Religion (God)

Quote:But I believe in God,

Why?

Zasch;68664 wrote:Why?
You’re looking for proof of God’s existence, and I cannot give you a satisfying answer. I can only offer my own beliefs; concisely, it feels right to me because I believe God's existence to be truth. I’ll gladly elaborate, and if you're the type to read, it’s a wonder how superfluously the answer to a simple “Why?” can be spun. Without further ado, here is my spinning:

We have certain notions of right and wrong imprinted into our noggins since birth. The concept of goodness is symbolized in society with generosity, compassion, and innocence. To goodness, we associate bright colors such as white and yellow and sky blue. This idea of purity has been idolized and made into the invisible standards of humanity that our society holds our laws—both legal and moral. On the other hand, the concept of evil is the opposite of goodness—something along the lines of greed, haughtiness, and corruption. Following, evil brings to mind the darkest of colors, and evil is the opposition of moral and legal laws.

In reality, both of these concepts do not matter in the least.

I mean, what do colors have to do with anything whatsoever? So what if goodness is white? So are pale-faced sicknesses and the skeletons of dead bodies. So are the curtains and blinds of my window but that hardly an issue in the war of morals. Black can also be translated as innocent splendor such as the darkness of cool night that calms a scorching sun and shows off the stars. Furthermore because of this ingrained belief in colors, humanity has a global crisis in beauty!

And even the foundations of our morals are very fleeting and superficial ones. Black and white? Hardly. The world isn’t made of two colors, in case you didn’t notice; even black and white films had shades of grey. That’s the world that we live in. Incoming example: :eek:

If a man kills two kidnappers to save his son, which person is good in the story—the kidnappers who sin of greed, the father who sins of murder, or the son who did nothing? The son is innocent and easily claims goodness, of course! But why? Is goodness the merit of nothing? With that in mind, I would be most good if I commit to eternal slumber since I’ll be doing nothing and, thus, be unshakably good? Utterly ridiculous.

If a wealthy man horded a food supply and refused to share and his neighbors suffer a famine, would steal the rich man of his food be an act of evil? Or is starving the epitome of good, in this case?

The point of trying to make is that there is not a true right or wrong; there’s only a truth of individual perception, also known as “eye of the beholder”. Logic is found in a person’s head and through the lips of everyone who has come before the man, whereas truth is individual and resides in a person’s heart. The truth I speak of isn’t universally accepted truth, but it’s the truth everybody knows to be true. Faith is following that path of truthfulness with logic. Faith is my belief in God, a mother’s belief in her son’s future success, and both opposing teams’ belief that they’ll win the State Championship football game. Faith is, without guarantees or even good odds, merely a personal conviction.

Why do I believe in God? I could tell you all sorts of stories of my personal experience and count off data regarding the endless times the Bible was proven correct and how the chance of that is immeasurable, but I’ve heard preachers preach the same sermons since I was eight years old and none of them had any effect on me. The thing is, I believe in God because I know Him to be real. Maybe not as the tangible lightning launcher with a thick beard and a voice that kills all mortals, but as God that very well exists.

:)

I just read your post, but I have to go somewhere, so I'll just offer some brief thoughts and post more elaborate thoughts later:

1. I'd actually be interested in the series of improbable confirmations of the divinity of the Bible.

2. I agree with various flavours of moral anti-realism.

3. "Truth" is not simply "what i feel/want to be true", but rather when some statement corresponds to reality.

4. Assessments like a mother's blah for her son or whatever are usually made on probability (if sincere) or desire (if not). The question is on the descriptive existence of God, not on whether we want him to exist or not.

5. The God of Christianity, as I've explained in this thread, seems to have a lot of contradictions that render him unable to be true, and "faith" isn't a very good way to overcome that.

