What would it take to convince you?

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What would it take to convince you?

A lot of the material on this site seems to be aimed at convincing theist to abandon their faiths in favour of atheism.

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?


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His omniscience should tell

His omniscience should tell him that, shouldn't it?


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556caliberatheist wrote:So

556caliberatheist wrote:

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?

That's is a pretty common question, but it's difficult to answer with theists. What it would take is any evidence (or, actually, at this point even convincing argument) of a god. You narrow the field even more by capitalizing the "G". That is, once it could be determined that gods were something other than constructs, we'd have to go for a specific one.

Here's the problem of "existence" for me: I know that smiles exist. You can probably make one with your face. But they don't exist. Smiles are a collection of muscle contractions. We could argue about which muscles are required, etc., and we can have the same discussion with consciousness. But gods as a concept fall into some obviously made-up-shit categories. They're not even close to a smile in terms of existence.

I'm saying it would be an uphill climb to convince me.

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Discarding definitions for

Discarding definitions for "god" that are internally contradicting, the definitions that really don't rate the moniker, and discard silly notions like supernatural or immaterial, there isn't a lot left. And for what's left, well...

There are so many problems with super-beings. Even if this being made things appear before me, altered the shape and materials of things, how can I know with any certainty that it's a "miracle" as in the suspension of universal laws or a technology too advanced for me to understand.

Is it god speaking to the world at once, or some bizarre mass delusion? Or again, some vastly advanced technology at work?

Essentially, how do you gather evidence on something that can generate evidence or eradicate it at will?

This is the quandary that keeps me an agnostic atheist.

About the only thing I think would make me a believer is if this super-being literally changed my mind - screwed with my brain and alter it to believe in a super-being.

"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray


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Nothing could convince me

Nothing could convince me 100%.

 

I could be convinced that there is a superpowerful conscious being (by some sort of demonstration) but how could I know that this being was not created by yet another even more superpowerful being.

 

I don't even know how a god could know for sure that he/she/it is the one and only God.

How can something know for certain that there is nothing outside of its own being or outside of what it is aware of?


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Evidence

556caliberatheist wrote:

A lot of the material on this site seems to be aimed at convincing theist to abandon their faiths in favour of atheism.

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?

       Not much really,  any super being could easily snap a finger and turn me into a theist of some type. Why doesn't it do just that?  Or do it to any other atheist?       The useual answer is "god gave you freewill".   Have you ever noticed how exercising my freewill tends to piss off theists because it does not jive with their freewill;  it direct violation of their god's dictates,  since their god is not worried in the least by my atheisim.

 

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When my foreskin magically

When my foreskin magically grows back.


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I discussed this very point

I discussed this very point with Santa Clause, a unicorn, and a rather bad-tempered bearded old guy in the boozer last night. The three of them seemed to be mates of some sort, and all three were on pretty much of a downer as far as I could see. Being the amiable type I bought them all a drink and asked them why the long faces (the unicorn said he was born with one, but that's beside the point).

 

Anyway it appeared that all three had recently had had cause to reflect on the possibility that they didn't actually exist - Santa because he'd just received a writ from the Cocal Cola Corporation suing him for impersonating some copywrighted advertising character declaring him to be a fraud, the unicorn because his existence apparently depended on a supply of modest, chaste, demure and pensive maidens - something that obviously never existed - and the bearded man because he kept getting phone calls from televangelists asking him to launder money for them and when he asked "why should I" got the answer "Listen pal - we all know you don't exist. We just need your fucking endorsement 'coz you look the part, ok?".

 

I asked them if they had done anything to demonstrate that they existed in the recent past. Santa sighed and said that he did a whistle-stop world tour every year leaving stuff in people's houses, but alas it didn't help. People still brought all the stuff back to the store two days later and exchanged them for vouchers. The unicorn said he had written a long and thorough existentialist tome demonstrating that horses and horns in symbiosis represented a probability factor well in excess of the US voters electing a muttonhead as a president but, since it was written in horsian "neigh, neigh, neigh, neigh etc" had been panned by the critics as a bunch of negative crapology.

 

So I asked the bearded guy the same question. He just shrugged "What's the point? What can one do?"

 

"Well," I responded, "what can you do?"

 

"Anything and everything," he said despondently, "I'm fucking omnipotent, arn't I?" (This got a thumbs up from a drunk further up the bar who'd misheard the remark and called out "Don't worry - itsh jusht de drink". )

 

"So do something then!" I implored. "What's your speciality?"

 

He thought a moment. "It's been so long. Let's see now, I smite like you wouldn't believe."

 

We both shook our heads at that one.

 

"Mass genocide," he suddenly remembered. "I can genocide whole planets."

 

All four of us shook our heads at that one.

