Do you believe in God?

Peter, I laughed when I read this last post with the "fairies at the bottom of my garden"! At any rate, I do agree that you can't say that something could exist just because it cannot be disproven. It does seem that sort of statement doesn't go much of anywhere. One person could say, "well, God exists because you can't disprove it" while the other could say, "well, God does not exist because you can't prove it".

With Pythagorean's statement of:

"If God made an appearance before the world or some part of the world, then wouldn't he be joining himself with the world? And wouldn't that change the nature of the world? Such as creating a total unity out of a sensible plurality? And even after he did so, if he then left, if there were no empirical proof of His visit to the world people thousands of years later would still begin to disbelieve. So we would be back where we started."

Well, different religions believe that God has already shown himself, so-to-speak, and hence forth the religions sprang from these appearances. And if God does exist, and he created the world, why would it necessarily change the nature of it, for God to visit and prove himself? I mean, afterall, he is God, and he can do basically whatever he wants, right? And to the last part, where we'd be right back to where we started if he did show and then leave, well, I thought of something. Think of all the various religions that make up this world. Many of them hold beliefs that there was a time when God or Gods were very prominent in our human earthly existence. Perhaps God would punish or reward humans for certain behaviors. Now, my new question is, if a God does exist, and every religion is wrong, and God simply has never been around or made an appearance in any way, or if one or many of them are correct and he has been involved in our earlier days, why would he stop being involved? Why reward all those earlier generations with the luxury of a sort of faithless belief system, and the later generations with only faith? (Sorry if the wording is funny, I'm trying to express these ideas with as much clearity as possible).

But then to Peter's Darwinism of the species who would be social in nature and also intelligent would aquire morality.

This may be a bad example, but I'll try it anyway. There's a show on the television (i think the discovery channel) where these two men go to south america and study a tribe there that has been mostly untouched for centuries by the growing technological world around it. Because of the severity of the isolation, this tribe, and the surrounding tribes, hold what we might think of as primative ideas. For instance, one fellow from the main tribe did something to another tribe (i think he raped one of their women or something of the sort) and his very own tribe, his very family, gave him up to the other tribe to be killed because of his wrong doings. They did this because it was how things were done, to prevent a war, and because they thought it was what was fair.

Now, socially and intelligently, it prevently a war. Emotionally, however, could you imagine giving up your father, or brother, to be killed? Would you be able to? Or is this just an example of Moslow's triangle? And does have a certain cultural set of morals necessarily implicate a necessary belief in God?

Hi, Elizabeth, I'm glad you found the "fairies" reference amusing. I have to admit that it is not original but comes from the philosopher A C Grayling.

You raise the point that God's appearances seem to have been confined to times past. In his recent book "God Is Not Great", Christopher Hitchens repeats a point originally made by David Hume that reports of the appearances of the various gods are largely limited to the pre-history or early history of the human race, when the great majority of the people were illiterate, uneducated and credulous of any passing rumour. Reports of appearances of the gods were not the only fantastic tales to emerge from such societies. Tales of monsters, giants, unicorns, etc come from the same sorts of circumstances. It is noticeable that as soon as a society becomes at least semi-literate and partially educated, tales of this kind seem to dry up miraculously.

Moral codes vary tremendously between societies and when we look at tribal societies we can see lots of things that strike us as barbaric or impossibly demanding. (Perhaps some of these people would find aspects of our societies equally puzzling.) The point is that the impulse to care for our relatives, friends and for the weak is a natural outgrowth of our social feelings. There is no need to invoke the God hypothesis to explain them.

