As simple as possible to summarize the best way you can, first, please. Feel free to expand after, or just say whatever you want lol. Honest question.
I believe in a god but it is strange lol. I will truly never understand the concept of being all knowing and powerful so my idea is he’s either so bored with his existence he created us for entertainment or simply boredom. I imagine him similar to a comic book writer or tv show creator
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Earthseed
I believe in God because I don’t believe knowledge is possible without a transcendent being. (e.g. the impossibility of the contrary) Otherwise you are dealing with infinite regress or axiomatic circularity. Materialism breaks down with origin theories. Metaphysics aren’t substantial yet exist. Math and logic aren’t descriptors of the world but integral to how the world is structured. The Orthodox view is that these principles are a reflection of the divine mind.
(I am an Orthodox Christian)
If so, your definition of ‘God’ is so far removed from what most people take God to mean as to just invite linguistic debates over debates over the thing itself.
Explain what you think I mean by God.
Did you edit your comment to say you were a Christian or did I just miss that? If so, I apologise, your conception of God is quite likely similar to most Christians! I do fail to see how the argument for a transcendent being predicates the Christian God specifically, though, no offense intended.
I did edit to say I was a Christian because I realized that would probably make things clearer.
The argumentation for the Christian god goes beyond what I posted here but builds on the concept. No offense taken.
Sort of, but it’s more a comforting theory rather then a true belief. I came up with it when I was younger, doing a lot of psychedelics, and meditating often on the nature of existence and reality.
My theory is that God is everything. The earth, the stars, our fellow beings. All of reality makes up a complex web that I loosely refer to as a “consciousness” for lack of a better word. The nature of this “consciousness” is incomprehensible to us. It does not activly intervene in our daily lives, and operates on a scale beyond our comprehension. Mostly, it simply is. It is the oblivion from which our consciousness was once plucked, and it is where we will one day return.
In essence, each of us is a tiny fragment of reality experiencing itself. The meaning of life is to experience it. All of it. Joy, pleasure, and suffering. It is all a part of the whole of existence. When we die and return to the infinite our individuality is lost, but maybe God learns something about itself.
I believe in God because I think its the best explanation for the existence of our universe with it’s laws. A being outside of our current space/time setting our universe into motion just makes sense to me.
If our universe requires a being outside it as an origin, why shouldn’t that being itself require another being of even further outside as an origin, and so on?
@FooBarrington @IttihadChe It’s turtles all the way down. 🐢
Scientists believed this for the longest time, but I’ve recently seen a documentary explaining that, at the very bottom, there’s a giant koala bear. Apparently they’re still trying to determine why it’s smiling.
That’s essentially the TAG argument.
Interesting, I’ve never heard of that term but I am partial towards the Maliki madhab which is highly influenced by the Asha’ri and I see them listed there.
I’ll be sure to look into this later.
Upvoting the actual answers here, as some who were not the target audience and haven’t read the question have answered.
Agree.
OP wants to hear opinions from people agreeing with statement X, not those who disagree.
I disagree with the notion of the universe being a probability game, but that’s not asked.
Consciousness exists. This implies that either consciousness is some emergent property of sufficiently complex interconnected systems, or it’s some universal force that complex interconnected systems “channel”.
If it’s emergent, it seems less presumptuous to assume that the most complex interconnected system of all, the universe itself, would develop consciousness. That universal consciousness might as well be called “God”. If it’s a universal force, it might as well be called “God”. Anyway you slice it, a universal consciousness seems inevitable from a sober metaphysical analysis.
Lots of people have ascribed lots of culturally specific attributes to the universal consciousness which are obviously quite silly. The core statement that “I am that ‘I am’” is really the only meaningful attribute we can identify.
If it’s emergent, it seems less presumptuous to assume that the most complex interconnected system of all, the universe itself, wouldn’t develop consciousness.
I was, no shit, just thinking about this on my break about an hour ago. God or whatever you wanna call them. If there was a way to develop more consciousness by adding more information to the universe. If consciousness emerges to solve complex problems then maybe if we populate/terraform planets then we will have a deeper understanding.
I saw something fitting a common description for God (in meditation). Yes, a total mystic vision.
(The creator of reality. A star (that also looks like a jewel) that emits poetry energy. And then I react to that energy by dreaming this dream that I call reality. Like contriving lyrics for an instrumental song.)
No intelligence or personhood as far as I can tell. Just a vast brainless mystico-cosmological gusher of energy.
In some sort of greater being yes, in any kind of church or following no.
