Do you believe in God?

[SalixIncendium]

What do you say??

Belief in God is caused by various things based on the individual. There is no universal answer.

Obviously, religion is not the first cause for belief in God. I would say rather that belief in God is the first cause of religion. But belief in God can be had through indoctrination, logic and reasoning, philosophical argumentation, reading of religious texts, and possibly many other reasons.

But there are as many reasons for one to lack belief in God, and I think it's an unrealistic expectation for atheists to "go to fundamentals" when the peripherals you mention are primarily the reason people support a belief in God. Just look around the forum at people who perpetually quote scripture and messengers.

With regard to the title question, yes, I believe in God, but not for the same reason(s) a theist does.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I have noticed that poll's with this kind of question shows that most in this forum who are active are either Atheists or Agnostics. Actual religious people who believe in a God in a religious forum are the minority. It's not strange.

But perhaps this forum is rather different from many forums that espouse to be purely about religions? In that it tends to attract a more diverse audience because it is better run and more tolerant of different views than many others perhaps. It's why I joined.

A belief in God is not absolutely due to a particular religion. It could also be based on reason and logic and it has been discussed for a long long time. Yet, it seems to be ignored and a lot of times the cart is shoved before the horse for whatever anti religious argumentation deemed needed.

Belief in God could stem from logical reasoning. Philosophical argumentation. Religions and scriptures are not absolutely necessary. I believe people should go to fundamentals rather than banking on peripherals to kill God. I think that's exactly what Nietzsche said being an Atheist with nihilistic tendencies.

What do you say??

For me it is more about what humans are likely to believe (in some biased way) - as to what they experience and are taught during childhood - and as to what might be innate in humans simply because of how we are born (baby/much larger parents/power differences), as to our vulnerabilities (pretty useless on our own and for at least a decade or more), and as to general human vulnerability with regards nature in general and reliance on the Sun. Without the knowledge and cultures we have built we would be a pretty weak species. Hence we might be primed in some way for having particular beliefs.

Such that we might be fighting all these - or at least trying to negate any influences coming from such things - so as to form any beliefs that might correspond with reality. And this is why I have tended to spend more time trying to assimilate all the new knowledge that has come our way over my life - quite exceptional if one simply looks back over the last century and as to which I have been alive for most of this.

And as I said in the other thread, I don't think we do need an explanation other than what we see as being reality - given that life, for humans and much other life, is not all good or all bad but a mixture of such. Many might be striving to have their lives follow the one path (all good or all bad) but such says more about their particular being than much else, and not about reality. Hence why we have, for example, the rich, the doom-mongers, the power-driven, the control-freaks, amongst others, and the rest of us simply trying to live a reasonably good and happy life.

So, not really about philosophical questions or logic until one has eliminated all the sources of bias - in my view. And I was lucky seemingly in not having at least one of these indoctrinated into me, given that I seemed to have had some resistance to a religious education, and sought a path towards all general knowledge, and which was more than often coming from various fields of science.

 

[RestlessSoul]

5. Shared beliefs between parents and teens

Research suggests that parents have a large impact on their children’s religious behaviors. For example, there is considerable overlap between how

www.pewresearch.org

1. Links between childhood religious upbringing and current religious identity

People from mixed religious backgrounds take a variety of spiritual paths as adults, with many adopting their mother’s religion as their own, some

www.pewresearch.org

Seriously?

So if you meet a person that was born and raised in a muslim household, you would consider it a completely random guess that that person is likely muslim?
For real?



So a person that was born and raised in Iran isn't more likely to be a muslim as opposed to something else?
A person that was born and raised in the US isn't more likely to be a christian as opposed to something else?

Religious beliefs in gods IS a cultural phenomenon.

Pointing to exceptions is not going to change the general / overall trend.


It is very very accurate to say that for the most part, someone's religion is geographically predetermined.
Even in this day of globalization and internet, that is still the case.

Guess the religion based on the culture they were born into and more often then not, you'll be correct.
Humans tend to be products of their environment.

In Albania (my father's native country), there is this saying: "To know a man, know his father"

Again you are conflating belief with culture, ignoring the fact that plenty of religious people do not believe in God, while plenty of non religious people do.

So while it may be true that people are likely to adopt the religion which is prevalent in their culture, it does not follow that people believe as they do because their parents did so.

Many people who have a faith, regardless of what religion they do or do not practice, will tell you - if you are willing to listen - that they have a personal relationship with a God of their understanding. And such people are likely to be every bit as capable of thinking for themselves, as those self -styled “free thinkers” among the atheist community.

 

[RestlessSoul]

But perhaps this forum is rather different from many forums that espouse to be purely about religions? In that it tends to attract a more diverse audience because it is better run and more tolerant of different views than many others perhaps. It's why I joined.

