We’ve been discussing IF, how about WHY?
Why, if you believe in God, do you feel you need to?
And why, if you don’t, do you feel others need to?
Any and all thoughts pertaining thereto and thereof are heretofore welcomed.
Well…
It seems to me that a God concept is necessary, in order to make sense of my own intuitions about things like Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, Just and Unjust, etc.
I know that lots of folks disagree with me on that one, for all kinds of reasons. And as far as I’m concerned, you guys are all welcome to base transcendent ideals on whatever you want. Or, you can argue that it simply isn’t necessary to go around looking for justification for transcendent ideals in the first place, since maybe my intuitions about those things are just so much crap. Either way, it’s ok by me.
But for my part, I’m stuck on the notion that there actually are objectively Good and Bad things (Love, and the Holocaust, for example). And I just don’t buy the notion that there can be any grounds for normative judgments about those sorts of things, if there is nothing other than the mechanistic universe. Good and Evil don’t grow on trees, and you can’t measure Justice or Injustice with a stick.
So, maybe what I’m suggesting is as much a negative proof as it is a positive one. It seems to me that there are only 2 squares on the board: Theism and Atheism. In light of my perceptions about the way things are, Theism seems to pull its epistemic weight. Atheism doesn’t. Therefore, Theism.
I suspect that I have been reinventing – poorly and incompletely – someone else’s wheel. But that’s probably why nobody ever studies Billy in their History of Philosophy classes. Anyway, there it is.
–B
Just a question or two:
Does God endorsing something automatically make it right from your perspective?
and if not,
Doesn’t that mean that there is an absolute right/wrong which exists independent of God and thus makes his involvement in the matter a moot point?
**I had a series of (subjective, I’ll be the first to admit)experiences that I feel I can only make sense of with God as a significant part of the equation.
**erm, for me, It’s been a way of enjoying life much more fully and a sense of purpose; sort of clicking me into my place in the big puzzle, I think there are a lot of people out there who could use that, but YMMV.
I can respect that statement. I do find it interesting though that I became non-religious because I did not enjoy the religious lifestyle, I developed more of a sense of purpose after this change, and I felt like an outcast rather than a “piece of a big puzzle” until I re-examined what I believed in.
Doesn’t this thread belong in IMHO?
I don’t. Never have, never will.
Does that make me any less “good” or “honest” a person? Not in the least. My sense of “right” and “wrong” was, for the most part, instilled by good, attentive parents (also nontheist) who taught things like “how would you feel if someone did that to you?” among other concepts.
I’m not a criminal, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke or do drugs (with the exception of an excess of caffeinated sucrose beverages) I don’t speed or drive like I own the road, I don’t trespass, I don’t steal. I hold doors open for other people, I’m not afraid to use “ma’am” or “sir” in open conversation and I’ll buy one of those fake plastic flowers that the Vet out in front of the Post Office sells 'round about Veteran’s Day each year.
But I do so because I feel it is “wrong” or it is “right”. I do. ME. Not because “God Says I should” or “God will be Angry if I don’t” or “I’ll go to Hell because of that”.
IMO inventing religion is a way of answering the eternal questions like “how did it all start”", “what’s beyond the Universe”", “where did we com from”", “what will happen with us when we die”", “what does Boy George wear to a fancy dress party?”
A once popular graffito said “Reality is a crutch for people who can’t accept drugs”. I like the version “God is a crutch for people who can’t accept reality”.
Oh yeah?!?, then Atheism is for people who can’t accept… erm… erm… God :o
I’m assuming that you want an explanation and not an attempt to defend it.
I believe in God. I do not feel that I need to… I do so actively and willingly.
It isn’t that I simply believe that God exists. That would be no more than bare assent. I believe in God through faith. That faith is based on personal experiences that have convinced me of his presence.
Hope that helps.
pax
Like many others, I have faced tribulations in life. Nevertheless, I have personally much to be grateful for.
I came to God fairly recently and I derive great comfort and pleasure from my relationship with him. When I look back over my life, I also see that he was there all the time, even though I ‘ignored’ him at times or couldn’t see him.
I know that there is much pain and suffering in the world. I see it everyday. My belief is that God wants a relationship with everyone, including those who suffer greatly, just as he has a relationship with me.
I love him and I willingly try to help him to achieve those relationships.
I know and accept that many will choose to reject a relationship with God. They will do so of their own free-will (as I did for many years).
Yes. But sometimes, people feel the need to believe that there is more than what we see, feel, touch, etc. because of the intrinsic fragility and shortness of life.
Also, the human mind is always looking for answers. Always trying to sort through the static and chaos of the world. Sorting out occurances into black or white, when so many things are grey. Therefore the human psyche requires that we simplify our world by putting our trust into imaginary, abstract figures who can tell us, once and for all what is right and what is wrong. That I’m going to heaven or hell.
Religion removes the middle ground, “the grey” so to speak, and presents a simplified worldview. So yes, God is a crutch.
I demand a re-count. It’s not a simple choice of “god” or “no-god”. It’s a choice or “no-god”, or this “god”, or that “god”, or this other “god” ad infinitum.
If you do choose the Christian “god”, you then have to choose between Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Protestant. If you happen to choose Prostestant, you then have to pick from among thousands of sects that purport to follow that particular brand of religion.
Would anyone care to guess how many squares are on the board now?
Hmmm… and I thought that substantially, all Christians acknowledge and worship the same God.
(And that it is essentially, the same God that Muslims and Jews acknowledge and worship. The disagreements between those three major world faiths being centred on the roles of Jesus and Mohammed.)
pax
RickJay’s Fourth Law: Any SDMB discussion of God and religious faith, no matter how benign, will sooner or later be hijacked by people insulting the religious.
Nonsense. I don’t adhere to the beliefs of any particular church, or even all the beliefs of Christianity in general, but I believe in God.
And I’m with walor. I don’t feel I NEED to. I just do.
Three:
[li]My God[/li][li]No God[/li][li]None of the above[/li]
[sub]sorry, I don’t really see it that way, but someone had to do it[/sub]
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Czarcasm *
**
You’re right that there are other questions to be asked, in which the board has more than 2 squares. But I didn’t think that we were getting that far into things in this question. I took it to be a much more general sort of thing: If you believe that there is a God – without reference to that God’s identity necessarily – why does a God concept seem necessary to you?
And I do want to be sure that everyone understands where I’m coming from on this one, because – well – one worries about coming off like a jerk in discussions like this. I am only speaking with reference to my own attempts to make sense of the way I perceive Things to be. I can’t support the notion of objective moral reality, without reference to something objectively real. Namely, the nature of God (who – for the purposes of this particular discussion – I have left undefined). I’m not suggesting that people who disagree with me are immoral people. Only that I happen to find their justification for morality’s existence to be untenable.
As for the questions in which there are more than 2 squares on the board, my determinations about who God is and is not are based primarily upon my own experiences. I recognize that those experiences are in no sense binding for anyone else. However, it does seem perfectly rational – for me – that I should place considerable stock in the things that I have observed in my own life, first hand.
Humbly and respectfully submitted,
–B
My sister, who is a devout Christian, once explained it to me like this: “If you knew the location of the fountain of youth, that could make you young and beautiful and happy for all eternity, wouldn’t you want to tell other people about it, especially the people you love?”
Of course, my response was that I knew perfectly well where the fountain was, I just didn’t believe she was right about its magical powers.
I believe in God for the same reason I believe in rocks; they are there. What a question. Of course I “need to”; it affects how I work in the world, and how to best react to the world.
If I don’t believe in God, why would I feel others need to?
Really, I don’t understand these questions at all. They seem to make no sense.