How many people believe in GOD.

I come from a very conservative christian background. I believe in GOD but believe that the bible is not 100 percent literal like most christian do. I don't believe if you are gay you are going to hell or an abomination like so many christian. Most gay people that I have been around have treated me with respect and class than hetrosexual people. I believe in good and evil and some of the so called christian conservatives are the most evil people around. Stealing money from people molesting kids. I believe GOD judges your heart not sexual orientation.

I don't believe in God. Would this be better conveyed through a poll?

According to this link

Demographics of atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nearly everybody believes in a god, a spirit or a “life force”. Though 25% of Germans do not, 27% of Belgians do not, 39% of Swiss do not, 40% of Bulgarians do not, 48% of Icelanders do not, 53% of Swedes do not.

If you were looking for a more personal response to your inquiry, I do not.

There are a few religions (or more properly sects) in direct conflict with what I take to be verifiable facts; e.g. the age of the Earth, the process of speciation etc. These are easy to eliminate from consideration.

There are a number of religions that propose physically unlikely entities; e.g. omnipotent gods who take a personal interest in individual humans, communicates with them telepathically, judges them and interrupts physical law to perform favors for those who are worshipful believers. These are pretty easy to dispense with as well.

There are a number of religions whose gods demand we worship them, who command we observe ridiculous rituals, who command we not practice birth control, or indulge in sodomy or any kind of sex not directed toward propagation of the species. These too are easy to eliminate.

Easy for me anyway. I realize that almost any religion offers good advice along with the bad. But then one has to use one’s own judgement to pick out the good stuff from the bad. So what good does believing in God do? I maintain it’s wrong to kill someone to gain what’s in their pockets. Suppose some religion maintains there a God who agrees with me on this and commands us not to kill and rob. If according to that same religion that same God commands that I stone my wife if she was a victim of rape, then I really can’t use that God’s commands as a basis for any moral belief.

After these eliminations there are certain quasi-religious systems that remain; e.g. the sort of pantheism that maintains the universe is God. If you catch me in a generous mood I might agree, the universe is God....but only because it’s a vacuous statement.

Here is where it gets a little tough. Gods, who they are and what they are, are delineated by their religions. If one jettisons religion and just believes in the gods, then one has the problem of defining who and what the gods are that you believe in. Frankly I find this to be a fruitless task not worth the effort.

There is also the moral question, "What do we owe to a being whom we believe created us, the universe and everything?" Do we really have to worship the dude? Can we really know it (the being) has our best interest at "heart" and we're not just a lab experiment? Etc. etc.

Ultimately I count myself an atheist (in the same way that people who have no morals are counted as amoral) because I do not believe that not everything in the universe (or the multiverse) isn’t a god (in the sense that I think the OP of this thread intends the meaning of "god"). The purpose for the strange and knotty locution of “nots” is to make clear what that I’m using “existence” as a quantifier and not a verb. More succinctly and with that caveat: I do not believe that there are entities in the universe (or the multiverse) who are gods.

believing in god is the human desire to be on the right side , contrary to the others who don't believe like them who are on the bad/wrong side.( it's so good to be on the right side , isn't it?.......)

the problem with that is that it's a black and white perspective , no other colors exist .

poeple who believe in god tend to try to force others who don't believe like them , some called it inquisition , others call it jihad , if such god exists , he needs to go urgently to see a shrink.....

..... for these last words there is a certain group of those who believe in god who will sentence me to death for insulting their god.

if such god exists , who needs him?

If you pray enough, if you proceed to certain gestures or actions, if you pronounce certain words, if you want it with all your “energy”, some thing will happen… It’s magic. To invoke a being that’s above what is, over it, and completely different from it, to explain it, if you imagine an immaterial being to explain the material world, you put yourself in the exact same frame of mind: magic.
God lives of our fears and of our feebleness this world of contingency.
Then again, we can’t help giving emotional charge or intent to meanings. We think through evocations and symbols. Can we get rid of God? Not sure. It usually comes back to bite us in the ass in any other form.

