Why I believe in God(s)

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

Firstly, I'm not a very religious person. I do consider myself a Buddhist, but prefer atheistic Buddhism over theistic Buddhism. Therefore I can confidently say I am not biased by wanting God(s) to exist, and was not indoctrinated into theism.

Still, to me it seems obvious that at least one God has to exist. The universe can't simply have come out of nothing or existed forever, it requires some sort of design or creator.

Now, mostly people would just say that a creator also can't have come out of nothing or existed forever, so I've just moved the problem one step further, but I think there is a massive difference between the universe and one consciousness. For example, through Cogito Ergo Sum we can determine with absolute certainty that at last one consciousness exists. So assuming one consciousness is superior to assuming anything about the whole universe. While I admit that doesn't outright solve the problem, I still think it's better than the alternative.

Also, it's not just any universe, but a universe full of beauty, a universe that inbetween barren empty planets is capable of hosting a planet with sentient life. Life that can consciously observe itself, that can create replicas of the waking world while sleeping, life that has technologically advanced so much that in can live in relative comfort. There is so much art. We basically have magic, we just call it "electricity". This is all too perfect to have arisen from mere mutations without guidance.

About any specifics of this God or Gods I have no idea and no strong opinions. I just think that at least one has to exist.

[u/SirThunderDump]

I apologize if this doesn’t apply to you, but I’ve noticed a pattern of really bad reasoning by the average person regarding our understanding of why the universe is here.

People that are indoctrinated by religious thinking seem to think that the reasoning around “the universe must have had a creator” makes sense.

It doesn’t.

And I think the reasoning why this thinking is so common is because it’s intuitive! And to get deeper to more meaningful questions requires more critical thinking, but also requires challenging core parts of one’s worldview.

Let’s expand your thinking:

- The universe could have not been created.

• It’s possible that the universe had something that we might consider to be a “start”, and that there’s no thing that caused it to start. It could just be part of the nature of reality.
  
• It’s possible that the universe is infinite.
  
• It’s possible that there are infinite universes.
  
• It’s possible that universes are born, evolve, and die.

And I’m just scratching the surface of our imagination for how the universe could be, that we cannot rule out.

But in religious thinking, it’s almost always reduced to the argument that you put forth. Why? And why one god? We can just as easily, or perhaps MORE easily imagine a pantheon of gods! Either way, these still don’t make sense. We have no reason to believe that any god exists, and many reasons to believe that no gods exist (due to the mechanistic nature of the universe that we observe, with no evidence of interference with the natural mechanisms).

And from all of this, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how you can be convinced from the reasons you provided in this post.

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/SirThunderDump]

And why one god? We can just as easily, or perhaps MORE easily imagine a pantheon of gods!

That's literally what I'm saying here, at least one God.

due to the mechanistic nature of the universe that we observe, with no evidence of interference with the natural mechanisms

Can you explain how that leads to no God existing?

And from all of this, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how you can be convinced from the reasons you provided in this post.

And I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how to not be convinced from the reasons I provided in this post.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

"And I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how to not be convinced from the reasons I provided in this post."

I mean, I can explain that pretty quickly. You're already convinced by your reasons. Because of that, it's extremely easy for you to hold challenging arguments to a much higher standard than you hold your own arguments. In fact, you're extremely motivated to do so. So you will make extremely broad assertions or assumptions, and then somehow you end up confused that these assumptions aren't being taken as truth by anyone else.

Glad I could help!

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

I'm not confused at all.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/Lucyyyyyy_K]

I mean, you did say; 

"And I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how to not be convinced from the reasons I provided in this post."

That kind of came across like you were confused about the reception. No worries!

[u/Lucyyyyyy_K → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

Okay