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Forums - General - Do you believe in god, if not do you believe in something else?

Tispower1 on 18 November 2008
vlad321 said:
Kasz216 said:
vlad321 said:

 

Oh I agree that Deism covers the very general points of most religions, pure theism at its best. That does not remove the fact that it is being used and probably its strongest perprotrators only used it so that they wouldn't be completely discreditted by every single church in existance, especially when the church had so much power back in the day. Deism is a cop-out reiligion for people that want to be believed and not discreditted (or to not get diowned by yourparents) and it has always made me sad to know people had to go to such extents to be heard.

Where is your proof on that one?  Seems like a big stretch.

If anything i'd say there was very little reason to be an atheist around the time Deism started... as things like evolution weren't even widely understood or exlained so there was no good reason for where humans came from.

Heck, there wasn't even a good arguement out there against the metaphysical when Deism was created.... not even a "backdoor" one.

There was little to no reason for anyone to be an atheist at that time... it made more sense to believe got just hated you or was testing you or something.

 

It wasn't atheism, it was going against what had been put forward by the current church. Earth is flat, everything rotates around Eart, and other such claims came in direct contrast with what the church was teaching. Many great minds were imprisoned or killed, Copernicus was saved because they couldn't read his notes and Galileo was almost killed had his patron not been around and had he not conceded some points to the Pope. Now these two, from what I've read, were Christians, fulling supporting Jesus.

Now imagine what starts to happen as more and more thing start encroaching upon the church's teachings (Newton), and what happens when the same great minds start wondering about whether there was a god at all or not. Back then the churches weren't as thirsty for blood, but they were powerful enough to completely discredit anyone. Scientists and philosophers needed a way to be heard and not to be labeled as godless abominations, so they took up Deism.

 

Hold your horses! Galileo was punished because of his heretical views on the trinity, not his theories, plus he got a pension from the Church until the end of his life, they can't have hated him that much.



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headshot91 on 18 November 2008

yes



ManusJustus on 18 November 2008

Religion had a lot of uses in the past. How else could you convince a bunch of primitive cave men not to kill, rape, and steal from each other without telling them that a magical being would punish them (or in the case of Jesus and the Pharoahs, that they were god)?

As humans understand our universe more and more, we realize that even though we dont have all the answers that those answers have a scientific explanation and not a magical one.



The Ghost of RubangB on 18 November 2008
mesoteto said:

 

 

the best response and only thing i have very ltaken from my alcoholic father is this little pearl

 

"i know its dosnt hurt me to believe in god and try to do right by him, in fact its been proven healthy to have faith in something, and if i am wrong i havnt really been out anything. But if the tables turn and you are wrong...well them you will be out alot now wont you?"

Ah, Pascal's Wager.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

It assumes that you choose the right G-d, and it assumes that somehow an omnipotent G-d couldn't see through your wager scheme and tell that you were uncertain but just going through the motions out of fear of a potential hell.

Pascal's Wager would have to simultaneously work for all invisible things that can punish you for not believing.  There are potentially infinite vengeful G-ds I don't believe in.



twitter.com/evaneldeneller

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mesoteto on 18 November 2008

^be that as it may it still does not hurt me any more to believe in the wrong thing then to believe in nothing at all



 

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Kasz216 on 18 November 2008
Tispower1 said:
Soleron said:
Kasz216 said:

Seems like an illogical hypothisis from a scientific standard.

I mean... look at how scientists approach things.

They see something they don't understand and ask a question.

"Why"

Then they come up with a hypothisis for why... and keep with that hypothisis believing in it and expiermenting with it until they prove or disprove it.

It's not a matter of "Do pink faeries exist." or "Does god exist"

It's a question of "Why does everything exist."

God is simply the hypothisis to that answer. 

Just how something like Dark Energy was the hypothisis to why the universe is expanding, despite the fact there was no actual proof for such a thing.  Or Ether... which was a hypothsis for... I forget what it was a hypothisis for now... something with why light travels "slower" in some areas?

Until

A) Another hyptohisis is proven.

or

B) Your hypothisis is disproven.

It's just as likely as any other outcome scientifically.

