Why believe in "a" God?

[Der_Trihs]

@mswas

Why should I believe that death is inevitable? I’ve heard stories of immortals though I couldn’t say if I ever met one, because they didn’t self-identify.

But there can be only one…and I doubt you’re it. How good are you with a sword ?

@mswas

Yup, that’s the essence of free-will. I do not believe in victims, people choose their fates. The victims of the Tsunamis will be reincarnated.

That the most disgusting thing you’ve said so far.

@mswas

It’s sort of a symbiotic relationship. I would argue you’ve done well enough pretending to be without God for 30 years.

A nicely arrogant statement. If Voyager or I say we don’t believe in God, we mean it ( well I mean it, it give him/her benefit of the doubt ). You have no prove we are pretending. I think you project your own irrationality onto others.

@mswas

I believe in Free Will as I stated above. People choose to suffer. Of course if God created us, then he created us to do what we would do, but as I said, I don’t think suffering is ever permanent, suffering only occurs in a state of unconsciousness, where we fear what we are going through because we do not understand it, and resist a metamorphosis because we are in a state of denial, and holding on to a previous identity.

Erek

Arrogant, coldhearted and nonsensical.

@mswas

Remember, I’m on the side of faith. You guys are on the side of ‘reality’ ‘rigor’ and ‘proof’. You’re really dropping the ball here in this debate. You’re expecting more rigor from me than you are willing to accept from yourself.

This is the essence of my disrespect for atheism. It’s a faith based belief system. Agnosticism is skeptical, atheism is dogmatic. You all made the statement that “Everybody dies”, but have yet to show any proof. The burden of proof is on the affirmative. The only responsibility I have debate-wise is showing that you have no proof for your assertion.

You’re on the side of faith, which means you’re basically making it all up. Asking for “proof” that everyone dies is like asking for proof that we all breathe oxygen; it’s a stupid question. Agnosticism is basically intellectual fencesitting. There is no evidence of gods, and the natural universe has developed and operates quite well without one. Belief in a god violate Occam’s Razor.

@cosmosdan

Sp we’re imagining the god you would prefer but not eternal life? Let’s imagine that goes hand in hand with this god. Then physical death is incredibly brief and as I said, just a thrill ride in an amusement park, or something like a scary dream that you wake from.

Garbage. Pain is pain. It hurts just as much, no matter what happens afterward. Besides, why do you think a pleasant afterlife exists if there is one ? A God who would make the world and people the way they are would send us all to Hell for the fun of it.

@cosmosdan

This is what I find interesting about what atheists find wrong with God. They imagine god the eternal being as treating time and the physical world as if god saw it as importent and final as we do. Why?

We are the ones doing the suffering. You seem to be describing a sociopathic or outright evil God.

[Voyager]

@cosmosdan

Sp we’re imagining the god you would prefer but not eternal life? Let’s imagine that goes hand in hand with this god. Then physical death is incredibly brief and as I said, just a thrill ride in an amusement park, or something like a scary dream that you wake from.

Well I, for one, am not fond of roller coasters, so I’d just as soon sit out the thrill ride of dying in horrible pain. It doesn’t really matter if there is or is not a life afterwards.

That means you’re still looking at god as a parent who has a responsibility to spare us from unpleasent brief experiences. If he doesn’t he’s neglectful and mean. What if we’re grownups acting like children. What would a parent do then?

I think you brought up the parent analogy. But the type two parent, which I hope I have been, realizes that children have to make mistakes and suffer the consequences. The price of independence is the possibility of something horrible happening, but that it is better in the end. My favorite god does not prevent people from sinning, or making mistakes. He does cut down on the natural catastrophes though. Letting your kid out by themselves to possibly get hurt is different from whipping the hell out of her yourself. Or are you saying that there is no way the world could be structured without these things happening.

I don’t get why you think I’d want the type one god. That’s probably the worst choice.

