My belief in God comes from a lot of thinking on cause and effect.
I believe that somewhere, in the beginning, something had to be the cause of quite literally everything, and when you keep going back, eventually you have to run into something that has no cause. My God is just the thing that existed before all else, had no cause, and did something to result in everything else.
I feel that this being may or may not have intended to create.
I feel that this being may or may not have any direct impact on all of creation today, I tend to believe not.
I feel that this being may have known that we would be a result of its initial creation, but I tend to believe not.
Does/Did God specifically shape the universe? Potentially.
Does/Did God shape it in a specific way the resulted in us, as God intended? Potentially, but I believe not.
Is there an afterlife? Potentially, but I resolve it like this: God knows more than I do; is a lot smarter than I am.
If God wants there should be an afterlife, then there is. If there isn't, it's because God knows there shouldn't be, and who am I to argue with that?
Maybe God doesn't even control what happens when we die? Maybe it would like to, but cannot, just like we cannot control what happens when we kill an ant.
To ants, we may seem all powerful, and can guide their lives if we so choose, we can give food, move colonies, travel unimaginable distances and view their lives from all angles, or even bring death, but we cannot control past our own limitations.
Maybe God has a creator; a God. Maybe God's-God created it, and our God created time. Maybe God exists outside time, seeing all events simultaneously from beginning to end, or not seeing any of it at all.
To summarize, I don't know any of these answers, but God does, and that's good enough for me.
If there isn't a God, it's because there shouldn't be, and if there is, it's because there should.
Either way my beliefs aren't going to effect the outcome.
But I like to believe there is. Everything else is just speculation.
Which, by the way, I'm ok with. I like that people try to figure out the great truths of our universe and those beyond.
I wish I could live forever so I could see what truths mankind reveals.
I just don't like that people go as far as KILLING one another, because of something they were told at one time, and continue to believe.
Your parents told you that Jesus is God, while someone else's parents told him that Allah is God, and neither of you can be SURE which is correct, because there is no way to derive the truth on our mortal plane. Both of you find evidence that your belief is true, so you assume yours is the right one, so you kill each other.
It's like two colorblind men fighting to the death because someone told one of them a piece of paper he's holding up is yellow, and someone else told the other one that the paper is green, when in fact the paper is white.
We're all colorblind when it comes to God, and none of us know better than anyone else.
If you aren't opposed to watching things which may conflict with your beliefs, check out Stephen Hawking on Discovery, his latest research yielded a theory that basically negates everything I believe.
In essence, he goes through a lot of science to prove that in subatomic particles, neutrons basically pop into and out of existence without a cause. He feels that this is sufficient proof that a singularity with infinite mass and density could have popped into existence, sparking the big bang. An effect with no cause. He also argues that this is when time began, and concludes that God need not exist to create the universe (which could be true) and also that there was no time before this point in which God could have existed to create anything.
However, I feel that he jumps to his conclusion without sufficient proof, and I'm not alone in this. Others far smarter than I share this feeling. Specifically, in the multiverse theory, there's many ideas as to why something can seem to pop into and out of existence. Perhaps it just slips between the universes, never actually popping out of existence, just into another plane, or another universe. Perhaps our universe was created when two other universes touched momentarily, or it was created as Hawking describes, but perhaps this singularity came from another universe; it could have even been sent here from beings in another universe.
Until we gain a greater understanding of how the universe works, we cannot arrive at a truth on how the universe came to be. I do feel that we'll gain a greater understanding of God when we unlock our own universe's secrets, though.
But does God exist? Who knows. I just like to believe it does.
I ask you once again: In light of the fact that you need not have evidence to believe in god, and you need not have evidence to believe in faries, what is the factor that causes you to believe in god rather than faries?
http://dictionary.reference.com/
believe (verb): to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so
freedom (noun): the power to determine action without restraint
choose (verb): to select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference
I don't think either one of us have deviated from that definition, but I do thank you for providing it.
Because I have the freedom to choose whatever I want to believe.
I never disputed your freedom to choose what you believe in. I simply asked you why you (with that freedom) chose one thing to believe in over another.
There is history, witnesses, unexplained miracles that all point to a God (that I choose to believe is true), where faries and unicorns do not. Now don't try to say that I must now believe in Bigfoot because there's eyewitnesses that have seen Bigfoot; I choose not to believe Bigfoot exists. The history, books, witnesses that account for God is much more than a blurry photo of "Bigfoot."
Ah, you see, this is an attempt to produce evidence. As I thought, you do have a desire to appropriate your belief with evidence (and turn it from belief into knowledge). Unfortunately, neither history, nor the reported witness, nor the report of miracles evidence the existing of god any more than the writting of celtic mystics evidence the existence of faries. There were certainly claims made by celts that faries had been witnessed, miracles performed by faries, and a history of faries in the affairs of humankind. None of it is substantiated by these accounts and neither are the passages of the bible. In-fact I would have to assert that the blurry photo of big-foot (and I don't hold a belief in that creature either) is better evidence than the bible is for a supreme being. We can scrutinize the photo and find out more about what is in the picture. So far, archeology and anthropology have disputed much more than they have upheld from the "history," imparted by the bible. Furthermore, I have not yet heard of an evidenced miracle.
The fact of the matter is, you have a belief in god that is based upon your belief in the book we call the bible being a factual text and thereby being a body of evidence for the god inferred by that text. This; however, is not a reason at all. Belief based upon anothe belief does not explain the belief at all. What is it that makes those beliefs you hold, from the bible, more compelling than the beliefs you might be asked to hold from Beowulf or the Qur'an, the Rig Vedas, or The Book of Mormon? All of these texts make incredible claims that are not backed up by evidence and all of these texts, if taken as a belief to justify belief in god, require you to have some idea as to why you choose them over other beliefs.
Something I think you are missing is that just because I believe God is real, doesn't mean you have to believe it. God can be real to me, and fake for you, at the same exact time and place. I see God in the wind that blows through trees, the sounds of nature, the taste of peanut M&M's (yummm), the peace I get when I pray... I do not have a personal connection with unicorns and faires, I don't believe they hear my prayers or created the universe. Why? Because I the freedom to choose my beliefs.
I never insisted that you, or anyone believing in god assumed that I had to believe aswell. If, indeed, your god was real then I would not be wrong because I have no asserted that your god is not real to you or me. I insist that there is no evidence for god. I insist that there is no evidence for the beliefs that you use to justify your belief in god.
I am pointing out to you that you have no evidence for a personal connection with god, the miracles in the bible, the often-misleading history of the bible, any more so than you have evidence a personal connection with faries. Again, I never questioned your ability to choose the things that you believe in. I have asked you to display the ideas that have caused you to choose the beliefs that make up your basis for a belief in that god. I want to know the characteristics of those beliefs that makes them more appealing to you. I want to know why the belief in faries is something that you are willing to dismiss, but the equally non-evident belief in bible miracles is something you will not dismiss.
I'm not going to attempt to answer you anymore. All you do is shrug off the main point: Because I have the freedom to choose whatever I want to believe.
