Theory number 3.

[Darkstar]

What I mean by Ultimate Being is that is greatest possible being. "God" is defined as that. As for a god, it depends whether being super immensely powerful is enough to be worthy of worship. Personally, I believe "power" is of the lowest manifestations of God, and "ultimate power" without being "ultimate love" would not be worthy of worship. I believe God is worthy of worship due to his moral qualities, and without those qualities, I would not revere her/him/it to the extent of worship.

I agree. I get the feeling that the only thing that justifies god's actions in the bible is because he says they are good, and he is so powerful no one dares to question him.

God would know exactly what it would take to convince us, but does not do so.

This is true, but is there a possible benevolent reason behind that? Perhaps as I said, he doesn't want knowledge of God to be dry and without will power of the soul/mind to see.

He could have given us stronger souls... If you don't believe in a soul, then you will see no need to strengthen it. If the initial conditions plausibly allow many people to have defective souls, then he did something wrong.

If he is a deistic god, then he would have no reason to, but then what is the point of trying to find him, and why would he give us the ability to spiritually know him?

I'm confused as to the definition of a deistic God. I believe in a caring God, and that there is (a) benevolent wise reason(s) he isn't constantly communicating to us or answering prayers.

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

How can we 'know' god without such proofs when some people clearly don't 'know'?

I've made three theories now to answer this question, and I still don't know the answer .

But it is still more likely that it is not self-delusion and is actual experience, even though you cannot explain it and psychology has a scientifically valid answer?

Also, there is an evolutionary explanation to morality.

Even if there is an evolutionary proof that morality is binding, and not a delusional belief, humanity didn't believe in morality due to this proof.

Okay, I will grant you this. However, we have now found the root of this understanding. The claimed roots of this 'spiritual' understanding are defined in a way that they cannot be found without proving god directly. Everyone 'believes' in morality who is not insane. Yet, atheists such as Richard Dawkins are clearly intelligent, and yet they are alleged to be missing a self-evident truth. How can this be?

...assume...suppose...suppose that...yeah, that can really be debated with so many assumptions thrown in. Not to mention the that you left out the fact of god knowing his own reason for existing is also an assumption; if he is simply creator and not ultimate being he might not know.

I think you got a little frustrated here? If we are going to rule out that knowledge of God is possible, we should assume all possible explanations to why knowledge of God is possible and then show it to be impossible...or do you disagree?

Fair enough. And yes I was a little frusturated. I apologize if I appeared to be genuinely mad, or was rude. I had the idea that we were debating something of a slightly broader scope.

[Mystic]

I agree. I get the feeling that the only thing that justifies god's actions in the bible is because he says they are good, and he is so powerful no one dares to question him.

One argument I have for benevolent reasons of not sending Messengers/communicating to us, is that we would be dictated everything and wouldn't think for ourselves.

He could have given us stronger souls... If you don't believe in a soul, then you will see no need to strengthen it. If the initial conditions plausibly allow many people to have defective souls, then he did something wrong.

First we have to establish somethings. A lot of are defective in some ways, but how we embrace our faults with grace, is a strength itself. Also how we embrace people with faults is a strength.

It's true we could've been created with "powerful" souls that are incline to be good, to see God, and we could all been good at art, science, math... etc... and all super intelligent...all follow the truth...but is there seems to be possible wisdom in creating us with weaknesses that we have to overcome.

I say there is honour and beauty in the struggle. Personally, I suffer from a lot of the negative symptoms common of schizophrenics. It's easy for me to take no responsibility and attribute it to something I have no control over, but I refuse to do that.

Now I'm not doing perfectly well, but a lot better then before. It's also easy for me to say my "lack of insight" was totally the illness fault, but I believe I had partial control, and I was not ready to accept the truth, because it hit my pride. But I still could've, and it was not impossible.

Yes, a lot of my flaws, are influenced primarily through mental illness, but when I start overcoming lack of will, anti-socialness, etc, and medications make the negative symptoms worse in most cases, it has a "value" to it, the "struggle" has more value.

It's true most people are lucky they are without coming over such struggle, but they also miss out on the opportunity of the "struggle".

