Why believe in god? The theist perspective.

Goddamn nice post, fresco! Very succint.

Appreciated.

Yet, if you don't really exist, neither does your argument. Do you not perceive the inherent absurdity with positing that we don't exist in reality? If we don't exist, then neither does our cognitive functioning, which is required for us to argue whether we exist or not. The whole exercise is self refuting, and ultimately logically absurd. You have literally lost your mind if you really believe that. But I don't think you believe that in reality. You simply are lying, and can't commit to consistent rational thought for one reason or another. I invite you back to reality. There's no shame in it whatsoever.

You have a vested interest in maintaining your "self-integrity" with has a requirement of "a God". I do not. I am aware (in line with the observations of countless others) that my experience of "self" is inconsistent and a function of situational factors. Arguments which undermine the interests of a particular self would certainly be deemed by you (the believer) to have "no existence" in its eyes despite the fact that this ironically reinforces the perceptual bias argument per se.
Logic based on a premise of naive objective realism is vacuous.
Like all believers in gods, you seek the absolutist cocoon of "certainty" and "meaningfulness of your existence" in the face of the inevitability of change and mental incapacity. You only need to look at the continuous paradigmatic shifts in scientific knowledge about we call "reality" to appreciate the simplistic nature of such wishes about "certainty".
Of course you can always attempt operate the catch-all clause of believers that "all knowledge is in the gift of God", thereby putting up the mental shutters against potentially troublesome thoughts.

Ok. Perhaps either you are on a higher perceptual, plane than I am, which would explain my inability to make any rational sense in your statement, or your statement is utter BS. I prefer the latter to the former, but since I don't exist in reality (or at least not in my sleeping moments), what difference does it make what I (O non-exuatent one), believe? Right?

It makes no difference to me (all of them) unless those beliefs impinge on my "freedom". Unfortunately this is not always the case when I find myself, for example, in a tiresome airport security queue. To paraphrase one celebrated atheist "All believers in "an afterlife" are guilty of giving mental succour to the rationality which drives fanatics to seek early entry from "this life".

Excuse me, but fanatical theists are not the only ones who distort belief systems. Ever heard of the Soviet Union? Let's try to be rational about this. I've been a believing Christian for over 30 years, and I'm still here. Haven't knocked off any non-believers in any suicide mission for truth. Why? You think maybe actual Christian teaching might have something to do with it? There are fanatics all around us, and they come in many stripes. Let's not assign them to groups that are otherwise rational and moral. Then maybe we can learn to get along better.

I believe in an afterlife. I believe it to be true. If it is true, then what some fanatic does with it should be inconcequential to it's status as truth.

It seems you think that beliefs are false whenever someone abuses them. I could find exception to a myriad of beliefs that way. But would I be right in doing so? Truth, in my view is such regardless of what others choose to do with it. Harm comes from peoples' choices, not from something as neutral as a chosen belief. To be sure, there are some dangerous and harmful beliefs, don't get me wrong. But their harm and danger are evident by what they support, not by how they are abused. The Christian belief in an afterlife does not support any kind of suicide mission.

Beliefs are functional, rather than true or false. Functionality has both a psychological and social dimension. Some militant atheists argue that in "open" societies such as ours, belief in "an afterlife" which has psychological functionality as palliative for deists, can be become dysfunctional or pernicious at the sociological level. Other militant atheists such as historical communists make the mistake of substituting one form of "rationality" with another which can be equally subversive to individual freedom. In short, people "want answers". When there are none, they invent them and attempt to reify those answers by recruiting others to their belief systems in order to establish a veneer of parochial social functionality. Historically, Christianity has had as much blood on its hands as any other ad hoc coercive belief system.

What leads you to believe, fresco, that airports are safe places. Doesn't the security shout at you that they are not.

Certainly unsafe to the wallet ! (£3 for a croissant!)

Fresco, there is such thing as true and false beliefs.

I can believe, for example, that my sister is the president despite evidence to the contrary. This belief might be "functional" for me, but it would still be false.

Sorry, but on practical dynamic analysis, "truth" and "falsity" merely denote degrees of social agreement. The idea of "absolute states" is essentially a religious one.
Of course there can be overwhelming agreement about some statements we call "facts"(1) like " biological relationships", but the terms "sister" and "brother" can denote a multitude of other aspects of relationship without which any human concept would be vacuous (2). I put it to you that the concept "God" significantly lacks any consensual agreement.
(1)fact from facere Latin..to construct.
(2) Wittgenstein: "Meaning is use".

The propositions you offer then are neither true nor false then? What if I were to affirm them as true? Would you then acknowledgevthat there are such things as true facts?

Seriously, your philosophy is so utterly incoherent, I'm not certain if you actually believe it.

I acknowledge that the expression "true facts" equates to "cognitive constructions about the world for which there is overwhelming agreement".

Your "common sense views" amount in general to what philosophers call "naive realism". You are not actually "doing philosophy", one function of which is "to examine common sense assumptions". What appears bizarre (unfamiliar) to you is a set of well established positions in contemporary philosophy involving terms such as "theories of truth", "pragmatism" and "existentialism".

Since you appear to be content with your belief system you are unlikely to have the urge to "shop around". A philosopher would merely remark that belief systems are like "fashion" and subject to similar social forces. We acquire them through social conditioning and we tend to ignore the significance of comparative anthropology from our parochial comfort zones

Looks like this one's another dud. Same old word salads and poor grasp of logical argumentation, compounded by lack of evidence to support his claims. Ho-hum.

When Klaatu landed on earth he was met with a slug from a .45 by the hostile frightened primitives-


But later recovered and passed on some fantastic knowledge to the human race-



Jesus too was a kind of Klaatu-
"I know where I came from and where I am going, but you have no idea where I come from or where I am going....you are of this world, I am not of this world...I'll tell you things hidden since the creation of the world" (John 8:14/ 8:23, Matt 13:35)

But sadly he got the same sort of reception by the hostile frightened primitives. Even today he makes them rock n roll in fear..

Without regard to your chosen metaphor, would it not be more accurate to say that Christians, as a whole, have had as much blood on their hands as any other group of subscribers to an "ad hoc coercive belief system?"

To what extent do you distinguish believers from beliefs and belief systems?

Huh? this sounds pretty unwarlike to me-
"Love one another, feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the destitute, tend the sick, visit the prisoners, look after the poor"- Jesus of Nazareth (Mark 12:30, John 13:34, Matt 25: 37-40)

On the basis that belief systems are co-extensive with their socially acquired self-image, we can argue that people don't have beliefs, they are their beliefs.

That seem tautological to me fresco.