I have the freedom to dismiss whatever I want, fairy or bigfoot. I have conceded to you over and over there will never be evidence; but you don't need evidence to believe (or dismiss) something. Humans are not single-tracked creatures. We can think and do whatever we want (as long as it doesn't harm anyone else); and people (like you) try to make it wrong to believe without proof. Trust me, I wish I could believe dragons and dark elves were real, I love reading R. A. Salvatore books, but I choose to dismiss them as fantasy.
I believe God is real. Therefor my God is real. End of story.
My belief in God comes from a lot of thinking on cause and effect.
I believe that somewhere, in the beginning, something had to be the cause of quite literally everything, and when you keep going back, eventually you have to run into something that has no cause. My God is just the thing that existed before all else, had no cause, and did something to result in everything else.
I feel that this being may or may not have intended to create.
I feel that this being may or may not have any direct impact on all of creation today, I tend to believe not.
I feel that this being may have known that we would be a result of its initial creation, but I tend to believe not.
Does/Did God specifically shape the universe? Potentially.
Does/Did God shape it in a specific way the resulted in us, as God intended? Potentially, but I believe not.
I've done this a few times already, but I suppose it bears repeating:
If you assume that the universe had a beginning and infer that god did it, why then will you not accept that god had a beginning? This does nothing for our understanding of the concept. It is an added complication to the universe rather than a bit of evidence for the existence of god. We do not any more know that the universe needed a god or a beginning than we know that it did not. What i've contiued to ask is why that belief comes about in the first place when we do not need it to explain anything and when we grant it, it yet-again does not explain anything either? It does little for us to reflect on how or why god created the universe if we are not able to even suspect that there was a creation to the universe.
Is there an afterlife? Potentially, but I resolve it like this: God knows more than I do; is a lot smarter than I am.
If God wants there should be an afterlife, then there is. If there isn't, it's because God knows there shouldn't be, and who am I to argue with that?
But, you have not even granted in your own words that the concept of god has intelligence. That it can know things more than we, in the universe, can know things is not established. You have skipped a great many steps and inserted an omnipotent and omnisient god. This is precisely the kind of intellectual dishonesty that i've been trying to point out time and again. I understand that many of us are pre-conditioned to simply assume this kind of god is out there, but what I have said is that we do not have any reason to do so. Why, then, with all our rational dealings in our daily lives, do we suspend out logic and reason to speak about this kind of thing. It doesn't help us understand things or live better. It simply asserts and answers that we have no business asserting and accomplishes nothing along the way.
Maybe God doesn't even control what happens when we die? Maybe it would like to, but cannot, just like we cannot control what happens when we kill an ant.
To ants, we may seem all powerful, and can guide their lives if we so choose, we can give food, move colonies, travel unimaginable distances and view their lives from all angles, or even bring death, but we cannot control past our own limitations.
Maybe God has a creator; a God. Maybe God's-God created it, and our God created time. Maybe God exists outside time, seeing all events simultaneously from beginning to end, or not seeing any of it at all.
Again, I don't see the point in speculating about the forms and methods of this god if we have no even established that it is evident the universe is requiring a god to exist. We may as well speculate about what kind of computer-driven machines controll the matrix we are all plugged into. We have no evidence to suggest to us that we are plugged into the matrix, but still we could set about wondering how we are under the control of those machines and perhaps what the motives were. Why do we not do this instead or aswell?
To summarize, I don't know any of these answers, but God does, and that's good enough for me.
If there isn't a God, it's because there shouldn't be, and if there is, it's because there should.
Either way my beliefs aren't going to effect the outcome.
But I like to believe there is. Everything else is just speculation.
Neither of us know the answers, but you are asserting an answer the moment you assert that there is a god who does. I hope you realize that.
Which, by the way, I'm ok with. I like that people try to figure out the great truths of our universe and those beyond.
I wish I could live forever so I could see what truths mankind reveals.
I too, like that people try to figure out how the universe around them works. I too, wish I could live much, much longer and bask in all the great revelations of understanding and new evidence that comes avalible to us. The problem, in our case, is that asserting god does not help us do this. Neither does a lack of assertion ofg god prevent us from doing this.
I just don't like that people go as far as KILLING one another, because of something they were told at one time, and continue to believe.
Your parents told you that Jesus is God, while someone else's parents told him that Allah is God, and neither of you can be SURE which is correct, because there is no way to derive the truth on our mortal plane. Both of you find evidence that your belief is true, so you assume yours is the right one, so you kill each other.
This is a good point that I've made before. Where one is brought up, and at what point in history they are brought up, has everything to do with wether or not they assert a belief in god or what kind of god they believe in. This, I think, says much more about the assumption that human beings created the cognitive concept of god than they do evidence a truth about the existence of a god. There is not a great deal of cross-compatable ontology between the world's religions. They compound social mores, they offer justifications for long-standing traditions, and they are not something that implies a transcendent and impartial deliberation to all peoples.
It's like two colorblind men fighting to the death because someone told one of them a piece of paper he's holding up is yellow, and someone else told the other one that the paper is green, when in fact the paper is white.
I would say it's more like two men sitting at a table with nothing on it either man can see, arguging about the color of a piece of silverware that they both believe to be there. One man argues that it is a spoon, another man argues it is a knife. They disagree about how it came to be there, what it looks like, how it functions, the reason that it is there at all, and what it means to both men. In the end, neither man has any evidence to assume that there is anything there at all and the argument is absolutely pointless.
If you aren't opposed to watching things which may conflict with your beliefs, check out Stephen Hawking on Discovery, his latest research yielded a theory that basically negates everything I believe.
In essence, he goes through a lot of science to prove that in subatomic particles, neutrons basically pop into and out of existence without a cause. He feels that this is sufficient proof that a singularity with infinite mass and density could have popped into existence, sparking the big bang. An effect with no cause. He also argues that this is when time began, and concludes that God need not exist to create the universe (which could be true) and also that there was no time before this point in which God could have existed to create anything.
However, I feel that he jumps to his conclusion without sufficient proof, and I'm not alone in this. Others far smarter than I share this feeling. Specifically, in the multiverse theory, there's many ideas as to why something can seem to pop into and out of existence. Perhaps it just slips between the universes, never actually popping out of existence, just into another plane, or another universe. Perhaps our universe was created when two other universes touched momentarily, or it was created as Hawking describes, but perhaps this singularity came from another universe; it could have even been sent here from beings in another universe.
He isn't just jumping to a conclusion that god necessarily does not exist. He, like many before him, has understood another level of complexity to the universe and informed us that there need not be a god to make it all work. As I have said again and again, we need not say there is no god, we need only admit that we have no need for one just as we have no evidence for one.
Until we gain a greater understanding of how the universe works, we cannot arrive at a truth on how the universe came to be. I do feel that we'll gain a greater understanding of God when we unlock our own universe's secrets, though.
But does God exist? Who knows. I just like to believe it does.
