To the believers...

[PedroPonyLikesCrisps]

How does one justify to themselves belief in a supernatural being with literally no hard evidence? This is something I just don't understand. Without the assumption of a god or gods, we are able to explain pretty much everything in the Universe and even those yet-to-be-answered questions are being gradually chipped away at without any need for a deity.

So what makes people believe in a god? Is it fear, conditioning, laziness? Theories of the supernatural were our first attempts at understanding the world (big yellow disc moves across the sky, don't know what it is, maybe a god carries it around up there). You could say they were humankind's first attempt at scientific reasoning. But we've moved on from these archaic theories now and we can explain all these things we couldn't before, yet for some reason, religions live on and people continue to think that some guy lives upstairs and watches over us even though there's no rational way to argue his existence.

Do Christians think Muslims are insane for their differing beliefs? Does anyone still believe in the Greek or Roman gods anymore? Do the religious find Scientology to be just another religion or does anyone else see the the words 'cult' and 'religion' are pretty much interchangable?

Discuss!!

HeadinHands -- the point is not that are questions that can only be answered with reference to God, but they are questions that can't be answered adequately by science.

Niminy, I have direct experience of an invisible unicorn that sometimes comes out of my wardrobe. How likely is it that I am telling you the truth and not that I am mistaken? Aren't the odds of me being mistaken HUGE based on rational thinking? So huge that you can satisfactorily disregard the idea of an actual unicorn off the bat.

peach if you shouted 'you're all going to hell' I'd probably ask you how you knew etc. I wouldn't be offended but would relish the ensuing discussion.

Ellie if you really think that all religion amounts to is God made the world because this book of bronze age babble says it did then your understanding of religion is so limited that it could barely be considered understanding at all.

Is that why you come here? To try to learn more?

I would have to make the decision based on various factors wouldn't I, such as:

Are you in general a sane person? Are you in general a truthful person? (Obviously I can't know about this, since you are a stranger on the internet.) Does this experience tally at all with what I know about the world (ie is it possible, in the light I of what I know about the world, that an invisible unicorn could come out of your wardrobe?), and have any other people ever had this experience (is it repeatable). One of the things that distinguishes examples such as yours and experiences of the divine is that lots of people have had experience of the divine and have left accounts of such.

Now, I can't know about some of those factors, for reasons outlined above, but I think I would have to say that on balance, that the unicorn is unlikely.

To the theists. Do you think the instinct to care for and protect our offspring is something god put in us/gave us?

But that is not, in itself, an argument that experiences of the divine cannot have happened .

So following your thought pattern Niminy, if other people have had the same experience then it's more likely to be kosher. So people who have had experiences of different deities, and that's quite a lot, are also telling the truth, along with alien abductions and so on? How can they all be right?

Actually there's as much evidence for my unicorn as there is your god.

Lol this kind of deep thinking thread requires proper attention. My bad.
I'm usually posting from phone whilst bfing - not the best time to 'spread the msg' esp in a rush hence the awful wording and totally not getting my point across . apologises for representing Islam so poorly

Cote you are right - never should have worded it as the whole point of Islam der on my part. But dawah ( spreading the msg ) is an important part of it.

@HEAD no I don't think it is god given. i think it is part of being human. I don't se the two as incompatible if humans were made in the image of god.

So it just happened to develop in us after creation?

I don't know. There's very little research into behavioural genetics and evolution that is conclusive.

HeadinHands no there is more, because of the weight of testimony. As far as I know yours is the only testimony to your unicorn, and I have no way of assessing your truthfulness or sanity.

As we know, and as I am only too ready to admit, there is no proof that God exists. But there is no proof that he doesn't, either. We'll get nowhere fast down that particular rabbit-hole.

So we have to look at the balance of probability, and assess that by looking at factors such as reliability of witnesses, weight of testimony, corroborating factors.

I press the issue because I have seen the parental nurturing instinct citied by theists on this thread alone two or 3 times now. I'm trying to fully understand how it relates to the existence of god as far as a theist may be concerned.

Niminy, again your reasoning validates almost all beliefs, not just yours. Using your own tools of discernment you should also be a Muslim, a Hindu, believe in Zeus, ufos, ghosts, fairies and any other phenomenon that has had at least a handful of witnesses. How can you disregard their testimony?

Anyway the whole 'loads of people believe It so it must be true' line is such a well known false argument it has it's own name. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

@head I have a long and complex theological education but have never heard that cited as a reason for the existance of god before.

How odd!

Headinhands, my citation of it (maternal feelings) is to do with the idea that most of what we do and say and believe is not rational. I think niminy's point is the same.

Can you explain why you keep citing the beliefs of very small minorities? Is it to say the same thing - i.e. that people's actions are not entirely determined by reason?

