Do you believe in a "God"?

dealing with it · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **dealing with it** on Thu Jun 25, 2015 4:46 am

ιяяєgυℓαяιту:

What does it take to justify a belief as knowledge?

zxci · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **zxci** on Fri Jun 26, 2015 2:33 am

dealing with it wrote:ιяяєgυℓαяιту:

What does it take to justify a belief as knowledge?

An extremely relevant and worthwhile document: "The Analysis of Knowledge"
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

Aniihya · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Aniihya** on Sun Jun 28, 2015 7:47 pm

I disagreed with that document as it presents an oversimplification of truth and knowledge which are two very important matters in epistemology. However most of the text remains consistent and presents a valuable viewpoint as it presents matters that could be very likely from a philosophical viewpoint. However the first three paragraphs (the ones on conditions) would be subject to change if the truth and knowledge werent so simplified.

Truth: There are multiple types of truth. Some of which are theoretical absolutes and others which are non-absolutes however aren't false due to the circumstances (such as subjective truths).

Knowledge: (Would become too long for me to explain) however it includes the factor certainty. A belief being an uncertainty that is either positive or negative while knowledge indicates a certainty. (That is the most vague summary I can come up with [which still neglects to mention crucial details])

CutestWitch · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **CutestWitch** on Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:21 pm

Kinda... I believe that God is the Universe and that we are all part of the Universe, which is God, therefore we are a piece of God. Universe has a mind and thoughts of its own... As do we have mind and thoughts of our own. Yet we are all connected.
I also believe we as the human race are not specifically important to the Universe. But the Universe just sees us as another part.
As for why I believe this? I can't tell you. It just makes sense to me. I just like the idea that we are all one in the same, yet separate.

dealing with it · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **dealing with it** on Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:34 pm

CutestWitch, are you familiar with George Berkeley?

He posited that everything -- all matter -- is nothing apart from ideas. There is no way for a thing to exist without being sensed (esse est percipi). If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, there is no tree. God is what we call the Being that perceives all that we do not.

The advantage of Berkeley's thoughts is that, if you accept his premises, the existence of God follows naturally.

Unlike a lot of philosophers, his work is friendly to the uninitiated.

Nekriist · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Nekriist** on Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:52 pm

Stephen Fry put it best. When asked what he'd say if God existed, and he were to confront him after death, he said:

"Bone cancer in children? What's that about?"

He says more after that, but the point stands. What gets me is the idea that God has a plan for everyone. What about said children, who are brought into this world, only to live a few short years of unbelievable agony and sadness--not to mention the suffering the parents must go through.

What is the plan in those cases? To bring something into this world, by your divine will, with the purpose of suffering and dying only a few years later? That sounds like a sociopath child torturing animals for the fun of it. I cannot believe that a God exists--at the very least, in the sense of a Judeo-Christian-Muslim god--who is supposedly such a benevolent deity, who composes such suffering, on such a massive scale.

Disease, war, famine. Pain, suffering, and death for things a God of that imagining could--and should if we're going by canon (That's right, i'm pulling nerd terms out for this)--easily prevent or solve by divine intervention. No, God doesn't exist. If he does, he is one that is more akin to pagan gods of old--woefully unconcerned with humanity and their woes, save what entertainment value it can produce.

I don't have children, or have any direct family members who have suffered greatly, but I can imagine it would be more comforting to believe that genetics, luck, or natural selection killed them than some God who did it to get off. So to speak.

@Kashim: There are people who seriously believe things like the USA has a divine right to do what they do in other countries. Just like the USA believed they had a divine right to take territories like all the rest of the great powers in the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. In that case you would call it the White Man's Burden, but the idea remains largely the same.

The analogy you offered also doesn't work. A man giving his son a gun and telling him to go at it is not the same as an entire nation by and large deciding it has divine right to go out and annex or interfere with entire nations or regions. A better analogy would be an entire town deciding to execute young women based on hearsay for doing things they consider taboo or...blasphemy.

