Do you believe in God?

[Flutterstep 46,189]

The best answer I can give is, I don’t know. It would be easy for them to prove their experience, but instead they plant a few Easter eggs around for us to discover. 

[The Kaeya Simp 13,953]

currently converting to roman catholicism (family are spiritual but athiest) upon readjng the bible and saw it as the true religion, and decided on catholic sect

 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,233]

That's gonna be a big nope from me Jim.

[luvvva.bxbymiyah 209]

Nope, I'm an atheist.

Edited March 24, 2020 by princessxrainbowdash

[Octavia Heartstrings 28,397]

Absolutely not. I am a staunch athieist. 

[ShadOBabe 18,984]

Heck yeah I do! Praise the Lord! 

[CatCat 1,115]

I do, I’m a baptist (which just means you believe the Bible is the final word above anyone else) 

Also I just feel like saying the reason that God doesn’t just make everything perfect again and get rid sin and everything is because then all we could do is love him, but since we don’t have a choice to do otherwise, it wouldn’t really be love. Choosing to love God despite the option not to shows that you truly love him

[TotallyNotNyx 15,563]

My parents are religious, but I’m personally leaning towards atheism.

[Treeglow Flicker 12,975]

I believe in a goddess who I refer to as Lady Fate. She is both my teacher and tormentor. I tend to keep to myself about her.

[Eniac 402]

My relationship with god is a bit wonky. I definitely do not believe the bible is the word of god or atleast not anywhere near purely the word of god, nor any other text to be honest, I just feel it's too easy for them to be manipulated in their creation for other intents. I like to think that there is a flow to the universe, and I guess that could be personified as god, which I try to follow. Basically following the flow to be at ease with everything

[HereComesTom 2,232]

I most certainly do believe in God, especially after the incident where I tore my pants at a bible study.  It happened about ten years ago.

This is a tale worth telling, but unfortunately, there's a lot of context going into it...

 

First of all...when Moses was getting all those instructions from God in some of the oldest parts of the Bible, he wasn't just getting the Ten Commandments; he got tons of instructions, including blueprints for a mobile temple and for the Ark of the Covenant.  That Ark was a representation of God's Throne, and an important part of the mobile temple was a giant curtain that separated the Ark's chamber from the rest of the temple.  That curtain was meant to symbolize a separation between God's moral purity and the inherent corruption of human nature---God was separated from humanity because of sin, and every human has at least a little sin in them, ergo every human is separated from God.

Yes, all that actually was important context for this story!  You'll see why shortly...

Anyhow...3500 or so year later, there was I, sitting in the basement of a church in a small group discussion, studying the Gospel of John for the first time in Bible Study Fellowship's history.  (They'd had a rotation of about 7 different topics of study for decades, and they had suddenly added the Gospel of John to that rotation that year.)  And something that isn't widely known outside of Christianity was that, at the moment Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was supernaturally torn in two:  it was a curtain as thick as a human hand and 70 feet tall, and it ripped in half the moment Jesus died.  The message of that torn curtain was intended to be "Now that the Sacrifice is complete and sin is atoned for, God is no longer separated from humanity."

 

...But at the exact second that we began discussing that in that small groups discussion, I crossed my legs just a little bit too fast, and I heard and felt a rip.  And my butt against the metal chair felt just a little colder than it had felt a moment ago...I reached down, and felt skin instead of cloth.  No one else at the discussion knew it, but I had ripped my pants.  At the exact second we were discussing that torn curtain.

It took a little while for me to realize that I was the butt of a divine jest, and it wasn't until I got home that I realized the full extent of that jest, or just how much God had put into it.

Needless to day, I didn't stick around for the lecture after the small group discussion:  I was running to my car with my notebook literally covering my butt, driving straight home, thinking to myself "I will never buy this brand of pants again!"

...Then when I got home, I actually looked at the label to see what brand it was.

 

...It was St. John's Bay.

...It was St. John's Bay.  The Gospel of John.  Go figure.

...It was St. John's Bay.  ...I'm not sure I can comment on that and keep post this G-rated, here...

