Why are you an atheist - really?
Dianelos Georgoudis
of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
reason for atheism.
I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
an atheist of the existence of God?
I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist
would claim that this is some kind of trick. He was not present
himself, so maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax. If
he was present and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the
waters then he would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he
was quite confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that
the new Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
advanced technology to fool humanity.
If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it
is not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about
God in the first place. It is something else, something less obvious.
I would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made
you think that God does not exist?
Woden
news:5ac380ce.04011...@posting.google.com:
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
Which shows how little you understand the idea of atheism.
>
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
Shit, we see stuff like that on TV all the time.
>
> I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist
> would claim that this is some kind of trick. He was not present
> himself, so maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax. If
> he was present and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the
> waters then he would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he
> was quite confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that
> the new Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
> advanced technology to fool humanity.
So obviously, this little act wouldn't be very effective evidence of some
god.
>
> If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
> agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it
> is not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about
> God in the first place. It is something else, something less obvious.
> I would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made
> you think that God does not exist?
If our belief is so important to your omnipotent, omniscient god, then
why doesn't he provide the necessary evidence? I'm sure he "knows what's
in our hearts" and could easily provide the exact evidence that any of us
would require to accept his existence. But somehow, this god never does
that. It makes a person wonder if this god really wants our belief and
worship or perhaps it just means he doesn't exist.
--
Woden
"religion is a socio-political institution for the control of
people's thoughts, lives, and actions; based on
ancient myths and superstitions perpetrated through
generations of subtle yet pervasive brainwashing."
Anthony Campbell
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
>
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
>
[snip]
I have wondered about this too. For example, if God were to rearrange
some stars to spell out a message saying "I exist", would this be
convincing?
I think it would be evidence for something, but not necessarily for a
God in the Judaeo-Christian sense. It might merely indicate the
existence of a demiurge: a very powerful being but not necessarily
omnipotent, etc. Or it might indicate that we live in a computer
simulation, as some people have suggested (which is really a
modern-dress version of the demiurge idea). Indeed, that might be the
explanation for certain anomalous events in our actual world!
There is another type of objection to the existence of the J-C God that
would not be answered by a demonstration of this kind; I mean the
existence of evil. Even theologians often admit that they do not have an
answer to this conundrum and take refuge in faith.
AC
--
Using Linux GNU/Debian - Windows-free zone
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (book reviews and articles)
Email: replace "www." with "ac@"
Steven Carr
(Dianelos Georgoudis) wrote:
>I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
>existence of God?
Tons of stuff!
If I found original copies of the Gospels in my bedroom tonight.
If Christians really did have eternal life , and never died.
If Bibles were indestructible.
If Jesus returned to Earth, a la Matthew 24.
If my Flinstones video suddenly turned into a video of the
resurrection.
Just use your imganation. There is just so much evidence which could
be available.
Steven Carr
ste...@bowness.demon.co.uk
http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/
Stefan Heinzmann
I can't say that no evidence would ever make me change my mind, but I
reply anyway. That's because, although I'm always interested in new
evidence either way, I'm quite convinced that you'll not be able to come
up with anything substantial. Proofs for god's existence are abundant,
and the ones I know of are all flawed.
I don't know what exact evidence would convince me of the existence of
god, but I doubt that your modern Moses would do it. You fail to say why
it should make me believe in god. I might just come to believe in the
supernatural powers of your new Moses. Can't a man have supernatural
powers without needing a god?
What kind of god anyway? A single one? A triple one? A nice one? A
jealous one? A goddess maybe? A drunkard like Zeus?
What I reject is the notion of god that I found in the religion I was
brought up with: Christianity. By extension I also came to reject the
notion of other religions. If you manage to come up with a plausible
notion of god, maybe I'll buy it. I'm not interested in hocuspocus, though.
Maybe you're aware that your question can be turned around: You surely
don't believe in god because the bible says that Moses split the waters.
There's something else, less obvious, that makes you believe in god. I
suspect that you *want* to believe in god, for it gives you comfort. It
is an emotional need, like the need to be loved. This need is in
conflict with reason and makes you search for excuses. Wouldn't it be a
brilliant excuse for you if you found that atheists were just the same,
if they had a hidden motive rooted in their emotions? It would take the
sting out of the facts, wouldn't it?
Cheers
Stefan
Eric Pepke
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
>
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
>
> I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist
> would claim that this is some kind of trick.
I suspect that this behavior of yours stems from two sources:
1) You're new here, so you haven't seen any of the MANY threads wherein
atheists have constructed hypothetical way, many of them imaginative
and clever and much easier for God to do than most of the Biblical
miracles.
2) You're projecting a personal belief in faith as an essential onto
atheists.
All in all, it seems more than a bit prejudicial, presumptive, and
vapid on your part.
It hardly seems worthwhile to resurrect threads that you can easily
find with a Google search, so I'll just point out the obvious.
First of all, atheists really don't believe that gods exist, at least in
the sense other than how some things that clearly exist (the Sun,
the Univese, small statues, political leaders) are called gods by
some people. I have found that many theists are simply unable or
unwilling to accept that this fact about atheists. If you can't get
it, we're not going anywhere.
Second, any proclivity to think that something is a hallucination,
etc. does not mean that they could never be convinced of the
existence of a god or gods. It's just plain good practice to
examine new information by comparing it to things that are
already known. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses.
Of course, they could be zebras or a guy with a couple of
cocoanut shells. But it just makes sense first to look and see
if they are horses.
Third, you will find many atheists, probably the majority, who
accept ideas that are far more outlandish, counterintuitive,
seemingly unnatural, and difficult than the idea of the existence
of a god or gods. Quantum mechanics, for example. It took
a fair amount of time and a lot of evidence before quantum
mechanics was widely accepted, but that's as it should be.
Fourth, while it is an amusing parlor game to try to come up
with ways that would convince any given atheist, it is hardly
necessary, simply because any actual god worthy of the name
would *already* *know* what would be convincing.
Now, you may meet a small minority of atheists who say things
like "God cannot exist because God is supernatural, which is
apart from the universe, but the universe is by definition
everything that exists." My opinion about such people is that
they are a) playing word games and b) probably slept through
their set theory courses. The vast majority of atheists, I think,
adopt some sort of "if it quacks like a god, it's a god" criterion
and view the existence of god essentially the same as any
other empirical claim.
I've also noticed that many theists have special dodges and
outs for their god that somehow magically prevent the
existence of god from being empirically demonstrable.
If you pull that one, you won't get very far, and you're
likely to hear about the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Russell Turpin
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence
> for the existence of God, but I have this nagging
> suspicion that this is not the real reason for
> atheism.
Obviously, there is a wide variety of atheists. Some
are atheists as offshoot of some philosophy. But many
of us are atheists precisely because there is no
reason to believe, and lacking such reason, we couldn't
make ourselves believe, even if we so desired. We don't
believe in gods for the same reason you don't believe
in leprauchans. Your nagging suspicion is simply wrong.
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as
> evidence for the existence of God? ..
Many of us have described various scenarios that would
provide very good evidence. The most straight-forward
of these is that the god simply presents himself and
converses with us. A burning bush is optional. The
ability to hold up one end of a conversation is still
pretty good evidence that you exist. For example, I
believe in your existence.
> I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I
> believe an atheist would claim that this is some
> kind of trick. .. If he was quite confident about
> his mental faculties, he might suspect that the new
> Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
> advanced technology to fool humanity.
What is the difference between a god, and "an
extraterrestrial using unimaginably advanced technology"?
As some science-fiction author noted, there is no
practical difference between magic and significantly
advanced technology.
Many theists who fumble over what would constitute
evidence for a god's existence confound *that* question
with what would constitute evidence for various
characteristics of a god. For example, is he really
omnipotent? Did he really create everything else that
exists? Was he the one who spoke to Moses or Allah or
whatever prophet has your claim? Etc. But these are
different questions. Yeah, if we had evidence that a god
exists, then other questions about that god would arise.
As things stand, it's difficult to discuss those later
questions, while there's not even evidence that there is
anything there for which to ask them. Or to put it another
way: you have to find the yeti, before you start
investigating its habits, its parasites, its diet, etc.
Dave Hitt
(Dianelos Georgoudis) wrote:
>I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
>of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
>reason for atheism.
>
>I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
>existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
>Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
>cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
>an atheist of the existence of God?
I saw Charlton Heston do that. You're right, anything on that scale
would be considered to be a trick. So it would have to be something
that wasn't a trick.
The only think I can think of that would convince me would be for Him
to do a Bruce Almighty. Give me his powers, at least for a limited
time. That would be something he couldn't fake (at least, not without
directly causing very detailed hallucinations) and I'd accept that as
proof.
Dave Hitt
----
Why smoking bans kill businesses
http://www.davehitt.com/april03/homebody.html
Chris
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
>
Does that go for Muslims, Jews and other religious folk as well? Are
they just willfully not beleiving in the one true god?
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
Ask that question when such an event happens.
> I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist
> would claim that this is some kind of trick. He was not present
> himself, so maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax. If
> he was present and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the
> waters then he would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he
> was quite confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that
> the new Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
> advanced technology to fool humanity.
>
> If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
> agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it
> is not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about
> God in the first place. It is something else, something less obvious.
> I would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made
> you think that God does not exist?
You can tell yourself whatever makes you feel better about having
comitted intellectual suicide by being a beleiver. Sometimes a cigar
is only a cigar. Most atheists are atheist because they see no
evidence for a god. It really is that simple.
GW
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
First of all, there is no single "real reason for atheism" - different
atheists have very different reasons. One might ask why even look for
"reasons" to be an atheist. We are all born as atheists, it's those
people who believe in some god or another that must have a reason to
believe. In most cases the reason is simply that they were told to
believe by their parents, family and friends and that this belief was
reinforced by church visits, communion or confirmation.
Believe it or not, there are people lucky enough (or unlucky,
depending on your point of view) to have never gone through this
transformation, who have simply remained atheists all their lives.
This may not be true for most atheists, but for me it is - I was never
told by my parents that there is a god. They said that some people
believe in (the Christian) God, but they didn't and I would have to
figure it out for myself if I was going to believe in this God or not.
I wasn't quite sure as a child what to make of this, but I guess I
never found a "real reason" to believe, so I didn't.
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
Well, would such an event convince a Christian that it was God's work?
How do Christians determine whether an alleged miracle is a true
miracle? Apparently there are lots of alleged miracles happening all
over the World, but even most Christians seem to dismiss most of these
as frauds. As far as I know the Catholic Church employs a commission
to investigate miracle claims, and the commission decides on a
case-by-case basis whether something was truly a miracle. Usually this
is done when the Pope wants to beatify someone or proclaim that person
a saint.
