Funny question, isn’t it?
If you don’t believe in (a) God, but live in a place where most people do, you’ve probably thought about this – even if just to understand others better. If you do believe, however, it’s likely that you know why you believe, but haven’t given much thought to what makes others believe.
Well, as readers of this blog know, I’m one of the former – I don’t believe in God or gods, but I like to understand people better. Therefore, I’ll try to list the several possible causes of belief in God, and add what I think about each. I mean mostly the Christian God, here, though I believe this list could apply to the other monotheistic religions.
The list isn’t probably complete, so, if you’re not included, please comment. 
- You can’t explain the existence or origin of something, so you believe God must have done it. Once, we didn’t know the cause of a lot of things. Today, the last few remaining questions seem to be “how did the universe come to be” and “what is the origin of life”. This is the God of the Gaps, of course. Much like ancient people believed that Zeus or Thor created lightning, and were wrong, it’s quite likely that these last two questions also have a natural explanation – and, yet, we still make the same mistake that our ancestors did: come up with supernatural explanations, instead of simply admitting that we don’t know, yet.
- The universe seems too complex, too ordered, too beautiful, to have appeared naturally. A variant of the above, really. Things seem much too interconnected to have appeared randomly, and we have everything we need in this world to survive; it almost seems like the universe was made for us. A universe with billions of stars, and we’re on this infinitesimal planet… made for us, indeed. I may write more about this point in the future; it would make this post too long.
- You’ve been educated that way. I was, myself. But we shouldn’t accept “knowledge” on authority. Parents and teachers can lie (e.g. Santa Claus) or simply be wrong (the Earth being in the center of the universe, whites being superior to blacks, etc.). It’s always a bad idea to lose the ablity to question. Besides, as Richard Dawkins says, most people have the religion of their parents, which makes one’s religion a matter of chance – if you’d been born in Saudi Arabia, you’d be a muslim; in India, you’d be a hindu, and so on. If you accept your parents’ religion, it was randomly selected, in a way – so why be so sure it’s the “real” one?
- You feel that your faith in something greater than yourself gives your life purpose and meaning. This is a very common one. Life seems so random, so ephemeral, and so pointless… surely, there’s got to be something more, doesn’t it? Trouble is, this is no more than wishful thinking. We want it to be true, therefore it must be true. Besides, life – wordly life, in our reality – is much more fascinating and meaningful than these people believe.
- You’ve “felt” the presence / touch of God. Another common one. Feelings or sensations, as we know, are subjective. Quite often, we feel what we expect to feel, or what we want to feel – it’s either a placebo effect, or wishful thinking, again. Besides, if the only thing God does is to make us feel “warm inside” from time to time (if you believe in him for just this reason, that’s what you’re implying), then does such a God deserve worship? He’s no more than a “spiritual foot warmer”, after all…
- It’s comforting to believe that someone is taking care of you. It is, indeed – but, if the reason for such comfort doesn’t exist, it can actually be dangerous. It’s like convincing yourself that you have Superman-like powers, or that your (perfectly common) shirt is bullet-proof. If you behave according to those beliefs, you’ll probably injure yourself, or even die. If you don’t, then you don’t really believe, right? Anyway, this is – once again – wishful thinking. Believing (whether it’s true or not) feels good, so you believe.
- You’re afraid of death, and want to believe that it’s not the end, that you simply go to a better place. Wishful thinking, once again. In reality, things don’t become true just because we want them to be true. Alternatively, it may not be about you: sometimes, the death of a loved one causes you to need to believe that the essential part of them isn’t really dead, it’s just gone to a better place, where there is no more suffering, and where you’ll meet them someday.
- You feel that (finite) life in this world is meaningless unless there’s something afterwards. In other words, if, no matter what you do, you die and turn to dust, what difference does it make whatever you do in your life? So you have to believe that there’s something more. However, not only is this wishful thinking (again…), but it’s a limiting view of life. If you believe that the purpose of life is something “exterior”, then this view makes sense; however, if you instead believe that the purpose of life is life itself – that is, that life needs no external justification, and is worth it on its own – not to mention that it can be utterly enjoyable, and that you actually can make a difference while you’re here -, then you can easily see what’s wrong with this view of existence.
- You want to believe that there’s some kind of absolute, perfect justice in the universe, even if only after death. I’d like that, too. Really. You can’t imagine how strongly I wish that was true. I’ve seen monsters living in luxury their entire lives, and never paying for their crimes, and I’ve seen terrible things happen unfairly to good people – sometimes randomly, sometimes caused by the monsters I mentioned. I wish that both would get what they deserve. It would be so… comforting to believe so. Unfortunately, wishing doesn’t make it so. The best thing we can do is try to make things better here, not resign ourselves and hope for some kind of “justice” later.
- You’ve had some unusual experience that made you believe. Not necessarily a miracle (that’s the next one), but an “amazing coincidence”. Say, you prayed for something that was quite improbable, and it happened. The problem here is usually referred to as “counting the hits and ignoring the misses”. I’ll write more about it in the near future.
- You’ve witnessed an apparent miracle. Now, this should be it, right? I mean, if you witness an actual miracle, it means, at least, that the supernatural exists – not necessarily God (or gods), but at the very least there’s something out there, right? So, what are those miracles? Oddly enough, they are always one of the following:
- A disease goes into remission, or actually vanishes, even though doctors were pessimistic;
- Someone “speaks in tongues”, or acting as if they were possessed;
- Something, by random chance, looks like a religious entity (such as Jesus or the Virgin Mary in tree bark, or in a slice of pizza);
- Statues or pictures of religious entities, usually in a church, appear to “cry” or “bleed”;
And that’s it. All but the first are so absurd that they don’t deserve consideration (if all that God does is appear on slices of pizza, then that’s not a god I’d want to worship anyway…). And that one, well, doctors can make mistakes, and there’s still much about the human body and diseases that we don’t know. Still, if it was actually God doing it, and since God has no limits, then why doesn’t he heal amputees? Are those “beyond” God? Does God hate them for some reason?
- You’re desperate for a miracle. Similar to the previous one, but in this case the “miracle” hasn’t happened yet. But you’re desperate, and ready to try anything, including becoming religious – or, possibly, changing religions.
- You see your death getting closer and closer. You don’t really want your existence to end. If something – anything – promises that it won’t, that there is an afterlife, you grab it.
- The example of another believer or believers inspired you. I’d say that this is actually more common in less religious societies, like in Europe, than in more fundamentalist ones, like the US or Muslim countries. I’ve seen it happen myself. Some of the best people I knew in my youth were devout believers (though not fundamentalists), and they radiated happiness and love wherever they went. It’s quite natural for others to be inspired by them. But I’d say that they weren’t good people because of religion; they’d be good people anyway.
- Other believers were there for you when you needed it. Similar to the above, and, again, I know cases like that. Say, you were going through a bad phase, your close family rejected you for some reason, you didn’t have any real friends, and the only people who really cared and tried to help were members of a church. It’s understandable that you may start to believe, too. Still, I maintain that you don’t need God or religion to be a good, caring human being. There are good and bad theists, and good and bad atheists.
- You like the sense of community that comes from belonging to a church. Again, similar. In this particular case, curiously, you don’t even need God; it’s the group itself, and its activities, that makes you feel like a part of something.
- Being told what to do and what to think comforts you. Sad, but true. A lot of people don’t want the burden and the responsibility of having to think and decide for themselves, and anyone or anything who relieves them of that burden and responsability will have their hearts and minds. This doesn’t happen only with religion, of course. Many people join groups – religious or otherwise – just so they can be told what to do and think.
- While reading the Bible, something made you believe. I almost didn’t include this one, as I’m convinced that reading the Bible, critically and dispassionately, and in its entirety, will unconvert at least ten people for each one it helps converting. Almost everyone who reads the Bible already believes; I’ve never heard of someone believing just because they read the Bible. Even most Christians are forced to ignore most of it.
And that’s it. I’ve tried to be comprehensive, but it’s possible that I missed a couple of reasons.
Now, please be honest: if you’re a believer, do you fit into one (or more) of the above? Or is your case different? I’d like to know.
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Not a funny question, a good one. And everybody will probably have different answers, and probably complicated ones. I’m sorry if this might be a bit long, but I’m going to answer yes or no and why for all of these.
1. The unexplained. It’s always intrigueing and yes it plays a part. People have explained things that used to be considerred “MAGIC” and that the sun sets because the earth rotates, it’s not a God that burns all of its heat at us. But nobody seems to know where life itself came from. I find it hard to think that it came from nothing.
2.The universe and it’s vast complexity. That plays a part too. It’s not that it couldn’t have happened naturally. I am of the belief that God and Nature have a lot in common. It doesn’t stop there though. I’m not of the belief that the universe has it’s end. Some people think that the big bang theory disproves God, but it really doesn’t. After all, when you have a really good idea, a light bulb goes off in your head too. Who says there was only one big bang anyways… I think people have a hard time contemplating infinity, infact, I don’t think we CAN. Besides that, I also believe that there are more than just 1 “Dimensions” (afterlife and what not) in fact I think there’s an infinite number of them as well. So yes, I think the universe is so vast that an infite number of possibilities actually HAS to be in some way, God being one of them.
3.Education. Yes I went to sunday school. (Religious school on sundays) But I actually denounced God for a few years. After all, who were other humans to teach me what to think about a God?
4.Faith giving purpose. No. Lots of people who have all the faith in the world don’t do jack to help others. And lots of people who don’t believe at all do tons. Faith doesn’t give you a purpose in life, your own actions do. What does faith give you? That’s a good question.
5. Feeling the presence. I’ve heard of it happening, but I haven’t felt anything personally.
6.Comfort in being taken care of. Yes, it’s comforting to believe that life is not the end. Being taken care of, though, no. I’m no safer than anybody else.
7. Afraid to die. Everybody is to some degree. I like breathing, and being with my wife. I don’t know what it would be like to live without those things, and I don’t KNOW what happens after life, I just believe it doesn’t end there. (There’s a difference)
8. Finite = meaningless. Nope. If there isn’t a God, then there’s still meaning. Humanity has come a long way, and so far there’s no immediate threat to us.
9. Perfect Justice. Now that’s a tough one. I don’t know where I stand on this, because in all honesty if there is a God, a heaven, and a hell, I may visit the latter. Plus, I can’t comprehend “Perfect”
10. Unusual experience. Yes, I’ve had a few strange experiences. You could call them coincidence of course, but despite my own doubts, I believe they weren’t.
11. Myracles. Never seen one. (But that doesn’t mean they never/don’t happen.)
12. Desperate for a myracle. No, not desperate. I think everybody would love to see one though.
13. Death getting closer. No, I’m still a bit young. Though my habbits will make me die sooner, I’ve been closer to death when I wasn’t a theist.
14.Other believers inspired. Yes they have. Muhatma Ghandi is a big one. Maybe they would have been great people without religion, but I really don’t think Mother Theresa would have done all she did.
15.Other believers were there for me. No. Yes they were, but that’s not why I believe. I know some believers that justify war in a daily basis.
16. The sense of community that comes with church. Hell no. I don’t believe that God is confined to a church, not one bit. Plus the last time I went to church, a few of my friends convinced me to go with them, and the preacher had everybody hold hands while he talked about Iraq. He litterally prayed to God to … and I quote “Send a missile down from heaven and into the bunkers and kill every last one of them.” Not that all churches are bad, but that’s an example of people hating through religion, an absolute oxymoron. PLUS REALLY SAD.
17.Comfort in being told what to do. No. I know a lot of people who do. Some people who’ve even joined the military because of that very reason. I like having my own free will, and though temptation tells me to do some things, I usually make the decision that doesn’t hurt people.
18.Bible made me believe. No. The bible is just one writing out of many, and many of them have basic fundamental similarities. It wasn’t any one of them that made me believe, it was the undeniable similarities that any one of any faith, or none, can embrace.
Pedro,
I love your posts… and this is another good one. However, one day I would love to hear your take on a religion like Buddhism (although there are those who might call it a philosophy rather than a religion).
I was raised a Roman Catholic and for many of the same reasons I have read in your posts I eventually said goodbye to that (what a religion considering my mother told me she thought I was going to hell when I said I became Buddhist!). However, I did find Buddhism made a lot of sense to me, and it is not a theistic religion, so I don’t know how it fits into your philosophy.
At any rate, keep up the good posts! I laugh at some and cry at others, but I find them all interesting.
The short answer which accounts for all but the smallest of a fraction of a single percentage of the “faithful” is : fear.
Fear of responsibility for their own life.
Fear of life itself.
Fear of ignorance (so they celebrate it and call it “faith.”
Fear of honesty.
Fear of living.
Fear of death (as you mention)
Fear of meaning.
Fear of sincerity.
