Which is better, believing in a god or not?

It has been proven that those with a good, lasting faith live longer and better. Having said that, religion is the greatest cause of strife in human history. Not going to bother explaining it, just read a history textbook or compare two religious texts and see how similar they are.

It depends on the person, that's it.

If you believe in God, then do so.
If you can live without hanging on to a belief, then go atheist.

but if you preach religion to atheists or the other way around, then you, dear sir, are an idiot. Respect. I'm a believer.

Nuff said.

An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church.
An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said.
An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death.
He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.
-- Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Couldn't say it any better.



Dafuq??

was baptized Roman Catholic, but believe that most religions are connected in one way or another. I strongly believe that there is a higher power in the world.

i cannot stress enough that Christianity and/or Catholicism are religions that are based upon massive contradictions, a pope in the 600th century decided to change something in the bible according to his opinion. the bible might not even be truth because if you think about it, what tool is more powerful that an object that can be used to control the masses using faith and religion? religion is the easiest way to control people, just think about it. god tells you to do something so what do you do? well obviously you go and do it right? what's not to say that the bible wasn't created to gain more control over the population back then?

ok so we look at most religions and say "this could not be possible" and we laugh at how silly these religions seem to us, we look at the ancient religions and we laugh at how stupid they seem now "LOL? they believed they had to sacrifice somebody every month to stop the sun from going out and destroying the earth?" well why don't we think that about Christianity and Catholicism? well that's because of how popular it is and how we have been raised to believe that it is real.

i do not think you should believe in god, and i know it is a morbid thought that you are insignificant in comparison to the universe and that you really have no role in life, no greater role to play that helps the masses. but you are just lying to yourself out of desperation if you turn to a religion. if you really want to do something good with your life then make other peoples lives better, try to make their lives more happy because this will also make you feel more fulfilled and feel like you have a purpose in life. ok so you don't have a big hulking divine being in the sky that will treat you with eternal love (unless you make a mistake/don't worship him regularly/put other people in front of him/spread the religion). you don't need that and even if your cards are down and you have no where else to turn, you can still make something out of your life and remember that you yourself have emotions and can feel love without fabricating something to love you.

i do not believe in god and as i hear more and more every day about god i feel more and more disgusted, originally i could handle all of it but now i just need a break.

\

Doesn't say he disapproves of anime in the Bible. OK we're set!

I didn't read the other post -sorry, I'm tired- but I personally think that God is a great idea, in a sense.

Christianity is stupid, but necessary(or most religions, for that matter) because they make a basis for what most people consider an ethically good lifestyle. I just don't think you need religion when you get older, do you ask your boss for every decision you make at work, or do 45 year old blokes ask their mothers for permission to go to the pub? No, responsibility is taken, and I see religion as a very easy get-out clause for people who don't claim responsibility for their actions.

An example being homosexuality. I don't care if your gay(unless you make a point of letting the whole world know every second of every day, then you should die), but some people argue that God hates you because of it...or you're gay because he hates you, I can never remember. That to me is just ignorance hiding behind religion, scared to voice their opinions as their own so they only act as a vessel for 'God'. It's ridiculous.

Wrong.



Wrong.



We're smarter, sure. But we're not stronger, we're not faster, we're not able to fly without machines, we can't breathe underwater, and we can't reproduce near as well as most other species. We also require tons of bacteria to do most of our living for us, including breaking down our food and getting it through our digestion process. Really, aside from our brains, humans pretty much suck.



Too bad. We are. We are the subspecies homo sapien sapien.



Dependso n the animal. Are they self aware? If so then why should we be doing it? Causing harm to a species that knows we, specifically, are causing harm to them, for...what reason? so that we can wear make up?



There's less proof for the big bang than no proof for god? Really? Background radiation isn't a thing? I think you need to read a science book one of these days.



As far as fully formed life forms being able to appear from non life at all? Like a fly just being able to magically form from a piece of meat? Yeah, that was proven wrong, but that's not abiogenesis, and if you think it is, you might be retarded.



Analogy time. Here's how stupid this one was. "If Americans came from Europe there would be no Europeans today."



Natural selection tends to curve that chance so that the ones capable of surviving do survive, and the ones that can't don't. It's not like all the creatures ever evolved are still around. 99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct.



Not the god of the bible. Even if there were any evidence of that god, I don't support an infanticidal genocidal megalomania cal racist, hypocritical, hateful, spiteful, vengeful douchebag. There's more but I'll leave it at that.



