Why would after you die be any different at all from before you were born?
POLL: Is there a God ??
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The relationship between belief and religiosity is an interesting topic. Religiosity, if not even belief itself, at least in Western civilization, is/has been on decline. There are many who study this phenomenon, quantifying and attempting to understand/explain why. Here are just a mere couple of the MANY videos exploring this complicated and fascinating issue:
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Religiosity is not on the decline. It is alive and well as zealous wokism. But, the issue of religiosity is not really relevant to this thread.
Religion is most definitely in decline in the Western world, but perhaps not in the world overall. It is relevant to the thread because religion is perceived as a manifestation of belief. This thread is about belief in God, essentially.
As stated, it is interesting and fascinating to think about belief and belief systems. The evolution of both has been on-going ever since humans first believed in the supernatural to help explain the unknown. That is a consequence of brain development and activity.
I will try to find some research data regarding religions, religiosity and belief worldwide, based on your opening statement. It begs the question and spurs further inquiry. Thanks for your reply.
Giving Up on God
Growing numbers of people no longer find religion a necessary source of support and meaning in their lives.
WVS Database
World Values Survey Data-Archive Online Survey analysis website
www.worldvaluessurvey.org
The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050
As of 2010, nearly a third of the world's population identified as Christian. But if demographic trends persist, Islam will close the gap by the middle of the 21st century.
www.pewresearch.org
Religion’s Sudden Decline, Revisited | Center for Political Studies
cps.isr.umich.edu
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Religiosity and religion are not synonymous. Religiosity is not on the decline. Nor is zealous moralism.
You are correct, although certainly closely-related, the two (2) are not synonymous.
It is definitely correct to say a person can believe in God, but not be religious. No question !!
Definition of RELIGIOSITY
the quality or state of being religious : religious feeling or devotion; often : an intense, excessive, or fervent religiousness… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com
Definition of RELIGION
a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices; the service and worship of God or the supernatural; commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com
Theologians, Psychologists and Sociologists all tend to define and describe the distinctions between the two differently, it seems to me. Thanks, again.
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I can't, off the top of my head, think of a very good motivation for doing that.
There are plenty of motives for exploiting that belief in others, but to create something you know doesn't exist, just cuz?
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WildcatfaninOhio
All-American
Well it’s hard to imagine that one person made up those crazy stories at one single point in time. But rather the crazy stories evolved over time.
Because that's what religion is. You don't KNOW that God exists, we don't have any undeniable proof of the existence of God, or any other god for that matter. People just BELIEVE their god exists.
How do you know what someone else knows?
God did not make Himself provable from one person to another via experiment, no.
Honestly, the sudden and arbitrary thought that God exists, bubbling up in human consciousness actually tends to make ME anyway, believe that God probably DOES exist.
I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about a thought or idea, popping into a crude human brain, that can't even comprehend or understand it's own existence, suddenly thinking, "Hey, it must be something invisible that I can't see." I get both sides, but belief in God and dogmatic religions are not the same thing IMO. Yes, they've become tied together but they CAN be mutually exclusive.
From a purely "scientific" point of view, quantum entanglement, to me, indicates there definitely IS a higher force that exists completely outside of our plane of existence, which, for lack of a better term, could be described as God.
I'm a Christian believer (as hard as that might be for some on here to believe) but I came to that VERY late in life, after spending most of it (my life) as a devout atheist.
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See that's the thing. You don't KNOW he exists. You BELIEVE he exists.
And you outline pretty easily why someone could think of something like a God. They can't come up with any other rational reason to explain things so it must be some higher being we don't know. Much like when people see something happen they can't explain and say it's magic, a miracle, something spooky like ghosts, or some fanciful creature they make up to explain something they can't explain or prove (Mermaids, Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, etc.).
History is full of things people make up to explain things they can't otherwise explain.
Well you gained consciousness after being born, differentiating you from simply matter and atoms, but why/how did this change of state occur?
No, You have me there, God hasn't flown down from on high and introduced himself. IMO, given the sudden appearance of complex life on earth, and the mind-numbing odds of said life, forming on it's own without intervention, the idea that it happened that way takes just as much blind faith, given what we have observed (along with, as I said, quantum entanglement) as believing that an outside force created it by design.
And I don't agree with you on primitive man. I have a hard time believing that cavemen would ponder existential theories on their own. The idea has been debated forever, but in my reading etc. no consensus has every been reached. And even then, we're basically back at square one, because we have no way of knowing for sure. Just my 2 cents.
