Atheism - Paradox

[j1akey]

My only question is where did existance or matter or primordial soup, energy, anti-matter of the big bang or whatever come from? If you do not believe humans or creatures suddenly existed, how then can you believe matter just suddenly existed. Unless you believe that matter or universe or anything always existed eternally past. Then would it be far fetched to believe a God always existed, a power greater then matter? Thefore not only making matter exist but making it beautiful.

This shall probably forever be one of the great mysteries of life. No one knows the answer to this from a scientific standpoint although there are some hypothosis that people have come up with that can’t really be tested. My mindset is that just because I can’t explain something doesn’t mean that it was the work of god. God or Gods throughout history have been used to explain that which we don’t understand and I’m not really willing to buy into that way of thinking. I don’t know the answer but that doesn’t mean the answer isn’t out there somewhere and can be explained in some way. And that’s pretty much the mindset of any atheist I’ve met. I can’t accept something without anything to back it up. “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer for me and preferable to “God did it” because there isn’t anything to back it up.

 

[swplan76]

This shall probably forever be one of the great mysteries of life. No one knows the answer to this from a scientific standpoint …
… I can’t accept something without anything to back it up. “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer for me and preferable to “God did it” because there isn’t anything to back it up.

I think you make a good point. Just because something is unexplainable, doesn’t mean that ‘God’ is the answer. There are many people out there who do not take the time to think things out because they have already decided that “its in God’s hands.” They don’t tackle any mysteries because they have the answer summed up in one word, ‘God.’

Though, from a scientific perspective, we shouldn’t rule out all possibilities, until they have proven themselves wrong…

When we start to consider God as a possibility, we are accepting the possibility of something a kin to a “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” Its something supernatural and unexplainable (maybe completely unexplainable, maybe only to some degree) due to its nature (being super-natural). For many people, reason must go out the window at this point because we are dealing with something that seems ridiculous and impossible (for many). So, where do we start?

I think we start with inquiry. If God does exist, what are the possibilities? Maybe the most obvious examples around us would be worth looking into seeing as they are accessible. 1. Who does this God say he/she is? 2. How does this God say they can be known? 3. Is there a process by which this God says they can be known/experienced? Those first 3 questions are at least a starting point.

From there, once one has weighed all the options, does application/experimentation seem like a good idea? Does the process offered by this God seem like it is worth attempting? What is there at risk? In most cases, it is only time and maybe some head aches. The pay off would be that you would be able to say that you have done your own research and you have experience that tells you either way.

So many people bash various religions, but they haven’t done any of their own research. They are convinced that each religion is untrue, but they haven’t tried to go through the steps presented to them by the “source” of truth in each religion.

Personally, I make a differentiation between God and religion. I don’t believe that religion has a handle on God. I believe religion is our attempt to relate to God. Because religion is organized by humanity and humanity is made up of people like me, and I am imperfect, religion is also imperfect. God (in theory) is divine and, in my mind, should be what people are after, not religion (though religion is the by product of seeking God - so religion is unavoidable to some degree).

I began seeking God at 16. I talked with Hindus, Jews and Christians. It seemed very likely to me at the time that God existed, so I wanted to investigate. I found it very unsatisfying that the world might just be a huge mistake - that we were just one giant accident sailing through space - in fact I was depressed by that possibility and really didn’t see the point in the life I saw everyone around me living. I wasn’t suicidal, but I really couldn’t see the point in existence unless there was some deeper meaning, a reason for it. I saw all kinds of suffering around me and had experienced enough suffering myself, that I just didn’t see the sense in a life without some sort of transcendent truth/meaning/purpose.

The representatives of the 3 religions I was aware of were mostly religious and could only tell me what their religions were about, so I tried to read their books. I could make no sense of the Bagavadgita (Hindu text). I read the Old and New Testament of the Bible (much of it) under the direction of both Jews and Christians. It made a lot of practical sense. I liked that it provided me with wisdom, so I continued with it and went to a church camp where I heard a Hell fire and brimstone sermon. One of the basic points was that you never know when you are going to die, so its better to make a commitment sooner rather than later. I was already thinking about it, but the guy scared me enough that I volunteered to be baptized. Nothing amazing happened. I know now, that I wasn’t ready. I went on for 3.5 more years going to church, but I was disappointed - I did not find anything amazing. Sure Christianity seemed like a good philosophy, but I was in high school and I found all sorts of other things that were very appealing to do with my time. In church I would pray, “God, I don’t understand the point of this. I am with you, but I don’t see you anywhere and I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

cont…

 

[swplan76]

(cont…)
I started dating a girl whose mother was trying to cope with the recent death of her father. We spent quite a bit of time at her house, so her mother would come down and preach at us about who God was and how we needed to change. We shut her out for about a year and then my girlfriend was convinced that maybe we needed to give Christianity a second look. She basically threatened to dump me if we didn’t, so I was in (for the wrong reasons, but I was in). I told her that I had already done all the investigating that needed to be done and that we were wasting our time, but I loved her and I wanted to keep our relationship together, so… I really wanted to see, in all sincerity, what Christianity was. So we started reading books and going to various churches.

