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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
WolfpackN64 said:
JWeinCom said:

I'm kind of confused... Can you believe that not believing and believing are both justified positions?  That seems contradictory.  

I believe God exists (due to personal experience and the arguments I've researched). I believe there are good arguments for believing. But it would be presumtuous of me to claim I can at the same time disprove all atheistic arguments and do so decisively. I have an awnser for most of them, but to say I can fundamently destroy them? No. If I would make it my lives work, perhaps I could uproot one or two, but since I'm a more positively inclined person, I'd rather strengthen religious arguments instead. Since I also believe these arguments are not perfect (which does not mean they're false).

You don't need to be able to disprove arguments.  The person who is making an argument has to demonstrate it to be true.  We don't just assume it's true until proven false.

For example, if I wanted to say that god doesn't exist, (a claim I would generally avoid making) it would be my job to prove it, or rather support it.  If I can't adequately support it, it would not be justified to believe it, whether or not you could actually disprove it.

Likewise, if you want to claim that god exists, you would have to provide evidence for it to be justified.  I may be unable to counter the arguments (especially because many of them are designed in such a way to be unfalsifiable), but that doesn't mean you are justified in believing it.  

I'm also not quite sure what you mean by atheist arguments.  The only real valid atheist argument I've heard is that theists have yet to provide a good reason to believe in a god. 



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setsunatenshi said:
WolfpackN64 said:

1. You mean you don't know

2&3. You mean we're unsure what and why they are

4. If they're interlinked, it means both the universe and time had the same cause.

Not sooooo easy right :)

Not so easy if you ignore the meaning of the words we are using.

 

If there is no time before the universe, there is no cause to the universe. A cause necessitates a unit of time "before" the event you're trying to justify.

This might be the reason why you're convinced this argument holds any weight. And to be fair the concept of time not existing is something very hard for the common person to imagine, which is why, no matter how many times it's debunked, it keeps being brought forward time and time again. It's a limit on the person evaluating the argument, not on the refutation

I don't think you can be too sure of your argument. All you did is make time and the existance of the universe contingent on each other. In a chain of a cause and effect, that would make them both effects of a cause. Otherwise you have your virtual particles again, which you can't be sure of they "pop into existence" and our universe sure as hell isn't a virtual particle. In any case, it started with a massive singularity. Our knowledge of what the rules concerning singularities are are still limited. So unless a supermassive singularity can certainly cause itsel, it's just another link in the chain.



No, I don't believe in any higher supernatural power or a god. Religions and mythologies are man made creations. Often their stories are inspiring, but rarely they are fully true or in many cases nog possible.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

JWeinCom said:
WolfpackN64 said:

I believe God exists (due to personal experience and the arguments I've researched). I believe there are good arguments for believing. But it would be presumtuous of me to claim I can at the same time disprove all atheistic arguments and do so decisively. I have an awnser for most of them, but to say I can fundamently destroy them? No. If I would make it my lives work, perhaps I could uproot one or two, but since I'm a more positively inclined person, I'd rather strengthen religious arguments instead. Since I also believe these arguments are not perfect (which does not mean they're false).

You don't need to be able to disprove arguments.  The person who is making an argument has to demonstrate it to be true.  We don't just assume it's true until proven false.

For example, if I wanted to say that god doesn't exist, (a claim I would generally avoid making) it would be my job to prove it, or rather support it.  If I can't adequately support it, it would not be justified to believe it, whether or not you could actually disprove it.

Likewise, if you want to claim that god exists, you would have to provide evidence for it to be justified.  I may be unable to counter the arguments (especially because many of them are designed in such a way to be unfalsifiable), but that doesn't mean you are justified in believing it.  

I'm also not quite sure what you mean by atheist arguments.  The only real valid atheist argument I've heard is that theists have yet to provide a good reason to believe in a god. 

I believe the reasons stated to be good reasons that are yet inconclusive for the very reason that there is so much debate around it. We can at the most use abductive and introspective reasoning here (for now). So both sides are eventually limited to building claims on one side and refuting it on the other.

Knowledge is a true belief that is formed through the success of your cognitive or perceptive faculties. Both sides have their respective believes (the existive of God or not) and there have been cognitive and perceptive successes on the side of belief (which has sparked many an argument of course). Both sides however struggle to definitively show that their belief is true.

For me, the matter is pretty conclusive. I have experienced God, so I know my belief is true and therefore I know of his existence. I do fully understand that won't sway many atheists though so the debate and building and destroying of arguments continue.



WolfpackN64 said:
setsunatenshi said:

Not so easy if you ignore the meaning of the words we are using.

 

If there is no time before the universe, there is no cause to the universe. A cause necessitates a unit of time "before" the event you're trying to justify.

