Do you believe in God and why

[Tagged]

10 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Not quite. The cleverness is knowing that we don't know. Believing that you know something, and acting on that belief, when in reality you are wrong, is the cause of most of the trouble in the world.

 

Scientific investigation and research is based on an initial acceptance that we don't know. The Methodology of Science is the best method we have for knowing 'provisionally' that something is true, but there is always more to learn. Science is never 'settled'. Also, the more we know, as a result of scientific research, the more aware we become that there is yet more to be understood about ourselves and our surrounding environment.

But everything in religion, is 100% settled and understood, by those who believe, even it is not 100% by the book! 
 

amazing

[Skeptic7]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

And funnily enough, those who bark the loudest are those who have the least to say.

What's funny (in a pathetic way)  is the deniers of evidence, facts and advancements in understanding of our world and all the understanding and rational, accurate, natural explanations for myriad previously misunderstood phenomena.

 

More to come by the day...but the deniers will just keep shouting "NAY"! 

 

????   ????

[Sunmaster]

Just now, Skeptic7 said:

What's funny (in a pathetic way)  is the deniers of evidence, facts and advancements in understanding of our world and all the understanding and rational, accurate, natural explanations for myriad previously misunderstood phenomena.

 

More to come by the day...but the deniers will just keep shouting "NAY"! 

 

????   ????

woof woof ????????

[Sunmaster]

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

Max Planck (German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918)

 

The stream of human knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality. The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine.

James Jeans (English physicist, astronomer and mathematician.)

 

The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the source of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

Albert Einstein (German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics. His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science)

 

Hmmm, they must all be delusional and irrational fools then....who would have thought....

[xylophone]

3 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

So this philosopher thinks he has found "god" because he cannot comprehend the universe.........hmmmm!
 

 

3 hours ago, Skeptic7 said:

What's funny (in a pathetic way)  is the deniers of evidence, facts and advancements in understanding of our world and all the understanding and rational, accurate, natural explanations for myriad previously misunderstood phenomena.

It matters not how much evidence or facts and advancements one puts the way of people who have a belief system which is immovable in their mind, because they won't change it.

 

Since time immemorial humans have searched for their own "higher being" or similar and in the process have worshipped things like rocks, birds, mythical creatures, and even now elephants and other animals are worshipped around the world for whatever reason.

 

Eons ago the Aztec would slaughter young children on an altar as a sacrifice to "their gods" to appease them, whilst elsewhere corn dollies were prayed to for a good harvest, and spirits in the trees were also asked to produce a good bounty – – and so on, so there is a trend as regards us humans wanting to believe in a "higher being" and perhaps it is because we feel so vulnerable in not being able to understand those things around us.

 

A French philosopher, whose name escapes me at the moment, once stated that the reason for humans wanting to believe in a "god" (something more powerful and superior) was because they lead such a miserable existence on earth (back in ancient times) that they believed there had to be something better out there, looking over them and to whom they could "pray".

 

What never ceases to amaze me though is how believers can twist what they want to suit the situation and I cringe whenever I see footage of something like a building/mine collapse which kills scores of people, only for one or two to be found alive and their families praying to god thanking "him" for the miracle – – so much of a miracle that obviously their god didn't care too much about the scores of others who died (but, but, but.........god wanted them in heaven, is one excuse given!)

 

This thread has run for a long time and people are free to believe in what they want, after all we still have people who believe the earth is flat; that people have been raised from the dead by a "miracle"; that all of the worlds creatures, including some very, very large whales, and penguins from the Antarctic, managed to make their way to a very large wooden boat in the desert to be saved.........

 

For me, and I would suspect for many others out there, the whole conversation revolves around what they believe and nothing will change it, however from my perspective, discussing something like this is tantamount to having a discussion with someone about "how many fairies one can fit on a pinhead".

 

[Skeptic7]

7 minutes ago, xylophone said:

So this philosopher thinks he has found "god" because he cannot comprehend the universe.........hmmmm!
 

 

It matters not how much evidence or facts and advancements one puts the way of people who have a belief system which is immovable in their mind, because they won't change it.

 

Since time immemorial humans have searched for their own "higher being" or similar and in the process have worshipped things like rocks, birds, mythical creatures, and even now elephants and other animals are worshipped around the world for whatever reason.

