Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

I was watching a Carl Seagan interview in which he was asked the question if he believed people would start thinking differently and change their beliefs about god in the future. I was expecting an answer along the lines “no because people have the need to believe in something”. He said although that history tells us that people keep changing. We used to do all kind of stupid things throughout our history like sacrifice human lives to Gods (which in some way we still to today) but we have changed drastically by those times.
Given that until about a century ago, we did not have any choice, we had to believe whatever religion said. If God hadn’t made us then there is no other logical explanation. Whenever someone started questioning things about religion and things that did not make any sense, the answer would be that God is all powerful and can do whatever he wants. The whole topic of religion was (and still is) so abstract.
During the last century though and with all the rise of technology and everything, we have so much information about where we come from, how was the Universe, the Sun, the planets life and all these beautiful things were created. That together with globalization and how rapidly and easily all this information can be accessed with the internet and the media, how can a rational human being like [censored] sapiens choose to refuse all that information and still believe in the metaphysical? Or even if we choose to accept all this information, how long will it take us until the day when humans will stop believing that there is a supernatural power that is above any laws of Physics known to man and above any rational thought?

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

I am at a place where I understand SAR unbelievably well right now.

Its a scary place.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

I think more and more people will think the question trivial and unimportant, with regards to the facts and issues of life in general, and human life in particular. Some will still believe, as children will still believe in Santa Claus.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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The whole topic of religion was (and still is) so abstract.

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This is your and Sagan's error.

Defining religion as an abstraction only trivializes it; and defeats any true understanding. (Much like taking love as a neurological epiphenomenon trivializes it and misses the truth of the most awkward love letter.)

Belief in God---true belief---frames all of life in relation to God. Confusion sparks renewed faith; failure proffers weakness to be complemented by Divine strength; suffering yields deeper gratitude for the hope of Heaven; base instinct prompts the asceticism of repentance; and fear yields to the joyous seductions of mysticism and worship.

Truth is little match for those surrealities---if you can live with them! IMO there will always be some who can.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

50yrs sure

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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Confusion sparks renewed faith; failure proffers weakness to be complemented by Divine strength; suffering yields deeper gratitude for the hope of Heaven; base instinct prompts the asceticism of repentance; and fear yields to the joyous seductions of mysticism and worship.

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Is this an example of your "true understanding"? The descriptions you use are just about as ambiguous and devoid of concrete meaning as they can get. Granted, we all have feelings that cannot be put into words, and love or spirituality are examples. What is incredible to me is how people can make a leap from this inability to describe our own emotions to claiming absolute truth about supernatural entities. They take the mysteries of life and twist it into some strange form of pseudo- or anti-knowledge that can't even be communicated.

Do you feel that love, or other emotions, cannot be scientifically explained by the brain? On a related note, I wandered upon a funny study today involving the drug psilocybin (shrooms).

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In 2006, a US government funded, randomized and double-blinded study by Johns Hopkins University, studied the spiritual effects of psilocybin mushrooms. The study involved 36 college-educated adults who had never tried psilocybin or had a drug abuse history and had religious or spiritual interests; the average age of the participants was 46 years. The participants were closely observed for eight-hour intervals in a laboratory while under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms. One-third of the participants reported the experience was the single most spiritually significant experience of their lifetimes and more than two-thirds reported it was among the top five most spiritually significant experiences.

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All these powerful experiences and insights and mystery and wonder all caused by chemicals in the human bloodstream. Just like all of our other, natural, emotions and feelings. No one is making contact with a personal god. There is no hidden meaning. At least none that you could ever be so sure about as to indoctrinate to millions of children.

I don't think calling love a phenomenon of the brain trivializes it at all. And I think calling religion an abstraction or just a metaphor is quite accurate.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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The descriptions you use are just about as ambiguous and devoid of concrete meaning as they can get.

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That's my point! Religion-in-itself is borderline meaningless as an abstract idea. Or, to put another way: religion can only be experienced, not defined.

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Do you feel that love, or other emotions, cannot be scientifically explained by the brain?

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Certainly science can EXPLAIN emotions and love! But to understand love in any meaningful way you have to experience it.

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I don't think calling love a phenomenon of the brain trivializes it at all.

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Again---it's not a trivial explanation of love (rather, it's the ONLY explanation!) However, it is a very trivial understanding of love.

Did you not read the last line of my post?

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Truth is little match for those surrealities---if you can live with them!

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I'm an atheist, but it's not at all clear to me that the truth of atheism will provide a better life for many (most?) people.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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Confusion sparks renewed faith; failure proffers weakness to be complemented by Divine strength; suffering yields deeper gratitude for the hope of Heaven; base instinct prompts the asceticism of repentance; and fear yields to the joyous seductions of mysticism and worship.