This might be the reason why you're convinced this argument holds any weight. And to be fair the concept of time not existing is something very hard for the common person to imagine, which is why, no matter how many times it's debunked, it keeps being brought forward time and time again. It's a limit on the person evaluating the argument, not on the refutation

I don't think you can be too sure of your argument. All you did is make time and the existance of the universe contingent on each other. In a chain of a cause and effect, that would make them both effects of a cause. Otherwise you have your virtual particles again, which you can't be sure of they "pop into existence" and our universe sure as hell isn't a virtual particle. In any case, it started with a massive singularity. Our knowledge of what the rules concerning singularities are are still limited. So unless a supermassive singularity can certainly cause itsel, it's just another link in the chain.

i started by saying this argument has false premises which I have clearly demonstrated.

the fact you accepted time and the universe to have begun at the same time (which is intellectually honest of you) absolutely disproves the premise of the universe having a cause. 

I'm not under any delusions that now you'll find yourself an atheist and negating your faith and beliefs because at the end of the day that's what they are. you believe those things because you were conditioned since you were a child, you hold on to those beliefs as a victim of your own sociological context and the beliefs of those around you. 

More importantly to one of my first points, there's nothing in this argument that points to the specific deity you defend. It uses a special pleading argument that for some reason makes you ignore the impossibility of a cause to the universe but you're happy to ignore a cause to your deity. 

The usual leap in logic that occurs after the premises i stated is "therefore god caused the universe". I didn't state it on purpose to see if you would do it. But doing so would necessitate somehow we all agreeing that your deity didn't "begin to exist" which is a laughable special pleading :)



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Quick answer yes. I'm Catholic.

Why?
This probably isn't the best place to discuss Philosophical, Theological, Psychological or Scientific points of view and reasoning.
However, quick answer for myself is I've studied it both in literature and through observation of our reality and existence and I've come to the conclusion that yes I believe.



I game.  You game.  We game.

I'm a videogamer, not a fanboy, but have a special place for Nintendo.

Current Systems Owned: NSwitch/PS4/XONE/WiiU/3DS/2DS/PCGaming Rig-i7/ASUS i7 Gaming Laptop.

Previous Game Consoles:  PS3/Xbox360/Wii/DSL/Pretty much every one thats been released since the Atari 2600.

WolfpackN64 said:
JWeinCom said:

You don't need to be able to disprove arguments.  The person who is making an argument has to demonstrate it to be true.  We don't just assume it's true until proven false.

For example, if I wanted to say that god doesn't exist, (a claim I would generally avoid making) it would be my job to prove it, or rather support it.  If I can't adequately support it, it would not be justified to believe it, whether or not you could actually disprove it.

Likewise, if you want to claim that god exists, you would have to provide evidence for it to be justified.  I may be unable to counter the arguments (especially because many of them are designed in such a way to be unfalsifiable), but that doesn't mean you are justified in believing it.  

I'm also not quite sure what you mean by atheist arguments.  The only real valid atheist argument I've heard is that theists have yet to provide a good reason to believe in a god. 

I believe the reasons stated to be good reasons that are yet inconclusive for the very reason that there is so much debate around it. We can at the most use abductive and introspective reasoning here (for now). So both sides are eventually limited to building claims on one side and refuting it on the other.

Knowledge is a true belief that is formed through the success of your cognitive or perceptive faculties. Both sides have their respective believes (the existive of God or not) and there have been cognitive and perceptive successes on the side of belief (which has sparked many an argument of course). Both sides however struggle to definitively show that their belief is true.

For me, the matter is pretty conclusive. I have experienced God, so I know my belief is true and therefore I know of his existence. I do fully understand that won't sway many atheists though so the debate and building and destroying of arguments continue.

I would disagree that the reasons you've provided so far are good reasons.  They at best point to a deistic god, but the premises of each are flawed.  I've yet to hear a solid reason to justify belief.  

I'd also quibble about the definition of knowledge.  Most of the time I see that definition it includes the word "justified".  I can have a belief that is true, but that may not be justified.  For example, I can say I know that your favorite color is blue, because my psychic powers told me.  Your favorite color may actually be blue, but it really wouldn't be accurate to call it knowledge, because I have no way to justify it as of now.  Justified true belief also has some issues as a definition for knowledge, but it is stronger.



setsunatenshi said:

1. i started by saying this argument has false premises which I have clearly demonstrated.

2. the fact you accepted time and the universe to have begun at the same time (which is intellectually honest of you) absolutely disproves the premise of the universe having a cause. 

3. I'm not under any delusions that now you'll find yourself an atheist and negating your faith and beliefs because at the end of the day that's what they are. you believe those things because you were conditioned since you were a child, you hold on to those beliefs as a victim of your own sociological context and the beliefs of those around you. 

4. More importantly to one of my first points, there's nothing in this argument that points to the specific deity you defend. It uses a special pleading argument that for some reason makes you ignore the impossibility of a cause to the universe but you're happy to ignore a cause to your deity. 

5. The usual leap in logic that occurs after the premises i stated is "therefore god caused the universe". I didn't state it on purpose to see if you would do it. But doing so would necessitate somehow we all agreeing that your deity didn't "begin to exist" which is a laughable special pleading :)

1. I disagreed and shown why clearly enough.

2. Also shown why that isn't necessarily true

3. I have to dissapoint you, I'm a reborn Catholic

4. Necessary beings have no cause, that's the whole stick of the argument

5. If God didn't exist, he couldn't come into existence, since a necessary being that is a first cause is always prior to existence. Since God is prior to the universe and time, he is in the only position to be the first cause.



