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Hey guys,
So, normally I write blogs more inclined towards Brood War, but I just got thinking onto some philosophical ideas mostly because of schooling and what is taught. So, this blog will be focused on personal beliefs in general which will include my thoughts on spirituality, god and organized religion.
There is no telling if there ever was a god and if he still exists, there is no reason that points to there being an infinite being who safeguards men who are loyal to him. The notion of their being a god or not is one that is really, difficult to gauge because, humans can't see god, they can't communicate with him and so, basically have no interaction whatsoever with god. Now, our post-Renaissance french philosopher Pascal tells us that we should have faith in god aside from reason and we should never attempt to prove that such a being exists. Now, if it were left up to the variables assumed by Pascal, I would agree that everyone should believe in god just because it would make sense to. However, there are other factors that stand in the mix which make the choice not so obvious. If we look more deeply into this, we realize that we have no idea, assuming that god does exist, of what he wants. It's an absolute fool's errand to try and figure this out because it's simply impossible. How can you figure out what someone/something wants if you can't see them nor communicate with them. If there are many gods, it won't matter what you do, you'll have some for you and some against you. If there is a single god, then you really run into a very complicated scenario. For all any of us know, even if there is a god, he may not favor blind faith because it shows frailty and weakness, he may not favor organized religion because those are someone else beliefs which you as a person have just decided to follow, he may favor good citizens, he may be biased towards certain races, animals and/or just simply biased towards the earth and its cleanliness.We cannot tell the will of god, the best we can do is make due with what information we have and simple probabilities, though in the end it turns out that it is not very much of a gamble because doesn't matter what you do, if there is only one god, there is a very slim chance that you will meet up with his requirements if he has bias. And so, first of all, we're not looking at a good probability of their being a god, and if there is its an even smaller % chance that he would be biased and if he is biased, well it just doesn't matter what you choose because 99% of people are going to be fucked anyways (not good odds).
So, I'm not looking to tell you to believe in god or not, I disagree with what pascal wrote concerning his "gamble" because it just makes so many assumptions that it's not realistic. So, we set off with 3 different original outcomes, 1 god, several gods, no gods. Now, in outcome 2, you'll have gods on your side and gods against you no matter what you do, as listed above. With the third outcome you are fine no matter what you do obviously as long as its not human sacrifice just because, well... There's no god, you can do what you want, you have no divine being to please.
If we look at the first of those three outcomes, there is a single god, now the bracket expands, first of all, is he bias or not, if he is not bias, then it ends there, won't matter what you do he'll give you the same treatment as anyone else, if there is bias, then you have to open the bracket of what he's bias towards... which quite frankly, can be anything, if you choose any of those biases wrong, you end up that you're fucked...
Now, I come back to Pascal because he does have some reason to his text in the extract that discusses distractions and diversions where he suggests that man's natural state of life is miserable, though he mentions that man is easily distracted from this misery and this is kind of the point I want to make out of Pascal's writing about god as well. What he writes about god, I don't believe that he writes because he believes what he writes and I'm guessing that he knows he makes unfair assumptions. And you may wonder how this relates, why would he intentionally write something that is false or that he didn't believe in a published book, because he pretended to believe it as a distraction. So, what I'm saying is, don't go diving into organized religion and supernatural beliefs because you think its reasonable, do it because you want to and it gives you a sense of happiness to follow these beliefs and this is a bit as to why I'm bias against organized religion, because, I feel as though you gain more from inner spirituality and creating your own beliefs than to follow someone else. By all means, if you don't have the time to spend on creating your own beliefs or if you're already happy (busy), then organized religion is a great side distraction.
Like I said before, I hope this doesn't offend anybody being as it's a serious philosophical blog, it's just to say that if there is no proof of what god wants from us, then there is no correct belief and people should be able to understand each others beliefs and accept them as something that person uses as a distraction. Beliefs can be shared from person to person and no one should be offended by anyone else beliefs because there is no right answer and until proven otherwise, people should accept and consider everyone's beliefs within their surroundings, however, no one should be pressured into beliefs.
It's great to see that you have figured out that there is no way to discern which beliefs about the supernatural are true and therefore should be believed, but it's a bit disconcerting that your conclusion is that therefore you can "create beliefs" on your own. If there's no reason to believe something, you shouldn't believe it. Personal belief systems are just as crazy as organized belief. Your argument assumes that creating some kind of personal belief is better than traditional religion, but the very same argument began with the reasonable conclusion that you can't differentiate between any of these beliefs in the first place, because there is no way to discern if any of them are true.
It's a waste of your time to spend it on "creating your own beliefs" if those beliefs are just as kooky and evidence-free as traditional religion. The proper response is not to "believe in" anything without evidence to support it.
I don't see anything wrong with creating your belief, and despite being atheist in practice (though philosophically agnostic), I also see no reason why we should discourage people from making their own belief, since as the OP himself states: 'do it because you want to and it gives you a sense of happiness to follow these beliefs'.
However I do have 1 proviso. People should be aware when it is a time to use rational reasoning based on evidence, and when it is ok to make decisions based on personal beliefs.
I think it is uneccesary and antagonistic to actively push people towards lack of belief, especially if they feel it enriches their lives. On the other hand people with these personal beliefs need to be aware that these beliefs are just that, personal. When decisions need to be made that effect more than one person, they shold not be affected by your personal beliefs because someone else's personal beliefs will be different and there will be no metric to judge which is better/more efficient and no way to falsify either beliefs, eg there is reasonable way to resolve a conflict of belief, whereas rational, logical reasoning can be compared and analysed. So when decisions effecting more than yourself need to be made, you need to be ready to leave your beliefs at the door and use the common language of reasoning: rationality.
I disagree with the first reply and I very much agree with the second reply.
To have one's own beliefs I feel makes that person stronger than another who doesn't have their own beliefs just because, it's easy to follow what someone else is already doing and find comfort in that, you don't have to think, you don't have to do anything. I like the idea of finding one's own morals and ideals concerning spirituality and every aspect of their life. It's a way to enhance their creativity as such and prove that they as a person can think critically about moral and philosophical issues.
I don't think it's against religion related topics as a rule, merely that alot of religion just have a tendency to turn into a giant melee of people flaming each other, and some of the topics are a bit touchy by nature.
So if it's well thought out, and doesn't turn into a flamefest later, I don't see why TL would ban it.
How do you come to believe something then? What is the process by which you come to believe in something that cannot be proven? Just because it feels good? Give me an example of something you believe that you came to believe on your own accord, and yet for which there is no evidence. Something religiousy, so we can skip all this charade about "believing in love" or some nonsense which isn't really what we mean by belief in something.
How can you separate out your beliefs from "rationality"? Why would you believe something that you know to be unfalsifiable and unrelated to the evidence-based world?
It's pretty clear that irrational beliefs creep into all other areas of a person's life. Just because there's not an explicit connection doesn't mean that it doesn't subtly influence the reasoning process.
On February 01 2012 17:02 IgnE wrote: How do you come to believe something then? What is the process by which you come to believe in something that cannot be proven? Just because it feels good? Give me an example of something you believe that you came to believe on your own accord, and yet for which there is no evidence. Something religiousy, so we can skip all this charade about "believing in love" or some nonsense which isn't really what we mean by belief in something.
How can you separate out your beliefs from "rationality"? Why would you believe something that you know to be unfalsifiable and unrelated to the evidence-based world?
It's pretty clear that irrational beliefs creep into all other areas of a person's life. Just because there's not an explicit connection doesn't mean that it doesn't subtly influence the reasoning process.
We're not talking about religion when we are talking about personal spirituality and personal beliefs, you can't say "gimme your beliefs that don't involve X and Y things".
For example of a personal belief though,
"I don't have to believe in god, if he does exist, he would recognize me the same way as he would recognize anyone else no matter what they do in life."
I don't really want to get too much more into that because it's not things that we need to agree on. So, you believe that organized religion is more valid then personal beliefs, that's absolutely fine, there is no issue there, however you should also accept that others feel differently.
"Knowledge is not going to solve our problems. You may know for example that there is reincarnation, that there is a continuity after death. You may know, I don't say you do; or you may be convinced of it. But that does not solve the problem. Death cannot be shelved by your theory, or by information, or by conviction. It is much more mysterious, much deeper, much more creative than that." - Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom, Chapter on Simplicity
I can't begin to tell you how to live your life, and no one else can. You should try and experience as much as you can, find the things that really make you happy, and of course be aware that you do live on this rock with other people.
