Good afternoon one and all,
I would really like to start a thread where we can for once get to the root of our thinking in regards to athiesm and thiesm,
Therefore, if you'd all be so kind as to answer the following that applies to you.
I will try to ask questions that do not overly corner anyone, as I would just like to see some clarity and civil conversation.
So, I've asked the following below because every thread tends to get merky with miscommunication and misunderstanding,
perhaps if we have better understandings and better ideas of each others views we can have fruitful discussions.
Theists,
Religion practiced/followed and so fourth -
How did you come to believe/pracitce this -
How would you describe and/or define your god -
What is your standard for evidence (i.e. most athiests would say scientific method perhaps, what is your measuring stick?) -
Can Athiesm and Thiesm eventually coexist happily -
What is you single biggest reason for believing -
What encourages you to believe you are correct -
What worries you that you may be wrong -
Athiests.
In brief points if you can, what lead you to athiesm -
What is your standard for evidence -
What would genuinely sway you to believe in a god or gods -
Does thiesm have a good role to play in the world -
Can Athiesm and Thiesm eventually coexist happily -
What is you single biggest reason for disbelieving -
What encourages you to believe you are correct -
What worries you that you may be wrong -
Perhaps we can ascertain a better perspective on each others thought processes and be able to converse in a better and more direct way.
May I ask all to remain civil as well please, this will enable us to better reach a status quo where questions can be answered rather then being span and danced around.
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Reading the bible from cover to cover made me stop being a Christian. Then I became a pagan for 25 years, then I became an agnostic for a couple of years, then became an atheist.
I relie on science and my 5 senses.
Seeing a God appear and do some magic in front of me might get me to believe it was real. But that doesn't mean I would worship it.
Does theism have a good role to play? No, religion causes more harm than good.
Atheism and theism could get along, if and when religious people can stay out of other people's lives and stop trying to get laws made to force us to live as the do.
No evidence that can be tested.
What makes me think I'm correct. No evidence for God.
If I'm wrong, then I stand corrected.
Are we referring to something akin to an miracle in this situation?
Do you think it possible to defy the laws of nature to provide such an occurrence?
So you didn't get results of from being a pagan. I see.
Let's say you turned to a werewolf at nights. Did you really turn to a werewolf or is it just your perception of hallucinatory?
What is "proof'?
What is "proof'?
Basically, and almost, anything and everything that ain't religious.
rmfr
Q) In brief points if you can, what lead you to athiesm (sic)-
A) No credible evidence for a deity.
Q) What is your standard for evidence -
A) The best we have is hard or objective empirical evidence, if there's anything better then I'm prepared to listen to its merits.
Q) What would genuinely sway you to believe in a god or gods -
A) Hard to say, but an omniscient omnipotent deity would know, and would be able to convince me.
Q) Does thiesm (sic) have a good role to play in the world -
A) Not really, I think the bad far out weighs the good.
Q) Can Athiesm (sic) and Thiesm (sic) eventually coexist happily -
A) No, religions are not created in such a way.
Q) What is you single biggest reason for disbelieving -
A) The complete lack of any credible evidence, and the obvious fact that humans create fictional deities.
Q) What encourages you to believe you are correct -
A) I'm not sure I would describe my lack of belief as a belief, that seems like a misnomer. I'm encouraged to disbelieve because as I said, there is no credible evidence, and it's axiomatic that humans create fictional deities.
Q) What worries you that you may be wrong -
A) Nothing, the more I examine theistic claims and apologetics the less compelling they become, it's like pulling at a loose thread, it unravels pretty quickly.
Thank you Sheldon,
May I ask, What would constitute credible evidence in your opinion?
For a deity? That's not for me to say to be honest, it's not a belief I hold as no one can demonstrate any objective evidence. If apologists want to claim a deity exists then as a bare minimum they'd need to precisely define what they mean by deity, then demonstrate some objective evidence for it. If the claim is unfalsifiable then evidence would be impossible, so I would remain agnostic and atheist about such claims, as I don't believe claims that by definition we can know nothing about.
