What reason is there to believe in (insert your god(s) here) instead of (insert other god(s) here), or in no god at all.
I feel like there needs to be a reason for positions one holds. I am atheistic because I feel a lack of evidence undermines the credibility of religions and reduces my belief in them.
Please work objectively. Do not attack me, or others. State your rationale. Period.
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
Belief in God is a great comfort. You may have spiritual experiences, but I don't think those support it.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Pirates and spaghetti are awesome.
Period.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Believing in God is not necessarily comforting, if things are going wrong in your life the idea that a supreme being is causing or allowing it can be rather discomforting.
Mostly I believe in God, and because of my faith, have received various miracles, manifestations, and blessings. Though I did have a dry run of about 7 years when I was pretty angry at Him. But even then, I believed in Him. I just didn't want anything to do with Him.
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
Pooka could you elaborate? On your proof, or were you just saying "I [just do] believe in god" and then were elaborating.
(not said in mocking tone at all)
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
If belief in God weren't a comfort (i.e., didn't make you feel good), I find it hard to find a logical explanation.
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
So I can see how believing there's a god who'll make everything all better when you're in a jamb?jam? But I also can't see TRULY believing in a god if that's the only reason you want to believe in him. If you're logically denying his existence, but wishing you could honestly believe that there's some reason why everything should work out the way you want it to, only by deluding yourself and betraying your logic can you get the comfort you want.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
In faith, the evidence comes after the conclusion. It's annoying, from a logical standpoint, I realize. But a lot of things are like that, like the benefits of eating right, monogamy, agriculture... you have to put in the work before you get the fruits.
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
Err... how is the evidence of agriculture and eating right not indicative of a conclusion that they are good things (maybe not in your personal experience YET but from seeing others eat well and subsequently lose weight or seeing other tribes develop agriculture and then have a decrease in death from starvation)
And monogamy I question sometimes... Though I allow that society's frowning on any other kind of situation would make it by default worse.
Posted by Papa Janitor (Member # 7795) on :
(Folks who post, please be mindful of the registration agreement, that this might not turn into an attempt at conversion. It's a gray area, so please try to stay to the appropriate side of the gray.)
Posted by stihl1 (Member # 1562) on :
I don't know why one should believe in God, god, or whatever. It's certainly easier when you don't, imo. I can't explain why I do believe, but as much as I've tried to deny and ignore faith and religion it keeps coming back up to me. So I decided to give in and listen. And I must say life is a lot better, and imo I'm better, since.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I believe in God because I get confirmation all the time, continually now (many times a day), that there's a higher being outside of me who loves me and helps me. I was an atheist for most of my adult life, from the age of around 16 when I first made up my mind on my own, to around age 36 or so.
But then I became religious. It started for me with prayer. I exercised a particle of faith, a wish or hope or crazy hypothesis only, and prayed to a God whom I didn't believe existed. I got back some kind of answer, something that came from outside of me, that wasn't something I made up or invented or wished into being. I was positive of that. Then I kept on trying from that point and got more and more confirmation. Now it's a constant dialogue. I'm in partnership with the living God to bring about the exaltation of humankind, a state in which we'll grow up to be like him, gods ourselves, since we're his actual spirit children and he's our father. (The process takes a long time, though.)
The ways in which he helps me are not to take all troubles magically away and make my life only joy, but he partners with me to teach me things. Oftentimes they are hard truths that he tells me, but learning them always does bring more joy in the long run, and just more maturity and understanding. I want to know the truth no matter what. I've become much more than I ever was alone.
Anyway, I believe in God because there is, in fact, this person we call God. I get important information and aid from him all the time. When I learned how to talk to him and began trying to follow him in my fitful cantankerous way, my life became enormously better. So then I had to revise my theories to fit observed fact, is all. I believe in him because he exists.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka: In faith, the evidence comes after the conclusion. It's annoying, from a logical standpoint, I realize. But a lot of things are like that, like the benefits of eating right, monogamy, agriculture... you have to put in the work before you get the fruits.
This is not a universally-held belief by theists.
Why do I believe? Because I know it to be true.
Why should you believe? I don't know. Why should you?
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Why do I believe? Because I know it to be true.
Why should you believe? I don't know. Why should you?
So, you’re not concerned with the “salvation” of other people, however “gentile” they are? Many might see that as a very selfish and immoral stand. *points in the general direction of Tresopax*
A.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I don't believe in the concept of salvation, period.
Your religious beliefs are your job, not mine. And I'm still wondering if you know what "gentile" means -- or the rules for using quotation marks.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: And I'm still wondering if you know what "gentile" means -- or the rules for using quotation marks.
I thought I knew. This showed me that in English the meaning is different to what I would have expected, meaning that I thought it also meant “delicate” or “innocent”. My bad.
As for the quotation marks, that’s even more personal. I use them essentially when using a “conflictual” term ( ), when the meaning is not straight forward (for me or the group using it). I also use it, “wrongly” for emphasis, which I try to avoid, end use italics instead…
A.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Why don't I believe? Because I see no evidence for the existence of a god.
Would I believe? If I saw good evidence, sure.
Should you believe? Up to you. As long as you're not hurting yourself or others, or trying to force beliefs or non-beliefs on others, I say do what makes you happy.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: Should you believe? Up to you. As long as you're not hurting yourself or others, or trying to force beliefs or non-beliefs on others, I say do what makes you happy.
- - - emphasis added - - -
See, I have a question about the bolded part. How do you define "harm"? Is your concept physically related? Is there any other kind of harm? You see, I know theists who think that the spiritual harm you put through with your wrong beliefs justifies conversion and why not (historically) death. One word: heresy.
A.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by suminonA:
quote:Originally posted by Javert: Should you believe? Up to you. As long as you're not hurting yourself or others, or trying to force beliefs or non-beliefs on others, I say do what makes you happy.
- - - emphasis added - - -
See, I have a question about the bolded part. How do you define "harm"? Is your concept physically related? Is there any other kind of harm? You see, I know theists who think that the spiritual harm you put through with your wrong beliefs justifies conversion and why not (historically) death. One word: heresy.
A.
I was making a statement on whether or not I would object to it. Not trying to say anything about legality or what should be 'allowed'. So, since it would only be my opinion, it's just the way that I would define harm.
Sorry for being unclear. Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
Evidence is all fine and good, but since evidence can't describe the whole of the universe to us, I choose to fill in some of the details in ways that make sense, are comforting, and derive purpose and meaning where before there was nothing.
It's kind of like my vision. I don't have central vision, but I don't see a black hole -- my brain fills in details from the periphery so that in my mind, there's a blurry colored spot that looks like whatever's around it.
I have never even considered being an atheist. The position that there is no God requires a lot of faith and science does not currently account for all the things I see in the world.
Agnosticism makes more sense to me and I was there for a long time -- not sure if there was a God or not. What finally convinced me was a bit of reason and a bit of need. The coincidences that would have caused the universe to form and to come up with us are so infinitely small that a higher power started to make sense. It filled in the blurry areas. It also opened up the possibility that there is a purpose to our lives.
So then we get to the question of WHICH deity? I was raised in the Catholic church, but when I studied the Bible I felt that the men who wrote it had no better understanding of God than I did. They had no worse understanding and there is wisdom to be drawn from many sources, but I absolutely reject the idea that it is "The Word of God" or that its tenets should rule my life. In truth, I don't even like the God in the Old Testament. He's mean. (No lightening...whew! )
I considered looking elsewhere, but that didn't make sense to me either. If God had ever made WHO HE WAS obvious enough that someone had it exactly right, then the atheists among us would have their proof, wouldn't they?
That's why I decided to go independent and find a model of God that felt right without accepting an entire belief structure -- something I would be free to modify at will if I changed my mind.
I'm always willing to change my mind. It's not like I think I'm any more right than anyone else. With that in mind, I've considered going back to the Christian church a few times and just accepting what I can, leaving what I can't. There is definitely a draw to COMMUNITY, but unfortunately I find when I listen to a priest, preacher, or minister talk about God I don't recognize Him.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I have never even considered being an atheist. The position that there is no God requires a lot of faith and it does not account for all the things I see in the world.
Agnosticism makes more sense to me and I was there for a long time -- not sure if there was a God or not.
I have no idea what these two paragraphs, taken together, might mean.
"I have never considered believing that God does not exist. This does not account for all the things I see in the world. However, for some time I was not sure whether God existed."
quote:It's not like I think I'm any more right than anyone else.
You think you're more right than the atheists, right?
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:What reason is there to believe in (insert your god(s) here) instead of (insert other god(s) here), or in no god at all.
I think the best reason to believe in God would be the same reason one might believe that 1+1=2, or that the world is round, or that ice cream tastes good: because it seems most likely to be true, given the evidence and observations you have available to you.
I think for most people this evidence typically consists of a combination of personal experience, claims made by trusted authorities or other testimony, accounts of history such as the Bible, the ability of God's existence to explain certain mysteries of the universe, miracles, and/or recoginizing the wisdom behind acting in accordance with a given religious belief system that includes a God.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: I was making a statement on whether or not I would object to it. Not trying to say anything about legality or what should be 'allowed'. So, since it would only be my opinion, it's just the way that I would define harm.
Sorry for being unclear.
You are being more unclear now than in the first quote I gave. I ask you for your definition of harm, and you’re talking about “legality” and “your own opinion”. Cool, but you didn’t really answer my question.
A.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Evidence is all fine and good, but since evidence can't describe the whole of the universe to us,
Why can't it?
Just curious as to your opinion. And I'm not saying the evidence can necessarily describe the whole universe...but why start from the assumption that it can't?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by suminonA:
quote:Originally posted by Javert: I was making a statement on whether or not I would object to it. Not trying to say anything about legality or what should be 'allowed'. So, since it would only be my opinion, it's just the way that I would define harm.
Sorry for being unclear.
You are being more unclear now than in the first quote I gave. I ask you for your definition of harm, and you’re talking about “legality” and “your own opinion”. Cool, but you didn’t really answer my question.
A.
Sorry again. This is what happens when you try to respond as you're running out the door.
Like your theist friends, I too see beyond physical harm. There can be mental harm. Some people, I believe, are harmed intellectually by their religious beliefs.
Does that justify forceful conversion? Not in my eyes. But it does justify pointing that harm out, and bringing it up for discussion.
Posted by Eduardo St. Elmo (Member # 9566) on :
Why should one believe in God?
Because one wants to.
"Do what thou wilt, that shall be the whole of the law." - A. Crowley
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:What reason is there to believe in (insert your god(s) here) instead of (insert other god(s) here), or in no god at all.
I think the best reason to believe in God would be the same reason one might believe that 1+1=2, or that the world is round, or that ice cream tastes good: because it seems most likely to be true, given the evidence and observations you have available to you.
I’m sorry but you really are failing to make some useful distinctions.
Do you believe that “1+1=2”? Why? In what context? Why don’t you believe that “1+1=10” ? For each “belief”, there should be a context and a possibility to present the reasons to hold it, if there are some.
In the case of arithmetic “truths”, as it is generally in Mathematics, you start with some premises (or axioms) and then you build from there. The advantage is, in formal systems like that, that the “context” is clearly defined, and once the premises are accepted, most of the propositions can be demonstrated to be true or false. And there is no ambiguity there. (I say “most” and not “all” because of Göedel).
In the case of “the Earth is round” a photo from space should settle it directly.
The fact that the ice cream tastes good is subjective and has nothing to do with Scientific Method, and I don’t believe it to be “likely true”.
The religious belief requires also a context and some premises, but many forget that. When you start with the postulate “My favourite deity exists” all “proof” to support that is not only NOT necessary, but irrelevant for the non-believers. It’s the shortest circular logic: “I believe in my favourite deity because it exists.” (Forgetting the part that it only exists (for you) in the first place because you believe in it.)
I accept that you can’t see the distinction (or take it as irrelevant), but the point is that I see a crucial one and I’m trying to show you why.
---
Javert, that is clear enough. Thanks.
A.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:Err... how is the evidence of agriculture and eating right not indicative of a conclusion that they are good things (maybe not in your personal experience YET but from seeing others eat well and subsequently lose weight or seeing other tribes develop agriculture and then have a decrease in death from starvation)
I guess I just have a disposition to the sort of logic that wouldn't be consider good results "rigorous". It's not a Why should, but a How to, and that is not the subject of this thread.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Evidence is all fine and good, but since evidence can't describe the whole of the universe to us,
Why can't it?
