Is it ok to believe in God......

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Well, ok, let's think about the question for a minute:

Is it OK to believe in God?

Depends on what is meant by "OK".

I personally think it's generally morally/ethically ok to believe in whatever you want to believe in, but there are circumstances that make it ethically not ok.

Logically/scientifically speaking, however, it's not "OK".

It's illogical to believe in anything without proof.

When it comes to a god, I have yet to encounter any proof, let alone evidence. It always comes down to faith, which is the belief of something without necessity of proof. So people who believe in a god through faith do so without needing proof. It doesn't get much more absurd than that.

What proof do you have to believe that's illogical? You have no proof or evidence of logic beyond logic itself. You cannot prove logic without using logic, in other words, and that is question-begging.

And no, it doesn't come down to pure, blind faith. If the Bible is taken as true, then you have a collection of histories of those who have experienced God for themselves and committed their testimony to writing. We have their testimony as evidence and no clear reason as people who have also experienced God to suspend belief.

Everything eventually boils down to faith, anyway. You have faith in logic despite committing a circular-reasoning fallacy, and you are unable to support your belief in logic without using a reasoning mind to draw those conclusions. I have no need to take a motor vehicle apart and inspect every piece of it every time I want to go somewhere. It has consistently worked and I have no need ordinarily to doubt that...at least until the fuel pump goes out. On faith I can call a towing company to get the car to a repair shop, and on faith I'll get someone there to fix the problem. I believe in them because they fix cars...it's what they do. And on faith I'll believe them when they say the car is fixed, and I'll keep believing that until I have good reason not to.

People SAY they don't "believe" in science, but they really do believe. When you read something in a peer-reviewed journal, you take it on faith that the evidence was collected properly and that the conclusions are both true and valid. You don't actually have possession of the evidence, so you have no certainty that the conclusions based on that evidence are even true, assuming that the conclusions are valid. If untrue, then validity is irrelevant. If you DO have possession of the evidence, then that's great for you, but how is anyone else supposed to believe you if they don't have it? All they can do at best is rely on your expertise (and risk making an appeal to authority) and take your word for it.

Evidence without faith is dead.

And if you place your faith in logic, bear in mind that logical proofs for the existence of God abound. If it is logical to believe in God, no amount of evidence or lack thereof render that faith absurd, or at least no more absurd than "believing" in science or logic.

Logic tells us it's illogical. By definition, logic is the very tool to reason; the proof is the nature of logic. Proof is the demand for logic, so it's self-evident, as well everyday use of logic provides inductive proof. If you doubt logic, then why are you using it to doubt it? How else can you process data without logic? Logic is the method by which we process data. To question logic is to question thinking. You're clearly arguing, so you're clearly using logic, yet you question logic. It's therefore absurd (in the technical, not derisive, sense) to question logic, the very tool you use in this line of questioning. Questioning logic is a play on words, but once you dissect it, it becomes apparent it's an invalid line of reasoning.


What is the proof then that the Bible is true?


If everything boils down to faith, then what's an example? I've already explain how logic is not based on faith. Interesting that you are so quick to say I am unable to support my belief before you've asked me for support.

We don't need to know who or why a motor vehicle works to know it works. If the question is whether it works, you test whether it works. Understanding why or how it works is not necessary. So that is not faith.

Calling a towing company to get a car to a repair shop is not faith. Through inductive reasoning, you know a towing company will do the trick. And through deductive reasoning, the shop's reputation is good reason to trust in them.

None of these are examples of faith. Are you sure you know what faith is? Faith is the suspension of reason. In all your examples, you use reason to make your decisions.


Sounds like the people you talk to don't understand what "belief" is. Everyone should believe in science, precise because we have good reason to.

Again, you misunderstand what faith is. We have good reason to trust peer-reviewed journals. What reason is there to trust or believe in God? So far, I have heard none from you, but I've heard plenty of attempts to attack belief and logic.


Logic is not based on faith. It's based on observation of reality.

What proof (why would you have proof that isn't logical?) is there then for the existence of God if they abound?

The difference between science/logic and God is that the former is based on reality while the latter is based on the dismissal of reality.

Last edited by Ctrl_F4 on 02 Oct 2013, 8:59 am, edited 2 times in total.

all i know are the essential truths of reality.

there was a time before anything existed.

there was never a time before time. time has always existed, and so existence is the fabric of reality, reality has always been.

but energy that was infinitely sublime suddenly became manifest in an inconceivably omnipotent way.

That's all you know? And how do you know this?

logically, if there was a "time" that "time" did not exist, then there could never have been a causation for the eruption of the elemental universe and all it's forms.

just consider the matter in your own brain and not rely on wiki stuff which you can not understand i would suspect.

anyway, i want to say again that i have already been dead forever before i was born.

Interesting that you would reduce all the elements of my statement down to Satan but noT surprising at ALL as many people are conditioned from early childhood that this 'simple' metaphor for the dark side of humanity is an actual 'anthropomorphized being' if you will..

This could not be farther from the TRUTH of the original writers of religious text..

The were all poets in effect...

The big problem was when people started taking the 'original poetry of the bible' literally if you will..and no this is not just speculation by me..scholars of religious studies.. have documented this 'facts' for some time now...

Most interestingly the same thing occurs with atheism..and this is just my opinion...as the same rigid beliefs about logic being all and knowing is the similar practice of suggesting the bible is THE TRUTH TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY...

