Religion

[Waddlesworth]

ow actually I do acknowledge the use of religion, for example, I've read an experiment in which religious people kept there cool better because of their (unjustified) reliance on a god to help them out.

Yet defending religious is like defending santa claus. You can always come up with arguments like, he exists you just can't see him because he's invisible etc.

Santa claus is easy defendable too. But yet, deep inside, we all know that he's only a myth.

YOU see God as Santa Claus. Perhaps some or even most religious people in the western world view god that way, but ultimately you are making a blanket judgment based upon your underdeveloped(immature) comprehension of God. I'll tell you, I very much believe in God and my idea of God in no way resembles Santa Claus. So right there you have my testimony to suggest that maybe you should reconsider your conclusion.

Your constant referencing to crappy university experiments likely carried out by overpaid drones who hate their careers and churn out crappy, fudged experimental data shows me that you are not someone that looks inward for answers. If you started looking inward for answers maybe you'd start developing your idea of God more.

The powerful influence that 'God' has had on the science you so much cherish is obvious. Essentially every great scientific mind has had tremendous faith in God. Einstein and Newton are the most popular examples, but the list goes on and on because true illumination and the unveiling of once unknown scientific axioms/laws can only be the result of faith in God and the miraculous.

So, did Newton and Einstein and Aristotle revere an imaginary Santa Claus? Or do they know something Jarno doesn't want to admit?

Surely you don't claim to know more than the greatest minds our times have produced, do you?

[greed]

The powerful influence that 'God' has had on the science you so much cherish is obvious. Essentially every great scientific mind has had tremendous faith in God. Einstein and Newton are the most popular examples, but the list goes on and on because true illumination and the unveiling of once unknown scientific axioms/laws can only be the result of faith in God and the miraculous.

So, did Newton and Einstein and Aristotle revere an imaginary Santa Claus? Or do they know something Jarno doesn't want to admit?

Surely you don't claim to know more than the greatest minds our times have produced, do you?

this is the least transparent appeal to authority that I have ever seen in my entire life

[Waddlesworth]

Facts are facts. Fighting it, arguing with it, it is all in vain. The greatest and most influential scientific minds all had faith in a higher power; faith in God. You can draw whatever conclusions you want from it, but again, facts are facts.

It is just fact.

FACT

[Waddlesworth]

As far as Santa, he doesn't appear at Christmas, obvious. You can look wherever at the North Pole but you won't find him or elves.

I find God harder to disprove on that kind of basis. Either he is a creator being and all things existing is his proof or it isn't. But one doesn't prove the other. Even if God exists and even if all that is is proof, we do not recognize it as such. But the point is you are free to believe what you want as it makes sense to you just as I am free to believe that which I tried to objectively disprove with all of my mental might and could not find a true way to disprove it. So I eventually went with what my personal gut told me. I do believe all things are my reasons among others. I think my belief is completely valid as anyone's belief otherwise is valid....

It is difficult to have these discussions and I will stop my involvement with this response.

I have noticed there is a growing group of people that have an animosity toward the very idea of God. I am sorry if I make a blanket judgment, but 'these people' abhor anything with even a hint of the divine, miraculous, sublime, glorious, great, beautiful, pure and dignified. They hate the idea of a Christ, or of a God, or of a Messiah. They don't even explore the idea, they just denounce, laugh and ridicule. They pretend to know-it-all but know nothing of God, nothing of The Christ and nothing of the Messiah.

It seems almost as though these people cannot begin to fathom or explore the idea... as though they are incapable of it. To make matters worse, they seem to HATE any mention or hinting of God and ridicule those who seek higher meaning and purpose in religion or spirituality.

I try and I try again to demonstrate to people that this popular Atheist movement is NOT scientific, that science is the product of men who had faith in God. I try to tell them that the notion that religion/spirituality is unscientific is a FALSE claim. I try and try and try but they are set in their ways and seem like they will never listen.

To each their own, I guess. But what good is the world without true faith? How can you trust a man if he does not fear God?

Those are just my opinions, like aixelsyd's. Nothing to really argue about; just expressing myself.

[Azeroffs]

Evidence for God:

1) Cosmological argument: if you accept the fact that everything that begins to exist has a cause, then since the universe began to exist (per the Big Bang), it must have a cause. The first premise ("everything that begins to exist has a cause") may sound like bs, but really, it's as inductively likely as anything established to be true by a science, since I can provide a buttload of things that begin to exist that have a cause, whereas I can't think of any that begin to exist that don't have a cause. The argument turns on whether or not you're OK with the idea that things that don't begin to exist have a cause, but I think this is a reasonable claim to assent to, because otherwise you have infinite regress (x caused the world, y caused x, z caused y, a caused z, b caused a ad infinitum).

So, I tend to reformulate the argument like this: something has to be eternal. According to the Big Bang Theory, that eternal thing isn't the world. So it's probably an immaterial (since matter was created/began to exist at the Big Bang), extraordinarily powerful (since it created the world out of nothing, or at least nothing material), and eternal/atemporal being. An immaterial, incredibly powerful, eternal being pretty much fits the bill for "God".

This doesn't mean God is necessary, but God is possible.

2) Teleological argument: basically, intelligent design, but it has to do with stuff like how earth is a certain distance from the sun, the sun is a certain type of star, the cosmic background radiation is a certain wavelength, gravity is of a certain strength, etc., and without all this stuff, life couldn't exist. The probability of this happening randomly is fairly low, so it seems likely that there is a God that made all these things happen in this precise way.

Considering the vastness of space it's very likely that the circumstances would occur somewhere.

