Why were and are there smart people that believe in a god?

Euler, Socrates, Newton. Why did these geniuses believe in g*d and r*ligion, when they are literally just tools for manipulating and controlling the masses made-up by ancient evil people? Like, I don't get it.

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en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument
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belief in god is simply worth it
if you die and there's nothing... well shit
but if there is indeed a god then he can't claim that you didn't believe in him can he

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder. (James 2:19)

But what about religions that rewards non-believers yet fucks you over if you believe in the wrong god?

Check mate protestants.

I want to tell you to put more effort and subtly into your bait, but knowing that people will respond anyway I can't really see the point.

2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
3 For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

>Socrates

user... Let's at least be honest and separate the ancient conception of Gods like Zeus from the relatively modern God like Jesus. They are different, and believers attitudes towards them are also different.

Atheism is a religion of the arrogant & uneducated.

Because being an atheist in pre-modern societies wasn't fun. Even in the most liberal ones, like Newton-era GB, being an open atheist still put you in a significant disadvantage. If all you care about is Math and Physics, there is no point to waste your life on fighting established religion, you might as well follow the majority.

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0/10

the conclusion that God (or any other deity) does or does not exist cannot be arrived at though reason, it can only be felt

The Quinque viæ (Latin, usually translated as "Five Ways" or "Five Proofs") are five logical arguments regarding the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. They are:

the unmoved mover;
the first cause;
the argument from contingency;
the argument from degree;
the teleological argument ("argument from design").

these are all arguments for deism
the honest response to all of these is 'I don't know'

>The first ontological argument in the Western Christian tradition[1] was proposed by Anselm of Canterbury in his 1078 work Proslogion. Anselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be thought", and argued that this being must exist in the mind; even in the mind of the person who denies the existence of God. He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality. If it only exists in the mind, then an even greater being must be possible — one which exists both in the mind and in reality. Therefore, this greatest possible being must exist in reality. Seventeenth century French philosopher René Descartes deployed a similar argument. Descartes published several variations of his argument, each of which centred on the idea that God's existence is immediately inferable from a "clear and distinct" idea of a supremely perfect being. In the early eighteenth century, Gottfried Leibniz augmented Descartes' ideas in an attempt to prove that a "supremely perfect" being is a coherent concept. A more recent ontological argument came from Kurt Gödel, who proposed a formal argument for God's existence. Norman Malcolm revived the ontological argument in 1960 when he located a second, stronger ontological argument in Anselm's work; Alvin Plantinga challenged this argument and proposed an alternative, based on modal logic. Attempts have also been made to validate Anselm's proof using an automated theorem prover. Other arguments have been categorised as ontological, including those made by Islamic philosopher Mulla Sadra.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument

There's a parody of this argument in which someone proved the existence of ninjas. It's a shit argument. The leap from existing in the mind to existing in both mind and reality is stupud.

>If it only exists in the mind, then an even greater being must be possible

The thought that it is somehow "greater" or "more perfect" to exist in both mind and reality is unjustified.

You have to be a special kind of stupid not to figure out that someone made this universe.

You use great to describe something that is very large. Great is more formal than big.

What the fuck are you talking about

It was much more reasonable to believe in gods in past centuries, because they had less information. Newton was just accepting "history" with no particular reason to doubt it. Now we know that the universe is billions of years old, that hamsters are our distance cousins, that most events depicted in the Bible definitely never happened, and that there are countless other religions which also claim "miracles" and so forth. To still believe it in the 21st century is completely different from Newton or Euler believing it.

Ok that is pretty badass.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. (Colossians 2:8)

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:22)

Good thing we have you, and you're smarter than Sir Isaac Newton.

For Jesus
Against Jesus

Pick a side.

you do realise that no decent Christian, once he chooses to engage with non-theists in good will, would ever quote scripture as evidence, right? the correct position towards deism is agnosticism. you can try to share your reasons for faith, how you interact with your theology and do so in good nature.

But for the love of God anons, can you please stop being nu-Christians?

This is why I feel sorry for sad sacks who actually take Dawkins seriously.

...

Heisenberg was drunk when he said that I think

Understanding the limits of our comprehension isn't foolish. A worm doesn't know a human that steps beside it, it may feel the vibrations but it's incapable of fully understanding what's happening, just as we would be incapable of understanding a god even if it's right next to us.

Socrates had interestinc conceptions about faith. He believed he had a personal spirit he could talk to and he was reported to have had a couple of fits/trances during his military service where he apparently communicated with the gods

>fedoras still think to this day socrates was an atheist and pure exemplary of reason
makes me kek everyday

I'm studying to become a medical doctor and I'm a practicing Catholic, ask me anything.