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Being a Norse God myself, I guess I kind of have to believe in God(s).

All kidding aside, I believe in God. I'm a Christian, Episcopalian, and believe that God is active in our daily lives.

"Being a Norse God myself, I guess I kind of have to believe in God(s)."

Giant enemy snake with jotun parents ≠ a god.

Why do people instantly equate the word "Atheist" with believing that there is no god? It's simply a lack of belief in gods. There doesn't have to be any positive belief, in fact most atheists don't believe anything about any religion. If you don't believe in any god or religion or spiritual force, you're an atheist, whether you find the label distasteful or not.

And I'm tired of people labeling themselves as "Agnostic" in order to not upset others, like this is some 'middle ground.' Gnosticism refers to knowledge, not belief. You can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist, so it really doesn't describe anything.

/semantics

I think this is the right thread to post this:

I've read the bible, so no.

To be fair, Antisemitism is irrational hatred of jews, practicing or not.

I've just realize that I've been a terminology nazi in this thread. I'll be in the corner blaspheming if you need me.

Hey theists, I have 3 questions….

1. What is the biggest thing your deity can blow up?
2. What is the heaviest thing your deity can lift?
3. What is the most force/most damage your deity can withstand?

The 2nd & 3rd ones would mean the deity was in a physical form, of course.

Our understanding of physics cannot be applied to anything beyond our universe. Therefore all of your questions are invalid. Now I have 3 questions for you:

1. How much wood could an internet troll chuck if an internet troll could chuck wood?
2. How many trolls does it take to fit a lightbulb?
3. What's the airborne velocity of an internet troll?

The 2nd & 3rd ones would mean the troll was in physical form, of course

"Our understanding of physics cannot be applied to anything beyond our universe. Therefore all of your questions are invalid."

Does your God lack feats? You cannot just say 'all powerful'. That's just hyperbole.

Anyways…

1. 12 kilos
2. One (we have long arms)
3. African troll or European troll?

Posting this because it's one of my favorite pictures relating to religion.

My viewpoint on God is a confused one. I do believe in a higher power, and it may be God who is that higher power. I also believe that anything is possible in this world. I also know religion was created by humans, but is accepted by a large percentage, that it almost became necessary to function in a civilization. Actually when was the last civilization that did not worship anything, and a higher power?
Is the human race doomed to create an explanation when there is none currently? Then there are people who claimed God spoke to them. We can never prove things like this, but I do wonder if we said we did believe they were whispered in the ear by God. Then what? Are we to be shunned by society as well? To be associated with a person who was "Spoken" to God?
I apologize if I went off topic there. God is a tricky subject, and has been debated for centuries. It's just easier now, because we won't get burned at a stake, and be accused of being a witch. Also science has advanced for humans to scientifically prove things that we had to create a religion or a deity for.
God I will say exist. He exists within all of us. We may not except that, but it is your life, and it's your choice. That is what makes religion great, and not great. You can choose them, and sometimes you can't. Some try to force it onto others planting the seed of atheism in them, causing them to abhor God.
My religion? I'm a Christian, a non practicing Catholic, and founder of DaiOhism
DaiOhism are teachings from the words of the the current head called the Dai-Oh. So take my old display name for example: ANN HIRO Dai-Oh = Great King ANN HIRO. There is a book I created with 10 advice's from the first Dai-Oh, Me. Each time a new Dai-Oh is named, the new one gets to right down his 10 advice's, and or teachings. So on, and so on. Technically there is no God or anything Holy in DaiOhism, just a wise person giving advice for future generations. Human advice for the human soul.

TL;DR
Overall I don't know if God exists or not.
I sometimes believe we state that we just don't know.
All we have to do is listen to the world around us, and decide for ourselves.

This thread has been doing so well Coolface, please stop your bad attempts at trolling it.

As for everyone else:

Well done on keeping a topic like religion civile for so long.

First of all, this is my first time in the KYM forums, so w00t I guess.

