fishbulb

Theophilus:

The fundamental problem is that the skeptic can only be convinced by evidence, and most theologists either admit upfront that there is none to be had, or that evidence only becomes available to those who already believe.

I think that we can both agree that superstitious beliefs have been a common part of human society since before recorded history. My question to you is: why should I believe that your God is something other than superstition, even though it seems to have a lot in common with countless other beliefs that we would both agree are superstitious?

If you can't "nail down precisely what [you] mean" it means that you don't understand the very concept you're asking me to believe in. Do you really expect me to believe in something when you can't even describe what it is that I'm supposed to believe?

But if he had been born in Iran, he would probably suggest that God wants us to live as the Quar'an instructs us. And there would be hundreds of millions of people who agreed with him. Now, why should I believe in your God instead of theirs? Keep in mind that I don't already believe in your God, so simply asserting that your God is real and theirs is false isn't going to convince me of anything, since all you're doing is re-stating your conclusion.

Are you trying to say that we should only demand evidence if evidence exists? Are you saying I should believe your claim because you can't provide evidence? This begs the question: if you don't believe that something is true, you need to be convinced. To convince a skeptical person, you need evidence. A believer might not need verifiable evidence, but then they already believe!

Interesting and important, but I'm sure you meant, "all the supernatural events are said to have occurred." Religious beliefs are usually acquired through the indoctrination of young, credulous children. If someone has not developed critical thinking skills, they can easily be led to believe that something is true simply by being told it is by an authority figure. It's not that people come to have faith in God or the Bible, but rather in the people who tell them that God is real and the Bible speaks the truth. Perhaps you should ask youself how the people who told you this is so came to believe it themselves.

You seem to miss the point. I don't believe in faeries, or bigfoot, or the Lost Continent of Atlantis, or auras, or trailer park alien abductions, or karma, or chi for the same reasons I don't believe in God. Do you believe in every supernatural or fantastic claim proposed to you? If not, then why do you make an exception for God? Skeptical atheists just apply the same standards to God as they do to all other phenomena: belief follows evidence. No evidence, no belief. If you have evidence, give it to us. Otherwise, understand that you will not convince us by simply insisting that you are right.

What makes you think that I believe that the Bible is an accurate recording of history? Because it says so? What makes the Bible more authoritative than the Quar'an or the Odyssey?


If you really want to understand atheism, let me put it this way:

I am not going to believe in your God just because you say he exists. How do you know he exists?

I am not going to believe in your God just because you have a book that says he exists. How do you know that book speaks the truth?

It's not so much that I don't have faith in God--I have no reason to think he even exists--it's that I don't have faith in you. You have given me no reason to think that your beliefs are grounded in anything other than supertition and tradition passed down from one generation to the next. You ask me to believe, but you offer no compelling reason why. You act as though you are in possession of knowledge, but you either can't or won't show me how you came by this knowledge. I have read the Bible and I have been to church. There are a lot of people there who believe in God, but there is nothing there to convince me that there is a God. It's not that I don't want to believe, it's that you give me no reason to.

Baloo

My response is in this thread entitled " What it would take (how any theist, with God's help, can convert me on these boards)" -- which I have *bumped* for theo's sake.

As an aside, I'd like to point out a quote from theo within that thread (which really makes you wonder why he even started the current thread)....

Biff the unclean

You're not thinking clearly here (nothing personal; it happens to all of us). That may be how you prove the existence of a "material" being, but since the Christian God is, by definition, an immaterial being, this test is meaningless. Have you ever seen a fossil of the law of non-contradiction? Does it exist?
Oh I see. When you said "the Christian God" I thought you meant the God of the Bible who had no trouble being material. But you meant some sort of new "Christian God" with different attributes.
A God that isn't material? That's exactly the God that we are presented with. A God whose sole existence is as a character in a series of books. Because we aren't talking about a "law" or an "emotion" we are talking about a "being." A "being" with a personality, history, attributes, agenda. The only kind of a being that is immaterial is a fictional one.

But that's your dilema. You know in advance what a Giant Squid looks like, so you can go looking for one. If you didn't know what it looked like, they could be swimming all around you and you wouldn't know what they were.
Are you trying to imply that if a person didn't believe in giant squids that they somehow wouldn't notice a forty-foot long cephalopod? Or are you trying to say that it isn't possible for people to learn things?

Besides the fact that this test is not valid for immaterial entities,
That's okay, I'm open to tests that would be valid to immaterial entities. What objective double-blind test would you suggest?
God has, in fact, given us a specimen; Jesus Christ, i.e., God incarnate. Now, you'd have to know that he wasn't God to deny this. How would you know that?
Lots of ways. I know that there is not a shred of evidence from the period that such a person even existed. I know that his entire biography is constructed from the bios of the Hellenistic Gods.
But mostly I know that the people who claim that he is God are not telling me the truth because not one of them can back up anything they claim with any evidence.