 

The joke isn't over, folks.  The label had two more lines:

St. John's Bay
Worry Free Pant
Relaxed Fit.

 

...Yep...

 

So...with all that context in mind:  I was the butt of a joke three and a half millennia years in the making, and only God could've pulled this prank off.

Reflecting on this event since then, I have had an epiphany:  in the Kingdom of Heaven, I am basically the court jester!

[Steve Piranha 28,747]

I do believe in a divine being. Not as much of the church tho

6 hours ago, Eniac said:

My relationship with god is a bit wonky. I definitely do not believe the bible is the word of god or atleast not anywhere near purely the word of god, nor any other text to be honest, I just feel it's too easy for them to be manipulated in their creation for other intents. I like to think that there is a flow to the universe, and I guess that could be personified as god, which I try to follow. Basically following the flow to be at ease with everything

Clearly. It was far too easy for those ancient times of ignorance, limited access to information, and overall low quality of life to manipulate the masses, by claiming “Some benevolent dude wrote this book. Follow it’s teachings and good things will come to you” 

[BornAgainBrony 2,395]

I've seen enough weird shizzle that I should be a devout... something. In practice, the best I can be described as is a weird mix of Wiccan and Shinto, but on top of it if I'm honest with myself, I'm still an Agnostic.

A Divine Creator(s) doesn't mean there's an afterlife. An afterlife doesn't mean there's a Heaven. Are there moral rules or guidelines placed on us? An ideal civilization we should be striving for according to some ancient creed? Who knows. All of it is speculative. I'll adhere to standards that I think "they" would like but not out of fear of Eternal Damnation (if that's even a thing). And my spiritual beliefs do not require me to infringe on the rights of others, or to try and convert anyone.

[AveryGamerDude 4,640]

I don't believe in any God or gods, but I do think it's possible for a God or gods to exist, albeit very unlikely.

[Eniac 402]

49 minutes ago, AveryGamerDude said:

I don't believe in any God or gods, but I do think it's possible for a God or gods to exist, albeit very unlikely.

I think in general this is how I live my life. I don't really think about it that much

[vampireponyprince 184]

I believe theres something out there but I don't know what, I guess im kind of agnostic?

[Here No Longer 5,270]

I do not believe in one or any gods. I believe in the plausibility of their existence, but not much past that.

Edited March 26, 2020 by Angel_Dust

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

Nope.  I don't believe in things on no evidence.  Even if some sort of sentience did create the universe, there's absolutely no reason to think that it's one of the characters from one of our holy books.  The gods resemble us because we created them, not vice versa.

[Yakamaru 3,072]

I'm not religious and don't believe in any god, gods, deity or deities.

[Venomous 18,813]

I grew up Christian and still consider myself to be one. So yes, I do believe in God. Even so, I can understand why some people may not and that’s okay. I would never try to push my beliefs in anyone’s face.

[TBD 17,228]

I do believe in God and miracles. 

[rarity2018 19]

I used to be catholic when I was a kid and then later became an atheist for most of my life and I also became a Muslim a bit later but I became an atheist again later because I thought it didn't really make much sense. I recently became a Christian again of the protestant denomination as it was the one that made the most sense to me and that I'm the most sure of. So I've been through different beliefs and that probably won't really change again from what I currently believe in.

[Fasu 550]

Somehow, within a year without any particular person or reason, I've become more and more skeptical about god. To the point I'm now - strong atheist, that there is NO god, which is kind of ironical. For years I talked about myself as a christian which "I've been for most of my life" due the indoctrination of my family (which I don't see only as a bad thing). Retrospectively it might be I never was actually christian - halfly pretending for people around, halfly convincing for myself. 

Edited August 1, 2020 by Fasu
clarifications

[ponygirl2020 58]

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Edited August 26, 2020 by ponygirl2020

[SparklingSwirls 21,261]

I don't know; I'm agnostic so I'm open to the idea of a god but questioning it. 

I don't think I believe in one, at least not a god exactly like the one in organized religions. Maybe more so as just some kind of "bigger force" out there in the universe.