The irrelevance of God

[arfa brane]

God otoh, whatever flavor he may be asserted to come in, is precisely the being who's existence is always in question and therefore requiring unreasoned willpower-driven faith to keep believing in.

Why do you suppose God must be a being whose existence is always in question? You don't question your own existence, do you? Or do you? Do you require unreasoned willpower-driven faith to believe that you do, in fact, exist?

THAT's why we talk about God like this. He is quite simply nowhere to be found, not even in the world of the most intelligent of theists, who nowadays must resort to some remote ethereal domain beyond spacetime before the Big Bang as the true abode of his missing God.

Ah, you mean you believe that the subject of God must be about something that can't be found, or understood?
Despite your perception that theists "must resort to some remote ethereal domain", and perhaps that all they have left now is "before the Big Bang", they remain unable, as do you, to formulate a sufficiently rational explanation as to their existence, or for that matter the existence of any other form of life.

Do you think it's possible that humans need to have this notion of an ethereal, incomprehensible "being", whether they "believe" it exists or not, because the truth is actually that the universe doesn't give a damn?

 

[Magical Realist]

Why do you suppose God must be a being whose existence is always in question? You don't question your own existence, do you? Or do you? Do you require unreasoned willpower-driven faith to believe that you do, in fact, exist?

I already said why God is the being whose existence is always in question. Because he is nowhere to be found. There is otoh abundant physical proof of my own existence. Like those zebras I mentioned. So no, I don't doubt my existence at all. What a strange inference to make..

Ah, you mean you believe that the subject of God must be about something that can't be found, or understood?

No..God is simply an unevidenced being. Just like other storybook figures, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, etc. He is not some great mystery any more than these figures are. Everybody understands what kind of being a God is supposed to be, just like with these figures. And there is absolutely zero evidence for his existence, just like with these figures.

Do you think it's possible that humans need to have this notion of an ethereal, incomprehensible "being", whether they "believe" it exists or not, because the truth is actually that the universe doesn't give a damn?

You mean the infantile need to feel special and fawned over by a magical humanoid being because the alternative, of being alone and irrelevant in a vast universe, is just not bearable to them? I'm sure that is true for most theists. Just like learning there was no Santa Claus was what I thought would be an unbearable moment for myself. It wasn't. I grew up and learned how to be stronger because of it. I don't think that's too much to expect from grown adults trying to successfully adapt to and fit into a modern scientifically-understood world. It's what I expect for myself. Why wouldn't I expect it for others as well?

 

[arfa brane]

I already said why God is the being whose existence is always in question. Because he is nowhere to be found.

But suppose I say that isn't true (becauase I feel like saying it), and that in fact you already know who and where this being is. What do you think that statement, if true, implies?

You mean the infantile need to feel special and fawned over by a magical humanoid being because the alternative, of being alone and irrelevant in a vast universe, is just not bearable to them? I'm sure that is true for most theists.

How do you handle this alternative? How do you cope with being "alone and irrelevant in a vast universe"? I guarantee that very last thing you would consider is living away from contact with other humans.

Just like learning there was no Santa Claus was what I thought would be an unbearable moment for myself. It wasn't. I grew up and learned how to be stronger because of it. I don't think that's too much to expect from grown adults trying to successfully adapt to and fit into a modern scientifically-understood world. It's what I expect for myself. Why wouldn't I expect it for others as well?

You think all humans should just "grow up" and leave these "infantile" ideas behind?

But here you are, not leaving it behind.
Instead, you seem to be trying to convince me, and perhaps yourself, that you've done just that. You've left it all behind, no need to dwell on it . . .

 

[Magical Realist]

But suppose I say that isn't true (becauase I feel like saying it), and that in fact you already know who and where this being is. What do you think that statement, if true, implies?

Then I'd ask you what in your own personal experience shows you God exists. In fact I have been asking that of you for most this thread. But you have nothing to offer. For whatever reason, you are arguing for a pov you simply cannot and/or will not personally support and so wasting my time. So the conversation ends.

But here you are, not leaving it behind.
Instead, you seem to be trying to convince me, and perhaps yourself, that you've done just that. You've left it all behind, no need to dwell on it .

I said I expect the same for others that I expect for myself. That means helping them out of the same delusions that wasted 20 years of my life on earth. It's what I'd expect from someone else if I had a delusion. I'm simply doin what I'd expect others to do for me.

How do you handle this alternative? How do you cope with being "alone and irrelevant in a vast universe"? I guarantee that very last thing you would consider is living away from contact with other humans.

I feel quite at peace and relieved I'm not the constant object of a God's attention. I take great comfort in the fact that I'm an insignificant speck in the universe. Nothing I need to change. No need to become anything. Just be and watch the whole beautiful thing unfold.

