Validity of Religions

R

root

Registered Senior Member
Another way to test if we should be religious or not:
We start by assuming there is a God and this God:
1. Is master of all.
2. Is interested in mankind and have certain expectation of us.
(This would be essentially what most religions are based on)
If the above is not true then we have nothing to fear if we are not religious but if it is true then:

Hopefully this God has provided some clues for each of us so we can determine what it is that he expects of us. If not then I am doomed in any case and there is nothing I can do about it. So let us assume He did leave some clues for us then:

If there was only one religion in the world then it may have been good enough to assume that it was the correct one and to just accept all that it says without question. Since there are, however, thousands of religions and variations of religions then surely it is not good enough to assume that the one that I happen to be educated in has to be the correct one and that I should accept it without any questions asked. Most people belongs to a certain religion only because they were born into it, it has more to do with culture than with genuine conviction. (In my opinion most religious people are either totally indoctrinated or they are religious only for social benefit).

With all the religions and variations of it, it is totally impossible for one person to do a thorough study of all of them and choose the best. The best we can do is to judge the different religions according to what we learn of them in everyday life which, from my experience, does not make any one of them providing me with a clue that this may be the will of God.

So I have to come to one of the following conclusions:
Either there is no God
or
God is not interested in what I do
or
What God wants me to do is not to be found in the religions of the world but is hidden somewhere else (like my conscience for example).
 
or God is not omnipotent
or God allows us to have free will
or there is a second God/devil/whatever that keeps God's infinite power in check (a sort of mutually assured destruction thing)
or God is infinitely powerful but has an infinitely large universe to supervise, so he can only out a bit of effort into each planet
c'mon, use your imagination a bit, i barely scratched the surface of possibilities
 
'du hasst mich' is the correct spelling of your title. (edit: i think, anyway. it's been a long time)

and also: how can an infinitely powerful being be limited in the amount of effort he can put into anything?
 
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alain said:
or God is not omnipotent
or God allows us to have free will
or there is a second God/devil/whatever that keeps God's infinite power in check (a sort of mutually assured destruction thing)
or God is infinitely powerful but has an infinitely large universe to supervise, so he can only out a bit of effort into each planet
c'mon, use your imagination a bit, i barely scratched the surface of possibilities
Click to expand...

Hopefully God allows us to have a free will otherwise there would be no point in raising the issue, as for all the other OR's, there is nothing I, as a person, can do about that so why consider it?
 
2. Is interested in mankind and have certain expectation of us.
Click to expand...

If he as expectations of us which we don't live up to then it's all his fault, not ours. He'd then need to release a software patch to update his universe so that we live up to his expectations.
 
KennyJC said:
If he as expectations of us which we don't live up to then it's all his fault, not ours. He'd then need to release a software patch to update his universe so that we live up to his expectations.
Click to expand...

A software patch as you describe would negate free will though surely. I could make a robot that performed all the commands that I instructed it to do however it would never be a 'real boy' :)

peace

c20
 
God put rules inplace not just to show us what to do but to show us weak we are so we would not get to proud...like Lucifer did and now is Satan. So these expectations we are put there for us to live up to are to show us the true reality of humans and there nature.
 
"and also: how can an infinitely powerful being be limited in the amount of effort he can put into anything?"
if he has to spread his power amongst an infinite amount of worlds, then his power on each world will be infinity/infinity, which will equal one by conventional mathematics. Whilst i dont know the true answer to infinity/infinity, i can simply suggest it as a possibility

"'du hasst mich' is the correct spelling of your title"
hasst translates to hates
hast translates to have
but thanks anyway

"Hopefully God allows us to have a free will otherwise there would be no point in raising the issue, as for all the other OR's, there is nothing I, as a person, can do about that so why consider it?" if you didnt want to consider the nature of God, why did you start the thread?
 
All.For.One said:
God put rules inplace not just to show us what to do but to show us weak we are so we would not get to proud...like Lucifer did and now is Satan. So these expectations we are put there for us to live up to are to show us the true reality of humans and there nature.
Click to expand...

