Diana4281 : Don't dismiss a good idea because you don't like the source. There is no doubt that Gandhi was not the smartest man alive, and he said some things that I don't agree with. But what he said is both entirely true and completely appropriate. For me to claim that it's true only because he was smart would be an appeal to authority.

And of course he didn't just make the quote up himself without any outside influences. That has nothing to do with the validity of what he had to say.

"That simply couldn't have just been thought just by a person who was trying to look for an answer for society."

Why not? People are naturally superstitious, and have been making things up since before history. I never claimed that that is the only cause, but it certainly is possible. To just outright dismiss a possibly and say that it "simply couldn't have" happened is ridiculous.

thenumberone : Thanks. It's certainly one of my favorites.

soxfan849 : Because people aren't born superstitious they learn it from other influences such as parents, friends, authority, etc. I'm not saying that Gandhi was wrong but honestly to say that, that quote is right is just an opinion because others can believe differently, just like with religion

 thenumberone: I get that people saw weird things like comets but that doesn't explain how they thought of super powerful being and besides you never know maybe the sun is a god but our eyes can only see a different form since we cant naturally see metaphysical things. Just try and prove me wrong. You cant. Nobody even went close to the sun before(because obviously they cant), which means that nobody has seen it up close either. Technology can twist the way we see things. Ancient societies aren't wrong about everything. It's just that we see things in a different way now than they did. It all depends on people's point of view. I always wonder where they got the idea for sacrifice from. Maybe from wild, fierce animals. I really don't know. Nobody else really knows either. We can only guess.

Diana4281 : No one is born with religion or spirituality either. They  start learning it usually at a young age from their parents and churches. Take myself for example. I was raised in a household where religion was never brought up, not even once.  It didn't even occur to me to ask my parents what they believed in because the idea of God and religion was foreign to me. I never once had an inclination to go to a church, or search for any sort of spirituality.

In my opinion the idea of a supernatural being doesn't need to stem from an actual being revealing himself or an internal instinctual thought. Obviously we weren't around to witness the first time any of these deities were thought up, but that doesn't mean we should assume that all or any accounts of deities are true. To say 'Many cultures have supernatural beliefs so they must be true!' is just an excuse not to look into the differences between the religions.  Honestly, if there were a God or Gods that had a role in human lives than I would expect to see a lot of similarities and consistency between the different belief systems. For instance Hindus have a pantheon that  consists of millions of deities  , while  some groups of  native Americans believing in a raven creator god. Even in religions that are based off of each other and have a direct relationship (IE the abrahamic religions) differ on many fundamental issues. They can't all possibly be correct.

So if it is possible to create a religion that isn't correct, then there are no necessary reasons why one or any of them should be considered true. There could be many different reasons for the creation of supernatural beings and stories about them. Maybe the cultures did it to explain things that they were curious about but had no means to figure out, or perhaps they were created to maintain and control in an uneducated uncivilized (by our standards) community.

smotpoker86 : Exactly! So how did the 1st humans to exist learn about gods? From other beings? Maybe, but at the moment I believe they learned about deities by seeing them, something we can't naturally do at the present time. I don't believe any religion is wrong. I believe every god is an incarnation of another, like for example Zeus is Osiris in ancient Egyptian beliefs or one of the powerful Christian angels in Jewish mythology. I also believe that deities can also change their gender, so they can go from being a god to a goddess or the other way around, and that their powers can also be changed, or one can be added depending on the situation. So you can't exactly say that religion is wrong just because there are many different gods from different belief system.  

Diana4281 : It is great that you say that you believe these ideas instead of claiming absolute knowledge as many theists seem to do.

Why wouldn't we be able to naturally see deities if our ancestors could? As I said in my last post , I don't think all of the religions are correct due to the major differences in them. If all of these Gods are reincarnations of each other than I would expect to see their respective religions teach much more similar things. What type of reasoning is used to determine if a God reincarnated or what God they reincarnated into if it isn't comparing the two God's?