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Is this an example of your "true understanding"? The descriptions you use are just about as ambiguous and devoid of concrete meaning as they can get. Granted, we all have feelings that cannot be put into words, and love or spirituality are examples. What is incredible to me is how people can make a leap from this inability to describe our own emotions to claiming absolute truth about supernatural entities. They take the mysteries of life and twist it into some strange form of pseudo- or anti-knowledge that can't even be communicated.



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Couldn't have said it better with my not-so-good english.

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Much like taking love as a neurological epiphenomenon trivializes it and misses the truth of the most awkward love letter.

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Why does it trivialize it? The fact that you know it's a neurological phenomenon does not limit you from enjoying it does it? Why doesn't trying to specify a supernatural power like God trivilize his existance?

Also what do you mean by missing the truth of the most awkward love letter? I am sure there are a lot of people who believe that feelings and emotions come solely out of your brain that enjoy love as much as people who think that love is a spiritual thing that has nothing to do with your brain and it something special coming from some magic place.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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I am sure there are a lot of people who believe that feelings and emotions come solely out of your brain that enjoy love as much as people who think that love is a spiritual thing that has nothing to do with your brain and it something special coming from some magic place.

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Obviously all educated people know that consciousness is a biological epiphenomenon and love is an elaboration on basic pair-bonding. BUT, equally obviously, nobody considers that explanation of love as equivalent to being in love. Which leads us to:

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Also what do you mean by missing the truth of the most awkward love letter?

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I mean that even the most atavistic, insensible experience of love captures the spiritual* reality of love better than any amount of scientific precision.

* What word do you want me to use? Even as good materialists, what do we gain by denying the "specialness"(?) of consciousness? Can't we at least be noble animals---

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

more like 60 I think

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

I've thought about this question a lot, and, not surprisingly, so have several psychologists. While, being a hardcore rationalist, I'd like to believe that mankind will eventually come to terms with the universe's indifference, it seems unlikely that it will happen soon (if ever) for several reasons.

First of all, belief in some supernatural being has been evident in basically every culture since man has existed. This leads some to speculate that maybe belief in the supernatural is inherent to human cognition. Paul Bloom (a cognitive psychologist at Yale), for example, wrote a book and this article
about humans' predisposition to ascribe agency to objects which lack it.

Also, given how ingrained religion is in our cultural traditions and views of the world, I think we would need more than 50 years to uproot its hold on society. Sure, science has made immense progress in debunking most religious accounts of the world, but most people seem to intuitively resist these explanations and (sadly) are skeptical of scientists in general (Taraz made a post about this a while back).

And, really, if people want to believe in God, they could always come up with some sort of rationalization or short-sighted philosophy to skirt the obvious flaws in their belief-system. Religion is about experience, and if someone deeply feels God's presence, no amount of scientific evidence will convince them otherwise.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

Hey, the Bible is more right then ever for these times. Where the rational thought is irrational an the irrational is rational.

It's scary to coal inside the chests of man these days and the brainwashed pride driven secular mentality.

It's pretty scary, but hey, the more the devil has an influence the more and more people will be easily dismissive of God, religion, etc

Just wow at the brainwashed mentalities.

And this will just to in one in, make a uturn and go out the same ear.

Thats what it has become, you fill yourselfs with nothing but about how irrational any belief is how God is a delusion and evil, etc well that is what you become.

Man, really no point of posting, u all find out in less then 80 years anyways..... Thank God we die and the ignorances cant go on forever.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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Hey, the Bible is more right then ever for these times. Where the rational thought is irrational an the irrational is rational.

It's scary to coal inside the chests of man these days and the brainwashed pride driven secular mentality.

It's pretty scary, but hey, the more the devil has an influence the more and more people will be easily dismissive of God, religion, etc

Just wow at the brainwashed mentalities.

And this will just to in one in, make a uturn and go out the same ear.

Thats what it has become, you fill yourselfs with nothing but about how irrational any belief is how God is a delusion and evil, etc well that is what you become.

Man, really no point of posting, u all find out in less then 80 years anyways..... Thank God we die and the ignorances cant go on forever.


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What He Said . [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

Absolutely. The problem is not the current generation of believers, but the fervor with which they teach their children to believe in God. The religious think it is their duty to imprint set beliefs into the susceptible minds of their children, while critical thinking has not yet set on. Until this detestable process is stopped, religion will persist.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

Maybe a better question would be... will the majority of Americans in the U.S. believe in God(s) in 50 years?

50 years is waayyy too short. Perhaps 100?

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

nah

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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and everything, we have so much information about where we come from, how was the Universe, the Sun, the planets life and all these beautiful things were created.

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Creation is probably the operative and relative word. We've had no problem describing how one thing developed from another, but it's yet to be described why there is anything at all.

In other words, anyone can describe the PE when a rock is lifted off the table: start describing why that energy is there in the first place and people might listen. Otherwise, it's just the non-affirmative argument the reductionalists have been spewing about for millennia.

