diana

K,

Right on.

Whoever said this:
The same could be said for leprauchans. But I guess that's all being covered in the discussion of Quine....

d

Albert Cipriani

K:
Excuse my mental hiccup. It was the wallowing pigs in “Animal Farm” that spun “equal” into “more equal.” Gotta love the accuracy of that book. – Albert the Traditional Catholic

Jobar

Half a bee
Philosophically
Must, ipso facto, half *not* be.
So, can the bee
Be said to be,
Vis-a-vis its entity?

Albert Cipriani

OK Jobar,
Now you've done it. Combining my two favorite things, philosophy and poetry, with my favorite insect. Just for that, in the same rhyme scheme as yours, I shall inflict upon you one of my high school poems. A fate far worse than that deserved by a cockroach. -- Cheers, Albert

Two Itty-bitty Insects Thinking
Fuzzy wuzzy buzzy bee
saw a bird and said: "Golly!
I wish I wish I were he
so from working I'd be free
to flit off from tree to tree
and buzz a tune that's in key
up above for all to see
then they'd all think high of me."

Slinky inky-dinky flea
set his head down on his knee,
with a sigh he said: "Oh gee!
If I only weren't so wee
why, I'd stare down a black-eyed pea.
Wasn't I who made me me;
It's all because of mommy.
Oh, to be a big bumbling bee!"

99Percent

Irrational hope for an afterlife maybe?

malookiemaloo

Thanks for the enlightning response!!

However, people believe in things which are not true, say, for example the existance of unicorns.

Now something must have happened for someone to believe in unicorns.

A unicorn may have appeared to someone therefore they believe in them. But if God does not exist then he cannot make His presence known.

People can make up stories about unicorns. But in that case they are known not to exist ab initio.

People could hallucinate unicorns but the chances of people having sufficient similar hallucinations to justify belief in unicorns is so small to be discounted.

But with the exception of some atheists, just about every civilisation ever believes in some sort of deity. Why?

Is there something in the heart of Man which grasps out to a deity? But there would or could not be if He did not exist.


Alistair

Oxymoron

Hail, fellow Scot (even if I live in Leeds now).

Yes, there is something in humans that inspires theistic belief. It is ignorance and fear. Fear of being an insignificant entity in a bafflingly complex and vast universe; fear of pain and death of ourselves and our relations; fear of not understanding what goes on; fear of not being in control.

Faith is denial. Religion is a conspiracy of denial, and it is powerful magic because it provides simplistic and rigid answers to questions thatg are otherwise too complex for the victims to deal with.

diana

As well as the existence of all the other gods in the pantheon, yes.

I think your analogy fails in that not "just about every civilization ever believes in some sort of unicorn."

The general belief in god(s) can be explained through psychology. Just combine the fear of the unknown, the fear of death, the desire to be in control of one's world, and a few instances of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning--say, killing an animal then noticing that it begins to rain and assuming there is a causal relationship, as well as (perhaps after this happens a couple of times) wishing something fortuitous would happen then moments later it does.

Humans seem to have a natural propensity for noticing those things that back up a theory and ignoring those things that contradict it (called confirmation bias, among other things), so once you have a couple of post hocs, the human mind will continue to see more and more examples that confirm the theory of a higher being.

We also have a sense of justice, probably because we are self-aware. When this sense of justice is violated, we want to believe that the perpetrators will get what's coming to them. (However, we might note that the belief in an afterlife reward/punishment system isn't represented in all the world's religions.)

God(s) also satisfy our need to know the answers to things, conveniently combined with the overriding lazy bent of our species. In short, god(s) "explain" what we don't understand about the world around us, and the explanations don't require much effort on our part.

You'll find on this BB that speaking of the "heart" of man doing anything other than pumping blood is likely to heap derision upon your head. The reason, I think, is that it's church talk (based upon biblical passages, which are in turn based up on ancient misguided medical knowledge). Such comments are still common because the bible does clearly say this, and (I think) because it's more dramatic to speak of the heart of man, which forces one's rhetoric into a more emotional, rather than intellectual, vein.

Having said that, I'll answer quite simply that there are many things within us that combine quite naturally to lead the ignorant, fearful, lazy and superstitious to believe in a deity. But once you start learning, say, that volcanoes are caused by shifting of the continental plates you can drop your fear that volcanoes are caused by angry gods who desire a human sacrifice to appease them. Assumption of god(s) as an explanation for natural phenomena is easy; learning the natural explanation takes time and effort.

If you take a look at the development of religious belief through history, you'll note that god(s) are less and less the "cause" of things. This development is sometimes referred to as "the god of the gaps," because with each new discovery and scientific explanation, the role of god(s) shrinks a little bit more. It now only exists for those things we still don't understand, and to assauge our fears for those things we'll never know, such as what happens after death.

So you see, god(s) have a perfectly natural explanation, as well. They can easily be believed in, simply because people, for various reasons, want to.

d

malookiemaloo

diana

Belief in something without evidence of its existence is not rational. It is emotional.

d

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