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!!

Dawn I suppose that's the problem in a nutshell. My ds attends a state primary and sometimes comes home singing songs about god etc. I think the law says schools need to allot a certain amount of time to worship but how it's interpreted varies widely.

I don't think I said that an argumentum ad populum was the sole basis on which you should believe someone, did I? I said there were four factors, of which the weight of testimony was one.

And, of course, in terms of historical events, the weight of testimony is very important indeed, though not the only factor, because the testimony still has to be assessed against the other factors (truthfulness of the speaker, sanity, likelihood, and so on).

DandyDan yes, your last point reminds me of a conversation I had with someone who believed there is no free will, and that we are simply determined by our genes and by chemical reactions in our brains. To that the only answer is that if we act as if we had free will (and actually there is no other way to act), then to all intents and purposes we do have it.

Hi Dan, welcome :)

I'm personally very grateful to the way evolution has conferred me with these chemical responses! Just because I think they developed in a different way doesn't make them any less powerful.

What meaning does my life have? I suppose it's ultimately the meaning I have given to it myself. To learn, to develop, to nurture my family and wider community etc.

I still find beauty and awe in life, especially looking at the moons of Jupiter even though I don't accept, or have gone on to reject any of the religious claims made.

On the face of it my life is very similar to yours I imagine.

Wrt to saying 'I love my wife' and how empty a phrase it may seem if one purports it to be mere chemistry, as far as I am aware divorce stats for Christians are the same, maybe even higher for those who profess themselves to be as such so can't see that viewing it in supernatural terms makes it anymore powerful?

Yes, exactly.
This also reminds me of Puddleglum's statement in The Silver Chair: that there may well be no world with a sun above the Queen's realm, but he is going to live as if it is true.

So Niminy, groups of people who testify to experiencing other phenomenon, you know they're, by and large, not as sane as Christians?

Sanity, likelihood, truthfulness. These are lacking in other religions and other widespread beliefs such as astrology etc?

Of course non-theists and theists alike have problematical marriages but "power" of that love is nothing to do with what I was saying. I want to know why "love" as an emotion means anything to a person who asserts there is no meaning in the universe and that love is just a set of chemical responses.

Non-theists and theists alike will "love" people and enjoy beauty and awe - of course, because we are all humans alike - but doesn't it imply that for the non-theist who thinks there is nothing "real" beyond the material universe, that they are attributing meaning where actually intellectually they "really" believe there is none.

You probably have to spell it out more succinctly for me Dan. If you mean what I think you mean it's a bit like pets. No deep meaningful reason to have a pet beyond it being 'nice' to have one.

Don't get me wrong, it would amazing if we were all created by a loving benevolent god who watched over us but the reality is way way way different to that. So far there is nothing to substantiate any of the supernatural claims any of the religions make. So I have no choice but to get on with my short time on earth and try not to piss off too many people at the same time endeavouring to be kind because it makes for a better life.

I wasnt accusing you of lying head. I just hadnt heard it before now.

LOL can't believe I just posted this another thread...

Science may have the answer.

bigthink.com/users/andrewnewberg

Headinhands re. your invisible unicorn. The fact that you stated it on this thread (and we are all strangers) leads me to believe that it didn't happen and that you are using it to make the point that your invisible unicorn, like god doesn't exist.

If we were friend's in real life and you called me up and told me your invisible unicorn experience, I would have to apply my knowledge of you as a person. I think the first question to you would be if it is invisible, how do you know it is a unicorn?

Re. Your assertion that many theists admit a need to be irrational to accept the existence of god, the fact is that we are irrational. You, me, everyone.

Or perhaps non-rational (as per Dandydan) would be a better phrase than irrational.

I would suggest we are beings capable of of rationality and non-rationality, each of which has its rightful place in us, rather than the term "irrational".

I know it's a unicorn because it told me it was!

So... a non-theist can "enjoy" awe and beauty and creativity and love - non-rational, non-materialist qualities - which emerge out of the phsyiology of the human brain, and live lives as though these things are 'real' and 'matter' (even though in a meaningless universe, they only 'exist' to further the perpetuation of our particular genotype).