Ethe I'm probably getting it wrong then. The last two incidents aren't much further down this thread. Maybe you would have a look, you might know why it's been mentioned 3 times now?

I mentioned the child abuse as I thought the paternal instinct was being used as an example of something put in humans from god. I now see it was being used as an example of behaviour that is seemingly irrational. I still don't see that irrational behaviour is any evidence for god but as you can see I don't always pick up quickly on things.

I admit to not reading the thread due to lack of time but, what has it got to do with anyone? I don't ask anyone to share my beliefs and don't really care what others believe as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of anyone else. If you choose to believe in the Church of the Chocolate Bunny then go right ahead as long as you don't for one second try to convert me or refuse others rights based on the teachings of the Chocolate Bunny.

The Church of the Chocolate Bunny I believe installs a small purple unicorn in your garden when you are baptised in the chocolate fountain.

PaganAndProudTiggaxx

As a non-believing scientist, this thread has really made me realise that their must be some kind of genetic predisposition for belief in a supernatural being (or beings) or some kind of higher power or plane of existence. Some people just seem to have faith regardless of whether it can be rationally justified, and in fact some even admit that their belief is not based in evidence but a kind of inner feeling that they have. And equally there are some people who are raised in a religious background and exposed to religion all their life and just never get faith.

To me, these facts really strongly point to the idea that there is some genetic predisposition towards religious belief that varies between people, in the same way that there are almost certainly genetic predispositions to things like extraversion and empathy which also vary across the human population. Possible thus is why 'true' believers and 'true' non-believers have difficulty understanding each other on this issue. Maybe the personal psychologies involved are just mutually incomprehensible.

Interesting that many theists admit a need to be irrational to accept the existance of god. Doesn't that requirement preclude certain types from belief?

I agree with both niminy and sieglinde's points about how our lives are, in many ways, mostly predicated on non-rational (but not irrational) things.

I am also thinking about the "experience of God" and how it is experienced. It might be contended that it's "just chemicals in the brain", but I don't think there is anything "just" about that. We are creatures of flesh and chemical signals, so it seems obvious to me that of course, naturally, our experience of God is going to be mediated through that, and not through something completely "other" that we can't identify yet. We experience life through our bodies, so it seems obvious that we would experience God through our bodies (how else would we experience God?). This doesn't negate the experience. We also experience love and beauty and creativity through the natural human processes of our bodies, brains and minds but non-theists don't dismiss these experiences because they have arisen out of our physiology.

In the end, the things that seem to be most important to people in life - generally speaking - are not the rational things that we know and can prove but the non-rational: the emotional lives of people - those whom they love - humans and pets -, the music they choose to listen to or books they are stimulated or moved by, the places they cherish, the beauty they find in things, their pleasure in developing a skill (whether in music, or art, or sport or craftwork etc). Even if it were "proved" that preferring Bach to Vivaldi conferred some distinct evolutionary advantage, how does it explain the creativity, the very idea of "liking" something having meaning in our lives? If emotions and "experiences" are capable of being dismissed because they are "just" chemical processes in our brain and nothing more, then how does any non-theist actually 'believe' in them at all? Surely they are meaningless processes, like any other in the universe, and not to be trusted?

Is it a kind of self-deception or trick? - that a person might rationally assert that emotions are all just a set of chemical and electrical signals, designed to confer some theoretical advantage, whilst simultaneously subscribing every day to what those emotions tell us. If love is just chemicals, does the phrase "I love my wife" have any meaning beyond the chemicals?

Non-theists presumably consider there is no meaning in anything in the universe? In fact, that "meaning" doesn't exist at all? There is no purpose to anything? What I find interesting is that this would mean that all of human endeavour, relationships, creativity, is also ultimately meaningless and a basic trick of human physiology; it would mean that humans basically pretend all of the above "non-rational" qualities actually "mean something" so that they can deliver our genes effectively to the next generation.

If there is no Meaning in the universe and nothing beyond the material, then how does a person find meaning and why should they?

eg. a non-theist might posit, "I know that scientifically the "feelings of love" I have for my wife are actually just random firings of chemicals and electrical signals and "mean" nothing ultimately, physically, other than a slight evolutionary advantage for pair-bonding and longer survival, but I'm going to live as if "love for my wife" actually means what it says on the tin, that the emotions are not just a vehicle for survival but important and meaningful in their own right, and will involve all kinds of non-rational things like loving visiting art galleries together or watching a film together, or helping her with her craft project or visiting my old school friend together, or writing a poem for her". In the end, how does a person live thinking that "love" and every loving transaction, creativity and every creative endeavour, is nothing more than merely a tool for survival?