Is God a Delusion?

i totally agree.. i dont know the stats on the amount of people who grow up in an athiest family and become religious but i imagine its pretty low

i wasn't baptized until i was 11 years old, my parents let me make the decision (unfortunately i made the wrong one). you're right though, most parents plan out their childs faith for them, i see that as a huge problem.

if that thing with the atoms collideing happens, its gunna pwn god and the bible by showing that evolution is true.

He already said that he didn't believe everything in the bible, and that he simply believed in God/higher power.  Just because someone believes in God, doesn't necessarily mean that they believe in everything that is in the bible.  I think a lot of religious people meet, see the bible as metaphorical, and not literal.  Afterall, the bible was written by man. 

Saying that God is fiction isn't for you to decide.  That may be your belief, but that is NOT scientific fact.

I have to admit, I laughed pretty hard at that.

This does bring up the point that the way that some people defend their religion can be seen as rash (like the crusades, sorry muslims, no hate).

However, "proving" a physical objects existence is pretty easy, especially if its something like a baseball. However, proving God's existence is completely different. God, whether you believe in Him or not, is most likely something outside of our physical realm. I know this sounds like the classic "but you can't prove God doesnt exist" agrument, and thats because it is. God's presence is outside of our scientific understanding, so trying to disprove God using physical means will not work (again, if you believe He is outside physical existence).

And I didn't really mean to turn a funny comic into a serious post but it seemed like the opprotunity.

Yeah, and the problem I have with accepting that something exists outside our universe is that theres no prove that it exists. If something did exist outside of our universe, aka, God, then he/she must be completely removed from our reality and could not do such things as listening to our prayers or influencing fate and such (God is as disconnected from us as we are to him). There have been studies on prayer, intricate studies, and not one of them has found a correlation between asking god for something and an improved chance of that event occuring. If we cannot interact with god, then i doubt very much that an outside the universe presence could interact with us. 

So thats that then. Even if there is some presence outside this universe, we cannot interact with it, and it cannot interact with us. On the offchance that there really is something outside this universe watching us, why would it want us to honor it? Can we assume to know what such a being, so strange and disconnected from what we know as reality, would like? Hell, would it even have emotions? 

These are things that I wonder myself. I could just go on and say that maybe the "connection" is something we cant understand, but I dont think thatll convince you any further. So basically, Im gonna go ahead and continue to believe that God works in mysterious ways, and you're free to go on believing what you want. Peace

I actually think the truth you are referring to is far more beautiful than the the "beautiful lie".

Science has also become a religion for some people and in some cases has caused just as much harm to the world as religion has. You could blame religion for things such as the Inquisition, but you can also blame science for the atomic bomb.  Of course it was neither religion nor the atomic bomb that killed people, it was people. People carried out the Inquisition and people created and used the atomic bomb on other people.

Instead of seeing the truth, people use science as a crutch. But isn't the purpose of science to search for truth? This is indeed correct.  The purpose of science i.e. the use of the scientific method for inquiry into the world around us is to satisfy our curiosity about how things work.  Many people however, pursue science in the same way they previously pursued religion.  In the case of science it is the idea that by collecting data one will be able to understand the world.  The reality is that you first have to understand yourself and your relationship with the world before you can even begin to understand the world itself. 


Science can be just as dangerous as religion has been.  In fact in the future I think that we will see a gradual shift more and more to a deification of science as a sort of new world religion with its own priests..etc.  Watch and see how quickly the study for truth is perverted as a method for controlling people and taking away the freedom of choice.

C.R.E.A.M?

I agree you can misuse science, 100%, and in doing so can perpetrate massive evil. The difference between belief and scientific method is that belief is absolute. Scientific methods lays out a system that can be changed should new reason or evidence come to light. With religion, there is no room to evolve, and what is written is final.

I doubt that our society will come to 'deify' scientists and research.  Its a quest for answers, and the scientific community has rigorous debates and scrutiny of new ideas. I think the system we have to self check our progress is fine indeed, though there will no doubt be slip ups along the way (falsification of data and misconstruing results happens every day). Its not anyones intent in the scientific community to prove god false with their research, its just a search for answers.

Let me define two terms as I mean them.

Science- the methodical discovery of the world around us and how it works by observation and tests..
Religion- the philosophical examination of things which science cannot possibly, or is not known to be capable of proving especially the question of God.

