Is there a God? What do YOU think???

[bumab]

Goodness! Sorry about the closeminded comment, I should have thought that through a little bit more. It was a harmless comment, don't worry, I didn't mean anything by it.

 

Second, your main argument seems to stem from a semantic differance. I simply think of "agnostic" to mean what you define "atheism" as. I was defining atheism as a belief that there was no god. No worries, that's where the apparent logical fallacies occured, I belive :hyper:. And I agree, millions of folk feeling things does not count as scientific evidence- but it does count as an observation. It's a good thing to keep in mind, thats all I was attempting to say.

 

I really just wanted to weigh in on the subject, and see what everyone felt was their reason for non-belief, that's all! It appeared there was an especially obvious vehemance against believers, I assume mainly to talks with creationist folk. I get just as angry, believe me (from a different angle, obviously), with the anti-science rehetoric.

[Aquagem]

...You're ignoring the millions through the ages who claim to have contacted God... (this is a paraphrase)

Please forgive me for repeating an already long post of many weeks ago. I put it here because it addresses directly the idea that people have contacted, or been contacted by, spiritual presences. Yes, it's happened through the ages, as noted below. But while an individual, especially pre-science, is likely to take the experience literally, we have good hard evidence that it's probably not the case. I think it's important enough to give this serious thought in any like-minded discussion that I'll include the body of the post here.

 

The idea that altered states of consciousness are due to contact with a "higher mind", or other similar terms is the common response of people experiencing them. The counter-idea, that altered states of consciousness are due to the brain's attempt to reinterpret the remnants of consciousness with some centers removed from the equation, is radically different and bound to be unpopular with the first group. But there is some very interesting experimental evidence that the second idea is much closer to the truth, oddly enough, provided by research done by someone very much in the "higher consciousness" camp.

 

You may have heard about a book written by Dr. Andrew Newberg entitled Why God Won't Go Away, subtitled "Brain Science and the Biology of Belief". It's become the darling of religious apologists because, in it, Newberg does his best to legitimate mystical experiences by detailing neuroscientific research he has conducted with people who meditate deeply. The book has much more in it and is a good read for information about mythology, some evolution theory, and most important, about some late research on brain centers and their possible integration.

 

I bring up this book, because Newberg combed through historical writings from various religious traditions and times to show that deep mystical experiences are described with remarkable uniformity, including an "oceanic" sense of unity with all creation, absolute bliss, a lack of anxiety or fear, and complete peace and love. He goes on to show that major aspects of these experiences match his own research with a Tibetan Buddhist meditator, who was able to signal when he reached the depth of his session, was injected with tracer, and then given an MRI to see which brain centers were affected by the meditative state. The results were most revealing.

 

(The description of the testing is the subject of Chapter 1, entitled, "A Photograph of God?" This is available in full text online:

 

Excerpt & Reviews of 'Why God Won't Go Away' by Andrew Newberg, MD ...... Excerpt: Printable Excerpt Printer Friendly Version Contents: A Photograph of God? ... Chapter One A Photograph of God? An introduction to the Biology of Belief. ...

www.bookbrowse.com/index.cfm?page=title& titleID=788&view=excerpt - 34k -

 

It was through the online post that I first heard about the book. I recommend reading this, if nothing else.)

 

The results of Newberg's testing on the meditator were initially surprising. The main difference in the MRI of his subject while in the deep state was one particular area "going dark", that is, experiencing much less activity that in a waking brain. The area is the posterior parietal cortex, located in the sensory half of the cerebrum (behind the central fissure, aft of the primary sensory cortical area, and bounded in the rear by the visual cortex). Newberg refers to the posterior parietal cortex as the "orientation association area", which is the primary system that integrates body placement, position, and awarness of surroundings. I've read more about this area in neuroscience texts, because I wanted to cross check what Newberg said and get another perspectives on what this system does. That's where it gets interesting.

 

The orientation association area has significantly different functions between left and right lobes. The left area keeps track of the body; tells you where your body ends, how it's oriented in space; how big it is. The right area, in contrast, is the locus of your awareness of the environment around you. It registers everything that your body is not, the "not you". The intersection between these two functions allows you to be aware of yourself in your surroundings, and requires a constant flow of data to maintain that awareness. When you walk through a tight door, for example, the left orientation association area tells you how big you are, the right estimates how big the door is, and the two together tell you you have to turn sideways to make it through.

