(moved) Question for Atheists: Is the existence of God a real question for you?

[Cis.jd]

As you can see in my religious beliefs, i am Catholic all though i do consider myself open minded. My question for you atheists is if the existence of God is really what you care about most or is it deep down the question of whether or not he is worth any form attention (and honor/praise) at all?

The reason why i am asking this is because i am in this state of questioning myself. I don't know if i can ever believe that the universe wasn't intelligently design, i find it very hard to believe but a part of me is just wondering as to why his existence matters at this time?

With all this negativity and suffering that has gone on in this world for billions of years, do we really stop believing because of a lack of evidence or really because he is a "dead beat"?

 

[ewq1938]

 

[KnowtheSilence]

As you can see in my religious beliefs, i am Catholic all though i do consider myself open minded. My question for you atheists is if the existence of God is really what you care about most or is it deep down the question of whether or not he is worth any form attention (and honor/praise) at all?

For me the existence element is the most important, but I definitely understand the question/concern about God's worthiness. If the evidence for a maximally great, morally perfect creator was strong enough, I could see myself giving God the benefit of the doubt and assume that God has good reasons for allowing evil and suffering. As it stands, though, I'm convinced that there isn't a God, so questions about whether or not it would be deserving of worship are hypothetical.

 

[Larniavc]

I concluded that there is most likely no benevolent supernatural entity in charge of everything in my late teens.

I think the matter for me is more or less settled.

 

[quatona]

As you can see in my religious beliefs, i am Catholic all though i do consider myself open minded. My question for you atheists is if the existence of God is really what you care about most

I don´t care about this question at all. Mainly because a question in which both keyterms ("existence" and "God") are wide open to interpretation is necessarily going to result in semantics rather than epistemology.
Second, metaphysics are by their nature pure speculation. There are metaphysical ideas that make way more sense to me than traditional monotheism. The various God hypotheses don´t seem to answer any questions I have, and they seem to solve problems that wouldn´t exist without them, in the first place.

or is it deep down the question of whether or not he is worth any form attention (and honor/praise) at all?

No, not at all. It would, however, be the next question - once a properly defined God concept had been proven accurate. IOW the problem of reconciling a traditional God concept with your ethical/moral convictions is a problem only theists have.

The reason why i am asking this is because i am in this state of questioning myself. I don't know if i can ever believe that the universe wasn't intelligently design, i find it very hard to believe but a part of me is just wondering as to why his existence matters at this time?

"His"? You mean "God´s"? In which way would you like God´s existence to matter?

With all this negativity and suffering that has gone on in this world for billions of years, do we really stop believing because of a lack of evidence or really because he is a "dead beat"?

I guess there´s different strokes for different folks.
I suspect that - in a time and age where we tend to approach things systematically or scientifically - there´s little space for starting with a traditional metaphysical claim in an old book (IOW: a desired conclusion) and then trying to post hoc rationalize it.

 

[Nithavela]

As you can see in my religious beliefs, i am Catholic all though i do consider myself open minded. My question for you atheists is if the existence of God is really what you care about most or is it deep down the question of whether or not he is worth any form attention (and honor/praise) at all?

The reason why i am asking this is because i am in this state of questioning myself. I don't know if i can ever believe that the universe wasn't intelligently design, i find it very hard to believe but a part of me is just wondering as to why his existence matters at this time?

With all this negativity and suffering that has gone on in this world for billions of years, do we really stop believing because of a lack of evidence or really because he is a "dead beat"?

Atheism is about not believing in god/s. If you believe in god/s, but question their actions, it's more akin to misotheism/maltheism.

Of course, there is always the good old problem of evil.

 

[jardiniere]

I think what we call ethical systems were "within us" before gods were invented, and in fact stem from our biology as highly social animals. I think gods are wonderfully creative and occasionally useful for inculcating or teaching ethical systems. I think religions are not nearly as useful for such teaching-if one in fact can separate a god from its religion.

I can't wrap my head around a personal god of humans; that seems more of our story-telling nature than reflective contemplation of our reality. So the issue of respect or honoring of gods is secondary to belief, whether or not one believes in gods. However, my book-knowledge of any god has yet to make me believe they deserve worship, at least from how they are described.

 

[Dave RP]

As you can see in my religious beliefs, i am Catholic all though i do consider myself open minded. My question for you atheists is if the existence of God is really what you care about most or is it deep down the question of whether or not he is worth any form attention (and honor/praise) at all?

