Which is better, believing in a god or not?

Convert or die. This is the way of the Necromongers!

I believe the Abrahamic god, even if he existed, should deserve no respect from human beings.

Science shows that IF he existed, he came AFTER humans. Evolution. In other words, he is a liar. He claims to be perfect, but constantly talks about his regrets in the bible about how horrible he made us. That contradiction itself is part of the bible and doesn't even need to be debated. God must be a liar.

He is not pure either. I am sure the bible talks all about slavery, women, and child abuse. And don't say it was "right in the cultural context", or it is a "metaphor". We're talking about the grand designer! If he writes a stupid book (Which never extended past the middle east until Europe's imperialism) where we can't tell the difference between what to take literal or not, then what the heck are we supposed to believe? Assuming everything is actually written by god, then that means he is a horrible person who has no consideration for human beings whatsoever!

Even worse he takes sides in wars and appeals to human affairs, puts horrible DICTATORS (Under the guise of monarchs) onto power, appeals to our fears, guilt, and fear of our afterlife, and he denies us of sexual act or relationship!

Is it a good god to appeal to the world for blind worship, rather than skepticism? To demand our eternal worship, and our praise in heaven?

And worst of all is he terrifies the world with the image of hell and eternal torment, where we must live in FEAR AND TERROR that our friends and loved ones will be tortured and burned in the underworld for all eternity!

What we have here is consideration of a human being as raw material, and fantasy of purity. As God claims to be a creator with a plan, it almost makes us objects in his cruel experiment, where we are created sick, and demanded to be "well".

Call it a divine dictatorship if you will. Like a divine North Korea, under the rule of Kim Jong-Il.

If god exists, he is an evil, ruthless, horrible being. And the mere fact we pray to him to save ourselves from hell is like the North Koreans who hail Kim Il-Sung to save themselves from prison camps.

A true god of purity earns our respect. Not demands it. We should not even believe in god as a creator because god rules with fear.

Jesus Christ himself is also equally despicable. When he came to earth, he told us disease was by demons and NOT by germs we know today with modern science. You expect me to believe he is the son of god? We're talking about a bastard who went around spitting on disabled people and showing a few of his friends he could walk on water, then preached about hell if we did not worship god. Is there ANY sense in that, when he could have been resolving famine in the world or at least TRYING to make people aware of their social issues and of modern science? But no. Instead he acts just as stone age as everyone else!

The whole Virgin Mary story is also fishy. For all we know, she was drugged up and raped. Hell, if people saw Jesus had a glowing head, I even have to think their water supply had drugs in it and that they were all high.

As Ryukishi07 once said: "There is no god without a curse."

Let's face it. People don't care about the logic whatsoever. As a human race, we tend to stick with factions and fight for them just for the sake of identity rather than seeking what is right.

That said, Stephen Hawking concluded God was not even necessary for the creation of the universe. And he has his own theory why the universe came to be, and made a documentary of it.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Also, this video should give Atheists a laugh on the context issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7P7uZFf5o

I think believing in God is important in some peoples lives...

Just like science is to gaining knowledge about the universe....


Who knows... we will see what happens in the end.


As crazy as this may seem.. there was a scientist on you-tube ( Asian) saying that God's existence can indeed be proven(0_0)..
He explained Gods description in 2 or 3 ways.
1: Infinite amount of energy somewhere in the universe
2: Vast amount of intelligent
3: created order of nature and its beings in a perfect manner

Sounds crazy huh?

I just remembered it now so sorry if I didn't mention it before.

I don't think either is 'better'. I don't exactly know what I believe in, I just believe that there's a higher power up there rather or not his/her name is "God". I believe that we all need something to believe in. As children we had the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy. Now, as teens-adults, we need SOMETHING to believe in, to have faith in and to turn to. Lots of people use God as their source of belief, others use Buddha, and so on. The only thing I think that matters is having some sort of belief in something, rather then not believing in anything.

It's always better to believe in something.

There's a chance of god existing and also a chance of a god existing who is smitey, say, a kind that throws nonbelievers into hell and whatnot. So simple scenarios here:
Smitey god exists, I believe in god = Escapes fate of being thrown into hell, possibly gain entrance into heaven
Smitey god exists, I don't believe in god = Burning forever
Smitey god does not exist, I believe in god = Whatever happens after death
Smitey god does not exist, I don't believe in god = Whatever happens after death
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So overall I'd have less to lose by believing in god. However, believing in god because of calculations like that wouldn't be true faith, would it?

Jesus christ. Pascal's wager AGAIN?

Let's be frank. The only, and I repeat ONLY god in all of theology that sends non believers to hell simply for not believing, is the Christian god.

Well, I'm an atheist. Let's look at what does actually happen, if I'm wrong.

