what do you think of God?

[Jumper Geo]

express yourself without censorship!
As you wish!

Well Zoya,

You've had over 100 replies if you don't mind me asking what do you think of God. Express yourself without censorship! As you wish!

Cheers

Geo

 

[Deleted member 10475]

Whatever "it" is, I hate it.

I used to pray every night, for God to hear me, help me, watch over me but things only got worse. I've experienced enough horrible things to know there's no one up there, or where ever, looking out for me. I've always fought alone.

 

[CivilizationV]

There's no God. Or not the one that is usually described in religious texts.
If it would exist, you would have some sort of proof that it is right there (since religious folks and texts tell you that He cares about you).
I don't really give much serious thought of something I'm quite convinced is not there. I'm more prone to believe that the atoms that make your conscience, will be part of some other living thing in the future. That is scary, and at the same time is not. Can you imagine being reborn into an insect, or some other animal? My first thought is that I would be scared of dying with pain of being mauled by a predator, but I guess that is quite a huge leap of concern for something so vague, that even if I would be in that place, probably those minutes of pain would be something I cannot comprehend now. Other than that, I would assume death is peace. Specially now that I am in constant physical pain/distress.

 

[Tintypographer]

I love God and I believe he loves me. But I believe my own choices have led to my depression and that I can't fix things and even if he is disappointed I must take my own life.

 

[Hopeindeath!]

I think God is amazing, and I love Him.

 

[DoNotLet2]

My main point is how are the victims supposed to feel when a evil person gets off while a decent person will burn in hell for simple non-belief or how a victim supposed to feel when they see their abuser in heaven but not their family. Christians never can give a real answer to that.

Stephen Hawking has lower chance of going to heaven than a mafioso from La Cosa Nostra. Wonder how much murder is happening in Heaven lol

 

[ManWithNoName]

Hanging out for my sons and elderly parenrs, but yes I did plan to CTB and have multiple methods available.

And I think God would forgive me but I'm not 100% sure with all the theology I have read where suicides stand. Islam for example prohibits it specifically - yet professes to be from the Abrahamic God of Judaism and Christianity. So I grapple with that.

Christianity does not state that suicide is a sin—but I'm NOT saying this makes Christianity a better religion.

 

[mathieu]

I don't believe..

 

[Jean Améry]

Interestingly there are many similarities between them. One thought I have often had is that God might communicate with people where they are and in a way they can understand.

What does animism have to do with christianity? Or buddhism with either of those? Buddhism is definitely not a theistic religion. What about shintoism: the Japanese belief in spirits? Greek and Roman polytheism? The Abrahamic religions are but one of the many strands in religion the world over. Scholars of religion are hard pressed to give a unifying definition of religion since there are far more differences between them than similarities.

There's no doubt you are intelligent but it seems to me you are trying to rationalize the irrational.

Surely you must know deep down the beliefs you hold are purely subjective opinions based on wishful thinking? What is your belief based on really? What epistemological basis do you have for your apparant belief in a personal god?

If what you claim is true why did god stop trying to communicate with us after he left or inspired some books written thousands of years ago? You'd think he would know people today no longer take fairy-tales at face value, especially when they defy the very laws of nature. The bible especially is fraught with demonstrable errors: things that are clearly at odds with physics and other sciences like biology. If god is real and he created everything surely he wouldn't have willingly spread falsehoods about the workings of his creation?

What is more likely to be accurate: claims made by an ancient people thousands of years ago or discoveries made by modern science?

The rational answer to the god conondrum is disbelief until there is credible, verified evidence of his existence (scepticism). Otherwise you're just guessing based on emotional needs.

EVERY society EVER back to the earliest records has believed in some kind of divinity. I don't know whether the differences ascribed to this are the result of the proverbial blind men trying to name the elephant or not - but there is something to it.

Because people the world over believed (or believe) in some kind of god he must therefore be real? Are you serious? People the world over experience hallucinations: does that mean those hallucinations are real? I.e. actually happening in the world instead of just in the person's head.

That is the fundamental problem with religion right there: mistaking belief for knowledge. People believe the strangest, most irrational and illogical things. If someone claims to be Napoleon does the fact that he earnestly believes it make it true?

Assuming something is true doesn't make it true. If that is an acceptable epistemological standard every delusion is credible. If that is the case concepts like 'truth' and 'facts' lose all meaning. If everything is true nothing is.