As an atheist:
Q) What is your standard for evidence -
A) There is no evidence for a deity, the burden of proof is not mine. I do not believe in Santa Clause for the same reasons.
Q) What would genuinely sway you to believe in a god or gods -
A) Empirical proof
Q) Does thiesm have a good role to play in the world -
A) Theism does provide a community. But so does a dog club.
Q) Can Athiesm and Thiesm eventually coexist happily -
A) No. Theists consider atheism as an affront and attack on their beliefs. Personally I have no problem with theists only so long as they keep it personal and do not force it on others.
Q) What is you single biggest reason for disbelieving -
A) I do not disbelieve. That is a common fallacy theists place on atheists. Bad question
Q) What encourages you to believe you are correct -
A) I do not know with certainty that I am correct. But I do not believe in mythical creatures that cannot be supported by empirical evidence.
Q) What worries you that you may be wrong -
A) I do not worry, I have discovered that living without the fear and uncertainty imposed by religion releases me to truly and fully enjoy life and this world.
-what lead you to athiesm -
The lack of any credible evidence at first followed by the ludicrous claims of theists second.
- What is your standard for evidence -
It has to be empirical evidence and not just for the existence of 'some god' but a particular god and even were it evidence of a particular god it would also need to demonstrate that this god is worthy of veneration.
- What would genuinely sway you to believe in a god or gods -
Believe in? As above, evidence. Actually venerate? Demonstration that he/she/it/they were worthy of it.
- Does thiesm have a good role to play in the world -
There is not a single good thing that theism does that can't be done without it and plenty of evil things it does that wouldn't be done if it were no longer a thing.
- Can Athiesm and Thiesm eventually coexist happily -
Depends on the form the Theism takes. Any system that says 'you must believe or ELSE' absolutely cannot coexist with anyone.
- What is you single biggest reason for disbelieving -
No evidence.
- What encourages you to believe you are correct -
What am I 'correct' about? That there is no evidence?
- What worries you that you may be wrong -
The response I often give to Christians and the 'what if you're wrong' question is 'what if we're both wrong? I'm liking my chances better than yours'
"Religion practiced/followed and so fourth?"
-Christianity
"How would you describe and/or define your god"
I'm primarily interested in Scriptural descriptions. Philosophy has often used the concept of God as a way to solve many problems within its field. Although I find such philosophical definitions interesting, I don't care much for them. Christianity and philosophy have influenced each other quiet a bit, so I always attempt to separate the two.
"What is your standard for evidence"
I care more about argument than evidence. Evidence is nothing but an observation interpreted as supporting some idea. As such, I'm more interested in the interpretation stage. How should evidence be interpreted, and how do we make a distinction between the possibilities?
"What worries you that you may be wrong."
I wouldn't say I worry about being wrong. The entire premise of religion is trust and faith in something independent of yourself, so that even when you are wrong or right, life goes on: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5, ESV). As someone who studies cognition, I'm more than aware of the countless pitfalls that exist when we think and process the world. Within religion I have to trust something outside myself, and within science I have to trust tools and methods that exist independent of me. Trusting my own understanding, my own thoughts, my own memories is comfortable but dangerous. So, a better question would be, what do I think will be the reason I am wrong? The answer would be my own brain. Am I worried about? No.
May I ask, How would specifically describe the god that you believe in regards to your scripture?
What do you feel is the biggest mistake made by atheists in regards to the interpretation of evidences provided by theists?
An interesting point on the answer being your brain, and it raises two questions.
1) Could the brain merely be falling for these beliefs as a safeguard of sorts, in order to protect us from the realities of a chaotic world and an equally chaotic life we all endure? Could it be a way of giving us some form of hope?
