Atheists, what would you like to see as proof for God?

[squirt]

Gator:

Basically yes.

If god existed, he wouldn’t allow his weakest of his flock be abused by the 'keepers of the faith", and he most certainly would not cover-up and protect those who commited the henious acts.

So, he either doesn’t exist, or he doesn’t consider the catholic church to be representative of him.

P.S. Please don’t challenge me to a fight…I’m a wimp.

The fight thing was a carryover from a martial arts thread.

But, all kidding aside, the problem of God allowing evil to be inflicted on the weakest of His flock by the “keepers of the faith” is not something that I think I have any sort of convincing argument for.

I believe that somehow there’s a reason for God putting up with such evil, but it’s a very tough thing for me to accept.

If you are interested in reading philosophical-type things about the existence of evil and what it means regarding the existence of God, I could recommend a couple of things written by theists and atheists … but that’s the best I can offer …

 

[wolpertinger]

While the detour to induction was very interesting, I don’t believe it’s worth a fight.

When talking about religion - a contentious and divisive topic - one would be well advised to make a distinction between the theology per se, its application in real life, and the individual believers. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how the historical record tallies up in each category.

If Gator is ever-so-delicately referring to what I think he (or she) is, I know for a fact that the systemic pattern of offense and cover-up was not limited to the US. I realize that the clergy is prone to human error like the rest of us, but it is the cover-ups that are inexcusable. As a parent, I have very strong feelings about all of this and I don’t want to say more.

Be that as it may, these sorry events are not an argument against god’s existence, nor would their absence be an argument in favor of it.

 

[MilleniumManY2J]

If everything must have been created, then god must have been created as well. If god is not created, then everything mustn’t have a creator, so why should life or cosmos have one? If everything has a source and god is that source, then god must have existed without it before he created it. So if god created time and space, he must live outside of time and space. Thus he is non-existent. If all life must come from something and that is god, god is not alive and hence non-existent. If moral must come from god, god lacks moral. If logic comes from god, god is illogic. If nature comes from god, god is unnatural. If existence comes from god, god is non-existent. If god is the cause of everything, god is void

 

[ralphinal]

Wow,

I’ve missed a lot. I will accept the idea that there is no way to form a hypothesis on the existance of God, but that does not change my basic thing.

My God, who is the God of Christianity, cannot be understood my men. He is outside of time and space, allows men to commit evil though he is all good because He gave us free will, the ability to chose right or wrong, he is Tinitarian in makeup, and the Second person of the Trinity became Man, suffered and died so that all men who accepted Him could one day enter into perfect union with him. You tell me that this does not make sense and so God must not exist. I still say that women do not make sense, yet they still exist (silly answer, I know, but show me a man that understands women and I’ll show you a lier).

By the way, I do have a personal relationship with God. How do I know? Does he talk to me? No, but I know he is there

Anyway, I have no desire to convert an atheist. In fact, I do not want to convert anyone. I leave that up to God.

 

[MilleniumManY2J]

No offense man, but no “god” is going to change my beliefs. I despise a supernatural higher power who thinks he is better than me.

 

[wolpertinger]

MilleniumManY2J:

If everything must have been created, then god must have been created as well.
…

MilleniumManY2J:

No offense man, but no “god” is going to change my beliefs. I despise a supernatural higher power who thinks he is better than me.

While I am technically on your side (I believe), please be advised that with a bit of training, you can come across as much more antagonistic. Your concilliatory approach may just give the rest of us a bad name.

 

[Archbishop_10-K]

MilleniumManY2J:

No offense man, but no “god” is going to change my beliefs. I despise a supernatural higher power who thinks he is better than me.

I already said this in another thread, but the juvenile-ness of this post is typical for, well, juveniles. It’s that age where you think you’re invincible. I can barely get away from my mom’s chores, and I can’t even start a revolution without worrying about cops beating me on the head with a stick and throwing me in a slammer, so I think that being better than an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God is quite out of the question for the both of us.

 

[wolpertinger]

ralphinal:

Wow,

I’ve missed a lot. I will accept the idea that there is no way to form a hypothesis on the existance of God, but that does not change my basic thing.

…

By the way, I do have a personal relationship with God. How do I know? Does he talk to me? No, but I know he is there

Anyway, I have no desire to convert an atheist. In fact, I do not want to convert anyone. I leave that up to God.

