Is there a god?

[john9blue]

No seriously...please tell me you're joking. Because if you're not, I do believe you're really the only one here who doesn't think you are.

But just to play along with your inanity:

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.

Science is the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through experimentation and observation of those experiments.

Now...you don't see how these two items ARE NOTHING LIKE ONE ANOTHER? Under the umbrella of science, indeed!

see? was that so hard, woody? lol "hard woody"

just to be clear, are you a monist or a dualist? from a dualist point of view, religion is not a science because the spiritual/supernatural world and the physical world are entirely different, and science cannot study the supernatural world. if you are a dualist then we won't get anywhere.

monism holds that the spiritual world is actually physical, or that there is no spiritual world. so the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object. therefore, it falls under the definition of science, which deals with knowledge gained from the physical world

the part of religion that consists of deriving the nature of god and the supernatural is therefore a scientific study of physical nature. the part of religion which consists of tradition and blind belief is not scientific, but even traditionally "scientific" fields have traditions and customs due to our illogical nature as humans to produce those things. the scientific parts of religion include:

- deducing the nature of divinity and whether a god exists or not
- determining whether humans have divinely inspired moral imperatives
- discovering the nature of the universe (how it began and how it ended)

and so on.

[shieldgenerator7]

Of course there's a God.
http://www.sbc.net/knowjesus/

-SG7 ( )

[Woodruff]

No seriously...please tell me you're joking. Because if you're not, I do believe you're really the only one here who doesn't think you are.

But just to play along with your inanity:

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.

Science is the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through experimentation and observation of those experiments.

Now...you don't see how these two items ARE NOTHING LIKE ONE ANOTHER? Under the umbrella of science, indeed!

see? was that so hard, woody? lol "hard woody"

just to be clear, are you a monist or a dualist? from a dualist point of view, religion is not a science because the spiritual/supernatural world and the physical world are entirely different, and science cannot study the supernatural world. if you are a dualist then we won't get anywhere.

monism holds that the spiritual world is actually physical, or that there is no spiritual world. so the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object. therefore, it falls under the definition of science, which deals with knowledge gained from the physical world

the part of religion that consists of deriving the nature of god and the supernatural is therefore a scientific study of physical nature. the part of religion which consists of tradition and blind belief is not scientific, but even traditionally "scientific" fields have traditions and customs due to our illogical nature as humans to produce those things. the scientific parts of religion include:

- deducing the nature of divinity and whether a god exists or not
- determining whether humans have divinely inspired moral imperatives
- discovering the nature of the universe (how it began and how it ended)

and so on.

I'm strongly on the side of dualist, as the idea that the spiritual world is actually physical and the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object strikes me strongly as scam-ism. That probably comes from my strong belief that there is no such thing AS the supernatural to begin with.

[natty dread]

What I want to be true is true, objective evidence be damned!

glad you finaly admit it

I wasn't actually admiting anything... I was being facetious and/or making an ironic statement with the intention to imply that my stated sentiment was something which you would subscribe to.

So glad we got this little misunderstanding sorted!

[BigBallinStalin]

I don't see why monism makes sense, or is preferable to dualism.

Monism can't distinguish between science, pseudo-science, and non-science because it stipulates that the supernatural is physical (or essentially "material"). That would make evaluating facts extremely difficult.

How does a "monist" view show that the supernatural is physical/material, thus is able to be tested by empirical means (i.e. especially observation)?

[john9blue]

I don't see why monism makes sense, or is preferable to dualism.

Monism can't distinguish between science, pseudo-science, and non-science because it stipulates that the supernatural is physical (or essentially "material"). That would make evaluating facts extremely difficult.

How does a "monist" view show that the supernatural is physical/material, thus is able to be tested by empirical means (i.e. especially observation)?

a monist believes that there is no spiritual realm, and what is commonly attributed to that realm (e.g. a god, anything outside our universe, etc.). woody seems to be a monist, but admitting that would force him to address the rest of my post, which would have been bad for him. but at least he knows when to quit.

if there is a supernatural realm then the burden of proof falls on the dualist to show it.

pseudoscience is extremely easy to approach from a monist point of view, because the believer in pseudo-science cannot claim that their knowledge is "above science" or spiritual.

