People who believe in God are "NOT" broken

[Crispy Bacon]

When I went to my youth convention (during Christmas break) I really grew a lot in my faith. The first night I dedicated my Life to God, and was overwhelmed with peace/love and clarity. I let down my defenses and really started to love people. I didn't have to put up a front, I was just myself.

 

The last day of the convention I had been watching youtube parodies. That night I didn’t feel the same, I wasn’t connecting, and I couldn’t feel his presence like I did the other nights. I began to think “maybe I don’t even know God” Just as I had that thought the speakers blew up really loud. People around me jokingly said “it’s a sign from God”, but it was. The second I denied him it happened.

 

The only times I feel "broken" is when I'm away from God. Kinda like lately :/

[John Cuthber]

So, no actual evidence, just a redundant thread.

[Crispy Bacon]

So, no actual evidence, just a redundant thread.

 

I never said it was evidence for God. It is evidence that people who believe in God arn't broken. I felt so alive... Now I'm kinda broken because I've drifted away.

[iNow]

I suspect you are missing the community aspect of religious practice, and the social cohesion and support you received from like-minded thinkers and believers. However, all evidence suggests that you don't need some imaginary concept of god or other deity to feel whole. If you do, then isn't that itself simply more evidence that you are in some important way truly broken?

 

If you cannot feel whole without believing that some iron age fairy tale is real, that seems to speak directly against your core claim in the thread title that people who believe in god(s) are not broken.

I never said it was evidence for God. It is evidence that people who believe in God arn't broken.

No, it's really not.

[Amaton]

 

 

I never said it was evidence for God. It is evidence that people who believe in God arn't broken.

 

I think the orignal "people who...are broken" thread was rather misled, and this one is no better.

 

You feel like you're not broken. Your individual case implicates nothing for theists abroad.

 

You feel like you're not broken. One's psychology goes beyond what is apparent to themself.

 

Anyway, you failed to properly present your matter, which is whether people who believe in God are broken. You did not address your position, elaborate on your reasoning, or give any evidence relevant to the title. Instead, you provided personal reasoning for why you may believe in God, but it had very little to do with "brokeness", for either you or theists in general.

[Crispy Bacon]

I don't know a single person that isn't broken in some sort of way.

 

I think people who believe in God and have faith are less broken. I don't have as much faith as I use to and I have made many mistakes. I feel more broken because I'm further away from God.

 

It's not that I am "missing the community aspect of religious practice". I was never big on that anyway.

[iNow]

I don't know a single person that isn't broken in some sort of way.

This, too, speaks against your own core premise as stated in the thread title. In the thread title, you said that people who believe in god(s) are NOT broken, and now just 3 posts in you're saying that you don't know a single person who isn't broken (aka... everyone is broken in some way).

 

Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

[Crispy Bacon]

This, too, speaks against your own core premise as stated in the thread title. In the thread title, you said that people who believe in god(s) are NOT broken, and now just 3 posts in you're saying that you don't know a single person who isn't broken (aka... everyone is broken in some way).

 

Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

 

I think people who believe in God are no more broken than people who don't believe in God.

 

Infact I think they're less broken.

[iNow]

Okay, but why? Would you say the same thing about people who believe in the tooth fairy? Or people who believe in Zeus? After all, those positions (while less popular) rest on exactly the same footing as belief in god or gods, even if the god is one tied to Abrahamic religions and called Yahweh.

[zapatos]

 

I think people who believe in God are no more broken than people who don't believe in God.

 

Infact I think they're less broken.

So it's settled. People who believe in God are broken

 

But that is not really the question. The question is, is a belief in God indicative of a break in one's ability to reason and understand the world.

 

Whether or not people are broken in other ways was not what the original thread was addressing.

[Crispy Bacon]

Okay, but why? Would you say the same thing about people who believe in the tooth fairy? Or people who believe in Zeus? After all, those positions (while less popular) rest on exactly the same footing as belief in god or gods, even if the god is one tied to Abrahamic religions and called Yahweh.

 

Well Jesus was an historical person.

 

+ adults believe in Jesus, only kids believe in the tooth fairy and zeus (and crazy people lol).

 

1) We can get rid of all gods that we can understand. Because a god we can understand would be a man-made god. (This gets rid alot of other gods.)

 

How great is God--beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out. – Job 36:26 (many other verses)

 

2) We can get rid of gods that have died out.

 

3) We can get rid of gods that are copied from other gods.

 

Google "Was Jesus a Copy of Horus, Mithras, Krishna, Dionysus and Other Pagan Gods?"

 

From here we are left with a handful of gods and I think Jesus would be the most logical choice.

 

But I think we should stick on topic.

So it's settled. People who believe in God are broken

 

 

So it's settled. People who don't beleve in God are broken. We are all Broken.

[Nouveau]

How many people go out each week and buy a lottery ticket, virtually everyone of those people know it is vastly unlikely that they will win the lottery so why?

They buy their tickets because the thought of winning makes them happy, they tell themselves that perhaps they could actually win.

This isn't mental illness or being broken, it is simply wishful thinking, but it also shows us how people can choose to believe in a God.

