Atheists are a clue that God exists
Only after I came to an understanding that God exists, I started to look into atheistic arguments more closely.
And my conclusion is that atheists, both in general and those most prominent ones, are:
1) quite unreasonable in interpreting what nature provides as clues for or against God
2) quite unreasonable in their reasoning about God
The amount of blank ammunition atheists generally use against God makes me think that atheism itself is a miracle. Meaning, it's not something natural, but interruption of nature forced from something outside of our observable world.
And as a miracle, it's basically one more clue for existence of God.
And my conclusion is that atheists, both in general and those most prominent ones, are:
1) quite unreasonable in interpreting what nature provides as clues for or against God
2) quite unreasonable in their reasoning about God
The amount of blank ammunition atheists generally use against God makes me think that atheism itself is a miracle. Meaning, it's not something natural, but interruption of nature forced from something outside of our observable world.
And as a miracle, it's basically one more clue for existence of God.
Comments (130)
BEST ARGUMENT FOR GOD EVER.
10/10!!!!!
If as an atheist I'm merely firing blanks, then you must be playing with an unloaded toy "cap-gun"...
But if human stupidity can actually be miraculous, I would sooner point to all the superstitions of religion than their rejection...
Verily, our special place is guaranteed.
Quoting Banno
Interestingly, an atheist "church" can get tax exempt status as long as it A, has at east 10k followes, B, claims to be a religion with some vague "purpose in life" shtick weaved in, and C, finds a sympathetic IRS ear or has enough lawyers to extort tax exempt status out of them with the threat of mass litigation (see: Scientology).
In order to come to an understanding that god exists, there must have been a prior time where you did not have an understanding that god exists, hence the phrase "Only after...".
If, prior to your new understanding that god exists you did not examine your own beliefs and changed your mind before truly understanding them, then what leads us to the conclusion that the arguments for your new beliefs or understanding have themselves been "looked into more closely"?
Reversing the argument and saying that "if atheists are merely firing blanks, then people who understand that God exists must be playing with an unloaded toy" is true, actually, but it's true only on surface level.
The deeper you get into understanding God through God's revelation and creation, the more you understand that everything is exactly as it should be, at this point in time. Including that one cannot deduce that God exists by looking at people who claim to believe that God exists.
The opposite is true for atheism. On surface level atheism seems reasonable. But the more you look into it, the more atheism reveals itself to be unreasonable.
Result of a math equation is either true or not, it doesn't matter what reseach or work have I done prior to solving the equation.
You might want to know whether I have been looking into it more closely so you would believe me or not without going into the subject matter yourself, but I don't need people either believing me or not based on my authority on this, or lack thereof.
This is exactly right. The argument in the Op is undeniable. Given the premise of there being a god, He must, by His divine nature, be evident in everything that happens.
So Tsetse fly and childhood cancer and earthquakes and so on are part of the scheme of things.
Reach what conclusion you will about the personality of this personal god.
This argument can be expanded upon, based on what's available to a human in regards to understanding God.
But OP is not about looking at God, but about looking at atheism. Real atheism, one that we witness on Earth, not some abstract idea of atheism, is quite unreasonable regardless if this universe is created by God or not. I happen to understand that God exists, so I can see it as a sort of miracle.
What makes you think the sacred Hindu texts aren't the revelation of the gods?
The opposite is true for atheism. On surface level atheism seems reasonable. But the more you look into it, the more atheism reveals itself to be unreasonable.[/quote]
Atheism is the lack of theism: the absence of theistic belief. I don't know how lacking belief in God somehow becomes more unreasonable once you get deeper into it (there's nothing deep about it though...).
My atheism is me saying that arguments purporting to reveal god's existence or nature have always been based on unreasonable evidence. Since the evidence is unreasonable, it would be unreasonable for me to submit to belief.
World is perfect in terms of its purpose, not in terms of some abstract perfection. In that sense I see it as perfect. In terms of general perfection, or ultimate perfection, however one would call it, it's far from perfect.
But, again, what OP is about is that merely observing atheistic train of thought, to put it that way, reveals it to be "quite unreasonable." And as such, it's a miracle, since it's out of norm to have people to be so unreasonable in their reasoning while they claim to use reason to come to conclusion. Just as a small note, basically all of today's prominent atheists are much more emotional than reasonable in their approach, while they claim to be reasonable in what they conclude, which in turns reveals itself to be unreasonable.
If you are an agnostic, saying that you don't know whether God exists or not, that would be one thing.
But if you want to conclude that you believe, or think, or are certain that there is no God, based on lack of what you define as evidence, is another thing.
There is no known natural law that says that if God exists, He will universally provide evidence for His existence.
Indeed, what's a few pointless, painful deaths in the big picture?
Of course, we could flip your argument around, Reductio - style. Given that god exists, atheism is incredible; yet atheists exist; therefore god is not credible...
Agnosticism is the position that evidence pertaining to god(s) existence and nature is not yet attained or is unattainable. I happen to be agnostic, but this is an entirely separate position than whether or not I believe in the existence of god(s).
