# If I didn't believe in God **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 19, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962 "2012-08-19T14:32:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/181 "2012-08-20T22:28:17Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > You \*are \*aware that there are several instances in the bible where god commanded just that, right? Yes I am aware but the bible is not related to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/182 "2012-08-20T22:28:59Z")
How do you distinguish people who’ve been commanded by God from people who only _say_ they’ve been commanded by God? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/183 "2012-08-20T22:31:14Z")
> [@badger5149](#): > > Well, what would you do? Let the world die off or kill 1/2 the population to save the rest? Or are you just like me and can’t really deal with the answer? In theory, if there were absolutely no other alternatives, then, yeah: kill half to save half, rather than let all die. In practice? I couldn’t possibly deal with it! I’ll be under the bed, hoping someone else makes the decision. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/184 "2012-08-20T22:39:42Z")
> [@badger5149](#): > > You know as well as I do that God was just used to sell the idea. Was Allah invoked on 9/11 just to sell the idea? Was the Christian god invoked just to sell the idea by the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq and Afghanistan? Most Christian believers in the West, I venture, would answer yes to the first and no to the second, for the very same reason followers of Allah would answer no to the first and yes to the second. Of course the _other_ one is stupidly wrong and therefor evil, so let’s bomb the shit out of them and let God/Allah decide. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/185 "2012-08-20T22:40:27Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > How do you distinguish people who’ve been commanded by God from people who only _say_ they’ve been commanded by God? This is actually a good question, if someone says they are commanded by God I feel they are lying or crazy. I feel when a decision is too big for me and I am forced to act I try to base my motives on what I would call spiritual principles, maybe you would simply call it ethics. I feel when I do this I am somehwhat relieved of guilt when the outcome is not what I had hoped for and I tend to act more decisively and intuitively. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/186 "2012-08-20T23:36:49Z")
> [@badger5149](#): > > This is actually a good question, if someone says they are commanded by God I feel they are lying or crazy. Does that include Noah, Moses, and Abraham? ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/187 "2012-08-20T23:37:53Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > Does that include Noah, Moses, and Abraham? You would not be asking if you followed the thread ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/188 "2012-08-20T23:51:24Z")
Y’know, maybe the reason we keep falling back on Judeochristianity is because you haven’t deigned to describe what your God is like, so we use the more familiar general example. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/189 "2012-08-21T00:03:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Y’know, maybe the reason we keep falling back on Judeochristianity is because you haven’t deigned to describe what your God is like, so we use the more familiar general example. I think he worships a _tame_ lion. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/190 "2012-08-21T00:03:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Y’know, maybe the reason we keep falling back on Judeochristianity is because you haven’t deigned to describe what your God is like, so we use the more familiar general example. You know how deists believe in a god who set up the universe and its laws and started it all running and then fucked off? Well his god does all that _and_ absolves him of responsibility for making hard decisions. ETA: > [@Czarcasm](#): > > I think he worships a _tame_ lion. Me gusta mucho! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/191 "2012-08-21T00:52:42Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > You know how deists believe in a god who set up the universe and its laws and started it all running and then fucked off? Well his god does all that _and_ absolves him of responsibility for making hard decisions. Well, he still seems to think his god will intervene or choose not to intervene if something bad happens, hence no requirement for action on his own part. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/192 "2012-08-21T00:59:46Z")
> [@badger5149](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > So what do you do if your god tells you to kill half the population? > > If you don’t have sense enough to read the thread before you post an idiot response like this you don’t deserve and answer. I’d read every one of your posts before posting that – in part because I’d been waiting, in vain, to see if you’d respond to mine, back on page two – and I’ve just now re-read every one of 'em, and still have no idea which post or posts you’re referring to. (Can you at least mention a post number?) Near as I can tell, the closest you came to addressing it was your response to **Der Trihs** , who’d asked about religious leaders killing people because God demands it; you replied that – well, that it’s a line of thought you may entertain at some point in the future. So what could possibly be more sensible than seeing if you’re finally ready yet? For what it’s worth, though, you went on to pretty much answer the question anyway: > [@](#): > > This is actually a good question, if someone says they are commanded by God I feel they are lying or crazy. I feel when a decision is too big for me and I am forced to act I try to base my motives on what I would call spiritual principles, maybe you would simply call it ethics. I feel when I do this I am somehwhat relieved of guilt Well, there you go: like plenty of atheists, you’re perfectly capable of making your decisions based on what people would call “ethics”. Oh, sure, you _ **theoretically** _ differ from them in that you’d defer to commands from God – except that, in practice, your position is ultimately _ **indistinguishable** _ from theirs, given that you categorically reject any alleged commands from God that conflict with your principles (or ethics or whatever you call 'em). So they reach the same decisions you would, by following the same process you use – except they don’t bother with the step that’s doing no actual work in your reasoning; they skip straight to the part about ethics and principles instead of (a) wasting a moment along the way before (b) getting there eventually. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/193 "2012-08-21T01:12:54Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, he still seems to think his god will intervene or choose not to intervene if something bad happens, hence no requirement for action on his own part. It’s the “or choose not to” part that’s key. In other words, his god will continue to act in a manner indistinguishable from chance and scientific law. But because he’s given it a name, he can feel like it’s God’s responsibility and not his. Hey, **badger** , did it occur to you that if there _were_ a god like that that maybe it lets natural disasters and famine and global warming continue is **not** because it is ok with them and has a master plan, but because it wants you (well, all of us, perhaps) to man up and make those hard decisions anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/194 "2012-08-21T01:20:20Z")
“Hey, I _sent_ you two rowboats and a helicopter!” ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/195 "2012-08-21T01:32:55Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > So they reach the same decisions you [badger] would, by following the same process you use – except they don’t bother with the step that’s doing no actual work in your reasoning; they skip straight to the part about ethics and principles instead of (a) wasting a moment along the way before (b) getting there eventually. And without the luxury of being able to transfer the responsibility of any Sophie’s Choice decision onto the shoulders of a fictitious super being who, it’s evident, will pat the believer on the head as though he were a pet poodle doing his master’s incomprehensible will. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/196 "2012-08-21T03:22:28Z")
[QUOTE= Well, there you go: like plenty of atheists, you’re perfectly capable of making your decisions based on what people would call “ethics”. Oh, sure, you _ **theoretically** _ differ from them in that you’d defer to commands from God – except that, in practice, your position is ultimately _ **indistinguishable** _ from theirs, given that you categorically reject any alleged commands from God that conflict with your principles (or ethics or whatever you call 'em). So they reach the same decisions you would, by following the same process you use – except they don’t bother with the step that’s doing no actual work in your reasoning; they skip straight to the part about ethics and principles instead of (a) wasting a moment along the way before (b) getting there eventually.[/QUOTE] ``` This is where I was hoping the thread would lead. No difference in how any decent person arrives at the decisions we do in life. We examine our motives or objectives and then do it. The only difference is with my belief in a higher power I may not fret or feel as guilty for as long as someone who feels total responsibility. I share that as being an imperfect human and it gets me off the hook a bit quicker. For me I feel it is healthier, you may very well have an equally effective mechanism for dealing with guilt, I don't. I enjoy having limits on what I need to feel resposible for even though I am a very responsible person who has always carried a pretty heavy load. ``` ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/197 "2012-08-21T03:32:55Z")
It’s not really a matter of being absolved as much as it is just accepting that a force much bigger and more powerful than me started all this and he probably knows where it is going. I believe in using every brain cell on the planet to solve problems before they reach catostraphic stages but when the wave finaly rolls in whatever wall I have up to protect my family with will just have to do and if I know I did my best I have no guilt. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/198 "2012-08-21T03:52:37Z")
> [@badger5149](#): > > It’s not really a matter of being absolved as much as it is just accepting that a force much bigger and more powerful than me started all this and he probably knows where it is going. How would you hypothetically distinguish such a force (that “knows where it is going”) from a purely random universe with _no_ specific goal? > [@](#): > > I believe in using every brain cell on the planet to solve problems before they reach catostraphic stages but when the wave finaly rolls in whatever wall I have up to protect my family with will just have to do and if I know I did my best I have no guilt. Is this something a believer can do that an atheist cannot? I don’t readily see the relevance? ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/199 "2012-08-21T04:02:00Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > How would you hypothetically distinguish such a force (that “knows where it is going”) from a purely random universe with _no_ specific goal? > > Is this something a believer can do that an atheist cannot? I don’t readily see the relevance? This is where we have a major difference, I don’t feel science has even approached a level to be able to discount the possibility of an intelligent plan. We think of time and space relative to our physical beings. If something we so large that we could pass through it without even being aware of it’s presence then time would be just as irelevant to this object or being. For all intents and purposes it would not even exist. Too many humans from too many cultures have reached out to a god of their choosing for me to just discount this as superstitious. I feel something in us is a part of something we are not able to recognize but we somehow feel connected to it regardless, it just feels very natural to me. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962/200 "2012-08-21T04:36:22Z")
> [@badger5149](#): > > This is where we have a major difference, I don’t feel science has even approached a level to be able to discount the possibility of an intelligent plan. Well, I don’t see how religion has approached a level to be able to _prove_ the possibility of an intelligent plan, despite a ~12000 year head start. I get that some mechanism evolved in the human brain to make unproven beliefs tenacious. I figure it’s that “fear of tigers” thing, where believing in the unlikely (there’s a tiger in that cave, so I’ll stay away) might waste time but doesn’t hurt, whereas being skeptical (there’s no tiger in that cave, until the day that there is and you get eaten) is occasionally fatal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-didnt-believe-in-god/631962.md?page=11)