Why do you believe in God?

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Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

When I was a teenager I was an Objectivist and your classic smug atheist who thought anyone who believed in God was an utter idiot fool. I had a belief in moral absolutism, that comically speaking there were actions wholly right and wholly wrong. I rejected the notion that morality was a human construct, as I could not in good conscience believe that actions like, say, slavery were acceptable in any time or place regardless of the moral beliefs of the people and societies involved. However I was studying philosophy in school and ultimately came to the realisation that the only way morality could exist in the universe could exist independent of mortal life in the universe is if God existed. So faced with the choice of rejecting athiesm or moral absolutism, I rejected athiesm.

Nowadays I don't believe in cosmic morality so I don't actually need God in my belief system any more, but I found actions like prayers to be kinda fun so I still maintain my belief as it doesn't really ask much of me, as if God did design the universe it's such a disorderly crazy mess I don't think she stands much on ordered ceremonies or time-consuming rituals.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 07:33

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 20:42

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Griffen posted:

I have not done the same. I do not fit God into my worldview, but instead change my worldview to reflect God.

Do you believe the followers of other faiths also do the latter? For example, an extremely devout hindu, or sikh, or muslim, are any of them changing their worldview to reflect something (whether god or something else), or are they all just trying to fit God into their worldview?

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 16:02

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Who What Now posted:

The issue with promoting your religion through your actions is that there's nothing unique a believer can do that a secular person can't do also. So if I can have the same kind of love and compassion for my fellow man as you, why would I need to go to the extra trouble of adopting beliefs that don't actually add anything of value (that I can tell)?

I think that's understating the gulf between good people and saintly people. I don't mean saintly in a religious context here, more that while I think most human beings are fundamentally good people, there are those whose goodness really shines like a beacon over others. Acts of extreme charity, complete selflessness, martyrdom; these things have a powerful impact on other people who see them.

Most philosophies call their adherents to such acts, but those who practice them are rarely able to fulfil them. I agree in that sense there's nothing special about Christianity, but merely being present as a Christian and being able to say "Christ gave me the courage and conviction to do this" is a powerful and persuasive argument to those who witness such actions.

It doesn't mean the person's beliefs are correct, but there's a difference between a persuasive argument and a correct one, and living a saintly life in view of others is, I'd say, the most persuasive argument in favour of your belief system, regardless of what that belief system is.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2016 06:07

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

What about people who cause suffering because the being Christians worship told them to? This is something many people who cause suffering claim, and is also something christian scripture agrees that their god sometimes does, including demanding things like the murder of one's own children as a test of one's faith.

I see no particular reason why the christian deity would not continue to communicate with its followers in the modern era, so the idea that it might continue to make such demands does not seem unreasonable if you accept that past instances of such things happening are indeed historically true.

I mean, the way I see it unless you believe the thing Christians worship isn't real, then you have to either believe that it's at least possible it really does still speak to people and tell them to kill others, or that christian scripture is wrong about such things having happened in the past, or that it is not all good, or that it is not the real god. Personally these are all reasons when I began to believe in God that I could not accept she was the creature worshiped by Christians, as I was left with the stark impression from reading the bible that the deity itself appeared to be the worst christian in it.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2016 05:41

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Fansy posted:

If God isn't real then what happens when we die? Do we just become ghosts that have nowhere to go?

I believe in God but I don't see any reason to suppose she made more than one world. This is it, make the most of it.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2016 20:16

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OwlFancier posted:

I would take a lot less issue with worshipping a classical pantheon because I can't really see any sort of inconsistency with them.

Like I don't see the point in it but, well, if you think Zeus is up there loving people as a bull and throwing lightning at people he doesn't like, that's fine. He doesn't claim to be benevolent, he's just big and powerful and will gently caress you up if you get on his bad side.

I would be interested to hear a sincere defence of classical paganism.

Like Rorac I was deliberately vague about God in my posts because I felt going to deep into which God would just invite ridicule, but I too follow a god from a classical pantheon, because I'm a Discordian. I'm not really a classical pagan because I don't follow any of the other Greco-Roman gods, but after soul-searching a lot on the nature of God I found I couldn't reconcile the problem of evil with an omni-benevolent God, nor could I credibly believe that an omnipotent, omniscient God would even bother to make a universe.