 

[Bct]

A man-made construct that acts as the highest authority so some people don't want to challenge it. Of course some good ethics must be included in its teachings so people won't dismiss it out rightly as an evil figure.

 

[I screwed up]

I don't fucking care although I come from a family which is very pious .... Esp my mother .
But like I said earlier i Bloody don't care considering the way my life has turned out.

 

[Close_to_freedom]

I don't respect anyone who is religious. It's nonsensical bullshit.

 

[Jean Améry]

I don't respect anyone who is religious. It's nonsensical bullshit.

I disagree with your first sentence. Religious people can and often are good, decent and honest people worthy of respect. I will never disrespect someone solely because they hold different opinions. Of course this doesn't mean I have to value unreason or regard religious assertions as true in any way.

 

[Bardia]

Honestly, I see no need to concern myself with such fantasies.

 

[NextBusLeaving]

I was taught that the discussion get more interesting as they are getting more precise so. I mean in those other religions God isn't necessarily omnipotent or good. For example Zeus is a fuckin sadist so he would be fine.
I mean there are countless religions that people haven't made. I think if a religion is right then it's a religion no one thought of. Religions are basically guessing maybe with some hints. Why do you think it's an elephant? Why can't it be a cat or a unicorn? That's what I mean. We don't know whether it's an elephant or a cat or a unicorn or maybe a snake.

It could be any of those. I am referring to one specific story, I believe from Plato, where three blind men are trying to describe what they are touching. One says "It must be a tree, it is big and round and solid." He is touching the elephants leg. The other says "it must be a broom, it is brushy," as he touches the tail. The third is touching the trunk and he describes it IIRC as some kind of snake. Point being they are all right, based on their personal experience and perceptions at the time, but they are all wrong, based on their inability to grasp the larger reality.

What does animism have to do with christianity? Or buddhism with either of those? Buddhism is definitely not a theistic religion. What about shintoism: the Japanese belief in spirits? Greek and Roman polytheism? The Abrahamic religions are but one of the many strands in religion the world over. Scholars of religion are hard pressed to give a unifying definition of religion since there are far more differences between them than similarities.

There's no doubt you are intelligent but it seems to me you are trying to rationalize the irrational.

Surely you must know deep down the beliefs you hold are purely subjective opinions based on wishful thinking? What is your belief based on really? What epistemological basis do you have for your apparant belief in a personal god?

If what you claim is true why did god stop trying to communicate with us after he left or inspired some books written thousands of years ago? You'd think he would know people today no longer take fairy-tales at face value, especially when they defy the very laws of nature. The bible especially is fraught with demonstrable errors: things that are clearly at odds with physics and other sciences like biology. If god is real and he created everything surely he wouldn't have willingly spread falsehoods about the workings of his creation?

What is more likely to be accurate: claims made by an ancient people thousands of years ago or discoveries made by modern science?

The rational answer to the god conondrum is disbelief until there is credible, verified evidence of his existence (scepticism). Otherwise you're just guessing based on emotional needs.



Because people the world over believed (or believe) in some kind of god he must therefore be real? Are you serious? People the world over experience hallucinations: does that mean those hallucinations are real? I.e. actually happening in the world instead of just in the person's head.

That is the fundamental problem with religion right there: mistaking belief for knowledge. People believe the strangest, most irrational and illogical things. If someone claims to be Napoleon does the fact that he earnestly believes it make it true?

Assuming something is true doesn't make it true. If that is an acceptable epistemological standard every delusion is credible. If that is the case concepts like 'truth' and 'facts' lose all meaning. If everything is true nothing is.

I am allowing for the existence of a God who exceeds my capacity for understanding. It is possible God is "math," at some level; based on the cell level mathematic similarities between DNA and fractals and all kinds of other things. I dont know.

I also don't know that God stopped speaking to us; there may be prophets today that we dismiss or refuse to listen to because we think they are hallucinating. 8bn ppl in the world. I know a fraction of a fraction of them.

It is equally dismissive to believe that the concept of a God is a 10,000+ year shared hallucination between vastly different races and experiences as it is to believe what I stated: where there is smoke, there may be fire. Lets be open to that until we find proof otherwise.

Pascal's Wager is an interesting point: if one believes in God, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain; if one disbelieves he has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

For a great answer to your question on varying religions, check out "The Secret Teachings of All Ages," by Manly Hall. A religion does not need to be theist to be an attempt to explain things someone is seeing in a way that it can be understood.

