Donnajoe

Okay I just wanted to throw a couple of questions out there, one for each side of the issue at hand, just to get different opinions on the subject

First of all, I want to ask people who don't believe in God, or don't believe that God exists, this question: How come you don't believe? Or if you believed once, what made you not believe anymore?

Secondly, I want to ask this question to those who believe in God or maybe even more than one god: Why do you believe? What has made you stick with your faith?

I am simply asking out of curiousity, because I am curious what people on both sides of the issue may say I love hearing different opinions and different points of view.

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Minor Axis

Where do you stand?

Belief in God is based on faith. Disbelief at least in the the traditional view of God is based on fact, or lack there of. It's that simple.

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"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

Donnajoe

I'm a Christian and I believe that God is real because I feel Him working in my life and I believe He even talks to me sometimes, in different ways. My life would be incomplete without Him because I'd rather trust in somebody who knows everything and knows what's best for me than just wander aimlessly on my own. It's just nice to have somebody who knows my every thought, my every flaw, yet loves me dearly anyway You know... somebody who will never leave me, even if I can't see Him.

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Minor Axis

And how did you determine God is trustworthy?... through your faith misguided or not. But I have no problem with going with your instincts if it works for you. Just remember the book "To Serve Man" was a cookbook.

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"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

Donnajoe

Well honestly I suppose part of me still doesn't trust God in some ways. Can anyone really truly trust someone who would allow someone they love to be hurt just for their own agenda or plan, so to speak? I've been hurt many times, and I believe that God used pain to help make me who I am today, but at the same time part of me is still resentful.

However... in some ways I think I'd say God is all I have--in some ways at least--and is all that keeps me going. Frankly because... whenever I pray, whenever I feel at my lowest, something will totally come out of nowhere which will lift my spirits and convince me I have a purpose, and that i have something to live for. Some people would probably call that coincidence, but... personally I've seen too many things happen in my life to be able to say God doesn't exist.

I believe that God is His own person, and it's up to people to decide what they want to believe He is. Or if they want to believe in Him at all. I just think that the religious extremeists can do a pretty poor job of things sometimes... they only control people and brainwash them, or cause other problems.

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Minor Axis

I suppose you believe in both God and the Devil? How do you distinguish between the two? What if it's all a charade as in your God is the Devil? (Not implying it is as I have no idea.)

When you pray and then feel good how do you know the feeling is internally or externally generated? It could be simply self healing with no external influence at all.

I agree except the extremists are doing a horrid job all of the time and I'm thinking of all of the televangelists.

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"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

GraceAbounds

Great posts Donnajoe; really shows your heart ... thank you. Rep'd.

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Donnajoe

Hmmm... I'm glad you asked that because I'm happy to answer, I just need to figure out how to answer that, hehe. (Some things are hard to figure out how to put into words, hehe)

Let's see... well, I believe that there is a God and there is a Devil too. Actually, when you get right down to it, I believe there are three forces at work in the world.

God is a loving father who cares about everybody and wants what's best for them, but He also has enough respect for people so that He'll let them do whatever they want because He respects free choice. That doesn't mean there won't be consequences later, it just means He won't (or at least, He won't always) stop people from doing bad things.

The Devil is a tempter, somebody who tries to coax you into going against God's will, although in my opinion people sometimes don't need much coaxing to do something bad, heh. I mean, sometimes... it's human nature to do stupid things sometimes, I know I've done enough stupid things and I've hurt people.

The third working force I'd say are people themselves. Let's face it... neither God nor the Devil can MAKE you do *anything*. You have your own willpower and your own free choice... it's also up to you if you want to believe in either one, or give into either one. In other words, people themselves are totally responsible for their own actions and the consequences and things would still happen if there wasn't a God or a Devil.



I'd say part of it could very well be self-healing in some ways. Though I also think it could be both internally and externally generated... I could be doing things on my own internally, with the help of an external force, so to speak. Some people might say it's entirely psychological on my part--me thinking that there's something out there listening, sorta like how the body can be tricked into healing itself from illness with a placebo. (I think "placebo" is the word I want, heh) But... I really do believe there is a God who listens, and it's a matter of faith

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Minor Axis

Exactly and thanks for your views. The Devil is reported to be pretty tricky, so being able to pull off a God charade would concern me if I was of the believing type.

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"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

Carthage

I have learned to admit to myself that I believe out of fear. But as I move farther and farther away from religion, that fear becomes less and less.
I used to be a radical (not fundamentalist, that's different) believer in God, and I took the whole "blind faith" thing pretty seriously.
Then I read Ayn Rand.

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Minor Axis

I think the important thing is if you loose your specific faith, not to loose faith in general. Although my views are based on tidbits of suspicions, the optimist in me thinks we have something to look forward to in the next life.

Both of these are just as plausible as what has been written.

__________________
"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

JEJ101

Personally I dont believe in God, I believe in the evolutionary theory. Perception is reality, if you perceive something to be fact or truth then any unexplainable encounter or any encounter at all, you perceive that it is something you believe in, making it reality. For instance, say there is a tree outside my window and it causes me nothing but problems, and I pray to 'God' to help me in this problem, few weeks later a storm comes and knocks the tree down, then your perception of reality comes into play, God knocked down that tree because I prayed to him to knock it down...was it an act of God or infact a storm a regular not out of the ordinary storm that knocked the tree down. If I pray that there will be coffee available to me in the morning and my dad goes out that morning and picks some up and brings it to me, is this an act of God?
Perception is reality. If you perceive something to be true, than it is...to you.
In my opinion I think that 'God' was an invention back when the idea of God came about, it could possibly have been an answer to the world. Did people need a solution to how they became into being? Back when supernatural elements were perceived to be real, this could have been a very probable solution. In todays society we've evolved we're more intelligent and still improving, we now have more methods in finding out the source of things, but we cant test what cant be shown, or legitimately proven.
This is just my opinion, I hope I didnt offend anyone, I didnt mean to.

Hans

I believe in a higher power. I think it is a single power, that put us here.

I can agree there is evolution, there is science, there are other things, but there HAS to be something that put us here...the sun being in a perfect position, the human race avoiding extinction, evolving so much, in such a large fucking place. Some may say "Oh, its just a coincidence", I just cant believe that. I also have had personal things that have led me to believe my God can hear my desperate prayer on things I really want or possibly even need. These all point me to the belief in an existance of a superior being than anything we know of.

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triglad

I have a far too questionable nature to believe in a "god." I'm far too scientifically minded, i go where the evidence points. And although the theories of evolution are far from perfect the evidence is there. As far as the catholic church goes i don't trust a single one of them, let me put a few things to you this way,

In the bible where does it say that jesus was born on the 25th of december? In fact it says that the Sheppard was on in a field with his sheep, ergo not the winter months. The 25th of december was infact a pagan holiday that was adopted by the christians at the time of the crusades and what not.

How do you imagine the devil?? A sort of ram type creature with horns, funny that, as that image was one of the pagan gods i forget which one, again until the time when the christians tried to wipe out anyother religion and convert pagans to christianity.

Prehaps a little less elementry but still. . . "and god said unto eve thou shall not eat the fruit from the tree" (or somthing to that effect) where does it say anything about an apple??

Its all these little things that make believe that religion is nothing more than a manufactured means of controling people! I mean its even known for a fact that constantine and his court rewrote parts of the bible and ommited any parts that he didn't like. Especially if it ment that women were made to seem equal, cos that was just unacceptable to a religion that was trying to outdo the pagans and they're worship of the holy female! *Dead sea scrolls anyone* So it all just seems a bit manufactured!

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