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

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the point of it would be to vindicate the song
"row row row your boat,
gently down the stream.
merrily merrily merrily ,
life is just a dream" .

Agnosticism needs a scale (or spectrum if you like), at one extreme would be Based on the available evidence, X almost certainly exists and at the other extreme would be Based on the available,evidence, Y almost certainly does not exist.[/quote]







I don't thought like that. Agnosticism would more than the central of spectrum, because the ''extreme beliefs'' would be more than fanaticism and extreme non-beliefs would be fanatic atheism in my opinion. I'm totally open to evidences to existence or non-existence of ''God'', but even we are very distant to understand all things. Agnosticism would be like as wisdow this matter.

If something IS proven to exist, is it possible to disprove it? Conversely, if something is disproven, is it possible to prove it?

Or take away the proof. If something DOES exist, proven or not, can it possibly be disproven? Perhaps, and I mean this half-joking and half-serious, God cannot be disproven because he DOES exist. Not something I care to discuss in-depth, but just a thought I had on the matter...

The thing about Russell's teapot is the object proposed is described as a physical object. Suppose Russell's teapot actually did exist. Because it is a material object, and because we have better means of detecting it--despite actually finding it being like finding a needle in a haystack--the argument doesn't really hold the same power as it did when it was originally proposed. In fact, all similar arguments follow the pattern of looking for something that manifests itself physically, and thus the probability of actually finding those things, IF they exist, depends on human ability to find them. And as with the Higgs boson, our strength in that regard is increasing every day.

However, if we're trying to detect something or someone whose nature does not, at least with any regularity, manifest itself in the physical universe and by nature is purely spiritual, then it's not a question of probability or possibility. Rather, it is a question of whether we're using the right tools. Like I've said before, there is evidence that God exists and has interacted with our world. Whether the evidence is admissible is going to depend on the biases and attitudes of the observer.

Theists who view God as purely spiritual already know that PHYSICAL evidence (beyond the universe itself) won't be forthcoming. The problem for theists is the same as any human being: We have a limited life-span to figure out whether there is or isn't a God. The empiricist ideal of assuming something doesn't exist unless evidence proves otherwise would put us in limbo when it comes to making a decision about coming to faith one way or another. If it were somehow possible to scientifically prove God a million or a billion years from now, that does us no good in the here and now when we'd be long gone before science finally catches up with us. If we're lucky to get 80 or 100 or so years, it's just not enough time. It's unfair to expect people to wait for permission from the empiricist community in order to make decisions that concern the destiny of their souls. The wisest decision to make is investigate what has been revealed by some about God, spend some time in meditation and prayer, and do your best to choose a spiritual path. If we're wrong, at worst we'll just fade into the void. Given what most religions (I know, not all) have to say about how we should treat each other, the least we can say is we all lived good lives and helped out a few people, maybe even some atheists, along the way. Not that atheists or agnostics can't be "good people" and live "good lives." It's just that non- or anti-believers have more to lose if they're wrong. Give me Pascal's wager any day.

I would agree that if you don't assume God exists from the outset, agnosticism has to be the next rational conclusion. It is at the very least intellectually honest enough to allow for the possibility despite the perceived probability of something/someone existing/not existing.

Angelrho,
there are categories of things that there and obviously was proved their existence, for example, the rocks, all of us can see the rocks in the ground, can touch them, therefore, the rocks was proved by simple observation. God is a abstract name, generally called by all the human religions, to try to understand specially our existence, why we live? why we die? why we think? This questions are substracts of bigger image, that human beings resolve called the GOD. Little answers = fractions of the all Bigger answer = God, the entire
If the humans can collect the all of things there in all universes, so they will find God, my opinion.

There is no evidence for the existence of God in logical arguments even as there are many alternatives to God that could be proposed instead, thus rendering the existence of God logically unnecessary. One example is the one I keep proposing as an alternative everytime God's necessity is brought up.

Unless you have a new good argument for God, arguments for God have all been debunked.



Yeah, ok, you can have it, but just know that you chose the wrong God and you'll be eventually burning in Jouhannam created by Allah because Christianity turned out to be wrong.

The majority of ''arguments'' about the existence of God was based specially in misticism beliefs and not in scientific arguments. The ideia of God, all powerful creator of Sky and Earth, is very complex to conclude everything.
Even that many believers can't understand the real mean about God i think that the concept about him is based more in
the force that created all things in the universe, in my conception, the force should be translate as life. The ideia of life isn't only about the thing that live, but also the thing that interact. All can have an propose. My opinion again, very speculative, sorry.

Well, sure, "God" is an abstract name. I get that. While I do believe Yahweh is the one true God, the original point of this thread and subsequent discussion that has spun off from that is less specific. Nevertheless, I think regardless of what we call God, whether we call him "God" or some other name, God/"God" is still personal. I can't agree with you entirely on this point because what you're saying risks making God (as a personal deity) an entirely human construction. I don't buy into the idea that God is a human-created concept or even thing. I think God created the universe, not the universe created God.

