Does God Believe in Atheism?

[mobile21]

Or have you read an of my previous posts were I have explicitally said many time that I am not 100% sure god doesn't exist?

One more thing, why you are not 100% sure God doesn't exist????????. After all, if you don't believe in God because "you can't see Him", then what would that 1% of doubt be???? Did you see one time something that resembled God.........?.

[mobile21]

Default Atheists

This is what I - indeed all of you - was once in my life, long ago while I was a child. Default atheism is the position that all children take, they are atheists simply because nobody has told them about religion and gods.

Nice try................

Just as a man can only learn what an apple is by knowing one, the men of the Bible talk about God because He revealed Himself to them.

Saying otherwise is asserting something impossible, remember that humans as material beings can only acquire abstract concepts through the information the senses gather.

[Fovezer]

I enjoy religious debates, that is why.

Wait a sec, so far you have engaged in ZERO religious debate. The only thing you've done is to ask: "can you prove me God?" which is the wrong question to ask to begin with because the God of christianity has only a physical identity for a very specific purpose and you won't see Him until the Final Judgement so, that question would only be valid for a religion that accepts that:

1) a deity can have a physical existence

2) that deity can appear for whatever reasons

Asking the question you ask it's like if I go to a board about hinduism and ask: can you explain me monotheism?.

Show me ONE TIME where I said "prove god." You can't, because I NEVER DID.

One more thing, why you are not 100% sure God doesn't exist????????. After all, if you don't believe in God because "you can't see Him", then what would that 1% of doubt be???? Did you see one time something that resembled God.........?.

Why would I be? Just because I don't believe in him doesn't mean he doesn't exist, just as just because you believe in him, doesn't mean he exists.

Nice try................

Just as a man can only learn what an apple is by knowing one, the men of the Bible talk about God because He revealed Himself to them.

Saying otherwise is asserting something impossible, remember that humans as material beings can only acquire abstract concepts through the information the senses gather.

What do you mean "Nice try"? It is true. We are all born atheists, because when we are born, we don't believe in any diety at all, it is taught to us. Atheism is not abstract, Christianity is.

[Guest Scaramallion]

Nice try................

Just as a man can only learn what an apple is by knowing one, the men of the Bible talk about God because He revealed Himself to them.

Saying otherwise is asserting something impossible, remember that humans as material beings can only acquire abstract concepts through the information the senses gather.

This view, that humans can only gather data from the senses, is to the best of my knowledge correct.

I think the point you are trying to make is that the concept of a god, not being the product of sensory data is therefore a fundamental idea already planted in our brains, as it were. If I have constructed a strawman out of your position, do not hesistate to draw attention to it.

However, I think you do not give human imagination enough credit and indeed are too limiting in your discussion of what constitutes "extra-sensory data." Children do not believe in Santa Claus until they are told he exists by their parents. The myth of Santa Clause, like all myths, grew out of a real person and real acts (ie. sensory data) which were embellished over time.

This pattern - of gradual mythical embellishments on natural occurence - is the easiest way to dismiss your statement. In fact it seems that you assume that if the concept of a god is today a complex belief, that it must have always been that complex. Humans seek explanations for mysteries, once upon a time the only explanation that we could come up with was a personification of natural events - gods. What starts as an explanation to explain thunder and lighting becomes, over time, a fully fledged mythical being with its own rules and worshippers.

If you doubt the reality of the statement that all were once default atheists, then conduct this simple thought experiment:

Imagine that a mother and her baby are living in the middle of nowhere with no contact with the outside world, and as the baby grows up the mother makes no mention of religion. All questions about the world are either answered with their naturalistic explanation or "I don't know." Do you think this child would grow up believing in god? It certainly wouldn't grow up believing in Christianity. I contend that this child would remain ignorant of the concept of a god until it was informed by an outside party of it. The child may, as a result of speculation - which is what you fail to take account for with your position - attribute some of the answers to "I don't know" questions to some sort of supernatural power, but that supernatural power would most likely be very basic, not even coming close to todays myths.

Of course, this is pure speculation, but the pattern of religious belief - that a believer in X tends to beget children that will themselves believe in X - seems to support this view.

So, for those who were too lazy to read all that, the summary is;

1. Primitive people once explained natural events with the supernatural.

2. Over time, these explanations were embellished and developed.

3. Eventually these explanations became the religions and beliefs we see today.

4. A child - or adult - who is not exposed to points 2 or 3 will most likely not believe in the religious explanations of points 2 and 3.

5. A child - or adult - who is not exposed to 2 and 3 may themselves become somewhat analogous to 1 in attempting to explain the causes for unexplained natural events.

6. Human knowledge is not merely the sum of sensory data. This statement may become contentious at a later date and I reserve the right to amend it.

[Edit because I have an obsessive need to correct my spelling. - S]

[Guest Scaramallion]

One more thing, why you are not 100% sure God doesn't exist????????. After all, if you don't believe in God because "you can't see Him", then what would that 1% of doubt be???? Did you see one time something that resembled God.........?.

Rarely will an atheist - of the strong and weak variety - claim they are 100% certain that God doesn't exist, probably because a claim of 100% certainty is impossible. As CARM once pointed out while attempting to demolish a strawman, claiming 100% certainty would require absolute knowledge of everything.

For instance, God may come down to earth one day and decree that all humans must wear yellow sweaters. You can't know with absolute certainty that it really is God - it may be some very clever space aliens playing a practical joke.

