Jesus: A coping way

[RoyC (Roy Clouser)]

Are you intending to characterize all beliefs as produced by motional needs? Freud would agree with you. But if all beliefs are the products of emotional needs, so is the belief that all beliefs are cause by emotional needs! In that case, the proposal undercuts its own claim to truth. If you do not intend that the proposal accounts for all beliefs, then it is still possible that belief in God is produced by the experience of the gospel being self-evidently the truth about God from God - which is what I see the New Testament as saying.

[NickolaosPappas (Nick)]

@RoyC

But if all beliefs are the products of emotional needs, so is the belief that all beliefs are cause by emotional needs

What kind of argument is that? It doesnt make any sense at all

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Actually, it does. Isn’t the belief that beliefs are caused by emotional needs itself a belief? Then emotional needs caused it.

[fmiddel]

@NickolaosPappas

Ive been thinking about this sometimes. As many atheists phillosophers said (and maybe even religious ones) people tend to believe in something so to ease their pain or to help them with their lives. I think that sometimes it seems we do indeeed choose to believe for our own reasons but in the end it all comes down to us wanting not to die and go to heaven. Hats maybe our fear. That we may cease to exst. Thats why we believe.
I guess i never truly understood how most people here say that theyve seen God work trough their lives. I for once never experienced it.

What are your thoughts on this premise?

Is that the reason people believe?

Is that a guess? Or do you have evidence to suggest that this is why people believe?

[RoyC (Roy Clouser)]

Sure it does. If it characterizes ALL beliefs then it must characterize itself too, because it is also a belief. It’s what philosophers call self-referentially incoherent. It shows that the proposal doesn’t make sense.

[NickolaosPappas (Nick)]

Are you serious?Thats a theory.Several philosophers have proposed it.Do you suggest they were talking about their beliefs?

[NickolaosPappas (Nick)]

@fmiddel

Is that a guess? Or do you have evidence to suggest that this is why people believe?

Some people do for that reason theres no doubt. It was just my thoughts

[NickolaosPappas (Nick)]

I though people here were intelligent enough to know what a theory is .Guess not

Heres a quick definiton

a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

It’s a reflexive definition, so logically, they have to be. But no, I don’t think that is true in practice.

[Cody_G (I have been crucified with Christ.)]

@NickolaosPappas

I guess i never truly understood how most people here say that theyve seen God work trough their lives. I for once never experienced it.

How does a person know if God is working in their life?

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@Cody_G

How does a person know if God is working in their life?

There is no "if ". But any person who wishes can eventually be granted the eyes of faith to see how God has been working in their life. Not necessarily as some apologetic persuasion (though for some it might be used in that way), but as a sign to the persons whose lives are affected.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

@Mervin_Bitikofer

Not necessarily as some apologetic persuasion (though for some it might be used in that way), but as a sign to the persons whose lives are affected.

I’m not sure to whom your ‘some’ refers, whether the ‘apologist’ or the unbeliever, but I know of some (not that I can document easily) whose ears were opened by hearing of God’s acts of providence in someone else’s life. In any case, believers can rejoice in them (like I do in Maggie’s testimony and Glenn’s, not to mention Rich Stearns’ or George Müller’s).

We are also told in many places in scripture to ‘make known’ his deeds, so I have no apology (speaking of apologists ).

[NickolaosPappas (Nick)]

@Dale

In any case, believers can rejoice in them

Not all believers

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@Dale

…but I know of some (not that I can document easily) whose ears were opened by hearing of God’s acts of providence in someone else’s life.

Oh yes! And I didn’t mean to make it sound so “exceptional” as that post did make it sound. We are all part of a large and growing “cloud of witnesses” about what God has done in our lives. With perhaps some notable exceptions, it seems to me that daily stories of that (such as what I might offer) aren’t the “empirical smoking gun” that a materialistically determined skeptic typically insists they want. If one wants, they can just hold out for “non-God” explanations, if explanations are what they think all religion should be about. I’m simply point out that eyes of faith can be opened to see God’s work in our ordinary lives and to recognize it as such.

[RoyC (Roy Clouser)]

Yes, a theory is an educated guess we make in order to explain something. But the theory has to make sense. It’s not the case that just anything goes. And if it is such that if even it were true we could never know it to be true, then it is not a good proposal but one that is self-defeating.

[NickolaosPappas (Nick)]

@RoyC

But the theory has to make sense.

Why it doesnt make sense?

Also i guess its not a theory because some people do belive in God for that reason.So no longer a theory but a fact

[RoyC (Roy Clouser)]

The theory proposes that all beliefs are forced on us by our emotional needs. That means the theory itself is forced on us by our emotional needs and is therefore not a judgment we have arrived at by evidence or reasoning. In that case we can’t KNOW it is true - even if it were. Any explanation that cancels it’s own truth is worthless as an explanation.

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@RoyC

Yes, a theory is an educated guess we make in order to explain something.

It’s a lot more than that even! But the “…to explain something” starts to get there. A good theory explains a lot of things. (note: It doesn’t explain everything - and nor is it expected to.)

In what seems like a couple eons ago, I wrote a poem about this and published it in this very forum for the first time. Check it out and let me know what you think.

[NickolaosPappas (Nick)]

You are getting caught up at words .You see the trees but you lose the forest.

[RoyC (Roy Clouser)]

Clever rhyme, Mervin. You have grasped the concept of a theory.