6. Tell me more about God.

Zasch;68679 wrote:I just read your post, but I have to go somewhere, so I'll just offer some brief thoughts and post more elaborate thoughts later:
I had my fingers crossed for that elaboration as some of these “brief thoughts” are a tad too brief. For those, I wasn’t entirely sure where you’re coming from. I'm far from a rock scientist, mind you, and I'm not brilliant with most things. I might be able to tie together smiliar thoughts like stitching a bundle of sticks against an axe, but I'll probably need to blatantly know about the incoming axes to begin. ;)

Zasch;68679 wrote: 1. I'd actually be interested in the series of improbable confirmations of the divinity of the Bible.
Remember my claim of Biblical inexperience? The one that serves me well during these types of situations? Yeah, that one. Most examples of the rightiness are lost to me at the moment, and coincidentally, most of them were never mentioned—perhaps too many of them being trivial?—by my preachers. I’m sure Google will be more helpful than I, but the only example that comes to mind is Noah’s flood. Vaguely recollected, I think modern scientists have found traces deep in the sedimentary layers under Country X that evidence an actual traumatic flooding happening there in history. I’ll say it again, if your interest is thirsty enough, see Google. :o

Zasch;68679 wrote: 3. "Truth" is not simply "what i feel/want to be true", but rather when some statement corresponds to reality.
I tend to have a couple very debateful buddies and to mess with them, I constantly form fundamentally stupid claims just to challenge them to prove me wrong. This one originated as one of those projects, except it started making actual sense—to me at least. A friend and I actually spent several hours bickering about this claim over the phone, arguing about every point from cattle to him stabbing me with a knife. Seriously; I got shivers a few times during that debate. We ended up realizing we were supporting two different definitions for the word “truth”, and I’m telling you that story because there’s a slight chance that you’re making the same mistake. But... we’ll see.

For my foundation, I will start off with an example of the typical terrorist stereotype; think freedom-hating, towel-wearing, dynamite-packing, cow-worshipper. In his twisted imagination and through the insight of his divine guardian, Mister Omar DurkaDurk wants to run into crowds of infidels with explosives strapped to his body. By this suicide and by this sacrifice alone will he be granted eternal bliss. Baptists think he’ll burn in hell. Truth of the matter? Okay, maybe making you choose between that is a bit harsh. Let’s try this: all the logical atheists, after screaming, think he’ll end up as mush for eternity, and then worm food. If you were to continue with your typical “Why?” response to Omar’s views, he can simply answer back “Why not?” Truth of the matter? There’s no provable right or wrong—my basic viewpoint.

From Wikipedia, truth is defined as quote “meaning… extends from honesty, good faith, sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular.” I fight for a definition nearer to the former whereas you are arguing for the latter. And that concludes this, unless you want to correct me yet again… ;)

Zasch;68679 wrote: 4. Assessments like a mother's blah for her son or whatever are usually made on probability (if sincere) or desire (if not). The question is on the descriptive existence of God, not on whether we want him to exist or not.
I would recommend rolling out the bread crumbs on this one. I’m not quite sure I follow, the second line in particular.

Zasch;68679 wrote:5. The God of Christianity, as I've explained in this thread, seems to have a lot of contradictions that render him unable to be true, and "faith" isn't a very good way to overcome that.
If I can get myself assiduous enough to go read previous pages (oh, not any one of the fifteen pages in particular, just a random one in general), I would enjoy reading that. Just wouldn’t mind a pointing finger at where the duck fell. But judging from my grumpiness and cockiness, my preemptive reply would go something along the lines of “several billion, often intelligent, people kind of prove you wrong there; faith is a wonderful technique to overcome anything!”

Zasch;68679 wrote:6. Tell me more about God.
Tell me about yourself. So, you want to narrow now the road of conversation or should I arbitarily begin on a topic the world has yet to finish answering? Well, for an icebreaker, I guess I will talk about my day. I went to church for the first time in over a year, sang some happily familiar songs, and learned about bad days and worries—effectively, the sermon taught worries should first be consulted with God. G’morning. After church, I called a once really good friend who I hadn’t talked to for nearly two years. Very joyful. Then my mom took the family out to watch Nation Treasure, which wasn’t a particularly great film in my opinion but it was me doing something with a family that I hadn’t done anything with for a very long time. Warm feelings galore. When we pulled up to our driveway later, I happened to look up the most indescribable canopy of stars so I got out and stretched across my driveway to bask in the beauty—staring at the stars I haven’t glanced at since an almost forgotten dreamy age. It was then that I realized that this was the best day I’ve had for a terribly long time, so I called a wonderful friend of mine who I wanted to share the moment with. She and I weren’t on the most cheerful of terms, but I apologized then and told her to look at the stars. She didn’t say anything past “hello”, but blissful as I was, I didn’t think anything of it. I found out later that she actually had more words for me, in a Myspace bulletin entitled “God.” with the period and everything. It basically summed up to “Leave me alone” except with angry shakes of a vulgarity dispenser. In those quick minutes, my best day ever has been under maintenance since. That’s the God my faith follows.

