Is there evidence your god beliefs are true while other god beliefs are false?

[articulett]

Yes, but that places your "truth" on par with an opinion. I think everyone's belief system is "true for them"-- and I admire that you've discarded the dogma. But to an atheist, it all sounds like people proffering opinions that have no bearing on reality. It's like "chocolate is the best flavor, because I like it best".

I understand this can be used to make people feel good and alleviate fears... but the bottom line message is that people would rather believe something is true that is not true than to find out that they have been wrong. For some beliefs, this is clearly dangerous. They don't want to find out they might be wrong any more than you do. They believe because of a combination of indoctrination, ego flattery, and fear along with a whopping dose of confirmation bias. I certainly prefer your brand to many others, but I also thinks it shows why atheists have a hard time finding any objective truths in any of it.

To us, there is no reason to believe your personal truth over any other personal truths and that is the only kind of evidence there is regarding supposed divine truths. Yet, it's atheists that are considered the arrogant ones.

 

[edge]

You ignore the evidence that all the great apes exhibit moral behavior, which is closely related to our own. Do you suppose they have god beliefs too?

Why wouldn’t they, are they not also part of the creation that interact with us.

Then you say,
What then do you have? Nothing.
Where do these god beliefs come from?

They come directly from the father.

So what is this? You have a secret source of information the rest of us don't?

Open your heart so you can receive it.

To us, there is no reason to believe your personal truth over any other personal truths and that is the only kind of evidence there is regarding supposed divine truths. Yet, it's atheists that are considered the arrogant ones.

Why would you be so concerned unless you’re searching?

By following good morals you already are participating in gods plan for us.
You just don't know it yet.

 

[articulett]

Uggh.... they all sound like Tom Cruise to me. So sure of themselves... but nothing to base their confident delusions upon.

 

[Mobyseven]

Quoted for Beth:

Grazi.

 

[Mobyseven]

Uggh.... they all sound like Tom Cruise to me. So sure of themselves... but nothing to base their confident delusions upon.

Hey, lets not be harsh here! After all - if you were in a car crash, who would you want helping you? Some 'trained paramedic' or the bonafide Jesus of Scientology himself, Mr Tom Cruise?

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Beth, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear your comments on post #874 (my reply to you).

 

[articulett]

Hey, lets not be harsh here! After all - if you were in a car crash, who would you want helping you? Some 'trained paramedic' or the bonafide Jesus of Scientology himself, Mr Tom Cruise?

That reminds me of an atheist bumpersticker that was made in response to a Catholic bumpersticker that said, "we're Catholic, in case of an accident call a priest."

It said: "We're materialists, in case of an accident, call an ambulance."

People who pray or whatever for other people always seem to imagine themselves doing great good, without really having to do anything. Mormons baptize themselves by proxy for the dead... which makes them feel super duper, but they could actually be aiding the real life of living people instead of dunking themselves in water and imagine they are allowing dead people to live happily ever after in the highest Mormon heaven.

Religion is such a mind virus to me. It makes people feel like they are good people doing great things by avoiding swearing and doing bland rituals that do nothing to make anyone's life better.

 

[Beth]

Beth, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear your comments on post #874 (my reply to you).

I'll try to respond later. I'd like to give it a bit of thought and have other things to accomplish right now. Sorry for the delay and thank you for your patience.

 

[thesyntaxera]

Yes, but that places your "truth" on par with an opinion. I think everyone's belief system is "true for them"-- and I admire that you've discarded the dogma. But to an atheist, it all sounds like people proffering opinions that have no bearing on reality. It's like "chocolate is the best flavor, because I like it best".

Quite the observation. How could it be anything but an opinion? And why does it matter if it has any bearing on reality? Wouldn't you agree that what does matter is how person choses to live their life? If you have a 'believer' who leads an unobtrusive existence contributing to the good of society what difference does it make if they possess spiritual leanings?