Fear of others. (I believe therefore I am better… so goes the reasoning anyway)
Fear of self. (So they adopt religion which denies the self..)
And of course the greatest fear of all: fear of truth.
The other reasons offered are at best excuses for this fear..
TX, a good arguement.
But certain amount of faith can make some people fearless, of death.
Faith does not equal ignorance… many smart people have faith.
Having faith (some may say) can give you the courage to BE honest, to keep living when it seems that death is a way out, to be sincere, and to NOT be afraid of others.
Say if you’re catholic, and you have faith in that God, how can you be afraid of responsibility, when if you sin too much you go to hell. The Catholic God is supposed to not want anybody to go to hell, and therefore it’s your responsibility not to sin too much.
If you’re a Buddhist, you have faith that you’ll live a better life (or at least make other peoples lives less hurtfull) if you don’t lie.
Faith is a glass pillar, forged over thousands of years, such mastery has been put into its creation that it refracts light in beautiful ways, making it appear solid, but in reality it is paper thin, the smallest force; logic, reason, could easily destroy it.
But people fear that the glass pillar that lifts them so high, may break, so they build concrete walls of illogic, blindness (darkness may conceal, but light blinds forever) and thoughtlessness to protect this core of their existence.
They become sheep.
Logic and reason are marble pillars, beautiful, solid, and while they may be cold and hard, they will support any weight and hold up to even the strongest of forces.
Samuel Clemens put it best when speaking of faith: “Fatih is believing what you know ain’t true.”
Kren,
You seem to be accepting illusion as fact, propaganda as accurate reporting, and falsehoods as truths. Faith is not the beacon of hope and lollypops you describe by any stretch of the imagination.. That said, you are correct that faith is not equal to ignorance, though faith does necessitate ignorance. Faith is seeing truth and denying it because you don’t like the truth. Faith is when one is faced with your beliefs conflicting with reality you pretend that reality must be in error.
Faith tells you that reason must be wrong, that critical thought is evil, that evil is good, and that anyone who believes differently is evil.. FAith tells you that you can never be free, that you are never actually responsible for your life, that you are merely a worthless flawed and evil creature not worthy of existence.
Faith is willful ignorance in the face of certain knowledge.
[quote post="150"]Faith is seeing truth and denying it because you don’t like the truth.[/quote]
I…I’m stunned, thats brilliant.
If that’s what you think faith is, that’s fine.
Kren,
I freely admit there are many types of Buddhists out there and they may have a different take on this, but I was taught that not lying because it will help others (or not be hurtful of oneself) is not really the reason we try not to lie. Buddhism, as I have been taught and practice, is about being fully present in each moment and being honest about what that is. As soon as you start to add motives to your actions (such as I don’t want to hurt that person or myself) you are separating yourself from the moment. Certainly, those are good reasons for not lying, and I can’t deny that it is a noble reason for not lying, but that’s not the real reason for lying.
If I have faith, it is that it is possible to be in the moment and be fully aware of my connection to all that is inherent in that.
Be Here Now, and The Power of Now were good books.
I went to a buddhist temple a few times and a professor who taught about Buddhism actually told me that when it comes to speaking in general, a Buddhists view is that what you say should always be an attempt to help others, and avoid hurting them.
I really like the “God of the Gaps” phrase; I’ll probably use that one! Concise buzzword that ultimately captures a lot of meaning.
For a more in-depth look at this question read Richard Dawkins stunning book “The God Delusion”. Truly awesome.
Jim,
You say: “If I have faith, it is that it is possible to be in the moment and be fully aware of my connection to all that is inherent in that.”
If we take this to be a more general claim, that of “if someone has faith, then it is possible to be in the moment and fully aware of his/her connection to all that in inherent in that”
We see that this is either absurdly false in the straight-froward reading, else true without the antecedent phrase.
It is absurdly false in the sense that faith even allows awareness, must less that such awareness is inherent to faith. Faith is directly opposed to awareness, as it is a tool of illusion. One imagines that the world is not how it is, that there is an old guy in a white robe sitting on a cloud, and that reason, critical thought, and reality are all in error when there is a conflict between them and the desired belief. Faith is directly opposed to reason, for the application of reason necessarily destroys faith, since the application of reason brings about knowledge, and faith is wholly incompatible with knowledge (after all if you know something there is no point in faith…)
It is true without the antecedent in that we can all connect to that which surrounds us if we desire, without any need of distracting illusions, false beliefs, and absurd complexities which quite frankly are separate from, are other to our being in the now, our being able to connect to all that which is ACTUALLY around us.
Consider this analogy. You choose to believe that there are invisible square circles with sentience that fly around you all day long. Take this as axiomatic. Now with this always in your mind, with this as the taking off point for your world view, and every aspect of your experiencing of the world, do you honestly believe that all things interpreted through this filter, through this axiom, will be accurate? Do you believe that this clearly absurd axiom/filter reveals the world around you?
Also, how does introducing baseless contradictory conplex and illusory barriers between us and the world in which we live create a closer and more revealing connection to that world?
TXStorm,
Apparently I misspoke (miswrote?). When I said “If I have faith, it is that it is possible to be in the moment and be fully aware of my connection to all that is inherent in that,” I did not mean your rewording of the statement.
My faith is that it is possible for me to be in each moment. I fully recognize that I am not always this way. I do things in a thoughtless manner, I say things I do not mean, I brush by when I should stop. However, I have faith (or would it make more sense to say “I believe”?) that with practice I can be more fully in each moment. It’s not faith that allows me to be in the moment, it’s faith that tells me that my work to be in the moment is not in vain. Will I ever 100% be in the moment? I don’t know, I will try. But if I did not believe that I could do it, why even bother?
What I think is that my use of the word faith was different than yours. I got the impression that you were referring to “faith in some type of other.” I was not. Maybe it’s just semantics, but I think not. My faith is in MY ability to be more fully present, not in some other awareness or person who will make me present.
Also, while I agree with your assessment of faith vs. knowledge given your definition of faith, there are some things that are unknowable until they are experienced. Before you react, I am talking about things like what I would do if I saw a person in a burning building that I might be able to help. I have ‘faith’ that I would do my best to help this person. Until I am in that position, I don’t know. The same for being fully present in the moment. I have faith that it is possible. Until I do it, or it is proved otherwise (and I am open to this proof if it exists, while I truthfully have no conception of what it would look like) I will continue to believe that it is possible, and therefore work toward it.
Hopefully this clarifies the context in which I was using the word faith because in truth, I find nothing else to disagree with in your post.
And Kren, I’m sure you know this, having spoke to a professor of Buddhism (which I must confess is not necessarily the same as a practitioner, considering that every buddhist teacher I have known has made it clear that their role is not so much to ‘teach’ me buddhism, but to do what they can to help me ‘experience’ it) that there are a number of different sects in Buddhism, broken off from three main branches (Tibetan, Mahayana, and Therevadan) and there is rarely a “definitive” answer to a question. There is no “Buddhist Bible” that is canon for everyone. There are various common texts, but the translations and interpretations often vary widely.
On top of that, I don’t necessarily disagree that helping and not hurting is a guideline for speaking. But it’s more because we are not separate. If I say something that hurts you, then that is no more than hurting myself (before anyone says anything… this does not mean we are egocentric and only concerned about the effect on us!). It is more to say that saything something hurtful is hurtful. Period. Since you and I are not separate, there really is not any “you” and “I.”
Thank you for your comments. Every time I am called upon to clarify what I mean I learn.
Jim, the professor tell me about Buddhism having differing sections. I already knew there was no Buddhist bible. Thanks for the insight.
The only one I can’t agree with is the final reason:
” I’m convinced that reading the Bible, critically and dispassionately, and in its entirety, will unconvert at least ten people for each one it helps converting.”
I have studied the Bible for many years now and I have yet to find any of the contradictions and proof of a hateful God that atheists are fond of pointing out. I would love to hear from any one here who could enlighten me a little bit. Im not asking this so that I can explain why any of you are wrong. Far from it. I would TRULY like to discuss it for my own benefit.
A bit of background on me first: Raised Christian but around my early teens found a dislike of the religion because of the people I knew. In my late teens I started to study buddhism and found it very “applicable” to living a happy life. A few years ago I returned to the Bible to read it without judgement. I found the teachings of Jesus to be VERY BUDDHIST. Jesus said that “You are truly my disciples if you keep obeying my teachings.” The ways of living a good life that I first started to understand from Buddhism, I also found in the Bible. So by default I am a Christian because I follow the teachings of Jesus.
Hi Joshua,
Here’s a link which should help you to understand the atheist’s claims that the God of the bible is both hateful and self-contradicting.
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Bob.
PS. Just wanted to make a point about your last sentence… “So by default I am a Christian because I follow the teachings of Jesus.” Would you consider yourself a follower of your school teachers? They taught you things – but I imagine you don’t consider yourself to be a School-Teacher Evangelist.
I imagine many people follow the principles supposedly elucidated by Jesus who definitely don’t consider themselves to be Christian.
Jim,
The first step would be to read it without a particular desire. I strongly suspect that is the crucial difference, that being that in fact it is not being read critically and dispassionately.
BTW you employ a strawman when you assert that those who do not buy into the illusions must believe in a hateful god. In fact, the fact that rational individuals do not accept irrational belief in an impossible non-existent entity necessitates that they do not believe in that god.
As for the contradictions, even an introductory course in basic logic will make those perfectly clear. Take omnipotence for a fine example. If this impossible being could exist, and were omnipotent as the judeo-xn description of “god” necessitates, then it would have to be able to create something it could not lift and be able to lift everything it could possible create. Here is a simple straight-forward contradiction that is unresolvable while keeping the judeo-xn notion of a “god.”
You could also of course look into the problem of evil, which necessitates that this “god” could not possibly be good were it possible for it to exist, which also necessitates that the judeo-xn conception of a “god” is an impossible one.
Then too we could note that since the xn bible is entirely fiction, created by men over time, edited for convenience and power over others, with no basis at all for any of the claims within it, that the claims that it is “the word of god” are equally baseless. More evil has been done in the name of Xnty than any other single reason in history, yet the Xn “god” is supposed to be good… surely we can agree that this is an inherent contradiction given that the Xn “god” is supposed to be all powerful and all good…
If the xn bible were to be read critically and without the preconceived biases, by those familiar with even the rudimentary understanding of reason, it would indeed unconvert each such reader. Of this there can be no doubt.
TXStorm,
I certainly hope your post was intended for Joshua, for it’s his arguments you seem to be refuting in your last post. Incidentally, I agree wholeheartedly with what you had to say in that post.
Sorry Jim, that last post should have been directed to Joshua. As for your own comments, I was indeed mislead by your definiton of faith, which rather than being faith per se, is simply conditional belief. Conditional belief, especially well founded conditional belief does not share the necessary and necessarily harmful characteristics of faith (which have been described previously). For instance, it is not “faith” that explains a belief in the earth rotating and the sun being visible tomorrow, rather this is well founded conditional belief. Now if one believed that “god” had told them that the world was going to end tomorrow and the sun would never again be visible to anyone, this would be a find example of faith: baseless contrary to reason belief..
I love TXStrom’s conclusion that it’s all based on fear, because if you think about it really is.
I hate to be a wanker, but I am. Those who are a little bit religious area little bit stupid those who are really religious are really stupid. How could you actually believe such garbage you stupid ignorant cunts?
Get over your divine murderer and stop attributing all your achievements to this figment.
People are really really really stupid and we all know it. Thus god exists.
WOW.
Jenssen,
Smart people can be very religious too. So no, if a person is really religious, that doesn’t make them really stupid.
A divine murderer is something some people believe in, yes. But not all people who believe in God take all those bible stories as fact. So you’re judging a large portion of humanity as “stupid ignorant cunts” falsely.
Doing my best not to judge people is something I actually picked up from religion. It’s not that I went around judging everybody every chance I would get, and then that changed because I became religious. It’s that not judging being a core teaching in a few religions made me realize just how important a lesson it can be.
How can I believe in a God? I had a couple of personal experiences that gave me enough “evidence” to. The strange thing about such experiences is that they were profound to me, but as time passed I had to struggle to keep it in mind.
That concept can be found in the Bible. (No, I’m not preaching) Like when Moses shows the Jewish all of these miracles, but they forget about it so quickly, and begin worshipping golden figurines. The correspondance between that (and other sotries) in the bible and my own life have convinced me. I wasn’t quick to have something to belong to, or to believe in something to explain the universe (which it doesn’t) I was simply realizing even if it’s not true to other people, even though I had thought it was proposterous at one time, it was something I believed in regardless.
Your introduction hit the bull’s eye about a thought that has been stewing in my head for the past few weeks: why do people believe in God? I know they have some sort of rational justification in their own minds, but whenever I try to understand someone addressing their reasons for belief, they’ve just gone in circles… I reached the endpoint too fast, and the endpoint is when someone of faith says, “You have to have faith.”