He didn't say that, at all. He said personal belief systems are as unfruitful as organized belief systems. I don't completely agree with this. A personal belief system doesn't necessarily have to be about some diety. It can also be about how you view life and deal with other people in a spiritual way (philosophical approach) It would be kind of absurd to treat every interaction with an other human being on rational an empirical basis, this would take away the joy from interacting with eachother.
On February 01 2012 17:02 IgnE wrote: How do you come to believe something then? What is the process by which you come to believe in something that cannot be proven? Just because it feels good? Give me an example of something you believe that you came to believe on your own accord, and yet for which there is no evidence. Something religiousy, so we can skip all this charade about "believing in love" or some nonsense which isn't really what we mean by belief in something.
How can you separate out your beliefs from "rationality"? Why would you believe something that you know to be unfalsifiable and unrelated to the evidence-based world?
It's pretty clear that irrational beliefs creep into all other areas of a person's life. Just because there's not an explicit connection doesn't mean that it doesn't subtly influence the reasoning process.
Ok first I'm going to go into why i'm practically atheist, but philosophically agnostic, it's long but relevant, so bear with me:
First regarding the philosophically agnostic part, cos that better describes my 'belief' system. I believe the weight of evidence points away from any all powerful being in the sense that the major organised religions and alot of the less major religions of today propose, and I feel that this probably means that there is no God or equivalent. However, there is insufficient evidence, and never will be to prove this point of view, many of these religious beliefs are by nature unfalsible. Thus I can never be sure.
While, since these religious beliefs are not falsible, they are not scientific theories, however I choose to apply the scientific method to their null hypothesis, so philosophically I choose to keep an open mind about possibilities that the lack of a God can be disproved.
So between the uncertainty and the forced open mindedness consistent with the scientific method I am agnostic, as I believe the issue is unresolved or unresolveable.
On the other hand, and to the crux of the issue, I am in practice an atheist, primarily due to judicious use of Occam's razor, which you were advocating in not so many words. That is to say, I choose to act as if there were no god, despite philosophically being unsure.
My reasoning is such:
a) The weight of evidence seems to point against any deity that have been described to me so far, if my understanding of the universe is flawed and in fact one of the theories are correct, then to be honest, the deity sounds like a dick(no offense religious people) and I would deem him(or Him, or her, whatever) to be unworthy of my personal worship.
b) There may be a god(s) that merely observes and doesn't interfere, or is at least unobservable by us.
c) There isn't much agreement to what exactly constitutes God, or a god. Some people, like Einstein, attribute what is essentially the sum of all phenomena in the universe to be God. It is merely a semantic argument, but in the end I cannot refute it, and it may indeed be unrefutable.
a) Points me towards living as an atheist because i believe that has by far the greatest chance of me living the 'correct' way.
b) and c) I ignore due to Occam's razor, and this is fundamentally where I answer your question. I ignore them in in the sense that I don't act on them as whether or not they are true, they don't change the effectiveness of my universal model of how things work, and therefore have no utility. This however does not mean I rule them out as impossible or believe they are not true, my beliefs still remain at 'I am unsure, or there is no way for anyone to be sure'.
I think the main issue is that people misapply Occam's razor so much. Occams razor gives you the preffered, simpler model, not nessecarily the more true model. While we would prefer to use a theory that does satisfy Occam's razor because it is a simpler, and therefore better tool, it does not make 1 model more correct than another.
On February 01 2012 15:59 Eywa- wrote: So, what I'm saying is, don't go diving into organized religion and supernatural beliefs because you think its reasonable, do it because you want to and it gives you a sense of happiness to follow these beliefs.
100% disagreed. Every belief/religion makes truthclaims about the universe. You need good reasons to believe something is true - you can't just believe something because it makes you feel good.
On February 01 2012 15:59 Eywa- wrote: There is no telling if there ever was a god and if he still exists, there is no reason that points to there being an infinite being who safeguards men who are loyal to him. The notion of their being a god or not is one that is really, difficult to gauge because, humans can't see god, they can't communicate with him and so, basically have no interaction whatsoever with god.
Is this part of your personal beliefs too? Or do you consider this facts? If so, why? Is it from logic reasoning alone without relation to the physical world or is it because you have no personal evidence of a deity? Also; do you distrust the evidence coming from other people if you have not experienced the same yourself?
It feels to me that you start off with quite big assumptions for a philosophical approach. At least from what I can tell... Please elaborate though. ^^
"I don't have to believe in god, if he does exist, he would recognize me the same way as he would recognize anyone else no matter what they do in life."
That's not really a belief about much, if anything.
I don't think philosophical perspectives are "beliefs." They are just perspectives, viewpoints, opinions. Beliefs are things that you believe to be true. It's not coherent for me to say that I "believe in" the golden rule, or that I "believe in" natural rights. While that makes grammatical sense, it is more akin to saying that I think people should treat each other a certain way. I'm not making a statement about the golden rule's truth value, whatever that might mean.
Since you didn't read my previous posts and apparently only made this blog to celebrate your having come to the conclusion that people should believe whatever they want to believe, I probably shouldn't expect you to read this either. You didn't answer how someone comes to believes certain things over others or how one should go about doing that in a rational way. Probably because it's not possible for someone to go about it in a rational way and so you don't know how to answer it.
"I don't have to believe in god, if he does exist, he would recognize me the same way as he would recognize anyone else no matter what they do in life."
That's not really a belief about much, if anything.
I don't think philosophical perspectives are "beliefs." They are just perspectives, viewpoints, opinions. Beliefs are things that you believe to be true. It's not coherent for me to say that I "believe in" the golden rule, or that I "believe in" natural rights. While that makes grammatical sense, it is more akin to saying that I think people should treat each other a certain way. I'm not making a statement about the golden rule's truth value, whatever that might mean.
Since you didn't read my previous posts and apparently only made this blog to celebrate your having come to the conclusion that people should believe whatever they want to believe, I probably shouldn't expect you to read this either. You didn't answer how someone comes to believes certain things over others or how one should go about doing that in a rational way. Probably because it's not possible for someone to go about it in a rational way and so you don't know how to answer it.
Satisfaction, feeling secure, it doesn't even matter why they feel the way they do. The mind will find a way to rationalize until its satisfied. You can even change your mind later O.O if that satisfies you...
how is a belief not a perspective? and how is a perspective not a belief? certainly all perspectives have beliefs that guide them, and perspectives in turn make beliefs?
Ehm, to be completely honoust... Do you even know what you are talking about? Saying that we can't communicate with God or know what he wants. Like every existing religion has a way of communication with their God and they all have a way of knowing what that God wants from them, aka the Bible or Koran or w/e.
You've done a good job of defining the distinction between deism and theism. Since you've brought up Pascal might as well go into Pascals wager (religious huckterism) as well.
On February 01 2012 18:44 JellowLight wrote: Ehm, to be completely honoust... Do you even know what you are talking about? Saying that we can't communicate with God or know what he wants. Like every existing religion has a way of communication with their God and they all have a way of knowing what that God wants from them, aka the Bible or Koran or w/e.
On February 01 2012 17:02 IgnE wrote: How can you separate out your beliefs from "rationality"? Why would you believe something that you know to be unfalsifiable and unrelated to the evidence-based world?
Read my post from before, obviously there are some beliefs you could have that would be inconsistent with evidence. We are not talking about those ones.
We are talking about the second kind the ones that are 'unfalsifiable or unrelated to the evidence-based world'. To answer your question of why anyone would believe in them, because it makes them feel good?
If they are unfalsifiable and unrelated to evidence based world, then one assumes they also have no bearing on your decision making when it comes to logic and rationality. Which means if you do hold one of those personal beliefs, then you would be happy (assuming thats why you hold such a personal belief) AND it would not effect your ability to reason logically.
The question is not why you would believe in those, but why would you object to people holding those beliefs?
In your overzealous application of Occam's razor you forget that those theories/models that do satisfy the razor are merely the more efficient/useful models, it does not make them more truthful. A consistent, but more (we could say needlessly) complicated model while containing parts that are unfalsifiable can be perfectly consistent, and for all we can tell as likely to be correct.
Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
eg The belief that there is some non interfering, undetectable god that watches over the universe, while everything else about the universe remains as we know it.
Since he is non interfering, and undetectable, there is no way we can find evidence of his existence, but since the theory would suggest that it is impossible to find evidence of his existence anyway, not finding evidence of his existent would still be consistent with the belief.
