Ever since leaving the church, I vacillate between having a desire to believe and firm conviction that it is all made up and therefore, useless.

I see religions - most of them, anyway, as simply corporate structures that depend, in one form or another, on "Passing the plate" and wringing money out of the believers. That's what makes the old corporation keep on ticking.

I feel badly because my sweet DH, who is a devout believer, found a website called "musings about god.com." He was dying to have me read some of this guy's ramblings and then discuss them. I couldn't even summon enough energy to get past a few lines of run-on sentences and other grammatical errors.

I guess whatever floats your boat is fine; if you've got the time and energy to spend hours ruminating over passages in the bible and trying to make sense of them and whether they do or do not conflict, well, peachy.

Devout people pray all the time to their various gods and spend whatever few cents they may have left on tithings or offerings or whatever and life goes right on ahead and these people lose their jobs or their homes or their loved ones. Deity can't be bothered to intervene.

I don't have the time or inclination to be the least bit interested in god. I no longer even care whether he exists or not.I guess that makes me "indifferent." At least, an atheist cares enough to say he is an atheist. I don't even care enough to say that. If anybody asks, I just shrug and say "I'm not religious." And I won't discuss it further.

How do you see this issue?

God or Gods...not sure if they care too much about what's going on in my life, though. That's for me to take the reins.

Ethics and religion are two different things...what I feel about religion is different today then it was yesterday, and might be significantly different in six months or a year. That's normal, and is what makes religion a private thing.


I really don't care if my children grow up and decide they're Mormon, Catholic, Buddhist, Pagan, Atheist, etc....I just care that they keep a good head on their shoulders, and do their best to be good people.

Put me in the "indifferent" category. I agree that "aetheist" denotes some sort of active disbelief. My disbelief is the lazy kind, I guess. ;-) However, I have an active dislike toward organized religion, mostly of the christian flavor. I won't pretend to be some sort of religious scholar and cannot debate the finer points of any of them, but anything that has fear at it's base does not get my respect. I'm sure there are some very fine congregations out there that truly embody the purported message of Jesus but I have no interest in seeking them out.

At one time I attended a UUA church and then moved to another state. I was thinking about checking out the one closest to me (The website said they've done services in the wisdom of the Grateful Dead. How cool is that?) and mentioned something about it to my TBM sister. She said, "Oh. The Unitarians. You don't even have to believe anything for them." And with enthusiam I said, " I know! It's perfect!" In the end I decided my Sunday mornings are best spent indulging in good books, family time, morning sex, or countless other things that are based on love. That's my new church, I suppose.

Did I answer the original question? LOL

I'm not sure that I would be angry at God, but I do get really ticked off when people harm one another and use God as an excuse.

You know what's weird? In Primary they taught me all about Jesus and they taught me all about the New Testament version of Jesus. But when I returned to the church as an adult, they taught me a different Jesus- one who only loved me as much as I was obedient and that my understanding of Christ was nice, but the Gospel is about making covenants in the temple. They changed their teachings, and called me a liberal because I cared about the sick and the poor and the homeless.

It seems even more weird that the Christ I was taught in Primary is the same Christ I am hearing about in one of those "abomination before me" type churches.

As a TBM, I actually lost faith in God but regained a stronger testimony when I left the chruch. Weird, huh?

As far as I'm concerned, Jeff Beck is God and I like him.

Just sayin'...

Ron

I am an apathetic agnostic. Don't know. Don't really care. I have no control over what's out there, if anything, so I am focused on this life.

I can't believe how time flies, but it has been 2 years since I sent in my resignation letter to the Church.

I've spent much of those 2 years catching up on all of the science that I didn't know anything about. Evolution? I didn't believe in it because I'd never studied it. I'd simply dismissed it because I'd been told that it's not real. So why bother learning about it?

There are such marvelous things that we know now, and have learned about our universe, our world and how our brains function.

The more I've studied, the harder it has been to maintain any belief in a god. If one existed, it would clearly be one which doesn't have the ability to actually intervene in our lives.

I see it as more of a being of energy, the size of the universe, which has the ability to turn its thoughts and its dreams into physical matter. Then it observes its creations and learns experientially what it can't experience as a blob of energy. It experiences its existence through us.