This list is a great list; I think you brought up a variety of great reasons to believe. I pondered on some more than others, but overall I think this is good start–and I mean that in the highest of compliments! I’ve noticed that you do follow-ups to some articles and this one seems like it may get that kind of treatment.
Very thought provoking!
Kren,
There is a good reason why these “miracles” do not stick with you: they are fleeting illusions.
reality does not go away.. ilusion does. The emotional reaction to mistaken assumptions fades, reality stays the same…
Drop the assumptions that illusions are real and the problems all disappear..
I too have found these question sometimes in my life, being a non believer in a community of Christians. The one nagging thought I kept on having is if it is the true religion, shouldn’t the conclusion point to it if you ponder about the truth with the utmost sincerity? The true “way of being” will not prevent you to think and debate whether or not it is true, but rather facilitate your thought so that you can arrive at the same conclusion yourself.
Well written thinking, I enjoyed it.
Bob,
Thank you for the link. I have some reading ahead of me! What I meant by my last statement: I don’t follow the teachings of Jesus necessarily because I just believe in Him. I very much see the validity in his teachings and so I follow them. Because I accept his teachings, in a way I accept Him.
So would I consider myself a follower of a school teacher? If I accepted what they were teaching as truth then of course I would be a student/desciple. Haven’t you ever heard in a school setting, “you should take so-and-so’s class, he/she is a great teacher!” Isn’t that evangelism? Usually when people make statements like this its not with the intention of “evangelizing”, but out of sincerity.
Many people would hate to be labeled a “christian”, but what is a label anyways? A label typically describes the contents of something. So if some one exudes the essence of a teaching, couldn’t you label them a follower of that teaching? In fact, before modern-day, organized education people would indeed follow teacher/scholars/philosophers/profits etc.. around to absorb their knowledge. Im sure they would say, “I am a follower of . . . . .”
TXstorm,
The “heavier than God can lift” “contradiction” is a gripe with God in general and not specific to judeo-christian religion. Anyhow here are my thoughts:
That idea only makes sense in a physical world. If God exists, it is in both a “spiritual” and physical realm. So using reasoning that only takes in to consideration physical ideas seems, to me at least, flawed from the start. Its sort of like trying to figure out the surface area of a Rectangular Prism , but only knowing the dimension of one side – you can’t. My point is that if God is “spirit” then there is no mass; no mass: no weight; no weight: nothing God can or can’t “lift”.
Although, having said that, I could go in to theology and explain away the contradiction. . . but I wont for now. Also, TXstorm, could you elaborate on the “because there is evil God cannot exist” statement? Doesn’t free will allow evil to exist? Wouldn’t a “good” God allow for free will? Wouldn’t it be “evil” for God to not allow a choice for “evil”? Thats enough for one post.
TX:
My experiences weren’t illusions. I can’t say that they prove God to exist, because they happened to me, not anybody else. The experience didn’t just go away either. In fact to me they would happen when I was on the verge of doing something wrong. Maybe I have an overactive concience that makes me experience out of the ordinary things when I figure I’m about to do something wrong.
Can God create something He can’t lift?
IS A GREAT question, me and some friends have all thought about it. My only response was humans. If evil is the opposite of such a bieng, and humans were given free will to choose evil if they wanted, then God has already created something “HE” can’t “Lift.”
That’s just one way of looking at it though… what makes it such a good question is humans beliefs in limits. We think about lifting things, in a physical sense. The question is… is there something God can’t do?
Sure there is… make human’s decisions. If you’re human, you know that you make your own. If you happen to be religouse, than you have to come to the conclusion that God let you make your own decisions. Unless you are of the belief that God knows what decision you’ll make WAY ahead of time… which isn’t too far off of a thought if you wente to high school and could call, when you saw a drunk girl and a jock together, what thier decision might be that night. Only amplify that by a billion times and that God is justified in knowing all… like in Groundhogs Day, where Bill Murray says “Maybe God’s just been around so long, he knows everything.”
If you’re not religouse, then you don’t do “Bad” things because you have determined them to be wrong because they hurt other people, and you wouldn’t want to be hurt in that way.
If you ARE religouse, you might say that you didn’t do so because you thought God wouldn’t want you to. Maybe your God is your own perpective on Right and Wrong.
Joshua,
So pick another of the near infinite contradictions inherent to the judeo-xn notion of a god. The contradictions are in no way dependent upon a physical world, and cannot be logically exaplained away since they are inherent to the notions of omnipotence, or to the combinations of characteristics such as omnibenevolent and a creator.
An example of this is found in your statement: “My point is that if God is “spirit” then there is no mass; no mass: no weight; no weight: nothing God can or can’t “lift”.”
This clearly denies the omnipotence characteristic which most notions of a god include, certainly it is explicit in the judeo-xn notion of a god. You have not merely said that there is some small characteristic that this god cannot have (though this alone would be sufficient to disprove omnipotence) but you have excluded all of the physical realm entirely from any interaction by this impossible entity. No sea partings.. no intervention to save children etc.
If you will look at the comments on the morality post you will find a more indepth explanation of the refutation of the free will excuse as explanation for evil. Suffice it to say that an omniptent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator of all COULD NOT choose to create a world in which evil exist. It would have the option of a world in which free will exists but in which no one actually chooses evil, but obviously this is not the world in which we find ourselves. And of course that does not take into account all of the other acts, which if there is no controlling or creating being are accidents and tragedies, but with such a force are absolutely acts of evil.
Kren,
You have just denies at least two of the vital characteristics of your god, thus necessarily denied your god exists at all… How do you resolve that particular problem?
(not to mention that you still have not resolved the initial contradiction.. 
)
TXStorm,
Back to lifting stuff: My point was that in order to reason we must have all of the facts. We obviously don’t understand anything other than the physical world so its a bit hard to ponder this “contradiction”. Its not that God cant have an influence on physical things its just he isn’t limited like us. Let me try presenting it through theology then. . .
The Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth. Obviously, if He did so, he could move whatever he wanted. The Bible also says that Jesus was God in man form. Though Jesus was “God” he was also man with all of our own physical limitations. So while God the spirit could lift anything, God the man could not. He can both create something He can lift and something He cannot.
Also there is this verse: “then Jesus told them, “I assure you, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, ‘May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,’ and it will happen.” – Mat. 21:21
So again we see this idea that God the man couldn’t lift a mountain, but God the spirit can.
Joshua,
Will you accept that sound reasoning and only sound reasoning leads us to true conclusions? I ask because your arguments are logically fallacious.
First, we have all of the RELEVANT facts, which is all we need. We do not need to be omniscient in order to consider these facts such as the impossibility of the judeo-xn god. Consider the analogy of the square circle. We need not know anything at all about triangles, or goats, or plumbing or the like, rather we need only know the nature of sound reasoning, the nature of squares, and the nature of circles. This is sufficient to prove that square circles do not exist.
So too with the judeo-xn notion of a “god.” We need only know the meaning of “omnipotent,” “omniscient,”"Omnibenevolent,” “creator of all,” along with the nature of sound reasoning.
Now returning to the fallacies, you appeal to (pseudo) authority (the xn bible), which itself assumes (but of course does not prove) the existence of this impossible notion. This of course is sufficient to render the argument of no merit, as is always true of any argument which contains even one logical fallacy.
But wait, there’s more..
By appealing to the “three-in-one” notion, you introduce equivocation. Instead of referring to only one as the contradiction does, you appeal to one in one case, then another in another. So when you say “he can both create something he can lift and something that he cannot” (sic) you are not referring to the same individual with each use of “he.”
As for the last paragraph, it does not demonstrate what you seem to believe that it does. But regardless it does not address the point. I can toss a pencil into the sea but that does not mean I can toss a car into the sea….
If you are hung up on the physical world, then try any of the other infinite contractions which arise from the claim of omnipotence. Can this impossible entity create a universe which contains everything, but in which it does not exist? (None of this “outside of the universe” nonsense.. “Universe” is used to refer to all that is, in other words: reality.
Or “can this god-notion cause itself to not exist?” If the latter then this god-notion is not indestructable, which is a pretty darn important failing in the omniptence category… On the other hand if this god-notion couldnot destroy itself, there is another pretty darn important failing in the omniptence category..
Sound reasoning should lead to true conclusions, but who is to say that your reasoning is sound? You said that this “contradiction” was specific to the judeo-christian God. Having said that, you have decided to show how this God specifically cannot exist. If this is the case, you cannot ignore his stated attributes in the Bible and claim that you are using sound reasoning.
What you fail to realize is the judeo-christian God is a trinity. He is 3 but also 1. You prefer the idea of this God as one because it supports your argument. I did not create the idea of the trinity to “introduce equivocation.”, but just brought up that this is how “God” is described in the Bible. This is in no way equivocation. It only shows that you have little understanding of the God that you are trying to “logically” disprove.
This was my point exactly. In order for the “contradiction” to hold you have to ignore the attributes of God that are clearly explained in the Bible. If you are not happy with this 3-in-1 idea, then you are not applying this “contradiction” to the judeo-christian God. The problem with this “contradiction” is that it assumes too much. This God is not 1 but 3.
What if I put aside this god for a moment and change focus to the Hindu idea of Brahman? He is in everything and yet He is everything. He is the object, the lifter of the object, and the universe in which the lifting is taking place. This “contradiction” doesn’t really work with His description either. What God is being disproved here?
“ ‘Universe’ is used to refer to all that is, in other words: reality.” Actually many cosmologists today are talking about a “multiverse” full of many universes. At the forefront of theoretical physics is the idea of new dimensions and multiple universes. Allot of these theories are coming forward to try and explain the “chaos” at the quantum level. Some of humanities greatest minds are pondering these ideas, so is it really that absurd for there to be the possibility of an “outside of the universe”?
Joshua,
Look up equivocation. You are employing a text book example of it. Appealling to the xn bible as an “authority” simply introduces yet another logical fallacy.
As for this 1 in 3 silliness, do you then also assert, as you necessarily must the following claims:
1+1=6
1-3=0
3+3=2
If you are not willing to make these claims then they stand as clear counter-examples to your one in three position. Or you could simply take the same “aspect” of this absurd god notion and ask the question pertaining ONLY to that one aspect. Anything short of that is equivocation.
You ask “who is to say that the reasoning is sound” which can only be asked if one fails to understand reason itself. Sound reasoning is not a mere matter of opinion as you try to imply, but rather can be objectively determined and proved. Feel free to take the arguments to any logician to be scrutinized, or familiarize yourself with sound reasoning and note that in fact no error exists in the arguments.
I take it from your red herring that you are not going to actually address the scenario as spelled out? I explained the usage of “universe” in this context so that you would not be confused and waste time on nonsensical and fruitless fatally flawed arguments. Your response is to yet again equivocate..
Or “can this god-notion cause itself to not exist?” If the latter then this god-notion is not indestructable, which is a pretty darn important failing in the omniptence category… On the other hand if this god-notion couldnot destroy itself, there is another pretty darn important failing in the omniptence category..
Just so that we are perfectly clear here are some explanations of the fallacy of equivocation and how they apply to your usage of this fallacy:
“Equivocation occurs when a key word is used with two or more different meanings in the same argument. ”
You use “god” to refer at one point to merely the ethereal thing you claim exists, here you claim that this “god” can lift anythying.
In another place you use “god” to refer to a mortal human that died 2 millenia ago (if he ever existed at all and is not merely the combination of many of the figures in “revealed” religions of the time as seems most likely to be the case). This being is limited by the physcial attributes of humans, and therefore is very limited in ability to lift objects, and also is clearly not identical to the first non-entity to which you referred.
There is no doubt left that this clearly meets all of the criteria for being equivocation, so clear that it makes a fine text book example.
http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e06c.htm
“In addition to the fallacies of relevance and presumption we examined in our previous lessons, there are several patterns of incorrect reasoning that arise from the imprecise use of language. An ambiguous word, phrase, or sentence is one that has two or more distinct meanings. The inferential relationship between the propositions included in a single argument will be sure to hold only if we are careful to employ exactly the same meaning in each of them. The fallacies of ambiguity all involve a confusion of two or more different senses.”
As we can see from the previous explanation, you are using the word “god” in more than one sense, at one time referring to a creator of all that can in theory lift anything, and in another to a mere mortal that cannot lift much at all. The two are not identical by any stretch of the imagination.
Consider if you will the same question posed to the first meaning that you use of “god” without referring to any differing meanings. Can you offer a meaningful response to the inherent contradictions without employing such fallacies?
And what of the other examples which necessarily demonstrate the impossibility of the judeo-xn god?
