Asklemmy

Gods, plural. But believe is a weird word.

I commune with the ancient gods of my ancestors, whether I believe in them is complicated though. I spent most of my life atheist after the christian church failed to grab me. I learned of my ancestral religion from my great grandmother and my great aunt. Grandma was Catholic on paper but still recognized the old gods. My aunt called herself a druid.

I choose to commune with the old gods because I have to believe in something. I've felt the call of spirit, the gaping void in my heart where spirituality was meant to be, but I do not trust organized religion. I don't trust the churches. I don't trust those who would hold power, enforced by faith, over those who do not know better.

By using our logic and from the experience of things around us we can say that it's impossible for something to come from nothingness. There is a consensus that the universe has a beginning which scientists call the Big Bang. But that cannot come out of itself, logic dictates that there is something which brought it about (energy/matter does not just compress itself into a singularity). Whatever that thing is or things if there is a chain of initiators/causes, must end with an initiator which is self-sufficient and which has not been caused by something else. Otherwise we go in an infinite regression of asking what caused that cause, and an infinite chain going backwards would mean the present never gets to happen, but we exist, and that is proof that the chain ends somewhere.

That's what is called the necessary being or the uncaused cause.

Now, by observing the universe we can surmise some characteristics that that cause must possess to bring it about, since it must possess them in at least an equal ammount. The enormous ammount of energy held in the universe shows that the initiator has immense power. The laws of the universe and its intricacies suggest that it must possess knowledge and wisdom etc.

For me, God is a character stronger than me.. Someone whom I call upon in times of despair. That's it. No deeper meaning than this.

I used to believe because of how convinced other people were. I thought they had a good reason. Turned out they had not

For me "God" isn't some person with wits and thoughts.

It is just the circumstances in where we live. The time the physics the vibration and energy filling the matter and thoughts.

There is no need in praying to it (except for you self). We're in a happy stream full of energy filled with feeling "souls" going into the same direction in time and filling this strange place where we feel energy as matter, waves and colors.

There are definitions of "God" that I feel are hard to prove, but others that are easy. For example, of your definition is "God is the ultimate cause of the universe" then it's pretty trivial that if everything has a cause there must be an end of the chain. Of course, this the could be a computer program running the universe simulation or even just the laws of physics themselves if those are truly causeless. But nonetheless, it's still a somewhat satisfying definition of "God" so I'm comfortable saying I believe in God. Harder definitions include "God is an omnipotent being" (which most of God's traditional attributes can be derived from) and "God is the being described in the Bible/Qu'ran/other religious text" which I feel like are unprovable.

A lot of religious apologists will make arguments in favor of the easier definition and then try to claim that this means their specific view of God is real. Personally I think that's insane. Like "there must be some end of the chain of causality therefore God became a Jewish carpenter in the ancient Roman Empire." Even if you're Christian that should be a bad logical jump.

If there is a god or something like a god, it has to be the sun. The sun makes all life possible and has near infinite energy, I can not think of anything more deserving to be god. Will it save us or help us as individuals, i don't think so, its a god we are insignificant in comparison and will burn when staying in its presence for two long. Also its real.

Another idea I had was from Einsteins quote: "to believe in god you have everything to gain and nothing to lose." So by that logic you better believe in all gods for maximum gain. There are a bunch more suns aswell ;)

In times of peace, I'm agnostic. In times of christofascism, I'm militantly atheist. People go to church or talk to God because it is an existential crisis. They are just scared of dying. Momento Mori.

Man - how I hate that on almost every post that shows some vulnerability and shares their belief we have lemmys trying to convince people about it not making sense.

Be respectful guys. Thank you to all the upvoters of the actual content - I see you.

I'm LDS some people might call us Mormon.

The short of it is I asked God and I felt his presence. Not like any earthly feeling, more like the burning the bible / new testament describes.

But even without any of that I'd still have believed / known. I just, always have if that makes sense? I might've gone a different direction in my beliefs but I'd still have known he's there.

Simple answer: I find I carry on believing in God in much the same way I believe in Science. A mixture of experience, logical coherence, testimony, teaching from people I trust, and connection with other things I know/believe, that makes - to my mind - God's reality overwhelmingly more likely than not.

I think I believe in something more like… biology and physics working together in some way to create our existence. I had a near death experience once when I was in ICU for several months. I met, a… thing, it was like a large glowing spark but its light didn’t travel away from its self, its glowing was contained to its “body”. I asked “is that me?” and the “room” we were in was filled with a sense of “no” it’s taken me ten years to process that experience and be able to talk about it, idk what that spark was but I’ve come to accept I believe that is the All Thing, it’s the eternal spark all sentient life stems from, I do believe access to long term memory is critical for being a part of the All Thing not simply being animated biology, like a mosquito for example.

I think the All Thing animates biology as a way to experience the physical world because it must “live” somewhere and we are all avatars, our thoughts are only important in the sense that they lead us to experiences and forming memories. I believe in nonduality and that physics is actually the closest humans will ever get to describing a god, an All Thing

In short, yes because you lose nothing by trying to emulate Jesus.

That said, the church be crazy af

You cannot have a painting without an artist. A sculpture without a sculpture. A tool will never use itself, it takes a user.

Imagine a blank and static universe. Someone had to add or move something to start the initial reaction even if they never play a part in the events after.

In some sense there is a creator. I just don't know in what capacity.