Why do/don't you believe in God?

Because I can never forgive him/her/it if he/she/it exists. He/she/it then created a cruel, despicable game in which the only way to win is to make the other players suffer.

Also the notion just doesn't make sense to me without any real evidence. I do sometimes wonder if there is more to the universe than meets the eye, and I'm open to that, but I just can't believe there is a conscious, all-powerful god at work.

 

No. I used to, but lots of really bad stuff happened and mean people hurt me, and if god was real they wouldn't let that happen to me.

 

Does believing in Diana Prince / WW makes me a theist? If so, light my path, WW. You do you, and I'll look up to it.

If no, then nah. I mean, does it matter? Why losing time over something that potentially doesn't exist, but maybe does, and ultimately never manifests in any way? Limited time on Earth, better to spend it on valuable thing and actually helping people out / helping yourself out instead of praying for someone/something to do it for you.

 

No proof that he/she/it exists.

And no, the bible doesn't count as proof. You can't back it up with substantial, verifiable evidence.

 

We simply don't know where the universe comes from other than that there was the big bang, we don't know what preceded it. There are a lot of interesting hypotheses on the subject. I think the idea of saying "god did it" is infantile when in reality, nobody knows.

I honestly have no clue where the universe came from other than that there was the big bang. I spend some time pondering the question every now and then because it intrigues me. Especially since the answer to "where does the universe come from?" leads to the question "what does that which preceded our universe come from?". It gives way for an endless cycle of 'this' preceded 'that'. But why would existence even need a beginning? Our concept of reality and time, the way it requires a rigid one way timeline almost has to be wrong, for the universe to make sense. Time is a very interesting thing. Believing that something had to precede the universe assumes that there is a timeline that goes from point A to point B and that it started before the universe came into existence. That everything has to come from something and that existence has to have a beginning. Why do we believe this? Because in our universe that is how everything works. Everything is preceded by something. But how can we say that that is the case with how our universe came into existence?

I believe our concept of existence and reality overall is scewed because we cannot quite fathom any other way of existence than one with a history, a present and a future. But it probably is more complex than that. Otherwise it would be very strange that the universe would be this stable. How would the energy of the universe remain constant (if we should believe in the Law of Conservation of Energy) unless something exists that is unaffected by time? Otherwise wouldn't energy dissipate?

Just some thoughts.

 

There are probably so many dimensions, so many more things that the human mind can not percieve with the given 5 senses. This is so out of our capabilities that we can not even imagine it. So i speculate that there are so many things beyond our understanding. So I cant make any claims on the existence and lack of existence of god. But i do believe that god isnt anthropocentric or anthropomorphic! Hence I'm agnostic. I dont reject the possibility of an impersonal god. But i cant say with certainity whether there is such a god after all.
I also understand why a lot of religions around the world gave anthropomorphic forms to god. But i reject their rule books n the type of relationship that they believe we have to have with god. Specially that "oh god is testing us" n stuff like that!

 

I have never had any faith in a deity. Why? Because that's the culture I was born into. Pure. Material. Conditions. I'm also not interested in the discussion about the existence or non-existence of any deity - that is a question of non-interest of mine. However, I do find religion interesting at times from a socio-cultural/academic, or artistic perspective.

I also don't mind, and can empathize with, views like Eveline^ expressed above of that sense of connectedness. I think God is just one of many metaphors that can be used to describe that connectedness, but it's an idea that keeps surfacing throughout history and across different cultures, and one that I find myself well aligned with. I tend to view it, in my pragmatic sense at least, as something like our expression of our sense of belonging found in a shared story.

 

No proper plausible evedence..
I don't believe in unicorns either...

 

I see God everywhere, don't you?

 

No evidence a god exists, and no evidence a god doesn't exist. I don't believe in any of the gods of the human religions, but I feel in this big universe, and this mysteriousness we call life, there is a lot we don't really know, and a lot our human minds cannot comprehend. So, it's completely possible there is some higher power we don't know about. Cue the existential crisis.

---------- Post added 23rd Jun 2016 at 04:03 AM ----------

Fine tuning? (I don't know enough about the multiverse hypothesis (?) to comment on that.)

 

I believe in something. You might as well call it God. Something caused it all to start. What was around before the big bang? Whatever it was can be something that is god. I do however doubt the whole method that organized religion presents it as.

I can't believe in a god that is representative of vengeance and condemnation. I can't be part of a religion that decries basically anyone who doesn't fit their model. I believe that Jesus was a real person and was a great man, but I also think he would be appalled at the state of the world and the intolerance and outright hatred shown towards many.

 

I'm agnostic.

With the grounds that religion stands on, it is too easy to be proven. Religion is said to exist more spiritually: just pray enough, and thanks to the placebo effect, you may hear God or feel "the Holy Spirit". But how do we know that it isn't actually God?