But how much knowledge of the universe do we need to arrive at truth? Again, we have no even begun to reach a point where we might justifiable infer a place that we need god in order to have the universe funciton. Thusly, I see no reason for you to assume that we are progressing toward and understanding of this, currently useless, concept. As you yourself just said, we do not know that god exists. Why then, should we hamstring our reason and insist on thinking about not-only the belief/concept that he does, but anything else related to that irrational and unnecessary concept?
I'm not going to attempt to answer you anymore. All you do is shrug off the main point: Because I have the freedom to choose whatever I want to believe.
I never shrugged anything off, I accepted you at your word. I granted in each post that you could believe in whatever you wanted. All I asked was that you explain the ideas that made you believe in one thing instead of another.
I have the freedom to dismiss whatever I want, fairy or bigfoot. I have conceded to you over and over there will never be evidence; but you don't need evidence to believe (or dismiss) something. Humans are not single-tracked creatures. We can think and do whatever we want (as long as it doesn't harm anyone else); and people (like you) try to make it wrong to believe without proof. Trust me, I wish I could believe dragons and dark elves were real, I love reading R. A. Salvatore books, but I choose to dismiss them as fantasy.
You do have a freedom to believe or disblieve in whatever you want. You have conceded that evidence makes no diffirence to you (although your inference to the bible suggest to me that is no genuine). I did not infer that humans were "single-track," creatures and I don't know what you meant to say there. You can think about whatever you want, even if it does harm other people. I do trust that you will think anything you like, as I know that is what I will do aswell. All I want to know is what kind of ideas are in your head that cause you to have a belief in one unevident thing over another? I know you CAN choose. I just want to know WHY you choose the ones you DO choose.
I believe God is real. Therefor my God is real. End of story.
If I believed that faries were real, would that mean that they are real? I can assure you at some point in, not too distant, irish history there were MANY people who strongly believed in faries for many thousands of years. What do you make of that?
Actually i didn't want to put belief and theory as two similar things but ok let's go there. What i wanted to say was that theories change, facts change, what we know to be right today, won't be right tomorrow and at the same time scientists put all of their "beliefs" in the theories which persist currently... until they change. It is the same with belief. People believe what is currently helping them, until the need for change in belief occurs and voala... new religion is born. And why wouldn't the evolution of religion be just as valuable as the progress of technology? There is a certain way of understanding among people that the two don't mix, but one is just as important as the other. You cannot in all certainty tell me that the world would have turned out better if we only had the scientific progress without any religions. The two are integral parts in our evolution as a species and not wanting to accept the one just because it makes "no sense" doesn't really help you.
I think I was quite concise on the point that theories, as a part of science, are advanced by evidence, testing, and our pursuance of facts. Beliefs have no such structure. This argument that belief and theory are kin in some way is nonsense for obvious reasons. If new evidence is presented that overturns a theory, it is immidiately discareded, reworked, and a lot of science is written anew to better reflect our understanding. If a belief is overturned by evidence there is no such recourse. People get angry that their beliefs are being questioned. Some disregard those beliefs, some of them simply lash out against the things that unfound their belief, but nowhere is there the absolutely progressive system of continued understanding that you find in our scientific pursuite of a better understanding of things in belief systems.
I have no fear, doubts and big questions BECAUSE i believe in something bigger than me, and once again this is purely a subjective matter. To you it is vice versa, but to me if i didn't believe then i would be afraid. The whole point i am trying to make in those posts is that you in all intents and purposes are judging other people's way of looking at things, because you refuse to try and accept it. It is no better than the way some Christians and Muslims don't want to accept the other side's views and fighting breaks out.
This is simply not necessary. You have no fear, neither do I. Neither one of us requires "something bigger than me," in order to lack a fear of the unknown. To infer that anything is necessary to provide what we understand to have already is an absolutely fruitless assertion. I can say that I am brave and that is because I have a guardian angel. That does not mean that there are necessarily guardian angels and they are the source of bravery. It offers an explanation of nothing. I don't refuse the concept of god any more than I refuse my guardian angel concept. What I do say is that we have no need of such things and no evidence for such things, so why are we infering them?
This is absolutely diffirent than christians and muslims arguging because, and I addressed this before aswell, those two would both be arguing from positions of absolute truth. They have two beliefs and do not care about the evidence. I have nothing but evidence and am pointing out why the beliefs don't make any diffirence, or help to explain anything. I am not in the inscrutible position of one with certitude. I am in the honest position of one who has considered what he does know and insisted upon what he does not know. As you can see, I am not prone to violence and i've been extremely patient and consistent in my explanation and assertions. I do not need to be violence, I do not need to be absolutist because I have no such belief that would require me to demand the negation of a certain god. Whereas, the muslim (or christian) would need to absolutely dispute that the other description of god was invalid otherwise their own belief system would be nonsense.
All I am insisting here, is that no such concept is required. We have not established, at any point, that there is a need for such a thing.
Just to try and get the point across let me say it again. No such concept is required for YOU. The need for such a thing is once again, purely subjective in the end and as such no truth is truer than the other, and no, empirical evidence, truth does not make in the end. Just as a simple example, photons can be at two places at once, UNLESS they are observed. So what is truth here? All we can do is theorize in the end. Scientists say that it is an evidence of multiple universes and philosophers say that it is an evidence of the absolute subjective manner of the Universe. No one concept is truer than the other.
No such concept is required for the universe. This is not unique to me, nor is it unique to anyone of a certain state of mind or body. Nobody lives in our universe with diffirent laws of physics. We all exist in the same physical realm and it is all governed by the same laws that we are grappling to understand. In the end, we all labor under empirical evidence because that is what actually helps us explain the universe around us. This is required because without it we literally cannot have any understanding. This concept is backed by evidence where belief is not. Philosophers change their understanding based on the knowledge we gaing through the sciences. We must be quite careful not to infer that philosphy has an equal effect on the way that physics is in our universe. That does not make sense at all. Things are not more or less true simply because we want them to be. They are more or less true to us based on the amount of evidence we have for their eixtence and the understandings we can attain about their existence based on observations and experimentation.
If I believed that faries were real, would that mean that they are real? I can assure you at some point in, not too distant, irish history there were MANY people who strongly believed in faries for many thousands of years. What do you make of that?
If you think they are real, so be it. However, if you think faries are some type of physical, intellectual, tangible creature, it would make it possible to disprove their existence. If you think faries are some type of spiritual, invisible, abstract, conceptual thing; then it's your beliefs and experiences that make them real. That doesn't mean they are real for me.
I insist that there is no evidence for the beliefs that you use to justify your belief in god.
What kind evidence would you consider?
1 - Only material evidence? Even if its about a non-material being/whatever. Sry bro nobody can do that.
2 - Peopple's testimony in favor or against? This should never be accepted without proof. Cmon, this is weak even in our dailly basis, we have lies, hallucinations (induced or by ill) and misinterpretations of all kinds. Whitout evidence it is nothing (back to 1). Can't do this.
Conclusion: with what we have today, science wise, there´s absolutelly no chance to prove, in your terms, something like a "god".
