Do Atheists have a reasonable doubt?

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The OP’s question is an either/or question: ‘either there is a god or not’ and asks whether we non-believers allow ourselves a ‘reasonable doubt’ about the existence of god. I have never been, or met, an atheist who believes it is a certainty that a god does not exist. But many of us think it is vanishingly unlikely for the simple reason that there is no phenomenon we know of that requires a god to explain it. Why believe in something that does nothing we know of? And then there is the fact that the question is not really binary. On the one hand, there may be no god. On the other there may be one, ten or a million gods. They may be eternal, or constantly creating one another. They may be intelligent or simply creation machines. They may have once existed, created the universe and then self-destructed. How would we know?
 
STT said:
So, you are saying that the creation exists and exists not simultaneously?
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No, i said
STT said:
God’s existence is simultaneous with his effect.
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God is not physical, and being the existential reason for why time exists means that God is simultaneous with the first point of change.
 
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STT said:
That is a correct statement. In fact, that is Hawking statement which states that negative gravitational energy cancels out the positive energy of mass, therefore, you could have something from nothing. To me, this is physically feasible. What do you think?
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He is not talking about things coming from absolutely nothing by themselves. And if he is, then he is not doing science and he is wrong.
 
QwertyGirl said:
I wish more people were willing to say nobody knows.
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Most cosmologists I’ve ever read say pretty much that. We can go back as far as the Big Bang as far as determining a “starting point” as it were. There are some ideas out there. Hawking was an advocate of the “imaginary time” scenario (and no, that doesn’t mean made up, it relates to imaginary numbers in mathematics). In that scenario, time itself curves the further you go back, and in essence the further back you go, the steeper the curve, so that you can approach, but never quite reach 0, a sort of infinity. It is an extension of the mathematical concept of a compact manifold; a geometric that is finite, but without defined boundary.
 
FiveLinden said:
The OP’s question is an either/or question: ‘either there is a god or not’ and asks whether we non-believers allow ourselves a ‘reasonable doubt’ about the existence of god. I have never been, or met, an atheist who believes it is a certainty that a god does not exist. But many of us think it is vanishingly unlikely for the simple reason that there is no phenomenon we know of that requires a god to explain it. Why believe in something that does nothing we know of? And then there is the fact that the question is not really binary. On the one hand, there may be no god. On the other there may be one, ten or a million gods. They may be eternal, or constantly creating one another. They may be intelligent or simply creation machines. They may have once existed, created the universe and then self-destructed. How would we know?
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I dislike statements like “vanishingly unlikely” as it suggests some sort of process of statistical analysis.

I look at it this way. Why is such an entity even necessary, and if some aspect or attribute of such an entity is necessary, why can’t I simply apply Occam’s razor, remove the unnecessary entity and place that supposed attribute (say “uncaused”) on to the one entity I know it exists. And since I don’t put very much stock in Aristotle, and thus don’t really buy into Thomistic notions, this is usually where everything just sort of stops.
 
Bradskii said:
To get you to heaven. Nobody wants to die
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No rational person wants to believe a fantasy or a lie either. If you have been following this thread it should reveal to you that it isn’t really that simple, and why would a bunch of atoms want to live forever anyway, let alone have a religion? Why would that concept or desire even be a thing in a completely physical existence comprised only of blind natural processes. Or perhaps you really do have that much of a low opinion regarding theism. Or maybe you just take things for granted so much that you make the error of assuming that everything is consistent with a materialistic mind set without question; after-all you don’t feel the need to make rational sense of your mind-set.
 
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IWantGod said:
Why would that concept or desire even be a thing in a completely physical existence comprised only of blind natural processes
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I’d have thought the desire to continue living would be a natural outcome of evolution. Does it not tend to increase the chance of reproduction?
 
PickyPicky said:
I’d have thought the desire to continue living would be a natural outcome of evolution. Does it not tend to increase the chance of reproduction?
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You are treating evolution like a cause, that such and such comes into existence only because it’s beneficial, rather than in the context of natural selection where a thing comes into existence and survives because it’s nature is suitable to it’s environment. Your response implies goal direction as an explanation for why things exist, which i am sure you don’t intend. And if you don’t intend that, then you don’t have a physical explanation for it. I would venture to say that it’s because in principle there is no natural physical explanation. These things like desires or goals or concepts such as heaven just so happen to exist within the context of physical reality and you are simply assuming that all things can be made sense of physically.
 
