Atheists....

[Domer121]

That is just screwy reasoning, by any reasonable standard. Would it help if I said I have an utter lack of belief in the existence of a god, just like I have an utter lack of belief in the existence of Santa Claus or leprechauns or fire-breathing dragons on Neptune?

I have no burden to prove the reasonableness of my disbelief. YOU, OTOH, if you aver that a god or a leprechaun or a fire-breathing dragon DO have a burden of proof. The ancient shibboleth, rather rudely put, it "put up or shut up.".

My disbelief in the three claimed supernatural entities mentioned about DOES NOT constitute a belief - disbelief is disbelief, it is not belief. I can explain and explain and even explain this to you, but I cannot understand it for you. You are going to have to do that yourself.

As for your god/brain analogy, it fails on this point: If I ask you to produce your god, or even some indirect evidence for its existence, I doubt you could do it (could you?). However, if you doubt the existence of your brain, I can remove it and show it to you before you then die - ditto your heart, liver, etc.

IOW, there is no analogy between material objects and ridiculous imaginary immaterial invisible allegedly existing supernatural entities, be they called gods, angels, ghosts, demons, fire-breathing dragons, nymphs, succubuses, incubuses, human vampires changing into bats, a race of giant ants living on Pluto, etc., etc.

IOW, yingqiee, let your imagination run wild - just don't expect me to take you seriously.

I would like to ask you, though, how do you think we came about, without a God...evoloution is faulty and the simple existence of our being seems a little far fetched.....Do you actually think we just came about by chance?
THink about this: The parts of a sports car may be floating around the Galaxy, but without someone there to put them together how could they come about? Not simply by chance and hope that they will, in time, be put together.
And the simple fact that there are Athiest's does not disprove the existence of God, actually quite the contrary.
"If there were no God there would be no Athiest's"
G.K CHesterton 1922

[Wintermute]

I live in Mississippi. I can verify through several decades of personal experience that you are correct, sir. With few exceptions, most people here react emotionally to any questioning of the doctrines of fundamentalist christianity as if you had just called their mother a whore.

I live in Georgia and agree with both of you. To suggest that the bible may not be entirely accurate is to invite ridicule and disdain. To vocalize the notion that the christian god might simply be myth of human origin feels dangerous. Sometimes I'm uncomfortable even posting in forums like this because it's entirely plausible that some religious (or atheist) zealot my come to power and use internet trails to hunt down and 'reeducate' so folks--a digital inquisition if you will. But then I think, well, if it goes that far do I really want to play anymore?

[Wintermute]

I would like to ask you, though, how do you think we came about, without a God...evoloution is faulty and the simple existence of our being seems a little far fetched.....Do you actually think we just came about by chance?

Hi Domer,

As an agnostic, this is easy to answer: I dunno.

I'm sure this has been pointed out a gazillion times in this and other forums, but the same could be said about God, no? How did God come about? Was it really just sitting in a vacuum for infinity, then 13 billion years ago decided to create a universe? Seems a little hokey to me. What created God? Who was Jesus' grandfather?

The fact that the universe appears to exist is an amazing thing. By my simple logic, there should be nothing, nada, zip. Yet here we are. Something amazing is going on. What it is I don't have a clue, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't care if I eat meat on Fridays or not.

[Redzeppelin]

I live in Mississippi. I can verify through several decades of personal experience that you are correct, sir. With few exceptions, most people here react emotionally to any questioning of the doctrines of fundamentalist christianity as if you had just called their mother a whore.

There are, no doubt, plenty of Christians who do this (sad to say); however, I have often encountered in these forums atheists whose language reveals a clear disdain for beliefs that are profound and meaningful to Christians. Questioning is fine - believers should be prepared for questioning. What we get tired of is snide, dismissive language that implies the silliness, meaninglessness or absurdity of our position. There's a difference between reasonable, respectful debate and condescending language geared to trivialize the opponent's position. That is always unacceptable - at least in educated discussion - whether one is Christian or atheist.

