So do you believe in God?

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So everyone is blundering around in the dark then? No wonder I can't work any of this out!

 

The difference is that there's at least some rational thought being put into comparing believing scientific evidence towards a physical thing such as drugs and alcohol and believing in a metaphysical thing such as a god. But the origional argument made by you was

and Rotku argued that faith isn't required in order to resist those 'temptations', that logic and reasoning can also be a viable approach.

 

No it doesn't. If you don't want to do it, you don't do it. I'm not smoking weed as a type this, but it's nothing to do with faith.

 

Faith in logic, science and reasoning. A nice statement that. I think an oxymoron would be the word used to describe it. Faith is a belief in something that lies outside of scientific justification. I do not have faith in logic, science and reasoning. I know (and could prove) that such things are what control my life, the world, and for that matter, the universe.

Do you mind if I ask why you have more confidence in your religion than others?

Find me a proven situation where logic fails and I'll give you this point.

I would happily argue that they could be just as effective. Psychiatrist can apply proven scientific methods to help people who have lost spirit, which in many cases would be better than faith (please note that I'm not saying in all cases).

And regarding the common morals, I see no reason that religion can offer anything that a non-faith based method cannot provide. Prehaps you might be able to help me out here

 

@Gnarfflinger:

Then you haven't been paying attention. Jews don't proseletyze.

@HB:

If you're really interested in getting in touch with some form of spirituality, try a different angle. Ignore and forget what any RELIGION teaches about God and worship and heaven, and determine for YOURSELF what those things mean. Then, if you feel it necessary, seek out an organization that shares YOUR values. But guess what? It might not be necessary. If working in your garden or taking a run or walking in the woods with your son makes you feel close to God, what more do you need?

 

There are those religions as well; judaism isn't the only one. There are "religions" that have in their core doctrine just that. Sitting down for hours, or for longer periods of time and shutting up. In fact, making a concentrated effort of shutting up.

I'm not saying that this couldn't be so, but you'd have to admit that this is exactly the same kind way of justifying existing power structures as has been used by worldly politicians for propaganda purposes. Choosing this propaganda over that is of course an act of faith.

The more anyone talks, the more they spin a web for themselves, eventually finding themselves trapped inside. This is even more true when the subject isn't even comprehendable by rational thinking.

I am specifically not targetting only christianity. Any organized hierarchical structure has a need to sustain itself or otherwise it would perish. Admittedly some religions have had some pretty drastic measures of maintaining their integrity against changes. This happens especially against changes from within. For it to be only an individual sin, it would be too coincidental to happen again and again in hierarchical systems.

 

Skipping back to a little while ago (i skipped about and hour of reading, you long winded people ):

I'm an atheist. I've not had sex. I've gotten drunk once, just to test. I won't do it again because I hate it. I don't do drugs. Why haven't I done these things? Because I find them to be morally wrong. No god or holy book taught me that.


And a question about religion... if everyone personalizes their relationship with God, then what is the point of going to church? You can read the bible for yourself, you don't need some guy reading them to you (although, story time is always nice ). Answering my own question: I guess you don't believe in Salvation Through Faith Alone? That makes alot more sense to me than anything else. If I were religious, it would seem more faithful to communicate with God by myself, when he can here me, not through a mediator (Priest, Bishop, etc).

Or is Salvation Through Faith Alone just a protestant thing? I know Martin Luther cranked that one out to start the Reformation...

 

Proverbs 3: 5-6 suggests that we ought to trust God, not our own understanding. Believe in God, and he shall direct your paths. I am not God, so I can't give you that answer.

But at what level does this science go beyong simple verification? Sure you can verify the theory of gravity, but can you verify sub atomic particles so easily? Does it not require faith in the scientist to accept his theory?

Again, you must have faith in the points you start from. If one of such points is disproved, the whole thing crumbles like a house of cards when some jackass bumps the table.

This assumes that weed appeals to you. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. In my case, weed did appeal to me (and the buzz is still tempting), but it is faith that enables me to decline this. the point is that there will be something that is wrong that would appeal to you, but faith in what you believe will help you to resist that temptation.

Exactly, but Logic can't prove that this doesn't exist. The axioms upon which your logic rest are merely assumptions that you have faith in, whether you want to use the word or not.

I find answers in my faith's specific books that other religions would reject. It makes such things more clear, and thus easier to understand.

Okay, how come billions of people around the world have some faith in a supernatural, supreme being, when this cannot be scientifically proven. Your science tells me little, Logic dictates that there has to be something behind all of this, but it doesn't tell me near enough. Only faith gives me those answers.

Why do people do self destructive things? Because they want to and they don't care about why they shouldn't. Faith in God gives many a reason to forsake these things.

