Religion – your views

Does God exist?

  • Yeah

    Votes: 51 30.9%

  • Nope

    Votes: 70 42.4%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 44 26.7%
  • Total voters
    165
Tobbe said:
stan423321 said:
But, you know, I tried for some time...
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You "tried" atheism? How is that possible? You simply decided to stop believing in god? That doesn't make any sense. :?
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You see, I tried to not think about it at all. But as you said, this didn't make sense.
stan423321 said:
and I found it: 1) hard (ethically)
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Ethically hard? Please explain further.
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Problems with ethics, sorry, my English is bad enough to mess there.
stan423321 said:
2) boring
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Boring?! You rejected what is almost infitely probably the truth because it was boring? That is such a load of horseshit. How is it boring anyway? Instead of going to church, praying and performing loads of other meaningless task, you are free to do whatever you want.
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It was boring. I can't however let you know how, because you would find being religious boring instead.
stan423321 said:
3) not making any sense. I simply believe that the Big Bang had to be caused by something, whatever it is.
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Of course the Big Bang had to be caused by something, but we do not know what. A few centuries ago we had absolutely no idea of what caused disease, now we know that bacteria do. I accept that we don't know what caused the Big Bang, but I hope that we some day will find out. Explaining the Big Bang with "god did it" is just a cheap way of avoiding the question. And who created god, by the way? If you do not accept that the Big Bang didn't "just happen", you shouldn't accept that god "just happened" either.
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Here we actually go. I can accept it. Just go into his situation - you can do anything, but as you have nothing to do, you make the time and the world.
 
stan423321 said:
Tobbe said:
stan423321 said:
and I found it: 1) hard (ethically)
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Ethically hard? Please explain further.
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Problems with ethics, sorry, my English is bad enough to mess there.
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No, your English was perfect in this case. I just want to know how you found it ethically challenging being an atheist (or agnostic, which is what I suspect you actually were)?
 
I understand what you mean, but I don't understand why you had these problems. You figured that without religious guidance you could rape, murder and steal as you pleased? Experiments have shown that ethics and morale are not connected to religion in any way. That feeling a lot of religious people get when they try letting go of god; the feeling that they don't know what is right and wrong, is most likely due to some kind of placebo effect.

I'm an atheist, and I have no problems deciding what's right and wrong.
 
That's obviously what whoever translated the quote to English wanted to say (I should also add that it's not confirmed that Seneca is the originator of the quote, so Xenon can't bitch about it. :P )

It's still a very good quote.
 
Tobbe said:
You figured that without religious guidance you could rape, murder and steal as you pleased? Experiments have shown that ethics and morale are not connected to religion in any way. That feeling a lot of religious people get when they try letting go of god; the feeling that they don't know what is right and wrong, is most likely due to some kind of placebo effect.
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Firstly, small fix: you are referring to the NOCEBO effect, right? I actually don't see sense of placebo effect (pro-something) would make me feeling dizzy.

And as answer to your question: no, I simply thought following way:
"If there's no God, I can make whatever I want to do. But only to border of freedom of another people. But wait - why should I care about the others? Do they even think same way as me? Hell, Stan, STOP it - you're going to act as mad. Anyway, you're mad. NO, JUST STOP IT! Let's start it again. So, there are some people of which I should care about and some of which I shouldn't. But where's the border? And what is care?"

Then, after I saw possibility of God, all above was simplier than the Einstein's theory of time. And I found it simple explanation of everything.
 
When I believed in God, I felt that I should be nice to people and never sin and such. But then I got thinking about the Bible, and, considering that it was most likely written by men who most likely had no idea what they were talking about, I decided to stop believing. Looking back, I don't think I ever really believed, deep down.

Anyway, I no longer feel that I should be nice to people, and I no longer feel guilty when I am not. I just feel awesome all the time :bad:
 
I'm not religious at all, never have been, and have still always had a very strong sense of right and wrong. I simply follow my gut-feeling. If I have crossed someone, I'll feel bad, if I have helped someone, I'll feel good, not because I think I'll go to heaven or hell because of my actions, but because my actions will affect those around me, and obviously I would rather affect them the good way.

If a person can't decide what's right or wrong without consulting some obscure, ancient collection of mumbo-jumbo, be it a bible or a tripitaka or a quran or a torah or whatever, then I can't help but think that something is very very wrong with this person, his or her parents, or the society he or she lives in.
 
Limely said:
If a person can't decide what's right or wrong without consulting some obscure, ancient collection of mumbo-jumbo
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I wouldn't call the Bible "obscure"; it's the best-selling book ever.

Odd.

You'd think it was The Da Vinci Code.
 
The Bible and Qur'an aren't designed to be rulebooks or even guidelines, I don't think. They just entail the story of Earth's creation and Jesus' death and resurrection. Yes they contain the Ten Commandments, but that points to nothing.

Also I agree with Limely in that rejecting the Bible does not permit wickedness in any way.
 
Yes, Stan, I am indeed referring to the Nocebo effect. Thanks for pointing that out.

spiraldoor said:
Anyway, I no longer feel that I should be nice to people, and I no longer feel guilty when I am not. I just feel awesome all the time :bad:
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A nasty side-effect of behaving like a jerk is that nobody will like you, though. :?

Humans are biologically equipped with moral guidelines, there's no doubt about that. I just want to make that very clear. Humans do not need religion to decide what's right and wrong.

churchboy said:
Then, after I saw possibility of God, all above was simplier than the Einstein's theory of time. And I found it simple explanation of everything.
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Just because the god hypothesis is simpler doesn't mean it's true. That's a very, very stupid reason to accept one theory over another.
 
Tobbe said:
spiraldoor said:
Anyway, I no longer feel that I should be nice to people, and I no longer feel guilty when I am not. I just feel awesome all the time :bad:
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A nasty side-effect of behaving like a jerk is that nobody will like you, though. :?
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I don't behave like a jerk; I am quite nice to people that I know and get along with. I just don't care about other people much, especially people that I do not know. I don't care at all about distant, nasty things such as 9/11 and the tsunami and the war in Iraq. I would never go out of my way to help a stranger. But you would not call me a jerk if you really knew me. :winkgrin:
 
spiraldoor said:
Tobbe said:
spiraldoor said:
Anyway, I no longer feel that I should be nice to people, and I no longer feel guilty when I am not. I just feel awesome all the time :bad:
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A nasty side-effect of behaving like a jerk is that nobody will like you, though. :?
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I don't behave like a jerk; I am quite nice to people that I know and get along with. I just don't care about other people much, especially people that I do not know. I don't care at all about distant, nasty things such as 9/11 and the tsunami and the war in Iraq. I would never go out of my way to help a stranger. But you would not call me a jerk if you really knew me. :winkgrin:
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That's cool then. That's pretty much the way I behave as well, although I do care a bit about people I don't know.
 
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