2) But on the flip side, Could we invest to heavily in what we believe to be evidences, given that we are by nature pattern seeking primates?
Thank you for replying.
Its hard to give a one-sentence description when there are over a thousand chapters in the Bible. But as an example, terms such as omnipotence, omnibenevolence, omniscience, are rather post-hoc terms which have taken on a philosophical life of their own.
The biggest mistake I think atheists make is falling for the atheist "propaganda." This means subscribing to interpretations that view God negatively or as evil; which hardly any Christian will agree with. If there's one thing that has kept my beliefs safe during my time on the forum, its seeing such negative comments, given that I also don't believe such an evil God exists. If you want to be more effective, then agree with the basic Christian interpretations (such as God being love), and then show that even then the entire narrative is unfounded.
---
1. Hmm. Research does show that people who feel that they lack control in their lives, tend to emphasize God’s attributes of power. In contrast, those that lack love may emphasize God's benevolence. However, people also do that with other aspects of life; they emphasize or focus on the parts that they need or make life easier. So, I would argue that beliefs comes first, and then benefits are extracted from them; rather than beliefs being formed for the sake of their benefits.
2. I'm not sure I understand the question. You mean to be essentially blinded by evidence?
The god of the bible is also described as Lord of War, a jealous and avenging god, a god who believes that sin is inherited.
Great, then ask yourself why Christian's are ok with that, and why you aren't. You'll often find it is due to a difference of interpretation.
I agree, subjective interpretation by theists, and objective interpretation by atheists on the whole.
How else could theists arbitrarily single out one real deity from all the many fictional ones. Then fail to notice it conveniently is the deity their parents believed in and their culture.
How do you know those scriptures arent alterations?
If there's one thing that has kept my beliefs safe during my time on the forum, its seeing such negative comments, given that I also don't believe such an evil God exists. If you want to be more effective, then agree with the basic Christian interpretations (such as God being love), and then show that even then the entire narrative is unfounded.
Are you sure you are talking about YHWH of the Bible? Read Joshua. Your precious YHWH commands numerous ethnic genocidal cleansings.
rmfr
I'll do you one better. Scripture says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth at the end of days; plus the whole earth being consumed with fire.
So an inherently cruel, and statistically evil design then, by any objective standard.
Luckily these kind of fictions abound in many religions. Two of the most irreligious secular countries on earth are Sweden and Denmark. If any deity is angered at these godless societies he's not shown any indication. As by a long list of objective measuring tools research has shown these countries to be amongst the happiest contented and long lived societies in the world.
No atheist "propaganda" can view a deity as possessing any characteristics, by definition. Atheists only deal with the claims of religions and the religious. How can an atheist view a god as evil? It's like you saying unicorns are white, with a single horn, and me objecting that your "definition" is wrong, which is why you're failing to see the evidence for it.
If someone claims a deity exists, and that it designed & created everything, then the fact we see the result has ubiquitous suffering means it would either be an incompetent deity, or a sadistically cruel deity. Either it couldn't avoid the ubiquitous suffering, or it could and deliberately chooses to include it.
Let's not forget theists the world over believe their deity intercedes on their behalf when swayed by their prayers. So it automatically can stop a child being murdered, raped, or dying horribly from cancer for example, yet despite the innumerable prayers of parents throughout human history does not stop this happening over and over again. I don't believe a deity exists, but such a deity could only be perceived as sadistic, cruel, and evil.
If such a deity wants a different perception from me it should not have made me thus, and should not be hiding so completely from me.
Clearly you haven't read the first three chapters of the Bible, let alone the whole book.
Only you could pretend Leviticus doesn't portray the biblical deity as cruel and evil.
"A man curses and blasphemes while disputing with another man. Moses asks God what to do about it. God says that the whole community must stone him to death. "And the children of Israel did as the Lord and Moses commanded." 24:10-23"
What would we think of a human who thought an appropriate punishment for swearing was to be stoned to death?
