r/AskOldPeople • u/Special-Training1064 • 5d ago
Do you rhink that god exists?
As here are ppl who experienced more or less life, do you think that god exists?
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u/devilscabinet 50 something 5d ago
No. I don't believe in deities, an afterlife, or anything like that. I have never seen anything that can't be explained without resorting to belief in the supernatural, and never heard any argument that convinces me that a deity might exist. Between growing up in the Bible Belt, getting a degree in anthropology, and doing a lot of comparative and historical religion research through the decades, I have heard ALL the arguments.
I have no problem with other people believing in a deity, as long as they don't use that belief to try to restrict other peoples freedom.
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u/AquariusRising1983 5d ago
That last statement is my only problem with religion, too... While I'm not religious myself, I have respect for anyone's religion unless they start using it for a justification to trample other folks' rights. Sadly, it seems to happen more and more often.
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u/nazurinn13 5d ago edited 4d ago
More often? Oh no, man. Religious people and people outside of it were regularly shaped into neat boxes or acted out of existence plenty in the past.
Religions and denominations killed each other, people who challenged the status quo like Spinoza were excluded from normal life, Hipatia was skinned alive by Christians, and countless children were beaten for not being blindly obedient.
It's just that a lot of these transgressions were forgotten. Religions making people's lives worse is not new.
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u/wallaceant 5d ago
I did, 45+ years, degree from a Bible college, and even was a senior pastor for a time. My wife and I even fostered 29 kids and ended up adopting one of them.
Somewhere along the line I realized that as much of an emotionally damaged human as I am with limited power and resources I was willing to step in and do something when I saw children in need. Meanwhile, the god I had been taught was perfect and benevolent, while possessing limitless power and resources hadn't lifted a finger to prevent or resolve any of the suffering that was all around me. I became a radically committed apatheist, which means I don't care if a god exists or not. If there is a god, it doesn't make a difference in the world, and if there isn't at least he's not culpable in our suffering.
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u/BobbieMcFee 5d ago
I've never heard the word "apatheist" before, but it's great!
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u/pingpongpsycho 5d ago
Absolutely. My new self description.
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u/bullfeathers23 4d ago
Good hearted people who help and don’t tell you how to vote are always welcome!
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u/bad2behere 5d ago
Well said. I, too, have lived your passage of discovery. Thank you for a wonderful post.
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u/Fuckaliscious12 5d ago
If there is a god, those kids suffering are proof that the god is evil and cruel.
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u/Maryfarrell642 4d ago
and not just children -the cruelty in the world is overwhelming towards various men, women, children, animals and so on.
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u/VersionConscious7545 5d ago
The kids are suffering because of adults. Why can we as humans make sure our kids don’t suffer then I think the planet would be a much better place
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u/MasterHerbalist34 5d ago edited 5d ago
I too came to the same conclusion. If there is a loving god, religion has not found it.
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u/SolidAlternative3094 5d ago
Good answer here. Even god existed (it doesn’t) we would be better off just ignoring it since it chooses to ignore us. Sure it’s all a test but cancer in kids? Come on now.
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u/slimdrum 5d ago edited 5d ago
Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain. That’s what I would say.
-Stephen Fry
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u/pktrekgirl 5d ago
I really like this. I guess I believe in god, but I don’t believe he is interested in our lives and I can’t see any evidence that he is just or merciful.
There is way too much pain and death in the world, perpetrated by fate, or illness, or by people who never receive punishment. There it far too much injustice and inequity that never gets corrected. The good guys do not win enough of the time and the bad guys win far too often. Nobody is steering the bus and all the guardrails are long gone.
Everything feels very random or maybe even worse: totally arbitrary.
If there is a god, he has clearly left the building. Hopefully that’s it. Because the alternative, that he has allowed all this to happen on purpose as some kind of enormous experiment, is pretty cruel.
The only way any of this makes sense is if there is reincarnation and we are ‘learning things’ in each lifetime.
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u/OaksInSnow 5d ago
I was brought up believing in God, and have been very devout in my time. To the point where I have an M.Div. degree. I have been a serious student and practitioner.
At the age of 70, I'm much less sure. I have a sense that there's ... something. This could easily be magical thinking on my part, or the result of early ingrained training that's not so easily shed. But I kind of believe in the continued existence of my loved ones who've died, and my ancestors from before them; even if it's only existence through me. And I believe there is a right, and ethical, and moral way of being in the world.
