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Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe |
Good Without God is a provocative and inspiring discovery of a religion that is alternative and traditional at the same time. With the ongoing wars in the world, the current state of the global economy and the unsettling changes to the earth’s climate, questions about religion and God have never seemed more befitting. A lot of us are seeking for a place where we will find scientific reasoning and facts as well as moral courage and hope to overcome different kinds of challenges that come along during our lifetime.
While some find their answers in the divine, others find them in science. But in Good Without God, Harvard University’s humanist chaplain Greg Epstein presents an inclusive and balanced response: Humanism. In his book, Epstein focuses on the positive attributes of man and reinforces humanity’s potential for goodness. As you read the book, you will learn how Humanists live lives of compassion and purpose and how Humanism can contribute to moral ways of being without necessarily feeling the need for supernaturalism, higher powers and divine intervention.
Good Without God is a constructive response from Epstein to fellow atheists like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Jim Wallis and Rick Warren, wherein he makes a bold claim for what nonbelievers believe and do.
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Jordan Maxwell US Corporation, UCC Maritime Admiralty Law, Occult Symbolism
O.K. but until then, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QpWL3mDJ5E
I started reading this book because although I have never believed in God, I am not entirely sure which exact term I would associate myself with when it comes to atheism. It is not so much the label that I am trying to find for myself, it is more about exploring the underlying thoughts and beliefs that I have. I was drawn to the title of the book because I do consider myself to be a good person that cares about others and my community.
I find the author’s approach to discussing people’s beliefs about God quite interesting. He mentions that many theists do not actually believe in an all knowing powerful deity watching over and judging them from up above. He claims that many just follow along for a variety of reasons such as a sense of community, traditions, belief in an earth nurturing spirit, etc. Those things have become what God is to them. To me this sounds like quite a few theists actually have similar views about God as many atheists do, but they are too afraid to speak up and let go of the way of life that religion has carved out for them.
The author states that the question we should be asking ourselves is not, “do you believe in God”, rather he thinks it should be, “what do you believe about God” because it has become subjective and all things to all people. He goes on to say that the humanists’ definition of what they believe about God is, “that he is the most important, influential literary character human beings have created.” To me, this seems like a passive aggressive way of stating that one does not believe in God. They want to state their non-beliefs, but are too afraid to rock the boat.
Personally, I think that is letting theists and religion off the hook too lightly. What I believe about God is that people created him to control and manipulate other people into doing what they wanted them to do, and that very little about that has changed over the years. Maybe I am a little too jaded…
I am curious to hear what others here believe about God.
"I am curious to hear what others here believe about God."
I am god and so is everybody.
We create our own reality with our own actions and thought.
There is no higher being that loves us and judge us after we die, there is just us and other species.
"I am curious to hear what others here believe about God"
I find the whole concept of a god absolutely ludicrous,there are so many religions with so many gods and each one will swear that they have the true god or gods.
They can't possibly all be right,but they can certainly all be wrong!!
"I am curious to hear what others here believe about God."
I would say I don't believe much about God other than I think he's entirely imaginary. I think, based on evidence in the Bible, that if he did exist, he would be ego-maniacal psycho child stuck in a divine being's body. He would also be very pretentious, bipolar, and abusive. So I guess that is less belief and more evidence based reasoning about God and his nature.
I think that humanity, especially in the infancy of civilization, struggled to come to terms with their world in a meaningful way. Divine beings were probably a sensible way to accommodate for this lack of knowledge. However, I find it all too telling that books like the Bible seem to very accurately exhibit the cultural climate and beliefs of the people in the time period from which they originate. You'd figure that an all-loving and all-knowing god would be much more moral and much more loving than he is portrayed.
But, more to the point, I don't think that any deity, supernatural being, or whatever, exists at all. Though I cannot prove that 100% beyond any doubt, the sheer lack of evidence in this matter makes me feel pretty confident. Scientific explanations serve in a much more substantial capacity than faith. I agree with Domingo when he says that their existence is ludicrous, and that is way more likely that all the religions in the world are wrong than one being right.