As far as the crusades go, it was absolutely a religious war. You're talking about an age where Christianity was absolutely as militant as Islam is today. While there were certainly ulterior motives to the launching of crusades, they were absolutely religious based first and foremost. Christians believed in those days that killing Muslims (Not to mention Jews and their bloody history throughout the medieval period) pleased god. And that ulterior motives aside, the driving force behind the men who flocked to the middle east to murder those of another faith, was their own faith. That is absolutely a religious war. When the main driving force of the men doing the actual fighting is their duty to their religion, that is holy war.

Look, as an atheist, I don't believe in gods. But I fully respect your right to believe in what you want. That said, painting some of the worst atrocities and wars in human history as being completely unrelated to religion is something I can't ignore.

Aniihya · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Aniihya** on Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:05 am

Our ancestors let a pantheon of gods go for a dumbed down version with only a single deity that consists of all the traits the deities before had. If you look at other polytheistic religions that aren't from Europe, they are very diverse. The Aztecs had a goddess of peaceful death and a god of violent death as well as deities for famine, drought, productivity, child rearing and so on. And the deities were not seen in a way as people see the Judeo-Christian god. You can go as far as saying that these deities were simply presences or traits that people though had their own awareness. Imagine you would think that illness or luck wouldn't work at random but would have it's own will. That is how many non-European monotheistic religions thought.

FyreT1ger · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **FyreT1ger** on Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:47 pm

To the ad nauseum argument that God can't be real or good because bad things happen, my answer is always bad things happen because of bad people. Bad people CHOOSE to do bad things. Denying the ability to do bad things, denies individuality and free will. People become who they are by the choices they make. Denying the ability to have choices denies the ability for people to be people. This is not love. Would you, if you were a parent, refuse to allow your children to make their own choices? Using this ad nauseum argument is essentially denying the ability to make a certain choice. People who are denied choices are slaves. Would you want the entire world to be slaves?

To the other ad nauseum argument, that Christians must be evil for fighting in war. My answer is Christians went into the Holy Land during the crusades because MUSLIMS were killing ordinary citizens for simply traveling through. The soldiers, including the Knights Templar went in as body guards, to protect innocent people. And now 800 years later, the Muslim Terrorists have not changed one iota, killing women for simply looking at men they aren't related to and killing girl children for simply going to school. That's what happened to the girl Malala. She just wanted to go to school, and was shot in the head. She can't go back because of evil Muslim terrorists.

Before someone jumps on me for hating Muslims, I leave you a single fact. There are more Muslim terrorist groups than any other religion (e. g. Al-Quaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, ISIS), but there are absolutely NO Christian or Jewish terrorist groups.

Westboro Baptist is neither a terrorist group nor Christian. They are overgrown children who have nothing else to do but insult and harass mourners to start fights aka "punks" or "thugs." Christians are supposed to mourn with those who mourn and be glad with those who are glad.

Unquestioned acceptance of evil and lawbreaking is also against Christianity. It is not love to tell a person who is harming himself or others that it's okay to continue the harm. In the Final Judgement, evil will not get away scot-free, even though it seems more times than not evil is ignored. Unfortunately, for now, evil is running rampant, but it is also grace allowing time to repent from evil.

Whoever reads this has the CHOICE to believe it or not, and neither God nor I will inhibit that choice.

Kestrel · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Kestrel** on Tue Jul 21, 2015 8:52 pm

@FyreT1ger
I have to say, I gotta put a lot of question marks as to how you perceive choice and caring about choice. Do bad people cause cancer? Do bad things when done by bad people not take away choice and freedom of the people they're inflicted upon? That implies a god cares more about the freedom of bad people than that of their victims. Also. Would any kind of parent watch as their children go to war with each other? The very Christian concept of the afterlife contradicts choice because it clearly suggests a good outcome and a bad outcome. How much of a choice do you have if your alternative is burning forever? How much meaning does that choice have? You must love me or you will burn? Frollo sang about something like that in Hunchback of the Notre Dame and Frollo is widely regarded as pretty evil. I can't see this as right.

