Why do you believe what you believe?

I'm bored again, so here goes a religion-oriented thread by Tets. I know we've already had the obligatory religion debate, and it didn't go especially well, so this thread is going in a different direction.

I may be an atheist, but I'm still fascinated by the subject of religion. For the sake of argument, let's assume god (any god at all) may exist, so we're not debating existence. What I want to know is why do you believe in him/her/it? Or for the nonbeliever, why don't you? I asked some of my local friends, and the answers I got all filtered down to these three categories: "I do because I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't", "I do because it's a matter of faith", and finally, "I don't because there's no definitive evidence that a god of any kind does exist."

Once more, this isn't meant to be a debate, which is why I haven't posted it in the debate forum. I want nothing but serious, civil-minded discussion here. I'm sure we can handle that, but if things do get out of hand I will lock the thread and we'll be done with it. I prefer well thought out answers rather than single line replies, but at the same time I'm not going to discriminate if you don't feel like posting a wall of text.

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To start with, here's my answer. I don't believe in a god of any kind because even if one exists, he hasn't gone out of his way to prove to me that he does, and he hasn't done anything to deserve my worship. I was brought up in the Christian religion and haven't "come out" as an atheist yet to anyone in my immediate family. I used to believe in god simply out of faith, but as I grew older that simply wasn't enough for me to justify belief.

What disillusioned me the most of my religion was, ironically, actually reading the Bible. A large portion of that book seems outright offensive to me, particularly the bits that condone slavery and sexism. The god described in it also has what I would consider a sociopathic obsession with being worshiped. The fact that roughly a third of his commandments (exact number varying based on flavor of Christianity) are devoted solely to establishing his dominance over mankind is evidence of this, I think.

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Now you go. I simply want to know what you think. Nobody is going to be judged in this thread, and we all know that none of us are going to be convinced either way by any argument put forth, so there's no sense in trying. Let's just have a good clean discussion.

I do not believe in god or any kind of supernatural ruler. Same goes for fate or destiny. I do believe that anything happening deduces from an origin but does not necessarily have a reason why it is happening. I do believe that justice is something you have to fight for and not something that will come after you sooner or later.



I grew up with christian education but I never really got into it. The day I realised that I do not believe in anything at all was one day at school when our religion class teacher asked us to write down anonymous how much weight or importance we were granting god in our daily life. The sheets then were shuffled an passed round random so that everyone could read out loud what somebody else thought.
Surprisingly I was not able to write anything down at all. This was a question I never thought about and that had no importance whatsoever in my life.



If there was a god he does not intervene directly into this world (even theologians agree here... calling it freedom of mankind as god's gift) thus he will not punish me during my lifetime if I have done something socalled "wrong". So I don't care.
If god really is judging about who is going into a place called hell or a place called heaven at the end of your life, still, I don't care because I want to live my life the way I think it is right. I will not make my decissions depend on something that might or might not exist maybe somehow, somewhere.



That's my point of view. ^^'

Faith. If you want proof, there's some real true-stories videos that explain what people have gone through in their near-death experiences. So go drown yourself while an ambulance is coming to get you so that you can see heaven or hell for a brief period of time.

Chaos Zero 64 said:

If you want proof, there's some real true-stories videos that explain what people have gone through in their near-death experiences. So go drown yourself while an ambulance is coming to get you so that you can see heaven or hell for a brief period of time.

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I heared that most of these experiences can be explained by the fact that there is a fixed "shutdown order" of organs the human body goes through in the final hour. Less important body functions stop working first and in the end the more important. If the eyes surrender for example it causes people to see this tunnel with light at the end so many are talking about. Some others can create hallucinations...

Tets said:

"I don't because there's no definitive evidence that a god of any kind does exist."

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This pretty much sums up what I had wanted to say. Normally in religious discussions, being somewhat of an athiest [while grown up to believe in god], I become aggravated at people who are overly religious for a god they praise mainly because I can't take it, but I deal with it since I'm a humble guy. To see a discussion like this makes me smile.

