God?
 

I haven't been around much but I've had something playing on my mind but I was too scared to talk about it face to face. Then I remembered this place and thought I'd ask.

Do you believe in God? I am Agnostic so I sit on the fence. Do you think there is there anything after death?

http://www.churchsupplywarehouse.com...4_02_33_PM.jpg

Yes. Funerals, and stuff.

Also, gods are man-made.

But I thought God made us?

Are you really an Agnostic? :D

I don't really give religion much thought, but my general viewpoint is that if there IS a god, he's not doing a very good job. I'm not going to kiss up to someone or something just because an old book says I'll go to hell if I don't.

As for life after death, I'm not sure about that either, but we all die either way so there's not too much point in stressing over it.

Well the only reason I sit on the fence is because I'm sure there's something more to life but I don't know if it's because there is a God.

That's another thing, even if there is a God is there really a Heaven and Hell?

I'm an atheist, which means I am agnostic. I don't believe in any god because there is no evidence, but no way to prove a negative. There is a chance that there is a god, and that chance is pretty damn tiny. Cue spaghetti monster argument.
Fennec has the right idea.
That narrows the possibility down even further, because now you're assuming that if there is a God, it's the Christian one. Why would you assume that when there are hundreds of thousands of others? Why would the afterlife be Heaven/Hell by default?

I'd say the more you study life the more you realise there's much less to it than you believe.

As in: Is there a mythical place full of winged human-like creatures singing and praising the invisible deity with a demonic counterpart? No.

As in: A state when you'll feel ethernally happy when you die? No. Your character, memories and happiness come from parts of your brain. The brain that dies when you do. Sad but true.

Furthermore, human brain seeks patterns. Humans love finding meanings. Even if some of their meanings are unscientific (false). It's good to feel that you're a big part of the universe, created by an omnipotent being with a meaning to it.

Felling good about it doesn't mean it's true, though. We're all basically a bunch of nothings.

That's dumb, there's loads to life. That doesn't mean it has to be fairies and myths that some desert dweller wrote down 2000 years ago.

I meant it in a specific context, i.e. the importance of human life in contrast to the universe.

Oh yeah no, that's nil

Well the god everybody knows is not someone I would give faith or trust to. In my opinion the thing to believe a figure that didn't want to show itself in all the ways possible has been a turn of phrases that fucked up almost all mankind. In their religion, from the start of our life we hear about this "god" who's stronger, superior and better than us. And we must obey to they. We must follow their rules and their will. We basically become slaves with all this. But it's also all an illusion, a lie kept alive from the men that nobody knows the name. There's no heaven, no hell, no super human-guy who's superior, nothing like that. We born and we die in a hopeless world of misery and madness. I could say more than this but if you're not interested in my words or still want to believe this god, then dear little sheeps, go back to your herd.

I grew up in a traditional Jewish family and believed in god. Then for various reasons I became agnostic. And at a certain point I became educated enough to see that there was no need for a god to exist to explain my presence in the universe. And now I'm an atheist.

I actually take my definition of atheisit one step further - I actively believe that there is no god. I might be wrong, of course. And I'm prepared to reassess that belief based on new evidence. But that is my belief.

As pessimistic as it might sound at first, getting rid of the religion was one of the happiest days in my life. All that cognitive dissonance between being a rational person and blindly believing what other people force onto you - gone. All the shame for having sane thoughts that religious people dub blasphemous (they say that questioning your Christian deity is one) - gone, as well. I finally felt like I was truly myself.

@Phoetux edgy af but still totally correct
So, you're agnostic athiest, same as me. I might've just phrased it weirdly. We're pretty much on the same page.

Me too, it was like I was finally free from a painful chain. Even there are more chains.
Sometimes you need to be edgy to say the truth

I am god.

You're man-made. Also, Phoetux doesn't trust you.

Then let me kill you

With rational thinking!

You haven't understood my intentions Varrok

I mean literally, I am god. God is a manifestation of the human mind, so in that sense we are all deities tbh.

You get it about the manifestation, but there's no such thing as a god that everybody speaks of. And we don't have divine powers and alike. But you get it and that's good

I'm an atheist anyway; I think God is perpetuated by the 'global elite' (for want of a better term) to suppress our thoughts and actions.

True that too

Patriarchy!

Whatever you want to call it.

Yeah but those other Gods don't count. I mean a God with six arms? A big fat dude sat on a cloud perpetually eating? Come on.

We are more than that.

Don't blaspheme.

I'm an atheist. I grew up in a family that are also atheists, so religion has never really had an impact in my life. Even as a kid I thought the idea of a god was silly.

I do believe that the universe is endless so the possibility of something like a deity isn't out of the realm of possibility. But it's extremely unlikely we'll ever know.

You're being sarcastic? If not.

Primitive people thought they are more than that, too. They're long gone, and all that's left of them is information about what they've done.

Why? She doesn't believe.

Jesus is more believable.

We're still here.

It's still disrespectful.

He really isn't.
Yep, and religion has been holding us back since it was conceived.
Fuck you.

There, that's disrespectful. So what?

Is this the part where one of the neckbeards rushes in, foaming at the mouth, yelling TRIGGEREEED?

I'm sorry if I offended you, Guille baby.

You've read a book about a guy who did supernatural stuff when nobody but a few people looked, then went back from the dead appearing only to those people.

Batman is more believable than this.

For, I'm guessing, around 80 years tops.

The real god won't be angry. The real god is a concept. Concepts aren't angry.

No we're not, and we're not less than that. We're just alive flesh in a shitty plan called life. But hey believe whatever you want to.
PORCO DIO. Like you can adore Yahweh we can insult them.

He really is.

No it hasn't. Many great things have been acheived through religious means.

So it means you are a vile person. Fuck you too.

You didn't offend me, but you might have offended something else.

Compared to other Gods it's definitely more believable.

That's if you don't get cancer.

In that case murder is just a concept.

You might think differently burning in Hell.

I'm already in hell dear

So did you start this thread to honestly discuss religion, or were you just looking for an argument so you can reassure yourself that you're "right"?

My dad's side of the family are extremely religious. He went to a catholic school as a child, but when I was born my folks made a conscious decision not to push a religion on me and let me make my mind up as I grew up. Naturally I turned out an atheist. Neither of my parents are into religion now, and I don't really think they ever wanted to be.

I'm quite thankful I didn't grow up with religion in my life; you don't need religion to have a moral compass. I just live with the rule of not being a twat to people, but not through any fear or a hell, just because life's hard enough already. It also provides me with karma in a sense, not in a spiritual way, but when I do a good thing I feel good as a result, and you can't beat that feeling of knowing you helped someone out.

Many more people were burned and destroyed because of them.

Buddha was more believable. A guy who was nice to others.

Yeah, I put trust in modern medicine. It helped countless millions of people from dying early. Unlike praying.

Yeah. Murder won't get angry either! We can say bad things about murder, and nothing will happen!

Fuck murder.

He might not think being dead. Thinking is a physical process, connected to electrical activity between neurons in your brain. Also, fire is a physical process, too.