For me it is more about what humans are likely to believe (in some biased way) - as to what they experience and are taught during childhood - and as to what might be innate in humans simply because of how we are born (baby/much larger parents/power differences), as to our vulnerabilities (pretty useless on our own and for at least a decade or more), and as to general human vulnerability with regards nature in general and reliance on the Sun. Without the knowledge and cultures we have built we would be a pretty weak species. Hence we might be primed in some way for having particular beliefs.

Such that we might be fighting all these - or at least trying to negate any influences coming from such things - so as to form any beliefs that might correspond with reality. And this is why I have tended to spend more time trying to assimilate all the new knowledge that has come our way over my life - quite exceptional if one simply looks back over the last century and as to which I have been alive for most of this.

And as I said in the other thread, I don't think we do need an explanation other than what we see as being reality - given that life, for humans and much other life, is not all good or all bad but a mixture of such. Many might be striving to have their lives follow the one path (all good or all bad) but such says more about their particular being than much else, and not about reality. Hence why we have, for example, the rich, the doom-mongers, the power-driven, the control-freaks, amongst others, and the rest of us simply trying to live a reasonably good and happy life.

So, not really about philosophical questions or logic until one has eliminated all the sources of bias - in my view. And I was lucky seemingly in not having at least one of these indoctrinated into me, given that I seemed to have had some resistance to a religious education, and sought a path towards all general knowledge, and which was more than often coming from various fields of science.

You say you are lucky not to have been indictrinated into a religion, thus implying, in my view wrongly, that religious upbringings necessarily entail indoctrination; but how well has your unbelief served you in life, do you think?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Again you are conflating belief with culture

I'm not. In fact, I'm saying that they go hand in hand. And the statistics reflect that.

, ignoring the fact that plenty of religious people do not believe in God, while plenty of non religious people do.

And these "plenty" of people are a minority among believers.
For the vast majority, belief in god goes hand in hand with religion. And for the vast majority of those, that religion goes hand in hand with the culture they happened to be born into.

I don't see how anyone who is aware of the general world can deny that.

So while it may be true that people are likely to adopt the religion which is prevalent in their culture

Not "may". It IS.

, it does not follow that people believe as they do because their parents did so.

Ultimately, it is.

If you ask a muslim from iran why he is a muslim, he might answer with stuff like "because the quran this or that", but ultimately, if he were born into a catholic family in italy, he wouldn't be a muslim and wouldn't hold that supposed opinion.

He would have had parents that indoctrinated him into catholicism instead of islam.

It really is that simple.

Many people who have a faith, regardless of what religion they do or do not practice, will tell you - if you are willing to listen - that they have a personal relationship with a God of their understanding. And such people are likely to be every bit as capable of thinking for themselves, as those self -styled “free thinkers” who call themselves atheists.

And yet somehow, most of them end up following the religion which is dominant in their immediate geographic location.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You say you are lucky not to have been indictrinated into a religion, thus implying, in my view wrongly, that religious upbringings necessarily entail indoctrination;

Off course it does.
Just look at the average situation of a religious household.
Take catholics. They baptize their kids when they are still babies. Then they identify them as "christian babies". Then they go through communion at what, 6 years old? Then again at 12? Meanwhile sunday school, bible classes etc. All that before the age of 12.
What's that, if not indoctrination?

Muslims aren't different. Ramadam, quran lessons, mosque visits, hijabs from the moment the daughter menstruates, circumcision,.... and not once is the opinion of the child asked.

I go out and I see kids in traditional "religious" uniforms all the time. Jews, muslims, what-have-you.
None of these children choose to do that. They are all instructed to do that. Most of them don't even know what is going on and just accept it as "the thing our family does".

but how well has your unbelief served you in life, do you think?

What does that have to do with anything?


But personally, it has served me well. I don't feel limited by the shackles of religious indoctrination. Compared to people I know and have known that were, I feel free.

 

[PureX]

I have noticed that poll's with this kind of question shows that most in this forum who are active are either Atheists or Agnostics. Actual religious people who believe in a God in a religious forum are the minority. It's not strange.

A belief in God is not absolutely due to a particular religion. It could also be based on reason and logic and it has been discussed for a long long time. Yet, it seems to be ignored and a lot of times the cart is shoved before the horse for whatever anti religious argumentation deemed needed.

Belief in God could stem from logical reasoning. Philosophical argumentation. Religions and scriptures are not absolutely necessary. I believe people should go to fundamentals rather than banking on peripherals to kill God. I think that's exactly what Nietzsche said being an Atheist with nihilistic tendencies.

What do you say??

