Atheists: Why aren't you theists?

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By theists I certainly didn’t mean ‘only Catholics’ or Christians, or members of the Abrahamic faiths! Not even close! 😃 To a nontheist, all theists’ claims about the existence of a Deity or deities look…well…kinda similar, to be frank. That doesn’t make them bad or anything, though I really do hope Lovecraft wasn’t on the right track - but he had as much of a case, from my perspective. :eek:

And the cultivation of formal argument and inquiry is a very fine thing, among the very best of human achievements. Revel in it, and in kindness. Those truly are common to humankind, when we are in all our splendor.
 
Well, you know Lovecraft wasn’t a theist—in fact, I’m next door to positive he was an atheist. What gods he wrote about weren’t God.

Has there ever been a thread on “Favorite Supernatural Fiction”? And DON’T say something cute about “aren’t they all?” 🙂
 
Of course I know it. And he was a not exactly a paragon of mental stability, as well as an overall gloomcookie. Even so…

Okay, I have to stifle myself on that last bit, you got me. 😃

Oh, and as to ‘wanting to believe,’ well, I did, as a matter of conformity to expectations when I was very young, but it did not come to me naturally. And later, I found that I was content without either belief, or the expectations of my family and many of my contemporaries. My soon-to-be spouse was raised entirely secularly (never denied religion or argued against it, but merely without it as a staple practice), and never has known the desire for religion except for the misery caused by childhood peers, but even at that age, self-respect did not permit bullying to prevail.

Sometimes, the strident ‘Belief!’ of some religious seems more a matter of nigh-hubristic vanity – why should anyone be impressed with anyone’s shrill insistence on their faith, unless they are being oppressed, tortured or killed for their convictions? And when they insist that those convictions outside the secular realm are absolutely necessary, and that people who do not share them are somehow less worthy?

And I know, some atheists are shrill as well, Dawkins being a case in point, but he too is a worthy man, in his contributions to biology alone. I do not know him personally, and am annoyed by his rhetorical style, but he has contributed vastly to human knowledge and its propagation, regardless of philosophical stance (honestly, that sort of Atheism seems just as untenable as any flavor of Theism). But I deeply admire theists’ contributions to human culture and advancement, and hope such is no impediment to anyone, regarding the benefits derived from all human thought from any religious or philosophical stance.
 
By the way, I don’t agree with your statement “Neither do all theists think alike about their deities.” According to Anselm (and I agree), they do. Whatever one can conceive as the maximally perfect possible being is what one thinks of as God. Granted, one could take that and by revelation learn more about it (God of Abraham, Father of Jesus, Heavenly Father, Trinity, etc.). But the foundational definition would still be the same for any theist.
This is nonsense, even a shallow look at deities throughout time and cultures will show that in no way are all or even most theists hooked on the best possible being they can think of. Many deities are more reflections of What Is, than, what a person wishes could be.

cheddar
 
This is nonsense, even a shallow look at deities throughout time and cultures will show that in no way are all or even most theists hooked on the best possible being they can think of. Many deities are more reflections of What Is, than, what a person wishes could be.

cheddar
I’m not speaking of “deities.” I’m speaking of the Supreme Deity. Even in cultures including belief in more than one deity, there is usually the conception of the Supreme Deity Who is also the Creator. An example would be the Wakan Tanka, “Great Mystery,” of the Lakota Indians.

By the way, it’s not “the best possible being they can think of.” It’s the conception of “the best possible being.”
 
Keikiolu,
I have read your response and I have a few questions:
  • Would my life be any different if I did believe in God than it is now? By different I really mean better. From what you have written, I cannot see that anything will change.
You can’t see that anything WOULD be different because you won’t accept that anything COULD be different.

You CAN’T know that it “wouldn’t be any different”. That is your FAITH. Your faith is that since God doesn’t exist, nothing could POSSIBLY be any different if you were to “believe” in that nonexistent thing, as it still WOULDN’T exist.

You faith overrides the very possibility of accepting that there would or could be any difference between believing in God and not believing in God.
  • Instead it seems as though you are saying that if I did believe in God then I would simply ascribe everything good that happens in my life to works of God, with no observable change from before I began believing. To me, that would mean that God does not interfere with human lives, not that I have no need for him.
To simply ascribe “everything good that happens” to God is, while correct, not the point. The point is that you are looking for a God (god) that gives you what you want, and not what you need, and that until you accept that your wants may be counter to what you need, and that only God is the best “advisor” as to what you need, you’ll be utterly stumped by the very concept of God.

God does not “interfere” with human free will. The only proof of God acceptable to you would be God interfering with either your free will or with other’s free will.

