Does God exist? (4 Viewers)

[BradCube]

say something guys. i got nothing to read.

Ha ha, I have been flatout the last week or so, hence why I haven't been able to add any new responses of any sort. Hopefully some spare time will arise in the next few days.

On a separate note my copy of "Frontiers of Complexity" arrived today in the mail. I have to get through another book I'm reading first called "The Case for Faith". Then I will get stuck into it

 

[Gerald10]

Hi guys, forgive me for not reading through the previous 300-odd pages in this discussion but I'll put forward my 2 cents anyway...

I'm a fan of agnosticism. No one can prove difinatively either way that God does or does not exist. But I'll put emphasis on the latter for the purposes of this discussion. Atheists who snigger at believers for they're irrationality are IMO just as irrational as believers. Because no one can provide evidence of such a standard (granted there is circumstantial evidence) to prove God does or doesn't exist, afterall if they could this discussion would not exist.

But God's existence is irrelevant anyway. Whether He exists or not He is not making any material difference to the state the world is in now. In other words, we must live our lives assuming God doesn't exist because believing God will solve the worlds problems is illusory and, frankly, harmful. I'm reminded of JFK's conclusion to his inaggrual address: "with good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth and lead the land we love, askinh His help and His blessing. But knowing that, here on earth, God's work must truly be our own." This is the attitude with which we should live our lives, no matter what your position on God's existence is.

We don't need oraganised religion either to seek either fulfillment or moral guidance. We are all endowed with a conscience and can decide for ourselves, with guidance from the community what is right and wrong without guidance from organised religion which I feel is ultimately restrictive. As far as fulfillment goes, religion certainly has its place, but many fill this void with other things such as sport or music. I personally pursue a completely irrationaly following of Arsenal, I'm horribly dissapointed when they lose and a win can make my day, experiencing a whole range of emotions in the course of a game which could otherwise take months in the course of my life. In this sense the following is religous.

Hypothetically speaking, If i could be convinced that God exists, I doubt I would turn to Christianity. Being most familiar with it of the major religions, I see its hypocrisies and irrelevences extremely clearly. The chief reason is that the Bible as a source is deeply flawed. As Paul took control of the early Church away from James in the years after Christ's death, he also took the right to write the Bible. Paul never met Jesus, James obviously had. From here on a number of chronicles of Jesus' life were written by a variety of people who never met him and some were selected seemingly at random by mortal beings to be apart of the Bible. Then as the church slowly developed I believe they became increasingly irrelevant and the Pope's recent declaration of these 7 extra deadly sins is a good example (anyone else pick up the intense irony of the Catholic Church denouncing wealth).

Ok there's a start, I might add more to this later but for now I've got Brave New World and Bladerunner to deal with...

 

[Gerald10]

as discussed before in this thread, are you then agnostic to invisible fire breathing dragons?

A good point well made... but there is no evidence at all for invisible fire breathing dragons, other than the truly absurd.

If this were a criminal case in court, God being charged with existing, it would with all surity, at the very least go to trial considering circumstantial evidence, and with all surity He would not be proven to exist beyond reasonable doubt. But just because your found not guilty in court doesn't mean you didn't commit the crime.

Your dragon however would be laughed out at the commital hearing.

What I am saying is that, although a valid point, it cannot be placed in the same category.

My understanding of atheism is knowing God doesn't exist. I assert that no one with 100% certainty could say that. If evidence arose for this dragon's existence I would be open to it, as with God. But I live my life with the presumption that it doesn't exist but I can't possibly know that it doesn't.

To say with certainty either way on this subject is merely a guess, whether you are right or wrong.

 

[Slidey]

"Secretly I'm an atheist but I'll call myself agnostic to appease the Christians"

 

[Captain Gh3y]

this is like the deepest question known to man.

x10000 over wheres waldo.

sorry but the deepest question known to man is actually "what shall we do with a drunken sailor?"

 

[Gerald10]

atheism is more knowing it is unlikely that god exists. of course you know that although you cant possibly prove with 100% certainty invisible dragons dont exist, it is just extremely unlikely. which is why when someone asks you "do you believe in invisible dragons?" you say "no, thats absurd", and not "hmm, i am not sure, i would only be guessing to say that they do or dont..."; this in my opinion is atheism.

In that case any conclusion we will make is merely a literary one on what atheism is. What you are describing is what I understand to be weak atheism, knowing is strong atheism or "true" atheism.

