Why Believe in a god?

patrick jane said:

Strawman - You should obviously know that I'm talking about the overall aspects of the planet i.e., distance from the sun and moon, the moon itself, life abundant etc. I'm not talking about natural disasters. Do you think life should be a bowl of cherries?

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The moons distance is changing so quite obviously that isn't perfect (plus it was fine for life closer and will probably be fine for life further away). The distance from the sun can vary and still support life (and does vary, our orbit isn't circular) plus it's optimal distance varies with atmospheric conditions and solar activity.

Plus it's a flimsy argument because the moment we find a planet with similar conditions around another star it will all come crashing down. Given how many stars there are it's only a matter of time (and technology).

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Tyrathca said:

The moons distance is changing so quite obviously that isn't perfect (plus it was fine for life closer and will probably be fine for life further away). The distance from the sun can vary and still support life (and does vary, our orbit isn't circular) plus it's optimal distance varies with atmospheric conditions and solar activity.

Plus it's a flimsy argument because the moment we find a planet with similar conditions around another star it will all come crashing down. Given how many stars there are it's only a matter of time (and technology).

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According to your theories, everything has been perfect on earth for millions of years of evolution. That's laughable. I use the word "perfect" to describe how "life" of all kinds has been able to thrive and flourish for so long.

patrick jane said:

According to your theories, everything has been perfect on earth for millions of years of evolution. That's laughable. I use the word "perfect" to describe how "life" of all kinds has been able to thrive and flourish for so long.

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Uh no. Nothing in science says earth is perfect. There have been some significant "hiccups" in the survival of life on earth not to mention huge changes in the earth's conditions and surface chemistry. Many forms of life have also gone extinct with those changes so not ALL life has thrived, only that which survived thrived.

It is quite favourable to life as we know it now though. I say "as we know it" for a reason though as in some ways the favorable conditions are such because life had evolved to fit Earth not Earth fitting life (that's how evolution works after all). We do know that life can exist in conditions vastly different to what we typically see (they have the nickname extremophiles) most well known examples being life around geothermal vents.

A significant supply of liquid solvent is probably a necessity (whether that solvent must be water is unknown). Earth obviously has an abundance of that which is good for us. It's also probably the main determinant for suitability for life (atmospheric chemistry and amount of solar radiation/heat reaching the planet being its determinants). Earth's average temperature could be higher or lower than it is now and still have liquid water and support life though (and it has in the past). A moon or moons is probably helpful (due to tides adding minerals to the ocean etc) but might not be essential. Our moons orbit however has never been "perfect".

No one knows the actual way life first started so it's hard to comment on the conditions needed. Feel free to assume god/leprachauns/a magic man did it.

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Nonon said:

It seems sorta silly to me science is about proving facts but because God is supernatural that goes out the window and is automatically wrong

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It goes out the window because it refuses to be subjected to the same criteria every other piece of knowledge is subjected to. Namely the cornerstones of science - hypotheses confirmed with verifiable and falsifiable predictions.

Start showing me a series of those, tying them back to how you made the prediction and the prediction being about something you didn't already know before making it. Oh and the test must survive critique by experts in the field. If and only then will god be a potential consideration as science.

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Tyrathca said:

It goes out the window because it refuses to be subjected to the same criteria every other piece of knowledge is subjected to. Namely the cornerstones of science - hypotheses confirmed with verifiable and falsifiable predictions.

Start showing me a series of those, tying them back to how you made the prediction and the prediction being about something you didn't already know before making it. Oh and the test must survive critique by experts in the field. If and only then will god be a potential consideration as science.

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An organization that's been around since exactly when God was made flesh and dwelt among us, is over 200,000 locations today, around the whole inhabited earth. The Catholic Church.

Tyrathca said:

6days said:

An atheist would also say that everything might have come from nothing and that life came from non life. God's Word provides a more scientific and logical explanation... In the beginning, God created.

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If it is so scientific how come such a hypothesis has never contributed any meaningful falsifiable predictions or contributions to science? You've had about as much impact on science as homeopathy.

