Talk Elections

We haven't had this for a while IIRC.

Maybe is the only rational option.

NB4 Fundamentalism.

Kierkegaard would agree.

EDIT: As would Blaise Pascal.

"Maybe" I suppose. I can't say with absolute certainty that there aren't any gods, though I don't find it likely.

Aye, I do not believe God exists but do not actually claim to know whether or not God exists.

I don't have any reason to believe so, no.

Although it's also highly arguable as to whether "god" is even a meaningful concept.

I'm not an immensely rationalistic person.

Voted Yes because leap to faith but strictly speaking the answer would be Unsure.

No, the only rational option would be "Define 'God' and define 'exist.'" 

I absolutely believe in a supreme, omnipotent Deity.

I voted "No" because I assumed that by "God" the question is asking about God in the traditional religious sense.  If the question is whether God exists in the sense of being "a cosmic force in the universe," as the ARDA survey I posted on this forum a while back put it, then maybe.  I voted "Agree" to that description of God because the (somewhat confusing) question asked what the respondent thought God was like, regardless of whether they believe in God or not. If there is a God, I envision some kind of morally neutral cosmic force.  But as far as God in the sense that most religions preach--a morally good force that plays a role in world affairs--I think the evidence overwhelmingly says no.

I agree a bit with LBJ.

If there is a 'god', then we have to determine what sort of god it is and why we call it so. A 'god' need not be a deity. A 'god' need not be infinite or infallible. A 'god' can be flawed. If an alien from a distant sun dropped by and created life on earth because it nothing better to do then crashed and died on the way home then for our purposes it would be our 'god'; but we would never know that it was or need to know that it was.

In terms of what is on offer in terms of the gods that are popular today (and I am very much a believer that religion throughout human history is not about 'truth' versus 'untruth' but a popularity contest with ever changing winners) then it's left wanting. Christianity/Judaism/Islam is quite poor at owning the notion of god.

If I had to attach any awe or reverence to anything then it would be the Sun, without which you and I would never have been here. It's not an entity, it's not conscious, it doesn't know what it's doing but it rules our very existance.

Very thought-provoking comment.

(The) Mikado has a bit of a point: what do you mean by 'exist'? Remember Heidegger's 'Gott ist, aber Er existiert nicht'

How do you know that the Sun is not conscious?  That is awfully bigoted against non-carbon-based lifeforms in my opinion.

Of course she does ;-)

politicus,

Welcome to the forum!  After we lost several female posters in the last year, your arrival here is great news--thank goodness!

In answer to the thread question, no.

Yes by definition. What we know to be a first mover or first cause, first essence is what is God. Now the presence of God is highly flawed by religion, especially in ancient times but the idea of God throughout history does show the evolution of what we know is not God; humanity and every other part of matter. I must ask; are you referring to the God of Christianity or monotheism or a creator?

     Hello, Derek.

If you define God as an entity that can just come into existence, why can't the universe just come into existence, or whatever?  Is anything capable of just coming into existence definitionally "God"?

Probably not... but who knows.

The existence of God or Gods would be kind of cool, but so would be aliens. Then again, I would probably consider God to be just another kind of extra-terrestrial.

As Mikado said, this question would be a lot easier to answer with a definition of "God."  When I hear that word, I think of the Gods created by men, of Allah and Jehovah and Zeus.  Those Gods do, or did exist in one form or another throughout history, so much as any concept held to be true by a multiplicity of humans can be said to "exist."  As Afleitch points out, there is the Sun, the most powerful body in the Solar System to which we owe are existence.  It certainly "exists" in every sense of the world.  Does it fulfill the criteria of "God"?  Our ancestors certainly thought so, though we modern, educated people refer to it now as only a star.  We understand how the nuclear reactions in its core produce light and heat; in so doing, we removed its Deity status.  From what I can see, the Gods are dying trample under the foot of progress.

In my years as a scholar, I've heard alot of plausable and poor theories. I've never heard anything as stupid as matter just appeared from nowhere and things began to exist for no reason.

Yo, CyberScholar, listen to what you're saying.  The first sign of psychosis is a scholar complex.  You're simply having another psychotic break.

The burden of proof would seem to lie on the party that postulates the existence of a specific kind of cause.  

It's certainly not unreasonable to believe that the existence of the universe in its current configuration had a cause or set of causes.  But the series of causes could indeed be just an infinite series of causes, or we may just not know, and may never know, the nature of the preceding causes.  On the contrary, there is no good argument, and no evidence whatsoever, that the commonly accepted notion of "God" was that cause.  That's why people who believe in God do so because of faith, and not because of reason.  I happen not to have any such faith.  