 

What, then, happens when you shut that system down? Well, if you were in a waking state, you'd walk into walls, fail to step over curbs, and probably feel vertiginous, like a pilot flying in a cloud without visual reference to the ground. In the meditative state, you would lose the sense of the extent of your self. You would no longer feel the "differentness" of who you are and all that surrounds you. Lacking that sense of separation from your environment, your brain would experience the feeling of being undifferentiated, of being separate, of being unitary. You would feel as though you and the universe are one.

 

I have become acutely aware of my own orientation association area as I move through life, riding my bike, skiing down a hill, or being aware of a rectilinear surrounding frame of reference in a dark room. I believe that it will be shown soon (if it hasn't already) that our metaphors for orientation originate in this section of the brain (e.g., "I'm feeling up today" or "she was a fallen woman").

 

If I were a monk who spent hours a day in a balanced posture, intent upon decreasing the constant chatter of bodily sensations, quieting my spinal cord traffic until the orientation association area fell (relatively) silent, I can easily imagine the sense of wonder, relief, lack of anxiety, etc., attending mystical states. If I had no idea what was happening (which I had, before reading Newberg's book), I might take it literally. Rather than saying, "In my compromised state, I have lost my sense of separation from my environment", I might well say, "The universe and I are one. My fear is gone. I am cloaked in peace and wonder. Surely I am one with God."

 

Good book to read. I've written a lot about this in my spare time.

 

One last point I'm sure you're aware of is that split-brain research has shown that the brain goes to extreme lengths to invent rational explanations for anything it experiences. For example, the left brain will make up elaborate excuses for things the right brain is doing and which the left brain has not been privy to. It cranks out ad hoc explanations ad infinitum in a total vacuum of knowledge. This puts the individual in danger of taking something literally that has no basis whatsoever.

 

Oddly, Newberg not only doesn't seem to realize this aspect of his research, and in fact cranks out ad hoc explanations for why the mystics might be right (one with universe and God), despite the much simpler explanation his own data strongly suggests.

 

But, in a different vein, Newberg states clearly that it is these rare individuals, the ones who get to the deep mystical state, who create religions. This is a major insight. One who has experienced the deep state comes back with glowing tales of wonder, underpinned by powerful emotional insistence that this is TRUE, not that it emerged from a compromised brain state. It radiates with charisma, delivers a message we all long to hear and offers hope of another world, a better world, a world of light and peace. St. Augustine described that world brilliantly in the last chapter of his Confessions, and sold the whole western world on it. It lives with us still.

 

Since reading his book, I have become very aware of politicians and virtually everyone else making up rationalizations for things they do that are completely out of touch with reality. We call that "spin", and it seems to be much greater motivation than truth in directing human affairs.

 

[Tormod]

Second, your main argument seems to stem from a semantic differance. I simply think of "agnostic" to mean what you define "atheism" as. I was defining atheism as a belief that there was no god.

 

Don't worry. Semantic difference is a very good reason for discussion in the first place...but it helps to clarify your point rather than make it even more unclear... :hyper:

 

I don't understand this part. How am I to interpret the last sentence. Should it read "agnosticism is a belief that there is no god" (which is wrong - agnosticism is the belief that God exists but cannot be proven), or should I interpret it as atheism is a belief (which I refuted above).

[bumab]

Well, I am a big believer in defining terms beforehand as well. Got carried away! :D I WAS defining agnostism as a belief that God could not be proven or not-proven, which is what I think you were stating as your definition of atheism. I WAS defining atheism as a belief there was (and cannot be, by extension) no God (which is a belief).

 

But- I'm the newbie, I'll switch up my definitions :hyper: .

 

So- atheism, belief that one cannot know if or not God exists.

agnostism, belief that God exists but cannot be proven to exist.

 

Right?

[Tormod]

Okay, we're at least talking about the same things. Good!

 

So- atheism, belief that one cannot know if or not God exists.

agnostism, belief that God exists but cannot be proven to exist.

 

Right?

