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Kasic
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Kasic
5,552 posts
Jester

Think about it, what is religion? The belief in something that cannot be proven, that has many, many things that as of yet we have found impossible, and in many people, it is unshakeable. Now I am not saying that all religious people are going to go kill someone or end up in an assylum, but think, in every religion, the basis is something that cannot be know, but is only faith. Faith in something that could turn out to be wrong, faith in something that you have absolutely no way of knowing. Also, think how many of these religions started, some person got a message from a "god" that told them what to do. Don't go crazy on me, I just want people to think about it.

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SilentQ
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SilentQ
601 posts
Nomad

Well, in the last few pages, I've noticed probability coming up, and I just felt like sharing that, yeah?

And I think probability CAN justify religion. And I'm going to continue using my 50:50 ratio from a truth value point.
If I don't believe in God, there is a 50% chance of when I die I simply die and that's the end of it. There's also a 50% chance of when I die, God is real and condemns me, as I was an atheist and didn't follow his commands, etc and I go to hell.
If I DO believe in God, there is a 50% chance I die and life just continues on. The 50% chance that God is real and I tried to follow him to the best of my ability I get to go to heaven for the rest of eternity, which is better than hell, imo.

I think that's all the justification religion needs. If it's wrong, oh well, the world just keeps spinning. If it's right, we get to enjoy forever. But there's also the problem of choosing the right religion and so on, that I really don't feel like addressing.

Kasic
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Kasic
5,552 posts
Jester

[quote]Since we don't know, and there are only 2 answers, yes and no, there is a 50% chance of the answer being yes and 50% of the answer being no. So that it's 50-50.


And I think probability CAN justify religion. And I'm going to continue using my 50:50 ratio from a truth value point.[/quote]

First, it would be a 1:1 ratio. Second, even in multiple choice, you still pick a logical answer, and some invisible being that created everything, or something that attempts to explain it aside from, "God made all" It's like believing butterflies are pixies because you saw a butterfly and didn't know what it is. Also, one question. Every holy text i've heard of says that god created earth and what not, but it says nothing about creating anything else. Why would it just say that? I think religion is just how people originally tried to explain the world, they did not know about atoms or any other thing, so they thought it logical that some supreme being made everything. Now we are more advanced as a society and I think that religion has no purpose any more really, we can explain almost every thing and have disproven that majority of religious "fact"
SilentQ
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SilentQ
601 posts
Nomad

50:50 still rounds down to 1:1. It doesn't really matter. It's the same percent on each side. It would be the same if it was 100:100, 27:27, or even 3.14159:3.14159.
To me, God is existing is a logical answer. A question for YOU now, how did the very first atoms come to be (I know of the theory that the universe is just a previous universe that imploded then exploded, but I mean the VERY first atoms as in, the very first universe)?
Supposedly, most holy texts are the writings of people inspired by God to write them. Therefore, if God doesn't tell them to write down everything he created, etc, they won't. However, that's why I'm currently struggling with my faith right now, as the Bible is an account of OTHER people talked to by God, and I don't know if I can believe it. So I generally don't tend to rely on holy texts for bases, just because it is lost in translation and is written by man, not God.

HiddenDistance
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HiddenDistance
1,310 posts
Peasant

I don't think either side of the debate would agree with this probability.


Indeed; I wouldn't be inclined to think they are 50-50.

But again, debating probability is beside the point. We don't care whether or not God actually does exist, only whether belief in God is justified.


I agree with SilentQ - probability can go a long way toward justifying something, and I think it particularly applies in this case, seeing as probability is all we really have to work with.

debating probability of God's existence doesn't answer the question.


Definitively? No. But what it does, is allow us to come up with a reasonable standpoint.

Let's put it another way. Say I'm still living at home - If my brother says he's just been to the store & has put milk into the fridge, I can assess the probability of the action. Does my brother go to the store often? Is milk something we as a family buy? Does milk go into the fridge after it's bought? Even without opening up the fridge to verify the results for myself, I can conclude that it is something that's likely based on past events, and the people I know.

On the other hand, if he returns from the fridge and says it's opening an interdimensional portal to a land made out of chocolate and candy canes, despite the fact that my brother is a person I trust, the likelyhood that this statement is true (based on past legitimately documented human experience with interdimensional portals and candy cane chocolate land) is very small indeed. In the same sense, religion & god are not things that are just as likely as anything else, so I would definitely not give them a 50%-50% run as SilentQ would suggest. I'd say it's closer to 90%/10% or 80%/20% in favor of no god, based on what we know currently. I would need some incredibly tangible evidnce to support his claim - to hit back on one of Carl Sagan's most quotable quotes: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

I think that's all the justification religion needs. If it's wrong, oh well, the world just keeps spinning. If it's right, we get to enjoy forever. But there's also the problem of choosing the right religion and so on, that I really don't feel like addressing.


