I believe that God exists. Tombi, if this question really bugs u or u want wat I consider to be the closest thing to proof, then u should read a book "Life after life." Raymond Moody, MD interviews alot of people that went through near-death experience or were clinically dead, and the responses he got were staggering.

They all had similar experiences, alot of them having an out of body experience and seeing a being of light and they felt warmth and unconditional love. It's not like a "they said the same thing cuz they heard it or seen it in a movie," this book was written in the 70s, which speaking of near-death experience was almost like taboo and there were no films about it, hell, he was the one that coined the phrase "near death experience."

One lady talks about how she died in the operating room and she had an out of body experience, saw her body, then traveled to the waiting room, and saw her little sister crying and praying, and when she was "revived", she told her exactly wat she said. There is no scientific way of proving how that happened, and that is not proof of life after death either.

@Timmah, the praying aspect actually does work. I have an article where they talk about if praying actually helps sick peopl in a Coronary Care Unit population. Long story short, those that had people pray for them resulted in a MUCH higher recovery than those that had nobody pray for them. The kicker is, those that prayed for the sick people, did not know them at all, and those that were sick had no idea they were being prayed for...Coincidence?

A lot of these talking points remind me of UFO Encounters on the History Channel.

I believe in God because He gives me a purpose. If I did not have God, the purpose of my life would be meaningless. I cannot accept that, so I believe in Him. I believe in the Christian God. I am a member of the Orthodox (Greek) Church. I admit, my views on God's nature are different than that of most Christians, but I still believe in him.

That was both a degrading comment, and trolling. You are clearly insinuating that those of us who believe in God are crazy or fools. This is not a way to effectively get your point across and is a completely unnecessary comment.

Please at least try to respect somebody else's beliefs. Thanks.

Question to all believers: Why does God give you a purpose?

For me, the idea of being solely created as a slave for an egotistical god doesn't give me a purpose in life. The Enuma Elish (Bablyonian texts that Hebrews got their religion from) outline the purpose of humans in detail (the Hebrew creation story is more vague than its predecessor), to work the earth for Marduk, the king of the gods, while the gods rest and to worship and pay hommage to the gods. The Hebrews elevated Marduk from King of the Gods to sole god while making other gods into the lesser supernatural being, angels and demons, but the purpose stays the same.

Without religion, the purpose of life is biogical and evolutionary. The purpose of Humans, like all other living things, is to live, survive, reproduce, and in doing so make life better for their species. We humans are so advanced that we dont have to rely on the passing of genetics to improve our species, we can invent and help other humans to improve humanity, which is our purpose in life.

I much prefer that my purpose in life is to work, love, and play for my own well being as well as the well-being of human society as a whole, over not caring what I do on Earth because it is meaningless (everything I build, create, invent doesnt matter in the end), all I have to do is obey and get to Heaven where I can continue to be a slave.

I think you're interpretating a little too much into his (still careless) comment.

For a lot of persons, especially non-believers, it's pretty hard to make up the mind for such supernatural things. Hell, it's even hard for me.

Nice. Way to show your contempt for other people.

I'm not a religious man (at all), but at least I have the decency to not degrade others for believing in something.

I was here... but was afraid of post

That's really interesting, because I was reading SciAm a few months back and there was a study done on whether praying helps people recover from injuries and/or surgeries. If the patient didn't know he wass prayed for, there were no changes. If they did know they were getting prayed for they actually took longer to recover than the average. It's speculated that it's a psychological thing. If you see people praying for you then you start thinking "man I must be in bad shape if there's even people praying for me." So I don't know where your article came from but it does sound fishy, and in direct contradiction with the one from Scientific.

OT:

My believes are actually a mix between atheism deism and agnosticism. Basically the god you or any other religoin worships does not exist. All prophets in history were amazing liars, but GREAT geniuses in leading. I mean the whole 10 commandments trick Moses did when his group was about to fall apart is just pure genius in leadership. There's no heaven no hell no afterlife when you die your brain just stops sending out electrical signals, pure and simple (Atheism part). That said, there MAY be something that exists out there that created us, aliens, other dimension creatures, something  that started up the whole universe by accident or on purpose it doesn't matter (agnosticism part). But they don't give a shit or just can't control anything in our universe so woshipping them or keepign them inour hearts or doing anything because they exist is just stupid and pointless and a waste of time/breath. They just created the universe, if they indeed do exist, and just let it go like a pendulum (Deism part). Those are my beliefs in a nutshell.

Don’t let it get to you….

I don’t know about the rest of you but I have a deep enough faith to not let things like this get to me. I have no time or need for them as a way to re affirm my beliefs and I suggest you guys do as well