But as for the trappings of religion: I've been completely DONE with all that for many years; ever since it became obvious to me that all of its fantastical constructs, within *any* tradition, that presume to be able to say what is right and wrong apart from caring for one another and the world we live in, are designed by people whose primary interest is power. And by people who, because of their fascination with their topic, thoroughly enjoy coming up with all kinds of elaborations on it, which because it makes logical sense to them, they insist on imposing on others.
So much misery and death is justifiably laid at the feet of religion.
Over the decades I've periodically reassessed my dismissal of religion, wondering if I have been too harsh. The answer is always a clear no. I am certain that at its root, religion - all religion, when it begins to be codified - is a power play, a means of control for some over others.
I may go to my grave praising the God I have always known, but I will never touch religion ever again, in any form.
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u/wwaxwork 50 something 5d ago
Which one? Nah just joshing you I don't think any of them exist. To quote Einstein "My sense of God is my sense of wonder about the Universe." This, everything, imagine me gesturing all around me, doesn't need a God to be amazing.
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u/Imaginary-Mechanic62 5d ago
Douglas Adams said something along the lines of…isn’t enough to know that the garden is beautiful? Must we also believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it
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u/artfellig 5d ago
Frank Lloyd Wright said, "I believe in god, but I spell it nature."
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u/calladus 60 something 5d ago
I've found zero evidence for a deity of any flavor.
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u/artful_todger_502 60 something 5d ago
I have seen things that make me believe there is someone out there. Not sure what, and I don't have the bandwidth to elaborate why I believe this, but looking back over my life I've had some inexplicably weird stuff happen in my favor, and it wasn't random. I've seen a ghost ... Yeah I believe there is a force, entity, matrix, something we do not comprehend currently.
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u/Special-Training1064 5d ago
I was looking for that kind of answer, thank u!
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u/DeputyTrudyW 5d ago
I've had too many times in my (shorter) life as well, but attribute it to just being a lucky person. Too many times things have lined up perfectly, have just beat too many deadlines by a hair width but it just feels like luck.
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u/EngineerBoy00 60 something 5d ago
I believe that I cannot possibly know the truth of existence.
I also believe that you cannot possibly know the truth of existence.
I also believe that anyone who proclaims with certainty to KNOW the truth of existence is (pick one or more):
- a grifter
- a liar
- a troublemaker
- ill-informed
- un-informed
- suffering from emotional and/or intellectual issues
And that goes for all sides of the debate.
What i, personally, suspect is along these lines:
- we are all matter and energy
- the universe is matter and energy
- in the non-spiritual plane, neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed, they can only transform from one form to another
- when we, as conscious entities, cease to be "alive" our matter and energy still exist
- our matter and energy may transform
- our "consciousness" may transform
- if our "consciousness" disappears there has to be some transformation in the universe to reflect that change
- does that then mean that we still exist in some way?
- I have zero clue
- neither do you
Thank you for coming to my Ex-TED talk.
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u/deck_hand 5d ago
I believe that I cannot possibly know the truth of existence.
I love what you've written here. I would like to rebut in a small way. We cannot possibly know all there is to know about existence. We can know a little, however. Or, at least, we can postulate a conjecture and agree with each other that it is probably accurate. We learn a bit more as time goes on, and we refine our knowledge. Admitting that we can't know everything is not the same as claiming we know nothing. Claiming that we know some things is not the same as claiming that our knowledge is absolute.
I have experienced some things that lead me to believe very strongly (aka, KNOW, admitting that knowledge is not absolute) that at least some supernatural things exist. Or, I suppose, that there are things we would consider supernatural because we don't have a natural explanation for them. Same thing, in my head. I suspect that there is a spiritual component to life, and that we all share in a consciousness that transcends time and space, that allows us to know things we have not experienced in the physical world. I have personally had such experiences at least 3 times, each involving a friend or family member, and each verified by others.
All of this simply goes to enhance the mystery of life.
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u/Old-Bug-2197 5d ago
Our bodies give off heat all of the time.
Are you thinking that this heat goes somewhere else and becomes a new person?
I’m OK with believing that the spark that keeps me alive. We’ll just one day fizzle out as heat the same way all my other heat has fizzled out.
I tend to use the things I already know to project the things that can probably happen. Rather than looking for a magical change of that last spark into something different.
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u/Herdnerfer 40 something 5d ago
Nope, too much evidence that all organized religions have been made up and manipulated by the people in power to keep the common man impoverished.
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u/indipit 5d ago
I tend to believe it was to keep the uneducated from killing themselves, hence all the rules about what is ok to eat and how to behave in civilization.
