Is there God?

[Florestan]

Canada. I'm sure there are others.

Agreed.

[Mandryka]

Ummm, no... There's nothing reassuring about it. Actually, Christianity proper is risk, wager and adventure.

Once saved, always saved is an absurdity, an absolutely non-Christian notion.

I'm sure you're right -- I just think that what you call "Christianity proper" is not very common where I am.

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

Mandryka, you're breaking 2 rules there, old fellow: the OP said "no comments" and your Wittgensteinian strapline also forbids you to talk about religion 

I would also be interested to know how responses relate to musical tastes.  Just take the three Bs: Byrd, Bach - you're probably a believer, Boulez: you're probably not.  Or that's my theory.  Of course, you (M) like very old and very new stuff...

This fascinates me as well, though like Que, it wouldn't apply to me.  I suspect, however, that the theory applies more aptly to politics.  A very wealthy board member of our institution looked at some of my CDs on my desk and announced himself a "big fan of classical music."  He asked me who my favorite composers were:  Brahms, Prokofiev, Poulenc, I said just off the top o' my head.  "Oh, he said you're a left-winger." He wasn't wrong. 

[71 dB]

My opinion is closer to

"Absolutely not"

than

"Probably not",

but I chose the latter, because a scientific mind needs massive,
overwhelming evidence for absolutes and we just don't have
those with this issue. Science still has open questions about
the fundamental nature of the Universe. My real opinion is

"Almost certainly not."

[Florestan]

This fascinates me as well, though like Que, it wouldn't apply to me.  I suspect, however, that the theory applies more aptly to politics.  A very wealthy board member of our institution looked at some of my CDs on my desk and announced himself a "big fan of classical music."  He asked me who my favorite composers were:  Brahms, Prokofiev, Poulenc, I said just off the top o' my head.  "Oh, he said you're a left-winger." He wasn't wrong.

I am not wealthy.

I am (relatively) poor.

I am not a left-winger, though.

[Florestan]

I'm sure you're right -- I just think that what you call "Christianity proper" is not very common where I am.

Yes, agreed.

[Karl Henning]

What country are you talking about?

Globally, it is certainly an untenable hypothesis.

[71 dB]

Western Europe, maybe --- just maybe. Eastern Europe, no --- at least Romania and Poland (the two most populous countries of the region) identify themselves as strongly religious (Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic respectively).

Why is religion so location based? Why are Poland and Romania so religious while France isn't? Why do people's beliefs rely so heavily on where they were born and to what kind of parents? Isn't God supposed to be "everywhere?" If you are "everywhere" you are close to everyone from Indians to Canadians and South-Africans. So why do people in the places have so different ideas about religion and God?

The ONLY explanation that makes sense to me is religions are cultural constructions. Culture differs from place to place and so does religion. Religion has been forced (crusades/missionaries) on other cultures not sharing it! Culture is human creation so if religions are just part of our culture, God is simply a creation of human mind. God didn't create us. We created God, or more precisely about 4000 of them when all Gods in every religion ever are summed.

[Karl Henning]

Ummm, no... There's nothing reassuring about it. Actually, Christianity proper is risk, wager and adventure.

Once saved, always saved is an absurdity, an absolutely non-Christian notion.

And one which pervades American Protestantism of the more populist sort. The Faustian bargain which American Evangelicals very publicly sealed these past six years is one reason why more and more Americans respond with: If this is Christianity, what morally responsible adult needs it?!

[Ganondorf]

I certainly hope there is no God, considering pretty much any deity and especially Christian God is a cruel, murderous, power hungry tyrant.

Awful though the writer's intense racial prejudices are, I do most strongly identify with with the following statement by H.P. Lovecraft regarding his religious views (or absence of them):

"In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence, I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist."

[vandermolen]

Like VW I'd describe myself as a 'cheerful agnostic'. You can guess how I voted. I strongly believe that there is a spiritual side to human existence, but that is not necessarily the same as believing in God.

[Mandryka]

Ummm, no... There's nothing reassuring about it. Actually, Christianity proper is risk, wager and adventure.

Living morally is a risk, wager and adventure. And you may well think that religion has some teachings which are a good guide to living well. Let's agree that for the sake of argument.

What I don't see is why you need the ontological claim. I mean someone could agree with you about the rightness and wrongness of actions, agree with you about how to live, but be an atheist.

This thread is a thread about ontology. And the discussion has slipped into one about ethics. The two are, IMO, independent.  I want to question your ontology not your ethics.

