Legitimate reasons not to believe in God

[AppieB]

The neutral answer is that she can't, because someone else can do it differently. But that is not unique to the idea of God. The same applies to the idea of objective reality as to what it really is.

3 positions.
I know objective reality is God
I know objective reality is physical.
I don't know and I don't have to, because that also works in practice.

I didn't ask you and if you are not willing to answer the questions then I'm not interested.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I didn't ask you and if you are not willing to answer the questions then I'm not interested.

The questions in the end is this? Can we for all humans make the best system? And the answer is that is dependent for all answer including mine what is taken for granted about best.
There is not new in that, because it is a variation of the is-ought problem. What is the world including humans and what ought we do about that? You can answer the first one objectively, but you don't have to for some aspects, but you can't answer the second one objectively.

That is a conditional and not absolute answer depending on that humans remain the same for our biology and don't become something else.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Baha'is are so illogical, to believe God is all-loving when God is the one who created the world that is a storehouse of suffering.

We atheists have always tried to tell you that it is not true. Same for waking up in 'divine' bodies after death in a world with no sorrows. That is how prophetic religions sell their stories.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I can't think of any other things [than gods], then again I don't know of any other things that exist outside of space and time.

You've probably seen me argue previously that the idea of existing outside of time or space is incoherent. Existing means being somewhere at some time. Are gods not said to think and act? Those require the passage of time - from before states to after states. The definition of existing is to occupy time and space and to interact with other existing objects and processes in time and space. Real things do that, and imaginary things do not.

God exists in time

God exists somewhere in the spiritual world, in His Own High Place

This is an improvement. Previously, you said that God existed outside of time and space. Now you got him existing in his own separate time and space, but that idea has a problem as well if one wants to imply that this other spacetime is separate from nature. Anything that can be said to exist can interact with other things that exist, that is, they are causally connected, making each detectable to the other, and all a part of nature. Supernatural as in not detectable even in principle, yet able to modify reality as the supernatural is often described is an incoherent concept.

If there is no evidence for God and God can't be demonstrated or detected, how can anyone be reasonable to believe God exists?

It seems to me that believers believe because it is comforting, not because their beliefs are empirically supported. Their reasons aren't related to what is true, because that isn't as important as what comforts. From that perspective, their decision to believe makes sense. I've posted often that I wouldn't try to talk any theist in the later part of life out of his belief because of the psychological damage it would do him for little in return. It was valuable to me, but that's because I was in my early thirties, and a return to critical thinking informed my future for the better much the same way that traveling the world when younger is an education, but in the last third of life, more like entertainment.

your idea is that spiritual truths cannot be ascertained .. only physical ones. That is too black and white. I don't agree with it.

If you're correct, you should be able to provide an example of an ascertained spiritual truth. You can't. I know this because I know how truth is ascertained, and also because I have asked at least a half dozen RF posters who made the same claim to give me one of these truths and explain what makes it truth. They can't. Why? Because there is no such thing, just the phrase, which seems to comfort many as I described above. When an idea is comforting and gives one a warm feeling, he often calls it truth.

Theology is about making rational conclusions.

I use the word theology to refer to the discussions that believers hold that require a supernatural belief, like anything about the end times or heaven or sin - but not the studies unbelievers might engage in, such as the cultural impact of a religion, or comparative religions. By that definition, nothing in theology is rational, since it's all predicated on an insufficiently evidenced belief.

 

[Aupmanyav]

But that is not unique to the idea of God.
I know objective reality is physical.

Let me put my two cents here.
First Cent: Idea of God is shamanistic since the stone age. "There is God, who can make your life and after-life heaven or hell, and I am his spokesman in the world. So obey me and give me the first and the choicest portion of your kill." The prophetic religions are none other than that.
It is like an e-mail from income tax people, saying that give them so many dollars in bitcoins, otherwise they will make life hell for you.
Second Cent: We need to re-define "physical". In these days of Quantum Mechanics, virtual particles can appear at their will, can change into real particle or vice-versa, or disappear the way they came up. Is there any clear demarcation of existence and non-existence?

