What would it take?

[KAWDUP]

I am kind of weird because I was raised catholic, and my parents are both catholic, but they are also Democrats and my Dad in particular is one of the more logical/analytical people I know.

I look at him and try to understand how such a smart, logical thinking person can believe in God, and it makes me wonder what he has experienced in his life which is so convincing that it makes him a believer.

We are a product of our past experiences, along with the ability to adjust based on our own current observations. So if many of our own experiences that shaped our world view espouse the existence of God, and you don't currently observe anything that contradicts those experiences, you are more likely to also believe in the existence of God.

I consider myself a man of science - and before all the scoffing starts, I mostly mean computer science. I consider myself pretty good at analyzing and logically reaching conclusions based on observations.

I think, and you can correct me am if I am wrong, that you want to know just as much why one would believe in God or not, as much as you want to know what would make one change their belief. It is sort of asking the same thing.

If the things that make me believe in God are proved to my satisfaction to be wrong, it would not be logical for me to continue to believe in God.

I will confess that the deeper one studies, and the more one reads how others come to believe, the more likely there will be questions that you just can't answer. That is how I view the search for truth. You would really like to find answers to strengthen your world view, but you may also find that you are just as likely to need to adapt your belief, because the answers you find are not what you expected.

I wouldn't go into all that unless I was going to provide my basic reasons for a belief in God.

1) We have free will. Without that free will, there would be almost no point in believing in God. Also believing in it can explain why God would let bad things happen to good people. A study of the philosophical differences between some very intelligent people that side with determinism rather than free will is a very enlightening experience.

2) The "I think therefore I am" beliefs of Descartes, which leads one to believe in a soul, and differences between body and soul. If I do have a soul, then answering some difficult question about why I have a soul definitely can lead to the existence of God, at least for me.

3) I do not really want to live in a world that does not have the existence of God. I mean what kind of desolate place would that be? I look at the world we do live in, and in all the wonderment of a child learning great things, I can see the existence of God being a pretty formidable reason for it.

4) I believe Jesus rose from the dead, which signifies to many believers God's power over life and death. If this one act did not really occur, it would go a long way towards making me question a lot more than I do. There is no proof either way, and I have read more about this subject than just about any other. My conclusion, so far, is that you still have to have faith, or why else believe in God at all? Which I assume is part of a non-believers mantra.

5) Lastly, I like believing in God. Everyone talks about this mythical being you are supposed to worship, sight unseen. Nowhere that I know of does God require that you worship him. There are millions of man-made rules that heap all kinds of unattractive, and usually self-serving control over you. Well that isn't God. That is man interpreting, incorrectly I might add, what God should mean to me, and what rules I should follow because of it. Society works due to some of these "laws", but I easily separate that from my world view of the existence of God.

So that is why I believe, pretty ardently I might add, that God does exist.

 

[Michchamp]

... I consider myself a man of science ...

Lol, what? hahhah *SCOFF*

I mostly mean computer science.
...

oh.

"mostly" ha.

 

[tbone413]

Like Q? From Star Trek?



I suspect worship is a human idea. Prayer is for the benefit of the prayer, not God. The effort involved in considering the mind of God is good for you and leads you to better ways of thinking. If you were to anthropomorphize humanism, I think you'd have the more valuable side of the majority of prayer.

Its been a long time since Ive had to google a word, but I just did it for that doozy haha.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Lol, what? hahhah *SCOFF*

oh.

"mostly" ha.

Computer science is heavily involved in brain function research. Lots of AI work is based on not trying to program a mind, but just simulate what we know about brains to see what behavior emerges.

 

[Michchamp]

yes, I am aware of that. just joking around about how he phrased that.

sounded like a setup to a Simpson's joke.

 

[KAWDUP]

Lol, what? hahhah *SCOFF*

oh.

"mostly" ha.

Leave it to you to latch on to that, rather than any of the substance. My opinion is that you use science as a club, rather than a tool to help you make logical conclusions about the universe in which you reside.

