Atheists, What's the point?

[Jade Margery]

Really, I think most of you 'atheists' are really just agnostics.

You completely missed my nice little post about elephants, didn't you?

Really, it's not our fault if you can't pay attention and keep up.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Sorry if my response is really belated..I have been off line through no wish of my own, but ,I need to reply to this.
Not every Christian wants to tell you how your child has to be taught in school,or tries to tell your girl friend whather reproductive rights are. There are many of us who abhor the fact that there are those that are "holier than thou"out there.They do Christ's core teachings no justice..Read the Beatitudes(Sermon on the Mount).

Why do you have to sue to get a bill board up? Those billboards are owned by companies,not by the government. No 1st Amendment there.
Peace to you..I'm no fanatic,I pray you are not one too.

The only case I found of atheists suing over billboards was one where atheists bought a billboard....religious folk complained to the city....city pressured billboard company....atheists sued. So yes, you could definitely say that if the city did in fact pressure the billboard company in any way to remove the billboard, they violated the atheists freedom of speech.

I doubt any atheists actually think that all Christians want to invade secular society and bend it to their dogmatic beliefs. The problem is that many do...and as long as they do, there should be an effort to stop or at least counteract this behavior.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Really, I think most of you 'atheists' are really just agnostics.

I don't believe in god...so the term atheist is fine with me. Nitpicking over matters of certainty seems silly. After all, do we need a term for all those who believe god exists but admit they cannot know for sure? Possanostics?

 

[Eudaimonist]

Really, I think most of you 'atheists' are really just agnostics.

I am equally both.

Agnosticism refers to claims to knowledge.

Atheism refers to beliefs.

One can have a godless worldview, one in which God isn't believed to exist, and yet not claim to know for certain that God does not exist.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Davian]

Is (religious) belief a choice? Yes or no?

It is.

Great. So, on Monday, choose not to believe in any gods. Wednesday, let us know what it is like to be an atheist. Then Thursday, you can go back to believing.

Agreeable?

 

[Davian]

Really, I think most of you 'atheists' are really just agnostics.

FWIW, agnostic is an adjective, and atheist is a noun.

I considered igtheist, but the word has an awkward look to it.

Regardless, I don't identify with labels that tell me what I am not.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Great. So, on Monday, choose not to believe in any gods. Wednesday, let us know what it is like to be an atheist. Then Thursday, you can go back to believing.

Agreeable?

And not to believe it in a pretend way, but to pass a lie detector with ease.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[motherprayer]

I'm a Christian. But.

How is it that there are Christians on this thread presuming to tell those who aren't Christian what their beliefs are? Not. Cool. Honestly, I can't understand the beliefs of someone who is not Christian, and therefore wouldn't be so arrogant as to tell them my definition of them.

It is a barrier to effective and intelligent communication to put words in someone's mouths, Christians

 

[RainbowDashIsBestPony]

Religion as a comfort in times of hardship is not a bad thing. If I could bring myself to believe in a god, I'd find quite a bit of solace in the idea that a day may come when I can be in heaven. However, I don't think you're being honest to yourself if you believe in something only because you want it to be so (I feel that a fair amount of religious people believe for roughly this reason).

I, however, think that religion causes harm on a large scale when people begin persecuting others for not complying with their god. Were it more of a personal thing, where the religious folk refrain from forcing their doctrines on those who follow different ones, I can't see it being harmful.

That's why I generally disapprove of religion. It's not the concept of religion that bothers me, just the effects of it when there are different ones having disputes over whose is better.

I don't try to convert anyone to atheism, though. The closest thing I do to converting people is encouraging them to reevaluate their beliefs before forcing them upon others. That is what separates blind faith.

 

[Elioenai26]

However, I don't think you're being honest to yourself if you believe in something only because you want it to be so

I agree.

(I feel that a fair amount of religious people believe for roughly this reason).

And I feel a fair amount of irreligious people believe roughly for this reason.

I, however, think that religion causes harm on a large scale when people begin persecuting others for not complying with their god. Were it more of a personal thing, where the religious folk refrain from forcing their doctrines on those who follow different ones, I can't see it being harmful.