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

It seems like different people have different views of God, even the Abrahamic God, so I only really tackle their assertions, and when they are being a bit evangelical about it.

I feel that Christians sometimes make a great many assertions about God, in general, and some of them contradict and kind of cancel each other out. I feel that, and what I've read of the Bible, both turn me off to an Abrahamic God as some Christians might depict.

I feel that Baha'is tend to better have their t's crossed and i's dotted, but I still disagree with them based on it being an evangelism based religion, claiming things are true from other religions while not seeming to very well understand the other religions to begin with (in my opinion), and then feeling in general that it'd be good to convert the world to Baha'i, when I see it as not going well at all despite their claims of having peace, due to some other beliefs they tend to hold.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If you're correct, you should be able to provide an example of an ascertained spiritual truth. You can't. I know this because I know how truth is ascertained, and also because I have asked at least a half dozen RF posters who made the same claim to give me one of these truths and explain what makes it truth. They can't. Why? Because there is no such thing..

There is no such thing for you.
You have decided that the Bible and Qur'an are "just stories".
I find that harder to believe than belief in God. It just doesn't ring true for me.

..nothing in theology is rational, since it's all predicated on an insufficiently evidenced belief.

You are merely saying that it is irrational to believe there is truth in the Bible and Qur'an as they are "just stories".
If one accepts the possibility that there is truth in them, then theology does not have to be irrational.
You just dismiss it all. Your choice.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Let me put my two cents here.
First Cent: Idea of God is shamanistic since the stone age. "There is God, who can make your life and after-life heaven or hell, and I am his spokesman in the world. So give me the first and the choicest portion of your kill." The prophetic religions are none other than that.
Second Cent: We need to re-define "physical". In these days of Quantum Mechanics, virtual particles can appear at their will, can change into real particle or vice-versa, or disappear the way they came up. Is there any clear demarcation of existence and non-existence?

Well, God functions a placeholder for the mental in practice and QM won't work if you can't in practice reduce all of the physical down to QM or even do the world in physical terms as just physical.
So now I do general science and not just natural science as the practice for replicate, falsifiable and falsification for this world and include the mental as a part of the world.
If you say something, that works as 1st person mental årocess and not objectively physical, I just do if differently. That demarcs the falsification as subjective as different between you and I. Not different as between objective and subjective.
So for your words of existence and non-existence, I can explain the world without those words and still function in it without doing stupid things that gets me killed. I just use my brain differently, because I don't accept those words as objective and the falsification of these words works as follows in that I can do it differently subjectively.

So how do I do that? I do E-Prime language and add that I do it without existence. I don't use the verb be and exist, I just mention them.
As for demarcation in practice learn to separate objective, inter-subjective and subjective.

I have been doing this for close to 30 years and I will continue to learn and adapt my understanding for the finer points but in general we simply play subjectivity differently even when you claim it as objective, because I can spot subjectivity in your words.
Existence belongs to philosophy as an idea of ontology, but I don't need to do that to answer you.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There is no such thing for you.
You have decided that the Bible and Qur'an are "just stories".
I find that harder to believe than belief in God. It just doesn't ring true for me.


You are merely saying that it is irrational to believe there is truth in the Bible and Qur'an as they are "just stories".
If one accepts the possibility that there is truth in them, then theology does not have to be irrational.
You just dismiss it all. Your choice.

Well, I will now do the 3rd way. I accept that your worldview works for you as rational for you, but I don't accept that as rational for me as I can do it differently. So you are rational and I just do that differently.

The 3 positions:
#1: I am rational and you are not.
#2: No, I am and you are not.
#3: We all do it differently.