Meaning that if there is a God, she must either have been created along with, or after, the universe, or if God did create the universe, she would have created it to exist within it. And if God made the universe and humans, or is herself a facet of creation, then God, humanity and the universe would all share a nature. What do humans and the universe have in common? Chaos. The universe is on an irreversible one-way trip to maximum entropy. We see localised reversals of entropy, but these stem from other kinds of chaos: atoms bouncing around randomly and getting stuck or being crushed into larger ones. Our universe is random enough we can use it for random number generation. And humans are much the same; we fight, argue and quarrel with one another. Though recently we've begun to build more complex and ordered societies, we can't help smashing them into each other until they fall apart. And if she did make us, she chose to do it in the most violent, random and ridiculous manner you could ever conceive of: evolution. No sane deity with the power to make a universe from whole cloth would choose such a method to create intelligence, so either she had no other way to make it (not omnipotent) or she picked the most chaotic and random method on purpose.

To me the universe and humanity isn't evidence of a perfect loving God building a giant universal watch, it's evidence that if God exists she built us and our universe as a giant hot mess, or she is the universe's internal manifestation of hot messiness. The best fit for such a God that I could find is the various polytheistic pantheons depiction of a chaos deity, Eris, Discordia, Kali. I have no way at all of knowing if God is real, or really knowing anything about her, but this is my best guess and so when I feel like praying, I pray to her. If I'm wrong and there is no God, I haven't really lost anything. I had fun along the way, and while I'd never dream of trying to convert atheists (Because if have literally no evidence or proof), arguments with theists are loads more fun now.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2016 09:22

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Ytlaya posted:

One minor gripe I have is that I don't think it makes sense to compare entropy in the sense of "energy and the universe as a whole" with human conflict. Whether humans are fighting or not doesn't really have a direct influence on entropy. Obviously the use of modern weapons can, but I don't see how humans stabbing each other with spears and swords has much an an effect on entropy (other than perhaps decreasing it due to there being fewer humans), so it's not the conflict itself that affects entropy.

To be clear, I'm not drawing a link as close as that. Human conflict and the universe's tendancy toward entropy are different things, but they're both manifestations of chaos. So, they're like I dunno, broccoli and ice cream, they're very different things but they're both food.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2016 22:29

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

OwlFancier posted:

That isn't quite how entropy works, all activity increases entropy.

Though someone who worships the chaos of the universe would presumably have a somewhat odd worldview if they also believe in entropy given the universe's inexorable slide towards a completely uniform state. Or, well, I guess not that odd given that it's presumably a view shared by most secular scientists but I would think an awareness of the cosmic timescale combined with a specific appreciation for the disparity and disorder in the world would perhaps impart an emotional connection that most may lack.

For me it's more of a philosophical point than an emotional one, I see a parallel between human lives and the universe. We begin in confusion; we build up intricate and detailed existences, full of moving parts, creation and destruction; eventually we die and cease to exist, but even then there's a sort of death beyond death--your remains and memories of you continue on in others, for a time, but eventually your remains end up digested by microbes and memories of you die or fade, and you're left with a uniform state of your existence being all but gone.

That might sound nihilistic but I guess I'm more of a theistic existentialist. You need to be realistic about what you can achieve in your lifetime! Just make your life a happy one, be someone others will share their memories of, and don't gamble your life's precious hours on the assumption that this universe is the tutorial level. And lastly, never forget to invite Eris to your parties--She never comes but the invitation shows you care.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 01:35

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GreyjoyBastard posted:

Ehhhhhh. A very common Bengali view of her is definitely more alien than a lot of Hindu deities, and the Ramakrishna viewpoint (which I subscribe to) is that the universe exists because the universe existing is interesting, but that's not quite in line with what you've been saying.

You bet your britches there are people in India who A) venerate her and B) subscribe to that general view. I don't know of any offhand, but Hinduism.

Well, the universe existing because the universe is interesting is more or less what I meant by saying that if God created the universe, she must have made it to dwell within it. I think the universe has value for the experiences it brings, and I think that applies to God as much as to us, which for me is a point against god's omniscience: if there was nothing novel to experience in creating the universe, there'd be no point in making it. I'll certainly grant you that my interpretation of the divine is wildly divergent from traditional interpretations of Kali or Eris in other ways, but since I figure her position on what I believe would sit somewhere between vague indifference and mild interest, I'm not too concerned about the differences.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 08:34

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vintagepurple posted:

I'm not really interested in debating the same rehashed internet debate, but being religious I wanted to throw out the the idea of God as "omnipotent, omnibenevolent, all-powerful" is basically not a thing in judaism or any religion I know of. It's a thing atheists say God is because it's easy to "disprove" with basic logic.

I'd agree that such attributes aren't strictly necessary for Judaism, but when you say omnipotence and omnibenevolence are not part of any religion you know of, I'd question if you know much about Christianity?

