GeddyBass2112

I'm a pretty straight-forward deist. Spent most of my life mouthing the tenets of Christianity, pretending to be a Christian in the vain hope of thinking that if I prayed enough or read enough Bible passages, all my doubts would simply go away. When I went to uni, I began to critically look at the Bible in terms of history and some of the issues surrounding the Bible's composition, history and other issues, and eventually rejected it.

Eventually, after exploring other religious paths, including Islam and atheism, but eventually found myself reading The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (a famous deist booklet) completely by accident and slowly coming to the realization that all my life I was a deist, not a Christian or anything else.

I guess that my prime reason for believing in God can be divided into two. Firstly, matter and motion are not usually found together unless something makes it so, and there are some things in the universe which we observe which cannot be pinned down to totally naturalistic, mechanistic processes, such as some aspects of psychology.

So if anyone wants to hear a deist perspective on things, I'm always willing and (hopefully) able to answer.

Dirty

Pretty simple for me... Just no reason to believe in a God. I was raised Christian by my mother, though my father was atheist and never spoke of religion. Even when I was young, I'd go to church and not believe any of it. Just seemed ridiculous from day one to me.

There is such suffering throughout the world that it makes me not believe there is a God. If there is a God, he certainly isn't a loving one.

MoonlitSunshine

Even more, if you can show that there exists and assumption A that is both true and not true, it completely screws logic. You can prove absolutely anything you want (by extension, you can show that everything is a contradiction). I almost shouted at a philosophy lecturer once as a result of a "proof" that he used involving this contradiction in terms...

I was raised without religion. I was never christened, never baptised. I have never taken any form of vow to any god, nor have I taken any form of communion. I have, however, spent a lot of time thinking about life, and the possibility of a Divine being.

There is no "proof" of God's existence (I'm going to assume at this point that someone has already mentioned "Ah, but proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing", since I'm fairly sure I saw HHG2TG referenced earlier...), that cannot also be shown to be accounted for by something else. Similarly, there is no empirical "proof" of an absence of God. There are some, such as Epicurius' argument, but they fall more under the realm of semantics than proof itself:

That said, there is Pascal's Wager, which argues that regardless of whether God exists or not, we're better off believing in him because of a mathematical analysis of the risks involved (there are a massive number of counter arguments to this, but I thought it would be interesting to show at least one "logical" argument for belief).

Given the absence of proof for or against, Neither side of the Theist/Atheist Debate can with any degree of certainty say that they are right. Except the Religious side, because their idea of certainty is different to others, but I'll get back to that. I will say at this point that this is why I get so very pissed off with people like Richard Dawkins. From what I can tell, he has no proof that God doesn't exist, and yet that doesn't stop him from preaching his book, his ideas in exactly the same way that he accuses the religious of. I remember hearing a debate on the radio a few years ago, where a reporter was debating with a fanatic atheist. He was arguing that Science can be used to prove everything in the universe. There is nothing that Science cannot show, and thus God does not exist. When the reporter asked him about the things that science had not proven yet, he replied "Well, I believe that in the future Science will provide us with the answers to these questions" to which she said "You Believe? I'm sorry, i hadn't realised we were onto the subject of Faith." It was such a fantastic put down that I laughed out loud, as did most of the audience!

The problem I have with religion is largely based around the idea of Organised Religion, and the animosity that is not only allowed, but encouraged between them. There is this obsession with showing the other side that they are all wrong, that our god(s) is/are the one/only True God(s), and that if you don't believe you'll go to hell/whatever. You are questioning my belief? But we have been told by God himself! What, you say I have never had a vision of my own? But we have this Book that contains the scriptures of those that did! What, you have a Book as well? But ours is the True Book! Who Told us? Why, the people who... wrote... it.