And before I forget you chose to employ other errors of reasoning as well in your mischaracterizations. While I have referred to the judeo-xn notion of a “god”, it is not true that this is specific to merely this notion of god. Any notion of any entity which is supposed to be omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, creator of all, sill suffer exactly the same fate, that is the notion will necessarily be self-defeating.
All other aspects introduced are red herrings, used to draw attention away from the impossibility of the supposed entity, and away from the lack of rational, reasonable, and real support for such an impossible being.
You really don’t need to be condescending. It becomes impossible to have a civil debate when any participant begins to act in this way. “Equivocation” is to conceal the truth or avoid committing oneself to an idea by using ambiguous language. As I explained, in order for this “contradiction” to apply to the God described in the Bible, one must ignore his description.
You stated that you are specifically attacking the God of the Bible. In this case, His stated attributes must be allowed to defend Himself. You will not allow this. This makes absolutely no sense. The trinity is not a matter of “1+1=6″. It is a “trinity”. 1+1+1=3. It is a description that even fits us humans. We have a body, a mind, and spirit. These 3 “things” are united into one being. Even if you don’t believe in the “spirit”, you probably would still observe that you have a body and a mind. A sort of “dinity” if you will. What more can I say about this? There really can be no further debate under these circumstances.
These are great things to ponder. I really enjoy them. However, I see no point in continuing if I cant even use God’s description. Please do not once again say, “Appealling to the xn bible as an “authority” simply introduces yet another logical fallacy.” Let me say one last time: You chose to dispute the God specifically of the Bible so you cannot ignore His attributes and maintain a solid argument.
No need for the emotional blackmail attempts, especially since they fail against anyone familiar with reason.
Concealing the truth and avoiding committing oneself to an idea are irrelevent motivations to equivocation. The fact is that your argument pivots on equivocation as clearly demonstrated, and no amount of increased usage of logical fallacies will ever change that.
I never once stated that I am “attacking the God of the Bible” (SIC). I pointed out that if the four criteria set out for the judeo-xn notion of a god are examined critically we can easily see that no such entity can possibly exist. The notions are inherently contradictory, as clearly and repeatedly demonstrated and thus far unanswered.
You say that I will not allow “his attributes.” Let’s look at this: 1. This is absurd and false as I have clearly spelled out the judeo-xn notion of a god. (BTW if you are following this argument you might notice that in fact the come lately notion of “3in1″ is not original nor crucial to the judeo-xn notion of a god.
2. You beg the question by assuming existence, which of course is your conclusion.
If you cannot discuss the matter honestly, civilly, and rationally then certainly you should quit because I am not inclined to abandon these simply to save your world view and false belief in an impossible being.
That said, let me try yet again to explain the notion of equivocation and point out yet again that you have not addressed the other examples which do not refer in any sense at all and are not answered in any way at all by this false “3 in 1″ nonsesne.
Assign each god a letter. X is “god” y is “the “holy” spirit, and Z is “jebus”
Okay now your argument is this. X can create a stone that Z cannot lift. Z cannot create a stone at all.
Do you see now that you are in fact using the term “god” in more than one meaning in order to give the mere illusion that you have somehow resolved the inherent contradiction?
Now I have posted this alternative contradiction so as to avoid this game you are playing with equivocation and appeals to false authority, yet you have not addressed it at all, I strongly suspect that I know why. However here it is again so if you are actually desirous of having an HONEST REASONABLE discussion you need not go back to the other posts to see it again:
“can this god-notion cause itself to not exist?” If the latter then this god-notion is not indestructable, which is a pretty darn important failing in the omniptence category… On the other hand if this god-notion couldnot destroy itself, there is another pretty darn important failing in the omniptence category..
As to your final comment, you ought not have started your post with comments about condescension if you intended to end it with condescension. Moreover you ought not have adopted that tone given that your statement is absurdly false and intellectually dishonest. To whit: the four necessary elements of the JUDEO-XN notion of a god are:
1. Omnipotent
2. Omniscient
3. Omnibenevolent
4. Creator of all.
I have not diverged from this accurate description nor does this description fail to capture the essence of the judeo-xn god.
You complain that I will not abandon reason simply because not abandoning reason leads to clear irrefutable evidence that your notion of a god cannot exist. Even if I were to be dishonest and pretend the reality is not reality and falsehoods are true, that would only mean that you managed to get me to agree with your claims, it would not change the fact that the contradictions remain, and teh judeo-xn notion of a god simply cannot exist. Appealing to another application of another set of logical fallacies in no way supports the use of any particular logical fallacy.
Imagine if I were to respond to you that you are mistaken because it says so in the satanic bible (which I assume you would consider the polar opposite to your bible, though in truth a logic text is in fact the polar opposite, still for this example th sb will work). Would you accept that you must be in error? Of course not, because I am simply appealing to yet another text without any basis for the argument itself. This is exactly what you are doing here. I can appeal to all of the fallacies made by intro to logic students as well, just as you appeal to the fallacies written into the bible (which itself is circular reasoning), and I guarentee that you will not accept that as a sound foundation upon which to build an argument.
So why on earth do you seem to honestly expect me and everyone reading this to accept your arbitrary double standard?
Oh, and as to the math problems, they were pointing out the absurdity of the 1=3 notion and that even you do not accept it, as you confirmed with your corrected math examples.
If 1=3 then necessarily 1+1=6. So when you denied this, you denied the premise that 1=3, as well you should have via modus Tolens.
You can either claim that 1=3, as you want to in the attempt to salvage the judeo-xn notion of god (which in fact then makes the notion merely that of xnty, and a trivial version of that form) and then necessarily deny arithematic. Or you can accept arithematic as accurate, and thereby deny the claim that 1=3.
No other option exists within the realm of honesty, reason, and reality.
I didn’t respond to your “can this god-notion cause itself to not exist”(SIC). question because we have not finished this current discussion. Why should we go on to another “contradiction” when we have not finished this debate? The problem with this “contradiction” is that it cannot be resolved with the assumed description of “God”. When I offer the idea of the trinity you call this equivocation.
If the problem is that the trinity doesn’t resolve this lifting “contradiction” then I would have no reason to continue. However, it does indeed resolve it. With time dedicated to writing post upon post I feel that the trinity would also resolve the other mentioned “contradictions”. I am interested to know your opinion of the idea of man as a trinity that I explained in my last post.
I should add that the “3in1″ notion of God is indeed crucial to the judeo-christian notion of god. Even though this is clearly stated in the Bible, this idea is also observable in mankind as I mentioned in my last post. You in no way need to accept the authority of the Bible for this idea to stand. Although, as a side note; if you will not accept the authority of the Bible then you shouldn’t use notions like, “Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent ( even a word?), and Creator of all” as proof that God cannot exist. What if God isn’t that powerful at all? Im sure we could reason a “god” into existence that doesn’t have these “contradictions”.
What then?
This “arbitrary double standard” (SIC) you mention was created by yourself in accordance with a situation that has not occurred. I did not state that according to the Bible you are wrong; I simply stated that the description of the God of the Bible resolves the contradiction. If the God of the Bible (taken the authority is accepted) does not contradict itself, then basis of non-acceptance cannot be on contradiction. Granted, this is indeed circular reasoning, but so is the notion of rejecting God because of his description in a book that you give no authority to in the first place.
I would like to add that I am enjoying all of this. I have never spent this much time debating. I do thank you for the workout. I wish I had more free time to dedicate to this.
Josua,
You can “feel” that your use of equivocation should not count as equivocation simply because your desired conclusion is defeated otherwise, but that does not change reality.
You pretend that holding your claims to the exact same standard of reason and evidence means that *I* have created a double standard, but of course you offer no evidence of this false assertion, though contrarily ample evidence has been offered supporting the facts that your argument pivots on equivocation and that you are employing at least two standards in an effort to save the failed position.
The refutations stand so far completely unaddressed. Feel free to actually address them at any point. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you seek out some basic understanding of at least the more basic elements of sound reasoning, for as long as you adhere to the belief that your arguments are excluded from honest examination and application of the rules of reason there is no point in any discussion.
You may also want to review the usage of “sic” so as to avoid the obvious errors in your current usage.
“Granted, this is indeed circular reasoning, but so is the notion of rejecting God because of his description in a book that you give no authority to in the first place.”
Notice how you employ a strawman tactic here to try to pretend that you have defeated the argument given. No where have I taken the position you attribute to me, of course, but still you pretend that I have because you believe that this alternative position will be easier to attack. Here again even a very basic understanding of reason would prevent such blatant errors and intellectual dishonesty.
As long as you attack arguments other than the ones offered, the actual arguments remain standing completely untouched. So far that is wholly the case here. So back up, READ and try to undestand the arguments actually given, and go from there. Remembering all the while that logical fallacies in your responses do not offer any support to your position nor criticism of reality.
I can’t help but feel that this debate is more about you not wanting to believe in God than anything else. If you truly feel that I am not using proper “reason” and that I am simply rambling on, then I sincerely doubt that you would be firing back such lengthy responses. You have a very condescending tone in all of your posts to not just me, but everyone on this site. I have seen you “defeat” the ideas of others here simply by saying, “I am right, you are wrong” in the most intellectual and drawn out ways you can; Even when without merit. Shockingly, it works very well for you.
Who cares? Isn’t the point of debate to learn from ourselves and others? What is the fun in any of this if we are here to prove ourselves right, and others wrong? I presented some very good ideas in my posts worth conversing about that were lost to your “god does not and cannot exist” rampage. Why is it so important to you that God does not exist? It is very possible that there is a “god” that isn’t perfect, but just strong enough to make your life (and after life) heaven or hell. So why are you so against any notion of a “god”?
It seems to me that there is no point in debating with someone who has only one accepted outcome. I believe in God, but I feel no need to defend Him. I do enjoy pondering about Him; even to the extent that He may not exist at all. Though, if I were here to convince others that God was real and would accept no alternative, what would that do for me? If you are right and there is no God then soon we will all go back to not existing. In that case, there really is no need to be “right” since its hard to hear your “kudos” while busily not existing.
Joshua,
That you turn to ad hominem attacks and blatantly dishonest claims should be a huge red flag to you as to the strength of the arguments you present.
Debate is a sport, in which you club one over the head using virtually every dirty trick out there, much like the attempt at emotional blackmail and shaming you are trying to use here. For this reason I have no interest in debate or in such game playing.
I prefer honest intellectual discussion. One crucial difference between what you are doing and describing and honest intellectual discussion is that the latter is a joint effort in which all parties agree that the starting point, the common ground, is that of reason and evidence. This means that you do not employ personal attacks (ad hominem), nor blatantly false and insulting claims, nor deny reason itself (for instance by claiming that your belief supercedes reality and reason). In honest intellectual discussion the objective is true conclusions, and this is reached through honest participation, sincere critical thought, and of course adherence to the basics such as reason and evidence, but also civility and honesty.
If you adopt this set of behaviors, as opposed to those you choose to employ particularly in this latest post, you will find that the personality issues which you are mistakenly attributing to me, simply disappear. The who no longer matters, only the what. No more do you have any basis from which to feel that this is about who is right, rather than what is right. Where you take offense at reality and reason, and direct your hatred towards me for having the gall to offer sound arguments and refutations, you could find instead that you could step up and discover some new fact, some new tidbit of knowledge, and with any luck others such as myself might also be so lucky. But when you choose to close your mind, to put yourself above all others, above reality and reason, and at the same time sink to personal attacks, false assumptions and retreats into pure emoting, you deny not only yourself those wonderful opportunities, but deny any insight you might have to others as well.
You put it well when you say “It seems to me that there is no point in debating with someone who has only one accepted outcome.” The difference here is clear however. My “one accepted outcome” is understanding, truth, knowledge, wisdom. Yours is “MY GOD EXISTS AND IF YOU DON’T ACCEPT THAT I WILL ATTACK YOU PERSONALLY” or some such thing. I am certainly in no way set on the conclusion, only to the method, that being reason and critical thought. Therefore your complaint is merely that I will not accept your contrary to reason and reality conclusion as axiomatically true. This is no different in kind from the kid’s resonse “IS SO!”
As for needing to be right, you will find that you will lose that desire also if you adopt the intellectual discussion approach as opposed to the bash you over the head debate approach.
I may have mentioned it before but it deserves mention again in this context, especially since you have chosen to take such offense to mere ideas being discussed. The Reasaonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival by Wendy McElroy is a fine, perhaps the best, resource for the layperson who has felt excluded from honest intellectual discussion, or who seems to find him/her self in the position in which you are in now, that being reacting emotionally to honest intellectual discussion adn the refutation of an idea/argument.
If it helps, this sort of reaction is not uncommon nor new. Socrates reminded his student more than two millenia ago that ideas are not our children, we ought not treat them as such. The point of this is that an idea is an idea and there is no need to react emotionally to that idea or argument being criticized. This goes double when that criticism takes the form of objective reason and evidence such as was offered in this thread.
