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Do you believe in God? (2 Viewers)

Do you believe in God?


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Absolutezero

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The problem with personal experience, is it's not a valuable piece of proof, because it cannot be used on anyone else except the person who experienced it. Also, the whole "no atheist has ever really sought out god" is fallacious. Matt Dillahunty is a strong example that comes to mind.
 

AAEldar

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Quoting the Bible is all well and good, especially when it's something like Ecclesiastes, 3:19-22

19 - For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.
20 - All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.
21 - Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the beast goes down into the earth?
22 - So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?

I think it shows that it's a matter of interpretation.

And you'll have a hard time trying to convince a lot of people to seek something which they're adamant doesn't exist.
 

Absolutezero

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The problem is in the validity of the bible. It's describing events that do not conform with our perceptions of reality (like rising from the dead, walking on water). So the validity decreases dramatically when compared with other historical documents citing realistic things.
 

hopsin

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I don't know who Matt Dillahunty is so I'm not going respond to that. But I never intended it to be evidence of god, I said that I found God through personal experience and that a lot of other people have also, and that I believe is the only true way of fully knowing whether God truly exists, I've found that arguments and simply believing the Bible are insufficient and a personal relationship is what is needed to experience God fully.

Also I still have doubts about my faith some which I can't reconcile. But I stick with my faith because my faith is not solely based on the Bible or evidence but personal relationship and experience.

I'm just curious Absolutezero, have you ever been a believer? If so what made you made you leave the faith?
 

Absolutezero

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I don't know who Matt Dillahunty is so I'm not going respond to that. But I never intended it to be evidence of god, I said that I found God through personal experience and that a lot of other people have also, and that I believe is the only true way of fully knowing whether God truly exists, I've found that arguments and simply believing the Bible are insufficient and a personal relationship is what is needed to experience God fully.

Also I still have doubts about my faith some which I can't reconcile. But I stick with my faith because my faith is not solely based on the Bible or evidence but personal relationship and experience.

I'm just curious Absolutezero, have you ever been a believer? If so what made you made you leave the faith?
I never believed in the strictest sense. I tried to; my family went to Church when I was younger, I did the whole youth group thing as a teenager (by chance). So I've been surrounded by it, and have attempted to engage with it. There's was no sense of internal logic to it though, and the sheer amounting of conflicting evidence makes it pretty difficult to believe.
 

Riproot

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And God came into existence by his self?

See the circular argument that unfolds?

I try not to use how God became, or how the universe became, in any theological argument.

Out of curiosity though, how many of the so called Atheists here have read the Bible?
I'm an atheist and I've read a portion of the Bible over a few years.

The old testament is pretty cray. In one part I read, some bitch's husband died and God was like "I want the bloodline to be carried on" and then told the guy's brother to fuck the guy's wife and knock her up and he was like "yeah, sure" but then pulled out so God killed him.

Then the slut when to be a prostitute in some town nearby, and unknowingly fucked her dead husband's father and got preggers. ~whoops~
 

AAEldar

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I don't know who Matt Dillahunty is so I'm not going respond to that. But I never intended it to be evidence of god, I said that I found God through personal experience and that a lot of other people have also, and that I believe is the only true way of fully knowing whether God truly exists, I've found that arguments and simply believing the Bible are insufficient and a personal relationship is what is needed to experience God fully.

Also I still have doubts about my faith some which I can't reconcile. But I stick with my faith because my faith is not solely based on the Bible or evidence but personal relationship and experience.

I'm just curious Absolutezero, have you ever been a believer? If so what made you made you leave the faith?
And the Atheists of the world don't see it that way because they've never had God reach out to them. Why should they believe the words of others over what they think? It's only rational to come to a decision based on what you've experienced and yet they've never had that experience (should it exist).
 

funkshen

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Your first point makes no sense whatsoever, it's just a bunch of confusing words put together, try again.
sorry i used some big words arranged in a fashion that you don't understand. i'll break it down for you. you are expressing epistemological nihilism. you deny that meaning of scientific knowledge could be qualitatively different or superior to that of any other, because you claim the tools we use to find scientific knowledge (such as empiricism and rationality) require "faith", just as religious knowledge does. the pursuant equivocation between religious and scientific knowledge is downright intellectually fraudulent.

science is a discussion. it does not demand faith in its priors like any religious dogma does. instead, as a logical system of knowledge, it asks its participants to agree on a few priors (or discuss them, ergo the philosophy of science) which is by definition necessary. however, it is a fundamentally sceptical program (thanks to descartes) and it is not predicated on priors that are supernatural and begging of the question. it is therefore a naturalistic program that implores its participants to value 1) the verifiability of knowledge and 2) the falsifiability of knowledge. this is the epistemology of science. faith in its epistemology is irrelevant: agreement is sufficient. why is this important? because as a sceptical project the amount of evidence for a theory is determines its value, not the strength of belief in it. for instance, the theory of gravity is not considered valid because of the strength of belief in it, but the amount of evidence there is for it. this is why our modern theory of gravity trumps, for instance, the Aristotelian physics: there is far more evidence for the modern theory. but this doesn't mean that the modern theory is correct, it simply has the greatest amount of evidence for it; it is the most correct

