‘God loves us’ so says the bus

You're missing my point, a belief is an idea that *cannot* be proven or disproven by logic, by it's very nature faith holds it together.

I won't deny anyone their faith, it's theirs, not mine, to hold or discard. So I'm not arguing against your faith, I literally can't, there's no arguement to make because there's only faith at the bottom.

What I decry is the idea that there's logic in there, logic requires tests and provability. 

The point is that logic and observation underpin my belief in a creator, not faith.

I then state the simple fact, that there is a huge gulf between his level of thinking and ours. (I can't create a universe off the top of my head when the idea hits me, God can).

There is however a testable assertion in the Bible, which I paraphrase as: "Ask for the knowledge of God, and you shall receive it". I also noted that when confronted by ignorant humasn directly in those OT stries that God is always happy to make an effort to explain himself, a tradtion seemingly carried on by Jesus when confronted with Doubting Thomas. (My kind of bloke, the sort that asks for proof rather than continue on blind faith when an authority figure makes an incredible claim).

It's taken me an awful long time and a huge amount of "testing" to be confident that God loves us, there's been approximately 40 years since I first got enough evidence to seriously consider God to be real, and start a program of testing, and It was only about 10 years ago, that I felt I had done enough testing to be sure that I was indeed living in a creation, and use it as a fundamental fact that really affects my life.

Alledgedly if you put in the effort to know God you will experience similar results. 

And as YellowTree points out, when faced with an incomprehensible life, where some of my fellow humans are doing the most incomprehensible (and from my limited perspective utterly horrible) things to each other, and to innocent bystanders, it really helps to believe that there is a creator and a plan.

I'm not great with words, and don't really want to be that guy who bangs on about God. But, I do genuinely enjoy sharing the good things in life that I can share, I'm that selfish that I really want the people around me or whom I encounter, to be more happy and prosperous after meeting me if that is in any way within my power to accomplish. It makes it easier for me to enjoy my own happiness and prosperity if I'm surrounded by unhappy resentful gits.

Knowledge of and a wish to engage with God confers power, and makes your life better, I am certain of that, and see it as something beneficial I should share. I don't expect to "make converts" but for those who like me find "religion" pretty unpalatable, people in big (or small) hats who want your money untrustworthy, yet observe the copious evidence that God exists and wonder what it means, Ive spent time that most peopel do not have to waste trying to find answers, or even ideas that work better than just making it all up as we go along. (Making it all up as you go along, the essential oppositional idea to living in God's creation, is GREAT for the GIFTED people who never make mstakes, but for the rest of us it's an effing nightmare, and I'm really glad of the other articles of faith and insights that have helped me avoidd some of the more catstrophic life decisions that I see less fortunate people taking. 

People really do have minds that work differently. I noticed this clearly with weed (or rather hashish in the 1980's) where I seemed to like the more unpopular (and hence often cheaper) hash. OEvr many years and observations I've noticed that this is very true and that different strains affect different pople in different ways.

I have anecdotal evidence that Prozac also affects peoeple in very different ways too.

Sadly, I can't enjoy the effects of alcohol very succesffully at all, and I really am not safe when subject to it's effects. Just horses for courses. 

Thanks for appreciating the good points, of my screed. IN all honesty, I tend to fall into the same trap that many people do who have really studied a subject, that of believing I now know more than other people, which although logically should be true, after all I've put in the hours, (got an R.E. 'O'Level even!) but in practice I still often don't have the knowledge a situation needs. 

But these days God seems largely "discreditted" and certainly ignored by most people, who have seen through the charade that is organised religion, and like things made real easy to understand. God has never called (as far as I recollect) for organised "worship" simple recognition and as far as I can see making an effort to understand and get with the plan seems to be the requirement with copious indicators and markers placed everywhere about what works and what does not, for those who care to look for them.

My life has been made better, because of my early life exposure to Christian ideals, which when I have followed them have generally been of great utillity to me, and when I have discarded them in pursuit of my own objectives that has not seemed ever to be a winning strategy past the shortest of terms. 

Good point Isperg. It does sound like god answered your prayers. The idea of a world with no loving god just sounds all the more heartless I feel. You make a lot of good points maybe that weed you smoke does you some good after all. It’s a shame I cannot handle the stuff. But hey ho! That’s just life. I’m not bitter about it to be honest. I would be more bitter if I could never drink again for some reason. 

You jump from "unlnowable" to "he loves us" is an amazing disconnect.

If you have faith, fine, fsith denied proof, but don't try and add logic to it.

If you want to believe and it brings you comfort and you don't feel the urge to force your faith on others, feel free.

There are so many worlds in so many galaxies scattered amongst the great unknown, we can't be the only sentient creature out there, did a great being create those as well.

In short, if you can prove that there's a great an intangible thing as an omnipotent all powerful god, I'd give it a go.

I'm agnostic. I think there could be a divine entity, but if it exists, it's beyond our ability to comprehend. Not for a lack of trying, mind. Trying to wrap my head around a potential creator has done a lot for keeping my mind active during sleepless nights.

