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Originally posted by Lebell
I wouldn't exactly call it "enjoy", but I won't remain silent, especially when you present inaccurate or incomplete statements.
Nor do I think you are "all ears", since it appears that unless it can be measured or reproduced, it is not "evidence". (Nor is it, in the scientific sense.)
I will also correct you in that I've answered the question of "why I believe" at least twice that I can think of on TFP.
All that being said, I will answer a third time.
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Proving God?
Proving or disproving God is a fool's errand, as witnessed by the facts each side in the debate attempts to present.
Athiests will point to the fact that God as an entity can not be seen or measured, and that typical theological 'proofs' such as the burning bush, visions, out of body experiences, and the like can be explained away by modern science. For them, no proof logically leads to no God, via Occam's razor.
The faithful on the other hand, counter that God must be approached by belief or "faith" and that any attempt to prove God or to quantitize God is doomed to failure since God will thwart such efforts.
My personal contention is that any person who does have faith in a higher power (be He Buddah, Jesus or Allah) must acknowledge that which is most frightening of all: The possibility that there is really no one there.
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In agreement with you so far.
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So the question then becomes, if you acknowledge your belief may be wrong, then why believe? Aren't you happier facing the "probable" grim reality instead of releaving your fear in a "fantasy"?
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A kind of a twisted up, bent over back wards Pascal's Wager goin on here. I put forward a poll on this subject as Red Pill or Blue Pill.
It is certainly easier to believe in God, then face the horrifing truth..."one day I am going to die."...to die in the absolute sense. I will cease to exist.
Again, what you might
like to believe in, has no bearing on what is real.
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Ultimately this answer must be a personal one and perhaps this is why science cannot (or maybe was never intended) to answer with theorems, measurements, etc.
My reasons for believing span well over 3 decades, so such a condensation does not do them justice, but in brief, I believe one of the dichotomies of this existance is that you generally find what you are looking for.
If you are looking for unhappy people everywhere and a miserable existance, you will probably find it. Conversely, if you look for the good in people and a generally joyous existance, you seem to find that as well.
So too, I believe it with the search for God.
I find it intellectually curious that science (of which I am an ardent proponent) cannot seem to squash God out of reality. There always seems to be wiggle room for an "Almighty" that can't be proved away. This can be seen in the Heisenburg (sp?) uncertainty principle, super space theory and chaos theory. This can also be seen in the above mentioned visions, along with past life experiences, levitation, and prayer healing, to name a few.
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How does Heisenberg leave the wiggle room for God to exist that a Newtonian universe did not?
Similarly, how does chaos theory prove God? If anythingm I would consider chaos theory as evidence against the need for a god to explain things.
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But we still come to that pesky, "Yeah, but maybe science just hasn't gotten around to explaining that yet" and I concede the point.
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Exactly. A couple of hundred years ago, the fact that humans and animals exist would be taken as (nearly irrefutible) evidence that God existed.
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But for me, the bottom line is this: There appears to be much to me that indicates some higher existance than the one we experience in the daily grind.
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Like what? This is what I am looking for. What indicates a spiritual existence? This is the evidence that I am looking for.
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Further, those that I would consider far along in a spiritual life (The Dali Lama, Mother Theresa, Thomas Merton) seem to have a peace, a...a...something that is beyond words and physical explaination.
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Well, I would agree with you in a sense.
They are at peace with themselves. But their reasons for being so, are not necessarily correct ones. It is quite easy to convince oneself of the existence of God, and once you have that, and you devote your life to this cause, I can see how it would be easy to be "at peace".
I have seen this first hand. My aunt was years ago very very depressed. She was a mess. She is now a very religious person, and I know that it was her "faith" that allowed her to psychologically heal herself. It is in situations like this that I cannot claim to completely dispise religion. Her beliefs may be wrong, but if they allow her to get on with her life then what harm does it cause?
So having a faith has benifits, but that doesn't make it correct.
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So my own scale tips and I choose to believe that there is a God.
And to date, the path that has proven most rewarding in pursuing the "God" I've choosen to believe in is Christianity.
And I don't believe that God would have it any other way.
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You still have not given me any evidence. You have made refference to evidence. Yuo have pointed out some consequences of religion, but you have given me no evidence, even of the non-experiemntal kind.