Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
What is God to you?
Options
Comments
-
I had a post ready, but I best not get into it further
It's not something I didn't expect from MagicMarker, or others who are quite embittered towards religion (in general?). To be honest with you, I can kind of see why people would be given what people have done in its name.0 -
What? Is this a reply to me?I had a post ready, but I best not get into it further
It's not something I didn't expect from MagicMarker, or others who are quite embittered towards religion (in general?). To be honest with you, I can kind of see why people would be given what people have done in its name.
0 -
-
Ickle Magoo wrote: »Are you really so embittered towards atheists you just have to jump to these weird conclusions? It's just bizarre.
No, I am an Atheist
I'm not the one that's jumping to conclusions either0 -
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
1. These people cannot just do whatever they want. They have to be either devious enough or strong enough to avoid being caught and punished by the rest of the society and they have to keep it up for their whole lives. Think of someone like Saddam Hussein who had to have multiple palaces and body doubles because his life was always in danger. Unfortunately individuals can and do choose not to live by the rules but this does not mean that we cannot define these rules and punish any offenders that are caught.
Saddamn hussein is an example of somone who failed. And yes, when I say things like that I'm not talking about cowards, idiots or people who aren't capable of thinking outside rules imposed on them by the rest of society. Anyway, since I liked being supported hume, you might like to know that socrates also makes pretty much this argument against living the bad life in the republic. Plato also travelled from the individual to society at large to learn more about justice. You've also done that! But it doesn't really matter which way we look at it, in the examples cited it makes it no more clear than in the individual. One could say that morality as it propogates through different levels of society is fractal in nature. And according to this book I'm reading which I don't really understand, it's best to look at the closest magnification, the individual.
If you are trying to argue that it's not possible to prosper by acting in contradiction to the values of society whilst not being caught then I'll have to say that that's extremely naieve.
My arguments have never left a purely evolutionary description of things in order to criticise them. You have gone from the individual to society, and from chemicals to a few steps ahead. But this doesn't make a difference to the argument.2. If you actually look at the world you'll realise that this flawed morality whose downfall is that it doesn't apply outside the tribe is the one that people have hard wired in their brains. As you say there are millions of examples of it, e.g. slavery and racism. So while we can all agree that it would be nice if there was an over arching objective morality that applied universally, that doesn't mean that such a morality exists. There are many people who claim to have this universal objective morality but each one is different to the next.
Well, everyone universally applies their morality. Once you have a definition of right, other people have a definition of wrong. I'm not going to argue about the failings about relativistic ideas of good and bad, or about the universality of morality. These are two different things, and unrelated to this debate. It is a very interesting topic of discussion though.
Why do we have to do the best we can? Why don't we just go and rape loads of people and do heroin? We all like living in society sure, but yes we can rape these outsiders, or do it to people within our own society in such a way that we aren't caught.We have to do the best we can with what we've got and the best we can do is convince people that these outsiders that they've classed as different for the purposes of not applying the same rules to them as they do their own family and friends are not actually so different. Yes it would be nice to be able to say "you're doing wrong. Book says so and you're going to fry for it after you die" but my desire for ultimate morality and ultimate punishment does not make these things exist
Well not quite :P .That doesn't make their values non-arbitrary. It makes people universally conditioned by simple things like "fire hot" etc.I said that in order for a society to define rules that allow killing raping enslaving and stoning its members must like being raped, being killed, being stoned and being enslaved. You'd gladly place yourself in that category would you?Could you pop around to my gaff? I've got some chores I'd like you to do before I stone you to death. I'll leave out the raping if it's all the same with you
you keep saying things like "oh but you can't call it morality". If a society can define a system of mutually agreed rules based on universal values (ie not arbitrary) where the majority live by them, where offenders that are caught are punished and any that aren't live in fear of being caught, I don't care if I can call it morality or not. I'll just call it ethics instead.
Ok well, you've kinda gone in a circle anyway. We've already stated, that since we are not prescribing religious exampes for things, commonly held values like "it's nice to live together" can be explained by evolution. So it reduces to "living together is nice for chemicals".
Again you're making the same mistake you've made before in saying the moral values aren't arbitrary. You can argue "people like living in society", in my mind this reduces to the same arguments about empathy, which can be humerously compared with heroin addicts.
But anyway, "people like to live in society", therefore we ought to live in society. I've already given arguments against this sort of thing, and so has hume apparently.