My beliefs ARE subjective, not based on emotional need though - while it would be great to see all my relatives again, it is not required. Perhaps my soul is simply energy and I am having a life experience here that I will take back to be absorbed by God. I don't know! I am merely a believer who is open to the idea that the more I THINK i know, the less i am SURE i know.

I disagree with your first sentence. Religious people can and often are good, decent and honest people worthy of respect. I will never disrespect someone solely because they hold different opinions. Of course this doesn't mean I have to value unreason or regard religious assertions as true in any way.

Exactly. People are people. I value them individually based on merit because asshole is a character trait.

 

[Disintegration]

No you're not..

How about germs and there typical lifespan?
How about gravity?
How about underground aqueducts?
How about dinosaurs?
How about blood circulating in our bodies?

Again, you know nothing about the Bible but opinions of stories.

You haven't STUDIED it. You've read some and came to a conclusion based on your opinion.

That's not an atheist. That's ignorance.

If God stopped anything then we wouldn't be human. We wouldn't have free will.

Your argument has been proven incompatible with logical thought many times.

It sucks but it's the truth.

WE DID THIS.
Not God.

We are God, therefore God did this.

 

[GoBack]

I was always on the fence about God and whether or not this was real. And once I got sick and faced with death I reflected on 3 experiences in my life that were undeniable proof that God is real, but I didn't get it at the time. And now it's too late.

I've had some of them too, not saying what they were cause it's too personal but yeah ... somethings out there ;)

 

[I’mDone]

[QUOTE="NextBusLeaving, post: 740431, member: 8853"]

You have to go back further than that my friend. The Bible has definitely been tampered with by man, man with agendas. Masons, Rosicrucians, Romans, Jews, pagans. None of us are reading the complete Bible either; we only know what has survived.

There are also layers of allegory and symbolism to unpack; merely taking the Bible at first impression paints an absurd picture as you point out.

I'll leave you with this: Song of Solomon. Seen by most as a randy love poem...were you aware that it encodes the processes of alchemy as they were believed to be performed?
[/QUOTE]

Oh I'm fully aware of this. The four main gospels vary and as you say the various alterations that have been made through the ages make a mockery of the bible being the word of god. I highlighted the Church of England because it's notable in that it created a practically new religion.

The problem with interpreting allegory and symbolism is that each interpretation will be informed by the life experiences, education, background and biases of the interpreter, with no way of knowing which one, if any, are correct.

I didn't know about the Song of Solomon but really what does your claim prove? A treatise whose veracity cannot be established supposedly describes processes for an arcane art that never achieved its goal of transmuting base metals into gold. Fiction within fiction.

 

[NextBusLeaving]

[QUOTE="NextBusLeaving, post: 740431, member: 8853"]

You have to go back further than that my friend. The Bible has definitely been tampered with by man, man with agendas. Masons, Rosicrucians, Romans, Jews, pagans. None of us are reading the complete Bible either; we only know what has survived.

There are also layers of allegory and symbolism to unpack; merely taking the Bible at first impression paints an absurd picture as you point out.

I'll leave you with this: Song of Solomon. Seen by most as a randy love poem...were you aware that it encodes the processes of alchemy as they were believed to be performed?

Oh I'm fully aware of this. The four main gospels vary and as you say the various alterations that have been made through the ages make a mockery of the bible being the word of god. I highlighted the Church of England because it's notable in that it created a practically new religion.

The problem with interpreting allegory and symbolism is that each interpretation will be informed by the life experiences, education, background and biases of the interpreter, with no way of knowing which one, if any, are correct.

I didn't know about the Song of Solomon but really what does your claim prove? A treatise whose veracity cannot be established supposedly describes processes for an arcane art that never achieved its goal of transmuting base metals into gold. Fiction within fiction.
[/QUOTE]
Just showing how badly modified it has been by biased parties.

 

[Zoya]

Well Zoya,

You've had over 100 replies if you don't mind me asking what do you think of God. Express yourself without censorship! As you wish!

Cheers

Geo

Thank you for asking

Well, the truth is that I come from a place where they instill a lot of God and his love in me, I don't believe in what everyone talks about, because they always make me see a God who punishes me if I make mistakes, they make me see that I must always be perfect that I cannot be wrong that I cannot be bad. You know I prefer to create my own image of God and this is that God is someone I can trust, I do not know if he exists or not but in my head even if I do not respond, in my head I tell what happens to me with others, what bothers me and everything, I do not respond but I feel better to tell things to something or someone who does not know if I listen or not, but at least not defame or disclose what I say, which would happen if I tell someone else.

