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Why do people believe in God? Not why, as in, why do they disbelieve in atheism, but why as in why do they ask themselves THE question at all?
I think they are looking for purpose in their existence. Why seek purpose? I think because they do not know how they should behave, how they should act and think and BE. To determine what actions to take, what thoughts to make, they feel they must know what it is they strive for.
There are two approaches to mathematics. Mathematics is very much like cracking a chestnut. One can take a hammer, and beat the chestnut, and crack it open with the full application of his current power and force. Or one can take the chestnut, and place it in water, and let it soak. Slowly, its shell becomes weak, and dissolves, and one observes the chestnut to be open in front of him.
The first method has the advantage of speed. With it, one accomplishes one's current goals in an expedient and fruitful manner. The second method has a different advantage: it has the side-effect of teaching you more about the chestnut, an advantage in case your goals change.
I am a big fan of the second method. Oftentimes, to solve a problem, I do not attempt to solve it. Instead, I explore the space around it. I expand the problem, and explore the context of the problem, and build a theory within that context to explore the entire space of what can be done. Then, if I am lucky, I observe the problem to be solved.
So I do not seek purpose in my life to explain how I should act. I do not attempt to act properly straightaway. Instead, I seek to expand my understanding of the space of all ways in which I can act. I seek to gain power over my actions as a whole, with no goal in mind but the attainment of more power to change myself. No matter what goal I eventually take up, in this way I work towards solving it, and in this way I may come to better understand what goal I should attempt.
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What was that? I couldn't hear you, speak up!
>_>
Anyway... Interesting read. Never really thought of the whole God thing that way before. This would also explain why my first career as a proctologist failed miserably.
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On November 01 2010 07:05 Muirhead wrote:
I think they are looking for purpose in their existence. Why seek purpose? I think because they do not know how they should behave, how they should act and think and BE. To determine what actions to take, what thoughts to make, they feel they must know what it is they strive for.
Seek purpose? Yes. How to act and behave? No. I think you're making them look a bit too mindless.
But they should question their belief anyway; however, you can't really disprove faith. That's the entire point of it.
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The purpose of our existence? The meaning of life? To me, it feels like it's what it all comes down to. Why are we here? Does my actions even matter? Why am I doing this? All this just brings me back to the question about the meaning of life.
To me, it's not really about crushing the chestnut. It's more about believing the chest nut is brown. While I may never see this imaginary chestnut in my lifetime, I still choose to believe that it's brown.
While some people may study the chestnut to prove that it's in fact another color. For me, it's enough that I think it's there and it's brown.
I'm not a very strict believer, but I do believe.
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When I was in the army I heard the best reasoning for belief ( and the only one I could ever respect), it was a bit similar to how Dostojevski depicted belief in one of his books. The guy in question said to me: " I believe not because I think it makes sense or I have any proof nor have I ever had an experience that has made my belief strong as it is not strong but weak. I know that everything in the Bible is batshit crazy. But I believe because I cannot handle the thought of not having anything to believe in."
As someone who has asked himself the questions so many times, I cannot deny the logic behind that and if I could replicate the way he thinks I would. Being an agnostic/sceptic can be hell when you find yourself thinking too much.
All in all I think his way of solving the problem is somewhat comparable to your chestnut analogy.
Maybe the reason why I cannot think like him is that even if I god came to me I would (try to) beat him to death right there as I cannot understand how anyone omnipotent could screw up so bad, and of course an omnipotent being couldn´t screw up. So he has to be more evil than anyone I can think of.
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On November 01 2010 07:30 HwangjaeTerran wrote:
When I was in the army I heard the best reasoning for belief ( and the only one I could ever respect), it was a bit similar to how Dostojevski depicted belief in one of his books. The guy in question said to me: " I believe not because I think it makes sense or I have any proof nor have I ever had an experience that has made my belief strong as it is not strong but weak. I know that everything in the Bible is batshit crazy. But I believe because I cannot handle the thought of not having anything to believe in."
As someone who has asked himself the questions so many times, I cannot deny the logic behind that and if I could replicate the way he thinks I would. Being an agnostic/sceptic can be hell when you find yourself thinking too much.
All in all I think his way of solving the problem is somewhat comparable to your chestnut analogy.
Maybe the reason why I cannot think like him is that even if I god came to me I would (try to) beat him to death right there as I cannot understand how anyone omnipotent could screw up so bad, and of course an omnipotent being couldn´t screw up. So he has to be more evil than anyone I can think of.
I feel like, if God really does exist, it's less a matter of being evil and more a matter of not giving a shit. Odds are, there are billions and billions of planets out there with life or the potential to support it, so unless God's micro is just spectacular, I'd imagine he's got a lot of stuff on his plate trying to make sure everything runs as smoothly as can be.
That makes me curious... does religion ever take extraterrestrials into account?
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On the topic of Maths, I would like to take the second approach. But because of time constraints and my lazy nature it feels like I usually end up having to crack the chestnut by bashing it with with my face - and Google.
It seems like belief in God really tends to a person's desire for comfort and a sense of purpose. It's completely natural for a person to think they are special. So it's no surprise they want some 'meaning' in life.
Personally I can live my life fine without the answers.
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Was I the only one who entered thread thinking that there was a new zerg unit?