Everything else about the universe is the same as we understand it, so we approach is with the same logic as if this god didn't exist etc.
Some people would feel better just 'knowing/believing' that something is watching over them, even if it can't interfere/make itself known in any way.
On February 01 2012 19:21 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote: Some people would feel better just 'knowing/believing' that something is watching over them, even if it can't interfere/make itself known in any way.
That's a perfectly fine belief, but its also completely neutral. But it's also a belief that doesn't matter. If they truly believe it can't interfere or make itself known in anyway, I don't see how that's really comforting though. I think its more likely for someone to profess such a deistic belief to believe that the deity relates to them in some way, and that's where I have a problem. The way you present the idea, however, isn't much different from someone believing in a many worlds hypothesis. (Although there is some math that suggests the many worlds hypothesis is at least physically plausible).
So I don't really take issue with the belief the way you word it. It is a moot belief. No reason to believe in moot declarations, although technically not necessarily contradictory to believe in them anyway. Why would it make someone feel better though? I think the root reason is important. If they think there might be some kind of afterlife or something that allays their fear of death, then that is a problem, because that irrational thought will affect how they live their life now.
But beliefs like that that don't really matter are rarely the kinds of beliefs that people are talking about when discussing these things. Usually they are beliefs that aren't moot, and would have real effects in the world if true.
On February 01 2012 19:21 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote: Some people would feel better just 'knowing/believing' that something is watching over them, even if it can't interfere/make itself known in any way.
That's a perfectly fine belief, but its also completely neutral. But it's also a belief that doesn't matter. If they truly believe it can't interfere or make itself known in anyway, I don't see how that's really comforting though. I think its more likely for someone to profess such a deistic belief to believe that the deity relates to them in some way, and that's where I have a problem. The way you present the idea, however, isn't much different from someone believing in a many worlds hypothesis. Although there is some math that suggests the many worlds hypothesis is possible, if unfalsifiable at this point.
So I don't really take issue with the belief the way you word it. They are moot. No reason to believe in moot declarations, although technically not necessarily contradictory to believe in them anyway. Why would it make someone feel better though? I think the root reason is important. If they think there might be some kind of afterlife or something that allays their fear of death, then that is a problem, because that irrational thought will affect how they live their life now.
But beliefs like that that don't really matter are rarely the kinds of beliefs that people are talking about when discussing these things. Usually they are beliefs that aren't moot, and would have real effects in the world if true.
*shrug* people find/fail to find comfort in the strangest things. People are not perfectly rational beings, if we were we would agree a heck of alot more often.
Maybe the god can feel glad that you believe in them or something, so long as they can't interfere you can really assign whatever trait you like to it, it doesn't really matter, whatever floats your boat/appeals to whatever irrationality you have in you.
I agree from a purely scientific standpoint it is indeed fairly meaningless, you can't use it to model anything useful that the simpler, razor compliant, version would not. But if the more complicated theory is still perfectly consistent with reality AND makes you feel happy, it'd almost be irrational not to believe that one instead.
btw: apparently some people believe the example I gave, or something very close to it it's a form of deism.
On February 01 2012 19:40 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
I agree from a purely scientific standpoint it is indeed fairly meaningless, you can't use it to model anything useful that the simpler, razor compliant, version would not. But if the more complicated theory is still perfectly consistent with reality AND makes you feel happy, it'd almost be irrational not to believe that one instead.
What really is meaningless is to approach religion from a scientific standpoint . The goal of religion is no longer to tell us how the world was created and/or to make so called 'truth claim', i dont even think it ever was its goal ( but i agree it is sometime used a such, which is wrong IMHO).
Religion nowadays is a way of life, a message on how you should live your life, a guide on what you should or should not do. You are free not to beleive in this message. You are free not to follow it. However, some people beleive in it, and act accordingly to it. They see God's hand where other people see coincidence and/or randomness. They see God influence when they see someone smile. They try they best to care about other people, they pardon, they share and they are happy to do it.
Sure you migth say that you dont need religion to do it. But dont blame religious people for doing it. ( You are however allowed to blame religious people for making retarded claim about how the world was created :p )
People should stop thinking religion is stupid because there is no scientific proof behind it. It only proove that they know nothing about what religion is today.
On February 01 2012 19:40 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
I agree from a purely scientific standpoint it is indeed fairly meaningless, you can't use it to model anything useful that the simpler, razor compliant, version would not. But if the more complicated theory is still perfectly consistent with reality AND makes you feel happy, it'd almost be irrational not to believe that one instead.
What really is meaningless is to approach religion from a scientific standpoint . The goal of religion is no longer to tell us how the world was created and/or to make so called 'truth claim', i dont even think it ever was its goal ( but i agree it is sometime used a such, which is wrong IMHO).
Religion nowadays is a way of life, a message on how you should live your life, a guide on what you should or should not do. You are free not to beleive in this message. You are free not to follow it. However, some people beleive in it, and act accordingly to it. They see God's hand where other people see coincidence and/or randomness. They see God influence when they see someone smile. They try they best to care about other people, they pardon, they share and they are happy to do it.
Sure you migth say that you dont need religion to do it. But dont blame religious people for doing it. ( You are however allowed to blame religious people for making retarded claim about how the world was created :p )
People should stop thinking religion is stupid because there is no scientific proof behind it. It only proove that they know nothing about what religion is today.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Does it involve praying? Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants? Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics? If it doesn't what is it?
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
On February 01 2012 19:17 IgnE wrote: Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
Not my belief, but for example...In Christianity they believe that you will be judged on your sins after you die. This is as good a reason as I have heard for living a moral life and being kind to strangers.
On February 01 2012 19:17 IgnE wrote: Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
Not my belief, but for example...In Christianity they believe that you will be judged on your sins after you die. This is as good a reason as I have heard for living a moral life and being kind to strangers.
No that's idiotic. Besides being quite net negative for individuals, resulting in massive guilt for performing normal human activities like sexual intercourse, eating well, and indulging in life, any belief that sets out what activities qualify as sinful makes truth claims that are unverifiable and therefore spurious.
Not to mention bogus and unverifiable claims about an afterlife. Did you follow the argument at all in this thread?
Whether you're part of an organised religion or not, you create your own beliefs regardless. Suppose you take 100 people who are part of the same religious organisation. Now ask everyone what their god is like. I can assure you that you will get 100 differenct gods. Let's suppose we do that with a Roman Catholic community. One person will see God as a punishing god, another person might see Him as a forgiving god. Their experiences, hopes and fears form the way they see their god. This view is of course also shaped by the things the clerics preach.
So everyone has his own idea of god. But we can put people in different groups: Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist. People grow up in certain environments and are being taught how to perceive this godly being that they somehow are aware of. And we all are - some more than others - aware of it. If we take a look at history and different parts of the world we will notice that every society and even every community had some form of god. So we somehow know about there being something godly and we project this idea on the belief that we come in touch with through education and upbringing. That's how we end up being a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or something else.
So what can we deduce from those points? If everyone has his own idea of god, it'd be impossible to say: "God wants this/that!", since everyone has a different belief on what god wants him to do. Be aware that god is not simply a beardy person sitting somewhere and wanting us to do something. If it really was like that, then your deduction would be totally correct: It's a nigh impossible gamble to pick the right religion and then know what this 'god-person' actually wants from you. Suppose Zoroastrianism is the true religion. Most of us would've gambled on the completely wrong religion. But the idea of god is something beyond our understanding. And our religion is bassically just a way of trying to grasp that idea.
With the third outcome you are fine no matter what you do obviously as long as its not human sacrifice just because, well... There's no god, you can do what you want, you have no divine being to please.
You see religion just as something where you have to try to please your god. By that I assume that you're atheist/agnostic. From an outside perspective it can easily look like religious people are just trying to please some divine person. But for them they gain something from their belief. If you don't see religion as something where you can benefit and where you can gain something from then this religion is probably not the thing for you. And for religious people the religion doesn't impose rules on them, but rather gives them guidelines for an ethical and moral correct way of life.
I can't answer that question. How should I know what this thing we think of as God really is like? Like I wrote some lines further down: This god-thing is something beyond our understanding. The whole 'beardy person' thing is a way of trying to understand the idea of god. And in the case of the bible, it's a way that is more than 2000 years old.
Except they go to hell if they don't follow those rules . . .
In that sentence I was referring to rules like the Decalogue.
So you don't know anything about this god.
