Those who believe there is no God live by faith

[sojourner]

It's about culture.

I'm sorry......I'm tired. Religion is not about God. Never was. It's the ideological beliefs of a specific culture. So yes, in a sense, it's about us, but it's about the ethnic beliefs which utilize specific beliefs about God in order to justify ones own beliefs.

What I'm stating is that the term religion......has become useless.

It's has always been about culture.

And sorry I'm just too ****ing tire to elaborate at this time.

Ha! I get it. No problem. You elaborated just fine for me. I understand. I somewhat agree with you. But I don’t think that religion is just about justifying one’s own beliefs. It is also about making meaning and helping us grow in an understanding of life.

 

[sojourner]

Instead, it suggests that they are each making up whatever appeals to them the most.

Yes! That’s what metaphors do. In this case, to provide a means of talking about some unknown for which there is no language.

 

[McBell]

Indeed as I wanted to give the person making the claims about what it means to lie to tell me what bearing false witness means. I told him I would be happy to let him know if he did not

Except you were FLAT OUT ASKED to explain it.
And you still haven't.

 

[sojourner]

It will be foolish to build your world around hallucinations

Well-adjusted people don’t do that.

 

[Kenny]

"Prove me wrong" has been the cry of the crank down the ages. It does not work like that. It is the person making the claim that has to be prepared to justify it.

But isn't that what so many people do? They say "There is no God" but can't prove their position?

 

[exchemist]

But isn't that what so many people do? They say "There is no God" but can't prove their position?

Holding a point of view is not asking someone to prove them wrong.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Okay

The atheists will LIE with answer their no doubt.

If there is no God, then we should have evidence for it. What evidence do they have?

1. It would be a logical fallacy if someone said it was. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Okay then, what evidence do you have that unicorns don't exist? None at all, so I presume you believe that unicorns do exist?

Of course, you also have no evidence to prove that unicorns do exist, either -- so you must be horribly confused on the subject, as using your argument, it is analytically intractable.

Using your argument of "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is illogical when speaking of the existence of anything. As I've never seen any evidence whatever of a 30 foot tall spider, I naturally assume such things don't exist. And then I can look to nature and realize that the mechanism by which spiders breathe makes it impossible that such a large specimen could possibly exist. Thus, my intuition is backed up by reason.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Consider that the Divine isn’t a radio wave or a neutrino.

That us true. What the "Divine" is, however, is just an idea existing in the heads of many people -- and as different from person to person as they are themselves.

Thomas More named his book "Utopia," because it, too, was just an idea in his head -- and the name Utopia comes from the Greek for "No Place." The name, in itself, carries the evidence of its non-existence outside of the mind games of author and readers.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

But isn't that what so many people do? They say "There is no God" but can't prove their position?

Not so -- for many of us, it's quite different. We say, "because there is no evidence of God, we see no reason to accept that there is one." And so far, nobody has come along with the evidence that might change our minds.

 

[Kenny]

Okay
Okay then, what evidence do you have that unicorns don't exist? None at all, so I presume you believe that unicorns do exist?

Of course, you also have no evidence to prove that unicorns do exist, either -- so you must be horribly confused on the subject, as using your argument, it is analytically intractable.

Using your argument of "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is illogical when speaking of the existence of anything. As I've never seen any evidence whatever of a 30 foot tall spider, I naturally assume such things don't exist. And then I can look to nature and realize that the mechanism by which spiders breathe makes it impossible that such a large specimen could possibly exist. Thus, my intuition is backed up by reason.

I think you are comparing apples and oranges.

Using your spider analogy..

"There seems to be orderly direction for the existence of what we see. Certainly the reality of the Second Law of Thermodynamics points that something continues to run contrary to what we know, thus, the POSSIBILITY of a God that exists by what we are seeing is backed up by reason.

So your unicorn example isn't valid and an overused two-step so as not to address that people who say "God does not exists" aren't required to prove their position.

 

[Kenny]

Holding a point of view is not asking someone to prove them wrong.

true!

 

[Shad]

I would say the burden of proof is on anyone making claims of proof. I believe in God and have been upfront my belief is based on faith and have peace in my faith. I can say God has revealed himself to me personally but this is my evidence but to you I can only point you in that direction. You must take the steps to see. On the other hand of those who claim and believe there is no God and that God does not exist the burden of proof is on those who make these claims to prove them IMO

Most atheists are agnostic atheists not hard atheists. The live practical lives without the idea of God hanging over their head. They reject a claim made by theists and move on.

 

[exchemist]

But isn't that what so many people do? They say "There is no God" but can't prove their position?

Returning to this, it's a reasonable position for them to take, if they see no evidence for a God and have no other reason to think there might be one. After all, there are lot of ideas we all think are fictitious.

Why is it that believers believe? It's because they have been told there is a God and they choose to accept that because it seems to make sense to them aesthetically, and/or because they think they have experienced the presence of God in some way, at some time in their lives. But not everyone has such an experience, or shares the same aesthetic view.

 

[Kenny]

Returning to this, it's a reasonable position for them to take, if they see no evidence for a God and have no other reason to think there might be one. After all, there are lot of ideas we all think are fictitious.