 

Eons ago the Aztec would slaughter young children on an altar as a sacrifice to "their gods" to appease them, whilst elsewhere corn dollies were prayed to for a good harvest, and spirits in the trees were also asked to produce a good bounty – – and so on, so there is a trend as regards us humans wanting to believe in a "higher being" and perhaps it is because we feel so vulnerable in not being able to understand those things around us.

 

A French philosopher, whose name escapes me at the moment, once stated that the reason for humans wanting to believe in a "god" (something more powerful and superior) was because they lead such a miserable existence on earth (back in ancient times) that they believed there had to be something better out there, looking over them and to whom they could "pray".

 

What never ceases to amaze me though is how believers can twist what they want to suit the situation and I cringe whenever I see footage of something like a building/mine collapse which kills scores of people, only for one or two to be found alive and their families praying to god thanking "him" for the miracle – – so much of a miracle that obviously their god didn't care too much about the scores of others who died (but, but, but.........god wanted them in heaven, is one excuse given!)

 

This thread has run for a long time and people are free to believe in what they want, after all we still have people who believe the earth is flat; that people have been raised from the dead by a "miracle"; that all of the worlds creatures, including some very, very large whales, and penguins from the Antarctic, managed to make their way to a very large wooden boat in the desert to be saved.........

 

For me, and I would suspect for many others out there, the whole conversation revolves around what they believe and nothing will change it, however from my perspective, discussing something like this is tantamount to having a discussion with someone about "how many fairies one can fit on a pinhead".

 

U have my vote for Best Post Of The Thread! ???? 

 

(don't know about fairies, but plenty of pinheads here that might!) ????

[canuckamuck]

2 hours ago, xylophone said:

So this philosopher thinks he has found "god" because he cannot comprehend the universe.........hmmmm!
 

 

It matters not how much evidence or facts and advancements one puts the way of people who have a belief system which is immovable in their mind, because they won't change it.

 

Since time immemorial humans have searched for their own "higher being" or similar and in the process have worshipped things like rocks, birds, mythical creatures, and even now elephants and other animals are worshipped around the world for whatever reason.

 

Eons ago the Aztec would slaughter young children on an altar as a sacrifice to "their gods" to appease them, whilst elsewhere corn dollies were prayed to for a good harvest, and spirits in the trees were also asked to produce a good bounty – – and so on, so there is a trend as regards us humans wanting to believe in a "higher being" and perhaps it is because we feel so vulnerable in not being able to understand those things around us.

 

A French philosopher, whose name escapes me at the moment, once stated that the reason for humans wanting to believe in a "god" (something more powerful and superior) was because they lead such a miserable existence on earth (back in ancient times) that they believed there had to be something better out there, looking over them and to whom they could "pray".

 

What never ceases to amaze me though is how believers can twist what they want to suit the situation and I cringe whenever I see footage of something like a building/mine collapse which kills scores of people, only for one or two to be found alive and their families praying to god thanking "him" for the miracle – – so much of a miracle that obviously their god didn't care too much about the scores of others who died (but, but, but.........god wanted them in heaven, is one excuse given!)

 

This thread has run for a long time and people are free to believe in what they want, after all we still have people who believe the earth is flat; that people have been raised from the dead by a "miracle"; that all of the worlds creatures, including some very, very large whales, and penguins from the Antarctic, managed to make their way to a very large wooden boat in the desert to be saved.........

 

For me, and I would suspect for many others out there, the whole conversation revolves around what they believe and nothing will change it, however from my perspective, discussing something like this is tantamount to having a discussion with someone about "how many fairies one can fit on a pinhead".

 

The good part of being an atheist is when you make an ar$ehole move no one can call you a hypocrite

Edited November 29, 2019 by canuckamuck

[Tagged]

15 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

The good part of being an atheist is when you make an ar$ehole move no one can call you a hypocrite

That was funny ????

[partington]

 

 

It strikes me that the simplest argument against the woo is that people are interpreting their own internal experiences as giving reliable and incontrovertible information about the nature of reality. Someone compared being unable to describe these ineffable transcendent experiences as being like trying to clearly describe an orgasm. 