I wish more Christians would share your stance.

Here is another issue dear to my heart. I consider religious self-determination – up to and including the outright rejection of religion – as an inalienable human right. It should be obvious by now that I disagree with the choices of most others, but that doesn’t mean that I can or wish to deny them the right to do so.

The problem is that there is a very vocal minority of Christians that is intent on infringing on my (and worse, my family’s) right to that very choice, whether they are well-intentioned or not. It doesn’t help that by all appearances, these self-declared Christians use religion as a tool to further a personal agenda.

Time to relinquish the soapbox…

 

[AnAtheist]

ccav:

Ooops! I’m afraid you have a tad bit of illogic in this statement. A transcendental god (such as God!) would not be “interdimensional” because that would limit God to space-time (however many dimensions you want to assign to it) and that wouldn’t be very transcendental. You also are basing something on a false premise, that God would not bother becoming human. That isn’t logic, its opinion.

Yup, you got me there. Replace “would” by “should”.
You don’t say God is not interdimensional? He can be interdimensional if he likes.

ccav:

Also Christians do not believe that God pretended to suffer, die, etc, we believe He did suffer, die, etc. How could God suffer and die? If suffering and death could undo God, then suffering and death would be greater then God…hence God wouldn’t fit the job description for being an omnipotent god.

The point is, if Jesus IS God almighty then all his suffering and dieing was just pretended. Funny notion to think a puny human could torture an almighty god. Well, christian do see this otheriwse, I know.

 

[AnAtheist]

squirt:

So you know enough about Him that you can rule it out with certaintly, eh?

Yes, I am that arrogant (foolish), professing to be wise. Until my opinion is falsified of course.

squirt:

And that if God did do something like that His human nature wouldn’t really be human (i.e, incapable of true suffering, etc)? He’s not omnipotent enough for that?

Well he wasn’t human enough to sin, was he?

squirt:

Who is the Jesus in your last sentence? A fictional character who would do what you think he should do according to your imagination? Or a real person who existed?

I see the biblical Jesus as a fictional character that is based on a real person (the so-called historical Jesus). The evidence is poor (NT only), but strong enough for giving it a, say, 90% probability. Much like Archilles or Siegfired, they might have existed but surely they were not impervious to weapons.

For a christian both Jesus’ are the same of course. If you strip the NT from all the supernatural stuff, that leaves a man with a strong devotion to his god who sees how his ideal god image is perverted by the current religious mainstream, i.e. Jewish priesthood, and argues against that. If that historical Jesus would show up now, it is a fair assumption he’d acted very much the same way, esp. when he had to look at scandals like St. Pölten right now.

 

[Gator]

wolpertinger:

If Gator is ever-so-delicately referring to what I think he (or she) is, I know for a fact that the systemic pattern of offense and cover-up was not limited to the US. I realize that the clergy is prone to human error like the rest of us, but it is the cover-ups that are inexcusable. As a parent, I have very strong feelings about all of this and I don’t want to say more.

Be that as it may, these sorry events are not an argument against god’s existence, nor would their absence be an argument in favor of it.

Clearly we do not see eye to eye on this. I do believe this is a clear indication that “god” does not exist in the church. You obviously don’t have to believe the same thing, but it is decisive evidence IMO.

The subsequent cover-up and attempt to hide the acts from the world view illustrate to me that the leaders are more concerned with image than substance. I believe if they were serious about their “holy” positions, they would have stopped at nothing to remove the cancerous pieces from the church, instead they allowed it to spread by moving the offenders to unsuspecting parishes and failing to report the offenses to law enforcement.

I believe they are more worried about keeping their stature in the church, and protecting the church as an institution, not the faith. The church exists for the sake of the church and nothing else, IMHO.

 

[squirt]

AnAtheist:

Yes, I am that arrogant (foolish), professing to be wise. Until my opinion is falsified of course.

G’morning (well it’s morning here at least),

Somehow you don’t seem to be particularly arrogant or foolish to me.

But, we must use different defintions of certainty if you are certain about something that you claim might be falsifiable. If it’s potentially falsifiable, its associated probability can’t be 100%, eh?

Well he wasn’t human enough to sin, was he?

