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Poll: What is your religion?

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Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#111

Post by zephyrfalcon »

lukeqsee wrote: post #93
zephyrfalcon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, well. I am from the ungodly Netherlands and have been living in Florida for about 9 years now. From what I can tell, the European media sure like to paint the US as a very religious country (among other things); and certainly, many Americans feel like they are, or pretend to be. At the same time, many of those same Americans do everything their god forbids, and apparently seem to think this is perfectly OK, assu…

In the USA it is culturally and socially acceptable to be "religious." Many individuals take up a religion for acceptance one way or the other, without harking to the power of it. So basically, they slap a name on themselves, and go to church off/on. You cannot tell religion till it is unpopular, and oftentimes till it is persecuted.

>

Ah, yes. In some European countries, this is much less the case. I noticed that in the US it's perfectly normal for the president (or other public figures) to say that they have been praying, for example. In the Netherlands, if the prime minister said that nowadays, people would look at him like he's pretty weird, or at least old-fashioned. =) (Even if that prime minister belongs to the "christian democrat" party.)

(It wasn't always like that, by the way; only a few decades ago religion played a much more important role in politics, with separate political parties for every major christian denomination.)

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#112

Post by lukeqsee »

petervandijck wrote: post #95
juliend2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who created him? I just believe he's eternal.

So you find it hard to believe that nature/the universe can just "be", there has to be an entity that created it, but you find it easy to believe that God can just "be", correct?

Pretty sure it'll be a "Yes".

A quick note, you find it easy to believe that the universe can just "be" when everything you have ever seen has had a creator. (Whether you believe in science or God, it does, the creator just differs.)

Both have an equally frustrating leap of faith, you either have to believe in God, or that something can come out of nothing.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#113

Post by anthonyb »

kylemathews wrote: post #73
anthonyb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have very different ideas of 'adequate' then. For example, I'll take modern medicine over faith healing any day.

That's a false dichotomy for the vast majority of religious people. There are very few people that believe exclusively in faith healing and don't accept modern medicine.

Faith healing was just an example. You can substitute pretty much any "because God said so" explanation.

I think the reason that the world makes sense for most people is because they have their adequacy levels set too high - they're too used to 'hand wavy' explanations and not having to actually think through things for themselves.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#114

Post by aik »

revolvingcur wrote: post #31
csomar wrote: post #11

Interesting question. I have lot of theories regarding religion and I wonder if the HN community is interested discussing them. Just one question now (for Atheists): Why don't you believe in God. Do you have a good reason? Is it because it doesn't interest you? Is it because of a scientific theory that proved to you that God don't exist?

From someone raised in the Christian church: I was taught from a very young age certain things about God and man: that God was all-knowing and all-powerful; that God was the creator of everything; that man was irrevocably prone to sin and therefore needed a savior; that God chose certain people to save; that heaven was the ultimate destination for those who were saved; etc... As I grew older, I began to realize that…

If you truly are interested in being proven wrong or at least have your beliefs tried, there are plenty of books out there on non-religious people becoming religious.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#116

Post by nwomack »

chc wrote: post #67
jbm wrote: post #32

It seems disingenuous to mix Agnosicism with Atheism. Both are utterly different - one makes a knowledge claim (atheism) while the other is in a position of neutrality or indifference (agnosticism)

I wouldn't agree with this assessment. Atheism is not a knowledge claim; it's just disbelief in God. Similarly, I don't believe in intelligent life on other worlds, but that isn't a knowledge claim — there's just no good reason to believe in it. Agnosticism, however, is a knowledge claim: It's the claim that God is is unknowable.

I have to respectfully disagree. I think you have your definitions mixed up.

Agnosticism is 'There may be a god, but I don't care enough to claim one way or the other', I think the 'fence sitting' argument is good.

Atheism is: 'There is no god' ie, Richard Dawkins

Atheism is a stronger claim than Agnosticism.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#117

Post by etherael »

lukeqsee wrote: post #96
petervandijck wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, we agree that there is a universe, and we find it beautiful, that's pretty easy to believe for everyone but the most depressed among us. Why explain that beauty away by adding a god-figure in there? Isn't the universe even more beautiful and majestic without a (fairly silly) "outside creator" explanation? Your explanation also logically doesn't make sense. You say: I can't believe there is nothing behind it. But…

So what about us? Who created us? Our parents. Them? Their parents. But wait -- eventually, even with evolution, something had to create the first molecule. Right? Everybody has to have a starting point from which they have no clue how it got there. One side has decided that it had to be God. The other? The Big Bang? (Where'd it come from?)

The "where'd it come from" clause can terminate successfully at the genesis of time proper, to define a time prior to time is to posit a time where there was still time, ergo...

"Big guy in the sky was hanging around in void and created it all" posits nothing about the nature of time, and in fact infers that time is eternal and has always been, as big guy in the sky is eternal and has always been, that's why it's not logically inconsistent to point out that the god hypothesis simply raises more questions whilst taking a competing theory to the genesis of time proper does not fail in the same way.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#119

Post by anthonyb »

c3o wrote: post #79
marcamillion wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume that neither of us know if God REALLY exists...don't you think it might be safer to hedge your bet and believe in a god - for the afterlife? What will it cost you to believe in God while you are alive? Nothing. What will it cost you if there really is a god and you chose not to believe? Could cost you eternity. So why not believe? The upside is (in the worst case) the same as not believing, but the downs…

By that logic you'd need to believe in every single religion at once to hedge your bet, since most only promise the afterlife to adherents of their specific belief system. That aside, how can you say it'd "cost nothing"? It would cost me my integrity. Another debunking of this argument: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU

It'd also cost you a lot of Sunday mornings, at least if you did it properly.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#120

Post by jfr »

jbm wrote: post #32

It seems disingenuous to mix Agnosicism with Atheism. Both are utterly different - one makes a knowledge claim (atheism) while the other is in a position of neutrality or indifference (agnosticism)

If Agnosticism and Atheism (and nonreligious) were different options I would have a problem choosing which one to vote (and I think many other people here too). There is a lot of overlap among these options, and the definitions vary.

There is more than one definition of Atheism (some classify them in weak and strong atheism, but even these two classes aren't enough for some), and there are different "levels" of Agnosticism depending on your country or culture. Some of these differences are because of communication issues. For example, there is controversy if "lack of belief" and "disbelief" are synonymous (compare with "not liking" and "disliking"). When books on such topics are translated to other languages, such nuances may get lost.

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