Reddit reviews Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not
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> Humankind is predisposed to believe in a higher power. To me, this alone bears a lot of weight - what could cause a mass delusion of over 99% of earth's entire (historical) human population without SOME amount of truth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_religion
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Religion-Natural-Science-Not/dp/0199827265
Humans are certainly predisposed to believe in some type of higher power or mysticism or many other types of things.
But I disagree with if enough people feel one way or do something then there must be some divine truth to that.
Lots of people find puppies and small animal babies to be cute. Does that mean that god loves puppies? Extrapolating human feelings to aspects or the existence of god is VERY SILLY =)
> It is widely accepted that there are other life forms outside of our planet. It is also (somewhat less widely) accepted that other beings may exist in dimensions other than the 3rd, in which we exist. Therefore, the concept of an omniscient life form is within the realm of possibility.
Definitely a possibility, yes. Literally anything 'may' exist.
> To assert with certainty that there is no god claims knowledge and insight. Since atheists have no evidence that there is no god (and claim to need none, which is true) they obviously have no insight or knowledge, and thus cannot be certain. I am an agnostic atheist after all - I don't claim to "know" there is a god, I simply choose to believe there is one until I know for certain there isn't.
Yes, agnostic atheist/deist is good...but still haven't heard many good reasons for believing that there probably is a god...do you also believe in the tooth fairy until you know for certain it doesn't exist?
> The god I believe in isn't within the realm of human comprehension. It doesn't resemble a person in any way, and if it were to attempt to communicate with us, we would almost certainly have no idea.
How in the heck would you know if it resembles or doesn't resemble a person? You are claiming insights here. And second, if it were an omnipotent being then by definition it could communicate with humans if it wished.
> Regardless, to claim that something we can't even COMPREHEND does not exist, based on a lack of evidence, makes no sense to me. If you can't understand it, how can you understand the manner in which it does or does not exist?
Yes, strong theism/deism or strong atheism is silly.
> Regardless, to claim that something we can't even COMPREHEND does not exist, based on a lack of evidence, makes no sense to me.
One could say the same thing about theism/deism. If you can't comprehend it how in the world can you say that is does exist?
> However, I do believe in a higher consciousness that probably played some role in the creation of everything we can perceive - in other words, the universe.
That's fine, but the only arguments I heard from you in your post were 1. that lots of people believe in a god and 2. that it is possible for a god to exist.
Ad populum + you can't prove it doesn't exist is your evidence for god. This is not good lol!
I didn’t decide to believe in God. Most people don’t, even most people do believe in God. There are several ways to explain this, scientifically and theologically (which actually parallel nicely). In scientific terms, belief in God is produced by several cognitive mechanisms through evolution that involve agency detection, teleo-functional reasoning, etc. These are the main concepts. The theological explanation, which isn’t out of step with the scientific ones, is the sensus divinitatis.
Theism is the default belief, according to science. You might find this book interesting:Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not
I would also question your use of 'fact' and 'factually' because those words have a narrow range of use. For example, is it a fact that capital punishment is wrong? If that is or is not a fact is determined by your world view; not the other way around. 'Existence' is likewise complicated, because different entities have different modes of existence. So to say "God exists" is very different from saying "Al Gore" exists.