One thing that many believers and atheists share is an compelling urge to discuss god questions on the net.
On any forum, it seems any thread that is somehow related to the question of god(s) will soon have 14,973 replies.
Yes, I know. Some of you now have your finger poised over the reply button, eager to tell us how bored you are with the question of god. Can we ask then, um, why you clicked on this thread?
Seriously, why is this topic so compelling to so many, whatever their position on the subject might be?
What; why is most of the world’s popuation religious? Because they are curious beings I guess. They want to know answers to lifes big questions, and the belief in God is an answer to that.
It’s because no one can ever be proven that their chosen religion is wrong, so all personal opinion on the matter is immediately converted into fact by way of personal belief. So whatever it is that you are saying about god, you are always right. And people love being right.
Ok, yes, being right is very popular. I’m sure we’re right about that!!
To continue the inquiry, why do we want to be right about this topic? It seems there would lots of topics where we could have an opinion that can’t be disproven.
I declare green shoes to be the very best, and you can’t disprove it!!
Nuh uh, chocolate ice cream makes for the best of shoes…
God has the ever-so-important implication of afterlife. And in most cases if you’ve heard of god, you’ve heard of what happens to people who refuse to accept said god. And most people don’t enjoy the idea of eternal punishment for choosing the wrong religion. And in all of the moral crap that people pile onto their politics that stem from systems of pure belief and it just turns into a never ending cycle of nonsense.
Just imagine for a second, politics and moral structures being based on the belief that green shoes are the very best. It sounds stupid at first, but think of how it would impact schools, the workplace, marriage, so on. It would be retarded because it is retarded. Same thing applies with everyone pushing their own religious agendas.
What is noticeable, imv, is that debate on religious topics is often irrational and more subject to false arguments such as argumentum ad populum, argumentum ad verecundiam and argumentum ad hominem. It seems determined less by cerebral activity than hormonal.
I think the answer is that, regardless of the particular issues being debated on the surface, the underlying theme is that you get to live forever in the paradise of your dreams (mine would have to include an endless supply of decadent raspberry cheesecake and calories don’t count in heaven) and there might also be some virgins involved if you believe in the religion that gives you that option…well, once you martyr yourself. Just a slight technicality.
So the question really is why wouldn’t it be tremendously popular? What could be better than dwelling in eternal paradise and getting 40-something nights of passion with a virgin?
Because it goes to the questions of what are we here for, and when we die is that all there is?
That, and so much BS has been put in God’s mouth over the millennia. In this information age, more an more are coming to the conclusion that if God exists, He doesn’t interfere, so we have to dump the “revealed” morality and figure it out ourselves. But to do that we need to get more people to think reasonably instead of with blind faith.
So far, the explanations offered don’t seem to address the reality of most God threads on philosophy forums.
As example, so far in this thread it seems most posters are non-religious. This is pretty normal. So we can guess you aren’t participating in this thread because of your belief in ever lasting life with virgins etc.
Seriously, a majority of human beings believe in god(s). Gods are powerful, mysterious, wise, beyond comprehension, creators of universes, etc… seems like a good enough topic of conversation. Better than talking about Jersey Shore or some other mindless b.s.
It is evolutionarily advantageous to the human being to be interested in finding out what the content is of information that is causing controversy because the human being runs on assimilating information so to direct itself successfully unto its desires throughout its life and among its society.
No-body, I don’t think your traits apply to male virgins, which is what I was talking about. But I don’t recall that I’ve ever experienced one, so I can’t speak with much authority on that subject.
To respond a little more directly to the OP as to the ‘why’ of it, everyone has their own reason, of course. From the non-theist POV, it can be both intriguing and entertaining to read the creative rationales people offer up to justify the supernatural as real. Some are from pretty intelligent posters who can write a lot of interesting argument about the same thing that others can handle in just a couple of sentences (or Bible quotes, lol). I also enjoy reading the various proofs of God’s existence. But this stuff applies to threads that contain both sides of the ‘god exists’ argument, and you can only have so many of those at a time. I tend not to become involved in threads where believers get together discussing scripture or doctrine, since IMO they’ve already done the unacceptable by jumping over a threshhold by attributing truth and validity to something that can’t be assumed to possess them. Sometimes non-believers will invade such threads and say something to the effect of, “Hey, c’mon now, how much of this can you expect us to TAKE?!” But we’re supposed to be sensitive and respectful of what people believe, which is cool – although it can be a challenging road to navigate for those of us who elevate reason and empirical evidence over faith (and I’m not referring to having faith in the existence of a world external to our minds). I’ve always thought it’s strange to include a religous forum on a philosophical web site. Otoh, it addresses where there’s this huge gap between logic & reason & evidence and the tendency of so many humans to believe that magical stuff is real. Ironically, science has given us some better understanding of how the workings of the brain and socio-cultural influences can shape belief and behavior. Although sometimes it raises as many questions as it answers, which is pretty interesting to discuss, too.
Probably not the thread to get into this but I should add that what you might consider “magical stuff” might turn out to be commonplace at some point in the future. If you were to go back to say the early 1400’s and tell people that in the future we would be talking to other people across the (round) globe on these magical wireless devices and flying around in huge steel ships they would probably have you strapped into several straight jackets, right before burning you at the stake for witchcraft/devil worship, etc… There would be no real progress if everyone chalked up the unseen, unknown, or unexplained to “magic”. But that’s another conversation in another thread.
I get your point, IAMUS, but I really meant “magical” in terms of having no rational, scientific or natural explanation for it. It’s my assertion that if it happens someday that it becomes commonplace for people we know to be dead, through all of our scientific means of knowing what being dead is, to stop being dead in that way after a few days and to get up, go visit some friends and then fly up into the sky, then I’ll bet by the time it happens we’ll be able to explain it through scientific means.
There are already some pretty good explanations for the everyday supernatural that some people claim quite sincerely to experience, like ghosts and chupacabras. Or why pieces of toast or grilled cheese sandwiches appear to contain images of a Caucasion Jesus if you look at them in the right light.
What I’m saying is, as with the airplane example, there is a scientific explanation as to how an 800,000 lb. piece of metal can float across the sky, but in the 1400’s there wasn’t. In the same way, there is a perfectly good scientific explanation as to what happens after death, but at this stage, although the answer exists out there somewhere, we do not know what it is because we haven’t advanced to that stage of knowledge yet. Of course you can explain away the unknown through comedy (a Caucasian Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich). In the same way people also talk about “little green men on mars” because they don’t believe intelligent life exists outside of planet earth. Anyway, I’ve had a few Thunderhead’s and I feel I’m getting off topic. Hopefully something made sense here
Ok, an attempt to answer my own question, for myself.
First, like many or most of you, my mind is locked on to the big picture channel. I can’t help it. I can’t, it’s not a choice. While my wife is the universe’s leading expert on details, my mind is always trying to go philosophical. So, I have a big picture focus, and the god concept is the ultimate big picture topic.
Second, as you know, the question is eternally unresolved, which opens the door to endless debate, a game I seem to like to play. And don’t tell me I don’t, because you’re wrong, Wrong, WRONG!!
Those are the first two things that come to mind… Maybe more later.