But I don't really see many news reports about miracles. Even though
the Catholic Church does on occasion proclaim some event a true
miracle, these events are not being taken all that seriously, it
seems. Or what is the last miracle you heard of that you thought was
truly and definitely an act of God?
> If he was quite confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect
> that the new Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
> advanced technology to fool humanity.
That's an interesting point. It would seem to lead one to ask the
Christians to "define God, please". What exactly is the difference
between God and a powerful extraterrestrial anyway? What if it turns
out that the extraterrestrial has "terra-forming" abilities (think
science fiction, Star Trek etc.)? Would we, for practical purposes at
least, even be capable of distinguishing between God and this
seemingly all-powerful ET? What if the whole World was created in a
scientist's lab in a super-universe? Would that make that scientist
God or what? What if that scientist himself believes in a god? Would
that god be our god, too, or would the scientist still remain our god?
Probably these questions have all been asked before on this newsgroup,
but I'm always curious about new ways to answer them, and I'm
especially interested in answers from believers.
Also, what does it mean to say "God exists" anyway? In what sense does
God supposedly exist? Frankly, I never really understood the concept
of non-physical (meta-physical?) existence, which is usually claimed
for God. Can we use scientific means or even normal thought processes
to determine the "existence" of God? Or are we meant to wait for some
sort of direct meta-physical communication from God, if we truly want
proof of God's existence? And failing that, we "just have to believe",
and if we are unwilling to do that, then we are condemned for eternity
(or something like that - perhaps just dead, as more liberal
Christians think)?
> If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
> agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind
I wouldn't say that. But I think the evidence would have to be
something that one couldn't even think of in advance - because
anything one can think of could probably be made into a Hollywood
movie these days. Note that the bar for what counts as a miracle has
gone up considerably with technological progress. If we could
time-travel 2000 years back and take our technology with us, wouldn't
we seem like gods in that time? This line of thought has led some
people to theorize that maybe aliens visited Earth back then and that
they were indeed regarded as gods. I find this rather unlikely, but
still considerably more likely than that there really is a god.
strider
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
Of course there may be many reasons people do not believe in god. If
you are looking to find one "real" reason for atheism, you are not
likely to succeed. Different atheists may lack a belief in god for
different reasons.
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
This is actually kind of a bad case. You are looking for a
hypothetical that would prove the existence of god. I'm not sure one
person being able to violate the known properties of the material
world would do that.
Now, there are two ways you could convince me god exists. First you
could produce a perfectly correct argument based on nothing but pure
reason and taking for granted no assumptions I found faulty which
showed god to exist, much as Descartes tried to. Second you could
demonstrate it empirically. In order to do this you would have to
explain how a world with the existence of god would be different from
a world without the existence of god in a systematic a predictable
manner. Then you would have to demonstrate how our world corresponds
with those differences.
There is, of course, one problem with this second option. It still
wouldn't give me faith or absolute certainty in the existence of god.
It would merely make me believe all known evidence indicates that our
world behaves in the same way a world with god would. This would be a
very powerful statement, but it would not preclude my changing my
beliefs if new empirical data indicated god does not exist.
> I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist
> would claim that this is some kind of trick.
I would only claim that if it were the most probable explanation.
> He was not present
> himself, so maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax.
> If he was present and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the
> waters then he would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he
> was quite confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that
> the new Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
> advanced technology to fool humanity.
Well now, I wouldn't know what to think. I'd probably want to ask
Moses to do it again repeatedly. If he could do it over and over
verifiably I would decide there was some force at work I don't
understand.
> If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
> agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it
> is not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about
> God in the first place.
But the story you have laid out isn't the same as the best evidence
one can imagine.
> It is something else, something less obvious.
> I would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made
> you think that God does not exist?
I never believed god existed. So...I guess I'd need some reason to
change my mind.
I think the problem you are coming up against is that, given many
peoples notions of a mysterious god, it is difficult to explain
exactly how to make the god hypothesis testable. This is still a
problem of evidence, because a non-testable hypothesis can't be
evidenced. Thus it's rather useless for discussing the empirical
world. This is why you get distracted by alternate explanations; you
haven't produced a notion of god one could prove.
Katie
"Dianelos Georgoudis" <dian...@tecapro.com> wrote in message
news:5ac380ce.04011...@posting.google.com...
snip
What is it really that made
> you think that God does not exist?
>
The lack of evidence. That, and the idea seems totally preposterous. Telling
an atheist there's a god is like telling anyone there are invisible aliens
walking around on Earth.
Tom Breton
[...]
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
Depends what sort of god you're talking about. If you mean,
* A logically impossible god, such as we often hear about in
believers' less guarded moments; almighty, all-knowing, various
other sets of contradictory traits. Then of course not; it'd be
like providing evidence for 2+2=5. No matter how many times you put
4 apples into a hat and take out 5, "2+2=5" is never a reasonable
conclusion.
* A god such as the theologians claim exists, one that dodges all the
logical questions but is otherwise as similar to the Bible's god as
possible. In that case, even your televised parting of the waters
leaves gaps you have not thought of in interpretation and
fake-proof-ness. You probably would have thought of them if your
Moses cried out to Zeus or to Satan and the waters parted. Or even
if your Moses cried out to "God", but went on to preach things you
considered anti-Christian on the strength of this miracle.
* A powerful being, but much less improbable than the theologian's
god. In that case, yes, if that was the simplest explanation for
the "miracle".
--
Tom Breton at panix.com, username tehom. http://www.panix.com/~tehom
Joel Hoffman
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
It seems to me that there are as many reasons for atheism as there are
atheists. I, for one, after neglecting my Christian duty to continue my
regular self-indoctrination, discovered that the reasons I had for
believing in Christianity all along were very weak. After a lot of
introspection I decided that not only was Christianity inconsistent,
unsupportable, and basically anti-human, but, as you say, there really
is no reason to believe in any god. Let alone that one.
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
Obviously not.
> I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist
> would claim that this is some kind of trick. He was not present
> himself, so maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax. If
> he was present and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the
> waters then he would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he
> was quite confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that
> the new Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
> advanced technology to fool humanity.
>
> If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
> agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it
> is not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about
> God in the first place. It is something else, something less obvious.
> I would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made
> you think that God does not exist?
>
Well, I will tell you some of the areas in which I believe evidence is
lacking. If evidence were outstanding in these, it would help me believe
that God really does exist, and even to take Christianity (or some other
religion) seriously.
If, when I was a Christian and I tried to, I was able to communicate
with God in any way, or if those I knew and respected were able to
communicate with God, or if any sane and reliable person was, that would
be evidence that there is a God and he/she/it likes to have personal
relationships with people.
If personal or intercessory prayer achieved reliable results well in
excess of what might be expected, even if God didn't feel up to
responding verbally, that would be evidence that prayer was effective
and that God was listening.
If most Christians agreed on the meaning of the Bible and the nature of
God, that would be evidence that God was active in their lives, as they
claim. (Substitute any other religion for Christianity. I am not aware
of any that is particularly free of widespread disagreement over basic
dogma.)
If most or all of those same religious people actually lived by the
widely-accepted directives of their holy text, and the non-believers
didn't, and the pious generally had an inner peace that passeth all
understanding, that would be evidence of the religion's life-changing
power. Instead, they are as stressed and confused as anyone else.
If miracles occurred. (But they do! Just ask Benny Hinn.) Or if
televangelists like him weren't such money sucking freaky liars, that
would be evidence of their generosity and dedication, inspired by their
religion.
If most wars were stopped, instead of started, on religious pretexts,
that would be evidence of religion's morality.
If God Himself appeared in the sky and said "Believe in Me!" I might
think I was hallucinating, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
If the Bible or any other religious text were scientifically accurate
far ahead of its time and consistently made other claims that seemed
illogical at the time but later proved true, without making lots of
ridiculously wrong statements at the same time, that would be evidence
of its divine inspiration.
Or if that same religious text didn't contradict itself at every
possible turn and if it didn't preach things that I find obscene, that
would be evidence of its veracity.
If there weren't a perfectly reasonable non-religious explanation of
reality and life, I might resort to religion in the need to think I
understood things.
If most of the smartest people I know weren't atheists for reasons
similar to mine, that would provide some peer pressure towards religion.
If, historically, mass numbers of people converted to some religion
because of its obvious and inherent truth, not because they were forced
to on threat of death, that would be evidence of its usefulness to life.
(Actually, I think Buddhism might pass this test.)
If this religion didn't have to rely on threats of eternal punishment
for not believing & promises of eternal happiness for believing, that
would be evidence of its irrefutable truth.
If there were some logically coherent argument that God exists, that
would be, well, evidence that God exists.
If all of that, or lots of other things, were true, that would
constitute a large body of *actual evidence* and I'd find it very
difficult to argue against some lucky religion. But, as far as I know,
ABSOLUTELY NONE of it is true. No doubt you can argue with me, of
course. Each of these items has weathered millions of pointless debates.
But it would take a hell of a lot to convince me that any one of them is
true. And not all of it is even logical. (I think most of it is.) Like
most other humans, I make decisions for a variety of reasons, some of
which are completely irrational.
In short, if some religion were true, the fact would be blindingly
obvious to the most casual observer because religious people would be
different from and better than non-religious people! God would be a
close, personal friend of all of them and they would be unperturbable by
life's slings & arrows. They would know all truth centuries before the
rest of us silly nonbelievers! They would be, disproportionately, forces
for positive social change and they would fight unceasingly against
human suffering. But, of course, all that's a fantasy and religious
people are exactly the same as everybody else. Oh, wait. Actually,
they're not. Particularly in the case of fundamentalists, who are
usually more religious than non-fundies, they're forces AGAINST social
change. They kill people who they think believe the wrong thing.
Disproportionately, they believe things that are obviously and
demonstrably wrong. People who don't think about things critically are
overwhelmingly likely to be religious. I believe they are actually,
generally speaking, worse role models than the few non-religious they
can be compared against.
Well, that about exhausts my pent-up frustration at the moment.
(Hello all. This is my first rant^Wpost to this ng. Pardon my cynicism.)
Joel
Christopher A. Lee
(Dianelos Georgoudis) wrote:
>I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
>of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
>reason for atheism.
Sigh.
You've got the cart before the horse.
One needs a reason to be theist.
And the most common one is childhood brainwashing.
If you weren't brainwashed to believe in deity it is merely somebody
else's wierd belief.
