As simple as possible to summarize the best way you can, first, please. Feel free to expand after, or just say whatever you want lol. Honest question.
We seek tangible proofs, of intangible things, in a tangible world, using intangible consciousness, thoughts, mind and reason, called the “Self” or “I Am”, in order to determine if an intangible being could possibly exist. You are your own proof of such things, amongst 8 billion other proofs. We are the intangible being we may or may not believe in. All of us are.
For most, it’s indoctrination.
I feel like religion is so corrupted by governments, cults, and sleazeballs. Not all of them mind you, that it’s just so difficult for a lot of people to put their faith in any religion. That’s why theirs so many atheists.
I don’t but, wow!? Is that your bedsheet?
I believe in all gods, much in the same way I believe money, justice, and math exist.
Doesn’t mean I follow any or all of them, yahweh is a dick and so are a few others, but some are chill.
I used to believe because of how convinced other people were. I thought they had a good reason. Turned out they had not
For me, God is a character stronger than me… Someone whom I call upon in times of despair. That’s it. No deeper meaning than this.
Gods, plural. But believe is a weird word.
I commune with the ancient gods of my ancestors, whether I believe in them is complicated though. I spent most of my life atheist after the christian church failed to grab me. I learned of my ancestral religion from my great grandmother and my great aunt. Grandma was Catholic on paper but still recognized the old gods. My aunt called herself a druid.
I choose to commune with the old gods because I have to believe in something. I’ve felt the call of spirit, the gaping void in my heart where spirituality was meant to be, but I do not trust organized religion. I don’t trust the churches. I don’t trust those who would hold power, enforced by faith, over those who do not know better.
Man - how I hate that on almost every post that shows some vulnerability and shares their belief we have lemmys trying to convince people about it not making sense.
Be respectful guys. Thank you to all the upvoters of the actual content - I see you.
Given all of my unresolved prior trauma caused almost exclusively by my upbringing around those believing? No thanks. Fuck everyone that believes this shit. It too clearly self-selects the narcissist asshole who wants excuses to not have to answer for how shitty they are. They ram it into EVERYTHING and use it as a blanket for pure judgment amd shame of others. Fuck em all.
And don’t give me this religion vs spirituality bullshit. Very clearly the vast majority are affected by religion. It ain’t my job to sort through that when 99% are clearly bad apples.
I’m speaking from actual personal traumatic experiences from childhood home, multiple churches, multiple schools, and lots of extended family and family friends. Fuck. Them. All.
If there is a god or something like a god, it has to be the sun. The sun makes all life possible and has near infinite energy, I can not think of anything more deserving to be god. Will it save us or help us as individuals, i don’t think so, its a god we are insignificant in comparison and will burn when staying in its presence for two long. Also its real.
Another idea I had was from Einsteins quote: “to believe in god you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.” So by that logic you better believe in all gods for maximum gain. There are a bunch more suns aswell ;)
By using our logic and from the experience of things around us we can say that it’s impossible for something to come from nothingness. There is a consensus that the universe has a beginning which scientists call the Big Bang. But that cannot come out of itself, logic dictates that there is something which brought it about (energy/matter does not just compress itself into a singularity). Whatever that thing is or things if there is a chain of initiators/causes, must end with an initiator which is self-sufficient and which has not been caused by something else. Otherwise we go in an infinite regression of asking what caused that cause, and an infinite chain going backwards would mean the present never gets to happen, but we exist, and that is proof that the chain ends somewhere.
That’s what is called the necessary being or the uncaused cause.
Now, by observing the universe we can surmise some characteristics that that cause must possess to bring it about, since it must possess them in at least an equal ammount. The enormous ammount of energy held in the universe shows that the initiator has immense power. The laws of the universe and its intricacies suggest that it must possess knowledge and wisdom etc.
The laws of the universe and its intricacies suggest that it must possess knowledge and wisdom etc.
You should study physics
For me “God” isn’t some person with wits and thoughts.
It is just the circumstances in where we live. The time the physics the vibration and energy filling the matter and thoughts.
There is no need in praying to it (except for you self). We’re in a happy stream full of energy filled with feeling “souls” going into the same direction in time and filling this strange place where we feel energy as matter, waves and colors.
There are definitions of “God” that I feel are hard to prove, but others that are easy. For example, of your definition is “God is the ultimate cause of the universe” then it’s pretty trivial that if everything has a cause there must be an end of the chain. Of course, this the could be a computer program running the universe simulation or even just the laws of physics themselves if those are truly causeless. But nonetheless, it’s still a somewhat satisfying definition of “God” so I’m comfortable saying I believe in God. Harder definitions include “God is an omnipotent being” (which most of God’s traditional attributes can be derived from) and “God is the being described in the Bible/Qu’ran/other religious text” which I feel like are unprovable.
A lot of religious apologists will make arguments in favor of the easier definition and then try to claim that this means their specific view of God is real. Personally I think that’s insane. Like “there must be some end of the chain of causality therefore God became a Jewish carpenter in the ancient Roman Empire.” Even if you’re Christian that should be a bad logical jump.
In short, yes because you lose nothing by trying to emulate Jesus.
That said, the church be crazy af
If emulating jesus was what the christian church was about I would have less scrupules
Define “Christian Church”. This almost invariably comes from former evangelicals in my experience.
People who say they belive in jesus, would be my definition.
