atheist/I don't really care

 

I want to be a Pastafarian, I love spaghetti bolognese :roflmao:

 

My personal beliefs are that I believe that God exists, I just believe that life doesn't make sense with this being all there is for us, and I keep having alot of respect for the Cosmological argument and well I believe that Jesus had a good example to follow so it makes me somewhat a Christian.

 

I'm an atheist. An agnostic and irreligious one, to be precise. Though I do consider Pastafarianism a useful tool. All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

I have not seen sufficient evidence for any god that I would believe in it, and I would not worship the Abrahamic god again even if he was proven. I very much like debating the existence of God; whilst I have no problem with people believing, particularly for personal reasons, even the personal reasons can be on faulty logical foundations.

Under the spoiler is the really really long version of how I became an atheist and what I now think of Christianity.

Spoiler

I used to be a Christian. I loved God; I got such peace and joy and I felt such love -- from the creator of the universe! I wanted to serve him with all my life. I went to church groups up to five times a week because I found them so fun and I had such desire to learn. I was saved at the age of 10, and had numerous incredible religious experiences after that.

So far, nobody has said it to me, but if anyone tells me that I was never really a Christian, that I never had a true belief in God, or something like that, I will... not be happy.

But how did I get from this to apostasy? Well, it began because I was ill. I have had CFS/ME for over a year now, and as of the beginning of 2013 I hadn't been to church for several months because of it. Without that constant reinforcement of my faith, I slowly lost it, without even noticing at first. Maybe this wouldn't have happened if I had been more dedicated to regular Bible reading and formal prayer, but now I'm glad it did.

When I realised I didn't believe in God as I had all my life (I was raised in a Christian home and never doubted God's existence even before I had a relationship with him or at the times when I wasn't sure if I wanted one), I was terrified. I didn't know what to do; I didn't know who to tell; I didn't know where I'd gone wrong. It wasn't okay to be an atheist. Atheists were these horrible and depressed people only interested in themselves, deliberately ignoring God.

At first, I wouldn't let myself ask any questions. One thing I'd learned in years of going to church is that the church will always tell you to ask questions, but there are questions you must not ask, and for the questions you do ask you must accept the answer of the church leader without further question. Ask any Christian about this and they will deny it -- perhaps they are so deep in the delusion that they do not realise it themselves -- but it is how it works in some, many, or most churches. Well, Unitarian Universalist churches may be different, but they are not exactly typical.

So. I spent a couple weeks ignoring my questions and nonbelief and pretending that I was still a Christian (even sending a testimony to friends about the amazing work God had done in my relationship with my mother). I was hoping that just wanting to be one would make it true.

It doesn't.

It took many hours of conversation with two Pagan friends of mine (I never actually talked with an atheist whilst becoming one myself) for them to help me admit that I didn't believe, and that Christianity wasn't perfect -- it was in fact really messed up. I tried talking with a Christian friend as well, but I knew what she would say to every word I said. There was nothing new there; it was old and empty and predictable. I had wanted to go back, so so much, but I knew then that I couldn't return and be honest and happy as I had been for the past years.

That didn't mean it was easy from that point on, though. I had had encounters with Jesus, I had been touched by the Holy Spirit, a priest had spoken prophecy over me, I had had such wonderful experiences. How do I explain them without God? And what about the stories from so many other people whose lives God had turned around?

Turns out, it's quite easy to explain those due to natural causes, it's just that in the Bible camp environment the God explanation is the only one you are exposed to.

• Dr Valerie Tarico has an article about the born-again experience, which I first encountered in video form, which discusses the environment, and the hypnotic techniques, and the other psychological tools used to elicit a religious experience. She has a whole series on cognitive science and Christianity, actually, which I certainly recommend.
• As for people -- including me -- whose lives were changed by Jesus -- I maintain that we needed help, and that the help we got was religious made little difference. My relationship with Mom was awful and I needed a slap around the face and motivation to change. I got that at camp, but secular counselling would have worked as well. There's also the issue that many people encounter Jesus and think their lives are changed but then they go back to how things were before. However, as part of its brainwashing the church suppresses and hides and ignores those.

Finding that video freed me from the last chains pulling me towards Christianity. I've sent her an email since then thanking her. It also opened the floodgates: There was this whole atheist world that I had never known about! You mean, there are YouTube channels and internet forums and articles and blogs and groups of people like me? It's... okay to be an atheist? Yes!

From there, I've learned so much, spending hours listening to lectures from the Freethought Festival 2012 or talks by the likes of JT Eberhard or videos by folks such as QualiaSoup. I'm still learning and will go on learning my whole life, because the world is amazing, with no god required.

