I know most people on this forum don't, for those who believe (or used to):

• How do you define 'God'? 
  
• Why do you (or did you) believe that this God exists? 
  

When I was a kid, I lived across the street from a church where my grandmother was a Sunday school teacher. I was very close to her, and she fed me all the nice Jesus stuff that kinder adults tell kids when they don't want to scare them with hellfire. There's a certain amount of trust that has to go on between a child, and an adult family member, and she took advantage of that. Back then I figured as old as she was, if it wasn't true, she would have figured it out by then.

I was raised in the church. Then I grew out of it. Not too hard when you grow up in a more liberal church, though. Nobody's gonna beat you to death, or kick you out of the house in my family.

(June 29, 2016 at 8:09 am)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: I know most people on this forum don't, for those who believe (or used to):

• How do you define 'God'? [1]
  
• Why do you (or did you) believe that this God exists? [2]
  

1) I say this while emphasizing that I don't "define" god and then try to demonstrate that this definition exists. Any single 'definition' of god will always be inadequate and will always fail to account for the entire reality. I discover that this strange thing exists, and only later the term "god" becomes a convenient short-hand for that reality. Anyways, I find this to be a good starting point:

The subsistent act of 'being' = god

2) If some act of being does not subsist in itself, then any and every act of being is conditioned upon a synchronously existing infinity of conditioned acts of being. I don't see how that is possible. If it is impossible, then there MUST exist some act of being which is itself, unconditional: i.e. its own act of being is subsistent. I conclude, therefore, that the subsistent act of being exists.

1.) God Paradox. Being able to exist in spite of its contradictions. Which is easy to debunk, but it's still probably one of the better answers out there.

2.) Inherited. The beliefs were never truly my own. Just things indoctrinated into me as a child. This fucked up my psyche more than I realized. Since none of my beliefs were my own I was insecure of them and any disagreement and challenge to any of my beliefs in general I interpreted as an attack. Now that I've expanded my mind and started questioning my own beliefs, they are truly my own. They've been thought out logically, tested, understood, and accepted. And I know I'll be open enough to repeat the process in light of new information or opposing ideas, so they're reinforced and I'm more secured in them, and thus am a better person for it.

I wasn't indoctrinated, but if I had of been:

1) Whatever my parents say it is

2) Indoctrination

Hopefully followed by

3) Critical thinking

4) Atheism

I wish I could be sure I would have got that far. Depends on just how hard I was indoctrinated, probably.

God is that which the greater than which cannot be conceived.

Despite any emotional objections that I feel, I must bow to what I believe is the irrefutable logic of Aquinas.

(June 29, 2016 at 10:02 am)robvalue Wrote: I wasn't indoctrinated, but if I had of been:

1) Whatever my parents say it is

2) Indoctrination

Hopefully followed by

3) Critical thinking

4) Atheism

I wish I could be sure I would have got that far. Depends on just how hard I was indoctrinated, probably.

Oh, yeah. It can be bad. It took me 20+ years just to have the 'crisis of faith' necessary to be where I am now. Some people go even longer than that. Some people die indoctrinated, and that's just sad.

It is heartbreaking to me.

A whole life? Probably the only life?

People often forget to turn the dumb Pascal's Wager around and ask how much time, effort and money they've wasted if they are wrong. And how many life decisions have been made sub-optimally. And how many other minds have they poisoned...

(June 29, 2016 at 10:02 am)ChadWooters Wrote: God is that which the greater than which cannot be conceived.

Uh... what??

(June 29, 2016 at 10:56 am)The_Empress Wrote:

(June 29, 2016 at 10:02 am)ChadWooters Wrote: God is that which the greater than which cannot be conceived.

Uh... what??

Just a roundabout way of saying he's incomprehensible.