Society Religious Discussion and Q&A Thread

[ninjabot]

That said... What does it matter what famous people think?
Their beliefs, or lack thereof, lend not an ounce of credibility to the existence/understanding of any particular deity (or their absence)

I don't think it was a serious answer, considering they didn't engage with the question. The question being: what would it take to change your mind.

He didn't even claim whether he was a theist or a non-theist so there's nothing to respond to. Unless his claim is "I'm a theist and my mind can't be changed because famous people believed in God, and that's good enough for me."

And if THAT'S the case my question to him would be "How did these people demonstrate to you a sufficient enough amount of evidence to convince you that a God exists?"

 

[z.5]

Changing my mind would [potentially] be very easy - although I said Matt had a solid point, I reckon his statement misses a key part

To change my mind, my brain would only need 'believe' that I had received some form of divine message/inspiration/revelation/whatever. If your brain tells you something is true, it's incredibly difficult [impossible?] to call that into doubt (as unlikely as it might be [this is in respect to anything, not solely gods/the divine])

That said - just because my brain makes me think in some particular way, that wouldn't necessarily make it true. So, honestly, it kinda doesn't matter

 

[shionoro]

The more I understand about the world, the more I think that there is no real difference between believing and not believing.
The real difference lies in your decisionmaking process and how your thoughts are formed.

But to the question: I will define as "believing" to follow an existing Religion with all its rules, because then we can evade the "maybe there is a universial power" kind of cop out.
To make me convert to Islam or Christianity, the religions would need to make inherent sense, they should not be illogical. Also, I would need to see the wisdom in the words that are spoken in the religious texts.

I can see wisdom in poems, I can see wisdom in scientific texts. I can even see wisdom in religious poems (rumi for example, as an islamic poet). But when i read the bible or the quran, there is A LOT of stupid shit in there that i just cannot see a noble being behind these words.

So this question is a little like "what would make you believe something that does not make any sense". I am as unlikely to believe in an established religion as i am to believe that Pizzagate is true. It is a theory so stupid that goes against everything I think and know is true that really it would probably take hillary clinton doing unspeakable things to babies in front of my own eyes for me to believe it.

 

[M3J]

Changing my mind would [potentially] be very easy - although I said Matt had a solid point, I reckon his statement misses a key part

To change my mind, my brain would only need 'believe' that I had received some form of divine message/inspiration/revelation/whatever. If your brain tells you something is true, it's incredibly difficult [impossible?] to call that into doubt (as unlikely as it might be [this is in respect to anything, not solely gods/the divine])

That said - just because my brain makes me think in some particular way, that wouldn't necessarily make it true. So, honestly, it kinda doesn't matter

now that you bring it up, it'd actually be helpful if the deity appeared before me and another person, just so I have a reliable witness so I know I'm not going kooky.


It was an easy decision for me to be an atheist. No proof of deity, and religions have too many shitty rules that I don't want to follow, like no eating meat, donating money, etc. Doesn't help that I've been seeing evidence of religion being used to control others, make profit for the religious authority figures, and religious people being so divisive.

 

[z.5]

now that you bring it up, it'd actually be helpful if the deity appeared before me and another person, just so I have a reliable witness so I know I'm not going kooky.

Makes no difference - if you can suffer a delusion of the clouds parting and a holy figure descending from on high, to whisper divine revelations into your ears, you can easily imagine another person witnessing this/hear them say that they did

 

[M3J]

Makes no difference - if you can suffer a delusion of the clouds parting and a holy figure descending from on high, to whisper divine revelations into your ears, you can easily imagine another person witnessing this/hear them say that they did

I'd just ask them what they experienced, and if it's similar then I'd trust them.

 

[shionoro]

The question is a little bit like: "What would it take for you to believe somebody can use actual magic"

It goes against what most people think is possible, there are countless of people claiming they have magical powers and many have been disproven.
So even with visual evidence, you'd doubt it just because the context is so crystal clear that everybody that has been scrutinized so far did not have magical powers.

So clearly, it needs a lot of evidence to refute something fundamental you believe about the world, especially s th that seems illogical and impossible.

I think for most people, that would recquire sense-based evidence. You need to experience it to believe it.

 

[Sanity Check]

The height of religion produces feats of art, science and engineering like this:

What does atheism produce?

 

[M3J]

At the height of religion science and engineering barely achieved much because of how scared religious authority figures were of losing power.

 

[xi0]

The height of religion produces feats of art, science and engineering like this:

What does atheism produce?

Does inspiration require belief? Many different people were paid to paint the Sistine Chapel.

 

[z.5]

'The height of religion produces' (and continues to) untold suffering and misery, violence and oppression also...