My faith has really been really battered over the years. I was raised in an ultra-conservative Christian circle. I left when I grew up and saw the real world and what idiots they were. I've had to ask myself many times whether or not I still believe in God. In the end, I still do. It's too engraved in me I guess. Still, I believe in being open-minded and letting people believe whatever they wish.

Bottom line: yes

I feel that I should chime in on RandomMan's comment and say that, honestly, I expected to come back to this thread and see it locked. The internet and civility do not mix just anywhere, making KYM quite unique in it's maturity. Good job keeping the paradox alive everyone.

@Count Lionel

That's what I like about this site. It seems to attract a more intelligent, mature crowd (for the most part).

Your face is a mature crowd!

That bit of maturity aside, I think it's actually great for people who were born into a religious family to try to understand what it would be like to envision a life without the concept of a deity or a set of rituals, values, and beliefs that are generally structure into one religion.

I feel as if those people have a bit different of a take on religion than others. I would hope that it would be their own curiosity and their own search for truth (or a lack of universal truth) and not by seeing ignorant and hateful people who also claim faith of some sort that makes them consider other faiths though.

That was my path, I guess. I had been religious since I was born where no one in my extended family or immediate family believed in anything but Christianity. In high school, I gave thought to whether I was taking that faith seriously or if I was just "going through the motions," because that was the way I was raised.

I talked with more non-religious people when I got to college and found that I could not believe in the concept of any deity. But later I found that I came to believe in the same God as I had before (i.e. Judeo-Christian concept of God) although my approach to my practice of religion is different but more sincere than it has ever been.

Anyway, I think that approach to God, where you've actually believed in God at one point and have not believed in a deity at another, is better "informed" subjectively in regards to what you actually believe, regardless of the conclusion you've come to.

That isn't to insult those who have always known that there is no deity or those who have always known that there is. I just say that people who have believed in both at one point subjectively understand the life experience as both being generally Atheist or generally Theist.

I wasn't born into a Christian home. I was born to parents who were pagan (and I don't mean that in the overreaction-style fundamentalist way, I mean they actually worshiped the Sun and moon and the only real moralistic compass they held themselves to was the Wiccan Rede "Do what you will, so long as it harms none") I didn't know about the God I worship today until around the age of 9 (even though I live in the "Bible Belt"), and didn't really accept him until I was around 14… (Four years ago, for those of you who don't know my age.)

That's why I find what you said interesting. I don't see myself as better informed, per se, because I've had a period in my life in which I didn't believe in God (assumed He didn't exist, rather), and now believe in Him… I do understand what you're saying, though. I think the reason I can understand people from both sides fairly decently is because I've been on both sides. I'd have to say that your theory sounds pretty, well… Sound, at least in terms of my personal experience.

It's important to view everyone equally, despite our differences.

I'll just say no. I'm an atheist, both by family upbringing and by choice. My parents are both atheists. So is the rest of my extended family.

I'll avoid elaborating any further, for fear that I'll inadvertently spark a sh!tstorm, being the idiot that I am.

@Verbose, @Patrick

Your stories are both very refreshing to me. It's nice to know there are other people besides me who've been through changes in beliefs. Everyone I'm around IRL seems to just embrace what they've always been taught and that's that.

I think it's a good thing to go through overall. I'm not saying that I think all parents should put their kids through a religious crisis or anything, but when it happens to you, I think it gives you a better understanding of what kind of person you are.

Also @Verbose,

I think it's cool that you live up to your screen name. =)

Oh, and YOUR FACE TIMES A MILLION NO TAG-BACKS!!!!!

@Fun Police
You're an Athiest? I can respect that.
You're an Athiest that refrained from starting a shitstorm on the internet? I can REALLY respect that!
Peace.

I came so close to biting the troll bait above. I've been trying extremely hard to avoid having useless arguments for the sake of useless arguments on the internet, so I guess this is a testament to my force of will. Hooray for no shitstorms!

This thread was locked for a bit, but it might have been on accident. (The date that the thread expires can be changed so that it locks automatically and cannot be unlocked without readjusting the date. Normally, activity pushes that date 30 days into the future, so I'm not sure what happened.)

