Do you believe in God?

[Barty]

"""The writing is on the wall"" https://www.facebook.com/valdinn66617 IRONS"

[Willtell]

"I agree with that Mike. I am not someone that has doubts or needs a prop to lean on and I scoff at religion because I believe it weakens people. I don’t recognise Wils assertion about religion making someone a better person although I accept that it should. Experience tells me otherwise. Too many believers are hypocritical in my experience. The only two separate former employees I had to sack for different frauds, were each deeply committed Christians who each separately we’re quite indifferent to their fraud. Perhaps god forgave them? Maybe not the woman died very young and I’ve never heard from the other one…"

[,]

"It’s a fruitless task to argue about the existence or otherwise of a god because people already have set views. What interests me is how people choose to use their belief. Blair has been brought up on here and he has made a statement which for me is the most chilling of any PM in my lifetime. Asked about how he feels some years after he assisted in the invasion of Iraq he replied that he would let god be his judge. What a get out of jail free card to play, the electorate cannot question him because his god is his judge."

[Mike Oxsaw]

"Wils 8:21 Tue Dec 12 Wouldn't that imply that a person with no - or fewer - beliefs is actually, mentally, a stronger person? Beliefs, in my mind, suggest certainty, which it seems is a basic, primitive human desire. I've certainly found that accepting uncertainty has given me no issues in living and enjoying my life, and, as for the less enjoyable parts - thankfully very few - I have worked out the causes and none involve the need of a ""higher intervention""."

[wils]

"""I had Tony Blair in mind Wils..."" I see. Fair enough. He is certainly religious although I am not sure he was religiously driven to declare war on Iraq. And if we are going to attribute bodies to hubristic world leaders over the last hundred years, surely the atheists win that hands down? Stalin through to Pol Pot. But I get your wider point about religious people being responsible for some evil in the world especially the kiddy fiddling clergy for which there is no excuses at all. All I would offer in response is that religion is not the cause of this evil but a vehicle for it. Historically anywhere there has been deference to people in charge of kids we have seen child abuse. It swept football quire recently and has been rife in secular public schools. The crime of the clergy is we (at least some of us) expected better from them of all people. But my original point still stands. Whether God exists or not - and this is not and shouldn't be an argument for his existence - your life by most metrics will be better. Even your chances of being sexually abused is more likely to come from the step dad you have due to your broken family than that it is to come from a Catholic priest. So you may have convinced yourself that you are right that he doesn't exist, but the absence of religion in your life is going to expose you a greater chance of being miserable and bad things happening in your life. It doesn't guarantee it, but greatly increases the likelihood. So what is there to be glad about other than the acceptance of your atheist peers? Regarding the footballers crossing themselves, that is asking God to look after them on the pitch, not a plea for intercession in the scoreline."

[RBshorty]

"Old Priest: I'm not sure what your'e are saying, my son. Billy Butcher: I'm saying if there is some geezer up there, with a big white beard, he's a heavyweight cսnt. Old Priest: I'm sorry did you just call God the C-word.? Billy Butcher: Yeah. He's got a hard-on for mass murder and giving kids cancer and his big old answer to the existential clusterfuck that is humanity is to nail his own bleeding Son to a plank. That a cսnt move. Come on, even you got to agree with me there. We should lob a fucking nuke at him, get it over and done with. You know what I""m saying.?"

[Hammer and Pickle]

Nothing in my post suggests I missed that “less likely” bit and everything in it tells you that I didn’t miss it at all. I’m supporting the post by saying my belief in a religious being called Satan being the author and moving force behind the Catholic Church explains why I have enjoyed such a happy and fulfilling time as a partner to my wife and a father.

[wils]

"WHU(Exeter) wrote... Pickle 6:15 ""Can we have that in English?"" I think he is referring to my post about religious people being less likely to experience relationship break-ups. I think he missed the ""less likely"" bit and took it as the defining difference between the two groups."

[Hammer and Pickle]

Think you’ll find the post is in English Exeter. I suggest God has deprived you of your verbal reasoning skills.

[Willtell]

I wasn't looking at Jihadists either although it is an interesting point. I find that too many believers have a tendency towards arrogance in general because they have god on their side. Indeed I have had believers tell me that god speaks personally to them. That's fine all the time god tells them good things but too often that isn't the case. When you are guided by another being or spirit it often goes wrong which is to deny your vision of the religion. How about all the Catholic priests that are child molesters or rapists? How about the nuns that forced adoption onto young girls in Ireland and then never recorded the data? I am sorry Wils but my experiences of religious people are that they are invariably complete hypocrites because they set themselves up to fail. Look at the ridiculous footballers that cross themselves as they go onto the pitch and visbly pray to god. Do they really believe that if god favours them today they will play well? I prefer the footballer that doesn't have god to blame when he plays shit...

