Religion

[Yw-slayer]

Someone missed the point completely...

why isnt gods message clear - all powerful, it shouldnt be hard to give a clear message. Yes we are inperfect, but god should know that and allow for that. If god lets the message continue to be misunderstood then that is a choice. All powerful, all knowing - cant blame us for the mixup.
Or is it "we dont understand gods plan" as to why the message and even the existence of said god is so garbled. Is it meant to be confusing?

Personally I never understood why an all powerful god would want people to believe, worship etc. Seems very insecure.

Nah man. Remember, if things not supporting the thesis "IT'S A TEST FROM GOD/SIGN THAT YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO MY RELIGION AND BELIEVE IN MY GOD" but if things are going well/support the thesis then "IT'S GOD'S BLESSINGS/PLAN FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE A BELIEVER!!!!"

I don't actually care if it makes people's lives better and/or their being objectively "better" people if they believe in whatever they want to. In fact, if a belief system had such a result in every case I would probably be in favour of everyone having such a belief system. What I object to is people foisting their personal beliefs on me, or claiming that my belief system (if any) is somehow less valid and theirs is superior using facile reasoning such as the above.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Believers, particularly Christians, tend to make the mistake of 'bragging' my belief is better than your belief and consequently end up offending others. Yes, that's not very nice. I have to agree.

However, every belief is different. Some could be the seed that help folks to live better lives, while others could end up tricking people into traps and become more miserable. Not all beliefs are equally good for us. It IS possible to objectively rank different beliefs, right?

Unbelievers also need to be humble enough to not get so offended by stupid christians bragging about their belief. Seriously, if your belief is so good, why are you that offended by that? If you are confident and know what you're doing, why would you be offended by some fool who doesn't know what he's talking about?

Yeah, I'm sure Elon Musk wasn't too happy to see Russians laughing at him and even some of his friends trying to talk him out of his belief that he can build his own rockets, but if your conviction is strong enough, you won't be too bothered by them... also, if your belief is based correctly on sound foundation, you should be able to have something to show for in the end in this world... not just in some after life. Where are those laughing russians now?

Of course Elon Musk probably shouldn't brag about his rockets now. It's just not very nice thing to do and it'll undoubtedly offend the russians, but who cares about russian feelings now? Let the space exploration begin!

[Dicknose]

Anyway, belief is important because without it, you might also be without hope… without hope, you just might get depressed…

Elon Musk 1st ‘believes’ that he could build a rocket, right? Without such belief at 1st, he’d be investing his money on something else and there’s be no SpaceX. Faith is the seed to lots of things!

Belief in a deity is a lot different that belief in yourself.
The status of the deity is not dependent on your belief, while your success does require you to believe.

Also you know what would give hope - knowing that the deity exists, that an afterlife exists etc.
Not this "oh you must believe" crap. Leave that to Santa.

But you know what does require belief... a non-existent deity. It only exists in as much as people believe.

[Dicknose]

God is love. Sorry that’s probably my personal belief too…

Can you clarify love? Can you debate or argue about love?

I’d like to see DN try!

I agree with you there.
I think "god is love" is probably the best description.
We have personified the thing that we feel is important and intangible. Throw in some other elements (forgiveness, social responsibility) and you have a great system for humans.

So I agree on god is love.
But that also means it only exists in us.

We need to take a leap of faith. Discussions alone won’t do much good. If taking a leap of faith is totally unreasonable step for you to take, I’d advise you to stop wasting time trying to find God. Because that’d be like Elon Musk talking about building rockets but never actually do it.

Seriously, which religion in the world requires no faith?

None of the deity based ones.
As said above, if the deity does not exist, then faith is a requirement.

The question is - why would a god let us be so confused? Multiple religions, that actually causing trouble, why wouldnt an all powerful god just come and clear it all up for us?

[Dicknose]

I don't actually care if it makes people's lives better and/or their being objectively "better" people if they believe in whatever they want to. In fact, if a belief system had such a result in every case I would probably be in favour of everyone having such a belief system. What I object to is people foisting their personal beliefs on me, or claiming that my belief system (if any) is somehow less valid and theirs is superior using facile reasoning such as the above.

