# Reasons for belief and disbelief in God **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 28, 2006, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-for-belief-and-disbelief-in-god/341964 "2006-01-28T07:02:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![April](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aca169/32.png) [@April](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-for-belief-and-disbelief-in-god/341964/301 "2006-02-04T19:49:09Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Because I’m programmed to. 😉 That’s interesting. Sometimes I wonder if that also applies to the way men and women behave in terms of positions in life, feelings, expressing feelings, the way we view sex, the way we dress, and countless others. Or is that really our nature. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-for-belief-and-disbelief-in-god/341964/302 "2006-02-05T02:37:58Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > I’m sorry if I used an incorrect term. I thought your statement that the three Omnis and the existance of evil were incompatible was a premise. What would be the correct term? Conclusion? Yes. A premise is a starting point- it’s an assumption (which for the sake of argument) is taken to be true from the outset. Sometimes multiple premises can be shown to be contradictory. That’s all I’ve done. I’ve posited no premises of my own. > [@](#): > > If we’re only talking about Christianity then those terms aren’t really relevant. I didn’t see the OP as refering just to Christianity. I’ve also been careful to say that I’m only showing logical contradictions in specifically Christian doctrine. I have not said that all theistic beliefs or theological premises are necessarily contradictory. > [@](#): > > I agree with you that certain doctrines of mainstream Christianity are incompatible with each other. I can also agree that if we interpret God as a seperate all powerful being and we as this beings seperate creations then your logic makes perfect sense. Thats not how I see it. It’s not just that suffering is temporary. It’s more that our perception of good and evil are all part of one thing, which is ultimatly positive. Ever see a “bad” thing happen that turned out to be a “good” thing? Ever see the movie “Regarding Henry” where Harrison Ford gets shot in the head. Turns out to be the proverbial blessing in disguise. As ridiculously optomistic as it sounds that’s how I see suffering. This doesn’t make the suffering itself any less real while it’s happening > [@](#): > > I’m not sure I follow your thnking here. If I have a nightmare that seems real does that make the suffering that occured in the nightmare real? I would say yes. Perceived suffering is suffering. > [@](#): > > I agree that suffering isn’t better by being temporary. And again, if we are being acted upon by a seperate all powerful entity it doesn’t make any sense. If we are part of the greater whole, “I and my Father are one and by the way, so are all of you” then the question again becomes, “Why do we allow suffering?” > Perhaps my arguement and my beliefs don’t really address the issue. If I don’t see God as a seperate entity then attirbutes like the three Omnis may not apply at all. It sounds like you’re describing something akin to Advaita Vedantism - a philosophy I was once very attracted to. Like you said, though, it does not contain the same logical problems as Christianity because it does not contain a concept of an authoritative or omnipotent God. Have you ever read anything by Alan Watts or perhaps Krishnamurti? If you haven’t, I have a feeling you might like them. > [@](#): > > You may be right. But that perception may not be the ultimate reality. In terms of the logical problem I was pointing out with Christian doctrine, that doesn’t matter. If the truth cannot be known without guessing, then a requirement of specific belief cannot be logically reconciled with a God who is good or just. > [@](#): > > Under condition of those three attributes right? Yes. > [@](#): > > What if the experience is the point? Remember the story of Buddha. As a prince he was blissfully unaware of suffering. Once he went outside the city he became aware of suffering and sought enlightenment. Then his state of bliss included awareness rather than ignorance. The Buddha did not believe that suffering was _necessary_, only that it was self-caused. he also didn’t believe in a tri-omni creator-God who could change it. > [@](#): > > If the experience of duality is the point then the evil we percieve , which ultimatly can’t harm us as spiritual beings , may not be evil. What do you mean by “harm?” I would argue that emotional harm is real harm even if we are “spiritual beings” (the word “spirtual” should really be more formally defined for a coherent philosophical discussion, by the way, but I’m not going to quibble about it). > [@](#): > > As part of the whole we are completely responsible for choosing the truth over illusions. 1. How can we know the truth without guessing? 2. How can we know that we are responsible for choosing it? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-for-belief-and-disbelief-in-god/341964/303 "2006-02-05T07:48:45Z")
> [@Trust](#): > > The mistake with the “proof” was that, just because one example can show that something is true, it does not prove that all of the examples are true. When you are working with the unprovable, you cannot prove that it is false or true. Duh. That was a useful statement. > [@](#): > > Im not really sure what non-euclidean geometry has to do with logic of faith. You have to take into account all of a persons premises. If you do not, then the logic could seem logical, but the actual premise or conclusion is illogical. For example, I could say: > > If carbon exists, its half life property is inconsistent. > carbon exists > Therefore its half life property is inconsistent. > > This is I guess you could say “okay logic”, the problem is that the first premise is untrue. If you do not take into account the other premises such as the universal laws, you cannot show how the premise is false. I can simply rely on faith to show a premise that is unprovable. Oy. There are rules for constructing logical arguments, and sticking a random conclusion after a premise is not one of them. They have been known since the time of Aristotle, so you are over 2,000 years behind in your