 

Wrong. :hyper:

 

Atheism: The absence of belief in a god. The prefix "a" means "without". The term "theo" (or thei) means "god". So, a-theism literally means "without god-ism". An atheist does not necessarily say that he "knows" there is no god. An atheist simply does not hold a belief in a god, for whatever reason.

 

Look here for more definitions:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/freethink/Definitions.html

 

Atheists don't "believe" that it's impossible to know whether a god exists or not. Christians and agnostics and religious people of all kinds do that. Atheists don't have a use for any god in their world view and as such are non-believers.

[Freethinker]

Does anybody remember a time when they could sneak into the Forums and have all of the recent posts say your name? .. I can remember a time when it was (almost) a contest, to see who could keep their name up the longest. Can you guess who normally won?

Tormod.

 

He who controls the counter controls the count. :-)

[bumab]

Wrong. :hyper:

 

Atheism: The absence of belief in a god. The prefix "a" means "without". The term "theo" (or thei) means "god". So, a-theism literally means "without god-ism". An atheist does not necessarily say that he "knows" there is no god. An atheist simply does not hold a belief in a god, for whatever reason.

 

 

That's basically what I meant... A level of precision in language is required in this forum beyond what I'm used to in most formus- THANK GOODNESS. I appreciate that. :D Thanks!

 

Perhaps a better question for me to pose (since this was basically a yes/no question at the beginning :() would be why so many people feel science and religion are incompatable. Should probably start a new question on that eh.

[Fishteacher73]

Perhaps a better question for me to pose (since this was basically a yes/no question at the beginning :hyper:) would be why so many people feel science and religion are incompatable. Should probably start a new question on that eh.

 

 

Science is based on observation and imperical data. Religion is based on faith and "Sacred texts".

 

Science= What you see

 

Religion = What you feel

[Tormod]

No need. It has been discussed already - look around and you'll find it.

[bumab]

Science is based on observation and imperical data. Religion is based on faith and "Sacred texts".

 

Science= What you see

 

Religion = What you feel

 

 

And? That's not an incompatability...

 

anyway, I'm sure it's been dicussed already, i'll go look around for it. Thanks for getting my terms straight!

[Freethinker]

Sorry to change teh name subject, but I believe in (a) God. All i have to support my belife is the Bible.

The ONLY god which is biblical based is the Christian one. And if you use the bible as your guide, you either ignore most of it or you also believe

 

1) the moon is a SOURCE of light

2) the sun is NEVER up at night (tell those in Alaska they are seeing things)

3) one Creation with two different versions.

4) the sky is a metal bowl with holes we call "stars"

5) pi= 3.0

6) snakes "eat" dirt

7) and talk

8) 22,000 = 22,300

9) Insects with four feet

10) Bats are birds

11) Rabbits chew their cud

12) people can live in the belly of a whale

13) people could be "lost" in an area the size of California for 40 years!

14) it's OK to kill (how long should I make the list?)

a) "other" believers

:hyper: haughty women

c) misbehaving kids

d) kids that call someone bald

e) women that do not give sexual satisfaction (after killing their husbands and sons)

f) wiccans

15) the earth can stop spinning with nothing bad happening

16) the earth is flat and

17) there is a moutain so high that you can see the entire earth from it.

18) Slavery is good

19) women should stay home, not get educated and dare not talk back to their husbands

 

OK, I'll stop there. But the list goes on and on...

Its what i have grown up thinking, worshipping, and accepting.[/qoute]

Should we start by breaking the bad news about Santa or the Easter Bunny first? All, like a god, childhood myths MOST of us outgrown at some point. But few seem willing (all are ABLE) to use the exact same logical thought processes to be applied to their god myth.

Why i remember being the first person Freethinker proclaimed his belife of non-belife to. The lack of evidence is there, but peopel still choose to belive.

Ah, at best you have this backwards. At best *I* was the first here to "proclaim" my lack of ANY belief to you. But I have been "proclaiming" it to others, inculding here, for much longer than you have been here.

At a young age, the cup is small, and eay to fill with ideas about god and others. We don't ask questions.

And when we do, "believing" parents continue to promote the lies, and re-enforce them with threats and fear. So it is hard for young minds to find TRUTH.

