Beliefs - TTLG Forums

fett on 5/8/2009 at 20:38

Quote Posted by Stitch

T in general religion is more easily explained by lifelong conditioning and the fact that our brains are wired to see connections that don't actually exist.

You've only hit the nail right on the fucking head, my man. What bothers me is that these people (and I'm speaking of myself in a past life here) make big life decisions based on these connections, and these decisions ultimately affect the people around them, especially their children. These "connections" are proof to them that a God exists and therefore we must vote Republican, always side with Israel, close the liquor stores on Sundays, and get evolution out of the schools.

I've said many times in these boards that religion seems to always co-habitate with mental illness, however mild a form it may be. That's probably far too sweeping and unfair, but at the very least I believe it causes or attracts a mode of thinking that is very circular and subjective, and that's bad, bad, bad for the human race both socially and politically.

Chade on 5/8/2009 at 21:45

Quote Posted by Herr_Garrett

The fact that the idea of something greater than me - in this case, God - exists, proves that the thing exists. Were I the only thing in existance, I would have no ideas of anything but me. Yet I do. There you go.

Also, the other argument is that I don't remember creating myself. I clearly am a finite being. Thus, a creator of mine (badly put, but yes) and an infinte thing exists. Since finite can only come from infinite, and not the other way round, the ultimate creator of a finite being is infinite. That, according to Déscartes, is God.

Hrmm, I remember why this sort of thing used to infuriate me. It just seems that applying logic (if you can call it that) without a solid premise is a waste of time.

For instance:

Were I the only thing in existance, I would have no ideas of anything but me.

What? Why? Doesn't this assume a whole lot of things about the way ideas/memory/etc work?

I clearly am a finite being.

Really? Why?

Thus, a creator of mine (badly put, but yes) and an infinte thing exists

Does this really follow from the previous sentence? Doesn't this assume a whole lot of stuff about memory, cause and effect, and the topology of the space I inhabit?

But of course it's easy to snipe from the sidelines, and maybe one day I should stop being lazy and pay a bit more attention to this mumbo jumbo. I'm just not sure how much attention it really deserves ...

Turtle on 5/8/2009 at 22:04

Quote Posted by Herr_Garrett

Since finite can only come from infinite,

Really?
I came from my parents who, as far as I know, are finite.

mol on 5/8/2009 at 22:06

I just don't believe in God, or any god. Actually to begin with, we should define what we mean by god, but.....let's skip that, it wouldn't make any difference, really.

What bothers me the most are the power structures and the abuse of that power, and all those often ridiculous, nonsensical and pompous rituals which, I believe, us humans have created (which I cannot believe would be 'required' by any God/god/any deity - definately not any worth worshipping), that go along with religions. I simply cannot believe that any higher being (more evolved, more technologically advanced - I don't believe even a God would be 'supernatural', there's nothing supernatural in the world, only undiscovered phenomena) would require the kind of worship and would enforce the kinds of rules many religions seem to tell us they do. I can't believe how any such being would be so vain as to require us to rest on Sunday, not eat pork, not do this, not do that - it doesn't make any sense whatsover. And should there be a being requiring these largely ridiculous things save a few generally sense making moral codes, it would be as vain as any human, as flawed, as needy, and absolutely not worth any worship.

If there is a God who, supposedly, loves us and cares for us, then he better well show that for real, because he has a pretty damn perverted idea of love and caring. And I don't want to hear any of this crap about God moving in mysterious ways - that's just more rationalisation by us humans, and totally nonsensical. I know, nobody here said that, but the general suggestion of that statement is often heard.

Seriously. God. You care for us - show it. It's not hard. For what I've seen, if you really are real, you're not worth believing in at all. Just look around you for a bit. All this about the god being in the details and in the nature is absolutely laughable. Poetic, yes, making sense, no. Nature and the cosmos is amazing, it's baffling, it's majestic, it's beyond our understanding, but that doesn't make it the work of a god.

