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.

Onagar there can be no debate while you are either deliberately obfuscating or genuinely not getting what I'm saying because of a lack of common ground.

(bangs head against brick wall)

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

Are you sure about that? Proof? Could you show us where this pointing is going on?

(That man looks like he's made of straw to me.)

Dilettante, I often feel the same way when debating these things

Iorek, Actually made of the finest steel It's a very common argument so I'm surprised you've not encountered it. You only need to read back through this thread.

By MrsSeanBean on Wed 25-Feb-09 16:25:19

Where did the Bible come from? Would it have survived all these centuries if it was just a load of rubbish? Is there another book that can claim still to be in publication, and which originated at least 6000 years ago?
For example, Judaism, Islam and Christianity share certain common historical elements. I don't know what proportion of humanity believes in one of these faiths (or indeed any other faith) but I would be surprised if believers in 'a God' were not in the majority. Can so many people worldwide really just be stupid and irrational?>>

Onager, in the post you have quoted, Mrs Sean Bean makes a point about not dismissing vast numbers of believers over thousands of years as "stupid and irrational". This is not at all the same as claiming "proof" as you put it.

Iorek, I found a reasonable example for you in seconds. If you read the whole thread or indeed some of the other threads on here you will find more of this kind of argument. That the larger the number that believe and the longer it goes on the more true it must be and the more 'sensible' it becomes.
I said a 'kind of proof' since of course we won't find a christian who writes "anything believed in for more than X years, X months and X days is absolutely true". I just wish I could get them to be so precise.

Unfortunately the more difficult the subject becomes the more likely it is to be changed and clearly this one has become difficult

I'm still waiting on the offered rational dismissal of $cientology and "brownies etc". I have hopes of applying it to all these 'obviously false' gods out there and thinning the herd until we are just left with all the real gods that actually exist.

The example you cited has nothing to do with proof.

When you say of Christians "I just wish I could get them to be so precise" I think this is exactly the problem. Religion is not about physical process, it is a collection of cultural traditions all expressing the attempt to locate a moral purpose, and to give form to spiritual experience.

You will have seen the posts from Christians on here who describe the form of their religious faith as being not the only possible form, but the one that is culturally available to them, and which therefore rings true for them.

For all of us, whether theist or not, our perception of reality is filtered through the traditions which we are exposed to. Many Christians share this view, and do not find it necessary to dismiss as nonsense all other forms of religion except for their own, but are instead happy to acknowledge that all religious belief shares a common purpose, but is varied in its manifestation.

I'm not sure why this should be difficult to understand.

Iorek, you can pick away at the choice of words all day if that's what you want and the best you have to offer, but anyone (and I thought that included you) who has given any thought or taken any note of such things will have seen this 'it's been around a long time it must be true' thing.

"do not find it necessary to dismiss as nonsense all other forms of religion except for their own"

The point I've been making is that many/most do dismiss other beliefs. Just because it's become fashionable to include muslims and hindus doesn't change the fact that the line has just been moved further out. Everyone has a line beyond which... "well obviously not THEM. Of course THAT doesn't count. They are not PROPER..."

Since we're being fussy I had better add that of course NOT everyone has such a line. There will be people who look at door handles and are happy to consider that they might speak today or that the oven might produce milk. After all there is no proof that doorsknobs can't talk (so I trust you keep an open mind on that.)

With no line at all they'd be unable to function at all so won't be coming on here to debate it.

So I'm not putting down people for having a line. It's perfectly sensible. Just pointing out that the their choice for the position of the line is arbitary and mine is further over.

What do you mean by "picking away at choice of words" exactly?

I'm not quite sure what your point is. Yes clearly everyone makes decisions, consciously or not, about what they believe (or take as a working assumption) and what they do not. You call this drawing a line and say "Just pointing out that the their choice for the position of the line is arbitary and mine is further over." By "further over" do you mean that you believe that yours is somehow less arbitrary than that of anyone who follows a religious tradition?

I think the point here is that if one is going to claim the longevity and the popularity of a superstition as additional evidence for its "rightness", then there needs to be some objective idea as to HOW long it has been going and HOW popular it needs to be in order for this evidence to be valid.

I personally feel they are no particularly useful guide at all, and so it is misleading to even try. Beliefs are popular for centuries and then are superseded by others.

Thousands, if not millions, of people believe in the supposed healing powers of crystals, after all, which is all guff.

It is perfectly reasonable to point to the longevity and pervasiveness of religious belief in saying that it is of great importance in the history of human thinking, and that in dismissing it wholesale as "stupid and irrational", you are dismissing a fairly fundamental portion of human experience.

To say that religion as a persistent human idea is not valid because individual religious beliefs are superseded over time is a bit like saying that science is not valid because we no longer believe in phlostigon.

You mean phlogiston? Science evolves. Everyone knows that. Phlogiston theory was believed because, at the time, it seemed to fit the facts. When Lavoisier came along and provided new evidence, science re-evaluated its stance. Perfectly acceptable - nothing wrong with that.

What examples are there of religions looking at the evidence and adapting their theories in accordance with it?

Also, one can accept that religious "thought" has been important in moulding and shaping human culture without actually believing a word of it.

Ok Onagar - about the brownies and the scientologists, when I get some free time later on I will try to spell it out for you in as clear a manner as I possibly can, though of course I think I already gave you a perfectly rational explanation already and the reason you won't think it is rational is because you'll measure it against a preconceived notion that you hold and without actually considering what I am saying you will be stamping in with your iron boots of "logic" that give you your illogical "therefore all dogs are cats" argument.

I was writing an answer at the time but was becoming so ridiculously wound up that I took my (very atheist) DH's advice when he glanced over my shoulder at my long reply, laughed, and told me it wasn't worth it.

Yes, phlogiston. Religion clearly does evolve. You yourself pointed out that religious beliefs change over time. To give a general example, if you look at the writings of the current Archbishop of Canterbury you will find them inclusive of other faiths in a way that the writings of his 19th Century predecessors were probably not. Why is this? Most probably because of the evidence provided by a globalised culture. The fact of this evolution doesn't make the concept of a divinity somehow invalid.

One equally irrational superstition supplants another as the dominant one. This does not mean religion necessarily evolves.

You would include cultural inclusiveness under this category?

x posts. Yes that would be another.

Iorek: I'd say that clearly you need to take into account religion when looking at the history of human experience. That does not in itself, however, give any sort of proof that religion is valid(or that a God exists, merely that this belief has been formative in development of us and one that is debated by anthropoligsts, psychologists, theologists and many other disciplines. Whether that belief is valid or not is an entirely different question.

Hello, justa. Not too bad thanks. Bit February-ish. It's realy no good all these agnostics and atheists cluttering up the religion boards arguing amongst ourselves . Must get out of the house and do something constructive.

Hope all well with you

In order to have a valid theory you must first provide evidence for it, not just claim that nobody is able to find good enough evidence against it. That's where science differs from religion - it weighs evidence up and goes with the theory which has the most evidence. You can argue that this is not ideal, but it is a hell of a lot better than going with subjective opinion.

The fundamental theories of religious superstition, such as they are theories, are not backed up by evidence.

This is what makes them no more (or less, if you like) valid than fairies and celestial teapots. The number of people who believe them, and how long they have done so, is on one level irrelevant. Hundreds of thousands of of people read the Daily Mail and have done so for years, but that doesn't provide objective validation for the truth of what it publishes.

Cestlavie - I agree. It it not a question of proof at all - that is what I was saying.

I think I at 11:34:59 and cestlavie at 12:17:16 are making the same point, although cestlavie makes it more clearly than I do.

Religion does not exist in opposition to science.