Why do people believe in God?

<p>MosbyMarion, I don’t propose to criticize this fatuous argument you are disgorging once more. You continue to post false arguments that merely demonstrate your misunderstandings of the functions of the brain. Not surprisingly, you manage to construct another straw-man argument that does not honestly reflect the genuine relationship between neurophysiology and its physical manifestations because you do not understand a single thing about it. Presenting an antithesis between thought, morality, and reason and the natural activity of the human brain is an enormous conceit that hugely communicates a fundamental ignorance of the matter and is a complete disgrace to the scientific understanding that we do have. You enjoy believing that your arguments masquerade as an appeal for truth and not your personal version of theology, but in reality it’s the same fraudulent spin on the same incessantly recycled argument: there can be no design without a designer and that a deity created humankind with a distinct reason and purpose in mind. You are yet another conservative Christian who believes that something remarkably significant is forfeited if scientific studies refute or overturn the dogmatic convictions that you hold. </p>

<p>Moreover, you invariably fail to acknowledge the necessity for methodological naturalism because of your concern for philosophical materialism’s implicit rebuke of your theology and do nothing but deviously conflate the two. In fact, you have a very narrow view of science, a terribly distorted perception of neurobiology, and, indeed, a very intellectually feeble theology. Fundamentally, your argument is nothing close to a robust assessment because supernatural explanations are essentially useless as part of the scientific enterprise as they refuse to conform themselves testable, experiential study. And when they do subject themselves to experimental testing, they are invariably bound to failure since the world is too remote from ordinary experience to be merely imagined. One progresses many times farther by positing empirical tests than ones derived from supernatural bias, revelation, and psychologically pleasing conceits. For example, the Hare Krishnas, a Hindu cult, unequivocally believe that the sun is more proximate to the Earth than the moon based on their unappeasably close-minded interpretations of the Vedas and Bhagavad Gita. Would you prefer revelation derived from holy books or systematic study to determine where to send the Apollo mission?</p>

<p>But I am not going to bother providing the same retort to your ludicrous claims (it’s well-archived on the other discussion), because you are incorrigibly resistant to being taught anything that is detrimental to your religious persuasions (you previously stated that nothing will change your fundamental beliefs so why even bother speaking with you?) and aren’t inclined to change regardless of the evidence, let alone offer an apology or concession about your misunderstandings.</p>

<p>I sincerely hope that you don’t utilize this same methodology of argumentation that you use on public message boards once you arrive on a university setting next fall. College professors and teaching fellows are largely intelligent and will see right through these loopholes and defects in your notion of what makes a supportable justification.</p>

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Disbelief in the supernatural is not itself a belief–it’s the absence.

Can you outline forces which may restrict the immaterial?

This was discussed at length in Plato’s Phaedo. To which Aristotle responded, in his On the Soul: “the soul is a certain sort of actuality and form of what has the potentiality to be of this sort…potentialities [are] nutrition, perception, desire, locomotion, and understanding…the soul is nothing besides those [potentialities].”</p>

<p>If souls do in fact reinhabit bodies, and there were originally only two humans on earth, could the rate of reproduction have increased in such dramatic fashion over the years?
Last I checked, the birth rate exceeds the death rate, and overall, there can never be more deaths than there are births, for one must be born before one can die. The reverse, however, is not true.</p>

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I’ll try. </p>

<p>"All appearances of the temporal succession are one and all only changes; i.e., they are a sucessive being and not-being of determinations of substance, which itself is permanent…there is no such thing as the being of substance itself as succeeding its not-being, in other words, there is no such thing as the arising of passing away of substance itself. </p>

<p>“at one time there is a state of things whose opposite was there in things’ previous state…the objective relation of the appearances [is indeterminate]. Now in order for this objective relation to be cognized as determinate, the two states must be thought as being such that it determines as necessary which of the states must be placed before and which after, rather than vice versa. But a concept carrying with it a necessity of synthetic unity can only be a pure concept of understanding, which therefore does not reside in perception…Therefore experience itself–i.e., cognition of appearances–is possible only inasmuch as we subject the sucession of appearances to the law of causality. Hence appearances themselves are only possible in accordance with this law.”</p>

<p>Summary (rather crude one): everything we understand, which includes the perceived (but the perceived does not subsume what can be understood–very true), originate from a permanent substance. To understand any “state of a system of matter,” there is only one possible way of ordering before and after of one state and its consequent state. </p>

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<p>Section 20 of Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation:
“the whole inner nature of my willing cannot be explained from the motives, but they determine merely its manifestation at a given point of time; they are merely the occasion on which my will shows itself. Only on the presupposition of my empirical character is the motive a sufficient ground of explanation of my conduct. But if I abtract from my character, and then ask why I will this and not that, no answer is possible, because only the appearance or phenomenon of the will is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, not the will itself, which in this respect may be called groundless.”</p>

<p>Section 18: “will is knowledge a priori of the body, and body is knowledge a posteriori of the will. resolutions of the will relating to the future are mere deliberations of reason about what will be willed at some time, not real acts of will. Only the carrying out stamps the resolve; till then, it is always a mere intention that can be altered.”</p>

