Why do people believe in god?

spidergoat said:
To say something exists in the spiritual world is the same as saying it's like a thought or an image in your mind. They aren't real. Nothing non-material exists.
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Love
Anger
radio waves aren't material
dark matter/energy
center of a black hole
wind
etc..

you saying these things don't exist?
 
spidergoat said:
To say something exists in the spiritual world is the same as saying it's like a thought or an image in your mind. They aren't real.
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No.

Its like saying that some things exist in an eternally established position and that they provide the framework for things that we commonly experience in a temporary established position.

Nothing non-material exists.
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Kind of a no-brainer for one who subscribes to a reductionist view .... particularly when its padded out with the post dated rain-cheque "anything we cannot reduce to material components is simply due to us not properly understanding it " (aka : the diametric opposite but equally malleable equivalent of "goddunnit")
:shrug:
 
NMSquirrel said:
Love
Anger
radio waves aren't material
dark matter/energy
center of a black hole
wind
etc..

you saying these things don't exist?
Click to expand...

Love doesn't exist by itself, it's an emotional/chemical state of a material human brain.
Radio waves and indeed all electromagnetic radiation is propagated by photons, a form of matter.
Dark energy has gravity, so it probably has mass, although it's exact nature is still unknown and theoretical.
A black hole is compressed matter (energy is also a form of matter).
Wind is made of moving air, which is matter.
 
spidergoat said:
Love doesn't exist by itself, it's an emotional/chemical state of a material human brain.
Radio waves and indeed all electromagnetic radiation is propagated by photons, a form of matter.
Dark energy has gravity, so it probably has mass, although it's exact nature is still unknown and theoretical.
A black hole is compressed matter (energy is also a form of matter).
Wind is made of moving air, which is matter.
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i think you are reaching..i am not expert enough to argue about the physics..
 
NMSquirrel said:
i think you are reaching..i am not expert enough to argue about the physics..
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Huh??? You started this line of reasoning:
Love
Anger
radio waves aren't material
dark matter/energy
center of a black hole
wind
etc...
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You seemed to think you were "expert enough" to post this incoherent little rave. So don't pout when someone with an actual education comes along and peer-reviews it.
 
spidergoat said:
To say something exists in the spiritual world is the same as saying it's like a thought or an image in your mind. They aren't real. Nothing non-material exists.
Click to expand...

Who's to say our mind isn't the real world, and we are living the false reality? There are to many assumptions involved to have an educated discussion on God. The only real argument I can think of is the common idea of a greater power through out the history of man, in civilizations with no contact to the outside world.

Its like we have 4 natural instincts.. 1. Find water 2. Find food 3. Reproduce 4. Get closer to God.
 
A greater power is not necessarily supernatural. A simple waterfall can overpower a human being, so even primitive people are humbled by nature. The fact is that primitive tribes who have never before had contact with the outside world have worldviews that differ remarkably from traditional religion. That's why missionaries want to find and brainwash them. It's a perfectly natural phenomenon to ascribe agency to things we don't know about, but that doesn't mean it's real. Belief is witchcraft is also popular, but we now know that's false.

How do I know that the mind isn't real? Because it has no objective reality. When we are all able to inhabit each other's minds through technology, that may change. Living in a virtual world might be as real to us as the real one. Although we may notice that violent events in the virtual world don't kill us, except perhaps by fright.

I have an alternative explanation for religion. Ancient people inhabited a culture in which certain mythologies were assumed to be true. At the same time, the brain is capable of radical changes through so-called spiritual practices like meditation. When something like the Buddhist enlightenment happens to a religious person, they assume their religious culture is the reason. They aren't enlightened, they are granted grace by God, or some other terminology. So a phenomenon that is perfectly natural reinforces belief in the supernatural. I left out the influence of hallucinogens, but it's even more the case with them, since they are accessible to everyone. A god person will see God when tripping, an atheist will see something else.
 
skaught said:
I think it is ignorant to assume that people who believe in god are ignorant. ;) ...
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Hmm; it is not possible to know and remember everything. Therefore each of us is ignrant.

I don't feel that I am in a place to say whether god does or does not exist. One thing I think that is worth understanding, is that believing in god is not about logic, reason, or knowledge. Its about Faith. Which is completely separate from logic, reason, and knowledge.

I am not a theist. But I'm also not an atheist. I lack faith in "God". But I feel that just because knowledge and logic can't prove gods existence, does not mean that he does not exist. Looking to knowledge to prove gods existence is contradictory. Its not an issue of knowledge. Its an issue of faith.

I think a better question would be "why do people have faith in god?" There are many things that I have faith in. Take gravity for example, thus far from my understanding, science has done little to explain gravity. We know a little about it, but not much. So while I have little knowledge about the workings of gravity, I have faith that if I jump off a ledge, I'm gonna fall.


