Do you wish God was real?

Zeeboe
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Do you wish God was real?

I do...I wish there was an afterlife and I wish there was a God who loved and protected all of us. It makes me sad that there isn't.

So honestly, do some of you wish any kind of a God/higher power was real?


zarathustra
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Certainly not. I would

Certainly not. I would prefer non-existence to existence under god.

Better to be a meaningless speck in an uncaring universe then a toy in some deity's playpen.

There are no theists on operating tables.

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Yes and no. I like the

Yes and no. I like the idea that there is no afterlife, that we cease to exist once dead. Maybe it's because I'm a bit jaded, but even in my 18 years, I find life thoroughly exausting, even when I enjoy it, and imagining having my existence never end, well, it's rather scary. At some point, the only thing that truly can rest you is not existing. In that area, the knowledge that there's no god is comforting.

However, I'd greatly like it if the supernatural existed. I don't know that the existence of the supernatural necessitates a god, but it could very well. If there being a god meant that there was magic, that we could overcome our physical boundaries in life, I'd like there to be a god. Not an omnipotent one, but something that can endow us with the ability to do magic. That would be really fun. Yes, I'm a dork. I want to live in a Harry Potter book, and if a god could let me be a fucking witch, I'd welcome its existence.


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Certainly not the Christian

Certainly not the Christian God! As Dan Barker put it the God of the Buybull is a violent, sexist, xenophobic hateful being that cannot tolerate criticism.

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Unless that god can give me

Unless that god can give me cool super powers or something, no, I don't wish there was a god.  Certainly not the god described in the Bible.

Eternal existence sounds very tiresome.  And boring.

If god takes life he's an indian giver


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Definately not the

Definately not the christian god, if there was a god and we couldn't sap free will, or use us for some ridiculous "plan" or threaten us with torment, or interfere at all, then I'd be okay with that.

...but that'd be the same as not having a god.

as for afterlife/eternal life, I dont think I could handle it, I mean forever is a LONG FRIGGEN TIME. I wouldn't mind a couple hundred years, maybe a millenia, but even living to the end of the universe is what? a dozen billlion years of doing what exactly?  


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No, not really. I am secure

No, not really. I am secure in my life and the absence of an afterlife. I look forward to the here and now, 'today' is the most precious thing we have.


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Lesse... I don't believe in

Lesse... I don't believe in God, though I don't know he exists.  If he doesn't. well , I'm just fine and dandy.  But if he does... well, its not going to be a great afterlife.

So no. 

I hope that when the world comes to an end I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.


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pariahjane wrote: Unless

pariahjane wrote:

Unless that god can give me cool super powers or something....

Oh wait, yeah! If he could give me a bunch of superpowers that would be awesome. Hell, I would settle for a little bit of rhythm and maybe not being so tone deaf when I try to sing along with music.  


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BGH wrote: Hell, I would

BGH wrote:
Hell, I would settle for a little bit of rhythm and maybe not being so tone deaf when I try to sing along with music.  

Oh shit I can see it now,BGH getting a bit of practice,

learning to sing and dance,then becoming a

born again Christian because of it! Tongue out 

"Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions."--Frater Ravus


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Bigg wrote:

Bigg wrote:

Oh shit I can see it now,BGH getting a bit of practice,

learning to sing and dance,then becoming a

born again Christian because of it! Tongue out

LOL

I tried the practice thing and there was no improvement, therefore for me to gain any rhythm it would HAVE to be devine intervention.


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I'm glad none of the gods

I'm glad none of the gods people believe in now exist.  They're all pretty much shit heads.

I'm on board with the gods who grant super powers.  That would be neat.  Living forever might be fun, but I'd definitely not want to do it in someplace where there was no booze, no sex, and just a bunch of telling god how great it was to be kissing his ass forever.

Now, 72 virgins... that's getting closer to my idea of heaven, except virgins don't know what the hell they're doing, and the thought of having to teach 72 women isn't so great, BUT... since I've got forever, I suppose I'd get tired of just one, so 72 is probably a good number so I would't get bored.   But, that whole strapping bombs to myself so I can get there... that kind of sucks.

So, barring a god who would just let me stay young and go to parties and drink and screw and not get raging boils on my private parts, no, I don't guess I wish there was a god.