However, as time goes by, more and more I'm finding that the idea of such a being simply doesn't make any sense. If you define god, then you must then explain where God came from. You must be able to scientifically figure out how such a being could exist. Is it truly immortal, or does it simply have an extremely long lifespan compared with ours?

Are we simply a manifestation of its thoughts? If so, it's a pretty complex dream. What would be the purpose of experiencing a fallen leaf rolling down a road in the wind, or a little amoeba doing its thing?

It just doesn't make any sense to me anymore. I really would like to believe it, but it simply doesn't make sense.

I've learned to embrace truth, even if that truth is not very comfortable. Do I still have hope? Yeah, a little. Not much, but maybe a little.

I hope there is an afterlife. My focus nowadays is more on I would like to see my parents again. I only care about seeing them and being with my kids--about my own family. And I don't worry IN THE LEAST about if I will see my family again. If there is an afterlife, I know I will see them. If there isn't an afterlife, I'll never know the difference.

If you're talking about Raptor Jesus here, yes, I believe he's a real living entity, even though he went extinct for our sins (and that fact causes some cognitive dissonance, since he posts here regularly).

There just isn't any evidence to go by in regards if god exists or not, so I don't see any good reason to believe in any gods until actual evidence is provided that I can analyze. To me it's the equivalent of believing in Santa Clause. Sure I can't prove he exists or has never existed, but that's not the point, the point is I shouldn't automatically assume one exists just because it's "possible".

I don't think that there is one. But I'm fine with not knowing for sure.

I figure that if I get there, and there is one... He/She/it will be fine with me not knowing. I'll tell God that if he wanted me to know, the he should have not done such a crappy job of making it known.

God will probably say, "You know, you're right" and everything will be fine.

It's pretty easy to not know, and be fine with it.

If gawd truly exists, I have been taught that he loves me but is probably really pissed off by my choices. I can expect an eternal punishment from him when I die. Oh well.

The idea of a Christian God is insane and that's the only God who I think has any credibility of existing at all, unless I were to revert to my deist views. I have hope in that concept, which would mean that this life is for experience, not an end-all be-all test. We could never know enough to be judged in the hereafter for eternity according to the Christian or Mormon concept of judgment. Eternity is a REALLY long time. Therefore, I am a hopeful deist/agnostic, if it really matters enough to define myself as such. I believe in the concept of living so as to gain as much knowledge and wisdom as possible and living true to your gained perspectives, so as to be able to die with a clean conscience. But in the end, I truly think that we will get together and sing kumbaya, while musing over our collective experiences as mankind. It would all be for perspective and God would then take over, if he exists, to be our father and take care of us. I imagine him saying in the end, "This is why you need me. I'm here for you now." If he doesn't exist, then so be it, but I wouldn't even be aware of that, so let it be if it is, cause I can't change it. I look at death as a marvelous experience of discovery, though at times, I'm still apprehensive and nervous. As long as I overload my brain with endorphines and carbohydrates, it doesn't really bother me. Plus, I'm young, naive, and inexperienced with the true reality of death, having never had either of my parents die yet or anyone truly close to me. I tried to be sad when my grandpa died a year ago, because it was culturally appropriate, but I found part of myself being excited for him and in the end, I found out that death doesn't really bother me as much as I thought it would. I wasn't super close to him, but if I was truly that uptight about death, I'm sure it would have fazed me more. I just kind of wish that death was a culturally acceptable choice for people, so they could off themselves and fall off the cliff on their own terms, instead of being pushed off or whisked away, as it were. I think that death would be a much more enjoyable part of life that way. Look at it as an adventure. It works so much better.

After the morg experience I am agnostic. Frankly I'll give a shit anymore. I know one thing that the Jesus I know I have no interest and living with.

I hate the Mormon "god" that's for sure. God in general I'm still working on it.

I envy the young in that aspect, saviorjoe. That feeling of invicibility that the young have.

Unfortunately for me, that was ripped away from me when I was 16 and my best friend died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm, 2 weeks after my only grandparent died. That really shakes you up.

I was watching a video last week about the possible afterlife evidence found in near-death experiences. They interviewed a young fellow who went farther into death than the usual person having a near-death experience. They hoped to hear great things from him. He said he felt nothing, saw nothing. "It was like waking up from a sleep that I didn't know I was in."

