Theists: Are there good reasons not to believe?

[Exaltist Ethan]

That's an odd take on that god. People describe it as angry, jealous, capricious, prudish, etc, but I have never heard fearful.

The Abrahamic God fears man as much as man fears the Abrahamic God. Can that God write his own scripture? No, it requires the use of prophets, that might misinterpret the original message of his word. The Bible has been translated hundreds of times with various ways of interpreting sacred text. Because of this humans are more powerful than that God. If humans realized that Yahweh is a source of misrepresenting authority, than people would use him less to understand both reality and the divine.

That's fine. You're not alone. Worshiping seems to be a human proclivity that derives from the instinct children feel for parents, who are regarded as godlike and worthy of great respect - at least at first. People also do this with actors, musicians, and athletes as well. And with a new significant other - at least at first.

I don't really worship The Omniverse. I don't worship my parents either. But I have a deep and unconditional love for both. That's probably the best way I describe how I feel about them.

A humanist would agree, but not use the word divine. Generosity is a human trait, and a natural manifestation of love. It's also seen in the animal kingdom, especially when parenting.

That's fine. I'm just not going to use the word humanist to describe myself, for the fore mentioned reasons I already gave. Because many of my positions don't exist within other people I had to invent my own terms to get them across. So I call myself exaltist, because I do believe in divinity and that it's a very important concept to get across.

Members of all Abrahamic faiths believe that their god considers homosexuality a special kind of sin. Sinners are not all equal. I'm sure that they would rather their children turn out to be heterosexual sinners than homosexual sinners, only one of them being a cause for embarrassment and consternation.

In the past it was not possible for an active homosexual couple to reproduce. Technology is changing that. It has always been possible for homosexuals to adopt, but some people are very focused on keeping their own DNA in their lineage. I have a biological father and then I have my "real" father. I am more like my real father because he's actually in my life more and I've adopted many of his traits, especially when I'm around my parents.

Of course sins aren't equal. Drinking soda and doing narcotics isn't the same. However, since everybody sins, does that really make that much of a difference? You are talking about a small portion of the Christian population. As I already said, most Catholics are for legalized abortion and homosexual marriages. Maybe the religion doesn't change, and the official stance on these issues don't change much in religion, but the people representing these religions do and they defy many religious creeds and dogmas regardless. People don't typically join a religion to keep abortion illegal or to demonize the homosexual community, they join it for the community and involvement of people who represent the faith.

They're real Christians to me. Real Christians are the kind you can meet, the kind the religion actually generates. Of course, they like to blame the failures on the individual, never the religion failing to teach them strong moral values. How can Christianity make people loving given its understanding of what love is? By humanist standards, loving people in Christianity brought that with them to the religion. When they learn it in church, it involves blood sacrifice, damnation and hell, and "loving the sinner but hating the sin," which is understood to mean hating both.

Maybe they are real Christians, maybe they aren't. Christianity happens to be one of those religions that has such a plurality of opinion, and the only thing they really agree with is Jesus' divinity. Some Christians are bigots, and some atheists are bigots too. But hating gays and the gay community isn't a requirement to be a Christian, it happens to be a byproduct of those who take the scripture too literally. I figure that you probably take the scripture as literally as they do - you just happen to not agree with what it says. By its own vernacular it is obvious that much it was never supposed to be interpreted in that way, and people have come up with their own ideas from literalist interpretations.

Fast forward a few thousand years later and the prophecies of Revelations never happened. The Rapture never came to fruition. It is obvious that scripture is meant to be taken seriously, yes, but not literally. According to The Amazing Atheist, the Bible even says its okay for a woman to have an abortion, if she did not get pregnant by her husband. That pregnancy could be from infidelity or it could have came from rape. But trying to find an Evangelical who believes in abortion because of infidelity doesn't typically happen because nobody, and I mean nobody, takes the entire Bible completely by its own words.

 

[PureX]

humanist would agree, but not use the word divine.

That's not so. There are a great many theistic humanists, as there are a great many atheistic humanists. Also, the term "divine" does not always refer to some deistic source. It can simply refer to something that transcends material necessity or expectation.

