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religion category is under Philosophy. ;~D

Even though it doesn't prove the existence of God, I still like your explanation here.  You believe in God because someone who cared enough to bring you into the world, make themselves a huge part of your upbrining, sacrificed his resources and possessions for you, also cared enough about you to teach you what was important to him.

And most importantly, that you would rather take what he taught you on faith than just go with the crowd of people who haven't done anything but tell you he is wrong.

Short of actual inspiration from God through the Holy Ghost, I'd say that you have a pretty good reason to believe what you do.

Exactly.

I tend to trust my friends and distrust my enemies. It's safer that way.

I can obviously trust the man. He wouldn't raise me and spend so much money just to lie to me about this and laugh at me for believing the nonsense.

(And if he did, I would respect that! It takes a special man to prepare a joke that well.)

Precisely.

And the actual inspirations are happening too. But since they are happening to me they are as useful an argument as a new-agers belief in "healers".

Nobody should believe in G-d because of inspirations I perceive, and nobody should believe in new-age nonsense because of some loony's faith in "healing" methods.

But then you might say that my father, if he were sufficiently weird, could have told me that these "healers" are legitimate too. I would reject the argument and say that while I can see with my own eyes that their art doesn't work, I cannot see with my own eyes that G-d doesn't exist.

So if someone I trust tells me something I cannot disprove, I'll believe it.

So you believe everything your father told you?

When he was sufficiently adamant about it, yes.

Why? Did you have a policy of not believing what your parents told you? How did that work out for you?

Your tentative of bringing up a strawman argument won't succeed.

Having no policy of believing what your parents told you doesn't mean that you have a policy of not believing what your parents told you.

I listened to what my parents told me, but I never took it for granted of what they told me was the Truth. I always have the option of going back on what I believe, because I accept that I might be wrong, so I have to keep my mind open on new inputs. I don't hold my parents in any higher regard.

Nor do I hold a priest.

Nor do I hold someone who wrote a fancy book 4000 years ago.

Nor do I hold the people who translated it over the ages.

Based on that, you are saying that if your father had been a white (or black, or latino, or asian) supremacist, you would have automatically believed in the same ideology?

HA! This cracked me up, Leauki! I guess it worked out fine, I got hit by cars (still do for some reason) and I still get shocked by those things in the wall.  Other then that and getting burnt by fire and ocassionally (only ocassionally) drinking bleach.  I think it all worked out fine.

Thanks for asking Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh...............................................

With that statement I guess we should just rid ourselves history. 

Other dead people giving accounts of events that happened to other dead people.

Some people get the part about thinking for oneself and some people don't.

I have always found that it is quite obvious that no race is superior to another and that hence if my father had told me that, I would eventually have seen that he was wrong.

The thing with G-d is, you cannot see Him or see that He doesn't exist.

Actually, that is what it means.

You either believe them or you don't. When it comes to statements that cannot be proven or unproven, your policy alone decides whether you believe it. You will either trust them or not. There is no in-between.

Nevertheless, you appear to be speaking English. I doubt it really ever occurred to you to question whether the word "and" really means "and". (Ironically, it doesn't. It's a convention, like the belief in a god can be. The truth that "and" is established by faith alone.)

Well, I listened to my parents and believed them unless I had reason to believe that they were wrong. I don't see why there is anything wrong with that.

You got my point perfectly, but you cranked it to the maximum, sadly.

Yes. Based on my logic, you still should be wary of what history tells you, as it might very well be twisted to fit the teller's history. The american's view of history is twisted to fit the Americans, as some other country teach history differently. The concept of not accepting history 100% came to my mind while reading 1984, and the proof of fact was by the discrepancy of history classes between english-speaking and french-speaking people in Canada, which was quite obvious.

But you just contradicted yourself. You told us, not 10 posts ago, that you'd believe anything if your father was adamant about it. If he had input something else than religion into your mind, like socialist values, or atheist views, and would have been as adamant about it, you'd have accepted it.

But if you took your own opinion to yourself, and decided on your own to believe in god (with the influence of your father, which can't be denied), that's something else entirely than believing "because daddy said so". One is valuable input from a third party that was worthy of consideration. The other is brainwash.

