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Legitimate reasons not to believe in God

F1fan

Veteran Member
What you choose to ignore is also relevant.
The Bible says God makes peace, causes peace, brings peace, causes well-being, makes well-being, causes well-being, brings good times, sends good times, and brings prosperity and that's all there is to it.
None 0f this is relevant. You claimed God does not create evil. The Bible clearly says God created evil. You are wrong. End of story.

You think it was mistranslated. That is irrelevant. The Bible that is accepted and used says God created evil. You lose, the Bible wins.

What God does to help human is send Messengers, Messengers who get rejected by most humans, at least at first. Those Messengers reveal the teachings and laws that humans need to lead a happy and moral life, and they also reveal a message from God that is pertinent to the time in which it was revealed.
This only applies to Baha'i, and your Messenger is a bigot. That's a big error for your God to send you since bigotry is bad. And he got a lot of things wrong in his writings, so we have reason to doubt he is legitimate.

God does not 'show up' on earth because God is spirit, not a material being who can show up on earth. Because God cannot show up, God sends Messengers who act as Representatives on His behalf. This is as logical as the day is long. The fact that you do not recognize those Messengers does not change that.
How would you know? An imaginary God is the same as this.

My idea of God
did not create defects and cancers, those evolved through the process of evolution.
You keep making this bad claim. You want a good God, that does nothing bad. None of that makes any sense.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
I was raised as a Christian, and have always believed in the concept of God. In my late teens, I believed in God, but not in any particular creed.
I was raised Christian and I observed things in the behavior of other Christians that was contradictory tyo their ideals. So I was naturally suspicious of what I was being told. Oddly in my family I was the only one who questioned any of it. As I got older my questions were not answered to my satisfaction. I became aware of theists not accepting science, and not being very nice to others, and this told me something is very wrong with humans, religion, or both. I continued my study and eventually studied psychology, including the psychology of religion. I can't say I quit believing in God because I am aware that I was never really convinced of a God existing, even as a child. I'll note that I was stunned that Santa and the Tooth Fairy did not exist, and that remained an important part of my thinking even in childhood.

Upon discovering Islam in my 20's, I became a Muslim, and have not found since, any reason to believe that the texts are fraudulent.
I agree. Fraud implies a criminal intent, and I am sure those who wrote holy books were all sincere, including the Mormon Bible, the Urantia book, and the Bahai texts. The question is are any of them objectively true. Upon examination the answer is no.

No doubt believers find meaning in these texts, but are they true? No. They have many statemnets that not only lacl ebvidence, but are contrary to what we know of the universe, so no rational person would deem them true at face value.


We are all individuals, and we all have our own spiritual journeys in life.
I do use reasoning in deciding upon creed, but ultimately trust in God to guide me.
If a person does not seek for truth, they are unlikely to find it.
To my mind I don;t find much spiritual in holding andf maintaining a head full of irrational concets that don't correspond to reality. That seems like living an illusion and fantasy.


I do not know the origin of all world religions, but have reason to believe that some have roots in monotheism.
Sikhism, for example, is a mix of Hinduism and Islam.
It is a modern example of how religions can evolve.
Religions have evolved over time, just as humans have from more primitive forms. Oddly religions are supposed to be a stable truth, yet their evolutions shows us they are not. They change with changes in civilizations and human development.


You lump them all together. Each text needs to be investigated independently and assessed.
All these holy books get lumped into the category of making claims of a God, or Gods, existing, and yet they offer no evidence for any of them. Can you really argue that one text is more or less credible at face value? How can you dismiss some and accept only a few?


I believe the Qur'an is a revelation from God.
So what? What makes your judgment rational and sound? Can you present a factual explanation why you believe this? Of course you can't, so why tell us what you believe? You are a flawed and fallible mortal, not a God. You can be mistaken in your judgment about the Quran, yes?

You believe that Muhammad , peace be with him, was either deluded or fraudulent.
Humans are not consistently rational nor mentally sound. There are many flawed thinkers in history. The Quran is a book like other religious texts in that it makes many claims that have no factual basis, not correspond to reality. That is a disqualifier to a rational mind. You, and other theists, who accept your religious books do so for non-rational reasons. No one comes to a conclusion that a God exists via facts and a coherent explanation of the facts. Believers believe due to other reasons, and it is how our brains evolved to seek meaning, and the need to belong to some tribe. We have been over this.

That is one possibility.
I have been to Macca and Medina, and it is quite amazing to see the light of belief on people from all over the world, in communal worship.
That is an examle of your evolved brain finding a rewarding experience with your tribal members. When I race bikes I find a lot of satisfaction riding with my teammates and friends. Most humans seek these tyes of experiences with like minded people. We then feel satisfaction and reward in it. This is how religions attain power because it has been used to exploit people's need to belong. Historically we see religious leaders be corrupted, and theocracies abuse rights. They get away with this because there are tight groups of firm believers.