But if you use the so called "racionality" you'll see that science can't explain a lot of things, and I'm not talking about lack of tecnology, that can be solved with time. I'm talking about real logic problems like:
1 - when was the beggining? Big Bang. OK. But what was the cause to the energy be so compact in the first place. And before that, what we had? Things can't be created from nothing, energy just change its atributes, it doesn't just apear. In the end you would have to admit that something had to came from nowhere. What you do?
2 - Where´s the end and whats happens there? Universe is in expansion, so there´s must be a limit line (even if its a growning one) that separates "universe" from "nothingness". What happens over there? Science can't explain Infinite and Nothingness (don´t confund it with space vacuum)
This is getting too much philosophical for my taste, but your own accepted logic fails when you go outside the safety box. And what remains, a vague idea beyond matter that some marketing guy milleniuns ago called god
If I believed that faries were real, would that mean that they are real? I can assure you at some point in, not too distant, irish history there were MANY people who strongly believed in faries for many thousands of years. What do you make of that?
If you think they are real, so be it. However, if you think faries are some type of physical, intellectual, tangible creature, it would make it possible to disprove their existence. If you think faries are some type of spiritual, invisible, abstract, conceptual thing; then it's your beliefs and experiences that make them real. That doesn't mean they are real for me.
What do you mean by "so be it?" Does that mean they are real to you or to the universe in general? I never inferred that they were physical, tangible, etc. I asserted them in the same manner you were asserting god. That means they were necessarily non-evident and that they only exist in the same sense that your god does, because I believe that they do.
If my beliefs and experiences do make them real, then they are necessarily real for you, because I live in the same universe you do.
If I believed that faries were real, would that mean that they are real? I can assure you at some point in, not too distant, irish history there were MANY people who strongly believed in faries for many thousands of years. What do you make of that?
If you think they are real, so be it. However, if you think faries are some type of physical, intellectual, tangible creature, it would make it possible to disprove their existence. If you think faries are some type of spiritual, invisible, abstract, conceptual thing; then it's your beliefs and experiences that make them real. That doesn't mean they are real for me.
What do you mean by "so be it?" Does that mean they are real to you or to the universe in general? I never inferred that they were physical, tangible, etc. I asserted them in the same manner you were asserting god. That means they were necessarily non-evident and that they only exist in the same sense that your god does, because I believe that they do.
If my beliefs and experiences do make them real, then they are necessarily real for you, because I live in the same universe you do.
You obviously didn't comprehend my post.
it's your beliefs and experiences that make them real
If I don't have the same beliefs and experiences, then they are not real for me.
If my beliefs and experiences do make them real, then they are necessarily real for you, because I live in the same universe you do.
You can't bring science into something that can't be scientifically explained. I'm not suggesting I believe what I'm about to say is true, but will say in for the sake of argument (sense you are trying to rationalize God and faries and a physical way). What if we each have our own spiritual realm? Then my God and your faries can co-exist without intersecting universes.
I insist that there is no evidence for the beliefs that you use to justify your belief in god.
What kind evidence would you consider?
1 - Only material evidence? Even if its about a non-material being/whatever. Sry bro nobody can do that.
2 - Peopple's testimony in favor or against? This should never be accepted without proof. Cmon, this is weak even in our dailly basis, we have lies, hallucinations (induced or by ill) and misinterpretations of all kinds. Whitout evidence it is nothing (back to 1). Can't do this.
Conclusion: with what we have today, science wise, there´s absolutelly no chance to prove, in your terms, something like a "god".
People's testimony is not empirical evidence, i'm afraid. And I agree, we absolutely cannot prove a god any more than we can disprove a god based on empirical evidence. But, we should not take the next mistaken step of assuming that this is a blank-check to infer whatever we want about a god that we have no reason to suppose exists at all.
But if you use the so called "racionality" you'll see that science can't explain a lot of things, and I'm not talking about lack of tecnology, that can be solved with time. I'm talking about real logic problems like:
1 - when was the beggining? Big Bang. OK. But what was the cause to the energy be so compact in the first place. And before that, what we had? Things can't be created from nothing, energy just change its atributes, it doesn't just apear. In the end you would have to admit that something had to came from nowhere. What you do?
2 - Where´s the end and whats happens there? Universe is in expansion, so there´s must be a limit line (even if its a growning one) that separates "universe" from "nothingness". What happens over there? Science can't explain Infinite and Nothingness (don´t confund it with space vacuum)
We have no reason to assume the universe began at the big-bang any more than we have evidence for the concept that god was the beginning or a god who created god who created god who created god... etc. was there. But, like I said, that is not a license to print whatever we want about some kind of god that "must," have been there. We have no room to assert that. As for science -never- being able to assert thing about the big-bang, prior to it, or what might happen in the "end," I think that is expressing certainty about something we have no room to be certain about. We do not know what we will understand in a hundred years or a thousand years. Why should we asume that science cannot explain those things? We haven't even established that we are talking about the "infinite," or "nothingness," because we cannot describe our universe in that way with certainty.
This is getting too much philosophical for my taste, but your own accepted logic fails when you go outside the safety box. And what remains, a vague idea beyond matter that some marketing guy milleniuns ago called god
My logic hasn't failed me yet, but I invite you to point out where it does. My "box," is not my logic, but where I draw the line of what we have an understanding of and what we have no understanding of. I am unwilling to accept that people must infer something outside our box of understanding because that makes no logical sense. If you are going to tell me that the understanding of our universe we have gained in the last couple thousand years is without value or just as good as the baseless god concept, I invite you to explain to me why that is.
it's your beliefs and experiences that make them real
If I don't have the same beliefs and experiences, then they are not real for me.
No, I understood you, but I disagree that things can be "real," and not exist for everything equally in the universe. That is nonsensical. If faries exist, then they exist for all of us. If god exists, it exists for all of us. That is necessarily true, otherwise we are not living in the same universe. Clearly that is not the case.
If my beliefs and experiences do make them real, then they are necessarily real for you, because I live in the same universe you do.
You can't bring science into something that can't be scientifically explained. I'm not suggesting I believe what I'm about to say is true, but will say in for the sake of argument (sense you are trying to rationalize God and faries and a physical way). What if we each have our own spiritual realm? Then my God and your faries can co-exist without intersecting universes.
I didn't bring science in. You brought it in. You said that something was "real," that implies that it is evident and that it exists in the universe that we all share. I said nothing about god or faires being physical concepts, I was perfectly ok with god and faries, in our example, being completely outside physical access to observation. If we have a spiritual realm that is entirely outside our capability for us to have any empirical knowledge then it is equally likely that faires and god can exist in the universe.
But, that does not explain why you believe in god and not faires. We just established that they are both equally likely to exist or not exist. So, again, why is it that you are choosing to believe in god instead of faries (or anything else we cannot have evidence for)? I would say we have no reason to believe in either one, nor do we have any reason to suppose that there is any realm outside our capability to experience in any way. Not because it is impossible for that realm to exist, but because it does not need to exist. It may well exist, god may well exist, faries may well exist, but why should we pick or choose any of them?
When it comes down to answering your "why" question, the only thing can say without evidence or proof is: I want to believe. I want to believe the Bible is true. I want to believe my God is real.
