Why do so many of my people believe in God?

Post Reply New Topic

That's exactly right, but it isn't out of emotions that concern my own wellbeing. My primary reason for wanting for a God to exist is a deep-seated passion against injustice. I don't know if I'd more want for the good to be rewarded, or the bad to be punished, but injustice in this lifetime irks me greatly, to no end. There is the fact that I'd like for a great number of people to have the dignity of their personhood restored, but even more so, I'd like to believe that that there will be yet a final reckoning following this lifetime that deals with all of our transgressions against each other, if not for the simple fact that knowing that your actions in this lifetime will determine where you end up in the next, and hopefully people will rape and murder and torture and lie and cheat a lot less. It's been a concern of mine since I was a child, and has only grown as I've entered adulthood. I might be an aberration in that regard. Some may want a God to exist for the sake of purpose, or to have someone to talk to, or whatever. But I want a God to exist, and for people to believe one exists(even if he doesn't) because I think it'll effect their behavior in this lifetime vis-a-vis one another for the better, and I say this fully acknowledging the drawbacks that come with it. I don't pray, I don't ask God for anything(other then to help me understand what he wants of humanity so I can be a better spokesman on his behalf), faith has never come naturally to me, but this one thing I want to be true because of how it will shape the world.

But my only point with the original comment you cited is that wanting to believe a God exists, doesn't come at the expense of logic. The part of me that wants to believe in the existence of a deity doesn't sacrifice logic, and my belief in God is also logical and not simply emotions based. For example, I hold firmly to the understanding, that intelligence comes from intelligence, and that an intelligent something, cannot come from a non-intelligent nothing... that in fact, there was a mind behind creation who thought up the parameters of existence and the architecture of the cosmos. I mean, numbers permeate the material and the non-material, and I don't think an orgy of rogue psychotic numbers could have accidentally assembled the formulas governing the natural world.\

That having been said... I think you're right. It is that inherently built-in desire to have meaning that leads *most* people to believe in God. Even in the absence of God in most secular parts of the West, that yearning for purpose, to feel that your time on earth won't just be a meaningless blip that will be forgotten once those who knew you die off themselves, permeates society, and often takes on the role of spiritual exploration + involvement in politics, and the politicizing of every aspect of life. So that yearning is real, and we should explore it, because its religious and secular expression does effect the world we live in, sometimes for the worst.

Given the paradoxical nature of time and space, I am convinced that there is no god as we perceive such a time constrained being. This does not imbue me with a sense of superiority. This is the only logical conclusion. What it does however, is view the pointlessness of power agenda superstition with exasperation.

Consciousness as in self awareness of cause and effect is a logic driven mechanism.

[q








...Wouldja prefer " mah peeps " then ?????????... ...Sheesh...










ote="Pepe"]

Indeed it does...
I prefer:
My kind... [/quote]

Nobody really knows for sure what happens to us when we die, other than the fact that our bodies decompose, and return to the earth, only to turn into something else again. These things will probably always be a mystery to us. Is there a god? Maybe, maybe not. Nobody knows for sure. The one reason why everybody believes in god, is to give us answers to things we can't explain, and don't understand.

maybe because so many people believe in god

What do you think the people in places like Sweden or the rest of the West think of that yearning for God? Do they still yearn for him to exist?

....I was rational with the link but ill be blunt and mean, because they are weak minded and afraid and want to be thralls because they have no free will or minds of their own. They are not truly free and want to be slaves to a dictator it s kind of like a stolkholm syndrome mentality!

OK I'm agnostic but I actually believe that softer, more "liberal" Christianity has weakened our western values more than not. Being "Christian" is one thing, but you never want to try get away with bring "conservative Christian". Anything with " conservative " in the label introduces ideas of bigotry.

At least some people will catch my drift sightly.

...While indeed some people dislike , and many criticize , more conservative Christianity your post seems , anyway , to point towards the " conservative Christians are oppressed by those libs , boo hoo ! They're SO-oooo mistreated..." concept , which I would tend to disagree with !
How so are cCs oppressed/discriminated against , if you think that ?
Many are very successful persons , in many (Not all areas , obviously .) of the US such churches are very much culturally dominant .


te="K_Kelly"]OK I'm agnostic but I actually believe that softer, more "liberal" Christianity has weakened our western values more than not. Being "Christian" is one thing, but you never want to try get away with bring "conservative Christian". Anything with " conservative " in the label introduces ideas of bigotry.

At least some people will catch my drift sightly.[/quote]

[/quote]

Lol. Nice expose of primitive tribalism.

OK, but it's pretty late, I'll get back to this later.

Pepe, I'm with you in some of this. This does tend to make me a bit of an outsider with fundies, but I do find some Anglicans who see things my way with both faith and exploring ideas without fear of falling over the cliff.

...I have stuff to say here more " serious " stuff about " my wondering with/struggle about religious belief " here on this " mostly non-/not very or anti religious but some believers " line , but I spent much of my Internet time doing " funner " - and sorta immediate and not involving saying I'm a homeless (this monment , not) foot-being-eaten away with-nothing failure ! Going on about INSANELY obscure mid-20th Century comics , with other buffs (Who , like , have collections ) If there's anyone else HERE who knows (without a " Search " , obvious-like . I'm not that gullible .) who " Joe and Asbststos " and " Supermouse " (not " Super Mouse ") were , I'll...finish this sentence ???

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse had great music.

...Different comics , but , yeah .
I remember a New York TV station , so maybe you'd remember it as well , KK , rerun reappearance of Courageous Cat that was odd ! To wit:
CC & MM are credited as being created by Bob Kane , the (cough , cough) " original creator of Batman .
I suppose he just decided to clone is own big payday , and DC Comics somehow let him get away with it , though it's worthy of note that I believe that CC & MM never appeared in comic books .
CC/MM was really a " back-up " cartoon series , I question whether I remember it ever " carrying " a full half-hour series of its own , even with some other back-ups thrown in (Like Tooter Turtle ~ Hi , Aunt Blabby !) ~ I remember , about 1973 or so , WPIX-11 in NYC running a rerun version of the 60s Spider-Man cartoon series ~ which also had CC & MM 'toons taking up the last 1/4 of the show or so .
So therefore , a DC and Marvel team-up of sorts ! (I was always more a DC dude .)
The weird thing , additionally , about the Spider-Man cartoons , as they were , as I remember it , rerun on that particular rerun manifestation , is that the Spidey cartoons seemed ~ even to my 13-year-old self ~ to have been lengthened from what I recall was the original " Two complete ' 15-minute ' Spidey 'toons in every 1/2-hr episode of the series " standard length of the cartoons shown on the show to being filled out with irrelevant " Spidey swings through the skies/pursued-is pursued by the baddie " footage taken from other individual cartoons from the series , to fill one cartoon out (And make more1/2-hr episodes , for rerun stripping , obviously .) from the 15-min length to 22&1/2 m inute length ! With the brief CC & MM cartoon filling out the rest of the half hour .
Well , anyway , I remember this .
Oh , BTW , this certainly flows into this , KK...Did you make a reference to " Wonderama " when the discussion on that " Stuff The Younger Generation Doesn't Recognize " line turned to old tv shows ?
It seemed like someone quoted a post by you in which you did such , but I could not find it when I read the whole thread .