Thread: How many of you guys are religious?

i am not religious in anyway.
i will see whats going to happen at the end of the line.

but i am open to what people who believe in religions have to tell about it.
i'm most of the time pretty amazed for what these people have to tell

I'm not religious in any way shape or form. I'm not just atheist, I anti-theist. I don't have a lot of nice things to say about religion so don't read that following if you are easily offended, can't stand having your beliefs challenged, and can't accept reality.

Spoiler for lengthy rant:

I think most religious dogmas are pointless and a waste of time and I have no patience for belief in a god who is supposedly all powerful and eternal but cannot be bothered to take a few moments to provide sufficient tangible evidence for the observation and investigation of humanity to be convinced that not only does he exist beyond a shadow of a doubt but that he is indeed all powerful and eternal and is therefore justifiably deserving of not only our attention and acknowledgement, but also our respect and reverence.

I was raised in a religious family and brainwashed taught to believe in god, but no matter how good I lived my life, not matter how much I prayed, no matter how much time, energy and money I gave to the church, I never felt the presence of any external supernatural being. Ever. NOT EVER. Even when I begged and prayed and pleaded for mercy and salvation while I was being sexually, physically and mentally abused all throughout my childhood and then my subsequent struggles with substance abuse in adolescence and early adulthood. None of my prayers were ever answered, no all powerful being came to protect or save me while I went through hell, or even bothered to create one little "twang" in my heart to let me know that he was even there.

This leads to the only obvious and realistic conclusion that there is no god(s), no supernatural beings, or any supernatural phenomenon that exists outside of the scientifically testable and tangible world we all live in. Also, most humans throughout the world suffer from some degree of mental illness, hence the predominance of people believing in invisible friends (ie god or gods) who are going to magically make or the pain and suffering go away because it is easier to believe that than face the cold hard reality that we are on our own.

You know where I found god at first? In my hand blown glass bong. Smoking weed made me feel real, made me feel alive, made me feel connected to the fucking universe in ways that I never thought possible. It is what I thought knowing god was supposed to feel like. Even after that I never experinced anything like that in church or at any religious site, even though I continued to look and continued to desperately get down on my knees and pray everyday and beg for god to reveal himself and let me know he loved me.

The irony? Science can prove that marijuana exists. Science can prove what smoking marijuana does to a person. Where is all the evidence for this all powerfull, all knowing, supernarural being? There is none. Because he doesn't exist. I wasted years of my life looking for and hoping for something that doesn't exist and I'm pissed off because I will never get that time back. Despite the HELL I went through while growing up, I am at peace with myself and with my life and consider myself a genuinely contented person. I don't drink or do drugs anymore, I never want for any of the necessities of life and I have great family and friends. And all of this peace and happiness in my life came about when I stopped waiting for something that did not exist to come and make everything better for me. I got on with living the best life I can in this tangible reality and I have never been happier. I can only hope that some people will come to their senses like I did and stop wastng their lives pursuing shit that doesn't exist.

So yeah, I would like to believe in an invisible sky daddy that's going to make everything better, but I know for a fact that there is NOTHING THERE. If there is a god and he wants me to believe in him, he can get off his ass to do something significant and scientifically observable to prove that I owe him allegience.

Until then, I think religion is fucking poison.
/end tangent

god who is supposedly all powerful and eternal but cannot be bothered to take a few moments to provide sufficient tangible evidence for the observation and investigation of humanity to be convinced that not only does he exist beyond a shadow of a doubt but that he is indeed all powerful and eternal and is therefore justifiably deserving of not only our attention and acknowledgement, but also our respect and reverence.

This leads to the only obvious and realistic conclusion that there is no god(s), no supernatural beings, or any supernatural phenomenon that exists outside of the scientifically testable and tangible world we all live in.

This is using the fallacious logic that where there is no evidence, that is the evidence of non-existence where we know that it cant be necessary like that, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

There can be many reasons why God is not showing himself, off the top of my head, maybe God's work does not involve such a thing. Who knows, but that was the main thing I was trying to show, that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

But then again you need evidence to make an affirmative claim. To say that god exists is a positive statement and requires a basis. To say that god does not exist is a natural state which is akin to saying that there is no pink elephant in the room with me, it is taken for granted unless proven otherwise.