You are right, I can't say a religion is wrong just because there are different Gods and religions. Instead what I can say is that the different religions are too different to all be considered true. Now how some one is to determine which religions are true or false I do not know, even when I ask people who claim to have the "true" religion they can't explain to me how to determine that their religion is true while others are false.

smotpoker86 : Well, I don't try to push my thoughts into other people's minds. I believe everybody has different beliefs for a reason and I accept it. I believe that only certain people can communicate with deities for a reason we don't know or that gods come to earth in the form of humans and don't reveal themselves. Instead they tell people about themselves, but of course even our ancestors couldn't see them. Only a few could. You're right about religions seeming too different. I guess that's one of the things that comes with culture or maybe it was deities trying to teach people new ways and things that's why I accept different beliefs and ways of thinking

I don't mean to generalize, but it seems that atheists assume that all Christians take the Bible literally, and that just makes us morons. The Papacy in Rome expresses that we should read the Bible for religious salvation and to intimately connect with God. I don't think reading the Bible for historical information or scientific fact is going to get you very far.

Human beings usually develop a belief in God or not. I'm not going to go out and try to convert people because it's just not happening. The penguin has decided it doesn't want to fly. So I won't stubbornly try to push it off a cliff. Very rarely do atheists develop a belief in God. They've decide that there is no greater power, and, you know what, that's okay. Let people believe what they want, as long as they return the same respect and let me believe in my God.

I'm Catholic. I wouldn't call myself pious or anything. I miss Mass sometimes. I don't read the Bible as often as I should. I don't try to convert people who have different views than me. I have my beliefs, which I would defend if they were called into question by anybody.

Why people set religion on such a pedestal is beyond me. Most wars are started because of religion. Let's say a large portion of the world believes Red Jellybeans are the best, and another large portion believes that Blue is the best, and another believes that Jelly beans don't taste good at all. Then you have various sects who enjoy more various Jellybean flavors. Would you ever start an argument with somebody over which flavor of jelly beans they liked? So why do it with religion? If no one ever attacked other people's beliefs, than nobody would ever have to defend their beliefs and we'd all be doing fine.

I don't usually post in the Debate forum, so perhaps my post is just ripe with logical fallacies that somebody wants to point out to me.

tj4bigred : Your post comes across as very honest and I greatly respect that in this type of discussion.

I wouldn't say you are entirely wrong with your generalization of atheists assuming Christians all take the Bible literally. I know I have been guilty of this before. However I don't see anything wrong with this type of assumption.  There is a word that was widely used to describe people that didn't take the Bible as entirely literal: heretics.  If a Christian doesn't make it obvious that they don't  agree with everything in the Bible, by calling themselves a heretic or giving examples of what they don't agree with , than I don't see it as wrong to assume they believe what it says.

What is considered to be literal in the Bible varies from person to person, from believing it all to believing none of it . I just happen to assume people that claim to be believers believe it all. Maybe I just don't understand how someone can be stuck some where in the middle of the two ends of the spectrum.


Religion is placed on such a high pedestal because it is self proclaimed to be from the highest pedestal possible. In my opinion, since it is so important to many people in many ways we should spend more time as a society conversing about religion and other important topics like politics. At the very least we should work to remove the taboo like stigma attached to them so that different beliefs can coexist peacefully.

If Jellybeans flavours came with ancient texts that were written by Jellybeans that told you to eat and promote the corresponding flavour or you will suffer for eternity, as well as telling you to disown, punish and kill people who ate other Jellybean flavours, we would be fighting wars over them too. Religion is much more than just a simple personal belief, and it should be treated as such.

I am what is known as an agnostic atheist.
I do not believe god exists. However, I cannot prove that there is no supreme deity. I simply believe that such an idea is highly unlikely and requires more proof than has been presented.
When people get into the topic of The Bible as evidence, I have to admit a large amount of skepticism. While there are many important morals and lessons that even atheists such as I believe to be important in everyday life, I don't believe that these can be taken as all encompassing truths about the behavior and interactions between our species.
This is often referred to as objective morality.
When I read The Bible and all of it's many variations, I simply see a book. A book filled with both compelling metaphor and tragic injustice.
Simple stories that take cues from the older religions of different cultures and histories.
As for the inconsistent contradictions, there are many. Many of them listed above my little post here. How can there not be? There are so many people cherry picking the followings of Christ from different versions of the book.

So, I think not. I've never had a reason to believe otherwise. Maybe, someday, I will. Honestly, though, I rather doubt any deity would be so concerned with our species.

-Ezra Cole.