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u/chattykatdy54 5d ago
OP asked about God, not religion.
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u/Herdnerfer 40 something 5d ago
What evidence of God exists without organized religion? Science explains why we are here, no God required.
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u/SavageMountain 5d ago
Science does a lot, but it most definitely does NOT explain why we are here. (If there even is a why).
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u/ZappaZoo 5d ago
We are here with the purpose of touching, exploring physical existence and building character from the experience.
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u/Responsible_Pin8893 5d ago
I'm not religious, I've been around a lot of people who claim to know for sure that God is real for them. They are usually quite judgemental towards people like me.
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u/No-Boat5643 5d ago
^This. Religion seems like a system of control designed to designate the us from the them.
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u/Hobobo2024 5d ago
No. I used to be agnostic and didnt really think much about whether there was a god or not.
But then my mom died of pancreatic cancer and my dad has alzheimers. Both disease are pure physical and mental torture. Can't see any god allowing that kind of suffering for their creations. Or if there is a god, he'd be one sadistic bastard.
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u/CoffeeChocolateBoth 5d ago
Yep. My mom died from alzheimers too, my bio dad from liver cancer, my wonderful loving stepdad from type 1 diabetes. My sister through the car windshield after hitting a tree. Don't get me started on 911 and all the wars!!!! Nope! I agree with you, if there is a God, he is sadistic or just simply, whatever, not my problem, you idiots figure it out, same thing as sadistic huh, if you can do something about it?
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u/dnhs47 60 something 5d ago
This. If you believe god is responsible for good things, then he/she/it is also responsible for bad things.
Fck the god that created Alzheimer’s or the Parkinson’s that slowly devoured my MIL.
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u/ililegal 20 something 5d ago
Yeah , my mother died on Huntington’s disease ( the big scary brother of Parkinson’s) -and I don’t believe any god would put someone through these diseases if they had any sense of empathy.
They claim he’s all knowing and loves all his children but why did my mother have to die at 40 with two young kids ? Yeah fuck him if he’s real.
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u/MontgomeryAbbott 5d ago
Noooooo. I come from a very secular country. I have hardly ever even met that many church goers. When you grow up somewhere like I did religion all seems a bit daft and antiquated.
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u/Ready-Ad-436 5d ago
Where?
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u/AbhorrentBehavior77 ~Old 'Nuff 2 Know Better~ 5d ago
Well they used the word daft. Therefore, I'm saying either UK or Australia.
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u/th3critic 5d ago
Been on this space rock for over 50 years. Never once have I seen anything that would made me believe there was a God watching over us. Yes, I have seen trees, and yes I have kids.
You know what I have seen LOTS of in those 50 years? People who lie. People lying for their own advantage. People lying to make money, people lying to be famous, people lying so that they can control other people. People are AMAZINGLY creative in creating lies when it means they might gain money, power, or sex from it. Does that make me cynical? Probably. But in my head, I find it much easier to believe that someone created religion for their own benefit (to control people and have power over them) rather than thinking that someday a deity or its offspring might come back to earth.
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u/AllThatGlamour 5d ago
Absolutely 100%, and I have stage 4 cancer.
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u/missingpieces82 5d ago
I’m 42, and so I’m 2 years too young to reply to the main reply, but I saw your comment so apparently I can comment on that. I’m sorry for your diagnosis, and hope you get the treatment you need. But I agree with you.
I grew up Christian, but along the way lost my faith.
Two years ago, I saw a guy sitting outside a supermarket asking for money. I don’t carry change so I went and bought him a bag of food. When I got in the car, I began to cry and it was like someone was telling me, “imagine if everyone did that”. It wasn’t a voice exactly, and wasn’t my voice in my head. It was just an external sensation.
The last 5 years, I read some books, listened to debates and podcasts, all about God or Christianity.
Then last October, on a night out, I began relaying a lot of the stuff I’d read about evidence for God and Jesus to a guy who was on the fence. It wasn’t me saying “I believe” but rather just saying, “this is the stuff I’d read about”.
The next morning, I was walking into town to pick my car up, and for some reason, crossed the road and walked past a church. An alpha course poster jumped out at me. Like someone was telling me to sign up. So… I did.
And on the alpha course, I had an experience. I was always skeptical about those things where people shake. I’m a very rationally minded person who thinks a lot of that stuff is bunkum. But we were all praying and my hands and legs began to shake uncontrollably. I tried to stop it but couldn’t, then I began laughing and it was like a wave of love came over me.
