Atheists, What's the point?

[RainbowDashIsBestPony]

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.

Fair enough. From my personal experience, I've never met an atheist whose opinions resounded with either of those quotes (I'm aware that they'd be unlikely to freely admit it, introducing a degree of deduction), but I can imagine that some atheists would take that stance, though it should be relatively uncommon.

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.

I wasn't trying to make any sort of statement as to whether or not God exists, but you do raise a good point.

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.

Many atheists take pride in being "good without God". We strive to be able to do the right thing without a threat of eternal torture hanging over our heads. It all depends on the source of morality. Until we have more evidence regarding the source of morality, be it God or reason, I'll have to settle for a stalemate.

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.

Yes, of course. I was referring to today, but because China remains communist today, I understand what you're saying.

I've learned about these systems and find them about as disgusting as you do, but atheism is not the main motivation when forming a communist system, as opposed to the method by which religion infringes upon others' rights. Religion acts as a motivation, while atheism acts as a means.

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!

I must admit I'm not very familiar with the New Atheist movement, but it certainly sounds awful. I'll research this, but for now, I renounce my claim regarding atheism not infringing upon rights. I still hold the position that religion does this more, but you are correct to say that my statement was false.

 

[Tiberius]

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.

You see, I disagree with this.

Yes, it CAN be a fallacy to conclude that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence. For example, we have no evidence that there is life on other planets, but we can't conclude that such life does not exist.

But, and here's the important thing...

We CAN conclude that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence if that evidence must exist!

For example, I can claim that there is an elephant in my living room. But if there really is an elephant in my living room, then there must be certain evidences. An elephant in my living room MUST take up quite a bit of space - we know for a fact that elephants are large. We MUST hear the noises the elephant makes. We MUST smell it. We MUST be able to feel it. We MUST be able to see it. And yet, these evidences are simply not present. There are evidences that MUST be there if the elephant is in my living room, and yet we do not see them. So, because of the lack of evidence to support the existence of the elephant, we conclude that there is no elephant, and this is a perfectly rational conclusion.

Likewise, if there is some evidence that MUST exist if God also exist, we can go to see if this evidence exists. And if we find that the evidence does not exist, we can conclude that God does not exist. After all, if God does exist, then this evidence MUST also exist.

Is there any such evidence?

Well, according to the Bible, yes there is.

The Bible tells us that a sign of true believers is that they can drink poison and be bitten by venomous snakes without coming to harm. See Mark 16:17-18 and Luke 10:19.

So if we see that Christians are harmed when they are bitten by poisonous snakes, or can drink poison and live, then this shows that God does not exist. After all, the Bible makes a very definite claim about these things. They are like the noises that the elephant makes. According to the Bible, if God exists then Christians MUST be able to do these things as well.

Yet, clearly, they don't. If you drank cyanide, you would die, just as would anyone else. The evidence that the Bible claims is clearly lacking. And when we repeat this test with any other evidence the Bible tells us of, we get the same result.

Therefore, if the evidence MUST exist, then an absence of evidence really is evidence of absence.

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!”

Unfortuntely, you get the definitions wrong.

Agnostic - I don't know.
Gnostic - I know 100% for a fact.
Atheist - No belief in God.
Theist - Belief in God.

So we can take them and put them together.

Agnostic theist - I believe in God, but I can't be completely sure that I'm right.

Gnostic theist - I believe in God and I know for a fact that I am right.

And so on.

I personally am an agnostic atheist (as are most atheists you will ever come across). I do not believe in God, but I can't be completely sure. However, in my experience, any defined god has fundamental flaws which disprove it. Therefore I am about as close to gnosticism as you can get without actually being gnostic.

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.

There are sound arguments for the existence of the elephant in my living room. Some of them are very good. But suppose it were not so; suppose all the arguments for the elephant in my living roomfail and there are no further good reasons to believe in the elephant in my living room. What follows?—A lack of belief in the elephant in my living room? It’s very important to realize that the answer to this question is NO. What follows is, at most, not being sure if there is an elephant in my living room.

 

[Tiberius]

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

<<SNIP>>

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.

lol, of course Santa's real.

You don't expect him to use factories, do you? He makes toys for all the children on the planet. A standard production line facility obviously isn't going to be able to cope with it. He uses magic. And magic wouldn't leave any evidence that we are familiar with.

And no evidence of the large slay? Perhaps you are unaware of the many reports we get on the news each year which tell us that the radar used to monitor air traffic has picked up Santa as he begins his journey?

