Should you be a part of a religion?

Nobody should force you into believing anything, you have to decide for yourself what you should believe or not, valid reasons why God exists? He just exists, maybe you should look back a couple years and see if you were happy when you believed in God, or if you weren't did you ever believe in Him or did you just pretend?

Originally posted by twhitehead
There can be only one answer. Because I don't believe in a God or gods. I was brought up as a Christian, but at the age of about 13 or so, I realized that it just didn't add up. I have thought about the topic and discussed it with many people since then, and nobody has given me what I would consider valid reasons to believe there is a God. Interestingly, ...[text shortened]... llow. Again, nobody has convinced me that that is a reasonable or desirable course of action.

Have you ever read both the New & Old Testament of the Bible? If not why not do it especially the New Testament. I was an agnostic as a young adult but after I read the 4 gospels, Acts and Romans I no longer doubted that there is a God and that Jesus Christ shed His blood on the cross to atone for all past, present and future sins of those who have faith in Jeus. When one trusts completely in Jesus he or she will receive the gift of salvation and eternal life.

Originally posted by daniel58
Nobody should force you into believing anything, you have to decide for yourself what you should believe or not, valid reasons why God exists? He just exists, maybe you should look back a couple years and see if you were happy when you believed in God, or if you weren't did you ever believe in Him or did you just pretend?

There is no requirement that the truth makes you happy. People can be happy in delusion. (BTW, I happen to be happy most of the time, and I no longer believe in the conventional Christian notion of God.)

Originally posted by johnchp3
Have you ever read both the New & Old Testament of the Bible? If not why not do it especially the New Testament. I was an agnostic as a young adult but after I read the 4 gospels, Acts and Romans I no longer doubted that there is a God and that Jesus Christ shed His blood on the cross to atone for all past, present and future sins of those who have faith in ...[text shortened]... en one trusts completely in Jesus he or she will receive the gift of salvation and eternal life.

No I have never read the Bible in full and probably never will. If you want me too, you have to give me a better reason than your own conversion. If anything, your conversion after reading it makes me wary of reading it, though to be honest, the times when I have read bits of it I have become more and more convinced that large parts of it are not even close to being historically accurate.

Originally posted by johnchp3
Have you ever read both the New & Old Testament of the Bible? If not why not do it especially the New Testament. I was an agnostic as a young adult but after I read the 4 gospels, Acts and Romans I no longer doubted that there is a God and that Jesus Christ shed His blood on the cross to atone for all past, present and future sins of those who have faith in ...[text shortened]... en one trusts completely in Jesus he or she will receive the gift of salvation and eternal life.

Have you ever read the Quaran? Or the Veda books? Or the Eddan? No? Then you don't know for sure what is the real Truth, and what is not...

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Have you ever read the Quaran? Or the Veda books? Or the Eddan? No? Then you don't know for sure what is the real Truth, and what is not...

Add "The God delusion" to that reading list.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Add "The God delusion" to that reading list.

I've read that book and I don't think Dawkins makes good points.

He tries to disprove God by superficially reading the bible and pointing out how it is immoral, without considering the meaning of it all, similar to what a 5-yr-old response to the stories of the bible would be, literal.

Dawkins creates an image of God (a bearded man in the sky who is evil and narrow-minded), and then "disproves" it.

The guy's joke.

Originally posted by johnchp3
Have you ever read both the New & Old Testament of the Bible? If not why not do it especially the New Testament. I was an agnostic as a young adult but after I read the 4 gospels, Acts and Romans I no longer doubted that there is a God and that Jesus Christ shed His blood on the cross to atone for all past, present and future sins of those who have faith in ...[text shortened]... en one trusts completely in Jesus he or she will receive the gift of salvation and eternal life.

This doesn't work for everyone. I think reading the full Bible provides a lot of reasons not to follow the faith.

Originally posted by generalissimo
I've read that book and I don't think Dawkins makes good points.

He tries to disprove God by superficially reading the bible and pointing out how it is immoral, without considering the meaning of it all, similar to what a 5-yr-old response to the stories of the bible would be, literal.

Dawkins creates an image of God (a bearded man in the sky who is evil and narrow-minded), and then "disproves" it.

The guy's joke.

It doesn't look like you read the book all the way through. I don't agree with all his arguments, but he does make a lot of good points (obviously many of which were not his own but from previous thinkers), and he gives much food for thought.

We have had many threads on this forum discussing the whole 'immoral OT God' thing and to date I have never seen anyone explain 'the meaning of it all'. The best defense to date is the rather weak 'we don't know the whole picture'. Can you do better? I am not a 5 year old, and I have a similar response to Dawkins. If throwing ridicule at his comments is the best you can do then it shows a weakness on your part not his.

I am not aware of Dawkins ever trying to disprove 'a bearded man in the sky'. You are using the old 'the God you don't believe in is not the one I believe in' defense. But can you give a different picture? If you can, I am sure both Dawkins and I would be more than happy to apply most of the same arguments to your picture - in fact most of his arguments were fairly general and already apply to your own personal God.

If you would like to discuss any of the particular points in his book I would be more than willing to.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It doesn't look like you read the book all the way through. I don't agree with all his arguments, but he does make a lot of good points (obviously many of which were not his own but from previous thinkers), and he gives much food for thought.

We have had many threads on this forum discussing the whole 'immoral OT God' thing and to date I have never see discuss any of the particular points in his book I would be more than willing to.

Yes, I did, its just that I was mentioning the part where he talks about the old and new testaments and takes some quotes and make them look bad.

The best defense to date is the rather weak 'we don't know the whole picture'.

I think we have to acknowledge the fact that they were written more than a thousand years ago, in a much different context. You have to read between the lines, and interpret the meanings, and the purposes of each story.

I am not aware of Dawkins ever trying to disprove 'a bearded man in the sky'.

He creates that image, on that same part of the book, where he says the God from the old testament is a tyrant, a brute.



I think the belief not just in God but also in the supernatural is something very complicated, and dawkins doesn't seem to attempt to understand this, he simply judges it without giving it much thought.

So if you don't believe in God than why should you read a book "proving God doesn't exist" or saying that He's not Good, if you think He doesn't exist?

Originally posted by daniel58
So if you don't believe in God than why should you read a book "proving God doesn't exist" or saying that He's not Good, if you think He doesn't exist?

I do believe in God, and I read the book because I wanted to know what arguments atheits use.