Do atheists have any evidence to support their beliefs?

[briareos]

Yay you responded to me! I was though hoping you would respond to my post in your pole thread concerning objectivity... and you didn't! booooo

 

[keith99]

Really? Seems to me there is the exact same amount of evidence for both positions.

Perhaps if one leaves 'God' vaguely defined. Or it can even be a truth by definition that God exists. If we define God as whatever was first then it must exist, but having volition is a far different matter.

But once God is given traits and claims are made about what God will and will not do it seems to me that the either the God does not exist or His followers are making false claims. Either way it gives little reason to follow or even believe in any specific God that I know of.

 

[Belk]

Perhaps if one leaves 'God' vaguely defined. Or it can even be a truth by definition that God exists. If we define God as whatever was first then it must exist, but having volition is a far different matter.

But once God is given traits and claims are made about what God will and will not do it seems to me that the either the God does not exist or His followers are making false claims. Either way it gives little reason to follow or even believe in any specific God that I know of.

I don't know keith99. The way I see it there is no evidence for any god concept I have ever heard of. From straight deistic ideas to the most detailed explanation you could think of they all seem to lack anything that I would consider evidence.

 

[possibletarian]

Atheism seems to lack evidence more than Christianity does.

Atheism being what in you opinion ?

Christians have the historical gospel to point towards their truths.

Many religions have historical books, so what ?

What do atheists have other than a blind faith that they are right?

Blind faith in what? what is atheism.. in your opinion ?

Is such blind faith morally similar to Christianity but with less evidence in support of it?

What evidence would an atheist need ?

Are you perhaps mixing Christianity up with evidence of your chosen deity amongst many ? No atheist here as I understand it doubts that Christianity and Christian tradition exist, but then atheists don't doubt that many other faiths and their traditions exist.

It seems to me that an all powerful god could put the question of his existence beyond doubt, to have to have a faith obligation is completely pointless can you point to any advantage in it at all.

 

[compassion 4 humanity]

Atheism seems to lack evidence more than Christianity does. Christians have the historical gospel to point towards their truths. What do atheists have other than a blind faith that they are right? Is such blind faith morally similar to Christianity but with less evidence in support of it?

We Christians have the Bible and Christ as our evidence in favor of the existence of God. That is all we need to be correct.

 

[Strathos]

That depends which beliefs you're talking about, I suppose.

 

[Eudaimonist]

We Christians have the Bible and Christ as our evidence in favor of the existence of God. That is all we need to be correct.

I personally think that you need quite a bit more than that.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[compassion 4 humanity]

I personally think that you need quite a bit more than that.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Like what?

 

[Shadow]

Atheism seems to lack evidence more than Christianity does. Christians have the historical gospel to point towards their truths. What do atheists have other than a blind faith that they are right? Is such blind faith morally similar to Christianity but with less evidence in support of it?

To show that God doesn't exist requires the use of the idea of the "Uniformity of nature". Basically, its the idea that the laws of nature apply to everything, including those things we don't currently know anything about and haven't discovered. This would mean that everything, known and unknown, can be explained by natural causes even if it hasn't already done this. This would make the existence of God unnecessary to explain a "first cause" or "original cause" for the universe (i.e. creation) or other phenomena. This has plausible value but is a philosophical assumption rather than something that could be proven based on scientific observation and experiment. Given the "Problem of Induction", over whether inductive reasoning leads to knowledge, this is potentially quite a leap in the dark and is not necessarily a sound argument.

 

[Larniavc]

We Christians have the Bible and Christ as our evidence in favor of the existence of God. That is all we need to be correct.

I think the issue is that the claims of the Bible have no corroboration.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

We Christians have the Bible and Christ as our evidence in favor of the existence of God. That is all we need to be correct.

If you're trying to convince people who don't already agree with your beliefs, you're going to need something more than the existence of the bible and your personal belief that it is true.

 

[Ana the Ist]

We Christians have the Bible and Christ as our evidence in favor of the existence of God. That is all we need to be correct.

Claiming something is true doesn't make it true.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Like what?

The Bible seems to be largely, if not completely, fiction. In any case, a book isn't evidence of a universe-creating entity. At best, it's evidence that some people have believed in the existence of such a being.

As for "Christ" as evidence, what do you mean by that? That seems to be begging the question. It's like saying that God is evidence of God.

I can understand that Christians would take both as evidence, but I'd think that more is needed, such as something that would be sufficient to rightfully convince a rational person who was not inclined to believe in Christian beliefs.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Weak atheism either has rational support or it doesn't. The stock defence is

"Im not making any positive claim, I merely lack belief in God"

and I believe it to be philosophically naive.


You'll see implicit presumption is that the non believer actually believes his or her non belief is a reasonable attitude. And if so, there there are grounding arguments such as:

"I use logic, reason, Occam s razor, scientific method, positivist metaphysics, i reject intuition, I reject innate spirituality, I reject religious expereince, I reject all kinds of "spiritualised basic beliefs" "etc.

yet they are part and parcel of the cognitive route, or so it seems, whereby the non theist arrives at "absence of belief".

 

[Allandavid]

There are still people on earth who believe the earth to be flat.

I reject their belief. Does that make me “naive”...? Is my “cognitive route” somehow misaligned...?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

There are still people on earth who believe the earth to be flat.

I reject their belief. Does that make me “naive”...? Is my “cognitive route” somehow misaligned...?

Not at all, but the analogy is weak because there is evidence for a spheroid earth, but there atheists claim is different: *mere* lack of belief, and hence unsupported, ungrounded etc.

