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.

A Confession of National Wickedness
	Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
	but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
	For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
	None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
	They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.
	Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
	Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
	The way of peace they know not; Rom. 3.15-17 and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
	¶ Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
	We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.
	We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.
	For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;
	in transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
1	And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
	Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. ¶ And the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
	And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. Is. 63.5
	For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, Eph. 6.14 and a helmet of salvation upon his head; Eph. 6.17 · 1 Thes. 5.8 and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.
	According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompense.
	So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
	¶ And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, Rom. 11.26 saith the LORD.
	As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.

 If the universe is infinite with no beginning nor end what need is there for a creator? We have always been and always will be not as humans but as cosmic consciousness. The body exists in condition of time and space. Consciousness transcends time and space therefore it is the creation of its infinite self. It is only our wordly false ego-self that seeks for answers as to whether a creator exists. There is no answer required because the question only exists in our false perceived reality.
 

Honourable ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your offer to hop on your pantheist, monotheist, polytheist bandwagon but its too little too late as I am already on my atheist bandwagon and heading opposite direction in lightening speed.

 Hmm....interesting georgian satellite..... so based on your false perceived reality how can you say that there is no beginning and no end of the universe?......moreover how can you judge that whatever you perceived is true or false? .....ok you have reference of time and space but you have very little understanding of your own reference and you are the only observer......so you are free to hypothesize every valid theory for your observation.... with god or without god...

Universe has begun at the time of big bang. So, saying it has no end or start simply is ignorance. We just don't have that capability yet to explore/warp through stars. Being an avid science follower, yes, we seek answers , without seeking for answers we would have never known all the marvels at our disposal at the moment. All these space missions, all these gadgets, comforts and wonders you are seeing and using at this very time is the result of that human inquisitiveness(finding for answers). Because, we always wanted to find answers. Yes, we physicists are always hunting down to the core for reason for every thing moving  for it's cause. When we go back to the time, we see there was this nothingness but how the hell that one atom exploded and expanding ever since. What caused that explosion? If you think trying to find that answer is false human ego-self, then I've to hesitantly admit, ...........................

I've seen these atheists , self-centered people who was once religious but for their own selfish reasons, they turned to become atheist. Before anyone plan to object me, lemme tell you something every atheists is born religious, yes that a fact because that's how our society is made. They believed into god and stuff. And they teach their children the same manner. Just because you wished/prayed for something and it didn't get fulfilled is not a solid reason for being an atheist. But yes, tons of these so-called atheist are simply refusing the fact is because of their own selfish problems. I'm still not converying God exists in the form as many people of different faith believe. That's totally not true at least for me and my understanding.

Religion as we know today has become a center of fear to control people. It's a rule, a discipline once set by man to turn and teach savages into  becoming social human. I take religion as a book of discipline nothing more than that.

Regarding your claim of false reality and consciousness existing only in one given time and space shows how ignorant you are as I can figure it out easily that you've never sit on the ground and never ever given any time for your ownself to contemplate the things, nothingness around you. To add more from different angle, We believe there are millions of possibilities and some of them can prove that in our equations. Our universe is big mashups of dimensions. We just belong to one. We talk about time travel, warps and quantum mechanics, because we believe in dimensions.

There has been countless discussions about god and no matter what the outcome is, it is the most useless discussion there is. Why? because nothing in life is ever affected by a divine presence or a divine action. People keep dying wrongful deaths. People keep getting sick. Innocent people keep being killed. Stampedes in religious grounds keep killing hundreds each year. Religious wars keep killing thousands.

No matter how many people believe in god, has there been one single instance where there has been a positive identification of god's direct involvement in something whether or not miraculous?

God does not make a difference.

God has never made a difference.

Your loved ones will die someday and god is not going to save them. You will die someday and god will not save you.

In view of this god foresaken truth, why do you keep worrying about God? You are wasting your time. You could be doing a hundred different things to make your and your loved one's lives better but no you want to waste your time praying for shit to happen which will never happen unless you actually get off your lazy butt and do some action.

What you do, so you shall reap. That is not divine words. If you eat shit you will get sick. It is just action and reaction.

Stop talking about god and wasting your time. Enjoy what you got, enjoy your life. The closest thing to God is life. Your life and others lives. Love yourself and love others. That is all you need to do for that peace of mind you're looking for . For that heaven you are looking for. For, life is heaven on earth if you realize that every life is the god that you want so much to exist.

Every atheist is born religious? how do you know that? you are presenting an assumption as a fact which fails you there my friend....even so, if you are led to believe that unicorn is real do you really blindly follow that unicorn is real or do you want to explore and analyze the truth behind the claim? and no atheists don't turn into an atheist just because their prayers were not answered and not all atheists are self centered!! LOL is that the only reason you can think of as to why someone turns into an atheist, then you are generalization is bit too far stretched...I totally disagree with you on that.....

People are getting really serious here in this thread....
so no offense to anyone .... just for fun



Chaurey,

I like your figure up there and I think as you can't prove or disprove the existence of god it will be better to be in the side of agnostic atheist or theist....

