Yes. It makes me think, "Can't wait to get to Heaven, where there is no starvation."

My thesis is; it is not that people build temples, eat, dress in some manners etc... because of a belief of God. People do it because of fear of death. This may have coded into DNA during evolution of human or maybe human DNA was created like this, i don't know if there is a scientific research on this.

Other than that, when you are talking about effect of God on ourselves, you should be meaning effect of religion, cause your thesis is on the way we eat, wear, etc, which effect daily life of people. Let's try to answer his question for further development of this thesis; Do people believe in God from second they are born or they learn it ?

X-) Strange...most others think god doesn't exist.

Do people believe in God from second they are born or they learn it ? — Override

It's learned of course. You need a certain level of mental maturity before you can consider the thought.

Ok, by the way i am neither atheist nor religious, just trying to analyse your thesis together cause i don't know at the moment if it is true or not. So what if believing God is like an instinct which i was mentioning that it was in our DNA. Think about this, for thousands of years human dying from nature first of all, people being misjudged, misbehaved, killed, raped, etc. So it might become in these thousands of years an instinct to believe in God rather than an earned thought, so that there will be a meaning of living on this planet and a meaning after-life and a judgement about what happens during our lives. If we think like this way, human wouldn't learn to believe in God, they would be in need to believe in God. Would you agree that ?

Would you agree that ? — Override

What you're saying is belief in god is coded in our DNA.

I haven't found any evidence that it is or it isn't. How would you explain atheism then? Shouldn't it, DNA-coded presumably, have gone out of circulation from the genetic pool by now?

Also, I don't think DNA codes thoughts rather, it codes the instrument of thinking - our brain.

What i meant by questioning "is belief of God coded in our DNA?" is trying to find out if this belief is some kind of an instinct that we inherit from past. I would agree with you that if belief of God was from birth, than somehow everybody should have it, so it should have been learned as you say. If we come to the thesis that belief of God is learned, how do we learn it? Or let's say when do we first start learning it ? Can it be from the religious thoughts or behaviors going around us from the first time that we start to see them ? Like people praying near us, or maybe seeing religious buildings around us and questioning them?

Without belief in God it's going to be difficult to explain that vision I had of the future and what that voice was that saved me from a (probably) fatal snake bite. But for the individual who is determined to reject God, such events can be "explained away" with some lame hypothosis.

What i meant by questioning "is belief of God coded in our DNA?" is trying to find out if this belief is some kind of an instinct that we inherit from past. — Override

If you look at what's happening now (with humans) is we're slowly discarding instinctual behavior and replacing it with reasoned thoughts. I think that's how human progress is defined. It's my opinion that god is not grounded in instinct, as you suggest, because if it was then we should see matching behavior in animals who presumably live at an instinctual level. God is a reasoned proposition e.g. explains the order that is evident in the universe.

TheMadFool thanks for answering to me. I just want to mention that actually i am not proposing that belief in God is an instinct, i just wanted to show that theory of belief of God is n instinct is not true to support the idea that belief of God is learned. So you also agree that belief of God is learned after birth and i see that you bring one more proposition which is, God is a reasoned proposition to explain the order that is evident in the universe. That is a good proposition that i would also agree, not the universe in big scale, even thinking of a human being itself would also be enough for me to think that everything was created in an order for some reason. So would you agree that as soon as we understand that there is a very high order around us that is very far from human capacity to create we start believing in God or we start believing in God, or we learn to believe in God in another way, like outside factors which i have mentioned in my previous message and justify it this way.

Is my conclusion irrational? — Dredge

Yes. It's jumping to a conclusion without sufficient evidence.

Without belief in God it's going to be difficult to explain that vision I had of the future and what that voice was that saved me from a (probably) fatal snake bite. — Dredge

No, that isn't going to be difficult at all. You're just interpreting things fantastically. Happens all the time. You could try to learn to restrain your imagination and improve your critical thinking skills so that you don't jump to those kind of unwarranted and frankly embarrassing conclusions. Or maybe see a doctor.

So would you agree that as soon as we understand that there is a very high order around us that is very far from human capacity to create we start believing in God or we start believing in God, or we learn to believe in God in another way, like outside factors which i have mentioned in my previous message and justify it this way. — Override

Well, one way to go for theism is to latch onto what appears as design in our universe. There may be other routes that lead to god but I find none as convincing.

In other words, you don't believe such things can happen; you don't believe in miracles.

Of course I don't believe in miracles. Why would I? Hearsay? Blind faith? Wishful thinking? Fallacious appeal to authority? There's no good reason. And, to clarify, it's not so much that they can't happen, but that if you claim that they have happened, then you have a massive burden of proof which I don't believe you'll meet if you attempted to.

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Well, I guess it comes down to what you want to believe. If i said, "i saw a fox at he golf course yesterday", you probably wouldn't demand evidence or get annoyed that I have made such a claim. But when I say, "I had a vision that showed me the future" or "a myterious voice saved me from a fatal snake bite", suddenly you're demanding evidence, etc. The difference is, seeing a fox doesn't have implications of God's existence, but having visions of the future and hearing a lifee-saving voice does.