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You need to study a wee bit. You seem to have a very low view of science.
Modern science was actually founded by people who took God's Word literally and applied it to science. Even modern science today is sustained by the belief that we live in an orderly creation where discovery can be made.

Stephen Snobelen, Assistant Professor of History of Science and Technology, University of King’s College says “Here is a final paradox. Recent work on early modern science has demonstrated a direct (and positive) relationship between the resurgence of the Hebraic, literal exegesis of the Bible in the Protestant Reformation, and the rise of the empirical method in modern science. I’m not referring to wooden literalism, but the sophisticated literal-historical hermeneutics that Martin Luther and others (including Newton) championed" Article titled 'Isaac Newton and Apocalypse Now' 26 February 2004

Or from a famous evolutionary anthropologist Loren Eiseley "The philosophy of experimental science … began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation… It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption." From his book 'Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men who Discovered It'

Tyrathca said:

It goes out the window because it refuses to be subjected to the same criteria every other piece of knowledge is subjected to. Namely the cornerstones of science - hypotheses confirmed with verifiable and falsifiable predictions.

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You explain why evolutionism is not science. It can't be falsified. All data is made to fit the belief system. For example evolutionists claimed both poor and great designs are evidence to support their beliefs.

Nihilo said:

An organization that's been around since exactly when God was made flesh and dwelt among us, is over 200,000 locations today, around the whole inhabited earth. The Catholic Church.

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Ummm.... I have no idea how this is at all an answer to what you quoted. But kudos to the Catholic Church though it is somewhat debatable whether the Catholic Church as an organisation existed prior to the 2nd century AD, prior to that Christians were not very organised and had significant variations in beliefs and even considering it the Catholic Church at that point might still be a stretch.

Still it is an impressive achievement, though if this is supposed to be a contest I think the Japanese win. They have companies that have existed since the 8th Century A.D., clearly not as old as the church but these are just companies! Very impressive. Then there is the Japanese Dynasty which may have existed since 7th century BC, i.e. this is an organisation which probably ruled Japan or parts of it in various ways since well before the Christianity itself.

Was there a point to this though?

6days said:

You explain why evolutionism is not science. It can't be falsified. All data is made to fit the belief system.

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Sure it can, the problem is it can't be falsified by you because there is no evidence to falsify it. Some ideas within evolution do get falsified but the overall idea of change in populations over time with mutation and selection has been so thoroughly tested that it leaves no room for you little creation myths. If you want to disprove our idea of common ancestry and the timeline of evolution then the most commonly known way to disprove it is this - show there were rabbits in the Precambrian

You'd have about as much luck trying to disprove astrophysics though.

For example evolutionists claimed both poor and great designs are evidence to support their beliefs.

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6days this is why it is hard to take you seriously. You demand that science be dumbed down and simplified to such an extent and then try and use the fact that it can't be to show why it doesn't make sense. That said poor design IS a falsification of what should be predicted from an omnipotent and omniscient designer god.


However I thought this thread was about "Why believe in God?" not "Why you shouldn't believe in Evolution". Even if you somehow did disprove evolution that still isn't a reason for why to believe in God (your creation myths aren't automatically considered right if evolution is wrong)

Tyrathca said:

Ummm.... I have no idea how this is at all an answer to what you quoted. But kudos to the Catholic Church though it is somewhat debatable whether the Catholic Church as an organisation existed prior to the 2nd century AD, prior to that Christians were not very organised and had significant variations in beliefs and even considering it the Catholic Church at that point might still be a stretch.

Still it is an impressive achievement, though if this is supposed to be a contest I think the Japanese win. They have companies that have existed since the 8th Century A.D., clearly not as old as the church but these are just companies! Very impressive. Then there is the Japanese Dynasty which may have existed since 7th century BC, i.e. this is an organisation which probably ruled Japan or parts of it in various ways since well before the Christianity itself.

Was there a point to this though?

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Yes. Take on the one hand a belief in right and wrong, good and evil, righteousness and wickedness. Now recognize that this belief logically requires the belief in God---you cannot be an atheist, and believe in the metaphysical things we know as goodness and foulness, cleanliness and filth. There are no such things, unless you tie your moral philosophy to the concept of excrement; i.e., you compare things to poop and judge them good or bad based upon nothing more complicated than how close to or far from poop something is.

