Atheism

[Gadarene]

You haven't answered the questions - that's called evasion.

Oh, well, that bit definitely is

 

[Skavau]

It's alright guys, I still love ya!!

I think we could all use a group hug!!

You've been passive aggressive, patronising, arrogant and insulted most of us.

 

[Non sequitur]

I am sympathetic to you all really I am. I too, at one point in my life rejected God and His love, and His kindness towards me. It was not within me to understand so great a love and goodness.

But that changed when He allowed me to go my own way for a time.

My friends, it was not until I came to the end of myself that I saw how much I needed Him.

I pray He is merciful to you all as well.

I shall leave this quote with you all as a solemn reminder:

"To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation." - George Macdonald

Why do Christians bother getting into a discussion, to only end up with this?

If this is all you will ever end up at, why not just start with it?

Saves a lot of people time.


It would be incredibly ridiculous if I was to out-of-the-blue post this, following any discussion:

I am sympathetic to you all really I am. I too, at one point in my life rejected reason. It was not within me to understand so great a reasoning.

But that changed when I stopped trying to justify answers and instead looked for truths.

My friends, it was not until I came to the end of myself that I saw how much I needed to stop parroting and clinging onto what I told myself I "needed".

In the name of science, I hope and wish you well.

I shall leave this quote with you all as a solemn reminder:

"Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth.." - Spock

What a cop out.

 

[Elioenai26]

I shall leave you all to it. I can see I am not welcome here.

But before I go, I do think it would be helpful for me to have a clear concise definition of what atheism is: How would you define it? I would like to know so that when I do speak on it, I want to make sure I am portraying it the way it should be portrayed.

Thank you all for helping me immensely in better understanding your thoughts.

 

[Skavau]

I shall leave you all to it. I can see I am not welcome here.

But before I go, I do think it would be helpful for me to have a clear concise definition of what atheism is: How would you define it? I would like to know so that when I do speak on it, I want to make sure I am portraying it the way it should be portrayed.

Thank you all for helping me immensely in better understanding your thoughts.

Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of God(s).

 

[Elioenai26]

Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of God(s).

Thanks man. Take it easy. Hope all goes well with you.

Goodbye.

 

[createdtoworship]

Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of God(s).

but it's impossible to prove a negative in such way. To say there is a lack of existence of God, is to say there are no Gods. Even under the farthest asteroid. There might be one.

 

[Eudaimonist]

but it's impossible to prove a negative in such way. To say there is a lack of existence of God, is to say there are no Gods. Even under the farthest asteroid. There might be one.

No, there is a lack of belief in the existence of gods, not a claim that one can prove absolutely that there aren't any gods.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[createdtoworship]