On the one hand it's a good idea to approach claims of miracles with a healthy degree of skepticism, but on the other hand, to deny outright that miracles occur is to deny a certain aspect of reality - simply because you find the possible theistic implications of that reality intolerable.

That's not difficult at all. You're simply delusional. You want that to be the explanation. You've made an emotional investment in your explanation. You haven't used an ounce of logic or reason in making your explanation.



Hallucinations also have an effect on my behavior. The thing is, the only way for it to affect others with my hallucinations is to tell them about it. They don't experience them with me. This is because my hallucinations aren't part of this shared world that can be experienced without telling anyone about them. If we were standing on the beach and watching the sunset, I wouldn't need to say to you, "hey, there's a sunset over there." It would be redundant. However, if I was only imagining the sunset, and I said the same thing, you'd think I was nuts. These are two different reactions to the same thing. How can that be if they both have the same "existence"?

So, if the OP is conflating the existence of things in my mind with things outside of it, when some of the things in my mind don't have an equivalent outside of it (like leprechauns and unicorns) and some do, (like my mother and this internet forum), then we need to redefine the word, "existence".

Why do we need more evidence when someone tells us something they experienced as opposed to experiencing it ourselves? Isn't it because we know that human beings make a lot of assumptions and are often mistaken about their own experiences so human beings are usually used as a source of preliminary information until more evidence comes about?

This is a very bad logic.

I don't know how you define "miracles" but it seems to me that there can be a better explanation to it than explaining it as an act of some divine being that you don't even know if it really exists. For example, the two examples of "miracle" you mentioned can simply be a hallucination.

How many people out there had a fatal snake bite and died, against people that survived? This is a probabilistic thing. Statistically, some do survive. This is a fact. We can't call these miracles. Combined with hallucinations, this can be well explained. I know that was just an example, but most of the "miracles" out there are simply a statistically or probabilistically possible result.

Respectfully, try to imagine it from the other side. We dream every night. Our brains are well known to create rich and memorable scenarios that most of us do not take for something that actually happened. A skeptic like myself has been told from time to time of ghosts, visions, etc.. But in my experience the folks with the stories were those who had never taken any pride in being skeptical. Instead they were already interested in magic or religious in the way that is basically a belief in holy magic and holy ghosts. These ghosts and visions "fed in" to their world view and tended to make them the center of attention. God visited me, bitches! I saw dead mother's ghost. I'm not saying that they were lying. I think the experience is real first-person. But the interpretation is going to happen in terms of the personality, and perhaps not just in terms of the conscious personality. Some experiences may be the eruption of dammed-up potentialities in the individual. I guess you'd call me an atheist, but I don't claim to have checked the hole where god would have to live and to have found it empty. My objections to theism are more related to an analysis of the concepts themselves. As I see it, we would never trust a salesman with half so complicated a pitch as religion's if the object didn't appeal to us greatly and perhaps exactly mirror our own buried, confused potential.

Well, I guess it comes down to what you want to believe. If i said, "i saw a fox at he golf course yesterday", you probably wouldn't demand evidence or get annoyed that I have made such a claim. But when I say, "I had a vision that showed me the future" or "a myterious voice saved me from a fatal snake bite", suddenly you're demanding evidence, etc. The difference is, seeing a fox doesn't have implications of God's existence, but having visions of the future and hearing a lifee-saving voice does.

On the one hand it's a good idea to approach claims of miracles with a healthy degree of skepticism, but on the other hand, to deny outright that miracles occur is to deny a certain aspect of reality - simply because you find the possible theistic implications of that reality intolerable. — Dredge

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Below is your argument for God’s existence:
1. For God to exist, God must have an effect on other things that unequivocally exist.
2. God has an effect on people.
3. Therefore, God exists.

The argument doesn’t follow a rule of implication, which creates space for counterarguments. The ambiguity of the initial premise poses a threat to the entire argument. How would someone know that a thing unequivocally existed? Beyond individual consciousness, there is nothing that undoubtedly exists. If you parked your car in the garage, walked into your home, and I asked you where your car was you’d likely say, “Oh, I just parked it in the garage.” Then, if I asked you if you were certain that your car was in the garage, you couldn’t reasonably say yes because maybe someone stole it after you parked it or maybe you forgot that you actually parked it on the street. This lack of certainty disables our ability to determine effects, so according to your argument, there is no way to determine whether something exists or not. Even if we assume that the second premise is true, we have no way to measure it because we cannot identify the things that undoubtedly exist.

But let’s assume that the first premise is true and that humanity is affected by some entity. You suggest that this entity is God, but it could very well be an invisible alien or and evil demon. The effects may even be simulations and we’re all just brains in vats. You also said that God has an effect on the ways people conduct themselves, but that can simply be explained by sociology. Humans react to the expectations of their social context, so a child may behave well in the presence of their teacher and behave badly around their parents. In both social settings, a human presence affects certain behavior and there is no reason that this catalyst must be divine. Even if we agree with the initial premise, we cannot arrive at the conclusion because we cannot be sure that God is the entity causing these effects on people.

