Does God Exist?

[Snelly]

After starting one contentious thread and seeing the excitement and energy (not all of it positive) it brought, I thought I would start another. I thought religion might be a calmer debate than forum moderation so here goes....

Does God exist? Well the answer is no in my opinion but plenty would disagree.

Here are a few thoughts to start things off.... not my original thinking, just copied in.

There are literally thousands of religions being practiced today. Here are 20 of the most popular, along with an estimate of the number of followers:

1. Christianity: 2.1 billion
2. Islam: 1.3 billion
3. Hinduism: 900 million
4. Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
5. Buddhism: 376 million
6. African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
7. Sikhism: 23 million
8. Juche: 19 million
9. Spiritism: 15 million
10. Judaism: 14 million
11. Baha'i: 7 million
12. Jainism: 4.2 million
13. Shinto: 4 million
14. Cao Dai: 4 million
15. Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
16. Tenrikyo: 2 million
17. Neo-Paganism: 1 million
18. Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
19. Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
20. Scientology: 500 thousand

[Source: Encyclopedia
Britannica]

If you believe in God, you have chosen to reject Allah, Vishnu, Budda, Waheguru and all of the thousands of other gods that other people worship today. It is quite likely that you rejected these other gods without ever looking into their religions or reading their books. You simply absorbed the dominant faith in your home or in the society you grew up in.

In the same way, the followers of all these other religions have chosen to reject God. You think their gods are maginary, and they think your God is imaginary.
In other words, each religious person on earth today arbitrarily rejects thousands of gods as imaginary, many of which he/she has never even heard of, and arbitrarily chooses to "believe" in one of them.
The following quote from Stephen F. Roberts sums up the situation very nicely:

• "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

A rational person rejects all human gods equally, because all of them are equally imaginary. How do we know that they are imaginary? Simply imagine that one of them is real. If one of these thousands of gods were actually real, then his followers would be experiencing real, undeniable benefits. These benefits would be obvious to everyone. The followers of a true god would pray, and their prayers would be answered. The followers of a true god would therefore live longer, have fewer diseases, have lots more money, etc. There would be thousands of statistical markers surrounding the followers of a true god.

Everyone would notice all of these benefits, and they would gravitate toward this true god. And thus, over the course of several centuries, everyone would be aligned on the one true god. All the other false gods would have fallen by the
wayside long ago, and there would be only one religion under the one true god.

When we look at our world today, we see nothing like that. There are two billion Christians AND there are more than one billion Muslims, and their religions are mutually exclusive. There are thousands of other religions. When you analyse any of them, they all show a remarkable similarity - there is no evidence that any of these gods exist. That is how we know that they are all imaginary.


Food for thought? Certainly beats arguing about golf club dress codes and over zealous moderation.

 

[Imurg]

I Iook to a lyric written by Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy...

If God is in the Heavens, why does God let Children die?

 

[bladeplayer]

2 subjects garunteed to start a row or a least a heated debate , Religion & Politics ..

Does God Exist ? on a personal note for me , Yes i believe in God , & you would be correct to say i havent read into any other religions at all ,

I would never question or disrespect anyones beliefs tho , if you have a faith in something i dont believe in , who am i to say you are right or wrong ...

I "try" to live my life on the ethos of "treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself" i dont think you can go far wrong on that ..

Imurg . it is a good question & a question i have often asked & never recieved what i would precieve to be a good enough answer ..

 

[Lawrence22]

I don't believe in Santa, Pixies, Dragons, elves or the tooth Fairy as there is no scientific evidence to prove they exist. For the same reason I don't believe in any of the above gods.

 

[Alex1975]

I will be careful here as I am aware that organised religion is some peoples everything. My mother and father are proper god botherers, they run groups and do collections and all sorts. They think they are great people yet they live in a million pound house and spunk money like water that clearly could be used for the greater good of their comunity. They will take any possible opportunity to talk about their god and ram it down your neck that you will be going to hell if you do not commit to their god yet they covert BMWs and £60k kitchen refurbishments... and they think I am missing the meaning of life??


There is no god, believe in yourself, believe in your wife, believe in your childeren... its all about love, its that simple. Through yourself in to these things and you will not need to believe in a faulse god.