Therefore, Huston, we have a problem…! 🙂
  • I cannot see signs and indications of God unless I know what to look for. Do you have any examples of signs and indications of God so that I know what to look for?
Yes. Look for a big blue sign, normally in the sky about three-quarters of an hour into dusk, with flashing pink letters that says, “Dial 555-353-2111 for God’s BIG DESIGN plans for Suat…!”

When some action you’re about to take “tweaks” your conscience as to whether you REALLY ought to do it or not,… that’s God speaking. Things along that line are what you should pay attention to,… which I imagine you already do, actually. 🙂
  • I do not think that God showing me evidence that he exists, or tweaking the circumstances to give me some signs, negates my free will anymore than the vast amount of evidence for evolution negates creationists free will. They still manage not to accept evolution and revert to prehistoric understandings of the universe. Cognitive dissonance. Personally, if I am destined to hell anyway, then I would like to think that I chose to be there ;).
Uh,… no one is “destined” to hell. That is a heretical (and nonsensical) protestant belief.

Now, if you DO chose to be there, that’s STILL between you and God, and no one has any right whatsoever to usurp God’s job, and pronounce you so condemned,… not even yourself.

…continued–>
 
…continued below:
  • That said, if God showing me any signs or indications of his existence negates my free will, then him interacting in any way with the natural world negates free will. Ergo, it is the same as if he did not exist in the first place.
All I was saying, which you’ve rather nicely misinterpreted due to the “logical faith” structure of your “religion”, is that if God unequivocally PROVED to you that He existed, that you’d have no choice (by definition) but to believe in Him, which takes away your free choice (once again by definition) to NOT choose to believe in Him, which negates your ability to choose something that He has chosen to NEVER take away from you.

You see that as proof that He doesn’t exist, when all it is is His choice to continue to let you choose freely.
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Nothing is contingent on your belief in God, except the results of your belief in God, which you can’t see (are actually prohibited frm seeing) unless you DO believe in God.
Is that the perfect “delusional” circular logic of the religious “attitude”, or what? 🙂
Yes, I would not be being honest with myself or with your God if I believed in that way.
Agreed…! 🙂
Quote:


But,… the odds are that you will
Comforting. Quite frankly, if he is going to send me to hell because he will made me incapable of having faith while also refusing to give me evidence of his existence before I accept his existence, then I do not want to spend eternity in his presence anyway ;).
That’s fine.

You demand that God play by your rules, as opposed to playing by His. That is why the most important commandment is as it is.

No one can say you are “destined for hell” based on anything whatsoever, though you’re more likely to NOT go to hell if you can see that “hell” is really simply not allowing that there is a reality that is greater than you and your “mind”, and actually spending energy defending your personal superiority over reality, which keeps you IN hell.

Once you’re dead, time (as we know it) is taken away from you, and without (our) time there is no chance to change our choices made here,… thus, you are forever stuck with the choice to “fight against” reality, which is being forever stuck in hell.
 
Speaking for myself, it’s not that I don’t want to believe. I’ve tried. I cannot believe.
Is it not because you do not want to, but would rather know for a fact, before committing yourself to something you don’t want to do? .
God is one such explanation. There are others?
Interesting; teach me about the others, and explain why they are just as logically fulfilling and consistent, as the proposition of God’s existents.
Explaining everything by introducing an omnipotent, omniscient being is not exactly reasonable; it only moves the problem a step further away and flies in the face of Occam’s Razor.
Pretending that you have found flaws or weakness in my arguments and then not providing the “reasons” for why they are flawed; is an intellectual cop-out, wrapped in the cloths of reason.

Why does the existents of God, fly in the face of Occam’s razor? The world being an infinite regression of causes with no ultimate cause or reason for being, or the world popping out of nothing, with no cause, bringing us into being, so that we can have a conversation about whether or not God exists, flies in the face of Ocamm’s razor; and being the only alternatives for God, flies in the face of every discovery and scientific medical break through in the past history. I say this because, every thing we have achieved, is based upon the fact that there is a logical reason for everything.
There is a reason for everything and everything is balancing and relying on something else to maintain its nature and existents. If one finds a cure, there are logical reasons why that thing is a cure; its is the nature of life, and because of theses logical consistencies in reality, i can say that there is a God, because he forfills thoughs logical consistencies as an ultimate reason.

It is not a contradiction to think that there is an ultimate reason; this is the basis of discovering things, looking for reasons. The laws of non contradiction, and Occams razor, demands an un-tangible infinite super nature, because that’s the only thing it will allow. There is no other posible explanation, because that is the only “logical explanation” which conforms to logic laws, and the law of non-contradiction; logic will not allow it to be otherwise. The matter, the time, and the space of this universe, has a beginning, and there for needs an ultimate reason for its existents, and since there is no “before” the big bang, the cause would have to be above time, timeless, and the cause would have to be immaterial, because matter functions only with time. The fact that we cannot comprehend what this would be like, doesn’t change the fact that reasonable thinking points to it; it has to be there if we are to think of the world as logically consistent; an assumption I think I am right and rational to make, considering the world we see around us.

