To your questions:
1) No, in senses practical and absolute, I do not believe, and in fact find the idea in general hard to believe more so than just unconvincing.
2) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/ .
But to be more precise, I support a practical and not absolute epistemic view of the world (which in other words is to say I don't claim ANY of the ideas that I apply in my practical life and thinking to be absolutely true, but I think practical philosophy does not require this), and so I require some practically relevant demonstration of an idea for me to accept it, and I have yet to see anything even close to such a thing for the notion of god. The best pieces of evidence are usually fundamentally flawed I think in that they muddle practical philosophy and science with absolute metaphysical notions, which does not necessarily make them wrong, but I think it makes them extremely prone to being wrong.
My religious belief is a lot like my political belief, neither side will claim me. I don’t think everything in the Universe has a natural cause, which puts me at odds with most non-Theists in any debate that actually happens. But also, I don’t believe in any of the highly particularized notions of God that define religious groups. If it's too specific to have a basis in evidence or argument, I'm not inclined to believe it.
Also, I find it helpful to actually segregate the events that people attribute to “God”, since they’re distinct. And they also happen to give rise to this sort of Cartesian Doubt that forms my own beliefs. They are:
1) Origin of Species/Intelligent Life – Darwinist. I don’t find any objection to the idea that man, and all life, evolved from single celled organisms, which happen to also have the ability to reproduce. I believe anything that self-perpetuates at one level of complexity can have the natural tendency of increasing complexity.
2) Origin of Life – Unnatural Causation. I am on board with the natural genesis of amino acids, and things that resemble cells. However, I believe that is a far cry from something that is both at an unstable level of complexity (which all life is), and also finds itself naturally self-perpetuating at a rate that outpaces that instability. Every phenomena in the universe other than organic life on Earth suggests to me that those two conditions are mutually exclusive, entropically.
3) Origin of the Universe – Unnatural Causation or No Causation. My unimaginative mind is better able to grasp the notion of no Earth than it is of no Universe, so the cosmologist in me is at a disadvantage. But I am also not inclined to find a Naturalistic explanation for something, based on nothing other than the mere prompting to disbelieve Supernatural things. I can sense an overwhelming bias in this drive shared by a lot of people to reach toward unfounded explanations, simply on the merit of them not involving any intelligence in the Universe other than man. Plausibility is a poor substitute for knowledge in my mind. Also, if I am to accept a theory based only on plausibility, I find myself constrained to extending that principle to theories on both sides of the Theism line.
Where I instinctively depart from “Theists” is on the character of these unnatural/supernatural causes. A supernatural force doesn’t need to be omniscient, omnipotent, or even benevolent or immortal to deposit life on Earth, so it doesn’t follow that the creation of the Universe is attributable to the same force. I find myself somewhat of a reductionist here, that I’m hesitant to attribute things to the same supernatural cause. I’m even more hesitant to imagine for myself the character of that cause, especially if it only seems to suit some personal fancy of mine, or provides justification for people to act on base desires.
1) I don't believe in god.
2) Most evidence provided misconstrues science, and there is a lot of evidence to the contrary.
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BRGMy Deck(Modern): Bolts'n'Burns WMy other, WIP casual deck: Zero to Hero
Protection from Will-O'-the-Wisps, Ali-from-Cairos, and Uncle-Istvans
Legendary snow landwalk
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Do You Believe in God? If you don't, then how come? If you do, then how come?
1) No, in senses practical and absolute, I do not believe, and in fact find the idea in general hard to believe more so than just unconvincing.
2) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/ .
But to be more precise, I support a practical and not absolute epistemic view of the world (which in other words is to say I don't claim ANY of the ideas that I apply in my practical life and thinking to be absolutely true, but I think practical philosophy does not require this), and so I require some practically relevant demonstration of an idea for me to accept it, and I have yet to see anything even close to such a thing for the notion of god. The best pieces of evidence are usually fundamentally flawed I think in that they muddle practical philosophy and science with absolute metaphysical notions, which does not necessarily make them wrong, but I think it makes them extremely prone to being wrong.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Also, I find it helpful to actually segregate the events that people attribute to “God”, since they’re distinct. And they also happen to give rise to this sort of Cartesian Doubt that forms my own beliefs. They are:
1) Origin of Species/Intelligent Life – Darwinist. I don’t find any objection to the idea that man, and all life, evolved from single celled organisms, which happen to also have the ability to reproduce. I believe anything that self-perpetuates at one level of complexity can have the natural tendency of increasing complexity.
2) Origin of Life – Unnatural Causation. I am on board with the natural genesis of amino acids, and things that resemble cells. However, I believe that is a far cry from something that is both at an unstable level of complexity (which all life is), and also finds itself naturally self-perpetuating at a rate that outpaces that instability. Every phenomena in the universe other than organic life on Earth suggests to me that those two conditions are mutually exclusive, entropically.
3) Origin of the Universe – Unnatural Causation or No Causation. My unimaginative mind is better able to grasp the notion of no Earth than it is of no Universe, so the cosmologist in me is at a disadvantage. But I am also not inclined to find a Naturalistic explanation for something, based on nothing other than the mere prompting to disbelieve Supernatural things. I can sense an overwhelming bias in this drive shared by a lot of people to reach toward unfounded explanations, simply on the merit of them not involving any intelligence in the Universe other than man. Plausibility is a poor substitute for knowledge in my mind. Also, if I am to accept a theory based only on plausibility, I find myself constrained to extending that principle to theories on both sides of the Theism line.
Where I instinctively depart from “Theists” is on the character of these unnatural/supernatural causes. A supernatural force doesn’t need to be omniscient, omnipotent, or even benevolent or immortal to deposit life on Earth, so it doesn’t follow that the creation of the Universe is attributable to the same force. I find myself somewhat of a reductionist here, that I’m hesitant to attribute things to the same supernatural cause. I’m even more hesitant to imagine for myself the character of that cause, especially if it only seems to suit some personal fancy of mine, or provides justification for people to act on base desires.
2) Most evidence provided misconstrues science, and there is a lot of evidence to the contrary.
WMy other, WIP casual deck: Zero to Hero
Protection from Will-O'-the-Wisps, Ali-from-Cairos, and Uncle-Istvans
Legendary snow landwalk
---------------------------------------
On the reserved list: Wizards won't remove it. Only we can. In other words: Play Modern, Pauper, or No-RL Eternal.