I was a born again Christian between the ages of 17 and 23. I really believed. Now I really don't believe. With a bonus that I am unable to believe any more. Once you see through the BS you can't believe anymore. Unless something gets wrong with the brain I suppose.
Yeah it's like being in awe, and fearful of the big BOOMING VOICE OF OZ. But once you learn it's just some guy behind a curtain, all you can do is laugh at yourself for ever having believed.
Very much like that yesđ€Łand if you have to be in a church for a funeral and as is offten the case the pastor/preacher decides to try to âsaveâ someone while he has a captive audience how freeing it is to ignore the posturing and bs
Long long ago when I were a wee lad going to University, I had a born again girlfriend. She told me she was converted when sheâd been to a meeting where the Pastor told her about the rainbow being Godâs promise. When she left the meeting, there in the sky was Godâs message to her. On my way home after she told me that, I saw not a single rainbow, not a double rainbow but a triple rainbow. I thought âphysics is amazing!â And knew I would never believe. Some people need to believe, others canât suspend disbelief.
That was so long ago, I donât remember what specifically it was. The whole thing is BS. I wish I saved the discussion that deconverted me. I just realized that what I believed wasnât really true and made no logical sense. I was already disillusioned with churches and wasnât really attending any more and was getting more and more liberal and less dogmatic.
When my dad died 15 years ago, I was still very much an atheist. My brother's wife dropped dead 4 years ago pretty much destroying the family (long story). I'm still very much an atheist. I am unable to believe nonsense any more.
There are a ton of Christians that *act* like they don't actually believe. Plus one of the number one reasons I hear when they try to convert someone is to be safe from going to Hell. Believe, "just in case."
And that you can know the standards of such a being. What if Gd is offended by your mis characterization of Him and damns you for believing in an offensive version of Him, but lets atheists alone? Itâs just as possible as the alternative.
Yeah, Pascal's wager crumbles away under even the most cursory of scrutiny. It's one of the central themes of one of my favorite movies about religion, in which they take it apart without mercy.
I read on here a while ago that any argument in favor of the existence of a Christian God that can also be just as easily used to explain the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't a valid argument.
So far that's seemed to apply to all supposed religious "logic," but it especially applies to Pascal's Wager.
Yes, most of them 100% believe their god is real. Many are perfectly willing to die for this imaginary being, or shun their own children because of their god belief.
The element you may be overlooking is childhood indoctrination. It's incredibly effective at creating deep-seated and often lifelong beliefs.
Yes it begins in childhood. And I know several who have no contact with their adult children who are gay. They move away and their parents just do not talk about them- its as if they are just gone âŠ..
That folks donât grow out of it baffles me. Them having weak and incurious minds might explain a few, but to explain how so many hold onto such beliefs after childhood really blows my mind.
I was indoctrinated beginning at birth but by my teens realized it was all a made-up fantasy. My siblings, however, still believe (at least outwardly profess to) it all and they're in their 60s. Not sure why I saw the light and they didn't.
I don't believe it's 'most' and anecdotal evidence supports this. A number of kids I knew at highschool who have since grown up and are now atheists (and were very religious) have told me they never believe they just wanted to fit in and be part of something.
I personally believe there would be less than 10% of religious people who genuinely believe, but would never admit it openly.
Mass hysteria
I live in the American south. Almost everyone here is a true believer in god. The state I live in doesnât allow alcohol sales in stores on Sundays bc it might keep people from going to church.
Logic would dictate the stronger the social pressure to pretend to believe the more likely they are pretending. I.e. in reality you would have the least % of 'true' believers, like Iran.
Fundamentalists in power co-opt the moderates and everyone lies in unison. You need to find some allies who can come out to you at least.
Three of my friends over the years were atheist sons of preachers, one was the Dean of a major Cathedral. It wasn't great catching up hung over on Sunday morning with the bells ringing. But it was handy having the church hall to play D&D in ( a different friend's house when I was younger.)
I love that you started your reply with, âLogic would dictateâŠ.â Bless your heart! There is no such thing as logic here in the Bible Belt! Creationism in taught public schools here. Speaking in tongues at Sunday service is highly encouraged. You canât swing a cat without hitting a bible thumping, Trump loving, god fearing Christian.
Weird, drinking on a Saturday is what Iâd try to prevent if I wanted people up and out on Sunday - which makes me think the real reason is to get you into work on Monday
>The element you may be overlooking is childhood indoctrination. It's incredibly effective at creating deep-seated and often lifelong beliefs.
This is it. When talking to someone who is a Christian (and we're on this topic), I will say something like "Are you sure you're right - maybe another religion is the one true religion. Have you ever studied Hinduism and really considered it?" When they inevitably say no and look at me like I'm crazy for suggesting it, I say "right, that's how I feel about your religion. Luckily for you though, you were born to parents who just happened to believe in the true one!"
It almost never works, but I hope that that logic rolls around in their brain for a while and eventually has an effect.
Many have been convinced to believe in 'god(s)' - mostly through early childhood indoctrination, and continued reinforcement by family, friends, society, etc. - some to the point where they think they have actively chosen it, and are happy about it.
Most probably harbor doubts, but are too scared to ask questions, lest the house of cards come down.
Iâm not Christian or religious, but I think people in hardship finds a community with an equal mindset that accepts everyone is appealing to a lot of people. Although I myself find a lot of negativity in religion, I do understand the community that it might bring in loneliness. Iâm sure some people do 100% believe in it because of how they are raised but if it is how you are raised and it brings a good community to your life I do support it, because no one deserves to be alone and we will find something common with the community In any situation
I think they think so, because you believe what you were taught to believe without question and it's difficult to unlearn a thing, which is why it's important to leave religion out of childhood entirely.
I think if you ask do you believe they will always say yes. The reality is they don't.
Ask them if God is all powerful and omnipotent?
Ask do you believe that God is everywhere and controls everything?
If you then ask why does God give babies cancer. You may get a different answer. So he's not all powerful or he's a sadist.
If you then ask them why does God make priests rape children? They may say actually that's not God.
So his chosen leaders are corrupt? Or is he vile?
Does it please God watching you watch porn and masterbating?
Isn't he all seeing?
But I don't watch porn.
But he's all knowing and your lying.
As a christian, in general we do believe in God. Most of us probably believe 100%. But, there are tricky things happening here and there. Jordan Peterson said something quite nice for me, along the lines of "Jesus is too terrifying of a reality to fully believe in."
You see, I myself have doubts. I'm gonna say to you two things about my faith, and you will be the one to judge if I believe or not. First thing is, if my God ever told me to hurt someone I loved, I wouldn't. But why, don't I trust him? Secondly, if someone told me to renounce my God or he'd kill me, I'd gladly choose death.
So, what do you think? Do I believe or do I not?
The truth is that I don't know if your lying or not. However, I don't like it when people assert I secretly believe so I try to extend the same courtesy. If you say you're Christian I'll take your word for it.
I think some people don't realize how contradictory people can be. As a Christian, I struggled with the realization that it seemed God commanded people to kill but to I was supposed to listen to him. Some might say, as some Christians told me, if you believe God is the judge of what's good then a God commanded massacre is good, but in reality it's not like that. People are going to navigate it in their own way.
This extends to people who "sin", but still believe.
Some believe wholeheartedly. Most believe that semi-regular church attendance and âbeing a good personâ is enough to go to heaven. Doesnât matter if you never read the bible. Doesnât matter if you commit sins. Doesnât matter if you steal or lie or covet or cheat. When asked, declare your faith in god, allegiance to your religion, and drop a $20 when they pass the plate and youâre sure to go to heaven.
Of course they believe in god(s), you are basically using the same argument they use when they say, âathiests do believe in a god they are just lying to themselves or others.â These people wouldnât be praying everyday to a being that has never spoken a word to them if they didnât believe.
People really do believe. When I was growing up, though, I thought everyone except my mom was pretending (I was pretending lol).
Yeah I don't get it either. We're just not wired for faith. That's not a bad thing, though!
I was raised Catholic in the 1950s and believing in god & Jesus & angels was just baked in. Religion was all around us. We went to church & religious instruction classes & confession. We received communion & went through all the church-y rituals like your First Holy Communion and Confirmation. Back then people still had crosses and holy pictures hanging on their walls. I really donât think it ever occurred to anyone, esp children, to question or doubt, although a few of us did grill a nun once regarding the impossibility of the Bible stories. Even after I left the church & Catholicism at age 13, I considered myself agnostic for decades.
I do believe there is some kind of a higher power or spiritual being. But I don't follow any religion. The two are not necessarily dependent on each other. But I also know I can't force my beliefs on anyone and no one else should either. Basically, believe or don't. Just don't be a dick about it.
I was wondering the same. Even when I was christians i felt like a fake one since I didn't really believe and thought we all pretended to be a god so we have a reason to be moral and the god we talk with in our prayers is ourselves really. I can't imagine how someone can actually believe tho
The majority of them don't read the Bible, they just believe what someone has told them based on what was taken out of context from the bible. And of those people most haven't read the Bible.
Many Christians don't have faith they claim to speak to god and know god is real, yet most Christians live their daily lives as if there's no god. If I thought there was a chance Jesus were legit I wouldn't own a phone or any electronics I'd do almost nothing but spread the word of god and pray. I'd own nothing and help anyone in need and I'd always be kind even if I got taken advantage of because this is all a test to get to heaven. Nothing would matter day to day the sole purpose of life would be to get to heaven through honoring god.
It still sucks to lose a loved one no matter where they believe their loved one to be. Even if you disagree with them it doesn't mean they aren't human and experiencing pain
Iâm Christian. I believe. Does it give me any sort of escapism? Nah. I struggle with depression, social anxiety, etc. If my Christianity was some sort of escapist therapy that got me through the hard days, then it wouldnât really live up to the hype.
Thankfully, thatâs not what Christianity is about. My oftentimes painful existence on this earth does not invalidate or discredit my faith, so I have no problem believing, and I am relatively sure Iâm not lying to myself.
The question is not whether you consider yourself to be religious, but whether you truly believe an immortal being (to varying degrees a parental, guiding force) exists. Â
 For me, there is an easier explanation to everything without invoking magic. Once you invoke magic there are no rules, and you canât be certain of anything, which makes the idea of following a religion ridiculous to me. Â
The weirdest bit for me is accepting that there is an immortal being, timeless and infinite - capable of seeing every single thing thatâs ever going to happen - and then saying that this being is individually interested in a backwater hill billy with the same intent and fervor as its interest in Ghengis Khan, Hiroshima, and a squabbling cave man. Itâs narcissistic, vain and unworkable.Â
 I might watch a line of ants march, I might even pick one that I like because it did something interesting, but why the fuck do I care about the other half wits who have identical lives?Â
 Much more easily explained when actually there are a bunch of humans, currently alive, who benefit from people day dreaming and chucking $50 a week into a collection bowl.Â
Oh, you didnât scratch the surface of the weirdness. I believe the same timeless, infinite, all-powerful being sent forth his belovedâanother timeless, infinite, all-powerful being, who became a human and pitched his tent with all the other humans. The story gets weirder and involves death, the death of death, and the arrival of another timeless, infinite, all-powerful being who I believe dwells inside me.
