Religion/god is just wishful thinking.

[pocaracas]

I said know on purpose, they're a multitude of Christians who know God, He's revealed Himself to us because we have searched in belief for His revelations about who He is. Just as you know you're a living person, we know God is a living being.

So, if you believe god exists, then god exists? Wow.

We know God exists in belief, we learn who He is from revelation, through His word or from Him. Are you so thick headed that you can not understand this, and you make fun of me. Wow.

Sorry for butting in, but.... yeah...
To me, knowledge and belief are two very different things.... unless you enter the philosophy subforum.

We received our knowledge of God from God, you can have the same knowledge, all that's needed is to ask God.

The circularity. It's... it's too perfect!!!

Oh, then I suppose that scientist do not receive knowledge from the subject they study, seems I heard from them that they do, is this circular too. How about an autobiography, when someone explains to others who they are, that's circular as well, shucks I guess it's back to the drawing board.

You failed to understand your own circularity.... it ends at the last word in your sentence, not half way.
You ask god to receive "knowledge" of god.
Try this exercise: you have no concept of god. How do you receive "knowledge of god"?

[FallentoReason]

I said know on purpose, they're a multitude of Christians who know God, He's revealed Himself to us because we have searched in belief for His revelations about who He is. Just as you know you're a living person, we know God is a living being.

So, if you believe god exists, then god exists? Wow.

We know God exists in belief, we learn who He is from revelation, through His word or from Him. Are you so thick headed that you can not understand this, and you make fun of me. Wow.

Oh, then I suppose that scientist do not receive knowledge from the subject they study, seems I heard from them that they do, is this circular too. How about an autobiography, when someone explains to others who they are, that's circular as well, shucks I guess it's back to the drawing board.

The difference is that when I go to study science, I can actually demonstrate the reality of the scientific method. And if my hypothesis yields no results, I don't continue to claim that it's true.

I did not say anything about you or anyone else studying science, so stop trying to turn the discussion in another direction please. Subject= thing being studied such as an animal, tree, rock, atom or what ever. See above bold.

As for autobiographies... I don't really need to demonstrate that I exist if I'm writing one, do I? This is all hideously malformed.

I never referred to a person who's written an autobiography as trying to teach existence, existence is assumed. I said that the person is telling others who he is. What is hideously malformed is your thought process, thinking you can turn around what I've stated into what you want it to read.

---

Nope. They don't need to presuppose their subject exists in order to study it and then confirm they can know about it because it exists. Science deals with the world that evidently exists.


Nope. Same reason as above.

I did not say anything about existence that is assumed, I said received knowledge from to learn about what the thing might be or how it functions. You seem to have the same problem Esquilax does.
As for those scientist they presupposed dark matter exists in order to study it, as a matter of fact they still do, presuppose dark matter.

This is actually still related to existence. You're using circular reasoning for God because you need to presuppose he exists in order to believe you can get information from him that confirms he exists. The scientist simply gets knowledge from what they're studying... prod it, smell it, observe it... what's the problem?

As for dark matter, I don't have a degree in physics so I can't comment on it.

[pocaracas]

Dark matter appears as a hypothesis to explain the apparent absence of visible matter to explain the rate of expansion of this visible matter.
If all the visible matter cannot account for it, then there must be some invisible matter, lets call it dark, because it emits no light.
Now, if there's so much of this dark matter out there, it should have some impact on normal matter, besides the rate of expansion, let's look for that.... what do you know? they found something like that!

See how science works?
Watch the world, do some math, come up with a prediction, the world doesn't seem to match up... maybe we're missing something... What would happen if we put this thing there?.... ah, that... ok let's see if that happens...yes it does! AWESOME! OR, no it doesn't... damn... back to the drawing board (this last option happens more often than the first, but you only get the successes in your schoolbooks, encyclopedias and the like.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Amusing how everyone piles on Godschild, but ignores all the unsupported assertions of the OP.

...theists, deists and pagans alike know well...the belief in a god/s is farfetched ...