The Absolute Nature of Truth. The relativity of truth is commonly a premise of current thought. Yet orthodox Christianity is predicated on the position that truth is absolute. Thus, the defense of the possibility of absolute truth is crucial to the defense of the historic Christian faith. According to theories of relative truth, something may be true for one person, but not for all people. Or, it may be true at one time, but not at another. According to the absolutist view, what is true for one person is true for all persons, times, and places.
As argued above, there is only one adequate view of the nature of truth—the correspondence view. Other views, such as coherence and pragmatism, describe tests for truth, not an explanation of the nature of truth itself. Factual truth is that which corresponds to the facts. It is that which corresponds to the actual state of affairs being described.
Relative Truth. The relativity of truth is a popular contemporary view. However, truth is not determined by majority vote. Let’s take a look at the reasons people give for belief that truth is relative.
Of all, some things appear only to be true at some times and not at others. For example, many people once believed the world to be flat. Now we know that truth statement was wrong. It would seem that this truth has changed with the times. Or has it? Did the truth change, or did beliefs about what is true change? Well, certainly the world did not change from a box to a sphere. What changed in this regard is our belief, not our earth. It changed from a false belief to a true one.
Within a statement’s universe of discourse, every truth is an absolute truth. Some statements really apply only to some people, but the truth of those statements is just as absolute for all people everywhere at all times as a statement that applies to all people generally. “Daily injections of insulin are essential for continued life” is true of persons with some life-threatening forms of diabetes. This statement has an applied universe of discourse. It isn’t purporting to be a truth that applies to everyone. But if it applies to Fred, then it is true of Fred for everyone. The caveat that this statement is false for people with a normally functioning pancreas does not detract from the statement’s truth within its universe of discourse—diabetics to whom it is properly addressed.
Some statements appear to be true only for some. The statement, “I feel warm” may be true for me but not for another person, who may feel cold. I am the only one within the statement’s universe of discourse. The statement, “I [Norman Geisler] feel warm” (on July 1, 1998, at 3:37 p.m.) is true for everyone everywhere that Norman Geisler did feel warm at that moment in history. It corresponds to facts and so is an absolute truth.
A teacher facing a class says: “The door to this room is on my right.” But it is on the left for the students. Relativists argue that surely this truth is relative to the teacher since it is false for the class. But on the contrary it is equally true for everyone that the door is on the professor’s right. This is an absolute truth. It will never be true for anyone, anywhere at any time that the door was on the professor’s left during this class on this day in this room. The truth is equally absolute that the door was on the student’s left.
It seems obvious that the temperature frequently is relatively high in Arizona and relatively cold at the North Pole. So, apparently some things are true for some places but not for other places. Right?
Not so. Some things are true concerning some places, but not true in other places where the conditions are different. But that isn’t the point. Within the Arizona weather report’s universe of discourse, the statement corresponds to the facts. So it is true everywhere. The statement: “It is relatively cold for earth at the North Pole” is true for people in Arizona in the summer, or on Pluto where it is colder than on the North Pole. Truth is what corresponds to the facts, and the fact is that it feels cold at the North Pole.
All truth is absolute. There are no relative truths. For if something is really true, then it is really true for everyone everywhere, and for all time. The truth statement 7 + 3 = 10 is not just true for mathematics majors, nor is it true only in a mathematics classroom. It is true for everyone everywhere.
Evaluation. Like an old apple, relativism may look good on the surface but it is rotten at the core. Among its problems:
Absolutely Relative? Most relativists really believe relativism is true for everybody, not just for them. But that is the one thing they cannot hold if they are really relativists. For a relative truth is just true for me but not necessarily for anyone else. So, the relativist who thinks relativism is true for everyone is an absolutist. Such a person believes in at least one absolute truth. The dilemma is this: a consistent relativist cannot say “It is an absolute truth for everyone that truth this is only relatively true.” Nor can the person say, “It is only relatively true that relativism is true.” If it is only relatively true, then relativism may be false for some or all others. Why then should I accept it as true? Either the claim that truth is relative is an absolute claim, which would falsify the relativist position, or it is an assertion that can never really be made, because every time you make it you have to add another “relatively.” This begins an infinite regress that will never pay off in a real statement.
The only way the relativist can avoid the painful dilemma of relativism is to admit that there are at least some absolute truths. As noted, most relativists believe that relativism is absolutely true and that everyone should be a relativist. Therein lies the self-destructive nature of relativism. The relativist stands on the pinnacle of an absolute truth and wants to relativize everything else.
A World of Contradictions. If relativism were true, then the world would be full of contradictory conditions. For if something is true for me but false for you, then opposite conditions exist. For if I say “There is milk in the refrigerator” and you say “there is not any milk in the refrigerator”—and we both are right, then there must both be and not be milk in the refrigerator at the same time and in the same sense. But that is impossible. So, if truth were relative, then an impossible would be actual.
In the religious realm it would mean that Billy Graham is telling the truth when he says, “God exists,” and Madalyn Murray O’Hare is also right when she claims, “God does not exist.” But these two statements cannot both be true. If one is true, then the other is false. And since they exhaust the only possibilities, one of them must be true.
No Wrongs and No Rights. If truth is relative, then no one is ever wrong—even when they are. As long as something is true to me, then I’m right even when I’m wrong. The drawback is that I could never learn anything either, because learning is moving from a false belief to a true one—that is, from an absolutely false belief to an absolutely true one. The truth is that absolutes are inescapable.
Answering Objections. Relativists have leveled several objections to the view of truth as absolute. The following are the most important:
