Did you try feeling it in your heart? Feeling his presence? You just have to believe.
You just have to believe.
This is what really kept me questioning as a kid. “You just have to start with the conclusion!” but what religion can’t I believe if I just start with the conclusion?
Couldn’t you do this with any diety you pleased?
Not if you don’t want to go to the hell everyone is going to except for my religion
What about if Jainism, Judaism, Hindusim, Sikh, Buddhist, or pretty much any religion that isn’t Xian or Islam is the correct one?
It is actually a bit of a challenge to find any other religions that declared you will go to hell if you don’t worship a certain God. The closest I ever found was if you dissed Hades he could get back at you. Which to be fair he doesn’t demand you worship him only that you bury your dead so he can get them. He just wants your dead relatives to have a proper burial not for you to tell him how awesome he is.
But just in case. Hades if you are there and listening you are awesome man. And an awesome dude like yourself totally wouldn’t bring me to the bad place.
Ignoring the religions followed by over half the world’s population, then I guess you’d have trouble finding such hate. There is hope?
So Hades (the land) was subdivided into shitty Tartarus and happy Elysium. If you did not properly give praise to the correct gods, mostly by worshipping the wrong ones, not only were you executed, but you’d end up in Tartarus (Hell) instead of Elysium (heaven). I think the girls you were expected to be worshipping depended on locality and time of year. Socrates is a good example of a blasphemer who was sent to Tartarus for his wrong choice of Gods
Ignoring the religions followed by over half the world’s population, then I guess you’d have trouble finding such hate. There is hope?
Islam and Xian are about a quarter of the population of the world. It doesn’t feel that way because most of the rest of us either live as hardly tolerated minorities in their countries or are all living on top of each other in an equator hugging belt from India to South East Asia.
Which reminds me. I strongly encourage atheists to visit countries like Thailand. In terms of religion it is very likely what Europe was like pre 4th century or the Arab lands pre 7th century. Everyone believes what they want. Have two hundred gods or none. The syncretism and the tolerance there is amazing. I have seen Buddha statues with a cross hanging from their neck. It is nice to know that there is a better way to live.
Over 50% of the world population is Christian or Islam. Around 56%.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
🎶🎶I need you Jesus, babyyyy🎶🎶
If you didn’t feel it, you’re a failure.
Of course if you did feel it chances are equal that you are also a failure.
I was devout and am willing to testify under oath that I felt moved at services more times than I can remember when I was a kid.
What the hell are these font choices?
Golden China Super Buffet IMPACT versus The A-Team Sans
You cannot compare religion and science. They are fundamentally different philosophies. Hence if someone tries to force one into the other they get garbeld garbage.
Science is the belief that what we observe with our five senses is reality. That’s the belief system. It’s based on a universal experience.
Remove that, and anything goes. Any religion has equal weight. With the exception that, for some reason, religious people believe the religion of their parents.
They often try to mold philosophy into their religion (what it means to be good) using some semblance of logic, but then inevitably tells you what happens in the afterlife.
Eh, science is more of a process than a belief system. You can use science to support or deny certain belief systems.
“I believe humans are fundamentally good”
Okay let’s use psychology and philosophy to determine if that’s true.
“I believe the earth is flat”
Okay let’s use geology, astronomy, and physics to determine if that is true.
Also there are plenty of things that are part of reality which we can’t observe with our “five senses”, it’s why we need to measure the effects and see the recordings instead.
We use 5 senses to measure and see the recording. The “process” of science is based completely around our observations (including measurement). Any evidence is defined a information gathered using our senses.
We reason and conclude based on those observations. Any fact or law is an observation using the senses.
But we have to first assume/believe that our observations are real and that we aren’t plugged into a computer being used as batteries (Matrix trilogy is philosophy 101). Religion abandons that belief or supplements it with supernatural
Agh presump logic. Belief is not required prior to methodology, belief in the effectiveness of methodology stems from results.
When things evolved to swim they didn’t have apriori knowledge that swimming would benefit them. You knew how to eat long before you even learned that eating got rid of stomach pains well before you took a nutrition class.
This whole idea that you need a metaphysics before you have a physics which you need before you have engineering which you have before any technical skill is a reversal of cause and effect. Put another way we didn’t start with reasonable is rational, develop the big 3 of logic, spend decades developing set theory just so we could add, so we could develop the tensor equation for kinematics, which in turn led to Newton’s laws, which branches into material science, and spend a century testing until the wheel came out.
I don’t have to defeat Kant to know how to fry an egg.
That’s not the point. The point is whether or not the fried egg is real. You eat because you’re hungry because you choose to believe the sensation is real. Your senses.