And no evidence of... I can only assume you are referring to dead elves. Seriously? How much evidence do you see of dead Humans in your day to day life? None. It's not like there are corpses littering the street! Likewise, you don't really think that the elves would just leave their dead out in the open for anyone to find, do you?

You still have to produce a single shred of evidence that Santa Claus does not exist.

 

[Tiberius]

I would not use the word require. I would use the phrase "is best explained by". I think that is more accurate and appropriate.

Actually, no. You are saying that the universe REQUIRES a god - the universe has no possible way of existing unless a god took some action.

I am saying that the universe similarly REQUIRES magical moon fairies.

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."

How do you know that magical moon fairies are not the best explanation?

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."

How do you know they aren't responsible?

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

Oh goody!

1. The Cosmological Argument from Contingency

In other words, the first cause argument, which fails because you claim that all things need a cause, but then you claim God doesn't need a cause, despite never explaining why. Oh, and it also doesn't show why such a cause needs to be a god. Perhaps time is a closed loop and the destruction of our universe in the far future is what caused it to begin in the first place. It is basically an argument from incredulity - "I can't comprehend of a way for the universe to exist without a god, therefore a god must exist!"

2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument Based on the Beginning of the Universe.

Uh, isn't this the same argument as the first?

3. The Moral Argument Based upon Moral Values and Duties

This require an objective morality. There is no such thing as an objective morality.

4. The Teleological Argument from Fine-tuning

Douglas Adams refutes this argument best...

"... imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the Sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be all right, because this World was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."

5. The Ontological Argument from the Possibility of God’s Existence to His Actuality

Really? First of all, I can use this argument to prove the existence of the Starship Enterprise.

Secondly, I can use this argument to prove God does not exist. Behold.

• The universe is God's greatest accomplishment.
• An accomplishment that was made despite a disability is greater than that same accomplishment made without a disability (for example, to swim the English Channel is impressive, but swimming the English Channel with no arms and no legs is even more impressive).
• The greatest possible disability is non-existence.
• A god who can great the universe while not existing is greater than a god who can create the universe will existing.
• Therefore, the greatest possible god does not exist.

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.

Perhaps you should have clarified that to begin with.

 

[Elioenai26]

We CAN conclude that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence if that evidence must exist!

For example, I can claim that there is an elephant in my living room. But if there really is an elephant in my living room, then there must be certain evidences. An elephant in my living room MUST take up quite a bit of space - we know for a fact that elephants are large. We MUST hear the noises the elephant makes. We MUST smell it. We MUST be able to feel it. We MUST be able to see it. And yet, these evidences are simply not present. There are evidences that MUST be there if the elephant is in my living room, and yet we do not see them. So, because of the lack of evidence to support the existence of the elephant, we conclude that there is no elephant, and this is a perfectly rational conclusion.

Very rational indeed. Examine the following:

Is God Imaginary? - When Does Absence of Evidence = Evidence of Absence?
(Or, when is the inference from &#8220;I see none&#8221; to &#8220;There is none&#8221; valid?)

What I have said so far raises the question, When does the absence of evidence become evidence of absence? This is a good question because sometimes (but not always) the former implies the latter. Let&#8217;s start with some examples to work with.

Example 1. Elephants in the Room (Absence of Evidence = Evidence of Absence)

Someone asks, &#8220;Are there any elephants in the room?&#8221; After looking about and seeing none, I say, &#8220;No, I see none. There are no elephants in the room.&#8221;

The inference from &#8220;I see none&#8221; to &#8220;There are none&#8221; in this example is justified. With respect to elephants in this room, I&#8217;m not agnostic; rather, I positively affirm: There are no elephants in the room. In this case, absence of elephants in the room is evidence of their absence. But this inference doesn&#8217;t hold for Example 2.

Example 2. The Grand Canyon Fly (Absence of Evidence &#8800; Evidence of Absence)
We&#8217;re standing atop the Grand Canyon and someone asks, &#8220;Is there a fly way down there?&#8221; After a quick glance I say, &#8220;No, I see none. There is no fly down there.&#8221;

As in the last example we move from &#8220;I see none&#8221; to &#8220;There is none&#8221;&#8212;but unlike the last example the conclusion is unjustified. Agnosticism regarding the fly is the appropriate response here. So in the Elephant Example we don&#8217;t have to be agnostics, but in the Grand Canyon Fly Example we do. Why? Notice that it is not the relative size of the object which creates the difference (The zookeeper might have asked you on your zoo trip, &#8220;Do you think an elephant is in the cage in the next room?&#8221; to which your reply might be agnosticism: &#8220;I have no idea. Maybe.&#8221

