Frustrated athiest asks why do you believe in God?

[Audie]

"many hundreds"?

Try an infinite number of things, only really limited by ones imagination.

I guess @KenS also positively "believes" in the "non-existence" of gooblydockboeya
Gooblydockboeya is a creature I just made up. It has 7 legs, 3 eyes, 6 mouths and it squirts tomato sauce when it is laughing. I plan on catching one one of these days. I'll put it in a box and have it watch comedy 24/7 and bottle its squirt juices to sell at a premium to Italian restaurants.

There literally is an INFINITE number of things like that.

Noooo !
Not tomato sauce! I'm so glad its not real!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Noooo !
Not tomato sauce! I'm so glad its not real!

It is real, and I can prove it! He just made a bad assumption that it was good quality tomato sauce.

It takes only two words to prove that his evil deity exists: Heinz Ketchup.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

They appear to be trying to evade any need to defend their own views by insisting that they don't hold any views. (They simply lack views.)

I have plenty of views and beliefs. My atheism isn't a view or belief. My atheism is a response to claims of theism. And that response is non-belief.

Now, I have beliefs / views about humanism, secularism, democracy, capitalism, etc...
None of which are defined or related to my atheism.

It's just basic rhetoric that the burden of "proof" (actually the burden of being persuasive) lies with whoever wants to convince somebody else of something

The burden of proof has nothing to do with "wanting to convince".
The burden of proof has to do with making claims.

Theists are the ones making the claim.
Atheists are people not believing those claims.

Consider an analogy of a salesman.

The theist is trying to sell you something.
The atheist simply isn't buying what the theist is trying to sell.

One would think that if it was true that they simply lack belief in what religious people believe are the secrets of the universe, that atheists' attitudes would be curiosity: 'Tell me more! Tell me the secret of the universe and how you discovered it!'

We ask those questions all the time but no answers are forthcoming.

And if they have intelligent reasons for not being convinced, those reasons will probably reveal preexisting philosophical beliefs and would need defending if challenged.

My "preexisting philosophical beliefs" is that independently verifiable evidence matters.
So if you make a claim and can't support it with such evidence, then I have zero reason to believe it.

 

[Audie]

How is it irrelevant? Please provide something more beside blanket assertion.



I didn't ommit anything. You were simply incorrect.
Home? Why home? Why not the bar? Why not the swimming pool? Why not driving of a cliff?
The fact is that I could be going ANYWHERE. There is no specific action that I will be engaging in as a result of disbelieving the doctor.

The fact is that my disbelief of what the doctor says only results in the NON-action of doing what the doctor said I had to do. Which is go to the hospital.

How can you not understand this?




What principles? What are you talking about?



But I will not agree to things that are clearly wrong.
Both your examples were exactly what I predicted:
Nonbeliefs informing non-actions.

Because beliefs inform actions.

If you believe in a religion that says that you should burn witches, then that will inform your action to burn witches.
If you do NOT believe such claims, then that will inform your NON-action of burning witches. Ie, you will not be burning witches. You will do other things that are unrelated to your disbelief about having to burn witches.

You are still most welcome to try and come up with other examples that aren't preceeded by the word "not".

" How can a person not understand (the obvious)?"

See "philosophy"

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So what motivates all the anti-religious rhetoric from so many atheists? (Illustrated very eloquently in this thread.) Why are so many atheists so hostile towards religion and towards religious believers? Why all the knee-jerk dismissals? Why all the posturing as if atheists are the paragons of logic and reason, in a position to talk down to everyone else?

Sorry, but I just don't see it as you do. My posting, which is typical of a large number of skeptics, is not anti-religion, but anti-organized, politicized religion that wants to determine and enforce societal norms using government and also to marginalize and demonize atheists, and anti-faith. There is nothing knee-jerk about it, nor is their posturing regarding logic. Everybody is invited to be logical. It's not a theist-atheist thing per se, although the irrational thinking tends to cluster among the faith-based thinkers for obvious reasons.

You manifest a kind of bias that skeptics are familiar with - theists are good people, and atheists are bad people just trying to troll theists and maliciously pee in their cornflakes. When a theist expresses an opinion, it is good. When a skeptic disagrees, bad skeptic. Mean atheist.

If the theist spoke like a faith-based thinker embracing unsupported beliefs for whatever reason, and calling them that, then who would argue with that? OK, that's what you believe and why. I come from a different tradition that considers that kind of thinking undesirable, but for me. If others want to make decisions by other methods, as long as it doesn't impact adversely on the lives of unbelievers, why would I object?