How do I test these rules to see if they are truly from God? I am not prepared to wait until I am dead before I get any proof.
 
A software patch as you describe would negate free will though surely. I could make a robot that performed all the commands that I instructed it to do however it would never be a 'real boy'
Click to expand...

I doubt we really do have free will, we could simply be following a natural predermined path which was going to happen anyway from the moment of the big bang. When I program a character in a computer game, it does not have free will. It only does what I allow it to do. Therefor despite the fact we are currently more "real" and more complicated than robots... I doubt we have free will and that free will was high up on Gods universe check list.

So by your theory, what if one day we develope robots to have more intellectual capacity than ourselves? They will have worked out that humans (their God) did not give them free will.
 
Maybe the universe is the battle ground for Gods.

If this is true, then the safest bet is the good God or Gods.

By practicing goodness, as we humans think of it, one probably align oneself with the cause of the good God or Gods.

Maybe life is real serious, with your life at stake.
 
KennyJC said:
I doubt we really do have free will, we could simply be following a natural predermined path which was going to happen anyway from the moment of the big bang. When I program a character in a computer game, it does not have free will. It only does what I allow it to do. Therefor despite the fact we are currently more "real" and more complicated than robots... I doubt we have free will and that free will was high up on Gods universe check list.

So by your theory, what if one day we develope robots to have more intellectual capacity than ourselves? They will have worked out that humans (their God) did not give them free will.
Click to expand...

I love the whole AI thing :)

An AI would need to understand the concept of 'reward', it would need to be able to determine the value of a 'reward' and work towards that 'reward' only when the value of the reward out-weighed all other potential 'rewards' within its current scope. For the purpose of simplicity we may call it a 'sorting' exercise. In this scenario there is no real choice - the final decision is value based.

Now how could you program the same robot to consider giving up its reward so that another robot could benefit from the first robots reward if there was no guarentee that the gesture would be reciprocated? The robot must make value judgements. Sure you could program the robot to sometimes give up its reward and sometimes not but based upon what logic? It would have to be random.

Human's make moral judgements as well as value-based ones even to the point of their own demise in favour of another human. This would be completely illogical to a robot working on value judgements alone.

In summary I think the notion of sacrifice will always distinguish humans from AI. Sacrifice is strong evidence of free will in my opinion.

peace

c20
 
The moment I will agree that humans have so called 'free will', will be if we reach the stage of limitless knowledge and therefor understand God (if there is one), then fully understand what free will is.

But what if we learned that all this time we were following a pre-determined path? Time for us is a matter of life and death, but for God itself, time is probably not relevant, therefor God knows where we are already heading. Having free will would for me constitute veering off that path and surprising God. I don't think we ever will be capable of surprising God (if God exists).
 
I don't think we ever will be capable of surprising God (if God exists).

He could pretend to be suprised :)
 
Streamline said:
Maybe the universe is the battle ground for Gods.

If this is true, then the safest bet is the good God or Gods.

By practicing goodness, as we humans think of it, one probably align oneself with the cause of the good God or Gods.

Maybe life is real serious, with your life at stake.
Click to expand...

Maybe but maybe not, how could you know? If God wants us to use our free will to please Him then surely we must be able to verify what He wants.
 
God put down the law for us to follow it as a guideline for life. He put it there not to limit what we are allowed to do on earth but to look out for us. He surely wouldn't want us going against his laws to please him because he loves us and us doing things that hurt oursleves makes him sad. But using our free will to do good he rejoices at!! Everytime ANYONE does any good deed God and everyone in heaven rejoices.
 
All.For.One said:
God put down the law for us to follow it as a guideline for life. He put it there not to limit what we are allowed to do on earth but to look out for us. He surely wouldn't want us going against his laws to please him because he loves us and us doing things that hurt oursleves makes him sad. But using our free will to do good he rejoices at!! Everytime ANYONE does any good deed God and everyone in heaven rejoices.
Click to expand...

...And all the kings men lived happily ever after.
 
Actually my Ex wife was master of all, that's why we aren't together any longer, I thought I was! :D
 
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