Go figure but that is how it plays out in practice. So there is truth in religion, I just do it differently than you. Now what?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Matthew 7:24-27 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Matthew 6:19-21 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What would be left of religion if it didn't have self-promotion?

"Your alternatives to my product are awful. You should buy my product.

"My product is wonderful. You should use it a lot. You should come to rely on it."

- every shady sales pitch ever

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What would be left of religion if it didn't have self-promotion?

"Your alternatives to my product are awful. You should buy my product.

"My product is wonderful. You should use it a lot. You should come to rely on it."

- every shady sales pitch ever

Well, that religion is a part of the mental and subjective and that science can't do that. So it will still be there, we would just call it something else.
The demarcation between science and religion is the demarcation between how the world works as it is with objective explanation and how we inter-subjectively ought to deal with that.
And no, that one has never been done as an objective model of all of the world including humans and it won't as long as we stay the same for how biology works in individuals as individuals for nature and nurture.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Well, God functions a .. that to answer you.

Well, you are too complicated for me to answer.
However, remember the two realities of Advaita - Absolute and Pragmatic (paramarthika and Vyavaharika, objective and subjective, real and observed).

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You have decided that the Bible and Qur'an are "just stories".

I don't know what "just stories" means. All myths? Some of the stories are likely historical or partly so. Some of scripture isn't a story. Some is commandments. Some is poetry.

What I have decided is that there is insufficient evidence that a deity was involved in the writing of any holy book to believe that the words they contain should be heeded just because they appear in such a book. That's what's implied by saying that they are of divine provenance. If that's not the case, the words stand or fall on their own merit. They are evaluated like all other claims.

If one accepts the possibility that there is truth in [holy books], then theology does not have to be irrational. You just dismiss it all.

Theology as I defined it is irrational because it is predicated on an unjustified god belief, justification being according to the rules of critical thought and interpreting evidence.

I offered you a chance to share some of this truth, and you declined. Is it irrational to believe that there is no truth in those books that isn't known without those books if one can't find any and when asked, others can provide none? Of course I dismiss it. Give me a better reason not to dismiss these holy books than that you think they are full of truth and wisdom. Show me some of this truth and wisdom, and how it could benefit a humanist's life. Right now, I think you believe that by faith, that somebody has told you that those words contain truth and wisdom, and that you repeat it not realizing that you have insufficient evidence to support that contention and have believed it anyway.

I've concluded that what believers call truth are ideas that are comforting in a certain way. Something is true to such people because it feels right. They're certain that they have experienced God because it feels like it to them.

This is a completely different definition of truth than the one I use, which connects truth with empiricism (correspondence theory of truth). Something can be called true if it is demonstrably correct, and because of that, the idea can be used to correctly anticipate outcomes. These are the only kinds of ideas about the world I want informing my choices, and I have a system for weeding out other kinds of ideas. Unless you can make a convincing argument to change that approach to life, I don't see why I should.

 

[muhammad_isa]

What would be left of religion if it didn't have self-promotion?

"Your alternatives to my product are awful. You should buy my product.

Cynical. Not everybody has an intention of worldly gain.

 

[F1fan]

That's not religion, that's politics.
Saudi invited the US to set up air base to defend Kuwait against sadam hussein etc.

Many Muslim nations are theocracies, so the two can't be divided. Until secularism became a thing during the Enlightenment there was nothing but theocracies. The founding fathgers of the USA noticed the danger in this, and decided to form a secular government because religion is not consistent nor trustworthy as a form of social cohesion.

..and your idea is that spiritual truths cannot be ascertained .. only physical ones. That is too black and white. I don't agree with it.

I accept spiritual truths, mostly that are rituals and practices that help bring balance to a person. I don't accept supernatural concepts and claims because they are not based on evidence or reason. The reason believers do accept these supernatural concepts is due to social influence and learning of social norms, not via evidence and reason. There is a primal drive that motivates this behavior. The interesting thing is that for ealry humans this behavior was to ensure physical survival, but in modern times it is about survival of the ego.