 

Each of us are capable of choosing to accept a picture of reality that makes us happy, even if it doesn't always fit with the evidence. We each of us ignore things on a daily basis that we know are perfectly possible, yet we simply choose to set them out our minds or replace them with a preferred thought.

For example you go and buy a hot dog, now logically you can probarbly reason it's quite likely there will be things in that hot dog you'd actually rather not eat, yet you tell yourself oh it's fine perfectly healthy and wholesome, because you're hungry and you'd never eat it otherwise.

 

If we had to face the stark reality of everything all the time without a little self delusion just how miserable would life really be, also we don't know for absolute certain when we die we arn't just going to awaken in some other strange place with a big neon sign some where saying "Level 2"!

[Phi for All]

I think people who believe in God and have faith are less broken. I don't have as much faith as I use to and I have made many mistakes. I feel more broken because I'm further away from God.

 

Some things I've observed over the years here at SFN:

 

Faith is praised as being the strongest form of belief, but it's based on nothing but feelings. Trust seems to be a better way to believe in something if you want it to be real.

 

It was very important for humans to evolve this ability to imagine lions in the shadows, and those who did survived longer than those who didn't. This makes us predisposed to imagining things we can't see, and further allows us to imagine we must have been created by all-powerful parents in much the same way we create our children. We're wonderfully communicative storytellers, and we need a way to differentiate between reality and stories. Science is very good for that.

 

People want to believe that an omnipotent being can save them if they believe hard enough. Many people give their god credit for seemingly miraculous cures they prayed for. Cancer seems to be a disease god can cure, but he never regrows the limb of anyone who loses a leg or an arm, no matter how many people pray, no matter how hard they pray. Could the answer be that god isn't curing anybody?

 

Faith is supposed to be unquestioning belief, so it's hard to see how you can still say you have faith but not as much as you used to. What are you questioning lately? If you question part of it, could it be your intelligence noticing some irregularities rather than a lack of faith in the stories that were passed along to you?

[zapatos]

So it's settled. People who believe in God are broken

 

But that is not really the question. The question is, is a belief in God indicative of a break in one's ability to reason and understand the world.

 

Whether or not people are broken in other ways was not what the original thread was addressing.

 

So it's settled. People who don't beleve in God are broken. We are all Broken.

 

But of course your thread is titled "People who believe in God are "NOT" broken". I thought that was the assertion we were trying to settle.

 

Are we also trying to settle whether or not ALL people are broken? Because if so, I think that is far from settled.

[Crispy Bacon]

but he never regrows the limb of anyone who loses a leg or an arm, no matter how many people pray, no matter how hard they pray.

 

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. - John 9:2-3

Some of the happiest people I've ever meet are people with disabilities. Many of them do the work of God and inspire people to be greatful for what they have.

[Iggy]

I think people who believe in God are no more broken than people who don't believe in God.

 

Okay, but why?

 

By sheer numbers you [profanity removed]

 

 

Would you say the same thing about people who believe in the tooth fairy?

 

Yes, kids who believe in the tooth fairy aren't broken, [profanity removed]

 

 

Or people who believe in Zeus?

 

Yes, people who believed in Zeus weren't broken.

 

You know this! If you stopped yourself for half a second and asked yourself... you know this!

[Crispy Bacon]

Okay if I could change the title I would rename it "we are all broken, not just people who believe in God" (long title I know lol)

 

I've been an atheist before and I was most certainly broken, and when I found God I felt less broken.

[zapatos]

By sheer numbers you [profanity removed]

Really? You've decided to go down that road?

[Iggy]

Really? You've decided to go down that road?

 

I didn't decide it. More than half of a thing produced can't be broken. That's just the way it works.

 

It's a numbers thing.

 

More than half of the persons on the planet believe in God. It, therefore, can't be broken.

 

What road do you mean?

[hypervalent_iodine]

 

I didn't decide it. More than half of a thing produced can't be broken. That's just the way it works.

 

It's a numbers thing.

 

More than half of the persons on the planet believe in God. It, therefore, can't be broken.

 

What road do you mean?

 

!

Moderator Note

The road where you get suspended for apparently losing your mind. See you in a week.

[iNow]

How great is God--beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out. – Job 36:26 (many other verses)

 

Are you aware that an internally inconsistent and self-contradicting anthology written back in the iron age is not sufficient proof in favor of the existence of a god or gods?

 

When a person claims that god(s) exists, that is an extraordinary claim, and such claims require extraordinary evidence in support of them before they deserve to be taken seriously or treated as credible by anyone with a rational, reasonable, (mostly) unbroken mind. A verse from the bible simply does not surpass that hurdle... it does not even come close to meeting the inherent evidence-based requirement set by these claims.

 

That is why discussions of belief in god(s) always revert back to basic faith... Faith being perhaps one of the single worst possible reasons to accept something as true. It has no value, as your "faith" in Yahweh is in no way functionally different from someone else's faith that the Smurfs actually exist outside of fiction and cartoons.