 

[Michchamp]

Leave it to you to latch on to that, rather than any of the substance. My opinion is that you use science as a club, rather than a tool to help you make logical conclusions about the universe in which you reside.

Using science to club the shit out of religion makes the universe a better place.

 

[grandy]

This is tough for me to answer since I really have no idea what could possibly convince me. Any personal "spiritual experience" I would most likely chalk up to delusion/hallucination before considering anything else, if not that then probably some highly advanced/alien technology...there's a lot I'd have to check off on my list before jumping to the god conclusion.

That said, I'm more interested in what type of god we're talking about. I think I'd be much more likely to believe in a creator, a god that started everything and left it as is, rather than some religious deity that regularly intervenes and communicates with humanity. Unfortunately, the god I'm most likely to believe in is probably the most difficult to prove exists. I'd also argue that the answer might not even matter...whether we know or don't know what created the universe, it doesn't change anything about our current place in the universe.

I will say that there's one (hypothetical) scenario that could make me question my non-belief...multiple isolated cultures coming up with the exact same religious beliefs/conclusions. I don't pay much attention to how many believers there are in this world because I think that high number is influenced by several factors, mainly that people grow up in cultures/traditions centered around a certain belief and they don't necessarily come to those conclusions on their own. If some experiment were to be done with various groups of humans (separated from birth) over several thousand years, completely isolated from each other, and all of them came up with the same religious conclusions, I would definitely take notice. I often question the motives behind religious leaders spreading their religion and converting other cultures, without that influence I'd be very interested to see how everything develops.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I will say that there's one (hypothetical) scenario that could make me question my non-belief...multiple isolated cultures coming up with the exact same religious beliefs/conclusions. I don't pay much attention to how many believers there are in this world because I think that high number is influenced by several factors, mainly that people grow up in cultures/traditions centered around a certain belief and they don't necessarily come to those conclusions on their own. If some experiment were to be done with various groups of humans (separated from birth) over several thousand years, completely isolated from each other, and all of them came up with the same religious conclusions, I would definitely take notice. I often question the motives behind religious leaders spreading their religion and converting other cultures, without that influence I'd be very interested to see how everything develops.

So what do we do if in the year 2057 we're visited by an alien race where some are atheist, some follow a variety of religions that resemble some of our religions to various degree, but a small group of aliens, mostly ignored by the masses, follow the teachings of an alien by the name of Elron H'bard, who wrote a book in the year 1950 by our calendar that translates closely to our Dianetics?

 

[grandy]

So what do we do if in the year 2057 we're visited by an alien race where some are atheist, some follow a variety of religions that resemble some of our religions to various degree, but a small group of aliens, mostly ignored by the masses, follow the teachings of an alien by the name of Elron H'bard, who wrote a book in the year 1950 by our calendar that translates closely to our Dianetics?

That depends entirely on how bad their Battlefield Golgafrincham is.

 

[everyoneneedsasmil]

@KAWDUP, thanks for the detail. I will admit as an atheist, it tends to be more interesting to me why people believe believe rather than not believe.

Reading your core beliefs, I was struck by a few thoughts. Please don't think I am trying to deconvert you, just some things to chew on.

1) Does belief in a thing prove its existence? This could apply to a god in general, but equally so to free will. I don't think there's any way to prove it exists more than prove it doesn't. Indeed, just because our brains behave in ways we can't perfectly predict doesn't presume it is unpredictable. A step further, we may be biologically inclined to believing in free will. There may be an evolutionary advantage to this belief that we don't fully understand.

Personally, I think we live in a world where we can't tell the difference, but must act as if it exists. Even if it doesn't, we would be equally inclined to preservation of the species - which could easily be cause for the formation of morals and laws.