Agnosticism is about the empirical un-knowability of god(s) existence, while theism and atheism refer to believing or not believing respectively.
The statement "I believe and claim to know that no god(s) exist" is the position of hard-atheism, and it only accounts for about 5% of all atheists. "Soft atheism" is the position of lacking belief in any god(s), and remember, agnosticism is believing that empirical or rational evidence of gods existence or nature is unattainable (so the two tend to come together).
Plenty of theists are happy to believe in god's existence based on faith rather than evidence and will happily admit that god cannot be scientifically shown to exist; it requires faith.
Faith. The thing that makes people choose to believe in something despite there being no evidence to believe in it. Beware of dog(ma).
That is just a sample of offhand reasoning I'm talking about. There is really no deep thought, examination, inspection of our reality behind it. Not saying that you are not capable of deep thoughts, of course, but that your specific objection about our reality does not reveal anything of essence about our reality.
Quoting Banno
Not really, it would be more like this - Given that God exists, atheism seems unlikely; yet atheists exist; therefore there is a purpose for atheism in this creation.
Yes, but I would say that any atheism, hard or soft, is probably not reasonable. One can be agnostic but not an atheist.
It is a consequence of complex nature of our reality that people who believe in God don't do it in blind faith, as an agnostic (who is not an atheist) or an atheist would presume. But that's another topic.
To believe in God, or to have faith in God, even doesn't mean to believe that God exists. It means to put trust in God. Understanding that God exists has already occured.
Being a soft atheist is the rationally consistent result of being an agnostic. If knowledge pertaining to god cannot be rationally accessed, then it cannot be rationally held in belief.
What is god's revelation? How do you understand that god exists? Does your understanding base itself in reality, reason, or evidence?
An agnostic can say that he or she neither believes nor disbelieves that God exists. She just doesn't know what to think about it. If I would to classiffy myself prior to getting to know that God exists, I would say I was that kind of agnostic.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
You probably (or maybe) won't like the answer, but the answer is - supernaturally. You cannot know that God exists until God decides to show to you that He exists.
I am not talking about one specific way of God doing it. If you go to a Christian church, for example, and talk to a large number of people who all say they are convinced that God exists, you will hear different ways each of them got the conviction. Some ways may be similar to each other, but generally, God reveals His existence in myriad of different ways.
Like when Joseph Smith read from the golden plates out of a top hat because god said nobody else was allowed to see?
Not every story a man can tell is true. But that's neither pro or con for God's existence.
ROTFLMFHO
Well, thank you. Very kind. I do think that pain here and now is more pressing than the perfection of God's plan. Doubtless if I were a more thoughtful person I would be less troubled by the problems of this world. then I could say things like "My thoughts and prays are with you" while failing to do anything practical.
But I think I prefer my approach.
Anyway, we can't talk about atheism without first having talked about theism:
You make some fantastic claims.
You call yourself theist.
I don't believe your claims.
You call me atheist.
1. there are good people and other animals suffering
2. either all suffering, without exception, is warranted (strong assertion, all instances)
3. or there exists some unwanted suffering to do away with (light assertion, some instances)
4. it stands to reason that there is unwanted suffering, that can possibly be relieved by humans (like some has been)
5. consistent with a largely indifferent universe, and non-teleological biological evolution
Other than civilized societies, what — anywhere — cares about me/you/us?
But are we appreciated for our efforts? Not a bit.
What you wrote is a knee jerk reaction. Much more emotional than result of an effort to understand how God can create a world with evil in it.
Not to mention that you are basically saying that in case God exists you are more moral than Him. Aside from illogicality that creation could have more empathy and love than all-powerful creator who gave creation said empathy and love, what you wrote is blasphemous, yet you are still alive and everything you have, including opportunity to publicly stand against God and present "your approach", is given to you by that very God.
But regardless, there is no known natural law that says that if God exists, there would be no evil in any part of His creation, at any time. "Evil objection" is an offhand objection against presumed character of God, not an argument against existence of God.
"Suffering objection", like "evil objection", is at best offhand objection against presumed character of God, not an argument against existence of God.
Suffering and evil reveal seriousness of our reality, and to understand why God allows them, for some time within His creation, takes effort.
You don't expect to pick up a book on advanced mathematics and instantly understand how to solve complex equations. Why would you expect to get such hard fact of our reality as suffering and evil without a serious effort?
If the objection is an accurate one based on the character of a specific god as portrayed via its followers and its "holy texts", then it is not offhand. It at least shows that this specific god is either evil and a liar or at most doesn't exist at all.
Out of curiosity, what would you consider a legitimate argument against the existence of god?
A fair point. I've noted how much effort is required in order to believe consistently that God can create a world with evil in it. Rather more effort than is rational.
Quoting Henri
I'm saying that since he endowed us with free will, it is we who choose what is good and what is evil. God may well disagree, but then a read of any one of his autobiographies will show that he has a rather nasty disposition. One hopes he has been misquoted.
Quoting Henri
Just so; If he does exist, he is not a nice fellow.