How can anyone really believe the Bible is the word of God? Countless of authors, countless or translators, different languages, motivations, hundreds of years of oral narratives, without a doubt changed by every story teller, every person, every decade, every cultural context, political motivations, greed, power structures, dominance over others - and I should believe that it's somehow the word of God? It's ridiculous. The Bible is likely a complete work of fiction, just like every other holy book out there. That's just how I think it is.

It doesn't make the books worthless, obviously, for quite clearly they're anything but. They're just not the word of god, or God.

Same goes for any other sacred book. We wrote them. Human beings. They're motivated by our needs and greeds, shaped by our faults and of course also by what's good in us - but they're flawed. They're not the word of god, they're the words of human beings. Sometimes worth heeding, moreoften not.

In principle, I have nothing against the idea of the God. It would actually be pretty great if there was a god - not sure I'd be really happy with the God in the Bible, seems he has issues, especially the version in the Old Testament. But everything I see and hear and read is against that proposition.

The universe doesn't need a god. We don't understand where the universe came from, fully, but we're a very, very young species, and our capacity to understand all things is still so very, very small. We don't need to yet, either. We're only at this point, taking baby steps, if even that. It's arrogant beyond belief that we should expect to understand the universe this early in our evolution. Give a million of years, and ask again, we may have a better idea. Even in a thousand years we're probably wiser. Our technological advances are exponential, and soon we will have the capacity for reasoning far beyond our current capabilities.

The need to believe in supernatural is somehow built in us. A likely survival mechanism of sorts. Whatever it is, it doesn't make god a reality. There is no god.

Can I be sure of it? Of course not, not 100%. Nothing in the universe is 100% certain. But I'm pretty damn sure. There is no god. If there was, my god wouldn't be supernatural, simply natural, but obviously so much more evolved. And not automatically worth worshipping, even if said god had created me (we're close to creating life ourselves, new life, so I find the idea of a higher civilization capable of creating life almost a given - of course they would be able to.)

Like Arthur C Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

I also find the idea that a god would be a person, or a single entity fairly ridiculous. A god could be a conscious universe, like that postulated by Ray Kurzweil, as the 6th Epoch of human kind, where the entire universe has been converted into a computational engine, and the entire Universe 'wakes up' (The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology). But the word 'god' itself is so value loaded, it's almost useless. What do we mean by 'god' anyway?

But the God of the Bible? There are bedtime stories more plausible than that.

Having said all this, I have no problem with people believing in god or God or Gods, and I grant that religions have also done a lot of good. On the whole, I think the whole world would be a much better place without religions, but seeing as how believing in the supernatural is somehow an intrinsic part of our infantile humanity, it's fairly pointless to fight against it. It's about freedom of choise. Believe if you need to and want to, believe if you simply believe. If it gives you strength and happiness, it's great.

Starrfall on 5/8/2009 at 22:43

Quote Posted by Herr_Garrett

It's a bit more compliated than that, methinks.

Well it's been a few years but I just (http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/meditation3.html) checked again and nope, that's pretty much it.

Queue on 5/8/2009 at 23:02

Quote Posted by mol

... Believe if you need to and want to, believe if you simply believe. If it gives you strength and happiness, it's great.

Very well said, and very true--as was everything else you said. For me, it's only when those that believe also believe that they should impose their beliefs - or convert as many as possible to their belief as "suggested" by their church - onto others when I take issue, and wish they'd hurry up and go meet their maker.

heywood on 6/8/2009 at 04:17

Quote Posted by Wormrat

No, they weren't. And they aren't. There's nothing "supernatural" about the Greek gods, for example--although they were "supernatural" in the colloquial sense, they were very much a part of the world. Although a lot of people say that God is not part of the natural world, whenever they try to imagine what God is actually like, they are forced to use a picture that is similar to the Greeks (for example, whenever someone tries to picture God creating something).

