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Legitimacy of believing

^I definitely agree with you about the taste for the notion, though I'd probably say that I have a stronger distaste for atheistic nihilism (forgive me if that's redundant). I definitely have no taste for sheer determinism or sheer coincidence though. I'm probably an adherent to the Middle Way philosophy, if only I knew how to prove it.
I guess my main point in this thread is that since there's no way for science to really touch the question of god's existence then it makes having soft reasons like positive mental side-effects and so forth acceptable as reasons. If we're talking about something that is necessarily less than logical then it's really more about feelings than solid arguments anyway, that goes for any point of view though because even a refusal to believe anything without solid, substantial, evidence is the result of certain feelings reinforcing certain thought patterns.

Dislike for Christianity or monotheism probably influenced the OP in making this thread, and that undoubtedly came about as a result of some kind of baggage, and so it's not purely the result of dialectical thought.
 
freddy47 said:
This "argument" is not an argument at all its simply a personal appeal that since you feel these things that it is obvious that others should feel them too. It lacks reasoning and logic even by Christian Apologetic standards. And this is coming from a guy who was forced to take a Christian Apologetics class in high school.

By this rational I can claim that I feel the presence of Zeus and Apollo (although Apollo would make some sense as I am sitting in the sun right now :)) and that belief in them is just as legitimate as believing in Jebus whoops I mean Jesus. Or Jebus whatever doesn't really matter I feel their presence and I believe Jebus/Jesus/Zeus/Apollo/Aphrodite(I wish, shes a hottie ;))/Baal/Mars/every God in the Hindu pantheon loves me therefore you should all believe in all those Gods too. Why? Because I feel I have an intimate relationship with all them supernatural beings.
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since you feel these things that it is obvious that others should feel them too.
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Woah.dont get your knickers in a twist.at what point have I suggested anyone 'should' believe the same as me? You asked a question and I answered it. Its not my job to sell God to you.. as a Christian its my purpose to witness. So if someone asks I tell them.. and Im glad to.:)

My response to Fred here is also to anyone else who erroneously assumed I am posting to evangelise. xx

Peace n Love :)<3
 
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as a Christian its my purpose to witness.
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can i ask you why you believe speicfically in the christian god and not say, the god of islam or the sikh god or any other? if there are these other religions, what makes you sure christianity is the correct one and not say, hinduism? doesnt that straight away make you question the legitimacy of your beliefs?
 
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Well, no because I have a relationship with Christ who I know as God. I only believe in one God. :)
There are loads of interesting religions as you say hinduism buddhism etc..
I dont see my relationship with God as a religion.

Relationships are fluid.. the best ones are anyway. The one I have with God is about Love.. there are no rules in Love.

I dont see myself as religious.. more like in love.. devoted. When Christianity starts preaching from a grounding that isnt love
it becomes religious and looses its witness.
 
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I'm just curious about the multiplicity of identical language when people talk about spirituality. "Relationship to christ" etc. I'm wondering if there is a faith in a set of words that the mind imagines and generates feelings of comfort and so forth (and it also generates defenses of these primary placebo effects by saying things like "that's nice, but I really really do have a personal relationship with so and so"), the same is true of atheists who repeat the same language ad nauseum by talk of evidence and whatnot. I'm against all these exclusionary practices, but I suppose those are default ego-ridden positions.

Now I reform my stance, positive mental effects aren't merely the side effects of belief in a high power, they are the higher power in action. "Higher power" too is a phrase that seems to ring hollow in comparison to that which is really going on. MDAO is exactly right when the problem isn't one of fear of being close minded, but conclusive.

That's the reason why I think philosophy and spirituality are two things that shouldn't be combined under one roof at all as they are two COMPLETELY separate things. Philosophy belongs more with Politics, and Current Events belongs more with Spirituality in all honesty. Current events need to logic behind them, they simply happen, just like spirituality. Religion is second opinion I guess. But I digress.

