Do you believe in God?

[SWE]

No, but if She does exist, it would be necessary to abolitish Her.

[TPIG]

Yes I do. As the saying goes, if I'm wrong about God, then I wasted my life; If you're wrong about God, then you wasted your eternity.

This logic is flawed. Living the Christian life is fulfilling. My life is not wasted through it, even if false disbelief was accurate. Christianity is infinitely more fulfilling than a non-Christian life.


Now, to my own beliefs, I certainly believe in God. The evidence for the divine Creator and for Christianity , whether it be in text, experience, history, or science, is overwhelming.

I completely agree and regret that my statement came off as if I was saying a Christian life is a wasted life. I was simply trying to provide a basic rationale for why anyone should believe in God. For me, as a Catholic, I look to various historical evidences, such as Eucharistic miracles, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and various other miracles/events as support for my belief in God.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Yes I do. As the saying goes, if I'm wrong about God, then I wasted my life; If you're wrong about God, then you wasted your eternity.

This, but I also can't imagine what the world or the universe would be like if there were no God.

[progressive85]

I feel like I of course do because it sounds better to say that you do, but I don't think that there's any one particular religion that is 100% right, but I think that there is a little bit of magic and mystery in Mother Nature and that not everything can be described by scientific facts.  I think that it's quite possible that angels exist, miracles exist, and that there is a guiding hand over humanity.  I just think that there's all of these religious and spiritual belief systems (Native American, tribal, Asian, ancient religions, Judeo-Christian) and so I think people should be free to find what makes them happy because life is too short.  I wish we could just come together, embrace that we all have different spiritual views, and coexist.

[MAINEiac4434]

Maybe

[°Leprechaun]

I feel like I of course do because it sounds better to say that you do, but I don't think that there's any one particular religion that is 100% right, but I think that there is a little bit of magic and mystery in Mother Nature and that not everything can be described by scientific facts.  I think that it's quite possible that angels exist, miracles exist, and that there is a guiding hand over humanity.  I just think that there's all of these religious and spiritual belief systems (Native American, tribal, Asian, ancient religions, Judeo-Christian) and so I think people should be free to find what makes them happy because life is too short.  I wish we could just come together, embrace that we all have different spiritual views, and coexist.

Yes, I agree with your last statement.

[Enduro]

I believe in God, yes. I couldn't have made it this far without Him.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

No. I almost wish I did, but I can't convince myself of something I can't rationalize. I generally find believers and religion to be very confusing--as if there is some secret language that I'm left out of the loop of or something like that.

[Grassroots]

Yes, of course I do.

[catographer]

Yes, because the universe can not exist by accident.

Why not? chance events happen, by definition.
also if God created the universe, what was his purpose? to create humans? he couldve done a much better job at creating humans, considering how long it took for us to evolve, how imperfect we are biologically, how there are so many things in the universe that aren't necessary for humans to be here.

[catographer]

i think the fact that ones religion is determined almost entirely by where you were born and who raised you, proves that religious belief is not an objective fact/there is no "true" religion. religions are outgrowths of different cultures, like how each culture has a slightly different way of living, each culture also has a slightly different way of conceiving and justifying our place in the universe.

[7,052,770]

Yes I do. As the saying goes, if I'm wrong about God, then I wasted my life; If you're wrong about God, then you wasted your eternity.

Actually the Catholic position (the Church I was raised in and still think of as the "home team") is that atheists can go to Heaven if they're good people, so I reject the saying outright.

[TJ in Oregon]

Yes I do. As the saying goes, if I'm wrong about God, then I wasted my life; If you're wrong about God, then you wasted your eternity.

Actually the Catholic position (the Church I was raised in and still think of as the "home team") is that atheists can go to Heaven if they're good people, so I reject the saying outright.

Eh, only if they're invincibly ignorant, which a person giving a thoughtful evaluation of Pascal's wager probably isn't. Yes, Christ can save anyone whether they know Him or not, but that does not mean that it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in him. The place for considering invincible ignorance is in withholding judgment upon the state of others' souls, not in deciding whether or not to follow Christ yourself.