 

"Is there nothing, well, more 'nice' you can do?" I asked. "You know, like healing the sick and that stuff, like the Jesus guy in that fairy tale."

 

"Nah - that was me actually. And I found I was only good for leprosy and people with limps. You don't find many lepers anymore, and limpers have all been told by their shrinks to be proud of their difference, not ashamed of it. Bloody do-gooders! They ruin everything!" The guy was obviously in a bind.

 

We all sat and scratched our heads for a moment. "Can you make anything?" I asked, an idea suddenly forming in my mind.

 

"Everything, actually. I even did carpentry once. Bookshelves, bedside cabinets, universes, life, that kind of thing."

 

"Well that's it then!" I exclaimed. "Simply create something that has never been before, something beneficial to everyone, and which can be empirically proven to have come from you and you alone!"

 

"You mean like penicillin, Velcro and Viagra?" he asked gloomily. "See the problem? Science is ahead of me at every fucking turn." He groaned audibly, despair evident in his involuntary wail.

 

More head-scratching. "Wait! I have it!" I couldn't believe I had missed something so obvious. "You're omnipotent, right?"

 

"Right."

 

"You can do anything?"

 

"Everything." He said it suspiciously. "I hope you're not going to ask me to do something which removes human free will." Santa and the unicorn nodded in agreement and shot me a look of blatant distrust, as if I was trying to trap their friend.

 

But I knew my plan was perfect. "World peace. Give the whole world peace! Just a day of it maybe, so it doesn't fuck up the free will thing of course. But just enough to grab everyone's attention. A day when every instrument of warfare stops working, every knife turns to jelly, every fist raised in anger descends with a bunch of flowers stuck in it. You can even get cloud formations to spell it out for them that you did it. That would be a neat trick. You know, in all the world's languages. Braille even!"

 

For a moment the faces on all three lit up, and a broad beaming smile spread across the ancient visage of the bearded man. But then, just as suddenly it evaporated. "Nah ," he spat out bitterly. "It wouldn't work."

 

"Why not?" I was incredulous.

 

"It would just fuck up my reputation, wouldn't it? I mean what sort of fucking cred would I have after that?"

 

The three friends descended back into a gloomy brooding silence. More liquor all round was ordered by the horned horse. I slipped away quietly and out the door. 'Fuck 'em', I thought. 'Who needs to believe in moronic self-absorbed jerks anyway?'. Besides, two blocks down there was a joint with strippers in it and drink at happy hour prices.

I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy


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I think without miring

I think without miring ourselves in semantics too much it would it be safe to assume that the majority of you find it hard to pin down just what I mean by God.

I mean a personal God. One that watches you and loves you, roots for you and created you and your life, the universe and everything (42). I don't have a good grasp of pantheism so I'll leave that alone. I'm talking classical long white beard and halo God.

What would it take for you to really believe?

I ask because I have asked other why they believe and it usually has something to do with a funny warm feeling inside their tummy when surrounded by stained glass or something equally vague. Does that make any sense? How do you argue against a funny feeling? I get them here in Iraq about certain roads and buildings. Something inside just tells you to steer clear of something and you do it. I'm sure you've all had that feeling from time to time. To call it instinct would but give it a name. It's quite a leap from self-preservation to theism, I know, but I can see a connection, fallcious as it may be.

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556caliberatheist wrote:I

556caliberatheist wrote:

I think without miring ourselves in semantics too much it would it be safe to assume that the majority of you find it hard to pin down just what I mean by God.

I mean a personal God. One that watches you and loves you, roots for you and created you and your life, the universe and everything (42). I don't have a good grasp of pantheism so I'll leave that alone. I'm talking classical long white beard and halo God.

What would it take for you to really believe?

I ask because I have asked other why they believe and it usually has something to do with a funny warm feeling inside their tummy when surrounded by stained glass or something equally vague. Does that make any sense? How do you argue against a funny feeling? I get them here in Iraq about certain roads and buildings. Something inside just tells you to steer clear of something and you do it. I'm sure you've all had that feeling from time to time. To call it instinct would but give it a name. It's quite a leap from self-preservation to theism, I know, but I can see a connection, fallcious as it may be.

The Abrahamic God? I'm not sure if he proved himself to me I'd believe in him. I'd like my gods not to be bastards, thanks.

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
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The attributes of infinite,

The attributes of infinite, omnipotent, omniscient are intrinsically undemonstrable to a finite being.

As for a finite but vastly more powerful and knowledgeable entity, practically indistinguishable from the omni version - I think any demonstration whatever could do no more than 'prove' that there was a whole level of reality beyond our current perceptions and understanding of the 'universe'.