No Absolute Knowledge. It is objected that truth cannot be absolute since we do not have an absolute knowledge of truths. Even most absolutists admit that most things are known only in terms of degrees of probability. How, then, can all truth be absolute?
We can be absolutely sure of some things. I am absolutely sure that I exist. In fact, my existence is undeniable. For I would have to exist in order to make the statement, “I do not exist.” I am also absolutely sure that I cannot exist and not exist at the same time. And that there are no square circles. And that 3 + 2 = 5.
There are many more things of which I am not absolutely certain. But even here the relativist is misguided in rejecting absolute truth simply because we lack absolute evidence that some things are true. The truth can be absolute no matter what our grounds for believing it. For example, if it is true that Sidney, Australia, is on the Pacific Ocean, then it is absolutely true no matter what my evidence or lack of evidence may be. An absolute truth is absolutely true in itself, no matter what evidence there is. Evidence, or the lack thereof, does not change a fact. And truth is what corresponds to the facts. The truth doesn’t change just because we learn something more about it.
In-between Truths. Another objection is that many things are comparative—like relative sizes such as shorter and taller. As such they cannot be absolute truths, since they change depending on the object to which they relate. For example, some people are good compared to Hitler but evil as compared to Mother Teresa. Contrary to the claim of relativists, in-between things do not disprove absolutism. For the facts that “John is short in relation to an NBA (National Basketball Association) player,” and “John is tall compared to a jockey” are absolutely true for all times and all people. John is in-between in size, and it depends on which one to whom he is compared whether he is shorter or taller. Nonetheless, it is absolutely true that John (being five feet ten inches) is short compared to most basketball players and tall compared to the majority of jockeys. The same thing is true of other in-between things, such as, warmer or colder, and better or worse.
No New Truth (or Progress). If truth never changes, then there can’t be any new truth. This would mean that no progress is possible. But we do come to know new truths. That is what scientific discovery is all about. In response to this, “new truth” can be understood in two ways. It might mean “new to us,” like a new discovery in science. But that is only a matter of us discovering an “old” truth. After all, the law of gravity was there long before Isaac Newton. Many truths have always been there, but we are just finding out about them. The other way we might understand “new truth” is that something new has come into existence that makes it possible to make a new statement about it that is only then true for the first time. That’s no problem either. When January 1, 2020, arrives, a new truth will be born. Until that day it will not be true to say, “This is January 1, 2020.” But when that happens it will be true for all people and places forever more. So “old” truths don’t change and neither do “new” truths when they come to pass. Once it is true, it is always true—for everyone.
Truth and Growth in Knowledge. It is also objected that knowledge of truth is not absolute, since we grow in truth. What is true today may be false tomorrow. The progress of science is proof that truth is constantly changing. This objection fails to note that it is not the truth that is changing but our understanding of it. When science truly progresses, it does not move from an old truth to a new truth, but from error to truth. When Copernicus argued that the earth moves around the sun and not the reverse, truth did not change. What changed was the scientific understanding about what moves around what.
Narrow Absolutes. Of course truth is narrow. There is only one answer for what is 4 + 4. It is not 1. It is not 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 or any other number. It is 8 and only 8. That’s narrow, but it is correct.
Non-Christians often claim that Christians are narrow-minded, because they claim that Christianity is true and all non-Christian systems are false. However, the same is true of non-Christians who claim that what they view as truth is true, and all opposing beliefs are false. That is equally narrow. The fact of the matter is that if C (Christianity) is true, then it follows that all non-C is false. Likewise, if H (say, Humanism) is true, then all non-H is false. Both views are equally narrow. That’s the way truth is. Each truth claim excludes contradictory truth claims. Christianity is no more narrow than is any other set of beliefs, whether atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, or pantheism.
Dogmatic Absolutes. The claim that those who believe in absolute truth are dogmatic misses the point. If all truth is absolute—true for all people, times, and places—everyone who claims anything is true is “dogmatic.” Even the relativist who claims relativism is true is dogmatic. For the person who claims that relativism is absolutely true is particularly dogmatic. This person claims to own the only absolute truth that can be uttered, namely, that everything else is relative.
Something important is overlooked in this charge of dogmatism. There is a big difference between the pejorative charge that belief in absolute truth is dogmatic and the manner in which someone may hold to this belief. No doubt the manner with which many absolutists have held to and conveyed their beliefs has been less than humble. However, no agnostic would consider it a telling argument against agnosticism that some agnostics communicate their beliefs in a dogmatic manner.
Nonetheless, there is an important distinction to keep in mind: Truth is absolute, but our grasp of it is not. Just because there is absolute truth does not mean that our understanding of it is absolute. This fact in itself should cause the absolutists to temper convictions with humility. For while truth is absolute, our understanding of absolute truth is not absolute. As finite creatures, we grow in our understanding of truth.
Summary. Truth may be tested in many ways but it should be understood in only one way. There is one reality, to which statements or ideas must conform in order to be regarded as true. There may be many different ways to defend different truth claims, but there is really only one proper way to define truth, namely, as correspondence. The confusion between the nature of truth and the verification of truth is at the heart of the rejection of a correspondence view of truth.
Likewise, there is a difference between what truth is and what truth does. Truth is correspondence, but truth has certain consequences. Truth itself should not be confused with its results or with its application. The failure to make this distinction leads to wrong views of the nature of truth. Truth is that which corresponds to reality or to the state of affairs it purports to describe. And falsehood is what does not correspond.
Geisler, Norman L.: Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Books, 1999 (Baker Reference Library), S. 743