Anyways, Pascal's wager isn't the best argument for God's existence and Pascal didn't intend it to be used that way. Pascal intended it to be an exhortation to practice one's faith rather than an argument for it.

The best arguments for the existence of the God of classical theism are generally forms of the cosmological argument, which demonstrate the necessity of God as a "first cause", understood not as an initial domino strike but as a continuous actor sustaining the cosmos. From these types of arguments, one can then ask additional questions about God's nature and make an act of faith, that is a rational act of the will to accept the testimony of a witness and take him at his word, that the abstract God of the philosophers is the God of Christianity.

[catographer]

Yes I do. As the saying goes, if I'm wrong about God, then I wasted my life; If you're wrong about God, then you wasted your eternity.

Actually the Catholic position (the Church I was raised in and still think of as the "home team") is that atheists can go to Heaven if they're good people, so I reject the saying outright.

Assuming you're wrong and that the only way to get into Heaven according to Christianity is accepting Jesus Christ, many many billion of people, plenty of them just as good and fallible as some Christians, will go to Hell. Christians gotta wrestle with that; that their way is the only way, and everyone else will be punished for believing otherwise.

[Tartarus Sauce]

No, I've never found it to be a necessary belief for explanatory purposes and haven't been able to rationalize a belief in the concept. I view religion, and its frequently attendant beliefs in deities, through the scope of its sociological and cultural functions.

[afleitch]

Yes I do. As the saying goes, if I'm wrong about God, then I wasted my life; If you're wrong about God, then you wasted your eternity.

Actually the Catholic position (the Church I was raised in and still think of as the "home team") is that atheists can go to Heaven if they're good people, so I reject the saying outright.

Eh, only if they're invincibly ignorant, which a person giving a thoughtful evaluation of Pascal's wager probably isn't. Yes, Christ can save anyone whether they know Him or not, but that does not mean that it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in him. The place for considering invincible ignorance is in withholding judgment upon the state of others' souls, not in deciding whether or not to follow Christ yourself.

Anyways, Pascal's wager isn't the best argument for God's existence and Pascal didn't intend it to be used that way. Pascal intended it to be an exhortation to practice one's faith rather than an argument for it.

The best arguments for the existence of the God of classical theism are generally forms of the cosmological argument, which demonstrate the necessity of God as a "first cause", understood not as an initial domino strike but as a continuous actor sustaining the cosmos. From these types of arguments, one can then ask additional questions about God's nature and make an act of faith, that is a rational act of the will to accept the testimony of a witness and take him at his word, that the abstract God of the philosophers is the God of Christianity.

'First' is a notion broadly intertwined with the notion of time. If time doesn't exist, it has no meaning. Also there is an element of special pleading; god is 'first' or as you say a continuing actor but don't look behind that. If anything the 'universe just existing' is more plausable, or at least more easy to explain than an intelligent 'god' existing 'first' given the complexity of both intelligence and action; a god who not only creates but (if Christian) also manages.

[TJ in Oregon]

The best arguments for the existence of the God of classical theism are generally forms of the cosmological argument, which demonstrate the necessity of God as a "first cause", understood not as an initial domino strike but as a continuous actor sustaining the cosmos. From these types of arguments, one can then ask additional questions about God's nature and make an act of faith, that is a rational act of the will to accept the testimony of a witness and take him at his word, that the abstract God of the philosophers is the God of Christianity.

'First' is a notion broadly intertwined with the notion of time. If time doesn't exist, it has no meaning.

The word 'first' can refer to different things depending on the context. For example, "TJ sat in a chair in the first row", or "the first train car pulled the rest of the train". Both use first to denote order in a way that has no inherent connection to time (e.g. we have no idea from the first sentence which chair was manufactured first or even placed there first, and while we can say the first train car is the first to pass a particular location, the word 'first' is conveying something fundamentally different here).

In any case, the universe probably did have a temporal origin and a first cause in that sense too, though that is a different argument.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This seems to be arguing that the first cause is brute fact and then turning around and saying that since one brute fact is too unlikely we should instead believe in an entire cosmos of brute facts.

[President Johnson]

No, I'm an atheist.

