Hey guy's! I'm not really interested in what you believe in, I'm more curious in figuring out why you choose to believe in what ever it is that you believe. Let's try not to attack anyone, there is no right and wrong here.

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I guess I'll go first O_o'.
Okay I don't believe in God. About 3-4 years ago one of my professors told me about how a long time ago woman were worshipped as gods. The reason was because they gave birth, and the belief at that time was that only gods could self replicate. Since we didn't understand the whole sex and waiting 9 months concept, we associated it with a god. When we don't understand something we need to make some kind of reasoning up for it, either through stories or blaming a specific greater being.

Another reason I don't believe in god is because I don't believe in heaven or hell (especially hell). I don't believe in heaven because it doesn't make any logical sense to me. Why live 60-90 years, then die just so you can live again some where else. I believe in functionalism and I just don't see the true function of why there must be a heaven for us to exist.
Hell on the flip side makes absolutely no sense to me. If God is our father, why would he make a place you go to be punished for all of eternity. The way I see it, if my son did something wrong (no matter how bad) I wouldn't punish him for ever! I mean think of how timeless heaven and hell would be. Even if I sin every second of my entire short life of 120 years, how can you justify AND INTERNETY of punishment? It just doesn't make logical sense to me.

Okay guys your turn, have fun. PS... http://orangoo.com/spell/

I don't believe in god because i believe in logical thinking and science.

I believe that their is no proof of existence of god, yet there is proof of things like evolution which directly contradicts part of the bible.

I do believe in god, and here are a few reasons I was able to translate:

evolution, or the the ability to change yourself to fit in
the environment could be really difficult to program, to invent, to make. you could look towards it as a mechanism for keeping live changing, and dynamic

the believing in god does not have to be against logical
thinking and science. it fits perfectly on the things we know now, dependend on how you see it.

if there was evolution, why fossils do not show it? why they do not show a simple blending from shape a to shape b?
btw. this would make it impossible to name them!

If there was no god, and live was evolved, some things would have been more simple, why cant we get children just like bacteries?
why would we have to see colors?
why we can taste food?
why we can understand maths and abstract thinking?
why we can understand music, and art?
why we are able to love others? this is not needed for evolution, and can even stand in the way of 'survival of the fittest'

if there was evolution, the live that would be evolved could easyly get stuck somewhere, and everything would die,
especially on the earth of 4.5 billion years ago

there is said that an ancient earth is against the bible, this does not have to be, dependent on how you read it.

in genesis the creation is described. in a logical order, and with facts that people could not now 3000 years ago.
i.e. there is said the sun is bigger than the moon, which is true, but from earth they seem to have the same size.
some things are let out, like the creation of bacteries and micro organisms, and dinosours, which are just counted like
animals.

why man would have invented a god that forbids things?
even ancient religions(that don't exist anymore) feature laws that are exactly what people want.

there are far more reasons, but these are a few I could translate in understandable english

about hell, it can not even exist, the hell where everyone is punished after dead
does not even exist, in some other parts of the bible there is said that the dead do not feel any pain, joy, and can't do anything.
when the bible talks about hell, it should be symbolical then.


personally I've never seen proof of evolution which directly
contradicts parts of the bible

sorry for my bad english!

But if he didnt believe in you and he would allways (well not allways but a lot)do what you told him
you also would be very angry.And you would end up in big trubles.
And maybe you also would say "got to hell" <-- thats also a statement that people just say without thinking, if they say "go to hell" they believe in hell and they know they have to go there because they did something wrong. That could make someone thinking.

And I also beilieve in god because "Evolution" or the "Big Bang" even sounds more fantastic and I do think that It needs a lot more strenght to believe in Evolution then in "creation (imagine yourself building something with clay)".
And if there was "Evolution" why did it stop. why arent there any people looking like apes or why arent there any high-technology people?

I admit that there are some people have only 4 fingers or something like that but that can be proven that people today just dont anymore need the small finger or so.

also why I believe in God is that there are so many texts of the bible found in caves and they still find them today and thats just such a big proof.

Last Idea:
I think that everything fits what the bible says but people are just too blind to see.
The bible says if you read it:

- The people will destroy their own world (climatisation?)

- cristians wont be able to buy anything if anti-christ is on earth:
more and more the big bank have to give up their positions and this all will lead to one big "World-Wide-Bank" and then we maybe wont be able to buy anything.

- The bible also tells us that there will allways be war in the holy land
but if war is over Jesus will come and look how much war there has been now between all those eastern states

I also believe in God because I allready have lived so mayn miracels and he helped me throught reall tough times (Well that may wont be a good reason for a non-christian)

best regards

Aztec

Evolution has nothing to do with technology (something aztec said) and evolution takes millions of years so how can you say "why did it stop", when we wouldn't know about it as it is so slow.

Also Roel evolution is physical so things like love are not a part of it that is just something we as humans have developed.

