Atheists questioning their Atheism?

[Pegg]

You mean the book 'There is a God' in which Roy Varghese stresses that fact, don't you?

no,

it is Antony Flew who is giving his own account of his change of heart.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

no,

it is Antony Flew who is giving his own account of his change of heart.

Sure it is.

 

[Pegg]

Sure it is.

have you read it?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

have you read it?

No, I haven't.

 

[Pegg]

No, I haven't.

maybe you should

he gives some very compelling reasons for belief in a creator.

 

[Autodidact]

some of them do...and some of them change

Have you heard of Antony Flew? He is/was one of the 19th centuries foremost atheists who promoted atheism and was the mind behind some of todays atheistic arguments such as 'the burden of proof rests with theists therefore atheism should be the default position'

well, he's changed his position on atheism and now believes in a God. He says that it is the overwhelming evidence from modern science which has drawn him to that conclusion.

Other than being dead, that is. What actually happened is that toward the very end of his life, Mr. Flew became somewhat less than competent, and that weakness was exploited by some lying Christians who will stop at nothing, including ghost-writing a book for a poor senile old man.

 

[Autodidact]

[youtube]SNkxpTIbCIw[/youtube]
let the man speak for himself then

[youtube]X1e4FUhfHiU[/youtube]
dont you love you tube

I do. Not a word about Jesus or any personal God anywhere in there. Maybe Deism at most? Deism and atheism are kissing cousins. His views seem closer to mine than yours.

 

[Starsoul]

My point is if a child grows up in modern day civilization without ever hearing about God, that child will not believe in God.

Does that imply that the children born in a natural world and natural surroundings are more inclined to the belief in God by the 'natural' effect of Nature?

Good point; modern civilization, Industrialization , gadgets, robotic machines, structured cement, blaring lights and noise, all somewhat contribute to shun that natural experience of absorbing the Godly element, that all earlier civilizations seem to have always lived with.( even I always feel happier, calmer in natural surroundings, hate tall buildings, luxury hotels etc)

It is a general observation though that more of the people living in less developed/3rd world countries, believe and have faith in God, than the numbers of people living in highly developed countries and continue to be dharmic, agnostic and athiestic.

 

[Pegg]

My point is if a child grows up in modern day civilization without ever hearing about God, that child will not believe in God.

that is actually not true

in my husbands family, no one was brought up with religion of any sort, the grandparents are/were atheists and his parents had no religious influence while growing up nor did they introduce religion into their childrens lives

out of 5 grandsons, 1 believes in spirits although he's unsure what they are but he is certain spirits exist.

In my family, we were brought up without religion, yet out of my brothers and sisters, I came to believe and have a religion


I really think belief is a personal matter for each individual. Everyone will have their own reasons for their beliefs and its not necessarily because its what they were taught to believe or grew up with.

 

[BeeBooga]

that is actually not true

in my husbands family, no one was brought up with religion of any sort, the grandparents are/were atheists and his parents had no religious influence while growing up nor did they introduce religion into their childrens lives

out of 5 grandsons, 1 believes in spirits although he's unsure what they are but he is certain spirits exist.

In my family, we were brought up without religion, yet out of my brothers and sisters, I came to believe and have a religion


I really think belief is a personal matter for each individual. Everyone will have their own reasons for their beliefs and its not necessarily because its what they were taught to believe or grew up with.

But you aren't paying attention. You were introduced to it SOMEWHERE in life, unless you want to tell me you didn't walk out into the world, go to school, meet other humans, etc. So were your husbands brothers and sisters. So were your brothers and sisters. It's just a matter of who dismissed these thoughts as they came up over the course of time.
Were you not 'witnessed to' or 'called upon' (someone came to your door or found you and talked to you about your religion)?

 

[Alceste]

Really? You don't understand the concept of the theistic god?



I don't know many, if any, atheists who think that when someone uses the word "god", they mean the Christian god. But the theistic god, specifically the Abrahamic one, is the only one that really matters for this. Sure, there are many different meanings for the word "god, but many of the ones other than the theistic one are either labels for something else we already have words for, like nature and love, or they're really more about different ways of viewing the world, rather than an actual being that is believed to exist in reality.

As far as the Egyptian gods, Thor, Guan Yin and the god of the Phelps', they are all theistic gods, and are for all intents and purposes the same as the one you learned about as a kid.