There is nothing to "discuss" - it is like saying:
"I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
of the Easter Bunny, but I have a nagging suspicion that this is not
the real reason for not believing in it"
See the problem?
Theists are utterly convinced that the easter Bunny is real and invent
all sorts of "easons" we don't believe in it and don't have the common
sense to keep it to themseelves.
>I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
>existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
>Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
>cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
>an atheist of the existence of God?
Get it through your thick head that you might just as well be asking
us about Santa cLaus.
>I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist
>would claim that this is some kind of trick. He was not present
>himself, so maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax. If
>he was present and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the
>waters then he would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he
>was quite confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that
>the new Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
>advanced technology to fool humanity.
What makes your religion more real than all the hundreds of others out
there?
Please have the intelligence not to talk outside your religion as
though it were.
>If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
>agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it
>is not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about
>God in the first place. It is something else, something less obvious.
>I would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made
>you think that God does not exist?
What is it really that made you think that the Easter Bunny does not
exist?
Eric Pepke
> What is the difference between a god, and "an
> extraterrestrial using unimaginably advanced technology"?
> As some science-fiction author noted, there is no
> practical difference between magic and significantly
> advanced technology.
That was Arthur C. Clarke, his Second Law. I don't know what his
First Law was.
Philip K. Dick did him one better, I think, in a passage from an
otherwise forgettable book. I quote the passage from memory,
so some of the words might not be quite right:
"God is dead. They found His corpse floating out by Prox a few
years ago."
"What they found was a being that apparently create star systems
and planets and populate them with creatures derived from its
own substance. But that doesn't prove it was God."
"I think it was God."
chris
>
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
>
Really easy. He could send us advance notice of his pending
appearance, via email, TV, radio, leaflets. Then on that day, a giant
version of him would appear in the sky and lecture us all in every
language, telling us that yes, he does exist. He could make wind and
heat/cold spells, move the clouds, move the sun/moon .... it would be
an incredible sight.
After I convinced myself that I wasn't on drugs, I'd at least walk
into church on the next Sunday.
chris
PG
news:bu0n2u$b2e$05$1...@news.t-online.com...
| Dianelos Georgoudis wrote:
| I can't say that no evidence would ever make me change my mind, but I
| reply anyway. That's because, although I'm always interested in new
| evidence either way, I'm quite convinced that you'll not be able to
come
| up with anything substantial. Proofs for god's existence are abundant,
| and the ones I know of are all flawed.
Sorry to nitpick, but there are no logical 'proofs' for the existence of
gods. Logic resides on 'self-evident' axioms. To prove these axioms,
they would have to be
inferrable from something else. So wherever a logical proof takes you,
it derives at the outset from an assumption that is not proven. That is
not to say that the arguments themselves are unsound, as developed from
the premise of the allegedly necessary existence of god. But if atheists
can justifiably dispute the viability of the premise - which we do and
can - then the existence of same cannot be proven.
PG
PG
news:5ac380ce.04011...@posting.google.com...
Let's assume that against all the odds the theists have got it right,
that there is a 'god', a tolerant, compassionate, all-knowing and
all-seeing being as claimed by 'his' followers. In that case those of us
who consider that accepting an exclusive form of belief on what amounts
to hearsay is dangerous, unjustifiable, and bound to promote prejudice,
who realise that it is ridiculous to condemn a follower of one creed for
lack of belief in another, those who understand that human behaviour and
morality is entirely conditioned by our environment and evolved genetic
programming, those who witness the dogma and conflict engendered by
religious intolerance and say 'No thank you' and struggle to promote an
impartial world free from 'odium theologicum'............. then in my
view such people would without a doubt be first in line for promotion to
the heavenly premier league! ... with the believers, ironically,
struggling to avoid relegation.
On the other hand, if the god in question doesn't give a damn about the
human condition, or barely knows we exist, or actually gets a sadistic
pleasure from witnessing those who he has condemned to pain and
suffering, whether or not it is deserved (almost exclusively not), then
believers might yet be in with a
chance. This god could do with a name change though. How about 'The
Devil'?
One final option - there are those who lean towards the view that there
is/are no such thing as personal god(s) in the Xian etc sense, and that
this is a ludicrous construct, transparently anthropomorphized and
manipulated by ruthless, self-interested, power-hungry theocrats over
the ages. In this case it matters not one whit whether we believe in
it/them at all. Except of course when we're on the receiving end of
tunnel vision, religious fanaticism and violence, or hoping to learn
about evolution in certain American schools, or happen to be a female in
large chunks of the world ...... (Though why Xian women should expect
more when they were fashioned from a 'spare rib', as an afterthought, is
a mystery ........ ;o)
PG
Joshua
You caught me. I'm an atheist to look cool in front of my religious
friends. I secretly believe in God, but this way I can win arguments
without even trying. In the heat of a fiery political debate, I often
say, "and I'm an atheist." There is usually a stunned silence as the
realization that I'm smarter than everyone else slowly kicks in. Then
someone changes the conversation to the weather.
Seriously, now, I want to know why you think people are atheists! To
subvert the moral authority of America? To make every child gay? No?
Then why? What is the _real_ reason?!
Ken W.
"Dianelos Georgoudis" <dian...@tecapro.com> wrote in message
news:5ac380ce.04011...@posting.google.com...
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
I'm not just atheistic about the Judeo-Christian god, I am atheistic
about Greek gods, Norse gods, Hindu gods, et al.
Ken W.
Chris
> russell...@hotmail.com (Russell Turpin) wrote in message news:<8a12e538.04011...@posting.google.com>...
> > What is the difference between a god, and "an
> > extraterrestrial using unimaginably advanced technology"?
> > As some science-fiction author noted, there is no
> > practical difference between magic and significantly
> > advanced technology.
>
> That was Arthur C. Clarke, his Second Law. I don't know what his
> First Law was.
I think you may be confusing Arthur C Clarke with Isaac Asimiv. He
devised the three laws of robotics (later expanded to four, when the
Zeroth law was added). The above is indeed an Arthur C Clark quote,
but it is not a law, it is an observation.
Charles Fiterman
an atheist is and you've realized its foolish.
Atheism is not about God but about gods, most of those are small
statues and obviously exist. I am perfectly convinced of the divinity
and existence of Gaius Caesar but find his worship an insult to human
freedom and dignity. Those who willingly worship such things are not
atheists no matter what they think of your god.
I don't believe in gods in the sense I don't believe in kings. I
haven't taken a universal tour to discover there has never been a
heriditary monarch since the big bang. There have been plenty of them
and that makes the opinion meaningful.
However I'm about as convinced the Christian god is a myth as that
Oberon king of the fairies is a Shakespearian invention. The existence
of some kings does not prove the existence of Oberon. When I say I
don't believe in kings it does not invite debate on the existence of
Oberon. If you could prove Oberon was real I wouldn't become a
monarchist.
Stefan Heinzmann
Yes, sorry, I wanted to write: "Attempts to prove god's existence are
abundant..."
Cheers
Stefan
Christopher A. Lee
They never seem to grasp this simple point.
>Ken W.
veenurs
take hours, but even then , here's my two pence-
Apart from the psychological fact that many people take to everything
that goes against the the flow of popular opinion, here's my question-
How will a miracle prove the existence of God? Clearly any genuine
phenomenon that looks likes a miracle today will be explained by some
findings tomorrow [ can someone really dissprove this ?]
for me, it's just logic- if we think the world is so
grand/beautiful/complex/unpredictable that it took a God to create it,
then we'll need a SuperGod to create the God[The God would probably be
more complex, but wouldn't be able to create 'Him'self. ] and so
on..... So the concept of God doesn't come up with a really
well-rounded solution to the question of existence.
The question I'd rather ask is- What makes grown-up people keep
believing in God despite the faculty of logic? My guess, though, is
that most people turn atheist during childhood. When we are grown up,
we just stop questioning things that much and take many things on the
face value to bridge the holes in our knowledge. God might just be one
of those things.
-R.
dug
> If our belief is so important to your omnipotent,
> omniscient god, then why doesn't he provide the
> necessary evidence?
Perhaps you haven't asked.
--doug
dug
> There is another type of objection to the existence of the J-C God that
> would not be answered by a demonstration of this kind; I mean the
> existence of evil. Even theologians often admit that they do not have an
> answer to this conundrum and take refuge in faith.
Have you ever read The Silmarillion? Morgoth, the spirit of evil, was
a portion of god's thought, just as all the good spirits were. What if
evil did not exist? Would there be any reason for life?
--doug
dug
> You can tell yourself whatever makes you feel
> better about having comitted intellectual
> suicide by being a beleiver.
I don't think that's fair, and I don't think it's accurate either. How
is belief in god exclusive of intellectual life? Also, why attack
someone who is trying to understand you?
> Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.
And sometimes it's a representation for a penis. Ask Monica Lewinski.
--doug
dug
> then in my
> view such people would without a doubt be first in line for promotion to
> the heavenly premier league! ... with the believers, ironically,
> struggling to avoid relegation.
Hallelujah!
> This god could do with a name change though.
> How about 'The Devil'?
Hallelujah squared! This is the answer to the challenge, "How do you
know God is not evil?" The answer being, "Because we are not
worshipping evil. To evil we give our derision. If god is evil, then
the thing you're calling god is not god at all."
--doug
dug
> There is usually a stunned silence as the
> realization that I'm smarter than everyone else
> slowly kicks in.
What a conceit! In my experience, when people claim intellectual
superiority everyone gets quiet because they want to avoid damaging
the person's obviously fragile ego.
P.S. I know you're being facetious.
--doug
Mark Folsom
news:5ac380ce.04011...@posting.google.com...
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
> reason for atheism.
>
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
> an atheist of the existence of God?
Part the sea--then we'll talk.
Mark Folsom
Tom Breton
>
> I think you may be confusing Arthur C Clarke with Isaac Asimiv. He
> devised the three laws of robotics (later expanded to four, when the
> Zeroth law was added). The above is indeed an Arthur C Clark quote,
> but it is not a law, it is an observation.
True, but it is still often given as "Clarke's Law". Haven't heard it
with an ordinal number before.
I like the tongue-in-cheek contrapositive, "Any technology
distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced".
--
Tom Breton, calm-eyed visionary
John Secker
Georgoudis <dian...@tecapro.com> writes
>I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
>of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
>reason for atheism.
>
>I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
>existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
>Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
>cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
>an atheist of the existence of God?
