Question for the religiously inclined

[cestlavie]

Well, apologies if this has been done before (a million times) but it is Friday afternoon and I raise it having had a rather futile discussion with the local vicar.

Background to this, incidentally, is that DD2 is going to be christened (like DD1) at DW's request - DW being a non-practising CoE type person who feels that being christened is the "right" thing to do for a little one. Being an atheist, I really couldn't give two hoots but it is important to DW and she's happy to undertake the obligations associated with the christening. Anyway, having had the vicar round (again) and having had (another) futile discussion with him as to the nature of belief I'm curious whether anyone else out there is better able to articulate things than him. In short, my question is:

What is the evidence for God, or rather why do you believe in God?

My own position is, rather simply, that (a) I do not believe there is any empirical evidence for God more compelling than any other explanation (b) I do not believe that because millions of people believe in God that this is the case and (c) specifically regarding Christianity, I do not believe the Bible to be a complete and accurate reflection of the events it describes.

I'm genuinely curious therefore as to how people end up believing in God, or is it simply, as St Augustine said "a leap of faith"? I would also add that despite being an atheist, I'm certainly not of the Dawkins camp and have no wish to belittle people who do believe - indeed I'd love to believe myself in many ways, which is part of the reason I find the subject so fascinating.

It depends on a lot of things: where you grew up, where you went to school and so on. I disagree that the Britain of the last 40 years has had a secular culture. A non-questioning Christian belief underpinned my schooling, my parents' lives and the daily life of the village where I grew up. The Church was the centre of everything. Attendance wasn't huge, but it was still a big deal to come out actively and say you didn't believe in god. It wasn't something I did until my twenties, when I had moved away and gained a greater perspective on life.

Actually, the OP is back UQD. The thread went quiet and so I hadn't checked it recently. Clearly, it's all got a little longer whilst I was away.

Anyways... it has gone how I suspected it would go. The arguments which you (and I) can and do make as to why we are atheist are very obvious to me but I remain keen to see how and why people believe, not to choose to demolish their arguments, even if I think I can. What is much more interesting is seeing how people have found a belief in religion, in particular those with a scientific background.

One very interesting, and well put point which someone made was that it's like being in love. Even if you're not looking for it, once you find it, that's it and you can't explain to anyone else why you're in love or exactly why that person is the one for you.

Message withdrawn

Our culture is predominantly secular though. You don't turn on the television, go to the theatre, read newspapers, journals or recent books and see things explained in terms of "God" except in very specific and clearly labelled little pockets. This is our culture and this is what informs our thinking.

Message withdrawn

Well yes, but then politics is very much a part of all those things, and to some extent even our personal relationships are informed by what we absorb from our culture.

My point about our culture being secular was to say that the process of becoming an atheist is as much about making sense of all the post-Nietzchean, post-Freudian secular influences which come with our education as it is about rejecting a theistic account of the world. I think these influences are rather more powerful than a few prayers in assembly. They were for me anyway.

Hi all. I see I missed a lot.

MrsSeanBean I was making the point yesterday that while most believers think everyone should respect their beliefs there are other beliefs that they themselves don't respect.

Because you had said we we shouldn't compare believing in god with believing in the Loch Ness monster etc I used your post as an example, but there were plenty of others.

UQD has just mentioned the scientologists. You will hear people say that believing in their lizards is silly and you will hear others say that what mormons believe is silly.

Anyone can believe in anything they like, but if they discount another persons belief they have no right to expect others to show deference to theirs.

Thumbwitch you said that "it's only my opinion that "there is no difference between believing in fairies, monsters or gods". Which I took to mean you knew of a difference. After that we got lost.

In the sense of believing in something which has no supporting evidence they are the same. Hardly an opinion really just a description.

I think though that there does at some point have to be an actual examination of the moral content of the belief. For example, surely you don't think that someone who believes in human sacrifice should be afforded the same "respect for their beliefs" as someone who believes in caring for others? To use a popular catchphrase, that would be political correctness gone mad.

You see that is where this thing about the Flying Spaghetti Monster falls down, for me, because it doesn't mean anything. Nor does $cientology, frankly. And whether you "believe" in the divinity of Jesus (I don't) or not, you still can't put Christianity in the same category as the Flying Spagetti Monster because it does actually mean something. Even if you're an atheist you can't find much to complain about the central ideas of brotherly love, kindness, social inclusion etc.

So stuff like $cientology is different, because it generally accepted to be a cult, people who come out the other end testify to the often psychologically brutal brainwashing techniques used, the isolation and grooming of individuals and the high fees asked of them by the organisation.

I agree dilletante (although I'm not sure I'd agree that Scientology doesn't mean anything - clearly it does mean something to its followers). But to make the argument that all religions are equivalent to belief in the Loch Ness monster is a bit like saying that the works of Shakespeare are equivalent to the writing you find on the back of a cereal packet.