Just curious as to your opinion. And I'm not saying the evidence can necessarily describe the whole universe...but why start from the assumption that it can't?
Well, perhaps I should have said "doesn't right now" rather than can't. I am skeptical of the idea that science will one day explain everything, but I am open to all possibilities. It is even possible that science will one day find God.
Hmmm...I'm not sure I even like the idea that science will one day explain everything. What's the universe without a little mystery? Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine: What's the universe without a little mystery?
To paraphrase Einstein, it is a mystery why Science can reveal so much about the Universe already!
A.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine:
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Evidence is all fine and good, but since evidence can't describe the whole of the universe to us,
Why can't it?
Just curious as to your opinion. And I'm not saying the evidence can necessarily describe the whole universe...but why start from the assumption that it can't?
Well, perhaps I should have said "doesn't right now" rather than can't. I am skeptical of the idea that science will one day explain everything, but I am open to all possibilities. It is even possible that science will one day find God.
Hmmm...I'm not sure I even like the idea that science will one day explain everything. What's the universe without a little mystery?
Well, I'm not sure that we will have everything explained. There could, potentially, always be more. I just happen to think that when people say there are certain things that we can never know through science, it impedes the path to that knowledge.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:I’m sorry but you really are failing to make some useful distinctions.
Do you believe that “1+1=2”? Why? In what context? Why don’t you believe that “1+1=10” ? For each “belief”, there should be a context and a possibility to present the reasons to hold it, if there are some.
In the case of arithmetic “truths”, as it is generally in Mathematics, you start with some premises (or axioms) and then you build from there. The advantage is, in formal systems like that, that the “context” is clearly defined, and once the premises are accepted, most of the propositions can be demonstrated to be true or false. And there is no ambiguity there. (I say “most” and not “all” because of Göedel).
In the case of “the Earth is round” a photo from space should settle it directly.
The fact that the ice cream tastes good is subjective and has nothing to do with Scientific Method, and I don’t believe it to be “likely true”.
I deliberately took three very different sorts of belief to emphasize the point that, even though the method through which we come to each of those beliefs is so different, they each are still based in some sort of observations and evidence - and thus even though religious belief seems based on such a different method than other beliefs, it too is built upon observations and evidence.
[ January 09, 2008, 09:57 AM: Message edited by: Tresopax ]
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Because God exists, and there is peace to be found in following truth.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I deliberately took three very different sorts of belief to emphasize the point that, even though the method through which we come to each of those beliefs is so different, they each are still based in some sort of observations and evidence - and thus even though religious belief seems based on such a different method than other beliefs, it too is built upon observations and evidence.
The knowledge that all belief is built on “observation and evidence” may be your point, but I know for a fact that it is not the case. Blind faith is by definition outside your “point”.
quote:The thing is, I don't think many, if any, religious believers actually start with the premise that God exists. Some think they do, but I've found that if you talk with them in depth they typically have reasons for believing what they do, even if it is just a vague sort of experience or the fact that when they were young people they trust told them it was true.
The thing is, I know many religious believers that when pushed “far enough” admit that they start with that postulate. It liberates them from further questions, at least from me. I have no problem with anyone starting with that postulate, as long as they admit it. But they won’t ever be able to “demonstrate” anything to me in the context where I start with the postulate that the same deity doesn’t exists (because I need first the proof of that existence, not like in pooka’s case for example.)
The people that have some vague experience of that fact when they were young people and so on, were “indoctrinated” as long as they don’t have a firm reason to make that choice. (And it’s more the fault of the indoctrinators than of themselves).
All in all, it is DIFFERENT from the Scientific Method and I will never put the equal sign between the two.
A.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Because God exists
Is that the ABSOLUTE TRUTH? How do you know?
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: there is peace to be found in following truth.
Is that the ABSOLUTE TRUTH? How do you know?
A.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Despite the power of the Caps Lock, you'll have to ask another question.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:(because I need first the proof of that existence, not like in pooka’s case for example.)
--> is heartily not suprised.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:The knowledge that all belief is built on “observation and evidence” may be your point, but I know for a fact that it is not the case. Blind faith is by definition outside your “point”.
My point is that even though religious faith is different from other sorts of belief, that doesn't make it blind faith. It is very different from (for instance) the scientific method, but that doesn't mean it isn't also based on evidence and observation.
quote:The thing is, I know many religious believers that when pushed “far enough” admit that they start with that postulate. It liberates them from further questions, at least from me.
Yes, sorry... I actually realized after I wrote it that I DO in fact know people who start with that postulate, so I edited out that section. But it looks like you responded first!
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Despite the power of the Caps Lock, you'll have to ask another question.
Do you have a specific question in mind, or are you simply dismissing my question ?
What's wrong with my question?
A.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Well, first, you're yelling at me.
Secondly, I'm not sure if you interested in the nature of truth, how we discover truth, what I meant by peace, or what good reasons to believe in God are. It isn't very specific, and it comes off as you just yelling skepticism in my general direction. I'm not interested in that conversation.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by suminonA: Why don’t you believe that “1+1=10” ?
Because binary very quickly becomes unwieldy for "in my head" math where the numbers involved are greater than 8 (1000)
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: My point is that even though religious faith is different from other sorts of belief, that doesn't make it blind faith. It is very different from (for instance) the scientific method, but that doesn't mean it isn't also based on evidence and observation.
See, I think we’re making progress. I completely reject “blind faith” and I accept religious faith, as long as it is different from the blind kind. The main and crucial distinction that I make between scientific “faith” (that I call trust) and the religious “faith” (that I call faith), is that the first is based on duplicable evidence and experience, while the second does not. You may use the evidence that you like (or have) but the distinction is very important for me (it being the sole reason of not liking, for myself, the second kind).
--- Javert Hugo, please excuse my Caps. I was trying to point to the platonic kind of truth, and used the Caps to make that distinction. My very bad. Sorry.
I am interested in this discussion and in what you meant by peace and what the good reasons are for you, but I wish you could understand that your telegraphic intervention sounded to me as if you were in possession of some Absolute Truth (some Caps are needed, I think).
A.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:The knowledge that all belief is built on “observation and evidence” may be your point, but I know for a fact that it is not the case. Blind faith is by definition outside your “point”.
My point is that even though religious faith is different from other sorts of belief, that doesn't make it blind faith. It is very different from (for instance) the scientific method, but that doesn't mean it isn't also based on evidence and observation.
Faith is an interesting word. I always understood that lack of proof was part of faith. A least, that's how the nuns explained it to me.
So by the definition I understand, faith is always blind.
So I guess I'm trying to figure out if you can have faith at all if evidence and observation have led you there.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
quote:telegraphic intervention
I know these means, but I can't parse your meaning.
--
You mean you're offended by declarative statements? I think what you're really objecting to is not the declarative statement or the lack of a caveat, but the lack of evidence that followed it.
How about this:
Because God exists, and there is peace to be found in following truth. <insert evidence here, except I'm lazy>
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo:
quote:telegraphic intervention
I know these means, but I can't parse your meaning.
Giving short declarative statements in such a thread, might ask for some clarifications, such as: is this what you think is the case (and therefore, why?), or is it some Absolute Truth we should all be ashamed of not knowing?
quote: You mean you're offended by declarative statements?
Offended … Quite a strong word. I’m mostly surprised. And my “knee-jerk” reaction is to ask for clarifications.
A.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Because God exists, and there is peace to be found in following truth.
No caps lock, I promise!
So...would you clarify how you know God exists? I'm not particularly interested in truth vs. absolute truth. I assume you mean that you are certain enough in your belief to consider it true rather than simply possible. The important question here is how you know?
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: I think what you're really objecting to is not the declarative statement or the lack of a caveat, but the lack of evidence that followed it.
I think you’re right.
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: How about this:
Because God exists, and there is peace to be found in following truth. <insert evidence here, except I'm lazy>
Same thing. You give the same declarative sentence, but you are lazy to sustain it with evidence, which is kind of the point of this thread.
It’s like saying to your child: "Do this because I say so. Why? Because I say so. (And I know why but you have to trust me on that)."
I’m not your child and without that evidence I think your declarative statement is useless. (Not quite absolutely useless, as it started this argument )
A.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Because one can.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:you are lazy to sustain it with evidence, which is kind of the point of this thread.
There's no need to call people names, summinonA. There are lots of reasons other than laziness not to answer your questions.
Moreover, you should have realized by now that the thread starter doesn't control the course of a thread.
quote:I’m not your child and without that evidence I think your declarative statement is useless.
Refusing to play your game does not mean you're being treated as a child.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:you are lazy to sustain it with evidence, which is kind of the point of this thread.
There's no need to call people names, summinonA. There are lots of reasons other than laziness not to answer your questions.
I only used the same term he used for himself (see the quote). Is that wrong?
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Moreover, you should have realized by now that the thread starter doesn't control the course of a thread.
I did realize that, and I’d point out that I’m not the starter of this thread. If I’m wrong about the point of this thread Starsnuffer is the perfect one to correct me.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:I’m not your child and without that evidence I think your declarative statement is useless.
Refusing to play your game does not mean you're being treated as a child.
I didn’t say I was treated like a child (or felt like it). I gave an analogy to explain why I ask what I ask.
A.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Christine, I'd be delighted.
sA: You'd get a better response to invitations to discussion if your tone and manner indicated that you would show respect and broad-mindedness during such a discussion.
quote:So...would you clarify how you know God exists? I'm not particularly interested in truth vs. absolute truth. I assume you mean that you are certain enough in your belief to consider it true rather than simply possible. The important question here is how you know?
Most of the time, the heavens are silent. I don't get answers to every prayer or even close, and there's no question but that really, really sucky things have happened despite my pleadings otherwise. Clearly, not every prayer is answered. While you may argue that they are answered and sometimes we can't tell, if one of the people involved can't discern the communication, there isn't communication. I don't know why. I think sometimes it's me, and I think sometimes God simply isn't answering.
I don't believe that God controls everything - in fact, I think the essential randomness of physical phenomona and the consequences of every human being having free agency are among the most terrifying things about our mortal existence.
However, I do beleive in God, overwhelmingly, because of the answers to prayers I have recieved, because peace and happiness have come from following gospel principles, and because in the many times when I have felt and do feel the Holy Spirit, it's like Dorothy stepping into Oz - the black and white world explodes into color.
I've felt or heard the Spirit while studying the scriptures, praying, studying chemistry, and witnessing things and events I think the Lord would be proud of.
Oh, I have heard and am well aquainted with all the skeptical arguments. What I believe and know now has come slowly. That I do not struggle now does not mean I never did, but after the struggles came peace. It's like...it's like savings in a bank. I don't always feel the presense of the Lord, but I know that I have, and present silence is bolstered by the remembrance of love and answers. Besides, the sun has always risen again in the morning.
I am LDS, and the pre-existence means a lot to me. I think we chose this - this world. We didn't shape or make the world, but we accepted a mortal life in it. This life is often random and scary, but it isn't the sum of our existence and we are not alone in it.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:So I guess I'm trying to figure out if you can have faith at all if evidence and observation have led you there.
My view is that faith can come into play whenever there is uncertainty. That's because faith essentially acts as a medicine for doubt, and doubt arises from uncertainty.
It is definitely true that uncertainty exists when there is no evidence for your belief, but it is also true that uncertainty exists when there is some evidnece but not complete evidence to prove your belief. For instance, if God were to speak to you, you would have evidence of God's existence - but you might also be uncertain, because it might just mean you are going crazy and hearing things instead.
I believe faith is what we do when we make a leap beyond that uncertainty, so we can act with confidence on beliefs that seem true but might not be true. I think that if you look at stories in the Bible, most faithful figures do receive some sort of evidence - a miracle, hearing God, a burning bush, etc. I think their faith comes from the fact that, rather than doubting that evidence to the point that they fall into inaction, they trust what seems true to them based on what they experienced (that God really is asking them to do something) and are willing to act upon it. They don't blindly pull their beliefs out of thin air - but they are willing to act in some bold ways based only upon evidence that is very very far from clear cut. That is how I view faith, at least.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Clearly, not every prayer is answered.
I disagree. Every prayer is answered; sometimes the answer is, "No."
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
"God, are you there? Do you still exist?" "No."
Maybe not.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Yeah, I wouldn't expect that one to get a "No." Hence my "sometimes."
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
For me, it seems easy to change the wording from "God" to "Ice Cream Machine" or whatever. The power of self-confirming bias is really, really strong, and over the course of a lifetime, of course one will encounter numerous amazing events that could be portrayed as miraculous.
