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You know God exists. Now thats either true or its not. Your opinion matters.

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  • Options
    #92
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Fourier wrote: »
    Well the whole point you're making is "What if everybody is inherently irrational in a way that prevents them from reaching my conclusion and that conclusion is the correct one".

    I'm not quite sure what rationality has to do with it. There is nothing rational or irrational about the existence of a sense. A sense is something that feeds information to you regarding the environment you occupy. You can process that information rationally or irrationally and with greater or lesser rigour, intelligence. You can come to different conclusions about it.

    But we are talking about the sense - not the processing of the information.
    Well then God would exist, be as you imagine he is and we'd be unable to realise that due to being too biased. It's contained in the definition of the scenario. That's it. It's not really a discussion, it's just a defining trait of a particular scenario.

    The discussion centres around whether its possible to conclude (safely) whether delusion in me or blindness in you is at play. The conclusion on here is delusion in me. I'm querying how that is arrived at safely.

    So far, my bald claim appears to be countered by another bald claim (e.g. smacl's "the totality of reality is what I can see"). Which, you might agree is problematic. For we can all say that.


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    #93
    sydthebeat
    Subscribers Posts: 40,989 ✭✭✭✭sydthebeat


    Human evolution will eventually dispose of religious beliefs.

    We've come from worshiping fire, the sun, the moon etc to worshiping nature, trees, rivers etc to myrids of imaginary celestial beings norse, roman, Greek, Egyptian... To worshipping individual beings ie mohammed, God, Haile Selassie etc...

    Eventually religion will descend to a simple understanding and realisation that projecting one's woes, or attributing one's successes, to a separate absent entity is illogical, non sensical and an abdication of personal responsibility.
    Religion will be viewed on the future as a crude means of controlling the masses, probably warranted originally, but ultimately a corrupt and logically bankrupt ideological system. And upon that realisation, religion will be consigned to the past as an embarrassing period of human history where we refused to acknowledge that us ourselves are ultimately responsible for what we do, say, think etc.

    Thankfully this evolution is already well underway


  • Options
    #94
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    But surely as per your thread title his opinion matters?
    Bit rude to dismiss it like that no?
    Although pleasing to see you can be brief in your comments.


    I have been speaking about blindness. Properly, spiritual blindness or blindness to a realm outside and enclosing the physical.

    The OP talks of man knowing and without excuse. Indicating he isn't blind (for blindness would be an excuse)

    An example of the intersect would be "God's law written on heart and the conscience accusing and defending his actions."

    An example of law written in heart would be feelings of compassion stirred when coming upon a scene befitting an expression of compassion. The law on heart produces compassion and the person is driven to act compassionately. Or they may not act so. They might suppress the compassion with some or other reasoning - and walk on by.

    The good samaritan parable is a case in point.

    Now, the person might be blind to the source of compassionate sense. They may suppose it the product of blind evolution (ironic that folk self-describe themselves as blind by attaching themselves to a process of production which itself is blind). Nevertheless they have sight within confines. They know what they ought do and why. And their 'opinion' (which can suppress what they know they ought to do) counts.

    It counts not only for the poor unfortunate having compassion bind his wounds. It counts for the person in the here and now (whose conscience will subsequently accuse or defend his actions) - their sense of self and what they are about and what they stand for, is constructed ?or destructed) so.

    It counts because it is a response to God's call to the person (for he is the source of the compassionate urge). A call which ultimately leads to a persons salvation or, if the call is 'in aggregate' denied and resisted, their damnation.

    Somewhere in the bible, when talking about the division of sheep and goats (diveded unto salvation or damnation) reference is made to "whatever you did unto these (the beaten traveller encountered at the side of the road) you did unto me". This references the fact that our responses to the sight we have in our day to day intersect and have significant weight in the realm we are blind to.

    Not that our binding wounds will save us on some scale of merit. The algorithm is more sophisticated than mere weighing scale. Nevertheless, our sight and reactions to it, are inputted into a salvation/damnation algorithm.

    Such that there be no excuse. So, opinions do matter in that way.

    Sorry I couldn't be more brief.