St. Thomas, Summa Theologica posted:

Q 25.2 Does god have infinite Power?

I answer that, As stated above (Article 1), active power exists in God according to the measure in which He is actual. Now His existence is infinite, inasmuch as it is not limited by anything that receives it, as is clear from what has been said, when we discussed the infinity of the divine essence (7, 1). Wherefore, it is necessary that the active power in God should be infinite. For in every agent is it found that the more perfectly an agent has the form by which it acts the greater its power to act. For instance, the hotter a thing is, the greater the power has it to give heat; and it would have infinite power to give heat, were its own heat infinite. Whence, since the divine essence, through which God acts, is infinite, as was shown above (Question 7, Article 1) it follows that His power likewise is infinite.

St. Thomas, Summa Theologica posted:

Q 6.1. Is God Supremely Good?

I answer that, God is the supreme good simply, and not only as existing in any genus or order of things. For good is attributed to God, as was said in the preceding article, inasmuch as all desired perfections flow from Him as from the first cause. They do not, however, flow from Him as from a univocal agent, as shown above (Question 4, Article 2); but as from an agent which does not agree with its effects either in species or genus. Now the likeness of an effect in the univocal cause is found uniformly; but in the equivocal cause it is found more excellently, as, heat is in the sun more excellently than it is in fire. Therefore as good is in God as in the first, but not the univocal, cause of all things, it must be in Him in a most excellent way; and therefore He is called the supreme good.

Christian Theodicy has been wrestling with the Problem of Evil for a looooooong time.

EDIT: Side note, even though I disagree wholeheartedly with the conclusion, I would highly recommend the Summa Theologica to anyone interested in Theodicy. It's written in question and answer form, each question begins with a statement, and then objections are presented to the statement that range from the interesting to the astonishing. For example, Q25.2 quoted above is in response to the statements "God can't have infinite power because it would make him imperfect" (hmm), "God can't have infinite power because then he could make rocks too heavy to lift" (the usual objection), and the amazing "God can't have infinite power because it would break spacetime and cause all events in the universe to happen simultaneously".

Reveilled fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jul 7, 2016

# ¿ Jul 7, 2016 18:33

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Who What Now posted:

And a lot of other Jews. There are multiple stories about people out-thinking or out-arguing God, and one of God being beaten at wrestling. Also, you can't really dictate what people's beliefs should be to them, especially when you can't even correctly spot what they identify as.

There's also this joke:

quote:

So it seems that these four rabbis had a series of theological arguments, and three were always in accord against the fourth. One day, the odd rabbi out, after the usual �3 to 1, majority rules� statement that signified that he had lost again, decided to appeal to a higher authority.

�Oh, God!� he cried. �I know in my heart that I am right and they are wrong! Please give me a sign to prove it to them!�

It was a beautiful, sunny day. As soon as the rabbi finished his prayer, a storm cloud moved across the sky above the four. It rumbled once and dissolved. �A sign from God! See, I�m right, I knew it!� But the other three disagreed, pointing out that storm clouds form on hot days.

So the rabbi prayed again: �Oh, God, I need a bigger sign to show that I am right and they are wrong. So please, God, a bigger sign!�

This time four storm clouds appeared, rushed toward each other to form one big cloud, and a bolt of lightning slammed into a tree on a nearby hill.

�I told you I was right!� cried the rabbi, but his friends insisted that nothing had happened that could not be explained by natural causes.

The rabbi was getting ready to ask for a very big sign, but just as he said, �Oh God...,� the sky turned pitch black, the earth shook, and a deep, booming voice intoned, �He�s Right!�

The rabbi put his hands on his hips, turned to the other three, and said, �Well?�

�So,� shrugged one of the other rabbis, �now it�s 3 to 2.�

# ¿ Jul 7, 2016 19:46

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

That looks like a cleaned up and down-played version, the one I'm familiar with is even better:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Halakha_&_aggadata_&_midrash.html

Ah! I was looking for exactly that version and couldn't find it, thanks!

# ¿ Jul 7, 2016 20:01

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

McDowell posted:

You wouldn't want or need to. I'm still human so I understand how that can make you hesitate. Heaven isn't a TV and an EZ-chair made from clouds - it is a place of joyful service. In 'Beyond Human' there is brief mention that there may be a level above the next, which could involve going completely outside this universe - but that isn't for us to concern ourselves with here on Earth.

"Joyful service" sounds like PR speak for "slavery". If the order spirit's domain is inside the universe, destruction of his plantation for the enslaved and decieved would be a moral action. The real god doesn't need servants. She wouldn't demand you bow to her. She wants you to be free, not to clothe yourself in chains.

