Do you believe?
This question is (mostly) unrelated to religion. It's more of a sociological survey.
Choose the option that you think relates to you, preferably after having understood the clarification below (might be difficult).
Let us assume that belief is the act of assuming that something is true (∃ truth). Remember that this is not (only) about religion. When you have read a scientific article, do you assume it is true or do you doubt? When somebody tells you something, do you assume they speak the truth or is it more likely to you that they are lying?
Let us further assume that there is also a subdivision of believing which we'll call 'strict belief' that is the act of assuming that something is true and there can be no equally right alternatives (∃! truth). How often do you assume that what you've read or heard somewhere is true and, when meeting a differing information, discard it because of your earlier assumption?
Are you always following your own intuition as the determinant of truth? Or do you rather refer to the authority and experience of others?
The poll is anonymous but you may disclose your answers, if you wish.
However, I adjure you to be respectful to others, whose opinions and attitudes may - and will - differ from yours.
The results of this survey will not be used in any research (not even in the development of unearthly horrors that will one day descend upon the earth to castigate humankind fluffy kittens).
Choose the option that you think relates to you, preferably after having understood the clarification below (might be difficult).
Let us assume that belief is the act of assuming that something is true (∃ truth). Remember that this is not (only) about religion. When you have read a scientific article, do you assume it is true or do you doubt? When somebody tells you something, do you assume they speak the truth or is it more likely to you that they are lying?
Let us further assume that there is also a subdivision of believing which we'll call 'strict belief' that is the act of assuming that something is true and there can be no equally right alternatives (∃! truth). How often do you assume that what you've read or heard somewhere is true and, when meeting a differing information, discard it because of your earlier assumption?
Are you always following your own intuition as the determinant of truth? Or do you rather refer to the authority and experience of others?
The poll is anonymous but you may disclose your answers, if you wish.
However, I adjure you to be respectful to others, whose opinions and attitudes may - and will - differ from yours.
The results of this survey will not be used in any research (not even in the development of unearthly horrors that will one day descend upon the earth to castigate humankind fluffy kittens).
- Do you believe?43 votes
- I often believe strictly.2.33%
- I often believe but rarely strictly.9.30%
- I often believe but I refuse to believe strictly.6.98%
- I sometimes believe strictly.0.00%
- I sometimes believe but rarely strictly.20.93%
- I sometimes believe but refuse to believe strictly.25.58%
- I believe only in information originating from within myself (intuition).9.30%
- I believe only in information originating from others (authority).2.33%
- I very rarely believe or refuse to believe that I believe.6.98%
- I consciously use belief at will to achieve my own gains.16.28%
10
Comments
@God you should have used this to make a test, the results would be amazing.
The exception to this personal rule... is magic! In spite of no evidence, it just HAS to exist, right?
Right?!
Edit; Also the word God is the greatest fraud ever. The words 'Global Brain' is more like it. But that's inherent to itself. All is but one thing.
Oh and by the way, satanists are christians, weither they like it or not lol
This is why I try to only trust myself and my own judgement. I am very slow to trust other people and even when I do trust someone I still do not take anything they say at face value.
The purpose of the survey is... different.
This is somewhat of an experiment
"This is somewhat of an experiment
Ok. You claim that this is not used for research. The poll is anonymous, yet you encourage people to give you their answers. So, oh, the user whose username indicates very high self-esteem (or sense of humour), what are you really after?
It's an experiment made by someone called God. In other words it's just a lame attempt at subtlely propagating Christian faith like an hypocrit. Nothing new there from such people.
'Thou Shall Have No Idol' Jesus said, right ? roflmao
Epistemologically, I consider myself a hard empiricist and a skeptic. I want to see the empirical evidence of any idea for which I must adjudicate truth value.
My level of skepticism requires that I question everything, and always remain open to revising my truth judgments when presented with new evidence. And, I'm always reading, watching, and looking for new empirical discoveries and experiments that could give me more evidence to help in my constant re-evaluation of truth claims that are important to me, personally.
Here are some examples of subjects that generate important truth claims that I am always thinking about and studying:
1) Medicine, health, fitness, and diet. I've lived long enough to see the advice and claims given by the "experts" in these fields change over time, back and forth, with many of the claims contradicting each other. And they all believe they're backed up by good science.
2) Climate change and the human role in it. I always start getting more skeptical, not less, when a scientific subject becomes politically charged. I hear much more emotional argumentation than I hear hard evidence being presented either way, and each side quotes directly contradictory data from their own sources. Which sources of information should I "believe", and which should I not?
Today we talk about "global warming", but in the 1970's it was "global cooling", and human emissions were going to cause a new Ice Age, and the "scientists" and politicians argued with just as much emotion and vehemence about that as they do today about the "global warming".
3) Evolutionary theory. I have been presented by the media (newspapers, books, educational television) with overwhelming evidence that life has evolved on this planet over a vast amount of time through clearly demonstrable chemical reactions combined with natural selection. However, I don't think evolutionary biologists can explain *everything* yet, and the full story of the evolution of life, and of human consciousness, still has many areas of mystery yet to be explained.