I think that religion satisfies certain needs of humankind. Therefore it is a necessary condition and if it begins to fade the vacuum of its absence will be filled with science.  Science is only a tool, and how it is used is at the discretion of the user.  So with the diminishing importance of religion, science will fill that niche.  The question is, why would religion become less prevalent?  I don't know for sure.
You could argue that the emergence of science is the cause of this retreat for religion. Or perhaps there is something more intricate at work.

The point, is that there is a certain need that exists among people, and although religion and science are theoretically two different things, both of them can satisfy this need.  So in essence, the main emphasis of my argument isn't focused on religion or science (which I see as tools) but on people who partake in or use these tools.  In other words, the reality is not driven by the methods by which we try to understand it, but by us.  So the questions isn't.. "Is God a delusion?"  But "What is it within me that drives me to ask whether God is a delusion?"  In other words In what way is the IDEA of God relevant to me?  Science is just another way at satisfying that need which I earlier mentioned just like religion is.  What is the need? I don't know if I understand it fully but I believe that is the overreliance on what is called the reasoning faculty. Yeah..I am saying that thinking can be harmful and can lead you down the wrong path.  Contrary to what the common belief is, our ability to think the way that we do is often a detriment to our survival.

I'd be willing to argue, that the scientific method is a very similar process to using logic and reason to defend a philosophical or religious proof.  The main difference is that from the first glance it seems that the scientific method deals with concrete data while a religious or philosophical proof deals only with thoughts.  Are they mutually exclusive? Nope.. I think that using hard data is the same as using your mind to justify a religious proof such as "God exists".   At this point you're probably like.. What the fuck? 
Well its the same because the result is largely irrelevant.

I am not saying that science is useless or even that religion is useless. Clearly they are both very useful.  Both of these use a faulty method of understanding: reason.

If you read a lot of greek influenced philosophy you will realize the strong emphasis our culture has upon reason.  It is precisely this which holds us back from realizing that questions such as "Is God a delusion" are completely irrelevant. No offense to the poster of course. Its a valid question you are asking, but its irrelevant on a deeper level. No matter how you answer it, it has no bearing on reality.  True understanding CANNOT be put into words. Its a kind of powerful knowing that shakes you to the core.  (And no I've never done drugs lol).  The closest some people come to this is what they might refer to is faith. Now I don't consider this religion. I know some people in this thread might, but its not a big deal. I just see faith as being used by religion, but being completely independent and superior to it.   Faith is felt through this powerful experiential knowing.  The kind of experience you can't describe. Once you experience this the question about God will be irrelevant.
I also want to mention that many people talk about having faith, but they are doing just that: talking. Its an idea they have heard which satisfies their need on a very shallow level. They don't really know or understand.

And to clarify, I am not saying whether I believe or do not believe in God. I am saying that question as well as the answer are faulty constructs of our "logical" thinking. Basically I think both the question and answer as well as the concept are all completely irrelevant to me. I feel that that whatever purpose they serve to others is shallow and misleading.  If you feel differently I certainly respect that, but I know that "God is a delusion" and "God is real" means absolutely the same thing- Nothing.

A bit late in the thread, if anyone is still interested in reading about this check out

http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/

excerpt:

...The topic I want to introduce to you this evening, the subject of the debate that we are about to sort of not have, is a slightly facetious one (you'll be surprised to hear, but we'll see where we go with it) - ''Is there an Artificial God?'' I'm sure most of the people in this room will share the same view, but even as an out-and-out atheist one can't help noticing that the role of a god has had an enormously profound impact on human history over many, many centuries. It's very interesting to figure out where this came from and what, in the modern scientific world we sometimes hope against hope that we live in, it actually means.

I was thinking about this earlier today when Larry Yaeger was talking about 'what is life?' and mentioned at the end something I didn't know, about a special field of handwriting recognition...

After 4 years of philosophy classes in college I have boiled down the reasons for my agnosticism to two basic arguments, which are well known.

Im not gonna get into the nitty gritty of the arguments because honestly most of NS wouldnt understand it, nor would they care to.

1. The onotological argument.
On the surface this is the dumbest argument for god that has ever been put forth. It goes something like this:

1. God is, by definition, a being greater than anything that can be imagined.
2. Existence both in reality and in imagination is greater than existence solely in one's imagination.
3. Therefore, God must exist in reality: if God did not, God would not be a being greater than anything that can be imagined.