How many people believe in God? The answer will always be: too many. I call myself an agnostic.

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position. To believe that there is or isn't a God depends upon a certainty which cannot be proven.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position. To believe that there is or isn't a God depends upon a certainty which cannot be proven.

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I agree with that, although I wonder how many people class themselves atheists because of the increasingly extreme and strident voices of believers, whatever the creed.

Which is to say, I'm also agnostic, but for the purposes of debate in emotional terms I might call myself an atheist!

The burden is on those who believe to offer proof. Without that I'll live in doubt.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

The burden is on those who believe to offer proof. Without that I'll live in doubt.

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But they can't offer proof - you have to share and/or accept their blind faith.

I tend to agree with Patrick McGoohan on this one....

And what did our famed Prisoner have to say?

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Originally Posted by Prospero

And what did our famed Prisoner have to say?

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I am not a number, I am a free man! Somewhat Cartesian, to continue our intellectual exchange from elsewhwere.

Where duh... intellectual? When I hear that word i reach for my water pistol

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Originally Posted by Prospero

Where duh... intellectual? When I hear that word i reach for my water pistol

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This is only Goering to get worse.....

Put me down as an atheistic - I have no proof of a deity and suspect that such proof is unobtainable through evidence-based observance of the world.

I would take the position of Bertrand Russell

"As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a god. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a god, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."

But maybe Russell was wrong? Maybe there are many Gods. The hindus have millions. I am agnostic about that also - to a philosophic audience and to the man on the Clapham omnibus.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

The burden is on those who believe to offer proof. Without that I'll live in doubt.

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There are very few claims in this life that are susceptible to absolute proof. Certainty is a bugaboo.

Did the early masons have absolute proof that the Churches they built were architecturally sound? They had faith that God would hold it together, they had the evidence of experience that certain structures built of certain materials would be sound and they had an understanding geometry and statics that was current to their times.

Absolute proof and absolute certainty are never available. Unless one is a True Believer, there is always doubt. So what reasonable burden is actually placed upon a reasonable believer?

Well first let's ask what is a belief? To believe a proposition like "This building will stand," means one is willing to act on the proposition; i.e. build the structure and encourage a whole congregation to stand within it. In this case the burden on the believer is that the actions based on his belief do not lead to disaster.

I step up to the cross walk. I look up the street and down the street. No cars in sight. Here lack of evidence for the existence of cars on the road is evidence that it's safe to walk across the street. I look again... and while crossing I continue to check my hypothesis. The degree of my vigilance is proportional to the degree of my doubt. Nevertheless, I cross on the belief that no cars are approaching and that belief is based on the evidence (or lack thereof) and on my experience with cars, their relative speeds and the habits of drivers.

The burden of proof, is not a burden to provide absolute certainty and remove all doubt, but a burden to provide a sufficient preponderance of evidence (or lack thereof) and to provide a theory or an understanding that together invoke in a reasonable (and in certain circumstances a professional) critic a willingness to act as if the hypothesis in question were true.

I act all the time as if gods don't exist and I think in my first post I outlined sufficient reason for doing so. I have no problem with calling myself an atheist. Could I be wrong? I won't say, "No," but I will say, "My level of doubt is so low I continue not to believe 'gods exist'. "

Indeed. I fully understand this principle Trish. That is why I asked for believer to prove though perhaps i should have said offer some evidence that will sway those who are agnostics and even those who are atheists. I agree that almost nothing can be proved to be true - the very basis of science is to offer hypotheses that hold until someone disproves them.

However perhaps we should all go for Pascal's wager - that we might as well believe in God (even if we really doubt that he exists). The alternative after all, should he or she or it turn out to exist would be unnacceptable - i.e. we will go to hell.

I think Pascal was on the right track (all assertions of belief are wagers to act or not to act) but I think his analysis is way too simplistic. It only depends on a handful of payoffs that he pulled out of thin air and placed into a two by two payoff matrix. Evidence from the natural world, from science, from other cultures, other religions, from literature, from philosophy etc. are all irrelevant to his analysis of the wager.

