Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the Santa Claus analogy is a poor one since the story of Santa Claus or his existent doesn't solve any know problems. God solves a lot of problems, like where do we come from. To me agnosticism is being open to possibilities and admitting at this current level nobody has all the answers. Why would they want to Cop out? In most people's mind Atheist and Agnostic are the same thing. [Edit: If you are downvoting…
The Santa Claus theory solved two known problems when I was a kid: 1. Where do toys come from? 2. Why should I be good?
Poll: What is your religion?
291–300 of 368 posts
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fluctuate constantly between being an agnostic and being a believer in God. Truth of the matter is, when misfortune/tragedy strikes (like the loved ones having health problems) it really helps to believe in God. My wife just gave birth to a premature child. He's a boy and he's in very good health, but he was born at 30 weeks (now he's at 32). Her water broke at 27 weeks. We were on the cutting-edge with this pregna…
> People working in health-care have an easier time believing in God I know a great many doctors, nurses and other health-care workers and I don't know a single one who believes in any gods. Maybe it's just a UK thing, but watching good people die painfully and slowly is fairly destructive to blind faith in an allegedly benevolent god. > miracles do happen [citation needed]
How about the other way around? ... people surviving with all odds against them.
> [citation needed]
I think I just gave you one.
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is actually a faith claim In and of itself. Your basically saying you don't believe there is a God who desires (or worse, requires) anything from you. Otherwise it would be in your best interest to care. You're completely entitled to your own beliefs, but passing it off as a position of "non-belief" is illogical. It's the same paradox as "there is no truth" being a truth claim. You sound like a person of great d…
"Not believing" is not the same as "believing against". The first involves no claim, positive or negative, about religion except in response to a question or prompt. The second is an active disbelief or truth claim. Most atheists do not go around saying "I know there is no god" but, if asked "do you believe in a god/something supernatural/things you can't see", they would answer "no". Not many atheists are strong ath…
To believe something is "to be convinced of the truthfulness of it", to have faith is to have hope in the future based on a belief.
Believe and faith can be misplaced: To be convinced that something is true does not make it true. A conviction which is specific enough maybe testable, a conviction can sometimes be proven or disproven. It is rational to hold convictions which are consistent with available evidence and experiences.
A theology is a (philosophical) theory about gods. A theology may be specific enough to be testable, most however are not. Someone who is convinced that a particular theology is true has a religious conviction or religious believe, which often becomes part of the persons identity or self-identification.
People who share similar theological convictions often join together to form religious groups and religious organizations. One can be convinced either by personally examining the evidence available or by the believing the word of someone who one considers an authority (often as part of the religious organization one is a member of).
The word "god" has also taken on a whole different meaning. The word god used to mean someone with authority and power. For example: In the bible Jezus applies the word "gods" to human judges? By this definition it's obvious that there are gods, many even. [We could then reserve the word "God" (with a capital letter) for the hypothetical entity which has no authority above him. Which leads to the weird conclusion that (this hypothetical) God would be the only true atheist: a-theist, without-god.]
The word "natural" is also confusing. Regardless of what we personally may think: Assume for a moment that the universe was created by someone who was not created. Now we have the situation that the universe is not "natural", but rather "artificial". The only thing natural would be this creator who what no created.
This makes it currently impossible to reason from within science about intelligent design. Intelligent design is not inherently unscientific, but it does challenge some of the most basis assumptions at the basis of modern day science: The unproven (and perhaps unprovable) conviction that Life, the universe and the rest are all purely natural (and not artificial).
The word "supernatural" is also meaningless. Just try to define any observable phenomenon which is neither natural nor artificial? By implicit definition no observable phenomenon could ever be labeled supernatural. Just the fact that we are able to observe it either makes it natural or artificial. Logic leaves no room for anything else.
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Not believing" is not the same as "believing against". The first involves no claim, positive or negative, about religion except in response to a question or prompt. The second is an active disbelief or truth claim. Most atheists do not go around saying "I know there is no god" but, if asked "do you believe in a god/something supernatural/things you can't see", they would answer "no". Not many atheists are strong ath…
Addition: Atheists can sound pedantic when it comes to word order, but this pedantry has a point. Compare the following two sentences: "I'm asking you to not join the Navy." "I'm not asking you to join the Navy." The difference in word order is the same as the different phrasings between different atheists: "I do not believe god exists." (I call this atheism) "I believe god does not exist." (I call this strong atheis…
"I do not believe a god exists."
"I believe a god does not exist."
They look the same to me.
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#295Interesting 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?
But even if I did believe that there would be something up there, I don't believe in a Christian God - in fact I know such a person couldn't exist - because the bible has so many contradictions in it.
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People working in health-care have an easier time believing in God I know a great many doctors, nurses and other health-care workers and I don't know a single one who believes in any gods. Maybe it's just a UK thing, but watching good people die painfully and slowly is fairly destructive to blind faith in an allegedly benevolent god. > miracles do happen [citation needed]
> watching good people die painfully and slowly is fairly destructive to blind faith in an allegedly benevolent god How about the other way around? ... people surviving with all odds against them. > [citation needed] I think I just gave you one.
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#297And (very important), if you ask "what is your faith/belief?", nobody can escape the question saying "not relevant".
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People working in health-care have an easier time believing in God I know a great many doctors, nurses and other health-care workers and I don't know a single one who believes in any gods. Maybe it's just a UK thing, but watching good people die painfully and slowly is fairly destructive to blind faith in an allegedly benevolent god. > miracles do happen [citation needed]
> watching good people die painfully and slowly is fairly destructive to blind faith in an allegedly benevolent god How about the other way around? ... people surviving with all odds against them. > [citation needed] I think I just gave you one.
The occasional lucky survivor does not somehow balance out the rest.
> people surviving with all odds against them.
Sometimes people survive when doctors think they won't. The human body is remarkably resilient. That makes it unlikely. Unlikely != miracle.
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#299oblig. Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. Fred Brooks, p. 184 The Mythical Man-Month 2nd ed. It's interesting to me that several people I greatly admire in comp sci/technology are religious: Fred Brooks, Knuth, Larry Wall and Clayton Christensen ( The Innovator's Dilemma ). To me, on…
Most people are religious and that number is only decreasing recently, thus one should expect a certain number of luminaries in any domain to be religious. Looking through history and trying to discern intent is a difficult thing to do. I don't think any of the development of God(s) as a concept was done with much long term intent but was likely as most things are done the result of mutually beneficial agreements mad…
Re: Poll: What is your religion?
#300oblig. Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. Fred Brooks, p. 184 The Mythical Man-Month 2nd ed. It's interesting to me that several people I greatly admire in comp sci/technology are religious: Fred Brooks, Knuth, Larry Wall and Clayton Christensen ( The Innovator's Dilemma ). To me, on…
That's all fine as long as you don't make the leap from "my imaginary friend is useful" to "my imaginary friend is real". I would however assert an unnecessary semantic overloading -- why use a word (God) that has so many assumptions built into it? Invent a new word, and confuse fewer people.