Poll of the Day > Do you believe in "God"?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zero_Maniac posted...

benbeverfaqs posted...

I'm not proving anything, I'm just doubting your claim about cynical hedonistic millennial gamers. For which you, despite my request, did not give any data or proof. I can therefore conclude that you made a nonsense claim.

http://www.pewforum.org/2010/02/17/religion-among-the-millennials/
Very few Millennials are religious these days, versus Gen Z which is a lot more religious and conservative. Millennials are too cynical to believe in God.

The link you provided compares percentage of non religious people between millennials, generation X, babyboomers and silent generation.
It doesn't say anything about hedonistic cynical millennial gamers on gamefaqs potd. So I'm guessing you've dropped that claim.

It seems you misinterpret the stats in the link you gave. It says that 74% of millennials is affiliated with a religion. That's not "very few" as you put it, but it's a lot. Less than the 80% of Generation X, but still a lot. It's also only about the US, which is very religious for a western country.

I'm surprised to see you make two new ridiculous claims. 1. "Gen Z which is a lot more religious and conservative" and 2. "Millennials are too cynical to believe in God".
1. Gen Z (born ~2000 or later) is not even included in the link you gave. This is because they're very young and mostly children. General consensus is that the trend'll continue, and Gen Z will be a lot less religious than Millennials.
2. Why is your conclusion that they're too cynical (to believe in an invisible and unprovable higher being)? What if there's another reason? Perhaps they're too educated? Or too open to alternatives? I don't know, but I doubt they're too cynical and that's it.

Joke is on you, as I'm not even a Millennial. I'm Gen Z.

There is no joke, and I knew you were very young from your style of posting. You are still the most cynical in this topic.

You said it's unlikely for a creator to exist. Are you saying that you still believe one does despite that? You did not make that clear.

I made that clear when I said I'm agnostic. In my first post and I repeated it for you. Look up the meaning of that word if you don't know it.
Something being likely or farfetched has some but not much influence on what people believe or want to be true.

benbeverfaqs posted...

What I don't understand is why you are not ok with a complex universe with no creator?

Because it makes no sense.

A complex universe with a creator that isn't created makes even less sense. Both are incomprehensible, so I still don't understand why you reject one scenario (complex universe that exists on itself) and accept another (complex created universe created by a creator that exists on itself).

benbeverfaqs posted...

And why you are ok with a complex universe with a (by laws of nature) even more complex creator?
Even if the second one is more complex and more unlikely.

Because the second makes a lot more sense than the first.

My question was why? To me it makes less sense. One features a complex universe that just came to be. The other features a complex creator that just came to be, who created a complex universe. The less complex option is more likely to be true. Both are beyond comprehension. Adding a creator (with no explanation how he/she was created) makes it less believable to me.

benbeverfaqs posted...

People back then knew nothing about for instance redshift.

That does not mean they're wrong.

Not about everything, like "don't steal" is still a good value. But other rules are outdated and useless nowadays. And some claims for which they didn't have an explanation back then, can be explained today with our knowledge.

OlorinTheOtaku posted...

Do you think there's a higher being watching over us?

Absolutely not.
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I don't know

If I had to choose one I would say yes. The universe itself is beyond our understanding, the idea that we are the absolute pinnacle of life and consciousness seems very unlikely given just the scope of existence as we can perceive it.

So for that reason I do think that there is a god or beings that would seem god-like compared to us. Now whether those supposed things care about Earth or humans or are even aware of us, I have no clue.
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I'm an agnostic atheist.
I believe that the existence of God can't be proven, which leaves me no reason to believe in it. I do not deny the possibility. It just can't be known one way or the other.
If I do not know, then I cannot believe.

I don't want to spend my entire life dedicated to something that might not even be real.
I'd rather spend it just trying to be a good person, without the threat of hellfire and damnation to motivate me. If that ends up putting me in hell, so be it. I'll just burn forever with a sour look on my face. I'm supposed to have faith in this very old book, with many writers, translated several times, with concepts that are twisted to align with modern day topics to suit the agenda of whoever is preaching at the time...not to mention all the other religions out there. I'm supposed to believe THIS religion (Christianity) is the right one, not necessarily because it is the one true religion, but because my family and friends happened to be brought up into it?
It's a tall order. For the supposed God not to expect some skepticism is foolhardy. I would hope he would be understanding. If not, I don't want to be in heaven with a God like that anyway, who wants me to follow him blindly.

Shoot, I'm rambling. Sorry, grew up being pressured into Christianity most of my life. Don't mean to point this at anyone in particular.
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Nope.
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OlorinTheOtaku posted...

Its just too vast & complex to be random.

Then who created god? Hes just too powerful and complex a being to be random.
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Yes.
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Zero_Maniac posted...

one can in fact deduce that it is very improbable that everything in existence came into existence out of mere coincidence.