In the final analysis, I don't want to be a mortal being, I don't want to die and be gone forever, any more than anyone else does.  I hate that fact not just for myself, but for all the people I love as well.  But my abhorrence at the fact that I, and all my loved ones, will soon be dead doesn't justify the belief in some divine being--it just doesn't.  Unchangeable facts need to be acknowledged and faced, even when it's hardest to face them.

Therefore, unerring belief in an entity that appeared from nowhere and began to exist for 'no reason'?

Lying is a sin.

lmao.  even his profile says he is 27, which would mean that he would be a remarkable case even to have a PhD, let alone "many years"

Wasn't that an old Derek line as well, being a scholar?

Well, since God is omnipotent it is also capable of time travel. Therefore it could have travelled all the way back to time before the Big Bang and created itself.

God wouldn't have come into existence "just like that", although you would still be confronted with a paradox. :P

The "it makes no sense for something to come out of nothing" argument for God's existence makes no logical sense itself.

If God sprang out of the void, then it does not follow that nothing else could not have also sprung out.

If God is eternal, then it does not follow that there could not be other eternal things.

And last but not not least, if one takes the theological position the God is the universe and the universe is God, then they are one and the same.

In short, while cosmology can help determine the logical validity of particular theologies, it is of no use in determining the logical validity of theism itself.

God by definition exists outside of time and therefore outside of our understanding. To say "God would've sprang from nowhere" is an oxymoron because God cannot have a beginning or an end as that which is all being. I don't really get into theology when debating the existence of a creator or God. Theology is more for what God is rather than if God exists. That's a good question about eternity but as finite creatures I don't think we're capable of fully grasping the eternal or infinite.

Someone else mentioned a Ph.D. I have no Ph.D and never claimed to.

I did.  since you are a scholar, what degrees do you have, and in what?

I'm sending you a private message rather than stating where I've attended and the degrees I've earned and I hope that you honor the privacy.

and for the record I do have a B.A. as well as have attended graduate school

...Your response wasn't really on-point to his post, and you also ignored my post for no apparent reason.

I'm sorry which post?

God never began to exist nor will God ever cease to exist.

Why have the gods left you alive?

If God can be a causeless agent, why can't the universe or the universe's cause?  Why does a causeless agent have to be a deity?

Then in that case the universe would be a God. It doesn't necessarily have to be a deity. By universe do you mean all that is?

Actually yes the universe's cause can be a causeless agent. I misread your first question due to the hour. That universe's cause is what we know to be God.

Can you really extrapolate something like Aristotle's Unmoved Mover into something you can call "God," given all the Abrahamic trappings that word (especially capitalized like that) has received?  The Unmoved Mover redefines "god" to its minimum possible definition: a force that set the universe in motion.  The Unmoved Mover is not necessarily eternal, is not necessarily omnipotent, is not necessarily omniscient...f**k, is not necessarily conscious or sentient and may be acting out of dumb instinct.

Yes.

     That was my thought, really. From the atheist scientistic viewpoint, the universe began with the Big Bang. The issue is, the proponents of that viewpoint cannot to their satisfaction account for how matter came to exist, much less in the configuration that allowed the Big Bang to occur.

     Let's say then that it happened because a single proton decayed, just to throw something totally random out there. To identify that proton as God, which seems to me to be a natural application of the "unmoved mover as God" idea, strikes me as degrading to any notion of God or gods.

err...so, if my very not-sentient coffee mug was a causeless entity, it would definitionally be God?  This is just not what I think people mean when they say "God"

Maybe. To give a flat out yes or no would be rather arrogant, considering the absolute lack of tangible proof on either side of the argument.

Yes the presence of God has been highly exaggerated throughout history.

This is along the lines of what I've been saying. It's not possible for the finite to completely grasp the infinite in terms of understanding. Also, there is the flying spaghetti monster argument that scholars throw out there in order to combat the argument that we can't disprove God's existence. I find the first mover argument to be better though if one is arguing for God's existence. I mean they're right we can't disprove the existence of a flying spaghetti monster just because we haven't seen one, but then I raise that a flying spaghetti monster does not have to exist. Something that we know to be a first cause or first essence to quote Aquinas is what we know to be God. Shadows of this can be seen in deism where God started the universe as if winding up a clock and letting it run on its own. There are alot of theories out there but "matter just coming into existence on its own for no reason" is likely the worst theory I've ever heard or read. We'll never prove or disprove God's existence so the heated arguments over it are trivial.