I went to a “Promise Keeper’s” meeting at the local colosseum. The guy speaking laid it out very differently to me than I had ever heard the message before.

1. God wants a relationship with you. He doesn’t just want a bunch of slaves, He wants us to live as His sons and daughters.
2. God has a ministry for you. It may seem like a huge time commitment, but if your life is ever going to be meaningful on any level, it will come through the work He gives you to do. He wants us to live life to the fullest and that comes through Him. You don’t have to be a preacher - you might be the person who volunteers to sweep up the building, or drive the seniors to and from church, and it may seem like it doesn’t make a difference, and it may not seem like it could bring meaning into your life, but God has something for you to do. What could possibly be better than what God has for you to do?
3. Pray. Ask God to show you what it is that He has for you. He may answer you right now, or He may lead you to some scripture, or you might need to go ask your pastor what it is you can do, but God will lead you into finding “fullness of life” if you start knocking on doors.
4. Pray. Pray a lot. Become a person of prayer. Don’t pray prayers that are scripted. Pray prayers that are honest, from your heart. In prayer we don’t have to impress anyone. God isn’t impressed with our words - God wants our sincerity.

So I did that. I tried the process that was set before me.

I asked God and He answered me. Over the next year and a half I entered into an experience of God that was beyond anything I could have imagined possible. Before that moment I was a fragment - I was just an empty glass. It all started in that moment, when I prayed. He pour life into me and everything was different.

Scripture says, “taste and see that I am good.” God invites us into a taste test. He doesn’t want us to believe in Him without reason - God wants to reveal Himself to us as we seek Him. The more we want of Him, the more He will reveal.

You said that there is nothing to back it up - my experience is contrary to that. My experience is that God wants to be tested, experienced and known.

I don’t expect anyone else to trust me - my experience is my own - it is my knowledge alone. I think the experiment is set up in such a way that it is meant to be personal and if we are each going to have personal proof, it will have to be done individually. …and only for the purpose of knowing God - if you don’t want God and you’d rather that He isn’t there, then likely you will not find Him - you have to want Him.

Its like knowing what its like to be wet - I know.

 

[dyluck]

This shall probably forever be one of the great mysteries of life. No one knows the answer to this from a scientific standpoint although there are some hypothosis that people have come up with that can’t really be tested. My mindset is that just because I can’t explain something doesn’t mean that it was the work of god. God or Gods throughout history have been used to explain that which we don’t understand and I’m not really willing to buy into that way of thinking. I don’t know the answer but that doesn’t mean the answer isn’t out there somewhere and can be explained in some way. And that’s pretty much the mindset of any atheist I’ve met. I can’t accept something without anything to back it up. “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer for me and preferable to “God did it” because there isn’t anything to back it up.

Hi J1akey
So either way, you have to put faith in the unknown. no?
You, openly reject God, and therefore have put your faith in a belief that has absolute no answer in the end. Which is fine, we are all entitled to our beliefs.
If I believe in God an indeed there is no God, then so-be-it my existance ceases and I really never lost anything.
The only problem is if you refuse to believe in God and there is indeed a God, what now? Weather you believe or not, you will then submit to Him and ultimately to His choice in Judgement. Unfortunatly there isn’t enough assurance for me going the no God route and taking my chances. (although that was never my motivator for loving Christ).
I think one of the biggest reasons one can’t accept God knowing the 50/50 odds and the argument in the last stement, is because then one would seemligly have to conform to a law instituted by something greater then existance itself. Would you agree?
Everyone wants to go to heaven if there is a heaven, not everyone wants God to be there when they get there.
Darwin debunked his own theory only to submit to it by faith anyway because the alternitive was to submit to a God.

 

[swplan76]

What makes you think atheists believe in nothing?

