How can anyone justify belief in God?

Great Debates
201

dalovindj, I really am sorry if you’ve taken your ball and gone home. Hopefully, you’re still reading. I’m really not trying to get the last word, I am interested in continuing this discussion.

Yikes. You’re right. I apologize. The first reference I saw to chairs was yours on page 3, and I failed to realize that it was a response to the post on page 2. In a long, heated thread like this, I hope you will understand the mistake. In any event, it was a mistake, and I apologize to you.

Again, I have to point out that neither I nor anyone else seems to be saying “nothing can be proven, so we should accept whatever we feel like”. I think we’re all asking “what does it take to be acceptable proof or evidence”. And I think that there is a real possibility on both sides for minds to change, and understanding to be reached.

But your insistence seems to be that there is only one thing that can possibly be considered “proof”, that there is only one possible train of reasoning that leads to valid conclusions, and that you just recognize it when you see it while the rest of us are deluded. If you want to “win a debate”, that’s great, you’ve defined yourself as the winner. If you care about understanding why I might choose to believe God exists, you lose.

Again: nobody is credibly claiming that all proof is impossible. We are asking, “what constitutes proof”. You said we should all accept “common sense”. When I said I didn’t know what that was, you said:

Wny is that pathetic? I was serious. You claim that there is some thing called “common sense” that we should all accept. OK. Let’s figure out what that is. When I learned about non-wellfounded sets and Aczel’s Anti-Foundation Axiom, I thought “of course, that’s common sense”. Non-wellfounded sets jibed completely with my common sense, and I thought such things were quite natural. But, some fellow students found the idea utterly ridiculous.

So, is the idea of non-wellfounded sets “common sense” or not? It doesn’t even matter what a non-wellfounded set is. Who get’s to say what is “common sense”? Is it just dalovindj’s chosen assumptions? I hope not. Is it exactly the things that we all agree on? No, because you are claiming things are “common sense” that we do not agree on. So, it’s not the union of all our assumptions, and it’s not the intersection. What is it?

What if I honestly, truly felt the idea of the existence of God to be “common sense”? Then do I have valid evidence? Or would you just tell me that my common sense was in error?

Further, you seem to have done your position a real disservice with the introduction of “common sense”. We were actually trying to talk about the standard of evidence that we would accept as demonstrating God’s existence. And we were actually proceeding from an assumption that there should be some evidence. You twisted that into a claim that there was no such thing as proof. Then you answer by trotting out something that seems indistinguishable from “intuition” to me. So which is it? Proof or intuition? You deny me the possibility of “proof” by insisting that whatever I have, it isn’t proof. That leaves me with intuition. I can accept things that agree with your intuition, since that’s “common sense”, but I ought to reject things which seem not to agree with your intuition?

This is a silly reason for you to go. If you read what I have written, rather than what you want me to have written, you will see that I never, ever, ever said “believe everything you’re told”. Quite the opposite, in fact. I don’t do anything remotely like that. My personal discovery of God was marked by extreme skepticism. I only believed that God existed after I had personally observed his existence. Even then, I fought tooth and nail to try to find other ways to explain my experiences.

What authority do you think is telling me what to believe? The Bible? Nope, I said I was Catholic, remember? We’re not exactly biblical literalists, in case you don’t know. Personally, I think I can find multiple Gods described in the bible; that the bible is a record of how the idea of God evolved in our consciousness during a crucial period. I believe that, whatever God is, he is “one”, so at least some of the characterizations of God in the bible are incorrect.

Do you think I believe whatever the Roman Catholic Church tells me to? Wrong again. I’m a pretty “liberal” Catholic (both liberally Catholic and Catholically liberal); the sort that subscribes to Commonweal and America. One of the things I like about the Church is that doctrine is quite precisely specified, so that I can examine it and know clearly exactly where I agree and disagree with the Church.

So, I most emphatically do not believe everything I am told. I will not buy that bridge from you. However, I might buy that bridge from my fiance or my mother.