IWantGod said:
These things like desires or goals or concepts such as heaven just so happen to exist within the context of physical reality and you are simply assuming that all things can be made sense of physically
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I thought I was simply asserting in answer to your question a possible explanation for the desire not to die, precisely that it should arise and spread in the population …
IWantGod said:
in the context of natural selection where a thing comes into existence and survives because it’s nature is suitable to it’s environment
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I would assume similar explanations for the existence of the desire to eat, the desire to drink, the desire to copulate, the desire to avoid pain. They don’t seem particularly out of place within our knowledge of biology. They don’t imply goal direction.
 
niceatheist said:
I dislike statements like “vanishingly unlikely” as it suggests some sort of process of statistical analysis.

I look at it this way. Why is such an entity even necessary, and if some aspect or attribute of such an entity is necessary, why can’t I simply apply Occam’s razor, remove the unnecessary entity and place that supposed attribute (say “uncaused”) on to the one entity I know it exists. And since I don’t put very much stock in Aristotle, and thus don’t really buy into Thomistic notions, this is usually where everything just sort of stops.
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Occam’s razor: “the simplest explanation is more likely to be true” does not eliminate doubt. It is a practical way of thinking that in general leads to more correct conclusions. But not only is ‘god’ a hugely complex hypothesis to explain things the range of things for which we do not have alternative explanations is getting smaller. The ‘god of the gaps’ is no longer considered by most people to be responsible for rain, locusts, and HIV. But I would always concede the possibility that there is a god or gods, just as I would concede the possibility that we are all imaginary beings in a world imagined by a super-computer. I don’t spend a lot of time on either hypothesis, although I remain fascinated about the processes by which people come to believe. Hence my membership of CA. I’m grateful to believing members for putting up with me!
 
PickyPicky said:
They don’t seem particularly out of place within our knowledge of biology. They don’t imply goal direction.
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Your desire to eat, your activity towards that goal, and the fact that the process meaningfully relates to the survival of your nature, does not imply goal directed activity? And i suppose that makes perfect sense to you in the context of blind natural physical processes alone.

Evolution is not the answer to everything, and it confuses me when atheists use it as some kind of universal metaphysical explanation for why any nature should exist. It’s as if you don’t really understand the concept of evolution.

It seem obvious to me that you haven’t really given much critical thought to it and that you are just taking these things for granted. Like i said, if metaphysical naturalism is true it doesn’t make any sense that there are goals or beings that make goals or beings that desire to live and act for the goal of survival. Why would a bunch of atoms be religious or have a concept of heaven? Why would there be such a thing as survival in the context of blind physical activity alone?

It makes perfect sense that these things become real if there is a God, but it makes no sense at all if there is no God.
 
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IWantGod said:
Conclusion; There was never absolutely nothing.
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Correct. Lawrence Kraus tried to tackle this in book “A Universe from Nothing”, he attempted to show that the Universe could have come from “nothing” except his definition of “nothing” wasn’t nothing. It included discrete quantum fields A, B, C that form particles when in one state (A) but do not form particles when they’re in another state (B). Kind of like how your fingers form a fist in one state but don’t form a fist in another state. So he was called out for this in a debate and had nothing in response. He was asked “who caused the quantum fields?” Obviously they have a specific nature, and they are discrete and there is a specific number of them. Who chose all those parameters? Very precise selection there.

So all the evidence points to there not being absolutely “nothing”, yet the Atheists continue to insist so in direct contradiction to the evidence. Notice how in fact Athiesm requires far more faith than Deism.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
yet the Atheists continue to insist so in direct contradiction to the evidence.
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You must hang out with different group of atheists than I do, because I don’t know of any atheist with even a modicum of intelligence who would hold such a position. You must have them confused with a straw man.
 
Lawrence Krauss doesn’t have a modicum of intelligence? Pretty harsh. I wouldn’t go that far. He’s trying.
 
If I’m being honest, I don’t see how a rational human being could conclude that there is no higher power that is responsible for existence.

That’s not meant as an attack against any of our atheist / agnostic forum members, I simply cannot comprehend the frame of mind that would allow a person to draw that conclusion, especially in light of the mere fact of existence. I’ve never heard an argument for how we exist that does not rely on a pre-existing set of conditions, and so I’ve never heard a reasonable explanation that moves me beyond the place of viewing atheism as irrational.

Again, that’s not meant as a slight against atheists, but the op asked for an honest assessment, and that’s mine.
 
IWantGod said:
Not for something that isn’t physical. The only thing that is changing is creation itself.
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Time is physical. The last experiment of the gravitation wave confirmed that time is a substance which curves.
 
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