God or No God - that is the question (for atheists)

Before man had objective evidence about air he was quite happy to breath it in. Something can exist all right whether evidence has been found or not. Evidence found just means evidence was looked for and found. So, how have you (assuming your an athiest) looked for evidence taking into account the thesis in post 1 See thesis in post 1. How objective is your case against if you haven't looked in the right place. Assuming one can look in right place. Thesis says nothing about finding God except if he reveal himself. That he hasn't revealed himself to you or maybe doesn't reveal himself to anyone does not mean he doesn't exist.

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You appear to have made the leap into realising that it needs God to reveal himself in order for you to have proof of his existence.

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Not really.There are no beings visible who match the various descriptions of a supreme being. Therefore there is no God.Those who believe claim God must reveal himself to mankind, as you did in the OP. So I asked him to light the candle. He didn't. Therefore there still is no God.

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That supposes that God is at your beck and call - which is not rational.

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Asking one question that requires a direct answer is not asking someone to be at my beck and call. It is quite rational to try and contact the supposed source of information, especially when the flunkies can't get their stories straight. Scams are run by diverting people away from contacting the supposed person in charge.

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If blind disbelief then ok... but then their postion is irrational,

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If blind disbelief is irrational, then blind belief is also irrational.

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Someone can chose that there's no God but that has absolutely no bearing on whether God exists or not.

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Someone can chose that there is a God, but that has absolutely no bearing on whether a God exists or not.

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If they deny God on the basis of some thought out argument the ok too.

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Who determines what is sound?IMO my grounds are very sound.Mankind's view of the sun, planets, stars, etc. have changed over time. We now know that they are not beings to be worshipped or served. Religion based on a deity needs a deity to continue. So to keep the religion alive the deity had to be adjusted to the new information.No matter what I say you will adjust the rules, characteristics, etc. of your god. Unfortunately since your god resides within your imagination and from there the written word, it will never be in the real world.Outside the written word, God does not appear to be capable of:
speaking aloud to large groups of people.
showing himself to a large group of people.
manipulating man made items.
responding clearly to an individual request.Bottom line: You've provided nothing in which to believe.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

?????!!! Man had plenty of objective evidence about air....he was breathing it!! Plus he knew that if he stayed away from air (ie under water) too long that he died. The animals breathe air without any worries about defining it exactly.Perhaps you should pick a better analogy. Is this the IPU defense?edit: breathe vice breathThis message has been edited by LinearAq, 08-08-2005 01:29 PM

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Before man had objective evidence about air he was quite happy to breath it in. Something can exist all right whether evidence has been found or not. Evidence found just means evidence was looked for and found. So, how have you (assuming your an athiest) looked for evidence taking into account the thesis in post 1

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Strawman arguement. The act of breathing is an objective act. Gosh, even the most earliest part of the bible use the act of breathing for 'soul'.

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See thesis in post 1. How objective is your case against if you haven't looked in the right place. Assuming one can look in right place. Thesis says nothing about finding God except if he reveal himself. That he hasn't revealed himself to you or maybe doesn't reveal himself to anyone does not mean he doesn't exist.

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strawman arguement. We have objective evidence for air and breathing. What objective evidence do you have for any deity? We also are a lot more sophisticaed that the primative people when it comes to designing
a way to detect things, and to disprove them. Let's see you demonstrate an objective way to detect god. We have so MUCH more sophisticated equipment and techniques now.. surely if it so obvious as you claim, you can do that.

