Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Why are there 5.8 billion people who believe in a god and only 16 % of the world's population is atheist?
Why do people believe in God?
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
How could some people genuinely know if there is an unknowable God? By what gnostic standard does one "know" God?
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Why do a % of the population think slavery is ok? Women are less than men? The earth is flat? Believe in a creation?The earth is 6000 years old?
People can be wrong. Sometimes the majority can be wrong.
Maybe they are the "chosen ones". God chose to make itself known to them...
(Disclaimer, I don't believe this. I think they're full of... themselves. But what do I know?)
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I can see a minority being wrong, but a majority? Moreover, this majority does not believe in some of that list, they believe all of that list. Scripture tells them all of that is true.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
What % of the population thought the earth was flat 1000 years ago? The earth geocentric in the solar system? Disease caused by demons or curses? Planets are stars? Salt water and fresh water cannot mix? The universe consisted of earth fire and water? Apollo was a god? Wotan was a god? Ra was a god?
Covid was fake?
Yes a lot and sometimes ALL the people can be wrong.
First, how do you know that God is unknowable? For example, I only know that God, if he exists, hasn't made himself known to me in any way that I can identify that as such. I have some overarching conception of God that sort of makes sense only if it doesn't interact with the internal machinations of the universe, and as such I would claim that this God is unknowable. That's why I'm an agnostic. Though I can't be sure that this covers every notion of God.
But, if you're serious about the question, ask someone who claims to know. We have had many discussions here on Sciforums over the years on this matter. Just browse through the Religion section to whet your appetite, at least if you're serious about such questions.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Key phrase: "Can be wrong"
The problem is that "believers" think their belief is right, not that they could be wrong.
And that is a problem, because God grants privileges to believers that they would deny atheists or even agnostics.
In some countries, non-belief is punishable by death. Nothing right about that.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
OK, that is perfectly legitimate but not persuasive.
IMO, all religions claim exclusive truth and ANY deviation from the Word nakes one a heretic, punishable with god's (unknown) wrat, such as an eternity of suffering in hell.
Lest we forget that some of the bloodiest wars have been fought with permission of an unknowable authority.
Agnosticism does not have any influence on those who misuse their beliefs to impose their exclusive religion by force an violence.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
ARE wrong. The earth is not flat, Planets are not stars, disease not caused by demons, Covid was not fake etc etc
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
not all. I had doubts from a young age and eventually ditched it in my 20s. I realized I was wrong.
Same here .I used to rationalize what I was told about religion (we used to have priests coming to the house)
I used to make space in my bed for the guardian angel.
It should be a crime to indoctrinate children for any reason.
The thought crossed my mind that the human mind might be hard wired to be strongly or weakly receptive to believing things with little evidence.
We cannot be completely open minded. We would not survive well.
"A man with a hunch is a man with a lunch" Fred Kneedy
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Yes. As children, we (must) trust our parents implicitly. That's what keeps us out of traffic and alive.
But that time comes to an end (for some of us at least) and we put away childish things.
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things"
(ironically, Paul - I Corinthians 13:11 )
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I never had that problem. I was raised in an atheist family. No one in our family "believed". God never existed for me.
However, I made it a point to know something about religion and its origins so that I could understand the dilemma faced by reasonable minds brought up in a religious environment.
I refer to this book often: https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/outline.html
Given that you asked, only a few posts prior: "How could some people genuinely know if there is an unknowable God? By what gnostic standard does one 'know' God?" suggests that you have not really understood anything significant about "religion", other than from the perspective you already hold, thus reinforcing your pre-existing ideas.
The online book you claim to refer to also isn't really going to do you any favours with regard actually understanding religion, either. It is also, obviously, limited in its scope to those religions that utilise the Bible. Try diversifying, if you really want to understand. Which I doubt you genuinely do.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Can you enlighten me about what exactly it is I don't understand?
I understand that in this science forum, the concept of a Divine Creation via an "Intelligent Design" by an Unknowable God seems to be more scientifically acceptable than the concept of an abstractly mathematically ordered universe. I fail to see the logic in that.
Can you explain this curious juxtaposition to me?
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Why religious people believe in what they do.
Basically your attempts to "understand" is just an exercise in reinforcement of your own position. The source you claimed to refer to to aid that understanding is going to give you nothing but the side of the story that you already accept. It won't help you understand the other side.
It's like if you're trying to undestand why some people might see person X as a "good person", rather than a "bad person", and the only sources you look at to help you are those written by those who believe X is a "bad person", explaining to you why X is a "bad person". It is selective bias in your efforts to understand. If understanding is what you are genuinely after.
TL;DR - using a skeptics interpretation of the Bible is going to give you nothing but the skeptics view.
??? Not sure where this has come from, given what has been posted in the thread thus far.
TheVat
Registered Senior Member
Seems to me that some theists maintain belief via a sort of Castaneda mode, where they accept that reason can't access that aspect of reality but adopt an epistemology that allows a nonrational kind of knowing. Anyone who read those Castaneda bestsellers back in the day will recall the somewhat seductive appeal of a nonrational mode - when you're young it has an attractively subversive quality. The hell with all that plodding reason and science! Later it sinks in how much deception and illusion dwells in those paths of unreason. (and that Castaneda's anthropological research was exposed as fraudulent, his books fiction)
ID seems to be part of the larger instinct to anthropomorphizing nature. Hmm, all these things seem designed. Well, design must imply a designer! Kind of a subset of magical thinking.
ID seems to be part of the larger instinct to anthropomorphizing nature. Hmm, all these things seem designed. Well, design must imply a designer! Kind of a subset of magical thinking.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
If the attempts to understand consist of reading and using excerpts from mainstream science, then its called proof, no?
Why do you think I quote peer reviewed articles I understand and not "my own words" which apparently you do not understand? I am trying to make it easy for the reader to understand what I am saying.
But for some reason no one bothers to read quotes that support the principles on which I base my missives.
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