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On November 01 2010 07:36 Aeres wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2010 07:30 HwangjaeTerran wrote:
When I was in the army I heard the best reasoning for belief ( and the only one I could ever respect), it was a bit similar to how Dostojevski depicted belief in one of his books. The guy in question said to me: " I believe not because I think it makes sense or I have any proof nor have I ever had an experience that has made my belief strong as it is not strong but weak. I know that everything in the Bible is batshit crazy. But I believe because I cannot handle the thought of not having anything to believe in."
As someone who has asked himself the questions so many times, I cannot deny the logic behind that and if I could replicate the way he thinks I would. Being an agnostic/sceptic can be hell when you find yourself thinking too much.
All in all I think his way of solving the problem is somewhat comparable to your chestnut analogy.
Maybe the reason why I cannot think like him is that even if I god came to me I would (try to) beat him to death right there as I cannot understand how anyone omnipotent could screw up so bad, and of course an omnipotent being couldn´t screw up. So he has to be more evil than anyone I can think of. I feel like, if God really does exist, it's less a matter of being evil and more a matter of not giving a shit. Odds are, there are billions and billions of planets out there with life or the potential to support it, so unless God's micro is just spectacular, I'd imagine he's got a lot of stuff on his plate trying to make sure everything runs as smoothly as can be. That makes me curious... does religion ever take extraterrestrials into account?
mmm, dude the first think they tell you is God is omnipotent, in starcraft terms it´s like >9000 APM. I think all sense goes out the window when the Bible says he created life in 7days, if I was Almighty God I would´ve done it all in nanosecond and laid back for the whole week. I admit that it´s great fun trying to imagine all the stuff in the Bible logically.
I guess that because christianity has been in such a stale state for what 1700 years or so that, even though church admitted to have been wrong about it all, it has still kept the geocentric view.
But I guess it´s the same with most other modern religions. Would be quite alot of fun to see people implement aliens in the "story arc". Or then there might be a non-canon add-on to Bible.
wtf I´m trippin
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On November 01 2010 07:46 Nytefish wrote:
On the topic of Maths, I would like to take the second approach. But because of time constraints and my lazy nature it feels like I usually end up having to crack the chestnut by bashing it with with my face - and Google.
It seems like belief in God really tends to a person's desire for comfort and a sense of purpose. It's completely natural for a person to think they are special. So it's no surprise they want some 'meaning' in life.
Personally I can live my life fine without the answers.
I can live without the answers but how to live with the unanswered questions, now that is hard.
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On November 01 2010 07:50 HwangjaeTerran wrote:
I guess that because christianity has been in such a stale state for what 1700 years or so that, even though church admitted to have been wrong about it all, it has still kept the geocentric view.
But I guess it´s the same with most other modern religions. Would be quite alot of fun to see people implement aliens in the "story arc". Or then there might be a non-canon add-on to Bible.
wtf I´m trippin
Somebody get fanfiction.net on the case. We can make this work.
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On November 01 2010 07:52 HwangjaeTerran wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2010 07:46 Nytefish wrote:
On the topic of Maths, I would like to take the second approach. But because of time constraints and my lazy nature it feels like I usually end up having to crack the chestnut by bashing it with with my face - and Google.
It seems like belief in God really tends to a person's desire for comfort and a sense of purpose. It's completely natural for a person to think they are special. So it's no surprise they want some 'meaning' in life.
Personally I can live my life fine without the answers.
I can live without the answers but how to live with the unanswered questions, now that is hard.
Oh I get by that by not caring enough to consider the questions in the first place.
Nowadays when people ask for my religious views I just tell them "I don't think about it".
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I don't see how you get from
"this chestnut looks brown, so I'll believe it's brown" to
".... and so I believe there's an invisible man in the sky."
I don't even understand the OP's argument about how to crack a chestnut. You could brute-force a problem and get the right answer, but maybe not other answers to similar problems. You could develop an efficient algorithm to solve every problem of that particular class. You still get the correct answer.
Obviously, only one of the answers "There is a god" and "There does not exist a god" are true, regardless of how you approach it.
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On November 01 2010 08:07 BottleAbuser wrote:
Obviously, only one of the answers "There is a god" and "There does not exist a god" are true, regardless of how you approach it.
Until you add the question: " What is god?"
Then you are fucked, big time.
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Every single person is living. Everything that is living is alive (it's redundant, I know). It astounds me that we all work towards finding meaning in things that we do in our day to day life, but we don't address the main, fundamental question that applies to every single person. What is the purpose of life?
We are all living. So why shouldn't we know WHY we are living, seeing as it so fundamental and broadly encompassing to our universe. Look at science and technology. Look how much the world has changed because we strive to answer the question WHY?
Asking why we all live, or what the purpose of the life is, is extremely helpful to allow people to reflect on what they do with their time and their lives. It can help them find meaning to make a difference or make a change in the way they live (usually in a positive manner).
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@BottleAbuser
It's a metaphor dude. "Chestnut color" is about existence of god. "Getting to the chestnut" is about the differences in terms of the process of deciding how to behave. But you're from SK so I guess it's understandable that you misinterpreted.
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why as in why do they ask themselves THE question at all?
Because you are finite in an infinite universe.
To question what is beyond your understanding is a burden of rationality.
God is one way to conceptualize the unknown.
Instead, I seek to expand my understanding of the space of all ways in which I can act.
Why?
(at some point you can't answer the four year old's question)
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EPT