Members of all Abrahamic faiths believe that their god considers homosexuality a special kind of sin. Sinners are not all equal. I'm sure that they would rather their children turn out to be heterosexual sinners than homosexual sinners, only one of them being a cause for embarrassment and consternation.

That's true of most cultures on the planet, not just Abrahamic religions. And the reason is because most religions, and many cultures, derive their idea of ethical behavior from the dictates of nature. Homosexuality is becoming more acceptable among humans, now, because we are not so beholding to the dictates of nature.

 

[F1fan]

Sure theists change their concept of God as new knowledge is obtained.

You do the same thing with evolution , i dont see anything wrong with that.

There are no Gods known to exist, and the concepts get more vague over time. Compare that with evolution that is an observed phenomenon and with more data comes better, more precise explanations.

 

[DNB]

This came along just in time. Some more just-so apologetics. You are asking others to believe that an entity that can create universes containing reasoning creatures that it wants to know and love it did that. Occam has a more parsimonious suggestion: this deity doesn't exist. That's the preferred working hypothesis outside the world of belief by faith, where apparently mental gymnastics is preferred to simplicity. God wants us to know and love him. Then why is there ambiguity and antithesis in his creation? To expose the cynics and defiant. Why would he do that? Doesn't he know who they are? He does it by design. Why? To weed out the insightful and good-hearted. [Walks away]

Well, that's the phenomenon - free will comes at a price. You stand their defiantly claiming that you've done no wrong, or that there is no God, simply because seemingly, you can't detect Him or perceive the evidence of His existence. And, yet, I do.
...you can't appreciate the implications of this dichotomy - both of us witnessing the same evidence and drawing diametrically opposed conclusions?

 

[DNB]

Like the atheists, and secular humanists?
Yeah, we don't need any simpletons in Heaven who disparage God's gift of reason and intelligence.

...you left out wisdom and insight?

 

[F1fan]

Well, that's the phenomenon - free will comes at a price.

What price?

You stand their defiantly claiming that you've done no wrong,

What worng has he done?

or that there is no God,

What God is known to exist?

Let me guess, you think your version exists, but not the versions of other theists. Am I right or wrong?

simply because seemingly, you can't detect Him or perceive the evidence of His existence.

Are you claiming that there are mere mortals that can perceive a God? Explain how this happens and describe the technique so others can use it. Deal? Or will you avoid these questions because you're bluffing?

And, yet, I do.

Can you prove this claim?

...you can't appreciate the implications of this dichotomy - both of us witnessing the same evidence and drawing diametrically opposed conclusions?

So you admit you could be mistaken? Your conclusion is a God exists, yet no believer has been able to show they are correct. That's fishy.

 

[DNB]

What price?


What worng has he done?


What God is known to exist?

Let me guess, you think your version exists, but not the versions of other theists. Am I right or wrong?


Are you claiming that there are mere mortals that can perceive a God? Explain how this happens and describe the technique so others can use it. Deal? Or will you avoid these questions because you're bluffing?


Can you prove this claim?


So you admit you could be mistaken? Your conclusion is a God exists, yet no believer has been able to show they are correct. That's fishy.

I don't understand 'fishy'?

 

[F1fan]

I don't understand 'fishy'?

It means that something doesn't add up. That it is suspicious. That's what is being claimed is not believed true.

So what are your answers to my questions?

 

[Aupmanyav]

I would argue one of two things is happening. 1 - Baha'is ..

Some people are too insecure to be in a relationship, others are too insecure not to be in one.
My faith is that humans will never stop existing.
I speculate that there is something bigger than the Universe.
Most people live to become more divine throughout their lives, ..
I do not wish or want to change your mind, I just want you to be aware of mine.

A very long post to answer. I am a strong atheist and I do not believe in prophets/sons/messengers/manifestations/mahdis and their God. I have no intention to discuss an uneducated 19th Century Iranian Muslim preacher who knew nothing about science.

As for my relationships, I have no problems after 55 years of marriage, a son and a daughter, and grown up grandchildren from both, completing their professional degrees.

