Question posed by an author interviewed on NPR yesterday. What do you guys think?
If you could believe in God, why wouldn't you?
(20 posts) (13 voices)-
Kodie
MemberFake it 'til you make it? I am listening to this right now. It seems to be validating a process by which you may doubt god exists, but if you invent an imaginary friend, you can delude yourself that it's real. Why wouldn't I do that? Because it's nonsense. The voice in your head is your own voice, and why wouldn't it be better to validate a process where you reform your negative or lonely thoughts to a state where your self, your own voice, tells you good things, encourage or comfort yourself, unconditionally love yourself, and make better sense and better choices and direct yourself? I got to a point where the interviewer talks about the childhood imaginary friend, and the author uses the term "rationalists" as if there's something wrong with that, as if it is devoid of the capacity to choose to be your own friend the way people seem to apply god.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Kodie
MemberI tend to think a lot of religious belief "proves" itself to people by their inability to understand what's really going on in their mind. I don't think there's anything really wrong with prayer (as I am getting to the end of the interview), as a useful technique of meditation. If you are having problems, it can cause anxiety, and when you're anxious, your thoughts race! Setting aside a time to quiet yourself and try to clear your mind so you can focus on a solution, or even getting yourself to a place where you can imagine physically handing your problems over to another person can give you the lift you need (the weight removed) to actually move instead of stay paralyzed or overwhelmed. I never think of these things literally, but the imagery of them can help. Set this obstacle on a shelf, a mental shelf, where you can get to it later, so you can go forward on the path of your own direction.
I have become obsessed on an issue from time to time (or most of the time, it's one thing or another) before it really needs to be handled. I feel like it's urgent, but I don't have all the information - like recently I posted that there is upheaval at my fencing club. My immediate response was to be disturbed and confused, but I didn't have all the facts, and the more days that go by, the more it solves itself without me having to worry about it, and I have calmed down and make a contingency plan that I feel good about. It serves no purpose to block my way with this one issue. Similarly, if you pray to god about, say, a relative was severely injured and might die - there is nothing you can do about it, and if you decide it was god or the surgeons or statistics, there is nothing you can do about it, but you can set it aside as something that is beyond your power, and come to accept the consequence and that it might hurt, or remind you to say things you didn't say. It's a shame that an emergency brings this out of people, for one thing, but I'm not going to put down prayer. It's that people really think they are talking to god that I don't get. I guess if you are praying a lot about one thing, you may be more obsessed than less, more clinging to the idea that this is a pro-active task to the detriment of all your other responsibilities - unhealthy. If it shuts off the storm inside your mind for a while to help you make priorities and motivate you to take the steps, it's just called being rational, isn't it?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Morpheus91
MemberI'm not sure I understand the question, because it makes it sound like belief is a choice. I don't "choose" whether or not to believe in god, I look at the evidence, and draw a logical conclusion to the best of my ability. It's not like I look at a bunch of options and say, "Well, out of this, that, and this, I think I'll go with this one."
Posted 1 year ago # -
If I could believe in god, I would, but because I can't, I don't. The reasons are many.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Bill
MemberThis depends on what the questioner means by "believe in." I read that as "acknowledge the existence of," and that strikes me as a fairly meaningless question. Either I see evidence supporting the existence of a god or I don't. Why would I pretend something exists if it doesn't? And even if I wanted to pretend, which god do I pick?
I suspect what's really being asked here is something like "if you could believe in god, why wouldn't you worship him?" The answer to that is because might does not make right. If God exists, he or she clearly does not care about the human condition whatsoever. At most, god would be some entity with more power than humans who fails to use that power to improve the human condition. At worst, god is actively evil toward humans. Either way, that's not something worthy of worship.
Moreover, even if god were really everything - for instance - a loving brand of christianity says it is. Why would god need my worship? I don't worhip people just because they are kind and loving toward me.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Veritas
MemberI read it as why wouldn't you believe in god because believers derive comfort in thinking that something is out there looking after them. I can say that when I started questioning and doubting as a teenager, I tried to believe. I really really tried! As a young adult, I tried many times to feel a comforting presence. The trying times that provoke such an urge (in me at least) always passed and I always survived. I have no doubt that I was the only one in my head helping me though.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Kodie
MemberThe author in the interview described a process where you pretend there's a friend of yours called "god" and the more you pretend that he's there, the more you sense that he is. The author witnessed this process happening for people. It's not necessarily all those bad things you know about the god of the bible that you can't reconcile; he's your buddy, he thinks you're beautiful and he's a good listener.
So the question is, if you could delude yourself into an imaginary friend who loves you unconditionally, why wouldn't you? The author isn't defining any particular god, it's just a process where you make a habit of pretending your imaginary friend is over for coffee and goes for walks with you, and hearing his voice in prayer (meditation) and attribute it to god.
My answer stands - it's a psychological trick, there's no reason to invent a god when you could train yourself to love you and handle your problems one at a time instead of being overwhelmed by them. There's no reason to imagine that it's another person beside yourself. I think the author assumes this is how "spirituality" is performed, and that it's a good and possibly necessary thing, that somehow wouldn't work if you realized it was you and your own voice behind the curtain.
Another thing to add. When people ask what's wrong with religion, since it does have some benefits for people - the comfort it provides, the charity works, etc., the author seems to go along with choosing to see the benefits of better mental health through delusion by calling it spirituality, in the same way that many religious people make claims that without this so-called god (or a spiritualistic process), we are without tools to be comforted, to be generous, or to calm our minds and feel secure (or any other benefit, such as community?). It's an argument for the benefits of religion, blithely ignoring all the negatives.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Brian K
MemberMy position comes more from the "Angry Atheist" (tm) perspective: The Yahweh of the Old Testament is a right bastard but is a standard tribal God. The New Testament version...and Jesus...are outright horrific, monstrous creations of the human intellect that even if They existed the only moral response to would be rebellion.
Now...time to go eat some babies and have sex with all genders and ages. 'cause that is obviously the only reason for such a position, amiright? (LOL
Posted 1 year ago # -
Elemenope
ModeratorI read it as why wouldn't you believe in god because believers derive comfort in thinking that something is out there looking after them.
Exactly. It clearly does give comfort and support to some people. I'm just not one of them; it would just vaguely annoy me. Besides, I've got folks who look out for me, and I for them, who I'd much rather put my stock and faith in than something I can't see and hear.
Posted 1 year ago # -
FO
MemberRight now I could not bring myself to believe in god because it is a redundant hypothesis and it is full of contradictions.
If I could overcome the above, I would have several minor objections, which I assume are the subject of the question.
First and foremost, the fact that belief is no guarantee that a person will be more compassionate, loving, understanding, intelligent or happy.
Belief does not bring net benefits.Then I'd have problems with a distorted view of genders and sexuality, and the problem of believing that sending most humans to be tortured for eternity is just and merciful.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Revyloution
MemberAny linkage love for this interview? I want to listen, I havnt had any good outrage for a couple of hours at least.
Was it done the the abominable Barbara Bradly Hagerty? I will never forgive that woman for the hatchet job she did on Christopher Hitchens when he died.
Posted 1 year ago # -
TrickQuestion
Memberhttp://www.npr.org/2012/03/26/149394987/when-god-talks-back-to-the-evangelical-community
Linkage
I listened to the interview, and i took away a different perspective. The woman seemed to be doing more of a study than a justification. She wasn't on board with the people she was studying, just trying to understand why they were doing what they did.
Posted 1 year ago #
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