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Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

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    #5732
    carlmango11
    Registered Users Posts: 1,019 ✭✭✭carlmango11


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    You can of course offer a critique of what you see as the weakness of any claim Christians have to make. Indeed, the majority of you sizable post count on this forum has been givewn over to this. But even if your criticisms are valid and Christianity fails this is not enought to say that atheism is true.

    But the thing is all this cuts both ways. Atheism is not above critique. I'm not sure if you just failed to mention this or if you are genuinely unaware of it. You hold a worldview just like the Christian, Muslim, Scientologist, agnostic and all the rest of them. Atheism isn't special. It don't get a free pass. If atheism is true then this means a great deal about the universe we inhabit.

    It baffles me that people find this so hard to grasp.

    Atheism doesn't make any claims. It is the lack of belief in god(s).

    Do you believe Bigfoot is real? You are an a-bigfoot-ist. But how do you know Bigfoot isn't real?

    This is what it sounds like to us when you talk about atheism being "true". Atheists have yet to be convinced of the existence of a god and therefore don't hold any theistic beliefs. Just like they don't hold beliefs about Bigfoot. We're not making claims, simply not accept theistic ones.

    You guys are the ones making the claims about a man who tortured and sacrificed his own son because he was angry about what 2 of his creations did thousands of years beforehand. Even though he made them exactly the way they are and can see the future so he essentially created them pre-condemned. I can never get my head around it.

    Anyway, and I'm ranting now, but if god is real he's an awful, awful person. He lets people's children die; allows famine, war, genocide. Won't let us talk to our dead loved ones. Won't show himself but expects us to blindly worship him. Burns people for eternity. Allows horrendous diseases to evolve and kill people. Ignores prayers and pleads for help. Honestly for someone who's ever loving he doesn't like to help us out very often does he? Oh yeah he's testing our faith or something. Or it's part of his well thought out plan that involves endless hardship and bloodshed.


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    #5733
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,070 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    carlmango11 wrote: »
    We're not making claims. . . .. . .

    . . . if god is real he's an awful, awful person. He lets people's children die; allows famine, war, genocide . . .
    Spot the tension here? These look to me remarkably like claims about god.

    Atheists don’t necessarily make claims. To call yourself an atheist, all you have to do is lack any belief in god, and you can do that because you’ve never thought about it, or the question doesn’t interest you, or you have never found theistic arguments appealing. No claims involved there.

    But the fact that atheists don’t have to make claims to call themselves atheists doesn’t mean that atheists don’t in fact make claims. Many, perhaps most, atheists do make claims, and there are probably some claims which are characteristically atheist (not in the sense that most athiests make them - atheists are a diverse bunch, in my observation - but in the sense that most of the people who make them are atheists).

    Precisely because the core of atheism is negative - the lack of a particular belief - there actually isn’t that much to say about it, so any discussions of atheism fairly soon move to discuss (a) theistic claims, or (b) moral/political claims of the kind that atheists often make, or of the kind which atheist often reject or oppose. And atheists who take part in those discussions will find themselves making lots and lots of claims.


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    #5734
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    nagirrac wrote: »

    Would he (the second man) open the door though?

    Atheism is such a lazy intellectual approach, it's basically saying don't ask me to think.. the amazing thing is how so many atheists are forced to think and thus argue about God... you would think they wouldn't care... including yourself. How many posts do you have on the Christianity forum compared to the atheist forum?

    Deism and atheism are very similar beasts to me. They are both ideologies that in some way nullify God's character. I've still got a heck of a lot of questions resulting from what you said previous.


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    #5735
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Zombrex wrote: »
    That is not relevant to the analogy. The point is that the second man believes that neither of them know what is behind the door. By saying he rejects the claim of the first man he is not making any statement about what is or is not behind the door. He is rejecting the claims of the first man as being unsound.

    Atheism is a statement about theists and what they don't know, what they accept without sound reasoning and what they make up.

    I am not here to defend theists as I am not one, I am questioning your logic.

    The key phrase in your second sentence above is "the second man believes". You see that is the issue. Many atheists claim that atheism is not a belief system, yet here you are with an analogy referencing belief. The point I am making is the second man may be wrong, simply because the first man has knowledge he does not have.

