@kellyjay saidAlthough not strong enough reasons to move me beyond my agnosticism and curiosity/speculation with regard to this matter, the 'top reasons' for believing in the existence of a creator being would be the natural wonder of the universe, and the extraordinary capacity of human consciousness. And I can't think of a third one.
What are your top three reasons for believing or disbelieving in God?
@kellyjay said1. Evidence
What are your top three reasons for believing or disbelieving in God? I'm not asking for why you became whatever you claim to be a Christian, Atheist, or something else. Just your top three reasons now.
I do not have a 2 and 3.
@kellyjay saidMy top three dichotomies:
What are your top three reasons for believing or disbelieving in God? I'm not asking for why you became whatever you claim to be a Christian, Atheist, or something else. Just your top three reasons now.
1. That occasional psychological state that I perceive as a sense of "presence" or "a presence" versus a scepticism/disbelief for many of the doctrines and dogmas I have encountered in organised religion.
2. That sense of a "creative force" active in what we know of the universe versus the need to deify (and humanize) it or believe that our species would somehow be the end of the story or even it's main focus.
3. That sense of the deep interrelationship of things enhanced by scientific understanding - for example when I am gardening on my allotment, versus the observation that formal "theology" tends to follow rather than lead on things like the environmental crisis for example, and would seemingly rather concentrate on (magical) things like sin, salvation and enlightenment which I tend to regard as largely irrelevant.
@ragwort saidI think "organised religion" is a major impediment [for me at least] to belief, at least in so far as each religion's prism is concerned and the God figure it portrays.
That occasional psychological state that I perceive as a sense of "presence" or "a presence" versus a scepticism/disbelief for many of the doctrines and dogmas I have encountered in organised religion.
Indeed, people peddling the doctrines and dogmas of "organised religion" invariably seem to me to know nothing [credible or relevant] about whatever creator being there may be.
@kellyjay said1. Religions are an amalgamation of previous polytheistic religions which they all claim to be inferior to theirs.
What are your top three reasons for believing or disbelieving in God? I'm not asking for why you became whatever you claim to be a Christian, Atheist, or something else. Just your top three reasons now.
2. Absolute zero, zip and nada proof for their extraordinary claims, despite a thousand years having passed.
3. The god they present is evil and they say that is perfectly okay.
-Removed-I didn't say anything about "corporate organized religion" or about commercialisation, hierarchy, power etc. I have no doubt that that comes with definitive credibility deficits all of its own.
That aside, I think if a large number of people [2.2 billion, right?] rally around a specific bit of religious literature that was compiled and canonized by a particular institution, they venerate it, they interpret and internalize its defining figures and folklore, they give themselves a label, they divide their book into take-it-or-leave it chapters and verses, they study them, discuss them, propagate its concepts, they believe in the exclusivity of their religion and dismiss other religions as being wrong, then THAT is "organized religion" to me.