Again, for the reasons I outline earlier, I think the net result of all these considerations goes against the existence of gods.

But each person must weigh the evidence on their own and make their own wager: Should I act as though gods exist(and if so how does that play out in my life...what would my behavior look like)? Or should I act as though gods do not exist (and hows does that play out...how would I behave if I acted under that belief)? Or should I act like I'm in doubt as to the existence of gods (and what does that look like)?

Tricky - because of course, if an omniscient being did exist he'd know you were just gambling and you'd still fry! (pre-supposing a Christian god that is. )

Indeed, Pascal's wager is a cheat. Belief in a proposition is not just a brain state, it is a willingness to act upon the truth of the proposition. This means the cost of believing is the cost of acting as if one believed, it is not merely a matter of changing your mind or assenting to the truth of a proposition.

So you better start attending the church of your choice.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position.

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i highly doubt that there is anyone who truely doesnt lean one way or the other
even if they are agnostic and not opposed to the idea that they could be wrong

Ah, but the rewards of non-belief outweigh the gains belief (an immortal life of servitude in heaven); I get to stay in my warm bed on Sunday mornings...or sit by my window, watching ducks on the lake while I sip my coffee and contemplate the riddles of the universe and the pleasures that preceded the day.

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Originally Posted by trish

Ah, but the rewards of non-belief outweigh the gains belief (an immortal life of servitude in heaven); I get to stay in my warm bed on Sunday mornings...or sit by my window, watching ducks on the lake while I sip my coffee and contemplate the riddles of the universe and the pleasures that preceded the day.

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I'm sure you can do all that with a religion - here's one for you http://www.venganza.org/2011/06/billboard


If you wish to hear a robust and reasoned argument against religion, play this.

The Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens debate.

Christopher Hitchens vs Tony Blair Debate: Is Religion A Force For Good In The World? - YouTube

Here's a little of Hitchens's opening piece


Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well. I’ll repeat that. Created sick, and then ordered to be well. And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea. Greedy, exigent, greedy for uncritical phrase from dawn until dusk and swift to punish the original since with which it so tenderly gifted us in the very first place.
However, let no one say there’s no cure, salvation is offered, redemption, indeed, is promised, at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties. Religion, it might be said, it must be said, would have to admit makes extraordinary claims but though I would maintain that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, rather daringly provides not even ordinary evidence for its extraordinary supernatural claims.
Therefore, we might begin by asking, and I’m asking my opponent as well as you when you consider your voting, is it good for the world to appeal to our credulity and not to our scepticism? Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs? To appeal to our fear and to our guilt, is it good for the world? To our terror, our terror of death, is it good to appeal?
To preach guilt and shame about the sexual act and the sexual relationship, is this good for the world? And asking yourself all the while, are these really religious responsibilities, as I maintain they are? To terrify children with the image of hell and eternal punishment, not just of themselves, but their parents and those they love. Perhaps worst of all, to consider women an inferior creation, is that good for the world, and can you name me a religion that has not done that? To insist that we are created and not evolved in the face of all the evidence. To say that certain books of legend and myth, man-made and primitive, are revealed not man-made code.
Religion forces nice people to do unkind things, and also makes intelligent people say stupid things. Handed a small baby for the first time, is it your first reaction to think, beautiful, almost perfect, now please hand me the sharp stone for its genitalia that I may do the work of the Lord. No, it is — as the great physicist Stephen Weinberg has aptly put it, in the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.

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Originally Posted by muh_muh

i highly doubt that there is anyone who truely doesnt lean one way or the other
even if they are agnostic and not opposed to the idea that they could be wrong

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You are probably right. I was a catholic as a child and I am sure there is a god shaped hole left there when I fell out of faith. Give me a child until the age of five as the Jesuits say....