Which one would you like to entertain, the strong or the light assertion?
(By the way, the problem of evil is different.)
Is all suffering (without exception) part of the plan of this supposed deity you mention, or is it up to us to come up with relief as best we can (e.g. medical research)?
I can tell you what's readily evident, you can't miss it: we already do medical research, educate veterinarians and social care workers, put in place negligence laws, etc; sure doesn't seem that relief from schizophrenia is "coming from above" as it were.
But, hey, maybe you can somehow justify that all suffering (without exception) is warranted?
(If so, then what the heck is the deal with teratoma anyway?)
Quoting jorndoe
that's not a bad question, either way. they don;t seem to be a good example of intelligent design.
It is offhand. Because, I guess you are reffering to the Bible and Bible is quite complex book. You can't just pick it up and read it however you like, and automatically understand what's written in it.
In one of the first pages of the Bible God says: "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread."
Bread here is not only food but also word of God. Jesus is both Word of God and bread of life, for example. And that's one of various ways that reveal "bread" to mean God's message, not only food.
What God is saying right in the beginning, apart from us having to work to physically sustain ourselves, is: "By the sweat of your face you shall understand word of God." God doesn't say it is impossible to understand His message, but that it's not something one can just take as if it's on a plate.
You can read a passage here or there and make a conclusion about God. But you would be making your judgement hastily, especially if you are coming with the heart ready to judge God.
For the time being, God is allowing man's pleasures to be fulfilled, including man's pleasure to judge God Himself. That's not the only or main reason why God's word is not readily available to be understood, but it is part of both the complexity and seriousness of our reality.
Quoting ProbablyTrue
I can't think of any reasonable argument against the existence of God. Arguments can be made for agnosticism without atheism, but I don't see reasonable argument for atheism. At least among reasoning I have heard or read.
If you have great reasonable argument for atheism, share it. Maybe I'll conclude that it's reasonable or I'll point out why I think it's not.
Fortunately debilitating depressions hit less than, say, half the world's population.[sup]†[/sup]
Therefore they're not necessary conditions.
Therefore unnecessary suffering exists.
[sup]† that's not the actual number, it's just for the sake of argument[/sup]
Some measure of relief can be attained from medical science or whatever research.
Humans can sometimes help, where indifferent nature (or some supposed deity) has produced unnecessary suffering.
What's wrong with all these texts anyway...?
(As an aside, I'm kind of partial towards The Silmarillion myself.)
All suffering is part of what God is ultimately doing with this creation. Not that God personally causes suffering but God allows suffering to exist.
Everything you mention as humanity's effort - for example medical research, educated veterinarians and social care workers, negligence laws put in place, etc - is given for us to do as part of God's decree.
That turns things back to suffering and evil, with question if everything is under God's control, why does God allow suffering and evil?
And that's a big subject, not for this thread. There is a quote from Old Testament: "For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."
Why is that?
Because, by the western tradition God is unknowable. Hindu gods actually live in their temples; there they are, made of ivory, gold, metals, fabrics, etc. Not so with God.
God has all sorts of descriptive terms heaped up. Immortal; omnipresent; invincible; omniscient; eternal; omnipresent, perfect, glorious, etc. By thinking of God in these terms, God is placed well outside our knowing. We can't conceive of what a being is like who is eternal, knowing everything that was, is, and will be, is present everywhere, both in the past and the future, and is fully capable of changing everything around, should that be deemed... whatever it is that God deems.
Believers should stop talking about God AS IF God is a knowable object, and AS IF they have a slice of that understanding on their plate. I'm not claiming that you don't have that understanding. I'm claiming you CAN'T have that understanding. Neither can I, of course.
I have an understanding that the Bible is God's word.
If you want shortest answer why Christianity and not any other religion, it's this - only Bible reveals that a human is not capable of bringing himself or herself to God, so salvation from this state is 100% on God's grace. All other religions teach some form of doing works to get to God. So in most important question, eternal existence, there are basically two options - Christianity on one side and everything else on the other.
Maybe also this, as a quick answer - Bible is much more complex that any other text I have read or examined, it is in a different league.
James 2:26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
You can't claim what you haven't experienced. Understanding that God exists comes supernaturally. Until you don't experience it, can't really know what it actually is. Hopefully you'll experience it.
Oh my, let's not get into that debate on this thread.
It would seem that we humans sometimes do our best to do away with unnecessary suffering. Maybe we're just better at it than this God you keep mentioning. It's almost as if your God does not exist. I wonder why. ;)
Quoting Henri
Decree? For that matter, The Hippocratic Oath predate Christ by some 400 years. (If we're to take some of those stories as history.) Whatever you may attribute to your God, others may not.
Quoting Henri
It's your opening post. I'll just have to ask: does your big subject involve quantum mechanics?
Anyway, not much philosophy in this thread this far, mostly just some assertions and stories and such. :s
Yeah, but it is entertaining. Watching Henri is like watching a contortionist.
Nothing you wrote on this thread provided any reasonable argument for atheism. Maybe you can go back to the OP and provide an argument for atheism, not voice your opinions about God of the Bible.