And I believe irreligion also causes harm on a large scale when people begin persecuting others for not complying with their irreligion. Were it more of a personal thing, where the godless folk refrain from forcing their doctrines on those who follow different ones....

That's why I generally disapprove of religion. It's not the concept of religion that bothers me, just the effects of it when there are different ones having disputes over whose is better.

That is why I generally disapprove of irreligion.

I don't try to convert anyone to atheism, though. The closest thing I do to converting people is encouraging them to reevaluate their beliefs before forcing them upon others. That is what separates blind faith.

I do not try to convert anyone to Christianity though. I encourage them to reevaluate their beliefs.

 

[Elioenai26]

This doesn't work.

I can claim that magical moon fairies are responsible for everything that happens on Earth. This is the best explanation because it covers every single event that could possibly happen. It requires only one thing, and yet explains a great deal. And yet it remains false, even though, by your logic, it is the best explanation.

Presenting a strawman of my argument, then attacking it, is not good argumentation.

You can claim moon fairies are responsible for everything that happens on Earth, but no one is going to believe you because there is no good reason to. The events that happen on the earth point to causes primarily within the earth, i.e. natural laws, and the choices of free agents.

You also equate the classical Western Concept of the theistic God with moon fairies. This is a bad analogy. We have good reasons to believe that God exists and that He is the Cause of the Universe and life within it. We do not have good evidence that moon fairies are the Cause of the Universe and life within it.

This makes no sense. Can you explain how it is possible to believe in God's existence without believing in God? Or vice versa?

When Christ said: "This is the work of God, to believe in Him whom He has sent.."... He meant that acknowledging the existence of God is not enough to be saved. The demons believe and tremble of course, but they are not redeemed. To believe in Christ, is to trust, depend, rely, and rest completely in His redemptive work on the Cross to the saving of the eternal soul.

Acknowledging God's existence, is therefore a far cry from trusting in Christ for the salvation of one's soul. The first is purely intellectual, the latter volitional.

 

[Elioenai26]

I don't believe in god...so the term atheist is fine with me. Nitpicking over matters of certainty seems silly. After all, do we need a term for all those who believe god exists but admit they cannot know for sure? Possanostics?

I am equally both.

Agnosticism refers to claims to knowledge.

Atheism refers to beliefs.

One can have a godless worldview, one in which God isn't believed to exist, and yet not claim to know for certain that God does not exist.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Great. So, on Monday, choose not to believe in any gods. Wednesday, let us know what it is like to be an atheist. Then Thursday, you can go back to believing.

Agreeable?

FWIW, agnostic is an adjective, and atheist is a noun.

I considered igtheist, but the word has an awkward look to it.

Regardless, I don't identify with labels that tell me what I am not.

And not to believe it in a pretend way, but to pass a lie detector with ease.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Is God imaginary?

The famous British philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say if he found himself before God on Judgment Day and God said to him, “Why didn’t you believe in Me?” Russell shot right back: “Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!”

Many have taken what they consider to be an apparent lack of evidence for God as evidence that God doesn’t exist; that is, they look around, don’t see “enough” evidence and conclude that atheism is true.
But Russell realized that the inference from apparent lack of evidence for God to atheism is fallacious. That’s why in his famous debate in 1948 with Frederick Copleston he preferred the label “agnostic” instead of “atheist.” Yet today, many call themselves “atheists” when really they are agnostics.

Let’s first define some terms around the question “Does God exist?”


"Does God exist?"

1. Theism: "God exists"
2. Non-theism1: "I don't believe in God"
A. Atheism: “God does not exist”
B. Agnosticism: “I don’t know if God exists”
I. Hard Agnosticism: "I don't know if God exists and no one else can know either."
II.Soft Agnosticism: "I don't know if God exists, but it's possible for someone to know."

