When did you stop believing in god?

[Genius Gone Insane]

Very interesting thread. I find it strange that there are no posts here asking how to define God in this question. I would have expected at least a few more people here to say they believe there is some sort of deity out there.

I never stopped "believing" in God. But I wasn't raised in some fucked up mormon cult either. There is too much weird shit that has happened to me in my life for me not to believe in some sort of higher being. I can only blame so many things on coincidence. It very well could be the Earth at work somehow, maybe Allah, maybe Jesus, who knows.

Science was mentioned several times here. What irks me is that people today somehow think science is this ultimate, flawless, truth. But science is really similar to religion in many ways. A key difference that was mentioned is that science is adaptable to change and religion is not. Very true, and it is a valid argument that I struggle with often. However, I think science is held in too high an esteem right now. Scientists are saying they've nailed the birth of the universe to around 18 billion years or so. I can't help but laugh when I read that. We do not understand how gravity works. How could you possibly know the age of the universe when you don't know how the most fundamental force (that we know of) works? I'll resist digressing on that. Point is, in my opinion, "believing" in science requires a leap of faith on its own. At least on a cosmological level.

Also by the way, why would nature have itself cooked up in a way that we will never understand it? I am of course referring to quantum mechanics. That in itself should tell you something. Anyway, I am not debating. Just stating my opinion. I respect that most of you do not believe in any form of god. I just don't get it.

One last thing, and this is fact: in the end, you really only have one thing left to turn to. I see no value in closing that door.

 

[xFkx]

Science was mentioned several times here. What irks me is that people today somehow think science is this ultimate, flawless, truth. But science is really similar to religion in many ways. A key difference that was mentioned is that science is adaptable to change and religion is not. Very true, and it is a valid argument that I struggle with often. However, I think science is held in too high an esteem right now. Scientists are saying they've nailed the birth of the universe to around 18 billion years or so. I can't help but laugh when I read that. We do not understand how gravity works. How could you possibly know the age of the universe when you don't know how the most fundamental force (that we know of) works? I'll resist digressing on that. Point is, in my opinion, "believing" in science requires a leap of faith on its own. At least on a cosmological level.

Maybe you misinterpret the words of some people, they are saying that science is the way to go when it comes to a system that allows for discovering, defining, and learning about the world around us, it's not "the ultimate truth" in itself. If you're trying to disregard the importance of science due to it now knowing about something right now (and i'm guessing we don't know like.. 95% of the stuff about our reality), then it's kind of not fair in my eyes. But I understand that there is a demand for the absolute, the endless and almighty and all-knowing, and I guess i know where people can find that

 

[Notuern]

When did i start?
My mom sent me to "kyrkans barntimmar" when i was about 5(Like a christian preschool in Sweden.).. when it was time to pray i always refused because i didn't understand the reason behind it, so they told me that i should pray to god that sit in the heavens and watches over us to take care of my family etc..
I responded by laughing and mocking them for being grown ups with imaginary friends, and that was my last day there.

I didn't understand the concept of a "god" back then and i don't understand it now either.. i find it just as rediculous as believing in unicorns and the tooth fairy(Hey, ive seen more proof of the tooth fairy in my days!).

 

[UncleBob]

Science was mentioned several times here. What irks me is that people today somehow think science is this ultimate, flawless, truth. But science is really similar to religion in many ways. A key difference that was mentioned is that science is adaptable to change and religion is not. Very true, and it is a valid argument that I struggle with often. However, I think science is held in too high an esteem right now. Scientists are saying they've nailed the birth of the universe to around 18 billion years or so. I can't help but laugh when I read that. We do not understand how gravity works. How could you possibly know the age of the universe when you don't know how the most fundamental force (that we know of) works? I'll resist digressing on that. Point is, in my opinion, "believing" in science requires a leap of faith on its own. At least on a cosmological level.

Also by the way, why would nature have itself cooked up in a way that we will never understand it? I am of course referring to quantum mechanics. That in itself should tell you something. Anyway, I am not debating. Just stating my opinion. I respect that most of you do not believe in any form of god. I just don't get it.

Science is more a method than a belief, scientists acknowledge they don't know how gravity works but every day they are working on discovering how it does, they don't just sit back and say well its there but we don't know how......so I guess God must have made it so, and they certainly don't make up explanations for maybe how it could work and then end up believing those bizarre explanations at the cost of eventually finding out exactly how gravity does works......and we/they will.

