Why do you believe in God

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twoshots
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19 Jan 2009, 11:17 am

Arcanyn wrote:

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God is universal, in that every culture has their own ideas about what divinity is.

No, cultures have had all sorts of beliefs, many of them involving gods, but few of them involving the Christian god Yahweh. For instance, the ancient Greeks had an idea about gods, namely, that Yahweh didn't exist, and that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hermes et al did. Yahweh had no place in the Greek religion.

I would be interested to see how you derive the conclusion that the Greeks disbelieved in Yahweh. Ancient polytheists not infrequently viewed other gods as compatible with their own; as I recall, Herodotus once went to quite some effort to identify Egyptian gods with Greek ones. Clearly, they would need to disbelieve in Abrahamic teachings, but this does not imply necessarily a disbelief in their god.

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twoshots
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19 Jan 2009, 11:29 am

DentArthurDent wrote:

Ok so what forms/ideals/ degrees/ of morality could humanity not have worked out without hte assistance of God

Well, I think we're mixing up two arguments here. One is that people need god (still) in order for moral behavior. This seems almost certainly false. The other is that god provides the only sound basis for morality, i.e. that in the absence of god their is no cogent reason to hold moral propositions to be true from the standards of reasoning. This is a normative epistemological claim, i.e. that god provides the only good reason for people to believe in moral propositions.

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As Malsane asked I think Owell you need to define morality.

I would argue that this is an absurd task.See the naturalistic fallacy.

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ruveyn
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19 Jan 2009, 12:43 pm

ouinon wrote:

I believe in god because the belief has an unmistakeably positive effect on my life.
.

Which god? Zeus? Athena? Yaweh? Apollo? etc. etc.

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19 Jan 2009, 12:51 pm

ruveyn wrote:

ouinon wrote:

I believe in god because the belief has an unmistakeably positive effect on my life.
.

Which god? Zeus? Athena? Yaweh? Apollo? etc. etc.

Does it matter?

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DentArthurDent
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19 Jan 2009, 4:19 pm

twoshots wrote:

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As Malsane asked I think Owell you need to define morality.

I would argue that this is an absurd task.See the naturalistic fallacy.

Ok, so lets have some examples morality that we simply could not have come to without devine inspiration. I find it absurd to suggest that without God we are a-moral

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twoshots
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19 Jan 2009, 8:26 pm

DentArthurDent wrote:

twoshots wrote:

Quote:

As Malsane asked I think Owell you need to define morality.

I would argue that this is an absurd task.See the naturalistic fallacy.

Ok, so lets have some examples morality that we simply could not have come to without devine inspiration. I find it absurd to suggest that without God we are a-moral

Well, as I stated above, I don't think it's necessarily true that, given the idea that there are objective moral statements, there must be some that cannot be known without a deity. Instead, what I'm suggesting is that this is more of a situation of people believing the right thing for bad reasons.

I mean, if I argue that the only good moral theory is divine command theory, I need not accept that people therefore cannot act morally without believing that their morals are being dictated by a deity. I mean, people are quite capable of believing things true and false for very stupid reasons, as we are all quite familiar with.

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starvingartist
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19 Jan 2009, 8:50 pm

...because no matter what we come to learn about life, our planet, and the physical universe around us, none of it explains why those things--life, our planet, the universe--are beautiful. it is b/c of beauty that i believe in god.

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19 Jan 2009, 9:10 pm

aspi-rant wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Enough Aspie supremacism. I got bored of it quite a while ago, and in case you hadn't noticed, there are a number of Aspie posters here who are religious.

Enough Religious supremacism. I got bored of it quite a while ago... 40+ years to be more precise. you were probably not even born at that time.

for my entire life i have heard about religious disputes, wars and what ever. no matter which religion involved.

i'm sick and tired of hearing about religion and this so called "god" stuff. it has never done anything good to humanity for several thousand years!

so... why should i accept that religious people disrespect my choice of being an non-believer? i can't avoid hearing their views because its all over where ever i go, look and listen ... and as soon as i (or other non-believers) express a view on this topic, believers crave respect for the people who believe in this religious nonsens.

religious aspies are by far a minority in the aspie world.... simply because for most aspies religion makes no sense - is not rational and lacks proof and logic.

in the nordic regions where i live the vikings once had a nice cosy religion. unfortunately it got silenced and oppressed by the christians. they took the viking holidays and made them theirs... to assure that the viking would convert.