All atheists can believe in is matter. logic. Cold, hard, fact. …but as we see in all sciences, fact, as we measure it, is flexible and always has exceptions. Atheists can have no connection to moral or transcendent truth. An atheist can justify anything because there is no higher standard by which they can judge. In that sense, there are no hypocrites among atheists unless an atheist claims that justice or morality has been compromised. Justice and morality simply become flexible guidelines for an atheist. An atheist can judge no one and can make no claims to knowledge of anything that is ultimately true. Rapists, pedophiles, murders should be set free in a world run by atheists, unless they want to go against what they claim to believe.
You might say, “hold on, we all know that those things are wrong. There has to be order in society!”
Based on what?
“Common sense.”
My common sense may say something different than your common sense.
You might reply, “That is ridiculous”
I would agree. Written in each of us is a sense that justice should be done. Even down to the simplest of things. If I get up to get a drink and come back to my seat and find you in it, something in me demands justice. I want my seat back. Its common sense. I was not finished sitting there. Where does that desire for justice come from? We could say that it comes from conditioning. I think it comes from something transcendent and eternal. If a baby is not held, but is simply fed, it will die. The more a baby is held and loved, the more it is likely to thrive. There is something written inside of us that is beyond us. It is not random. I believe we carry the divine image within us.

You are closed minded to many people’s religious beliefs too, but your atheists friends are at least consistent and fair. You are closed minded about literally thousands of gods and religious beliefs. Yet on no more evidence than what others believe, you proclaim the religion of your culture right and all the rest wrong. The atheists is fair. Is they all have the same evidence, they are all equally implausible.

The point is that I am **open **to divine mystery. I believe there is a lot more to God than any of us know - I am open to that. Atheists are closed.

Atheists are not fair - fair by what standards? Atheists cannot talk about fair. *Fair *belongs to morality which belongs to religion. Atheists are closed off to the idea of divinity. Atheism is very unscientific. Atheism has nothing by which to judge anything, yet makes absolute statements.

Just so you know, I am not part of the religion of the culture I started off with.

No, at best atheists can make persuasive arguments that God is implausible and shows every indication of human origin.

Atheists lose any kind of foot hold on fact. The best an atheist can say, is “maybe this…” “maybe that…” An atheist who wants to talk about theology is an oxymoron. If you’ve made your decision, then there isn’t anything to talk about, right?

 

[aileron]

And so you decided that you wanted to join a Catholic forum?

Touché

 

[swplan76]

Check out the link below. Its from a video called, ‘Everything is Spiritual.’ It presents a small piece of a talk from a guy named Rob Bell where in he talks about a thing called flatland.

The preface the clip below, flatland is a place that exists in two dimensions. In flatland all they know is 2D. They can’t relate to 3D. They can’t see 3D. We exist out here beyond their 2D world. We can see everything they do, but we are not in their dimension of reality so their experience of us is very limited.

Another point that it subtly makes is that maybe faith in God is initially something that cannot be reasoned, but comes to us through “enlightenment” - a work that God does in us. Its a bit of a scary idea to me because it means that no matter how much we try to work it out, maybe some people will always refuse to become open… or maybe the enlightenment that happens is not a just a work of God in us, but it starts with the individual being open to being enlightened (mysteries…)

Rob’s entire explanation is very interesting, so if you can get the video, it will be worth watching.

youtube.com/watch?v=vHs4QBjHrgg

 

[j1akey]

Hi J1akey
So either way, you have to put faith in the unknown. no?
You, openly reject God, and therefore have put your faith in a belief that has absolute no answer in the end. Which is fine, we are all entitled to our beliefs.
If I believe in God an indeed there is no God, then so-be-it my existance ceases and I really never lost anything.
The only problem is if you refuse to believe in God and there is indeed a God, what now? Weather you believe or not, you will then submit to Him and ultimately to His choice in Judgement. Unfortunatly there isn’t enough assurance for me going the no God route and taking my chances. (although that was never my motivator for loving Christ).
I think one of the biggest reasons one can’t accept God knowing the 50/50 odds and the argument in the last stement, is because then one would seemligly have to conform to a law instituted by something greater then existance itself. Would you agree?
Everyone wants to go to heaven if there is a heaven, not everyone wants God to be there when they get there.
Darwin debunked his own theory only to submit to it by faith anyway because the alternitive was to submit to a God.

Well, firstly in order to reject God I have to believe that God exists. I can’t reject something that isn’t real for me in the first place. I’m not worried about what happens when I die because for me there’s no hell, no heaven, no devil, no God. So what happens when I die? Beats me but I’ll figure it out when it happens.

