Is God Real?

This is a topic that I have been looking into sense my Philosophy class over a year ago. When we got to the topic of religion, I was someone to find that at that time I was one of few people in a class of about 20 that believed in some sort of higher power. However, like I said, I've been researching/studying for over a year, and I now call myself an Atheist. And now I'm going to just lay out a few basic theories/reason and why I personally don't believe in God.

First, there is no proof. Many people say to me, and other Atheist, "Prove to me there is no God." And basically my proof, is the lack of proof. Just because I may not be able to explain 100% that there is no God, doesn't mean that there is a God. To basically rip off what Richard Dawkins has said, I can't 100% prove that fairies, and Zeus, and Apollo aren't real, though I haven't heard anyone claim that those things are real.

Second, The problem of Evil/The problem with Free Will. This is a theory that I have been working on by myself. I personally believe that our actions are 100% freewill and fate & destiny is bullshit. And because I believe that, my theory either states that I'm wrong, we don't freewill and God is evil and therefore not worthy of our worship, or that God cannot affect the way we live. Allow me to elaborate. Three fundamental properties given to God is that he is "All knowing, all loving & all powerful." If that is true, then we have no freewill because God already knows what we're going to do because he is all knowing. That would also means he basically plans every finite moment of your life. With that being said, you could conclude that everything bad (Murder, rape ect) is caused by God because he knew it was going to happen, he let it happen. Thus making him evil. Some people try to say "No, its not God, its the Devil that does those things." To that I go back to God knows everything that is going to happen. When he created the person/angel that was the Devil he knew what would happen with him, and could stopped it from happening. And if you disagree with that, then God is clearly not all knowing. If God created everything, he created the Devil, he created murder, ect.

Third, The Bible. Many verses are quoted showing how loving and caring God is, yet they ignore when God claims for the death of people for insignificant actions. For example, being gay, working on Sunday, being disobedient as a teen, having sex before marriage, only to name a few. This can also fit into my last point, of is God all loving. If God calls for the death of people for these things, how is he all loving? Answer, he is not. If you are a father, and your son/daughter turns out to be gay, or works on a Sunday, or is disobedient, or has sex before marriage and you kill them no one would look at you as a loving father.

Fourth, Miracles. This can fit into my first point of there is no proof, or that many of the miracles we thought were divine actually were just natural occurrences. For example Moses. In the Bible Moses turns the water "red with blood" and divides the water with God's help, however I was watching something on TV a while ago that gave a new incite on it. It said that the Red Sea would recede and there would be a higher land in the sea that you could walk on that would make it look like the sea split. As for the sea turning red, I forget what actually caused it, but it was some sort of Chemical reaction that caused the sea to turn red.

Fifth, Prayer. I recently got into a debate with a friend of mine were we were talking about Prayer, he believes in the bible and I clearly do not. Anyways, I started quoting to him parts of the bible where basically it says "If you believe, the nothing is impossible," or "you will get what whatever you ask for in prayer." And he started referencing parts of the bible were it says its God's will to answer the prayers, or its Jesus' will. I just see the whole theory of prayer to be, sorry if this offends you, but stupid. As I've stated threw out this, either God plans what we're going to do, or God has no power over our lifes. Either way prayer would be useless. There has been studies done saying that praying doesn't help anything. And any of these "miracles threw prayer" is just bullshit as far as I see.

Anyways, that basically will do it for now, I could go on more, but I'm getting tired of typing as I'm sure you're getting tired of reading. But please share any thoughts.

The bible is written from people to control stupider people don't waste your time with it

That was a very well put together piece of writing and 100% true, there is really nothing whatsoever i can disagree with, i support what you say all the way and would like to add my own little spin to it.

Ill make it simple and tell you about Atheism from the perspective and the most atheistic man you will ever meet.

When we grow up, we are told stories about a lot of things, we are told about Santa and how he has a magic sleigh and magic reindeer that fly, we are told how he circles the planet in one night and delivers presents to all the worlds good kids by sliding down their chimneys while everybody is sleeping. We leave milk and cookies for this wonderful and magical man who works year round with his army of elves to built us toys so that we might have a good Christmas.

We are told about the Tooth fairy who for some odd reason collects teeth and leaves us money under our pillows in exchange for the teeth we lose, we are told about the Easter Bunny and many more Magical beings.

We are also told about this man named Jesus who is the son of an all powerful and all knowing being called "God" whom created us and everything we know, we are told that "God" has always existed and resides in a place called "Heaven" and that if we pray to him and telepathically tell him we love him he will rescue us from a place called "Hell" when we die, If we do not worship this being we will end up being trapped in some eternal damnation and tortured forever.

Soon we come to understand that all of this is false and are just stories made up, all except for this "God" story, That story is the exception and should never never be questioned. Now some of us (more than you know) find this story just as absurd as all the others, we think to ourselves "if the others are so far fetched then what makes this idea of "God" any different?"

