Do you believe in God and why

[mauGR1]

15 minutes ago, garrya said:

I do run 10k most mornings. Yeah, typical. You believe in a nonsensical bloke sitting on clouds but won't believe a human being whom you can see what he is doing. Typical intelligence from 2000 years ago. 

On 2nd thoughts, i trust you, as my father used to tell me:

"If you don't have a good brain, you need good legs".

[mauGR1]

25 minutes ago, giddyup said:

So there's been a mass conversion to religion since the pandemic? I must have missed the memo.

Nah, you just missed a little humour, no big deal.

[garrya]

1 minute ago, mauGR1 said:

On 2nd thoughts, i trust you, as my father used to tell me:

"If you don't have a good brain, you need good legs".

But I bet you sent God to get me to run those 10ks. I just didn't know about it.

[garrya]

2 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Nah, you just missed a little humour, no big deal.

I may have... 

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, garrya said:

But I bet you sent God to get me to run those 10ks. I just didn't know about it.

Nope, and apparently there are a few other things you don't know.

Just a question, are you more interested in trolling, or in a honest debate ?

[mauGR1]

4 minutes ago, garrya said:

But there are many interesting facts I am happy to discuss, such as geography, music, cuisine etc...

Good, and surely you will find some opportunity to discuss your favourite subjects, but i guess that you have not much more to say on this thread.

[Skeptic7]

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Only 6 pages to make it to 500. Keep it up guys. Anyone know what is the longest thread on TVF?

Do believe this is now the longest thread ever on TVF. Seems to have been confirmed in Post 7383.

[teatime101]

Religious belief tends to align with a desire for strong leadership and simple solutions, ie. far right political ideologies.

 

Evangelical Christians (US version) and fanatical Muslims (ME version) have a lot in common - they  need to justify their existence through an absolute authority.

 

How ironic that when the antichrist finally arrived in the USA they made him President.

Edited May 3, 2020 by teatime101

[yodsak]

[tifino]

If you can't beat them... Join them

[sirineou]

16 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Do you also blame the atheists for the atrocities they committed? Do you blame the political factions, left and right, for their actions? Or is it only against believers?

Atheists are also human, and as such they engage in all kinds of human endeavours, some are good and a few are bad. the atrocities you mention were not committed by Atheists they were committed by people who also happen to be atheists.

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by sirineou
typo

[Walker88]

There's dozens of religions but there can be, at most, only one truth. That means most or all believers are following the teachings of someone who is either a liar, or batshoot crazy. Seems.....wasteful.

 

Never understood the need for religion. Have always been baffled by the abject absurdity of it. I'm an equal opportunity blasphemer and heretic, though I do keep most of my thoughts to myself. Sometimes, however, the beliefs are just so absurd, so bizarre, so reliant on absolute nonsense that I can't hold back my disdain.

 

Because most people are scientifically illiterate, they can't understand how 'life' could spontaneously appear. If people understood science, CV-19 would be a good teaching tool, as a virus is not alive. Viruses cannot reproduce by themselves. They are a way station between random atoms and an entity that can reproduce itself independently, which is the definition of 'life'.  Viruses have strings of molecules whose properties allow them to bond with living cells, then the molecules mix and by breaking the bonds in the molecules making up a cell and using the energy of a cell to replicate the virus' RNA. It's chemistry. And physics. No deity needed, just quantum mechanics.

 

How could 'something come from nothing' is an old saw. You mean like a god who always was and always will be?  The math is hard, and space time difficult for most to understand, but yes, something from nothing is possible, even mathematically provable and based on the observed behavior of subatomic particles. No deity is needed, no team of deities is needed, no competing groups of deities who take turns creating Universes is needed. Certainly unneeded are silly tales of country clubs in the sky whose initiation policy somehow involves knocking up an Earth girl and then playing deadbeat dad until the kid gets slaughtered. If I was omnipotent, I'd choose another method to get folks into my club, even those Bronze Age types who had no clue the Earth was round and not a one of whom had a deity or prophet who shared any new knowledge of the greater world or Universe.

 

Randomness is too scary for most people. Folks prefer even a malevolent or violently impish deity who sends hurricanes or tsunamis or childhood cancer to random existence with nothing and no entity in charge. Deals can be made even with an despotic autocrat. No deal can be made with randomness. Thus, people manufacture the illusion, or delusion, that something is calling the shots, then try to make a deal.

