Why is belief necessary?

Phatboy If your reasoning and rationality show you that there is no good evidence that there is a god then what possible reason would you have to assume any reality for the existence of such a thing?You cannot assume the existence of such a thing as a reality before you investigate.It is not necessary to deny the existence of god while affirming that such a thing is unlikely in the extreme.I side with atheism because I cannot see a pattern in human relations or in the natural world that presents itself as the work of a deity of any type and as such consider it more likely the product of humans than an actual entity.

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"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
--Don Hirschberg

internal life OF God IN a believer? Did you mean God's internal life, or the believers internal life? i.e. is this closer to your thought:spirit is God in the internal life of a believerIf not could you expand on what you mean by God's internal life and what that means if it's in a believer?thanks,
lfen

How can you say that? Everybody knows that the Purple Hare in the Sky is the only being we may worship. After all:"It may well be that colours are human ideas, but "purple" is not a human invention. Purple is the internal hue of the Hare in a believer that proves He exists to us. By denying His existence, you place your own reasoning and rationality above His reality."Sounds pretty convincing, eh?I asked you in another thread, and I ask you here again: why are religious people always being so vague about everything? Do you perhaps think that saying something (e.g. the sentence in bold typeface in the quote above) in an incomprehensible way somehow makes it profound? I hate to burst your bubble, but to me it sounds just like you have lost your marbles. (No, MrHambre! Down boy!)

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"It's amazing what you can learn from DNA." - Desdamona.

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It may well be that religions are human ideas, but "Spirit" is not a human invention. Spirit is the internal life of God in a believer that proves He exists to us. By denying His existance, you place your own reasoning and rationality above His reality.

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In other words God demands that we do not think for ourselves and instead unquestioningly beleive you. Isn't that convenient ?Comments like this only reinforce the idea that the "need" for faith is in reality an attempt to coerce belief in a rationally indefensible proposition.

How can I convince any of you? You are all quite skeptical of not only the reality behind my belief but of the very need for such a belief. I know that quoting scriptures will not change the strength or position of my argument. Since we do not know each other beyond our verbal typed exchanges, none of you would have known me so as to see the changes that the internal, living presence of God has made in my life. Even if you had seen the changes, known my passion, and experienced the relationship with me personally, you would still be the judges of whether to attribute the changes to other reasons rather than to belief in God. I suppose that I could assert that by and large, "believers" have a predisposition to want to believe whereas skeptics have a predisposition to doubt and find other reasons. This is a good thing for a scientist. God forbid if all scientists based their observations on their emotions! We would be back to the legend of Merlin! To summerize the defense of the overall question as to why my belief is necessary, I can only say that the events and impressions that have influenced my belief have been profound enough that I am biased and quite unable (or unwilling) to explain them away. It would be as if you had experienced something that was so real to you that to you it was real...despite being undetected and unmeasureable by those around you. Allow me to quote a scripture passage that describes a similar scenario. It is when Saul of Tarsus "experienced' the Holy Spirit: Notice how only Saul/Paul experienced the event as an encounter with God whereas the guys with him only knew that something strange was happening yet had no idea of what it was. Sometimes, a believer will have an experience that is personal to them, whereas to others around them it may be the result of some other unexplained phenomena. I am not going to try and convince anyone of the reality that I ascribe as belief....however, rest assured that to me it is very real, for He is very real.

I think he meant the Holy Spirit living inside of Christians that guides and influences them.

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If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

Well for a start, you would do a whole lot better if you didn't try to make it look as if it were somehow morally questionable to disagree with your beliefs.Then you could try to come up with some good arguments instead of - I'm sorry to say - insulting sophistry.

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How can I convince any of you?

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I'm afraid that as long as your experiences remain personal, you can't.Since I was a child, I always wondered why God required faith and didn't show himself to us. That way you could choose to accept or reject him. As I grew up, I found out that, in life, faith is only requested by dodgy second-hand car dealers and cowboy builders. Honest, well-meaning people always show their work, before demanding anything in return.Why can't an all-powerful, all-loving God be the same ?And to answer the main topic 'Why is belief necessary ?'Because it's the only way, an ideological system based on the supernatural can be supported.This message has been edited by Legend, 11-05-2004 09:57 AM

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Not everything in your life is going to be so simple that you can triumph over it with your reasoning mind. Some things will need to be decided without evidence or proof. This is not insulting, it is life.

