Those who believe there is no God live by faith

[sojourner]

Such as?

The Purpose Driven Life for one (not that I advocate it).

 

[Heyo]

But how do we know that the apparatus measures time correctly? As some have said here, “agreement” =/= “reality.” How do we know that time isn’t actually measured in “Plargs,” and that an atom doesn’t actually vibrate at some given frequency measured in this arbitrary thing called “seconds?”

I agree. The measurement isn't perfect and a model is not the reality. But compared to religious belief science has a confidence level that is several magnitudes higher. And scientists claim only that.

No they don’t. Some of Indiana is on EST, some on CST. And some parts of Indiana refuse to go on DST. Phoenix doesn’t go on DST, while Flagstaff does. Is it 1:00 in Phoenix? Or is it really 2:00? How do we know? There’s no device to measure what is really 1:00.

Equivocation fallacy. We know that time of day differs from timezone to timezone. But we still agree on the time that passes. (And sometimes we don't even agree on the time that passes. (q.v. time dilation) But we know ahead of time (sorry) that and how much we'd disagree.

Is there consensus among people as to the meaning of the word “bank?”

That is a very good question. (Even though it seems that you are running into an equivocation fallacy again.) It demonstrates what I'm trying to say all the time. "God" is a word with multiple meanings. Using it without qualifier is a fallacy. The word alone has no meaning, or rather, everyone has the illusion to know the meaning - but no two people can agree on it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Atheists make the claim that there is no God. That is what the OP was addressing.

Seems to me the burden is on them to refute the criticism of their claim.

Faith is faith, isn't it?

The OP is addressing the nature of the atheist view and making a claim that has yet to be demonstrated.

Are disregard due to a lack of evidence and positive affirmation without evidence the same thing and both based on faith?

Faith is belief without evidence or against evidence.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

He claims his god is "different" from 3rd angels' god, yet they both use the exact same book?

wait.... WHAT?

That is one thing I do not understand-- I can read the bible for myself. If there was a god, would it not behoove said god to make the "instructions" as clear as possible on the Big Questions: is hell real? And whatnot.

The difference is in interpretation of the Bible and the view some believers claim to know the mind of God.

 

[lukethethird]

Atheists make the claim that there is no God. That is what the OP was addressing.

Seems to me the burden is on them to refute the criticism of their claim.

Faith is faith, isn't it?

No, faith is not faith.

Besides, what is asserted without evidence can justifiably be dismissed without evidence.

 

[Polymath257]

Fair enough. It doesn’t appear useful to you. I’m not asking that it does. If it carries no meaning for you, that’s your bag. More power to ya! But it does appear useful to me. Please don’t make the same mistake that you accuse evangelicals of making in insisting that your meaning-making is the only valid one.

And some do it one way, some another.

Hmmm...truth is that which does not depend on the observer.

A beautiful painting can be meaningful, but it is not 'true'. A beautiful song can be meaningful, but it is not 'true'. A beautiful metaphor can be meaningful, but it is not 'true'.

My goal is to find truth. In this discussion, the goal, for me, was the truth concerning the existence or non-existence of deities, the divine, etc.

As far as I can see, your position is that the divine is a metaphor. Questions of existence simply don't arise in that case. It is *only* a question of whether someone find the metaphor meaningful.

But what i am concerned with is whether there is something beyond the metaphor and an actual truth. When i say I do not believe in God or deities or the supernatural or the divine, I am NOT talking about metaphors. I know that these exist *as concepts*. I want to know if they exist independent of us.

 

[Polymath257]

I think Divinity is eminently natural.

Only if you *define* it to be all that is natural.

 

[Polymath257]

Does it? It would seem that it doesn’t.

Um, actually, yes, it does. Definition of Divine:

Definition of divine
(Entry 1 of 3)

1 religion
a : of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God (see god entry 1 sense 1) or a god (see god entry 1 sense 2) divine inspiration divine love praying for divine intervention
b : being a deity the divine Savior a divine ruler
c : directed to a deity divine worship
2a : supremely good : superb The meal was just divine.
b : heavenly, godlike

There are other definitions, including a priest, or figuring out/perceiving something. But neither of those apply to this discussion.

Your point? Why does Divinity have to have “personality?” Why must it be “conscious?” Aren’t you simply buying into the fundamentalist anthropomorphism of Divinity?

No, I am simply using the word in its standard definition. maybe we need to use a different word that m9ore closely matches the concept you are working with?

Isn’t this just another straw man on your part? Why can’t Divinity be “consciousness” instead of “conscience?” Why must atheists automatically reply “nun-uh!” To any god-concept that differs from the Christian fundamentalist concept? Is it Divinity you have a problem with, or is it some one definition that you have a problem with?

