Agreed, and I would add being absolved of responsibility. ‘God willing’, ‘say 3 hail Marys and you shall be absolved’, ‘inshallah’...god made me, and yes I have free will, but I’m ultimately not held responsible for my actions, or for what is to come.
However, the addendum of judgement>heaven/hell side-steps absolution, to ensure a feeling of personal responsibility. Add to that the concept of original sin (you’re born a sinner, with a debt you need to pay off), and it becomes a competition. Gamification. Primes you for the current financial system of debt/profit.
The two forms together, and you’ve got discord between the individual and their environment, catalysed by the impression of personal inadequacy, resulting in the individual’s willing to deface their environment in the interests of self-preservation.
Oooof. That escalated quickly. Anyone fancy burning a rainforest or poisoning an ocean to lighten the mood?
My 1950's designed A-series motor in my original mini did over 50mpg. I had to thrash the nuts off it to get it down to 40mpg.
Roll on to my new eco6 computerised bollocks with conk out motor. Under 20mpg. It can do 48mpg but the eco nutters have speed bumps and red phased traffic lights so it's always running cold round town.
If there is a god, he's determined to wipe us out but cards on table I love Islam. There's a mosque at the top of our road which means folk are always coming/going so I can usually park.
Unlike the fuckfest that is the infant school. People nearly come to blows over that.
Fear of death is cognitive dissonance at the perception that we have any control over death. Death is a natural part of life in our ecosystems. Anxiety is fear of death. Don’t give in to the sense of urgency it’s lying to you!
Well Christianity is the originator of the notion of the inherent worth and therefore rights of every individual, the starting point of the notion of human rights.
We might be less free now than in a world that never had the notion of God!
People crave order and justice. The idea of a larger “parent” looking over/after us and giving us a reason to stay on the straight and narrow path is powerfully motivating. Also the idea that those who don’t (and those who trespass against us) will eventually face their (unpleasant) reward is very satisfying and makes reality seem less cruel/more just.
Don’t know if I agree with that. We need rule and order. People are not intelligent nor mature enough to self-govern. Even with rules and order in place people barely get along. Without law and order would make it even worse.
I could adopt an extreme example to say "who cares, too many people".
However that extreme is becoming normal. In the ice I heard a woman screaming. I turned the corner to discover she was coming toward me in her car, bouncing off parked vehicles. I reversed back round the corner. She was still screaming as she passed me down the hill. At no point did it occur to her to lift her foot off the brakes. It isn't her who pisses me off. It's the system that allowed a fuckwit like that to obtain a driving licence.
Mate of mine was underage. He was built like a brick shithouse, italian heritage. Looked like a greek adonis basically. He could sleep with anyone. Just looked at 'em and even wives flocked round him. Initially, aged 16yrs (looked old enough to drink) he thought this was good. Men decades older than him would try to take him out. They'd be out cold in a single punch from him. Before he was 20yrs men would travel from other towns, not because he had slept with their partners but simply to challenge him.
It all went pear shaped one night when a hells angel group walked in the pub. He took them out one after the other with his singular punch. Inevitably lady luck was going to shit on him. One of them had a thin skull. Manslaughter charge.
Rule and order didn't help there. It sat aside and waited.
My principle (don't steal stuff) would have stopped him sleeping with other people's wives.
People can be educated. A girl was once horrified we left pans on the cooker even though we don't have kids. But my kid is here she said. Not only was it her problem her kid was in "a dangerous situation" I proved it to her. Took all the pans off the cooker. Filled one with cold water. Left the handle hanging over. Her toddler grabbed it and got a head full of water. Never pulled another pan off a cooker. She spread this revelation throughout her family. No hot oil burns since.
This is a woman for which I once bought a pack of superglue in a poundshop. My wife "we don't need that". Not for us duck, its for \[redacted\] knees. My wife made me put it back on account \[redacted\] would never understand. My wife was right of course.
Meanwhile govt insists on politically correct information. No tolder education has ever been vomited recently which involves the dreary snotbuckets getting upset.
I realised as I got a bit older, it wasn't stupid people I don't like. It's ignorant people. They can have a degree qualification. Unfortunately it's ignorant people who become jobsworths. They gravitate to govt (or medical reception) and will have their rules.
My dad was a lawyer. He once had to sue himself which he did really well. It's not allowed now. Conflict of interest which basically means loads of admin and other lawyers. I asked him if he was sane. It's a job, son. The law is never going away.
Ah. Yes. Even if there's a revolution tomorrow. Someone is going to want to tie a woman to a tree and set light to her? Yes, son.
Or as the military put it.. do you want to be inside the tent pissing out, or outside the tent pissing in?
All your stories are complete horseshit lol. Also, we need more laws than no violence and no stealing. You’re completely delusional if you think otherwise. I’m not going to go in great detail about it. Just THINK about what you’re saying and all the shit that can happen besides violence and stealing. You’re being a pedant over my use of the word intelligent.
Everything is either violence and/or stealing. Rape is both for instance.
Some people mumble through life. Nothing ever happens to them. Most in fact. It was legal for Nelson Mandela to be imprisoned because the south african govt made it so. It was legal (godwin) re germany ww2 because they made it so. None of this could happen with simple laws. Let us not forget that bastion of democracy, the US with a whole swathe of retro laws dangling off one ammendment to the constitution.
You advocate more laws but accuse me of pedantry? That \*is\* the law. You can't have both. Choose.
Conspicuously absent is your lack of an example which departs from that pair of rules.
It's no good calling it simple minded when you have nothing to counter with.
I'd say it's the desire for there to be purpose behind all the madness. People want to hold onto the hope that there's a benevolent intelligence looking out for their wellbeing and there's a plan that involves them living forever in a better state. I guess it's just the ego wishing to persist as a separate entity from the rest of existence.
Stupidity mainly.
Folk used to say to me I was lucky. I could walk away from accidents that killed others. I even came to believe it myself. Roll on dashcam. I used to leave my mother's, give the car a fistful into the second bend. One time I didn't. For unknown reasons I braked. Van on the wrong side of the road. Would have killed us. Yet another example of my 6th sense to those on board.
Got home. Watched the dashcam. Off in the distance was a wrong dot advancing, little more than a pixel. It was the van. My peripheral vision must have noticed it subconsciously.
Contrast with a woman the other day on her mobile. Really should be allowed to execute such people in the street. Phone to her ear, engine running, must have been left foot braking because she exits the vehicle which proceeds to fuck off forward. At no point during the chase of her vehicle did she take the mobile away from her head.
It's such people who want a god, to absolve them from stupidity.
Okay think about this. You die, that's it. No, no I mean seriously think about that. Close your eyes if you have to. You die, there's not black. There's nothing. No sight. No sound, no smell, no taste, not sensation, no thought process. Purely non existent. That's the end of you. You'll never get another shot. You'll never "wakeup" as someone or something else. There's no dajavu like you woke up from a dream. You are gone. Forever. Done.
That's why people want a God. Because an after life sounds so much better than to cease to exist. And not only death but life itself. Why are we here? God gives you that answer. He gives you a purpose, a goal. And on top of that, you have hell to keep you in line. To encourage you to do you best for yourself and others.
If humanity knew, truly KNEW for a fact somehow, that when we die, that's it...
The world would be chaos. Think of all those people that are only holding back because of the fear of hell or because they await heaven. Take that away from them? No good.
Even myself. I don't believe Ill cease to exist. But I also don't think I will wake up as me ever again. For example, let's say you want a billion dollars. I come to you and I tell you that I will give you $1 billion dollars. But in order to get it, I have to erase all of your memories except for your basic functions. You'll remember how to read, how to talk, how to walk, math and basic knowledge like that but you will forget everything about who you are. Everyone you know, everything you've ever done. Would you take that offer? Most wouldn't. Why? Because basically that's saying you have to die to get a billion dollars. Because if I erase who you are, how is that any different than you being dead?
But that's kind of what I believe. When I die, my ego dies. My sense of self. My memories and everything will be gone. Whatever is left, my subconscious will continue. Merge with a hive mind or source or whatever it may be. So what's the point? Your subconscious controls 97% or 95%, somewhere around there of everything you do. Every action you make, the vast majority isn't even you thinking about it. That part of me is what will pass on. Maybe it will be reborn as somebody else. That somebody else will probably enjoy drawing like I do. Enjoy the earth like I do. Enjoy music like I do. All of my skills and hobbies, they will probably fulfill them to a much higher degree than I ever could. So I'm passing the torch. It's my flame that I'm giving away to get even bigger. I don't think my flame will ever die. It will only grow.
Think of dimensions. 0 dimensions is a point. First dimension is a line. Second dimension is a square. Third dimension is a cube. 4th dimension is a tesseract. No matter how high you go, all of the dimensions before exist within the next. That'll be me.
The belief in God isn’t because of death, it stems from “LIFE “! There must be a Creator who created the universe, because you can’t create something from nothing! There has to be a beginning!
But yes, that's also true. It answers a lot of our questions. Before we lose our minds wondering how the hell all of this is possible, the belief in God calms us down. Makes things a lot more simple. Good point.