Peter

Yes I do believe in God, but there are various definition that are giving to God. The God that I believe represent goodness and doing good. To me God is just a good feeling that makes you do good stuff and stop you from doing bad. CAN I PROVE IT, I don't think we need to since no matter how much evidence for or against we would again believe what we want, until we get a different feeling that would tell us not too.
However we should never tell one why they should or should not believe in God, since it is just impossible to prove such things. Let them feel happy since if you convince one that there is no god, and that person has believed in it for it entire life, he would loss a huge part him since it had live with such entitiy for such long time

An issue, isn't an agonist failed to see the believe, he does not say that there is or there isn't a good. I am an agonist when it comes to religion but not god!

Every single scientific theory is necessarily falsifiable, existential and a posteriori (open-ended). You can not ground it absolutely. If you could ground science then you would have proved that the sources of science, the sources of the universe, were themselves physical in nature (such as a Grand Unifying Theory). But Materialism in philosophy remains only a theory. The rational hypothesis that is tested by observation is always only probable, contingent and a posteriori. This is, in fact, the very nature of the physical universe itself and science cannot be an exception within the physical universe. Science does not exist as causa sui (cause of itself) but the human mind with the aid of science, as I have stated (and you have ignored), may penetrate into the foundations of natural existence.

This is why atomism had to be adopted in the 16th Century by the doctors. Atomism or the scientific method is an historical movement. And you can't seperate the physical sciences from empiricism or atomism, or materialism, which remain, for all their glory, speculative philosophies regarding the ultimate nature of the universe.

Here is an informative essay on the subject: by Ivor Leclerc


I might add that this is also why success in the physical sciences tends to be culturally dependent. This is why, for example, rabid ideological atheists (you know who you are!) are so reviled by the decent populations which make up the developing world. In fact, as I see it, the current terroristic moment in world history is nothing less than the revulsion paid by these non-western people against emprically-driven nations who are too dogmatic, closed-minded and smug regarding their obscene materialistic life-style.


But what I really think, is that atheists want the power to become gods themselves, it's too bad that they lack the capacity to make the necessary philosophic arguments (for atomism, for example). This philosophic vacuum makes the atheist-come-god little more than an intellectual laughing-stock with his superficial tendentiousness.

The error that is made here, Peter, is purely philosophical and intellectual. That science cannot prove or causally ground itself is a truth. Those who believe that science can a priori prove itself are in error.

And so it seems to me that those who desire to be an atheistic god on earth must arm themselves with philosophic argument. Because you may be able to economically oppress the peoples of the earth with empirical force, but this doesn't make their arguments any less valid than yours (if you have any). Unless of course, atheism is more about power than reason(?).

I don't see God as a person-like deity who makes external appearances in the form of a large bearded man with magic powers. I say that the external universe is the body or bodies that make up the surface of God. And so whatever God "does" he does it naturally. Just as whatever you or I do we must do naturally.

My point was that there exists an inner substance which is something like the soul of the universe or nature. When human beings have created deep cultures throughout history (such as the Jew culture) this depth of culture may have allowed them to, at times, brush against the inner substance of the natural order of things and the outcome was the historical interpretation of their national or cultural God. But it is human depth and the adventure of the human mind that gives insight. The soul of nature does not come out to greet human beings, it is human beings who must work hard and 'tunnel' so to speak, to reach the insight regarding the intelligible sources of things. This is why education is absolutely required. And with the aid of science we may now begin to 'tunnel' better and reach levels of power and beauty and understanding regarding the internal existence of nature.

Peter and DJames, yes! The source is just the mere feeling of super consciousness behind and beyond the cosmos.But as Existence- the cosmos- is all there is,there is no behind or beyond.God could only be immanent,not transcendent. Scientists:cool: , not theologians, as Dawkins well notes, are the ones concerned over the transformations of Existence.The Big Bang was not a real beginning of Existence, just a transformation:D .It will be bud to bud or bounce to bounce for the transformations. And as matter-energy can be neither created nor destroyed, the immanent God has no work to do! And there is no evidence for the inner soul of the Universe.:rolleyes:

You are so right, Pythagorean, when you say:

Every single scientific theory is necessarily falsifiable, existential and a posteriori (open-ended). You can not ground it absolutely.