I understand this can be used to make people feel good and alleviate fears... but the bottom line message is that people would rather believe something is true that is not true than to find out that they have been wrong. For some beliefs, this is clearly dangerous. They don't want to find out they might be wrong any more than you do. They believe because of a combination of indoctrination, ego flattery, and fear along with a whopping dose of confirmation bias. I certainly prefer your brand to many others, but I also thinks it shows why atheists have a hard time finding any objective truths in any of it.

I would love to find out I am wrong...at least I would know..right? As soon as you devise a way to logically prove an atheist position to the contrary, I am all ears.

The reason athiests have a hard time finding objective truth in 'belief' is because there is nothing objective about it. It's entirely personal. Even if you have a person who adheres to a dogma, they still interpret it individually, and those interpretations will vary. It is easy to classify believers into one big deluded group, especially if you are working on acquiring a superiority complex.

To us, there is no reason to believe your personal truth over any other personal truths and that is the only kind of evidence there is regarding supposed divine truths. Yet, it's atheists that are considered the arrogant ones.

...and atheists need to realize that there is no requirement stating that they should believe them. People are entitled to their opinions. Because they are entitled to their opinions the argument over who holds the truth will wage forth. Atheists are considered arrogant, I think, because they typically stand on some metaphorical ivory tower proclaiming to have the absolute empirical truth, when anyone who knows anything knows...that you don't. You have an approximation of facts about reality gained through investigation, some are as solid as stone, and others are tenuous at best. Unfortunately it's the tenuous ones that appear to be the most important regarding this topic. Do you know where all this came from? Does anyone? Will anyone? Being bereft of some sense of the 'spiritual'(for lack of a better term) works fine for some, and for others it's seems to be a denial of the senses. Humans didn't just create religion and then convince people of it. It came from some where inside them, not like a mind virus as you suggest, but as an intuition based on their experience, whatever it was. Maybe all science is, is that curiosity evolved into something useful ?

I still haven't heard a good reason why people shouldn't entertain notions of some higher intelligence as it is entirely, logically, possible. Despite the fact that there might never be any evidence of it what so ever that we could ascertain.

 

[articulett]

I don't think a higher intelligence is "entirely logical possible" because that presumes facts not in evidence--namely that something can be conscious-- think, feel, and be intelligent without a brain... there is no evidence that this is so. To believe that it is without evidence... and then to presume that you've tapped into it and that it's guiding you or chosen to reveal divine truths to you is just arrogant to me.

And it mostly doesn't matter... until people think that faith does something good... and in that case, they can be swayed into proving their faith... and all faiths are equally based on this nebulous notion that there are divine truth that some people have tapped into... and that other people are clearly deluded about. If any of the divine truths are actually objectively true, then a great many people are clearly and deeply convinced about stuff that is wrong... and possibly wrong in a harmful way.

And humans DID create religion and convince people of it... it did come from something inside them... associating correlation with causation and looking for reasons why-- it's the basis of our intelligence... humans who were better at it... better at pattern recognition and finding connections... preferentially survived. We are also a story telling species... we learn through stories and emotions and that was the best way to make lessons stick in a time before the majority was literate. We understand a lot about how religions evolve... because there are new ones springing up all the time... we don't have any evidence that any of them are based on anything "metaphysical" or "divine" or supernatural or that there even is some "higher power"... in fact, increasing evidence shows that this is very probably as much an illusion as a flat earth.

So if you can generate these feelings in the brain via drugs or magnetic impulses or seizures... and you can change them by damaging the brain... change thinking, memory, perception, and belief-- then how can there even be consciousness outside a brain-- a soul or god or demon or angel or fairy or any of it? Sure it feels good... kids evolved imaginary friends too. Lonely people are more prone to believing in the supernatural and inventing "ghostly" friends. We evolved to be social animals who trust authority figures...

