Frustrated athiest asks why do you believe in God?

[Mock Turtle]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

I don't. And I haven't found any compelling evidence as to why I should.

I can understand why some will base their beliefs as to such (believing in God) because of some particular experience, but I think they have failed to accept that such might come from the very nature of being human - our desire for something of this nature being one aspect - and where an experience, of whatever sort, might fulfil such requirement.

I have never had such, and I'm afraid the 'seek and ye shall find' attitude unfortunately often leads down a blind alley or as to the reward expected rather than any 'truth'. Place a target and you might hit the target. My view at least.

 

[exchemist]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

Long Version:
I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts. You may have noticed this frustration seeping into the conversations I have on RF. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I'll will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

One way to influence others is to first be influenced by them. In other words, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

Thank you in advance for the conversation

I find it interesting that you put this is the Science and Religion section, as it seems to me your question has nothing to do with science. This makes me wonder if the way you approach the issue of religious belief has something to do with your incomprehension of it.

 

[RestlessSoul]

To quote Dr Sheldon Cooper:

It's not arrogance, if you are correct

That statement is an almost flawless example of insufferable arrogance

 

[Trailblazer]

It is only arrogance if you think that critical thinking is more valuable than belief.

It is arrogance as soon as someone identifies themself as a critical thinker and they say that believers cannot think critically. Nothing could be more arrogant.

Scepticism and faith both have utility. Unfortunately you can't have both.

You cannot have both because they are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive.

Strive only emerges when believers are greedy and want to have both. You can't. Believing is the decision to value faith over rationality, at least in one question. Just stand to that decision.

Believing is not the decision to value faith over rationality because a religious belief can be rational.
There is nothing inherently rational about atheism or agnosticism.
Rationality has nothing to do with belief or non-belief. It is about how one reasons.

 

[Trailblazer]

That statement is an almost flawless example of insufferable arrogance

That is just about as arrogant as anything I have ever heard.

 

[Trailblazer]

To quote Dr Sheldon Cooper:

It's not arrogance, if you are correct

I have never heard anything more arrogant in my entire life.
Anyone who would say that is too arrogant to know how arrogant they are.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That statement is an almost flawless example of insufferable arrogance

That was a joke.

In reality, it's not arrogance at all.
The only reason theists call it "arrogant" is because people take their religious beliefs personally.
In reality, it's just pointing out reasoning flaws and invalid argumentation.

How is it "arrogant" to point out that believing things without verifiable evidence isn't rational?
I don't consider it arrogant at all.

When I believe something for bad reasons and someone points it out while explaining why they are bad reasons... I thank them. I don't accuse them of "arrogance" and pretend that that accusation somehow is a counter-argument or a good enough excuse to not having to deal with their arguments.


Maybe you should ask yourself if the accusation of "arrogance", is an objective observation - or instead, rather just how you experience/interpret the statement.

I can't control how you feel.

 

[ChristineM]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

Long Version:
I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts. You may have noticed this frustration seeping into the conversations I have on RF. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I'll will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

One way to influence others is to first be influenced by them. In other words, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

Thank you in advance for the conversation

I used to get frustrated at deliberate ignorance, now I don't really care what people believe so long as they don't try to force their faith onto me.

It's just a matter of accepting that people are different, each person is unique.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

and they say that believers cannot think critically.

I don't think I've ever seen someone say that.
I've seen people say that believers can not think ciritically concerning the subject of their religious beliefs.
I've not seen people say that believers lack the skill of critical thinking across the board.

Just because one holds a specific irrational belief, does not in any way mean that they are irrational across the board.

To give a stupid example, when a YEC believes that brushing your teeth every day is a good way to avoid cavities and alike, then they are not being irrational.

When they believe the earth is only a couple millenia old when ALL the evidence SCREAMS it is 4.5 billion years old, then they ARE being irrational.

Beliefs an be irrational. That doesn't mean the people holding those beliefs are irrational, period.

Believing is not the decision to value faith over rationality because a religious belief can be rational.

For a belief to be rational, it would have to be backed by reasonable, objective, independently verifiable evidence.

Religions require faith precisely because such evidence isn't available.

I am not aware of any religious beliefs that I could categorize as being "rational".

There is nothing inherently rational about atheism or agnosticism.

Likely that is the case because there is nothing inherent about atheism or agnosticism.
They are instead specific positions concerning specific claims, that come without doctrines or claims.

As positions, they are rational, since those positions are "disbelief of claims due to a lack of verifiable evidence".

What definition of "rational" do you adhere to, which makes such positions "not rational", I wonder?

Rationality has nothing to do with belief or non-belief. It is about how one reasons.

Yes, it's about what underpins the positions you hold in relation certain claims.
"faith", is not a rational underpinning, since "faith" by definition is belief without evidence.

