When i was a kid (or when i was in Nepal), i used to believe in God. I did however have reservations on religion but i still believed in God. Its been a year in US now and having met people from other cultures, the existence of a supreme being doesnt make sense anymore. 

I think that believeing in GOd instills in a person faith, confidence and positivity to get through good times and be appreciative of the bad ones. I want my children to have these qualities so i dont want to tell them that GOd doesnt exist. Moreover, i cant imagine what my parents/relatives will make of me when i talk to them about this. It isnt going to be pretty. 

It does give me great discomfort to think about all this. I must admit i feel less confident and more pessimistic these days. I want to believe in God but my logic doesnt give in anymore. In fact, i get irritated when i hear things like "God COMMANDED you to.." "GOd will PUNISH you if..", "We are SERVANTS in from of Him" "(on Christianity): "Jesus died on the cross for you"(THere are many who have made a similar magnitude of sacrifice). 

I think that God and religion are ancient theories that havent been discarded yet. And it hasnt due to the fear in people of what might happen if they didnt. One of my teachers once said "if there is no god and you believe in god, there is no harm but if there is god and you dont believe in god, there is harm". i feel this and cultural and social stigmas lead people to be religious and not question their beliefs. 

I wanna know what you guys make of this.

Dear Gurudev Rethink,

You're right. Your profound logic and clarity of thought has fully convinced me. Yes sir, you are correct. There is no God and religion is all nonsense.

I read over the whole thread and you convinced me. Thank you. Wow, it is such a relief to not have to believe in God and religion since you have given me excellent logic and reasoning. I feel like a huge burden of my faith has been lifted from my shoulders. Wow, I can move my head on top of my neck again. Thank you for your patience in explaining. It really helped.

Sir,

Now what do I do? What do I believe? Please, teach me. Most of my life till now, I had found a lot of satisfaction and happiness from my belief in God and religion. But you have taught me that is all bakwas. Thank you for that. Now I feel so enlightened.

I am sure you have heard of good cholestrol and bad cholestrol. Well, the human body has good germs and bad germs.
You have cleansed all those bad germs of theistic thinking with your clean 'antibiotic logic.' And, as antibiotics work, you have cleaned away the bad germs, but are you also going to replace it with good culture? Or are you simply going to leave a vacuum where my faith once lay?

I'm sure you know how anti-biotics work: they kill both the good germs and the bad germs.
http://www.worldwidehealthcenter.net/articles-264.html

So Rethink, since you are so wise and learned, I was wondering if you could help me further. Please tell me your philosophy in life. What is your basis of truth? What is life? I want to replace my bad germs with good germs. Please teach me your philosophy so that I may be satisfied, confident and enlightened like you, guruji.

Dear Gurudev Rethink,

Please enlighten me further. What is your basis of reality, sir?

Homeyji,

The problem with you is you are ever ready to jump into a bandwagon that suits your capabilities or lack thereof.

I am not here to enlighten you or to preach on what to believe or what to think. I heard you talking about your divine experience so I wanted to stop by and express my doubts.

I have a difficult time believing in something without any concrete proof. That just makes me a scientific person who follows logic and reason. It does not make me a Guru or a teacher of any kind.

"I had found a lot of satisfaction and happiness from my belief in God and religion"

Most people believe in God/religion because it gives them a sense of belonging, a sense of being a part of a bigger picture. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. People have different ways of coping with life or living life and as long as they don't bother me or impose their lifestyles upon me, I am completely fine with that. If that works for you, then more power to you.

I am only questioning you because you have hinted at an experience you had that may prove the existence of God.

I don't believe in it with blind faith, but if I see proof then I may change my mind so if you are not bull shitting about your experience just go ahead and spill it out otherwise you don't really have much to go on.

Dear Gurudev Rethink,

Dandavat Pranam.

Gurudev, I have many many problems. You seem to have only found one. Keep looking, you will find many more. It is your job as my guru to find fault in me and to correct all problems that you see in me.

