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the always familiar, but interesting topic of the existence of a god
ohhaythar
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Registered User regular
I’ve been thinking about renewing this topic for about 5 months since I was first introduced to what a “user infraction†was in June near the death of my first thread, “science + god = eh let’s give it a tryâ€. I originally created the thread to seek console against the real life struggle I was having against fundamentalism, and in this I became the fundamentalist. I didn’t like this trait, for Christian fundamentalism didn’t make any more sense to me than it did to those I was trying to explain it to. I also had the asinine idea that my ideas were philosophical, yet had never read about philosophy in my life. Since then, I have vowed to rid myself of my hypocrisy and bias. I have taken the initiative to read “A Brief History of Philosophy†by Derek Johnston and “Life After Life†by Raymond A. Moody. Afterwards I plan on delving into “Confessions†by St. Augustine and “Nicomachean Ethics†by Aristotle. After discussing this subject with others, I realized that no forum had been as informative and sophisticated as this one, which is why I hope to try this subject with those who are interested minus the arrogance and bias.
a brief summery of my beliefs:
So without further ado, let’s delve scientifically, religiously, and philosophically (however which way anyone would prefer it) into the familiar, but always interesting topic of the existence of a god.
a brief summery of my beliefs:
I’m currently Catholic, but am highly debating going through with confirmation. Instead I might become Lutheran because their church is based off of Catholicism, but is involved in our community. After telling my parents this I found out that all of us shared the same grievances involving the Christian doctrine and communities. We support g-a-y rights, abortion, the big bang, and evolution. We have also come to change our views so much as to believe in reincarnation and karma, and refute the idea of a devil or a hell. In the past year I can’t say we went more than maybe 6 or 7 times to church. My very title as “Christian†hangs by the mere belief that there was a man named Jesus who died for everyone’s sins, and even that is becoming more and more moot to me. Seeing as Christianity took similar ideas from Zoroastrianism it is my thinking that there could have been a messiah, but not necessarily Jesus. If it weren’t for a little blind faith and my need to find the religious community I never had growing up, I guess you call me a deist at least and a Unitarian Universalist at most.
So without further ado, let’s delve scientifically, religiously, and philosophically (however which way anyone would prefer it) into the familiar, but always interesting topic of the existence of a god.
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For the disturbing part, fulfillment of prophecy or miracles are almost the only tools higher powers to communicate with man. Did Jesus give Saul a compelling argument to convert or did he put on a light show and a commandment. The latter. Did Elijah use philosophy and words to prove the Baal worshipers were wrong or was it a big ass fireball that settled things? The fireball. Most important of all, what did Jesus say to the apostles about the nonbelievers? That his message of good works and faith was enough to prove he was son of God? No, people should believe in Jesus' relationship to God because the miracles he performed were proof.
This is one for Qingu - was any person in the Bible swayed to join Christianity or Judaism that didn't see a miracle performed? David and Nathan ... sorta. Job .... kinda.
There's far more curing blindness than pulling out a coin and saying Caesar's things belong to Caesar, sadly.
EDIT: I'm going to make a guess here and say the most popular use of philosophy to convince people dive beings exist is analogy. Understanding a smaller system to explain a larger one - a house has a builder so the cosmos must have an architect. A shepherd cares for his flock of sheep, the parallel means the Almighty cares for his believers.
in some ways it could be said that a god would have no reason to make himself known, for that is a selfish trait of humans. this is the main idea around god being a preserver rather than a ruler.
analogies always help to explain theology, but in the end all fall short of the extremes that come with such things as omnipotence and the creation of existence. epistemology and metaphysics usually are prevalent when dealing with many aspects of god.
Another argument that satisfies Average Joe is necessity. When you have the luxury of living well and in peace, you can start to take a breath and question a god's existence. But when mortar shells are falling, there are no atheists in foxholes. When you're out skydiving and your parachute fails to open, you're going to suddenly be a lot more open about the existence of an all-powerful benevolence in the universe. When your citizenry is killing each other, you threaten them with eternal consequences for immoral acts. If desperation creates belief in divine beings, is that a good enough reason? When you need God to exist, doesn't God exist?
