Why I believe in God?

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Originally Posted by mazHur

These are not 'cults' nor they are dancing in the 'dark dungeon'. When you look in the mirror you only see your own face.

You cannot depict the birth or death of anything, anyone. that is too arrogant to say that.

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We do not know our destiny and in fact I do not want to count on the ideas promulgated by religious theorists and do not want to draw upon scriptural sources and in fact I want to investigate if possible on my own without superstitiously relying on some stale thoughts.

I want to carve out my own way without groping for someone or some religious trashes.

You can say I am spiritual or materialistic I do not care. I do not want to revert to the idea already scientifically proved baseless.

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Originally Posted by osho

We do not know our destiny and in fact I do not want to count on the ideas promulgated by religious theorists and do not want to draw upon scriptural sources and in fact I want to investigate if possible on my own without superstitiously relying on some stale thoughts.

I want to carve out my own way without groping for someone or some religious trashes.

You can say I am spiritual or materialistic I do not care. I do not want to revert to the idea already scientifically proved baseless.

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I think, in that case, you ought to stick to 'pure sciences' to satisfy your feelings. However, I don't think this world grew out of nothing....because even in science you ''need a seed for a tree to sprout'!! What is your 'seed' re this universe?? None so far....

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Originally Posted by mazHur

I think, in that case, you ought to stick to 'pure sciences' to satisfy your feelings. However, I don't think this world grew out of nothing....because even in science you ''need a seed for a tree to sprout'!! What is your 'seed' re this universe?? None so far....

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We can keep on asking eternally and we can say God is the reason behind everything. What is behind the God that makes everything possible. Another God will emerge and there will be a series of Gods. Whose God is capable of holding this expanding / contracting? universe. If that God exists our mind or brains cannot fathom the depth of the design engineered by that God and I do not to look to religious thoughts to indoctrinate my minds and act foolishly. I want to think independently. I want to explore on my own.

I do not want to side with any pre-thought and believed facts and these facts are based on some primordial imaginations and fears. That lead us to our savagery mindsets and I do not want to reverse the course of science.

Galileo had staked his life and was called heretic and today we worship his ideas and not the idea of the one who launched a campaign against his thoughts. You and I talk here on the Internet because those few scientists voiced against those outworn primitive philosophies

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Originally Posted by osho

We can keep on asking eternally and we can say God is the reason behind everything. What is behind the God that makes everything possible. Another God will emerge and there will be a series of Gods. Whose God is capable of holding this expanding / contracting? universe. If that God exists our mind or brains cannot fathom the depth of the design engineered by that God and I do not to look to religious thoughts to indoctrinate my minds and act foolishly. I want to think independently. I want to explore on my own.

I do not want to side with any pre-thought and believed facts and these facts are based on some primordial imaginations and fears. That lead us to our savagery mindsets and I do not want to reverse the course of science.

Galileo had staked his life and was called heretic and today we worship his ideas and not the idea of the one who launched a campaign against his thoughts. You and I talk here on the Internet because those few scientists voiced against those outworn primitive philosophies

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Homo sapiens are past Galileo days...but now the style of 'scientific savagery' rules the world. You are free to believe in anything but it is not fair to talk ill of other's beliefs without really understanding the Truth.

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Originally Posted by mazHur

it is not fair to talk ill of other's beliefs without really understanding the Truth.

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Yes it is. Ideas can't be harmed. They can't be damaged or destroyed. They should be constantly tried, deconstructed, battered and generally undermined.

The problem comes when people identify so closely with an idea that they believe that an attack on the idea is an attack on themselves. This is a mistake. However, it's a mistake that's often made by those who think that their idea is not merely the truth, but that it deserves a capital T.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Yes it is. Ideas can't be harmed. They can't be damaged or destroyed. They should be constantly tried, deconstructed, battered and generally undermined.

The problem comes when people identify so closely with an idea that they believe that an attack on the idea is an attack on themselves. This is a mistake. However, it's a mistake that's often made by those who think that their idea is not merely the truth, but that it deserves a capital T.

