Do you believe in God? A deity, or higher power?

[Whistlebritches]

Until my early 20's, let's call it age 23, I would have identified myself as a devout Christian (Methodist) and worshiped every Sunday, attended mid-week classes, and worked on outreach programs. From ages 23-28 I questioned those beliefs and everything that I had been taught from all those years going to church and the associated activities. For the last 10+ years I've considered myself an atheist and to be completely honest I'm at a point where I find it hard to believe that people are still religious. I just don't get it.

 

Ironically enough it was a series of Sunday school lessons that pushed me over the edge many years later when I reflected on the teachings. More specifically it was about different religions and what they believe and how Christianity is right and hahaha what are those crazy Mormons thinking.

 

Today I have a single commandment I live by it's treated me really well. Don't be an a-hole.

[Creighton Duke]

I've talked about the House & the Shed analogy before here. My epiphany came to me as I stood on my deck, looking at my shed. It was dirty and needed to be cleaned out, mostly from mouse debris but I had some spilt bags of sand, tons of dirt, the usual stuff. It was a nasty, smelly mess. So bad that I never wanted to go in there.

 

As I stood there looking at that stupid shed, it occurred to me that I wouldn't even let a child of mine go in there in that condition. And then it dawned on me that the Bible story, as we're told it, teaches that God, who has the power to do anything, makes me live in that shed. He could very easily pull me out of it, give me a room in the house and let me live there instead of living in squalor, but he doesn't.

 

If I wouldn't let my own children go into that shed, why would the all-powerful God of the Universe let his? I decided to stop ignoring my doubts right there. It was clearly a story made up by the church to control people. No actual factual God as described in the Bible would allow children he loves to suffer this way.

 

The stories the Bible tells us, the stories the church tells us, are very clearly made up after the fact to explain what already is, to try and put some kind of explanation on things. There are 1,000 reasons why this would happen - control, power, influence, all the basic human character flaws, ignorance, fear of the reality of life, bap bap bap. The list is as long as man's journey through time.

 

The process took years. I was taught that God was real and that the Bible was true, I even taught that myself as a church leader. But it's clear to me that it's not true, and I feel much happier now, like a weight has lifted off my shoulders.

Possible that you are a deist, as Excel claims he may be?

[Landlord]

I guess I can also dive in a little deeper and say that while I still claim Christ and still have convictions towards the pillars of the Christian faith being true, the last 9 months of my life have been pretty open rebellion towards how I'm called to live. I've been a bit of a functioning atheist lately, and if I'm honest I have a fear in the back of my head that I'm just growing out of a phase, but moreso I think I'm just in a valley that I'll climb out of back towards faithfulness.

 

 

 

Also, seeing the stuff spouted by most American Christians is enough to turn pretty much any one atheist. I consider turning atheist several times a day due to the induced cringes on my facebook feed.

 

 

 

Thirdly, I often wonder what all of our perspectives would be if we lived in Israel and experienced Jesus' life first hand. On both sides. Would the multitudes of Christians so easily follow Christ in a setting where he was considered an insane traitor and declaring faith to Him put their lives in jeopardy, and would the atheists and agnostics and people of other faiths so easily dismiss or deny His message and His works?

[Hooked on Huskers]

Agnostic. Exploring Bahá'í Faith and Church of Scientology. I believe the bible was best selling storybook.

 

And under Christianity beliefs, the only true religion is Catholic faith ........ remaining religions was easy way out especially Baptist.

[EbylHusker]

Richard Kuklinski may have been on to something when he gave a man he was about to execute 30 minutes to pray to God to save his life. God never showed so he killed the man. I'm guessing that answers question number one. As for Jesus, I'm sure Jesus was a real historical figure. I'm also sure he was just some guy.

[knapplc]

 

Christianity sells "eternal life" in Heaven as a way past that scary blank wall. It's a security blanket, only nobody has ever seen it, reported on it, confirmed it, or proven beyond doubt that it exists. In the absence of any proof whatsoever, it's pretty easy to believe that it's just a made-up story to assuage our human fears.