3) Moral argument: alright, this is where the foundational bit comes in. If you believe in objective morality, there has to be an objective standard for that morality. But where does the standard come from? It can't come from individuals, because then the right thing to do is whatever each individual thinks it is (solipsism). It can't come from cultures, because then the right thing to do is whatever each culture does (cultural relativism). This might seem to be okay, until you remember that this means that slavery in the United States, the gladiatorial games in Rome, this practice, known as widow-burning, are all okay because they were sanctioned by the cultures where they took place, to say nothing of Nazi Germany. So, what standard can there be for morality besides people and society? Maybe you could argue the earth as source for morality in some way, but then you get into arguments like "it is the law of the earth that the weak dominate the strong; I am strong; therefore I am justified in dominating you who are weak." So, it seems likely that there is a source for morality that transcends the individual, culture, and the world. This would appear to be God.

I agree that an objective standard of morality would be a strong indicator of a God. I however, disagree with absolute morality. What is right/wrong depends on desires and feelings. The only moral theory that makes any sense to me is utilitarianism.

If there is some other objective morality, we have no way of knowing what it is.

4) Ontological argument: somewhat bs argument, but some thinkers have argued that God is true-by-definition, because God is that of which no greater can be conceived, and since it is greater to exist than not to exist (existence is a perfection), it follows that God must exist.

Side note: people try to counter that argument with the "perfect island" or "perfect unicorn" argument, (a perfect unicorn must exist for the same reasons as God must, according to this argument), but that is a terrible counterargument, because, quite frankly, that perfect unicorn would be God, and would not have all the properties of a unicorn. For instance, it is one of the properties of all things that have physical existence on earth that they come into being and go out of being. One could argue that if one did not have this property, one could not be considered a thing with a purely physical existence on earth. So then the "perfect island" has a characteristic that islands cannot have, insofar as the "perfect" island would not be generated and could not be destroyed. Also, islands and unicorns both have defined physical limits, can move at finite speeds, etc., and both of these things seem like they would not belong to the greatest possible being. So yeah, that counterargument is crap.

I've heard the ontological argument, and it I was almost convinced, but there are holes. I think the biggest problem is with the word "perfect."

per⋅fect
  /adj., n. ˈpɜrfɪkt; v. pərˈfɛkt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [adj., n. pur-fikt; v. per-fekt] Show IPA
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–adjective
1. conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type: a perfect sphere; a perfect gentleman.
2. excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement: There is no perfect legal code. The proportions of this temple are almost perfect.
3. exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose: a perfect actor to play Mr. Micawber; a perfect saw for cutting out keyholes.
4. entirely without any flaws, defects, or shortcomings: a perfect apple; the perfect crime.
5. accurate, exact, or correct in every detail: a perfect copy.
6. thorough; complete; utter: perfect strangers.
7. pure or unmixed: perfect yellow.

A perfect being is just be something that fits the criteria of the word "being" exactly. Since being is such a general term, any person could be a perfect being.

In the case where you say "a being without flaws." Well then you just have to define "flaw," but a thing can't be objectively flawed. A thing is flawed only if it does not meet specified criteria.

For something to be perfect there must be a set standard of criteria. You can't just say an absolutely perfect X must be god because something cannot be perfect unless there is criteria to fit it to. Nothing is objectively perfect. Or, everything is objectively perfect depending on how you want to define it.

Technically, I agree with this. I don't think you can establish fully rationalist proof for anything. But I don't think God is any less reasonable to believe in than anything else, and some people think that God is less reasonable to believe in than what is available to their senses, which, from a rationalist perspective, is 100% wrong, since we can't furnish any proof for the veracity of sense experience, and certainly not any scientific proof.

I agree. It comes down to faith either way because it's not knowable. At least at this point in time.

I am an atheist simply because I believe so. Since reasoning only gets me to "unknowable" I simply have to rely on what I believe. I don't see God as anything necessary to my life or existence. Maybe it is, idk. I have no problem with theists as long as they realize they might be wrong. And atheists who don't acknowledge that their belief is equal to a theist's are hypocrites. Anyone who ardently says God exists or does not seems to be only expressing ignorance in my opinion.

I do have problems with organized religion. I see that as a plague that humanity needs to rid itself of.

[Jarno]

Facts are facts. Fighting it, arguing with it, it is all in vain. The greatest and most influential scientific minds all had faith in a higher power; faith in God. You can draw whatever conclusions you want from it, but again, facts are facts.

It is just fact.

FACT

For every scientist name you give that was religious, I can give you 10 who aren't. (btw einstein wasn't as religious as you'd think)

Religious scientists are rare. So if that's your argument... I'll win with ease...

[Azeroffs]

People are very sensitive about their beliefs. Many atheists ironically believe they are better because they wrongly substitute "God" for "science." Science is not disproof of god, and using it as an answer to everything is no different than using God as an answer to everything.

@Jarno I think that's what waddlesworth is getting at by saying that some scientists are believers.

[Jarno]

@Jarno I think that's what waddlesworth is getting at by saying that some scientists are believers.

The god concept that I'm against is of a man with a beard who has a heaven and created the earth and gives you a happy life if you pray to him. Nothing of that is true.

The Spinoza concept of god as the universe is something different. That was what einstein believed in. It's nothing more than saying the univere is god. But that's not what religious people say...

[Azeroffs]

The god concept that I'm against is of a man with a beard who has a heaven and created the earth and gives you a happy life if you pray to him. Nothing of that is true.

The Spinoza concept of god as the universe is something different. That was what einstein believed in. It's nothing more than saying the univere is god. But that's not what religious people say...

I see.

I just hate when people put down the whole idea like it's some childish Santa Claus ideal, and some aspects of it are, like your man with a beard concept, but people that don't look beyond that are just as one sided as they claim theists to be.

[silverchris9]

This doesn't mean God is necessary, but God is possible.

No, it means God is necessary, if you assent to propositions one and two.

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore the universe had a cause.

As per this argument, there *must* be an immaterial, timeless, and very powerful cause for the universe. There are a few more assumptions at play that get us to "God", such as things that cause other things exist, but by and large, the cosmological argument gets you to a necessary cause for the universe.