A man killed a beetle with my bible, said have some meat with my bread.
 
the same is true of atheists who repeat the same language ad nauseum by talk of evidence and whatnot.
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basing your beliefs on evidence and basing them on 'a nice feeling inside' are not the same thing. evidence and reasoning is the only way we can collect knowledge about our world there is no known better method and, if there is a better method, we would use science to find that method. basing it on 'feeling it inside' or 'positive mental effects' or whatever is fine for you but, its not any use for me. why dont i get to see this evidence?

and i think attributing the positive mental effects to god kind of diminishes you as a person. you have it within yourself to create these positive mental effects, you dont need to give the credit to god.

mental effects aren't merely the side effects of belief in a high power, they are the higher power in action.
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so you have gone from saying the nice feeling is proof of god to saying the nice feeling is caused by god. its kind of the same thing. both are assuming the existence of god without any rational basis.
 
"Relationship to christ" etc. I'm wondering if there is a faith in a set of words that the mind imagines and generates feelings of comfort and so forth
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Believe me its not always comforting. I see God as Lover, Friend etc but He is also Refiner. Theres work done in the relationship. Its refining and painful but it draws me closer.
 
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Lazyscience said:
basing your beliefs on evidence and basing them on 'a nice feeling inside' are not the same thing. evidence and reasoning is the only way we can collect knowledge about our world there is no known better method
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isn't all evidence collection based on sensory perception, which is constructed by our brains, and hence really just 'a feeling inside'? i'm playing devils advocate here, i do probably agree the two are different. evidence could be, one could argue these days almost always is, collected entirely by machines, whereas the sensation of god could not be collected in such a way.

i have met christians like YPDH, they're the only christians i 'get,' and am prepared to beleive thats what they feel, and prepared to accept that maybe for some reason, i am not interpreting god correctly, or god isn't talking to me.
 
isn't all evidence collection based on sensory perception, which is constructed by our brains, and hence really just 'a feeling inside'?
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its not the same because you can show the evidence to other people and they can verify that its true and each time someone verifies it, that strengthens the credibility if that evidence. or you can have a theory and test it out to see if it works with experiments. for example an experiment can be carried out independently by different people around the world and they can compare the results and if they find that they are the same then that would be more evidence that the theory is correct. you see what i mean? and also, scientists always publish the results and exact methods of all their scientific experiments that go on so that they are public information and can be scrutinised by other scientists or anyone.

again, basing beliefs on faith and revelation is the opposite of basing beliefs on reason and evidence.

yeah i know that YPDH has these feelings inside that confirm her belief in god, but she will not be able to use this defend her position to others.
 
Lazyscience said:
its not the same because you can show the evidence to other people and they can verify that its true and each time someone verifies it, that strengthens the credibility if that evidence. or you can have a theory and test it out to see if it works with experiments. for example an experiment can be carried out independently by different people around the world and they can compare the results and if they find that they are the same then that would be more evidence that the theory is correct. you see what i mean? and also, scientists always publish the results and exact methods of all their scientific experiments that go on so that they are public information and can be scrutinised by other scientists or anyone.
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christians can argue that thats exactly the case with their communion with god- you need the right conditions, i.e. belief in god and probably some other stuff, you could call it the right 'experimnetal setup.' of course it seems cricular, because you have to believe in god to get the confirmation of god. but to get the confirmation of the higgs boson, we'll have spent billions etc, on the already existing belief that if we look in the right way, we might find it, so the same circularity applies. its called the problem of the theory-ladeness of experiment. as i said before, i'm playing devils advocate, science is my day job and i'm not religious, but the case isn't as clear cut or as strong as it may first appear.

the difference to me seems to be that to a religious person, the belief in god is less falsifiable than a sceintific theory is to a scientist. just one pieces of experimental evidence will cause a scientist to change their theory. whereas i could imagine religious people making an endless trail of excuses if i, in all the right conditions, failed to have a religious experience.

scientists claim they publish their experiments in a repeatable fashion, but its so competitive that they pretty much ensure in all papers that just enough detail is missed out to make repeating it impossible, to retain competitive advantage. and if they're not put on the preprint server, then you have to pay a hefty fee to access their results.....

there are genuine intractable problems about what we can actually learn from experiments, the relation between experiment and theory, etc that means scientist often overstate the strength of what they know. overstating these cases needlessly gives the anti-rationalism crew fodder, which makes for some v annoying backing and forthing....
 