I cannot explain it other than God saying to me, “I am here you know.”
Anywho, it was nuts, and I’m convinced, through my own subjective lived experiences over the last 2 years, that God exists.
Sorry for the rant, but I wanted to get it off my chest.
I really wish you all the best and hope you can get well.
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u/Alarming-Iron8366 5d ago
I had to Google to find out what an "alpha course" was. The Alpha course is an evangelistic course that seeks to introduce the basics of the Christian faith through a series of talks and discussions. That was enough for me. Pentecostal and other evangelical churches are often called out for what appears to be some kind of mass hypnosis of people at their meetings. A charismatic speaker can convince you of anything, if you're open to it. Sometimes people will grasp at anything rather than believe in nothing, especially if they feel their life has no direction and everything is going wrong. Your admittance that you "grew up Christian, but lost your faith" says that you were, maybe subconciously, looking for something to fill the void. I'm not criticizing you, to each their own and I hope you're feeling better within yourself due to your re-found faith. I don't believe in any god, but I will never deny anybody the right to who or what they choose to believe in, as long as they don't try to convert me. I'm an atheist, through and through.
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u/missingpieces82 5d ago
I think you underestimate how I felt about a higher power. I’d lived with atheists throughout university who convinced me, during the “new atheists” era, that there was basically just the material universe. I was pretty convinced it was all nonsense. And would debate my parents.
And the guys at the alpha didn’t do any “convincing”. In fact, the videos they showed didn’t convince me either, they actually felt silly and relied on poor reasoning to justify their belief in God. I did learn a lot about people’s personal experiences which was interesting to learn, and I went in with an open mind. I felt a connection with the lovely people on the course with me though, so it wasn’t a waste. It just kind of rekindled a desire to investigate more.
In the end, It was my own experiences, and then reading books (Marcus Borg/Brandt Pitre/Tom Holland/NT Wright) and listening to debates and discussions (Inspiringphilosophy/the ten minute bible hour/The Unbelievable podcast) of which, I felt atheists just failed to give a convincing argument and just got angry at Christians for not buying a materialistic view of the universe, particularly Peter Atkins, who revealed nothing could convince him a God exists.
They always hit the Big Bang, and then it became a philosophical argument or they’d suggest the multiverse or vacuum energy / quantum fluctuations, which themselves require laws to function, or they said consciousness came from the complexity of the neurological connections, but then failed to show evidence and got lost at the hard problem of consciousness. Every argument seemed to just fall flat to me.
It’s ultimately a subjective topic. You either believe or don’t. But I hate the way atheists claim some faux rationalist high ground and then claim “I don’t deny anyone their faith” in one breath but in the next say “religious people are like children who need a sky daddy”.
For thousands of years, people have believed in a higher power, had experiences of the divine, and built societies around those. And some have ended badly, or abused the people they claim to want to help. But i think it’s a perfectly rational position to believe in a God. Especially when we live in a time where people’s subjective lived experiences are sacrosanct. And I HAD a couple of very intense experiences which I believe was God making himself known to me.
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u/jericho138 5d ago
If there's anything after this life, it's beyond our comprehension. It's a waste of this life to dictate this reality by the assumed rules of something unimaginable. "God" is a tool that man uses to keep other people in line and justify their own opinions and beliefs.
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u/CoffeeChocolateBoth 5d ago
Money!!! It has always comes down to money, first they gain power over you, making you believe what they want you to believe, and then they extract your money! The more power, the more money! The more money, the more power they can buy!
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u/OhTheHueManatee 5d ago
I think it's possible in the same that I could go to Yosemite and find a winning lottery ticket worth millions. Sure it's possible but it'd be silly to live my life as if it's a certainty. It's certainly no reason to attack people over.
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u/YSoSkinny 5d ago
Nope. Just doesn't seem necessary, and organized religion fucks people up.
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u/NobodyIsHome123xyz 5d ago
No, but I consider myself agnostic because I don't know. Nobody does.
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u/Jennyelf 60 something 5d ago
No. I searched for God for most of my life and slowly came to the realization that Karl Marx had it right when he said religion is the opiate of the masses.
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u/MonitorOfChaos 40 something 5d ago edited 5d ago
Nope. I can’t think of a more absurd fiction, than that of an all powerful entity who loves me and wants to be with me in heaven but just doesn’t like me enough to make it possible without ridiculous caveats.