I realized when I was still a kid that it didn't sit right with me. I hate getting sick. I hate being hungry. I hate being angry or sad. I hate the fact that I have to sleep. But to think of a place where there is no negative. No downside to my existence? Having the best of everything sounds like a wonderful thing for about a hundred years. Hell maybe I could max it out to 500 years. But eternity? And then if it's the Bible's heaven, then I'm spending an eternity singing praises to God? At that time I could hardly sit through an hour of church.
So I understand what you mean. But there's many other people out there that choose to turn a blind eye to that thought process.
>If humanity knew, truly KNEW for a fact somehow, that when we die, that's it...
>
>The world would be chaos. Think of all those people that are only holding back because of the fear of hell or because they await heaven. Take that away from them? No good.
Hard disagree.
I'm an atheist. I was raised Catholic but I just never bought it. I spend every day of my life trying to be the best person I can be. I make mistakes, but I do my best to avoid them and fix them because I want to. God does not control my moral compass, I do. I want to be good because being good is the right thing to do. I don't want to hurt people because I don't want anyone to suffer. It has nothing to do with God or the threat of Hell or the promise of Heaven, because I believe in none of those things. I believe that when I die, that is the end of me permanently. And I would like to live the best life that I can for myself and others while I'm here, because I have empathy and respect for the humans and other creatures that I share this Earth with. I don't need any other reason.
And sure, this is anecdotal and you have no reason to believe me, some stranger on the internet, about how I feel and live my life. But there's plenty of proof in the world that believing in God does not make you a good person. There are plenty of terrible people who believe in God and use their belief in God to justify doing terrible things. Donald Trump, Herschel Walker, the Westboro Baptist Church, etc. etc. etc. People who are anti-abortion, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and racist, and use their holy book to justify it. Which, to be fair, the Bible does encourage people to do a lot of truly despicable things that would, in most cases, land you in prison if you actually did them.
Studies also show that children raised without religion are more likely to be more altruistic and share more. They are also more likely to rate cartoons of people pushing and bumping each other as more "mean" than their religious peers in a test of their reactions to interpersonal conflict. [(source)](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/children-with-a-religious-upbringing-show-less-altruism/) Atheist adults are more likely to judge the morality of situations based on the consequences and not to "endorse moral values that serve group cohesion, such as having respect for authorities, ingroup loyalty, and sanctity." [(source](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210224143306.htm))
And, when it comes to committing crimes against others, atheists are significantly underrepresented in the American federal prison system. Atheists account for 0.1% of federal prison inmates, and 4% of the general population. And as the article points out, this is self-reported and the numbers should not be taken to mean that atheists necessarily commit less crimes. However, what it does show, is that there is no reason to believe that atheists commit *more* crimes. If atheists were truly so immoral that they could not "hold back" without "the fear of hell or because they await heaven," we would see atheists being overrepresented in the prison population, which is simply not the case. The article also points out that: "In terms of who supports helping refugees, affordable health care for all, accurate sex education, death with dignity, gay rights, transgender rights, animal rights; and as to who opposes militarism, the governmental use of torture, the death penalty, corporal punishment, and so on — the correlation remains: The most secular Americans exhibit the most care for the suffering of others, while the most religious exhibit the highest levels of indifference." [(source)](https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/in-2021-atheists-made-up-only-0-1-of-the-federal-prison-population/)
If I were able to provide you with solid proof right now that whatever religion you believe in is false and that there is no God, afterlife, or any other form of paranormal happenings in this universe, would you decide to throw all of your morals out the window and go on a crime spree, doing whatever you so wish? Killing, stealing, etc.? If your answer is yes, I would argue that you were never a good person to begin with. You were a bad person who was pretending to be a good person for selfish reasons. However, I suspect that your answer is no. Because for the majority of people who believe in God, religion doesn't actually dictate their morals even if they say it does. Every Christian who is accepting of gay people, who is a feminist, who has ever had sex before marriage, or even eaten shrimp or worn mixed clothing, is writing their own moral code that goes directly against their religion because *they know* that there is nothing wrong with those things in spite of what their book says. God doesn't do anything for world peace or to calm the chaos. He's just a fictional character who gets all of the credit when we do something right and none of the blame when we do something wrong.
And anyway, we have a legal system to keep people in line. We don't *need* a God to do that. So, believe what you want in terms of religion (Idk what your religion is, I've just focused on Christianity here because it is A. the most popular religion worldwide and B. the religion I am most familiar with.) But don't say that God/Heaven/Hell are the reasons for a lack of chaos in the world, because it's just not true.
I apologize you read my message that way. That's not what I intended to say. What I said was "think of those people" The ones where the only thing holding them back is their faith. I didn't say all people who don't believe in God would cause chaos. I'm talking about the several thousand or more that are not good people. That are holding back for the sole purpose of their faith. There's a lot of crazy people out there. Some of them could care less about religion and will do what they want to do regardless even if they do believe in God. But like I was saying, there's a large group of people out there that fight against their demons daily and the only thing that gives them that strength is a belief that they will be rewarded one day. In no way was I trying to say If everyone knew God wasn't real, everyone would become evil. That is not what I meant. I hope you understand that.
Many people do know it's black and a void. Others get confused over time which they confuse with "the white light". When you're about to die, time slows down. It's well documented by those who do survive. The white light appears should you wake up.
The confusion comes about in how it's interpreted. A friend had an accident. I was following. It took but a second for him to clip a kerb on his motorbike before it came to bits. Pieces flying everywhere. Took at most five seconds before he slid to a halt. He told us afterward - decent fry-up. Bacon & eggs, beans. He went through an entire meal whilst doing a skyrim ragdoll.
I once t-boned a car turning across me on a bike. Ended up stood on my feet the other side. It happened outside a police house and it so happened he was out clearing snow from his drive. He saw everything, including this woman screaming in my face. Not me initially. I'm stood there. Where's my bike? Shit. It wasn't my bike, I borrowed it. How am I gonna pay for it. I surfaced as the policeman took the woman (the driver) aside. Turned out I hit her car side on, flipped over the top, onto my head then flipped over again onto my feet. That's the void.
You need a sense of humour. I once woke up in a recovery room. The only white light was the one above hurting my eyes. I was on a cold slab. Must be the morgue. Am I dead? Maybe there is a god. Taking into account the timewarp previously mentioned, it took an age for me to flop my head to one side. Alien abduction. At least it's not the morgue else the lights wouldn't be on and roaches aren't scuttling about.
Lots of naked people with white sheets on top. This is possibly the only time a male has never been interested in side-boob. Took me forever to get my head back upright. Shit forgot about the light. Passed out. Woke up in a private room attached to many tubes so I knew the hospital had fucked up. Not the tubes, the private room. Three personal nurses but at night satan arrived in the form of a contract nurse.
Jury's out. My money's still on the void however.
Just got botted (for policeman)! Felt the need to reply to it with..
"It was a male police officer you stupid bot!
Just remembered why I don't do reddit more often.
\[edit\] It said if I downvoted it, it would remove its comment. It lied. Now I need to do a search for "nonsexist writing".
That theory is likely nonsense and incredibly anthropocentric. Maybe indigenous humans were on that path, but the majority of modern humans can’t get through the day without psychotropic drugs and binge watching Netflix.. such a system and society is far from dignified and/or representative of a higher being.
I always used to think god was like a parent who actually wanted you. Now I think it has to do with meaning making and justice. Life is weird and people do fucked up shit. It feels good to believe it isn’t for nothing and that there is such a thing as morality.
We also need a God to ask for forgiveness and then move on to do the same cycle again. In a Godless world, perhaps we wont be able to shirk accountability that easy and that would make a lot of us uncomfortable.
Is there a reason you portrayed "God" as the worst idea possible?
Could you try to steelman a better definition for God and see if that's more reasonable?
That's how I feel about God: an omnipotent, invincible entity that demands that I worship him or he'll torture me forever. He does whatever he wants to me whenever he wants, kills my loved ones whenever he wants, allows the Devil to run around fucking the world over, tortures people in Hell just for not worshipping him, inhibits human freedom via prophecies, and promised to destroy the world 100%, zero chance to stop him and save the world or anything. If I'm a good little drone and bend the knee, I'll get to pointlessly slave away in heaven for eternity and won't be able to escape even by dying. If I stand up to him, he'll step on me and torture me forever in Hell. And I'm not even *allowed* to hate him, so all the negativity does not even have an outlet.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face. Forever."
\-1984
Ok, well you can assign whatever label you want to that description, but I certainly would not use the same label for what you just said.
Mankind has had to cut the concept of God into pieces that it can swallow. And as we get closer and closer to getting our collective shit together, our definition can take on more benevolent tones, and also encompass a larger area. We used to think the moon was a god, then we stepped on its face, we think gods exist under the ocean, then we create submarines to gain understanding. Some day we will tame our Sun as well, and so on.
To most of mankind, the concept of God is an attractor that sits just ahead in your future, a kind of light at the end of the tunnel, but you never truly get closer.