I don't think anyone here has mentioned Russell's Teapot yet.  I think it's an interesting analogy/theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

In a nutshell, Russell said that he could claim that there is a small China teapot orbiting between Earth and Mars, and as long as he said it was imperceptible, nobody could prove him wrong. 

I still believe in God.  To me, it seems that a big celestial guy creating the universe is just as probable as the universe spontaneously exploding out of absolutely nothing.

I don't think the Bible is great evidence for much of anything.  It was written so long ago in a time when its authors didn't understand why the world works the way it does.  So no matter how many great truths are in it, it's more than likely that they have been skewed by confusion and misunderstanding.  The Bible is full of contradictions, so I think it's crazy of anyone to try to live by it word-for-word.

Hi everyone!

This is the kind of topics that really turns me on. But I'll go minimal and only say that the reason why I believe in a ''God'' is because it's fun! Godliness has to be an intimate thing, reached only through the dialect of our own mind. Trying to imagine AN INFINITE BEING is an impossible idea to grasp in its whole, but the vertigo it generates becomes soon TOTALY addictive. I think that letting our heart speak is more important in life for a long term win, more important than being right. And we have to let our inspiration move and evolve. Letting ourself being incoherent at times. It's useless to hang on to some imagery, since we don't get the best from the experience. Moreover, once we are familiar with quantum physics, we find out that there is no such thing as realism, since our infinite universe has an infinite stock of copies. So every single view everyone has about every possible God is the good one. What about that?

I don't like to get into debates about whether god exists or not because people have the tendency to take it way too personally.

So let me just say that I don't personally believe there is some sort of all knowing being that controls what we do somewhere out there in space. It's not rational, and it makes not sense to me.

I respect everyone's beliefs though, and if they choose to believe, that's their right.

I don't really want to attempt to prove, disprove, or attack anyone else's religious beliefs, but I will lay out my own beliefs for you all to read if you feel like it.

When I think of god I don't think of 'human' at all. What I mean by this, is that I don't give God any human form at all. I don't picture god as human, but rather an entity more or less like pure energy. This energy I believe is that same one that keeps each of us living, completely different from electrical energy. One idea behind this is to look at the situation in which biological scientists try to reproduce living matter but realize that there is one fundamental problem, that although you can have all the pieces and put them together the pseudo-cell you have created is not alive even though everything neccessary is there. I believe that what separates the dead fully functional cell from the living one is a really small bit of the powerful energy that I believe that god is made of. Seeing this, you can understand that I believe that everyone, every living thing is connected to god through this energy.

I think that god can hear our prayers. This idea stems from what I said before, the energy being all from that being, we all have a sub subconscious connection with god. Our wants and desires can be picked up by the subconscious in basic terms and felt by this energy. Our thoughts as well can have such an effect. Our prayers are often given in earnest, leading me to believe that they are further seen by the subconscious and transmitted through our 'life link'. I believe that since this life link exists, the way the energy can manifest your wishes are through inspiring thoughts subconsciously into others or physical creation. One cool idea I see behind this is of mind over matter. If someone has any degree of control over this energy greater than normal, then they could probably move living things and shape the world around them through their strong thoughts. Realize that this life link is two sided... I may understand that I have fallen in love with someone purely based on the idea that they thought of me a lot. That pretty much was when my whole perspective of the world changed.

I think that religious wars are completely preposterous. This is because of my firm belief that there is one god that all religions like to call different names, whether it be Allah, Jesus, Bramah, God, Buddha, or whatever. I also think that the term 'one' (implying singularity) is misleading. There is 'one' main source of energy, but I don't think that we can truly believe it as one entity rather than something much greater and a plural. Therefore, when I think of any truly 'religious' war or fight amongst people because of differing beliefs in what god is called and who is right, I find it silly that they are all fighting each other in the name of the same god.

I believe that much of modern religion is just methods of control. I know some whose parents believe it a sin to vote for a political party that the pastor dissaproves of for religious reasons.I believe religion in that aspect in the modern world of today that is often wrongfully used to further objectives of a select group of people through the ignorance. That's why I would rarely follow an action blindy in religion. I need to know the true reason why.This ideology might have been slightly cynical in your opinion, but I believe that it's the best way from being fooled, manipulated, and controlled.

