395 replies to this topic

[Keel]

Proletariat, on Jun 21, 2011 - 03:11, said:

There's a difference between clarity of content and clarity of syntax.

There's no need to have a position either, but then there's no need to be in the thread in the first place.

I'm sorry I didn't get your first point. True, there is no need to be in the thread. However, I just wanted to build on Avan's and Ezeh's points (or rather questions). Why is it that this thread is so important that it requires the attention of certain individuals to endlessly attack the position of others and defend their own on a subject in which no conclusions can ever be drawn? Obviously God's existence holds much importance to religious people; but as an athiest (I'm assuming you are one) why does the non-existence of God matter to you? If you have faith that God does not exist then why do you bother to argue with those who say that he does?

[Proletariat]

Keel, on Jun 21, 2011 - 03:25, said:

Proletariat, on Jun 21, 2011 - 03:11, said:

There's a difference between clarity of content and clarity of syntax.

There's no need to have a position either, but then there's no need to be in the thread in the first place.

I'm sorry I didn't get your first point. True, there is no need to be in the thread. However, I just wanted to build on Avan's point (if you even consider it one). Why is it that this thread is so important that it requires the attention of certain individuals to endlessly attack the position of others and defend their own on a subject which no conclusion can ever be drawn? Obviously God's existence holds much importance to religious people; but as an athiest (I'm assuming you are one) why does the non-existence of God matter to you? If you have faith that God does not exist then why do you bother to argue with those who say that he does?

I think anyone can tell that I've stopped putting forward arguments of substance long-ago for whatever my beliefs happen to be (and no, I'm not an antheist.)

I'm criticizing individuals who aren't able to advance the simplest of arguments without making grammatical, or logical, or argumentative, or factual fallacies. I'm amused that you and Avan would even consider it arguing tbh.

People who are religious have every right to hold their beliefs. But ridiculous is ridiculous, no matter what theological stance is being advocated. It's one thing to say "I believe in God." It's quite a bit different to say "Schrodinger's cat proves God's existence!!!!" Granted, perhaps it does on some quasi-metaphorical level, but I'll never know because whoever posted it hasn't defended nor justified their as-of-right-now ridiculous statement.

It's elementary rhetoric. I'm simply trying to raise the level of discourse, and prevent a slow descent into crude, sycophantic ramblings. Read Sandwich's reply to my post on Pg. 18; I made the point that such discussion is useless, and it was refutted (successfully, I might add) by pointing out that while a conclusive position cannot be reached, such a debate still affords the opportunity for individuals to point out the really bizarre and unjustifiable arguments that both sides can sometimes dare to make (which is more or less exactly what I wrote just now, above.)

[haley.the.great]

Discussion is what makes some of these unanswerable questions SOOO interesting! I love to read abstract reasoning (but well articulated ) and stuff that I might not have considered before to broaden my view. To me, it's ridiculous to be so firm in your shoes that you can't have a discussion about something and benefit from it. Refraining from engaging in debate because of your position is so backwards.   The solution to the question is beside the point...the "debate and discussion" is what's more important in my opinion! If you have a good point to offer or refute, totally post it...it's good practice. I don't believe one way or the other; in fact I've even stated that the whole argument of god(s)' existence has become irrelevant to me, but that doesn't make it any less valuable to discuss. Why do we bother to argue? See first sentence, rinse, and repeat.  

[Ezeh]

If anyone here knows Richard Dawkins (a very strong anti-religion activist), you may find THIS article quite amusing. (as did I).

Basically, It mocks the way that Richard Dawkins approaches his arguments against gods and such. To greater understand who he is in a nutshell, he wrote the book "The God Delusion".

By the way, I'm not religious but I'm pretty neutral about all this, I just thought it's a bit humorous

[MaryamB]

Just because no one has seen God, it doesnt mean He does not exist. The wind for instance, can we see it? No. But can we feel it? Yes.
I defnitely believe in God. Is there not enough evidence that some supreme power exists?

[∫ Jorge δx]

I actually ended up writing a whole essay on this for someone religious, so I'll put a handful of my points right here.