Just because you don't feel like addressing it doesn't make it an invalid point. Any religion on the planet could be just as wrong as any other religion - even if Christianity is the one to go with, there's so many different flavours and interpretations of it, they're not all going to be correct.
SilentQ
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SilentQ
601 posts
Nomad

Just because you don't feel like addressing it doesn't make it an invalid point. Any religion on the planet could be just as wrong as any other religion - even if Christianity is the one to go with, there's so many different flavours and interpretations of it, they're not all going to be correct.


Which is the reason I didn't feel like addressing it, as there are way too many and we really have no way of knowing which religion, if any, are truly correct.
Moegreche
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Moegreche
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Duke

debating probability of God's existence doesn't answer the question.

Definitively? No. But what it does, is allow us to come up with a reasonable standpoint.


I think someone has already presupposed a probability based on their stance. By talking about the probability of God's existence, we are talking past one another. I firmly believe there is a 0% chance that God exists, but I can still hold that the theist is justified in believing in God. My view of the probability of this does not affect my assessment of the theist's justification.
On the other hand, the theist would argue the probability for God's existence is much, much higher. I'm sure it would be above 90%, if not higher.
The way the universe is is very improbable. That it formed the way it did and the unlikelihood of this is, in fact, an argument for theism and divine guidance. In fact, there are some convincing proofs that the universe isn't actually how we perceive it, and there's a high probability that much of what we experience is illusory.
But it's hard to argue with the stark facts of perception, despite the low odds that what we perceive is really happening. But that doesn't in any way imply that we are unjustified in believing that things are the way we perceive them.
Again, talk of probability is denying what the theist considers to be a very real personal experience of God's love. One who uses this line of argumentation is coming awfully close to begging the question against the theist
TheDude42
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TheDude42
1,026 posts
Nomad

Even though I admit science is on your side, if you believe in God you need 100% devotion. So I am positive God exists.

Bronze
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Bronze
2,417 posts
Shepherd

Well, God is justified to me because I feel like I have experienced him. Not images or illusions, but very big coincidences. These are all the justification I need, and who has the right to say that they aren't?

magiKKell
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magiKKell
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Nomad

Ok, really liking the discussion
Now I have to point out something here:

We don't care whether or not God actually does exist, only whether belief in God is justified.


You cannot separate the issue this simply. I think weather God actually exists or not makes a pretty big difference in weather believing he exists is justified.
What I mean is that if someone has a &quotersonal encounter with God" - he is either right or deceived. In the Christian view, humans actually have this "sensus divinitatis" - a sense that allows them to know God. This, for example, would work by looking at a beautiful mountain and suddenly thinking "God is majestic" - This sense of the divine (Rom. 1:18-22). Now, sin can damage this sense, to the point of completely distorting it, just like you can go completely blind.
Now, if Christianity is true, than believing that God exists based on this "sensus divinitatis" is quite justified - it is a properly functioning faculty.

If Christianity is not true, then there is of course no sensus divinitatis, and anything thought to be believed because of it is not justified.

You see how it makes a difference if God actually exists or not?

Now, I promised a further argument earlier, and here is my rebuttal to the only other alternative that seems to be viable in this discussion: Naturalism. Of course there are more views, but as far as I can tell most folks participating in this discussion are either naturalists or theists.

So is it rational to believe in naturalism? Well, if naturalism is true, then all there is is matter and energy. There is no mind, only a brain. And a brain is completely explainable in terms of brain chemistry and physics. Each time you "think" a thought, what really happens is that a certain number of neurons in your brain are caused to fire by some trigger, and as a result you have the experience of having a thought. When you reason, that is what happens. You do not really reason, certain neurons in your brain fire and send electrical signals to other neurons, who also fire.