That's the fun thing about eternity: Probability ceases to have any meaning. Every outcome - no matter how improbable - will happen on an eternal time scale. On the scale we're looking at, "this is improbable" cannot be the basis for any conclusion.
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adjl posted...

That's the fun thing about eternity: Probability ceases to have any meaning. Every outcome - no matter how improbable - will happen on an eternal time scale. On the scale we're looking at, "this is improbable" cannot be the basis for any conclusion.

Yea my science teacher from back in the day talked about this once. He said if the universe goes on forever, then at some point you would find someone who is identical to you in every way. Since it goes on forever, it has infinite possibilities. So anything could happen. He was a really smart guy. It was at that point in my life I really started to think more complexly and he definitely facilitated.
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You mean the god of gaps? ;)

Apparently I'm god. It's what most girls have called me while having sex. And I believe in myself.
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OlorinTheOtaku posted...

I completely agree with what Zero_Maniac has said.

Also, if there is a creator, there's no reason why we should be able to know everything about him & how he created us because he's bigger then us, for him to be able to create the universe obviously means he's on a completely different level then us.

I think I've heard a similar analogy to this

Any god or creator trying to explain creating the universe to us would be like us trying to explain to an ant why we go to extreme lengths to engineer rollercoasters at theme parks, even explaining the concept of a theme park in itself would be an alien concept

That said, I'd like to think we're intelligent enough to understand any such explanation but we'll never know
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SilverClock posted...

I'm an agnostic atheist.
I believe that the existence of God can't be proven, which leaves me no reason to believe in it. I do not deny the possibility.

I've also called myself an agnostic atheist. Only, the thing is, some people react very bad to the word atheist. And I only hate the bad things in religion (like people telling other what they must do or can't do, or look down on "cynical" people who don't share the same beliefs). I recently wrote for and hosted two funerals where religion played a role (one protestant, one lutherian) and I can't deny the rituals and peace of mind helped some people.

Sorry, grew up being pressured into Christianity most of my life.

I grew up with no religion at all, and as a teen was -very- surprised to learn that some people were actually serious about it. As a very young child I deduced that the easter bunny and god were silly fairytales, and santa.. might or might not be real, haha.
Anyway I have a friend in his twenties who grew up in a Johavas witness family (the people who go door to door to convert people) and he wants to leave that behind him. It's very hard.

SilverClock posted...

adjl posted...

That's the fun thing about eternity: Probability ceases to have any meaning. Every outcome - no matter how improbable - will happen on an eternal time scale. On the scale we're looking at, "this is improbable" cannot be the basis for any conclusion.

Yea my science teacher from back in the day talked about this once. He said if the universe goes on forever, then at some point you would find someone who is identical to you in every way. Since it goes on forever, it has infinite possibilities. So anything could happen. He was a really smart guy. It was at that point in my life I really started to think more complexly and he definitely facilitated.

Your teacher is right *if* the universe is infinite. However, we don't know that at all. All we have is this sphere we can see which is 28.5 gigaparsecs in diameter. We know it 13.8 billion years old and we know it's expanding. Things like big bang and what's beyond the observable universe and it's size are just theories.

FatalAccident posted...

I think I've heard a similar analogy to this:
Any god or creator trying to explain creating the universe to us would be like us trying to explain to an ant why we go to extreme lengths to engineer rollercoasters at theme parks, even explaining the concept of a theme park in itself would be an alien concept
That said, I'd like to think we're intelligent enough to understand any such explanation but we'll never know

That analogy completely fails. An ant is just a biological machine. It doesn't have thoughts or feelings. You might as well talk to a rock or plant.
Some mammals and birds however do have feelings and make plans, and some are self aware. But only humans have grammatical language to convey logic. That analogy might be better with someone trying to explain string theory to a toddler. However that toddler might learn given enough time and explanation. Humans have come a long way understanding nature (still a long way to go).
Anyway, the "humans can't understand" is an easy way out of any discussion..

benbeverfaqs posted...

Anyway, the "humans can't understand" is an easy way out of any discussion..

if you think there's any easy way out of the discussion i'm afraid you're mistaken, it's a valid point and always worth exploring.

you've said yourself we've got a long way to go, bit presumptive to think we'd be able to wrap our head round whatever any motivations an alien or any other kind of being would have
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I was raised Jehovah's witness too. They are one of the worst religions out there as far as I'm concerned. Their smug ostracizing of anyone, even family, who leaves the religion. The extreme pressure they put on children to go door to door and get baptized or else. And of course best of all, the fact they demand that adults and children commit passive suicide rather than getting a simple blood donation. Grew up reading Watchtower articles praising the bravery of little kids choosing to die for god. Sick.
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Nobodys raised the idea of everything and everyone bring god. Makes a lot more sense to be honest
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I believe in explaining things as best you can until new discoveries render old ideas obsolete.
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