What is the "default" belief?

cantata said:

Just like the one in the Bible? What about the one in the Koran, the one(s) in Hindu sacred texts, the Olympian pantheon, the one I've just made up who's called Kevin and has an Eternal Hat of Mystic Creation made of melon rinds..?

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Where did he get the melon rinds?

//// Pacific PanDeist

Hello Everyone,

I think that given the world we live in and the fact that in america only 2% of the population identifies themselves as being agnostic or atheist, according to an abc report. I would say the default position is a little bit complicated.

A lot of people probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about if their is a God or not. I happen to be someone who does, it kind of bothers me to think that, no one can prove themselves right either way. For, the most part I am an atheist, I just take that position on it. Also, I know, I can't prove myself to someone who believes in God at all, nor can they prove themselves to me. However, I think that atheists have the most evidence for their belief, they just can't fully prove it to an agnostic. An agnostic, though I can understand where they are coming from, because, they see something like 92% to 98% of the population believing in a higher power, and they probably wonder, is there something I am missing here? It is rather strange that all these people would be wrong, but I kind of think they are, and it is strange.

Honestly, I think the default position of an individul depends on how much someone has thought about the existance of God. Someone who has not thought about it, will default to their religious up bringing as being what they believe. Someone who has thought about it a little bit, probably just stick with their belief. Someone who has thought about it a lot has to make a choice.

I feel, that when I carefully consider the evidence, I have to default to there being no God. Because, what kind of a God would let all these different religions get started and not tell us to an empirical certainity which religious story is the right one? Or giv us a story that is a litle more believable, than what I have heard up to this point.

So, really I believe the default position, is different for everyone. I just default to there being no God, as the christians decribe him.

How about you? Why do you think is it that, christians look at the same evidence I look at, and then conclude to their God being the one true God? I think it is rather strange that two different results come from the same evidence. I have actually started a thread to debate why this is in the Liberal Theology section, but I think you would agree it is because of free will, no other reason. However, if you want, please go to my thread and answer the questions I have on the thread.

Thanks,

DoubtingThomas29

Taure said:

What are your ideas?

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Neither agnosticism or atheism are beliefs. Agnosticism is a 'lack of knowledge' while atheism is a 'lack of belief'. Beliefs are based on experience, therefore babies does not possess any and are therefore both agnostics and atheists.

Peter

plindboe said:

Neither agnosticism or atheism are beliefs. Agnosticism is a 'lack of knowledge' while atheism is a 'lack of belief'. Beliefs are based on experience, therefore babies does not possess any and are therefore both agnostics and atheists.

Peter

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I don't see how a baby could be an atheist -- maybe an agnostic, or more accurately an ignostic.... but then, someone who believes in ghosts and spirits, possession, ESP, aliens, lucky shoes, and all other manners of superstition, but does not believe in "God" is still an atheist....

PacificPandeist said:

I don't see how a baby could be an atheist -- maybe an agnostic, or more accurately an ignostic.... but then, someone who believes in ghosts and spirits, possession, ESP, aliens, lucky shoes, and all other manners of superstition, but does not believe in "God" is still an atheist....

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There is such a thing as no opinion you know. Children if you didn't take them to church probably would not care until they had to go to a funeral. When I was a child, I didn't know I was going to die someday or that my parents would. I didn't know that until at a later age probably later than most kids. That is an interesting question when does death become a real possibility to a person? I would argue that is when they first form an opinion about the possibility of God and what religion is the one they will follow, while others will be more than followers, they have a reason for believing or not believing.

Sincerely,

Thomas

Hello every one,

Perhaps the default position is the position with the most evidence, for any belief or source ofknowledge? To me, I think that people who believe in God do have a lot of evidence, but once you go through the religious stories in it, you just have a biased opinion to believe those things. Look at the four billion people who don't share christian religious beliefes. They live in a christian vacuum independent of these beliefes. Those that are not in the vacuum are in what I would call a christian bubble. In this bubble, people's opinions are slanted and skewed and people believe the christian story. In this bubble, it does not contain the people who merely follow the christian religion, these are the people that have a reason to believe the christian stories. Their reasons have stood the test of time and gone under great torment for some of them, and are impossible to be changed by outside forces. There are millions like this, and they will probably never live inside another religious bubble.

