Thread: So who bases their beliefs on anything other than facts, and why?

Originally Posted by Carôusoul

From when we are born all we have to go on is our own experience, and what we can call "facts". Which is what you see and what makes sense and is obvious. [alot more detail, but you know what I mean].




So, I believe in myself, this is certainly the only thing I am truly certain of.



However I think it is very probable that the rest of you exist as beings like myself, and that the physical world is as real as it gets. I may well be wrong and it may be a simulation, but I have NO EVIDENCE to base this on and all the evidence points that this world is the true world[even if it isn't].




So, I accept this, rightfully or wrongfully, it is the logical thing to do, and I won't get anywhere thinking otherwise.





Likewise, in regard to our universe, I do not believe in the christian god, as I think it is a ludicrous idea, with absolutely no proof or evidence or anything whatsoever to support it other than what you have been raised to think by your parents and/or what people have told you.

God has not [for the most of you] come to you and described the entire christian religion [or any other religion of a similar fashion, but christianity will be used here, cus its so common] and said "this is the truth".

In actual fact your beliefs are based entirely on what other people have told you, either through what they have brought you up to think, what they have preached to you or what they have written in a book a few thousand years ago.


The difference is I base my beliefs on what I KNOW to be true and what makes the most sense. As this is clearly obvious. I am not saying it may not be wrong, it may be, but from everything I have to go by, it is certainly the most likely option, unarguably.



So what I wanna know, [this is essentially a question to theists, however it is open to anyone] is why you would base your beliefs on what I have detailed above, other people. What they tell you, this exterior input telling you what is true.

Surely all you know to be true is what you yourself have observed? so I assume the most of you have not had a vision or whatever [although some of you may claim you have[In which case I understand to an extent]], so why believe this?? It seems ridiculous to believe what other people are telling you without evidence as truth?! why?!

All you can be sure of is your own experiences! You have not experienced the whole bible taking place, so why believe it?!??! You can of course argue;


"You haven't witnessed Australia so why the hell do you believe it?! *chortle*"


Thing is, There is considerable evidence that Australia exists. There are photos, accounts, a history, hell even NEIGHBOURS. This said again, I cannot be sure that Australia DOES exist. Although it is ridiculously probable, so I go along with it.

With [most] religion this is simply not the case.



So why believe?



-Cus your mum and dad tell you to?
-Cus you had a headrush sometime and thought God was having his way with you?



I dunno, I'm not making an attack, I'm actually interested how you can believe such things.

I don't think you will ever be satisfied because with any religion symbolism and faith play a huge role. In the same way science and "facts" are sort of the same, only they are mostly based on observation instead of the type of learning you are speaking of.

You believe what the collective body of science tells you, but do you really understand what they are trying to say? You may "get the idea" about membrane theory, or the weakness of gravity (how they came to understand m theory) but who really understands it better? You or the mathematicians that developed the formulas that developed the theories? I say this to make my point. Yes, I believe the bible, but I am truly trying to understand it in a scientific sort of way. Not in a "well prove to me there was a Garden of Eden. Show me on a map" but in a "What is the Garden of Eden story really trying to say? What is the point of this story?". If Christ truly existed as a person (which I literally believe happened), and the gospels document His teachings in a fairly accurate manner, then I truly want to understand what He was trying to say, not what the church tries to tell me He was saying. Because of this way of thinking it has lead me down a very different path than how I was raised, or even how my first Christian experiences were. My Christian walk started around conservative fundamentals, what I believe to be true about the Bible and Christianity would be considered heretical by most of them now. But my beliefs stemmed out of a true desire to understand this religion. Yes, many if not all of my beliefs are based off of something I have read or heard (but yours have to) I have developed some pretty fundamentally ground-shaking theories based off of things I have studied and absorbed which sound loosely like some other peoples beliefs but have some original elements (as far as I know.

