sixate

Sorry dude, but there are a lot more people than that who don't believe in your religion. So there goes your proof.

Just because people used to believe in ancient greek mythology doesn't mean that was real.

Shpoop

sixate: yes, but approx. 96% of the world believes in some sort of higher being, and thats more than most facts.. so call it fact or call it fear or call it what you wish.

The most scientific people are the people who believe/know God to exist. Einstein never doubted his existence. Neither did Darwin. In fact he, somewhat, 'proved' his existence by proving that the chance of a blood clotting gene (only one of millions of neccessary genes for life) would evolve was some OUTRAGEOUS number, i mean something like one in all the 'seconds the universe has seen' or somethign like that. Darwin believed in a higher being, and evolution does NOT disprove God/the Bible

Marius1

Belief is a very fragile thing.

We believed:

the earth flat
the moon unreachable
that electricity flowed + to -
that drilling holes in a patient's head would release the demons

belief isn't truth, it's just an idea awaiting to be disproven.

CSflim

Thats rubbish! Darwin was a straight up atheist! This fact caused him great grief due to the fact that his wife, whom he dearly loved, was a devout christian, and was the source of much turmoil in their relationship.

Einstein DID NOT believe in God, though he reffered to him constantly in his writings. If you were to actually read these writing you would realise, from the context, that his refferences to "the Old One" were purely metaphorical and illustratative.

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." - Einstein

Moreover, I think the X amount of people believe in Y is the most idiotic argument that anyone can use, and it is abused by people on BOTH sides of this argument.
Just drop it people, it is absolutely meaningless.

Like Marius1 pointed out, a number of centuries ago, everybody "knew" that the earth was flat, and that the sun orbited around the earth and that all celestial bodies were perfect spheres.
Doesn't make it fact!

As for your claim that evolution doesn't disprove the existence of God, well I guess that's true, but it removes yet another reason as to why somone would need to believe in him.

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asaris

Well, while I am well aware of all of the problems with the problems of saying that "Well, more people agree with me than with you, so I must be right", I do want to add that 1) more people on earth claim Christianity than claim any other one set of beliefs (or lack thereof) -- it might not be a majority, but it's a plurality -- and 2) Christianity is the world's fastest growing religion. (Both facts taken from Atlantic Monthly. If anyone really wants, I can look up the article and month.)

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

sixate

Very well said. It's pretty much exactly how I woulda responded.

Beltruckus

well i don't believe in God, I have Faith that he exhists, what say you to that?

__________________
The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings. Words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out. -Stephen King

CSflim

That's nothing but silly semantics.

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sixate

That makes absolutely no sense at all.

prosequence

...like those who belong to the flat earth society... still won't admit the obvious..... (joke/halfserious)
Just because you don't want to acknowledge the proof doesn't mean it's not proof.

__________________
And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

CSflim

I'm sorry....WHAT!?

Are you HONESTLY trying to use the argument that "lots of people believe it, so it must be true" as PROOF!?

I don't care HOW MANY people believe in any kind of rubbish...I for one prefer to MAKE UP MY OWN MIND.

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sixate

I ask again. What proof!? Nobody has given me any proof at all. There is no proof. It's all hearsay, and that is hardly any proof at all. Actually, it's no proof. You couldn't convict someone of a crime by hearsay alone. There has to be cold hard evidence and nobody has that.

virus

i tend to agree with you, but why do you have faith in the idea that being "drug free" somehow improves your life or people's perception of you?

i'm just saying it's easy to get caught up in society's pressures. THAT'S why people believe in the bible. it's all true, because people believe. and maybe some of it actually happened.

CSflim

What has drugs got to do with anything?
Sixate has it in his Sig. It has got nothing to do with this debate.

As for society's pressures: Again, nothing to do with what is true or not.
"it's all true, because people believe" - Such meaningless "post-modern" attitudes to things don't hold much water with me, or anyone with the slightest clarity of thought.
Something is ture, or is not true, regardless of whether people like it or not.

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prosequence

Moreover, I think the X amount of people believe in Y is the most idiotic argument that anyone can use, and it is abused by people on BOTH sides of this argument.
[/QUOTE]
It seemed to work for Democracy, freedom, rights, currency........
If enough people believe in somehting it will exist and does exist.

__________________
And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

rainheart

That's totally irrelevant to the arguement prosequence.

People used reason to determine the result of the effect of instating a certain cause.

If the result of the effect was desirable, then whatever would cause that effect would be instated by the people through voting.

In a nutshell that's how democracy works, that's why we have rights and freedoms, as well currency.

To say people "believed" in democracy and it works because people believe in it is not correct. Democracy works because people use their reasoning to determine if what it does is desirable.

That's why you get political arguements because of different methods of reasoning, and in reality some people believe in manipulating the government and using peoples reasoning against them to their own benefit, which is how you can get scandals and fiascos.

So, to sum it up, yes it seemed to work. Seemed.

prosequence

To say people "believed" in democracy and it works because people believe in it is not correct. Democracy works because people use their reasoning to determine if what it does is desirable.[/QUOTE]

I have to ask (because my head is spinning with new info)
Do you believe in Democracy?

