Do you believe in religion?

I was brought up to believe in God, my parents dragged me to church when I was little, I had to say prayers before I went to sleep - Now I lay me down to sleep...

At school we always had prayers in the morning and had to say grace at lunchtime.

In infants and juniors we had to put our chairs on the top of our desks and say a prayer at the end of the school day.

In my heart I never really believed it but not taking any chances that I might be wrong about it, always said them with my eyes shut anyway.

I even muttered a few prayers in my early life after school when I thought something bad was about to happen to me.

But the more I learned free from religion, the more I couldn't square my new 'scientific' knowledge with that of 'blind faith' in nonsensical stories written a thousand or more years ago when times were clearly different and what people knew other than the churches teachings all but non existent.

Now I know if I simply look up into the night's sky, every thing we can see bar one with our eyes is from our galaxy, a galaxy that consists of more stars than we can count in our lifetime of simply just counting numbers from the time we could speak to our dying breath - at least 200 billion of them.

Similarly there are at least 200 billion planets in our galaxy (The Milky Way) too.

If you (or more likely your God) could be omnipresent at all these places at once he (or she) would not only have to spread themselves across all these Sun's and planets but be able to be in places that stretch about 150 thousand light years across from each other too.

There is also one thing we can see with our eyes that isn't from our galaxy.  We can just about make out the light coming from our nearest neighbouring galaxy Andromeda.

That galaxy is even bigger than our own.

It is a huge distance away too.

To give you an example of how far away it is, the light reaching us now from it would have to have set off two and a half million years ago - that is about the dawn of man on earth and long before branches of mankind such as Neanderthals, or Burnley fans had even evolved.

Even that is nothing when you consider the universe in which we live has absolutely billions of galaxy's other than our own and Andromeda and they have each millions of stars and millions of planets in them.  

The size of the universe is over 90 billion light years across and is nearly 14 billion years old.

So if there is a creator do you really think we on piddly little earth are his most cherished possessions that he watches over all of the time?

I don't.

There is no thing as the creator (who created him if there was?) and if you think about it a bit, even concepts like why must there even have been a 'beginning' to the universe - energy can't be created or destroyed - so maybe it is and always has been eternal and was always in being and will never cease?

That perhaps is going a bit to far for now, so do you believe in God, are people who follow a religion blindly simply being 'controlled' by their spiritual leaders?

Is religion a blessing or a curse?

Should we bin religion now for the betterment of the world?

What do you think?

I've never been able to understand why some (most?) people feel that they need to believe in some kind of god. I suppose it provides them with some kind of comfort but it makes no sense to me.

I have no problem with people with religious beliefs as long as they don't try to force other people to adopt their views but I find all religious extremism offensive. It is also clear that a lot of the terrible things that happen in our world are done by people with extreme religious views: obviously most are Muslim but there are also Christian and Hindu fundamentalists who commit atrocities as well.

i'm waiting for Nat the God botherer to come on and see this.

Personally i'm an atheist and think religion causes more problems than it solves but it's up to the individual what they choose to believe

Religion has been responsible for more misery and suffering throughout mankind than all of the wars put together. The sooner it's banned completely the better it will be for all of us so we can carry on with our lives.

Didn't we cover this a few weeks ago?

I remember debating the nature of "space/time" and Lusty arguing that there must be some kind of cosmic creator out there.

As for "believing in religion", I say "yes", religion definitely exists.

Obviously religion exists, but if the real question is "do you think religion is a good thing?" I would say it's impossible to evaluate.

Interesting that Sluffy uses the term "him" when describing "God" i.e. humanising the concept and limiting it by the dimensions we can conceive of such as time. Is "God" a bloke with a beard? Not likely.
For me, "God" is an abstract concept that we are unable to comprehend as our tiny brains can only think in a few dimensions, one of which is time and others include dimensions within dimensions (26 in total) if bisonic string theory is to be believed. Belief in "God" and acceptance of the idea that there is a force greater than us is the essence of spirituality.

Religion on the other hand, is a very human concept and one that reflects cultural values and historical issues - which is why e.g. polygamy was once central to some religions especially in those where the survival of the tribe was once dependent on it and where there were no social services to pick up the pieces following death and disaster.

As a human concept, and a human organisation run by humans, religion provides a service to those who live in fear - fear of death, fear of life and in some cases fear of social exclusion. It is a good service inasmuch that it provides hope, comfort and social acceptance for many (especially the old   who have to get their heads around their impending demise)

Conflict between religions is a matter of politics and has nothing to do with God OR spirituality.
No religion preaches violence or intolerance and yet there are and always have been people who exploit religion as a means to achieving political ends - usually land, money or power. If you really want to gain power over the people, just publish a Bible in a language that only the priests can read as was the case in England pre- John Wycliffe/Martin Luther - that way you can tell the people ANYTHING and threaten them with eternal damnation if they don't do what you ask. It worked. The Church was wealthier than the King in the 13th century.
Very human and nothing to do with God or spirituality.