Another possibility, is that Muhammad is indeed neither a madman or a liar.
But it doesn't mean his beliefs were correct. Sane people can believe false things.

You seem to not be aware that ancient people did not have the option to not believe in a supernatural. Back then supernatural explanations and causes was all there was. Not until science and the Enlightenment happened did thinkers begin to look beyond the primitive supernatural assumption.

We are all individuals, with varying beliefs.
Many Christians believe that the Bible is not inerrant, but Divinely inspired nevertheless.
What facts suggests they are correct that it is divinely inspired?

The Qur'an claims to be from one "author". [ God ]
If one does not believe that, then faith/Islam is compromised.
So the believer has no choice. They can't reason, they can't assess. They can't acknowledge errors or problems. That is tyranny.

The Bible is known to be a collection of scripts with different age and author .. mostly anonymous.
It is not a cohesive collection. Nearly 2/3 of the books were eliminated from the collection in the 4th century. How the remaining books were selected is an interesting political story. Divine? No.

The subject matter is the same .. religious instruction and historical prophets sent by God.
More unverifiable claims by ancient folks.
 
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F1fan

Veteran Member
It means nothing of the sort, Tb. It's time you enrolled in a course on basic logic. You really believe that God wants people to suffer? You have been a Baha’i for many years and this is what you believe about God? Unbelievable. You cast a slur on the faith you profess.

As a Christian, I believe it is God’s will that people choose. After all, non-literal Eve chose to eat a non-literal apple from a non-literal tree. The alternative to choosing is a race of robots.
What do you mean by a "race of robots"? Explain what you think this means.

If you have children or grandchildren, try to imagine what your relationships would be like if there was no choice about feelings for each other.

Ugh!
Sociopaths are born with a brain defect (just as God designed and planned) and they are unable to feel empathy. About 1 in 24 people are born with this defect. They have no choice. Why do you suppose God created this brain defect and gave it to some people?
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
None 0f this is relevant. You claimed God does not create evil. The Bible clearly says God created evil. You are wrong. End of story.

You think it was mistranslated. That is irrelevant. The Bible that is accepted and used says God created evil. You lose, the Bible wins.
You have to think you have won, don't you?
The Bible that is accepted and used?

Which version of Bible is used now?

With regard to the use of Bible translations among biblical scholarship, the New Revised Standard Version is used broadly, but the English Standard Version is emerging as a primary text of choice among biblical scholars and theologians inclined toward theological conservatism.

Modern English Bible translations - Wikipedia


God creates disaster and calamity.

NIV
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
Depending upon which translation you refer to the Bible says that God created evil.

ESV
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.

God also brings evil, according to this definition of evil.

evil
1: the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing
2 : something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity
Definition of EVIL
You keep making this bad claim. You want a good God, that does nothing bad. None of that makes any sense.
No, I do not want a good God that does nothing bad, because I can see both the good and the bad that God does.
It is YOU who wants a good God that does nothing bad.
 
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Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Sociopaths are born with a brain defect (just as God designed and planned) and they are unable to feel empathy. About 1 in 24 people are born with this defect. They have no choice. Why do you suppose God created this brain defect and gave it to some people?
No, God did not either design or plan for people to be sociopaths, their brains evolved that way, but other factors also play into their behavior.

Is sociopathy learned or genetic?

The reasons behind the disorder are not fully understood. The current belief is that psychopathy generally comes from genetic factors, such as parts of the brain not developing fully, while sociopathy results from an interruption in personality development by abuse or trauma in childhood.Nov 20, 2020

Signs of a Sociopath - WebMD
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
Humans.
I teach I learn...human.

I stand on a rock planet. Telling the only humans truth.

Above me is only sky....murdered the human who said if only you believed.

Is the study of humans evil behaviour.

Two types.

Native natural I'm a human as a human on earth. Legal said. I must name the entity in legal proceedings for earths legal status.

Humans truth. An oath. The entity who created the heavens in which we live. O earth. To be a creator earth legally termed a God.

So if we teach God is the rock planet earth you'd tell the whole truth. Most of you aren't telling the truth.

One creator in first position isn't any human. It's rock.

Pretty basic human teaching for the mind of a human child only. Still learning. All humans.

No thesis about anything.
No science
No machines.

A child human all babies on earth no longer protected by our origin first adult human parent. Now just bone skeleton dust.

A human pretending now as a child what once life was on earth. With true parent...very spiritual.

As pretend is a child's life mind. Let's make believe.

A monster human adult possessed by a humans ability to learn know understands any type of destruction contrived against everything that exists. I will not agree in pretend let's make believe.... I'll force you by my pretence to believe.

My stories aren't wishful thoughts. I make you believe I'm powerful by behaviour choice.

All themes in make believe are stories only and not a thesis.

Thesis is direct science design invention reaction.

Not pretending he's for real life's destroyer.

Their pretend I destroy puts false icons into life by unnatural human choice of force. Human past and present group bullying.