Your definition of God is that he has to be visable and/or match the descriptions man has made for him otherwise he doesn't exist. What if he exists, is invisable, intanglible using our standard senses, emotions etc., and all the descriptions are of false Gods? Assuming you say yes then all your saying is that he doesn't fit YOUR definition. A God in your own image and likeness as it were. Given what he would have done (create the universe) I think you trying to chop him a little bit to far down in size. I don't know about everybody else, I just said given what we can say about him, (if he created all that we can see around us) then he'd have to be the one that would reveal himself. I didn't say he'd want to or had to or anything like that. He might be totally disinterested in revealing himself to everybody. He may, for example only decide to reveal himself to those fit criteria which satisfy him. If he is a God who decides to reveal himself under certain conditions then folk can holler all they like. They ain't going to change things by that or claiming because he didn't respond on demand then he doesn't exist. None of what you say makes the slightest bit of difference if God exists. Your right. But have you ever given serious consideration to how such a request might be framed. Or is this it? Do you think it is reasonable that he might have criteria for revealing himself. Possibly for your own good. Like, if knowing him meant that huge changes were going to take place in your life, changes you would have no control over but would undergo purely by being exposed to him (think 'radioactivity' for a second) then it would be sensible for him to make sure you weren't asking disinterestedly or unthinkingly, without due consideration of the consequences. Say just knowing that he exists would mean massive change, one of which is that you would HAVE to believe he exists, this means that any free will you have to decide not to believe in him would evaporate. But if free will to believe what you want was one of his original goals, he could only reveal himself if he knew free-will was something you were prepared to hand back over to him, submit to him and what he may want for your life instead of you. I couldn't agree more. But your assuming belief is blind. That word faith can be misunderstood. You drive a car. You have faith that the brakes will work when you get to the next stop sign? You trust your headlights to work when you switch them on. Most times anyway. Why do you have faith in these things? Because they have proven themselves to you before. You know you can rely on them. If God revealed himself though, faith wouldn't be blind. Quite the opposite. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thank you Folk in a discussion on the subject, including yourself...if you chose (as you have) to enter one. If folk can pick holes in your logic you can of course chose to ignore it. It's a free world Every attribute or purpose I suggest of God are perfectly logical and there is no reason to suppose he doesn't have them. He may not have any of them but if he could, then each of your reasons has failed to take into account the possiblity that he may have these characteristics. IOW, your reasoning is limited to a pint-sized God as defined by you. And it's fair to say, if he does exist, there'll be plenty of things about him that would totally surprise you. Like, are you not surprised by what science uncovers about what would just be his creation? Me...I get blown away by a starry night or seeing the aquarium that is scuba diving. Imnagine the person who would have made all this. Sheesh!! Me, I think your imagining a very small a limited God to falsify. Your choice of course but why not aim a bit higher. imagine a really mind-blowing God then try and falisfy that onespeaking aloud to large groups of people. (Thus No free will)
showing himself to a large group of people. (Thus No free will)
manipulating man made items. (Thus No free will)
responding clearly to an individual request. (Thus No free will)If free will was a goal then he hardly going to bugger it all up is he?This message has been edited by iano, 09-Aug-2005 09:37 AM

You demand objective evidence of his existance to believe in him. Objective evidence as defined by you...to your satisfaction. But if God, then he doesn't have to conform to your demands at all (you would hopefully have the humility to agree with that). It can be just as easy (not to say far and away more likely) that YOU are the one who will have to conform to HIS demands. Is it not? One is reminded of the ant looking at the elephant saying "Get out of my way". Man is not in a position to dicatea terms to God.And for those who think I'm here to prove God, I'm not. This is the athiests chance to demonstrate that they have a rational,cohesive reason for denying God's existance which takes into account the thesis in post 1 (or shows the thesis to be invalid). Anybody ??

Hi Linear AQ. Do you want to have a look at post 1 and argue the athiest position to "The most important question" "Why theres no God" or "Thesis" You can either take the God as posited in post 1 (which are not the only things that could be inferred from observing the world around us - if he did exist). Or take the biblical one which means notions such a good /evil etc can be assumed to have some transcendent aspect to them (as opposed to being defined by humans). If you take the biblical God then it's assumed the bible is the word of God (if he exists). One or the other but not both together.iano

There is no objective evidence to show a natural cause for the universes existance. But an athiest must believe there to be a creator-less, natural cause in order to maintain his position as an athiest.Blind faith in a position, in the absence of objective evidence is called a Religion by most. Athiesm is thus a Religion?This message has been edited by iano, 08-Aug-2005 10:42 PM