My image consists of thinking that this guy has a great love for me, so much that he can even be stupid and forgive the times I fall, because it's difficult to be a human being, and nobody would believe me, he asks to be born but you are already alive, what else can you do besides living, with all the shit of life, but living because you are already here and there are things in the world that you like and you shouldn't stop looking for the path that will lead you to them, even if there are people who hate you, you also hate people.
I want to and I think he lets me fall and he picks me up when I ask him to, not when he wants to, because if I ask him to, I'm supposed to really want to get up.
For the human being to live a good life (which I think many seek but give up after a few falls) he needs spirituality, whether he believes in the force of the universe or Buddha or whatever, but he needs it because he needs to feel hope, he needs not to feel alone with many burdens of life, he needs supernatural support that pushes him to believe that everything can be fine and that he must go on but he no longer finds an engine to continue, because the support offered by humans is limited.
Finally, what I want to achieve is that I hope to believe in the image of God created by me, because in this way I hope and try to live my little and short life well, because there are many things that I love, well also many that I hate and the problems that are never missing but it does not matter. For example, even if it sounds ridiculous, I love ice cream, and I don't think anyone knows or is sure that it continues after life, so why harm existence by thinking of a God or those who hate me or those who fuck up my life, it doesn't matter if I send everything to the devil for what I like.
We can't harm our existence because of those who have hurt us, who knows what shit they are also fucked up with and we can't blame anyone for our existence, you're already
Here, enjoy the short time you have. The force you give to the universe that's what you get.

P.S. I think I overreacted, sorry.
I also add, I don't speak English, I use the translator and I apologize.

 

[Jean Améry]

I am allowing for the existence of a God who exceeds my capacity for understanding. It is possible God is "math," at some level; based on the cell level mathematic similarities between DNA and fractals and all kinds of other things.

I wonder how you can believe in something you can't understand nor observe in some way. What's the substance of your faith then: there's something out there? How can you believe when you don't know what you believe?

'I'm allowing for..." would indicate you're not sure. Your second sentence would indicate some kind of pantheism. Personally I don't see what mathematics has to do with the existence of a personal god. If it's just another name for a principle I don't have an issue with that but it doesn't strike me as congruent with the conventional concept of god. More like the god of the philosophers: the prime mover, the demiurg etcetera.

I also don't know that God stopped speaking to us; there may be prophets today that we dismiss or refuse to listen to because we think they are hallucinating. 8bn ppl in the world. I know a fraction of a fraction of them.

If god is all-knowing surely he would find a way to unequivocally communicate his existence to us. I.e. not through people he'd know would be diagnosed with some kind of psychotic disorder. What's the difference really? How do you differentiate between a religious belief/experience and a plain old delusion or hallucination? I have a hard time understanding how religious people can stay sane when they have to oscillate between the reality we all inhabit and a supposed reality that lies beneath the empirical reality. What's their standard for truth? How can they call someone else crazy when they hold beliefs that have as little empirical grounding as say the claim of being Napoleon or Christ.

It is equally dismissive to believe that the concept of a God is a 10,000+ year shared hallucination between vastly different races and experiences as it is to believe what I stated: where there is smoke, there may be fire. Lets be open to that until we find proof otherwise.

If you reread what I wrote you'll see that is not what I said. You seemed to make the claim that since people all over the world since the beginning of time believed in some kind of god it would somehow constitute evidence of his existence. I countered that with the example of hallucinations. Believing something doesn't make it true and that many people believe something means nothing when it comes to establishing the existence of the object of belief.

There is no 'smoke' here as far as I'm concerned. I'm open to actual evidence, not mere assumptions, guesswork or faulty arguments.

Pascal's Wager is an interesting point: if one believes in God, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain; if one disbelieves he has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Pascal's wager has been refuted many times. There seem to be many gods (or at least conceptions of gods) out there: what if you happen to believe in the wrong god? Wouldn't there be hell to pay? Which god is the right one? What if there are many gods and believing in (only) one would arouse the ire of the others? Wouldn't it be better to admit you simply don't know and therefore become either agnostic or simply take the non-existence of a god or gods as the baseline untill you know more? What if you believe in god A but it turns out only god B is real? Or both exist but god B is more powerful?

Why would a loving god care whether we believe in him or not?

Not to mention Voltaire's criticism of Pascal's idea: a supposed interest in god's existence doesn't prove he actually does exist.

