tl;dr at the bottom.
I believe with Demagog here. BELIEVING is called BELIEVING for a reason -- you can't prove it. You can't disprove it either.
You say you're 90% sure that there is no God. I say I'm 100% sure there is. Too bad we'll never know who's right.
On another note, I don't fully understand the rational behind not believing. Let's say you choose to believe and live a good Christian (or X religion) life. It turns out there is no God. Oh well, at least you had a positive impact on the world. If it turns out there IS a God, you get to have a big party.
If you choose not to believe (let's say you still live a moral life), and it turns out there is no God, congradulations! You were right! But it doesn't matter since you'll never know you were right since your "self" is gone as soon as your brain stops working! And if it turns out there IS a God, and you didn't believe, you get to go to a bad place. Sucks for you.
In short:
Believing: Worst case: Nothing, and you never know you were wrong. Best case: You get to have a big party in Heaven (or w/e your religion says).
Not Believing: Worst case: You go to Hell (or the bad place for your religion...) and have no fun at all. Best case: Nothing, and you never know you were right.
I would rather choose my own path than have some higher being force me to follow a certain path, or a path a certain way. If a god(s)/ess(es) exist, and gave us free will, or gave us the ability to grow so we understood the concept of free will we always had, I choose to exercise that free will and live as I see fit. Regardless of whatever a religious text says, if you live a good life, morally good I mean, then you shall attain everlasting life in the afterlife, or be reborn into a new morally good person, or whatever your religion might say that happens to the believers that live a life how they should in the eyes of their deity.
It's like being in the army. You have to believe your cause it just, and that you are doing everything you are doing for the greater good. But if you choose to not be apart of the military suddenly, not believing your cause is just or for whatever reason, you are punished, sometimes heavily. I strictly do not believe in the "Ok, you have this area you are allowed to be in, but it you go outside this area you will suffer for eternity." I just think, "Well that's freaking stupid. You give me a choice and when I make the choice they don't want, I have to suffer eternally. Such a person/being/deity is not fair and just then. Give me the freaking truth, don't sugar coat stuff. You(whoever your deity is) are not the same as what is written. Either you don't exist, or man has written such text faulty(or left out vital text, or reworded badly, etc). Give me the truth and then you have a shot at having me."
I don't do "You can make any choice you want, but you had damn well make the choice I believe is right, or else."
Also coming from a mostly non-believer, it's rather hard to put your faith into something that seems to have so much weighing against it. I don't mean, "Oh so and so fact disproves this or that." No. There are no facts that prove or disprove God, or any other deity, and if you think there are, then you need to stop being foolish. That frog over there didn't hop for a whole hour, it must not be a frog then. That's what that kind of logic is, and it's really foolish. But the opposite is true too. That stick over there didn't hop, well, just because it didn't hop doesn't mean it's not a frog. But as a non-believer, I will continue to watch both the stick and the frog until I have solid personal belief that one is a frog, or one is a stick. You can't have belief in God(or whichever deity) and believe they don't exist at the same time.
That's how I see a non-believers stand point through the eyes or myself, a non-believer. We are watching the frog, waiting for it to move, but so far, the only thing we can really see and know is that the stick is just a stick. We are the toughers ones to convince because we need to see something. If something happens that cannot be explained, we do not jump to the conclusion that is was from god, or some deity, or some angelic/demonic being. We analyze it, try to understand it in our terms, and wait for the guys in white coats to figure out what it was. We are only just developing such amazing technology, and we will continue to develope better and better technology, and just keep on going until we have technology that can tell us why/how/what that something is.
Me personally, I believe God, or any other deity, can be scientifically proven. I know how bad that sentence sounds, but technology is just going to keep getting better, and unless we all suddenly die, or some kind of global disaster happens to shatter everything we've made (we as in humans, not just non-believers) we will eventually be able to develop something that blurs the lines of science and religion so much, this, that, or multiple religions become scientifically very probable.
and just to issue one specific point you said about having a positive impact on the world. As far as I've seen, yes, religion can have a positive impact on the world, because regardless or my beliefs, your beliefs, that beliefs of that guy down the street, the bible and other religious texts do teach very good life lessons and good morals. But Religion has caused more destruction and hate than anything else I can think of. Because of religion, so many have died. Now, I can't say whether those people would have died anyway, but just for a different reason(like land ownership, disputes in how to raise children, whatever) but I can say, for certain, that religion is another stone we can throw through someone's window. While yes, you could have had a positive impact on the world, you could have just as easily had a strong negative impact on the world, or someone's world. We all live in our own world, that are just grouped together and placed on this plane of existence of this world we call reality. While arguing, yelling, disputing religion with a single person may not change the world we call reality, it may change their own personal world. Going from a non-believer to a believer or vise versa has tremendous impact on a person's life, even if the most of the rest of the world is unchanged/untouched/unmoved by this one person.
