the one criticism of religion that I cannot refute (God, believe, service)

[saucywench]

Originally Posted by Mercury Cougar

How many times does one have to do this before it "works"? I did it countless times as a child and nothing ever happened. Then I wised up and realized it's all in the imagination anyway.

Maybe it's like this!

Narrator: Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville - did not. The Grinch hated Christmas - the whole Christmas season. Now, please don't ask why; no one quite knows the reason. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. Or it could be that his head wasn't screwed on just right. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

[saucywench]

http://www.gonemild.com/uploaded_images/sku2506-788004.jpg (broken link)

[saucywench]

[LogicIsYourFriend]

Originally Posted by victorianpunk

Indeed I do. However, I also would add that there is no evidence against all but the narrow, literalist interpretation of God. Science will most likely never be able to proof OR disproof the existince of a transpersonal deity of a impersonal, pantheist one (the Tao)

Still, I do belief that, as a Existentialist-Idealist, the only evidence I need is not the Empirical kind, but the emotional kind.

How do emotions prove your god exists? The fact is, they don't. You said yourself, they are not empirical evidence. So do you believe without proof because you have an emotional need? Like a widow who believes that her long-dead husband is alive, somewhere out there, just to keep her going?

Well, while God may not be able to feel an insult, our own "understanding" of God might be dumbed-down or, in another way of discribing it, "insulted". It is not that it hurts God, as much as it hurts my own experience with God to dumb it down to the point that I invision it with a beard and a robe. Granted, that kind of personification makes it easier to gain some kind of intellectual point of reference for God, but at the same time, it takes away from what it really is, which is beyond the intellectual.

So, having a personification of God is both a hindrance and an assistance at the same time I suppose.

There is other evidence then the Empirical kind. We can feel God and therefore have some reference for it. While God might not be observable in a lab, it is observable in the day to day lives of the believers.

Science cannot disproof or proof the existince of God in any but the most literalist way (the world is not six thousand years old, the Great Flood was not a literal, "world covered in water" thing etc) so, it is not proven or disproven. Does this mean that there is a 50/50 chance that "there is a God"? No, I would say maybe there's a five percent chance. BUT, the "evidence" (or lack of evidence against) might take one to 5%, but, the day to day positive experience of having a religion is enough for the believer to take them the other 95%.

"Is there a God"? Well, is there joy? Is there hope? These things too cannot be proven empirically. If we say that, perhaps God is "merely" our own minds, then, in that case, God does exist! (unless the human mind does not exist...)

If belief in God makes one happy and allows one to live a full, and happy life, then even if there is no empirical evidence, the joy and happiness one has felt their entire life is enough to justify that belief.

So what I am getting here is that you are accepting non-empirical evidence as good enough to believe in God, and you justify this evidence as sufficient by renaming emotions you feel to "God."

That, and you also use the argument that you benefit from it, so it's worth following whether or not it's real. This acknowledgment that it may not be real makes you an agnostic, although ironically you call yourself gnostic.

In any case, wanting God to be real because it makes you feel better doesn't make God real, unless you break down the definition of God to be nothing more than the "feel better" emotions you get from following your religion. But this changes the definition of God quite drastically; you are really only talking about emotions, not any external entity. Then you equivocate God in a more literal sense (external) with God as an emotion (internal) in order to make an argument for evidence.

Yes you have evidence that your emotions exist, you feel them and they could be tested by biofeedback machines. Renaming these emotions to "God" still only means that you have evidence that you feel emotions, and you choose to name them "God."

As Blaise Pascal once said "the Heart has it's reasons that REASON can never understand"

Seems more like he may have been talking about things we do, that seem irrational but are driven by our emotions. Not sure it proves that non-empirical evidence is sufficient proof of anything.

___
An agnostic gnostic, interesting..

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by LogicIsYourFriend

So what I am getting here is that you are accepting non-empirical evidence as good enough to believe in God, and you justify this evidence as sufficient by renaming emotions you feel to "God."

What I'm getting is that if you keep restricting god to areas which don't show up in the world in any consistent way, it can't be disproved. God is now safe from the scourge of naturalism and believers can continue believing. On the down side they've basically reduced god into vague feelings that could be coming from anywhere and mean anything. In many ways, this "cure" is worse than the disease.

[victorianpunk]

Originally Posted by LogicIsYourFriend

How do emotions prove your god exists? The fact is, they don't. You said yourself, they are not empirical evidence. So do you believe without proof because you have an emotional need? Like a widow who believes that her long-dead husband is alive, somewhere out there, just to keep her going?

No, what I mean is that there are plenty of empirically improvable things out there, like emotions, that make life worth living. If we did away with all illogical things and went to cold logic, we would cease to be human. Love, joy, hope, all of these things are also based on being irrationall to some extent.

Anyway, there is no proof that God does not exist (except for the literalist God which I never believed in in the first place) and there is also no proof that God does exist. So, it is more likely that God does not exist then that it does, looking only at the data. HOWEVER, beyond the Empirical exist the emotional and the intuitive. Those things also provide for evidence of God.
Now, as I said, using only the Empirical evidence, I am only at about 5% sure that God exist. Intuition takes me maybe to 30%, but, the usefulness of God in that it answers many questions and provides me with things nothing else can and has been a net benefit in my life takes me to the other 70%.

