Is belief in a Creator rational? (Earth, beliefs, choice, creation)

[Ori]

Originally Posted by Peace

Would you tell me why?

Peace

To which one, that I don't believe in God or that I understand why people still believe?

[Peace]

Originally Posted by Ori

To which one, that I don't believe in God or that I understand why people still believe?

To the second one, for the first one I have no right to ask since it is your own choice and you are free to choose either to believe or not.

Peace

[Ori]

Originally Posted by Peace

To the second one, for the first one I have no right to ask since it is your own choice and you are free to choose either to believe or not.

Peace

Okay, I think people still choose to believe in God because they would rather believe in something, then believe in nothing.

I don't mind what anyone believes at the end of the day, as long as that belief doesn't harm anyone else.

[Dirty Penguin]

Originally Posted by roli

Rational No,absolutely not ,the world says seeing is believing,yet they seem to only use that line of thought when it comes to God.
Checking the food they eat in a restaurant under a microscope for poison,is absurd,checking the brakes on their car before they drive it is a waste of time.
Why don't we check and verify that the plane we are about to take 30,000 ft in the air is totally safe to leave the ground.
Why don't we agree that it takes the same faith for that as it does to believe in God

I have the ability to check the food to discover if there is poison or not.
I have the ability to check to see if my breaks will work and to prove that they will.
It can be proven by the multitude that the plane is safe to leave the ground

If you are asking me to believe in God based on a book that starts off making no sense that's where we have a problem (Gen. 3:9-13). I try to give your God the benefit of the doubt and make it the ALL EVERYTHING and IN CONTROL OF IT ALL...AND KNOWINING IT ALL...

Your own scriptures in the chapter and verses above makes your God out to apear as a mere mortal. He's looking for..he questioning...he's punishing that wich he created. that which he knew would do what it would do.... How do i know this... Your sciptures said it. Your scriptures said that your God is the all mighty. If that is the truth then the book is moot... none of which is necessary because God would have no need for all the theatrics.


With the above we take for granted someone has done their job and checked it over and we trust or have faith in them as well.
So we have faith in the car,restaurant,plane and those who are called to service them

We aslso have the ability to have it verified and provent that it is as it should be. You ask me to have faith but offer me nothing but what you believe to be fact. Why do you not follow Muhammed? it is believed by muslims that he could not read and Allah (God) told him to read.

Do you believe that? why wouldn't you. Surely you were not there to hear God command him to read but it is written that God told him to.

Just because a thing is written doesn't mean a person has to believe it.


Faith is the intial step,but if it ended there I would say keep it,I might as well believe in the toothfairy.There must be action on our part
It's what God imparts to the one who steps out in faith that sets it apart from other religions.
That is religion is man reaching up to God relationship through faith is God reaching down to man,by Imparting his spirit,presence,power,annointing into the believer.
This is not to be compared with any other experience
But that step takes brokenness,humility,complete surrender of self and repentance
That is the greatest obstacle man must first overcome before he can experience the hand of God on his life

let's just say this is what you believe. At least i can prove by my own actions that my food is safe to eat or my car is safe to drive or that plane is safe to fly..........

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[des]

Of course, it might depend on what kind of Creator we are talking about?
Are we talkign about a God that has a talking snake and has a knowledge of everyone intimately who is omniscient and omnipotent, or are we talking about universe as God or some other non-personal diety?

I think a personal, omnipresent and omnipotent God is irrational because it leaves many questions that clearly would have to be answered. Why would Why would he have allowed the Holocaust? If He didnt' know about it, he wouldn't be omniscient and if he knew about but did nothing he wouldn't be too omnipotent.

However, there might other kind(s) of things in the universe that are outside of rationality but aren't strictly speaking irrational. I'd prefer to use the word non-rational because there may be things outide of rationality that aren't irrational. I'm honestly not sure of all this at this point. I tend to believe in a nonpersonal essence of some sort, and I actually think there might be reasons (but I don't think they are the sort
determined in a laboratory).

Even the great atheist Carl Sagan said "absense of evidence is not evidence of absense" but it is also not evidence. In fact, "Contact" the book, suggests (at least in fiction) a kind of "God" or presence or numinousness that would be found in pattern or some other way. It definitely is not a kind of personal god.




--des

[Guitar's Cry]

I actually think that the belief in a creator is rational.

I am an example of life. As such, I came from other life - my parents. I was initially created by my parents.

The mug in front of me is an example of an object. Its form was created by me in a pottery class.

So looking at the Universe, I can say that there may be a creator of it.

This is not taking into account scientific theories of how the universe was formed (the Big Bang theory), but it is a rational path to a belief in a creator. Logically, it can be argued against. But that does not make it irrational.

[TurkeyOnRye]

There is no real evidence for God, so no, I do not believe it is rational. At least when people believe beyond a shadow of doubt. I accept the possibility of God.

[des]

I think the idea of "blind faith" or unquestioning faith that we see in conservative/fundamentalist beliefs is seen now as the only type there is, and anything else is just a poor imitation. I think there is a tradition for
doubt in belief. Of course that doesn't answer whether it is rational exactly. Except to say that a plausibility that there is a Creator might be quite rational (or at least non-rational as opposed to irrational). Of course the whys, hows, and so forths would have to be quite out of the picture. Once
you try and say how it happened, you would no doubt get into irrational territory quite quickly.

--des

Originally Posted by TurkeyOnRye

There is no real evidence for God, so no, I do not believe it is rational. At least when people believe beyond a shadow of doubt. I accept the possibility of God.

[TurkeyOnRye]

To say that something is impossible or absolutely possible is the only irrationality unless there is proof. Even then though, I usually stay in the gray because believing one way or another is just...uncomfortable.