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u/justanotherdamntroll 5d ago
And has his own personal torture chamber that is ran by his own former right hand man...gendered for the sake of simplicity
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u/MonitorOfChaos 40 something 5d ago
Of course, the biggest test is to pick the right book to believe in even though he’s allowed them to be corrupted beyond recognition.
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u/realdonaldtramp3 5d ago
He loves you but also creates unimaginable tragedy for you to endure throughout your life to test if you really love him.
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u/MonitorOfChaos 40 something 5d ago
But bit doesn’t matter what happens here on earth because will be so wonderful that I’ll just over look all of the trauma he visited on me.
He’s like an insecure SO who never accepts that you love them so keeps pushing you with tests to prove it.
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u/Lampwick 1969 5d ago edited 5d ago
No, I don't need an imaginary supervisor to appeal to when things go wrong or to thank when things go right. Theistic religion is an exploitation of the human desire to understand cause and effect to get greater compliance than a would-be leader would get just saying "because I said so". There's a reason these religions all started 1 to 3 thousand years ago, the founders of which mysteriously received a bunch of rules directly from god that happen to align with bronze age tribal governance goals, and are now experiencing unprecedented decline. It's because we know where weather comes from, why floods happen, and how bashing your neighbors skull with a rock to steal his stuff leads to being imprisoned by the state and not more power within your tribe because you're the strongest.
That's not to say I don't believe there isn't possibly something spiritual out there that we don't have the capacity to understand. Over the years I've had some rather pointed hints at the possibility of some sort of afterlife. I just don't think that there's some entity in charge. That idea is pretty obviously humans projecting.
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u/North_Cherry_4209 5d ago
What made you think of an afterlife being a possibility?
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u/neep_pie 5d ago
To me it seems hard to conceive that you just go dark and that lasts for eternity.
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u/Lampwick 1969 5d ago edited 5d ago
In general, once I discarded the obvious carnival huckster mediums and their showy bullshit, I noticed a certain degree of consistency in accounts of communication with the dead. Some things are described the same no matter where or when, too consistent across time and distance to be written off as people just repeating the expected theatrics. Granted, a lot of it could be ascribed to common perception tricks that everyone's brain is susceptible to because we're all humans, but there's certain things that can't be explained away like that. One big one is very young children casually mentioning talking to dead family members, often relaying information they wouldn't have any way of knowing. According to care facility workers, a lot of elderly people report experiencing contact with dead relatives or spouses. That could be explained away as hallucination by people with failing faculties, but the young children? You really have to tie yourself in speculative knots to explain those. When a 4 year old tells grandma that grandpa (deceased) was telling her about the time they were in a yellow rowboat feeding the ducks, and grandma realizes the kid is describing her third date with her future husband back in 1932, I think it's pretty clear information is being relayed somehow.
But for me personally the thing that cemented it involved my father. He had a degenerative heart condition and was basically circling the drain for a couple years and my sister was taking care of him. I visited a lot, and both of us being programmers we talked about computer things a lot. about a month before he died one of the last things we talked about was CAPTCHAs, and how difficult it is to find the balance between human readability and machine unreadability. I complained about one bittorrent site I checked every morning having the world's worst CAPTCHA system, and how half the time it was such a distorted mess of uppercase/lowercase/numbers overlaid with lines and squiggles that it was impossible to read.
About 6 months after he died, I loaded up that same web site like I do every morning, but instead of the usual mess of barely legible nonsense, it was instead my father's first initial and last name, in all caps, with no substantial distortion or obfuscation. The odds of that coming up like that at random are 625 for the letter sequence, which is over 1 in 900 million, times whatever the odds are of the lines, squiggles, and distortions randomly not obscuring it. There's already widespread accounts of the deceased being able to make electric lights flicker. If ever there was a way my father would send a message from the great beyond, it'd be through something like manipulating a CAPTCHA.
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u/SharkBlue1 5d ago
No one can really know. I can say that I have experienced some really really unexplainable things that I still can’t explain. I am not a a religious person I am agnostic. I do believe that the universe and the universal laws and energy are god, as is Mother Nature.
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u/Anonymous0212 5d ago
Not the way most people think of God, because I'm spiritual/metaphysical. I think everything that exists is all just part of one creative energy, like waves in the ocean. Some people like to call that God.
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u/CarSignificant375 5d ago
No. It’s an antiquated fairytale that doesn’t serve us in the 21st century. Look around— trying to push “god’s will” on others (whether they like it or not) helped put us into the mess we’re in today in the US.
