Faith in no God

[tas8831]

Believers in all things science hear what "must" be true so many times they come to believe it. Once you believe something you can no longer see anything else.

Like how you believe that infants decide to grow a part of their brain?
Like how you believe that 'survival of the fittest' is both a pejorative ( a lie) and a summary of evolution?
Like how you believe that only you understand a non-existent language?

 

[cladking]

Any creator god are supernatural, and if they SUPPOSEDLY CREATED NATURE, then it nature didn’t occur naturally, as in “nature processes” in accordance with “natural law”.

Either nature occurred through natural law or it occurred through supernatural, like magic and miracles.

You've tied this all up in a nice little bow.

Science equals "natural law" which our omniscience has revealed to us. There's no need to define or defend the existence of such laws because they are apparent.

Anything that isn't obviously the result of natural law is necessarily "supernatural" for which no evidence exists.


An infinite number of butterflies in China couldn't possibly lead to you seeing you have assumed the conclusion.

What would an experiment on the supernatural look like? Does "God" create on demand? How do you experiment on life, man, or nature with no definition for "consciousness"? Can everyone learn everything or does it first require faith and a belief in "natural law"?

 

[rrobs]

Quite apart from the universe "coming from nothing" being ill-thought through

What was here before the universe?
[QYUOTE]you talk as if this "God" (presumably one of the many thousands of possibilities offered by humans) is more likely than any other fantastical story one might make up. Why?[/QUOTE]
I didn't mean to say "more likely." I just suggested the the same possibility.
[/QUOTE]There's also "a chance" it was Kevin, the equivalent of a spotty teenager in some hyper-universe, who had a new physics set for his birthday. Or maybe it was a collaboration between supernatural races of pixies and elves, who wanted somewhere to play, or...., or....[/QUOTE]
If you want to go there, I suppose you are right.

 

[ratiocinator]

What was here before the universe?

I don't think "before the universe" refers to a time.

I didn't mean to say "more likely." I just suggested the the same possibility.

Same possibility as what?

 

[rrobs]

I don't think "before the universe" refers to a time.

So the universe has no beginning? I don't think even science suggests that.

Same possibility as what?

Good question. I don't know. It must be a possibility for something though. Would have to read the thread to see what.

 

[Polymath257]

So the universe has no beginning? I don't think even science suggests that.

You are identifying 'no before the universe' with 'have no beginning'. They are not the same thing.

If time itself is finite into the past (in other words, if time had a beginning), then it is possible that the universe has existed whenever there was time (so there was no 'before the universe') but that it 'had a beginning' (along with time).

That is what some versions of the Big Bang theory actually suggest: that time is finite into the past.

Now, it is *possible* that the 'singularity' at the start of the universe (which is why time cannot be defined earlier) is not a reality and that time *can* be extended to 'before the Big Bang'. But, in that case, the universe also existed in some form and was not caused.

I don't know of any scientific theory that has an actual time before the universe (except in multiverse models, in which case, there is no time before the multiverse).

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

I don't think science has yet to explain how something, i.e. the universe, came from nothing. If that is true, then there is still a chance that God actually did it.
.

This is what is known as the 'god of the gaps' argument, but even there it has a flawed premise.

Firstly, even if the claim was being made, or the evidence suggested that 'the universe came from nothing', that would not justify using the default explanation that 'goddidit'. Just pointing to an unknown and claiming it must have been god because it's currently unknown is a methodology that has been disproven every single time something has become known. Not once, when something has become known, has the explanation been supernatural in nature, or has god indeed been discovered to be the cause.

Secondly, the claim that 'the universe came from nothing' has never been put forward by anyone that isn't an apologist as a straw man to contrast with the goddidit explanation; or in other words, that's an argument nobody is making.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I don't think science has yet to explain how something, i.e. the universe, came from nothing. If that is true, then there is still a chance that God actually did it.

There is always a chance that a god was involved, just no evidence for it. Merely being possible isn't interesting. Being actual is.

But if something can come from nothing, what would a god be needed for?

Blind faith sounds like what you are talking about. I should have clarified how I look at faith. It's the same way most dictionaries look at it. For example, here is how dictionary.com defines it in the first definition: "confidence or trust in a person or thing:"

You're back to your dictionary with one definition. You've been told that there are several definitions of faith. You just defined justified belief, or belief based in evidence. Calling that by the same word that you use to mean unjustified belief will lead to ambiguity and equivocation fallacies. You don't seem to mind.

I think it may be that many consider anything that comes from a Christian has no merit.

Any idea generated from a faith-based assumption - and note that I will use the word faith only to mean unjustified belief to avoid the confusion created by using the same word to mean different things - has no merit to me.

Recently, I have been dealing with two Christians on different threads arguing ideas based on their faith that in one case, abiogenesis didn't occur (and by default, divine creation did), and the other arguing that the resurrection did occur, both faith-based beliefs that have led to some of the worst arguments possible.

