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Forums - General Discussion - Do you believe in God? Why/Why not?

 

Do you believe in any god?

Yes 63 36.21%
 
No 111 63.79%
 
Total:174
AngryLittleAlchemist on 18 April 2020

It's Fedora season again boys!



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Flilix on 18 April 2020
dark_gh0st_b0y said:
Flilix said:

Human reasoning hasn't gotten to the unicorn level either.

can't tell if you are serious but if you are then it is your reasoning you have to check

I understand not trusting Jesus unless he comes to you to prove that he is real, but comparing him to a useless 'unicorn' is probably the most crappy argument an atheist can possibly think of

Why?



Peh on 18 April 2020
dark_gh0st_b0y said:
Flilix said:

Human reasoning hasn't gotten to the unicorn level either.

can't tell if you are serious but if you are then it is your reasoning you have to check

I understand not trusting Jesus unless he comes to you to prove that he is real, but comparing him to a useless 'unicorn' is probably the most crappy argument an atheist can possibly think of

Funny how Flilix has to check his reasoning when he applies the exact same logic to his statement as spynx does.

Both entities God and Unicorns are unproven to exist. You believe in one over the other doesn't make it objectively more true.



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vivster on 18 April 2020

Unicorns are actually way more likely than god. They don't pretend to be omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolent while empirically being none of it.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

JWeinCom on 18 April 2020
dark_gh0st_b0y said:
JWeinCom said:

If someone turned to Islam and found that it improved their life, would that be proof that the claims of Islam are true?

it would be proof that Islam is closer to the truth than what their previous belief was

*assuming of course that the person is fully aware of his belief by having read the holy book of Islam and whatever his previous faith was if any

and still, there are many influences and fake believers, both Islam and Christianity are quite philosophical and up to interpretation, one is best to aspire the type of believers he/she finds as an inspiration for him/herself, we will find out eventually but until then no one knows for sure


for Christianity it is simpler as Jesus lifestyle is what the absolute believer should at least try for

and no Jesus did not discriminate gays, atheists or bitches, he had no slaves, never committed stoning or asked for war for Christ's sake

ahahha crazy yes but there are people in here that are brainwashed enough to believe this is what Christianity is about, the smart, open-mind new generation everyone

I'm going to stay away fro the random Jesus rant and stick to the epistemology. 

People have had their lives improved by "coming to Jesus".  People have also had their lives improved by stopping believing in Jesus.  Obviously, both these groups can't be closer to the truth then they used to be because they are moving in the complete opposite direction. 

If whatever makes one's life better is true, how do you explain that people believing the opposite things can both improve their lives?

NightlyPoe said:
JWeinCom said:

Yes.  And that doesn't matter.  If we shuffle the deck a quadrillion times, the odds of getting a particular result would be well beyond human comprehension.  But still some result would have to come out.  No matter how many times you shuffle the deck you will have to get some result, and no matter how absurdly small the possibility gets, you can get there without any higher power.  There is no point where the result becomes so unlikely that a god would be needed to achieve it.  

The only reason you think this result required a higher power is because it seems special.  You are biased by the fact that you like (I hope) existing.  But, that doesn't mean this is some sort of special result.  As a neutral observer, there is no reason to assume this result was the result of a particular intent, and if we're trying to get to truth, we should treat the scenario as neutral observers.

You're not squaring impossibility with circumstances.  Nothing impossible has happened.  Something incredibly unlikely happened.  But, that's the point of the card example. Every time you shuffle a deck of cards the result you get is so unlikely that your brain can't really process how unlikely it is (or at least my brain can't fathom what 1/8with like 100 zeroes would be).  The universe has many more variables, so it is certain that whatever we get would HAVE TO be astronomically unlikely.  It would be IMPOSSIBLE to get a "likely universe".  

But of course, if all that still doesn't convince you, and you still think both positions require a leap of faith, then why take a leap of faith either way?  There is always "I don't know" which is an answer that definitely requires no leap of faith, and is the correct answer to most questions that you can be asked. 