That's nonsense. Evil acts is not the subject here.

It is That covers a lot of ground. From a liberal Muslim university professor to a true believer who flies a plane full of people into an office building.art of the subject here. When religious people behave through their belief in God, and the authority they believe they have through this belief, then we can examine the results of their belief in God.

I said this:

"That covers a lot of ground. From a liberal Muslim university professor to a true believer who flies a plane full of people into an office building."​

in response to you saying this:

"Of course, the study of religion is not just about observation.
A person may be seeking truth, or many other intentions.
A person might have a PhD in religious studies, and be an atheist, for example. Not necessarily because they are not convinced by any of them. It is all about the intention."​

What is the intention of Muslims, or any religious person doing the will of God, who kills others and/or commits suicide while doing it? Is it from the study of religion or seeking truth? Or is it guilble people being manipulated by clerics? Where is the God? Why is it absent?

People keep saying that, but it is not difficult to see why.
It would be surprising if each human had perfect intentions and knowledge.
Some people intentionally mislead for worldly reasons, for example.

If you were God would you stand by and let this happen? If your version of God exists why is it silent and absent? Assuming your God exists it is leaving the evolution of religious belief to humans, who you admit are not perfect. Surely God knows it created flawed and imperfect beings, yet it stands by and lets things spiral out of control?

Mmm .. "why does God allow atrocities?"
A huge question.
The nature of this world is a given. It is very often cruel.

It's as if you concede that humans are no more special than any other animal on the planet. And it's not just atrocities that your God allows, it is birth defects and genetic diseases that kill children. How do theists become aware of this and still believe any sort of decent God exists? At best you can believe a Deist type of God exists, but not one that cares and intervenes.

To conclude that existence is "coincidental", and has no real significance does not help me to understand why.

I'm not sure who claims that existence is coincidental, but it surely does not appear to be the case that humans are any more special than bacteria.

Theology is about making rational conclusions. It doesn't always succeed, I would agree.

And how does theology make rational conclusions? Give us some examples.

God knows best why some people are more pious than others.

This looks as if you are stating a fact. How do you know, or are you guessing?

Some people cannot see any evidence for the existence of God.
Others see plenty. Some actively seek .. others do not.

OK, what is there to "see"? And those who claim they do "see" evidence of a God existing, are they special? Do they have extrasensory perception? Explain, and use facts.

The spiritual and physical are not equivalent.Each soul/person approaches life in a way they see fit.

Why isn't spiritual physical? What part of humans are not physical, and how would you know? Or is this just another unverifiable claim?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Well, you are too complicated for me to answer.
However, remember the two realities of Advaita - Absolute and Pragmatic (paramarthika and Vyavaharika, objective and subjective, real and observed).

Yeah, and still do it differently.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I offered you a chance to share some of this truth, and you declined.

Not really .. as I say, you have already decided that these books are not what they claim to be i.e. about the Divine

Is it irrational to believe that there is no truth in those books that isn't known without those books if one can't find any and when asked, others can provide none? Of course I dismiss it.

No .. back to the same old "God hasn't shown himself" stuff.

Right now, I think you believe that by faith, that somebody has told you that those words contain truth and wisdom, and that you repeat it not realizing that you have insufficient evidence to support that contention and have believed it anyway.

Let me think back 45 years ago, and analyse why I became a Muslim.
I was reading the Bible, which was the Holy book I was raised with as a Protestant in the UK, and started questioning why Christians weren't following the OT, despite it being part of the Bible. This happened as I met Muslims when I moved to Birmingham UK.
It was both rational and social.

I learned more about Islam and attended a mosque with other new Muslims. I found a lot of new books, containing religious knowledge, and began to practice my new faith.
I had a positive experience, had nothing but praise for God in the help that I have receieved. Going back to my previous state, was not something I view as positive, even though I know it can happen.