Be wary of anyone claiming to be 100% sure about anything, including the theist that says they are 100% sure God exists. It is a symptom of a closed mind.

I, personally, would say that I am 99.99999999999999999% sure that the Christian God does not exist. In other words, I am about as sure that the Christian God doesn't exist as you are sure that Baal, Thor, Zeus, Mithra, Vishnu et al do not exist.

[Guest Scaramallion]

Wait a sec, so far you have engaged in ZERO religious debate. The only thing you've done is to ask: "can you prove me God?" which is the wrong question to ask to begin with because the God of christianity has only a physical identity for a very specific purpose and you won't see Him until the Final Judgement so, that question would only be valid for a religion that accepts that:

1) a deity can have a physical existence

2) that deity can appear for whatever reasons

Asking the question you ask it's like if I go to a board about hinduism and ask: can you explain me monotheism?.

Leaving aside the contention that Fovezer asked you to prove God exists - a thoroughly reasonable question, one you would ask of a Hindu if they ever tried to convince you that Vishnu existed, doesn't your two points describe Christianity? Your text in bold:

1) a deity can have a physical existence

But we are told throughout the Old Testament that God revealed himself to humans. Indeed, he even performed some miracles for them.

We are not asking you show us God, merely that you show us proof of his existence. For me, personally, getting him to align the stars of the Milky Way to spell out the words "Yes, I exist, and Jesus is my son and all that, now start believing in me, punk" would do just fine. Though I wouldn't be 100% certain of his existence (it could be those powerful alien pranksters again), I would believe that the probability of him existing would now be reasonable.

2) that deity can appear for whatever reasons

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but can't God do exactly that? Aren't you selling your God short by saying he is incapable of proving himself to exist? He did it before, why can't he do it now?

Another quote from alt.atheism, please forgive the tone towards the end:

"Seems to me that Christians worship the incredible shrinking god. I mean at one time it was supposedly capable of flinging thousands of billions of galaxies into existence with a mere thought. By the time of Noah, it was reduced to flooding an insignificant speck in the cosmos. By the time of Moses, its best trick was moving a tiny portion of a minor sea aside for a short while. By the time of Jesus, it has to send a delegate on its behalf who leaves behind only rumors that he was able to turn water into another beverage, or render himself extra buoyant. Now it counts as a miracle if a water stain grows mold that kind of looks like a bearded face which could be claimed to resemble this supposed delegate. How much more pathetic can this god get? How do Christians manage to sing praises of its glory and greatness without feeling like fools--or at best, like new parents gushing over their toddler's ability to make a pee." - Kronk

[Fovezer]

Scaramallion, your last three posts convey my feelings also very well. I am in 100% accord with your statements.

[mobile21]

Show me ONE TIME where I said "prove god." You can't, because I NEVER DID.

Uh but you did!:

"You are right, you can't prove a negative. Atheism is not a negative. I don't say "there is no god." I say "I lack the belief in a god." Big difference. The first one is a positive statement, the second one is neither. Your point is null. Saying definitaly there is or isn't a god is very foolish and rather arrogant.

That is why the burden of proof lies on the affirmative, or the one that claims there is/isn't a god."

Why would I be? Just because I don't believe in him doesn't mean he doesn't exist, just as just because you believe in him, doesn't mean he exists.

Those abstract statements don't explain what's your rationale for judging God's existence -or lack of-.

What do you mean "Nice try"? It is true. We are all born atheists, because when we are born, we don't believe in any diety at all, it is taught to us.

This is no rebuttal to my point. My point is that prior to God's revelation to a specific individual, there was no belief in "Yahweh" nor any knowledge about his biblical characteristics so indeed there was a beginning to those specific beliefs whereas your answer explains an "infinite chain" of teachings.

Remember that "infinite chains" prove nothing .

Atheism is not abstract, Christianity is.

What do you mean by this?.

[mobile21]

This view, that humans can only gather data from the senses, is to the best of my knowledge correct.

I think the point you are trying to make is that the concept of a god, not being the product of sensory data is therefore a fundamental idea already planted in our brains, as it were.

That is not my point at all: precisely because humans can only know what their senses tell their brains, there are no ideas we never learned. Like Fovezer said, God is indeed taught and that's why we have to read the Bible and learn the doctrine and so on but the point is that God at some point revealed those truths to several individuals (the prophets of the OT) and that's why we know concepts about God that don't exist in nature and therefore can't be learned by the observation of nature (like the example I gave before about the difference between the concept of immortality of pagan gods and the concept of eternal of the revealed God of christianity).

[mobile21]

In other words, I am about as sure that the Christian God doesn't exist as you are sure that Baal, Thor, Zeus, Mithra, Vishnu et al do not exist.

I believe the christian God is real and I don't believe in the other gods for a reason: those pagan gods -like Comte explained in 1853- were either invented to explain forces of nature or they were an idealized version of human beings but still with the very same human characteristics and properties.

On the other hand, the God of christianity never explained natural forces because He is explained in the OT as separate entity of this material universe (Zeus lived in Mt. Olympus and Thor in Valhalla....) and the physical appearance of God (Jesus Christ) was hardly the archetype of any human ideals (He was executed in the company of 2 criminals).

This is a very peculiar God, isn't He?. So peculiar it is proof He was never invented by any human but that He revealed to us.