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Originally Posted by live.fast
belief, blind belief, whatever. If you believe, you believe. The 'belief' of all 'gods' of all religions is based on 'blind belief', by the very fact that most atheists seem to be able to counter any credible source of belief (e.g. bible, etc) so all religious belief ends up being blind. That's the point of faith.
Er, no. Belief that is not blind is belief with at least a hint of scepticism and an open mind. Anyone who believes totally, without even an iota of doubt, is, of course, a blind believer. Those who believe on what they deem a balance of probabilities are probably the most rational believers, and the least fundamentalist ones. Those 'believers' are essentially agnostics at heart, but too idealistic to admit as much. The vast majority of people, even if they're superficially religious, are probably agnostics.
Then believing in God, with skepticism, makes no sense. That’s not true religious belief. You either believe, or you don’t, because having part belief, and part skepticism is not true faith. A believer of religion of course has to be a blind believer, because most ‘proof’ of their belief can be countered by reason, scientific argument etc…except for whether God exists. That’s where the point of having true, pure faith lies.
‘Those 'believers' are essentially agnostics at heart, but too idealistic to admit as much. The vast majority of people, even if they're superficially religious, are probably agnostics.’
That’s what we call a generalization.
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And with the Atheist's wager, does that mean an Atheist believes he will end up being rewarded whichever way? that it's an atheist that's got the win win situation? Because, if it was like that, then what's the point of believing in God? We could all have lived by our own principles of morality without Him having asked us to believe, and He could have just judged us based on our actions then, right? So then, it becomes illogical for a believer to believe.
Pretty much. Irrespective of whatever a supposed God thinks, the moral and just athiest is a better man than the corrupt and evil believer. The vast majority of believers are nothing more than god-fearers - "I'd better show up to Church on Sunday, otherwise I'll burn in hell. But I'll still make time for cheating on my wife and embezzling company funds". Hypocrisy much?
What I’m pointing out is that if the atheist and the believer were on par morally, etc, then what is going to separate the believer from the atheist in God’s eyes?
Maybe the fact that the atheist had the chance to believe, to continue to do good things, but in good faith too, and didn’t?
If the atheist and believer are equal in morality and action etc, then there is no point in believing, because the rewards would have been equal – then why believe?
Because that’s the point of separation – those who believe, from those who don’t – We wouldn’t have been asked to believe, if there was no point to it either way.
The vast majority of believers are nothing more than god-fearers
Another generalization
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That whole thing is like saying, hey, i'll go to reconciliation at church every sunday, and so i'm allowed to sin every other time of the week, because my sin's go away every time i ask for forgiveness. -- in a case like that, the actions and processes etc are logical, so then what's wrong with it? The idea behind it is, the way the person's mind is working to think that that's okay. In that same way, an atheist won't be in a win-win situation, if only for the fact that he realized and knew he was taking advantage of such a 'win-win' situation. The same for those who 'believe' in God because it's a win-win situation. Unless such belief ends up becoming true belief, that's also futile too.
Um, actually, it's nothing like that. Try reading through my description of the Wager again.
I did. I was just trying to link it to that point of difference – between a believer and an atheist.
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But keeping an open mind and reading everything
I agree, but I see alot of close-mindedness from theists and little from agnostics/atheists. I think it is important to reinterate that being open-minded means you're open to all sorts of differing points of view/possibilities - it does not mean you have to agree with them or even be civil in your disagreement.
close-mindedness from theists and little from agnostics/atheists
Generalization
And the ‘close-mindedness’ that you see from theists, is called FAITH.
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It is a doctrine of the Church that faith does not come to us through reason alone, but by the grace of God.
More than likely it actually comes from the beliefs your parents handed down to you, but eh whatever.
You parents believed in God. That doesn’t mean you have to. THAT’S always a choice.
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If a person opposes even the possiblity of God's existence, then any arguments or evidence can be rationalized away.
No atheist I have ever met opposes the POSSIBILITY of God's existance. It is possible that god exists, but if he does he is currently outside of our current realm of knowledge and thus it makes no sense to imagine that he does.
I’m pretty sure the definition of an Atheist is someone who doesn’t believe God exists. Otherwise, he’d be a theist. If you don’t believe He exists, then how can you still believe there’s a possibility of He’s existence?
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any amount of belief in God has to come from your own spirit, from within your own heart, because it is the spirit of God that we are trying to find.
There are only two ways to go about comming up with an answer to a question, either through reason... or through bad reasoning.
Or maybe faith?
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But if you do not want to believe in God, you never will.
No atheist that I have ever met DOES NOT want to believe in the happy little god story that so many people accept. Alot may however not want to believe in say... the Old testament god.
I think you might be confused tho, you see... atheists don't not believe in God because they don't like the idea - it's because they can't because there's not enough proof for them.
It’s called faith…
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There can be no scientific proof, simply because God is not physical or material, He is spiritual and infinite
If there can be no scientific proof than why do I need to even imagine that it exists? There are so many things that could possibly exist if we decide things exist outside of what science can prove, so which exist and which don't? You say 'look to your spirit/heart', I say that's just wishful thinking and it isn't rational.
Do you love you parents? Do you have a partner you love? Well the idea of love is irrational – there’s no scientific proof that love, past being a notion, exists as it does – perhaps the idea of chemical brain processes is alluring to you, but love seems to be beyond the sum of its parts – beyond the physicalities like brain chemicals, love is an abstract notion for which there is no rationality to explain what it is physically, because it’s not physical – so if you’ve ever loved someone, well I guess that’s you believing in something you shouldn’t think exists.