The salient difference between these two examples has entirely to do with your epistemic situation &#8212; which is, roughly, the extent and limits of your ability to know something through your primary sources of knowing (i.e. perception, memory, introspection, testimony, etc.) &#8212; and the fact that only in one situation (Elephants in the Room) do we expect to have knowledge which we lack. My epistemic situation regarding knowing whether an elephant is in the room is quite good, while my epistemic situation regarding knowing whether a fly resides at the bottom of the Grand Canyon is quite poor. Why? When are we in an epistemically good situation in order to say, &#8220;There is no X&#8221;? What conditions have to be met? At least two. In the absence of evidence of an object O you may deny that O exists only if these Criteria are met:

Evidence Expectation Criterion. If an object O existed, then we would expect there to be evidence for it.
Knowledge Expectation Criterion. If there were evidence of object O, then we would expect to have knowledge of the evidence.

In short, in the absence of evidence, we can deny the existence of something O only if we should expect to possess evidence sufficient to know that O exists but in fact lack it.


(Two technical comments. First, when I say &#8220;evidence&#8221; I just mean any sort of positive epistemic considerations in favor of the object O. Thus, having non-propositional considerations for something might very well count as &#8220;positive epistemic considerations.&#8221; This point becomes important in light of Reformed Epistemology and the fact that belief in God can be &#8220;properly basic,&#8221; which can count as &#8220;positive epistemic considerations.&#8221; (See Q&A Archive Questions #68 & #30) Such positive epistemic considerations also include a notion being logically incoherent. If the idea of something is logically incoherent &#8212; like a &#8220;married bachelor&#8221; or a &#8220;square circle&#8221; &#8212; then we don&#8217;t really have an example involving absence of evidence, for we have maximal positive epistemic considerations for its non-existence. (This point also disproves the objection sometimes made that &#8220;God exists&#8221; is not falsifiable. I ignore this for our purposes, since no atheist has been able to show that the idea of God is logically incoherent). Second, these are necessary conditions for being in a good epistemic situation for denying the existence of something; they are not sufficient conditions. In other words, just because&#8212;even if&#8212;someone meets both Criteria, that in no way obliges him to deny O&#8217;s existence.)

To prove his position the atheist has his task cut out for himself: What he must do is show that (a) the epistemic situation in which we find ourselves with respect to belief in God&#8217;s existence satisfies the above Criteria; and (b) demonstrate that we lack sufficient evidence for knowing that God exists. Equivalently, he must show that all the arguments for God are unsound and then argue that if God existed then we would expect to be in a position to know whether God exists. But as we&#8217;ll see, there is good reason to think (a) is false because our epistemic situation in which we find ourselves with respect to belief in God&#8217;s existence does not satisfy the above Criteria.

Is God Imaginary? - Problems with Satisfying the Criteria for the God Question
Let&#8217;s apply these criteria to God and the atheism/agnosticism distinction. Concerning God, if either of these conditions are not satisfied&#8212;if even one fails&#8212;atheism cannot be concluded in the absence of a sound argument for atheism. Atheists say both Criteria are satisfied when it comes to the God question, and they say they lack sufficient evidence for knowing that God exists. Now, since many atheists frequently recognize (as did Russell) that there are no sound arguments for atheism, this leaves the atheist&#8217;s case resting entirely upon the Criteria.

But it can be argued that one&#8217;s epistemic situation regarding belief in God does not always satisfy these Criteria, and therefore one cannot conclude that atheism is true in the face of (apparent) lack of evidence for God. Here&#8217;s another way to think about this: Suppose for the sake of argument there were no good arguments or evidence for God; then, in terms of the Examples given above, one&#8217;s epistemic situation concerning God is closer to the Grand Canyon Fly Example than it is to the Elephants in the Room Example&#8212; and therefore that, at most, (soft) agnosticism is the stance that should be taken, not atheism, in the face of (apparent) lack of evidence for God.

See adjacent post for conclusion of article.... #186 and #187

Likewise, if there is some evidence that MUST exist if God also exist, we can go to see if this evidence exists. And if we find that the evidence does not exist, we can conclude that God does not exist. After all, if God does exist, then this evidence MUST also exist.

Is there any such evidence?

Well, according to the Bible, yes there is.