Now, that being said, my reformulation of the argument does not have such strong or clear bonds of necessity, partially because I was trying to anticipate the objection "but what caused God." And technically, the cosmological argument proves the existence of at least one god, rather than a singular deity, since the being that created the universe could have had a cause itself, and that cause could be eternal and uncaused. Nevertheless, I don't think you can escape the idea that the cosmological argument proves that there is at least one God without finding fault with the first premise, which, I confess, is not impossible to do (or the second premise, but people are usually disinclined to argue with science, for some strange reason ).

Considering the vastness of space it's very likely that the circumstances would occur somewhere.

I'm not so sure. I don't have exact numbers, but the universe is of a finite size, and it is possible that the number of planets is not sufficient to account for the fine-tuning business. I think the number of stars is somewhere on the order of 10^25, so planets are probably at the very most on a scale of 10^28, and fine tuning, because of its many factors, may establish probabilities in excess of 10^28. I don't know this for sure, but I think it's a possibility.

I agree that an objective standard of morality would be a strong indicator of a God. I however, disagree with absolute morality. What is right/wrong depends on desires and feelings. The only moral theory that makes any sense to me is utilitarianism.

If there is some other objective morality, we have no way of knowing what it is.

Yeah. That's a plausible denial to make. But it does leave you in some awkward positions that seem to deny many commonsensical assumptions, i.e., Stalin = bad, killing children = evil, saving lives = good. In fact, it's difficult to have a motive for action if some things are not finally good rather than bad. Otherwise, you live life on preference, without any higher goal. That might be OK, might not.

I've heard the ontological argument, and it I was almost convinced, but there are holes. I think the biggest problem is with the word "perfect."

A perfect being is just be something that fits the criteria of the word "being" exactly. Since being is such a general term, any person could be a perfect being.

In the case where you say "a being without flaws." Well then you just have to define "flaw," but a thing can't be objectively flawed. A thing is flawed only if it does not meet specified criteria.

For something to be perfect there must be a set standard of criteria. You can't just say an absolutely perfect X must be god because something cannot be perfect unless there is criteria to fit it to. Nothing is objectively perfect. Or, everything is objectively perfect depending on how you want to define it.

I agree, "perfect" is a problem. That's why in the original formulation of the argument, it was "that of which no greater can be conceived." Have you read the original? Argument here (and please ignore the medieval language). Explanation here.

Might fall into the same problems for you, might not.

I agree. It comes down to faith either way because it's not knowable. At least at this point in time.

I am an atheist simply because I believe so. Since reasoning only gets me to "unknowable" I simply have to rely on what I believe. I don't see God as anything necessary to my life or existence. Maybe it is, idk. I have no problem with theists as long as they realize they might be wrong. And atheists who don't acknowledge that their belief is equal to a theist's are hypocrites. Anyone who ardently says God exists or does not seems to be only expressing ignorance in my opinion.

Ah, and here is the big problem. Because theists, Christians anyway, cannot doubt, according to the New Testament. To think that one might be wrong is awfully close to doubting (they may be the same thing, may not). It's a difficult thing. But to return to my favorite example, you don't think that anyone who ardently says, "sense experience is reliable" to be expressing ignorance. Can't you allow for the possibility of non-rational proof for God as well?

I think that the rational proof can get you so far, but then a different kind of "proof" takes over, which is somewhat akin to the kind of proof that John Keats refers to when he says "Truth is beauty; beauty truth" although Christians would disagree that "that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." It's the proof of seeing positive results in the world, not just on an ordinary scale, but on an extraordinary scale. Like the revolution in morality that occurred as a result of Christianity. Or its mystical experience. Who knows? Either way, I think that one can reasonably be certain in the existence of God, because it is logically possible, maybe even likely, that he/she/it exists, and if, as I believe, the Christian God provides proof of Himself through his church, experiencing him (whatever that means), etc., then I think we're cool in giving a definite yes to the question "does God exist".

I do have problems with organized religion. I see that as a plague that humanity needs to rid itself of.

I could be more diplomatic here, but bluntly, this is my opinion: that opinion is probably largely founded on some erroneous assumptions, misinterpretations of some popular quotes, and several bad history lessons. Suffice it to say: the Catholic Church didn't kill Galileo, Christianity can be seen as the efficient cause of most of the moral opinions you (likely) hold today, and Freud didn't think that "the opium of the masses" was a bad thing, whatever Marx believed. Organized religion is not as bad as people make it out to be, and even if it wasn't around, people would've found reasons to fight. See: the centuries and centuries of history before Christianity.

[silverchris9]

ow actually I do acknowledge the use of religion, for example, I've read an experiment in which religious people kept there cool better because of their (unjustified) reliance on a god to help them out.

Yet defending religious is like defending santa claus. You can always come up with arguments like, he exists you just can't see him because he's invisible etc.

Santa claus is easy defendable too. But yet, deep inside, we all know that he's only a myth.

...no. Not even slightly. Santa Claus = fat man with a beard. Physical, temporal, non-omnipotent, tied up with a very specific series of assertions involving reindeer.

God = nonphysical, atemporal, omnipotent, omniscient, not necessarily tied to any specific set of historical or behavioral assertions except (usually) benevolence. Furthermore, God is generally believed to be transcendent. Defending a thing that is both transcendent and immanent is very different than defending a dude that lives on the north pole. That's really not a fair, wise, or considered comparison to make, in my opinion.

[silverchris9]

"everything that begins to exist has a cause" is used by many as the best way to determine how things came about. It is not a proof in itself. If an alternate methos method was used to determine how things came about and just so happened to draw the same conclusions as the first, which would you believe was the most valid?

"everything that begins to exist has a cause" is a maxim by which many humans try to establish how things came about - the conclusions we draw may not be an actual explanation of what happened.

Therefore, I cannot trust your apparent logical conclusion of "an immaterial, super-powerful, atemporal thing" being the creator of this universe. If such a creator is independent of the rules of this universe, then I would think it would be at least as plausible to say that out of nothing, came everything.