They are not at all the same. There is no "the" theistic god. As I view gods as personalized psychological constructions (something like Jungian archetypes) and some believers are polytheistic, there are far more gods than believers. So, I make a point of getting a theist to be extremely specific about her god's characteristics before offering an opinion.

"God" is just a word. If the diversity of theistic beliefs in this world is any indication, it could refer to pretty much anything. Because I have not constructed my own god/s, it really doesn't mean a thing to me.

 

[Magic Man]

Well, religion is a science after all.

No, it's not.

No, I mean man is predisposed to worship himself, autotheism.

OK, where do you get that idea?

I see, so what exactly makes one a theist in your eyes?

A theist is someone who believes in a theistic god.

Ok, so because I don't belief in the Christian God or any supernatural God for that matter, does that make me an atheist?

From where I sit, anyone who doesn't believe in a theistic god is an atheist.

I simply stated that atheism was a belief, an ontological stance.

In a way, you belief that a God does not exist, therefore being a belief.

Yes, I believe no god exists. Some other atheists also hold that belief, that is not necessary to be an atheist. All you have to do is lack a belief in God. Atheism is not a belief.

Now, would you mind answering my questions? I'll repost it for you:

How do you "use the definition of atheists against them"?

It seems what atheism actually is, is rejected by most atheists.

I understand completely, believe me, you a long with about 12 others have said almost the same exact thing to me.

It seems that all of the people that I am having this conversation with are arguing points against me that I never made.

No, what atheism is is not rejected by most atheists. This is where your misunderstanding comes in. You don't actually understand atheism, but you want to claim you understand it better than everyone else, even atheists.

The fact is atheism is the lack of belief in God. It sometimes manifests as a belief that God does not exist, too, but that's unnecessary. That's what most or all atheists accept because that's the truth.

No, a person does may not know that he is creating a path by speaking his mind.

Creating isn't something that is evident to one until he realizes what he has done.

So, for all we know, we could be a by product of something that "God" created knowingly.

Creating requires no intelligence, just mere existence.

Ah, OK, you're a little confused is all. That person is still intelligent. When I say "intelligent" or "intelligently", I'm referring to a being that is conscious and has awareness of things, a being that is alive and self-aware. This god you're suggesting is still the theistic god, a god that has some kind of mind and can think. You're getting caught up in the idea that we could be the by-product of something else this god did, but the relevant part is still that you're describing a being with a mind like us.

Alright, one will not believe in God, because he or she does not want to, even if evidence has been provided.

Yes, the biased view that atheists don't believe in God because they don't want to regardless of evidence. Sorry, but that's completely false. Are there some who might fit your description? It's certainly possible. But that's not your average atheist. An atheist doesn't believe in God generally because there is a lack of evidence for God. It has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting to believe.

Don't get me wrong, people change theistic beliefs all the time, but the point being that evidence is evidence to one who sees it as evidence.

No, it's not. Evidence is evidence regardless of what you believe.

I know you said many. But my comment still applies.

So do you have a point to bring up behind this.

OK, let's revisit your comment that you think still applies:

Of course, but the misconception is that you think that all atheists and scientists think that.

That is incorrect. I do not think all atheists and scientists think that. It is a misconception that I think that, as evidenced by the fact that in the comment you're responding to, I even specifically said "many", not "all".

Things I've heard?

Let's just call it empirical evidence.

Your right, it's all irrelevant, spending my time defending myself against arguments that are directed towards arguments that I never made.

Let's not call it empirical evidence. You're not even understanding what I said. Those sentences you wrote before are things you've heard that sound cool to you because they sound deep, when in reality they're meaningless.

You've made the arguments that atheists reject the "real" definition of atheism and that atheists predeny the existence of God because they don't want to believe in him. I'm arguing against those. So, no, you're not spending time defending yourself against arguments you've never made.

What's irrelevant is your response to my comments here. It's just a bunch of deepities.

See how that works?

 

[Magic Man]

i've read the book 'There is a God' in which he stresses the fact that life could not have originated by a chance combination of chemicals.

That's great, and this is what I'm talking about. I understand how people who have grown up religious and want to believe in God fall prey to such easily debunked arguments, but not an intelligent man who's spent decades understanding the fallacy of such arguments.