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    #95
    Bigboldworld
    Registered Users Posts: 179 ✭✭Bigboldworld


    Nobody can know either way with certainty that there is or isn’t a god, some take a leap of faith and believe others don’t. No living human being will definitively crack it, we’ll only know when we go and as people can’t come back and tell us what happens after we die then we’ll go on with this back and forth until the end of time.

    Both opinions should be respected as they both have merit, impossible to say which one is accurate.


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    #96
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Bigboldworld wrote: »
    Nobody can know either way with certainty that there is or isn’t a god, some take a leap of faith and believe others don’t. No living human being will definitively crack it, we’ll only know when we go and as people can’t come back and tell us what happens after we die then we’ll go on with this back and forth until the end of time.

    Both opinions should be respected as they both have merit, impossible to say which one is accurate.

    I would disagree with a leap of faith. Not least because that term (or the sense behind it) doesn't appear in the bible.

    Belief is a place arrived at even if blind to it along the way there. Once there, the evidence will be seen, in somewhat Aladdin's Cave measure. The faith exists and is sustained because of the evidence. Nothing less.

    Not talking a leap would be an excuse anyway. And there can be no excuses.

    "The void simply appeared to big to me m'lud. I reckoned I there'd be nothing to catch me, so I didm't jump"

    Such a system would tend towards saving those inclined to take a blind punt. The risk takers of this world.

    Blessed are the poor in spirit. Not blessed are the dare devilish.

    It is possible to say which one is accurate. You only have to be able to see why folk can't see it.


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    #97
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    sydthebeat wrote: »
    Human evolution will eventually dispose of religious beliefs.

    We've come from worshiping fire, the sun, the moon etc to worshiping nature, trees, rivers etc to myrids of imaginary celestial beings norse, roman, Greek, Egyptian... To worshipping individual beings ie mohammed, God, Haile Selassie etc...

    Eventually religion will descend to a simple understanding and realisation that projecting one's woes, or attributing one's successes, to a separate absent entity is illogical, non sensical and an abdication of personal responsibility.
    Religion will be viewed on the future as a crude means of controlling the masses, probably warranted originally, but ultimately a corrupt and logically bankrupt ideological system. And upon that realisation, religion will be consigned to the past as an embarrassing period of human history where we refused to acknowledge that us ourselves are ultimately responsible for what we do, say, think etc.

    Thankfully this evolution is already well underway

    We worship ourselves (what with creating idolised versions of ourselves on social meedja). We worship consumption which feeds into self satisafaction and creating a self image (even if that involves buildings collapsing on the impoverished on the other side of the world). We create false images chasing after Audi's and BMW's anf Gucci handbags. We strain to be upwardly mobile and place huge value on status and position. We chase it so much so that wealth is accumulated to obscene degree. No amount is enough. We worship ourselves to the point where the planets climate and resources are strained beyond breaking point.

    We won't evolve for very long more following this trajectory. Our particular tower of Babel is wobbling badly.

    The point of false gods is always to permit worship of self. For so long as you can keep god in a box and assuage him with the few things he requires of you, you are free to do as you like.

    Which is what we like to be able to do. Do as we like. Self as god.

    There really isn't anything new under the Sun, when you zoom out. And our present day ways, seemingly so sophisticated, are as ridiculous as they ever were.

    The state of our planet underlines the point. A worship that destroys ourselves is beyond laughable. Far more stupid than any attempts previously made wrt self idolisation.

    Zoom out. Don't be fooled by the detail.

    Question for you. Name an age where folk didn't think they were at the most sophisticated state imaginable. Name a stage where folk didn't look back at ages previous and smirk at the seeming ignorance of peoples past.

    Do you suppose folk far future (assuming there is a far future) will consider us and shake their heads. What does that say about our actual sophistication present?


  • Options
    #98
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,708 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I'm not quite sure what rationality has to do with it. There is nothing rational or irrational about the existence of a sense. A sense is something that feeds information to you regarding the environment you occupy. You can process that information rationally or irrationally and with greater or lesser rigour, intelligence. You can come to different conclusions about it.

    But we are talking about the sense - not the processing of the information.

    Thing is, you claim to have a sense that other people don't posses and can't be evidenced. This is unusual as every other sense we posses can be evidenced. The obvious conclusion for someone that doesn't share your belief is that this claimed sense is something contained entirely within your own mind, akin to a feedback loop in an audio circuit. You might consider it real because it is real to you but that subjective position gives no one else any reason to suppose it is anything other than imaginary.


