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Heaven, God & The Devil
I was wondering what people's views and beliefs on this subject are. I was curious to see as to whether some people believe in God & Heaven but not the Devil and just to see people's general beliefs. I would also like to know, if you do not believe in 'God', why not? ( and vice-versa)
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My personal opinion is that it's all nonsense, comes from a big fictitious story book and were told it to be true because of tradition. Who says tradition/history is correct, it was once thought that the world was flat because people were told it was flat! Same reason and someone will bound to disagree and that's their choice.
Religion is nothing more than a man made device for controlling the people. It's all just make-believe, a heart warming myth to pacify and control the masses who otherwise would not be quite so happy to accept their miserable lot, or their eventual demise. It helps people to accept the dreadful and terrible things that happen in this world, such as mass mass murder, torture, rape etc. because its 'all part of God's plan' (yes rape is part of His stupid plan) and so on. It also helps them cope with the prospect of death and the loss of loved ones. This belief however, obviously does not prevent any of these events from happening.
The evil things in the world are NOT God's plan, they are Man's evil way. God's plan is for Man to choose good. Putting the Bible aside, I believe there is a Higher Power and an afterlife, though I fully accept evolution, the expanding universe, etc. I also believe there is more to life than survival / existence and more to death than extinction. Life has a meaning and we are not just biological machines.
As for the Devil, he's right in your room. Want to see him? Look in a mirror. Or look at me or anyone else on the planet. He's not floating around the air ready to jump into our heads. He's already in our heads. He's the part of us that slaughters, rapes, sexually assaults and deliberately harms others. He is our dark side. He is the Beast in us.
I have always believed that religions exist as a comfort mechanism for humaity, to believe that there is an 'afterlife' and a higher dieity assists the human mind in coming to terms with things it does not understand. from a personal perspective, I believe that death is the end, there is no heaven, but I will be delighted to be proved wrong!
I believe in God Totally and completely! I do find comfort in KNOWING when I die I WILL go on to heaven. I totally respect other peoples beliefs and would never call them silly (all though I could). I think the reason why they make statements about being a christian and the Bible as being silly or stupid is because of their lack of information or because they don't like knowing there is something greater than them or something bad has happened in thier life. Someday we will all find out for those who don't believe Good Luck.
I also believe in God Netty and like you, i find comfort in knowing i will go to Heaven when my life ends.I never thought about the fact that people might consider the bible and christianity as stupid because they don't like knowing there is something greater than them, I think you may be correct in saying this.I would also like to say that so far i have found people's responses very interesting especially jjf2003 and Netty's. Thanks for all the replies to my question so far!
i would like to think that religion is the opium of the masses, i am a marxist at heart, but i also think that the masses created that opium long before they were the subject of control by the bourgeosie. religion is a useful tool for controlling masses, but that can't be it's source and does not explain how so many people find real comfort in religion that goes way beyond mere guidance. however, i do have a problem with the blind leap of faith i would have to make to believe in heaven / hell / devil / god, it's probably human nature to group together happy and unhappy events, to attribute them to one thing rather than another, maybe to give that thing a personality, it makes sense, it's just not a leap i can make. All that and many years studying phiosophy has lead me to buddhism, i would desribe myself as a religious person these days. I've studied many religions and cannot find any that is not based on compassion for our fellow man, if all of us, religious or not, were to prioritise that, i would be able to belive in heaven, i'd be there.
Perhaps Netty or Styles could tell me where they believe the heaven that they are both going to is [and which bit of them is going there... maybe just the 21grms of the soul?] and also what information it is I'm lacking that causes me not to believe either in god or heaven as I would be interested in learning more. It is very difficult to imagine man's place in the vast cosmos and why "bad" things such as wars and murder happen, but resorting to belief in a god seems like an easy option to me rather than trying to deal with the fact that we are an insiginificant part of the universe and that as jif2003 says that "evil" is caused by man [though I disagree with your comments on a higher power jif2003]. I believe in a universe of science in which theories and hypotheses are tested through observation and proof, if anyone can give me one piece of proof for a higher power of any sort then let me know. I'd also be interested in peoples thoughts on the fact that a number of different and often conflicting religions exist... is this a part of god's plan? I believe religion evolved both as a way for man to try and understand his place in the universe and also as a means of controlling the masses [in a sense of... if you do bad things then terrible things will happen to you]. I don't think the bible is necessarily a fictious story book but personally look at it more as a kind of Aesop's fables, a guide to how to live your life perhaps. I recently re-read Carl Sagan's book Cosmos which is a mine of information that I would highly recommend everyone read, to my mind it very firmly put's us humans in our place in the universe.
can i criticise science's thirst for evidence here too, we cannot prove that god exists but nor can we prove that he doesn't exist coz you cant prove a negative, all you scientists and philosophers know that already. science, as a result of these facts, proves itself to be an inadequate and innappropriate tool for the study of the human perception of spirituality and religion. to get to the crux of heaven and hell / god and the devil and their parralells in other religions requires an intellectual leap of faith of its own, the answers will, at best, be probabilities, there are no certainties. in short, whatever you believe in this area is just as right as it is wrong and you should certianly not think that another mere human has a more valid opinion than you do. scientific theories are always being revised and restated, it was once obivous to everyone that the world was flat, i think it is likely that we will go through more huge upheavals in our scientific understanding and our defintions of evidence before we make ourselves extinct.
There seems to me to be a basic paradox here. All religions seem to me to believe that the future can be prophetised. If this is true then the future by definition is predetermined. We would have no control over our destinies and no freewill. We therefore cannot really be held accountable for our actions, be they good, bad or indifferent.
I love how all of the "Non-believers" justify there non-belief by stating that religion was invented to pacify the masses... Well has it ever even crossed your mind that such a statement was invented to pacify the non-believers? It goes both ways! The only way to find out who is right is to try both ways! Try reading religious books such as the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Both testify of God and contain his teachings. So try reading them, and then praying and asking God if he is there! And if you really want to know he WILL answer you! It is that simple. You just have to humble yourself to the point first. Or are you too prideful to accept the fact that you could be wrong. If you are so sure that you are right, then you wouldn't be afraid to try this out. Either way, I know that God lives. Because I have recieved an Answer from HIM! Not the stupid preacher down the street who says he is there. But from God Himself. Give it a shot, and you will find out.
I would be more then happy to answer any questions from anyone... [Email address removed as per site policy. - AB Editor]
I believe in God, Heaven (Paradise) and the Devil (Satan). I believe there is one God, he has no equal or partner and does not beget. He has no son. I believe there is Paradise as a reward for believers who do good deeds during their lives on Earth. Satan is something that causes people to do bad deeds and make people stray off the Right Path in life. I believe in the existence of God because of His many signs all around us, also because of the Divine Revelation of the Qur'an which can leave you with no doubt of His existence once you have read it, it's amazing. I'm a Muslim by the way.