 

[arfa brane]

Then I'd ask you what in your own personal experience shows you God exists. In fact I have been asking that of you for most this thread. But you have nothing to offer. For whatever reason, you are arguing for a pov you simply cannot and/or will not personally support and so wasting my time. So the conversation ends.

But you've already decided that any experience I might have, or have had, is of something that would require unquestioning faith. I can't have or have had any such experience because it could not be anything that answers any questions, since its existence is "always in question".

I said I expect the same for others that I expect for myself. That means helping them out of the same delusions that wasted 20 years of my life on earth. It's what I'd expect from someone else if I had a delusion. I'm simply doin what I'd expect others to do for me.

But you expect that anyone who claims they know something about God to be someone who is deluded.
That isn't what I would call open-minded. So you're quite happy with denying the existence of something which can't be known, even though you can't know, by implication, that you have "the answer"?

 

[Balerion]

I ask arfa again, since he clumsily dodged the question the last time it was posed:

If I said I found Bigfoot to be a myth, would you tell me to reserve judgment on the existence of the Yeti?

 

[cole grey]

Apologies, I thought you were referring to a true empiricist, rather than the one you are defining here.
Empiricism is a matter of knowledge, and it is quite possible to operate in the absence of knowledge on a matter, and in the absence of belief (beyond an assessment of probability which, for an empiricist, would be based on experience).

I am describing what I see in the words of various proponents of materialism, empiricism, and those who claim a dependence on provable evidence for their philosophies. As stated earlier, a true empiricist could exist somewhere, or a person who understands the limits of their ability to depend on empirical evidence. I have plenty of respect for either of those mind sets. The problem I have is with people that, for example, would say that their partner loves them because they kiss and hug them and they don't yell at each other, accepting this as hard evidence enabling a life decision such as marriage, while insisting that people's religious experiences are all useless as evidence. Why not believe the person kisses and hugs them in order to get something from them instead? They choose a belief based on their reading of some behavior as explained by cultural reference. So when someone rolls on the floor in religious ecstasy (supposedly religious at least), some people accept a cultural reference from their religious group, and call it evidence of god's spirit. This is the exact same process being used in both cases, in order to hold a belief in an inscrutable idea, whether it be the existence of god, or the existence of true love in another person's heart.
I have a hard time understanding why one person gets to draw the line and say, "this evidence is solid, yet this evidence is junk", other than for their OWN ideologies. I understand the difference between scientific evidence and non-scientific evidence, but must insist that people are not actually able, for the most part at the very least, to rely on scientific evidence for philosophy of any kind.
Even basic morality is dependent on cultural references, at least for all people that do not insist upon "god's morality", and even those people may in actuality be in truth depending on the cultural reference anyway.

 

[arfa brane]

If I said I found Bigfoot to be a myth, would you tell me to reserve judgment on the existence of the Yeti?

No, I'd tell you it's up to you to reserve judgement.
I also know about a lot of examples of myths. People like myths for various reasons, I know that too.

 

[Gringo]

Gotta' wonder about someone who says: love me, fear me and continually tell me how wonderful I am. Otherwise I will make you suffer horribly....
People like Hitchins, Dawkens and Sam Harris are being read and listened to in growing numbers...

 

[Sarkus]

The problem I have is with people that, for example, would say that their partner loves them because they kiss and hug them and they don't yell at each other, accepting this as hard evidence enabling a life decision such as marriage, while insisting that people's religious experiences are all useless as evidence. Why not believe the person kisses and hugs them in order to get something from them instead? They choose a belief based on their reading of some behavior as explained by cultural reference. So when someone rolls on the floor in religious ecstasy (supposedly religious at least), some people accept a cultural reference from their religious group, and call it evidence of god's spirit. This is the exact same process being used in both cases, in order to hold a belief in an inscrutable idea, whether it be the existence of god, or the existence of true love in another person's heart.

I would suggest that there is a category difference between God and love in this regard, but depends upon how one defines each.
You need to ask the empiricist what they mean by love when they make such a claim as "my partner loves me", as they might view it merely in terms of the practical, observable actions, and an assessment of probability as to what their partner would do in a given circumstance.
That their partner loves them they would base on the countless examples of such behaviour (beyond mere holding hands, not shouting etc) as well as, undoubtedly, the chemical reactions in their body that indicate attraction (the increased heartrate etc).

Depending on how one defines god, I would argue that love is of a different category to God, where all you have for reference is what you have been told.
The empiricist would not deny the experience (the evidence suggests there was) but merely the interpretation of it.