That is what dinosaur also thought 65 million years ago. Please, continue with your speculations. There is no bar to it.
I have no desire to become 'divine'. I am OK with what I am today. Sure, we interact with all kind of people on internet.

 

[Brian2]

Is it true or just made-up by believers? As you said we were not there and there is no hard evidence.

Yeah, we know about the length of the days, and we regularly change it every few years. The last time when we added a second was on Saturday, June 30, 2012.
NASA - NASA Explains Why Clocks Will Get an Extra Second on June 30
"For billions of years, Earth’s rotation has been gradually slowing down. It’s a process that continues to this day, and estimates suggest that the length of a day currently increases by about 1.8 milliseconds every century. The day's length varies slightly from year to year, as well; the result of myriad forces both on and off Earth pushing and pulling at its rotation."
Earth's Rotation Has Slowed Down Over Billions of Years

A seven day week is just a convention and there is nothing special about it. It can have any number of days that we want. Among Hindus, it was for sun, moon and five easily seen planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. As for working days in a week, it is four and a half at some places.

IMHO, all Gods and Goddesses are ruled out, not just the Abrahamic one, because of the simple fact that there is no evidence for any of them. It is OK if someone still wants to believe in them.

That is true. Scientific views change according to the facts available, but generally the change is only a modification of a theory. It does not bring down theories. Science differentiates clearly between theories and hypotheses.
"A hypothesis is an assumption made before any research has been done. It is formed so that it can be tested to see if it might be true. A theory is a principle formed to explain the things already shown in data."
This is the Difference Between a Hypothesis and a Theory (Merrium-Webster)

I think it was the Hubble telescope which started science on the idea that the universe had a beginning.
Now I hear that the evidence from this latest telescope might be showing that the Big Bang is wrong.
Sounds like big changes in scientific ideas.
It's all very interesting speculations really and believed by faith because nobody was there.
It is all the current paradigm that humans believe because of the current scientific ideas and evidence.

 

[RestlessSoul]

There are no Gods known to exist, and the concepts get more vague over time. Compare that with evolution that is an observed phenomenon and with more data comes better, more precise explanations.

Of course Gods are known to exist, and this has been so throughout human history. They may not be known to exist by you, but do not assume your experience to be universal. To do so would be to elevate your own ego to the status of a God.

 

[Brian2]

I had written, "That's different definition of truth than the one I use. Faith is not a path to truth. You could just as easily choose the opposite and believe that that is the truth using faith."

I disagree. We can know much about the past with a high degree of certainty even if we weren't there. Faith is belief with insufficient supporting evidence. You see a crater and know that there was an impact even if nobody was there to see it.

But maybe you don't mean what I mean by faith. As I said, I mean insufficiently supported belief. Having faith that an asteroid had impacted the crater site is very different, and I don't use the word faith to mean justified belief myself any more for that reason. These are very distinct concepts, and using the same word for each is a recipe for equivocation and fallacy.

There is some degree of faith involved even if there is evidence for what happened in the past. In the end it is what science arrives at through not so much evidence, but through lack of evidence of God doing it that requires the most faith. For me this is those things that the Bible tells us that God did and that science wants to say happened naturally with no God intervention.
And really all you have is you faith in a naturalistic universe to believe a naturalistic explanation.

I am aware of no evidence that suggests that the writers of the Genesis creation story didn't mean a literal day. And there's a difference between science adjusting its narrative to accommodate new scientific discoveries, and a religion doing it. The religion is claiming to have changeless truth from a deity. If its adherents reinterpret the scriptures to conform with the latest science, it doesn't rise to the level of revelation. It's mythology. The revelation is coming from the scientists.

I gave you some evidence that shows that the writers of Genesis did not mean a literal day and yet you say you are aware of none.
Understanding the meaning of ancient writings is not always straight forward. Sometimes cultural knowledge is needed and sometimes scientific knowledge is needed.
If the Bible stands the test of truth even after more knowledge comes to light, it says a lot for the trustworthiness of the Bible. Some people give up after simple things like when the Bible says "the 4 corners of the earth" (Isa 11:12) Some people actually delight in the Bible saying such things and jump up and down in glee because they think these things show that the Bible is scientific BS. But they are wrong.