But as I said, there is no reasonable argument for atheism, so distraction is next best thing, seemingly. And it's an obvious thing one can do, it's transparent, so it's also an unreasonable behaviour.
Why does God leave clues, like we are in an adventure game? Why not have "God Exists" inscribed in a different language each day over the rising sun?
Why is He so obscure?
You didn't make an argument in the OP. The burden of proof is on you, not the other way around.
Nor is that my intent.
What I did do is show how your argument is self-serving, by demonstrating that in the hands of an atheist it serves to undermine belief in the existence of God.
Check up on shifting the burden of proof. You have some work ahead apparently, as also suggested earlier:
Indeed ...
Quoting Henri
Quoting Henri
This stuff reads a bit like an obsession. How would you suggest differentiating?
Quoting HenriThat god exists is the premise on which the OP is constructed. No argument is given to suport the existence of God; Deny His existence, and the argument falls apart.
That being the case, the argument cannot act as a foil with which to change the opinions of Atheists. We will simply deny the premise.
Quoting Henri
But which arguments? They are not presented, but simply gestured at; there is a pretence that the OP is about denying atheist arguments; it doesn't happen.
There are few atheists who will argue actively that God does not exist. Atheist arguments ubiquitously take the form of dismantling arguments for the existence of God, usually by showing their inconsistency.
Quoting Henri
This conclusion is unsupported, not justified, we are expected to agree.
Quoting Henri
Not so much as an example. Why does God set clues? Loki does that sort of thing - not a nice fellow. The same for Satan in the story of Job. Is God like Satan?
Elsewhere it is posited that we know God by supernatural means. So what use could natural clues be, anyway? Or do we interpret natural clues by positing supernatural causes? Again, not an argument that will please anyone who doubts the existence of God.
Quoting Henri
No example; to be taken on trust. Again. The third - no, fourth, such bald assertion.
Now comes the best part:
Quoting Henri
This is a good argument. If God exists, His brilliance, His presence, ought be so all-encompasing as to be utterly undeniable. So that His existence is denied is extraordinary, if He exists.
But His existence is denied.
So, either atheists are a part of God's trickery, or the argument supports the non-existence of God. God hides his presence from Atheists.
So the loop closes on itself. If god exists, then god exists. If god does not exist, then god does not exist. The argument in the OP gains no traction on an atheist, and will not save a soul.
Perhaps the OP is not intended for Atheists, bit for other Christians, as a way of understanding the way the Lord works. That is the case with arguments for the existence of god - they can be seen as ways for believers to understand God, and not as attempts to change the minds of non-believers.
But in this case the OP shows a deity who leaves clues and deceives some of his creatures.
Is that a reasonable god?
I haven't noticed other Christians running to defend Henri. I rather suspect that they have read the OP and ducked, or perhaps are hiding in the corner with one hand over their faces, hoping not to be recognised.
It's an embarrassing argument. I'm sorry, Henri, but you are way off.
I am not arguing for theism here, by the way. I already wrote that agnosticism without atheism can be reasonably argued.
But any argument for atheism is unreasonable. As evidenced by this thread. Not that this particular evidence was needed.
I would say you are either dishonest here or you are operating on some wobbly logic. I wrote that from what I've read and heard, atheists are:
1) quite unreasonable in interpreting what nature provides as clues for or against God
2) quite unreasonable in their reasoning about God
My argument is that reasoning an atheist uses to come to his or her atheistic position is unreasonable.
Now, if by atheists you also include agnostics who both don't know whether God exists and don't favor neither theism nor naturalism in any way, I exclude that group. But I don't think those are only, or even majority, of atheists. Not to mention that I have already written that agnosticism without atheism can be reasonably argued.
Your dishonesty, if it is not the other thing, comes with you acting as if all atheists simply say - well, we just don't know, could be either way, we are reserving our vote on this. You are basically presenting atheists as neutral agnostics who are equally unsure of both God creating the world and the world coming to existence by some form of chance or unconscious process lead by big bang and evolution. They just don't know, could be either one of those options, it's a head scratcher really for an atheist.
Quoting tim wood
Reasoning on evidence can be reasonable for an agnostic who plainly doesn't know nor favors either possibility regarding existence of God. As I wrote, but let's repeat, I think majority of people who regard themselves as atheists, and publicly so, are not in that group.
On the other hand, no evidence is not reasonable argument for those who favor non-existence of God.
There is no known natural law that says that if God exists He would universally provide evidence for His existence.
This post, and the thread's OP exemplifies what I understand to be low quality posting.
:-O
If no evidence is provided to prove the existence of something, then no evidence is needed to disprove the same thing. As tim wood dishonestly said before.
Quoting Akanthinos
I'm starting to wonder if this is a troll post.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
Atheists are a clue that Theists exist, not God. 8-)
I've presented one several times, and you ignored it.
Quoting Banno
I can't believe that a just and loving God could allow one of His followers to make such an atrocious argument, so I'm forced to conclude that God doesn't exist. QED.