[WHU(Exeter)]

"Pickle 6:15 Can we have that in English? (Preferably early doors, what with it being Tuesday evening n’all)"

[WHU(Exeter)]

"Do people stop believing in science, if a space rocket blows up. If you have faith in something, then those with faith in whatever, they keep it, despite losses. Or, alternatively, as a few Byzantine emperors found out, if you lose a succession of battles, and get invaded, the people think it’s because they’ve done something to anger their God, and then as Emperor, you’re toast. Or at least minus a nose."

[Willtell]

I had Tony Blair in mind Wils...

[wils]

"""Hmmm! How about those that believe they have god on their side so go to war knowing god won’t let them down but he invariably does?"" Interesting counter point. But I don't think there has been much opportunity for that in the UK at least. I suppose you could look at the jihadists in the UK rather than the believers of a Christian persuasion. But suicide bombing is an atheist invention. There's an interesting study by Robert Pape (google Dying to Win) where he constructed a database of every suicide bombing in the world to find patterns. The earlier suicide bombers were PLO (communists) Tamil Tigers (Communists) and PKK (again non believing communists). By the time of the Iraq war jihadist had started to employ the tactic. The main pattern observed was they have a common specific secular and strategic goal: to compel democracies to withdraw military forces from the terrorists' national homeland. My personal view, I am obviously no historian, is that purely religious wars are rare things. You can look at Northern Ireland and claim that's religious sectarianism. But the religion just correlates with the Nationalist and Unionist sympathies. They weren't killing each other for not believing in transubstantiation. I usually find that most 'religious' conflicts turn out to have an underlying dynamic like this."

[Hammer and Pickle]

Today is another day I’ve learnt something on WHO. Satan is a religious concept and I happen to believe the Catholic Church is the work of Satan on Earth. So now I know why I have enjoyed such a happy marriage these 22 years and why my sons are decent young adults. Cheers.

[Willtell]

"“ There isn't a single aspect of not being religious (the normal consequence of believing in God) that improves your life. Whether God exists or not, believing he does and living your life accordingly is overwhelming likely to lead to a happier life: less likely to experience relationship break-ups, less likely to experience depression, more likely to do well at school and have better employment” ——————————— Hmmm! How about those that believe they have god on their side so go to war knowing god won’t let them down but he invariably does?"

[Mike Oxsaw]

What need is satisfied through believing in a god?

[wils]

"""No, and glad I don't."" This is quite a revealing post. If you are glad about it then it means there is something in it for you. If you believe 2+2 doesn't equal 5, the only thing to be glad about is other people don't think you are an idiot and you are smart enough to count your change at the supermarket. So the obvious inference here is there are rewards for believing that God doesn't exist. People won't think you're an idiot for believe he does. You will live a better life for not believing in God's existence. The former is very true, depending on where you live people will think you are an idiot. If you live in a white British part of the UK in 2023 then people will think you're odd (or old) for believing in God. So there is a clear social pressure to conform. But the latter doesn't add up. There isn't a single aspect of not being religious (the normal consequence of believing in God) that improves your life. Whether God exists or not, believing he does and living your life accordingly is overwhelming likely to lead to a happier life: less likely to experience relationship break-ups, less likely to experience depression, more likely to do well at school and have better employment. Most of them, admittedly, secondary effects from relationships being more stable among the religious. None of that mean you should believe in God. But it does make you think that being glad about not believing in God must be mainly because of what the people you care about will think of you."

[Side of Ham]

Let’s face it with Pickle’s neckage he’s half way there….

[Side of Ham]

Let’s face it with Pickle’s neckage he’s half way there….

[pdbis]

"No, and glad I don't."

[Willtell]

"“ Hammer and Pickle 4:23 Mon Dec 11 Re: Do you believe in God? What if you die, meet God and…” —————————— Ha ha ha. You think you’re off to heaven? Say Hi to Bielzebub from all at WHO…."

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Thanks Wils - when we come before the Absolute, we all can use any support and encouragement we can get."

[wils]

"Hammer and Pickle ""What if you die, meet God and he just takes the piss out of you for being a mean, narrow-minded reactionary when he gave you all those opportunities to get over yourself and have a good time? Don't let that fear put you off, Pickle. Be brave."

[Hammer and Pickle]

"What if you die, meet God and he just takes the piss out of you for being a mean, narrow-minded reactionary when he gave you all those opportunities to get over yourself and have a good time? What then?"

[Willtell]

"One man's being stoned is another man's ""spiritual experience."""