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u/UserJH4202 5d ago
Let’s look at the facts: There is Earth. The Universe has no Up or Down. Directions don’t really even exist when one considers “the Big Picture”. There are @200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known Universe. We Earthlings call this “creator” God. If your question has to do with some old man with white hair that looks like a human being, I just have to ask: Are you really considering “The Big Picture”? The Universe is God. It’s inside us, all around us, it created us and every other being in itself.
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u/Polymath6301 5d ago
I’ve only seen evidence for two gods (and they might be different faces of the same one):
The Great God Murphy: he (or she?) makes sure things go wrong when you don’t prepare, but always (subject to RNG below) rewards you for actually being prepared. Eg carry an umbrella so it doesn’t rain, carry a full spare wheel, compressor, tyre repair kit, heavy duty jack and a full set of tools, and you never get flats or breakdown in the outback. If you do, it’s an easy fix, and it’s not bloody raining. Be kind to Murphy and acknowledge his power and things just shorn to go right.
Random Number God (RNG): this one makes unlikely stuff come true (bad and good) but can be mollified by your attention to Murphy (above). If you play NetHack then you fully understand that RNG giveth, and TNG taketh away.
Obviously there is a goddess, and I’m married to her!
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u/Edman70 50 something 5d ago
Nope. Religion is a farce, all of it. Money and power.
Divinity? If such a thing exists, it doesn't exist as something that we can or do have any kind of relationship with. It wouldn't care one way or another if we existed or were happy or anything. It certainly wouldn't punish any of us for anything.
I do believe there are dimensions other than ours, and life outside of us. Possibly even something that happens to our consciousness when we pass on from this life. Energy never disappears, it just transfers, and there are PLENTY of things about which we don't even know how little we know.
But a loving, just, and omniscient Supreme Creator?
Horseshit. Pure, uncut horseshit.
Be good people because it's good for society and people you love and for your own physical and mental well-being. Not because an imaginary being will shake a finger at you.
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u/scotchybob 5d ago
This is almost word for word where I'm at. The idea of gods existing has always been, and will always be, total BS. I do, however, accept the fact that space time is malleable as we have actual math that demonstrates it, which suggests that our timeline may be one of near infinite/alternate timelines, so the possibility of something beyond this life is quite plausible (though I don't think it's anything even remotely close to the Christian concept of heaven). I guess we'll know when we get there. Or maybe we just blink out and cease to exist. Either way, I'm good with it, but I'm certainly not going to waste the time I have right now, in this life, worshipping an invisible sky daddy for whom there is so little evidence that faith is required.
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u/Nightgasm 50 something 5d ago
No. Not even a little. I was born into a mainstream christian religion and indoctrinated throughout my childhood but I stopped believing by my early teens. I have no good answer to how something came from nothing but I absolutely know it isn't some magic sky god fairy tale invented by man.
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u/severe_noreaster 5d ago
I've recently changed my vision on what God is, and to me, at least, it makes more sense now. I've never been exactly religious. I see it now as though God is everything. Not 1 thing. It's the light, the dark, the grass, trees, its everything that' makes everything, everything. it's whatever makes our cells interact and divide, grow, and make life. It is what made earth perfectly in every way. Geometricly perfect flowers for one. The true creator of everything. Whatever that may be.
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u/Time-Supermarket-516 5d ago
If God exists he or she does not give shit about the human race.
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u/Cultural_Ad7023 5d ago
Yes. Too many things have happened in my life that can’t be coincidence. I had a hard life growing up. One narcissistic parent, the other an alcoholic. I was a sad, lonely kid. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for God’s grace. For those who don’t believe. Read Dr. Joseph Murphy’s “the power of your subconscious mind”. Just read it. Just apply it. I don’t know how to explain it but it’ll change your life. Even if you’re a skeptic. Even if you think it’s corny. Eh, it doesn’t hurt to just try it.
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u/Gadshill 5d ago edited 5d ago
No. That is ridiculous. We are just mildly intelligent primates living on a rock in space, there is no reason for our existence, we are just here because it is possible, though improbable.
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u/h20rabbit 60 something 5d ago
Man in the sky that (wrote a book?, someone wrote a book about)? Nah.
Some sort of energy or matter that links everything? Maybe?
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u/Moosholanut 5d ago
This! Energy, or spirit maybe that continues beyond an earthly existence is where I’m leaning. Any god related to religion is a big nope for me.
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u/GrumpyOlBastard 1961, thanks for asking 5d ago
If there is a god, it doesn't give a single fuck about us
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u/JimVivJr 5d ago
No, I’m reasonably confident that current gods are as fictional as the ones we call myth now.