    As for "what they made up", theists of the present day to my knowledge did not make anything up. They accept what was written down 2,000 - 5,000 years ago in terms of giving spiritual meaning to their existance. I doubt there's many theists that believe everything literally as its written, this seems to be a hang up that atheists have.


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    #5736
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    philologos wrote: »
    Deism and atheism are very similar beasts to me. They are both ideologies that in some way nullify God's character. I've still got a heck of a lot of questions resulting from what you said previous.

    That's a hell of a statement.

    From my (mildly) deist position, God's nature, let alone character, is unknowable in terms of our comprehension. Hardly the position of an atheist.

    Apologies for not getting back on earlier questions, I have been busy engaging with the heathens over on the A&A form. I don't feel like I have much to contribute here other than the odd thread like this.


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    #5737
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    nagirrac wrote: »

    That's a hell of a statement.

    From my (mildly) deist position, God's nature, let alone character, is unknowable in terms of our comprehension. Hardly the position of an atheist.

    Apologies for not getting back on earlier questions, I have been busy engaging with the heathens over on the A&A form. I don't feel like I have much to contribute here other than the odd thread like this.

    The only extension is that atheists claim that they don't have sufficient reason to believe that God is there.

    All you do is claim that there is a god that you know nothing about.

    Both reject the Gospel. As a result no one is better than the other. Christianity is about far more than that.

    There are serious questions that have to be made about an unknown god who did a runner.


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    #5738
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    nagirrac wrote: »
    I am not here to defend theists as I am not one, I am questioning your logic.

    The key phrase in your second sentence above is "the second man believes". You see that is the issue. Many atheists claim that atheism is not a belief system, yet here you are with an analogy referencing belief. The point I am making is the second man may be wrong, simply because the first man has knowledge he does not have.

    Firstly having a belief that someone is wrong is not a belief system. They key is in the term "system".

    Secondly of course the second man might be wrong. Invisible unicorns might be a thing and we might all be brains in jars.

    You seem to have an awful hard time telling the difference between the possibility that something might be and whether it actually is, or even if it is likely it is.


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    #5739
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    You can of course offer a critique of what you see as the weakness of any claim Christians have to make. Indeed, the majority of you sizable post count on this forum has been givewn over to this. But even if your criticisms are valid and Christianity fails this is not enought to say that atheism is true.

    Atheism is the rejection of theism. If you don't have a good reason to believe in any theist claims, or you have realized the weakness of theist claims, you are an atheist.

    All atheism is is the application of skepticism to theist claims. Most people realize (or realize when it is pointed out to them) that if a belief cannot be supported soundly then it is not worth believing it to be true.

    This is true of all beliefs about the nature of reality, not just ones related to gods. I'm sure you have no problem with that concept when someone turns up on your door step promising you that they can double your money if you just invest in their local pet grooming shop.

    Skepticism, and the critical examination of claims, is not a particularly difficult concept to understand.
    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    But the thing is all this cuts both ways. Atheism is not above critique. I'm not sure if you just failed to mention this or if you are genuinely unaware of it. You hold a worldview just like the Christian, Muslim, Scientologist, agnostic and all the rest of them. Atheism isn't special. It don't get a free pass. If atheism is true then this means a great deal about the universe we inhabit.

    Critique away. The basic tenant of atheism is that theists cannot soundly support their claims. If you think you have a strong flaw in that reasoning, be my guest. The A&A forum is just over there and they would love to hear your issues with it.
    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    Good for you. But this isn't an argument.
    It is not supposed to be an argument, it is pointing out to you that the theist idea that atheists have to prove God doesn't exist in order to be atheists is incredible flawed.

    Religion is crumbling not because we are all proving to people that there is no God, it is crumbling because people are waking up to the fact that the arguments for why you should believe their are in the first place are not sound arguments.

    That is all atheism is, skepticism applied to theistic claims.


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    #5740
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Spot the tension here? These look to me remarkably like claims about god.

    Of come on, you know that there was a context you are ignoring.

    Atheists don't make claims as to the existence or non-existence of gods. They make claims as to whether theistic claims are supported or not.

    He wasn't stating that atheists never make claims about anything. I can claim Darth Vader was a bad guy, doesn't mean I'm stating he exists.