From here I will develop two arguments that you cannot get to reason:
1. All that is happening is that chemicals and molecules, and groups of those are flying around a certain part of the universe (generally referred to as your brain) in certain patterns. But how do moving molecules have anything to do with truth. You could describe, theoretically, the position of every single atom in your brain for a certain amount of time. However, why would such a state of affairs have anything to do with reason? Furthermore, what causes these molecules to move the way they do? Well, science would have us think one of either two things:
1. Normally, nothing happens without a cause. As a result, all the molecules flying, neurons firing, everything the "brain" does is actually caused and thereby - determined. All those thoughts you think "YOU" are thinking, every time you think you are making a rational decision - you are actually just observing the universe doing its thing, and you can't do a thing about it. Therefore, you can't reason. Therefore, believing this is not rational.
2. Ok, so you may argue that ever since quantum physics we have the principle of indeterminacy - quantum events are not determined. So instead of observing the determined universe happening, you are now observing the random universe operating around you. This, actually makes it even less likely that anything like truth would lie anywhere in those events you notice going on. And you are still not free, you are "being randomed" - you can't reason, so your not rational.

Ok, now for the second line of the argument. Even if you do not quite buy the story above and say that, molecules or not, who knows why I am conscious, but I am. So how did you get to have the brain you have. Well, that is pretty clear on naturalism: Evolution. So if evolution is true, what kind of brain are you going to develop? Well, here is atheist philosopher Patricia Churchland (she said it, not me):
Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive⦠Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.


So, as a result your brain is not primarily designed to be rational or to reason, but to survive. Even if your brain might be able to be rational, you would not know, because for all you know, when you think you are being rational, your brain may be fulfilling quite the different function. As a result, you cannot rationally believe that you are rational. You are irrational

Now, of course, if theism is actually true, than you have a brain designed by God for the purpose of being rational and can actually make arguments. So the only way you can rationally argue for naturalism is if theism is true. Either way, you lose
314d1
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314d1
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Nomad

Im not saying it causes all wars, but several wars whould have never happened without religion. A few famouse examples are the crusades and Hitlers mass murder, both causing massive ammounts of death.

magiKKell
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magiKKell
34 posts
Nomad

I call Godwin's law!
But no, Hitler was not religiously motivated. It was nationalism and racism. Hitler did not persecute Judaism, he persecuted Jews. Otherwise he would have let them convert or something; it was ethnic cleansing, not religious. Can we also please leave out of this whether Hitler was an Atheist, a Roman Catholic, or an Occultist. Whatever religious beliefs he had, they were not the driving force behind what he did, and are completely irrelevant to this threat.
We'll take WWII on the books as not fought for Religious or anti-religious reasons, and therefore irrelevant to this discussion. Agreed?

Also, the structure of your argument is flawed:

Im not saying it causes all wars, but several wars whould have never happened without religion.


May I propose a few analogous statements:

Im not saying it causes all wars, but several wars whould have never happened without *________.
* Gravity
* Horses
* Money
* Power
* Government
* People
* Swords
* Ships
* Speeches
* Patriotism
* ...
* Religion

Just one item on the list, and does not say a thing about religion.
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
9,462 posts
Farmer

@SilentQ
Are you referring to the Christian God or just god(s) in general in any shape or form?

If your talking about the Christian God specifically you also have to put it up against all the other religions, that is over 10,000 different religions.

even if Christianity is the one to go with, there's so many different flavours and interpretations of it, they're not all going to be correct.


There are about 33,830 different denominations in Christianity alone.
SilentQ
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SilentQ
601 posts
Nomad

Only the First Crusade was religious. All the others were simply using religion as a cover to hide their true motives, earning money, fame, and power. It seems like magiKKell pretty much covered Hitler and the genocide of Jews, and I have nothing to add.

And I got to a 50% chance of God's existence do the fact there is very little definite evidence for and against God. Sure there are people's own account of what God has done in their life, etc. but as we don't know the validity of their statements or whether they are making it up, it's hard to factor that into probability. So I took it from a neutral multiple choice perspective if you will. If you had 2 possible answers on a test and you didn't know which is correct, you would have a 50% chance of getting it right.

314d1
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314d1
3,817 posts
Nomad

@Mag.
Actualy I think pretty much every war needed those things. But, only several of those CAUSED the wars. And all those things helped more people then they harmed. Also, I forgot to point out, the religions I know don't point out
Why there are other planets
Why there were species before the human race
The exact location of "Heaven"(The idia of it was formed before space travle, so they thought a god lived on the clouds)
Why the gods created flaws in the human race?

magiKKell
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magiKKell
34 posts
Nomad

@314d1

Why there are other planets
Why there were species before the human race
Why the gods created flaws in the human race?


Why is this important when determining if Religion is justified? Please give some evidence that this is important.

But let me throw a relevant question back to you:

According to naturalism, why is there consciousness? (Which is a prerequisite for rationality)
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