This is not a default position. It is too biased, and it has too mny personal reasons that have gone into it.

I would argue that atheism is a default position for myself. I have really looked objectively at the evidence and what this Jesus Christ means to me and my life, and I have concluded only one thing. He must not exist. No one can prove Jesus Christ exists and is alive and well. Everyone that believes in him has a biased reason for believing in him. Their beliefes are not based on facts, it is based on faith which is a belief without evidence.

To me the whole story of Jesus Christ being born of a virgin then dying, then coming back from the dead, and walked on water, just sounds like a fairy tale. I am sad to say, and there is almost nothing now I can do about it. Jesus' magical miracles are as imaginary as Jack's magical bean stalk.

I wish it could be some other way, I wish there could be some other explanation that I could buy into. But when you look at the evidence it just is not there. So, I just default, to every religion is false. Christianity clearly teaches that all other religions are false, and I had no problem believing that when I was a christian. Now, I see what is going on here, the four billion people who are not christian look at the christian story in exactly the same way I look at the muslim story. Wow! It is like that. You see so there is all this evidence that you can't trust these relgious stories as being true. So I just conclude they all must not be true then. I just kind of go one story further than the christians as far dismissing stories as not true. It is not that hard really, I just wonder though why don't more people do it? That is probably due to personal reasons, and biases.

Sincerely, I am a doubting Thomas, I need evidence,

Doubting Thomas29

PacificPandeist said:

I don't see how a baby could be an atheist...

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You don't see how a baby could be without a belief in God/gods?

Peter

plindboe said:

You don't see how a baby could be without a belief in God/gods?

Peter

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I define an atheist as one who does not believe in god/gods (although they know of the possibility).... babies are ignostic, they don't know the options....

Taure said:

What would you say is the default belief of a person: theism, agnosticism, or atheism.

There are arguments for all sides, and I'll say what I think of each first.

Theism

The fact that most people or cultures have in the past, before scientific thinking, have some set of religious beliefs is highly in the favour of theism being the default belief. If they are uneducated as to the science of it, then people will have a tendency to attribute things like thunder, wind etc to some sort of deity.

There are probably more arguments in the favour of this.

The only other one I can think of right now is that babies are innocent, and therefore haven't sinned, and therefore must go to heaven, which kinda makes them Christians...but this assumes a belief that Christianity is true to start with, and there is also quite the jump from theism to Christianity.

The argument against the above is that this belief in, for example, thunder coming from a deity, is not a sign of theistic tendencies, but a sign of scientific tendencies, and the desire of humans to explain their surroundings.

Agnosticism

Out of all of them, I'd say this is the most defensible. When a person is born, they have no concept of God. Therefore they have no opinion either way as to whether he exists or not: for the baby, the question is non existent.

The argument against this is that despite what they are born with, when they grow up people may tend to grow to believe in one thing over another (for e.g. see above).

Atheism

Those who support this will take a similar position to the agnostic one, but with a twist. they will say that a baby, having not heard the idea of God, and having the concept mean nothing to them, will believe in no God, not just not have an opinion either way, for if the idea of God means nothing to someone, then they do not supprt that idea.

There is of course an unspoken fourth way: the idea that there isn't a default belief, as everyone is unique and may have a different "default".

What are your ideas?

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You made the fundamental mistake of not including all the possibilities ... you mistake religion for knowing 'God'...

The God of scripture is not the god of any religious sect or denomination or creed, yet He prophesies through His prophets that men will believe in the false gods of religion and even unite into one false world religion before Jesus returns for the few God needs as kings and priests in His kingdom in the NEW earth and heavens [new universe!]

Thus God has no need of the priests of man-made religion except to delude the masses for a while as He snares Satan in his desire to be God and at the same time accuses all mankind of not being as righteous as they like to think ... the end of pride in men thus comes FIRST , and the few saints of this world suffer in the meantime because like Jesus, very few men understand what they have said, nor can the many understand until God tells all to all...