 

 

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I'll be honest....I don't

I'll be honest....I don't wanna die. I wanna live forever, even if it would be on this crappy earth. And if Heaven is a real place, I suspect it's so wonderful that I wouldn't mind living forever. I mean, I said I wouldn't mind living forever on earth...so if Heaven is real, I know I'd really wanna live forever.

I know though that there is a chance that there is no afterlife, so I hope I can at least live this life for a very long time.


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Oh, I'm happy to admit that

Oh, I'm happy to admit that dying isn't real high on my list of things to do.

One thing that's helped me to basically put it out of my mind is to realize that the being dead part is easy.  You won't notice, after all.  As Mark Twain said, not existing is a piece of cake.  We've all done it for billions of years, and it didn't bother us at all.  After we're dead, it'll be just like before we were born.

Really, it's not fear of being dead for most people, I don't think.  It's fear of dying.  The actual act of dying usually hurts, and I, for one, am not looking forward to the possibility of a painful death.  I try to stay away from pain.

But, in the long run, even if my death is painful, with any luck, I'll have had 70 years or so of a pretty decent life, so proportionally, it won't be all that bad, and hell, once you're dying, all there is to do is do it.   Kind of like going to the proctologist.  Nobody likes it, but you just grit your teeth and get it over with.  Then it's done.

 

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It would be nice to have an

It would be nice to have an accually loving God(s), but the only texts that give us ANY insight about a God shows a God of murder, poor design, incest,anger, punishment and bad science. Though the 70 virins would be cool(Islam), of corse I would have to kill women and children first.

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wow, bad spelling

P.S.

Sorry about the bad spelling, My typing skills suck ass! 


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No I don't need a god. But

No I don't need a god. But I would like to be God. If I was God I wouldn't write a book with silly tales of talking animals and a star that gives directions. My book would explain how stuff really works with answers to the mysteries of science and math and the universe.

And I wouldn't create a hell to torture people in forever. That's sick! I'd just make everybody love each other and be happy forever. How hard could that be? After all, if I'm God, I can do anything.

Also I'd have a cool house at the beach with a pool.

 

Frosty's coming back someday. Will you be ready?


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Zeeboe wrote: I'll be

Zeeboe wrote:

I'll be honest....I don't wanna die. I wanna live forever, even if it would be on this crappy earth. And if Heaven is a real place, I suspect it's so wonderful that I wouldn't mind living forever. I mean, I said I wouldn't mind living forever on earth...so if Heaven is real, I know I'd really wanna live forever.

I know though that there is a chance that there is no afterlife, so I hope I can at least live this life for a very long time.

Zeeboe,

I do not mean this as an insult but have you sought counseling for these emotional issues?

It is one thing to hope for eternal life or wish there is a god but it seems to consume you and your emotions. The truth is, even the strongest 'believers' do not know for sure or not if god exists or if heaven is real, no matter what they claim. The only thing we can do is live for today and make the most of THIS life because it is the only reality we can base anything on. 

I know you have these hopes of something else wating for you but if you spend your life worrying if anything after this exists you will have squandered the only thing know to be true, and that is the here and now. 


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Hambydammit wrote: The

Hambydammit wrote:
The actual act of dying usually hurts, and I, for one, am not looking forward to the possibility of a painful death.

I agree. The thought of actually going through the act of dying is like thinking about an appointment for a root canal. So I try not to think about it.

But hell, look at all the people who've already gone through it and it didn't kill them. Wait....

 

Frosty's coming back someday. Will you be ready?


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I exist.  That is

I exist.  That is sufficient.


jmm
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I hope that God exists. 

I hope that God exists.  But sometimes I think it's the pursuit that I'm drawn to, rather than God. 

Don't know how I feel about the whole eternal existence thing.  I'd love to give it a go just as long as it's not here on earth.  I've grown exponentially tired of this existence since spring of 2001. 

But yeah, I hope there is a God, and I hope that he's much more than I ever could have imagined.   