[everywhere116]

No seriously...please tell me you're joking. Because if you're not, I do believe you're really the only one here who doesn't think you are.

But just to play along with your inanity:

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.

Science is the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through experimentation and observation of those experiments.

Now...you don't see how these two items ARE NOTHING LIKE ONE ANOTHER? Under the umbrella of science, indeed!

see? was that so hard, woody? lol "hard woody"

just to be clear, are you a monist or a dualist? from a dualist point of view, religion is not a science because the spiritual/supernatural world and the physical world are entirely different, and science cannot study the supernatural world. if you are a dualist then we won't get anywhere.

monism holds that the spiritual world is actually physical, or that there is no spiritual world. so the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object. therefore, it falls under the definition of science, which deals with knowledge gained from the physical world

the part of religion that consists of deriving the nature of god and the supernatural is therefore a scientific study of physical nature. the part of religion which consists of tradition and blind belief is not scientific, but even traditionally "scientific" fields have traditions and customs due to our illogical nature as humans to produce those things. the scientific parts of religion include:

- deducing the nature of divinity and whether a god exists or not
- determining whether humans have divinely inspired moral imperatives
- discovering the nature of the universe (how it began and how it ended)

and so on.

If the spiritual world could be tested and studied like the physical world, it wouldn't be called 'spiritual'. It would just be physical science. Like magic in Tamriel. It certainly has limits and testable properties despite being, well, magic. Join the College of Winterhold and you know how much serious business it is.

[BigBallinStalin]

I got'cha.

Monism is Hardcore Atheism.

Dualism would include theists and agnostics.

Correct?

[john9blue]

I got'cha.

Monism is Hardcore Atheism.

Dualism would include theists and agnostics.

Correct?

lol i mistyped, i should have said:

"what is commonly attributed to that realm (e.g. a god, anything outside our universe, etc.) is actually physical"

monism doesn't imply atheism. there could be a god which follows physical laws or is a perfection/personification of those laws

it's possible to be a dualist/atheist as well

[everywhere116]

I got'cha.

Monism is Hardcore Atheism.

Dualism would include theists and agnostics.

Correct?

That's not how I interpreted it at all.

[Commander9]

No.

[JBlombier]

zimmah, I may be mistaken, but I believe you haven't once told anyone what religion is yours. Is there a particular reason for that? Most of these guys seem geniunely interested, they just don't have the same opinions. Which is something, I guess, you will encounter more often than you ever will on this rather unimportant internet forum.

[Woodruff]

Your method for responding to my points all at the end of the post have caused me to lose the point of what you're talking about in some places here. Is there ANY CHANCE you could respond to each point, rather than putting all of your answers at the end? All you're doing here is confusing things, as far as I can tell. I don't believe you're doing that intentionally, because your answers have been fairly straightforward, but it is happening nonetheless. It makes following the thread exceptionally difficult and I'll probably just give up on what could be a very interesting conversation if it continues...because it's not worth the hassle.

funny how an old book, written by dozens of different writers in a timespan of hunderds of years, thousand of years before modern science, has never been disproven by any science, old documents or anything at all, and you still believe it's just a book written by random humans.

Do you believe that the universe is only approximately 6,000 years old?

no, i don't believe the universe is approximately 6000 years old, that would be stupid to believe.

I agree. And yet, you want to take a book that makes that claim (that the universe is only approximately 6,000 years old) as a book of fact. It's either a book of allegory or a book of fact. It cannot be both, unless one admits that you're just cherry-picking the parts that you WANT TO BE either allegory or fact. But since you're not the one that wrote it, you don't get to do that.

if there is a god, wouldn't you want to know him?

If there is a god that refuses to show me his physical presence, why would I want to bother knowing him? If he's not demonstrably interested, why should I be?

god does not refuse to show his physical presence, god isn't a physical being in the first place, he's a spirit, a being of dynamic energy.

If god is all-powerful as the Bible claims, then he certainly can show us his physical presence. Or are you now claiming that he is not omnipotent? This seems like an excuse to me.

also, we humans are probably not even capable of seeing god without dying, he's far to divine for us mere humans.