I'm unimpressed with hearing that God wants this or God wants that and then seeing a bunch of people jump up and do whatever it is God supposedly wants, which usually entails depriving a group of people of their rights.

I've never really understood why people believe in God or what it is exactly that they get out of it. I'm tempted to think that people just say that they believe in God so that they can justify hate and bigotry, but there are also a lot of people who give humanitarian aid in the name of God. So, apparently people really do believe in God as inexplicable as that seems to me personally.

I used to believe that people should be able to believe whatever they want, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that someone needs to stand up for reality. I don't know what the answer is.

But in fact I agree wholeheatedly with the late Alexander King who said he nothing to do with any religions - because none of them rated "God" high enough.

they take the mind-blowing majesty and immensity of the Universe and dream up some cranky old stinker who has very unpleasant human traits.

Just goes to show that our big brains are 'way too small to deal with the mystery of this world.

Meanwhile, I'll eat what I please, wear what I please, think what I please, and try to follow the Golden Rule as origially stated by the so-called Buddah. Just because its the right thing to do.

Objectively, most people who have ever lived and will live will believe in a deity/s and/or savior.
It's part of the generational, cultural, societal, familial environment of all groups of people on some level.

Deities, (female ones long predate male ones in the history of humanity), are the major construct of all God Myths and as such are very powerful and have great control, especially in their longevity. Today they are predominately warrior Gods. They dominate the organization and procedures of almost all celebrations around birth, coming of age, marriage and death. Gods (deities) are territorial, and require absolute believe and adherence to the rules, policies, dress, procedures, ordinances, rituals, etc. by the believers.
Throughout history, there are thousands of deities, both male and female, each one an imaginary creation by human beings and interestingly, take on the same characteristics of their specific believers along with elements of ancient myths,therefore they are created by mankind, not the other way around.

I have also concluded that it is clear that a belief in God (deities/God Myths) is part of the evolution of being human. It's a human right, one which anyone can exercise. The specific beliefs fulfill the major needs beyond food and shelter of all humans.

I have concluded, from my own experience with religion/s that I don't have a need to believe in any deity or savior. Been there, done that, found it unacceptable, and not useful. It served a purpose for a time, but not anymore.

Non belief doesn't preclude exercising my ability to observe their rituals, worship, music, costuming,pageantry, etc.and find some enjoyment and appreciation in their creativity.

I accept the beliefs and observances in a God/deity/s/savior as a right of being human even though some may seem weird, strange, and bizarre to me, personally.

I'm ambivalent about god as most likely there is none, but a it's a good way to make a point sometimes ... kind of like Santa.

It is really hard to know if there is a God.

It's also really hard to know if there isn't one.

If there is a God, then I'm very curious about why He did certain things the way He did - how does it all work, systematically? It doesn't make sense.

On the other hand,it's bizarre to think that there is no God, supreme being, and mankind evolved to this point, too! It doesn't make sense.

I'm content for now not to know on the big issue since at least I now am confident that there is no one true church and way to get to heaven ... if it's there.


If God is there, I believe he loves us more than we can fathom.
If he isn’t there, we won’t know it in time for it to matter.
Either way, we should make the time we have worthwhile.

I do believe in God, but because this (leaving the church) is all so new to me, I'm not sure what my definition of God is. I truly believe there is something out there that created the universe, something divine. I don't 'know' if it's out there, I don't know anything about it. But I believe in the after-life and the God I believe in is ALL-loving. Anyone who lives a Good, Honest, Kind life is accepted with open arms. There aren't strict rules, etc., just to love one another.

I feel if God loves us so much that it is greater than our own parents' love for us (if we were blessed with good parents) (I don't necessarily agree with this 'teaching'), then 'His' love will not be conditional and we'll be accepted back as long as we are good people at heart.

So, no, I'm not angry at 'my' God. I'm angry at the people who use the idea of God to manipulate good-hearted people and turn them into something they are not.

Comfortable to indifferent. Kind of like how he / she /they have always been about me. Nice relationship.

I am a Christian and Reluctant AGNOSTIC.

"CRAGNOSTIC".

I am blaming Jesus for this fine mess.

Jesus told me to love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

So I tried it.

When I applied my mind, I stopped believing he was divine.
Hell, maybe he never existed. Maybe no Jewish Rabbi ever existed to whom we can reasonably assign the words of Jesus of Nazareth.

Oh well.