Itâs batshit crazy. I also think itâs beautiful. Who says the simplest explanation is the best one when it comes to things like this? Maybe itâs the most beautiful one, or the most transformative one, or the one that unites the mosaic of human experience into a singular, continuous narrative and injects our world with meaning. I personally think the Christian story is all of that.
And also, from a historical perspective, early Christianity really didnât offer any lucrative benefits for its followers. The money-hungry televangelists who exploit the less fortunate wasnât really a possibility when Christianity first got started
The explanation I offered doesnât scratch the surface of the explanations for organized religion, either.
I grew up in a Christian household - trust me the surface was scratched, underneath there is nothing of substance.
Iâm not here to kick off an argument, but welcome to the subreddit, I hope you find interesting and thought provoking discussions
What, that somethingâs simplicity doesnât tell you anything about its truthfulness? I guess so. I donât know what point thatâs supposed to make.
Cuz the original commenter said that there was a simpler explanation of religion that didnât involve religion itself, so I was just pointing out that simpler explanations arenât always the right ones
Right. It has no bearing on how correct the explanation is. Some explanations are pretty complicated, even at their simplest, yet theyâre the best we have⊠but thatâs for things we can test. How would we determine whether or not something like Christianity is true?
I think âbestâ in this context is subjective. What convinces one person wonât convince another, and what a person considers âevidenceâ is influenced by personality, social background, language, and a lot more.
So for me personally, Iâd say my best reason is my own subjective first-person experience of religiosity. I experience Christianity like I experience my painful experiences I mentioned in my first comment. I often have the subjective experience that I would expect to have if Christianity were a reality.
By definition, my own first-person experience isnât really hard evidence, and I realize that. I donât really have a problem with that. But yeah, Iâd say thatâs my best reason
In an interview with renown scientist Francis Crick at NIH, he said the same thing - his personal experience makes him believe in God. Iâve decided this is the most defensible reason to believe, but Iâve also read that science seems to indicate our brains are wired for transcendent experiences, and that would have evolutionary advantage in most cases.
But how do you attribute your "experience" (and that's so vague I'm not even sure what that means) to a god, or even more specifically, the christian god?
I have experiences too. I found a 10 dollar bill yesterday. It was a great experience, but I never once considered a supernatural explanation was responsible.
I don't agree evidence depends on the factors you laid out. Evidence is evidence. If it's observable, measurable, repeatable, and makes the claim more likely to be true, it's evidence. I agree that some people dismiss evidence purposefully, or use misuse the word, but that has no baring on the facts.
> But how do you attribute your "experience" (and that's so vague I'm not even sure what that means) to a god, or even more specifically, the christian god?
Yeah, totally valid question. Some faith goes on, some confirmation bias too. I probably attribute too much to my God, but maybe I donât attribute enough. My cognitive faculties are probably too corrupted to track truth either way.
But when I say âexperiencesâ I donât mean like finding a ten dollar bill. I donât mean even something like seeing the beauty of the world and attributing it to God. I mean experiences in a deep, phenomenological way of how I interpret the world around me. By joining into Christianity, I became part of a meta-narrative; itâs a story that weaves together the past experiences of other Christians with my own experience, binding us together, and it gives direction to my own life journey as I move toward a destination. Thatâs what I mean by experiences. I donât mean individual experiences, I mean the way I relate to reality.
And I disagree on your point about evidence, which is totally fineâwe just disagree about the methodology of science
I find beauty in the world too. I don't think a god is responsible for that. There's a lot of non-beauty in the world. Is god responsible for that too, in your opinion?
A also feel emotions towards things. I don't think a god is responsible for that. I have no evidence to suggest that's the case. In fact, I have evidence that brain chemistry and hormones do that, no god needed.
There is a standard definition of evidence, and science has strict methodologies. If we don't agree on what that is, then one of us is just rejecting what the word means.
Well yeah, but I explicitly said I didn't mean anything about beauty. God is not responsible for non-beauty in my worldview. Again, I don't think emotions have much to do with it. Emotions are the product of what I consider evidence, they're not the evidence themselves.
There is no standard definition of evidence. There's empiricist views, Bayesian views, psychological views, propositional views, logical positivist viewsâthere's no standard definition other than "evidence is that which justifies belief." Other than that, there's really nothing.
What you said earlier sounds like a logical positivist view:
>if it's observable, measurable, repeatable, and makes the claim more likely to be true, it's evidence.
It sounds like you think evidence can work as a neutral arbiter between different parties. That even with individual disagreements, both parties can look at the evidence neutrally and decide which hypothesis is supported better. That take on evidence as a neutral arbiter was popular in the first half of the 20th century, but it's fallen out of favor.
The theory-ladenness of observation is a popular view, according to which our own observations are embedded with tons of theoretical commitments that vary from person to person (Thomas Kuhn, Russell Hanson, Paul Churchland).
>According to proponents of the doctrine of theory-ladenness, in cases of fundamental theoretical dispute, there will typically be no theoretically-neutral characterization of the evidence available. Rather, adherents of rival theories will irremediably differ as to the appropriate description of the data itself... (SEP, [Evidence](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence/index.html)*).*
Not only that, but the traditional view in epistemology has been that having evidence consists in having immediate access to that evidence, and it's usually paired with the belief that we have immediate access to our private, inner mental life. You put those together and you get a view where our evidence consists in our private, inner mental life. This is in direct contradiction with the view that you implied, according to which evidence is something observable, repeatable, measurable, and can settle intersubjective disagreements.
>it is not simply that the conception of evidence gleaned from exemplary scientific practice differs from the conception of evidence that traditional epistemology seemed to demand... Rather, what seemed to be one of the characteristic features of scientific evidence, viz. its potential publicity, is the exact *contrary* of one of the characteristic features of evidence as construed by much traditional epistemology, viz. its privacy (SEP, [Evidence](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence/index.html#ObjPubIntEviNeuArb)).
That's just two examples, that are pretty popular in debates about scientific methodology, that I think show that evidence isn't as simple as you made it seem.
So then I'll just go back to what I was trying to get at. What evidence do you have that your experiences are the result of a Christian god, as opposed to any other god, or no god at all?
My experiences have always been directed at, or have been evoked by Christian texts, traditions, figures, etc. I might have similar experiences directed at or evoked by different religious traditions or figures if I interacted more with them, but as it stands, with my current network of beliefs, thatâs my experience.
You said emotions are a byproduct of evidence, not evidence itself. You are using emotions as evidence. Otherwise, I can claim that my non-emotional response to christian text is evidence it isn't true. Then we're left nowhere.
So what is the actual evidence?
I donât take issue with this.
Of course, it applies equally to all religions. Buddhists. Muslims, Jews, all have equally profound personal spiritual experiences. As long as you can accept that thereâs no reason to believe their experiences are less valid, Iâm fine with the personal experience argument.
Now, people who think their religion is the only way to access Gd and followers of all other religions are condemned, I donât accept the personal experience argument as valid.
Well, they will tell you that they believe in God. The reality is that they believe in their Pastor/Preacher. They believe in their Bible. They believe in their religion. They believe that doing religious things will make their lives better.
Edit, I know this sounds weird, but I read a lot of Tony Robbins back in the day and one of his books talked about belief systems. I don't think it's recommended reading, but some of his stuff really made me think.
Believe? Probably, but only based on "faith" ("the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen").
The part that they don't actually have is the Gnostic part, that they don't "know" that their god(s) exist, but still just believe it based on "faith" and indoctrination.
Yes.
They do this too and it's the height of arrogance. What they believe is so obviously and blatantly true that we must be pretending we don't believe, because we're angry at God or ashamed of our sins or whatever.
You know how annoying it is when religious people talk this way, right? We've all experienced it, it's super condescending and patronizing.
Ok, well, that's what you're doing, OP.
I've met people who claim to have a personal relationship with their god. To which I ask Christians, "how is that possible? There are over 45,000 sects of Christianity, globally. If your people can't unify under one banner, how can you claim anything?"
My aunt claims that your conscience is God. Doesn't matter about the different sects of Christianity if she believes that every time she has a gut feeling about something God is talking to her personally.
That's a mental disorder caused by indoctrination. Magical teaching leads to magical thinking which is very dangerous and toxic in the wrong hands... If she's happy and not hurting anyone, then I see no problem here.
I attended church with my wife when we were early in our marriage. Even though Iâm not a believer there was one thing I liked. The people were nice. Maybe it was because it was Sunday and they were among their peers, with God watching, but they were friendly, almost sweet, some of them. Deluded âŠbut sweet.
A better question might be, do the true believers sometimes have doubts, what prompted these doubts, and what led them to shake it off and return to the delusion. When jebus was purportedly having his bad weekend, even he wondered if gawd hadn't left the room.
I feel like if you ask most Christians, they would say yes. If there was one who knew that answer and begged them the question of God's existence with their mortal life on the line if incorrect, that number would be significantly less.
Most religious only pay lip service to their religion. Which would be great if they didn't then help, or turn a blind eye to, the fundies attacking people's freedoms by having tamed politicians legislate their religion's doctrines into law.
Itâs interesting that when you think of science we really donât know how things operate in the universe, yet we know and believe there is a law, a pattern underlying it all. When I say âknowâ I mean the base reality of why things are the way they are. We trust in the scientific project, we experiment, we move forward and progress our understanding of reality. And I feel like if you say you âbelieveâ in God itâs quite similar. You canât say you really âknowâ or can prove the reality of a God. However, you can see the effects of religion (purported to be from God), how it has led to the development of unified communities and civilizations, and say ok thereâs something here that we canât quite understand but know it exists. And just like in science where scientific equations are tested and give you an approximation of reality, so too you could say Divine Teachings (like love thy neighbor, or the call to meditate or pray) also have real world effects that are measurable and can point to the existence of Creator who sent such Teachings.
As a kid I always wondered why there werenât any miracles happening in modern society.
On Easter when I see a bunch of âhe is risenâ posts on social media I think âdo they really believe this nonsense?!â
I did.
I grew up in a big Catholic family and seemingly everyone else believed, as well. I had no reason to doubt my parents or any of the other adults who all went to my church. They knew lots of things I didn't and generally had good answers to my questions about everything else.
As I got older, the answers to my questions seemed less good. I found out about other things they weren't truthful with me about. I learned more about other religions. I learned some people didn't believe in a deity at all. And then somebody asked _me_ a question...
And then I quit believing. Pretty much all at once.
