RE: Do you wish there's a god?
March 26, 2019 at 11:23 am
(This post was last modified: March 26, 2019 at 11:34 am by Simon Moon.)
(March 20, 2019 at 3:28 am)Catharsis Wrote: When the sun rises over the good and the bad
and the rain pours on the righteous as well as the wicked,
wouldn't you wish there's a god?
Besides all ideas about the creator being a wicked psychopath
wouldn't you wish for a loving god?
No.
There is not a single idea of a god that interacts with the universe on human's behalf or hinderance that I've ever been presented with, that is not tantamount to a dictatorship.
Even a benevolent god would be a dictator.
(March 20, 2019 at 6:27 am)Acrobat Wrote:(March 20, 2019 at 5:16 am)Belaqua Wrote: I think you'll see from the replies that people here focus their not-belief on a very specific image of God. Basically a naive literalist reading of the early Old Testament.
Though people are adamant that their not-belief extends to all the different images of God people have believed in, this is the one that they talk about. What William Blake called Nobodaddy. It doesn't matter that no theologian has ever agreed with that view.
Sometimes it seems as if people formed a view of the Christian God when they were about 12 years old, decided it was bad, and stopped believing. It doesn't occur to them that a 12-year-old might not have the most well-informed judgment.
I'm curious of your own view of this. Is there a way for you to describe your thoughts about what God is in a way that wouldn't require as many pages as Thomas Aquinas wrote? People here will insult you no matter what you say, so in that sense any reaction will be the same. But I'm curious.
I think it's interesting that atheists here indicate they don't want God to exist, that they prefer there be no God. I would say such a desire plays a significant role in why they don't believe. Creates a barrier to prevent belief.
I have no barrier that prevents me from belief.
I am able to believe anything that is supported by: demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, reasoned argument, and valid and sound logic.
If your version of a god was able to meet the above criteria, I would be compelled (by my intellectual honesty) to believe it exists. But please note, just because I would then believe it exists (if the case for its existence met the above criteria), does not mean I would be compelled to worship it.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.