Do you believe in God?

[Exorcet]

It's not complicated, if God is real then we're all going to find out when our time comes, and if God isn't real, then what will that even like, it doesn't even make sense to me to imagine what "nothing" is like.

It's actually more complicated than you think. For one thing you have a pretty narrow definition of god. If god is real, god can choose to remain hidden in the afterlife exactly as is the case in actual life. The afterlife itself doesn't even require a god, so the common generic depiction of heaven works without any deity, although it's still an unlikely outcome going by evidence. There are many more possibilities to consider than the christian god, and if I were to rank them in terms of those worth caring about, I feel like the christian god ranks pretty low. He is inconsistent, seemingly uncaring or very limited in his ability to influence the world, and unnecessary from the perspective of morality.

I can't say I know what happens at death, but "nothing" seems like a safe bet. As others said it's not that hard to imagine since you experienced it already before you were alive. You could probably say you experience it any night when you don't dream. Sleep involves partially shutting down the brain. Death involves shutting it all the way off, and once that happens it seems like any concept of life that we're familiar with ends.

If there is any supernatural process that occurs, maybe reincarnation is a reasonable pick. We're all made of nonliving matter and it's not totally clear where the transition from molecules to self aware organism is made. At some point we all crossed that line, so maybe it's possible for it to happen a second time, but it remains pure speculation.

 

[Roo]

it doesn't even make sense to me to imagine what "nothing" is like.

Remember last night when you were asleep and not dreaming? No? It's like that.


(Spelling edit)

 

[R3V]

Quote me as having said anyone is.

You brought up history (and implicitlity) the atrocities done in the name of religion. I wasn't quite sure how any of them are relevant to random folks on a message board. Is the implication that a belief in deities is the root cause of this and that a world with no supersitious beliefs will somehow be free of violence, greed and lust for power?

No. Religion is specifically a system of faith. Faith is a belief - and one which is not necessarily bound.

You can have faith without religion; you can believe that there is a higher being and existence after death without any specific structure to it. But you cannot have faith in God (and I note you used the capital G) and heaven/hell without religion.


Belief in deities has its origin in agriculture - and in fact prior to that, in horticulture and even hunter-gatherer times. Something good happens to a human by chance - it could be the sun rising, or the rain coming, or a lost sheep turning up in a hedge - the human cannot explain it, determines that it's magical and therefore some imperceptible being has blessed them. That's faith.

The human then thinks the magic should be repaid to please the being. They leave an offering of some kind - food or rocks (shiny rocks particularly) - to thank the being and ask for continued blessings. If nothing good happens, either it's ignored until something good does happen or the offering isn't good enough and it becomes more elaborate until something good happens. Confirmation bias takes over, and we're getting closer to religion; the human is engaging in a system of behaviour they believe will please the being.

Then the human tells other people about the magic and the offering. Other people want the same good things, so they also engage in the offerings. It becomes ritualised and the first guy, as the guy who "discovered" the being (or to whom the being revealed themselves by their magic) might become, for want of a better word, the priest; they would be in charge of organising the offerings, naming the being, writing all of this stuff down... basically telling everyone what to believe and how to worship because they're the deity's representative. Now we have religion: a system of faith.

At this point it doesn't matter what you believe about the original magic. You might have experienced no magic despite your offerings, or different magic that you think might be a different being. You're locked into what everyone else believes (in fact one etymology for "religion" is "tightly bound" ["ligare" (as in ligature) combined with the intensifier "re"]) because the priest tells you what to believe, and the religion gets between you and your faith.

Organised religion is much, much worse for this, of course. An organised religion is one with a large number of followers and specific rituals, stories, prophesies and so on - and the "best" bit is that there can be a whole bunch of them organised around the same deity.


In either case, the purpose is to obfuscate: you don't have your faith in your deity, you have people claiming to be representatives of your deity telling you what your faith in that deity should be.

As a pedantic person myself, I appreciate you taking the time to explain the difference. I suppose yes, if "religion" means a particular set of beliefs involving deities, then there is plenty of arguing that will ensue.

Allow me to rephrase my original question. Does it make a difference to anyone here's life whether another person believes a deity exists? Especially since no completely sane human can claim to have supporting evidence. Are the 23,000 posts about religion or the existence of a god?

better?

 

[Famine]

Does it make a difference to anyone here's life whether another person believes a deity exists?

It entirely depends on what they do - or what they excuse - with that belief.

Are the 23,000 posts about religion or the existence of a god?

Yes.