Explanations are not answers.

-John

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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it's yet to be described why there is anything at all.


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Indeed, but even more incredibly why would there be a god? At least I have the experience of the world to say that it is, but have zilch experience of god!

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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it's yet to be described why there is anything at all.


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Indeed, but even more incredibly why would there be a god? At least I have the experience of the world to say that it is, but have zilch experience of god!

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Fair enough. For me it would depend on how or if you differentiated the two. You describe the world as, "it is," whereas someone from the theological mindset would describe God as, "I Am".

Other than the possessive/tense they're expressed in, is there really any difference between:

It is; and
I am?


I'm just thinking if you were translating Moses:

It am that It am; or
I is that I is; or
I am that I am…

They might mean or refer to the same thing, metaphorically speaking, but the first two probably wouldn't have made it across the editor's desk.

-John

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

I have no issue with your argument John, as long as you are consistent. Regardless of the beauty in the world, to which I have no objection, there is, undeniably, an incredible amount of suffering in the world, far from most of it, due to human beings. If you see your God as he is ( "I am" [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ) an evil agent, responsible for his own design, we are pretty much in agreement!

I would never worship, or even side with, such an entity!

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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I have no issue with your argument John, as long as you are consistent. Regardless of the beauty in the world, to which I have no objection, there is, undeniably, an incredible amount of suffering in the world, far from most of it, due to human beings. If you see your God as he is ( "I am" [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ) an evil agent, responsible for his own design, we are pretty much in agreement!

I would never worship, or even side with, such an entity!

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I don't know if we do or not, but supposing we agree that my "I Am" equates to your, "It Is," I'm not quite sure where an "entity" pops up. Although I do understand where mainstream religions interject it (It).

I suppose what I'm trying to say: isn't there some form of holistic view in both interpretations? For example, if you describe all of nature, are you really apart or do you think of yourself part from the "all" of nature?

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

John, whether holistic or not, if the outcome is negative, which to me suffering is, then there is no question about worship. It simply is not on! I'll deal with my life at a personal level to stand "against" anything that is purported to be the whole, or not. Sometimes the epiphenomena is more interesting, capable, and specially "moral", than the whole. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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Sometimes the epiphenomena is more interesting, capable, and specially "moral", than the whole. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Sometimes? I wouldn’t want to live for a day if I was Omnipotent. But just because we're the antithesis to Omnipotence, doesn't make us evil, or our corollary so - it just makes us alive. And to me life is a gift, or as some would say a sacrificial gift.

I don't want to be God. But if I was God for a day - I'd allow people to live and not be a god. To me eternity is meaningless without terminality.

-John

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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But just because we're the antithesis to Omnipotence, doesn't make us evil,

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Agreed entirely. It seems that you are not seeing my point: "Omnipotence (god concept), as I experience the world, is evil and therefore not worshipable, or not a credible (believable) concept".

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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Hey, the Bible is more right then ever for these times. Where the rational thought is irrational an the irrational is rational.

It's scary to coal inside the chests of man these days and the brainwashed pride driven secular mentality.

It's pretty scary, but hey, the more the devil has an influence the more and more people will be easily dismissive of God, religion, etc

Just wow at the brainwashed mentalities.

And this will just to in one in, make a uturn and go out the same ear.

Thats what it has become, you fill yourselfs with nothing but about how irrational any belief is how God is a delusion and evil, etc well that is what you become.

Man, really no point of posting, u all find out in less then 80 years anyways..... Thank God we die and the ignorances cant go on forever.

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What he said x2.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hey, the Bible is more right then ever for these times. Where the rational thought is irrational an the irrational is rational.

It's scary to coal inside the chests of man these days and the brainwashed pride driven secular mentality.

It's pretty scary, but hey, the more the devil has an influence the more and more people will be easily dismissive of God, religion, etc

Just wow at the brainwashed mentalities.

And this will just to in one in, make a uturn and go out the same ear.

Thats what it has become, you fill yourselfs with nothing but about how irrational any belief is how God is a delusion and evil, etc well that is what you become.

Man, really no point of posting, u all find out in less then 80 years anyways..... Thank God we die and the ignorances cant go on forever.

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If one takes a step back and reads what you're saying--substituting Allah for God and Koran for Bible--you sound like a deranged Muslim suicide bomber.

I find it quite sad that many will read what you write and actually nod approvingly. When people like you talk, you hurt your irrational crusade more than help it.

Re: Will people in fifty years still believe in Gods?
 

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If one takes a step back and reads what you're saying--substituting Allah for God and Koran for Bible--you sound like a deranged Muslim suicide bomber.

I find it quite sad that many will read what you write and actually nod approvingly. When people like you talk, you hurt your irrational crusade more than help it.

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When is the last time that a Christian blew themselves up in a suicide bombing?