He agrees with Einstein's belief that there must be an intelligent mind behind the creation of the universe and life.

That's not Einstein's belief. Einstein made a lot of statements that religious people like you like to twist into something they're not. He was poetic and metaphorical with his quotes. He said himself that he believes in Spinoza's god, which is a pantheistic god, not a theistic one.

So he came to believe that life was created by a 'creator'...for some of us that means 'God' for others it means something else but the point is that he no longer believed we were alone in the universe....something or someone became real to him.

Yes, he mind-bogglingly fell prey to the horrible argument that the complexity we see in life and nature requires an intelligent creator.

 

[Magic Man]

Does that imply that the children born in a natural world and natural surroundings are more inclined to the belief in God by the 'natural' effect of Nature?

Good point; modern civilization, Industrialization , gadgets, robotic machines, structured cement, blaring lights and noise, all somewhat contribute to shun that natural experience of absorbing the Godly element, that all earlier civilizations seem to have always lived with.( even I always feel happier, calmer in natural surroundings, hate tall buildings, luxury hotels etc)

It is a general observation though that more of the people living in less developed/3rd world countries, believe and have faith in God, than the numbers of people living in highly developed countries and continue to be dharmic, agnostic and athiestic.

No. The point about modern day rather than in previous centuries is that we understand the world much better. We have explanations for things, so that we don't have to make them up. It's OK not to believe in God, whereas it wasn't in the past.

What I was saying is that in modern day we have no use for the god of the gaps, and a child is not likely to turn to that as the explanation for things when the real explanations are readily available. It has nothing to do with this unfounded notion of cities drowning out nature and blinding us to god.

 

[Magic Man]

that is actually not true

in my husbands family, no one was brought up with religion of any sort, the grandparents are/were atheists and his parents had no religious influence while growing up nor did they introduce religion into their childrens lives

out of 5 grandsons, 1 believes in spirits although he's unsure what they are but he is certain spirits exist.

In my family, we were brought up without religion, yet out of my brothers and sisters, I came to believe and have a religion


I really think belief is a personal matter for each individual. Everyone will have their own reasons for their beliefs and its not necessarily because its what they were taught to believe or grew up with.

You heard of God, right? That's the key part of my comment. A child who grows up without hearing about God from others in modern-day times will not believe in God. Yes, there are children who grow up in modern day in an irreligious house, but they inevitably hear about God from others. That's why it's a hypothetical situation.

And the one grandson that believes in spirits still doesn't believe in God (or at least that's not what his belief in spirits implies).

 

[Magic Man]

They are not at all the same. There is no "the" theistic god. As I view gods as personalized psychological constructions (something like Jungian archetypes) and some believers are polytheistic, there are far more gods than believers. So, I make a point of getting a theist to be extremely specific about her god's characteristics before offering an opinion.

"God" is just a word. If the diversity of theistic beliefs in this world is any indication, it could refer to pretty much anything. Because I have not constructed my own god/s, it really doesn't mean a thing to me.

A theistic god is an intelligent being that created the universe and controls it. So, the Egyptian gods, Thor, etc. are for all intents and purposes the same. There are differences, sure, but they aren't significant. The difference between a pantheistic god and a theistic one is big and significant, on the other hand. Those theistic gods share the qualities that atheists reject, because they are the qualities that make them illogical and irrational.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Just to go back to this...

i've read the book 'There is a God' in which he stresses the fact that life could not have originated by a chance combination of chemicals. He agrees with Einstein's belief that there must be an intelligent mind behind the creation of the universe and life. So he came to believe that life was created by a 'creator'...for some of us that means 'God' for others it means something else but the point is that he no longer believed we were alone in the universe....something or someone became real to him.

While Einstein did make mention in believing in some sort of god-concept (he describes himself as believing in "Spinoza's God") and expressed disagreement with some of the atheists of his time, in his own writings, he refers to himself as an agnostic and a freethinker.

Some quotes where Einstein shares his view on God:

I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance — but for us, not for God.

The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously.

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

As the first way out there was religion, which is implanted into every child by way of the traditional education-machine. Thus I came — though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents — to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.

My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.

You can find many more here: Albert Einstein: Thoughts of a Freethinker

 

[Orias]

No, it's not.