I would take issue with Hitchens. The Christian faith dictates that we are created sick and then made well (the idea of the fall) but I don't think Hinduism, as one example, does this.

Speaking of servitude in Heaven, I’ve been wondering what sort of government they’ve got up there. Is it a democracy based on a free-market based economy? Is there a parliament as well as a King of kings? How easy is it to set up a small business there? Are there any pesky governmental regulations? Could I, for example, barter for souls up there, or would there be a regulation for that? I was thinking I could escort up there. Advertise the best piece of ass in an lifetime (an eternal lifetime) for one single soul. Sounds fair, right? I should be able to make a small profit. Oh wait, as I remember the Old Fart in Heaven was never to hip on sodomy. Damn, I bet there’s a regulation against it. Man, don’t you just hate BIG GOVERNMENT?

Well God forbid you'd meet people like Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, The Reverend Jim Jones, Jessie Helms, Ann Coulter, Billy Graham and all those ghastly tele-evangelists etc etc... that's oe reason to hope to go to the other place (though in truth I suspect that would really be where they are bound.)

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Originally Posted by trish

Speaking of servitude in Heaven, I’ve been wondering what sort of government they’ve got up there. Is it a democracy based on a free-market based economy? Is there a parliament as well as a King of kings? How easy is it to set up a small business there? Are there any pesky governmental regulations? Could I, for example, barter for souls up there, or would there be a regulation for that? I was thinking I could escort up there. Advertise the best piece of ass in an lifetime (an eternal lifetime) for one single soul. Sounds fair, right? I should be able to make a small profit. Oh wait, as I remember the Old Fart in Heaven was never to hip on sodomy. Damn, I bet there’s a regulation against it. Man, don’t you just hate BIG GOVERNMENT?

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I like this joke - it was in a cartoon.

Man arrives at Heaven's Gate and St. Peter says "where's all your stuff?"

"What stuff?" says the man.

"You are empty-handed," says St. Peter

"Well, they said I couldn't take it with me."

"A common misconception," replies St. Peter

Good one, martin.
I just came across an amusing algorithm for scoring the worth of scientific papers and their authors

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

.

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Originally Posted by trish

Good one, martin.
I just came across an amusing algorithm for scoring the worth of scientific papers and their authors

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

.

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Sadly this one is what we really do DO to increase worth of our humble contributions to human knowledge

http://www.enallagma.com/wordpress/2...-impact-factor

Depressing...and be sure to cite me on that.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position. To believe that there is or isn't a God depends upon a certainty which cannot be proven.

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I think I'm in that camp. Atheism is too much of a leap of faith for me.

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Originally Posted by robertlouis

But they can't offer proof - you have to share and/or accept their blind faith.
I tend to agree with Patrick McGoohan on this one....

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Originally Posted by Prospero

And what did our famed Prisoner have to say?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by robertlouis

I am not a number, I am a free man! Somewhat Cartesian, to continue our intellectual exchange from elsewhwere.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by robertlouis

This is only Goering to get worse.....

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Then, every time he tries to run away freely, a big, inflated, bouncing ball comes and gets him, not unlike the Gods for our societies. The metaphor isn’t bad at all! :)
But indeed, matter is the immediate evidence. It took us everything to eventually find ways to explore its nature. Anything that is said to transcend it should be what needs to be demonstrated. But we took the opposite route: we had to vanquish our spontaneous way of thinking it, which is symbolical, by founding methods to abstract ourselves from their emotional charge and magical value, starting indeed with Descartes, and also Bacon, kepler, Galileo. Even the very way we extract moments from the even flow of time, and events from the chaotic and infinite chain of what happens, to simply tell a story, is performing the same kind of magic the evangelist John identifies as the work of the Verb: we create worlds... It’s going to take a lot of house shaking and mind rumbling to get rid of the Gods without loosing what’s the best of who we are. And we’re far from achieving it yet.
I guess that's why I personally hold to my agnostic (do you say "agnosticist"?) position...

