God is real or God is a myth about something real?

[science4ever]

Many many believers assert that God has to be real or else their faith is doomed?

Or have no value or is false or fake? But some believers say that God is a myth

that refers to something that is real or what they hope to really exist out there.

 

I am not a believer so I can only listen to their retelling of their experiences

but have there been science study on how this work out in practice?

 

I mean can one look with fMRI scanner and see what lights up in the true believer

when they think God is really real. And if other areas light up in the God as myth believer

thinking that God is a word referring beyond the concept to something not expressable?

 

Could these two kind of believer belong to different personality types?

[krash661]

Many many believers assert that God has to be real or else their faith is doomed?

Or have no value or is false or fake? But some believers say that God is a myth

that refers to something that is real or what they hope to really exist out there.

 

I am not a believer so I can only listen to their retelling of their experiences

but have there been science study on how this work out in practice?

 

I mean can one look with fMTI scanner and see what lights up in the true believer

when they think God is really real. And if other areas light up in the God as myth believer

thinking that God is a word referring beyond the concept to something not expressable?

 

Could these two kind of believer belong to different personality types?

don't you mean mri ?

 

i have came across these,

http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/

Edited July 1, 2013 by krash661

[Michael Lee]

Asking "is God real?" is a personal philosophical question and not a scientific one. However, myths often contain

some truth.

 

Noah, is said to have been a "real" man. The Ark was said to be a real ship.

The Tower of Babel was said to have been a real building.

 

There is nothing irrational about those kinds of expressions. But I do grant,

I'm unable to believe everything in the Bible or other doctrines of theistic belief.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Michael Lee

[science4ever]

krash661 yes sorry I do mean fMRI

"functional magnetic resonance imaging: a technique that directly measures the blood flow in the brain,"

Thanks for the link.

[Phi for All]

Many many believers assert that God has to be real or else their faith is doomed?

Or have no value or is false or fake? But some believers say that God is a myth

that refers to something that is real or what they hope to really exist out there.

 

I am not a believer so I can only listen to their retelling of their experiences

but have there been science study on how this work out in practice?

 

I mean can one look with fMTI scanner and see what lights up in the true believer

when they think God is really real. And if other areas light up in the God as myth believer

thinking that God is a word referring beyond the concept to something not expressable?

 

Could these two kind of believer belong to different personality types?

 

I don't understand the "God is a myth that refers to something that is real" part. How are you determining "real"? Can you give me an example of something else that is a myth that refers to something that is real?

 

Noah, is said to have been a "real" man. The Ark was said to be a real ship.

The Tower of Babel was said to have been a real building.

 

Hearsay. A "real" man who is several centuries old? A ship big enough to accommodate more animals than any ship could structurally hold, built for a storm that's going to kill all the water fowl because somehow there will suddenly be enough water to cover the land right up to the tops of the mountains? A tower that reaches to the heavens but leaves no traces of it's existence? The pyramids are real buildings, and we know they were because of the evidence they leave behind.

[science4ever]

Phi for All I agree with you

 

"God is a myth that refers to something that is real"

 

Maybe if both of us had been believers we could have explained it.

And they still have the problem that usually that which they see as real

is not real for an atheist so it is just a nuance less literal and fundamentalistic

than what the True Believer say when they assert that God is real and alive

and ... many many features they assure their god have.

 

Maybe I should not have mentioned it at all. What I really ask is this.

 

Have any of you read or heard of that one have tried to do reliable measurement

on believers on what goes on when they think of this claim they make. "God is real"

compared to those believers that say that "God is a metaphor for that which is real"

 

The True Believers seen the God is myth believers as atheists

while the God is Myth believers see the True Believers as Fundamentalists.

 

So they see each other as different and my question is can one see that using

the fMRI scans to see what makes the Fundy more fundy than the mytho-poetic believer?

 

One way to refer to it is that the True Believers are what Dawkins refer to as "The God Delusion"

the the True Believers are not aware of that they are in a delusion

but the mytho-poetic believer knows that the the True Believers are in a delusion

but trust themselves to be true to reality when they say that what the Myth point to is real.

 

so it is tricky in that to an atheist both are in delusions while none of these two admit that

apart from knowing the other are in it. To the the True Believers the myths is the delusion too.

My God is real and not a myth they assert.

 

Was that a bit less confusing? Can one measure this difference?

Something related as an example of being aware of a delusion and not being aware of a delusion.

Very naively one end up with this

 

1. the True Believers assert that their God is real

2. the Mytho-poetic Believers assert that the myth points to something that is real.

3. the atheist assert that they lack belief in such claims

 

But the atheists seems to agree with both 1. and 2. that God has to be real

or else God is a fake god or a pretend god or an imaginary god.

 

None of these three seems to accept

that a God can be designed to be seen as real.

 

They would all three of them say that is a fake or false god and not a real god.

 

but if one look way back in history to when we have written history on gods

and all the way up to now then some 6000 or more named gods and almost

all of the believers agree to that ever one of these gods where made up by humans.

 

So the difference is that the God Delusion allow that one see that others where deluded

but one fail to see that oneself is deluded and when one get aware of it then one lose God?

 

This is what I want to understand from a science perspective but I am no scientist on a science lover.

 

I am also interested in if one can construct a religion that knows that they delude themselves

and accept that that is the truth about their faith and still keep their faith in the fake or false God.

Edited July 2, 2013 by science4ever

[Michael Lee]

 

Edited July 3, 2013 by Michael Lee

[ACG52]

Well there's no evidence of an Ark, or of a flood, or of the existence of Noah.

 

But there are plenty of pictures of Einstein.

[Michael Lee]

Okay, I'm out of here - I'm obviously out of place.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Michael Lee

[ACG52]

Actually his brain is in the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

 

His is a better picture than yours.