For all the 'gods on earth' or so I term them. I believe that they were all saints due to the fact that they had a greater connection to this energy, not that they were false. This just leads me to clarify that I believe that there are varying degrees of connection to this energy. Those with the greatest connection, Buddha, Jesus, etc. are the ones we look at as 'gods on earth'.

Once we die, I believe that small bit of energy in us joins back with the main source. Maybe to be used again... who knows? I don't have a definite opinion on reincarnation other that in the context in which I am implying it, it surely is possible.

As for the end of time, I don't think that will ever happen. I think that once 'time' was a factor in our universe, it was here to stay, meaning that there will be no end.I think that to purposefully act in belief that the world will end, whether it be 2012 or 2099 or whatever, just spreads panic and negative emotions (through the 'life link' as well as physically) and may actually cause someone to do something crazy that may impact many lives. Therefore, any 'world ending' would be through our own making and deserved. As such, I dislike people who procclaim that they know when the 'rapture' or other various terms is and get others to believe it as well. It just hurts us all in the end. We're in the same damn boat.

Finally, as for creation of everything. I believe that everything originated from this energy, but time itself wasn't a factor in the equation for a long while, therefore there is no true beginning, just a time whether a 'before' and an 'after' was comprehensible. I cannot accept that there is nothing, because there is still mystery in how life exists and how our thoughts and emotions seems to have a more powerful effect than our physical actions on the world around us.

My prove for this? It's mainly the understanding that there is no real evidence against this, and for me, personally, it all makes sense, and more it's a lot more believable than many religions I feel. This belief system may sound a little bizarre, but that's why I clarified it. So that you understand it at least. Maybe you'll find that your religious preferences are not all that different after all. Who knows?

Honestly I'm not sure myself..I mean sometimes I feel maybe there is
but at times I fell like there isn't and if there is does he just sit up there looking at people and being all, THAT PERSON DIES and looking at another person like..this person will get sick.
I don't get it honestly.

In my opinion I think there is something out there but we will not know till we die. People have said they have seen heaven when they died but then they got revived but that could just be fake.So we shall never know intil we die maybe.

There is hundreds of ways you can say that God exists or doesn't exist, but I'm not sure you can say yes or no in any way whatsoever. Its not possible to prove it either way.

I respectfully disagree with believing in the bible. While I do believe there are stories in it that teach important morals, I am often concerned with the war and violence that seems to come from debates over it. It is all up for interpretation and cannot be ultimately understood the same way by anyone, which is why I don't think it should be taken so seriously. True, whether you believe in it or not, it is a very important book in the history of the human race, but I doubt a lot of the stories in it truly happened and am more inclined to believe they are made-up stories meant to teach lessons.

Moving on to your main question- do I believe in a God? I don't know. I am agnostic, so believe the possibility that a God (or Gods) could exist, but I truly don't think there is a way of anyone knowing for sure. Meaning, I also accept the possibility that there ISN'T a God. I adhere to this belief because I think everyone is entitled to believe what they want and I don't think anyone is completely wrong or right, so I try my best to keep an open mind. I am particularly interested in Religious Science, though (Not Scientology), and I often visit the church of Religious Science in my town. To sum it up, I suppose you could say I am still doing some soul-searching regarding my spirituality.

Again, I respect your belief and thank you for bringing up this discussion. I think it is an important topic.

I guess it's all about personal beliefs. I for one believe that there is ONLY one god. I'm a Christian. I also believe (I don't remember exactly where in the bible I heard this) that when humans were building a complex that was meant to symbolize that humanity was equivalent to god, the Lord made it difficult for them to understand one another by changing up the languages. I believe that this would also have something to do with the different beliefs of gods. I believe that they're all the same just viewed differently.

Annette : Thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you for bringing that up.  What is religion but a perception of natural events that we cannot understand?   What makes Christianity so much better than any other religion?  Didn't the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Native Americans, and infinite other civilizations put explanations of non-understandable events to their gods?  Well isn't monotheism the exact same?  No, I do not believe that there is a god.  There is a logical explanation for everything, be it in the tiniest chemological responses or remotest statistical chance.

   I think there is a god. That put life on earth and put evolution in motion. I don't think everything in the bible is true but i still believe in God and Jesus.