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    #99
    Fourier
    Registered Users Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I'm not quite sure what rationality has to do with it. There is nothing rational or irrational about the existence of a sense. A sense is something that feeds information to you regarding the environment you occupy. You can process that information rationally or irrationally and with greater or lesser rigour, intelligence. You can come to different conclusions about it.

    But we are talking about the sense - not the processing of the information.
    Okay, but that changes very little. Just replace "inherently irrational" with "lacking appropriate sensory apparatus".

    It ends up the same. If true then we would lack this sense, which in the scenario is required to obtain the truth. Thus if we lack it then we don't obtain the truth. There is little else to say, that's just the set up.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    The discussion centres around whether its possible to conclude (safely) whether delusion in me or blindness in you is at play. The conclusion on here is delusion in me. I'm querying how that is arrived at safely.
    Well many religions claim such additional senses being possessed by some. For example "Buddha-nature" or similar existential states in Buddhism.

    Now it would be possible to believe in such things if they accomplished something I could perceive without that being explicable via anything I directly perceive. For example if somebody used Buddha-sight to correctly diagnose and perfectly treat an illness medical professionals couldn't seven times in a row or similar. Or if two people with Buddha sight could be shown to be relaying messages to each other at a distance, by getting 3rd parties at each end to submit and confirm messages. Ultimately this is why I believe in things like electromagnetic radiation despite not being able to directly perceive it.

    However if you state that your additional sense can't even be verified without actually possessing it, i.e. you can do nothing to show you really have this sense. Then by definition if it exists we can't verify it, that's part of how we set it up.

    Again it's just a restatement of your scenario, there's no discussion. If there was such a sense and it could never be verified by people who lack it and it is required to obtain the truth, then in fact we couldn't access the truth. That's it.

    However since you are a human being just like us and you don't seem to be able to do anything with this "sense" beyond what anybody can do, I don't think there is any real reason to take this seriously.


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    #100
    _Brian
    Registered Users Posts: 18,475 ✭✭✭✭_Brian


    Fundamental problem with society is trying to see things as black or white, making a statement and then trying to grade everyone as either agreeing or disagreeing with it.

    Actual life exists much more as varying shades of grey rather than black and white opinions.


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    #101
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    Fourier wrote: »
    He means Christianity as practiced in pre-Norman Gaelic Ireland, which was more monastically oriented, scholastic and liberal than Roman Catholicism elsewhere. Most historians would agree with this, but it's not really relevant as it was long gone by the time of our grandparents. In fact it was gone in the 1400s, so of very little relevance to the faith of any elderly people today.

    If Gerald of Wales is to believed (our main source for pre-Norman Christianity in Ireland) the Gaelic Church was a hotbed of heresy and Ireland was pretty much still pagan due to the complete lack of proselytizing which was 'why' the Pope granted Ireland to the English crown.
    Gerald should be taken with a grain tablespoon of salt as he had skin in the Norman Conquest (he was a Fitzgerald) but we do know from references in Irish sources that, according to his worldview, he had a point.

    The Gaelic Church did not generally proselytize. For reasons that have never fully been explained it seems to have followed the North African Coptic model of isolation from the world and held the view that those who wished to join would come to them - no call for chasing them.
    However, it could also be very political. There were no great monastic communities in Ireland (the Normans brought those) so the not on a Rock out in the sea monasteries were generally under the patronage of the local clan and the head monk would be a member of the Derbfine (ruling class) of that clan.
    They were a pain in the hole as far as Rome was concerned. Always with the bicker bicker and quick to tell HQ when they disagreed.
    Interestingly they do appear to have believed in reincarnation. Several references to it in Irish documents.
    They prized intellectualism and artistic ability.
    They believed in robust discussion of scripture.
    And mixed monasteries were very common.

    As for being 'liberal' - well, that is a word with very modern connotations. It could be argued that Gaelic Ireland (and Scotland) were very 'liberal' societies.
    Debatable but when compared to those regions that had been conquered by the 'civilising' Roman Empire certainly seemed to have had less of a stick up their societal hole.

    Gaelic Ireland did have very very strict laws (not based on Roman Law or Church Law), and an aristocratic elite and they were also a sexually promiscuous secular society. Divorce was common.