2) Do you find an issue with the way brain damage affects our beliefs and behaviors? This is, admittedly, one of the issues that plagued me and caused me to give up on my previous faith. If a soul is truly separate from the body, why does physical damage so easily alter who we are. Drink too much alcohol, and you can permanently damage your ability to inhibit your actions. Is an eternal soul thus judged based on the actions of a damaged vessel? What about people born without the ability to empathize due to their mother's substance abuse, who become sociopaths or serial killers? Should they be doomed to eternal punishment when their brains never worked right, and due to no fault of their own? I haven't been able to reconcile these things with a soul myself. I'd actually be happy to hear another opinion.

4) You mentioned that there is no proof either way, and that you just need to have faith. What, in your opinion, is faith? Does it come with its own justification (thus no need for evidence), or is it a completely separate category?

3/5) Does not liking the alternative, and liking belief, actually make it true? I WANT to believe that the justice system works. In many cases, though, it doesn't - demonstrably. Now, this is perfectly fine justification for behaving in a certain way (i.e. following traffic laws even when no cops are around because you believe in the efficacy of the practice). But I wonder if it should justify belief. As a computer science enthusiast, I would consider programming. I'm not the best programmer in the world, so when I need a clean, efficient module for a program I am developing, I'll probably search around online to see if someone else has already built something similar that is better than what I can design. I really (really really in some cases) want their to be a clean, efficient way to write the code, but I wouldn't go out believing such a thing exists right off the bat. There's certainly the chance that I'm already writing the code in the best way possible, and a firm belief that there is definitely something better is more likely to make me alter and diminish what I have.

 

[Gulo Blue]

2) Do you find an issue with the way brain damage affects our beliefs and behaviors? This is, admittedly, one of the issues that plagued me and caused me to give up on my previous faith. If a soul is truly separate from the body, why does physical damage so easily alter who we are. Drink too much alcohol, and you can permanently damage your ability to inhibit your actions. Is an eternal soul thus judged based on the actions of a damaged vessel? What about people born without the ability to empathize due to their mother's substance abuse, who become sociopaths or serial killers? Should they be doomed to eternal punishment when their brains never worked right, and due to no fault of their own? I haven't been able to reconcile these things with a soul myself. I'd actually be happy to hear another opinion.

I think this is a compelling idea.

And I am also swayed by the line from the Talmud: Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

To me, if there is one example for which a religious principle clearly cannot apply, it becomes a grey area for everyone.

You can apply that thought to question religious ideas about gender in light of the existence of hermaphrodites.

 

[byco42]

I have heard an angelic choir when praying (actually passed out) before the Blessed Sacrament. And there are on record at least five Eucharistic miracles where Host- transubstantiation occurred and reverted to flesh and blood. Two were compared and had identical DNA (and the same as the Shroud of Turin). Only Jesus claimed He was the Son of God. No other has done so. That He existed in time is not negotiable. There is a lot of empirical evidence and chronicles of that. So it is left to us to either accept or reject the Truth. In the process we question it and challenge it seek it. We, in our intransigence, can and do neglect what should be plainly obvious.

 

[Michchamp]

I have heard an angelic choir when praying (actually passed out) before the Blessed Sacrament. And there are on record at least five Eucharistic miracles where Host- transubstantiation occurred and reverted to flesh and blood. Two were compared and had identical DNA (and the same as the Shroud of Turin). Only Jesus claimed He was the Son of God. No other has done so. That He existed in time is not negotiable. There is a lot of empirical evidence and chronicles of that. So it is left to us to either accept or reject the Truth. In the process we question it and challenge it seek it. We, in our intransigence, can and do neglect what should be plainly obvious.

sounds like you have low blood sugar. better get that checked out

 

[byco42]

sounds like you have low blood sugar. better get that checked out

No, I was injured the night I fainted before the Blessed Sacrament. Torn gluteus muscle. Don't worry, you will come back to the Catholic Church with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind. Just not yet.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Kind of a related question: when the shit hits the fan, and you are in some way powerless in a possible emergency, do you ask God for help?

For a religious person, I'm very skeptical of the idea that God treats prayers like a genie treats wishes. I just don't think it works that way. Bad things happen to good people, counter to the prayers of faithful people all the time. I may be wrong about how it works, but I don't think it works like that.