The Bible tells us that a sign of true believers is that they can drink poison and be bitten by venomous snakes without coming to harm. See Mark 16:17-18 and Luke 10:19.

So if we see that Christians are harmed when they are bitten by poisonous snakes, or can drink poison and live,

You mean drink poison and not live, correct?

then this shows that God does not exist.

Where did you pull that one from? Thin air? At most, all that would show is that the person bitten was not a true believer, and this is on a hyper-literal interpretation of the text without taking into account its context. It simply does not follow that because a person who claims they are a believer in Christ who is harmed when bitten by a snake that therefore God does not exist. That conclusion simply does not follow.

The above text you provide can in no way shape or form even be remotely used as an argument against God's existence. As I said, at most, it would mean the person bitten and harmed or who ingested poison and died, simply was not a follower of Christ.

After all, the Bible makes a very definite claim about these things.

Indeed it does. It says that miraculous signs would attend those who believed in Christ and who were responsible for initially spreading the gospel. Nowhere in that passage does it say that if a person dies from a snake bite and they say they are Christians, that therefore God does not exist.

They are like the noises that the elephant makes. According to the Bible, if God exists then Christians MUST be able to do these things as well.

The bible makes no such claim regarding God's existence. This whole argument is a strawman.

Yet, clearly, they don't. If you drank cyanide, you would die, just as would anyone else. The evidence that the Bible claims is clearly lacking. And when we repeat this test with any other evidence the Bible tells us of, we get the same result.

Clearly, you are taking this scripture out of its context and also forgetting that the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts, is recorded as having been bitten by a poisonous snake and nothing happened.

Unfortuntely, you get the definitions wrong.

Unfortunately for you, the definitions I supplied are the standard definitions used by philosophers of religion.

There are sound arguments for the existence of the elephant in my living room.

No there are not.

Some of them are very good.

None of them are good.

 

[Elioenai26]

A. Why the &#8220;Evidence Expectation Criterion&#8221; Is Not Always Satisfied
The Evidence Expectation Criterion &#8212; which you will recall said that if an object O existed, then we would expect there to be evidence for it &#8212; is not always satisfied by our epistemic situation concerning knowing whether God exists.
It can be questioned that God satisfies the Evidence Expectation Criterion if you think for a moment about the fleeting nature of evidence. Only in the last 20 years or so have we discovered the incredible and incalculable fine-tuning of our universe for intelligent life (see the discussion of the Teleological Argument in chapter 4 of Reasonable Faith, 3rd edition); and only within the last 80 years have we learned scientifically that the universe is expanding and that it must have begun to exist (see discussion of the Kalam Cosmological Argument &#8212; chapter 3 in Reasonable Faith, 3rd edition). For eons of history this evidence simply wasn&#8217;t available to our ancestors. But since future progress in knowledge requires present ignorance, this means our current understanding will be incomplete or false. So it&#8217;s not always the case that &#8220;If there were evidence for God, then we would expect to have evidence of it.&#8221;


An Objection and a Reply

But we can imagine the atheist objecting:
True, true, evidence and good arguments, for theism and much else besides, fluctuate with time and place. But if God exists, then he has a moral duty to reveal himself clearly to all persons irrespective of time and place. Since he&#8217;s not done that &#8212; since he&#8217;s flouted his moral duty to reveal himself clearly to all persons &#8212; we can safely say that God does not exist.

Is God imaginary? I had an atheist professor agree with this sentiment. He said if God really wanted us to believe in him, he would be out there in the sky waving hello to everyone, parting more seas, and elevating massive objects.
The problem with this reasoning is that God is not interested in performing party tricks so we can say, &#8220;Wow, that&#8217;s really something else!&#8221; and go on and live a life unchanged, continuing in our sinful, self-centered ways. God would have a moral obligation to perform more miraculous deeds only if, in performing them, more people would come into a saving, personal relationship with him. But would they?
We have no good reason to think they would; the atheist has not provided us with a reason to think that if God revealed himself more overtly then more people would come to enjoy a saving relationship with him than would otherwise if God did not. While entertainment and party tricks would likely result in people coming to believe the proposition &#8220;God exists,&#8221; how could we know that would result in changing one&#8217;s heart (cf. Luke 16:30-31)? The New Testament says, &#8220;You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that&#8212;and shudder&#8221; (James 2:19), and it&#8217;s plain that demons lack a personal relationship with God. Moreover, the Old Testament describes God revealing himself through various miraculous wonders &#8212; through the plagues upon Egypt, the pillar of fire and smoke, the parting of the Red Sea, among others &#8212; yet these events, miraculous as they were, did not produce long-lasting heart change in the Israelites. Time and time again they fell into apostasy.
Thus, even if God were to part more seas or elevate massive objects, there is no reason to think that merely producing propositional knowledge of God (like believing the proposition that China&#8217;s population exceeds one billion) would result in a personal, life-transforming relationship with him. The atheist has not shown that God has a moral obligation to reveal himself in such ways to all persons; to do so might be mere entertainment.