What brings me to the table are false claims from theists, such as that their beliefs are logical and the product of reason when they clearly are not. I happen to feel strongly about that, and generally correct any error I see not already addressed by another poster. Yes, I realize what a meanie that makes me, theists just trying to have a good time using the word reason any way they like, and angry, malevolent skeptics offering a contradictory opinion, but this is an open forum in the marketplace of ideas, and just because the theists don't approve of and often don't understand what the critical thinkers are doing, and get angry when they see it, it's not a reason to relent.

We live in a time when faith, by which I mean unjustified belief, is having crippling effects. You've got the climate denier ready to let the planet fry. You've got the election hoax people storming the Capitol. You've got the antivaxxers prolonging a pandemic due to faulty thinking and unjustified belief. You've got the whole MAGA movement based on faith in several lies, ready to bring Republicans back to power in America.

So no to turning a blind eye to that kind of thinking. If one wants to call his beliefs faith-based, there's nothing to discuss. People familiar with my posting probably recognize the comment that if my neighbor wants to dance around a tree under the full moon at midnight shaking a stick with a chicken claw nailed to it while chanting and howling, I have said that I wouldn't mind as long as he kept the noise level down. I probably wouldn't even ask him what he believes or why, because it wouldn't matter to me unless it involved blood sacrifice or something like that, and I sure wouldn't try to talk him out of it or tell him what I think of his choices. In fact, if it centers him and gives him purpose, I'll help him find chicken claws.

But when he crosses any of a number of lines, such as telling me why his beliefs are reasonable, I'm going to tell him that I disagree. And if he's one of those theists who assumes moral or spiritual superiority because he has a God who has given him the ultimate moral code, the failure to follow which makes one immoral, as so many see all atheists for that reason, and because their churches teach them that, then I've got a few words in response to that.

You mentioned knee-jerk responses coming from the skeptics debating the believers, which I told you I don't see. Maybe you consider this an example of that. If you feel negativity for this post and its author for writing it, ask yourself why. Do you think this opinion is anything other than carefully considered, sincerely believed, and constructively offered? If you do, you're wrong. And wouldn't THAT be the knee-jerk reaction: atheist mean, atheist wrong. Do yo see these words as attacking you rather than disagreeing? That's a choice. I feel that I have a duty to comment on this type of anti-atheist bias. It's damaging to atheists if believed. Atheists have an obligation to point this out and to show why it's wrong, unfair, and unkind - exactly what they are accused of.

A thread that started out as a friendly request by a self-avowed "atheist" for others to explain why they "believe in God", has predictably turned into episode #2873496 of the never ending atheist vs religion battle. It's just stupid. If theists are being asked to give their reasons for believing in God, they need to be given the space to do so, without feeling that by sticking their necks out and writing about something emotionally very important to them, they are just inviting decapitation by a bunch of belligerent a**holes.

1. Who is NOT giving theists adequate space to explain their reasons?

2. And this is debate, and you are admitting that theists might be too fragile to explain their reasons without risk of criticism? Perhaps they have something to learn from this exercise. If the reasons are rational then what is the dilemma? If it is via faith, and faith is reliable, then what is the dilemma?

3. And who exactly is being an *******? Do you consider any debate to indicate a person is an *******?

Agree. The theists have not been prevented from answering the OP. If they haven't, it's because they choose not to. And if they choose not to because they find the debate milieu unpleasant, then that is their choice. But you know how it goes - mean old atheists just won't give God-fearing people a chance to answer. This would be a good place and an excellent opportunity for such people to become stronger there. I know RF is loathe to have any poster refer to any other poster even in an encouraging way, but we have an excellent example of a theist who calls himself spiritual, but has learned over the last year or two that atheists are not his enemy, and that he can safely engage them safely and even profitably. It's all in the attitude.

Regarding who the a******s are, I think you know. It's you and me and others like us. Why? For the reasons just given, the asymmetry of these discussions in the minds of the believers. It's really a symmetric situation, two camps sharing conflicting opinions in a place designed for that. That's how I see it. But not how those we disagree with see it. We're a******s.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I am simply tired of watching the same people insisting that oranges be held up and judged by the criteria of bananas over and over and over and over, to no result (because oranges aren't bananas). One would think after a while they'd "wise up", but they never do.

You don't get to decide what criteria others use to evaluate your words. You seem to think that the skeptic should use different standards for evaluating religious ideas. You seem to think that these ideas transcend reason. They don't. They defy reason and fail at that level.