The reason why i am asking this is because i am in this state of questioning myself. I don't know if i can ever believe that the universe wasn't intelligently design, i find it very hard to believe but a part of me is just wondering as to why his existence matters at this time?

With all this negativity and suffering that has gone on in this world for billions of years, do we really stop believing because of a lack of evidence or really because he is a "dead beat"?

I would say that the existence or otherwise of God rarely pops into my head unless prompted to do so by something I hear, or read on the news. For example there is a tragedy or natural disaster and I hear the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury praying for the injured or the survivors and I wonder how they can think that God could do anything to help the recovery when he did nothing about the incident in the first place.

I think like most people I do not go through the day thinking about who or what made the universe, but again if I read something in the science section about the cosmos I always read it with interest, although never with the thought that it was designed by some supernatural being - I always get stuck at the same point - who made God?

Finally, if there is a God who controls human lives, he's a vicious mean spirited God to allow such appalling suffering to take place in the world in his name.

 

[SteveB28]

For the entirety of my life I have been an atheist. I have never seen a good reason to commence belief in gods. So the question of the existence of one or more of them has never impacted greatly upon my life.

However, the actions of those who do hold those beliefs have frequently caught my attention, mostly negatively, so this has prompted an interest in religions, if not in the gods they claim.

Additionally, there are many characters from fiction with whom I take issue, albeit in an hypothetical sense. I view the supposed actions of the Judeo/Christian/Muslim god in that light.

 

[Tinyarch]

Francis Collins was an avowed atheist. His study of the human genome lead to his belief in a creator.

 

[SteveB28]

Francis Collins was an avowed atheist. His study of the human genome lead to his belief in a creator.

No, I understand a frozen waterfall was to blame.....

 

[Tinyarch]

No, I understand a frozen waterfall was to blame.....

They are beautiful...

 

[Cis.jd]

"His"? You mean "God´s"? In which way would you like God´s existence to matter?


I guess there´s different strokes for different folks.
I suspect that - in a time and age where we tend to approach things systematically or scientifically - there´s little space for starting with a traditional metaphysical claim in an old book (IOW: a desired conclusion) and then trying to post hoc rationalize it.

Well to me, I can't find myself questioning the existence of intelligent design. It just blows my mind how all of this is accidental.. but mainly i think that if God does exist what reason is there to respect him?

I made a thread about Animal Cruelty in the bible and i was really deeming for reasonable answers but all i got mostly was "well, he's God so it's ok with him but now it's not".. Then we see all the evil in this world, or even just the simple homeless guy who has been homeless for more than 6 years and yet not even a single bread can fall from the sky, it just starts building the question about <b>theism</b>.

 

[Tinyarch]

Well to me, I can't find myself questioning the existence of intelligent design. It just blows my mind how all of this is accidental.. but mainly i think that if God does exist what reason is there to respect him?

I made a thread about Animal Cruelty in the bible and i was really deeming for reasonable answers but all i got mostly was "well, he's God so it's ok with him but now it's not".. Then we see all the evil in this world, or even just the simple homeless guy who has been homeless for more than 6 years and yet not even a single bread can fall from the sky, it just starts building the question about <b>theism</b>.

Books have been written on this subject.

C.S. Lewis - The Problem of Pain

Phillip Yancey - Dissapointment With God

Does the fact that we recognize there is good and bad mean anything, or is our perception just meaningless?

 

[essentialsaltes]

As you can see in my religious beliefs, i am Catholic all though i do consider myself open minded. My question for you atheists is if the existence of God is really what you care about most or is it deep down the question of whether or not he is worth any form attention (and honor/praise) at all?

Since you have a faith tradition, you have a more or less clear idea of what the god of your religion is like. For atheists, on the outside, we have thousands of god concepts to consider. There's not much point in worrying over whether Ishtar is worth attention or if Odin is worth attention or Ahura Mazda is worth attention, if you don't have any reason to believe they exist at all. So I think it starts with the question of existence. If and when that hurdle is passed, we can start to consider the properties of that being.

 

[Tinyarch]

Since you have a faith tradition, you have a more or less clear idea of what the god of your religion is like. For atheists, on the outside, we have thousands of god concepts to consider. There's not much point in worrying over whether Ishtar is worth attention or if Odin is worth attention or Ahura Mazda is worth attention, if you don't have any reason to believe they exist at all. So I think it starts with the question of existence. If and when that hurdle is passed, we can start to consider the properties of that being.

The Athenian's had a statue to the "Unknown god" just to cover all their bases. The opposite of covering all your bases is to ignore all the bases and not play at all.
Neither options really answer the question. They just circumvent the difficulty in discerning.