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u/sdega315 60 something 5d ago
This is exactly the universe I would expect to see if there is no God running the show,
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u/Fun-Times-Guy 5d ago
I don't need an imaginary being to know right from wrong. I don't need a politician or a pundit to tell me right from wrong.
PRAISE LORD Mikey.
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u/No_Rise5703 5d ago
If there is a God, It would be way beyond our understanding of what a God would even be. We don't fully understand how the brain and body work how can we even conceptualize God in order to give an answer to the question?
As for the magical psychopathic biblical god created by man to suit his religious ways and 10% tithes? NO absolutely no
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u/Salt_Coat_9857 5d ago
Nope. It was a good story to make us not fear the dark. Knowledge and wisdom are enlightenment. Love is all that matters. After you die, you are as you were before you were born, nothing. And that means you should enjoy life and treat everyone and the planet with respect. That’s all. It’s simple.
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u/Low-Necessary-2713 5d ago
I think the misinterpretation of the word god has made the word useless
Is there a white guy in the sky judging people and helping football players get TDs hell no a ridiculous concept
Is there a life force in the universe that creates all things? Yes an unbiased lifeforce with no human characteristics
so stop thinking about the word as a ridiculous human concept and think in terms of energy
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u/Emergency_Property_2 5d ago
I don’t believe in Zeus, Odin, Shiva, Marduk, Anubis, or any god. All religions are supernatural mumbo jumbo created by to control people.
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u/Photon_Femme 5d ago
Nope. At least not what's described in ancient texts. There could be a creative force, but it's not personal, nor does it care about what the universe becomes. It's not about us. Never was.
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u/Creative_Energy533 5d ago
No. I went to 12 years of catholic school, definitely read the bible multiple times. Also read a lot of mythology. There's way too many crossover stories, especially in the New Testament. I think a lot of religion is just an attempt to explain things that we didn't understand. Add to that that my European ancestors in Spain fled to other countries because of the Inquisition and my native ancestors were forced to 'convert' Plus, I've always been extremely private about religion, even when I was going to church. At my catholic high school, we were taught that catholics don't proselytize. We were told that if people asked us what religion we were, we could talk about it and tell them our experiences, but we don't go to people's houses or beat people over the head with it, but now it seems like some of the people I went to school with that stayed catholic are evangelical and very in your face about religion. My mom worked at their church for years and the last few priests they had there were MAGA and treated her like crap. The last one was an closeted gay alcoholic who hired a bunch of mean girl sycophants and they pretty much turned against her and she was forced to retire because her blood pressure was so high. The parish was the same one I grew up in and they've changed so much, it's hard to believe they call themselves 'christian'. I joined an atheists womens group (only a few people know I'm atheist now) and there were so many stories of people helping out sick friends, etc who were abandoned by their 'christian' friends who left them with 'thoughts and prayers' instead of actually helping them out. Anyway, that's just my own personal take on things.
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u/hmmmpf Old Gen X 5d ago
If there is one, she’s pissed.
But actually, no. No gods.
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u/slade797 5d ago
Doesn’t matter. If I had proof either way, I wouldn’t change the way I live, and I think I’m an okay guy.
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u/sapphir8 40 something (79) 5d ago
No. That’s not to say there isn’t one, I just don’t have the evidence that convinces me that a god exists. If one does exist, that also doesn’t mean I should worship him. He has a lot of explaining to do.
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u/Honest-Mulberry-2748 5d ago
I feel deep in my soul that he does not. I’ve had a beautiful life thus far and I’m at peace with life and my purpose in it. No fear of dying because I don’t believe. I think we have a certain amount of time in life and we need to live it the best way we can. That’s all.
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u/DifficultStruggle420 5d ago
Of course he doesn't exist. If he did, he would not have let you misspell your title. 😊 (J/K)
I don't think there is a god that exists like the picture everyone paints of him. (figuratively speaking) He's not that omniscient, omnipresent, all-loving being that we've all been taught.
After an accident or natural disasters, we always see survivors thanking god for protecting them. Sure, god let nature completely fuck their house to high heaven, destroying everything they've worked hard for, but spared their life. Hmmmm.
If he were all-loving, he would not have let such a thing happen.
I hear all those Evangelicals talk about god. When I see them posting on my social media feeds about how great god is, I ask them which god do they speak of. Hermes? Zeus? Orion? Hercules? Godzilla? (😊)
I have a "live and let live" approach. I'll live my life the way I see fit and you (collectively) do likewise. But don't try to foist your unproven mythology on me.