Bad man's not a father's behaviours.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Right. No deity is altering any laws of physics because there isn't a theistic God.
God is not altering the laws of physics because God made those laws.
Why would God alter His own laws?

No theistic God but there is some other kind of God? What reason do you have to believe in a non-theistic God?
 

HaEmeth

Truth sets free
In my opinion, two legitimate reasons not to believe in God are as follows:

1. There is no proof that God exists


Some scientists acknowledge that a Higher Intelligence backstops the Universe.

Ironically, for me, a devout theist, the incontrovertible proof that God exists was eloquently stated by an atheist, Paul Dirac. Remarking on the role of mathematics in nature, P. A. M. Dirac states:


“It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it. You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines? One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it. One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and he used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe." - Dirac, God is a Mathematician

Here, Dirac, however, being an atheist, was using God as a metaphor for nature - in effect, chance. I couldn't fathom how he could make the switch - as the eminent scientist, Fred Hoyle, said: "there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature." - Fred Hoyle - Wikipedia

It wouldn't hurt if we ponder the following statement …

"What is chance? Some think in terms of a mathematical probability, such as the chance involved in flipping a coin. However, that is not how many scientists use “chance” regarding the origin of life. The vague word “chance” is used as a substitute for a more precise word such as “cause,” especially when the cause is not known.

“To personify ‘chance’ as if we were talking about a causal agent,” notes biophysicist Donald M. MacKay, “is to make an illegitimate switch from a scientific to a quasi-religious mythological concept.” Similarly, Robert C. Sproul points out: “By calling the unknown cause ‘chance’ for so long, people begin to forget that a substitution was made . . . The assumption that ‘chance equals an unknown cause’ has come to mean for many that ‘chance equals cause.’”

Thus, if one speaks about life coming about by chance, he is saying that it came about by a causal power that is not known. Could it be that some are virtually spelling “Chance” with a capital letter—in effect saying, Creator? - Evolution - Fact or Fiction by Nicholas Nurston, Chapter 10 (https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=bQ5OAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT25&lpg=PT25&dq=Robert+C.+Sproul+chance+equals+cause&source=bl&ots=aj8JIc-7lk&sig=ACfU3U1xildjrc6ke0rdAeZvgo--hYKaow&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi39vyJjM7xAhVozYsBHWcSAIcQ6AEwBXoECAIQAw#v=onepage&q=Robert%20C.%20Sproul%20chance%20equals%20cause&f=false)

The reasoning is simple enough: When we see a beautiful palace - or a feat of engineering, like the Hoover Dam, for example - we will readily conclude that intelligence, meaning people, were behind the construction. If we apply the same principle to creation, and perceive the intelligence behind it, should we conclude otherwise. In nature, however, we are talking about a Superior Intelligence, a God.

Recently I discovered that the idea that God used Mathematics to create the Universe is not new - Sir Isaac Newton believed in it. Listen to an excerpt from a YouTube video entitled "Science and Religion in the Thought of Isaac Newton by Stephen Snobelen"

Transcript of the video:

15:57 Here's another statement that Newton actually uses when he signs his name in at least three autograph books of young scholars from the continent. And it's from what Protestants call the Apocrypha, so not part of the Tanach, not part of what Christians call the Old Testament but other books Jewish writings and this is the Wisdom of Solomon 11:20: "God has established all things by numbers, weights and measures." Newton like many others in the early modern period was fascinated by this - the idea that God would use Mathematics to create the Universe.

Even Albert Einstein, arguably the most famous physicist of all time, remarked: “The scientist’s religious feelings take the form of rapturous amazement at the harmony of Natural law, which reveals an Intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.” - Albert Einstein > Quotes > Quotable Quotes

Honestly, should we seek another legitimate proof of God's existence - aside from Intelligent Design?
 

Brickjectivity

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
No that is not correct. Godel demonstrated a simple system of arithmetic that was consistent.
It looks like you can with meta analysis determine consistency from outside of a system, however the system cannot determine its own consistency.
" However, since the Gödel sentence cannot itself formally specify its intended interpretation, the truth of the sentence GF may only be arrived at via a meta-analysis from outside the system. In general, this meta-analysis can be carried out within the weak formal system known as primitive recursive arithmetic, which proves the implication Con(F)→GF, where Con(F) is a canonical sentence asserting the consistency of F (Smoryński 1977, p. 840, Kikuchi & Tanaka 1994, p. 403)." -- Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia

I looked at the wikipedia article on this, and it says there are two kinds of completeness: semantic, syntactic. A formal system is not syntactically complete.