Also another thing to say, is that different human experiences, are although none perfect, are valuable enriching experiences regardless of the flaws in belief.

And animals too have their own experiences that are valuable as well. They all have value.

It's not necessarily that a person who knows God has a more enriching experience then who doesn't. The person who doesn't has to embrace life without such knowledge, and that has it's own honor and dignity.

But it is still more likely that it is not self-delusion and is actual experience, even though you cannot explain it and psychology has a scientifically valid answer?

Careful friend. Remember when design argument was inferred from biology. Took a while for evolution theory to come along and disprove that argument.

I'm bringing theories against arguments against Theism, like problem of evil or lack of knowledge of some humans from God...but these arguments are arguments from ignorance.

They are strong only in the same sense the design argument was strong, due to lack of explanation of evolution and other scientific theories.

Everyone 'believes' in morality who is not insane.

There are nihilist. Heck there is even people who don't believe in free-will, and without free-will, morality definitely is a delusion.

Yet, atheists such as Richard Dawkins are clearly intelligent, and yet they are alleged to be missing a self-evident truth. How can this be?

3 theories I don't know though. But I'm not think it's an issue of intelligence but rather spiritual power/strength in vision. If you are asking why scientist are more inclined to disbelieve, perhaps it's the case that people whom specialize in science love the field they specialize in and the type of reasoning they employ analytically, and that way of knowing, that they look down upon other forms/ways of knowledge?

Fair enough. And yes I was a little frusturated. I apologize if I appeared to be genuinely mad, or was rude. I had the idea that we were debating something of a slightly broader scope.

No problem. I don't think you were rude though.

[Angrboda]

Well, first off, you're talking to a Taoist, so I don't find any aspect of existence to be cold and sterile (see The Vinegar Tasters).

The exact working and function of science is poorly and incompletely understood, but from a pure methodological standpoint, I think one aspect is clear. Science has developed and prospered by finding ways to insulate scientists from their cognitive biases (from Bacon's market and bazaar to advanced Bayesian and statistical analysis to double blinding to falsification as a criterion of a good theory). The problem with simply letting emotion into the picture has to do with the way cognitive bias works (remember the bias blind spot?). The human mind may think it is seeing things plainly, but it cannot, in and of itself, reliably predict on its own that it is seeing things plainly. And given some of the practical necessities of minds and brains, you're almost better off always betting against the mind's accurate perception of bias and error. It's an epistemologically intractable problem. This is one of the backbones of science, it provides a tool that is not only capable of plain insight into matters, but also quantifiable reliability of those insights. Emotion has no such safeguards. Though I don't think it needs them. We can be both scientific and passionate; I think you're letting the common stereotype of materialistic philosophies as being nihilistic lead you into supposing we need something else. We don't. We could combine our values with a reliable method (science), or we could combine our values with an unreliable method (introspection and traditional spirituality); I think the clear winner here is science.

I'm not suggesting we give up either spirituality or emotion. What I am suggesting is that different tools have different strengths and weaknesses across varying domains. Like it or not, if we want to know about things that are outside of ourselves, science is the man for the job. And unless you're postulating an Idealism or panentheism, g/God does lie outside of you.

[Darkstar]

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I agree. I get the feeling that the only thing that justifies god's actions in the bible is because he says they are good, and he is so powerful no one dares to question him.

One argument I have for benevolent reasons of not sending Messengers/communicating to us, is that we would be dictated everything and wouldn't think for ourselves.

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Why would he have to dictate us if he proved his existence?

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He could have given us stronger souls... If you don't believe in a soul, then you will see no need to strengthen it. If the initial conditions plausibly allow many people to have defective souls, then he did something wrong.

First we have to establish somethings. A lot of are defective in some ways, but how we embrace our faults with grace, is a strength itself. Also how we embrace people with faults is a strength.

It's true we could've been created with "powerful" souls that are incline to be good, to see God, and we could all been good at art, science, math... etc... and all super intelligent...all follow the truth...but is there seems to be possible wisdom in creating us with weaknesses that we have to overcome.