Also I just realised that by saying neither I am comparing myself to a fucking Disney princess.

Anyhow. As for the whole war and terrorism thing, which is the main reason I'm bothering replying to this. Monotheisms like Christianity and the Islam both deal in absolutes. They take away doubt and contract obedience. What do you want from the people fighting your wars? You want them to have faith in your ideas. What do you not want from them? Scepticism. Now guess why such religions are often at the banners of wars. Not because these religions their selves are good or evil, but because they're really good at controlling large groups of people. That's their purpose. They tell you what to believe and how to live your life. Whether you chant God is good or Allah is good is irrelevant. It's humans using and interpreting passages to control other humans.

You see, the moment you decide to question your deity you are told you go against your faith. You don't want to be unfaithful. Scepticism is not allowed. People who do not question are easy to control. Not just that, they're also a united front which is this super-important detail. You see, a united front solidifies it's own statements by circulating a reinforcement. Add a sociology 101 course and ctrl+f belonging. People are social creatures, they want to be part of groups. They adapt to them and solidify their position by segregating their selves from people who are not part of that group.

Seriously though, sense of belonging is super interesting. If you have time, do look for it.

If you ever read the old testament, you will probably not need me to tell you it features the most deranged and psychotic protagonist in all of history. I'm sure I don't deed to repeat it's stance on slavery, rape, homosexuality, etcetera. The Koran honestly can't bear that much more hate within it's pages. But you know what? That's completely irrelevant. You see, it's not Christian good Muslim bad or vice versa, it is the people behind it. Not the god behind it. Not the book behind it. Not the religion behind it. It's the people. The people. And once more for emphasis; the people. They are just using religion as a tool. The Koran isn't saying "Fly that plane into that building and Allah will reward you." That's people saying that.

But here's the thing. I know you already know this, because of your stance on the Westboro Baptist church. They use the same god, the religion, but their interpretation is different and use that interpretation to promote hate. What they say isn't hateful because Christianity is hateful. What they say is hateful because they are hateful pricks.

And that's the thing. It's not about a religion. It is about hateful pricks with a very fine grasp of controlling people. In the case of Muslim terrorists it's through a holy text. In other cases, to invoke Godwin's law (because fuck it why not), through poverty, shame and unemployment. It's something that creates a united front. It takes something people have in common and exploits our inherent need to belong. Most Germans I know are pretty swell.

Now look, I do think I need to say that this isn't a personal attack and that you have every right to believe whatever you want to believe. If you believe in god and feel that he is good, go for it. That's absolutely none of my business. I do take issue with the choice argument as it downplays tragedy. And I'm sure you don't need me to rehash that entire essay on why Muslims aren't inherently evil again. I hope that message at least came across, at the very least.

dealing with it · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **dealing with it** on Fri Jul 24, 2015 8:27 pm

Kestrel wrote:Seriously though, sense of belonging is super interesting.

I'm religious to the exact degree that it gives me a social life. Otherwise, as I live without school and work, I'd go crazy. And, based on my behavior patterns outside of organized religion, I'd probably be doing a shit-ton of drugs.

But this all has nothing to do with how true any given religion is, not even the one I selected. I'm well-versed in epistemology, and I know I can't use the same standards I use for all other knowledge claims as I do for faith-based claims. Both Humean and Cartesian skepticism are stronger than any justification I can come up with for religion.

In my religion and in several others I've investigated, there has always been the command to seek the truth of that religion. Unfortunately, the method of seeking truth is weak and circular, already assuming the answer in the premise. If you want truth at all costs, then organized religion is not for you.

Religion, for me, is peer pressure, and I don't mind being associated with that peer group.

Kestrel · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Kestrel** on Fri Jul 24, 2015 8:33 pm

Well, all I can say is to that mad respect for the honesty and raw amount of introspection. Bravo.

