Do you believe in God and why

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, ozimoron said:

The article explicitly supports the assertion that 99% of climate scientists agree that climate change is caused by humans.

 

We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature.

Well, that's just the propaganda from scientific magazines which are paid by you know who to create a narrative. 

There are plenty of articles on the web that, more rationally imho, sypport the theory that human activities can influence the climate from 1 to 5 %..

 

 

[Hummin]

9 minutes ago, TropicalGuy said:

Spirituality is fine but anything not properly evidenced is just chemical brain reactions producing human imaginings. This process often results in meditative relaxation or indeed useful concepts & hypotheses later proved ….or disproved …..or music & poetry.

Flat Earthers & Moon Landing Conspiracists can take a hike though ???????? 

Yes it’s unnatural and difficult for humans to be rational & logical. for our entire existence until 300 years ago very few were ……

It can be the truth I can belive

[TropicalGuy]

23 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Well that's true but it just sounds like it's sailing close to the argument that we can't have morality or discover our inner selves without religion. I know that's not your intention.

 

The topic is "do you believe in God and why?". I'm looking for the why which precludes statements like "I have the right to believe in God but don't need to say why?" That's off topic.

Perhaps just Human Hardwiring & Chemical Brain Reactions to Imagine & Believe in “Some Conscious Creator Greater Than Us”. 

That would also explain everything around them before science so Conveniently Providing Total Life Solution ( like Islam still claims).

[ozimoron]

2 minutes ago, TropicalGuy said:

Perhaps just Human Hardwiring & Chemical Brain Reactions to Imagine & Believe in “Some Conscious Creator Greater Than Us”. 

That would also explain everything around them before science so Conveniently Providing Total Life Solution ( like Islam still claims).

I think it's more a case that many people can't bring themselves to the conclusion that we are here once and only once and never coming back and that our fate is in our own hands. Religion is the alternative but to subscribe to most religions one has to accept the  doctrine that comes with them. Having to provide some form of rationale only challenges that belief.

[TropicalGuy]

6 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Well, that's just the propaganda from scientific magazines which are paid by you know who to create a narrative. 

There are plenty of articles on the web that, more rationally imho, sypport the theory that human activities can influence the climate from 1 to 5 %..

 

 

No. It’s consensual overwhelming Science not “propaganda”. ????
You’re proposing a massive worldwide conspiracy theory. ????
Like Flat Earth or Moon Landings Denied. ????
Contrary “articles on the web” ? Right…. I’ll go with the Accredited Scientists not the Pseudo Crackpots.????

[TropicalGuy]

4 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

I think it's more a case that many people can't bring themselves to the conclusion that we are here once and only once and never coming back and that our fate is in our own hands. Religion is the alternative but to subscribe to most religions one has to accept the  doctrine that comes with them. Having to provide some form of rationale only challenges that belief.

So Religion giving us Purpose, Structure & Comfort in a Desperately Harsh World. 

Yet Ancient Greek / Roman / Chinese Logic & Science powers managed to overcome and reject Religion …..when earlier Ancient Mesopotamian & Egyptians chose to incorporate Religion. 

 

[mauGR1]

5 minutes ago, TropicalGuy said:

No. It’s consensual overwhelming Science not “propaganda”. ????
You’re proposing a massive worldwide conspiracy theory. ????
Like Flat Earth or Moon Landings Denied. ????
Contrary “articles on the web” ? Right…. I’ll go with the Accredited Scientists not the Pseudo Crackpots.????

Thanks, but the other day you were talking about " meaningful conversations " and today you call names and chant slogans.

The talibans will be envious????

Ok, you are right, i know now that i can't have a meaningful conversation with you ????

All the best

[TropicalGuy]

1 minute ago, mauGR1 said:

Thanks, but the other day you were talking about " meaningful conversations " and today you call names and chant slogans.

The talibans will be envious????

Ok, you are right, i know now that i can't have a meaningful conversation with you ????

All the best

No I was not. No rational person can long engage with your type. ????Impervious to, and offended by, rational Challenge. ????

 

Driven by emotion, unreason & labeling.comparing my posts to the evil taliban and inquisition, when confronted with reason, is baseless irrational petulance.????????

 

You are accordingly dismissed. ????