[metal134]

There are, no doubt, plenty of Christians who do this (sad to say); however, I have often encountered in these forums atheists whose language reveals a clear disdain for beliefs that are profound and meaningful to Christians. Questioning is fine - believers should be prepared for questioning. What we get tired of is snide, dismissive language that implies the silliness, meaninglessness or absurdity of our position. There's a difference between reasonable, respectful debate and condescending language geared to trivialize the opponent's position. That is always unacceptable - at least in educated discussion - whether one is Christian or atheist.

But see, the only reason this is percieve as targeting Chritianity is because it is really THE religion that is prevelent in this country; I can't say that I've had religious debates with Muslims or Jews because, quite frankly, it's almost all Christians to be found. And to be quite frank, I am dismissive of ALL organize religion because I feel very, very strongly that it is illogical. That doesn't mean I am atheist; I am open to the possibilty of a Supreme Being, heck, I even think it's probable. But I on't pretned to know. As someone said before, the burden of proof is on religion. People say, well you can disprove this or that about religious matters, but I don't get that logic. I'm more concerned with whether it can be proven than disproven.
As far as the dismissive factor; why shouldn't people be dismissive? We should all respect a person's right to have a different belief, but the belief itself is open to scrutiny. Because the fact of the matter is, with all the hundreds, nay, thousands of different belief systems on the nature of divinity and the universe, only one can be right. And naturally, if I think mine is right of course I'm going to think that everyone elses is wrong because if I am right, then everyone else IS wrong, and it goes back the other way as well.

[bluevictim]

I have a question for anyone who believes in the necessity for a divine law to add weight to our criticism of what we find to be unethical:

If you were criticised for a practice which another culture found to be unethical, would you be willing to change that practice if the critics argued that it went against the teachings of their religion (however this is not a religion you follow)?

This is a good question, and hopefully one that can serve as a starting point to help clear up what everyone is trying to say. Actually, I'm not exactly sure if I qualify as someone "who believes in the necessity for a divine law to add weight to our criticism of what we find to be unethical", so I guess my answers might help to clear that up, too.

Hopefully it's ok if I simplify the question a little and assume that the practice I'm being criticized for is required by my religion (and, of course, I assume I believe wholeheartedly in the tenets of my religion). In that case, I would not change my practice.

I don't know what point you're trying to make (if you're trying to make a point at all) with this question, but I might guess it is that believing in the existence of a divine moral law doesn't add any weight to ethical criticism because here is a critic who believes in the existence of a divine moral law and yet his criticism of my behavior is not any more effective for it.

I'd like to point out, though, that my critic can prove that my practice is incorrect in his logical system, in which one of the axioms is that Zeus (say) thinks my practice is unethical, and another axiom is that Zeus is always correct.

If we make realistic assumptions about everyone's logical system (e.g., that it is true in everyone's logical system that our judgement is subject to error), I think it would be very hard to build a consistent (or at least not easily shown to be inconsistent) system without Zeus (or something very Zeus-like) in which my critic can prove that my practice is incorrect.

Like everyone else pointed out, this doesn't prove the existence of Zeus. It does allow my critic to sleep better at night after he burns me at the stake.

[Domer121]

Hi Domer,

As an agnostic, this is easy to answer: I dunno.

I'm sure this has been pointed out a gazillion times in this and other forums, but the same could be said about God, no? How did God come about? Was it really just sitting in a vacuum for infinity, then 13 billion years ago decided to create a universe? Seems a little hokey to me. What created God? Who was Jesus' grandfather?

The fact that the universe appears to exist is an amazing thing. By my simple logic, there should be nothing, nada, zip. Yet here we are. Something amazing is going on. What it is I don't have a clue, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't care if I eat meat on Fridays or not.

I respect your answer....I mean, there are a lot of questions out there and not a lot of answers.. I am simply saying that the rejection of a God seems, well, illogical. The way that any faith expresses themselves is up to them,whether that means not eating meat on Friday or not..I have never been able to understand the reasoning behind Athiests..But I suppose they say the same about Christians.

[yingqiee]

That is just screwy reasoning, by any reasonable standard.