1400-or-so years ago a warlord walked into a cave in the countryside by himself. He stayed in there for some time (and on a few occasions by the way), and when he came out he reported having "seen things". Weird things, though related to the local culture, folklore and mythologies of that place and time. Others liked it all, and wrote things down — fantastic "from beyond" kinds of things.
Later this became like "the story of legends", supposedly with critically important messages for all of mankind, from a deity. An all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, all-creator deity no less, or so they say.
Can anyone make sense of this? Why on Earth would a supposed all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good deity impart critically important messages for all of mankind in such an obscure way, that can't be differentiated from hallucinations, delusions, whatever cognitive shortcomings, ...? That's setting the stage for failure, delivering implausible, crucial messages ineffectively, even requiring humans to do the dirty work (which is where indoctrination becomes useful, if not crucial). Going by the stories, it's like deceit, clashing with other such stories. (And what on Earth is up with those countless Hindu pilgrims voyaging to the Ganges regularly?) Yet, today those believers claim that their belief is like a prerequisite for eternal joy, and avoiding eternal suffering. If this stuff doesn't raise some red flags and suspicions, then I suggest trying to acquire an understanding of larger contexts.
There is no known natural law that says that if God exists His presence ought be so all-encompasing as to be utterly undeniable.
It's just your opinion. And there is surely no law that says that a human's opinion has to be true.
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
What is the evidence for this "Hitchens' razor"? It doesn't provide any evidence for it's claim, so it can be dismissed without evidence.
Nothing of note would ever be invented with this razor sharp method of thinking, since ideas would be dismissed without evidence, on spot, having being asserted without evidence. Thankfully people are not so cutting edge minded like Mr. Hitchens was, otherwise we would still be living in huts.
In that parallel universe, if I would go to a police because I was robbed, police would tell me: "Your assertion is made without evidence, so we are dissmising it without evidence. Case closed!"
Not to mention that there's no actual evidence for eternal material universe. Nor for universe coming to existence from nothing by some materialistic process. Nor for life coming to existence from non-life through chemistry and such. Hitchens could have used his own thought to dismiss his own worldview.
So what is this "razor"? Basically, just a sentence.
Prove that a human has to understand everything about reality. Like, that there is an actual natural law that says that humans have to understand everything about all of the reality.
If you can't do that, if you are only voicing an opinion, then what you are writing here doesn't prove anything about the non-existence of God. At best, or worst, you can be neutral agnostic.
Nonsense. Every example of imaginary or fictional things you can come up with, and every example of evident things, comprise evidence. (But was your post an admission that you don't have evidence for your claims...?)
[quote=Asimov]If the failure of proof of nonexistence is taken as proof of existence, then we must conclude that all exist.[/quote]
Quoting Henri
Prove? Of course we're not omniscient. I'll take that as an admission that you don't know either. (Y)
Back to shifting the burden of proof? Otherwise please go ahead.
As an aside, do you then take the story of seeing things in the cave above, to be literally as postulated later by (non-Christian) believers?
So, at this point in time, you have no way of knowing if God exists or not. That makes it reasonable conclusion for you to be a neutral agnostic. If you believe or think that there is no God, you are being unreasonable.
I do know that God exists because of supernatural conviction. I don't have to prove that to you, nor I could.
As far as your questions about this or that cave story, I can answer a lot for you, as I did for some of your previous posts, but by your previous responses you don't seem to be very much interested in my answers for knowledge or understanding, so my answers went to waste. And this thread is not about specific claims for God or god anyway.
As far as you are aware, any of available claims can be true, or none at all, and it still doesn't show anything towards the non-existence of God.
Is this one more logic like "Hitchens' razor"?
Failure of proof of nonexistence just means that one can't prove that something doesn't exist. No need for absurd conclusions, because that can go both ways - if the failure of proof of nonexistence is taken as proof for non-existence, then we must conclude that everything which can't be proven to exist, doesn't exist.
Although, physicists have actually developed infinite multiverse theory, in which all really does exist, including Santa Clause, leprechauns and flying unicorns. And at least one universe in which jorndoe believes in God.
As far as clues for God's existence go, they are vast. I am not even talking about clues for God's existence here. I am saying that even if nothing would point to God existing, in universe like ours it would be unreasonable to conclude that there is no God.
Oh, I have seen it. It is embarrassing you are using it as a tool to evaluate your logic.
Here's from wikipedia: "Hitchens's razor is an epistemological razor asserting that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim and if this burden is not met, the claim is unfounded and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it."
Isn't this description true?
I understand how limited this "razor" is, but limitation should be included in "razor" itself. Like:
"In a debate between two opponents, that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
I took the claim as originaly stated. I don't need to learn about the claim to use it. As originaly stated, claim is basically nonsense.
If one wants to define it more precisely, I can take the claim like that too. If the claim is: "In a debate between two opponents, that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence", I can agree with it or not, but that claim has nothing to do with what's true.
Furthermore, it says what can be done, not what is the wisest way to react in order to get to the truth or closest to the truth as possible.
So god hides himself, only allowing a few to know him, damning the others.
