Stephen T-B

To be fair to Umum, he did say he would answer some of the points raised, and then depart.
So he’s probably gone, but in case he’s still lurking, I must mention this:
He wrote, clarifying an earlier statement: “....(if) one chooses still to deny this evidence” (for the existence of his metaphorical Middle Manager) “and if this denial leads to detrimental conduct (notice again that I am not saying it does, only that if it does) that a punishment would be reasonable.”
So presumably if acceptance of the evidence leads to detrimental conduct, then a punishment would also be reasonable?

But back to xeren’s OP.
When Christians refer to “evidence” of their god’s existence, they are either being disingenuous or they don’t understand the meaning of the word.
My dictionary defines it as “something that tends to prove.”
It doesn’t say - but I think it is the case - that evidence is variable, ranging from the very poor to the very strong.
It also doesn’t say - but I think it is the case - that evidence is strong whether you like it or not, and weak whether you like it or not; in other words, its quality is not a matter of subjective judgment.
(The evidence that there is a plum tree on my lawn is strong, whether I want a plum tree there or not.)
None of which applies to the “evidence” referred to by Christians because what they interpret as evidence (or pretend to) is entirely subjective.
For them, it is as strong as any evidence can be, but if that were indeed the case, there would be no dissenters, no argument, no Infidels.
If they concede that the evidence is weak, they are once again subjecting it to a subjective evaluation, or else we should all recognise it as weak, whereas we don’t recognise it at all.
Their “evidence” is therefore not evidence but something else. We might call it “delusion” or “wishful thinking.”
It comes into the same category as the “evidence” claimed by astrologers for the existence of astrological influences, or the “evidence” claimed by my friend Joe Cooper for the existence of fairies, or the “evidence” claimed by Ufologists for the existence of ETs and the reality of alien abductions.
Basically, that’s all there is to it.

DMB

I'm afraid I've only just now read this thread, so apologies for coming in so late.

I can see why everyone is pissed off by Unum's contributions, which do seem to have highjacked the thread to a considerable extent. However, kudos to Unum for one brilliant insight:
Never mind whether Zeus can be defined. Has Olympus made a takeover bid for Asgard? I think we should be told!

I would like to make a general complaint that applies to many threads in this forum: when people talk about "god", why is it usually implicitly the xian version of this concept? If we mean god = creator of the universe, is it to be assumed that god cares at all about what humans believe? When applied to Unum's god = universe thesis, it seems even more unlikely. How do we get from the supposition that there is clear evidence for the existence of some powerful entity to which we may choose to attach the name "god" to the much more dubious supposition that this entity is the rather petty one described in the old collection of stories that constitute the bible, one of many differing sacred texts?

Thechort, in his first post, made an analogy between the human treatment of Nazi crimes against humanity, based on a genuine belief in the subhumanity of Jews, and "god"'s punishment of the putative refusal of atheists to accept overwhelming evidence for the existence of said "god". As has already been pointed out, analogy may be illuminating, but it rarely survives analysis.

Nazi mass-murder was punished by human tribunals; Nazi beliefs were not. But apparently "god" is positively Orwellian and punishes thought-crime, never mind how otherwise virtuous the individual may be.

I am a happy atheist. I really have no fear whatsoever of the xian god or Allah, or any other of the supernatural zoo. Perhaps in another thread, thechort could explain why he clings to belief in an entity that, given what has been discovered about the universe in the past 2000 years, would have to be immensely more powerful than anything envisaged by the writers of the bible, but is still hell-bent on punishing atheists and the unfortunate believers in the wrong religions.

Jobar

DMB:
I would like to make a general complaint that applies to many threads in this forum: when people talk about "god", why is it usually implicitly the xian version of this concept?

I think it's an artifact of the language- most theistic English speakers believe in some flavor of the Abrahamic god. There have been plenty of discussions here exploring the other concepts humans have called god(s)- see any of my numerous posts on pantheism, for instance.

However, since we have a specifically 'Non-Abrahamic' forum, EoG is sort of the default 'Abrahamic' forum. (I think I got away with doing all those pantheism threads here just because I was the moderator. I often wondered if any of my fellow mods were going to move them to the NAR forum; I would have whined and bitched, because it was easier for me to follow them in the forum I was modding, but I would have acquesced. )

In this thread in particular, however, xeren was very explicit that it was the Xtian God that was being discussed. So Unum's attempts to answer Thechort's questions using a pantheistic God-concept were off topic. (I first encountered this sort of 'bait and switch' tactic- using pantheistic arguments to justify a monotheistic God- from Albert Cipriani, who no longer posts here. I wish he still did, because he was actually far better at it than any of the many who have since tried the same dodge.)

DMB

Jobar: I didn't read that into the first posts in this thread. When people talk in terms of "overwhelming evidence" for EoG, they usually mean evidence for a creator of the universe. In this case, could said evidence be the bible?

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Many theists come here and argue for the existence of a god based on non-biblical evidence that they claim is available to all who take an unbiased look at the world. This sort of thing has been going on for hundreds of years. The reasons for setting up these arguments in the first place may be because many people have always found the bible somewhat underwhelming as evidence for god(s). So the theists, while totally convinced themselves either by the bible or by church doctrine, try to promote a secular argument for believing in god(s). The same basic arguments have been batted around by philosophers, theologians and laypeople for ever. I am sure we are all well aware of them.

What never seems to be addressed, however, is how one gets from supposing that a creator god (or gods) might be possible to the supposition that this entity must be identical to the Jewish god or the xian god or the muslim god or any other particular one.

We seem usually to witness an enormous jump from "the universe was created by an immensely powerful, intelligent being" to "therefore all atheists are going to burn for eternity" or "you will be punished if you eat pork or fail to circumcise your sons"

So I really would like to know roughly what kind of "overwhelming evidence" thechort was thinking of.

Silent Acorns

Back to the origin of this thread:

thechort: "What about the possibility that people, though they cannot force themselves to believe in God because they do not find the evidence convincing, do not see the evidence as convincing because they don't want to see the evidence as convincing (as a result of whatever bias they may have from their past). At that point, if they were given the evidence yet did not look at it in an unbiased light because they didn't want to, and as a result, could not believe, then they should be punished."

The problem here, as I see it, is that if one is truly biased against seeing "convincing evidence of god" then this bias must be inate to him. Such a person coundn't help but be biased (just as loaded dice are biased), and no Omnimax Creator god could justifiably punish him for it, since it created him that way.

I think it would be more reasonable to talk about the evidence of god in terms of what amount of evidence is required for one to accept the statement "God exists" as true.

When one looks at it this way it is obvious that the standrard for "sufficient evidence" is much lower for the theist than the atheist. The atheist will think that the theist's standard is unreasonably low, while the theist will think that the atheist's standard is unreasonably high. Each will think that the other is "biased".

Personally, I think that the evidence for God's existence is far below my definition of "sufficient", and for this the Xtian says that I deserve to be punished for my "bias".

Essentially, Yahweh (if it exists) will punish me for having high standards and applying them equally to all things.

xeren

hey thanks everyone for posting what you have. thechort hasn't replied because we got to a point in our discussion where he doesn't have an answer for me yet. If he comes up with a good rebuttal(though i don't know what it could possibly be, as this argument is rather airtight if a christian wants god to retain his benevolence), then I shall post it and bring this thread back alive.

-xeren