    Nunneries were very rare - possibly because women had a great deal of legal rights as individuals, virginity was not 'prized', there was no concept of children being 'illegitimate', and - more importantly - women actually controlled a lot of the clan finances due to ending up owning the cattle (it has to do with the dowry system which I won't go into to here)

    But yeah - not relevant as the Vatican made sure the Gaelic Church was wiped out and replaced by a more orthodox set-up many hundreds of years ago.


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    #102
    Fourier
    Registered Users Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    Thanks for that Bannasidhe, good to hear from somebody who knows the period and of course you are correct that "liberal" is an anachronism.


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    #103
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I have been speaking about blindness. Properly, spiritual blindness or blindness to a realm outside and enclosing the physical.

    The OP talks of man knowing and without excuse. Indicating he isn't blind (for blindness would be an excuse)

    An example of the intersect would be "God's law written on heart and the conscience accusing and defending his actions."

    An example of law written in heart would be feelings of compassion stirred when coming upon a scene befitting an expression of compassion. The law on heart produces compassion and the person is driven to act compassionately. Or they may not act so. They might suppress the compassion with some or other reasoning - and walk on by.

    etc etc etc

    You have not been 'speaking'. You have been lecturing. At great length and at every opportunity I may add.

    You composed the thread title and stated 'Your opinion matters'. A poster gave their opinion and you basically told them it doesn't matter. Ironic and rude.

    You may have started this thread - and this is the important bit - that does not mean you 'own' it, get to police it, or get to decide what is and is not permissible in this - or any other - thread in this forum.

    The narrative is not under your personal control. It is a discussion.

    The poster you were so dismissive of is absolutely entitled to put their point of view across as long as they do so in a civil manner. Which they did.

    And yes you can be briefer. Lecture less. It's often a wall of wordyness which between you and me is going to put people off reading it so if you genuinely want to engage people rather than do a fair imitation of reading from the pulpit I would advise being a bit more concise.


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    #104
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,708 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    _Brian wrote: »
    Fundamental problem with society is trying to see things as black or white, making a statement and then trying to grade everyone as either agreeing or disagreeing with it.

    Actual life exists much more as varying shades of grey rather than black and white opinions.

    I agree entirely, but this does not mean we should treat any or every supernatural claim as credible until evidenced. FWIW, I'm of the opinion that none of us are entirely rational nor all our arguments wholly reasonable. I think we arrive at a broadly objective and rational position through consensus, testing and re-testing of any assertions raised. So for example, at one point in our history we thought the world was flat and that was rational. We now know better and being a flat-earther is irrational. Our collective understanding naturally evolves over time. The credibility of the rigid black and white Biblical truths of Christianity tend to become eroded as a result.


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    #105
    sydthebeat
    Subscribers Posts: 40,989 ✭✭✭✭sydthebeat


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Question for you. Name an age where folk didn't think they were at the most sophisticated state imaginable. Name a stage where folk didn't look back at ages previous and smirk at the seeming ignorance of peoples past.

    why do you think the dark ages were called the dark ages?
    there are plenty of examples throughout history where societies regressed.

    thousands of years earlier than the dark ages societies in ireland, china, mexico, egypt, greece etc were more enlightened.... and who were the main instigators of ignorance during the dark ages?? yep youve got it in one, the religious orders. They used this ignorance as a means to control and oppress the common man. these times are a stain on humanity with the atrocities caused religion in the name of "god" and they are looked upon as an embarrassing and dark time in human history

    Galileo was ridiculed and imprisoned by "religion" because he dared question the roman catholics decree of the earth being the center of the universe.

    there are loads of examples throughout history where religion was used to keep scientific enlightenment from happening.

    what you are trying to do by professing here is simply an extension of this for the times we live in.