I see a smug arrogance among evolutionary biologists, and that bothers me. As soon as someone who's supposed to be a good scientist starts to talk about "unassailable truths", a red flag goes up in my skeptical mind. I think a good scientist always starts from a place of doubt, not a place of certainty.
That said, the kinds of argumentation I see from creationists just strikes me as crazy talk. I have seen enough evidence of at least the basic premises of evolutionary theory to be convinced that we can find the answers to the origins of life through scientific study, with no need to invoke some kind of supernatural intervention with nature.
4) The existence of God. Human beings seem to have an innate need to relate to something larger than themselves, and feel connected with something that is eternal. We are alone cursed among the animals of Earth (as far as we know), with the conscious knowledge of entropy, suffering, and death. Everything we love is going to die, and we ourselves are going to die, and we know it. So, our minds seek comfort from some kind of transcendent eternal reality that we project onto the universe.
The truth claims we come up with in "religion" are of vital concern to humanity, because different cultures come up with completely different and conflicting religions, and we keep making war and killing each other over these truth claims.
Treating the subject in the detail it deserves would require me to write a book, and is far beyond the scope of what I can do in a single forum post.
I can summarize my current position on the truth proposition "God exists", by saying that I am what I call a "soft atheist." A preponderance of evidence leads me to sadly conclude that there is no such thing as "God", and we humans have made the whole idea up as a defense mechanism to protect our minds from the harsh realities of sickness, pain, aging, suffering, and death.
However, I remain open to finding new evidence that might restore my "lost faith", and allow me to "believe" again that God could exist. That's the "soft" part of the "soft atheism."
I'm very skeptical about that, though, especially since a lot of the truth claims we make about God cannot be tested empirically. If I can't test it empirically, I have to doubt the truth of it. And arguments about "it takes faith" just sound to me like I'm being asked to "believe" something that doesn't make any sense. That's crazy to me.
He's been around the forums before, and then left for awhile. Now, he's back, for whatever reason.
He's a pretty smart guy, I think, and I often just play along and say to him exactly what I'd like to say to God, if God existed. So far he's never disappointed me with the insightfulness of his answers, even when he tells me I'm wrong about something.
I plan to just enjoy having him around for as long as he wants to play with us, because his visits have so far been short and temporary.
Do you know what band 'street teams' are ? They're fans of bands that infiltrate social networks and forums to propagate the music they love. Religious believers will do the same, difference being that they consider their 'belief likings' to be the Truth. The only Truth there is is it's pursuit.
Edit; This whole 'test' could have been made without the use of immanent words like 'beliefs', and very simply. Compare answers of this poll to the usual chosen alignement of whoever stated those answers. Circle complete.
Besides, I don't want to derail His thread by going into an off-topic discussion. He's forgiven me for my heresy and doubt and lengthy essays about theology, and for tagging Him too much, and for just kind of gushing and going overboard in expressing my love for Him, even though He doesn't exist.
"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God," after all.
So, I "believe" we were supposed to be discussing the nature of "belief", which I interpret to be an epistemological question. ("Epistemology" is the sub-discipline of philosophy which attempts to examine "knowledge", how a thing is "known", what or how can anything be "known", and the like.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology
It's interesting that we, (or was it just me - probably just me, since I'm an atheist nearly obsessed with religion), have brought this topic around to religion, even though @God explicitly stated that He wasn't thinking of making this a topic about religion.
Maybe that's the experiment. The word "belief" has come to have a strong association with religion, so, it's hard to start an abstract, philosophical discussion about the nature of "belief", without the whole thing inevitably turning into a discussion about religion.
I can't say what He intended, though. He chose to say that He was doing another one of His "experiments", even though He doesn't owe us any explanations.
He also called the entirety of His first visit to this forum "an experiment."
I should probably just not say anything else here in this thread. He can speak for Himself if He wants to. My presumption to be His prophet must surely wear on His nerves sometimes, and I'd really prefer not to bring down His anger (perhaps "irritation", or "disapproval" would be better words) upon myself.
Sigh. I keep telling myself I need to stop doing this every time @God comes around here. The problem is, I can't help myself, it seems. He just keeps saying all the right things that push my buttons.
I fear that my devotion to Him is actually winding up getting in the way of things He wants to find out from other forumites, though, so, I probably *really* need to work on my "voice crying in the wilderness", "making it all about me" schtick, and fall silent, the better for other forumites to feel more free to speak.
There're many hundreds of thousands of different Gods that have believers on this planet, by saying that @God is clearly propagating Christianity you're ironically propagating it yourself by pointing it out as the only option. This is a fun poll so let's make the best of it and just have fun.
This site has very clear rules about trolling and flaming. You're doing both. This is your only warning.
"strange game, the only winning move is not to play"