So God has a plan about how men are all brought to be loving, and THIS earth is only the beginning of that plan... God takes but a few firstfruits from this earth perfected in love, to be kings and priests in the new earth kingdom of Jesus , kingdom COME on earth, but not this earth...

Christianity and Judaism and Islam and all the rest have it wrong according the the bible, which makes the scripture unique in the world of religion in that neither Jews nor Christians follow all of what it says ... !!

So there are un-noticed by most some two thousand saints alive at any one time in the world who do follow God as one with Him in perfectly loving lives, as Jesus reports in Revelation that but 144,000 will eb saved first at his return... but for the many who are saved afterward, there is only death that can transfer them to the new earth [in resurrection of the UNJUST, the sinners of this world freed fom sin BY death]

PacificPandeist said:

I define an atheist as one who does not believe in god/gods (although they know of the possibility).... babies are ignostic, they don't know the options....

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The prefix 'a' is well-defined and the word 'theist' is well-defined. There's nothing in those segments that says that you have to be aware of the possibility, the word 'atheist' only means that you're not a theist, and nothing else.

Peter

Calminian said:

Wrong again. A temporal eternal universe suffers from the problem of infinite regression. The only thing that makes any logic sense is an atemporal eternal God.

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Something
cannot simultaneously be atemporal and eternal. To be eternal is to exist hroughout time, to be atemporal is to exist without time.

They are mutually exclusive.

Also, an atemporal being is one without causes OR EFFECTS.

Also: If you believe that your God is unchanging then either he acausally started to exist just before performing creation, or he acausally started creation.

If you believe God changes, then he could contain an infinite regression of counting down to his creation (although, this would require him to start from infinity which is impossible)

Either there is a first cause (acausal beginning) or there isn't (infinite regress)

Either temporal loops are merely a variation on one of the two.

Little children like at two years old, have no opinion about if there is a God or if there is not a God. They probably do not even think someone they know will die, they do not even know what death is until later in life. They have no opinion.

I would argue that everybody should just be declared as undecided until they are about at least 13 years old. Then you can say they have an honest opinion about this stuff, although a biased one and they may be a follower of a religion, but at this age they would probably acknowledge being a follower, for what ever reason.

I remember when I was a teenager, I was a believing christian, my reason was that the Gospels were too fantastic to have been made up. Who could make that up. However now I feel differently, and I am a doubting Thomas.

Sincerely,

Doubting Thomas29

DoubtingThomas29 said:

Little children like at two years old, have no opinion about if there is a God or if there is not a God.
Doubting Thomas29

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At the moment of my first awareness , first conciousness, I wasaware of but one thing, that I was separated from where I wanted to be ... that place I now associate with perfect Love that is God , and that is how Jesus showed us what God is ...

Thus one can and does have the very strongets feelings about God long before one is two years old ... the question then is do you actually remember ?

DoubtingThomas29 said:

...

I remember when I was a teenager, I was a believing christian, my reason was that the Gospels were too fantastic to have been made up. Who could make that up. However now I feel differently, and I am a doubting Thomas.

Sincerely,

Doubting Thomas29

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I have this ring and you rub it and out comes a space ship. That's too fantastic to have been made up so it has to be true.

And I have these windows you wouldn't believe either, but they are completely unbreakable (don't put your windows to the test - Deuteronomy) and stop you seeing anything you shouldn't see and... just 1,000 each to you.

I could use that argument to sell you anything at all - too fantastic to be made up... Give me your address, show me your cheque book and we'll have a great time.

MorkandMindy said:

I have this ring and you rub it and out comes a space ship. That's too fantastic to have been made up so it has to be true.

And I have these windows you wouldn't believe either, but they are completely unbreakable (don't put your windows to the test - Deuteronomy) and stop you seeing anything you shouldn't see and... just 1,000 each to you.

I could use that argument to sell you anything at all - too fantastic to be made up... Give me your address, show me your cheque book and we'll have a great time.