I have my own views and ideas about God. And so have you. But neither of us can tell what it's like.
On February 01 2012 19:17 IgnE wrote: Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
Not my belief, but for example...In Christianity they believe that you will be judged on your sins after you die. This is as good a reason as I have heard for living a moral life and being kind to strangers.
No that's idiotic. Besides being quite net negative for individuals, resulting in massive guilt for performing normal human activities like sexual intercourse, eating well, and indulging in life, any belief that sets out what activities qualify as sinful makes truth claims that are unverifiable and therefore spurious.
Not to mention bogus and unverifiable claims about an afterlife. Did you follow the argument at all in this thread?
This thread is full of rambling personal beliefs and nonsense logic, but when you make a simple question as you did, it is actually possible to analyse a preposition without getting distracted by the typical side tracks (as you have tried to introduce).
My statement did not imply that sex, eating well or ""indulging in life" is sinful, (and out of interest neither would most Christians).
next
"any belief that sets out what activities qualify as sinful makes truth claims that are unverifiable" - My actions may or may not be benevolent, but they don't make truth claims. For example, it is sinful to murder and steal, and it is kind to give to charity and recycle your plastic. What truth claims am I making?
"Not to mention bogus and unverifiable claims about an afterlife"
On February 01 2012 19:17 IgnE wrote: Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
I can't answer that question. How should I know what this thing we think of as God really is like? Like I wrote some lines further down: This god-thing is something beyond our understanding. The whole 'beardy person' thing is a way of trying to understand the idea of god. And in the case of the bible, it's a way that is more than 2000 years old.
OP OP, this is a very level-headed and well put religion blog, a pleasure to read. Much more than r/atheism/ silliness. To summarize your main points (makes it easier to reply to what you're saying):
1 'We can't really know the attributes of God (know who he favors, how devout he wants us, even his will etc.) because there is no evidence that he has revealed them to us.'.
2And then 'If God is singular and has bias, we're fucked. ~no God, 1 God, many God~'
3"if there is no proof of what god wants from us, then there is no correct belief"
4"because there is no right answer and until proven otherwise"
5'GL HF respect other people and don't shove your faith down their throats' ~make your own beliefs~
Is that a fair and valid summary?
First of all, really shitty times bring on changes in heart. Here's a PM I sent to a guy with depression yesterday, it's highly personal but explains why I am a Christian, so now I ask for a bit of tolerance (it goes both ways brah, can't expect A to tolerate B's lack of faith if B don't tolerate A's belifs) + Show Spoiler [long] +
I've been there too, 'cept it really sucked for me. Now I'm better, better than I ever have been, but the reason and method is highly personal so I didn't want to post it in public.
About 10-11 months ago I was at the worst point in my life, final exams looming, nothing going right, everything was shit. I though about suicide a lot. When I'd see a rope lying around, a train passing, a bridge to jump off, kitchen knives... I've still got scars from my inner left arm from where I cut. That's not fun, don't let yourself go there.
Take it or leave it, what saved me was faith, dormant at first, but rekindled when I was hit with this song (I'm real into rap):
It's the gospel that caught me, Jesus saved me bro. Now I've got direction, appreciation and purpose in my life. This explains far better than I could what "The Gospel" is. If you're serious about changing your life, putting it on tracks that may seem dark at times but will always lead you in the right path, with perfect peace and company, read up on "The Gospel". http://www.whatisthegospel.org.uk/gospelbasics.html
~
P.S. Holla at me if you've got any question or reply <:
And that's the great thing. It's personal, your relationship to God is unique to you. There are many problems with Organized Religion, sadly I'm not qualified to summarize them succinctly, but I can go ask a friend if you want. Overall hypocracies and inconsistencies in the Church and it's teaching gives God a bad name and turns people off, the opposite of it's intent. I can't do the apologetics to that, so I'll just reply as I would if someone asked me IRL.
1. No. He has revealed them to us, but you need to take them upon faith. 'If he wants us to know him then wouldn't he give us proof?' - He has, 'cept that in itself would never be good enough, people'd choose to dismiss it. Uncertainty can be really scary, especially on a cosmic scale, and you've got to just go with it 'till your heart is completely certain. The problem is we are human, we can't see things omnisciently, we're just not that cool. Although the Christian God is almighty, everlasting, eternal and unchanging, his Word given to us through The Bible is hard to understand, because it's a snapshot of his being taken thousands of years ago in a radically different world. If you want his doctrine, listen to some Christian Rap like my man Lecrae, Trip Lee, Shai Linne, they're spot in in the knowledge and also the delivery.
2. Yep. A point on multiple Gods: as a Christian I believe that there is one true God who is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He has many names in trinity God the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit, but it's one God. There are other gods too, for example people make idols of and worship many false things (sex, money, power...) but ultimately the God I worship trumps them. So why even worry about those if they're lower on the hierarchy then the all-mighty? I saw an atheist comic the other day about if God is just then we're all saved and if God is unjust we're all fucked, prettymuch the same thing as what you've said [please call me out if it's an unfair assumption on my part]. The thing is (and the Gospel message as well, please read it) we look at ourselves too highly + Show Spoiler [song lyric] +
. God is loving and wholly good, but IS JUST as well, and IT ISN'T JUST to just overlook our trangressions when we've chosen to turn away from him and reject him. It wouldn't be fair if he said ' aight I know u've been faithful and obedient to me, and you haven't, but you know what second guy, all u gotta do is skate so it's no problem come on right ahead'. "ALL have fallen short of the glory of God" none of us meet his standard, but by his grace he gave his very son as our sacrifice, so that his wrath was spent on Jesus and not us. That means if we choose to accept the grace of his son, he bridges the gap we couldn't climb up (no matter the virtue of our works), he COMES DOWN to us he loves us so much. That's what's unique about Christianity. Yea that was a pretty mangled Gospel presentation :E the stuff linked above explains it better than I can.
3. As above, what would you take as 'cosmic proof'? The fact that I'm still alive ^^ ??
4. Hence being a matter of faith. If it was default, you'd never actually CHOOSE to turn to Him and accept Him, and then you'd have no relationship.
5. A structured faith can be daunting because the image it has (the reputation of the Church) is bad awful. But because of my experiences I believe it's silly to categorically dismiss the thousands of years of teaching major, structured faith-systems have amassed. Then it becomes le old Rebecca Black "Which one do I taaaaake?" And to me because of the Gospel Message, Christianity is the most believable.
On February 01 2012 19:17 IgnE wrote: Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
Not my belief, but for example...In Christianity they believe that you will be judged on your sins after you die. This is as good a reason as I have heard for living a moral life and being kind to strangers.
No that's idiotic. Besides being quite net negative for individuals, resulting in massive guilt for performing normal human activities like sexual intercourse, eating well, and indulging in life, any belief that sets out what activities qualify as sinful makes truth claims that are unverifiable and therefore spurious.
Not to mention bogus and unverifiable claims about an afterlife. Did you follow the argument at all in this thread?
This thread is full of rambling personal beliefs and nonsense logic, but when you make a simple question as you did, it is actually possible to analyse a preposition without getting distracted by the typical side tracks (as you have tried to introduce).
My statement did not imply that sex, eating well or ""indulging in life" is sinful, (and out of interest neither would most Christians).
next
"any belief that sets out what activities qualify as sinful makes truth claims that are unverifiable" - My actions may or may not be benevolent, but they don't make truth claims. For example, it is sinful to murder and steal, and it is kind to give to charity and recycle your plastic. What truth claims am I making?
You claim that murdering and stealing are sinful. Sinful acts are associated with punishment in an afterlife. Setting aside your totally unsubstantiated belief in an afterlife, how do you know that there is punishment in the afterlife for such acts?
I'll answer for you. You don't know, you just believe it's so with no evidence or testable hypothesis for finding out. You are just as crazy as someone who believes he is going to hell for walking on sidewalk cracks. There's literally no logical difference in the two beliefs. But I'm sure you would agree that someone who thinks he's going to hell because walking on a crack in the sidewalk is sinful is crazy.
Sinful =/= Immoral. Claiming something is sinful is making a truth claim about the act.
OP OP, this is a very level-headed and well put religion blog, a pleasure to read. Much more than r/atheism/ silliness. To summarize your main points (makes it easier to reply to what you're saying):
1 'We can't really know the attributes of God (know who he favors, how devout he wants us, even his will etc.) because there is no evidence that he has revealed them to us.'.