Sure, its true that a massive amount of people mistake it for truth, but since when does so many people thinking something make it true? people will say that their belief makes it true and that they "just know" it's true.

The truth of the matter is that NOBODY believes in "God", they only believe in the stories they have been led to believe are true, they have been brain washed from an early age to think that they will be outsiders and looked down upon if they don't agree with the majority of the population, they have been frightened into embracing this delusion by threats of hell fire and brimstone, by threats of eternal torture at the hands of the "Devil" and at the thought of never again seeing friends and family that have died.

Then there is the reward aspect, If you donate your money, time and energy to your "God" he will reward you with eternal life in his kingdom where you will never again suffer, he is a jealous god however, you better only worship him or else you will be consumed by fire, he is also an angry and vengeful god so you better make sure you keep him happy by offering your constant praise and unconditional love.

Last but not least, he is a god who seems to be unsure of himself and needs to be constantly reminded how perfect and great he is, to me, he seems to have very low self esteem and not as much confidence as i would think a perfect god would have. This is understandable seeing how he has made his share of mistakes, as it turns out, nobody is perfect, not even a god who claims to be. Lets look at a couple of god's blunders and ask ourselves how perfect he can be when he has messed up so tremendously.

Satan comes to mind when i think of mistakes God has made, This former angel whom was considered God's favorite angel led a revolution against God in the hopes of becoming the new ruler of heaven. How the hell did that happen??!!! This perfect God created Lucifer yet somehow he became a renegade angel that turned out to be the definition of evil, what could have went wrong? how could have a perfect and infallible being create something SO imperfect? I understand that mistakes can happen but shouldn't an all knowing God have seen what was coming?

The next mistake that comes to mind is Sin, is it really possible that God himself could have been responsible for creating sin? how could a sinless being create something as wicked as sin by mistake?

The last mistake that comes to mind is not so much a mistake but more of an error in judgment. God decided that in order to forgive humanities sins, it would be prudent to sacrifice his only son and let him be tortured and nailed to a cross where he would suffer an unimaginable death. Was this REALLY necessary? could not an all powerful perfect being achieved the same exact results with a mere thought? Seems to me that God was only trying to put on a good show and have a little fun when he concocted this plan. Ask yourself honestly, would a perfect , infallible and holy being have any use for such theatrics? would he really decide that the best way for him to forgive our sins was kill his innocent son in such a horrific way? seems a bit much if you ask me.........

Personally, even if i thought God was real, i think i would chose NOT to follow a creature with such bad judgment.

U shuld watch a movie called religulous

I do believe in a higher power, but do I believe in "God" or "Jesus"?... well I don't.

This is my opinion, imagine you have a daughter, a beautiful baby that in your eyes is innocent because, well, she's a baby, she doesnt know any better. But then, 20 years down the road, she's not so innocent anymore, she has freewill to make her own decisions and pursue what she desires. She fucks every guy in tha hood, has 5 baby daddies, she has murdered, robbed, lied, exc. in "God's" eyes she is a sinner and she will be damned to hell for it.

BUT WAIT!

If your religion is what my families religion is, your a christian...and you believe that God sent his only son to earth in human form to be perfect, unlike us, and die for our sins so that we may live forever. BUT, there's a catch. You have to, deep down in your heart and mind, believe he exsisted. Thats it!

This is what i DONT understand....to me, if that was my daughter, even tho she's a wreckless slut, living life like grand theft auto, i would still LOVE her, because thats my daughter, she a reflection of me...no matter what she does in her life I would love her.

But God on the other hand doesnt. He says, with your freewill as a human, you have a choice to believe in me or not. So if I am his creation, a born sinner, and i decide to not believe in him, i go to hell FOREVER.

Basically what im sayin is, if im human, and i can have love for my creation, no matter what he/she grows up to decide to do or believe, why can't an all loving God? an ETERNITY of HELL just doesnt seem very just to me....how can you convict your creation to a never ending hell...when it's your fault that sin exsists!?? even our prison system seems more fair then that...at least they can have a chance of parole in most cases lol not in hell tho! lol anyway i dont understand how any "God" could judge his creations on that.

Also, i think if I was god (not that im anywhere near qualified lol ) i couldnt judge some1 based off what they believe, if they dont really have any control over it. sure, people have freewill, a jewish or muslim person can convert their religion to christianity, but if your born into that religion...if thats your culture, how can you really KNOW whats real and wats not...which god would you decide to believe in...if you didnt have people elling you what to believe in since you were a child??? lol b/c if it aint jesus christ...your goin to hell! well thats wat the majority of my family believes...and i jus dont see how a loving god could be like that.


