Why Do YOU Think People Believe in God?

[Miles]

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.... Any god!

"Why do people believe in God? For most people in the world, the answer seems obvious: Because it’s self-evident that God exists. From the point of view of the believer, the really puzzling question is how anyone could not believe.

And yet, as University of California at Irvine psychologist Brett Mercier and his colleagues point out in a recent article, there was once a time in the prehistory of our species when nobody believed in a god of any sort. Our evolutionary ancestors were all atheists, but somewhere along the way they found religion. So we’re back to our original question: Why do people believe in God?"
source

So, why do you think people believe in god?


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[Clownboat]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #48]

It’s a big world out there. How big? We don’t even know how big it is.

The radius of the earth is 3,958.8 mi.

I can’t nor can any human comprehend the distance of space and all that’s in it.

I'm sorry, but who asked you to try to comprehend the distance of space and all that's in it?

We barely know about our planet and have a lot to learn about it yet.

Now you are just projecting your own ignorance on to others.

We may think we are smart. To us we may think so. But we are imbeciles.

Due to this post, I have nothing more to add.

[Clownboat]

I will stand by Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity. It is obvious to me. I don't think a cell will adapt far enough at the critical moment to make any differences. Evolution is a faith-based pseudoscience that cannot be proven. It does not stand up to the Scientific Method which states that all things must be provable and usually in a scientific lab situation. No one has proven that life can arise from nothing. (I don't respect what the judge appointed by Bush has to say.)

Fascinating!
So what mechanism do you propose that better explains not only the animals we see now on earth, but also in the fossil record? I would like to compare your mechanism to that of evolution.

Please keep in mind that I'm asking for a different mechanism, not for you to complain about evolution.

[Clownboat]

It's sad to know so many would reject the science of today for the ignorance of our past.

To think a global flood,or so many other supernatural claims are real, just doesn't fit with what we know about this planet.

It also makes me wonder as to why all the gods stopped using volcanos to kill.
And an even bigger question, why did they stop coming to earth to sleep with our virgins?

It's as if ALL these religious claims from the past don't fit with what we know about this planet.

[Purple Knight]

So, why do you think people believe in god?

The least generous, most cynical: Because people who want power over them, told them to.

The most generous: Because "god says" is a placeholder for the idea that we're all better off if we all follow certain rules.

It might also be true but then people don't need a reason to believe it.

[TRANSPONDER]

So, why do you think people believe in god?

The least generous, most cynical: Because people who want power over them, told them to.

The most generous: Because "god says" is a placeholder for the idea that we're all better off if we all follow certain rules.

It might also be true but then people don't need a reason to believe it.

Broadly, yes, in very succinct term. I might put it this way - people who are really guessing come up with the best (often interim)answers we can, given the level of knowledge at the time, and we are still doing this today. And the people trust what is in the text books. It's just that once, the Holy books were the text books and for some, they still are.

[Purple Knight]

Broadly, yes, in very succinct term. I might put it this way - people who are really guessing come up with the best (often interim) answers we can, given the level of knowledge at the time, and we are still doing this today. And the people trust what is in the text books. It's just that once, the Holy books were the text books and for some, they still are.

There aren't and can't be any textbooks on morality, not in the way you're talking about. We can discover things, such as the nitrogen cycle and how creatures change over time, and that might (or might not) contradict the stories people use in religion because why is a huge deal to people.

But we can't discover through observation whether it's right or wrong for Sally to hurt Sammy. No one believes you can't ever hurt someone, and I know pacifists who think cancel culture is the best thing since sliced bread. It's not physical violence, you see, so it's fine. People just differ on their ideas about how you may, and may not, hurt others, and it usually lines up with their competitive strategies being permissible and those of others being out-of-bounds.

Nobody believes you flat-out can't hurt people. And that's probably because it's impossible not to. It's also ruinous to believe you can't hurt others even if it were possible. For example, right now there's a cat in my lap with a minor eye infection, and if I don't put terramycin in his eye twice a day, it will fester and he may lose the eye. He doesn't like it. He struggles. But it's obvious that I must do it anyway. Defining this as "not actually harm" is even worse, since it emboldens moralists to do anything and everything to us, for our own good.

So we make it up and say it has authority. This at least makes it fair. It's why I think the only ultimate truth about morality is that we all have an equal right to do this.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #66]


So far I think you are making my case. Morality is always arguable (1). Even though there seem to be generally agreed Universals that come close to objective Cosmic morals. But there are always arguments, unlike gravity, what particles make an element and 2+2 does not= 5. Thus the exceptions and caveats about morality make the case to me that it is the best that humans can do to make effective and workable moral codes in a world that does not have them, except as evolved instincts to protect our tribe and kill the other if they will not go away.

Upshot is in Facts, science not religion, gives us the answers, and in human constructs like art, music, language and morality and ethics, religion cannot add anything useful to the moral codes of the time, Which is why the slavery debate matters - not to make the Bible look evil, exactly, but to show it is man -made, not the ideas, let alone the Words, of a god.