Epistemology requires faith. It requires faith that ontology is correct. The same applies for scientific conclusions and the scientific method, which is epistemology, but requires a presupposed dogmatic belief in the onotogical aspects of the world or the universe it is studying.
patently false. the scientific epistemology is not dogmatic and does not require faith, although i fear you simply say this because you're using the word so lightly. your chronology of ontology and epistemology is naive. you think that we have to know the nature of things before we can know how we know the nature of things? this is an absurd statement. how can ontology precede epistemology? they are frustratingly simultaneous! i also think you are essentially confusing what the epistemology of religious and scientific knowledge really is. the critera for religious knowledge, among others, are things like revelation, tradition, intuition and faith. the criteria for scientific knowledge are correspondence, coherence, transitivity and consistency etc. sometimes these things overlap; often, they don't (which is what is most important).

the virtue of science is that it is a pragmatic program. you can have zero faith in its epistemology and ontology, and be persuaded by the predictive value of its models i.e. the ontology and epistemology of science can be of value to you only so far as they are ultimately useful to you; no faith required in the truth of its priors. this is fundamentally different to the religious program, which cannot fundamentally be a pragmatic project; it demands the acceptance of its priors as fundamentally true - you must be a true believer i.e. there IS a god, a universal consciousness, seven planes of existence, etc.

you have to believe that matter came into existence by itself and then arranged itself into information systems—that is what goes against real science, and that sounds like faith to me.
i don't have to believe anythingm. this is the whole fucking point of science. if the emergent arrangement of information systems is consistent with the broader corpus of scientific knowledge, i may not reject it. but i don't have to accept it. protip: you don't have to believe in the big bang to be a scientist. when someone says they "believe in the big bang theory", this is not a claim of scientific knowledge. what they mean is that "the big bang is a plausible theory" and is convincing because it makes less assumptions than any metaphysical conclusion. but they would not say it is scientific knowledge because we haven't been able to reproduce it (yet) in lab conditions. but guess what? the big bang theory is fucking irrelevant to 99.9999% of science out there - the origin of existence is just something we like to know and take a swing at.

Aristotelian philosophy is still a major part of Western philosophy, his philosophical arguments have stood the test of time.
this is the whole fucking point about science: if aristotle made correct claims, there is no reason to throw them out (e.g. they offend my glorious god). science doesn't hold a grudge, nor is there any lord of science or avatar of Science on earth. the scientific project is cumulative and self-reflexive, which in my opinion gives it an aesthetic appeal over any dogmatic project. i think you'll also find that aristotle's scientific claims that have withstood the test of time have done so exactly because he did them scientifically: i.e. he used logic and observation (satisfying criteria of consistency, correspondence and coherence) and experimentation: he cut fish and shit open and catalouged what he found; he observed bee hives and explained how bee society worked. you'll also find that the reason for the vitality of aristotle's project is that the catholic church upheld it as absolutely true and would kill, excommunicate, or otherwise reprimand you if you contradicted him: only a few people were allowed to do so (i.e. thomas of aquin). we would surely not be in the position we were today if descarte, gallileo, kepler or leibniz or others were violently silenced. i can't really blame the catholic church for this, mind you. the overarching goal of any organisation (yeah, even organised religions) is the most base instinct of survival.

In my opinion this is the only thing that matters, as it is only through philosophy that one can really question the existence of God, science cannot.
science can't prove the existence or not of god? oh, what a scholar you are!

Based on your third, fourth and fifth points, would that mean you're an agnostic, not an atheist?
if you were to press me on it, i would agree with a characterisation as agnostic. i think that, overall, religion and metaphysics are absurd projects. you mention that you have felt "the special presence of God." i can hardly dissuade you of this idea, nor would I ever ridicule you about it - maybe you have. however, i think the leap from feeling a presence to organised religion is a complete non-sequitor. for this reason i can appreciate deism as a metaphysical position, and wishy washy organisations like the Quakers and liberal lutherans that make so very dogmatic demands of their followers.

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter or count for anything. I believe in God and have felt the special presence of God. No post will change that, neither will any post I make change your mind.
although my mind is not made up, i hold your righteousness in contempt.


also, considering i am a man of science, i do not consider one data point (e.g. an interaction with god) or a small data set (a relationship with god) sufficient evidence for praising yahweh.
 
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Annihilist

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I am convinced that agnosticism is synonymous with atheism. Neither believe in God. Belief in God is an affirmative "action" and for that you must take the "belief in God step", and that makes you a theist. If you have not yet made up your mind (agnostic) then you have not yet taken the affirmative step of accepting/believing in God; therefore, you do not believe in God, and you are an atheist.
 