I rank it right up there with the existance of Zeus and Thor, both very real gods in their day to the people that worshiped them. Historically religions and various gods come and go. The current god that is widely worshiped now is just another incarnation of that cycle so I really don’t see how he’s any more real than any other god that people worship(ed).

As far as conforming to laws set down by something greater than existance being the reason people people don’t accept god, I think I have to disagree here. If you’re talking about laws as in rules then I don’t see how it would be any different than laws set down by my local, state, or federal government. Rules are rules and you’re supposed to follow them. Don’t lie, cheat, steal, kill, commit adultry, etc. The laws of our land regardless of what you believe in are pretty much the same as those found in the bible so I’m not seeing the difference.

Now of course the bible also has alot of historical fact in it. At least what we take as fact because of the work of historians have done. It’s pretty much widely accepted that many of these things happen. However there are other events in the bible that cannot be researched and are written down from the viewpoint of the person that wrote it. The bible was written by man so it’s subject to the interpretation of the man or in this case men that wrote it. The author needed a starting point for the creation of man and the earth so there we have Genesis and the start of all creation but from the imagination and/or viewpoint of the person that wrote it as a way to explain how we got here.

Many biblical scholars think Genesis was written by Moses if the research I’ve done is correct and that was roughly 1450 BC? Back then the world was completely driven by superstition and myth. From my perspective Moses needed a way to unite his people so he came up with a fantastic story about God and so begins the modern religions that are based off the bible.

It’s also said that Moses wrote Genesis because of inspiration from the Holy Spirit. Well ok he was inspired but the entire thing is based off the word of one person. Moses wrote a story but it takes more than a story to convince me of anything of this magnatude.

 

[happilycatholic]

“I rank it right up there with the existance of Zeus and Thor, both very real gods in their day to the people that worshiped them. Historically religions and various gods come and go. The current god that is widely worshiped now is just another incarnation of that cycle so I really don’t see how he’s any more real than any other god that people worship(ed).”

I’m sorry but this is just utterly unlearned. Especially this part: "Historically religions and various gods come and go."

 

[j1akey]

I’m sorry but this is just utterly unlearned. Especially this part: “Historically religions and various gods come and go.”

How so? Please elaborate.

Greek, Norse, Egyptian gods have all become extinct for the most part these days, mostly because they were forced out modern religions and people were prohibited from worshiping them. They had their run but I don’t see many people praying to Ra or Odenn these days.

 

[happilycatholic]

How so? Please elaborate.

Well, I don’t remember any scholar of any faith, religion or belief ever saying that God and/or Judaism/Christianity is a fad that they suspect will fall away. Where does anyone say that? You’ve just created your own theory on why you are an atheist.

It’s interesting though. Maybe you care to elaborate now.

 

[j1akey]

Well, I don’t remember any scholar of any faith, religion or belief ever saying that God and/or Judaism/Christianity is a fad that they suspect will fall away. Where does anyone say that? You’ve just created your own theory on why you are an atheist.

It’s interesting though. Maybe you care to elaborate now.

Well I didn’t say it was a fad. I’m not looking at the last couple hundred years of history, I’m looking at the last several thousand years of history. Lots of religions had a run of hundreds or thousands of years but many religions have gone extinct throughout history because they’ve been replaced by other religions with different belief systems. Christianity is one of the big religions that pushed many others out of the way but it doesn’t make the christian god any more real than any other god it replaced. No believer in any religion or god thinks it will go away but it’s happened before and it will happen again because history has a way of repeating itself.

 

[happilycatholic]

Well I didn’t say it was a fad. I’m not looking at the last couple hundred years of history, I’m looking at the last several thousand years of history. Lots of religions had a run of hundreds or thousands of years but many religions have gone extinct throughout history because they’ve been replaced by other religions with different belief systems. Christianity is one of the big religions that pushed many others out of the way but it doesn’t make the christian god any more real than any other god. No believer in any religion thinks it will go away but it’s happened before and it will happen again because history has a way of repeating itself.

God is the beginning. We are talking infinity. You are mistaken and that doesn’t make the Christian God any less real.

God is not going anywhere. Your unbelief changes nothing.

 

[j1akey]

God is the beginning. We are talking infinity. You are mistaken and that doesn’t make the Christian God any less real.

God is not going anywhere. Your unbelief changes nothing.