Besides wouldn't god be offended if we feigned belief in him in the hope of some reward? Plain old atheism seems much more honest in this respect.

For a great answer to your question on varying religions, check out "The Secret Teachings of All Ages," by Manly Hall. A religion does not need to be theist to be an attempt to explain things someone is seeing in a way that it can be understood.

My remark about there being many different religions wasn't meant as an empirical question but as a counter-argument to your notion that god would communicate through the different religions in order to be understood by different peoples.

Why would a personal god found or inspire an atheistic religion like buddhism? Or a polytheistic system? Or shintoism which doesn't believe in gods but in spirits of the ancestors and nature?

My beliefs ARE subjective, not based on emotional need though - while it would be great to see all my relatives again, it is not required. Perhaps my soul is simply energy and I am having a life experience here that I will take back to be absorbed by God. I don't know! I am merely a believer who is open to the idea that the more I THINK i know, the less i am SURE i know.

If your beliefs are subjective that basically means that you created your own image of god. Personally I believe that's all god is: an idea people came up with that simply doesn't refer to an actual entity in reality. There's simply isn't any credible evidence that it could be more than that. Absence of proof isn't proof of absence but it sure isn't a reason to conclude that absence of proof equals proof of existence.

'Emotional need' need not to be understood solely as 'I'll see my dead relatives again'. Many people believe because they are afraid of death and think believing in god will grant them eternal life (whatever that may mean) or they crave meaning, comfort, justice... Obviously I can't know whether that is or isn't the case for you. Surely your religious beliefs must provide some kind of comfort to you or in some way be useful to you?

I do agree with your last sentence: the more I know the less I'm sure of what I know. Hence my adherence to scepticism: don't believe in things without sufficient evidence. Reality is complex enough as it is without creating unprovable worlds and supernatural beings to further confound the matter.

If you take death to mean energy being reabsorbed into the cosmos I'd say you're right: matter is indeed energy and what we are will not simply vanish but re-used by the cosmos. Whether you use the word 'energy' or 'soul' or 'cosmos' or 'god': what's in a name? If we're buried our body will decay and become food for micro-organisms, worms etcetera and ultimately become soil. If we're burned our atoms will drift towards the heavens. Our bodies and individual identities will dissapear but not the atoms that made up our body.

The problem with that very naturalistic observation is that it flies in the face of the standard definition of a 'soul': an individual immaterial entity that survives physical death. Surely energy being absorbed by the universe doesn't translate to an individual consciousness being preserved?

Your notion reminds me of the Hindu concepts of Brahman and Atman.

Like I said I have no problem with religious people (not a priori anyway) and I firmly believe in the right of anyone to believe (or don't believe) whatever they want but I found this kind of discussion always boils down to the same conclusion: there simply isn't a good argument pro the existence of a god/gods. Not to mention a priori arguments prove essentially nothing, not the existential question (does X exist?) anyway. For that we need empirical evidence, not clever deductions.

Religious people can't prove any of their contentions and they simply choose to believe whatever they believe inspite of the clear lack of evidence. Surely that is their right but it's not my way. I don't believe I'm closed-minded in any way: show me the evidence and I'll gladly concede you're right and adjust my world-view accordingly . If no good evidence is forthcoming I'll simply disregard those notions which to me hold no value or information and are thus merely wasted mental energy. Not to mention the time, effort and often money people spend on their religious hobby. I really do have better things to do with my time.

 

[voltage268]

Hanging out for my sons and elderly parenrs, but yes I did plan to CTB and have multiple methods available.

And I think God would forgive me but I'm not 100% sure with all the theology I have read where suicides stand. Islam for example prohibits it specifically - yet professes to be from the Abrahamic God of Judaism and Christianity. So I grapple with that.

Crazy isn't it, coming from a christian background myself, with a god who apparently loves us more than we could imagine, we understandably doubt whether we would be sent to eternal torment for doing something desperate out of pain and confusion. The two don't add up.

 

[Lostandfound7]

God and I have a love/hate relationship. He loves me. I hate what He has allowed in my life....

 

[I’mDone]

If you take death to mean energy being reabsorbed into the cosmos I'd say you're right: matter is indeed energy and what we are will not simply vanish but re-used by the cosmos. Whether you use the word 'energy' or 'soul' or 'cosmos' or 'god': what's in a name? If we're buried our body will decay and become food for micro-organisms, worms etcetera and ultimately become soil. If we're burned our atoms will drift towards the heavens. Our bodies and individual identities will dissapear but not the atoms that made up our body.