I also remember being in a youth ministry some years back, and i asked my youth pastor...if some1 that lives their life totally good, tries their hardest to do right and not wrong, doesnt believe in jesus will they go to hell?

he said yes, god doesnt weigh out you good / evil to determine if you go to hell

then i asked, ok well if some1 that was a horrible person their entire life, a serial killer / rapist thats on death row, and 15 seconds before he's about to die, trully in his heart decides at that point to believe in jesus christ as his savior...will he go to heaven?

he says...if he truely believes in jesus and asks him for forgiveness, then yes.

ive been an atheist ever since.

chew on this:

1)The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

When did time start? Was there anything before that? Boundries cannot exist on the largest of scales. Edges of the universe? how? It may be ignorance that keeps us down, but boundaries are a concept. What if we ARE NOT THE IDEA, BUT THE ONES WHO DREAM? We are not human being having a spiritual experience, we are Spiritual beings having a human experience.

"This is what i DONT understand....to me, if that was my daughter, even tho she's a wreckless slut, living life like grand theft auto, i would still LOVE her, because thats my daughter, she a reflection of me...no matter what she does in her life I would love her."


thats the idea. Simply love everyone, no matter how dumb they are, this includes arrogant religious defenders who are just stubborn and unwavering in their opinions as everyone posting here.

and Tha, if you beleave in a higher power, you're agnostic, not atheist.

ony i do agree wit you, like i said i believe we are way to far advanced to just be, in exsistance. but religion is ignorance. it has been the cause of more death then anything else on this planet...an ima be mad if i die, and there's nothing.

Maybe with humans, but not the earth. 99% of everything that has been around in the Earth for over 4 Billion years have died. So in the 4 billion years the earth has been around, humans have been around about 100,000. Just saying.

As to your quote I quote a logical fallacy.

When did time start would also imply that time exist (not saying it doesn't just throwing out the theory). Time in many ways is a man made conception fueled by us separating our selfs from different people and different events. Whenever I debate with people about God they say he is outside of time, he had no beginning, and he has no end, he is what always was. So why can't the universe be like that? Why does the universe need a beginning but God doesn't?

Well to quote a song from Eyedea that he got from Plato (I don't want to search for Plato's idea that inspired the song, it may take too long).

If someone grew up in a cubicle as Plato once suggested
They would only know the cubicle and not the world outside it
And they wouldn't view the cubicle as something geometric
We only know it's a cubicle because we live outside

The more you think about it, the more it really starts to make sense. I mean would really know how big the world was if it wasn't for our ability to look outside it? If we didn't have all this technology then I assume it would be almost impossible.

Think like this is quiet frankly stupid. I categorize this in the same category as theorys like we don't really know anything. Sure, they may be true, but its stupid to think that. To think that we're apart of a dream, or where spirits or whatever is to deny the physical world that you live in. Those things would be more valid if there was absolutely anything to suggest that.

if u believe in it, its real. is love real? it is if u believe it is. the question is do u believe.

That is stupid. Love is a label an intangible emotion that we all in some way experience. I may not believe that the earth revolves around the sun, but it does. I may not believe that the earth is round but it is. I may not believe that we breathe air, but we do. Just because you believe something does not make it true.

Man created god, live with it.

The fact that you need an invisible omnipotent authority figure to keep you from stealing, raping, and lying speaks volumes about your character.

Religion was created because it is the nature of man to understand things.

When he doesn't understand things he becomes afraid.

And so man invented god so that he could give everything he doesn't understand a base in his own twisted reality, instead of actually going out and finding the truth.


Christianity was the ultimate product of religious Syncretism in the ancient world. Its emergence owed nothing to a holy carpenter. There were many Jesuses but the fable was a cultural construct. Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD – the area was a burial ground of rock-cut tombs. Following a star would lead you in circles. The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimize the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin. That idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses.


Here's a little quote for you all...

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurus

are you seriously telling me someone would sit down one day.. back in the day and make up all these characters write stories and books about them and then go and build churches just for a hoax?..if it was to control people it wouldnt take bibles and other scriptures, all they would have to do is annonuce on fox news that there is a god and we must do what he says or we will spend eternity in hell via bill o reilly..come on now and plus a certain person i know has been granted a miracle via a certain saint..str8 catholic with my own ideas.

i didnt read any of the posts except the last one .. and agreed .. gods real just believe and youll see .. some people thing they need physical proof to believe but people devote their entire lives to god and live praising him .. miracles happen every day .. just look and youll see god exists everywhere no doubt

They had a lot of free time back then, and so do people today that make up conspiracies. Like I said, Christianity originated from many ancient Greek stories, just like people today consider the Greek Gods as fictional, I think we should wake up and realize that God is just an invisible figure that's stopping us from achieving more than we can.

Religion was probably created to control people, the church has always wanted power. If you actually think that Christians or religious people are 'nice' people, then you need to read the bible, as an Atheist I read the bible, it's a good piece of literature, but that's it. If only people actually woke up and saw the message it is trying to spread, because come on, it even promotes slavery.