Amie

Hello everyone

I have a question for the atheists here and I thought you may be able to help me understand this.

I believe in God based on my faith. I know that atheists tend to not believe because you have no reasons to and because there is no evidence to support a God belief.
Got me thinking. What would you require to have a God belief? I am thinking it would be a subjective experience for you. However this leads to my next question.

I was recently told that in order to fully answer the question of "what would you require to have a God belief", one would have to be able to define God in order to have that belief. however wouldn't one have to define God in some way to *not* believe?
It seems to me in order to *not* believe in God it must take some level of definition and understanding of what it is you *don't* believe in otherwise your position would be neutral (not a belief, not a non belief)

Am I way off base here?

Thank you for taking the time to answer me, I appreciate it.
I need some coffee

Amie~

Viti

Hi Amie I can tell you from my experience that I don't believe in most of the god concepts that have been defined to me. I am agnostic in regards to a deist type god concept or a Universe is divine type of thing....but belief is not required by these "gods" so I don't spend much time thinking about it. We all have some working knowledge of various god concepts. So if you asked us "What would it take for you to believe in the Christian God" that's a clear enough definition.

beyelzu

it seems to me that the standard christian god is one of the easiest to dispose. the logical contradictions and the lack of evidence of supernatural. the deist god is then done away with okhams razor.

the two definitions needed are detetectable god and non-detectable god. if god is detectable lack of evidence would dictate that he does not exist. if god is in no way detetectable then such an unprovable assertion can be discarded.


the first question, i would require proof. either logical arguments that make sense, but i think i have given up on those existing. or god coming down and visiting me.

but even proof of god wouldnt result in my worshipping him. he would actually have alot of explaining to do about the nature of the universe, heaven and hell, and why there is evil in the world.

Amie

Thank you Lady Shea and Beyelzu

Beyelzu do you think that it takes an understanding of the concept of God to be an atheist?
If you saw an angel do you think you would suddenly believe in them or do you think you would say to yourself "there must be another explanation, hallucination due to fatigue or what not...

Viti

Hey Amie...I also wanted to add that I think the reason you often see this demand for a definition is this: In a debate, if the object of debate is not clearly and meticulously defined, either debater can "move the goal post" and the discussion goes nowhere.

And though the question was not for me...my first assumption upon seeing an angel would be hallucination

philechat

If God is shown (by evidence or else) to exist, then he would be one additional "fact" perceived by us, and no faith would be required. This new fact need not affect one's life in any significant matter if we do not invest emotional commitment in such a God.

In short, "if God exists, does it necessarily mean anything other than that he exists?"

Toto

Hi Amie - well before I decided I was an atheist, I was an existentialist (or at least read some of their books). In that way of thinking, the concept of "God" is beyond "existence" so it does not even make sense to ask if God exists.

I finally decided that this was all just a way to get around having to admit that there is no evidence of god(s), that a lot of god-talk is clearly the babbling of fools, and that most people who think they experience god are raving lunatics.

For a while I was sympathetic to people who used their religion to work for a better world, but now I notice that most of that political action was ineffective, and has been swamped by the religious right. All the Catholic liberation activists that I admired were squelched by the Catholic church, which turned its considerable organization and treasury to fighting abortion and birth control around the world.

I then experimented with Eastern religions, but the end result of all that was the realization that just as if you peel an onion, there is no center, when you search your "soul" and peel off the layers of social conditioning and psychological overlay, there is nothing there.

So - for any definition of god that involves supernaturalism, I'm probably going to say I don't believe in it. But after a while I'm not going to wait around while you think up new definitions.

I'm still sort of sympathetic to people who use their god-belief as a source of personal comfort, but I wish they would keep it to themselves.

Never

That's a good question Amie. As one who decided that the concept of God made no sense as a child and has pretty much ignored the question since, I've wondered that myself. Why do I think it all so ridiculous when others just buy right into it? I asked my husband why he believed in God and his answer was "they taught me in Sunday School and they were adults and I was a kid so they had to be right". Obviously, we don't have deep discussions.
A bit of irony is that I am supposedly proof of His existence - one of those miracles that was cured as a result of prayer. Yet I never believed it for a minute. Just because they didn't have a logical explanation at the time (1956), doesn't mean there wasn't one.
I'd need at least as good a proof for the existence of God as I would anything else I don't believe in. IOW, I'd have to have a ghost appear before my very eyes. Then do a repeat performance in front of witnesses and have a good investigation ruling out other causes before I'd believe in them.

Psycho Economist

I don't know what it would take for me to believe in a deity... but in modern times it would be relatively easy to substantiate (also to fake) something like a bodily resurection. Again, nothing to say any particular deity was behind it... but it could, um, falsify naturalism and incline me to believe some type of transcendent power existed. You'd just have to be very scrupulous to avoid even the semblance of huxterism.

Daggah

A non-belief is simply the absense of belief, Amie. Atheism means "lacking/without" + "belief in god."