"The first incompleteness theorem shows that, in formal systems that can express basic arithmetic, a complete and consistent finite list of axioms can never be created: each time an additional, consistent statement is added as an axiom, there are other true statements that still cannot be proved, even with the new axiom. If an axiom is ever added that makes the system complete, it does so at the cost of making the system inconsistent." -- Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia
While that is about number theory it has implications for other formal systems including philosophical ones. Philosophy depends upon proving things from axioms, but mathematics uses the most provable and best understood systems. If its formal systems cannot prove both completeness and consistency then how can philosophical ones? Its impossible, then, to prove that truth is true from within your system of belief. You always have to presume your axioms are complete and consistent, unless you can already think outside your system and meta analyze it.
 

muhammad_isa

Veteran Member
I became aware of theists not accepting science, and not being very nice to others, and this told me something is very wrong with humans, religion, or both..
Yes, we are often intolerant of others.
We also have differing levels of education.

I agree. Fraud implies a criminal intent, and I am sure those who wrote holy books were all sincere..
..so Muhammad, peace be with him, was sincere but deluded?

..no rational person would deem them true at face value..
..yet many rational people do, including doctors and other highly educated people. It cannot just be explained by "tradition" .. many educated people have a fair knowledge of Islam, and do not reject it.

Can you really argue that one text is more or less credible at face value?
Yes. They have different origins.

The Quran is a book like other religious texts in that it makes many claims that have no factual basis, not correspond to reality.
..so you believe that Muhammad was deluded? He only thought that the revelations he had were from God, but really it was his subconscious mind playing tricks on him .. and Muslims are all fooled by this?

That is an examle of your evolved brain finding a rewarding experience with your tribal members. When I race bikes I find a lot of satisfaction riding with my teammates and friends..
No. it isn't.
Faith is strenghened by observing the ritual worship that never ceases .. and the light that comes on people's faces as a result.

What facts suggests they are correct that it is divinely inspired?
Many people believe that Jesus, peace be with him, was not fraudulent or deluded. They believe that he was who he says he was. i.e. sent by God [the Father]

So the believer has no choice. They can't reason, they can't assess. They can't acknowledge errors or problems. That is tyranny.
Nobody has to believe something "in their heart". They either believe the Qur'an is from God, or they don't.

It is not a cohesive collection. Nearly 2/3 of the books were eliminated from the collection in the 4th century. How the remaining books were selected is an interesting political story. Divine? No.
Well, quite.
I think "Divinely inspired" means that the authors are sincere and do not lie. It doesn't necessarily mean that the authors beliefs must be inerrant.
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
When human sex produced the human life. We know. It's science.

The science branch to know is medical only.

Healers.

The man teaching. I'm my father's human life. I'm a son of my father.

Obviously if you're human and a man.

So how did you get sent?

Your father sends you into your mother's life by sperm as man yours....into the cell. Ovary.

You man know you got sent. The messenger owner DNA type of a man human.

Now if a star comes it was sent from a sun.

Ever wonder why you weren't meant to believe in that star? You didn't come from the sun.

Instead the saviour....not any man was ice that saved life on earth from stars attack. Instant snap freeze.

When the star came again ice would have melted. You were living.

Now did you get life saved?

Yes.

What saved your life?

Holy water returned oxygen generated saved you. Ice had.

Why would you think you were the saviour?

As life is mainly water...you were saved.

Hence first you own natural holy baby life conscious memory...you were sent.

Then a star took your owned natural life mind and memory away. It was waylaid.

Is the teaching... how you became a theist about suns mass.

If you knew your human father was holy...what story did he own?

Memory says nature animals humans entered by God. From out of the eternal body.

Reasoned. If spirit hadn't pre existed then how did minute microbes own the growth a dinosaur?

Animals preceded humans.

Why didn't just all humans as the deity type conscious emerge?

As nature garden was so different.

We are innate aware as our body was once with the eternal.

A simple question. If you knew you came from somewhere else...the topic subject even to reason exists as advice.

If it weren't real the information wouldn't form to express a concept.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
God is not altering the laws of physics because God made those laws.
Why would God alter His own laws?

People made those laws. In nature there are not laws. There are things that have predictable behavior based on limits and interactions and all types of stuff which mathematics describes very well. Nature is seen all throughout the universe and there is no reason why there isn't vastly more about nature we don't know which explains everything.

God isn't altering anything because there isn't a God?



No theistic God but there is some other kind of God? What reason do you have to believe in a non-theistic God?

There is clearly no theistic God here unless it was some type of sadistic being who enjoyed appearing just as mythical as the next God and watching billions of people in one completely different religion, billions in another, billions in yet another and many more in other religions. It would also sit back while everything happens including illness and war and disaster. All of those things happen and play out as probabilities would expect given the variables. So that pretty much rules out theism.
Also the main religions, if you look at scholarship, are surprisingly almost entirely just re-hashed myths and the modern idea of God was slowly developed by Aquinas and others using Greek philosophy and theology. It looks made up.

Deism is a being who maybe created the universe (we have a fine scientific theory of that) or created reality but never gets involved.
I don't believe in that but I don't not-believe in it because it cannot be proven either way.