I can deal with other God concepts if needed. But we do need to use a language and diverting too far from the standard usage leads to confusion. Maybe a different word is more appropriate?

To your last sentence: YES!!! Divinity carries the meaning we assign to it. That’s because it’s an internal thing with regard to perception.

Now we bring meaning to existence, and purpose, and yearning.

OK, a psychological trick. Not something to do with truth or reality.

 

[viole]

Hi all some questions for consideration for this OP....

1. If one does not believe that there is a God and they have no evidence that there is no God does that mean that God does not exist?

2. If one believes there is no God and cannot prove there is no God then is this belief simply another religion that is based on faith and not evidence?

3. Now for those who do not believe in God and you have no evidence for this belief (faith), does it not worry you that you could be wrong if the scriptures are true?

4. Finally if there is a God obviously not all religions can be correct as many are contradictory to each other. How would one go about finding what is the correct faith? Seems we all live by faith IMO wheather we believe or do not believe in God.

I believe God's judgments are coming to this world to all those who do not believe and follow God's Word according to the scriptures. Can you prove they are not

Thanks for your thoughts...

point taken. I have a lot of faith for beings that I cannot prove to not exist. For instance, i have also a lot of faith that Mother Goose does not exist. The same with Mickey Mouse, Superman, the Blue Fairy, and a whole lot of things we might be wrong about.

but if you think hat being agnostic about your God, the tooth fairy, or anything else enjoying the same evidence, is intellectually more respectable, let me know. After all, we could all be wrong about the tooth fairy, too.

ciao

- viole

 

[exchemist]

Atheists make the claim that there is no God. That is what the OP was addressing.

Seems to me the burden is on them to refute the criticism of their claim.

Faith is faith, isn't it?

See my post 5. I was addressing a specific claim made by the OP.

 

[sojourner]

I agree. The measurement isn't perfect and a model is not the reality. But compared to religious belief science has a confidence level that is several magnitudes higher. And scientists claim only that

I haven’t claimed such a confidence level either. In fact, I’ve said all along that these views aren’t absolute and they’re not universal.

Equivocation fallacy. We know that time of day differs from timezone to timezone. But we still agree on the time that passes. (And sometimes we don't even agree on the time that passes. (q.v. time dilation) But we know ahead of time (sorry) that and how much we'd disagree

Fair enough. Point conceded.

That is a very good question. (Even though it seems that you are running into an equivocation fallacy again.) It demonstrates what I'm trying to say all the time. "God" is a word with multiple meanings. Using it without qualifier is a fallacy. The word alone has no meaning, or rather, everyone has the illusion to know the meaning - but no two people can agree on it

Yes. And the problem I have here is that some of the respondents appear to be holding the term hostage to only one meaning, which is not the definition im using, and then telling me that I’m wrong.

 

[sojourner]

Hmmm...truth is that which does not depend on the observer

I disagree. Truth is relative. Facts are independent.

A beautiful painting can be meaningful, but it is not 'true'. A beautiful song can be meaningful, but it is not 'true'. A beautiful metaphor can be meaningful, but it is not 'true

But beauty conveys truth.

My goal is to find truth. In this discussion, the goal, for me, was the truth concerning the existence or non-existence of deities, the divine, etc.

You’ll have to look within yourself for a satisfactory answer.

As far as I can see, your position is that the divine is a metaphor

No. My position is that the Divine can only be represented externally by metaphor.

It is *only* a question of whether someone find the metaphor meaningful

Yes.

But what i am concerned with is whether there is something beyond the metaphor and an actual truth. When i say I do not believe in God or deities or the supernatural or the divine, I am NOT talking about metaphors. I know that these exist *as concepts*. I want to know if they exist independent of us

I’m not sure that’s objectively as ascertainable. My belief is that we are so caught up in the Divine that it really doesn’t exist independently of us. I have no way to prove that.

 

[sojourner]

Only if you *define* it to be all that is natural.

Correct. That’s how I understand it; that’s how I choose to define it.

 

[sojourner]

(Entry 1 of 3)

What about the other two entries?

maybe we need to use a different word that m9ore closely matches the concept you are working with?

perhaps. I’d be open to that if it fosters clarity.

I can deal with other God concepts if needed. But we do need to use a language and diverting too far from the standard usage leads to confusion. Maybe a different word is more appropriate?

Might be. Again, see above.

OK, a psychological trick. Not something to do with truth or reality

No, because truth is not only external. It’s also internal. Reality is what we make it.

 

[3rdAngel]

And with all things, the issue is the weight of the evidence or lack thereof and not whether it is 100% conclusive. Is it, perhaps at the 99.9999% level of confidence? And I would say the lack of evidence for a deity *when there should be such evidence* puts me at that level of confidence.