>
what it would take to convince me that he exists. And if He is the
omnipotent God of monotheistic legend, then He is capable of doing
whatever it takes to convince me. However, let's not go for the whole
nine yards - why not ask what it would take to make me think that God
MIGHT exist? If the universe behaved regularly and consistently in a way
which you would expect if the Christian tales were true, then I would
probably believe in God. If prayers were regularly answered, evildoers
smote by lightning in the midst of their sins, waters parted each day to
allow pious men to cross, burning bushes talking to all of us when we
needed advice - then I would regard God as the most likely explanation,
even though it might be a trick. But this does not happen - the world
behaves EXACTLY as though there is no controlling intelligence,
benevolent or otherwise. So let's ask the question the other way round -
what would it take to convince a Christian (or other theist) that their
God did not exist?
>I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist
>would claim that this is some kind of trick. He was not present
>himself, so maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax. If
>he was present and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the
>waters then he would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he
>was quite confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that
>the new Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably
>advanced technology to fool humanity.
>
>If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
>agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it
>is not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about
>God in the first place. It is something else, something less obvious.
>I would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made
>you think that God does not exist?
>
no evidence at all to support it, and a very simple "mundane"
explanation instead.
Assuming that you are a Christian, tell me really what convinced you
that Allah does not exist.
--
John Secker
Joshua
Hah! Yeah, my interpretation of the awkward silence was supposed to be
questionable. That was part of the joke!
I'm genuinely curious to know why the poster believes people are
atheists, but unfortunately he seems to be a one-post wonder.
Carl Kaufmann
>
> I think you may be confusing Arthur C Clarke with Isaac Asimiv. He
> devised the three laws of robotics (later expanded to four, when the
> Zeroth law was added). The above is indeed an Arthur C Clark quote,
> but it is not a law, it is an observation.
>
From http://www.lsi.usp.br/~rbianchi/clarke/ACC.Laws.html
In the book Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the
Possible Arthur C. Clarke states his three Laws, which are formulated
as follows:
Clarke's First Law:
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is
possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something
is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Clarke defines the adjective 'elderly' as :"In physics, mathematics
and astronautics it means over thirty; in other disciplines, senile
decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are of course,
glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college
knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board
meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory". (in
Profiles of the Future.)
Clarke's Second Law:
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture
a little way past them into the impossible."
Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
I have collections of his works where he refers to them as laws as well.
--
EAC Liar, Damned Liar, and Statistician
A.A. #1966
"Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient
citizenship as the ability to read and write." - H.G. Wells
Brian Borst
Perhaps we shouldn't have to.
- Brian
Brian Borst
That Morgoth character is an interesting concept, especially with
regard to the J-C God. Is this Satan fellow just a reflection of
God's own dark side? Is Satan just another face of God (along with
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)? It would tend to explain some of
the mean-spiritedness of much of the Old Testament. Of course, God
would run into problems trying to condemn us for our "evil" nature if
he had one of his own. Or he could just be in denial, with all that
talk of being "righteous" and all.
I'm not quite sure at what you're getting at with your questions
though. Are you saying evil is what makes life worth living?
- Brian
Geoff McCaughan
If I'm sitting across the table from you, and I want the sugar, I'll ask you
for it, thus supplying you with information you didn't possess. Maybe if
you're preceptive you'll notice I want the sugar and will pass it without
me asking.
If I'm sitting across the table from an omniscient being, I don't need to
supply the information that I'd like the sugar, since he knows that already.
Thus what are we to understand if he fails to pass the sugar?
Woden
news:79de2737.0401...@posting.google.com:
> Perhaps you haven't asked.
And what if I have asked and still got no response? Does this mean your
god doesn't care or doesn't exist?
--
Woden
"religion is a socio-political institution for the control of
people's thoughts, lives, and actions; based on
ancient myths and superstitions perpetrated through
generations of subtle yet pervasive brainwashing."
Dianelos Georgoudis
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God?
Thank you very much for your answers. Most interesting - really much
obliged each of you. Some retorts, such as Joel Hoffman's, were quite
overwhelming. My goal was is to understand how atheists think and in
this you have helped a lot.
My basic problem is this: there are obviously a lot of smart atheists
of intellectual honesty and there are also at least some smart
believers of intellectual honesty. How can this be? I am very curious
about how compatible these two world views can become through debate.
I know this is a never ending debate, but who cares, it's interesting
enough, and if done well, at least it helps both world views come into
better focus to all concerned.
So allow me to use some of your ideas and see where they lead.
There are clearly different kinds of atheists and for different
reasons. Also different kinds of evidence would be convincing for each
one. On the whole though it is really the lack of evidence that makes
an atheist. (As Christopher Lee notes, we are all atheists when
discussing the existence of the Eastern Bunny, and the absence of
evidence is the reason - really.) What's more, many of you have argued
that there may exist evidence for the non-existence of, say, the
Judeo-Christian god (such as that believers behave as badly, if not
worse, than non-believers).
What I found most interesting was to realize that one can posit and
discuss different types of gods, and that for each type a different
kind of evidence may apply. Structuring a problem in more manageable
units is a time-tested method, so let me expand on Anthony Campbell's
post and suggest a hierarchical taxonomy of gods :-)
Level A god: An intelligent being with supernatural powers, i.e. able
to act against physical laws as we know them. The evidence for the
existence of such a god would be for him to appear here and show us
his powers. The Moses I described in my original post parting the
waters of the Red See at will would be an example, or maybe the god
Zeus of the ancient Greeks (who used to take the form of animals to
deflower young humans), and so on. A level-A god could be an
extraterrestrial armed with very advanced technology, somebody who may
in fact rearrange the stars in heaven to read, say, the first
paragraphs of John's gospel. Dave Hitt's idea of a "Bruce Almighty" is
impressive but it too is within the power of a level-A god I think.
Level B god: The creator of the universe. May or may not make himself
visible within his creation through supernatural acts, but even if he
did it would only be evidence for a level-A god. A possible evidence
for a level-B god would be (to steal a page from Sagan's "Contact")
for us to discover in the initial expansion of the number pi the
entire Old Testament letter by letter in the original Hebrew. A
level-B god could be a scientist in a super technologically advanced
society, who creates a universe in his laboratory; maybe he enjoys
observing how the smartest emergent intelligent beings in this
universe - i.e. the atheists - would deny the existence of the creator
- i.e. him :-)
Level C god: A god with infinite attributes: almighty, all-knowing,
omnipresent, eternal, etc. I cannot see what evidence one could have
for the existence of such a god. The exact value of the number pi does
not count as evidence because any level-B god could design that. In
fact any level-B god may appear almighty in our universe. It appears
that any physical evidence is within the power of a level-B god, and
therefore cannot be evidence for a level-C. Anyway the Judeo-Christian
god is supposed to be a level-C god, but he also appears to have some
bad character traits, such as to pick favorites, to be vengeful,
self-contradictory, etc.
Level D god: This god has not only infinite powers but is perfect in
all respects: Perfectly beautiful, all-and-infinitely-loving,
absolutely compassionate, and also unique, the one true God. In other
words, the best possible god, infinite in quantity and quality,
everybody's favorite. Many Christians would claim that the God they
believe in is this one. Unfortunately, if we can't even imagine any
possible evidence for the existence of a level-C, even less so for the
level-D god. What is worse many people would argue that there is
evidence for the non-existence of the level-D: if such an all-loving
and almighty god existed then pain and evil would not exist, but they
do exist, and therefore an all-loving and almighty god does not. This
is the well known "problem of evil" and much ink has flown discussing
it; you can find a relevant article in the Encyclopedia Britannica
(www.britannica.com).
Now in the previous posts in this thread many of you describe a long
list of observations that would count as evidence for the existence of
a god, but they are all, I think, evidence only for levels A and B.
Most theists would claim to believe in a level C or D. This point may
be important: If atheists cannot really state any imaginable evidence
which would convince them for the existence of a level-C or level-D
god, then it is not reasonable that they ask theists to produce such
evidence. Evidence for the existence of a level-A or level-B god is
missing but a theist does not claim that a god of level-A or level-B
exists, so this point is mute.
There is the important counterargument here that Russel Turpin makes:
"Many theists who fumble over what would constitute evidence for a
god's existence confound *that* question with what would constitute
evidence for various characteristics of a god. For example, is he
really omnipotent? [snip] But these are different questions. Yeah, if
we had evidence that a god exists, then other questions about that god
would arise. As things stand, it's difficult to discuss those later
questions, while there's not even evidence that there is anything
there for which to ask them. Or to put it another way: you have to
find the yeti, before you start investigating its habits, its
parasites, its diet, etc."
I think I can rephrase this argument thus: "if no evidence for the
existence of unicorns is forthcoming, one need not worry about
evidence for the existence of pink unicorns."
I think there an error in this argument when applied to gods. One may
say that a level-D is a level-C with some additional attributes - also
that a level-B is a level-A with some additional attributes. But there
is fundamental difference in kind between a level-B and a level-C god,
it is a jump from finite to infinite. A theist will reasonably claim
that the difference is so fundamental that it defines what godhood is;
that atheists should not call god any beings of finite power such as
levels-A and B; that everything we may know about a finite being does
not apply and cannot be carried over to a discussion about an infinite
god, who is the only type relevant to a theist. An atheist (and theist
too) can produce a long list of possible evidence for the existence of
a finite being of great power but the presence or absence of evidence
for the existence or non-existence of such a finite being is
irrelevant when one discusses the existence of an infinite being.
An atheist may say: "Now, just a second, let's go back to basics shall
we? If an infinitely powerful god exists (level-C or D) then he is
also powerful enough to present to us supernatural acts as evidence
for his existence, so why doesn't he?" Good question, but maybe for
the first time (at least for me) we may have a good answer too:
"Because, assuming a level-C or level-D god exists, if he did present
us with such evidence then he would only convince us of the existence
of a being which is infinitely lesser than he is, a being that is
fundamentally different from what he is. At least the level-D God
would never do something that would deceive us. The only reasonable
expectation we may have from the level-D god is that s/he wants us to
believe in what is essential in godhood, not to believe in some mighty
sorcerer."
Does this argument make any sense to you? What it says basically is
that we can imagine many types of possible evidence for the existence
of a level-A or level-B god (even though such evidence has not been
forthcoming), but that we cannot imagine any possible evidence for the
existence of a level-C or level-D god, which is the only type a theist
would call god. Also the level-D god would never present us with
evidence based on supernatural power, which would be construed as
evidence for a level-A or level-B. By the way, if the level-D god
exists, I think this constitutes an argument against all claims of
god-made miracles in the scriptures of the different religious
traditions.
