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I believe in God because there is no reason not to. With all of the things people are willing to put their faith in why not God be one of them? There have been so many good fortunes that have come from being a follower of Christ no matter what specific religion you may have. Even if your God isn't the same as my God, I bet they are at least friends :)
I guess this thread wasn't originally intended to be a theism versus atheism debate, but it seems that's what it has turned into. There has been a lot of good arguments from both theistic and atheistic perspectives on this thread and I always enjoy reading well thought out arguments. However I feel like this thread, like so many other debates about faith and religion, is brilliantly showcasing how pointless this kind of debate actually is. As many before myself have already pointed out, agnostics base their belief on measurable and testable facts while most theists base their belief on philosophical/theological theories that are neither measurable or testable. So basically these two different views can never reach any kind of agreement on even the most basic principles of the debate. Therefore, the debate can never reach any kind of reasonable solution unless the other party flat out admits being wrong the whole time.
So the only real value of a theism versus atheism debate is in the fact that people, who aren't yet familiar with the arguments of both views, can learn about them and make up their mind about whether to rely purely on empirical facts or to base their belief on unscientific sources. That's all. There is nothing new to be discovered in this kind of debate.
I make this post merely for your idlest abstraction on the subject. I have not
read all of the posts, or even some of them. This is not because they're
uninteresting, I'm just too weary to be anything but indifferent to them
at the present time. Nor is this an invite for a rabble of militant Atheists
to ride roughshod over this post with shrieks for evidence and logic and
probabilities. With those disclosures out of the way, I will go on:
I've had my flings with Religion, and I've been an argumentative Atheist.
I think it's important to see that, even though a religion prescribes the
particular image of its deity, each person who subscribes to that religion has a
different conception of that deity. Not only are we dealing with an
incalculable number of religions as well as their branches, but also
with the fact that the prescribed deities perform their image differently
for each belonging to the religion. This makes a single deity both infinite
and impossible to come to grips with at the onset.
With this consideration, we can example Stephen Hawking. Hawking
(much in keeping with this line of thought) ascribes the term 'God' to the
natural and physical laws that govern the universe.
If the term is inseparably tied with the observable object,
then this is what that object is. In this instance, 'the mind of God' exists.
This is not the same as ascribing the term 'God' to a raisin scone,
devouring the scone, and proudly declaring - as Nietzsche did - 'God is dead.'
'God' itself is an indefinable something. I think most Atheists are afraid of
being false in attempting to explore the matter more deeply, instead
crying out indignantly for evidence to feed their notions of rationality.
Unfortunately, for all the poets and philosophers we should gladly
desire to imitate, Richard Dawkins is not very inimitable. You will see this
whenever you stumble onto a youtube video concerned with religion
or atheism, on which they thrive in warring against the perceived delusion
in other interlocutors.
Maintaining a constant disposition of doubt is not
the route to understanding. You've already misunderstood to begin with,
and now you're going to infect the subject with the flaws you have
understood to be teeming within it. Thomas Aquinas is the closest
approach to the right, I think. He proposed to simply embrace the subject,
master the evidence for ourselves, and then (and only then) decide whether
or not the evidence is adequate to our sensibilities. Not before.
As to the nature of a single God arching over the universe, that is a
profoundly unanswerable question. However, I do subscribe to the
existence of an underlying order to the universe, however difficult it
may be to articulate. This becomes clear in the (depth) study of Astrology.
To further remark on that and, admittedly, to try to preclude assailment by
the rabble, I recall Isaac Newton's response when he was ribbed, gibed and elbowed
by contemporaries for his studying of Astrology: 'I have studied it, sir, you
have not!'
I'm sure many of you also recall Carl Jung's towering "I know."
Anyhow, just something for consideration,
O.M.
P.S. I'm fairly agreeable with Freudian Monkey's post.
mine is simple...
the world is too perfect to happen by chance. human anatomy is too perfect to happen by chance. mountains, the corals, the sky.. too beautiful to happen by chance.
i believe in God. I don't know what kind of shape or form he/she/it is in but God exists.
Thank you for you opinion. You are most certainly correct that I overly simplified the debates about theism versus atheism. That was my intention to begin with since deep down this matter is actually a really simple one.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Ol' Man
So, basically what you are arguing here is that religious debates are valuable because there are indefinite amount of religious views based on the knowledge each of us possess as individuals and because of the fact that our arguments can be built on different presumptions about, say, the nature of god? Well, this is definitely the case. However my whole point in my previous post was that the arguments that agnostics are willing to accept to be legitimate are completely different than those presented by theists. This is a fundamental difference, something that makes a rational debate impossible even if our individual interpretations of philosophical or conceptual questions would wary. For instance, you may think that god is not a concrete, coherent entity - "the order of the universe", if you will. What difference does that make in a debate with an empiricist? He is just going to ask you the same question he asks from theists who believe in a personified god: "Where is the evidence?"
