to believe or not to belive

so, throughout my life i have believed in God. i was raised catholic and attended catholic school. i have grown to hate this religion but that is beyond why i am writing.

it has become my belief that there is no "God" nor any other "supreme being". in my thoughts, the only reason humans created religion was because there was a fear of death and dying, therefore, a form of "after life" was created so humans wouldnt feel worthless knowing they only had x amount of years to life, and all for nothing.

"Is there life after death? Is there light after your battery is worn out?"

"The mind is cold. It is the role of subjectivity to find the 'sense of life.' The depressed person has lost the capacity to invent his own fairytale."

could it possibly be true that depressed people see the truth? that there is some harsh realization that there is no meaning to life? where as people in a more content state are happy because they belive lies, that no matter what, someone or something will be there. the mind is a powerful thing, it is easy to see the help from "God" if you want it to be there, just like it is easy to see a ghost if you are expecting to see it. our mind creates false perceptions, so how do we know what is the truth, or non-truth?

Well, if you think about it enough, at the moment at least, God is just as possible as no god.

Which would you rather have? Are you really that worried about it, or are you just tired of people claiming and preaching shit that doesn't even make sense, preaching the preachers don't seem to ever practice to well, except when it comes time for forgiveness of course.

I think there is more to it than just depression caused by seeing harsh truths, though it is definitely a factor. Its the dwelling on the negative, which may be habit as many therapists have tried to tell me, cognitive behavioral theropists, but between body chemicals, traumas, situational circumstance (living conditions and diet type stuff), and basic inherited natures, such as hyper, balanced, or low energy there are just infinite possibilities and factors to such things, hell even the shifting moons and planets effect us.

But yes, there are definitely trends, its just the factors that are so numerous, and many producing like results. It's kind of like why in psychology especially so many diagnosese have similar symptoms, cause they just don't know for sure.

Here's a thought. With the possibilities as they are, with reality's existance even seeming sketchy at times, there is a lot to say about believing in things with either the possibility or even actual making beliefs realities.

So far we have proven we can do many things once we put our minds to it, and not just creating illusions. Sure, our progress is slow, but that doesn't stop us.

Don't worry about God is my opinion, he can take care of himself, if it helps you in life to show some thanks then do so, its nice sometimes because it really does more to help remind you of what could be worse.

Cause I figure, if he did and is able to talk to us humans, he'll let us know if he has anything important to say. And if you believe that is exactly what the bible is doing, well, I can't help you there, bible is just a book to me.

And keep in mind that one thing that seems fairly consitent is the need for balance in the known universe as we tend to understand it. And from what I've noticed it would seem that no matter what there is always balance, things may seem to tip one way or the other, but they always balance out, naturally.

And the notion of the work of man not being natural is slightly absurd to me, I understand making a distinction, but we are reasonably just as natural as anything else.

An odd thought occurs to me is, that with such a thing as perspective, seemingly endless and equally diverse, and the degree to which reality and concepts such as infinity and god both do and don't make sense, I come to the conclusion that all things are both possible if not having or currently, or in the future going to exist(ed). That all things are both right and wrong, good and bad, as well as. That somehow seemingly impossible contradictions in existance actually do exist.

It is very easy to shut out such a notion as God, there have been so many harsh wrongs done and too many eyes have seen the malice , bitter, cold herated souls that occupy this once green earth. Yet I find that believing in a higer being can cause a calming of the heart. We cannot prove that there is one and we cannot prove that there isn't one. It is peole with wrong intent that do harsh to our minds. It is the people with no selfcontrol that weaken us as a whole. I believe that we must do our part when it is time, to correct the wrongs and make then right.

God's need for death I can handle, its such things as pain and suffering, abuse and truama I can't get my head around.

if you say there is naturally a blance and you belive in "god", so you think that god wants balance... so you think go wants bad (at times to balance, and all the other opposites! its logic..

im curious to see how somen would anser that i jus thought of it now

(i could get into, we believe in god for psychological reasons to benifit us ion various ways, os we dont question it, but rather enforece this brelief on others, and its easy to convince or be convinced of something we thinks encharge of our life..

and then the million contradicitons and obsquritres if you folow the bible and think god is 100% liinked and meaningful when on the bible..

and then the first cause first thing issue, its just as mind boggling for god, (but it seems that evthing comes from something anyway), and ifhe can alswasy be here hy cant evthing els (in its different forms)

i love yo goad though, i know ther cause feeling "god" is just a word, it might come from the feelings we havce from him but dont think of the world negatily like i used to with strict ppl and the bible and fuxckers

I personally believe in some higher being or consciousness; yet my concept of "god" is not one that is deeply concerned with the plight of individual man in an ordinary sense...We can only hope to be able to "communicate" with this supreme being in esoteric ways in order to transform ourselves in communion with this being...Pain and misery are a part of the plan, I think...and each of us must endure the harsh realities of life in noble ways...Human nobility in the face of adversity is the elevation of the human spirit depicted in art and literature...Of course it may all be fanciful illusion as well...

I find that a lot of Catholics or other Christians who follow the Bible have a difficult time understanding God because the Bible has its shortcomings and even contradictions. But just because the Bible doesn't make sense, does that mean that God doesn't exist? I don't think so. A lot of people come to believe in God, or a higher or supreme power, through self search, not Sunday school.