 

That is NOT science. Scientific theories must be disprovable. Since it is not possible to disprove God, God is not a valid scientific hypothesis. "The absence of a God" IS disprovable, for example if a God appeared.

Dark Matter / Dark Energy aren't good science either, since they aren't disprovable. An example of a sound theory is evolution: a single fossil in the wrong place or a single mechanism that couldn't eveolve gradually could disprove it - but no  one has successfully found one.

And no, again you are confusing "no evidence either way" with "50% probablity". We can make judgements about fairies despite the fact we can't prove they don't exist - i.e. that it is unlikely they do.

 

 

Disagree. By it's very nature you can't disprove evolution, as you can't have a fossil in the wrong place, people will just say it evolved from something else, and there's a few links missing. Also, any mechanism could be evolved if you believed in improbability enough.

You can disprove evolution, though to do so you would have to prove something else probably.

 



The Ghost of RubangB on 18 November 2008
ManusJustus said:

Religion had a lot of uses in the past. How else could you convince a bunch of primitive cave men not to kill, rape, and steal from each other without telling them that a magical being would punish them (or in the case of Jesus and the Pharoahs, that they were god)?

As humans understand our universe more and more, we realize that even though we dont have all the answers that those answers have a scientific explanation and not a magical one.

You tell them that a physical being would punish them.  It's called the police, or court, or a militia, or a tribunal, or whatever you want.  We still have a bunch of primitive cave men roaming our streets murdering and raping, and we lock them up.  And they're not atheists.

The % of atheists in the prison population is smaller than the % of atheists out on the streets.  In fact, there are more Scientologists in prison than atheists in prison, even though atheists outnumber Scientologists out on the streets.  Religion can do good (like give me Al Green), but there are some problems that arise when you convince the majority of people that there is an invisible magical law that is more important than the laws of the community that they vote on, especially when the law of G-d can forgive every sin ever.



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Kasz216 on 18 November 2008
Rath said:
Kasz216 said:
Soleron said:
Jackson50 said:
Soleron said:

No, and no. Faith is irrational, and religion is an artifact of human culture and evolution (for an great explanation of this, read Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion' - despite the name it is a very reasoned and informative book).

I would not recommend The God Delusion. It offers nothing new in this debate. If you have heard the arguments for why God does and does not exist, then there is no point in reading his book. This whole debate on whether or not God exists will never find a resolution. At best, no one knows.

 

You can't have understood his book then. His book is NOT primarily about arguing that God does not exist. He first argues that the rational position is not agnosticism ("no one knows") but atheism ("probably no God, with scientific conviction")*, and then, for two-thirds of the book, explains where religion comes from, why it is bad regardless of its truth and how we can solve the real underlying problem of irrationality.

*His main point is that, just because something can't be decided either way, that doesn't imply a 50% probability of it being true. You don't believe in fairies, but there isn't a 50% chance of fairies existing.

Seems like an illogical hypothisis from a scientific standard.

I mean... look at how scientists approach things.

They see something they don't understand and ask a question.

"Why"

Then they come up with a hypothisis for why... and keep with that hypothisis believing in it and expiermenting with it until they prove or disprove it.

It's not a matter of "Do pink faeries exist." or "Does god exist"

It's a question of "Why does everything exist."

God is simply the hypothisis to that answer.

Just how something like Dark Energy was the hypothisis to why the universe is expanding, despite the fact there was no actual proof for such a thing. Or Ether... which was a hypothsis for... I forget what it was a hypothisis for now... something with why light travels "slower" in some areas?

Until

A) Another hyptohisis is proven.

or

B) Your hypothisis is disproven.

It's just as likely as any other outcome scientifically.

 

The existence or non-exisetence of God are not scientific hypotheses as it is impossible to test using the scientific method.

It seems highly likely that in the future we will be able to find out whether dark matter really exists, it even seems somewhat likely that we will be able to test things like M-Theory, the existence of God however can never be disproven by experiment and as such can never be considered scientific.

For the second part of your post, many people (including me) think that as long as there is no need for a God to explain the universe why should we make things more complex by having one?