There would be, from our perspective, no way to distinguish the nature of that next layer of reality, whether it was being fed into our minds via a Matrix-style setup, or something like the traditional God of Abraham, or any of an infinite number of possibilities, most of which we could not even begin to conceive of.

It is the fundamental error of any God believer to assume that we could have the slightest basis for any certainty of knowledge of the attributes and implications of any such behind-the-scenes reality. 

The only practical approach amounts to a generalization of Ockham's Razor - keep your assumptions as simple and direct as possible, based on how the universe appears to be.

If some totally incomprehensible phenomenon appears, that in no way justifies leaping to the God assumption. Such a conclusion fails to recognize that once you assume the reality of something so completely beyond our actually experience of the world, the likelihood of it corresponding to such a primitive concept as 'God', which is so clearly a naive extrapolation from our mundane experience and instincts and intuitions, seems small.

That and consideration of the history of incomprehensible phenomena coming to be better understood after more study, whether lightning or comets or the stars themselves.

EDIT: If it manifests as something like the narrative in the Bible, that still proves nothing. Any culture, civilization, race of super-beings with the power to put on such a show would easily be able to find out our belief systems and realize what special effects would have the most impact.

All that aside, if it is that powerful, and starts making demands, we presumably have no real choice - 'might makes right' after all, the essential message of the the Abrahamic God. Doesn't really matter what its motivations or ultimate nature are, nothing we can do about it.

 

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

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If prayer were actually

If prayer were actually demonstrably effective at accomplishing tasks, I would count that as evidence that some form of agency (which may well be a deity) is looking out for our interests in some way.

 

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

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556caliberatheist wrote:A

556caliberatheist wrote:

A lot of the material on this site seems to be aimed at convincing theist to abandon their faiths in favour of atheism.

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?

Nice Topic!

In answer to the question: In the abscense of empirical evidence tested in muliple ways, by a multitude of reputable scientists, and testing conducted within multiple conditions, over several decades... at the very least.
I would require a frontal lobotomy or a railroad spike through my brain, to be so insipid as to believe in god(s).


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A general rule all the god

A general rule all the god has to do is reveal himself to me. But not that fuzzy god touched my heart type stuff. I don't see a way to know short of that

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.


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Tapey wrote:A general rule

Tapey wrote:

A general rule all the god has to do is reveal himself to me. But not that fuzzy god touched my heart type stuff. I don't see a way to know short of that

Never tried LSD?


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treat2 wrote:Tapey wrote:A

treat2 wrote:
Tapey wrote:

A general rule all the god has to do is reveal himself to me. But not that fuzzy god touched my heart type stuff. I don't see a way to know short of that

Never tried LSD?

why would I when PcP is so much cheaper  perhaps I should add that is under normal cercumstances

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.


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Tapey wrote:treat2

Tapey wrote:

treat2 wrote:
Tapey wrote:

A general rule all the god has to do is reveal himself to me. But not that fuzzy god touched my heart type stuff. I don't see a way to know short of that

Never tried LSD?

why would I when PcP is so much cheaper  perhaps I should add that is under normal cercumstances

I wasn't aware of that. Let me know how it turns out.


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556caliberatheist wrote:I

556caliberatheist wrote:

I mean a personal God. One that watches you and loves you, roots for you and created you and your life, the universe and everything (42). I don't have a good grasp of pantheism so I'll leave that alone. I'm talking classical long white beard and halo God.

What would it take for you to really believe?

Maybe I minced my words a little too much. The white beard and halo God: fucking retarded. Actually, I should add "infantile". Right: Infantile and fucking retarded.

As to WHY I think that way ...

He'd have to show up.

The guy with the beard and the halo. He'd have to show up for me to believe that he exists, because otherwise, why would I ever believe that he exists? It's ... infantile and fucking retarded.

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fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence


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jcgadfly wrote:The Abrahamic

jcgadfly wrote:

The Abrahamic God? I'm not sure if he proved himself to me I'd believe in him. I'd like my gods not to be bastards, thanks.

 

Sure, that God if you will.

Is this not the exact same reasoning as someone believing in God because it comforts them? If I believed there was a God then how ever big a dickhead he may be is irrelevant to the question of his very existence.

That's why I don't like the atheists that pour over the Bible to look for bad stuff and somehow use that as an argument that God, at least this God, does not exist.

Speaking of LSD... someone once asked if Jesus appeared before me in person... would that convince me? No... because the simple fact that it is more likely that I am suffering some sort of hallucination rather than all the sticks in a line that have to be correct for Christianity. Just playing the odds...

Bobspence1, would I be out of line to sum up your post as stating that God is unknowable to us like a cube in a flatland... so in that case the best postulate is the null hypothisis?

