The Atheist Corner

[Walter]

If someone is a believer-- really, really believes-- then God is the most important thing in the universe. It follows that the nature of this God is quintessentially important. How then can it be a matter of indifference when others deny God, or reject the true God in favor of false ones?

That question has had its share of theological consideration through the years also, though I am far from informed enough, or presumptuous enough, to try to summarize it. There are answers on both sides which vary according to denomination, is I think the best way to put it.

Yours is one mainline view, which I certainly respect. There are others more aloof.

But please allow me to ask whether that is your own belief, or whether you are an atheist explaining to Christians how they ought to believe and behave. There is a considerable amount of that sort of advice that also arises in discussions such as these.

The idea of kinder, gentler religious belief is an admirable one but I don't see any logic behind it. The idea of religious tolerance isn't a theological concept-- it is a secular one, a practical compromise made necessary by the material advantages of trading, commerce with people from different cultures

I take my tolerance as Paul's admonition from the Bible, 1Cor13:1-13 I believe it is, the paean to love.

[plainjane]

If someone is a believer-- really, really believes-- then God is the most important thing in the universe. It follows that the nature of this God is quintessentially important. How then can it be a matter of indifference when others deny God, or reject the true God in favor of false ones?

The idea of kinder, gentler religious belief is an admirable one but I don't see any logic behind it. The idea of religious tolerance isn't a theological concept-- it is a secular one, a practical compromise made necessary by the material advantages of trading, commerce with people from different cultures.

The Bible teaches that we cannot make someone believe. If Bible Truth is presented to a person, they either believe it, or don't, they study or they don't.

International Standard Version Matthew 10:14
If no one welcomes you or listens to your words, as you leave that house or town, shake its dust off your feet.

So if a Christian is following Bible instruction, they won't browbeat anyone to listen to them.

I take my tolerance as Paul's admonition from the Bible, 1Cor13:1-13 I believe it is, the paean to love.

Correct.

[curlyqlink]

So if a Christian is following Bible instruction, they won't browbeat anyone to listen to them.

History does not bear this out; quite the opposite in fact. Heresy was long a punishable offense, the trials carried out by ecclesiastical courts. There's a long, undeniable record of Bible-literate believers not merely brow-beating doubters and dissenters, but literally beating, torturing them into repentance and sending them off this mortal coil. Since these inquisitors believed in an all-powerful, perfect, good Creator, their logic was faultless. God-deniers were the opposite of good, and if their message spread, it would jeopardize souls. In fact, if a few passes with a red hot iron would convince an apostate to repent, they were really doing said apostate a favor. The method is cruel, but the logic is undeniable... if the premise is accepted, that is, the premise of a wise, just, one true God.

We now have mostly a kinder, gentler sort of religious belief. Greater tolerance is wonderful, I'm all for it. But the impetus for tolerance didn't come from a sudden theological reinterpretation of the Bible-- it came from considerations of practicality, secular, and mostly material, considerations

But please allow me to ask whether that is your own belief, or whether you are an atheist explaining to Christians how they ought to believe and behave.

I'm an atheist, but what bearing does that have on the question? It is a question of logic, and my beliefs therefore have nothing to do with it. Far be it from me from telling anyone how they ought to believe (how they ought to behave is a different matter!) ... I'm simply pointing out a logical inconsistency of the other side's position.

[jgweed]

"How then can it be a matter of indifference when others deny God, or reject the true God in favor of false ones?"

This sentence seems to explain why some believers have (forgivenly) "trespassed" in this thread. It also, I think, illustrates the difference between at least some and what seems to be the general attitude of atheists; the latter are far less passionate---even indifferent--- about what others choose to believe.

This tolerance may be the result of (and I know this is a generalisation) the habit of most atheists to subject ideas and opinions to rational criticism and analysis, the skeptical mode of thinking this engenders, and hence a certain openness to the suggestion they may be in error.

This seems to me to be the historical hallmark of a rational and (if I dare use the term) humanistic approach to finding truth, just as intolerance has been the defining quality of much of religious thought.

[plainjane]

History does not bear this out; quite the opposite in fact. Heresy was long a punishable offense, the trials carried out by ecclesiastical courts. There's a long, undeniable record of Bible-literate believers not merely brow-beating doubters and dissenters, but literally beating, torturing them into repentance and sending them off this mortal coil. Since these inquisitors believed in an all-powerful, perfect, good Creator, their logic was faultless. God-deniers were the opposite of good, and if their message spread, it would jeopardize souls. In fact, if a few passes with a red hot iron would convince an apostate to repent, they were really doing said apostate a favor. The method is cruel, but the logic is undeniable... if the premise is accepted, that is, the premise of a wise, just, one true God.

We now have mostly a kinder, gentler sort of religious belief. Greater tolerance is wonderful, I'm all for it. But the impetus for tolerance didn't come from a sudden theological reinterpretation of the Bible-- it came from considerations of practicality, secular, and mostly material, considerations

Agreed, history is rife with examples, the Spanish Inquisition, the Mexican Inquisition, but you will please note, I did not say Religions. I said the Bible. There is a parting of the ways between Religion and the Bible more times than anyone can count.
Some religions left the Bible in the dust hundreds of years ago.

[plainjane]

This sentence seems to explain why some believers have (forgivenly) "trespassed" in this thread.

Ahh, a Bible teaching.
Sorry, just couldn't help myself.

This tolerance may be the result of (and I know this is a generalisation) the habit of most atheists to subject ideas and opinions to rational criticism and analysis, the skeptical mode of thinking this engenders, and hence a certain openness to the suggestion they may be in error.