Im not a fan of people pushing their religions as politics/law. If thats what your religion believes, then it should apply to those religious people.
If you want it to apply to everyone then you need arguments that dont fall back to "but god said so"

It does also worry me when people say "but without religion how can you have morals?"
Scares me to think what these people would be like if they stopped following their religion.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Belief in a deity is a lot different that belief in yourself.
The status of the deity is not dependent on your belief, while your success does require you to believe.

Also you know what would give hope - knowing that the deity exists, that an afterlife exists etc.
Not this "oh you must believe" crap. Leave that to Santa.

But you know what does require belief... a non-existent deity. It only exists in as much as people believe.

How do you know that for sure that God’s existence depends on existence of believers?

We don’t even know what dark matter nor dark energies are… they only exist in physicists conjecture based on known laws, we haven’t been able to prove it yet. If it does exist, it exists regardless of whether scientists can prove or detect it or not. If it doesn’t exist, then there’s more to learn…

Nobody can prove nor disprove the existence of a creator of this universe at this time. We’ll just have to choose to believe whether all that we see is here by accident or by design.

[Dicknose]

DN - what flaws do you see in the argument?

Well I think the flaw is in... god could allow this. Not sure why?
Maybe its a test? But why be so mean, with so many gods and religions over the course of human history, why not jump in and make it clear? If the test is to see who makes it to an afterlife, it seems a rigged test. Many never got exposed (those outside/prior to European influence), most end up with the religion of their parents. Why judge on our religion rather than our actions?

[Dicknose]

How do you know that for sure that God’s existence depends on existence of believers?

Im saying "If the god is not real"...
hard to say "physically exists" as it is outside the universe.

A real god would exist independent of belief.

But any non-existent deity only exists via belief. ie only exists as a meme.

There have been countless deities in human culture, its obvious that these are not all compatible and so most must not exist. Yes they were "real" for the believers. Many of the beliefs behind these deities require you only believe in them (or a related group).
These deities and their religions only existed because of belief.

[Crazed_Insanity]

There are countless mutations, but natural selection will cause only few Covid variants to stick around.

I think similarly with deities… as confused people end up creating their own variant gods, they can’t all survive the test of time.

Only a select few that are truly useful would stick around.

After thousands of years of mutation, we are only left with just a few legit world religions.

Even if we end up with just a single religion left, I suppose that still won’t prove there is really a God unless he shows his face.

If you guys truly believe faith in god is a disease, then yeah, inoculate yourselves with the atheistic vaccine. Show the rest of the world what it’s like to live your lives to the fullest as atheists… that you don’t really need God as a crutch. Faith in yourself is plenty good enough as demonstrated by Elon Musk…

Maybe the world will turn around. Who knows. Like I’ve said to Swervo, if you can really convince me with an alternative that’s better, naturally I will choose that! Why would I choose a lousy God if I can choose something better!

However, if Jesus really does exist, someday you will face him. I hope you’ll also choose the better alternative rather than insisting on perishing because Jesus is supposedly so mean and you find him offensive… or you just can’t possibly believe that face is really Christ’s…

If the Christian Bible were true, God has supposedly already shown his face, but people chose to crucify him, let’s not make the same mistake twice.

[Tom Servo]

FWIW, I have no intention of convincing anybody an alternative is better. I know there's a very real possibility that I am not correct. I am thrilled for you that your faith improves your life. I'm in line with Dicknose in that I just don't want religion to be the basis for law and I don't want anybody trying to convince me of their alternative. That's not to say that things that are law can't also be in religion, it's just that a religion dictating it shouldn't be the sole reason. I'm fine with the golden rule being a basis for law, but I don't want us dictating whether kids should be circumcised based on which testament you're into.

My personal belief is that if there is a god, I'd hope that he/she/them/it would be happy that I tried to use my given brain to figure out what made sense, and that I lived my life in a way that made everybody except Billi happier (sorry, Billi, that's just the way the dice fell). If there is a god and that isn't their priority, then I still wouldn't want to worship 'em anyway.