Do you wish there's a god?

[Fake Messiah]

When will people realize that they (humans) are gods, or at least have a potential to become gods.

When I was 12.

What?

Sure, take, for instance, what most people do today - from healing to transport and building things - would seem god-like to people just few hundred years ago. I mean imagine going to medieval times or even 19th century and giving someone pills for hemorrhoids - how godlike would you appear.

And that's why people need to realize that we are the Gods people are looking for and continue to do greater stuff and one day when people start terraforiming other planets, travel to other stars, cure all diseases, live as long as they want and have diplomatic relations with alien species - who would then need to think about god other than ourselves?

God was more important to people of the past (like medieval times) when people were dying like flies and everybody had more kids that died than lived. To them life was short, fragile and meaningless, so they were putting everything to some other life beyond. But even then it was more of a stumbling block than anything else. For example, I remember watching a documentary about that famous Russian empress Alexandra and when she saw how her son Alexei suffered from hemophilia her solution was to spend most of her day in the church praying for him so that Jesus heals him - and you see the stumbling block? It would have been much smarter of her if she used a treasure trove to invest in science in order to find a cure, because these people can have perfectly normal lives with today's medicine.

[Sal]

I don't wish for a god to exist for the same reason I don't wish to be dependent on imaginary friends. They're fake, no matter what illusory comfort and reassurance I can attribute to both concepts.

[Peebothuhlu]

Actually...

I would rather wish there'd be Dragons... Or, I don't know, other creatures of mythology.

Heck, Gaint Eagles (Not the extint critters that lived in New Zealand, though they'd be a close second) so people could tame, train and ride/fly the beastys.  

Not at work.

[robvalue]

I can understand the desire to believe there’s some force of good at the helm. The thing is, it wouldn’t require any faith to believe such a thing if it was actually evident.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's precisely because we don't see that evidence that we seek to become that good, right? 

We ask ourselves"If I don't do good, who will, how will good be achieved, and can we leave that to chance or unknown un-evidence forces?" It's worth noting that the christians of the world (just as one example) don't actually count on jesus to fix things or vote, they fix things and cast their votes for him...so this particular thing isn't really an issue of disagreement between atheists and the faithful. We -all- know that god aint handing out lollipops.

[downbeatplumb]

the creator being a wicked psychopath

I think you'll see from the replies that people here focus their not-belief on a very specific image of God. Basically a naive literalist reading of the early Old Testament. 

Though people are adamant that their not-belief extends to all the different images of God people have believed in, this is the one that they talk about. What William Blake called Nobodaddy. It doesn't matter that no theologian has ever agreed with that view. 

Sometimes it seems as if people formed a view of the Christian God when they were about 12 years old, decided it was bad, and stopped believing. It doesn't occur to them that a 12-year-old might not have the most well-informed judgment. 

I'm curious of your own view of this. Is there a way for you to describe your thoughts about what God is in a way that wouldn't require as many pages as Thomas Aquinas wrote? People here will insult you no matter what you say, so in that sense any reaction will be the same. But I'm curious.

 

I have no idea what a god is supposed to be. Never have I seen a good definition.

[mlmooney89]

Do I wish that I could stick my head in the sand and pretend everything will be okay, happens for a reason, and I will live forever in a perfect happy place? Yes. I wish I could be that naïve. I feel like it is a lot more rose tinted glasses and takes less thinking when you get told what to think.

No really I don't wish that some deity was bribing me into loving him. I'm perfectly content knowing that my mind will just stop when I die and I don't have to worry if I was "good enough" or if I will have to watch my loved ones move on without me. I'm not sure how religious people can feel the way they do honestly. I was religious but if the back of my head I ALWAYS felt kind of silly for believing.

[fredd bear]

"I think you'll see from the replies that people here focus their not-belief on a very specific image of God. Basically a naive literalist reading of the early Old Testament. "

Oh,dear, more unfounded wishful thinking. There is probably is some consensus that YWH as described in the Torah is a pretty disgusting figure. However. I've never noticed the atheist beliefs being so restricted in their disbelief.

The broad ideas I've seen reject the concept of a supreme being of any kind, due to a complete lack of proof of any non corporeal being(s).

Russell's teapot can be applied to any God you care to name. Because you've never bothered to define your god, I'm assuming he's the god of the Torah and New Testament, but it doesn't really matter.

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others.

Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion.[1] He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong.

Russell's teapot is still invoked in discussions concerning the existence of God, and has had influence in various fields and media.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

[brewer]

I want my own personal underpants jesus.

Oh, wait, ............ there he is.

[Catharsis]

God doesn't care much about many replies.

He thinks it's nothing.