This completely sums up my belief. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form or another. The thing that differentiates living beings from corpses is that spark of energy - the electrical impulses travelling through the nervous system. That energy is reabsorbed into the cosmos. If there is "immortality" or an "afterlife", it is that the energy within each of us is used in some other way.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I wonder how you can believe in something you can't understand nor observe in some way. What's the substance of your faith then: there's something out there? How can you believe when you don't know what you believe?

'I'm allowing for..." would indicate you're not sure. Your second sentence would indicate some kind of pantheism. Personally I don't see what mathematics has to do with the existence of a personal god. If it's just another name for a principle I don't have an issue with that but it doesn't strike me as congruent with the conventional concept of god. More like the god of the philosophers: the prime mover, the demiurg etcetera.



If god is all-knowing surely he would find a way to unequivocally communicate his existence to us. I.e. not through people he'd know would be diagnosed with some kind of psychotic disorder. What's the difference really? How do you differentiate between a religious belief/experience and a plain old delusion or hallucination? I have a hard time understanding how religious people can stay sane when they have to oscillate between the reality we all inhabit and a supposed reality that lies beneath the empirical reality. What's their standard for truth? How can they call someone else crazy when they hold beliefs that have as little empirical grounding as say the claim of being Napoleon or Christ.



If you reread what I wrote you'll see that is not what I said. You seemed to make the claim that since people all over the world since the beginning of time believed in some kind of god it would somehow constitute evidence of his existence. I countered that with the example of hallucinations. Believing something doesn't make it true and that many people believe something means nothing when it comes to establishing the existence of the object of belief.

There is no 'smoke' here as far as I'm concerned. I'm open to actual evidence, not mere assumptions, guesswork or faulty arguments.



Pascal's wager has been refuted many times. There seem to be many gods (or at least conceptions of gods) out there: what if you happen to believe in the wrong god? Wouldn't there be hell to pay? Which god is the right one? What if there are many gods and believing in (only) one would arouse the ire of the others? Wouldn't it be better to admit you simply don't know and therefore become either agnostic or simply take the non-existence of a god or gods as the baseline untill you know more? What if you believe in god A but it turns out only god B is real? Or both exist but god B is more powerful?

Why would a loving god care whether we believe in him or not?

Not to mention Voltaire's criticism of Pascal's idea: a supposed interest in god's existence doesn't prove he actually does exist.

Besides wouldn't god be offended if we feigned belief in him in the hope of some reward? Plain old atheism seems much more honest in this respect.



My remark about there being many different religions wasn't meant as an empirical question but as a counter-argument to your notion that god would communicate through the different religions in order to be understood by different peoples.

Why would a personal god found or inspire an atheistic religion like buddhism? Or a polytheistic system? Or shintoism which doesn't believe in gods but in spirits of the ancestors and nature?



If your beliefs are subjective that basically means that you created your own image of god. Personally I believe that's all god is: an idea people came up with that simply doesn't refer to an actual entity in reality. There's simply isn't any credible evidence that it could be more than that. Absence of proof isn't proof of absence but it sure isn't a reason to conclude that absence of proof equals proof of existence.

'Emotional need' need not to be understood solely as 'I'll see my dead relatives again'. Many people believe because they are afraid of death and think believing in god will grant them eternal life (whatever that may mean) or they crave meaning, comfort, justice... Obviously I can't know whether that is or isn't the case for you. Surely your religious beliefs must provide some kind of comfort to you or in some way be useful to you?

I do agree with your last sentence: the more I know the less I'm sure of what I know. Hence my adherence to scepticism: don't believe in things without sufficient evidence. Reality is complex enough as it is without creating unprovable worlds and supernatural beings to further confound the matter.

If you take death to mean energy being reabsorbed into the cosmos I'd say you're right: matter is indeed energy and what we are will not simply vanish but re-used by the cosmos. Whether you use the word 'energy' or 'soul' or 'cosmos' or 'god': what's in a name? If we're buried our body will decay and become food for micro-organisms, worms etcetera and ultimately become soil. If we're burned our atoms will drift towards the heavens. Our bodies and individual identities will dissapear but not the atoms that made up our body.

The problem with that very naturalistic observation is that it flies in the face of the standard definition of a 'soul': an individual immaterial entity that survives physical death. Surely energy being absorbed by the universe doesn't translate to an individual consciousness being preserved?