The thread was pretty civil and was serving its purpose, so I don't see why it would be locked intentionally (especially without giving a reason.) Again, I think it was by accident/automatically.

This post is also to say that the apparent invisibump (i.e. making a post and deleting it to not show what user bumped the thread) was actually a spammer posting in this thread. I deleted that post.

Ugh… Religion is so confusing. I'd define myself as a weak agnostic though. It basically (in my sense) means that although I know there's no proof of a deity, I'm not denying that there is some higher power governing us. I was never a particularly religious person, anyway, but I respect most if not all theistic beliefs.

Also, I have a funny (and I'm using that term loosely) story.

In World Civilization class, we were discussing the events of September 11. We played a word association "game" in which the teacher said a word and we wrote down the first thing that came to mind.

The word he said was "Muslim". Every kid in the class except myself wrote down the same word for "Muslim". While I wrote "Islam", the word that every single other one of them associated with "Muslim" more than any other word was "terrorist".

That's not to say I was surprised, though. Because I wasn't. American culture has stereotyped the second most practiced religion in the world into complete oblivion. I just find it sad that people seem to think most or all Muslims are terrorists.

Just thought I'd share that.

I'm an evangelical christian, but that's about as far as I'd go to define my specific faith. I think that trying to define your specific denomination is pretty stupid, and they just make everything really ridiculous – my old church was in the middle of a big infight among the Presbyterian branches at one point. My faith is an important part of my life, though. My parents were missionaries, so I lived overseas from when I was 6 until I was 14 for religion. Since we came back, I've really made it my own, though.

On that point, Alejandro, I can relate to your story. We lived in a predominantly Muslim area of Africa, so a lot of my friends were Muslim. I don't really relate the word "Muslim" with the word "Terrorist". There needs to be "Radical" in there at the very least. Not all Muslims are suicide-bombing fanatics, that's actually a very small percentage of them.

In closing, we are six pages in and haven't broken down into a flame war, even with full-on tl;dr posts. I would just like to say you are all wonderful people for that.

Question: what if god does exist but every religion is wrong about him/her/they?
It's so easy to say a lot of people made wrong things in his name, but what if you, as a religios person, are doing wrong as well? What if the real god is all for the most of the thing you are against. What if the human conception of god is over 9000 times wrong than the conception of adulthood by a toddler?
Does his existence make any real difference on how we should behave to each other? Some people say it's hard to follow the docrotine of god, and doing the hard thing make us right, because we have been raised with this logic since we were kids. The problem is: Is that real hard thing? NO! Following few simplest rules made by fewest people, and steaming off our hate on the people that don't follow all of them is the easiest way. It's more hard to effort for pleasing each other and forgiving ourselves for not always successing in it. It's even more hard to understand this concept.
Black and white rules make things look hard to the simplest minds, like toddlers, but indeed they simplyfy things more than they should, and this is wrong when they are followed by less harmless people.
How wrong?
THIS WRONG:

True. He's not really worshiped or revered as a god normally would be. Maybe "constantly coming in contact with them" would be better.

Late to the party, but I'm an atheist.

Yes, I've read the bible. Twice, actually. Each time, it left me with a lot of questions that it just didn't answer. I've never really believed in God, despite going to church quite frequently when I was younger. I just tuned out as I found everything hard to believe. I'm the kind of person that needs stone-cold proof, and can't accept the bible at face value.

I don't despise (most) Catholics, but I do despise the church, namely due to their pedophile cover ups. Other religions don't bother me.

If you'd like to get into details with me, feel free to PM me.

>"Other religions don't bother me"

Suddenly, Innocence of Muslims

Yes, I do

I used to believe in god but I stopped about half a year ago. On one hand, I’m glad I find the idea of a very cruel control freak of a deity watching over me and having complete control over me before, during, and after my life terrible and unfair.

