Why do/don't you believe in God

by LouBelle 153 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  daystar

  and you know this by fiat of what knowledge again?

  and it shows that god exists, how again?

  • Everything I've studied about gods seem to portray them as a rather amoral lot. JHVH was the god of love, yet massacred or ordered to be massacred millions, according to the bible.
  • It doesn't prove anything. And I'm not out to prove that they exist objectively. I don't believe that they do ultimately exist other than in our own subconscious.

  However, in order to argue a point, you must speak in their terms.
• 

  Pole

  Daystar,
  
  

  Everything I've studied about gods seem to portray them as a rather amoral lot. JHVH was the god of love, yet massacred or ordered to be massacred millions, according to the bible.

  
  
  Another way to phrase it is: "Everything I've studied about gods suggests that they are a pure anthropomorphism". Would you agree?
  
  Pole
• 

  daystar

  Pole said:

  Another way to phrase it is: "Everything I've studied about gods suggests that they are a pure anthropomorphism". Would you agree?

  mmmm... almost. They are, but as symbols in the collective unconscious, they do seem to take on a life of their own.
• 

  poppers

  What do beliefs for or against anything achieve other than cement in place one's sense of identity? What do they do other than present a target for those who have opposing beliefs? What do they do other than provide one with a conceptual framework to to view the world or oneself, and to defend oneself or attack others?

  What would happen if one were to investigate the nature of the one who would hold any belief? A belief provides a viewpoint, but to whom does this viewpoint present itself? Who is actually latching onto a belief or rejecting it? This seems to me to be a critical issue, but it is an issue which most people never even consider.

  The most basic belief is the belief in "me", and everything revolves around this belief, but just who is this "me" anyway? If one is willing to actually look for the "me" what is discovered? Can anything be found outside of a bundle of ideas of who "I" am? Surely there is something transcendent to each idea of "me", something which is always here and which precedes and remains before and after every idea of "me" arises. Discover directly for yourself what this "something" is and then see if there is any need to believe or disbelieve in anything, including whatever "god" might be.
• 

  hmike

  
  Hi Tetrapod,

  Yeah, I figured if anybody would jump on that, it would be you. I'm flattered, actually, that you would take the time and effort to read it through and analyze it so thoroughly.

  It was not meant as any kind of proof, or to persuade anyone to my point of view, only to supply a reason "why" as LouBelle asked. Reasons can't always be logically justified to others--they just exist. I'm sorry, but there still are mysteries in the universe, and we'll never run out of them.

  I will comment on a couple of your points:

  • If you don't understand the difference between WANT and NEED and CAN from what I wrote, and you really want to pursue it further, I can try to explain it. Might be interesting if you ask your Christian friends if they understand it.

  • I'm not a Catholic, and although I've encountered the name of Blaise Pascal in philosophy and mathematics, I'd never heard of this "wager." Sounds like he's talking about hard-working JWs, not me.
• 

  Krystal

  If you were the supreme being of the Universe, the creator of all things all knowing and all wise, would you allow this amount of confusion regarding your existance? Wouldn't you want people to know without a doubt that you exist and that you created them with a purpose or that you care?

  If there was such a thing as "god" as described in the bible... we would not be having this discussion.
• 

  daystar

  If you were the supreme being of the Universe, the creator of all things all knowing and all wise, would you allow this amount of confusion regarding your existance? Wouldn't you want people to knowwithout a doubt that you exist and that you created them with a purpose or that you care?

  An opposing logic says that we are allowed to discover life's meaning on our own and only in that way can it be truly meaningful. Sort of like the fact that I can tell my kid to stop running in the house until I'm blue in the face, but he doesn't really learn the lesson until he smacks into a wall and loses a tooth.
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  hey hmike,

  one of runningman's chapters in his Atheist's Book of Bible Stories deals with pascal's wager. i am surpirsed that you have never heard of pascal's wager, as you describe it almost as well as pascal would have! LOL.

  and yes, i guess i do not get the concept of WANT, NEED & CAN. i would see wants as on the same continuum as cans. kind of meaning the same difference. for example:

  i want to serve god, and i can, so i will. / i do not want to serve god, even though i can, so i won't.

  or

  i can serve god, but i do not want to serve him, and so i won't. / i can serve god, and want to, so i will.

  and that's how i see the relationship there. how do you see it?

  TS
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  hey daystar,

  An opposing logic says that we are allowed to discover life's meaning on our own and only in that way can it be truly meaningful. Sort of like the fact that I can tell my kid to stop running in the house until I'm blue in the face, but he doesn't really learn the lesson until he smacks into a wall and loses a tooth.

  i have heard this sort of reasoning before too.

  i always kind of answer:

  do we have to learn things the hard way all the time? would we do well with a little help? i mean, in terms of gods existence, humans are not like stubborn children. in fact we're the opposite. we would do anything to believe that he exists, and we have done just about anything too. LOL. we want to believe. we want to learn about him. but he's like the parent that never existed. the neglectful one, that allows mass discord and confusion to reign.

  is life truly meaningful by having to figure it out ourselves? i mean, personally, i am all for it, but only because that's the way life is. if there was a god, and he would be willing to shed meaning on my life, i would be all for dropping my way of figuring it all out, for a little direction from him. as a matter of fact, just knowing for sure, 100% that he existed, would be enough. he would not even have to tell me the meaning of life, as i would be happy trying to figure it out through that paradigm.
• 

  Spook

  More on deism:

  To get from "possible" to "true," one would pass through some form of sampling information from material reality into conciousness, not necessarily a scientific test, but any form of observation would do. The problem is, that by nature of knowing, one would have to generate a statement of

  X means god exists because Y.

  So, even though many people have evidence X, I have found all statements of why (Y) to be self generated by man. My background in complexity/cybernetic/systems theory leads me to conclude that the generation of the assumption of meaning creates reality as tautological in communication.

  I would accept the existence of a god if a statement such as above could prove the existence of many things, of which one was god.

  I suggest to all religious people that until such time as *you* can prove the existance of a deity that we make all our public decisions on the basis of material reality alone. Deal?