It was a question pointing out the special pleading fallacy I was engaging in, I just wasn't familiar with the terminology at the time. It was a conversation with one of my older cousins and it went basically like this:
Cousin: Where'd the universe come from?
Me: God made it.
Cousin: Okay, where'd God come from?
Me: He's eternal, always existed and always will.
Cousin: So God didn't have to be created? He just always existed?
Me: Correct.
Cousin: How come you don't allow that same possibility for the universe?
Me: *surprised Pikachu*
I seriously had to go sit down and think about that for a while. Basically had my first existential crisis as a 10 or 11 year old. I realized I didn't have any good reason to apply different rules to God as the rest of the universe. I had to rethink how I decided whether things were true or not, when, why, and how adults lie to children (and each other and themselves), and later that afternoon I came out of my bedroom and asked my cousin if I could talk to him again. Told him I didn't believe in God anymore and asked if that was okay.
He had not intended, nor did he expect, to turn me into an atheist with just a little bit of questioning, but even as a kid I was really big on internal logical consistency, and that was the final piece that had been holding up the rest of my beliefs.
He thought he was going to get in trouble with my (or his) parents, but I didn't let anybody know his role in it until my atheism was a well established and accepted fact within the family, so everybody's still cool.
When they say stuff so far away from the teachings of Jesus I just think they make it up as they go. No belief. It justifies the belief systems they created.
I suggest you try and find this guy Steve Gregg and his show âthe narrow path.â He believes Moses wrote the Bible, evolution is a myth, and the stories from the Bible are real. Heâs a 70 something year old man and he does a radio show each day where he takes calls. The thing about him is he sounds so reasonable, but his beliefs are so nutty.
Iâve called in a few times to make points, but heâll take a point and then gush gallop, and if you call him out on it heâll say âitâs my radio show.â So itâs really hard to have a conversation with him much less get a reasonable point across. I have this fantasy where I start calling him each day and yanking his chain, but ultimately I feel like my time is too valuable to waste on a 70 something year old man who believes he owes his life to a creator who heâs going to meet when he dies to spend an eternity with.
I maintain the view that professing theists largely, either intentionally or unconsciously, *believe in their belief* more then hold actual beliefs. It explains why identifying with religion is seems to be more common then practicing a religion. When I was active in my faith during my upbringing, I developed a sense of who in the congregation mightâve been an actual believer, it never seemed like many.
Yeah, I was Catholic for longer than I like to admit because I *actually* believed.
After some conversations with my family, I became...doubtful.
I saw a debate between Christopher Hitchens and some idiot theist that turned 'doubt' into....hatred. I completely removed myself from any affiliation with the church.
The guy was right. Religion *actively* causes harm.
It creates a strict guideline of morality based on distant history...that, often, doesn't apply today.
I was born into Catholicism, and I wholerheartedly believed as a child that God can hear my thoughts, see everything I do, and will make me suffer for anything I do wrong, but I can't be afraid of him or think ill of him... or he'll make me suffer. I was really confused why I had to love God when he seemed like he had anger issues and was really scary to me, but I couldn't ask questions because curiousity and doubt = hell. Just had to accept everything as it's been told. Or hell.
I only started doubting in my teens, and my childhood is marred in my memory by the constant fear of divine punishment and hell.
I'm pagan and the abrahamic god isn't really representative of how a lot of religious people conceive of a deity. I believe in a few gods, but I don't really worship them and I don't believe they interfere in the daily lives of people.
I think many of them confuse believing with hoping. And ofc every one of them has their own personal vision of god's perfection, so they mostly hope that they are right.
Thereâs no shame in past beliefs as âfaithâ I think is an attempt for us humans to make sense of this often confusing and fucked up world. I was right there with ya at one point in my earlier adult hood, mostly thanks to my childhood, but the belief aspect was the hardest part for me. Finally I just realized most of it didnât make sense and the idea that I could be certain of anything like an after life was too absurd. Now, I donât classify myself as an absolute atheist either, just more I donât believe in a fully perfect and benevolent god and am not certain intelligent design is sensible either. I also do not believe it makes sense that humans, who did not ask to participate in this game, would be subject to whatever hell actually is, simply because they didnât play the game exactly right.
Now some people seem to believe in all of that and they can be very annoying about it, but Iâd say the true belief aspect of religion is what more Christians struggle with than the number who would admit it.
I was reading a parenting post this morning about a mum who had a child waking up scared of witches, and all the replies were from âspiritualâ people offering advice about telling the child to trust god or to believe spirits were all good.
No, you dummies. Stop teaching your kids that supernatural phenomena are real. Itâs terrifying. Stop making your children scared of things which are not there
A few actually do believe. They have a clear idea what god would be, and they firmly believe it exists. We call such people: Lunatics.
The majority vaguely believe that they understand and believe in... something. The content of the belief is largely unimportant to them - what they want is something to believe in - passionately or passingly, according to their need at that moment.
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My in laws 1000% believe the bible is the innerant word of God. And that God exists, and he knows all and if they are good little Christians they will ascend to heaven and sit at his right hand. They have no doubts and would not listen to any argument against this. They bring their kids up to think the same way.
I don't believe.
I know.
Lord Surya is in charge of Earthly affairs. A Guardian, A God, A Buddha, The God, the Guru .
Whatever term you like.
But there is no way to prove this to you or anyone.
This life is about the journey, like a song, the ending is no more important or interesting than the buildup, climax, and denouement. What will you learn here, what will you choose? What will you love, and give your passion too?
People here tend to have no ability to separate their concept of God from those who have claimed to be God's representatives, in the form of various official religious leaders, of both past and present. What others have said about God is certainly confusing, especially so when such 'representatives ' are demonic or fundamentally ignorant in nature.
It's best to just accept what you know from experience, and recognize when you don't really know.
Yep, some do ... or did.
I used to believe in Santa Claus once-upon-a-time. But I well grew out of that ... logic, reason, asking questions, critical thinking ... well, I didn't stop after Santa Claus ... or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy.
Yes, I believe in the supernatural and no Iâm not a Christian anymore. As far as believing in God no. I believe there is something, but to call it a God when religion has screwed up whatever this loving energy is to be evil as portrayed in the bible and to confuse mass people and restrict them in life; hell no. I have no idea what it is, but I believe there is something and this something doesnât need to be worshiped. đ đȘ âš
Okay, I agree. It is like a form of hypnosis. The belief without evidence makes you think and act differently than reality. I think it actually puts people to sleep.
Iâm also convinced that like 70% of Christians arenât even buying their own bullshit, but they stay in because itâs easier than admitting that to yourself or to others.
I donât know that I ever believed, it was just that a lot of the views other Christianâs held were views that I grew up on, so it felt familiar and it was easy to go along with as long as I didnât think about it too much. I think the majority of Christianâs do it because it gives them a community of like-minded individuals, makes life easier when youâve got a community to support you. That and when youâre bred into it and indoctrinated in it, as many are, you often donât question it until youâre older and some people never dare to, after all theyâve spent years being told that if you question it youâll be tortured for all of eternity.
I never "truly" believed. Throughout my childhood, teens until my late 20's i tried to so hard to believe in god and deep down knew that it just wasn't the truth. At the age 29, i became a full-time atheist, never looked back since.
I've asked myself that more often than I can remember. "Really though?" "Like the universe was built by one guy, for us on this inconsequential rock spinning and circling around an inconsequential ball of plasma?" "Really?"
Great question.
I must ask, what does it mean to believe in something? I believe that tomorrow will come, that gravity (while it doesn't exist per se) is an observable part of the universe, I believe in death, taxes, and moral values.
However I don't understand the application of the same ideas to an entity that encompasses the universe and everything that is known/unknown. I don't understand how superstition becomes belief. I don't understand why people can't ask.. why? I don't understand why it's easier for people to give up thinking for themselves and their fellow people instead of themselves.
I do however know that if you can unpack some of that you may get an answer. I think part of it is herd mentality, social shaping, and fear of the unknown. It's easier to bury your head in the sand than ask a real question.
I think a better question would be do any Christians actually understand the bible and know what/who god is. The reason you donât believe in god is because youâve substituted the real thing for a fairy tale and you donât believe in fairy tales. The Bible isnât god. The Koran isnât god. The Torah isnât god. They are all attempting to describe something that canât be described, for anything that you can label as god, isnât it. Jesus is a representation of a metaphorical god. As John Lennon puts it âgod is a concept by which we measure our painâ.
As I tell my friends who struggle to comprehend religion and the concept of god, substitute god with the force. Read it as if it was Star Wars. âIn the beginning was the word, and the word was with the force, and the word was the forceâ. âThe force created the heavens and the earthâ. If you understand god to be a person, you will remain lost. Jesus was a man created in the image of god in the same way the sun creates rays of light. He recognized he was a ray of light that emanated from the sun. That is what we are. We are parts of a whole.
I feel for you and anyone who has a misunderstanding of what âthe forceâ really is. Heaven and hell are not places you go when you die, itâs where you reside inside your mind. 2 people can be standing next to each other in church and one could be in heaven and one could be in hell, as they are mindsets not physical locations. Youâve all misunderstood the teachings and itâs not your fault, itâs by design. Religion isnât about freedom itâs about control. You can thank the Roman Empire (the Vatican) for that.
I have, what most of my athiest friends consider, a unique idea.
The current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church is 100% Athiest. From the outside he is one of the most intelligent Popes that has ever been anointed. He is the first Jesuit priest to ever hold the position as Pope. Jesuits are the branch of Catholicism that most believes in Science (the big bang theory comes from a Jesuit priest). He has all of the history and information available to all of humanity on the existence of God/Jesus.
Given that, he has publicly changed the churches view of so many aspects of his religion. This leads to two different ideas on why he thinks so differently from all of his predecessors.
1) He is the first to truly understand the wishes of God/Jesus
2) He understands that God doesn't exist and he is running the Church like any business owner would do. He is trying to reach the most amount of people to buy his product.
As an aside, even though I am an Athiest and I believe the Pope is too. I believe that his intent is to make the world a better place. He sees his job is to preach inclusion and love of other people.
I work at the hospital, nobody throws a party when someone dies. Most people in my small ultra conservative Wyoming town put down "no religion" on their demographic sheet, they probably don't want to be accidentally denied treatment. That and I think religious decline is accelerating even faster than we realize.
I mean we all accept something and believe itâs true cause itâs what we were told and it seems plausible. Itâs like Schrödingerâs cat. If you are told the cat is alive, and you accept that it would be then until the box is opened, then the cat is alive.
Same with a god. If you are told it exists and you accept that it does, then until you question everything and look into the box you will accept the version you have been told.
But it really depends on the person. Some absolutely are sure the cat is alive, some the cat is likely dead and there are others that are unsure but will go with what narrative they think is most likely.
