Doubting Atheists

[Shasta-Rose]

Just out of curiosity, what is a Humanist/Secular service like? What do they do?

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

Boot camp in San Antonio TX draws over 1000 attendees every Sunday to the Humanist/Secular service.

I’m doubtful that that means they’re all committed atheists. Everyone goes to some Sunday service in boot camp because it’s time away from cleaning the barracks. People who haven’t been raised in any particular religion might default to the secular “service” just to go somewhere, just like before they defaulted to the generic Protestant service.

Also, while the saying “no atheists in foxholes” is kinda dated and silly, it’s not being used to suggest there are no atheists in the military. It’s used to suggest that at moments of extreme danger, many skeptics abandon their skepticism and turn to God. Whether that’s true or not we can debate all day, but going “nuh uh there are plenty of atheists in the military” misses the point.

 

[SPBlitz]

Certainty is the realm of religion.

the posts above seemed pretty certain that there was no God/supernatural.

I’ve never understood why many atheists are so reluctant to say they believe in atheism. All a belief is is the acceptance that a statement is true. So to say that an atheist believes in atheism means that they accept that the statement ‘there is no god(s)/supernatural’ is true. Surely thats uncontroversial?

 

[PickyPicky]

Well, there is a difference between a lack of belief in God and and belief in lack of God, but I take your point. The answer is, I suppose, that atheists are unhappy with any suggestion that atheism is a set of beliefs, a collection of outlooks.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

I’ve never understood why many atheists are so reluctant to say they believe in atheism. All a belief is is the acceptance that a statement is true.

The concept of “believing in atheism” is like saying my hobby is not fishing. Effectively the believer is warping the concept into their framework.

So to say that an atheist believes in atheism means that they accept that the statement ‘there is no god(s)/supernatural’ is true.

That’s not a statement I can make. “I don’t believe in God’s existence” is a better statement. “No god(s)” presumes an impossible level of knowledge.

 

[Frankenfurter]

Atheists assume that there is no God because they have no direct proof.

But they also have no direct proof for infinitely many other things, like flying purple monkeys, etc.

So they don’t consider it a ‘belief’. I mean, if they did consider it a belief, then you could probably ask them about if they doubt their ‘belief’ that there are no flying purple monkeys, or an infinite number of other things.

For the atheist, they lump God into the infinite list of imaginary made up things. That places God into a place where he simply cannot be considered.

It is good to find out why atheists do believe in some things. Find out their standards for how they know things. I find that they are all different. There is not one belief system among atheists. They look at the world through their own individual lens of their own experience. You have to deal with them as individuals on their terms.

A key thing is that relationships are the essence of reality for an atheist. What I mean is that anything exists only in as much as it has a relationship to something else.

The atheist expresses that he must see something and interact with it himself before believing in it. So the atheists understands intuitively that the only things that he himself can see and interact with are real.

But objective reality exists OUTSIDE of one’'s experience of it.

How do we gain knowledge of the objective reality outside of what we can experience?

The answer is to interact with and experience others who HAVE had experience with objective realities outside of what you have experienced. That does not give you the experience, but it does point to the reality being there for you to go explore it yourself. But you must have faith in the person conveying the experience.

This is why faith is faith in a person. Faith that the person relating his experiences are real.

For Catholics we have faith in Jesus as a person.

 

[Pattylt]

I call myself agnostic for the reason that I can’t know if the supernatural exists or not. While not having any personal experience of the divine, I’m left with what others claim…and no, I can’t fully trust what others have experienced. They could be mistaken, they could be lying, they could be interpreting what they experienced wrongly and they could be right…but I have not experienced any of it. That doesn’t mean I don’t consider it. I just can’t relate to it.

Part of why I’m here is to learn from believers what gives them their certainty. I don’t know any atheists that claim certainty about their atheism. There are probably some that do but they are few. Why do so many people believe in so many differing religions and I don’t? Are some people’s brains just wired towards unbelief? Are some people’s brains wired towards belief? Gosh, I wish I knew!

 

[PickyPicky]

The atheist expresses that he must see something and interact with it himself before believing in it. So the atheists understands intuitively that the only things that he himself can see and interact with are real

This is, of course, not the case. Atheists might have no problem believing that Jesus of Nazareth lived in Palestine in the First Century, or that Henry VIII had six wives, or that Washington crossed the Delaware, without seeing or interacting with any of these. They are likely, however, to doubt the truth of the miracles of Apollonius.

 

[Neithan]

Effectively the believer is warping the concept into their framework.

I suspect you’ve come across Christians who try to tell you that you “'have faith in atheism” which of course is warping (and denigrating) the concept of faith. That’s frustrating. You don’t have faith. But you do have beliefs, and some interaction of those beliefs condition your atheism.

 

[Freddy]

It’s used to suggest that at moments of extreme danger, many skeptics abandon their skepticism and turn to God. Whether that’s true or not we can debate all day…

Depends on the individual I guess.

I won’t go into details but a few years ago my wife and I were involved in an incident when I actually thought my time was up. Two people did actually die but we got lucky. There was enough time for me to mentally say goodbye to our kids and hope that it wasn’t going to hurt too much. So there was time enough to contemplate the end.

Thinking about it later, you mentally run through how you came to terms with what seemed to be inevitable. And I remember a sense of annoyance. Frustration. But what I also realised was that there was no appeal for help. No quick pact. No apologies and a plea for forgiveness.

And I remember feeling a sense of satisfaction that I hadn’t been kidding myself. That when the chips were down, my instincts aligned with what I thought I believed.

Now what would have happened if I had made a deal with God…well, that’s the $64,000 question.

 

[Freddy]

Atheists assume that there is no God because they have no direct proof.

A lot wrong in this post but just to address the statement above (which already has been addressed):

There are many things which people believe about which we have no direct proof. Such as a belief in God. So that there is no direct proof is no guide whatsoever.

If I take a flight somewhere then I am going to assume that the pilot is well qualified, is sober and has all the necessary skills to take me where I’m going safely. That’s not a ‘belief’. It’s more of a reasonable expectation. When I drive over the harbour bridge, I don’t have a ‘belief’ that it won’t collapse. It’s a reasonable expectation. I’d be a fool to question everything and demand to see the pilot’s license before boarding a plane or to see the calculations for the bridge’s construction before I drove over it.

So we go through life not requiring any hard evidence for run of the mill situations. But…if you say there’s a God then I don’t have a reasonable expectation that you are correct. Just the opposite in fact. Because if the proposal is true, then it will have the biggest effect on my life that can be imagined. So I’ll need something other than you telling me it’s so.

But there’s no hard evidence. There’s no proof. There is scripture. There are philosophical proposals. There is personal testimony. But literally none of that is any way convincing. To me, that is.

That’s not to say I discount what’s written in scripture. I am as confident about the existence of Jesus as I am of Socrates. Which is - pretty confident. But whether either of them existed or not makes no difference to me whatsoever. We have records of what each is meant to have said and that’s good enough for me.

But God? That makes all the difference there could be. So you’ll need a whole lot more than what has been available so far to convince me He exists, because none of it has worked up to this point. And in fact, most of it has served to strengthen my conviction that I am right.

 

[QContinuum]

Every time I start to wonder if God exists, theists convince me all over there’s not.

 

[Seekingthetruth]

But there’s no hard evidence. There’s no proof. There is scripture. There are philosophical proposals. There is personal testimony. But literally none of that is any way convincing.

I’m not trying to be condescending, so please take this question charitably. What would be convincing, hard evidence?

 

[StudentMI]

I know it wasn’t the topic but I’ll admit I have doubts, very serious doubts, often.

 

[PickyPicky]

I’m not trying to be condescending, so please take this question charitably. What would be convincing, hard evidence?

I, also, am not trying to be condescending, but I suspect an all-powerful, all-knowing God could think of a good way to convince me (if He wanted to). He used at one time, apparently, to turn up in person. He walked in gardens, met people on mountaintops. That would seem a good start.

If He ended His policy of absence it would be a step forward.

 

[QContinuum]

I, also, am not trying to be condescending,

(Just as an observer, I admit I find your posts all the more enjoyable for their droll nature.)

Carry on.

 

[Seekingthetruth]

If He ended His policy of absence it would be a step forward.

And yet, most people, would write it off as a delusion or find any other natural explanation to explain it away.

I suspect an all-powerful, all-knowing God could think of a good way to convince me (if He wanted to).

Perhaps he values your free will above all. Perhaps there’s nothing that could convince outside of subverting your free will.

All things remaining equal, I’ll admit, to me divine hiddenness is probably the best argument against the existence of the divine. However, you can attempt divine psychology all day and you’ll still be no closer to the truth one way or the other

 

[PickyPicky]

(Just as an observer, I admit I find your posts all the more enjoyable for their droll nature.)

You are too kind.

Carry on.

Your servant (bows).

 

[PickyPicky]

And yet, most people, would write it off as a delusion or find any other natural explanation to explain it away

Yes, probably so.

Perhaps he values your free will above all. Perhaps there’s nothing that could convince outside of subverting your free will

Perhaps. But one would think there are steps He could take, short of subverting my free will. I have suggested ending the policy of absence. Especially since he is reported to consider my belief in him to be of great importance (not least to my immortal soul).

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

But there’s no hard evidence. There’s no proof. There is scripture. There are philosophical proposals. There is personal testimony. But literally none of that is any way convincing.

I’m not trying to be condescending, so please take this question charitably. What would be convincing, hard evidence?

There is no single piece of evidence. Just like there wasn’t one thing that convinced me that God didn’t exist there wouldn’t be one thing that would convince me that He did.

I’m discounting over the top nonsense such as rearranging the heavens.