This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
Do you believe in God?
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
asakawa
I have always maintained that science and religion are not mutually exclusive.
I find your position very interesting. I guess that it is probably shared by a lot of modern religious people.
Do you subscribe to the idea of "Non-overlapping magisteria" (that the two ethoses cover entirely separate areas of our existence and therefore don't contradict) or do you believe that they do cover some of the same questions but don't contradict because, for example, a god set everything we observe with science in motion in the first place?
Post by
Skreeran
As someone who doesn't believe, I just can't understand how religious faith in biblical cosmology can stand up under the scrutiny of the scientific method.
Also:
Obligatory self-deprecation.
Post by
588688
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
b4xx
I don't believe in any specific god, but I have a feeling that there is a higher power of some sort.
Post by
asakawa
I saw this recently on reddit's
r/deism
:
Why would any religion--a purely human construct--be the true one? Religion is three things: an attempt to explain the unknown through imaginative thinking, a means of enforcing specific behaviors, and a means of anthropomorphizing our own existence. God becomes this great big man with magical powers lording over us like a king, because that is an image of authority we can identify with and use to compel others to act a certain way. God becomes little better than a boogeyman designed to making people conform or risk the ultimate punishment. Even nontheist religions like Buddhism have a measure of this, calling on people to act a certain way or you can't achieve oneness or enlightenment.
So, no. No religion can define God because he exists outside our ability to comprehend. Omnipotence isn't Zeus zapping you into a mutant because you won't take off your shoes in the temple. Omnipotence exists beyond our primitive notions of morality and reality, understanding concepts that humans aren't even able to imagine. God is unknown because we can't know what it means to be all-knowing.
And because we can never comprehend God, we can't pretend to make up a faith that explains him/her/it. He doesn't intervene in our existence because what's the point? He knows everything! What good will it do to step in and help Billy win the Superbowl? How does it benefit him? How do you expect an omnipotent being to get some kind of petty moral high from making crippled people walk, or striking down a rapist? Because that's really what we're asking for. We're not asking for salvation or striving for "good" when we pray to god to strike down the evils of the world and make Tiny Tim walk again. We're asking him to do our jobs for us, fix our problems, and then when we think he did it for us, we walk away with the ultimate smug vindication. Omnipotence is on our side, so watch your back or I'll make him hit you with lightning.
That's why he doesn't intervene. Our problems are OUR problems. Our lessons are OUR lessons. God isn't required to fix them, its not his task to clean up the mess WE made. Hell, its not even his job to cure disease, because at the end of the day a disease is as much a part of this world we live in as we are, and who the are we to tell God to change that for our sake? It's pretty arrogant to tell God to wetnap your booboo's and wipe your for you. You want to heal the sick and prevent disease? Become a doctor, become a scientist and FIX IT YOUR GOD SELF. Its our world. We live in it. WE'RE RESPONSIBLE.
Huff.
/end rant
Source:
link
I hope I caught all the edits required to make it fit the language filter here as they won't be automatically altered in my posts so let me know if I missed something.
The TL;DR here is that omnipotence is so far beyond our comprehension that it's silly for us to try and define it in terms of an organised faith or church and that it's also silly for us to ask for intervention in our day-to-day lives.
I am generally quite drawn to this idea (probably because I'm generally disapproving of organised religions) but the leap I don't understand here is why deism? And I ask this because several of the answers in this thread have been broadly deist.
This (the quote above) presents, I think, a decent argument for why we don't see evidence of a god and why we shouldn't expect to, but why do people so often still feel the need for there to be a deity? Is it just discomfort at the (ever shrinking) gaps in human understanding? Is it the way our brains reconcile modern feelings about faith with the societal (or perhaps innate) need for faith? Does Occam's Razor not leave a god as one assumption more than is required?
Post by
Sas148
I do not believe in God. There is simply not enough, if any, current evidence to support any theory regarding it.
I think that most people, understandable, choose to believe in God or other religions to make them feel better about our extremely fleeting lives and their meanings.