This is what I find interesting about what atheists find wrong with God. They imagine god the eternal being as treating time and the physical world as if god saw it as importent and final as we do. Why?

First of all, understand that my finding things wrong with God is the moral equivalent of finding things wrong with Darth Vader - an interesting mental exercise of no real importance to me. Theist explanations for the problem of evil are always interesting, specifically the problem of natural evil, not human evil. It usually works out to “your arms too short to box with God.”

While time and space and pain may be unimportant to a god, the god knows it is important to us. My dog getting a walk is far more important to him than to me but I do it anyway, because I don’t want him to be unhappy.

Hey, you asked what my favorite god would be like. If your favorite god is into allowing more pain than my favorite god, it’s okay with me. To me it is on par with arguing who is badder - Lex Luthor or the Joker. It’s not something that has a real answer.

[Voyager]

@Der Trihs

A nicely arrogant statement. If Voyager or I say we don’t believe in God, we mean it ( well I mean it, it give him/her benefit of the doubt ). You have no prove we are pretending. I think you project your own irrationality onto others.

At this point, I can kind of understand deism, because I have noted that many people are very uncomfortable that the question of “why?” has no answer.

Gods of religions, though, seem less and less likely the more I study. And this “God as the universe” stuff is just empty. Does this universe have a mind? Does it care how we screw? Does it intervene in any way? If someone has been so indoctrinated at any early age that one must believe in god that this is the response, I’m okay with it. As far as I’m aware, no deist ever put anyone to death for heresy. But don’t act like it is a rational position.

This was to Erek, of course. The response sounds pretty good to me.

[Walloon]

@Voyager

But don’t act like it is a rational position.

To me, and a lot of other people, there are two parallel ways of understanding truth: reason and intuition (or faith or . . .). Neither is superior to the other as paths to the truth, and the truths each arrives at are not approachable through the other’s method.

[Erinaceus_europaeus]

@Walloon

To me, and a lot of other people, there are two parallel ways of understanding truth: reason and intuition (or faith or . . .). Neither is superior to the other as paths to the truth, and the truths each arrives at are not approachable through the other’s method.

For me, I’d say “yes and no”. If things are impossible according to reason, faith isn’t going to cut it if it says something to the contrary. Let’s say you have a faith that 2 + 2 = 5. That would mean faith is just plain wrong, unless ofcourse I could verify that statement, which would mean some of the very basics of mathematics had changed (which could be used as some pretty strong evidence for the existense of a god under the right circumstances)

[Walloon]

@Erinaceus europaeus

Let’s say you have a faith that 2 + 2 = 5. That would mean faith is just plain wrong

You have given an example of my statement that “the truths each arrives at are not approachable through the other’s method.” The truth of mathematics cannot be discerned by intuition, and it would be foolish to try so. Mathematics is in the realm of reason.

Likewise, it would be foolish to try to understand the human heart or the human soul through reason.

[Voyager]

@Walloon

To me, and a lot of other people, there are two parallel ways of understanding truth: reason and intuition (or faith or . . .). Neither is superior to the other as paths to the truth, and the truths each arrives at are not approachable through the other’s method.

Intuition and reason are both good ways of coming up with hypotheses. But you don’t stop there. You need to confirm your idea, try to disprove it. That is where reason and science are the only way to go. Just try publishing something in a scientific journal based on faith, and see how far you get.

Truth, after all, is slightly different from someone’s opinion.

[Walloon]

“Confirming” an idea or trying to “disprove” it, are from the realm of reason. Things published in a scientific journal are from the realm of reason. You turn to reason to learn the chemistry of fire, the working of a watch, and the movements of the planets. They are proper to the realm of reason, and reason will get you to the truth of those matters.

By definition, faith is concerned with things that can never be confirmed or disproved.

[SentientMeat]

I won’t get into this near-parody of a thread beyond thanking Lib for his kind, if unjustified words.

