“I want a God even more than those who believe in it”

[uuu]

Another hot take from bearblog.dev:

I usually don't tell people that I'm an atheist. Instead, I'd say something vague or change the subject. It seems that most people think you're some sort of a monster (or a dumb kid) if you don't believe in God (at least if you live in a shithole country like me).

Lots of criminals actually exploit this bug and act like a "true believer" to gain people's trust, but that's not what I'm going to talk about in this post.

Almost a year ago, I graduated with a degree in software engineering and started working at a small company in my area. It has been a while since I spoke to or even saw any of my very few friends. Every day's been almost the same. 9 to 5 on repeat.

Now I get why some people believe in God despite knowing that he's unlikely to exist. We're alone in this world. We're conscious and stuck in a physical body. No matter how many friends or family members you have, you're still alone in your own mind. There's only one way to escape this prison: to believe that it's not true. After all, imagination is one of the things that sets us apart from other animals.

Unfortunately I'm not one of those people than can do this. I used to, but I can't lie to myself anymore. For a programmer's brain it's always either a 0 or a 1. It's not my fault that there is no God. I wish there was. I have so many things to say and so many complaints to make. I want a God even more than those who believe in it.

https://theweirddev.bearblog.dev/about-god/

Atheists, do you feel similarly? Others, how do you feel about this attitude toward the existence of God?

 

[dZpADTLrPmX4c]

Another hot take from bearblog.dev:



https://theweirddev.bearblog.dev/about-god/

Atheists, do you feel similarly? Others, how do you feel about this attitude toward the existence of God?

he needs to get 5G god doesn't use 4G anymore
that's why he's not getting a signal

 

[aeon]

I don’t think we are alone in the world. I am aware of my body, but I am not “stuck in it.” Alone in my mind is where I’d like to be at times, but it’s sometimes not easy to access. There are many ways to “escape” the prison he has created and imagined he is stuck in, and none of them require any belief in a god. Also, why would one willingly choose to think that way when it is possible to think otherwise? I mean, I’m jaded, but I am no cynic.

His declarative statement of inability creates his reality and his truth. Sounds like he has fallen into the trap of dualism and logic. He states as much.

I’m agnostic. What can I know? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Matty]

Another hot take from bearblog.dev:



https://theweirddev.bearblog.dev/about-god/

Atheists, do you feel similarly? Others, how do you feel about this attitude toward the existence of God?

To me it's always strange that some people only envision what is tangible or in some way familiar. This includes atheists who can only envisage material/physical existence, and believers who can only envisage an anthropomorphic God with a human-like psychology/intentionality.

Material/physical things are subject to evidence and knowledge. Rational/mental constructs are subject to consistency/logic and understanding. Things which are neither material nor constructs are subject to belief.

To me, it's mind bending, to consider praying to an infinite, utterly simple (simpler than the most basic concept), unchanging eternal being. Such a being doesn't have complicated intentions, nor does he hear my prayers, except by some very loose analogy (hearing would imply change). Nevertheless, praying to God changes me. Catholicism often seems to emphasise the sanctification/elevation/divinisation of the believer, and it makes me wonder about the effect of prayer. I don't "pray for stuff" much, but the few things I have prayed for I've received, often in what an observer would call uncanny chance, or freaky coincidence. It makes me think that I prayed for something which was going to inevitably/deterministically happen, but why or how did I happen to pray for it, against all reasonable odds? Is prayer incrementally changing what I want, so I desire what's inevitably going to happen? Is this what Catholicism means by "putting on the mind of God?" In any case, those few moments when I can actually pray, without the heavy distraction of my arrogant, and impulsive hedonistic temperament, it seems like a transcendence from my own little subjective viewpoint into something truly profound and objective.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

I want a God even more than those who believe in it.
No, that's a lie. If you want God, you become a seeker, and seekers don't mope around thinking how sad and likely it is that there's no God. What he's saying is "I don't think there is a God, because if there was, I would be able to tell." In other words, he imputes the unerring ability to decide reality from falsehood—or a form of godhood, you could say—to himself. He wants God to be in his own image, not the other way around.

