Does God Exist?

You've offered me an accusation, an attack and an assault in that one line.

Interesting how you want to ply me with your information. Mind Field can be a Mind War, a Hell .. or a Heaven. You'll have to fight your war with somebody else .. I fought the Battle of Israel a long time ago, and I won. And you have no idea what that means. You never will.

Good Will to you, AiryFox.

Whatever Good Will is supposed to mean :sunny:

 

In other words, your cognitive dissonance has decided to make an appearance.

 

That is a matter of opinion.

 

Fuck you all. My religious beliefs are the best!

 

AiryFox, you're on my ignore list so I haven't read your 12:10 PM post. But you're proof why there's war. And it isn't because of God now, is it. Crystal clear.

Again, Good Will to you.

Oh yeah, I have to go see what's up with Iran. Read something about torturing Christians to get them to convert to Islam. Sheesh, when will these people understand? Sigh...

 

Nice spiel of ill logic there. Keep it up. :2thumbsup:

 

Glad we can agree to something. Too bad you insist it is irrelevant. It seems a little bit too convenient for you, to not answer that question because you insist it is irrelevant. Even if it were so it doesn't hurt to tell, right?

 

From the way you twist logic by way of fallacies, admitting to your context of the obviously irrelevant would only benefit you to the point of raising point that further leads us away from the actual topic at hand.

 

I was simply asking if they taught positive examples of religion (religious influence on historic society) in your education. Nothing more or less. No twisted logic.

 

To placate your stubbornness, however, I will admit that adherence to religious beliefs does often times lead to people making themselves better products of humanity.

And I reiterate: ...The fact that unjustified beliefs can have a consoling influence on the human mind is no argument in their favor. If every physician told his terminally ill patients that they were destined for a complete recovery, this might also set many of their minds at ease, but at the expense of the truth. ~ Sam Harris

Which is still an answer in conjunction with my admittance to your question despite your claim to the contrary.

Now I await your next point that will no doubt be quite fallacious.

 

You sound a bit dogmatic there Thanks for finally giving a full anwer :2thumbsup: I have to say I did ment not only on an individuals mind (in the form of consolation) though, but more so on (historic) society as a whole. I understand I am asking a lot of you here with my fallacious questions Hope you can (or are willing to) do it!

 

So I'm thinking.

Are there people who hate religion so much that they're okay with the torturing of Christians? Or Muslims? What about homosexuals? Is it okay when it's Christians being tortured? Like, if you're the sort of person who really, REALLY hates Christians .. are you smug satisfied that they're being tortured? Serious thought of inquiry. I wonder.

What about Muslims? People want to hurt them too, right? And when they get hurt, does it make people happy? Sadism.

I'm going to go visit World Without Torture now. I love their IDEAL of envisioning a world without torture but I often find myself thinking that torture will always be part of Humanity. But I'd never suggest that they should stop doing what they do or stop striving for the ideal. Wouldn't it be nice, a world without torture? A world without war and hate?

Factually, there are MANY people who would say NO. There are people who love to hate, love to fight and love to war.

There are those who believe a war-less world will never be the reality. There are people who simply do not want Peace.

Now FIX IT, God! hahaha.

There are many fights and wars that happen in life and history that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with God.

Well, whatever.

 

There are some people who hate religion that much and there are some people that hate a 'heathen' or godless person to the same extent. They are both minorities happily and it seems unwise to me to base your (general you btw, not you ginalee) opinion about religion and their followers solely on those minorities.
But it seems many agitating people (both theists and atheists) are letting it cloud their judgement and conclude by insisting 'the other side' as a whole is causing all the problems, while it is only a few of them that are so fundamentalist that it is problematic and they are not on one side only.

 

My dog didn't say much that was intelligent either.

 

Yes, it's a jungle out there, full of false gods and prophets, but many of them are secular, and it's the secular religions--e.g.,nationalism, Marxism, capitalism--that have caused the most carnage in recent centuries. To the extent supernatural religion has been involved at all, it's been largely as a bit player,pressed into service by the politicians and their private gazillionaire sponsers to cheer the troops on. So railing against God and "religion" doesn't address the root of the problem. The hard part is telling the false prophets from the true ones. Jesus gave us the "bitter fruit" test, but in practice applying that takes good judgment, informed by critical thinking, personal experience, street wisdom, and common sense.

Yes, I'm quite sure that I'm a human being, fallible and easily led astray by unconscious needs and drives. But so are we all, even you. Life is a gamble, and betting on the wrong horse can get us killed, as it did for those unfortunate millions whose deaths you lament. The superego (aka, conscience) you seem to dislike is the unconscious' principal check on the id, and it includes those altruistic inclinations you extoll from pre-human evolution. The alternative is to be driven by the dark impulses of wealth, status, power, and sensual indulgence. My faith is a "joyful bet" based on my best risk-benefit analysis of the consequences of adopting a particular set of beliefs. In a sense, I'm just an optimistic agnostic, but I'm betting on Jesus and the agape principle as "the Way, the Truth, and the Life"."God is love" It's that simple.

