Well for a theist God existed before he created the universe. It does seem like a waste to create such a huge universe so that you can create one galaxy that has one solar system that has one planet on which you create man in your image but I don’t claim to understand exactly how his mind works.
So deism (or at least a belief in a world we cannot perceive) is a delusion shared by 90% of the world and the other 10% have it right? 90% of the people on the planet. They might all be wrong on the particulars, every religion that exists or that has ever existed might be wrong on the details but why is it that so many people believe in SOMETHING with such fervor that it guides their life, they are willing to kill and die for it, that they commit atrocities, that they engage in self destructive altruism.
I’m not talking about pink pegacorns, I’m talking about the fact that 90% of humanity believes that there is something to this religion thing and the athiest’s insistence that the 90% must convince the 10%
No. But like ghostly visitations, it happens rarely and tends to frighten onlookers.
Of course they do. But your post illustrates that it’s still a problem theists have to explain because if the universe didn’t exist, what was god existing in?
And please notice that I’m trying to steer this conversation back toward ghosts. I’m not going to forbid discussion of god but I would appreciate it if you’d stick toward the general topic rather than continuing to this into a debate about religion.
I said that art can appear to have non-material origins. That it seems to arise out of nothing. You cried foul, and in your attempts to prove me wrong, you have twice stated that it doesn’t come from anywhere.
What do you mean by this? If I paint a picture on a canvas, it doesn’t exist until we “label” it?
No, it was a direct quote from you.
I don’t think neurological science is as advanced or has conclusions as concrete as you think.
So you are clearly-- in your own words-- saying it exists, which is in direct contradiction to your own argument.
I’m going to pretend for a moment tht you didn’t say “deism” or “religion”, as those have been declared explicity illegal topics, and focus on the fact that you are claiming that 90% of people believe in ghosts. Or, er, something like ghosts. Maybe brownies or lepruchauns or something.
Humanity in general has a tendency to err on the side of pattern recognition. We like to find reason and order even where there are none; for a completely banned-topic example, many people used to think that divine influences were responsible for lightning. In fact I’d suggest that 100% of people once believed that lightning had a supernatural cause of some kind. And yet, they all managed to be wrong.
People have a strong incentive to beleive in ghosts - ghosts would confirm the existence of an afterlife and refute the finality of death, which many fear. So many people actively look for excuses to believe in the supernatural; they’re willing to accept anything at all as evidence, and overblow the importance of what ‘evidence’ they find. This results in a lot of belief based on little to no evidence. Such is the way of humanity when it comes to comforting fantasies.
It’s incredibly improbable that anybody would throw a bucket full of fish on a person. Cold water, yes. Fish, no. I’m forced to conclude that the whole thing was a dream.
Sounds like a David Lynch dream… was a percolator involved?
Explain this if you can: It is Christmas Eve, I come home and I see the face of my long-dead partner in my door knocker. Then, later, he appears and warns me that three more ghosts will appear - and they do. Later, I change my miserly ways and I keep the spirit of Christmas in my heart ever-thereafter.
A delerium dream brought on by improperly prepared food.
A ghost told me God does not exist. I nearly died when I heard that.
The mods would never allow it to go here. It is too real, for them to allow. Just consult my site or blog. It is real, very real with some top scientists leading the research.
I’m assuming he’s vaguely remembering something about Jefferson, Franklin and maybe Newton. The key word being ‘vaguely’.
This, of course, is crap. We would welcome legit research on the subject. You’ve just never posted any, so eventually the mods got tired of it and told you to stop trying to pass off the anecdotes on your blog as research. Here are a few examples of that instruction:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12356780#post12356780
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11434660#post11434660
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10670507#post10670507
However I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to comply with what I said about dropping the subject of NDEs in this thread. I remind everybody else that NDEs are not the topic here.
nm
There are no anecdotes in the research, just good science. Just because the mods called me names and insults, doesn’t make it less real. Do you really think a hundred scientists working at over a dozen universities, publishing their research in scientific journals would do so for over 35 years if it was just crap? It is because it is good research that makes skeptics and atheists so mad at me, and remember I didn’t do the research just posted about it.
Its not a popularity poll in the sense that the fact that 90% of humanity believes in higher power doesn’t mean that a higher power exists but if we are discussing who should bear the burden of proof, then i think the minority view must make its argument to the majority.
As for how much of humanity believes in the Abrahamic God, I believe it is over 50% (about 30%+ Christian about 20%+ Muslim and about 0.2% Jewish). But its not simply the Christian God that i am arguing for, I am arguing for deism.
I don’t know how you can convince me, but I find it a bit odd that in a matter of faith you are accusing me of not arguing in good faith.
Please believe when I say that my faith is NOT something I inherited unquestioningly from my family or society. Every question and doubt you may have about my faith I have had the same doubt a thousand times and each time I cannot overcome the lessons of my own experience. You are asking me to tell you how you can prove something false to me when I have tried to do that myself countless times. If you can think of anything you are welcome to try.