What I'm asking is does it matter how you got to a conclusion? How much do circumstances count for, not in logic games, but in real life? The Problem on Induction works fine on paper but so does the communism! :P
Another thing, who was the philosopher that made the argument about the balls in the sock? If you can't see the balls when you put them in a sock, they don't exist for you. But they're still there when you take them out of the sock. So there must be an omniscient being who always keeps the balls in mind, meaning they continue to exist even when man doesn't notice them.
And no, gods don't start existing just because people want them to. Reality is not subjective and individual.
Did you not read enough Neil Gaiman novels back in high school?
This is the worst argument for the existence of a god that I've ever heard.
also: http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/
Allow me to push you a little more into the "deist/unitarian" camp: if you believe the Bible is discredited, why would you believe anything it has to say about a Roman-occupied Judean cult leader named Yeshua?
We can go over the (in)authenticity of the Gospels, the obvious demagoguery of Paul, and the numerous contradictions, but I think you already know all this. So my question is, if you're even considering the possibility that Jesus—or anyone—is a "savior": a savior from what? The concept of a "savior" doesn't make sense unless you already accept a whole host of religious ideas involving a God who wants to kill you and/or torture you. Whether the God you need saving from is Yahweh or Ahriman is indeed a moot point, since you obviously don't believe in either deity. So why do you feel the need to believe in a savior?
Why can't Jesus be a cult leader/philosopher?
Now. As for Deism and Unitarian Universalism, my position is that these religious beliefs are almost functionally indistinguishable from atheism. These Gods are impersonal vague forces that supposedly created the universe but have zero interaction within the universe, let alone with human history. I believe this stretches the utility of the definition of the word "god." You might as well be praying to a very complicated math equation.
And I'm still not sure why you feel the universe requires a creator. The universe contains all of space and time. Try to wrap your head around what this means. If the universe contains all of time, there is no before the universe. Which means the universe has necessarily always existed. You can't create something unless there is a period of time in which is doesn't exist, followed by a period of time in which it does. Stephen Hawking writes about this concept in A Brief History of Time.
The universe does not require a creator, and even if it did have a creator it would just beg the question "who created the creator"? If your answer is "the creator doesn't need a creator," then why can't I just say the same thing about the universe itself?
Ironically, after Doubting Thomas demands to examine Jesus' crucifix-holes, Jesus actually has the balls to tell him that it's better to believe without seeing.
I don't think there are any philosophical arguments in the Bible where the author tries to convince an atheist to believe in God with reason and logic. There are a lot of threats against people who would doubt or try to convince you to doubt (see Deuteronomy chapters 13 and 28, for example, or Mark 13 and the entirety of Revelation in the NT). The story of Job is less an argument for God and more an excuse for Why God Lets Bad Things Happen To Good People (answer: because he's bigger than you, so shut the fuck up).
i did contemplate this and decided to not fool myself into thinking that the existence of a god wouldn't make me feel better, but what i did realize is that it doesn't sway my conclusion that there is one. the first thing i did during my religious reevaluation is rid myself of wishful thinking. i knew that if i was to delve into philosophy i would be introduced to atheist views. in the end it came down to that metaphysically and epistemology, the existence of god made sense to me.
Most were taken to religious services by their parents from an early age, where they saw their parents rise and be seated according to the whims of a priestly authority. When you're old enough to understand English, one of the first things you hear about is heaven and hell, or similar childish carrot/stick scenarios in other religious services. Many people grow up in communities that shun disbelief, and have social networks of friends that all judge based on church attendnace and religiosity. We pledge allegiance to the flag "under God"; God is on all our money and public artifacts. You don't decide to believe in God in modern society (let alone earlier societies)—it is the default belief, and in earlier societies it was enforced through violence.
I think a better approach is to try and understand why societies are structured around religious belief. This isn't too hard to tease out from a historical perspective. See also The Golden Bough.
What are you basing this conclusion on? I know the answer: absolutely nothing real. It is a compulsion driven by cultural conditioning. You begin with the conclusion that there must be a god of some sort, some spiritualistic, nebulous, supernatural entity or concept somewhere (hence the belief in silly things like reincarnation) and shape your worldview, shape whatever evidence you gather, to this conclusion.