So you DON'T believe that god is all-powerful? Because it would be a simple thing for him to make it so that his divinity would not overpower us. This seems like an excuse to me.

but isn't being created by him reason enough to at least listen to him?

As far as I am concerned, I was not created by him (largely because I choose not to believe, and desire proof). So I guess my answer to that is obvious.

your parents earn your respect too just for the fact they are your parents, don't you agree?

No. There are some downright bastard parents in the world. Mine were pretty great, and they earn my respect because they were pretty great parents.

yet god did far more then that, he basically gave us everything we have. and he is in fact interested, why else would he sacrifice his first born to die as a human on earth, murdered as a criminal, with a corrupted lawsuit against him, if he wouldn't care for us?

Prove it.

also, we humans are nothing compared to the entire universe, and yet god himself, and all angels, including the bad ones and the devil, care for us humans. in fact, there's a war in heavens going on, just because of humans, and you think god doesn't care? you're just closing your eyes to the truth, god does care.

Prove it.

you believe in god, and there is no god -> you're still happy with your life, so noone gets hurt. you may only be disappointed that there /is no god, but at least you have a good life in your way.

I am living my life in a good way, regardless of whether a god exists or not. The presence/absence of religion has no affect on how I conduct myself.

living your life in a good way is always good, i don't doubt that you do, but with all due respect, if you don't understand the higher meaning of life, no matter how much good you do, you're basically nothing more then an animal, you eat, sleep, reproduce and seek shelter, just like all other species on earth.

I agree. That is precisely what we are. We simply happen to possess a higher ability to reason and function, but yes...you've hit it pretty head-on.

i don't mean that in an offensive way, but we humans are designed to 'need' god, unlike animals. spirituality is a concept only humans can understand, we should be grateful of that.

I certainly am not one to be offended by the truth. Spirituality is a concept that was created to control the masses. We are not designed to "need god", but rather we have been taught that we "need god". I don't believe we should be grateful for that.

3) there is a god, but you don't believe there is -> may bea very bad thing, you hurt god's feelings

Worshipping someone out of fear isn't worship. It's just fear.

i don't worship out of fear either, i worship because i love god and what he done for us, and because i want to chose his side in this divine war. there's no in between, it's either you're on gods side or on the devils side. i know what side i want to be on.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but that sure seems a lot like basing your decision on "wanting to win", which I would equate to fear of losing (in this particular circumstance).

it would amaze me more if they found life suddenly appearing somewhere in the universe, without human interference. (good luck with that)

That shouldn't amaze you, for several reasons. For one, it's almost a certainty that there IS life elsewhere in the universe. Secondly, are you saying that a god would be limited to only working on Earth?

the bible doesn't speak about the existence or non-existence of extraterritorial life because it doesn't matter for us at this moment of time, the earth has enough problems already anyways.

Now you're directly contradicting yourself.

and the war that is going on in heavens is about humankind, maybe god planned to make more lifeforms in the universe, but wanted to get this battle over with before continuing his work, or maybe there are lifeforms created so far away we can't get near them with our current technology, or maybe they're in another dimension we can't (yet) reach or even notice. it doesn't matter though.

It certainly MIGHT matter. A great deal. Why excuse it away like this?

also i'd like to see what science ever proved the bible wrong, as you said it did multiple times. i'm quite curious what you mean by that.

I made no such claim that I recall. Can you point it out to me?

and god isn't 'just' a lifeform, he's a being of dynamic energy.

Prove it.

nowhere does the bible claim the universe is 6000 years old.

A) Do the math, like so many of your brethren have.

B) That's your only response to the many points I made? Does that mean you agree with everything else, or that you've realized your mistake and don't want to admit it?

[Woodruff]

I don't see why monism makes sense, or is preferable to dualism.

Monism can't distinguish between science, pseudo-science, and non-science because it stipulates that the supernatural is physical (or essentially "material"). That would make evaluating facts extremely difficult.

How does a "monist" view show that the supernatural is physical/material, thus is able to be tested by empirical means (i.e. especially observation)?

a monist believes that there is no spiritual realm, and what is commonly attributed to that realm (e.g. a god, anything outside our universe, etc.). woody seems to be a monist, but admitting that would force him to address the rest of my post, which would have been bad for him. but at least he knows when to quit.

