Five Reasons to Believe in God

[lunamoth]

Hi All,

Thanks for the great answers so far! You've convinced me, these are not compelling reasons to believe in God. There must be more to it.

:yes:

luna

 

[lunamoth]

That's not an argument for God. That's an argument for anything outside what we can observe such as parallel universes, other dimensions, alien life on other planets, and many other things.

I agree. To me it just leaves open the door for what we refer to as 'supernatural.'

If you're saying materialism or physicalism is false, then please provide an argument to demonstrate this.

Materialism may be true and I could never prove one way or the other. But, if you don't know, and can't know, why choose to believe it as your worldview?

That's not a reason for belief in God. It's possible that the universe is eternal, has no source, and as one philosopher said, existence might just be a brute fact. Please demonstrate why the God hypotheses is more likely than the other possibilities I just listed.

I agree. I found it interesting that everyone sees this as an argument about whether there is/was a Creator or creation event. For me it is more about mind-blowing wonderment.

Where's your reasoning for this assertion?

What if reality itself IS the objective basis for rationality and abstract thinking?

I can see I have failed to make this point clearly - I am exploring the basis of what we call reason, or rationality. For example, we say eating is a rational action, meaning that it 'makes sense to us,' but eating itself is not rational. We eat because we are hungry, and the processes that occur in our brain that let us know we are hungry and need to eat are not 'higher reasoning.' Sponges also need to eat. So, at some point in time we started thinking about our thinking. I am wondering about this leap in thought, from instinctual or brain-stemming it, to self-awareness.

Anyway, I conclude that whatever it is that allowed the leap from non-rational to rational, it is analogous to the evolutionary leap from non-living to living. We can list traits of living organisms, but that does not help us understand if a virus is living or non-living. Probably it is not important. Until we come to ethics, where we need to make decisions about 'what is life, and what is the value of life,' such as in the case of abortion laws.

What ate at me, now taking this to the topic of reason, is that it likewise is probably a spectrum of development if we look along either evolutionary development, or at the variety of species living today. However, when we come to ethics, we now have to make some choices about when we are responsible for our actions. The problem with hard determinism, as you know, is that it boils down to the belief that we are not really responsible for our own beliefs and actions. We are much more influenced by everything around us, and we are more like complex, wind-driven machines, turning out all manner of products but with no actual engineer at the helm. That is where our views about the basis for reason come into play.

Appeal to Consequences fallacy. Just because you don't like the idea that ethics may be illusory doesn't mean you can conclude that objective morality is true, therefore God exists.

You are right. I don't like the idea of hard determinism. And, it is inconsistent with how we actually live.

Also, there are many objective moral theories that don't require God. Deontological Ethics, Intentionality Ethics, Consequencialism, Moral Universalism.

Fascinating topics, all. I personally find them more interesting to discuss when not debating, but just exploring together. Thanks!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I know. But I also liked they symmetry with Copernicus' thread about Five Reasons to Not Believe in God. He even added the caveat: "Note: None of the above reasons is intended as an absolute proof that gods do not exist. These are reasons that make me consider belief in the existence of gods to be highly implausible."

So my caveat is that none of the reasons are intended as absolute proof of God, just that these reasons make me consider that God's existence is plausible.

And I'm not asking for absolute proof; all I'm asking for is a rationale for how "there must be more than what we can perceive" and "we have something rather than nothing" even point toward God.

I suspect that your approach might be coming at things backward. I don't think it's so much that people look at these "holes", try to find something to fill them and settle on God; instead, I think more often, people look around for holes in which to stick the God they already believe in.

But I am not using God as a reference point, but as the grounds for these things.

What's the difference as you see it? I'd take those two things to be pretty close to equivalent.

I am saying I have faith that my reason gives me true information about reality and that there really is such a thing as value. Not just what works, and not just my aesthetic preferences.

But it's not unreasoned faith. "What works" points at least in part toward what's true: some false things may "work", but everything that is true does "work". The test of "what works" only filters out false things; what you end up with has a higher concentration of true things to false things than when you started.

Added: It is the materialists who are in a paradox. If they are 'right,' then no one can be right, so the materialists are not right. We only have 'what works.' If there really is an objective basis for right and wrong, then those who believe in that basis can really be right.

I think you're getting into what I cautioned about before: you're equivocating between something like "perfect certainty" and knowledge.