education. > [@](#): > > I completely agree. If you can show me a contradiction then there are two options > > 1. I do not have any other beliefs that show how the contradiction is untrue. This means that it is illogical. > > 2. I have another belief that proves or relies on faith that shows how the logic is not inconsistent. Example, you say it is illogical that the earth is 6000 years old because of the consistency of the laws of the universe. All I have to do is say that God does not work according to the laws of the universe and this logic is back to being logical. (I fully admit that this argument takes into account that God is deceitful and is why I do not believe this argument). Beliefs have absolutely nothing to do with logic - which is the whole point. If a person accepts a set of premises, and then decides not to believe in the conclusions, we can say a couple of things about that person - he doesn’t really accept the premises, but has some hidden premises. - his belief is incorrect - he is stupid. I gave the example about geometry to show the importance of premise selection. It matters not at all if someone believe the results - given the premises, the conclusions can be logically derived. If you believe the premises, you have to believe in the conclusions. For the 6,000 year old earth, creationists have this conflict. They are trying to get their crap taught in science class, so have to accept the premises of science, which are that things don’t randomly happen because of god’s interference. If you buy the premise that god can interfere anytime he wants, you cannot show that god didn’t create the earth last Thursday, and gave us all memories. With that premise, anything is open, which is why it is a useless one. > [@](#): > > In human terms I will agree with this. It is much easier to show a contradiction than to prove something is true for every possibility. The point I am trying to make is that it is impossible to prove something that relies on faith true OR false. You just cannot do it. You still don’t get it. It is impossible to show something is true by ennumerating the possibilities, assuming these are not a finite set and that it is not possible to consider all at once. What does rely on faith mean? I can have faith in a theorem, before I prove it, and then prove it to be true. I can have faith that I can square a circle, but it is still false. Faith only says something about your mind, nothing about the real world. > [@](#): > > Not at all. We have millions of reasons for belief in God. None of which come into account in regards to logic. Thankfully for us, logic only states whether something is true, false, or might be true or false. The fact that you do not agree has nothing to do with the logic. You cannot assume that something that is unknown is false. Are you blind? When did I do that? When did Dio do that? Do you know what a strawman is? > [@](#): > > You have to look at the problem from both sides. Otherwise you are bringing bias into logic where logic has no room for bias. It only relies on facts. The facts are, that until you can prove a premise of faith untrue for ALL of the possibilities, then it is considered to be maybe true, and maybe false. Bull. Logic is not ennumeration. If you show a premise leads to a contradiction, then it is false. Good logical systems have a minimum number of premises. If you make all the things you want to believe in premises, you have a system that ain’t worth its weight in crap. > [@](#): > > This is the same thing I am saying. He is not required to do anything. He simply chose to. There is not a single contradiction in this. You keep repeating yourself without actually saying where the contradiction is. > > If God was required to do something, then he would not be all-powerful. Check. > Noone said that God was required to do it the way he did, he chose to. Your entire argument is arguing against something noone said. From post 164 > [@Trust](#): > > The first premise is that God is good. If God did not send Christ, then our sins (wrong doings to each other) could not go unpunished. Therefore, we would have to die. However, God is good. Therefore, Christ willingly gives Himself up. This means that God is just (since he didnt just let all the bullshit we went through from other people go unpunished) and He is good since He gave Himself up for us. I have never once heard of a possible explanation that God could use to get around being good, give us free will, AND still be a just God. If you have one then please share so we can stop this religion. Otherwise, 2000 years of trying to come up with anything illogical with the religion has brought up nothing. It will always come back to needing faith. If you admit that the entire belief in Christianty is based on faith, but at the same time is not illogical, then we are not disagreeing. So, you did say it was required. And you must. If does not have to condemn those not believing in Christ, there is no reason to be a Christian, since good people of any religion can be saved if god did not condemn people, and god is evil if he did condemn good people without needing to. Of course you’ve never shown a reason why the sacrifice is required. If god can save people with the sacrifice, he can save them who repent (like I used to do in Yom Kippur services) without it. > [@](#): > > The fact that you are still stuck on the premises shows me that you do not have a grasp on logic. The premise that God is just is based on faith. You cannot prove that God is unjust. That is impossible. You don’t even have close to the amount of data you need to determine what is just and unjust. All you would simply do is use incredibly limited knowledge in human terms to try and act like you are a worthy judge. Please. I can have a premise, based on faith, that there is a dragon in my garage. It leads to fewer problems than yours. As we’ve said before, the Christian faith that god condemns the good and the bad equally is strong evidence against your premise. Anyone who thinks that a man stealing bread deserves the same punishment as the mass murderer is deeply immoral, and a monster. I trust you do not believe this. > [@](#): > > No my friend. Your logic skills are lacking once again and show your extreme ignorance. The fact that you think that logic assumes everything to be false until proven true is a complete bias. It has no foundation in logic. The only