An interesting question for you to think about, if you are still around, is: Do you ever believe anything you are told? If so, why?

kg m²/s²

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I am certain that your first sentence has a great deal to do with a truth of human psychology. It does not therefore become a truism that the referent of any human religion is therefore invalid. It would be equally possible, in an unanalyzed universe of ideas, that some god had created humans incapable of accepting the idea of their own death in order to foster belief in them. While this also does not “prove” the existence of a god, it does seem a reasonable stance to hold if, for other reasons, you have cause to accept the idea that that god does exist.

Since you have read Campbell, and are probably better versed than I in his thinking, you must realize that myth to Campbell is not to be tossed out as irrational superstitious garbage, but rather a means by which humans attempt to make sense of their world. There was a thread here recently in which there was an attempt to “prove” that “Matthew Shepherd died for your sins.” The logic, to use the term loosely, was that his death resulted from man’s unwillingness to accept those different from them, and in particular from two young men from Wyoming to accept Matt as an out gay young man. They therefore sinned against him by assaulting him and leaving him to die. If “sin” means anything in a world without a divine lawmaker, it has at least to mean the sort of abuse he underwent.

Any sort of myth is an attempt to express in figurative language, which may or may not also be literally true (though this is rare), an understanding of some truth about man and/or the world in which he lives. Thus, the death of the Corn King and his rising again in Levantine mysticism symbolizes the fall of grain in the autumn and its sprouting to new life in the spring. Does this therefore mean that the event celebrated two days ago in all Western Christian churches is therefore a variation on the corn king myth? Yes and no – at the service I attended a hymn was sung which draws the analogy between Christ’s Resurrection and the “rebirth” of plants in spring and of wheat in particular. But the stance of Christianity is that in some way a particular man, Jesus of Nazareth, itinerant rabbi of humanist leanings and teacher of a strong ethical code, who had been put to death for, effectively, heresy against the established Sadducean Judaism of the time, in some way transcended death and became present to his followers as a living person after having died.

I completely support your stance that one cannot in good conscience accept some superstitious drivel that goes against facts. But what seems to be present in most religions is a stance that suggests that the universe we perceive with the senses is not the totality of the actual universe, and that something beyond that sensually-perceptible sphere is available to those who care to accept it. I would encourage testing every alleged doctrine against your understanding and rejecting those that do not fit the facts – but remember that an inductive conclusion is not a fact, simply the summation of all known relevant data and the conclusion that can be drawn from them. In the words of the old adage, it only takes one white crow to disprove the idea that all crows are black. While my newspaper does not carry a column of resurrections to go along with the births, marriages, and deaths, it’s within the realm of possibility that someone who purports to be God incarnate in human form may have the ability to supersede the effects of death on a human body. Not proven, but within the realm of possibility. And if the evidence suggesting that this did indeed happen once, in a way foreshadowed by the corn king myth, is adequate for you to accept it, then there is a quite different universe of discourse available to you – in the words of the Gospels, “your eyes become opened.” Because what was a mythical parallel between the idea of death and the sprouting of buried seed becomes a foreshadowing of an event that is considered proof that God indeed does reach out to humanity.

I do not say this with the idea of proving that any such event actually happened to you – I know too well the history of the Gospels as adduced by competent Biblical scholarship to think that they can be taken as proof by a skeptic. But I suggest that judicious evaluation of the myths of Christianity (and of other faiths) may suggest that they are not necessarily the product of superstition but of men attempting to report actual events that transcended their experience. I recall a few years ago a pastiche published in a science fiction magazine I enjoy which used the techniques of modern scholarship to demonstrate how the popularly accepted story of the Second World War was clearly the product of Jungian archetypes – the compassionate patrician statesman in the U.S. who, having saved his people from poverty in an evil time (the Depression), then stands behind the tenacious bulldoglike man who takes over Britain in its utter extremity and by main force of conviction compels it to stand fast until it ultimately wins against a strutting egotist using his charisma to bewitch a militant Germany – they all fit beautifully into archetypal characters, and never mind that they are also known to us today to be real people.