There's also a lot of stuff about "Intelligent Design" and other junk science latterly used to debunk science to prove faith (which is absurd; faith is the opposite of proof), the relevance of religion to morality (particularly the conflict between the religious who believe morality derives from faith and the non-religious who think that deriving a moral code from a psychopath and adhering to it only on threat of eternal punishment in their afterlife or being able to break it so long as you're sorry about it at death is no morality at all and bordering on lunacy), some stuff about what religion is used to justify, naturally plenty of stuff about different religions, and several pages of just plain weird "the universe is god" from our local onion-wearer (as was the fashion at the time).

But at 13 years of age, it's not exactly a fast-moving thread.

 

[R3V]

It entirely depends on what they do - or what they excuse - with that belief.

Yes.

There's also a lot of stuff about "Intelligent Design" and other junk science latterly used to debunk science to prove faith (which is absurd; faith is the opposite of proof), the relevance of religion to morality (particularly the conflict between the religious who believe morality derives from faith and the non-religious who think that deriving a moral code from a psychopath and adhering to it only on threat of eternal punishment in their afterlife or being able to break it so long as you're sorry about it at death is no morality at all and bordering on lunacy), some stuff about what religion is used to justify, naturally plenty of stuff about different religions, and several pages of just plain weird "the universe is god" from our local onion-wearer (as was the fashion at the time).

But at 13 years of age, it's not exactly a fast-moving thread.

What they excuse, incite or do out of those beliefs would be, and are likely already crimes on their own. It wouldn't be very productitive to point fingers at people's internal beliefs and link them to heinous acts. All that does is alienate reasonable people who share said beliefs.

Glad I wasn't around here when Jordan Peterson got famous anyway.

 

[Famine]

What they excuse, incite or do out of those beliefs would be, and are likely already crimes on their own.

Not necessarily so.

Veering into organised religion for a minute, you have parents who believe that homosexuality is a sin according to their God (because they're told to, wrongly) and rejecting their children if they come out - or even question being straight. Not a crime, and not exactly that unusual in the Christian world. But pretty awful.

And of course you have a lot of people in organised religion who campaign for their beliefs to become laws; the whole abortion thing going on in the USA right now is a pretty solid example of that. Right now they want to let women who have an ectopic pregnancy die, or put them in prison if they survive (or have surgery to allow them to survive); Louisiana appears to have passed a first reading on a law which would make an IUD more illegal than an IED.

They believe their deity doesn't allow for abortion (although he does repeatedly call for it in the OT, and seems to be a fan of genocidal miscarriage) and have made giant strides to repealing the 'law' (not really; it's a judicial opinion on whether a case on the subject is something that is contrary to the constitution or not) based on that, and it's going to kill (and jail) women. Very much not a crime, by virtue of being a law.

 

[R3V]

Not necessarily so.

Veering into organised religion for a minute, you have parents who believe that homosexuality is a sin according to their God (because they're told to, wrongly) and rejecting their children if they come out - or even question being straight. Not a crime, and not exactly that unusual in the Christian world. But pretty awful.

And of course you have a lot of people in organised religion who campaign for their beliefs to become laws; the whole abortion thing going on in the USA right now is a pretty solid example of that. Right now they want to let women who have an ectopic pregnancy die, or put them in prison if they survive (or have surgery to allow them to survive); Louisiana appears to have passed a first reading on a law which would make an IUD more illegal than an IED.

They believe their deity doesn't allow for abortion (although he does repeatedly call for it in the OT, and seems to be a fan of genocidal miscarriage) and have made giant strides to repealing the 'law' (not really; it's a judicial opinion on whether a case on the subject is something that is contrary to the constitution or not) based on that, and it's going to kill (and jail) women. Very much not a crime, by virtue of being a law.

To the second part, the obvious answer to that is separation of church and state. You can attack what people choose to do with their religion without attacking the religion itself, or implicate others who rightly believe it to be independant of the law of the land. There's as many religious elected officials with a D next to their name. **Not that I encourage anyone to vote based on party affiliation.

The first part yes, it is awful but is the remedy eliminating religion? Assuming you can do that, of course. As I mentioned in the other post, the world would not rid itself of psychopaths if you stop them from believing in deities.

While I appreciate the sentiment (trying to prevent harm from being inflicted on others etc), some of the stuff I'm reading here is sounding like what conservatives say about video games and certain genres of music. Yes some parents are assholes, but that's just because they're assholes. Again, I don't think it helps the cause to attack a religion (or belief in a deity in general), as it's just like blaming Rammstein's music for violence. Try explaining to some crazy kids that "art" isn't literal and music is just for entertainment.

I think it's better to just teach people compassion (if possible) or better ideas for society overall.

