Whats your religion?

[Zoy64]

What if religion isnt supposed to make sense?

[Neddie]

Then you shouldn't presume to prove it.

[Snipawolf]

Might have left a post here already, oh well.

I believe in nothing until proven one way or the other. I won't make any personal quest or voyage to find God, I won't denounce that something doesn't exist that caused us all to be here. I'll find out when I die, or if not, my corpse will rot in the ground and what will be, will be.

[rattle]

What if religion isnt supposed to make sense?

Religion is a business idea and it's been a pretty successful one. Indulgences in the dark ages, horny suicide bombers today.

[manored]

What if religion isnt supposed to make sense?

If a religion doesnt makes sense then that proves it is false, and people who believe it either never questioned their own religion (maybe due to strong faith) or dont have the part of the information saying it doesnt makes sense...

This makes me remember of a fragment of a book of Douglas Adams, wich I will roughly reproduce here:

The Babel fish is a creature that feeds from brainwaves and conveniently translates then to who puts one of then into his ear, allowing anyone to understand anyone. The extreme hardness of a creature such as this evolving naturally is considered the ultimate proof of the inexistence of god. The line of tough is like this:

god- I refuse to prove that I exist, because proof negates faith, and winhout faith I am nothing.
man- But the babel fish is too much proof isnt it? It proves that you exist, and since you wont prove your own existence, you dont exist.
god- Hum, I hadnt tough from that point of view... (disaparears in a puff of logic)

[TheBigPK]

there are some pretty good arguments for the existence of a god, though I'm an atheist I'm in a philosophy class and we've been going over the god topic for a few weeks. Cosmological 'first cause' ones are decent but not really entirely convincing. Basically, they argue that since everything is contingent (had a cause) and contingent things cannot cause themselves, there has to have been a necessary being that caused them. And said necessary being could not be part of our extensible existence. Only two things are (sort of) certainly not part of the extensible/physical world and they are mathematics and the mind. Mathematics do not cause anything sooo, a cosmologist would argue, whatever caused everything would have to have been a necessary 'mind.' I suppose if someone was arguing with me about god's existence and threw that in my face I'd respect them a bit.

It still runs into the mind/body problem which cannot be resolved and does not explain why there is a necessary mind that did not need to be caused alongside a other things. It does account for an infinite existence though; somehow (forgot..). Though I don't eat it, thats the most intriguing argument for a god we went over in class. Theres teleological arguments too but they're ridiculous (claims that since the universe works so well it seems like it was designed and if it was designed there has to be a designer... lame).

[kiki]

there are some pretty good arguments for the existence of a god, though I'm an atheist I'm in a philosophy class and we've been going over the god topic for a few weeks. Cosmological 'first cause' ones are decent but not really entirely convincing. Basically, they argue that since everything is contingent (had a cause) and contingent things cannot cause themselves, there has to have been a necessary being that caused them. And said necessary being could not be part of our extensible existence. Only two things are (sort of) certainly not part of the extensible/physical world and they are mathematics and the mind. Mathematics do not cause anything sooo, a cosmologist would argue, whatever caused everything would have to have been a necessary 'mind.' I suppose if someone was arguing with me about god's existence and threw that in my face I'd respect them a bit.

It still runs into the mind/body problem which cannot be resolved and does not explain why there is a necessary mind that did not need to be caused alongside a other things. It does account for an infinite existence though; somehow (forgot..). Though I don't eat it, thats the most intriguing argument for a god we went over in class. Theres teleological arguments too but they're ridiculous (claims that since the universe works so well it seems like it was designed and if it was designed there has to be a designer... lame).

therefore god does not exist (sorry jesus )

[Final]

Seeing as humankind only managed to prove ones own individual First-person existence in the mid 1600s (Ren├â┬® Descartes "I think, therefore I am").....

I see little hope in us being able to prove the existence of a deity anytime soon......

so lock the topic to help us avoid belittling ourselves as beings any further?

[El Idiot]

Wow. More atheists and agnostics than I thought. Bible for me, personal experiences is my backing.

Keep hearing a mathematical argument for God when people usually discuss his existence. That everything is too perfect therefore it must have been designed. But my thought on this has always been:

Existence is infinite in space, yes? There is no 'edge' of existence. You can't put a value^power to represent all the space in the various dimensions there are. Anything can happen. Literally, when you get down to the nitty-gritty sub atomic levels and below, there are mathematical odds of anything. However, they are near infinitely small. Key word 'near', we can still calculate many of them. Like the odds of walking through a wall. Or if you want to get biblical, walking on water. That water would spontaneously turn into wine. Etc.
So, in infinite space, what are the odds of something not happening? If it has odds of happening, no matter how small, it has to happen somewhere, eventually, within an infinite space. The universe works dang near perfect doesn't it? It had to happen eventually, and here it is.

