Why do so many of my people believe in God?
MarketAndChurch
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Why is "something from nothing," or "science explains everything, or can, provide a rational explanation for everything" a rational position to take? And how does rationality lead you(or ought to lead you) to that conclusion? What basic assumptions do you begin with? Or how is it more rational then the concept of a grand designer, or the life after death based on said-designer?
This also may be one of those things where logic/reason/rationality has to be(if it already isn't) or identified and acknowledged(if already is) as being in the service of Values higher then itself. Very often we aren't even consciously aware of how our values dictate the most basic assumptions that we use as starting points to reason from. And I only bring this up because I don't think logic/reason/rationality inherently leads you to the conclusions you draw.
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techstepgenr8tion
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Too much philosophizing happens about 'necessity' of consciousness in the universe beyond nerve cells.
The experiential component - such as going to a faith-healer or having several reiki sessions and getting healed, premonitions in dreams of critical events that actually do come to pass, dying (if it's really that) and experiencing a vivid NDE, having strange hunches and intuitions turn out to be correct, synchronicities in the kinds of intersection that distill out to one in a billion or trillion if one has to calculate it on probability - things like that tend to suggest a lot to people without any bronze aged tomes getting dropped on them. Similarly some people are just born seeing things that amounts to auras, talking to spirits and various energetic fauna, and finding that they have, in their nebula of consciousness, a reach beyond their own bodies and even into other people's lives.
You may debate the legitimacy of all of that but regardless if they're happening in a person's life and they're thinking critically, particularly if these things hold up under their own scrutiny, what are they going to do? Invoke the materialism of the gaps??
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“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin
First off, I doubt that most mature aspies would say we have "superior minds"...
We tend to be more logical than our NT cousins, but we are "inferior" in "emotional intelligence", for example...
Based on a recent poll here, a strong majority of aspies aren't religious...
Let me just stop you there - our minds are not superior, and even if the average autistic person is more logical than the average person, that doesn't mean all autistic people are logical.
Plenty of intelligent people believe in God. Although there may be a correlation between intelligence/education and atheist, it's not cast-iron.
"True dat"...
Clearly there are intelligent aspie theists...
We need look no further than yourself...
However...
You yourself mentioned a yearning for some inherent meaning in "life, the universe and everything..."
And this is the primary factor, for me at least, explaining why some intelligent individuals feel a need for a personal, caring deity...
The belief in a god is an emotion based philosophical system catering for the satiation of emotional needs...
Simples...
You have put forward the most logical argument in my mind than anyone else has, and I've heard many, many arguments for why God exists. I am still of the belief there is no God, no afterlife, no "higher being" etc, but I respect your argument.
As for another person that mentioned it's more comforting believing God created the Universe, isn't it just as comforting imagining that our entire Universe, it's mysteries, the lives of those around us, the buildings we see around us, the very earth we stand on, all started from nothing more than a build of energy? That chance brought us here? In my opinion it's a "beautiful" idea, the concept of coincidence.
All beliefs, for or against the existence of a God or Gods are valid. Believe what you want to believe, live your life the way you want is my opinion.
I went to a fundie church this morning. I don't agree with everything they teach, or maybe they don't these days. I don't hear much about creation theory from them. Anyhow I cannot deny they do have something that works. They are all happy and secure in themselves. I live in a small market town of daytime sleep walkers, yet these people are absolutely alive. They do have a simple belief in God without complicated theology. They will tell you it is not an intellectual thing and many of them have The Bible is for some of them their main education. But do you see I can reach into their lives and find only caring, honesty and decency. They are more likely to give than want my money. Yes folks this is the UK. If anybody want to judge then let that judgement bounce right back at you. You may find an intellectual criticism, but the simple lives they have are working well. Any criticism of something that is obviously working well seems silly to me.
I don't think anyone denies that religious beliefs do make some people happy/content/fulfilled...
After all, their belief system has been specifically designed to engender emotional comfort/satisfaction/balance/peace...
But it doesn't work for everyone...
I don't see it as "silly"...
Your premise is that *everyone's* inherent priority is to cater to emotional needs...
You premise is invalid because not everyone does...
Personally speaking, "I'd rather live a hash truth than a comfortable untruth..."
I'd like/need to live in a world which makes sense to me rather than live in confusion...
And I enjoy the joy of intellectual exploration...
To boldly go where no Martian has gone before...
Last edited by Pepe on 16 Aug 2015, 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ban-Dodger
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Your People ? You are mistaken. Not So Many of Your People Believe in God.
The Problem Here Has to Do With Semantics & Definition-Sets.
I Assure You, When Most Aspies Claim to Believe in God, They Are NOT Referring to God in the Typical Meaning of the Typical Definition-Set. Rather, God, According to Aspie-Versions, Tend to be More Pantheistic, But in the Artificial-Intelligence Sense of Pantheism, And You May As Well Just Call That The Laws of Nature.
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