Through all this however I have learned that there are no absolutes that we can understand in this world. There is no absolute truth that can be understood by our carnal minds. Everything we understand and believe is an abstraction of truth. Some people talk to me and think I have "figured it out" or we talk and share ideas but the more I understand the less I really know truth. It's more like I understand what is not truth, therefore leaving only plausible explanations until I find the one with the least questions. My ideas of Christianity are very very abstract and I view the whole religion and religion texts as a matter of perspective. I have no idea what or who God is, I think the Bible and many other things are trying to understand that and some come closer to others in my mind.

My main reason for sticking so closely to Christianity and not becoming agnostic or even an atheist (because of my logical nature I could see that as being very plausible) is because of what I have experienced. In my mid-teens being raised a Christian, I wanted nothing to do with Christianity (I think many of us can relate to that) but I experienced something very very life changing. I had an experience that made what I read in the bible become real. The presence of God, the miracles, the unexplainable happened to me. Now before I get attacked on this one, I understand that there is a lot of supernatural that INST supernatural, and I am just going to tell you that I have experienced both the fake and the real. The real left no doubt in my mind. I saw things that weren't physically possible. I have experienced things happen where the odds of it happening by chance were near impossible. God very clearly spoke to me in a way that I could understand that He was real. Does this mean I think Christianity is the only answer? No, but through Christianity I can understand God. This is that matter of perception I was talking about earlier. I have seen synonyms throughout very different religions from things that most Christians would never see as the same (I see hell and reincarnation as the same for example)

So I guess that is the best way I can explain it. I am not as brainwashed as most here would assume about Christians and I am very open minded. My beliefs are based entirely on what I know to be true, and I feel this is the path God has been leading me down intentionally. Though I fundamentally disagree with fundamentalists they played a vital role in my understanding of God. Sometimes we must understand what something ISNT to order to understand what it IS. I am an artists and this theory makes perfect sense to me when I think of the concept of negative space. How do we understand what a form is unless there is something around it to tell us what it isn't? This is how I begin to understand God.

Originally Posted by Sandform

I don't even know why I bother anymore trying to help people see the truth...

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Well aren't you the drop calling the bucket wet.

More like the drop calling himself wet.

Originally Posted by Neruo

Absolute truths don't exist.

Everything I think, is basically an estimate of chance. I see the chance 1% there is a god. And 0.0001% chance there is a Christian God. Actually, those numbers are just made up. It's just to relative to give numbers to such things.

Still.

Christians need to stfu, and stop being absolutists, basically.

I don't think I've ever seen you admit to the possibility that God or a god exists - except in that post. I wonder why.

I held God as a logical infallibility then I rethought the reasons why:

The law of subjective outlook on good and evil

The first cause paradox etc...

Then I realized what spiritual laws or ideas could change this the christians forgot to include that make God possible:

The law of impermanence: Everything changes, no one spends eternity in hell, all ghosts move on eventually, even God will have to move on evetually.

Then there is the theory that when one dies their consciousness is porpelled to the state of existence they were at when they died and they are reborn there with no memory. God simply had to be the first being to drop into kind of low and be reborn here after say, some planetary rebirth. Everthying coming after him after his desire for company made him think he created them, and of course they believed him. Bam, God.

No one cares to respond to the book I wrote? lol I would be interested in hearing some feedback.

would personal experiences count as "facts", or do you limit that term to only what has has substantiated by science? Personally, though I am not religious, not everything I believe in is based on the latter. There is a lot of what I believe that is simply based on my subjective, personal experiences. And I am betting most people are the same way, even the most skeptical of people.

The fact of the matter is that there is only so much a person can single-handedly prove to themselves (in regard to scientific standards), especially if they aren't even a scientist (which most skeptics aren't). The rest is either based on subjective experiences or hearsay, and odds are that the majority of a person's beliefs fall under this category.

How many people are atheists because of things they have experienced from Christianity? Such as you were raised Christian but were hurt by someone, or got tired of the hypocrisy?

Originally Posted by jaasum

How many people are atheists because of things they have experienced from Christianity? Such as you were raised Christian but were hurt by someone, or got tired of the hypocrisy?