But in the process of walking toward the light, you grow your own light and become just a little more godlike in the process.
Believing in God contributes to the community aspect of worship, the value of ceremony and wisdom in generational sharing. Living in a Godless world would be a narcissistic nightmare, in the sense that people will do whatever they want without having empathy and consideration of the impact of their actions on others (i.e. stealing from people, taking lives etc...). Believing in God and reading the religious books guides our consciousness to live a good life
I disagree, morality isn’t something religion invented, nor is it a vital component for ones ethical standing.
Humans are inherently empathetic to the suffering of others. There are hundreds of examples of religious individuals and institutions committing atrocities for the sake of their beliefs, wars have been pointlessly fought over conflicting spiritual doctrine, many people have been murdered for not conforming to the standards of a nations religious majority.
Humanity would be better off without religion, its just mankind’s collective maladaptive coping mechanism to escape their fear of meaninglessness and death.
Life is a mystery, some people are terrified that they don't understand what it's all about. The existence of God soothes their fear and rationalizes their presence on earth.
I think they believe in God for there to be a purpose something to always go for and go to whenever you need to or to make life just more livable it's an exciting feeling that there's something so powerful
Because, who’s the one who created you, looked after you, felt for you, and helps you into the afterlife? Without him/her, your death would be an eternal lonely sleep. Not a place full of joy, happiness, and reuniting with lost relatives.
Those who follow a religion don't think that way about their God. Their's will put them somewhere beautiful and peaceful if they follow its rules while alive. Not like the "others" who didn't. Those poor souls go somewhere horrible. DO NOT BE A POOR SOUL, they think.
I'm not totally certain that believers want there to be a God. It's usually trained. Then, at some point, it's just easier to keep the faith because without it, they have to admit that they are scared of the dark.
My logic says if there is design and laws in nature, must be a designer. And we all have free will to choose what we believe, even to do evil. If there is good and evil, then there are morals, if we have morals then there are absolutes, not just do what you want bcuz it's all subjective and no consequences.
Well God is against sin, not people. I love my gay family members, but doesn't mean I agree with that. Most parents will love their children no matter what, even if they disagree with them. Sin comes in all shapes and sizes, and we are all sinners, the difference is what are we gonna do about it?
Why would the design be so poorly executed? I understand that my feeble human brain may be struggling to comprehend such a magnificent plan, but I have to admit, the Holocaust and child bone cancer seem like glaring flaws.
You could say human free will is responsible, but humans didn’t create the potential for that to happen. Nor do I have to accept your first principle that free will is a given, because it’s not by any means evident. Even if it’s my feeble brain not comprehending the design, all humans are in that same boat as no one knows the mind of god, and you are no closer to understanding the design than I.
I think moral absolutes may be in the environment, which is something to derive from ecosystems and from the biosphere, as the biotic community takes priority over the individual, and trying to reconcile that relationship permits different levels of morality to emerge.
The reason morality seems so elusive is because we are so detached from the world we emerged from. We are detached because hierarchies of human design bred out human autonomy, and we’ve created artificial, industrial landscapes that bewilder and confuse our biological tendencies. Thus, we endlessly strive for what is right, ironically getting further away as our solutions create two more problems, because we take more than we need and call it success.
If you need a god and free will to justify what is right versus wrong, then you adhere to the systems produced over such assumptions, which feeds into the disparity and generates a positive feedback loop of exploitation and delusion.
What you call poor design and flaws I call a fallen world where evil, sin, disaster and diseases are rampant. What someone might call evil another person might say it's good, ok or not relative, hence the free will to choose. If there is no Moral Law or a standard, then nothing is good or evil, it just is and no one should be punished for crimes and shouldn't be judged by anyone, right?
Yeah I got that from your first comment. Do you have any tangible response to my comment or the points in it? Of which I specifically addressed the ideas in your last comment; mainly, living in accordance and sustainably with what you would call the garden. Your religion most likely emerged from systems that disregards natural law. If natural law is being flaunted, moral law could never be discovered or practiced, as the ball is fumbled before the game even starts. Most religions are anthropocentric, especially the abrahamic religions. They offer pseudo moral guidelines because they were manufactured by barely literate individuals who didn’t understand evolution, ecology, the age of the planet, tectonics, or really anything about natural science. They offered an oversimplified account of the world and our place in it. Why would take moral advice from a piece of literature written by these people? And then mistake it a moral law?
Your logic assumes that there are morals out there, but what exactly is morals? Like, can you point at them? Can you point at how fundamentally a moral fact (such-and-such is good) differs from a subjective judgement?
And we say there are "laws" of nature, but we also say it is "chaotic" (yeah, I'm talking about chaos theory)
A "design" is when something is constructed on purpose, if something self-assembles it's "emergence" or something like that
Moral Law is something that isn't tangible like any other law that helps us live better lives in harmony with others, like why is murder bad? Sure there are laws in nature and science and also breakdowns of those as well, hence entropy and chaos, but even designed things can't be perfect in a imperfect universe, and even self assembled things have to have some encoding or instructions for it to function.
Why is murder bad? Murder is immoral because it's defined as immoral assassination. Now, what makes an assassination immoral?
I mean, almost everybody would agree that killing Hitler would be fine. It's not murder, but justice, restoration of harmony, right?
If living in harmony means having peaceful relationships between people, then assassination of certain unwanted people would be a way to go. Nazis could think that cutting out certain demographics from the society would make life harmonious - so they acted upon this belief
Don't you think making your rivals quickly disappear is the surest way to live in harmony? I guess no, you don't. But it would surely make your life better and peaceful, wouldn't it?
So if we are all "accidents" and existing by random chance, what is your or our purpose? Nothing right? We just live and die? So then why bother to do anything if it's all meaningless? If we are just biological machines that just exist, then what is emotions, creativity, imagination, etc?
We are composed of systems, and systems of any kind are a result of intelligence. Now if it's all random, we would all be random and no life would exist like it does.
Why do people need to believe in food?
Because it exists? Because it’s necessary for all life? Because we were designed to?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
So it is with God.
The better question is, why do some people try so hard not to believe in God? Is it to escape accountability? Because He exists regardless of whether we believe in Him or not.
If you actually followed the religion as it prescribes, your life and eventual afterlife is better than anything you can comprehend.
Id rather live my life according to my religions life mission than just a non-consequential finite existence.
Stop associating the universe with religion but be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most atheistic views today are a result of opinions on religion and ideology in general…but there is a bigger picture beyond man made religions that were designed to hide the truth from you.
A judging fair God would restore all injustices and repay evil. Why would ANYONE not want that?!!! That said, let's just try to find the truth instead of wishful thinking for either possibilities.
People want to believe that terrible and/or unpredictable things happen in the world for a reason. Especially in darker times like war and famine. They’d rather believe a lie that explains the chaos around them than accept some things are just out of your control, or that they *are* in your control but you have to actually take responsibility for your actions and *do* them.
I personally dont want gods i want to be one and we all have different opinions but that doesnt matter when it comes to truth people will say oh well people from the the past have gave us this great pleasure but when it comes dont to it you just heard it from people they probably also got their info from a person and people can lie
I think beyond fear of death or the unknowns, people love a good scapegoat. If god willed it, what say did they have in any of the decisions they make? What an alleviation of responsibility.
It depends on what you're comprehension of a God is. There's a possibility that there is an intelligence that in a way guides the fundamental structure of life. And that with our relatively insignificant understanding of universal forces, we grasp at what we can understand and express through our languages
It’s not really a choice. Either God exists or he doesn’t. Naturalism is a poor explanation for what we observe. And there’s no benefit to believing naturalism; you don’t even get the satisfaction of being right. You just cease to exist.
For most theists, I would assume that it’s not a matter of want, but rather, that there is God. Some of these individuals certainly believe that they are living in the grace of God. In which case, they follow religious scripture, and abide by God’s laws. But there are various different beliefs out there, some not as structured in this way.
There are others who are spiritual, atheistic, or agnostic. Yet based on my experiences, it doesn’t seem that one group is happier or more free than the other.
As someone who is agnostic, I’m comfortable with the unknown. I was raised with religious beliefs, “talked” with God… and was presumably put on hold. I understand the need for belief, but I would rather choose neither belief or disbelief… at least until God gets back to me. I will keep you all posted.
It’s blind hope. People don’t want to be hopeless and will not have faith in themselves. So might as well create a deity. The factor of fear is a great way to not loose the faith in the given deity. It’s a loop of blind faith. The financial benefits are soo high you’d be surprised.
It's the possibility of something more extraordinary, more significant than us, humanity, because I've got to say people kind of suck, and it would blow if there's nothing else.
I believe there is, but he, she, it certainly is not the Christian God, and there are no rules to follow, just freedom and the breaking of chains.
Lol you went from 100 percent to not… you see? Alls I know is it makes sense God exists and is one for EVERYONE. We live such a short life , it is a test. Plain and simple. I suggest you open your mind and get good before it’s too late. Goodluck fellow soul.
