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Is belief in God wishful thinking?

aiki

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Why do you believe then? I don't mind if you don't think I would find them convincing. I am open to being convinced.

Well, there are philosophical arguments which powerfully support a belief in God. There are also reasons from the nature of the physical world around me that persuade me to a faith in God. As well, there is personal experience - my own and the experiences of others - that has borne out the reality of God. Together these evidences give me an excellent basis for belief in the Creator.

What has prevented you from being convinced thus far that God exists?

Selah. (Which means "Stop and consider.")
 
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elman

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=DataPacRat;57040737]So, is it your contention that the only way to evaluate whether someone's beliefs are in accordance with the actual truth is... to experience those beliefs, presumably by believing them?
I said our experiences are what supports our reason to believe in the existence of a loving Creator. I don't know where you got the idea above.


If your experiences have some connection to objective reality, then there are certain techniques which have a very good correlation to tell whether those experiences actually /correspond/ to objective reality.
I would think all of our experiences have some connection to objective reality, which none of us can discern. If our experiences has no connection then we have no connection.

You have no basis for making any judgments about my subjective experiences---none.
 
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elman

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I agree certainty is not available. In my opinion a loving Creator is a much more reasonable assumption than random accident to explain our existence and that we exist for a reason and for a purpose is more reasonable to me than that we exist for no reason and no purpose.
 
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grasping the after wind

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From some of your comments I think you might only be interested in discussing the God of the Christianity ( which of course is why you would post in this forum) but I have laid out some arguments that would apply to the idea of any Creator God. If you are trying to understand the beliefs of Christians only just ignore those arguments as they would not apply.
 
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DataPacRat

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I said our experiences are what supports our reason to believe in the existence of a loving Creator. I don't know where you got the idea above.

'Our' experiences and 'our' reason may have led /you/ to believe in that, but /my/ experiences and /my/ reason have led to the opposite conclusion.


I would think all of our experiences have some connection to objective reality, which none of us can discern.

I'd prefer you didn't include me in that 'none of us'; whether or not you are able to 'discern' anything about objective reality, doesn't mean nobody can.


If our experiences has no connection then we have no connection.

Now there's a sentence I find nothing to disagree in.


You have no basis for making any judgments about my subjective experiences---none.

I have precisely as much basis as you do for judging mine.
 
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elman

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This is not new information you are giving me. What is the point?


It is reasonable to assume all of us have only a partal and flawed vew of reality. I doubt you are super human.

You have no basis for making any judgments about my subjective experiences---none.
I have precisely as much basis as you do for judging mine.
The only way I judged yours is to assume you like all humans are unable to perceive total reality in an unflawed manner. It would be unreasonable to the extreme to assume otherwise.
 
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DataPacRat

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This seems, to me, to be a bit of goalpost-moving; I was arguing that there are at least /some/ things about objective reality that we can figure out, based on objective evidence, which you seemed to be saying was impossible, while now you seem to be saying that you were talking about 'unflawed' understanding.

I'm a Bayesian; of /course/ it's impossible to have a 100% certainty about anything. I know the math that tells you exactly how strongly you should believe something based on any given amount of evidence. However, even possessing a certain amount of uncertainty doesn't mean that the beliefs we assemble aren't /useful/... such as having a 99.9999999999+% confidence that gravity's going to keep working tomorrow according to the rules we figured out yesterday allowing us to build houses that won't fall on our heads.
 
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elman

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It seems to me you are moving the goal post. Are you suggesting that originally you were talking about only some part of objective reality that we can figure out and if it is only partial, how does that differ from my reference to it being incomplete and if it is incomplete is it not flawed?
I guess you are speaking to my statment that my experiences are reasonably interpreted the way I interpret them and perhaps you are saying mathematically my experiences could not reasonably be interpreted that way. Again, you don't know my experiences so application of any sort of math to them is not reasonable.
 
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bling

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Hi,

Is God a hope rather than based on evidence or reason?
Is the believe that there is no God a hope or is it based on evidence and reason?

What is the evidence for something always existing or something coming from nothing

What is the reason for gravity?

All the reasons to not believe in God seem to lack to some extent, so is the real reason to not believe in God to exalt man? Hoping that there is no God to worry about, no overriding morality and the hope that everything is relative?

It seems as if God is something you just have to assume is real for personal reasons rather than because there is strong evidence either way.


It seems as if the believe there is no god is out of personal reasons rather than any strong evidence either way.

There are some very logical reasons for the need for faith if man has the Christian’s objective.
 
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