The Paradox of Atheism and God

[PureX]

I don't demand proof of gods.
(I know that none would be forthcoming.)

Or it's all around you and you simply can't understand or verify it as such.

It's like believing in Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, & fiscally responsible Democrats.
But take belief in loopy things too far, & you risk harm to self & others.

It's actually not like that at all. As trusting in those concepts will not produce much if any positive results in one's life. Whereas trusting in a God concept can and does for a lot of people.

 

[Revoltingest]

Or it's all around you and you simply can't understand or verify it as such.

All this evidence around me, & I just can't see it.
You can't explain it. But you have the gift of spiritual
insight that sets you above us, I'll bet.

I recommend using reason rather than
feelings to discern how reality works.

Whereas trusting in a God concept can and does for a lot of people.

Honor killings, terrorism, bombing newspapers, hijackings,
murdering abortion providers, bombing hospitals, kidnapping,
rape, child molesting, banning abortion, slavery, etc, etc.
All things justified in the name of God.

If you want to be a good person, then being good is the
answer. Religion is a crapshoot....there's no telling what
horrors it might justify to the weak minded.

 

[viole]

There is no "right" God-concept. There is just the one we choose for ourselves, and the results of our trusting in it. As it has long been established that no human can verify the nature or existence of any God

Can be, but that does not defeat the fact that the vast majority pray and worship a God that does not exist. If I pray to Thor, and you pray to Jesus, then it follows that at least one of us is worshipping something that does not exist. Ergo, one of us is deluded. Necessarily so.

 

[LuisDantas]

No, it really isn't what logic tells us. It's what your illogical bias tells you. Logic tells us that God is exactly as likely to exist as we choose to hope, as not. And that none of us can know either way.

Of course we do. None of us can know if or what kind of God exists. ANY version is equally possible. So everyone is free to envision God as they choose. And so we do. Hopefully based on the positive effect we gain from placing faith in our particular God-concept.

There is no "right" God-concept. There is just the one we choose for ourselves, and the results of our trusting in it. As it has long been established that no human can verify the nature or existence of any God.

This sounds a bit contradictory to me. If god-concepts are a personal and free choice, how or why should we expect that none of those will be verifiable?

 

[Revoltingest]

Can be, but that does not defeat the fact that the vast majority pray and worship a God that does not exist. If I pray to Thor, and you pray to Jesus, then it follows that at least one of us is worshipping something that does not exist. Ergo, one of us is deluded. Necessarily so.

Gods are above the confines of logic.
All gods are simultaneously true.
(I've actually run across this argument.)

 

[LuisDantas]

To me, it's the position of atheism itself that proves the validity of theism. Atheism has based it's position (that no gods exist) on the assertion that the nature and existence of God/gods has not and cannot be proven to be a material fact. And yet it is exactly this assertion that allows the nature and existence of God/gods to remain a valid possibility. And it's a possibility that people can use to great advantage as they negotiate living in a harsh material world. Atheists can never seem to grasp this (the power of faith) precisely because they have rejected the possibility based on nothing but blind pessimism.

You might as well just say that you don't understand atheism nor atheists, you know.

 

[PureX]

All this evidence around me, & I just can't see it.
You can't explain it. But you have the gift of spiritual
insight that sets you above us, I'll bet.

It's not that. You just don't want to see it as evidence, so you don't. You can't find any material proof of it, so you dismiss it.

I recommend using reason rather than
feelings to discern how reality works.

It can be reasoned that God exists from the fact that everything else exists, and exists as it does. And it has been reasoned thus by some of the greatest minds that have ever lived. But you don't want reason. Reasoning is just mental gymnastics to you. You want material proof within the context of other material proofs. You want what you can't have, and you resent that, I guess.

Honor killings, terrorism, bombing newspapers, hijackings,
murdering abortion providers, bombing hospitals, kidnapping,
rape, child molesting, banning abortion, slavery, etc, etc.
All things justified in the name of God.

What does what we justify and how we justify it have to do with anything? We also do all these things in the name of politics, and certainly in the name of monetary profit, as well as in the name of bigotry of every kind. I don't see you rejecting ANY of those memes based on the many crimes they have supposedly sponsored. So why God?

If you want to be a good person, then being good is the
answer.