I say there is honour and beauty in the struggle. Personally, I suffer from a lot of the negative symptoms common of schizophrenics. It's easy for me to take no responsibility and attribute it to something I have no control over, but I refuse to do that.

Now I'm not doing perfectly well, but a lot better then before. It's also easy for me to say my "lack of insight" was totally the illness fault, but I believe I had partial control, and I was not ready to accept the truth, because it hit my pride. But I still could've, and it was not impossible.

Yes, a lot of my flaws, are influenced primarily through mental illness, but when I start overcoming lack of will, anti-socialness, etc, and medications make the negative symptoms worse in most cases, it has a "value" to it, the "struggle" has more value.

It's true most people are lucky they are without coming over such struggle, but they also miss out on the opportunity of the "struggle".

Also another thing to say, is that different human experiences, are although none perfect, are valuable enriching experiences regardless of the flaws in belief.

And animals too have their own experiences that are valuable as well. They all have value.

It's not necessarily that a person who knows God has a more enriching experience then who doesn't. The person who doesn't has to embrace life without such knowledge, and that has it's own honor and dignity.

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According the christianity, that 'honor and dignity' includes burning eternally in hell. I understand that one would need to strengthen their soul. My point was that if someone is born not even believing thay have a soul at all, then they will naturally make no effort to strengthen it.

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But it is still more likely that it is not self-delusion and is actual experience, even though you cannot explain it and psychology has a scientifically valid answer?

Careful friend. Remember when design argument was inferred from biology. Took a while for evolution theory to come along and disprove that argument.

I'm bringing theories against arguments against Theism, like problem of evil or lack of knowledge of some humans from God...but these arguments are arguments from ignorance.

They are strong only in the same sense the design argument was strong, due to lack of explanation of evolution and other scientific theories.

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Design was assumed, but there are many things, even without evolution, that do not suggest design. Design, just like 'goddidit', has no predictive power. We can call it design, but does that actually mean anything? Confirmation bias, on the other hand, does exist and can be used to predict how people might act. Psychologists did not simply say they are 'irrational' and move on, but give an accurate assesment of the phenomenon.

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.

(bolding added in above and below quote)

A series of experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. In certain situations, this tendency can bias people's conclusions. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another explanation is that people show confirmation bias because they are weighing up the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way.

Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in military, political, and organizational contexts.

You can test this via the scientific method, 'design' was too vaguely and broadly defined to do that.

Everyone 'believes' in morality who is not insane.

There are nihilist. Heck there is even people who don't believe in free-will, and without free-will, morality definitely is a delusion.

Is it? The evolutionary explanation of morality would be equally valid if there is no free will. Also, if nihilists make any effort to be moral, they must believe in morality on some level, even if they do not acknowledge it (perhaps not even to themselves).

[Mystic]

Why would he have to dictate us if he proved his existence?

In the case of God sending Messengers, the Messengers life and ideas will all be taken as guided and an authority.

As for not talking to us via voices, perhaps, we have no way of recognizing the voices are from God.

Of course, if God made us know he exists, he would not have to dictate to us.

According the christianity, that 'honor and dignity' includes burning eternally in hell. I understand that one would need to strengthen their soul. My point was that if someone is born not even believing thay have a soul at all, then they will naturally make no effort to strengthen it.

Well Atheists believe in will power as well. They believe it's generated by the brain only as opposed to a spirit/soul, but never the less, they can struggle and try to overcome difficulties as well.

Design was assumed, but there are many things, even without evolution, that do not suggest design. Design, just like 'goddidit', has no predictive power. We can call it design, but does that actually mean anything?


Confirmation bias, on the other hand, does exist and can be used to predict how people might act. Psychologists did not simply say they are 'irrational' and move on, but give an accurate assesment of the phenomenon.

Sure confirmation bias is a possible theory behind our belief in God. But if all emotionally driven beliefs are fallacies, the same can be said about us knowing praise, value, or morals exist.

Is it? The evolutionary explanation of morality would be equally valid if there is no free will. Also, if nihilists make any effort to be moral, they must believe in morality on some level, even if they do not acknowledge it (perhaps not even to themselves).

I agree that everyone believes in morality to an extent, but people do take on the intellectual position that morality is a delusion as well.