2And then 'If God is singular and has bias, we're fucked. ~no God, 1 God, many God~'
3"if there is no proof of what god wants from us, then there is no correct belief"
4"because there is no right answer and until proven otherwise"
5'GL HF respect other people and don't shove your faith down their throats' ~make your own beliefs~
Is that a fair and valid summary?
First of all, really shitty times bring on changes in heart. Here's a PM I sent to a guy with depression yesterday, it's highly personal but explains why I am a Christian, so now I ask for a bit of tolerance (it goes both ways brah, can't expect A to tolerate B's lack of faith if B don't tolerate A's belifs) + Show Spoiler [long] +
I've been there too, 'cept it really sucked for me. Now I'm better, better than I ever have been, but the reason and method is highly personal so I didn't want to post it in public.
About 10-11 months ago I was at the worst point in my life, final exams looming, nothing going right, everything was shit. I though about suicide a lot. When I'd see a rope lying around, a train passing, a bridge to jump off, kitchen knives... I've still got scars from my inner left arm from where I cut. That's not fun, don't let yourself go there.
Take it or leave it, what saved me was faith, dormant at first, but rekindled when I was hit with this song (I'm real into rap): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po3k6sPHeX0 It's the gospel that caught me, Jesus saved me bro. Now I've got direction, appreciation and purpose in my life. This explains far better than I could what "The Gospel" is. If you're serious about changing your life, putting it on tracks that may seem dark at times but will always lead you in the right path, with perfect peace and company, read up on "The Gospel". http://www.whatisthegospel.org.uk/gospelbasics.html
~
P.S. Holla at me if you've got any question or reply <:
And that's the great thing. It's personal, your relationship to God is unique to you. There are many problems with Organized Religion, sadly I'm not qualified to summarize them succinctly, but I can go ask a friend if you want. Overall hypocracies and inconsistencies in the Church and it's teaching gives God a bad name and turns people off, the opposite of it's intent. I can't do the apologetics to that, so I'll just reply as I would if someone asked me IRL.
1. No. He has revealed them to us, but you need to take them upon faith. 'If he wants us to know him then wouldn't he give us proof?' - He has, 'cept that in itself would never be good enough, people'd choose to dismiss it. Uncertainty can be really scary, especially on a cosmic scale, and you've got to just go with it 'till your heart is completely certain. The problem is we are human, we can't see things omnisciently, we're just not that cool. Although the Christian God is almighty, everlasting, eternal and unchanging, his Word given to us through The Bible is hard to understand, because it's a snapshot of his being taken thousands of years ago in a radically different world. If you want his doctrine, listen to some Christian Rap like my man Lecrae, Trip Lee, Shai Linne, they're spot in in the knowledge and also the delivery.
2. Yep. A point on multiple Gods: as a Christian I believe that there is one true God who is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He has many names in trinity God the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit, but it's one God. There are other gods too, for example people make idols of and worship many false things (sex, money, power...) but ultimately the God I worship trumps them. So why even worry about those if they're lower on the hierarchy then the all-mighty? I saw an atheist comic the other day about if God is just then we're all saved and if God is unjust we're all fucked, prettymuch the same thing as what you've said [please call me out if it's an unfair assumption on my part]. The thing is (and the Gospel message as well, please read it) we look at ourselves too highly + Show Spoiler [song lyric] +
. God is loving and wholly good, but IS JUST as well, and IT ISN'T JUST to just overlook our trangressions when we've chosen to turn away from him and reject him. It wouldn't be fair if he said ' aight I know u've been faithful and obedient to me, and you haven't, but you know what second guy, all u gotta do is skate so it's no problem come on right ahead'. "ALL have fallen short of the glory of God" none of us meet his standard, but by his grace he gave his very son as our sacrifice, so that his wrath was spent on Jesus and not us. That means if we choose to accept the grace of his son, he bridges the gap we couldn't climb up (no matter the virtue of our works), he COMES DOWN to us he loves us so much. That's what's unique about Christianity. Yea that was a pretty mangled Gospel presentation :E the stuff linked above explains it better than I can.
3. As above, what would you take as 'cosmic proof'? The fact that I'm still alive ^^ ??
4. Hence being a matter of faith. If it was default, you'd never actually CHOOSE to turn to Him and accept Him, and then you'd have no relationship.
5. A structured faith can be daunting because the image it has (the reputation of the Church) is bad awful. But because of my experiences I believe it's silly to categorically dismiss the thousands of years of teaching major, structured faith-systems have amassed. Then it becomes le old Rebecca Black "Which one do I taaaaake?" And to me because of the Gospel Message, Christianity is the most believable.
On February 01 2012 21:25 deathly rat wrote: Did YOU read your own post?
Yes, I did. You didn't offer me an example of such a belief. If you want an actual example of such a belief see the poster above you who actually did offer one. Your belief example makes truth claims and so relates to logic and reason.
To make it perfectly clear: claiming that there is a deistic god that is unreachable by science that does not interact with the world in anyway is unverifiable but is also a claim for which evidence cannot be offered, even in theory. It's a totally moot proposition.
Claiming certain acts are sinful is a truth claim that inherently requires evidence in order to be believed. If you assert a truth claim that has real consequences in the world, it requires evidence of some kind in order to compel belief.
On February 01 2012 19:17 IgnE wrote: Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
Not my belief, but for example...In Christianity they believe that you will be judged on your sins after you die. This is as good a reason as I have heard for living a moral life and being kind to strangers.
No that's idiotic. Besides being quite net negative for individuals, resulting in massive guilt for performing normal human activities like sexual intercourse, eating well, and indulging in life, any belief that sets out what activities qualify as sinful makes truth claims that are unverifiable and therefore spurious.
Not to mention bogus and unverifiable claims about an afterlife. Did you follow the argument at all in this thread?
This thread is full of rambling personal beliefs and nonsense logic, but when you make a simple question as you did, it is actually possible to analyse a preposition without getting distracted by the typical side tracks (as you have tried to introduce).
My statement did not imply that sex, eating well or ""indulging in life" is sinful, (and out of interest neither would most Christians).
next
"any belief that sets out what activities qualify as sinful makes truth claims that are unverifiable" - My actions may or may not be benevolent, but they don't make truth claims. For example, it is sinful to murder and steal, and it is kind to give to charity and recycle your plastic. What truth claims am I making?
You claim that murdering and stealing are sinful. Sinful acts are associated with punishment in an afterlife. Setting aside your totally unsubstantiated belief in an afterlife, how do you know that there is punishment in the afterlife for such acts?
I'll answer for you. You don't know, you just believe it's so with no evidence or testable hypothesis for finding out. You are just as crazy as someone who believes he is going to hell for walking on sidewalk cracks. There's literally no logical difference in the two beliefs. But I'm sure you would agree that someone who thinks he's going to hell because walking on a crack in the sidewalk is sinful is crazy.
Sinful =/= Immoral. Claiming something is sinful is making a truth claim about the act.
I note you have stopped arguing the below point
On February 01 2012 19:17 IgnE wrote: Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
and moved onto trying to prove religious beliefs by testing evidence, of which I have no interest. I assume you retract the previous preposition. Have a good day, and chill out.
On February 01 2012 19:17 IgnE wrote: Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that are unfalsifiable and unrelated to reason or logic but that someone might still want to hold with no negative repercussions.
and moved onto trying to prove religious beliefs by testing evidence, of which I have no interest. I assume you retract the previous preposition. Have a good day, and chill out.
I responded in the post above this one. The post you are quoting of mine was directed at someone else and he understood what I meant and offered a moot claim that satisfied the criteria I was looking for. That is, a claim that didn't require evidence for it be believed. I retract the wording, but you haven't really made an argument other than to point out that my wording wasn't clear. The wording should have been: "Give me an example of the kind of beliefs that do not require evidence to be believed but that someone might still want to hold."
Do you think if you had been born in Iran you would be a Christian?
If that question was directed towards me, I'd answer: No, I surely wouldn't be Christian. But I'd still believe in the same god. I'd just use a different name for him and would use different means to pray to him. In the end, Christianity, Judaism and Islam are the same religion, just in.... different flavours. Jesus is a prophet in the Islam religion. Christianity is heavily based on Judaism. Islam is based on Judaism and Christianity. They are in many parts the same belief adjusted to different cultures.
Do you think if you had been born in Iran you would be a Christian?