JWeinCom said:
WolfpackN64 said:

I believe the reasons stated to be good reasons that are yet inconclusive for the very reason that there is so much debate around it. We can at the most use abductive and introspective reasoning here (for now). So both sides are eventually limited to building claims on one side and refuting it on the other.

Knowledge is a true belief that is formed through the success of your cognitive or perceptive faculties. Both sides have their respective believes (the existive of God or not) and there have been cognitive and perceptive successes on the side of belief (which has sparked many an argument of course). Both sides however struggle to definitively show that their belief is true.

For me, the matter is pretty conclusive. I have experienced God, so I know my belief is true and therefore I know of his existence. I do fully understand that won't sway many atheists though so the debate and building and destroying of arguments continue.

I would disagree that the reasons you've provided so far are good reasons.  They at best point to a deistic god, but the premises of each are flawed.  I've yet to hear a solid reason to justify belief.  

I'd also quibble about the definition of knowledge.  Most of the time I see that definition it includes the word "justified".  I can have a belief that is true, but that may not be justified.  For example, I can say I know that your favorite color is blue, because my psychic powers told me.  Your favorite color may actually be blue, but it really wouldn't be accurate to call it knowledge, because I have no way to justify it as of now.  Justified true belief also has some issues as a definition for knowledge, but it is stronger.

A justified true belief is the Classical Notion of Knowledge. It's also a deeply troubled notion that has been pretty much discarded by mainstream epistemology in favor of Reliabilism and Virtue Epistemology. Note that justification for your cognitive and perceptual sucesses are necessary in epestemic internalism, while in epestemic externalism they don't need to be internally justified, but they need to be true (which is our point of contention)



WolfpackN64 said:
setsunatenshi said:

1. i started by saying this argument has false premises which I have clearly demonstrated.

2. the fact you accepted time and the universe to have begun at the same time (which is intellectually honest of you) absolutely disproves the premise of the universe having a cause. 

3. I'm not under any delusions that now you'll find yourself an atheist and negating your faith and beliefs because at the end of the day that's what they are. you believe those things because you were conditioned since you were a child, you hold on to those beliefs as a victim of your own sociological context and the beliefs of those around you. 

4. More importantly to one of my first points, there's nothing in this argument that points to the specific deity you defend. It uses a special pleading argument that for some reason makes you ignore the impossibility of a cause to the universe but you're happy to ignore a cause to your deity. 

5. The usual leap in logic that occurs after the premises i stated is "therefore god caused the universe". I didn't state it on purpose to see if you would do it. But doing so would necessitate somehow we all agreeing that your deity didn't "begin to exist" which is a laughable special pleading :)

1. I disagreed and shown why clearly enough.

2. Also shown why that isn't necessarily true

3. I have to dissapoint you, I'm a reborn Catholic

4. Necessary beings have no cause, that's the whole stick of the argument

5. If God didn't exist, he couldn't come into existence, since a necessary being that is a first cause is always prior to existence. Since God is prior to the universe and time, he is in the only position to be the first cause.

Yeah... that's special pleading.  You can't say everything needs to have a cause, and then create a class of things that don't.  You'd also have to justify that something can exist outside the universe and time, and I'm not sure how that can be done, or if it is even a sensical statement.  The only experience of existence we have is temporal and spatial.  I don't know what existing absent of time and space means.

JWeinCom said:
WolfpackN64 said:

I believe the reasons stated to be good reasons that are yet inconclusive for the very reason that there is so much debate around it. We can at the most use abductive and introspective reasoning here (for now). So both sides are eventually limited to building claims on one side and refuting it on the other.

Knowledge is a true belief that is formed through the success of your cognitive or perceptive faculties. Both sides have their respective believes (the existive of God or not) and there have been cognitive and perceptive successes on the side of belief (which has sparked many an argument of course). Both sides however struggle to definitively show that their belief is true.

For me, the matter is pretty conclusive. I have experienced God, so I know my belief is true and therefore I know of his existence. I do fully understand that won't sway many atheists though so the debate and building and destroying of arguments continue.

I would disagree that the reasons you've provided so far are good reasons.  They at best point to a deistic god, but the premises of each are flawed.  I've yet to hear a solid reason to justify belief.  

I'd also quibble about the definition of knowledge.  Most of the time I see that definition it includes the word "justified".  I can have a belief that is true, but that may not be justified.  For example, I can say I know that your favorite color is blue, because my psychic powers told me.  Your favorite color may actually be blue, but it really wouldn't be accurate to call it knowledge, because I have no way to justify it as of now.  Justified true belief also has some issues as a definition for knowledge, but it is stronger.

I'm probably not grounded in philosophy well enough to really debate this.  To my knowledge there is no universally accepted definition of knowledge, as they are all flawed.  But I would argue that to claim one knows something would require justification of some sort.

Back to the example I gave, let's hypothetically say your favorite color is blue.  Did I know that when I originally said it?