Dilettante
If I could put the FSM into some context
"I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time." Bertrand Russell 1952

The FSM and other fanciful imaginations are
direct descendants of the teapot,
He chose something ridiculous, that no one
could possibly believe in, to shift the burden of proof on to the believers,otherwise
if the argument drifted(as it so often seems to do)to this is my opinion and it is just as valid as yours the atheist has the perfect reply,

This puts the believer in a difficult position because as in the article Mrs SB
cited in her earlier post
"n other words, to begin to know God, you must suspend rational thinking. You believe ? not because it makes sense to do so ? but simply because you choose to believe",

One line of argument put forward is that
Christianity has a special place because
of its history, effect on society, numbers of believers etc,
I have always thought this seems to have some sort of circular reasoning in it, and also, that the emperor might have fancy ruffles. a bright hat,striped pantaloons
they are still his new clothes.
I think the best way to square the circle is to realise
that people give God the attributes that
they need in order to make sense of the world.
So everyone carries round their own God(or lack of it in atheists case)in their head, They can then say I believe in the celestial teapot or God as he it is more commonly known.
Then you all become de facto atheists, as your personal god would not demand faith schools,attendance at churches mosques, and so on.

Interregnum - I would agree with you that "people give God the attributes that
they need in order to make sense of the world". And more than one self-proclaimed Christian has said as much on this thread.

I'm not sure how you arrived at everyone being "de facto atheists" from that point. Surely if you believe in a universal higher power or creator you are a theist, whatever the form of your religious observance. If you believe there is no such being you are an atheist. If you don't believe you have the wherewithal to know and aren't prepared to speculate you are an agnostic.

Interregnum - the cultural aspects have their importance, but I don't think anyone with a religious faith would agree with you that God exists only within the individual's head, or is only of relevance to that one individual, or makes no requirements/suggestions about how the individual behaves or acts.

We may choose which description of God we believe in because that description has a set of attributes which we want/need/value/recognise, but we do believe that the description we choose to follow is in some important sense the "right" one, and that our choice has consequences.

If we were each just inventing our own internal personal god which made no difference to our choices in life, then yes we'd effectively be atheists. But that's not how it works.

Iorek - $cientology may mean something to some of its followers but I think only in the same way an abused spouse is dependent on their partner. I still believe it doesn't mean anything as a stand alone philosophy nor does it have any spiritual function. You only have to look at the stuff that RLH wrote when creating the "religion" (when off his head on drink and prescribed drugs)to see that it is all a cynical manipulation. Even the so called psychological profiling is inaccurate and skewed. Also, I doubt very much whether people at the higher levels "believe" the stuff about the Thetans, unless as part of their brain washing - much more likely they go along with because of social conditioning. The people at the lower levels believe that the Thetan stuff is anti $cientology propaganda put about by detractors! That was told me by a gen-u-wine $cientologist of my aquaintance.

Interregnum, yes, I'm familiar with the celestial teapot quote. I don't agree with it and think it's false reasoning actually, based on a set of assumptions that I think are wrong.

As I've said before, I'm not religious and I'm not particularly a believer. However I don't believe that a suspension of rational thought is necessary for a person to believe in god, but that it is more a question of "He who tastes, knows".

I think there is a difference in being a religious follower and believing in fanciful creations such as FSM, Loch Ness monster etc.

The religious followers have a creed, a code of conduct, a lifestyle that they follow as a result of their belief. Christians are taught to be generally forgiving and nice to other people (ignoring all the religious wars, which are mostly down to people insisting that their religious belief is the right one, and power (nothing to do with religion at all))

Buddhists believe that all life is sacred and you should avoid killing any living thing, amongst other things of course.

I know too little of other faiths to offer further ideas on this.

If you can find any teachings/exemplar behaviour of the Flying Spaghetti Monster that suggest how we should be living life to our own and others' benefits, then maybe it would be a worthy fantastic creation to pay homage to.

You can believe in all the "be nice to each other" stuff and, indeed, follow something close to the teachings of Jesus Christ without believing that these teachings are in any way "divinely" inspired. Because there's no such thing as "the divine". Just as much nastiness as niceness seems to be caused by religion. I don't find religious people any more or less pleasant than others.

I agree with you there UnquietDad. Jesus Christ reserved his harshest criticism for the 'religious people' of the day.

Religion - particularly 'organised' - is not synonymous with belief. It may often actually be a substitute for true belief. Sadly many people attend church in a ritualistic way and seem to display little Christianity in their everyday lives.

There would be little, maybe no strife in society if people really paid heed to what Jesus said.

JC: If someone hits you on the cheek, let him hit you on the otehr cheek also.
Society today: kick, no wait, stab him before he even gets to hits you

JC: If someone wants your jacket give him your overcoat too
Society today: My jacket?! - sod off.

JC: Lend and do not expect to be repaid
Society today: Borrow and don't expect to pay back

I could go on.

I understand the points about evaluating the worth of a belief system and have some thoughts on that too. However that's a later step. I'm really refering to the belief itself.

Should I be expected to respect your belief that your christian god exists if many christians do not take seriously someone elses belief that their god/teapot/lizards/fairies exist?

You can't judge the existence or non-existence on the basis of 'are they nice or not' so if one totally unsubstantiated claim is reasonable then they all are.

