Here is why you should believe in God.

[onlinebiker]

So, a wall of text that provides nothing?

Sounds like god.

It provides a lot.

Unfortunately, few people need MORE bullshit in their life.......

But - if you're short - that there's a gold mine...

[chimp3]

Once again a Koran spawns another amateur philosopher.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I think Klorophyll is saying that we should believe in God because we believe in teriyaki and busted windows.

Boru

[R00tKiT]

It's fun to ponder.  We may be biological automatons reporting first person perspectives.  I still think that either way, if there's a little man behind the eyes or we're robots...."I" could still know other things.  

We could probably let it ride, and assume that the little man behind the eyes and the robot are both equally capable of rational inference.  Whichever one we happen to be -must- be...since we are, and I can think of no reason why the other would be incapable.  We know that machines can do logic.   

This is hand waving, and I agree with it. It still doesn't amount to rigorous proof for existence. There are no premises I can use to deduce my existence as some forced result.. except my subjective experience and personal awareness. The remarkable thing I am pointing to is that, despite the lack of formal proof... I still affirm that I exist and any further thought on the matter is futile.

There are alot of people who don't interrupt their lives to read or listen to something that would be informative. 

People act on self doubt at all times.  That self doubt might be brought on by some epistemological vacuum...but in the case of reductive theories of consciousness...it's hard to see why. 

I don't think anybody takes the "It's possible I don't exist" line of thought seriously.. it borders on sophistry. And this has nothing to do with the mind-body problem. Either way, our experience of consciousness is still immersing enough to make us feel the way we do, to make us ask these questions, etc. And we don't need to go deeper than what this immersing experience provides for us. That's all we have, basically.

That would be an axiomatic argument.  Do you have a compelling axiomatic argument for the existence of god..such that a person hearing it would find god's existence equally compelling?

I think it's possible to make the existence of a powerful, personal entity a forced result .. for example if I take the usual three premises/axioms;

(1) Something can't come from nothing;

(2) Something can't provide attributes it doesn't/can't have;

(3) Infinite causal regress is impossible

Then we would have, necessarily, a first cause with some desirable attributes. All three premises are defendable, and much more reasonable than their negative counterparts.

Needing good reasons to believe is axiomatic.  I'm not sure what you're clarifying here, or for whom.   I think we can all agree that we all like to have good reasons to believe in anything.  Do you have any of those reasons to share?

Needing good reasons to believe is not any type of formal argument, I think. Our first, instantaneous reflex regarding broken windows and stolen money should apply to the whole universe, basically. Just as the old saying goes " there are no atheists in the foxholes", there are no atheists when money is gone,and the burglar's existence becomes certain even to the most hardcore skeptic.

When stakes are too high - as is the case when we're robbed of our goods, we stop excessive doubt and we become more practical. It's more practical to think that a universe - built on knife edge conditions leading to our existence , was meant to be this way, than to reverse the argument and say any being that came to exist in any world will believe he was meant to exist.

Well, that depends.  Many god claims throughought history - which is to say many claims to good reasons to believe turned out to be natural reactions or events.  In no way separate to be worthy of note as divine™.  There's a literal embarassment of riches to be had here, as to how many times the faithful have exclaimed that some impentrable mystery of god is the only explanation for x...to turn out that sneezes were the explanation for x. 

And believing in these god claims was perfectly justifiable and reasonable. Abraham himself reportedly thought the Moon was god, then turned to the Sun, before *realising* that this ultimate entity doesn't have to be visible. And there is no reason to look for gaps and try to explain them with a god. As I said, we only know the processes, when John eat teryaki ribs at dinner, you can't possibly prove, formally, that John exists, even if you perfectly know the cooking recipe and the complete mechanical process of chewing his food. Nothing in science will lead you to John. And still, we need John to get the whole picture. No lengthy scientific theories can be substitutes for the simple sentence "John had dinner".
Now when one says "God created the universe". It's not a surprise, nor a problem, that nothing in our fields of study leads us to him. It's not a problem that all our breakthroughs in science "can't find god", just as your brilliant understanding of how teryaki ribs are made didn't lead you to John.

No, it isn't.  It's not even -an- explanation.  It's a misunderstanding of natural law.  You believe in a prescriptive lawgiver - that's the kind of law that needs a lawgiver.  Natural law is descriptive.  It's not what anyone says it is or determines it to be, only a description -of- what is.  However things are in any universe, no matter what they are - would be natural law. 