The cause would have to have an eternal will, in order for the world to come to be, as would any model cause for are existents; the reason being, that the finite cannot logically be thought to exist without an eternal foundation, an engine which has the universes eventual production in process. If the world is an infinite regression of material causes, we have to think that the world has been in the process of coming into being from all eternity, and has no ultimate reason for being in that process; no cause. An un-tangible, timeless God, with an eternal will, is more reasonable and believable then an infinite regression of material causes. If a pink elephant popped in to existents, you wouldn’t think that it was the cause of its self and its nature, you would, instead, think it more rational, that there must be something in existents which has caused the pink elephant to be real. I don’t think that a pink elephant can cause itself, so why should I think that the universe is a product of its own nature?

I think that atheism is a matter of taste and fashion, rather then an exercise of logic.

If there is another cause to the world, that is material in nature, then it will not be one that is logically consistent with what we see in the world around us; it will be one that flies in the face of logic, therefore science will never find such a cause, because science is a product of logic and works on the assumption that there are rational reasons for things. God is not a cop out; it is simple common-sense to think that God exists if you adhere consistently to rational logic.

This is probably all I’m going to say on the matter; you have not once given me any logical refutation of my position. If you can, I will rethink my position. If you can’t, then I would rather talk about something else.

Peace.
 
Regarding your “two critical facts of existence”–the first one is not a fact, but a belief. The second one seems more factual. However, neither one has absolutely anything to do with whether or not there is a God.

You mention how difficult it was for you to accept the “fact” that life isn’t fair. Why do you suppose this was so “difficult”? Is it because you instinctively recognize this state of affairs as wrong?

Kant took this same thought—that life isn’t fair, that moral goodness isn’t always rewarded in this life and moral evil isn’t always punished—and made it the foundation for his “moral” argument for God’s existence. In other words, these “facts” you mentioned could lead one either direction. They do not establish any secure foundation for atheism.
If you look at the post I said I **think **of these things as facts. I’m not saying they are facts, I’m saying I think they are in my own mind. I didn’t mean the word in the absolute scientific way so yes I ackowledge they are beliefs, as in I believe them to be facts.

You’re right these ‘things’ do strike me as being wrong. And yes they can lead you in two directions. To me you can invent something to make yourself feel better or you can accept it for what it is.

I thought this thread was for you know like a survey… I just wanted to express my ‘beliefs’ about what I think are pretty obivous ‘observations’ of the world thats all.

Peace be with you.
 
Quite a jump to go from a car to an universe. The honest answer is: I do not know. I do not even know if the universe had a beginning. Why stop there though? Positing a supernatural cause does not change this, it only shifts the question from ‘can the universe make itself’ to ‘can God make himself’? In my opinion, saying ‘I do not know’ to the first is more honest than saying to the second, ‘my definition of god does not require that’.
If it did not have a begining, then you suggest infinity. Infinity goes out of the realms of science and chemistry… Is infinity even possible on a scientific basis??
 
If it did not have a begining, then you suggest infinity. Infinity goes out of the realms of science and chemistry… Is infinity even possible on a scientific basis??
Science is, at its root, mathematics; and infinity is certainly possible there. Ever looked at a fractal?
 
Yes the singularity can approach infinity they say…But I doubt it is infinity…

Apparently they do not know everything about the singularity of the black hole anyway…

Hitting the singularity

As an infalling object approaches the singularity, tidal forces acting on it approach infinity. All components of the object, including atoms and subatomic particles, are torn away from each other before striking the singularity.** At the singularity itself, effects are unknown**; a theory of quantum gravity is needed to accurately describe events near it. Regardless, as soon as an object passes within the hole’s event horizon, it is lost to the outside world. An observer far from the hole simply sees the hole’s mass, charge, and angular momentum change to reflect the addition of the new object’s matter.
 
Yes the singularity can approach infinity they say…But I doubt it is infinity…
Bessie the cow is dead.

If I remember correctly, you asked if infinity had a place in science and I pointed to one place that science does hypothesize infinity. Whether or not you believe that a singularity was infinitely dense/curved/small, the fact still remains that our current and best (if limited) understanding of these objects postulate properties that reach infinity. Ergo, infinity has a place in science. If you need more examples then we can easily bring up the multiverse theory from quantum physics or M theory, although those are a little more in the realm of philosophy in my opinion.
 