Leviticus is possibly one of my favorite books of Scripture.
"If you want to be more effective, then agree with the basic Christian interpretations (such as God being love), and then show that even then the entire narrative is unfounded."
More effective at what, ignoring objective facts?
A loving deity that hides his existence from me, and will torture me forever when I die because I couldn't believe one deity from thousands of fictional ones was real when it refused to demonstrate it's existence to me with any objective evidence at all? That's not my idea of love, in fact...
It's not really a shock, but you and I have very different definitions of love. To be clear mine would rule out torture under any circumstances. Also genocide, encouraging rapine, torturing babies to death in fit of rage at the infidelity of it's parents, trafficking women and girls after ethnically cleansing their town or city, stoning people to death, including unruly children, owning humans as property, also buying and selling them, beating them, demanding unrelenting and servile worship from beings less powerful than you, deceiving them, murdering their families and destroying their lives over a bet with an underling, cursing unborn children over the actions of their parents or ancestors, deliberately inflicting unnecessary emotional and physical pain, championing the idea of vicarious redemption through blood sacrifice, being appeased by torture and murder like crucifixion. Persecuting and discriminating against people who happen to be gay, promoting misogynistic and chauvinistic ideas about women, creating things like disease, predation, and parasitic organisms, and causing or allowing untold suffering, etc etc..
None of that demonstrates a loving being to me, and all of it is either claimed about the christian deity in the bible, or can be inferred from claims made about their deity by various christian apologists and the bible.
Going to steal Sheldon's formatting, hope he does not mind.
Q) In brief points if you can, what lead you to athiesm (sic)-
A) Born that way, was fortunate to be raised in environment where a religion was not forced on me before I could think for myself.
Q) What is your standard for evidence -
A) Repeatable, testable, that reinforces other known evidence in a mutual way.
Q) What would genuinely sway you to believe in a god or gods -
A) More evidence that god created man from an idea, then evidence that man created the god idea. (And let me tell you right now it is overwhelmingly on the side of man created the god idea, so whichever god that supposedly existed has a deep deep hole to dig out of.
Q) Does thiesm (sic) have a good role to play in the world -
A) Possibly once upon a time it played more good then bad, when knowledge was limited and the spread of knowledge was very limited. People do want answers, and even if the answers are wrong, those answers could possibly be used to persuade people to work together to better them selves. I do not think that is the case anymore as science has filled in so many questions.
Q) Can Athiesm (sic) and Thiesm (sic) eventually coexist happily -
A) If religions would stop enforcing their will on others, sure. But most of the large successful religions today got there by aggresively expanding and imposing their way on others, (mostly on defenseless children that cannot think for themselves with occasional bouts of by force at the edge of the sword/weapon when expanding into a new area.)
Q) What is you single biggest reason for disbelieving -
A) Back when I was younger the burning question was why is religion x right but every other religion is at least partially wrong? That question never got answered. Today it is all about the evidence. (As I said above, overwhelming evidence that man created the god idea, with little to no evidence that god created man from an idea.
Q) What encourages you to believe you are correct -
A) Continually mounting evidence that man created the god idea, with continuing lack of evidence that god created man from an idea.
Q) What worries you that you may be wrong -
A) I do believe in the possibility of some sort of greater being that may have played a role in the formation of life in the universe. That being though in my mind is extremely likely to not care even a little bit about my thoughts or awareness of it. I also think the possibility of some greater being like that responsible for life in the universe is a remote one. I am not worried at all about the various man made religions being correct and me being wrong, with the amount of reading, thought, and writing I have done on it, it is one of the things I am the most confident about in life.
- Atheist
- Firstly, Rational thinking, common sense, probability and so on... then perhaps the scientific method.
- Nothing, I can't give the notion any credence. Perhaps from being brought up with no indoctrination I have not had it influence my life really and thus I find the whole concept as preposterous to the highest degree... on par with Santa and so on...
