Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. — Seneca
I'm an agnostic theist, I believe in the possibility of god(s) or god-like entities.
There is a quote I resonate with by Marcus Aurelius:
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid.
Exactly! I haven't seen any proof of a god(s) but I'm willing to keep an open mind. At the end of the day if I live life trying to do well, I should be good.
That quote resonates a lot with me as well.
Wow, I had no idea that there was a quote out there that aligns so well with my beliefs. I grew up in a semi religious household but was never forced to go to church. My parents encouraged me to go, not only to theirs but even go with friends that were different religions.
After going to various churches through some really vulnerable times I still don't subscribe to any religion, but I also can't bring myself to go full atheist.
Too bad that quote is way too long for a tattoo 🤣
It's a bit wordier (well, most people are wordier than the stoics lol) but Socrates had the right idea too I think:
Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: - either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another.
Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this?
If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I, too, shall have a wonderful interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not.
What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.
No.
Imo the more you think about it the more you realize that "god" is just a very human way to cope with feeling lonely or powerless, and life having no ultimate direction or purpose. People imagine a friend or guardian who has a plan and will set things right, and some use this shared fantasy to make others do what they want.
From the things I've seen in my lifetime I can only assume there's no God, and if there is a God then he's not worth worshipping for letting the amount of suffering exist as there is in the world today.
I don't believe in any deities. Although, Greek mythology really would be cool if it was real.
Yeah I thought for sure people would be duking it out in the comments section, but Lemmy seems to come to a (mostly) unanimous agreement here.
Welcome to Lemmy :)
But for real, if you go to the comment section on instagram or something comparable, its really toxic compared to Lemmy. But I'm also a bit worried as mastodon seems to become more toxic over the time, hopefully Lemmy stays the same
If there is a god, it takes a special sadist to allow the amount of torment present on earth.
So I prefer to believe there's no higher spirit ravelling in the suffering of all creatures rather than there being a malevolent creator watching with glee as we die a slow, painful death.
I love what-if scenarios :)
I think you could go one step further with this theory and say that humans are not that important at all. I mean, why would we think we are? Because god told us so? Maybe he just said that to account for some variable and left it at that. Hasn't looked back at what we were up to since.
In some distant corner of the universe is a much nicer planet where everyone is living in harmony and peace. We're just the control group :)
When I was religious (I'm not any more) that was something that never actually troubled me. I believed that god was benevolent but that suffering must be necessary in ways that we humans can't conceive of. Who were we to question the grander plan?
basically believing in god is akin to believing that this is all just a game of sims some twisted being is playing
Apatheist here. Whether there is or isn't a god, I don't give a shit. Just stop trying to shove your shit down my throat and leave me the fuck alone.
Yes, becuse in my family, all the older family members make him real for the younger kids. We actively work together to make Christmas a magical time by telling stories and staying up late to put out presents. I know that Santa is not a real person but I believe I can keep his "spirit alive" by giving heartfelt presents and spending quality time with my family.
I personally am atheist but I will admit that many religions have good teachings. I don't believe in the gods from those religions but I can follow the guidelines to living a good life.
Yes, and yes to the OP. It's very similar.
An older family member once asked my siblings and me, as older teenagers, whether we believed in Santa. We scoffed, laughed, and incredulously said of course not.
She responded that she believed in Santa, and she gave this explanation: Santa is a cultural shorthand for generosity. Do you believe in the spirit of giving? Do you want to see smiles on children's faces on Christmas morning? Do you want to make the people you love light up because you had special, almost supernatural, insight into their heart's desire and made it real?
I don't believe a magical man in a red suit gives presents and coal to kids. I similarly don't believe in a white bearded cloudy Jewish giant in the sky.
But I believe that there's something sublime and immaterial in the love we can have for one another, something only partially explained by ecologic survival pressures and biochemistry. I think there is something out there beyond what we can perceive on a daily basis, and for lack of a better lexicon, "spiritual" is as good a term as anyone for the realm of the imperceptible.