The former is relying on the fact that the steps in abiogenesis haven't all been worked out yet, which is obviously irrelevant to the question of whether it occurred or can occur, and the latter that he has eyewitness testimony that can't be proven to be false.

We simply never see this kind of thinking coming from anyone but faith-based thinkers trying to defend their faith-based beliefs from reason and evidence, but see it too frequently with the religious. It's simply not a good way to decide what is true about the world. It's just guessing.

And if one guesses against god, he will have an easier time with reality. If you believe in evolution by faith rather than by examining the evidence and arguments, then as that evidence becomes evident, it supports your guess, whereas when you guess wrong, you have to undergo mental gymnastics like those described above to defend your wrong guess.

Belief is always belief and can never become "fact" or "truth". You can sit in a chair a million times and with no warning collapse on the one million and first time.

You just expressed a belief as fact. I agree with you that the chair can collapse following any test of it. We know that that is possible because we have seen it happen before. I'd call that both a belief and a fact. You may have a different understanding of belief.

We can't predict the future

We do that every day. I'm predicting that I'm going to be attending a bridge tournament. I'm predicting that I will get into my car, drive there, park, and play bridge. I'm not able to predict the outcome, but afterward, I predict that I will get back in the car, come home, and my wife and dogs will be here to greet me. None of that is known with certainty. It is only a prediction. But it is very likely to be an accurate one.

Believers in all things science hear what "must" be true so many times they come to believe it. Once you believe something you can no longer see anything else.

You just described indoctrination, or the belief in an idea not because its validity has been demonstrated and accepted as valid by the application of reason to evidence, but simply because it was repeated often enough. One can train himself to not let this happen by simply not believing anything more than the relevant evidence supports.

We have supporting evidence that the scientific method and its fruits are valid. We don't need to be indoctrinated into that belief if a compelling argument can be made that science works.

 

[Valjean]

rrobs said: ↑
I don't think science has yet to explain how something, i.e. the universe, came from nothing. If that is true, then there is still a chance that God actually did it.

But God is not an explanation, just an agent. Thus far, only science is investigating "how."

 

[Polymath257]

Except that I was around on Wednesday.

Well, you have memories of such, but those memories were created last Thursday.

 

[Polymath257]

Yes. Faith is not a bad thing. I just sat down in my chair with complete faith it would not fall apart.

I don't think that is the same type of thing at all. For example, you can see the chair. You know the general properties of wood by experience. You have probably sat in that same chair before.

Now, consider the following situation: Suppose you are in a dark room and cannot see. Someone told you there are a hundred chairs in the room and at most one may be stable. You feel around and find a chair. Do you have 'faith' that it will hold your weight?

Suppose you did sit in that chair and it held your weight. Then you stood up and wandered around. You find a chair. it may or may not be the same one. Do you have 'faith' that this chair will hold your weight?

This is how I see religions: there are hundreds of religions and at most one can be valid. Do I trust that any particular one of them I hear about is valid?

I think the obvious answer is no.

 

[Milton Platt]

Since it can not be proven there is no God any more than it can not be proven there is a God, it would take no less faith to believe there is no God than it would take to believe there is a God.

Without faith in one or the other, the only true thing someone could say is they don't know if there is not, or there is a God. At least that would accord with the lack of evidence one way or the other.

If there is a difference in the faith required to believe one way or the other, I'd be curious to hear about that difference.

one hundred percent certainty is not the goal, nor is it ever attainable for most questions in life. You must apportion belief in a proposition in accordance with the quantity and nature of the evidence as measured against the nature of the claim.
It has often been said that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That is quite untrue in most cases.
If you went to the doctor and he gave you a cancer checkup and told you you were cancer free, would you insist on chemotherapy anyway?

In this case, there is not one claim, but hundreds of competing claims of a god. All different, most mutually exclusive.
The evidence for all of them consists of hearsay and "personal experiences" which cannot be corroberated. The god (s) are said to be supernatural in nature and we cannot test for the supernatural.

It is reasonable not to believe in something until the evidence warrants belief. It isn't about faith, it is about believing that which can be reasonably demonstrated to be true.

How much faith do you need to not believe in Leprechauns or unicorns?

 

[Milton Platt]

Yes. Faith is not a bad thing. I just sat down in my chair with complete faith it would not fall apart.

When you can provide the same level of evidence for your god as there is for a chair, I will have equal faith in your god as I do a chair.

 

[Milton Platt]

If the non-believer is simply claiming he has not sufficient evidence to believe God, that is an honest and logical mindset. However, it falls apart when the same individual states unequivocally that there is in fact no God. It becomes even worse when casting aspersions on those who do believe in God. Just because one person has no evidence doesn't negate someone else having evidence.