- Sure, it's a fine literary piece with some passages that people can take from it, furthermore, it builds communities and helps those who fear death as well, with a form of comfort.
- They can coexist in my opinion if religion is not put on a pedestal where it cannot be questioned, and also that it does not interfere with politics.
A utopian dream though I fear.
- Miracles as described in the bible or quaran are impossible and can never be repeated so one has to ask... did the laws of nature become suspended once in the millions of years of the planets being, or did people lie... and I believe it to be the later.
Furthermore, there is nothing in nature or reality that requires a deity in my opinion, so it is my contention that it's all horseshit.
Reality and nature encourages me to believe I am right.
I cannot comprehend I am wrong about it, but equally I respect all people including theists!
My thoughts are mine and mine alone providing no one tries to force their beliefs up on me.
For me, exactly what Sheldon, David Killens, LogicForTW, blinknight, and RandomHero summed it up.
Never was a believer. Have always been a skeptic.
rmfr
uploaded from my PADD during break
In brief points if you can, what lead you to athiesm -
The first time I read the bible from cover to cover, I was also reading books about the myths of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse etc. divinities, which had something of a profound effect on me. I always had an issue with the violence of the biblical god, which was contrary to descriptions such as "God Is Love" etc.
What is your standard for evidence -
Evidence should be falsifiable. Conclusions should always be limited to the environment in which observations were made - i.e. analogies that go from the specific to the general are useless. This means for example that you should not make conclusions about conditions outside of the universe based on what is inside it.
What would genuinely sway you to believe in a god or gods -
If god/s are inherently supernatural concepts, then there will never be anything that will make me believe in the god/s.
Does thiesm have a good role to play in the world -
Superstition has no value whatsoever. If something beneficial happens because of superstition, then it is a happy accident that has absolutely nothing to do with the superstition having merit.
Can Athiesm and Thiesm eventually coexist happily -
If superstition coexists happily with anything else, it will be a happy accident.
What is you single biggest reason for disbelieving -
I do not see how an omnipotent and omnibenovolent being can exist.
What encourages you to believe you are correct -
There is no value in believing in something that cannot be observed, and no value in following something contrary to my conscience.
What worries you that you may be wrong -
Nothing. If I am wrong and tortured for eternity as a result, that will be an unhappy act of God. But of course, being tortured for eternity does not actually mean I am wrong to not follow a being I find unconscionable - it would make me correct. If god is omnipotent, I have no agency. Even if god is immoral, I am still obliged to follow my conscience. I do not wish to be a theist who is like a dog who unthinkingly follows their master's orders without a moment's thought because they have a fear of been beaten. If you do not know why you are told to do an action, then doing the action does not make you a moral person.
I never heard much about religion at home, but I got plenty of indoctrination at school and Sunday school. As I grew older, I began to wonder how teachers and preachers knew all this stuff about what god was like and what it wanted me to do. The more I looked at all this pseudo-knowledge, the more I realized that it was all balanced precariously on a vanishing point of ignorance. Everything anybody really knows about god could be written not on the head of a pin, but on the point, with a crayon.
So perhaps I became an atheist not because of the total lack of evidence, but because of the great steaming hill of BS and hearsay nonsense that is put forward as evidence.
In brief points if you can, what lead you to athiesm -
Birth...I’ve never been a non-atheist.
What is your standard for evidence -
Verifiable, falsifiable, repeatable, etc.
What would genuinely sway you to believe in a god or gods -
I don’t know.
Does thiesm have a good role to play in the world -
Not that cannot be accomplished by secular means
Can Athiesm and Thiesm eventually coexist happily -
Probably not entirely but I think it’s getting better
What is you single biggest reason for disbelieving -
Believing in some sort of god(s) just seems silly.
What encourages you to believe you are correct -
Facts.
What worries you that you may be wrong -
I’m not worried about it.
Pages