 

If people want to believe or have a religion, that's fine. No tax breaks, however. And there has to be a rule that any deity at the head of one's faith must be omnipotent. In other words, the deity doesn't need any help taking care of infidels or apostates, heretics or blasphemers, nor taking care of quality control issues and recalls, such as on a female clitoris. If it's attached, it must be there for a reason, and heaven forbid a mere mortal fiddles with some god's work.

[mauGR1]

13 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

There's dozens of religions but there can be, at most, only one truth. That means most or all believers are following the teachings of someone who is either a liar, or batshoot crazy. Seems.....wasteful.

 

I stopped reading there.

Water has many names, and can be drunk in many ways.

Pls try to understand the concept before commenting further.

Glad to help, you're welcome.

[teatime101]

49 minutes ago, tifino said:

Join them

In series or in parallel, Amen,

[teatime101]

8 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Water has many names, and can be drunk in many ways.

Deep.  

 

Water=H20, and is best taken orally.

Edited May 3, 2020 by teatime101

[mauGR1]

17 minutes ago, teatime101 said:

Deep.  

 

Water=H20, and is best taken orally.

I am impressed.

Watch out, there's a very thin line between education and indoctrination.

Glad to help.

[teatime101]

14 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

thin line between education and indoctrination

Science educates, religion indoctrinates. Evidence is the only thing, apart from logic (which is a given), that matters. 

 

'Belief' and 'faith' are fine if applied to people, not invisible beings.

Edited May 3, 2020 by teatime101

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, teatime101 said:

Science educates, religion indoctrinates. Evidence is the only rule that matters.

As you seem to know everything, i'll just wish you good luck ????

[teatime101]

20 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

As you seem to know everything,

I prefer to discuss the topic in question, not people who post. Everything we own, have and use (ie. technology) has been developed over thousands of years through human ingenuity - and then science came along and put it all on steroids.

 

Everything we know about the universe is thanks to science and technology. The human imagination is the driving 'spirit' if you like, but without application to the real world, it is all just fantasies, and we know where that usually leads - religion.

 

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by teatime101

[mauGR1]

10 minutes ago, teatime101 said:

I prefer to discuss the topic in question, not people who post. Everything we own, have and use (ie. technology) has been developed over thousands of years through human ingenuity - and then science came along and put it all on steroids.

 

Everything we know about the universe is thanks to science and technology. The human imagination is the driving 'spirit' if you like, but without application to the real world, it is all just fantasies, and we know where that usually leads - religion.

 

 

Now i understand better, and there is some sense in what you say.

But you are not what you own, have and use, you are a self conscious being, and you can move your consciousness around and perceive different degrees of consciousness. You can try, it's free.

It makes sense, imho, to think that consciousness will exist once you're gone. It will exist after i'm gone. If all the humankind ceased to exist, consciousness would still exist.

As for your 2nd paragraph, i'll just say that what you call the "real world" is a condensation of the spirit, and not the spirit a fabrication of the physical world.

[teatime101]

50 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

It makes sense, imho, to think that consciousness will exist once you're gone.

How it can it do that without a brain to generate it? I don't understand how consciousness works at all, but I take it as a given that it arises from brain activity, and cannot exist without it.

[teatime101]

58 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

the "real world" is a condensation of the spirit

'Spirit' is a term that has no real meaning, except what we want it to mean, and that's its biggest flaw. Plato had a stab at it, with 'ideas' or 'forms', and I can see an argument for an underlying formal structure for existence, out of which we somehow perceive the material world. 

 

That's all well and good, but once the brain shuts down, I can't see how an ideal or spirit world can exist on a personal level, or how I can be conscious in any way at all.

 

There is a branch of philosophy called phenomenonology, which posits that all experience is transcendental. Mind and body are indivisible, that sort of thing. 

Edited May 3, 2020 by teatime101

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, teatime101 said:

How it can it do that without a brain to generate it? I don't understand how consciousness works at all, but I take it as a given that it arises from brain activity, and cannot exist without it.

It's easy.

You can take a seed from an oak, plant it, and you get an oak tree.

Take a pine seed, and you'll get a pine tree.

As you can see, if you open your eyes, there are laws which rule this planet and the universe.

You didn't make these laws, they were there before you, and they will be there after you're gone.