Except for most people just saying that won't make it happen. It takes persistence, and practice, and guidance. And it turns out that the God ideal can be of great help in these areas if we conceptualize it properly. And billions of people do use their faith in just that way.

Religion is a crapshoot...

Everything in life is a "crap-shoot". None of us khow why we're here, or what we're here to do, or how to do it. All any of us can do is invent the reasons and the methods that we hope to be true, and live by them to see what comes of it.

 

[PureX]

Can be, but that does not defeat the fact that the vast majority pray and worship a God that does not exist.

You have no way of knowing what gods can or can't exist.

If I pray to Thor, and you pray to Jesus, then it follows that at least one of us is worshipping something that does not exist.

No, that doesn't follow at all. Because we are both praying to a God that we can't know, and can therefor only imagine. You imagine it your way, and I imagine it mine. For all we know God is both. Or neither. Or it doesn't matter at all. God clearly transcends our pat conceptual images and ideals.

Ergo, one of us is deluded. Necessarily so.

Or neither is. What part of infinity are you claiming is not infinite? What part of omnipresence is "here" but not "there"? What part of the whole truth is not true?

 

[PureX]

This sounds a bit contradictory to me. If god-concepts are a personal and free choice, how or why should we expect that none of those will be verifiable?

Have you heard of any that are?

I could assert that God is "wetness" and prove that God exists every time it rains. But I don't. And neither does anyone else. Because that reasoning does not respond to our deepest questions: What am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? How do I fulfill it? And why don't I know these things?

The God's we imagine, we imagine as a response to these kinds of questions. To help us at least live with them (with the unknowing). And maybe to answer some of them. That's why our God-concepts are not simple, or material based, or verifiable. If they were, we wouldn't have needed to create them.

 

[dybmh]

although I had read and studied both testaments for years as a believer.

Ok. Let's put that to the test. Let's see how well you studied, and/or, if you are resourceful.

What is the reason the so-called unholy nations were to be exterminated from the "land"? There's a single verse that states it explicitly. Answering this question greatly qualifies and moderates atheist claims about the god in the story of Tanach.

Can you answer? You claimed to have studied it for years. Did that study produce any sort of command of the subject matter?

The point is: when an online-atheist prclaims they "studied" for years, it doesn't mean that they know details of the plot which undermine anti-religious propaganda. I would argue, if they are ex-christian, they probably don't know these details, probably never learned them, regarrdless of whatever "study" happened in the past. The fact that they were a victim of the anti-religious propaganda is good reason to doubt that their study was ccomprehensive in any way.

What is the reason the so-called unholy nations were to be exterminated from the "land"? I just looked it up, It can be answered with a direct quote of 21 words. A simple copy-paste will be a huge step forward.

It doesn't need to be logical, plausible, reasonable, all it needs is to be is "answered".

although I had read and studied both testaments for years as a believer.

What is the reason the so-called unholy nations were to be exterminated from the "land"?

 

[dybmh]

If I pray to Thor, and you pray to Jesus, then it follows that at least one of us is worshipping something that does not exist.

You have not declared a key assumption/premise or you are ignorant of it.

This assumes that God cannot and/or does not reveal itself to different people in different ways. That is a baseless assumption.

If I pray to Thor, and you pray to Jesus, then it follows that at least one of us is worshipping something that does not exist.

Nope. It does not follow, you are thinking too small.

 

[dybmh]

how or why should we expect that none of those will be verifiable?

If it is verifiable then the roles are reversed. The god is beholden to the human who is testing it like a light switch. The human becomes mightier than the god and the god is subserviant. And this desire to be in command of the god, to be mightier than the god, to make them themself into a god, is stereotypical human behavior. It encourages all sorts of horrible human qualities.

Because of this a wise and benevolent deity would not permit itself to be bossed and manipulated by the humans. Humans need boundries to keep them from becoming dominant-colonizing-tyrannts. Remaining hidden, unproven, and mysteious supports this while permitting certain freedoms.

[it] sounds a bit contradictory to me.

There's other reasons besides the one I provided above. But it does resolve the so-called contradiction. Do you know what a contradiction is? Do you know what that word actually means?

I think you probably meant "incomprehensible" or "confusing" to you. I doubt it was actually a contradiction.

 

[Revoltingest]

It's not that. You just don't want to see it as evidence, so you don't. Y

So the problem is that I'm not seeing the evidence
that you're not presenting.