Aniihya · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Aniihya** on Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:39 pm

I found something that a friend of mine wrote, it's sort of funny. "God is like government. If you don't obey, he will hurt you."

dealing with it · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **dealing with it** on Wed Jul 29, 2015 9:05 pm

Aniihya,
God, like government, is a manifestation of the will to power. There is no measurable, non-fallacious, reason to choose which power structure to obey. It is wholly an ethical decision.

Punishment for disobedience is only one reason someone might be religious. For example, someone might actually value the virtues being promoted by a government or a deity. A person can easily be agnostic, pantheist, or deist -- heck, even an atheist -- and still think that Jesus is a good example of human potential. He ranks somewhere up there with Socrates, Lao Tzu, and Isaac Newton.

Aniihya · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Aniihya** on Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:18 pm

Well when you do not want to be part of a system and do not have the money to move, you are forced to the system and if you do not abide by the system (taxes for example) then people come and threaten you. If you still don't abide, then you are kidnapped and locked up. With religion it is comparable as in you are threatened if you do not adhere to a specific belief. Many Christians come with "you will go to hell" and some muslims threaten you personally.

Kestrel · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Kestrel** on Thu Jul 30, 2015 6:18 am

If I choose not to believe in the Christian god, threatening me with hell is about as intimidating as saying the bogeyman is going to snatch me away in my sleep. You give the threat power by believing in it. Prison, on the other hand, is not something I can choose deny (and still be considered sane) and so unlike believing in a god, nobody can claim that refusing to pay my taxes won't have consequences.

The analogy kind of does not work.

There's a lot of other issues I have with your post, but I cannot find a way to properly express them.

Aniihya · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Aniihya** on Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:30 pm

So you say, however I still see similarities that undermind the liberties of people. And your issues with my post may be that I am criticizing something that is normal for most people like "without taxes what will happen to the roads, to the welfare system and to services". My issues with government are that you aren't given a choice. I would be more willing to pay taxes if I didn't have someone to ring my doorbell and threaten me. For many religious anarchists it is similar as their religious worldview is quite reforms such as Christian anarchists have a more Quakeresque view where God isn't an authority but a friend who sees it as not right to undermine liberties and free will through threats. Instead it is rather, if you have done something wrong, you still have alternatives to make it right that do not require a fixed rule or way to do it and even when you don't try to make it right as an inherently bad person, you will eventually face isolation or that actions may be taken against you if you intend to get too close to others by breaking the exile. The issue in general is hierarchy and coercion. If people understood purposes and you would be given alternatives then we wouldn't have this problem.

Kestrel · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Kestrel** on Thu Jul 30, 2015 4:24 pm

All lifeforms on Earth are carbon-based. A similarity in and of itself isn't that big a deal. An analogy requires a powerful similarity.

Understanding and compliance can be mutually exclusive. You say that if people understood purposes and were given alternatives (I would be interested in which you believe are viable) they would make the right choice. I am compelled to object on two grounds.

First, morals are personal and changeable. What you see as right, I might not. What I view as right might change over time, depending on my experiences in life. To reach a universal consensus is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Secondly, a government is given power by it's people and is to exert it where people cannot manage by their selves. People naturally give preferential treatment to those within the same group. To varying extents, they also push others not belonging to their own group away. Hierarchy is a necessary evil to manage large groups, which are made up out of a lot of of small groups. These small groups often have conflicting interests. For this reason, we have rules to govern us.

You pay taxes in exchange for a service. This service is being part of civilisation and this kind of exchange is present everywhere because we're pretty hardcore at populating this planet of ours. As long as you reside within civilisation, you reap it's benefits at least to some degree. Your alternative is moving to an unpopulated area, but your odds of survival tend to be very low in those. How can a government provide it's services if paying for it is optional? I mean, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Getting rid of hierarchy would be extremely difficult in and of itself, but ignoring how hard the process would be, do you have any concrete alternatives to have a functioning way of life for large amounts of people if we did get rid of hierarchy?

