Do you NOT believe in any form of God

[wyverary]

I thought it might be interesting to share a passage from a lecture Carl Sagan did on the God Hypothesis, as published in The Portable Atheist -

This kind of god they [Spinoza and Einstein] called God in a very straightforward way. Einstein was constantly interpreting the world in terms of what God would or wouldn't do. But by God they meant something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled God. And by that all they meant was that here were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature, as I have said earlier, that apply not just locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow, Peking, Mars, Alpha Centauri, the center of the Milky Way, and out by the most distant quasars known. That the same laws of physics apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any of us. It represents an unexpected regularity to the universe. It need not have been. It could have been that every province of the cosmos had its own laws of nature. It's not apparent from the start that the same laws have to apply everywhere.

I myself don't believe in God, but it's not something I think about much, and these days I tend to keep it fairly private.

 

[Aspie510]

Not only do I NOT believe in any form of deity/supernatural power, I would say the evidence that we are unimaginably insignificant from the perspective of the universe is pretty overwhelming.

That being said, I'm not completely devoid of personal hypothesis about possibilities like matter itself may all be sharing some common communications system. In other words, we may all be connected on a level that is beneath sub-conscious. The difference in my system of understanding is that I firmly believe anything can ultimately be explained. In my world view, there is no such thing as a members only belief that can only be obtained by NOT proving it's existence.

 

[Soup]

Nope. Gods go into the same category as any other mythical beings at best, problematic delusions category at worst for me. If one person believes in invisible powers who speak to him & tel or compel him to do stuff, he is Schizophrenic. If enough people believe him & they, too, talk to the same invisible forces, it is a religion & said believers are considered pious & devout.

 

[Aspie510]

Yeah. I tend to avoid anything that makes my grasp on reality any less tenuous. Gobs and gobs of good hard facts are what I dine on.

 

[Soup]

Furthermore, the absence of a scientific explanation for some phenomenon does not justify filling in that blank with a supernatural fairy tale. 'God did it' is not a valid default explanation. I'm perfectly comfortable leaving a space blank until science provides a rational explanation for it. The supernatural should not be admissible as an excuse, justification or validation for anything any person does. The devil didn't make you do whatever dastardly deed you did: you are an idiot with poor judgement & poor impulse control.

God did not save you from a plane crash by delaying your car in traffic so you couldn't get on the plane. What about the other 150 people: they did not have a magical 'in' with the head honcho?

 

[Grumpy Cat]

I do not not believe in God. But most of you already know that about me.

 

[Historianthomas]

I personally don't believe in God. I underline personally because reality is really based on the individual's belief and their own experiences in life. For believers, God is very important in their lives and it is part of their reality. I respect that tremendously. Personally, I use to believe, until I began to question biblical stories and our church's stances on issues like evolution. At the same time, I have come to really respect the divine from a historical perspective, such as how beliefs helped people answer unanswerable questions like after death.

 

[Ricky]

I've never felt I need any kind of god to find life meaningful. I'm fine with the fact that I will be dead in 40 - 50 years from now.

 

[Matt88360]

It's rather unfortunate that so many people here think organized religion believes in the "cartoon God": the old man in the sky with a flowing white robe sitting on a big golden chair on a cloud. If you do some investigating, you will find that mainstream Christianity (leaving aside other religions about which I am not qualified to speak) does not and never has believed in a physical God of any kind whatsoever. One of the most fundamental things to understand about God is that He is spiritual. To be more precise, His essence is existence Itself. Note: not existing things, but the existence that sustains those things in being.

Taken as such, there's really no one out there who does or even can rationally deny that there is such a thing called "existence" that is separate from existing things in the universe. Consequently, most self-identified "atheists" are really a kind of deist, believing that God is a non-intelligent force, as Spinoza or Einstein believed.

 

[Spinosaurus kin]

I don't think there could be anything we could call "God" in existence. I mean, religion focuses on breaking the minds of the defenceless (children, grievers, the stupid) to control society.
It has been used to justify countless atrocities, including genocide, rape, domestic and child abuse, refusal to seek medical help for children, suicide, homophobia, killing of mentally ill people because they were "possessed", closed mindedness to the point where you could be ostracised or even killed just because you THOUGHT A BIT DIFFERENT. Let that small bit sink in.
And most people who defend it are unable to do so with honest means, and so have to use outdated innefective fallacies such as strawman arguments, overgeneralisations, and the one I really hate with all of my being, the appeal to ignorance "You don't know God so who are you to question Him?" which could just as easily be used to justify Hitler or Stalin with a simple change of the subject and a decapitalisation of an H.
So yeah. Religion at its very core might sound quite friendly, but the horrors it is built on just to keep control make me cringe.
So while I support the charity that some religious people do, and that for some people externalising their morality is required (some people lack the judgment to think for themselves) for their safety and those around them, it is too corruptible to be worth it in today's society.

 

[apt-get]

If you do some investigating, you will find that mainstream Christianity (leaving aside other religions about which I am not qualified to speak) does not and never has believed in a physical God of any kind whatsoever.

Last time I checked, mainstream Christianity believes in the literal crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Those are physical events, ergo a God that interacts with the physical world would be required for that story to have taken place. Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, most Christians believe in some form that God created the physical world. That would require a God that interacts with the physical world.

One of the most fundamental things to understand about God is that He is spiritual. To be more precise, His essence is existence Itself. Note: not existing things, but the existence that sustains those things in being.

I suppose that you could define God and spirituality in this manner, but then you are left with some incredibly abstract notion that's pretty undefinable and meaningless. Sorry, but that definition of God is just total crap, IMO. Philosophers are good at constructing things that are logically consistent, but are totally useless in describing the world we live in in any meaningful way.

Furthermore, if this is the mainstream view of Christianity, then one would expect that Christians ditch the entire notion of prayer, or really any anthropomorphizing of the God they believe in.

Taken as such, there's really no one out there who does or even can rationally deny that there is such a thing called "existence" that is separate from existing things in the universe.

Until you provide a coherent view of what "existence" really means and how to actually separate it from existing things, then there is no good reason to accept either this claim that I have quoted, or the definition of God that you provided. The "capacity for existence" isn't something that is really well-definable.