It's not my fault that there is no God. I wish there was.
It is his fault. What he means is that he wants a God who is cuddly and innocuous, and who would make the world free of tragedy and punishment so that you could always do whatever and suffer from nothing. This ties directly with:

I have so many things to say and so many complaints to make.
"I want to blame someone for the hardships of my reality except myself, and I don't know who." Because it's hard admitting that maybe if you organized your actions in different way and made changes you refused to make, you might have arrived in a place where you didn't feel like you're alone and imprisoned. Nobody wants to blame the victim of their suffering, especially when the victim is you. This is the story of Cain.

 

[dZpADTLrPmX4c]

@Sidis Coruscatis I loved your thorough reply. It was more intellectually rigorous than I could've managed, I think. Between you @aeon is about how I felt and why I chose to shitpost instead of take the person's comments to heart.
It just made so many baseless assumptions.

(Granted that's true for lots of things and people say, especially about religion)

It's also telling to me that when people say they don't believe in God, it's often specifically meant the Abrahamic monotheic deity. And religion, spirituality, et al is the baby thrown out with the bathwater. I believe him when he says it's either a 1 or a 0 in his mind because it tends to lead to this sort of black & white thinking.

I've been all over in my life. I would say I believe in God, but that implies things that people are prone to misunderstand. And my belief is tempered with some skepticism, because like Sidis mentioned I don't have the unerring ability to decide reality from falsehood (or if I do, I'm not very good at it).

 

[Wyote]

Always be cautious of people with absolute (lack of) faith.
Even though I'm certain of an after(?) life/form/consciousness, I'm also certain I'm crazy.

 

[java]

Atheists, do you feel similarly?

No, I don't wish there was an actual God.
Can you imagine how crazy that would be? Some pillar of fire or other strange apparition just hanging out somewhere in Israel.
That's basically all we'd ever talk about. We'd force people who don't know or don't believe to go there and see it and convert, with the same urgency we have when rescuing people who threaten to jump off buildings.
The world would be like a giant recess where everyone is constantly making sure everyone else is behaving according to the dogma.
There would be power trips and one-upmanship all over the place. People who live close to God would form some kind of elite.
There would be rogue denominations living in the wilderness and opposing its existence.
Conformity and peer pressure would be overwhelming, and there'd barely be any room left for anything that makes us human.
We'd regress into some kind of unimaginative primate who can't or doesn't dare create, invent, or solve problems by himself anymore.
We'd be catastrophically bored too.

 

[John K]

Others, how do you feel about this attitude toward the existence of God?

Now I get why some people believe in God despite knowing that he's unlikely to exist. We're alone in this world. We're conscious and stuck in a physical body. No matter how many friends or family members you have, you're still alone in your own mind. There's only one way to escape this prison: to believe that it's not true. After all, imagination is one of the things that sets us apart from other animals.​

Unfortunately I'm not one of those people than can do this. I used to, but I can't lie to myself anymore. For a programmer's brain it's always either a 0 or a 1. It's not my fault that there is no God. I wish there was. I have so many things to say and so many complaints to make. I want a God even more than those who believe in it.
​

I'm really adding to the thoughts of @Sometimes Yeah and @Sidis Coruscatis here .......

I wonder how many people think they cannot make art or write poetry - they are convinced they can't at the very outset, so they are blocked. They very likely don't really know what these things are apart from a vague impression of, say, Rembrandt images in adverts and Wordsworth's poetry or the like from school - but on their own and taken in this sort of naïve way they say nothing useful about what it's like to try yourself, and what the path would look like if they tried to follow it from outside their own metaphorical front door. They'll never make art or poetry, not because they can't but because they don't go find out what these things really are for them, and learn how to. They have an image of them that's false and which blocks them.

For many of us, our idea of God is like this - crude ideas flavoured with stereotyped images and words. I suspect that when most people say they don't believe in God, they have something in mind that I don't believe in either. It's one of the big lies that a knowledge of God is based only on faith. Mystical awareness of God is as immediate and present as any experience of the material world and the great religions are founded on that sort of awareness. God is not really much like any of the stereotypes when we meet him that way, and we can't meet him that way unless we go look for him with our disbelief suspended. That's not the same as believing, but a willingness not to pre-judge his existence, and to take the adventure of seeking him out in earnest.