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    #5741
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    Zombrex wrote: »
    It is not supposed to be an argument, it is pointing out to you that the theist idea that atheists have to prove God doesn't exist in order to be atheists is incredible flawed.

    I never claimed you have to prove that God doesn't exist. Just like I don't have to prove that he does. We both offer evidence for our worldviews and people can assess them on their own merits.

    Would you mind answering the questions in my previous post?


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    #5742
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    Zombrex wrote: »

    Atheism is the rejection of theism. If you don't have a good reason to believe in any theist claims, or you have realized the weakness of theist claims, you are an atheist.

    All atheism is is the application of skepticism to theist claims. Most people realize (or realize when it is pointed out to them) that if a belief cannot be supported soundly then it is not worth believing it to be true.

    This is true of all beliefs about the nature of reality, not just ones related to gods. I'm sure you have no problem with that concept when someone turns up on your door step promising you that they can double your money if you just invest in their local pet grooming shop.

    Skepticism, and the critical examination of claims, is not a particularly difficult concept to understand.



    Critique away. The basic tenant of atheism is that theists cannot soundly support their claims. If you think you have a strong flaw in that reasoning, be my guest. The A&A forum is just over there and they would love to hear your issues with it.


    It is not supposed to be an argument, it is pointing out to you that the theist idea that atheists have to prove God doesn't exist in order to be atheists is incredible flawed.

    Religion is crumbling not because we are all proving to people that there is no God, it is crumbling because people are waking up to the fact that the arguments for why you should believe their are in the first place are not sound arguments.

    That is all atheism is, skepticism applied to theistic claims.

    The only place where religious belief (I hate that phrase but I'll use it anyway) is declining is in the West.

    Christianity is growing in many other places and is growing globally. At least by number of adherents. I can't vouch for it theologically.

    You've not proven that there is no god. To make a claim like that is really daft.


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    #5743
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    I never claimed you have to prove that God doesn't exist. Just like I don't have to prove that he does. We both offer evidence for our worldviews and people can assess them on their own merits.

    Again, I don't have to provide evidence for my "worldview", I just have to point out that you haven't provided any sound evidence for yours.

    Again skepticism is not about demonstrating the alternative position, it is about critically examining the claims for a position and rejecting those claims if they aren't supported.

    An atheist has to do nothing more than point out that the arguments for theism are not sound. Bang, done, that is atheism There is no "alternative worldview" that needs to be presented, because most people realize that the idea that you must replace one belief with another in order to reject the first belief is not logically sound. I don't need to know who will win the Lottery, or even know that you won't, in order to reject your claim "I'm going to win the Lottery on Friday, I have a feeling!" Same principle applies to atheism.

    To produce an atheist you don't convince them of your alternative world view, you merely introduce them to critical thinking.
    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    Would you mind answering the questions in my previous post?

    The premiss of those question is wrong, so there is no point answering them. You are assuming atheism is attempting to present evidence for its "worldview", just like theism is. It isn't. It is not a question of competing world views. It is a question of whether claims can be supported or not. And theists are the only ones making these claims. All atheism is is pointing out that the claims are not supported by sound evidence or reasoning.

    Certainly many atheists are interested in what is really going on once theism has been rejected. But that is not what atheism is about.


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    #5744
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Zombrex;
    To produce an atheist you don't convince them of your alternative world view, you merely introduce them to critical thinking.
    I not so sure about that, I have met atheists who have come to doubt a previously held faith and atheists who never had any faith at all.
    Personality and emotions play a bigger part than critical thinking in my experience.


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    #5745
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    I not so sure about that, I have met atheists who have come to doubt a previously held faith and atheists who never had any faith at all.
    Personality and emotions play a bigger part than critical thinking in my experience.

    A larger role in what? Producing an atheist or a theist?


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    #5746
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    RATM wrote: »
    Leaving faith aside, what is the most convincing argument that theists have for the existence of God ?

    I don't think that there is one agreed definitive argument. What moves one person will wash over the next. The moral argument had a impact on my return to faith and it continues to do so. But I also recognise that it's not for everyone.

    There are some really interesting arguments that can lead you to the belief in a God. For example, the argument from a fine-tuned universe. But it's another step to arrive at Christian God with his particular characteristics. If you want to get to this point I think it involves a cumulative case - looking at multiple stands of evidence and then deciding if these might or might not be true. This is what Jim Wallace does in his book Cold Case Christianity. Not read it myself but I've heard some good things about it.