You didn't tell me what "supernatural" means. If you say, "there is more to the universe than the natural world," you have not actually said anything. "More" does not have any understandable meaning in that context. It's like saying, "there are more sides to a triangle than the 3 we draw in coordinate space." It's just a a vague idea of "extra unknown stuff."

The point I'm trying to make is that all mystical statements are like this. For example, a phrase like "a being outside of space and time" is not something that you can semantically parse. It might sound, at first, like a clever way to explain Creation. But the instant you try to actually imagine anything like that, you're stuck with some kind of caricature of a humanoid sitting in darkness, then using his powers to make matter appear in a vacuum.

It's because "outside of space and time" is unthinkable, just like you can't imagine a 4th-dimensional object.

You've picked a bad analogy. We can imagine 4-dimensional objects and have the mathematics to describe them. Hell, string theorists imagine 11-dimensional objects. We can even work out through mathematics how 4-dimensional objects would appear to a 3-dimensional observer.

What I can't do is visualize things in 4 dimensions, but neither can I visualize what it would be like to see in 2-dimensions. But that's irrelevant to the discussion. One does not need to be able to visualize God to postulate God's existence.

And supernatural simply means existing outside of what is scientifically observable. We don't even know exactly what 'scientifically observable' means for sure, because our current models of the universe are unproven. But these models postulate that a large portion of the universe is not observable. So supernatural doesn't necessarily mean being outside of space and time.

And obviously, if you accept the Big Bang theory, anything that existed before the singularity is unknowable, leaving the door completely open to speculation.

Quote:

What I meant by "unrelated" is that, unlike your idea of the supernatural above, this statement does deal with observable effects. What you are suggesting is that we would see an end to explanation--at some point, things would seem to just "happen" (this is really sloppy, I know, but I want to avoid the general topic of causality for now). That's fine. And if someone wants to put "God" in that gap, so be it. But the word "God" still wouldn't mean anything other than "the thing that makes that stuff happen, somehow." It's a separate argument that doesn't address the idea of "supernatural existence."

Of course people want to put God in that gap. I think that's what God is for. Have you ever noticed that over time, as humans learn more about the world, the universe, and nature, the role of God shrinks? The more we know and the more we can explain, the less we rely on God to fill in the gap.

In the abstract sense, God is a metaphor for the unknowable or unexplainable. And that's why I find atheism unappealing. It's easy to argue against specific religious beliefs that defy rationality, like immaculate conception. But it's hard to argue against the existence of things that are beyond observation but don't necessarily contradict our observations and theories. For instance, a lot of scientists like to believe that God is responsible for the creation of the universe in the Big Bang and for determining its basic laws. There is no rational argument either for or against that.

Herr_Garrett on 6/8/2009 at 06:08

Quote Posted by Chade

Can you come up with anything entirely new, totally unprecedented and not originating in any way from this world?

No.

That alone pretty much proves you are finite. And if you examine yourself, you find there are points over/beyond which you cannot go. You cannot know what happens after death (even if it is a seeming one), what happened before your birth/creation, that sort of thing.

The existence of a finite thing proves the existence of the infinite. It is only logical. If you have 1 (one) thing in the whole world which is finite, then the rest is endless. The infinite contains the finite. Yes, now you say that in the endless has something with ends in it, it cannot be endless. But fact is, from the point of view of the infinite, the borders of the finite are totally arbitrary and might as well not even be there.

Also, someone here said that finite things might make up inifinity. That is... illogical.

You came from your parents? How true is that? Not at all. You came from and endless chain of atoms, and subatomic particles. The fact that there were your parents' sperm and egg is only another link in the endless chain of matter and energy.