Notice a few things about these definitions. First, non-theism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive because you could be a non-theist and so fail to believe in God (i.e., you could lack belief in God) but you might also be an agnostic saying, “For all I know, God exists. I just don’t know.” Notice also how extreme hard agnosticism is, since it claims even more than atheists do; the hard agnostic says that everyone is wrong, both atheists and theists, and that they cannot know what they claim, even if they have apparently sound arguments! Little wonder, then, that hard agnosticism is sometimes called “ostrich agnosticism!”

There are sound arguments for God’s existence. Some of them are very good. But suppose it were not so; suppose all the arguments for God fail and there are no further good reasons to believe in God. What follows?—Atheism? It’s very important to realize that the answer to this question is NO. What follows is, at most, soft agnosticism.

<edit>http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-god-imaginary#ixzz2J6JDa0XG

 

[IzzyPop]

Presenting a strawman of my argument, then attacking it, is not good argumentation.

You can claim moon fairies are responsible for everything that happens on Earth, but no one is going to believe you because there is no good reason to. The events that happen on the earth point to causes primarily within the earth, i.e. natural laws, and the choices of free agents.

You also equate the classical Western Concept of the theistic God with moon fairies. This is a bad analogy. We have good reasons to believe that God exists and that He is the Cause of the Universe and life within it. We do not have good evidence that moon fairies are the Cause of the Universe and life within it.

Why? There is just as much evidence for moon fairies as there is for the God of the Bible.

 

[Elioenai26]

Why? There is just as much evidence for moon fairies as there is for the God of the Bible.

But what about imaginary beings things like the Tooth Fairy, leprechauns, and Santa Claus?

Is God imaginary in the same way they are? Atheists claim they don’t need to disprove God for the same reason they don’t need to disprove the existence of Tooth Fairies, leprechauns, and Santa Claus. The problem with the comparison with the last two items is that, while our epistemic situation regarding God doesn’t always satisfy the Evidence Expectation and Knowledge Expectation Criteria, our epistemic situation regarding leprechauns and Santa Claus does — we can, and do, disprove them all the time; it’s just that there are few, if any, people arguing for their existence so we’re never called upon to give those reasons.

If Santa existed we should expect to see, but don’t, lots of evidence of that fact, including warehouses at the North Pole, a large sleigh, and so forth; similarly, were there biologically tiny human beings on this planet we should expect to see, but don’t, their evidence: miniature villages, waste products, the bones of their deceased — evidence similar to what we have for mice, hamsters and other small critters. If there were more people today who made a case for leprechauns and Santa Claus then it would be entirely appropriate for us to enter into dialogue with them, giving reasons for their non-existence.

At this point an atheist might object that the Tooth Fairy is different from leprechauns and Santa Claus because she’s invisible. (Is she invisible in the story?) Suppose she is invisible. According to the tale she collects teeth left under children’s pillows leaving behind a reward (usually money). Evidence we should expect to see if she existed then would be money left behind, stolen teeth, etc. Do we find such evidence? Well, no we don’t, but we would expect to if she existed. So, even the Tooth Fairy satisfies the Evidence Expectation and Knowledge Expectation Criteria. So because we lack evidence of her, we say she doesn’t exist (sorry kids!).

Suppose the atheist agrees that the reason why we deny Tooth Fairies, leprechauns and Santa Claus is because we do have evidence for their absence. He might nonetheless insist that the situation is significantly different for other objects which are causally isolated from us. A case in point is Russell’s famous teapot which circles about the sun, an object which is (for the most part) causally isolated from us. Do we need to be agnostic about it? Can we say it doesn’t exist? I think we know it doesn’t exist because it wasn’t put there by the Russian or American astronauts; and we know that matter in the universe does not self-organize into teapot shapes.

So really, we have a great deal of evidence that Russell’s teacup doesn’t exist; and since our discussion is confined to cases where we infer the non-existence of something simply on the basis of absence of evidence for it, the example is irrelevant.


Read more: Is God Imaginary? | Reasonable Faith

 

[RainbowDashIsBestPony]

And I feel a fair amount of irreligious people believe roughly for this reason.