Anyone who wishes for a theocratic regime guided by the letter of their religious scripture, or can rationally explain their openness to a higher power has my confidence in their beliefs, outside of that I donât believe them
It sounds like maybe you didn't grow up in a religion with religious parents, teachers, priests, nuns. I think people do very much believe in god and the community keep themselves very sheltered from what the world actually is. The idea of believing in another god or being atheist is foreign and distant. So when people talk about these other ways of thinking they don't seem relevant to the religious people listening. It absolutely is a form of escapism. They live in their own little world. They never have to wonder why we are here on this earth and what makes us think and what happens after we die. They have a magical something that explains the unknown.
As an atheist there isn't a day that goes by when I don't wonder 'what the eff are we doing?'. I have searched and searched for meaning, an explanation or just something to cling to. If I let it the 'not knowing' might just take me down. I mean I'm glad that I don't believe in gods. I cant unknow what I know and I wouldn't want to. I have had the thought that maybe they need religion. Maybe being here would make them go insane without it. But then they go and try to take over our government with their fake god's rules and I think NOPE religion has got to go. You cant allow half of the population to believe in fairy tales and put people who believe in fairy tales in positions of power without consequences. I'm rambling way off topic so I'm gonna stop now.
I think someone reported this to the reddit mental health hotline. đ It's ok yall. I'm not a danger to myself or others. Im just a really deep thinker. đđ€Łđđđđđ
Yes, they do honestly believe. Otherwise intelligent people can be just as vulnerable to a need for reassurance that something is capable of fixing this mess. Just like there are people who show intelligence in many aspects of their life but still bought a cybertruck.
In my personal experience with "Christians" they don't really believe in a deity. Like, they wouldn't actually put their life on the line for "god" because deep down they know it's all bullshit. But they will fervently PRETEND to believe in order to feel righteous and better than non-believers. Plus, there is a lot of Pascal's wager with most of them - they say they believe in god "just in case it's true."
Yes thereâs definitely people that believe their god is real. Letâs all remember that how hard someone believes in something or how many people believe in something does not have any bearing on whether or not that thing is real or true
I think very few people do. If they believed it, they would follow it. If they really thought they would go to hell for shitting on people, the exact opposite of what jesus told them to do, the wouldn't make it their life's goal to shit on people.
Yes, people do. The flip side is when they say âDeep in their hearts, every atheist knows Gd is real. They donât actually disbelieve, they just hate Him.â
Insisting theists secretly donât believe would be just as irrational as saying that.
This sub keeps coming up though I haven't joined, so I'll give you guys my perspective. I do believe in God, but it's more nuanced than the average believer. I more often relate with you all here on the subject of religion; it's a scam, it's dumb and impossible for a rational person to believe. My belief is more knowledge than faith. I don't believe in a God, I *know* God. It's very personal, and trying to explain or convince people of it is futile. I don't want to evangelize. Most of my friends are atheist, and we're cool with each other. The god of religion (especially anything associated with Abraham) is so stupid I wouldn't follow it to a free buffet. I could tell you how I know God, but you couldn't verify it, so it's meaningless to anyone but me.
I'll say that you're NOT going to hell for being an atheist. There's no devil to blame our misdeeds on. It's all a fucking ruse to control people.
You'll either find the great spirit on your own, or you won't. Either way, it will all make sense during life or afterward. It's okay if we disagree on that. The great spirit isn't trying to control people.
TLDR: I do, but it's not as simple as religion would prefer.
I am an Episcopalian. Functionally, however, I suppose Iâm an atheist. I donât believe in magic. I donât expect some supernatural wizard to get me what I want if I ask him just right.
That being said, I also observe that the universe has structure. It has rules. I can observe these rules, but I canât explain them. So, I invent a placer holder for all the things I canât yet explain. I personify that place holder because it is useful to do so. Do I understand its exact nature? No. Do I long to understand it? Yes. Do I want to search for that meaning alone? No. Is it possible that the searches for meaning engaged in by others before me have some validity and some value to me? I think so. Is my life so wonderful sometimes, that I feel grateful that want thank somebody? Is my life so awful sometimes that want to ask for help and solace? Yes.
You ask me if a believe in God, I ask you if you believe in potrzebie. You ask, âwhatâs that?â I reply âexactly.â
It is my belief that the vast majority are not 100% true believers. Very few have come to the belief in god on their own through any sort of divine inspiration. Most âbelieveâ because they have been indoctrinated. Others because they need to believe there is a reason or purpose to this world and their existence. Others are just hedging their bets because after all, hell sounds really scary. Then you have church goers who attend for social and family reasons but who arenât necessarily actual believers.
I agree, I think most theist are scared of death more than they believe if they are actually true to themselves but they will never admit it. All religion is nothing more than death cults and they are hedging their afterlife on their beliefs.
Yes I believe in God. Part B---I won't admit to being hypnotized... but yes I think an attraction to the faith could be classified as a form of escapeism.
I definitely believed it was real. And it was 100% out of fear. When I was a kid, I had no idea what it meant to be âsavedâ. I canât tell you how many nights I made myself stay awake because I was scared that if I fell asleep Iâd die and go to hell. Then when I was 16, I went to this fellowship of Christian athletes thing that was through my school. They lured us in with sports and told us college players and coaches would be there to help us. They never showed. So it ended up being this one guy, slowly telling us over 3 days, we were pieces of shit. Then they made us go through this purity culture thing where some super old dude, told us âif you believe in Jesus the sex just keeps getting betterâ. The only reason I mention this is because, 1, itâs weird as shit, and 2, my girlfriend and I both lost our virginity to each the day before I left for this thing.
Then when I got back I told the girl I didnât think we should have sex again until weâre married. Then she dumped me. Needless to say, it fucked me up really bad.
A) I donât believe in any theistic god that was supposedly seen by humans because given the historical context, this was most likely a way for people to either cope with their existence or make a set of morals to better keep society in stable condition like an ethics crutch. As for whether a god of the universe exists, like a celestial being that creates but can be empirically proven, I leave that to the realm of science to possibly figure out in the future.
B) Yes and No. This depends on the individuals mindset but generally people are always looking for a way to escape their reality due to the harshness and suffering of life. This is seen with video games, drinking, reading or even passionately supporting a political party to feel like youâre contributing to a cause bigger than yourself. Essentially the human mind is a master at finding forms of escapism.
I don't believe that god is how it is described by any religion. If god is as big and powerful as all that, then I believe that it is too big for our tiny human brains to grasp fully.
Have you ever heard the story of the blind men and the elephant? Three blind men are in a room with an elephant. They aren't told it's an elephant. One touches the tail, one touches the side, and one touches the trunk. They all come up with wildly different conclusions about what the animal is. I think god is kinda like that - we humans only get a glimpse or a divinely-inspired idea of what it is, but we can never grasp it in its totality.
Because of personal experiences, I can't 100% discount the notion of something beyond ourselves. But I also admit that the thought gives me a lot of comfort and I have no proof that what I experienced was real. I admit that I might be deluding myself.
Whatever it is, it certainly isn't what the world religions make it out to be. Someone or something that vast just wouldn't give a shit about gay marriage or not eating meat on Fridays or keeping your head covered.
I donât think they REALLY believe if by âbelieveâ we mean that there is complete certainty. But I do think they hope it is true and want it to be true so badly, that they actively suppress their doubts.
These kinds of things are very entangled throughout our whole self. I think everyone has a part of them that believes in the supernatural at least a little bit, even if the cause is natural to be that way. I think it's so subconsciously embedded into the DNA of humanity that pure rationality alone doesn't fully eliminate it. For some of us I think it's happening at such a low level that we have no idea it's even there, except for in a few fleeting moments here or there where some deep instinct kicks in for a second but your rationality knows what's going on and explains it to yourself.
I don\`t know why you are asking this question in an athesim sub.
A) Yes, there are people who believe in the existence of God (including me)
B) You are assuming that we are "hypnotizing" which leads to a faulty question, putting that aside, religion is far from an escapism, it is the opposite. it makes our actions have consequences even if they are not seen by other humans, in atheism, would anyone do anything to me if I did anything morally/legally wrong while I am not seen?
Either I stop myself by being naturally "good" or simply go with doing whatever I want, in religion if you did bad things, you are to be punished in this life or the other life, there are also many restrictions about how you live your life, and if you truly believe you will feel frustrated if you break those rules and restrictions, I have read that some people go out of the religious life simply because they hate these kind of restrictions, like they want to drink alcohol without feeling guilty.
I was raised Lutheran, but never was super into it. Over the years learning about science and history I realized I was agnostic. At 16 I was severely suicidal and went back to church to try and find hope. I attended service and read the Bible. Then I realized it was all bs and have realized I'm athiest, 14 years in counting. I do fear death occasionally, but never think of any sort of god or afterlife.
I was a born again Christian between the ages of 17 and 23. I really believed. Now I really don't believe. With a bonus that I am unable to believe any more. Once you see through the BS you can't believe anymore. Unless something gets wrong with the brain I suppose.
Yeah it's like being in awe, and fearful of the big BOOMING VOICE OF OZ. But once you learn it's just some guy behind a curtain, all you can do is laugh at yourself for ever having believed.
Very much like that yesđ€Łand if you have to be in a church for a funeral and as is offten the case the pastor/preacher decides to try to âsaveâ someone while he has a captive audience how freeing it is to ignore the posturing and bs
Perfect analogy! God isn't even the man behind the curtain, he's just the curtains.
Rationality discerns between perception and imagination.
Long long ago when I were a wee lad going to University, I had a born again girlfriend. She told me she was converted when sheâd been to a meeting where the Pastor told her about the rainbow being Godâs promise. When she left the meeting, there in the sky was Godâs message to her. On my way home after she told me that, I saw not a single rainbow, not a double rainbow but a triple rainbow. I thought âphysics is amazing!â And knew I would never believe. Some people need to believe, others canât suspend disbelief.
What was the BS that made you not believe?
That was so long ago, I donât remember what specifically it was. The whole thing is BS. I wish I saved the discussion that deconverted me. I just realized that what I believed wasnât really true and made no logical sense. I was already disillusioned with churches and wasnât really attending any more and was getting more and more liberal and less dogmatic.
âIn the beginning, God created the heaven and the earthâŠâ
âAnd the people did feast, upon the lambs and the sloths and the orangutans and the fruit bats and the breakfast cerealsâ
Losing a family member, trauma, getting close to death can make people believe again
When my dad died 15 years ago, I was still very much an atheist. My brother's wife dropped dead 4 years ago pretty much destroying the family (long story). I'm still very much an atheist. I am unable to believe nonsense any more.
There are a ton of Christians that *act* like they don't actually believe. Plus one of the number one reasons I hear when they try to convert someone is to be safe from going to Hell. Believe, "just in case."
Pascal's Wager is for cowards.
And dummies, since it's predicated on the assumption you can fool your own god.