Definitely not. And I personally find more arrogance in the assertion that those who don't believe in God are burdened with proving its nonexistence than I do in claiming it doesn't exist. That makes absolutely no logical sense. Are we supposed to believe in anything until we can prove it doesn't exist? Can anyone here personally prove to me right now that there aren't invisible, all-powerful elves living in trees? If not, then we must respect the belief in them, right? No. Nonsense doesn't just get respect because it's widely accepted nonsense.

God is a way to mask the uneasiness about not being all-knowing ourselves. If I don't know how something happened billions of years ago, I'm not going to freak out and demand to know. I can live with being in the dark about something literally countless human generations ago. Human knowledge of the world is finite. I can also live with human life being finite. And I personally believe that gives me a better respect for the power of our short opportunity to take advantage of the wonder of our real world.

Your argument is problematic because we should, in fact, respect animistic beliefs.

I agree, but animism can be respected without having to accept the entire overlying religious belief system. And I don't think of it as a system of beliefs in the same league as religion regardless of many integrating its general philosophy.

Hmm. This honestly wasn't the sort of response that I was expecting. I understand perfectly, though I don't share, your opinions relating to the distinction you're making between the basic tenets of a stance on the world and the more specific socially-produced tenets of a particular religion but I'm honestly a little confused as to why things like, say, Shinto or African or South American folk beliefs would be more respectable than more 'conventionally' (i.e. westernly) theistic systems.

What I'm looking mostly at as the acceptable and respectable beliefs of animism are simply the basic concepts that people have a deeper connection with the world than there simply being people on one level and then all else. The details and more religiously motivated explanations are more or less just as nonsensical as the religions themselves. At least personally, I view the concept of animism as potentially being rooted in little-explored scientific or psychological arenas rather than simply a religious concept of explaining an unknown. There are definite traits in animals and their relationships with humans that suggest a deeper connection on some level. I don't necessarily believe in the characterization of that being a result of souls, but there is something to it. It was rooted in evidence and then supported rather than most religions being created and then "proven" in a backwards way devoid of reason or objectivity.

Makes sense, and it's an interesting point of view. Although of course we're never going to see eye-to-eye on the aetiology of the 'higher religions', so-called.

Where there is a design, there is a designer. I've never seen something just spring out of nowhere.

Yes and no one has to agree with me that there is a God. I've stated before that I'm not advocating the angry YHWH from the Old Testament or any particular deity. It's great to wonder. With as complex as our universe is, I find it very hard to believe that we're alone.

God, Zeus, Shiva, Thor, Quetzcoatl, Tlaloc, The Staff God, etc. are all just made up stories.

Asking if God exists is like asking if Mordor exists.

It's actually in philosophical terms more like asking if other minds, the universe external to the confines of one's skull, or the past exist, but whatever, keep living the smug lyfe.

It doesn't matter and you will never get anywhere thinking about it, as entertaining as it is. Whether or not god or even the universe outside of my consciousness exists has no tangible effect on my desire for a satisfying blip of sentience.

We're getting into Cartesian Dualism now where evil demons play tricks on us to make us think we're really real.

This is special pleading, and I have no idea what your "highly exaggerated" post re: god is intended to mean.  People are not "exaggerating" god anymore than those who refer to "floods" as inundations of water are "exaggerating" the word because you prefer it was synonymous with "creek."

Can you give me the link to a good survey or surveys about *what* and *where* American Christians believe that God is?

Even though, like Richard Dawkins, I admit there's a small chance that there is a God, when you think about it, it really is very unlikely. What is he? A human? An ether? Where is he? When people pray, why do they look into the sky? Do they think he's on a cloud?

God is an uncreated Spirit without distinction on the basis of created material but since the human soul is made in the image of that Spirit God can be said to exhibit what we would recognize as person-like characteristics, though at a level vastly beyond what we can comprehend. God is not any more 'in' any given part of the physical universe than in any other part. People associate Heaven with the physical heavens (i.e. the sky) because the sheer scale and omnipresence of the sky reminds one of Godhead, not because it is where God is physically located.

This isn't to disparage actual sky-worship, necessarily. The worship of Munkh Khukh Tengri is a beautiful religion, actually, though it of course chooses to focus upon things less central to existence than Fall, Incarnation, Resurrection, and Redemption, and hence suffers slightly. (Universal Christianity syncretic with some localized folk animism is I think pretty much the perfect synthesis, all else being equal, of religious experience, but of course I'd think that, being an Episcopalian who studies Shinto...).