I would ask that in the spirit of honesty that you retract your false and insulting remarks, short of that let me go on record saying that you are completely mischaracterizing my positions, my approach, my objectives, and my arguments in your latest post.
As for the “good ideas” of which you speak, I do not know by what standard you are making this judgement, but the arguments offered are fatally flawed with simplistic logical fallacies. This is why those arguments were so easily and repeatedly defeated. This reflects on you only as far as you go to deny that reason works as it works, which unfortunately you choose to adoot as a strategy, proclaiming that where your beliefs and reality/reason came into conflict it must be reality that is in error. I believe that this is the height of arrogance to put yourself above all others and all of reality as well.
i used to be an atheist and completely hate christians and thought that it was completely and totally wrong. No one had physical proof, so it had to be wrong, right? Well, i got in an arguement with my friend once about whether God was real or not, i thought i’d won. I still wondered about it though, eventually i got dragged off to a christian conference was right then and there i became a christian.
No one can tell you why they believe in God and have you fully understand. I know that i can’t tell others and others used to not be able to tell me, it doesn’t work that way. Sadly to say the only way that you would fully understand why people believe in such things you have to experience it yourself. You have to do research you have to be truly curious and not just automatically say, “this is wrong” “that’s not true” etc. You have to have a completely open mind in order to fully understand. I can tell you that i do get a feeling when i come to Him but it’s not just a feeling and like i said you have to experience it in order to understand. It’s not that i fear anything if there’s anything in this world that i don’t like is being told what to do, so it’s definately not that. i actually love being my own person. Believig in God does in fact give me confidence…. but all of what i’m saying is not what your thinking which makes this so hard to understand.
Even if God is not real then at least I’m living my life in a great way: honestly, trustworthily, caringly, etc. If you want to know more then just email me.
Cassy: first, I don’t “hate” Christians. I think, however, that Christianity makes people worse, not better, and that nobody is good because of Christianity, but despite it. But that’s another story.
As for the “you have to be one to understand”, I was a Christian for more than 25 years. And nothing “bad” happened to me to make me lose my faith; I simply realized that I was actually afraid of applying the same standards of reason and logic to my religious belief that I already applied to everything else. When I did so, my belief didn’t last one day more. To believe in God and not in, say, unicorns would actually be dishonest; there’s not any more reason to believe in one than in the other. And most of my belief came from my education, and from wishful thinking (who wouldn’t want there to be some perfect, cosmic justice in the universe? or a heavenly “parent” that cared for me even when I was alone?).
Believe me, I know both sides. I actually think I became a better person after I became an atheist: I became more rational, more “respectful” of reality, less inclined to wishful thinking, more honest with myself, and I actually realized that I didn’t need an external source of morality.
Hey Pedro,
Why do think Christianity makes people worse? I can surely speculate a few reasons why someone would, I’m just wondering.
I don’t have the time to read all of the comments. So, if this has been said already; I’m sorry.
You missed one.
“Because choosing to NOT believe a God exists seems dangerous/foolish/illogical.”
If I am wrong about my faith, I will not be any worse off living my life the way I do.
If it turns out that you’re wrong, an afterlife exists; and it ain’t gonna be pretty.
I guess, some would call it “hedging your bets.”
Ah, Pascal’s Wager. Hadn’t seen it here in a while.
There is a God. No one had to teach me how to breath, or believe. Atheists always worship at the alter of their own intelligence, assuming that the known boundaries of science is all there is. God is the great I AM and you will find Him if you seek Him, with all your heart.
I would not want to live in a world without God. We would be as children, lost to their parents, telling each other how brave and smart we are. How very sad.
You are like me. We are both broken.
Love God with all your heart and love one another as I have loved you. No religion, just Him.
Jay: sorry, but I worship nothing.
As for being “broken”, that’s nothing but hatred of humanity, and of yourself.
It’s odd, though… you believe you were created, consciously, intentionally, by a perfect being, and yet you believe you’re “broken”… while I, who believe life is a product of random chance (if you didn’t look at Earth as the center of the universe, you’d know that more than 99.9% of the universe is hostile to life), believe that, quoting Wiliam Henley, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
In other words, you do believe your god created you as an imperfect, sinful, flawed, “broken” being. And you don’t follow it to its logical conclusion: why would a perfect god do that?
I was created to live in paradise, in constant Communion with God. Driven out of Eden, there exists a hole, an emptiness, in all of us. We choose our path. Would God create robots who had no choice but to worship Him? Same as my children have free will, we are free to deny our maker.
As far as being the master of your own fate, I believe you live in chains. There is a dark side to this life, same as the light exists. You are too smart to believe in fables, but, if satan did exist, I believe he would use mankind’s religion against Him. Spirituality has little to do with religion. Most atheists buy the lies that satan sells.
God loves me and Jesus live in me. The Holy Spirit comforts me. These statements, to you, make me sound mad, but, my belief is such that I would gladly die before denouncing my God. He has made Himself real to me, in ways I cannot explain or excuse, and I’m sad that you don’t have that.
I believe that there is a part of you and I that remembers what it felt like to live with God, maybe it’s in our DNA. Coming to God was coming home, more relational that anything I’ve ever experienced or imagined I could. I believe He is waiting for you. His greatest wish is that none should perish.
Our thoughts are not His thoughts. Don’t waste your time trying to know the mind of God, seek His heart instead.
You didn’t answer my question at the end…
Pedro said ;”In other words, you do believe your god created you as an imperfect, sinful, flawed, “broken” being. And you don’t follow it to its logical conclusion: why would a perfect god do that?”
God gave us free will. From the beginning, we had the choice to reject Him. What would our love for Him mean, if we had no choice but to love Him? Light and dark, male and female, good and evil…. do you see a pattern? God is love and knowing His heart is as close as we get on this plane.
When you ask why God would do something, pretend for a minute that there is a God. He created all, all matter, all time, every emotion, every thought… everything. Why would you think that you could even imagine what is in Gods mind? He’s given you His love and told you to rest in it. It is sufficient.
A little too much intelligence can be a bad thing. I believe you are putting human limitations on God, then crying foul when He doesn’t live up to you suppositions.
All of creation exists by the will of God. The sum of the life you are living passes like a blink of the eye. I’m O.K. resting in His love for the moment I am here. All my questions will be answered, soon and very soon.
Jay: “free will” is an insufficient answer to my question. The fact is that you believe you were designed by a perfect creator who loves you. I believe life appeared in the universe by chance. And yet it is not I who sees human as fundamentally evil, waiting to be redeemeed by a god. I believe in free will, yes, which means that we are exactly as good or as evil as we want. You don’t believe we can actually be good, since we still need God or Jesus to save us; otherwise we’d be going to hell.
Free will must be really free. The kind of “free” will you believe in is like a prison with open doors, but if you step outside, the guards in the towers shoot you. I’d rather have no prison at all, thank you. I’d rather be free… and I am.
And now you, instead, try to imagine that, instead of talking about a god, you were talking about a human being. Would you accept such an excuse? Then I can’t accept it for a supposed god. If he existed as Christians describe him, he would be evil, therefore, I would choose not to follow him anyway. You’ll reply that I can’t really call him “evil”, as God is above morality. I say no being is.
A being who did what your god is described as having done would be a monster, and, if he existed, no one would be safe from him. Fortunately, I see exactly zero evidence of such a being.
I couldn’t disagree more.
Any God, if He were to exist, would have to exist on your terms? Why would you think that you, or I, see the big picture from our tiny little portion of the universe and our limited intelligence?
Have you looked into the eyes of your child and still thought ” there is no God”. The existance of evil makes perfect sense to me. satans greatest victory is that you do not believe in him. he tells you how smart you are and God makes bad things happen to good people. You are his to do with as he wishes.
Having brought up satan, you now think I’m even crazier. Why would it be any less plausible to believe in satan if I already believe in a fairy tale God? You see ZERO evidence of His existance while I see it all around me, all day long.
I was like you at one time. I worked at dening the existance of God. When I stopped that work, I found God. I’m told that, at best, we see everything through a dark glass. I believe this. We say the universe is 13.9 billion years old because we can only see back that far.
I never said that humanity is inherently evil. We are free to choose our path. I AM truly free inside His love, knowing there is all of eternity to ask questions and have them answered. We can’t grasp the truth in this present state. It would be like trying to explain cold fusion to a three year old.
All your life, God has been, and will continue, to call to you. You will never be beyond His reach. The fact that you are dening God keeps God on your mind. You are an imagebearer of God, His beloved child, and He will never give up on you, as long as there is a chance.
Intelligence, logic, reason. ” Look, I have examined the evidence and have came to a conclusion. There is no tangible evidence of a God, so therefore, there is no God. Those billions of people have been wrong for thousands of years. I know better. God is for the weak, the poor, the hopeless who do not believe in themselves.” All of mans wisdom is but foolishness to God.
Gods existence doesen’t require your belief. He loves you because you are His child. We have no hope of seeing things as they are in this life. Listen to your heart and close you eyes. His fingerprints are on your very DNA. You live inside his will.
[...] Something which has been bugging me for a while, that I noticed in several conversations and comments (for instance, these ones by Jay Bird, and others not on this blog) is this: Christians, especially the more fundamentalist ones, believe that Christianity is special. [...]
I used to debate god with this girl that said that she believed in god because it made her happy. I had no argument for that.
[quote comment="6064"]I used to debate god with this girl that said that she believed in god because it made her happy. I had no argument for that.[/quote]
Here’s a couple.
You missed one that is the most important to me as a believer.
The Book of Mormon cannot be explained away. It has far to
many literary and archeological nuances that were unheard of in 1840
and could never be faked by Joseph Smith (or anyone else) making
it up. Many people attack or dismiss the Book of Mormon
by attacking Joseph Smith and doing poorly thought out attacks
on the content. Any actual deep analysis shows it to be
exactly what it purports to be.
I will give one example…
The word Deseret appears and is described as meaning Honey Bee.
In the last few decades it has come to light that DSRT (no vowels in Egyptian)
means Honey Bee and is the symbol of the north kingdom.
(http://www.farms.byu.edu/from_publications.php?id=10&table=evidences)
All the rest of your analysis of reasons and their weaknesses are for the most part correct.
The ‘evidence’ for beliefs is self reported, which is the weakest form of evidence in science
and is only valid to the person with he experience. It is not proof to any one else.
The Book of Mormon is the only concrete proof of the existence of God that I know of that
can be shared and analyzed scientifically.
I don’t believe in Atheists. Everyone has a God. Even if it’s a default or Null choice.
Everyone has their own anwers to the Big Unanswerable Questions, even if they are just the default answers of their own society. As a confirmed adult christian, I happened to have chosen mine based on utility. I happen to find that believing that God created everything is more useful than believing that Chance created everything. As a confirmed adult christian, I don’t believe in this Chance thing. My God is just a “provable” as Chance, so I choose to believe in God for my own reasons.
But as a confirmed adult christian, I don’t believe in the God most atheists reject either. Many people lose their faith when they confront the limits of their own conception of God. The “Genie Superhero in the sky” God is only really developmentally appropriate to small children. Most atheists I’ve read have done a very good job of trouncing the childhood God image. Good. The key to faith is moving on. So you discover there is no Santa Claus. Okay, good. But should you abandon the spirit of charity, joy, and giving he represents? What if Santa was *really* that spirit all along?
To me saying “God is Love” and “God is Good” are not truisms. In my faith, we literally *worship* Love. The Trinity is an image of a perfect loving relationship where the individuals love each other so perfectly, so sacrificially, that they form one being. In my faith the truest human Love is meant to model that kind of sacrificial Love. Little kids developmentally need the personification of such an abstract concept. And I must admit using the personification metaphors of referring to God as Father or Son serves as a type of spiritual shorthand. But ultimately it’s Love we worship.
So you can claim to be an atheist, but if you give of yourself to another out of Love, I don’t care — I call you my brother in Christ. Read Matthew 25. Whatever you do to the least person, you do to God.
And no matter what you say you believe, if you live a life of ego and selfishness and do not give out of Love, then you don’t believe in God.
As to religion being harmful, I say anyone who picks and chooses from any ideology to satisfy his/her own ego and selfish agenda is harmful. This can happen with any ideology — religious or political. Atheists in Cambodia, Maoists in China, and Stalinists in Russia killed millions in the name of Godless ideologies. Still I wouldn’t say atheism is harmful. Ideologies lived selectively to satisfy ego-driven agendas are.
Excellent post. I’m reading “The God Delusion” at the moment…
You can be a God-believer and still be devoted to the beauty and truth of science, too. When read from a certain metaphoric point of view, Genesis is totally compatible with the findings of science regarding the age of the universe, evolution, the first rays of light appearing through the ancient atmosphere to reach the ground, the order of appearance of plants and animals, the appearance of Pangaea, the existence of dinosaurs, etc. As an engineer, I have no problems at all reconciling science and belief. It’s actually rather exhilarating!