I wish we had more pronouns - God isn't a 'he'

 

[just me]

Would anyone paint my picture after reading my posts 15 years?

How would my answer look?

 

[Anomalous]

I don't believe in God but I don't think I would want such a thing to exist.

I think it's worth exploring the psychology behind what people find appealing about the idea of God, regardless of whether or not they believe. I think the definition of the term is receding to account for the various alterations and configurations people make in order to sustain their belief, and I think that demonstrates the extent to which people desire guidance from something external to themselves.

There is a tendency to project into the unknown and in doing so, people find themselves and interpret that as 'God'.

 

[just me]

1 Corinthians 1:18-31
King James Version

18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

MATTHEW 22
verse text ⇑] Many are called, but few are chosen.
This passage, especially including this verse, contributes to a sense of tension between two ideas. Scripture seems to counterweight two concepts which are not contradictory, but which overlap in complex ways. On one side is God's choice of those who will enter the kingdom of heaven. On the other is the mandate for people to accept the invitation and receive the gift of God's grace by faith in Christ. Even in Jesus' parable, some willingly refuse the invitation. Some accept and fully engage. One seems to accept the invitation, but not entirely. Jesus concludes by saying that many are called to come and participate, but few are chosen to stay.

In a later passage, Jesus will refer several times to a chosen group called "the elect" (Matthew 24:22, 24, 31). It is clear from the gospel that everyone included in the elect—all those who are chosen—received the gift of God's eternal grace after trusting in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8–9). God calls to everyone to come to Him through faith in Christ (Acts 4:12). This demonstrates the limits of human understanding (Isaiah 55:8–9). Mysteriously, and in some interrelated way, only those elected by God will believe, and yet those elected will believe by their own choice. Only those who truly believe (John 3:16–18), those who sincerely and deeply obey the call, are the chosen ones.

Ephesians 2
King James Version

2 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved

6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;

12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
should walk in them.

11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;

12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:

17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.

18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

King James Version (KJV)
15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in

 

[just me]

Isaiah 52, 53

6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.

7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

8 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.

9 Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.

10 The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

11 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.

12 For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your reward.

13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.

14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:

15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

53 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

 

[just me]

I read your posts and said nothing. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

 

[Matty]

Now I get why some people believe in God despite knowing that he's unlikely to exist. We're alone in this world. We're conscious and stuck in a physical body. No matter how many friends or family members you have, you're still alone in your own mind. There's only one way to escape this prison: to believe that it's not true. After all, imagination is one of the things that sets us apart from other animals.​

Unfortunately I'm not one of those people than can do this. I used to, but I can't lie to myself anymore. For a programmer's brain it's always either a 0 or a 1. It's not my fault that there is no God. I wish there was. I have so many things to say and so many complaints to make. I want a God even more than those who believe in it.
​

I'm really adding to the thoughts of @Sometimes Yeah and @Sidis Coruscatis here .......

I wonder how many people think they cannot make art or write poetry - they are convinced they can't at the very outset, so they are blocked. They very likely don't really know what these things are apart from a vague impression of, say, Rembrandt images in adverts and Wordsworth's poetry or the like from school - but on their own and taken in this sort of naïve way they say nothing useful about what it's like to try yourself, and what the path would look like if they tried to follow it from outside their own metaphorical front door. They'll never make art or poetry, not because they can't but because they don't go find out what these things really are for them, and learn how to. They have an image of them that's false and which blocks them.

For many of us, our idea of God is like this - crude ideas flavoured with stereotyped images and words. I suspect that when most people say they don't believe in God, they have something in mind that I don't believe in either. It's one of the big lies that a knowledge of God is based only on faith. Mystical awareness of God is as immediate and present as any experience of the material world and the great religions are founded on that sort of awareness. God is not really much like any of the stereotypes when we meet him that way, and we can't meet him that way unless we go look for him with our disbelief suspended. That's not the same as believing, but a willingness not to pre-judge his existence, and to take the adventure of seeking him out in earnest.

