Human Programming

One knows that there is either God, or not God.Can you tell me the odds of each again? I seem to have lost my notes... An ultrasound in this analogy is irrelevent. Please tell me you don't think I've never heard of 'em. You said we are conditioned to believe. Once again, having an ultra-sound means we are talking about knowledge, not belief.

Well, maybe you don't know.The two choices again are;A. There is a God/sB. There is no God/s

Please define what you mean about negative evidence being an impossibility.Also, what is my assertion? Do you mean my belief in God? I can see that you don't get the point. I understand that there is no objective evidence for God. I am still not sure why you think people need evidence in order to believe.

I know they are not.We have tested them. I am looking for an example of a test to determine the probablity of a god existing.

Glad to hear that, Nosy Ned It has previously been the contention on this thread that the probability of
God not existing was pretty high.

No, my belief comes from my heart, and I use the Bible as a tool to open my mind to further understanding. My environment is decidedly not a 'christian' one, and my parents do not practice the same relgion, although granted I have valued their insights as well. No, I am not. I am saying that every history book is written after the fact, and may or may not be accurate. The Bible is not a history book OR a science book. No, I am asking what grounds you have for thinking that all belief comes from a book. I would think a book just reflects belief because it was written after-the-fact. My logic makes me reject the whole story, except maybe a very loose version, or a symbolic one. I have no need to get involved in studying global floods or how animals got to different places. I was pretty young when I realized that there is no way to keep every animal on earth alive on a ship for that long, so there must be something more than history at work. I admit I don't know. I believe.

Thanks Chiroptera,
I don't think there's any such thing as butting in a public thread Anyway, it is not that complicated. The OP is asking if people's beliefs are programmed. I assumed that meant any belief but it see that Kader means only to question people who DO believe in God since he feels there is so much 'evidence' to refute God.The question of probablity came up.There is a God/s
There is not a God/sThey are still the only two possibilities.What are the odds? They are untestable.'I don't know' is not a choice; NONE of us know.We can only choose between belief or nonbelief.And yes, we can be in a state of in-between or agnosticism, but one of the two options will still be true in the end whether we ever chose to believe in it or not.I am only asking for non-believers to question whether they have been programmed as well.BTW your post was pretty neat. I had never thought about it like that before, but since I will not find out for sure until I am dead, at least, for now I only have belief. A stab in the dark that proves correct is still not real knowledge.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

That's what I was saying. It's kind of a moot poimt now.

I will take a chance at replying to you again, since from reading the thread it seems like no progress is being made.And I would like to ask you how it is that you keep denying the possibility that YOUR beliefs are programmed? Are you saying that the default position of humanity is to never think about God unless someone else told you to?I would disagree. The belief in a higher power of some form or another has sprung up in every corner of the globe. The only thing we may be conditioned to is how we describe the higher power.If you were to lock an infant in a cell until it became adult, do you absolutely think that the adult would NEVER wonder if there was something more to life? Being in a cell he would almost certainly wonder. What is the difference if our cell is large or small? The oceans used to be boundaries, and we wondered. The skies were boundaries, and we wondered. It may be controversial of me to say so, but being atheist could be putting limits on the extent of our curiousity. The Bible did not start religion, ok? It is a collection of stories which God fearing men wrote to illustrate their beliefs, or even stories about times when God helped them to understand their beliefs. That is what I mean, after the fact. Whether it is oral or written has no impact if the same stories are being told. BTW people do not discover Jesus by looking in there inner selves, but they could discover God, and if you believe Jesus is God, it is the same difference. Whether Jesus is a fairy tale or not, the gospels were written AFTER the fact, even if it is just the fact that some man invented Jesus. I DO believe Jesus was a prophet, and I do not see any reason to not believe in his existance OR the existance of Muhamed, Buddha, etc. For that matter, how can I ever prove there was an Aristotle? Beyond any shadow of doubt?

[qs=Kader]If not, then the other option I can see is conditionning. Do you see another.{/qsLet's see...we have;A. Proof that God exists/validity of a religion.
B. Someone 'programming' us to believe.
C. Belief?

Well, ok, but you are the one who said there were two options.And you asked for another.Once again, no one can condition you to believe. All they can do is condition how you believe.In the OP it seemed like you were questioning if people tend to stick to the religion of their ancestors.Now you are questioning if ALL belief is a trick or a 'conditioning'.Once again, I ask you to apply the question to yourself. You DO NOT KNOW if there is a God. If you are wondering how we crazy theists feel, it is probably exactly like you feel. We have a belief, and we find 'evidence'.