Does God exist? Only half of Americans say a definite yes

[brooklynite]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Lasher (a host of the General Discussion forum).

The Hill

Only half of Americans now say they are sure God exists.

That finding, from the closely watched General Social Survey, stands out among several nuggets of new data about religion in America.

Not quite 50 percent of Americans say they have no doubt about the existence of God, according to the 2022 survey, released Wednesday by NORC, the University of Chicago research organization. As recently as 2008, the share of sure-believers topped 60 percent.

Thirty-four percent of Americans never go to church, NORC found, the highest figure recorded in five decades of surveys.

[True Dough]

1. Well,

what does God say???

[Effete Snob]

7. Usually, God says...

...that you are supposed to send him money.

He tells his spokespersons to collect it for him.

[True Dough]

16. I'm putting cash in an envelope right now

Tithing makes us all better people! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. May the church forever be rich on our backs!

[Effete Snob]

17. I've PM'd you God's preferred address

[True Dough]

24. I sure hope

it's not that dive bar again!

[RKP5637]

2. NO, gods are control tactics to control the masses! So many are gullible and fall for it. n/t

[Mariana]

88. To be fair, most of them get indoctrinated as small children

by people whom they love and trust, so it's understandable that they get taken in. After the fear of being tortured forever if their faith should ever fail gets instilled in them, it's very hard to let it go.

[RKP5637]

92. It's so sad to see one's brain indoctrinated like that as a kid. I've met kids who finally dumped

the catholic religion, for example, but finally they did it, and harbored a lot of guilt.

[twodogsbarking]

3. The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.

[brooklynite]

4. On the contrary. the opinion is very valuable.

Millions have an opinion on god without "knowing anything", and Government policies derive from those opinions.

[twodogsbarking]

8. 10,000 maniacs.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

58. Only to deluded bigots

[Effete Snob]

6. There are some people who know more about God than other people?

The ones who seem to know the most about God disagree on a lot of stuff about God, but they are pretty much 100% consistent about one thing - God needs money.

[marybourg]

9. Well put.

[DBoon]

47. so which religion must I follow to "know god"?

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

57. I'd wager that the non-belivers know more about the subject

Than believers. Believers are notoriously ignorant of what their own book says. Only 5-10% of them have ever read it. And if that's not enough, atheists routinely score the highest on religious knowledge surveys. That includes scoring better than people of the religion itself on knowledge about their own religion.

By the way: It's outright BIGOTRY, and stupid BIGOTRY at that, to assume that non-believers wouldn't know anything about another religion. We know it, because we have to. Just like brown people know white people far better than whites do. Or how LGBTs know cis-straights better than the reverse. It's necessary for our survival, in ways that you are undoubtedly unaware of, and for reasons that you undoubtedly have zero clue about.

[Silent3]

75. It is a subject for which expertise does not exist

What passes for "expertise" in theology ranks right up there with Bigfootology and Advanced Tea-Leaf Reading, albeit with a little more polish and prestige.

[H2O Man]

5. It depends

upon how one defines "God."

[sanatanadharma]

33. Exactly! My definition is:

God is existent-consciousness or conscious-beingness.

Both 'existence' and 'consciousness' are present in our world.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

60. This is mine

arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

--Richard Dawkins

Because it's true. Anyone who had actually, you know, read the book would know how true it is.

[sanatanadharma]

62. The truth of Yahweh, but not the truth of Divinity

So sad so many worship false Gods of human foibles.

Scientists and Saints all seek the same.

[Deep State Witch]

10. Which One?

I am a polytheist. I believe that there are many Gods and Goddesses, including Yahweh.

[Happy Hoosier]

12. Not to be snarky....

... but any good evidence for any of them?

[H2O Man]

19. That depends.

Sagan and Spinoza tended to define "God" as the sum-total of the laws of the universe.

[Model35mech]

87. That definition does some violence to "HE" made "us" in his image

But, putting a positive spin on I think this thread suggests only about half of Americans are as slow-witted as I thought they were.

[Deep State Witch]

21. No

What I believe is complicated, and I don't particularly want to argue with you. Suffice it to say that yes, I believe that there are other beings on different planes of existence - whether one calls them Gods, Spirits, etc. is up to the believer. You are free to believe or not. Do I have solid evidence? No. Does anyone? No.

I think Shakespeare had it right - there is more to Heaven and Earth that is dreamt of in your philosophy.

[Happy Hoosier]

31. Fair enough, but...

... I'm always curious what the basis for peoples' beliefs are.

I grew up a devote Christian and eventually rejected my faith, and dabbled with neo-paganism before just admitting I was an atheist.