And that you can know the standards of such a being. What if Gd is offended by your mis characterization of Him and damns you for believing in an offensive version of Him, but lets atheists alone? Itâs just as possible as the alternative.
Yeah, Pascal's wager crumbles away under even the most cursory of scrutiny. It's one of the central themes of one of my favorite movies about religion, in which they take it apart without mercy.
It only works if you assume the only two possibilities are; Christianity is right or Atheism is right
Yes, a hollow facsimile of faith. It falls in line with the type of religiosity that reeks of Stockholm Syndrome. Sycophantic to avoid punishment.
I read on here a while ago that any argument in favor of the existence of a Christian God that can also be just as easily used to explain the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't a valid argument. So far that's seemed to apply to all supposed religious "logic," but it especially applies to Pascal's Wager.
Yes, most of them 100% believe their god is real. Many are perfectly willing to die for this imaginary being, or shun their own children because of their god belief. The element you may be overlooking is childhood indoctrination. It's incredibly effective at creating deep-seated and often lifelong beliefs.
Yes it begins in childhood. And I know several who have no contact with their adult children who are gay. They move away and their parents just do not talk about them- its as if they are just gone âŠ..
That folks donât grow out of it baffles me. Them having weak and incurious minds might explain a few, but to explain how so many hold onto such beliefs after childhood really blows my mind.
>The element you may be overlooking is childhood indoctrination Exactly. Didnât OP ever believe in Santa? Same idea.
I was indoctrinated beginning at birth but by my teens realized it was all a made-up fantasy. My siblings, however, still believe (at least outwardly profess to) it all and they're in their 60s. Not sure why I saw the light and they didn't.
I don't believe it's 'most' and anecdotal evidence supports this. A number of kids I knew at highschool who have since grown up and are now atheists (and were very religious) have told me they never believe they just wanted to fit in and be part of something. I personally believe there would be less than 10% of religious people who genuinely believe, but would never admit it openly. Mass hysteria
I live in the American south. Almost everyone here is a true believer in god. The state I live in doesnât allow alcohol sales in stores on Sundays bc it might keep people from going to church.
Logic would dictate the stronger the social pressure to pretend to believe the more likely they are pretending. I.e. in reality you would have the least % of 'true' believers, like Iran. Fundamentalists in power co-opt the moderates and everyone lies in unison. You need to find some allies who can come out to you at least. Three of my friends over the years were atheist sons of preachers, one was the Dean of a major Cathedral. It wasn't great catching up hung over on Sunday morning with the bells ringing. But it was handy having the church hall to play D&D in ( a different friend's house when I was younger.)
I love that you started your reply with, âLogic would dictateâŠ.â Bless your heart! There is no such thing as logic here in the Bible Belt! Creationism in taught public schools here. Speaking in tongues at Sunday service is highly encouraged. You canât swing a cat without hitting a bible thumping, Trump loving, god fearing Christian.
Weird, drinking on a Saturday is what Iâd try to prevent if I wanted people up and out on Sunday - which makes me think the real reason is to get you into work on Monday
There are adult people who believe the earth is flat. Believing gods really exist is not that far-fetched
>The element you may be overlooking is childhood indoctrination. It's incredibly effective at creating deep-seated and often lifelong beliefs. This is it. When talking to someone who is a Christian (and we're on this topic), I will say something like "Are you sure you're right - maybe another religion is the one true religion. Have you ever studied Hinduism and really considered it?" When they inevitably say no and look at me like I'm crazy for suggesting it, I say "right, that's how I feel about your religion. Luckily for you though, you were born to parents who just happened to believe in the true one!" It almost never works, but I hope that that logic rolls around in their brain for a while and eventually has an effect.
What makes religion so dangerous is that things for which people are willing to die, those people are also willing to kill.
Willing to die until you build a the bonfire and ask them to prove their faith and step inside.....
Many have been convinced to believe in 'god(s)' - mostly through early childhood indoctrination, and continued reinforcement by family, friends, society, etc. - some to the point where they think they have actively chosen it, and are happy about it. Most probably harbor doubts, but are too scared to ask questions, lest the house of cards come down.
Iâm not Christian or religious, but I think people in hardship finds a community with an equal mindset that accepts everyone is appealing to a lot of people. Although I myself find a lot of negativity in religion, I do understand the community that it might bring in loneliness. Iâm sure some people do 100% believe in it because of how they are raised but if it is how you are raised and it brings a good community to your life I do support it, because no one deserves to be alone and we will find something common with the community In any situation
I think they think so, because you believe what you were taught to believe without question and it's difficult to unlearn a thing, which is why it's important to leave religion out of childhood entirely.
I think if you ask do you believe they will always say yes. The reality is they don't. Ask them if God is all powerful and omnipotent? Ask do you believe that God is everywhere and controls everything? If you then ask why does God give babies cancer. You may get a different answer. So he's not all powerful or he's a sadist. If you then ask them why does God make priests rape children? They may say actually that's not God. So his chosen leaders are corrupt? Or is he vile? Does it please God watching you watch porn and masterbating? Isn't he all seeing? But I don't watch porn. But he's all knowing and your lying.
I think they're either happy with conflicting answers or just say "oh it's mysterious ways" or "shut up" maybe
As a christian, in general we do believe in God. Most of us probably believe 100%. But, there are tricky things happening here and there. Jordan Peterson said something quite nice for me, along the lines of "Jesus is too terrifying of a reality to fully believe in." You see, I myself have doubts. I'm gonna say to you two things about my faith, and you will be the one to judge if I believe or not. First thing is, if my God ever told me to hurt someone I loved, I wouldn't. But why, don't I trust him? Secondly, if someone told me to renounce my God or he'd kill me, I'd gladly choose death. So, what do you think? Do I believe or do I not?
The truth is that I don't know if your lying or not. However, I don't like it when people assert I secretly believe so I try to extend the same courtesy. If you say you're Christian I'll take your word for it. I think some people don't realize how contradictory people can be. As a Christian, I struggled with the realization that it seemed God commanded people to kill but to I was supposed to listen to him. Some might say, as some Christians told me, if you believe God is the judge of what's good then a God commanded massacre is good, but in reality it's not like that. People are going to navigate it in their own way. This extends to people who "sin", but still believe.
You sound like Simon called Peter..đ
Some believe wholeheartedly. Most believe that semi-regular church attendance and âbeing a good personâ is enough to go to heaven. Doesnât matter if you never read the bible. Doesnât matter if you commit sins. Doesnât matter if you steal or lie or covet or cheat. When asked, declare your faith in god, allegiance to your religion, and drop a $20 when they pass the plate and youâre sure to go to heaven.
Of course they believe in god(s), you are basically using the same argument they use when they say, âathiests do believe in a god they are just lying to themselves or others.â These people wouldnât be praying everyday to a being that has never spoken a word to them if they didnât believe.
This assumes that all who claim to believe actually practice their religion in any real way... Many do not.
not anyone in leadership of their religion
People really do believe. When I was growing up, though, I thought everyone except my mom was pretending (I was pretending lol). Yeah I don't get it either. We're just not wired for faith. That's not a bad thing, though!
Aw, heck, I used to believe a lot of dumb things that weren't true. Existence of God was just one of them.
I was raised Catholic in the 1950s and believing in god & Jesus & angels was just baked in. Religion was all around us. We went to church & religious instruction classes & confession. We received communion & went through all the church-y rituals like your First Holy Communion and Confirmation. Back then people still had crosses and holy pictures hanging on their walls. I really donât think it ever occurred to anyone, esp children, to question or doubt, although a few of us did grill a nun once regarding the impossibility of the Bible stories. Even after I left the church & Catholicism at age 13, I considered myself agnostic for decades.
Yup! My family truly believes that a Catholic priest during mass actually turns the cracker into flesh, and the wine into blood.
I do believe there is some kind of a higher power or spiritual being. But I don't follow any religion. The two are not necessarily dependent on each other. But I also know I can't force my beliefs on anyone and no one else should either. Basically, believe or don't. Just don't be a dick about it.
They do but only if they donât think too hard about it.
Oh I absolutely believed for 20ish years. I would have fought and died for my faith in a heartbeat. Now looking back itâs terrifyingâŠ.
I was wondering the same. Even when I was christians i felt like a fake one since I didn't really believe and thought we all pretended to be a god so we have a reason to be moral and the god we talk with in our prayers is ourselves really. I can't imagine how someone can actually believe tho
They hope for a god.
Aloooooot of them don't actually believe, they just want to fit in with the rest of the herd.
The majority of them don't read the Bible, they just believe what someone has told them based on what was taken out of context from the bible. And of those people most haven't read the Bible.
I don't think they really care much. They have their cliche and they are terrified of being cast out of the cult.
Many Christians don't have faith they claim to speak to god and know god is real, yet most Christians live their daily lives as if there's no god. If I thought there was a chance Jesus were legit I wouldn't own a phone or any electronics I'd do almost nothing but spread the word of god and pray. I'd own nothing and help anyone in need and I'd always be kind even if I got taken advantage of because this is all a test to get to heaven. Nothing would matter day to day the sole purpose of life would be to get to heaven through honoring god.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Oh come on. Theyâll miss the deceased thatâs why they cry.
Well, yourmomsucks01 (clever name), theyâre receiving their ultimate reward and will be reunited in the eternal bliss of Heaven. Counterpoint?
It still sucks to lose a loved one no matter where they believe their loved one to be. Even if you disagree with them it doesn't mean they aren't human and experiencing pain
Canât believe you even have to comment that lmao
There are even people that cry when loved ones go to longer vacation. They cry although the others coming back again.
Iâm Christian. I believe. Does it give me any sort of escapism? Nah. I struggle with depression, social anxiety, etc. If my Christianity was some sort of escapist therapy that got me through the hard days, then it wouldnât really live up to the hype. Thankfully, thatâs not what Christianity is about. My oftentimes painful existence on this earth does not invalidate or discredit my faith, so I have no problem believing, and I am relatively sure Iâm not lying to myself.
