whats your motivation for believing in god ?

annata said:

do I need an outside motivator to live an honorable life, or do good deeds? While I do not disbelieve, there are other Paths to enlightenment ( or salvation if god based)
In other words one can be "spiritual" without a god based belief

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Isn't this the Oprah Winfrey Religion?

Paschendale said:

Why muddy love by attaching a word with so much baggage like "god" to it? Just call it love, cuz that's what it is.

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Please, and no offense at all intended, being a militant atheist myself, but seriously??? Are you trying to claim that "love" doesn't have it's own huge baggage? Seriously? Far as I can tell, love is four letter word, ie it's over used, has both almost no meaning as well as multiple meanings, just like curse words, and it can be used for both good and bad presentations/intentions/etc.

TacticalEvilDan said:

I'm an apatheist. I don't believe or disbelieve, because the question of deity's existence makes no difference to me -- I'm going to be the same person and make the same choices either way.

I don't begrudge anybody else their beliefs. The world (much less the universe) is a big and mysterious place, full of all sorts of things we don't and may never understand (much less perceive).

I try to stick to judging others based on their conduct, and leave the contents of their heads out of the equation as much as possible. My things about consistency and fairness sometimes enter the fray, but I generally restrict that to openly stated beliefs.

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Ew, I like that. My adopt it? I think it's a great way of discussing it what many "atheists" actually feel. Bravo! Great word if you made it up, hell, a great word even if you just found it. I've never seen it before, but it's perfect.

Summerwind said:

Far as I can tell, love is four letter word, ie it's over used, has both almost no meaning as well as multiple meanings, just like curse words, and it can be used for both good and bad presentations/intentions/etc.

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Somebody has been severely hurt in their past or has an overactive obsession with dissecting words.

What in the heck Summerwind? You almost made me cry.

vasuderatorrent said:

Somebody has been severely hurt in their past or has an overactive obsession with dissecting words.

What in the heck Summerwind? You almost made me cry.

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I didn't intend on doing that, sorry. Just I have a hatred of that word. My parents assured me almost daily that they loved me... so it's a sensitivity, but I also know I'm not the only person, not even close, there are millions who've been harmed by "love".

Summerwind said:

I didn't intend on doing that, sorry. Just I have a hatred of that word. My parents assured me almost daily that they loved me... so it's a sensitivity, but I also know I'm not the only person, not even close, there are millions who've been harmed by "love".

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I'm fortunate that nobody has ever used that word against me. It is unfortunate that your experiences were different.

I have never in my entire life believed in God..and I tried to for a while.

IMO, he is little more the a physical manifestation of some ideal that people cling to when they are at varying states of desperation and/or if they took a 'leap-of-faith' for whatever reason.

Nothing really wrong with that...provided they don't try - IN ANY WAY - to shove it down other people's throats.

Believing there's possibly a god, supreme being or universal conscious intellect, is not the same as necessarily believing in this energy, as having our best interests at heart. What satisfies a possible deities requirements of accountability in our lives, may not coincide with our belief in what's desirable. It might be so fantastically wonderful in the end that we could've never imagined it, or it may be just pretty good, mundane or worse. If it's nothing we won't be aware and all our current concern is pointless, and may very well turn out to be unimaginably spectacular. The rub is what turns out, if anything, as a possible outcome.

The motivation for believing is "hope" and "curiosity" for some continuous existence, hopefully in at least an equal or better form. And maybe even the unbelievable god like existence.

vasuderatorrent said:

Somebody has been severely hurt in their past or has an overactive obsession with dissecting words.

What in the heck Summerwind? You almost made me cry.

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evrybody hurts but we keep loving

l dont know why some voters are invisible .it is not a suicide poll

vasuderatorrent said:

Isn't this the Oprah Winfrey Religion?

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Buddhism

Summerwind said:

Please, and no offense at all intended, being a militant atheist myself, but seriously??? Are you trying to claim that "love" doesn't have it's own huge baggage? Seriously? Far as I can tell, love is four letter word, ie it's over used, has both almost no meaning as well as multiple meanings, just like curse words, and it can be used for both good and bad presentations/intentions/etc.

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So love has its own baggage. Why add more unnecessary stuff that's not even accurate?

Risky Thicket said:

My point was not that everyone fears "God", but that all people who practice religion fear suffering.

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Not in my case nor anyone I know who practices my faith.

What is common though is having been through suffering and recovered. People make fun of of so-called "death bed" conversions, but attend an AA meeting, see how many people are sober, they swear, though a faith in a spiritual power greater than themselves, be it green spaghetti monster, hairy, vengeful thunderer, or a loving God who, in their terms, "restores us to sanity". Most people I know do not fear hell, some believe they have been there, they fear heaven, that it might not be there for them....the so-called "true darkness of the soul".

Think whatever the **** you want, but that fact is indisputable.

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Fearandloathing said:

Not in my case nor anyone I know who practices my faith.