Although consciousness is a complex phenomenon. We only know it as complex. Very complex. The idea that the FIRST thing ever in reality is a being with consciousness is extremely unlikely.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
On a "worldly" level, it might appear to .. but it does not answer any question about why we exist .. I cannot just ignore that question.

The ultimate answers simply aren't available. We don't know why there is something rather than nothing. If a god exists, we can't know why it exists. I can stop there. I can be content with the answer that I don't and can't know.

If you have an alternative hypothesis, other than "who cares why" or "maybe an alien from outer-space is responsible", I would be interested.

I can list the logical possibilities for the universe's past, but I can't rule any of them in or out. The universe may have always existed or may have come into existence uncaused. Or, it may have a prior source that is either conscious (a deity) or not (a multiverse), either of those also either having always existed or coming into existence from nothing. That's the best that reason can do at this time. Picking one of those and calling it the case is unjustified by evidence or reason. To do so is to believe by faith, or to take a leap of faith.

You do not know that the universe needs no intelligent oversight, that there is nothing being maintained, that electrons know where to go in a circuit without anybody pushing or pulling them, or that planets stay in orbits without anybody guiding them.

Yes, I do. You're saying, for example, that we don't know that the planets orbit their stars without intelligent oversight. But we do, because their motion can be described mathematically, and their positions accurately predicted

Maybe you're familiar with Newton's Principia, in which Newton describes the celestial mechanics of our solar system mathematically. Unfortunately, Newton's math, which was incomplete, predicted that larger planets would toss planets like earth into the sun or out of the solar system, and so, he added his god as hoc right there where he ran out of knowledge, which nudged the planets back into position.

This is the maintenance man god you speak of, like the attendant at a carnival ride. Then, a century later, LaPlace supplied the mathematics Newton lacked, restoring the solar system to a clockwork needing no intelligent supervision. This epitomizes the advance of science as it removes gods from the stage and replaces them with regular laws. This is what is referred to as the god of the gaps - the god being squeezed into our ever-narrowing gaps in knowledge in search of a job to do. There are no jobs left for a ruler god. It would have nothing to do but watch the cosmos evolve according to natural law, which would likely be boring for that god, as was apparently the case with the deist god, who was believed to have assembled the cosmos before departing it in auto-pilot mode. Then it was shown that the builder god wasn't needed, either, and the gap narrowed again.

Science cannot prove that the universe needs no intelligent oversight because science cannot prove that God does not exist.

Science does not need to prove that gods don't exist. Perhaps the deist god actually does or did exist. If so, it left behind a clockwork universe. Clocks also don't need spirits in them pushing gears and hands around. The pendulum swings because of a spring and the laws of physics, not Loki or Yahweh or Saturn. We can't prove that none of them exist, but we don't need them, so it doesn't matter.

You said that it would be a nightmare to discover that there a god that created you to praise it for eternity. I said it would be a nightmare for you to discover after you die that the purpose of life was to know and worship God.

OK, you're right. The thought of heaven and of hell are each nightmarish for different reasons. I would prefer eternal unconsciousness to either, and if there is an afterlife and consciousness after death, I wouldn't want to discover the Abrahamic god in it even if I had worshiped it in life. I think that might be your position as well.

Are you saying that if you died and discovered that 'the purpose you had made for yourself' was not what the purpose you were created for, you would not regret not having known that in this life? In other words, if you died and found out there is a God who had another purpose for you than the one you made for yourself, you would not regret not having known that in this life?

No, I would not regret that. Why would I? Or maybe you're suggesting that I would be punished for that. If that happened, I would regret ever having been born with the gift of reason into a universe with a hiding god who respects faith over reason, where it would be my downfall.

That's right, God is a maintenance man, not a short order cook who takes orders, and God is not Superman, who rescues everyone from all their troubles. If atheists could just grasp these two simple concepts that would be progress.

The concepts are exceedingly simple and dominated millennia of man's though beginning in childhood. The trick is to learn how to do better than that, how to hold more nuanced thoughts. We can get past the god concept altogether. It adds nothing. Neither a maintenance man nor a short order cook are needed, and nobody is looking over us and protecting us from above.

Atheism isn't for everybody. It's easier to believe in a god than not. Being an atheist means that there is no devil to blame, no expectation of reuniting with deceased loved ones, no personal protection from the cosmos, only one life to live, personal responsibility for one's choices, nobody watching over you or answering your prayers, marginalization in a theistic society, and no easy explanations for our existence.