It's like I said before, even a nihilist has pride, but that's not really possible without belief in objective praise/value.

But this doesn't change the fact, emotion is part of the "belief" experience of praise and morality.

[Darkstar]

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Why would he have to dictate us if he proved his existence?

In the case of God sending Messengers, the Messengers life and ideas will all be taken as guided and an authority.

As for not talking to us via voices, perhaps, we have no way of recognizing the voices are from God.

Of course, if God made us know he exists, he would not have to dictate to us.

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God could make it that we would recognize his voice; he can do anything.

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According the christianity, that 'honor and dignity' includes burning eternally in hell. I understand that one would need to strengthen their soul. My point was that if someone is born not even believing thay have a soul at all, then they will naturally make no effort to strengthen it.

Well Atheists believe in will power as well. They believe it's generated by the brain only as opposed to a spirit/soul, but never the less, they can struggle and try to overcome difficulties as well.

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You know what they say; third time's the charm. Allow me to explain this as concisely as I possibly can. If someone is born with a soul so weak that they are unaware of its existence, they will not attempt to strengthen it. I, for instance, do not 'feel god'. Becuase I cannot feel any form of soul whatsoever, I assume that I do not have one and thus make no effort to strengthen something that doesn't exist when I could be strengthening other things. Where there's a will, there''s a way. But what happens when the soul is too weak for even a will? Eternal torture...(not by any deistic god, mind you)

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Design was assumed, but there are many things, even without evolution, that do not suggest design. Design, just like 'goddidit', has no predictive power. We can call it design, but does that actually mean anything?


Confirmation bias, on the other hand, does exist and can be used to predict how people might act. Psychologists did not simply say they are 'irrational' and move on, but give an accurate assesment of the phenomenon.

Sure confirmation bias is a possible theory behind our belief in God. But if all emotionally driven beliefs are fallacies, the same can be said about us knowing praise, value, or morals exist.

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Morals are an evolutionary advantage; they do not fall into this category. The concept of value makes sense, and had a use ever since people began to barter. As for praise, my best guess would be that it is an extension of the value system to people.

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Is it? The evolutionary explanation of morality would be equally valid if there is no free will. Also, if nihilists make any effort to be moral, they must believe in morality on some level, even if they do not acknowledge it (perhaps not even to themselves).

I agree that everyone believes in morality to an extent, but people do take on the intellectual position that morality is a delusion as well.

It's like I said before, even a nihilist has pride, but that's not really possible without belief in objective praise/value.

But this doesn't change the fact, emotion is part of the "belief" experience of praise and morality.

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People can take the position that it is a delusion, but that doesn't make them right. As for emotion in beliefs, it is best to leave them out. Having emotions is perfectly acceptable, and minor descisions can be left to emotion (i.e. 'on a whim'). However, theists (ones with religions more than deists) seem to employ emotion more prominintly in descision making than reason, and that is where there starts to become a problem.

[The Grand Nudger]

What faults? What weaknesses? We're all breathing. I see neither. It isn't just that your "theories" seem to be massive non sequiturs.....you assume enough to choke a horse from the very premise....and continue to do so in attempting to support them. Seriously, step #1..and then we'll have some progress.

Honestly man, ffs...a "theory" as to why some people don;t know god? Whatever it takes to avoid demonstrating that you do...sigh.

[Mystic]

Religious people are relying on false reasoning within their minds.

"I believed in Jesus, it felt great, that's proof of Jesus"

"I believed in Jesus, it changed my life so drastically in a positive way, that's proof of Jesus".

"I like the feeling I get reading these words, it must be the holy spirit making me know it's true"

"I don't want to go to hell, this religion promises I won't go there if I believe, therefore I must believe".

etc...

It's all anecdotal experience that is based on false reasoning that they don't recognize and will laugh at if they ever realize the reasoning they are employing.

Religions are not believed in a properly basic manner.

Emotion does drive belief in religion, but it's all relied on false reasoning, that is said to be a personal experience, but is really a false inference.