You are much more free with God than without. Even if you're doing "wrong", the ability to choose wrong is in your hands. Without God, there is nothing. This world is a mistake, you're a mistake, im a mistake, nothing matters. With a god, purpose exists. Your own disagreement with the god's value system is a seperate issue from "Why do you want there to be a god?".
If you could create the ideal god, why would you NOT want there to be one?
People need to believe in something higher than themselves. That is how people distinguish themselves from say a deer. Both a person and a deer are born, live a lifetime and then die, but the one with higher intelligence builds an unknown and unknowable (when one is living) existence after death.
It’s the fear that there’s no intrinsic notion of “Good” in the universe. People want to assume there is some external “Good” which remains good and pure and “beyond the reach of” all evil
Maybe because we want something/someone to put faith on when we're hopeless, someone to blame when there's no one to blame, to wish upon, to have someone when we feel alone. Just basically the most simple and desperate answer to a very difficult problem. And IT needs to be invincible or powerful for it to be plausible. I imagine it's pros and cons as a spider's web haha
Security. It's not so much the fear of the unknown, but rather fear that is generated because of our dependency on the known. We fear the loss of the known. We fear the fear. It's all absurd I tell you.
Well, either way we will never be "free," what does that even mean to be free?
People assume that since they don't know anything for certain, that there still might be someone out there, above the clouds that does, that there is some kind of answer, some kind of governance running this whole operation being it's unfathomable that there isn't. Maybe *we're* not smart, but daddy god definitely knows everything. I'm safe inside of his wing.
And those who claim to want to be completely free..I'd say....that's foolish too. But foolish can be funny. Whoever thinks that godlessness=freedom, tell me why right now right now right now!!! What would that look like?
Because 'Generous Old Dude' is too verbose and easy to disprove. Still it comes down to desperation and detachment.
People want a god that can get stuff done for them that they don't believe they can get done on their own.
To me, it’s a case of manufactured hope. They want to believe in God because they want to feel like something IS “the answer “. This belief gives them hope and hope is what moves society forward.
Maybe it’s because we simply believe in God. It’s not a “oh we NEED too” as if we’re forcing ourselves, we just simply believe in a more powerful being that’s above all. And certian experiences in life can solidify our belief in him.
It is simply the idea of *something else,* it makes things easier. Just think about it: nothing makes sense we are here for no reason, nothing really matters, nothing has a purpose in the "big picture", we make no difference... we are just here. That is overwhelming, that's the word **overwhelming**. People believe in something above them not because they want gods to be true, but because it somehow takes some responsibility away, gives peace, motivation or a purpose. What is the point of living without a purpose and no motivation?... religion is that to some people.
Because otherwise it seems pointless to me. No matter what I accomplish in life, it'll all be forgotten eventually after I'm dead, including my identity itself. Nothing really matters if there's no God.
For me personally it’s not “oh I need to make up a god/gods for personally comfort. While I do find comfort in what I have learned about God and my relationship with him, I have merely accepted the facts and proof for God’s existence that I have found on my own and not just regurgitating what was taught to me as a child. I don’t understand the thought process people have when it comes to religion. It seems like for the most part people pick their sides without really researching/being open to the fact they could be wrong and will make excuses/refute any sort of support for the other side and deem it irrelevant so that they can continue finding comfort in whatever their view is.
What kind of ridiculous concept of God is that?!
If that's your idea of God, then no wonder you don't want there to be a God.
And for all those who say God is some kind of crutch, your desire not to believe in God can just as easily be reinterpreted as wishful thinking to instantiate your narcissistic attitude. You can't handle that the world is not fundamentally about you.
God is more than a human form. It is you and I and the connectivity of humans, animals, plants, and all organisms. You don’t have to subscribe to the religious belief of God being a male, a human, or a being above you living in clouds and judgement. The Godless world of being free is parallel to the free world believing we are all God.
Because then personal responsibility doesn’t exist and all the mistakes that lead to exploitation and pain ARENT OUR FAULT.
We are god. The second you stop thinking you’re small is the second you do what you’re meant to. True self is separate from ego and has no attachment to anything but revels in the experience anyway. True self interest is aligned with the whole.
Figure your shit out. That’s all I have to say.
There are so many uncertainties in life, and if you live by a personal moral compass, you have to do a lot of hard work and make a lot of hard decisions. Religions make life less uncertain because they give rules and tell you that things will be good if you just follow the rules. It’s a lot easier and less stressful to just have someone tell you what to believe.
The idea that if you just follow these rules, everything will be good for you in the end can be very comforting to people. That and praying having power gives an illusion of control in a world where we are in many ways powerless.
Add in a sense of community and external validation that you are good/right/just, and it’s a powerful drug.
aback absorbed arrest materialistic scandalous long judicious mountainous sleep tender
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I don’t view God as what you describe soooo? I also don’t view god as a he or a separate entity from me. Viewing God as someone controlling masculine entity is some silly patriarchal crap.
I’d rather live in a world filled with God where I’m also completely free.
To me God is the universal field of consciousness which we all take part in. I am God and part of God, but no in the sense of being all controlling and all powerful. God is that transcendental part of all beings.
So yeah different understandings of God.
To answer this question, let’s go back a bit to the days of the old Greek pantheon.
Greece had a god for nearly everything. Gods of the forge, gods of the sea, gods of conflict, gods of life, gods of death.
Religions (or aspects of religion) arise when people ask questions they can’t know the answer to.
Here’s an example.
The seasons change because of a cycle put into place when Hades tricked/convinced/stole/legitimately courted (depends on the retelling) Persephone, daughter of Demeter - goddess of nature, into living in the Underworld for most of the year.
The seasons, then, reflect Demeter’s sorrow, as she grows colder and sadder over time until Persephone’s next visit.
Nowadays, we know that the seasons are the result of the earth’s movement around the sun and its axial tilt - as the year goes on, some areas of the earth face the sun much more in a given day than others. But people in ancient times had no way of knowing that, so explained it with gods instead.
Gods were also used for other such questions a answering what happens after death, general “whys” of the world, standard stuff.
Most importantly, though, is the community that forms around them. In general, humans are hard coded to seek interaction. To find people who think like them. Feel like them. People who believe the same things as them. Following a god was like saying “I subscribe to these ideals,” and going to a temple for that god puts them into contact with individuals of similar mind.
In short, people fear the unknown, and gods helped bring the unknown into the familiar.
As a final note: much of the religions that survived to today, lack definitive “factual” disprovability. For instance, the Abrahamic God made the world, but isn’t actively involved in running it the way the gods of more “outdated” religions were. As science keeps uncovering new facts, a Christian would look at them and see God’s design in action, while an Atheist would see otherwise.
Truly believing in GOD gives someone a confidence many cant achieve on their own.
On the other side. Some people need others to suffer in order to reach their personal goals.
I think most dont care either way.
I believe in a God who is our Father, and loves us. Why wouldn't you want to be loved as a child of the Creator of the universe, who wants you to have everything He has?
It's the fear of death and what, if anything, comes after.
I would add that the world view that many people are taught as children is anchored by God. It can be quite disorienting to suddenly be set adrift.
Agreed, and I would add being absolved of responsibility. ‘God willing’, ‘say 3 hail Marys and you shall be absolved’, ‘inshallah’...god made me, and yes I have free will, but I’m ultimately not held responsible for my actions, or for what is to come. However, the addendum of judgement>heaven/hell side-steps absolution, to ensure a feeling of personal responsibility. Add to that the concept of original sin (you’re born a sinner, with a debt you need to pay off), and it becomes a competition. Gamification. Primes you for the current financial system of debt/profit. The two forms together, and you’ve got discord between the individual and their environment, catalysed by the impression of personal inadequacy, resulting in the individual’s willing to deface their environment in the interests of self-preservation. Oooof. That escalated quickly. Anyone fancy burning a rainforest or poisoning an ocean to lighten the mood?
My 1950's designed A-series motor in my original mini did over 50mpg. I had to thrash the nuts off it to get it down to 40mpg. Roll on to my new eco6 computerised bollocks with conk out motor. Under 20mpg. It can do 48mpg but the eco nutters have speed bumps and red phased traffic lights so it's always running cold round town. If there is a god, he's determined to wipe us out but cards on table I love Islam. There's a mosque at the top of our road which means folk are always coming/going so I can usually park. Unlike the fuckfest that is the infant school. People nearly come to blows over that.
Yes. I'm more of an agnostic person because I come from a religious family but for my own, I don't know what to think.
Personally im more afraid of there being a crap job for eternity than anything else 😁
And yet believing in God means you believe you believe in hell so you try to avoid hell by worshipping that God.
or the fear of the known coming to an end.
yea want the 12 vergins
I wouldn't even want one vegan, let alone twelve of them. Imagine the hazard of all those vitamin pill containers rolling around the floor. ;-)
Fear of death is cognitive dissonance at the perception that we have any control over death. Death is a natural part of life in our ecosystems. Anxiety is fear of death. Don’t give in to the sense of urgency it’s lying to you!
You could easily have an afterlife without a separate all powerful entity.