If that question was directed towards me, I'd answer: No, I surely wouldn't be Christian. But I'd still believe in the same god. I'd just use a different name for him and would use different means to pray to him. In the end, Christianity, Judaism and Islam are the same religion, just in.... different flavours. Jesus is a prophet in the Islam religion. Christianity is heavily based on Judaism. Islam is based on Judaism and Christianity. They are in many parts the same belief adjusted to different cultures.
And yet each of the religions and all of its practitioners hold conflicting beliefs about this "same god." Who is correct? If you think god doesn't care about who is correct how do you know that he doesn't care? Many people would disagree that he doesn't care. You believe it's so. Oh right.
But you are right about god, those other people who say he sends non-believers to hell are incorrect. Those people who say its sinful not to fast during Ramadan are wrong. Those people who say its sinful to use condoms are wrong. But you are right. Because you believe and are "tolerant." And you know god is "tolerant" too.
On February 01 2012 19:40 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
I agree from a purely scientific standpoint it is indeed fairly meaningless, you can't use it to model anything useful that the simpler, razor compliant, version would not. But if the more complicated theory is still perfectly consistent with reality AND makes you feel happy, it'd almost be irrational not to believe that one instead.
What really is meaningless is to approach religion from a scientific standpoint . The goal of religion is no longer to tell us how the world was created and/or to make so called 'truth claim', i dont even think it ever was its goal ( but i agree it is sometime used a such, which is wrong IMHO).
Religion nowadays is a way of life, a message on how you should live your life, a guide on what you should or should not do. You are free not to beleive in this message. You are free not to follow it. However, some people beleive in it, and act accordingly to it. They see God's hand where other people see coincidence and/or randomness. They see God influence when they see someone smile. They try they best to care about other people, they pardon, they share and they are happy to do it.
Sure you migth say that you dont need religion to do it. But dont blame religious people for doing it. ( You are however allowed to blame religious people for making retarded claim about how the world was created :p )
People should stop thinking religion is stupid because there is no scientific proof behind it. It only proove that they know nothing about what religion is today.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Does it involve praying? Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants? Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics? If it doesn't what is it?
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
I do not intend to start a huge discussion about how I see and live religion. At least not in this blog ( sorry OP for derailing a bit your thread). However these are interesting questions that deserve an anwser. I'll try to be short.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Ever since I was born, I dont remember going to a mess where a truth claim was made about the world. I know some people use religion to make truth claim ( e.g. creationnists). I'll stand my ground and say that it is not the goal of religion to do so. Sure you can find many 'truth claim' in the bible. But I have learned a long time ago that what is written in the bible is not to be taken litteraly.
Does it involve praying?
Yes it does. I do pray. I pray god to give me the strengh i need to help other, to forgive me for what I have done wrong and to help me not to do it again. I pray god to give other the strengh they need to overcome obstacle they meet in life.
Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants?
Yes it does. However religious leader are not blessed with the "thruth". The goal of 'educated religious leader' (in my case, priest or pastor) is to explain how the philosophy preached by the bible apply to real life problems. In most case, it is interesting, sometimes enligthening. But i've heard bad priest, and I even sometimes disagreed with some.
Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics?
No. Once again, the bible is not to be taken litterally.
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
Quite frankly, when i hear people talking about religion, I often wish they would see it as a philosophy rather than a Science. They are way more similarities between religion and philosophy than between religion and science.
On February 01 2012 21:41 deathly rat wrote: My actions may or may not be benevolent, but they don't make truth claims. For example, it is sinful to murder and steal, and it is kind to give to charity and recycle your plastic. What truth claims am I making?
On February 01 2012 19:40 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
I agree from a purely scientific standpoint it is indeed fairly meaningless, you can't use it to model anything useful that the simpler, razor compliant, version would not. But if the more complicated theory is still perfectly consistent with reality AND makes you feel happy, it'd almost be irrational not to believe that one instead.
What really is meaningless is to approach religion from a scientific standpoint . The goal of religion is no longer to tell us how the world was created and/or to make so called 'truth claim', i dont even think it ever was its goal ( but i agree it is sometime used a such, which is wrong IMHO).
Religion nowadays is a way of life, a message on how you should live your life, a guide on what you should or should not do. You are free not to beleive in this message. You are free not to follow it. However, some people beleive in it, and act accordingly to it. They see God's hand where other people see coincidence and/or randomness. They see God influence when they see someone smile. They try they best to care about other people, they pardon, they share and they are happy to do it.
Sure you migth say that you dont need religion to do it. But dont blame religious people for doing it. ( You are however allowed to blame religious people for making retarded claim about how the world was created :p )
People should stop thinking religion is stupid because there is no scientific proof behind it. It only proove that they know nothing about what religion is today.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Does it involve praying? Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants? Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics? If it doesn't what is it?
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
I do not intend to start a huge discussion about how I see and live religion. At least not in this blog ( sorry OP for derailing a bit your thread). However these are interesting questions that deserve an anwser. I'll try to be short.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Ever since I was born, I dont remember going to a mess where a truth claim was made about the world. I know some people use religion to make truth claim ( e.g. creationnists). I'll stand my ground and say that it is not the goal of religion to do so. Sure you can find many 'truth claim' in the bible. But I have learned a long time ago that what is written in the bible is not to be taken litteraly.
Does it involve praying?
Yes it does. I do pray. I pray god to give me the strengh i need to help other, to forgive me for what I have done wrong and to help me not to do it again. I pray god to give other the strengh they need to overcome obstacle they meet in life.
Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants?
Yes it does. However religious leader are not blessed with the "thruth". The goal of 'educated religious leader' (in my case, priest or pastor) is to explain how the philosophy preached by the bible apply to real life problems. In most case, it is interesting, sometimes enligthening. But i've heard bad priest, and I even sometimes disagreed with some.
Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics?
No. Once again, the bible is not to be taken litterally.
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
Quite frankly, when i hear people talking about religion, I often wish they would see it as a philosophy rather than a Science. They are way more similarities between religion and philosophy than between religion and science.
If you pray, you are making truth claims about the world. You believe that god directly intervenes in daily life to tell you things, breaking the laws of physics and directly communicating with you in your head. That's a truth claim.
Also implicit in all this are the truth claims that: you have a soul, you will enter into an afterlife when you die, that the bible was communicated to people by god similar to the way he communicates to you through prayer, that you can know what god wants for us, that god exists at all (perhaps the most common truth claim in any religion).
None of those are substantiated with a shred of evidence. So I think you are mistaken.
^ ^ Well, that didn't happen. I have no evidence or information on my-life-had-I-been-born-in-Iran, so it is unreasonable to suggest I know anything about what I would be like, had that happened. However I do believe that God reveals himself to everyone in different ways throughout their lives, and while it's hard there are still Christian converts in Iran.
And ^ AMaidensWrath, I will respectfully disagree and say they are far more divergent than just different flavors. Albeit the same roots (Abraham and his descendants etc) there is little kingship between Judaism and what the Prophet Mohammed told people it was OK to do to Jews (kill 'em). The most important feature of any religion IMO is 'how you reach God', to me that's what defines if it's worth following or not. [justified = made just before God, that he accepts you as his own and no longer holds your sin against you] Judaism you are justified by your obedience of the laws of Moses; since none can NEVER have fault and be utterly blameless, and follow the law perfectly, you're pretty screwed. Christianity you are justified by your acceptance of the Gospel Message and the saving grace of Christ. It's free, but sure not easy. Islam (I must learn more) is similar to Judaism in that you are justified by your conformity to the 5 pillars and obedience to the teachings of Mohammed.
They are radically different, albeit similar roots. I don't actually know the history of what religious group became the first Muslims (i.e. Mohammed's original religion). Christian's have a fulfilled and complete understanding of the God of the Old Testament (Judaism) whereas Jews are still waiting for the messiah, the completion of the Old Testament's prophecies of a deliverer, who's already come (Jesus).
On February 01 2012 22:10 bITt.mAN wrote: ^ ^ Well, that didn't happen. I have no evidence or information on my-life-had-I-been-born-in-Iran, so it is unreasonable to suggest I know anything about what I would be like, had that happened. However I do believe that God reveals himself to everyone in different ways throughout their lives, and while it's hard there are still Christian converts in Iran.
You actually have a lot of evidence. The overwhelming majority of people in Iran are not Christian, despite whatever belief you have that god is revealing himself to them. You are not that different from other people. Are they just all that thickheaded over in Iran or is god not doing a good enough job revealing himself?
In fact the overwhelming majority of the world is not Christian at all. What's up with that?