What more evidence could there be that "divine truths" are illusions? I know there isn't enough for one who wants to believe... and I don't really care if they are light beliefs like yours... but the Scientologists and Muslims and cultists are equally convinced that they have divine truths and equally comforted by them and are equally unlikely to examine them and equally unlikely to ever find evidence that their beliefs are based on nothing.

So long as we don't defer to beliefs or treat them with any more respect than opinions--then I think it's fine. But believers do more than that. They want their beliefs respected differently... and in exchange they agree to not question other beliefs that are dangerous and inflicted upon trusting children for "higher reasons" of some nebulous belief system.

It is a mind virus... religion is like language... it comes from culture... you have a brain that evolved to incorporate the culture it is in and learn the language of it's members... but there is no evidence whatsoever that it is based on anything objectively true... any real disembodied entity with a divine plan. And it promotes sloppy thinking to pretend that it's good to believe in this. It's encouraging people to make up their own imaginary friend and ascribe magical powers to it from my perspective. And it's done to promote very primal feelings of fear and feeling chosen or special.

 

[articulett]

The sloppy reasoning of belief goes like this: there must be a reason for "X"-- therefore god is real... or something to that affect. It's begging the question and answering with an inference.

We know the reasons religions get passed on and how they evolve-- but even if we didn't that would not mean that some holy book did nor would it mean that an invisible deity was the answer! That is a great foible in human thinking... this association of correlation with causation and faulty inference compounded by confirmation bias. Science and skepticism are the best tools we have for remedying these fallacies... but it's hard to teach them when people have come to believe that faith is a method for finding actual truths.

 

[articulett]

Atheists don't claim to have divine truths... but name one truth where some guru figured it out before scientists... name one verifiable fact that came from faith. We believe all the empirical stuff that you do... we just don't add in supernatural knowledge... and yes, I think it is arrogant to do so... to imagine one has divine truths... that they've obtained via subjective means or whatever it is they tell themselves. I think it's super arrogant that such people imagine themselves more humble than those who don't claim to have any divine truths at all.

 

[Mobyseven]

Thesyntaxera: Atheism is lack of belief in god, not denial of the possibility of god.

 

[articulett]

Yes, an omnipotent entity could do just about anything and knows exactly what evidence would be required to make a believer out of a skeptic. We had a whole thread on this before... what would make us believe. The problem with those who have faith is that no amount of evidence is enough to sway them from their faith because they believe that faith can lead to truth or salvation or something else super duper. The evidence is just a "test" of that faith per the meme that their faith as indoctrinated them with. That's as true for cults as it is for mainstream beliefs.

There is no evidence that faith and feelings can lead to objective truths--truths that are the same for everybody... and yet faithers think they've got just that... even though they all believe different truths that are nebulous and conflict with each other and that are generally useless and unverifiable and on par with junk food for the brain as far as I can tell-- and maybe worse. Some faiths are harmful, but no one thinks their faith is... some faiths are delusions, but everyone thinks their faith is the higher truth... nobody seems to think they are deluded like those other guys or that their faith can be harmful like those cults or ridiculous woos... but they are all delusions to me...

there is no evidence that any of them are more than that and so much evidence that everyone thinks their own beliefs are.

 

[cyborg]

I still haven't heard a good reason why people shouldn't entertain notions of some higher intelligence as it is entirely, logically, possible. Despite the fact that there might never be any evidence of it what so ever that we could ascertain.

The first is answered by the second.

The obvious counter-point is:

"I still haven't heard a good reason why people shouldn't entertain notions of some X as it is entirely, logically, possible. Despite the fact that there might never be any evidence of X what so ever that we could ascertain."

Anything is logically constructable is logically possible.

Logic can't tell you which universe you live in only the consqeunces that must unfold when you start defining one.

So why should I entertain the notion of a "higher intelligence" (whatever that is when it is at home) as being "there" if there's nothing to show it's "there"?