Interesting idea. Looking at your argument and your example of throwing a rock into a window, I believe that you are trying to formulate the following argument.
1. If something has an effect on other objects, people, or ideas, then it exists
2. God has had an effect on other objects, people, or ideas
3. Therefore, God exists (1 & 2 MP)
Please let me know if this is along the lines of what you are trying to say. One aspect of your argument that may need to be narrowed down is what you mean by “effect”. Looking at your statement about God, it seems like people have had some sort of change of action, belief, idea, or lifestyle as a result of God. According to your statement about God, it is these changes or differences (effect) on reality that proves the existence of God.

I would first like to comment on Premise 1. I do not think that anything which has an effect on humans or the world necessarily exists. Let’s say you used this argument on a mythical creature such as a unicorn. Unicorns affect human lives as they are in movies, used as costumes, created by people into sculptures, etc. In this way, unicorns have changed how we act, dress, paint etc and have affected our lives. However, unicorns do not exist. Although a costume or a sculpture or even the idea of unicorns exist, unicorns in and of themselves do not exist. Simply having an effect on someone or something does not bring it into existence nor is it enough to count as proof of existence. This first premise could also allow the existence of practically any god, entity, or being that you wanted to create. All one would have to do is change their lifestyle as a result of this new being and their lives would then be affected and would prove the being’s existence. This idea of people being able to bring into existence any being on a whim seems very unsound.

In addition, the conclusion of your argument has many contradictory implications. For one, under this logic, most all gods would then also exist as many religions have gods that change the way that people act and live. However, this could not be possible as many of these gods could not exist together due to their characteristics, nature, or doctrine. For example, the traditional Abrahamic God seen in the Bible clearly states that no other gods exist accept Him. Being singular without the existence of other gods is part of the Abrahamic God’s characteristic. Overall, it seems that simply having an effect on someone or something does not serve as proof that something exists.

Proof can only be such if it has been accepted as such.

I would first like to comment on Premise 1. I do not think that anything which has an effect on humans or the world necessarily exists. Let’s say you used this argument on a mythical creature such as a unicorn. — Abecedarian

I agree with premise 1. The problem with "a unicorn," "God," etc. here is that we can't conflate ideas with other sorts of things. Unicorns and gods are fictions. They exist as fictions. That's it.

Allow me to give a little analogy to give context to my question,

A book exists. The white pages of that book exist, too. The letters, in black ink, on the pages also exist. So do the words, the sentences and the paragraphs.

My question is,

Does the narrative given in the book exist?

Yes, as something with meaning, etc., it exists in persons' minds (as sets of brain states).

Does the narrative given in the book exist?

Anything you can put into words or thought exists, the question is in what way it exists. Harry Potter exists, as a fictional character. Before the actual writing if that fiction Harry Potter also existed, as an idea that the writer had.
Does the narrative of the book exist? Yes, as you can reference the narrative, it clearly exists in some way. It exists as a narrative of the specific book.

Without delving into the theology of a purported God, e.g. His possible physicality / relation to the universe or time, etc., your argument - if it is in fact sound (which I am not debating, whether I take issue with its entailments), it [the argument] seems to only pertain to mind-dependent "things", or ideologies that have some type of sway on a person(s) conduct. I believe the "effects" you mentioned, between the rock and a supposed God are of wholly different natures; if a rock is thrown at something breakable, the thing will break - this seems to be an immutable conditional sate of affairs; yet if God exists and has an effect - specific rites, diets, clothing - then via this analogy, the effect of God on a population should be equally uniform, but this is very obviously not the case. Christians revere the sanctifying aspect of water via baptism, while Zoroastrians revere fire for the same sanctification reasons - if God were able to be proven via means of effects He has on people (which seems like a variant of a First Cause argument), then the effects employed by the people who believe in God should be consistent with one another - yet they aren't.

The argument that you seem to be addressing seems to be "given that physical things exist, such as the components of a book, is it also the case that the narrative of a book exists?" I think this argument can easily be boiled down to a case for or against the existence of mind-independent entities. Though not completely analogous in content, I think if we are truly, at the course of this discourse discussing the being of mind-independent things - without delving into an discussion about whether or not a thing exists if someone is not there to give it a certain nomenclature á la some Postmodernists epistemological views, if we affirm Mathematical Platonism (particularly through the works of Frege) then it would seem apparent that numbers themselves exist independent of a mind. And if I'm being charitable in my analogy between the two subjects, numbers / narratives, then I would see no problem with saying that an abstract concept such as a narrative exists, though perhaps not in the same form of basically as numbers.

While I find the design argument compelling, fine tuning arguments have a proclivity to be tenuous and prone to objections - especially by skeptics who are generally apt to note the overwhelmingly chaotic nature of our universe specifically, and how the genesis of the human species is nothing more than a statistical anomaly bound to happen due to the sheer size of the universe and the varying natures present throughout every solar system / galaxy, and so on - Bertrand Russel expanded on this in his unpublished Is There a God specifically. Unequivocal evidence for or against the existence of God are, on the whole, not compelling in my opinion - rather I believe the burden of proof to be on the non-Theist to affirm non-Theism, as opposed to giving into the proclivities of weighing facts of natural science against ecclesiastical traditions.