Edit: This is all my opinion....

 

[timchump]

Do you want to start a war? ; - )

 

[palindromicbob]

If we live by the main messages of most of the major religions then the world would be quiet a happy place. Trouble is they all have so much additional dogma the basic message of peace and love to fellow men gets lost. Islam, Judaism, Christianity is actually all the same god with twists on the systems dogma. So there is 3 religions with the same god and none of them can agree. If there is a god I think he is rolling his eyes and letting things free wheel.
Personally I'd say my views fall toward atheism. I'd don't believe in god but do believe in a universal oneness if that makes sense.

 

[walshawwhippet]

Ahhh... An intelligent and well written post Snelly. :thup:
If i have one critisism though it is the omission of the one true god that is Brian Johnson.:lol:

 

[chrisd]

For me, you cant believe in both creation and evolution, so, no, God does not exist. Furthermore, I see religion as control of the masses - if you tell people that they will be denied an "afterlife" unless they do as you tell them, you have control of their actions during their life and therefore, for good or bad, power is vested in the people running the religion/country

 

[Alex1975]

For me, you cant believe in both creation and evolution, so, no, God does not exist. Furthermore, I see religion as control of the masses - if you tell people that they will be denied an "afterlife" unless they do as you tell them, you have control of their actions during their life and therefore, for good or bad, power is vested in the people running the religion/country

Love this, its so true....

Edit: In my opinon

 

[SocketRocket]

Christianity and Islam worship the same God, the Bible and Koran both have the same story up to the Abraham. Muslims actually believe there was a Prophet called Jesus. Some of the other religions you mention also follow the same God.

 

[Snelly]

Christianity and Islam worship the same God, the Bible and Koran both have the same story up to the Abraham. Muslims actually believe there was a Prophet called Jesus. Some of the other religions you mention also follow the same God.

Sort of.

If the other gods argument is not fully valid for you then there is a very good website here http://www.yourgodisimaginary.com/index.htm that has 49 other pretty well constructed arguments that point to all gods being imaginary.

It makes interesting reading, irrespective of your religious persuasion.

And I am not trying to cause offence to anyone who has faith.

 

[BROOKIE]

My father used to say "god is your concience,therefore I_am God"..

 

[FairwayDodger]

The very idea is absurd.

I'd respect people's "right" to believe if they did it privately and didn't try to impose their fiction on others. However, organised religions are unable to do that so I consider them responsible for much of the ill in the world.

 

[Captainron]

Nope. Nowt up there or any blooming where.

People can get on with church etc as long as they don't try and preach their tosh to me. There are loads of these freaky well dressed teenagers patrollign at the moment trying to get people to join the Jehovahs. I enjoy wasting their time and getting their hopes up before I then try and convert them to a random religeon. They soon leave

 

[PhilTheFragger]

I have the utmost respect for people of faith, whatever that faith might be, as long as they dont try to force their faith down my throat or try to kill me because I do not share their faith.

However I feel that religion was bought in to control the uneducated masses of pre history, The only people who had any education were the priests or nobility, therefore fire and brimstone were used to control the masses.

Once people started to read and to think and question, the priests lost that control .After all, The Bible's contents were decided by a committee

I do however believe in the collective power of human good. Good things happen when people of a like mind come together .

I also like Churches, the buildings that is, I find them very peaceful.

The concept of a God is one I have trouble believing in

However I do believe in The Golfing Gods and sacrifice balls to them regularly

Fragger

 

[One Planer]

I think science has proved, to me anyway, beyond reasonable doubt that there is no god.

Carbon dating. Theory of evolution. Big bang theory (Not the TV program ). Atomic and sub-atomic science the list is endless of the kind of science that we now understand.

Life, science, pretty much everything we know is far complex to be engineered by a mystical being. Just my opinion but I stand by it.

 

[Andy808]

No.
Religion and god, whichever one you want to believe in, is just another method to control the masses. Unfortunately too many are far too passionate about their beliefs and now wars are faught over who is right or wrong.

 

[cookelad]

... and now wars are faught over who is right or wrong.

Now???

 

[john0]

I was under the impression that God was a Moderator on this forum...........