Cyprus-Forum.com

[Piratis]

I am also atheist/agnostic.

I would say that people are religious by nature though. People want to find answers in everything, and they created Gods in order to fill in the gabs in their knowledge. And since they are filling in the gabs, why not to fill them in a way that sounds nice and suits them, like that the "God" cares about them and that there is a paradise and every nice person that dies goes there, for example.

Being atheist is simply accepting the fact that "Gods" are nothing more than a human creation.

Being agnostic goes a step further. It also accepts the fact that "Gods" as we know them are a human creation, but it doesn't exclude the possibility that some sort of "God" exists, since we are not really in a position to exclude anything in the same way we are not in the position to know anything.

[michalis5354]

This is from wikipedia:

Psychological, sociological and economical arguments
Further information: Psychology of religion, Neurotheology
Philosophers such as Ludwig Feuerbach[51] and Sigmund Freud argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. This is also a view of many Buddhists.[52] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, influenced by the work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin, "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory and practice." He reversed Voltaire's famous aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."[53]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

As piratis said above
I also read in one book that believing in God gives power to overcome daily problems through your Subconcious mind. If you have strong beliefs for something then it can come true . If you have strong belief that you will be healed by God this strong belief gives power to your subconcious mind to overcome the illness and be healed. many people with illness recovered through this process of the power of their mind to believe that they will be healed by god.

[CopperLine]

The theist Blaise Pascal, seventeenth century French philosopher, set out what has become known as "Pascal's Wager." Surrounded by a growing but still distinctly minority rationalism, he proposed a reason for accepting the notion of god, and not just any god but a christian god. His reasoning, from first principles and no evidence, was that if we believed in god and there was in fact no god then we'd lost nothing and done no harm; further if we believed in god and there was indeed a god then we'd made the right choice. On the other hand, if we did not believe in god and there was indeed a god we'd made one mighty fuck up of a decision (my words not his). On the basis not of probability, nor on the basis of evidence, but simply on the basis of negative logic and working the odds of a bet, Pascal thought it safer to believe in god. (He also had stronger reasons - that is, theologically more adequate reasons - to do so. But this was the fall back position). So when all other 'reasons' fail to back the idea of god, Pascal put his money on a better-safe-than-sorry precautionary wager.

My money is on Spinoza.


Piratis isn't there a difference between what we do know and what we don't know ? Just as there is a difference between the quality of knowledge about things that we can know (i.e, are capable of ascertaining the truth of) and things that we can't know (i.e, are simply incapable of ascertaining the truth of ? For example, in principle you and I can ascertain the truth of the claim that the moon is made of cheese (by going to the moon and digging around); however you and I can't know for sure that the moon is not made of cheese because in all probability neither of us are likely to be going to the moon to check.

In the first case we know in principle how to test for the composition of the moon, although we might not be able to carry out the test ourselves. the problem with claimed knowledge about a claim about god is that we simply cannot know even what the test for god is, regardless of who carries that test out.

[CopperLine]

Michaelis5354,
The root of Marx's atheism goes back to his doctoral thesis on 'The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature.' You can find all of Marx's work at the Marxist Internet Archive at
http://www.marxists.org/ and his thesis at
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/index.htm

and is to be seen as arising out of his philosophy of science and, in particular, his philosophical realism.

[CopperLine]

If you have strong belief that you will be healed by God this strong belief gives power to your subconcious mind to overcome the illness and be healed. many people with illness recovered through this process of the power of their mind to believe that they will be healed by god.

Michaelis5354,
In your post above you identified at least two different basis for belief in god : the first was that belief in god gives one power, through the subconscious mind, to heal. Second was the belief that it was god, not the subconscious mind, that did the healing.

Thus, typically, we have two relatively straightforward propositions -
(i) the (human) mind can heal;
(ii) god heals.

On what basis does one determine whether (i) or (ii) is the better explanation ? Or indeed whether (i) and/or (ii) is bollocks ?

[bill cobbett]

My tuppence worth on agnosticism, which I suppose gives some a modern day alternative version of Pascal's safe bet above. It seems to me that it's rather like sitting on a fence and people who sit on fences just get sore bums.

[michalis5354]

Copperline:

The book that I have read claims that its the mind (subconsious mind ) that does the healing and not god . This is one argument that If you strongly believe in something then it will happen and it is this strong belief (ie believing in god , believing in an external power) that gives power to your mind to recover and not God. Thats what this book says and it has some logic in it. The conclusion I think its the mind that does the healing.

read the following book If you like The power of your subconcious mind by Dr Joseph Murphy . I found it interesting.

[Svetlana]

If you don't believe in a herafter, isn't life a bit depressing? Our being on Earth consists of taxes, pain, road rage, reading the CyProb Section and then an agonising illness leading to death.

As a Believer when I leave this 'mortal coil' I shall arise to that great Cyprus Forum in the Sky - though better not tell them I was a Mod, otherwise I will be down in that dark place stoking the fires....

Lana

[Piratis]

Piratis isn't there a difference between what we do know and what we don't know ? Just as there is a difference between the quality of knowledge about things that we can know (i.e, are capable of ascertaining the truth of) and things that we can't know (i.e, are simply incapable of ascertaining the truth of ? For example, in principle you and I can ascertain the truth of the claim that the moon is made of cheese (by going to the moon and digging around); however you and I can't know for sure that the moon is not made of cheese because in all probability neither of us are likely to be going to the moon to check.

In the first case we know in principle how to test for the composition of the moon, although we might not be able to carry out the test ourselves. the problem with claimed knowledge about a claim about god is that we simply cannot know even what the test for god is, regardless of who carries that test out.

What we know (or what we think we know) is based either on personal experience or it is knowledge transfered to us by sources we trust. Each person receives knowledge from different sources (family, school, society etc) and each person filters the incoming information differently, e.g. some might apply a "(not so) common sense" filter more than others.

In your example about the moon, we know that it is not made of cheese because scientists (who we trust) have told us so, but also because the argument that the moon is made of cheese would not pass from our "common sense" filter. 10.000 years ago, finding out what exactly the moon was made of would not be any easier than finding out about the existence of God. Still, the argument that the moon is made of cheese would have logically failed even then.

Michaelis5354,
In your post above you identified at least two different basis for belief in god : the first was that belief in god gives one power, through the subconscious mind, to heal. Second was the belief that it was god, not the subconscious mind, that did the healing.

Thus, typically, we have two relatively straightforward propositions -
(i) the (human) mind can heal;
(ii) god heals.

On what basis does one determine whether (i) or (ii) is the better explanation ? Or indeed whether (i) and/or (ii) is bollocks ?

Here is a theoretical way to test it:

You get 3 very large groups of people with terminal diseases equally distributed.

You convert the first group to a religion which is certainly fake. For example you make the people believe that Piratis is the one and only God.

The second group are atheists.

The third group are strong believers in one of the usual religions.

Then you wait and see how many of those will be cured.

If all groups have the same results, that would mean that neither believing to a God heals, neither God heals. If the first and third group have better results, that would mean that believing in a God can heal, but God doesn't. If only the first group has better results that would mean I am a God

[Piratis]

If you don't believe in a herafter, isn't life a bit depressing? Our being on Earth consists of taxes, pain, road rage, reading the CyProb Section and then an agonising illness leading to death.

Ignorance is a bliss. There is no doubt that believing in a God is a good and relatively healthy and cheap, albeit not as powerful, alternative to taking drugs. If you need it and it if it makes you feel better then by all means believe in it.