Faith in no God

[ratiocinator]

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

Sorry but this is utterly absurd. A god who creates a universe is just as mysterious and unexplained as a universe by itself.

 

[Yazata]

Since it can not be proven

It's probably a mistake to think in terms of "proof". We don't typically encounter proofs outside mathematics and logic. In real life, our arguments (hopefully) make our favored conclusions more likely, our conclusions aren't necessary implications of our premises. (Which are rarely certain anyway.)

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.

I think that's probably a function of what we mean by the word "God". Do we mean the character from the Hebrew Bible? Or are we talking about the object(s) of natural theology: first cause, source of cosmic order, the reason why existence exists in the first place, and all the rest?

The arguments of natural theology are really metaphysical questions and it seems to me that there's a lot more reason to believe that those questions have answers than there is to believe in a Biblical style God. (Some philosophers would argue that the questions are pseudoquestions, wrongly conceived and nonsensical.)

The answers to the metaphysical questions are currently unknown. Assuming that they indeed have answers suggests that some unknown answer(s) exist out there in possibility space. If we want to call the answer(s) "God", fine with me. That's not unlike how the ancient Neoplatonists approached it with their ineffable transcendant Source, their 'One'. That's more or less how the Pseudo-Dionysius and John Scotus Eriugena approached divine transcendence in the history of Christian theology.

But having said that, my own view is that equating the Source of Being itself, the source of cosmic order and the ultimate explanation for... everything... with a human-style personal psychology, a "person" who chooses particular human ethnic groups on one planet to be his "chosen people", who concocts the bizarre set of laws set out in the Hebrew scriptures for them, who orders the extermination of entire ethnic groups in ISamuel, who died on the cross (or had his avatar die on the cross, or something), who dictated the Quran to Mohammed... seems far less likely to be true than merely admitting that the big metaphysical questions still lack answers.

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.

I basically agree that all of human cognition involves faith. By "faith", I mean willingness to commit to conclusions when they aren't 100% certain.

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.

What I do is express my opinion about what kind of answer seems to me most likely to be correct. That's obviously not a "proof" but it is an informal probabilistic-style argument. What I reject is the idea that since no conclusion is 100% certain, that any conclusion is just as good as any other.

Consider two propositions:

1. Reality has some unknown explanation.

2. Reality has an explanation and whatever explains reality also is a "person" (a human-style psychology) who revealed "himself" in very specific ways to the ancient Hebrews (or to Mohammed, or to Arjuna...) and that these revelations are accurately recorded in particular "scriptures"?

Which is more likely to be true?

 

[Valjean]

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".

I don't understand how being useless and without merit precludes "god does not exist" being a positive claim.

 

[Valjean]

Sorry but this is utterly absurd. A god who creates a universe is just as mysterious and unexplained as a universe by itself.

True, it's absurd, but not because God is mysterious and unexplained. Lots of real things are mysterious or unexplained. It's absured because God is unevidenced.
The universe is, at least, well evidenced. Its mysteriousness and explainability are matters of degree.

 

[ratiocinator]

True, it's absurd, but not because God is mysterious and unexplained. Lots of real things are mysterious or unexplained. It's absured because God is unevidenced.
The universe is, at least, well evidenced. Its mysteriousness and explainability are matters of degree.

Indeed, I meant that the argument that the universe is a good reason to postulate a god, because it is otherwise unexplained, was absurd.

Both the universe by itself and a universe plus a creator god are/would be equally mysterious and unexplained

 

[rrobs]

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.

Who decides what is unjustified? If it's me, I'd say your belief in evolution is unjustified. If it is your decision, I am the one with unjustified beliefs. Something of a conundrum there.

 

[rrobs]

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

Technically you are right. But I was there on Tuesday also.

 

[Polymath257]

Technically you are right. But I was there on Tuesday also.

You seem to be missing the whole point of Last Thursdayism: it is the concept that *all* of your memories were created Last Thursday with the rest of the world. So all your memories of previous events are simply wrong (because they are false memories).

So, under Last Thursdayism, no, you were NOT there last Tuesday. Your memories of Tuesday were created last Thursday, like everything else. They are simply inaccurate memories about what actually happened.

 

[rrobs]

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.

Exactly! I see it and I know it's general properties by experience. That is precisely why I have faith it will hold me up. The same thing as having faith my best friend will pay me back to $100 I lent them. I sure wouldn't have faith in a complete stranger. Why? No familiarity = no faith.

It is possible to learn enough about God that it leads one to know Him well enough to have the faith that what He says He will do, He will actually do. It's really simple. Read the book with an open mind, forgetting all the religions. Religions are man made, the scriptures were inspired by God. At least that's what the book says about itself. As always, belief is optional.

 

[rrobs]

You seem to be missing the whole point of Last Thursdayism: it is the concept that *all* of your memories were created Last Thursday with the rest of the world. So all your memories of previous events are simply wrong (because they are false memories).

So, under Last Thursdayism, no, you were NOT there last Tuesday. Your memories of Tuesday were created last Thursday, like everything else. They are simply inaccurate memories about what actually happened.