In the end, I understand that perhaps this is all "make believe" and there is no God in the "supernatural" sense. So, that means, that I have been given hope and joy in my life over something that does not exist...what a waste...(sarcasm in case you did not notice)

At the very least, God is a part of my psyche that works, at the most, God is also a supernatural force. Either way, God achieves it's purpose in that it makes my life better. If the goal of my existince is to be happy while not hurting anyone, and God helps me to fulfill that goal, then how is it that I am wasting my time with God?

No, as for the whole rather common "it's just wishful thinking" argument, there are three things kept out of it:
1) it is not easy following a religion. If religion was just "God gives you X,Y and Z while never asking anything of you" I could see, but religion has allot more life rules then none religion does. Behavior, ritual, giving things up (personal sacrifice) etc. All of these things make being a religious person difficult. If it was all about "wishful thinking" none of these things would be necessary or exist
2) the bad guy(s). Yes, we believe in divinity, but it is not just the "imaginary friend(s) that make you feel better" that so many antitheist call it, but there are also plenty of enemies. Demons, Satan, Mara, etc all exist in religion. If it was all about "wishful thinking", then why the heck would we "wish" for an evil like that to exist? "Imaginary friends" I can understand, but who would create "imaginary enemies" if the whole point of religion was just "to feel good"? How the heck does it "feel good" to have a satan?
Do you know who the Gnostic satan is? The creator of all the universe. We were created for the sole purpose of suffering and dying for our sadistic creators amusement. That is why evil exist in the world: because the creator is evil and we were born into his prison/torture chamber.

Now...who the hell would want to believe in that as a "happy nursery story"?
3) Judgement. All religious have some kind of judgement. Karma, Revelation, etc. In none religion, if the police aren't washing you, there is really no reason why not to do it, if you can get away with it. In religion, there is ALWAYS something watching you, be it your own karma or outside divinity (in Gnosticism it's a little of booth) Now, if it all was "wishful thinking", then who the heck would ever want to "wish" to be held accountable for all of their actions? Wouldn't it be easier to say there is no judgement and go ahead and do what ever one can get away with?

So what I am getting here is that you are accepting non-empirical evidence as good enough to believe in God, and you justify this evidence as sufficient by renaming emotions you feel to "God."

Yes and No. There is a chance that God is "just" something in the mind (like the super-ego) and a smaller chance that God is also "supernatural". Hence, if one expands the definition of divinty to include, at the very "least", the human mind it's self, then we see that there is indeed something that is God.

That, and you also use the argument that you benefit from it, so it's worth following whether or not it's real.

No, it is real. When the definition of God is expanded to include something deep within the human psyche, then we understand that, no matter what, one of the definitions of God is real.

This acknowledgment that it may not be real makes you an agnostic, although ironically you call yourself gnostic.

Gnosticism is not really about faith and never was. It is about gaining a absolute inner understanding of divinity (called gnosis) from experiencing divinity (mystical practices and prayer) and understanding the Myth (scripture) One does not need to belief all or any of it is true and doubt is encouraged, hence, the most important saint in Gnosticism is Thomas the doubting. Gnosticism has always been about the understanding (gnosis) and not really about faith.

In any case, wanting God to be real because it makes you feel better doesn't make God real, unless you break down the definition of God to be nothing more than the "feel better" emotions you get from following your religion.

Again, it is not about "feel better". Knowing that one is accountable for one's actions does not make one "feel better" and nor does knowing that demons and devils stalk the shadows make one "feel better".

Also, God is so vast that it could be said to exist and not exist at the same time so that it could include, but not be limited to, a part of the human mind, like the Super Ego.

There in lies why so many hard-scientific minds do not get the whole God thing: first, it is undefinable. Something that exist but cannot be studied...science has only one parallel I can think of, and that is "dark energy". Not only that, but it requires so much absolute humility that allot of Empiricist just can't figure it out.

I mean, God is impersonal and yet personal, far and yet near, within and without, one and many all at once...how is that possible? Because it is far, far, far beyond our understanding and always will be. The thing that so many empiricists cannot do is admit the absolute insignifance of the human mind compared to God. The gulf between God and man is a thousand times the gulf between man and amoeba. We can never understand how it works and us trying to apply our "laws" of the universe would be like a rabbit trying to apply it's "laws" of understanding that something can only run, hop or fly to get around to people who use cars. Just as we break it's "laws of nature" in that we can go into a car and drive, and the rabbit is hopeless to ever understand how, so does God break our "laws" of reality by being one and many, near and far, inside and outside, existing and not existing at the same time.

The absolute humility before something that we can never understand intellectually is absolutely against the nature of the sciences, which is why so many scientific types are Atheist. As Joseph Campbell said:
"God is a metaphor for that which trancends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that."