I think the problem is the insistence on 'belief' in asking the question. Because that infers a rejection of doubt and forces everyone into opposing camps. When the truth is that almost no one lacks doubt. If not in the existence of their God, then in God's nature or character. So that in fact we are all landing conceptually somewhere on a scale spanning from near surety to extreme doubt. And almost no one will actually and honestly proclaim their certainty.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Secondly, that the universe has evolved in such a manner as to facilitate the evolution of life in at least one tiny corner of one vaste galaxy, is miraculous (by any definition of that word) to anyone who retains the capacity to wonder.

It's certainly fortunate for us, but:

- in a universe as large as ours, rare things will happen from time to time.

- we don't have a good handle on how rare life is. Anyone who quotes stats to make it seem near-impossible that life could exist without "fine tuning" is pulling those stats out of their butt.

- assuming that we were inevitable despite being unlikely just smacks of unjustified hubris to me.

As for "miraculous (by any definition of that word)"... most of the definitions presuppose that the "miracle" was a direct, special intervention by a god. I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't trying to beg the question.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You say you are lucky not to have been indictrinated into a religion, thus implying, in my view wrongly, that religious upbringings necessarily entail indoctrination; but how well has your unbelief served you in life, do you think?

Unbelief (in gods) is just an outcome. For me, it was the outcome of two things:

- an upbringing by parents who respected me enough not to try to push me into a religion, and

- being guided by a personal desire to ensure my beliefs are as well-grounded in truth as possible.

Both of these things have benefitted me immeasurably.

 

[RestlessSoul]

It's certainly fortunate for us, but:

- in a universe as large as ours, rare things will happen from time to time.

- we don't have a good handle on how rare life is. Anyone who quotes stats to make it seem near-impossible that life could exist without "fine tuning" is pulling those stats out of their butt.

- assuming that we were inevitable despite being unlikely just smacks of unjustified hubris to me.

As for "miraculous (by any definition of that word)"... most of the definitions presuppose that the "miracle" was a direct, special intervention by a god. I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't trying to beg the question.

The beauty of probability is that it is, by definition, a quantifiable concept. Assigning probabilities to outcomes in highly complex situations, where information is always likely to be limited or misinterpreted, may be more art than science - just ask any bookmaker - but it can still be undertaken in a meaningful manner. And nature is probabilistic not deterministic - we’ve known this for over 100 years now.

The very precise values of certain key variables, which describe a universe in just the right state of unstable equilibrium to allow galaxies to form, are quantifiable, not pulled out of anybodies butt. The story of a universe which has neither expanded into oblivion nor collapsed in on itself in the manner of a super massive black hole, is supported by these variables, to which meaningful values can and have been assigned.

Any outcome the probability of which is less than 1 in 10^70 might reasonably be considered a statistical impossibility. By this measure, it's no stretch to describe as truly miraculous, thr existence of a universe capable of creating galaxies of stars, in the furnaces of which the building blocks of life are continually being forged.

 

[HonestJoe]

Formal religions have presented many logical reasonings through time.

The religions themselves tend not to, individuals who happen to follow a particular religion sometimes do (and maybe change their religious beliefs as a result).

Regardless, that doesn't change the fact that religious organisations and leaders are much more likely to promote blind faith and doctrine rather than open and honest logical assessment. That is essentially what makes them religious by definition.

I'd suggest that you can't approach any honest logical assessment on the existence or nature of any gods without a certain distance from any existing religious beliefs, assumptions or assertions. I'm not convinced that happens, even from people who claim (or even honestly believe) that is what they're doing. It is pretty much impossible to avoid being influenced by religion one way or another in our lives, so it would take conscious effort and consideration to exclude that from our assessments.

Why else would you use choose to use the word "God" (singular, with a capital G) in your OP when you're referring to a concept that is much wider and diverse than that term alone could even cover?

 

[Koldo]

Again you are conflating belief with culture, ignoring the fact that plenty of religious people do not believe in God, while plenty of non religious people do.

I would go as far as to say that a religious person that doesn't believe in any gods is either not religious or does believe in a god.

As for being a god believer and not religious at the same time, that is no trivial task. Even the 'spiritual but not religious' crowd tends to be religious, as odd as that might sound. That's because by 'religious' what they are talking about is formal adherence and attendance to an institution.

So while it may be true that people are likely to adopt the religion which is prevalent in their culture, it does not follow that people believe as they do because their parents did so.

Many people who have a faith, regardless of what religion they do or do not practice, will tell you - if you are willing to listen - that they have a personal relationship with a God of their understanding. And such people are likely to be every bit as capable of thinking for themselves, as those self -styled “free thinkers” among the atheist community.

A God of their understanding?
Where did this understanding come from if not from what someone else told them?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Formal religions have presented many logical reasonings through time.