Already do. Don't need a god for it.



We are staunchly opposed then. Let's fight about it.



So you would say that the nonreligious countries would then be unethical, because if religions are necessary for providing a basis for ethical lifestyles, then nonreligious countries, logically, would be unethical. So tell me, why is it that the religious far outnumber the nonreligious in prison systems? That goes against your hypothesis.



I don't think anyone needs religion at all.



We're agreed here.



Die for being openly gay or die for being annoying? Either way that seems kind of harsh.



Sure. Then there are people who actually DO believe that God hates gay people, and will make camps to send gay people to to 'teach them to be straight'. I don't blame those people for their ignorance, I blame religion for it. These people WANT to do what they think is best for homosexuals, they're just taught an extremely skewed way to go about it because their religion is retarded.

I don't believe in one religion per say but I believe in the universe and that we are one.

Religion convinces people to do horrible things like shun nonbelievers and sometimes kill them(wtf?). Religion also convinces people to help the needy and not commit crimes. My point, believe what you have to believe if it helps you make good decision.

Been a year since I last posted in this thread. Anyways, I went from being an agnostic to a pantheist. I think just having something to believe in can have positive effects in your life whether it be God or yourself.

However, religion in general seems kinda pointless to me. Religion got started mainly due to the invention of agriculture. Since we didn't have to move around for food as much, we could focus more on increasing our numbers. However, larger numbers meant more immoral behavior such as stealing and murder. Something had to be done about this, thus organized religion served as a means to control the population (as well as justify the collection of taxes). Back then, religion meant power and the people in charge milked it for all its worth. Even now, people are being controlled for profit via religion.

...So you went from saying God is unknown, to knowing god is the universe?

I have a friend who's a pantheist and he doesn't like talking to me about it because...I don't like how he defines god.

Pantheism to me is just...well...silly. It's the universe. It's existent. You can't define existence as being god. Existence isn't sentient. There are sentient beings WITHIN existence, but that's hardly godlike. There's nothing even close to omnipotence, or omniscience or omnibenevolence. There's not even a maximally great being because all beings still have the potential to be better than they were.

My friend says that I'm being too narrow with my definition of God, but to me, calling anything short of at least something that's 'maximally great' is useless.

Pantheists and deists, when they debate me, tend to not like how I define god, and how I claim gods must be epistemically justified, because by definition, their versions of god are...rather vague, and abstract.

I can much more easily debate a religious god because I can know, to some sort of certainty whether those gods exist or not. Re defining god to something that's undeniable, like, "Whatever was at the beginning of the universe" or "Existence itself" to me is just a giant obfuscation.

I respect your criticism, but who says god has to be self aware or have a conscious? Matter and energy can't be created or destroyed, in other words the universe has always existed in one form or another and will continue to exist. For me, God doesn't need a brain, it just has to be immortal.

Well first I'd like to point out that I said nothing about being self aware or conscious(actually, my pantheist friend is a pantheist because he says the universe IS self aware and conscious, through the medium of humans).

Secondly, if the only criteria that needs to be given in order to be a god is immortality...what about interstellar vampires? Imagine a vampire, which would mean they're ageless(depending on the mythos, but for the sake of argument) that are capable of travelling between galaxies...imagine they're around until the end of the universe(which would be the end of time)...would they be gods then?

I'm aware you didn't, but I'm also aware that you have to have a conscious in order to be "omni" anything.



That depends, did the vampire ever have a birth? If the vampire had a birth, I wouldn't call it a deity since a deity would have always existed. If the vampire didn't have a birth, then I would call it a deity.

I'm an atheist and don't believe in God, but it isn't bad to believe. Everyone has an own oppinion and we should respect that ( I don't say by any means you don't do that).

You, my friend, are probably the most logical thinking person ever. Your a really smart person.

anyways we don't need a god.If it weren't for religion technology would be 100 or more years more advance. Plus I don't like the ides of god. Basicly people just blame the good and the bad things that happen on him instead of themselves or others who are actully at fault. I think the world would do much better without a god or religion because lets face it: a lot less debats would happen if there was no religion and a lot of sterotypes would go away to. just think about it: how would religion not existing be better.

I'm not gonna start preaching on here, but personally I believe in god and I love jesus, but don't give a fuck about religion. I don't need religion to tell me how I live my life in christ. Its your choice what you believe in, whatever gets you through the night

On a universal scale, its a matter of personal politics. Me? I have no right to know which is better, thinking that makes asking questions much more easier and self-discovery much more possible.