There is something in between perfect certainty and complete lack of knowledge. Even without perfect certainty, we can still compare two mutually exclusive viewpoints and see which one has more merit. In fact, we do this all the time.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Five Reasons to Believe in God

1. It is highly unlikely that the material world we have access to through our senses is all that there is.

How did you come to this conclusion? Why would anything else existing beyond the material world indicate the existence of a God?

2. There is something, rather than nothing.

Why is this a reason to believe in God?

3. Higher reasoning, abstract thinking (including logic), and philosphy are not rational without an objective basis outside of our sensory world.

Again, how did you come to this conclusion? How do you know that these notions and thoughts are anything other than a byproduct of natural chemical processes in the brain?

4. Ethics (responsibility to others) are an illusion without an objective basis of right and wrong.

And why can an objective basis not be set by a human mind? Why is the notion of objective morality dependent on the existence of a God? Why does the nonexistence of such objective morality render human morality an "illusion"?

5. Values/virtues (personal integrity) are an illusion without an objective basis for good.

See above.

 

[lunamoth]

And I'm not asking for absolute proof; all I'm asking for is a rationale for how "there must be more than what we can perceive" and "we have something rather than nothing" even point toward God.

I suspect that your approach might be coming at things backward. I don't think it's so much that people look at these "holes", try to find something to fill them and settle on God; instead, I think more often, people look around for holes in which to stick the God they already believe in.

Excellent point. I agree, and I think that this is what happens most or all of the time. Of course, the opposite is true too. People who do not believe in God look at each of these questions and explain why we do not need God for these, and then conclude this is evidence against God. Wrong on both counts.

What's the difference as you see it? I'd take those two things to be pretty close to equivalent.

I thought about this more after I typed it. Upon reflection I agree that there is no difference, or the difference is so subtle that I have now lost the tail of it myself.

But it's not unreasoned faith. "What works" points at least in part toward what's true: some false things may "work", but everything that is true does "work". The test of "what works" only filters out false things; what you end up with has a higher concentration of true things to false things than when you started.

What works is fine. Why are we bothering with all of these discussions?! It is only an attempt to coerce others to our way. There is nothing loftier than that, when 'what works' rules.

I think you're getting into what I cautioned about before: you're equivocating between something like "perfect certainty" and knowledge.

OK, I can see how you might think that, but it is not what I intend. What I am getting at is not about certainty, at all. It is about whether it is logical to believe and act as if there is right and wrong. With 'what works,' there is only what is right and wrong for me.

 

[lunamoth]

How did you come to this conclusion? Why would anything else existing beyond the material world indicate the existence of a God?


Why is this a reason to believe in God?


Again, how did you come to this conclusion? How do you know that these notions and thoughts are anything other than a byproduct of natural chemical processes in the brain?


And why can an objective basis not be set by a human mind? Why is the notion of objective morality dependent on the existence of a God? Why does the nonexistence of such objective morality render human morality an "illusion"?


See above.

Hi Immortal Flame. Thank you for your post. I've got to go bake a ham, but I will take a look at your post later.

 

[Copernicus]

Five Reasons to Believe in God

Sorry to come to this thread late. Just noticed it, because you chose a title similar to my other thread. I'm flattered.

1. It is highly unlikely that the material world we have access to through our senses is all that there is.

Agreed, but why is this a reason to believe in a deity? All this tells us is that we cannot detect everything that exists through our senses. That does not license specific beliefs about what we cannot detect.

2. There is something, rather than nothing.

Since God is "something" (i.e. God exists), this begs the question of why something exists rather than nothing.

3. Higher reasoning, abstract thinking (including logic), and philosphy are not rational without an objective basis outside of our sensory world.

Not really, but are these not traits that your hypothetical God possesses? If so, then you are once again caught in a circular argument. The reality is that everything we know has been built up on the foundation of sensory experience.

4. Ethics (responsibility to others) are an illusion without an objective basis of right and wrong.

No, they are not. Individual survival is enhanced by group survival. That is an evolutionary principle that we find everywhere in nature. Ethics is part of the social glue that strengthens our ability to survive and prosper. Survivability is the "objective basis"--the litums test--for ethical behavior.

5. Values/virtues (personal integrity) are an illusion without an objective basis for good.

This is just a repetition of 4. I guess you needed an extra one to make it five reasons to believe in God.

