how many people are athiest?
 

???

I am. Although I think I'm more agnostic than atheist, i.e. I don't believe in God but I don't completely reject the possibility of some higher being existing.

in the world ??
or in the igloo...?

im a theist/ deist depending on how ya wanna spell it... i believe in some higher power but im not sure what's going on in this crazy universe and don't wanna throw all faith out the window :)

i wouldnt like to define myself as anything..i believe...or should i say hope there is something out there..but what??? noone will ever know!!! TILL WE GET THERE!

i dont believe in organised religion.. in fact it makes me laugh personally but i think religion (without the bull**** factor) gives people hope and people want to believe there is something after this life... thats great

ya the organised factor gets a lotta people. rituals compfort people thou, thats the only good thing i see about them :)

i do believe in god but only because thats what works for me when i was younger i used to deny an existance of god and i felt like i was more depressed and hopeless i think that believing in something helps people through hard times but it doesnt always work that way and every belief works and doesnt work for different people i also dont like the appeal of alot of organized religions i kinda feel like u should find out what u believe in for urself and not have someone tell u what to believe in just because they say so

I believe in something but i can't/want to give it a name. Some things happen for a reason and can't be just a coincidence.
I've seen lots of different religious things (christian church, buddhist temple/monastry, hindu temples, muslim mosk, hare krishna temple, bahai) and everywhere i find some things i appreciate or believe in, but none is entirely my thing. Personaly I felt very comfortable in a buddhist temple.
Religious fanatism puts me down a lot. I just can't understand fights over religion like the crusades, northern ireland conflict, indonesian troubles, israels ongoing thing and so on. All too often religion has been a reason for conflicts.

religion is a smile on a dog.
edie brickell,

seven

I was brought up without religion. My parents didn't have one so neither did I. I was never baptised. I didn't make my communion or confirmation. When I was very young I didnt have any opinions on it. I just knew that I didnt believe. At some stage I suddenly realised why people do believe in god. Every single person, on this planets, greatest fear is being alone. The thought of dying and spending an eternity alone is absolutely terrifying for anyone. So believing that you're going to go somewhere makes you feel a lot better. Its also easier when someone you love dies. It makes you feel safe because they've gone somewhere "better". And when people come into difficulty in their life. It feels good for them to know that there's someone watching over them. I can completely understand why people would want these feelings of security and I always respect people's religion. I went to a very protestant primary school, My secondary school was a catholic one. And i've had some very good friends who were very religios. But sometimes people dont seem to give me the same respect. Once in school a teacher was speaking in the class and basically said that if you're not religious then you dont have any morals!! I

I'm an atheist although i do believe in spirits, or spiritual energy

Soda u just spelled it out perfectly for me!!!

i honestly dont know what to believe in anymore.granted i still pray at times, and i do believe in god i think...in a way, but im not a proper catholic. but what does everyone choose....

science or religion???

i've always chosen both i dunno ive just always found that both can work together rather then just choosing one

When i was younger my parents MADE me go to a baptist church ... i hated it ... i consider the fact that ive had no real proof of any of these gods existing ... i still pray at times also ... but ive had this thought in my mind from time to time that god is something someone made up to scare people or to give people hope ... like the story my mom told me the first time you use your d**k it will fall off ... in hopes it would scare me not to ... (so much for that) anywho ... so how do we all know something like that has happened....there is a higher power ... who or what is undefined.... thats my view

i dont believe in religion but i believe in god. i dont like how religion seperates people and makes people believe that their way is the right way and i dont like it when people hide behind their religion eg. "i dont like gay people coz it's against my religion" thats bull. and stupid and ridiculous and pathetic. but dont get me started on that!!!lol
sorry, bad day.

i was raised as a catholic but i never really believed in a omnipotent, benevolent god. i always thought, why does our god has to be the only god, how can we be sure. what about the buddhist god, the muslim god or even ancient gods. there seems to be an anthropological tendency to create a god in order to give our lives a deeper meaning. in that way i believe there's a god, but a man-made god created to our own image.

i'm not an atheist either, i just don't believe there is a god or that his existence can be proven let alone analysed. so i don't think that believers should be bother by non-believers or skeptics

there is a great book by great the portuguese nobel of literature, jose saramago, called The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (one of the best books i've read). in this book, god is portrayed as a god with human flaws like selfishnessm, arrogance and egotism. it could be extremely offensive to some people. but saramago, a self-proclaimed atheist, is not stating those are god's characteristics (he doesn't even believe in him). what he's saying is bassically that from what we know about god, there could be many interpretations about god's true nature.

