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| quote: | Originally posted by D-Res
-Do you believe in God for other reasons than rational arguments? why? what is the role of faith in this context? what kind of things can we have faith in? |
"Faith" is generally a red herring in discussions of why someone believes in God. Faith is not a reason for believe, it is a mode of belief - that is to say, it answers not why, but how the believer believes. The actual question of "why" a person believes in God is a question most believers will go to great lengths to avoid answering (even to themselves,) which is why you generally get mindless rationalizations like "I have a strong feeling that it is true," or "I just choose to believe," or the infamous Pascal's wager when making such an inquiry.
I'd also point out, with regards to the question of what kinds of things we can have faith in, that faith is a word that has multiple meanings, some of which only differ subtly - but subtle differences can be very important in any philosophical discussion. Depending on how narrowly we interpret "faith" for this particular question, there could either be an extremely large group of things that we can have faith in, or a relatively small group. The same problem occurs frequently with the word "God" itself as there is great variety among deities and evidence which might refute the existence of a particular deity might simultaneously support the existence of another.
| quote: | | -If you DONT believe in God, why not? can you give reasons to support the claim that God does not exist, or that we shouldn't care about the question? |
Well, that's quite the epistemological can of worms, isn't it? Seriously exploring the question of what constitutes a justified belief would definitely take longer than I'm willing to commit to this post, so I will skip over all of that and just answer the question: I don't believe in God because I don't have sufficient reason to believe in God.
First, recognize that belief is initially absent regarding any particular thing to be believed or disbelieved. One cannot possess a belief in something that one has never conceived of. Thus, we can see that in order to believe in some God, we must make the transition from not believing to believing. While, again, I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail regarding what makes such a transition justified, I will say that it is my assertion that the force of the arguments/evidence/observations that is required to justify belief must be proportional to the implications of belief. In the case of belief or the lack thereof in a God, the implications are very great and the arguments and evidence are very weak. Therefore, belief in God fails to meet the criteria for what I consider to be a justified belief by a large margin.
Now, since the properties of one deity and another can vary greatly, it is not practical to give reasons to support the claim that "God" in an ambiguous sense does not exist. Such reasons can only be given when an adequate description of the properties of a specific God in question is provided, which brings us to:
| quote: | | -Is the notion of an omniscient, omnipotent & benevolent God compatible with pain and suffering, regardless if the pain/suffering is caused by human free will or by natural causes. Why or why not? |
Short answer: If the God in question is also supposed to be the creator/designer of humanity and the universe in which we live, then no, it is not compatible, but if the God in question is not supposed to have created humanity or the universe, but merely acts as a guardian/caretaker then yes it is.
Short answer: If the God in question is also supposed to be the creator/designer of humanity and the universe in which we live, then no, it is not compatible, but if the God in question is not supposed to have created humanity or the universe, but merely acts as a guardian/caretaker then yes it is.
Edit:
The problem of evil is a subject I have a lot of interest in. Although it is to a certain extent a frivolous exercise to attack illogical beliefs on logical grounds, it remains an issue of philosophical relevance.
| quote: | Originally posted by Aquarian
But in that case, wouldn't the existance of pain and suffering show God's inability to fully fulfill his task as a guardian, and therefore, disprove the idea that he is omnipotent/omnipresent? |
You raise a good question. The reason the role of creator is important to this discussion is that a God who is also our creator is responsible for every aspect of human nature, including the especially important fact that we only perceive and understand concepts such as pain or pleasure in a relative sense – the complete absence of one would only serve to numb us to the other. An omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent deity which did not have a hand in human creation, on the other hand, while it would necessarily have the ability to re-create humanity so that the experience of “bad” was not necessary for the appreciation of “good,” but such a change could be considered fundamental enough that the altered humans cannot rightly be considered the same people that they were before, and that the people who had existed before would essentially be erased. Such an act would, at least, be of controversial benevolence, and consequently it is difficult to state with any certainty that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God in such a position would act in such a way, given what we can perceive about our own existence, that we can say it cannot exist. Although the existence of such a God, the more one looks at specific examples of suffering, appears continuously more absurd, I am not yet convinced that we can be sure that it is logically inconsistent.
Now, on the other hand, if this God in question is also the creator of humanity, then we can say he is directly and fully responsible for the way we perceive pain and pleasure, and furthermore that, being omnipotent, he could have created humans differently, such that any advantage which we presently gain through the experience of pain or hardship could instead be gained in a more innocuous way. Clearly, this would have been the benevolent choice.
Last edited by Arbiter on Feb-14-2006 at 21:23
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he's only in graduate school but the fucker can debate like no one i've ever seen. you can bring up ANYTHING and he'll think for 2 seconds and throw something back at you and you're stuck there questioning yourself. its ridiculous
Sartre, being its main proponent, was very much concerned with the existence of God. In fact, the question of the existence of God dominated his (pre-Marxist existential) philosophy, and his belief that God did not exist shaped his conception of the authentic self. In fact, Sartre's belief that Man was left to fend for himself in a Universe without God, and that was thus indifferent to his wishes and desires, was rather distressing to him. To live the authentic life, according to Sartre, was thus to face this fact squarely despite the resulting anxiety from having to create one's own meaning. 