That's really rich.
There is a mathematical impossibility that universe, with all the complexities of life, comes from some chance or unconscious process, and one has a gall to talk about who has a burden of proof or not.
There's a much more serious and sorrowful explanation than what you wrote. But I am not going to write it here. One doesn't need to know it, in order to believe in God.
If satan spoke to you supernaturally, then you have been told a lie.
No, he told me the truth.
Nobody has to believe me.
This thread is about how atheists come to their conclusion through unreasonable thought process. Nothing to do with people believing me or not about the existence of God.
A neutral agnostic can sit down and examine how an atheist, one who rejects that God exists, reasoned for his or her position, and conclude that the reasoning was flawed.
Even an atheist can do a self-examination and come to the same conclusion.
Then wouldn't it be appropriate for you to set out the atheistic arguments that are so poor, and show us the error of our ways?
But you have not done so.
That's true, I didn't give examples in OP.
The problem is that all the arguments I have read or heard are flawed. I would have to list them all and then explain them all. Or I would have to list them all for me privately, and then somehow rank them and explain most prominent or most regular ones. I could have done that, but I didn't.
This thread has some decent number of posts, though, and I haven't seen one reasonable argument to deny existence of God.
And again, I am not even arguing for the existence of God here. A position of neutral agnosticism can be reasonably argued, as I see it.
We cannot know with absolute certainty that a god doesn't exist.
Atheists claim with certainty that a god doesn't exist.
Therefore, atheists are mistaken.
Once again, this problem only exists because you're shifting the burden of proof. The word 'doesn't' should be a clue. This argument could be used for any absurd premises.
We cannot know with absolute certainty that Santa Claus isn't real.
People claim Santa Claus isn't real.
Therefore, people are mistaken.
Quoting Henri
Maybe you could remedy that?
No, what you wrote is not what my argument essentially is, but... what can I say at page five. Maybe I'll get back to your post later, not right now.
Quoting ProbablyTrue
I did reply throughout this thread. One can't force an information, just provide it.
Why do you keep employing the incorrect definitions of agnosticism and atheism?
95% of all atheists do not assert the non-existence of god. What you presently understand to be agnosticism is actually the heart of atheism (and you're bastardizing agnosticism like every other laymen).
There are a few atheists who are dumb enough to take the hard position against the existence of god, and you're free to continue addressing them, but hard atheists don't last long and are few and far between (and none are present in this thread).
It's critical that you try to comprehend the difference between rejecting belief in god and actually believing that god does not exist.
Here's a really simple analogy to help clarify the difference between soft and hard atheism:
Let the claim "I have a soccer-ball in my closet" represent the claim "There is a god in heaven".
Now imagine that I asked you to take a position on whether or not there is a soccer-ball in my closet and that I am incapable of providing any actual evidence to show that it is there.
Are you going to just accept my claim and believe me without evidence?
Are you going to assume that there is no soccer ball in my closet?
The reasonable thing to do would be to abstain from believing (soft atheism) because it's clear you have no physical or reasonable access to relevant evidence (agnosticism).
If you decided to take the position of believing that there is no soccer ball in my closet, then you would be making the same error as hard atheists, which is the same error that theists make: they assume things without evidence.
Each and every one of your posts can be turned against theists as well as hard atheists, so I'm not sure what your agenda really is in this thread. Earlier you told me that the evidence for god is not natural, but super-natural. You do realize how silly that sounds right? Let me guess what you really mean by supernatural evidence: "evidence that I am unable to explain, share, or demonstrate exists; it's rationally useless".
Are you saying that majority of atheists are equally unsure of both God creating the world and the world coming to existence by some form of chance or unconscious process lead by big bang and evolution? Are you saying they are equally rigorous towards both claims?
As I have written couple of times, I exclude that group. But I don't think that majority of people who consciously regard themselves as atheists are in that group.
One of the definitions of an atheist is that it's "the person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods". Yes, there are broader and less broader definitions. So? I am using one of the public definitions and I am reffering to people who don't believe in the existence of God. Those people, by the way, have at least some thoughts about origin of life, since they have already been thinking whether God exists or not, and no surprise, they mostly believe in or favor materialistic explanation of existence including big bang, evolution and other similar stuff. You know, all the stuff they have been listening during all the years of their education. What are you up about then?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Well, you guessed wrong. Or even completely misread what I've written, since I can't remember I mentioned anything about "supernatural evidence". Supernatural, as I meant it, is outside of what we normally perceive as natural. Super means above, over, added to.
If some Amazonian tribe got to witness wireless communication, that would be supernatural to them. Outside of their perception of what's possible within reality.
I can explain supernatural experiences I've had. But I really won't do it here. It's no evidence to you anyway. I could have a natural experience about something, for example I could feel suspicion towards something, but I can't prove to you that some time ago I felt that suspicion.
Intelligent design is a bit different than the basic existence of god. Atheism refers mainly to the lack of belief in god, not "do you think X, Y, and Z, are equally likely". Different atheists have different opinions about a lot of things for different reasons. What they share in common is that none of them go around saying god exists.