Religion has this clearly laid out, and the source is established. It answers why people should do as commanded as well. Without religion, then who decided on these morals, and why should people listen to them?

Point taken. I should have stuck with Christian based religions as that is what I have experience with.

Worldly politicians have learned from religious organizations. They learn by seeing what works...

The more that you try to apply logic to faith, the harder it becomes understand. Why not just experience it?

Exactly. You see the governments abusing their power all the time, but people still support the government, only calling for a change in people, not the demolition of the hierarchy. It is not fair to target religions only.

But you still have to have faith in your moral teachings to abide this. A pity you don't believe--you'd make a better Christian that I was for several years...

My religion teaches that it is good to meet together to join in worship on the Sabbath. Through such meetings, we learn from others to strengthen our own personal relationship with God.

Actually, God uses both means. He as called prophets and other authorities, and grants unto them revelation to guide the faithful, but also we have the right to the presence of the Spirit to help us personally with such decisions.

 

Rally, I could kiss ya. Genius, baby.

(All due marital respect, of course. )

 

A religious book tells you to trust the religion it's about? *SHOCK!*

With the right equipment, yes.

Logic can't prove that anything doesn't exist. However, it isn't logical to assume something like the existence of an all-powerful being without any evidence (I refer you back to DR's purple space monkeys). Then again, logic isn't everything...

This supports what I've always (well, since I formed a solid opinion, anyway) believed: Faith is a crutch. It's there to fill in the gaps in our knowledge with answers that have zero backing, but that we can take as canon to make ourselves feel better, to not feel that sense of being adrift in the universe. Some people (seemingly an increasingly large percentage of the population, but then I have no numbers to back that up) do very well without this crutch, either accepting not knowing (and possibly trying to find out the answers by science) or making up their own answers, or maybe even some other variant that I'm forgetting or haven't seen. They live lives of virtue that often outstrip those of some of the key faiths (numerous examples present themselves, but I don't want to "pick on" Christianity ).

Some people, however, don't. These are the "bad" atheists that so many refer to, who grow bitter with the "knowledge" that there is no God, and thus noone who cares about them. Seeing no reason to act well, they simply don't. These are the people who need religion, need something to hold onto, need, I daresay, something to keep them from falling into this rut of the weak-willed, and instead turn them into well-behaved sheep of whatever religion they settle on.

For it's much better to be a part of a shepherd's herd (the shepherd here is NOT God, but instead the religious leaders), being sheared (collection plate ) and cared for (spiritually), than to wander into the wilderness and be eaten by a wolf. But for those of us who do not need this guidance, those of us who can stand up to the wolves of existence, religion is unneccessary, and maybe would even be a mistake.

To put it simply, they're scared. Scared at the mind-altering effects they've observed in people who join a faith, as their beliefs are molded to fit what their "superiors" tell them. They don't want to take the chance that giving it a shot will brainwash them with the group-think that permeates even the concept of organized religion. It's almost comparable to not wanting to touch a leper.

 

This is exactly the sort of thing that gets me confused. You say I should just trust this God and all will be OK. Rallymama says to just trust whatever I feel like trusting. Scientologists tell me to give them all my money. Rotku says to worship the Purple Ninja Monkeys.

My point is, that everyone is still saying to do DIFFERENT things! I accept what you say about everybody requiring a certain amount of 'faith' because we can't know everything. But it's very tough deciding what the best thing to have faith in should be.

 

Exactly my point, less talk - more...seeing how things really are. Just experience it, and that doesn't take words, logic, or even hierarchical structures.

What part of 'any organized hierarchical structure' implies only to religions?

Well, you could say that I'm scared. There's no point denying since you wouldn't take my word for it. But let me specify it a little: I would have liked if I had been "brainwashed" by my "superiors" when I was an active member of my church. I was seriously considering to become a priest. I had the gift for it and you might even say that I felt the love of God pour over me as I marveled His work. I really liked going to church, to sing my praise and worship. I gave it a shot, but I got winged.

You might think that I took things too lightly, in many cases I was frowned upon because of my merry and unorthodox behaviour. Perhaps I lacked proper reverence. I failed to see why the ongoing bickering over words that has been going on for the whole history of the christian church was so important.

I failed to close my eyes over the pettiness of so many people active in the church, how they talk bad things about people behind their backs, their malice towards anything different. I came to the conclusion that faith in some thing is a poor measure how good a person is and in most cases has very little to do with it. I need to believe in goodness, and I failed to see how a religion would be a thing of goodness, when so many bad things happen, and so many exactly because of organized religion, because of words, because of dogmas.

You can have your acts of faith and believe that it will all work out in the end. Maybe I expected too much of those who were in faith when I expected them to be good and kind. Maybe I didn't even have any faith to begin with, as I know they would put it that way. By not agreeing, by not being able to agree with them in everything wholeheartedly I was already damned in their eyes. For them some sins cannot be forgiven and disagreeing with their authority is one of them.