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Originally Posted by danthepoetman

Then, every time he tries to run away freely, a big, inflated, bouncing ball comes and gets him, not unlike the Gods for our societies. The metaphor isn’t bad at all! :)
But indeed, matter is the immediate evidence. It took us everything to eventually find ways to explore its nature. Anything that is said to transcend it should be what needs to be demonstrated. But we took the opposite route: we had to vanquish our spontaneous way of thinking it, which is symbolical, by founding methods to abstract ourselves from their emotional charge and magical value, starting indeed with Descartes, and also Bacon, kepler, Galileo. Even the very way we extract moments from the even flow of time, and events from the chaotic and infinite chain of what happens, to simply tell a story, is performing the same kind of magic the evangelist John identifies as the work of the Verb: we create worlds... It’s going to take a lot of house shaking and mind rumbling to get rid of the Gods without loosing what’s the best of who we are. And we’re far from achieving it yet.
I guess that's why I personally hold to my agnostic (do you say "agnosticist"?) position...

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If it comes to a choice between Prometheus and Zeus, I'm with the Titan every time.

Which makes me a Protestant atheist, I guess...

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Originally Posted by robertlouis

If it comes to a choice between Prometheus and Zeus, I'm with the Titan every time.

Which makes me a Protestant atheist, I guess...

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Feeble beings assembled around the fire he gave us, we know he’s having his liver eaten out while chained to a rock. As Nietzsche asks: can we face the truth? can we really face our own meaninglessness and the insignificant nature of our values and escapes? Can we face our own ignorance even in science? When the world of magic is still close enough to enlighten us with its reassuring façade? You don’t need to have someone who’s ready to kill and die to make a fanatic; we all are extremists of our convictions and certainties, down to the most common life. As said also Pascal (I’m becoming totally pretentious with my quotations), it’s either diversions (entertainment) or blind faith, for us; middle ground is unbearable.
I like protestant atheist: it has a nice ring to it. I could find myself to be a catholic materialist mecanicist with a belief in beauty. :)

A journalist, researching for an article on the complex political situation in Northern Ireland, was in a pub in a war-torn area of Belfast. One of his potential informants leaned over his pint of Guinness and suspiciously cross-examined the journalist: "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" the Irishman asked. "Neither," replied the journalist; "I'm an atheist."
The Irishman, not content with this answer, put a further question: "Ah, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?

From Richard Dawkin's book "God Delusion"

You are not first

M

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Originally Posted by danthepoetman

Feeble beings assembled around the fire he gave us, we know he’s having his liver eaten out while chained to a rock. As Nietzsche asks: can we face the truth? can we really face our own meaninglessness and the insignificant nature of our values and escapes? Can we face our own ignorance even in science? When the world of magic is still close enough to enlighten us with its reassuring façade? You don’t need to have someone who’s ready to kill and die to make a fanatic; we all are extremists of our convictions and certainties, down to the most common life. As said also Pascal (I’m becoming totally pretentious with my quotations), it’s either diversions (entertainment) or blind faith, for us; middle ground is unbearable.
I like protestant atheist: it has a nice ring to it. I could find myself to be a catholic materialist mecanicist with a belief in beauty. :)

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I do not believe in god
Christopher Hitchens vs. God (god loses by the way) - YouTube

I told god that if he can let me win 14 million in the lottery i will leave the industry.

I am still here with no 14 million so I can only assume he is happy and aprooves of my current career choice :)

Chloe x

A good Catholic girl returned to her family home in Dublin after living in London for several years. After a couple of drinks she told her mother that she had something to confess.

Her elderly mother - a little hard of hearing - blanched when the girl spoke and said "Holy Mary, mother of Jesus... you cannot be serious? " she exclaimed. "A girl of mine. What shame to bring on the family. Why in the name of the sweet lord did you do that?"

The girl was upset and explained: "I am sorry mother... but I had to make a living. That's why I became a prostitute."

Her mother calmed down and replied. "Oh sweet girl - I misheard you.....

I thought for a minute you said you'd become a protestant."