There is a fairly strong statistical argument to be made that IF you were indeed to have been born in Iran you would likely not be a christian but rather a muslim. And as you've so aptly pointed out that changes everything =P
Bro regardless of where I was born I'd still have the same parents, otherwise it's not me (my genes) {: I was born in Japan, haven't lived there since I was three. No biggie really.
Ok, and once we start going down life-stories that never happened there's just as much evidence (i.e. none, as it didn't happen) that right about now in my life I'd be going to school in the West (white parents with US passports usually cause that to happen) and have been exposed to the Gospel Message. Hypothetically if I was Muslim, I'd then start to have serious issues with it, because who's gonna believe you can be 'good enough' to appease a wholly just and holy God by your works alone. By faith in God's grace we are saved, he's the only one who can bridge the gap we create whenever we turn away from him. That's Christianity.
On February 01 2012 22:26 bITt.mAN wrote: Hypothetically if I was Muslim, I'd then start to have serious issues with it, because who's gonna believe you can be 'good enough' to appease a wholly just and holy God by your works alone. By faith in God's grace we are saved, he's the only one who can bridge the gap we create whenever we turn away from him. That's Christianity.
I mean, who is gonna believe in a god that saves you for merely saying you believe in him rather than doing what he asks of you?
BTW the saved by faith thing is only some versions of Protestant Christianity. So you are putting yourself in an increasingly minority position that thinks it alone has the official word on what god thinks or does. Protestant Christianity isn't even directly descended from Jesus. You'd have to go Orthodox or Catholic for some historical connection to a possibly fictitious man.
On February 01 2012 19:40 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
I agree from a purely scientific standpoint it is indeed fairly meaningless, you can't use it to model anything useful that the simpler, razor compliant, version would not. But if the more complicated theory is still perfectly consistent with reality AND makes you feel happy, it'd almost be irrational not to believe that one instead.
What really is meaningless is to approach religion from a scientific standpoint . The goal of religion is no longer to tell us how the world was created and/or to make so called 'truth claim', i dont even think it ever was its goal ( but i agree it is sometime used a such, which is wrong IMHO).
Religion nowadays is a way of life, a message on how you should live your life, a guide on what you should or should not do. You are free not to beleive in this message. You are free not to follow it. However, some people beleive in it, and act accordingly to it. They see God's hand where other people see coincidence and/or randomness. They see God influence when they see someone smile. They try they best to care about other people, they pardon, they share and they are happy to do it.
Sure you migth say that you dont need religion to do it. But dont blame religious people for doing it. ( You are however allowed to blame religious people for making retarded claim about how the world was created :p )
People should stop thinking religion is stupid because there is no scientific proof behind it. It only proove that they know nothing about what religion is today.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Does it involve praying? Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants? Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics? If it doesn't what is it?
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
I do not intend to start a huge discussion about how I see and live religion. At least not in this blog ( sorry OP for derailing a bit your thread). However these are interesting questions that deserve an anwser. I'll try to be short.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Ever since I was born, I dont remember going to a mess where a truth claim was made about the world. I know some people use religion to make truth claim ( e.g. creationnists). I'll stand my ground and say that it is not the goal of religion to do so. Sure you can find many 'truth claim' in the bible. But I have learned a long time ago that what is written in the bible is not to be taken litteraly.
Does it involve praying?
Yes it does. I do pray. I pray god to give me the strengh i need to help other, to forgive me for what I have done wrong and to help me not to do it again. I pray god to give other the strengh they need to overcome obstacle they meet in life.
Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants?
Yes it does. However religious leader are not blessed with the "thruth". The goal of 'educated religious leader' (in my case, priest or pastor) is to explain how the philosophy preached by the bible apply to real life problems. In most case, it is interesting, sometimes enligthening. But i've heard bad priest, and I even sometimes disagreed with some.
Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics?
No. Once again, the bible is not to be taken litterally.
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
Quite frankly, when i hear people talking about religion, I often wish they would see it as a philosophy rather than a Science. They are way more similarities between religion and philosophy than between religion and science.
If you pray, you are making truth claims about the world. You believe that god directly intervenes in daily life to tell you things, breaking the laws of physics and directly communicating with you in your head. That's a truth claim.
Also implicit in all this are the truth claims that: you have a soul, you will enter into an afterlife when you die, that the bible was communicated to people by god similar to the way he communicates to you through prayer, that you can know what god wants for us, that god exists at all (perhaps the most common truth claim in any religion).
None of those are substantiated with a shred of evidence. So I think you are mistaken.
And once again you are trying to find scientific foundation to religion when I am trying to explain that you should not. I'm not christian because I think my soul will be saved. I am christian because I believe in the message/guide/philosophy delivered by Jesus in the bible.
Yes I do believe God exist. I also believe He does not have a physical existence. I beleive He is within each one of us , and I see His action when i look at people dedicating their life to figth poverty. This is not something rational, driven by physical law. This is not a scientific truth claim. This is what I believe, this is my faith.
I'm a scientist, conducting a applied Mathematic PhD at the moment. Beleive me, if i ever found something that did not work accordingly to the physical law i know, I'd immediatly write a paper on it and become famous :D
I want to know how you go about creating your own beliefs. It seems that creating your own belief would require you to create your own ideas, but ideas do not work that way. Ideas simply pop into your head, they are not forged. On reflection this is the only way it could be. Your beliefs are going to be based on your ideas, ideas that are gathered from sense experience/reasoning, and cannot be divorced from the real world.
To the above poster who claims that God is visible when people do charity, I cannot respect such a belief without any evidence. And you don't appear to even care to give any. The faith you are describing is nothing more than an assertion without evidence, and should not be given any more respect than the suicide bomber who kills people to please his God.
On February 01 2012 19:40 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
I agree from a purely scientific standpoint it is indeed fairly meaningless, you can't use it to model anything useful that the simpler, razor compliant, version would not. But if the more complicated theory is still perfectly consistent with reality AND makes you feel happy, it'd almost be irrational not to believe that one instead.
What really is meaningless is to approach religion from a scientific standpoint . The goal of religion is no longer to tell us how the world was created and/or to make so called 'truth claim', i dont even think it ever was its goal ( but i agree it is sometime used a such, which is wrong IMHO).
Religion nowadays is a way of life, a message on how you should live your life, a guide on what you should or should not do. You are free not to beleive in this message. You are free not to follow it. However, some people beleive in it, and act accordingly to it. They see God's hand where other people see coincidence and/or randomness. They see God influence when they see someone smile. They try they best to care about other people, they pardon, they share and they are happy to do it.
Sure you migth say that you dont need religion to do it. But dont blame religious people for doing it. ( You are however allowed to blame religious people for making retarded claim about how the world was created :p )
People should stop thinking religion is stupid because there is no scientific proof behind it. It only proove that they know nothing about what religion is today.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Does it involve praying? Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants? Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics? If it doesn't what is it?
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
I do not intend to start a huge discussion about how I see and live religion. At least not in this blog ( sorry OP for derailing a bit your thread). However these are interesting questions that deserve an anwser. I'll try to be short.
Show me a religion that doesn't make truth claims about the world.
Ever since I was born, I dont remember going to a mess where a truth claim was made about the world. I know some people use religion to make truth claim ( e.g. creationnists). I'll stand my ground and say that it is not the goal of religion to do so. Sure you can find many 'truth claim' in the bible. But I have learned a long time ago that what is written in the bible is not to be taken litteraly.
Does it involve praying?
Yes it does. I do pray. I pray god to give me the strengh i need to help other, to forgive me for what I have done wrong and to help me not to do it again. I pray god to give other the strengh they need to overcome obstacle they meet in life.
Does it involve educated religious leaders saying what God wants?
Yes it does. However religious leader are not blessed with the "thruth". The goal of 'educated religious leader' (in my case, priest or pastor) is to explain how the philosophy preached by the bible apply to real life problems. In most case, it is interesting, sometimes enligthening. But i've heard bad priest, and I even sometimes disagreed with some.
Does it involve God actually performing miracles in defiance of the laws of the physics?
No. Once again, the bible is not to be taken litterally.
Don't call a philosophical viewpoint about life a "religion." The two are very different and it doesn't help anyone to equate philosophy with spirituality/religion.
Quite frankly, when i hear people talking about religion, I often wish they would see it as a philosophy rather than a Science. They are way more similarities between religion and philosophy than between religion and science.
If you pray, you are making truth claims about the world. You believe that god directly intervenes in daily life to tell you things, breaking the laws of physics and directly communicating with you in your head. That's a truth claim.