It's been said that there are a lot of things that are both true and untrue. What those concepts have in common is that they don't make predictions about observable reality. Thus they cannot be proofen wrong and are not scientific theories.

However religion and philosophies are not dealt with by noticing they have no factual basis. Contrary to scientific theories, they're not mainly meant to explain the world, but to help you deal with it. To discredit a religion, you'd have to offer a more striking vision for people to believe in.

You initially posed the question "to believe or not to believe?" only in relation to God. However there are a lot of other things beside religious beliefs that can give a purpose to life even beyond the end of ones own.

While without an afterlife our consciousness ends with death, what we contributed to society lives on in future generations. One might believe in a socialist society or improving the situation for the poor. Even if we do not hold such explicit beliefs, we still work for future generations by genetic impulses.

Why believe in God? for as long as many of you have been Christians or any other religion in the world, and even atheist..Why believe in God or not?

Belief is not reality, it can be taken down at anytime and when your belief is in jeapordy you want to protect it, and that spawns violence. The only way to percieve God is to know him, which all your pastors and priests and such have been telling you your whole life. They don't know God themselves because just like you they believe! If they ever understood or knew they wouldn't preach, they would tell you something this week and it would be your thing if you want to accept it or not. God is! the atheistic point of view that there is no God, but that there is a constant flow of life is a contradiction. God is the ever constant flow of life, he's not looking from above, he looks through our eyes. God is our vision not our eyes, our hearing not our ears and everything invisible that we use to comprehend the tangible. We use the invisible sound of voice to recognize a person, the invisible sound of splash to recognize water, the invisible sense of taste to recognize food etc. God is unknown, but he is because you're alive and you die.

And by the way nothing bad comes from God, only our corruption and how we accept situations makes it wrong. Is death bad? or is our perception of death bad? Death is a new beginning because at the moment you destroy, something new starts. Life after Death is irrelevant because life after death is now!....Freedom through reality is the only thing we're waiting for right now, and it only comes when you understand that every human being has God and is God, but not the Almighty God....God in us makes us him/her whatever gender you wanna put on the creator.

See, you contradict yourself, you mention how god is everwhere and in everything, but again claim God has no affect or control over anything.

And if we are God, then we act as and for God and then anything we do, including Evil is from God.

You say god is love, and god is man, but man is not love alone, and neither is god.

Am I contradicting to say that nothing is everything?

If Silence is all there is in a room then nothing is in the room cuz silence is not attainable through senses. So if silence is all there is in the room, isn't silence everything that's in the room?

If we are God, we stop being man, we cannot be man and God, but if we accept that we'r not man-we're not ourselves- the we're God...again not the almighty. As soon as you stop being one thing you're the other, not the opposite. Opposition is merely the absence of another thing. So if you are not man, then you're God but if you consider to be man and God, then you're incomplete.

And I agree with you that God is not love alone, because love alone cannot sustain life...haha...but because of love you can sustain life.....God is the nothingness that pushes us forward, and therfore he is love; because love is the nothingness that causes us to have emotion...God is love, God is silence, God is time, God is nothing, therefore God is everything.

In order for one to see meaning in life without lying to themselves and believing in some giant head in the sky watching over us, one must realize that all of human kind is one giant life form. If you're greedy and self-centered, you look at yourself as all that is important. When your life is over, it's all over. This isn't the truth. We are all collectively immortal in a way. I will die. You will die. But will humans all die? Perhaps. But we have the ability, with a little luck and a lot of changes, to live on forever (forever is a long time, but for all practical purposes, I'm just trying to get my point across) We have to stop thinking in such an ignorant, primitive way. If there is a higher power, we are nothing but a mold that sprung up due to the environment around us. The higher power didn't "create" us in "his" image. We are "his" excrement. Accept it. Enjoy the freedom it gives you. Stop living your lives in fear.

^^true......because I look down on the fact that there is a Giant head in the sky....and yes I believe that we are all immortal when we come to the realization that we are what we see. And i've said it before, how can you contradict yourself of there being a constant flow of life and no God. God IS the constant flow of life, I'm not a religious person and I frown upon religion, but life whatever you call it, God, Fath, the invisible stuff around us, or whatever else you want to call it exists....and It's alive and whether we're a result of a mistake we were created. Evolution is a creation because something new occured. Creation is the occurence of something new that's it...so to not accept the basic truths that you know and only look to what you've found out will never work....

90% of people don't even know what they mean when they say 'God'. Define him first, then you can see if you can believe in him.

^^...God is the belief of nothing....It is believing that reality is not controlled by what happens in life, but what you do in life.. God is the invisible and yet still visible, the actions of nothingness and physical nature....The light and the dark, the equation and the result.....The creator is the only thing which 'IS' whether you call it Evolution or not, you were formed out of nothing/dirt and now you are an unimaginable creature.....And it's not done yet.....when we realize who we are we are going to be transformed to what we were before knowledge corrupted us....Simplicity is God, anything Complex is not of his/her making.....anything evil is not of his/her making because nothing is evil unless you say it is!... But if you are enrobed with the understanding of the eternal life called God you would never wish to disrupt the eternal life of another person........That's my understanding of God, so simple yet so complicated.....I hope it's close enough to your understanding...