Do you believe in God?

[chillythoughts]

I do not believe in religion at all.

[pridepancakes21]

Nahh... not a big fan of fairy tales >_>

[Rikki]

When you are one with nature there is no need for anyone else

The problem with that is, nature only gives a limited amount of self reflection. We all need human interaction and relationship in order to learn about ourselves and others, to get self reflection. Humans are more dynamic.

[Chase]

OK, here we go, get ready:

What is outside of time -
how could God have created the universe is he transcends the linearity of time? Time surely had a beginning. So, where was the time to make a universe in?
If heaven is outside of time, then, how could God have created anybody if their soul lived in the outside of time, before their own beginning?
The Bible's testimony of creation, Genesis, is false, and science has given us more evident, more testable, easier explanations:
The universe is expanding, and once was infinitesimally small. It expanded in The Big Bang. The earliest and most direct kinds of observational evidence are the Hubble-type expansion seen in the redshifts of galaxies, the detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the relative abundances of light elements produced by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and today also the large scale distribution and apparent evolution of galaxies predicted to occur due to gravitational growth of structure in the standard theory.
Tests have shown, such as the Atomic Clocks, that time is a product of matter, the geometry of space, stretched by gravity. Time, didn't exist before the Big Bang.
Quantum particles, such as quarks, photons, bosons, all that good stuff, spontaneously appears and reappears. Premise is this is natural law. The universe was once smaller than a quantum particle - it could have appeared without violating the natural laws.
In Feynman's Multiple Histories - quantum particles take from point A to point B every possible route - every possible route. We observe these traveling particles by stopping them with other particles (light is photon particles). We choose the history.
Before the Hawking-Harttle Epoch, the universe was four dimensional. Time was a spatial dimension that went 90 and became the space-time we have today (from 4D to 3D plus time). We chose our own history. We should expect the cosmic-microwave background radiation to thus be at least a tad non-uniform - we do, M Theory has success.
The discovery of a graviton that will be absorbed in the higher folded up dimensions will make M Theory legit. All the other histories we do not observe are in other time spans - meta-universe, multiverses, bubbles each with their own beginning to time.
Evolution:
The age of the Earth is not carbon dated, it is radiometric dated using many other radio-active isotopes that can date billions of years back. Fossils are not carbon dated, they are dated using plenty of other radio-active isotopes that can and have revealed their age to be millions of years old (fyi discovering the Earth is ancient was a prediction of evolutionary theory). We also find transitional phases in species evolution. The horse we can trace it from its dog like ancestor to the horse of today - some transitions may have existed together, some lineages not changing while other lineages do, and, we can still see the modern horse's evolution explanation. Australopithecus is an ancestor of humans. Homo Erectus. Homo Sapians. Natural Selection is a blind process. An early ancestor got a mutation of a small patch of skin that was sensitive to light, it did better, eventually eyes evolved for species with eyes most able to make a species live long enough to procreate or at least help other members in it's species procreate. Early human males and females had competition in procreating. Deception and flattery - may have been a reason that made us evolve our smarts.

We live in a small speck of the universe.
"Pale blue dot" - Carl Sagan
There is like, 300sextrillion stars in the universe. And, as I've mentioned, other multiverses, time being somewhat vague in their existence to us. If you consider God to have plopped souls in modern humans, say, 150 thousand years ago - look how long he let them struggle in developing cultural evolution, or even until he sent himself- as his son who is also himself - to get tortured - so he could forgive us for being conceived in sin which when you study the brain shows isn't our fault - and much of it - such as us being gay, women talking in church, objecting to slavery and evil warlords - is a tad bit strange.
Not only that, but, our time on this pale blue dot is limited. We haven't found any other planets like Earth yet - in distant stars there are planets that are in the "goldilocks zone" but are megalo giant Earths with gravity that would smoosh us.

I do not believe in God. And I live my life as if there is none. I live to live, not live for death.

Sorry if I offended anyone.
Please feel free to challenge me. I rather much enjoy it and welcome rebuttals to my argument (mostly borrowed from Stephen Hawking and Bertrand Russell)

[gavjg]

You are always going to get believers and non believers and if it comforts you being a believer then I can't see nothing wrong with that at all.
When my mother died a few years ago, Although I didn't believe that there was a god as such, I did feel more religious because at that time it comforted me.
It's when someone dies close to you that a person often looks towards religion as a comfort aid to help with the grieving process even if they don't believe in a god, But somehow thinks that there is a possible afterlife and that they will meet up with their loved ones again in the future.
Attacking someone about their religion to me is the same as someone making fun of you because you are gay, As being gay is your opinion and a religious person believing in god is their opinion.
Everyone has their own belief's Whatever the circumstances so let them enjoy this the same as you would yours !

[Chase]

You are always going to get believers and non believers and if it comforts you being a believer then I can't see nothing wrong with that at all.
When my mother died a few years ago, Although I didn't believe that there was a god as such, I did feel more religious because at that time it comforted me.
It's when someone dies close to you that a person often looks towards religion as a comfort aid to help with the grieving process even if they don't believe in a god, But somehow thinks that there is a possible afterlife and that they will meet up with their loved ones again in the future.
Attacking someone about their religion to me is the same as someone making fun of you because you are gay, As being gay is your opinion and a religious person believing in god is their opinion.
Everyone has their own belief's Whatever the circumstances so let them enjoy this the same as you would yours !

I wasn't attacking their faith. I'm the one who has to live in a world with no afterlife.
All I wanted was someone to challenge me and make me think. What I wanted was someone to give me a well thought out argument, in both philosophy and logic, that make me stay up at night and think hard. I said I was sorry if I offended someone. I'm just used to being in an intelligentsia setting where long thought out, critical thinking, whether it goes against what we want to believe in or not, is the norm. I've had college professors give me some clever arguments for god, and I was hoping to get one on here as well.

[Blue]

The God of the modern Bible, definitely no, that God is a man made convention. A higher power, by whatever name you chose, Lady, Lord, Great Spirit for me, yes.

And Yes It/they (sill haven't decided if its one or a pantheon) can and do hear us and, respond to, and interact with us individually and, with the world in general.

I also believe that we each must find our own truth, and I would hope that my friends understand my beliefs enough not to be offended when I as a boon or blessing for them and use the names I chose to refer to my deity. It could just as easily be their name(s) for their deity or higher power.

SO, for me calling that higher power God, Jesus, Allah, Goddess, Great Spirit or any of the other names humans have chosen for it/them is just fine.

[Spades]

Yes, I believe in God, Jesus and the holy spirit.

[writerken]

No, no, no and no. Had to say it a few times cos no is too short. How odd.

[megumidesu]

very , very no ~
i do wish that i could believe in an afterlife , though . the good and the bad versions ~