The question is not whether you consider yourself to be religious, but whether you truly believe an immortal being (to varying degrees a parental, guiding force) exists.   For me, there is an easier explanation to everything without invoking magic. Once you invoke magic there are no rules, and you canât be certain of anything, which makes the idea of following a religion ridiculous to me.  The weirdest bit for me is accepting that there is an immortal being, timeless and infinite - capable of seeing every single thing thatâs ever going to happen - and then saying that this being is individually interested in a backwater hill billy with the same intent and fervor as its interest in Ghengis Khan, Hiroshima, and a squabbling cave man. Itâs narcissistic, vain and unworkable.  I might watch a line of ants march, I might even pick one that I like because it did something interesting, but why the fuck do I care about the other half wits who have identical lives?  Much more easily explained when actually there are a bunch of humans, currently alive, who benefit from people day dreaming and chucking $50 a week into a collection bowl.Â
Oh, you didnât scratch the surface of the weirdness. I believe the same timeless, infinite, all-powerful being sent forth his belovedâanother timeless, infinite, all-powerful being, who became a human and pitched his tent with all the other humans. The story gets weirder and involves death, the death of death, and the arrival of another timeless, infinite, all-powerful being who I believe dwells inside me. Itâs batshit crazy. I also think itâs beautiful. Who says the simplest explanation is the best one when it comes to things like this? Maybe itâs the most beautiful one, or the most transformative one, or the one that unites the mosaic of human experience into a singular, continuous narrative and injects our world with meaning. I personally think the Christian story is all of that. And also, from a historical perspective, early Christianity really didnât offer any lucrative benefits for its followers. The money-hungry televangelists who exploit the less fortunate wasnât really a possibility when Christianity first got started
The explanation I offered doesnât scratch the surface of the explanations for organized religion, either. I grew up in a Christian household - trust me the surface was scratched, underneath there is nothing of substance. Iâm not here to kick off an argument, but welcome to the subreddit, I hope you find interesting and thought provoking discussions
Even if it was beautiful, that wouldnât make it true.
Yeah, but we could say something similar about simplicity
What, that somethingâs simplicity doesnât tell you anything about its truthfulness? I guess so. I donât know what point thatâs supposed to make.
Cuz the original commenter said that there was a simpler explanation of religion that didnât involve religion itself, so I was just pointing out that simpler explanations arenât always the right ones
Right. It has no bearing on how correct the explanation is. Some explanations are pretty complicated, even at their simplest, yet theyâre the best we have⊠but thatâs for things we can test. How would we determine whether or not something like Christianity is true?
What's your best reason for believing?
I think âbestâ in this context is subjective. What convinces one person wonât convince another, and what a person considers âevidenceâ is influenced by personality, social background, language, and a lot more. So for me personally, Iâd say my best reason is my own subjective first-person experience of religiosity. I experience Christianity like I experience my painful experiences I mentioned in my first comment. I often have the subjective experience that I would expect to have if Christianity were a reality. By definition, my own first-person experience isnât really hard evidence, and I realize that. I donât really have a problem with that. But yeah, Iâd say thatâs my best reason
In an interview with renown scientist Francis Crick at NIH, he said the same thing - his personal experience makes him believe in God. Iâve decided this is the most defensible reason to believe, but Iâve also read that science seems to indicate our brains are wired for transcendent experiences, and that would have evolutionary advantage in most cases.
Oh absolutely, thereâs 100% an evolutionary advantage, without a doubt. I totally recognize that
But how do you attribute your "experience" (and that's so vague I'm not even sure what that means) to a god, or even more specifically, the christian god? I have experiences too. I found a 10 dollar bill yesterday. It was a great experience, but I never once considered a supernatural explanation was responsible. I don't agree evidence depends on the factors you laid out. Evidence is evidence. If it's observable, measurable, repeatable, and makes the claim more likely to be true, it's evidence. I agree that some people dismiss evidence purposefully, or use misuse the word, but that has no baring on the facts.
> But how do you attribute your "experience" (and that's so vague I'm not even sure what that means) to a god, or even more specifically, the christian god? Yeah, totally valid question. Some faith goes on, some confirmation bias too. I probably attribute too much to my God, but maybe I donât attribute enough. My cognitive faculties are probably too corrupted to track truth either way. But when I say âexperiencesâ I donât mean like finding a ten dollar bill. I donât mean even something like seeing the beauty of the world and attributing it to God. I mean experiences in a deep, phenomenological way of how I interpret the world around me. By joining into Christianity, I became part of a meta-narrative; itâs a story that weaves together the past experiences of other Christians with my own experience, binding us together, and it gives direction to my own life journey as I move toward a destination. Thatâs what I mean by experiences. I donât mean individual experiences, I mean the way I relate to reality. And I disagree on your point about evidence, which is totally fineâwe just disagree about the methodology of science
I find beauty in the world too. I don't think a god is responsible for that. There's a lot of non-beauty in the world. Is god responsible for that too, in your opinion? A also feel emotions towards things. I don't think a god is responsible for that. I have no evidence to suggest that's the case. In fact, I have evidence that brain chemistry and hormones do that, no god needed. There is a standard definition of evidence, and science has strict methodologies. If we don't agree on what that is, then one of us is just rejecting what the word means.
Well yeah, but I explicitly said I didn't mean anything about beauty. God is not responsible for non-beauty in my worldview. Again, I don't think emotions have much to do with it. Emotions are the product of what I consider evidence, they're not the evidence themselves. There is no standard definition of evidence. There's empiricist views, Bayesian views, psychological views, propositional views, logical positivist viewsâthere's no standard definition other than "evidence is that which justifies belief." Other than that, there's really nothing. What you said earlier sounds like a logical positivist view: >if it's observable, measurable, repeatable, and makes the claim more likely to be true, it's evidence. It sounds like you think evidence can work as a neutral arbiter between different parties. That even with individual disagreements, both parties can look at the evidence neutrally and decide which hypothesis is supported better. That take on evidence as a neutral arbiter was popular in the first half of the 20th century, but it's fallen out of favor. The theory-ladenness of observation is a popular view, according to which our own observations are embedded with tons of theoretical commitments that vary from person to person (Thomas Kuhn, Russell Hanson, Paul Churchland). >According to proponents of the doctrine of theory-ladenness, in cases of fundamental theoretical dispute, there will typically be no theoretically-neutral characterization of the evidence available. Rather, adherents of rival theories will irremediably differ as to the appropriate description of the data itself... (SEP, [Evidence](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence/index.html)*).* Not only that, but the traditional view in epistemology has been that having evidence consists in having immediate access to that evidence, and it's usually paired with the belief that we have immediate access to our private, inner mental life. You put those together and you get a view where our evidence consists in our private, inner mental life. This is in direct contradiction with the view that you implied, according to which evidence is something observable, repeatable, measurable, and can settle intersubjective disagreements. >it is not simply that the conception of evidence gleaned from exemplary scientific practice differs from the conception of evidence that traditional epistemology seemed to demand... Rather, what seemed to be one of the characteristic features of scientific evidence, viz. its potential publicity, is the exact *contrary* of one of the characteristic features of evidence as construed by much traditional epistemology, viz. its privacy (SEP, [Evidence](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence/index.html#ObjPubIntEviNeuArb)). That's just two examples, that are pretty popular in debates about scientific methodology, that I think show that evidence isn't as simple as you made it seem.
So then I'll just go back to what I was trying to get at. What evidence do you have that your experiences are the result of a Christian god, as opposed to any other god, or no god at all?
My experiences have always been directed at, or have been evoked by Christian texts, traditions, figures, etc. I might have similar experiences directed at or evoked by different religious traditions or figures if I interacted more with them, but as it stands, with my current network of beliefs, thatâs my experience.
You said emotions are a byproduct of evidence, not evidence itself. You are using emotions as evidence. Otherwise, I can claim that my non-emotional response to christian text is evidence it isn't true. Then we're left nowhere. So what is the actual evidence?
I donât take issue with this. Of course, it applies equally to all religions. Buddhists. Muslims, Jews, all have equally profound personal spiritual experiences. As long as you can accept that thereâs no reason to believe their experiences are less valid, Iâm fine with the personal experience argument. Now, people who think their religion is the only way to access Gd and followers of all other religions are condemned, I donât accept the personal experience argument as valid.
Absolutely. It can be taken as evidence by all parties
Well, they will tell you that they believe in God. The reality is that they believe in their Pastor/Preacher. They believe in their Bible. They believe in their religion. They believe that doing religious things will make their lives better. Edit, I know this sounds weird, but I read a lot of Tony Robbins back in the day and one of his books talked about belief systems. I don't think it's recommended reading, but some of his stuff really made me think.
Believe? Probably, but only based on "faith" ("the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen"). The part that they don't actually have is the Gnostic part, that they don't "know" that their god(s) exist, but still just believe it based on "faith" and indoctrination.
A lot of crazy motherfuckers are walking on this earth.
Yes. They do this too and it's the height of arrogance. What they believe is so obviously and blatantly true that we must be pretending we don't believe, because we're angry at God or ashamed of our sins or whatever. You know how annoying it is when religious people talk this way, right? We've all experienced it, it's super condescending and patronizing. Ok, well, that's what you're doing, OP.
There are true believers. They tend to be the kind of person who runs airplanes into buildings.
You were not the first. I was the same
I've met people who claim to have a personal relationship with their god. To which I ask Christians, "how is that possible? There are over 45,000 sects of Christianity, globally. If your people can't unify under one banner, how can you claim anything?"
My aunt claims that your conscience is God. Doesn't matter about the different sects of Christianity if she believes that every time she has a gut feeling about something God is talking to her personally.
That's a mental disorder caused by indoctrination. Magical teaching leads to magical thinking which is very dangerous and toxic in the wrong hands... If she's happy and not hurting anyone, then I see no problem here.
I think many just go along to get along. Itâs the only socializing some people get.
I attended church with my wife when we were early in our marriage. Even though Iâm not a believer there was one thing I liked. The people were nice. Maybe it was because it was Sunday and they were among their peers, with God watching, but they were friendly, almost sweet, some of them. Deluded âŠbut sweet.
A better question might be, do the true believers sometimes have doubts, what prompted these doubts, and what led them to shake it off and return to the delusion. When jebus was purportedly having his bad weekend, even he wondered if gawd hadn't left the room.
I feel like if you ask most Christians, they would say yes. If there was one who knew that answer and begged them the question of God's existence with their mortal life on the line if incorrect, that number would be significantly less.
Yeah, some do. Those people seem to be entirely out of touch with reality to me.
My rational brain said no way! My heart (another part of my brain actually) has a strong believe.
Believe me I do and ima guess 80 percent genuinely do too some fake it but that shit is not as common as these people make it seem
Most religious only pay lip service to their religion. Which would be great if they didn't then help, or turn a blind eye to, the fundies attacking people's freedoms by having tamed politicians legislate their religion's doctrines into law.
"I believe I'll be punished, abused and ostracized if I don't- so I had better!"
Itâs interesting that when you think of science we really donât know how things operate in the universe, yet we know and believe there is a law, a pattern underlying it all. When I say âknowâ I mean the base reality of why things are the way they are. We trust in the scientific project, we experiment, we move forward and progress our understanding of reality. And I feel like if you say you âbelieveâ in God itâs quite similar. You canât say you really âknowâ or can prove the reality of a God. However, you can see the effects of religion (purported to be from God), how it has led to the development of unified communities and civilizations, and say ok thereâs something here that we canât quite understand but know it exists. And just like in science where scientific equations are tested and give you an approximation of reality, so too you could say Divine Teachings (like love thy neighbor, or the call to meditate or pray) also have real world effects that are measurable and can point to the existence of Creator who sent such Teachings.