When I think about this question I think about 2 very interesting characteristics attributed to this god. Optimal love...or optimal mercy whatever you want to call that, and the other being omniscience. And if this is true, it then follows that if this being DOES exist and I die and meet him, he KNOWS me. And I mean REALLY knows me. Knows me better than I could ever even hope to know myself. This isn't a being wracking its brain trying to figure out "Why can't this guy believe in me?" No, this god knows every single piece of the causal chain that led to my atheism. This being would understand that I am in fact nothing more, and nothing less than a product of my all consuming experience of life. Every interaction I've ever had that ever changed me or influenced me. Every action that ever caused me to care about theology and philosophy. This god would understand, intimately, my understanding and thought process. He would know my views on morality and ethics and know why I find my secular way to be better to approach issues better than to approach issues on faith. He would understand why I think that I would live a good life. He would understand why I think that I have made good choices, even if christians don't. He would be aware of all the actions and characteristics that I've seen attributed to him by christians, as well as scripture. He would be aware why those actions and characteristics seem undeniably incompatable to me, not just with one another but with the observable world as we know it. He would know about the time in my life in which I picked up a bible and read the whole thing cover to cover. He would know about my earnest desire to learn the bible by reading multiple translations including original hebrew to direct english. He would know the HUNDREDS of verses I've come upon which I found horrifying, or absurd, or completely incompatable with the notion that this was inspired by a just and loving being concerned with our salvation...even if christians don't. So it stands to logic that if I met this being I would be completely shocked, floored, and confused to see that I was wrong. And my only question would be, "Where did I go wrong in my reasoning?" This god would know that I took Truth extremely seriously, and would know I never doubted anything simply because I found it comfortable to not find it to be true. I wouldn't have to make any excuses for myself. the omniscience of this being would make me feel perfectly represented. All of my motives would be perfectly known to this being. He would know that I had preferred the existence of a loving god all along, and would love to worship a god that was all loving, just that everything I found was incompatable with the existence of such a being. He would know that I didn't observe anything in reality that couldn't be responsible to natural processes. He would know that my disbelief was perfectly compatible with everything I knew, and everything I thought. When I take into consideration the knowledge of this being, and the compassion attributed to this being...it's difficult to concieve this being wouldn't be, in some sense, proud of me. Proud that I had employed the logic and intellect he had endowed to me. I can't imagine this god would be offended that I had exercised everything I could to find Truth in the universe, it's hard to see that he would send me to hell for this. So really the only possible reason he would have for sending me to hell would be vengeance, as it's not a rehabilitation thing, people don't come out of hell eventually having been shown the error of their ways. And if it IS the case that simple belief is all that is required, and that rapists and murderers and thieves would all be welcomed to heaven with open arms simply for accepting JEsus into their lives, and I would be sent to hell ever lasting simply for not being convinced, honestly...then I'm ok with going to hell, because it's hard to concieve of how I could spend eternity with a being like that anyway.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Pascal's Wager is the dumbest reasoning ever for believing in a god...and if people actually DO believe for that reason, then it's a simple fact that they haven't bothered thinking it through enough.

Okay get some snacks it's story time. I'm a lot like most of you. I went to a private Catholic school up until the third grade to a public school. In the three years I was there it was fine. No one was trying to just throw their religion at me. I was expected to believe in God though, I've gotten baptised because of it. But when I went to public school the teachers taught me more about science. So almost immediatly I started to stop believing in God. At one point though I revealed that I didn't believe in God to the other students. They we're shocked at what I had just told them. The teacher explained that I was still human, though looking at it now I must have been a monster to most of them. God brought together a sense of unity at the Middle Ages. It gave men a thing to be proud of ,and an answer to questions. Science is basicaly another way to explain questions, and was founded thanks to the curiosity of men. It is up to you to choose what explanation you want to use.

I have yet to read the topic but it just came to my mind and I really don't want to possibly alter it by reading the arguments here so I will post this then read the topic.

Let's see your options:

You can follow a religion: From a logical point of view it is not a very good choice as the odds of you following the right one, as not only there are a lot of them but also variations inside of them, religions that are pretty much extinguished and others that possibly are yet to be born, are pretty low.

You can simply believe in God instead of following a religion - From a logical point of view it is even worse than the previous one as now there is space for even more variations.

You can not believe in God at all - So from a logical point of view this would be the best choice as there are no variations(technically there would be but they would also aply to the previous ones so it is still valid) so you only have to be right once.

But all the previously mentioned choices rely upon one important assumption(two actually but I will expand on that later). That such a being would actually care about what you thought of him... And if He in fact did then there is no way to know if he would find better not believing on him, believing wrongly about him or getting it right but doing things in his name that run opposite to it. So we are back to the 3rd choice as being the best.