 

I disagree.  You may be able to test whether there is a god or not in the future.

Who could of thought we could of tested for Dark Energy (Not Dark Matter) when the hypothisis was formed?  Infact it was formed based on the fact that we couldn't test for it.

"Something we can't see or test seems to be pushing the universe faster even though the rate at which the universe is expanding should be shrining.... lets call it dark energy."

At the point the hypothisis was formed it was equally likely it was invisible snails for all we knew.



Kasz216 on 18 November 2008
The Ghost of RubangB said:
ManusJustus said:

Religion had a lot of uses in the past. How else could you convince a bunch of primitive cave men not to kill, rape, and steal from each other without telling them that a magical being would punish them (or in the case of Jesus and the Pharoahs, that they were god)?

As humans understand our universe more and more, we realize that even though we dont have all the answers that those answers have a scientific explanation and not a magical one.

You tell them that a physical being would punish them.  It's called the police, or court, or a militia, or a tribunal, or whatever you want.  We still have a bunch of primitive cave men roaming our streets murdering and raping, and we lock them up.  And they're not atheists.

The % of atheists in the prison population is smaller than the % of atheists out on the streets.  In fact, there are more Scientologists in prison than atheists in prison, even though atheists outnumber Scientologists out on the streets.  Religion can do good (like give me Al Green), but there are some problems that arise when you convince the majority of people that there is an invisible magical law that is more important than the laws of the community that they vote on, especially when the law of G-d can forgive every sin ever.

Hard to say on that one.  I think a lot of people who say they believe in god are really just atheists who don't have the balls to say they're atheists... either to themselves or others.

How else can you explain so many people doing so much bad shit when they're supposed to believe that they're being watched 24/7 santa claus style but instead of a lump of coal your going to get an enternity of eternal punishment.

I mean, sure you got some people who delude themselves into thinking they're doing gods work, like the crazy evangelicals on TV who get the poor to give them there money. 

But, with all the other people... I mean... what the heck?  I mean, even christianity gets you only out of bad shit if you really make a change.  It's not like you can just accept jesus and go all GTA on the town and then still be fine.

 

 



Tispower1 on 18 November 2008
Kasz216 said:
Tispower1 said:
Soleron said:
Kasz216 said:

Seems like an illogical hypothisis from a scientific standard.

I mean... look at how scientists approach things.

They see something they don't understand and ask a question.

"Why"

Then they come up with a hypothisis for why... and keep with that hypothisis believing in it and expiermenting with it until they prove or disprove it.

It's not a matter of "Do pink faeries exist." or "Does god exist"

It's a question of "Why does everything exist."

God is simply the hypothisis to that answer. 

Just how something like Dark Energy was the hypothisis to why the universe is expanding, despite the fact there was no actual proof for such a thing.  Or Ether... which was a hypothsis for... I forget what it was a hypothisis for now... something with why light travels "slower" in some areas?

Until

A) Another hyptohisis is proven.

or

B) Your hypothisis is disproven.

It's just as likely as any other outcome scientifically.

 

That is NOT science. Scientific theories must be disprovable. Since it is not possible to disprove God, God is not a valid scientific hypothesis. "The absence of a God" IS disprovable, for example if a God appeared.

Dark Matter / Dark Energy aren't good science either, since they aren't disprovable. An example of a sound theory is evolution: a single fossil in the wrong place or a single mechanism that couldn't eveolve gradually could disprove it - but no  one has successfully found one.

And no, again you are confusing "no evidence either way" with "50% probablity". We can make judgements about fairies despite the fact we can't prove they don't exist - i.e. that it is unlikely they do.

 

 

Disagree. By it's very nature you can't disprove evolution, as you can't have a fossil in the wrong place, people will just say it evolved from something else, and there's a few links missing. Also, any mechanism could be evolved if you believed in improbability enough.

You can disprove evolution, though to do so you would have to prove something else probably.

 

 

Which is why I don't get why Atheists are so hung up on the idea that you can't believe in God because we don't know all the answers, yet believe evolution, even though the only why of disproving it scientifically would be to work out another why, it seems they are using a different school of thought to suit their arguements.