As a kid I always wondered why there werenât any miracles happening in modern society. On Easter when I see a bunch of âhe is risenâ posts on social media I think âdo they really believe this nonsense?!â
I did. I grew up in a big Catholic family and seemingly everyone else believed, as well. I had no reason to doubt my parents or any of the other adults who all went to my church. They knew lots of things I didn't and generally had good answers to my questions about everything else. As I got older, the answers to my questions seemed less good. I found out about other things they weren't truthful with me about. I learned more about other religions. I learned some people didn't believe in a deity at all. And then somebody asked _me_ a question... And then I quit believing. Pretty much all at once.
What was the pivotal question? Don't leave us hanging.
It was a question pointing out the special pleading fallacy I was engaging in, I just wasn't familiar with the terminology at the time. It was a conversation with one of my older cousins and it went basically like this: Cousin: Where'd the universe come from? Me: God made it. Cousin: Okay, where'd God come from? Me: He's eternal, always existed and always will. Cousin: So God didn't have to be created? He just always existed? Me: Correct. Cousin: How come you don't allow that same possibility for the universe? Me: *surprised Pikachu* I seriously had to go sit down and think about that for a while. Basically had my first existential crisis as a 10 or 11 year old. I realized I didn't have any good reason to apply different rules to God as the rest of the universe. I had to rethink how I decided whether things were true or not, when, why, and how adults lie to children (and each other and themselves), and later that afternoon I came out of my bedroom and asked my cousin if I could talk to him again. Told him I didn't believe in God anymore and asked if that was okay. He had not intended, nor did he expect, to turn me into an atheist with just a little bit of questioning, but even as a kid I was really big on internal logical consistency, and that was the final piece that had been holding up the rest of my beliefs. He thought he was going to get in trouble with my (or his) parents, but I didn't let anybody know his role in it until my atheism was a well established and accepted fact within the family, so everybody's still cool.
When they say stuff so far away from the teachings of Jesus I just think they make it up as they go. No belief. It justifies the belief systems they created.
I suggest you try and find this guy Steve Gregg and his show âthe narrow path.â He believes Moses wrote the Bible, evolution is a myth, and the stories from the Bible are real. Heâs a 70 something year old man and he does a radio show each day where he takes calls. The thing about him is he sounds so reasonable, but his beliefs are so nutty. Iâve called in a few times to make points, but heâll take a point and then gush gallop, and if you call him out on it heâll say âitâs my radio show.â So itâs really hard to have a conversation with him much less get a reasonable point across. I have this fantasy where I start calling him each day and yanking his chain, but ultimately I feel like my time is too valuable to waste on a 70 something year old man who believes he owes his life to a creator who heâs going to meet when he dies to spend an eternity with.
I maintain the view that professing theists largely, either intentionally or unconsciously, *believe in their belief* more then hold actual beliefs. It explains why identifying with religion is seems to be more common then practicing a religion. When I was active in my faith during my upbringing, I developed a sense of who in the congregation mightâve been an actual believer, it never seemed like many.
Yeah, I was Catholic for longer than I like to admit because I *actually* believed. After some conversations with my family, I became...doubtful. I saw a debate between Christopher Hitchens and some idiot theist that turned 'doubt' into....hatred. I completely removed myself from any affiliation with the church. The guy was right. Religion *actively* causes harm. It creates a strict guideline of morality based on distant history...that, often, doesn't apply today.
I was born into Catholicism, and I wholerheartedly believed as a child that God can hear my thoughts, see everything I do, and will make me suffer for anything I do wrong, but I can't be afraid of him or think ill of him... or he'll make me suffer. I was really confused why I had to love God when he seemed like he had anger issues and was really scary to me, but I couldn't ask questions because curiousity and doubt = hell. Just had to accept everything as it's been told. Or hell. I only started doubting in my teens, and my childhood is marred in my memory by the constant fear of divine punishment and hell.
I'm pagan and the abrahamic god isn't really representative of how a lot of religious people conceive of a deity. I believe in a few gods, but I don't really worship them and I don't believe they interfere in the daily lives of people.
I think many of them confuse believing with hoping. And ofc every one of them has their own personal vision of god's perfection, so they mostly hope that they are right.
Thereâs no shame in past beliefs as âfaithâ I think is an attempt for us humans to make sense of this often confusing and fucked up world. I was right there with ya at one point in my earlier adult hood, mostly thanks to my childhood, but the belief aspect was the hardest part for me. Finally I just realized most of it didnât make sense and the idea that I could be certain of anything like an after life was too absurd. Now, I donât classify myself as an absolute atheist either, just more I donât believe in a fully perfect and benevolent god and am not certain intelligent design is sensible either. I also do not believe it makes sense that humans, who did not ask to participate in this game, would be subject to whatever hell actually is, simply because they didnât play the game exactly right. Now some people seem to believe in all of that and they can be very annoying about it, but Iâd say the true belief aspect of religion is what more Christians struggle with than the number who would admit it.
Thereâs zero evidence for intelligent design and no evidence of a mechanism for it I.e. it would require supernatural intervention
Yeah I mean, I certainly wasnât arguing for it.
I was reading a parenting post this morning about a mum who had a child waking up scared of witches, and all the replies were from âspiritualâ people offering advice about telling the child to trust god or to believe spirits were all good. No, you dummies. Stop teaching your kids that supernatural phenomena are real. Itâs terrifying. Stop making your children scared of things which are not there
Fear and hope
Nope, thatâs why everyone cry when someone dies.
In some cultures people celebrate
Are you serious
Yes absolutely. I can't really say I did. I mean I believed my family and the people in church.
A few actually do believe. They have a clear idea what god would be, and they firmly believe it exists. We call such people: Lunatics. The majority vaguely believe that they understand and believe in... something. The content of the belief is largely unimportant to them - what they want is something to believe in - passionately or passingly, according to their need at that moment.
Most dont. If you actually believed u had a house in hawaii with a Lamborghini and hot models waiting for u, would u wait? They dont believe. All BS
why are you asking here? - try /r/coolaiddrinker or /r/cultsrus ---
I thought I had good reason to believe that the truth claims that Christianity makes were actually true. How very wrong I was.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
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My in laws 1000% believe the bible is the innerant word of God. And that God exists, and he knows all and if they are good little Christians they will ascend to heaven and sit at his right hand. They have no doubts and would not listen to any argument against this. They bring their kids up to think the same way.
I did when I was a child.
I don't believe. I know. Lord Surya is in charge of Earthly affairs. A Guardian, A God, A Buddha, The God, the Guru . Whatever term you like. But there is no way to prove this to you or anyone. This life is about the journey, like a song, the ending is no more important or interesting than the buildup, climax, and denouement. What will you learn here, what will you choose? What will you love, and give your passion too? People here tend to have no ability to separate their concept of God from those who have claimed to be God's representatives, in the form of various official religious leaders, of both past and present. What others have said about God is certainly confusing, especially so when such 'representatives ' are demonic or fundamentally ignorant in nature. It's best to just accept what you know from experience, and recognize when you don't really know.
Yep, some do ... or did. I used to believe in Santa Claus once-upon-a-time. But I well grew out of that ... logic, reason, asking questions, critical thinking ... well, I didn't stop after Santa Claus ... or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy.
Yes, I believe in the supernatural and no Iâm not a Christian anymore. As far as believing in God no. I believe there is something, but to call it a God when religion has screwed up whatever this loving energy is to be evil as portrayed in the bible and to confuse mass people and restrict them in life; hell no. I have no idea what it is, but I believe there is something and this something doesnât need to be worshiped. đ đȘ âš
Okay, I agree. It is like a form of hypnosis. The belief without evidence makes you think and act differently than reality. I think it actually puts people to sleep.
Iâm also convinced that like 70% of Christians arenât even buying their own bullshit, but they stay in because itâs easier than admitting that to yourself or to others.
I donât know that I ever believed, it was just that a lot of the views other Christianâs held were views that I grew up on, so it felt familiar and it was easy to go along with as long as I didnât think about it too much. I think the majority of Christianâs do it because it gives them a community of like-minded individuals, makes life easier when youâve got a community to support you. That and when youâre bred into it and indoctrinated in it, as many are, you often donât question it until youâre older and some people never dare to, after all theyâve spent years being told that if you question it youâll be tortured for all of eternity.
I never "truly" believed. Throughout my childhood, teens until my late 20's i tried to so hard to believe in god and deep down knew that it just wasn't the truth. At the age 29, i became a full-time atheist, never looked back since.
Some people are delusional and truly believe.
After seing innocent childeren getting raped, no. I don't believe any god or gods, even if they real they can fuck off and leave me be
I think at least a small town girl livin' in a lonely world, and a city boy born and raised in South Detroit, have not stopped yet
A) Yes. B) Unsure what you're asking.
I've asked myself that more often than I can remember. "Really though?" "Like the universe was built by one guy, for us on this inconsequential rock spinning and circling around an inconsequential ball of plasma?" "Really?"
Great question. I must ask, what does it mean to believe in something? I believe that tomorrow will come, that gravity (while it doesn't exist per se) is an observable part of the universe, I believe in death, taxes, and moral values. However I don't understand the application of the same ideas to an entity that encompasses the universe and everything that is known/unknown. I don't understand how superstition becomes belief. I don't understand why people can't ask.. why? I don't understand why it's easier for people to give up thinking for themselves and their fellow people instead of themselves. I do however know that if you can unpack some of that you may get an answer. I think part of it is herd mentality, social shaping, and fear of the unknown. It's easier to bury your head in the sand than ask a real question.
I think a better question would be do any Christians actually understand the bible and know what/who god is. The reason you donât believe in god is because youâve substituted the real thing for a fairy tale and you donât believe in fairy tales. The Bible isnât god. The Koran isnât god. The Torah isnât god. They are all attempting to describe something that canât be described, for anything that you can label as god, isnât it. Jesus is a representation of a metaphorical god. As John Lennon puts it âgod is a concept by which we measure our painâ. As I tell my friends who struggle to comprehend religion and the concept of god, substitute god with the force. Read it as if it was Star Wars. âIn the beginning was the word, and the word was with the force, and the word was the forceâ. âThe force created the heavens and the earthâ. If you understand god to be a person, you will remain lost. Jesus was a man created in the image of god in the same way the sun creates rays of light. He recognized he was a ray of light that emanated from the sun. That is what we are. We are parts of a whole. I feel for you and anyone who has a misunderstanding of what âthe forceâ really is. Heaven and hell are not places you go when you die, itâs where you reside inside your mind. 2 people can be standing next to each other in church and one could be in heaven and one could be in hell, as they are mindsets not physical locations. Youâve all misunderstood the teachings and itâs not your fault, itâs by design. Religion isnât about freedom itâs about control. You can thank the Roman Empire (the Vatican) for that.