I have a hard time understanding why one person gets to draw the line and say, "this evidence is solid, yet this evidence is junk", other than for their OWN ideologies. I understand the difference between scientific evidence and non-scientific evidence, but must insist that people are not actually able, for the most part at the very least, to rely on scientific evidence for philosophy of any kind.

On the whole they don't, which is why most who hold such philosophies would also be agnostic on the matter of god's existence : they are not saying that because there is no evidence it does not exist, but that because there is no evidence they do not hold it exist, but neither do they say that it does not exist.

Even basic morality is dependent on cultural references, at least for all people that do not insist upon "god's morality", and even those people may in actuality be in truth depending on the cultural reference anyway.

Depends again on how you view morality. If purely subjective (albeit a shared subjectivity within the culture) then there is no "truth" in actuality, only a truth in relation to your culture (from which the morals arise).

 

[wynn]

I have a hard time understanding why one person gets to draw the line and say, "this evidence is solid, yet this evidence is junk", other than for their OWN ideologies. I understand the difference between scientific evidence and non-scientific evidence, but must insist that people are not actually able, for the most part at the very least, to rely on scientific evidence for philosophy of any kind.

I used to have a problem with understanding that too.
Now, not so much anymore.


Very few philosophical positions (and this is an understatement) enjoy the kind of evidential support that classical foundationalism demands of belief in God; yet most of these are treated as rational. No philosophical position—belief in other minds, belief in the external world, the correspondence theory of truth or Quine’s indeterminacy of translation thesis—is properly based on beliefs that are self-evident, evident to the senses, or incorrigible. Indeed, we may question whether there is a single philosophical position that has been so amply justified (or could be). Why is belief in God held to a higher evidential standard than other philosophical beliefs? Some suggest that this demand is simply arbitrary at best or intellectually imperialist at worst.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/relig-ep/


The culture of critical thinking and Western philosophy at large has one major flaw: it is very naive.

Most human interactions involve an element of the struggle for one-upmanship; in the course of this, people often say things they don't mean, or say things whose implications they don't fully understand.
It is indeed odd that in an age where the Theory of Evolution is so widely accepted and popularized, people nevertheless often pretend like "natural selection," "struggle for survival" etc. are awkward abstract terms that may apply for animals, and perhaps primitive human tribes somewhere in some forest, but surely not in the civilized workplace and home.
Yet official philosophy acts as if people are to be taken at their word.

Of course, this pretense could simply be evidence that they know how the game is played and that they play it well.

Use words such as "objective, " "evidence, " "science, " logical" and many people's minds freeze as they feel all they can do is approve of someone using those words.
For many practical purposes, those words are the modern equivalent of old magic words and spells.

 

[Magical Realist]

But you've already decided that any experience I might have, or have had, is of something that would require unquestioning faith. I can't have or have had any such experience because it could not be anything that answers any questions, since its existence is "always in question".

Yet you speak of theism as if it is a legitimate pov that deserves to be respected and explored. I'm curious as to why you are defending it? Usually people only defend beliefs they subscribe to. If you don't subscribe to it, why are you defending it then? I'm trying to understand what stake you have in this issue. But you continue to hide and reduce this issue to a game of trivial what if's. Why does this issue matter so much to YOU if, as you say, what you believe is irrelevant to it?

But you expect that anyone who claims they know something about God to be someone who is deluded.
That isn't what I would call open-minded. So you're quite happy with denying the existence of something which can't be known, even though you can't know, by implication, that you have "the answer"?

I expect people to not want to be deluded. Just like I didn't want to be when I left theism. That's why I confront theism as the culturally-ingrained set of lies it is. And who's the one claiming we can't know if God exists or not? Not me. I have no problem denying said existence when all the world behaves exactly as if it wasn't real.

 

[wynn]

I have no problem denying said existence when all the world behaves exactly as if it wasn't real.

It does??

 

[wegs]

Gotta' wonder about someone who says: love me, fear me and continually tell me how wonderful I am. Otherwise I will make you suffer horribly....
People like Hitchins, Dawkens and Sam Harris are being read and listened to in growing numbers...

That depiction of "a god" is more often than not, a Christian construct. Not all religions teach that a god/gods are to be feared, and if we don't comply with said Deity, we will burn in an eternal hell-fire. Abandoning Christianity has opened my eyes to the fact that my own view of a god was "created" by a religion that (to me) seems nothing more than a man-made construct designed to control societies, past and present.

So, it could be that your view as well, might be shaped by religion instead of examining on your own, who or what a god may be. I'm agnostic now, after years of practicing Christianity, and I find that I'm more open to the possibilities that may exist. But, I'm not willing to say if a god/gods exist or not, for I just don't have answers to such questions.