GrgDai,

I agree with you. That is why I wrote this post up above. Let us take our energy and do something practical for Nepal. Loving religion or hating religion is not enough!
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FountainDew,

You make some excellent points.
But, they are not exclusively and only related to religion.

Think of corporate marketing. Think of advertisement. Think of brand wars. All of these are indoctrinating their own dogma on people. You are right. The mind is very powerful. And it is this power of the mind that Coca-cola uses to sell sugar-water as nectar of the gods. It is this power that Gucci uses to pay $2 to some South Asian child worker to make a purse and then to sell it for $200 in New York. It is this power allows paintings and music to be sold for millions of dollars.

Are you complaining about all of these things?

Having said that, the consumers who do not get all the above products, feel that they cannot live without it. They would feel deprived and their lives would feel meaningless. They would be sad. Many of these people feel that these corporate brands would cure them of depression and their misery. I have yet to see if believing in everything that advertisements on TV tell you is a permanent cure for a lack of meaning of one's life.
If anything, you're working like a rat in the race, trying to make ends meet all the time. Trying to earn enough money to your superficial friends. I haven't seen anyone being permanently cured of sadness by any corporate brand, unlike what they all tell you.

Are you complaining about all of this also?

Finally, all these brand wars is causing a lot of hatred between people. There are people fighting which brand is superior and which is inferior. Capitalism brings about all kinds of it's own problems around the world. Look at the streets of Kathmandu and tell me what this culture of materialistic showing-off has produced of our nation. As long as people can don the latest and greatest brands that Madison Avenue has advertised, people in Nepal feel they don't need to have any morality or responsibility for what happens to the nation. They are living in corporate Nirvana. They are in heaven. They don't need anyone else's blessings or approval.

My friend, Are you complaining about all of this, also?

Look at the 'take back Wallstreet' movement or the 'green movement' and the demonstrations happing against APEC in Honolulu this week. These movements have sprung out of needing to fight against the absolute grip of the power of Capitalism all over the world.

Are you complaining about all of this also?

So, I agree with you. There is a lot of work and attention to be focussed on practical problems happening on earth that concern us Nepalese than to spend all of our time in either loving religion or hating religion. Do you agree with me or not?

chaurey, go and ask your mom. I think she'll answer you better than me if you were born religious or not. The moment you are born, they do all kind of religious stuffs to you , from naming to all sort of pujas. yeah, my ignorant friend who doesn't think before splattering his ignorant words, you were born religious.

and talking about unicorn, I don't live in fantasy. I'm all about science. Everything behind anything, there is science. There is physics even behind your DNA. The time is not far when our cell will be working together with nano carbon matters and guess what, that'd be the size of a single cell , a nano chip. Can you imagine that? Most probably, not. In next few centuries, we'll be entering into post-human era.  I'm not trying to humiliate you in any sense , I just felt you've very limited knowledge about what's going on. And, the cheap words of yours lacking knowledge is easy to comprehend :D 

Also, I'm not trying anyone to believe me, I'm just expressing what my thoughts are.

One more thing, there are two kinds of mind. 1. practical and 2. impractical

PRACTICAL MIND.  Information oriented, fact oriented, realistic, objective, logical, practical, prosaic, rational, reasonable, sensible, straight-thinking.  Mental processes: thinking, reflecting, considering, pondering, exploring, observing, learning, inquiring, investigating, studying, weighing, debating, analyzing, figuring, calculating. 
    
IMPRACTICAL MIND.  Fantasy oriented, daydreaming oriented, imagination oriented, impression oriented, feeling oriented, image or scene oriented, visionary, impractical, airy, vapory, etherial, idealistic, unrealistic, irrational, daydreamy, romantic, dewy-eyed, in the clouds.  Mental processes:  daydreaming, fantasizing, wishful thinking, imagining. 

You are in category 2, you don't have your own mind, you follow other's and I strongly fall under category 1, I use my own mind and try to contemplate things around in the most scientific manner.

I get information and process it.  You get information and take it though you pretend you've processed it but you simply take it.

Yeah, that was one reason why ppl turned in to become an atheist. I wrote the word 'these' meaning mostly, try to understand little grammar out there. I didn't imply 'all' at all. They are free to live whatever way they think is good. There could be other reasons to turn into being atheist. I don't really care. It's their free will.


  

I disagree 100% with you.... nobody is BORN RELIGIOUS...just cause the mother/father engage in religious rituals does not mean that a kid is BORN religious.....religion is taught to the kids as they grow up...it's not genetic brah!! nobody has a religious gene in em.....it's an acquired trait,  as the kid grows up and prents or someone else inflicts these belief system in them.

a kid can be born into a religious family...but a baby can never have religious belief when they are BORN. learn to distinguish the difference before you speak sir! for someone who claims to have higher understanding than everyone else you sure seem to lack some basics!!  LOL

what about all the atheist parents who have kids then?? are they born religious too???

Atheism i believe is also a form of a religion .. they fully believe in not believing.. they believe in themselves.. they themselves are god for them.. its a form of paganism..