 

[Michael Lee]

Okay, ACG52, is that the best you can do? Resort to insults of my appearances. Shame on you!

[ACG52]

I didn't say anything about your looks, just your picture.

 

Am I supposed to believe you exist?

So we've got Einstein's original manuscripts, his letters, his biographies, his theorems, recordings of him, pictures of him and his brain.

 

All we've got of you are 7 posts that could have easily been written by a bot and a bad picture.

 

There's far more evidence of Einstein's existence than there is of yours.

 

So do we believe you exist?

[Michael Lee]

I should have known better to talk about religion with scientists.

They believe they have all the answers to all of humanities' problems.

How lame and vain are they!

Edited July 3, 2013 by Michael Lee

[science4ever]

I have not been able to ask the question in a concise way.

 

 

I mean can one look with fMRI scanner and see what lights up in the true believer
when they think God is really real. And if other areas light up in the God as myth believer
thinking that God is a word referring beyond the concept to something not expressable?

Could these two kind of believer belong to different personality types?

 

So my question is maybe too direct or specific about using fMRI

so suppose I retrack to this

 

"Could these two kind of believer belong to different personality types?"

 

I claim there are atleast two types of believers. literal Fundamentalists

that read the text to say what it say and then the believers that read it

seeing the text metaphorically to be like a story pointing to the real but unknown God?

 

So seen from atheism not much difference

but to the first category they see the mythers as atheists.

 

so it does not help the mythers they say myth refer to the real.

My interest is are these two belonging to two difference type of personalities.

and

 

and why does God has to be real? Okay Einstein is very real.

Some of those living today has even met him.

 

but compare with George Orwell who is a famous author of "1984" book

he did never exist but the name refers to another guy that actually

wrote the book but used a pseudonym for some reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell

 

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950),

known by his pen name George Orwell,

was an English novelist and journalist.

 

So they use "pen name" as an explanation for why he used another name.

Could he maybe have realized the Press would chase him like Celebs today

not being able to get out without paparazzi chasing them all over the place.

 

Maybe too different ways to exist either using real name of "pen name".

so applied to God would be the myth about God and what the myth really refers to.

 

The fundies then trust that the Myth is the real God and the Mythers realize

that it is Eric Arthur Blair who just used a pen name like George Orwell.

[seriously disabled]

My mother always told me that there is no God and I believe her. I think God is definitely a myth since I've seen and experienced zero evidence of his existence. I have experienced no miracles in my life and God never made any of my dreams come true. So my best guess is that he simply doesn't exist.

 

Also there is too much pain and suffering in this world for there to be a loving God. People (and animals) are suffering and are in terrible pain so if there was a loving God then he would not let people needlessly suffer.

 

So all the evidence I have at my disposal points to there being no God at all.

Edited July 3, 2013 by seriously disabled

[science4ever]

What I ask is this: Are there two kinds of believers?

And can one somehow measure this using science

Maybe using those fMRI scans that are so popular?

 

I also ask why these two different kind of believers

need God to be something real.

 

Why can they not accept that God is a cultural social psychological idea

that is a kind of human tool. Humans are tool makers and God is one such tool?

 

I am not good at finding good words for these questions

but I only trust that science can answer them so that is why I am here.

[krash661]

narrow mindedness.

 

everything always leads to a bigger picture.

the subjects out come is based on human mentality and human behavior in a majority with out subject to change.

there's at lease 10% truth to everything,

more than likely 90% of it is bull shit.

nothing more.

humanity flows in it's path as it does,

and as of this moment in humanity,what is value to it, is what is value to it.

nothing more.

we as humans decide what is valuable by a majority.

nothing more.

in the end,there's only 3 thing for human existence that is tangibly or realistically valuable,

and those 3 things are,

life, intelligence and language, every thing else is just bullshit to keep a majority content.

humanity has already failed.

[Moontanman]

I should have known better to talk about religion with scientists.

They believe they have all the answers to all of humanities' problems.

How lame and vain are they!

 

Hmmm, projection much? All I have ever heard my whole life is that religion has all the answers and yet they demonstrably have nothing science on the other hand has demonstrable results, our entire first world civilization is based on science, take it away and see how religion fails to prevent the deaths of billions as food, water, power and sewage treatment fails... yeah pray for the electricity to come back on...

[science4ever]

What Knownothing wrote in another thread seems to be rather true.

 

Without God, people need true reasons to be satisfied, and in many cases

they will never find them without just making up their own secular superstitions.

 

For to make a superstition to be effective it has to appear real.

Seems to work for the believers but fail for us atheists.

 

The believer see God as very real while an atheist lack belief in God.

 

So as Knownothing writes. An atheist would need "true reasons to be satisfied"

and would bark loud if one gave them something they know are not true or real.

 

So it is a kind of Catch 22. You are damned if you lie about it and damned if you tell the truth?

 

One would need to give the atheist a myth that is of such high value

that it does not matter that it is a myth that just pretend to be real.

 

A kind of secular art form like music or movies or similar?

 

music often get's very close to appear real.

But if one ask the musician they often admit

that when private they play totally other music

and what they do on stage is just a faked thing.

They really don't like what they play it is a job they do.

 

So their fans love it despite it is lie a kind of myth.

AFAIK Bob Dylan got so angry on his fans wanting him

to play something he was fed up with that he refused

and turned his back to them and they booed him and

he left for to never come back many times.

He refused to fake it for their sake but they wanted the fake too.

Even knowing he would have to fake it they loved those old songs

so much that they wanted him to pretend he sang it with joy.

 

Is it not odd? They valued these songs so much

that they rather force him to fake it then to accept

that he hated to sing those songs that he rather left the room.

Edited July 12, 2013 by science4ever