Your notion reminds me of the Hindu concepts of Brahman and Atman.

Like I said I have no problem with religious people (not a priori anyway) and I firmly believe in the right of anyone to believe (or don't believe) whatever they want but I found this kind of discussion always boil down to the same conclusion: there simply isn't a good argument pro the existence of a god/gods. Not to mention a priori arguments prove essentially nothing, not the existential question (does X exist?) anyway. For that we need empirical evidence, not clever deductions.

Religious people can't prove any of their contentions and they simply choose to believe whatever they believe inspite of the clear lack of evidence. Surely that is their right but it's not my way. I don't believe I'm closed-minded in any way: show me the evidence and I'll gladly concede you're right and adjust my world-view accordingly . If no good evidence is forthcoming I'll simply disregard those notions which to me hold no value or information and are thus merely wasted mental energy. Not to mention the time, effort and often money people spend on their religious hobby. I really do have better things to do with my time.

I enjoyed reading your well considered post Jean and find myself in broad agreement. Voltaire's statement in particular has always struck me to be self evident.

I'd just add the understanding that some have of the concept of faith...
Faith has value to those that believe, precisely because something can't be proven. In this paradigm, proof denies faith, so if something is proved to exist, it cannot be believed in from the point of view of having faith in it.
This is what Douglas Adams was referring to in the video I posted of the excerpt from The Guide, where God promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

 

[InterstateFlowers]

What do I think of God? I'm sorry that I can't give a proper answer but I really don't know. I've never read the Bible or researched different religions or actively look for people and ask why they believe in their religion. I don't feel ready to give my opinion yet because I'm too ignorant to give an answer I can be somewhat satisfied with.

I've only experienced a few things that have something to do with God and it's sad to say but none of them were good. When I was ten, I was forced to attend church when I lived with relatives. The amount of people and ceremony-like aspect freaked me out.

Otherwise, I really like hearing everyone's answers even if a few of them are vulgar. Believing that God is a sadist, cruel, and grim schadenfreude or explaining God's "side". It may seem stupid but I'm learning, at least of what others think of God. I'm hearing everyone's side and that makes me happy.

 

[a.n.kirillov]

That he is dead

 

[AcornUnderground]

This completely sums up my belief. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form or another. The thing that differentiates living beings from corpses is that spark of energy - the electrical impulses travelling through the nervous system. That energy is reabsorbed into the cosmos. If there is "immortality" or an "afterlife", it is that the energy within each of us is used in some other way.

I agree with this and hate it at the same time. I want to carry on without physical pain and find a purpose in all of this. I am having trouble facing a true end.

 

[NextBusLeaving]

I wonder how you can believe in something you can't understand nor observe in some way. What's the substance of your faith then: there's something out there? How can you believe when you don't know what you believe?

'I'm allowing for..." would indicate you're not sure. Your second sentence would indicate some kind of pantheism. Personally I don't see what mathematics has to do with the existence of a personal god. If it's just another name for a principle I don't have an issue with that but it doesn't strike me as congruent with the conventional concept of god. More like the god of the philosophers: the prime mover, the demiurg etcetera.



If god is all-knowing surely he would find a way to unequivocally communicate his existence to us. I.e. not through people he'd know would be diagnosed with some kind of psychotic disorder. What's the difference really? How do you differentiate between a religious belief/experience and a plain old delusion or hallucination? I have a hard time understanding how religious people can stay sane when they have to oscillate between the reality we all inhabit and a supposed reality that lies beneath the empirical reality. What's their standard for truth? How can they call someone else crazy when they hold beliefs that have as little empirical grounding as say the claim of being Napoleon or Christ.



If you reread what I wrote you'll see that is not what I said. You seemed to make the claim that since people all over the world since the beginning of time believed in some kind of god it would somehow constitute evidence of his existence. I countered that with the example of hallucinations. Believing something doesn't make it true and that many people believe something means nothing when it comes to establishing the existence of the object of belief.

There is no 'smoke' here as far as I'm concerned. I'm open to actual evidence, not mere assumptions, guesswork or faulty arguments.



Pascal's wager has been refuted many times. There seem to be many gods (or at least conceptions of gods) out there: what if you happen to believe in the wrong god? Wouldn't there be hell to pay? Which god is the right one? What if there are many gods and believing in (only) one would arouse the ire of the others? Wouldn't it be better to admit you simply don't know and therefore become either agnostic or simply take the non-existence of a god or gods as the baseline untill you know more? What if you believe in god A but it turns out only god B is real? Or both exist but god B is more powerful?