[cosmosdan]

@Der Trihs

Belief in a god violate Occam’s Razor.

I’ve seen this statement numerous times. So what?

Garbage. Pain is pain. It hurts just as much, no matter what happens afterward. Besides, why do you think a pleasant afterlife exists if there is one ? A God who would make the world and people the way they are would send us all to Hell for the fun of it.

We are the ones doing the suffering. You seem to be describing a sociopathic or outright evil God.

Der Trihs you are to atheism what Jerry Falwell is to christianity. I’m talking about useing the imagination to put things into perspective just as an experiment. Perhaps we don’t have to provide *proof * for something that we’re imagining. :rolleyes:

In this exercise I’m not proposing that God made the world and people the way they are. I asked Voyager what kind of god he would prefer. What I’ve noticed is that even though the objection seems to be the concept of god as big daddy in the sky, {which I object to as well} when asked to propose what kind of god would be desireable it comes round to looking for a parent type god who is some how responsible for the bad stuff through omission.

As to your comment about a sociopathic god, how is that so under the imagined situation? Imagine how you think god should be and that we are of the same stuff as god. Not primarily physical beings but spiritual beings who are temporarily in these bodies. Wouldn’t that change our perspective about our physical lives and it the problems we have in it? Have you ever known people who overdramtize the problems in thier lives and think that if they just looked at things differently, their problems wouldn’t go away but they sure could deal with them better. Similar to that in principle.
If we imagine that we are eternal spiritual beings then the drama of physical death changes drastically. Even the suffereing some endure while in the physical changes when we see it as very fleeting.

[Liberal]

@Der Trihs

Belief in a god violate Occam’s Razor.

Nonsense. Ockham himself believed in God. God is, in fact, a necessary entity by definition.

[cosmosdan]

@Voyager

Well I, for one, am not fond of roller coasters, so I’d just as soon sit out the thrill ride of dying in horrible pain. It doesn’t really matter if there is or is not a life afterwards.

It appears this little experiment isn’t worknig to well. Just a thought. All I’m suggesting is that if we choose to go on the ride we know {hopefully} that we are ultimately safe from real harm and we wouldn’t bame the person who built the ride for our choice to go on it.

In a real life example, when my mom was dieing of cancer she was being cared for at home and slipped into a coma. My brother called me to get input and I felt we should let her go in peace. My other siblings couldn’t do that so she was taken to the hospital and revived only to be in pain for another few weeks. Sometimes it is *our *attachment to the physical that makes the suffering worse than it has to be. It’s not that god is cruel or doesn’t care.

I think you brought up the parent analogy. But the type two parent, which I hope I have been, realizes that children have to make mistakes and suffer the consequences. The price of independence is the possibility of something horrible happening, but that it is better in the end. My favorite god does not prevent people from sinning, or making mistakes. He does cut down on the natural catastrophes though. Letting your kid out by themselves to possibly get hurt is different from whipping the hell out of her yourself. Or are you saying that there is no way the world could be structured without these things happening.

I don’t get why you think I’d want the type one god. That’s probably the worst choice.

I did, but because your discription of your proposed god seemed to fit. I don’t think you’d prefer type one parent. I guess what I’m suggesting is if god is to be seen as a parent at all then we should be seen as adult responsible children who become the peers of our parents and share life’s experience rather than make them responsible for it.
Many of the problems we face are of our own making. Natural disasters and sickness are harder to understand but I’m just talking perspective. If we are eternal spiritual beings then all the cruelty and neglect people attribute to god changes drastically. It’s so fleeting. It’s final and incredibly tragic only because of the perspective we view it from.

While time and space and pain may be unimportant to a god, the god knows it is important to us. My dog getting a walk is far more important to him than to me but I do it anyway, because I don’t want him to be unhappy.

So god is mean if he doesn’t support our false perception? With your pet you have accepted certain responsibility and you walk him because he is unable to open the door by himself. If he was perfectly capable on his own you might feel differently.