I think that people believe in god for a number of reasons. One, it gives them hope. Hope that all will not be gone when life ends. Hope that their good deeds do not go unnoticed. Hope that their bad deeds will be forgiven. Some people think that it gives hope that ones enemies will receive their just punishments. But I have never known a religious person to feel this way, though I am sure that some do.
Two: It makes sense to some people. I think that some people have brains that are more equipped to be religious. From what I have read and understand, humans actually have a part of their brains that is responsible for belief in a higher power. Perhaps this part is undeveloped in some people, which results in atheism, or lack of faith. I would imagine someone who is this way would be more geared to science and logic. Like I said above, I lack faith in a higher power. But my mother is a very religious catholic. I have seen her and countless others get something out of going to church. They go in feeling down, and come out feeling much better. More power to them I say.
Three: Some people need religion to be good. I work in a treatment center for drug and alcohol addiction. I regularly attend A.A. and N.A. meetings for work. I have met some people who have such horrendous pasts. Its unspeakable! All of these people attest that the only thing that made them able to leave that kind of life and live a "good" crime free, drug free life, is to believe in a power high than them.

I don't think it is my place to say whether theists are wrong. I don't know very much at all. But one thing I do know is that I don't know shit! But I am almost more intolerant of atheists than I am of theists. An atheist that goes around trying to argue with theists and prove to them that there is no god is no different than a theist that goes around trying to convert others to their religion. And this new atheist movement crying for atheists rights and trying to convince society to change to suit them are equally as hypocritical as any theist I have ever met. But they do it in the name of "open mindedness", and "acceptance". All they are doing is turning non belief into belief. Atheism into a religion. Those people are no different in any way from a religious person.
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Thank you for food for thought. Perhaps I will comment on this later.
.
Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)
.
 
Knowledge91 said:
Who's to say our mind isn't the real world, and we are living the false reality? There are to many assumptions involved to have an educated discussion on God. The only real argument I can think of is the common idea of a greater power through out the history of man, in civilizations with no contact to the outside world. Its like we have 4 natural instincts.. 1. Find water 2. Find food 3. Reproduce 4. Get closer to God.
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We have plenty more than that! Here are just a few examples:
  • Run away from a large animal with both eyes in front of its face. (Virtually all animals have this one because the ones without it don't live long enough to reproduce.)
  • Don't step into a place where there's nothing under your feet. (Our ancestors were arboreal so this one is rather weak.)
  • Protect your pack-mates. (In the Paleolithic Era this was a small extended-family unit of people who had known each other intimately since birth. We've done a decent job of expanding that to include a lot more people.)
  • Protect your resources from other packs. (Even though we've had a food surplus since the Agricultural Revolution, we still regard other tribes as hostile competitors and this is the root of war.)
  • Help children grow up. (Even somebody else's children.)
 
Knowledge91 said:
... we have 4 natural instincts.. 1. Find water 2. Find food 3. Reproduce 4. Get closer to God.
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4 is highly questionable. Instead, because of it obvious survival benefits, we have an instinctive drive to explore and understand things.

Although the scientific method has provided an understanding of many mysteries of the past*, there still exist significant things we don't understand so, just as our distant ancestors did, we eventully give up trying and assign cause. Now days this for many tends to be "it is God's will" that the baby was born without feet, that I got cancer, that my son died in a car crash, etc. (The good God works in mysterious ways. Idea that God might be evil is too scary to consider.)

In an earlier era, there were in most societies many gods each with areas of responsibility, and needing some offerings to prevent mishaps:

The drought was because the god of rain was angry.
The flood was because the river god was angry.
etc.

Most of these specialized gods had names - at least two dozen names from the Greek and Roman cultures are still known, but don't forget the Nordic Gods. It is very rare (probably non-existent) for a primitive culture not to have a multitude of Gods usually even a hierarchy of gods with a "chief God" especially if their society had a "chief". (Man always creates his gods in his own image.)

I'm don't think the Jews were the first, but they claim the credit in the Western world for inventing monotheism, which the Christians sorted adopted in a confused way with a 3 in1 god.

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* Lightning is no longer thought to be caused by an angry (or drunk) Thor. etc.
 
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Sure.

Someone without a conviction in transcendence could not ask "Why bother?"
They would see no problem and be content with how things already are.
 
Yet are not large numbers of people content with how things are, by and large?
 
People did start burying each other in several cultures, I suppose, which is thought to be a stab at religious belief. Is that what you mean?
 
Um, in which case that would indicate they're not terribly interested in transcendence, neh?
 
Signal said:
It cannot be denied that humans have an instinct toward transcendence, in some form or other.
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You unsupported assertion is false: It can be denied and I do.
 
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