And belief without evidence, isn't rational.
If you think it is, then please share me your working definition of the word "rational".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I have never heard anything more arrogant in my entire life.
Anyone who would say that is too arrogant to know how arrogant they are.

What exactly is so "arrogant" about pointing out reasoning mistakes?

 

[PureX]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

It's not about evidence, it's about results. People choose to believe in the existence of God/gods because they find that doing so improves the quality and value of their lives. That it makes them better humans.

I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts.

Why should they? Faith in God/gods is something people choose to do because they need and want to. And because there is no reason not to so long as they gain a benefit from it.

I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

You have nothing to explain. You have no more idea of the nature and/or existence of God/gods than anyone else does. It is a mystery to us all. And as a mystery we are free to believe as we wish about it.

Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

First, you need to drop the "believe in" idea and replace it with "have faith in". People who "believe in" things they cannot know to be so is just arrogance; theist, atheist, or otherwise. The truth is that we don't know if God exists, or what such an existence would mean. All any of us can do is speculate on the possibility, and then choose to trust in the reality of our speculations, or not to. And since that choice cannot be made based on what we know (because we don't know) we base it on the results that follow from our choices. Or more specifically, from the actions we take in life based on our choices.

So it's a matter of faith, not knowledge, ... and the results that follow from living by that faith. For all of us. Which is why your (and others) demand for "evidence" is pointless. There isn't any. There are only the results.

 

[sayak83]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

Long Version:
I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts. You may have noticed this frustration seeping into the conversations I have on RF. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I'll will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

One way to influence others is to first be influenced by them. In other words, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

Thank you in advance for the conversation

1) Having multiple Direct spiritual/transcendent experiences that are self-validating regarding the existence of the trans-physical reality.
2) Knowing that such experiences have happened to many spiritual practitioners in the past.
3) Directly experiencing the inner and outer benefits of techniques like meditation, yoga etc. are were created by such spiritual practitioners thereby showing that these spiritual experiences are not merely 'idle' fictions (like dreams) but have transformative functional aspects that make a real difference in the lived experience of beings.
4) The realization that consciousness cannot be physical as a) Its existence cannot be inferred from observing physical states unless one already knows that consciousness is manifested there and b) the features of the conscious experiential field are not things that can be derived as some complex functions of positions, velocities, masses or charges of matter of physical force fields (redness of red, texture of the sound of violin etc.).
5) The ever increasing integration of what is called "physical" with abstract mathematical structures (like symmetry groups) and the inability to develop deterministic and perspective independent "objective" realism in physics (quantum mechanics) shows to me that the physical realm cannot be extracted out of the abstract realm or the perspective dependent realm. Thus the physical realm cannot be the foundational realm from which everything else is derived from.
6) The awareness that conscious experiences are the primary substratum from which we infer all knowledge claims. Thus the move of some physicalists (like Dennett) to state that conscious experience is a sort of fiction or hallucination without causal potency undermines the very thing out of which all knowledge claims are made.

So far these points.
No, I cannot demonstrate heaven, hell or God(s) exist(s). My proposition is consciousness is a realm of existence that partially manifests itself in the causal world when certain matter configurations appear in the universe....just as mathematics is a real of existence that partially manifests itself when certain configurations appear (within computers, calculators, Turing machines etc.). God, then, is a model to indicate this consciousness state or realm (like the realm of pure mathematics) which we, as partial manifestations of consciousness can experience and sense even as we find ourselves in this physical realm.

I will make another tentative claim that such connections between realms (consciousness, physical, abstract) are possible because at a fundamental level they are not independent, but are "low-dimensional" projections of some unitary realm that transcends the distinction between these objects or states. In that sense I am a monist.

 

[blü 2]

Life is a miracle. Consciousness is a miracle.

Or, life is biology, consciousness is very complex biology, partly a work in progress.

Life is a miracle. Consciousness is a miracle.There are no experiments showing a gradual change in species caused by "survival of the fittest".

You don't follow football, then?

 

[Altfish]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

Long Version:
I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts. You may have noticed this frustration seeping into the conversations I have on RF. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I'll will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

One way to influence others is to first be influenced by them. In other words, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

Thank you in advance for the conversation

I have long since stopped worrying about why people believe in gods, fairies, flat earth or whatever. If it gives them comfort, companionship and hope, so be it.
They can believe what they like as long as they do not try to make my kids believe in it too.
They can believe what they want so long as they do not make governments take up their beliefs as policy.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

There are no experiments showing a gradual change in species caused by "survival of the fittest".
.

Survival of the fittest is an outdated phrase. Genes are simply passed on through reproduction, and some continue while others don't.

There's plenty of evidence for this in the fossil record, in embryology, comparative anatomy, and in genetics.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

Long Version:
I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts. You may have noticed this frustration seeping into the conversations I have on RF. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I'll will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

One way to influence others is to first be influenced by them. In other words, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

Thank you in advance for the conversation

The most compelling evidence I have for the existence of gods is the influence these gods have over people's lives.