Edit: Here's a nice excercise. I'll say "I like to rape people and eat babies" and you arrive from your objective principles and convince me that it is bad (I'll accept the firt principles), mind you, I'm very devious and unlikely to get caught. And what's more moral systems shouldn't be based on punishment, which is why it's so easy to argue against the straw men of christians only being moral because of fear of death.0 -
-
-
-
I've never said that an explanation has never been given, but I've not heard anything that makes sense. I don't believe as a person I am "irrational" to a higher degree than any atheist. Ultimately my current position has been derived by investigating the case for Christianity, and reading explanations that have been given by Christians to defend that position, and it started to make a lot of sense to me even on a rational level.
I will admit that there is a sense of a relationship with God, and experience that ultimately can only rest with the individual, and that is crucially important, but I do believe that Christian beliefs can be explained clearly, and that they do make sense.
If Christianity didn't make sense at least to me, I wouldn't have become a Christian and just remained in the albeit unsatisfying position of an agnostic. It's really that simple. There was something unique from the bland secular message of you live, and just rot, and there was something altogether realistic about the message of Jesus Christ that hit home to me.
For the record, I don't think religious people are any more illogical or irrational than anyone else, except when it comes to matters of faith. Ironically, despite all your protestations of clear explanations that make sense, I've never heard anything approaching a semblance of reasoned argument for the existence of a god, never mind the superiority of one religion over any other. I presume that's why nothing has replaced the atheism I was born with.
Of course, once convinced of a particular belief any other position must seem ludicrous but from my perspective the problem with theism is that there is so bloody many people equally convinced they have it absolutely spot on - and most of them don't even share a belief. If it were so obvious and so unequivocal, there would be but one religion and we would all believe in god, surely? That clearly isn't the case so logic dictates (to me at least!) that every single theistic position must hold some kind of irrationality or illogicality for others to have rejected it en masse - the only exception being those brave souls who are prepared to admit we actually just don't know, of course.It is the gross improbability that the universe could have arrived here in its current complexity of its own accord that is perhaps the most difficult aspect for me. It seems a lot more of a jump than to hold the position that there is a reason why you and I exist, and there is a reason why the universe is the way it is, and that there is a function and a purpose for our lives and for all else that is involved in this existence.
I guess since I am a philosophical mind, the question of purpose, reality, cause and reason tend to play a big role in my thought. However, to say that this means of thinking is irrational is a bit of a stretch.
Irrational in the common usage of atheists to theists is really nothing more than playground name calling, it has no real representation on how logical the thought process is. At least that is what I am finding.
It's grossly improbably that anyone hit the 1 in 74 x 10^6 chance of winning the euromillions, yet nearly every week somebody somewhere beats those odds. There are astonishing natural odds around us all the time, naturally conceived sextuplets, having two sets of twins in a row, a family of 9 girls in a row - when staring phenomenal odds in the face every day and seeing example upon example of the improbable becoming reality, I see no reason to assume the odds of universal creation, life on earth or whatever although slight, make the interjection of a super-being necessary.
Far from playground name calling for the sake of it, irrationality is at the seat of why a shared religion or theism does not exist. Irationality is to find a hole and maintain a conviction that the gap has been adequately and properly filled despite having no way of knowing that is the case. I don't know - you don't know, to proclaim you know better than the hindus, muslims, scientologists, etc, despite everyone sharing the same lack of evidence cannot possibly be rational. The absolute conviction that one sect has it right against all others and despite a complete lack of empirical evidence is neither a logical nor a rational position, no matter how much you want it to be. It's just blindly maintaining things are how you hope/want/would like rather than admitting we just don't know. Inserting "god did it" is as rational as inserting "elvis did it" or "giant turtle did it" or "thor did it" for that matter. If you can see the irrationality of another sects assumptions, surely you can see the irrationality of all others, including your own?0 -
Ickle Magoo wrote: »For the record, I don't think religious people are any more illogical or irrational than anyone else, except when it comes to matters of faith. Ironically, despite all your protestations of clear explanations that make sense, I've never heard anything approaching a semblance of reasoned argument for the existence of a god, never mind the superiority of one religion over any other. I presume that's why nothing has replaced the atheism I was born with.
It's nothing of a protestation. It's just a statement about the current cognitive position I am in, just as yours is a statement about the current cognitive position you are in.