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I hate to get off the topic

EDIT: For some reason, my post isn't coming out with the spaces I put between them. That's werid...sometimes my post have the spaces, other times they don't. Ah well. I hope some of you don't mind if you end up reading this rambling post.I hate to get off the topic and ramble about me, but yes...I have thought about seeing a shrink. I have issues not only with this subject, but other subjects as well. I still debate if I should do it or not. I've seen other head doctors and they were not helpful at all. The first was very old-fashioned and strict and reminded me of the type of old shrink you'd see in the 1960's or something. I was 18 at the time but he treated me like I was a student of his and he was some strict high school teacher.The second was nice, but pushy.The third was REALLY pushy and the worst of them all and reminded me of an overgrown (but smart) bully.The fourth was nice, but tried too hard to be my buddy...and cursed a lot. Not in a negative way, but just randomly. I have nothing against cursing, but this guy sure did it a lot..and like I said, he tried too hard to be my buddy instead of my doctor and never helped.The shrinks I had were all men and old enough to be my Father and I didn't mind that. I naturally view and treat people older then me with more respect then they deserve. Just how I was raised, and I think I treated them with too much respect since I never opened up to them and always allowed them to dominate me....and because I had such a disturbed childhood and a bad relationship with my Father, I think for a long time I had a fear of men old enough to be my Dad.I will say in those doctor's defense, I was much more passive aggressive at the time and never told them my deepest issues...mostly cause they never gave me the comfort to tell like I could talk to them about that stuff, and I cared too much about what they thought and didn't want them to lock me up in a nuthouse if I told them everything on my mind. But if I were to see a shrink now, I'd be much more honest and not allow any of them to push me around or make me feel bad or try to make me do anything I didn't wanna do, because allowing myself to be walked on for so long has only made me more angry, and I snap at people more often now and my Mother and sister both worry about me and tell me I have scary and intense, Travis Bickle kind of anger issues.And the notion of God and a hell has always kept me in line, and Jesus's teachings of turning the other cheek and being passive has also always helped me mentally when it comes to being walked on.One other thing...those doctors were ALL Christian too...and the one I am thinking about seeing now is also Christian, so talking about the subject of God will probably just turn into a debate and I'll probably just end up pissing the newest doctor off with my hard questions and comments, but I honestly don't care anymore if I make someone mad....I just don't wanna waste my money doing that....Sorry for such a long response. In regards of this topic, I'll say I haven't given up on the belief that a higher power exist. I do question if the Christian Holy Bible God exist however....Of course, if He is real...just because we all think He is a tyrant doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Infact, I think all of us thinking He is a bully is all the more reason to fear Him and submit to Him.


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To be honest I don't care.

To be honest I don't care. I'm quite content in the fact that there is probably no God. I'm quite content not believing in God. I have mixed feelings about an afterlife. I like the fact that this life is all I'm ever going to have so that I am compelled to make the most of it but at the same time I am scared shitless by the prospect of death, despite rationally knowing that I won't know. I quite like the idea of reincarnation, I find it a heartening idea, but that's all it is, an idea.


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no. i don't need or want a

no. i don't need or want a god.  besides, every single aspect of our existence and our universe is a thousand times more fascinating and awe inspiring, whether we understand it or not, once you take god and religion out of the equation.

www.derekneibarger.com http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=djneibarger "all postures of submission and surrender should be part of our prehistory." -christopher hitchens


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SecularOpinion

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P.S.

Sorry about the bad spelling, My typing skills suck ass!

Welcome, SecularOpinion!

Your typing skills suck ass?  You'll feel right at home here!  Eye-wink

When you get a minute, we'd love it if you'd hop over to the General Conversations, Introductions and Humor forum and introduce yourself.

 

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If there is a god I'd

If there is a god I'd really like it if it turned out to be the god of some obscure little religion with only a dozen or so followers.

If there is a hell it is probably never going to be a giggle, but it would be quite funny sharing it with millions of christians, hindus, jews, moslems etc who had just found out that they had spent a lifetime following a bunch of rules, only to discover that the only people who knew the real god were some Amazonians with bizarre piercings.


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jmm wrote: I hope that God

jmm wrote:
I hope that God exists.  But sometimes I think it's the pursuit that I'm drawn to, rather than God.

It doesn't surprise me to hear you say this.  I have already noted a lot of similarities between you and the theist version of me.

Not really pertinent, but I thought you would find it interesting to know that I also had the same feeling from time to time.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Definite no! Hitchens

Definite no!