<p>The body carries out the force of will and, indeed, every act of will produces a bodily action that will change the state of matter in some way. </p>

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From Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit <a href=“italics%20as%20reproduced”>/I</a>:
"If we now investigate the truth of knowledge, it seems that we investigate what it is in itself. But in this investigation it is our object, it is for us; and its in-itself, which manifests itself, would instead be its Being for us. "</p>

<p>Therefore, it’s possible for truth to manifest itself differently to each. In fact, it must.</p>

<p>Antonioray, regarding your previous concern, your writing and rhetoric are certainly well above common standards and your facility for supporting an argument is many times superior to that of the average poster on the HSL forum. If you are writing these responses fluently, you assuredly should not have the slightest misgiving.</p>

<p>I see you guys have moved your discussion to a new thread :].</p>

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Ah but you’ve never heard my speech (bless your ears, and not for phonaesthetic reasons either [or maybe those too]).</p>

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<p>In the absence of belief, the person involved would not crusade for their viewpoint, nor would they care whether others shared it.</p>

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<p>Perhaps the fact that, being immaterial, it cannot influence material things, except in the fusion of material and immaterial that we call a human being?</p>

<p>If there is such a thing as an immaterial existence, I see nothing inconsistent with such an existence having limited contact with the material world.</p>

<p>Humans are not omnipotent because they can only recieve information through a set of human senses, and can only exert influence through a human nervous system.</p>

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<p>A Hindu might tell you that all souls are part of the same cosmic essence, from which sould break off and to which they eventually return.</p>

<p>But I wasn’t referring to reincarnation within another body like the one that died. I was referring to incarnation in a new body at the end of the world as promised in the Bible.</p>

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<p>As I understand it that is a statement that only things with material causes can be understood, not that only such things can exist.</p>

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<p>But unless the “will” is non-determinist, it is not free.</p>

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<p>In which case there is no justification for someone to say that their truth is “truer” than some else’s.</p>

<p>mifune, I do not understand what you actually believe about the brain.</p>

<p>Do you believe that it is possible for a non-deterministic brain to be built entirely from natural processes?</p>

<p>Or do you believe that it is possible for a deterministic brain to make choices?</p>

<p>Wth… this repeats again. Oh lord. curse you OP.</p>

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In the absence of a just government, people have crusaded for their viewpoint, and they have cared quite a bit about changing their opponents’ minds. Now, whether others’ share a belief can do little actual harm, but missionaries and even philosophers have tried proselytizing agnosts and atheists. How do you explain that?</p>

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But as we’re debating the existence of God, it cannot be simply assumed that the soul also exists, for if one immaterial thing exists, others can too. Abstract ideas can exist, but, according to Schopenhauer, only insofar as we can perceive either their appearance or their phenomenon. If you go by the Aristotelian definition that soul is nothing more than a combination desire, perception, locomotion, then you will have already conceded, for each of his potentialities is driven by material things. If you don’t go by his definition, then there has been little occasions of the soul’s appearance or its causing of a phenomenon.</p>

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So where does free will, an abstract idea, come into play?

Still, all bodies are naturally generated. For the wandering souls to exist and to leave the body once the body has died, they must have been born with the body. Or can they force out a soul already present in its host? If so, what’s stopping the forced-out soul from returning the favor?</p>

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Things with material causes can be perceived, but what can be understood encompasses a much larger superconcept. If you understand religion, it has a material cause. Unless you’re arguing for something you don’t understand, and Kant didn’t invent any new definitions for understanding if that’s what you had in mind.

Hegel and Schopenhauer would beg to differ. I can’t find the exact passage now, as time is pressing. But, even going as far back as Plato’s Form of the Good, truth is absolute. Hegel’s explanation that each manifestation is different suggests that, while no manifestation is the truth itself, different manifestations have different degrees of abstract proximity to the truth itself. Plato said exactly this in his Republic.</p>

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Not so. I should say that I never argued for a deterministic view, nor can such a view be derived from Aristotelian teleological natural necessity. Free will can still be exerted, for choice need not and rarely does proceed from necessity (Kurt Lewin).</p>

<p>I believe in god because at time I actually like see him like he/she does the luckiest things for me. It’s oddly weird.</p>

<p>I don’t think there’d be much of a purpose in life if God didn’t exist. He created us for a reason.</p>

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Let’s hope CC paid its storage bill. Especially with some 500+ word posts which basically condense to “You’re a stupid-head.”</p>

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<p>Quoted for the truth.
I have some other theories though that I’ve thought about.
-Long ago intelligent aliens visited earth - coming down from the skies and bringing new strange, powerful technologies. People could not explain some of the things they did, and called them gods.
-We are all living inside a super complex computer program created by a group of humans - they are our creaters (The matrix xD)</p>

<p>Personally, I think believing in a higher being that somehow “created” us is just ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as believing in the easter bunny. But if you think about how ridiculous the universe is (gravity, black holes, atoms, etc.), and all of its unsolved mysteries (why does gravity work? what was before the big bang? is there an edge to the universe? are there multiple universes?), a group of higher beings just might exist. But right I don’t see how that is possible.</p>