At the risk of sounding confrontational even though its not the intent:

 

It could be a security blanket, sure. But just because no one has scientifically verified the existence of heaven (despite the many claims of appearances by Jesus, Mary, or white lights, that Heaven is for Real book, etc) doesn't mean heaven doesn't exist. Of course, that doesn't automatically mean it does exist as well. There are plenty of scientific studies out there trying to verify/explain many 'earthly' claims, dark matter, string theory, why in the world fibonacci sequences and phyllotaxis are so awesome and work like they do...okay maybe that last one is just me... and plenty of other, less polarizing (probably the wrong word) unexplainable things like aliens/UFOs, bigfoot and HAARP out there currently and I think we all can agree the fundamental difference is "belief". What do you believe.

 

Science has plenty of provenance and we therefore believe that they are true. The Bible is said to have plenty of provenance as well yet is not as widely believed, the book Case for Christ provides a pretty good outline from my limited experience reading up on the topic. It's clear that you specifically Knapp have done some thought and research from both sides, weighed your options and like many people chosen, pretty steadfastly (as we have seen in these various religion based threads) that you can't believe the things the bible says. The problem with that is that there is no more proof that it (God/heaven) doesn't exist than proof that does. It all comes down to who believes either side more that is the determining factor.

 

From what I see in many arguments against (not all arguments, obviously) is that people want proof. They want to see it with their eyes. A recurring theme in the Bible is just that, people want visible proof and while the message is trust and belief, God still provides evidence. Where the disconnect occurs is that we as humans have a hard time believing these acts could actually happen for various reasons (say in the physical or logical sense) but if you live in the world of God, we as humans can't possibly know everything that God does, so we must believe/trust what He says. It's on a similar but much greater level to us trusting what our parents told us growing up, we didn't and couldn't know any better but we pretty much blindly trusted/believed them until we were able to truly find out on our own. In this case, the only way we can truly find out on our own is when we die and until that time we only have the choice of belief.

 

Now I can't say that I am an expert on why or why not but I do try to remain open and listen to each side while still maintaining my belief. When i find contrary, I do the work to research and come to a logical conclusion that makes sense to me. I can't nearly say that what I have written above will make any sense or be nearly as eloquently written as say Landlord and others have shown that they are well versed. I may very well be very off base on my perspective, which just then means I have more work to do in understanding.

 

Lastly:

 

 

Lack of positive or negative proof can't be a basis for anything, belief or unbelief. As with unicorns, we can neither prover nor disprove their existence, so lack of positive evidence really means nothing. What means something is that we can use our reason and trace back the origins of unicorns in stories and, imperfect though that picture is, we can get a pretty good idea that they're fictional. All it takes is some reasoning, and it's pretty easy to see that they're likely not real.

 

Same goes for the God of the Bible. The stories in the Bible - the stories attributed to Jesus - are not unique. They aren't even sourced from the Bible. History is replete with virgin births, gods dying and rising from the dead, wise men performing miracles, etc etc etc. The Noah / Flood myth is directly taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh, down to the "two by two" phrase. I can go on and on with examples, but anyone can google them. They're not hard to find.

 

The question becomes, how many holes in the story are too many? At what point do you start to back away, take a broader view, and say, "That doesn't add up." For me, that happened about three years ago. For some it never happens, for others it happens but the answer is different.

 

The thing about proof is, as you say, the only way anyone will ever know is if they find themselves in heaven after death. If there's no heaven they're still dead and can't report on anything.

 

You have to admit, that's an awfully convenient thing for a religion, that there's no way to disprove anything.

[The Dude]

Thirdly, I often wonder what all of our perspectives would be if we lived in Israel and experienced Jesus' life first hand. On both sides. Would the multitudes of Christians so easily follow Christ in a setting where he was considered an insane traitor and declaring faith to Him put their lives in jeopardy, and would the atheists and agnostics and people of other faiths so easily dismiss or deny His message and His works?

That's a good point. I've considered something somewhat similar.