You have to believe in the trinity to be a Christian. Regardless you aren’t going to find any group of people who are perfect. Christianity is all about how people are sinful and must commit daily to emulating Christ even though they will continuously fail. Regardless it sounds like you are opening yourself up for massive disappointment by casting such a wide net. There are many “Christian churches” which are just jokes if not outright scams. Christians can’t control who calls themselves a Christian. I encourage you to investigate the Eastern Orthodox church which has a rich tradition and clear direction for how the Orthodox should live their lives. It is Ancient Christianity that holds in high esteem prayer, fasting and alms giving. There is real spiritual meat on the bone.
I may not believe in God, but I can definitely respect the man. ✊
I’m LDS some people might call us Mormon.
The short of it is I asked God and I felt his presence. Not like any earthly feeling, more like the burning the bible / new testament describes.
But even without any of that I’d still have believed / known. I just, always have if that makes sense? I might’ve gone a different direction in my beliefs but I’d still have known he’s there.
I have always wanted to ask someone who has this opinion how they confront the knowledge that people from every religion have felt the same thing? Some people have felt this way multiple times about mutually exclusive faiths.
That’s one of the largest things that led me to be an agnostic atheist (meaning I don’t claim to have knowledge, and I hold no belief in a god; I don’t disbelieve, it’s the ascence of belief). I was raised non-denomination Christian, but I had a good Buddhist friend in high school. It made me curious about other faiths, and they’re almost all mutually exclusive, yet every one has people certain they’re correct. What are the odds I was born to a family that believed the correct one?
I’m not self-centered enough to believe I’m special and all the other people are just unlucky, so the result is that it’s most likely I wasn’t born lucky, and neither was anyone else. So many religions have faded out of existence, so the odds are if any are correct they don’t exist anymore. Why would I think I happen to find the right one?
I know this is unlikely, but I’d be interested to hear an actual opinion about how that feels, not hearing about what you’re supposed to believe (which I’ve heard before). I think it’s interesting to know if it makes others feel the same way I once did or not.
This is why a “feeling” should not be the reason you convert to a religion. You should be skeptical of Christians that argue their conversion on feelings alone. I certainly had feelings that I attribute to the Holy Spirit when I was an inquiring Christian but I frankly tried to ignore or diminish them to stay sober minded. Relying entirely on emotionalism or charism is historically discouraged as you could just as easily be swayed by demonic forces (e.g. prelest). It’s one of many critiques of charismatic Protestantism and the LDS church.
Everyone on earth that has adopted or converted to any religion has done so with a feeling as their reason. Nobody has ever converted due to cold hard facts or some research on the afterlife. Proof is unexisting by definition of faith.
Everyone on earth that has adopted or converted to any religion has done so with a feeling as their reason.
Assertion
Nobody has ever converted due to cold hard facts or some research on the afterlife.
Applying material requirements to the metaphysical and transcendental
Proof is unexisting by definition of faith
Transcendental Argument for God makes an affirmative pre-suppositional argument for God.
I… Yes? That’s a correct interpretation, but you denied an answer to me. Or perhaps I misunderstood your position, that nobody should ever convert or consider any religion?
I’m saying that your assertion isn’t justified (e.g. it’s just a subjective opinion). That you can’t expect to apply the scientific method to something that transcends the material world and that there are indeed logical arguments for why someone should believe in God as opposed to not believing in God.
I’m an Orthodox Christian.
So, for the sake of this post isn’t “I’m trying to convert you to my religion” I’m going to try and summarize our points of belief while more or less answering your question, and I’m not doing it out of a debate, but merely to answer you :)
It’s not really “we think we’re lucky or better than anyone else” hell we actually believe that God is a God of fairness that doesn’t value one person over another. Ie. “We are all his children and he loves us equally” is a core belief we hold. And as apart of that belief, we firmly hold it true that God will ensure that all his children who lived or died without hearing his gospel will have the opportunity too. That’s point 1
Point 2. Yes you can most certainly have spiritual experiences outside of the LDS faith or any faith for that matter. We tend to refer to that as “The light of Christ” but for a summarized explanation. We basically summarize that as, a testimony of truth wherever it may be found God will bare witness of it.
And I also tend to lean towards a lot of Buddhist tenants myself btw. The concept of a state of being called Nirvana, that life is suffering (Though I know that’s not exactly what he said) and a few other ideas they hold I agree with.
Does it feel correct that there are levels of heaven, better and worse heavens on other planets? I always felt this is disturbing to me, but it makes sense what you are saying
Not so much “levels of heaven” in that anyone’s values lesser than others. It’s that God understands his children, he understands we’re all different. I like a plain pepperoni pizza. Some people like supreme pizza, some people God forbid like pineapple on their pizza.
He’s not going to force one person or another into this route definition of “heaven” because supreme pizza may not be heaven, nor plain pepperoni or pineapple.
Sorry if that analogy doesn’t make sense.
No, no it definitely makes sense and btw pineapple on pizza is heavenly (pun intended) but I have always thought and heard from my Mormon friends that they can “work harder” on faith and then come closer to God in the afterlife as a “reward” (this is just me paraphrasing violently) and I found that kind of offensive, as I feel most religions and absolutely Christianity as a whole make a big deal of being equal children of God. Like if you wanted to sit next to Jesus you better work your ass off in your life. It is probably wrong, I understand, but even the idea of a hierarchy in a spiritual setting is for me incredibly offensive