I would like to make a semantic suggestion here: Let's deny godhood to
a being of level A or B. This makes eminent sense not only because of
the dichotomy we have discovered above between finite beings for which
evidence is easy to imagine and infinite beings for which evidence is
difficult to imagine, but also because for any serious theist infinite
power is a necessary attribute of godhood. So if an atheist discusses
god with an theist, and the atheist has in mind a level A or B god,
whereas the theist has in mind a level C or D, then it should come to
no surprise that they will talk past each other. As the theist is more
exacting let us reserve the adjective "god" only for beings of level C
or D.
Even more, let's have a much simpler discussion and make away with
level-C gods too. Most theists would claim that their god is the
level-D anyway. There may be some fundamentalists who believe in a god
who is vengeful because he is described as such in their holy book,
but no reasonable debate is possible between an atheist and a
fundamentalist anyway. So let's stick with the level-D god and call
this god, for previty's sake, "God" (by definition this is a unique
being and therefore deserves a capitalized name). Hmmm, haven't we
found before evidence for the non-existence of the level-D? Well, yes,
but let us suppose there is a good solution to the problem of evil
(Leibniz may have found one) and not make away with our favorite god
just yet.
God, defined as the level-D god, offers one huge advantage in our
debate. Whereas knowledge about any other level requires some kind of
evidence or revelation, this is not necessary for God. Jews,
Christians, and Muslims, all have holy books that more or less
describe their corresponding level-C god, but when discussing God no
such revelation is needed, because we can know exactly how God is:
s/he is the most perfect being. Ah, but by which measure can we decide
what perfect is? Well by the taste of the people who are asking. Is
this serious, can we simply use peoples' tastes to make decisions
about God? Yes, because we do it anyway when we define God as the most
perfect being, after all this definition implies that know what
perfect means. But, don't different peoples have different tastes?
Maybe so, but this is the much lesser problem.Indeed, the huge chasm
in communication between theists and atheists is very much reduced if
both agree to use nothing more than their taste about perfection as a
measure. For example almost all atheists and theists would agree that
God, if s/he exists, would never send people to everlasting torment.
They would agree that if God exists, then creation is necessary. They
would agree that if God exists, then justice must be achieved somehow.
And so on.
Also, most atheists and theists will agree that there is no imaginable
physical evidence for the existence of God. Some of the posters in
this thread were honest enough to concede that if overwhelming
physical evidence were presented to them they would be convinced and
the few lingering suspicions would not hold them back from abandoning
atheism. To use an example similar to the one given by Chris, if a
lowly level-A god would make a pre-announced visit and appear near the
earth as a white-bearded old man the size of a planetary system, and
would admonish us, in a thunderous voice understood by all, that we
should better behave or else - well if such event happened many now
ex-atheists would start going to church and maybe taking absolution.
But (and this is an important "but") if the ideal atheist and the
ideal theist (both of whom think in a freezingly rational way) should
witness such an event they would both agree that it does not in fact
constitute evidence for the existence of God.
I feel very happy, because it seems that there are many things about
God that an ideal atheist and a theist can agree on, except of course
the little thing about his/her existence. But it seems to me that an
atheist and a theist could co-author a book about theology if only
every statement started with the clause "Assuming that God exists,
then..." So let's call it day and leave it at that.
If I may backtrack a little, I argue above that there cannot be any
imaginable physical evidence (i.e. an event that could conceivably
happen in the physical world) for the existence of God. What about
non-physical types evidence? Can you propose non-physical types of
evidence which if forthcoming would constitute evidence? Reading
through your posts I find two possible cases:
First, evidence from the goodness of believers. Observe that we are
not looking for actual evidence, but just debating what would
constitute evidence. So imagine a world in which people who believed
in God displayed a far more greater degree of ethical behavior and
inner peace than others. A world in which people who are baptized are
transformed in some visible and notorious way. Would that constitute
evidence for God? Well, no, because all we would know about believers
is the way they behave, and this after all is only physical evidence -
any level-B god could manipulate events to fool us. I am not claiming
that the good example of others has not great power on real world
people. What I am claiming is that it does not constitute evidence for
our freezingly cool atheist and theist. For them ethical behavior can
be understood by way of genes and memes. Or maybe it cannot be
understood, but in this case it is either that our science is not yet
advanced enough, or else that there is a level-B god around who finds
pleasure in tempting the atheist's and theist's world views. Changing
gears and discussing real evidence, I think that the apparent absence
of notorious goodness throughout the group of Christians can be
construed to be evidence for the non-existence of a level-D. Even the
New Testament repeatedly advices that by the fruits you recognize the
truth.
Second, evidence based on a purely logical argument for the existence
of God. This kind of evidence, if it existed, would indeed be
non-physical. I am not absolutely sure, but I don't think it is
possible to create evidence for God out of thin intellectual air. Not
that people haven't tried. There is Anselm's well-known ontological
proof that goes something like this: "Let's define God as the most
complete being that can be conceived. Now if such a being were to lack
the attribute of existence then it wouldn't be the most complete.
Therefore God, as defined, has the attribute of existence, i.e. God
exists." Puff!, out of his rational hat the logician produces God. The
problem is that such arguments have zero convincing power, and
therefore constitute anything but evidence.
So, where do we stand? I think many atheists and theists would agree
with the following statements:
1. It is reasonable for both atheists and theists to concentrate their
debate on the existence of the one perfect God, one untainted by the
mythologies of the various religions.
2. There are many statements about God that an atheist and a theist
can agree on, using their own sense of perfection as a principle, even
if they disagree about the existence of such a being.
3. Nobody has managed to suggest some imaginable evidence, physical or
non-physical, which if forthcoming would constitute evidence for the
existence of God.
4. There are difficult problems that if unresolved do constitute
evidence for the non-existence of God.
Hmmm, on the whole it looks as a distinctly unhappy state of affairs
for a believer. The only silver lining is that statement 3 explains
the absence of evidence: it is no surprise one doesn't find something
one is unable to describe beforehand.
There is one last argument a theist may propose, a last line of
defense if you will: that no evidence for the existence of God is
necessary. Well, the way I, and probably most atheists, understand the
concept of "evidence", evidence *is* necessary by definition. If no
evidence is there, then there is no reason either, and if there is no
reason to believe, and one does believe, then one is behaving in an
absurd fashion. As Strider wrote: "In order to [convince an atheist of
the existence of god] you would have to explain how a world with the
existence of god would be different from a world without the existence
of god in a systematic a predictable manner. Then you would have to
demonstrate how our world corresponds with those differences."
I think this is a concise argument, in fact I think it is fundamental.
*God must make a difference.* Any argument for a completely absentee
god is as good as an argument for the absence of this god. What's more
the perfect God cannot be absentee by definition. So, in balance, it
appears difficult to sustain the claim of the existence of the perfect
God.
Still, matters are far from settled. For example, a Christian can
argue about evidence and justification using his own way of thinking,
a way that an atheist cannot really counter convincingly: "God has not
been absentee at all and has in fact given us plenty of evidence; we
have scripture as a written witness of people who where present when
that evidence was given, good people most of whom would have no
incentive to lie. You may say that such evidence is not sufficient for
a freezingly cool mind, but these witnesses were real people, the
evidence they got was sufficient for them, and it is certainly
sufficient for me. Scripture, being a work of men, may not be perfect,
but in any case it was inspired by God and is a sufficient and
splendid guide for me, a guide that I shall never lose in this life.
God may be rather absent now, but who are we to judge God? His ways
are mysterious, because we, as imperfect beings, cannot ever
understand an infinite and perfect being. Maybe He expects us to
believe having only the scriptures as evidence, and maybe there is a
very good reason for that. Anyway we shall all very surely get huge
and incontrovertible evidence of the existence of God after we die (at
which time you atheists risk finding yourselves in hell), or even
before that if we should be alive at the Second Coming. You keep
insisting about evidence, but what evidence I have is sufficient for
me to try to live my life in a way that pleases my creator, for it is
the least I can do to show some gratitude for the presents He gave me.
Also the precepts of my religion are very fine and if I succeed to
live by them the world will become a better place. Sure, my church is
not perfect, but whoever is perfect may throw the first stone. My
faith is not perfect either and I do often doubt, but my faith is
strong enough to help me withstand the misfortunes of my life and
await life eternal in the presence of my Lord after I die."
I want to tell you that I admire the atheist who is fearless in his or
her convictions and will go where reason leads, but I must say I have
sympathy for a believer who speaks as the one above. I think that any
person, atheist or believer, who leads a decent life trying not to
injure others, deserves our respect. Believers may seem on average to
be a little more dim-witted, but who knows, if it turns out that God
does exist and we all find ourselves in an afterlife it will be the
atheists who will look foolish ;-)
To conclude this long post, some of you assumed that I am a believer
and have asked me what reason do I have for believing. Well, I must
concede that I do believe in God (level-D). This makes me a believer I
suppose. On the other hand I find that in many ways I have more in
common with the typical atheist who argues from reason than with the
typical theist who argues by quoting the scriptures. In this sense it
is not quite appropriate to place me in the set of theists. One way or
the other, I do recognize that it is not meaningful to talk to an
atheist based on principles the atheist denies. The coin accepted in
this newsgroup is reason.
So then, do I have evidence for my faith? As you will agree this
question cannot be answered in a few phrases and this post is too long
already - also this matter is off-topic in this thread. So I am
preparing a post where I argue that a theist's worldview can be
completely rational and based on evidence, but this notwithstanding it
is difficult for a theist to efficiently communicate this evidence to
an atheist. The problems of communication are more psychological than
one of argumentation; a theist and an atheist think in different ways
and therefore speak in different languages. So, look out for the
thread "can a pancake look up?", which, moderator willing, you'll find
in this newsgroup - and thanks for the patience to read that far :-{
Kirk Job-Sluder
> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 05:55:57 +0000 (UTC), dug_do...@hotmail.com
> (dug) wrote:
>>Have you ever read The Silmarillion? Morgoth, the spirit of evil, was
>>a portion of god's thought, just as all the good spirits were. What if
>>evil did not exist? Would there be any reason for life?
>>
>>--doug
>
> That Morgoth character is an interesting concept, especially with
> regard to the J-C God. Is this Satan fellow just a reflection of
> God's own dark side? Is Satan just another face of God (along with
> the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)? It would tend to explain some of
> the mean-spiritedness of much of the Old Testament. Of course, God
> would run into problems trying to condemn us for our "evil" nature if
> he had one of his own. Or he could just be in denial, with all that
> talk of being "righteous" and all.
It also should be noted that the Silmarillion is not particularly
intended as a work of theology like C. S. Lewis's Narnia series.