Saying that there is no evidence of god does not disprove god, but it also gives you no reason to believe in such a thing, which makes the whole idea a moot point.

Originally Posted by elucid

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I'm sorry, but that is BS. Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.

Or, in more practical terms, absence of evidence is NO DIFFERENT than absence. There is no difference in practice between "no god" and "god that hides himself such that he is imperceptible in all ways" - so in practice, living your life as if there were no god (regardless of proof) if the default, rational, and meaningful thing to do.

Absence of evidence simply means that the burden of proof is on the religious folks, and not the other way around.

Originally Posted by Sound

I'm sorry, but that is BS. Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.

That is somewhat true, the words evidence and proof are not interchangeable.

Edit: Damnit Replicon get out of the way!

Absence of evidence does not by itself imply negation in the strict sense. However, it does mean there is no rational reason to believe it.

What if C . A . T really spells dog?

Saying that there is no evidence of god does not disprove god, but it also gives you no reason to believe in such a thing, which makes the whole idea a moot point.

Correct and I agree, if you read over my first post, I never made the claim that God exists.

I'm sorry, but that is BS. Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.

So then that means if "Tommy" steals but we can not find evidence, then that means "Tommy" did not steal or that we just dont know if Tommy stole. If you say that we do not know that Tommy stole, then your sentence is proven wrong.

Originally Posted by elucid

So then that means if "Tommy" steals but we can not find evidence, then that means "Tommy" did not steal or that we just dont know if Tommy stole. If you say that we do not know that Tommy stole, then your sentence is proven wrong.

Your argument relies on the fact that we know "Tommy" stole, and therefore evidence and/or proof is completily irrellevant. If some random person comes along and accuses "Tommy" of stealing, however, and evidence is absent, then we have no reason to believe the person coming with the accusations.

Originally Posted by Sound

I'm sorry, but that is BS. Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.

No, it's not. Now, go study ontology!

Originally Posted by malac

No, it's not. Now, go study ontology!

A short dive through wikipedia told me ontology is a philosophical study of nature and existence and stuff, and in philosophy, absence of evidence can mean nothing i suppose. Logically, however, it still applies.

I wrote a little on the "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" buzz phrase some time ago on this forum. Basically, when making this assertion it needs to be made clear whether one is actually interested in "evidence" or rather in "proof." On its surface the statement appears to be interested in evidence, but most of the people who invoke the statement are actually talking about proof. I believe that this ambiguity is a source of much of the disagreement surrounding the statement, including in the last few posts. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence (as I explain here using a thought experiment involving a lost cell phone), but absence of evidence is not proof of absence (which is trivially true since it is not usually possible to prove an entity's absence in the first place, given the problems of induction). So to continue the recent example, a lack of evidence that "Tommy" stole serves as evidence that he did not steal, but it does not prove that he did not steal. This is obvious when you think about it.

Originally Posted by elucid

...absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

A more accurate statement than this particular cliche would be: "Absence of evidence is NOT NECESSARILY evidence of absence."

Not necessarily, but is does greatly offset the probabilistic likelihood of presence. Particularly a benevolent presence that gives two hoots about us puny suffering mortals.

I hold a similar view with DuB. The meaning behind it can be ambiguous, and thus it can be interpreted differently from its intended meaning. Some of you see it as: What is absent of evidence is evident from its absence. However, I think my view of the meaning “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” is closer in its intended understanding.

Proof:

Absence of evidence is a lack thereof evidence and a lack thereof evidence cannot support as evidence of that which is to be supported. Any evidence of what is absent is supporting evidence of that which is to be supported. Therefore, absence of evidence is not evidence of what is absent.

For my fellow logicians (syllogism below)

All A is B
No B is C
e. is C|All E is C -------2 options in how the 3rd premise can be asserted. "Evidence" being either singular|plural;
:.e is not A|No A is E ------- following with two separate conclusions.