 

Life was a lot harder in that time and place. There were a lot of people that just needed hope in a time of desperation. Christianity provided that for a lot of people. Now, most of us have the luxury to sit back and examine things rationally. Which is why I think we'll continue to see a decline in religion as time goes on, at least in developed countries.

 

I know I would probably be more prone to latch onto something that provided hope in a time of severe desperation.

[knapplc]

 

I've talked about the House & the Shed analogy before here. My epiphany came to me as I stood on my deck, looking at my shed. It was dirty and needed to be cleaned out, mostly from mouse debris but I had some spilt bags of sand, tons of dirt, the usual stuff. It was a nasty, smelly mess. So bad that I never wanted to go in there.

 

As I stood there looking at that stupid shed, it occurred to me that I wouldn't even let a child of mine go in there in that condition. And then it dawned on me that the Bible story, as we're told it, teaches that God, who has the power to do anything, makes me live in that shed. He could very easily pull me out of it, give me a room in the house and let me live there instead of living in squalor, but he doesn't.

 

If I wouldn't let my own children go into that shed, why would the all-powerful God of the Universe let his? I decided to stop ignoring my doubts right there. It was clearly a story made up by the church to control people. No actual factual God as described in the Bible would allow children he loves to suffer this way.

 

The stories the Bible tells us, the stories the church tells us, are very clearly made up after the fact to explain what already is, to try and put some kind of explanation on things. There are 1,000 reasons why this would happen - control, power, influence, all the basic human character flaws, ignorance, fear of the reality of life, bap bap bap. The list is as long as man's journey through time.

 

The process took years. I was taught that God was real and that the Bible was true, I even taught that myself as a church leader. But it's clear to me that it's not true, and I feel much happier now, like a weight has lifted off my shoulders.

Possible that you are a deist, as Excel claims he may be?

 

I suppose anything's possible.

 

I'm so uninterested in the answer that I wouldn't even begin to know what to label myself. I think those labels attach themselves too much to the question, and I'm pretty much beyond the caring part anymore. It's all an academic interest to me now.

 

I suppose I don't believe in a god. If such a being existed, I can't imagine them behaving in the observable way we've seen (as in, total absenteeism). If they exist, it's likely we're a mistake in their realm, or they didn't plan for us to be special in any way.

 

An outside influence on this existence isn't difficult to grasp. The alternative, and I've read the books and even sat in on a lecture by Brian Greene, one of today's top minds in origin science, is that there was nothing, and from that nothing.... mathematics... POOF! There was something. And that's not any more or less difficult to believe than some creator being doing it all.

 

 

 

 

Frankly, I'm more interested in discussing the question than finding the answer.

[sd'sker]

jesus really should have come around during the age of camera phones, imo.

[Ratt Mhule]

Richard Kuklinski may have been on to something when he gave a man he was about to execute 30 minutes to pray to God to save his life. God never showed so he killed the man. I'm guessing that answers question number one. As for Jesus, I'm sure Jesus was a real historical figure. I'm also sure he was just some guy.

 

Just watched his interviews from prison a few weeks ago actually. Being a former criminal justice major, I enjoy learning about serial killers (doesn't mean I like what they did or them as a person). The Iceman was my favorite to learn about. Even did a speech about him in college.

[knapplc]

I guess I can also dive in a little deeper and say that while I still claim Christ and still have convictions towards the pillars of the Christian faith being true, the last 9 months of my life have been pretty open rebellion towards how I'm called to live. I've been a bit of a functioning atheist lately, and if I'm honest I have a fear in the back of my head that I'm just growing out of a phase, but moreso I think I'm just in a valley that I'll climb out of back towards faithfulness.

 

 

 

Also, seeing the stuff spouted by most American Christians is enough to turn pretty much any one atheist. I consider turning atheist several times a day due to the induced cringes on my facebook feed.

 

 

 

Thirdly, I often wonder what all of our perspectives would be if we lived in Israel and experienced Jesus' life first hand. On both sides. Would the multitudes of Christians so easily follow Christ in a setting where he was considered an insane traitor and declaring faith to Him put their lives in jeopardy, and would the atheists and agnostics and people of other faiths so easily dismiss or deny His message and His works?

