Ask Your Question today
Personally, I don't, as there isn't any evidence whatsoever. I DO absolutely hope there is a truly benevolent God out there and that I'll see my loved ones again after death. It seems extremely unlikely to me, though. It makes me pretty sad...
| No | 29 | |
| Yes | 29 |
I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in God, however if other people believe there is one, or they take comfort and solace in praying to a higher power, that's perfectly fine by me too.
People can believe what they like, I just don't share any belief in religious doctrine.
It's so strange. I have heard and read so many responses that go 'if other people find comfort in praying to a higher power...', using almost the same lexis and if-clause structure. It is as if the response itself were a meme of sorts. It requires a person to invest little into what they are actually saying.
What if, to many people who pray, God were not the distant, impersonal, ill-defined cosmic phenomenon that the words 'higher power' imply? I mean, that description really doesn't fit God to the most fervent of people who pray - but you would have to study their traditions or hear them talk about their God to know that. What if praying to him were sometimes not comfortable at all, and occasionally provided anything but solace? What if they didn't believe in God because they wanted to feel comfortable? And what do you imagine 'praying' even consists of, for such people? Do you imagine someone sitting serenely in a church, murmuring incantations with their eyes closed and their hands clasped, or someone lying naked in the middle of the road, shrieking their head off?
I'm trying to break the mould here - it's too restrictive.
I agree. I don't think there are many people who consider Catholicism "comforting," for example. At the moment we have no Pope and a horrifically immoral society. I also agree with you about how sometimes prayer is not supposed to be comforting. Take Jonah, for example. He was one of God's strongest followers, so God told him to go to the worst city in existence to give the people there a message of their imminent destruction.
I think you're pretty much spot on there. I think this is why the world needs art: we are so prone in our reasoning and debating to create straw men out of the Other that we tend to reduce the Other to something that's much too simple for any human being to be. What I mean by this is that we forget that all the inspiring and puzzling and sometimes downright contradictory complexity of human behaviour and the universe (which we accept and perhaps even love to marvel at when we see it elsewhere) applies just as validly to the person we vehemently disagree with, too. So, we need art. Good art slips past that blindness and helps people see what they're usually determined not to see, for a moment.
Also - is Pope Francis dead, or do you not accept him as a valid Pope, or do you mean that he is out of action long-term??? The last I heard he was having an operation in hospital. My Church of England Matins/Morning Prayer Zoom group remembered him in our intercessions the other day.
You make a good point which I admit I didn't really consider. Allow me to clarify what I meant.
Some religious folk also feel completely helpless with regards to going through life if they don't feel close to their God, and they feel sorry for those who don't have a God to feel close to.
If someone feels the need to have their God with them at all times because it provides them with the confidence to keep on going, I feel unnaffected and have no problem with that.
The only time I ever have a problem with religious people is when they wish harm to come to me personally.
Ahh okay. I understand. Do you see that there's still a two-way dichotomy here, even as you explain?
It's like, there are so many more ways of being an atheist than being EITHER a militent 'nu atheist' OR having drifted slowly away from the family faith and just not caring.
The more I read, the more I hear who people are, and how come they don't believe in God or gods. I think it does people a disservice to put them in boxes, unless they're very, very temporary boxes with a specific function attached.
If you're an Atheist I'm cool with you.
If you're an Atheist who criticises religious people simply for believing, I think you're a dickhead.
If you're religious, I'm cool with you.
If you're religious and you hate me because I choose not to subscribe to your religion, I think you're a dickhead.
If you're a reindeer I'm cool with you.
If you're a reindeer and you don't let another reindeer join in with your reindeer games because you're jealous of their shiny red nose, I think you're a dickhead.
Wow. I always thought benevolent meant something awful. Google really helped out. Thanks.
I was raised as a very religious person (Christianity). I always believed there was a god, but due to unfortunate circumstances in my personal life I began to lose the belief that such a god would even exist. Now I am atheist.
I personally believe in God. It's definitely hard to have faith at times, but it brings me comfort and helps me to pray. When things are going wrong that are out of my control, it makes me feel better and I figure it certainly can't hurt.
Regardless of whether God is real or not, I definitely believe we see our loved ones in the afterlife. There are certain things that have happened in my life that just seem too strange and perfectly timed to be coincidental, that I do believe were signs or comfort brought by deceased loved ones. I personally feel as if I've felt them nearby in spirit.
Something I've found interesting as well are NDEs (near death experiences), where people have claimed that they've seen their loved ones, and even God, Jesus, etc. and felt an immense amount of peace and calm that they've never experienced in life. Some of these people were even non-religious. I know this isn't definitive proof of anything, but I find it fascinating and that it definitely brings a lot of hope that we may reunite with our loved ones.
I also find it interesting and fascinating that science states that energy that is created cannot be destroyed, which could suggest that the energy of our souls do not just cease to exist. I personally find comfort in this.
The good news for you is that no one knows for sure whether there is or isn't a God or an afterlife, so there's still a chance that there is and there is no definitive proof that we won't see our loved ones in the afterlife. Either way, you will have their memories to cherish for a lifetime.
You can’t think about this question. It’s beyond human comprehension. You either believe He exists or you don’t. I believe He exists, but that’s me.
I'm not religious but i like to think theres a higher power out there somewhere.
Yes I think there is or was something smart out there. Idk if there is a heaven or hell or whatever but no one else really knows either. Life is like a program its so advanced. If you could see all the proteins in your body it looks like our solar system. Maybe we are in god. We are the cancer killing the cell which is our planet. Idk, its the worlds biggest mystery.
There's likely something other there, but none of us know. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are basically just forms of social manipulation in their respective home countries and Christianity has been mistranslated so poorly that it wouldn't even matter.
I tend to respect polytheism more than monotheism. I've yet to meet someone who practices Hinduism that acts entitled. They mostly just want to be respected.
If a god does exists it either doesn't know we exist, has left us to create life elsewhere, doesn't care enough to interact with us or is incapable of interacting with us.
I’m Christian (I don’t go to church unless it a really special day) but I don’t believe in god
I honestly don't believe in God, but I am open-minded enough to think that there MIGHT be something after death. I'm an agnostic-atheist, personally. From what I understand about the universe, it sounds like an after life MIGHT be possible. I can't remember the exact term, but it's essentially the opposite of heat death. There's a theory out there that says that the universe starts in a "big bang", exists for billions of years, maybe even trillions, and then dies in an explosion...after the explosion the universe supposedly starts all over again.
We are all made up of various kinds of particles. Some are "matter", some are other things (light, atoms, quarks, etc.)
Going by this logic we are all only part of the universe. We are all only particles. Quite literally no one is more than the "sum of their parts", if this theory is true. This is why I don't really believe in free will. Some people call it destiny, and in a sense it's true.
In other words each of us are only a complex mish-mash of a bunch of particles brought to life by the laws of physics. If the universe is constantly dying and being reborn, then why should the same thing not be true for our "minds" as well? This is something I've always thought and people don't usually get it lol. :)