How many of you believe in God?

College Confidential Community
841

<p>If I "[knew] that religion welcomes reasoning and logic," would I have an opinion quite contrary to yours?</p>

<p>And while your little blurby website did list some people who saw the importance of reasoning in their faiths, it nicely ignored the attacks on Galileo. Moreover, you seem to forget that none of those works were formal logic. Furthermore, men like Averroes were attacked for their questioning minds.</p>

<p>There's also the fact that all of their thinking is arguably just an extension of Aristotelian thought to begin with.</p>

842

<p>There is also the fact that religion REQUIRES faith in a completely unprovable higher power. The recent issues in Christian and Muslim communities worldwide with evolutionary theory further underline my feeling that religion is not a formalization of reasoning and logic, but instead dogma and pseudologic.</p>

843

<p>Religion does welcome reasoning and logic. Isnt this why there was the "Golden Age of Islam" and "Scholasticism" in the first place?</p>

844

<p>Notice, however, that the Golden Age of Islam was a time when religious orthodoxy was far less imposed. Even then, the attacks on men like Ibn Rushd (Avorroes) show that questioning religious authority was not tolerated.</p>

<p>Plus, it's arguable that religion was the most limiting factor in logic development during the era.</p>

845

<p>Besides, Scholasticism was a joke. "How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is hardly what I would consider logic and reasoning at its zenith...</p>

846

<p>Regarding the original topic:</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure I'm agnostic....</p>

847

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A moral relativist cannot say "Everyone ought to do X" because the very concept of saying that someone else should do X because it is morally right is hypocritical of the relativist.

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<p>Moral relativists tend not to make such impositions of their ideals on others. </p>

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Moral relativity means that we stand by idly and watch genocides occur because "it's their moral reasoning."

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<p>Let me ask you this. What if there was a society of people in which the rulers methodically sacrificed large segments of the population (perhaps for cultural reason). The distinction is, that this was an accepted tradition and nobody in that society thought it was wrong. </p>

<p>How is it your prerogative to tell them that your set of morals is better than theirs? Our present society considers genocide to be amoral, but if a culture thinks that genocide is the best thing since sliced bread, (their practice does not affect you), how can you impose upon their sovereignty?</p>

<p>What made me an atheist? A book by Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms. As it says, an idea/framework is formulated which provides assumptions. on these assumptions, knowledge is built. However, anomalies begin to appear that challenge the very framework of all the assumptions. When enough anomalies are created, the paradigm is abandoned/ (along with the knowledge built on it). </p>

<p>Such is the case of religion; theistic belief is a faulty paradigm (the way they address anomalies in their own texts is to impose the idea of belief).</p>

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Hinduism has many gods

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<p>This is a common misconception about hinduism. Hinduism is not a polytheistic religion. All the "gods" that are commonly associated with hinduism are mainifestations of one divine force. In short, hinduism is monotheistic as well (in principle).</p>

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In defining the manifold of morality in relative terms, morality becomes a concept much too abstruse for us to comprehend and basically presents a basis for morality that's much too easily manipulated.

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and this makes the relative approach to morality wrong because...?
Not all matters are simple and easy, but the inherent complexity should not push us away from considering this path an alternative.</p>

<p>There is not a single absolute moral; i challenge you to think of one non situational moral (constaining morals to situations would be relative to the situation). </p>

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trancestorm-please start making valid points.

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<p>bite me</p>

848

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Isnt this why there was the "Golden Age of Islam" and "Scholasticism" in the first place?

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During the time of real scientific progress in europe (during the enlightenment), scholasticism was largely abandoned and critisized. Philosophes such as voltaire and diderot critisized it and brought about for a society that shunned it. </p>

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Because for moral relativism, if I say that killing people with facial hair is morally right, then it is right. Not right 'for me' or whatever - it is as right as right can be, and no one can say otherwise. See the problems here?

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<p>A moral relativist would never make that statement, because in doing so, they are imposing an absollute sense of morality</p>

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Its a statement of monotheism. You point? God=Allah=Yahweh

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not true, at least not according to christian faith (which you are not doing very well in defending). A christian would not claim to have the same god as a muslim which is why christianity claims superiority over islam (and all other religions)</p>

<p>-------------------ok granted that relativism creates problems (especially in practical implimentation). What would happen if the supreme court failed to exist and anyone could interpret a law as they wanted. Such relativism is not practical, but is the only theoretically valid exxplaination of morality. By valid, i mean it does not hold one set of people to a different moral expectation than another and allows all to have equal moral prerogatives.</p>

849

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not true, at least not according to christian faith (which you are not doing very well in defending). A christian would not claim to have the same god as a muslim which is why christianity claims superiority over islam (and all other religions)

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<p>I dont see why you are arguing over this. The God is the same. And tell me which Christian wouldnt claim so? All the Christrians I know of agree with me. I'd rather trust what a Christian says regarding this than a atheit (especially one who lost faith by reading a dumbass book:)).</p>

850

<p>I am most definately agnostic</p>

851

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I dont see why you are arguing over this. The God is the same. And tell me which Christian wouldnt claim so? All the Christrians I know of agree with me.

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Whatever your progressive views on christianity may be, they are at best a perverse variotion of christian ideals as compared to the actual doctrines of christianity. </p>

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I'd rather trust what a Christian says regarding this than a atheit (especially one who lost faith by reading a dumbass book).