That’s the way that I used to look at it. Another way to look at it is that he used his humanity more wisely and lovingly than us. He was tempted but chose not to sin.

For me, what ‘proved’ that he wasn’t human was that he couldn’t doubt God’s existence. That was so much of my human experience that I considered it a fundamental part of being human.

I see the biblical Jesus as a fictional character that is based on a real person (the so-called historical Jesus). The evidence is poor (NT only), but strong enough for giving it a, say, 90% probability. Much like Archilles or Siegfired, they might have existed but surely they were not impervious to weapons.

For a christian both Jesus’ are the same of course. If you strip the NT from all the supernatural stuff, that leaves a man with a strong devotion to his god who sees how his ideal god image is perverted by the current religious mainstream, i.e. Jewish priesthood, and argues against that. If that historical Jesus would show up now, it is a fair assumption he’d acted very much the same way, esp. when he had to look at scandals like St. Pölten right now.

Cool. Jesus didn’t appear to be all that impervious to weapons either, at least according to the NT claims which depict real suffering. He wasn’t like Elijah in the OT who went up to the heavens in a chariot without dying.

Take care,
squirt

 

[AnAtheist]

squirt:

But, we must use different defintions of certainty if you are certain about something that you claim might be falsifiable. If it’s potentially falsifiable, its associated probability can’t be 100%, eh?

Yes we do, as a scientist I regard everything as potentially falsifiable, and certainty is synonymous to “so much likely, that it is almost certain”. Quantum physics dictates that nothing has a probality of 1. Nearly 1 (== certain), but not exactly 1.

squirt:

Cool. Jesus didn’t appear to be all that impervious to weapons either, at least according to the NT claims which depict real suffering. He wasn’t like Elijah in the OT who went up to the heavens in a chariot without dying.

I was more referring to the other miracle stuff, like feeding the 5000 (unless he had a damn good catering service), going across water (unless he knew where stones were), …

 

[squirt]

AnAtheist:

I was more referring to the other miracle stuff, like feeding the 5000 (unless he had a damn good catering service), going across water (unless he knew where stones were), …

Or unless he were God …

(Even that wouldn’t be necessary in the context of the Judeo-Christian tradition where miracles have been purported to occur (by God) via humans who weren’t both human and divine … )

 

[wolpertinger]

Gator:

Clearly we do not see eye to eye on this. I do believe this is a clear indication that “god” does not exist in the church. You obviously don’t have to believe the same thing, but it is decisive evidence IMO.

We do and we don’t, but it wouldn’t be first time for me as an atheist to defend Christians even though I disagree with them on many levels.

The subsequent cover-up and attempt to hide the acts from the world view illustrate to me that the leaders are more concerned with image than substance. I believe if they were serious about their “holy” positions, they would have stopped at nothing to remove the cancerous pieces from the church, instead they allowed it to spread by moving the offenders to unsuspecting parishes and failing to report the offenses to law enforcement.

I believe they are more worried about keeping their stature in the church, and protecting the church as an institution, not the faith. The church exists for the sake of the church and nothing else, IMHO.

On a detached philosophical level, this reduces to the Problem of Evil. Since we appear to refer to the same events, even in this thread at least one Christian admits to being at loss regarding an explanation.

On a personal level, I can’t begin to explain my outrage at the abuse of trust that these events exemplify – and I’m not even Catholic. I think we agree that the cover-ups are more egregarious than the original offenses; we further don’t seem to disagree that the running of the Church and running of a corporate board exhibit similar human motives.

Where I disagree is that you conclude that fallible human beings are proof positive that god doesn’t exist. It is no such thing; but you are justified to point out a theological contradiction or possibly even to declare such a god, if it exists, to be immoral relative to your own standards.

I am getting a bit too argumentative, so maybe we should agree to disagree. I have said what I felt compelled to say; you may have the last word if you wish.

 

[squirt]

wolpertinger:

On a detached philosophical level, this reduces to the Problem of Evil. Since we appear to refer to the same events, even in this thread at least one Christian admits to being at loss regarding an explanation.

On an intellectual level, I understand theodicies that tackle the problem of evil. On a more ‘emotional’ level, it ain’t so easy to accept sometimes.

(And thanks, wolpertinger, for everything you have contributed to this thread. I’m glad you ventured over to this forum. I really enjoy reading your insightful posts.)