You might rate what they are saying as more trustworthy than the rest of the input in the universe if you want, but what you are saying is that there is no middle ground between believing your parents to be unfaillable and rejecting everything of what they say.

I refuse to consider that there is only these two possibility. I respect what my parents believe and think, and I value what they tell me, but I still will make my own choices for myself, and I hope my son will too, and I hope he will feel the same about his own son.

Nevertheless, "and" serves it's purpose here. You don't have to doubt it's meaning as long as it fits the context. But you don't have to put more trust into its meaning than just to understand what I am trying to say.

There is nothing wrong with that. But there is wrong with accepting something just because your parents were adamant about it. Having your parents being adamant about something is not proof of it's veracity, just of the strenght of their convinctions - and I am sure you can understand as well as I that people can have a very high strenght of conviction about something that is completely wrong if other people have convinced them ennough.

Creationism might be a good example of that.

Hey, Leauki, I know this guy named Russell, I've heard he's got a teapot you might be interested in...

That is not quite correct.

I said, when you asked about it:

"I have always found that it is quite obvious that no race is superior to another and that hence if my father had told me that, I would eventually have seen that he was wrong."

There is no contradiction in believing what my dad tells me unless I can see it is wrong.

Belief in G-d also serves its purpose. And like believing that "and" means "and" it cannot be disproven.

It's possible.

But that isn't a problem. I don't, perhaps, know whom my parents trusted. But if they did trust that source and I trust them, I still have no reason to doubt the information just because it is possible that one of the parties lied.

I can see that Creationism isn't true, unless it is a Creationism that does not contradict the theory of evolution and the evidence for evolution.

If my dad had told me that evolution is a lie, I would have realised, eventually, that he was wrong.

So this clearly falls under the "dad is a white supremacist" proviso. I can see with my own eyes that it is wrong.

Remember the original postulation?

"I said that I only believe in G-d and things I can see."

And the reason I believe in G-d is (that is, originally was) that my dad told me he exists. From this you can derive, if you must, that I could have postulated this:

"I believe what my parents told me and things I can see."

But this is not quite correct, since the thing I believed just on the basis of trust was something that I cannot prove or disprove on the basis of seeing. You assumed that when I told you that I believe X because my parents told me it's true, that this would cover any Y as well. However, a Y that contradicts what I can see is NOT covered by my principle. "G-d" is not representative here for absolutely anything but only for those things that cannot be disproven. I didn't mention anything else I just took on faith.

When asked why I believe in G-d, I said I did because my dads told me He existed. But that doesn't mean that I would believe absolutely anything my dad told me even if it is logically different from a concept that cannot be disproven. Perhaps I should have added "...and I cannot disprove it". But then the explanation "because my dad told me" was already correct. It just doesn't allow you to conclude that there are no provisos whatsoever, especially since I specifically mentioned one (the "seeing" of things).

Best case scenario: I see the thing and my parents told me it exists. This covers perhaps 95% (or more) of things including the existence of cars and dogs and other people. So I am fine with those things.

Another easy scenario: I cannot see it and my parents specifically tell me it doesn't exist. This covers imps and demons and smurfs outside comic books or television shows. It also covers these "healers" and the idea that skin colour implies ability.

Sometimes I don't see the thing but my parents tell me it exists. This covers only pretty much only G-d, for me, so I believe in His existence based on trust (i.e. faith) alone (since I cannot see that the belief is wrong).

And finally, leaving out a few scenarions, my parents might tell me something exists whereas I can see that it doesn't. In that case I wouldn't believe it because it is a disprovable concept that I can see is not true.

Isn't' that the difference between the people we trust and the people we don't?   If I trust someone, it means that I tend to believe what they tell me.  If I don't trust somene it means I tend to not believe them.  In either case my initial impressions can be right or wong, but that only comes with actual proof.

People say that they don't just believe what people say, but I would bet that almost no one works very hard to verify something they initially accept.  Of course, the more impact learning it had on your life, the more you probably wanted to see for yourself.