If you want to think that this is happening by chance, it's your choice, the fact is that an oak seed will produce an oak tree, which is a projection of the spirit, like me and you.

Religion it's entirely a different matter, but the laws of the universe are evidence of the existence of an intelligent design.

 

[Sunmaster]

3 hours ago, sirineou said:

Atheists are also human, and as such they engage in all kinds of human endeavours, some are good and a few are bad. the atrocities you mention were not committed by Atheists they were committed by people who also happen to be atheists.

 

My point exactly...same thing for religious people. The atrocities were committed by people who happened to be religious, exerting their free will. 

[teatime101]

34 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

there are laws which rule this planet and the universe.

Laws don't 'rule' anything. It's just how the universe is shaped. The electromagnetic force (and the strong and weak nuclear forces) determines the structure and properties of individual atoms. Add gravity and light energy and, at least in our planet's case, living things can evolve. 

 

The 'Law of Gravity' is what it is because the universe formed in the way it did. Same goes for all the forces. They just are. In all the universe our planet is possibly unique. That gives some idea how unlikely it is that the laws 'rule our planet'. Why don't they 'rule' all the other planets and produce similar results?

 

The notion that 'laws rule' is anthropocentric. As is religion - the ultimate anthropocentric fantasy.

Edited May 3, 2020 by teatime101

[Sunmaster]

33 minutes ago, teatime101 said:

'Spirit' is a term that has no real meaning, except what we want it to mean, and that's its biggest flaw. Plato had a stab at it, with 'ideas' or 'forms', and I can see an argument for an underlying formal structure for existence, out of which we somehow perceive the material world. 

 

That's all well and good, but once the brain shuts down, I can't see how an ideal or spirit world can exist on a personal level, or how I can be conscious in any way at all.

 

There is a branch of philosophy called phenomenonology, which posits that all experience is transcendental. Mind and body are indivisible, that sort of thing. 

1st paragraph

The fact that "Spirit" is very hard, if not impossible to define, doesn't mean it is meaningless!

 

2nd paragraph 

That's fair enough. You don't see how Spirit, or any higher consciousness can exist...please don't deduce from that that Spirit can therefore not exist. That wouldn't be logical, would it?

 

3rd paragraph 

I'm not familiar with that philosophy, but I'm a little bit with yoga and eastern philosophies. They also speak of this reality being an illusion, and that everything is made by and of Spirit.

[teatime101]

4 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

please don't deduce from that that Spirit can therefore not exist.

Certainly, That would be just as fallacious as claiming it does exist.

 

I consider myself an agnostic on matters of knowledge and an atheist on matters of belief.

 

4 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

They also speak of this reality being an illusion, and that everything is made by and of Spirit.

And this is a very fair observation. If only we had some idea what 'spirit' means we might make even more progress towards enlightenment.

Edited May 3, 2020 by teatime101

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, teatime101 said:

Laws don't 'rule' anything. It's just how the universe is shaped. The electromagnetic force (and the strong and weak nuclear forces) determines the structure and properties of individual atoms. Add gravity and light energy and, at least in our planet's case, living things can evolve. 

 

The 'Law of Gravity' is what it is because the universe formed in the way it did. Same goes for all the forces. They just are. In all the universe our planet is possibly unique. That gives some idea how unlikely it is that the laws 'rule our planet'. Why don't they 'rule' all the other planets and produce similar results?

There is a difference between education and indoctrination, you are just parroting some scientific dogma.

How do you know that our planet is "unique" in the universe, can you prove it, how many solar systems and planets have you visited ?

The funny thing is that you pretend to know something that you don't know.

Sorry, for today i gave you enough of my time, perhaps tomorrow i may try to tell you more, if i feel like wasting my time, of course.

[Sunmaster]

53 minutes ago, teatime101 said:

How it can it do that without a brain to generate it? I don't understand how consciousness works at all, but I take it as a given that it arises from brain activity, and cannot exist without it.

Other philosophies postulate that first there is consciousness, which then condenses and materialises into a body, making the brain and its activity a consequence of consciousness. 

Once the body dies, consciousness will simply continue its journey, and chose to materialize again and again. 

[teatime101]

Life is a profound mystery,  and consciousness is an even greater mystery. But the biggest mystery of all is that of free will, because in an entirely material world, it's impossible. And yet I know I can get out of my chair whenever I please, not because my atoms are arranged so and so.