I heard somewhere that man had a need for belief to progress as a species, which possibly is what helped us conglomerate in groups, build cities (and churches), pay taxes (and churches), and many other things.
Even though I don't believe in all of their ideals, I do think religion helped us move from being aimlessly wandering idiots, even if it did bring some chaos.
You gotta give them some credit!
I don't believe in this, and considering the afterlife aspect, well, the thing I fear most is death. Because it's basically when the brain stops functioning and it's cells don't reproduce. I simply cannot put in wordshow much I fear the concept of simply not being able to think, not being able to remember or simply not being. It's a concept that scares me even more than eternal life.
That obviously means I don't believe in afterlife... much.
Actually, I just have a tiny hope that it exists, because I don't know how I would handle the fact of not being. Of course of actually not being able to handle it.
:(

I believe nothing. There's no concrete evidence that a god does or does not exist, so I don't ponder the thought. My instincts are enough guidance, I think.

What I have heard, however, is that the bible is a symbolic storytelling of past events and astronomy, which does make a lot of sense to me, considering the examples of history given.

Tets said:

"I don't because there's no definitive evidence that a god of any kind does exist."

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My thoughts are that sometimes you don't need proof just to know something is real. Seeing isn't always believing. Sometimes believing is seeing. I don't need to see God or to see Christ's hand to know they're real. I just know. And that's enough sitght for me.

Right off the bat, I'm a Christian.

For me, Chirstianity started out as my parents dragging me to church. Recently, I know that I have seen God's hand in my everyday life, but only because I know what to look for. I can't say which came first, but I feel that God is responding to my faith by revelaing himself more and more to me.

As far as afterlife goes, Christians believe that the body is a house for the spirit. After the body dies, the spirit lives on.

I'm an atheist, but when I was little, I had one year of ultra-fundamentalist Christian education. Having seen the two extremes up close, I have to choose the path of logic and science, because that's the path that explains why things happen the way they do.

By the way, although I'm not religious, I DO observe Christian holidays.

I believe what I believe because i believe i can believe what i want to believe while not believing what you believe. *rail'd*

I was brought up as a Christian, though we weren't very religious. We celebrated Christmas, and Easter, etc. but it was really only because it was a tradition, and religion had very little to do with it. On Easter when we were little, we hunted for eggs hidden around the house. But we did not got o church, actually. On Christmas, we open presents and play with them for the day. No church was involved then either.
I simply believed in a god because everyone else did too. I had not thought that there were nonbelievers yet. So, for about 13 years or so, there was a god, though he did not impact me much.
Around middle school, when I was smarter and more thoughtful, I got myself to thinking one night: "If there is a God, who loves everyone and only wants the best for them, then why do things such as 9/11 happen?" That was my first real doubt.
Around when I first started high school is when I got to thinking about it again. It was a slightly different argument though, "If God exists, then why doesn't he just come down and prove it? I mean, if there's only one true religion, than why doesn't he just come down and say what it is?"
Then my dad remarried. My stepmother isn't quite like us, she's a bit more religious. When she started dragging me along to church with them (I hadn't gone in several years), I found myself thinking that, "What these people are trying to tell me... I just can't believe it. It sounds too much like make-believe to take it seriously." And, that's pretty much when I privately denounced religion. I no longer believe in a god, nor and afterlife, or any of that. I've been meaning to tell my family, but I've never been able to actually get it out.

Chaos Zero 64 said:

Faith. If you want proof, there's some real true-stories videos that explain what people have gone through in their near-death experiences. So go drown yourself while an ambulance is coming to get you so that you can see heaven or hell for a brief period of time.

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I read somewhere that in all near-death experiences, the victims all see the same or similar: Their life flashing before their eyes, a religious figure, and a tunnel of light.

I am a Quaker because it led me down the road to inner peace.

Have you guys seen zeitgeist? It's a docummentary trying to a disprove existence of gods and such, and is a pretty interesting movie.
Best of all, it's free, you can download it from the website and watch it directly there.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
Some of the stuff in there is real interesting, such as the comparisons between jesus and the sun god.

Tets said:

What disillusioned me the most of my religion was, ironically, actually reading the Bible. A large portion of that book seems outright offensive to me, particularly the bits that condone slavery and sexism.