Sure there is. It exists. There doesn't HAVE to be a "cause" or a "reason."But there is absolutely zero evidence that suggests the existance of a God.The Principle of Parsimony, otherwise known as Occam's Razor, tells us not to include eitities that are unnecessary to the equation. Until God is required to explain the universe, His existance is irrelevant at best. Poor analogy. Atheism isn't "blind faith." It's more like having your eyes wide open, looking around, but not seeing what the theist believes to be there even through his blindfold. Atheists don't have blind faith. They just don't see any REASON to believe in God.Theists, on the other hand....we are the ones with blind faith. Besides, if faith weren't blind, it wouldn't be faith - it would be knowledge.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

If we both agree that it exists, no, we don't. We don't need a working definition. It suffices for us both to simply agree that evil exists (which we do) and that evil is not good (which we do.)We have no need of a definition of evil if we both agree that it exists. Why? If we both agree that evil exists, that evil occurs, that humans experience evil; and if we both agree that evil is not good, and that benevolence necessitates being good, then it doesn't in the least matter what evil actually is.If we both agree that there is evil, and we both agree that evil is not good, then what evil is doesn't matter. It sufficies that we both agree that it exists. Well, yes, actually, we are. It's called "proof by paradox" and it's how most logical proofs go - starting with assumptions, you show how their consequences are logically exclusive and contradictory, so you know one of your assumptions is wrong. In this case, the assumptions under examination are:1) A benevolent, omnipotent God exists
2) A universe that contains evil existsSince I've proven how these both can't be true, we know one of them is false. Since we observe that the universe does indeed exist we know that God does not. Proof by paradox (another term for it is proof by contradiction.)

I don't know. Are there any religions that worship a god that's only mostly powerful? That would be comfortable concluding that one thing or another is entirely beyond the power of their God, no matter His will?Predictably religion seems to me to be a thing of extremes. Either the focus of worship is a being with the will and power to intercede no matter what, if you simply pray hard enough; or he's a distant figure, barely engaged in the doings of humanity, to whom the most fervent appeal is likely to be disregarded. Or sometimes both. There's sort of a feature creep in gods, I guess. Well, yeah, I do too. I don't believe that the absolutest formulation of God that I've described is particularly sensical or mature.If a person wants to believe in a God who's very careful to make sure that the only things He does are the things that would happen anyway, who am I to argue? Such a God can be neither proved nor disproved. But that person has constructed a God who can exert literally no detectable influence over their affairs, who needs no worship, who needs no regard except as a cosmic curiosity and has no interest in humanity except as marginally interesting living things on one little blue island in an ocean of stars.I contend that such a person is an atheist for all practical purposes; God has as much to do with their daily life and outlook on things as he does with mine.

Time is precious Rahvin. I'd rather discuss what an athiest has to say about his position than what a believer supposes his position is. You may well have been an athiest at some point but the current, up to date view is what I'm after. No offence.. Speak for yourself m8!

As an english major I don't know much about scientific or logical standards of proof, but I do know a thing or two about the characteristics of something I like to call "bullshit."The above tends to be one of the major characteristics of bullshit - excuses that try to turn a lack of confirming evidence into confirming evidence. If God exists, then it wouldn't be necessary to try and portray the lack of evidence for his existence as evidence of his existence. If God existed then you would simply be able to show the confirming evidence.If I told you there were ninjas in your room, and you looked around and said "I don't see any ninjas", and then I told you "of course you don't see any; ninjas are sneaky! The fact that you don't see them proves that they're there", you would rightly recognize that (I assume) as bullshit. Why can't you apply that same bullshit-sense to your own position?

Hi Hangdawg 13Me and Crash seem to having a problem with debating with each other (he keeps on using insult as a means to present his argument) so I'll leave you and him to battle it out. In his last post to you, he again uses the "existance of evil = no God" argument to which the counter hereunder is a useful rebuttal. It won't provide a coup d'etat but can help to lob the ball back into his court - should you so desire.

Look, that's it. That's the third time in two days I've been falsely accused of insulting people.I'm curt, I'm direct, and when people present bullshit to me, I don't smell it and call it chocolate. But I don't insult people. I don't attack people personally (though I do run close to that line when they do it first). I won't sit here and allow false accusations to pass unchalleneged any longer.Present the post where I insulted you, or retract the accusation. The debate will not continue until you do one of those two things. Every post you post in this thread until that time will be replied to, by me, with the text of this message.