What's your religion?

[Mole]

Pictures, products, people, stories from the living... Enough of a case to basically guarantee that it is there.

All that is required for belief is the suspension of disbelief.

And to suspend disbelief is the job of the synagogues, churches, mosques and temples.

But plainly they have fallen down on the job because they became complaisant, they took belief for granted. And like a taken for granted wife, belief has sued for divorce.

And who would believe it, but the clergy blame the disbelievers. For as we have seen in so many instances, the the clergy are the last to blame themselves.

But if the centre cannot hold, mere disbelief is loosed upon the world.

 

[Ivy]

Lark- you have pictures of God? Do share!

 

[Nicodemus]

 

[Coriolis]

So it's egocentric for God to care about his own creation, particularly the one he made in his own image? I mean God can't have a relationship with mankind?

I see no reason why God would care more for humanity than for anything else he created. For us to assume so is pure arrogance.

 

[swordpath]

I know, less difficult to believe it yet I've pretty much got the same evidence of God's existence and it can be more difficult to believe in, age we live in huh?

You have pictures of God? This I want to see.

 

[Tigerlily]

Secular Humanism is piquing my interest these days. I still prefer for now to stay away from labels. I did join a free thinkers group online that is in our area but they're too busy bashing Christians and that's not what I'm about. I believe in free will and I'm not going to try and sway anyone from their beliefs.

 

[Lark]

Beat, Ivy, open your eyes and look around.

 

[Totenkindly]

It's just your perspective, Lark.
It really just depends on whether you believe self-organization can spontaneously occur in nature. The greatest minds in human history continue to disagree on the matter, although I think we see more possibility nowadays for self-organization... or at least are more aware of minute processes that control a lot of what used to be labled as divine/supernatural.

Anyway, other people look at the state of the world and can't believe in God, based on how crappy human beings treat each other. Meaning is always read into things by the observer. That's just what you're doing here.

 

[Lark]

It's just your perspective, Lark.
It really just depends on whether you believe self-organization can spontaneously occur in nature. The greatest minds in human history continue to disagree on the matter, although I think we see more possibility nowadays for self-organization... or at least are more aware of minute processes that control a lot of what used to be labled as divine/supernatural.

Anyway, other people look at the state of the world and can't believe in God, based on how crappy human beings treat each other. Meaning is always read into things by the observer. That's just what you're doing here.

Some might say.

Yeah, people struggle. Others dont. Sometimes I do too.

 

[Ginkgo]

I've been reading The Shorter Summa, which is an abbreviated version of the Summa Theologica (originally around 4000 pages, rivaling the Bible in length and substance) by Thomas Aquinas, and I'm enjoying the philosophical edge that Thomas uses. It's refreshing in comparison to the noisy rhetoric that contemporary thought's brimming with, though it requires a much more astute level of understanding logic. I think I'll probably have to reread it meticulously to have a fuller understanding of it all.

Aquinas defines God, in a looser sense, as the greatest thing a person can think about. As such, God is self evident. Then, a rebuttal makes a transition from the "greatest thing" a person can think about to "infinite goodness". However, if a thing is infinitely good, then it would expunge all things bad. Clearly, there is the problem of evil.

Then another rebuttal takes place that goes on about the Uncaused Cause, which is cogent as far as I can tell.

I'm caught up on whether the greatest thing a person can think about is infinitely good. I think this presumes that thought itself is infinite. That's a toughy.

In any case, I should probably keep reading.

 

[Nicodemus]

Ontological argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Ginkgo]

Ontological argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It says that Aquinas criticized this argument.

Wittgenstein summed it up nicely - "God's essence is said to guarantee his existence - what this really means is that here what is at issue is not the existence of something."

 

[Devil Flamingo]

I don't have a religion. I don't really believe in anything much; whether God exists or not doesn't concern me, and I don't believe anything of importance happens after death, so I don't really care about being saved or reaching enlightenment. So I'm best described as agnostic, although I'm somewhat spiritual and superstitious as well, XD, but that doesn't count as being religious.

So yeah. :546:

 

[Lark]

It says that Aquinas criticized this argument.

Wittgenstein summed it up nicely - "God's essence is said to guarantee his existence - what this really means is that here what is at issue is not the existence of something."

Its one of my goals in life to understand Wittgenstein, I cant believe that his book became a cornerstone in athiestic thinking when he's a spiritualist and told them they understood none of it.

The idea that he drafted it up while fighitng in the trenches and contemplated becoming a monk while touring europe as a philosopher just seems kinda cool, I love the fact he got into a poker fight with Popper too, that rocks.

 

[BlueGray]

I've been reading The Shorter Summa, which is an abbreviated version of the Summa Theologica (originally around 4000 pages, rivaling the Bible in length and substance) by Thomas Aquinas, and I'm enjoying the philosophical edge that Thomas uses. It's refreshing in comparison to the noisy rhetoric that contemporary thought's brimming with, though it requires a much more astute level of understanding logic. I think I'll probably have to reread it meticulously to have a fuller understanding of it all.

Aquinas defines God, in a looser sense, as the greatest thing a person can think about. As such, God is self evident. Then, a rebuttal makes a transition from the "greatest thing" a person can think about to "infinite goodness". However, if a thing is infinitely good, then it would expunge all things bad. Clearly, there is the problem of evil.

Then another rebuttal takes place that goes on about the Uncaused Cause, which is cogent as far as I can tell.

I'm caught up on whether the greatest thing a person can think about is infinitely good. I think this presumes that thought itself is infinite. That's a toughy.

In any case, I should probably keep reading.

I'm curious how you can define god in such a way. It's basically like responding to a question with, "My answer is whatever ends up being the right answer to this question". What purpose does such a statement serve? There is no way in which to use the statement to construct anything else. There is no way to say anything about such answer, let alone that it is infinitely good.

 

[Daedalus]

Atheist Hindu of the Non-Dualist School.

 

[Ivy]

Beat, Ivy, open your eyes and look around.

I've looked and looked and I still fail to see photos of God anywhere. Remember that this is how you answered Beat's point about knowing Japan exists because of falsifiable evidence- I've never been to Japan, but physical, tangible evidence that it's really there is just a plane ticket away. That kind of evidence for God's existence simply does not exist. No plane ticket is going to provide proof of God's existence. That is what faith is for.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Isn't it interesting that this passage from Hebrews doesn't say "Faith is the measuring of the evidence for things that are clearly seen around us everywhere"? I'm a Christian, but not because there's proof of God's existence. If there were, what good would faith be? Faith is unfalsifiable. Doesn't make it wrong or bad, IMO- just another realm. But at least recognize what it is, and what it is not.

 

[Coriolis]

I've looked and looked and I still fail to see photos of God anywhere.

Some would say, just look in the mirror. Thou art God; thou art Goddess.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Isn't it interesting that this passage from Hebrews doesn't say "Faith is the measuring of the evidence for things that are clearly seen around us everywhere"? I'm a Christian, but not because there's proof of God's existence. If there were, what good would faith be? Faith is unfalsifiable. Doesn't make it wrong or bad, IMO- just another realm. But at least recognize what it is, and what it is not.

Amen. I am not a Christian, but am religious in my own way, and feel the same about faith.

 

[uberrogo]

American Orthodox

 

[Moiety]

God has never helped me in being happier either.