I have a different thought. Have you ever wondered why there is a calendar in this creation myth and why an omnipotent god would require six days to create or a day of rest afterward? Doesn't that make this deity seem less than omnipotent? Why is that in the story?

This says to me that there was a transformation in human culture from a time when all able-bodied people worked every day, as in the nomadic days of the Hebrews, when social groups were smaller and religion was administered by one of them where they were, to a time when man had settled, populations became larger, and a centralized temple and an established priesthood needing to be supported by the community arose. A new work ethic was necessary to accommodate the need for people to travel to and from a temple and stay for services to bring tithes to the now full-time, professional priesthood. Whereas once it was unacceptable to take a day off for anything less than illness, it now was necessary to make the opposite true: It's became a sin to not do that. Put down that plowshare and shepherd's crook one day a week and take the family to synagogue, since it can't come to you.

That, in my opinion, is why God's work was structured as six days of work and one of rest - as an example to be emulated, and not an option. A Commandment, one of the first ten. This is a literal 24-hour day. Sometimes a day is just a day. Usually, in fact.

And why a week? The three natural cycles are the 24-hour day, the 29.5-day month, and the 365.24-day year. None of these is right for this purpose. Daily trips to the temple don't make sense, and monthly and yearly were too far apart, so a new unit was coined for this purpose of tithing every seven days, an artificial one. And the weekend was born. I think you might like this idea a lot if you didn't feel compelled to reject it.

Or it could be that a day of rest per 7 days is good for people physically and psychologically and spiritually if we turn to God.

You still are misunderstanding. The maybe refers to naturalistic abiogenesis, which like the intelligent design of life on earth, might or might not have occurred, and the fact of which is NOT part of the argument that the biblical god is ruled out by the evidence presently supporting evolutionary science. Remember, I'm not only allowing for intelligent design of life on earth, but I'm also saying that if naturalistic evolution were ever ruled out by a falsifying find, that there would be no other possibility. The choices then would be between extraterrestrials and a supernatural designer.

Where's the maybe in this? Do you not agree that if naturalistic evolution were somehow ruled out, that that would confirm that an intelligent designer was needed? And if that were so, could it be the god of the Christian Bible, who does not lie? Or does it? Does Yahweh/Jehovah at times deceive man? I think that you understand what happens to the foundation of Christianity if that possibility is admitted. How do we know that this deceiver wasn't Satan? Satan lies, but not the Christian god. My argument is that falsifying evolution would rule out honest gods, but not deceptive ones.

I don't want to falsify evolution. Evolution does not rule out the Biblical God just as billions of years does not rule out the Biblical God. Maybe YECists want that to be the case, not me. You can argue against YEC but that is a straw man thing to knock down when the Bible does not necessarily teach that. BUT of course by saying that the Bible does necessarily teach that you keep your straw man and good for you.

>>My argument is that falsifying evolution would rule out honest gods, but not deceptive ones.<<
I don't know what you mean by that last sentence.

Agreed, which is why I say that the story was likely believed to be a literal account of the history of the world from its beginning by most people who heard or told it until that was no longer tenable. Today, it is called allegory and metaphor by those unwilling to call it just another creation myth that speculated and guessed earth's history wrong.

But imo if understood correctly it can be shown as a myth that does not disagree with science (albeit that it does disagree with the naturalistic presumption of science)

You can't name an example of where science and any other source disagreed about reality and science was shown to be wrong. If you could, you could call this more reliable source the gold standard for truth.

The Gold standard is the word of God, the Bible. Science is not a tool to show that to be wrong, it is something that can help us understand what it means however and the Bible can show when science has overstepped itself and has gone into the realm of theology because of the naturalistic methodology.

 

[Brian2]

You're saying the only valid source of knowledge is direct, personal observation.
That would pretty much invalidate all history, religion, scientific knowledge and technology, wouldn't it?

No I'm not saying that.