We're clearly just polar opposites in respect to this issue. You regard me as being irrational in matters of faith, and I regard you as being irrational in matters of faith. This is why the term is just useless in discussion. It becomes something that is merely lobbed back and forth rather than something that progresses discussion.Ickle Magoo wrote: »Of course, once convinced of a particular belief any other position must seem ludicrous but from my perspective the problem with theism is that there is so bloody many people equally convinced they have it absolutely spot on - and most of them don't even share a belief. If it were so obvious and so unequivocal, there would be but one religion and we would all believe in god, surely? That clearly isn't the case so logic dictates (to me at least!) that every single theistic position must hold some kind of irrationality or illogicality for others to have rejected it en masse - the only exception being those brave souls who are prepared to admit we actually just don't know, of course.
Of course, but the case is how was I convinced? - I think it was through rational means for the most part (No decision is ever 100% rationally made, but a large proportion of our decisions are), in that something clicked as I was thinking it through, and indeed thinking through what is probably the most important decision I have and will ever make.
As for God's existence being obvious, it's counter intuitive to our sense to wish to lead our own lives, without any real restriction. It isn't that the idea of God isn't fairly simple to understand once explained, it is that people often don't want to accept the consequences of God's existence which effectively means that we must repent of past sins, and become a new Creation with Him. It is always much easier if one is acquainted with the idea that one hasn't been living as they should be to fully understand why we must repent to begin with.
Actually, the rejection of God in many cases arises by an irrational response to what it will mean for people.
As for those brave souls you refer to, indeed it is a noble point to say that one doesn't know, but it certainly isn't noble to resign ones self to the position that they will never know, and as a result not seek to know.Ickle Magoo wrote: »It's grossly improbably that anyone hit the 1 in 74 x 10^6 chance of winning the euromillions, yet nearly every week somebody somewhere beats those odds. There are astonishing natural odds around us all the time, naturally conceived sextuplets, having two sets of twins in a row, a family of 9 girls in a row - when staring phenomenal odds in the face every day and seeing example upon example of the improbable becoming reality, I see no reason to assume the odds of universal creation, life on earth or whatever although slight, make the interjection of a super-being necessary.
The odds of the earth and life being able to form as they are if I remember correctly far exceeds the chances of winning the Euromillions every week for 10 years, or for any of these things to have occurred. The gross improbability would be a major barrier in even beginning to reject the idea of God, let alone dismissing it as a fairytale as many people here and in the A&A forum do.
In fact, I would regard dismissing it as a fairytale, to be more irrational than a lot of other things.Ickle Magoo wrote: »Far from playground name calling for the sake of it, irrationality is at the seat of why a shared religion or theism does not exist. Irationality is to find a hole and maintain a conviction that the gap has been adequately and properly filled despite having no way of knowing that is the case. I don't know - you don't know, to proclaim you know better than the hindus, muslims, scientologists, etc, despite everyone sharing the same lack of evidence cannot possibly be rational. The absolute conviction that one sect has it right against all others and despite a complete lack of empirical evidence is neither a logical nor a rational position, no matter how much you want it to be. It's just blindly maintaining things are how you hope/want/would like rather than admitting we just don't know. Inserting "god did it" is as rational as inserting "elvis did it" or "giant turtle did it" or "thor did it" for that matter. If you can see the irrationality of another sects assumptions, surely you can see the irrationality of all others, including your own?
I would argue that it isn't an insertion, rather it is by looking at how the universe is and how it came to be, and indeed how our lives are and how they operate, how people operate and so on that one can derive what kind of a Creator would have been involved in such a Creation. It is by seeing what is around us that I and others would be led to the conclusion that there was an intelligent being behind the Creation of the universe, rather than things happening without any form of cause (this is actually a much bigger leap of faith as far as I am concerned).
As for determining the characteristics of this Creator, that is a question of divine revelation, what has been revealed to us and how it squares up with reality. The first stage, is establishing that there must of necessity be a cause to what we know and perceive. I.E - The acceptance that there is ultimately a reason and a cause to why there is something rather than nothing. The second stage is evaluating the Scriptures and seeing if they make rational sense.
The best assessment of how the Scriptures made sense to me was by examining what my life had been like before the point when I accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour and seeing that the general pattern accounted for peoples lives in the Bible, and in the world was pretty much the same as the pattern that had occurred in my life in that I had strayed far from what was right into what was wrong.