Yes, if one claims that there is no god, then they have the same burden of proof as the one claiming that there is. It is often quite easy to provide evidence that a specific god does not exist if the god is sufficiently defined. Given that there have been thousands of different gods, and then thousands of versions of each of those gods, one cannot possibly disprove each and every one in a lifetime of lifetimes. But there is no reason to believe a god exists for the same reason that one does not believe in unicorns, or Russel's teapot.

Unfortunately for your current argument, most atheists tend to simply not believe in a god rather than assert that there can be no god. There could be a god hiding under a rock in a far corner of the universe and we would not know. But until we do know, there is no reason to think so.

 

[gnostic]

Hi @Satans_Serrated_Edge

I have only just noticed what you put in your Religion profile:

“The temple of ham sandwich”​

Well, that’s new, original and funny.

 

[cladking]

You just expressed a belief as fact. I agree with you that the chair can collapse following any test of it. We know that that is possible because we have seen it happen before. I'd call that both a belief and a fact. You may have a different understanding of belief.

I consider it a tautology. It is not a belief if you assume everything is as it appears to be.

I believe (it is a fact from my perspective of what reality appears to be) that "belief" can be defined as certainty. If you are certain God made little green apples or that it is natural law that apples fall on the heads of philosophers then these are beliefs. If you compute the odds of any specific apple hitting a head then it is more an observation rather than a belief.

We do that every day. I'm predicting that I'm going to be attending a bridge tournament.

The odds are in your favor.

Try computing the odds that any specific butterfly in China will generate a specific hurricane.

One can train himself to not let this happen by simply not believing anything more than the relevant evidence supports.

There's a fine line between indoctrination and learning or between belief and fact. Based on what surgeons knew in 1850 it was believed that washing hands before an operation was a waste of precious time. But surgeons didn't do it and they all knew that a patient bleeding to death needed immediate care. They were wrong on both counts and their patients died because they were wrong. Today we know all kinds of things but we still can't see anomalies and still don't know why so many (all) patients die.

Learning to see the anomalies is more important than even learning to see beliefs or facts.

We have supporting evidence that the scientific method and its fruits are valid.

Except for the anomalies that we generally can't see.

It's not so much supporting "evidence" that is usually cited to validate "science" but rather the magic trick we call "technology". We mistakenly believe technology ios indication of understanding of all the processes involved but this is far from the truth. You don't even need to know how gravity works to design a counterweight or fly a rocket to the moon.

 

[tas8831]

Does "God" create on demand?

God doesn't create at all.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Since it can not be proven there is no God any more than it can not be proven there is a God, it would take no less faith to believe there is no God than it would take to believe there is a God.

Totally disagree.

The "there is no god" claim is far more consistent with observable reality then the "there is a god" claim, especially if we don't consider a "generic" god, but a specific one like the one described in the bible.

There is exactly zero objective evidence for a god.
If the statement "there are no gods" is accurate, then there shouldn't be any evidence for gods.
There is no evidence for gods.

So reality supports the "no god" hypothesis and not the "there is a god" one.

So to believe that there IS a god, requires more faith then to believe that there is no god.

Without faith in one or the other, the only true thing someone could say is they don't know if there is not, or there is a God. At least that would accord with the lack of evidence one way or the other.

1 of the problems with your presentation here, is that you are mixing 2 claims together.
On the one hand, there is the claim "there is a god".
Then there is the claim "there is no god".

You can't believe both of them since that would be contradictory. But you CAN disbelieve both of them.

My atheism, is a response to the first claim, not the second.

I do have a stance on the second, but my atheism is defined by my stance on the first as that is the claim that theists make and that is the claim I respond to with disbelief, which makes me atheist.

If there is a difference in the faith required to believe one way or the other, I'd be curious to hear about that difference.

Well I just told you.

Reality is consistent with there being no god, as there is no evidence of gods.

There not being any evidence for rainbow eating unicorns, is also consistent with the view that there are no such unicorns.


Furthermore, to end with, the claim in the form of "x doesn't exist", is a useless claim without merrit. Because you can logically never prove something does NOT exist. You can only prove that something DOES exist - by pointing it out and making it available for observation.

This is why the burden of proof is always on the POSITIVE claim.
"god does NOT exist" is not a positive claim.
"god exists" is. That's the one that requires rational justification.

It comes down to the null hypothesis, which is "non existance is assumed until existance is demonstrated".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Existence is a pretty solid argument for a transcendent Creator. That is just one of the reasons atheism is an irrational worldview.

"existence" isn't an argument.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Well first you have to define what you mean by God. Then you must present an argument (which you can't) that can explain it better. If you invoke cosmology then you fail (because you do not understand the question).

No.

You are required to meet your own burden of proof.
Nobody needs to come up with alternative explanations for anything to counter your mere assertions.

You act as if your bare assertion is to be accepted by default until somebody provides a real explanation.
Sorry, it doesn't work that way.