Originally Posted by MadMonkey

I also believe that being activly athiest and agnostic should also be considered a religion.

Religion is defined as:

a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; "he lost his faith but not his morality"
an institution to express belief in a divine power; "he was raised in the Baptist religion"; "a member of his own faith contradicted him"

- wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn




MadMonkey, you make a compelling statement and I will have to give this one some thought.

Edit: I don't consider myself religious but I don't believe that we just wound up here either. I don't belong to the group of people that claim they know gods name, his birthday, his eye color, types of women he likes, his favorite country (God bless america.. and no place else!), his top choice candidates for president etc. And apparently the god that man created also likes being present in the bedroom (he's called there most often) and has a hand in helping gangsta rap stars with foul lyrics and lotto winners in their success (pst, they all seem to thank god too!). And lest we forget.. his taste for human blood in supposed "holy wars". If there is a god, I seriously doubt he's man's version of what god is. From my perspective, if there is a god, we don't know what it is yet.

I'm not trying to set this thread back to a discussion. I mean to say that I am not an atheist, nor am I religious, but I do however subscribe to the belief of I don't know.

I Believe in God! However I do not believe in religion as it was created by man to confuse us from the truth. Most people will always have doubt until they have a personal experience which is what happened to me.

Unfortunately, god(s) didn't exist before religion.

Originally Posted by Jeff777

Religion is defined as:

a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; "he lost his faith but not his morality"
an institution to express belief in a divine power; "he was raised in the Baptist religion"; "a member of his own faith contradicted him"

- wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

What about those ancient egyptian religions that worshiped the phalus? Maybe they did personify it to be a diety, I never really looked into them much as I do loves my phalus. I think a person ought to be able to have a religion that worships reality as an all powerful force if they want too. Shit I'll start it if you promise to send me some fat tithes.

If Religion implies a strong belief in a divine author/creator of this Universe then I would most definitely say I'm a Strong Religious person. I've had many, upon many challenges to my belief here but none have altered my views at all. As far as the numbers goes. R/S has been majority atheist for as long as I can remember. With numbers being 5 to 1, 8 to 1, 10 to 2. I don't necessarily think a lot of people are run off. I think people take breaks on both sides of the wall. I have debated with some very intelligent atheist on these boards who I no longer see here as well. I think thats just the way it goes, people sort of move on with their lives and eventually venture off into other things. I don't think any smart person is gonna waste years upon years debating here when there is so much more to life.

The reason why I have a strong belief in a creator is because after researching and researching and debating and debating more, nothing else seems to make much sense to me.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

Unfortunately, god(s) didn't exist before religion.

And you get this information from where? personal disbelief?

I think that people who say that God and the Devil do not exist is simply because they have not had a personal experience and therefore will always be in denial! Think about it logically, why would God show himself to someone who is in such denial against spirituality that he is willing to take time out of his day to go on a religious/spirituality forum just to say that God isnt real. Haha cracks me up! Religion was made by man to cause confusion, however God and the Devil are very real! I personally didnt believe in God until i witnessed something evil. If you wish to think otherwise and keep living life without reason then do so.

Originally Posted by youngjedi

And you get this information from where? personal disbelief?

I think that people who say that God and the Devil do not exist is simply because they have not had a personal experience and therefore will always be in denial! Think about it logically, why would God show himself to someone who is in such denial against spirituality that he is willing to take time out of his day to go on a religious/spirituality forum just to say that God isnt real. Haha cracks me up! Religion was made by man to cause confusion, however God and the Devil are very real! I personally didnt believe in God until i witnessed something evil. If you wish to think otherwise and keep living life without reason then do so.

It's too bad you think not believing in god is the same as living life without reason. I think I understand you better now, though.

If you don't mind my asking, what is it that you witnessed that made you believe in God? And you say you believe in god and the devil, and that witnessing something EVIL made you believe in god. How does that work? Wouldn't that have reinforced your belief in the devil, and the witnessing of a good miracle would have reinforced your belief in god?