Why God over faries? I don't care or want to believe the "fairy-tale's" (no pun intended) of fairies. I do want to believe the bible, unexplained phenomena, and testimonies are all "evidence" of God. Is it scientific evidence or proof that God exists, of course not. We've already established we can't prove it either way.
So...
I can't prove God is real.
But I believe God exists.
Why? Because I want to.
If that doesn't explain "why" enough for you... sorry.
When it comes down to answering your "why" question, the only thing can say without evidence or proof is: I want to believe. I want to believe the Bible is true. I want to believe my God is real.
But what makes you want it to be true? I mean, that's a fine answer, but want isn't an idea. It is... a want. Do you want the bible to be literally true? Do you really want to be commanded to stone me to death because i'm gay?
Why God over faries? I don't care or want to believe the "fairy-tale's" (no pun intended) of fairies. I do want to believe the bible, unexplained phenomena, and testimonies are all "evidence" of God. Is it scientific evidence or proof that God exists, of course not. We've already established we can't prove it either way.
I realize you don't want to believe in faires instead of god, but I cannot allow you to assert that unexplained things and inexplicable testimonials are "evidence," (and i'm glad you used quotation marks) of anything. They simply are not evidence at all. Empirical evidence is the only evidence that we have to explain the universe we live in. The universe is not a court of law, unfonded witness testimony is not something we can use to overturn empirical evidence, experiementation, and observation/testing. Indeed we have established that we cannot prove god or disprove god, so I must continue and ask why that god concept is so appealing?
So...
I can't prove God is real.
But I believe God exists.
Why? Because I want to.
If that doesn't explain "why" enough for you... sorry.
But what gives you that want? What is so appealing about that god to you that makes you want it instead of faries? There must be ideas in your head that make you want it. I want a pair of shoes because my feet get sore walking barefoot. I want food because I am hungry. What is the "because," statement that follows your "I want god to exist.." ?
Oh hey guys! Just dropping by to say this is a cool thread, but I guess the thread purpose is unachievable, because the whole concept of gods is they exist, watch upon us and all, but can't be seen or anything, and that "evidence" stuff doesn't even prove anything, so have fun talking
Oh hey guys! Just dropping by to say this is a cool thread, but I guess the thread purpose is unachievable, because the whole concept of gods is they exist, watch upon us and all, but can't be seen or anything, and that "evidence" stuff doesn't even prove anything, so have fun talking
Hi. Thanks for the complements, but I disagree we're just talking. The concepts we are discussing are obvious, yes, but it seem to me a lot of people don't consider where they draw the line between the world where we demand empirical evidence and the belief system where we do not. I want people to think about this and I don't think we have to "prove," anything about "god," in order to do so.
I cannot believe a topic like this has gone on this long. Isn't this discussion more fitting for a religion based forum? I personally don't have to prove anything to anyone. Simply because I don't really care. However the topic caught my eye and my only insight is neutrality. It's just not worth debating.
I cannot believe a topic like this has gone on this long. Isn't this discussion more fitting for a religion based forum? I personally don't have to prove anything to anyone. Simply because I don't really care. However the topic caught my eye and my only insight is neutrality. It's just not worth debating.
This is the General Discussion sub-forum. This consists of most general subjects, limited to, but not including, Science, Politics, Religion, History, Geography, Geology, Astrology, and videos of cats.
There are other sub-forums for non-Diablo related Video games, Diablo related Video Games, and General Off Topic discussions if you would be more interested in those.
Also, and this is directed to nobody in particular, but there are 17 pages in two days. There is no way in hell I am going to read all 17 pages. Why? By the time I finish the 17 page there will be another 17 pages. x.x
I've done this a few times already, but I suppose it bears repeating:
If you assume that the universe had a beginning and infer that god did it, why then will you not accept that god had a beginning? This does nothing for our understanding of the concept. It is an added complication to the universe rather than a bit of evidence for the existence of god. We do not any more know that the universe needed a god or a beginning than we know that it did not. What i've contiued to ask is why that belief comes about in the first place when we do not need it to explain anything and when we grant it, it yet-again does not explain anything either? It does little for us to reflect on how or why god created the universe if we are not able to even suspect that there was a creation to the universe.
Ohhhhhhhh Proletaria... I have already diffused you on this argument. Theres a fact you simply cannot and or willnot and or don't want to understand, and that is that God does not require an origin.
As I have stated multiple times now if god (whatever he or it is) designed the universe ... including time and all that governs it (physics... quantum dynamics) ... these laws do not apply to him. I am going to use a Nerd Metaphor for you... and hope you understand it:
If a dungeon master in D&D decides that it is night time during the campaign he is designing... does that necesarily make it night for him in real life? No, because the DM is simply the creator and he is designing the rules/laws/status of the game.
Time is something that we interpret in order to necesitate an origin for something. As I've said 5x now... the universe holds to the necessity to have an origin as time is part of the universe. Time is NOT part of god... it is the ruling decided by the dungeon master.. it is in the realm of his mind and his creation but not part of his reality.
Ohhhhhhhh Proletaria... I have already diffused you on this argument. Theres a fact you simply cannot and or willnot and or don't want to understand, and that is that God does not require an origin.
As I have stated multiple times now if god (whatever he or it is) designed the universe ... including time and all that governs it (physics... quantum dynamics) ... these laws do not apply to him. I am going to use a Nerd Metaphor for you... and hope you understand it:
If a dungeon master in D&D decides that it is night time during the campaign he is designing... does that necesarily make it night for him in real life? No, because the DM is simply the creator and he is designing the rules/laws/status of the game.
Time is something that we interpret in order to necesitate an origin for something. As I've said 5x now... the universe holds to the necessity to have an origin as time is part of the universe. Time is NOT part of god... it is the ruling decided by the dungeon master.. it is in the realm of his mind and his creation but not part of his reality.
To quote _Salvation "Proletaria you silly goose".
That's awesome. You just proved that Deism could be possible.
Now...what about Theism?
In addition to that, to quote Carl Sagan, "If the general picture, however, of a Big Bang followed by an expanding universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the Universe devoid of matter and then suddenly somehow created, how did that happen? In many cultures the customary answer is that a god or gods created the universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously we must of course ask the next question, where did god come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question. Or, if we say that god always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed, there was no need for a creation, it was always here. These are not easy questions, cosmology brings us face to face with the deepest mysteries. With questions that were once treated only in religion and myth."
Carl Sagan. <3
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I believe that somewhere, in the beginning, something had to be the cause of quite literally everything, and when you keep going back, eventually you have to run into something that has no cause. My God is just the thing that existed before all else, had no cause, and did something to result in everything else.
I feel that this being may or may not have intended to create.
I feel that this being may or may not have any direct impact on all of creation today, I tend to believe not.
I feel that this being may have known that we would be a result of its initial creation, but I tend to believe not.
Does/Did God specifically shape the universe? Potentially.
Does/Did God shape it in a specific way the resulted in us, as God intended? Potentially, but I believe not.