Well, sorry if my thoughts offend you so much but other than telling me “how it is and how it’s going to be” you haven’t really told me much. Christianity wasn’t even founded until about 30 AD which makes it just shy of 2000 years old as a religion. Which is a very long time yes but belief systems change. It’s hardly the first religion and I doubt it will be the last given enough time.

 

[dyluck]

Well, firstly in order to reject God I have to believe that God exists. I can’t reject something that isn’t real for me in the first place. I’m not worried about what happens when I die because for me there’s no hell, no heaven, no devil, no God. So what happens when I die? Beats me but I’ll figure it out when it happens.

Yeah thats what I am saying. What happens when you figure out you were wrong and indeed God is just. What then would happen? It was no loss if you are right and there is no God, but a great loss if you are wrong and there is a God.

Many biblical scholars think Genesis was written by Moses if the research I’ve done is correct and that was roughly 1450 BC? Back then the world was completely driven by superstition and myth. From my perspective Moses needed a way to unite his people so he came up with a fantastic story about God and so begins the modern religions that are based off the bible.

It’s also said that Moses wrote Genesis because of inspiration from the Holy Spirit. Well ok he was inspired but the entire thing is based off the word of one person. Moses wrote a story but it takes more than a story to convince me of anything of this magnatude.

Well the whole bible was written by inspired Men. I believe if God wanted truth to sustain though the age, it is infallable.
The story of Adam and Eve lines up with what God inteneded in other areas of scripture and therefore one can tell it was inspired by God otherwise it would have been disregarded by the Torah and by the early church. You even see clear prophesy/foreshadow about Christ in the first 3 chapters of Genesis.
Through one man sin/death entered the world and through one man sin/death is defeated. Ulitmatly for the revalation of the attributes of God in mercy, grace, justice etc.
We see evidences of this because God Himself displayed Christ as a Propitiation while he was on the cross, plaqured on a crossroad of a major religious mecca.
I believe God has no motivation other then Himself and the revalations of his attributes to do things.

So if indeed there is a God, superstition or not, truth would sustain. Therefore we come full circle again to this chance upon death. God or no God. The fact that you don’t believe in God is the riskier bet because there is no concequences the other way around.

 

[j1akey]

So if indeed there is a God, superstition or not, truth would sustain. Therefore we come full circle again to this chance upon death. God or no God. The fact that you don’t believe in God is the riskier bet because there is no concequences the other way around.

You have a valid point but I’d like to make a counter proposal if I may. Whether God exists or not is really in the eye of the beholder. I “know” that god doesn’t exist but you also “know” that he does which means we percieve reality differently. If I said that you should stop believing in god because you’re wasting your time because of something that may or may not happen you would call me crazy and rightly so because from your perspective you’d be living a lie. For me it’s the same thing. For me to believe in a god I’d have to lie to myself and not be true to who I am as a person so it’s really not about whether it’s risky or not to not believe, I just don’t want to lie to myself for the rest of my life. It’s no more easy for me to start believing than it is for you to stop. Also there is no perceived risk from my perspective either. I don’t see risk is not doing something related to something I don’t believe in in the first place.

 

[happilycatholic]

Well, sorry if my thoughts offend you so much but other than telling me “how it is and how it’s going to be” you haven’t really told me much. Christianity wasn’t even founded until about 30 AD which makes it just shy of 2000 years old as a religion. Which is a very long time yes but belief systems change. It’s hardly the first religion and I doubt it will be the last given enough time.

No friend, that’s what you did here:

“No believer in any religion thinks it will go away but it’s happened before and it will happen again because history has a way of repeating itself.”

I never said Christianity was the first religion. God is older than any religion defined by man. That was my point. I was just stating my beliefs the same way you stated yours. By the way, you’ve haven’t really told me much about where your theory of Christianity dying out comes from either. I think history is on the side of God here.

Can you prove history wrong? That was your challenge, not mine.

I’m not trying to be confrontational for the sport. I’m just communicating in the same manner you have.

 

[happilycatholic]

You have a valid point but I’d like to make a counter proposal if I may. Whether God exists or not is really in the eye of the beholder. I “know” that god doesn’t exist but you also “know” that he does which means we percieve reality differently. If I said that you should stop believing in god because you’re wasting your time because of something that may or may not happen you would call me crazy and rightly so because from your perspective you’d be living a lie. For me it’s the same thing. For me to believe in a god I’d have to lie to myself and not be true to who I am as a person so it’s really not about whether it’s risky or not to not believe, I just don’t want to lie to myself for the rest of my life. It’s no more easy for me to start believing than it is for you to stop. Also there is no perceived risk from my perspective either. I don’t see risk is not doing something related to something I don’t believe in in the first place.