You have convinced me not to believe in God or religion. I think you are 100% correct.

You seem like a very wise and learned person. So please, don't stop. I want to learn a lot more from you. You have corrected my blind faith and wrong understanding and faulty logic. I want to thank you for that.

I am encouraging you to continue correcting me. Please ground me in your solid logic of reality. I want to be grounded in the same proof of reality that you are grounded in. So please show me this concrete proof of reality that you are grounded so solidly in, sir.

Please tell me your philosophy in life. What is your basis of truth? What is life? I want to replace my bad germs with good germs. Please teach me your philosophy so that I may be satisfied, confident and enlightened like you, guruji.

Dear Gurudev Rethink,

Please enlighten me further. What is your basis of reality, sir?

@ rethink,
your nick handle suits none other than yourself. you really need to RE-THINK.. hahahah 

there is another thing that rose up in my mind after whatching that video above(chopra vs that knucklehead) that there are few of arrogant scientists who are strict atheist. that's for sure. all they have is their theories of this and that. I'm not saying I'm against the science, I'm a budding astrophysicist myself. and all these theories are turned upside down. the theory that once prevailed which said earth is the center of the universe, it's epic FAIL. the theory of evolution which says we emerged from a unicell , it's epic FAIL(at least for me), .. the law that says there is nothing that can travel faster than light, it's epic FAIL(it was just proven recently in the scientific field). what these atheists are not getting in their head is that all the theories they tend to use as back up is for very short period of time. eventually, new theory gets coined.science doesn't go beyong the big bang and that's only a theory. for the big bang to happen there was something before and that's a fact. there's absolutely nothing at all that can fully explain where that initial matter came from, so they can't disprove it was created by something they can't explain (God). scientists have recently tried to prove you can create something from nothing and failed because of certain technicalities being pointed out. the jury is out on this one


And, non-believers should not try to coerce others into believing or into following their non-god's rules.

PS: I despise all the religions, yeah, including some of yours hinduism and all other man-made propaganda. they just don't have any meaning to me. but I still believe in that single doer, higher self . 

where is this temple/church/masjid/gumba for non believers, god damn scientists are coercing and brain washing people into not beleiving in god....stupid scientist are backing up for these non believers...

i will enforce my non belief in your brain so that you can never believe in god....oh wait isn't it the other way round?

bittertruth,

1. Ok I understand that you can equally use foul langauge while shouting on others for using it.

2. I don't think you have good understanding of quantam physics simply because you make joke of Richard Feynman. I konw that I don't have good understanding of quatam physics but definitely my understanding is not worser than yours. So basically I need no explanation about quantam physcis from you.

3. I never wrote my opinion about Deepak Chopra or Bob Dutko when I put  the link of that video. I just thought it might interest some of you both believers and non-believers. If you want to know my opinion about the existence of god find some of my earlier postings in this thread. I hesitate to restate same thing again and again. 

homeyji,

1. I still have great respect for you and your writing but not for whatever you have posted in this thread. You can't force others to believe on you or your feelings about god simply because you think so. If you want to call me stupid or stubborn because of this, you are welcomed to do so. I have been given many names by different sajhaities. So it doesn't bother me. 

2. Your arguments are weak and they are pulling down your reputation as one good writer. Earlier, I also requested Babal Khate and I am doing same with you. Please stop this. 

@geology_tiger
I don't like to go and edit my post, what has been said is said. But that wasn't for you, I, hereby, correct my statement that it was not for you but @pulsar_beat
I hope you wouldn't take it seriously. 

Geology Tiger,

On the contrary, I am admitting that there is no God or religion.

To tell you the truth, at this point, seeing the quality of the level of conversation in sajha, rather than caring about my reputation here, I feel like deleting my username altogether.

But I still have not given up, because of a few very intelligent people like you, Rethink and Behoove me.