So yes, senses existed before science, but science said “hey let’s use these senses to reason”
You eat because you’re hungry because you choose to believe the sensation is real. Your senses.
Incorrect. The vast majority of life are single celled organisms and arguing that they have any sorta belief at all is very hard to do. Especially since they function perfectly fine without it. They find food, they eat it. No room for belief. To claim that humans don’t work (action comes prior to belief) that way is just begging for me to ask at what point in evolution the sequence of events got reversed.
The fried egg is real. You should have vastly more confidence in the material world vs your thoughts about it. Which is more likely to be true?
A. Sticking your hand in fire will hurt you.
B. There is no largest prime number.
Everything went wrong with the early Greeks. They figured out your senses can be wrong sometimes. So instead of acknowledging this and moving on they demanded that it had to be right all of the time or wrong all of the time. No surprise this black and white thinking led them down to useless skepticism. It is so bizarre it is like noticing your speedometer isn’t perfectly calibrated so the best idea is to go as fast as you feel like.
Stop reading Kant you are wasting your time.
You’re making assumptions about what I’m saying.
We only find out our senses were wrong when we gather more information. More data. More observations. Stuff you acquire using your senses. You can’t measure without senses. You can’t question nature without observing it. Observe means father information. The only way to gather information is using senses.
That’s the BASE. Yes, we then have to question and experiment and question more. But we can only do that with new information. The only new information we get is through senses.
A fact is only verifiable with observation. Observation, by definition, is information gathered using senses.
Again, I fully believe our experience is real. But science begins at the assumption that our senses are real.
I didn’t know fuck all about Kant. This is just simple, basics of scientific inquiry.
Starting with a given is required, otherwise, as others here have said, anything goes.
The difference is that religion starts with a given that is absolute. If conclusions are incorrect, the understanding must be questioned because the given is absolute.
Science, on the other hand, regularly questions the given. If conclusions are incorrect (e.g. Mercury in retrograde dilemma) then the given is questioned until we have a better understanding. For science, there is no final solution because the posibility that we were wrong and will understand better the more we observe is science.
I’m not sure if you meant to reply to me or the other guy…
as others here have said, anything goes.
I’m the one who said that
Science, on the other hand, regularly questions the given. If conclusions are incorrect (e.g. Mercury in retrograde dilemma) then the given is questioned until we have a better understanding.
But all of our understanding is through our senses. All measurements taken, all tests, all new “data” is gathered using our senses. The assumption of science is that our senses are real.
The assumption of science is that our senses are real.
You keep asserting this and I am not seeing you provide evidence for this. How did you look into the minds of anyone doing an experiment in history to see this?
You literally cannot make an observation without the senses. You can’t DO an experiment without using your senses.
I’m really confused by the misunderstanding. I do assume the senses are real. I teach science. I’m not trying to disprove it.
Any steps or methodology includes facts and observations. Which you acquire through senses.
Yes, and if you keep going on that speculation, you arrive at two options.
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Keep assuming our senses are real until there is a reason not to.
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Assume our senses are not real and attempt to discover what reality is.
Either way, science doesn’t care because it’s not about being right, it’s about figuring out what is. Put another way: Change theories to suit facts instead of facts to suit theories.
What speculation? I haven’t speculated at all.
I have no reason to believe senses are fake. Science is the study of our observations. That’s what it is. Ergo, we assume our observations are real. I’m not arguing at all that they don’t exist. But science starts with the “understanding” that our senses are reality.
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If I get to have a jetpack, I’m converting to Christianity.
Does it have to be useful and functional? I am sure we can get you a cardboard box with the words jetpack written on it that we can strap to your back.
The picture obviously shows it being awesome.
Me too, I’ll even do the prayer thing and everything. I’ll drink the blood, I’ll eat the flesh, I’ll sing the hymns.
If I had a jetpack nothing about my life would be boring.
Someone needs to call the pope. “Bruh, church attendance doesn’t have to be down! Everyone who converts and tithes gets a jetpack! We’re back baby!”
Shit. To go that hard we’re going to have to include fuel, maintenance, and an insurance plan.
bro physics/chem/bio ain’t easy and straightforward this shit hard man
This isn’t about the mechanism we use to understand the world, just how we do.
Feel morally superior > make judgements against others > legislate your “beliefs”
I mean the first two things are true about both atheists and Christians proportionately to their populations. This community is full of judging atheists and people who believe they are morally superior. And I’m sure if more atheists were in power there would be someone with intention to legislate their beliefs regarding religion. This whole comment is kinda, I dunno… It’s lacking some self awareness…
I’m firmly of the opinion that it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe that it had one.