^Believe me when I tell you I've heard all the arguments you're using before, and have even held them in some regard in my mind in the past. You've already shown an inability to defend your position in light of my assertion that the question of god cannot be touched by science because it lies outside of the realm of falsafiability, therefore your words are starting to ring hollow. You're bordering close to "not getting it" in my opinion. I know exactly what you're talking about, but that doesn't mean it's the only way you need to view the world. Objectivity is a great way to find out about the world around you to a large degree, but there are limits to objective truths, and anything you find out in one place in the world can just as easily be found to be the opposite someplace else, but subjectivity holds deeper truths for a person's inner life. If you deny that you are denying one half of the total equation and willfully closing your mind.

Also, what makes you think that another person has any ability to sway another's world-view in the first place? Hold everything under scrutiny, that I can never doubt, but also know that there is more to the world than meets the eye, even the sharpest eyes of microscopes and Geiger counters and so forth. The mind is a powerful thing and god is just a word, but so is evidence, it is the mind that truly exists only, everything else is suspect or so it seems. It's the subjective inner world that shapes how we view the out world, and interpret its goings on, that's the legitimacy of belief.
 
^I think we should close this argument with what Coffedrinker has written as it is wonderfully neutral as well as well put and written.

Especially that last paragraph.

IMO taking a step in either direction be it atheism or theism is making a gamble. That is why IMO Pascal considered it a wager, for both sides are equally lacking in convincing arguments/evidence. Although I must say that the Atheist camps seems to make more sense to me. But I am ultimately an agnostic although I lean highly towards atheism.
 
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I dont see my relationship with God as a religion.
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I also dislike religion ( for religions sake)..
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@ YellowPolkaDotHalo You are a Christian and therefore a part of a religion. I don't get how a person can claim to dislike religion and yet be a part of one. It seems... oh whats that word you used? Oh right hypocritical.

Worshiping a particular God/gods is religion. Being a Christian makes you a part of the Christian religion. Its really a case of whether you are or you're not.
 
yeah i agree with you morpheus. like, for example, for the first 200000 years of human existence we suffered so hurrendously from disease and infant mortality with life expectancy being about 25 years and it wasnt until the last 2000 years god decided to intervene but only in the most illiterate backwards parts of the middle east. but not just that, in the bible hes described as a total bell-end.

god cannot be touched by science because it lies outside of the realm of falsafiability
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yes, it has been conveniently set up to be this way by religion just so that they cant be proven wrong so they dont need to question their beliefs. it used to be, hundreds or thousands of years ago, that we needed god to explain the things we didnt understand like how people died of diseases before we know about micro-organsisms or how life came to exist before we knew about evolution and genetics. so this god that existed in our gaps of understanding has been gradually disproven and eroded away until we are in the position we are today where theres nowhere really for him to hide except behind the mystery of the big bang or things like that. and then when we discover how the universe came to be, im sure the believers will find a new place for their god to hide.

It's the subjective inner world that shapes how we view the out world, and interpret its goings on, that's the legitimacy of belief.
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my belief is that there is a true reality that exists and its totally independent of my perception. it doesnt care about me, im not special. it seems to me your point is that you can make up your own reality in your head and thats as good as being true.

and anything you find out in one place in the world can just as easily be found to be the opposite someplace else
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what? can you give one example of this?
 
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yeah i agree with you morpheus. like, for example, for the first 200000 years of human existence we suffered so hurrendously from disease and infant mortality with life expectancy being about 25 years and it wasnt until the last 2000 years god decided to intervene but only in the most illiterate backwards parts of the middle east. but not just that, in the bible hes described as a total bell-end.
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Is it just me or did you take this argument directly from Christopher Hitchens? Not that I'm complaining that guy was awesome (may he rest in peace) but just curious. I agree btw if God exists in the form Christianity or other monotheistic religions says he exists in then he is not worthy of worship or praise.
 
^Yeah I've seen that video as well. Its a terrible tragedy that he is dead now. The world lost a great voice of reason :(
 
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