Do you believe in God?

@Brian phil,

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Scientists say "The Big Bang is a cosmological model of the universe that is scientifically supported by all lines of observation and techniques for investigating phenomena in use at the moment, an idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense point-like singularity." Joe Six Pack just got a headache only from reading that.

The other side is saying "God created the universe because my texts written by goat herders, hundreds even thousands of years ago when even toilet paper was something unimaginable, are true because they say they are true, which is true because Jesus said it is true."

The other side being religion? That's strange. You know, some scientists (though, I personally do not take in stock in their work) claim the earth is some few thousand years old and make many other apparently anti-scientific claims. Also, many religious people and religious leaders reject fundamentalist interpretation of scripture, such as the sort caricatured in the above quote, and instead suggest that the scientific account for the origin of the universe, planet and species are historically accurate.

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As theists face the burden of evidence in claiming the existence of God, and they cannot and probably will not do so, the auto-epistemic rule comes to the fore , so here indeed absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence

So belief in God is either a silly notion or a certain sort of experience that some people have either not had, or noticed. I'm with you.

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and no argument from ignorance; whereas to posit God without evidence is using the argument from ignorance.
Faith is a cop-out as it is just the we just say so of credulity. It begs the question of Him as there is no evidence therefor.

Wait a second. It seems like you've made quite a jump. I know I chopped up your post, but as I think you'll see, there is good reason.

Argument from ignorance, in this case, would apply if the theist claims that God exists because the existence of God has not been shown to be false. But this condition has not been met simply because neither the theist nor the atheist can demonstrably prove their assertion.

As for a "cop-out", I'm really lost on the logical chain. A cop out from what? If someone claims to have an experience of God, and is in sound mental health, who are we to deny that experience? Not to say we should embrace the notion simply because someone says the experience is real, but we have to at least admit that we do not know.

I see no logical error in not believing in God; that's a personal matter related to the sort of spiritual guidance that makes most sense to you. But there does seem to be a hasty jump to deny alien experiences for no reason aside from the fact that they are alien. Alien experiences, especially ones so strange as God, should be met with a healthy degree of skepticism, but most certainly not off hand disregard.

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I agree anyone has the right to believe whatever they want to. What I don't agree on is their right to actively and forcefully spread and propagate those believes, especially in schools and kindergartens.

Then do you also argue that history, literature and the arts should not be taught to children? Even science is susceptible to the sort of over the top antics religion so often displays. Mathematics might be another story.

But you see my point. These are subjects which are easily abused by dogma, fundamentalism and intolerance, especially when students are caught young. If the history teacher is a good, honest instructor, then the teacher should teach children as early as possible. Similarly, if the religious teaching is good and honest, children should also be taught from a young age - life is short, no time to waste. The important matter is the quality of instruction.

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@Pythagorean,

I would say that the pole is flawed as it does not include the option
'Do you know God?'

Belief implies a probability, like
'I believe the stock market will go down next week'
Wherease knowing is certain :
'I know that I exist'

God is defined as perfection.
In order for something to be perfect, it must exist, or it would not be perfect.
(Descartes)

Thus,
I know God exists.

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

Please vote above.

Please tell me if you believe in God or don't believe.

Perhaps you could give some explanation or reason for your position?

Thank you
--Pythagorean

Hi Pythagorean

Yes, I do believe in God.

Sometimes when that question is asked, people assume that the person asking the question means, "Do you believe in the Christian God?" Now I personally do but I think the much bigger question about belief in God should be this...

Did the universe (which includes literally billions of superclusters of Galaxies, and that's just what we can detect) come into being by accident or was there some kind of independent intelligent entity behind it all.

That is a far more philosophically interesting question than the old Atheist/Christian debate which is boring and has gone on for years.

But yes, I do believe in God.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Hi

It would be far better to completely forget the whole question of the bible and who did or didn't write it and to ask the following question instead... Did the universe (by that, I mean all the detectable Galaxy superclusters and everything beyond that we can't yet see..) did this come into being by accident or was there some kind of independent intelligent entity behind it all.

Getting bogged down with the whole Christian/Jewish/Islamic God arguement will just lead us up a dead end.

All religions aside, I find it quite difficult to believe that a single random quantum fluctuation created a singularity that exploded without some kind of intelligent process which either knew about it or was behind it.

Dave

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@DaveW phil,

We can speculate but we must not have wishful thinking..If we say a creator created the universe we have to imaging his purpose his ambitions this is the difficulty we all have...