Your right, religion exists for more than trying to explain the unexplainable. It controls and oppresses people, and on top of that, it makes people lash out against it in conceptual fabrications and Opposite ideals.

The definiton of science fits the religious idea that one holds belief in order to explain phenomena.

OK, where do you get that idea?

AP Psychology, and learning to recognize Satanic influence.

It's everywhere.

A theist is someone who believes in a theistic god.

Alright, so how do you define theistic God?

From where I sit, anyone who doesn't believe in a theistic god is an atheist.

Easy enough.

Yes, I believe no god exists. Some other atheists also hold that belief, that is not necessary to be an atheist. All you have to do is lack a belief in God. Atheism is not a belief.

But I've had atheists tell me that it is, I've also had atheists tell me that "strong atheism" is and that "weak atheism" isn't.

That would be much like saying Modern Satanism isn't a belief, only Theistic Satanism is.

How do you "use the definition of atheists against them"?

Disbelief is used to define atheism (one of the many definitions).

Disbelief is a belief, in the sense that you believe that no Gods exist.

No, what atheism is is not rejected by most atheists. This is where your misunderstanding comes in. You don't actually understand atheism, but you want to claim you understand it better than everyone else, even atheists.

Actually I'm not misunderstanding at all.

I must just have different atheists telling me different things that come into contradiction with each other.

The fact is atheism is the lack of belief in God. It sometimes manifests as a belief that God does not exist, too, but that's unnecessary. That's what most or all atheists accept because that's the truth.

If it was the truth it would be consistent, and it's not.

Ah, OK, you're a little confused is all. That person is still intelligent. When I say "intelligent" or "intelligently", I'm referring to a being that is conscious and has awareness of things, a being that is alive and self-aware. This god you're suggesting is still the theistic god, a god that has some kind of mind and can think. You're getting caught up in the idea that we could be the by-product of something else this god did, but the relevant part is still that you're describing a being with a mind like us.

I'm not confused at all.

You seem to have this idea that I'm disagreeing with everything your saying.

Yes, the biased view that atheists don't believe in God because they don't want to regardless of evidence. Sorry, but that's completely false. Are there some who might fit your description? It's certainly possible. But that's not your average atheist. An atheist doesn't believe in God generally because there is a lack of evidence for God. It has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting to believe.

Sure, then your assessment of evidence must be blown completely out of proportion.

If it were simply a matter of evidence to sway one's mind, atheism would be irrelevant to description.

No, it's not. Evidence is evidence regardless of what you believe.

Way to agree with me.

That is incorrect. I do not think all atheists and scientists think that. It is a misconception that I think that, as evidenced by the fact that in the comment you're responding to, I even specifically said "many", not "all".

I will never falter.

I clearly see through your ploy :rainbow1:

Let's not call it empirical evidence. You're not even understanding what I said. Those sentences you wrote before are things you've heard that sound cool to you because they sound deep, when in reality they're meaningless.

Diddo

You've made the arguments that atheists reject the "real" definition of atheism and that atheists predeny the existence of God because they don't want to believe in him. I'm arguing against those. So, no, you're not spending time defending yourself against arguments you've never made.

I never made the argument, I simply stated it out of what you provided as an argument.

Perhaps you should be more understanding of what your trying to explain to me.

What's irrelevant is your response to my comments here. It's just a bunch of

deepities.[/quote]

Clearly beyond your comprehension.

 

[Alceste]

A theistic god is an intelligent being that created the universe and controls it. So, the Egyptian gods, Thor, etc. are for all intents and purposes the same. There are differences, sure, but they aren't significant. The difference between a pantheistic god and a theistic one is big and significant, on the other hand. Those theistic gods share the qualities that atheists reject, because they are the qualities that make them illogical and irrational.

No, not all gods are creators and controllers of the universe. Polytheistic gods, for the most part, are more often anthropomorphised symbols of natural forces, concepts or relationships. A river god, a goddess of death, a god of war, a goddess of motherhood, a trickster. Even among Abrahamic faiths you have deities like Mary, who didn't create anything at all but is nevertheless the primary recipient of Catholic prayers. The Buddhist Guan Yin fills a similar role - compassion.