    But perhaps it takes more than arguments. A willingness to seek out God for start. Incidentially, faith and evidence or faith and reason are not necessarily antithetical.


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    #5747
    maguffin
    Registered Users Posts: 282 ✭✭maguffin


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    There are some really interesting arguments that can lead you to the belief in a God. For example, the argument from a fine-tuned universe.

    There are two sides to every story... and this is the ther side of 'Fine Tuning'..

    To quote briefly from the text:
    "Some religious people claim these "cosmic coincidences" are evidence of a grand design by a Supreme Being. In The Fallacy of Fine-tuning, physicist Victor Stenger makes a devastating demolition of such arguments"

    http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/06/why-the-universe-wasnt-fine-tuned-for-life.html


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    #5748
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Zombrex wrote: »
    A larger role in what? Producing an atheist or a theist?

    Both. I honestly think faith or skepticism is more emotion than reason.


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    #5749
    carlmango11
    Registered Users Posts: 1,019 ✭✭✭carlmango11


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    But perhaps it takes more than arguments. A willingness to seek out God for start.

    "A willingness to seek out god" to me sounds like pre-accepting he exists and then either blindly believing or trying to find evidence of him where there's none.

    There's a reason the church pushes blind faith as something good - because it's a great way to get rational people to believe. They tell you that you should be proud because you believe in god even though he never shows himself. And that doubting his existence is a terrible thing to do.


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    #5750
    HHobo
    Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    Zombrex wrote: »
    "safety in numbers" certainly seems to ring through.

    Or as Harris puts it "There is sanity in numbers". He quite rightly points out that if there was no such thing as Christianity and someone came along proposing the central narrative of Christianity, he would be deemed insane pretty quickly. If enough people belief the same crazy idea, you can get away with it, where you would be a laughing stock if you were alone in the belief.


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    #5751
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    HHobo wrote: »
    Or as Harris puts it "There is sanity in numbers". He quite rightly points out that if there was no such thing as Christianity and someone came along proposing the central narrative of Christianity, he would be deemed insane pretty quickly. If enough people belief the same crazy idea, you can get away with it, where you would be a laughing stock if you were alone in the belief.

    This can be seen rather clearly on this forum, where Christians routinely dismiss the behavior of cults, such as the Jonestown cult, as "clearly nuts", but utterly dismiss comparisons to either their own behavior or the behavior of the early Christians who wrote all the supernatural claims in the New Testament.

    When pressed the differences used why these are not valid comparisons always end up being tenuous or irrelevant, which demonstrates a high level of cognitive dissonance taking place.


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    #5752
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    carlmango11 wrote: »
    "A willingness to seek out god" to me sounds like pre-accepting he exists and then either blindly believing or trying to find evidence of him where there's none.

    It is a purposeful attempt to fit non-belief into a particular narrative, that being that the reason for non-belief is a fault in the person who doesn't believe, rather than in the logic or reasoning for belief. If a person don't believe the claims it is because they don't have a willingness to believe, they are not open enough, they are too proud or selfish or what ever to accept this.

    It is a common narrative in religion, particularly in cults such as Scientology, which push it to a whole new level, but is also found in early Christian literature (which isn't surprising considering Christianity started off as a cult).


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    #5753
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    HHobo wrote: »
    If someone asked me "What does Brian believe about God?"

    If you were being truthful you would answer simply "nothing".


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    #5754
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    Both. I honestly think faith or skepticism is more emotion than reason.

    Ok ... based on what? You don't think arguments can be critically assessed, or you don't think critically assessing arguments actually influences people all that much?


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    #5755
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Atheism is such a lazy intellectual approach, it's basically saying don't ask me to think..

    Theism is the actual lazy approach. Lets take a gander:

    *Thunder*
    John "That thunder, I wonder how it happens?"
    Jane, a theist "goddidit"

    *A meteor passes over head crashes into earth*
    John "Where did that thing come from, why the big noise, why is it so cold and dark?"
    Jane "god's wrath did it"

    *A lion eats John*
    Jeremiah, John's younger brother "why did that lion eat my brother?"
    Jane "because god is punishing him for questioning his divine will"

    You see how utterly lazy Theism is, no search for reasons, no attempt to expand our knowledge. Instead any time anything new, anything different comes along "goddidit".


