Do You Believe In God?

[Ateyo]

I don´t know what to say, sometimes I don´t believe in God but other times I almost believe but not at all... quite difficult to say. I like to have a free reflexion of it

[Unil_mi_tokx]

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

I have to throw a question out:

Shall we not believe in something because it's impossible to understand?

An excellent question. It almost goes along with, "Shall we not believe in something because there is no concrete evidence?"

Sometimes there is an expression of having good faith in someone. Faith is trusting in the unseen, it's relying on something with no reassurance. Should we not believe in something because it is impossible to understand? Should we not have faith in anything? That would mean not trusting in anything - including people. We would never be able to fully figure out, or understand another person because we wouldn't have a trust bases - or a basis of faith and reliance on that person.

My two cents.

[ZenitYerkes]

Originally Posted by Unil_mi_tokx

An excellent question. It almost goes along with, "Shall we not believe in something because there is no concrete evidence?"

Sometimes there is an expression of having good faith in someone. Faith is trusting in the unseen, it's relying on something with no reassurance. Should we not believe in something because it is impossible to understand? Should we not have faith in anything? That would mean not trusting in anything - including people. We would never be able to fully figure out, or understand another person because we wouldn't have a trust bases - or a basis of faith and reliance on that person.

My two cents.

I think that there's a difference between believing in something you don't understand and something you don't have a clue of its existence.

For the first one, it'd be like using a machine you don't know how it works; for example a computer. How if it has a killer mechanism inside? But anyway you use it, and rely on the producer not to have put anything lethal inside.

The first question allows the experimentation and discovery; but the second one doesn't: you can believe there are UFOs or giant ninja pirate duckies trying to dominate the world for the same principle: no clue at all.

In the case of God, if you think you have found a real proof about Him/Her/It but don't understand why He/She/It is or acts like that or have done X; then you're believing in something you don't understand.

But if you have no proof, God could be whatever you want and could be put in the same level as any other non-provable fantasy.

[Woodsprite]

I wrote a long article on atheism once... Wouldn't get too far here, though, before I get flamed.

But consider this: I believe watermelons are blue on the inside until you cut the skin. Prove me wrong! You can keep someone busy for years on statements like that. They're illogical to begin with, but you can't technically prove the person wrong for believing it. This, I believe, goes both ways. It's illogical to claim to know God exists, but it's also illogical to claim to know God doesn't exist. Logic does not dictate there is or isn't a god; religion is outside the realm of logic, as is atheism.

[Human No More]

I've always said, and I'll quote myself directly here on this: If I woke up tomorrow and it turned out Ragnarok had started, I'd just go "hmm, turns out I was wrong".
Until then though, I won't believe anything that can't be proved.

For the same reason though, you shouldn't close your mind and claim there is no God.

[spicyapple]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Until then though, I won't believe anything that can't be proved.

We can't prove gravity, but that doesn't mean it's not real and we don't feel its effects. Gravitation, after all, is a theory. Likewise, we can't prove that we have souls, but we sort of know we do have it. Some things can't be measured scientifically. The greatest reason to believe in a God is the PROOF of LIFE. You see, it's impossible to imagine life forming from inorganic compounds. The mind boggles!

[Woodsprite]

Originally Posted by spicyapple

We can't prove gravity, but that doesn't mean it's not real and we don't feel its effects. Gravitation, after all, is a theory.

Devil's advocate: gravity is testable and observable. God isn't technically "observable". Kind of like how I was once told you can't call people who believe evolution is true as "evolutionists", because that'd be like calling people who believe gravity "gravitists". The argument is loaded: evolution is unobservable (macroevolution, I mean), while gravity is.

If God were a testable entity we'd all believe like the Na'vi believe in Eywa. But that isn't the discussion...

And this statement alone is another loooooong debate...

[ZenitYerkes]

Now we're discussing about observation; so I'm gonna post how the process goes.

1 - Unique reality: this is the previous stage to observation; unique reality is just everything, without making any kind of difference or interpretation. A person who just saw this unique reality won't see the difference between a wall and another, a blue or red car, or even between solids and gases; this person would see everything that exists, nothing else.

2 - Observation: it means to receive information from the unique reality; limited information because we've got just 5 senses and those cannot perceive every single aspect on every place of reality, for example you cannot know the sound a tree makes when it falls unless you're near enough.

3 - Rationalization: now we've got the data we have to "encode" the information with abstract symbols so we can handle these concepts; such as images, words, letters, drawings,... The rationalization part means also to differentiate in the unique reality so we can put the appropriate names to its pieces (house, walls, bricks, concrete).