The Biblical text made clear sense given my perception of the world, and as such it wasn't overwhelmingly difficult post-thinking about it to see why I would believe in God.
However, you are correct that if I didn't have any revelation to accept, it would be gratuitous and irrational for me to say what God was like. However, since we do, I can assess it and I can determine if it makes sense.0 -
I've shortened your quotes just to shorten the overall length of my posts, I did read them in full. I mean no offence in doing so nor do I mean to ignore any specific points made.It's nothing of a protestation. It's just a statement about the current cognitive position I am in, just as yours is a statement about the current cognitive position you are in.
We're clearly just polar opposites in respect to this issue. You regard me as being irrational in matters of faith, and I regard you as being irrational in matters of faith. This is why the term is just useless in discussion. It becomes something that is merely lobbed back and forth rather than something that progresses discussion.
You think I'm irrational for holding my hands up and saying no-one knows how the universe came into being? Really? I'm irrational because I haven't assumed a particular religious sect is correct over all others despite the underwhelming evidence?
Presumably you don't think hinduism is a completely logical and rational conclusion or you would be a hindu, same for islam and scientology? You can know about them and dismiss them as not saying it how it is, getting it wrong or making things up but that doesn't work in reverse?Of course, but the case is how was I convinced? - I think it was through rational means for the most part........As for those brave souls you refer to, indeed it is a noble point to say that one doesn't know, but it certainly isn't noble to resign ones self to the position that they will never know, and as a result not seek to know.
But I do seek to know, I just don't want to make it up. I'm willing to leave the question unanswered until such a time that the correct answer can fill the gap. If I don't live to find out then so be it, I'm not so utterly desperate to answer the question that I'm prepared to throw in an answer and cross my fingers it's the right one.The odds of the earth and life being able to form as they are if I remember correctly far exceeds the chances of winning the Euromillions every week for 10 years, or for any of these things to have occurred. The gross improbability would be a major barrier in even beginning to reject the idea of God, let alone dismissing it as a fairytale as many people here and in the A&A forum do.
In fact, I would regard dismissing it as a fairytale, to be more irrational than a lot of other things.
The odds are infinitesimal in human terms but I'd argue if you throw a dice every minute of every day for 15 billion years then eventually you will throw a hundred thousand sixes in a row, probably more than once actually. Regardless, no amount of improbability = god did it, it doesn't make one faiths version of events any more probable than the turtle pooing the universe. In lieu of any solid answer and rather than eeny, meany, moeing it, I'm happy with "I don't know".
NB It's the super-natural events in biblical/religious stories that are dismissed as fairy stories rather than any general leanings towards deism.I would argue that it isn't an insertion, rather it is by looking at how the universe is and how it came to be, and indeed how our lives are and how they operate, how people operate and so on that one can derive what kind of a Creator would have been involved in such a Creation. It is by seeing what is around us that I and others would be led to the conclusion that there was an intelligent being behind the Creation of the universe, rather than things happening without any form of cause (this is actually a much bigger leap of faith as far as I am concerned)...etc, etc
And none of that makes any more sense to me than reading an alien abductee telling their story about the little green men that snatched them and carried out experiments and how they are convinced we are not alone. I think you have to understand that without means to differentiate, I have to hold biblical espousing in the same vein and talk of seeing the work of intelligent creators means absolutely nothing to me, Jackass, zip. You may think you are making a clear and concise argument but I just hear a twist on the abductee story.
I don't have a faith that the universe created itself, it's the surety that we have absolutely no idea how the universe came into being and any other assumption is a complete fabrication of human imagination is why I have never developed a faith. I don't think lacking faith can be a leap of faith.0 -
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
MagicMarker wrote: »You really are good for a chuckle Jakkass do you know that?
I guess, if people who have a sincere belief in God do that for you, then why not have a good chuckle, at least something positive will have happened from this discussionMagicMarker wrote: »Anyway, let's revert back shall we? Why don't you take genesis literally seeing as evolution is so improbably? And while we're at it, were the dinosaurs part of God's plan?
I have a number of reasons.
As for dinosaurs, I assume your reasoning is going to end up with you asking why were the dinosaurs made extinct. The answer is I don't know, perhaps dinosaurs were intended for a time, and that time has now passed. I don't claim to know everything, no doubt I have quite a bit I have to learn before this life ends.0 -
Advertisement
-
Advertisement