so happy Yule to all of you believers too! lets drink and eat for 12 days... and celebrate the resurection of the sun! :lol:

then i guess the fact that st. patrick almost single-handedly saved western civilisation by travelling all over europe and building monasteries is meaningless, since religion never did anything good for anyone? don't get me wrong, i would not call myself a religious person--my family never belonged to any church growing up, and i myself have never subscribed to any organised religion. i believe in god on my own terms, and create my own morality based on my life experience, and what i know about human nature and emotions, and what i personally believe it means to be a good person. there are always nuts that ruin the club for everyone else....and besides, religion is not the only reason people have been killing each other for thousands of years. what about politics? to steal resources? racism? etc etc etc

starvingartist
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19 Jan 2009, 10:19 pm

and while we're on the subject of defining morality.....couldn't you say that morality is really just a representation of a person's/culture's ultimate goals, where choices and actions that are deemed 'right' are those that take the person/culture closer to their goal (usually utopian society or heaven), and those that are 'wrong' are choices that take us away from said goal (towards dystopian chaos or hell)? my morals are designed to guide my choices so that, hopefully, when i die i will be closer to my ideal of what it means to be a good person than where i am now. is that a sufficient definition of morality? why does that need to have anything to do with god? i didn't grow up believing in god, but i managed to create my own system of values and morality. i don't think the two concepts are dependent on each other at all.

DentArthurDent
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20 Jan 2009, 3:17 am

Until this post of mine evolved into a discussion regarding the advent of morality I had never heard the suggestion that without God their would be none of it. I have now read a little on the subject and am fairly confident that if tomorrow God, laws and the police were removed from the planet violent anarchy would ensue; then over a period of time the laws and police would be replaced. Morality and ethics are needed for the survival of a species. Lets say that morality equals good neighbourly behaviour, time and again this is shown in nature, merkats are a great example where the whole tribe protects the gene pool. The same thing happens within our own species, to suggest that we need God to understand the benefits of morality is plain stupid. I do not believe in God, but I can assure you that even with my Aspergers driven lack of empathy if all laws were repealed I would not go on a spree of theft, rape and murder. To me it is simply preposterous that anyone could think the opposite.

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20 Jan 2009, 5:43 am

what do you mean by the word "God?" it's not clear to me what god is supposed to be or even mean.

why do some of you folk use a capital "G" when you spell god?

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mikebw
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20 Jan 2009, 10:52 am

Dokken wrote:

why do some of you folk use a capital "G" when you spell god?

Because they mean the supposed one and only god, who's true name no one now knows because of the silly belief that names magically have power over their designee so it's never been written down and it's now lost, or you could say this is another form of religious takeover, claiming that the word "god" ultimately refers to the one god, God. What's really ridiculous are the people who keep the "o" out and put a "-" in because they believe that in writing it, someone could print it up and treat it badly, and that by leaving the "o" in this would somehow hurt him or upset him or disrespect him or some such silliness, and they don't want to be part and parcel to His(Another way of referencing him, by capitalizing all words referencing Him) wrath or vengeance for someone taking His name in vain, as though God were his real name.

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slowmutant
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20 Jan 2009, 11:13 am

Dokken wrote:

what do you mean by the word "God?" it's not clear to me what god is supposed to be or even mean.

why do some of you folk use a capital "G" when you spell god?

God isn't a name exactly, but it is a title of sorts. And God is a person, so it's a proper noun. The characters who live atop Mt. Olympus are gods; the Creator of the universe is God.

Last edited by slowmutant on 20 Jan 2009, 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

twoshots
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20 Jan 2009, 11:22 am

God does have at least one name, commonly Yahweh, but it has for I think thousands of years been considered unspeakable (although I think I heard it used on occasion when I was in CCD).

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20 Jan 2009, 2:12 pm

Dokken wrote:

what do you mean by the word "God?" it's not clear to me what god is supposed to be or even mean.

why do some of you folk use a capital "G" when you spell god?

As mikebw said it's because being the only god, that is, the capital "G" means the belief that there are no gods, but only one: monotheism, using lowercase "g" would mean he is one god among others, and as slowmutant said, to be the title, and as there isn't anyone else that has that same title, it suits been called like that.

mikebw wrote:

What's really ridiculous are the people who keep the "o" out and put a "-" in because they believe that in writing it, someone could print it up and treat it badly, and that by leaving the "o" in this would somehow hurt him or upset him or disrespect him or some such silliness.

My question is, do you have a good basis for that statement, especially related to Judaism? From what I gather, ancient jewish writing, lacked vocals, and they only used consonants in written text, so I believe that may play a role into their writing "G-d" instead of "God", out of tradition I would assume.

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20 Jan 2009, 3:33 pm

DentArthurDent wrote:

even chimps may act altruistically, to the extent of risking and sacrificing their own lives for the sake of the troupe. any species that lives communally must have this internal instinct to act for the good of the whole, otherwise living communally, for any species, would not be possible. there are many other examples, like the meerkats dentarthurdent mentioned.

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