It can be reasoned that God exists from the fact that everything else exists, and exists as it does.

That's your "evidence"?
That's not reasoning.
Just rationale for belief.

And it has been reasoned thus by some of the greatest minds that have ever lived.

Something is true because someone you
call a "great mind" said so. They're inerrant, eh.

Logical Fallacies: Appeal to Authority

Appeal to Authority: A fundamental reason why the Appeal to Authority can be a fallacy is that a proposition can be well supported only by facts and logically valid inferences. But by using an authority, the argument is relying upon testimony, not facts. A testimony is not an argument and it is...

www.thoughtco.com

Why not believe other great minds who don't
believe in such malarkey?

But you don't want reason.

You keep telling me what I want.

Ad Hominem Fallacy | Definition & Examples

Ad hominem fallacy (or ad hominem) is an attempt to discredit someone’s argument by personally attacking them. Instead of discussing the argument itself,

www.scribbr.com

Reasoning is just mental gymnastics to you.

Goodness gracious.
Such hostile statements.
I begin to sense fanaticism.

 

[Eli G]

If the Creator exists, which is something of which I am very convinced, then inventing something similar in his place is useless, because since He is a reality the only thing left is trying to know Him as He is.

An illustration: Just because I think Putin doesn't exist doesn't mean he stops being a real person who governs his country. To know about him I would have to investigate his life, his deeds, his speeches, other's opinion about him, etc. Inventing another president for today's Russia would be stupid.

IMO, the simple fact of the Bible's existence demonstrates that the God it describes is the only living and true God. It is all about those who seek the truth realizing what they have in front of them when they look at the Bible. Many do not have the slightest idea of what the existence of that book implies.

 

[viole]

You have not declared a key assumption/premise or you are ignorant of it.

This assumes that God cannot and/or does not reveal itself to different people in different ways. That is a baseless assumption.

OK, fine. So, do you think that the God of the Old Testament and the Gods of the Vikings are the same God? Is there a chance that the Gods of the vikings (more than one), are also the same Gods of the Old Testament? Do you also leave the possibility open that the Jewish God is actually a multitude of gods? Is that in line with Moses commandments that there is only one God? How does it work exactly?

Or could it be, that some of those possible compatible laws got lost in action?

In other words, do you think that Thor would also find it suboptimal if you work on Saturdays? If not, why not?

Ciao

- viole

 

[dybmh]

So, do you think that the God of the Old Testament and the Gods of the Vikings are the same God?

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob can choose to reveal itself however, whenever. This is what is written in Exodus 3. But it needs to be read in Hebrew.

 

[viole]

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob can choose to reveal itself however, whenever. This is what is written in Exodus 3. But it needs to be read in Hebrew.

So, I could equally say that it is instead Thor who chose to reveal Himself as the God of the OT.

Would you accept that as a viable possibility?

Ciao

- viole

 

[dybmh]

Do you also leave the possibility open that the Jewish God is actually a multitude of gods, and that the Jews got a revelation with only one, for some reason, and should not therefore take that too seriously?

No, only one god which is completely literally infinite, lacking all forms with the capability of posessing them all.

Is that in line with Moses commandments that there is only one God? How does it work exactly?

The 10 commandments is referring to physical idols. This is clearly stated in Genesis 35:

ויתנו אל־יעקב את כל־אלהי הנכר אשר בידם ואת־הנזמים אשר באזניהם ויטמן אתם יעקב תחת האלה אשר עם־שכם׃​

​

And they gave to Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.​

 

[dybmh]

So, I could equally say that it is instead Thor who chose to reveal Himself as the God of the OT.

Would you accept that as a viable possibility?

Ciao

- viole

Not to the Jewish people. At best Thor would be a revelation of God to other people in another time in another place.

 

[viole]

No, only one god which is completely literally infinite, lacking all forms with the capability of posessing them all.



The 10 commandments is referring to physical idols. This is clearly stated in Genesis 35:

ויתנו אל־יעקב את כל־אלהי הנכר אשר בידם ואת־הנזמים אשר באזניהם ויטמן אתם יעקב תחת האלה אשר עם־שכם׃​

​

And they gave to Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.​

That does not answer my question. Isn't that possible that it was Thor, instead, who manifested Himself as the God go the OT, to those people in the Middle East?

If not, why not?

Ciao

- viole