Naturalism. Approach everything you see from absolute naturalism and you will never, ever be inclined to believe in supernatural things.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Cop-out. Absolute cop-out. It's impossible to disprove gods just like it's impossible to disprove that a rock will accelerate away from the ground when dropped.
kind of sums things up in the best way.
It's Berkeley's Idealism, in sock and ball form.
Yeah.
Or that the origin of the human race is an animated statue created from clay?
I think it's quite possible to disprove these myths. And since the god put on the table by most theists—Yahweh—is defined as the god who created a dome-sky and a clay-man, then if the myths are false, then so is the god in the myths.
Unless you're praying to the wrong God, then oops.
except if there is no god we wont find out anything
personally I'm hoping there is a giant god waiting for me when I die
made out of candy
It is like someone made an argument for god out of "if a tree falls down, and nobody hears it, did it make a sound?"
Correct.
It's not impossible to disprove. If every human being on the planet simultaneously committed suicide, we'd expect divine intervention just before. If no intervention takes place, we can assume with our last dying thoughts that we were not as well-loved as some believed.
Hey guyz! Let's commit a sin on a global scale so atrocious, we'll summon the attention the Creator of all things and experience His mighty wrath!
What?
Even if there was a god, and there's no real reason to think there is one, who's to say that he's benevolent?
If there is, chances are he doesn't really give a shit about what we're doing.
Sorted.
I'm god.
To prove I'm god I will turn you all into chickens.
But then I'll have to turn you back and make you forget because you have to have FAITH in me, you can't know I exist for real because it would mean you'd worship me falsely.
Don't worry, it makes sense.
Next time, on Mythbusters. Can Adam and Jaime create a thin canopy of water suspended within the ionosphere without allowing it to freeze? Tune in next Wednesday on the Discovery Channel!
You can bet there are some who attend religious services for years, donate money to the priestly authority, say their prayers before going to bed, and still not really believe in a higher power. Some just go through the motions and that's enough for them. You're underestimating personal revelation, though, especially when one is stuck in a foxhole. A little adrenaline, panic, and a sprinkling of Pascal's Wager must melt doubt like butter on a frying pan and lets ordinary people break through towards full-on belief towards a deity. Why else would death-bed confessions and conversions happen? Is the dying man putting on a show for the sake of his reputation?
But you bring up another good point - social vacuums. God's existence could be proven if divine laws or information were innate in every person. If Tarzan, born in the jungle and raised by apes, could transcribe the Bible alone, that would be excellent proof that Yahweh exists. If Meso-Americans were Christian before the Jesuits got to the New World, that would be excellent proof Jesus exists for all men. Independent development. See: The Mormons.
You're joking, right?
this was a helpful post that was very much beneficial to intelligent discussion.
posts like this help foster an environment of understanding and mature conversation between adults.
yep.
Who's to say the Mastodon Gods won't put you in everlasting hellfire for worship of this new guy?
Pascal didn't really cover all his bases.
that's basically the exact problem with pascal's wager, in a nutshell.
the reality is, pascal's wager doesn't even work because you can't err on the side of believing in one faith "just in case", because you can't really follow all of them.
some of them have outright contradicting beliefs and principles
so you still have to make a choice.
it's a crap shoot either way, but it still doesn't make "rational" sense to follow any one religion over another "just in case"
yeah i don't think any religion is cool with you following them "just in case" but not really believing they are true.
in fact
i am pretty sure they'd consider it insulting.
I'm glad I could help foster. I'm always for a good fostering now and again.
i don't see why god would want a religion. making god wrathful and jealous is to give god a sense of evil, and since all evil is unnecessary and god is philosophically supposed to be argued in terms of necessity, that god could not exist. a god would have no reason to prefer any social group over another.
you realize that's not why religions exist right
right?
i mean, asking an honest question here
i do. i was speaking in terms of those who viewed their religion as the one true voice of god from a holistic point of view.
some would say god, through Christ, created Christianity. i would say this is wrong.
You'd think we would learn. This is digital masochism.