That is all.
Post by
Ksero
I don't believe in God, and thanks for posting that quote asakawa, it basically sums up all the points I was going to make in this thread (and adds a few more).
As for a reason why people need to believe, many believe its because it's all they have known growing up, others for the hope that there is something better after this life (this is especially true in 3rd world countries). Also, I think it is probably be easier to deal the loss of a family member if you believed they were in paradise instead of, well, gone.
Post by
MyTie
As someone who doesn't believe, I just can't understand how religious faith in biblical cosmology can stand up under the scrutiny of the scientific method.
It pretty much says that omnipotence can exist, and that omnipotence can work outside the scientific method, so the scientific method can exist, and tell us about the world, but couldn't measure omnipotence or the acts thereof. So, science is good, and God is good, but it's apples and oranges.
Post by
lankybrit
Simply. No. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in any higher power.
Cheers.
Post by
Monday
There's one thing I hate about threads like this (and it only really happens on Wowhead, from what I've seen).
The thread asks if you believe in God. Some people say yes, some say no. Immediately, people who said no jump on those who said yes and interrogate them. I have yet to see the opposite.
Post by
Rankkor
As someone who doesn't believe, I just can't understand how religious faith in biblical cosmology can stand up under the scrutiny of the scientific method.
But that's exactly it bro', Faith, as far as the Bible's definition of it is "
the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen
"
By its very definition, having Faith means believing something that can't be proven, can't be meassured, can't be seen, and yet for some reason you believe its there. Sounds like crazy (and from a certain point of view, it is) but that's the main thing about it.
Trying to prove there's an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, divine being responsible for the creation of the cosmos, and who's actions have shaped the history of every living and unliving thing in creation is flat out impossible. You either believe he's out there, or you don't.
There is no proof, and there is no measure. Having faith means overriding our own logical part that demands us to have proof of what just happened.
Either all of creation happened due to pure chaos, randomness, and simple sheer dumb luck, or its all part of a greater plan. Its understandable that not everyone would want to place their bets on one side or another. Variation of beliefs and points of view is one of the many things that separates us from the animals.
Like I said, I didn't used to be a believer, my mom took me and my brother to church as children, we said our prayers, we read the bible, we did as we were told, but deep down, I didn't believed any of it, I just did it because my mom told me to, and this extended well into my adult life. You can't force faith into someone, any more than you could force someone to truly love you.
Love is equally statistically improbable, impossible to proof, or quantify, yet when its there, you just know it, even if you can't explain why, or prove it. How do you discern if you feel genuine love instead of simple lust? Faith isn't so different. its a fine line that walks right along the edges of insanity, and ignores all the boundaries of reason.
And yes I know that sounded cheesy :P but that's as best as I can explain it with my shoddy english.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
My own personal belief has very little to do with doctrine or organized religion. I just, in my evaluation of the complexity of the human brain and thinking process, and the things that we are by extension capable of creating or thinking, as well as the very diverse and amazing biological phenomenons (spiderwebs, echolocation, etc.), find it more plausible that such things (especially a large number of such things, vs. one or two) were designed than were the end result of a number of random variations of probability. I don't pretend to know or guess anything further than that- I am not sure what the motivations, likes and dislikes, amount of interest, etc. of such a designing intelligence would be, and I don't think anyone else does either. I'd like to think that the inherent idea of things even being right and wrong on a level more than just was convenient came from somewhere, since they seem contrary to self-preservation in many cases, so maybe that was part of the overall design. But I wouldn't presume to tell anyone what god or gods did or didn't want, or to presume I know it myself.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
asakawa
There's one thing I hate about threads like this (and it only really happens on Wowhead, from what I've seen).
The thread asks if you believe in God. Some people say yes, some say no. Immediately, people who said no jump on those who said yes and interrogate them. I have yet to see the opposite.