 

[Beth]

You're right that I'm thinking of adults. Newborns don't eat meat and are not sexually active either. As far as 'programming' goes, my point is that I think god beliefs are due to 'programming' in much the same way eating meat or having sex is. Yes, the exact beliefs are primarily culturally driven just as exactly how meat is prepared to be eaten and what sexual practices are engaged in, but the underlying 'need' that is being satisfied is not - it's an innate human desire even if not all humans have those desires or act upon them.

I think you are putting the cart before the horse here. Only because many have god-beliefs does not mean there is a biological need for them. You seem to be saying that the basic underlying need for god-beliefs is innate, whereas the particular manifestation is culturally derived.

That’s a fair restatement. I also agree that just because many have god-beliefs does not imply they are innate; it only implies that it’s a reasonable hypothesis. I think there is some evidence supporting that hypothesis, but I am more than willing to concede that it is a hypothesis, not a proven fact.

I think it’s here where you go wrong (that distinction is not necessary valid). I would say that there is a propensity to make sense of the world and one’s place in it, together with group-belonging (that’s how we survive; through anthropomorphism and social recognition), thus god-beliefs can and has been used for some aspects of that. That “filling” could be something else, it just happens to be god-beliefs for a great deal of people due to the fact that those beliefs are transmitted through generations when the receivers are young and cannot decide for themselves. Alternatively, there’s a strong religious culture that does the job. New research seems to indicate that culture is more important that family upbringing; that would also explain why people often abandon (or pull away from) their parent’s religiosity in a culture that’s more atheistic (like in Scandinavia, or the “Bible belt” vs. some other parts of the US, or when people go to universities etc.).

My only disagreement with what you’ve written here is the claim that ‘it just happens to be god-beliefs’. Maybe that is true, but that is no more an established fact that the hypothesis that god beliefs are innate.

Thus it’s easy to draw an erroneous conclusion that these rudimentary god-beliefs are innate when in fact they might not be – there’s the propensity to make sense of the world and survive; how that is manifested is often culturally decided, even though almost every time a natural explanation comes along, it seems to override the religious cultural code (with a reorganization of the religious-cultural code as a consequence). That already seems to be a good indicator that ´”innate need for god-beliefs” is an erroneous assumption when it’s more likely to be that this belief (the innate need for god-beliefs, in and of itself) is part of a the cultural indoctrination.

I don’t think it’s necessarily an erroneous conclusion. I think it’s a reasonable hypothesis. I agree that it is not the only reasonable hypothesis, but it’s not one that I think can be conclusively discarded at this point.

I don't understand the connection between god-belief and morality either. It is my observation that they are highly correlated. I don't see any reason to assume that is just co-incidence. Instead, I surmise there is some connection between the two. Perhaps I am wrong and there is not, but I haven't found the argument that they are not connected to be convincing.

When you say that many have god-beliefs, and at the same time recognize people are moral animals, then it’s simply a truism to say that they are correlated. Moreover, you also say that most of the atheists you know are moral animals too, then, what’s left is that everyone seems to be a moral animal – some less and some more, but since you explicitly say that atheists are not less moral (# 879), then what are you actually trying to say? Morality seems to be the independent variable here (and god-beliefs the dependent one).

I’m saying that morality and god-beliefs seem to me to be connected – i.e. given knowledge about someone’s god-beliefs, it’s possible to make a fairly good prediction of what their moral values are. This does not imply that god-beliefs are the cause of moral values – correlation does not imply causality – but it does imply they are connected. What I’m saying is that we cannot dismiss the possibility that god-beliefs are a causal factor in determining moral values. Even atheists have some consistency in their moral values - for example, my observation is that atheists tend to value truth very highly and to define truth as that which is objectively verifiable.

 

[thesyntaxera]

Thesyntaxera: Atheism is lack of belief in god, not denial of the possibility of god.

Thats your interpretation, and I am fine with it. However by definition:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist

1.a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

2. One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

3. Someone who denies the existence of god.

Conversely:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnostic

One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.