Now, where I DO agree with you is that "Little answers = fractions of all the Bigger answer." I believe in a reality that is inhabited by absolutes, not a reality that is created by human perception. Human perceptive ability is limited, so, no, we don't all see everything as it is in its entirety. We are all in some sense correct about how we view the world, but only in the sense that we are each correct in how we perceive our own tiny part of it at any given point in time and at any given point of view. We are NOT correct, however, in applying what we know from time to time and from POV to POV universally and asserting that we have all the answers, that "I'm right...for ME and you're right for YOU." We all have the right answers TOGETHER, and to assert "that works for you and not for me" is tunnel-vision relativism.

I think we all view different aspects of God and in a limited sense are correct in our assessments. It's when we say "THIS is God" or "THAT is God" and fail to take into account we are all seeing differing sides of the same thing that we miss the mark. While I have a deep love for the wisdom of the Old Testament, I recognize that all wisdom comes from God and there is no need to believe that God somehow granted monopolies on wisdom to the Israelites/Jews and Christians. There's tons of wisdom to be gained from studying Buddha. I just don't think the wisdom gained from Buddha's teaching have been attributed to the correct source.

It is interesting, though, that certain ancient Greek cults, Hindus, and Buddhists taught or teach reincarnation, and that those ideas predated Christ. I think the concept of rebirth among eastern and western religions point to a common tradition long gone. Christ's teachings about spiritual rebirth, I think, restore the original intent of the lost teaching--we are NOT destined to endlessly tread the weary, sorrowful circle from one life to the next or one world to the next, but can rather rest in knowing that perfect peace awaits us at the end of this one.

Angel Rho,
sorry, but i'm not say that God is a human construction. Yes, the verbal conceptual ideia of God as other all abstractions of things that aren't visible to see, are cultural constructions. God would be the milenar way that human being find to explain the all, they aren't commited any error, but the contrary and obvious because this matter are the central and fundamental concerns about us, our existence. By explain our existence, the humans resolve create the unique answer, the Good.
But i like to fly about our perception. I think that to have logic is necessary to have one reason. This moment i'm debating with you is not by coincidence. i believe that free will and smart design are exactly the same.

I didn't THINK you were saying that God is a human construction. It seemed to me the way you put it might have hinted at that, though, and I felt it worthwhile to comment on that. At the other extreme is pantheism, which I also disagree with, but neither do I think pantheism is relevant to this discussion.

Free will is another one of those funny things we can argue about for days and never get anywhere. I think we do possess free will--however, whether in reality we are really free or not doesn't really make much difference. My take on free will is that just because God knows what we're going to do already, it doesn't imply that he forces us to make the decisions we make.

And no, I don't think anything is coincidence, either.

No need to apologise for being speculative and admitting it is so. I speculate all the time, the issue arises when that speculation turns into "Truth" with no evidence to support it. This is what has happened in the case of the mainstream god and other supernatural ideas.

Just out of interest do you think this force is in some way sentient/thinking or is it more of a blunt instrument which simply sets things in motion just by its existence.

Angel Rho,
So sorry again, i hate its answers like 'social construct', uuuuh
The idea of ''free will'' generally related to debate ''nurture vs genetics'' and i conclude that the second have significant importance in our actions and the ''nurture'' would be more like ''internal genetic variability''. If you ''change'' your personality isn't exactly because the environment influences you but you ''choice'' them (not exactly these word, but...) based on their genetic melting pot. All changes that happen on us happen in our inside and not outside.

OK, I'm not sure I'm following you.

I don't think, for instance, that it is humanly possible to change, say, sexual orientation. I think someone for whatever reason may decide that acting contrary to orientation is more desirable than acting consistent with it. It could be religious reasons or something else...but we might incorrectly attribute the behavior to a change in orientation. If we assume that orientation is determined genetically, which as far as I know very well could happen, then there can be no change in orientation.

The apparent change in orientation doesn't necessarily have to have a connection with reverence to a deity or be the actions of a deity; however, it does raise the question of whether such a change is necessarily a natural one.

I dunno...would you say that people who believe in God and believe they have intimate experiences with God (or "Whatever") are necessarily genetically predisposed to such experiences? I don't believe that the lack of such a predisposition means it is impossible for someone to have a relationship with God any more than it's impossible for a homosexual to change his lifestyle, marry a woman, have children, and live a long, fulfilling life as a straight guy. However, if true it would go a long way towards explaining why relating to God is so much more difficult for some than others.

Indeed it would. Of course as I do not have any difficulty relating to god I see it the other way around as it explains why some people relate to god in the way they do.

I find it highly plausible that there is some sort of "god gene" leading to areas in the brain which respond to religious fervour, similar to how some people seem more susceptible to recreational drugs.

I am someone who used to believe big time in a God even when I had yet not joined the evangelical Christian faith, and I used to think it was logical that such an entity exist. It's only by a better understanding of logic that I now see the flaws in all the arguments presented for a God.

there were only three words in my previous post that were the word "merrily". there should have been 4.

Or similar to how some people seem more susceptible to healthy eating habits. Or even similar to how some people seem to have enough sense to come out of the rain!