Do you wish there's a god?

[Catharsis]

Do you know what I wish?  That you’d finish out one thread before you start another.

The replies in this one are pretty clear to me.

Is it bad to have two or three threads running at once?

Or is it too.. godlike?

[Peebothuhlu]

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?

Well... no.

Because there'd be nothing for people to strive to learn.

Said diety has 'Done' everything for their own inscrutable purpose.

Not only that, but, if the diety has the powers that most Mono-thiests assert... then said deity can simply change any and all of reality to whatever new setting it likes.

Now, just replying with the assertion that said deity must be good is like me asserting that Cthuhlu must not be hungry when awoken.

Your beliefe of any diety's state is nothing but that. Wishful thinking on your part. No diety need confrom to any mundane soul's wishes, after all.

Not at work.

[robvalue]

Well sure, if a nice guy could take over the running over our reality and make everything better, that would be great.

[chimp3]

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?

We know why the sun appears to rise and why it rains. Gods are not the default explanation.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

So how do you go about deciding what is real or not meant to be taken as real ?

And how do you think theologians go about deciding the same question ?

How do we go about studying any complicated subject? 

Sincere and open-minded study. Patience. Humility. Lots of discussion and even more reading.

Here is another way in which emotion may determine outcome. In cases of subjects which aren't immediately practical, people usually have to love the subject before they study it. As with music, someone who already loves music is way more likely to study its practice, theory, and history. Nobody studies music for twenty years and then makes up his mind whether he likes it or not. 

This is NOT to say that we should study anything with preconceptions and work to shore them up. It's just to say that beginning with a dislike of something is unlikely to lead to any sincere effort.

You seem to be saying that anyone who doesn't already believe in God isn't fit to study the subject.  The upshot of this is that we can only trust the conclusions of people who already loved God before attempting to determine God's existence.

Helluva way to run a research programme.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Adding to the fact that atheists love fantasy as much as the next cretin..is that anthropology is as chock full of atheists as any other portion of academia.  I suppose we should just throw all of their work in the dustbin, since it's unlikely to be sincere and account of how they don't like gods™ despite spending their lives studying the various myths?

Of all the silly conversations that we have to have over and over on these boards, this one is the worst, lol. People are atheists because they don't believe in gods. People who don't like the gods are called maltheists. If someone wants to have a conversation about maltheism, then fine..but what we're going to find is that maltheists have often been very much in the know about the traditions of gods they didn't like.

[Belacqua]

You seem to be saying that anyone who doesn't already believe in God isn't fit to study the subject.

That is not at all what I am saying.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You seem to be saying that anyone who doesn't already believe in God isn't fit to study the subject.

That is not at all what I am saying.

Certainly looks that way:

In cases of subjects which aren't immediately practical, people usually have to love the subject before they study it.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Theism is no more equivalent to enjoying the subject of gods than atheism is to disliking the same.  The most ardent theists have very little patience for the subject of gods, whilst the worlds leading authorities on the subject tend not to believe in quetzalcoatl.  

The whole thing is nutter shit, a variation on the theme of "you just don't like god".

...but that's not actually how any of this works.  It's not how atheism works, it's not how academic satisfaction works, it's not how sincerity of effort is judged, and it's not representative of reality in the slightest.

[Yonadav]

Well sure, if a nice guy could take over the running over our reality and make everything better, that would be great.

That's brilliant! You answered the question asked in the OP without saying anything about how loaded it was, or accusing the poster of making assumptions, or attacking them personally.