To the theist I say, try standing up like the bipedal ape you were born to be, and look out into the universe, which may contain no gods at all, and then face and accept the very real possibility that we may be all there is for light years, that we may be vulnerable and not watched over. Accept the likelihood of our own mortality and finitude, of consciousness ending with death, of maybe not seeing the departed again. Accept the reality of our likely insignificance everywhere but earth, and that you might be unloved except by those who know you - people, and maybe a few animals. Because as far as we know, that's how it is.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
It looks like you can with meta analysis determine consistency from outside of a system, however the system cannot determine its own consistency.
" However, since the Gödel sentence cannot itself formally specify its intended interpretation, the truth of the sentence GF may only be arrived at via a meta-analysis from outside the system. In general, this meta-analysis can be carried out within the weak formal system known as primitive recursive arithmetic, which proves the implication Con(F)→GF, where Con(F) is a canonical sentence asserting the consistency of F (Smoryński 1977, p. 840, Kikuchi & Tanaka 1994, p. 403)." -- Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia

I looked at the wikipedia article on this, and it says there are two kinds of completeness: semantic, syntactic. A formal system is not syntactically complete.

"The first incompleteness theorem shows that, in formal systems that can express basic arithmetic, a complete and consistent finite list of axioms can never be created: each time an additional, consistent statement is added as an axiom, there are other true statements that still cannot be proved, even with the new axiom. If an axiom is ever added that makes the system complete, it does so at the cost of making the system inconsistent." -- Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia
While that is about number theory it has implications for other formal systems including philosophical ones. Philosophy depends upon proving things from axioms, but mathematics uses the most provable and best understood systems. If its formal systems cannot prove both completeness and consistency then how can philosophical ones? Its impossible, then, to prove that truth is true from within your system of belief. You always have to presume your axioms are complete and consistent, unless you can already think outside your system and meta analyze it.


Godels theorem does not invalidate truth statements. It isn't making a rebuttal of truth. It says there are axioms that cannot be proven using the system. If you take the reals or the number system do you think it invalidates all mathematics. That we should call NASA and tell them the space missions didn't work because they used Newtonian gravitational equations and it must have been God who steered the ships because all math is no longer true?
Is 2+2 not 4 anymore?
Is quantum mechanics now not a truthful description of reality? No, it still is. Repeated experiments continue to produce expected results in all sciences. And math still works. Truth is not part of Godels theorem.

And there is no evidence for a theistic God.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Yes, we are often intolerant of others.
We also have differing levels of education.
Both can be resolved with non-religious solutions.


..so Muhammad, peace be with him, was sincere but deluded?
No one can say for sure. All we can do is examine the Quran, what he wrote, and what he believed, and make an assessment. Those who lived in times before science and reason, with the exception of the Greeks, had views that were superstitious and made assumptions that a supernatural exists and is the cause of what exists and how it functions. So perhaps in the 8th century what Muhammed believed was the best he could do without modern knowledge. It isn't fair to judge those from the past for having beliefs that are determined wrong or flawed with assumptions with modern perspectives.

The question is why modern people believe in these concepts and texts. The easy answer is cultural evolution that has allowed these ideas to be passed on to next generations, and those offspring maintain the beliefs. In many Muslim countries we are seeing citizens wanting freedoms beyond what the religious tradition allows, and thses citizens face imprisonment and execution. The world condemns these religious/cultural traditions that are obsolete in modern sensibility. Out of curiosity, do you support the revolution in Iran? Do you think the citizens have a right to oppose the harsh leadership of Iran, and challenge their hardline Muslim authority?


..yet many rational people do, including doctors and other highly educated people. It cannot just be explained by "tradition" .. many educated people have a fair knowledge of Islam, and do not reject it.
Right. It's called compartamentalism. It's where people can be skilled thinkers about some things, and suspend reasoning where it comes to ideas that involve culture, identity, conformity, etc. We have discussed this already.

But those who are determined to hold rational understnading about all things in life, they do reject the influences of irrational social and cultural beliefs, and examine concepts with an independent mind. I've known many very smart people who believed in their religious tradition. Some admit they don't really believe in God but will go to serivices for the sake of tradition and family. Heck even I went to church with a girl I dated many years ago.

Let's look at Obama as an example. He is a very smart and well educated person and has discussed his religious faith. I'm a little surprised he's a believer, but I suspect his belief is more around family and community. Obama understood the separation of church and state, and his political views were very secular. Contrast this with many republicans who seldom, if ever, talk about their faith yet hold very religious-influenced poiltical policies, namely on abortion rights. The last three Supreme Court justices were picked for their religious/political views. They are supposed to be secular, but it is very apparent they are not, and they were picked for their religious views. Their plan worked, they overturned Roe v. Wade.

So being educated and highly religious can be a problem. One of my uncles is a chemist and very religious, actually believing in creationism. It was at their house that I learned of creationism because they had books about it. I was in high school and I laughed at these books thinking they were parodies, as one book had a cover that showed dinosaurs and humans living at the same time. No, they took it seriously. My unclue's religious beliefs cost him some advancement opportunities, and they moved quite a few times for new jobs. He did well financially, but the whole family knew they were having trouble in that one area. So being smart, having an education, does not correspond to being able to assess religious concepts objectively when there is social influence at play.


Yes. They have different origins.
Is this all you have to say? I asked if all texts have validity at face value to your mind. If you dont want to answer my questions just don't ansewer.