A question for you. Why do you get angry when people don't see what you see? Why is this a requirement for you?

 

[Colt]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

Long Version:
I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts. You may have noticed this frustration seeping into the conversations I have on RF. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I'll will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

One way to influence others is to first be influenced by them. In other words, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

Thank you in advance for the conversation

God is so obvious its blinding. Until I was 21 I knew God existed, but I ignored him. As a result of addiction I stood at the turning point, I could no longer deny help and guidance from God. Honestly, if it wasn't for addiction I might still be believing but ignoring.

In truth the ultraindividualistic human "self" or "ego" doesn't want to believe in God because then it would have to change.

"The very pessimism of the most pessimistic materialist is, in and of itself, sufficient proof that the universe of the pessimist is not wholly material. Both optimism and pessimism are concept reactions in a mind conscious of values as well as of facts. If the universe were truly what the materialist regards it to be, man as a human machine would then be devoid of all conscious recognition of that very fact. Without the consciousness of the concept of values within the spirit-born mind, the fact of universe materialism and the mechanistic phenomena of universe operation would be wholly unrecognized by man. One machine cannot be conscious of the nature or value of another machine." Urnatia Book 1955

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

First, you need to drop the "believe in" idea and replace it with "have faith in".

What's the practical difference?

People who "believe in" things they cannot know to be so is just arrogance; theist, atheist, or otherwise. The truth is that we don't know if God exists, or what such an existence would mean. All any of us can do is speculate on the possibility, and then choose to trust in the reality of our speculations, or not to. And since that choice cannot be made based on what we know (because we don't know) we base it on the results that follow from our choices.

That sounds an awful lot like it being just an argument from ignorance.

So it's a matter of faith, not knowledge, ... and the results that follow from living by that faith

Like flying planes in buildings, burning witches and discriminating against gay people?
Or only the cherry picked results that sound nice?

For all of us. Which is why your (and others) demand for "evidence" is pointless. There isn't any. There are only the results.

If there is no evidence of X, why believe X?
Results? Only cherry picked results, it seems.

 

[rational experiences]

The argument God was sciences own position.

As a human to pretend they know where everything came from is dependant on some words.

Scientists as theists say a number.

Okay where did a number come from?

As we base the sciences on earths mass to get design you have to design measure angle thesis for the first position.

Without the earth present you can't theory.

A machine. Not a theory creation.

As no man can add space and all mass to claim here is a number that represents its all stating their thoughts their words created it.

Yet you want us to believe you.

Non stop rhetoric is about don't believe a creator caused creation as it's evilly reactive.

As human behaviour the topic why you should not believe is either chosen or damaged minds own no personal human control. Which has in no status a God inferred reason.

As humans are self owned with free will of human choice.

Science tries to relate for a loving God it can't be creation as it's too unstable and reactive.

Spiritual humanity as correct teachers taught it was eternal and not in creation.

Hence science doesn't need to argue about its condition. Reason...I studied and applied what human conditions were conferred to be spiritual to have an experience.

Any experience is what a human uses to argue. Involving human observation. Human thoughts.

It never involved a man with his machine.

If you preach science then thesis thinking is all you first own. You can't use machines to claim God first.

The observer speaking words giving description.

Yet the observer is exact only just ever a human.

Science says a human was an ape.

Eternal God teaching said direct from the eternal.

Was the argument.

Yet neither is a proof as the human is always present first.

As I am not an ape...my parents not apes. First human parents as human not apes. Your idea is not the correct reason as per what you quote the ape means.

Hence you are not correct by intelligence as compared to a thesis the eternal. As you can't prove it's not real.

The argument a God in creation is artificial. As a planet first object does not speak.

Which is the scientists number position first.

As the heavens recording voice image is a proven used machine status it proves it's artificial. Hence changed changing conditions.

A God is inferred to be highest and never changing to be one status unconditional love only.

Hence as the theme created creation had left the first state it proves it's not loving.

I however can categorically state our human parents very loving.

So the eternal God needs to be taught as the highest god and not the God released into creation.

To be the argument scientist you aren't correct and you own no proof.

 

[PruePhillip]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

Long Version:
I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts. You may have noticed this frustration seeping into the conversations I have on RF. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I'll will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

One way to influence others is to first be influenced by them. In other words, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

Thank you in advance for the conversation

Why do I believe in God? Many reasons concerning the private reflections of my life.
But two reasons that might resonate with skeptics are these:

I DON'T BELIEVE IN MAGIC, AND A UNIVERSE CREATING ITSELF, BEFORE IT EVEN EXISTED, IS JUST MAGIC.
I DON'T BELIEVE IN ABSURDITY, AND A UNIVERSE CREATING ITSELF, FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER, IS ABSURD.