Would you explain your reasoning? I feel as though the idea of eternal life after a mortal life of hardships can really only comfort you. How would the idea of nothing after death comfort you?

And I believe irreligion also causes harm on a large scale when people begin persecuting others for not complying with their irreligion. Were it more of a personal thing, where the godless folk refrain from forcing their doctrines on those who follow different ones...

That doesn't really happen, though. Sure, some atheists will voice disapproval of one's religion, but they don't try to infringe on the rights of theists.

I do not try to convert anyone to Christianity though. I encourage them to reevaluate their beliefs.

That's good.

 

[IzzyPop]

But what about imaginary beings things like the Tooth Fairy, leprechauns, and Santa Claus?

Is God imaginary in the same way they are? Atheists claim they don’t need to disprove God for the same reason they don’t need to disprove the existence of Tooth Fairies, leprechauns, and Santa Claus. The problem with the comparison with the last two items is that, while our epistemic situation regarding God doesn’t always satisfy the Evidence Expectation and Knowledge Expectation Criteria, our epistemic situation regarding leprechauns and Santa Claus does — we can, and do, disprove them all the time; it’s just that there are few, if any, people arguing for their existence so we’re never called upon to give those reasons.

If Santa existed we should expect to see, but don’t, lots of evidence of that fact, including warehouses at the North Pole, a large sleigh, and so forth; similarly, were there biologically tiny human beings on this planet we should expect to see, but don’t, their evidence: miniature villages, waste products, the bones of their deceased — evidence similar to what we have for mice, hamsters and other small critters. If there were more people today who made a case for leprechauns and Santa Claus then it would be entirely appropriate for us to enter into dialogue with them, giving reasons for their non-existence.

At this point an atheist might object that the Tooth Fairy is different from leprechauns and Santa Claus because she’s invisible. (Is she invisible in the story?) Suppose she is invisible. According to the tale she collects teeth left under children’s pillows leaving behind a reward (usually money). Evidence we should expect to see if she existed then would be money left behind, stolen teeth, etc. Do we find such evidence? Well, no we don’t, but we would expect to if she existed. So, even the Tooth Fairy satisfies the Evidence Expectation and Knowledge Expectation Criteria. So because we lack evidence of her, we say she doesn’t exist (sorry kids!).

Suppose the atheist agrees that the reason why we deny Tooth Fairies, leprechauns and Santa Claus is because we do have evidence for their absence. He might nonetheless insist that the situation is significantly different for other objects which are causally isolated from us. A case in point is Russell’s famous teapot which circles about the sun, an object which is (for the most part) causally isolated from us. Do we need to be agnostic about it? Can we say it doesn’t exist? I think we know it doesn’t exist because it wasn’t put there by the Russian or American astronauts; and we know that matter in the universe does not self-organize into teapot shapes.

So really, we have a great deal of evidence that Russell’s teacup doesn’t exist; and since our discussion is confined to cases where we infer the non-existence of something simply on the basis of absence of evidence for it, the example is irrelevant.


Read more: Is God Imaginary? | Reasonable Faith

I love the unintentional irony of this statement from a theist: "and we know that matter in the universe does not self-organize into teapot shapes."

 

[Elioenai26]

Religion as a comfort in times of hardship is not a bad thing. If I could bring myself to believe in a god, I'd find quite a bit of solace in the idea that a day may come when I can be in heaven. However, I don't think you're being honest to yourself if you believe in something only because you want it to be so (I feel that a fair amount of religious people believe for roughly this reason).

I, however, think that religion causes harm on a large scale when people begin persecuting others for not complying with their god. Were it more of a personal thing, where the religious folk refrain from forcing their doctrines on those who follow different ones, I can't see it being harmful.

That's why I generally disapprove of religion. It's not the concept of religion that bothers me, just the effects of it when there are different ones having disputes over whose is better.

I don't try to convert anyone to atheism, though. The closest thing I do to converting people is encouraging them to reevaluate their beliefs before forcing them upon others. That is what separates blind faith.

Would you explain your reasoning?