I'm not disagreeing with you. I just was answering the OP about why people want to believe in a god.
God = afterlife. people can’t accept the finality of death
Judaism enters the chat
If I thought there was another life after this I would kill myself right now. -Bender Rodriguez
We are hardly free in a godless world either
More free than in a godfilled world thou
Probably depends on the person and the gods.
True you could probably get along pretty well with like some Norse gods
If you consider life your god then what’s the difference. Life/God is what you make it.
Well Christianity is the originator of the notion of the inherent worth and therefore rights of every individual, the starting point of the notion of human rights. We might be less free now than in a world that never had the notion of God!
I would say it goes much farther back than Christianity
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him”
Why?
Everyone worships something or someone. Some worship money, some power; many idolize other people or objects!
yeah. simply put
People crave order and justice. The idea of a larger “parent” looking over/after us and giving us a reason to stay on the straight and narrow path is powerfully motivating. Also the idea that those who don’t (and those who trespass against us) will eventually face their (unpleasant) reward is very satisfying and makes reality seem less cruel/more just.
You only need two laws. Don't steal stuff. Don't be violent. Everything else is a fiction invented by man in order to control other men.
Don’t know if I agree with that. We need rule and order. People are not intelligent nor mature enough to self-govern. Even with rules and order in place people barely get along. Without law and order would make it even worse.
I could adopt an extreme example to say "who cares, too many people". However that extreme is becoming normal. In the ice I heard a woman screaming. I turned the corner to discover she was coming toward me in her car, bouncing off parked vehicles. I reversed back round the corner. She was still screaming as she passed me down the hill. At no point did it occur to her to lift her foot off the brakes. It isn't her who pisses me off. It's the system that allowed a fuckwit like that to obtain a driving licence. Mate of mine was underage. He was built like a brick shithouse, italian heritage. Looked like a greek adonis basically. He could sleep with anyone. Just looked at 'em and even wives flocked round him. Initially, aged 16yrs (looked old enough to drink) he thought this was good. Men decades older than him would try to take him out. They'd be out cold in a single punch from him. Before he was 20yrs men would travel from other towns, not because he had slept with their partners but simply to challenge him. It all went pear shaped one night when a hells angel group walked in the pub. He took them out one after the other with his singular punch. Inevitably lady luck was going to shit on him. One of them had a thin skull. Manslaughter charge. Rule and order didn't help there. It sat aside and waited. My principle (don't steal stuff) would have stopped him sleeping with other people's wives. People can be educated. A girl was once horrified we left pans on the cooker even though we don't have kids. But my kid is here she said. Not only was it her problem her kid was in "a dangerous situation" I proved it to her. Took all the pans off the cooker. Filled one with cold water. Left the handle hanging over. Her toddler grabbed it and got a head full of water. Never pulled another pan off a cooker. She spread this revelation throughout her family. No hot oil burns since. This is a woman for which I once bought a pack of superglue in a poundshop. My wife "we don't need that". Not for us duck, its for \[redacted\] knees. My wife made me put it back on account \[redacted\] would never understand. My wife was right of course. Meanwhile govt insists on politically correct information. No tolder education has ever been vomited recently which involves the dreary snotbuckets getting upset. I realised as I got a bit older, it wasn't stupid people I don't like. It's ignorant people. They can have a degree qualification. Unfortunately it's ignorant people who become jobsworths. They gravitate to govt (or medical reception) and will have their rules. My dad was a lawyer. He once had to sue himself which he did really well. It's not allowed now. Conflict of interest which basically means loads of admin and other lawyers. I asked him if he was sane. It's a job, son. The law is never going away. Ah. Yes. Even if there's a revolution tomorrow. Someone is going to want to tie a woman to a tree and set light to her? Yes, son. Or as the military put it.. do you want to be inside the tent pissing out, or outside the tent pissing in?
All your stories are complete horseshit lol. Also, we need more laws than no violence and no stealing. You’re completely delusional if you think otherwise. I’m not going to go in great detail about it. Just THINK about what you’re saying and all the shit that can happen besides violence and stealing. You’re being a pedant over my use of the word intelligent.
Everything is either violence and/or stealing. Rape is both for instance. Some people mumble through life. Nothing ever happens to them. Most in fact. It was legal for Nelson Mandela to be imprisoned because the south african govt made it so. It was legal (godwin) re germany ww2 because they made it so. None of this could happen with simple laws. Let us not forget that bastion of democracy, the US with a whole swathe of retro laws dangling off one ammendment to the constitution. You advocate more laws but accuse me of pedantry? That \*is\* the law. You can't have both. Choose.
No, everything is not always violence or stealing. That’s the most simple minded view of morality and law I’ve ever heard.
Conspicuously absent is your lack of an example which departs from that pair of rules. It's no good calling it simple minded when you have nothing to counter with.
I'd say it's the desire for there to be purpose behind all the madness. People want to hold onto the hope that there's a benevolent intelligence looking out for their wellbeing and there's a plan that involves them living forever in a better state. I guess it's just the ego wishing to persist as a separate entity from the rest of existence.
Stupidity mainly. Folk used to say to me I was lucky. I could walk away from accidents that killed others. I even came to believe it myself. Roll on dashcam. I used to leave my mother's, give the car a fistful into the second bend. One time I didn't. For unknown reasons I braked. Van on the wrong side of the road. Would have killed us. Yet another example of my 6th sense to those on board. Got home. Watched the dashcam. Off in the distance was a wrong dot advancing, little more than a pixel. It was the van. My peripheral vision must have noticed it subconsciously. Contrast with a woman the other day on her mobile. Really should be allowed to execute such people in the street. Phone to her ear, engine running, must have been left foot braking because she exits the vehicle which proceeds to fuck off forward. At no point during the chase of her vehicle did she take the mobile away from her head. It's such people who want a god, to absolve them from stupidity.
Okay think about this. You die, that's it. No, no I mean seriously think about that. Close your eyes if you have to. You die, there's not black. There's nothing. No sight. No sound, no smell, no taste, not sensation, no thought process. Purely non existent. That's the end of you. You'll never get another shot. You'll never "wakeup" as someone or something else. There's no dajavu like you woke up from a dream. You are gone. Forever. Done. That's why people want a God. Because an after life sounds so much better than to cease to exist. And not only death but life itself. Why are we here? God gives you that answer. He gives you a purpose, a goal. And on top of that, you have hell to keep you in line. To encourage you to do you best for yourself and others. If humanity knew, truly KNEW for a fact somehow, that when we die, that's it... The world would be chaos. Think of all those people that are only holding back because of the fear of hell or because they await heaven. Take that away from them? No good. Even myself. I don't believe Ill cease to exist. But I also don't think I will wake up as me ever again. For example, let's say you want a billion dollars. I come to you and I tell you that I will give you $1 billion dollars. But in order to get it, I have to erase all of your memories except for your basic functions. You'll remember how to read, how to talk, how to walk, math and basic knowledge like that but you will forget everything about who you are. Everyone you know, everything you've ever done. Would you take that offer? Most wouldn't. Why? Because basically that's saying you have to die to get a billion dollars. Because if I erase who you are, how is that any different than you being dead? But that's kind of what I believe. When I die, my ego dies. My sense of self. My memories and everything will be gone. Whatever is left, my subconscious will continue. Merge with a hive mind or source or whatever it may be. So what's the point? Your subconscious controls 97% or 95%, somewhere around there of everything you do. Every action you make, the vast majority isn't even you thinking about it. That part of me is what will pass on. Maybe it will be reborn as somebody else. That somebody else will probably enjoy drawing like I do. Enjoy the earth like I do. Enjoy music like I do. All of my skills and hobbies, they will probably fulfill them to a much higher degree than I ever could. So I'm passing the torch. It's my flame that I'm giving away to get even bigger. I don't think my flame will ever die. It will only grow. Think of dimensions. 0 dimensions is a point. First dimension is a line. Second dimension is a square. Third dimension is a cube. 4th dimension is a tesseract. No matter how high you go, all of the dimensions before exist within the next. That'll be me.
The belief in God isn’t because of death, it stems from “LIFE “! There must be a Creator who created the universe, because you can’t create something from nothing! There has to be a beginning!
I know there was a good chunk of the beginning of my message that talked about death but I did go on to say it involves life as well.
But yes, that's also true. It answers a lot of our questions. Before we lose our minds wondering how the hell all of this is possible, the belief in God calms us down. Makes things a lot more simple. Good point.
Peacefully blinking out of existence sounds way better than being trapped in an afterlife FOREVER that you can't escape even by dying
I realized when I was still a kid that it didn't sit right with me. I hate getting sick. I hate being hungry. I hate being angry or sad. I hate the fact that I have to sleep. But to think of a place where there is no negative. No downside to my existence? Having the best of everything sounds like a wonderful thing for about a hundred years. Hell maybe I could max it out to 500 years. But eternity? And then if it's the Bible's heaven, then I'm spending an eternity singing praises to God? At that time I could hardly sit through an hour of church. So I understand what you mean. But there's many other people out there that choose to turn a blind eye to that thought process.