Do I? I know some others have asserted that believers are deluded. Prove that believers actually know god is far-fetched as opposed to personal delusions, fraud, crowd control or even maybe actually responding to a spiritual influence. You can not.

...It is more than filling a void and having some kind of moral ground and meaning to life but, rather their ambition to live beyond the grave. All religious people, I believe, have this great fear of death. ...they make it their priority to cling to this idea of god/s ...to give them hope, hope of a happy ever after...

You mention ambition. What like climbing the spiritual corporate later to a bigger office? In my experience very few believers accept God simply because they fear death. Most find it very enriching. It enlightens daily living and gives purpose to work. Religion gives a community structure seeking common charitable goals. And yes, it provides care and comfort to people who are dying and in distress.

While I can understand your sentiment as an atheist, your assessment is overly simplistic.

[Faith No More]

While I can understand your sentiment as an atheist, your assessment is overly simplistic.

I had to give you kudos for this, Chad. I think we atheists do a disservice to ourselves when we try simplify the motivations behind religious belief and claim that there is only one influential factor. It seems only to reinforce the stereotype that atheists just don't "get" religion.

Do I think that fear of death factors into religious beliefs? Absolutely, I do, but to simply assert without evidence that something as complex as the motivations behind religion can be boiled down to one factor is, to me, counterproductive.

[ThomM]

Some may be that way, many including myself knows without doubts that the God of the Bible is real. Because you can't get your head around what we actually know is not our fault, nor is it our responsibility to make you change your mind. We received our knowledge of God from God, you can have the same knowledge, all that's needed is to ask God.

Sorry - but the GODS of the bible cannot be real - and there are LOTS of them in the bible - over 20 named specifically (And not as false gods as well)
THe problem with people who use the "bible" is that they actually have never read the whole thing - and it contains lots of things that they would never believe was in it - if reality acceptors said it.

Gods are CLEARLY human created things to explain to uneducated masses why they should fall in line. We receive no knowledge from gods - and worse -their religions tend to requires acceptance of things that are already proven physically wrong. For centuries - the bible was claimed to be the inerrant inspired word - but over the last few centuries - more and more of the bible has fallen into the category of myth - legend - and outright exaggeration and NONSENSE. THere are lots of things in the bible that are inherently immoral and unethical - that are overlooked by the "faithful".

+ Example - the passover- was simply a story of mass murder done by the god - because the people killed themselves did NOTHING to deserve to be killed - if we are personally responsible and NOT responsible for the sins of another - then the god should be HANGED for what it did in the story.

Thankfully - reality sets in - the passover never happened because Israel was not under bondage to Egypt at the time - it fact it may have not even existed at that time. And as we already know - there is not a single document that can be dated to the supposed time of the christ that even mentions his name - another myth created by religion

YOU may have a right to believe in anything you want to - to claim that your belief does things requires PROOF - something you never give - because no one has ever proven that any god exists. Worse - all we ned to do to determine that the christian religion is false is ask CHRISTIANS - who will gladly give lots of logical reasons why each OTHER denomination is false - leaving none left to consider

[frz]

While I can understand your sentiment as an atheist, your assessment is overly simplistic.

I had to give you kudos for this, Chad. I think we atheists do a disservice to ourselves when we try simplify the motivations behind religious belief and claim that there is only one influential factor. It seems only to reinforce the stereotype that atheists just don't "get" religion.

Do I think that fear of death factors into religious beliefs? Absolutely, I do, but to simply assert without evidence that something as complex as the motivations behind religion can be boiled down to one factor is, to me, counterproductive.

People often add things to spiced up and or sugar coated their argument to derailed it from its main purpose all the time. I've seen it happen a lot. There's a word for that I can't remember at the moment. Any who, doesn't it come as odd that amongst the religious, the elders tend to be even more faithful to their belief than the young? That even though they were not that into it while they were younger but now, years later into their life, some of them can hardly separate themselves, even for a minute, away from their holy book.