In fact, Tolkien was extremely hostile to the concept of metaphoric
writing. While the Silmarillion may be his attempt to write a
Chistian-compatible creation myth for the Elves I suspect that if he
were alive today he would be horrified at its publication, much less its
reinterpretation as a serious answer to the problem of evil.
But as an armchair Tolkein scholar. I think there are some serious
problems with the idea of linking Morgoth to the "reason for life." The
basic reason is that the entire point of the music created by the god's
choir is life. It is only through the rebellion of some that evil comes
into existence. (A theology possibly cribbed from Lewis, the only true
evil is rebellion against god?) The sacred land of the gods is
described as being without evil, and yet, its inhabitants are alive.
The problem here is that I really don't know of any theologies that hold
evil is the reason for life. Most of them seem to propose that life
would be better if there were no evil.
But by all means, the problem of evil is one cobblestone in the
foundation of my personal atheism. If we grant that the bible was true,
then I'm forced to conclude that god is a bastard who should be feared
rather than worshiped. (Much like Ares for example.)
> - Brian
--
Kirk Job-Sluder
http://www.jobsluder.net/~kirk/
Eric Pepke
> mech...@hotmail.com (Chris) writes:
> >
> > I think you may be confusing Arthur C Clarke with Isaac Asimiv. He
> > devised the three laws of robotics (later expanded to four, when the
> > Zeroth law was added). The above is indeed an Arthur C Clark quote,
> > but it is not a law, it is an observation.
>
> True, but it is still often given as "Clarke's Law". Haven't heard it
> with an ordinal number before.
What Tom said. I've always heard it with an ordinal number before. I even
put it in my high school yearbook. It has nothing to do with Asimov's Laws
of Robotics.
> I like the tongue-in-cheek contrapositive, "Any technology
> distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced".
That was in the Killer B's extension to Foundation, wasn't it?
Kudos for knowing what a contrapositive is, by the way.
Kirk Job-Sluder
> My basic problem is this: there are obviously a lot of smart atheists
> of intellectual honesty and there are also at least some smart
> believers of intellectual honesty. How can this be? I am very curious
> about how compatible these two world views can become through debate.
> I know this is a never ending debate, but who cares, it's interesting
> enough, and if done well, at least it helps both world views come into
> better focus to all concerned.
The answer to your question is that it is quite possible for two people
to be smart, and to be honest, and still come to radically different
conclusions. This comes about largely because they start with two very
different sets of starting axioms.
> list of observations that would count as evidence for the existence of
> a god, but they are all, I think, evidence only for levels A and B.
> Most theists would claim to believe in a level C or D. This point may
> be important: If atheists cannot really state any imaginable evidence
> which would convince them for the existence of a level-C or level-D
> god, then it is not reasonable that they ask theists to produce such
> evidence. Evidence for the existence of a level-A or level-B god is
> missing but a theist does not claim that a god of level-A or level-B
> exists, so this point is mute.
But to turn the question around, if theists cannot produce evidence for
a level C or D god. Then why should I believe in a level C or D god?
> Does this argument make any sense to you? What it says basically is
> that we can imagine many types of possible evidence for the existence
> of a level-A or level-B god (even though such evidence has not been
> forthcoming), but that we cannot imagine any possible evidence for the
> existence of a level-C or level-D god, which is the only type a theist
> would call god. Also the level-D god would never present us with
> evidence based on supernatural power, which would be construed as
> evidence for a level-A or level-B. By the way, if the level-D god
> exists, I think this constitutes an argument against all claims of
> god-made miracles in the scriptures of the different religious
> traditions.
To start with, I would disagree that the only gods that a theist would
call god are the level C and D gods. Tibetan Buddhism for example
claims that gods are mortal, and even describes the symptoms gods
experience at the end of their greatly extended lifespans.
I also disagree that most theists would deny the existence of miracles.
In fact, it seems that a rough majority of theists in America do believe
in both angelic and divine intervention. I know that at least one
family member believes that I was the recipient of such a miracle, while
I believe than an understandable misdiagnosis is much more reasonable.
> For example almost all atheists and theists would agree that
> God, if s/he exists, would never send people to everlasting torment.
Again, in my experience I believe that everlasting torment is a very
real belief of multiple religions. (And then there is Tibetan
Buddhism which considers everything to be a form of "torment".)
The universalist heresy is still regarded as a heresy among many of my
family members.
> 1. It is reasonable for both atheists and theists to concentrate their
> debate on the existence of the one perfect God, one untainted by the
> mythologies of the various religions.
Well, I'm not one for debating the existence of god under any
circumstances. But I think that most debates don't center around this
"one perfect God" because that is not the sort of God that is used to
justify any of the political struggles we are involved in.
Anthony Campbell
[snip]
> Same thing that convinced me Santa does not exist - an incredible story,
> no evidence at all to support it, and a very simple "mundane"
> explanation instead.
> Assuming that you are a Christian, tell me really what convinced you
> that Allah does not exist.
This is really not a fair challenge to a Christian. The distinction you
are trying to make is a straw man. Christians, Muslims and Jews all
worship and believe in the same God even if they call him by different
names. The main difference is that, historically, Christians have
generally believed that there are three Persons in the one God whereas
Muslims (and Jews) insist on the unity of God, but these are relatively
subtle theological distinctions. In the past, religious wars have been
fought over the exact way to understand these things but that does not
mean that different groups of Christians believed in different Gods.
To say that Christians believe in God, Muslims in Allah, and Jews in
Yahweh makes no more sense than to say that God, Gott, Dios, Dieu etc.
are different Gods.
Anthony
--
Using Linux GNU/Debian - Windows-free zone
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (book reviews and articles)
Email: replace "www." with "ac@"
Charles Fiterman
> debate on the existence of the one perfect God, one untainted by the
> mythologies of the various religions.
At this point I feel my post has been ignored so let me give the
anti-ontological argument.
Made up things always seem better than real ones. A child's made up
dog speaks three languages and can fight a lion. Real dogs understand
your tone of voice and can bite a mailman. Made up parrots speak like
English professors while real ones can use words in context but can't
make them work together. Made up communism is a free and humane system
while real communism is a totalitarian nightmare.
Made up gods may fit your various levels while real gods are Gaius
Caesar, Heirohito and Pol Pot. The only god I know of who did stage
magic was Heliogabulis and that didn't save him from the normal fate
of Roman emperors. Supernatural gods are in a class with talking dogs.
If you've seen a real dog you know better.
It is not reasonable to concentrate on perfect gods that nobody
worships in the presence of real gods and actual objects of worship.
If we were discussing the value of monarchy we would not concentrate
on the existence of Oberon king of the fairies. We would be discussing
Louis XIV and king Abdullah.
In addition to obviously real gods who reach none of your levels there
are made up things that people serve and worship. These have very real
representatives on this earth and those are as bad as possible, often
worse. Catholics adore the current pope because he is absolutely
saintly compared to most. But absolutely saintly compared to most
includes participating in a coverup of child molesting priests, using
teen aged Irish girls as slave labor and telling people condoms wont
protect them from HIV. I would jump off a bridge to avoid having my
picture taken with the man.
Your levels of gods have zero emotional content. Nobody will ever sing
hymns to sweet level D divinity. No bumper stickers will ever say
"He's only level B but he saved me from sin." They are in no way
worthy of discussion.
Russell Turpin
> An atheist may say: "Now, just a second, let's go back
> to basics shall we? If an infinitely powerful god
> exists (level-C or D) then he is also powerful enough
> to present to us supernatural acts as evidence for his
> existence, so why doesn't he?" Good question, but maybe
> for the first time (at least for me) we may have a good
> answer too: "Because, assuming a level-C or level-D god
> exists, if he did present us with such evidence then he
> would only convince us of the existence of a being
> which is infinitely lesser than he is, a being that is
> fundamentally different from what he is. At least the
> level-D God would never do something that would deceive
> us."
I'll offer three quick comments on this.
(1) The kind of manifestation you describe is not
necessarily a deception. It depends on what is revealed
in the presentation, e.g., an omnipotent god could
reveal himself and claim to have created this universe.
We would have no way of verifying that latter claim,
but at least we would know that that god exists,
manifests himself, and claims certain attributes. Our
knowledge would be increased, and unless we found
something to contradict the god's claim, we'd have no
reason to accuse him of deceiving us.
(2) Keep in mind the major religions are *revealed*
religions. They all posit that their god did indeed
reveal himself to their prophets. If doing so is
ipso facto a deception, then you must conclude that
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are false, or at
least, that their gods are deceivers. You seem to be
working yourself toward some kind of deism.
(3) There is another problem with your desire for
the kind of god you describe. It is this: no god can
know that he is creator of THE universe. Here is the
proof. Given any god that is omnipotent, he can
create children gods who have the following
characteristics: (a) they are creative and omnipotent
each with regard to their universe, and (b) they have
no way to reach or know about their parent god or
their sibling gods. From the child god's viewpoint,
it is eternal, infinite, and omnipotent. But it
cannot know that it is ultimate, i.e., the "ground
of all being," and creator of ALL there is, as
opposed to all in its own universe. Bottom line: it
IS possible that a creator god made our universe. It
is NOT possible for this god to know that he is the
ultimate god. He might just be an experiment made by
a god "at the next level up." Any god that claims to
be ultimate in such hierarchy is either lying or
ignorant of the limits of even godly knowledge.
Eric Pepke
> find the yeti, before you start investigating its habits, its
> parasites, its diet, etc."
This is not a valid statement in general. One need not find
the planet before investigating its gravitational effects; it's
usually the other way around. First you see the gravitational
effects, then that tells you where to look for the planet.
> Does this argument make any sense to you?
It makes perfect sense; it's a common theological argument
that we have all heard. It has problems.
First, it contradicts nearly everything written in every holy
book in which believers simultaneously claim to believe.
All of Christianity is based on the idea of a god of whatever
level presenting as a level A or B god.
Second, it leads in all cases of which I am aware to logical
contradictions. You suggest that a C or D god would not
provide evidence that could only be interpreted as an A or B
god. However, that suggestion in and of itself *de facto*
limits the powers of such a god, removing it from the C or D
categories. Catholics have a dodge for this, insisting that
an illogical conception of god proves that god is supernatural,
in that it is not limited by mere human logic. This is as clever
as it is comical.
Third, when it doesn't lead to a logical contradiction, it bumps
up against the set theoretical notion of an undecidable proposition,
which is the flip side of the logical contradiction coin.