Please tell me your philosophy in life. What is your basis of truth? What is life? I want to replace my bad germs with good germs. Please teach me your philosophy so that I may be satisfied, confident and enlightened like you, guruji.

 

My question is simple. All of you non-believers in God and religion. Can you all come up with one thing in your practical everyday life that you all can agree on? Since you all are grounded in science, I am sure that all of you have the same philosophy in life because scientific proof that you have received would make sure that all of you are completely consistent in how you act and behave and the choices you make, no?
After all, none of you followers of science make any choices in your everyday lives that is not based on the scientific method, do you?

So in that way, I am sure all of you are satisfied with very similar things in life since you all believe in what is rational proof to all of you right?

God is simply an object that consistently satisfies a human being. God comes in many shapes and forms for many different people. People call God by many different names based on how they relate to God.
Those who have not found any object that consistently satisfies them, naturally, do not believe in God.

 There are things we should believe even though we dont see them or prove them. Regarding god, I dont believe the personal god, but I believe there are some supernatural power/creatures that we cannot understand. I will rather say I am one of the confused one whether to believe or not in these things. Science cannot prove the existence of god, but science cannot explain the sources or root of watever exists today. So I dont dont want to believe in god, but there is nothing else that I can full fill that super power position. So I am Confused, and readings thrugh this thread could not enlighten me either, instead I am more confused. 

If I dont believe god because science can not prove it, here is what millineum man says:
I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.

and that shit confused me even more and I will be glad if I confused any of you :)

Summary: It is better not to think about existence of god, beyond the universe and after the death otherwise it will confuse us more and the debate never ends. 
Note: It may be applicable only to me.

Default061,

I don't understand why you're so confused. It seems quite simple and straight forward to me. Which part of the question that I asked before your post didn't you understand?

 Homey,
I was not confused with your question. I am just confused of whether or not to believe in god. I cant believe totally and I cant ignore either. 

In the post above, I wrote:
Those who have not found any object that consistently satisfies them, naturally, should not believe in God.

Default01,
Have you found any object that has consistently satisfied you so far in your life? If you have not, you have not found God. And so, to be consistent with your discoveries, you should not believe in God.

*Please don't fake it till you make it, like some people who want to pass themselves as spiritualists do. This won't help anyone, especially you. Don't practice religion to just be fashionable, just because your friends are doing it.*

Don't over-complicate things. Keep it simple. And be true to yourself. And you won't be confused.

 lets wait for some contact.. :D up from the sky... :D 

This debate is going nowhere and most probably won't.
Lets deal with the facts.

Some of the things, that I feel(if you go through my posts above):
- I don't believe non of your religious god and belief
- I believe in one extra super intelligence or higher self ( you may call it GOD)
- I totally disregard many of religious claims and many theories of scientific foundations.

What are those real stuffs? (I'm doing this risking my own credibility because many of you still are not in a position to grasp the idea of what I'm going to write now)
- The God, the saviour that you've been worshipping is non other than extra-terrestrial intelligent forms who visited us time to time. Just like us, they are also the fragments of the super one but they've surpassed their timeline way ahead of us('million or billions or any thing more' beyond that period of time) and hence they're more advanced and sophisticated beyond our knowledge and comprehension.
- Once our planet was inhabitated by huge humans (almost 20 -15 feet talls). Darwin's theory of evolution can kiss an ass. We are just the endresults of genetic manipulation. Before that, there really were godly humans who lived here. Accept it, we are mutated dropped off form of those beings. That missing link you and I read on the evolution book solely meant that. 
- Lets analyse it now: The god you called in your books like krishna and others, bestowed powers to their followers, flying chariots, huge human mentioned in Ramayana whom the other small one noted as 'rakchasa', in bible, a holy god(huge light) appeared in the sky and commanded the miserables one to follow his path, just with a wave of hand, many sufferers getting cured, even in some other religions, every manuscript and old pages are filled with these flying objects and saucers and stuffs like that. To make myself clear, they are extra-terrestrial , as simple as that.  Call it GOD if you like it.