Aniihya · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Aniihya** on Fri Jul 31, 2015 3:26 pm

Kestrel, however tyranny by majority exists. Look at nazi Germany, it was literally three wolves against a sheep in a vote whether to kill the sheep or not.

I disagree on the hierarchy part. You can have a civilization where people can directly vote and do not need a leader to make decisions.

On taxes, I would rather support a subscription based tax system where you pay taxes according to which services you actually use. What is the point of someone paying for roads when the person lives a self-supporting life in a cabin in the woods?

What I want is that the few that do not want the status quo of government have the possibility to opt out in an autonomous community. There are plenty of alternatives and the world is not as uncomprimising as you think. It often comes from inability to relate or inability to imagine otherwise that someone finds an incumbent system as they only one that works.

PS: I would recommend you to look in-depth at other political ideologies to see what alternatives there are. Some may be quite utopian while others seem to be very realistic.

Ideologically I am more aligned with autonomous pluralism and mutualism. But on a realistic basis I am a strong supporter of more confederate (system in sense of German confederation or Switzerland for example) or more federalism (more decentralization) while being an economically centrist social libertarian.

Kestrel · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Kestrel** on Fri Jul 31, 2015 4:18 pm

Godwin's law? Yeah... Let's not go down that road.

Group-thinking actually harbours many, many dangers. See one person can make mistakes and if they're elected a leader they will have to admit them, a group will find it really hard to admit they made them. The larger the group is, the more difficult it becomes to dispel that solution. But since I already said I didn't wanna open the can of worms that is WW2, let's not go there. It's easier to push responsibility upon a select few others than onto a collective you're a part of. This is actually one of the main strengths of democracy. People are ruled by emotion to a greater extent than rational thought. Marketing lives and breathes that knowledge.

Taxes are there to support a nation. By dividing who pays for what, you will actually widen the wage gap. If I'm rich, why would I pay for something like a poor man's healthcare when I can have a private insurance? Taxes actually benefit the poor man. Given how one of your arguments earlier involved not having the money to move, I find this a little odd of an argument to make. It's also a logistical nightmare, which says something because taxes are already by default a logistical nightmare. You'd need even more money to figure a subscription model out.

So, to be quite frank, as of right now I feel this example does fall on the Utopian side. You mentioned I should read more into alternative political ideologies. If there are any writers you feel I should look into specifically, please do recommend them. I am genuinely interested. However, I do want to point out that I am not ignorant to the various different ideologies and I'm aware all political systems come with different pro's and con's. Autonomy and order in particular are tricky to balance. I may have a more pessimistic outlook on human nature than you do, but I must request you not to mistake a difference in values for a lack of understanding.

Aniihya · **Tips:** 0.00 INK by **Aniihya** on Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:41 pm

You are a hypocrite. You talk about groups and hierarchy and then you say groups thinking is dangerous. The only difference is that in democracy you put a group in power. And not that many politicians admit mistakes. And I wasn't talking about collectivist autonomy. There is a difference between being part of a community and being marginalized into a group.

And on taxes you didn't get what I wrote, read again. And taxes do not benefit the poor man as much as you think. When you still require support because welfare is so low in a country more left than the US, then you aren't exactly benefitting from it. It is just extending the suffering. When people become poor, most of them stay poor because they cannot get back up. Every time the government tries to find a solution they only seem to be making it worse. And you don't really need money to figure something out. You just need time and patience. You cant just throw millions of bucks at researchers and expect them to find a model when you actually find someone committed to change something.

And it sounds utopian to you because you are unwilling to understand what I am writing and have a personal bias by default. And the different in values actually triggers a lack of understanding through bias.

It is like the people who say something will not work because it hasn't been tried before. Then you simply need to allow a project within an area go on for several years and check how well it is working without outside manipulation. You cannot just judge by theorizing, you have to experiment (such as a small scale experiment within a town or so) and act to get results.

Do you believe in a "God"?

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