Obviously you see no evidence for the existence of god, I see some evidence but nothing conclusive, which is why I believe your analogy is flawed and is also why I take my position and you take yours.

 

[KFunk]

My understanding of atheism is knowing God doesn't exist. I assert that no one with 100% certainty could say that. If evidence arose for this dragon's existence I would be open to it, as with God. But I live my life with the presumption that it doesn't exist but I can't possibly know that it doesn't.

To say with certainty either way on this subject is merely a guess, whether you are right or wrong.

atheism is more knowing it is unlikely that god exists. of course you know that although you cant possibly prove with 100% certainty invisible dragons dont exist, it is just extremely unlikely. which is why when someone asks you "do you believe in invisible dragons?" you say "no, thats absurd", and not "hmm, i am not sure, i would only be guessing to say that they do or dont..."; this in my opinion is atheism.

While you can make subtypes till the cows come home the core of the respective positions remains as follows:

Theism - Affirms the claim 'god exists'
Atheism - Affirms the claim 'god does not exist'
Agnosticism - Affirms neither claim

You can similarly capture each position in terms of belief (that 'god exists, that 'god does not exist' or neither). The question of why one does or does not affirm each statement will lead us down the path of subtyping but, to my eye, these are the core differences between the positions. I tend to fall on the borderline between atheism/agnosticism myself. In particular I think that the variety of conceptions of god make a blanket atheism difficult to maintain.

 

[michael1990]

This is just a topic that will go on and on!

it will never end until there is proof, but even then it will not completely end.

You will prob get religious fights in this thread as well

 

[esquared]

haha, this thread is still going.

 

[SashatheMan]

If God created the world, who created God?

me?

 

[Gerald10]

do you believe weak atheism is irrational?

If you believe that its extremely unlikely that God exists, that is not irrational because you can back it up with evidence. But you cannot back up that God definatively doesn't exist.

Don't quote me on the weak atheism thing either, there's different categories for example some people are atheist merely because they haven't really thought about the possibility, some people claim to know, some people presume that He doesn't exist.

 

[BradCube]

No, not really. I don't think that "god exists" is a good candidate for a properly basic belief either. It strikes me as too complex and not nearly apparent enough. The fact that belief in god is largely dictated by local context is enough to suggest that, unlike basic logical laws, it is not always something that the educated mind will jump at.

I came across a better description today in my reading of how properly basic beliefs relate to the the existence of God. I had originally thought (as I think you did to) that properly basic belief in God made it rational to simply conclude that God exist. That conclusion didn't follow for either of us.

The explanation I read today referred to idea that just as we have properly basic beliefs about our experiences of reality, one can have properly basic beliefs about their experiences with God. It was pretty heavily emphasized that this is not a scientific proof of God that can be used in discussion with people, but more than enough to maintain an individuals belief even with no other basis for it.

Ie, a person doesn't have to question their experiences with God any more than their experiences with physical vision.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Ie, a person doesn't have to question their experiences with God any more than their experiences with physical vision.

This is probably true. However there are several lines of inquiry that we can use to confirm physical vision, what is there to confirm someones God experience?

 

[BradCube]

This is probably true. However there are several lines of inquiry that we can use to confirm physical vision, what is there to confirm someones God experience?

Well I suppose someone could say their prayers being answered, having a conversation with God etc could be seen as confirmation but this seems to be external to what I am talking about. Even if we can confirm our physical vision by picking up an object that we see or something similar, this only confirms what we believe is a properly basic belief about vision (ie, it's a bit circular). How would you go about proving that the external world exists without these properly basic beliefs?

Would you be able to prove for example that your are not simply a brain in a vat being stimulated with electrodes by a scientist? This idea is ridiculous because we rely on properly basic beliefs to carry out our lives. So in this way, there is no way to prove or confirm this properly basic beliefs because they are properly basic - going back any further in proofs is seen to be unnecessary.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Essentially it doesn't matter whether we're a brain in a vat, we have our constructed reality and it is as real as anything we know.

My point is that I'd say in other aspects of your life you'll be more willing to believe something is true if it is confirmed in a number of different ways. i.e. we can perform double-blinded experiments to confirm the existence of certain things (as well as we can confirm the existence of anything in our reality), however these personal god experiences cannot be tested in any way, they will always just be locked in the mind of the person having the experience.

