There is no reason to believe in a god, and no evidence to support it. I'd like to know why people do believe in a god, as not believing in one is fairly easy.
So, a question to your question, is there a good reason you believe in it (assuming you do)?
I'm a deist because I find several of the philosophical arguments for God's existence compelling. Specifically I think the arguments from fine-tuning and the intelligibility of the universe are strongly in favor of God's existence. The Leibnizian and Kalam cosmological arguments are moderately in favor, and the arguments from morality, desire, and religious experience are weakly in its favor. Between those seven arguments, I'm about 80 - 90% sure some sort of God exists.
Of course, there are plenty of reasonable people who don't find them compelling. There's a lot of room for individual judgment in this area, and the subject is so incredibly complex that I don't find it surprising that thoughtful people come to completely different conclusions.
I think the thread expired some time ago, but since you asked I'll attempt to explain my reasoning on the fine-tuning of the universe. There are a number of physical constants in the universe that if altered slightly would result in a universe unsuitable for life. For example, there's the expansion rate of the universe which is slow enough to allow stars to form, but fast enough to stop gravity from pulling everything back after the big bang. We also have the abundance of carbon in the universe, and somewhere between a handful and scores of others depending on who you ask. The best book I've read on this phenomenon so far is Martin Rees' Just Six Numbers. With the exception of one author, I haven't seen anyone dispute that the universe at least appears to be fine-tuned for the existence of life. Instead the counterarguments focus on alternative explanations for the the fine-tuning.
I think the best counterargument is the multiverse. In fact Rees argues for this explanation in the final chapter of his book. It's important to differentiate here between the multiverse as a scientific and philosophical concept. My problem with the multiverse as a scientific concept is that it's not currently testable, which I think excludes it from the realm of science. That said, just because something isn't testable doesn't mean it is wrong, and God certainly isn't in the realm of science either. So I think both God and the multiverse have to both be approached from a philosophical standpoint. My problem with the multiverse as a philosophical explanation is that we then have to explain where the multiverse came from. This is moving somewhat into the Leibnizian cosmological argument, but God is understood by the monotheistic and some philosophical traditions as a necessary being, which is something that exists eternally and is effectively its own reason for its existence. I have yet to see an author make the case that the multiverse is philosophically necessary. Or to put it differently, the multiverse as a proposed explanation isn't foundational for existence in the way that God is generally conceived to be, and has less explanatory power (in a metaphysical sense).
There are a number of other counterarguments, which I think range from bad to not quite as good as the multiverse. I'd be inclined to address them, if not for the fact that I don't think anyone's reading this thread anymore, and even if they were I'm approaching the TL;DR point.
Keep in mind that when I said I thought this was a strong argument for the existence of God I didn't mean I find it one-hundred percent convincing, but that it is strong relative to the other arguments I've encountered. I think it is at least possible that a multiverse exists and is necessary for reasons we can't comprehend. To clarify, I find the combination of the seven arguments I mentioned above gets me to about a 2.3 on the Dawkin's Scale, but if I only had fine-tuning I think I'd be somewhere around a 4 or 5.
Well there is evidence but it's not evidence that you're presently accepting. The Bible is a sort of evidence and people's testimony is as well.
For my part I believe in God because he speaks to me regularly and I'm the last person you'd expect that to happen to. I was minding my own business when I started hearing from God. Everyone I knew at the time was totally shocked and it took me over two years to accept what God was telling me (i.e. that the Bible is for real and I would do well to listen to what he's saying through it to me). I read Nietzsche and Russell in college and enjoyed them. I didn't really like Christianity as a religion much but I was nice to Christians I met and didn't really argue with them much. I didn't believe in anything but was respectful to everyone in other words.
My life now is defined by me trying to connect with God and make the most of my time here. I'm not trying to earn anything but I'm working because my God works all the time on my behalf. If God is my father then doing what he does is only the right thing to do if I'm actually his son. I split my time between serving adults (pastoring type stuff), children (Sunday school stuff), and the poor (I run a temporary food pantry). I also run a business to support my family, help my community, and build wealth. I keep busy and wouldn't change anything.
For me not believing in God is pretty hard even though I've seen some pretty bad things happen to people in my community that we prayed to turn around for over two years in one case. The only thing to do in the face of massive disappointment is to continue on. I've seen amazing responses to prayer and some big unanswered prayers too. Jesus prayer before he was arrested was unanswered as well. I take some comfort in that.
Life is pretty complicated and there are no easy answers especially when it comes to God and a life of faith. For me the stakes of life were raised considerably when I started following Jesus. It's not easy but it's not me to figure it all out either. The only faith I argue for is a living faith with a deep connection to a living God. I'd encourage to learn about that faith--not the faith that people say is found in books. No one in the Bible lived that way why should you or anyone else?
> I split my time between serving adults (pastoring type stuff), children (Sunday school stuff), and the poor (I run a temporary food pantry). I also run a business to support my family, help my community, and build wealth. I keep busy and wouldn't change anything.