Selsaral

I'll predictably add that clearly human nature involves believing all sorts of things. There's no better reason for me to believe the Jesus myth than Islam, Hinduism, Hellenism, bigfootism, alienprobeism etc. I think we can all agree scientology, hellenism, the moonies etc are clearly superstitious belief systems lacking any real supernatural phenomena, and I see no reason to think christianity is any different.

Jamie_L

I had lived with doubts and questions since I was a teen-ager. I came from a believing, but non-religious family (my parents pretty-well despised organized religion, but they believed). I had long been a believer who tried to anser my searching questions first by seeking other explanations for how God might be real, but the world didn't seem to match up with the way it ought to be if he was. I had doubts, but rarely voiced them to myself or took them very seriously.

The "revelation" did seem sudden, however. In a way, my disjointed, wandering doubts coalesced or crystalized into a whole that suddenly made sense. When I accepted the fact that my problems stemmed from difficulty believing, I was able to step back, look at all these doubts and questions, and go: "Ah-ha! If I stop admit that I don't believe - if I accept that God isn't real, everything makes sense!" That's why I describe it as a "revelation". It was a long time coming, but actually getting over that last hurdle from being a confused, doubting believer to being an atheist was like a light switch. And this revelation "stuck" because it so clearly made sense of all the questions and problems I had had with belief. Before, I had been trying to explain to myself why the world behaved like there was no God, though there was really a God. When I let myself consider to possiblity that there was no God, I realized how simple everything became. Prior to that, I had never really considered being an atheist or giving up on belief. It just wasn't an option that occurred to me - perhaps because I'd never encountered any atheists. When I finally did (in the form of writings from authors I trusted and respected for other reasons), it opened that door and allowed me to see things in a new light.

Jamie

Gary Welsh

That's a very good question, theophilus -- a valid thing for you to ask.

My initial thought was to say that evidence on the scope of the Old Testament would be good enough to get me to believe. But upon consideration, I'm not even sure that would convince me. If I saw sticks turn into snakes, or a talking donkey, or someone who could walk through fire, or a sick person getting healed, the first thing I would actually think is that it is some kind of trick. If I were to see a 'miracle' -- I admit, my first reaction would NOT be to fall on my knees and yell "Praise Jesus, for he is real!" My initial reaction would be to wonder if it was a hoax or a trick.

The evidence would have to be awfully overt, on a grand scale, and examinable by many people, not just me. It couldn't just be some inexplicable event. Some weird environmental disturbance (like a pillar of fire, raining brimstone, parting seas) by itself wouldn't be proof of god, per se. After all, it might be proof of some other god, or some natural occurrence we've just never seen before, or can't currently explain. It might be caused by an entirely natural source -- higher intelligence of alien sort -- toying with us, playing on our superstitions. Or, it just might be some weird event without any intelligent design at all.

If the evidence were more personal and direct -- for example, hearing "god's voice" in my head... That might be evidence enough to convince me. But then again, I would also wonder if I were hallucinating.

I guess it has a lot to do, in the end, with plausibility. Right now, I just don't find the idea of gods, spirits, ghosts and any of that sort of thing to be plausible. I find natural explanations -- even if we can't immediately detect them -- to be much more plausible, even for 'weird' occurrences (cancer remission, lights in the sky, voices in your head, etc.). Gods -- including the god of the Bible -- just seem so implausible to me, anymore. The evidence would have to be pretty overwhelming for me to believe in such a thing.

*

Like some other replier to this thread said -- and I thought this was the best answer -- if there is an omniscient god, he/it would know what it would take to convince me of his existence. So, if he really wanted to prove his existence to me, he could.

Clutch

Still waiting for an elucidation of the evidential standards I should adopt...

AJ113

Patronisiation does nothing to strengthen your position, Theophilus.

I spent the first forty years of my life as fully practising RC. I have asked for many things specifically in Jesus' name and not received them.

That is how I know that this has not happened.

That is how I know that it is a whopping great lie.

Now take your head from out of your arse and show me where I said anything about asking Jesus to prove himself by doing tricks for unbelievers.

bporter51317

If the Big Guy were willing to say, buy me a beer someplace, we could get down to brass tacks about his existance.

Barring a specific and credible agreement with His Omnipotence, I would have to assume any "signs" wre not necessarily of divine origin or otherwise. Good or bad things can happen, you know. Not necessarily a divine influence there if someone that you know's piles go away.

So we work some terms -> God, what will you do to prove you 1) are God and 2) Exist and 3) this whole Jesus Episode is not just some warmed over Mithra cult scam run awry.

We set the terms, he performs, I believe.

Until then I will assume it's all a lot of nonsense.

theophilus

Well, that may or may not be true, but it doesn't answer my questions about your earlier post.
You say you "believed" at one time, but now you don't. I asked "what" it was you believed.
If you really "believed" that the Bible was the word of God, then by what standard did you decide that it wasn't?
How did you establish this standard as being superior to God's word?
If you really believed in the ressurection, why did you stop believing?