Now we know (imo) fairly well that people can go insane and have personal experiences which they feel are real, but are not (we know this because we can induce such experiences). It seems more likely in my opinion, if you honestly believe you are talking to a deity, that you would be slightly insane than that it is real. However, my guess would be that most of these 'experiences' aren't so much like a 'conversation with god' as just the sort of uplifting feelings that most people have, you just attribute it to god *shrug*

 

[KFunk]

I came across a better description today in my reading of how properly basic beliefs relate to the the existence of God. I had originally thought (as I think you did to) that properly basic belief in God made it rational to simply conclude that God exist. That conclusion didn't follow for either of us.

The explanation I read today referred to idea that just as we have properly basic beliefs about our experiences of reality, one can have properly basic beliefs about their experiences with God. It was pretty heavily emphasized that this is not a scientific proof of God that can be used in discussion with people, but more than enough to maintain an individuals belief even with no other basis for it.

Ie, a person doesn't have to question their experiences with God any more than their experiences with physical vision.

Hmm, the main problem with this, I would suggest, is that it looses sight of the process of belief revision over time. In other words, while experiences may give us prima facie reasons to form certain beliefs about the world, these beliefs may nonetheless be revised in light of further experiences. For example, I may hear bird sounds whilst sitting at my desk, leading me to form the belief 'there are birds singing outside my window'. However, if I get up to find food and discover that someone is watching a bird documentary on the TV outside my room then I may have reason to revise my initial belief and decide that there were no birds singing outside my window, even though it seemed that way.

Similarly, I think there may exist experiences or bits of evidence which undermine the claim that one has 'experienced god' (or similar). These pieces of evidence may come from neuroscience (e.g. by giving a neurobiological account of transcendental experienc), psychiatry (looking at how one can weave a 'god' narrative around certain experiences) or sociology (examining how social arrangements work to 'construct' certain religious expeirences)... etc. etc.

In any case, I don't think it is as simple as 'experience and accept'. There is room for revision here.

 

[BradCube]

Yup, so I am in agreement with all of you here, but that is why I stated that this properly basic belief of God can never be used in itself to be proof to another individual. Without any reason to think otherwise, I would still hold that for the individual this is an acceptable belief to hold. I think we are pretty much in agreement here though. This is why the insane person believes what they do, and this is why we believe what we do - that is until we have reason to revise or think otherwise.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Without any reason to think otherwise, I would still hold that for the individual this is an acceptable belief to hold. I think we are pretty much in agreement here though

But there are reasons to think otherwise... i.e. we know that minds can play tricks on people, we do not know that there is an omnipotent deity.

 

[BradCube]

But there are reasons to think otherwise... i.e. we know that minds can play tricks on people, we do not know that there is an omnipotent deity.

Yup true. We have a few things at factor here though. Many people which have a properly basic belief in God would not think to associate that belief with insanity or something similar until they are confronted with it (and not all people are confronted with this).

Many would disregard the assertion that they have mental problems on the basis of the sanity in relation to the rest of their life. Whether they have good reason to do so is another issue, but I don't think many that believe in God would automatically question their sanity (especially when coupled with other reasons they may have for posing the existence of God)

Your second point about them not knowing there is an omnipotent deity seems pretty circular in logic. ie, they cannot believe God exists, because they do not know God exists? This doesn't work for a person that whole heartedly believes God exists through properly basic believes however since they do believe it is possible to know God exists, and in fact they feel that they do!

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Yup true. We have a few things at factor here though. Many people which have a properly basic belief in God would not think to associate that belief with insanity or something similar until they are confronted with it (and not all people are confronted with this).

You seem to be arguing that belief in God is logical when people are ignorant? I think self-criticism should be fairly important to any person. I've had many experiences where I've thought I've seen someone out of the corner of my eye and such, I recognise that it's a trick of my mind though because the proposition that it's really a ghost (or other apparition) is so extraordinary that I'd require much more evidence than just my experiences.

Your second point about them not knowing there is an omnipotent deity seems pretty circular in logic. ie, they cannot believe God exists, because they do not know God exists? This doesn't work for a person that whole heartedly believes God exists through properly basic believes however since they do believe it is possible to know God exists, and in fact they feel that they do!

Whether you believe God exists or not, surely you have to admit that issues with the brain are more firmly evidenced truths than the existence of God? I've been told the whole faith struggle is about coming to grips with the frailty of the evidence for God. This is why I say we KNOW people can hallucinate/be tricked by their mind, but we don't KNOW God exists, as much as you believe he does...