I'm not trying to pressure you or anybody here, just hear. If you find yourself logically pinned because you can't let go of the idea that raping and murdering infants is evil and wicked and wicked evil, then just consider that the majority report for the first one thousand years of the Christian faith was Catholic, and use that to mentally imagine and picture that the Catholic parishes you probably ride by all the time actually are there because Jesus Christ walked this earth, and I don't mean that they exist in His honor, though they do, but they exist because that was His plan all along, because He is God made flesh, and the Catholic Church is His.

6days said:

You need to study a wee bit. You seem to have a very low view of science.
Modern science was actually founded by people who took God's Word literally and applied it to science. Even modern science today is sustained by the belief that we live in an orderly creation where discovery can be made.

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History of science aside..... So what? Science isn't a religion so I fail to see why the beliefs of its early proponents should be treated like gospel.

They got some ideas right, some ideas wrong. So far it appears that we do live in an orderly universe (that or its disorderliness has by some weird fluke of probability matched our predictions of order) so for whatever reason they initially thought it they seemed to have turned out right on that one. Maybe I'll count that as the one and only testable prediction made based on the idea of your God I've heard of though you were kind of beaten to that prediction and finding by several millennia.

Nihilo said:

Yes. Take on the one hand a belief in right and wrong, good and evil, righteousness and wickedness. Now recognize that this belief logically requires the belief in God---you cannot be an atheist

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You keep saying these things but just because you say them doesn't make them true. Maybe you should first define the terms you are using first?

and believe in the metaphysical things we know as goodness and foulness, cleanliness and filth.

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Your assumption here is that these are metaphysical things to begin with let alone that you then assume that metaphysical require an omnipotent omniscient being.

There are no such things, unless you tie your moral philosophy to the concept of excrement; i.e., you compare things to poop and judge them good or bad based upon nothing more complicated than how close to or far from poop something is.

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There you go confusing linguistics and philosophy again. It's like the idea of metaphors, not all words are meant to be taken literally, or that words don't always reflect reality is an alien concept to you.

There is a term for this: "concrete thinking"

I'm not trying to pressure you or anybody here, just hear.

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Thats good because any attempts to "pressure" me in an internet forum would be nothing but amusing . The problem is your "just hear" is actually "hear my claims and just believe", this whole thread is all about "why" and despite numerous attempts by me to extract it you continue to not actually explain the "why" of what you say (you just endlessly repeat it as if the claim itself is self-evident or self-proving)

If you find yourself logically pinned because you can't let go of the idea that raping and murdering infants is evil and wicked and wicked evil

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I don't need a belief in a god to call those things evil though I suspect you and I have different meaning to the word (mine has no mysticism or inherent properties of the universe assumed)

then just consider that the majority report for the first one thousand years of the Christian faith was Catholic, and use that to mentally imagine and picture that the Catholic parishes you probably ride by all the time actually are there because Jesus Christ walked this earth, and I don't mean that they exist in His honor, though they do, but they exist because that was His plan all along, because He is God made flesh, and the Catholic Church is His.

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One could equally say the same about Islam and Mohamed or several other faiths. If its good enough for you its good enough for them.... and you can't all be right (but you can all be wrong).

Dear 6days,

Now you are learning what it's like to have a thread!! It takes a lot of doing and hard work, eh? That's because it's a success!! Not easy, eh? HA! I'm very glad for you!! I will not get involved, but I will watch from the sidelines and dig in when I can! God Be With You!!

Michael

6days said:

P.Z.Meyers is a leading promoter of the atheist belief system. He says that because you Christians are unable to answer basic questions; atheism is end result.

God's Word tells us to "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect
God's Word tells us." So..... lets see if Christians can answer P.Z.Meyers questions...

Question, and statement 1
Why should I believe in any god? We don't need an intelligent authority to explain the universe..

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The problem is that too many of you Christians have fallen into and for the sickness of authoritarianism. So that the only answer you can give to this question is that you have been told by the religious "authorities" to believe in God. And that you will be brutally punished if you disobey them. And this is not a sufficient answer for anyone who is not a member of the cult of religious authoritarianism, nor wants to become one.