The fear of Allah Muslims feel reading Quran, the constant praise of belief, the honor they get being praised, all that plays into their emotions, and they infer, "I don't want to be blind, deaf, and dumb, I want to be those whom ponder and see and believe and are praised, because that's the honorable way, therefore I believe".

Of course if they ever recognize how Quran strengthens their faith by constant appeal to emotion like that, they will feel embarrassed and say they never employ such reasoning, but it's a hidden reasoning they go through.

But is belief in praise and morality similar? No. Be it true or the nihilist are right, it's not inferred. We are inclined to take it as a granted for sure thing from early as children.

Now I would say praise and morality plays in the lives of children and adults and all humans, and as such, it's belief is universal, even if we disagree on the details.

But I want you to honestly distinguish belief in praise that is properly basic, from belief in ultimate source of praise that is ultimately praiseworthy, and tell me why it's rational to believe in praise, but not rational to believe in ultimate source of praise.

At the end, it's anecdotal. You feel the drive to believe in praise, the need of it, and hence hold on to the knowledge of praise. Without that emotional drive, there would be no clinging of the soul of that knowledge.

When we study for mathematics, we usually need a test, to practice our knowledge, and then apply it. If there is no test, no exam, we feel less inclined to learn and we easily forget.

Humans however tend to feel inclined to believe in God for various reasons. Now both Atheists and Theists agree upon that. The only question is the soul clinging to a knowledge or a delusion?

But if it's a delusion, simply because it's emotionally driven, than belief in praise would be baseless, because it's not only emotionally driven, but emotion is a property of every instance of belief in praise. You feel every time you are praised yourself, a sense of love towards the self. That love is part of the belief.

[Darkstar]

But if it's a delusion, simply because it's emotionally driven, than belief in praise would be baseless, because it's not only emotionally driven, but emotion is a property of every instance of belief in praise. You feel every time you are praised yourself, a sense of love towards the self. That love is part of the belief.

I agree with most of what you said except about the 'ulitimate source of praise'. Praise is a concept that cannot exist independent of life. God is a being that (allegedly) exists no matter what. You cannot compare a concept to something that is said to have an actual physical existence as more than an idea. However, it is a valid comparison, because (and I know you will disagree with this) god is just another concept or idea.

[Angrboda]

It's all anecdotal experience that is based on false reasoning that they don't recognize and will laugh at if they ever realize the reasoning they are employing.

Religions are not believed in a properly basic manner....

....But is belief in praise and morality similar? No. Be it true or the nihilist are right, it's not inferred. We are inclined to take it as a granted for sure thing from early as children.

Now I would say praise and morality plays in the lives of children and adults and all humans, and as such, it's belief is universal, even if we disagree on the details.

But I want you to honestly distinguish belief in praise that is properly basic, from belief in ultimate source of praise that is ultimately praiseworthy, and tell me why it's rational to believe in praise, but not rational to believe in ultimate source of praise.

As has been noted, the existence of an ultimately smelly thing is not necessary to establish smelliness.(**) (Dawkins, I believe.) The question to ask yourself is in what ways reasoning and rational thinking differs from moral judgements or praiseworthiness. Robert Burton in his book On Being Certain suggests the counter-intuitive notion that the differing (or seemingly different) modes of judging are actually unified by the same experiential mechanism or qualia, a thesis which has support in various quarters of psychology and neurology.

More fundamentally, if you cannot describe the nature of rational thinking, and how it is qualitatively different from moral thinking (or praise), then you are asserting that a difference that is not salient enough for you to describe it is evidence for something you can't detect. Or, unknown (difference) --> unknown (percept) --> unknown (thing/god). This chain of inference is highly problematic.

Anyway, I recommend that you read Burton; it will drive your thinking in new ways.


(**) Note that this is an artifact of smell having properties that are distributed, statistically, in reliable ways; perception of smelliness is perception of difference from a standard or mean (normal smell or absence of 'smelliness'), thus yielding two additional anchors for the "apparent" requirement for a transcendent source. Are you sure that these - praise and morals - are related, as difference from an ideal rather than difference from a mean, a mundane standard, or even a negative ideal (e.g. evil); note it is easier to identify that which is evil than what is good or virtuous.