First of all, I've NEVER known when to quit. That's one of my weaknesses. <chuckle>

Secondly, what is it about me that leads you to believe I am a monist, because I'm absolutely not. Which part of your post did I not address, because I would be happy to do so.

if there is a supernatural realm then the burden of proof falls on the dualist to show it.

That's just it...there IS NO supernatural realm, thus there is nothing to prove. That's like trying to prove that unicorns exist.

pseudoscience is extremely easy to approach from a monist point of view, because the believer in pseudo-science cannot claim that their knowledge is "above science" or spiritual.

Much like claiming that religion is a science.

[Haggis_McMutton]

see? was that so hard, woody? lol "hard woody"

just to be clear, are you a monist or a dualist? from a dualist point of view, religion is not a science because the spiritual/supernatural world and the physical world are entirely different, and science cannot study the supernatural world. if you are a dualist then we won't get anywhere.

monism holds that the spiritual world is actually physical, or that there is no spiritual world. so the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object. therefore, it falls under the definition of science, which deals with knowledge gained from the physical world

the part of religion that consists of deriving the nature of god and the supernatural is therefore a scientific study of physical nature. the part of religion which consists of tradition and blind belief is not scientific, but even traditionally "scientific" fields have traditions and customs due to our illogical nature as humans to produce those things. the scientific parts of religion include:

- deducing the nature of divinity and whether a god exists or not
- determining whether humans have divinely inspired moral imperatives
- discovering the nature of the universe (how it began and how it ended)

and so on.

Let me see if I got this straight.
If I get high out of my mind and spend the night playing skyrim eating cheetos and talking about the existence of an energy which unites us all, by your definition, I'm actually partaking in "scientific study of physical nature", and should probably write a conference paper about my conclusions in the morning.

Science is more than guessing. Science is more than sitting on your ass and daydreaming seeking knowledge.

When religion will make testable and falsifiable hypotheses then we can talk.

I guess, at most, you could say religions are failed attempts at science, remnants from our infancy as a species.

[john9blue]

First of all, I've NEVER known when to quit. That's one of my weaknesses. <chuckle>

Secondly, what is it about me that leads you to believe I am a monist, because I'm absolutely not. Which part of your post did I not address, because I would be happy to do so.

what leads me to believe you are a monist is this:

That's just it...there IS NO supernatural realm, thus there is nothing to prove. That's like trying to prove that unicorns exist.

if you aren't a monist, then you believe something exists above the physical world. what is it that you believe exists?

Much like claiming that religion is a science.

claiming that religion deals with questions in the physical realm is perfectly consistent with monism.

OT should have more philosophy threads, now that i think about it. we get caught up in politics and other stupid shit and forget what really matters.

[john9blue]

Let me see if I got this straight.
If I get high out of my mind and spend the night playing skyrim eating cheetos and talking about the existence of an energy which unites us all, by your definition, I'm actually partaking in "scientific study of physical nature", and should probably write a conference paper about my conclusions in the morning.

depends, does this "energy" exist physically? if so, you are making a scientific statement, although one that probably has no basis in reality and is induced by cheetolucinations (as i have come to call them, being an experienced cheetos consumer)

Science is more than guessing. Science is more than sitting on your ass and daydreaming seeking knowledge.

When religion will make testable and falsifiable hypotheses then we can talk.

I guess, at most, you could say religions are failed attempts at science, remnants from our infancy as a species.

not completely failed and to reject all religion outright is to make a scientific conclusion without evidence.

[BigBallinStalin]

I got'cha.

Monism is Hardcore Atheism.

Dualism would include theists and agnostics.

Correct?

lol i mistyped, i should have said:

"what is commonly attributed to that realm (e.g. a god, anything outside our universe, etc.) is actually physical"

monism doesn't imply atheism. there could be a god which follows physical laws or is a perfection/personification of those laws

it's possible to be a dualist/atheist as well

Okay. I'm going to drop the Monism/Dualism baggage here, and continue on.