I read a passage in a transcript of a Pinker talk that made me think of you:

I suspect people hold two kinds of beliefs. Their beliefs in the reality zone. This is the physical objects around them, the other people that they deal with face to face, the memory of their interactions. Even people who believe in chem trails or who are 911 truthers or lizard people, a lot of them hold jobs and keep food in the fridge and gas in the car and get the kids clothed and fed and off to school on time. It’s not that they are irrational throughout their lives, there are just certain zones in which they seem to depart from ordinary, verifiable cause-and-effect reasoning.

In the second zone, the mythology zone, which covers the distant past, the unknowable future, far away peoples and places, remote corridors of power, CEO boardrooms, presidential palaces, the microscopic, the cosmic, the counterfactual, the metaphysical. Here, people hold beliefs because they’re entertaining, they’re uplifting, they’re empowering, they’re morally edifying. Whether they are true or false is unknowable and irrelevant. And indeed, for most of our history, they were unknowable before we had science and government record-keeping and responsible journalism and historians and so on.

One example that hardly needs to be mentioned in this room is religion. A remarkable phenomenon that accompanied the publication of the quartet of books a dozen years ago by the “new atheists” — Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins — is that the furious counterreaction was not so much that they were wrong and that there is plenty of evidence to believe in the existence of God, but rather it’s somehow just, you know, inappropriate or uncouth to consider the existence of God to be a matter of truth and falsity in the first place. You hold it because it is a good thing to believe, not because it is factually accurate.
​

Obviously, those are not the critical thinker's value, and that may be at the heart of these disagreements. If correct, aren't theists well advised to actually say these things themselves? I think that you do, although it took me more than a year to understand what you were advocating because of your use of the word God. I always thought that you were advocating theism. Now I think that you are just advocating for a psychological state that you find beneficial, but injecting the word God into it, and asking others not to examine it too closely, claiming that it goes from oranges to bananas when you use that word. and exempts it from critical analysis.

You're also wrong that there is no benefit in applying critical thought to the ideas of faith-based thinkers just because theirs is not also critical thought. Obviously, I find benefit to this exercise, or I wouldn't participate in it. That you can't see what that is is not a reason for me to change that, or as you phrase it, wise up.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It is real, and I can prove it! He just made a bad assumption that it was good quality tomato sauce.

It takes only two words to prove that his evil deity exists: Heinz Ketchup.

Okay, I'm so going to have nightmares now about a dark cellar somewhere with hundreds of Gooblydockboeya's in chains laughing their squirts out into ketchup bottles.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

True. So better to encourage it than
suggest a more sensible approach.

Haha... I had a fleeting moment where, as I was writing that post, I thought the same thing for a moment... that the discrediting of religion probably comes more swiftly the more the most evangelical types are found to be spouting off about all variety of thing that they have no business claiming to know. Though you never reach that ultimate point where it is entirely discredited as long as there are the evangelical types who literally believe themselves as they go about their business, and spread the same to others. A sort of "Catch 22" perhaps...

 

[Kenny]

Thank you, but I really should not have had to explain what is rather obvious.

Theists seem to want atheists to make a positive statement about God when in reality one cannot do so with good evidence. Now if one wanted to talk about the Muslim God or the Christian God or the Jewish God or others many atheists will be able to explain to you why they think that those Gods do not exist. Most often it is the logical contradictions that eliminate certain gods.

I guess the need wasn't so much for you. Our conversation is really a spinoff from Tagliatali.

Yes, there are theists who want the impossible. It really is just a personal outcome as each individual processes what they see and think. IMO.

You could say that those who believe in God or gods, go through the same process of elimination of the other faiths.

 

[Kenny]

How is it irrelevant? Please provide something more beside blanket assertion.



I didn't ommit anything. You were simply incorrect.
Home? Why home? Why not the bar? Why not the swimming pool? Why not driving of a cliff?
The fact is that I could be going ANYWHERE. There is no specific action that I will be engaging in as a result of disbelieving the doctor.

The fact is that my disbelief of what the doctor says only results in the NON-action of doing what the doctor said I had to do. Which is go to the hospital.

How can you not understand this?




What principles? What are you talking about?



But I will not agree to things that are clearly wrong.
Both your examples were exactly what I predicted:
Nonbeliefs informing non-actions.

Because beliefs inform actions.

If you believe in a religion that says that you should burn witches, then that will inform your action to burn witches.
If you do NOT believe such claims, then that will inform your NON-action of burning witches. Ie, you will not be burning witches. You will do other things that are unrelated to your disbelief about having to burn witches.