..so you believe that Muhammad was deluded? He only thought that the revelations he had were from God, but really it was his subconscious mind playing tricks on him .. and Muslims are all fooled by this?
I answered about Muhammad above. The human mind is not a machine, it is subject to social influences, drugs, illness, emotions, available resources, stress, etc. We can't diagnose Muhammad but his views can be said not to be factual or valid if written today. The only thing that gives the Quran significance is billions of believers who were either conditioned to believe, or found the religion a better alternative to what they were used to. Is Islam the truth? Not any more than Hinduism or Judaism. Religions don't exist as statements of fact, but as literature that offers meaning to many folks seeking some form of connection.


No. it isn't.
Faith is strenghened by observing the ritual worship that never ceases .. and the light that comes on people's faces as a result.
This doesn't rebut what I stated. Religion does activate the reward centers of believer's brains, this is a fact revealed in fMRI and pet scans. What you describe here is a result of your learned religious behavior, and it is satisfying in part due to how the human brain evolved to experience ritual.


Many people believe that Jesus, peace be with him, was not fraudulent or deluded. They believe that he was who he says he was. i.e. sent by God [the Father]
Yup, people believe in all sorts of non-factual and irrational concepts.

The human brain is not a machine. It is a biological instrument that has a overly functioning fight or flight fear mechanism and this has caused us trouble in making consistently sound judgments. Look at the many MAGAs who got caught up in Trump's lie about election fraud, and they went so far with their belief that they broke into congress on Jan 6, 2021. Over 800 have been arrested and are facving jail time, some as high as 7 years. Many of these folks NOW realize they were duped by Trump. Of course the fault is not Trump, but why these people allowed themselves to believe such stupid claims that Trump presented to them. This illustrates how our brains are willing to be deceived, and will be complicit with the deception for reasons that are satifying to the self.

Nobody has to believe something "in their heart". They either believe the Qur'an is from God, or they don't.
And we critical thinkers can't believe any of it because we are requiring facts, and there is not sufficient evidence.


Well, quite.
I think "Divinely inspired" means that the authors are sincere and do not lie. It doesn't necessarily mean that the authors beliefs must be inerrant.
That is an exceptionally low standard. A person can be ignorant but sincere, so what they write must be divine.

This low stndard seems to me an excuse for you to assign the Quran divinity, and thus worthy to interpret at face value.

Do you think the Uriantia book is divine? It is over 2000 pages of great detail about other planets, other beings in the universe, about Jesus, etc.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Honestly, should we seek another legitimate proof of God's existence - aside from Intelligent Design?
Thank you for your thoughts and information on intelligent design.
I don't know if that is proof, but it is evidence that God exists. Evidence is not the same as proof.

Evidence is information that indicates that something is true and causes you to believe it is true.
Evidence helps to establish if something is the truth but it does not establish it as a fact.

Proof is what establishes evidence as a fact.

I believe that the Manifestations of God, who are also Messengers of God since they bring messages from God, are the greatest evidence that indicates that God exists. As such Jesus Christ was evidence that God exists, since He was a Manifestation of God.

1 Timothy 3-16
KJV
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
There is clearly no theistic God here unless it was some type of sadistic being who enjoyed appearing just as mythical as the next God and watching billions of people in one completely different religion, billions in another, billions in yet another and many more in other religions. It would also sit back while everything happens including illness and war and disaster. All of those things happen and play out as probabilities would expect given the variables. So that pretty much rules out theism.
The mythical religions are what people needed in the past and they are now a vestige of the past. Why live in the past?
God does not 'sit back.' Only humans sit back. There is not reason to believe that a theistic God would intervene in the world, since God gave humans free will and the capacity to take care of themselves and the world.
Also the main religions, if you look at scholarship, are surprisingly almost entirely just re-hashed myths and the modern idea of God was slowly developed by Aquinas and others using Greek philosophy and theology. It looks made up.
If you stopped looking at ancient texts that were not written for people living in the modern age you might find the truth.
Who is reading old computer manuals, now that we have modern technology?
Deism is a being who maybe created the universe (we have a fine scientific theory of that) or created reality but never gets involved.
I don't believe in that but I don't not-believe in it because it cannot be proven either way.
The theistic God also never gets involved, except to send Messengers, or if He chooses to get involved.
That God is not a short order cook who takes orders from humans.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Thank you for your thoughts and information on intelligent design.
I don't know if that is proof, but it is evidence that God exists. Evidence is not the same as proof.

Evidence is information that indicates that something is true and causes you to believe it is true.
Evidence helps to establish if something is the truth but it does not establish it as a fact.

Proof is what establishes evidence as a fact.

I believe that the Manifestations of God, who are also Messengers of God since they bring messages from God, are the greatest evidence that indicates that God exists. As such Jesus Christ was evidence that God exists, since He was a Manifestation of God.
The problem with your thinking is that you value this weak evidence that supports your existing beliefs but ignore the evidence that counters your belief. That is a bias that critical thinkers avoid.