However in the end the question itself already makes an extremely important assumption, which is that it even matters what you believe at all. Why should the Universe/God/Flying Spaghetti Monster/etc care about an insifignicant individual of a single species out of an absurd number of them in a single planet of a system like any of the other millions, billions in only this galaxy which is not even important at all considering how many others there are?

You can then argue that you are not important but that everyone is 'judged' well if it is a fair judgement it will take into account everything in your life(no point in following the 'right' ideal in theory while your actions contradict it) and it is not a fair judgement then why bother? You are going to lose anyway...

Personally aside from being food for thought or interesting for discussion I never consider this topic as I don't really care about it on an individual level.

The way I see it. Believe what you want to believe. Im paraphrasing something I heard or read awhile ago but if man needs reasurance that there is something or someone out there watching out for him and guiding him, let him believe it and not question it.

If you don't really care about whether what you believe is true and you just want to feel all warm inside then I suppose you should go with some religion. I'm something of an absurdist, myself. I suggest you read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. And I have to agree with most of the other atheists in here in asking the question: why believe in something there is no proof of? Current scientific knowledge tells us the Universe doesn't need a creator and even if it did that only justifies deism. There is no reason to believe in any of the religious systems either outside of the old "I was raised that way" cliche. Do what you want. Nothing you do will stop the universe from expanding or the human race from going extinct.

"Current scientific knowledge tells us the Universe doesn't need a creator..."

Wait what? That sentence makes no sense, science says nothing about any kind of creator or lack of such. What science does is study nature, that's all. You may have heard some people say Big Bang is the begining but those people are fools.

Science makes no statements. Science is the art of making questions, each answer is a very small and mostly unimportant step in that goal though we tend to care more about the answers. When asked why an apple fall, saying because of gravity is no different(in principle) from saying because of God, or because I want it to be. What makes science different is that it asks again, and again, and again. There is no final answer, science keeps asking and this is what defines science. It is also the reason it can't make any staments because it is always asking new questions, getting new answers and from time to time rewriting old ones.

Well that is at an ideal world as in the real one we are limited by ourselves(obviously) so there is a bit of a leeway of what is considered a fact.

I believe in god. No doubt about that. But that does not mean I doubt him. He is seen as all powerful yet look at the world he"governs" over. The states its in. If hes so powerful why doesn't he do something useful. Honestly I people have a father complex and just want someone or something to govern over them. Something to have faith in. But why have faith in someone who does nothing. And what proof do we have that anything in the bible is real. For all we know it could have been a fictionalnovel. So decide upon yourself which is better.

Science proves that there is no GOD?That is completely insane.Tell you what,I tell you guys an analogy.
If there is a building, there must be an architect.If there is a picture, there must be an artist.If there is a sculpture,there must be a sculptor.The point is when there is creation,there is a Creator.You're telling me if you drop
a droplet of water to the ground, it will magically evolve into a sea?!These things do not evolve,and do not come from nothing.They were created by some absolute mighty intelligent being who is God.

I say believe in what you want to. If you want a god then ok pick a god but if not then don't bother. Even if its not the belief in a "god" but a higher power entity at work then that's fine too.

Neither. I believe it's important to have ideas.. ideas that imply that your life is important enough not to waste.

But .. morals, beliefs... are all relative to each individual. No two people will have exactly the same idea of how one should spend their life. I think Faith itself is important... not so much what you have Faith in.

The very idea for this thread is fundamentally subjective... The question being asked implies there is a 'best' option.

Ok, so you're saying that is God created by other intelligent being?
Ok,the characteristic of God is God must not be created.All humans believe that when there is a beginning, there must be an end,right?
If God,himself, the very beginning of all beings is created,then there will be no beginning or an ending.
Because your statement is to say that God is created by another supreme being.
Then you're saying that the supreme being is also created by other more supreme being.And then the higher rank of the supreme being created by another higher supreme being.Where is the beginning?Where is the ending of these creation?
I'm sorry to say but your statement is not logical and irrational.Your statement is contradicting the logical fact in what human believes.It's as if you want to shoot me,but first you have to ask the permission of your friend who wants to shoot you.Then your friend also have to ask permission to shoot you from a killer who wants to shoot him.Then the cycle goes around.It does not end.There is no ending in this situation where everyone is asking permission to do something.

Like I said,God remains uncreated.He is the beginning of all things and he is also the ending of all things.

I believe in God, though..
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Life has been bit too hard for everybody, and its hard to survive on your own. You need something so powerful to hold on.
And even if this is not the site to say such things, im just merely giving an opinion (since you asking a question).
Its also good to believe in yourself, or believe in anyone...
But ask first what's your purpose of being here, or how things are created...
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AMEN!