I think sometimes an atheist may be the most idealistic, I can't say I was ever an atheist, I was more agnostic and came late in life to Christianity. I always felt there was something, after all - to me it was logical that someone had to be running the show, so to speak, and it wasn't humans, we've certainly screwed up everything we've touched, so there had to be something more. One feature of the Bible is that humans are given Free Will to choose how we believe and act, but not forever, a reckoning will come.
Anyhow as I started out to say re: idealism, the most cynical of persons started out as an idealist and was horribly disappointed in some life experience and that is their reaction to that disappointment. Very natural, but self-defeating.

To say that believing in a higher power is irrational thing is illogical IMO. Something/someone is running the place.

JMO

[Big Al]

Anyhow as I started out to say re: idealism, the most cynical of persons started out as an idealist and was horribly disappointed in some life experience and that is their reaction to that disappointment. Very natural, but self-defeating.

Everybody has countless horrible disappointments and bad experiences in life, and yet how many people are actually cynics? I think that the cause of cynicism is probably much more complex.

To say that believing in a higher power is irrational thing is illogical IMO. Something/someone is running the place.

You're essentially asserting that theism is rational...Because you say so. That's not a very good reason.

[plainjane]

Everybody has countless horrible disappointments and bad experiences in life, and yet how many people are actually cynics? I think that the cause of cynicism is probably much more complex.



You're essentially asserting that theism is rational...Because you say so. That's not a very good reason.

Causes of cynicism are far more complex, I was boiling it down to what I consider the basic of basics.

No, not because I say so.
Because a house does not build itself, because a car does not run its parts down the assembly line and put itself together.
This Earth, this Universe did not spring from thin air so to speak, and even if one believe in evolution, there had to be something that started the process.

[aabbcc]

To say that believing in a higher power is irrational thing is illogical, IMO. Something/someone is running the place.

It is logically possible that somebody is running the show.
However, that conclusion is, as far as I am aware, not logically necessary.

Only conclusion which is a logically necessary outcome from its premises is considered valid in formal logic. And even if you made a logically necessary conclusion, you must be well-aware of what precisely you have concluded and, even moreso, what you have not - watch the premises.

If you want to speak about which position is "logical" and which is "illogical", I am all for it - but, then, make it lege artis and write the full process of arriving to certain "logical" conclusion.

Concretely, I am not interested in whether G-d's existence is "logical", but rather in your statement that those who say that belief in higher power is irrational are being illogical when claiming that, I am interested in what is exactly logically flawed here that you mark it as "illogical"?

[Walter]

It sounds like this thread has veered rather far from its original intentions for atheists to talk about the repression of speech they feel in the society of Christians.

When the history of grievances against the Church enters the discussion then we are truly far removed from the original intent and out into deep waters where nothing will be resolved. And when the Inquisition enters the room I think even Dawkins departs, to the very best of my recollection having observed that enough already had been said about that matter and that he would rather talk about other things. And he did.

So, while I am still interested in hearing atheists talk about their own personal factual experiences where they have felt repressed in the company of Christians, I have faint hope we'll ever get around to that on the present course.

Accordingly, I have nothing else to say on this thread. Listening to atheists try to tell me with tired old arguments why I am wrong is finally just so boring. I have heard it all before, and enough times to convince me of the truth of Ecclesiastes, that there is nothing new under the sun.

Au revoir.

[aabbcc]

This Earth, this Universe did not spring from thin air so to speak, and even if one believe in evolution, there had to be something that started the process.

Ah, I love Aquinas' arguments. A beautiful example of an attempt to manipulate the logic.

There could be something that started the process, or there had to be something that started the process? What if the process we speak of is the one that never had a start and never will end, a cyclic one? Can you know and state as a fact that it is not?

What Aquinas is doing is indirectly assuming linearity of the process; which even though possible, is not necessary true, and he assumes that linearity based on the authority of G-d (whom he is trying to prove) who says that the process is linear and that once there was nothing (other than Him, of course) and now there are many things which caused one another, and He started the process. Sort of ad verecundiam, right?

[Big Al]

No, not because I say so.
Because a house does not build itself, because a car does not run its parts down the assembly line and put itself together.
This Earth, this Universe did not spring from thin air so to speak, and even if one believe in evolution, there had to be something that started the process.

That's true that the universe did not spring out of thin air, as there is actually no air in space. But seriously, I don't like to veer into science into discussions such as these (that never ends well), but since you brought it up, the now-famous Miller-Urey experiments established that amino acids, the "building blocks of life," so to speak, can be produced from non-living matter, and numerous experiments conducted since then have fully supported the initial results. As far the universe is concerned, the big bang theory explains how matter came to be spread out into what we now know as the universe, but according to the law of conservation of mass and energy, we can establish that the matter which comprises the universe not only did not appear out of nothing, but in fact has always existed.

Now, to wander back into the realm of philosophy, you are engaging in something called special pleading. The universe needs a creator, the earth needs a creator, man needs a creater, etc. First, why do they need a creator, and second, why is your god exempt from this line of thinking?

[plainjane]

Following your train of thought, I hesitate to call it logic, do we exist at all or are we only a figment of someone's/thing's imagination.
That argument can go all over the map, and as has been mentioned above, this thread is waaaay off topic.

Suffice it to say we are entitled to our opinions of what is logical or not.

Above referring to Anastasija's post.

[Big Al]

Oops, I just saw your edit. I'll wait for her to respond.

[plainjane]

That's true that the universe did not spring out of thin air, as there is actually no air in space.

Figuratively speaking.

Oops. I just saw your edit.

Yup, sorry about that, typing at the same time. Hadn't seen your post.