We already understand a LOT about nature, we don't know it all yet but we know a shit load more than what we did even just a 100 years ago, in a hundred years time we'll know even MORE and so on and so on.

argumentum ad ignorantiam

You can't just come from a point of view that YOU think nature is un-understandable THEREFORE god must exist.

It's like me saying I don't understand exactly how my TV works...therefore god must exist, he must have created my xbox because I just can't comprehend it's deepest inner workings.

A lot of scientists are working hard to actually give us explanations of how all this stuff in the universe DOES work, religion does the opposite, there are a lot of theories of how it works, of how it might work, when it started etc and that's at least something.

The whole "prove to me there was a big bang, otherwise God exists" or "if you can't explain gravity it proves God exists" is just an argument from ignorance.

 

[SocialNumb]

well when you boil it down, even the common scientific/atheistic belief that the universe was created by a super-compressed ball of matter that exploded and spread out beyond eternity, the fact still exists that the previously mentioned ball of matter came from somewhere.

everything came from something...nothing creates it self, so there has to be some form of a "god" that does/did exist somewhere at some point, but i doubt it's some sentient/omniscient/judgmental creature that created everything only to see if we'll pass his litmus test of ass kissing, and condemn us to the hell that he created, overseen by the evil overlord who he also created, if we don't follow every word in his watered-down book of bullshit.

I don't believe the "universe was created by a super-compressed ball of matter that exploded and spread out beyond eternity" I see that as a theory scientist are still working on. I also don't believe that everything has to necessarily come from something. I'm on the honest side. I don't know, yet or maybe never will. Depends really when the facts come in and short of a full on philosophical matrix non-sense those facts are fine with me. In other words, I'm not going to tell people I know for a fact XY exist without actually being able to show you it does.

 

[drew_drummer]

let the believer's believe... and non believer's not believe...

This would be fine if the believers didn't instigate laws, lobby for changes to secularist laws (remember; secularism includes the freedom to practice religion), open schools and teach children false things, and generally act like know-it-all asshats.

 

[UncleBob]

The easiest way of looking at it is as a perpetual cycle. If you take it from the point of view that there is a singular "God" that created all this, because it's too complex to just pop into existence, then God itself must be super complex, which means something must have created "God", and if something created God then that is not really "God", whatever created god is God, but whatever created god couldn't have just existed or popped up out of nowhere so something must have created that pre-god and on and on and on.

And if God can just pop up out of nowhere and be super duper complex.....THEN....so can a universe pop up out of nowhere and be super duper complex.

Either way the for god or against god argument cancels itself out.

I myself just can't buy into the biblical god who will send me to hell for wasting sperm or whatnot.

 

[UncleBob]

This would be fine if the believers didn't instigate laws, lobby for changes to secularist laws (remember; secularism includes the freedom to practice religion), open schools and teach children false things, and generally act like know-it-all asshats.

It's more the Religions that are at fault for this.

"Religions are like penises, it's nice to have one but please don't go waving it in our faces or sticking it down our children's throats"

 

[Jind]

It's more the Religions that are at fault for this.

"Religions are like penises, it's nice to have one but please don't go waving it in our faces or sticking it down our children's throats"

While I can agree in a general sort of way - it's also a truism that any opinion/belief can become and extremist cause and just as damaging as any other when forced upon others.

Like I mentioned earlier - people need to come to conclusions in their own time and manner. I'll not be the one to "preach" the gospel of non-belief to my faithful friends - I'll certainly debate theirs and my beliefs if they wish and are open to debate (many of my friends are), but ultimately we each come to beliefs at our own pace. Any viewpoint, even a secular one, that is forced upon others, used as a dividing construct to separate people, is equal to any other reason we look to suppress others such as race, gender, nationality, ... and religion.

 

[John_C]

From my personal experience this is almost ALWAYS the case, believer-guy says to atheist "I believe".... atheist shrugs shoulders ("that's nice")

Atheist-guy says "I don't believe" and all the believers in the room go apeshit.

There's no debate at all, the original question is hardly rhetorical, it's more along the lines of "when did you last take a shit?"

I am occasionally a bit preachy in my rationalism, but this tends to only be in response to some otherwise intelligent person suddenly dropping off the reason wagon in to a pile of superstitious bullshit. (Homeopathy. Makes. Me. Very. Angry. Especially when it's a highly intelligent biochemist saying "well it works for me". Ugh.)