 

[Famine]

To the second part, the obvious answer to that is separation of church and state.

Which the US has directly codified in law, in the document containing the highest law of the land. Yet this doesn't appear to have helped.

The first part yes, it is awful but is the remedy eliminating religion?

No, but neither did I say it was.

While I appreciate the sentiment (trying to prevent harm from being inflicted on others etc), some of the stuff I'm reading here is sounding like what conservatives say about video games and certain genres of music.

Then I'm afraid you're reading something other than what I typed.

Your original question was:

Does anyone here disagree that religion is between man and God and that it should never go beyond that?

And I disagreed; faith is what is between a being and any belief they hold (whether a deity or not). Religion is a structure that is built in the middle, obfuscating it.

Your clarified question was:

Does it make a difference to anyone here's life whether another person believes a deity exists?

And I answered that it depends on whether they use that belief to support or excuse abhorrent actions. I'm sure there's more than one person on GTPlanet who went through a crisis of sexuality in their juvenile and teenage years, whether ending up exclusively straight or not, and faced rejection by their theistic parents - so certainly there would be a difference in their life from another person believing a deity exists.

If someone believes in a deity (or believes a deity may exist without supposing a specific one) but does not use that to guide their decisions or actions, it makes no difference to anyone. This may, however, be a tough ask; our choices are guided by our knowledge and experience, and if part of their brain knows that a deity is judging their actions it almost certainly will change what their decisions will be. For better or worse.


At no point have I said that belief in a deity, or religion, or even organised religion itself, is responsible for dreadful behaviours, in the same way that the pearl-clutchers of the 1970s-2020s sought to blame music, movies, and video games as being responsible for (what they believe to be) dreadful behaviours.

However, I will add that organised religion is certainly much more on the hook than something like Canis Canem Edit if the religion's leaders preach to the masses about activities it calls sinful and encourages adherents to engage in dreadful behaviours against those who engage in such activities, with the promise of being in their deity's favour and rewards for doing so in their afterlife.

I've yet to encounter a game that rewards players for engaging in a real-world killing spree, though it does sound like a passable sci-fi short story plot...

 

[TexRex]

You brought up history (and implicitlity) the atrocities done in the name of religion. I wasn't quite sure how any of them are relevant to random folks on a message board. Is the implication that a belief in deities is the root cause of this and that a world with no supersitious beliefs will somehow be free of violence, greed and lust for power?

I said only that history is full of people not keeping their relationship with "God," whatever they may think that is, to themselves. Sure, that includes atrocities, but that also necessarily includes not atrocities; I referred [explicitly] to neither of those things as neither were particularly relevant.

pedantic person

Pedant.

 

[R3V]

No, but neither did I say it was.

Then I'm afraid you're reading something other than what I typed.

Okay. Perhaps I've read a bit too much into what you said and combined it with the orange text.

Which the US has directly codified in law, in the document containing the highest law of the land. Yet this doesn't appear to have helped.

I've personally gotten screwed recently by the highest court in my country not adhering to the law. I wish I knew there was a better solution but there isn't one. What do you think is the solution other than writing reasonable laws and hoping judges follow them?

And I answered that it depends on whether they use that belief to support or excuse abhorrent actions. I'm sure there's more than one person on GTPlanet who went through a crisis of sexuality in their juvenile and teenage years, whether ending up exclusively straight or not, and faced rejection by their theistic parents - so certainly there would be a difference in their life from another person believing a deity exists.

I'm a little confused by this part. Let me continue making this a bit personal. I've personally suffered from religious bigotry in the past. What difference can it make to me, whether or not you, a person on a message board, believes in a deity? Am I supposed to judge you one way or another? Or are the discussions here to reinforce one's beliefs?

Maybe I'm being picky with the title of this thread. I'm not saying it should be closed or anything, just wondering how it can be fruitful.

This may, however, be a tough ask

It is tough but it is what we need to be asking. Separating personal feelings and ideologies from judgements towards individuals should be the goal.

However, I will add that organised religion is certainly much more on the hook than something like Canis Canem Edit if the religion's leaders preach to the masses about activities it calls sinful and encourages adherents to engage in dreadful behaviours against those who engage in such activities, with the promise of being in their deity's favour and rewards for doing so in their afterlife.

I don't disagree. Religion should not be organized or hold any kind of power. I'd go as far as locking anyone up for fraud if he/she claims to be a conduit or represenatitive of a higher power.

That said, I've seen the positive effect religion can have on people and how much cheaper it is than therapy.

Pedant.

Pedantic person has a pp.

 

[Denur]

Maybe I'm being picky with the title of this thread. I'm not saying it should be closed or anything, just wondering how it can be fruitful.