Also implicit in all this are the truth claims that: you have a soul, you will enter into an afterlife when you die, that the bible was communicated to people by god similar to the way he communicates to you through prayer, that you can know what god wants for us, that god exists at all (perhaps the most common truth claim in any religion).
None of those are substantiated with a shred of evidence. So I think you are mistaken.
And once again you are trying to find scientific foundation to religion when I am trying to explain that you should not. I'm not christian because I think my soul will be saved. I am christian because I believe in the message/guide/philosophy delivered by Jesus in the bible.
Yes I do believe God exist. I also believe He does not have a physical existence. I beleive He is within each one of us , and I see His action when i look at people dedicating their life to figth poverty. This is not something rational, driven by physical law. This is not a scientific truth claim. This is what I believe, this is my faith.
I'm a scientist, conducting a applied Mathematic PhD at the moment. Beleive me, if i ever found something that did not work accordingly to the physical law i know, I'd immediatly write a paper on it and become famous :D
As long as you freely admit you believe in stuff for which there is no evidence and for which you have no rational support, then keep doing what you are doing. More power to you if you want to believe in crazy shit, as long as you keep your distance.
On February 02 2012 00:07 IgnE wrote: It always amazes me how many people are willing to believe something is true just because they "want to."
It is also deeply concerning. But that is human nature unfortunately, when we don't have a reasonable explanation for something we just tend to stick to a bad one.
On February 02 2012 00:07 IgnE wrote: It always amazes me how many people are willing to believe something is true just because they "want to."
It is also deeply concerning. But that is human nature unfortunately, when we don't have a reasonable explanation for something we just tend to stick to a bad one.
Actually, that's not as problematic as you think, I think it's just a badly articulated form of the core idea that people believe because of elements of intuition and foundational ideas that ground human consciousness that form their deepest "want," not the typical modern connotations of "wants" as whimsical, arbitrary, or shallow fluctuations of desire. Of course, it's important for the posts that state this to be conscious of this distinction and to make sure they differentiate the two, which is most certainly a problem with posts that advocate "belief because they want to".
On February 02 2012 00:07 IgnE wrote: It always amazes me how many people are willing to believe something is true just because they "want to."
I don't see why it would. It's among the most fundamental things in the nature of humans. Let me make an analogy, a person wants to hunt, however, if they always caught their prey in the first couple minutes of hunting, the sport would bore them. At a fundamental level, the hunter is not interested in the prey, he is interested in the hunt. Same can be said about gambling, if someone loves to gamble, you give them the money they would earn from their daily gambles in the morning and tell them they don't have to gamble, the person is unhappy. Why? Because he loves to gamble. Also, as applies to both situations, the reward is not the point of doing it, it just creates the excitement because even if you know the reward isn't what you really seek, it's easy to distract your mind to think that way. This gives you a certain thrill for doing something with the possibility of reward - Once you lose the belief about the reward, it's less thrilling.
David Brooks doesn't know what he's talking about 99% of the time, but I thought it was a pretty lulzy coincidence that he wrote an editorial about this.
Beliefs are mathematically representable as values mapped to propositions that are evaluated at decisions; this is how we make decisions that rely on complicated decision frameworks in the presence of otherwise crippling epistemological uncertainty about, well, everything (Do you *know* that the earth revolves around the sun?, brain in a vat, etc).
So it's ok to believe in what makes you happy, because that's what everybody does, provided that you generalize the notion of happiness to encompass any (isomorphic) one dimensional metric. + Show Spoiler +
Alternatively, we can explicitly generalize this and say every person takes a proposition P to be true when it returns a positive decision value x, where decision value is defined as the one dimensional metric which resolves the decision they are making. Decision value thus defined is like utility but emerges organically from a data driven view of decisions unlike utility, which is usually presented as a model driven decision selector function in roughly the same way.
Study of utility is in general crippled by the inability to evaluate it, but the study of decision value as a philosophical matter is not because its properties as a one dimensional metric are sufficient to lend insight to a number of issues.
Terms used problematically without definition in this thread: exists, is, rationally, perspective, know, truth, should, would, could (subjunctives have much nonexplicit meaning, and should carries a one dimensional metric in an indirect and often misleading way). I'd get into this but it would take a while.
What emerges ultimately after you look at how things are represented and resolved and use consistent definitions, is that all perspectives are representable as logically consistent (where we say a perspective is a combination of propositions held to be true by an individual), but clearly (as it must be) no perspective can be represented as good or bad without a choice of a metric to determine what good or bad means, which cannot be done objectively.
So, take a proposition to be true if it makes you happy, knowing that what makes you happy and what makes you sad encodes all of your knowledge about the world. If you are able to make any decision make you happy, then you can bend reality to your will (but then you wouldn't have a will).
Of course, I speak authoritatively somewhat arbitrarily. I take these things to be true but I cannot verify their "truth" for you (that is, that taking them to be true will provide utility (decision value) to you). I write in this tone because I've spent a lot of time looking at the issues and breaking them down into mathematical language because it avoids the linguistic problems presented by using non minimal representations of ideas. I encourage you to try and do the same, and see where you end up. Just work through the structure of reality, first partitioning propositions into those that require a one dimensional metric and those that do not; look at different choices and try to figure out what space they come from; and then generalize things to frameworks of interacting propositions and decisions. I consider religion a solved thought problem (and I am Roman Catholic) but human action in general is some sort of intractable inverse problem. I'm working on empiricism.
Good background reading: preference based utilitarianism (utilitarianism is shitty because the mathematical framework for rational expectations is extremely poor, but there's some good stuff in the lit regarding decision spaces, continuity etc), statistical decision theory, contextualism.
On February 04 2012 23:07 duckett wrote: Beliefs are mathematically representable as values mapped to propositions that are evaluated at decisions; this is how we make decisions that rely on complicated decision frameworks in the presence of otherwise crippling epistemological uncertainty about, well, everything (Do you *know* that the earth revolves around the sun?, brain in a vat, etc).
So it's ok to believe in what makes you happy, because that's what everybody does, provided that you generalize the notion of happiness to encompass any (isomorphic) one dimensional metric. + Show Spoiler +
Alternatively, we can explicitly generalize this and say every person takes a proposition P to be true when it returns a positive decision value x, where decision value is defined as the one dimensional metric which resolves the decision they are making. Decision value thus defined is like utility but emerges organically from a data driven view of decisions unlike utility, which is usually presented as a model driven decision selector function in roughly the same way.
Study of utility is in general crippled by the inability to evaluate it, but the study of decision value as a philosophical matter is not because its properties as a one dimensional metric are sufficient to lend insight to a number of issues.
Terms used problematically without definition in this thread: exists, is, rationally, perspective, know, truth, should, would, could (subjunctives have much nonexplicit meaning, and should carries a one dimensional metric in an indirect and often misleading way). I'd get into this but it would take a while.
What emerges ultimately after you look at how things are represented and resolved and use consistent definitions, is that all perspectives are representable as logically consistent (where we say a perspective is a combination of propositions held to be true by an individual), but clearly (as it must be) no perspective can be represented as good or bad without a choice of a metric to determine what good or bad means, which cannot be done objectively.
So, take a proposition to be true if it makes you happy, knowing that what makes you happy and what makes you sad encodes all of your knowledge about the world. If you are able to make any decision make you happy, then you can bend reality to your will (but then you wouldn't have a will).
Of course, I speak authoritatively somewhat arbitrarily. I take these things to be true but I cannot verify their "truth" for you (that is, that taking them to be true will provide utility (decision value) to you). I write in this tone because I've spent a lot of time looking at the issues and breaking them down into mathematical language because it avoids the linguistic problems presented by using non minimal representations of ideas. I encourage you to try and do the same, and see where you end up. Just work through the structure of reality, first partitioning propositions into those that require a one dimensional metric and those that do not; look at different choices and try to figure out what space they come from; and then generalize things to frameworks of interacting propositions and decisions. I consider religion a solved thought problem (and I am Roman Catholic) but human action in general is some sort of intractable inverse problem. I'm working on empiricism.
Good background reading: preference based utilitarianism (utilitarianism is shitty because the mathematical framework for rational expectations is extremely poor, but there's some good stuff in the lit regarding decision spaces, continuity etc), statistical decision theory, contextualism.
Thanks for sharing. "Crippling epistemological uncertainty" sums up all I have to say. I certainly believe that people believe that all their beliefs can be proven true.