I would simply disagree with this as all you need to do is look around you and you can see the complexity in life that supports intelligent design. The complexity of life and the probability that life came from nothing puts the level of confidence in favour of those who believe in God in my view.

3rd Angel said: I would disagree here as you already have in your first point above you said that the lack of evidence that there is a God does not mean there is no God. This is the same as electricity and radio waves before they were discovered by science. The lack of evidence for their existence before they were discovered does not mean they never existed. It simply mean't there was not evidence until they were discovered dispite being prestent all the time.

Your response...

OK, give me a reliable method of detection. Nobody claimed radio waves existed before they were a part of a broader scientific theory. And at that point, the way to detect them was clear and they were observed soon after that. Would it have been reasonable for someone to claim the existence of radio waves without evidence? No. Would it have been reasonable for someone to claim their existence without stating a method of detection? No. You have made a claim of existence, but not one based on evidence, that has no method of detection, and that has no predictive theory to back it up. At that point, it is reasonable to simply ignore the issue until someone does a lot more work on the 'theory'.

You missing the point and making an argument no one is making. The point I am simply making is that because you cannot see something does not mean it is not there or it does not exist. Nothing more or less. You are making a claim of non existence but you have no evidence to back up your claims. One can argue evidence or the lack of evidence from both sides, who is right and who is wrong?

Why is it only when it comes to religion that one must believe *before* the evidence? Doesn't that alone suggest 'self-deception' more than anything else?

Not at all. I believe that God reveals himself to those who seek him through his Word. What lead me to his Word is the evidence of intelligent design which is all around us. Self deception is not having an opened mind and demanding that God reveal himself to you or you will not believe. According to the scriptures those who ask for a miracle in order to believe will never see one. I believe I have found God and have peace on my faith. Do you have peace in what you believe? If you do why do you feel the need to be a part of a religious forum and talk about something you do not believe in?

3rdAngel said: ↑ No one believes in unicorns and leprechauns do they, let alone make a religion based around them. In many religions many millions of people claim that God has revealed himself to them and given them messages to give to the world this is their belief so your example here is not relavant to the OP. If you believe there is no God or you do not believe in the existence of God that is your belief for which you have no evidence. Therefore your living by faith just as much as those who believe in God and the existense of God.

Your response...

No, nobody does this, but why not? The evidence for them is *exactly* as strong as it is for a deity. The only reason I can see that people make a special exception for deities is that they *want* to believe in deities. I see it as a type of self-deception. For example, if you train yourself to imagine talking to leprechauns. If you do this day in and day out, always imagining what the leprechaun would say, you *will* eventually start thinking leprechauns are talking to you. But this is precisely what religious folk do all the time.

I would disagree. As posted earlier God makes himself known to those he sees fit to reveal himself to. I would argue that those who God makes himself known to is evidence in and of itself as is manifested in 1/3 of the worlds population and is evidence to those God has made himself known to. I can also argue that the only reason that people do not want to believe in God is because they simply close their minds to the possibility of God because they do not want to believe he exists because it would mean they would need to change their lifestyle. This is also a self deception. No one believes in leprechauns that I know of. IMO your only making a strawman argumen comparing individual cases of belief to billions of people all believing the same thing that God has revealed himself to them. Perhaps something is happening here that you cannot see but should be opened to seeing?

Appreciate your thoughts

 

[3rdAngel]

Yes, sorry, I did screw up in this one case. But since you far too often conflated not believing in god with believing that god does not exist, and because your past false and dishonest claim was that I believed god did not exist this one error was understandable.

I am not sure if you were trying to apologise for being dishonest or if your trying to justify it TBH. Anyhow I will take it as you agree that you said in your own words you do not believe in God and you do not believe in the existence of God.

 

[3rdAngel]

The difference is that if there is NO POSSIBLE way of detection, then it makes no sense to say it exists. We *do* detect the wind. After the prediction of radio waves, we *did* detect them soon after.

We will have to disagree with you here. If God reveals himself to people that is evidence to those who God has revealed himself to. It is not evidence to those who God has not revealed himself to however. According to the scriptures those who look for God through evidence will never find him despite evidence being all around them.

Sight is one sense of many, and pretty limited at that. We can, and do, extend our senses using technology and that allows us to detect much more about the universe. But yet, nobody has even suggested a way to detect deities. Why not?

No one can find God this way if God chooses not to be known. According to the scriptures the fall of mankind was through unbelief in God's Word when mankind was in the presence of God having the very evidence of seeing and hearing God face to face. Salvation to mankind after the fall according to the scriptures only comes to those who choose to believe God despite the so called lack of evidence.