What happens if we are to deal with these truths?
- We have sightings all around the world of these UFOs, many of them have made contacts to us both in government and public level.
-The consequences are disastrous if 6 billions of people are to realize that their holy books or religion has nothing to do with their so-called god. There is so such god. But, every log those religion kept about defining the properties of their powerful gods and deitis converge to just one fact, they're so powerful and they control the universe with their unimaginable power. We call it God because they're so magically powerful. Imagine, if they all of sudden know about this very fact, what happens? It'll collapse our societal structure and belief system, many might commit suicde or kill or it's just simply hard to imagine what the outcome might be. It'll be chaos all over.
- If the same truth is to be dealt by the science community, then entire book of science has to be re-written. All the theories they had about universe and biology would simply go fuss.

So, the reasons are obvious, the very truth and contacts have been suppressed for ages just for these very reasons.

Out of 6 billion, when more and more millions of people will come up with alternative thinking about human history and overall idea about universe, someday, we'll see something unimaginable and we'll be ready by then for any kind of transformation.

If you are stunned with what I just wrote, you are welcome to criticize/ laugh/consider whatever.

"God is simply an object that consistently satisfies a human being. ..Those who have not found any object that consistently satisfies them, naturally, do not believe in God."


By nature, animals including human beings want nurturing and guidance. When a new baby animal is born, it's mother/father nurtures and protects it. Teaches it to hunt. Even a lion, the king of the jungle is born a helpless cub then they grow up and prowl the jungle but when they hear loud noise or something they can't fathom, they run away.

The difference between man and animal is man has language to understand a lot more than the lion. Even then there are many things man cannot fathom such as how the world came to be how things got created. So man is afraid of this unknown. In order to cope with the unexplained fear they start to pray to the unknown giving it a name of God.

Homeyji, you have done the same, and it helps you explain your own paradigm. You were born in a world where everything has a beginning and end, and in order to understand the beginning of the universe, it suits your confusion and it satisfies your insecurities to have faith in a God, which may or may not exist.

For most believers God is the answer to their inherent question of who created all this.

Then using the same logic my question to them is who created God? - if everything has to be created then someone must have created God. Am I wrong?????????????? LOL

People ignore science and realities in favor or divine meanings. Such as in our culture lot of scientific indicents are attributed to *fate* as it what's already been devised for you in the grand scheme of things. Even accidents due to gravity are attributed to fate. Chance meetings, winnings, everything is attributed to the grand scheme of things.

Religion is just an escapist mentality whereby you want to escape reality to create a supposedly better mental outlook by believing in different supernatural explanations.

I am merely observing and making a conjecture since obviously the unknown stays unknown, and I am not going to personify the unknown and follow the escapist mentality.

Perhaps the best possible thing to do is let unknowns be unknowns until it gets discovered. For example, the moon and the suns were considered to be God but then when man landed on the moon it was found to be nothing of that sort, but believers still continue to regard the moon and sun as god.

The most important missing link that promotes religeous tendencies is the lack of information on creation. Yet, for those bent on the creation theory attributed to God - do not rest assured till you find out who created God???

In my opinion, the answer to creation may never be found but we can get a good idea by the scientific study of the microscopic world. The electrons and protons and neutrons give a good explanation to the planetory orbitals. Perhaps our whole  galaxy itself  is an electron for another specy of life form.

When you see new developments in genetics, we have seen cloning of animals. How is life put into these clones? How does a single cellular living thing exist? Perhaps life is simply a result of various ingredients being present in one place.

In any case discussion about this is always interesting as long as some people does not act all knowing and 100% sure about their beliefs.

Homeyji I just responded scroll up and read

Rethink,

Read your own answer and let me know how it addresses my question

Or perhaps if you didn't understand my question let me know. I'd be happy to simplify it for you.