And I don't agree with you on primitive man. I have a hard time believing that cavemen would ponder existential theories on their own. The idea has been debated forever, but in my reading etc. no consensus has every been reached. And even then, we're basically back at square one, because we have no way of knowing for sure. Just my 2 cents.
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Consciousness is a weak point. For example, while you are sleeping or even just things outside your immediate perception occurring all around the world out of your view are happening outside your consciousness. Your consciousness is not a requirement for other things to exist. Therefore it is personal. A local chemical reaction to be ignited at birth and snuffed out at death like a campfire. Nothing requires it in order to be.
There was an ocean of time before you just as there will be an ocean afterwards. Your part in both is oblivion. You fleetingly have the precious now and that's all you'll ever be given. No clouds. No meeting the long lost. No eternal damnation. Just absence. Everywhere else everything else just moves on the way it always has.
On a larger scale all across the universe life will blink in and out of existence. These are eternal processes endlessly rearranging the same basic ingredients in a ceaselessly churning universe that expands until it blows up then begins all over again. Forever.
And you KNOW this to be fact how?
(most astronomers no longer believe that the universe will collapse back in The Big Crunch and instead will just entropy and freeze. Of course, their opinions are basically "faith" so who knows)
(most astronomers no longer believe that the universe will collapse back in The Big Crunch and instead will just entropy and freeze. Of course, their opinions are basically "faith" so who knows)
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Meh....why did it occur in the first place ? Not sure of the relevancy of saying it is localized -- so what ? It came out of nowhere at some point in the vast timeline you refer to. Why and How ? We don't know -- but it occurred. Your statements imply consciousness is fully understood -- simply explained away by chemical reactions -- if that is true I've never seen that type of definitive understanding from science on the origins of consciousness.
I'm all ears.
Your theory on the end of the universe doesn't agree with most astronomers, so I'm assuming you have facts, logic, and reason that the rest of us are not privy too. I'm honestly curious how you KNOW for a fact what happens after we die. (you don't actually, you take it on faith, just like I take the existence of a God on faith LOL)
Would the existence of aliens change anyone’s minds one way or the other? Always wondered about that
Well unless Einstein was wrong, we will never know if there are aliens.
That is assuming they are subject to the laws of physics as we primitively understand them
If they are not bound by that, then you could essentially call them, Gods (relatively speaking. See what I did there?LOL "relatively")
Hypothetically speaking, I don't see how it would matter one way or another.
That is assuming they are subject to the laws of physics as we primitively understand them
If they are not bound by that, then you could essentially call them, Gods (relatively speaking. See what I did there?LOL "relatively")
Hypothetically speaking, I don't see how it would matter one way or another.
Of course there are aliens.
What confuses people is they forget to factor in time as well as space. There are trillions of galaxies in the universe and life will abound. But in the entire expanse of time and space it would be highly unlikely for any to advance sufficiently at the same point in time to be able to discover each other before they were destroyed.
There is a time stamp on all life. The relative stability of their ecosystems would only permit advancement so far before destruction. The odds pile up as it is a shooting gallery, essentially. That's what those pock marks on the moon clearly demonstrate to you.
What confuses people is they forget to factor in time as well as space. There are trillions of galaxies in the universe and life will abound. But in the entire expanse of time and space it would be highly unlikely for any to advance sufficiently at the same point in time to be able to discover each other before they were destroyed.
There is a time stamp on all life. The relative stability of their ecosystems would only permit advancement so far before destruction. The odds pile up as it is a shooting gallery, essentially. That's what those pock marks on the moon clearly demonstrate to you.
You know there are aliens for a FACT how?
You must be, you know, GOD. LOL
You must be, you know, GOD. LOL
Maybe mathematically in 2 trillion universes life only blinks into existence every 20 billion years like Christmas lights only to be extinguished again and yet pop up lets say in a million other places only to be gone again. Each would never know of each other as they'd have to conquer travel at the speed of light before some natural catastrophe or self-inflicted annihilation overtook them.
We won't of course be measurably able to prove alien existence, but just bare mathematical calculations tell us there are somewhere around 100 million worlds where life has probably occurred if I am summarizing the Drake equation correctly.
We won't of course be measurably able to prove alien existence, but just bare mathematical calculations tell us there are somewhere around 100 million worlds where life has probably occurred if I am summarizing the Drake equation correctly.
That's all I was saying. The scientific theory on the origins of life on earth are essentially a belief system
It's a supposition, a guess on what they think happened, if you are predisposed to discount the existence of a creator. They are both based on faith, not fact. That is the long and short of it.
