Why do we need to "believe" in God?

Byrnzie

Page 17 of this thread and still nobody has explained what 'God' is.

mickeyrat

Byrnzie wrote:

Page 17 of this thread and still nobody has explained what 'God' is.

Byrnzie, let me try this.

What does God mean to you? If anything? Thats the only definition anyone should need . In my opinion.





( see what I did there folks? I followed my own suggestion from earlier)

rollings

Why do we need to believe in God?

Cuz if we don't, we're going to HELL. I thought everybody knew that. :roll:

If you want to know what "God" is, you're in the wrong thread.

THAT can be found in the

Who made Byrnzie? thread

Byrnzie

mickeyrat wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Page 17 of this thread and still nobody has explained what 'God' is.

Byrnzie, let me try this.

What does God mean to you? If anything? Thats the only definition anyone should need . In my opinion.





( see what I did there folks? I followed my own suggestion from earlier)

It depends what you mean by 'God'.

Byrnzie

Rollings wrote:

Who made Byrnzie?

My parents made me...unless there was something they weren't telling me? :think:

catefrances

Byrnzie wrote:

Rollings wrote:

Who made Byrnzie?

My parents made me...unless there was something they weren't telling me? :think:

cyborg???


my parents made me too.

Smellyman

catefrances wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Rollings wrote:

Who made Byrnzie?

My parents made me...unless there was something they weren't telling me? :think:

cyborg???


my parents made me too.

I thought Byrnzie was an inerent bot, but I met him recently and know he is real....:)

Cosmo

Byrnzie wrote:

Page 17 of this thread and still nobody has explained what 'God' is.

...
"People, what have you done? Locked Him in His golden cage... made Him bend to your religion... resurrected from the grave.
He is the god of nothing, if that's all that you can see.
You are the god of everything... He's inside you and me.
So, lean upon Him gently and don't call on Him to save you from your social graces and the sins you used to waive. The bloody Church of England, in chains of history, requests your earthly presence at the vicarage for tea. And the graven image you-know-who with His plastic crucifix (he's got him fixed) confuses me as to who and where and why as to how he gets his kicks. Confessing to the endless sin, the endless whining sounds.
You'll be praying till next Thursday to all the gods that you can count."

Hugh Freaking Dillon

inlet13 wrote:

ASIDE: Personally, I don't see what's gained out of being atheist, but I don't want to fall into the trap of getting in an endless argument with one (like this thread became). But, I figure I'll state my point and leave. My point of view is that atheists believe that God does not exist. They are placing their bets on no God. To me, there's no upside to that bet. So, to me, logically, it makes very little sense. Once again, belief in God and the practice of what you do with that belief are two separate things. But, to me, there's no upside to saying you outright are going to base your life and place all of your hope in the thought that there is no God. It's not only depressing, it could be the dumbest bet ever... because if there is an afterlife and all you needed to do to get in was believe... you can't try to hit the ATM and play again. You're dead. Alternatively, if there is no God, we're all in the ground being eaten by worms... believers and non-believers. On net, the believer (or even agnostic route) seems a hell of a lot more safe (pardon the pun).

to me this is not belief. it is fear of the unknown. people who believe in an almighty believe for different reasons, but I cannot fathom believing in something merely as a key. that to me says you don't really believe. you say your prayers, tell god you believe, when you don't really.

believing for the sole purpose of personal gain is not belief. IMHO.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

pandora wrote:

how many times have I said this :?

too many to count.

Byrnzie

The idea of 'God' is a crutch for people too weak to accept the World as it is.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

Byrnzie wrote:

The idea of 'God' is crutch for people too weak to accept the World as it is.

now byrnzie, I know what you are saying, but you know that isn't true. that would mean you are claiming that 98% of the world is weaker than us. that's tough to swallow since you chastise pandora for thinking she is something special for knowing god, don't you think?

I think it's a crutch for SOME people, just like music in dark times can be. I enjoy music in good and bad, it can make a good mood even better, and make a bad mood not so bad, but I wouldn't say that means I'm weaker than those who don't use music to bring themselves up.

everyone has a crutch. but that doesn't make them weak.

some might say that man's need to explain everything with science is no different than man's need to explain everything through god.

BinauralJam

i don't care how it's labeled or perceived or... i choose to believe in God because the alternative Sucks. In my opinion, i respect but don't pratice any and all religion, but i like the spirituality idea. This Works for Me.