I'm not trying to deconvert anyone, I'm just curious about belief basis.

It seems to me that if such beings exist and are capable of interacting with our existence, then we ought to be able to demonstrate that.

Cheers!

[brewens]

40. You'd think it would have been demonstrated a long time ago. God could have told people all

kinds of useful things going back as far as people thought they had a God/s. Like, don't have wars, how to avoid diseases, there are a couple of undiscovered continents, all kinds of good stuff.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

61. Not to mention how we can see billions of light years

Into the universe, and even deep within things far, far smaller than a grain of sand...

And yet not one iota of evidence of their heaven, hell or deities.

Nope, not one bit of it to be found.

But they like to make the stupid claim that atheists are the ones who are ignorant of reality.

[FreeState]

89. And not to mention

when there is no evidence either way the neutral position is the only logical one. Believing in anything with no evidence involves special pleading and is not a wise move.

[Takket]

11. 34% even seems low to me. I hardly know anybody that goes to church.

[Happy Hoosier]

13. I live in Indiana....

SOOOO many churches.

But NONE of my friends here attend church.

But somebody is keeping these places open.

[GoodRaisin]

82. Think the operative word is "never".

You also have those that will show up on Easter and/or Christmas that aren’t regular church goers, or just go occasionally for whatever reason. Another way to poll that question is how many are hard core church goers who rarely miss going to church and then the number might get reversed.

I think what’s actually happening is the church going generation is just aging out. Younger generations are having to work so hard to make ends meet that they are worn out and they don’t have time for that shit, and they are far and away more skeptical.

[ecstatic]

93. Right. It's probably the wording that messed it up

If they had used "rarely" instead of "never," the number would be over 70%, possibly even over 80%. Some people don't go except for maybe NYE or Easter or something.

[bucolic_frolic]

14. God is there for justice and the poor, right? Have you checked on them lately?

No wonder true believers are flagging. No matter how much religion you throw at it, the problems never get solved.

[Walleye]

15. No doubt? I don't believe them, the word faith implies doubt

[Effete Snob]

20. Dal?

Okay. Count me in.

[Walleye]

22. Corrected it, thanks for pointing it out and the wisecrack I laughed

[Effete Snob]

26. Bummer

If there was dal, I'd sign up.

[Walleye]

28. Yes that would be something good at least

[Sky Jewels]

32. Personally, I'm a naan-believer.

*rimshot*

[Easterncedar]

49. Good one! I laughed

[Effete Snob]

59. I was until I met a Dominican priest

Or, as we used to call him, Papa Dom.

[Sky Jewels]

78. ...

[Elessar Zappa]

18. I'm an agnostic.

I believe in the possibility of a higher being as the “first cause” of the universe but I wouldn’t bet money on it.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

63. Newsflash: Nearly all atheists are ALSO agnostics

That's because they're smart enough to know that agnosticism isn't a belief position but a knowledge position. That's why the term can apply to theists and atheists.

People who toss about the agnostic label often think there's some magical middle ground between belief and not-belief. which is utter rot. It's like saying there's a middle ground between pregnant and not-pregnant. That's how ridiculous it is.

You're pregnant or you're not. You believe or you don't.

Full stop.

[Walleye]

23. I like what Mark Twain said about it

When asked if he went to heaven and actually met god, what he would say about not believing in him. Tween said “I would walk right up to him look him in the eye and tell him I was wrong”

[H2O Man]

25. Likewise,

he said "heaven for the climate, hell for the company."

[Walleye]

27. That's a good one, thanks I hadn't heard that. I agree wholeheartedly

[H2O Man]

35. I love Twain.

When I was young, my grandfather gave me a book of his writings that were not published when Twain was alive. They were considered "offensive."

[Walleye]

41. I was reading"Letters from the Earth", "The Mysterious Stranger in junior high school Junior high s

I think it’s atrocious that school kids aren’t reading Huck Finn these days because there might be a word in there that they’ve heard all their lives but some of the grown-ups like to pretend I never existed. That Huck Finn story when Jim becomes a father figure, brought tears to my eyes. It’s a very enlightening story about America’s original sin

[H2O Man]

56. The great

light heavyweight champion Archie Moore played Him in the movie. Archie was a brilliant man. He would not have played the role if he thought it was offensive in any way.

[SCantiGOP]

34. Bertrand Russell's answer:

As a lifelong atheist, he was asked what he would do if he found himself facing God after death.
He said, “I would state that I used the brain he gave me to the best of my ability, and all evidence indicated that he did not exist. And then I would hope he had a sense of humor.”