B. Why the &#8220;Knowledge Expectation Criterion&#8221; Is Not Always Satisfied
Consider the second criterion, the Knowledge Expectation Criterion, which says that if there were evidence for something, then we would expect to have knowledge of that evidence. At least three reasons can be given why our epistemic situation concerning knowing whether God exists may not satisfy this Criterion, that is, there are times when we should not expect to know of evidence for God&#8217;s existence. Saying this is likely to sound counter-intuitive at first, but hear me out.

First, given the universality of sin and its effect on our epistemic situation, it&#8217;s not at all surprising that God&#8217;s existence is not obvious and that we don&#8217;t always satisfy the Knowledge Expectation Criterion. According to traditional Christianity, one of the effects of our human sinfulness is malfunctioning cognitive faculties: they don&#8217;t always function so as to lead us to non-self-centered conclusions. This means they might not always be helpful in interpreting evidence in a favorable and truthful light because many truths conflict with our being self-centered. (Jesus said, &#8220;The world . . . hates me because I testify of it that its deeds are evil&#8221; (John 7:7)). These effects upon our cognitive faculties are called the &#8220;noetic effects&#8221; of sin, and they can distort evidence of God, including the witness of the Holy Spirit (see Q&A Archive Questions #68 & #30), as well as many other more mundane things in life (e.g., it is easier to misrepresent our opponents than to take the time first to understand them). Professor Plantinga aptly describes these noetic effects:

The noetic effects of sin are concentrated with respect to our knowledge of other people, of ourselves, and of God . . . Sin affects my knowledge of others in many ways. Because of hatred or distaste for some group of human beings, I may think them inferior, of less worth than I myself and my more accomplished friends. Because of hostility and resentment, I may misestimate or entirely misunderstand someone else&#8217;s attitude toward me . . . Due to that basic and aboriginal sin pride, I may unthinkingly and almost without noticing assume that I am the centre of the universe (of course if you ask me, I will deny thinking any such thing), vastly exaggerating the importance of what happens to me as opposed to what happens to others . . .



Further, Plantinga adds that
The most serious noetic effects of sin have to do with our knowledge of God. Were it not for sin and its effects, God&#8217;s presence and glory would be as obvious and uncontroversial to us all as the presence of other minds, physical objects, and the past . . . Our knowledge of his character and his love toward us can be smothered: it can even be transformed into a resentful thought that God is to be feared and mistrusted; it may see him as indifferent or even malignant.

In the traditional taxonomy of the seven deadly sins, there is sloth. Sloth is not simple laziness, like the inclination to lie down and watch television rather than go out and get the exercise you need; it is, instead, a kind of spiritual deadness, blindness, imperceptiveness, acedia, torpor, a failure to be aware of God&#8217;s presence, love, requirements.2


Plantinga goes on to explain how the deliverances of the inner instigation of the Holy Spirit (by which the Holy Spirit works convicting us of God&#8217;s existence, among other truths) may be suppressed or impeded by turning one&#8217;s attention away from God by, for example, desiring to live a life of which God disapproves. This was Aldous Huxley&#8217;s self-admitted reason for his unbelief. He says he had &#8220;motives&#8221; for not wanting to believe in God and so &#8220;assumed&#8221; he didn&#8217;t exist and &#8220;was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.&#8221; He confessed:
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don&#8217;t know because we don&#8217;t want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless.3

More recently, New York University Professor Thomas Nagel has said something similar: &#8220;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.&#8221; He continues: &#8220;It isn&#8217;t just that I don&#8217;t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I&#8217;m right in my belief. It&#8217;s that I hope there is no God! I don&#8217;t want there to be a God; I don&#8217;t want a universe like that.&#8221;4


A second problem arises with the Knowledge Expectation Criterion because atheists often apply inappropriately high epistemic standards &#8212; standards they would not have in other &#8220;normal&#8221; contexts &#8212; when evaluating the rationality of theistic belief, insisting that the theist&#8217;s argument&#8217;s premise isn&#8217;t known. For example, everybody&#8217;s ordinary, everyday intuitions wouldn&#8217;t lead one to think that objects could pop into existence uncaused from nothing &#8212; yet, when it comes to the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God&#8217;s existence, for example, this is affirmed by many atheists. So when it comes to arguments for theism, many atheists dig in their heels, raise the bar for proof, and claim not to know the premises to be true.