You keep citing the bible and biblical events, but you were not there, and didn't observe any of it.
Isn't it all just folklore?

I wasn't there. I believe the creation story on faith. And if the Biblical creation story matches closely with the speculations of science then it is all the better for the Bible and science. They both get confirmation.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I think it was the Hubble telescope which started science on the idea that the universe had a beginning.
Now I hear that the evidence from this latest telescope might be showing that the Big Bang is wrong.
It's all very interesting speculations really and believed by faith because nobody was there.

It is all the current paradigm that humans believe because of the current scientific ideas and evidence.

That universe had a beginning is an old idea and has been described in various ways in religions. Here is one from RigVeda, our oldest scripture:
Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 10: HYMN CXXIX. Creation.
It was not Hubble the telescope, but Hubble the scientist, who advanced the Big Bang theory.
"This universal expansion was predicted from general relativity by Friedmann in 1922 and Lemaître in 1927, well before Hubble made his 1929 analysis and observations .." Big Bang - Wikipedia
The big Bang theory is in no danger of being discarded, it is the presently accepted model.
Even if we were not there, evidence exists for that. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

So what is better? To believe in something that has evidence, or to believe in something which has no evidence? You are being very funny.

 

[Aupmanyav]

There is some degree of faith involved even if there is evidence for what happened in the past.

The Gold standard is the word of God, the Bible. Science is not a tool to show that to be wrong, it is something that can help us understand what it means however and the Bible can show when science has overstepped itself and has gone into the realm of theology because of the naturalistic methodology.

No, science does not require any faith. It will plainly state what it does not know.

I do not believe in existence of God, therefore, Bible is just a book of fables for me. It is not science, but lack of evidence for existence of God, soul and his so-claimed/proclaimed prophets/sons/messengers/manifestations/mahdis, which IMHO, makes it unworthy of belief.

 

[Brian2]

That universe had a beginning is an old idea and has been described in various ways in religions. Here is one from RigVeda, our oldest scripture:
Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 10: HYMN CXXIX. Creation.
It was not Hubble the telescope, but Hubble the scientist, who advanced the Big Bang theory.
"This universal expansion was predicted from general relativity by Friedmann in 1922 and Lemaître in 1927, well before Hubble made his 1929 analysis and observations .." Big Bang - Wikipedia
The big Bang theory is in no danger of being discarded, it is the presently accepted model.
Even if we were not there, evidence exists for that. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

So what is better? To believe in something that has evidence, or to believe in something which has no evidence? You are being very funny.

Yes there is evidence for the BB and so we believe that is what happened. What we have no evidence for is whether God created the universe or not, but people say God did not do it because that is what they believe, just like people say God did it because that is what they believe.
No definite evidence either way, people just believe.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes there is evidence for the BB and so we believe that is what happened. What we have no evidence for is whether God created the universe or not, but people say God did not do it because that is what they believe, just like people say God did it because that is what they believe.
No definite evidence either way, people just believe.

Most atheists do not say "God did not do it". There is no need. Most atheists say "I see no good reason to believe in a God". All we ask for is reasonable evidence. Why is that never provided?

 

[Brian2]

Most atheists do not say "God did not do it". There is no need. Most atheists say "I see no good reason to believe in a God". All we ask for is reasonable evidence. Why is that never provided?

But you believe it must have been a natural thing if God did not do it. You believe that without any evidence but you want evidence that God did it.
We give evidence that there is a God and that is not good enough, you want scientific evidence that God did it.

 

[Aupmanyav]

We give evidence that there is a God ..

Yeah, where? If you ask us to believe 1,700 year old book written by people who had no knowledge of what we have found out later, then we will say 'no',

 

[leroy]

There are no Gods known to exist, and the concepts get more vague over time. Compare that with evolution that is an observed phenomenon and with more data comes better, more precise explanations.

That is not true, we are light years away from the simple elegant and parsimonius picture that that Darwin suggested.

There is nothing wrogn with that, all I am saying is that if the theory of evolution changes as new discoveries are made, why can´t theist also change the concept of God for the same reason?