Over the years, this thread has been quit educational for me. Educational on religion in general, on critical thinking, logic and the workings of our brain.

 

[Ghost Lap]

Remember last night when you were asleep and not dreaming? No? It's like that.

Nope, I remember being awake and then waking up from sleep, I don't remember what it was like during the time whilst I was asleep and not dreaming.

 

[Roo]

Nope, I remember being awake and then waking up from sleep, I don't remember what it was like during the time whilst I was asleep and not dreaming.

Now you have an idea what "nothing" is like. There's... well... nothing, which includes no awareness. That's death; sleep without waking.

 

[Dotini]

Does it make a difference to anyone here's life whether another person believes a deity exists? Especially since no completely sane human can claim to have supporting evidence. Are the 23,000 posts about religion or the existence of a god?

I live in a city something like Bravos from Game of Thrones. All gods and religions are represented, the business of the city is business (and pleasure), and people raise and educate their children in relative safety. We have very few police. Many people find meaning and purpose here. What is the source of our meaning and purpose? It is Valhalla, home of the mountain gods, easily seen on a clear day, nestled in the heart of the Olympic mountains in the west.

 

[TexRex]

Gag me.

 

[Ghost Lap]

Now you have an idea what "nothing" is like. There's... well... nothing, which includes no awareness. That's death; sleep without waking.

So you can definitively say that death is like sleep without waking can you, you've actually died and come back to life to confirm what death is like, is that what you're saying?

 

[UKMikey]

So you can definitively say that death is like sleep without waking can you, you've actually died and come back to life to confirm what death is like, is that what you're saying?

Tell me you haven't been reading the thread without telling me you haven't been reading the thread.

I don't know about him but that's exactly what I'm saying.

I had a near death experience while paramedics were performing CPR on me following my heart attack. Everything went white as the oxygen to my brain ceased for a few seconds. I guess that's what makes people think of heaven.

I may have seen something I thought was my late father telling me to go back. But I can't remember for sure. If there was definitely something on the other side I don't think they'd screw with your memory about it so I'm inclined to believe what I experienced was mostly oblivion.

 

[Ghost Lap]

Tell me you haven't been reading the thread without telling me you haven't been reading the thread.

I don't know about him but that's exactly what I'm saying.

I've been reading the thread, and I don't doubt your story but it isn't really consistent with that of a typical NDE experience that many people report to have had. A typical NDE experience usually involves the experience of your consciousness leaving your physical body, travelling down a tunnel towards "the light", encountering other entities that communicate to you telepathically, a life review etc.

I can't confirm the validity of NDE's as I've never had one myself, and possibly you were on the verge of having a typical NDE experience, who knows?

 

[TexRex]

NDE experience

NDE experience

NDE experience

SMH head.

 

[UKMikey]

I've been reading the thread, and I don't doubt your story but it isn't really consistent with that of a typical NDE experience that many people report to have had.

Lol ok.

 

[Danoff]

SMH head.

Nailed him. RIP in peace.

 

[dcloko]

Yes.

 

[Famine]

Lol ok.

Did you not come back knowing the fifth movement?


Outrageously niche reference

 

[Roo]

So you can definitively say that death is like sleep without waking can you, you've actually died and come back to life to confirm what death is like, is that what you're saying?

I felt in the context of a discussion about our ideas of what death is like, it was evident that I wasn't speaking from experience, and left out that qualifier for the sake of being succinct. If it wasn't I apologise.

I've come to that position because it seems the most likely, sensible, and comprehensible to me. Any other explanation - typically some form of afterlife - seems to be too convenient, egotistical, and born out of fear.

Convenient because an afterlife that cannot be proven is such a useful means of controlling a population. (See Famine's post on the previous page for the workings.)

Egotistical because why should the human race get an afterlife? Why should we consider ourselves so important that we get eternal anything when, say, single-cell bacteria presumably don't?

Born out of fear because the idea that everything we've done, do and will ever do is ultimately for nothing makes people uncomfortable. They prefer to tell themselves a nice lie to avoid an ugly truth*. I have no problem with that - if believing in an afterlife helps you get out of bed in the morning, then by all means do so - but I do have an issue when that belief is imposed on others, particularly when the means of its imposition are violence, coercion, and manipulation.

*Truth in the context of my first sentence of this post - that we're discussing ideas, not absolutes.

 

[UKMikey]

Did you not come back knowing the fifth movement?

No, but they did tell me how to use the three seashells.

Outrageously niche reference

I think you mean OAtrageously niche.