Not that I say you are arguing that. I'm making the case why I think morality is in fact relative and subjective and really not objective and god given, apart from which god that might be.

(1) I love watching LoR film reactions, mainly to see sweet young things who would never harm even vermin screaming "Ye! Kiil him! Kill him" He deserves it!!"

[myth-one.com]

.

.... Any god!

"Why do people believe in God? For most people in the world, the answer seems obvious: Because it’s self-evident that God exists. From the point of view of the believer, the really puzzling question is how anyone could not believe.

And yet, as University of California at Irvine psychologist Brett Mercier and his colleagues point out in a recent article, there was once a time in the prehistory of our species when nobody believed in a god of any sort. Our evolutionary ancestors were all atheists, but somewhere along the way they found religion. So we’re back to our original question: Why do people believe in God?"
source

So, why do you think people believe in god?


.

Mankind generally fears the unknown, and it bothers us when we can't understand things. Consequently, many years ago we would "invent" a god to explain something we could not understand.

So there was a Moon God, a Sun God, a God of Fire, a God of Love, a God of War, God of the Sea, . . . a god of this and a god of that.

In Athens, Paul saw an alter to the "unknown god":

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. (Acts 17:23)

But as knowledge increased and we discovered the real world explanation of an unknown, there was no longer any reason for that associated God.

Thus, the number of gods fluctuated with discovery of things and knowledge.

One can theorize that as knowledge increases, the number of Gods will reach either one or zero.

If mankind will never know everything -- then the number one should be an asymptote for the number of God's needed. That is, as knowledge increases we should approach one God. Christians, Jews, and Muslims today worship the same ONE GOD.

If we ever reached the point where we knew everything, would we have zero gods?

Or would we be God -- being all knowing?

[TRANSPONDER]

.

.... Any god!

"Why do people believe in God? For most people in the world, the answer seems obvious: Because it’s self-evident that God exists. From the point of view of the believer, the really puzzling question is how anyone could not believe.

And yet, as University of California at Irvine psychologist Brett Mercier and his colleagues point out in a recent article, there was once a time in the prehistory of our species when nobody believed in a god of any sort. Our evolutionary ancestors were all atheists, but somewhere along the way they found religion. So we’re back to our original question: Why do people believe in God?"
source

So, why do you think people believe in god?


.

Mankind generally fears the unknown, and it bothers us when we can't understand things. Consequently, many years ago we would "invent" a god to explain something we could not understand.

So there was a Moon God, a Sun God, a God of Fire, a God of Love, a God of War, God of the Sea, . . . a god of this and a god of that.

In Athens, Paul saw an alter to the "unknown god":

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. (Acts 17:23)

But as knowledge increased and we discovered the real world explanation of an unknown, there was no longer any reason for that associated God.

Thus, the number of gods fluctuated with discovery of things and knowledge.

One can theorize that as knowledge increases, the number of Gods will reach either one or zero.

If mankind will never know everything -- then the number one should be an asymptote for the number of God's needed. That is, as knowledge increases we should approach one God. Christians, Jews, and Muslims today worship the same ONE GOD.

If we ever reached the point where we knew everything, would we have zero gods?

Or would we be God -- being all knowing?

That's another argument, other than why we believe in God (topic) which should really be "Why do we invent gods at all?" Before we even get to belief in them, never mind one particular god.The topic has jumped the real question to considering only one god -concept. We can see the process of evolution in human thought about gods, the mechanics of Belief make it seem that we are reasoning our way to the god that there actually is, when what we are really doing is adapting the god -concept to the remaining gaps in out knowledge where a god can still lurk. The problem of evil is really the problem of no evidence. And the apologetics are not so much about pointing to the evidence for a god as excusing why there is really no evidence for a god. Everything from the science - denial we saw a bit earlier with appeal to complexity,or there is the better but still fallacious apologetic of gaps for god, like the very real 'constants' arguments to which the answer is 'we don't know' rather than a god, never mind which one. The thinking is illogical but like science,logic is discarded in favour of Belief in one particular god, and all evidence and reason is fiddled to fit that belief and denied when it doesn't.

That is why we believe in God. We are taught to believe in a particular god, created and re -created in our own image and we are taught the apologetics to trot out to support it, which were the ones our primitive ancestors used to invent it in the first place: "What does the stuff we can't explain?" So we are in the position of belief in a god that increasingly we don't need for those explanations (where the explanations are not just denied) or we get the 'engine gnomes' apologetic.

But of course, knowing how engines work makes us engineers, not engine - gnomes, or gods.

[Miles]

Most likely because there has to be something greater than us.

Why does there have to be something greater than us? Is there someone somewhere demanding this?

We can barely tie our shoes.

I assume you're speaking for yourself because everybody I've ever met had no trouble tying their shoes, and doing far more.

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