There are good and reasonable answers to the question; "why should we believe in God". But few religionists these days, and almost none of those what frequent TOL, know what they are, or even care. And the answers they do give to this question are so absurdly authoritarian based that they only end up convincing the skeptics that are asking the question of the mindless absurdity of religion, and so turn them to atheism as a result.

Nihilo said:

An organization that's been around since exactly when God was made flesh and dwelt among us, is over 200,000 locations today, around the whole inhabited earth. The Catholic Church.

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Numbers are meaningless.
Millions of people thought the world was flat...they were wrong.
Millions including Catholics thought the earth was the center of the universe...they were wrong.

So what proof do we have that God exists?
I always thought belief in God was only a matter of faith.

Lilstu said:

So what proof do we have that God exists?
I always thought belief in God was only a matter of faith.

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If God is about faith, then the authoritarians have no authority to hold over everyone else. So they have to insist that faith is the pretense of knowledge that they don't actually possess. And this is unfortunate, because in truth God is all about faith. Not imagined religious authority or the pretense of knowledge that we don't possess. And that's the value in believing in God: the very real healing power of that faith.

But the authoritarians can't explain this to people who ask, because they can't acknowledge it to themselves. If they do, they risk having to let go of their imagined religious authority and their pretense of God-knowledge.

PureX said:

If God is about faith, then the authoritarians have no authority to hold over everyone else. So they have to insist that faith is the pretense of knowledge that they don't actually possess. And this is unfortunate, because in truth God is all about faith. Not imagined religious authority or the pretense of knowledge that we don't possess. And that's the value in believing in God: the very real healing power of that faith.

But the authoritarians can't explain this to people who ask, because they can't acknowledge it to themselves. If they do, they risk having to let go of their imagined religious authority and their pretense of God-knowledge.

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The Bible says God is love. But it has bothered me that so many unloving actions can be attributed to God.
If one doesn't believe one could end up in Hell. But if one has a Scientific mind and looks for evidence of God one can't find any. One has to rely on faith and that is not a scientific approach.

Lilstu said:

The Bible says God is love. But it has bothered me that so many unloving actions can be attributed to God.
If one doesn't believe one could end up in Hell. But if one has a Scientific mind and looks for evidence of God one can't find any. One has to rely on faith and that is not a scientific approach.

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The Bible says a lot of things about a lot of things. And God did not write any of it. So it's important to keep the things it does say in context, and not to treat what we read as if it had just come from God's mouth. Because it didn't.

The OT is mostly about obedience. The NT is mostly about faith. Since Jesus was a Jew, and Jews did/do not believe that anyone else needs to become a Jew to understand or follow God, and since Jesus never once said that we or anyone else should become Jews, I see no reason for modern Christians to pretend they are ancient Jews, and to treat the OT as if it were a literal incarnation of the mind of God.

So for me, that puts the OT in the position of being an interesting religious curiosity, but not especially relevant to me as a modern Christian. Leaving the NT to be the relevant text. And yet even that is only moderately relevant, as it was all written long after Jesus' death, by people who probably never interacted with Jesus directly. So that the text they left to us was essentially based on 50 to 150 year old here-say. Which we all know will become exaggerated and biased through the telling and retelling that occurred prior to it's having been written down. And in our case, the text has also been interpreted and reinterpreted from language to language by people with a very strong religious bias.

So we really have to take all this scripture with a lot of skepticism lest we make false idols of these religious texts.

It's all about faith. Because it certainly isn't about literal or religious authority. It's about trusting in the healing power of love, forgiveness, kindness and generosity that Jesus said would heal us and save us from ourselves. A truth and a promise that transcends religion and it's sad propensity to presume unto itself "divine authority".

Lilstu said:

Millions of people thought the world was flat

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No evidence of that. I think most ancient people realized the earth was round.
But...if its any consolation, the president of the flat earth society is a evolutionist.

Lilstu said:

Millions including Catholics thought the earth was the center of the universe...they were wrong.

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Goes to show you..... They should have trusted the Bible and not the consensus.