Religion isn't always good, and does not always have an impact.
On another note, I don't fully understand the rational behind not believing. Let's say you choose to believe and live a good Christian (or X religion) life. It turns out there is no God. Oh well, at least you had a positive impact on the world. If it turns out there IS a God, you get to have a big party.
If you choose not to believe (let's say you still live a moral life), and it turns out there is no God, congradulations! You were right! But it doesn't matter since you'll never know you were right since your "self" is gone as soon as your brain stops working! And if it turns out there IS a God, and you didn't believe, you get to go to a bad place. Sucks for you.
In short:
Believing: Worst case: Nothing, and you never know you were wrong. Best case: You get to have a big party in Heaven (or w/e your religion says).
Not Believing: Worst case: You go to Hell (or the bad place for your religion...) and have no fun at all. Best case: Nothing, and you never know you were right.
I hope you don't mind my popping in here, but if you're genuinely interested in one person's "rational" behind not believing, here's mine:
I was raised in an extremely strict religious family. I spent the majority of my life praising God, and going to church. I missed my entire childhood because of it. I didn't go to school dances, I couldn't play sports, I wasn't allowed to date until my mid-20's, I couldn't have friends outside of the religion. Now that I've escaped that environment, do you really expect me to have a desire to return to organized religion? Yes, I understand that most religions are much less time-consuming and strict. But that does not change the fact that I want to live my life to the most, now. I've already missed so much, and I'm not going to let life slip away again.
Living the real "christian life" does not just imply being kind to everyone and donating to charity. It also implies spending precious time going to church and studying the bible, as well as giving up some things in your life (for me, one of those things would be homosexuality, a core part of who I am, as I am bisexual). By assuming that you have an infinite amount of time, I strongly believe that you will never appreciate life like I do. I know this because I have never appreciated life more than I do now, now that I know that time is short and life is precious. We are not as special as we think we are. What makes us so great, that we deserve an infinity of time in heaven? We are heavily flawed biological machines, lucky to live 70 years. To me, that's not something to be depressed over, it's something to feel humbled and honored by: something to celebrate.
I'm grateful to have this tiny snippet in time, and I'm not going to waste it on delusions that maybe I'll have more time than I actually do.
As a side note, the mere fact that I can be sent to "hell" for not believing in a deity who demands unquestioning faith in his impossible-to-prove existence turns me away from Christianity. In my humble opinion, that is not a God of love, that is a God of insecurity and power-hunger.
I'm not going to debate whether God exists or not. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. I believe there is no God, and I have enough proof of my own to let me sleep well at night. I appreciate the benefits of religion, and I'm glad it gives people hope and purpose. I think this thread is unnecessary, because -- as was pointed out, earlier -- there will probably never be an answer. It would be nice if people would simply realize this, and stop being insecure about their own beliefs.
I could not agree with you more heavily than I do now. None of us will appreciate life as much as you do, just as no one will appreciate it as much as I do.
And as for your last sentence, isn't
that what religion is truly about anyway? Not about convincing everyone that their god/ess exists, but being accepting, and loving of one another.
Contrary to popular belief, God does not hate homosexuality, hate pride, hate gluttony, hate you for murdering, hate you for stealing, hate your for anything because, as the bible preaches, he is a loving God and loves all his children equally. No matter your race, religion, sexuality, or anything. While He may not agree with it, and wish you'd follow his footsteps, He would never hate. It's not as if He enjoys sending any being to hell, I'm sure it hurts him every time he must do it. That is,
if He does such a thing at all. Hell could be purely an illusion created and written by man. As the Bible was written by man, it is not a holy text in my eyes. Man is fallible and to believe they wrote the bible 100% accurate is, once again, foolish in my eyes. But, this is all said if God even exists.
tl;dr
I have free will, either as a gift from a higher being, or because I always had it, and choose to exercise said free will and not be bound by the 'right' path, only to suffer dire consequences if I get off said path. If A hell type places exists for those of us who do not believe, then I damn well am going to have a good time while living and earn my seat in such an evil place, instead of trying to live right and ended up in Hell because I didn't try hard enough, or messed up somewhere and never asked for forgiveness or whatever other reason.
Religion does not always have a positive impact. I believe, and it is shown as fact through time, that religion has had very large negative impacts all over the world. But that is not to say religion always influences positively, or negatively, as each case is separate and can go either way.
pepokish, I agree with what you said 100%
People should spend less time worrying about others, and spend more time following what their religion teaches. I don't believe any, or at least many at all, teach that you should hate those who are different and believe differently and force your ways upon them. Spread what your religion teaches, most commonly, loving each other, being a good person, and leave the judgment to the one who is to judge us, whether it's God, Shiva, Ares, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