I'm not suggesting that it is "insulting" to say that some things cannot be decided by reasoning and proof. Of course I also say that it is quite reasonable not to decide - or to make a provisional decision if reason and evidence can get us that far.What I do find insulting is the misrepresentations, and the attempts to insinuate that it is morally wrong not to believe that God exists. As an attempt to convince it's not going to work. And it is doubly foolish to behave so badly on a thread where you are trying to offer your own "good" behaviour as evidence.

Phatboy states,

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Not everything in your life is going to be so simple that you can triumph over it with your reasoning mind.

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In fact, the more complex the issue, the more we need to rely on some measure of rational contemplation. The easy way out is to construct an edifice of dogma that can't be examined or questioned, and to pretend that this is knowledge of reality.If you're going to accuse us of scientism, by which I mean the act of inappropriately applying scientific criteria to a phenomenon, then you'll have to show us your methodology for understanding things on a non-rational basis. If you have such a methodology, then we should hear about it. However, if you just want your ideas to be exempt from potentially damaging criticism, then maybe they don't deserve to be aired in public in the first place.regards,
Esteban Hambre

I couldn't agree more. That is a very important point. Thank you sir.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Its been a while eh? Have you moved from the sideline to the atheist camp - is this something new since we last talked? Reaching for the conclusion that there is no God is simply the final act of a rebellious heart towards that which is obvious and can be deduced from the entire human experience. God exists a posteriori. You have evidence of God from the human experience, you choose to assign this evidence to a humanisitic conclusion as opposed to a theistic one. You have already assigned the evidence to a materialistic interpretation. Theists have done the same thing only we assign it to divine interpretation. You siding with atheism I would argue is not the results of some objective examination of the facts. It is what you choose to side with as a matter of preference.What is the compelling evidence that you have suggesting the Christian God doesn't exist? How do you disarm 2000 years of Christian theology, the entire Christian experience as explained by millions of people throughout the course of history and the sound rational thought presented and only recently rejected by post-modern philosophers?Take care..This message has been edited by grace2u, 11-06-2004 03:31 PM

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"The moral rectitude of God must consist in a due respect to things that are objects of moral respect; that is, to intelligent beings capable of moral actions and relations. And therefore it must chiefly constist in giving due respect to that Being to whom most is due; for God is infinitely the most worthy of regard. The worthiness of others is as nothing to his; so that to him belongs all possible respect. To him belongs the whole of the respect that any intelligent being is capable of. To him belongs ALL the heart. Therefore, if moral rectitude of heart consists in paying the respect of the heart which is due, or which fitness and suitableness requires, fitness requirees infinitly the greatest regard to be paid to God; and the denying of supreme regard here would be a conduct infinitely the most unfit. Hence it will follow, that moral rectitude of the disposition, inclination, or affection of God CHEIEFLY consists in a regatd to HIMSELF, infinitely above his regard to all other beings; in other words, his holiness consists in this" J. Edwards

grace2u I have been atheist my whole life and the sidelined handle refers to the burn injury that sidelined me from work and at which time I came to find EVC forum while web surfing to ease the pain from the injury by engaging my attention elsewhere. I have heard this many times before and I can only stste that I feel no rebellion but only puzzlement at the insistence of people who say that such a thing is obvious from the actions of humans as though we were somehow special. Please explain how this evidence presents itself without the prior assumption that there is a god. If you cannot I will suggest that you are filtering the evidence through a pre-concieved notion. Not in the slightest.A material world is what we live in as the evidence suggests and there is no evidence of other than a material world that I have been shown.Again you are assuming that the material world we investigate is somehow of neccesity tied into a spiritual world of which no evidence exists. But they fail to show how the interpretation follows from the evidence.Instead we are offered that the god of theism is beyond the realm of this world immaterial invisible and beyond human reckoning.And this is somehow convincing to you? I side with atheism because it explains what the paradox of gods and human actions to each other resolves to.That evil occurs, that hard work and good intentions do not necessarily mean a life of enjoyment.That death occurs to innocent people.That wars and disease are not the plan of a deity and are simply the result of people .That mushrooms are actually thought to be a viable source of food {eewwww!}
Theism struggles with these and never has aa satifactory answer that does not amount to other than goddidit. LOL.I have none and cannot ever have such. I have,rather, no compelling evidence that he does exist, hence the atheist stance. Human error and political interplay.Please explain what you mean by sound rational thought.Also if you could please show how the entire chistian experience is resolvable to a common ground that all other christians will agree to.