So I think there's a God, and I think there's a Santa. I don't understand either, and I think they're neither anything quite like we expect. And God the Creator is certainly an asshole sometimes. But I think there's Someone out there.
That's kinda just equivocation though.
Do you believe in Santa Claus?
Yes, but only if you define Santa Claus as something entirely different than what you intended when you asked the question.
Well that’s the issue always when talking about metaphysical beliefs.
There’s the child that beliefs in literal Santa going down the chimney. And there’s the adult that stopped believing in child stories and sees a rich and valuable culture around those stories anyway.
It’s not equivocal, but grown up in an embracing way.
There’s also the grown up in a rejecting way who is never satisfied with either variant, although for some this is just an intermezzo towards the embracing way.
She responded that she believed in Santa, and she gave this explanation: Santa is a cultural shorthand for generosity. Do you believe in the spirit of giving? Do you want to see smiles on children’s faces on Christmas morning? Do you want to make the people you love light up because you had special, almost supernatural, insight into their heart’s desire and made it real?
Santa is a cultural shorthand for consumerism. Going by your reasoning, god is a cultural shorthand for rationalizing one's own wrongdoing, lack of innate morality and misunderstanding of the world.
You can't disprove God because you can keep changing the definition. If I define God as the culmination of everything in the universe, you can't really disprove that.
If you disagree with me, then I can just keep changing the definition of God!
Surely the reason you can’t disprove God is because you can’t leave the universe. Since it isn’t possible for us to know what is outside of our universe we can’t prove or disprove a god’s existence.
The god argument can't be contradicted because it's not based on logic. People can just make up rules for their gods, and they usually don't care if those conform to reality or logic as we know it.
E.g. I can just say that logically disproving my god is a proof of its godhood, because it defies and is beyond human understanding. That's just not something you can argue about.
Assuming you are sarcastic - I agree wholeheartedly.
Look up The Invisible Dragon anecdote by Carl Sagan (in his Demon Haunted World book), or for more serious people - Falsifiability principle by Karl Popper, If you haven't already.
Since science is deductive it's probably impossible to prove the negative there, but I think there's enough evidence beyond reasonable doubt that you can confidently deny it (unless your god is non-falsifiable, in which case it's not worth discussion).
I believe there is an all powerful being made of spaghetti and meatballs floating somewhere out there. May you all be touched by his noodley appendage!
No, not at all. I went to a christian high school and that experience removed pretty much any doubts I might have had.
I'm a happy atheist, don't really care about all this religious stuff. I don't mind that others believe, just as long as they don't impose their views on others.
Last year my youngest was in kindergarten around the time of St. Patrick's Day here in the U.S. At some point they went out to recess and came back in to find little chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil on their desks. I picked him up after school and as we were driving away I asked how school was. He told me that he thinks leprechauns might be real. I asked what made him think they might be and he gave me the "we left class and when we came back there was chocolate on our desks" answer. I asked him if something else could have happened, like a teacher leaving them, and he said no, because the door is locked when they leave. I told him "maybe it was a rainbow unicorn who left the chocolate." His response was very dismissive. He said "no Dad, that's impossible because rainbow unicorns don't exist." He's a sharp kid but he's not quite at the logic stage. :)
leprechauns
Kids brains are funny. I used my superior child logical skills to proof to my parents why santa is not real, I was so proud... And a few years later I had an absolute psychological meltdown crisis after realizing that the Easter bunny isn't real 🥲
Nope. At best, religion is a fairytale created for those who are uncomfortable with ignorance, and at worst, it's a tool to control gullible people.
I have a more abstract view on it. God is Universe. A world at large with only the will to exist. I just don't use the word God because of the implications.
Kinda similar thinking, but if there's a creator, I think they intended Earth (or the universe) as a simulation or like an ant farm. No judging, just for entertainment. They probably love the stupid shit we do as humanity.