 

[FlyingTeaPot]

What happened to my previous post? RF just ate it up. I'd posted my rebuttal to lunamoth and all of it is gone

 

[FlyingTeaPot]

Well, I did not call it non-material, but that's OK. I'm just saying that considering how surprising the material world is as we know it, it is unlikely that we can possibly know all that exists. It seems likely that there is much more to reality than we have access to through our senses and reason. We arose from nature via evolution, right? Along the way, presumably, we had ancestors that were much more like sponges than we are today. A sponge, while it can sense, respond to, and interact with its environment has no awareness of that such a thing as 'humans' exist. This statement is mostly acknowledgment of our limitations.

I see what you mean. You mean we are sponges compared to god. But then sponges have very limited senses. We have developed quite sophisticated sense over the course of evolution. Also, sponges cannot think. We can. Okay, I'll grant you that. Perhaps there is a sixth sense which will allow us to sense more than what we currently can. As we have mapped out all the elements existing in the known universe, your claim seems a bit far fetched, but okay, i'll go along with that.

I agree. Why?

Why is there something? I don't know.... YET! But that is hardly a reason for believing in god. If I ask you why is there something and you say because god made it, my next question would be why did god create something? and how was god created. and why was god created? We would just go round and round in circles. At least I am being intellectually honest and telling you I don't know.

How do you know that your reason is giving you true information?

I know this because of massive amounts of empirical evidence. I know that I am assuming it to be true, and that I don't really know that my reason is true. But if my reason were flawed, then this whole thing is meaningless. I wouldn't know what I am typing and neither would you. I would be saying gibberish to you and you would be saying gibberish to me, but we both understand each other perfectly, and indeed anyone else in all the years we have been alive. How is this possible? Do you know the improbability that everyone in the world were irrational and yet be able to understand each other and carry out daily exercises without skipping a beat?

Ethics and values come from reason. We need to find a basis for reason for these to be valid, have meaning.

As I told you earlier, reason has always given us the right answers. Therefore it is reasonable to suppose that it will continue to give us the right answers. We can safely say at this point that reason, which has shown to have quite a massive amount of evidence behind itself, is a likelier choice to trust than a god power which has shown absolutely no evidence. Our ethics and values come from our reason, It is true that our reason was flawed in the past, but as we become more enlightened, we change our values based on reason and rationality, not based on god. I have yet to see a law enacted in the US as a result of god's interference. I have however, seen laws enacted based on reason. Abolishing slavery, giving women the right to vote, civil rights act and so on.




This is what I intended to write previously, but had been gobbled up by RF.

 

[Luminous]

I think the greatest arguments for God are:
1. Meaning (creation, ruleing, judgement)
2. Faith (I want it)
3. Personal Experience (I [think] know it)

The Atheist Argument:
God is not needed.(to explain things)
use science

The Theist Argument:
God is needed.(to explain things)
use religion

The Agnostic Argument:
God is not not needed. (to explain things)
use thought

 

[lunamoth]

Thanks for your post. I hope you will forgive me if I limit my comments. I read and thought about your entire post carefully. Where I don't comment I agree, or feel like I've covered it in other posts. Thanks for understanding.

Again, how did you come to this conclusion? How do you know that these notions and thoughts are anything other than a byproduct of natural chemical processes in the brain?

But how can we call byproducts of natural chemical processes rational?

Points 4 and 5 about personal and social values/ethics are related to the idea of whether something can still be good even if everyone on Earth is wrong about it. For example, if at one point in time everyone on Earth thought slavery was morally acceptable (hypothetically, just so we don't get side-tracked on whether this ever really was the case), was it still bad?

 

[Autodidact]

Thanks for your post. I hope you will forgive me if I limit my comments. I read and thought about your entire post carefully. Where I don't comment I agree, or feel like I've covered it in other posts. Thanks for understanding.


But how can we call byproducts of natural chemical processes rational?

Points 4 and 5 about personal and social values/ethics are related to the idea of whether something can still be good even if everyone on Earth is wrong about it. For example, if at one point in time everyone on Earth thought slavery was morally acceptable (hypothetically, just so we don't get side-tracked on whether this ever really was the case), was it still bad?

Again, you seem to see reason as a separate, somewhat mystical realm, discrete from the physical world. As I said, I think you're a Platonist.

Our brain does things, and produces results, and we call it reason. Sometimes it even is. It doesn't cross over from a physical world to a non-physical one. It's just more abstract ways of talking about the same thing.

How do you picture it? A brain with cells doing cell things, and above it little clouds of reason that happen to coincide exactly with the brain's functions?

