THERE'S NO EVIDENCE FOR GOD, SO WHY DO YOU BELIEVE?
I’ve been reading through a couple of threads, and I see that it is said that there is no evidence for a god, it’s an unfalsifiable idea. We all agree on this? If you don’t, care to explain the evidence there is for god?
I’m in agreement. I used to believe my personal experiences to be subjective evidence for god, but I know now that’s not the case. I am not a theist anymore because I recognize I was a Christian thanks almost completely to my environment. That’s why I believed. I was brought up in it. Wasn’t because of any proof or anything,
So, theists, why do you believe? Is it mainly because of your environment and geographical location? There is no proof for god (right?), so what logically keeps you believing? Or is logic not supposed to be a factor when it comes to faith? Is it too jarring, the idea of leaving the comfort that religion and belief in a god brings?
I am curious about personal evaluations on why you believe. It can’t be because of logic, as there is no proof of god, right?
NO PROOF EITHER WAY:
There is no proof that God does exist. There is
no proof that God doesn't exist. There are an
infinite number of things that you could believe. For example, you could believe in the Greek Gods. So,
if you have no reason to believe in God, you might as well have no reason to believe in everything (including the belief that cartoon character, Fred Flintstone, is real).
Atheists prefer to only believe in the proven. That way, they don't have to believe in everything. Some theists claim that non-belief might result in hell, so they recommend
hedging your bets by believing in God and going to church (just in case there is a God).
ESP
Dr. Jessica Utts is a math professor who
proved that ESP works. ESP means that people can snatch information out of the "air" (or what ever it is), and that info could be of the future, past, present, or distant. The contents of a submarine, deep under the ocean can be observed. The contents of a vault with 1 foot steel walls can be examined. If such information can be retrieved, it makes sense that the information is stored. If the info is stored, we don't really understand how. Maybe the distribution of matter in the universe is connected with strings of matter similar to our brain's neurons. But it is my understanding that psychic energy is not the same as regular energy. Regular energy is limited to under the speed of light in a vacuum as it travels across the metric of space (though the metric is expanding and that expansion is accelerating). But,
psychic energy doesn't appear to have a speed limit, and it appears to transcend time. Could it be that thoughts and information could be stored for the use of some entity, and that entity might be God? It doesn't prove that God exists, but at least it opens the possibility (hitherto a closed possibility) that God exists.
In a nut shell....if ESP exists, maybe God exists (sharing the same info retrieval system)?
EXISTENTIALISM (DO WE EXIST?):
It is a branch of philosophy (the study of all knowledge). Existentialists ask "are we a butterfly dreaming that we are human, or are we humans dreaming that we are a butterfly?" They claim that we might not even exist. To that, DesCartes exclaimed, "I think, therefore I am." But does that mean "I don't think, therefore I am not?" What about a temporary lapse of thought? Maybe it is
okay to worship a nonexistent God if we, too, are nonexistent?
WHAT IF GOD SAID THAT HE (GOD) DOESN'T EXIST:
That brings us back to the old joke (in movies) in which a human heard a noise and asked, "who dat?" then a ghost asked "who dat?" Then the scared human asks "who dat who said who dat when I said who dat?" In other words, if God said that he didn't exist, who was it who said that? From this, we understand that God can either remain silent or say something that isn't relevant to His existence, or state that He does exist. So far, God wants freedom of choice (good go to heaven, and bad to hell), and announcement of His existence might take away that freedom. If everyone could see a huge hand come down from the sky, they would have no choice but to believe (unless they thought that it was some kind of trick of science).
NOW AN ATHEIST, YOU ARE FREE TO BE MORAL:
1. Boy raping priests got away with it because the church explained to their victims (and families) that it would hurt the church to tell. Now you can tell, and priests could face justice.
2. Election of a Religious Right candidate had to be Republican, Christian, a member of the National Rifle Association, for war, and for torture camps. God said "thou shalt not kill." A Christian (or for that matter, a non-christian) was not allowed to say anything about stopping the wars or they would be chastised. W. Bush said "don't cut and run" or "these colors [red, white, and blue] don't run," or "stay the course." France was lambasted for being cowardly if they objected to the wars (wars without justification, and W. Bush and Cheney, and Powell, and Rice all lied to us about the intel) they would be called traitors. W. Bush noted that there were people writing against supporting the wars, so he intentionally lied about them and spread the rumor that al Qaeda agents were on the internet trying to stop the wars. So he called pacifists al Qaeda sympathizers, just to further the killing efforts. Remember, God said "thou shalt not kill."
You have the right to object to the killing and torture of 1,000,000 peaceful Iraqis who were not involved in torture. As an atheist, you now have a right (a right that you didn't have as a theist) to follow God's order "thou shalt not kill."
3. You have the right, as an atheist, to try to fix Global Warming, plastic pollution, offshore drilling, fracking (suspending the Clean Water Act) to keep God's environment either pristine, or at least livable. You no longer have to follow like a lemming, following other lemmings, walking off of a cliff to its death. You can be a maverick....your own man....a person who can think for himself, and do the right things without the lynch mob mentality that pervaded the Religious Right when they invaded peaceful nations.
4. You have the right, as an atheist, to house the homeless, feed the hungry, and cure the sick. Remember, theists opposed universal health care (Obamacare). Remember, also, that Jesus cured the sick, and didn't ask how big their bank books were.
5. You have the right, as an atheist, to embrace Black's rights not to be beaten in the streets and called the N-word. Black Lives Matter. You don't have to follow the party line and eliminate the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, which was the solitary platform of George Bush (the elder) in his run for the governorship of Texas (a former Confederate state). You don't have to follow the party line of George W. Bush (the younger), who sought to eliminate affirmative action, and thereby kick most of the Blacks out of colleges. No more educated token Blacks like Powell and Rice to fool voters.
