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Poll: What is your religion?

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Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#271

Post by tome »

philwelch wrote: post #165
jswinghammer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there is evidence but it's not evidence that you're presently accepting. The Bible is a sort of evidence and people's testimony is as well. For my part I believe in God because he speaks to me regularly and I'm the last person you'd expect that to happen to. I was minding my own business when I started hearing from God. Everyone I knew at the time was totally shocked and it took me over two years to accept what…

You have presented the only religious argument I can't actually argue with. I can only humbly say I haven't had the same experience as you, and if I did, I would freak out.

I think you're being too generous to this kind of argument. I'd say it's "the only religious argument I can't immediately dismiss".

One way of proceeding to argue with it, for example, would be to say, "how do you know you're not mad?".

[Amusingly half way through writing this comment, this radio programme started: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/pZ-Jq-iaTOia... It's about an object that apparently people used to use to talk to god!]

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#272

Post by oscardelben »

blhack wrote: post #252
PostOnce wrote: post #149

I am not an adherent of any organized religion, but this question is puzzling: Where did stuff come from? There are two possibilities, either 1] it was put there, or 2] it was just there to begin with. God is an easy solution, but then where did he come from? Same problem. Maybe there are other possibilities that our brains just aren't able to process at this stage in our evolution. Anyway, before anyone says "the bi…

> God is an easy solution, but then where did he come from? Same problem. God isn't made of matter and does not experience linear time. (We can't comprehend the answer to this question).

How do you know?

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#273

Post by igravious »

klodolph wrote: post #246
philwelch wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atheism and agnosticism are orthogonal: 1. If you believe in a god but don't claim to have knowledge, you are a theist agnostic. (This is not that silly. Many people believe things they do not claim to know. For instance, you can believe that P != NP while acknowledging the question as unproven and unknown.) 2. If you don't believe in a god but don't claim to have knowledge, you are an atheist agnostic. 3. If you cla…

5. If you claim that the question, "does a god exist?" cannot be meaningfully answered due to flaws in the nature of the question, then you are a theological noncognitivist. 6. If you claim that the question, "does a god exist?" cannot be answered before defining "god", then you are an ignosticist. An ignosticist who claims that "god" cannot be defined is therefore also claiming that "does a god exist?" can never be…

10. If God exists but denies your existence then what does that make you?

A stance of mine is: try not to talk to people who believe that they have a "rational" or "empirical" proof of God's existence for no bigger fool will you find.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#274

Post by oscardelben »

10ren wrote: post #176

oblig. 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…

Honestly I think it's a cultural thing. It's easier to just leave what you don't know to an unknown thing called "god". That's just laziness imo and fear, and probably hope that we are somehow immortal.

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#277

Post by rubinelli »

aik wrote: post #211
rubinelli wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct in that it uses the term have instead of feel , but my understanding is that it's the other way around: "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." In other words, if you act only because you expect a reward in the after-life, or because you want to show how pious you are, or simply because you are self-dest…

I'm still not understanding. Christianity isn't a works-based religion, and so the passage referring to "profit" on an eternal scale wouldn't make sense. By "profit me nothing", I understand it as meaning: personally I am not in any way becoming a 'better' person through the good works that I am doing (regardless of whether the consequences are good), because I myself am not doing them for the right reasons (that's w…

I agree with your interpretation, and I was just extrapolating and making some logical jumps in the process. The point is that, from this point of view, a person can't rationally choose to be good. She can go through the motions, but if she doesn't have the gift of unconditional love (agape, the original Greek word), she's just losing her time. My take from this is that the act without the gift (which is internal and emotional, hence "feeling") is just as moot as the gift without the act (as described in Matthew 5.)

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#278

Post by Tichy »

indiefan wrote: post #124
Gormo wrote: post #105

It's fairly common for people to respond to this sort of question by saying something along the lines of "I disapprove of organized religion, but have spiritual faith." My own view is exactly the opposite. I see the value in the ritual, community, and psychological "anchor" that organized religion can provide. But spiritual faith seems absurd; why mix your emotional security and your sense of identity up with a bunch…

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…

"Otherwise it would be in your best interest to care"

That's still assuming anything matters. So maybe there is a god that hurts me if I don't do his bidding. What is hurt (just some electrons choosing other paths than for pleasure)? Why should I care? What does it matter, if all I can do is what a god wants me to do?

Re: Poll: What is your religion?

#279

Post by chegra »

tzs wrote: post #224
hugh3 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that I'm not sure that true atheists, as distinct from agnostics, actually exist. Challenge any atheist and they'll admit that the existence of one or more deities is possible , but very unlikely. The real distinction is between "teapot agnostics", who think gods are incredibly unlikely, and "proper" agnostics, who actually think it's reasonably probable. Many teapot agnostics will call themselves atheists jus…

I'll also admit that the existence of Santa Claus, who lives at the North Pole in some kind of cloaked fortress and has some kind of time-warp technology that allows him to deliver toys to boys and girls world wide in one night is possible. Nevertheless, I think it would be stupid to describe myself as a Santa Claus agnostic as opposed to a Santa Claus atheist. We have a very good explanation for the Santa Claus stor…

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 it will be helpful if you post a reply]

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