 

[lunamoth]

I noticed that you previously had a longer response, but when I went to look for it it was cut off.

Thank you for your post. I have read it all carefully but need to start cutting down my posts - it is getting hard to keep up. Where I don't reply either I agree or feel like I've discussed my view on the topic in previous posts.

I see what you mean. You mean we are sponges compared to god. But then sponges have very limited senses. We have developed quite sophisticated sense over the course of evolution. Also, sponges cannot think. We can. Okay, I'll grant you that. Perhaps there is a sixth sense which will allow us to sense more than what we currently can. As we have mapped out all the elements existing in the known universe, your claim seems a bit far fetched, but okay, i'll go along with that.

Thanks for keeping an open mind!

Why is there something? I don't know.... YET! But that is hardly a reason for believing in god. If I ask you why is there something and you say because god made it, my next question would be why did god create something? and how was god created. and why was god created? We would just go round and round in circles. At least I am being intellectually honest and telling you I don't know.

I mentioned above that this question, to me, is less about plugging God into an hole in our explanation, and more about the wonder of existence. I hope you don't think of this as naive credulousness. I mean the falling-down-the-rabbit-hole-losing-yourself-in-the-feeling-of-being that we sometimes experience when we contemplate our own existence. Has this ever happened to you?

I know this because of massive amounts of empirical evidence. I know that I am assuming it to be true, and that I don't really know that my reason is true. But if my reason were flawed, then this whole thing is meaningless.

Wow! Yes! This is why this is such an interesting question.

Do you know the improbability that everyone in the world were irrational and yet be able to understand each other and carry out daily exercises without skipping a beat?

Well, sponges do it all the time.

As I told you earlier, reason has always given us the right answers. Therefore it is reasonable to suppose that it will continue to give us the right answers. We can safely say at this point that reason, which has shown to have quite a massive amount of evidence behind itself, is a likelier choice to trust than a god power which has shown absolutely no evidence.

Unless of course reason is related to 'god power.'

Our ethics and values come from our reason, It is true that our reason was flawed in the past, but as we become more enlightened, we change our values based on reason and rationality, not based on god. I have yet to see a law enacted in the US as a result of god's interference. I have however, seen laws enacted based on reason. Abolishing slavery, giving women the right to vote, civil rights act and so on.

All good points. Thank you.

 

[lunamoth]

Again, you seem to see reason as a separate, somewhat mystical realm, discrete from the physical world. As I said, I think you're a Platonist.

No, not really. In fact I think it is part of the problem to think of them as separate. I actually like process philosophy of Whitehead to the little extent that I understand it. We are not actually material beings, but events, or becomings. We have memory or sense of some of the events that lead to our fleeting present moment, but much of it eludes our senses.
Game of Thrones is starting. Later!

 

[lunamoth]

Sorry to come to this thread late. Just noticed it, because you chose a title similar to my other thread. I'm flattered.

Thank you for your post.

Agreed, but why is this a reason to believe in a deity? All this tells us is that we cannot detect everything that exists through our senses. That does not license specific beliefs about what we cannot detect.

Agreed, but I have discussed this quite a few times already in previous posts.

Note: None of the above reasons is intended as an absolute proof that God exists. These are reasons that make me consider the existence of God to be plausible.

Since God is "something" (i.e. God exists), this begs the question of why something exists rather than nothing.


Not really, but are these not traits that your hypothetical God possesses? If so, then you are once again caught in a circular argument.

I guess, if God is limited by the same things that limit us.

The reality is that everything we know has been built up on the foundation of sensory experience.

Perhaps everything we know, but I hesitate to say that everything we are is built on sensory experience alone.

No, they are not. Individual survival is enhanced by group survival. That is an evolutionary principle that we find everywhere in nature. Ethics is part of the social glue that strengthens our ability to survive and prosper. Survivability is the "objective basis"--the litums test--for ethical behavior.


This is just a repetition of 4. I guess you needed an extra one to make it five reasons to believe in God.

So you are also happy with 'what works,' and that is fine. The distinction between 4 and 5 is that one applies to social ethics (what we think of as responsibilities, but in a 'what works' world these are social contracts without the value of virtue). Some people have the worldview that it is not about the social contracts, but that they are the masters of their own domain and live by personal virtues or personal ethics. In this case the question of whether virtue is meaningful without God is raised.