Interesting angle. So you're arguing that because "everything that begins to exist has a cause" is an abstraction (that is, a general principle derived from particular occurrences), it cannot be absolutely trusted to reflect reality, and as such cannot be used in a logical proof? That's an interesting opinion, but basically it completely destroys rationalism, because building logical proofs and arguments and such *only* works if we have a shared set of agreed upon assumptions. That's why Socrates starts all of the dialogues by getting his dialogue partner (i.e., interlocutor) to agree to a few common principles. You can't do philosophy in any other way, or think, really. We necessarily rely upon abstractions to organize and allow any thought (or logos as rational discourse) whatsoever. Brief socionics aside: this is how Ni is as basic to human consciousness as extroverted sensation or extroverted feeling; Ni is the function of abstraction. Anyway, you're right, I don't know that "anything that begins to exist has a cause" as a concept accurately reflects reality. But I know that it seems to, and the bridge from seems to is, is much better traveled than most people want to admit.

You can't have causation independent of time.

Prove it.

This argument seems to be "It is because it is". Does a triangle have three sides because it does, or does it have three sides because it has been defined that way?

Can you explain this further?

Also, which is the greater objective evil?: the act of murder or the lack of belief in a particular god? The major god-based religions say that murder is a sin against god, and yet not believing in a particular god is generally considered the greater evil. If not believing in god is not an objective evil, why not? It seems you are saying that there are many who believe in objective evil and do not commit objective evil, and yet think that others who believe they should not commit objective evil should be punished for all eternity for their subjective inklings. If there is any such thing as an objective evil, then holding such a belief must be it incarnate.

Why is it so hard to believe that there are those who do not go round killing people indiscriminately because they fear reappraisal, or simply because it's not something they are fond of?

So in general your objection to God is rooted in (or at least strongly related to) your (moral) aversion to the doctrine of hell, especially as espoused by most protestant pastors on Sunday morning, inspired to win souls by their reading of Jonathan Edwards in seminary? Well, that's legitimate. I *really* don't want to get into a full-scale discussion of Christian views of hell and the legitimacy and illegitimacy thereof, but perhaps we could do that later. As it stands though, your objection is somewhat reasonable, but not really applicable to the concept of God as a whole. We're not talking about the Christian God and the doctrines thereof, remember. We're just talking about generalized theism. So, if it were possible to have a God who did not punish or judge, how would you feel about the existence of that God?

Also, vis a vis that last bit, we would probably want to ask why that person isn't fond of killing people, and the answer would probably end up being a fundamentally moral assumption: it is better to not kill people than to kill people; not killing people belongs to the good life. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate the notion of "what is preferred" from the notion of "what is to be preferred."

Some people do doubt their very existence , and I find the notion of a god who would punish for all eternity those who do not believe in that god AND scrupulously follow all the tenets of whatever religion to be immoral.

Ah, but it isn't my belief that humans can be purely rational beings - and I can also forgive humans for not being so...my real issue is that many gods require humans to make determinations about the way things are through either an incomplete and rational process or through irrational means (how ever defined), and punish those who do not come to the right conclusions.

I prefer my approach which is forgiving and just and which seemingly results in progress (which is why I follow it).

Right. I totally agree that humans can't be purely rational beings. I think that Christianity is more beautiful than it is ugly. That is an act of faith. If I were stronger or a better person, I might be able to demonstrate to you why I hold that article of faith in a profound or effective way. As it is, I cannot, unfortunately.

[Jarno]

God = not necessarily tied to any specific set of historical or behavioral assertions

Yes he is.

My main issue with the whole god thing is that he build the earth and the rest in 7 days.

When I come up with that argument that it's not likely that it went that way, the religious people tend to dismiss it and say, well uhm that was just a myth, you don't have to take it litteraly. yeah, nice defence again. Typical for religious people. When they are losing something they stated, they suddenly say, I never meant it that way. There are lots of these examples... They constantly adapt the god concept to a point where it is more easely defendable again.

[Gilly]

The cosmological argument for god always makes me laugh. Why do people assume that "existence" had a beginning, or that it will have a recognizable end? Why do people want to think that the universe has a particular shape and shit like that? Why is it so hard to imagine things just going on forever? Why is it hard to imagine that the universe oscillates, exploding and collapsing, and that it's simply a cycle? Or even that existence as we know it is an isolated event, some shit that just happened, and it's going to be over and done with and no more? People want things to be so finite and concrete and easy; they don't realize that a much simpler solution is available for the low low cost of just accepting that infinite is comprehensible as a self-contained concept. Of course we will never "experience" or fully understand what infinite means, but shit, we're finite beings, with limited cognition and means of apprehending information to boot; if you properly understand the limits of your own mind, then it's not hard to grasp infinite satisfactorily, at least on a subjective level.

[Gilly]

Yes he is.

My main issue with the whole god thing is that he build the earth and the rest in 7 days.

When I come up with that argument that it's not likely that it went that way, the religious people tend to dismiss it and say, well uhm that was just a myth, you don't have to take it litteraly. yeah, nice defence again. Typical for religious people. When they are losing something they stated, they suddenly say, I never meant it that way. There are lots of these examples... They constantly adapt the god concept to a point where it is more easely defendable again.

Did you know that "yowm," the Hebrew word for day, can denote not only a 24 hour cycle, but also an indeterminate period of time?

[silverchris9]

The cosmological argument for god always makes me laugh. Why do people assume that "existence" had a beginning, or that it will have a recognizable end? Why do people want to think that the universe has a particular shape and shit like that? Why is it so hard to imagine things just going on forever? Why is it hard to imagine that the universe oscillates, exploding and collapsing, and that it's simply a cycle? Or even that existence as we know it is an isolated event, some shit that just happened, and it's going to be over and done with and no more? People want things to be so finite and concrete and easy; they don't realize that a much simpler solution is available for the low low cost of just accepting that infinite is comprehensible as a self-contained concept. Of course we will never "experience" or fully understand what infinite means, but shit, we're finite beings, with limited cognition and means of apprehending information to boot; if you properly understand the limits of your own mind, then it's not hard to grasp infinite satisfactorily, at least on a subjective level.