There is ONE fact only. And that is: we're all going to find out the answer, one way or another eventually. Normally around 70 some odd years after we were born.
It's a supposition, a guess on what they think happened, if you are predisposed to discount the existence of a creator. They are both based on faith, not fact. That is the long and short of it.
There is ONE fact only. And that is: we're all going to find out the answer, one way or another eventually. Normally around 70 some odd years after we were born.
Or, it could have had help. Both seem about equally reasonable to me. Given what we know. LOL
My overall point is that people that believe in God are primarily seen as dimwits. Too feeble to understand how "shit REALLY works" When, in reality, science, if they're honest, has as much proof behind their belief as I do in mine, that something "helped" along the way. And let's face it. God doesn't hand out research grants. LOL (as far as I've observed) Maybe he did in the Old Testament and I'm unaware. I never could get through that ponderous tome.
My overall point is that people that believe in God are primarily seen as dimwits. Too feeble to understand how "shit REALLY works" When, in reality, science, if they're honest, has as much proof behind their belief as I do in mine, that something "helped" along the way. And let's face it. God doesn't hand out research grants. LOL (as far as I've observed) Maybe he did in the Old Testament and I'm unaware. I never could get through that ponderous tome.
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I do. You have no proof he doesn't. Prove he doesn't and I'm all ears.
The preponderance of evidence is for a creator, which is why you are starting to hear all these wild speculations nowadays like many worlds theory, simulation theory and aliens.
ANd the tired argument of "rationality" is also just that. It's decidedly less rational to say nothing times no one equals everything. That the unconscious universe produced something of such sophistication and "intelligence" such that it could in effect perceive itself.
No, you have consciousness because there was a prior consciousness which begat that to you. The universe has all the appearance of order because there was a mind that did the ordering.
WildcatfaninOhio
All-American
The biggest difference between science and religion though is that science doesn’t care whether you believe or not. Science will entertain your questions without claiming to be attacked. And science never threatens you with eternal torture if you choose to not believe.
I don't think I've mentioned religion one single time. But if you think the scientific community isn't just as prone to dogma and group think as organized religion then you should talk to some of the virologists that were canceled (many of whom were vindicated as it went on) during the Covid outbreak. The scientific community is about as lockstep and prone to cloture as anyone else.
Even if you don't agree with me on that, they're both based on, at the end of the day, "I BELIEVE" and not "I CAN PROVE"
Even if you don't agree with me on that, they're both based on, at the end of the day, "I BELIEVE" and not "I CAN PROVE"
And also, when people thing aliens, they often think human like creatures. Alien life can be something as little as bacteria, a virus, an amoeba. We've got organisms on our own planet that defy what we previously thought of as conditions that can sustain life. We always looking for signs of life on planets that have the things that can sustain human life on earth. But what if there's life out there that doesn't need oxygen, doesn't need water, and etc.?
Like look at Tardigrades - aka Water Bears - as one prime example.
Extremophiles are no more supportive for alien life than any other Earth life.
I see a Swiss watch and think: Somebody made those parts and then put that watch together
Science sees a swiss watch and says, somehow, over billions of years, all of these parts (gears, cogs, bearings etc.) formed and given enough time, they managed to come together through a happy accident and self assemble into a watch.
Now, replace that watch with the simplest single celled organism on earth, which is millions of times more complex than a Rolex Sub.
Science sees a swiss watch and says, somehow, over billions of years, all of these parts (gears, cogs, bearings etc.) formed and given enough time, they managed to come together through a happy accident and self assemble into a watch.
Now, replace that watch with the simplest single celled organism on earth, which is millions of times more complex than a Rolex Sub.
This is the pillars of creation. Within the cloud of gas stars are being formed (the red lights are stars being formed - stars the size of our sun). It’s 35 light years across, with the earth compromising not even 1 trillionth of the image in size. It’s something we are able to see from a telescope we made, which allows us to see maybe 1/1000th of the universe, if that
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WildcatfaninOhio
All-American
I look at this picture taken by the James Webb telescope of the “pillars of creation” which is a nebula with planet creating “smog” in the middle that spans billions of light years in size and just chuckle at the human beings that “know”. Not calling anyone out in this thread, but the people that truly “know” whether they be religious or an atheist. I look at the picture and think to myself “we have no damn clue what’s going on”. We don’t even fully understand our own damn organs 😂
One can openly state they have no damn clue what is going on, and also claim that the stories of Zeus, Ra, Oden and the xian god are all made-up nonsensical BS. Those two are not mutually exclusive.
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