While this may seem rediculous, there has been no rock solid objection to this in my opinion. Yes kant's existance without a predicate criticism was amazing, it still does not completly stand up to scrutiny in my opinion. In fact the other day my professor said this of the ontological argument "many of todays greatest atheistic minds simply ignore this argument because while they know something is wrong with it, they just cant seem to find it."


2. However this arguement assumes that god is Omnicent (exists everywhere), Omnipotent (is all powerful), and Omnibenevolent (is all good). I have a major Issue with the omnibenevolece. If god were all powerful and good, how can evil exist in the world? Thus I dont know if the definition of god put forth can exist. But then again, maybe god is a utilitarian and thinks that some should suffer if it adds up to the greater good. Who knows though.

So with those two arguments staring me down, all i know is that I stand as an agnostic, which is exactly where i stood when i started to study the existance of god. So maybe god is a delusion, but i certainly couldn't tell you either way.

In the past, almost everything was attibuted to God. The creation of life, the creation of our planet, physics just to name a few. All of these were once officially attributed to God by the Catholic Church. Obviously the Church does not claim that the Earth is flat now, but it still regards itself to be a connection to an omnipotent force.

If the Church could ask God something directly, then it would never be wrong, so I could never believe in God in the standard Judeo-Christian way.

Historically the Catholic Church has also been a very corrupt organization. The Church has falsified documents to give itself land, and popes have had children and personal fortunes. Why should one give up his or her faith, one's most internal beliefs, to a church that could exploit it at any point?

I was brought up and baptized Catholic because both my parents were, but I never truly believed in God. Everything I was told in church just seemed implausible. There is no certainty that the Bible is authentic, or whether some of it could've been written by the Church for its own selfish purposes.

In terms of true belief, there are too many holes in any afterlife argument, much of the creation of life has been discovered by the Miller-Urey experiment, and even though God is "inconceivable" according to believers, I think I can decide for myself that a lot more of our existence can be attributed to science than to divine grace.

Religion is also probably the biggest cause of conflict in history. If there were no religion, how much war do you think would occur today. The Crusades, the Holocaust, and the War in Afghanistan would have occured on a much smaller scale if religion had not been a motivating factor.

Let me redefine your terms:

Science - the methodical discovery of the world around us and how it works by observation and tests.

Philosophy - Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods. One such topic is religion.

I do think that religion provides people with some answer and guidance (like what is moral, the ten commandments, though there are many discrepancies within the text you draw these morals from). However, its either a terrific coincidence that world religions always somehow encapsulate these same morals and codes, or instead that these morals come innately to most of us, and religion is just us trying to materialize them in a framework we are comfortable with.

As discussed previously, we dont know why we have morals. Why we feel its wrong to see an innocent person die. Why we abhor greed and conflict. But we do, and I think thats for a reason. I dont think that we were all imbued with values like this from some divine force, I think they just were selected for naturally as our species evolved.

In no way do I believe sceince will be able to explain everything. But I think we should instead reach to human models of explanation and reason instead of throwing our hands in the air and ascribing it to god.

Two things;

About the Church - like any all powerful organization, its members are subject to greed and abuse of power. You could say this for any community of people, and its not exclusive to religion.

Second, war has been waged in the name of religion, but only fools would ascribe religion as a wars only or even greatest motivation. Wars are perpetrated by greed, want and revenge.

i'll preface this with the note that i havn't read through this thread at all

what caught my eye was

while you're correct in saying that religion may not have been the greatest or lone motivation, i don't think it'd be too ridiculous to say that  religion has been the lone or greatest enabler of a war. To be an enabler of a war, to me at least, is something on par with being a motivation for a war

Religion is a commonality that defines groups. If you want to enrage and motivate a group, theres no better way than to tap the element that brings you all together and claim it is under threat.

Bump

So this thread was posted around when I first joined newschoolers, which was also when I was still religious. I've gone through a complete change in my view of life and I can now say with as much conviction as one can afford that I am agnostic/atheist (I'm not one for semantics) and want nothing more to do with any organized religion. Looking back through my posts in this thread was almost scary, how seemingly brainwashed my responses sounded. I don't mean to bring any hate on anyone in particular by resurrecting a thread like this, but it's actually something that I've been meaning to do. I can credit this thread as one of the first things that helped open my eyes about religion.

