Belief in god without religion

[fovika]

When asked where or not one believes in a god, and one answers, "yes". Does that automatically require a foundation with religion? Can one believe in the existence of a god, without religious connotations? Can a god be without religion?

[Cirion Spellbinder]

If religion is defined as:

The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods

Then a belief in a god does not require religion. Why would one require a religion to believe in a god? My father believes in a god, but does not subscribe to any particular religion or worship his god.

[fovika]

If religion has no say, then what is his god? What defines his god? What purpose does having a god give him? What type of god is his?

If I take the Christian god as an example, I can mention many things about it. What it does, how it works, what powers it has... The bible would mention these things. Without the bible, what defines that specific god? How would people know which god I am speaking of, without the religious connotation? For Christians don't believe that the Muslim god is the same as their god (even though it has the same principles).

[Cirion Spellbinder]

If religion has no say, then what is his god?

A supernatural entity who has magical abilities.

What defines his god?

Any and all qualities you give it.

What purpose does having a god give him?

None. He seems to agree with existential nihilism on quite a few points, so I doubt his god gives him any purpose. He just views it as a logical explanation of the universe and how it started.

What type of god is his?

A deistic god

If I take the Christian god as an example, I can mention many things about it. What it does, how it works, what powers it has... The bible would mention these things. Without the bible, what defines that specific god? How would people know which god I am speaking of, without the religious connotation? For Christians don't believe that the Muslim god is the same as their god (even though it has the same principles).

What you're not considering is that the bible defines him inconsistently. You cannot define all the attributes of Yahweh because many of the statements describing him are contradicted by other statements describing him. For example, is Yahweh peaceful or warlike? Exodus 15:3 states "The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name," while Romans 15:33 states "Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen."

What do you mean the religious connotation?

What do you mean by saying that they have the same principles? Yahweh and Allah are very different entities, are they not?

[garrethdsouza]

Spiritual not religious is a sort of abstruse term people use which does still involve belief in some kind of pseudoscientific supernaturalism without aligning with any mainstream or recognized relighion

[Adien22]

No you definitely don't need religion for god. My grandmother hates religion. Absolutely detests it. She feels church and religion are man made things that God doesn't like. But she loves God and definitely believes in him

[Jebus]

I think it is completely rational to believe in a higher power. However, it becomes irrational once another human claims to know in perfect detail who this deity is and what he wants.

[Mateo3112]

I think it is completely rational to believe in a higher power. However, it becomes irrational once another human claims to know in perfect detail who this deity is and what he wants.

Yes, when i say i'm an atheist agnostic people asume that i'm open to the possibility that the christian God may exist, which is wrong.
When i say i'm an atheist agnostic, that means i'm open to the possibility that a God may exist, however, i'm 99% sure that it is not the christian God.

[brimstoneSalad]

I think it is completely rational to believe in a higher power.

I would say it's irrational to believe without qualification or definition: what does a "higher power" even mean?

Power is work over time ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(physics) ), higher is at a more distance point to a gravity well.
There's an electrical outlet over my head supplying power as I write this (a number of them, actually, in various places)... clearly this is a higher power.

People use these words without having any idea of what they mean when they say them. This is no less inherently problematic than being a Christian and believing everything in the bible is true without ever having read any of it.

Usually the moment people start defining what they mean by a "higher power" they end up doing so in a way that's logically impossible or empirically improbable to an extreme degree. Or entirely practical but just silly and irrelevant to what most people mean or think of when the term is used, like what I did above.

[Unknownfromheaven]

This is no less inherently problematic than being a Christian and believing everything in the bible is true without ever having read any of it.

The problem with christians is that if they read the bible they read what they enjoy, i had a friend who told me that he loves reading his bible..that it was his oxygen and i found out that he was reading a single passage multiple times.. i told him about the old testament, and his reply was...well we do not read the old testament, only the new one.