It's true that laws are descriptive, but I don't see how this invalidates my point. If they are descriptive, then they are describing a *carefully built* universe, or at the very least, a universe appearing to be designed, and we only need to act on appearance alone. The prima facie thing again is to warrant a sophisticated creator. Just as breaking into my house and stealing my money is apparently too sophisticated for other batshit explanations like rocks accidently smashing the glass and the wind blowing my money out of the bag.

---

Your argument stupidly assumes that nobody of other religions have ever used the same lingo or tatics.

What I have found in my 19 years of debating online is that every religion has followers who make the same arguments. 

Funny how scientific method always works outside religious bias. But religious bias can never agree on science. 

Scientific method is why a passenger jet will carry a Buddhist and Jew and Hindu and Christian and Muslim. And scientific method is why a computer works in Iran, or Nigeria or Ireland or Japan or South Korea or Saudi Arabia or Mississippi. 

I especially find this logic absurd today, especially knowing that , a microscopic virus is holding the entire planet hostage regardless of nationality, race, religion or politics.

Where did you see religion even mentioned in the post?

---

You can prove a lot of things but not to people who decide the result before looking at the evidence - which is exactly what you are promoting here. Then no amount of evidence can convince you, like let's say people who decided to believe in God say that fossils are created by the devil to make people disbelieve in Jesus. That's why you have to learn how to think first.

Lots of things can convince me. Bring any internal inconsistency/clear mistake/invalid argument in the Qur'an , or in the thousands of authentic sayings of Muhammad you can find in the web. I will gladly leave my religion.

[Pat Mustard]

All proofs need a starting point.

Yes, that starting point is evidence.  Now piss off with your unevidenced bullshit and try to find some.

There is no proof for actual existence whatsoever. Nobody can prove that anything exists.

Oh for fuck's sake. I refute it thus.

[ignoramus]

~ I will gladly leave my religion~

That is probably the most disingenuous thing I've ever read.

It's paradoxical.
If you let proof get in the way of your beliefs, then you don't have faith in your "god".

Please stop wasting our time with fallacies.

Next!

[R00tKiT]

~ I will gladly leave my religion~

That is probably the most disingenuous thing I've ever read.

It's paradoxical.
If you let proof get in the way of your beliefs, then you don't have faith in your "god".

Please stop wasting our time with fallacies.

Next!

Where is your proof that would jeopordize my belief? I'm all ears. In any case, I guess we have two very distinct conceptions of belief.

Yes, that starting point is evidence.  Now piss off with your unevidenced bullshit

Okay, I would first need evidence that you've learnt some manners on how to handle a civilised discussion.

[Fake Messiah]

That is probably the most disingenuous thing I've ever read.

It's paradoxical.
If you let proof get in the way of your beliefs, then you don't have faith in your "god".

Please stop wasting our time with fallacies.

Next!

Where is your proof that would jeopordize my belief? I'm all ears. In any case, I guess we have two very distinct conceptions of belief.

Every time some religious person defends, or should I say explains, how some mistake and inconsistency in their holy book is not a mistake, always ends up looking like when Conan o'Brien explains how mistakes in his show are not actually mistakes and how you are the one who is making a mistake

One example:




In other words it's dishonest.

[R00tKiT]

Every time some religious person defends, or should I say explains, how some mistake and inconsistency in their holy book is not a mistake, always ends up looking like when Conan o'Brien explains how mistakes in his show are not actually mistakes and how you are the one who is making a mistake

Oh, so when atheists screw up and bring apparent contradictions that really aren't contradictions, we're supposed to clap at their findings ?

[The Grand Nudger]

This is hand waving, and I agree with it. It still doesn't amount to rigorous proof for existence. There are no premises I can use to deduce my existence as some forced result.. except my subjective experience and personal awareness. The remarkable thing I am pointing to is that, despite the lack of formal proof... I still affirm that I exist and any further thought on the matter is futile.

I don't think anybody takes the "It's possible I don't exist" line of thought seriously.. it borders on sophistry. And this has nothing to do with the mind-body problem. Either way, our experience of consciousness is still immersing enough to make us feel the way we do, to make us ask these questions, etc. And we don't need to go deeper than what this immersing experience provides for us. That's all we have, basically.