And then, what-ya-know as if by magic, it the "default option" or the "most rational position" needing no further debate....? The magic card... almost?

What ever happened to the "no claim made" assertion?

And then the arrows start to fly as with any other debate topic.

See. There is implicit support for this lack of belief. Its arrived at after ruminaiton. I think Anthony Flew compared lacking belief in God to lacking belief in a certain garden. There was no evidence, hence no support for it, although he couldnt rule it out absolutely.

Insofar as hes right, or poterntially right, hes at least making the claim he knows how to play a credible language game with the terms "reasonable" "evidence" "existence" "belief" "support" and probably "parsimony" etc. And so there is some epietsmology and metaphysics going on, not to mention an implicit claim to using logic.

After all, I dont think a weak atheism supporter would say that a lack of belief is logically indefensible. Or is it? Is the the point of claiming "weakness"?

Just like if you mention a flat earth, its probably understood to be understoood to be a witty analogy for outmoded faith i.e any and every aspect of religion has been supplanted by Newton Darwnin and co and their atheist followers. So the analogy only makes sense in the context of a partisan raitonal progress 101, and some knowldege of the history of cosmology etc, and therefore likewise its not mentioned in a contextual vaccuum.

If there is no actual or attainable rational support for "weak atheism" couldnt we therefore automatically conclude the opposite to be the more reasonable position i.e. by reducito ad absurdum, God exists QED? Or at least that non-"lack of belief" of some sort is philosophically superior?

 

[KCfromNC]

Not at all, but the analogy is weak because there is evidence for a spheroid earth, but there atheists claim is different: *mere* lack of belief, and hence unsupported, ungrounded etc.

And then, what-ya-know as if by magic, it the "default option" or the "most rational position" needing no further debate....? The magic card... almost?

What ever happened to the "no claim made" assertion?

And then the arrows start to fly as with any other debate topic.

See. There is implicit support for this lack of belief. Its arrived at after ruminaiton. I think Anthony Flew compared lacking belief in God to lacking belief in a certain garden. There was no evidence, hence no support for it, although he couldnt rule it out absolutely.

Insofar as hes right, or poterntially right, hes at least making the claim he knows how to play a credible language game with the terms "reasonable" "evidence" "existence" "belief" "support" and probably "parsimony" etc. And so there is some epietsmology and metaphysics going on, not to mention an implicit claim to using logic.

After all, I dont think a weak atheism supporter would say that a lack of belief is logically indefensible. Or is it? Is the the point of claiming "weakness"?

Just like if you mention a flat earth, its probably understood to be understoood to be a witty analogy for outmoded faith i.e any and every aspect of religion has been supplanted by Newton Darwnin and co and their atheist followers. So the analogy only makes sense in the context of a partisan raitonal progress 101, and some knowldege of the history of cosmology etc, and therefore likewise its not mentioned in a contextual vaccuum.

If there is no actual or attainable rational support for "weak atheism" couldnt we therefore automatically conclude the opposite to be the more reasonable position i.e. by reducito ad absurdum, God exists QED? Or at least that non-"lack of belief" of some sort is philosophically superior?

That's lots of words to try to get to the idea that we should believe in stuff there's no good reason to believe. When has being "philosophically superior" in this way led to a better understanding of the world around us?

 

[Belk]

Not at all, but the analogy is weak because there is evidence for a spheroid earth, but there atheists claim is different: *mere* lack of belief, and hence unsupported, ungrounded etc.

And then, what-ya-know as if by magic, it the "default option" or the "most rational position" needing no further debate....? The magic card... almost?

What ever happened to the "no claim made" assertion?

And then the arrows start to fly as with any other debate topic.

See. There is implicit support for this lack of belief. Its arrived at after ruminaiton. I think Anthony Flew compared lacking belief in God to lacking belief in a certain garden. There was no evidence, hence no support for it, although he couldnt rule it out absolutely.

Insofar as hes right, or poterntially right, hes at least making the claim he knows how to play a credible language game with the terms "reasonable" "evidence" "existence" "belief" "support" and probably "parsimony" etc. And so there is some epietsmology and metaphysics going on, not to mention an implicit claim to using logic.

After all, I dont think a weak atheism supporter would say that a lack of belief is logically indefensible. Or is it? Is the the point of claiming "weakness"?

Just like if you mention a flat earth, its probably understood to be understoood to be a witty analogy for outmoded faith i.e any and every aspect of religion has been supplanted by Newton Darwnin and co and their atheist followers. So the analogy only makes sense in the context of a partisan raitonal progress 101, and some knowldege of the history of cosmology etc, and therefore likewise its not mentioned in a contextual vaccuum.

If there is no actual or attainable rational support for "weak atheism" couldnt we therefore automatically conclude the opposite to be the more reasonable position i.e. by reducito ad absurdum, God exists QED? Or at least that non-"lack of belief" of some sort is philosophically superior?

Let me see if I have this correct. Your position is that because we had to think about theists claims this somehow undermines our position?

 

[AirPo]

We Christians have the Bible and Christ as our evidence in favor of the existence of God. That is all we need to be correct.

No, that's all you need to have faith. You need a lot more than that to be correct.

 

[AirPo]

Perhaps if one leaves 'God' vaguely defined. Or it can even be a truth by definition that God exists. If we define God as whatever was first then it must exist, but having volition is a far different matter.

But once God is given traits and claims are made about what God will and will not do it seems to me that the either the God does not exist or His followers are making false claims. Either way it gives little reason to follow or even believe in any specific God that I know of.

While this is on the mark, IMO, did it really need a necro?