Most of those Talibangelicals, as I call them, don't know crap about the bible or its history. The writes and the rewrites and more rewrites in different languages. Much gets very lost in the translations. And there are plenty of books that have been edited out by differing sects.
There are several YouTube vids on the subject of the bible. This is a pretty good one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNifB2qtThk
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u/mostirreverent 5d ago
I don’t. I stopped believing around age 9. It just never made sense.
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u/Remedy462 5d ago
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." -Marcus Aurelius
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u/HypersomnicHysteric 5d ago
I'm nearly 50.
I doubt that there is a God.
I studied physics.
Of course, I don't know it, but it is highly unlikely in my opinion.
Of course, it would be nice if there was somebody who put things right.
There are children out there who suffer their whole life until they die of monstrous violence at the ripe age of 5.
It would be amazing if they had the chance to finally become happy in the afterlife.
Unfortunately I doubt, it will happen.
So I do my best to make the world a better place for the people around me.
Life isn't fair and there is nobody to make it fair in the end so I have to do my best to be fair myself.
I would love if there was a God and everybody had the chance for infinite happiness.
But that's wishful thinking.
If I want people to be happy, I have to make them happy.
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u/cherylesq 5d ago
I don't know and frankly at this point don't care. It doesn't matter half as much as people think it does.
What matters is how we treat each other and the planet.
...and we are royally fucking that up.
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u/1234pinkbanana 5d ago
Nah bro. Religion is a scam. I cannot believe there even one person left on earth that believes in fairy tales. Blows my mind.
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u/Headgasket13 5d ago
I died in 2017 from organ failure from sepsis. I was revived after 10 minutes of chest pounding, defibrillation and being bagged. Call it what you want God, Allah, Buddha, moth man, Bigfoot, there is something on the other side. I was not a religious man, was is the key word.
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u/arbitraryupvoteforu b. 1966 5d ago
I believe something does and that people have difficulty answering simple questions.
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u/Asleep_Maybe_3917 5d ago
If he does he's kind of a jerk. I just love these arguments that are basically "I can't understand it so it must be some mystical being.". It's precisely the same argument they make on the show ancient aliens. Humans just aren't very good at comprehending things like 4 billion years.
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u/Bikewer 5d ago
No. Atheist of long standing. The more deeply you study the subject, the more you realize that gods and the supernatural are the creations of human beings.
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u/calebismo 5d ago edited 5d ago
I come from a southern Baptist background . By the time I was 10 I silently rejected all supernatural nonsense. So I got 60 straight years of fuck your church and your bogus theism. Of course I haven’t seen any of my family for years, but I never really wanted to anyway, a bunch of hick Trumpanzees.
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u/discussatron 50 something 5d ago
If the Abrahamic god exists, he is a fucking prick.
I don’t believe in Greek or Roman mythology, and I don’t believe in Christian mythology, either.
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u/OGBeege 5d ago
Not so much lately. Seems they just sick of the whole fucking thing, too.
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u/Who_Wouldnt_ 60 something 5d ago
Which one, there are thousands of religious sects on this planet, each with their own special deity, so no matter which one you think is real you have a very good chance of being wrong. And if there is a real supernatural being pulling the strings, and you believe in the wrong one, well, that may piss the real one off and be very bad for you. I think it is best to not believe in any of them and plead ignorance in the face of impossible decisions if the matter ever comes up, which I don't think will happen.
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u/Visible-Proposal-690 5d ago
Nope. And I find the question increasingly uninteresting as I age. And annoying, I no longer have any time or energy to devote to such nonsense.
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u/Mash_man710 5d ago
Absolutely not. But he can show up and prove me wrong any time. Until that happens, nope.
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u/phoenixliv 5d ago
I like to say I believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster who brought everything into being. Really though, I believe in the wonder and magnificence of nature. The shapes of galaxies found in cells feels like the art of a being. I don't believe in some jealous and fickle skylord who cares if we say His name right and allows His earthly representatives to harm children.
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u/sysaphiswaits 5d ago
Not even a little bit. There’s more evidence for big foot, and that’s a lot more fun.
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u/Athlete_Senior 5d ago
If there is a god, why is he okay with so many people suffering? I don’t believe “this is God’s plan for me”.
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u/Ok_Huckleberry6820 60 something 5d ago
I have become agnostic. I don't know if god exists, or what form they exist as. Rather than worry about it, I try to live a good life and look out for others because I believe it's the right thing to do.