Fourth, even if there were some way to construct such a god-
concept such that it had none of the aforementioned problems,
which I have never seen, it reduces to an unfalsifiable claim.
> I would like to make a semantic suggestion here: Let's deny godhood to
> a being of level A or B.
Fine with me. It would involve throwing away all holy books. You've
defined "theist" in such a way that it excludes nearly everyone who
self-identifies as a theist. You've created an artifical idea of the world
in which theists are extremely few in number.
In such a world, there probably wouldn't be any useful purpose for
the word "atheist"; it would be even less necessary than "non-Hegelian"
as a term.
Trouble is, I don't seem to live in that world. I seem to live in this one,
and in this one, theists trot out the ineffable god-concepts when it is
convenient for them to do so, but they also trot out the Jesus-stories
when that is convenient for them. Furthermore, they insist that they
are the same thing.
> 1. It is reasonable for both atheists and theists to concentrate their
> debate on the existence of the one perfect God, one untainted by the
> mythologies of the various religions.
I don't see why a debate on such a rarefied god-concept would be
interesting at all. A difference that makes no difference is no difference.
It's a bit like arguing which quantum interpretation is the correct one
or arguing about the existence of free will. It can be amusing for about
ten minutes, Stephen Wright had a story about how his house had
been broken into. Everything was stolen but replaced with an exact
replica. This was a *joke*.
Tom Breton
> dian...@tecapro.com (Dianelos Georgoudis) wrote in message news:<5ac380ce.04011...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> > existence of God?
>
> Thank you very much for your answers. Most interesting - really much
> obliged each of you. Some retorts, such as Joel Hoffman's, were quite
> overwhelming. My goal was is to understand how atheists think and in
> this you have helped a lot.
>
> My basic problem is this: there are obviously a lot of smart atheists
> of intellectual honesty and there are also at least some smart
> believers of intellectual honesty. How can this be?
I'll answer in a moment, but first let me pose this parallel:
There are also at least some smart Christians, Jews, and Muslims of
intellectual honesty, yet each faith believes the other two are wrong
or worse. This example could be enlarged on in thousands of ways,
looking at every different sect that exists, unless that sect just
doesn't have any smart honest people at all. How can this be?
Because a person may be honest and thoughtful at some times but not in
others. Or in some circumstances but not others. Or with regard to
some subjects but not others.
That last one is the most relevant here. We frequently see what
appears to be compartmentalized thinking about God. People "reason"
about God in ways that they would never use to decide whether they got
the right change at the supermarket or whether there's milk in the
fridge.
And is atheism different? I think so. Atheism doesn't claim that
*any* god exists. No mental acrobatics is required to believe that.
An atheist can just use the same sort of reasoning one uses for
mundane thinking. "I looked and I didn't see it" applies pretty much
the same way to the milk container, God, and Zeus.
Mark Folsom
>
> And what if I have asked and still got no response? Does this mean your
> god doesn't care or doesn't exist?
>
> --
>
> Woden
>
> "religion is a socio-political institution for the control of
> people's thoughts, lives, and actions; based on
> ancient myths and superstitions perpetrated through
> generations of subtle yet pervasive brainwashing."
>
credit.
Mark Folsom
Chris
> Chris wrote:
> >
> > I think you may be confusing Arthur C Clarke with Isaac Asimiv. He
> > devised the three laws of robotics (later expanded to four, when the
> > Zeroth law was added). The above is indeed an Arthur C Clark quote,
> > but it is not a law, it is an observation.
>
> Possible Arthur C. Clarke states his three Laws, which are formulated
> as follows:
>
>
> "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
I stand almost corrected then ;-). If I was a pedant I would point out
that it was the third instead of the second; however that would be a
bit dishonest, because I must admit I didn't think it was phrased as a
law at all, of any ordinal. However, now I must take issue with Mr C
Clark then instead of Eric. Calling it a law doesn't make it a law. He
may have phrased it as a law, but it is in fact really just an
observation.
GW
> So let's stick with the level-D god and call
> this god, for previty's sake, "God" (by definition this is a unique
> being and therefore deserves a capitalized name).
And it's just a convenient accident that your "God" is referred to in
the same way as the Christian god, i.e. as "God"?
Don't get me wrong - I basically enjoyed your posting, but I think you
are being intellectually dishonest, if you present yourself to other
theists as a fellow believer in "God" while you don't actually believe
in the same ("level-C") god these other theists believe in.
You seem to realize this yourself when you write:
> Well, I must concede that I do believe in God (level-D). This makes me
> a believer I suppose. On the other hand I find that in many ways I have
> more in common with the typical atheist who argues from reason than with
> the typical theist who argues by quoting the scriptures. In this sense it
> is not quite appropriate to place me in the set of theists.
Indeed! But it always amazes me that in spite of the wide spectrum of
belief in mutually inconsistent gods, many Christians and even many
theists in general seem to think that any kind of belief in "God" is
better than no belief at all. Even fundamentalist Muslims, for
example, give Christians a much better deal in hell than atheists, who
will be forever tortured while Christians will only be tortured for a
while. You might want to ask them how long your torture will last for
the crime of believing in a "level-D god". I bet they will find your
question very intriguing...
Stefan Heinzmann
> dian...@tecapro.com (Dianelos Georgoudis) wrote in message news:<5ac380ce.04011...@posting.google.com>...
>
>
>>I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
>>existence of God?
>
>
> Thank you very much for your answers. Most interesting - really much
> obliged each of you. Some retorts, such as Joel Hoffman's, were quite
> overwhelming. My goal was is to understand how atheists think and in
> this you have helped a lot.
Thank you for coming back to the group and telling us what you think of
the answers. Many just throw a stone into the water in order to watch
the ripples.
[...]
> Level D god: This god has not only infinite powers but is perfect in
> all respects: Perfectly beautiful, all-and-infinitely-loving,
> absolutely compassionate, and also unique, the one true God. In other
> words, the best possible god, infinite in quantity and quality,
> everybody's favorite. Many Christians would claim that the God they
> believe in is this one. Unfortunately, if we can't even imagine any
> possible evidence for the existence of a level-C, even less so for the
> level-D god. What is worse many people would argue that there is
> evidence for the non-existence of the level-D: if such an all-loving
> and almighty god existed then pain and evil would not exist, but they
> do exist, and therefore an all-loving and almighty god does not. This
> is the well known "problem of evil" and much ink has flown discussing
> it; you can find a relevant article in the Encyclopedia Britannica
> (www.britannica.com).
[...]
> To conclude this long post, some of you assumed that I am a believer
> and have asked me what reason do I have for believing. Well, I must
> concede that I do believe in God (level-D). This makes me a believer I
> suppose. On the other hand I find that in many ways I have more in
> common with the typical atheist who argues from reason than with the
> typical theist who argues by quoting the scriptures. In this sense it
> is not quite appropriate to place me in the set of theists. One way or
> the other, I do recognize that it is not meaningful to talk to an
> atheist based on principles the atheist denies. The coin accepted in
> this newsgroup is reason.
>
> So then, do I have evidence for my faith? As you will agree this
> question cannot be answered in a few phrases and this post is too long
> already - also this matter is off-topic in this thread. So I am
> preparing a post where I argue that a theist's worldview can be
> completely rational and based on evidence, but this notwithstanding it
> is difficult for a theist to efficiently communicate this evidence to
> an atheist. The problems of communication are more psychological than
> one of argumentation; a theist and an atheist think in different ways
> and therefore speak in different languages. So, look out for the
> thread "can a pancake look up?", which, moderator willing, you'll find
> in this newsgroup - and thanks for the patience to read that far :-{
Your arguments remind me of the way I thought maybe 15 years ago. It was
a station on my way from theism to atheism. What I gradually realized
was that my motivation for assuming a level D god, as you call it, was
the desire to remove all imperfections from my god. It was as if I had
to defend (or make immune) god against my own criticisms. It gradually
dawned on me what I was doing there:
o I found it necessary to defend a supposedly perfect, omnicient,
almighty being. What a paradox, what a hybris! A perfect god wouldn't
need any defence, would it?
o It was me who defined god's attributes. I was not observing, I was
postulating. That's no way to gain insight.
o My notion of a perfect god was an ideal. As such it is much more a
concept than a thing. The concept does not imply physical (or
metaphysical) existence. Not everything I can think must therefore exist.
o I drew some comfort from the belief that such a god existed. So I
actually *wanted* it to exist. But things don't exist just because I
want them to exist.
So I came to think that god, and in particular what you call a level D
god, is a concept, and a concept only. Compare it with love, for
example. Love is a concept, an idea, yet it "exists", but not as any
kind of physical being. Perhaps not surprisingly, love has been
associated with gods, as if its existence necessitated a carrier, a
being incorporating it. Monotheists associate it with their only god, in
polytheistic religions there is frequently a special god reserved for
love (i.e. cupid). But just as light needs no ether, love needs no cupid
to exist. So what do I need a god for? Love, beauty, justice, mercy,
benevolence, fairness etc. can all exist on their own, as can their
opposites. God was an artefact that my mind added on its own. A crutch.
I realized that I needed a god to attach those values to it, as the
ideal to aspire to, and I wanted it to be invulnerable, presumably to
render those values invulnerable, too. After discovering that all was
driven by my own wants and needs my god became redundant and I retired
it. The more perfect I had made it the more inaccessible and useless it
had become anyway.
I suspect you are on a similar trail. Try to find out to what extent
your belief in god is driven by your own (psychological) needs. If your
level D god didn't exist, what would be missing? What would you miss? Why?
The history of science is full of cases where the psychological
predisposition of the human mind has led people to draw the wrong
conclusions, and to reject the right ones because they went against the
prevalent notion of how things *should* be. Examples:
o Heliocentric versus geocentric world view.
o Evolution vs. creationism
o Electromagnetic waves vs. ether
o Newtonian mechanics vs. relativistic mechanics
o Quantum mechanics vs. classical mechanics
o Incompleteness of axiomatic systems (Gödel)
In each of those cases the discovery of the right theory was greeted
with disbelief and resistance. For example, one of Galilei's adversaries
refused flatly to peek through the telescope to see Jupiter's moons. He
preferred to stick to the world view he already had.
The morale I drew from this is that the world is probably quite
different from what I perceive it to be or even want it to be. I
certainly have to be prepared for surprises. It was a humbling
realization, and it made me more concious of my own needs and how much
influence they have on my world view.
As to the better understanding between theists and atheists you seem to
aspire: I wouldn't expect too much. If it is true that the need for
believing is quite deep rooted in the human psychology then intellectual
intercourse between believers and non-believers carries some heavy
baggage that prevents people from listening to each other. I am content
already when believers accept that mine is as acceptable a world view as
theirs. For most of them that seems to be a formidable challenge already.
