Pat Condell: "God or Nothing"

by leavingwt 40 Replies latest jw friends

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  BurnTheShips

  When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything HE WANTS TO.

  Which often includes some very stupid things. Take the religious fervor of Progressives, or the pseudoreligious environmentalist movement, for example.

  You can get rid of God, but you won't get rid of people's need to believe in something, anything, greater than themselves.

  And they will believe.

  http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/10/the-towering-london

  Here is a more complete source of the Umberto Eco article:

  http://www.umbertoeco.com/en/about-god-and-dan-brown.html

  Human beings are religious animals. It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion. You can see this in the positivist scientists of the 19th century.

  They insisted that they were describing the universe in rigorously materialistic terms - yet at night they attended seances and tried to summon up the spirits of the dead. Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious - to such an extent that it sometimes seems to me that to be a rigorous unbeliever today, you have to be a philosopher. Or perhaps a priest.

  BTS
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  BurnTheShips

  I believe in something greater than God......

  I'm curious....not to mention, I find the statement oxymoronic, if we consider God as "that which there is nothing greater."

  BTS
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  designs

  Human concepts are limited in this area, we have a long way to go in the sciences to understand the building blocks of our universe and beyond.
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  VoidEater

  Leaving: When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything HE WANTS TO.

  AMEN.

  I'm a little surprised at the survey. They obvioulsy didn't focus on the shining lights that are producing our great thinkers like Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnel and Sharon Angle.
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  BurnTheShips

  Human concepts are limited in this area, we have a long way to go in the sciences to understand the building blocks of our universe

  But your statement was about God, not the Universe. I do not understand what you are trying to say.

  and beyond.

  And there again, is an issue with misuse of poorly understood terms.

  You say you believe in something greater than God, yet if God is maximal, there can be nothing greater by definition.

  Now, you move to the Universe. "Universe" means all that exists. If Universe is all that exists, there can be nothing beyond it by definition.

  I'm a little surprised at the survey. They obvioulsy didn't focus on the shining lights that are producing our great thinkers like Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnel and Sharon Angle.

  As opposed to who? Barack Obama? Nancy Pelosi? Harry Reid? Methinks this is a thread hijack in the making. Best to keep it in the politics section, kemosabe.

  BTS
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  THE GLADIATOR

  People who are simply non religious are sometimes labeled as Atheists. To not have a religion or any interest in religion is different to not believing in a God.

  If there is an intelligent force at work in the universe does it take the form of a Deity? I for example do not consider that existence of a deity as described in holy books and scriptures is realistic or accurate. I have no time for organized, commercialized religion. This does not mean that I have ruled out the possibility that the universe is permeated by a coordinated intelligence.

  Such intelligence does not have to have a plan or fixed moral rules, but could operate by a very different kind of process to the one that goes on in our heads, that we choose to label as intelligence.

  So before we enquire into one's belief in God we have to define God
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  VoidEater

  BTS: Human beings are religious animals. It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion

  It can be hard, particulary for psychologically immature individuals (not saying that all believers are immature, but obviously the immature will always need a Harvey the Rabbit to take care of them).

  But I think with each generation, and each passing century, we become more mature, more capable of standing on our own two feet, more willing to be accountable and responsible for our actions and our destiny, less superstitious.

  If *spirituality* (which is these days getting the "belief in something greater than ourselves" definition) is the goal, then certainly there is no shortage of non-religious, non-superstitious "greater thans" to join in on - secular movements, society, communities - anywhere there is more than one person there is something greater than just ourselves. No batteries - or God - needed.

  At some point man can get on with the true spiritual problems of living, which really have to do with caring for each other here and now. Until we can all focus on that, the hocus pocus is just a diversion from Jesus' message - and a diversion from the point of any loving God.
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  VoidEater

  BTS: As opposed to who?

  As opposed to the supposed clear-thinking religious. These would be the ones I'd like to see surveyed, they are merely public figures that have espoused some very whacko beliefs as a direct influence from their religion.

  So there.
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  BurnTheShips

  At some point man can get on with the true spiritual problems of living

  Really? I thought that was what religion was supposed to be about. My own faith has been extremely helpful in that regard.

  We've been "getting on" with these problems ever since we became human.

  BTS
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  VoidEater

  Gladiator: Such intelligence does not have to have a plan or fixed moral rules, but could operate by a very different kind of process to the one that goes on in our heads, that we choose to label as intelligence.

  This.