 

[Ghost Lap]

I felt in the context of a discussion about our ideas of what death is like, it was evident that I wasn't speaking from experience, and left out that qualifier for the sake of being succinct. If it wasn't I apologise.

I've come to that position because it seems the most likely, sensible, and comprehensible to me. Any other explanation - typically some form of afterlife - seems to be too convenient, egotistical, and born out of fear.

Convenient because an afterlife that cannot be proven is such a useful means of controlling a population. (See Famine's post on the previous page for the workings.)

Egotistical because why should the human race get an afterlife? Why should we consider ourselves so important that we get eternal anything when, say, single-cell bacteria presumably don't?

Born out of fear because the idea that everything we've done, do and will ever do is ultimately for nothing makes people uncomfortable. They prefer to tell themselves a nice lie to avoid an ugly truth*. I have no problem with that - if believing in an afterlife helps you get out of bed in the morning, then by all means do so - but I do have an issue when that belief is imposed on others, particularly when the means of its imposition are violence, coercion, and manipulation.

*Truth in the context of my first sentence of this post - that we're discussing ideas, not absolutes.

Like I said, if there is an afterlife we'll all find out when our time comes I suppose, that's all I'm getting at. I think it's pretty obvious that I know you're not speaking from experience, but the way you described death as being like "sleep without waking" did come across to me as a bit absolute.

 

[Imari]

I've been reading the thread, and I don't doubt your story but it isn't really consistent with that of a typical NDE experience that many people report to have had. A typical NDE experience usually involves the experience of your consciousness leaving your physical body, travelling down a tunnel towards "the light", encountering other entities that communicate to you telepathically, a life review etc.

That's the NDEs that get published and written about, because it doesn't sell many copies of the National Enquirer to have a story about a man who nearly dies and then wakes up thinking that no time has passed.

Like I said, if there is an afterlife we'll all find out when our time comes I suppose, that's all I'm getting at. I think it's pretty obvious that I know you're not speaking from experience, but the way you described death as being like "sleep without waking" did come across to me as a bit absolute.

And it's fair to state it as such, given that it's the null hypothesis. For lack of proof of anything else, the assumption is that there is simply nothing after death. If that's wrong, then evidence will eventually turn up to prove it so. If it's right, then nothing will ever happen.

Assuming that there's something after death without any proof is the aberrant position here. NDEs aren't proof of anything except that the human brain under intense stress does some wild things. Humans consistently have hallucinations on high doses of LSD, but we don't assume that those hallucinations actually correspond to objective reality.

 

[UKMikey]

That's the NDEs that get published and written about, because it doesn't sell many copies of the National Enquirer to have a story about a man who nearly dies and then wakes up thinking that no time has passed.

To add some more substance to the above, I looked it up and near death (experience) experiences only happen to around 17% of resuscitation cases. The rest didn't remember anything when they were revived.

 

[Dotini]

Many ancient cultures, from the Egyptians to the North American Indians, had belief systems, documented orally and symbolically, that described the afterlife and its immediate journey after death. The near-universal agreement of many world belief systems is that humans have a soul, which after death is weighed and judged on its thoughts and deeds during life, and determines their subsequent path through the stars. I suppose the meaning and purpose of such belief systems were to inform and guide our lives on the Earthly plane, not just for the individual, but for the health and betterment of the family, tribe and civilization. In some modern secular times and societies, such ancient belief seem obsolete and irrelevant, even laughable. Our obvious superiority in technology, economics and politics convinces us that the satisfaction of physical pleasures by the individual is the highest achievement we can ever aspire to. Hence, atheism, postmodernism and libertarianism. Color me guilty. When and if my soul is ever weighed and judged on the basis of how others have seen me, I expect I'll have a few issues to deal with.

 

[Ghost Lap]

Many ancient cultures, from the Egyptians to the North American Indians, had belief systems, documented orally and symbolically, that described the afterlife and its immediate journey after death. The near-universal agreement of many world belief systems is that humans have a soul, which after death is weighed and judged on its thoughts and deeds during life, and determines their subsequent path through the stars. I suppose the meaning and purpose of such belief systems were to inform and guide our lives on the Earthly plane, not just for the individual, but for the health and betterment of the family, tribe and civilization. In some modern secular times and societies, such ancient belief seem obsolete and irrelevant, even laughable. Our obvious superiority in technology, economics and politics convinces us that the satisfaction of physical pleasures by the individual is the highest achievement we can ever aspire to. Hence, atheism, postmodernism and libertarianism. Color me guilty. When and if my soul is ever weighed and judged on the basis of how others have seen me, I expect I'll have a few issues to deal with.

I expect that we all will.