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    #5756
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    The whole debate centres on the reliability of these notions. Sayin' they are made up don't make it so. You have to show us that they are made up.

    Theists are the ones making the extraordinary claims (god hypothesis) without any evidence. They are the ones who need to find evidence and bring it to the table.

    Atheism is simply the default, logical position given current evidence.


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    #5757
    HHobo
    Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Precisely because the core of atheism is negative - the lack of a particular belief - there actually isn’t that much to say about it, so any discussions of atheism fairly soon move to discuss (a) theistic claims, or (b) moral/political claims of the kind that atheists often make, or of the kind which atheist often reject or oppose. And atheists who take part in those discussions will find themselves making lots and lots of claims.

    True.
    Atheists are usually quite happy to point out God killing children etc. to back up the claim. Atheists make claims like this:

    God cannot be omni-benevolent and omni-potent becasue he allows tremendous amounts of cruetly which he would have the power and so therefore necessarily would lack the will to stop.

    This is a simple claim about what would be true if God existed. It is not an argument for atheism or even against theism, per se. It is an argument against an particular claim made by many theists. Ironically, if the atheist were arguing that God is, in fact, like this; they wouldn't be an atheist. It is just an explanation of why this particular claim is unconvincing. The atheist finds religious claims lacking and is therefore unconvinced by them. All theists should understand this as they feel the same way about the majority of claims made by people of other faiths. Most theists don't feel the need to painstakingly exposit their reasoning for not believing the claims of Hinduism. The religous claim X and Y about God. The atheist, rather than just respond to all these claims with "I don't believe in God" is explaining why the claims don't make sense. There is no onus on the atheist to have to justify a non-belief position.

    In short, the claims that athesits are making are generally of the repsonse to religious claims type. They are not making positive claims in the first instance.

    There has been a lot of people talking about atheism as a worldview. It isn't a worldview. It will be a component of a worldview but is not prescriptive of anything. Christianity on the otherhand is both prescriptive and proscriptive and does form the lynchpin of the worldview of those who take it seriously.


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    #5758
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    HHobo wrote: »
    God cannot be omni-benevolent and omni-potent becasue he allows tremendous amounts of cruetly which he would have the power and so therefore necessarily would lack the will to stop.

    This is a simple claim about what would be true if God existed. It is not an argument for atheism or even against theism, per se. It is an argument against an particular claim made by many theists. Ironically, if the atheist were arguing that God is, in fact, like this; they wouldn't be an atheist. It is just an explanation of why this particular claim is unconvincing. The atheist finds religious claims lacking and is therefore unconvinced by them. All theists should understand this as they feel the same way about the majority of claims made by people of other faiths.

    Precisely. Theists claim something about their god which is contradictory (God loves you followed by Hell exists for example) and all atheists say is "This is stupid". They don't need to say God doesn't love you. They don't need to say Hell doesn't exist. They just need to say that the theist claim is nonsensical.

    If the theist counters with "Who are you to say God is nonsensical" the response is simply "Not saying God is nonsensical, saying your claim is nonsensical". Cause it ain't like anyone has ever made a nonsensical claim before


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    #5759
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    I can't say that I'm surprised to see a cluster of atheists clapping eachother on the back at their wholly unrealistic and nonsensical conclusions about how Christianity arises in individuals.

    Are you interested in discussion or confirmation bias.

    God used honest and critical analysis of Scripture to bring me to Him :)


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    #5760
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Zombrex wrote: »
    Ok ... based on what? You don't think arguments can be critically assessed, or you don't think critically assessing arguments actually influences people all that much?

    Easy one :) The latter. A reasoned argument never convinced anyone of anything.


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    #5761
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    Theists are the ones making the extraordinary claims (god hypothesis) without any evidence. They are the ones who need to find evidence and bring it to the table.

    Atheism is simply the default, logical position given current empirical evidence.

    See what I did their?
    So based on what you say theirs no love, no justice, no mercy, no hope? We cant measure or quantify any of them. No lab or Hadron Collider will ever produce evidence of them.
    Everybody makes claims on things without evidence or at least with what evidence they need to back up their claim. Judicious selection of evidence is one of humanities least endearing traits.


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