You can prove there are no dragons on neptune the same way that you can prove i have a liver. Yours appears to be as defective as mine.

I have no burden to prove the reasonableness of my disbelief. YOU, OTOH, if you aver that a god or a leprechaun or a fire-breathing dragon DO have a burden of proof. The ancient shibboleth, rather rudely put, it "put up or shut up.".

Well, by the same argument that you apply faith to your disbelief, I apply faith to my belief: I have an utter lack of disbelief in the non-existence of this forum, in the non-existence of the world, just like I have an utter lack of disbelief in the non-existence of God. God does not exist just because you have linked the existence of God to examples of the existence of ridiculous creatures like fire-breathing dragons. If you wish to apply the philosophy of radical skepticism to belief in God, as you have just done, try applying it to your disbelief on God. Care to elaborate on why you don't have a burden of proof?

disbelief is disbelief, it is not belief. I can explain and explain and even explain this to you, but I cannot understand it for you. You are going to have to do that yourself.

Disbelief is still belief. Lets reduce this to well-defined propositions as present in mathematical logic. Let P be a proposition. Let not-P be the inverse of P. (1)Suppose disbelief in P is not belief. Disbelief in P would suggest a person belives in not-P because that is the inverse of P. Referring to (1), it creates a contradiction. Thus disbelief is belief of the inverse WELL-DEFINED proposition. A well-defined proposition is one in which it represents only one value, like pyramids existed in Egypt in 2006, July........

there is no analogy between material objects and ridiculous imaginary immaterial invisible allegedly existing supernatural entities, be they called gods, angels, ghosts, demons, fire-breathing dragons, nymphs, succubuses, incubuses, human vampires changing into bats, a race of giant ants living on Pluto, etc., etc.

same thing. your disbelief in God is an immaterial and invisible entity. I wont put the non existence of God as imaginary, because I cant prove that and like wise you cant prove that God is imaginary. I would also not label it as ridiculous.

In the end I believe lack of proof for the existence of something does not constitute its non existence. If someone believes or does not believe in something, its faith.

Just like I notice that many of my atheist friends have faith in the theory of evolution.

[yingqiee]

I would like to ask you, though, how do you think we came about, without a God...evoloution is faulty and the simple existence of our being seems a little far fetched.....Do you actually think we just came about by chance?

That is very true. According to Professor Morowitz from Yale, evolution of just bacterium from random interactions would exceed the 15 billion year age of our universe, and the 5 billion year age of the Earth.

[Guzmán]

without a God...evoloution is faulty and the simple existence of our being seems a little far fetched.....Do you actually think we just came about by chance?

'Evolution is faulty'. well, that is a pretty pretentious claim considering that evolution is accepted by many (if not most) biologists without the hand of God to connect its supposed faults. Perhaps you could point out those faults you talk about, as well as your sources.

THink about this: The parts of a sports car may be floating around the Galaxy, but without someone there to put them together how could they come about? Not simply by chance and hope that they will, in time, be put together.

Think about this: you have a disordered room, all of your stuff is lying on the floor and everything is out of its place. Now suppose you start kicking and throwing things around at random, there is a chance (though quite small) that at some point everything will become ordered, just by chance. The same way some unordered chemicals left at the mercy of the forces of nature may arrange themselves into something more complicated. YThe chance may incredibly small, however, I wonder how much beyond what you think is "common sense" you know about this topic to talk about the consecuences of probability and time. I suggest youread a little about Statistical mechanics and Statistical thermodynamics or stochastic processes before making that sort of claims about what probability may or may not do at the mercy of time.

[Guzmán]

That is very true. According to Professor Morowitz from Yale, evolution of just bacterium from random interactions would exceed the 15 billion year age of our universe, and the 5 billion year age of the Earth.

Perhaps you could add some bibliography. In which paper did you find this, website, magazine, etc.