I've kinda gotten to "know" you over the past few years at HuskerBoard, and I can definitely see there's something different about your approach the past few months. I've been hoping you were OK.

 

It's interesting to hear you say that you're acting like a functioning atheist. That's basically how I was in the last year-ish of my time identifying as a Christian. I was completely going through the motions of religion, and finding the whole scene less and less compelling. Discussing religion made me very agitated, and often that came out in discussions here - I refuted people who disputed Christianity quite vehemently, sometimes harshly, and frankly I was quite a bit of a jerk about it.

 

Only when I made my decision did I find more peace. I'm pretty sure that'll happen for you, whether you change your view on religion or ultimately become stronger in your faith. You're going over the rapids right now. There are calmer waters ahead, I promise.

 

No matter what you decide, don't let anyone else's behavior influence your decision. If there are Christians out there being buttheads, don't allow their actions to influence your beliefs. There are A-hole Husker fans out there, but that's not going to stop me from being a fan. You've gotta do what suits you the best.

 

 

 

Your question about how our perspectives would change were we contemporaries of Jesus is interesting. But think about this - if you were a contemporary of Mohammad, would your perspective be different? Or of Egyptian priests, or if you lived in Delphi during the time of the Oracle, or if you walked alongside Buddha. Your perspectives on all of those things would be different, and you may have totally different religious beliefs if you took any of those walks, not just a walk with Jesus.

[Junior]

I would assume he meant they don't believe the "messiah" has walked the earth

 

Yes, poor wording on my part. If I'm not mistaken, they believe Jesus was another false prophet. I could be wrong though.

[sd'sker]

 

I would assume he meant they don't believe the "messiah" has walked the earth

Yes, poor wording on my part. If I'm not mistaken, they believe Jesus was another false prophet. I could be wrong though.

maybe just prophet? there were quite a few of those back then.

[Landlord]

 

It's interesting to hear you say that you're acting like a functioning atheist. That's basically how I was in the last year-ish of my time identifying as a Christian. I was completely going through the motions of religion, and finding the whole scene less and less compelling. Discussing religion made me very agitated, and often that came out in discussions here - I refuted people who disputed Christianity quite vehemently, sometimes harshly, and frankly I was quite a bit of a jerk about it.

 

Only when I made my decision did I find more peace. I'm pretty sure that'll happen for you, whether you change your view on religion or ultimately become stronger in your faith. You're going over the rapids right now. There are calmer waters ahead, I promise.

 

 

I'm certain I will find my way out of it one way or another sooner rather than later. I allowed my last relationship to really tear me apart and instead of dealing with it I've just been avoiding as much hurt as possible and feeling exhausted by the effort. It's a lot easier, but not fulfilling, to just not try, and without a good foundation and accountability in Lincoln it played out as, "Sure, why the hell not do [thing i probably shouldn't be doing]?

 

 

 

But yes absolutely my perspective would be different in all of those scenarios.

[TAKODA]

I am not prepared to give (won’t) anyone who does not believe in God a lecture about why they should believe. What more can one do than to believe in something that they cannot touch, smell, taste, see or hear? This is the crux of the matter about faith? Landlord, I am sorry that you are troubled from something that recently happened in your life and I have been there too and in some ways still am. Some days are long and there are times when the temptation to do what others before you have done or are doing appears to have no negative impact on their life, so what the hell right? This activity or action you wonder if you should partake in, is not a religious issue but rather a character issue. Regardless of if you are religious or not, the moral, ethical and appropriate way to live life lies within your character and from what I have read on here since I have been posting at HB, your character is not in question.

 

Me; I am a believer in the God Almighty and a sinner who hopes for forgiveness, but will not try to sway anyone to convert. Knapp, I respect the heck out of a majority of your post, but I disagree with your analogy here in this thread. That is as far as I will take it as I have been in Religious debates too many times and ultimately it ends in frustration on one or both sides and the answer to the question still remains.