They're certain that they have experienced God because it feels like it to them.

That's true, but in my experience, some beliefs have a strong foundation, whilst others do not.
Each case is different. Some have religious knowledge, whilst others only propagate emotional experience, for example.

Something can be called true if it is demonstrably correct, and because of that, the idea can be used to correctly anticipate outcomes. These are the only kinds of ideas about the world I want informing my choices, and I have a system for weeding out other kinds of ideas. Unless you can make a convincing argument to change that approach to life, I don't see why I should.

..and that leaves you without any chance of "knowing God", because you have decided that you don't need to find spiritual truths, as it is so easy to dismiss them all as "unlikely" and unhelpful.

God knows why some people are attracted towards the Divine, and others are not. It isn't about rationality, but the needs of our soul.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Cynical.

Deservedly.

Not everybody has an intention of worldly gain.

True. But the people who don't want worldly gain don't seek it.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I accept spiritual truths, mostly that are rituals and practices that help bring balance to a person..

OK

The reason believers do accept these supernatural concepts is due to social influence and learning of social norms, not via evidence and reason..

You are tarring everybody with the same brush.
Some people have a strong faith due to knowledge, and not tradition.

What is the intention of Muslims, or any religious person doing the will of God, who kills others and/or commits suicide while doing it?

It could be the same as an atheist who commits such evil .. revenge and so on.
God knows the intention behind people's actions .. not you.

Is it possible that a person might think that they are pleasing God by blowing themselves up along with innocent civilians?
Of course it is, but Islam does not teach that according to the vast majority of scholars.
Terrorism is not driven by religious belief, but in spite of it.
Poverty and suffering is extremely damaging to the soul.
It is the source of much enmity.

Where is the God? Why is it absent?

God is never absent. Nothing would exist without Him.
You mean, why doesn't God stop people committing evil?

Surely God knows it created flawed and imperfect beings, yet it stands by and lets things spiral out of control?

I can't see everything in its entirety. I cannot see the unseen.
..the presence of evil and suffering is something that is difficult to bear, that is for sure, but it doesn't follow that God has no mercy on mankind, and that we should abandon hope.
Disbelief means that all the suffering is in vain. For me, that is worse.

And it's not just atrocities that your God allows, it is birth defects and genetic diseases that kill children. How do theists become aware of this and still believe any sort of decent God exists? At best you can believe a Deist type of God exists, but not one that cares and intervenes.

Yes, these are all reasons to disbelieve .. cruelty and suffering.
It leaves no hope, to believe in a world that has no apparent reason for existence. What would be the point of it all?

And how does theology make rational conclusions? Give us some examples.

Why don't you criticise the wiki page?
Theology - Wikipedia

Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief.

It is possible to make rational conclusions .. it depends on the criteria used, and on the topic.

OK, what is there to "see"? And those who claim they do "see" evidence of a God existing, are they special?

No, they are not special.
Everybody sees what they see.
It is not possible to see anything if you "shut your eyes" i.e. dismiss the possibility of the existence of God.

Why isn't spiritual physical? What part of humans are not physical, and how would you know? Or is this just another unverifiable claim?

Yeah, yeah. The same old stuff about the existence of a soul.
Regardless of whether "a soul" can exist in isolation, the experiences humans have are very real to them.
The concept is real, and is meaningful to the person experiencing.

 

[samtonga43]

The only reason there I have a conflict is because it has been shoved down my throat that God is all-loving and it is drop dead obvious to me that God cannot be all-loving given all the suffering in this world, and I do not mean only my own suffering. If it was only my suffering that could be just bad luck. This world is as Abdu'l-Baha said, a Storehouse of Suffering.
Baha'is are so illogical, to believe God is all-loving when God is the one who created the world that is a storehouse of suffering.

If your religion shoved beliefs down your throat, you are a member of a cult. Probably too late to get out now, but do try to speak to someone.