Raph: That is true, you cannot concieve God as it is, in its fullness. You cannot percieve it either, true again. We only get that dim, shitty picture in our mind that we come up with about something infinitely larger that ourselves. Like that he baked and hand-painted every human in the world and stuff of this ilk. That's totally degraded shit, but somewhere in it, there's a tiny grain of truth.
Actually, if we could concieve God, we would be Gods ourselves. When I last checked, I wasn't one.
You can't imagine a perfect, pristine island all by yourself. You can only visualise it because you've seen pictures of the Caribbean and the Pacific. A man who has never seen (even on pictures) the sea cannot grasp its idea, not to say to imagine an island.
I guess most of you, when you try to think up a pristine, untouched island, have a hammock in it somewhere. Or footsteps on the shore. Or you see it from an angle you could never see it from, only a camera. And that is already the sign of human intrusion.

As humans, we are so affected by our human nature (which is right and proper), that we cannot think in anything but human terms. And human terms, I'm sure you'll agree, have nothing to do with reality.

For instance: When have you last seen a tree? There's no such thing as a tree. Every arboreal being, which we percieve as 'tree', is totally different from any other being. 'Tree', or any other collective noun (100% of nouns, because sooner or later every noun describes more than one thing), is totally false. But we get along with it, and so far have been able to understand, more or less, each other. But essentially, or language(s) lie(s). This is just one example of the inherent humanity of human thinking.

And with a thinking like this, how could we ever aspire to understand, perfectly understand, anything apart from us? And we're incapable even of that.

Vivian on 6/8/2009 at 06:52

Thing is, you've basically just thought yourself round to empiricism and the basis of the modern scientific method there, Herr_Garrett. Hence the whole falsification thing being considered the cornerstone of quote unquote knowledge - it would require observation of the entire universe to prove a statement about the universe, but only a single contrary instance to disprove it. As no one has come up with a satisfying condition for disproving the existence of god and shown it to be false, it still remains in the realms of imagination, beliefs or whatever, and not what might be termed knowledge. If you want to come up with a testable hypothesis about god, go ahead. It might be fun.

And the category definition 'tree' is based on a collection of shared characters common to all trees. As are most such definitions - and why 'a tree' exists as a separate statement to just 'tree'. Why is that false?

Beleg Cúthalion on 6/8/2009 at 07:06

@Wormrat: Apart from what heywood said, I find it hard to see a difference in the process of imagining or (not-) understanding between things we have not yet discovered and things we'll never be able to discover ("by definition undetectable"). Maybe there is some framework indicating where the solution is to be found but the very process in thinking isn't different IMHO. Plus, I wasn't talking about the good old ancient gods, I was rather thinking of the neoplatonic unapproachable uppermost thing...whatever. Just because supernatural elements cannot be perceived by our minds (just like the absence of space and time) it doesn't mean you cannot think about it. Assuming that all the philosophical and theological speculations in the last hundreds of years refered to a natural basis seems to me a little risky to say the least.

Quote Posted by mol

Having said all this, I have no problem with people believing in god or God or Gods, and I grant that religions have also done a lot of good. On the whole, I think the whole world would be a much better place without religions, but seeing as how believing in the supernatural is somehow an intrinsic part of our infantile humanity, it's fairly pointless to fight against it.

I have studied theology for a very small time (due to the modular study courses) and I've seen that the students there have a enormously better ability to analyse things, to think in abstract terms and to criticise their own than what I had seen in other fields of the - as you call them - humanities. Now I wonder how so many people here can dismiss them as suffering from "lifelong conditioning" and being completely turned inside out and away from what you call reality. Where's your authority or intellect to judge the whole thing (and not only people believing in saints for instance, that's easy to condemn)? Where's the authority to abolish the whole idea just because some of its exoteric elements have become redundant in the past (and only because they were attempts made by humans like you and me)? And why the heck do you get the idea that religion cannot be adapted to the present like it had been adapted to every period of time in the past?

These are rhetorical questions. :p I don't want to convince anyone of something, I just want to raise doubt and sound a note of caution before judging too fast. God, am I not honourable?