As a matter of fact, I believe that people of faith haven’t done enough in the matters of science and technology — we’ve been given senses, understanding, and the tools of science — and it is a God-given commandment to “[...] fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28). To me, this predicts complete mastery of science and physics; so we have a lot of technology that we need to develop, and a lot of physics that we need to understand and master. But we don’t need to let that have us stumble in our faith, either.
Science is a bottom-up process; gathering fact and theory to create a whole picture. Faith is a top-down process, where precepts, commands, and Spirit meet science in the instantiation of the physical world. The two have much to say about each other, but come from two different perspectives.
A lot is said in the New Testament about God’s Spirit being the “spirit of truth”. That being said, we are to seek out absolute truth wherever it leads us. Science can provide us some of these truths, but not all. Since God’s spirit is a spirit of truth, it means it isn’t a spirit of obfuscation, of hocus-pocus, of maintaining myths at any cost, or of denying anything about the physical world that is obviously true (e.g. a sun-centered solar system…) And it can be perfectly acceptable to believe in a 4.567*10^9 year physical history of the earth, while simultaneously believing in a ~6,000-10,000 year spiritual story of mankind. (Note that I did NOT say that homo sapiens are only 6,000 years old!)
All that aside, some of my reasons for belief in Christianity are:
1. The prophesied Re-gathering of Israel (predicted ~3000 years ago) is coming true before our very eyes. (See http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/regathering.htm for some specific references.) This is perhaps the biggest prophetic event of our day, and one worth pondering carefully.
2. There are many additional specific Old Testament prophecies which were given and later came true. See Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, et. al. Many of these prophecies foretold what would happen to the Messiah, and they did so, exactly as predicted. In the Old Testament, the Bible uses accuracy of prophecy as the standard of its own authentication.
3. There is experientially both Good and Evil in the world; the Bible gives us a moral framework for understanding both.
4. The New Testament disciples (and various Old Testament characters as well), witnessed many of the events first-hand, and were so convinced by what they saw, that they paid for their belief in martyrdom and blood, maintaining their utmost belief to the end. They have signed the Bible in their own blood in order for us to believe in it. It’s the strongest message they can give us. And Jesus signed the New Testament in his own blood, too — he decided he would rather die than deny that his words were the truth.
5. Even Jesus’ own family, who was skeptical of his claims at first, eventually came to believe him. And so did the infamous “doubting Thomas”. And so did secular Romans involved in his sentencing and execution, several of whom came to believe, after the fact, that Jesus was exactly who he claimed to be.
6. Regarding life beyond this present existence, Jesus himself said “If it were not true, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2).
7. The tomb is empty. The Bible again authenticates itself.
8. Given the choices, I’d rather throw my fate in with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, King David, King Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Jesus, and the disciples, than to just trust in myself. I didn’t get here by myself; I can only trust the One who brought me here to begin with.
Why do some people refuse to believe?
Jesus said, “The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”
How this works is a mystery, but then again, that’s what Faith is all about — the “substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.”
Ironically, this “believer” versus agnostic/atheist debate is nearly the same as given in Genesis between the humans and Satan. (Satan asks coyly, “Has God really said such-and-such…?”) In this story, the denial of or questioning of God is indeed what caused the Fall of Man to begin with!
Of course, all the above presumes that the Bible really is what it says it is, and that it it trustworthy. If you don’t believe that, and if you don’t believe that God’s spirit can lead you to all truth, then all bets are off. You might as well believe in Nick Bostrom’s Simulation Argument (very cool hypothesis, IMHO). And you might just as well believe that life is apart from God is meaningless (see Ecclesiastes).
As for me, I’ll trust in the Bible, and in the one who said “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Matthew 24:35).
I disagree with your assertion that “If you do believe, however, it’s likely that you know why you believe”……
In my experience, the unconscious (driven largely by the limbic area of the brain) is always trying to meet needs that are beneath the level of conscious awareness, and most people are not even very clear why they chose the partners or jobs that they do.
To understand how much unconscious priority leveling and forgotten emotional needs drive peoples choices and preferences, I suggest reading this link:
http://www.ronkurtz.com/writing/Readings2004.pdf
A great book on the subject:
How We Believe: Science, Skepticism and the Search for God
Michael Shermer
i love it when belivers use the instrument of faith as proof….HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…it was designed that way …moron
Hi, I found your article on Digg. I’ll copy and paste what I wrote there:
I’m going to address #11, “You’ve witnessed an apparent miracle”…
I’ve not only witnessed miracles, but I’ve experienced one. Oddly enough, my miracle can be closely compared to the healing of an amputee.
My senior year of high school, I sprained my right hip from playing sports. Normal sports medicine wasn’t working, so I went to a chiropractor who discovered the cause: my right leg was 1.1 cm shorter than my left leg. The exact difference was measured/confirmed by X-rays. His solution: Use an insert in my right shoe insert, which I did and it helped to take the pain away when I wore it consistently.
A few years later, I was at my church and during the service, people were going up for prayer. So, I went up asking and believing for God to grow my right leg out. I took off my shoes, sat down in a chair and extended my legs straight out. My legs were still different in length and my left leg stuck out further than my right. Everyone around me saw the difference very clearly and I even heard them commenting on it. So, then we began to pray and right before my eyes (and everyone else), my right leg grew out in one instant to match the length of my left leg. Since that day (a couple of years ago), I can just stick my legs out and see they’re even. I haven’t worn the insert since that day, and haven’t felt anymore pain in my hip, where normally it would really hurt if I went without it for 1 day.
I’ve ran across so many kinds of miraculous stories like these. I find it hard to believe that atheists don’t think they’re out there. Whether atheists believe it was really a miracle or not is a different issue, but the stories are definitely there. Maybe it indicates people haven’t really searched.
Now, this isn’t necessarily why I believe in God. I’ve always believed in God, have Christian parents, grown up in church, etc. It’s just one of the many reasons I continue to believe in God. I hope that sharing my experience can help you in whatever way it can.
@Dewey : Nice point, bull’s eye.
All reasons come down to 2 basic patterns of belief I guess.
First and most popular reason is fear (of death mostly, or simply unknown). You can identify these type of “believers” easily; they dont regulate their life according to the relevant religion. Because they are not much into it, they hold on to it when fear comes up, sickness, loss of a relative etc.
Second and respectively rare pattern is some kind of philosophical search, which most of the commenters to this post I guess have gone through, search for a reason and/or purpose or even a guide of existance.
This type has more to say about, thus more to give for his/her belief.
I guess you put it right that God’s existance or inexistance is irrelevant of the reasons of people’s beliefs, but the debate has gone to faith, belief anyway.
My perception of belief is that it is totally a product of human neocortex, to suppress or rationalize the primitive drives of the animal behind and make it act in a more sophisticated manner. (No wonder we dont see any worshipping animal around. Or did you?:)) And with the socialization of humans come the religions. Religions’ geographical propogation is a solid evidence to this, isn’t it?
Yeah, you can call it some kind of illusion, very similar to theory of algebra or contemporary literature or similar, yet we merely call any of them as illusion.
I admit it is not the best product, but if you look at the result, it had “hell” of a success.
@Kren, Jay : How did you conclude yours is the “right” religion, I mean there are other very nice religions out there. You might end up in another religion’s hell dude, just be careful.
About the famous contradiction example “Can God create some shit that he/she/it can’t lift?”, I think the resolution (or more appropriately the denial of the question, since any answer ends up to an impotent God figure) is “God’s ability and power both to create and ‘lift’(why lifting,moving shit anyway, just uncreate it and create it in the proper place…) is not related to MASS which is an attribute of our poor mortal finite -though expanding to infinity- universe.”
Another debate which plays the bpundaries of belief and reasoning is, “I don’t believe in a(ny) God but I am seriously suspicious about aliens’ fingers in our existance. Does that count as a belief, are they eligible as Gods? How much should I believe in a theory to be considered religion, or How superior should my God be to be considered as an illusion?”
The last one (No18) is funny indeed. Because it has to be my “type 2″ the philosophical searcher, and with all respect to christians, what a book that is! And if that one ended up believing in Bible, well, either he had not much to read or he might have misread it completely.
Finally, I am somewhere between an atheist and agnostic, yet I agree we should love and respect each other and do all right things and beware of evil and stupid mistakes, it’s just, I don’t need a religion for this.
I forget what number it was but I believe in God, because its the only thing that makes sense. Too many things in my life have happened with the inuendo of there being someone watching over me. I have personally read the Bible as well. It does not contradict itself like others would tell you. Those people read over it at a glance and don’t take a look at surrounding passages near the text they read. I especially love how the Bible predicted the unbelievers and how they would make up their own stories, just like they did today, To me, I couldnt believe someone could read the Bible and not see truth.
Jesus said to Thomas, “You believe because you’ve seen me. Blessed are those who haven’t seen me but believe.” John 20:29
Biologic-
Actually I never concluded that my religion was the “right” religion.
I’ve always noted to myself that I could be wrong.
The choice to be Christian (I guess you could call it that) merely was from some reading about teachings from Jesus. I didn’t believe that he had saved us, or died for our sins, but that he was trying to teach us how to “save” ourselves.
Either way, I saw not too much different in what I believed from Buddhism.
You might see a lot of this in the first reply to the post itself, in which I explained these things.
I also wasn’t always Christian.
Humans, sometime in their evolutionary development, became intelligent enough to realize something that no animal knows – that we are ALL going to die someday. Consequently, we developed a chronic anxiety about death that animals don’t have. Animals have an instinctive fear of immediate harm, but that all. Religion was invented to relieve this anxiety.
I’m sure fear of death, (The fear for ourselves as well as the loss of loved ones) has tons to do with it, but I think there are other reasons why as well. We also have a general concept of morality, and since noticing this we probably tried to explain that as well, with little to go on. Justice too.
kash: saying that Christianity is true because Jesus, in the Bible, says so is a bit of a circular argument…
I believe in God because I think that is what the evidence points to. We are all faced with a choice – to believe in God or not. The rational way to go about it is to weigh up the evidence for and against. When doing this, as an atheist, I found that so much of what I believed was based on unfounded assumptions. Even more, so little had any basis in any facts. When I did bother to go to research the physical origins of the universe, and the standard model I began to believe in the existence of God.
Just think about it, Who made up, what are we made of. I personally don’t think that we came from monkeys…There is just one powerful man who could have made us and that is GOD our father. And I wouldn’t have beliven in him if I hadn’t felt him or seen his miracles. He has cured and saved many people. So think about it who or what can cure AIDS no man can but to GOD nothing is impossible. He can do anythink if you have faith in him and if you accept that he came to this earth and died for you and me…..Erika, 17yrs old
[quote comment="6378"]Just think about it, Who made up, what are we made of.[/quote]
Must you be intellectually dishonest and say with absolute certainty that “God did it”?
1. We evolved.
2. We are made of chemicals, and our consciousness comes from electrons flitting around.
[quote comment="6378"]I personally don’t think that we came from monkeys…[/quote]
This makes it appear as though you’ve been indoctrinated, frankly. Please learn science.
[quote comment="6378"]There is just one powerful man who could have made us and that is GOD our father. And I wouldn’t have beliven in him if I hadn’t felt him or seen his miracles. He has cured and saved many people. So think about it who or what can cure AIDS no man can but to GOD nothing is impossible. He can do anythink if you have faith in him and if you accept that he came to this earth and died for you and me…..[/quote]
But he didn’t. He hasn’t cured AIDS, he hasn’t made miracles, he doesn’t exist. You have to provide evidence that a God did so.
[quote comment="6378"]Erika, 17yrs old[/quote]
me, 17 years old.
[quote comment="6070"]I don’t believe in Atheists. Everyone has a God. Even if it’s a default or Null choice.
Everyone has their own anwers to the Big Unanswerable Questions, even if they are just the default answers of their own society. [/quote]
Wrong. I myself am perfectly comfortable accepting the fact that I don’t know the answer to some questions. I’m not afraid of anything – even of death and what is to come afterward. I’m completely at peace with the fact that we do not know all the answers and that each of us is a free, unassisted, individual who is responsible for our own actions. That’s something that “people of faith” must fear more than anything; it’s makes me sad.
I’m not afraid of anything – even of death and what is to come afterward.
If you were confronted with the knowledge of your imminent death, you would know fear. It’s arrogant to say you could not be afraid of death when you’ve never been confronted with it. I’m a believer, a “person of faith”, as you say. I know what awaits me after death, but I’m still afraid of the process. Probably more than anything, I’m afraid of breaking the ties that I have here, my wife and children, family friends, etc. Once I’ve changed states, there is no going back. It is eternal. We cannot even comprehend eternity.