Hey, you asked what my favorite god would be like. If your favorite god is into allowing more pain than my favorite god, it’s okay with me. To me it is on par with arguing who is badder - Lex Luthor or the Joker. It’s not something that has a real answer.

Thus endeth the experiment. Interesting though that you imagined god as any type of parent responsible for his children. I rejected that image and prefer to see us as spiritual peers, not servants or children.

[cosmosdan]

@Voyager

Intuition and reason are both good ways of coming up with hypotheses. But you don’t stop there. You need to confirm your idea, try to disprove it. That is where reason and science are the only way to go. Just try publishing something in a scientific journal based on faith, and see how far you get.

Truth, after all, is slightly different from someone’s opinion.

I agree. There are areas we feel we* know* There are areas where we go forward with a judgement call based on the best information we have and our own experiences. We learn as we go. I don’t think spiritual truth is incompatible with logic or reason anymore than emotional truth is. We must continue to deal with areas where science doesn’t offer anything conclusive.

[Der_Trihs]

@cosmosdan

Der Trihs you are to atheism what Jerry Falwell is to christianity. I’m talking about useing the imagination to put things into perspective just as an experiment. Perhaps we don’t have to provide *proof * for something that we’re imagining. :rolleyes:

I’m aware of that; that’s why I spoke of God and an afterlife as if they existed.

@cosmosdan

As to your comment about a sociopathic god, how is that so under the imagined situation? Imagine how you think god should be and that we are of the same stuff as god. Not primarily physical beings but spiritual beings who are temporarily in these bodies. Wouldn’t that change our perspective about our physical lives and it the problems we have in it? Have you ever known people who overdramtize the problems in thier lives and think that if they just looked at things differently, their problems wouldn’t go away but they sure could deal with them better. Similar to that in principle.
If we imagine that we are eternal spiritual beings then the drama of physical death changes drastically. Even the suffereing some endure while in the physical changes when we see it as very fleeting.

We only live one day at a time. Our suffering is just as great if we vanish tommorrow; living eternally wouldn’t make it hurt any less. Your hypothetical god’s example is irrelevant, because we are the ones doing the suffering, not him.

[Liberal]

@Der Trihs

Our suffering is just as great if we vanish tommorrow; living eternally wouldn’t make it hurt any less.

Then may we take it that you don’t buy into the argument by many atheists that Christ never really suffered or sacrificed, since He knew that He would be resurrected and come into eternal life in a few days?

[mswas]

Basically the point I have been trying to illustrate is that atheism is as irrational as the atheists claim that belief in God is.

Absence of Evidence does not equal absence of evidence

To prove that something is true you must prove it is true in 100% of cases. To disprove it you must only come up with a single exception.

My being unable to prove something to YOU doesn’t mean it was not proven to me. The existence of God is proven to me consistently all the time, I just cannot prove it to YOU. So my belief in God is far from irrational. You want to argue with me that I am wrong, yet you have no factual basis for such an argument, nor is it even possible to factually refute it.

Atheistic arguments always resort to illogical premises like “What if I have faith that 2+2=5?” Well the answer is that it DOESN’T, faith isn’t about getting oneself to accept falsehoods. Because you define it that way is a flaw in YOUR logic, not in someone elses. 2+2=4 as it was defined.

Atheists resort to demagoguery. “If you believe in free-will you must not care about Tsunami victims! You’re a cruel and evil person!” or “If God existed there would be no suffering.” the thing one must understand is that from a faith perspective suffering is created by a lack of connection to God, a willful denial of the truth.

Faith IS NOT about things that can NEVER be proven. It’s about trusting that what you have experienced is true in the interim while it gets proven to you through a rational examination of the experience or further experiences.

Atheist arguments too often require terms to be defined incorrectly. The reliance on double-speak doesn’t help the case.