There's a thing that Kant says along the lines that if God says "Thou shall do X" the rational moral agent  has to always ask "why?"  "Is it right to do X?"

Speaking for myself, I believe that it's generally a good idea to love my neighbour as I love my self, but not because God said so! Nothing to do with it.

[Crudblud]

Since the rules have been broken, here's my unsolicited comment to add to the mix.

I am not religious and I do not believe in any god or God, but, perhaps out of vanity, I do not wish to associate myself with contemporary popular atheism. I accept that it cannot be known one way or the other, but I strongly doubt that the various gods and Gods that have been worshipped throughout history are anything other than man made. However, I don't conceive of them as having been created out of ignorance (the oft-mocked "god of the gaps") but rather a genuine need we have to know something higher than ourselves.

[staxomega]

I certainly hope there is no God, considering pretty much any deity and especially Christian God is a cruel, murderous, power hungry tyrant.

Why would it only have to be a Christian God that is a part of these cruelties? The thread starter makes no distinction; the discussion just seems to have flowed that way. In Hinduism for instance if the Vedas or Gita is anything to go by (and all texts do originate from there, even if certain sects worship other deities) then God is Krishna and like other religions he is God in the sense that he oversess all of humanity regardless of your faith. I don't think a Hindu god should be excluded from horrors such as the Holocaust or slavery.

[Ganondorf]

Why would it only have to be a Christian God that is a part of these cruelties? The thread starter makes no distinction; the discussion just seems to have flowed that way. In Hinduism for instance if the Vedas or Gita is anything to go by (and all texts do originate from there, even if certain sects worship other deities) then God is Krishna and like other religions he is God in the sense that he oversess all of humanity regardless of your faith. I don't think a Hindu god should be excluded from horrors such as the Holocaust or slavery.

Fair enough.

[SimonNZ]

I think there's an old poem, possible by Pope though I can't find it right now, that says human's ability to conceive of any creator that may exist is like bugs in a block of butter being able to imagine the cow.

[Brian]

Somewhat like HP Lovecraft and 71 dB, I live and act as if the answer were "absolutely not," but there is no way to honestly rule out the possibility, however unlikely it may be. So: probably not.

[Daverz]

Definitely in the "absolutely not" camp, though I've mellowed over the years.  I was raised in a non-religious household (Nominally Jewish mother and Protestant father.  I remember my parents sent us to -- I suppose you might call it Saturday school -- to learn about Judaism, but I think they gave up pretty quickly on that.)  However, I grew up in an area with a lot of Evangelicals and Mormons, so had a lot of exposure to that as an outsider.  I retain a fascination for the history of early Christianity.  I've been watching a lot of Robert M. Price videos recently.

Anyway, here is physicist Sean Carroll explaining why God is not a good theory:

https://www.youtube.com/v/ew_cNONhhKI

Oh, yeah, I also became less enthusiastic about identifying as an atheist when the "New Atheists" moved to the Right.  I have a lot more admiration for someone like the Reverend William Barber than I do assholes like Sam Harris or a prat like Richard Dawkins (he's a fine naturalist, though).

[Mirror Image]

I grew up going to church every Sunday from when I was about 4-5 yrs. old all the through my late teens, but I became disinterested in the idea of organized religion and more importantly, the people who I was being subjected to. I'm certainly a believer in there being a higher entity of some kind, but this belief doesn't mean that I don't question the terrible events that have lead us all to our current path. But I believe it isn't my place nor anyone else's to tell someone who and what to believe in and this is my biggest problem with Christianity as a whole. The idea that you'll go to 'Hell' if you act this way or that, but, honestly, I believe we're all of three minds: there's the mind that wants to do good and actually be of help and then there's other mind where we ignore people who need help, say terrible things about people we know nothing about, etc. but then there's the mind that doesn't think and is without a conscious and those are your murderers, rapists, et. al. Human nature has produced all of these things, but it is ultimately up to us to find out who we are and what kind of life we want to live. So, while I do believe that some higher entity is out there, I disagree with cramming one's beliefs down someone else's throat, especially if they're not receptive or, better yet, ask for it in the first-place.

[steve ridgway]

I think there's an old poem, possible by Pope though I can't find it right now, that says human's ability to conceive of any creator that may exist is like bugs in a block of butter being able to imagine the cow.

I like that thought although I'm also very impressed that the structure of this universe contains so much information that humans are able to interpret, things record their history.