As the person who has asked the most (only) questions in this thread I can't help but feel this criticism pointed at me. However, what is the purpose of any discussion if not the betterment of one's understanding of those around them? I have asked no questions of you and if I or anyone else had then you would be well within your rights to ignore them or even respond by saying that you don't want to talk about them more deeply. However, berating others for asking simple questions surely runs counter to everything that a discussion forum is trying to achieve.
There is no "jumping" or "interrogating" in anything I'm asking. If that tone comes across in reading my posts then all I can do is assure that it is not present in the writing and reiterate that I don't demand answers; I politely and fascinatedly request them and profusely apologise for any unintended offence taken.
In the case of someone like Adamsm (sorry to pick you out Adamsm), his belief system is one about which I am almost entirely ignorant. He always seems quite open to discussing his beliefs so as someone with a deep interest in belief systems I would be crazy not to ask questions. I'm not trying to catch him out or convert him to something I believe, I'm trying to understand him! (and, by extension, all people)(##RESPBREAK##)16##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##
Post by
1069282
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gone
I have always maintained that science and religion are not mutually exclusive.
I find your position very interesting. I guess that it is probably shared by a lot of modern religious people.
Do you subscribe to the idea of "Non-overlapping magisteria" (that the two ethoses cover entirely separate areas of our existence and therefore don't contradict) or do you believe that they do cover some of the same questions but don't contradict because, for example, a god set everything we observe with science in motion in the first place?
Well first off it's important to distinguish between science, and scientific findings. Science itself is just a process, and besides human error it's for the most part infallible. Scientific findings on the other hand are constantly changing. The findings we reach by using the scientific method are hardly without room for error, because when we conduct an experiment we only have what ever is available to us at the time. There have been many instances in history where widely accepted scientific findings have been overturned, take for example Aristotle's laws of motion. So the fact that current scientific findings clash with certain aspects of modern religion, in no way means that science itself is mutually exclusive with religion.
Now I'm not one of those people clapping his hands over his ears and going "lalalalala I'm not listening" when people push current scientific findings on me. I accept evolution and carbon dating and many other scientific findings that people claim clashes with religion. For every supposed contradiction by science of something in the Bible there is an explanation that can be offered through religion, so I won't get into specifics atm.
In the end faith is just that, faith without solid evidence. I always consider God something greater than the laws of the universe. God might decree the laws of physics that science bases itself off of, but that doesn't mean he cant break them.
So I guess I would say I subscribe to the first idea you mentioned, with a bit of the second. Science should always be used to explain phenomena in the natural world, but since God can act beyond the laws of physics, and science bases itself entirely on these very laws, it can't be used as a standard to disprove religion. For me at least.
There's one thing I hate about threads like this (and it only really happens on Wowhead, from what I've seen).
The thread asks if you believe in God. Some people say yes, some say no. Immediately, people who said no jump on those who said yes and interrogate them. I have yet to see the opposite.
When I was in high school, I kind of hung out with the "goth" crowd. And not to perpetuate a stereotype, but most of my friends were either atheists or agnostics. There were a few Wiccans too, but they were also very secular minded. Most of them had a very negative mind about religion, and were constantly going on about how religious people were stupid or narrow minded. I didn't talk about my faith a lot, and many of them didn't even know, but I was always made to feel like an outsider because of this.
This, combined with some other bad experiences I've had here on the internet, caused me to have an
extremely
negative opinion of atheists. This was up until i started taking part in the religious discussions here on wowhead.
Yes, things sometimes get heated, and I'll admit I'm usually the first person to explode when somebody compares God with a unicorn or something like that. But for the most part people here on both sides of the fence are very respectful and considerate about dissenting beliefs.
To put it in perspective, I was posting on another forum once and said something along the lines of "lets all just be respectful of each other and not step on peoples toes" to which somebody replied "adults who talk to imaginary friends don't deserve respect."
Yes, compared to other places on the net, and in real life, wowhead is very good about this stuff.
Post by
MyTie
Yes, compared to other places on the net, and in real life, wowhead is very good about this stuff.