[afleitch]

The best arguments for the existence of the God of classical theism are generally forms of the cosmological argument, which demonstrate the necessity of God as a "first cause", understood not as an initial domino strike but as a continuous actor sustaining the cosmos. From these types of arguments, one can then ask additional questions about God's nature and make an act of faith, that is a rational act of the will to accept the testimony of a witness and take him at his word, that the abstract God of the philosophers is the God of Christianity.

'First' is a notion broadly intertwined with the notion of time. If time doesn't exist, it has no meaning.

The word 'first' can refer to different things depending on the context. For example, "TJ sat in a chair in the first row", or "the first train car pulled the rest of the train". Both use first to denote order in a way that has no inherent connection to time (e.g. we have no idea from the first sentence which chair was manufactured first or even placed there first, and while we can say the first train car is the first to pass a particular location, the word 'first' is conveying something fundamentally different here).

In any case, the universe probably did have a temporal origin and a first cause in that sense too, though that is a different argument.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This seems to be arguing that the first cause is brute fact and then turning around and saying that since one brute fact is too unlikely we should instead believe in an entire cosmos of brute facts.

The universe came from nothing v The universe as far as we can observe came from nothing but there must have been something 'before' that caused it to happen in accordance with a set of unfolding laws and this thing is a God and, don't ask me about what created the creator as that's a distraction.

A creator is an over complication. The Big Bang could simply have happened because the laws of physics were already there which in turn allows the creation of a universe. Or if we consider that the universe isn't an 'entity'; it's the set of all entities that can exist; it's the condition. So if an entity affected it, it must be part of the conditions of universe and it cannot be its own cause. It must have come about from the conditions of the universe of which it is a part.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

The universe came from nothing v The universe as far as we can observe came from nothing but there must have been something 'before' that caused it to happen in accordance with a set of unfolding laws and this thing is a God and, don't ask me about what created the creator as that's a distraction.

A creator is an over complication. The Big Bang could simply have happened because the laws of physics were already there which in turn allows the creation of a universe. Or if we consider that the universe isn't an 'entity'; it's the set of all entities that can exist; it's the condition. So if an entity affected it, it must be part of the conditions of universe and it cannot be its own cause. It must have come about from the conditions of the universe of which it is a part.

But the ontological justification for there being a creator is that the laws of physics necessarily had to have a lawmaker in order for those laws to exist.  It is the laws which are contingent upon a creator, not the creator contingent upon the laws.  I tend to believe that the universe is simply the manifestation of God who interpenetrates everything that is, universally present but also transcendent, extending beyond what the human mind can fathom.  That is why even if we think we may have - at least in theory - all the information the universe has in store for us, most of it not yet discovered or understood, the human perception of reality will always be a minute slice of the entire picture.

[Antonio the Sixth]

These arguments about the existence of God are so utterly sterile.

[afleitch]

These arguments about the existence of God are so utterly sterile.

Personally I prefer ontological arguments that don't consider the notion of a god v no god dichotomy a necessity in framing discussion of the universe and the self. Perhaps something Taoist. But we don't get much of that here.

[Antonio the Sixth]

These arguments about the existence of God are so utterly sterile.

Personally I prefer ontological arguments that don't consider the notion of a god v no god dichotomy a necessity in framing discussion of the universe and the self. Perhaps something Taoist. But we don't get much of that here.

Agreed, although I'm even more interested in working out the moral and philosophical implications of any given theological proposition than in adjudicating which is more likely to be true or false in a factual sense.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

These arguments about the existence of God are so utterly sterile.

They usually are and that's why I normally don't care for apologetics debates.  I find the spiritual ramifications of what may be or may not be true much more fascinating.

These arguments about the existence of God are so utterly sterile.

Personally I prefer ontological arguments that don't consider the notion of a god v no god dichotomy a necessity in framing discussion of the universe and the self. Perhaps something Taoist. But we don't get much of that here.

Agreed, although I'm even more interested in working out the moral and philosophical implications of any given theological proposition than in adjudicating which is more likely to be true or false in a factual sense.

EDIT: So basically this.

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

No, in the sense of a specific god, such as God from the Bible. I'm agnostic when it comes to the concept of a creator.