It's provided an easily reachable excuse for painting your neighbors as 'the other' and given [what the worshipper believes to be] a good excuse/reason to make their lives a living hell

Although 'pretty ceilings' or 'the raping, pillaging, murder and enslavement of those you see as lesser' are not really [read: not at all] that strong evidence for the validity of belief or the existence of god(s)
- neither are particularly good litmus tests for truth of ideas

Especially not when the art was specifically paid for to demonstrate the 'glory' of one particular god

 

[Kylenhangen]

I don't think it is the right way to get help from science and scientists about the existence of God. A better way might be to seek help from philosophy, theology, logic, and philosophers.

 

[shionoro]

The fact that religious people are not inherently more moral than atheists certainly is quite a good argument to be made against religion.
If it does not lead to a better life, how can it come from a good god of wisdom?

A typical cop out is "well you lead a better life because in the eyes of god you are better if you believe", but that is a very weak argument obviously

 

[M3J]

I'm willing to bet most religious people are actually more immoral than atheists. They all imply that they only reason they do good things or aren't shittier is because they want to get into heaven

 

[Kylenhangen]

I think it is possible to say that a person who does not belong to any religion is more moral than someone who says he is religious.

But I can't deduce from this that there is no true religion. In my opinion, most people interpret religion in their own way and adopt it accordingly. In order to be able to decide on this issue, it is necessary to examine the rules, restrictions and history of religion set by religion itself.

We also need to examine whether there is a religion even if we conclude that there is a God. The existence of God does not automatically necessitate the existence of religion.

 

[xi0]

The concept of the question is sort of self-defeating for me. I don't believe that the kind of omnipotent God that would be capable of creating all of this would be concerned about my individual belief in him, therefore if he was, it would present a problem in which I would not want to accept their "godhood" or wish to worship them.

Perhaps that's my own beliefs being imposed on this situation though. However, the issue the Bible and other monotheistic religious texts create, is that God is very self-evidently anthropomorphized to aid in our understanding of him. And for me, even that falls short in more ways than it doesn't.

 

[Brandish μ]

What it would take - something I do not know, a series of unfavourable circumstances where my resilience to them are broken and when I'm desperate for a God to help me. When I can't internally tell myself things could be worse, or my mind is plagued and derailed. In a predicament of that nature, I could 'believe' or become a believer in a religion (if I pulled thru the other side).

 

[grey matter]

I'm an agnostic believer in God, if that makes any sense.
IMO being agnostic makes the most sense. There is no concrete proof of God existing, or not existing.

In before arguments of "you cannot disprove that an invisible, immaterial ghost isn't standing right in front of you". I'm aware of that argument and see the logic behind it

Yet, I find it hard to believe that the universe and laws of physics popped out of nothingness, I find it hard to believe that our consciousness is mere illusion etc

 

[z.5]

Hopefully not taking us too far off topic - but I reckon creation and consciousness are potentially useful topics for this thread
maybe I will/should merge this thread with the other religion thread - considering where I see it heading...

Yet, I find it hard to believe that the universe and laws of physics popped out of nothingness, I find it hard to believe that our consciousness is mere illusion etc

Well, to be fair, most of the people who ever seem to actively try and suggest that [physicists say that] the universe and laws of physics just 'popped out of nothingness' tend to be people who either don't really get what is meant by 'the Big Bang', or they are intentionally trying to misinterpret the theory (with the aim of discrediting it)

The fact that we don't really have a good concrete explanation for the physics before, or at the point of, the Big Bang doesn't mean that people don't have ideas, or that it is (or, any ideas are) necessarily incorrect

As for consciousness being an illusion, well, that depends on how you take the word 'illusion' to be. Thoughts (and the mind) can also be taken as physical entities, due to how they exist/are formed in the real world

 

[ninjabot]

I'm an agnostic believer in God, if that makes any sense.
IMO being agnostic makes the most sense. There is no concrete proof of God existing, or not existing.

In before arguments of "you cannot disprove that an invisible, immaterial ghost isn't standing right in front of you". I'm aware of that argument and see the logic behind it

Yet, I find it hard to believe that the universe and laws of physics popped out of nothingness, I find it hard to believe that our consciousness is mere illusion etc

It makes sense. I'm an Agnostic Atheist, you're an Agnostic Theist. And that's one thing I'll never take from theists: the idea that it's hard to believe everything popped out of nothingness. That's why I don't believe that.

My current understanding of the big bang theory is that all of the matter in the universe existed in a dense point and then a rapid expansion caused all that matter to spread out from said point. By that definition, it's not "coming from nothing". You could go further back and say "Well where did that matter come from?" We don't know that, but we also don't know that there's a being that can create matter.

I also don't think consciousness is illusion. I do however, believe that we've only ever experienced consciousness coming from a physical brain, and thus there's no justification in thinking that a supernatural, immaterial being exists that has a mind, because it lacks the one thing we know to be required to have a mind: a physical form. That would have to be demonstrated to me.