Third, because God isn&#8217;t interested in inculcating mere propositional belief in him (i.e. believing the proposition that God exists), but a filial, or personal knowledge of him, some philosophers think that God may &#8220;hide&#8221; from humans when we try to divorce propositional belief in God from a personal relationship with God. When God does this our epistemic situation concerning him won&#8217;t satisfy the Knowledge Expectation Criterion.5
Let me explain this last point in more detail. The Christian God doesn&#8217;t want to be merely some abstract &#8220;Ground of Being&#8221; or only the &#8220;best explanation for the cosmos&#8221; &#8212; he wants both to be the Lord of our lives and a loving parent.

Professor Paul Moser, an eminent philosopher who has done considerable work in area of divine hiddenness, describes this filial knowledge:

In filial knowledge of God, we have knowledge of a supreme personal subject, not of a mere object for casual reflection. This is not knowledge of a vague "first cause," "ultimate power," "ground of being," or even a "best explanation." It rather is convicting knowledge of a personal, communicating Lord who expects grateful commitment by way of our appropriating God's gracious redemption. Such convicting knowledge includes our being judged and found unworthy by the standard of God's morally supreme love. God's will thereby meets, convicts, and redirects our will. Both sides of this relationship are thus personal . . . Filial knowledge of God is reconciling personal knowledge whereby we enter into an appropriate child-parent relationship with God. Such knowledge is personally transforming, not impersonally abstract or morally impotent. It is communicated by God&#8217;s personal Spirit in a way that demands full life-commitment.6


Why might, at times, God hide from us? Why wouldn&#8217;t he always make himself obvious for all to see, as obvious as the words on this page? Various reasons have been put forward in answering this important question and justice cannot done by reducing those answers to a sound bite or two. I can only sketch a couple of the responses here.7

Continued in adjacent post....

 

[Elioenai26]

One reason stems from the observation that if God did make himself obvious to all &#8212; as obvious as the words on this page &#8212; then for many it would destroy the possibility of developing morally significant freedom (being able to choose freely and often between good and bad courses of action) because our being powerfully aware of God would coerce us into obeying his moral commands.8 (Compare a child who is told not to eat from the cookie jar but is never given the opportunity to refrain from eating the cookies because her parents are always in the room watching). The overall result would be an underdeveloped moral character.



A second reason God might withdraw evidence of himself could be due to human sinfulness, pride, self-centeredness, and personal detachment. This brings us back to the issued mentioned in section 3, &#8220;An Objection and a Reply,&#8221; namely whether there is good reason to think that if God performed more miraculous events (parting seas for a watching audience, elevating massive objects) then more people&#8217;s hearts would be changed to want to enjoy a personal, life-transforming relationship with God. And here I think the quotations from Aldous Huxley and Thomas Nagel are quite instructive, since their heart seems to have settled the question of evidence and argument beforehand. What use is further evidence if one, in Nagel&#8217;s words, &#8220;hope there is no God!&#8221; because he &#8220;doesn&#8217;t want a universe like that?&#8221;



(Objection: Some may worry that the would-be believers get insufficient evidence while those complacent toward God get the &#8220;good&#8221; evidence. Similarly, it might be thought that God would provide such evidence in the hope and chance that the atheist would have a heart change.


Reply: But these objections are met if God has &#8220;middle knowledge.&#8221; The doctrine of divine middle knowledge implies not only that God knows whether people would respond to more evidence if he gave it to them, but also whether it would be ineffectual or perhaps deleterious. Accordingly, God could providentially arrange the world so that the would-be believers are given evidence, argument and gifts of grace sufficient for free and rational belief. And if God knows all this he&#8217;s under no obligation to provide more evidence than that which he already has given. For more on this see Q&A Archive Question 77, &#8220;Middle Knowledge and Christian Particularism.&#8221

So we really don&#8217;t have any good reason to think that if God existed then we would always have knowledge of him; and thus we lack good reasons for thinking that our epistemic situation concerning whether God exists always satisfies the Knowledge Expectation Criterion. And from this it follows that one cannot deny God&#8217;s existence without an argument for his non-existence, for atheism. That&#8217;s why Craig can demand of Hitchens an argument for atheism.