Byrnzie

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

The idea of 'God' is crutch for people too weak to accept the World as it is.

now byrnzie, I know what you are saying, but you know that isn't true. that would mean you are claiming that 98% of the world is weaker than us. that's tough to swallow since you chastise pandora for thinking she is something special for knowing god, don't you think?

I think it's a crutch for SOME people, just like music in dark times can be. I enjoy music in good and bad, it can make a good mood even better, and make a bad mood not so bad, but I wouldn't say that means I'm weaker than those who don't use music to bring themselves up.

everyone has a crutch. but that doesn't make them weak.

some might say that man's need to explain everything with science is no different than man's need to explain everything through god.

Maybe 98% of humans are weak. Maybe 99%. I don't know. But substituting reality with an anthropomorphic deity doesn't constitute strength.
As for Pandora 'knowing God', I find that to be a stretch considering she's not even capable of explaining to anybody what 'God' is.
If people choose to take refuge behind deities or ideals rather than accepting the fundamental absurdity of the World then they are exhibiting weakness.

As for this notion of 'God' that everyone seems so quick to keep bandying around, I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me what the word means. All I've gotten from this thread so far is the odd reference to 'Him', and 'He', 'He answered me', 'my relationship with God', e.t.c, which, quite frankly, I find to be completely ridiculous.

Though if people want to talk about some kind of cosmic energy, life-force, or latent aspect of human consciousness/awareness, then I'm all ears. But they can keep their bearded man in the sky to themselves.

Byrnzie

Interesting article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NETTXT9038

'You just don't understand my religion' is not good enough

Too often, faith is mysterious only selectively. When questions get tough, a god can disappear in a puff of ineffability

Julian Baggini
Guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 November 2011


Terry Eagleton's quip that reading Richard Dawkins on theology is like listening to someone "holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is The British Book of Birds" is a funny and memorable contribution to a debate that is rarely amusing and frequently forgettable. Whether you agree with the charge or not, the complaint is of a kind we have become very familiar with: disputants in the religion debate are talking past each other because they do not have a sufficiently rich understanding of the positions they stand against.

I'm very much in sympathy with this view, and this series is largely an attempt to try to find more constructive points of engagement that can only emerge if we ditch lazy and tired preconceptions about those with whom we disagree. At the same time, however, I'm all too aware that "you just don't understand" is a card that is often played far too swiftly and without justification.

Most obviously, it cannot be the case that the views of someone who is most immersed in or knows most about a religion always trump those of a relatively uninformed outsider. People who live and breathe a faith know more about it than those who do not – but this quantitative advantage does not guarantee better qualitative judgements. If it did, by the same logic, we should take the word of the earnest astrologer of 40 years' standing over the clear evidence that it's all baloney. Indeed, being deeply immersed may be a positive disadvantage, in that it might make it impossible to take a clear-sighted, impartial view. So Dawkins and his ilk are correct when they say that they are not obliged to become experts in theology in order to make criticisms of religion.

Of course, there is a level of ignorance that makes reasonable criticism impossible. But where that is the case, it should always be possible to point out what elementary mistake the critic has made. It is never reasonable to fob someone off on the basis that they do not understand: it is always necessary to explain what they do not understand. But also – and here's the rub – it's also essential to make it understandable. Rule one of intellectual engagement is that all parties must sincerely attempt both to understand others and to make themselves understood.

It has become evident to me, however, that many people, especially the religious, suffer from a kind of conceptual claustrophobia. Their beliefs are of their essence somewhat vague and they are terrified of being pinned down. Although critics often leap on this and claim that this betrays woolly thinking, evasion or obscurantism, I think that there are times when such a refusal to commit is justified.

I remember, for example, an impassioned talk I once heard by the recently sainted Giles Fraser. Recounting the story in Exodus of Moses going up the mountain to meet God to get the Ten Commandments, Fraser said: "The higher he goes up the mountain, the more the mist comes down. The closer he gets to God, the less and less he is able to see." Meanwhile, at Sinai's foot, the idolatrous masses are "running around building a golden calf, making God into a thing".

It is always possible to think there is a fog when really it's just that your glasses have steamed up. But I'm not only prepared to allow that an intelligent religious faith might have a big fat mystery at its heart, I think it must have. Only the most juvenile gods are like super-humans we can truly understand. If there is a God, it must surely passeth all understanding.