Plenty of people affirm plenty of things without proof - moot point really..since we were discussing good reasons to believe.  I have good reasons to believe I exist..and good reasons to think I might exist in a way that makes the "I" incoherent.  We've just been using those semantics of self for so long they've become a linguistic tick.  Lets say one of those theories of consciousness turns out to be right.  That "I" is an artifact of a system.  It probably wouldn't stop us from calling ourselves I.  It certainly wouldn;t stop us from talking about what else we know, or might know..since not knowing one thing doesn't mean that you don't or can't know anything. I don't know what form my "I"s existence takes, and I don't know how a cellphone works..but that doesn't prevent me from knowing a great deal of other stuff about a wide range of other things. Personally, I think it helps. Anytime I think I know something..I recall that the I is both iffy, and compelling in funny but untrue ways. You seem to be wholly unaware of that by the laundry list of invalid things you offer below as "good reason" - eradicating your own axiomatic insistence.

Further thought obviously isn't futile, and reductive or eliminitive theories have everything to do with (and whether) there's a mind body problem.  If any of them are true, there isn't.  You may have no interest in engaging in it, ofc.  I don't have any trouble taking it seriously, and neither do philosophers or researchers.  

I think it's possible to make the existence of a powerful, personal entity a forced result .. for example if I take the usual three premises/axioms;

(1) Something can't come from nothing;

(2) Something can't provide attributes it doesn't/can't have;

(3) Infinite causal regress is impossible

Then we would have, necessarily, a first cause with some desirable attributes. All three premises are defendable, and much more reasonable than their negative counterparts.

There are plenty of conclusions that can be forced, if you want to.  Poor examples, though. 

1. If something can't come from nothing, except for god™, it may as well be except for the universe™.  If you do actually believe that something can come from nothing, then you need to rephrase to be more accurate in your special pleading.  

2. Aluminum can't fly, and yet a 747 is made from it.  Parts and wholes. Human beings are made of organic chemistry. Carbon is lifeless and yet lifegiving. Long story short, it's demonstrably true that things can "give properties they don't have".

3. Flat out wrong..again.  Infinite regress is very much a possibility, it's just not useful to generating conclusions - which is the point of logical inference.  That's the reason that logical inference sees no value in regress - not because of some base impossibility.

Needing good reasons to believe is not any type of formal argument, I think. Our first, instantaneous reflex regarding broken windows and stolen money should apply to the whole universe, basically. Just as the old saying goes " there are no atheists in the foxholes", there are no atheists when money is gone,and the burglar's existence becomes certain even to the most hardcore skeptic.

When stakes are too high - as is the case when we're robbed of our goods, we stop excessive doubt and we become more practical. It's more practical to think that a universe - built on knife edge conditions leading to our existence , was meant to be this way, than to reverse the argument and say any being that came to exist in any world will believe he was meant to exist.

Needing good reasons is an axiom of belief.  Axioms aren;t arguments - they;re the basis of all rational argument. A person doesn't actually need any reasons to believe, good or bad - and those who refer to reasons generally refer to bad ones - as you've done.  They only do so because they accept axioms about the necessity of reasonable belief, and want to be a rational person who can justify the things they believe. It's a bit cross purpose when it comes to gods and faith, in some traditions.

And believing in these god claims was perfectly justifiable and reasonable. Abraham himself reportedly thought the Moon was god, then turned to the Sun, before *realising* that this ultimate entity doesn't have to be visible. And there is no reason to look for gaps and try to explain them with a god. As I said, we only know the processes, when John eat teryaki ribs at dinner, you can't possibly prove, formally, that John exists, even if you perfectly know the cooking recipe and the complete mechanical process of chewing his food. Nothing in science will lead you to John. And still, we need John to get the whole picture. No lengthy scientific theories can be substitutes for the simple sentence "John had dinner".
Now when one says "God created the universe". It's not a surprise, nor a problem, that nothing in our fields of study leads us to him. It's not a problem that all our breakthroughs in science "can't find god", just as your brilliant understanding of how teryaki ribs are made didn't lead you to John.

 "Abraham" reportedly did those things as a direct criticism of sun and moon worshippers - alot of magic book is a screed written against the competition.  Sure, though, there's no reason to look for gaps to try and fill with god - this wouldn't be "perfectly justifiable and reasonable".  It's not good reason, and we need good reasons.  

If you're of the opinion that neither I..nor anything in science..can lead us to John..then I can't help you.  That's not true, but if you take it as an axiom, then your conclusions will be forced along predictable lines.  You seem to think that we can know through processes. It would very much be a problem if nothing in our fields of study lead us to god through his purported processes, if we can know things by their processes - as you asserted.  Do you have any particular process in mind..that we can know god through?

It's true that laws are descriptive, but I don't see how this invalidates my point. If they are descriptive, then they are describing a *carefully built* universe, or at the very least, a universe appearing to be designed, and we only need to act on appearance alone. The prima facie thing again is to warrant a sophisticated creator. Just as breaking into my house and stealing my money is apparently too sophisticated for other batshit explanations like rocks accidently smashing the glass and the wind blowing my money out of the bag.