That's the claim, but how do you know it's true? What's the evidence?

None. It's a matter of faith. Always has been, always will be. This thread is pointless, you can't discuss that particular question in any meaningfull way. But thanks to Nathan for a beautifull definition anyway.

I believe in God because I can't imagine what life would be like without Him.

It's largely the same, except you get to sleep in on Sundays.

Because there are no churches with afternoon or evening services. ::)

Captain Obvious would like to tell you that you shouldn't take an obviously snarky comment literally.

Only you -- someone who might choose a religious tradition based on the practitioners' music tastes -- would actually think Dibble was being serious.

Hah, I broke the tie!

Well, actually, I'm an Adventist, so I go to church on Saturday, not Sunday.  What I mean is that I can't imagine what life would be like without a higher power that controlled what goes on in the world.  Simply put, I believe in God because I want to.

And what I was getting at is that what you want is irrelevant - reality is what it is. If God does not exist then your perception of reality is simply wrong, and what goes on around you right now wouldn't be any different.

Believing in something solely because you want to is a terrible reason to believe something anyways - it's basically an admission you don't care about what the truth actually is.

I do care what the truth is, but the wish is father to the thought.

No, you don't care - if you did wishful thinking wouldn't be a good enough reason to believe something. If you cared you'd want evidence.

Dude, there's a lot more to it than that. It has more to do with being with people I can relate to, unlike gray-haired church ladies types.

But then most of the things we care about are beyond any rational (and certainly beyond any empirical) criterium of truth.

I do want evidence, but until I find evidence that convinces me otherwise, then I believe that God exists.

What constitutes "most of the things we care about"?



Generally speaking you can't provide evidence for a negative. I could say I believe that there's an ethereal, invisible dragon in my garage which can't be demonstrated in any way and I will believe in it until I can be provided with evidence to the contrary - would you consider me particularly rational for holding such a position?

Morality, aesthetics, our concern with the truth of what we say,...

There might be no JUDGEMENT DAY OR NO GOD, but there might be reincarnation. Takes about 300-500 yrs to return and live in the reality of cause and effect and what you put out will come back. And live out the remaining yrs of the life cycle of this planet respecting each ones' religion. It is the belief that is what counts.

I fail to see how any of these are beyond rationality or empirical analysis.

The consequences of systems of morality and actions can be observed and compared against eachother.

Aesthetics is a matter of personal preference and as such are not something for which a truth value can be assessed, but you can generally deduce the general origins of these preferences.

Concern with the truth of what we say goes back to morality in the context of deceit. Constantly lying to people is not a good way to build trust and if people don't trust you then you won't likely get the benefits of cooperation with them. In terms of actually wanting to know the truth, knowing true things is beneficial because actions taken based on things that are true are much more likely to have the intended results than actions taken based on things that are false.



There might be reincarnation that is a total lottery and Hitler will hit the Jackpot and reincarnate as someone who will inherit billions of dollars and live a life of luxury and happiness. There are tons of things that might be, but we shouldn't every possibility seriously.

Even such a bland consequentionalism requires a standard by which one measures morality. You may put forward any criterion you want ('utility' being a favourite, but if you're hedonistically inclined 'pleasure' may be a nice alternative), but there's no way to establish the desirability of such a golden standard, beyond, perhaps, pointing to convention: 'I and most other reasonable men just happen to feel that we should organize our actions so as to bring about the maximum amount of X'. (And this is not what we say when we judge, for example, murder to be wrong. What we mean is: 'It's a fact that murder is wrong.')


Beauty is not reducible to certain physical properties and their relationship to one another. And even if it was that would not necessarily adequately explain what happens when we're moved by a painting, a poem,... More importantly there's the difference between explaining something and justifying it. There's no rational justification for the aesthetical experience.


a) 'Constantly lying' isn't what I was talking about, but even here the depressing limits of consequentionalist morality should be glaringly obvious.
b) More importantly, if you were able to discover as an absolute truth that every empirical statement you've ever thought to be the case and every impression you've ever had were not corresponding to a state of affairs in 'reality' and that none of the future ones you'll have ever would, that wouldn't have a single implication for your actual life. You would still be capable to realize all your ambitions, to do all the things you value* ,... without ever having to fear the perfect conceit dropping down around you. Yet you wouldn't want to sign up for that life, now would you?