whether one believes or not in god, depends only on each person, and believing in god is a matter of faith not knowledge or even convenience. in a world with so many great things but also horrible events, each person's faith in god can't be conditioned to their own fortune

i used to hear that in high school all the time, and not only that, many people actually that people that don't believe in their god are going to hell :smiley15: but people that boycott gays funerals are just helping god :smiley5:

very existential and open...but the way i go about things is not seeing all the choices and seeing how it should be...i see how things should be and then find which will fit that. if you simply don't believe in a deity because science has "proven" his non-existance. that's ridiculous. if you search deeper and deeper into the creation of the world, you will see how much of a clock this solarsystem is. if you want to read a book on that you should read "rare earth" there are way too things that are in perfect mediums to create life. the existance of stars and helium and Beryllium to create carbon to create our earth, the perfect medium of our gravity (if it were +/-1% pressures and temperatures wouldn't be liveable), attraction of protons and neutrons on the subatomic level, we have a moon that keeps our orbits and rotations in order, the existence of jupiter to save earth from debree, the introduction of complex things by means of NON-darwinian evolution. not that i don't believe in evolution, i don't entirely believe in macroevolution, but its just plain fact there is micro...but that's unavoidable.

anyways..how i go about believing in God and leaning toward a religion goes like this. obviously all the science in the world isn't going to explain a first cause. so there, i have a belief of god. this god seems extremely intelligent, so he created with a purpose. we hear that god is love, and i believe that loving him and loving the people around us is what he wants us to do. that implies a lot to how we should live and how we should use our talents in the world he's given us. and then you have mohammed , budda, jesus christ, joe smith, (i forget the bahai's guys name), so on and so forth. the stories of jesus christ and ppl like...mohammed...are very different in that the ones of jesus christ are dated to have been created within 30 years of around his lifetime. mohammed's ...specifically of the miracles have been found to be added a few hundred years later. (they will say the same about us saying we created jesus in 325ad...but that's just when the nicene creed was created, basically a summary of what christianity stands for)

the story of jesus was also spread within 30-50 years. before the internet was created it was hard for things to be passed around. it took tales like king arthur to be passed about 200-300. obviously there is reason for that.

so i do believe primarily what the christian church believes. but a religion as a culture that changes is def something i don't want to follow. anyways...ill stop now since i've already have written a lot to read.

if ya feel like writing more, it's interesting! thnx

i'm kinda agnostic..

If you want to say that you are an Atheist then you have to study every Religion and find that what each and every Religion has no meaning ie der is no higher being

I myself was Baptised as a Catholic and taught in school as a Catholic and therefore believe as a Catholic. I'm not religious but believe in what the church preaches. Heaven,Sin,Jesus, etc.

just wondering but have you ever read anything on the intelligent design theory i'm starting to read a book about it but its kind of hard to do with all my classes but it seem like a way to merge evoulution and religion so far its kinda kool

Well I'm a christian. I don't like religion (the rules and stuff), but I do like the relationship you can have with God. Thats the difference that Christianity has to other beliefs. I respect other peoples views on things even if I don't like them or don't agree to them. If you want to believe in something, then its up to you. Other people just influence you along the way.

that book "rare earth" by Ward and Brownlee is a good one

still, science and religion are two different animals. science tells the how, not the why's of this world. teaching science in any biased manner is ridiculous.


ahah....my first post seems a bit out there...i just didnt want to explain everything in my head...

Buddhists don't believe in God as such, and the Muslim God is the Christian God (and the Jewish God). Jews, Muslims and Christians differ in that they have different views as to who the Messiah was (and Jews are still waiting for the Messiah). You do have a valid underlying point though. There is a theory (or belief, if you prefer) that the various different religions throughout history are all just different interpretations of the same God.



I completely agree. You've really summed it up. Haven't a whole lot to add but thought I'd mention that the whole concept of quantum physics ("the cat is both dead and alive") really reinforced, for me anyway, the fact that there HAD to be a God. For those unfamiliar with the cat analogy:

"Schrodinger's Cat:


A cat is placed in a steel chamber, together with the following hellish contraption. In a Geiger counter there is a tiny amount of radioactive substance, so tiny that maybe within an hour one of the atoms decays, but equally probably none of them decays. If one decays then the counter triggers and via a relay activates a little hammer which breaks a container of cyanide. If one has left this entire system for an hour, then one would say the cat is living if no atom has decayed. The first decay would have poisoned it. The wave function of the entire system would express this by containing equal parts of the living and dead cat. [Erwin Schrodinger, Naturwiss. 48, 52 (1935) translated by Josef M. Jauch, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, p. 185.] "

Anyway, later :smiley20:

just to kinda sum...the cat is both dead and alive before you open up the room to see if its dead or not.

haha..i have a picture of that contraption in my notes somewhere...