 

[lunamoth]

Our brain does things, and produces results, and we call it reason. Sometimes it even is. It doesn't cross over from a physical world to a non-physical one. It's just more abstract ways of talking about the same thing.

That is pretty much how I think about it.

How do you picture it? A brain with cells doing cell things, and above it little clouds of reason that happen to coincide exactly with the brain's functions?

Lol! No, but that is a funny image.

But, this reminds me of something else I've been thinking about. Since we are just parts and chemical reactions, and we are locked in a chain of cause and effect, then it stands to reason that we really have no control over our thoughts. Input this combination of signals to the machine, depending on health of the machine get this output. Take the brain apart and there is no "I" except our memories and neural pathways, which were all formed by internal and external conditions beyond our control (since time not remembered throughout all of evolution).

You are having infinitely more impact on me than "I" can have on myself, and vv. "I" have infinitely more impact on you. Wild.

Or, if we have control or some kind of will, where is that seated in this meat machine?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Thanks for your post. I hope you will forgive me if I limit my comments. I read and thought about your entire post carefully. Where I don't comment I agree, or feel like I've covered it in other posts. Thanks for understanding.

That's fine - I can see you have a lot to respond to.

But how can we call byproducts of natural chemical processes rational?

Why couldn't we? Computers are wholly rational, and yet such rationality and deduction are merely the result of programmed 1s and 0s. Why can the human brain and the vast and complicated system of biological processes and neuroses therein not provide an adequate and naturalistic explanation for these things?

Points 4 and 5 about personal and social values/ethics are related to the idea of whether something can still be good even if everyone on Earth is wrong about it. For example, if at one point in time everyone on Earth thought slavery was morally acceptable (hypothetically, just so we don't get side-tracked on whether this ever really was the case), was it still bad?

This comes down to whether you believe in objective right and wrong. History shows us that morality is never that objective, but as time passes and history moves on we learn which moral codes suit us best and which are best for governing a society with the least amount of suffering. As humans, we're like that. Morality isn't something that is constant, but something that develops alongside society, and ultimately society will always (albeit slowly) gravitate to moral decisions that best protect and serve all people. In other words, it doesn't have to be universally or objectively wrong for us to understand that something is wrong.

 

[blackout]

Five Reasons to Believe in God
...
...
...

4. Ethics (responsibility to others) are an illusion without an objective basis of right and wrong.

5. Values/virtues (personal integrity) are an illusion without an objective basis for good.

Discuss. :seesaw:

Perhaps it is the nature of ... things...
that we... as individuals... are to decide these things,
ethics, virtues, values....
or not,
for our own Selves.

You might say though,
that this IS what makes us gods.

I have no problem with this notion at all.

All things being process.
Unfolding.

This also, I could call god.
or not.

 

[Autodidact]

That is pretty much how I think about it.

Lol! No, but that is a funny image.

But, this reminds me of something else I've been thinking about. Since we are just parts and chemical reactions, and we are locked in a chain of cause and effect, then it stands to reason that we really have no control over our thoughts. Input this combination of signals to the machine, depending on health of the machine get this output. Take the brain apart and there is no "I" except our memories and neural pathways, which were all formed by internal and external conditions beyond our control (since time not remembered throughout all of evolution).

You are having infinitely more impact on me than "I" can have on myself, and vv. "I" have infinitely more impact on you. Wild.

Or, if we have control or some kind of will, where is that seated in this meat machine?

I have a different view of this. There really REALLY REALLY is no I. There is no little person sitting in the cab, driving the meat-mobile. The sum total of all of those chemical/neurological/atomic/whatever interactions is us. There is no other you than that. So yes, you have free will, in the sense that you are that process. When all of those things happen, and result in you tapping your finger on the table, that IS your free will. You making a decision is a chemical etc. process that actually happens.

IOW, you aren't seated in the meat machine; you are the meat machine.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Great OP lunamoth. I think you perfectly summarized five of the strongest arguments for belief in God.

I.M.O. points 1-2 are not good reasons to believe in God. They are just good reasons to suspect there is much we do not know. Points 3-5 are also not good reasons to believe in God per se, they are good reasons to believe in an objective basis for higher reasoning, ethics, and virtues. There is an objective basis for such things: it's the real world, which objectively exists, outside our subjective minds. If reality was objectively different -- if human beings had evolved like a colony of ants, say, or if we lived in a universe where 2+2=4 did not accurately describe anything -- then our reasoning and our ethics would be different.