While I don't believe in gods as presented by churches, I can't reconcile myself with a universe without a creator, either. If that's the case, then everything is a product of mathematics and free will becomes questionable.

What I'm going to say will sound like crazy to some people, but I'm going to say it anyway. I have had spiritual experiences in church, for example, I think about something and a prophet of the church says to me what I was thinking this is just one of the things so yes I believe in God and sorry for any grammatical errors english is not my first language 

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Yeah that's very true Iain, It's definitely a slightly lazy theory , very hard to disprove too.

If you look at Hawking's theories on the creation of the universe, they suggest that if space time is infinitely curved on itself, it might not have had a defined begining (or end)  in the sense of a singularity so may not have room to have been created and even if it did have, it became very set in stone at that point, meaning it's creator might have little or no control or influence beyond that point, hence just sits back and watches...

I'm always curious as to how many religions seem to have the same basic components and also observe certain "events" , suggesting they're based on something real, or, they need to contain these components to be a solid system, so by there very nature might all look the same (eg. All fish are different but they all have fins, gills and swim in water, so they're categorised as fish)

Fascinating debate. I'd love to know the answer to all these things. I'm not sure if it's being autistic that drives me to want to know but have a need for solid proof before I believe in things, or just maybe I'm that type of person regardless?! 

Either way I think it's amazing that people find comfort in their beliefs, having a strong connection and trust is something I envy.

I think the gods are the conciousness of the universe and came about together. Most religions encourage lazy thinking and brand as heresy any questioning of the laziness, especially by lay people.

Autisician said:

If science disproved god, you have to think "hang on, if god created the universe then god created that science" so how could it prove or disprove anything god didn't want us to?

That is a very convenient definition of the god - it designed the universe so it cannot be disproved - but by that same token, it cannot be proven to exist either.

Believe what you will, but this approach used by most western religions is a very lazy approach and makes me think it is all made up.

I am a pantheist, the only concept of "god" that I can accept is the idea that it's the entire universe, and lives within the probabilities (so god indeed does play dice)

Uncaring and unaware.

YT and the others here, may I offer this for your consideration? 

It comes down to were we created or did everything appear "by chance"?

If we (and everything else are created that implies the existence of a creator or God (the terms are kinda interchangeable) 

So now we have our god, BUT his mind is so vast and complicated compared to ours, that communication for us is virtually impossible, akin to me trying to explain radio propagaton to an spider that is climbing up my radio aerial making his web... 

Of course we are much cleverer than my imagnary spider, (the aerial really exists, but spiders dont; seem to build webs on active antenna systems for some reason) but the magnitude of the problem of directly understanding God, remains.

The bible has been challenged an awful lot over the years but apparently the secualr facts and events it described generally are true and not argued over, so we could give suck to the greater idea carried in the bible that our creator IS interested in us and has a plan for our betterment which transcends our own individual life and death. For those of us who live horrible lives and die alone maybe of murder or a horrible disease, God's love is very hard to see indeed, unless there really is more to life than we currently can see, like the area of my iceberg that lies under the water.

Now unlike most of you, I'm heading rapidly towards having spent a full 60 years, asking (pleading, demanding) God to GIVE ME WHAT I NEED in terms of being able to believe. (The message "ask and you shall receive" pervades the bit of the bible I've read)

Rather like my favourite apostle Thomas, I have little in the way of "faith", I needed to see and KNOW for MYSELF. It hurts me inside to just bumble on doing what I'm told without understanding why.

So that's what I prayed for. Enough information to function better.

Now I've received that, I tend to pray for the strength of character to function better in this world and whatever follows it...  

I do know that God loves us, but I'm a bit short on understanding as much about love as I would like to be.

And I know I'm pretty poor at practiciing it. I could do without that bit of knowledge some days...

I always used to be quite firmly atheist in my views but more recently I realised that was quite ignorant, so now I'm more agnostic/secular.

The idea of there being a protector that loves us does seem appealing but I'm not sure either way personally. Probably due to autistic thinking and a lifetime of disappointment when I've believed in anything, I'm very much of the "show me proof" before I believe anything camp.

I won't go boring you guys by going into too much detail even though my autistic brain wants to! But in a nutshell, I realised that whatever this life is, whatever the universe is, the fact that we are inside it governed by it's laws means we'll never know. If science disproved god, you have to think "hang on, if god created the universe then god created that science" so how could it prove or disprove anything god didn't want us to?

I relate to it like being in one of those worm hotel things at school, the worms will never be able to comprehend that someone made that world and is watching them....

So in theory it's really upto what you feel and want to believe and if that gives you comfort then that makes it real.

I'd trust religious advertising about as much as anyother advertising, the christian god has a terrible PR dept, it's all fire and brimstone mixed with disney.

I am a person of faith, but mine encourages us to have a much more personal and one to one relationships with our goddesses and gods.

Well if there is a god, I know for certain it isn't the one described by the bible. He definitely doesn't exist.

I think it's unlikely that any other God exists either myself.