 

I have suggested here and elsewhere that to accept such self-evidently ludicrous claims based on such vacuous and hollow and effectively nonexistent evidence is broken... and broken in a way that is significantly and meaningfully different from the various other ways humans are broken.

 

You have suggested the contrary. You have suggested that people who accept such self-evidently ludicrous claims based on such vacuous and hollow and effectively nonexistent evidence are somehow LESS broken than those who dismiss such claims as nonsense. Can you elaborate on why that is, and perhaps defend your position in a way that might make someone like me question my own?

 

 

 

 

By sheer numbers you [profanity removed]

 

The popularity of a belief is in no way relevant to whether or not that belief can accurately be described as broken.

Edited August 9, 2013 by iNow

[John Cuthber]

 

I never said it was evidence for God. It is evidence that people who believe in God arn't broken. I felt so alive... Now I'm kinda broken because I've drifted away.

It seems that the OP accepts that this thread is redundant. Perhaps it should be merged with the existing one about this subject.

Also, Crispy,

Nobody said anything about evidence for God.

My point was that you hadn't produced any evidence for the assertion that people who believe in God are not broken.

Asserting that you believe that you are sane isn't reliable evidence that you are.

[md65536]

You have suggested the contrary. You have suggested that people who accept such self-evidently ludicrous claims based on such vacuous and hollow and effectively nonexistent evidence are somehow LESS broken than those who dismiss such claims as nonsense. Can you elaborate on why that is, and perhaps defend your position in a way that might make someone like me question my own?

To chime in, and generalize from belief in a supernatural humanoid to belief in maybe *anything* that requires faith...

 

Delusion can be beneficial and healthy, depending. In that sense, any belief that helps someone might be considered to make them "less broken". We don't need to constantly face every aspect of reality, and if we did we'd probably go mad ("broken"). Things like impending death, questions of the point of existence, etc, can healthily be avoided rather than obsessed over, and in that sense faith can be helpful to some. For others, a harsh examination of reality works better.

 

But delusion can be bad as well. Many people start off on "spiritual journeys" and are so consumed by the initial beneficial feelings they get, that they become obsessed and devoted to achieving that drug-like high. Pushed too far, faith can become a net detriment, leading to neurotic behavior and feelings.

 

For many, belief in a god is a benefit that is preferable to some other search for answers, and a source of hope, guidance, etc. For many, it is source of misery, guilt, etc etc. Some are less broken by it, some are more broken. The thread title is a false generalization.

Edited August 9, 2013 by md65536

[iNow]

Delusion can be beneficial and healthy, depending.

I appreciate your thoughtful post, and acknowledge that we agree about quite a lot. I do, however, struggle to accept the above assertion just on principle.

 

While I recognize that a delusion may help a person to cope with the challenges of life or some sort of trauma, I cannot agree that this is healthy. In this context, the delusion is roughly equivalent to a multiple personality disorder wherein an individual creates distinct personalities to wall off some pain, and they switch between personalities as a way to cope with the realities before them. That's not healthy, but it is an equivalent process to what you're suggesting here in context of delusion.

 

If an individual were truly healthy, I suggest their coping mechanism would NOT rely on something like delusion (or multiple personalities as noted above), but would instead be rooted in things like acceptance and honest introspection.

 

Perhaps I'm being pedantic, though. I know what you're suggesting, and largely agree. Sometimes people have beliefs that comfort them or that help them with certain challenges of existence. It's just that I cannot, given what I know, agree that a delusion of any sort can be described as healthy.

 

I'm not arguing that people who comfort themselves are broken. I'm arguing that an active believe in such self-evidently ludicrous claims based on such vacuous and hollow and effectively nonexistent evidence is broken... and broken in a way that is significantly and meaningfully different from the various other ways humans are broken.

[John Cuthber]

To chime in, and generalize from belief in a supernatural humanoid to belief in maybe *anything* that requires faith...

 

Delusion can be beneficial and healthy, depending. In that sense, any belief that helps someone might be considered to make them "less broken". We don't need to constantly face every aspect of reality, and if we did we'd probably go mad ("broken"). Things like impending death, questions of the point of existence, etc, can healthily be avoided rather than obsessed over, and in that sense faith can be helpful to some. For others, a harsh examination of reality works better.

 

But delusion can be bad as well. Many people start off on "spiritual journeys" and are so consumed by the initial beneficial feelings they get, that they become obsessed and devoted to achieving that drug-like high. Pushed too far, faith can become a net detriment, leading to neurotic behavior and feelings.

 

For many, belief in a god is a benefit that is preferable to some other search for answers, and a source of hope, guidance, etc. For many, it is source of misery, guilt, etc etc. Some are less broken by it, some are more broken. The thread title is a false generalization.

This

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/pa-faith-healing-dad-loses-bid-end-murder-19894604

is the sort of broken that arises from belief in God

and this " We don't need to constantly face every aspect of reality, and if we did we'd probably go mad ("broken"). "

in my opinion

" is a false generalization."

because believing that the sky fairy will make it better isn't going to improve things nearly as well as actually doing something about it.

It reminds me of this

http://weknowmemes.com/2013/05/ricky-gervais-only-sent-money/