Atheists can believe and disbelieve whatever they want, but I am always going to point out the flat out lie that atheism is in any way rational. It’s simply not rational, it is a chosen belief. Agnosticism is rational as it does not stake a claim either way for something it cannot verify. Faith in God is rational because the person having faith has had it proven TO THEM. If the Atheist has had it proven to them that God in fact DOES NOT exist, and they are willing to stake that claim without resorting to lies about comparative rationality, that is fine, I have respect for that, but I have no respect for atheists who try to say their belief is in any way rational.

I think atheism is stupidity because I believe God truly exists, and that they are wrong, and because the atheist’s arguments are completely irrational, yet claim a haughty superiority regarding rationality.

I don’t find the old skyfather God satisfactory either, but I have seen a greater concept of God, and holding God to the same standards one holds a human’s limited scope is reflective of YOUR lack of understand not his.

And last but not least, God is Love, the supreme force of the universe, and if you lack such a humility as to worship Love, that only indicates to me a great self-loathing more than anything else. Also it shows an inability to comprehend context, and the idea that maybe worship in this context is not the same as the worship of a despotic King. Worship in this case is a healthy awe and reverence for the universe.

Erek

[mswas]

Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence.

Also, I meant to say that I would not argue with the atheist who is willing to stake the claim that they have seen proof that God in fact does not exist. We would be at an impasse, and there would be nothing more to discuss. To me, being able to stake this claim of belief without impugning another’s rationality, is far more rational than any argument I have ever heard from ANY atheist.

Erek

[Der_Trihs]

@Liberal

Then may we take it that you don’t buy into the argument by many atheists that Christ never really suffered or sacrificed, since He knew that He would be resurrected and come into eternal life in a few days?

I don’t know; he was either a fraud ( in which case he suffered like anybody else ), a well meaning fool ( the same ), or a fanatic ( who aren’t like normal people ). If he was a crazed enough fanatic he might have been high enough on his own fervour not to suffer like a normal person; otherwise I doubt we enjoyed crucifixion any more than I would.

@mswas

My being unable to prove something to YOU doesn’t mean it was not proven to me. The existence of God is proven to me consistently all the time, I just cannot prove it to YOU. So my belief in God is far from irrational. You want to argue with me that I am wrong, yet you have no factual basis for such an argument, nor is it even possible to factually refute it.

I notice you don’t say how God’s existence was “proven” to you, how convenient. All you do is make assertions without evidence; you usually don’t even have an arguement, just “it’s true !”.

@mswas

Atheists resort to demagoguery. “If you believe in free-will you must not care about Tsunami victims! You’re a cruel and evil person!” or “If God existed there would be no suffering.” the thing one must understand is that from a faith perspective suffering is created by a lack of connection to God, a willful denial of the truth.

Garbage, suffering is caused by damage to the body or emotional trauma; absence of a god has nothing to do with it. I call your statements coldhearted because they are; you prove it every time you deny the suffering of others.

mswasFaith in God is rational because the person having faith has had it proven TO THEM.

No they haven’t, or it would not be faith.

[Mapache]

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Then may we take it that you don’t buy into the argument by many atheists that Christ never really suffered or sacrificed, since He knew that He would be resurrected and come into eternal life in a few days?[/QUOTE

Who are these “many atheists” that make that argument? If someone believes that Christ would be resurrected and come into eternal life, then by definition they aren’t atheists.

[Liberal]

@Der Trihs

I don’t know; he was either a fraud ( in which case he suffered like anybody else ), a well meaning fool ( the same ), or a fanatic ( who aren’t like normal people ). If he was a crazed enough fanatic he might have been high enough on his own fervour not to suffer like a normal person; otherwise I doubt we enjoyed crucifixion any more than I would.

Well, let us set aside your false trichotomy, and consider that for the sake of argument He was God. The argument goes that because He was God and knew His fate, He did not really suffer or sacrifice anything. Do you buy into that argument?