Sorry, but the evidence from eye-witness accounts is the worst possible: it is subject to numerous biases, memory distortions, and mistakes of re-telling. How about an *actual* method of detection that is publicly available, repeatable, and clear? That is the standard for everything else, after all.

Why this is what history is based on not to mention the prophecies that have come to pass and that have been fulfilled in history. Also, your still missing the point. For a Christian we believe that God has revealed himself to us and made himself known to us personally as we seek him through his Word. You cannot know or see this because you do not believe and are not opened to belief without evidence dispite the evidence being all around you. The rest of your post here has already been addressed elsewhere.

 

[3rdAngel]

I disagree with this. Go back 200 years. Nobody believed in radio waves. But nobody *disbelieved* in radio waves either. They simply had no belief one way or the other. There was no evidence for the existence of radio waves, and no proposals for their existence, so *everyone* lacked belief in them.
The reasonable position under lack of evidence for the existence of something is *lack of belief*.

Once again this is simply a distraction. The point being made was simply just because you cannot see something does not mean it is not there and does not exist.

 

[3rdAngel]

I think he kind of gave his game away by saying that
"Many religions live by faith" For lo, they cannot all the correct, or true in any sense. They can, though, all be false. He added "and not by sight" In that sentence, I see two things that look wrong to me. It is not "many" but all religions that rely on faith. And, with that, is that NONE can rely on
sight.

Yet here you are not able to prove your claims. As all religions rely on faith for their belief in God all those who belief there is no God rely on faith for what they believe. Your faith that there is no God is simply no different to any other religious belief you seek to criticise .

 

[3rdAngel]

And this was a rather foolish response. It was a strawman for the reasons given. A link that you do not understand does not help you. You are making the error that I spoke of in my prior post. For most atheism is a lack of belief. Your claim that it is a belief of nonexistence is a strawman. Read the link that you provided. One does not need evidence for a lack of belief. Once again you are not reasoning logically.

Nonsense you never gave a reason but simply stated the OP was a strawman. As posted earlier I suggest you go and google the meaning of strawman and find out what it means. The answer to the question was no because those who do not believe in God or in the existence of God do not have evidence for their belief. If there is no evidence for belief it is simply a belief based on faith.

Wrong again. You continue to demonstrate that you do not understand logic. If an event would leave evidence behind and no evidence of that event is to be found that is evidence against that claim. If your friend calls and says that there was an explosion in the city that you live in, destroyed buildings, broken glass, smoke and destruction everywhere and you rush to where he said it occurred and you find nothing indicating an explosion do you say "Well, I have no evidence so I cannot conclude that he was lying?". If you do I have some very valuable stocks I would l like to sell to you. Absence of evidence can be evidence of absence. It does not mean that is always the case. That would be a fallacy on my part.

Nonsense! As posted earlier I have yet to see you demonstrate logic. What you have posted earlier is a gread example of a logical fallacy which does not make sense or does it address the post question you are quoting from. No evidence is simply an argument in silence and does not prove one thing or the other. For example, before science discovered electricity or radio waves the lack of evidence before they were discovered does not mean they never existed. It simply means they was no evidence for their existence until people found evidence. If you claim there is no God or there is no existence of God that is your believe. If now you have no evidence for your belief then you are in the exact same situation as the person you claim has no evidence that there is God and that God exists. Therefore your belief is faith because you have no evidence. That is two major logical fails on your part now IMO.

No, atheism is a lack of belief for most. No evidence is required for a lack of belief. You are repeating errors, but since this has been explained to you countless times it counts as a third massive logical fail on your part.

As posted earlier athiesm is the disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. This is the dictionary's definition not mine. You have already said in your own words that you do not believe in God or the existence of God. That is your belief. You have no evidence for your belief and if you have no evidence there is the possiblility that you are simply wrong. If your honest here you will agree. If not you are free to believe as you wish. I would say this is a massive logical fail on your part

And we need to add Ad Hominem to the concepts that you do not understand. So that is four. You made a gross error. It appears to be due to your arrogance. Why did you not apologize for your error. Instead you usd a deflection.

Well you can discuss the content of the posts or seek to put down and attack the messenger. You seem to like to do the former which IMO is simply a distraction to the content of the discussion you are not willing to address. I would add this one to your list as well but this is your end not mine.

And there you go back to your false claim about me claiming there is no god. So once again you make a strawman argument since you cannot refute the argument used against you. That is five major logical fails. You need to work on your logic skills. They are rather inadequate.

Your the one who said you do not believe in God or the existence of God not me. Happy to repost your words again if you like. Just let me know