Trying to be intellectually honest with myself, tell me if I got this right
Posted on: March 20, 2010 - 3:16pm
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Trying to be intellectually honest with myself, tell me if I got this right
If the atheists are right, there is no god or gods. If the theists are right, there is a god or gods.
One of you has to be right, and if one of you is right, the other is wrong.
You all sound reasonably intelligent, but if I'm to make an informed decision that may or may not have eternal consequences, I'd rather hear from brilliant people who have devoted their lives to studying their respective fields; people who have degrees that I never knew existed. I saw the amputee link and stuf, and no offense to ya'll or anything like that, but can someone direct me to scholarly literature?
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Atheists can never be right because they never make any absolute claims. If you change the evidence then the conclusion will change as well. No matter what you show theists their worldview and beliefs will remain the same, relatively. As for eternal consequences, there are more gods that will fuck you over for believing in the wrong god than there are for rewarding fake belief for the sake of not going to Hell.
My two cents, I shall now leave responding to the smart ones.
You don't need to have a degree to understand that Pascal's Wager doesn't work. Just simple math and logic.
There are over 1,000,000 different religions. In christianity alone, there are 30,000 sects.
To pick the right one is a one in a million crap shoot.
It also doesn't take into account the following possibilites:
It also doesn't take into account:
Atheists simply look at the claim "god exists" and say that the burdon of proof lies on the person(s) making the claim. If the proof is not sufficient, then the claim should be considered false. If we as humans looked at the world by assuming claims are true until proven false, we would live in a world of chaos trying to prove that invisible pink unicorns from Atlantis aren't really in my livingroom. This is the same basis for the US criminal court system. The state makes a claim, and it is up to the state to prove their claim is true, not for the defense to prove the claim is false. Otherwise, everyone could simply say that people they don't like are doing illegal things, and people would be spending their resources to prove that they didn't do illegal things. It would be chaotic, and quite a few innocent people would be in jail.
So when you ask the question, just ask yourself if the burdon of proof is sufficient to believe in god. If so, then you have the fun choice of finding out if one of the millions of religions out there is the right one.
Good luck.
Dolt:"Evolution is just a theory."
Me:"Yes, so is light and gravity. Pardon me while I flash this strobe while dropping a bowling ball on your head. This shouldn't bother you; after all, these are just theories."
If there is a God, and he really is a just and fair God, he will not condemn someone who employs his brain and skills in honestly seeking the truth.
If God is not fair and just, then it probably doesn't really matter what we do, we will be condemned or saved depending how he feels at the time.
Since we have no way to decide with any certainty which one of all the proposed ideas of the nature of God might be true, or whether the answer is "none of the above", they all pretty much cancel out.
We might as well try and enjoy life as best we can, while honestly trying to discover what is most likely to be true, by whatever means seems most productive, and following some natural moral code based on not harming others if we can avoid it, and helping others if we have the chance. So if there really is a 'judgement' we have a defensible position.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
And with that, a dram of scotch!
Cheers!
Dolt:"Evolution is just a theory."
Me:"Yes, so is light and gravity. Pardon me while I flash this strobe while dropping a bowling ball on your head. This shouldn't bother you; after all, these are just theories."
This accurately decribes my postition aswell, nothing to add.
I'm going to be straight with you. If you want to be intellectually honest with yourself, start thinking for yourself and don't place such import upon buying into someone else's school of thought. You can start by finding the scholarly literature for yourself.
I agree with what everyone said, especially David Henson.
Whether you think atheism or theism is true, first relax and be comfortable with what your actual opinion is.
Then, whichever one you find yourself leaning towards, find a forum/source that challenges it.
Then find a source/forum that counter challenges.
You'll gradually sift the good arguments from the bad, the sound reasoning from the empty rhetoric.
I think we'll all agree here that we value this process above any conclusions we come to.
I've got a degree in Human Computer Interaction. Bet you never knew that degree existed. Does that count?
No offense to you, but if you need a scholar to help you decide which god to believe in, don't you think there's a serious problem with the different god claims, especially since the Christian scholar and the Muslim scholar and the Jewish scholar (not to mention the Hindu and the Buddhist and the Native American) will make contradictory god claims?
Unless you've studied religion to a scholarly level, how could you possibly know which god is the real one?
It doesn't take a genius to realize that all religions are the invention of human beings, and that *no one* could possibly know whether any gods really exist, unless those gods specifically revealed themselves with reliable and testable evidence. There are exactly *zero* good reasons to believe in any gods.
All god beliefs are an exercise in self-deception.
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+1
It seems to me that if the OP is looking to conduct such research for the purpose of choosing the "best" god, then they have already committed to believing there is a god.
To be intellectually honest with yourself, OP, it might behoove you to search for evidence of a god in the first place. I can tell you that you will likely not find it in scholarly literature (and this should be a big hint to you). It would be wise to consider why you have decided that there is a god in the first place, before trying to settle upon the "right" god for you. Otherwise you are operating under a fallacious set of premises - i.e. "There is a god, therefore there must be a best god, and I can learn this through human knowledge."
Natural makes a good point. Maybe you should overwhelm yourself with the multitude of religious deities to gain some sense of the improbability than any of them are the "one true god," or even real in the first place.
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
-- Richard Dawkins
If I had to believe in a god, I would simply look up the most popular one. I mean, if the largest percentage ARE wrong, then you would have a lot of company in hell right?
But I question someones motives, who come here to an atheist website and post that they are looking for the specific "correct" god.
The correct god is in your own mind already, so break out a mirror and start bowing and fawning over it.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
No, no, no. Pick one of the obscure ones. Then you can have fun messing with everyone - "My beliefs say I should drink 8 cups of coffee before lunch and 6 beers before bed." Who needs company in hell anyway?
This I agree with totally.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.