Beta = the Greek (i.e., pre-Christian) quadra. I can somewhat see the appeal of an infinite amount of days, the naturalness of assuming the world always has been and always will be, or perhaps flux or whatever. But you know, when you're making an argument, you always wanna bring in the pretty flashy science terms, makes everything more "authoritative," etc.

Also, I'm down with the infinite. I just want it to be God instead of nature. No big deal.

Did you know that "yowm," the Hebrew word for day, can denote not only a 24 hour cycle, but also an indeterminate period of time?

Or for that matter, the english word day is often used to mean something besides literal twenty-four hour periods.

Yes he is.

If you have no imagination.

My main issue with the whole god thing is that he build the earth and the rest in 7 days.

When I come up with that argument that it's not likely that it went that way, the religious people tend to dismiss it and say, well uhm that was just a myth, you don't have to take it litteraly. yeah, nice defence again. Typical for religious people. When they are losing something they stated, they suddenly say, I never meant it that way. There are lots of these examples... They constantly adapt the god concept to a point where it is more easely defendable again.

That is false, historically speaking. Many church fathers held a non-literal view of the Biblical account of creation, Augustine being one of them. So you can't really say Christians are suddenly saying "I never meant it that way." More like, Christians have been saying two different things for several centuries (although honestly, the literal view of Genesis is a more modern idea, as is dispensational premillenialism--i.e., Left Behind, the rapture, all that jazz--fun fact of the day :wink.

Even if they were, isn't that what science does? "Oh, wait, you mean my hypothesis can't be true? Oh, no, I guess I gotta backpedal and change my hypothesis. I'm such a flip-flopper. I'm constantly adapting my concept of how the universe works to a point where it is logically consistent again. I should really stop that."

Heck, did you know that Genesis actually offers two creation narratives, and then John goes back and revises them anyway? The Bible is a tool for communicating truth. If someone thinks that understanding God is so simple (and human cognition is so powerful) that he could speak entirely literally and we would understand him in his fullness from that, with no metaphor at all, well, I'm not sure that they understand the nature of the Christian revelation, or exactly how "knowing and loving God" (especially that first one) can truly be a life's work, much less an eternity's work.

[Gilly]

Also, I'm down with the infinite. I just want it to be God instead of nature. No big deal.

Errr...I don't really see how the universe having indefinite physical shape or size, or existing for eternity, is in any way conducive or analogous to belief in god.

[silverchris9]

Errr...I don't really see how the universe having indefinite physical shape or size, or existing for eternity, is in any way conducive or analogous to belief in god.

I dunno... the existing for eternity bit fits quite well with belief in God: one conceives of the universe existing forever, the other conceives of God existing forever. Indefinite physical shape or size is not all that different from nonphysicality, conceptually speaking. If one can accept the idea that "the physical properties of this entity are unknowable to me," it makes it easier to accept the idea that "this entity does not have physical properties," insofar as both ideas move away from certainty and measurable-ness in physical properties.

Of course believing that the world is infinite isn't conducive to believing in God (which is why I transferred the concept from nature/the universe to God), but some of the conceptual ideas associated with an infinite universe are useful when transferred to a finite universe-infinite God setup. It would be interesting to see a religion/belief system with an infinite universe-finite God setup. I'd like to see that, just for curiosity's sake.

[Gilly]

I guess I see where you're going; it just seemed like kind of a non-sequitor.

I can entertain the idea of God as an extra-dimensional being that we simply don't have the capacity to grasp with our limited physical and mental capabilities, but some of the shit people come up with just makes me laugh.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

here's what I think,

when you deeply meditate you get this sort of everlasting peace, you also break open your perception and your awareness of physical reality expands. (in your brain you have a greater real sense of awareness of how real direction goes) you start seeing how it's all connected, everything, and this wholeness is god, everything is god, even your own ego or thoughts and being aware of this 'everything-ness' is what helps you feel at ease with the world. no matter how much we compete for resources, or bitch and argue about stuff, most people aren't purely sociopathic and don't kill or hate for very long, and this sort of worldly all-around compassion is what enables you then to fix your own issues in life. aaaaand people can change, redemption is for everybody, so you kinda just allow yourself to lighten up more.

it's just the whole. you can't argue with the whole, or view it as a contradiction because it includes *everything* in it - both everything that's already here and everything you can imagine, and there are no hierarchies no systems of power it's just pure contentment and realizing this oneness of *all* things. this is what we call God. You let evil win by surrendering yourself to it , and including it into the whole cause all the stuff you don't like is there too- but the good stuff is but well it's sort of this .....pure spark,with no contradiction. just pure energy and you realize THIS is the stuff that creates worlds, dreams, blah blah blah. so then in an ironic way you get what you always wanted subjectively anyway, by realizing the whole, isn't that interesting.

[Gilly]

Fuck the whole.

[silverchris9]

Puns!

I might be some sort of existential spiritualist pseudo-pantheist if I weren't too busy being a Christian. I think the theory is that there is a God beyond nature, which, when you understand nature (not just trees and plants and shit, but nature, the world, the universe, what is), is difficult to swallow, I think. But whatever, that's poetry so I'm saying it badly in real people words.

[greed]

The Spinoza concept of god

I have been in love with this idea since I first read Spinoza.

Sarcastic much?

Whoops, I meant to say "most transparent." I was going for exaggeration, not sarcasm

Did you know that "yowm," the Hebrew word for day, can denote not only a 24 hour cycle, but also an indeterminate period of time?

Also, a huge freakin' portion of the Old Testament, especially Genesis, was written in very flowery language that, it seems, wasn't particularly meant to be taken literally. That's how Hebrews wrote their most important texts, and, unfortunately, a lot of that gets lost in translation. As a result, you end up with Bible literalists who, in their attempt to get at what the Bible actually says, end up missing the point entirely.