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@Pythagorean,

Its not hard at all... we have some eletronic games that put the player in the position of god, or all-around controller of everthing. Why people play those games? Either to experiment, or to have fun, so the universe is either a experiment or a game from god Smile

But personally I believe that we are god in this world. As for other worlds, or higher/lower/parallel/nosense layers of reality, I believe that god can or not exist in any of then.

1 Reply

@manored,

manored wrote:

Its not hard at all... we have some eletronic games that put the player in the position of god, or all-around controller of everthing. Why people play those games? Either to experiment, or to have fun, so the universe is either a experiment or a game from god

But personally I believe that we are god in this world. As for other worlds, or higher/lower/parallel/nosense layers of reality, I believe that god can or not exist in any of then.

Speculate all you like but its wishful thinking not facts....believe was the key word...There are certainties in life and then there are unknowns...dont get them confused..

1 Reply

@DaveW phil,

DaveW wrote:

All religions aside, I find it quite difficult to believe that a single random quantum fluctuation created a singularity that exploded without some kind of intelligent process which either knew about it or was behind it.

Any event that has a greater than zero probability to happen will happen, given enough time, otherwise one can not call it (im)probable- but impossible.

It is unreasonable to affirm that the birth of the universe caused by natural, mechanical, non "divine" causes, is an impossibility.

It is unreasonable to affirm that because the universe appears too complex (or hard to understand) it is an impossibility that it has formed itself, as we see it, from natural causes, on its own.

It is unreasonable to affirm that an agent (required to be more complex than the already-too-complex universe) is necessary to precede and/or aid the universe into existence, simply because one does not (or can not) explain or properly describe the origin of the universe.

One can safely affirm that the natural birth of the universe has an extremely higher probability to happen on its own. In other words, this probability is higher than the probability of being born while aided by a "divine", more complex agent. Why ?

Because if you add a (more complex) agent to the calculation of probability regarding the birth of the universe then the probability makes no sense any more, since the universe was created at will. One would then be obligated to try and calculate the probability of existence of such an (even more complex) agent, and the probability of its own birth. Because of this agent's much increased complexity, the probability of its existence lowers even more.
One is then forced to calculate the probability of a "divine" agent to appear on its own- or be aided into existence by another even more complex agent. And so on, and so on, the probability will tend to zero.

So while one can not state with complete confidence that the universe was aided into existence by an agent, OR that it came into existence on its own, by natural causes, -- one can certainly look at the probabilities and draw the following conclusion:

The universe exists therefore it is reasonable to assume that the event that caused its birth is the one that had the highest probability to happen. One that excludes an additional, more complex, more improbable to exist, "divine" agent.

This is hard to put in practice though. A person will say "Yes, the universe is so very complex, but God isn't", as a member of this forum said: "For me, God is the most natural concept there is."

Well my answer would be, "The universe is real, you can see and sense its vastness and complexity, it slaps you in the face, while God is just a thought in one's head, a thought one can easily forge as an answer to this observed complexity, and that's why it is EASY to THINK of God".

Also I guess people don't like to think of themselves as "happened-by-accident" beings... it lowers their self worth or something ...

Thanks for reading.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

[...] if the religious teaching is good and honest, children should also be taught from a young age - life is short, no time to waste. The important matter is the quality of instruction.

Religious teaching good and honest ? Is "good and honest" religion teaching going on anywhere ? Maybe in the Scandinavian countries where people are civilized. But in the US or Britain ? No way. Hinduism taught to small aged children along with Taoism, Islam and Christianity ? No way, not in Britain, not in the US, not even here in Eastern Europe where I live. Religion class, usually taught by priests/reverends/whatevers will always indoctrinate with the local religion, and make children memorize prayers and dogma.

View 30 seconds video below. No one does anything to prevent this from happening. No one steps up to smack these idiots over the head for dumbing down children, explicitly telling them to distrust scientists and believe priests and reverends. As you can see, this isn't going on in some remote village ...

YouTube - Mind poisoning

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@xris,

xris wrote:

Speculate all you like but its wishful thinking not facts....believe was the key word...There are certainties in life and then there are unknowns...dont get them confused..

Life is not made of facts, its made of wishfull thinking: One being who is pure reason does nothing, as nothing drives it to do things, unless it receives instructions from something else. There is one point in reason where you have to make a wishfull decision.

And there are several experiments comproving that thoughs affect reality, so I will stick to my idea of that we are god Smile

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@manored,

Quote:

Religious teaching good and honest ? Is "good and honest" religion teaching going on anywhere ? Maybe in the Scandinavian countries where people are civilized. But in the US or Britain ? No way. Hinduism taught to small aged children along with Taoism, Islam and Christianity ? No way, not in Britain, not in the US, not even here in Eastern Europe where I live. Religion class, usually taught by priests/reverends/whatevers will always indoctrinate with the local religion, and make children memorize prayers and dogma.

No way? How do you know? I have met several wonderful Buddhist monks who give teachings. I have even met a few Christian ministers who give good teaching. Good teaching is just about everywhere in the world, you just have to look for it.

And yes, a great deal of religious teaching is good and honest. If such teaching can be given in Scandanavia, such teaching can be given in all parts of the world. Looking at the distribution of scholars and well respected teachers, Scandanavia is far from having a monopoly on good religious teaching.

Memorizing prayer and dogma can be good, and also terrible. Depends on the teacher and on the student. Mostly the teacher.

Quote:

View 30 seconds video below. No one does anything to prevent this from happening. No one steps up to smack these idiots over the head for dumbing down children, explicitly telling them to distrust scientists and believe priests and reverends. As you can see, this isn't going on in some remote village ...

I didn't watch the video - but sure, a great deal of terrible teaching is given. But people do stand up against terrible teaching. I have protested churches. Get out and act if you see a problem.

1 Reply

@Didymos Thomas,

Since this is a philosophy forum, I believe the options on the poll should be better worded. Atheist and Agnostic are some of the most misunderstood words and consequentially some of the most frequent misnomers. I am not suggesting I am an expert, but I have heard the terms thrown around carelessly too often.

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@manored,

manored wrote:

Life is not made of facts, its made of wishfull thinking: One being who is pure reason does nothing, as nothing drives it to do things, unless it receives instructions from something else. There is one point in reason where you have to make a wishfull decision.

And there are several experiments comproving that thoughs affect reality, so I will stick to my idea of that we are god

Im not stopping you ,believe what you likebut its convincing others is always a problem, when its faith driven..

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@Pythagorean,

I don't like the word believe. It is too much of a short cut word.

Think about it. The only time we use the word believe is when we have absolutely no idea what so ever and yet desire to take a stand on it.

I simply choose to say that I don't know because I have no evidence either way. Or, more accurately, have the same sort of consequential evidence both ways.

1 Reply

@Icon,

Icon wrote:

I don't like the word believe. It is too much of a short cut word.

Think about it. The only time we use the word believe is when we have absolutely no idea what so ever and yet desire to take a stand on it.

I simply choose to say that I don't know because I have no evidence either way. Or, more accurately, have the same sort of consequential evidence both ways.

So what do not believe...sorry evidence is not relevant because you have none...

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@Pythagorean,

Just because it is not present does not mean that it is not relevant. As a matter of fact, because we have none, it is far more relevant than if we had very little. Without evidence, what we have is a non-idea. Nothing more than a story created by man with no proof. The religious texts which we use to define god have all been altered as new discoveries prove them incorrect. So we have a story that constantly changes as we learn and grow. This is not showing me that god exists but rather that man has no idea WHAT to think. I do not believe in anything. I have a good idea about many things but do not know or believe any of it.

The fault of man is assumption.

1 Reply

@Icon,

Icon wrote:

Just because it is not present does not mean that it is not relevant. As a matter of fact, because we have none, it is far more relevant than if we had very little. Without evidence, what we have is a non-idea. Nothing more than a story created by man with no proof. The religious texts which we use to define god have all been altered as new discoveries prove them incorrect. So we have a story that constantly changes as we learn and grow. This is not showing me that god exists but rather that man has no idea WHAT to think. I do not believe in anything. I have a good idea about many things but do not know or believe any of it.

The fault of man is assumption.

so you think there is a god but you dont believe it..:perplexed:

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@Pythagorean,

No... I simply don't know. I'm not afraid of not knowing and do not need to take a stance one way or the other. This is a subject without sufficient evidence to form a conclusion. In other words: I am not going to choose yes or no. I am going to stay in the middle and say that I have no earthly or heavenly idea whether or not "God" exists.

My stance is that I have no stance. No one has a leg to stand on in this subject. It is just as redundant as debating the existence of dragons or of the boogy man.

1 Reply

@Icon,

Icon wrote:

No... I simply don't know. I'm not afraid of not knowing and do not need to take a stance one way or the other. This is a subject without sufficient evidence to form a conclusion. In other words: I am not going to choose yes or no. I am going to stay in the middle and say that I have no earthly or heavenly idea whether or not "God" exists.

My stance is that I have no stance. No one has a leg to stand on in this subject. It is just as redundant as debating the existence of dragons or of the boogy man.

I appologise but your refusal to use the word believe led me to believe you did believe....:surrender:

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@Pythagorean,

"God" is what you want to believe it is.... Simple as that...

"YES" I do "Believe"..But my god is very different than say.."your god" Wink

-BaC

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