I'm an atheist because even though my parents were christians, they didn't go to church, or rather stopped when I was like 5 yrs old...then when they split up, neither of them even had time to go to church...so I am atheist basically for the lack of having a religion. Its not that I was raised any certain way, its that I wasn't raised anyway at all. Lack of religion = atheism =).

So uh, i'm not atheist because of christian experiences, its simply that I am.

Originally Posted by Sandform

Lack of religion = atheism

Personally, lack of religion = agnosticism.

Originally Posted by CoLd BlooDed

Personally, lack of religion = agnosticism.

Well...the problem here is that people like to twist and turn words to fit what they would like them to mean. For me, Lack of religion is actually atheism. Lack of certainty is agnosticism.

Since I believe that no religion is true, because I have a no faith in any of them, I am atheist. I am lacking religion.

Lack of religion is being areligious, lack of god is Atheist because it shows at least you thought about it, knowledge of one's lack of knowledge is Agnostism, knowledge of that one lacks knowledge and will never for certain have knowledge is Existentialism and knowledge that one can't be certain but refuses to give up is Skepticism.

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

Lack of religion is being areligious, lack of god is Atheist because it shows at least you thought about it, knowledge of one's lack of knowledge is Agnostism, knowledge of that one lacks knowledge and will never for certain have knowledge is Existentialism and knowledge that one can't be certain but refuses to give up is Skepticism.

Almost, Deus. I have never actually heard the word areligious... *looks up.* Yes, he's right. You can not have a religion and still be theist, thus it is not necessarily an atheist. Lack of god IS atheist. Knowledge of one's lack of knowledge is NOT agnosticism. I don't know a specific name for this, but I would call it wisdom, or something. And knowledge that one lacks knowledge and will never for certain have knowledge... THIS is agnosticism. Agnosticism is the belief that it is impossible to prove there is a god, or disprove.

I repeat, agnosticism is NOT apathetic or areligious... it is entirely different... it the belief that it is impossible to prove or disprove a deity... or as Deus put, the knowledge that one lacks knowledge and will never for certain have knowledge.

Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine. I can't pretend I know all about it, though... it might very well be the lack of knowledge and knowledge of not being able to attain that... knowledge.

"The absence of belief" is not the same as "the belief of absence", with agnosticism being the former and atheism being the latter...generally speaking. Of course, there are many different sects of atheism and agnosticism, so its pointless to make these arguments until we specificy which setcs we are comparing. Some sects of agnosticism are exactly as you describe, yet others are exactly how you describe atheism (absence of a belief, not the belief of absence).

Agnosticism is not the absence of belief. I have to agree with wasup though I was kind of meshing some words with the ancient greeks. Their term for someone that doesn't think divine knowledge can ever be a certainty is an academic but they have the same term for skeptic and I think that definition rings true today despite that few self labeled skeptics follow that.

But anyway the absence of belief just means you haven't thought about it because believing you can't prove it one way or another is still a belief that required thought. Having no religion is just that, one that doesn't put any energy into thought outside the material world is nothing. Atheists don't just suddenly one day lack God, you know, they get pushed into that belief by unanswered questions on paradox and jump to the conclusion that just because what people think is God cannot possibly be true it means God can't exist in any way at all. Exaggeration, yes, but let's just keep the ball rolling on defining terms and stuff, eh?

Actually, sandform, I was referring to this line.

so I am atheist basically for the lack of having a religion.

You said you're atheist because you had no religion in your life. I said I'm agnostic because I had no religion in my life. Same coin, different sides.

Lack of certainty is agnosticism.

It's not that I'm uncertain, it's that (to me at least) there's no point in being absolute with either side. Overall it really doesn't concern me, when I die I die and if there's something out there then cool, if not then I guess it won't really matter.

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

Agnosticism is not the absence of belief.

which sect are you referring to? Because that isn't true across the board.

As for me personally, I recently said the following:

Originally Posted by ethen

If I had to categorize what I am, I would say that I was something along the lines of 10% stong agnosticism, 40% weak agnosticism, 10% Model agnosticism, and 40% other epistemological beliefs.