doodad

You seem to be implying that the existence of God has caused grimness, griminess, parasites, prostitutes, dread, disease, evil, and suffering. Is that really the case?

If you in fact do not believe that God exists then what is your basis for saying such things?

If God truly did not exist would we then not have these banes to humanity? Would it be some kind of a perfect utopia?

doodad

I'd like to add a fourth category to your list, the gods of the pagan cultures, although these are in a sense related to your inanimate creator.

A god is simply a faith object to me although some see it to be only a supreme being cast in human likeness. The pagans were polytheistic in the sense that they had many gods, each with some sort of special power or significance. Yes, this was viewed as being superstitious, but for some reason the belief in the Christian God or the worship of him is not. I cannot see the difference myself, except that with the pagan gods many were observable in the physical sense and with the Christian God it is not observable. So who's being superstitious?

Jobar

I'm asking, not saying or implying- because other theists normally go to incredible lengths to separate all the negative things I listed from God.

Doodad, I've been modding this forum for quite some while now, and have found that no two believers believe in the same things about God. Not many at all claim that the evil in the world is his doing, and if you do, I want to know that. I've always found omnibenevolence to be the most contradictory of God's supposed properties; if you discard it, many (but by no means all) of the standard problems with God which we discuss here vanish.

So, do you think that God creates the bad with the good?

diana

My mistake. I was judging by your attitude. I've responded to a couple of your posts so far, and in both cases, you came across as superior, snide and condescending--behaviors I associate with believers (primarily Christians) who are full of atheist myths but are convinced they understand us, and that they're right by default and will show us the error of our ways.

'Tis a noble goal.

I assume you meant "you" in the general sense, but I'll respond.

I hesitate to use the word "proof," as it is logically impossible to disprove anything that is immune to proof.

We reject the claims of Christians as unsubstantiated and logically contradictory.

That might be because it is not a reasonable question.

If you read your own words closely, you might see what I mean.

The opposite of belief is disbelief. When you disbelieve anything, it simple means you aren't convinced. The disbeliever is not bound to offer reasons for disbelief, other than admitting he hasn't seen any convincing evidence.

It is the believer who has the burden of proof. So far, they've failed to deliver.

You might want to read up on Pascal's Wager, since you unwittingly just made it. (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, as I doubt the intelligence of the person who would wittingly make the wager.)

d

Fiach

Belief in gods, magic/miracles, and "supernatural" is morally neutral. All of the above, God, magic, and angels are defined as not having substance, not being composed of energy, existing only some ethereal realm perhaps of ideas. Supernatural means Not-natural. What is natural? Natural is everything that exists. If it exists, it is natural for it to exist. So supernatural should not exist.

There is no evidence for anything unnatural or supernatural. Not a single scientifically documented miracle. James Randi has offerred $1 million to anyone who can furnish evidence of an event that defies natural laws. So far nobody has won.

Some try to separate Magic from Miracles. I see no difference. Each is an event occurring against or in spite of the laws of nature. Both magic and miracles are usually preceded by conjuring, the utterence of certain key words. Whether one says, "Abra cadabra" or "In the Name of Jesus" is still conjuring. The magical event/miracle occurs after the world conjuring. I see no difference apart from Miracles simply being Christian Magic.

Belief in God is understandable for people who want explanations for the world around us. 100,000 years ago we knew little if any science. So we wondered at what makes a spring bubble up. What makes a volcano blow its stack? What makes grass grow? What makes my hand scratch my itching bum? What makes thoughts in my head?

We didn't know and had no way to even investigate. So we postulated that invisible "things" operated all of the above, and called them spirits. Spirits made our bodies work and did our thinking for us. When we died, our spirit must have gone somewhere? We later combined many minor spirits into specialised Gods (fire god, rain god, Mother Earth, God of the seas). And still later combined them all into a composite God with human personality (or Three).

Yet while these fantasies gave us explanations and made us feel good, we had not a shred of evidence to support the idea of god(s). Science gradually explained physical phenomena: gravity, river flow from higher to lower levels, rain from clouds of evapouration, how muscles contract with actin and myosin fibrils with an electical flux of Calcium from Calcium channels trigger by an action potential from a motor nerve ending. We explained how the brain controls our limbs, and in the last decade the brain pattern and electrical circuitry of thoughts themselves. We explained the evolution of various animal species from one-celled creatures.

We explained the events after the Big Bang, the formation of particles and atoms. We explained the first protosuns as hydrogen collapsed starting nuclear fusion furnaces to make all of the elements (Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Iron, Calcium, Sodium, Potassium, and the old Hydrogen) that make up third generation suns, planets, and us.

So what is left are three events not YET explained. 1. The Big Bang itself, 2. How the amino acids combined to form the first DNA. 3. How the replicating and mutating DNA formed the first cell membrane (first cells).

Those desperate to believe in God, cling to these as God's creative act. I say to wait. We explained a million of God's other supposed creations, we may yet explain these as well.

Meanwhile we can be honest. We just say "I don't know how the first cell formed." Or I could make up a fantasy explanation, "Dagda created Earth and the first life." Or "God (Joe Hovah) made the first cells. But my "I don't know" is more honest. Those, who believe in God, have no evidence for their god apart from the desire for there to be one.