It does matter.  It simply fails to prove anything.  And I'm okay with that.

What I'm presenting isn't meant as a proof.  Your card example is unnecessary as I think I've demonstrated that I understand the concept of probability just fine and, honestly, your talking down with a rudimentary example feels demeaning.  A weirdly common theme on this board is people explaining stuff to me that I've already said.  What I say is that the odds are so vanishingly small that some sort of higher power becomes more likely as an alternative from my perspective.

As for your final question, I have no problem saying I don't know.  I didn't claim to have cracked the God code.  That wasn't the topic of this thread.  It's asking what each poster believes.

But let me turn it back around on you.  If you believe that "I don't know" is the correct answer, is my method not valid?  If my thought experiment reveals that the odds get lower and lower of one outcome happening, doesn't it follow that the odds of the other increase?  The only way it wouldn't, would be if you've already closed off one answer as a possibility and declared that you do know.

No, your method is not valid.  If the odds of something happening get lower, then the odds of it not happening get greater.  But, that doesn't have anything to do with explaining why the result that occurred occurred.  If I roll a standard die there is a one and six chance of it landing on 6 and a 5/6 chance of it not landing on six.  If it does in fact land on six, that doesn't mean there was a 1/6 chance that it was truly random and a 5/6 chance that a god intervened.  If the dice has seven sides is it any more likely that god is influencing the roll?  A hundred sides?  A trillion?

The only way probability would work the way you're suggesting to imply a cause is if the event HAD to happen, and you have narrowed it down to mutually exclusive causes.  As far as I can tell, there is no reason you had to exist, there are more than the two options of complete randomness and a god, and those two options are not mutually exclusive as god can exist and not intervene.  

If you want to claim that your existence is supporting evidence of a higher power, you can't just say that it's unlikely, you have to actually establish some sort of probability for that higher power being involved. You need to give us good reason to believe that this power exists, that it has the power to manipulate the situation, and that this particular outcome is what that agent would desire.  Without any of that, all we have is a potentially unlikely event occurring with no idea as to if there is any special reason, or any way to determine what that reason might be.

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 19 April 2020

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dark_gh0st_b0y on 18 April 2020

- to the unicorn argument -

good job guys turning an interesting discussion to pointless insulting trolling

Last edited by dark_gh0st_b0y - on 18 April 2020

don't mind my username, that was more than 10 years ago, I'm a different person now, amazing how people change ^_^

Flilix on 18 April 2020
Flilix said:
dark_gh0st_b0y said:

can't tell if you are serious but if you are then it is your reasoning you have to check

I understand not trusting Jesus unless he comes to you to prove that he is real, but comparing him to a useless 'unicorn' is probably the most crappy argument an atheist can possibly think of

Why?

dark_gh0st_b0y said:

- to the unicorn argument -

good job guys turning an interesting discussion to pointless insulting trolling

I assume this means you can't give an actual explanation to why you think my reasoning is wrong?



vivster on 18 April 2020
dark_gh0st_b0y said:

- to the unicorn argument -

good job guys turning an interesting discussion to pointless insulting trolling

It's hilarious because God also started as an interesting discussion and went on to trolling billions of people out of their minds and money.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

Peh on 18 April 2020
dark_gh0st_b0y said:

- to the unicorn argument -

good job guys turning an interesting discussion to pointless insulting trolling

You should look up pointless insulting trolling, since for at least one of these terms, you just committed it yourself. 



Intel Core i7 8700K | 32 GB DDR 4 PC 3200 | ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming | RTX 3090 FE| Crappy Monitor| HTC Vive Pro :3

dark_gh0st_b0y on 18 April 2020

I believe it is common sense what the difference is, and why his teaching has shaped the way you live

if you are not trolling and indeed serious about it, then I guess it is poor education

do your research on who Jesus is and why I could possibly follow him, and then maybe you'll know enough to figure out the difference with a 'unicorn'



don't mind my username, that was more than 10 years ago, I'm a different person now, amazing how people change ^_^