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Original poster

To the believers...

307 replies

PedroPonyLikesCrisps · 29/01/2013 23:17

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!!

OP posts:
DandyDan · 02/02/2013 17:44

Thank you for this, niminy. It expresses what I believe too.

sieglinde · 02/02/2013 17:46

Well said, niminy. We see him in all faiths, though he is one. If I had grown up in a Moslem or a Buddhist or a Jewish culture I might well be those things.

Going back a bit... Headinhands wrote

"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?"

Missing my point. I didn't say that loving your partner or children was particularly christian.

What I do say is that it's not entirely rational. Nor is awe about the moons of Jupiter, or tonight's sunset - we had a beauty... And nor is belief in God... A lot of all our lives, including some of the best parts of them, are lived on this level. Nobody is 100 percent reason.

headinhands · 02/02/2013 18:07

I've never said on this thread that I'm never irrational?

So it's all the same god? Again why doesn't he tell them. Why did he write different books with different laws? Why did Jesus say he was 'the way and that no one comes to the father 'but through him. Isn't that just wantonly confusing people?

headinhands · 02/02/2013 18:34

So this one god who has many routes. What does he require from us, can he do anything for us? Why does god of the bible get worked up about people worshiping other gods if they're still just worshipping him to the point he's ordering genocide?

niminypiminy · 02/02/2013 18:51

God didn't write the books: we did. See what I posted about 'we are trying to see something that transcends all that is human with only our human-ness to do it with?'. The OT tells the extraordinary story of how the Israelites came to understand that God is the one God, the God of Everything. They understood everything that had happened to them in the light of this developing revelation.

headinhands · 02/02/2013 19:10

You say it transcends our understanding yet claim to have that understanding, a lot more than the millions of Christians/Muslims etc who currently do not feel the same way.

What do you feel god wants from humankind? What can he do? How do you know what you know?

NotDavidTennant · 02/02/2013 19:15

"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?"

I'm not sure what it actually means to be 'tricked' here. As far as I'm concerned I am my genes, synapes, etc. There is no separate 'me' to trick.

"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."

Well (again, as far as I'm concerned) all feelings of wonder are just synaptic activity. It's only 'self-pretence' if you think that there is some other kind of wonder that doesn't involve synaptic activity that the synapses are tricking me into thinking I'm feeling. And of course its not meaningless to me because (gross over-simplification alert) my synapses for feelings of wonder are connected to my synapses for experiencing meaning and so one automatically proceeds to the other. Again, there's no separate 'me' who sits above it all and can choose not to feel wonder, or not to feel love when I see my DW or pleasure at hearing a piece of music I like, etc. It's a false dichotomy.

niminypiminy · 02/02/2013 20:18

What does God want from humankind? He wants us to love him, as he loves us.
What can he do? Keep the cosmos in being. How do you know what you know? By applying reason to experience.

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:23

How do you know he loves you Niminy?

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:25

How do you love him back Niminy?

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:25

What happens if you don't love him?

niminypiminy · 02/02/2013 20:29

How do you love anyone? I know he loves me - that's part of the experience I have of him. What happens if I don't love him? He is sad. But he keeps on loving. That's who he is.

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:32

Good question. I communicate with them. Do things for them. Hug them a lot! Not sure if that is an entirely apt analogy though because I can see the people I love.

niminypiminy · 02/02/2013 20:33

How do I love God? By spending time with him -- which is principally what prayer is about. By trying to do the things he would want me to do, and be the person he wants me to be.

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:33

So it's just a feeling you have of him loving you?

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:34

How do you know what he wants you to do?

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:35

Why does he need us to love him?

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:36

Is he doing anything else other than loving us and wanting to be loved?

headinhands · 02/02/2013 20:37

So there's nothing nasty afoot for people who don't love him back? Now or later?

niminypiminy · 02/02/2013 20:51
  1. When you know that someone loves you, it helps you to live your life differently, because you live it in thqt knowlege.
  2. I listen to him, through prayer.
  3. God doesn't need anything from us. He is complete in himself. He made everything there is out of love.
  4. No, because that encompasses all his act of creation, guidance and salvation. 5. People who turn away from God are without God, for ever, utterly.
niminypiminy · 02/02/2013 20:54

Added to 5: But that is between them and God. It is not for me to know who has turned away, and what has happened as a consequence. That is their story, not mine.

headinhands · 02/02/2013 21:10

Other than the praying Niminy how is your life going to be different from mine?

niminypiminy · 02/02/2013 21:23

Tell me what your life is like Smile!

niminypiminy · 02/02/2013 21:32

But seriously, it is the praying that makes the difference.

headinhands · 02/02/2013 21:54

How do you feel you have handled something particularly differently to average non-theist Joe because of your relationship with god?