"if there was evolution, why fossils do not show it?"

What would you like fossils to show? Maybe a slideshow of each stage.

Again evolution takes millions of years to occur it is not instantaneous, and how would you see a evolution taking place as it is one species evolving (changing) into a different one so you would only be able to see similar species.
Fossils show animals in one form and then the same animal with variations.
Also if evolution didn't exist why would animals share similarities.

I don't believe in any God, because I also think our Gods have been an invention of early times. The lack of logic and truth-finding behind certain religious rules or often even the whole belief system also makes me very much doubt everything 'they' come up with. So much that I often think God isn't even an actual (theoretical) possibility anymore.

To sum up how I feel about the more modern religions: "It's like saying Frodo from Lord of the Rings must have been real and must have had supernatural powers, you know.. having hair on his feet and all. Oh, and doing what he did, destroying the Ring. The wise Tolkien must have known that 'God' in person, hence why he wrote about it in a thick book."

I'm sure people can understand why it's just ...uhm stupid to give a book this much credibility, reading this much into what was written.

In the end, there's really not one thing about religion that makes sense to me, except how it's modern-day purpose seems to be to control large groups of people. Oh and scoring a big bunch o' easy soul-points by helping out the poor(est?) people.

Apparently people rather believe in false promises and in exchange keep on muddying on, instead of daring to change their lives and become truly happy people instead.

@Roel: All your arguments have been refuted many times before, even on this very forum (do a search ).

From 'fossils not showing evolution'; they actually do quite clearly show evolution but it's a gradual process and you're looking at only one moment in time, to how 'complexity' in your opinion is a sign that there must have been supernatural forces at work.

You know, you should ask yourself whether or not there is proof for what you do believe in, instead of sort of blindly stating other people are wrong with overused but 'wrong' arguments... because basically that's what you're doing here. I'm not attacking you here, I'm just giving my opinion, so no offense to you.



Proof of people having enough imagination to think of stories and enough technology to preserve their ideas on paper.

It still doesn't matter what was written down though, especially if archaeological research time and time again does not support those texts as being historic.

Also... why did they exclude those documents from the Bible if they are 'authentic'? In reality most of those texts are philosophical in nature, a bit like essays on the questions involved in forging new or better religious ideas. There's a good bunch of contradiction going on for a good reason,

Cheers

@testDummy; , i won't even pretend to understand what you said

First of all, I believe in logic and reasoning, thus I follow science. I believe the Big Bang occurred, I believe that we were developed through millenia of evolution.

I also believe that there was a historical Jesus and I do believe in the teachings of Jesus, as a philosopher. I don't believe the myths are literal truths, but I bet there are historical truths behind them.

Ex, the feeding of the 5000. A nun once told my religion class in high school (private catholic high school, they taught evolution!) that perhaps, everyone brought food and it was Jesus who inspired them all to share.

I do however, believe that his teachings have merit.

I do not take any part of the bible literally and I only use the OT as a background story for the NT, nothing more.

However, I question the divinity and I don't know if a God exists. There is nothing, no evidence that leads me to believe in a god.

But the complexity of life and the complexity of the universe makes me wonder if there is one. This isn't proof of course, but it just makes me wonder.

I'm an agnostic. I try to follow Jesus's teachings, but I do not really worship him. I don't fully believe in a god, but I question if one might exist. And I think people who make literal interpretations of the bible are foolish.

I agree with you here. I've never liked organized religion. It is too much brainwashing bullshit. I think if someone wants to be religious, it should be personal.

Too many wars have been fought over religion.

Look at Israel. Everyone wants that godforsaken strip of dirt because Islam, Judaism and Christianity started there.

Look at 9-11. 3000 innocent civilians killed because they worshiped the "wrong" god.

I'm raised Catholic, but I don't think that'll last longer. I don't see the purpose in Church or a pope or a set prayer like The Lords Prayer that people just say without meaning.

I don't see what is so important about God that makes people kill other people. Jesus said, judge not lest ye be judged, so I don't understand why so many "Christians" judge other people.



Mozilla built-in spellchecker FTW!

I partially agree with this, when you say that religion controls large groups of people, just for the money, you cant just say there is no god.
if there is a god looking from somewhere, he should be really angry about this




I agree with you a bit with this one, there are really big religions which do not let people even think for themselves. I think organized religion might make sense, it might help to discuss harder subjects with others, but people MUST be able to think for themselves.
If someone just believes things because he is told, his believe is useless!



I agree with this, and I don't think christians must not judge other people, it wont even make sense to the people that hear it.


I understand, and I agree with this, I did not search on the forum, but it is just to show some of the arguments I use. Are they all used? In fact I think there are even more arguments for creating, but it is impossible to find a master argument against evolution, or against creation.

what about prophecies that came true? all of the ones which had to came true, did. think about things in Jesus' live, and think about Matthew 24
matthew 24