Anti theism

In the past, I've had long and fascinating discussions with atheist friends of mine. They haven't changed my stance on my belief in God and I'm pretty sure I haven't changed theirs. What they did do was to cause me to modify my beliefs and I welcomed that. I believe in God, but I don't believe in religion (although I'll defend people who practice an organised religion strenuously because I don't see them as a bunch of moronic idiots).

As a consequence of talking to atheists on what I hope has been an equal footing (I'm not stupid and neither are they). I've become interested in the atheistic point of view, whilst not subscribing to it. That has led me to read atheistic websites and forums and such. In doing this I've discovered a mind set that worries me. The Anti-theist brigade. Woah! I can't get my head round those people at all. They don't discuss God, they discuss religion and call it God. That is the most frustrating thing. The two are, in my opinion, completely different and nothing I can say to people like that will derail them from the argument that 'religion is a bad thing, therefore I don't believe in your God'. Then I get condemned for being 'religious'.

Sorry, rant over.

I don't think many people go for a god but not a religion. Generally a religion has a god, or many gods, or even a common god, and the two are linked.

I can completely understand those with a traditionalist view of gods and religion not understanding your current viewpoint.

Maybe you need some new words other than religion and god to describe your position as both words come with a lot of baggage and supposition. That way your argument may be less likely to get muddied with other older arguments.

I don't see the problem with believing in God but not being part of a religion. Non believers stance is that religions are made up with a view to control the masses with scaremongering.

For my own very deep thoughts I can contemplate God without religion. I think somewhere amongst religion there are truths. Religions say God is good, God is love.

I believe this to be so. I think God can only control good and have nothing to to with anything bad. I think there are negative and positive energies or whatever you want to call them. God is a positive energy whether this is in 'thinking person' type state or the essence/energy of all there is.

I don't see a problem separating the two. And I don't see how non believers can have one. It's God without the set rules, isn't it?

Having said that I am open to the fact a religion might be correct as none of us can say for sure what is.

What is god without Man? What is Man without god? I contend man created god, not the other way round. Without religion and the mouth pieces who speak for god, god is little more than an impotent voyeur without purpose, direction or point and ultimately of no use or interest to the future of mankind because whether he is there or not makes no difference to us.

Like what?
I believe in a God and I don't follow a religion. Simples.

God without man is fine and, I suppose, man without God is fine too. I didn't create the God I believe in though.

What is steak without chips, Duck? Both were there before being put together and both could survive without the other.

God without man ceases to be as a concept as far as we are concerned. Man without God remains man and probably better for it. Work on your analogies Sherry, that was shocking

Tried that - it felt wrong.

And by 'felt wrong' I suspect you mean more complicated what with not having a nice easy answer to 'why' and having to face the uncertainty that everything is nothing more than a random throw of the cosmic dice that produced the right elements in the right quantity to allow for matter and all the other universal laws. Giving ones self to belief (however nebulous) is easy but it is also akin to giving up free will, the trade off is being a little happier day to day I guess.

You don't know me very well, Duck, if you think that's the reason I believe in God. Fyi, it isn't. But then, yours is a nice easy response to what I said I suppose.

Duck - I like my analogies


Back to the subject of God without man - There's supposedly a lot more going on in the universe than mans earth experience. If there's an afterlife in other dimensions which are within our earth and around it there's also supposed to be 'before' life. Not all souls come to earth, apparently.

See, that's where the paranormal community should stop and get informed about what we 'know'. That way the paranormal community would spend less time wasting energy on baseless assumption 'Do EMP detectors pick up ghosts?' and be able to ask informed questions 'What exactly is a ghost in scientific measurable terms?' If you can't ask the 'informed questions' all you are doing is reinforcing circular reasoning with questions that confirm a bias position, not actually asking questions with a genuine expectation for knowledge and understanding.

By all means ask questions, but base those questions on a solid foundation of empirical observation and repeatable evidence, doing otherwise serves little purpose beyond self gratification.



So, here's an informed question that avoids assumption.

"What do we 'know' about g/God/paranormal?