[RobinHood3000]

There are, no doubt, plenty of Christians who do this (sad to say); however, I have often encountered in these forums atheists whose language reveals a clear disdain for beliefs that are profound and meaningful to Christians. Questioning is fine - believers should be prepared for questioning. What we get tired of is snide, dismissive language that implies the silliness, meaninglessness or absurdity of our position. There's a difference between reasonable, respectful debate and condescending language geared to trivialize the opponent's position. That is always unacceptable - at least in educated discussion - whether one is Christian or atheist.

Not that I condone dismissing or snide comments on either side of the line, but I should point out that, at the base of it, many of us atheists believe what we believe because we believe that to believe otherwise contains an element of the absurd. (Tough sentence to wade through, I know, and for that I apologize.) There does come a point where to try and describe atheist beliefs in pithy and simple language is to sound offensive, particularly when speaking with people just looking for reasons to take offense.

So far, I've seen a lot of atheists make an effort to be civil, but when the occasional theist gets his/her fix of righteousness by being snide and dismissive to us and regards our arguments (however civil) as heresy, it's hard not to be a little huffy about it.

[Redzeppelin]

Not that I condone dismissing or snide comments on either side of the line, but I should point out that, at the base of it, many of us atheists believe what we believe because we believe that to believe otherwise contains an element of the absurd.

I understand this - but Christians feel the exact same. To us, some of evolution's claims and atheist answers for this reality we wander through seem just as outlandish to us - the difference is that atheists appear to have science on their side, so there's a tendency to speak to us as if were delusional madmen.

So far, I've seen a lot of atheists make an effort to be civil, but when the occasional theist gets his/her fix of righteousness by being snide and dismissive to us and regards our arguments (however civil) as heresy, it's hard not to be a little huffy about it.

And as my post agreed, there is no shortage of obnoxious Christians out there who have a hard time according sufficient respect to their atheist opponents. Perhaps it's just me; but I have a difficult time hearing any opponent who is dismissive about my beliefs. Dismissiveness telegraphs a disdainful attitude, one that doesn't encourage open discussion, but the more hostile tone of mud-slinging. I can't imagine posting some of the things towards atheists that I get thrown at me. I lose interest in dealing with such people because I don't expect to get as fair a hearing as I 'm attempting to provide them with.

[RobinHood3000]

I understand this - but Christians feel the exact same. To us, some of evolution's claims and atheist answers for this reality we wander through seem just as outlandish to us - the difference is that atheists appear to have science on their side, so there's a tendency to speak to us as if were delusional madmen.

By the same token, there's also a tendency to speak to us atheists as if we were hedonistic sociopaths. ~shrug~ People are lousy sometimes.

And as my post agreed, there is no shortage of obnoxious Christians out there who have a hard time according sufficient respect to their atheist opponents. Perhaps it's just me; but I have a difficult time hearing any opponent who is dismissive about my beliefs. Dismissiveness telegraphs a disdainful attitude, one that doesn't encourage open discussion, but the more hostile tone of mud-slinging. I can't imagine posting some of the things towards atheists that I get thrown at me. I lose interest in dealing with such people because I don't expect to get as fair a hearing as I 'm attempting to provide them with.

Agreed - thankfully, I've had the good fortune to encounter quite a few friendly and open-minded Christians (for some reason, I never get to meet other major religious sects, although based on demographic research of my school, they're a serious minority, so it's not that surprising). Of course, there have been one or two not-so-open-minded folk, but they, too, are in the minority. I'm just apprehensive about what happens when I enter the realm of adults, i.e. "people who get a lot more leeway about criticising beliefs." At least people my age have the fallback of "You're mean!! I'm telling!! ~huff~"

[Redzeppelin]

People are lousy sometimes.

Amen to that, brother.

I'm just apprehensive about what happens when I enter the realm of adults, i.e. "people who get a lot more leeway about criticising beliefs." At least people my age have the fallback of "You're mean!! I'm telling!! ~huff~"

Well, being in the realm of adults, I still don't think we should have the prerogative to be dismissive and disrespectful. As I tell my students when teaching them to argue a point, the goal is not to "conquer" your opponent but to win him/her to your side. People are more likely to hear you out if they sense you respect them.