Is there an afterlife? Potentially, but I resolve it like this: God knows more than I do; is a lot smarter than I am.
If God wants there should be an afterlife, then there is. If there isn't, it's because God knows there shouldn't be, and who am I to argue with that?
Maybe God doesn't even control what happens when we die? Maybe it would like to, but cannot, just like we cannot control what happens when we kill an ant.
To ants, we may seem all powerful, and can guide their lives if we so choose, we can give food, move colonies, travel unimaginable distances and view their lives from all angles, or even bring death, but we cannot control past our own limitations.
Maybe God has a creator; a God. Maybe God's-God created it, and our God created time. Maybe God exists outside time, seeing all events simultaneously from beginning to end, or not seeing any of it at all.
To summarize, I don't know any of these answers, but God does, and that's good enough for me.
If there isn't a God, it's because there shouldn't be, and if there is, it's because there should.
Either way my beliefs aren't going to effect the outcome.
But I like to believe there is. Everything else is just speculation.
Which, by the way, I'm ok with. I like that people try to figure out the great truths of our universe and those beyond.
I wish I could live forever so I could see what truths mankind reveals.
I just don't like that people go as far as KILLING one another, because of something they were told at one time, and continue to believe.
Your parents told you that Jesus is God, while someone else's parents told him that Allah is God, and neither of you can be SURE which is correct, because there is no way to derive the truth on our mortal plane. Both of you find evidence that your belief is true, so you assume yours is the right one, so you kill each other.
It's like two colorblind men fighting to the death because someone told one of them a piece of paper he's holding up is yellow, and someone else told the other one that the paper is green, when in fact the paper is white.
We're all colorblind when it comes to God, and none of us know better than anyone else.
If you aren't opposed to watching things which may conflict with your beliefs, check out Stephen Hawking on Discovery, his latest research yielded a theory that basically negates everything I believe.
In essence, he goes through a lot of science to prove that in subatomic particles, neutrons basically pop into and out of existence without a cause. He feels that this is sufficient proof that a singularity with infinite mass and density could have popped into existence, sparking the big bang. An effect with no cause. He also argues that this is when time began, and concludes that God need not exist to create the universe (which could be true) and also that there was no time before this point in which God could have existed to create anything.
However, I feel that he jumps to his conclusion without sufficient proof, and I'm not alone in this. Others far smarter than I share this feeling. Specifically, in the multiverse theory, there's many ideas as to why something can seem to pop into and out of existence. Perhaps it just slips between the universes, never actually popping out of existence, just into another plane, or another universe. Perhaps our universe was created when two other universes touched momentarily, or it was created as Hawking describes, but perhaps this singularity came from another universe; it could have even been sent here from beings in another universe.
Until we gain a greater understanding of how the universe works, we cannot arrive at a truth on how the universe came to be. I do feel that we'll gain a greater understanding of God when we unlock our own universe's secrets, though.
But does God exist? Who knows. I just like to believe it does.
I don't think either one of us have deviated from that definition, but I do thank you for providing it.
I never disputed your freedom to choose what you believe in. I simply asked you why you (with that freedom) chose one thing to believe in over another.
Ah, you see, this is an attempt to produce evidence. As I thought, you do have a desire to appropriate your belief with evidence (and turn it from belief into knowledge). Unfortunately, neither history, nor the reported witness, nor the report of miracles evidence the existing of god any more than the writting of celtic mystics evidence the existence of faries. There were certainly claims made by celts that faries had been witnessed, miracles performed by faries, and a history of faries in the affairs of humankind. None of it is substantiated by these accounts and neither are the passages of the bible. In-fact I would have to assert that the blurry photo of big-foot (and I don't hold a belief in that creature either) is better evidence than the bible is for a supreme being. We can scrutinize the photo and find out more about what is in the picture. So far, archeology and anthropology have disputed much more than they have upheld from the "history," imparted by the bible. Furthermore, I have not yet heard of an evidenced miracle.
The fact of the matter is, you have a belief in god that is based upon your belief in the book we call the bible being a factual text and thereby being a body of evidence for the god inferred by that text. This; however, is not a reason at all. Belief based upon anothe belief does not explain the belief at all. What is it that makes those beliefs you hold, from the bible, more compelling than the beliefs you might be asked to hold from Beowulf or the Qur'an, the Rig Vedas, or The Book of Mormon? All of these texts make incredible claims that are not backed up by evidence and all of these texts, if taken as a belief to justify belief in god, require you to have some idea as to why you choose them over other beliefs.
I never insisted that you, or anyone believing in god assumed that I had to believe aswell. If, indeed, your god was real then I would not be wrong because I have no asserted that your god is not real to you or me. I insist that there is no evidence for god. I insist that there is no evidence for the beliefs that you use to justify your belief in god.
I am pointing out to you that you have no evidence for a personal connection with god, the miracles in the bible, the often-misleading history of the bible, any more so than you have evidence a personal connection with faries. Again, I never questioned your ability to choose the things that you believe in. I have asked you to display the ideas that have caused you to choose the beliefs that make up your basis for a belief in that god. I want to know the characteristics of those beliefs that makes them more appealing to you. I want to know why the belief in faries is something that you are willing to dismiss, but the equally non-evident belief in bible miracles is something you will not dismiss.
I have the freedom to dismiss whatever I want, fairy or bigfoot. I have conceded to you over and over there will never be evidence; but you don't need evidence to believe (or dismiss) something. Humans are not single-tracked creatures. We can think and do whatever we want (as long as it doesn't harm anyone else); and people (like you) try to make it wrong to believe without proof. Trust me, I wish I could believe dragons and dark elves were real, I love reading R. A. Salvatore books, but I choose to dismiss them as fantasy.
I believe God is real. Therefor my God is real. End of story.
I've done this a few times already, but I suppose it bears repeating:
If you assume that the universe had a beginning and infer that god did it, why then will you not accept that god had a beginning? This does nothing for our understanding of the concept. It is an added complication to the universe rather than a bit of evidence for the existence of god. We do not any more know that the universe needed a god or a beginning than we know that it did not. What i've contiued to ask is why that belief comes about in the first place when we do not need it to explain anything and when we grant it, it yet-again does not explain anything either? It does little for us to reflect on how or why god created the universe if we are not able to even suspect that there was a creation to the universe.
But, you have not even granted in your own words that the concept of god has intelligence. That it can know things more than we, in the universe, can know things is not established. You have skipped a great many steps and inserted an omnipotent and omnisient god. This is precisely the kind of intellectual dishonesty that i've been trying to point out time and again. I understand that many of us are pre-conditioned to simply assume this kind of god is out there, but what I have said is that we do not have any reason to do so. Why, then, with all our rational dealings in our daily lives, do we suspend out logic and reason to speak about this kind of thing. It doesn't help us understand things or live better. It simply asserts and answers that we have no business asserting and accomplishes nothing along the way.
Again, I don't see the point in speculating about the forms and methods of this god if we have no even established that it is evident the universe is requiring a god to exist. We may as well speculate about what kind of computer-driven machines controll the matrix we are all plugged into. We have no evidence to suggest to us that we are plugged into the matrix, but still we could set about wondering how we are under the control of those machines and perhaps what the motives were. Why do we not do this instead or aswell?
