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> There are many people who purport to believe in God because they claim there is evidence that God exists. I think faith is the antithesis of proof. I believe

by dvt 10y ago

> There are many people who purport to believe in God because they claim there is evidence that God exists. I think faith is the antithesis of proof. I believe God asks us for faith. As opposed to my logic courses, which asked me for proofs :) > Sure, but that just begs the question: what is a "good reason"? The Inquisitors thought that they were saving people from eternal hellfire by torturing them. Does that constitute a "good reason"? I'm using a very typical run-of-the-mill "good reason". E.g. it's a "good reason" to hurt someone if they need to get an arm amputated to prevent a cancer from spreading but it's not a "good reason" to crush a baby kitten's skull just because you feel like it.

lisper 10y ago
> I believe God asks us for faith. OK, fair enough, but then how do you know it's Jesus and not Allah (or some other deity) asking for your faith? (That's a serious question, BTW. I'd really like to know your answer.) > it's not a "good reason" to crush a baby kitten's skull just because you feel like it. Yes, well, there's a reason I didn't choose that as my example. Is scientific research a "good reason"? It is moral to vivisect a kitten for research? What about a mouse?
- dvt 10y ago
  > OK, fair enough, but then how do you know it's Jesus and not Allah (or some other deity) asking for your faith? (That's a serious question, BTW. I'd really like to know your answer.) This is a great question and I'll answer like I answered another HN user: this is a very nuanced question that can't really be answered on a forum (and I'm not even sure if I'm equipped to answer it). With that said, William Lane Craig (a famous Christian apologist) has tons of debates (vs. Muslims, atheists, Hindus, etc.) on Youtube and I kind of like his arguments. Most of these are pretty long (1hr+) so they require a bit of investment, but his debates are always fun and interesting to watch. Alvin Plantinga (famous philosopher, Notre Dame professor, Christian apologist) also has a few noteworthy speeches and debates. > Is scientific research a "good reason"? It is moral to vivisect a kitten for research? What about a mouse? There's a lot of grey area here. I used very clear and intuitive examples on purpose. Is it morally right to euthanize? Is abortion moral? Etc, etc. I'm honestly not sure (but I love a good debate!). Maybe some of these are in the same computational class as the halting problem: undecidable (for us) :) But the fact that the line is fuzzy doesn't mean there's no line at all.
  - lisper 10y ago
    > the fact that the line is fuzzy doesn't mean there's no line at all Certainly true, but the fact that the line is fuzzy seems to me an indication that it wasn't drawn by God. Fuzziness is more characteristic of nature. > I love a good debate! Then you should read this: http://blog.rongarret.info/2008/05/can-morality-exist-without-god.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2008/05/can-morality-exist-withou...
    - dvt 10y ago
      > Certainly true, but the fact that the line is fuzzy seems to me an indication that it wasn't drawn by God. Fuzziness is more characteristic of nature. That seems like quite a leap to me, but even if we agree that there's an objective good and an objective bad, then there must be some standard for the good. I think that standard is God. This isn't meant to be a proof (and it's very hand-wavy), but that's my intuition. > Then you should read this... Seems to be in the same vein and Dawkins, et al.: that we somehow evolved this moral intuition. I think that's a faulty position because of a simple thought experiment. Consider a universe where nothing evolved. For whatever reason, there was no Big Bang, and things just popped into existence. Would there be no morality in such a universe (because we didn't evolve it)? I find that very hard to believe.
      - lisper 10y ago
        > there must be some standard for the good And there is: good is that which improves the reproductive fitness of the entities that practice it. > For whatever reason, there was no Big Bang, and things just popped into existence. Would there be no morality in such a universe (because we didn't evolve it)? That's right. (To be precise, there might be morality, but it would be whatever the entity that created this universe decided it should be.) > I find that very hard to believe. Why? We actually have some data points because we actually create such universes ourselves nowadays. We call them computer games or virtual reality environments, and the moral rules at work in some of them are very different from the real world. The poster child for this is Grand Theft Auto, where the disconnect between the moral rules of that world and ours causes some people a great deal of cognitive dissonance. As long as we're doing thought experiments here's one for you: suppose God told you that it was OK to force people to eat their own children. Would that make it in fact OK? Or is there some moral standard that transcends God that makes it not OK to do certain things even if God says it's OK? (BTW, in case you don't recognize it, this question was first raised by Plato in a famous dialogue called Euthyphro. It's worth reading. And BTW2, if you think that this example is too extreme you should read Jeremiah 19:9.)