Comparatively, to some other places, wowhead is tolerant of differing views, but even here on off-topic, there are some serious problems with the way controversial topics are approached. It is actually enough of a problem, that I don't even feel comfortable talking about it. I've said enough.
Post by
Monday
I have asked no questions of you and if I or anyone else had then you would be well within your rights to ignore them or even respond by saying that you don't want to talk about them more deeply. However, berating others for asking simple questions surely runs counter to everything that a discussion forum is trying to achieve.
You are correct. I will not deny that.
However, we must also ask ourselves a deeper question: Can your religious views be changed by some stranger you meet on the internet? For the vast majority of people, the answer is no. This type of discussion rarely leads to anything worthwhile (though this is fairly hypocritical of me), so I have to ask: Why perpetuate it? It will lead to anger or misunderstanding, and often both.
Now, if the questions were asked merely to learn more, I would be fine with them. However, when questions are asked, they tend to be along the lines of: How can you believe that crap? Science clearly shows otherwise.
I find it to be disrespectful (contrary to popular belief, everybody deserves respect for their beliefs, but that's neither here nor there) and far from the best way to go about this.
Post by
MyTie
Benzene - I don't necessarily post in religious forums to persuade anyone, but more to educate myself. My religious beliefs are like a pair of work gloves. As I use the beliefs, explain them, and defend them, I become more knowledgeable in my religious views. It is quite apparent, to me at least, that I am a more equipped to disarm and dismiss criticisms of myself and my religious views after spending so much time here. Through the harshness of the off topic religious debates, and the way that I have often been in such a severe minority, with such an antagonistic majority, I've been forced to become a clear, knowledgeable, and effective communicator. I learned to "play the game" with the difficulty level locked onto "hard". I suppose the side effect of the harshness of the debates, isolation of my views, and inability to sway anyone, was the cynicism it bred in my personality. That would be the only negative side effect I've noticed.
So, if you look at religious debates as a way to sway people, then yes, they are pointless. If you look at them as a way to sharpen your communication skills, and learn how to effectively rebuke criticism, then there is no venue more appropriate.
Post by
asakawa
I understand the trepidation Benzene. My
first post in the thread
is a demonstration of the deep breath I took when clicking the thread for the first time but I put it to you that approaching a new thread with baggage from old threads dooms them to go the same way. I'm honestly and earnestly curious and entirely uninterested in selling my view to others.
If someone does the kind of interrogation that you think is inappropriate then perhaps we could deal with it when it happens. If you think my posts already crossed a line then I would welcome your input on what it was specifically that you felt was inappropriate (feel free to contact me by email asakawa@wowhead.com).
However, I'm very glad I asked Ryjacork for more info because their answer is excellent. So much so that I don't have a follow-up question. I understand their point of view and, while I don't subscribe wholly myself, I can see the same kind of reasoning I use to make decisions. Maybe all understanding is really just about finding enough points of congruency.
As a moderator, one of the main things we aim to do is to facilitate genuine discussion. Let's try to keep the dialogue open here instead of trying to shut it down. Nobody has to take part so there's no reason that the entire topic needs to be taboo.
Post by
HiVolt
No, I do not believe in a god, Biblical or otherwise. I don't see any necessity in God or gods, really. The way I see it, religious and spiritual things don't have much of a practical application to the world; they really only matter after you die, and I don't prescribe to the idea that consciousness continues after the brain stops functioning. If it does, we've never been able to measure and document the occurrence, so there's no real evidence for it.
Religion and spirituality can make you feel better about yourself, your situation, and/or the state of the world itself, but they certainly aren't the only things that can do this. They can give a person a sense of closeness to the world around them, and they can give a sense of guidance to those who wish to find it through those means. But, again, they are not the only things that can do this. These other things that can give one feelings of happiness, wholeness, or direction- things like art, charity, companionship, love, and truth- generally have better applications to the here and now, so I tend to favor putting my faith into them over religion or spirituality.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.