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A little (dis)belief exercise

Which of these statements do you litterally believe in?

  • There exists at least one powerful being (=God).

    Votes: 6 20.0%
  • God is older than life.

    Votes: 3 10.0%
  • God is older than the universe.

    Votes: 3 10.0%
  • God has caused the universe to be.

    Votes: 5 16.7%
  • God has created everything like it is now.

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • God actively interferes in human life.

    Votes: 4 13.3%
  • God can read your thoughts and feelings.

    Votes: 4 13.3%
  • Humans have a soul which lives on after death, independently from memory.

    Votes: 5 16.7%
  • This soul will be rewarded or punished after death for the human's actions.

    Votes: 3 10.0%
  • Your religion is the only true one.

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • The holy book is directly written by God and infallible.

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • None of these (you're an atheist!)

    Votes: 20 66.7%

  • Total voters
    30

Qlip

Post Human Post
Joined
Jul 30, 2010
Messages
8,464
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
@ KDude: why I am concerning myself with such discussions? Because I find them interesting. Religion fascinates me. Not because they are somehow useful. If you don't want to waste your time on that, well, don't waste your time on that. Waste your time on watching football, or playing the piano, or reading fiction, or collecting figurines and dusting them.
All useless things, but some of them can be fun. Which ones? Depends on your taste. Maybe you think it's strange to enjoy discussions rather than watching sports, but I do.

PS. I'm still searching for the ones who checked "god caused the universe to be" and not "god is older". I always thought that the whole notion of causality needed the notion of time... I'd like to know how you fit those two together!

That was me. If god created casuality itself and the notion of time, they aren't applicable to 'him' because god would be outside of it originally. There's at least one group of people who think of the act of creation as a ongoing constant act, so even if you would think casuality is applicable, they could be very well the same age.
 

KDude

New member
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
8,243
@ KDude: why I am concerning myself with such discussions? Because I find them interesting. Religion fascinates me. Not because they are somehow useful. If you don't want to waste your time on that, well, don't waste your time on that. Waste your time on watching football, or playing the piano, or reading fiction, or collecting figurines and dusting them.
All useless things, but some of them can be fun. Which ones? Depends on your taste. Maybe you think it's strange to enjoy discussions rather than watching sports, but I do.

PS. I'm still searching for the ones who checked "god caused the universe to be" and not "god is older". I always thought that the whole notion of causality needed the notion of time... I'd like to know how you fit those two together!

I'm interested in religion too and will discuss that with you till our hair turns grey. Don't assume I'm coming from the point of view of some Phillistine who is less concerned with philosophical issues than you are. It's just that debating the existence of God gets old. It was old when Thomas Aquinas did it, old when Ambrose did it, old when Hume did it, old when Nietzsche did it, old when Russell did it, and it's old now. And none of these great minds truly covered anything as far as actually progressing the issue goes. There are clever arguments for or against, but it all ends up being merely rhetorical.. and someone eventually supersedes their cleverness and destroys them with a new proposition. And so on and so forth.. ad infinitum. In the end, it's just a game and has little to do with philosophy or truth seeking and more about constructing a better house of cards than the next person - temporarily.

Anyways, in my humble opinion, it's not even what truly separates people's views. There are far more dynamics going on than that. It would be nice if more people on the net could get past this and talk about other things pertaining to religion more often. But I suppose that's wishing too much.
 

Beorn

Permabanned
Joined
Dec 10, 2008
Messages
5,005
Warning: doing this exercise can destroy, diminish, but also enhance or refine your beliefs. Nevertheless I dare you to do it. Please consider this: how weak would your beliefs be if they can be shattered by a mere text on the 'net?
LOL


There exists at least one powerful being (=God).
Yes. Everyone must check this. At the very least people believe they themselves are God.

God is older than life.
God is life.

God is older than the universe.
Sure. It's creation. God as creator precedes all creation.

God has caused the universe to be.
Yes.

God has created everything like it is now.
Ummmm... he's sustaining everything right now.

God actively interferes in human life.
Sure.

God can read your thoughts and feelings.
Sure.

Humans have a soul which lives on after death, independently from memory.
I believe in an eternal soul, sure. I don't get the memory part.

This soul will be rewarded or punished after death for the human's actions.
Technically, no. People are punished for sinfulness. They are rewarded solely on the basis of Christ's work on the cross not on their own actions.

Your religion is the only true one.
Sure. Any beliefs that contradict the central tenants of my religion cannot also be true.

The holy book is directly written by God and infallible.
My holy book was written by men who were divinely inspired by God to write a series of texts that were infallible in their original form.

None of these (you're an atheist!)
Nope.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
The Jail-Break

What would be more interesting is discussing philosophical issues that might lead somewhere.

We have far too many issues that lead somewhere. Surely the purpose of philosophy is to head them off at the pass.

Everyone and their dog wants to go somewhere, everyone and their best friend want to know what is coming next. And guess what - they do. They do know what is coming next. They are hooked on what is coming next. No, they are addicted to what is coming next. Our job is to disappoint them. Our job is to insert cognitive dissonance into the taken-for-granted. Sure, cognitive dissonance is emotionally painful, and they will hate you for waking them up from their dream of what is coming next. But we can't bear not to know what happens when we don't know what is coming next. It may mean overwhelming fear, we may stumble and trip, we may be socially ostracised, we may even disappoint our mother, ah, but the air of freedom, the freedom of not knowing of what is coming next.

So the purpose of philosophy is to free us from our expectations, from our hopes and plans, and even to free us from the society around us. Philosophy wants to cut us loose. Philosophy wants to break us out of the prision of our own thoughts.

Philosophy is a jail-break.
 
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