Every Religion is, at the bottom of it all, based upon the writings of one person or a group of people, the vast majority of them having died a very long time ago. Interestingly enough, the oldest known religions in the world are without fail polytheistic: Judaism was the first known religion to have only one God, is there a chance that Moses thought "fuck it, this pantheon stuff's ridiculous, let's just go with the one." Or maybe "God", greedy for more power, rebelled from the Pantheon. Choosing Moses as his champion, and freeing the jews, knowing that they would forever be in his debt? Perhaps that is why all monotheistic religions are so adamant about punishing the heretic, because they know that the more people believe in other gods, the more powerful those other gods are? Just because noone thought of it till now (unlikely), doesn't make it any less valid an opinion. Believe what you want to believe, if it makes you feel better, but don't go telling someone else that they're wrong as a result.

I've tried believing in God, but regardless of proof, I do at least require an argument or some validity. "Just because" just doesn't hack it as a reason for me. Do we need the idea of a reward at the end of life in order to be good? Are we that evil inherently that we need a diving being of infinite power to watch over us? If so, why on earth did This God make us so? It makes no sense. Sure, you can say he moves in mysterious ways, but so does Osama Bin Laden, and I'm not about to worship him, thanks. I have definitely accepted the possibility that he might exist, but that probability could be anything from 0 to 1 from my perspective.

There is one thing that bugs me, and that's how life began. there are some Scientific Theories that I have to read up on further, but right now, I have yet to come across a proper scientific reason for how life started. Life isn't an element, it's not something we seem to be able to isolate and say "there, that's what the life bit is made of" Similarly, we don't seem to be able to create life without replication from already living organisms. If ever there is an argument for the existence of at least a Creator, not necessarily of the universe, but of life, then this is it. Of course, where did this Creator come from, the same questions still remain.

At the end of the day, when you have eliminated all probable causes, the remainder, however improbable...

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent

RVCA

Your caricature of Dawkins' work only shows that you don't understand it. Have you actually read any of his books?

Yes, there are "militant atheists" out there that vehemently espouse the simplistic idea that they know God doesn't exist. Dawkins is not one of those people. Nor is Harris.

MoonlitSunshine

if I'm wrong about Dawkins, I do apologise. I will admit that I haven't read any of his works in full (i have read excerpts) but in any argument I've had with a militant atheist, he is constantly used as a champion of their cause.

EDIT: if you could recommend a work of his to start with, I'd actually be glad for some recommendations!

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent

GeddyBass2112

Dawkins' entire argument is actually pretty sophisticated, through his explanations of neurological processes and the brain's image-simulation software, through to Darwinian kinship/superiority relationships, through to memetic theory and evolved processes of thought and language.

Dawkins is a guy I highly admire.

RVCA

No worries, it just seems like Dawkins is the Pithfork of the religious world. Everyone thinks it's cool to hate him, theists and atheists alike.

I've only read The God Delusion and it was a fantastic read.

MoonlitSunshine

I believe it's possible that he is so because he's so badly represented by the militant atheists. Similar to how the militant theists let the other side down...

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent

GeddyBass2112

Problem with the militant atheists is that they miss the point of Dawkins' argument, which isn't anything to do with religion in reality, but science and reason versus superstition. His major corpus of works isn't even religiously-based, he's a scientist and aims to explain differing concepts in a Darwinian framework, ONE of which is religion.

MAStudent

Claim, posit, however you establish a position. Lets not argue semantics.



This is my whole point, really. If there is something that is a real entity in existence, that comes anywhere near the definition most people have for "god", and there is evidence for it, will "scientists" accept it?

The answer is of course. There are many deistic scientists. However, picking a world view that matches your inclinations is at the same time so normal, and so hypocritical. Humans are NOT logical. We are emotional and subjective. Then we find a world view that supports it. That doesn't make it, true, though.

If we are looking for truth, we should keep an open mind. An open mind doesn't mean being ready to overthrow traditional opinions, it means being ready to overthrow traditional opnions, fringe opinions, any opinions. Maybe an open mind means being able to see the validity in a traditional opinion, or see a "traditional" opinion in a different way. It should mean evaluating an issue in a way that considers all relevant information.

I was an atheist until God made itself known to me.

__________________
"i think that's the real issue right there. first they tell us that there's no such thing as a brontosaurus, and then they tell us that pluto isn't a planet. i think after those two let-downs most americans have just decided "frag scientists." "- oops, I forgot who I quoted. adolescent something?