Further to that, many disciples of these archtype-deities do not believe they literally exist as corporeal entities. The God of the Christian, Zionist or Muslim fanatic is the least sophisticated, interesting and complex of God concepts - it is simply the believer's own childish super-ego projected onto the cosmos. Most monotheists, IME, have a much more complex, reasonable and highly personalized god-concept, but if you don't get them to explain it you will never know what it is.

 

[Starsoul]

You heard of God, right? That's the key part of my comment. A child who grows up without hearing about God from others in modern-day times will not believe in God. Yes, there are children who grow up in modern day in an irreligious house, but they inevitably hear about God from others. That's why it's a hypothetical situation.

And the one grandson that believes in spirits still doesn't believe in God (or at least that's not what his belief in spirits implies).

It also depends upon a person's state of mind and thinking, athiests can not render athiestic tendencies/urgers/opinions as the ONLY intelligent opinions or the only intellectually stimulating estimates, since people who believe in a God are widely dispersed between, a farmer to a PHd, Doctor, engineer, lawyer etc and relating athiesm to intelligence is just a means to claim superiorty over the rest ,about something that they don't even want to know about, and yet attempt to apply their thoughts at in order to explain it.(i.e lack of God)

While athiests think that athiesm is a visual lack of physical evidence of God, in their eyes, and should be intelligently interpreted as no-god, the same physical evidence of creation all over the universe, is utilized to have been created by SOMEONE, by the believers through the revelations and confirmation of the divine scriptures. And these people by no means can be called any less intelligent , if IQ & EQ are under inspection.

It is quite plausible that ancient people, thousands oR millions of years ago, had sufficient intelligence to operate within their means and benefit from too, it is weird that all modern day people think that intelligence is only a recent phenomenon and can only come up with science. They did not have cars, but they had animals for travel, they hunted food for themselves, were creative enough to cook meals,make utensils, and make herbal medicines for their ailments, they took care of their families, which I think is far more intelligent, and does not in anyway strip them of any intelligence .

And if they thought there was someone out there who had created all the means for them to survive on Earth, and then the word of God came to affirm their thoughts, is also quite reasonable. It is just not possible for an ancient man to have thought more about a Deity then is presented to humanity about Him, in the Abraham religion books, and also to have come up with huge organized religions, with All abrahamic religions having more or less the same mention of the same Prophets, morals etc.

Because what we see as the kind of 'deity concept of a god', that some uncivilized people in the jungle ( who are unexposed) celebrate, with sacrificing their women , is what probably all people would be following if people were left to their own imaginations to believe in whatever they wished and we'd be all finito by now ,owing to the violent ,uncontrolled nature of man to obtain his desires.

Not going to debate on this point, but I do feel that ancient people had more emotional intelligence and wisdom (owing to their abiding by religion) than the chaotic insaneness of the modern day superficial lifestyle inspired intelligence. Anciently, there has been violence and injustices in those societies the most where religion was not being followed.

The definition of modern happiness starts from plastic and ends on it, looks, money, nice ride, social status, girls, and countless divorces and emotionally disturbed kids. I don't call it intelligent when people enjoy objects more than they enjoy relationships. No religion calls for cruelty, mass murder or wars, and it is really strange that secular govts of the world today, still impose wars on other people, while cornering religion as the cruel war mongering , political culprit. It is people who are corrupt, and corrupt people are found everywhere, and they have been growing significantly with the divorce that religion has suffered from the state rule, anyhow.


So ,the essence of what Im trying to say is, that if a person, even being a kid likes the idea of God( like I really did, and was aware of at a young age) and follows it because he hears of it, and actually sees how he benefits from it greatly on all levels of intelligence, emotions and actions, he is bound to stick to it for long.

Atheism, however is a stance of lesser imaginative people, totally dependent on the current legal system ( which i find really unjust to a great extent) if seen from a faith point of view, because what believers believe in; the afterlife and the day of judgment, definitely has a good effect on the believer's overall lives and thats is why they strive to remain positive, are able to forgive and forget & move on, as they hope to see a good future for themselves in the end . And they do not loose hope , even if the world has failed to bring justice to them, since they know and believe that a completely 'just' judgment is yet to come from God, which is the only one that can truly compensate. And places where people do follow some defined judgements that are outlined by God, justice prevails.

On the other side, there are many suicidal tendencies in athiestic people , along with severe depression and drug abuse in most, if statistics are observed. Why are they so hopeless from life?