And here is some food for thought for Captain Socrates. If not the Christian God, what do you believe in?

:)

I'm really tired, and I'm trying to explain some things that require far more detailed explanations than I have energy to give. Sorry in advance, flag whatever you need me to translate into proper English tomorrow :P

Quote:Yeah, that one.

Maybe you should think about why that happens :P

Quote:Noah’s flood.

[url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html]Google.

Quote:Okay, maybe making you choose between that is a bit harsh.

Indeed, since you haven't established that the two are the only logically possible options.

Quote:he can simply answer back “Why not?”

If we decide to deny the burden of proof, then he is immediately disproven by fiat. If we accept the burden of proof, then he has yet to demonstrate that his position ought to be affirmed. Either way, he is not doing so well.
With that answered, the question returns to "Why?"

However, that is not the purpose of the "why" line of questioning: the purpose of that line of questioning is to get you to make enough statements that eventually compound in contradictions so that I can exploit them :P The moment Mr. DurkaDurk appealed to his divine guardian, I'd have a sufficent case as to why his belief was not justified and therefore his actions were morally incorrect by his stated philosophies.

Quote:Truth of the matter? There’s no provable right or wrong—my basic viewpoint.

Your use of the word "provable" may indicate that you believe in the existence of "correctness" and "incorrectness". If so, the point becomes irrelevant; since humanity must deal with probabilities, it doesn't matter whether a thing can be proven correct or incorrect, merely whether it can be demonstrated that the probability approaches some end of the spectrum.

Otherwise, if you are trying to question the existence of correctness and incorrectness: Your basic viewpoint is self-destructive: By fundamentally assuming the very thing that it attempts to claim doesn't exist (truth), it serves as a proof against itself and implodes.

If we assume the former, then: If we assume that it becomes a question of probability, God is no longer justified due to lack of evidence/contradictory properties/whatever. If we do not assume that it becomes a question of probability, then anti-God, null-God, and God all become "justified true belief" and you are right back where you started, needing to demonstrate the existence of God over anti-God.

There may be one point of confusion: As I re-read your initial post, I see that you use an example of a wealthy man hoarding food, etc,. The problem is that there seems to be a distinction between normative statements ("He is a good man.", "Killing people is wrong.", "Eating icecream is an awful thing to do.") and descriptive statements ("2+2=4", "Germany is a state in Europe.", "He is a man."). I come from a school of thought that says that normative statements are ultimately expressions of preference and warnings. "He is a good man" = "I prefer and reward behaviour similar to that of the man in question.", "Killing people is wrong" = "I very strongly dislike killing people and, in some hypothetical situation, will act to stop this from taking place.", that sort of thing. These statements don't have any truth value (beyond whether the speaker actually affirms them) because they are expressions of preference. Pepperoni pizza is no more "objectively better" than cheese pizza (actually, cheese pizza is objectively better. Pepperoni is disgusting) - a wealthy man hoarding food during a famine is not objectively good or bad, but rather is only "good" or "bad" as it relates to the emotional state of the speaker. Would stealing the rich man of his food be an evil act? No. Would it be a good act? No. Would it be morally neutral? No. It simply "would be": any further assessments depend on whether the speaker has some internal motivation one way or the other, which is most commonly expressed through moral language.

Now, the way most people use moral language isn't in a "This displeases me and I might act to stop it" way, but in a "You are violating some fundamental part of the universe". If you are using them in this way, then I would say the statements have a truth value: False. The statement "Stealing from a rich man during a time of famine fundamentally contradicts some order of the universe" is false. The statement "Stealing from a rich man during a time of faming fundamentally affirms some order of the universe" is false.