It's like the Terry Pratchett comment: It's a miracle when someone's life is saved, but it would be equally miraculious if the road curved just there, there was just the right puddle and just the right engine failure to kill someone. A lot of bad things happen or boring things, and our minds naturally gloss over them. When life gives us something good, positive bias makes that event into something more than it is.
So belief in God appears to me to be based on nothing more than highly subjective emotional, self-confirming incidents of positive bias, the framework for which is built on social programing at a young age. Spiritual feelings can be induced by a variety of physical phenomena. I don't have anything against those who believe, but I certainly don't think it's something logical.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Logic is overrated.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana:
But then I became religious. It started for me with prayer. I exercised a particle of faith, a wish or hope or crazy hypothesis only, and prayed to a God whom I didn't believe existed. I got back some kind of answer, something that came from outside of me, that wasn't something I made up or invented or wished into being. I was positive of that. Then I kept on trying from that point and got more and more confirmation.
Tatiana, could you explain any more how the answer felt outside of you? Sometimes when I'm with someone I love I get a feeling that I don't feel any other time---sort of a stillness in my chest underneath my breastbone that makes me think I'm blending in to the nature around me. It feels a bit like (and I know this is a silly comparison) going down a big hill in a roller coaster without any fear. But I couldn't say that that feeling came from outside of me.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Logic is overrated.
Blasphemer!
She's a witch! Burn her!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Illogical. Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: sA: You'd get a better response to invitations to discussion if your tone and manner indicated that you would show respect and broad-mindedness during such a discussion.
Thank you for your advice. I'm sorry if I failed so far. I'm trying to improve.
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: "God, are you there? Do you still exist?" "No."
Maybe not.
Even if I don’t believe in any deity that can answer prayers, I still think that if a deity that can exists, the time lapse between the prayer and the answer can be long enough as to lead to the conclusion that the answer doesn’t exist. We have a limited life while many deities are eternal (or so I hear).
A.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Even if I don’t believe in any deity that can answer prayers, I still think that if a deity that can exists, the time lapse between the prayer and the answer can be long enough as to lead to the conclusion that the answer doesn’t exist.
Your god doesn't have an ansible?
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I should add Rivka to my list in the other thread.
Meanwhile, I am sad that no one liked my joke.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: Your god doesn't have an ansible?
Ummm, I don’t think you would call the Meta Entity I have in my belief system a “god”. But it sure doesn’t have such a thing. (I know what it is, having read the Ender series.)
A.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
What I don't understand about the idea of God answering prayers is that unless the prayer is answered through direct communication from God to you, how does it not infringe on the free will of others? Or does God only answer prayers by helping you to understand or see something rather than actually causing something to happen?
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Prayers for comfort, peace, wisdom, answers and inspiration can all be answered without infringing on free agency.
A heart can also be softened without infringing on free agency - pointing out a road to someone is not the same as forcing them down it.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:A heart can also be softened without infringing on free agency
In your opinion, can a heart be hardened without infringing on free agency? The Pharaoh in Exodus comes to mind.
(Edited to change "softened" to "hardened")
[ January 09, 2008, 12:27 PM: Message edited by: Javert ]
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I don't think I would continue to believe in God if all I had were logic to prove he exists. To me, the evidence that he is there, and that he is truly creator, savior, and judge, is as plain as day, but that is because I first believed in him, sought after him, and followed him. I personally don't think you can arrive at an enduring belief in God any other way. That assurance that he is there really is personal, ultimately, and doesn't translate well into unassailable, universal proof for the world in general.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
*confused* You mean hardened? I think that's what you meant.
In that case, I refer to the JosephSmithtranslation.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: *confused* You mean hardened? I think that's what you meant.
I see that. But as every other translation I've read says that god hardens Pharaoh's heart, I would have to see the original (or have someone explain it to me, as I can't read the language).
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:Prayers for comfort, peace, wisdom, answers and inspiration can all be answered without infringing on free agency.
Yes, I assumed that as I would classify those as answers that help you to understand or see something. My question is in regards to whether God can and does answer prayers in other ways beyond that, and whether those answers would violate free will.
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
Tresopax: "the ability of God's existence to explain certain mysteries of the universe"
Uhh tell me one mystery he explains better than saying "a magic goat somewhere far far away does everything" (Same argument as Phanto)
Rivka:
quote: Logic is overrated.
I think this is the most offensive thing I've heard on this entire forum. I'm not joking. Do you also propose, on the same Logic, that illogical things are underrated, that astology should be used to predict the future and that we should treat disease using the four humors approach? (I am disgusted.)
SuminonA: I agree with your critical approach, don't feel like you're betraying my plan here.
Re-statement, new prompt sorta: So everyone here is claiming either "There is evidence" to which they give no support, that miracles and prayers are answered, at least for that person, (Please elaborate with some anecdotal evidence of such miracles).
Can anyone explain their belief with anything better than: It's helpful or that it's obviously true.
Please try to stay on topic and not bicker about the usage of quotation marks or things like that. I think a major part of where I stop accepting the story is when I don't see any proof that the bible can be supported. Anyone up for that? (I'm not putting in a defusing comment in the event that somebody is upset, but I thought about it)
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Can anyone explain their belief with anything better than: It's helpful or that it's obviously true.
I'm pretty sure that few people are going to feel motivated to do this in a thread that contains this:
quote:I think this is the most offensive thing I've heard on this entire forum. I'm not joking. Do you also propose, on the same Logic, that illogical things are underrated, that astology should be used to predict the future and that we should treat disease using the four humors approach? (I am disgusted.)
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:So belief in God appears to me to be based on nothing more than highly subjective emotional, self-confirming incidents of positive bias, the framework for which is built on social programing at a young age. Spiritual feelings can be induced by a variety of physical phenomena. I don't have anything against those who believe, but I certainly don't think it's something logical.
Well, emotions always appear subjective from the outside looking in. Even to professionals. Take someone with one psychological problem, and you might get five different doctors giving five different reasons. That does not mean they are valueless.
You're off-base too with your claims of 'self-confirming' and 'programmed through childhood'. Just because the latter is certainly the case for many religious people, and you suspect the former is true of all of them does not make it so, nor does it mean it's the ultimate reason for religious experience.
Just because feelings can be induced by a variety of physical things does not mean that when felt those feelings must have been induced by a tricky trigger (i.e., let's speak plainly: the religious person has taught themselves to believe something crazy).
I have also not met many people, ever, who can think the things you do about a category of people, Phanto, and "have nothing against them". I do not believe you wish anything bad to happen to religious people, but that is not the same thing.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Why is it so important to some of you that we choose only one way to experience the universe? Why must we limit ourselves to one tool, one method, for understanding life?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Why is it so important to some of you that we choose only one way to experience the universe? Why must we limit ourselves to one tool, one method, for understanding life?
It's not that we're limiting ourselves to one method, Kate.
It's that you're attempting, from our perspectives, to drive a nail with a piece of cake. Or, more accurately, we perceive that a nail needs to be driven; you perceive a need to eat cake. Consequently, your fairy cake meets your immediate cake needs; we, however, do not recognize any need for cake, and cannot understand how you expect to get any nails driven when your hands are covered in frosting.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: It's not that we're limiting ourselves to one method, Kate.
It's that you're attempting, from our perspectives, to drive a nail with a piece of cake. Or, more accurately, we perceive that a nail needs to be driven; you perceive a need to eat cake. Consequently, your fairy cake meets your immediate cake needs; we, however, do not recognize any need for cake, and cannot understand how you expect to get any nails driven when your hands are covered in frosting.
THAT. IS. BRILLIANT. Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Why is it so important to some of you that we choose only one way to experience the universe? Why must we limit ourselves to one tool, one method, for understanding life?
It's not that I can see only one way to perceive the universe. It really isn't. For example I do not think there is any universal truth to the question, "Is yellow a better color then green?"* For some things there is no granite truth that we must carve out.
But in questions such as, is there a God, what does he do, does he have a purpose concerning us, there are unchangeable facts that answer those questions. The factual answers behind them are not open to debate, sometimes a light is on or it's off. We debate what those answers are, the answers themselves do not change.
We may spend all of eternity slowly learning all the nuances of God's plan, but the plan either exists or it does not, there is no middle ground.
This is of course my opinion and you may feel that the universe in large part is designed to serve all our own individual interests and desires. That if a man/woman sees it one way, then it is so. That may be correct, I personally do not think so.
Afterthought, I am not trying to say what you believe for you and then rebuff it, I know it sorta seems that way.
*I may be wrong on this question. Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
edit: addressing Tom
...and you guys try, from our perspective, to cook breakfast with a hammer.
There is room in my world for bakers and carpenters, both.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Ah...but we're using pound cake.
There is nothing about wanting to eat cake that means we cannot use a hammer when we want to pound a nail. Cake is for eating; hammers are for nails.
Different questions, different needs, different tools. None of which need to exclude the others.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: edit: addressing Tom
...and you guys try, from our perspective, to cook breakfast with a hammer.
There is room in my world for bakers and carpenters, both.
Unfortunately we live in a world where some bakers want to throw the carpenters into their ovens, and some carpenters want to beat the bakers with their tools.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Javert, then that is the misconception we should address.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Agreed. That is most unfortunate. Truth be told, my "side" is rather more to blame for that, as well.
edit: at least in the last 700 years or so. Perhaps a little less so before then.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:Ah...but we're using pound cake.
Good one, kate.
quote:A heart can also be softened without infringing on free agency - pointing out a road to someone is not the same as forcing them down it.
A review of the index in the Book of Mormon once persuaded me that only God can soften the heart. It never speaks of anyone softening their own heart. We can cease to harden our hearts and yield to the Holy Spirit through repentance.
Mostly I checked in to say that if a logical proof of God existed, do you really think you'd be having to ask? We'd either already be aware of it, or wouldn't be passing it out for the asking (the former.)
[ January 09, 2008, 02:07 PM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:There is nothing about wanting to eat cake that means we cannot use a hammer when we want to pound a nail. Cake is for eating; hammers are for nails.
Different questions, different needs, different tools. None of which need to exclude the others.
A problem arises if people see all the great things built by pounding nails with hammers and then conclude that anything hammers can't do must not be important. Then they might either starve, or attempt to eat hammers... neither of which is good.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
quote:A review of the index in the Book of Mormon once persuaded me that only God can soften the heart. It never speaks of anyone softening their own heart.
I don't agree with this.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
incidentally, how do we get from "there is no empirical proof of this" to "there is no reason to believe it"?
I have many reasons to believe the Cowboys will smash the Giants on Sunday, but I certainly can't prove it and many people, perhaps even a majority, would disagree with me.
The world does not function on, nor does it wait for, logical explanation. Sometimes (that is to say, "always") you have to learn the best you can and make a call based on what you know.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Javert, then that is the misconception we should address.
What do you mean that it's a misconception?
I think it's a problem that we should address.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
The misconception that it has to gbe one or the other. The idea that we need to take sides, that one person can't both eat cake and use a hammer depending on what he wants to accomplish.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo:
quote:A review of the index in the Book of Mormon once persuaded me that only God can soften the heart. It never speaks of anyone softening their own heart.
I don't agree with this.
It's textually based. I look forward to your counterexamples.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
I don't doubt that the language skews it that way, but your theological conclusion - that people cannot decide to soften their own hearts - is unwarranted and misleading.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: The misconception that it has to gbe one or the other. The idea that we need to take sides, that one person can't both eat cake and use a hammer depending on what he wants to accomplish.
Depending on what we're talking about, as I may have lost something in this otherwise brilliant metaphor, pounding hammers could potentially eliminate the need to eat cake, and vice versa.
OK...the metaphor has officially broken down.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Alma 32:15-16 seem to say you can soften your own heart, and kind of bears out one good response to the topic of this thread, asking why you would believe in God.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
There's one example of someone softening their own heart, but it's Laman and Lemuel, and as you know, that was seldom sincere for long.. Search results Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
There is more than one way to state the concept. Drawing theological conclusions after a search for exactly one way to state the concept produces misleading results.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Humbling oneself and repenting is what I'm talking about. I was actually thinking about that exact quote earlier in the thread. I had seen it recently but couldn't remember where. I mean, that's a great chapter and I have thought of it a lot this month, but the primacy of humility and repentance before warm and fuzzy feelings was "new" for me at this time.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: pounding hammers could potentially eliminate the need to eat cake, and vice versa.