The fact is that all our theories are similarly limited and prone to error - even your own theory that the universe has a soul and that the Jews were able to tap into it. I assume you agree with this since a neutral reader would be justly suspicious of a writer who proclaims the fallibility of his opponent's ideas but finds it possible to exempt his own from the same limitations.

A rational approach to knowledge would accept the fallibility of all our ideas from the start, demand evidence for each of them and allocate belief in proportion to the evidence. (As soon as evidence for a soul of the universe is produced, I will consider it.) As a subset of rational approaches to knowledge, the scientific method is expressly designed to detect its own errors. That is why it has been so successful. It happens that our culture invented the scientific method, so we can be justly proud of it.

Peter

If we went by common-sense evidence people would still believe that the world stood still. As I said, it took the adoption of a certain philosophy in order to get the results of modern science.

And here's a little science quizz:

Which weighs more, an ounce of gold or an ounce of lead?

(Note: It's a trick question.)

Yes, and the possible explanations are sometimes more important because taken together they often eventually will lead to important new breakthroughs. This is the Silicon Valley ethos: 'you must fail before you can succeed' (or something like that).

And I think that some predictions in Einstein's theory of general relativity, such as gravitational lensing, were not confirmed until years after he published. So I think some of the best science is done purely at the theoretical and imaginative level and is not confirmed until much later.

But it is known that Einstein believed in God, and I'm not sure but one reason he may have believed is because there is no seemingly possible quantitative reduction of the human imagination.

Pythagorean,

It is true imagination is said to be of the utmost importance as is stated by Einstein himself,the man did not believe in a personal god.He believe in the totality and order of the universe as god,a very different concept of divinity.The reason I interject here is that Einstein himself was very frustrated at being use by the religious to fortify their claims,he stated most firmly he did not believe in a personal god.

This, I think, is where our values and priorities diverge. I believe it is important to be upfront and open about the degree of certainty one is claiming, ie about distinguishing between explanations which are merely possible and those which have the backing of evidence. Clearly any theory will start life in the "possible" category and then perhaps attain the status of confirmed knowledge, but by no means all do. It is important to distinguish between the two categories - otherwise you are claiming certainty where it does not belong.

Einstein? The beliefs of a particular person are neither here nor there. Isaac Newton was into alchemy as well as physics, but try these quotations from Einstein:

"It was of course a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God."

"I have never imputed to nature a purpose or goal, or anything that could be understood an anthropomorphic."

"The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naieve."

Peter

Boagie, Peter,

Thank you for your responses.



Peter, my point was simply that the problems themselves have to be conceivable before any solution can be reached. And that the greatest progress usually lies within the branches of science which garner the most interest by scientists. I think you and I agree upon the inherent rigidity, not to say difficulty, of the hard sciences.

As far as Einstein is concerned I didn't mean to enlist him in my own conception which is of a kind of soul of the universe (a hylozoistic universe) which is accessbile by the human mind through math and science and nature. I do appreciate you laying out the facts. Einstein was only one man, true, but he seems to have posessed a keen insight into the nature of things, and whereas he was not a religious person in the conventional sense (which is the same with me) he was not an atheist either. Also I can greatly sympathize with someone like Einstein, who is not an atheist but whom other people with their own agenda try to put their own words in his mouth. It seems that even if I believe in God independently of conventional religions people will still associate me with them.

If I may, I would like to pose some general philosophical questions that I have been thinking about recently in light of our discussions here. These are some questions that persons who say there is some form of God has at least partial answers to; and that those who say there can be no God may have difficulty with. At least those that say there can be no God would have to philosophize, I think, in approaching these questions:

1. If the universe has no purpose, does that mean that the development of (human) life is purely a cosmic accident?
   
2. How would a purposeless chaos of particles evolve into intelligible galaxies, stars, and planets and living organisms?
   