But embracing this mystery comes at a price. If, like the archbishop of Canterbury, your faith is a kind of "silent waiting on the truth, pure sitting and breathing in the presence of the question mark", then think very carefully before you open your mouth. Too often I find that faith is mysterious only selectively. Believers constantly attribute all sorts of qualities to their gods and have a list of doctrines as long as your arm. It is only when the questions get tough that, suddenly, their God disappears in a puff of mystery. Ineffability becomes a kind of invisibility cloak, only worn when there is a need to get out of a bit of philosophical bother.

Also, maintaining that some aspects of religion are ineffable doesn't mean that all are. Indeed, it entails that some are very clear indeed. Ask Fraser, for example, if he thinks God is a thing and he should answer clearly and unequivocally, no. Likewise, people should be able to give clear answers to straight questions such as "was Christ's resurrection physical, leaving an empty tomb?", even if that answer is "I don't know". Maintaining, for instance, that it is naive to read the gospels as literal history is – or should be – to maintain that the events it describes did not, or need not, have literally happened.

I need to make these issues clear now because over the coming weeks, in the name of trying to uncross some wires and get some real discussion going, I'm going to be trying to get greater clarity about just what different camps in the religion debate are really maintaining. I anticipate all sorts of objections of the kind I've mentioned: that I'm simplifying; that I'm trying to eff the ineffable; that I am being too literal minded. I want to make it clear right now that these kinds of responses won't work as get-out-of-jail-free cards. They need justification.

We also have to be willing to accommodate the fact that belief comes in infinite shades and varieties. No two people believe exactly the same thing, and that presents another opportunity for evasion: plausible denial that you believe what is being attributed to you. We have to accept that, to make progress, we sometimes have to say, "that's not quite what I think, but it may be close enough. Go on." If anything less than perfect understanding counts as misunderstanding, then everything is misunderstood.

Everyone says that they are in favour of greater mutual comprehension, but the failure to achieve it is not just a result of people not making the effort to understand. Often it's just that people refuse to make themselves understood.

Byrnzie

I think the bottom line here is that if someone is incapable of explaining what they mean by their use of a particular word, then they should stop using that word.
Simply saying 'I know 'God' and then failing, or deliberately refusing, to qualify that statement, implies one of two things: either that you are simply delusional, or that you are incapable of rational thought.

redrock

BinauralJam wrote:

i choose to believe in God because the alternative Sucks.

I don't understand this kind of frame of mind (alternative sucks/alternative depressing) - believing by default. Why does the alternative suck for you? I believe in myself, I believe in humanity as a whole - that doesn't suck. Sure, there's good and bad but isn't that the same with a 'god'?

catefrances

redrock wrote:

BinauralJam wrote:

i choose to believe in God because the alternative Sucks.

I don't understand this kind of frame of mind (alternative sucks/alternative depressing) - believing by default. Why does the alternative suck for you? I believe in myself, I believe in humanity as a whole - that doesn't suck. Sure, there's good and bad but isn't that the same with a 'god'?

this cant be all there is

why the hell not is what i ask? why does there have to be more? why do we expect more? why is mankind so arrogant to assume s/hes so special that he deserves more??

catefrances

BinauralJam wrote:

i don't care how it's labeled or perceived or... i choose to believe in God because the alternative Sucks. In my opinion, i respect but don't pratice any and all religion, but i like the spirituality idea. This Works for Me.

you respect scientology??

pandora

Cosmo wrote:

pandora wrote:

I was not claiming to enlighten you ... perhaps your many religions have claimed such.

I speak of my beliefs and experience with God.
God enlightened me, I had no choice but to believe from my enlightenment.

Perhaps the same will come to you.

...
Perhaps a poor choice of words on my part...
If someone were to know God. Isn't that enlightenment? The person who knows God is an enlightened one... isn't he/she?
Whether you are one individual that subscribes to one belief, based on personal experience... or a global religion with millions of followers... the basic doctrine of 'Ask, and ye shall recieve' remains the same.
...
And again, this is the point I have been trying to make to you throughout this discussion:
"I speak of my beliefs and experience with God. "

Are we all not enlightened when we learn something new?

Did anyone here think anyone was speaking for someone else or just speaking of their own beliefs and experiences?

We are speaking of our own experiences with God or the lack of which has formed our core belief.