And I don't think he is going to accept astrological evidence.
ps: there are only a few scientists I value more than Dr. Jung.
Thank you for your response (my first response in all my time here, actually) but mine was a more general response, not fixed upon any particular person on the thread. Hopefully you didn't think I was tearing into you!
Edit: Oh yes. I'm nearly convinced such argumentation on this matter is useless. No mutually satisfactory truth can be established, because neither are
willing to concede that their thought is wrong, nor should they be expected to. The arguments against a God are often meretricious,
more sleights of intellect than deeply persuasive. Arguments in favour of God cannot be proven, especially so to an Atheist.
Where does that leave us?
Can't remember if I've ever contributed to this thread before or not...
But I believe in God because whenever I stop I get really scared of spirits and demons
:mad5:
nice smiley face.
Generally, people, whether theist or atheist, whether scientifically minded or pseudo-scientifically minded, accept as "evidence" only what supports their pet theories. All the other evidence is discredited.Quote:
Originally Posted by Freudian Monkey
That might actually be a safe thing to do since we can't adequately check out all the "evidence" that is presented to us.
Because we are conscious there is reason to believe, just on that evidence alone, that we are not the highest consciousness around. It is the same sort of reason that a scientist uses to say there must be life on other planets: since it exists here, it should exist somewhere else as well.
In the 20th century physicists came to believe that the universe had a beginning. This was something only a religious person would have accepted in the 19th century.
Also in the 20th century physicists came to believe that the origin of the universe came out of nothing. People would have thought you were a religious nut in the 19th century if you believed such stuff.
So even atheists, with some scientific exposure, believe that the universe had a beginning and it came out of nothing. Just like the traditional theists.
If you add the evidence of near-death experiences and shared-death experiences, generally, out-of-body experiences, it seems almost certain that consciousness comes from a dimension outside of space-time, which means this whole space-time experience we are having did not happen by chance.
So the real question should be why don't you believe in God? The specifics of the God one believes in might be up for question. There seem to be too many conflicts between those who view Jesus as God, but no one else, and those who prefer Allah or Krishna or some unnamed "consciousness".
I often hear this and it's a pretty ridiculous contention, why is the world beautiful? I mean there are people starving and dying of horrible, agonizing illnesses every minute of every hour. And what is beautiful really? It's a pretty subjective notion... But I guess God is subjective.Quote:
Originally Posted by chipper
Personally I don't know if I believe, one day I'm an atheist and the next I'm a believer. I'd never subscribe to any particular religion though, I just don't think that kind of collective thinking is healthy, at least not for me. The question wether God exist or not is not something I plan on deciding ever. I think the mystery is the whole beauty.
To follow on from Hampusforever - I disagree that the world is perfect. As Hamp pointed out, if you look then you will see endless suffering and pain and imperfection that somehow exists alongside what we at first consider to be beauty.Quote:
Originally Posted by chipper
It's not just the human world either.The slaughter of the seas, and nature red in tooth and claw come to mind. The waters might be calm on the surface, but beneath is a seething maelstrom of eat or be eaten. Some people are like that too.
Thank you for your opinion. However I strongly suggest that you take your time to read about Temporal lobe epilepsy from wikipedia - it is the current scientific explanation for most paranormal, religious and other "unexplained" experiences.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Also, the fact that we are conscious beings doesn't make it at all evident that there would be some divine being who has given us this consciousness. This has been made apparent for instance by Ferdinand de Saussure.
The problem is I accept the various forms of out-of-body experiences as evidence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Freudian Monkey
That means any scientific theory or religious viewpoint that doesn't, or tries to trivialize it, is living in fantasy land.
That's my perspective. I am postmodern enough to allow you to have your own perspective.
This is mere supposition. That epileptics suffer such symptoms as described in the article does not mean that this is the explanation for religious and unexplained experiences. Making such a connection suggests that everyone who has a religious experience is epileptic, which they are clearly not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Freudian Monkey
So this leads us to the conclusion that we cannot have a reasonable debate about this matter. This is precisely what I wrote in my first post to this topic: there is no way to have a reasonable debate if the opposing sides cannot reach any kind of agreement on even the most basic principles of the debate.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo