Does God exist? (17 Viewers)

[KFunk]

It seems that faith is derided by most atheists, but it takes faith to believe that all that is real can be fully perceived and known by humans. Unless you acknowledge that there could be some higher spiritual reality, I don't see how it can't be faith to be assured in oneself without proof.

I don't believe that all that is real can be fully perceived. However, I do believe that all that I am justified in believing to be real must be backed up by perception, reason, or some combination thereof. My vision is imperfect, no doubt.

 

[katie tully]

After spending the last week in Mental Health, you're not the only person who doesn't believe that 'real' cannot be fully perceived. They're everywhere.

 

[rant]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein
Any interpretation still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning

this should pretty much be the mission statement of this thread

 

[Cookie182]

love this discussion!!

But here's a small question directed at atheists:doesn't it take faith to be an atheist? It seems that faith is derided by most atheists, but it takes faith to believe that all that is real can be fully perceived and known by humans. Unless you acknowledge that there could be some higher spiritual reality, I don't see how it can't be faith to be assured in oneself without proof.
I'm not trying to insult atheists, I just wanna see what their take on this would be.

Well, I'd like to thank the member for Forks for their question, let me firstly begin by saying:

If you read through the last two pages, even Iron has agreed faith has an irrational basis. Atheist's pride themselves purely on rationality- so your argument then becomes, is it irrational to believe in pure rationality? A whole new philosophical debate regarding 'what is rationality' arises, which I need to think well upon. I would say this though- if we are going to make the assumption that there is no 'full' amount of rationality, then we are saying there is degrees of rationality and so forth it follows that it is more rational for the atheist to believe in no-god then it is to do so (as kindly expressed by the poster above me).

As Iron also said- "faith...is a leap beyond reason". If reason is explained fully to the Atheist by what they observe and 'prove' through the logical, scientific method then why would they have any motivation to take that ‘leap’? For some reason- I think what your saying is- does it take faith in your self to reject religion, because of the fear that you may be wrong? Well, I would say that 'fear' is simply the theist's fear- as the true atheist would not be able to comprehend having such fear, just as most mature, rational humans have no fear after hearing a scary story, as they simply rationalise- "It's not true, go to sleep". By definition, if what you were saying was correct wouldn't all theists’ then 'fear' that they have chosen the right path to have 'faith' in? As under each major religion, the 'punishment' to "non-believers" (which includes Christian's/Jews/Eastern Religions and Atheist's in the same boat, if we are taking for e.g. an Islamic perspective) is no eternal afterlife.

Lastly, any atheist can perfectly rationalise that they choose not to believe because there is no evidence in front of them to prove the hypothesis proposed. If the hypothesis that God exists is actually correct, and within our life time, science never gets to answer that for us, then we can be comfortable with the fact that the God who might be discovered might also have nothing to do with the God proposed by all current religions, putting theists in the same boat anyway.

Also don’t theistic beliefs teach that God is an all-loving and forgiving entity anyway and hence if he gave us free-will, we technically should be able to exercise that to our best ability and even if we don't reach the correct conclusion about him, we should still be let into this "heaven" concept. A god that knows the future, creates a human (whom he knows is not going to believe or who will be ostracized based on their sexuality) and punishes them for it (even though it’s his fault, not their there’s from a logical standpoint) sounds like an ultimately cruel and sadistic entity. In fact, how can you guarantee he would not have more respect for atheist's for being individuals as opposed to the millions of theist's who simply "believe" out of selfish fear anyway whilst concurrently "sinning", quite often more then most atheists?

Overall, an admirable but easily dismissed question.

 

[katie tully]

I think that that's the wrong question to ask. Atheism doesn't specifically deride faith (except when that's the only thing that's influencing a belief); for example, I have "faith" (or "believe"; the two terms are somewhat interchangeable) that a particular chair won't fall down when I sit on it, but that's evidence-based: I have prior experience of sitting on that chair and it not falling own.

Just so you know, the reason the chair doesn't fall apart on you is because God is the chair.

 

[Enteebee]

just throwing it out there that iron isn't really a theist.

 

[katie tully]

iron doesn't exist at all

 

[KFunk]

After spending the last week in Mental Health, you're not the only person who doesn't believe that 'real' cannot be fully perceived. They're everywhere.

So Kurt Cobain has been telling me.

 

[Enteebee]

also wittgenstein is a bitch to resolve... at least for me. I get the feeling to have any sort of proper engagement I'd need to understand a lot more about language.

 

[rant]

i'm so happy cause today i found my friends

they're in my head

 

[Cookie182]

For interest, budding philosophers of BOS, someone give me an objective moral truth

And yes, Kfunk i enjoyed your thoughts on Descartes- it certainly is complicated. Kinda brings up in many ways the idea that if you cease to 'think' are you in existence? Depends on how one views "I am". I mean, we would all say yes- you physically exist, but Descartes doesn't specify that. I liked what Tolle said on it though- i posted it about 3 pages back.

 

[Enteebee]

For interest, budding philosophers of BOS, someone give me an objective moral truth

The morality of X is subjective.

i.e. The morality of killing your mother is subjective, this is an objective moral truth.

 

[KFunk]

also wittgenstein is a bitch to resolve... at least for me. I get the feeling to have any sort of proper engagement I'd need to understand a lot more about language.

Agreed. A solid grounding in logic would probably help too (syntax, semantics, metalanguage, the philosophy of Frege). It's a killer problem.

 

[KFunk]

For interest, budding philosophers of BOS, someone give me an objective moral truth

There are no moral truths, this one excepted if you class it as such.

 

[Cookie182]

The morality of X is subjective.

i.e. The morality of killing your mother is subjective, this is an objective moral truth.

Perhaps I should have said- someone give me an objective normative ethic?

What your saying is yes true- but it is a factual statement as opposed to a moral statement- like if i substitute your saying:

It is moral to believe that the morality of X is subjective?

 

[KFunk]

Perhaps I should have said- someone give me an objective normative ethic?

In which case, Mu.

 

[Cookie182]

In which case, Mu.

Quoting Pirsig: "For example, it's stated over and over again that computer circuits exhibit only two states, a voltage for "one" and a voltage for "zero". That's silly! Any computer-electronics technician knows otherwise. Try to find a voltage representing one or zero when the power is off! The circuits are in a mu-state."

lol nice, perhaps I should "unask the question"?

Edit: Any correlation to/inspiration for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mew_(Pokémon) haha

 

[Enteebee]

Is holding a position that something is neither moral nor immoral (i.e. amoral) a normative ethical position?

 

[UndeadSamurai01]

Being fully atheist also requires faith - but many atheists will actually admit that they are agnostic - which is easier to prove seeing as there is no way to prove or disprove god's existence - barring god himself coming down here to sort it out. It is possible to say however that the existence of god is very unlikely - (ie. Richard Dawkins Flying Spaghetti Monster).

I have been on both sides of the divide, at first I was fully Christian, but then I got disillusioned and went full atheist - but upon reasoning it out I always come back to on the agnostic side, but closer to atheism than theism.

So knock yourselves out but neither side can have a total victory. Atheists can't disprove the existence of god but neither can theists prove that he does.

• If we are to envision an omniscient omnipotent god that dosn't want us to know about him/her then we wont know about him/her it's just that simple.
• If we discount historical evidence and focus only on the philosophy then god is just as likely as the flying spaghetti monster.
• If historical evidence (of which there is a significant amount which is very well supported) is taken into account then god becomes far more likely than the flying spaghetti monster.
• Christianity has many self-contradictions which prevent me from becoming a Christian and although I am not as familiar with other religions I have become aware in my studies of examples of this in other religions.
• The old testament is especially troublesome - but even if we focus on the gospels the contradictions and logical falicies are there (the most obvious being that if god is all-powerful then it would have in his 'power' to fogive our sins without sacrificing his son)
• Philosophically the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent god creates many problems (eg. if god knows the future then how can the future change, and if the future can't change then how can we have free will?)
• While some will say that phisics disproves god this is a logical falicy - physisists will freely admit that we know amost nothing about the universe and also if god existed then we would only what he alowed us to learn (re: his omnipotence)
• If god is beyond our understanding - as many will claim (and it is likely that an omnipotent, omnicient being would be) then to try and understand him in order to determine his existance is impossible.
• Although many claim that they have seen/heard/experienced god - there are people from every religion on earth who claim that - making these useless for determining the existance of any one god and indeed any god at all. They are also easy to explain as the human mind is more than capable of showing someone somthing they really want to see (hasn't anyone had a fantasy before? No-one thinks they're real).
• Many will claim that god told them about things before they happened - and on the surface it looks like good evidence - until you notice how many people are saying that god told them the end of the world was comming in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008 and any other year you care to name (including 2009 so I guess we'll see).
• People claim that their prayers have been answered but the sheer number of prayers and the probability of each one happening mean that it is too unlikely that none will be answered

 

[Kwayera]

Just so you know, the reason the chair doesn't fall apart on you is because God is the chair.