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as many 'ideas' as there are minds! The number of planets keeps increasing.......
Go through Aesop's fable: Father, son and donkey.

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Originally Posted by mazHur

as many 'ideas' as there are minds! The number of planets keeps increasing.......
Go through Aesop's fable: Father, son and donkey.

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Well, yes. Exactly. That's why no truth has a capital T.

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Originally Posted by mazHur

These are not 'cults' nor they are dancing in the 'dark dungeon'. When you look in the mirror you only see your own face.

You cannot depict the birth or death of anything, anyone. that is too arrogant to say that.

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What do you mean they are not cults? What do you mean by "you cannot depict the birth or death of anything, anyone?" Ridiculous. The only thing Osho is not seeing is that they already died where the action is. They are all in a museum already and as he says, many are still victims of the mental vestiges they left lingering in the dungeons.

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Originally Posted by mazHur

These are not 'cults' nor they are dancing in the 'dark dungeon'. When you look in the mirror you only see your own face.

You cannot depict the birth or death of anything, anyone. that is too arrogant to say that.

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It's more arrogant to claim to know the actions, intentions, and the mind of a god or "creator." In doing so people make themselves into little gods, or spokesmen for their deity and, recognizing that the deity is invisible and unproven in reality, "believers" are anything but "grown up and sensible." Whimsy and mythology have nothing to do with making sense. You say people aren't in sociocultural bondage, but I'll bet you wear clothes from time to time. Clothing and religion are man-made habits. There isn't a logical argument against what I just said. Please don't tell me people simply wear clothes and worship nonsensical sky men because they are adults. Having matured beyond that point, that argument can only be considered preposterous and a waste of time.

Furthermore, if it wasn't a fear based notion, a lot more people would just relax and never once consider a space giant watching their every action. They wouldn't witness the slow torturous death of an infant with cancer and call it "God's will" or "God's plan." If you don't like the term "defense mechanism," I'll amend it to "coping mechanism." If anyone disagrees with that, then what is the point or benefit of fostering such delusion?

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Yes it is. Ideas can't be harmed. They can't be damaged or destroyed. They should be constantly tried, deconstructed, battered and generally undermined.

The problem comes when people identify so closely with an idea that they believe that an attack on the idea is an attack on themselves. This is a mistake. However, it's a mistake that's often made by those who think that their idea is not merely the truth, but that it deserves a capital T.

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That's brilliant. You should be a famous person, Mark.

I'm going to beat my analogy to death by simplifying it.

Your parents put clothes on you from birth, and you've still got clothes on as an adult.

Tribal parents kept their children mostly naked from birth, and those children grew up with a general tendency to remain mostly naked.

Parents or society put religion on you from birth, and you still have it on you.

That's what sociocultural means. There isn't some logic that can deny you have been influenced by other people. Following that, you have zero ways of knowing whether you have been influenced by gods.

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Originally Posted by mazHur

You seem to miss the 'survival of the fittest' factor!!

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"Natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" are almost identical. I don't like saying, "survival of the fittest" because it suggests (to the naive) that "survival" and "fitness" are the key elements in natural selection. They aren't. Male Black Widow spiders spread their genes most effectively by failing to survive, and impoverished, third worlders are spreading their genes more effectively than rich Americans (who, by some definitions, might be more "fit").

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Originally Posted by Varenne Rodin

It's easier to pick a fake thing to believe in than it is to have your mind ripped apart by questions that don't have definitive answers. Religion is a defense mechanism. It is certainly not proven by individual beliefs. It's born out of fear and sociocultural tradition. People cling very stubbornly to their norms.

The sky could open up and a giant talking silk worm could speak aloud to tell us that he's not a god and never was. He could say he never had sway in our personal lives, but that he simply spun the delicate strands of string holding our reality together. He could say there are lots more creatures like him and none of them have any idea who or what started it all, or what the point was. All of these ridiculous nonsense things I just made up could happen, and the masses would still call it a divine act from their loving lord and savior Jesus Christ.

My stance is to let the babies have their bottles, as the saying goes. Faith is soothing for the fragile brain. It's not important what the story is or what the rules are, as long as it's popular. Debunk one cult and another will spring up, possibly a worse one.