3. Where did the universe come from?
   
4. Why does the universe exist now instead of, say, 75 trillion centuries in the past or in the future?
   
5. Why is there 'something' rather than nothing?
   
6. What is mind? What is thought? Is thought real?
   
7. Why is matter superior to mind?

That is a mere feeling that there is that impersonal god and the same for those who see a personal one.
That mere feeling is also the source of the notion that we need God for ultimate purpose, divine love and a future state. Our own purposes ,human love and this one life suffice,I daresay.
That mere feeling is a replaceable placebo!
That mere feeling results in pareidolia- seeing Yeshua in a tortilla or Mary in a pane glass. That mere feeling is anthropomorphic.
Is pantheism the form of your religious nature in projecting that impersonal god onto the Cosmos? What is then your explanation?
Mother Nature- natural causes- is impersonal.

That fallabilistic approach is that of the Huxleyan agnostic, the rationalist, the naturalist and the skeptic.In "Arguing about Gods, Graham Oppy recommends it., adding we must not think that theists have to adkust to our views.I am all those names. My signature elsewhere is :Fr.Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. He might be wrong!

No, the inverse is so true.The people who thought that did not have the evidence! All the evidence.

there is no doctrine proving god exists
theres no finite expression that will show us the complete picture of the absolute because it expresses itself in an infinite magnitude as well as this finite one
hints the term "father, son, holy ghost"
if a finite expression is what your looking for to explain things on an infinite magnitude it'll not be found.. ever
finite quality can be measured
infinite quality can only be compared.. not measured
we cant ever calculate the wholeness of god
its impossible
evidence suggests nothing exists beyond the mind
but even those of us who understand we have a spiritual purpose can accept this and still believe in god
we can see both sides make up an even greater picture
everything is anthropomorphic
look at matter itself
look at Mass
can energy not be converted to mass and mass converted to energy?
does mass not have a separate meaning other than its measurable qualities?
the aspirant must include wholeness and implicative thinking to see the entire absolute

I have to say yes because we live in a world defined by 'consensual reality' and the majority of people believe there is a God.

I believe God is a construct, used for many purposes. These uses range from social control to defining life's purpose to mysticism, real and imagined.

The Big Bang has less credibility for me than the idea of God. The Big Bang, if it happened, was the start of this universe. But it also implies there was 'something' before it and does not negate a claim of 'God'. The Hindus believe that the expansion and contraction of the universe is the 'breath of Brahma'.

Science is as much a religion as the 'others', not an alternative to them. We have a handful of scientific gurus and prophets of 'fact' whose works, for the most part, are able to be understood by only those with special training, not by the populace. The claims are mostly untested, untestable or found wanting; then there is a quick 'patch' to the theory ... etc. Doesn't sound too different to the attempts to weigh the soul, and so on.

Do I pray? Yes I do, and I love it. Its effect is tangible to me, and I understand it 'scientifically'.

Am I mad? Perhaps. But I acknowledge that I am only able to sense what my sense organs allow me to. I do not see what is, just what my body is programmed to. I also know that people are unique in their programming.

Apologies if this appears to be a rant, but you have to admit, for something that probably doesn't 'exist', God is pretty big.

All the best,
NA

Hmmm.... good post! I've been reading along and here are my thoughts.

Wow, where to start... Many of us in the world believe in God and that may be the majority of us. I think the problem is believing in what God is. So how many Gods are there? Which one do you believe in?

Trained Wrong
I believe myself that many of us are trained wrong from the beginning because many are under the impression that God is some physical being that sits up in the sky surrounded by angels and arch angles and all the company of heaven. My grandmother believes that family is going to be together on the other side and she tells me about how beautiful it's going to be in the land of milk and honey. We simply don't believe in the same God.

Pyth... your questions are definitely worth pondering and these are things that I think everyday. I cannot help it, cannot control the thoughts I think... It amazes me when I start to mention it in a group and everyone runs... Philosophy, I mean.