by dvt 10y ago

lisper 10y ago

> I believe God asks us for faith. OK, fair enough, but then how do you know it's Jesus and not Allah (or some other deity) asking for your faith? (That's a serious question, BTW. I'd really like to know your answer.) > it's not a "good reason" to crush a baby kitten's skull just because you feel like it. Yes, well, there's a reason I didn't choose that as my example. Is scientific research a "good reason"? It is moral to vivisect a kitten for research? What about a mouse?

dvt 10y ago
> OK, fair enough, but then how do you know it's Jesus and not Allah (or some other deity) asking for your faith? (That's a serious question, BTW. I'd really like to know your answer.) This is a great question and I'll answer like I answered another HN user: this is a very nuanced question that can't really be answered on a forum (and I'm not even sure if I'm equipped to answer it). With that said, William Lane Craig (a famous Christian apologist) has tons of debates (vs. Muslims, atheists, Hindus, etc.) on Youtube and I kind of like his arguments. Most of these are pretty long (1hr+) so they require a bit of investment, but his debates are always fun and interesting to watch. Alvin Plantinga (famous philosopher, Notre Dame professor, Christian apologist) also has a few noteworthy speeches and debates. > Is scientific research a "good reason"? It is moral to vivisect a kitten for research? What about a mouse? There's a lot of grey area here. I used very clear and intuitive examples on purpose. Is it morally right to euthanize? Is abortion moral? Etc, etc. I'm honestly not sure (but I love a good debate!). Maybe some of these are in the same computational class as the halting problem: undecidable (for us) :) But the fact that the line is fuzzy doesn't mean there's no line at all.
- lisper 10y ago
  > the fact that the line is fuzzy doesn't mean there's no line at all Certainly true, but the fact that the line is fuzzy seems to me an indication that it wasn't drawn by God. Fuzziness is more characteristic of nature. > I love a good debate! Then you should read this: http://blog.rongarret.info/2008/05/can-morality-exist-without-god.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2008/05/can-morality-exist-withou...
  - dvt 10y ago
    > Certainly true, but the fact that the line is fuzzy seems to me an indication that it wasn't drawn by God. Fuzziness is more characteristic of nature. That seems like quite a leap to me, but even if we agree that there's an objective good and an objective bad, then there must be some standard for the good. I think that standard is God. This isn't meant to be a proof (and it's very hand-wavy), but that's my intuition. > Then you should read this... Seems to be in the same vein and Dawkins, et al.: that we somehow evolved this moral intuition. I think that's a faulty position because of a simple thought experiment. Consider a universe where nothing evolved. For whatever reason, there was no Big Bang, and things just popped into existence. Would there be no morality in such a universe (because we didn't evolve it)? I find that very hard to believe.
    - lisper 10y ago
      > there must be some standard for the good And there is: good is that which improves the reproductive fitness of the entities that practice it. > For whatever reason, there was no Big Bang, and things just popped into existence. Would there be no morality in such a universe (because we didn't evolve it)? That's right. (To be precise, there might be morality, but it would be whatever the entity that created this universe decided it should be.) > I find that very hard to believe. Why? We actually have some data points because we actually create such universes ourselves nowadays. We call them computer games or virtual reality environments, and the moral rules at work in some of them are very different from the real world. The poster child for this is Grand Theft Auto, where the disconnect between the moral rules of that world and ours causes some people a great deal of cognitive dissonance. As long as we're doing thought experiments here's one for you: suppose God told you that it was OK to force people to eat their own children. Would that make it in fact OK? Or is there some moral standard that transcends God that makes it not OK to do certain things even if God says it's OK? (BTW, in case you don't recognize it, this question was first raised by Plato in a famous dialogue called Euthyphro. It's worth reading. And BTW2, if you think that this example is too extreme you should read Jeremiah 19:9.)