Fiach

Buck Swope

Sorry folks, there are way too many responses for me to respond. But I did read all of them.

From this thread, I have these observations:

1. I think it's true what many Christians say that atheists can be quite dogmatic.

2. It's interesting how many people assumed that I was a Christian... (I'm not)

3. Science and logic, most would agree, are tools. Very useful tools for gathering knowledge of the world. However, we'd also all agree that a tool is useless if you use it for the wrong task. And using "science and logic" to determine the truth about God is like using a hammer to saw a 2x4.

You all keep waiting for some sort of "scientific" evidence of God...but any evidence God would provide in this realm would by definition have a "scientific explanation" and thus be rejected by atheists. So you have to use other forms of knowledge.

JCS

Really? How so?

Then is it equally interesting as to how many did not?

Ok, sure.

Sure

No I don't agree at all. I have had success using tools for something other than what they were designed for. I have examples if you need them.

First what truth would that be? Secondly what other method would we use to seek this "truth"? Last but not least you have only asserted this to be true you haven't really shown why anyone should consider it to be true.


No, I'm not waiting for any scientific evidence. But I am curious about your other forms of knowledge.

Theli

That's pretty presumptious, don't you think?
"The truth about god" presuposses that there is a god to find out the truth about in the first place.

Oxymoron

If by 'scientific', you mean 'testable', then yes, we are still waiting for it. Something that is not testable does not constitute evidence. Something that is not repeatable does not constitute evidence. Something that contradicts things which are testable and repeatable ought to be treated with a degree of suspicion.

I suspect that you consider 'science' to be people in lab coats with test tubes or half-bald frizzy-haired types writing hard equations on blackboards. Or you confuse it with technology. Both of these characterisations are as far removed from what you classify as "spiritual experience" as they are from the reality of science. Simply put, science is a refinement - a better version - of the way our very minds and brains model the world.

Going back then to your assertion, we might delete the word "scientific". It now reads

You all keep waiting for some sort of evidence of God...but any evidence God would provide in this realm would by definition have an explanation and thus be rejected [by atheists].

Can I presume that - at some point in your life - you had a 'eureka' moment, perhaps when you considered that God had given you some calling, or something along those lines? Clearly then, you would also believe that there is something which constitutes evidence of God?

To me, this seems confused thinking. On the one hand, it says "you don't need evidence for God"; on the other "I had an experience that was evidence for God". I admit that I may have put words in your mouth regarding the previous paragraph, so feel free to put me straight.

Please enumerate them.

Lobstrosity

I don't make distinctions between atheist and agnostic. I don't care how people label me. I have my own beliefs, which are essentially simply a lack of belief in any specific religion. I see no reason to believe in a God and since the existence of a God makes this universe more complex, I'll choose the simpler view until I have reason to change. I don't think a single atheist out there would proclaim to know with absolute certainty that no intelligent force was behind the creation of this specific universe, so I'm not sure there is a major distinction between agnostic and atheist. Perhaps the atheist is willing to go slightly further than the agnostic in saying that they view the existence of god as very unlikely (you know, by logically assessing all the possible explanations that come to mind) rather than just simply saying "I don't know."

See, I find the notion of the Christian God as unbelievable as you would find the notion of leprechauns. You can't know that leprechauns don't exist, but I bet you're pretty damn confident that they're just a myth made up by humans. You probably wouldn't ever go chasing a rainbow on the off chance that there might be a pot of gold at the end. Similarly, I'm pretty damn confident that Christianity is a myth made up by humans and as such I'm not going to bother following its tenets on the slim chance that they could be right. That kind of reasoning would open up a whole host of problems. For example, if you follow Christianity on the off chance it might be right, what about the slim chance that Judaism might be right? What about Hinduism? What about Islam? How do you even pick which one religion will be your safety-net "just in case" religion? I guess you could follow them all, but that might end up pissing off the very mystery God you're trying to appease.

Here, let's look at one reason why I don't think it makes sense to follow Christianity just in case. Every culture in recorded history has had its own religion. They've had unique gods and spirits that they say created the universe and control all of the mysterious forces they encounter. There have literally been hundreds--if not thousands--of conflicting religions that we know about. Now for any one of them to be right (i.e. to be the absolute truth about the creation and maintainence of this universe), all of the others must be fundamentally wrong. Therefore we're left with hundreds of religions minus one that we know to be incorrect. To me this indicates that it is simple human nature to just make up a religion to fill gaps in our knowledge of the universe. Clearly cultures have been making up mythology left and right while calling it an accurate description of the way things are. As an objective viewer (i.e. as someone who was not raised believing that one specific religion was true), Christianity doesn't seem any more believable than Greek mythology. I don't see any compelling reason to assume that Christianity represents the one true time that a culture didn't simply make up their beliefs. Do you? It seems far more likely to me that should a god/gods exist, no human on Earth knows even the slightest thing about it/them. It is most likely that all religions are mere mythology and the most rational thing to do is to wait until some evidence actually points to something before we rush off to believe in it. Without objective evidence, no one has any reliable way to make an informed decion as to what to believe!!!