I find I have my own belief in some unknown cosmic entitys, something along the lines of energy is always in a state of flow, life and death, rocks to dust, consciousness to the sprawling reaches of the universe a bit of new age spirituality stuff,
Makes me feel more assured and will reduce my suffering until I die. After my death, regardless of if I am right or wrong, the net positive of having had the soothing idea of a larger meaning can’t and won’t be retroactively undone. So why the hell not?
Why not? Because truth matters. Look at the current united states to see what lies cause.
What is truth and how do you know that?
Why do you think truth matters so much? Don’t disagree, but why is it humans will forego a more beneficial situation if it’s proven to be “untrue” or “not real” etc?
It provides hope and comfort. Christianity and Romanian culture are deeply intertwined, and I’m a fan of our traditions.
I went to a Romanian Holy Unction service and it was beautiful.
Personally I’m a huge fan of the Alcoholics Anonymous understanding of “god” and I think it applies more widely.
In AA it is supposed to be A-religious so as to accommodate as many people as possible. To them, god is whatever higher power you need to put your faith into to do better. An entity who you are striving to make proud or you are asking for guidance or help, etc.
This genericized god idea kinda gives up the game to me as an atheist, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact it’s made me believe in god as an idea.
There are plenty of studies on “manifesting” goals and how saying out loud to yourself or to someone at all substantially increases your chance of succeeding in your goal. This is just prayer or a magic spell or whatever else you wanna call it. I call it a ritual.
The fact that god is a made up idea has been uncontested in my mind for eons, however the psychological power of a belief in god is new to me and makes me appreciate the systems of religion more (doesn’t excuse a lot of their bullshit).
AA is a great program and is basically secularized Christianity. Two great religious books that talk about the program from a more explicitly religious perspective are “Breathing Underwater” (Catholic) and “Steps of a Transformation” (Orthodox). Even with your agnostic perspective I think you would find them enlightening.
Cos I’ve done drugs, and experienced heightened states of love, being, appreciation for nature and humanity, states that feel magical yet real, even if only temporarily.
The very fact those states of mind are achievable at all gives me a certain emotional grounding and inner certainty that reality has purpose, or at least meaning. As opposed to just being a happy accident of atoms and energy arranging themselves in this miraculous way to create life. That’s just a logical explanation of how, not why.
We’re almost all driven to look for meaning in life. Even if it’s just to “find your own purpose”, that journey presupposes you have one to begin with.
I guess I feel a belief in god without having much idea of what god is, or even what they want. But I don’t believe at all that logic, science, reason etc. are things you have to choose instead of religious belief. They’re things you have as well. You can’t square the two - the Rubik’s cube of logic doesn’t twist that way.
OK, our reality might have a purpose or meaning given by a god - but then what about that god’s purpose/meaning? Was it given by yet another one higher up? You can keep going up layers like this and finding meaning on each one, but eventually there has to be a final one, a reality that was not designed by anyone. But why does it exist?
Some people may say that there’s no proof that we actually exist. And maybe we don’t, but the fact that we can think and experience things means that even if our reality is somehow fake, there has to be one that isn’t. Because if nothing existed, there would be nothing at all. Not a void, just nothing, not even the possibility of existence. So something, at some level, must exist. But why?
“Because God created us” is not good enough for me, because it doesn’t answer anything. If we exist because a god created us, that still means that a god existed before us. Why does this god exists then?
We’ll never find out. Any answer we find will only open things up for new questions. And just like a child that is just starting to experience things, we’ll never run out of questions.
TLDR; I’m vehemently agnostic.
I believe that if there is a “God” entity, that it is incomprehensible and not worth attempting to understand.
I also don’t believe in an anthropocentric “God”, in that “God” doesn’t inherently value nor not value humans as somehow special nor damned. I also don’t believe “God” cares nor doesn’t care about humans or existence.
I also don’t believe in inherent meaning, nor that there is some form of divine justice. Those are human lenses through which we interpret the world, and are unlikely to apply (at least in the same way as a human) to the supposed viewpoint of an eternal omniscient omnipotent entity that created the universe and will supposedly one day close the door on time and its own existence.
In short, I’m one bleak motherfucker and it doesn’t matter if “God” exists or not. Either way, I don’t get to survive death. What is eternal about me is inherently not a part of me. It is mortality, true mortality, mortality of the consciousness and the ego and the individual that defines the individual. When that dies, "God” or not, either way there is no individual to somehow surpass death.
Leave me be, I’m agnostic. Bother me with religious nonsense and see the atheist come out and ruin your day.