Absolutezero

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I am convinced that agnosticism is synonymous with atheism. Neither believe in God. Belief in God is an affirmative "action" and for that you must take the "belief in God step", and that makes you a theist. If you have not yet made up your mind (agnostic) then you have not yet taken the affirmative step of accepting/believing in God; therefore, you do not believe in God, and you are an atheist.
The claim of atheism is purely pragmatic. In essence most atheist don't claim that god doesn't exist, merely that there is no credible evidence. Hence, agnostic atheist. However, the same claim can be held for dragons or fairies, making most people agnostic towards these concepts as well. The dropping of agnostic in agnostic atheist can be seen in the same regard as the dropping of agnostic in these other circumstances.

You're arguing for the 'everyone is born atheist' which in a general sense, is mostly correct. As long as you further apply that to those with no knowledge of the concept of a god as well.
 

Annihilist

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The claim of atheism is purely pragmatic. In essence most atheist don't claim that god doesn't exist, merely that there is no credible evidence. Hence, agnostic atheist. However, the same claim can be held for dragons or fairies, making most people agnostic towards these concepts as well. The dropping of agnostic in agnostic atheist can be seen in the same regard as the dropping of agnostic in these other circumstances.

You're arguing for the 'everyone is born atheist' which in a general sense, is mostly correct. As long as you further apply that to those with no knowledge of the concept of a god as well.
Eh, now it just seems like we have a bunch of trivially specific labels for everything. I like the atheist/theist division. You're either one or the other. If you're not sure, you're an atheist.
 

Absolutezero

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Eh, now it just seems like we have a bunch of trivially specific labels for everything. I like the atheist/theist division. You're either one or the other. If you're not sure, you're an atheist.
The problem is it's not clear cut. It would be great if it was, but it's not. And much of it comes down to the fact that God as a concept is poorly defined.
 

funkshen

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I am convinced that agnosticism is synonymous with atheism. Neither believe in God. Belief in God is an affirmative "action" and for that you must take the "belief in God step", and that makes you a theist. If you have not yet made up your mind (agnostic) then you have not yet taken the affirmative step of accepting/believing in God; therefore, you do not believe in God, and you are an atheist.
i am convinced that dog is synonymous with cat. neither believe in god. obviously this is an absurd thing to say - that isn't what separates a dog from a cat, now is it?

the agnostic position is that the existence of god is unknowable. it therefore concerns knowledge. atheism is the lack of belief in god. it is therefore about belief. belief and knowledge are qualitatively different. agnosticism is therefore not necessarily a tenet of atheism. indeed, some atheists might make the truth claim that THERE IS NO GOD. this is quite clearly not agnostic. however, it is very commonly comorbid with a lack of belief. but you can be an agnostic believer, for instance you might deny the possibility of knowledge of god but believe anyway
 
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Annihilist

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i am convinced that dog is synonymous with cat. neither believe in god. obviously this isn't an absurd thing to say - that isn't what separates a dog from a cat, now is it?

the agnostic position is that the existence of god is unknowable. it therefore concerns knowledge. atheism is the lack of belief in god. it is therefore about belief. belief and knowledge are qualitatively different. agnosticism is therefore not not necessarily a tenet of atheism. indeed, some atheists might make the truth claim that THERE IS NO GOD. this is quite clearly not agnostic. however, it is very commonly comorbid with a lack of belief. but you can be an agnostic believer, for instance you might deny the possibility of knowledge of god but believe anyway
Okay I stand corrected.
 

halapenyo

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Jesus rose from the dead despite being buried in a solid marble tomb, what is there not to believe.
 
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i am convinced that dog is synonymous with cat. neither believe in god. obviously this is an absurd thing to say - that isn't what separates a dog from a cat, now is it?

the agnostic position is that the existence of god is unknowable. it therefore concerns knowledge. atheism is the lack of belief in god. it is therefore about belief. belief and knowledge are qualitatively different. agnosticism is therefore not necessarily a tenet of atheism. indeed, some atheists might make the truth claim that THERE IS NO GOD. this is quite clearly not agnostic. however, it is very commonly comorbid with a lack of belief. but you can be an agnostic believer, for instance you might deny the possibility of knowledge of god but believe anyway
m8 ur wasting your time. Annihilist just read the quadrant once, picked up "Politics", got through one section and spends his nights searching for the "best" philosopher quote for his sig. To think that anything worthwhile reading will come of it is wrong in itself. Carry on. I enjoy your posting.

My contribution to this thread:
I long the day when people will realise the futility and inherent worthlessness of themselves, their stupid beliefs, and this world. The day you realise that you are merely a collection of electrical signals jumping from one synapse to another, that all the mystery and wonder of the human frame can be degraded to basic chemistry and physics and that the universe will go on when we eventually lead ourselves to our own destruction, is the day that we become free from religious torment, political torment, scientific inquest and just sit around smoking pot all day.
 
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