*: And while I'm at it: how do I rationally determine what things I should attempt to bring about? What things are worthy of my attention?

Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there.  If there is strong evidence that it is, then chances are that it does exist.

It's a matter of personal values I suppose. I'll come right out and say that none of the things you're mentioning are matters of actual existence - the matter of God is not a matter of a concept, but of an actual thing that is purported to exist. That is not a matter of philosophy, it is an actual matter of fact and should be treated as such.



When did I claim otherwise?


When did I claim otherwise? And as for God, what is your strong evidence?

What is the strong evidence?  I'm genuinely curious.

No.

Human beings have a social hierarchy which is interesting; we have fathers and mothers when we are born and when we escape that influence we are faced with leaders in our adult lives due to the influence of authority and powerful attributes; sometimes it is basic like brawn or intellect. Now it’s about connections, exposure, influence and money. The idea of a god is an extension of that as gods have very human attributes; anger, love, power, influence, comfort, leadership, vengeance. Our understanding of what god is changes as our understanding of power changes. Theologically it’s a very easy narrative to follow. It’s also why the Stone Age god; the smiter and killer and tribal ‘godhead’ isn’t particularly appealing to us today (even if some try and gloss over such attributes written down in their holy books), so theology compensates for that. You will often notice how the portrayal of god depends on the person preaching; the god of one pastor is different from the god of the other pastor. It’s a human projection.

The fact that gods have human attributes should be obvious to you. The fact that gods seem to think we are more interesting than anything else on the planet should cause alarm bells to ring. Other animal species do not, to our knowledge have gods. But if they did, then they would reflect their ‘power’ structures or their ‘need.’ It used to be the same for us. We made fertility idols, because reproduction was important to us. We worshipped the sun (and in my view, if we had to exalt anything it should be the sun), we had gods of the sea and of farming. We wanted gods that gave a damn about our immediate concerns. We also wanted gods to satisfy our more sinister sides; we needed war gods, gods who sent plagues.

We also ‘personify’ everything; we say faces in plug sockets, we make dolls, we ‘humanise’ animals. We give the weather a temperament. The weather isn’t ‘clement’ or ‘foul’; it’s just being the weather. It is us that humanise it in order to understand it. So we made the elements that had mastery over us as gods; humanised, human orientated and human thinking gods. As we developed and didn’t need to worry about the ‘elements’; when we were going to eat and whether the winter was going to kill us as we settled down and began to farm we also started to think. Thinking led to productivity. The more we thought about ourselves and our purpose (which was now more than mere survival) and what we were able to make the gods that we created began to change as well.

Maybe... but my experience and all testable (no, ramblings of Gilded Age peasants don't count) human observation ever recorded says "no". 

Therefore, the only rational, logical answer is "maybe", and the only reasonable way for myself to live is to assume "no". 

'Gilded Age peasants'?

No testable human observation ever recorded has actually said anything.


Agreed.


youropinionman.jpg

If you're going to call the overwhelming majority of people since time immemorial stupid for not following your theological views, you might want to make sure you know what the words you are saying actually mean before you do so.

Thanks, Mikado- it doesn't bother me that some people are atheist, but respect is given when it is shown and the Penn Jillette/Bill Maher types who mock all those who believe in God is insulting and doesn't help any one

I was simply pointing out that there has not yet been any testable observations of a god or gods.  Many belief systems have originated from people who have claimed to had visions/were spoken to/received messages etc.  I personally would not count these as testable. 

Since I see religion as something inherently destructive to mankind... how am I supposed to approach the discussion without some degree of hostility to the belief systems that characterize it?   Atheists have been (and still are) sh*t all over by most of the world, but that seems to be okay.  But showing a lack of respect for a religion is somehow intolerable.  Example: a religious person can tell me I'm going to burn in hell for my beliefs, but no way could I ever call that belief stupid. 

Perhaps some of the more outspoken atheists should tone it down a bit... but isn't it obvious that part of it is reactionary? 

I think the mockery was over the "Gilded Age peasants" line.

Whatever the case may be, I'm always disappointed, if never surprised, by unironic use of arguments that lump 'religion' together as if it were some sort of emulsified mass of sh**tty taffy whose 'inherent effects on mankind' can be judged in any meaningful way.

'If Aphrodite exists, and if she has the properties and idiosyncrasies ascribed to her, then she certainly will not sit still for something as silly and demeaning as a test of reproducible effects.'

God may exist, but I couldn't bring myself to believe in a god that man believed in.