Then there's those, as we've read here on the forum, had some life tragedy happened to them and suddenly they can't phantom the idea that a god does not exist. They don't want to. It pains them just to think about it.
This also why they make claims of atheists to have death bed confessions. They think that, at the end of the day, we are probably like them, wishing their was more to life.

[Faith No More]

People often add things to spiced up and or sugar coated their argument to derailed it from its main purpose all the time. I've seen it happen a lot. There's a word for that I can't remember at the moment. Any who, doesn't it come as odd that amongst the religious, the elders tend to be even more faithful to their belief than the young? That even though they were not that into it while they were younger but now, years later into their life, some of them can hardly separate themselves, even for a minute, away from their holy book.

Then there's those, as we've read here on the forum, had some life tragedy happened to them and suddenly they can't phantom the idea that a god does not exist. They don't want to. It pains them just to think about it.

See, in your second paragraph you readily admit that it is a little more complicated than a simple fear of death.

I'm not saying fear of death has nothing to do with it, however, I think you are trying to simplify the reasons behind beliefs. If you are trying to show people that they have psychological reasons for clinging to belief, this simplification portrays a misunderstanding, and you will quickly dismissed by the religious.

This also why they make claims of atheists to have death bed confessions. They think that, at the end of the day, we are probably like them, wishing their was more to life.

I think it's more of an attempt to bolster their claims. "See! So and so, who was an ardent atheist, finally saw the truth in our religion!"

[Esquilax]

We know God exists in belief, we learn who He is from revelation, through His word or from Him. Are you so thick headed that you can not understand this, and you make fun of me. Wow.

Well, that's sort of my point. It's a combination of many things, but in the end it comes down to presupposition; you believe god exists, and so you're willing to see signs of his existence where there are none. It's confirmation bias; there's no objective evidence, just "we know god exists in belief."

I did not say anything about you or anyone else studying science, so stop trying to turn the discussion in another direction please. Subject= thing being studied such as an animal, tree, rock, atom or what ever. See above bold.

And, as I pointed out, the difference is that the things involved in science are demonstrable. Your god is not.

I never referred to a person who's written an autobiography as trying to teach existence, existence is assumed. I said that the person is telling others who he is. What is hideously malformed is your thought process, thinking you can turn around what I've stated into what you want it to read.

My whole issue was pointing out that your knowledge of god comes from nothing but your own preconceived biases, while these other things do not. Seriously, how are you not getting this?

I did not say anything about existence that is assumed, I said received knowledge from to learn about what the thing might be or how it functions. You seem to have the same problem Esquilax does.
As for those scientist they presupposed dark matter exists in order to study it, as a matter of fact they still do, presuppose dark matter.

Can you demonstrate that your knowledge of god corresponds to something real? Yeah, I thought not...

[Tonus]

IMO, these theists, deists and pagans alike know well, especially the apologies, that religion, the belief in a god/s is farfetched but, they wish it wasn't so. It is obvious from their efforts debating their claim of god/s and religion, the emotional responses of why it "should" be true though, they can not provide any proof. It is more than filling a void and having some kind of moral ground and meaning to life but, rather their ambition to live beyond the grave. All religious people, I believe, have this great fear of death. The idea of a finite life scares the bejesus out of them and they refuse to accept it. Because of this life threatened issue that they have, they make it their priority to cling to this idea of god/s and the religions they create around said idea to give them hope, hope of a happy ever after, never ending life.

I believed in it because I thought it was real. No other reason, really. The perks (eternal life in paradise) were great, but it wasn't a case of wanting to believe it because the perks were so nice. I just believed because I'd been raised to believe. "It is because it is" simply happens to be a weak foundation, and in time I realized that it wasn't real.

In many ways I still wish it was real. Mostly because of how much I love animals and biology. There is a certain sadness to knowing I won't ever have a Bengal Tiger as a pet and be able to scratch him behind the ears without risking the loss of an arm. Or be part of the first group of humans to colonize Saturn (humor me). But wanting stuff to be true isn't a very productive way to go through life. It just serves as a distraction. So I put those things aside and live the life that is within my reach.