Lets say, for the sake of argument. You don't believe in god. What would stop you from doing the above things you mentioned? Would it be fair for me to make an assumption (and I apologize if I am wrong), that you are not necessarily doing those noble things because you think those things will help people, but possibly you are doing those things to appease your god so that you get a better after life.
Assuming my above assumption is right (again I apologize if its not), do you see the inconsistency in your morality?
Nothing stops me from doing anything but I did none of those things prior to following Jesus. So the notion of the motivation behind works is important to understand. Also I typically give myself a B- to a C+ for what I do. I'm not always great at it.
Faith without works is dead. Works without faith is just work. Faith and works is a living faith supported by a living God. If you have faith but do nothing in response then you should work that out. If you have no faith and works Jesus says that you already got your reward and you're all set. He has nothing to give you. I pretty much summed up the book of James in the Bible.
As for the afterlife everyone who follows Jesus gets a pretty awesome deal and while there is some hinting at a bonus for doing well it's not really that interesting because level 1 heaven is pretty awesome. There is a law of diminishing marginal utility after all.
So to be clear works get you little and faith is the source of everything.
And so you have no difficulty with this? I haven't been in your position, so I can't be certain, but I like to think that the first thing I would do if I was hearing voices would be to seek some sort of reliable independent corroboration, and failing to find it would be deeply troubling.
You have presented the only religious argument I can't actually argue with. I can only humbly say I haven't had the same experience as you, and if I did, I would freak out.
I tend to avoid arguments that can't possibly convince my opponent, though if the objective is to convince a neutral third party I guess that might be a promising argument.
The other side of that sword is that the personal religious experience argument isn't especially convincing to others, either.
The only way I know about to get started is to pray which is hard for anyone. Say hi sometime. If God is there he'll say hi back.
You know what freaks me out? The idea of seeing an angel. No idea why but it freaks me out good. I hear kids often say they see them and it freaks me out whenever they tell me that. I am no one a kid would ever try to impress mind you. I just hear these things because kids are so free to share with you. Weird I know but I don't want to see one till I am dead.
This whole crazy stuff started while reading GEB if you are familiar with that book. I really was minding my own business.
This sounds like you just started having an internal dialogue with yourself labeling the personification on the other end of your consciousness as "god". If this is the case, and this is really all it takes to qualify as having "spoken to god" then probably the vast majority of humanity have done it. They could even push it a little further and say ludicrous stuff like the bible is true, etc etc etc.
I admit that possibility freely. I'm not sure what you're trying to say that I didn't already. I do claim the Bible is true as well based on these experiences.
I'm not sure a 22 year old programmer goes from reading Russell and Nietzsche one day to following Jesus the next day without something having happened. Whether that's psychological or spiritual something happened to me.
Sure, I grasp that, I'm just puzzled as to why you jump to the conclusion that requires logically inconsistent supernatural phenomenon rather than than the one that just requires garden variety mental illness?
Not trying to offend you, in your shoes, I'd like to think I'd pick door number two.
In other respects I didn't act like someone with mental illness. Most mentally ill people have trouble functioning in society and contributing in a meaningful way.
These experiences didn't let up for two years and I found myself feeling strongly pulled to do things like buy Bibles and attend church. Eventually I did both of those things and my life only improved from there.
I'm not so sure that anything I believe is logically inconsistent. I believe that God intervened in human history in a big way and in such a way that makes it possible for me to approach him with confidence.
God is the nicest, happiest person you'll ever talk to.
If you ask him how he's doing he's always doing great. If you ask him how you're doing he always say you're doing great. I've asked him this immediately after doing something I knew was pretty stupid and God seemed unconcerned even though I asking him hoping to get corrected and some guidance on the issue. He told me that he wasn't too worried about it.
The actual sensation is pretty weird. I'm not the most gifted person at hearing from God but if you ask him to he'll talk to you and say some pretty cool things. I freely admit that I could be a crazy person talking to myself of course. The reason I believe otherwise is that I'm not the crazy person type and I hear weird things from God. I'm always expecting him to be mad at me or disappointed but he never is. The story of God's people is that they always expect one thing and he's working another way. It's the Wire when Marlo says "You want it to be one way-but it's the other way."
I want it to be religious way (i.e. doing things to make God happy or at least less angry) but God has things setup another way. If you have a kid you can sort of understand but it seems like God sees us like we see our own children. I'm happy watching my daughter do just about anything and I think God is happy seeing me do just about anything too. Yesterday my two year old daughter comforted two crying boys and cheered one of them up pretty well. She really cares how people are doing and wants to make them feel better. I think God reacts the same way I did when I saw her do something good-he couldn't be happier just like I couldn't have been happier. She didn't earn my love there but she made me very proud of her.
I personally cannot imagine a creation made by pure hazard to be this beautiful. I know that beauty is subjective. But i find that nature is so wonderfully created that -- for me -- it's hard to believe that there is no artist behind it. Like, when i see a nice piece of code, i know that there is a really good programmer behind it. :-)
Ok, we agree that there is a universe, and we find it beautiful, that's pretty easy to believe for everyone but the most depressed among us.