But it is not Christian god versus god/teapot/lizards/fairies.

It is something that humans have been aware of and have gradually come to call "god" or "gods" in various forms versus the spurious teapot/lizards/fairies.

Fairies are part of the pagan religion. Parts of which may be older than christianity. I could mention the gods of asgard and so on. There are lots of beliefs that are just as old and are/were taken just a seriously, but are now dismissed by most people (including christians) because they are silly.

It's an impossible situation because if you dismiss belief in none at all then you find yourself saying that yes everything must be true. If you draw a line anywhere at all you are admitting that a line has to be drawn and that where it is drawn is a matter of opinion.

If you say there is nothing unreasonable or silly about believing the god of the christians exists then you must say that there is nothing unreasonable or silly about believing in the existence of Thor, Fairies, Brownies. Scientology's lizards and Joseph Smiths magical spectacles he used to translate the Book of Mormon from the gold tablets

Strictly speaking you can't just assert that a belief in fairies is part of the "pagan" religion. Lots of the fairy stuff is a relatively recent invention and until recently you couldn't really say there was such a thing as "the pagan religion" as if it was a coherent and uniform belief system that has survived over time, instead of a geographically varying primitive nature worship based religion, of which, yes things like nature spirits were a part. But it is not the same thing at all as modern paganism which is basically an invented mishmash of old ideas which had died out and then become fashionable again. Sorry, but there you are.

Whether you like it or not, there is a spiritual tradition within mankind that has developed over millennia. Don't get sidetracked by the "religion" aspect of it, which is often little more than politics really, and humans do tend to forget and distort, it is just the way we are, imperfect. I think a better way to look at it is as a development of consciousness, or evolution of consciousness, which is of course completely in keeping with current scientific theories.

And it's not about whether something is silly or not. I don't think that the druidic religions indigenous to the UK over a thousand years ago are silly, and they were pagan. Though there is evidence that some of their religious practices involved ritual murder, I think that they were generally an expression of the awareness of the human drive to be at one or commune with what they perceive to be something approaching the divine nature of everything (which has been present in every human society and grouping that we know of). As we have evolved culturally and socially to the point where as a species we are sophisticated enough to comprehend the concept of what you might call brotherly love, we have moved away from the need to pacify or worship "gods" with blood. The Christian Eucharist can be seen as a symbol of this evolution. Can I just add once more for the record that I am not a Christian myself.

I don't think it is (as you say) an impossible situation at all, it is perfectly possible to rationally dismiss for eg $cientology and "brownies", but see the worship of Thor as part of an ongoing spiritual evolution.

Though the western scientific corpus threw the ghost out of the machine from the enlightenment onwards with the idea of the mechanical universe, as early as the 1920s it was back with a vengeance. Ask any particle physicist and they will tell you that nowadays we cannot talk of a universe of certainty, but only of a universe with uncertainty as a contingent.

The problem is that when you encounter "data" which lie outside an area which you have defined for yourself as containing the only possible data you will either fail to see it altogether or you will plausibly discredit it in terms of your own prior assumptions.

Simply put, you can't see the tree for the woods!

it is perfectly possible to rationally dismiss for eg $cientology and "brownies", but see the worship of Thor as part of an ongoing spiritual evolution>>

Please demonstrate it rationally then. As far as I can see this is simply an admission that it IS ok to draw a line and I'd be interested to see how the other religious people on here feel about that and where it is drawn.

Unless you're suggesting that YOU are the only one qualified to draw the line then you must accept that the rest of us are perfectly entitled to draw it with christianity on the other side. That has to be as valid as your choice. Therefore christians (and muslims etc) should not expect us to take their religion any more seriously than any other belief that they themselves reject. Which is kind of the point.

I note the "the worship of Thor as part of an ongoing spiritual evolution" Does this mean that if there are believers in Thor right now they are the other side of the line or not?

Message withdrawn

Christians inevitably point to how long their religion has existed as some kind of proof.

This is invalid for several reasons including the fact that religions get reinvented at intervals. Both in a gradual sense and by suddenly producing a new prophet or a message from god via a pope or other leader.

Joseph Smith (mormons) put forward his religion as a development of christianity in order to gain credibility. He too could point to thousands of years of belief to support his position and simply claim to be the next prophet.

He just had a few followers (perhaps a dozen) and a new testament which superceded the last one. That makes him just as credible as jesus who did much the same thing. More so since we can prove that Joseph Smith actually existed. No one seemed to mind in either case that god was completely changing his mind.

If there is anything to this at all then I'd say that the mormons are the latest, most evolved religion and christianity is, (like the old testament) obsolete.

They have believers and proper hats and a holy book all bound in leather. They have churches and temples. They baptise and so on.

Of course they were started by a madman with a taste for power, but they are still a 'proper' religion. Golden spectacles, tablets and all with 1000s of years of believers behind them. The same believers.

Btw Dilettante, I know you are not a christian so when I say 'you' I am often speaking generally to the other people here who have all disappeared, but may be back.