 

However what is actually being claimed, using the same metaphor, is that the orgasm exists somewhere outside time and space before you experience it, and then continues to exist eternally as a thing in the same realm of reality after you have briefly interacted with it, and ceased to experience it.

 

But the truth is, no matter how transcendent the experiences that people may have had, and how convincing the experience is that you have somehow interacted with a deeper universal truth, all this means is that human brains are able to generate this experience, just as an orgasm is generated. 

 

In the same way feelings of transcendence and being linked to an eternal "source" occur inside your brain and are generated by it, and have no evidential power that the source actually exists. You can instantly cause these experiences to occur in anyone by administering certain drugs, or direct electrical stimulation of the brain for example.

 

There is no way of telling, however deep your conviction, that what you feel has any relationship to the nature of reality at all. This doesn't disprove the claim that it does, but it does emphasise that your own experiences are evidentially empty.

 

 

[cyril sneer]

[canuckamuck]

20 minutes ago, partington said:

 

 

It strikes me that the simplest argument against the woo is that people are interpreting their own internal experiences as giving reliable and incontrovertible information about the nature of reality. Someone compared being unable to describe these ineffable transcendent experiences as being like trying to clearly describe an orgasm. 

 

However what is actually being claimed, using the same metaphor, is that the orgasm exists somewhere outside time and space before you experience it, and then continues to exist eternally as a thing in the same realm of reality after you have briefly interacted with it, and ceased to experience it.

 

But the truth is, no matter how transcendent the experiences that people may have had, and how convincing the experience is that you have somehow interacted with a deeper universal truth, all this means is that human brains are able to generate this experience, just as an orgasm is generated. 

 

In the same way feelings of transcendence and being linked to an eternal "source" occur inside your brain and are generated by it, and have no evidential power that the source actually exists. You can instantly cause these experiences to occur in anyone by administering certain drugs, or direct electrical stimulation of the brain for example.

 

There is no way of telling, however deep your conviction, that what you feel has any relationship to the nature of reality at all. This doesn't disprove the claim that it does, but it does emphasise that your own experiences are evidentially empty.

 

 

 This is just your rationalization of what people are saying. Just because you can imagine a scenario in which someone's experience isn't real. That doesn't mean it isn't real, it only says you can see a way in which  the person was mistaken.

There are plenty of experiences people can have that others wouldn't believe.

I don't think most people's religious experiences are analogous to drug induced hallucinations. They generally involve real life situations in which something outside of the natural occurred. Whether that be some form of communication or an interaction with someone when there was no one like that around. Quite a bit of Christians describe experiences when reading scripture and there are revelations that occur that turn out to be true and helpful.

I can't speak for others dealing with other forms of spirituality.

[mauGR1]

12 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

I don't think most people's religious experiences are analogous to drug induced hallucinations. They generally involve real life situations in which something outside of the natural occurred. Whether that be some form of communication or an interaction with someone when there was no one like that around. Quite a bit of Christians describe experiences when reading scripture and there are revelations that occur that turn out to be true and helpful.

I can't speak for others dealing with other forms of spirituality.

Having tried for decades to be extremely rational about the existence or non-existence of superior beings, i have come to the conclusion that there are countless superior and inferior beings, on this planet and possibly countless others, and there is an intelligent design at the source of all that.

I am against fanaticism of any kind, religious fanatics and materialistic fanatics are just fanatics for me, one can just hope they can evolve into compassionate beings.

Those who rely just on physical senses to determine if something exists or not, have chosen to limit themselves to an animal level, nothing wrong with that, yet that's comparable to be given a fully functioning human body, and choose to crawl instead than walking. Or having a car and driving just in 1st gear.

[Skeptic7]

1 hour ago, partington said:

 

 

It strikes me that the simplest argument against the woo is that people are interpreting their own internal experiences as giving reliable and incontrovertible information about the nature of reality. Someone compared being unable to describe these ineffable transcendent experiences as being like trying to clearly describe an orgasm. 

 

However what is actually being claimed, using the same metaphor, is that the orgasm exists somewhere outside time and space before you experience it, and then continues to exist eternally as a thing in the same realm of reality after you have briefly interacted with it, and ceased to experience it.