In your post above, you stated plainly that you believed that a fair amount of religious people believe because they want it to be true. I stated that I felt as though a lot of irreligious people believe what they believe because they want what they believe to be true too. I will supply you with two quotes to demonstrate why I say that.

Quote one, from Aldous Huxley:

“I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves. … For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.”
Aldous Huxley (evolutionist, leftist, and grandson of T.H. Huxley,
known as "Darwin's bulldog"): Ends and Means, pp. 270 ff Italics mine and bold mine.​

Second quote, from Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy at NYU:

“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions… in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper – namely the fear of religion itself… I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and naturally, hope there is no God. I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that (The Last Word).” Italics and bold mine.

So you see from the above, these two men wanted a world without God, and thus believed that there was no God. They wanted it to be true that God did not exist, and thus, believed that He indeed did not.

I feel as though the idea of eternal life after a mortal life of hardships can really only comfort you.

The idea of eternal life after a mortal life is comforting to me. It seems to me however, that you are insinuating that because some religious people believe this, that it means that their religious beliefs are necessarily false. If this is your position, or rather your complaint, it simply does not follow that therefore their beliefs are false. Jesus Christ is either God incarnate or He is not. And this would be an objective fact or truth, regardless of how one or why one believes He is or is not. Indeed, there may be many Christians who believe in God and find assurance and comfort in a heaven after death. This belief however, has no bearing on whether or not God exists. In like fashion, just because many atheists have confessed they hate the idea of being morally accountable to someone other than themselves, this does not mean that God does not exist. God's existence or non-existence simply is not contingent upon our belief in His existence or non-existence.

How would the idea of nothing after death comfort you?

The idea of nothing after death is a comfort to many, as is evidenced by the two quotes from the two men above. As Dostoyevksy once alluded to: "If there is no immortality, then all things are permissible." Many find a comfort in believing that they can fulfill all of their lustful passions and selfish desires without having to ultimately be accountable to one who will judge them for their deeds. In fact, it is my position that this is actually the main reason why people do not believe in God, they find the idea of being morally accountable to repugnant. They desire to be autonomous. In fact, if you take a careful look at many posts here by atheists, some of the them admit outright that even if they were given what they deemed sufficient evidence that Christianity was true, they still would refuse to worship and honor God and commit their lives to Christ. This is illustrative of a moral and volitional resistance, not an intellectual one. At the end of the day, if there is no God for some people, then that is liberating to them for they can live their lives however they desire to without feeling accountable or morally guilty before a Holy, all knowing God.

That doesn't really happen, though. Sure, some atheists will voice disapproval of one's religion, but they don't try to infringe on the rights of theists.

To say that atheists do not try to infringe on the rights of theists is obviously false. I can list two men, Stalin and Mao Zedong among others, who were atheistic leaders of their respective areas of influence who made it one of their chief aims to eradicate religion from their countries and to in the process, infringe upon the rights of theists residing in those places.

The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism, in which social success largely required individuals to profess atheism and stay away from houses of worship; this attitude was especially militant during the middle Stalinist era from 1929–1939. The Soviet Union attempted to suppress public religious expression over wide areas of its influence, including places such as central Asia.

A communist state, in popular usage, is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist–Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state. The founder and primary theorist of Marxism, the Nineteenth-century German sociologist Karl Marx, had an ambivalent attitude to religion, viewing it primarily as "the opium of the people" that had been used by the ruling classes to give the working classes false hope for millennia, whilst at the same time recognizing it as a form of protest by the working classes against their poor economic conditions.[27] In the Marxist–Leninist interpretation of Marxist theory, developed primarily by Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, religion is seen as negative to human development, and communist states that follow a Marxist–Leninist variant are atheistic and explicitly antireligious.

Wikipedia State atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The above is evidence enough that your assertion regarding atheists not infringing on the rights of theists is clearly wrong, but if that were not enough, we have countries like Albania, Cuba, China, and North Korea, which are all involved in one form or another of state sanctioned anti-religious activities. They are all inherently atheistic in their views as well.