It’s incredible how much faith athiests have… way more than us theists, that’s for sure. I mean, spontaneous generation of life? The overlooking of all of the over 100 Anthropic Constants? The denial of the Big Bang theory, and the fact that the universe is finite (Kalam Cosmological Argument, radioactive decay, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the fact that the universe is expanding, ect)? All of these and more, and still no room in their beliefs for an intelligent Being… I just don’t know how they do it.

I’ll put it into question form for the athiests: If there’s no God, why is there something rather than nothing? Can something come from nothing? That seems to require a heck of a lot more faith than it does to believe in God.
 
I’ll put it into question form for the athiests: If there’s no God, why is there something rather than nothing? Can something come from nothing? That seems to require a heck of a lot more faith than it does to believe in God.
‘We don’t know (yet)’ doesn’t require faith of any sort.
 
‘We don’t know (yet)’ doesn’t require faith of any sort.
Who would have thought that such a simple concept is that difficult to understand?
No, see, that’s the reply of an Ordinary Agnostic (not to be confused with the Ornery Agnostic). Well, Mirdath’s reply was, that is. Suat’s was, just, kind of unintelligent and worthless to the argument. But I digress. As you’ll notice, my question was directed towards Athiests, who do in fact claim to know.

But, since you raise the point, Mirdath, I guess I’ll address it. You don’t know yet? You don’t know whether or not something comes from nothing? Well, I can tell you, it does not. 6 million years of Earth’s history will tell you that. I think what you’re meaning to say is that you haven’t heard any real scientific evidence that does NOT point to a Creator yet, who, for our purposes, we’ll call God. Heck, why not, right? Therefore, you’re still waiting on that in order to answer my question in the way that you would like for it to be answered. The tragedy is, that day will never come, my friend. Why? Evolution (micro, not the horribly unscientific macro), Big Bang, radioactive decay, the list goes on (see previous post)… all point to this intelligent God. Sheesh, even amoebas contain as much information as over 1000 encyclopedias (this according to Richard Dawkins, mind you). And all of this came from nothing? Like I said, I gotta hand it to you… you definitely have way more faith than me.

Athiests: Feel free to answer my previous question.
 
I’ll put it into question form for the athiests: If there’s no God, why is there something rather than nothing? Can something come from nothing? That seems to require a heck of a lot more faith than it does to believe in God.
Sure, I’ll answer this it my own feeble way. The universe is incredibly complex. A designer must have been even more complex. We think the universe was once simplier than it is now, and that it developed into what we see today.
I’m not sure your version is easier to believe.

There’s always been something, that makes sense to me. Was it complex or simple? Which is harder to believe? maybe it’s the same, either way the God hypothesis explains nothing, unless you consider shifting the mystery back another level an explanation.

What stops you from asking this question about God? Do you think God sits around asking himself, “I’ve always existed. Why?” would he know the answer to this question himself?

That’s without getting into the fact, that the universe seems like a closed system. That most effects have causes that are generally explainable. There’s no evidence for massive amounts of divine intervention particular to your form of theism.

I notice you all argue hard for the existence of a creator, but we all know this isn’t the only thing you’re selling, you have just a few more embelishments to tack on before we can all go home eh…:rolleyes:
 
Sure, I’ll answer this it my own feeble way. The universe is incredibly complex. A designer must have been even more complex. We think the universe was once simplier than it is now, and that it developed into what we see today.
So, in effect, you think that order arose from chaos? That intelligence resulted from nonintelligence? Personality from non-personality? Indeed, something from nothing? All this with no first Creator? You definitely need a lot more faith than I do to believe that!
What stops you from asking this question about God? Do you think God sits around asking himself, “I’ve always existed. Why?” would he know the answer to this question himself?
Oh the famous “Oh yeah?! Who created God then?!” question. I would HOPE he would know the answer himself, since it was he himself who created us with minds intelligent enough to answer it ourselves! And the answer is simple. You’re misunderstanding the Law of Causality. It does not state that EVERYTHING needs a cause, but that everything that COMES INTO BEING needs a cause. God, being uncreated, did not come into being. No one made him. He is indeed unmade. That is the very definition of the First Cause. Asking who created the uncreated is just silly.
That’s without getting into the fact, that the universe seems like a closed system. That most effects have causes that are generally explainable. There’s no evidence for massive amounts of divine intervention particular to your form of theism.
Not exactly sure what you’re trying to get at here, but I’m assuming you’re saying that there’s not enough evidence for divine intervention? If so, read my last posts.
I notice you all argue hard for the existence of a creator, but we all know this isn’t the only thing you’re selling, you have just a few more embelishments to tack on before we can all go home eh…:rolleyes:
Not really too sure where you’re going here either, but I think since we’re both “arguing hard,” it would be necessary for me to interpret that you also have a few more embelishments to tack on. Or would that just be abusrd?
 
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