OK...the metaphor has officially broken down.
Particularly if the thing you are pounding is the head of a cake-eater... metaphor restored?
In all seriousness... I think Tom chose "cake" rather deliberately in that it's not a need but a want, and mostly a good thing, but can be overindulged. Is that accurate of me, Tom?
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I thought it was all about not having your cake and eating it too.
On the other hand...if all you have is a hammer....
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Let me try again...
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: edit: addressing Tom
...and you guys try, from our perspective, to cook breakfast with a hammer.
There is room in my world for bakers and carpenters, both.
Unfortunately we live in a world where some bakers want to throw the carpenters into their ovens, and some carpenters want to beat the bakers with their tools.
This is indeed the problem. The way to address it is not by arguing about who what kind of cake is best for hanging sheetrock or saying that eating is stupid.
Some of us think that the hammering would go better if we took some nourishment, others may have only had really bad cake or may just not be "cake people" and so would rather hammer on an empty stomach - and do just fine.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:The knowledge that all belief is built on “observation and evidence” may be your point, but I know for a fact that it is not the case. Blind faith is by definition outside your “point”.
My point is that even though religious faith is different from other sorts of belief, that doesn't make it blind faith. It is very different from (for instance) the scientific method, but that doesn't mean it isn't also based on evidence and observation.
If your belief is really based on evidence and observation, then you should be able to give a list of observations and evidence that would falsify your belief.
If you can't, then it's not.
The fact is, history shows us time and time again that "accept the truth of your idea, then look for evidence" just doesn't work. 99 times out of a hundred, the idea has flaws, because people make mistakes, but people are simply lousy at accepting that their ideas are wrong in light of conflicting evidence, so they'll stick to their wrong idea, rather than drop it and change to a righter one. And when you couple emotional attachment to the idea, it becomes darn near impossible for a person to stop believing the wrong thing.
So if someone is trying to convince others that the smart thing to do when faced with a dearth of evidence is to make things up and believe in them faithfully, well, history shows that's simply a terrible way of doing things. There's just no way around that.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:This is indeed the problem. The way to address it is not by arguing about who what kind of cake is best for hanging sheetrock or saying that eating is stupid.
I think we all can agree that fruitcake is the best cake for all your carpentry needs.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Wouldn't dwarf cake be even better?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: Wouldn't dwarf cake be even better?
I'm sorry. I don't believe in dwarves. Or their cake.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: Wouldn't dwarf cake be even better?
Somehow I find it terribly appropriate that Prachett cuts right across the argument, even when he isn't involved in it at all...
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
OK, all this talk about cake is making me hungry, even if we're pounding it with a hammer. (Must be pregnancy hormones.)
Sooooo....since we seem to have exhausted this take on things, how about turning it around?
***Why should one not believe in God?***
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Seems like plenty of people have been saying "because there's no evidence" pretty much since the start of this thread.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:The fact is, history shows us time and time again that "accept the truth of your idea, then look for evidence" just doesn't work.
I can see this with respect to brand new ideas, but doing things the way other people who are still alive do them has a good deal of merit throughout history.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Non-belief is the default position, and that shouldn't change without evidence to the contrary.
Why should one not believe in the invisible shoulder ponies that never say or do anything, but are nonetheless there (in accordance with the ancient texts)?
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
Here is substantial evidence based on mathematical proof that God is indeed a powerful factor in life.
quote: 101%
From a strictly mathematical viewpoint:
What Equals 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?
Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?
We have all been in situations where someone wants you to GIVE OVER 100%.
How about ACHIEVING 101%?
What equals 100% in life?
Here's a little mathematical formula that might help answer these questions:
If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:
While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, It's the Love of God that will put you over the top!
I got that in an email one time and thought it was funny.
Who am I to say that this isn't of God's design?
*edited for spelling
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka: Seems like plenty of people have been saying "because there's no evidence" pretty much since the start of this thread.
Pretty much. There are more specific reasons, of course, like the problem of evil. But those are more for specific gods that people believe in.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:incidentally, how do we get from "there is no empirical proof of this" to "there is no reason to believe it"?
I have many reasons to believe the Cowboys will smash the Giants on Sunday, but I certainly can't prove it and many people, perhaps even a majority, would disagree with me.
Different sort of proof. You're making a scientific hypothesis, based on your previous experience with the Cowboys and the Giants. Obviously, this can be more or less "scientific" based on the rationale for your conclusion, but the fact remains that you're making a prediction based on available evidence.
Non-believers, by and large, do not believe that this is what religious people do re: God. The reason "insulting" comparisons to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny come up so often is that, to many non-believers, there is powerful contrary evidence against the existence of most forms of God that, in its own way, parallels the evidence against the existence of Santa Claus. (Note: inspecific, squishy Gods excepted. There can be no evidence against something that denies the possibility of prediction.) And the only positive evidence for God is, by almost all accounts, more plausibly attributed to some other influence (and when I say "almost all accounts," I include those of religious people, most of whom have no problem believing that their counterparts in other religions are not properly experiencing the God they claim to experience.)
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Edit: responding to Pooka. I need to start quoting more.
From where I stand, there's nearly as much evidence of God as there is evidence that Kate Boots is a woman living in Chicago.
I am more convinced of the latter, for the record.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:If your belief is really based on evidence and observation, then you should be able to give a list of observations and evidence that would falsify your belief.
This is not true. The falsification criteria applies only to the scientific method, not every belief based on evidence and observation. For instance, I believe my grandmother had a bike because she told me she did, yet there is no evidence available that could falsify this belief.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:From where I stand, there's nearly as much evidence of God as there is evidence that Kate Boots is a woman living in Chicago.
Has God posted to the message board recently? I'm pretty sure I've never seen his avatar. Banna's never claimed to have dined with him. A little inner voice only you can hear isn't evidence of anything except a little inner voice.
quote:I believe my grandmother had a bike because she told me she did, yet there is no evidence available that could falsify this belief.
Sure, there is. Perhaps you'd discover a bunch of history books claiming that bicycles didn't exist when she was a child. Perhaps her siblings would tell you that she never owned a bike. Perhaps, later, she would tell your uncle that she wished she had owned a bike. That the falsifying evidence may be difficult to obtain, or may simply not exist due to the fact that it's not a false claim, does not mean that it's not falsifiable. Even the claim "I feel happy" is falsifiable in some situations, depending on whether you believe in qualia or not. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Jim, honey, I hesitate to say this but, I live in Evanston. I appreciate the sentiment, though.
(edit to add: Good example. Watch where Jim gets new information and adapts his beliefs to incorporate that new information.)
From JT:
quote: Non-belief is the default position, and that shouldn't change without evidence to the contrary.
I agree with this - where applicable.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Non-belief is the default position
No it isn't. If it were, we'd all be solipsists.
There is no default position. People don't believe in invisible ponies because they believe in the laws of physics, and that ponies are physical things that obey the laws of physics, which is evidence against the existence of invisible ponies that seemingly violate those laws. As always, it comes down to what we judge most likely to be true, given whatever evidence we have available to us.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:If your belief is really based on evidence and observation, then you should be able to give a list of observations and evidence that would falsify your belief.
This is not true. The falsification criteria applies only to the scientific method, not every belief based on evidence and observation. For instance, I believe my grandmother had a bike because she told me she did, yet there is no evidence available that could falsify this belief.
Yet, it could. Like an exhaustive index of bike owners for the time period she claims to have had it. The fact that this kind of index doesn’t exist, might make it particularly un-falsifiable, not intrinsically un-falsifiable.
A.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Tres: No, we wouldn't necessarily be so. For instance, you note how we all are naked by default, but somehow most of us have clothes on, now.
Of course, I tend to agree on no default position, though I'm not sure that statement carries any real meaning. But we could have a default position of no belief and still have the situation we have today.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Has God posted to the message board recently? I'm pretty sure I've never seen his avatar. Banna's never claimed to have dined with him. A little inner voice only you can hear isn't evidence of anything except a little inner voice.
I did say *nearly*.
But perhaps my point was more along the lines of the nature of the evidence-- there's correspondence and corroborating opinion from others, but my direct experience of the two of them is pretty limited in both cases. It *could* all be an elaborate hoax, either way.
And surely you can admit that it's a pretty big concession for a theist to compare the chances of God not existing to the chances of someone on the internet not being who they purport to be. That's not a statistically insignificant number.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: There are more specific reasons, of course, like the problem of evil.
That one's a humdinger.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: And surely you can admit that it's a pretty big concession for a theist to compare the chances of God not existing to the chances of someone on the internet not being who they purport to be. That's not a statistically insignificant number.
It is a big concession, but I think it's not going far enough.
If you compared it, say, to someone only messaging you not being who they purport to be, it would be closer.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I'm sure most theists and atheists disagree about the amount and quality of what I shall, for lack of better words, call "circumstantial evidence" regarding God. Not so much regarding Kate.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by suminonA:
quote:Originally posted by rivka: And I'm still wondering if you know what "gentile" means -- or the rules for using quotation marks.
I thought I knew. This showed me that in English the meaning is different to what I would have expected, meaning that I thought it also meant “delicate” or “innocent”. My bad.
You might have been thinking of the word genteel, or maybe just gentle.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:If your belief is really based on evidence and observation, then you should be able to give a list of observations and evidence that would falsify your belief.
This is not true. The falsification criteria applies only to the scientific method, not every belief based on evidence and observation. For instance, I believe my grandmother had a bike because she told me she did, yet there is no evidence available that could falsify this belief.
Oh, I suspect that if your grandmother had been very close to her sister her whole life, and her sister told you that your grandmother thought to her dying day that bikes were exceedingly unladylike, and that she was scared to death of being perched on a bike with nothing but phantom physics to keep her up, and if not a single relative or friend could claim to have seen her bike, and her finances had been handled by her brother and her husband her whole life, and there was no record of a bike purchase, and no one remembered her ever getting a gift as large as a bike, you'd change your mind.
But why stop with a bike?
If your grandmother had claimed that she was a spy for the Kaiser, or that she could fly if no one was looking, how are those claims more falsifiable than the bike claim?
Proving a negative can be very difficult, and can be impossible. That's why starting with a belief in things where it is difficult or impossible to falsify is a very bad idea.
What if I claimed I was a spy for the Kaiser? Does it make you look very smart if you accept that belief, and claim that there's no way to falsify it?
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: You might have been thinking of the word genteel, or maybe just gentle.
Indeed. Thank you.
A.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: Non-belief is the default position, and that shouldn't change without evidence to the contrary.
I'm not ready to turn the discussion back around quite so easily.
I don't buy that no God is the default position. At last count, most people in the world believe in God in one form or another. I have trouble accepting something as "default" when the vast majority of people believe the other way.
If there is a default position, I'd say it's probably what our parents taught us from birth.
Since humans are social animals, it takes something to go against the force of parental indoctrination and peer pressure.
So, especially for those of you raised in a religious home but no longer believe in God, why not believe in Him?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine:
quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: Non-belief is the default position, and that shouldn't change without evidence to the contrary.
I'm not ready to turn the discussion back around quite so easily.
I don't buy that no God is the default position.
Not saying that "no god" is the default position. "Not believing in a god" is. There's a difference. It's subtle, I admit, but there.
Posted by MattB (Member # 1116) on :
On the hearts thing - that's an interesting point, and makes me wonder what exactly the phrase 'soften heart' means. Perhaps it's prevenient grace, or God's spirit making it possible for us to choose the good. Accepting that prevenient grace could be what Alma speaks of.
One should believe in God once one has accepted the premises that make God necessary. For some people, those premises have to do with the promises associated with a loving God. For others, it's because the existence of God re-visions the universe in a meaningful way. For others, God is the logical and meaningful conclusion to a spiritual experience.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine:
I don't buy that no God is the default position. At last count, most people in the world believe in God in one form or another. I have trouble accepting something as "default" when the vast majority of people believe the other way.
Vast majority? I count 32% being Hindu, Buddhist African, or Chinese Traditional, and none of them believe in a single all-powerful God. 68% is not a vast majority.
But it's easy to explain whty so many people are theists. It's how human beings are wired. We look for patterns, even when they aren't there. We are social creatures, and figuring out the motivations of people is second nature to us. So when we see something happen, it's natural for us to think "who did that?" so we can figure out how to respond.
But it's like craving sugary foods, it's an instinct, but it can steer us wrong.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:Not saying that "no god" is the default position. "Not believing in a god" is. There's a difference. It's subtle, I admit, but there.
