Do you believe in the god of the bible?

[Bertha Venation]

Why or why not?

As for me, i do not. It is a cliche, but no less true: no purportedly merciful, loving god would have allowed my childhood.

I do, however, embrace some of the words attributed to Jesus.

Do you believe in the god of the bible? Why or why not?

(This thread is for discussions about the god of the bible. For other gods, religions, faiths, or atheism, perhaps you will start another thread.)

[bigwillq]

1. No

I don't believe in any higher power. I believe the earth was created due to the Big Bang Theory. I believe in the science. In Evolution.

[Richard Steele]

2. Yes- I believe in that G*D. "The Bible", not so much. nm

[pokerfan]

3. No

[kimi]

4. I believe in a higher power

Not the one portrayed in the Bible, though.

[TK421]

5. this would be my answer as well

[Lilith Velkor]

6. I believe the god of the bible is evil.

Whether it is real or not doesn't really matter - it is real to its human followers, who seek to inflict real suffering on those who do not bow down and worship it sufficiently and in the proper manner. Nothing good can come from an abusive, jealous god.

I know, Jesus seems like an OK guy, but if he were truly good he wouldn't be working for that prick. JMFO.

[Ptah]

7. I like these easy questions.

I believe Jesus' teachings are good examples of
how to live a life in a community.

:hi:

[LostInAnomie]

8. No. The God of the Bible is a spoiled child and abusive husband wrapped into one.

[Odin2005]

9. Nope. Atheist here.

[undeterred]

10. which one?

[pokerfan]

13. good point

[Tailormyst]

11. No.

Which comes in handy, as I am a Wiccan.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. which bible?

:shrug:

[Zomby Woof]

14. No more than I believe in the Zeus of The Iliad

[AsahinaKimi]

15. Buddhist Shinto

But I am not active. I love studying about Shinto though..and learning my culture.

[mvd]

16. If you mean do I think God is an old man, no

As for the other stuff, I try to think God turned from an unmerciful God to a more loving one.

[Ohio Joe]

17. No, I'm an atheist - nt

[old mark]

18. I believe there is a greater than us something somewhere. That it "made us

in his own image" and all the rest that follows from there is completely egotistical and primitively ethnocentric.I also believe there is much in life that does not fit logic or rational reasoning. I believe OUR reasoning is not sufficient to grasp the who of where, what and who we are, but it's certainly not the biblical version, which is like a 5,000 year old cartoon.
Agnostic who had to attend catholic school, and I tend toward cynicism regarding the "greatness" of mankind.

We try to grasp the complexities of existence using dull tools, but we can do better than the old man in the sky.

mark

[PassingFair]

30. I believe there is something "different" from us somewhere..."greater"? Not so much.

[old mark]

33. NOTHING greater than humans? Pretty depressing concept to me....nt

[PassingFair]

34. Why? Do you have an inborn need to be subordinate?

Doesn't depress me at all.

:eyes:

[old mark]

36. Have a great time with it....nt

[jobycom]

19. No, but it's not because of any expectations of mercy or kindness, or such things.

I just don't sense any god, with any of my senses. Everything I see in the world seems like a series of processes and reactions of physical elements, without any guidance or plan, forming and reforming the world, and life, and us. To me the concept of a creator entity in all of that is unimaginable. It's like watching a kaleidoscope and arguing that there's really a little man inside painting all the pretty shapes. I can see there's no little man, and can tell the results would be inferior if there was. There just doesn't seem to me to be a possibility of a god.

I can be open-minded, and accept that maybe there could be, that maybe all of the effects are part of the way this god constructs things. But I couldn't believe that, no matter how I tried to force myself to. If I tried, I'd be lying. If others do believe, I can respect that. But I can't.

[Iggo]

20. Oh dear god no.

[rug]

21. The God described in the Bible is as accurate as the people described in the Bible.

[rurallib]

28. like the 900 year old Methuselah or the super giant Goliath or........

[rug]

38. like their behavior...

[hobbit709]

22. I don't believe in any gods.

"Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child."— Robert A. Heinlein

[Dogtown]

23. Atheist n/t

[CBGLuthier]

24. No, Because it is a stupid theology

I do not find that god worthy of worship. I am to worship a creature that condemns his own creations to torture just because they did not live close enough to palestine in the first millenia or so AD?

Everyone in Asia. Everyone in North America until the 1500's?

No.

Bad theology. Petulant and cruel god.

No thanks.

[Deep13]

25. No. It's because he doesn't exist. nt

[retread]

26. Gore Vidal on sky-god religions:

"The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved—Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal—God is the Omnipotent Father—hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose." —"America First? America Last? America at Last?", Lowell Lecture, Harvard University, 1992

[LeftyFingerPop]

27. Yes. n/t

[Bertha Venation]

29. There are some really good responses.

Perhaps there are more to come.

[ccinamon]

31. No - if he really was all-powerful and all-knowing as the bible and

and clergy preach, he would not allow priests to molest children -- he would smite them for giving him (god) a bad name.

[Burma Jones]

32. Not the way most view belief.......

I believe in Odin and Vishnu and Zeus and Zoroaster and Allah and Jehovah and Jesus in so far as they are attempts to describe stuff folks couldn't know way back when and stuff that can't be quantified now.

Not a particularly sophisticated form of Agnosticism, but that's my deal.

[hamsterjill]

35. Yes, I believe in God.

I do believe in God, but I will fight for anyone's right to disagree, and to believe as they choose. I do not believe, necessarily, that anyone who doesn't believe like ME is going to suffer for all eternity. I simply believe everyone has their own path, and the right to decide their own path.

I (personally) believe and find hope and comfort in the teachings of Jesus Christ. I do not believe that the religious right practices those ideals. Those ideals to me are peace, forgiveness, love, acceptance, etc. I aspire every day to have more of those traits in my personality, and fail miserably every day, too, because I am human.

With me, I feel there is an Almighty and a creator. Someone or something more advanced, more enlightened than mankind. The problem that I have with the Bible is the fact that "man" has revised, edited, and rewritten much of it over the centuries.

[Arugula Latte]

37. That Yahweh -- what a murderous bastard! Oh, but "God" is "Love." Yeah, right.

No, I do not believe the Bible. It is a book of mythology, interesting in the same sense that a book about stories involving Zeus or Loki or Coyote the Trickster God are interesting. It's absolutely mind-boggling to me how anybody can think that book is the literal truth in this day and age, yet, sadly, millions do.