__________________
And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

rainheart

What do you mean by that?

Mojo_PeiPei

"All men approach me, so I recieve them. All paths... lead to me." Bhagavad Gita 4.11

Confucius said, "In the world there are many different roads but the destination is the same. there are a thousand deliberations but the result is one." I ching, appended remarks 2.5

Say, we believe in god, and what has been reveale dto us, and what was revealed to Abraham, Ismael, Issac, Jacob, and the tribes, and in what was given to Moses, jesus, and the prophets from their lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to God do we submit. Qur'an 3.84

And I (Jesus) have other sheep, that are not of this flock; I must being them also and they will heed my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepard. John 10.16

Anyone would be an idiot to take their faith at face value, thats just stupid, and they aren't true followers. What I wrote is an assortment of thoughts from four major world religions that sum up my beliefs. It doesn't matter so much what you believe, aslong as you live good and love others your doing good.

All religions believe the same thing, whose to say that "God" didn't reveal himself to different people in different ways. All the quotes above clearly show that all religions recognize that they are related, and that there are no outsiders, just people who are walking a different path to the same destination.

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To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

CSflim

This is absolutely idiotic logic.
But I guess I have come to accept nothing less in these type of arguments.

So I guess by YOUR magical logic, a few hundred years ago, the earth WAS INDEED actually flat, seeing as how so MANY people believed it was?

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virus

i think we've concluded that logic has dick to do with popular belief. that argument is easily usable for believers and not.

the thing is, urban legends are just as believable as anything else. lots of people turn on the news and believe verbatim what they hear. is the bible just another concept that's pushed like anything else? i think maybe...

asaris

That's demonstrably false. Christianity believes that there is one God, and that Jesus is God. No other religion, to the best of my knowledge, believes that. (note that Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, 7th Day Adventists, inter alia, are Christian heresies). Sure all religions say things like "Be nice to people," but we hardly need religion to tell us that.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Mojo_PeiPei

True, but I say that because I am trying to illustrate a point to the majority of the people here who don't think there is a God. Like was stated earlier 96% of the world's populace believes in a God, and at one level or another they all acknowledge each other. Further more CSfilm Einstein most definetly believed in a God, he even went to the trouble of proving the existence of a soul.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

CSflim

Want to back that up?

EDIT: And don't try and give me some quote of Einstein's where he talks about God, such as "I do not believe that God plays dice". Like I said already, God was used in this way by Einstein as a METAPHOR. Get me a quote of einsteins, where he explicitly states he believes in God. I have already posted a a direct quote of him DENYING the rumours that he was a theist.

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Mael

i was wondering where you found that 96% of people believe in god? i did a quick search and found nothing. also, whether einstein believed in god is sorta irrelevant for this discussion, it doesn't matter how smart he was (go jews!), really smart people can believe stupid things (not saying believing in god is stupid, just a general statement). and i haven't heard of him proving there's a soul. i don't see how that's really possible. but if there is a soul, then i know exactly where mine is gonna end up.

CSflim

After a quick search I found two more quotes, backing up my what I said about einstein.

and...

Looks like I'm right. But then I already knew that, as *I* am not in the habit of pulling "facts" out of my ass.

On an "unrelated" note, I would love to see Einstein's paper on a scientific proof for the existence of a soul.

Not that ANY of this matters, as Well Known Person X believed Y, is just an idiotic an argument as X amount of people believe Y.

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prosequence

This is absolutely idiotic logic.
But I guess I have come to accept nothing less in these type of arguments.

So I guess by YOUR magical logic, a few hundred years ago, the earth WAS INDEED actually flat, seeing as how so MANY people believed it was?

Yes, yes it was. And it was wrong to kill, and women couldn't vote, space travel was impossible.....

__________________
And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

CSflim

I have to ask (because my head is spinning with new info)
Do you believe in Democracy? [/QUOTE]

Wow....looks like the theists are playing anti-logic word games. Imagine that! Never would have seen that coming!

"Do you believe in Democracy?"...strictly speaking this sentance doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Taken litterally it could be taken as meaning:
"Do you believe that Democracy empirically exists?"- Then the answer would be yes. I can indeed see that democracy does indeed exist. Many countries use it as a means of government.
If this system were to be wiped off the face of the earth, then I wouldn't have to conclude that it didn't empirically exist.

"Do you believe that Democracy exists as a concept?" - Well, yes it exists, because it is defined. That is all that it takes! Regardless of whether it "actually" exists, I can conclude that as a cocept it does indeed exist. (In a similar way to infinity).

although I think the REAL question that was asked was:
"Do you believe that Democracy IS A GOOD IDEA....do you believe that democracy is a benificial system to our society. Is democracy favourable over other alternative systems?"

So by decomposing your question, we can see how silly your question was, by comparing democracy to God.
God may exist as an abstract concept, but unfortuanatly that has nothing to do with "actual" existence.

Further more, enough word games. You want word games, go play around in the "Ontological Argument" thread.
But I was under the impression that in this thread we were talking about why we do or do not believe in a God, a rather more important issue than playing pointless word games (as entertaining as they may be).