 

[Eudaimonist]

I shall leave you all to it. I can see I am not welcome here.

It was your treatment of us that wasn't welcome, not you. Please take some time to reflect on your behavior. Try imagining that someone was saying that Christians couldn't be moral without contradiction, and things of that sort. You just might become a better communicator as a result.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Gadarene]

Could just post a link, y'know.

Also, spacing!

Edit: @gradyll

 

[Crusader05]

but it's impossible to prove a negative in such way. To say there is a lack of existence of God, is to say there are no Gods. Even under the farthest asteroid. There might be one.

Yes, it's impossible to prove a negative, that's why the definition of atheism doesn't mean there is no god, simply that there isn't enough evidence to prove there is one.

For instance, there are people who believe in Bigfoot, we'll call them Bigfootist for the sake of this argument. The contend Bigfoot exists and is roaming the words of North America, but because they are so wily we haven't been able to capture or kill one yet.

People who don't believe in Bigfoot, we could call them Abigfootists, don't say there isn't a bigfoot. It remains a possibility that there's one hiding in a cave somewhere but they are unconvinced of the existence of bigfoot. They would say that a massive mammal like a Bigfoot could not possibly be living in North America without us having some kind of positive evidence to prove there existence.

The burden of proof is on the bigfootist to prove the existence of bigfoot, not for the abigfootist to disprove the existence.

Same kind of idea with god(s).

 

[createdtoworship]

Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of God(s).

this was the definition of atheism I was refering to when I said it's impossible to prove a negative.

 

[createdtoworship]

Could just post a link, y'know.

Also, spacing!

Edit: @gradyll

didn't know there was one, Got it from software.

 

[Skavau]

this was the definition of atheism I was refering to when I said it's impossible to prove a negative.

Lacking a belief in something doesn't mean that you are trying to prove or disprove it.

 

[createdtoworship]

to say there is

a lack of belief in the existence of Gods

is to say that one has a belief that there is no God.

Therefore they believe they have ultimate knowledge and know God is nowhere in the universe, (they believe)

 

[Skavau]

to say there is


is to say that one has a belief that there is no God.

No, it isn't. It is to contest the positive affirmation that a God exists. It is a position of skepticism.

If you claim you are a millionare and I lack belief that you are a millionare I am displaying only a lack of confidence in your claim. I am not saying you are not one.

Another example, spot the difference:
I do not believe you are a millionare.
I believe you are not a millionare.

Therefore they believe they have ultimate knowledge and know God is nowhere in the universe, (they believe)

This doesn't even make sense. Even if someone argued that God does not exist - how would they be arguing that they have "ultimate knowledge"?

 

[createdtoworship]

No, it isn't. It is to contest the positive affirmation that a God exists. It is a position of skepticism.

If you claim you are a millionare and I lack belief that you are a millionare I am displaying only a lack of confidence in your claim. I am not saying you are not one.

Another example, spot the difference:
I do not believe you are a millionare.
I believe you are not a millionare.


This doesn't even make sense. Even if someone argued that God does not exist - how would they be arguing that they have "ultimate knowledge"?

so basically you believe you have all knowlege even though you don't in actuality?

nice

 

[Skavau]

so basically you believe you have all knowlege even though you don't in actuality?

nice

Uhm, no.

Where did I say that sir?

 

[createdtoworship]

Uhm, no.

Where did I say that sir?

you believe there is no God yes? Then you believe you have ultimate knowledge of every rock and little spot in the universe where God may reside.