I personally believe that organized religion is merely one of the many axes of power in society; it is one of the many institutions of power that not only seeks control over the masses physically, but too at a mental and spiritual level. They are there to homogenize faith and at least originally were there to shape the morality of society. However, at this point in time, I believe religious organizations to be obsolete for we really do not need them - as faith is an individual decision on how to have a relationship with the divine, and morality may be reached through the following of secular codes of law.
Despite my outright rejection of organized religion, I do believe in order and morality because it maintains society as we know it running. People need to fear something so that they act “civilized” and don’t break the established norms – hence we have the idea that sinners go to hell, to create the necessary fear in the divine. However, as I have already mentioned, I believe that with the knowledge that we have obtained at this point, with the existing status quo and with the existing systems of rule, one can reach a state of morality without being religious, but rather, with a pinch of common sense. Maybe I have too much faith in human beings for saying this… But based on the way even the most anti-religious parents raise their children and what the most secular law codes say in terms of crime and punishment, it would only make sense to follow society’s behavioral norms not to be swallowed up and destroyed by the society in question.
On the other hand, I do not believe that faith is obsolete. It is the one thing that is eternal among human beings throughout history; as beings able of cognitive reasoning, we search for our own purpose, in an almost philosophical fashion, not to mention all these other things such as our own creation. I believe there is a sort of faith when we’re looking at science – it explains our creation in a way more feasible and believable than any myth ever created. It too could be a myth, but it is a myth I choose to believe in. Faith may or may not be similar to the ideas given by religious cults; I strongly believe that one's relationship with the divine should be a personal interaction. One should be able to pray in whatever way one wishes, to whatever one chooses to call their own interpretation of a greater power. One may not call the greater power “God” or “Allah” or anything of the sort, but who are we to judge this person's beliefs and thought? We are not in this person's head, what the hell do we care about what he thinks? But we do, simply because humans naturally desire to exert a certain form of power over others – I do it all the time by attempting to have others accept my philosophies and thought, and so do religious preachers, politicians and artists. They simply exert power upon individuals in different areas of society and thought.
With that said, I admit that in different areas of thought I bow down to different axes of power. When it comes to believing in a creator or creation, I personally like to give my submission to Charles Darwin and the physicists that theorized the idea of the Big Bang rather than the idea of Adam and Eve in a universal cosmic garden. I do at times like to think that the whole idea of the book of Genesis, and pretty much every other religious text to contain large numbers of metaphors that can be interpreted as the current thoughts advocated by scientists (However, many people in religious studies would disagree for applying ideas of my contemporaries unto texts that are between 4000 and 1400 years old to interpret them, and this to some extent applies to the interpretations of the Qur’an predicting scientific discoveries of the 20th Century). But there are things that cannot be explained by science, and I'm aware of that. But I don't believe that faith in unproven myths (which could later be proven... somehow...) holds the answer to unexplainable phenomena. Ok, sure, there's only so much that science can explain through the theory of the Big Bang... So what created that extremely dense “thing” (for a lack of a better term to define the primordial object from which all matter came from) is something obscure to me – I quite honestly don't know. The thing is I believe that it was not necessarily created by a “someone” or “something”- such an idea exists only because as humans we require to believe in a beginning and an end. It's logical if it has a beginning and an end, we perceive that there is such a thing as passing of time – it makes sense. But... It doesn't necessarily mean that it has to fit the bounds of human reason. There are things that are beyond our understanding that we know are there (that we hence label as God and whatnot), so who says the universe is supposed to make sense? Was the universe created (assuming there was such a thing as creation) such that we understand it and that it fits the bounds of our reason? I don’t think so; but we do shape our perception of the universe for us to understand it. The human mind has amazing capabilities, such as abstract thought, but it too has its limits. However, due to the structure in which I perceive the universe around me (because that is really the only way I have any contact with it), I assume the universe as we know it has a beginning and will at some point reach an end. And not just because of the structure, but because the other interpretation involving making no sense whatsoever is just way too complex for me (or anyone for that matter) to fathom. But then again, a "beginning" is merely a point of reference... There may be multiple beginnings - hey, for all I care, there may have been a universe just like this one that contracted into the previously mentioned "thing" and then decided to expand again to later contract and continue in this cycle eternally.

[Trololol Marf]

Before I start this argument, I do not intend to offend anyone. This is only my opinion.

I believe that God does not exist, that man created God for reasons to benefit himself. The human trait, to be skeptical is present in humans. It is not ear-pleasing hear something and believe a person. But it is more so to hear that someone else, something else, does something graceful.

People are in love with power. But they realize, no one, socially speaking, can be God. Knowing this, they turn to the next best thing. How crafty is it to say, that I am but a pheasant that speaks to God? People start giving goods to this person so he can talk to God "in holy phrases" to "God" to hear out their wishes. The same goes out for praying for forgiveness. People who cannot "bear" their sins, come to "God" and relinquish themselves from it, by God. What happens during that process actually? I find it almost magical and utterly disgusting, that people today can feel "better" after they commit the worst of crimes, do the most terrible of things, and feel better, after their sins are "taken away". Religion is on a global scale, and has persisted for who knows how long.

My impiety is driven by the fact that science has answered the questions we thought we never knew. It is continuing to do this. Remember when the Elizabethans thought Earth was the center of the universe? There was some big controversy when Galileo (I think?) disproved them, as it was a "big thing going on". It was a huge argument, according to my English teacher. Haha. We have discovered things that were never thought possible, disproved the most traditional beliefs (cough cough, Aristotle, Mr. Spontaneous Generation). This trend WILL continue, as the quest for knowledge is infinite, what we know is passed to the next generation to continue and discover truth.

[Heer]

God exists because of all the evidence we can see, such as the universe and the Earth. It is harder to believe that all this is by accident, because the chances are too close to impossible, that it would take absolutely amazing luck for all this to happen without God.