Descriptive statements don't operate in this way, though, because they aren't fundamentally motivators to action: values are. The statement "John is killing some guy." may be true or false (it depends on whether the statement corresponds to reality - is John really killing some guy? Is an entity that we have commonly accepted to be called "John" really performing an act to extinguish the life of some individual somewhere within our commonly-understood notion of the universe as applicable to the context of this situation?) - but whether it is or not is irrelevant unless we look at it through the lens of values. If we don't, then "John is killing some guy." provokes no response and is basically "unpowered". If we assume "Killing is wrong", however (I would translate that as "Killing severely displeases me and I will, in some hypothetical, act to stop it."), then suddenly "John is killing some guy" triggers the "Act to stop it" part of us. The statement becomes "powered" by our value.

When we're talking about the truth-value of the statement "God exists", we aren't speaking normatively: we're talking about how the universe actually operates. "God exists" still requires some value to "power" it before it becomes anything, but this tells us that the statement itself is not normative.

We can discuss the nature of reality, but ultimately perception requires the existence of properties, and thus something has to "fundamentally exist" (in my view, anyway), and thus I don't know that such a discussion would be particularly productive.

Quote:I would recommend rolling out the bread crumbs on this one. I’m not quite sure I follow, the second line in particular.

Sorry - it makes sense in my head, but sometimes it doesn't make sense after I put it to words :(
When we try to evaluate the chance of something occuring, we can take two routes: We can deceive ourselves toward the outcome we want, or we can make an honest evaluation given the data that we have. When a mother screams at her child's teacher demanding the retraction of an F because her child is simply so above-average, that is likely an analysis distorted by the mother's (obvious) interest and bias in the matter. This is fine when it comes to making us happy (The mother will likely not appreciate you pointing out her son's mental mental deficencies), but the question I'm asking isn't whether the belief makes you happy or anything like that: I am ultimately asking whether the belief is justified or not.

The other way is a little more honest. When I watch some sort of team-based competition, I like to root for my own side. In fact, I may even disparage the other side and list off all the reasons why my side will emerge victorious. Am I doing this because I sat down with my little mathematical formulas, plugged in all the numbers, and objective arrived to the conclusion that my team has a higher chance of winning? Possibly; but experience tends toward suggesting that I get emotional gratification out of supporting my particular team, hence why there is such a bias in my stated analysis. Sometimes you can take some pretty basic measures to weed out that bias. For instance, if you challenge me to put money up on it, my analysis may become increasingly honest as the stakes become higher and higher (though for some individuals the "risk curve" is going to look different). A real-world example of this is the countless number of people who indulge in whatever their religion prohibits while still professing the truth of the religion.

I'm getting a bit off track. The point is that equating your faith in God to a mother's faith in her son or someones faith in their sport team isn't really that impressive and probably proves the opposite of what you intended to convey with the statement.

Quote:Just wouldn’t mind a pointing finger at where the duck fell.

Christianity has a real big problem with evil that many of the other Abrahamic religions are somewhat more flexible on. Conservative Christians have a real tough time because they have to take the Bible literally, and thus their system usually breaks pretty quickly. I sense you aren't a conservative Christian (which has problems of its own, but I'm tired), but the amount of evil that exists in the world is really quite shocking. "Free will" is the most common defence, except that A) Free will doesn't appear to exist in the sense that is commonly though of, B) Whether giving beings the free will to commit wanton acts of evil is the act of a moral god or not, and C) Free will doesn't at all explain natural evils.

Though, I doubt that you hold the traditional Christian concept of God, since you don't appear to believe either divine command or moral realism. Hence why I want you to describe God :p

Also, the trinity is a bizarre concept.

Quote:Tell me about yourself.

My name is Zasch (It isn't really). I like debating people! :D I also like politics, philosophy, that sort of things. Art is nice. How about you?

Quote:. So, you want to narrow now the road of conversation

What is the nature of God? Why does he do the things that he does? How powerful is he? How loving is he? Is he a personal God? What is his history? That sort of thing.

Quote:That’s the God my faith follows.

It might be that I'm just tired, but if you could state "him" more explicitly, I'd appreciate it.

Quote:If not the Christian God, what do you believe in?