So which is it? I think part of the problem is that the terminology is a bit wishy washy. Some of the atheist defnitions sound agnostic and vice versa. Generally though, I would say that when the average person hears those two terms they think of concrete definitions: One who denies god exists, and one who doesn't.

 

[thesyntaxera]

I don't think a higher intelligence is "entirely logical possible" because that presumes facts not in evidence--namely that something can be conscious-- think, feel, and be intelligent without a brain... there is no evidence that this is so.

I would just point out that atheim assume facts not in evidence as well. As far as I know we haven't cracked the puzzle of the mind enough to assume we know where consciousness comes from. We know that it's related to the mind, but the actual mechanism is unkown, for now.

To believe that it is without evidence... and then to presume that you've tapped into it and that it's guiding you or chosen to reveal divine truths to you is just arrogant to me.

Or delusional.

If any of the divine truths are actually objectively true, then a great many people are clearly and deeply convinced about stuff that is wrong... and possibly wrong in a harmful way.

I guess that would depend on what one considers to be a divine truth. I consider things that have been revealed by scientific inquiry to be factual to be akin to divine truth.

And humans DID create religion and convince people of it... it did come from something inside them... associating correlation with causation and looking for reasons why-- it's the basis of our intelligence... humans who were better at it... better at pattern recognition and finding connections... preferentially survived.

This just sounds like speculation. Your trivializing a real human experience to make your point, and I am afraid it doesn't hold water. The origins of spiritual idea's are unknown for the most. What is known is that peak experiences are a real phenomenon that produces congruent results in many different people at many different times in history. The idea that it can be reduced to pattern finding is ridiculous in my view...but that just my view.

So if you can generate these feelings in the brain via drugs or magnetic impulses or seizures... and you can change them by damaging the brain... change thinking, memory, perception, and belief-- then how can there even be consciousness outside a brain-- a soul or god or demon or angel or fairy or any of it?

Once you actually have a completely factual answer to what consciousness is you will have the answer that question. The best two theories that I have read (Orch-Or and the Electromagnetic theory of consciousness) involve noncorpeal elements of reality to be true...in that case consciousness could concievably be anywhere conditions are good for that.

So long as we don't defer to beliefs or treat them with any more respect than opinions--then I think it's fine. But believers do more than that. They want their beliefs respected differently... and in exchange they agree to not question other beliefs that are dangerous and inflicted upon trusting children for "higher reasons" of some nebulous belief system

It is a mind virus... religion is like language... it comes from culture... you have a brain that evolved to incorporate the culture it is in and learn the language of it's members... but there is no evidence whatsoever that it is based on anything objectively true... any real disembodied entity with a divine plan. And it promotes sloppy thinking to pretend that it's good to believe in this. It's encouraging people to make up their own imaginary friend and ascribe magical powers to it from my perspective. And it's done to promote very primal feelings of fear and feeling chosen or special.

Parts of this are demonstrably true, and parts of this sounds like an opinion of a person with an atheism bias.

anyway...

 

[Irony]

Thats your interpretation, and I am fine with it. However by definition:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist



Conversely:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnostic



So which is it? I think part of the problem is that the terminology is a bit wishy washy. Some of the atheist defnitions sound agnostic and vice versa. Generally though, I would say that when the average person hears those two terms they think of concrete definitions: One who denies god exists, and one who doesn't.

To put it simply the dictionary is using a biased definition. Atheist means exactly that, a-theist. No explicit denial is necessary. In terms of how the words are used by those who identify with them:

Atheist - A person who does not possess a belief in one or more deities.

Agnostic - A person who does not believe it is possible to know for certain whether deities exist.

The two words are obviously not incompatible as they don't even cover the same question.

 

[cyborg]

The idea that it can be reduced to pattern finding is ridiculous in my view...but that just my view.

Ridiculous why?

Ridiculous because it's not feasible or ridiculous because it denies any special explanation?