I'm curious, how might someone go about testing whether belief or non-belief is the default position? It seems to me like there are too many unknown or uncontrollable factors involved in belief to be able to generalize what a default position may be.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2:
quote:Originally posted by Christine:
I don't buy that no God is the default position. At last count, most people in the world believe in God in one form or another. I have trouble accepting something as "default" when the vast majority of people believe the other way.
Vast majority? I count 32% being Hindu, Buddhist African, or Chinese Traditional, and none of them believe in a single all-powerful God. 68% is not a vast majority.
But it's easy to explain whty so many people are theists. It's how human beings are wired. We look for patterns, even when they aren't there. We are social creatures, and figuring out the motivations of people is second nature to us. So when we see something happen, it's natural for us to think "who did that?" so we can figure out how to respond.
But it's like craving sugary foods, it's an instinct, but it can steer us wrong.
I never said "single all-powerful GOd." I said God in one form or another. But it doesn't really matter that much, I think you pretty much agreed with my socialization point (that our default position tends to be what we're taught). You just left out the part where you broke free of this mold.
quote:Not saying that "no god" is the default position. "Not believing in a god" is. There's a difference. It's subtle, I admit, but there.
You're right -- the difference is huge. I still submit that it's hard to go against the grain and throw off the religions we were indoctrinated into, though.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine: Since humans are social animals, it takes something to go against the force of parental indoctrination and peer pressure.
So, especially for those of you raised in a religious home but no longer believe in God, why not believe in Him?
I only know why I don’t believe in the favorite deity of my parents. For one, they couldn’t explain to me what that deity was/is like, to any relevant degree of accuracy. At least they admitted that they couldn’t. Secondly, I was always asking “too many” questions and never settled for the “no answer” or the “blind faith”. I found out about Logic early on. No wonder I’m the first engineer in a long line of non-engineers. I thank my family that they allowed me to follow my way, and not insist with the religious indoctrination. Thirdly, my personal questions toward the eventual deity have remained silent to this day. I’m still waiting, but in the meanwhile I only rely on duplicable kind of experience and evidence. I don’t reject the other kind; I just don’t rely on it.
A.
PS: just to be clear, I don’t suggest to anyone that they shouldn’t believe in their respective favorite deity.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine: I went on to say that the real default position is probably whatever you were indoctrinated into.
If you have to be taught it or indoctrinated into it, it's not the default position.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Considering just about every culture* has a religion, it would seem that a belief in the divine is the default.
*I am, of course, sans cites for this and am possibly making it up. I don't think so, though Is there a perponderance of counter-examples?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
We have to be taught to love. Is love not a default position? If not, why would default positions be prefered?
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang:
quote:Originally posted by Christine: I went on to say that the real default position is probably whatever you were indoctrinated into.
If you have to be taught it or indoctrinated into it, it's not the default position.
I'm not sure how you can reason this out. Certainly, as a baby, I didn't know anything about God one way or another. But then again, I didn't know anything about curtains or shoes or rocks or socks...(must stop reading Dr. Seuss! )
My parents taught me all that, and right alongside they taught me about God. It's the truth i accepted from my earliest awareness because I didn't question my parents then. It's the many years I spent trying to be a good little Catholic because my parents wanted me to be.
It is MY default. I'm hardly alone in that.
If you're trying to convince me that there's a universal default, you're going to have to work harder. Most people I know who became atheist or agnostic did so *against* a position that was programmed into them.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Considering just about every culture* has a religion, it would seem that a belief in the divine is the default.
*I am, of course, sans cites for this and am possibly making it up. I don't think so, though Is there a perponderance of counter-examples?
I would argue that what all human society has in common is the simultaneous fear and amazement in the face of the unknown. The more "primitive" the society, the greater the degree of both.
Maybe the (organized) religion was adopted on top of that because it served the few with the higher degree of knowledge than the rest. Disclaimer: This is a hypothesis, nothing more.
A.
[edit: bad quote format]
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'm not sure we have to be taught to love.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
If we don't have to be taught to love, then we don't have to be taught to know God either.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
That doesn't follow.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I think little children, at least ones who are secure as to their basic needs of sustenance, shelter, and love from their parents, are naturally loving.
But I guess that "love from their parents" is a pretty big deal.
I'm just going off the kingdom of heaven = little child thing.
To elaborate, I'd say the child doesn't have to be taught "this is love" in the same way they have to be taught to walk or to speak. They do learn these things naturally enough under normal circumstances, unlike, say, toilet training. Sure some babies are colicky, but that's irregular. Mostly babies radiate love (in my experience, anecdotal and all that though it is.)
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Paul, Sure it does. The rest is details.
pooka, those children who are being loved and being cared for are being taught to love.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
pooka -- I think we're shown how to love through example if our parents do it right. I would consider that the same thing as being taught love or taught to love, but semantics don't really matter that much. Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:If you're trying to convince me that there's a universal default, you're going to have to work harder. Most people I know who became atheist or agnostic did so *against* a position that was programmed into them.
It depends on the individual, but for me I think it was more the case that the programming never took.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
But I think being loved and cared for can be considered a default state. I don't think that's too much to ask, and I think it's the norm the world around. There are far too many children who do not enjoy such security, but I'd still consider it the default.
Posted by DevilDreamt (Member # 10242) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: If we don't have to be taught to love, then we don't have to be taught to know God either.
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: That doesn't follow.
I suppose it depends on your definition of God? If there is a cosmic force that binds all things, that created all things and loves all things it created, and we call this force God, I don't think it would be necessary to teach people to know it. Helpful, maybe, but not necessary.
If people are inherently capable of love, they should be inherently capable of knowing the God that has been described. If God is something else, though, something more complex than love and protection, teaching would likely be needed.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka: I'm not sure we have to be taught to love.
That's because its genetic.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"Paul, Sure it does. The rest is details."
"Knowing" and "Loving" are very different things. Plus, if god doesn't exist, then we can't know god, whether or not we are capable of loving. So, no, the rest isn't details.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'm still pondering whether teaching about God is needed.
I mean, I come from a point of view where the world is fallen - both on a global level and the society of man - and so the experience of God is not as direct as it was in the Garden of Eden where God was able to speak to Adam and Eve.
I guess I'd say that spiritually we are like Helen Keller trying to learn to communicate, and so in that sense we do need to be taught. Jesus was born as a man to be that teacher, to bridge our world with Gods.
But as has been noted, the necessity for us to fall is puzzling. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Paul, then you and I define God differently. For my definition of God, it absolutely follows.
pooka, we may be dealing with different versions of "default". Sadly, for much of humanity, I don't think that being sufficiently loved and cared for could be assumed as a default either way.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me:
quote:Originally posted by suminonA: Why don’t you believe that “1+1=10” ?
Because binary very quickly becomes unwieldy for "in my head" math where the numbers involved are greater than 8 (1000)
Man I was waiting for someone to make that joke. I was afraid I'd have to do it myself Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"You and I define God differently. For my definition of God, it absolutely follows."
Then I think you have a meaningless definition of god. If knowing god logically follows from loving, then there's nothing that your god brings to the conversation that isn't there without him.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
kmbboots, is your god conscious?
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
We tend to be acquainted with the hard cases. Isn't the argument that the vast majority of Muslims, for instance, are loving, faithful people who just want to raise their families? That's a billion. I know the Chinese treasure their children (the ones that get born, anyway) and Indians boast that they have no mental illness because their families are so strong. I'm prepared to believe South Americans are likewise fairly happy in their early family lives, and some of the most loving people I know grew up in Africa, not necessarily in easy circumstances.
I think Europeans and Americans over-think things and subsequently don't realize how happy they are. "Oh, this Baby Einstein video I've had my kids on might actually be lowering their IQs! They won't get into Darmouth now! All is lost!" and so forth.
Posted by DevilDreamt (Member # 10242) on :
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "You and I define God differently. For my definition of God, it absolutely follows."
Then I think you have a meaningless definition of god. If knowing god logically follows from loving, then there's nothing that your god brings to the conversation that isn't there without him.
I disagree. I think such a God brings a lot to the table. Being able to love another person is very important. Being able to love your family and friends is a step above that. Being able to love your country is another step up in scale. The God described is a love above and beyond any of those things. It is possible to know and find this God with love alone. This is important because not everyone has a teacher.
If there was simply love, and no God, love would ultimately have no power. It would be simply another emotion, and I doubt it would ever be able to reach beyond ourselves. Without a God (a.k.a. higher power) backing it up, love, although functional from an evolutionary standpoint, fails to provide hope for humanity.
And hope is pretty important.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
There seems to be some confusion about the meaning of default. If an action must be taken to a achieve a given state, then that state is not the default, regardless of how frequently that that state is obtained. If every single child were killed at birth, the default state of a newborn still wouldn't be "dead".
The analogy used earlier about clothing was a good one. Is "clothed" the default state of a human?
Consider your opinion on the iPod three months before the public knew about it. It existed - it had been in development for quite some time by then - but the default position was one where the iPod was not even a consideration. Forget trying to divine it's attributes - it didn't even exist as far as most people were concerned.
When it comes to knowledge, lack of belief is always the default. We may be instructed on various topics throughout our lives, taking our parents word as truth for most things, but the skeptic makes an effort to return to the default position on conclusions which they don't believe were arrived at through rigorous evaluation of evidence. A lot of those skeptics end up becoming atheists.
[ January 09, 2008, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: MattP ]
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:If there was simply love, and no God, love would ultimately have no power.
Why not?
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
It seems to take a lot of effort to get to your idea of a default state.
I'd say death is a default state. If people do nothing, they die. And if newborn babies aren't fed and kept warm, they die too.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:It seems to take a lot of effort to get to your idea of a default state.
Not on my part. I just had to get born.
quote:I'd say death is a default state. If people do nothing, they die. And if newborn babies aren't fed and kept warm, they die too.
A state arrived at through changes over time seems to be an odd definition of "default."
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
pooka, when I look at statistics for child mortality from preventable causes (hunger, war, HIV/AIDS, disease and so forth)*, I am not so optimistic about whether we are teaching children to love (or if we have even learned it ourselves).
*I think UICEF estimates 9.7 million a year.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
That is very sad. But that is out of 130 million born annually.
Posted by the_Somalian (Member # 6688) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Anyway, I believe in God because there is, in fact, this person we call God. I get important information and aid from him all the time.
How do you know that you're not merely delusional?
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"he God described is a love above and beyond any of those things"
So, basically, the god described is love plus love plus love... nothing that isn't already at the table without god.
"If there was simply love, and no God, love would ultimately have no power. It would be simply another emotion, and I doubt it would ever be able to reach beyond ourselves. Without a God (a.k.a. higher power) backing it up, love, although functional from an evolutionary standpoint, fails to provide hope for humanity."
None of this follows from there being no god. Its certainly an opinion, but I don't think it can be demonstrated that love without god fails to provide hope. In fact, I feel hopeful quite frequently... and I'm fairly certain that hope isn't coming from god.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Every culture not having a religion does not make belief the default.
For instance, non-belief could be the default, but the lack of good explanations for the things around them could lead people to come up with religious beliefs to explain them. Reach today, and religious beliefs have diversified and refined greatly and are taught to by far most people on the planet, but it still wouldn't be the default for people. That's merely one easy way for it to have happened.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: There seems to be some confusion about the meaning of default. If an action must be taken to a achieve a given state, then that state is not the default, regardless of how frequently that that state is obtained.
There's a problem with the idea that the default state begins at birth. We have almost no control over our own lives for many years after that point. I submit that the default state must necessarily begin when we reach a state at which we can reasonably think and question. This usually occurs in adolescence.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
On the bright side, I rather suspect that the ratio of children dying of preventable causes is probably at an all time low. I don't have anything with a lengthy history handy but the charts here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6943975.stm at least show a drop in all areas between 1990 and 2004.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:There's a problem with the idea that the default state begins at birth. We have almost no control over our own lives for many years after that point. I submit that the default state must necessarily begin when we reach a state at which we can reasonably think and question. This usually occurs in adolescence.
Now you are suggesting the default state of an adolescent or an independent individual, not the default state of a human being. In any case, the original question was about knowledge and the default state on a point of knowledge is to be unaware of it. Some atheists may have to return to that state on the question of God, but it doesn't make it a non-default position.
Posted by DevilDreamt (Member # 10242) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:If there was simply love, and no God, love would ultimately have no power.