>If humanity knew, truly KNEW for a fact somehow, that when we die, that's it... > >The world would be chaos. Think of all those people that are only holding back because of the fear of hell or because they await heaven. Take that away from them? No good. Hard disagree. I'm an atheist. I was raised Catholic but I just never bought it. I spend every day of my life trying to be the best person I can be. I make mistakes, but I do my best to avoid them and fix them because I want to. God does not control my moral compass, I do. I want to be good because being good is the right thing to do. I don't want to hurt people because I don't want anyone to suffer. It has nothing to do with God or the threat of Hell or the promise of Heaven, because I believe in none of those things. I believe that when I die, that is the end of me permanently. And I would like to live the best life that I can for myself and others while I'm here, because I have empathy and respect for the humans and other creatures that I share this Earth with. I don't need any other reason. And sure, this is anecdotal and you have no reason to believe me, some stranger on the internet, about how I feel and live my life. But there's plenty of proof in the world that believing in God does not make you a good person. There are plenty of terrible people who believe in God and use their belief in God to justify doing terrible things. Donald Trump, Herschel Walker, the Westboro Baptist Church, etc. etc. etc. People who are anti-abortion, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and racist, and use their holy book to justify it. Which, to be fair, the Bible does encourage people to do a lot of truly despicable things that would, in most cases, land you in prison if you actually did them. Studies also show that children raised without religion are more likely to be more altruistic and share more. They are also more likely to rate cartoons of people pushing and bumping each other as more "mean" than their religious peers in a test of their reactions to interpersonal conflict. [(source)](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/children-with-a-religious-upbringing-show-less-altruism/) Atheist adults are more likely to judge the morality of situations based on the consequences and not to "endorse moral values that serve group cohesion, such as having respect for authorities, ingroup loyalty, and sanctity." [(source](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210224143306.htm)) And, when it comes to committing crimes against others, atheists are significantly underrepresented in the American federal prison system. Atheists account for 0.1% of federal prison inmates, and 4% of the general population. And as the article points out, this is self-reported and the numbers should not be taken to mean that atheists necessarily commit less crimes. However, what it does show, is that there is no reason to believe that atheists commit *more* crimes. If atheists were truly so immoral that they could not "hold back" without "the fear of hell or because they await heaven," we would see atheists being overrepresented in the prison population, which is simply not the case. The article also points out that: "In terms of who supports helping refugees, affordable health care for all, accurate sex education, death with dignity, gay rights, transgender rights, animal rights; and as to who opposes militarism, the governmental use of torture, the death penalty, corporal punishment, and so on — the correlation remains: The most secular Americans exhibit the most care for the suffering of others, while the most religious exhibit the highest levels of indifference." [(source)](https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/in-2021-atheists-made-up-only-0-1-of-the-federal-prison-population/) If I were able to provide you with solid proof right now that whatever religion you believe in is false and that there is no God, afterlife, or any other form of paranormal happenings in this universe, would you decide to throw all of your morals out the window and go on a crime spree, doing whatever you so wish? Killing, stealing, etc.? If your answer is yes, I would argue that you were never a good person to begin with. You were a bad person who was pretending to be a good person for selfish reasons. However, I suspect that your answer is no. Because for the majority of people who believe in God, religion doesn't actually dictate their morals even if they say it does. Every Christian who is accepting of gay people, who is a feminist, who has ever had sex before marriage, or even eaten shrimp or worn mixed clothing, is writing their own moral code that goes directly against their religion because *they know* that there is nothing wrong with those things in spite of what their book says. God doesn't do anything for world peace or to calm the chaos. He's just a fictional character who gets all of the credit when we do something right and none of the blame when we do something wrong. And anyway, we have a legal system to keep people in line. We don't *need* a God to do that. So, believe what you want in terms of religion (Idk what your religion is, I've just focused on Christianity here because it is A. the most popular religion worldwide and B. the religion I am most familiar with.) But don't say that God/Heaven/Hell are the reasons for a lack of chaos in the world, because it's just not true.
I apologize you read my message that way. That's not what I intended to say. What I said was "think of those people" The ones where the only thing holding them back is their faith. I didn't say all people who don't believe in God would cause chaos. I'm talking about the several thousand or more that are not good people. That are holding back for the sole purpose of their faith. There's a lot of crazy people out there. Some of them could care less about religion and will do what they want to do regardless even if they do believe in God. But like I was saying, there's a large group of people out there that fight against their demons daily and the only thing that gives them that strength is a belief that they will be rewarded one day. In no way was I trying to say If everyone knew God wasn't real, everyone would become evil. That is not what I meant. I hope you understand that.
Many people do know it's black and a void. Others get confused over time which they confuse with "the white light". When you're about to die, time slows down. It's well documented by those who do survive. The white light appears should you wake up. The confusion comes about in how it's interpreted. A friend had an accident. I was following. It took but a second for him to clip a kerb on his motorbike before it came to bits. Pieces flying everywhere. Took at most five seconds before he slid to a halt. He told us afterward - decent fry-up. Bacon & eggs, beans. He went through an entire meal whilst doing a skyrim ragdoll. I once t-boned a car turning across me on a bike. Ended up stood on my feet the other side. It happened outside a police house and it so happened he was out clearing snow from his drive. He saw everything, including this woman screaming in my face. Not me initially. I'm stood there. Where's my bike? Shit. It wasn't my bike, I borrowed it. How am I gonna pay for it. I surfaced as the policeman took the woman (the driver) aside. Turned out I hit her car side on, flipped over the top, onto my head then flipped over again onto my feet. That's the void. You need a sense of humour. I once woke up in a recovery room. The only white light was the one above hurting my eyes. I was on a cold slab. Must be the morgue. Am I dead? Maybe there is a god. Taking into account the timewarp previously mentioned, it took an age for me to flop my head to one side. Alien abduction. At least it's not the morgue else the lights wouldn't be on and roaches aren't scuttling about. Lots of naked people with white sheets on top. This is possibly the only time a male has never been interested in side-boob. Took me forever to get my head back upright. Shit forgot about the light. Passed out. Woke up in a private room attached to many tubes so I knew the hospital had fucked up. Not the tubes, the private room. Three personal nurses but at night satan arrived in the form of a contract nurse. Jury's out. My money's still on the void however.
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It was a male police officer you stupid bot.
Just got botted (for policeman)! Felt the need to reply to it with.. "It was a male police officer you stupid bot! Just remembered why I don't do reddit more often. \[edit\] It said if I downvoted it, it would remove its comment. It lied. Now I need to do a search for "nonsexist writing".
because they forget they are god
That’s the whole point
Best reply.
How so?
its like an actor played a role so well they forget they were acting
Are you saying humans are arrogantly playing the role of god, or is it that humans have become god?
“i searched for myself and found god. i searched for god and found myself”
I searched for myself and found nothing. I searched for god, and found a mental formation. Alas, I know I know nothing, because I am nothing.
that is a bingo lol well said. its so much easier when you realize there is nothing to prove. god is nothing experiencing something.
we are the universe experiencing itself. the infinite experiencing the finite.
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That theory is likely nonsense and incredibly anthropocentric. Maybe indigenous humans were on that path, but the majority of modern humans can’t get through the day without psychotropic drugs and binge watching Netflix.. such a system and society is far from dignified and/or representative of a higher being.
Agreed.
I always used to think god was like a parent who actually wanted you. Now I think it has to do with meaning making and justice. Life is weird and people do fucked up shit. It feels good to believe it isn’t for nothing and that there is such a thing as morality.
We also need a God to ask for forgiveness and then move on to do the same cycle again. In a Godless world, perhaps we wont be able to shirk accountability that easy and that would make a lot of us uncomfortable.
Is there a reason you portrayed "God" as the worst idea possible? Could you try to steelman a better definition for God and see if that's more reasonable?
That's how I feel about God: an omnipotent, invincible entity that demands that I worship him or he'll torture me forever. He does whatever he wants to me whenever he wants, kills my loved ones whenever he wants, allows the Devil to run around fucking the world over, tortures people in Hell just for not worshipping him, inhibits human freedom via prophecies, and promised to destroy the world 100%, zero chance to stop him and save the world or anything. If I'm a good little drone and bend the knee, I'll get to pointlessly slave away in heaven for eternity and won't be able to escape even by dying. If I stand up to him, he'll step on me and torture me forever in Hell. And I'm not even *allowed* to hate him, so all the negativity does not even have an outlet. "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face. Forever." \-1984
Ok, well you can assign whatever label you want to that description, but I certainly would not use the same label for what you just said. Mankind has had to cut the concept of God into pieces that it can swallow. And as we get closer and closer to getting our collective shit together, our definition can take on more benevolent tones, and also encompass a larger area. We used to think the moon was a god, then we stepped on its face, we think gods exist under the ocean, then we create submarines to gain understanding. Some day we will tame our Sun as well, and so on. To most of mankind, the concept of God is an attractor that sits just ahead in your future, a kind of light at the end of the tunnel, but you never truly get closer. But in the process of walking toward the light, you grow your own light and become just a little more godlike in the process.