I'm not saying that I simply read a couple of internet posts and suddenly revised my philosophy on life, but rather it started a spark that has carried me through nearly two years of change in how I view life. I now see science clearly, and hope to go on to major in Biology and become a doctor. I see a purpose to life beyond what some deity assigns to us; a purpose that is completely subjective and personal and for some doesn't even have to exist. I see myself as a person and not a slave to some other abstract being. It has done wonders for me intellectually, and apart from secretly alienating myself from a religious family (truth is worth it), it has improved my life in every aspect I can think of. So for those out there who have not tried to live without religion, just take a day to live in the freedom (from yourself, not a "god") that you will feel.

These are my beliefs. I've never tried to explain them to anyone, save for one girl who was a hardcore Christian and didn't understand them at all.

^ same here

But I dont believe my creator made all of this for us, and for us to worship him/her. We were created as a result of our enviroment and everything else around us. we should just be thankful for the life we have and the gifts around us er'yday.

maybe im just a knee dipping tree fairy

i'm Taoist.

it's difficult to say why i'm religious, but then again, this whole issue is difficult.

you can't prove religion

you can't disprove religion

the way i look at it, there has to be something, and for me, Taoism is just the right "thing"

i dunno if any religion is more true than another, but i do think a lot of religions have more wrong than they do right.

I didn't see this thread until it had 7 pages, so I have only read some of the first page, but I will read some more of it. Here is how I see it though
I do believe in a higher power. I am a catholic, but I certainly do not believe that Catholicism has it all correct. If I have been wrong this whole time, and when I die nothing happens, I really wont care, I will be dead. If I am wrong about being a catholic, if the God up there is not how it was described to me, I will have nothing else to say besides "Hey, I tried my best, and I thought I was doing what was right, and I hope it was good enough for you".

But the bottom line as far as God discussion in this life goes, I know that I will not be able to convince an atheist that there is something out there, nor will he be able to convince me that there is nothing.

such a great thread. it is really good to see soo many people talking about their views and not becoming all aggressive about who's views are better and why.

if you really look at religions (which i am right now because a religion class is required at my school for one year) there is no scientific way that a higher being of any kind is possible. i look at the world in a very scientific and factual way. i will reference the bible because it is what we have studied the most. the bible says that the world was created less than 10000 years ago. it has been scientifically proven that life existed millions and millions of years ago. if i remember correctly the world was created 13 billion years ago and this has been proven. there is no possible way that man was created from dust and woman was created from one of man's ribs. there are plenty of examples like this that are completely ridiculous and i find it absurd that anyone could possibly think that any of the bible's stories are true. religions are the world's biggest scam and anyone who believes in them is extremely ignorant. all religions do is cause war between people who would otherwise have no reason at all to hate each other and waste peoples time and money. i have better things to do with my time than try and "talk" to and become closer with god. the idea of a god is pretty ridiculous too. if "he" wanted everyone to be happy he wouldn't cause all of pain and hardships that occur in the world and this would be a much better place. since most religions believe in different gods they can't all be right in believing that their god is the only god. in my opinion the ideas of religions and god are some of the dumbest ideas that anyone has ever thought up. the bible was written anywhere from 60 to hundreds of years after the events supposedly occurred so there is no way the stories are correct. if anyone has ever played the game "telephone" with 10-15 people stories change so over hundreds of years there is no possible way they could be the same stories that were originally told.

My beliefs are highly scientific, according to quantum mechanics, things that are either impossible or cannot be proven right or wrong, are irrelevent and stay neutral and irrelevant. I see god the same way. Something that cannot be proven right or wrong, therefore i believe that it is a neutral irrelevant thing, so in my mind it does not exist until proven. I am not saying that there isn't something because if you think about what started everything there is there must have had to be a start of something and that something must have created everything and a good answer is a higher being.

I believe that our belief in God or another divine being stems directly from:

Humans needing someone to blame when everything goes wrong and we gave it our all.

An hope that there must be something more when we die to compensate for our sense of disappointment.

This one might seem mean,but as an excuse to obliterate anyone who isn't like us.

The only religion that I could believe in would be Buddhism, because they worship peace and moderation instead.

My feelings exactly

I made a thread similar to this, and it went horribly wrong. Tanner is a lil bitch

I dont know what to say about religion, but as far as richard dawkins, he is a real dick.

I don't believe in god because there is no proof. I am more agnostic than atheist, in that I believe it's possible, I just don't like to have a religion. I think religion is a good thing for some people because it does help them but for me it doesn't. I am an overall good person because I am, not because I'm worried something is going to punish me if I'm not. I also think religion should be much more personal than it is. If god put us here, it wasn't to worship/recruit more people to worship him, it was to live a life.

http://truthism.com/

Arthur Guiness is god.