[Elad]

On 5/27/2022 at 2:31 AM, Sunmaster said:

I just had a funny thought....One way to really shake things up in the old, ineffective belief systems, would be CONTACT with (advanced) ALIENS! ???? That would be interesting and fun to watch. Imagine a far more advanced civilization telling us that there is a Higher Power, that it's not found in books, but within us and accessible to everyone. That science and technology play an important part in life, but are not the answers to humankinds deepest questions. 
How many would actually change their minds? How many would rebel against it?  How would such a revelation change the dynamics of our society? 
Someone should make a movie of this. 555

If the aliens laid out undeniable evidence for the existence of a supernatural being, then I would throw my atheistic view of the universe out the window and become a believer, because its all about the evidence. On the other hand, if the aliens showed us that everything can be explained by nature, like how life and the universe started, how it will end, and how consciousness is all part of the physical. Would you be willing to give it all up? 

[VincentRJ]

1 hour ago, ozimoron said:

The article explicitly supports the assertion that 99% of climate scientists agree that climate change is caused by humans.

 

We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature.

Yes, I know it asserts that. The point I'm making is that they have not provided the evidence to support that assertion, which is a similar process to religious belief.

 

In other words, the authors of this article appear to assume, before the study began, that there is a very large consensus that Anthropogenic Cimate Change is a 'settled science', and they twist the descriptions of the results of their research to support that belief.

 

What they should have stated is that 99% of climate scientists who are willing to express an opinion on the issue, agree that the current change in climate is caused by humans. However, the majority of climate scientists do not  express an opinion on this issue and we haven't yet investigated why they don't.

[ozimoron]

25 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Yes, I know it asserts that. The point I'm making is that they have not provided the evidence to support that assertion, which is a similar process to religious belief.

 

In other words, the authors of this article appear to assume, before the study began, that there is a very large consensus that Anthropogenic Cimate Change is a 'settled science', and they twist the descriptions of the results of their research to support that belief.

 

What they should have stated is that 99% of climate scientists who are willing to express an opinion on the issue, agree that the current change in climate is caused by humans. However, the majority of climate scientists do not  express an opinion on this issue and we haven't yet investigated why they don't.

How can you say that there is no evidence, they studied over 30k randomly selected articles. That is actual evidence.

[Sunmaster]

49 minutes ago, Elad said:

If the aliens laid out undeniable evidence for the existence of a supernatural being, then I would throw my atheistic view of the universe out the window and become a believer, because its all about the evidence. On the other hand, if the aliens showed us that everything can be explained by nature, like how life and the universe started, how it will end, and how consciousness is all part of the physical. Would you be willing to give it all up? 

I honestly don't think their explanation would be as simplistic as the materialist explanation is. But if they would present me with evidence that I can corroborate myself (like a Vulcan mind melt for example), I would have no trouble accepting that my belief system was lacking data. As a matter  of fact, I know that right now.

 

I am not this body.

I am not my emotions.

I am not my thoughts.

I don't have to identify with any of them to know who I am and therefore I don't have to cling on to them. 

[CharlieH]

Trolling post removed.

[VincentRJ]

3 hours ago, ozimoron said:

How can you say that there is no evidence, they studied over 30k randomly selected articles. That is actual evidence.

They do have evidence, as I've explained. The point I'm making is that the evidence they have provided clearly shows that the 99% consensus only applies to approximately 30% of the of the 3,000 studies that were randomly selected. The rest of the papers expressed no opinion. They have provided no evidence of the opinions of the authors of the majority of the papers they studied. Why are you having a problem understanding this?

[ozimoron]

[Sunmaster]

Follow these 10 easy steps to become a rational, high functioning, evolved human being. ????????

 

 

 

[VincentRJ]

55 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Follow these 10 easy steps to become a rational, high functioning, evolved human being.

Very amusing contradictions. ????

[ozimoron]

9 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Very amusing contradictions. ????

Painful to watch, especially the falsetto voice. And why the hippie disguise? As far as atheists, preventing free will, well try bucking the church doctrine and see how that works out. Conformity underpins church membership.

[Skeptic7]

15 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

I honestly don't think their explanation would be as simplistic as the materialist explanation is. But if they would present me with evidence that I can corroborate myself (like a Vulcan mind melt for example), I would have no trouble accepting that my belief system was lacking data. As a matter  of fact, I know that right now.

 

I am not this body.

I am not my emotions.

I am not my thoughts.

I don't have to identify with any of them to know who I am and therefore I don't have to cling on to them. 

So who and what are you? Just a bunch of "nots" and don'ts"? ????

[Sunmaster]

1 hour ago, Skeptic7 said:

So who and what are you? Just a bunch of "nots" and don'ts"? ????