Read more: Is God Imaginary? | Reasonable Faith

 

[Hawisher]

No, sorry, you don't get to do this.

You don't get to put the stuff you find personally reprehensible done by other Christians in some other category.

Take the good with the bad. This is like how Christians use "religion" as code for negative Christianity and then deny furiously that Christianity is a religion at all.

Stupid WILL always find a way. I have talked to no less than three people who think theism should be punishable by death. I also think an issue with your opinion is that atheism isn't supported by evidence. Agnosticism certainly is, but the blanket denial that a god exists isn't.

 

[Hawisher]

lol, of course Santa's real.

You don't expect him to use factories, do you? He makes toys for all the children on the planet. A standard production line facility obviously isn't going to be able to cope with it. He uses magic. And magic wouldn't leave any evidence that we are familiar with.

And no evidence of the large slay? Perhaps you are unaware of the many reports we get on the news each year which tell us that the radar used to monitor air traffic has picked up Santa as he begins his journey?

And no evidence of... I can only assume you are referring to dead elves. Seriously? How much evidence do you see of dead Humans in your day to day life? None. It's not like there are corpses littering the street! Likewise, you don't really think that the elves would just leave their dead out in the open for anyone to find, do you?

You still have to produce a single shred of evidence that Santa Claus does not exist.

How about the fact that the claims people make of Santa Claus are demonstrably false? That would work pretty well, I think. So, once you can do the same to Christianity, let me know.

 

[Gadarene]

Stupid WILL always find a way.

And in many cases that way is Christianity.

Both the stupid and the non-stupid alike though are in the habit of picking up wrong ideas from personal interpretation of a rather outdated book, which is why many of think it's not a great thing to subscribe to either way.

I have talked to no less than three people who think theism should be punishable by death.

And they're stupid too.

Do you know what I'm not going to do? Pretend like they're not "true atheists". They're still atheists, even if they act like idiots. Whether such behaviour is necessarily inherent to atheism is something else - and given the simplicity of what atheism is compared to the panoply of ideas within Christianity, that's a far easier thing to work out. As it happens, such behaviour is not necessarily part of atheism.

Good luck getting most Christians to even admit that those Christians who did things they disagree with were even Christian in the first place. It's like pulling teeth.

I also think an issue with your opinion is that atheism isn't supported by evidence. Agnosticism certainly is, but the blanket denial that a god exists isn't.

I suggest you ask a few atheists here what atheism is - because for most us it ain't a "blanket denial that god exists".

 

[Hawisher]

Do you know what I'm not going to do? Pretend like this is diametrically opposed to what atheism is. They're still atheists, even if they act like idiots.

Is that what I did with Christianity?

Good luck getting most Christians to even admit that those Christians who did things they disagree with are even Christian in the first place.

What does that have to do with anything at all?

I suggest you ask a few atheists here what atheism is - because for most us it ain't a "blanket denial that god exists".

Oh. Crap on a crutch. I just looked it up. Would you say this is more fair?
"atheism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable."

 

[Gadarene]

Is that what I did with Christianity?

No, but I didn't claim that theists deserved death either.

What does that have to do with anything at all?

What, indeed? You brought up the behaviour of (I'm assuming) a few atheists in response to the behaviour of theists. If you don't want me comparing and contrasting the two, why bring it up?

Oh. Crap on a crutch. I just looked it up. Would you say this is more fair?
"atheism is the view that the truth values of certain claims&#8212;especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims&#8212;are unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable."

It's a lack of belief in gods. That's it. It's not a claim, it's not a worldview, it's not whether you're a jerk to theists or not, it's not whether or not your justification for being an atheist makes a lick of sense or not.

It's a lack of belief in gods.

 

[Elioenai26]

I tend to use the dictionary definition of atheism. It seems to me that atheists cannot even agree on what atheism is, so I no longer ask them.

 

[Hawisher]

No, but I didn't claim that theists deserved death either.

What, indeed? You brought up the behaviour of (I'm assuming) a few atheists in response to the behaviour of theists. If you don't want me comparing and contrasting the two, why bring it up?

To demonstrate that stupidity is not an exclusively Christian thing.

It's a lack of belief in gods. That's it. It's not a claim, it's not a worldview, it's not whether you're a jerk to theists or not, it's not whether or not your justification for being an atheist makes a lick of sense or not.