The creature that craves order and worship, that wants servants who call it Lord is the bad guy, McDowell. I hope you realise that some day.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2016 23:30

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McDowell posted:

The Demiurge / Lucifer is the one building an army, pursuing stronger (less perishable) bodies, and offering 'cosmic consciousness'. The Kingdom of Heaven is never aggressive and there are many stepping stones to get there, they don't need humans - they welcome us as prodigal sons.

On the contrary, cosmic conciousness is yet another flavour of the same scam that the order spirit always offers: "Obey me and cheat death".

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 00:18

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McDowell posted:

I'm not trying to cheat death, I could be considered 'suicidal' in Next Level terms because I am still on this planet, risking dissolution of the mind back into raw spirit material if that is deemed necessary. This Discordian ideology is interesting, I could be wrong but it seems like the mindset of Luciferians who have surrendered to their inevitable 'disorder' at the end of the universe - even a clever way to play possum and gather followers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-15KBICWiQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7H00OUf1lA

The USA invasion of Iraq started 6 years after the class departed - it is also around my vehicle's birthday.

The Recycling process does not necessarily have to be an agonizing or fearsome event, however the bulk of human history suggests otherwise. Be the change you want to see in the world.

But all this just typefies what I'm saying. The order spirit speaks to Heaven's Gate, and the result is death. It speaks to Joshua, and the result is death. It speaks to the crusaders, and the result is death. It speaks to ISIS, and the result is death. Death, death, death, over and over, at the hands of the order spirit or its agents and followers. And the promise, and the threat, are always the same:

"Obey me, and get life eternal"
"Obey me, because one day I will destroy the world"

What horrific design could such a creature have, that craves our deaths so much that it makes us the false promise of eternal life? What do our deaths fuel? No altruistic being would demand worship, no altruistic being would be so vain as to demand we call it Lord. You can call it "recycling" or whatever euphemism you like, but I'd call it by it's true name: murder. Human history is full to the brim of murders and atrocities carried out by its agents. It corrupts mankind and tells us to kill each other and kill ourselves. That you'd face your death with such apparent eagerness saddens me; you only get this life, and you're using it in service to that thing. It has an ulterior motive, and that motive is not good.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 01:30

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Who What Now posted:

Ok, prove it by choosing to believe that the sun orbits the earth.

Ok, for the next 30 minutes this is what I believe.

Trip report:
0:01 Feels like a dumb thing to believe. Don't think I'll keep this up, past the agreed upon 30 minutes

# ¿ Jul 17, 2016 09:14

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Who What Now posted:

No, you misunderstand, it's not enough to just say you believe it. Anyone can do that, you have to actually choose to become convinced of it. If beliefs are an active choice (hint: they aren't, there's that whole "convinced" thing I mentioned a second ago) it should be trivial to do. And yet nobody in all of human history has ever been able to do it on command. Gosh, it's almost like you can't!

So, choosing your beliefs is impossible because if it was possible it would make changing your beliefs trivial, but anyone claiming they can choose their beliefs trivially isn't really choosing their beliefs, because choosing your beliefs is impossible? Am I getting that right?

# ¿ Jul 17, 2016 17:36

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Who What Now posted:

Anyone who claims to have done it voluntarily on a whim instead of by becoming convinced is lying, yes.

How do you know?

# ¿ Jul 17, 2016 19:15

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Who What Now posted:

Because free will is a lie, you can't choose anything.

That's a red herring, but fine. How do you know that my belief about the orbits of the sun and the earth, which is presumably just a physical structure in my brain, could not change based upon the visual input of "Ok, prove it by choosing to believe that the sun orbits the earth"?

# ¿ Jul 17, 2016 20:07

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Who What Now posted:

Because beliefs change by becoming convinced of the validity of their alternatives, not through conscious decisions.

But your reasoning for this appears to be circular. Previously you gave as evidence of this assertion that nobody in human history had been able to conciously decide change their beliefs. However, any person who says they have, you assert to be lying, because you have already decided it is impossible.

This is a lot like people who believe the world was created in 7 days, because the bible says so. If you provide evidence this is not the case (like fossils), then the evidence must be a lie, because it would contradict the bible which is always true.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2016 00:17

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Who What Now posted:

That wasn't evidence so much as it was sarcastic mockery.

Do you have any evidence for your assertion, then? Or do you just take it on faith that it's not possible to conciously change beliefs?