Hitchens pretty much encapsualted my thinking on this in an article last month for FrontPage Magazine when asked the same question:

 

FP:

So do you wish there was a God? Do you believe that you have a soul and do you ever worry about where it might go in the afterlife? Or these are all just silly notions for you? And if there is no God or afterlife and nothing afterwards, what then is the meaning of life? Can there be any meaning if there is no God? What is the meaning of life for you? Hitchens: I like to think that I can resist wish-thinking in all its forms, and I do not in any case wish that there was a supreme being, let alone a heaven or hell, because I do not desire an unalterable dictatorship of a celestial kind, which would subject me to permanent supervision and surveillance. I should add that dictatorship is even more repulsive to me when it presents itself as benign - its most common seduction. So I am happy that there is no evidence for such a belief. The immortality of the soul (notice I do not say that I must be soul-less while I am still alive) is indeed a silly fable. The natural world is wonderful enough, with the beauty of science and the consolation of philosophy and literature. One's only hope of immortality lies in the rearing of one's children, for whom one must in due course make room. Their presence is the answer to the last part of your question. A feeling of the transcendent and the numinous is inseparable from a morally serious human existence, but it is not satisfied by myths which are in fact deeply and obviously self-centered. [I hate how this software screws around with the text from just one cut&paste -- color and formatting. I don't get it. This forum software is just the worst to use.]

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I do, as long as I could be the God

The answers here are interesting.  Some people have suggested that it would be nice if there was a god as long as it was a good god instead of of the ones people make up.  Maybe one that would give you super powers or money or eternal salvation or something.

 As long as we're wishing, why don't we just wish we were the god.  After all, why wish for a magic genie when we can ignore the middle man and be the magic genie.

 So I wish god was real, so long as I can be the god.


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Do I sometimes wish there

Do I sometimes wish there was a god? Yes. Most of the time it's when something goes wrong, I want something or someone to fix it. I might even try god, "meh" I say, it's worth a shot.

 

However when I think about it, first glance it might be a "yes" if god was loving, good, etc. However even then I find myself rejecting god, even if he brang good unto the world. Why I ask myself, however I only come to the conclusion of boredom. However this answer came to make me hate the way I think, because even though I don't personally think it's right for people to suffer, however I also know that a balanced world is much less boring, and just as there is good, there is bad in the world. It is really unbalanced however, but still brings some "spice" to our life, even if it is pain, or suffering. I always hated the idea of heaven myself, I would find myself there, after so long wanting death, wanting to end my boredom. No feeling of extacy can be so good, you would want it forever, you would feel bored after enough time is up. A god would bring order, and order is boring. Randomness keeps life fun is basically what i'm getting at, and suffering is included for it to be random.

 

God brings order.

Order brings boredom.

Boredom brings true suffering.

 

That is always the reason I hated the idea of a god. Other then belittling our existance. Oh, and by "order" I don't mean order as in police order, government order, or order as you might see it. I mean order as in everything one way, impossible to go the other, nothing different, everything is "perfect" kind of order.

"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken

Thank god i'm a atheist!


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Like others here I don't

Like others here I don't feel any need for a supernatural being in my life, and the idea of life AFTER death doesn't really appeal to me as it's described by most religions... the only after-life I would consider is one in which I could read and learn both facts and fiction endlessly at my own leisure. Endless knowledge is much more appealing to me than endless sitting next to Jesus.

As for the martyr's level of heaven in Islam, the thing about the 72 virgins that really disgusts me is that they are virgins EVERY TIME you sleep with them. It's really revealing of the kinds of sick minds that are motivated by this. Why is one perfect heavenly sex object not enough for them? It's just pure greed. It's pretty obvious that with 72 of them the motivation is not a desire 72 deep-and-meaningfuls but animal unbridled lust.

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Meh...I really wouldn't

Meh...I really wouldn't want either. Maybe an extension on this life would be nice.

 


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There are a couple aspects

There are a couple aspects of god that appeal to me. The authoritarian part of me enjoys the idea of being able to enforce judgment and reshape things into the "right" way. I understand that when I perceive some injustice and wish there was a god who could fix it, I'm really making a dark statement about an aspect of myself.

 The other part is eternal life. I'm not a big fan of dying, however without eternal youth I can see how death is preferable. Maybe even reincarnation to keep getting different aspects of life would be enjoyable. Then again, who is to say that in 1,000 years I won't want to die.

 

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The idea of a true all

The idea of a true all powerful/all good god is nice - that people would be judged based on their behavior rather than belief.

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