Why explain that beauty away by adding a god-figure in there? Isn't the universe even more beautiful and majestic without a (fairly silly) "outside creator" explanation?
Your explanation also logically doesn't make sense. You say: I can't believe there is nothing behind it. But then what is behind God? Who created him? You can believe that? It's logically inconsistent, and makes me think that perhaps you haven't thought this through very well.
There's a similar argument around consciousness. The naive interpretation of consciousness is always: "there's a little man inside my head doing the thinking", a little "me", something that represents the self. But then, who is the little man inside the head of the little man? Same flawed logic. The latest thinking/science now says that consciousness just "arises" from processes in our brain. And the "me" is mostly an illusion. Which is, funnily, quite close to the Buddhist interpretation of the self.
So what about us? Who created us? Our parents. Them? Their parents. But wait -- eventually, even with evolution, something had to create the first molecule. Right?
Everybody has to have a starting point from which they have no clue how it got there.
One side has decided that it had to be God. The other? The Big Bang? (Where'd it come from?)
The "where'd it come from" clause can terminate successfully at the genesis of time proper, to define a time prior to time is to posit a time where there was still time, ergo...
"Big guy in the sky was hanging around in void and created it all" posits nothing about the nature of time, and in fact infers that time is eternal and has always been, as big guy in the sky is eternal and has always been, that's why it's not logically inconsistent to point out that the god hypothesis simply raises more questions whilst taking a competing theory to the genesis of time proper does not fail in the same way.
By what method did the color blue arrive at it's current physical location in space, also, what does it taste like?
I realise the above sounds cryptic but I'm just trying to give examples of how concepts are intrinsic to their own space to a certain degree, time as a spatial dimension of the universe terminates by definition at the genesis of the universe, so what came "before" has no more meaning than the taste of the color blue.
That's basically a first cause problem which neither science nor religion has an answer for. I think we will not get to answering that anytime soon, or ever. Maybe we're just not up to that task. We know a lot about space and processes that go on around us, but in a scheme of big things we basically know nothing. All of the hard questions are still unanswered.
What is a nature of spacetime? We have a model to work with it, we have a model to measure it, but what is it and why is it?
We have a model that explains how space could come out of "nothing", but that nothing is still a quark field (if I remember correctly from watching a video from some astronomer). So what is the nature of that quark field, where did that come from?
There is always that first cause / prime mover at the end of every question, not to mention again that we know nothing on topics of great importance without even coming to a roadblock of first cause/prime mover.
Religion puts first cause/prime mover as a recursive feedback where it is the source and the end aka God. Which, ah well I don't know... takes faith :D There is also vast amount of religious writings throughout history amongst various religions that overlaps in content.
I'm not on either side basically. I accept I can't know for sure first cause/prime mover, I know I can't be cock sure in anything of it. Hence, I think it's best to have a romanticized view of things in general to keep my own spirit up and creative. If that particular view to someone is abrahamic god, allah, brahma, forgotten realsm or whatever - so be it. I suspect that the ultimate 'truth' is whatever you make of it, because in the end that is only thing that matters to you/your mind, what you make of it.
As for "The latest thinking/science now says that consciousness just "arises" from processes in our brain.". That's just one view which is not prevalent in science of mind yet, because our understanding of consciousness has not moved anywhere beyond philosophy yet. Consciousness is a weird thing, core consciousness that is (self-awareness, 'self') - not intellect around it, which we can view via fMRI. Consciousness is known that it can have only two states, conscious and unconscious. That's it. It can't be altered via medicines/drugs, it can't be divided, brain traumas/operations can't alter it (various injuries, removals, even hemispherectomy). Nothing can alter it. It can be only turned on or off. Weird thing, huh?
Recently there has been some breakthroughs in quantum biology (look it up, interesting stuff). But as I've said, our understanding of our consciousness hasn't moved from philosophy to hard science yet (I have a hunch it never will, but we'll see). I also came across nice site where various themes like this are covered with numerous talkers from both sides of a fence (hell they even have Minsky :) ), look here: http://closertotruth.com (warning though since it can dive into heavy philosophy+logic).
So you find it hard to believe that nature/the universe can just "be", there has to be an entity that created it, but you find it easy to believe that God can just "be", correct?
A quick note, you find it easy to believe that the universe can just "be" when everything you have ever seen has had a creator. (Whether you believe in science or God, it does, the creator just differs.)
Both have an equally frustrating leap of faith, you either have to believe in God, or that something can come out of nothing.
Hang on: there's not much leaping of faith in believing that the universe is. That's observation: I think therefore I am.
Where we differ is that I accept that I don't know where we come from, you think you do (ie. from God). One doesn't require a leap of faith, the other does.
We are built by natural selection to fit into this universe. Our perception of beauty seems like a useful hack to find our way in this universe. Probably recycled by the brain to be used for very different things (from sexual attraction to finding tasty food) and maybe even misfiring at times (when listening to music or reading poetry).
So, a question to your question, is there a good reason you believe in it (assuming you do)?
Edit: petervandijck said it better above me.