    I don't expect you to see this, and im sure you are living your life happy in your faith which is fine by me. However you should be equally as respectful for those of us who see religion as a backward and oppressive ideology designed in the first instance to control the masses.

    ultimately i am my own judge. i am responsible for my own actions, and take responsibility for same. I do not pass on my own failures to a deity and question why it has forsaken me. i do not flagellate myself for not loving god enough for bad things not to happen to me. i take that responsibility, and i put those things that happen outside of my control down to the responsibility of others.
    This is not the worship of "self" but the realisation of "self"


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    #106
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,708 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    If Gerald of Wales is to believed (our main source for pre-Norman Christianity in Ireland) the Gaelic Church was a hotbed of heresy and Ireland was pretty much still pagan due to the complete lack of proselytizing which was 'why' the Pope granted Ireland to the English crown.
    Gerald should be taken with a grain tablespoon of salt as he had skin in the Norman Conquest (he was a Fitzgerald) but we do know from references in Irish sources that, according to his worldview, he had a point.

    Totally off-topic, but a timely reminder that I need to drop my father's old copy of Giraldus Cambrensis over to my brother in-law at the weekend.


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    #107
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,336 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    That's a reiteration of something said already. Can we move on to what I said (and asked of you) subsequent to and in response to this?

    You can move on where you want to move on, if you have other points to make. I had a point to make, I made it, and I am happy to continue discussing it. If you want to make other points to other people, go on your way :) you are done with me.

    With actual blindness I can enter into a discussion with the blind person and evidence to them they are blind, and sight exists, and the objects they can not see exist.

    To move the conversation on THIS point forward with ME therefore then that is easy. You would have to do the same thing as above. Can you evidence the sense you claim I lack exists? Can you evidence the thing I can not sense exists? So far the answer to BOTH has been a consistent "no" you can not.


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    #108
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,336 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Bigboldworld wrote: »
    Both opinions should be respected as they both have merit, impossible to say which one is accurate.

    Opinions do not require respect, only people do. So no I will not be respecting "opinion". Least of all opinions based on ZERO substantiation that the person expressing the opinion will.... despite being asked again and again and again and again.... deign to offer. That should not be respected. Quite the opposite. It should be derided and condemned.


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    #109
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    smacl wrote: »
    Totally off-topic, but a timely reminder that I need to drop my father's old copy of Giraldus Cambrensis over to my brother in-law at the weekend.

    Poor man - what did he do to deserve that?
    :P

    Although give me Gerry from Wales over O'Sullivan Beare's Catholic History of Ireland any day.


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    #110
    Fourier
    Registered Users Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    smacl wrote: »
    Totally off-topic, but a timely reminder that I need to drop my father's old copy of Giraldus Cambrensis over to my brother in-law at the weekend.
    Ah Cool! I'm kind of more interested in off-topic pestering Bannasidhe with a million questions about early Ireland.

    That's not the thread though :(


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    #111
    yourdeadwright
    Registered Users Posts: 20,520 ✭✭✭✭yourdeadwright


    People who believe in there god are a bit silly,
    There have been over 30 thousand gods worshipped since people came along,
    Why in the world would you be so certain that your one is 100% the correct one,

    It also means everyone is an atheist as they don't believe in 99.9 % of gods

    Also id love to know the % of people that are born into there religion, they just believe what less educated people before them did without ever questing it all,
    Its all very very silly,


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    #112
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    smacl wrote: »
    Thing is, you claim to have a sense that other people don't posses and can't be evidenced. This is unusual as every other sense we posses can be evidenced. The obvious conclusion for someone that doesn't share your belief is that this claimed sense is something contained entirely within your own mind, akin to a feedback loop in an audio circuit. You might consider it real because it is real to you but that subjective position gives no one else any reason to suppose it is anything other than imaginary.

    As I was saying in the OP, there is evidence but the evidence (say: there is and we act as if there is an objective morality) of God but it can be read contra-God in order to maintain our bent: to be god.

    Now you will say that the overwhelming case is that the evidence be read other than God. But if with prior bent, the evidence weighing isn't neutral and balanced.

    If.

    The obvious conclusion is obvious but if a bent obvious. Suffice to say, obvious isn't an argument. And so stalemate, when it comes to argument occurs.

    You might say this is okay. That you can't eacape a stalemate for the FSM either. Which is fine. Stalemate it is and you are left with a position that can't quite attach itself firmly to anything. What you rely on is your feeling that you are right. Your belief

    Which is fine. The apparatus of salvation/damnation understands this and takes it into account in its workings. It knows you are bent and balances accordingly that which you cannot balance.

    So that there be no excuse, if you plump for that end, in the end.