On the other hand…I’ve been really conflicted. It was the great actor Anthony Hopkins who said that “being an atheist must be like living in a closed cell with no windows”. I’ve read about him and the movies he’s starred in and have watched some of them. He’s certainly not an extremely religious or devout person. He just believes in a higher power. He just couldn’t take the idea of there being nothing watching over us, and I certainly can understand that. A power that’s protecting us, I suppose. It’s a comforting thought to think. That there are forces out there far beyond us that are on our side and care about us. Back over six months ago, I used to take comfort in the idea of a god. I thought he was there for me. Most importantly, I thought that the future of our species was safe in his hands.
Since then, I’ve renounced the idea. It just didn’t make sense after I really thought about it and looked it up, especially after I noticed that my prayers were rarely ever answered. I’ve become rather depressed since then. Sometimes I feel like it’s all meaningless and that we’re just here to exist for no reason and then leave, which may be essentially true. I don’t believe the universe cares about us or hates us, it’s indifferent. But now that I don’t believe in the rapture and all that, I really do worry about the future of our species and planet, and I also worry about what will happen after I die? Nothing? Punishment? Reward? All such mind boggling question that I suppose everyone confronts at one point or another. There are some estimates that our whole species will die off in less than a century. That really brings me down. And it was from a very credible scientist, Frank Fenner, who oversaw the eradication of smallpox. So it’s not some 2012 pseudoscience.

So yeah, I think what Hopkins said can be true for some people, especially me. I don’t want to delude myself into believing in a 2,000 year old book and I couldn’t if I tried now that I know what I know about history and the universe. At first I thought it was a blessing to not believe in such tales. Now…I’m not so sure. It might even be a curse if I’m wrong.

Who’s to know?

I think the most difficulty part of abandoning your belief is not dubting of the existence of an afterlife, but accepting there is no reward or punishment for what we actually do in life. Because since we were kids we have been raised with the reward ans punishment method, and for the same that we do it to our children, like we do to our pets. So it's natural to expect that the so called sky father does act the same. But, even from a teist point, that's just absurd, since it minimize the morality of a being that created the whole universe to a mere human point of view.
As a furry I'm firmly conscious that the habit to anthropomorfize every animal, or every (not necessary living) thing in general is just fantasy, a step from reality, a daily pill of madness that hel us to hold the mental sanity.
Non furries instead are not always conscious that they are athropomorfizing a lot of things more than they think they do, just because they think they can talk to them so. Which can be comforting in pretty hard times, but when it's taken as a reason to be right or to kill other people, then it makes a step into insanity. And that's why I abandoned any religious belief.
I don't support they idea of a god that makes people killing each other, and the idea that the same god that created the whole universe does care so much of what we do with our genitals… Well… I find it ridiculusly megalomaniac.

Much like I've said before, I wouldn't take the actions of some religious people to be evidence that the existence of their god isn't real or that all followers believe they are justified in killing others or otherwise harming them. I think that is rather simplistic and is a very poor reason to abandon faith.

I would think that the fact that people believe in something there's no scientific evidence for would be enough.

Also, please refrain from using terminology such as "absurd," especially if you're not qualifying it with "I think" or "In my opinion" types of statements.
 
With that in mind, I think there were two interesting comments in the previous posts.

• Morality when you do not believe there are any universal forces preventing you or punishing you for doing wrong or rewarding you for doing right
• Reducing a deity to the terms of human thought

Both are interesting to consider.

Though I have no belief in God or religions that present punishments and rewards, I do my best to be a good person. Since I'm quite certain I only have one chance at life, and so does everyone else, I want to make everyone's life as enjoyable as possible.

I do not believe religion is the basis of morals either, though they are admittedly good at guiding people towards them. I do not see a difference in morals between religious and non-religious people. Morals seem to be something everyone can understand.
Things I do:
-I do not judge people before I know who they are, or how they act.
-I attempt to include people in my activities if they seem to be left out.
-I make new friends by being nice to everyone I talk to.
-I do not go out of my way to cause people harm. If I don't like a person, I will ignore them.
-I try not to talk about people behind their backs.

Basically, I believe everyone should base their morals on treating people the way they want to be treated.