[Neoteny]

OT should have more philosophy threads, now that i think about it. we get caught up in politics and other stupid shit and forget what really matters.

Full on, agree. Almost justifies an emoticon. But no.

[Woodruff]

what leads me to believe you are a monist is this:

That's just it...there IS NO supernatural realm, thus there is nothing to prove. That's like trying to prove that unicorns exist.

if you aren't a monist, then you believe something exists above the physical world. what is it that you believe exists?

1. I mis-stated my position a bit. My BELIEF is that there is no supernatural realm, thus there is nothing to prove (as I said above). However, I recognize that's not necessarily true but, like with every other made up fairytale, it COULD be true and there's just no way to know. I cannot state unequivocably that there is no supernatural. Call me an agnostic atheist on the position of the supernatural.

Here is why I state that I am not a monist, per your own definition:
"monism holds that the spiritual world is actually physical, or that there is no spiritual world. so the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object. therefore, it falls under the definition of science, which deals with knowledge gained from the physical world"

Therefore, I don't believe that the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object because it's NOT a physical object. It cannot possibly fall under the definition of science, because there is no possible way to gain knowledge about the supernatural from the physical world. That's WHY IT'S THE SUPERNATURAL.

Much like claiming that religion is a science.

claiming that religion deals with questions in the physical realm is perfectly consistent with monism.

Which would be another reason why I'm not a monist. I don't believe that religion deals with questions in the physical world. I believe that religion deals with questions of conscience, mostly. I suppose if you consider "controlling the masses" to be a valid question that religion deals with, that applies to the physical world...I might agree with that, because it is the primary reason why religion has developed as it has.

OT should have more philosophy threads, now that i think about it. we get caught up in politics and other stupid shit and forget what really matters.

It would make things more interesting, certainly.

[Woodruff]

Science is more than guessing. Science is more than sitting on your ass and daydreaming seeking knowledge.
When religion will make testable and falsifiable hypotheses then we can talk.
I guess, at most, you could say religions are failed attempts at science, remnants from our infancy as a species.

not completely failed and to reject all religion outright is to make a scientific conclusion without evidence.

No. Not at all. To reject all religion outright has nothing to do with a scientific conclusion. It has to do with making an opinion. It is not something that can be scientifically studied. That's been my point here.

[Teflon Kris]

But what is it that science can't explain ... specifically ...

Millions of specific things - like consciousness and a million human things, but that's not the point ,,,

Science is only specific. It can only explaain detail, and detail that you look for.

It is not a wide-lens panoramic view

[john9blue]

Here is why I state that I am not a monist, per your own definition:
"monism holds that the spiritual world is actually physical, or that there is no spiritual world. so the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object. therefore, it falls under the definition of science, which deals with knowledge gained from the physical world"

Therefore, I don't believe that the supernatural can be studied like any other physical object because it's NOT a physical object. It cannot possibly fall under the definition of science, because there is no possible way to gain knowledge about the supernatural from the physical world. That's WHY IT'S THE SUPERNATURAL.

the "can be studied" part applies to the spiritual world being "actually physical". if there is no spiritual world, then of course it can't be studied.

Which would be another reason why I'm not a monist. I don't believe that religion deals with questions in the physical world. I believe that religion deals with questions of conscience, mostly. I suppose if you consider "controlling the masses" to be a valid question that religion deals with, that applies to the physical world...I might agree with that, because it is the primary reason why religion has developed as it has.

the primary reason religion developed is to "control the masses"? not as an answer to physical phenomena like lightning/stars/etc.? that's a very dismal outlook lol

[Woodruff]

But what is it that science can't explain ... specifically ...

Millions of specific things - like consciousness and a million human things, but that's not the point ,,,

Science is only specific. It can only explaain detail, and detail that you look for.

It is not a wide-lens panoramic view

Absolutely true. And yet, I DO believe that science CAN (eventually) explain things like consciousness, for example. But obviously, that's a long way off, most likely.

[everywhere116]

the primary reason religion developed is to "control the masses"? not as an answer to physical phenomena like lightning/stars/etc.? that's a very dismal outlook lol

I'd like to know how religion tries to explain light and stars.