4 - Interpretation: this is where the fun stuff begins. From the information we've been given we add all the ideas we've been given throughout our lifetime. For example, if you see a woman with a large scarf around her head, you'll deduce she's Muslim although you haven't received that information (there isn't a great banner on her back saying "Muslim"). Of if you see a cross on the top of a building, you interpret it's a church.

5- Theorization: From all the data, plus our interpretations; we make our theories about how the events happened, what caused them, what consequences they've got, how to react,... See, and just to keep the religious touch, let's say we see a tanned man with a big mustache slapping a woman whose head is wrapped in a black scarf. That's the evidence. Now we interpret it: they're Muslims and he's maltreating his wife (this isn't absolutely correct, however). And one of the theories that could follow could be: "Muslims are violent people who maltreat their wives" or "Islam is a bad religion".

Am I right? Probably not because I don't have enough information and have prejudged a vast group.

6 - Proving our theories: Let's say I'm a stubborn person. I like to see if I am correct on my theories or just plain racist. For this step we'd need to repeat 1, 2 and 3 in different scenarios, so I go to Saudi Arabia, visit the capital and interview and see if we've got the same situation there. And I eventually find I was wrong and that most of the men there love their wives, for example.

7 - Diffusion: Now imagine what I've seen is the opposite, as if it was a religious habit to slap their wives. I'd get out of the country and publish a vast article saying that "we should ban this religion and eliminate it from our country since blah blah blah". This article is using the same symbols we talked about in step 3, needed to transmit the ideas and concepts we've perceived correctly.

Now let's apply the same to God.

We see life, the world and everything that surrounds us and identify them (we get out the interpretation factor, let's say we've been taught no religion). We don't see God, at least not directly; but this could be due to the lack of information.

Imagine we've been brought the evidence we need to know there is a God: for example, we've read the Bible and wondered who's that guy that appears constantly on it. The source of information about God usually comes from tradition and culture; but not usually from experience. If it's the first case, we'll have to rely on the person who has written it.

Now we've got the information, we begin to make our question: does God exist? From that we can say "Yes" or "No"; but both need to argue our answers. Unfortunately, we cannot prove our theories here without going to the Holy Books (in which authors we would need to rely) or ask people who have supposedly experienced God; it's almost impossible to prove the existence of God with actual facts. Unlike the Muslims and doing a trip to Saudi Arabia, we cannot go wherever He/She/It lives and say "Hey God, I need to ask you some questions buddy!"

And this is exactly why religion is a quite difficult to talk about topic.

That's why I am agnostic, it's just about not playing with the unknown and let it be. I cannot say if God exists or doesn't; it's just something we will never know and we can only wonder about it. What doesn't mean I have stopped thinking about religion, though; if not I wouldn't be here having this discussion with you and I'll be just stating the usual "I am right you're wrong" we hear at religious debates.

[Woodsprite]

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

And this is exactly why religion is a quite difficult to talk about topic.

That's why I prefer discussion within doctrine of religion, not from without. If from without, we'll be repeating age-old theology classes. The study of doctrine within each religion, however, is something I find much more fascinating.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by spicyapple

We can't prove gravity, but that doesn't mean it's not real and we don't feel its effects. Gravitation, after all, is a theory. Likewise, we can't prove that we have souls, but we sort of know we do have it. Some things can't be measured scientifically. The greatest reason to believe in a God is the PROOF of LIFE. You see, it's impossible to imagine life forming from inorganic compounds. The mind boggles!

The difference is gravity has a measurable effect and conforms to the hypotheses, so the theory is accepted until anything can disprove it. A 'soul' as in a person being a separate entity to their bod, is not the same thing because personally, I've never seen, or 'felt' one or anything, I've never seen any proof that the hypothesis they exist might be correct.

[ZenitYerkes]

Originally Posted by spicyapple

We can't prove gravity, but that doesn't mean it's not real and we don't feel its effects. Gravitation, after all, is a theory. Likewise, we can't prove that we have souls, but we sort of know we do have it. Some things can't be measured scientifically. The greatest reason to believe in a God is the PROOF of LIFE. You see, it's impossible to imagine life forming from inorganic compounds. The mind boggles!

In fact, inorganic compounds formed organic compounds; this guy named Friedrich Wöhler formed urea from inorganic stuff like 200 years ago. If you can't imagine it doesn't mean that it can't be. For example, when there was no mobile phones it was unbearable for me to think about wireless communication. Or in the 50s, people would laugh at you if you said that one day men will walk on the Moon's surface.

As said above, except from the Holy Books, we don't have any kind of proof about God. It's like that; but believe me when I say that I'd like you to prove me wrong, bring what we need to think He exists and end this struggle about the existence of God.