BUT believing in a creator does not mean that you have to ignore scientific evidence of the way the universe functions
Ok that is your opinion. I wonder how you reached it and I also wonder if you started out neutral and came to that conclusion from what you learned or if you came from a religious tradition first.
It comes from the fact that there is no empirical evidence that a creator doesn’t exist (because evidence of a lack of existence is illogical) and from the fact that there is no explanation for the beginning of the universe that is logically sound (at least not yet). An infinite timeline doesn’t make more sense than an external being setting the timeline in motion
First off evidence of non-existence is not illogical. It is just hard to get access too. Here is evidence of the non-existence of a largest prime: well I tested the first billion numbers and I kept on finding primes. Now this is empirical and not very good but it is still evidence. I can do the same with say the Loch Ness monster. Setup sonar in the lake and find nothing. Again this isn’t killer evidence but it is evidence. Additionally any god you advance that has contradictions in its properties is illogical and all I need to do is point those out. For example the Christian god is a clear violation of the law of identity.
Secondly not being able to disprove something doesn’t mean we accept it. It means we mark it as possible and do something else. I can’t disprove that there is a teacup orbiting between Mars and Saturn that doesn’t mean that there is one or that I should believe that there is one.
and from the fact that there is no explanation for the beginning of the universe that is logically sound (at least not yet).
Gods of the gaps. Not having an explanation doesn’t mean we get to advance a supernatural one. In every case in history we have done this we find out we were wrong eventually.
An infinite timeline doesn’t make more sense than an external being setting the timeline in motion
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. And you are just moving the problem around. You reject an eternal universe and fix it by adding an eternal being.
Nothing new here.
You’re missing my point even though you’re so close to getting it. Because we lack sufficient evidence for both the purpose of proving there is a creator/creative force/god AND for the purpose of proving there is no god, it takes faith to believe in either. I suppose you could claim to believe in neither. I suppose agnosticism doesn’t really take faith.
I get “your” points fine. It was argued over a thousand years before you or I were born.
We have no evidence of X that doesn’t mean we have to have faith to believe in not-X. Not-X is the default, X is what must be demonstrated.
We have no evidence of unicorns, we have no evidence that there isn’t unicorns. So I am not convinced that there are unicorns. I have to do nothing. If you want unicorns you get me the photos.
Also you are mixing up agnostic (a statement about knowledge) with atheist (a statement about belief). An agnostic atheist is someone who admits they can’t be completely certain but believes there is no god. It is not the halfway mark between atheist and theist. I am an agnostic atheist. I concede that there could be some alien somewhere that is powerful enough that the word god applies to them, I really don’t think there is one but I can’t disprove it.
And anyway this is being nice. In reality we do have evidence against your skydaddy it is hardly neutral.
Please, tell me what evidence there is because most people seem to enjoy withholding it
Sure. We have the existence of evil, we have a solid set of physical laws that leave no room for the supernatural, we have an explanation for how we got here from the Big Bang onward that shows no evidence of intelligence operating behind it, and we have the violations of logic that most gods that are worshipped today violate.
The only types of gods we can still pretend exist are diest ones that haven’t done anything since the beginning of the universe and small random gods living on another planet.
And that’s where it falls apart. Science isn’t a belief system; it’s provable and repeatable.
Science will look at the evidence and come to the most logical conclusion. Different people may well come to different conclusions. When more evidence comes to light, it will disprove some of those conclusions and we end up closer to the truth. There is no “faith” or “belief” involved.
Science sees no evidence of a creator, therefore it doesn’t factor one in. The door is left open for people to prove that there is a creator, but so far there has been no such evidence.
It sounds like you’re describing science and religion like they’re completely separate things, but I don’t see it that way at all. I wouldn’t describe science as a religion, but there’s definitely faith involved in the current dominant scientific theories. Until theory has been tested to exhaustion and there are no more tests to run, the theory lives on as a theory because it hasn’t been disproven (either fully or partially) and there is an assumption that it will not be disproven. That assumption is faith.
They absolutely are completely separate things. Incompatible even.
You are confusing the colloquial use of the word theory in english and the definition of the word theory in scientific use. Which is one of the most infuriating things. I imagine you might even know better, but if you didn’t, hopefully you learned something.
So how is theory defined in the scientific setting?
And I’m firmly of the opinion that it takes as much faith to believe that the universe has no unicorns that can fly as it does to believe it has none.
BUT believing in unicorns does not mean that you have to ignore scientific evidence of the way the universe functions.
See how proving a negative is silly?
By that standard, it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe it was created by space bees or whatever.