# ¿ Jul 18, 2016 00:24

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Who What Now posted:

Not off hand, no. I'll try and find a good article for you sometime tomorrow.

To give you a bit of an idea where I'm coming from here, I'd actually agree that being convinced is a significant part of how we form our beliefs, but I do think choice is an important element, and while you might not be able to choose all your beliefs I think you can choose some at least.

To take a trivial example, if I tell you I had french toast for breakfast yesterday, I think you can choose whether or not you believe me.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2016 06:57

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

I disagree. I think you can choose to scrutinize the claim, or choose to listen to an opposing view, but you can't choose to believe based on arbitrary will. If you believe the person making this claim, it's because you have been convinced of their trustworthiness, or because you can see no reason for them to be lying, or because having french toast for breakfast is perfectly plausible. If they tell you they had dinosaur meat for breakfast, that is implausible, thus you will reject it.

We have a colloquial phrase "choose to believe", but it actually refers to the process of investigating claims, not belief itself.

But you can potentially believe a person had french toast for breakfast, even if you're not convinced of their trustworthiness, can think of reasons for them to lie, and despite the fact that not having french toast for breakfast is also plausible, can't you? I can't speak for your own belief about my statement, but if you told me you had french toast for breakfast, I don't know you well enough at all to make a judgement of whether you are a trustworthy person, and since we're having a philosophical discussion you might be asserting the details of your breakfast as a thought experiment, and while french toast is a thing you could have for breakfast, there are a lot more things that are not french toast which you could have for breakfast (including nothing). Indeed, if I dwelt upon these issues for a while, I could probably convince myself that it's more likely than not that you are lying. If, knowing this, I continued to believe you (and made the concious effort not to dwell on those issues), am I not choosing to believe you? By choosing to ignore evidence which I know would change my belief, am I not choosing what I believe?

To put this another way, if you would accept that we can use arbitrary will to choose to attempt to change someone else's beliefs, why can we not choose to attempt the same thing on ourselves? Descartes claimed to do this when he chose to discard all beliefs which he couldn't prove, and started over from "I think, therefore I am"? Do you believe he was lying, or mistaken, when he said he did this?

And what about people who have an internal disagreement between their gut feelings and intellectual knowledge? To take a personal example, I was raised in a city riven with sectarian conflict. I'm from a catholic family, and that coloured my beliefs growing up. now that I'm older I realise that's all stupid bullshit, but when I meet someone from the protestant community of the city I have to make what I percieve as a concious effort to suppress the immediate emotional reaction that tries to get me to think less of them for this. If you asked me if I believe being a protestant makes you more likely to be a bad person, I'd say no, because I know it doesn't, there's bad people from both communities. But if I stopped exerting the willpower to overcome my gut feelings I think I would start believing that being a protestant makes you more likely to be a bad person. If this is not a choice I'm making, what is it?

# ¿ Jul 18, 2016 16:46

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 20:42

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

I think in this case you're choosing to just not give a poo poo what I had for breakfast. But claims of what a person had for breakfast are so commonplace, and are rarely lied about, and these facts I think would be enough to convince you I wasn't lying - so it's not about knowing enough about me, personally, but knowing about society generally. Conversely, if I had lied about inane things many times before, and it had been discovered, you might by default doubt what i say I had for breakfast. But none of the above is choice; it's all a result of factors that serve to convince you or not.

Again, the choice is whether to explore claims in depth or leave them be; I don't see this as synonymous with choosing to believe, but if you do then we're just arguing semantics at this point. I guess to be more precise about what I'm saying, you can't choose to be convinced or not convinced by something, it just happens; it's a reaction.

I guess what i'm saying is that I don't think being convinced of something is the same thing as believing it. I think you can believe things you aren't convinced are true. Consider if you'd see these two statements as meaning the same thing: "I believe Ada killed Bob" and "I am convinced Ada killed Bob". I see these as meaning different things, would you? If not then I think we are just discussing semantics which is fair enough.

quote:

To use a hastily conceived analogy, this is like the difference between choosing to walk into a room and look at a painting, and choosing - after seeing the painting - what the visual content of the painting is. Your choice is suppressing the gut feeling, not what to believe. And that's assuming your premises are true, which I think is also up for debate - that is, would your belief really change in this situation? But just for the sake of the argument at hand, I've accepted the premise - which, by the way, is not the same as choosing to believe it.

I'm not really sure I understand your analogy. Maybe we should step back a bit, from the way I've described myself, what would you say I believe about protestants? Don't be afraid to say I'm sectarian if you think that's true here, I think it's a perfectly valid way to look at it and won't take it personally.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2016 17:21

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