As Tris. suggests, trying to “prove God” is a fool’s game – and is not something that He called us who believe in Him to do. Rather, it’s my intent in discussing this to suggest that just because something can be explained away does not mean that it should be explained away. I would love to think that 9/11 was a nightmare – but unfortunately it did happen. Gorillas were clearly monsters made up of a combination of the most bestial type of ogre image with the actual ape (i.e., chimpanzee) until they were discoved to really exist. And, of course, while the Iliad and the Leifssaga are strongly mythically influenced works of fiction, both Troy and L’Anse aux Meadows have in fact been excavated. Geoffrey Ashe has demonstrated a historically documented analog to the clearly fictional King Arthur. Just because it’s a myth aimed at unscrewing the inscrutable does not mean there is not an underlying factual situation.

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blowero -

As I said, I argued the Christian position because I felt that was the corner I’d been painted into by both our efforts. YMMV.

However. Back to the cd of Rite of Spring = your religious text of choice (I’ll get to textless religions or experiences such as mine in just a mo).

[ul]
[li]To some people, it (the whole religious text or all of Rite or Spring) is just noise. This would appear to be your position wrt religious texts, though I may have misunderstood.[/li][li]To some people, it is mostly noise with some musical passages. This is more or less where I fall wrt religious texts.[/li][li]To some people, the first movement is music, the rest is noise (Hi, Opal)[/li][li]To some people, the first movement is noise, the second music.[/li][li]To some people most of it is music with some passages of noise. I’m guessing this is where Polycarp falls, but again, I may have misunderstood.[/li][li]Some people don’t like it, but acknowledge that it is music.[/li][li]Some people don’t like it, but accept that others find it to be music.[/li][li]To some people it’s all music. The person that sprang to mind, here, was DDG.[/li][/ul]

You also have to take account of the fact that there are many different arrangements of Rite of Spring, and that different orchestras play it different ways. I don’t know which orchestra/arrangement you happen to have on your shelf (I own the Leonard Bernstein/London Philharmonic version with Stravinski’s own arrangement). This ties in to the fact that different people prefer different translations of a holy text, or prefer to do their own:

[ul]
[li]Some people like the original arrangement by Stravinski, or know enough Hebrew and Greek (or Arabic, or whatever) to do their own translation.[/li][li]Some people like the arrangement by Bernstein.[/li][li]Some people don’t care which arrangement they hear, but like how the Prague Orchestra plays it (denominationalists, I guess)[/li][li]Some people prefer the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra[/li][/ul]

Finally, there are the folks who have no holy text, only their own experience (this is where I would consider myself to fall). We have a song. Some of us have the same song, but each of us hears it in our own arrangement. I can share the song with you by humming or singing, though I don’t know what your response to it may be (see first bulleted list for different possible responses to a piece of music).

Some folks think they know who the composer is of the piece they hear, and name him, her or it appropriately.

Other folks (like myself), aren’t sure who the composer is, though they’re sure it comes from outside of themselves.

Still other folks think the music comes from within them, and so consider themselves the composer.

Is this clearer, or have I completely clouded the waters?

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O.K. -

a.) You are confusing me with biker - and I agree that he hasn’t provided support for his conclusions.

b.) My post was supposed to be a joke, hence the grinning emoticon that followed the sentence.

c.) Although I meant it in a lighthearted way and didn’t intend to provoke an argument, there is an element of truth to it in that atheists feel a very real sense of frustration at the general unwillingness of theists to offer evidence and/or logical reasoning to support their beliefs. You’re right that a number of people have offered reasons for their God beliefs, but it’s also true that other people have not. I just thought it was amusing that the shoe is now on the other foot.

d.) Lighten up, man.

