Do you believe in God?

i am tired of this question

I see no scientific evidence at all to suggest a "God" exists... until I do, no.

No. But I'm an absurdist so even if I did believe in God, I'd probably reject him.

i don't believe in fairy tails

People simply living by desire.

WHY would you even ask if you're not looking for a debate? You know very well that this is quickly going to turn into the theists claiming that the atheists are immoral and/or willfully blind to the clear signs that god is real, and the atheists claiming that the theists are either evil or just plain stupid.

More to the point, why would YOU even care enough to ask if you weren't going somewhere with the question? You can't just bring up a question like that without there being an actual point to bringing up the question. Hell, even if it were a non-controversial question such as "have you ever seen a brown dog", you still can't leave it at "just answer yes or no, no debating please". There's still got to be a POINT to the question, otherwise we could all just sit here all day and ask random questions that don't have any bearing on anything.

"Do you believe in god?"

"Do you drink coffee in the morning?"

"Do you hang your toilet paper overhand or underhand?"

"Have you ever been to Mount Rushmore?"

Don't pretend like you don't have an agenda, or that it's MERELY a simple yes/no question and isn't intended to spark some kind of debate/discussion. If no one is actually supposed to discuss/debate the topic, then why the heck are you even asking?

I believe in God my own way.

No, but it's not because I choose not to. I don't choose to believe in anything, I either believe it or I don't.

What? you don't believe in Mavis Vermillion?..Natsu Dragneel & Happy would be sad...think about Lucy Heartfillia....Erza Scarlet & Gray Fullbuster will be mad with you. :P

There is a God, and he loves me. He has proved that he exist to me. I asked him too. And he showed me. My life is completely different now. If he is real in my life then I know without a doubt that he loves you too. But the ones who do not believe in him are blind. God wants to take off your blind fold but you must ask him to show you the way. Trust me, this may sound crazy. But he has completely set me free and I will never be the same again. I might as well be a alien here on earth.

god

No, not at all. There's not a single evidence whatever god you believe in exists. Religion build around those gods are usually contradictory. Being almighty is a contradiction. Thinking that if a god exists, he would care about you, is extremely arrogant. Also most "fairy tails" about what god did make him seem like a monster and if he would exist, we would have to do everything we can to kill it

And also THIS!

I'm not a religious guy and I'll believe it in my own damn way.

I don't know. But atheists are very often obnoxious people.

Naw. Agnostic atheist ftw.

Can't say I do. I also can't say if there is a god or not, but I find it far fetched there would be such a thing.

Yeah.

Believing in God is a sign of psychosis which I support. Beezlebub told me to say it!

I'm an Apathetic Agnostic. Our beliefs are quite simply: "don't know, don't care."

There is no scientific evidence to suggest so,so no.

@ShepardCommandr: I believe you can not spell lol

All hail mighty Atheismo.

Depends on what you mean by "God". If you're talking about some deity, nope. And even if it did turns out to be real, its presence means nothing to me. I don't think highly of deadbeats and that would make God the king of deadbeats...

Alternatively, the game Mass Effect 2 gives an acceptable (but certainly NOT PERFECT) explanation of what God is when one guy in the game says, "A god — a real god — is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does.". So, to me, the closest thing that can be called a God would probably be the Sun. It is the engine that keeps life rolling. And without it, life pretty much ceases (Or returns to stasis)...

As a note:

There is a way to disagree with something and do it in a manner that is not offensive. There is also a way to support something without being overbearing and infringing on someones right to not believe.

The above being said, the TC stated that no discussion is being sought. Merely a yes, no or maybe.

so we should have all done a gerg with one word answers, its what the TC wanted anyway.

Lets knock any discussion on the head and give the TC the pointless one word answer he craves.

My answer.......No

What's the point in making a thread about belief in God if you aren't looking for a debate?

Any god that creates something like infant leukemia is not love. At best it's indifferent. At worst it's our enemy.

Not sure if that was in direct response to my comment but I was merely reiterating what the TC said. If people were going to offer their opinions or engage in debate/discussion outside of the wishes of the TC then it should at least open itself to an actual debate/discussion that is civil and respectful.

I could have sworn that threads that don't encourage discussion/debate are in violation of the ToS.

Yes, but not from a super religious perspective.

@foxhound_fox: you are referring to section 6 of the CoC :

Specifically:

"No Discussion Value: Please don't make comments that lack content. Phrases such as "this", "lol", and "I came here to say this" are not witty, original, or funny, and do not add anything to the discussion. While we allow off-topic discussion, be mindful that this is first and foremost a video game forum. Members who take advantage of off-topic to repeatedly post inane, nonsensical or meaningless threads are at risk of moderation."

While TC is not looking for discussion/debate the post had enough content that could lead to discussion and already has.