What is common though is having been through suffering and recovered. People make fun of of so-called "death bed" conversions, but attend an AA meeting, see how many people are sober, they swear, though a faith in a spiritual power greater than themselves, be it green spaghetti monster, hairy, vengeful thunderer, or a loving God who, in their terms, "restores us to sanity". Most people I know do not fear hell, some believe they have been there, they fear heaven, that it might not be there for them....the so-called "true darkness of the soul".

Think whatever the **** you want, but that fact is indisputable.

There will be no responses to replies to this post

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I'm not sure why anyone would expect you to respond as your post has nothing to do with anything in the OP and is in no way related to anything I said.

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I believe a Supreme Divinity exists as it seems logical to me.
`

My reasons are a bit shallow compared to many here. Fundamentally, I have a HARD time believing in things I cannot touch myself so faith is something I struggle with because its contrary to my nature and I tend to gravitate towards secularism and secular outlooks. But here is why:

1. When I pray and ask for something, I tend to just know immediately if its going to happen or not. The feeling is accurate (I kept a log to test it even) even if whatever it is doesn't happen immediately. Sometimes I get a not yet feeling and know that I need to mature in some way before I get it.

2. When I have emotional difficulties I am guided through it. This was even true during times of strong depression (like almost all of 2013 when my wife of fifteen years left me and emotional abuse issues from my childhood surfaced at the same time and my sense of identity almost shattered). The guidance always leaves me better off, more emotionally free, emotionally stronger, more mature, more accepting of the crap life can throw at someone, and generally happier.
2a. When there is an issue that I can't deal with, I tend to be given whatever it is I need. I credit the relationship I am with an amazing woman to that. One day I knew she was coming in two months and I needed to do a few activities to make it happen. I was so depressed I declined and I felt that presence get angry and somehow I did those tasks against my will and those things directly lead to meeting her. Similar things have happened on other occasions, I tend to be damn stubborn and have an amazing ability to be wrapped up on my own stuff.

3. I have had physiological changes when desperately needed. This one is hard to explain. This also happened in 2013 (almost exactly a year ago actually). I used to have a hard time in social situations, to the point where multiple people accused me of having high function aspergers. Given my history and the clinical symptoms, I can understand their PoV. However, 2013 forced me to adapt in ways that I simply wasn't able to, I was under an emotional blanket that I had been in all my life and I could not get out of (I wasn't even aware at the time). And in a very desperate moment, I just pleaded to have it fixed, I didn't know what was wrong, but something was. What I remember next was waking up look at the clock and two hours had passed. Somehow I had fallen asleep like a light switch. I had a terrible headache and it lasted about three days and no pain pills helped. When the headache subsided the world was different. When I would deal with people, not only would I get the info I was used to getting, I was getting more information. Their emotions (which I used to be able to detect by practiced viewing of their body language, which took me years to learn) were hitting me like a truck. I could just tell how they felt, what they were thinking, what they were not saying, what they were trying to hide in many cases, etc. It was like seeing color for the first time. Here was a new font of social information I was not previously aware existed. I prayed and asked "wtf do I do with this, its overwhelming" and I knew I would learn in months what others took a lifetime. For the next two months, I had epiphany upon epiphany and eventually what was consciously controlled all the time (like pretty much anything social) just became natural to me. I could even better sense my own emotions. My feeling about myself went from a vague sense of good and bad to a rainbow of different options. I was more aware of my own and the needs of others. Suddenly I had a ton of friends when I didn't have any (and true friends too, the kind who will fight for you when the chips are down) and they were just attracted to me because my personality shifted.

But if one goes back to the aspergers idea, it may have merit. my skin was no longer hyper sensitive, I no longer felt pain against certain loud frequencies, I don't seem to feel a need for routine anymore, and my thought process become much less linear.

So given this, I know something is there, I attribute it to the Christian God because when I do things in those terms, I get the sense that I am following the right path. All the philosophy, bible, logic, reason, etc in the world would not lead me to this. The only conclusion I can come up with is that either I am insane or there is something beyond my understanding working with me. I did enough testing with journals and stuff to throw out the possibility of insanity (which I honestly considered as a possibility).

Honestly though, I gotta wonder why me. I am not exactly a model of a good behavior and I am a weak person and just about everything tempts me with my newfound problem of "oo shiny" since that headache. I am now very right brained in my behaviors. Its odd.

I do not believe in gods but I do believe in good and evil (but not absolute good or absolute evil) and how everybody is a combination of good and evil. People who are good overall have more good than evil traits and evil people have more evil traits than good ones.

another option may be wishing a justice from god in the other life considering this life is full of disappointments

Paschendale said:

So love has its own baggage. Why add more unnecessary stuff that's not even accurate?

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You live in a strange world if "love" is treated word-wise with the respect it deserves. I've seen it from time to time someone really loving, and then that same person turns around and "loves those shoes!!!!". So as a word it is a useful and useless as most curse words. Just an observation, you don't have to like it for it to be accurate.

Summerwind said:

Ew, I like that. My adopt it? I think it's a great way of discussing it what many "atheists" actually feel. Bravo! Great word if you made it up, hell, a great word even if you just found it. I've never seen it before, but it's perfect.

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I'd been looking for it for years, stumbled across it on Wikipedia. I firmly believe that many who describe themselves as atheists are actually apatheists.