Who are you? The most fundamental of all questions...
That's a question everyone should answer by and for himself. 

 

Edited May 30, 2022 by Sunmaster

[xylophone]

On 4/14/2019 at 9:25 PM, ivor bigun said:

Do you really believe in him or any of the other Gods ?

To refer to something posted way back when the thread was started, no I don't believe in any god, in any way, shape or form.

 

Religion and god are man-made constructs to try and provide some answers as to from whence we came, who are we and why are we here etc, and have been used and hijacked for centuries as tools of suppression, poverty, and in order to make money from those willing to follow one of these constructs.

 

As an example, huge amounts of money flows into the Vatican City to swell their coffers and to support a corpulent Pope and his hangers on, whilst at the same time providing a haven for paedophiles and child molesters, and all of this has been built as a business, with a business model ensuring that the Catholic Church becomes very wealthy.

 

None of the "Christian belief models" has stopped something like the recent schoolchildren massacre, the huge famines of the past in the likes of Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen and others which killed millions of people, many of whom were children, so religion/god in any of its forms is nothing but a nonsense followed at one end by the simpleminded and at the other by those wishing to make money out of it. And somewhere in the middle are those who wish to "do good" or ease their conscience by making donations to various religious organisations.

 

To add to the nonsense, new religious belief organisations are springing up all over the world, and even these have followers, including those who believe that the world is only 6000 years old, despite fossils been carbon dated back millions of years, but this doesn't fit their narrative, so is ignored. The sad part about it is that this belief is being taught in some schools in the USA, rather than the theory of evolution, or perhaps alongside of that, but it shows the power that these people have.

 

Over my 75 years I have met many people who said that they are Christians/Catholics and prove that by going to church every Sunday, however as the old saying goes, "standing in a church on a Sunday does not mean that you are a Christian, any more than standing in a garage and believing that you are a car" (or words to that effect).

 

It's a funny old world, and if someone from another planet looked down upon what is happening here with regards to religion/god/faiths/beliefs (apart from some faiths which do not rely on religious fervour and money) and what we have done to ourselves and the world in following these constructs, they would watch in disbelief at our stupidity.
 

[VincentRJ]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

Who are you? The most fundamental of all questions...
That's a question everyone should answer by and for himself. 

 

Who are you?? This question reminds me of the following joke. ????

 

A crowded United Airlines flight was canceled. A single agent was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers.

 

Suddenly, an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS."

 

The agent replied, "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first; and then I'm sure we'll be able to work something out."

 

The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?"

 

Without hesitating, the agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention, please?", she began, her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at Gate 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him with his identity, please come to Gate 14".

 

With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United Airlines agent, gritted his teeth, and said, "F*** You!"

 

Without flinching, she smiled and said, "I'm sorry sir, you'll have to get in line for that, too."

[Sunmaster]

Everyone is entitled to have an opinion about religion. It is important though to have enough data to form an unbiased and accurate opinion, so that you don't do a disservice to your own intelligence and for the sake of truth itself.

I'm especially concerned about the lack of knowledge when it comes to the origins of religion. You may like or dislike religion, that's not the issue here. The issue is the lack of data when offering the opinion. Scholars have spent a lot of time studying these origins and have come to quite different conclusions from the tired old and I might add, very superficial "Religions were formed to control people".

There are several theories of course, and they analyze the origins from different perspectives.
The one I find most interesting and on point, is the theory by Rudolf Otto and later Mircea Eliade, who try to separate the origin of religion as a mere cultural byproduct, and focus more on direct religious (or mystical) experiences. "Religion as something special and autonomous, that cannot be reduced to the social, economical or psychological alone."

There is a huge amount of research, and I won't go into details. Suffice to say that religion appears to be a way of codifying mystical experiences that are influenced by, but ultimately independent from the culture and the psychology of the individual. For this reason, a mystical experience is in its essence the same today, as it was 1000s of years ago, and the the same for people of different countries/backgrounds.

Obviously, if you take away the direct experience from religion, you're left with teachings that nobody is able to decipher, empty rituals and inflexible dogma. (ie misunderstood metaphors in the bible, symbols that lose their deeper meanings etc., the inability to adapt to new data, moral corruption etc)
This is what most atheists decry here, and I can't but agree with them on this point.

In origin, religion was a tool to bring direct experience of the divine to man. Any other purpose is a superficial misrepresentation of its original intent.