Before the big bang theory there were several other theories we happened to know. Nobody knows when and how the universe was created. Lets not talk about what really happen before big bang that is unknowable but one thing is crystal clear the beginning of the universe is not a creator. Now, what about the end? do you guys know when it will end ? scientists say black hole will swamp the whole universe after 30 billions somthing years but its far beyond my comprehension therefore I said there is no end. I genuinely believe expressing something based on reality is not ignorance.

Chaurey, you just hit the jackpot. how does he know every atheist is born religious? assumption can be very dangerous and have many by-products.

grgdai,
your last sentense makes sense but you don't know why you wrote that. Im pretty sure on that.

I got this chain mail picture last time with this old guy in the picture and words go like this
" First, I was dying to finish my high school and start college,
And then, I was dying to finish my college and start working,
Then I was dying to marry and have children,
And then I was dying for my children,
to grow old enough
so I could go back to work
But then I was dying to retire
And now I'm dying
And suddenly I realized
I forgot to live "

Your reply reminded me of that quote. Animals do live the same day , as a matter of fact, they don't  go to college but they do learn hunting and adapt with their own environment in the same manner. I mean, basically it's the same thing they live and live for their offspring. But the thing is there is a reason why we have this intelligence , why not use it and try to understand it in our free time instead of being the part of materistic rat-race, and forgetting everything..

People tend to become spiritual when they get old, becase they don't find meaning and purpose to their lives after they accomplish everything. I mean, common, I'm in my thirties and I'm already spiritual,ppl say so, the way I think and behave. There is no harm in to realize this in early time.

I'm not saying you bother with god/no god stuff in your materially consumed world, I'm equally part of it and do the same to run my everyday life, but at least if you put an effort on this hidden realization of the life, just in your free time, you'll definitely know something unknown. I've experienced that a lot.

And, grgdai, you really are religious. No matter how hard you try to pretend. :D 
It takes years of practice to think like me and understand.

Chaurey, I knew it, you would ask me that questions.
The act of marriage itself is religious.

Let's rewind the time back to when there was no concepts of marriages at all. Say, 50,000 BC, humans were wild and savages, they're all polygamists, no rule, no restriction simply wild. Let's forward the time, say 1 AD, a book was already written with all do's and dont's for human, that was their holy book, they described virginity and marriages.

So, my friend, the moment they get married in someone(priest's) attendance, they unknowingly got themselves into religious act. It's like claiming themselves 'vegetarian' and at the same time consuming dairy products. 

Strict atheist would never get married in true sense, even after marriage if they hold the same idea, nothing is wrong but they are not fully atheist.

georgian_satellite

Nobody knows how this universe came into existence and how it is going to end. What people are saying is based on small numbers of observations and large numbers of modeling. The theories deduced from these observations might not be true. It depends on the eyes of observer or reference of observation. Reality is not the absolute and independent entity, it is reference dependent. So whatever you are thinking as real is real based on your reference of observation. Your theory might appear non realisitc for someone using different reference. And you can not say my theory is right and yours one is wrong until both can explain and predict the scientific behavior of that observation. 

are you saying people can't have babies without getting married then? what about babies who are born to religious and atheist people who are not married?

 "Children are born religious" --- bittertruth
WHAT AN UTTERLY STUPID LOGIC! Thats all I can say about this. The next thing you would say is that children are born republican, democrat, kangresi, maobadi, and so on. 
Next thing, one DOES NOT convert to atheism. You just realize that you are an atheist, from your thinkings, from your disbelief in deities.  

I'm smiling because you are asking questions because you don't know the jack about what I'm explaining because you are not trying to accept or understand or at least make an effort to get out of that your thick head or break the barrier and get out of the box or because I feel like I'm argueing with fools . EOD

anyways,

chaurey - no comments, keep asking questions, you'll find it oneday on your own

gregorian_satellite - [yawnnn]

man ko kura -  you saying me doesn't make me stupid and doesn't make you wise. stupid ppl see others stupid. but what I was trying to say was (had to BOLD to prevent thoughtlessly criticizing me without reading what I wrote in above posts)

"It is a fact that the newborn children are unable to comprehend the meaning of what is told them but they definitely are able to identify the surroundings and the faces around them. They do hear the sounds and their senses and the minds take note of them. Therefore it is not correct to say that the newborn babies don’t take any impression from what they see and what they hear in early childhood. Although the newborn are unable to understand the meaning of the talk going on around them, the sounds of the words are registered on their minds and in stages they start to understand the meanings and they become a part of their vocabulary. Even amongst adults it is noted that the words which impress the mind most are retained in the memory. The adults recognize well-known persons easier than casual or occasional acquaintances. Similarly the newborn baby too, living in a spiritual environment, hearing the recitation of the Holy Book, the word of Allah coming to their ears and having seen the parents offering prayers in their presence will develop into religiously upright persons. On the other hand the new born babies who are surrounded by irreligious persons, hear the sounds of uncivil and abusive language, are exposed to amoral music and songs, will no doubt grow up to be persons similar to those in whose company they are growing up."