Your post caught my eye; just my two cents.

 

[Magical Realist]

So, it could be that your view as well, might be shaped by religion instead of examining on your own, who or what a god may be.

The whole concept of a God comes from religion. They invented it. He is a character in a storybook. So trying to find your own personal version of who God may be would be about equivalent to trying to find your own personal view of who Humpty Dumpty might be. A waste of time imo..

 

[wegs]

The whole concept of a God comes from religion. They invented it. He is a character in a storybook. So trying to find your own personal version of who God may be would be about equivalent to trying to find your own personal view of who Humpty Dumpty might be. A waste of time imo..

But, to those who follow some type of spiritual belief, whether they are part of 'organized religion' or not...the belief is real to them, and relevant. Their beliefs may be irrelevant to us, but we can’t tell someone else what to deem relevant.

That’s all I’m saying. Unless others’ beliefs trickle into mainstream society, and those beliefs start to influence how we govern society, then to me, it is an individual ‘’right’’ to hold a spiritual belief.

I say this to you Magical, because it can become a mental nuisance to concern ourselves with what others deem relevant, and that thinking has a way of disrupting our internal peace.

To your point about God coming from religion. If you research ancient civilizations, long before organized religion came on the scene, people had an inherent (?) curiosity to exploring the meaning of life, and if a creator could be responsible for all that we touch, feel, and see. It’s not that abnormal to question if a god or group of gods exists. But, for you…for me…we don’t see the relevance, but it’s just not our 'place' to tell someone else that their beliefs are irrelevant.

 

[Magical Realist]

I say this to you Magical, because it can become a mental nuisance to concern ourselves with what others deem relevant, and that thinking has a way of disrupting our internal peace.

I WOULDN'T concern myself if religionists didn't already concern themselves to condemn me to hell for being atheist, gay, liberal, and whatever else doesn't fit their profile of God's child. This way of thinking influences which laws get passed, which constitutional rights get trampled on, and even which hate crimes get committed. Why SHOULDN'T I criticize religion then. It is a worldview that is not only delusional imo but has very real damaging effects on society and on individual lives. Why SHOULDN'T I stand up for the right of everyone to be freed of this tyrranical and emotionally-manipulative set of lies? I've got nothing else to do..

To your point about God coming from religion. If you research ancient civilizations, long before organized religion came on the scene, people had an inherent (?) curiosity to exploring the meaning of life, and if a creator could be responsible for all that we touch, feel, and see. It’s not that abnormal to question if a god or group of gods exists. But, for you…for me…we don’t see the relevance, but it’s just not our 'place' to tell someone else that their beliefs are irrelevant.

But just what really IS the relevance of the belief in God in our modern scientifically-understood world? You go to a Starbuck's and meet some people. You're all talking about political issues, work, maybe pop music, and this one guy brings up his relationship with God. Suddenly watch the whole group go silent with pursed lips. In our everyday society, not only is speaking of God seen as irrelevant, but it is even felt to be abit grandiose and self-indulgent. That taboo status of the God topic is no accident imo. I'm just saying he has no place in the real world. Maybe privately, behind the closed walls of your church or mosque or synagogue. But not in the public secular domain we all rub elbows in. If he's relevant, he's relevant only in the sense that your own kid's artwork is relevant to you. As a courtesy people will smile and nod as you rave on about your God, but it's not really something they wanna listen to.

 

[(Q)]

But you expect that anyone who claims they know something about God to be someone who is deluded.
That isn't what I would call open-minded. So you're quite happy with denying the existence of something which can't be known, even though you can't know, by implication, that you have "the answer"?

Yes, they would be deluded, and no, it has not to do with having an open mind, other than the fact the person making the claim about knowing something about God has a closed mind in regards to humans.

They are not special, they do not have magical powers that allow them to know something about God that the rest of us do not possess.

They are merely attention whores who really, really, really want to believe they have magical powers, hence they are deluded.

 

[Magical Realist]

It does??

Earthquakes, floods, tornados, birth defects, terrorist acts, school/mall shootings... There's not a thing godly about how the world behaves. Insurance policies don't give discounts to people who pray. Chance and happenstance dominate the human condition. And we all know it.

 

[Mazulu]

The whole concept of a God comes from religion.

I don't agree. It's more like a call out to those can see.

They invented it. He is a character in a storybook. So trying to find your own personal version of who God may be would be about equivalent to trying to find your own personal view of who Humpty Dumpty might be. A waste of time imo..

If you can't see, then to you it's a waste of time. Looking for Higgs particles is a waste of time to 90% of humanity.