But somehow non-theists maintain a theist cannot really possess "a sense of God/the divine/the numinous" - a non-materialist quality - which emerges out of the physiology of the human brain (because that is the only way in which a human can experience anything) and live lives as though these things are real and matter?

For me, these aspects of our natures are all not simply adjuncts to some meaningless purposeless universe - they all have meaning and purpose and validity which exist alongside and also beyond their function in the development of our humanity.

Dione, how do you know if other peoples claims of supernatural experiences are false wether they be mistaken etc?

I don't doubt the strength of feeling/experience theists have for their chosen belief system. Im not saying 'you're not really having those feelings'. My thoughts are that they originate in the brain, which is an idea backed up, I feel, by the amount of different faiths there are and how they all feel it acutely. Can they all be right?

I've also had strong emotional responses in and outside of religion so see how my own brain has created similarly profound sensations. Nothing stands out as being beyond our own wonderful synapses firing off.

Ah, so you heard it. I would probably ask you to tell me about the experience, then I would come over and check you and your wardrobe out. There could be a logical explanation. In fact I would expect to find one given that we are dealing with a physical sense. In the absence of an easily found logical explanation, I would accept that something strange happened to you. And so long as you didn't expect me to stock my wardrobe with diamond carrots it wouldn't really make any difference to my life.

Similarly there could be a logical explanation for faith. We just haven't found it yet.

That's a really interesting question Headinhands. I suppose the answer is given that there is a lack of proof I would focus on what the experience meant to the person having it.

Your point regarding strong feelings for a theist's chosen belief system and different faiths I think is more to do with religions which are societal constructs than faith, which is unique to the individual.

No it's not a physical unicorn, it's made of different stuff to everything else.

The "belief in God" or "experience of God" does come from a brain - naturally, it does. Like the feelings that say "I love that piece of music" or "I love my wife to bits". It makes sense that many many people across time and geography acknowledge a sense of God or experience of this, just like many thousands believe profoundly and utterly in the love they have for their partners (and actually live their lives according to that love). "Can they all be right?" - well, they can all be experiencing a sense of there being a God/something divine in the nature of the universe, yes.

Does a non-theist believe their own self when they say they love their partner or do they actually think they are tricking themselves with a bit of meaningless synapse-firing so that their physical body can pass on its genes?

It just seems that the non-theist position has to include self-pretence: "wonderful synapses" aren't wonderful. Synapses are physically doing what they're programmed to do in a meaningless universe. A human sense of "wonder" at synapses (or even at our capability of knowing about them or understanding them, or our wonder at mountain ranges or rainbows etc) is surely actually just another set of "synapses" creating a sensation of wonder which is in itself meaningless. (In fact I?m not sure about the evolutionary argument for the ?purpose? of ?awe and wonder? but I imagine a non-theist scientist with a propensity for evolutionary psychology will be along to explain it any moment.)

Offline work and responsibility now calls...

Why would some not have this sense if it's so pervasive? If all people of these varying faiths are feeling a sense of the same god wouldn't it make sense for him to use that connection to say 'hey, you all just believe in the same god and I'm Allah\Yahweh\krishna/previously unknown god or whatever so chill out and stop knocking the crap out of eachother.

If we summise that our ability to appreciate beauty is evidence for god how would we know what god was responsible seeing as man has already worshiped thousands of gods in our history. How did you decide your god was 'the god' as opposed to the others?

Because, HeadinHands, there's only one God. It's not like I looked at all available gods and decided he had the edge. There's only one to choose from. I think he's the God that Muslims, Hindus, and everybody else is worshipping under the names they have for him. All faiths have glimpses of the truth of God. But perhaps it's truest to say that is all they have, because we're trying to see something that transcends all that is human with only our human-ness (amazing as this is) to do it with. For me, Christianity has the truest, most complete glimpse we have of God, but all faiths see him.