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Well, I would say if you don’t want to get painted into a corner, don’t go into the corner in the first place.

I hope you don’t mind, but I’m snipping the middle of your post, since I believe I already made my point that I don’t think your music analogy works. You seem to have just continued with the analogy without addressing my criticism, so I don’t know what else to say without repeating myself.

Yes, it seems clear. Let me see if I am understanding you: What you are saying is that you “just know” (for want of a better way of phrasing that) there is a higher power because of the feelings you have about your surroundings, and other people may have different feelings, so their knowledge is different than yours. These feelings tell you with certainty that the higher power is there, but you don’t know for sure exactly what this higher power is like. Is this a fair characterization, or am I misunderstanding you?

206

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by biker *
i studied the bible, i read the bible, the bible is a collection of myths. myths that have been around much longer than the christian bibleThat statement is about as accurate as it would be to say “this message board is merely a collection of 1s and 0s”; many christians don’t have a problem with mythology in the Bible; I’m not going to try to convince you that the world was created in six days, I’m not going to try to tell you that a man and his family crammed a representative sample of every species of life on the planet into a big floating box and kept them there safely for a year. Sure, the bible contains mythology, but to say (or imply) that it is nothing more than a collection of myths is a terribly blinkered view.

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Ooops. You’re right, I did. Hey both names start with ‘b’

I was tired - I’m sorry. I realise it was a joke, but I felt it need a response anyway. Probably a little excessive.

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Excessive on my part that is. :slight_smile:

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you guys, you guys…putting biker to the test. i can see now i am debating with the best the net has to offer, a real challenge here.

in the future i will attempt to do two or three hours worth of research to back up every word i say and make sure all my historical references are chronologically sound…“whew,” i’m tired already.

this is exhaustive fun.

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I hope this isn’t too off topic. Plus the fact that I’m the utilmate tread killer recently; I should probably start a new thread.

I’ve always wondered why God couldn’t throw a few bones to us skeptics.

For example: There shalt be no thing that moves faster than the light of my creation.

This would be totally meaningless 2000 years ago, but would be significant in the 20th century. Why would God not give an occasional clue for the future? I ask with all due respect.

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Free will again, I imagine.
(just so’s you don’t kill the thread all by yourself)

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Yeah, I’ve often wondered why the Bible doesn’t tell me how to refill the toner in my laser printer.

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“I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” — Jesus (John 3:12)

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Laser printers are heavenly?

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Only if you know them very well. Otherwise, they’re quite hellish.

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remember not to long ago when the press played the video of osama (the skinny, frail osama) and they translated his words into english with subtitles. there was only one word they did not translate and that was the word allah.

the reason for that was they didn’t want us stupid, great unwashed americans to realize he was using the word “god.”

there was your bone fellas, the world trade center.

217

Hmmm. Can’t quite get what you’re saying. Is it:

A. I maintain that the transcript writers were divinely inspired?

B. I’m the only one who knows that Allah means God?

C. My cat’s breath smells like cat food?

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D. I don’t realize that the Western concepts carried by “God” are different from the Islamic concepts carried by “Allah.”

Or possibly

E. I’m reaching quite far afield in my attempted pogrom against religion.

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i am trying to reply but this site is sooooooo slooooooooooow…

our guvmint’ that translated the video (ie. the faith-based bushies) did not want the american people to realize that it was “god” that demolished the world trade center. no one is suppose to realize that allah means god in english.

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. . . are you stoned?

No offense man, but damn. Firstly, as I mentioned (atmittedly sarcastically), there are very different concepts of god held by Christians and Muslims, and the US media–hell, the whole English language–almost invariably distinguishes between the two. And has for many, many, many years.

Secondly, do you honestly believe that most Americans don’t know who/what Allah is? Please.

Thirdly, you first claimed the media translated the video, then that the government did. Which is it?

Fourthly, I understand you dislike the President, but I’m sure you can frame your opinions of him and his administration a little mor coherently.