Jamie_L

Continuing my personal spin-off threads from <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000635" target="_blank">Why Would God Send Me to Hell?</a>:

Assuming:
1) I have honestly concluded that it is irrational to believe God exists.
and
2) I am wrong, and God is real.

Then:
Why don't I believe?

My thoughts:
I didn't create my brain.
I didn't have complete (or even significant) control over the formation of my personality.
I don't create the inputs my brain receives.

If the universe DOES have ample evidence for God (as many theists claim), and I don't see it, why is that? Am I deficient? Who or what is to blame?

It just seems to me if God wanted me to believe, there'd be evidence enough to make me believe, or I would have been made a different person so that the existing evidence was good enough.

Maybe this is the Arguement from Atheism. If God was real, and he wanted me to not be an atheist, I wouldn't be an atheist.

Jamie

K

Jamie:

I think you'll only get some garbage that says that God doesn't give us enough evidence to show He's there because that would somehow interfere with free will. Then that will be followed up with something about you being able to CHOOSE what you believe. I personally think both statements are ridiculous.

Kassiana

Because the Gods don't mind if you don't believe in them. QED.

GeoTheo

You really do believe in God. You're simply lying.
The reasons people have for acknowledging/ not acknowledging God have nothing to do with imirical evidence or lack thereof.
You choose not to follow God because you do not like the implications of coosing to follow Him.
Most people aren't comfortable asserting this as being the fact in their life so they search for reasons to justify themselves.
One popular method is to focus on the lack of impirical evidence for the existence of God.
This also has the advantage of making one appear intelligent and scientific.
Just some ideas I am throwing out there, so try not to feign moral indignation too hard in reaction to my questioning your honesty. Apparently it is appropriate here to question the honesty of We theists as a matter of course.
I think people are not always honest with themselves so things get complicated. I also think that people have limited minds and need to remind themselves what they believe because we do not have the ability to be aware of all we know about all things at all times, but must retrieve them and piece them back together at times. So if you tell yourself you don't believe in God in a sense you don't, but I believe you arrived at that position in a way that has nothing to do with impirical evidencece. I think that was added later.
Similarly people arrive at their political opinions on a visceral emotional level first and then seek out rational justifications later in order to appear to be a rational intellectual person with good reasons for how they vote.

Shake

and if you tell yourself that you do believe in God in a sense you do, but in a sense you don't Huh? First of all, it's "empirical evidence" Secondly, one could argue the same for belief ... I'll explain further below Well, this almost sounds OK. Yes, people do tend to rationalize and seek out evidence to support their emotional claims. But along the way, some realize that they were wrong! They find evidence to the contrary that is stronger than the evidence that supports their irrational, emotional decisions. I'll even use myself as an example: as a former Republican, I had a strong dislike for Mrs. Clinton on an emotional level, and having the chance to vote against her last election, I did just that. It was only later, during some research on the candidates that I found out that I actually agreed with a few of her stands on issues. But you see, my first action was based solely on emotion, not reason. Granted this is a somewhat weak example since I would still vote against her on other grounds. My point is that sometimes we question our emotional stands and find evidence to support them, but other times we discover (if we are open-minded) the truth and the evidence to back it up! Religious truth is what each of us personally believes is true. Your take on religion cannot be mine, because I am not you!

K

GeoTheo:

I believe that all Christians are really lying to themselves. They don't believe in God in the slightest. They are just afraid of there not being a God, so they intentionally lie to each other about there being a God. They went so far as to deceitfully invent the Bible to write down their lies.

Now that we've gotten the BS out of the way, how about a real discussion? Your statement rests on no more solid ground than mine. They are both absolutely ridiculous.

You may find comfort in believing that I am lying about my beliefs, but I assure you it is not the case. I know you find it difficult to believe, but I am as certain that the Christian God doesn't exist as I am that I'm sitting in this chair. I am much more certain that the Christian God doesn't exist than I am that the sun will rise tomorrow. I am as certain that the Christian God doesn't exist as I am that Thor, Zeus, Isis, Allah, and Vishnu don't exist. Can I possibly make it any clearer that I don't believe in God.

Maybe I can. I don't know if you have kids or not, so this might not mean anything to you. I am not raising my kids to be theists. If they do become theists, so be it (as long as they've thought about it in depth first). Anyway, if I thought for a moment that there was the SLIGHTEST CHANCE that the Christian God existed, I would do whatever it took to save them from eternal damnation. Even if it meant pretending to believe in something that I really didn't.

Vibr8gKiwi

Theists really don't believe in God, they simply lie. They are frightened of death, of being unimportant/mortal, of having no spoon-fed point to their life, so they lie to themselves and invented gods so they could be immortal and be The Most Important Pet of that god.

You know it's true GeoTheo.

Bible Humper

Geotheo, take a look at your Indian counterpart, the Hindu. Now, in your opinion this poor fellow doesn't realise that he has been hooked into a false religion because he has been taught from childhood that his religion is the Truth. His conviction is so strong, in fact, that he is blind to the fact that The Word is actually THE Truth.

Put yourself in his shoes for a minute with an open mind for a little thought experiment, it would be the height of arrogance for any of us to say that if we were in his shoes that we would not have succumbed to the Hindu indoctrination.

The very fact that Hindus have the exact same sort of religious "feelings" and "experiences", except for the fact that they conform to the ideas within their religion rather than yours, is proof positive that it is indeed possible for the mind to allow someone to "know" deities that don't actually exist since we both know that the Hindu gods aren't real.

Imagine yourself in his place, your own mind interprets various random events to be "work of my gods", you even "feel" his gods, and communicate with them, during prayer!

You realise that most of the world isn't Hindu, how can this be so? Clearly, the rest of the people of the world are in denial!

Remember, in his shoes you are convinced that the gods exist by childhood indoctrination into a false religion, so there is absolutely no way you can discern a difference between real and fake perceptions with the very organ which is the author of that perception!

Now, cruising around the internet you come upon a really cool website called Indian Infidels where, to your amazement, you discover hundreds of ex-hindus who have rejected the gods because "they are logically impossible" or "there is no evidence for them".

Imagine your actions and reactions on Indian Infidels, keeping in mind that you firmly believe in the gods.

Keeping in mind the fact that you erroneously believe in the hindu deities, would it be at all possible that you could look at them and interpret their lack of belief in the gods to be the result of being unable to accept the implications of following them?

Could the constant criticism of contradictions in the dogma and lack of evidence to be mere rationalisations in order to justify their lack of belief?

All in the same way you have interpreted our lack of belief in Yahweh here at Internet Infidels?

[ October 08, 2002: Message edited by: Bible Humper ]</p>

K

BH:

Hadn't you heard? All Hindus really believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and God. They're just lying to themselves.

Bible Humper

Hehe, if he plays by the rules of the game, though, he is pretending to be so brainwashed that he believes in the Hindu deities instead of the One True Great Magic Sky-Juju who is truly more truer than true, amen.