If I may interject here, we are not going on “knowing”. We are going on faith. If we could know that God exists, what would be the point? God wants us to come to Him under our own free will with all the influences for and against our faith.

It is in spite of not knowing that we believe. Therein lies the difference between you and I. I believe in spite of not being able to prove God exists because that’s faith.

 

[aileron]

It is in spite of not knowing that we believe. Therein lies the difference between you and I. I believe in spite of not being able to prove God exists because that’s faith.

Well, I for one appreciate your honesty and courage of conviction. Many lacking that honesty and courage of conviction have tortured reason and science to satisfy themselves they’ve proven God exists.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Atheists claim that God doesn’t exist. That they have found no proof of the existence of God. From what they can determine, God just isn’t there.

So, how can they speak authoritatively on the subject.

They have no evidence from which to base their case.

The vast majority of people through out history have felt the need to describe something they experience as the supernatural - they have a desire to be connected with it.

That is a rotten argument - as Cicero was well aware, over 2,000 years ago.​

Many people have experiences of the divine which stand for them as personal proof that God is real.

Ditto. Besides, Catholics are not impressed by non-Christian “experiences of the divine”.​

The Bible says that all we have to do is look at nature and we will see that God is real.

If the reference is to Romans 1, it says something a bit different.​

…

I’d say, at best, an atheist must leave theological and/or religious discussions to people who believe in something and they can move forward in their discussion. People who believe in nothing have nothing - where is there to go from nothing?

A refresher course in Classical Philosophy seems called for. This lack of insight (not to mention knowledge of pre-Christian atheism) won’t give atheists the impression that Christians are able to understand non-Christian POVs. And if Christians are incapable of understanding any POV but their own, they will get precisely nowhere.​

I think a conversation with a **devout **atheist can only be a short one. “I don’t believe,” to which the believer responds, “I do and here’s why…” to which the atheist responds, “I don’t believe.” … “Ok?” “Ok.”

There are no “devout” atheists. The word is simply not applicable. This slack use of language is something we (for I’m as bad as any ) need to guard against; otherwise language becomes so debased by misuse as to lose all ability to signify precisely ​

I was talking with an atheist recently. He said, “I’ve been looking for many years for God, but I haven’t found Him.” I told him he should pray and ask God to reveal Himself. The atheist responded, “No, I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work.” He continued on and I realized that a bitterness was in him to the point that he no longer wants to see God. If God is there to be seen, this atheist has shut his eyes and has become uninterested.

The atheists I know are fairly closed minded - they believe that all we have is what we see - they are reductionist in their thinking.

And Christians never are ? And plenty of them are closed-minded; but they often rename this flaw; which makes it a virtue & not a vice.​

Many Christians I know believe that there is more - they believe God is mysterious and every unfolding Himself to us, that we can know Him and that He leads us into the unknown in both our personal lives and into the future. In a sense, many Christians I know are **open **in a way that a devout atheist may never be.

The paradox of atheism is that atheism claims that they have no proof that God exists, their hands are empty, they see nothing to point us toward God and they claim this with authority, but authority cannot be claimed when a person has no proof.

At best they can say that they have doubt, but they are in no position to make conclusions… and if they do make conclusions, then the conversation has no where to go.

Thoughts?

STM that you’re confusing complete intellectual certainty (that admits of no doubt) with moral certainty (that is sufficient for all practical purposes). No ability to provide an infallibly certain demonstration of the non-being of all imaginable Divine Being is required - sufficient certainty to live by will do.​

Atheism is not a philosophy - it’s an existential position. And while some philosophies prize intellectual certainty very highly, especially if they allied to theologies which prize intellectual certainty very highly, as the scholastic mode of thought in modern RCism does, existential positions don’t require this. It may be relevant that whereas RCism is a Church, a discrete & socially unified body, atheism is not, & does not aspire to be. Some forms of it do: Soviet Communism is an excellent example of this; but while all Communists may have been atheists, all atheists are not Communists. So the social function of intellectual certainty in RCism is not shared by all forms of atheism; maybe indeed by none. Soviet Communism was as dogmatic as RCism - but atheism as such is atheism even if it lacks the dogmatic impulse. Not all forms of religion, even within Christianity, are dogmatic; religious bodies, Christian or not, can function perfectly well without the dogmatic impulse.

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