Why not?
Well, if we see love as simply another emotion, it still has power in the short-term. It can impact our perceptions and our actions. But if everyone in the world knew that there was no God, no higher power whatsoever, would love have the power to change the world? Would we be able to hope that this chemical reaction in our brains might be able to unite us all? Maybe, but I find it unlikely, because without God, love feels very small.
Adding God to the equation allows for miracles (yes, even without a teacher). It allows for a hope that love can be shared, even with strangers. It allows the idea that maybe love is beyond a chemical reaction in our brains, that maybe it's a force that unites all of us...
Belief in a God that supports love (whether He is real or not) adds power to love. I suppose that was my point, and that's how I should have worded it.
My final point still remains, of course, I don't feel such a God is worthless. Just because he's not commanding you to obey spelled out laws, just because he's not ordering you to follow "specific name" from "specific date" doesn't mean he's worthless.
He still gives us hope for life beyond death and hope for peace on Earth. He can still bring a sense of inner peace, without ever saying a word.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Well, if we see love as simply another emotion, it still has power in the short-term. It can impact our perceptions and our actions. But if everyone in the world knew that there was no God, no higher power whatsoever, would love have the power to change the world? Would we be able to hope that this chemical reaction in our brains might be able to unite us all? Maybe, but I find it unlikely, because without God, love feels very small.
So you believe that atheists experience a less satisfying version of love than theists, or are you saying that the love experienced by atheists is still enhanced by God but without their knowledge?
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Yeah, I like inner peace.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by DevilDreamt: It allows the idea that maybe love is beyond a chemical reaction in our brains, that maybe it's a force that unites all of us...
Actually the Force that unites all of us is controlled by the midichlorians within us. Keep up Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:There's a problem with the idea that the default state begins at birth. We have almost no control over our own lives for many years after that point. I submit that the default state must necessarily begin when we reach a state at which we can reasonably think and question. This usually occurs in adolescence.
Now you are suggesting the default state of an adolescent or an independent individual, not the default state of a human being. In any case, the original question was about knowledge and the default state on a point of knowledge is to be unaware of it. Some atheists may have to return to that state on the question of God, but it doesn't make it a non-default position.
You This is a much less interesting question if we make the default state birth -- before we have any control over our state and frankly, at a time before we can be aware of what we thought. How do you know babies don't come out believing in God?
It makes much more sense to talk about a time when we are in control of our choices.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:You can split hairs all you like, but this is a much less interesting question if we make the default state birth. The answer remains that we believe whatever our parents told us until and unless we made some changes at a point in time when we were capable of doing so.
You're the one who asked why atheists don't believe in God. You were given an honest answer which is a part of many atheists' personal philosophies - that the default state on any question of belief is not to believe. You disagreed with that point, so I was trying to help you understand what "default" means in that context. I wasn't attempting to be pedantic and hair-splitting.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:It makes much more sense to talk about a time when we are in control of our choices.
It's specifically the belief that much of religious belief is sparked and nurtured during those times when we were not in such control that causes some skeptics to seek to revert to the "default" state of disbelief and attempt to evaluate the available evidence anew and reason to a conclusion independent of childhood indoctrination.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
I tend to think that we should believe in things without a reason to believe in them, and that the more we change our behavior based on a belief, the stronger that reason to believe should be.
While we are growing up, we are taught to believe all sorts of things, without good reasons to believe them. This doesn't mean our natural state is not to believe, or to believe. It means we're taught things. But once we believe them, to change what we believe, if we're going to act on changed beliefs, we'll need strong reasons to do so.
Posted by DevilDreamt (Member # 10242) on :
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "If there was simply love, and no God, love would ultimately have no power. It would be simply another emotion, and I doubt it would ever be able to reach beyond ourselves. Without a God (a.k.a. higher power) backing it up, love, although functional from an evolutionary standpoint, fails to provide hope for humanity."
None of this follows from there being no god. Its certainly an opinion, but I don't think it can be demonstrated that love without god fails to provide hope. In fact, I feel hopeful quite frequently... and I'm fairly certain that hope isn't coming from god.
Now now, I didn't say God was the only source of hope. There are tons of different sources for hope outside of God and love. The fact that you are frequently hopeful is well... congratulations? It's not that big of a deal.
You said it was a worthless definition of God, I tried to show that this God could bring things to the table, like hope and inner-peace, and you just countered by saying those things are achievable without God. Okay, sure, and I can achieve an orgasm without a woman, but that doesn't make it the preferred state.
It sounds like you would describe any God that doesn't offer to alter reality for you as worthless. I mean, what do any of them bring to the table that you can't pull off by yourself, except for, of course, the things that are impossible for mortals to do on their own, like heaven and hell, immortal life and what-not. I really didn't think that this was what you meant.
If this version of God does provide people with hope and inner-peace, who are you to call it worthless? It's serving a function. Maybe to you it looks like masturbation, but from their point of view the love they have is beautiful, and your love without God appears incomplete.
quote:Originally posted by MattP: So you believe that atheists experience a less satisfying version of love than theists, or are you saying that the love experienced by atheists is still enhanced by God but without their knowledge?
Enhanced by God without their knowledge, if I must choose, but as stated above, different strokes for different folks.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"You said it was a worthless definition of God, I tried to show that this God could bring things to the table, like hope and inner-peace, and you just countered by saying those things are achievable without God."
And if they are achievable without god, then if you want to say that this definition of god brings something to the table, you're left trying to show that your hope is better in some way then my hope. Good luck with that... and if you can't, then your god hasn't brought anything to the table.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"If this version of God does provide people with hope and inner-peace, who are you to call it worthless?"
People can believe all sorts of things, and through that belief, act or think in such a way that they are better off then without that believe. But as an explanation for anything, the belief isn't very useful other then explaining why the person is acting or thinking in certain ways, which is why I say that the definition doesn't bring anything ot the table. Used in the way god appears to be used here, "god" is interchangeable with, well, a whole variety of other words in the english language, depending on who is speaking.
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
Wow. This has really taken off, and notably not on topic...
Dagonee: From Rivka
quote: Logic is overrated.
My response
quote:I think this is the most offensive thing I've heard on this entire forum. I'm not joking. Do you also propose, on the same Logic, that illogical things are underrated, that astology should be used to predict the future and that we should treat disease using the four humors approach? (I am disgusted.)
quote: I'm pretty sure that few people are going to feel motivated to do this in a thread that contains this:
quote:I think this is the most offensive thing I've heard on this entire forum. I'm not joking. Do you also propose, on the same Logic, that illogical things are underrated, that astrology should be used to predict the future and that we should treat disease using the four humors approach? (I am disgusted.)
That is taken out of context. How is my defense of logic and repugnance at its dismissal going to scare off reasonable arguments from theists?
Also, to Rivka, I think I was originally overly upset, but I realize you probably were saying that flippantly (I still stand that I like logic quite a bit.)
C3PO: That's a cute email. (not sarcastic)
It seems like the "default position" would have to be the non-belief and ignorance of baby-hood. but it also seems irrelevant, because in my mind, a belief worth maintaining can be repeatably supported. Whether I was raised believing in evolution or not I really hope I would look at the evidence and logically conclude that I support it. So default belief or not... it seems like there should be a conclusion that can be agreed upon!
I would like to suggest again that we stay on topic, but... free forum. I really would like responses to the questions I posed, not dodging around and then discussing side-topics.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:That is taken out of context. How is my defense of logic and repugnance at its dismissal going to scare off reasonable arguments from theists?
What's with the assumptions that this would "scare" someone off? Quite simply, discussing this topic with someone who would say what you said is not enjoyable to most people. You made up a bunch of stuff about Rivka's statement to express your disgust.
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
I jumped to my conclusion I grant. It would have been better to just say I find that very rude, and waited for argument. (I do find it disturbing to propose that logic is overrated. That was the point of my explosion..) (Dag, you're very good at making everyone realize when they step out of bounds.)
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by camus:
quote:Not saying that "no god" is the default position. "Not believing in a god" is. There's a difference. It's subtle, I admit, but there.
I'm curious, how might someone go about testing whether belief or non-belief is the default position? It seems to me like there are too many unknown or uncontrollable factors involved in belief to be able to generalize what a default position may be.
Easy. Look at a claim: It's raining men.
Default position: Lack of belief in it.
This holds true for any claim in which there is no evidence for said claim happening in the past.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: Look at a claim: It's raining men.
Default position: Lack of belief in it.
This holds true for any claim in which there is no evidence for said claim happening in the past.
Claim: There is no God
Default position: Lack of belief in it.
There is no evidence for said claim.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Christine:
quote:Originally posted by Javert: Look at a claim: It's raining men.
Default position: Lack of belief in it.
This holds true for any claim in which there is no evidence for said claim happening in the past.
Claim: There is no God
Default position: Lack of belief in it.
There is no evidence for said claim.
Very true. Which is exactly why I don't make that claim.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Starsnuffer: It would have been better to just say I find that very rude, and waited for argument.
It would have been better. Still would have been an over-reaction, but at least it wouldn't make it quite as obvious that you have never read any of my posts (outside religion threads at least), nor my post right after.
You are very young. But the good news is that you'll probably outgrow that.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
(Hold old is he Starsnuffer? is english his first language? To me it looks like he's using entirely the wrong words to describe his reaction. I find it hard to believe someone thinks the statement "logic is overrated" is "rude." I mean, I agree with him insofar as I think its hard to overrate logic. But... his reaction is curious, to say the least).
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
Ah sorry Rivka, I completely glanced over your next post (it was small.. and there were two whole new pages to read...) I find that I tend to react vehemently only to later regret my vehemence and wish I'd been more kind and peaceful. *humble-ness(as per usual in cases like this, I realize the truth in other people's criticism of how I reacted and apologize)
Paul, I'm nearly 18 and English is my first language. I used "rude" because I believe logic makes so much sense, to dismiss it (as I took it, seriously) just seems disrespectful to so many scientists and discoverers... things like that. I used "disgusted" because I find a mistrust in logic to be... horribly self-deceptive and generally not-helpful to society. (See: genuine belief in horoscopes, astrology, UFO anecdotes, etc etc. these sorts of positions irritate me and I find they are not good, to say the least)(Source for stance on these issues in particular:Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark)
(I <3 logic) (I always feel like there's a lurking danger of being berated after I post... grumble )
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
*gently*
My degree is in chemistry. I taught HS science for 10 years. My father is a physicist, my mom a mathematician, and my grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project. I have a healthy appreciation for logic.
I also think that logic is not the best tool in all situations, and if it were, we'd all be Kohlinar'd Vulcans.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Claim: There is no God Default position: Lack of belief in it. There is no evidence for said claim.
Claim: There is no Easter Bunny Default position: Lack of belief in it. There is no evidence for said claim.
Of course there's evidence that there is no God; there's as much evidence there as there is that there's no such thing as the Easter Bunny. The God that is left over once you whittle Him down to avoid being erased by all the evidence against Him doesn't look like what most Americans mean by "God" at all.
--------
BTW, Starsnuffer, don't confuse "logic" with "reason."
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
The default position for anybody, starting when they are young enough to understand, is to believe any and all claims.
As we grow older and learn skepticism, the default position is to believe things which seem to support our worldview, and to disbelieve things which seem to contradict it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
By three, Sophie's already smart enough to guess when I'm pulling her leg.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
And at 18 months, my youngest would climb the stairs just to upset me - at least that's how I interpretted her turning to look and smiling at my grimace of fear. I guess I knew another toddler who would go in the street to get honked at by cars. We moved to a dead end street, and without that feedback, she stopped.
I'm not sure what that's supposed to demonstrate, though.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka: I'm not sure we have to be taught to love.
I sure needed lessons. Both in giving and receiving.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: I also think that logic is not the best tool in all situations, and if it were, we'd all be Kohlinar'd Vulcans.
Bing bing.
"Wouldn't conversation be more reasonable than dancing?"
"Much more reasonable, but much less like a ball."
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: I also think that logic is not the best tool in all situations, and if it were, we'd all be Kohlinar'd Vulcans.
I disagree.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega M.:
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana:
But then I became religious. It started for me with prayer. I exercised a particle of faith, a wish or hope or crazy hypothesis only, and prayed to a God whom I didn't believe existed. I got back some kind of answer, something that came from outside of me, that wasn't something I made up or invented or wished into being. I was positive of that. Then I kept on trying from that point and got more and more confirmation.