I've also become (a) stronger in my atheism, knowing more about, say, abiogenesis, which means that I can defend a godless world, and (b) more critical of Christianity (the religion I know the most about). Christianity no longer makes sense to me, and I consider parts of it actively harmful, which is why I will not go back to it even if I believe in God again. That's not to say that Christians are dumb or harmful, naturally; why, it is still the case that most of my friends are religious. I was going to put a list of some of my issues with it, but I've decided that'd be unwise, so let's move on.

(This section takes a little while to get to its point.)

Well, I'm sure you've heard of Pascal's Wager: "If you believe in God and God exists, your gain will be infinite. If you do not believe in God and God exists, your loss will be infinite. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you lose nothing. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you lose nothing. Therefore, believe in God, because if you are right your gain is infinite, and if you do not do so your loss may be infinite."

It fails quite thoroughly. Upon which god do you wager? There are thousands possibilities, and many will be angry if you choose the wrong one, leading to potentially infinite loss. What about deities who would be angry if you only believe in them because of reward? The Abrahamic god is omniscient, so it'd know. Since when was belief without cost? Accepting the unevidenced can have consequences. Following a religion will have consequences. The Wager is not so simple.

I prefer to take the Atheist's Wager. I phrase it as, "I will live a good life without belief. If there is a good god, I will be rewarded anyway. If there is a bad god, I should not worship it at all. If there is no god, I will be neither rewarded or punished after death but I will leave a good legacy here on Earth."

I consider this better than following religion, since, as I have said, that is not without cost. For some people, religion is good, and they feel they have evidence for their god -- great! I'm not one of you any more.

I hope some of you may Wager with me too.

 

Atheist here. Has never been any proof of a god, ever. There are what 6 billion believers on this planet. So that what makes what, around 6 billion different gods. Hopefully you get what i'm saying.

But i usually never have a problem with the belief of god. Just don't force it on me, keep it out of government, and don't say something stupid like this country started going down when god was taken out of schools. He was never suppose to be their in the first place.

But i have absolutely no respect or patience for creationist. If you believe in creationism you're incredibly stupid and delusional. Come back to reality.

 

I belive in God. I do not currently go to church however I do enjoy it. I would like to find a guy who beleives in god as well and we can both go to church. God has done many great things for me and still continues every day. Its hard to find a home church who is accepting of gays. I truly believe God loves all his children and he made me the way I am (gay) and I wouldn't change it for anything. I had an experience once when I eie go to church my step grandma said if I'm gay then my parents should kick me out of the house. It bothered me for a long time but ultimately I know God loves me and I do him.

 

I did watch some of your video, it is a hour long. I had never seen that car before we drove by it. How could I guess it would be 1 mile up the road and be the right color, equipped the way I wanted and be the price I wanted as well? Back then I lived in Tampa and we were in St. Pete driving on a road I had never been on before going to look at a car near by when she pointed the car out in amazement and she turned around and the people were just locking it up and putting the sign on the windshield. 20 min before that it was in a garage locked up behind a door. Again what are the satistics of that happening and I don't have selective memory. I asked for those things out loud in the car with my sister rolling her eyes. She loves to tell the story of the Regal. Maybe both of us imagined I prayed for those things and found it one mile away from what you say. We were there and it really happened. You can look at it however you want but it will never change the fact it happened. I am smart enough to rember what I asked for because I was specific in what I asked for and she heard me and she turned her car around to see because I told her that car was too old and would be worn out with too many miles to keep driving to see the car we were going to see. She at the time insisted looking at the Regal because it amazed her and she wanted to know if it was my prayer's answer which it was. You worded your first reply to imply I was not telling the truth because of faulty memory causing me to think it happened. Quite frankly I could care less what you think, because I know what happened, I was there as Jennifer was too and we both have the same memory. I have no problem debating with anyone. I could never prove to your satisfaction even if Jennifer were to get on the phone with you and tell the story herself you woud not beleve. This was one of the quickest most dramatic prayer answered and will always stick out in my mind. As far as GOD and the afterlife, I know this to be true as I have died twice that I know of. The first in 1993 for 3 min with mom right there and last November. In November I was sent back from where I went and slammed back in my body. I took a long trip that time to a dark place and we stopped at a wall of dark clouds then sent back and no drugs were involved. I can again only go on what I experenced which you will discount. You will die someday and you will see! For me I have been there and know it's real. June

 

I come from a Jewish household, but I myself am an atheist agnostic. I don't claim that there is or isn't a god, but more importantly, I don't really care. If there is a god, it put us on Earth so that we could enjoy ourselves.

 

I classify myself as an agnostic atheist, meaning I do not believe the is a God(or gods), but I do not claim to know that there is not one. I refuse to believe in something without a shred of evidence, and if it were all real, I would not worship this figure, as this figure has earned nothing but my disgust.