@Hypercat

I don’t support they idea of a god that makes people killing each other, and the idea that the same god that created the whole universe does care so much of what we do with our genitals… Well… I find it ridiculusly megalomaniac.

For the record, neither do many thiests.

There have been people in history who have gone around slaughtering people while citing God as their excuse for it but am I really to believe someone crazy enough to go on a killing spree has legitimately been contacted by God for that sole purpose? Or is it more likely that crazy people are crazy and spout delusional nonsense? I'll go with the latter, rather than accuse religion of any crime here.

Humans love making up excuses for their actions, they'll try anything to justify their misdoings. They'll even go as far as to shove blame onto God (Although, using divine interaction is a poor excuse because God doesn't need anybodies help killing things for him)

Secondly I don't know what God cares about, but I'm pretty sure he's less concerned about the human reproduction cycle than most people let on. If our sex lives are not being used in a damaging way towards others then I see little reasoning, even from biblical sources that this is a great offense in any way. If he didn't like us responding to our own sense of attraction, we wouldn't have it.

I suppose the difference between you and me is that my understanding of God is somewhat detached from the religions that claim to represent him and all the errors/contradictions within them. Meanwhile you seem to be observing the faults in mankind and extending them to God

@Morality

Just a quick note on that subject. I read somewhere in a NewScientist article about how morality actually seems to be ingrained in human instinct.

Even without guidance of an exact religion, humans can still grasp an understanding of fairness to others. Perhaps that's something that developed after many thousands of years of religions pushing for a sense of justice.

Considering how morality may be an instinctual property opens up a bunch of interesting concepts to think about.

I know some may look at that and think "Hah! Religion isn't needed anymore! Gods not real!" but need I remind those people that our personal sense of right and wrong is still strengthened by religious constructs, nor is morality the only thing religion offers people

To me, morality is entirely subjective. If you remove consciousness (And therefore pain and perception, but all beings continue to live as automatons following out their programming) then there is no morality. If one of these automatons stabs the other, it's literally just separating atoms from their bonds with other atoms. As morally neutral as digging a hole, really. What gives meaning to this action is suffering. Consciousness returns to the universe, and with it pain, and suddenly the stabbing is morally wrong. The wound hurt. The family grieves. It's an interesting thing to consider.

Another way to look at it is the consumption of meat today. As a species, we have clearly advanced past the point where the consumption of meat is necessary for our survival. And yet we still do it. It is an industry literally revolving around the (sometimes extremely painful) mass-killing of animals on an industrial scale, purely for the pleasure of the dominant species. And yet only a very small minority views this as morally corrupt. Why? Because of this society's values and perceptions. (I should note that, while I'm not a vegetarian by any means, I still think that there is something not quite right about the consumption of meat when alternatives are readily available. Call that hypocrisy, but I'd rather be a troubled hypocrite than an ignorant zealot, vanguarding the practice without question.)

@Pseudo

As a species, we have clearly advanced past the point where the consumption of meat is necessary for our survival

I don't want to derail the topic but I just want to see some citations on that one

I wonder if anyone believes in the old Greek gods…

I'm New Age

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism#Health_benefits_and_concerns

Also, the numerous people who abstain from eating meat and are still healthy are good examples too.

Who would even want to? They're such jerks. If you're going to believe in Gods no one else believes in, with nobody forcing you to do it, you'll probably pick a more nice, soft, comforting religion over one where the Gods are indeed, crazy.

Ah, good to see this little thread is still alive. Even though it got a little…interesting at the top of this page, it's not devolved.

So again, well done, friends.

On topic, the idea of morality is an interesting one. I think it boils down to this: is morality the product of society or of God? If society, why? Could it possibly be God through society? Though many of you would certainly disagree, I think morals are an innate product of God's, and they CAN, though not necessarily WILL, be reflected in certain societies. Is that promoting one society over another? Not exactly, because I also think it's a case by case thing. People suck at stuff sometimes, so I think there are groups who form societies who get it wrong.