If your interest was to have the most likely understanding of what is true you would be open to all the evidence. Notice you never cite anything that would be evidence for Hinduism being true even though it has many bits of evidence that you use for your Bahai beliefs.

Using your thinking approach anyone can believe any religion is true. And they do. You don’t give other religions the time of day even though they are as valid as yours.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Yes, I do. You're saying, for example, that we don't know that the planets orbit their stars without intelligent oversight. But we do, because their motion can be described mathematically, and their positions accurately predicted.
We do know all those things and we can describe and accurately predict positions, but we do not know what is causing them to occur. We do not know that there is no intelligent oversight, that there is nothing being maintained by a God. We also do not know that there is.
This is what is referred to as the god of the gaps - the god being squeezed into our ever-narrowing gaps in knowledge in search of a job to do. There are no jobs left for a ruler god. It would have nothing to do but watch the cosmos evolve according to natural law, which would likely be boring for that god, as was apparently the case with the deist god, who was believed to have assembled the cosmos before departing it in auto-pilot mode. Then it was shown that the builder god wasn't needed, either, and the gap narrowed again.
Now that the cosmos has evolved according to natural law, there is no way we can know that there are no jobs left for God to do in the maintenance of the cosmos.
Science does not need to prove that gods don't exist.
And believers do not need to prove that God does exist, since that can never be proven.
Perhaps the deist god actually does or did exist. If so, it left behind a clockwork universe. Clocks also don't need spirits in them pushing gears and hands around. The pendulum swings because of a spring and the laws of physics, not Loki or Yahweh or Saturn. We can't prove that none of them exist, but we don't need them, so it doesn't matter.
You can believe we don't need a God if you wish, but you can never prove it is true, so it is only a belief based upon a personal opinion, just like what I have.
OK, you're right. The thought of heaven and of hell are each nightmarish for different reasons. I would prefer eternal unconsciousness to either, and if there is an afterlife and consciousness after death, I wouldn't want to discover the Abrahamic god in it even if I had worshiped it in life. I think that might be your position as well.
Granted, after you die you might not want to discover the Abrahamic God, according the conception of that God that you have now, but after you die you may well discover that your conception was incorrect. I am not looking forward to spending any time with that God either, but I would like to know if my conception was correct or incorrect. I would like to know if God is loving even if I did not believe that in this life.

Why wouldn't you want to discover the Abrahamic God in the afterlife if you had worshiped it in life? That does not make sense to me. I mean what would you have worshiped a God you did not want to be near in the afterlife?
No, I would not regret that. Why would I? Or maybe you're suggesting that I would be punished for that. If that happened, I would regret ever having been born with the gift of reason into a universe with a hiding god who respects faith over reason, where it would be my downfall.
No, I am not suggesting that you would be punished, I was suggesting that you might be sorry if after you died you found out that there was a purpose for your life that you had not known about. I believe that the afterlife (meaning after physical life) in the next world is the World of Lights, so we will find out many things we did not know in this life.
Neither a maintenance man nor a short order cook are needed, and nobody is looking over us and protecting us from above.
You might believe that but you do not know that is true, not any more than I know that what I believe is true.
Atheism isn't for everybody. It's easier to believe in a god than not.
Easy? It is anything but easy, having to follow God's teachings and laws rather than what you have decided for yourself, your personal morality. Atheists can do anything they want to with no fear of the consequences. Ever heard of fear of God? That is what keeps most people from committing immoral acts.
Being an atheist means that there is no devil to blame, no expectation of reuniting with deceased loved ones, no personal protection from the cosmos, only one life to live, personal responsibility for one's choices, nobody watching over you or answering your prayers, marginalization in a theistic society, and no easy explanations for our existence.
Being a believer is not easy because it also means personal responsibility for one's choices, although it also comes with those other benefits you cited, including no marginalization. I do not think that atheists should be marginalized just because they are in the minority.
To the theist I say, try standing up like the bipedal ape you were born to be, and look out into the universe, which may contain no gods at all, and then face and accept the very real possibility that we may be all there is for light years, that we may be vulnerable and not watched over. Accept the likelihood of our own mortality and finitude, of consciousness ending with death, of maybe not seeing the departed again. Accept the reality of our likely insignificance everywhere but earth, and that you might be unloved except by those who know you - people, and maybe a few animals. Because as far as we know, that's how it is.
To the atheist I say, accept the very real possibility that we may be vulnerable and watched over by an Almighty God. Accept the likelihood of our immortality, of consciousness not ending with death, the possibility of seeing departed loved ones again. Accept the reality of our likely insignificance everywhere but earth, and that you might be unloved except by those who know you - people, and maybe a few animals. Because as far as we know, that's how it is. We do not know that e are loved by God, we can only believe that. That is possible, but I am not banking on it. People and animals are all we really have to count on for love. Why do you think I have so many cats? :)
 
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