Neither of us know the answers, but you are asserting an answer the moment you assert that there is a god who does. I hope you realize that.
I too, like that people try to figure out how the universe around them works. I too, wish I could live much, much longer and bask in all the great revelations of understanding and new evidence that comes avalible to us. The problem, in our case, is that asserting god does not help us do this. Neither does a lack of assertion ofg god prevent us from doing this.
This is a good point that I've made before. Where one is brought up, and at what point in history they are brought up, has everything to do with wether or not they assert a belief in god or what kind of god they believe in. This, I think, says much more about the assumption that human beings created the cognitive concept of god than they do evidence a truth about the existence of a god. There is not a great deal of cross-compatable ontology between the world's religions. They compound social mores, they offer justifications for long-standing traditions, and they are not something that implies a transcendent and impartial deliberation to all peoples.
I would say it's more like two men sitting at a table with nothing on it either man can see, arguging about the color of a piece of silverware that they both believe to be there. One man argues that it is a spoon, another man argues it is a knife. They disagree about how it came to be there, what it looks like, how it functions, the reason that it is there at all, and what it means to both men. In the end, neither man has any evidence to assume that there is anything there at all and the argument is absolutely pointless.
He isn't just jumping to a conclusion that god necessarily does not exist. He, like many before him, has understood another level of complexity to the universe and informed us that there need not be a god to make it all work. As I have said again and again, we need not say there is no god, we need only admit that we have no need for one just as we have no evidence for one.
But how much knowledge of the universe do we need to arrive at truth? Again, we have no even begun to reach a point where we might justifiable infer a place that we need god in order to have the universe funciton. Thusly, I see no reason for you to assume that we are progressing toward and understanding of this, currently useless, concept. As you yourself just said, we do not know that god exists. Why then, should we hamstring our reason and insist on thinking about not-only the belief/concept that he does, but anything else related to that irrational and unnecessary concept?
I never shrugged anything off, I accepted you at your word. I granted in each post that you could believe in whatever you wanted. All I asked was that you explain the ideas that made you believe in one thing instead of another.
You do have a freedom to believe or disblieve in whatever you want. You have conceded that evidence makes no diffirence to you (although your inference to the bible suggest to me that is no genuine). I did not infer that humans were "single-track," creatures and I don't know what you meant to say there. You can think about whatever you want, even if it does harm other people. I do trust that you will think anything you like, as I know that is what I will do aswell. All I want to know is what kind of ideas are in your head that cause you to have a belief in one unevident thing over another? I know you CAN choose. I just want to know WHY you choose the ones you DO choose.
If I believed that faries were real, would that mean that they are real? I can assure you at some point in, not too distant, irish history there were MANY people who strongly believed in faries for many thousands of years. What do you make of that?
I think I was quite concise on the point that theories, as a part of science, are advanced by evidence, testing, and our pursuance of facts. Beliefs have no such structure. This argument that belief and theory are kin in some way is nonsense for obvious reasons. If new evidence is presented that overturns a theory, it is immidiately discareded, reworked, and a lot of science is written anew to better reflect our understanding. If a belief is overturned by evidence there is no such recourse. People get angry that their beliefs are being questioned. Some disregard those beliefs, some of them simply lash out against the things that unfound their belief, but nowhere is there the absolutely progressive system of continued understanding that you find in our scientific pursuite of a better understanding of things in belief systems.
This is simply not necessary. You have no fear, neither do I. Neither one of us requires "something bigger than me," in order to lack a fear of the unknown. To infer that anything is necessary to provide what we understand to have already is an absolutely fruitless assertion. I can say that I am brave and that is because I have a guardian angel. That does not mean that there are necessarily guardian angels and they are the source of bravery. It offers an explanation of nothing. I don't refuse the concept of god any more than I refuse my guardian angel concept. What I do say is that we have no need of such things and no evidence for such things, so why are we infering them?
This is absolutely diffirent than christians and muslims arguging because, and I addressed this before aswell, those two would both be arguing from positions of absolute truth. They have two beliefs and do not care about the evidence. I have nothing but evidence and am pointing out why the beliefs don't make any diffirence, or help to explain anything. I am not in the inscrutible position of one with certitude. I am in the honest position of one who has considered what he does know and insisted upon what he does not know. As you can see, I am not prone to violence and i've been extremely patient and consistent in my explanation and assertions. I do not need to be violence, I do not need to be absolutist because I have no such belief that would require me to demand the negation of a certain god. Whereas, the muslim (or christian) would need to absolutely dispute that the other description of god was invalid otherwise their own belief system would be nonsense.
No such concept is required for the universe. This is not unique to me, nor is it unique to anyone of a certain state of mind or body. Nobody lives in our universe with diffirent laws of physics. We all exist in the same physical realm and it is all governed by the same laws that we are grappling to understand. In the end, we all labor under empirical evidence because that is what actually helps us explain the universe around us. This is required because without it we literally cannot have any understanding. This concept is backed by evidence where belief is not. Philosophers change their understanding based on the knowledge we gaing through the sciences. We must be quite careful not to infer that philosphy has an equal effect on the way that physics is in our universe. That does not make sense at all. Things are not more or less true simply because we want them to be. They are more or less true to us based on the amount of evidence we have for their eixtence and the understandings we can attain about their existence based on observations and experimentation.
If you think they are real, so be it. However, if you think faries are some type of physical, intellectual, tangible creature, it would make it possible to disprove their existence. If you think faries are some type of spiritual, invisible, abstract, conceptual thing; then it's your beliefs and experiences that make them real. That doesn't mean they are real for me.
1 - Only material evidence? Even if its about a non-material being/whatever. Sry bro nobody can do that.
2 - Peopple's testimony in favor or against? This should never be accepted without proof. Cmon, this is weak even in our dailly basis, we have lies, hallucinations (induced or by ill) and misinterpretations of all kinds. Whitout evidence it is nothing (back to 1). Can't do this.
Conclusion: with what we have today, science wise, there´s absolutelly no chance to prove, in your terms, something like a "god".
But if you use the so called "racionality" you'll see that science can't explain a lot of things, and I'm not talking about lack of tecnology, that can be solved with time. I'm talking about real logic problems like:
1 - when was the beggining? Big Bang. OK. But what was the cause to the energy be so compact in the first place. And before that, what we had? Things can't be created from nothing, energy just change its atributes, it doesn't just apear. In the end you would have to admit that something had to came from nowhere. What you do?
2 - Where´s the end and whats happens there? Universe is in expansion, so there´s must be a limit line (even if its a growning one) that separates "universe" from "nothingness". What happens over there? Science can't explain Infinite and Nothingness (don´t confund it with space vacuum)
This is getting too much philosophical for my taste, but your own accepted logic fails when you go outside the safety box. And what remains, a vague idea beyond matter that some marketing guy milleniuns ago called god
What do you mean by "so be it?" Does that mean they are real to you or to the universe in general? I never inferred that they were physical, tangible, etc. I asserted them in the same manner you were asserting god. That means they were necessarily non-evident and that they only exist in the same sense that your god does, because I believe that they do.