God as an extra-dimensional being that we simply don't have the capacity to grasp with our limited physical and mental capabilities

I think if more people thought this way, they'd have about the right dose of humility. Those who claim to know the inner workings of the mind of God are the ones you have to watch out for--and, indeed, everyone who claims this has a different understanding that leads to different conclusions anyway.

[Azeroffs]

No, it means God is necessary, if you assent to propositions one and two.

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore the universe had a cause.

As per this argument, there *must* be an immaterial, timeless, and very powerful cause for the universe. There are a few more assumptions at play that get us to "God", such as things that cause other things exist, but by and large, the cosmological argument gets you to a necessary cause for the universe.

Now, that being said, my reformulation of the argument does not have such strong or clear bonds of necessity, partially because I was trying to anticipate the objection "but what caused God." And technically, the cosmological argument proves the existence of at least one god, rather than a singular deity, since the being that created the universe could have had a cause itself, and that cause could be eternal and uncaused. Nevertheless, I don't think you can escape the idea that the cosmological argument proves that there is at least one God without finding fault with the first premise, which, I confess, is not impossible to do (or the second premise, but people are usually disinclined to argue with science, for some strange reason ).

There are other possibilities. Maybe there is an infinite amount of material causes. Maybe not everything really has a cause. Maybe the universe just blinked into existence. Maybe there is some big universe making machine. Who the fuck knows. The argument doesn't necessitate God and the argument itself may not be sound.

Yeah. That's a plausible denial to make. But it does leave you in some awkward positions that seem to deny many commonsensical assumptions, i.e., Stalin = bad, killing children = evil, saving lives = good. In fact, it's difficult to have a motive for action if some things are not finally good rather than bad. Otherwise, you live life on preference, without any higher goal. That might be OK, might not.

What if killing children is necessary for the survival of the human race. Is it still bad? What if saving lives means that they will suffer in pain for the rest of their lives. Is it still good?

Happiness is the only objective measure of right/wrong imo.
Happiness is the only good. Pain is the only bad.

I agree, "perfect" is a problem. That's why in the original formulation of the argument, it was "that of which no greater can be conceived." Have you read the original? Argument here (and please ignore the medieval language). Explanation here.

Might fall into the same problems for you, might not.

I didn't read through it. I'm being lazy, but "greater" is still a relative term that requires criteria. If God is the greatest thing you can conceive of, what is the second best? What is the worst? Why?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Ah, and here is the big problem. Because theists, Christians anyway, cannot doubt, according to the New Testament. To think that one might be wrong is awfully close to doubting (they may be the same thing, may not). It's a difficult thing. But to return to my favorite example, you don't think that anyone who ardently says, "sense experience is reliable" to be expressing ignorance. Can't you allow for the possibility of non-rational proof for God as well?

That is one of the major reasons why I think organized religion (at least in the case of christianity) is a plague. It breeds blind faith. A bunch of non-thinking sheep.

Sense experience is as reliable as it gets. It might not be 100%, but it's all we have. We have to rely on it whether we like it or not. To not means to die.

Non-rational proof seems to contradict itself.

I could be more diplomatic here, but bluntly, this is my opinion: that opinion is probably largely founded on some erroneous assumptions, misinterpretations of some popular quotes, and several bad history lessons. Suffice it to say: the Catholic Church didn't kill Galileo, Christianity can be seen as the efficient cause of most of the moral opinions you (likely) hold today, and Freud didn't think that "the opium of the masses" was a bad thing, whatever Marx believed. Organized religion is not as bad as people make it out to be, and even if it wasn't around, people would've found reasons to fight. See: the centuries and centuries of history before Christianity.

History is only part of it. A small part in fact. If organized religion changed, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'm not saying that it is/was completely useless. I would just prefer that organized religion be replaced with philosophy. Religion essentially is philosophy, just very narrow minded. It's the narrow mindedness that I have a problem with.

[silverchris9]

There are other possibilities. Maybe there is an infinite amount of material causes. Maybe not everything really has a cause. Maybe the universe just blinked into existence. Maybe there is some big universe making machine. Who the fuck knows. The argument doesn't necessitate God and the argument itself may not be sound.

Those are fine claims to make. But that's not really going where the evidence leads. I mean, I think your position is totally valid, because I'm not a rationalist anymore, but I think the rational thing would be to assent to the argument that demonstrates at least some likelihood of a given thing (since you agreed that the cosmological argument demonstrates the possibility of a deity), rather than these "other possibilities" for which there is no evidence. But w/e.

What if killing children is necessary for the survival of the human race. Is it still bad? What if saving lives means that they will suffer in pain for the rest of their lives. Is it still good?

Happiness is the only objective measure of right/wrong imo.
Happiness is the only good. Pain is the only bad.

Raping women makes rapists happy. Gang rape makes several men happy and one woman sad. So gang rape is good, right, because it maximizes happiness? The happy-sad balance is in the "happy" direction.

Or, to go in the Peter Singer direction, a baby doesn't have all of its cognitive functions fully developed yet (I'm not talking fetus, I'm talking a six-month-old or something). So, can it really be considered to be as "happy" as a twenty-five year old? If it can't, then we're completely justified in killing that baby if it makes the twenty-five year old happy.

Consequentialism/utilitarianism is not a terrible system, it just has a lot of flaws, like determining when the consequences stop (an action that makes one person happy today may make four thousand miserable on down the line, and we have no way of knowing, because there's too many factors), and accounting for cases in which moral intuitions really don't fit with pain and pleasure reactions.

That being said, I think there's a way to formulate a Christian utilitarianism that I might agree with. But as you have it here, it seems to violate a few of the general moral assumptions people have.

I didn't read through it. I'm being lazy, but "greater" is still a relative term that requires criteria. If God is the greatest thing you can conceive of, what is the second best? What is the worst? Why?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Honestly, I don't really understand it fully either. I think I could still make an argument here, but I'm too lazy to. Maybe I'll come back to it later.

That is one of the major reasons why I think organized religion (at least in the case of christianity) is a plague. It breeds blind faith. A bunch of non-thinking sheep.