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Of course atheists are incapable of seeing truth. Dumbass book? I am really tempted to say "oh, like the bible?", but I shall not do so. </p>

<p>Actually, it was while reading the bible that i realized how faulty theist philosophy was. In the king james, i read "Behold, the Virgin mary conceived" or something to that effect and i thought to myself,"hahaha yeah right."</p>

<p>So i became a disbeliever. I only fully became an atheist after discovering other "legitamate" philosophical works such as those on buddhist philosophy, Immanuel Kant, Kuhn, and others</p>

852

<p>people are too quick to attribute all beneficial events that come by chance to divinity. Something beneficial, god did this for us, something bad, god is trying to show us something or make us stronger. </p>

<p>take this for example
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/04/mine.explosion.wed/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/04/mine.explosion.wed/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>the people were so sure of a rescue that they started praising god ringing church bells, etc...so quick to attribute it to divinity-->so quick to be disappointed.</p>

<p>miracles do not exist at all, you just think they do because they are emphasized more than the more numerous bad things that go on. Probability has it that good events will turn out once in a while...it seems that all the "low chance" theories of evolution and other statistical misconceptions and falacies disappear once a serious statistics class is taken (such was observed in our AP stats class last year when we got into the probability of evolution discussion)</p>

853

<p>"bite me"
lol about the maturity level I expected from you</p>

854

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lol about the maturity level I expected from you

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<p>Ohh you were serious when telling me to make valid points???? Why not read from page 23 and then tell me that i should start making valid points. Does the statement that the bible is a self sufficient text not suffice for you?</p>

<p>You should have then said so. I said this because the bible justifies its origin by saying that god endorses the bible while, at the same time, the only basis for god is in the bbile. This is self sufficency. </p>

<p>perhaps that is not a valid point enough for you... why dont you show me what a valid point is.</p>

855

<p>UCLAri, of course logic and reason are discarded with religion. Religion is not synonymous with science. Religion requires faith and faith alone. One can't scientifically test Buddhism, christianity, islam, or voodoo because they are not science. They are forms of FAITH.
I think we had this discussion in the evolution vs creation thread :)</p>

856

<p>KillerAngel, I am pretty sure that you are wrong. From my knowledge, Christians do in fact claim that their G-d is not the same as G-d in other religions. Maybe what you were trying to say is that there is one G-d, for all people, regardless of religion. That doesn't mean that Muslims are praying to the same G-d as you. </p>

<p>I have not read very much of this, but hopefully this will be related anyway. I just want to comment on tranceststorm's last post.</p>

<p>"I said this because the bible justifies its origin by saying that god endorses the bible while, at the same time, the only basis for god is in the bbile. This is self sufficency."</p>

<p>I do not think this is self sufficiency at all. You believe something because it is written in a book, and the reason you believe in the book is because the book says that the stuff in the book is supported by the G-d that the books states is true. That is a rediculous and far-fetched argument. Your statement basically proved that there is no reason to believe in the Bible or in the existance of G-d, since only one source backs up both, and there is no logic backing up the truth in the book.</p>

857

<p><em>applause</em></p>

858

<p>I'm just gonna jump in, having only read the posts on this page... which is somewhat dangerous, because I might not have the full idea of what's going on... but, this thread is 43 pages long. It's an endless discussion.
Anyway, my $0.02:
Muslims beleive that there were many, many prophets, all telling the same message - Mohammed, preaching Islam, was the last messenger. That means, in Islam, we beleive we're worshipping the same God that the Christians and Jews are worshipping... I'm not sure what the Christians and Jews beleive, but I'd like to find out - and input on that?</p>

859

<p>The God of the Abrahamic Traditions-- Christianity, Judaism, and Islam-- is the same. Islam split from Christianity and Judaism because Mohammad believed that Abraham's son Ishmael (born of Ab's wife) was the one with whom God's covenant was with rather than Abraham's son-by-wife's-servant, Isaac (whom Christians and Jews believe God passed the covenant through). Ishmael essentially became the side of the Arab (Muslim) people and Isaac that of Judaism/Christianity</p>

860

<p>
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UCLAri, of course logic and reason are discarded with religion. They are forms of FAITH.

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<p>So in believing in christianity, you discard your logic and reason for the subjective faith.
Do you not find any importance to logic or reason? You just stated that religion's faith contradicts logic and reason. Do you think the world is better of with logic and reason that it would have been with faith alone?</p>

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Your statement basically proved that there is no reason to believe in the Bible or in the existance of G-d, since only one source backs up both, and there is no logic backing up the truth in the book.

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well then my job is well done. Now if only i can convince the others to see the the lack of justification in theism as you do....
I am glad you finally see truth and know that atheism is the way to go.</p>

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I do not think this is self sufficiency at all. You believe something because it is written in a book, and the reason you believe in the book is because the book says that the stuff in the book is supported by the G-d that the books states is true. That is a rediculous and far-fetched argument.

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<p>Self sufficient in the sense that it suffices only in itself. Let me rephrase it. Christian reasoning is circular and unjustifiable. The foundation of the entire idea of "god" is rooted in the bible. The bible is the "witness" to god and his actions. Thus, the bible justifies god. However, the only justification for the bible is the acceptance of the bible by the god that the bible justifies. THe premises of each concept (the bible and god) are rooted within each other. THis is a logical falacy of self justification. To me, this alone is enough to refute the concept of god and the bible (of the christian sense) </p>

<p>That is like me writing down on a piece of paper that purple unicorns rule the world. I know purple unicorns exist because it is on the sheet of paper. The way i know the piece of paper is right is that the purple unicorns told me so. Likewise, christianity makes no sense. In your statement, you seemed to agree with this...i wasnt really clear what your statement meant other than the fact that it restated my argument. </p>

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You believe something because it is written in a book, and the reason you believe in the book is because the book says that the stuff in the book is supported by the G-d that the books states is true. That is a rediculous and far-fetched argument.

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<p>That is exactly what i am saying. That is MY ENTIRE argument! Quit jackin it :). That is what i say christianity does. </p>

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<em>applause</em>

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<p>great, you are now 0/3 in meaningful comments.</p>