 

[Hummin]

One thing is for sure, there is alot of money in people believing In a higher supremacy

 

This is of course the worst examples, and really show the problem of how easy people get manipulated by greedy speculative ego driven leaders who is fueled by the power they manage to have controlling people. 

 

They are the problem and the reason why religion have a bad word
 

 

[Hummin]

7 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

 

In origin, religion was a tool to bring direct experience of the divine to man. Any other purpose is a superficial misrepresentation of its original intent.


 

In the beginning we where just created to have basic needs, but then Eve and Adam ate from the forbidden tree of knownledge. Thats where everything went downhill, and I believe there must have been many trees with to much confusion fruits on the way that disrupted everything. 

[Sunmaster]

9 minutes ago, Hummin said:

One thing is for sure, there is alot of money in people believing In a higher supremacy

 

This is of course the worst examples, and really show the problem of how easy people get manipulated by greedy speculative ego driven leaders who is fueled by the power they manage to have controlling people. 

 

They are the problem and the reason why religion have a bad word
 

Sure. People (and I include us, because nobody is completely immune) can be easily manipulated. And religions are by far not the only powerful organizations to exploit their followers. Look at how the world was led to believe that Iraq was part of the "Axis of Evil", that it possessed WMD's (even though there was not a shred of evidence), that it was/is justified to spend trillions of $ for arms, but at the same time there isn't enough money for free healthcare and education. 
Governments manipulate people's opinions all the time, often using science to do so. See how hemp was demonized by flooding mass media with scientist's warnings of people going insane when smoking.
Corporations manipulate us every day into believing that we absolutely need that product to be happy.

This is not to condone religions in what they do, but to show that it's not a trait unique to religions. It's a poison that permeates all circles of society. It's more of a general, worldwide psychological disorder than a trait of one specific organization.
 

[Hummin]

10 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Sure. People (and I include us, because nobody is completely immune) can be easily manipulated. And religions are by far not the only powerful organizations to exploit their followers. Look at how the world was led to believe that Iraq was part of the "Axis of Evil", that it possessed WMD's (even though there was not a shred of evidence), that it was/is justified to spend trillions of $ for arms, but at the same time there isn't enough money for free healthcare and education. 
Governments manipulate people's opinions all the time, often using science to do so. See how hemp was demonized by flooding mass media with scientist's warnings of people going insane when smoking.
Corporations manipulate us every day into believing that we absolutely need that product to be happy.

This is not to condone religions in what they do, but to show that it's not a trait unique to religions. It's a poison that permeates all circles of society. It's more of a general, worldwide psychological disorder than a trait of one specific organization.
 

I do not find much I buy in to, and I never did buy in to Coca Cola happy lifestyle, religion, or now cannabis oil. Not bought in to the environment crisis solutions, but I do understand what we do to the planet is bad and can not do anything good for the ones coming after us, but how they going to solve the problem is by producing and consuming less, not more. 
 

We are constantly led far outside the reasonable concept of truth’s. 
 

Ukraine war where there is an obvious evil and good, but how obvious is it? Who have everything to earn on that conflict? And who is paying the price? Of course innocent children, women and elderly who get bombed to pieces. Very well orchestrated and so cruelly well planned. 
 

 

[Sunmaster]

5 minutes ago, Hummin said:

Ukraine war where there is an obvious evil and good, but how obvious is it? Who have everything to earn on that conflict? And who is paying the price? Of course innocent children, women and elderly who get bombed to pieces. Very well orchestrated and so cruelly well planned. 

I don't think there is an obvious "evil VS good" here at all. Media wants us to believe that for its own purposes.
Anyway, let's keep on topic.

[Hummin]

34 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

I don't think there is an obvious "evil VS good" here at all. Media wants us to believe that for its own purposes.
Anyway, let's keep on topic.

Most people only see good and evil, and those who fall between and see there can be more than one absolute  truth, ore the crazy ones ????

Edited May 30, 2022 by Hummin

[Skeptic7]

On 5/29/2022 at 6:23 PM, Sunmaster said:

As a matter  of fact, I know that right now.

 

I am not this body.

I am not my emotions.

I am not my thoughts.

I don't have to identify with any of them to know who I am and therefore I don't have to cling on to them. 

 

18 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Who are you? The most fundamental of all questions...
That's a question everyone should answer by and for himself. 

 

I know who and what I am. It seems you know only what you are not. So I was curious and therefore asking YOU.

 

It would be nice to get a reasonable answer or explanation for once, instead of always blathering in riddles and drivel. Or answering a question with a question.