As we grow, so does the cup, and sooner or later the same ideas that once illed teh cup, doesn't quite fill it even a half the way up. So we don't agree or belive.

Or perhaps the cup stays the same size and the beliefs are found lacking, which leaves space for triths if the person is actually willing to accept and understand them.

[Freethinker]

It's interesting to me that most people who don't believe in God have never read the Bible, or Koran, or whatever you are choosing not to believe in.

Why do you find that "interesting". MOST people that claim to follow the bible have not read it. THAT is INTERESTING! That people that claim to believe in something, lack even basic understanding of what it is they claim to believe or even bother to read the one and only book in which the information is contained. And contrary to your claim, the vast majority of Atheists I know are quite familiar with the bible. FAR more than "beleivers". As Penn said in "Bullshit", the best way to increase the number of non-believers would be to have more people actually read the bible.

Besides the obvious idiocy of the Bush administration, and the horrible things he claims are "justified," what are your problems with God?

I have no problems with nonexistent things. In fact things that don't exist tend to cause us far fewer problems than things that DO exist.

 

My problem is with people intentionally promoting ignorance and irrational thinking as a GOOD thing.

[Freethinker]

I think the biggest problem is a misunderstanding of faith- faith does not mean the absence of doubt at all.

Correct, "faith" has nothing to do with "doubt". In fact "faith" is the only way someone can NOT "doubt" things that lack any valid proof to them. When a person finds the utter lack of any credible facts to support a god belief, all that is left is Faith.

As to atheism, I'm curious as to what evidence you feel has justified your position.

Atheism does not require evidence of any kind. We are all BORN as Atheists. There is not ANY genetic hardwired belief in a god. Following birth, unless a child's mind is corrupted by some externally supplied god myth, they remain Atheists.

To me, from a scientific viewpoint, I cannot find any evidence against anything less the deism, using God as the primary cause for the universe.

WOW! Hypog is about to make world wide recognition! I am sure Tormod can hardly wait, along with the rest of us! Someone actually has FACTUAL proof of a god!

 

Please don't make the world wait any longer. After all no one has ever been able to provide valid scientific proof for the existence of a first cause god before. Please share all this proof you have so the world can once and for all solve this issue!

So what is that evidence you feel is strong enough to become an atheist? (or continue to be one, or whatever :hyper: )

*A*theist, "NOT a Theist". A LACK of a Theistic belief.

 

Until PROOF of a god exists, *A*theism is the ONLY logical conclussion.

[Freethinker]

When I mentioned deism, it was with the impression of a position whereas the ultimate cause of the universe was a God (not any particular one at this point).

The term is A*T*heism. not A*D*eism. I know a number of people that consider themselves Atheists while being a Pantheist (one form of Deism). They are dualists and believe in "something greater" which may just be the combination of everything or a non-intellectual force, ... Just not a Theist's "GOD".

it's got as much evidence for it as any other. Is it testable? As much as any competing theory for the ultimate cause of the universe, i.e. not really.

Ah yes, all philosophy is equal until one os proven factual? Gravity, esp Einsteins warped space, is just a Theory which is not at this point proven. So I guess you would consider a Theory in which objects are pushed down to earth by invisible fairies is a valid as Gravity. Neither has nmore or less evidence. Unless one uses Ockham's Razor. In which case the god nonsense also goes away.

Perhaps I should have said agnostic. But I don't think lack of evidence for a

Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, ...

is a good reason to conclude there is no

Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, ...

at all. That would be akin to saying, 200 years ago, the lack of evidence for black holes meant there was no black holes.

Faulty analogy. 200 years ago there was not even THOUGHTS of "Black Holes". But the PROOF of them was the same.

At it's root, atheism is just as much a position taken on faith as God is, just a less speculative one. To claim atheism is the proper position for someone based on a LACK of evidence is very unscientific, and closeminded, really. (please don't take that offensivly :hyper: )

And as such it "is very unscientific, and closeminded" to not accept a Santa, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, ... belief.

Secondly, you must discount the millions of people throughout history who claim

the earth is flat, demons cause illness, ...