Hope this helps. Apologies for any grammatical/spelling errors as I am mobile.

I agree with many here. This is a pointless question if not looking for any kind of expansion, conversation or debate on the subject.

My answer is a very clear "no". I will expand on this a bit by quoting and responding to something someone else said:

There is a way to disagree with something and do it in a manner that is not offensive.

There's a fairly large percentage of people around the world who are offended simply by the answer of "no" and im sure anyone who is vocal about this or answers people honestly when asked, has plenty of anecdotal stories of peoples reactions to simply "no". I know quite a few people who are non-believers and have been disowned by their family simply for saying they dont believe. While my immediate family would never do this, my extended would and ive had plenty of experiences of answering "no" and without any further commentary or anything have been physically attacked (once) and berated (quite often). I had a neighbor who knew i was a non-believer and in response she would regularly call the police on me for whatever reason she decided to create. She also took it upon herself to sign me up for every piece of christian literature she could find and dozens of people stop by in an attempt to convert me. When i was a teenager one of my first long term girlfriends, her mother absolutely loved me and would often ask when i was going to propose to her (which was ridiculous given we were 15) and this happened for almost a year. But then she found out i was not religious and didnt believe in deities. So i went from beloved to "If i see you on my property i will shoot you".

This percentage of religious people who do things like this IMO tend to do so because they realize how flimsy their religion and ideals are. You cant have a functioning brain and not realize how contradictory religious text and religious teachings are. Of course you also cannot have a functioning brain while also never questioning any of these things. So you have to believe it to and to not do so is to challenge their golden ticket to heaven. Of course there is also the truly devout who would go to these lengths because they truly believe that you are evil. With many of these people the absolute worst thing you can do is tell them that they cannot enforce their ideals on other people. In Osama's manifesto of charges against the USA, the third most important thing he listed was that the US prevented a near genocide in East Timor that fundamentalist Muslims felt was their god given right to do.

The point is that even with a simple answer of "no" a certain percentage.... a disturbingly high number of religious people, will be offended.

my life would be simpler if i did

@kod: you missed the other half : "There is also a way to support something without being overbearing and infringing on someones right to not believe."

It's a two-way street. I'm not sure where you got your "disturbingly​ high" number from but even if that could be factually supported, I don't see an issue in them taking offense. It's the reaction to being offended that can cross the line.

Edit: just so you're aware : "You cant have a functioning brain and not realize how contradictory religious text and religious teachings are. Of course you also cannot have a functioning brain while also never questioning any of these things. "

By insulting people you are actually not inviting them to have a discussion and you are guilty of doing the same exact thing as the people you referenced in your post. You are just continuing the cycle.

Hi, guys.

Thank you for your comments. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize, and perhaps clarify, my original wording. I stated that I am not looking for a debate, meaning myself, personally. You are of course free to debate one another, or simply give your thoughts on the topic.

Thank you

Reduc

TC, you forgot one very important part in your OP: What did you mean by God ?

Pretty much this. I'm not going to deny he exists if he/she/it does, but I don't feel it is right to take such a huge leap for what is fiction.

this is much how I feel, but I can't say it because I don't want to be offensive. I don't mean it offensively, either, but it's true; religion is a fairy tale. It's got the good guy, the bad guy, the prancing through the forest, the mystical force, and the lesson/moral of the story.

I mean they take a basic lesson like "Don't eat pork in a desert environment because it goes rancid in hours" and turn it into this big, terrible religious ordeal and suddenly if you eat pork you're a terrible, terrible person and pigs are unclean and, oh god, you accidentally ate some pork fat because something was cooked on a pan that some bacon was cooked on, now you gotta go force yourself to throw up....all because people were too dumb to listen to common sense because they were starving literally 90% of the time, so the one smart dude in the village had to invent a fairy tale for the idiots and slap "God" on the label to add a dose of fear to it so they'd obey.

So I think maybe that is why I don't believe in God, and religion, for that matter: because there is literally no need for it in today's world, and the only reason we ever really needed it is because we were illiterate, dumb, and didn't know any better. Because when you are horny and there's three women and one is your wife, why wouldn't you screw the other two women, even if you might get killed by the other two women's husbands? WOOPS HERE COMES GOD! DON'T COVET! Well shit isn't that convenient, suddenly things are a bit more peaceful and ordered in this village.

Funny how religion has really pragmatic roots when you don't take it literally and interpret it, ummm, as it was intended?...

I mean no one tells the story about The Boy Who Cried Wolf and says the moral is that if you lie a wolf is going to come. That's taking it literally!!!! The point is to see...THE POINT! DON'T LIE! People don't do that with religion, they take religion literally, they can't see the forest for the trees.

Now I am not implying the religious are dumb and illiterate (though in many parts of the world, the two go hand in hand!), but they generally definitely do not know any better. No, nowadays, more often than not, the religious are religious simply out of habit, because they are indoctrinated (for lack of a better word) by their parents, who were by their parents, and by their parents, and so forth.