Natural law is just a description of the way things are.  Natural law doesn't require a lawgiver - and whatever the natural laws happen to be..however they happen to be - even without a god, they would still be natural law.  Your assertion that natural law is a carefully built universe is just that, and no amount of looking at natural law can tell us that some ghost spoke those laws into existence.  Prima facie? You're really butchering these terms.  Why do balls fall down?  Is the prima facia explanation that ghosts push them?  

Recall, you insisted that natural law requires a lawgiver - but this is factually untrue. Natural law..descriptive law, does not require any such lawgiver. Therefore your argument is wrong even if there is such a lawgiver. In specific terms, you constructed a non sequitur out of an equivocation.

Lots of things can convince me. Bring any internal inconsistency/clear mistake/invalid argument in the Qur'an , or in the thousands of authentic sayings of Muhammad you can find in the web. I will gladly leave my religion.

I strongly doubt that this is the case.  Correcting your misapprehensions doesn't seem to have the effect of changing anything that you believe about anything..in my experience.  Let's test that, though.

What if magic book got human development wrong because they were mindlessly repeating what a greek philosopher said..verbatim...and he was wrong?  Would that be the kind of glaring omission you wouldn't expect from a god?  

What if magic book claimed some thing happened which absolutely never did?  Like, say, creation, or the deluge, or the exodus, or the splitting of the moon?

What if magic book argued from an assumed conclusion?  If it argued that the children of adam bore witness so no one could say they didn't know that allah was their god?  If it argued an ad pop....that alot of people would say "god" if you asked them who created the world, therefore god.  If it argued that people in distress cry out to god, therefore god.  If it argued that islam made you feel better, therefore god?  If it argued that people who believe in god have more stuff, therefore god.  If it argued that human beings didn't create the universe, therefore god? 

I could go on and on and on.......

What are the "authentic sayings of big mo"...which group of competing authentic sayings, and how do we explain why people seem to think that some set from one group are in competition with the other set from the other group?   Why big mo specifically, and why would it matter if he could keep his own thoughts coherent?  People can do that and still be wrong.  Galen was, and since galen was wrong (but apparently convincing to the very human authors of magic book - unless galen fooled god too) - then internal consistency is not a valid metric for existential claims. 

So...there are a handful of inarguable mistakes, invalid arguments attributed to both god and big mo in magic book, and even some question as to why you've assumed that you're looking for falsification in the right place.  Maybe you're reading the wrong magic book. If you actually did respond to rational consideration - you wouldn't have tried to pick a fight over magic book. Magic book is doa even if a god exists.

This realization isn't too far separated from what many agnostics might tell you. They don't know whether there's a god - but they do know that magic books are garbage when it comes to gods. As we began this convo..not knowing one thing doesn't mean you can't know another. Honestly, none of these things are (or are meant to be taken as) arguments against a god - but they're very much arguments against your own god - arguments which fit exactly the criterion you offered, arguments which will not..as you asserted, effect your beliefs. Ultimately, you're an idol worshipper. You believe in magic book, not gods, and that;s why you asked for some comment on magic book..instead of a god. This is unfortunate, because it's trivially easy to show any magic books shortcomings. God doesn't have to be a casualty of your idol worship - but you're going to insist that he be.

*As a funny addendum, I smile everytime someone uses the word sophistry in these convos. The sophists were professional debaters. The very existence of the term as an insult is an expression of frustration over having been trounced by some asshole who debates professionally, and can do so on either side of any debate. I only argue from good reason because you insisted on that axiomatically. I could argue from a point of faith, instead. That you are an unfaithful person allowing your own pride and humanity to compel you to misinform others about god, but that isn't likely to effect your beliefs either.

Absolutely no evidence or argument that I can offer will do that - no one can argue you out of something you didn't argue your way into.

In this, I think that the effect of modern secularization on religions (yours included) is a risk - as so many faith leaders havce contended. As a free hanging belief god is untouchable - but when we attempt to rationalize god we unintentionally subject it to falsification by known means. That may not be an issue for every believer, I doubt that it will be an issue for you - but if you took the time to read many of our deconversion posts you'd find that the majority of atheists here who fell away from faith didn;t do so until they introduced rational inference as a valid metric. They were trying to argue themselves into belief, or a strengthened belief...but in doing so they began to attempt to argue themselves into or back into it - provided the lever required to finally argue themselves out of it.