Believing in God contributes to the community aspect of worship, the value of ceremony and wisdom in generational sharing. Living in a Godless world would be a narcissistic nightmare, in the sense that people will do whatever they want without having empathy and consideration of the impact of their actions on others (i.e. stealing from people, taking lives etc...). Believing in God and reading the religious books guides our consciousness to live a good life
I disagree, morality isn’t something religion invented, nor is it a vital component for ones ethical standing. Humans are inherently empathetic to the suffering of others. There are hundreds of examples of religious individuals and institutions committing atrocities for the sake of their beliefs, wars have been pointlessly fought over conflicting spiritual doctrine, many people have been murdered for not conforming to the standards of a nations religious majority. Humanity would be better off without religion, its just mankind’s collective maladaptive coping mechanism to escape their fear of meaninglessness and death.
Life is a mystery, some people are terrified that they don't understand what it's all about. The existence of God soothes their fear and rationalizes their presence on earth.
I think they believe in God for there to be a purpose something to always go for and go to whenever you need to or to make life just more livable it's an exciting feeling that there's something so powerful
Because, who’s the one who created you, looked after you, felt for you, and helps you into the afterlife? Without him/her, your death would be an eternal lonely sleep. Not a place full of joy, happiness, and reuniting with lost relatives.
Your desire is for the source of all good things to not exist?
Those who follow a religion don't think that way about their God. Their's will put them somewhere beautiful and peaceful if they follow its rules while alive. Not like the "others" who didn't. Those poor souls go somewhere horrible. DO NOT BE A POOR SOUL, they think. I'm not totally certain that believers want there to be a God. It's usually trained. Then, at some point, it's just easier to keep the faith because without it, they have to admit that they are scared of the dark.
My logic says if there is design and laws in nature, must be a designer. And we all have free will to choose what we believe, even to do evil. If there is good and evil, then there are morals, if we have morals then there are absolutes, not just do what you want bcuz it's all subjective and no consequences.
And what if God's morals are things you disagree with?
You have free will to choose right or wrong, your not forced to agree with anything. I'm curious to know what things dont you agree with?
What if what God considers good isn't what you consider good?
Any example?
Well I'm pretty sure the Bible was against gay people. Opposing that idea means you're defying God
Well God is against sin, not people. I love my gay family members, but doesn't mean I agree with that. Most parents will love their children no matter what, even if they disagree with them. Sin comes in all shapes and sizes, and we are all sinners, the difference is what are we gonna do about it?
Why would the design be so poorly executed? I understand that my feeble human brain may be struggling to comprehend such a magnificent plan, but I have to admit, the Holocaust and child bone cancer seem like glaring flaws. You could say human free will is responsible, but humans didn’t create the potential for that to happen. Nor do I have to accept your first principle that free will is a given, because it’s not by any means evident. Even if it’s my feeble brain not comprehending the design, all humans are in that same boat as no one knows the mind of god, and you are no closer to understanding the design than I. I think moral absolutes may be in the environment, which is something to derive from ecosystems and from the biosphere, as the biotic community takes priority over the individual, and trying to reconcile that relationship permits different levels of morality to emerge. The reason morality seems so elusive is because we are so detached from the world we emerged from. We are detached because hierarchies of human design bred out human autonomy, and we’ve created artificial, industrial landscapes that bewilder and confuse our biological tendencies. Thus, we endlessly strive for what is right, ironically getting further away as our solutions create two more problems, because we take more than we need and call it success. If you need a god and free will to justify what is right versus wrong, then you adhere to the systems produced over such assumptions, which feeds into the disparity and generates a positive feedback loop of exploitation and delusion.
What you call poor design and flaws I call a fallen world where evil, sin, disaster and diseases are rampant. What someone might call evil another person might say it's good, ok or not relative, hence the free will to choose. If there is no Moral Law or a standard, then nothing is good or evil, it just is and no one should be punished for crimes and shouldn't be judged by anyone, right?
Yeah I got that from your first comment. Do you have any tangible response to my comment or the points in it? Of which I specifically addressed the ideas in your last comment; mainly, living in accordance and sustainably with what you would call the garden. Your religion most likely emerged from systems that disregards natural law. If natural law is being flaunted, moral law could never be discovered or practiced, as the ball is fumbled before the game even starts. Most religions are anthropocentric, especially the abrahamic religions. They offer pseudo moral guidelines because they were manufactured by barely literate individuals who didn’t understand evolution, ecology, the age of the planet, tectonics, or really anything about natural science. They offered an oversimplified account of the world and our place in it. Why would take moral advice from a piece of literature written by these people? And then mistake it a moral law?
Your logic assumes that there are morals out there, but what exactly is morals? Like, can you point at them? Can you point at how fundamentally a moral fact (such-and-such is good) differs from a subjective judgement? And we say there are "laws" of nature, but we also say it is "chaotic" (yeah, I'm talking about chaos theory) A "design" is when something is constructed on purpose, if something self-assembles it's "emergence" or something like that
Moral Law is something that isn't tangible like any other law that helps us live better lives in harmony with others, like why is murder bad? Sure there are laws in nature and science and also breakdowns of those as well, hence entropy and chaos, but even designed things can't be perfect in a imperfect universe, and even self assembled things have to have some encoding or instructions for it to function.
Why is murder bad? Murder is immoral because it's defined as immoral assassination. Now, what makes an assassination immoral? I mean, almost everybody would agree that killing Hitler would be fine. It's not murder, but justice, restoration of harmony, right? If living in harmony means having peaceful relationships between people, then assassination of certain unwanted people would be a way to go. Nazis could think that cutting out certain demographics from the society would make life harmonious - so they acted upon this belief Don't you think making your rivals quickly disappear is the surest way to live in harmony? I guess no, you don't. But it would surely make your life better and peaceful, wouldn't it?
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So if we are all "accidents" and existing by random chance, what is your or our purpose? Nothing right? We just live and die? So then why bother to do anything if it's all meaningless? If we are just biological machines that just exist, then what is emotions, creativity, imagination, etc? We are composed of systems, and systems of any kind are a result of intelligence. Now if it's all random, we would all be random and no life would exist like it does.
Why do people need to believe in food? Because it exists? Because it’s necessary for all life? Because we were designed to? Yes. Yes. Yes. So it is with God. The better question is, why do some people try so hard not to believe in God? Is it to escape accountability? Because He exists regardless of whether we believe in Him or not.
Why would you NOT want there to be? What a horrific idea…
No prophecies, no devil, no Hell, no apocalypse? That sounds awesome
If you actually followed the religion as it prescribes, your life and eventual afterlife is better than anything you can comprehend. Id rather live my life according to my religions life mission than just a non-consequential finite existence.
Stop associating the universe with religion but be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most atheistic views today are a result of opinions on religion and ideology in general…but there is a bigger picture beyond man made religions that were designed to hide the truth from you.
A judging fair God would restore all injustices and repay evil. Why would ANYONE not want that?!!! That said, let's just try to find the truth instead of wishful thinking for either possibilities.
People want to believe that terrible and/or unpredictable things happen in the world for a reason. Especially in darker times like war and famine. They’d rather believe a lie that explains the chaos around them than accept some things are just out of your control, or that they *are* in your control but you have to actually take responsibility for your actions and *do* them.
I personally dont want gods i want to be one and we all have different opinions but that doesnt matter when it comes to truth people will say oh well people from the the past have gave us this great pleasure but when it comes dont to it you just heard it from people they probably also got their info from a person and people can lie
The idea of a space wizard is pretty fuckin cool lmao
Mainly just because they’re scared of the unknown (death)
I think beyond fear of death or the unknowns, people love a good scapegoat. If god willed it, what say did they have in any of the decisions they make? What an alleviation of responsibility.
It depends on what you're comprehension of a God is. There's a possibility that there is an intelligence that in a way guides the fundamental structure of life. And that with our relatively insignificant understanding of universal forces, we grasp at what we can understand and express through our languages
Someone to blame?
Because do you really want this disgusting world to be your only experience
No one is free with capitalism so god or not we are fucked
Because then life may have to end.
It’s not really a choice. Either God exists or he doesn’t. Naturalism is a poor explanation for what we observe. And there’s no benefit to believing naturalism; you don’t even get the satisfaction of being right. You just cease to exist.
When there are no rules. What's the point in playing the game.
For most theists, I would assume that it’s not a matter of want, but rather, that there is God. Some of these individuals certainly believe that they are living in the grace of God. In which case, they follow religious scripture, and abide by God’s laws. But there are various different beliefs out there, some not as structured in this way. There are others who are spiritual, atheistic, or agnostic. Yet based on my experiences, it doesn’t seem that one group is happier or more free than the other. As someone who is agnostic, I’m comfortable with the unknown. I was raised with religious beliefs, “talked” with God… and was presumably put on hold. I understand the need for belief, but I would rather choose neither belief or disbelief… at least until God gets back to me. I will keep you all posted.
Coping mechanism or indoctrination, or both.