If my beliefs and experiences do make them real, then they are necessarily real for you, because I live in the same universe you do.
You obviously didn't comprehend my post.
it's your beliefs and experiences that make them real
If I don't have the same beliefs and experiences, then they are not real for me.
You can't bring science into something that can't be scientifically explained. I'm not suggesting I believe what I'm about to say is true, but will say in for the sake of argument (sense you are trying to rationalize God and faries and a physical way). What if we each have our own spiritual realm? Then my God and your faries can co-exist without intersecting universes.
People's testimony is not empirical evidence, i'm afraid. And I agree, we absolutely cannot prove a god any more than we can disprove a god based on empirical evidence. But, we should not take the next mistaken step of assuming that this is a blank-check to infer whatever we want about a god that we have no reason to suppose exists at all.
We have no reason to assume the universe began at the big-bang any more than we have evidence for the concept that god was the beginning or a god who created god who created god who created god... etc. was there. But, like I said, that is not a license to print whatever we want about some kind of god that "must," have been there. We have no room to assert that. As for science -never- being able to assert thing about the big-bang, prior to it, or what might happen in the "end," I think that is expressing certainty about something we have no room to be certain about. We do not know what we will understand in a hundred years or a thousand years. Why should we asume that science cannot explain those things? We haven't even established that we are talking about the "infinite," or "nothingness," because we cannot describe our universe in that way with certainty.
My logic hasn't failed me yet, but I invite you to point out where it does. My "box," is not my logic, but where I draw the line of what we have an understanding of and what we have no understanding of. I am unwilling to accept that people must infer something outside our box of understanding because that makes no logical sense. If you are going to tell me that the understanding of our universe we have gained in the last couple thousand years is without value or just as good as the baseless god concept, I invite you to explain to me why that is.
No, I understood you, but I disagree that things can be "real," and not exist for everything equally in the universe. That is nonsensical. If faries exist, then they exist for all of us. If god exists, it exists for all of us. That is necessarily true, otherwise we are not living in the same universe. Clearly that is not the case.
I didn't bring science in. You brought it in. You said that something was "real," that implies that it is evident and that it exists in the universe that we all share. I said nothing about god or faires being physical concepts, I was perfectly ok with god and faries, in our example, being completely outside physical access to observation. If we have a spiritual realm that is entirely outside our capability for us to have any empirical knowledge then it is equally likely that faires and god can exist in the universe.
But, that does not explain why you believe in god and not faires. We just established that they are both equally likely to exist or not exist. So, again, why is it that you are choosing to believe in god instead of faries (or anything else we cannot have evidence for)? I would say we have no reason to believe in either one, nor do we have any reason to suppose that there is any realm outside our capability to experience in any way. Not because it is impossible for that realm to exist, but because it does not need to exist. It may well exist, god may well exist, faries may well exist, but why should we pick or choose any of them?
When it comes down to answering your "why" question, the only thing can say without evidence or proof is: I want to believe. I want to believe the Bible is true. I want to believe my God is real.
Why God over faries? I don't care or want to believe the "fairy-tale's" (no pun intended) of fairies. I do want to believe the bible, unexplained phenomena, and testimonies are all "evidence" of God. Is it scientific evidence or proof that God exists, of course not. We've already established we can't prove it either way.
So...
I can't prove God is real.
But I believe God exists.
Why? Because I want to.
If that doesn't explain "why" enough for you... sorry.
Yes, i'm pointing out the absurdity of our claims.
But what makes you want it to be true? I mean, that's a fine answer, but want isn't an idea. It is... a want. Do you want the bible to be literally true? Do you really want to be commanded to stone me to death because i'm gay?
I realize you don't want to believe in faires instead of god, but I cannot allow you to assert that unexplained things and inexplicable testimonials are "evidence," (and i'm glad you used quotation marks) of anything. They simply are not evidence at all. Empirical evidence is the only evidence that we have to explain the universe we live in. The universe is not a court of law, unfonded witness testimony is not something we can use to overturn empirical evidence, experiementation, and observation/testing. Indeed we have established that we cannot prove god or disprove god, so I must continue and ask why that god concept is so appealing?
But what gives you that want? What is so appealing about that god to you that makes you want it instead of faries? There must be ideas in your head that make you want it. I want a pair of shoes because my feet get sore walking barefoot. I want food because I am hungry. What is the "because," statement that follows your "I want god to exist.." ?
And this:
I'd like to live in a modern world with many fancy buildings and ceremonies, oh yeah. Just let them leave others alone (some people, ugh).
Hi. Thanks for the complements, but I disagree we're just talking. The concepts we are discussing are obvious, yes, but it seem to me a lot of people don't consider where they draw the line between the world where we demand empirical evidence and the belief system where we do not. I want people to think about this and I don't think we have to "prove," anything about "god," in order to do so.
-Titan's Quest -Magicka -Terreria -Skyrim
This is what agitates me the most.
I was talking to a friend of mine last week about this very thing. She said that believing makes her feel better and that she wants to.
I cannot comprehend this need to believe that somebody is above us all pulling all the strings and making sure everything turns out right.
It's just something that is incomprehensible to me...
Anyway, Pit Stains, why exactly do you want to believe? What motivates you, personally, to believe faith over reason, science, and logic?
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Also, and this is directed to nobody in particular, but there are 17 pages in two days. There is no way in hell I am going to read all 17 pages. Why? By the time I finish the 17 page there will be another 17 pages. x.x
Edit: Typos. Grr.
Ohhhhhhhh Proletaria... I have already diffused you on this argument. Theres a fact you simply cannot and or willnot and or don't want to understand, and that is that God does not require an origin.
As I have stated multiple times now if god (whatever he or it is) designed the universe ... including time and all that governs it (physics... quantum dynamics) ... these laws do not apply to him. I am going to use a Nerd Metaphor for you... and hope you understand it:
If a dungeon master in D&D decides that it is night time during the campaign he is designing... does that necesarily make it night for him in real life? No, because the DM is simply the creator and he is designing the rules/laws/status of the game.
Time is something that we interpret in order to necesitate an origin for something. As I've said 5x now... the universe holds to the necessity to have an origin as time is part of the universe. Time is NOT part of god... it is the ruling decided by the dungeon master.. it is in the realm of his mind and his creation but not part of his reality.
To quote _Salvation "Proletaria you silly goose".
That's awesome. You just proved that Deism could be possible.
Now...what about Theism?
In addition to that, to quote Carl Sagan, "If the general picture, however, of a Big Bang followed by an expanding universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the Universe devoid of matter and then suddenly somehow created, how did that happen? In many cultures the customary answer is that a god or gods created the universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously we must of course ask the next question, where did god come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question. Or, if we say that god always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed, there was no need for a creation, it was always here. These are not easy questions, cosmology brings us face to face with the deepest mysteries. With questions that were once treated only in religion and myth."
Carl Sagan. <3