 

[Cis.jd]

Books have been written on this subject.

C.S. Lewis - The Problem of Pain

Phillip Yancey - Dissapointment With God

Does the fact that we recognize there is good and bad mean anything, or is our perception just meaningless?

Again, I said that i don't reject the concept of Intelligent Design. I find it harder to believe that life/the universe was just birthed randomly.. my main problem is, why should we give any form of respect/admiration etc just like Theism proposes?


I saw a video yesterday of a small puppy facing the wall, the puppy was actually crying. The reason for that is because he was being tortured. I've seen other videos of people, including kids, getting murdered sadistically.. where the heck is this god? How can someone continue to go off about a loving God when you can see that there are actual real issues that demand help yet nothing happens. Christians keep going off about satan, and random excuses as to why he didn't do anything but then go off about him being all loving, caring, hears our prayers... etc. This doesn't make sense.

I have to cosign with what @Dave RP said. Why do christians pray for the victims after the victimization happened? What are we exactly praying for when it happened already?


Some people say that all this "injustice" will be solved when Christ returns, but how long have we been waiting? Why is that comforting, isn't the term "justice delayed is justice denied" fitting for this? While i can see an argument for this universe being designed i can't find an argument at all for the "worthy of praise" cliche.

 

[Cis.jd]

Since you have a faith tradition, you have a more or less clear idea of what the god of your religion is like. For atheists, on the outside, we have thousands of god concepts to consider. There's not much point in worrying over whether Ishtar is worth attention or if Odin is worth attention or Ahura Mazda is worth attention, if you don't have any reason to believe they exist at all. So I think it starts with the question of existence. If and when that hurdle is passed, we can start to consider the properties of that being.

Technically, the idea of the Christian God is that he is an all loving God who takes the good people to heaven and the bad people to hell after they die. Christians believe in having relationships with this god and there is always an excuse when real reality hits others around the world as to why this god didn't do anything.

I think you do have a point about why existence matters, but i guess if we were talking about specific gods.. I don't think you need to believe in the Judeo Christian God to be considered a theist, just any form of belief that causes someone to think that there is an all good/loving god(s) that have to be adored and venerated.

 

[Tinyarch]

Again, I said that i don't reject the concept of Intelligent Design. I find it harder to believe that life/the universe was just birthed randomly.. my main problem is, why should we give any form of respect/admiration etc just like Theism proposes?


I saw a video yesterday of a small puppy facing the wall, the puppy was actually crying. The reason for that is because he was being tortured. I've seen other videos of people, including kids, getting murdered sadistically.. where the heck is this god? How can someone continue to go off about a loving God when you can see that there are actual real issues that demand help yet nothing happens. Christians keep going off about satan, and random excuses as to why he didn't do anything but then go off about him being all loving, caring, hears our prayers... etc. This doesn't make sense.

I have to cosign with what @Dave RP said. Why do christians pray for the victims after the victimization happened? What are we exactly praying for when it happened already?


Some people say that all this "injustice" will be solved when Christ returns, but how long have we been waiting? Why is that comforting, isn't the term "justice delayed is justice denied" fitting for this? While i can see an argument for this universe being designed i can't find an argument at all for the "worthy of praise" cliche.

Is injustice solved without a god existing?

What do Christians do with the injustice Jesus suffered? A good and upright guy gets beaten, hung on a cross, and speared in the side for no good reason.

The problem of pain is difficult to answer. It really sucks when we are the ones suffering for no good reason. But, is injustice somehow solved if no gods exist? Which option gives a hope for justice to be served?

 

[Tinyarch]

Technically, the idea of the Christian God is that he is an all loving God who takes the good people to heaven and the bad people to hell after they die. Christians believe in having relationships with this god and there is always an excuse when real reality hits others around the world as to why this god didn't do anything.

I think you do have a point about why existence matters, but i guess if we were talking about specific gods.. I don't think you need to believe in the Judeo Christian God to be considered a theist, just any form of belief that causes someone to think that there is an all good/loving god(s) that have to be adored and venerated.

I don't think you are technically right about the idea of a Christian God taking good people to heaven and bad people to hell.

That's a generalization on your part.

Most Christians believe that all humanity is bad by its sinful nature. Therefore, hell is the just sentence for humanity. Heaven is granted by God's willing pardon, based upon Jesus sacrificial payment for sin.
That is the technical answer.

As for theism, you're right, any belief in a god makes someone a theist. No belief in a god makes one an atheist.