People of faith know, better than most, that we are each “unassisted individuals”. The difference is that we have found the fill for the void inside us. Not science, although it is awe inspiring. If it cannot be observed, it is theory, right? Cold hard theory’s are just that. I feel Christ inside me. I know Gods impact on my life. I don’t have to wonder if He is real, as I once did.
I’m also sad. Atheists, to me, are like children who are trying so hard to get their way. They put enormous amounts of energy into trying to prove that something does not exist. Tilting at windmills. Whistling past the graveyard. Very sad.
Funny how this question gets picked up again and again and usually by atheists.
And usually the reasons are that fear or ignorance are the causes. I am waiting for the first atheist that comes to the conclusion that the reason is “For fun !!!”
This actually goes both ways. Many atheists don’t even consider the question if God exists seriously because they fear ridicule. A lot of things are going on in the world that science cannot explain to full satisfaction.
The scientific strategy usually is “Give the answer” or “Give some semi related mumbo jumbo” or “Call hoax” Don’t get me wrong, I am a scientist trained on one of the oldest universities in the world. Science is valid. Very valid, very usefull and probably the first place to look regarding any question you could have. Its just not comprehensive… Lets not pretend it is.. Untill it is..
I believe in God for one reason and that is that I perceive him. Not as a spiritual foot warmer. But as a living presence that responds to me. Something I can be in relation to or something I can ignore. Both are valid.
I have been involved in the occult for so long that I’ve gathered some idiotic stories about the way that the world apparently is. That science has not even begun to explain. Though some scientists (who are ridiculed by their peers) have done a lot of measurements. I have personally witnessed psychokinesis, extreme forms of telepathy. That kundalini energy that everyone says does not exist has literally brought me to my knees once. Synchronisity has in one situation kept on going for hours, where unrelated people and random events somehow fit together seamlessly to tell a story.
The idea that “If god exists he’d fix this mess we’re in.” is flawed because it makes assumptions on what God is. And it makes assumptions on that the world is broken in Gods eyes. Both are very unscientific. A scientist does not state what he assumes he knows. He tries to find what he is sure he does not know. And he tries to disprove what he thinks he knows.
Clearly the world is not broken. She is as she is. And any messes that exist are constructed by us. So apparently this is what we want out of life. And hey presto, we got it. If you wish to see the world as a mess then thats a valid path and your choice is accepted. Its just not the only valid option.
The world is a beautifull and crazy place. Maybe it was created by a God. I dont know I never asked him. But it sure is co-created by man…
I realise my entire account is subjective. When columbus came back from the americas his entire account was subjective too. The only way you will really know if God exists is by going out there and looking for him. You dont have to surrender to him, or go to church or any of that. Just use the scientific mind for discovery. And don’t make the mistake of predefining what God is supposed to be like..
Dogon nogoD
It all comes down to faith really! what are you willing to put your faith in? I would rather put my faith in a perfect and just God, then a unperfect human being who made up a story because of some tragedies in his life.
Why is it so hard to be lieve in a being more complicated then us?
are we as humans not more complicated then a animal?
Can we not do things are creatures can’t?
The whole creation evolution will never end… But the way I see it, is to believe in Evolution is to call God a liar.
And besides who has ever witnessed evolution? But in today’s world things are created all the time! why should it have been any different long ago? before time?
The Big bang.. yea right like dust particles could explodes and make something.. Even if they were some how able to go boom, the last time I checked everything that went boomy, went bybye..
But lets go as far as to say there was a big bang… You think all of creation happened by chance? everything how beautifullly constructeds the universe, the amount of stars, teh placing of the Sun and planets? you think that happened by chance? No way its silly to believbe that.. If the Sun was even the slightest degree closer to us we would burn, and further any we would freeze, I say thats gotta be at least a 1 2 1000000000000000000000000000 worth of a chance a boom did that!
but again in the end its all faith!!! Since none of us were there back in the days I would rather put my faith in something that makes more sense, and something someone has witnessed and wrote about! then something that was not written about but was thought up of someone who thought they needed an explanation to prove there was no God.
[quote post="150"]Why do people believe in God?[/quote]
Let me present for consideration, the idea that every person practices religion – religion simply being a system of beliefs (and denials) about the supernatural realm. This would include every common form of religion, from Christianity to Hinduism to Atheism to every variant of the Occult, all the relatively unknown native religions and cults such as Freemasonry.
The agnostic? Personally, I allege that even he must have some (conscious or unconscious) presupposition of what he claims is unknowable, but for sake of this discourse, I will allow that one exception to the rule that “everyone practices religion.”
Agreeing with TXStorm, I’ve come to the conclusion that all religions– whether polytheistic, monotheistic, or atheistic – are practiced in order to alleviate some kind of fear.
That fear may be a fear of:
- some supernatural entity (theistic religions usually try to appease angry deities),
- other humans (some people practice religion to fit in or avoid persecution), or
- some other fear (perhaps one in TXStorm’s list).
Therefore it follows, that if one loses that initial fear, they may cease to be religious or (more likely) ignore their religion.
People who change religions do so because their fears were never annulled by the first religion.
People who change religions due to a new fear, without first looking for a solution in their original religion, are vain, shallow, and tempestuous, when it comes to their former religion.
To argue that your religion is the ‘true religion’ or better than another, is to present one or both of the following:
a) a different fear or set of fears
b) a different solution for those fears
I think that the reason most people believe in god(s) do so because they were taught to fear those god(s) either from childhood or as an adult. It would be interesting to know for sure, but I suspect that most people who change religions stay under the umbrella of their original religion: monotheism, polytheism, or atheism.
[quote post="150"]if you’re a believer [in God], do you fit into one (or more) of the above? Or is your case different?[/quote]
I’m a believer, but haven’t always been. And I haven’t always believed for the same reason.
Currently, I would be classified as a combination between:
#3 – I’ve been educated that way: I was brought up in a Christian family;
#10 – I’ve had some unusual experience that made me believe: Significant experiences in my life have:
- inspired a fear for the unknown (by training, the God who is not yet completely known to any man, much less me)
- agreed with multiple biblical descriptions of God’s nature
#14 – Inspirations from other believers: I consider the tremendous amount of martyrdom among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and others who believe in God. I also consider the multicultural collaboration of evidence supporting the legends surrounding God; for example, the legend of a worldwide flood. (http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html)
Yes, most people do count the hits (affirmative responses to prayer) and ignore the misses (non-responses or unintended answers). However, instead of ignoring the misses, _my_ “misses” per-se have prompted me at various times to either
a) further explore the nature of God as presented by Christianity, or
b) lapse into Deism
I’ve considered many times and even now that Christianity may not be the right religion (after all, not everyone would be born into the correct religion) but I’ve never feared that enough to seek a solution in some other religion.
I don’t want to be vain, shallow, or tempestuous when it comes to religion (those characteristics are vices in most moral systems), so I must needs explore, in more depth, biblical Christianity before I could determine that Christianity held no relief for a new fear. So far, I have found no uncalmed fear… maybe that’s because I’m pretty cocky and brave anyway, or maybe because Christianity was created to answer all fears (after all, it claims to be).
Well you begin with a contradiction, that being that atheism is a religion. X = Not X is necessarily a contradiction and clearly cannot ever under any circumstance be true.
While actual religions do fall prey to the negative characteristics you discribe, reason does not. Reason is not fear based, and though you imply I agree with you that reason is fear based, let me be perfectly clear that I could not possibly disagree more with that sentiment.
I began by defining what I considered to be religion; this agrees with Webster’s definition:
[quote post="150"]Religion:
2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
Religious:
1 : relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity[/quote]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Atheists are devoted ‘to an acknowledged ultimate reality’ (that there is no God).
——
When I said I agreed with you, I was agreeing with your statement that:
[quote post="150"]The short answer which accounts for all but the smallest of a fraction of a single percentage of the “faithful” is : fear.[/quote]
Are you using ‘Reason’ to mean ‘Atheism’ when you say that Reason is not fear based?
What drives people to reason and debate philosophical ideas?
Is not Reason (whether Atheism or any philosophical arguement) often driven by
a) fear not understanding the truth, of living one’s life based on a lie or
b) fear of the issues that are not understood?
Atheist is not a religion for the many reasons cited on this site, but here too because it is not as you choose to define religion as having an “ultimate reality” (sic).
That no gods exist is simply one fact about reality nothing more nor less. This fact is far from an ultimate fact, which is what I take the otherwise nonsensical term “ultimate reality” to mean to mean.
I’ve never come across even a single example of people “driven to reason” much less “driven to reason” for fear of any sort, including the rather peculiar causes you suggest.
What of simple love of knowledge? A desire for wisdom? A drive to live an authentic life? Reason unlike religion is not fear based, nor does it necessitate fear.
TXStorm is correct. Reason is not fear based. It is ego and pride based. The man that lives by reason alone has an awefully high opinion of himself not to mention an incredible ability to throw out evidence that doesn’t support their beliefs.
Now on for the rest.
Congrats, You went looking to disprove God to yourself and you’ve done that. I’m so proud of you.
Not to mention humbled by your incredible intellects and superiority over all us stupid cunt believers. Here’s a thought for you. Are you ready? Well, probably not but let me try.
I don’t practice a religion out of fear – period. If you don’t believe me grab your gun (or your Final Fantasy sword) and pony up. I began my initial study of religion for the same reason I studied the various sciences. To figure out what the heck was going on around here.
What is reality to you? You probably have only the most vague of answers based on what you can see and think… Maybe all this happened through evolution, yeah that’s right evolution. That’s the scientific answer for everything now right? Now, I believe evolution has played a role in the development of life as we know it but I cannot believe this started through what Darwin called the “Law” of evolution. Why? How did the first being that developed eyes know there would be something to see? Oh, it was just a crap shoot – the “Law” just tries stuff until it finds something successful? If you believe that you have two things 1. No “Law” (were did this law come from anyway) and 2. More faith in accidental success than almost any man has ever had in God.
Organic chemistry focuses on chemistry involving carbon because it is the “building block of life”. Then we find creatures deep in the ocean that live without oxygen and are not based on carbon. Wow, the intellect of man amazes me. In fact, it comes in my list as the second most amazing thing – right behind their conceit.
So, try as it might science and logic has yet to come to anything resembling a satisfactory answer to how this all got started and what I am by themselves. Don’t worry, I know you “know” what a human is but I don’t believe you do. You’ve just decided that their is enough “logical” evidence to support your belief.
The secret that everyone seems to have forgotten is this: that science (pure science that is) was started for the same reason religions were. To understand reality.
In truth, I believe reality can be found by those who earnestly pursue it through every path. Or, as one great book put it, “seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be opened to you.” Truth is spelled out beautifully in the Bible and many other religious texts from faiths around the world. It can even be found in science if you have a big enough brain to ask why and realize that ultimately you will come to a hypothesis that can’t be tested – perior.
The problem is that few can understand it well enough to teach it and even fewer have the courage to pursue it. As a result of these difficulties few people can lead you successfully to it.
I would also like to talk about the statement that faith is a glass pillar – another analogy I thought completely useless. Nothing great was ever done without faith. Sure some great things were done without faith in a God but nothing great has ever been done without the faith that it could be done.
But I’m going to stop now because a few things are obvious to me:
- You started this conversation simply to show, through the use of logic, how logic is superior to belief. In fact, you would put everything up to logic except your belief in logic itself.
- You really shouldn’t be surprised of your ability to convince yourself of what you believe. After all, faith wins in discussions of the faithful while they laugh at your logic.
But, most importantly. I don’t care what you think because what you think, what I think, has no bearing on what is really happening, it does not change the truth. The sad fact is this. You are simply asking unimportant questions because you fear asking “what is really going on here? What the heck am I and what am I doing here?”
Sorry I have rambled, feel free to use that against my thoughts if it provides you with comfort.
Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship with God!
[quote post="150"]TXStorm is correct. Reason is not fear based. It is ego and pride based. The man that lives by reason alone has an awefully high opinion of himself not to mention an incredible ability to throw out evidence that doesn’t support their beliefs.[/quote]
I don’t know about the rest, but the application of reason isn’t based on emotion, or emotional roles of the human subconcious.
Sure, there is something wrong with someone who lives ONLY by reason and by no emotional qualities, but I wouldn’t say that having an oversized ego would be the problem. Someone with too big of an ego, or too much pride would actually AVOID using reason to determine that they are “better” than others, never equal.
Kash-
Actually in my experience, Christianity means a LOT of different things to different people. Either way, a relationship with God would be concidered a religion… I think.
A definition a a Christian is: One who surrenders his/her life to Christ, and lives his/her life for him, and no one else.