Why would a loving god care whether we believe in him or not?

Not to mention Voltaire's criticism of Pascal's idea: a supposed interest in god's existence doesn't prove he actually does exist.

Besides wouldn't god be offended if we feigned belief in him in the hope of some reward? Plain old atheism seems much more honest in this respect.



My remark about there being many different religions wasn't meant as an empirical question but as a counter-argument to your notion that god would communicate through the different religions in order to be understood by different peoples.

Why would a personal god found or inspire an atheistic religion like buddhism? Or a polytheistic system? Or shintoism which doesn't believe in gods but in spirits of the ancestors and nature?



If your beliefs are subjective that basically means that you created your own image of god. Personally I believe that's all god is: an idea people came up with that simply doesn't refer to an actual entity in reality. There's simply isn't any credible evidence that it could be more than that. Absence of proof isn't proof of absence but it sure isn't a reason to conclude that absence of proof equals proof of existence.

'Emotional need' need not to be understood solely as 'I'll see my dead relatives again'. Many people believe because they are afraid of death and think believing in god will grant them eternal life (whatever that may mean) or they crave meaning, comfort, justice... Obviously I can't know whether that is or isn't the case for you. Surely your religious beliefs must provide some kind of comfort to you or in some way be useful to you?

I do agree with your last sentence: the more I know the less I'm sure of what I know. Hence my adherence to scepticism: don't believe in things without sufficient evidence. Reality is complex enough as it is without creating unprovable worlds and supernatural beings to further confound the matter.

If you take death to mean energy being reabsorbed into the cosmos I'd say you're right: matter is indeed energy and what we are will not simply vanish but re-used by the cosmos. Whether you use the word 'energy' or 'soul' or 'cosmos' or 'god': what's in a name? If we're buried our body will decay and become food for micro-organisms, worms etcetera and ultimately become soil. If we're burned our atoms will drift towards the heavens. Our bodies and individual identities will dissapear but not the atoms that made up our body.

The problem with that very naturalistic observation is that it flies in the face of the standard definition of a 'soul': an individual immaterial entity that survives physical death. Surely energy being absorbed by the universe doesn't translate to an individual consciousness being preserved?

Your notion reminds me of the Hindu concepts of Brahman and Atman.

Like I said I have no problem with religious people (not a priori anyway) and I firmly believe in the right of anyone to believe (or don't believe) whatever they want but I found this kind of discussion always boil down to the same conclusion: there simply isn't a good argument pro the existence of a god/gods. Not to mention a priori arguments prove essentially nothing, not the existential question (does X exist?) anyway. For that we need empirical evidence, not clever deductions.

Religious people can't prove any of their contentions and they simply choose to believe whatever they believe inspite of the clear lack of evidence. Surely that is their right but it's not my way. I don't believe I'm closed-minded in any way: show me the evidence and I'll gladly concede you're right and adjust my world-view accordingly . If no good evidence is forthcoming I'll simply disregard those notions which to me hold no value or information and are thus merely wasted mental energy. Not to mention the time, effort and often money people spend on their religious hobby. I really do have better things to do with my time.

The beauty of faith IS belief without evidence or proof.

I said "I am allowing for" because, while I believe in the Christian God, my understanding of it all may be completely off.

I would like to speak further with you and continue to write but it is so troublesome with my tiny phone pad. :/ thank you for a good and civil discussion despite our disagreement.

 

[DoNotLet2]

It could be any of those. I am referring to one specific story, I believe from Plato, where three blind men are trying to describe what they are touching. One says "It must be a tree, it is big and round and solid." He is touching the elephants leg. The other says "it must be a broom, it is brushy," as he touches the tail. The third is touching the trunk and he describes it IIRC as some kind of snake. Point being they are all right, based on their personal experience and perceptions at the time, but they are all wrong, based on their inability to grasp the larger reality.

I am allowing for the existence of a God who exceeds my capacity for understanding. It is possible God is "math," at some level; based on the cell level mathematic similarities between DNA and fractals and all kinds of other things. I dont know.

I also don't know that God stopped speaking to us; there may be prophets today that we dismiss or refuse to listen to because we think they are hallucinating. 8bn ppl in the world. I know a fraction of a fraction of them.

I don't want to seem it like I gave up but well I have to give up at least for now. I'm too tired to continue this discussion I'm sorry.