Cheers
Stefan
John M Price PhD
: I'm not quite sure at what you're getting at with your questions
: though. Are you saying evil is what makes life worth living?
One needs only to spell evil backwards to answer that question!
(c) 2004. Copyright, John M. Price, PhD. All Rights Reserved.
Contents may not be republished in any form or medium without prior
written consent of the author with the express and only exception of
followup postings limited to and within usenet.
--
John M. Price, PhD jmp...@calweb.com
Life: Chemistry, but with feeling! | PGP Key on request or FTP!
Email responses to my Usenet articles will be posted at my discretion.
Comoderator: sci.psychology.psychotherapy.moderated Atheist# 683
Question with boldness even the existence of God;
because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason,
than that of blindfolded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson: Letter to Peter Carr, 1787
Tronscend
news:400c42ee....@netnews.comcast.net...
> .... Is this Satan fellow just a reflection of
"Jeesus, I am your Father ..."
Malcolm McMahon
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
> reason for atheism.
>
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> an atheist of the existence of God?
>
Part of the trouble is trying to define divinity. Sure, every stage magician shows us seeming miracles and we (at least most of us) don't look for supernatural explanations. If the statue weeps tears of blood, most of us look for an answer in chemistry, or fraud rather than in divine intervention. That wouldn't have been true a couple of centuries back.
I assume you are a theist. Suppose some entity approaches you, claiming to be God. What would *you* accept as proof? Maybe it's Q, or one of those energy-beings common in StarTreak TOS. Maybe it's got the power to part the waters, to call down lightning. What does that prove? The universe almost certainly contains many critters with powers beyond our comprehension. Even beings it might pay to worship if you encounter them. Would such a being satisfy you as actually being God?
Dakota
Christopher A. Lee
<malcol...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, 13 January 2004 03:27:19 UTC, Dianelos Georgoudis wrote:
>> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence
>> of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real
>> reason for atheism.
When one has no reason to believe something then one doesn't.
In this case it is the irrelevant object pf somebody else's religious
belief, that we wouldn't even give a thought to if theists could only
live and let live.
If people substituted Zeus, Odin and all the other gods they don't
believe in, for the Christian god this becomes remarkably obvious -
unless they have painted themselves in a corner and redefine their
position about those as agnosticism
>Well, it's certainly a reason for agnosticism.
>
>> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
>> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red
>> Sea waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
>> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince
>> an atheist of the existence of God?
The fact that theists have to ask this shows they have nothing
otherwise they would have given it long ago and we'd all believe.
They know what their god is supposed to be, and what would be actual
evidence for it.
>Part of the trouble is trying to define divinity. Sure, every stage
>magician shows us seeming miracles and we (at least most of
>us) don't look for supernatural explanations. If the statue weeps
>tears of blood, most of us look for an answer in chemistry, or
>fraud rather than in divine intervention. That wouldn't have been
>true a couple of centuries back.
we are part of the world beyond it.
>I assume you are a theist. Suppose some entity approaches you,
>claiming to be God. What would *you* accept as proof? Maybe
>it's Q, or one of those energy-beings common in StarTreak TOS.
>Maybe it's got the power to part the waters, to call down lightning.
>What does that prove? The universe almost certainly contains
>many critters with powers beyond our comprehension. Even
>beings it might pay to worship if you encounter them. Would
>such a being satisfy you as actually being God?
beliefs.
They are all only taken seriously by believers in the relevant
religions.
For everybody else they're merely characters from somebody else's
mythology.
Even the Christian god.
The default is that it remains no different to all the others until
Christians themselves demonstrate otherwise.
Florian Kutscherauer
> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence of
> God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real reason
> for atheism.
herring like a pack of hungry wolves coming at a, well, red herring.
> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red Sea
> waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince an
> atheist of the existence of God?
it worked, would you stop believing in your god and start worshipping
Neptune?
> I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist would
> claim that this is some kind of trick. He was not present himself, so
> maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax. If he was present
> and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the waters then he
> would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he was quite
> confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that the new
> Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably advanced
> technology to fool humanity.
>
> If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
> agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it is
> not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about God
> in the first place. It is something else, something less obvious. I
> would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made you
> think that God does not exist?
sense of the obvious flaws and contradictions of Christianity and the
Bible. It took a lot of time and pain to realize that I couldn't believe
in this "God"-thing, not without sacrificing my rationality and humanity.
The point when I made peace with this realization was when I realized two
things:
1) I don't need to be able to explain everything. When I don't know
something, it's OK to say "I don't know." and leave it at that; without
imposing magic or whatever to make me feel like I had an explanation when
I truly don't.
2) There is no need for me to believe in a higher power. Some people say,
when I tell them that I'm atheist: "But you have to believe in
something!" I usually respond by asking "why?" -- Normally I don't get
an answer.
The only reasons I tried to believe in God (the one with a capital "G")
were my parents---they did, and still do, believe in him and so taught me
to do so too---and fear: the fear you get when you realize that you can't
control something.
--
Ceterum censeo Creationismum esse delendam.
Christopher A. Lee
<florian.ku...@gmx.at> wrote:
>Dianelos Georgoudis wrote:
>> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence of
>> God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real reason
>> for atheism.
>
>I often see theists raising this question, and atheists coming at this red
>herring like a pack of hungry wolves coming at a, well, red herring.
monotonous regularly.
>> I wonder, to an atheist, what would be acceptable as evidence for the
>> existence of God? If a modern version of Moses were to part the Red Sea
>> waters by crying to God and waving his stick - all in front of TV
>> cameras - would that be evidence enough? Would such an event convince an
>> atheist of the existence of God?
>
>Let me ask the same question back: If that guy was crying to Neptune, and
>it worked, would you stop believing in your god and start worshipping
>Neptune?
He hasn't yet described anything yet, for there to be any evidence
for.
We have no idea what he thinks he has evidence for, let alone what he
thinks this evidence is.
Which was pointed out the last time he pulled this dishonesty.
They can't grasp that they start from its presumption and try to find
something that supports this, rationalising all sorts of things to
fit, expecting this to convince everybody else.
>> I have the feeling that it wouldn't, because I believe an atheist would
>> claim that this is some kind of trick. He was not present himself, so
>> maybe Christian TV was perpetrating some kind of hoax. If he was present
>> and saw with his own eyes the miraculous parting of the waters then he
>> would probably think that he was hallucinating. If he was quite
>> confident about his mental faculties, he might suspect that the new
>> Moses was really an extraterrestrial using unimaginably advanced
>> technology to fool humanity.
>> If you are an atheist, and you agree with the above story, i.e. if you
>> agree that no evidence would ever make you change your mind, then it is
>> not really the absence of evidence that has made up your mind about God
>> in the first place. It is something else, something less obvious. I
>> would very much like to know what it is. What is it really that made you
>> think that God does not exist?
All these idiots need to do, is at least try to think outside the box
that religion has erected around their minds.
But he has had all this explained over and over again in the
non-moderated group
In both these groups, he knows the default POV is that it is merely
somebody else's religious belief, not substantively different from the
hundreds of other god beliefs out there.
Which is hardly rocket science.
>I was raised Catholic and spent a lot of time in my youth trying to make
>sense of the obvious flaws and contradictions of Christianity and the
>Bible. It took a lot of time and pain to realize that I couldn't believe
>in this "God"-thing, not without sacrificing my rationality and humanity.
onto their faith.
Dan Barker describes this in "Losing Faith In Faith" which is a
must-read.
>The point when I made peace with this realization was when I realized two
>things:
>
>1) I don't need to be able to explain everything. When I don't know
>something, it's OK to say "I don't know." and leave it at that; without
>imposing magic or whatever to make me feel like I had an explanation when
>I truly don't.
metaphysical issues, the same questions it has programmed them with,
and same the need for an answer that is certain even if is unjustified
and has no validity.
>2) There is no need for me to believe in a higher power. Some people say,
>when I tell them that I'm atheist: "But you have to believe in
>something!" I usually respond by asking "why?" -- Normally I don't get
>an answer.
It was brainwashed into them in childhood.
>The only reasons I tried to believe in God (the one with a capital "G")
>were my parents---they did, and still do, believe in him and so taught me
>to do so too---and fear: the fear you get when you realize that you can't
>control something.
I'm lucky there, my parents were atheists and while the Most Important
Person In My Life is a devout Catholic, she comes from a country where
Christianity is a minority religion and grew up alongside Hindus,
Muslims and Sikhs - where the majority saw the Christian god as
"somebody else's god even though I don't believe it myself". She
thinks that what people are and do, is more important than what they
thomas p.
news:a1h1u79m9v24jlepd...@4ax.com...
> <florian.ku...@gmx.at> wrote:
>
>>Dianelos Georgoudis wrote:
>>> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the existence of
>>> God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is not the real reason
>>> for atheism.
>>
>>I often see theists raising this question, and atheists coming at this red
>>herring like a pack of hungry wolves coming at a, well, red herring.
>
> He's a pathetic, nasty, serial liar who trots out this bullshit with
> monotonous regularly.
different reasons. Say Christopher didn't I see you at the last pillage?
--
thomas p
Ignorance is the mother of devotion.
David Hume
Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess
"thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Christopher A. Lee" <chrisl...@comcast.net> skrev i meddelelsen
> news:a1h1u79m9v24jlepd...@4ax.com...
>> On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:05:26 +0200 (CEST), Florian Kutscherauer
>> <florian.ku...@gmx.at> wrote:
>>> Dianelos Georgoudis wrote:
>>>
>>>> I often see the argument that there is no evidence for the
>>>> existence of God, but I have this nagging suspicion that this is
>>>> not the real reason for atheism.
>>>
>>> I often see theists raising this question, and atheists coming at
>>> this red herring like a pack of hungry wolves coming at a, well,
>>> red herring.
>>
>> He's a pathetic, nasty, serial liar who trots out this bullshit with
>> monotonous regularly.
>
> I am an atheist because I like to rape and kill. Of course others
> may have different reasons.
atheism, rather I've noticed it's quite the opposite and that theism is
often used as a rationalization of such violent acts.
> Say Christopher didn't I see you at the last pillage?
--
Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess
"... My world view changes as new facts come to light, [therefore] my
world view is based on reality."
-- David Fritzinger (February 14, 2012)
Smiler
--
Smiler,
The godless one. a.a.# 2279
All gods are tailored to order. They're made to
exactly fit the prejudices of their believers.