And yet, when the shit hits the fan, I pray. More than just a conditioned reaction. I choose to do it.

 

[Mitchrapp]

It would take evidence - either through sight or sound in combination with a miracle that can not be duplicated by man or nature. It would also need to be witnessed by multiple people so I knew it wasn't a hallucination.

If science can somehow prove that a god exists, I would then require the same evidence to determine who or what that god is and if I should worship it. The bible, Quran, and every other religious text I've studied have way too many inconsistencies and inaccuracies for me to jump to the conclusion that they are the one true god(s).

Already happened. Lol.

For me to become an atheist God would need to tell me himself.

 

[Mitchrapp]

@KAWDUP, thanks for the detail. I will admit as an atheist, it tends to be more interesting to me why people believe believe rather than not believe.

Reading your core beliefs, I was struck by a few thoughts. Please don't think I am trying to deconvert you, just some things to chew on.

1) Does belief in a thing prove its existence? This could apply to a god in general, but equally so to free will. I don't think there's any way to prove it exists more than prove it doesn't. Indeed, just because our brains behave in ways we can't perfectly predict doesn't presume it is unpredictable. A step further, we may be biologically inclined to believing in free will. There may be an evolutionary advantage to this belief that we don't fully understand.

Personally, I think we live in a world where we can't tell the difference, but must act as if it exists. Even if it doesn't, we would be equally inclined to preservation of the species - which could easily be cause for the formation of morals and laws.

2) Do you find an issue with the way brain damage affects our beliefs and behaviors? This is, admittedly, one of the issues that plagued me and caused me to give up on my previous faith. If a soul is truly separate from the body, why does physical damage so easily alter who we are. Drink too much alcohol, and you can permanently damage your ability to inhibit your actions. Is an eternal soul thus judged based on the actions of a damaged vessel? What about people born without the ability to empathize due to their mother's substance abuse, who become sociopaths or serial killers? Should they be doomed to eternal punishment when their brains never worked right, and due to no fault of their own? I haven't been able to reconcile these things with a soul myself. I'd actually be happy to hear another opinion.

4) You mentioned that there is no proof either way, and that you just need to have faith. What, in your opinion, is faith? Does it come with its own justification (thus no need for evidence), or is it a completely separate category?

3/5) Does not liking the alternative, and liking belief, actually make it true? I WANT to believe that the justice system works. In many cases, though, it doesn't - demonstrably. Now, this is perfectly fine justification for behaving in a certain way (i.e. following traffic laws even when no cops are around because you believe in the efficacy of the practice). But I wonder if it should justify belief. As a computer science enthusiast, I would consider programming. I'm not the best programmer in the world, so when I need a clean, efficient module for a program I am developing, I'll probably search around online to see if someone else has already built something similar that is better than what I can design. I really (really really in some cases) want their to be a clean, efficient way to write the code, but I wouldn't go out believing such a thing exists right off the bat. There's certainly the chance that I'm already writing the code in the best way possible, and a firm belief that there is definitely something better is more likely to make me alter and diminish what I have.

Faith.

 

[byco42]

Kind of a related question: when the shit hits the fan, and you are in some way powerless in a possible emergency, do you ask God for help?

Of course, and I accept the outcome.

For a religious person, I'm very skeptical of the idea that God treats prayers like a genie treats wishes. I just don't think it works that way. Bad things happen to good people, counter to the prayers of faithful people all the time. I may be wrong about how it works, but I don't think it works like that.

He hears all our prayers and answers them in a way that is best for us and in his own time. We cannot ascribe our expectations on Him, but Jesus is clear about petitioning His Father (MT 7: 7-11)

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish?

If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.

And yet, when the shit hits the fan, I pray. More than just a conditioned reaction. I choose to do it.

Maybe it's time to pray constantly?

 

[Gulo Blue]

Maybe it's time to pray constantly?

Regular prayers are different. I don't ask for stuff like that.