The reason I said that b4, is when people here religion, they usually assume church, rituals, vudo’s etc whatever
Thats not what Christianity is. doing those things do not make you a Christian, it does not matter what religion you are, or what Church you go to,
what matters is whats between you and God, at the heart.
Daryl,
Clearly you are not familiar with reason. If anything it is anti-ego since unlike religion, there is no presumption of omniscience, but rather an acknowledgement that reality is the final arbitrary of truth. The most that an individual can hope for is to understand some small aspect of reality, which for those motivated by ego would be a terrible blow. Religion on the other hand promises to put the individual on a pedestal, to make them more than in fact they are. It feeds the ego and fear without ever allowing that there is any possibility that the individual could be mistaken.
For the person who employs reason, there is the possibility that they can be mistaken about a given fact of the world, and all that is necessary to demonstrate or reveal this is evidence. Again this is counter to religion in that nothing can ever count as evidence against the religious belief to the religous, which is clearly a statement of ego in the form of profound arrogance.
Since the errors are so clear in your claims about science, there is little need to go through them one by one. But it is worth looking at the gross error of reasoning found in this claim:
[quote] So, try as it might science and logic has yet to come to anything resembling a satisfactory answer to how this all got started and what I am by themselves. Don’t worry, I know you “know” what a human is but I don’t believe you do. You’ve just decided that their is enough “logical” evidence to support your belief.[/quote]
Now, ask yourself how “god” (for which no evidence whatsoever has ever been offered) got started. If your answer is merely “well it has always been” then you must either also accept this as a satisfactory answer for how reality “got started” else reveal that you are employing a clear double standard.
You have another factual error which needs addressing. You assume that religion was started to understand reality, but of course not only is this not true it cannot be true. COnsider that religion in no way deals with reality, but rather engages in pure fantasy and fiction. How is this supposed to enlighten us about reality? Recall that one of the larger religons continues to condemn education, including the very idea that the earth revolves around the sun, until just about ten years ago. For millenia we have known that in fact this is wrong-headed but the religion dictated otherwise because it went against their true purpose and sole reaosn for being created: control of others.
As for what you strangely refer to as a “belief” in logic, to examine whether this works compare it to reality. In EVERY instance you will find that in fact logic works. The reason for this? Because logic is merely the tool we use to describe reality.
Kren,
Yes, logic in itself is not based on emotion. That being said, what most people around here are trying to pass as logic is simply an attempt at making their own beliefs seem sound and well developed. In fact, I am more than willing to bet that you are correct – most of the logic driven people around here immediately throw logic out when its time to make their opinion of themselves and others, especially where intellect is concerned.
TXStorm,
Yes, of course you are right! I have no understanding of logic or reason though I continue to make my living through those very tools each and every day. If you were being logical and not ego-driven the first statement of your post would never have come to be. Therefore, you prove the ego-nature through your actions.
I agree with what you meant by “reality is the final arbitrary of truth”. Yes, it is simple to agree that truth is truth, reality is reality and what is is. So the second part of your second sentence holds as obvious. As for ego in religion, if what you are referring to is ego in a practitioner and/or the “ego” of organized religion I would agree that it does in fact exist. In fact, I would say those very qualities are some of the ones a true disciple (of practically any faith) should be working to get rid of. We would have to examine whether or not those ego qualities are appropriate if one were to really base their life on the original moral teachings that began the religion.
My religious beliefs do not put me on a pedestal and your logic cannot show that my beliefs make me more than I, in fact, am. My beliefs can easily be changed through evidence. However, I probably require a greater degree of evidence than you. For example, just because mice and flies can be found in and around bags of grain I will not believe they come from grain even though this kind of belief was common at one point and completely fitting for the logic of the time.
“Since the errors are so clear in your claims about science, there is little need to go through them one by one.” No, please do. Whenever you’re ready I am ready to learn.
[quote comment="7598"]You have another factual error which needs addressing. You assume that religion was started to understand reality, but of course not only is this not true it cannot be true. COnsider that religion in no way deals with reality, but rather engages in pure fantasy and fiction.[/quote]
You think I assume that it was started to understand reality but I make no such assumption. At the root of EVERY religion in the world is an attempt to understand/explain reality. I do realize that this purpose has been lost on most “religious” people but it is in fact the reason it they were begun. I also realize that organized religions have used their power to control people and manipulate things but such behavior is contrary to the root of the teachings. If you think not then ask yourself this: what was in it for Siddhartha (Buddha), Jesus of Nazareth or Muhammad?
[quote comment="7598"]As for what you strangely refer to as a “belief” in logic, to examine whether this works compare it to reality. In EVERY instance you will find that in fact logic works. The reason for this? Because logic is merely the tool we use to describe reality.[/quote]
No, you will find that logic works to your satisfaction. I will find that my perceptive capabilities are always limiting my ability to perceive truth. For instance, in my last college level organic chemistry class the teacher said “when mixture A is combined with mixture B the particles will mix randomly”. However, in my first college level physics class we were taught “all objects exert a force on all other objects”. If I am watching these chemicals mix then I am exerting a force, I am part of an equation I cannot understand through science and I cannot logically conclude that the particles mix randomly. To say it is random is a farce, to use your perception of it as proof is a farce.
Or, maybe a more simple example. What I say is almost never what another person hears. They hear what they thought I meant as it has been filtered through their past experiences. Now let me ask you, from a logical perspective, if I say X meaning X but your hear X meaning Y and we don’t clear up the confusino whose reality of what just happened during that conversation is correct? Lets compare answers over the next few posts.
One last thing. Please don’t take anything I say personally. I can in no way be better than you and do not think myself more intelligent. I just might be a little closer to right than you but, maybe not. I’m simply being here trying to understand what is happening just like you are. But, please do keep the conversation going – I like it.
What I was getting at is that logic has a fundamental weakness – it is based on our perception. Our perception is limited at best. For example I experience my car as being the color blue however science would tell me that it is in reality all the other colors – that blue is the one color it reflects (does not absorb) and therefore is the color that it isn’t.
I’m by no means saying that logical is illogical. The use of logic alone to try and understand the base reality, especially when people on either side so quickly write off any evidence to the contrary, is illogical.
One last comment, for the original author, you said: “You feel that your faith in something greater than yourself gives your life purpose and meaning.” Tell me, if there is no power greater than us, nothing but what we see, what is the purpose of life? Now, if you are going to say “the purpose of life is life itself” then I ask you for other examples where the purpose of something is itself. You know, “The purpose of phone is phone itself” or “the purpose of blog is blog itself”. I can’t think of any. It would be a more logical argument to say that there is no evidence to support the belief that life has to have a purpose. But, if you believe that then why do you banter on about the beliefs of others? I mean, other than to feel superior (there goes that logical ego thing again).
for me, i think what human, after all is God’s entertainment. a simple analogy would be an ant farm that you create, do you care what the ants do? good or bad? you don’t award the ‘good ones’ and condemn the ‘bad ones’, do you? things like holocausts are one of many tragedies that just happens in life. and people winning the lotteries are other examples of things that just happens in life. what define miracles? is it something caused by the supernatural? could be. or could it simply be an accumulation of good probabilities and we emphasize it to the point it becomes a ‘miracle’?
same goes for people who gets an accumulation of bad probabilities that we believe in ‘bad luck’ and ’superstitions’. so..
does it really matter what we do in life, good or bad? if we believe that there is neither hell nor a heaven, on that premise, the actions and things you and i do will suddenly not have a heaven or hell connotation to it. only then will we ever have peace of mind to live life like it shouuld be. anyways, that is my 2 cents. shit happens, oh well.
Daryl,
Through my own experience, you can throw any religion aside and say that the purpose of ones life is to make a better life for your children.
This is universal. Every human,(Almost) of every race, on every continent, of every religion, has this same goal throughout life. Hell, throughout the existance of living things.
You can track this back, because EVERY mamal looks for a suitable courter. Animals refuse to mate with diseased animals.
Animals we are, but intelect we have…
Kren,
I can see your point about making a better life for your children. That is love. God is love.
TXStorm and others,
I have recently re-read my posts and have found in them the same quality that I abhor in many of the posts that I reply to. I feel compelled to apologize for my hostility.
You see, I too, dislike mental laziness, but see it in a different light than others, including many of you. I would whole-heartedly agree that the majority of people accept the understanding that has been handed them without much of a second thought. That is very, very sad.
However, I am also of the opinion that there is often wisdom and truth in the places that we deem most unlikely. We should carefully consider the strengths and weaknesses of our systems as we choose them. To summarily throw out thousands of years of human understanding because it doesn’t fit our model MAY be the ultimate in human ignorance.
For example, Buddhism is supposed to be a belief which you prove to yourself. On this premise each participant has performed a number of “studies” that have led them to their beliefs. While they cannot show proof of their beliefs to you, generations of followers have come to the same conclusions and you are welcome to try the experiment(s) out for yourself.
In Contrast, the scientific method is based solely on what can be observed with our own senses and seldom makes room for logical deduction if it can in no way be tested but makes complete sense based on all the evidence to date.
In other words, in our search toward truth and reality it makes little sense to spend time attacking the views of another unless we are trying to understand what value they may hold for us. If that is the question we are asking then we should honestly ask it and, sooner or later, someone will honestly answer it.
So, you can learn much from science but, what can you learn from the worlds religions, literature, art and history? In short, what can the thousands of years of human history teach you and point you toward?
Then, when you put these things together, it becomes a matter of probability, not concrete fact. At least, that’s where it starts, in my opinion.
So, what can you teach me? That is the question.
Why do I believe in a “God”? Well, do you have any other explanation for the beginning? Not for the change/evolution but, for the beginning? By the way, I probably don’t picture God like you think I do.
Another question. What natural thing could the world’s various religions (and science) all be pointing too and be calling God, Nirvana, etc…?
[quote post="150"]So, you can learn much from science but, what can you learn from the worlds religions, literature, art and history? [/quote]
Mostly the religions repeat moral values that are good… and a lot that are also horrible.
Literature is literature, it can be fiction. Art is art and for the most part it is subjective as to weather or not it is “good” art. So I don’t see what you can LEARN from it.
History teaches us what’s happened before. We can learn via example. When it comes to the history of religion, you see SO many different religions, mostly all saying the same things, argueing and sometimes having WARS over the specifications of each “different” religion. All DO say that there is a God, something they can’t prove in the first place.
Personally, I can’t teach you anything. I’m not an expert in science, OR religion.
I don’t think anybody can explain the “beginning”. If I said big bang, you may very well ask me to explain that, but not having an explanation for the universe gives no weight to the existance of God.
[quote post="150"]What natural thing could the world’s various religions (and science) all be pointing too and be calling God, Nirvana, etc…?[/quote]
The universe itself? I don’t know. Science to me is just pointing toward the comfort of humanity. More space travel, more organ replacement… I don’t see anything having to do with God or Nirvana when it comes to science. Religions themselves are pointing towards God, something in which I no longer believe.
I have one thing to say and it is this….
Why does everyone believe christianity is religion?
It is only religion if we make it so but reality is its a faith in god with free choices to be made for our own lives not to be made by others.
Its about time we looked at it in the aspect of do we believe we have freedom of choice or are we gonna foloow man made rules and regulations
I truly find it very difficult to understand how
someone in this day and age falls victim to such
absurdity, though I suppose if something is repeated
enough, you believe it.
i feel that all your reasons for people beliveing in God center around the satisfaction or convenience believing in God gives to a believer…whether it be comfort or reasons for existence, etc.
all those reasons really reflect back to self-worship… people naturally are self-serving… taking care of themselves comes much easier than denying their natural wants or needs in order to serve or love someone else.
people may believe in “god” because of the reasons you listed. however if we’re dealing with the Christian God…who sent his son Jesus Christ as the atonement for sins… then your reasons may be what propels a person to acknowledge God
but full-fledged belief, in the sense of giving one’s life to Jesus Christ, is indeed the most satisfying and fulfilling choice a person could likely ever make… however, it also means surrendering much “comfort” …Jesus calls his followers to “leave everything” and follow him. True Christians are brutally murdered for sharing their faith. They experience rejection and hate. They are not shielded from the pain of the world…they suffer the death of children and parents. they fight cancer… In the Bible Job is stripped of his family, land, health, and friends…yet Job will not deny God no matter how horrible things get. There are examples of people like Job today.
steadfast belief in God can not be merely surmised as convenient…for following Jesus Christ is a joy and is wonderful and a privledge but not convenient…
therefore why do people believe in god? …they believe in the gods of many religions perhaps for the reasons you listed…
Why do people believe in the God of the Bible? …i’d challenge YOU to read the Bible and find out. I’d suggest beginning in the New Testament…start in the gospels, maybe John…then read Romans…and before you read those books i’d suggest you pray “God, if you’re real..show yourself” before you begin.
The answer is worth discovering. People lay down their lives because of it.
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