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When reading the Bible, one of the things you have to consider is the context of the passage in the culture and the time it was written and who it is written to. Slavery back in biblical times was much different then how slavery was when Africans were enslaved in the U.S. I believe it was one of the ways to pay off your debt if you couldn't. The bible has passages that masters needed to "provide your slaves with what is right and fair" (Colossians 4:1). This link might help in explaining what kind of slavery the Bible condones and condemns. http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html

The sexism is the much like the same thing. The context is very essential. There is a lot on this, so I think I will just direct you to http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sexism.html.

As if I didn't make it obvious enough, I am a Christian. I believe that God does indeed exist. I can't exactly pinpoint why I started out as a Christian. When I was born, I was mildly autistic. When I got old enough for preschool, I had a very excellent and a Christian teacher that helped me through my difficulties. I also had good Christian parents that lived what they believed. I think the combination of these things led me to believe that God was real, and does make a difference. I certainly see a difference within myself.

Im an Atheist, I beleive in no God what so ever. My whole Family is a Christian family, but I'm not. Their our too many religions that have different gods and people keep making up religions. I'm not a big Atheist, 50% Christian because of my family. But I'm mostly an Atheist.

fawfulfan said:

I'm an atheist, but when I was little, I had one year of ultra-fundamentalist Christian education. Having seen the two extremes up close, I have to choose the path of logic and science, because that's the path that explains why things happen the way they do.

By the way, although I'm not religious, I DO observe Christian holidays.

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This, except I had an ultra-fundamentalist Christian friend in high school, rather than a year of education. I am more than willing to have faith in another person or be faithful to another person, but not to have faith in or be faithful to a being who may or may not exist.

One of the other things that keeps me from taking religion seriously is that there are simply so many of them. Who are to say the ancient Egyptians weren't the ones who got it right? But saying that would make Jupiter angry, can't have that. =P

Tets said:

What disillusioned me the most of my religion was, ironically, actually reading the Bible.

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Honestly, I keep meaning to read the Bible. I suppose I'll get around to it one of these days.

Remember, we're trying to avoid heated debate here as it's only going to get out of hand. I do want to make a few replies though.

Chaos Zero 64 said:

If you want proof, there's some real true-stories videos that explain what people have gone through in their near-death experiences.

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To me, accounts of near death experiences have been the least convincing type of proof yet. I say this because of the millions who claim they have had one, there are still millions more who claim the opposite. You don't hear about them, of course, but only for the same reason that you never hear about, for example, a tech support call that didn't go badly. I also find it difficult to believe that god only has the sense to prove his existence to dying people. Seems pointless to me.

Angelus_the_echidna said:

My thoughts are that sometimes you don't need proof just to know something is real. Seeing isn't always believing.

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You're absolutely right, you don't necessarily need to see something to believe it exists. The popular example given by the religious is that one never exactly sees the wind, but it's undeniably there. What they tend to omit, however, is that there is overwhelming evidence in favor of its existence. But I digress, we're not debating existence in this thread.

Arf said:

Have you guys seen zeitgeist? It's a docummentary trying to a disprove existence of gods and such, and is a pretty interesting movie.

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Thanks for the link, Arf. I've heard about this in the past, but I wasn't aware it was free and all that. The parallels one can draw between all these different religions and their prophets have always intrigued me. Unfortunately, whenever I ask a religious person about this, they usually dismiss it out of hand.

Torgo said:

When reading the Bible, one of the things you have to consider is the context of the passage in the culture and the time it was written and who it is written to.

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An interesting first link you provided, but it doesn't convince me in any way that somehow the slavery back then was "good". It still isn't relevant in today's society, and what I wonder is why religious people can discard those things but still cling to other beliefs such as homosexuality being a grave sin. Also, the second link is broken.

I do believe in God, but I take him for a grain of salt.

While I do believe that God exists, I think that he basically works as Hades; he's the manager of souls, and sends people to Heaven, Hell, or Limbo accordingly.

Chaos Knux said:

I believe what I believe because i believe i can believe what i want to believe while not believing what you believe. *rail'd*

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My setements exactly...