As far as the personal and impersonal, that again solely depends on ones vision of God. How do we perceive God and is it different than how our neighbor perceives God?

Science is Limited
Science, although very important in and of itself, is still limited by the 5 senses. We cannot prove that a God exists in the scientists' eyes because we can't measure him, haven't seen him, no pictures... simply nothing that can be measured by any means of science... yet we see the effects all over. So, if it cannot be measured by science, then it isn't... and this is the limitation of Science.

My Lovely Wife
My wife believes in God but she's always pictured God as something separate from the Earth. Someone who is far out of reach of man and is the one up there bowling and laughing at us down here, and is also the one who is going to send you to hell to burn if you didn't live your life right. That's it???? :confused: This is what people actually believe. So it's one thing to believe in God... the question is, who is your God?

Deep Thinker
You'll have to excuse me... sometimes I'm a very deep thinker, well... all the time..... God..?????... This is not something I question anymore... Since I was a child I've always tried to seek out the cause of effect. No matter what the circumstance, no matter what instant, my mind races around seeking only the cause of all effect. Sometimes I wish not... However, in seeking this it is seeking God, obviously because he or it would ultimately be a Cause of all Effect. Is God really something separate from us? The question goes back to, what is God?

Do I believe in God?
Back to... Do I believe in God? Well, I believe that man has definitely built up an image of God and most certainly gave God the name of God. So I don't believe in the image that has been exaggerated throughout generations. I also agree with l0ck... I know, without the ability to measure, that we are energy and the the entire universe is energy. I believe that God is in all creation and that God is Nature and that God is the very essence of mankind and we creatively evolve towards the knowing of this. God (as man may call him, is the essence of life), is the very ether that allows us to wake up in the morning. Not a fat guy in the heavens with a bunch of good looking angels where everyone is to look perfect, once in a while fighting with the devil.. lol no! I believe in... the only reason I'm reluctant to use the word God is because it is automatically construed as some big guy we can't reach... What do you call him or it without falling into a popular perception?

Treating Symptons
So in essence, I believe.. No, I must correct myself.. I know! We are the essence of life. If our spirit were to ascend from us, our bodies would fall to the earth. Science... just like doctors measure and treat the effects with the limitation of not being able to identify the cause. If man or science knew the cause to all effect, then he wouldn't be treating symptoms. Doctors wouldn't be treating symptoms with drugs that cause more effects... it makes more sense to discover the cause and start there. What does this mean?

I believe I believe
So, when it comes to believing in God, yes I believe there is an essence to each and every one of us and all of nature. Scientifically it is complete balance and scientifically it has a cycle of balance in nature. God to me is more about Love and Balance and Nature... but the most important thing of all, God is not a being or a deity or a fat guy in the sky, he... or it... is the essence of Love. How so I know??... I know because I've spent my lifetime discovering it.

One cause is in control of all effects everywhere! It all comes down to ONE. Is it God? That's the question. Can I label it?

How can one person believe in anything when we have yet to discover the cause of all effect? Who even looks anymore? We're too busy living in a world of effect.

There we go. NafsAmara, that's how you rant. :p

Last thought
... One last thought. Mankind creates and has created from the beginning of time. Hell, we're creating right now on the internet and with technology. Take a good look back not even a century ago and see what man has created. Mankind has the ability to create heaven and hell... just ask some of us. So if mankind creates... where is it going to end? The progression is now at a speed we cannot keep up with. God, (or so man calls his deity), is the very essence of all creativity... HE IS. IT IS.

What a subject. Thanks all for listening to my ramblings that I never intended on writing until reading this thread. Look forward to reading on...

Pythagorean, my friend, the questions you raise are profound and merit a considered response.

