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Poll: What is your religion?

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Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason to believe in a god, and no evidence to support it. I'd like to know why people do believe in a god, as not believing in one is fairly easy. So, a question to your question, is there a good reason you believe in it (assuming you do)? Edit: petervandijck said it better above me.

I'm a deist because I find several of the philosophical arguments for God's existence compelling. Specifically I think the arguments from fine-tuning and the intelligibility of the universe are strongly in favor of God's existence. The Leibnizian and Kalam cosmological arguments are moderately in favor, and the arguments from morality, desire, and religious experience are weakly in its favor. Between those seven argu…

Could you elaborate a bit on the 'fine-tuning' and 'intelligibility' arguments and why you consider them strongly convincing?

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#362

Wrong question. The real one would be "what is your faith?", because all of us need to believe in something (that is, nobody is auto-sufficient, we all depend on many many things outside of us, we base our existence on a long history etc.). And (very important), if you ask "what is your faith/belief?", nobody can escape the question saying "not relevant".

because all of us need to believe in something Numerous studies have shown that this is not correct. You are right in the sense that it is impossible to live life as a pure empiricist - at some point you have to take some things on trust, and probably on faith. But a deity faith is not required. :)

It's impossible to be a pure empiricist because you must translate your experience of reality into a conceptual representation in order to think about it at all.

Perhaps you can be purely empiricist if you have no conscious awareness. But if you are conscious, you can approximate empiricism by maintaining awareness of the distinction between reality and your understanding of it.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prefer not to use "god" as a pronoun, since it makes assumptions which aren't warranted. Let's remove the assumptions by using "a god" instead, and look at your sentences again. "I do not believe a god exists." "I believe a god does not exist." They look the same to me.

Maybe it's a problem with English. I can say that I don't believe in the existence of life on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, but that I don't believe in the non-existence either. In other words I have no data, so how could I believe either one?

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hang on: there's not much leaping of faith in believing that the universe is. That's observation: I think therefore I am.

Where we differ is that I accept that I don't know where we come from, you think you do (ie. from God). One doesn't require a leap of faith, the other does.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#365
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reminder - obviously it's something that some people might be concerned about and if I wanted to play it especially safely, I would. I don't discriminate against the guy. We are open about our positions and can discuss it at the right times, but all it is, is a difference in belief in one aspect of life (admittedly, a big aspect of his life). I pay him more than I pay myself and he is an invaluable emp…

The question about believing in Santa...as in...how do you do it? That's a very interesting question. I never thought of it like that before. The truth is, I don't know the answer to that. Given that I don't know how to believe in Santa, I can't say I would stake my house and life on it.

I was saying that you'd stake your house and life on Santa Claus (as the entity that delivers presents to every child in one night with his reindeer) not existing. Not even the smallest bit of doubt enters your head. You are absolutely 100% confident.

That's how many atheists feel about the god considered by most Christians. Short of some insane brainwashing, it's just not possible to force yourself to "believe" just in case it proves useful later.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#366
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps "can it be answered in a scientific way"?

Or just "answered". OTOH, I can always answer that 2+2 is 5. And no amount of faith will make me right.

"2+2 is 5" is a mathematical statement. Mathematics is different from the rest of science in that it is not an experimental science, so that a (theoretical) statement does not need an experimental confirmation, just a (theoretical) proof.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#367
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a deist because I find several of the philosophical arguments for God's existence compelling. Specifically I think the arguments from fine-tuning and the intelligibility of the universe are strongly in favor of God's existence. The Leibnizian and Kalam cosmological arguments are moderately in favor, and the arguments from morality, desire, and religious experience are weakly in its favor. Between those seven argu…

Could you elaborate a bit on the 'fine-tuning' and 'intelligibility' arguments and why you consider them strongly convincing?

I think the thread expired some time ago, but since you asked I'll attempt to explain my reasoning on the fine-tuning of the universe. There are a number of physical constants in the universe that if altered slightly would result in a universe unsuitable for life. For example, there's the expansion rate of the universe which is slow enough to allow stars to form, but fast enough to stop gravity from pulling everything back after the big bang. We also have the abundance of carbon in the universe, and somewhere between a handful and scores of others depending on who you ask. The best book I've read on this phenomenon so far is Martin Rees' Just Six Numbers. With the exception of one author, I haven't seen anyone dispute that the universe at least appears to be fine-tuned for the existence of life. Instead the counterarguments focus on alternative explanations for the the fine-tuning.

I think the best counterargument is the multiverse. In fact Rees argues for this explanation in the final chapter of his book. It's important to differentiate here between the multiverse as a scientific and philosophical concept. My problem with the multiverse as a scientific concept is that it's not currently testable, which I think excludes it from the realm of science. That said, just because something isn't testable doesn't mean it is wrong, and God certainly isn't in the realm of science either. So I think both God and the multiverse have to both be approached from a philosophical standpoint. My problem with the multiverse as a philosophical explanation is that we then have to explain where the multiverse came from. This is moving somewhat into the Leibnizian cosmological argument, but God is understood by the monotheistic and some philosophical traditions as a necessary being, which is something that exists eternally and is effectively its own reason for its existence. I have yet to see an author make the case that the multiverse is philosophically necessary. Or to put it differently, the multiverse as a proposed explanation isn't foundational for existence in the way that God is generally conceived to be, and has less explanatory power (in a metaphysical sense).

There are a number of other counterarguments, which I think range from bad to not quite as good as the multiverse. I'd be inclined to address them, if not for the fact that I don't think anyone's reading this thread anymore, and even if they were I'm approaching the TL;DR point.

Keep in mind that when I said I thought this was a strong argument for the existence of God I didn't mean I find it one-hundred percent convincing, but that it is strong relative to the other arguments I've encountered. I think it is at least possible that a multiverse exists and is necessary for reasons we can't comprehend. To clarify, I find the combination of the seven arguments I mentioned above gets me to about a 2.3 on the Dawkin's Scale, but if I only had fine-tuning I think I'd be somewhere around a 4 or 5.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#368
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several ethnicities (Ashkenazim, Sephardim, etc.) which are historically Jewish, just as there are several ethnicities (Irish, Hispanic, etc.) which are historically Catholic. When someone says they are ethnically Jewish it generally means they belong to one of those ethnicities, and grew up with the associated foods, festivals and other cultural influences.

Sure, but Spanish and Irish atheists don't refer to themselves as atheistic catholics, whereas I have heard jewish friends of mine refer to themselves as atheistic jews.

But the term atheist Jew is just a proxy for atheist Ashkenazi or atheist Sephardi. Which is no different from atheist Irishman or atheist Spaniard.
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