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    #113
    Zubeneschamali
    Registered Users Posts: 16,686 ✭✭✭✭Zubeneschamali


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    As I pointed out, all hinges on whether true or not. If true then ignorance isn't an excuse.

    So now you have to consider how you will decide if it is true or not.


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    #114
    KWAG2019
    Closed Accounts Posts: 834 ✭✭✭KWAG2019


    Tedious pseudo epistemological posts as part of the new religious right project to resurrect (pun intended) the desiccated corpse of revealed religion via equivalence of opinion with evidence. TL;DR “Sure lads we don’t know what we know so we might as well believe this stuff as much as anything else.”

    The ignore button is a great blessing.


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    #115
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    yourdeadwright wrote: »
    People who believe in there god are a bit silly,
    There have been over 30 thousand gods worshipped since people came along,
    Why in the world would you be so certain that your one is 100% the correct one,

    It also means everyone is an atheist as they don't believe in 99.9 % of gods

    Also id love to know the % of people that are born into there religion, they just believe what less educated people before them did without ever questing it all,
    Its all very very silly,


    Well one feature of the gods is that they allow us to continue being gods. Yeah, we are a bit constrained, we have to do a bit of appeasing, and follow some rules. Aside from that we are free to do as we like.

    The god of materialism (the current god) serves the same function.

    Your education objection falls badly over the hurdle of there being very educated, very smart people who believe. You need a more sophisticated objection.


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    #116
    Zubeneschamali
    Registered Users Posts: 16,686 ✭✭✭✭Zubeneschamali


    Bigboldworld wrote: »
    Nobody can know either way with certainty that there is or isn’t a god, some take a leap of faith and believe others don’t.

    There is an African elephant on Leinster Lawn right now.

    Without physically going to Merrion Square and looking through the railings, no-one can know with certainty whether that is true or not.

    So am I taking a leap of faith when I say that I categorically believe it is false, and there is no such elephant? If so, then everything is a leap of faith once it is out of sight and around the corner. Perhaps elves build the whole world like a film set just beyond my view, and disassemble it after I pass.

    I say no, I am happy that my belief that there is no such elephant, and that the external world is real and persists when I am not looking at it, and that there is no god, are all equally valid and based on the same sort of evidence and reason.


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    #117
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    KWAG2019 wrote: »

    The ignore button is a great blessing.

    One you clearly haven't availed of yet, by the looks of it.


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    #118
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    One you clearly haven't availed of yet, by the looks of it.

    MOD

    I already warned another poster to be civil in how they respond to you. I now ask that you show the same courtesies. Please refrain from making snarky comments. Thanking you.


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    #119
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Zubeneschamali wrote: »
    So now you have to consider how you will decide if it is true or not.

    I'm past that post. The question is how will you decide.

    Well, you are deciding as it happens. You are in the process already, your answer is being given all day long. And it will keep on being given until it is decided that your answer is sufficiently final.

    You don't get the evidence that sustains belief until you answer is given (in the affirmative). Once that occurs there is no problem: you see and it all makes sense.

    If the answer is in the negative you will see one day, when it is too late. There has to be a too late, otherwise your answer couldn't be a final answer. A non-final answer isn't an answer.


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    #120
    Zubeneschamali
    Registered Users Posts: 16,686 ✭✭✭✭Zubeneschamali


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I'm past that post. The question is how will you decide.

    I have already decided, too.


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    #121
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,336 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    I know I have said this so often it is boring even to me, let alone everyone else. But I am constantly fascinated by people who claim they, or anyone elee, can "decide" what to believe.

    It is an ability that seemingly has been completely denied to me. And I often wonder how labile peoples credulity is. Can you look at a patently empty box and "decide" to believe that it is full of money? Can you look at your favorite actor and actress and "decide" to beleive they are in love with you?

    For me belief, or lack of it, is not a decision but a compulsion as impossible to resist as my heart beating is. Either evidence is presented and I am compelled to believe the claim, or evidence is not presented and I am entirely unable to believe the claim.

    I never decided to not believe in a god. I am simply not capable of it given I have been offered not just insufficient, not just little, but ABSOLUTELY ZERO argument, evidence, data or reaosning to substantiate the claim that there is one. I can not just flick a switch and "decide" to believe it all the same.


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