Tatiana, could you explain any more how the answer felt outside of you? Sometimes when I'm with someone I love I get a feeling that I don't feel any other time---sort of a stillness in my chest underneath my breastbone that makes me think I'm blending in to the nature around me. It feels a bit like (and I know this is a silly comparison) going down a big hill in a roller coaster without any fear. But I couldn't say that that feeling came from outside of me.
The answers I get to prayers (and they don't always come) are always things that I know are from outside me. For instance, they're things I wouldn't have thought of, thoughts appearing in my head that aren't things I would have come up with. They don't have the flavor of my thoughts. Sometimes they come in the form of suggestions, sometimes as answers to questions. Always very low-key and easy to ignore if I want to ignore them. The still, small voice is how we describe it, but it's not an audible voice but just a stirring, an image, thought, or feeling, in the heart or mind. Sometimes it comes in the form of a "true" dream, one that feels particularly meaningful and vivid, and that causes me to wake up immediately afterwards, usually in the middle of the night when I wouldn't ordinarily wake, and ponder its meaning. What you describe, that feeling in your chest, doesn't sound like anything I've ever felt. I've felt a lot of peaceful happy good feelings from being in love, at various times, but they seem different from what you're describing.
When I desperately need to know something, when I pray with all the energy of my soul, that's when I do usually get some sort of answer eventually. Even if I don't, I get the sense that God is watching over me with great care and interest. I know that I haven't been abandoned.
And I'm able now to do things I could never do alone. I can draw on an infinite strength when I need it, and have the ability to overcome, to keep going, to forgive, to let go of hurt, to have confidence, to resist temptations that I know I could never have had on my own. I'm much more, as a person, than I was before.
Also, before, I would let myself off the hook on certain things. I would say things like "I'm just like that, I can't do that, I'm no good at that" and not try to improve in those areas. Now I realize I have to keep trying. "Be ye therefore perfect." I know that I have a divine nature and I'm not allowed to get away with those excuses.
Another thing is that before I thought it was okay to do things that only hurt me. That didn't matter to me. I didn't have to be good to myself. Now I do. It matters. God won't let me off the hook on that because he loves me and sees me as being of great worth. Now it's an important moral principle to take care of myself and be good to myself as well as others. And if I can't even take good care of myself, how could I ever be a good mother or friend or daughter? How could I be responsible enough to take good care of others?
I used to be much needier, as a person, too. Now I take my needs to God and he fills them, not in the way of an imaginary friend, but with substance. I have love in abundance now, that comes from being so loved myself. I have love overflowing. Now I can look forward with a perfect brightness of hope. Life is wonderful for me now, it's a constant miracle. The universe is my playground. I'm having a wonderful time. Before I felt like an uninvited guest to the existence party.
God has made a huge substantial difference in my life, and I know he's not just my imagination. My imagination was never so fruitful, so hard but also good, so pure and true, as this. Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:My imagination was never so fruitful, so hard but also good, so pure and true, as this. [Smile]
Well, if you're wrong, then yes it is. As I see it, those are two pretty positive possibilities. Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote: It feels a bit like (and I know this is a silly comparison) going down a big hill in a roller coaster without any fear.
I've begun to feel this in the last few months. I'm not sure if it's good or bad. I'm used to more of a thrilled feeling, like when an airplane makes a turn. One day I was feeling really upset with some people and I had the impression that I didn't need to worry about what they thought. And that feeling came with it.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote:Originally posted by the_Somalian:
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Anyway, I believe in God because there is, in fact, this person we call God. I get important information and aid from him all the time.
How do you know that you're not merely delusional?
Somalian, if my experience of God is a delusion or a hallucination, then it's at least as internally self-consistent, logically satisfying, elegant, and persistent over time as this other hallucination we call reality or existence. So I'm going with it. Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:My imagination was never so fruitful, so hard but also good, so pure and true, as this. [Smile]
Well, if you're wrong, then yes it is. As I see it, those are two pretty positive possibilities.
Javert, I don't expect you to be able to tell, from my description alone, that what I'm saying is true. After all, you're not me. You have no idea what it's like being me, what it was like before I believed in God and after. So please understand that I'm not offering this evidence as a reason for you to believe in God. I'm simply answering questions people are asking me about my experiences with God.
What I'd expect would lead you to believe in God for yourself is if you put it to the test yourself. If you exercised some particle of faith and actually offered God your questions, your hopes and dreams, your troubles and doubts, if you approach him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and ask for his help. That is how I would expect you would get an answer for yourself, and then you would be in a position to judge whether it came from inside you or outside you.
I don't think there's any possible way you can judge my experiences along those lines. You just have to take my word that I'm describing as best I can what I've experienced.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote:Originally posted by Starsnuffer: Wow. This has really taken off, and notably not on topic...
I would like to suggest again that we stay on topic, but... free forum. I really would like responses to the questions I posed, not dodging around and then discussing side-topics.
Starsnuffer, you haven't been around long, but it's a longstanding tradition on hatrack not to try to constrain threads to the topic. We have rather freewheeling conversations here and we tend to like it that way. If a side topic is fruitful then it will get explored. If other people have more to say on the main topic, they will. We've found that attempts to straitjacket the conversation usually only kill it, and are no fun.
So I'd recommend just getting on board the roller coaster and enjoying the ride. Like Survivor notably said once, the point of having a group is going off track. It's like four wheel drive.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:What I'd expect would lead you to believe in God for yourself is if you put it to the test yourself. If you exercised some particle of faith and actually offered God your questions, your hopes and dreams, your troubles and doubts, if you approach him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and ask for his help. That is how I would expect you would get an answer for yourself, and then you would be in a position to judge whether it came from inside you or outside you.
There are quite a number of people who do this and receive no response at all. Most atheists I know have at one time or another been sincerely seeking an answer to an "are you there" prayer to no avail.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:What I'd expect would lead you to believe in God for yourself is if you put it to the test yourself. If you exercised some particle of faith and actually offered God your questions, your hopes and dreams, your troubles and doubts, if you approach him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and ask for his help. That is how I would expect you would get an answer for yourself, and then you would be in a position to judge whether it came from inside you or outside you.
There are quite a number of people who do this and receive no response at all. Most atheists I know have at one time or another been sincerely seeking an answer to an "are you there" prayer to no avail.
MattP, I believe you, and I don't know the answer to why this happens. One possible idea is that God is a person, so he chooses to answer those queries that lead people in the most fruitful directions, and not others. Another possible reason is that prayer is a skill, like seeing the pictures in the magic eye posters, and you have to work at it to get good at it. It might be naturally harder for some people than for others, for reasons of brain structure or other unknown reasons. It might also have to do with how important it is to you, how badly you need his help at that particular time. It might be there is more "static" in the fields sometimes or something. I definitely believe that God is natural and not supernatural, so real physical constraints can exist. I seriously can't make any judgment or theory as to why a given person finds it difficult to hear answers to prayer. I'm sorry if it makes you feel passed over or unloved. I feel certain that's not the case, that God loves everyone with a deep abiding love. I know it can't be for reasons of worthiness, since he will talk to me. The answer to your question is I just don't know.
Posted by GodSpoken (Member # 9358) on :
Many of us who come to hold beliefs and faith do so out of a need for it. Often that comes as much from lack of evidence as its presence. A child does not need to have logical proof of his need for love, approval, protection, comfort etc of a parent, it is a function of his development.
Most of us develop changing understandings of our faith as experiences build. I have a hard time with much of the "religion" often coupled with faith, because I see a lot of it stopping deeper understanding rather than enhancing it, and I really cannot abide a system or a zealot who bases most of his conviction on the joy of being right or being powerful or being able to exclude others from the club.
(Personal belief) I don't think you get "get out of hell" points for correctly chosing the team or set of rituals or deprivations that God has selected and Satan has cammo'd. That seems like much of what gets preached, and I think that is sad.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana:
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:My imagination was never so fruitful, so hard but also good, so pure and true, as this. [Smile]
Well, if you're wrong, then yes it is. As I see it, those are two pretty positive possibilities.
Javert, I don't expect you to be able to tell, from my description alone, that what I'm saying is true. After all, you're not me. You have no idea what it's like being me, what it was like before I believed in God and after. So please understand that I'm not offering this evidence as a reason for you to believe in God. I'm simply answering questions people are asking me about my experiences with God.
What I'd expect would lead you to believe in God for yourself is if you put it to the test yourself. If you exercised some particle of faith and actually offered God your questions, your hopes and dreams, your troubles and doubts, if you approach him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and ask for his help. That is how I would expect you would get an answer for yourself, and then you would be in a position to judge whether it came from inside you or outside you.
I don't think there's any possible way you can judge my experiences along those lines. You just have to take my word that I'm describing as best I can what I've experienced.
Your response seems a bit angry, and I hope I didn't anger you with my comment. (The internet making it hard to tell emotion, I may be completely wrong.) I was just saying that, in the event god actually doesn't exist, at the least it means you have a fruitful, intense and pure imagination. Which, in my opinion, is no bad thing. And I mean that with all sincerity.
As for the part where you ask me to seek out god, I was a Catholic for over 20 years. I did what you suggest many times. And I sit before this keyboard today an atheist. My apologies if that's a disappointment.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:As for the part where you ask me to seek out god, I was a Catholic for over 20 years. I did what you suggest many times. And I sit before this keyboard today an atheist. My apologies if that's a disappointment.
Just as I cannot say that God answers* everyone's prayers and entreaties because He has often answered mine, you cannot say that since you lacked two-way communication in that area, others who claim to have not are mistaken.
It's an excellent reason for you to be an atheist. A very poor one for anyone else to be, wouldn't you agree?
---
*I mean 'answer' in a daily-use, secular kind of way. I do believe God answers all prayers or is at least listening to all prayers, but His answers are sometimes indirect and subtle at best.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:As for the part where you ask me to seek out god, I was a Catholic for over 20 years. I did what you suggest many times. And I sit before this keyboard today an atheist. My apologies if that's a disappointment.
Just as I cannot say that God answers* everyone's prayers and entreaties because He has often answered mine, you cannot say that since you lacked two-way communication in that area, others who claim to have not are mistaken.
It's an excellent reason for you to be an atheist. A very poor one for anyone else to be, wouldn't you agree?
Correct. Exactly why your prayers and answers are great reasons for you to believe.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I think it's possible some people don't experience God the same way some people can't see certain colors. It's part of living in a fallen world.
That's pretty much my answer for everything.
I sometimes get folks who insist I must find meaning and answers in events like my son's death, but trying to do so makes me feel crazy. Sorry, I'll have to fit what I know of God around that and not inside it. (My son had a congenital heart defect of unknown cause.) I find my experience with the people who think it must have taught me wonderful lessons to have a similar flavor to the testing of atheists by believers.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:What I'd expect would lead you to believe in God for yourself is if you put it to the test yourself. If you exercised some particle of faith and actually offered God your questions, your hopes and dreams, your troubles and doubts, if you approach him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and ask for his help. That is how I would expect you would get an answer for yourself, and then you would be in a position to judge whether it came from inside you or outside you.
There are quite a number of people who do this and receive no response at all. Most atheists I know have at one time or another been sincerely seeking an answer to an "are you there" prayer to no avail.
But again, we often have to rely just on their "say so" just as they rely on our "say so" when we say the experience works.
I can't fully understand why God would or would not answer a certain person's prayer. I assume God has His reasons for dealing with them thus, I only know it worked for me, and I didn't have a special method outside what the scriptures prescribes.
edit: I guess what I mean to say is I have heard Mormon turned atheists say, "But I kept ALL the commandments my ENTIRE life, and I prayed HOURS, and I read ALL the scriptures, but still no answer!"
I don't know if they are being truthful, or if they are, whether or not there were other factors that kept them from getting a testimony that they do not tell me flat out.
I can identify for myself why it was not until I was 19 that I had a testimony though I was raised in the church.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I can identify for myself why it was not until I was 19 that I had a testimony though I was raised in the church.
You know the mind of God that well?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Why would that question necessarily follow, Tom?
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:The default position for anybody, starting when they are young enough to understand, is to believe any and all claims.
As we grow older and learn skepticism, the default position is to believe things which seem to support our worldview, and to disbelieve things which seem to contradict it.
This is more or less what I was thinking, except I would probably rephrase it.
The default position for anybody, starting when they are young enough to understand, is to believe any and all claims. Anything is possible and believable, but I don't think that default position changes.