In this case, I agree with you somewhat. And it's not so much the people with blind faith that bother me, because in some situations, the blind faith is right and the evidence (as currently interpreted) is wrong. It's the leaders with unrefined understanding that should notice the logical cracks in their thinking and move to address them.

Sense experience is as reliable as it gets. It might not be 100%, but it's all we have. We have to rely on it whether we like it or not. To not means to die.

But you have no rational reason for believing this. You take it on faith. Religious people take it on faith that God is as reliable as it gets. Even if he isn't 100%, he's all we have. We have to rely on him whether we like it or not. To not means to die. There is no firm boundary of logical superiority between the two claims.

Now, since we're not asking for rational proof of something, I guess it's fair to explore other avenues. And yes, sense experience does present itself to us with immediacy and forcefulness. But you'll find plenty of religious people who claim to experience God with equal immediacy and greater force. Is it OK for them to believe in God and not others?

Non-rational proof seems to contradict itself.

Well... it's a difficult thing, because it introduces lots of error into the process, but I think between internal evidence and external evidence of long-term change in the person, one can be fairly confident of things that one believes for non-rational reasons. I don't understand how "non-rational proof" contradicts itself. It's just insight, or intuition or whatever you want to call it.

History is only part of it. A small part in fact. If organized religion changed, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'm not saying that it is/was completely useless. I would just prefer that organized religion be replaced with philosophy. Religion essentially is philosophy, just very narrow minded. It's the narrow mindedness that I have a problem with.

Two things:

1) Yeah, but philosophy generally can't help people live their lives, inspire people to charity, etc.
2) It's really not that bad. There's lots of people operating in organized religious traditions who are very broad-minded, and their assent to some core propositions about God and the church doesn't mean that they've lost that. Everyone has to assume core propositions (especially philosophy), and after enough proof (rational or otherwise) I think it's fair for Christian thinkers to assume Christianity, and go on thinking about the world from there. God didn't limit Augustine's ability to do philosophy or theology, or many other thinkers' (Augustine is just my favorite).

[Jarno]

If you have no imagination.

The problem is, everytime god gets debunked as a myth, religious persons try to fix this by saying, don't take it litteraly but use your imagination.

Suspects should say it to a judge: don't trust the evidence, with a little imagination you know that it was a fairy who killed the person, not me.

Actually god isn't a bad idea, but it's just the way that religious people use tricks to defend him, that makes the idea less worthy to me.

[Azeroffs]

Raping women makes rapists happy. Gang rape makes several men happy and one woman sad. So gang rape is good, right, because it maximizes happiness? The happy-sad balance is in the "happy" direction.

Or, to go in the Peter Singer direction, a baby doesn't have all of its cognitive functions fully developed yet (I'm not talking fetus, I'm talking a six-month-old or something). So, can it really be considered to be as "happy" as a twenty-five year old? If it can't, then we're completely justified in killing that baby if it makes the twenty-five year old happy.

Consequentialism/utilitarianism is not a terrible system, it just has a lot of flaws, like determining when the consequences stop (an action that makes one person happy today may make four thousand miserable on down the line, and we have no way of knowing, because there's too many factors), and accounting for cases in which moral intuitions really don't fit with pain and pleasure reactions.

That being said, I think there's a way to formulate a Christian utilitarianism that I might agree with. But as you have it here, it seems to violate a few of the general moral assumptions people have.

True, it starts getting tricky, but in the case of rape it's very short term happiness at the price of a lot of long term pain. I've yet to come to a circumstance where utilitarianism doesn't work if you take into account time and probability.

A baby has it's whole life to live and therefore a greater capacity for happiness than any other single human being.

True, the major problem with consequentialism is not knowing the future, but we act as consequentialists in the non-moral sense all the time. To deny it's importance seems ridiculous. Probability, again, is an important factor.

In this case, I agree with you somewhat. And it's not so much the people with blind faith that bother me, because in some situations, the blind faith is right and the evidence (as currently interpreted) is wrong. It's the leaders with unrefined understanding that should notice the logical cracks in their thinking and move to address them.

Blind faith can be right, but not thinking for yourself or analyzing at least some aspects of your life intellectually are huge character flaws in my book. You can get through life without them, but you can create so much harm to yourself and others unintentionally if you don't do these things. Could just be my own subjective values.

But you have no rational reason for believing this. You take it on faith. Religious people take it on faith that God is as reliable as it gets. Even if he isn't 100%, he's all we have. We have to rely on him whether we like it or not. To not means to die. There is no firm boundary of logical superiority between the two claims.

The difference is that you will actually die if you don't rely on the senses. I don't believe in God, and yet here I am.

Now, since we're not asking for rational proof of something, I guess it's fair to explore other avenues. And yes, sense experience does present itself to us with immediacy and forcefulness. But you'll find plenty of religious people who claim to experience God with equal immediacy and greater force. Is it OK for them to believe in God and not others?

I don't see how a belief in God can be harmful. There are other things associated with religion that can be, but I can see how a belief in God can actually be beneficial to some.

Well... it's a difficult thing, because it introduces lots of error into the process, but I think between internal evidence and external evidence of long-term change in the person, one can be fairly confident of things that one believes for non-rational reasons. I don't understand how "non-rational proof" contradicts itself. It's just insight, or intuition or whatever you want to call it.

But then it's not proof, it's just a hunch. Sometimes that's as far as you can get though.

Two things:

1) Yeah, but philosophy generally can't help people live their lives, inspire people to charity, etc.
2) It's really not that bad. There's lots of people operating in organized religious traditions who are very broad-minded, and their assent to some core propositions about God and the church doesn't mean that they've lost that. Everyone has to assume core propositions (especially philosophy), and after enough proof (rational or otherwise) I think it's fair for Christian thinkers to assume Christianity, and go on thinking about the world from there. God didn't limit Augustine's ability to do philosophy or theology, or many other thinkers' (Augustine is just my favorite).

With philosophy you can reach most if not all of the same conclusions as religion and so I would think that philosophy can do whatever religion can do.