The real problem with religion for me is that whilst it provides a useful function in society and comforts billions of people every day, it is easily corruptable by the few and the consequences are often bad. Whether or not the benefits outweigh the problems is difficult to say because although the problems such as terrorism are plastered all over the news, nobody reports on the billions of reformed alcoholics, repentant murderers or old ladies who have come to terms with their own mortality etc so there's nothing to compare it with. Even if there was it would be comparing different things. Does one victim murdered by a Daish suicide bomber (is that 2 victims?) equal 10 people who have turned away from crime having discovered religion? Impossible to evaluate.

As I've said many, many times God definitely exists.

Only once have I said a prayer before a game, just before kick-off in the play-off final against PNE.

We triumphed 3-0. What more proof do you gobshites need?

Natasha Whittam wrote:As I've said many, many times God definitely exists.

Only once have I said a prayer before a game, just before kick-off in the play-off final against PNE.

We triumphed 3-0. What more proof do you gobshites need?

Well that's me converted. Where do I sign up?

Natasha Whittam wrote:As I've said many, many times God definitely exists.

Only once have I said a prayer before a game, just before kick-off in the play-off final against PNE.

We triumphed 3-0. What more proof do you gobshites need?

Yes, but where does he live?

Obviously not in Preston!!

Cajunboy wrote:Yes, but where does he live?

Obviously not in Preston!!

He lives in heaven. So maybe Chorley then?

Over the years technology and improved understanding has helped disprove many "theories" from centuries ago.

The world is flat, you can't get pregnant doing it standing up, the moon is made of cheese etc.

But no one has ever proven that God does not exist, or that the bible isn't 100% true.

Why? Because he exists.

Natasha Whittam wrote:Over the years technology and improved understanding has helped disprove many "theories" from centuries ago.

The world is flat, you can't get pregnant doing it standing up, the moon is made of cheese etc.

But no one has ever proven that God does not exist, or that the bible isn't 100% true.

Why? Because he exists.

He's not making a very good job of it at the moment.

It exists obviously but its a dangerous load of rubbish, i do reckon we have been created by an entity either an alien experiment or an all knowing being. I dont believe we just happened by chance. I was baptised catholic went to catholic schools in Salford and Streatham and they ruled by fear as an infant i was taught you went to hell for not going to church and was made to come to the front of class if i had not been and if i lied it would be even worse whatever that might be. It can seriously fuck a young mind up.

Lard Lad wrote:It exists obviously but its a dangerous load of rubbish, i do reckon we have been created by an entity either an alien experiment or an all knowing being. I dont believe we just happened by chance. I was baptised catholic went to catholic schools in Salford and Streatham and they ruled by fear as an infant i was taught you went to hell for not going to church and was made to come to the front of class if i had not been and if i lied it would be even worse whatever that might be. It can seriously fuck a young mind up.

And you are the living proof!  

Reebok Trotter wrote:

Lard Lad wrote:It exists obviously but its a dangerous load of rubbish, i do reckon we have been created by an entity either an alien experiment or an all knowing being. I dont believe we just happened by chance. I was baptised catholic went to catholic schools in Salford and Streatham and they ruled by fear as an infant i was taught you went to hell for not going to church and was made to come to the front of class if i had not been and if i lied it would be even worse whatever that might be. It can seriously fuck a young mind up.

And you are the living proof!  

Was gonna invite you to my getting my AD name back party on 16 April but not now

Lard Lad wrote:

Reebok Trotter wrote:

Lard Lad wrote:It exists obviously but its a dangerous load of rubbish, i do reckon we have been created by an entity either an alien experiment or an all knowing being. I dont believe we just happened by chance. I was baptised catholic went to catholic schools in Salford and Streatham and they ruled by fear as an infant i was taught you went to hell for not going to church and was made to come to the front of class if i had not been and if i lied it would be even worse whatever that might be. It can seriously fuck a young mind up.

And you are the living proof!  

Was gonna invite you to my getting my AD name back party on 16 April but not now

Sorry AD, was just a joke but I couldn't resist it.

Reebok Trotter wrote:

Lard Lad wrote:

Reebok Trotter wrote:

Lard Lad wrote:It exists obviously but its a dangerous load of rubbish, i do reckon we have been created by an entity either an alien experiment or an all knowing being. I dont believe we just happened by chance. I was baptised catholic went to catholic schools in Salford and Streatham and they ruled by fear as an infant i was taught you went to hell for not going to church and was made to come to the front of class if i had not been and if i lied it would be even worse whatever that might be. It can seriously fuck a young mind up.

And you are the living proof!  

Was gonna invite you to my getting my AD name back party on 16 April but not now

Sorry AD, was just a joke but I couldn't resist it.

I know that RT got yer  was only joking also