 

Argumentum ad populum. This is known as Appealing to the Gallery, or Appealing to the People. You commit this fallacy if you attempt to win acceptance of an assertion by appealing to a large group of people. This form of fallacy is often characterized by emotive language.

to have had direct contact with a God. While I don't really want to bring that up as evidence in a discussion about God's existance (because it's certainly not "hard," quantitative evidence), it does exist as qualitative evidence of God's existance.

What it ACTUALLY shows is when a person is ignorant of basic philosophy and logic. Of how to construct a LOGICAL presentation. Of Argument Fallacies, such as:

 

Argumentum ad numerum. This fallacy is closely related to the argumentum ad populum. It consists of asserting that the more people who support or believe a proposition, the more likely it is that that proposition is correct.

[Freethinker]

Definatly, that's the hardest thing for me too, often times. Especially living in America (or any rich country), religious folk often lose sight of the fact that the world can be a horrible place. From my religious beliefs, it is for that reason that believers should feel all the more convicted and use such situations to show our "virtues," as it were :hyper: . Sadly, it's often when we show just how much we lack.

Interestingly, it is the MORE FAITHFUL, those that are more driven by FAITH than LOGIC, that are most apt to support making the world a horrible place and accepting that it inherently is. It is believers values, biblical values, that CAUSE the most horrible happenings.

[Freethinker]

Goodness! Sorry about the closeminded comment, I should have thought that through a little bit more. It was a harmless comment, don't worry, I didn't mean anything by it.

 

Ah but you DID mean something by it. And it exposes the prejudicial discrimination inherent in a believers mindset.

Second, your main argument seems to stem from a semantic differance. I simply think of "agnostic" to mean what you define "atheism" as. I was defining atheism as a belief that there was no god.

And we are here to correct such errors. Whether they be scientific, epistemological or etymological.

No worries, that's where the apparent logical fallacies occured,

One of them yes, but you show many other instances of logical fallacies.

And I agree, millions of folk feeling things does not count as scientific evidence-

Yet you attempted to use it as such. Which is worse NOT knowing it is a fallacy or using it anyway?

It appeared there was an especially obvious vehemance against believers,

Against "belief" yes, against "belivers"? just pitty. It's a shame to see so many waste so much.

I assume mainly to talks with creationist folk. I get just as angry, believe me (from a different angle, obviously), with the anti-science rehetoric.

Examples of anti-scientific though process:

It's interesting to me that most people who don't believe in God have never read the Bible, or Koran, or whatever you are choosing not to believe in.

the ultimate cause of the universe was a God (not any particular one at this point). As far as I know, that's still a viable position- it's got as much evidence for it as any other. Is it testable? As much as any competing theory for the ultimate cause of the universe, i.e. not really. ...I don't think lack of evidence for a God is a good reason to conclude there is no God at all.... Secondly, you must discount the millions of people throughout history who claim to have had direct contact with a God.... it does exist as qualitative evidence of God's existance.

[Aquagem]

But- I'm the newbie, I'll switch up my definitions :hyper: .

 

So- atheism, belief that one cannot know if or not God exists.

agnostism, belief that God exists but cannot be proven to exist.

 

Right?

 

I was about to change my definition too, but then I did a bit more digging.

 

a-moral - without morals

a-political - no party affiliation and don't vote

a-septic - without infection

a-theist - without a god

a-gnostic - without knowing

 

From the Word Book Dictionary -- two levels of definition:

 

atheist... A person who believes that there is no God...[or] who ignores his duty to God.

agnostic .. a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known about the existence of God or about things outside of human experience. SYN: skeptic, unbeliever, freethinker (!! not gloating -- just coincidence.)

 

I also checked a reputable sociological source, which made the same point, that in common use, atheism denies the existence of a "higher power", which would be anything supernatural. Agnositc (which, as a self-proclaimed agnostic, I have been using for a long time) connotes NOT KNOWING whether or not there is a supernatural entity, and being sincerely doubtful that any of us can prove it one way or another due to our relatively primitive brain and short time (million years) discussing the issue.

 

To this list, I'd add another -- a-pathetic - not really caring one way or the other, which covers a lot of people, but gets overlooked.

 

If I'm getting shoved into the "believer but can't prove it", I'll take that one to mat! :D