It doesn’t take faith to not believe in a creator. There is a huge difference between “I don’t believe in a sentient creator” and “I believe there was no sentient creator,” and I don’t know of a lot of atheists who are firmly in the second category. The lack of evidence (or need for it) would make for a better case for not existing, though, and with that in mind, saying “I don’t think there was a sentient creator” doesn’t require anywhere near the faith that saying “I believe there was a sentient creator” does. Being able to say “if there was this, there should have been evidence of it here” and finding no evidence is, itself, helpful to an argument of something not existing that would require evidence to prove it exists.
Religious get into this weird binary thinking, where it’s belief in their particular thing or an equal disbelief of that thing, when it’s really that that particular thing, lacking any evidence, is equally as likely as any other improbable and unprovable thing. Belief in God or disbelief in God, where it’s really not believing in God, vampires, reptile people controlling the government, magic, fairies, or anything else without evidence, and all of those, lacking evidence are equal until evidence is produced. And that’s not disbelief, it is the lack of belief.
It requires no faith to not believe in a sentient creator of the universe.
By that standard, it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe it was created by space bees or whatever.
Yup, that’s my point. It takes faith to believe a creator does not exist.
It doesn’t take faith to not believe in a creator.
That’s a good point. I hadn’t considered agnosticism in this conversation. Refusing to accept something as true without evidence does not take faith. However, I maintain that it takes faith to assert that there is no god/creator since we do not have actual evidence of this.
Why? There is no evidence that a sentient creator exists or created the universe. So I have no reason to believe in one. Zero faith is required to have that opinion. Not knowing something doesn’t mean I have to default to a god did it. A god is simply one of many possibilities, all with just as little evidence as the other.
Besides. Why can’t there be multiple creators? Why does the creator have to be sentient? And who created the creator? Has the creator always existed? Seems to me that it takes more faith to believe a creator has always existed and then created the universe than it does to believe the universe itself has always existed. I’m not saying I believe any of that, but in this scenario either way something has always existed, yours just has one extra step.
We may one day find out what caused the beginning of the universe, or maybe we never will. Regardless, immediately attributing that which you do not understand to a god is no better than the people of ancient civilizations. Before we knew what caused lightning, we blamed Zeus. This is no different.
There is no evidence that a sentient creator exists or created the universe.
And there is no evidence that the universe appeared out of a void. I do not mean to say that it only makes sense to believe in a god/creator, I just meant to say that it makes as much sense to believe that there is a god as it does to believe that there is no god. I would argue it takes faith to do either, however it doesn’t take faith to say you would not believe either without evidence.
Why can’t there be multiple creators? Why does the creator have to be sentient? And who created the creator? Has the creator always existed?
I have no answers for this question that don’t involve what I personally believe on faith and not on evidence, and I cannot make any sensible effort to try to convince you of it so I won’t.
either way something has always existed, yours just has one extra step.
I agree something has likely always existed, and whatever it is I would call it “the creator.” I have my own personal beliefs about the creator being sentient but I have no proof of that.
Like I brought up in my last sentence or two, every other time we’ve blamed something on the supernatural, we have either found a natural explanation for it that precludes the supernatural (Zeus and lightning, for example) or have not found enough evidence for it to find it compelling (ghosts, for example). We’ve found no reliable evidence in favor of a supernatural being, be that ghost or god, despite our ability to do so being significantly better than that of ancient peoples. Imo, the more this happens, and the more the “god of the gaps” shrinks, the less likely a god is to be true simply on a statistical standpoint. Why should it be true this time, you know? If a horse loses a thousand races, are you still going to bet on it?
With that in mind, I don’t believe it takes faith at all to actively believe there is no god. Just like it doesn’t take any faith to believe a timeless unicorn didn’t fart the universe into existence, or that there isn’t a magical leprechaun in my closet right now that disappears when you open it. They all sound just as ridiculous to me. Now, I do agree that it takes faith to actively believe any positive claim without solid proof. If I said I believed the universe were timeless because I liked the sound of the theory, that would require at least some level of faith on my part. That’s why I’m happy to admit I have no idea what caused it. It doesn’t affect my life, so I can accept that it’s one of the many, many things I’ll likely never know.
I just meant to say that it makes as much sense to believe that there is a god as it does to believe that there is no god.
Now to wrap up my long-winded comment here, I want to say I agree with this completely. I personally do not believe in any god, but if you’re willing to accept that a lot of your belief in one stems from faith, that’s fine by me. I don’t think you’re stupid for it or anything. Religion itself and the belief in a god is not really a problem, though believers themselves do tend to be a mixed bag as many hateful views often stem from religion, such as anti-LGBT views.