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CSflim

Ok, so a few hundred years ago the earth was flat. Fair enough. If YOU want to have a belief such as this, then far be it from me to argue with you. It's not my problem.

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floonine

It would be nice to see this posted more often.

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Political arguments do not exist, after all, for people to believe in them, rather they serve as a common, agreed-upon excuse. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest and finish finally and infamously as heretics.

CSflim

I suppose you are reffering to how the atheists on this board brutally bully the poor little theists?

This is a philosophy board. At the very heart of philiosophy is debate. We are debating. Surely thats the point? Maybe I was misinformed. I guess this board would be oh-so-much more effective, if every thread was a string of "yeah, I agree".

I gave the above post, as a sort of resignation. I don't see any point in arguing with somone who claims that the earth was flat a few hundred years ago, until it magically changed shape into a sphere.

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floonine

This is what I don't get:
If the Bible is a lie, then what is it's point?
OR
What is the purpose of lying to Christians? Who benefits from this?

__________________
Political arguments do not exist, after all, for people to believe in them, rather they serve as a common, agreed-upon excuse. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest and finish finally and infamously as heretics.

floonine

P.s. if you took speech and debate or competed in tournaments, you would know if you called someone "silly" or called their argument or information "idiotic" you would LOSE points and creditibility. Lines like "Maybe I was misinformed" are quite negative as well, and aren't necessary.

I am not trying to piss anyone off by pointing out this information, but I think it is more important to take a socratic method when trying to answer questions, which I understand is not easy or even preferred by some people.

__________________
Political arguments do not exist, after all, for people to believe in them, rather they serve as a common, agreed-upon excuse. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest and finish finally and infamously as heretics.

sixate

Maybe god magically turned it into a sphere. Uh.... Reality check! No fucking way.

Mael

good questions... too bad L. Ron Hubbard isn't stilll alive. He's teh most recent person I know of to create a religion, I'm sure he would have had quite the insight to what the creators of christianity were thinking.

Lebell

I'm sorry, but I see little debate.

Debate implies logic and well stated arguements.

For the most part, I am seeing sweeping statements, little reason or logic, and taunts.

For one thing, none of you even state or acknowledge the basics from which you argue.

So please, no one claim the high ground of logic in this thread.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Marius1

Eh? Religion and logic don't go together anyway. Never have, never will. You are talking fish on a bicycle there.

Charlatan

It isn't so much that the Bible is a lie per se... it is a series of stories, laws, customs, anecdotes, etc that have been collected over time.

Each of the stories in the Old Testament have been told and re-told, written and re-written by various figures throughout history. The New Testament is fist the Gospels - a series of stories about Jesus told for various reasons. Matthew (I believe) starts with a long list of who begat whom so as to show that Jesus is a direct decendant of David... this is extremely important if you are trying to convince Jews that Jesus is the messiah... Remember this was written (it is believed) about 20 to 30 years after the death of Christ.

This is followed by letters from Paul about how to be a Christian...

Essentially the laws of the OT and Paul's rules and judgements in the NT are all written for an audience that existed anywhere from 2000 to 8000 years ago (give or take a few thousand).

The OT starts with some colourful etiologies about where we came from and how we got here (Genesis) and some ur stories of the worship of Yahweh (Abe and his offspring). This is followed by Moses and the Exodous where a lot of laws are laid down. Including some the are quite heinous in today's context.

They were rules that allowed a nomadic people to survive (ie Onan's sin of wasted seed). They are also laws and rules from a very Patriarchal culture (ie women are property to be sold).

While there are some very good stories in the Bible that can provide guidance (the Good Samaratian in the NT is a great example) it must be noted that their is no reason to suppose that any of it is fact (while some of it might be close to historical fact - yes there was a Jerico but archeology has proven that it wasn't where the bible says it was and it most certainly didn't collapse after the blast of a horn).

The Bible like any good literature (and I'm using the term good loosely) is only as good as the reader who reads it. Take from it what you will. Read it with an eye to the fact that it was written long ago for a context specific purpose (the writers were not writing it for people in 2003).

Most importantly, the Bible was written by men (and possibly but highly unlikely in most cases women). Not by God.

Whether or not you believe in God doesn't mean that you have to take the Bible as unassailable. It is an historical work. Use it responsibly.

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- Old Man Luedecke

Lebell

That is not true.

You are confusing the process of logical thought with the overall discussion of whether religion (particular Christianity) is viable way to discuss reality.

For example, Biblical theologens (including some atheists) have concluded that it is reasonable to conclude that the person of Jesus actually existed as opposed to being a midrashic creation of the early church.

This was done by a systematic study of the bible and other texts along with historical knowledge of ancient Palestine and the Roman empire.

All very logical.

The problem with this thread is that it is ranging all over, with people asking others to "prove God" and "prove the Bible" along with a sprinkling of absurd strawman arguements (the Flat Earth discussion) and other logical falicies (if a lot of people believe something, it must be true).

In otherwords, since the thread has too wide a scope, people are basically throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, into the discussion, making it meaningless.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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prosequence

To answer the original question, people use the bible as a guideline for their beliefs. Kind of a manual to help along the way.
As for why? People always are looking for a little guidance in everything they do.

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