Do you believe in God and supernatural beings?

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I was visited by a supernatural being and her attendants many years ago, the most remarkable thing Ive ever experienced and to this day am still unsure why such a thing happened to me.

It helps my belief in God as well, though he doesn't go around showing himself to mortals in the same way, but if you've seen one, its not quite so hard to believe there might also be another.

Ive had a few supernatural incidents in my life as well, but nothing compares to seeing one standing right in front of you, clear as the nose on your face.

Nay.

I'm a skeptic. I've been an Atheist since the age of 15 after being raised Protestant. I require empirical evidence for my beliefs. Suffice to say, I love science.

Yes. I have studied science for a long time and I cannot believe that humans and the universe we live in are the biggest and most complex things out there. It seems like an assumption along the lines of assuming that the Sun goes around the Earth--that because we see things from the perspective of our own world, that this is all there is to see. Eventually, it seems to me, you must touch infinity, and that makes the idea of God not just possible but inevitable.

Yes, I do.

I believe in all of those things.

I am an atheist. I don't think such a thing as god exist, religion is just a way to keep people less fearfull of life. Some of the experiences people have are made up, but i believe that some of them are true, it's just because we haven't found the scientific background for it yet that we attribute it to supernatural beings. Science is there, we just need to understand.

Im prolly one of the only people here whose gunna stand up n say I do believe in God. This, and because of this belief hindered my DX for quite along time. but isnt it every man for their own? mind you, I am Christians, and Catholics annoys the hell outta me!! This may just be from my own bad experiences with the catholic church... theyre too restrictive as a religion, and I prefer the freedom of my own. I am not one of those christians that even drive me up the wall, bout saying "oh you're a non believer, you're gunna go to hell." I am the type of christian who is like "yaaa, ok, well you know, even Hitler could go to heaven!!" -shrugs-

Hey, read through some of these other responses; you really are not alone. And, yeah, Hitler could go to Heaven--it might be weird to say, but God loves everyone, and so he loves Hitler too. God never rejected him... the real question is--did Hitler reject God? Nobody really knows what went on with him in his last hours. It's possible. A very slim possibility, but... Only God knows a person's heart. And most of us are a whole lot less set on hatred than Hitler was.

I've talked to some atheists who seem to be essentially looking for God, in their own way--often through science. They've rejected the idea of an old guy up in the sky, but they still have that basic need to understand themselves as a part of something really big, to find objective standards to guide their ethical lives. Often times they seem to be looking for something like God... often actively and desperately. Because they have rejected the idea of belief in something which is not scientifically provable, they can never quite reach the supernatural, but they seem to be going in that direction. I often think to myself--a person who searches for God that truly and that persistently; I do not think God would reject that just because, at some point, these folks decided not to believe in anything they couldn't put in a test tube.

No. I was brought up in a very secular environment. When I first came to this new country, I was shocked to know there were people who seriously think about god and stuff. In my country, or at least where I grew up, such people were regarded as weird. Even now I can't help thinking such things are silly and a waste of time.

It's funny, because I'm under the impression that there is a dichotomy between 'knowing' and 'believing'; where knowing pertains to science, and 'believing' to spirituality. I am an agnostic myself, but I don't quite understand why one would search for scientific proof of God if God is all about belief. Our senses are limited to begin with, and I feel humbled at the size of everything we already can prove through science- I don't really need science to explain the spiritual side of the universe for me. Science kind of doesn't have a place there.

I'm gonna have to use that one with my moms, next time she starts... ! !!

This is a tricky question because we tend to think in black and white terms, I was raised Christian/Mormon and believed, but more out of fear of the alternative, I declared myself an atheist a couple of years ago because I cannot account for the question of evil, if god exists, and is capable of preventing all evil, and being good logically must prevent all evil, then why is there evil. Well evil exists therefore god does not exist, unless our definition of god is wrong, the other thing is that I understand science well enough to understand that god is also unnecessary to explain our existence, or that we have an indestructible spiritual component which survives death, there simply is no basis in fact to support this. That said however I also must recognize the influence religion has had on my development and that rejecting that aspect of my life is what lead me to discover that I am autistic, in other words my life is incompatible with atheism, I need religion, even if I lack the faith to believe, culturally I am a Mormon, I suppose in a way I am defined by Mormonism. I am not the only Mormon who feels this way, sometimes, more often than not, especially for those of us who are socially challenged, it is simply best to go with the flow and not make any waves.

I am a Druid and polytheistic so yes I believe in gods and goddesses and I'm a follower of Bridget, the triple goddesses of healing, blacksmith ins and inspiration and the sacred flames.

I also hold the belief that anyone can believe anything they want. And have no connection to the Judeo/Christian pantheon.

I think of belief as a sort of hypothesis, like what you have at the beginning of an experiment. You start with a hypothesis and its alternate, and you theorize: "If this hypothesis is true, then this thing should happen." You start out with an assumption of absolute truth, so that you can properly design ways to test which way that truth goes. Belief is the decision to assume truth and begin the experiment; and the experiment is life-long, with results only available once one is no longer bound to the physical universe.

A person can only believe something if they think it is either probably or certainly true. Belief is not a decision to say something is true regardless of a lack of evidence; it is a decision to act on something you think is probably true, as though it were provable and certainly true. For example, a person might have faith in the fidelity of their lover, even though this fidelity is untestable because the other person's behavior is inherently unpredictable, by trusting that person not to have an affair. The critical question is not whether you have faith, but whether the thing you have faith in is trustworthy.

I think the existence of God is more likely than not, because the idea of a universe with an infinite being involved makes more sense and explains more variables more simply than the idea that existence is unexplained and unexplainable despite being limited and subject to entropy. A universe in constant decay, which had a beginning and will have an end, is more consistent with the idea of the existence of something whose natural state is to be infinitely orderly, invulnerable to entropy, and outside time. This is as close as science and philosophy can get to God. The rest is just the testing of that hypothesis.

The nature of God makes him unprovable, but "unprovable" does not mean "nonexistent". Science can test only that which is observable but it makes no claims about that which is not observable--most importantly, it does not make the claim that the unobservable cannot exist. There is truth that cannot be proven by science, and a person must make up their own mind about the possibility of this truth.

To deny the existence of God is arrogant. I just cannot understand why so many people do that. And what is still worse is that some other people are not even atheists, they are completely indifferent.

(Thread moved from Autism discussion to PPR)