Why is it that believers believe? It's because they have been told there is a God and they choose to accept that because it seems to make sense to them aesthetically, and/or because they think they have experienced the presence of God in some way, at some time in their lives. But not everyone has such an experience, or shares the same aesthetic view.

I'm not sure I can agree with that in totality.

If I were to hold that they see not evidence of a God is sufficient to declare there is no God... it again dictates that they don't have to prove it. 10 years ago there was no evidence of black holes but that didn't mean there weren't any black holes. It simply meant to continue digging.

If there was no evidence of a God, then scientists, atheists, chemists etc who, would never believe that there was a God through the evidence that they found in their studies.

As far as "why", certainly some may qualify in what you said but it hardly encapsulates everybody.

Dr Hugh Ross comes to my mind as an example of an atheist who came to the conclusion through reasoning.

 

[exchemist]

I'm not sure I can agree with that in totality.

If I were to hold that they see not evidence of a God is sufficient to declare there is no God... it again dictates that they don't have to prove it. 10 years ago there was no evidence of black holes but that didn't mean there weren't any black holes. It simply meant to continue digging.

If there was no evidence of a God, then scientists, atheists, chemists etc who, would never believe that there was a God through the evidence that they found in their studies.

As far as "why", certainly some may qualify in what you said but it hardly encapsulates everybody.

Dr Hugh Ross comes to my mind as an example of an atheist who came to the conclusion through reasoning.

It remains quite reasonable to be sceptical of things that are asserted without evidence. We do it all the time.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Isn’t that what I said? God isn’t a man with an elephant’s trunk.

Okay, then --- what IS God?

 

[Audie]

We have up a thread about the "faith" of "believing in"
evolution, and the "faith" of atheists.

I dont get it, it is as if "faith" is a dirty word, and
/ or a word with absolutely no nuance of meaning
or depth.

Faith that the waitress will bring a menu
is the same thing as faith in
God?

If she fails to return, will it have the life
changing emotional, existential impact
as being betrayed by God, or
learning he does not even exist?

Dirty word like to have faith in evolution
would be a base and ignoble thing a
basis for contempt and ridicule?

Do we have posters here so dimly lit
that they cannot think of anything to say
but must trot out sonething so moldy
unoriginal, shallow and witless as
this "faith" complaint?

Boys of the faith! Stop it!

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I think you are comparing apples and oranges.

Using your spider analogy..

"There seems to be orderly direction for the existence of what we see. Certainly the reality of the Second Law of Thermodynamics points that something continues to run contrary to what we know, thus, the POSSIBILITY of a God that exists by what we are seeing is backed up by reason.

So your unicorn example isn't valid and an overused two-step so as not to address that people who say "God does not exists" aren't required to prove their position.

Ken, the ancient Greeks proposed the existence of gods to explain the winds and rain -- because they couldn't explain them without. Yes, one must suppose it possible the winds and storms were pushed around by deities -- but then we learned a lot about how climate works on this planet (and others, now!), and the deities weren't required.

If you are going to base your "possibility" of God on not knowing the ultimate reality of the cosmos, then you place your God squarely in the headlights of science, and they just might one day explain it away.

And in any case, just making the God assumption puts you in another strange place, in that you can't explain what God really is, how God is what it is, and what possible purpose such an entity could possibly have in creating a cosmos such as we live. All of those are a complete and total mystery to you. You have no possible conception of what, how and why an entity without time, substance and form suddenly (and without time, it must have been suddenly) needed to create time, substance and form. No explanation at all. Nor can you, in your theology, even begin searching for one, for these things are explained away as being beyond our ability to understand.

At least science is making the effort to understand our cosmos -- and its origins. And I can tell you this -- if science does eventually discover some trace of this god being involved in creation, science will admit to it right away.

 

[Kenny]

Ken, the ancient Greeks proposed the existence of gods to explain the winds and rain -- because they couldn't explain them without. Yes, one must suppose it possible the winds and storms were pushed around by deities -- but then we learned a lot about how climate works on this planet (and others, now!), and the deities weren't required.

And doctors use to bleed patients with leeches and we know that doctors aren't required anymore.

Is that your analogy?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I'm not sure I can agree with that in totality.

If I were to hold that they see not evidence of a God is sufficient to declare there is no God... it again dictates that they don't have to prove it. 10 years ago there was no evidence of black holes but that didn't mean there weren't any black holes. It simply meant to continue digging.

If there was no evidence of a God, then scientists, atheists, chemists etc who, would never believe that there was a God through the evidence that they found in their studies.

As far as "why", certainly some may qualify in what you said but it hardly encapsulates everybody.

Dr Hugh Ross comes to my mind as an example of an atheist who came to the conclusion through reasoning.

But given what we knew about physics at the time, it was reasonable to conjecture the existence of black holes -- and then begin the search to find them. And we did.

What, in what we know of our reality, gives us reason to conjecture the existence of a creative deity (rather than just the existence of something, rather than nothing). Do we see any unexplainable "creative acts?" Is there evidence of continued maintenance of the universe?