True, there are many that get by fine, but then there are others. I have to play the religious radicals card.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Interesting angle. So you're arguing that because "everything that begins to exist has a cause" is an abstraction (that is, a general principle derived from particular occurrences), it cannot be absolutely trusted to reflect reality, and as such cannot be used in a logical proof? That's an interesting opinion, but basically it completely destroys rationalism, because building logical proofs and arguments and such *only* works if we have a shared set of agreed upon assumptions. That's why Socrates starts all of the dialogues by getting his dialogue partner (i.e., interlocutor) to agree to a few common principles. You can't do philosophy in any other way, or think, really. We necessarily rely upon abstractions to organize and allow any thought (or logos as rational discourse) whatsoever. Brief socionics aside: this is how Ni is as basic to human consciousness as extroverted sensation or extroverted feeling; Ni is the function of abstraction. Anyway, you're right, I don't know that "anything that begins to exist has a cause" as a concept accurately reflects reality. But I know that it seems to, and the bridge from seems to is, is much better traveled than most people want to admit.

I simply recognise that subjective beings such as myself cannot make definitive statements on the infinite and\or invisible. That does not mean that I cannot live a reasonable life and cannot communicate with other beings who I deem subjective, even if they consider some or all of their beliefs objective.

Prove it.

If one thing causes another, there must be time for the duration of that process because how else could one thing succeed another?

Can you explain this further?

I could just as easily say that everyone has whatever "morals" they have because they have whatever "morals" they have. People and cultures choose their "morals" for different reasons, and if you for example say "murder is considered to be wrong by all people" (which you'd be wrong to believe), it would seem quite obvious by the very definition of the word 'murder' (in that sense that a murder is "an unjustified and deliberate killing".

So in general your objection to God is rooted in (or at least strongly related to) your (moral) aversion to the doctrine of hell, especially as espoused by most protestant pastors on Sunday morning, inspired to win souls by their reading of Jonathan Edwards in seminary? Well, that's legitimate. I *really* don't want to get into a full-scale discussion of Christian views of hell and the legitimacy and illegitimacy thereof, but perhaps we could do that later. As it stands though, your objection is somewhat reasonable, but not really applicable to the concept of God as a whole. We're not talking about the Christian God and the doctrines thereof, remember. We're just talking about generalized theism. So, if it were possible to have a God who did not punish or judge, how would you feel about the existence of that God?

A god who did not punish or judge would be somewhat irrelevant to me, unless there was something I found particularly interesting about such a god. I would not belief in such a god any more than any other gods - I would need at least some evidence, and obviously a hypothetical god who did not punish or judge has less evidence going for him than a hypothetical god who does punish or judge.

Also, vis a vis that last bit, we would probably want to ask why that person isn't fond of killing people, and the answer would probably end up being a fundamentally moral assumption: it is better to not kill people than to kill people; not killing people belongs to the good life. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate the notion of "what is preferred" from the notion of "what is to be preferred."

That simply isn't true. There are people who are against the existence of the whole human race and not just for 'bad' reasons! As for myself, it is clear that humans are using up the Earth's resources faster than they can be replenished and that the Earth's human population is increasing at an unsustainable rate. Some people think that abortion is murder - I for one do not - and it is my belief that it is better for expectant mothers who have made a reasoned decision to have abortions if they are concerned about the unsustainable rise in the human population. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!

From my point of view, I think the human race can be a worthy cause, and that most people are good, and are able to manage the bad, which is a reason why I don't go round killing people (apart from that it's risky and I can't be bothered). I don't think this means that I don't kill for moral reasons. You can call it that, but in actual fact, I am a modern being who tries to avoid murdering people out of common sense.

Right. I totally agree that humans can't be purely rational beings. I think that Christianity is more beautiful than it is ugly. That is an act of faith. If I were stronger or a better person, I might be able to demonstrate to you why I hold that article of faith in a profound or effective way. As it is, I cannot, unfortunately.

Why not take all the best things from Christianity, and reformulate it and make it your own, so as to remove all the negative baggage that Christianity has (whether deserverdly or not)? To me, the good things about Christianity concern how one should act in relation to other human beings while the bad things concern human beings fighting viciously over what supposedly happens in the afterlife. Such people do not suffer the circumstances because either they believe they are right or because if they realise they are wrong, they can ask for forgiveness and still have all eternity in paradise...those who do not believe in the afterlife just put up with it and die!

[Not A Communist Shill]

I could be more diplomatic here, but bluntly, this is my opinion: that opinion is probably largely founded on some erroneous assumptions, misinterpretations of some popular quotes, and several bad history lessons. Suffice it to say: the Catholic Church didn't kill Galileo, Christianity can be seen as the efficient cause of most of the moral opinions you (likely) hold today, and Freud didn't think that "the opium of the masses" was a bad thing, whatever Marx believed. Organized religion is not as bad as people make it out to be, and even if it wasn't around, people would've found reasons to fight. See: the centuries and centuries of history before Christianity.

Some points:

- Perhaps the Catholic Church didn't kill Galileo because he 'recanted'? The Catholic Church excommunicated many people like Galileo (and of course killed them) - I think at least some progress must have been lost simply because people did not want to be excommunicated or killed.

- Although all people (presumably) die, the worldwide average life expectancy at the time of the supposed time of Christ was about 20 years. Because of scientific progress and increased knowledge and all that, the life expectancy in Swaziland is now 31.88 years.

- I hardly think Freud is a good person to cite here considering he was an opium addict and that he had a fair few odd beliefs .

- Alternatively, see now, a time which supposedly has fewer homicides per capita than at any another point in history. Perhaps this is more to do with a post-imperial world, the deterrent of weapons at the state level, and international laws?:

When the criminologist Manuel Eisner scoured the records of every village, city, county, and nation he could find, he discovered that homicide rates in Europe had declined from 100 killings per 100,000 people per year in the Middle Ages to less than one killing per 100,000 people in modern Europe.