Yeah, but we can observe as a relevant part of the universe that is only the case in a limited sense for all of religion. And as far as I can tell that religion should be done as logical, is only relevant to a given person, if that person accepts the norm that it sholud be done logically.
So, yes, how you think as per logic is relevant to you, but not relevant to another person who in fact do it differntly. And that is not irrelevant to that person. It is only irrelevant to you.
So if you want to play relevant and irrelevant for all humans as not based on your thinking, present your case. But if you are like others including me, who make sense as individuals in part, then there is a limit to both relevant and irrelevant as universal.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The beauty of probability is that it is, by definition, a quantifiable concept. Assigning probabilities to outcomes in highly complex situations, where information is always likely to be limited or misinterpreted, may be more art than science - just ask any bookmaker - but it can still be undertaken in a meaningful manner.

Garbage in, garbage out, though. Make bad initial assumptions and any product of those assumptions is useless.

The very precise values of certain key variables, which describe a universe in just the right state of unstable equilibrium to allow galaxies to form, are quantifiable, not pulled out of anybodies butt.

However, the range of "possible" values for those variables - i.e. the thing that any probability calculations are based on - are completely rectally sourced.

The story of a universe which has neither expanded into oblivion nor collapsed in on itself in the manner of a super massive black hole, is supported by these variables, to which meaningful values can and have been assigned.

The problem isn't with calculating what the universe is. The problem is with calculating what the universe could have been but isn't.

Any outcome the probability of which is less than 1 in 10^70 might reasonably be considered a statistical impossibility. By this measure, it's no stretch to describe as truly miraculous, thr existence of a universe capable of creating galaxies of stars, in the furnaces of which the building blocks of life are continually being forged.

Please show your work for that "1 in 10^70" figure.

Please be sure to include a justification for:

- why the upper and lower bounds of each value represent what is possible (not just conceivable, but actually possible), and

- for each value, why you chose the probability distribution that you did. Note: assuming a uniform probability distribution will still need a justification.

Good luck.

 

[Mock Turtle]

You say you are lucky not to have been indictrinated into a religion, thus implying, in my view wrongly, that religious upbringings necessarily entail indoctrination; but how well has your unbelief served you in life, do you think?

More the principle, given it mostly depends upon where one is born so as to which religion is likely to be adopted. Unless you see no differences as to such and could believe any particular religious belief. When, unless any evidence is provided, it does seem that most people do in fact adopt the religion that came via education or indoctrination, and given that very few children are capable of discriminating between the two, most will get a religion and not desert such.

For myself, I am really rather glad that I didn't waste time learning something that might have no provenance (the various religious texts), thus giving me more time to learn more valuable things that do have some provenance - and usually having evidence that can be tested.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Garbage in, garbage out, though. Make bad initial assumptions and any product of those assumptions is useless.



However, the range of "possible" values for those variables - i.e. the thing that any probability calculations are based on - are completely rectally sourced.



The problem isn't with calculating what the universe is. The problem is with calculating what the universe could have been but isn't.



Please show your work for that "1 in 10^70" figure.

Please be sure to include a justification for:

- why the upper and lower bounds of each value represent what is possible (not just conceivable, but actually possible), and

- for each value, why you chose the probability distribution that you did. Note: assuming a uniform probability distribution will still need a justification.

Good luck.

Here’s someone else’s workings out on the subject of probability in cosmology, as I have none of my own to offer. You may wish to pay particular attention to section 3.2 Probability of Inflationary Spacetime

And you can find many such examples if you care to search for them.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.12229

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Here’s someone else’s workings out on the subject of probability in cosmology, as I have none of my own to offer. You may wish to pay particular attention to section 3.2 Probability of Inflationary Spacetime

And you can find many such examples if you care to search for them.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.12229

This would be an example of what I was talking about: basing calculations on what the author finds conceivable instead of on what's demonstrably possible.

IOW, garbage in, garbage out.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

This would be an example of what I was talking about: basing calculations on what the author finds conceivable instead of on what's demonstrably possible.

IOW, garbage in, garbage out.

Well, the defintion of the universe is that it is physical, therefore it is a fact. IOW, garbage in, garbage out.
Or the defintion of Gof is that He is the Creator of the universe, therefore it is a fact. IOW, garbage in, garbage out.

In the end as far as I can tell, we are debating something where we haven't be able to remove humans as a part of it. So in the strongest sense of objective, we can't do that, because we are humans.
In other words we can describe how the universe works in realitionship to us as in it and a part of it, but not as independent of us.

 

[Spice]

I believe the scientists in the BBC article linked above have explained how life began using natural laws.

And where did these "natural laws" originate?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And where did these "natural laws" originate?

We don'¨t know. Do you understand the difference between methodlogical and philosophical naturalism?