[TheRegisteredOne]

Wow. More atheists and agnostics than I thought. Bible for me, personal experiences is my backing.

Keep hearing a mathematical argument for God when people usually discuss his existence. That everything is too perfect therefore it must have been designed. But my thought on this has always been:

Existence is infinite in space, yes? There is no 'edge' of existence. You can't put a value^power to represent all the space in the various dimensions there are. Anything can happen. Literally, when you get down to the nitty-gritty sub atomic levels and below, there are mathematical odds of anything. However, they are near infinitely small. Key word 'near', we can still calculate many of them. Like the odds of walking through a wall. Or if you want to get biblical, walking on water. That water would spontaneously turn into wine. Etc.
So, in infinite space, what are the odds of something not happening? If it has odds of happening, no matter how small, it has to happen somewhere, eventually, within an infinite space. The universe works dang near perfect doesn't it? It had to happen eventually, and here it is.

Using your train of thought, If the universe is infinite, and everything is not just possible, but must exist, then there must be something that god cannot do, then this god is not omnipotent, there must also be something that god does not know, thus this god is not omniscient. Thus such god is no God (of bible). This is not a proof for God's non-existence, it merely shows that the argument is flawed.

[Zpock]

It does include (lesser) "gods" since there must be some part of the endless universe containing such things. It's also easy to imagine multiple layers of reality, like how a dream is. In a few years we could probably do it ourselves a la the matrix mindplug + memory wipe to create the complete feeling of being in another reality and not realising the reality we're in now exists. Like an awesome computer game you could play over and over again and not even get bored of! So that makes afterlife and such plausible. I do sometimes suspect other people to be ai:s haha.

[AF]

Or rather that you've just proved god to be illogical by taking the argument to its extremes.

If I take a point and expose it as illogical, does that make the whole concept of logic flawed? Or does it undermine that point?

[Zpock]

Logic is just a way of going from one fact to another (the same you started with actually), and since there's really no real facts to start off with you can't proof anything. Well descartes line might come close.

[El Idiot]

If the universe is infinite

I said existence, not universe. I only said universe when referencing to our own. Eventually a universe had to exist, which may or may not include a god, but the fact that a well working universe does exist (ours) is not proof a god was involved in its creation because it has to happen no matter what. Wasn't arguing for proof of the non-existence of god, just that you can't use what appears to be design as proof for god.

There must exist somewhere a universe where there is nothing that the god ruling it cannot do, which might as well be ours. Then yes, somewhere there's also a universe where the is something the god cannot do, and stuff falls up there because logic is busted.
Why am I now thinking of H.P. Lovecraft? Where the laws of physics and logic in general only apply to the corner of existence where humans are.

"no real facts to start off with you can't proof anything"

The problem with religion.

And dinosaur skeletons are the wild phantasies of confused scientists and archaeologist. So is the big bang theory, our roots with the apes and what ever else. Seriously, Scientology makes more sense than Christianity.

Humans have limited understanding, and what we can comprehend won't necessarily point in the direction of whatever truths there might be.

[rattle]

The dinosaur is a lie!

[kiki]

The dinosaur is a lie!

Shortly after posting rattle erased a dinosaur, and was promptly stomped up by a shmashasaurus.

[El Idiot]

Does anyone else find it funny that most religions have some form of the "Golden Rule", yet none of them can co-operate peacefully?

[HeavyLancer]

Does anyone else find it funny that most religions have some form of the "Golden Rule", yet none of them can co-operate peacefully?

Nope. Religions these days could be described as companies fighting over customers. Co-operation is viewed as suicide by most of the hard-liners/fundamentalists, and they are gradually getting more power these days.

Organised religion stinks, in my opinion. Why should anyone tell you what to believe in, and then as an extension of that, tell you how to live your life? It really doesn't make sense to me. Or maybe that's because I can figure out my morals myself.

/ducks back into trench, awaiting the inevitable incoming barrage of napalm

[El Idiot]

companies fighting over customers... Why should anyone tell you what to believe in?

(Lets make this more flammable) Ugh, the foundation of early Catholics. Wasn't always modern days even.

/shoves HeavyLancer aside in the trench. "Make room".

By 'organized religion', what specifically do you mean?

[Jazcash]

People should just be let to believe what they want to believe. If you want to believe in Santa Claus, so be it. I'm not gonna stop you cause I know it's worthless unless I have proof. And if somebody is a strong believer in their religion then you will find it hard to have an argument with them on this topic, or persuade them that their religion is a lie that they've probably believed all their life.