I wish we had more pronouns - God isn't a 'he'

I precisely dislike primarily "mystical" religions because their notion of god or whatever they believe in is probably more informative about human psychology, than about anything real and non physical. (Physical includes non particle waves, fields, distances, etc).

My first criteria for considering any religion is that at a minimum, there is a claim of self revelation from the divine.

Your 1 or 0 mindset, which can be problematic, even for simple things like the wave particle duality of light, can be helpful in terms of inquiry.

When it comes to religion, some fundamental questions and the criteria for answering them seem to me, to be:
1. Is non physical existence possible?
1a. What qualities can be non physical, and what qualities are always physical?
(I think existence, some types of relations, something analogous to knowledge can probably be non physical, and probably an absence of constraint by unavoidable causality like physical laws, causality, entropy, change, etc).

2. Is the non physical real?
2a. Evidence cannot principally be physical evidence, nor logical conjecture, but rather, communication.
2b. Is there any evidence of communication from the non physical, and how can it be evaluated?
2c. The claims must at least be consistent with the qualities in 1a.
2d. The communication, for us to have heard it, must be consistent with our ability to perceive it as originating outside our imagination, that is through physical communication.
2e. There should be some means of verifying that the physical communication noted in 2d has its origin from outside the physical, such as accompanying physically perceptible miracles (occurrences not bound by physical laws, causality, entropy, etc), or perhaps by evidencing some sort of special knowledge such as knowledge of people's hidden thoughts, the future, or hidden things, etc.

Etc etc.

Anyhow, the type of criteria I list above also has the subjective question parallel to it: if God exists, do I want to believe in him, and do I want to "see" him?

Personally, for the last few years I have adopted the faith taught by Catholicism, and am trying to adopt its practices and morality.

 

[John K]

I precisely dislike primarily "mystical" religions because their notion of god or whatever they believe in is probably more informative about human psychology, than about anything real and non physical. (Physical includes non particle waves, fields, distances, etc).

My first criteria for considering any religion is that at a minimum, there is a claim of self revelation from the divine.

Your 1 or 0 mindset, which can be problematic, even for simple things like the wave particle duality of light, can be helpful in terms of inquiry.

When it comes to religion, some fundamental questions and the criteria for answering them seem to me, to be:
1. Is non physical existence possible?
1a. What qualities can be non physical, and what qualities are always physical?
(I think existence, some types of relations, something analogous to knowledge can probably be non physical, and probably an absence of constraint by unavoidable causality like physical laws, causality, entropy, change, etc).

2. Is the non physical real?
2a. Evidence cannot principally be physical evidence, nor logical conjecture, but rather, communication.
2b. Is there any evidence of communication from the non physical, and how can it be evaluated?
2c. The claims must at least be consistent with the qualities in 1a.
2d. The communication, for us to have heard it, must be consistent with our ability to perceive it as originating outside our imagination, that is through physical communication.
2e. There should be some means of verifying that the physical communication noted in 2d has its origin from outside the physical, such as accompanying physically perceptible miracles (occurrences not bound by physical laws, causality, entropy, etc), or perhaps by evidencing some sort of special knowledge such as knowledge of people's hidden thoughts, the future, or hidden things, etc.

Etc etc.

Anyhow, the type of criteria I list above also has the subjective question parallel to it: if God exists, do I want to believe in him, and do I want to "see" him?

Personally, for the last few years I have adopted the faith taught by Catholicism, and am trying to adopt its practices and morality.

This makes a lot of sense to me. I don't want to push the thread too far from its intent, but just to say I am a Catholic too, and need the structure of the Church to keep me grounded and objective, and provide a solid foundation for spiritual journeying. It also supports me when times are bad and I am not able to support myself spiritually. My mystical compass is set by the great Christian mystics, such as John of the Cross, Theresa of Avilla and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, but I also get much inspiration from St Augustine of Hippo who has both a flaming inner awareness of God and a very sharp analytical mind rooted in the objective world. Allowances have to be made for the fact that all these folks were people of their times of course.

 

[just me]

I liked "The Sword of Constantine".