What in the sciences is there that transcends intellectual thought? Nothing. Hense, empiricism is not fit to understand God as God does beyond anything our tiny intellects can ever understand.

But this changes the definition of God quite drastically; you are really only talking about emotions, not any external entity. Then you equivocate God in a more literal sense (external) with God as an emotion (internal) in order to make an argument for evidence.

As I said, there is no evidence for the "existince" of God, and yet there is no evidence that God does not "exist", save in the most literal sense of the word. All the emotions are are biproducts of having a relationship with God.

Yes you have evidence that your emotions exist, you feel them and they could be tested by biofeedback machines. Renaming these emotions to "God" still only means that you have evidence that you feel emotions, and you choose to name them "God."

Yes, God is emotions and only emotions, and external entity, and a whole host of other things. Pantheism at it's highest forms: God is not only everywhere, but God also exist in all states of being at the same time: is exists, and it does not exist.

As for emotions, yes, there is SOME evidence that they can be detected, by only some. The Super ego can never be proven empirically, and the evidence for the existince of emotions is very small, and yet, we feel emotion all the time.

If God is not Empirically provable, then that puts it in the same catagory as love, joy, delusious taste, humor, etc. The best things in life cannot be proven Empirically and hence, God is in good company.

Seems more like he may have been talking about things we do, that seem irrational but are driven by our emotions. Not sure it proves that non-empirical evidence is sufficient proof of anything.

Pascal was talking about the limits of Empiricism. Empiricism is good for things like buidling a stronger paper clip or developing a better yeast infection cure, but for making one happy, it fails miserably.

There is one piece of evidence that no one has been able to provide: WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE THAT LIVING AN EVIDENCE BASED LIFE WOULD MAKE ME HAPPIER? The best memories of my youth were of running around in the woods casting spells in the fairy glade with my equally weird buddies...would those times have been better spent reading tax forms? Is prayer to God, that makes me happy, somehow not as productive a thing to do as memorizing the Periodic Table of the Elements?

Personally, I have always hated the hard sciences (which is why I majored in psychology, with allot more "wiggle room" and personal interpretation) and the whole Empiricism thing, which was shoved down my throat in highschool, never did suit me. It wasn't until I got to college and started reading Dostoyevsky that I saw that there were other ways of looking at the world...

...at least the religious people, when they shove religion down someone's throat, let someone know that it is religion. The Empiricist as schools shove one and only one philosophical school of thought (empiricism) down children's throats without ever letting them know that it is a philosophy school of thought and is not the only way of looking at the world, nor that Empiricism is not for everyone (and it isn't)

I for one would much rather be reading this:

Amazon.com: The Power of Myth (9780385418867): Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers: Books

Then this: Amazon.com: Fundamentals of Chemical Reaction Engineering (9780072450071): Mark E. E. Davis, Robert J. J. Davis: Books

[kitsunegames]

Originally Posted by victorianpunk

There is one piece of evidence that no one has been able to provide: WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE THAT LIVING AN EVIDENCE BASED LIFE WOULD MAKE ME HAPPIER? The best memories of my youth were of running around in the woods casting spells in the fairy glade with my equally weird buddies...

I'm fully capable of enjoying fantasy and myth without believing it is real, and so are you. Where's the evidence that living an evidence based life would make you miserable? Nobody says you can't enjoy fiction if you live an evidence based life.

[LogicIsYourFriend]

You keep changing your stance depending on what point you are trying to make. You believe it is likely only in your head, and even if it is then it still exists. At the same time you assert that it is external, and that we need no evidence to justify that belief.

Then you ask me why someone would want to believe something and follow the religion, because it is hard and comes with unwanted baggage like believing in malevolent forces; this comes right after you have said a hundred times that even if your religion is not based on a real external god, you still have a positive incentive for following it.

You contradict yourself over and over, weaving in and out of "valid emotional evidence" to "no need for evidence," and equivocating the definition of God from 'internal only' to 'external entity' to suit whatever contradictory point you are making at the time.

So, you follow your religion because you have emotional benefits from it, which has nothing to do with an external god being real, a fact you seem to know and deny at the same time....

[harhar]

Yeah it seems to me pretty clearly that God can exist outside of our feelings and emotions and love.

God could also not exist and we would still have those things.

Is it wrong that people want to believe in the "concrete?" The empirical, (which the OP has taken out of context on numerous occasions) is what we ALL beleive. Even those who are religious.

People, I would contend, want to belong to something. To share their collective misery. They do that in groups called... Religion. And those are, in fact, real and emotional.

I think if you were to ask an "anti-theist" what they were more strongly against, would be the collectivization of religion rather than the "absurdity" of an existing God.

But that's me just assuming.

If you wanted to actually study the correct Philosophy you'd start with the Rationalists, maybe someone like Berkeley and Spinoza (although now that I think about it Berkeley might have been a Compatabilist) and then move on to Kant. A priori and A posteriori and all that junk.

[victorianpunk]

Originally Posted by kitsunegames

. Where's the evidence that living an evidence based life would make you miserable?

I was not a really religious person for awhile, and I was not nearly as happy as I was as a religious person.