Why Should I Believe in God?

[Eva]

that's what i think, prof. and her style sounds somewhat familiar...

do we know her?

Professor Chaos wrote

This is obviously a fake.

I suggested she might even be you.

Kate wrote

Not exactly....scrub my back?

Soitenly! But watch out, my hands are BIG and FAST.

[Professor Chaos]

Lurker wrote

I suggested she might even be you.

If I ever pull that one, I'll do MUCH better than that.

[anthonyjfuchs]

PollyP wrote

Rhinoqulous wrote

So have at it. Why do you believe in God, and why do you think I (or anyone) should believe in God as well?

Okay, I think I may have posted here once years ago, just got an e-mail from the site and came and visited again. A lot of name calling and the like which to me is a waste of valuable time, but whatever floats your boat...

Now look guys,

The question for all of you is not: Why should I believe in God? The real question for this forum is: Why would anyone claiming to be a rational thinker believe in "No-God"? Given that we cannot examine enough of the known universe (and certainly not anything outside of the known universe) to prove or disprove the existence of God, the only intellectually honest position should be agnosticism. Atheism is of course a belief system that over-reaches when it claims to be rational (btw If you haven't claimed this then I'm not addressing you).

The fact of the matter is that you can't believe in SCIENCE or rational argument anyway. What you CAN believe is that specific interpretations of observed data are representative of an actual truth. This is the true meaning of science. In other words in science you validate your ideas about the nature of things through experience, and eventually, you put your faith in them. True science is experiential knowledge, hence the word experiment. The experiment gives cause to believe the theory. Not the other way around. But without the theory, how would you decide what data to observe and what experiences to consider? This is why the integrity of your paradigm is crucial to any meaningful conclusion.

In other words you cannot say that the evidence is lacking if you haven't looked in the right places, or ignored certain pieces of information that don't fit your paradigm. When the Catholic Church was faced with the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe, they actually had the experience of most of humanity to back up their interpretation of the "data". But they were wrong. Their paradigm was not sound, and they were not looking in the right places for the right data. Galileo was.

So in conclusion, if you haven't encountered God in your particular sphere of experience, why should anyone attempt to try and contradict your conviction? The answer to this question is that they probably should not attempt unless you are honestly asking the question in order to broaden your experiential knowledge. Otherwise, they are likely to get a hostile reaction, and all of their reason and experience will fall on deaf ears.

[calpurnpiso]

geo wrote

Okay, I think I may have posted here once years ago, just got an e-mail from the site and came and visited again. A lot of name calling and the like which to me is a waste of valuable time, but whatever floats your boat...

Now look guys,

The question for all of you is not: Why should I believe in God? The real question for this forum is: Why would anyone claiming to be a rational thinker believe in "No-God"? Given that we cannot examine enough of the known universe (and certainly not anything outside of the known universe) to prove or disprove the existence of God, the only intellectually honest position should be agnosticism. Atheism is of course a belief system that over-reaches when it claims to be rational (btw If you haven't claimed this then I'm not addressing you).

The fact of the matter is that you can't believe in SCIENCE or rational argument anyway. What you CAN believe is that specific interpretations of observed data are representative of an actual truth. This is the true meaning of science. In other words in science you validate your ideas about the nature of things through experience, and eventually, you put your faith in them. True science is experiential knowledge, hence the word experiment. The experiment gives cause to believe the theory. Not the other way around. But without the theory, how would you decide what data to observe and what experiences to consider? This is why the integrity of your paradigm is crucial to any meaningful conclusion.

In other words you cannot say that the evidence is lacking if you haven't looked in the right places, or ignored certain pieces of information that don't fit your paradigm. When the Catholic Church was faced with the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe, they actually had the experience of most of humanity to back up their interpretation of the "data". But they were wrong. Their paradigm was not sound, and they were not looking in the right places for the right data. Galileo was.

So in conclusion, if you haven't encountered God in your particular sphere of experience, why should anyone attempt to try and contradict your conviction? The answer to this question is that they probably should not attempt unless you are honestly asking the question in order to broaden your experiential knowledge. Otherwise, they are likely to get a hostile reaction, and all of their reason and experience will fall on deaf ears.

Remember the BRAIN is the creator of god. This is a scientific fact. When the brains malfunction it accepts delusions like GOD as if it existed all by itself OUTSIDE the brain, it doesn't. Religious believers are no different than folks suffering from the delusions resulting from schizophrenia, drugs, temporal lobe epilepsy etc.

belief in NO-GOd? ROTFLMAO..you seem to be ignorant of what the definition of atheism is. It simply means no-belief, or LACK of Belief. We mutated evolved primates created god with our brains. Gods are a dime a dozen.. wanna buy mine?

[ubs]

geo wrote

The question for all of you is not: Why should I believe in God? The real question for this forum is: Why would anyone claiming to be a rational thinker believe in "No-God"?

Or "No-Invisible Pink Unicorns, or any infinite number of things whose existence we cannot verify with our senses and the answer is because it is of no practical use.

Believing in any ONE of the infinite set of invisible objects - that is adopting a religion - diverts resources away from interacting with the verifiable world and gets in the way using and acquiring useful knowledge.

And concerning oneself with an infinite number of unverifiable entities - agnosticism - is even more of a waste of resources.

Leaving atheism as the only logical choice, and returns us to Rhinoqulous's excellent question: "Why should I believe in God?"

calpurnpiso wrote

belief in NO-GOd? ROTFLMAO..you seem to be ignorant of what the definition of atheism is. It simply means no-belief, or LACK of Belief.

The Greek and Latin root of atheism is Theos which means: God or Deity.

It is impossible to have "no-belief". You BELIEVE that the idea of God is made up in your brain. But since your brain made up that belief, you really don't have a sound basis for your belief. Your conclusion that God is a concept made up by human psychology is itself a product of human psychology.

Ask the right questions first...

your other "points" are a waste of breath my friend....

[Kate]

[Rhinoqulous]

geo wrote

The Greek and Latin root of atheism is Theos which means: God or Deity.

"A" = "without", "Theism" = "belief in God (deity, whatever). So "a-theism" is "without a belief in God".

It is impossible to have "no-belief".

See above.

You BELIEVE that the idea of God is made up in your brain. But since your brain made up that belief, you really don't have a sound basis for your belief. Your conclusion that God is a concept made up by human psychology is itself a product of human psychology.

I didn't make up the idea of God, other people did that. I just don't believe those ideas are correct (or that there is any reason to hold such beliefs).

Ask the right questions first...

What would those be?

[Professor Chaos]

geo wrote

Given that we cannot examine enough of the known universe (and certainly not anything outside of the known universe) to prove or disprove the existence of God, the only intellectually honest position should be agnosticism. Atheism is of course a belief system that over-reaches when it claims to be rational (btw If you haven't claimed this then I'm not addressing you).

As many of us have stated on several occasions, I am an atheist when it comes to the defined gods of the world's religion. I am agnostic towards a deistic god or any undefined gods.

Is it safe to assume you are an agnostic?