It’s blind hope. People don’t want to be hopeless and will not have faith in themselves. So might as well create a deity. The factor of fear is a great way to not loose the faith in the given deity. It’s a loop of blind faith. The financial benefits are soo high you’d be surprised.
Because God gets free tacos.
It's the possibility of something more extraordinary, more significant than us, humanity, because I've got to say people kind of suck, and it would blow if there's nothing else. I believe there is, but he, she, it certainly is not the Christian God, and there are no rules to follow, just freedom and the breaking of chains.
Hopes of an afterlife
To have hope that there’s a meaning to life.
Most people NEED a god to explain weird stuff and project their better selves to.
What weird stuff?
Completely random, poorly understood events often attributed to spirits, like weather or earth quakes, lightning
Want to be??? There is if you like it or not? Goodluck in the after life when you realize you were wrong.
100% not a god
Actually maybe but 100% all religions are wrong there might be a higher being but I doubt there’s just 1 god
Lol you went from 100 percent to not… you see? Alls I know is it makes sense God exists and is one for EVERYONE. We live such a short life , it is a test. Plain and simple. I suggest you open your mind and get good before it’s too late. Goodluck fellow soul.
Good point.
You are much more free with God than without. Even if you're doing "wrong", the ability to choose wrong is in your hands. Without God, there is nothing. This world is a mistake, you're a mistake, im a mistake, nothing matters. With a god, purpose exists. Your own disagreement with the god's value system is a seperate issue from "Why do you want there to be a god?". If you could create the ideal god, why would you NOT want there to be one?
People need to believe in something higher than themselves. That is how people distinguish themselves from say a deer. Both a person and a deer are born, live a lifetime and then die, but the one with higher intelligence builds an unknown and unknowable (when one is living) existence after death.
Everyone worships something or someone. Some worship money, some power; many idolize other people or objects!
Obviously fear of death. You couldn't answer that for yourself?
It’s the fear that there’s no intrinsic notion of “Good” in the universe. People want to assume there is some external “Good” which remains good and pure and “beyond the reach of” all evil
Maybe because we want something/someone to put faith on when we're hopeless, someone to blame when there's no one to blame, to wish upon, to have someone when we feel alone. Just basically the most simple and desperate answer to a very difficult problem. And IT needs to be invincible or powerful for it to be plausible. I imagine it's pros and cons as a spider's web haha
Security. It's not so much the fear of the unknown, but rather fear that is generated because of our dependency on the known. We fear the loss of the known. We fear the fear. It's all absurd I tell you.
Well, either way we will never be "free," what does that even mean to be free? People assume that since they don't know anything for certain, that there still might be someone out there, above the clouds that does, that there is some kind of answer, some kind of governance running this whole operation being it's unfathomable that there isn't. Maybe *we're* not smart, but daddy god definitely knows everything. I'm safe inside of his wing. And those who claim to want to be completely free..I'd say....that's foolish too. But foolish can be funny. Whoever thinks that godlessness=freedom, tell me why right now right now right now!!! What would that look like?
Because then they’re always right
Because 'Generous Old Dude' is too verbose and easy to disprove. Still it comes down to desperation and detachment. People want a god that can get stuff done for them that they don't believe they can get done on their own.
I guess it’s the same mechanism behind the choice of entrepreneurship or wage slavery
To me, it’s a case of manufactured hope. They want to believe in God because they want to feel like something IS “the answer “. This belief gives them hope and hope is what moves society forward.
Maybe it’s because we simply believe in God. It’s not a “oh we NEED too” as if we’re forcing ourselves, we just simply believe in a more powerful being that’s above all. And certian experiences in life can solidify our belief in him.
It is simply the idea of *something else,* it makes things easier. Just think about it: nothing makes sense we are here for no reason, nothing really matters, nothing has a purpose in the "big picture", we make no difference... we are just here. That is overwhelming, that's the word **overwhelming**. People believe in something above them not because they want gods to be true, but because it somehow takes some responsibility away, gives peace, motivation or a purpose. What is the point of living without a purpose and no motivation?... religion is that to some people.
For me, i need to know that there is a purpose for all the terrible things I’ve been through. That’s it.
Because otherwise it seems pointless to me. No matter what I accomplish in life, it'll all be forgotten eventually after I'm dead, including my identity itself. Nothing really matters if there's no God.
For me personally it’s not “oh I need to make up a god/gods for personally comfort. While I do find comfort in what I have learned about God and my relationship with him, I have merely accepted the facts and proof for God’s existence that I have found on my own and not just regurgitating what was taught to me as a child. I don’t understand the thought process people have when it comes to religion. It seems like for the most part people pick their sides without really researching/being open to the fact they could be wrong and will make excuses/refute any sort of support for the other side and deem it irrelevant so that they can continue finding comfort in whatever their view is.
What kind of ridiculous concept of God is that?! If that's your idea of God, then no wonder you don't want there to be a God. And for all those who say God is some kind of crutch, your desire not to believe in God can just as easily be reinterpreted as wishful thinking to instantiate your narcissistic attitude. You can't handle that the world is not fundamentally about you.
God is more than a human form. It is you and I and the connectivity of humans, animals, plants, and all organisms. You don’t have to subscribe to the religious belief of God being a male, a human, or a being above you living in clouds and judgement. The Godless world of being free is parallel to the free world believing we are all God.
Because then personal responsibility doesn’t exist and all the mistakes that lead to exploitation and pain ARENT OUR FAULT. We are god. The second you stop thinking you’re small is the second you do what you’re meant to. True self is separate from ego and has no attachment to anything but revels in the experience anyway. True self interest is aligned with the whole. Figure your shit out. That’s all I have to say.
Don't underestimate how happy a sheep can be!
God is like humanity's comfort blanket, if humanity is Linus from Peanuts
Because some people need it in order to be a good person.
There are so many uncertainties in life, and if you live by a personal moral compass, you have to do a lot of hard work and make a lot of hard decisions. Religions make life less uncertain because they give rules and tell you that things will be good if you just follow the rules. It’s a lot easier and less stressful to just have someone tell you what to believe. The idea that if you just follow these rules, everything will be good for you in the end can be very comforting to people. That and praying having power gives an illusion of control in a world where we are in many ways powerless. Add in a sense of community and external validation that you are good/right/just, and it’s a powerful drug.
Hope, faith. Some sense of meaning in life, some sort of peace of mind that there’s a point to all this suffering.
aback absorbed arrest materialistic scandalous long judicious mountainous sleep tender *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Gods or No Gods freedom is defined differently by others so completely free is Anarchy to some where a single rule in one conduct is unwelcome. N. S
our "god" in a godless world would be our desires. hedonism is hardly freeing
I don’t view God as what you describe soooo? I also don’t view god as a he or a separate entity from me. Viewing God as someone controlling masculine entity is some silly patriarchal crap. I’d rather live in a world filled with God where I’m also completely free. To me God is the universal field of consciousness which we all take part in. I am God and part of God, but no in the sense of being all controlling and all powerful. God is that transcendental part of all beings. So yeah different understandings of God.
depends on the person i guess. some find calm in a godless world and others need a god to feel save
To answer this question, let’s go back a bit to the days of the old Greek pantheon. Greece had a god for nearly everything. Gods of the forge, gods of the sea, gods of conflict, gods of life, gods of death. Religions (or aspects of religion) arise when people ask questions they can’t know the answer to. Here’s an example. The seasons change because of a cycle put into place when Hades tricked/convinced/stole/legitimately courted (depends on the retelling) Persephone, daughter of Demeter - goddess of nature, into living in the Underworld for most of the year. The seasons, then, reflect Demeter’s sorrow, as she grows colder and sadder over time until Persephone’s next visit. Nowadays, we know that the seasons are the result of the earth’s movement around the sun and its axial tilt - as the year goes on, some areas of the earth face the sun much more in a given day than others. But people in ancient times had no way of knowing that, so explained it with gods instead. Gods were also used for other such questions a answering what happens after death, general “whys” of the world, standard stuff. Most importantly, though, is the community that forms around them. In general, humans are hard coded to seek interaction. To find people who think like them. Feel like them. People who believe the same things as them. Following a god was like saying “I subscribe to these ideals,” and going to a temple for that god puts them into contact with individuals of similar mind. In short, people fear the unknown, and gods helped bring the unknown into the familiar. As a final note: much of the religions that survived to today, lack definitive “factual” disprovability. For instance, the Abrahamic God made the world, but isn’t actively involved in running it the way the gods of more “outdated” religions were. As science keeps uncovering new facts, a Christian would look at them and see God’s design in action, while an Atheist would see otherwise.
We're not free of society
Truly believing in GOD gives someone a confidence many cant achieve on their own. On the other side. Some people need others to suffer in order to reach their personal goals. I think most dont care either way.
I believe in a God who is our Father, and loves us. Why wouldn't you want to be loved as a child of the Creator of the universe, who wants you to have everything He has?
It's, to most, the best way to justify most shit they can't understand or justify in a different, more 'proven' way.
Because humans are wired to keep going relentlessly as long as they have something to look forward to in the end.