One option is to note that there is no guarantee that we can find an answer to every question we are capable of formulating. From what we know of the origins of the human race it appears that our brains evolved as problem-solving tools for promoting survival. This means that we are most successful at handling practical problems and that the intellectual equipment we possess may be inadequate for the questions of you raise. In my opinion questions 1,4 and 5 in your list are likely to fall into this category. Even those who have difficulty with Evolution can accept that there may be questions which we are simply incapable of tackling. If this is the case we should have the courage to admit our limitations.

In response to problems and difficulties in general, the first requirement for approaching an answer is to agree on what the problem is, to agree an accepted definition. This thread, on re-reading it, brings out the difficulty that when it comes to discussing the deity, a common definition is lacking. Put at its simplest, the problem is that everyone has his or her private definition of God with the result that we are not talking about an identifiable entity at all.

In the Epistemology section of this site I mention that I find it useful to divide thinking into two types, representing two different cognitive responses to our experience:

Type 1 focuses on prediction, precision and manipulation of our environment.
Type 2 consists of valuing, appreciating and finding significance.

Despite the importance which I attach to the Scientific Method, I believe that Type 1 thinking excessively dominates our culture to the exclusion of Type 2. We really do have a difficulty in addressing these issues. It seems to me that the more fundamental questions of the ones you raise are questions of this nature. The point is, however, that these questions do not yield knowledge of the external world but rather explore and refine our awareness of value and significance. A large part of the reason our culture has such difficulty with these questions is that we are attuned to discussing fact rather than value and significance, and even lack an adequate vocabulary for doing so.

....just some thoughts on questions which are destined to leave us feeling humbled.

Peter

i like to think of god as tri-fold as far as how it tends to separate itself into groups of awareness
but essentially absolute
i agree with the 'father, son, holyghost' observation
or
1.the perceived environment
2.man
3.and then spiritual being
these 3 things being different aspects of the absolute whole
all aspects are qualitative and infinite
the quality of energy, along with the rest of its qualities, is measurable
mass is quality
its measurable
non-energy qualities like cohesion are not measurable but comparable, and trap energy in the forms of mass
but energy itself has no tendency to enmass as we have observed somewhere within the 2nd law of thermodynamics
each time energy transforms it loses more of its qualities and its purpose becomes less and less
now we as spiritual beings and essentially awareness centers of the absolute absorb quality expressed by the absolute, specifically quality from mass
eventually as all qualities are discovered self-awareness is achieved
materialistic thoughts and greed are just hunger for quality which is trapped within mass
quality is sensed by us, and absorbed, and becomes apart of our awareness
this is how you come to know the value of mass.. u have to know it.. otherwise it cannot be described
for example try to describe color to someone who has never seen color
the awareness of that quality in that spiritual being is not yet present
as the stored qualities of mass get absorbed they lose quality and cohesion - energy gets de-massed and moves from a mass state to a kinetic state
spiritual beings and mass are in reciprocal qualitative relation to each other
the environment serves them each optimally and individually but each experience has absolute purpose
as awareness grows, hunger for more quality grows, and then so too does the release of quality from stored energy
they are all in relation with each other
the hunger for quality and the awareness of quality grows exponentially
(but this does not mean human population grows exponentially so lets not interpret it that way)
the rate of quality released is exponential
the creative intelligence of god grows exponentially then too, which is the quality trying to tie together these 3 aspects of the absolute and make them all aware of each other, it is gods 'will'
it has a means to an end, and that is complete self-awareness, but it is not exactly the loving notion you would think it to be though, because essentially it creates conflict, thats its entire objective
because it learns and grows more aware by reason of apparent absence, or conflict
because through conflict mass releases its qualities and awareness increases
the creative intelligence is all about the needs and wants of the 3 different aspects of the absolute
developing self-awareness is essentially progressive proliferation of needs and wants.. the need for more qualities..
which is hunger for quality
which is hunger for mass
which is hunger for self-awareness
they are all related
and everything is essentially a quality of the absolute
we can start with any one quality and proceed to the next