thing that logic says is that it might be true and it might be false. To claim otherwise is incorrect logic. You are being illogical. Make your proof about Jesus. I am looking forward to all the assumptions you make based on faulty logic. Do you honestly expect to prove anything when you cannot even get the basic foundation of elementary logic down? Look, buddy, one thing you better learn on the net is that you had better not assume people are ignorant. Please let me know your formal logical training. My best guess is that you got it from watching Star Trek. I never said that logic requires something to be assumed false. That is just common sense. Do you even know what the burden of proof is? If you believe something about Jesus is logical, state it, and prove it. If it is just your unsupported belief, stop arguing about logic, which you don’t understand. Now, I can give you evidence against believing in Jesus - not a proof. - He did not meet the requirements of the Messianic prophesies. Clearly the gospel writers made up stuff to make it seem like he did, which is evidenced for saying he met requirements that did not exist (being born of a virgin.) He was not descended from David paternally, the only way that counted. It is unlikely he was actually born in Bethlehem. He certainly did not do the things a Messiah was supposed to do - which does not include getting himself killed the moment he showed his face in Jerusalem. - There is the claim that the resurrected Jesus was seen by many, and even that saints walked the streets. Oddly, none of my ancestors who were there at the time noticed anything, or were struck enough to jot anything down. It’s like claiming Godzilla stalked the streets of New York June 6 when the NY Times on June 7 had a headline about a budget shortfall in the schools. - Jesus did not return before the last person he was speaking to died. I know the excuses, but they’re very feeble. I’ve got lots more. BTW, my formal training in logic includes a logic class in MIT in the philosophy department, mathematical logic, Boolean and electronic logic, and both writing and reviewing numerous proofs in peer reviewed technical papers. So I’ve got good reasons to say your idea of logic is based on ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-for-belief-and-disbelief-in-god/341964/304 "2006-02-05T15:35:56Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Yes. A premise is a starting point- it’s an assumption (which for the sake of argument) is taken to be true from the outset. Sometimes multiple premises can be shown to be contradictory. That’s all I’ve done. I’ve posited no premises of my own. > > I’ve also been careful to say that I’m only showing logical contradictions in specifically Christian doctrine. I have not said that all theistic beliefs or theological premises are necessarily contradictory. Point taken, thanks. > [@](#): > > This doesn’t make the suffering itself any less real while it’s happening Hmmmm maybe, but it may change our assessment of it as evil. > [@](#): > > I would say yes. Perceived suffering is suffering. I’ll have to ponder this for another thread. > [@](#): > > It sounds like you’re describing something akin to Advaita Vedantism - a philosophy I was once very attracted to. Like you said, though, it does not contain the same logical problems as Christianity because it does not contain a concept of an authoritative or omnipotent God. > > Have you ever read anything by Alan Watts or perhaps Krishnamurti? If you haven’t, I have a feeling you might like them. I will check those out. Honestly, the more I consider things the more the term God seems more like a metaphor for “things left to figure out” It’s a term that is a bit of a double edged sword. Useful and almost unavoidable in certain discussions because of its recognition and acceptance by so many. Awkward to navigate because of for two opposing reasons. There are so many variables in peoples views. The term evokes certain traditonal views that are too easily assumed. > [@](#): > > In terms of the logical problem I was pointing out with Christian doctrine, that doesn’t matter. If the truth cannot be known without guessing, then a requirement of specific belief cannot be logically reconciled with a God who is good or just. Ahhh, That’s more specific. I don’t think the truth is guessed blindly or randomnly. Although logic and reason sure come in handy, as well as input, we also need desire and surrender to move forward. In regard to requiring a specific belief, for salvation. I mentioned to my conservative Christian sister that I thought it made God and/or Jesus seem egotistical. It didn’t go over that well. Strange isn’t it? > [@](#): > > The Buddha did not believe that suffering was _necessary_, only that it was self-caused. he also didn’t believe in a tri-omni creator-God who could change it. It’s easy to see that much of our suffering is self caused. If it has to do with our choices, concious and unconscious, then much of it is avoidable, in that sense, but once we have chosen to enter take the duality ride, it might be inevitable. > [@](#): > > What do you mean by “harm?” I would argue that emotional harm is real harm even if we are “spiritual beings” (the word “spirtual” should really be more formally defined for a coherent philosophical discussion, by the way, but I’m not going to quibble about it). But we can mature out of emotional pain. We may laugh at the exquisite pain of adolescent love later on. > [@](#): > > 1. How can we know the truth without guessing? > 2. How can we know that we are responsible for choosing it? 1. I think it is the nature of our journey to point toward and lead to the realization of our personal responsibility. I think all events point to it even as we resist. People can blame things on bad luck, bad people, etc. etc. but we are pointed toward our responsibility again and again until we accept the reality of it. 2. Actually I suppose we do guess but it is not a guess without clues. One of the things that has allowed me to develop more respect and tolerance for the wide variety of beliefs and people is the realization that we are called to be true to ourselves. If we live according to the truth as we understand it right now then it will lead to a cycle of discovering more, and accepting more. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-for-belief-and-disbelief-in-god/341964.md?page=15)