It's little questions like these that I'm not sure on. Also, the fact that scripture is so easily bent out of shape to suit any agenda makes me lose hope for any true knowledge of God. Trust me: I recently read an article that analysed passages "against" homosexuality as concluding that they actually aren't talking about homosexuality. I just don't know.

I can answer this question from both sides, even though I'm only an agnostic. Theists answer this first question by saying that "God gave us the gift of free will", implying that denying us free will would mean God taking away our freedom.
You could also say that God wants to test us, in a world of good and evil, that we will come to him and trust in him. If we knew only good, how can we show that we love him without even having a choice? I don't agree with this reasoning, but it's not about opinions.

As an agnostic, my explanation for the fine-tunings of this universe are either known or unknown. Like my open-minded belief in religion, my open-minded belief in Science is that either a God/higher power fine-tuned our universe or they came about through currently-unknown scientific means that I'll give science time to discover. Science surprises us everyday: why deny any possibilities?

The multiverse theory doesn't sound as ridiculous as a belief in a higher power: they both sound as theoretical as one another.
(If we wanted to argue ridiculous, let's ask civilians from 1,000 years ago on their thoughts towards us evolving from a common ancestor to monkeys. Despite our surety now, it hadn't even become accredited then: ridiculousness is invalid.)
I'm as open-minded to the idea of the multiverse, as I am to the existence of a God or Gods. The multiverse theory sounds pretty exciting, though.

 

"Fine-tuning" refers to the fact that the conditions of the universe (i.e. the state of gravity and stars and other constants) are in a "perfect" state to allow for the existence of the Earth and humans. If the conditions were only slightly different by a miniscule percentage, there might have been no Earth or life on Earth. Creationists assert that only an intelligent designer could've allowed for these stable life-providing conditions. The Multiverse theory is an alternate explanation that asserts that there are multiple parallel universes with imperfect conditions, and only this one has the conditions that allow for human life. There's about as much evidence for the Multiverse as there is for God. So the question of "how/why are we here?" continues to remain unanswered :eusa_doh:

 

Personnaly i'm really down to earth, i believe in what i see, in science. It just seems impossible for me to believe in such things.

 

As a Buddhist, for me, the question is not about believing or not believing in god/gods, but if god/gods are almighty and if we have to follow them. The Buddhist answer is clearly no. Man is responsible for his own fate. Karma

 

Pretty much what everyone else said; I don't see enough physical evidence to show that there is a higher power--and the Watch Maker's argument doesn't count.

 

I believe in G-d, because I believe there is a omnipresent force that watches over people. But, I use G-d more as a personal guiding light, I guess you can say.

Of course, bad things still happen and will always happen because G-d gave us free will, but that doesn't disprove or prove anything. Spirituality and religious conviction isn't supposed to read like a fairytale and it's not supposed to be some sort of pure escape valve from reality.

There are many religious or somewhat religious people who lead intelligent and normal lives. Just as there are many non-religious, secular people who lead intelligent and normal lives.

I think this discussion is important to have for every individual person. I think even most religious people have had some internal questioning of religion and G-d.

 

I don't fully agree with you on your view on the multiverse theory. We still don't understand quantum mechanics good enough to the point where we can with certainty claim that if other universes exist, we can't observe them. If we understand the very basic mechanisms that govern existence, we could perhaps harness them in a way that makes it possible to observe other universes. Maybe it's a bit farfetched, but who knows? I sure don't know, and I don't quite think we (humans) are qualified to rule out the possibility for observing other universes just yet.

I also don't think that way of looking at the multiverse theory as it a possibility for any kind of universe to exist is right, such as a universe where there's only gay people on planet earth. I believe the universe/universes are deterministic in the way that from the moment the system is set in motion the outcome is already determined by the numbers that govern it's existence. What this means for the multiverse theory and for the possibility for any weird stupid kind of universe to exist is that, any weird stupid universe can't exist. The parameters, values like: the weight of an electron. Or what you refer to as the "fine tuning", is what determines how the universe will look. I don't believe there are factors that can lead to any possible outcome. There is an infinite number of ways for the universe to come into existence with an infinite number of special starting values. But this doesn't mean that any universe will turn out to have one planet with weird creatures that are made of paper and walk around like live origami. I mean, come on.

With this said, I believe, that even if our universe was reset and the big bang happened again, we would have the exact same outcome. With me sitting here typing this just like I am now. (unless there is outside influence from other universes)

However I might be wrong about the universe being deterministic. Obviously I don't, nor does anyone else know enough about quantum mechanics and the fundamentals of the universe to say so. To me it just makes sense that the universe would be deterministic, not necessarily in the sense that the universe is completely governed by it's own fundamental parameters, since there might be outside influence from other universes.

Just how I like it. No meaning, no free will. I mean there is no objective way of measuring love or good and evil. I would probably still argue that they exist. Or I don't know, these subjects confuse me. Even if I don't believe we have free will, I still feel like I have free will because our brains are so crazy complex. The human brain is the most complex (known) structure in the universe. It is both weird and amazing and beautiful.