[Walleye]

36. Excellent well thought out answer

[Sky Jewels]

29. Excellent. More people feel more comfortable admitting The Emperor is buck nekkid.

Here's to rationality.

[Karadeniz]

30. The god most people visualize doesn't have much to do with spiritual energy, the light. In one

Sunday school class, the pastor asked us to describe God. Of course, my hand shot up and I described the Source and the Radiance I had encountered in my out of body experience. Vibrations that permeated the soul, revving up its frequency and drowning it in ecstasy. Well! One member summed up the class's opinion by saying my description was too new age and another offered an acceptable God in long, flowing robes, long white hair, full beard, dignified. The class nodded in grateful approval.

So, the Christian God defied scripture's description of the Light, opting for the "basket" level of interpretation. Scripture suggests a whole God System, but modern Christianity doesn't even try to delve below the superficial, literal level.

[Walleye]

37. I bet none of them described God as a woman.

[Karadeniz]

42. No way!!! Amazing what churches overlook in order to please the paying crowd. Paul said in Jesus

there is no gender, so that should hold true for God, I'd think. Also, I can't imagine energy as having genitals, but oh well!!!

[Walleye]

43. Yeah, the prayer starts "our father"

[Karadeniz]

48. Looking beyond that word, one might wonder if one could infer Source and ask the source of what? The

human body? If so, you have to throw out knowledge of genes, DNA. Or the Source of the soul. Much more likely... and that would lead to all sorts of interesting explorations as to the nature of the soul, its purpose as a spiritual creation. But... we wouldn't want to do that!!!

[Buckeyeblue]

38. It's been 2000 years since the judeo-christian god showed its face

And even that was through a delegate. The ideas are not just outdated but are interpreted to vastly different among different groups that younger people just aren't convinced.

Also, as fewer people go to church, fewer children are brainwashed into faith at an early age.

[Sky Jewels]

53. A 2,000-year-old deity made up by humans

vs. a 14-billion-year-old (or so) universe. Something doesn't add up.

[hlthe2b]

39. "Know for Sure"... Hmmm

Can an honest person really say "yes?" And if so, 50% sounds rather high.

[angrychair]

44. God is more like a teenager

Than a "father":
Doesn't listen, always taking money from you and never around when you need them.

[Ray Bruns]

45. God exists. I talked to him just this morning.

He showed up in my bowl of Raisin Bran and we had a really good conversation.

Or maybe we didn’t. I don’t remember, I was pretty high.

[Marthe48]

46. I have faith

but I don't have religion. I recently had the thought that maybe praying is a type of mindfulness, a list of things I care about and I want to work to improve, a reminder to stay in touch with my friends, not just a whisper to God expecting a miracle.

[Peacetrain]

50. Martha, I have faith also.. I believe science proves the existence of God..

Those who deny science, (some very fundamentalist people of all faiths) maybe they are actually afraid there really is a God..

I don't believe in magic, I believe in what we do to others and others do to us all have consequences for good or bad.

And here is why I believe science proves God.. The first law of Thermodynamics states energy can neither be created or destroyed.. energy moves from one state to another.. but it is always there..

There is energy in your body, that keeps you alive, that helps with your thought processes.. where does that energy go when you die/ what is possibly coded on it.. we will all find out when we die or maybe we come back because the energy is reformed.. teeny tiny short article on it from Scientific American ..https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-can-neither-be-created-nor-destroyed/

Like you, when I think of God, I hope I am concentrating that little bit of energy in my body in a positive manner and I use to the improve the world (a gift from God) around us (as an example)

I ask no one to believe how I believe.. but I have no fear of explaining why I believe the way I do.. Its a wonder that any of us exist at all.. I just marvel at it sometimes.. how if my parents had become pregnant a month earlier, my sister or brother would have been here.. but not me.. that unique combination of egg and sperm.. the odds of it.. mind boggling.. It just gives me such joy at how creation works and how hopefully we all can contribute in one way or another..

[Happy Hoosier]

51. Do you define energy as "god?"

FWIW.... our "energy" doesn't anywhere when we die. Our matter remains in th eworld, it's just that biological processes that make us US cease to occur.

I appreciate your explaination.

[Sky Jewels]

55. Yes, of course atoms retain their energy, but

their configuration in the form of a human complete with a brain and nervous system is no more, therefore the consciousness/thought processes of that human are no more.

To me, that doesn't have anything to do with the possibility of the existence of a supernatural realm.