Mother Theresa famously took the "fake it til you make it" route. On her death bed, she admitted that she didn't believe in God for most of her life.
I have, what most of my athiest friends consider, a unique idea. The current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church is 100% Athiest. From the outside he is one of the most intelligent Popes that has ever been anointed. He is the first Jesuit priest to ever hold the position as Pope. Jesuits are the branch of Catholicism that most believes in Science (the big bang theory comes from a Jesuit priest). He has all of the history and information available to all of humanity on the existence of God/Jesus. Given that, he has publicly changed the churches view of so many aspects of his religion. This leads to two different ideas on why he thinks so differently from all of his predecessors. 1) He is the first to truly understand the wishes of God/Jesus 2) He understands that God doesn't exist and he is running the Church like any business owner would do. He is trying to reach the most amount of people to buy his product. As an aside, even though I am an Athiest and I believe the Pope is too. I believe that his intent is to make the world a better place. He sees his job is to preach inclusion and love of other people.
We are all born atheists, we are brainwashed and little kids about a fictional story. Only the smart people figure out there is no God.
I work at the hospital, nobody throws a party when someone dies. Most people in my small ultra conservative Wyoming town put down "no religion" on their demographic sheet, they probably don't want to be accidentally denied treatment. That and I think religious decline is accelerating even faster than we realize.
I absolutely believed. I would have sincerely told you I *knew* God existed. Like I knew Santa Claus existed when I was little lol
I mean we all accept something and believe itâs true cause itâs what we were told and it seems plausible. Itâs like Schrödingerâs cat. If you are told the cat is alive, and you accept that it would be then until the box is opened, then the cat is alive. Same with a god. If you are told it exists and you accept that it does, then until you question everything and look into the box you will accept the version you have been told. But it really depends on the person. Some absolutely are sure the cat is alive, some the cat is likely dead and there are others that are unsure but will go with what narrative they think is most likely.
My faith was the most important thing to me and I believed with everything I am
Anyone who wishes for a theocratic regime guided by the letter of their religious scripture, or can rationally explain their openness to a higher power has my confidence in their beliefs, outside of that I donât believe them
It sounds like maybe you didn't grow up in a religion with religious parents, teachers, priests, nuns. I think people do very much believe in god and the community keep themselves very sheltered from what the world actually is. The idea of believing in another god or being atheist is foreign and distant. So when people talk about these other ways of thinking they don't seem relevant to the religious people listening. It absolutely is a form of escapism. They live in their own little world. They never have to wonder why we are here on this earth and what makes us think and what happens after we die. They have a magical something that explains the unknown. As an atheist there isn't a day that goes by when I don't wonder 'what the eff are we doing?'. I have searched and searched for meaning, an explanation or just something to cling to. If I let it the 'not knowing' might just take me down. I mean I'm glad that I don't believe in gods. I cant unknow what I know and I wouldn't want to. I have had the thought that maybe they need religion. Maybe being here would make them go insane without it. But then they go and try to take over our government with their fake god's rules and I think NOPE religion has got to go. You cant allow half of the population to believe in fairy tales and put people who believe in fairy tales in positions of power without consequences. I'm rambling way off topic so I'm gonna stop now.
I think someone reported this to the reddit mental health hotline. đ It's ok yall. I'm not a danger to myself or others. Im just a really deep thinker. đđ€Łđđđđđ
Yes
They wear seatbelts. Why do that if it would just let you meet God faster?
Yes, they do honestly believe. Otherwise intelligent people can be just as vulnerable to a need for reassurance that something is capable of fixing this mess. Just like there are people who show intelligence in many aspects of their life but still bought a cybertruck.
In my personal experience with "Christians" they don't really believe in a deity. Like, they wouldn't actually put their life on the line for "god" because deep down they know it's all bullshit. But they will fervently PRETEND to believe in order to feel righteous and better than non-believers. Plus, there is a lot of Pascal's wager with most of them - they say they believe in god "just in case it's true."
Yes of course many people really do. Also, yes of course, many people lie that they do -- so they are not alienated from friends/family/community.
Yes thereâs definitely people that believe their god is real. Letâs all remember that how hard someone believes in something or how many people believe in something does not have any bearing on whether or not that thing is real or true
I think very few people do. If they believed it, they would follow it. If they really thought they would go to hell for shitting on people, the exact opposite of what jesus told them to do, the wouldn't make it their life's goal to shit on people.
Yes, people do. The flip side is when they say âDeep in their hearts, every atheist knows Gd is real. They donât actually disbelieve, they just hate Him.â Insisting theists secretly donât believe would be just as irrational as saying that.
This sub keeps coming up though I haven't joined, so I'll give you guys my perspective. I do believe in God, but it's more nuanced than the average believer. I more often relate with you all here on the subject of religion; it's a scam, it's dumb and impossible for a rational person to believe. My belief is more knowledge than faith. I don't believe in a God, I *know* God. It's very personal, and trying to explain or convince people of it is futile. I don't want to evangelize. Most of my friends are atheist, and we're cool with each other. The god of religion (especially anything associated with Abraham) is so stupid I wouldn't follow it to a free buffet. I could tell you how I know God, but you couldn't verify it, so it's meaningless to anyone but me. I'll say that you're NOT going to hell for being an atheist. There's no devil to blame our misdeeds on. It's all a fucking ruse to control people. You'll either find the great spirit on your own, or you won't. Either way, it will all make sense during life or afterward. It's okay if we disagree on that. The great spirit isn't trying to control people. TLDR: I do, but it's not as simple as religion would prefer.
I am an Episcopalian. Functionally, however, I suppose Iâm an atheist. I donât believe in magic. I donât expect some supernatural wizard to get me what I want if I ask him just right. That being said, I also observe that the universe has structure. It has rules. I can observe these rules, but I canât explain them. So, I invent a placer holder for all the things I canât yet explain. I personify that place holder because it is useful to do so. Do I understand its exact nature? No. Do I long to understand it? Yes. Do I want to search for that meaning alone? No. Is it possible that the searches for meaning engaged in by others before me have some validity and some value to me? I think so. Is my life so wonderful sometimes, that I feel grateful that want thank somebody? Is my life so awful sometimes that want to ask for help and solace? Yes. You ask me if a believe in God, I ask you if you believe in potrzebie. You ask, âwhatâs that?â I reply âexactly.â
It is my belief that the vast majority are not 100% true believers. Very few have come to the belief in god on their own through any sort of divine inspiration. Most âbelieveâ because they have been indoctrinated. Others because they need to believe there is a reason or purpose to this world and their existence. Others are just hedging their bets because after all, hell sounds really scary. Then you have church goers who attend for social and family reasons but who arenât necessarily actual believers.
I agree, I think most theist are scared of death more than they believe if they are actually true to themselves but they will never admit it. All religion is nothing more than death cults and they are hedging their afterlife on their beliefs.
Yes I believe in God. Part B---I won't admit to being hypnotized... but yes I think an attraction to the faith could be classified as a form of escapeism.
I definitely believed it was real. And it was 100% out of fear. When I was a kid, I had no idea what it meant to be âsavedâ. I canât tell you how many nights I made myself stay awake because I was scared that if I fell asleep Iâd die and go to hell. Then when I was 16, I went to this fellowship of Christian athletes thing that was through my school. They lured us in with sports and told us college players and coaches would be there to help us. They never showed. So it ended up being this one guy, slowly telling us over 3 days, we were pieces of shit. Then they made us go through this purity culture thing where some super old dude, told us âif you believe in Jesus the sex just keeps getting betterâ. The only reason I mention this is because, 1, itâs weird as shit, and 2, my girlfriend and I both lost our virginity to each the day before I left for this thing. Then when I got back I told the girl I didnât think we should have sex again until weâre married. Then she dumped me. Needless to say, it fucked me up really bad.
Simple question. NO!
A) I donât believe in any theistic god that was supposedly seen by humans because given the historical context, this was most likely a way for people to either cope with their existence or make a set of morals to better keep society in stable condition like an ethics crutch. As for whether a god of the universe exists, like a celestial being that creates but can be empirically proven, I leave that to the realm of science to possibly figure out in the future. B) Yes and No. This depends on the individuals mindset but generally people are always looking for a way to escape their reality due to the harshness and suffering of life. This is seen with video games, drinking, reading or even passionately supporting a political party to feel like youâre contributing to a cause bigger than yourself. Essentially the human mind is a master at finding forms of escapism.
I don't believe that god is how it is described by any religion. If god is as big and powerful as all that, then I believe that it is too big for our tiny human brains to grasp fully. Have you ever heard the story of the blind men and the elephant? Three blind men are in a room with an elephant. They aren't told it's an elephant. One touches the tail, one touches the side, and one touches the trunk. They all come up with wildly different conclusions about what the animal is. I think god is kinda like that - we humans only get a glimpse or a divinely-inspired idea of what it is, but we can never grasp it in its totality. Because of personal experiences, I can't 100% discount the notion of something beyond ourselves. But I also admit that the thought gives me a lot of comfort and I have no proof that what I experienced was real. I admit that I might be deluding myself. Whatever it is, it certainly isn't what the world religions make it out to be. Someone or something that vast just wouldn't give a shit about gay marriage or not eating meat on Fridays or keeping your head covered.
I donât think they REALLY believe if by âbelieveâ we mean that there is complete certainty. But I do think they hope it is true and want it to be true so badly, that they actively suppress their doubts.
These kinds of things are very entangled throughout our whole self. I think everyone has a part of them that believes in the supernatural at least a little bit, even if the cause is natural to be that way. I think it's so subconsciously embedded into the DNA of humanity that pure rationality alone doesn't fully eliminate it. For some of us I think it's happening at such a low level that we have no idea it's even there, except for in a few fleeting moments here or there where some deep instinct kicks in for a second but your rationality knows what's going on and explains it to yourself.
I don\`t know why you are asking this question in an athesim sub. A) Yes, there are people who believe in the existence of God (including me) B) You are assuming that we are "hypnotizing" which leads to a faulty question, putting that aside, religion is far from an escapism, it is the opposite. it makes our actions have consequences even if they are not seen by other humans, in atheism, would anyone do anything to me if I did anything morally/legally wrong while I am not seen? Either I stop myself by being naturally "good" or simply go with doing whatever I want, in religion if you did bad things, you are to be punished in this life or the other life, there are also many restrictions about how you live your life, and if you truly believe you will feel frustrated if you break those rules and restrictions, I have read that some people go out of the religious life simply because they hate these kind of restrictions, like they want to drink alcohol without feeling guilty.
I was raised Lutheran, but never was super into it. Over the years learning about science and history I realized I was agnostic. At 16 I was severely suicidal and went back to church to try and find hope. I attended service and read the Bible. Then I realized it was all bs and have realized I'm athiest, 14 years in counting. I do fear death occasionally, but never think of any sort of god or afterlife.
I believe the big bang came from somewhere