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"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
--Don Hirschberg

Ok.. I didnt remember you ever making the outright claim to atheism. At any rate, I'm glad you found something to help ease the pain. Not obvious from the actions of humans, obvious from the entire human experience. For example Love, logic, order in the cosmos and moral truths. Now, I know that you can dismiss this evidence in some humanisitic terms. This is my point, you chose to assign the explanation of these concepts in your own precomitted ways, just like I and any other theist does the same only assigns them in theistic terms. I guess I agree here. I could present evidence, however the evidence I present would be interpreted in your own way. For example, I provide the evidence of millions of witnesses to Christs glory and life changing power. You might dismiss this as wishfull thinking, I attribute this as evidence of Christs power and reality. At the same time however, you probably would never attribute George Washingtons existnace to wishfull thinking. Of course extrodinary claims require extrodinary evidence, I maintain that the testimony of millions of people is extrodinary evidence. Combine this with the philosophical prowess of Christianity to deal with the human experience, holy scriptures life changing power, and the internal witness that Christ provides, should leave any skeptic or honest searcher with at least an inability to claim its false. To outright deny Christianities claims demonstrates ones own inability to seperate their own presuppositions from their "claimed" sincere examinations of the facts. This tendency demonstrates your own precomitments to atheism and in no way is epistemologicaly sound.You say that there is no evidence of any world beyond what a narrow materialisitic approach can discover. How is this free-thought or sincere searching? It is extremely simplistic and demonstrates the atheists inability to deal with the human experience - something they should be deeply concerned with. The greatest scientist to ever walk the earth were believers. They looked at science as an art - trying to unravel the mind of God. Ahh. A bold statement. Unfortunately this is an extremely narrow approach to the supposed paradox that you present. All this approach leaves you with is that you know only believe that which you can test and study(you pick and choose what you believe in or whos claims you trust - probably believing most scientist writings in journals but denying the testimony of a Christian who claims they have met God). This is like an ant saying he doesn't believe in humans because he can't understand them in their fullness. So by this logic, if you can't answer something, it doesn't exist or the system is flawed because you can't comprehend a certain component of it. This is not a very rational method in solving problems. Ok - I could list lots of stuff but heres one in particular you can deal with. Concerning Christianity - not Islam or some other religion. You have the evidence of the testimony of millions. How can you outright discount this as evidence? Or do you?By sound rational thought, I simply mean the history of philosophy. You will find very few philosophers that will deny Gods existance outright. In fact- some of the most influential thinkers of the last 2000 years where Christians( Marcus Aurelius,CS Lewis, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, John Locke, Hegel, Newtone, Pascal and on it goes). Todays atheism certainly does not follow the proud tradition of philosophy in regards to questioning everything you know-Descartes. You can't outright deny evidence on the basis that your worldview has some counter explanation for the evidence presented. If you do this, you are only begging the question and misleading your self. You are providing a circular argument claiming your own belief system to be true without proving it in some objective sense. Like it or not, atheism is a worldview in and of itself. It requires faith in materialism at a minimum, and must deny all other worldviews (christianity included) in order to be valid.So - you want evidence, I provide the Christian experience. What is your answer to the claim that millions have made concerning the testimony that they claim God himself has placed within them. God has revealed Himself to millions of followers in the course of history and you apparently claim this is false. What is your basis for concluding this ?Take care..