In what way the word resonates with you.

Yes.

@foxhound_fox: they are.

A religious thread is done so often, sometimes it's good to discuss but the TC should have made some effort to set it up for a discussion, instead of requesting the opposite.

@RicanV: To be fair, suppose I had started a topic and said, "Do you like tacos? Answer yes, no, or maybe. But please don't turn this into a discussion or a debate." That topic would (or at least SHOULD) get locked simply because it doesn't contribute to discussion.

Hell, maybe the dude/dudette has a genuinely good reason for not wanting a debate. Maybe this is some kind of poll that he's doing, and he thinks that an ongoing discussion is going to taint the results. But even if something like that were the case, he should sort of be open about WHY he's asking the quesion in the first place and WHY he doesn't want people debating the topic.

Otherwise, it's just the same as ANY random pointless question that doesn't lead to any kind of discussion and therefore has zero reason to exist here. Granted, I certainly understand that debates about the existence/nonexistence of god are kind of stale and tired, but at least there's a discussion happening. If you're going to post a question on a discussion forum and then ask people not to engage in ANY discussion of the issue, then surely you understand that that brings up the very real question of why the dude is asking the question in the first place. If there's some reason why people on a discussion forum shouldn't discuss a topic that was brought up, then it's kind of on the dude who brought up the question in the first place to explain why people on a discussion forum should refrain from discussing this specific thing.

Again, I'm not even saying that "god or no god" is even a GOOD topic for discussion. I think it's a tired and stale topic, at least here. But it is at least A topic for discussion. If we're not supposed to discuss the topic, then WHY aren't we supposed to discuss the topic?

EDIT: Anyway, as to the actual topic. No, I don't believe in god. Or God. Or godS. I've seen no evidence of such a thing, so of course I don't believe in it. That being said, some other dude might come to me and tell me that he believes in god because god came to him and gave him some kind of "proof" in a dream or something. Fair enough. If god "proved" himself to you by some means, then by all means believe in a god. However, I haven't been lucky enough to be blessed by god coming down and revealing himself to me. So until that day happens, don't expect ME to believe in that stuff.

Looking at it the other way, I don't believe in god but I think it's lame-ass to get all arrogant about it. As if I'm somehow BETTER or SMARTER or MORE MORAL than believers simply because of what I believe. I like to think of myself as a pragmatist, and I think that peoples' ACTIONS are a lot more important than their BELIEFS. And when it comes to being a good person, I don't think there's any doubt that a shitload of theists easily have me beat in that department. If their belief in a god is inspiring them to go out and do tangible good works that I am NOT doing, then I think I'd be a pretty big shitbag to turn my nose up at them just because I think my beliefs are correct. BELIEVE whatever you want, I like to think that what's most important is not ACTING like a p.o.s. I mean, hell...there's this thing that atheists do where they make fun of christians for making a big deal of going to church. As if showing up at church for an hour on Sunday somehow lets them get away with being assholes for the rest of the week. Well, here's the thing...at least going to church is DOING SOMETHING. It's not doing much, it's doing SOMETHING. Meanwhile, "believing" something ISN'T really doing ANYTHING. If I'm gonna scoff at people for making a token effort to please their god by going to church for one hour out of the week, then I think it stands to reason that my BELIEVING that there's no god doesn't count for shit either. It's really easy for me to go on a message forum and complain about how religious people are stupid and immoral and that religion is the cause of all of mankind's problems, but that doesn't require me to actually DO ANYTHING, does it?

@MrGeezer: "To be fair, suppose I had started a topic and said, "Do you like tacos? Answer yes, no, or maybe. But please don't turn this into a discussion or a debate." That topic would (or at least SHOULD) get locked simply because it doesn't contribute to discussion."

Topics don't get locked automatically. If they did, plenty of the threads you see would have been long gone. If your thread, regardless of the initial intent, somehow spawned actual discussion it would remain open.

"he should sort of be open about WHY he's asking the quesion in the first place and WHY he doesn't want people debating the topic."

He should but he doesn't have to. In that same manner you don't have to respond on a thread that you feel is vague.

"If we're not supposed to discuss the topic, then WHY aren't we supposed to discuss the topic?"

You're confusing not supposed to with not looking for. The TC said he was not looking for discussion. His concern was yes, no, maybe in a poll format.

My point was if you are going to offer your opinion (when it's not sought by TC) then do so in a manner which is respectful to all parties. I don't think that's unreasonable to ask and I don't understand why people are fighting it.

Users have gone through the effort of expressing their opinion in this thread thoughtfully and in a respectful manner(yourself included). Locking the thread would be unfair to them. The idea is to maintain a civil discussion.

Yes.