Quoting Henri
Well you're wrong, so buckup! Unfortunately the majority of the people you have long viewed as unreasonable are in fact reasonable. Judging by the content of this thread, [i]more reasonable than thou.
Quoting Henri
Most people aren't atheists. You're using the popular misconception. If you go around looking at and polling the people who actually describe themselves as an atheist you find out that about 95% of them fit the label "soft-atheist" rather than "hard-atheist" (yes, i am using these terms to help you distinguish the difference). If you go around asking theists what they think atheists believe, you get the misconception that you have been insisting is what numerous self described atheists have told you is inaccurate.
What's the point of telling people the label they use means they believe something that they do not actually believe? (TIP: remember, there is a difference between "believing that a god exists", "lacking belief in the existence of any gods", and "believing in the non existence of gods").
Theists have all kinds of drastically different ideas about what god is and does and thinks, etc, but you don't expect the term theist to perfectly capture all of those differences do you? Likewise, the term "atheist" is very basic, and it does not need to reflect uniformity or anything at all regarding the origin of life, or the big bang, etc...
Quoting Henri
So your evidence for god is that you suspected it existed some time ago?
The only thing supernatural about that is your willingness to think of it as evidence.
Honestly, unless you want me to keep suggesting that your evidence is laughable and demonstrably ridiculous (which is why you won't or cannot share it), then just share it.
And, by the end of this post, you still haven't provided an example. Only more contentless ad hominem affirmations.
It's people like you who gives us philosophers a bad reputation. Shame! Shaaaaaame!
I did, by replying to various posts on this thread.
Asserting the same conclusion with no arguments or evidence to support it is not an example.
You want to be able to freely deny God however you like, and publicly so, but when time comes for some accountability, for some examination of your thoughts, then all of a sudden let's talk definitions because atheists in fact are not hard, they are soft, etc. Build some spine, man.
Here's what is a soft atheist - one that believes or thinks that there is no God or god or gods, but is open to being convinced.
Or, maybe to use this definition - one that believes that existence of God is an extraordinary claim with no proof, so he or she rejects it until the claim is proven to said atheist.
Are those definitions of a soft-atheist good enough?
That kind of an atheist is part of my OP. He or she still doesn't believe that God exists, regardless of how open they are to change their minds sometime in the future. Today their minds aren't changed and they don't believe or think that God exists.
I say they came to that conclusion through unreasonable thought process.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Where did I say that evidence for God is that I suspected it existed some time ago, whatever that sentence actually means?
Anyway, I don't really have to share my experience with you. Whatever I would share here would probably go to waste, so I am not going to do it. But if you are really open to know, you can find many people who can share their experience with you. But, again, this thread is not about proving that God exists.
...without ever setting out that thought process. You are the one firing blanks.
If you want examples, go through this thread and you'll see unreasonable arguments for the non-existence of God given, including your own, and my response to those arguments.
Let's use something from last page.
Banno said: "If God exists, His brilliance, His presence, ought be so all-encompasing as to be utterly undeniable."
That's simply bad logic.
There is no known natural law that says that if God exists His presence ought be so all-encompasing as to be utterly undeniable.
It's just a man's opinion. And there is surely no law that says that a human's opinion has to be true.
So what can one conclude about what Banno said? Nothing about whether God exists or not.
This is not an argument. This is an insult.
Quoting Henri
No, because they do not constitute an argument.
Quoting Henri
That is not an argument, that is an opinion,Quoting Henri
Then what are you doing here? Quoting Henri
It's not about having a philosophical debate either, apparently.
Well, that's a reversal of your own argument about atheist. By the same principle that would warrant the acceptation of your statement, you should accept his.
What exactly about Banno's quote is reversal of which of my arguments about atheists? Can you be precise?
This is a reductio ad absurdum from your argument.
The move to necessitate the miraculous from the mundane leads us naturally to assume the errors of your premises.
As far as I have seen what you've written here, you seem more like a person who believes that God exists but doesn't like Him, than that you don't believe that God exists.
Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.
If you don't believe that God exists, why would you even bother discussing His presumed characteristics at such length. At the same time, what glorious outcome can it be for you to speak the way you speak, and it turns out God exists and has recorded all the things you said. It looks like a loose-loose situation, or masochistic-masochistic situation.
I asked you about one quote, you come back explaining the other.
There is no reductio ad absurdum from my argument in what you quoted, in part because Banno is falsely presenting what I've said, though probably not on purpose. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.
But anyway, there is really very simple way to show that OP is false, at least in it's absolute claim.
Just provide one single reasonable argument in favor of the non-existence of God. Not a single one has been provided here yet, and not only that, I don't think I have ever heard or read such a thing.
If you want to go by what you quoted, that since God exists it is extraordinary that atheists exist, hence God doesn't exist, that's not it. Because there is no known natural law that says that if God exists every human would understand that He exists.
If his position is like mine, one can dislike particular theistic conceptions while simultaneously not believing in any generally.
