How we believe about existence.

Ryn: what is your alternative concept?

Unless I have misread, you claim that you are an athiest, but your arguments label you agnostic. Which is it? 😛

disregard the question… I realized I misread.

That was not my quote you argue. Although I must say that the other theoies available to us are far less believable than the possibility of God having created the universe. Faith itself is not knowlege, but it is the evidence that we are given that is the seed from which faith grows. If you want evidence, I cannot give it to you for you are not willing to accept it.

yet it is always there for the taking.

what do you think about the string theory?

My evidence is in a book you don’t believe or trust, and I do not think you are wrong to question it. I think we all need to question our beliefs. If we do not challenge ourselves then what do we learn, and how can we really grow? I just happen to disagree with your conclusion. Wh is to say who is wrong or who is right? Obviously, we both feel very strongly about our points of veiw.

You miss my point. I’m not saying you should believe in any particular deity or any deity at all if you don’t want to. I’m telling you that you can’t tell someone else that their belief in that deity is wrong, because you have no way to support that claim. When a person believes in a deity, it is usually because they have a subjective intuition, or a faith about it. Obviously that faith…

…doesn’t work for you, me, or anyone else that doesn’t have that subjective feeling, so there is no reason for you or me or anyone that doesn’t have the subjective feeling to believe in it. But the point is, those who believe in God, generally intuitively feel that He exists. That is the personal kind of knowledge faith gives. It’s not a societal knowledge, it’s a personal knowledge.

“I’m telling you that you can’t tell someone else that their belief in that deity is wrong, because you have no way to support that claim.” Sure I can, just look at why they believe it to be true – is it a belief based on reason, etc? If not, then they shouldn’t have it. Again, I’m not talking about reality, but a person’s beliefs about reality.

“Reason, etc.”? What are the others? What tells you those are the only methods with which you can arrive at a belief? If I see an abstract painting and instinctually feel it is depressing, is that belief wrong because it was just an intuitive thing, like belief in a deity? How many artists and scholars of art would agree with you?

“By stating an external reality, they are encrouching on the domain of science, as you say.” You misunderstand. If a deity exists in reality, science still cannot detect it empirically. Therefore, science has not grown to include that aspect of reality yet. There is no encroachment on the realm of science. An astronomy example… People talk of the known Universe. This is the section of…

…the Universe that we can observe. Because we can observe it, we can make assumptions about the laws of science in that area. However, outside this section of the Universe we can observe, we can make absolutely no scientific assumptions. Until we can observe it, science, and the scientific method has no bearing. As of yet, religion is in this unknown part of the Universe. Enter faith.

Reason? So are we basing true belief on reason? So explain to me this one – ‘The Big Bang Theory.’ Or any other ‘way’ the universe was created, and let me know which one makes more sense.

RYN: Glad you liked my entry. Nice to see you still fighting the good fight here. 🙂

“I must say that the other theoies available to us are far less believable than the possibility of God having created the universe.” – aganeppe Most scientists seem to disagree with you: http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/atheism1.htm Why should we believe you instead of them?

“I’m telling you that you can’t tell someone else that their belief in that deity is wrong, because you have no way to support that claim.” – SilverScorp83 And what about when two people who believe in two different deities deny the existence of the other’s deity even though neither can support their claim beyond saying “I have faith” or “I have a feeling”?

Seems to me you’re saying if X believes in one gOd and denies thousands of others, that’s ok, but if Y denies all gOds because all gOds are equally unproven/illogical/absurd, that’s wrong. Why pick on the logically consistent Y while giving a pass to the (quite possibly delusional) special pleading X?

“outside this section of the Universe we can observe, we can make absolutely no scientific assumptions. Until we can observe it, science, and the scientific method has no bearing. As of yet, religion is in this unknown part of the Universe. Enter faith.” – SilverScorp83 Religion and faith have had a lot to say in the past about unknown areas that have since been explored by science…

Can you name one area in which science has subsequently confirmed the assertions of religion/faith? Lightning is Zeus’s thunderbolt? Nope. A 6000-year-old earth? Nope. An unmoving earth? Nope. Evil spirits are the real causes of madness & disease? Nope.

Given the many, MANY times the explanations put forth by religion & faith have been subsequently discovered to be wildly wrong, why should anyone look to religion & faith to explain those things we still don’t understand? Trusting religion to get it right seems to make about as much sense as trusting a dog not to bite you when you know it’s already bitten hundreds of others….

“Seems to me you’re saying if X believes in one gOd and denies thousands of others, that’s ok” No, actually I’m not. Others may say that, and may believe it if they want to, but it’s a perversion of the point of religion. All I’m saying is that one cannot say belief in a deity, any deity, is wrong. Unless of course you feel you’ve tapped into the limitless knowledge of the universe. Have you?

“Given the many, MANY times the explanations put forth by religion & faith have been subsequently discovered to be wildly wrong, why should anyone look to religion & faith to explain those things we still don’t understand?” Because that’s the only place we can go until science gets there. Many scientific theories have fallen through as well. But as you know, you can’t discount ideas for which…

…you have no data based on those ideas being grouped with other ideas that have been dropped. To do so is not only bad philosophy, but it’s bad science.

“Can you name one area in which science has subsequently confirmed the assertions of religion/faith?” Possibly. In 1982 and 83, a double blind experimental study on the effects of prayer on cardiac patients found that those patients who were prayed for required less CPR, antibiotics, and had fewer deaths. 100% proof of a deity? No, but it’s support. Being as I’m not at home with access to…

…my health psych textbook, I can’t provide any more specifics. If you must have more detail, I can provide it when I get back.

I cannot find the reference in my textbook, however a quick google search came up with several articles discussing a variety of distance healing studies from organization websites such as the California Pacific Medical Center (cpmc.org) and Sommerset Medical Center (sommersetmedicalcenter.com) and funded by the NIH. One may be skeptical of the validity of these studies as I’m sure you will be…

…and I don’t blame you. It has astounding implications if it’s actually real. There have been several studies performed in the last couple decades, and more going on now. A google search will turn them up quite easily if you’re interested in reading more about them. I’m personally skeptical, but I’m certainly not going to say distance healing doesn’t exist.

Dear SilverScorp83: Sorry it’s taken me this long to get back to you. You’re right – I am skeptical, for lots of reasons. Many of which I described in a series of entries I posted in 2000. They start here: http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=C101953&entry=10107

One key passage taken from a newspaper article of the time: “In February, 1999, Dr. Sloan was the lead author of a study published in the respected British medical journal Lancet. The study was the first comprehensive review of past prayer studies and concluded there are no valid studies establishing a beneficial link between religion and health….

“All the major studies, it found, are seriously flawed.”

Since then, a major study run by Columbia University that allegedly found prayer makes a difference has been discovered to be a fraud. http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-09/miracle-study.html

As that CSISOP article I just linked to concludes: “In the entire history of modern science, no claim of any type of supernatural phenomena has ever been replicated under strictly controlled conditions.” If you or anyone else can prove prayer actually works, you really shouldn’t be wasting your time trying to convince me. You should be submitting your work to the Nobel committee.