However, if I find myself in a group of serious Christians, they literally cannot drop it. They have to have me join up to their cult of arbitrary teachings or the entire conversation is a failure.

 

[infectdsniper]

I'v never believed. I always asked "why?" as a kid about everything and if there wasn't a solid answer I would shrug it off as a lie. Religion was just one of those things.

 

[LeSedna]

You don't "believe" in science.

 

[John_C]

You don't "believe" in science.

In theory.

In practice, many people become emotionally attached to science as a surrogate for their negative feelings about religion, leading to symptoms almost indistinguishable from belief.

 

[drew_drummer]

In theory.

In practice, many people become emotionally attached to science as a surrogate for their negative feelings about religion, leading to symptoms almost indistinguishable from belief.

Not sure I really agree with this. They might get emotionally attached to the results of scientific thinking - ie, evolution in favour of creationism, physics in favour of metaphysics, and real testable medicines over homeopathy. but I don't think it is really possible to get emotionally attached to the scientific method.

I also don't think "emotionally attached" is right either. Just because people are emotionally charged when espousing scientific discoveries or understandings, does not mean they are emotionally attached. To some people, the fact that homeopathy is bunkum is so obviously true and indisputable, that they are incredulous that anyone could think otherwise. This isn't so much emotional attachment as it is sophistry - which I think is a real danger with rationalism, because not everyone *is* or *can be* rational.

And rationality isn't an all the time 100% state of mind. Rational people are rational about some things, but completely irrational about others. I hate spiders and snakes for instance, no matter how irrational it is. Feminists are some of the most irrational people ever, whereby in all other respects outside of gender, they can be really nice and really logical people. Humans are not fixed creatures with fixed mindsets; which is why discussion is workable in the first place. We have blind spots, and to me, a lot of anti-science is based on people's blind spots. I see this in Genius Gone Insane all the time when he posts.

Point is - if something better than the scientific method were invented, people would gradually switch over. There is no emotional enamour imho.

 

[~BURNY~]

Are you fucking stupid?

Random guy with a 15 posts count comes out of nowhere and starts insulting people...

 

[UncleBob]

Random guy with a 15 posts count comes out of nowhere and starts insulting people...

Maybe it's God

 

[~BURNY~]

Maybe it's God

Good call

 

[abaga129]

Lol at the last 5 posts.
I never stopped believing but I have several internal conflicts about it. I grew up constantly involved in church and still am a little. However I do not claim to represent Christianity or preach about it because I don't want to set a bad example for the true believers whom I have a lot of respect for. I completely understand the views of aethiests and have no problem with people of any religion including Muslims because after all, we believe in the same god.
I cuss, I drink, I watch porn, etc. I believe but I find myself unable to follow.

The only thing that really gets to me is when aetheists treat aetheism like a religion because its the most hipocritical fucking thing I've ever seen
But I'm an advocate of believe whatever the hell you want! (Pun intended)

 

[kass]

In most cases, beleiving in scientific consensus is the most rational beleif to have. It is a rigorous analysis of the evidence that leads to the beleif best supported by the evidence, and the conclusion is represented by scientific consensus. The fact that scientific consensus is often found to be wrong does not have much relevance here. Whatever the view was BEFORE a paradigm shift was still the view BEST supported by the evidence available at the time. The strength of a scientific beleif should come from the robustness of the idea. Sometimes, on TV or whatever, ideas are put forth and little care is given to explain the strength of the ideas. What gets put on TV is often strange and interesting ideas that some scientists have a hunch about and are working on...but you often don't get that impression.

Also, the people who laugh and scoff at ideas like the current lambda cold dark matter model never know what they are talking about. The criticism is always simple, like "LOL you dont even understand gravity." Do some reading and learning. The evidence is not perfect, but consistant with multiple sources of evidence, such that it is the BEST explanation of current evidence. I think it is funny how stupid some people think physicists are.

 

[Mashreef]

so much for the scientific ass crap...
tell me one thing
how is it possible to write a book where it is described everything about the new modern age of plane,ships,cars or watever thousands of year's ago...??? i just cant predict things that will happen thousands year later.. and its also written when there will be no believer left than the world will come at end..
if you read the book than you will understand a lot of things...now i see that era is moving fast..
religion keeps a human balanced in everything...