[Peacetrain]

66. Sky Jewels.. maybe that is where I come at it from my own viewpoint.. there is no supernatural

In my view.. its all part of the natural world. I am sitting in my home office right now.. looking out at a tree in the neighbors yard, that has just fully leaved out in about a week and a half.. :That energy that is producing that leafed out tree, is just amazing.. gives me joy non stop.. I don't believe in streets of gold floating on a cloud in some unseen place..but I do believe in the beauty and amazing gift of creation.. and I always hope to be a functioning part of that when I plant trees and bushes as an example of how I view faith

[Sky Jewels]

69. I get that.

In past I have put down "reverence for nature" as my "religion" on forms.

I look at it like we evolved as complex primates to appreciate the beauty and "magic" of nature, even though there are scientific explanations for that magic at a very basic sub-atomic level. Everything, and I mean everything, boils down to chemical reactions. Which is pretty cool, IMO.

[Peacetrain]

73. They really do.. come down to that basic concept..

and way cool in my thought process also

[Happy Hoosier]

77. Not sure I understand....

Is your god an actual conscious agent, or just an abstraction of the wonder and awe you feel?

[Peacetrain]

65. Happy Hoosier.. I see God as everything that is good in the universe and science is such a gift

can it be misused?? .. definitely.. that is the wonder of self determination and the ability to make choices.. and hopefully thoughtful choices.. It is how I view faith.. It never ceases to amaze me that every culture seemingly and age has embraced a deity .. I wonder if it is just an innate feature of our being to see there is something just amazing in how the world exists..

[Happy Hoosier]

81. Deities satisfy our need to know....

Human's evolutionary advantage is our ability to reason and understand why things happen, not just that they do. As such, we, as a species, are always asking "why?" That need is so powerful that some folks just can't stand to answer "I don't know." If we are vulnerable to fires and floods, and lightning, that's frightening. If we have no control over those things, then our fate seems random. But if those things happen because of angry deity, well NOW, we have some potential to influence events. If that god can be appeased, perhaps we can'tr preven the flood that killed everyone in the village over yonder. It's a "God of the gaps" approach to life. Of course, as we learn more, those gaps get ever smaller.

But I don't have an issue at all with someone who sees "god" as a representation of the beauty of our existence.

[Marthe48]

52. Thank you for this thoughtful response

I think of God in the details. I'm old enough to realize that not all of my thoughts and prayers will come true.

Eric von Daniken was writing about deja vu in one of his books. He talked about our physical bodies returning to molecules, atoms, and maybe some of the thoughts we had stay imprinted, and someone else ends up with particles of thoughts that were.

I read an essay in a science magazine, and the author suggested that the lements of blood were indestructible, and once again, newly concieved creatures might pick up elements of blood spilled.

I don't think too much of my own conception, but I do know that meeting my husband for the first time was a perfect example of time and place, and the meeting could not have happened at any other time, or any other place.

I haven't been to an actual church service for years. The faith I have is abiding, was never not there. I am aware of my social and civil obligations, and I keep them in mind when I meet people, or support my community. My thoughts about how I fit into the scheme of things is changing, even as we post I very much appreciate your comments and I will think on them

[Peacetrain]

70. That is such a complex thought Marthe.. I had a similar conversation with my son

who happens to be a research scientist working with RNA.. and we got into this really deep philosophical conversation on the meaning of God, energy, just what we are chatting about now. We were going over how energy is not created or destroyed but moves from one construct to another.. and I looked at him, and I wondered if we get to do this all over again.. maybe I will be reformed as a tree.. but the energy is some where. Its a wonder to think about.

I hear you about church.. If we are lucky we find a community there. That was the gift of the church.. community.. just like we have a community of sorts here at DU.. Unfortunately some use church and religion as a rallying cry to hurt others or not accept them.. politics for power.. has nothing in the world to do with faith in your fellow person.. it is a raw draw for power.. I look at Trump and get physically ill because that is exactly what he does..

My Grandma once told me (and we are talking decades ago here) that where ever two people of faith meet and work , talk, or just be for the betterment of everyone.. there you are in church.. I think she was right

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

76. Science does no such thing

And many of them have spent centuries trying to find evidence of the evil sky-daddy. But, still, no dice whatsoever.

But as for your claim. Oh dear.

I'm trying to be as kind as I can, but there's no way around it: You have no understanding of thermodynamics to trot out that long-debunked canard.

First of all, the First law does *not* say that energy is constant. This is shocking in its wrongness. It says that a system's internal energy changes as per the conservation of energy law. Which is the Second law, and the one you surely meant. That's the one about constancy of energy, AKA the entropy argument. Are you getting the hint that non-believers are well-familiar with this hoary pile of nonsense? Because we are.

We know about it because actual scientists have debunked it so many times in regards to religion that anyone trotting it out to support christian anything has to have lived with their head buried in the Sahara for all of their lives not to know how debunked it is.