Over time we accumulate knowledge, and that knowledge eliminates, or at least reduces, different possibilities. The default position is still to believe things, it's just that our accumulated knowledge quickly eliminates the possibility of most new ideas. Depending on what types of knowledge have been accumulated in a person, certain possibilities are more easily eliminated than they are for others. In other words, we still tend to believe things, just as long as those beliefs aren’t contradicted by our other beliefs, but the default is still to believe.
If our default position is to not believe, I'm not sure we would ever desire to explore the unknown or unseen, because we would never believe there is anything out there to find.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
That doesn't follow. As you said, we accumulate knowledge that informs our future beliefs.
I wouldn't imagine it would take much life experience to realize that there's things beyond what we can see. The desire to fill those gaps in our knowledge is what sent people to religion in the first place in my opinion. And science.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:If our default position is to not believe, I'm not sure we would ever desire to explore the unknown or unseen, because we would never believe there is anything out there to find.
It's not the default to not believe in anything. It's the default to disbelieve claims made for which we have no prior evidence until we receive evidence for said claim.
And I think we may be stuck on the word "default". It's not default in that it is what everyone necessarily does. It is the default that you should operate from in order to discover best what is true.
At least, in my opinion, and as demonstrated by the history of skeptical inquiry.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:I don't know if they are being truthful, or if they are, whether or not there were other factors that kept them from getting a testimony that they do not tell me flat out.
Well, as was mentioned a few pages ago, humility and repentance are actually the foundations and not righteous living. Even Joseph Smith's second vision was precipitated by repentance, and according to some accounts, his first. The vision of the brother of Jared was also preceeded by a bold confession.
But we are told over and over that living righteously precedes spiritual experiences. It's a bit of a puzzle, and touches on the dichotomy Matt B presented, about whether we are fundamentally like God or craven creatures with no hope except through divine grace. I tend to think it's possible to be both, though that makes it a paradox. So I go back to my original position that God is beyond logic.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote: I wouldn't imagine it would take much life experience to realize that there's things beyond what we can see.
What I'm saying is that I think we believe that things exist beyond what we see, not because previous knowledge suggests those may things exist, but because previous knowledge doesn't contradict our default position to believe.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:It's the default to disbelieve claims made for which we have no prior evidence until we receive evidence for said claim.
See, I'm just not sure I can agree with this. Suppose I were locked inside a room since birth and completely isolated from people and the outside world (somehow I am magically provided with the bare necessities for survival). If after say twenty years someone comes in holding a picture of a jabberwocky, I'm not sure I would automatically disbelieve it and ask for more evidence. I think I would more likely believe that it does exist, that is, unless I had somehow acquired knowledge that would suggest that such creatures do not exist.
In other words, I believe something unless given a reason to not believe. Those reasons to not believe typically come in the form of prior knowledge. Over time, we acquire more reasons to not believe in more types of things.
quote: It is the default that you should operate from in order to discover best what is true.
I agree with this.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
Another thought experiment: Ten different babies (in the 3 to 6 months old range) get separated from their respective siblings and lost in ten different forests/jungles of the world, by sheer accidence and incredible coincidence. They are all alone, until soon enough some animal family (think of the wolfs of the Jungle Book ) finds them respectively, and instead of eating them, they nourish them as if they were their own. This is to set some kind of “society” for each, but definitely not Human (and not the same between them).
The question is, if during 20 years of their life they don’t come back to “civilization”, what is their “default” position on religion? How sure one can be that they would believe in the existence of some kind of a deity, and how sure one can be that those ten deities would have anything in common one with the other?
A.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The position they have after twenty years isn't a default position, its a position arrived at after considerable experience. I would expect them to have considerably more belief in the supernatural than those who lived in 'civilization', though likely not much analogous to modern mainstream religions.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
I would expect the exact same thing. This is to say that belief in supernatural might be a "default" but that has little to do with organized religion as we know it. Do you think the variants of "God” people believe in would exist without organized religion?
A.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I wouldn't call belief in the supernatural a 'default', then, because I don't consider wandering around in the jungle any more a 'default' than being raised by a pair of parents who were careful to explain things only in naturalistic explanations, and that when we don't know something it doesn't mean we won't discover a reason later.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
Yeah, but some day in the past, those parents, or their parents (and so on), were wandering in the jungle, "by default".
A.
Edit to hint to the "grandparents".
[ January 10, 2008, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: suminonA ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Why would that question necessarily follow, Tom?
Because the only person who'd know for sure why he didn't receive a testimony until he was 19 would be God.
Posted by Starsnuffer (Member # 8116) on :
quote:A child does not need to have logical proof of his need for love, approval, protection, comfort etc of a parent, it is a function of his development.
There is evidence, however, for when you grow up and think "wow, I could really go for some solitary confinement, maybe to take my mind off things." to suggest that this is not usually a beneficial escapade and is likely to lead to psychiatric problems, rather than the rest one hopes for. Part of the issue of using parenting as an example is that the evidence is built as you go along. You see that you and others around you are dong pretty well with parenting, but those who receive bad parenting generally turn out worse, those like Janey (the girl who basically received no contact with people until she was 11 years old and rescued from her abusive, mentally deranged parents) are completely dysfunctional. Though the evidence is not requested along the way you can decide based on evidence whether your children will do better being tossed into the woods to fend for themselves or being nurtured by you into the sorts of people you want them to be.
I don't know if there's any real answer to whether or not we believe fundamentally or not. I think that it has a lot to do with how you consider things. If you were locked in a room and all of a sudden some voice from outside said there are elephants out there, and explained what an elephant was, you'd be in no position to disbelieve that person, but you by no means have more reason to believe them than not, except on the basis that they are outside the box, and you are inside. Obviously you would be skeptical and attempt to figure out whether there really were elephants outside or not, because you'd probably be pretty bored in there, after all(maybe some psychiatric problems ). If you realize, however, that the elephant has no influence on your life, and that your belief or disbelief in it is insignificant you can go back to doing whatever you do in that box and the elephant ceases to be important.
Suppose now that the voice tells you that the elephant is the one that is keeping you in the box, and he tells you that the elephant will let you out if you believe in him, and if you devote some of your time to saying your sorry to him and giving him lavish compliments, and attempting to convince the bugs in your box that there's an elephant out there with great stuff to give you... I'll stop the allegory now for fear of over-simplifying matters, suffice it to say the bugs were going to believe in a giraffe that their special voice told them about, and that the man in the box doesn't see why saying thanks to the elephant and using time from his own life to thank someone for which he has no proof is worthy of being let out of the box, but being relentlessly skeptical and trying to understand what is going on as well as he can is not. I'm not sure I actually ended the allegory when I said. It just got condensed. Maybe worse than it would have been. (again, these posts make me anxious. That seems like a bad result from all our feelings and attitudes.)
This is sort of how I feel about people telling me there's a god and some great growth to be had from believing, only it's less credible because the voice isn't incorporeal, but coming from people nearby.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
With all this talk of "default," I don't understand why that matters.
The default state of a human is nakedness, but most of us wear clothes when we go out.
The default state is ignorance, but most of us pursue knowledge.
The default state is to have no possessions, but most of us do our best to accrue them.
Default, shmefault. Posted by GodSpoken (Member # 9358) on :
Star, that was precisely my point in using the parent child analogy - it is about the child's need, regardless of the parental answer. The reason horrible parenting is so damaging forever in a person's life is because a child's need forces him to "normalize" his parents actions, even when evil.
This is exactly what make religion dangerous. Any self-appointed flake can gain followers and scare the devil out or into them, and mess them up enough to do serious damage to self and others. Need is "supposed" to balanced by trustworthy answer. The freedom to choose and to act and to take corrective makes it possible to make errors and to recover from them. The legalistic approach prevents recovery more often than it prevents sin.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
quote:Originally posted by suminonA: Another thought experiment: Ten different babies (in the 3 to 6 months old range) get separated from their respective siblings and lost in ten different forests/jungles of the world, by sheer accidence and incredible coincidence. They are all alone, until soon enough some animal family (think of the wolfs of the Jungle Book ) finds them respectively, and instead of eating them, they nourish them as if they were their own. This is to set some kind of “society” for each, but definitely not Human (and not the same between them).
The question is, if during 20 years of their life they don’t come back to “civilization”, what is their “default” position on religion? How sure one can be that they would believe in the existence of some kind of a deity, and how sure one can be that those ten deities would have anything in common one with the other?
A.
The default would be feral child syndrome. Inability to use or acquire human language would make the question kind of moot, wouldn't you think? Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
In it's original context I took "default" to mean "logical default". Given a new theory, the logical default is to be critical until sufficient evidence is presented in support of theory.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I can identify for myself why it was not until I was 19 that I had a testimony though I was raised in the church.
You know the mind of God that well?
In part yes, because part of the experience was being given an understanding of why then at that moment.
Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: With all this talk of "default," I don't understand why that matters.
The default state of a human is nakedness, but most of us wear clothes when we go out.
The default state is ignorance, but most of us pursue knowledge.
The default state is to have no possessions, but most of us do our best to accrue them.
Default, shmefault.
It matters from an epistemological point of view.
Note: when I say here “justify the beliefs” I mean for themselves, at least, and to the others in order to be able to “defend” those beliefs.
If a belief in a specific deity would be the “default”, then those not believing in it should justify that non-belief with a minimum of arguments.
If a belief in “supernatural” (that comes from ignorance and fear) is the “default”, then both the believers in some specific deity and the non-believers in the supernatural should justify their beliefs.
If a non-belief in “supernatural” and any specific deity is the “default” then only those believing in them should have to have a justification.
Now, the other BIG point is indoctrination (i.e. assuring the same default as yours, to others). If you take some belief to be the “default” you would feel the “obligation” (read moral duty) to indoctrinate your descendents with it. I vote for zero indoctrination, and the best counter-argument to that I have heard against it was: with no indoctrination our descendents would take too much time to learn anything. (Think of rediscovering the proverbial wheel in everything). So I vote for education and the only true difference that I see from indoctrination is presenting the whole story each time, not the truncated knowledge that would assure your particular “default”.
- - -
Edit to add:
quote:Originally posted by Eaquae Legit: The default would be feral child syndrome. Inability to use or acquire human language would make the question kind of moot, wouldn't you think?
Well, I have no such expertise to have foreseen that, and I’ll take your word for it.
The point that line of “thought experiment” was trying to make is that, (from a scientific point of view at least), the Human Race began without language and “civilisation”. In those conditions, the “wandering in the forest” part was close to accurate, and that’s where I think that the conclusion about the “belief in supernatural” as a default would come from. (That’s where it comes from, for me).
A.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana:
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:My imagination was never so fruitful, so hard but also good, so pure and true, as this. [Smile]
Well, if you're wrong, then yes it is. As I see it, those are two pretty positive possibilities.
Javert, I don't expect you to be able to tell, from my description alone, that what I'm saying is true. After all, you're not me. You have no idea what it's like being me, what it was like before I believed in God and after. So please understand that I'm not offering this evidence as a reason for you to believe in God. I'm simply answering questions people are asking me about my experiences with God.
What I'd expect would lead you to believe in God for yourself is if you put it to the test yourself. If you exercised some particle of faith and actually offered God your questions, your hopes and dreams, your troubles and doubts, if you approach him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and ask for his help. That is how I would expect you would get an answer for yourself, and then you would be in a position to judge whether it came from inside you or outside you.
I don't think there's any possible way you can judge my experiences along those lines. You just have to take my word that I'm describing as best I can what I've experienced.
Your response seems a bit angry, and I hope I didn't anger you with my comment. (The internet making it hard to tell emotion, I may be completely wrong.) I was just saying that, in the event god actually doesn't exist, at the least it means you have a fruitful, intense and pure imagination. Which, in my opinion, is no bad thing. And I mean that with all sincerity.
As for the part where you ask me to seek out god, I was a Catholic for over 20 years. I did what you suggest many times. And I sit before this keyboard today an atheist. My apologies if that's a disappointment.
Ah, I'm so sorry, Javert! I did misinterpret your comment, from reading too quickly, as assuming I'm delusional. Even still, I didn't mean to sound hostile in my reply so I'm sorry if I came off like that. I was raised Catholic and it never really took for me. My experiences in Catholic school and church weren't generally good ones, though I know others on this board have had better experiences. I wish you happiness in whatever path you pursue.
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), when the meaning is not straight forward (for me or the group using it). I also use it, “wrongly” for emphasis, which I try to avoid, end use italics instead…![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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