In fact..there is not much doubt in my mind that the really strongest fundamentalist leaning people associated with religions and even terrorists are likely on the broader autism phenotype as they are more likely to think in terms of only 'black and white' if you will..looking at life in a literal way..believing in conspiracies if their 'strict moral codes' lead them in that direction through the illusory impact from byproducts of collective intelligence specific to their cultures...

There is very little that separates the people who believe that the Autism Speaks organization is out to eugenically 'eradicate all Autistic People from the EArth..Muslim Terrorists..people who believe VAccines cause all forms of Autism...or abortion clinic bombers...

They all have one thing in common..they don't have the ability to think in 'gray' if you will..

An Atheist is just another word for a fundamentalist..in full effect...if you will...

But that said..as an inherently classical pantheist individual that excludes nothing from the IS that I describe as GOD many Atheist suggest I am truly Atheist for my beliefs when the ONE AS ALL IS 'IT" IS THE GREATEST ONE GOD imaginable..

That's just my opinion of course..but Ii am very good at thinking in gray now...

ANd no THis is NOt always the case..as I too..when young believed whatever people told me..and rigidly practiced the structure of the religion I was taught..for acceptance from others more than anything else..and of course fear of that thing they called SATAN....

Big mistake...but IAM wise now..if you will...

I will that IS ALL i knowNOW

you seem to have twisted eyes.

Well, you seem to have me figured all out, it seems.

No, I am not necessarily. That's a rather simplistic conclusion. It's like saying that everytime you breathe, you are worshipping God, which is patently untrue.

Science isn't directly responsible for those things you mention. Science hasn't been around since the creation of time.

Now, I am not saying that science isn't useful, and its thinking hasn't contributed to invention (although, I could argue, the military needs of nations have been a driving force for invention as much as science). But, there is a limit to this scientific thinking - and that is, the demad for 'proof', and what constitiutes proof.

A poster above is saying how absurd it is when we believe in God when we don't have any proof of him - which is fair enough, if that was the concrete definition of everything, and human senses and measurements were perfect. It's a perfectly logical conclusion to come to.

But - they are far from that. And who said that the world and universe are logical? What if we could establish scientific proof as being 8 or 9 per cent reliable, at best? Maybe some would still cling to it as 'the best that we can get'.

If one believed in the perfect nature of scientific thought and principles (to the point of being a science zealot, so to speak) then I can understand why someone would be an athiest.
If one thought that science was the best that we had to go on, but that one couldn't close their minds to the possibility of something working in parallel, and could see that science didn't have all the answers (yet, or ever) then I could understand why they would choose to be agnostic.
If one would see separtation everywhere that they went, between race and religion, man and woman, Christian and Muslim - one would believe in an actual separation from God and ourselves, when this is impossible.
If one realised that this life is a dream (no more real than what you may experience in your sleep), a false pantomine that promotes separation over unity; everything we notice by our false senses is a projection of the ego outwards and a vein attempt to play God in a world that attempts to shut him out his true nature at all costs - they might actually start to get to know God as being the only truth there actually is.

But, as I said before, don't take my word for it!

I did not just say that just for saying it. Give it some more thought. Try to imagine the invention of a car or a computer without the use of science. Try to visualize how people "blindly" trust the science behind airplanes to [at least most of the time] fly them safely where they need to go. Same for driving. By entering a car or airplane, you choose to trust the science behind the mechanics of car driving or airplane flying. It isn't magic that operates them.

I assure you, even though you may not think so, I have it given it plenty of thought. I don't say anything you might think is against science lightly.

I think we're differing over semantics here, and what we call science.

When I talk science, I am thinking of scientific thinking.

When something happens, like a chemical reaction, or the sun coming up, you are saying that is science. I am saying that it is not necessarily so. Science is what observes things happening, makes predictions, and uses this information to explain and create.

Who's to say that a car or computer wouldn't have been invented anyway without scientific thinking? Or who's to say that we couldn't have thought of something even better? Take Einstein for an example. He didn't necessarily come to his conclusions by following science - that's how he managed to change a lot of scientific thinking, by thinking a different way.

Magic is merely something that we don't understand. It's as simple as that. If you went back 500 years ago and were driving your car out of an aeroplane, you would be doing this by 'magic' if we go by the belief of the popular consensus. Of course, you know differently than that - but imagine trying to explain to everyone what was really going on.

However, this is all on one level, and I am saying that there is a level beyond this. The God I am talking about has no influence whatsoever on science. You want to debate something that has part-aided, and part-limited Man for 10-20000 years, and that's really not important in the way that I am looking at things, because I thought that this thread was about God, not a substitiute.

No, I'm talking about the scientific knowledge required to understand the mechanics needed to build cars and airplanes and make them safe for use, and about the fact that you have to have some really good trust in the scientific knowledge of others in order to use them. If you have ever been in car being driven by someone else, or you were driving it yourself, that's implicitly a big trust in science.

Science is a well-established fact in this world. God is not.

God is only a metaphor for a construct and/or concept that Science does not have tools to fully understand..God is Love..God is light..the human kind..and etc...not a program on a 'computer'..or a script in a play...

Science is not a fact...Science is a tool used to make hypotheses and potentially eventually arrive at facts..or approximations of 'fact's''..as any results from the scientific method are always subject to change..accordingly with the newest research study...

ON the other hand the experience of faith and hope are Universal realities of emotion that on average most humans desire in their lives..if at all possible to attain..

Some people are simply deficient in the ability to attain/retain faith, hope, or any complex emotion..and or not able to understand their own complex emotions in their learned languages...

Sorry..if you interpret any of that statement aimed at you in a personal manner..as it IS not...

I adressed the scholarly assessments and my own personal opinions as such...