Morally speaking, I base my moral system on the recognition that it isn't objectively "true", but that it doesn't need to be objectively true in order for it to serve as a motivator to action. I tend to have strong values of liberty (where I fuse positive and negative liberty as being one in the same), equality, the usual set of Western values. I'm pretty deterministic in my outlook, and so moral responsibility is something that I don't really ascribe to people philosophically (I still operate as if people can be morally responsible, though). As well, "people" are impermanent illusions, and thus even if people were capable of being responsible they ultimately don't exist long enough to be held to account.

I grew up in a Mormon setting (hurrr maybe thats why you are an atheist now), but I stopped believing in God about the time I stopped believing in Santa (seriously). My views on morality came shortly after that, then my views on personality, then on determinism. To me, it seemed like God didn't affect anything at all anywhere, and so without any evidence I had no other imperative to believe. The Abrahamic God is pretty revolting to me, though, and that is one bias you ought to be aware of (I think my arguments are solid enough to overcome it, though).

As it relates to "salvation", I don't believe the question of God is at all relevant: it is instead a question of whether a person can come toward eliminating their affective states by realising the nature of personhood and morality.

Politically speaking, I'm pretty liberal and would be considered a "far leftist" in the US. I believe that people have a set of rights, those rights ultimately being formed around the idea that people ought to be allowed to be the happiest they can. Human interaction inevitably leads to a diminished ability for some to do this (they are "infringed upon") and thus corrective measures such as wealth redistribution are warranted. Most of my other values are extrinsic to this (if you catch a contradiction, it will likely go in favour of "human liberal happiness"). Obviously things like education, healthcare, shelter, food, etc,. are essential to this, as are things like generally respecting property rights, speech rights (I'm really aggressive about speech and other expressive rights), that sort of thing.

I'm pretty pro-free market, which often surprises people given my socialist-leanings in my views of history, society, and morality. I simply believe that the free market, in most instances, is able to bring about human happiness without infringing on the rights of others. There are well-known areas where the free market fails, of course; I don't treat it like a religion. People should be left to do their own thing most of the time, including in business. The problem comes, for instance, when institutional inequalities give rise to what I would deem exploitive behaviour: Workers and employers should have the freedom to negotiate, but inequalities in bargaining power require that workers be protected if the employer is attempting to exploit them by taking advantage of their weak position. Suppose there is a worker who has a family that is starving. An employer then offers this worker subsistence food, so long as the worker agrees to work 105 hours a week for no pay. Even if the worker is technically free to accept, deny, or attempt to negotiate, I would consider this explotation since inequalities in bargaining power are not leading to the worker being able to achieve his happiness, resulting in a massive infringement on his liberty, and thus the negligble infringement on the liberty/happiness of the employer by requiring sane contract terms is ultimately justified in the final analysis. I extend this logic to things like education, racial equality, that sort of thing (Since these all interfere with the bargaining positions). Note, however, that is the employer is offering bountiful food, $100 an hour, shelter, and paradise, then the unequal bargaining position merits no infringement of liberty because the contract offered actualises the liberty of the person in question.

blah blah blah you can guess the rest, I'm sure. :)

*from the very early posts in this thread*

sorry to hear that capt. canada...but i also agree, the bible is written by a bunch of bored scholars who feel that they have a duty to God...

even though i am not catholic or christian, i can say that all religions have their pros and cons...i mean, in buddism (which i am) there's so many Gods for people to believe in..yet, some might be considered as more important and highly than others...yet, i feel that they are all just as important...i don't know...

religions seemed much more complex than they should be... that's all i have to say to it...

There is no question god exists...ive beee told hes a social distraction though..but im very devout

god a social distraction? pleeeaseee...all the little secular and politically correct "rules" applied to religion are socially distracting.
god exists. hes done alot for me, so i continue to beleive in him.

I think religion is a rather simple concept, if we choose not to pick it to pieces.
You believe in what you believe in because, essentially, that's what helps you.

That said I also believe that there is no "wrong" religion. There's a gray area that exists in human nature, and that is also evident in human morals and values, including religion. If anything were black and white then, well, it wouldn't be reality... because that's just not how reality works.