What I have done is draw out the logical of your OP, to see what sort of a god it implies.
But it seems that you cannot see this; the reductio that shows the god you create to be small and sneaky. That's the implication of his using atheists in such a self-serving and immoral fashion, treating them as an end to his own purpose.
That's not my god. That's your god.
You just don't have good understanding of God's word, that's all. Your conclusions about God's character are flawed. But, again and again, this thread is not about God of the Bible.
Define the god you're talking about.
You have eyes, but fail to see.
Again : can you provide a few examples of such arguments, and on what universal basis rationality can be said to be missing in these.
Because, again, if you don't, then this is a troll thread.
So ...
1. you just know
2. therefore anyone that differ are just wrong
3. done
Did I miss anything? Could you put some philosophy in here?
Only after I came to an understanding that God does not exists, I started to look into theistic arguments more closely.
And my conclusion is that theists, both in general and those most prominent ones, are:
1) quite unreasonable in interpreting what nature provides as clues for or against God
2) quite unreasonable in their reasoning about God
The amount of blank ammunition theists generally use for God makes me think that theism itself is indefensible. Meaning, it's something natural, forced from something inside of our observable world.
And as such, it's basically one more clue against the existence of God.
All arguments in favor of the non-existence of God that have been provided on this thread are unreasonable and have been shown why. I am not going to go through all of them and copy and paste them. Again, all it takes is a single one reasonable argument in favor of the non-existence of God and this OP is not absolutely true.
As for your question on what universal basis rationality can be said to be missing, that's a good question in fact.
Shortly, it is a sin that blocks you from rationality.
But if you want some secular reasoning, there are more than one parts to it, and I'm not going to go through all of them, since I don't have them in compact written form, but among the main ones is that nothing that humans can observe and measure can show that God doesn't exist.
Humans are within creation and can observe and measure:
1) only creation, by default,
2) until God presents Himself and reveals them some other possible place or reality
In case of observing and measuring creation, nothing can be observed nor measured to disprove existence of God, because God could make creation however He wants. We have no way of knowing what is probable or not and by how much. As a result, there is no known natural law that says that if God exists, humans would have to be able to understand that God exists. Not to mention that there is no known natural law that says that humans have to understand everything about reality.
In relation to God, what's observed and measured can at best provide insights in possible character of God.
But while nothing can show the non-existence of God, something can possibly show small probability that the world was not created with plan and purpose, but by some chance or unconscious process. That's for example calculated mathematical impossibility that life originated by some chance process. It's still possible in real life, but that possibility is impossible in mathematical sense, and reasonable conclusion is that this mathematical impossibility points to God.
Again, nothing can be calculated to point the other way, so reasonable thinking already leans towards God, although one can also reasonable argue neutral agnostic position.
In second case God presents Himself.
So, being reasonable, one is either neutral agnostic or thinks or believes that there's God.
If you would have paid attention, you would have noticed that in your case order goes 2 then 1. So I'll start with 2.
2 is basically meaningless, since Christians learn about God through God's conviction and God's word. They are lead supernaturally, not by their own reason. Not that anybody's perfect here, by design. People from other religions also don't reason on their own about God, if they are convicted in their beliefs. It is just that their conviction comes from devil, so it's not really that they are unreasonable but deceived.
1 comes as a result of 2, so it can't be unreasonable as presented because it's Spirit lead. But as an example, when one calculates probability for the existence of life by chance or unconscious process, result is mathematical impossibility. Siding with basic mathematical result is quite a reasonable way to interpret nature. Fighting with such result would be unreasonable, as OP states.
By the way, this reminded me about a point that it can be argued that Christians are disproportionately more *convicted in their understanding that God exists than people from other religions. So this reasonable/unreasonable thing about theists is probably flawed as a general view since not all groups of "theists" have equal distribution of those who are convicted that God exists.
*Convicted - as a result of supernatural conviction, having a full understanding that God exists, not just thinking or believing that God exists
But my post is not about looking at nature, but about looking at theism. Real theism, one that we witness on Earth, not some abstract idea of theism, is quite unreasonable regardless if this universe is created by nature or not. I happen to understand that nature exists, so I can see it as forced from something inside of our observable world.
I wanted to give Henri a chance to redeem the OP.
Once that ship sailed, I did flag quite a few troll posts. The rest is up to the mods to decide what is a low-value post/thread.
We're discussing your posts.
It's (still) up to you to show whether or not they're about anything in particular.
Of course, after pages of completely unsuccessfully presenting atheism as being a reasonable conclusion, deletion of one's own public failure is the next best option.
But you have failed on several counts to make any arguments over 7 pages of thread.
1) You have not said what you mean by god, which you would need to do for 2. It's pointless to say "But OP is not about looking at God, but about looking at atheism."
2) You have not shown how atheists are a clue that god exists (whatever that is!)
3) You have not offered any atheist arguments, though you have denigrated atheists, but by refusing to say what "god" is your claims are empty.
It's kind of endearing, I guess, that you are reversing my words to write your own posts.
Thank you. If I find some of your brilliance, I'll return the favor.