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See now here is what I wonder about there has to be some reason as to why christians believe the christian story. Why do they believe this story? When I was younger I read the story, I heard the story and I saw all these people believing the story. I would say for me I believed the christian story, because I couldn't see how anybody could just make this thing up.

I mean, can you imagine how this story was written, if in fact it did not happen? It would take a lot of thought and effort, and frankly it means the people telling the story were lying. Which has profound implications, and at that age I just could not believe that people would do such a thing. Now I feel differently.

How about you? Do you believe the christian story? If so why do you believe it? What convinced you this is a true story, and made you a believer?

Sincerely, A nonbeliever,

Thomas

Thomas said:

How about you? Do you believe the christian story?

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The Christian story is not the story told by the bible as a whole, so I cannot see any reason why anyone would believe it who has read the whole bible and taken in what it says

If so why do you believe it?

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I disbelieve most Christianity because it is divided and so simply cannot be the ONE truth of God, and because it dsiagrees with much of scripture on which it is supposed instead to be based!!

What convinced you this is a true story, and made you a believer?

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I believe in Love as what we CAN know of God ... that is what Jesus did to show us God, by being perfectly loving to all men... my own knowledge of Love shows me that most christians are NOT loving to ALL men, and thus they do not in fact truly love God either :-

1 John 4:20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

Taure said:

What would you say is the default belief of a person: theism, agnosticism, or atheism.

There are arguments for all sides, and I'll say what I think of each first.

Theism

The fact that most people or cultures have in the past, before scientific thinking, have some set of religious beliefs is highly in the favour of theism being the default belief. If they are uneducated as to the science of it, then people will have a tendency to attribute things like thunder, wind etc to some sort of deity.

There are probably more arguments in the favour of this.

The only other one I can think of right now is that babies are innocent, and therefore haven't sinned, and therefore must go to heaven, which kinda makes them Christians...but this assumes a belief that Christianity is true to start with, and there is also quite the jump from theism to Christianity.

The argument against the above is that this belief in, for example, thunder coming from a deity, is not a sign of theistic tendencies, but a sign of scientific tendencies, and the desire of humans to explain their surroundings.

Agnosticism

Out of all of them, I'd say this is the most defensible. When a person is born, they have no concept of God. Therefore they have no opinion either way as to whether he exists or not: for the baby, the question is non existent.

The argument against this is that despite what they are born with, when they grow up people may tend to grow to believe in one thing over another (for e.g. see above).

Atheism

Those who support this will take a similar position to the agnostic one, but with a twist. they will say that a baby, having not heard the idea of God, and having the concept mean nothing to them, will believe in no God, not just not have an opinion either way, for if the idea of God means nothing to someone, then they do not supprt that idea.

There is of course an unspoken fourth way: the idea that there isn't a default belief, as everyone is unique and may have a different "default".

What are your ideas?

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I'd say that it is that people do believe that Love and Compassion are the way to go.

.

dlamberth said:

I'd say that it is that people do believe that Love and Compassion are the way to go.

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It indeed seems the best attitude... and there is none better as far as I can see...

But there is a problem, if one is CAREFUL enough to WATCH oneself ...

What is sin? Sin iis simply breaking the law :-

1 John 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

What is the law? The law s simply to love God and thus love all men ...

Thus sin is ANY unlovingness to anyone in the world [or not loving God]

Thus we see that all men [save only Jesus] are sinners , all are unloving then , so what point talking about being loving when one CANNOT do it ?

---

stranger said:

It indeed seems the best attitude... and there is none better as far as I can see...

But there is a problem, if one is CAREFUL enough to WATCH oneself ...

What is sin? Sin iis simply breaking the law :-

1 John 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

What is the law? The law s simply to love God and thus love all men ...

Thus sin is ANY unlovingness to anyone in the world [or not loving God]

Thus we see that all men [save only Jesus] are sinners , all are unloving then , so what point talking about being loving when one CANNOT do it ?

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Because, like you said, there is no better attitude to have.

.