It's a lack of belief in gods.

Does that mean I believe gods do not exist or I do not believe gods exist?

 

[Hawisher]

I tend to use the dictionary definition of atheism. It seems to me that atheists cannot even agree on what atheism is, so I no longer ask them.

Be fair. A lot of Christians can't agree what atheism is. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Gadarene]

To demonstrate that stupidity is not an exclusively Christian thing.

I never claimed it wasn't. My issue was with the recategorisation of perceived negative behaviour of other Christians as something separate and distinct from Christianity and what it has done.

That's part of Christianity's legacy as much as the good stuff, and it's really tiresome picking up attempts to whitewash this away. They weren't simply stupid. They were Christians, and many of them weren't stupid at all. It's just funny how "honestly mistaken" is never an option for people attempting to explain this stuff away.

These differences arise from differing subjective interpretations of a religious text that has demonstrated to have a surprising pluripotency of possible interpretations over the years. That's the difference between Christianity and atheism. There is nothing inherent to atheism that can be selectively read/interpreted in order to justify a whole bunch of contradicting opinions. Atheists will often have opposing stances, say left-wing or right-wing, but that's because there is no prescription on atheism as to what politics one should have. The only thing that can be said to be a prescription is that to be an atheist you must lack a belief in gods.

(added to pre-empt the usual accusation that atheists can be jerks too - sure they can, but because of this difference in construction and that Christianity contains far more core materials than atheism, it's much harder if not outright impossible to claim that atheism necessitates a particular behaviour)

Does that mean I believe gods do not exist or I do not believe gods exist?

The latter.

 

[Hawisher]

I never claimed it wasn't. My issue was with the recategorisation of behaviour of other Christians as something separate and distinct.

I don't remember doing that.

That's part of Christianity's legacy as much as the good stuff, and it's really tiresome picking up attempts to whitewash this away. They weren't simply stupid. They were Christians, and many of them weren't stupid at all. It's just funny how "honestly mistaken" is never an option for people attempting to explain this stuff away.

I'm afraid I've been away too long. What are you talking about?

These differences arise from differing subjective interpretations of a religious text that has demonstrated to have a surprising pluripotency of possible interpretations over the years. That's the difference between Christianity and atheism. There is nothing inherent to atheism that can be selectively read/interpreted in order to justify a whole bunch of contradicting opinions. Atheists will often have opposing stances, say left-wing or right-wing, but that's because there is no prescription on atheism as to what politics one should have. The only thing that can be said to be a prescription is that to be an atheist you must lack a belief in gods.

I really don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Gadarene]

I don't remember doing that.

You want us to attribute bad things done by Christians to some nebulous notion of "stupidity", rather than as a possible consequence of what Christianity entails - while claiming that both sides have their stupids (even though the stupidity in each originates in different ways).

But I don't think religion needs countering because it has stupid people in it, although that certainly doesn't help - I do so because it is wrong. Wrong ideas are generally not a good idea to allow to propagate in society.

I've done this with every other idea I've found to be wrong - and Christianity is not so special that it gets special treatment. And if that causes some people to lose something comforting? Well, who put their hopes up with false ideas in the first place? Don't blame us for pointing out that the emperor you created has no clothes.

I'm afraid I've been away too long. What are you talking about?

I really don't know what you're talking about.

It's what we were just talking about.

What changed?

 

[Tiberius]

How about the fact that the claims people make of Santa Claus are demonstrably false? That would work pretty well, I think. So, once you can do the same to Christianity, let me know.

First of all, what claims about Santa are demonstrably false?

Secondly, you want things about Christianity that are demonstrably false? Very well.

• The Bible says that there was a flood that covered the entire world. Not only do we see no evidence of such a flood despite that fact that such a flood must have left evidence, we also see evidence of things that couldn't possibly exist if a flood had occurred.
• The Bible says that true believers can drink poison, be stung by scorpions and bitten by venomous snakes and survive. Yet this is not true.
• The Bible says that a believer can pray in God's name and they're prayers will be answered, yet how many times does this fail? How many times do people pray to god to heal their sick children, only to have those children die?

That's just three things off the top of my head. No doubt you'll now attempt to explain these away, presumably by claiming I don't have a correct understanding, or God works in mysterious ways or something like that.

 

[Tiberius]

I tend to use the dictionary definition of atheism. It seems to me that atheists cannot even agree on what atheism is, so I no longer ask them.

Given the huge number of sects of Christianity, it would seem that Christians are just as bad.