 

*deep, worried sigh*
You all are SO lost. Ok, lets start here:

How many people have agreed with this? Well, you're wrong. Faith isn't belief in something outside of scientific justification. Faith is belief in something outside of PERSONAL justification. This means that, while it MAY be able to be verified, you believe it even though you haven't verified it yourself.

For example, I recently sat in a chair. I had never seen this particular chair before, I had never seen anyone else sit in it, I don't know who made it, or who ordered it, or if it had been altered in any way at any time by anyone else. Furthermore, though I generally trust the organization that placed it there, I, as an engineer, know of PLENTY of situations where that trust has been misplaced. In other words, I didn't know it would support me, and I had credible reason to question whether it would support me. I still sat in it, and I didn't perform any of the structural anasyses or test I could have to verify its ability to support my weight. I had faith in a thing that CAN, and later WAS, scientifically justified, but the lack of such justification from MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE allowed me to have faith in it.

And now this:

Again, you missed the mark. Logic is a process of analysis of certain information to come to conclusions that are not obvious. If the information is insufficient to the task, logic fails. Logic told people thousands of years ago that the world was flat, from that they deduced that it must have an edge and that the water of the ocean would fall of the edge, so there must be some way of replenishing/containing it. This was all wrong. Logic failed because the information used to begin the discussion was insufficient to reach the proper conclusions.

The final situation is this:
From a logical and scientific perspective, there is just enough evidence to reasonably believe there MAY BE some form of supernatural, supreme being, or to reasonable believe that there isn't. Many people have attempted to build bridges and piers of logic into this sea of questions, but they were performing the same error that made people think there was an edge of the world. Here, logic and science fail because there's no evidence to base them on, in a general, grand human scheme sense. Nonetheless, periodically, you 'see' people walking on this sea of questions. There are three posibilities to this:
1.)They have found personal evidence on which to build their own bridges and piers of faith into the sea and, having found still more evidence out there, have continued to expand. This evidence is generally not sufficient to PROVE what they claim, but enough to make assuming it a reasonable thing. Either that or it is of a nature that, while conclusive, would not seem credible to others.
2.)They are walking on the faulty bridges and piers based on assumptions and lacks of information.
3.)They are totally ignoring logic, reason, evidence, questions, and my whole analogy of a 'sea of questions' and making things up as they go. They exist in a world totally unto themselves with little to no anchor in reality.

Now the question comes, 'What should I do?', where the 'I' in question is one just approaching the sea of questions. The answer is to test things. If someone tells you of their beliefs, test them with logic and science. If they can be conclusively disproven, then they are wrong. Be careful here, though, because you are an imperfect being and can make mistakes, jump to conclusions, miss explanations, etc. Make SURE you know they're wrong before you discount them. If you can neither prove nor disprove them, consider their conclusions and the evidence they claim. If you see their evidence, and it works with their conclusions, believe them. If you do not see their evidence, keep your eyes open. If their evidence and their conclusions don't match, pass on by. If you can somehow prove they are right, by all means follow them, you have found the true path!

On a personal note, I am a Baptist, a type of Christian. I have come to this point through a long, yet simple series of personal evidence that most of you would not find credible if I merely told you about them. You would have to experience them yourselves, and I deeply hope that some day you all do.

 

That does not help me resolve the fact that everyone has faith in different things and that those different things are contradictary and can't all be completely correct. Should I have faith that bombing Christians is the path to heaven? Or should I have faith that praying every Sunday is the way to salvation? Or should I have faith that Satan is trying to thwart my efforts at every turn? Or should I have faith in Hubbard's malevolent aliens. Faith is useful, but still has limitations.

 

Maybe you should just accept that there's no way of knowing who's right until you die.

And why is faith so important to you? I've never found a use for it. Just tends to get in the way of my reality.

 

It's potentially (depending on who you listen to) too late by then. I want answers now, when it matters most (again, depending on who you listen to)!

 

By Eris, man, you ask for what can not be done!

 

Then why do billions of people (including most of the people on these Boards) claim that they are so sure!!

 

Because the stakes are so high, they desperately want to believe that they do know for sure. People convince themselves they're right so that they can stop worrying about possibly being wrong, about any number of subjects; how would this be any different?

 

Because these people are scared of what will happen when they die they need to delude themselves into thinking that everything's going to be alright when they die.

Eventually they start to believe their own lies and the lies of others. They start to see justifications in their actions when somebody else would just see a normal turn of events. They claim they're right because they're scared to question, if they question they will lose their protective bubble.

Fear and lies is the basis of religion. Fear that if you don't do as you're told you will suffer more than one can imagine and lies to justify the source of the suffering.