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In a later post, Varenne, you call religion a socio-cultural phenomenon. But here you use a reductionist explanation for religion – it’s a “defense mechanism” or psychological phenomenon. Of course, religion could be both. But the reductionist explanation seems trivial and silly (to me). Why do people “need” “definitive answers”?

Varenne says:

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“My stance is to let the babies have their bottles, as the saying goes. Faith is soothing for the fragile brain. It's not important what the story is or what the rules are, as long as it's popular. Debunk one cult and another will spring up, possibly a worse one.”

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This is not only rude, but silly. Faith may or may not be “soothing for the fragile brain” and it may or may not soothe the powerful mind. Methinks Varenne protests too much, and makes wild assertions she cannot support. How is the notion of eternal damnation (as just one example) “soothing”?

Varenne goes on in the same vein:

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Furthermore, if it wasn't a fear based notion, a lot more people would just relax and never once consider a space giant watching their every action. They wouldn't witness the slow torturous death of an infant with cancer and call it "God's will" or "God's plan." If you don't like the term "defense mechanism," I'll amend it to "coping mechanism." If anyone disagrees with that, then what is the point or benefit of fostering such delusion.

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Of course this paragraph assumes that there must be some psychological “point or benefit” to religion. Why? Because it is a “delusion”, and therefore explicable only as a psychological defense mechanism, according to Varenne.

Good grief! Isn’t this a literary discussion board? Is our attraction to the “delusions” of fiction only explicable through our “fragile brains'” inability to accept reality? Just as intelligent Christians must cringe reading the opinions of Literalists and Fundamentalists, I cringe reading the arguments of new atheists like Varenne, with their rude attacks and unsupported neo-Freudian theories.

What wild assertions did I make?

Why do people need definitive answers? Beats me. Ask religious people. I say religion is a defense mechanism because that's what it looks like. If people aren't doing it because it feels good, why are they doing it at all?

What part of what I said was rude? I didn't make anything personal. There are groups of people who get offended if they are not placated. They call it "respecting personal beliefs." I do respect the rights of the religious to their beliefs, in exactly the same way I respect the happy joy joy feeling Santa Claus gives to kiddos. For me, it can only be placating because I cannot genuinely give over to nonsense. You seem to see something wrong with both placating and NOT placating

So, you have called me rude, but you have in no way demonstrated how I have been rude. I apologize if I hurt your feelings. As you said, religion can be both sociocultural and a defense mechanism. It's not born of genetics and that has been proven many times over. If the unfamiliarity of psychological terms offends, I suggest taking psych courses. Happy Holidays. Love love.

You didn't hurt my feelings (since I'm an atheist), except inasmuch as I hate to see my own position (atheism) so badly defended.

This statement is rude, "My stance is to let the babies have their bottles, as the saying goes. Faith is soothing for the fragile brain." You are implying (incorrectly) that religion is for juvenile people with "fragile brains". This is both rude and obviously incorrect. Many of the world's greatest thinkers have been religious.

Varenne continues: "Why do people need definitive answers? Beats me. Ask religious people. I say religion is a defense mechanism because that's what it looks like. If people aren't doing it because it feels good, why are they doing it at all?"

It's strange that Varenne is unable to recognize the irony of her statements here. Who is it that "needs definitive answers"? The religious person? Or Varenne, who offers a "definitive answer" to the complicated question of why people are religious because "that's what it looks like". Well, maybe people believe in God because "that's what the world looks like" to them.

I do agree with Varenne about the socio-cultural aspect of religion. Many people believe in God for the same reason I believe in Darwinism -- it's the accepted reality of their parents and other people they respect and trust. That's how all of us come to learn things -- not through doing all the experiments ourselves, nor through reasoning from First Principles, but by accepting the “knowledge” of those we respect and trust. As G.K. Chesterton once said, “You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.” It’s easy to recognize the social aspect of knowledge in other people. Perhaps we should learn to recognize it in ourselves, as well.

(Sorry if I was rude, Varenne.)