It is true that atrocities have been done in the name of atheism as well as theism. But to say that atheistic countries and atheists do not try to infringe upon the rights of theists is simply wrong. In fact, you have the New Atheist movement in America and Europe which seeks to totally eradicate religion in general from the public arena. If this is not infringing on the rights of theists, I do not know what is!

 

[Dave Ellis]

I don't believe in god...so the term atheist is fine with me. Nitpicking over matters of certainty seems silly. After all, do we need a term for all those who believe god exists but admit they cannot know for sure? Possanostics?

Actually we do have a term for them... Agnostic Theists.

 

[Tiberius]

Presenting a strawman of my argument, then attacking it, is not good argumentation.

You can claim moon fairies are responsible for everything that happens on Earth, but no one is going to believe you because there is no good reason to. The events that happen on the earth point to causes primarily within the earth, i.e. natural laws, and the choices of free agents.

In other words, we see nothing in the universe which requires the presences of magical moon fairies, so you do not believe in them. Gotcha. Likewise, I see nothing in the universe which requires the presences of a god, so I do not believe in a god either.

You also equate the classical Western Concept of the theistic God with moon fairies. This is a bad analogy. We have good reasons to believe that God exists and that He is the Cause of the Universe and life within it. We do not have good evidence that moon fairies are the Cause of the Universe and life within it.

We have good reason to believe that God exists and he is the caiuse of the universe? And, pray tell, what is this "good reason"?

(I bet it's either an argument from incredulity - "I can't comprehed how the universe could exist without a god, therefore there must be a god" - or a lack of understanding of science.)

When Christ said: "This is the work of God, to believe in Him whom He has sent.."... He meant that acknowledging the existence of God is not enough to be saved. The demons believe and tremble of course, but they are not redeemed. To believe in Christ, is to trust, depend, rely, and rest completely in His redemptive work on the Cross to the saving of the eternal soul.

Acknowledging God's existence, is therefore a far cry from trusting in Christ for the salvation of one's soul. The first is purely intellectual, the latter volitional.

This does not answer my question.

I am not talking about someone who believes in God and yet does not worship him.

I am talking about the fact that "Believing in something" and "believing in the existence of something" mean the same thing. To say that a person believes in the existence of God without believing in God is like saying that an object has a great deal of mass, yet is not massive.

 

[Elioenai26]

In other words, we see nothing in the universe which requires the presences of magical moon fairies, so you do not believe in them. Gotcha. Likewise, I see nothing in the universe which requires the presences of a god, so I do not believe in a god either.

I would not use the word require. I would use the phrase "is best explained by". I think that is more accurate and appropriate. The universe and its complex design, the existence of objective moral values and duties, and the existence of human beings who are moral creatures is not best explained by the proposition: "Moon Fairies are responsible for reality as we know it." This does not mean moon fairies do not exist, they very well could. But with regards to explaining the existence of the above, I would say that they are not the best explanation and therefore, I would not adhere to the proposition: "Moon fairies are responsible for the events that go on in the earth."

We have good reason to believe that God exists and he is the caiuse of the universe? And, pray tell, what is this "good reason"?

Strictly speaking in scientific and philosophical terms: We have in fact several good arguments for the existence of God.

1. The Cosmological Argument from Contingency
2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument Based on the Beginning of the Universe.
3. The Moral Argument Based upon Moral Values and Duties
4. The Teleological Argument from Fine-tuning
5. The Ontological Argument from the Possibility of God’s Existence to His Actuality

I am talking about the fact that "Believing in something" and "believing in the existence of something" mean the same thing. To say that a person believes in the existence of God without believing in God is like saying that an object has a great deal of mass, yet is not massive.

You are wrong in your above statement and I will tell you why. When the Bible speaks of believing in Christ, it is not talking about an intellectual assent to an abstract proposition, but rather a filial trust and reliance upon a person, Jesus Christ who is God incarnate. A person can believe that Jesus exists, which is intellectual assent to a proposition, but that person may not believe in Jesus in the sense of entering into a personal relationship based on filial knowledge of Him.