Johnny Skeptic

As an agnostic, I do not promote naturalism, nor do I promote intelligent design. The evidence that I require of any possible God who wants me to accept him is much more than any God of any religion has chosen to provide me with. The Bible writers claim that the evidence that we have is sufficient for accepting God, but I disagree. If the God of the Bible exists, and if he created the universe and humans, I am perfectly willing to discuss his actions and allowances with him, and if I deem his explanations to be satisfactory, I will accept him. Maybe I would find his explanations to be sufficient, but maybe I wouldn't.

What gives God the right to determine what evidence is sufficient for accepting him?

Selsaral

There are two issues here that are often confused when discussing this topic. The first is whether or not one believes God actually exists. The other is whether one wants to 'follow' or 'obey' him. They are entirely different questions.

Which IMHO is where the word 'accept' comes from. It sort of fuses the two ideas together into one, assuming that if one believes God exists one would naturally 'follow' this god (and often subconsciously implies that since God is good only an evil person wouldn't 'accept' him - stupendouly missing the point of course).

Now if God is actually good (despite people's story's about him), then placing some burden on people to 'follow' him (or face punishment) is within the ballpark of morality. Similar to how a criminal is judged to have broken laws and is punished. It is of course completely at odds with the concept of Free Will and Divine Hiddenness and many other absurd apologetics, but that's a different topic.

But to place a burden on people to believe in him without evidence (or face punishment) is catastrophically immoral and absurd (and obviously merely a power play by humans trying to gain power).

So when a theist attempts to play off God's demand of 'acceptance' as morally good, they are allowing morality to be based upon whether or not someone believes a silly story (because they have fused belief in the story and following God's laws into one concept), which is unjust.

As an atheist, I simply cannot get past whether or not he exists. I have never gotten close to the second part as to whether I'd 'follow' him etc. It's immoral to judge me based on part 2 when a whole process of cognition is required in part 1 to even get to part 2, and it isn't happening in my head. I've judged thousands of christian Gods based upon what their followers claim, but that was just an intellectual excersize. I don't believe any of them exist.

Of course the entire topic is further confused by the fact that every christian appears to believe in a different God. Some christian Gods punish people for not believing, some don't. Some christian Gods don't care if you are good or not, some do. Some christian Gods are simply evil, turning the whole issue on its head.

Alethias

If the evidence required for believing god is not distinguishable from the type of thing a huckster presents to get you to believe his con job, how am I supposed to conclude that religion is anything but a big con job?

I am, unfortunately, a very gullible person. I could believe almost anything that sounds reasonable at first glance. This being the case, the only reasonable thing I can do is to start from a stance that if something goes against perceived reality that it must meet a very high standard of evidence for me to accept it as true. Otherwise, I would have no distinct worldview at all; I'd be swayed by any convincing whim out there.

SoT

Johnny Skeptic

I do not have any idea how the universe got here. Maybe somebody created it and maybe the universe is naturalistic. Even if skeptics concede for the sake of argument that a version of the God of the Bible exists, and that he created the universe and humans, that still leaves Christians with the unenviable task of reasonably proving that God has sufficiently good character to merit people becoming Christians. I submit that there are plenty of good reasons for questioning God's character.

I hope that Christians will explain why they believe that God has the right to determine what evidence is sufficient for acceptance of Christianity.

ggd316

I don't think there could possibly be a god. Every christian's god is different. But even if god is real, I do not see who in their right mind would follow him.

I have read the Bible a few times, I was raised in a christian family. And really, god seems like a ruthless tyrant. After thinking about all the people who have been killed in his name, i don't see why anyone would follow him.

This is off topic. But if God is real, I feel bad for Satan. It doesn't seem like he did anything bad, except for try to overthrow god. But if God is real, he needs to be overthrown.

Orthodox_Freethinker

As Jesus Christ inquired to the Pharisees, why judge with human standards when you should be judging with God's standards?
The existence of God, like one's necessity of eating food, is not something which is in need of overwhelming proof but is a properly basic belief. One need only witness the universe and intuitively receive that there is a divine hand behind its origin.
For the universe to be reasonable, there must be a rational Mind in order to give it reason.

Orthodox_Freethinker

By becoming man, teaching a message of tolerance of love and then freely suffering on a cross for the atonement of the world, God is somehow a 'ruthless tyrant'? Yes, and Mother Theresa was a fascist.

ggd316

What about Sodom. The countless infanticides that took place all through out the Old Testament. Or the verse in Matthew that says you can not be Jesus' disciple if you don't hate your father, mother, brother, and even your own life. Or what about the Amekolites (don't remember the spelling) who were killed by I think Saul because their ancestors sinned against the Lord. The Lord is very egotistical. And mean

ggd316

I think that makes god a sort of tyrant.

Orthodox_Freethinker

It is in the incarnation of Christ that we know the nature of God. Therefore, it is possible that the Hebrews before His coming were in some ways mistaken.

"In Luke 14:26, Jesus is drawing a comparison of importance by exaggerating a relationship. He is saying that it is far more important to love Him than anyone else, including your own parents. Of course, He is not telling people to hate their parents. He is saying that by comparison to Him, you must love Him more than all else.

In 1 John 3:15, John is writing to the church about abiding in the love of Christ. In fact, in 1 John, the word "abide" occurs 16 times in the NASB and the apostle continually refers to abiding in Christ (1 John 2:4,24,28; 3:6,24, etc.)
Therefore, we see that a true Christian will love the Lord Jesus supremely and in so doing he will not abide in hatred towards his brother."
http://www.carm.org/diff/Luke14_26.htm


What the heck are you talking about?

If these are your only concerns then they do not provide sufficient reason to disbelieve in the Creator of the universe.