Now I see where you are coming from. Interesting you pointed out the inaccurate nature of memory. I just watched a documentary about eye witness accounts. It said pretty much what you just said.

 

[Polymath257]

Exactly! I see it and I know it's general properties by experience. That is precisely why I have faith it will hold me up. The same thing as having faith my best friend will pay me back to $100 I lent them. I sure wouldn't have faith in a complete stranger. Why? No familiarity = no faith.

It is possible to learn enough about God that it leads one to know Him well enough to have the faith that what He says He will do, He will actually do. It's really simple. Read the book with an open mind, forgetting all the religions. Religions are man made, the scriptures were inspired by God. At least that's what the book says about itself. As always, belief is optional.

Um, the scriptures were written by men also. If you read the Bible with an open mind, I would say that you would realize it is mostly ancient superstition like many other books from that time period and after. If you then look into the archeology and history of the time and place, you will be able to fit it into context and realize some of the motivations of the writers.

 

[Polymath257]

Now I see where you are coming from. Interesting you pointed out the inaccurate nature of memory. I just watched a documentary about eye witness accounts. It said pretty much what you just said.

Which is why second and third hand accounts, as given in the Bible, are unreliable.

 

[Polymath257]

Now I see where you are coming from. Interesting you pointed out the inaccurate nature of memory. I just watched a documentary about eye witness accounts. It said pretty much what you just said.

That wasn't quite the point. The point is that *all* your knowledge of last Tuesday comes from either your memories or from deduction concerning something that exists now. If everything was set up last Thursday to *exactly* mimic what you would have been like last Thursday, there is no way for you to tell the difference.

This is true even if memory was 'absolutely perfect'.

To say things like star light was created en route to the Earth or the fossils were falsely placed is just a form of this Last Thursdayism. If you reject Last Thursdayism, you should also reject these other 'explanations'.

 

[rrobs]

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.

I never thought of the fine difference between on believing and not knowing. It's a good point. I guess atheists are more open minded than I thought. Maybe the, "until we do know" part will come true one day. That was my experience. I wasn't born with a Bible in my hands. For 25 years I did the best I could to live and believe in no God. During that time I never considered that I just didn't have enough evidence to believe in God. I unequivocally knew there was no God, and I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that I'd go through my entire life that way. Why people tend to be so closed minded is something hard to understand, but there I was. Of course, as you can tell, I changed my thinking. I can say unreservedly that I like the side of the fence I'm on now. It is one place where I've found the grass to actually be greener.

 

[rrobs]

Which is why second and third hand accounts, as given in the Bible, are unreliable.

Except for it's claim that it was written by men inspired by God. God has no memory problems. Of course, if the book lied about it's ultimate origin, then it's a moot point.

 

[Audie]

Sorry but this is utterly absurd. A god who creates a universe is just as mysterious and unexplained as a universe by itself.

It is not necessarily very lovable for someone such as @Maximus
to call people irrational, but perhaps no harm is meant.

We note, though, that 41 percent of scientists, or ten times as high
a percent as in the population as a whole, are atheists.

The more education a person receives, the more likely they are to become atheists (1). Non belief also increases with intelligence and income. Residents of more educated countries see religion as less important in their daily lives (2).
-psych today

Pew Analysis: The More Formal Education You Have, the Less Religious You Are

...............................

Independent-
Religious people are, on average, less intelligent than atheists, researchers claim.

With the number of people with a religious belief on the rise – it’s predicted that people with no faith will make up only 13 per cent of the global population by 2050 – numerous studies have explored the relationship between religious convictions and IQ.

And now, in a new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, researchers say that diminished intelligence among people of faith could be because they largely rely on intuition.

 

[Valjean]

Who decides what is unjustified? If it's me, I'd say your belief in evolution is unjustified. If it is your decision, I am the one with unjustified beliefs. Something of a conundrum there.

Straw man - Wikipedia

 

[rrobs]

Which is why second and third hand accounts, as given in the Bible, are unreliable.

Maybe this is a repeat of what I said before, but the scriptures claim they were written by men who were inspired by God. It's not their own memories that they went by.

 

[Audie]

Straw man - Wikipedia

Nah, it is not about definition of strawman.

It is the definition of justified.

Creodefinition for
justified: blind faith

unjustified: all relevant data from all of the
hard sciences

 

[Valjean]

Exactly! I see it and I know it's general properties by experience. That is precisely why I have faith it will hold me up. The same thing as having faith my best friend will pay me back to $100 I lent them. I sure wouldn't have faith in a complete stranger. Why? No familiarity = no faith.

It is possible to learn enough about God that it leads one to know Him well enough to have the faith that what He says He will do, He will actually do. It's really simple. Read the book with an open mind, forgetting all the religions. Religions are man made, the scriptures were inspired by God. At least that's what the book says about itself. As always, belief is optional.

But The Book is full of mistranslations, known inaccuracies, copy errors, contradictions, &c.

 

[Audie]

Maybe this is a repeat of what I said before, but the scriptures claim they were written by men who were inspired by God. It's not their own memories that they went by.

Yews, a claim.
One that in court we would call
"assuming facts not in evidence"