I don't think this is just an "idealistic idea" in my head; others believe it too, although some are confused by the particulars of doctrine and dogma. I believe it because it offers a source of meaning and morality to my life, as well as a way of understanding physical reality that appreciates the integrated complexity of the multiverse and the mystery of existence.. Whether or not it's the only way, or even the best way, is something I can't answer apart from my own judgment. But I think following it makes me a better, more effective and moral person, and enables me to act harmoniously with others. The proof is in the pudding. I'm a pragmatist when it comes to truth. Any belief system that can produce the greatest net satisfaction and least misery for the greatest number of people is inherently true, in the only way that counts. I believe that all religions reflect aspects of these truths, and I agree with Saint Justin Martyr (and Pope Francis) that even atheists can arrive at the same place by sincere application of reason and conscience. I think if everyone believed it (ie., love God, love neighbor), the world would be a better place, without those terrible wars you're talking about. "The Kingdom of the Father is spread out everywhere upon the earth, and people do not see it." (Gospel of Thomas, 113)

Does God have "objective existence"? That's a more difficult question to answer, and admittedly one with which I'm less concerned. The Deity I'm talking about isn't the Dude in the Sky, and I'm not a biblical literalist. I'm cool with deism, pantheism, and panentheism, as well as theism. The major competitor with God for explaining origins at present seems to be M-theory and Hawking's Wave Function of the Universe, for which there seems to be no firm empirical or even mathematical support. The jury is still out, and it's conceivable that the controversy will be resolved by a Theory of Everything in my lifetime. Or possibly Superstring might turn out to be smarter than we thought. I wouldn't rule it out. Meanwhile, I'm still betting on the idea that has the potential of solving a lot of world problems, which I think is a simple "Love God, love your neighbor" philosophy.

Your condemnation of God seems to be centered on what philosophers call the problem of theodicy--why does an omniscient, omnipotent, supposedly benevolent being allow such awful things to happe? The approach I take to this is drawn from process theology. The founder, Protestant theologian Charles Hartshorne (who drew on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead) argued that God's omnipotence and omniscience is consistent with God's self-limiting decisions to give humans free will and the rest of nature indeterminacy. I have no problem with the more direct approach (which amounts to the same thing) of simply saying God is not omnipotent and omniscient, just pretty powerful and smart. By giving humans the capacity to make choices, even bad ones, God ties His own hands as far as wars and false gods and prophets are concerned. But through the teachings of great thinkers like the Buddha and Jesus, we have the ability to do much better. And really, the positive, beautiful aspects of reality, including man and his works, are mind boggling.

As a fellow fallible human, I doubt that you are "precisely" aware of much of anything (I know I'm not), and certainly being a theology student doesn't qualify you to make authoritative pronouncements. I agree with you that religion has caused major damage in the past. Would you agree that so have Robespierre, Joseph Stalin, Mao tsetung, Pol Pot, and the Kims in North Korea? Did they believe in God? The question about the relative damage done by "religion" and its benefits can only rationally be assessed by looking carefully at the benefit side of the ledger, as well as the cost side. The costs are a product of particular forms religion, especially fundamentalism, not religion per se. I think I'd agree with Sam Harris that crazy people can be dangerous, but I don't think all of us are crazy. Christianity toned down considerably in recent decades, thanks, I admit, to the impact of secularizing forces. So what "precisely" is the major damage done by non-fundamentalist religion in the world today? On the positive side, religion remains a major source of meaning and morality for millions of people. I think we need an environmental impact statement before we try to extinguish it. Efforts by militant atheists to get rid of it in the past, in eighteenth century France, the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Korea, etc., led, by any measure, to disaster, and didn't work. Do you want to try it again?

We do have a more benign experimental model in Western Europe of what society without religion might be like. In many European countries, the forces of secularization have largely triumphed peacefully, and many people are beyond atheism in thinking that religion isn't even a relevant question. In my opinion, these societies are working out relatively well, despite some major economic and immigration problems--thanks in part to cultural traditions inherited from a Judeo-Christian past. Certainly there are serious theists who are doing their part to make these societies work. One of the big challenges is Islamic immigration, which, in my opinion has been much better handled in the United States, thanks to its tradition of religious pluralism and constitutional protection of free exercise of religion. In France, rigid adherence to secularization by such measures as the ban on wearing the hijab has led to conflict, while in the more religious climate of the United States, Muslims have had less trouble fitting in. Whether or not European countries are up to the task of survival in a rough neighborhood remains to be seen. Their survival may depend on the United States, where God is far from dead.

 

I can't thedope. Us "have-nots" are human like you godlings.

My invocation isn't god. Everything is what it is.

Calling all newborns! thedope thinks giving ones love is not also the desire for more?! He doesn't see that regardless of where one wants it, it is wanted?! Or can he just not speak straight? Not to worry, he still invokes truth on occasion! Being is having as he says. Come on joy! :-D

 

I am constantly amazed that nearly every religious person I meet states flat out there are false "gods" but they are the thousands of OTHER gods - "Mine is the REAL one and she/it/he/they will do awful things to anyone that does not choose the right one"

it is either arbitrary of piss poor planning in my mind

 

A very impressive post Had a hard time not quoting and reacting to everything but I really wanted to quote this part and say even though I am not familiar with Hartsthorne or Whitehead it is roughly how I perceive things as well! It is funny and really good to see how people can come to the same conclusion (or well, thoughts, why call it conclusive ) by completely diffferent ways of thinking/searching.

 

I'll say this one more time;
God exists because bacon exists and if bacon exists then it means that God is good and benevolent.
Case closed.

 

Are we suppose to understand that joke/truth better the 3rd time, Noxi? Saying case closed also doesn't make it so by the way