Do you believe in God?

Please explain to me the logical necessity of the distinction between literal and figurative omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence. Isn't this just a fudge to explain away the bizzare consequence of these absurd absolutist claims?

I still haven't looked up sufism but i maintain that there are no God notions not supernaturally characterized. It goes with the territory i'm afraid, in contradiction of sound and established scientific fact.

The milk I bought on Saturday has gone off. I remeber buying the milk - and now it has undergone a change that takes time to occur. This correlation between memory, natural processes and the evidence of the senses is the source of my reasonable knowledge that i have existed before now, at least since Saturday!

The point i'm trying to make is that if you assert the existence of this supernatural entity - God, then nothing is even as certain as that because it denies the cause and effect relations that bind everything together. If you're asking for certainty that will map the skeptical land your God seems to inahbit, i can't provide it, and that's the point. By asserting the existence of this supernatural entity - existing in contradiction of cause and effect, you deny the possibility of knowledge, and then everything is truly meaningless.

I don't think that religious notions are necessarily destructive - rather they are constructive of morally righteous, inward looking groups living in shared beleif. This is great if you're in one of those groups, and without such groups existing through pre-history we would still be hunting and gathering in the forest. But should someone come along who doesn't share those beliefs, they are ostrasized and demonized - perhaps ritually murdered as a heritic, or an infidel. And when one morally righteous inward looking group in this ever more crowded world rubs borders with another - all hell breaks loose.

No we don't. No right minded man or woman should tolerate these primtive, racist, irrational and false ideas. Teaching religion to children should be considered child abuse and the meme thus stamped out.

Don't try and palm off the problems with religion on the most devoted among you. You moderates provide these people with thier justifications - and then stand back in mock horror while secretly chalking one up for the home team.
Your moderation echoes hollow in my ear amidst the crackle of gunfire.

'You are right, taking such language literally is misguided, but these criticisms you have presented miss God notions founded in a figurative understanding of the language.'

If the world and everything in it, including our memories, came into existence ten seconds ago, we would have no way of knowing. God or no God, milk or no milk, this is a legitimate problem with empirical information.

Instead, I've offered you actual arguments - arguments which you do not respond to as you prefer to simply restate your own intolerant and illogical beliefs.

I voted "No" for a lot of reasons. I *like* to think I'm open to suggestion and new ideas, but I am getting old and crass :rolleyes:

I've never taken the view that 'belief' was a conscious process. To me, belief is a scale I traverse wherein as the amount of evidence and reason grows so does my scale move towards 'knowledge'. In my mind, if I'm honest with myself, its' not a decision; moreso, a statement of assertion as to where I stand. Can belief be consciously imposed? I've read many intelligent, well-intentioned folks say it can. I don't see it.

But I've gotta tell ya, when I see what I perceive to be honest, heartfelt and powerful belief in some I am inspired! Despite my negative views on theism I still have, in my heart of hearts, a soft spot for those with strong conviction and perhaps secretly admire them for what I have not.

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.

If you want me to concede that the Bible, Talmud, Koran, ect consider deep and meaningful ethical/moral issues and communicate these in a compelling way - fine, i have no problem with that, but where there is a requirement of faith in something that cannot be known, this cannot be purely figurative, and is not presented as such.

So here's the problem. If God, a supernatural entity, actually exists then the cause and effect relations that seem to bind reality together, and render it knowable, within reason, but without absolute certainty, are nullified.

If you want direct evidence against a thing that doesn't exist, anything, then you're asking me to engage in a task greater than showing all religious notions to be false. Assert the existence of a 10ft chocolate statue of Ghanid's grandad - and challenge me to disprove it. I can't. The same with God's, ghosts and goblins. What i can do is try and understand the origin and nature of these ideas and compare them to what i can reasonably, but not certainly know.

No, we couldn't absolutely know, but that hardly gives licence to claim validity, figurative or literal, for unfounded assertions that have such massive implications for who we are and what our purposes should be in the world - particularly in face of reasonable knowledge that has been hard won, and offers such potential benefits.

Religious ideas holding fast to a skeptical defence are offensive - an insult to man's greatest achievement and to the very essence of man - the learning animal. We need to embrace the spirit of knowledge and religion kills it stone dead with cliams to secular, relativist and skeptical protections for notions that are fantastical, supernatural and unreasonable.

I do not think people have a right to believe whatever they like. They have a duty to truth - a duty religion absolves them of as they pursue the agendas of thier little circles of the faithful.

I've tried to be as forthcoming as possible - though admittedly, in my own terms. I am hearing you, i just don't agree with your analysis, or the terms in which it is made. If you wish to make this point again, please do so, but indicate which arguments you think i have not addressed.

It's not a matter of logical necessity, it's a matter of logical possibility. If it is possible to conceive of a God which does not suffer from the flaws you mention (taking God and God language to be figurative instead of literal), then your criticisms cannot be universally applied to all notions of God.

First, you are mixing up culture with religion.
Second, you still suffer from the same flawed argument I outlined in my last post.
When you say 'But should someone come along who doesn't share those beliefs, they are ostrasized and demonized - perhaps ritually murdered as a heritic, or an infidel.'
You definitely identify something terrible that has happened before. The problem is that this does not necessarily occur - the religious are not necessarily xenophobic.

And no matter how many examples you give of xenophobia among the religious, you will never establish that all religious people are xenophobic. Why? Because clearly some are not.

Again, you are right to criticize misguided religious ideas, but the jump from some religious notions are misguided to all religious notions are misguided, something you have not been able to establish at all, is the irrational leap.

So, if you want to talk about primitive, racist, irrational and false ideas, before you cast that first stone, look at yourself. You draw hasty generalizations (illogical, false ideas) to demonize every culture on the planet (primitive, racist). I'm not saying you are illogical and racist, but the mistakes in your words here are mistakes of logic which result in racism.

That's why we need a degree of sensitivity for the variety of religious notions. So that we do not unjustly demonize nearly all of the species for no good reason.

Each one of those religions have one thing in common and that is the
belief that a person should be good and not bad.

Question from the Unlettered Professor:
How is belief in God is so absurd that it merits being compared to believing in Santa Claus, or thinking that a ferocious purple dragon is living in your "garage"?

Yours humbly,
Frost