 

But the truth is, no matter how transcendent the experiences that people may have had, and how convincing the experience is that you have somehow interacted with a deeper universal truth, all this means is that human brains are able to generate this experience, just as an orgasm is generated. 

 

In the same way feelings of transcendence and being linked to an eternal "source" occur inside your brain and are generated by it, and have no evidential power that the source actually exists. You can instantly cause these experiences to occur in anyone by administering certain drugs, or direct electrical stimulation of the brain for example.

 

There is no way of telling, however deep your conviction, that what you feel has any relationship to the nature of reality at all. This doesn't disprove the claim that it does, but it does emphasise that your own experiences are evidentially empty.

 

 

Great post and well said, but it's ALL been covered here previously. Every reasonable word and idea has been presented. It just keeps dragging on because deniers deny and woo-sters keep wooing. Some of us just refuse to cave or be worn down by BS, which piles up DEEP and fast on this thread. 

[Skeptic7]

50 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

. They generally involve real life situations in which something outside of the natural occurred

No, they actually don't. 

[canuckamuck]

6 hours ago, Skeptic7 said:

Great post and well said, but it's ALL been covered here previously. Every reasonable word and idea has been presented. It just keeps dragging on because deniers deny and woo-sters keep wooing. Some of us just refuse to cave or be worn down by BS, which piles up DEEP and fast on this thread. 

The thread is do you believe in God. So it is your side that are the deniers. And the believers here aren't denying anything except your limitations.

[VincentRJ]

11 hours ago, partington said:

 

But the truth is, no matter how transcendent the experiences that people may have had, and how convincing the experience is that you have somehow interacted with a deeper universal truth, all this means is that human brains are able to generate this experience, just as an orgasm is generated. 

 

This reminds me of an article I read a few years ago comparing the results of fMRI scans of the brains of religious people and those who are great fans of Apple computer products.

 

"Previously, the scientists had studied the brains of those of religious faith, and they found that, as Riley puts it: “The Apple products are triggering the same bits of brain as religious imagery triggers in a person of faith.”
https://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/apple-causes-religious-reaction-in-brains-of-fans-say-neuroscientists/

 

This appears to be a fast-growing new field of science called 'Neurotheology'. ????
 

[Chazar]

No gods, I'd  listen to Jim all day

Edited November 30, 2019 by Chazar

[Chazar]

8 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

The thread is do you believe in God. So it is your side that are the deniers. And the believers here aren't denying anything except your limitations.

The  whole question is  flawed  because it contains the word "believe"

[Chazar]

15 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

and there is an intelligent design at the source of all that.

In which case Id  suggest you watch my video above

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, Chazar said:

In which case Id  suggest you watch my video above

Thanks, but i'll give it a miss for now, tbh i rarely watch videos.

[CMNightRider]

10 words that determine your destiny.

 

Genesis 1:1  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

[Skeptic7]

1 minute ago, CMNightRider said:

10 words that determine your destiny.

 

Genesis 1:1  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

There is a different take...

 

In The Beginning...Man Created God

[Chazar]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Thanks, but i'll give it a miss for now, tbh i rarely watch videos.

Devils work eh ????

[Chazar]

3 minutes ago, Skeptic7 said:

There is a different take...

 

In The Beginning...Man Created God

And incredibly HE was a MAN.............not a  woman

[Chazar]

17 hours ago, cyril sneer said:

He works in mysterious ways dont you  know

[yodsak]

On 11/14/2019 at 11:32 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Well, Odin didn't actually exist outside of men's imagination.  Makes nice fairy stories though.

[Chazar]

6 minutes ago, yodsak said:

Try plain randomness

[Skeptic7]

5 minutes ago, yodsak said:

Spot on! And ID is silly pseudoscience and committed suicide on it's lack of merit. Just another phony Christian way of being sneaky. Trying to crowbar YHWH and Gee-zuz into impressionable children's minds through the public school system in the USA. 

[mauGR1]

59 minutes ago, Chazar said:

Try plain randomness

Everything is possible, sometimes i wonder, looking at some humans, if the "intelligent design" was on holiday when they were assembled

[mike787]

I believe in Cash is King and Thailand is the best place to find LOVE!

Edited November 30, 2019 by mike787