If that's not enough, the Second Law doesn't hold at all times. You might want to look up "Hawking radiation" for further information.

For a more general education of how utterly rubbish the Second Law argument is regarding the christian claims about it:

https://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/thermot.htm

Finally: Your religion claims your deity has consciousness, and now you're saying this will o'wisp is also energy. You have a wee problem there, mate: Energy doesn't have consciousness. Show us the evidence of any energy having consciousness. I'm not talking about mass that does have consciousness making use of energy to produce consciousness. I'm talking about energy itself having consciousness.

I'll save you some time, if you like: You won't find one shred of evidence to support such a claim.

Now if you want to say that this energy you worship is incapable of thought, then that would make more sense than what believers usually natter about the cloud dude. Still, you do have that wee problem of making that claim, versus what the book describes of an entity capable of thought. So which one is right--the book, or claiming the sky guy is "energy"--which, again, is incapable of thought?

I do hope you see the contradiction there.

[Marthe48]

84. Are you replying to me?

I take what gives me comfort to get through this world. I didn't get to study thermodynamics. I was 5 when I knew I had faith. I didn't understand until I was much older what I had. Like other humans, I wonder about what was before and what comes after. I've had the sense of deja vu, usually a dot in the matrix, something so minute, I wonder why it even happened or was reated to my mind. I've had dreams, worse, my husband had dreams, that foreshadowed events, things that weren't even connected to us in any way. I've experienced weirdness, and if I have time to think about it, try to find some connection to the reality of science.

I did well in biology, so maybe it is easier for me to find connections in living, if not sentient, material.

Basically, even having faith, I am not going to know until I depart, if anything I see as truth is going to be true. I think that my transformation to another kind of existence is going to be so remarkable, that I won't care, might not even remember what I was thinking, or what I was feeling. But then, on the other hand, I see contact in my dreams of people who have died and hope they are sending me assurance.

The only reason we are ahead of other creatures is that we know there is an expiration date. We don't know when or how, and I don't see that knowing we'll die is any help or comfort. All we can do, all we should do, is enjoy what we have, and try not to hurt others as we travel this part of the journey.

I can't compete with your argument, at least not with a purely scientific reply. But consider the details: The sand on a beach. The blue tongue of a butterfly, and that single second I got to see it. Evolution. Whether science or design, our reality is a marvelous thing.

[Johnny2X2X]

85. Thanks

Saved me the trouble of discussing the laws of thermodynamics.

Thought for sure we were about to get into an entropy discussion there for a minute.

My thoughts on this matter is that belief in a god is a matter of faith, not a matter of science. So then why are people of faith so invested in using science to try to prove their god exists? It cannot be proven, if it could there would be no need for faith. The more we learn about the universe using scoence, the smaller and smaller gods domain seems to get.

[FreeState]

91. +1000 - its only Religious that say that not scientist

[sarcasmo]

54. Thy noodle come, Thy sauce be yum, on top some grated Parmesan.

[maxsolomon]

67. Gotta have faith. Belief in absence of evidence.

Despite the innumerable RCC-certified Saints, not one of their miracles is EVIDENCE of a God.

The only real mystery is: why is there anything? If anything is God, it's existence itself.

[Mickju]

68. Promising

[sky_masterson]

71. I'm in the "We evolved from earlier lifeforms

cross-breeding and evolving through hundreds of thousands of years until we are what we now are. Or. Magic man snaps fingers.

[Quixote1818]

72. Not this God. LOL

[zappaman]

74. If He doesn't exist then try to explain this....

This morning I prayed that the sun would come out after a few days of just overcast grey skies and guess what?
THE SUN CAME OUT!!!
That's all the proof I need

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

79. That's evidence of the sun coming up

Where is the evidence that the sky monster had anything to do with it?

[zappaman]

80. It's proof of Him listening

What more proof do you need?
I pray everyday that I won't get stuck in quicksand and guess what?
I've never been stuck in quicksand.
So yeah I recommend praying.

[Kennah]

83. Same as Bigfoot. He's a cryptid.

[Goodheart]

86. Of course I exist.

And I can prove it.

[BSdetect]

90. The question ought to be "what proof do you have that your particular god exists?"

[SorellaLaBefana]

94. Ridiculous Question: there is No Doubt that god exists--

Just as there also no doubt that Sherlock Holmes exists—within a certain sphere.

Elementary

[Lasher]

95. Locking

Threads about the existence/non-existence of God, threads discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of religion in general, and threads discussing the truth/untruth of religious dogma are not permitted in the GD Forum under normal circumstances and should be posted in the Religion Group.