You are still most welcome to try and come up with other examples that aren't preceeded by the word "not".

like I said... an effort of futility on both sides.

You are going all over the place and you haven't landed on any one point.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I don't care. I'm not in charge of how other people see the the world, or me.

You're not in charge, no... but you do have the ability to change perceptions, most definitely.

I offer what I can, and they can do with it whatever they choose.

Then I simply choose to do nothing with it. I remain completely unconvinced that I can utilize it toward any benefit whatsoever.

 

[savagewind]

Summary: Why do you believe in God? What do you find to be the most compelling evidence that God exists?

Long Version:
I have found that I am getting frustrated at the thought of people who do not listen to reason, logic, evidence, and facts. You may have noticed this frustration seeping into the conversations I have on RF. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just angry at you for not seeing what I see, which is not really fair. I'll will try to have more patience and explain things more clearly in the future.

One way to influence others is to first be influenced by them. In other words, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Maybe I would be less frustrated if I actually knew the reasons why you believe in God. Help me understand, and in turn I will respectfully respond, and if you care to hear I will respond with the reasons why I don't believe in God.

Thank you in advance for the conversation

I think that to believe doesn't matter as much as to imagine. I imagine God is the best friend that anyone can ever have. That is enough for me!

 

[Audie]

I think that to believe doesn't matter as much as to imagine. I imagine God is the best friend that anyone can ever have. That is enough for me!

I am lucky to have a friend who is actually
there for me.

 

[savagewind]

I am lucky to have a friend who is actually
there for me.

God is not about granting people miracles. It is a must that for God to be with you, you have to be with God. Is that not fair, in your opinion?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I guess the need wasn't so much for you. Our conversation is really a spinoff from Tagliatali.

Yes, there are theists who want the impossible. It really is just a personal outcome as each individual processes what they see and think. IMO.

You could say that those who believe in God or gods, go through the same process of elimination of the other faiths.

Not really. This would likely apply only to those that started without a belief. If one grew up with a belief, or even in the culture dominated by a belief, it can often be very hard for believers to see the flaws in their own beliefs. For example believers in the Adam and Eve myth cannot see that God was at fault if one interprets it literally. They will tend to make false excuses that are refuted by the story itself. What occurs quite often when a cherished belief is challenged is that one goes through cognitive dissonance. One makes excuses for the flaws in one's faiths. The entire practice of "Christian apologetics" appears to be an exercise in cognitive dissonance.

 

[Kenny]

Not really. This would likely apply only to those that started without a belief. If one grew up with a belief, or even in the culture dominated by a belief, it can often be very hard for believers to see the flaws in their own beliefs. For example believers in the Adam and Eve myth cannot see that God was at fault if one interprets it literally. They will tend to make false excuses that are refuted by the story itself. What occurs quite often when a cherished belief is challenged is that one goes through cognitive dissonance. One makes excuses for the flaws in one's faiths. The entire practice of "Christian apologetics" appears to be an exercise in cognitive dissonance.

I'm sure that can happen. However, since we know that there are atheists that become theists and visa-versa, you can't hold that as a standard.

Perhaps that would be more true if someone hasn't really sat down and asked the hard questions. Thus, those who thought that Adam and Eve were myths, got challenged, and became believers. (And visa-versa - of course).

Some atheists as well as deists will also go through cognitive dissonance to make excuses for the challenge.

 

[paarsurrey]

I think that to believe doesn't matter as much as to imagine. I imagine God is the best friend that anyone can ever have. That is enough for me!

What does mean here by God, please?
Does one mean Jesus-God, please?

Regards

 

[savagewind]

What does mean here by God, please?
Does one mean Jesus-God, please?

Regards

God is Father. But the son is not the father. The Father cannot be your friend because he is your father. So, Jesus!

 

[savagewind]

Jesus is not God. God is the disciplinarian. Jesus is not a disciplinarian. He is our friend.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm sure that can happen. However, since we know that there are atheists that become theists and visa-versa, you can't hold that as a standard.

Perhaps that would be more true if someone hasn't really sat down and asked the hard questions. Thus, those who thought that Adam and Eve were myths, got challenged, and became believers. (And visa-versa - of course).

Some atheists as well as deists will also go through cognitive dissonance to make excuses for the challenge.

I never said or implied that anyone is exempt from cog dis. It is just that the religious, those with strong political beliefs, followers of conspiracy theories, etc. are more prone to it. And I do not know of anyone that can reason logically that has ever accepted the Adam and Eve myth. Why would one believe in a lying God? If God lies all of his promises are for naught.