[C.James]

Heer, on Sep 22, 2011 - 04:58, said:

God exists because of all the evidence we can see, such as the universe and the Earth. It is harder to believe that all this is by accident, because the chances are too close to impossible, that it would take absolutely amazing luck for all this to happen without God.

Anthrocentric fallacy: It unlikely humans exist, (hidden premise: HUMANS MUST EXIST) therefore we must have been placed here by a god.

Argument from incredulity: A failure to imagine that natural process can lead to this universe and its current state (the general academic opinion.)

_______

Personally at this point I don't know if god exists or not (I tend to see better arguments for not), and don't think I know (or ever will) enough to answer with certainty.

However I feel it is dishonest, immoral and dangerous when anyone claims an absolute truth where it is immposible to have one; I feel obligated to debunk people of any position that do so.

[The Filipino Limner]

The belief of disbelief of a God is each to his own.

Why should we debate whether or not a higher being exists when we generally won't change our beliefs? Maybe, what would be more worthwhile to know is why we believe in a God or why someone doesn't believe in a God.

People believe because people are dropped into this world without knowing what is to happen to their lives such as the ideas of death, uncertainty, etc., and faith in a higher being soothes people of those problems.

And the other thing is because its passed down from one generation to the other, and people just get dragged into it.

So, all in all, people believe or do not believe isn't the question, but more of what they believe.

This sounds so TOK!

[Mort]

The nearest theories to prove God's existent were 'the first cause argument', 'the design argument' and 'the ontological argument' which have all been criticized and disproved. In the end it all comes down to your perspective of the world around you. One thing that we can all agree on is the fact that the belief in god gives the person a feeling of 'safety' and 'purpose'. Another thing we can agree on is that today, religion and the specific belief in god is being misused politically to affect the emotions of religious individuals and at times control them.

[KaranKanwar]

The question itself is rather misleading as it would normally be interpreted as a whether one chooses to believe, or not to believe. The question is similar to 'Do aliens exist?' or 'Do ghosts exist?', you don't know what the actual answer is.

Although, the question of god is in faith, do you have the capability to believe in something that may or may not exist? If you're very religious  make sacrifices for something or someone that may or may not exist?

If you think about it logically, it's impossible for a god to exist. Is there really one person, somewhere far away, that listens to whatever we say, in whatever language we say it in, and somehow uses 'magic' to do what we say after checking if we are deserving enough to get what we want? That, for all 7,000,000,000 of us? The stories of any kind of god are also quite illogical (I mean this to have no offense!) but for example, Judaism, is it really possible to split an ocean for people to walk across? Christianity, is it really possible to resurrect yourself after something as tragic as Jesus' story? I use these two, because I don't remember any other stories

But really, having faith in god, is one's own choice. If you wish to have faith, make sacrifices, for something that might not even exist, that is a choice for you.
If you don't have faith, don't wish to believe in a god, again, up to you.

The question as opposed to whether god exists or not, is impossible to prove or disprove; because, if there is some sort of god that listens to 7,000,000,000 prayers, checks whether the person is deserving enough, and then gives them what they want - I would have to conclude that in my opinion, there is no such thing as god, and people's understanding of god is simply coincidence.

You may have noticed I used the term 'god' loosely by not capitalizing the 'g', as you might've guessed, I don't believe in god, or believe 'a god' exists.

I like philosophy, sad though, I like business & management more

[Hazel16]

Any discussion about whether a god exists or not won't lead to any real conclusion in my opinion, but the question is interesting just because it shows us different views from different IB students.Just because there's no evidence of course doesn't mean that you can't believe in it I mean, That's the whole point of faith, isn't it? I think religion is important for the world as well as that it's dangerous and destructive. I don't think people believe in any god just because of a childish desire to get what they want. I think that there are serious reasons to believe in god. There may be a real need for guidance or support during tough times. That's why I think that in a way religion is important for some people. It all just comes down to the way you see things and deal with things.
In answer to your question, I do not believe any god exists.

[URA BOAT]

If there were no God, there would be no atheists. --G.K. Chesterton

[Ezak]

URA BOAT, on Nov 24, 2011 - 05:40, said:

If there were no God, there would be no atheists. --G.K. Chesterton

Whoopidoo. And nothing was learnt.

[Berta:3]

Wow, interresting points... HOPE is a keyword in this case I guess.  And FEAR is the other one.
Some people pray to "God" JUST IN CASE Heaven and Hell might turn out to be real and they don't want to end up playing ping pong with Adolf Hiter.

I think people just feel safer (and there's nothing wrong with that) knowing that there's this nice Santa/Dumbledore looking (optional) man/woman listening to them, hearing EVERYONE mumbling prayers at the saaame tiiime from alll accrosss the wooorld.

I think us people (except badass gangztaz) like to believe that someone has actual plans with us.
This need of belonging, I guess.

I think people should find hope in themselves, like that you're free on Sundays.


There's something about "exchange of energy" and "fate" though...

Edited by Berta:3, Nov 27, 2011 - 22:13.