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hmm, the christian one?well

hmm, the christian one?

well as you said, even if he did appear himself to me, there's a greater chance that it's just a hallucination... so I guess what God could do to get me to believe in him is to strip me of my awesome math skillzz.

''Black Holes result from God dividing the universe by zero.''


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556caliberatheist wrote:A

556caliberatheist wrote:

A lot of the material on this site seems to be aimed at convincing theist to abandon their faiths in favour of atheism.

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?

I take it that our CAPABILITY to do the reverse is that we are God's gift to Theists.

B.S. galore.


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SSBBJunky wrote:hmm, the

SSBBJunky wrote:

hmm, the christian one?

well as you said, even if he did appear himself to me, there's a greater chance that it's just a hallucination... so I guess what God could do to get me to believe in him is to strip me of my awesome math skillzz.

I can do that by whacking you in the head with a ball-peen hammer a few times.

There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft


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First off, if this God had

First off, if this God had some religious doctrine, it would have to not be full of contradictions and not sound like the kind of bullshit a middle schooler would write

Now assuming you are talking about the christian God, even if he did appear, I would still not trust him. I would believe he existed but I wouldn't want to and I would despise him unless he told me he didn't do all that shit that it says he did in the bible.

Ex: II Kings 2: 23-24:

While traveling, some kids make fun of Elijah's bald head, so he curses them in God's name and two bears come out and maul down 42 of the kids.

That sounds retarded and is ridiculously cruel to do to 42 kids. I would not worship this God no matter his existence or not. I would rather be friends with this guy's enemy, who must be much nicer.

So really I could never worship the same guy you do, but believe in him yeah if he just only appeared here on earth and I saw him. Btw he appears a bunch of times in the bible to quite a few different people. It also says that nobody has ever seen God though so idk.


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556caliberatheist

556caliberatheist wrote:

Bobspence1, would I be out of line to sum up your post as stating that God is unknowable to us like a cube in a flatland... so in that case the best postulate is the null hypothisis?

Not really. 

My point about the unknowability was not about whatever hyper-dimension of reality such an entity would presumably inhabit, but about the implications of a sentience, so much beyond our own, being intrinsically incomprehensible as to its motivations or purposes with respect to us and our Universe.

Just to be clear, I regard the proposition that such an entity might actually exist as absurd and indefensible logically and empirically.

I am pointing out even if we give them a pass on the existence of God for the sake of argument, they still have an uphill battle justifying all the attributes they assume come along with the idea of such a being. There is no way to know in any certain way whatsoever any of the things they automatically assume are somehow inherent in the 'nature' of such a being. They need to be pinned down on these points. This also applies to the argument from personal experience of God. Even if we give them a similar pass that God was actually speaking to them, how could they possibly know he is not deceiving them for some inscrutable purposes of His own that a mere mortal could not begin to comprehend.

I want to hammer home the idea that introducing the idea of such an entity ultimately negates the idea of knowing with confidence anything at all about the Universe based on consistent physical laws, since those laws could be overturned at any point at the whim of such a being.

The fact that the Universe does seem to follow a consistent orderly pattern of laws which has allowed us to understand so much of it by scientific study is not a good argument for there being a God behind it all. Evidence for the existence of a God would be the arbitrary violations of such laws, as only a God could cause. This is recognized by pretty much all religions when they talk about 'miracles'.

They try to have it both ways - orderliness and regularity in the Universe being evidence of a designer (logically invalid argument, of course), and claimed specific departures from such regularity also being evidence for God. The latter if really demonstrable, with no available 'natural' explanation even in principle, would have some validity, but the argument from apparent design is far weaker, IMHO.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

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556caliberatheist

556caliberatheist wrote:

jcgadfly wrote:

The Abrahamic God? I'm not sure if he proved himself to me I'd believe in him. I'd like my gods not to be bastards, thanks.

 

Sure, that God if you will.

Is this not the exact same reasoning as someone believing in God because it comforts them? If I believed there was a God then how ever big a dickhead he may be is irrelevant to the question of his very existence.

That's why I don't like the atheists that pour over the Bible to look for bad stuff and somehow use that as an argument that God, at least this God, does not exist.

Speaking of LSD... someone once asked if Jesus appeared before me in person... would that convince me? No... because the simple fact that it is more likely that I am suffering some sort of hallucination rather than all the sticks in a line that have to be correct for Christianity. Just playing the odds...

Bobspence1, would I be out of line to sum up your post as stating that God is unknowable to us like a cube in a flatland... so in that case the best postulate is the null hypothisis?

I would acknowledge his existence if he revealed himself as others have suggested. Believing in him is still another matter.

The comforting god is a construct for Christians who don't bother to read the Bible. Are you saying you'd believe because he's a dickhead? Would fear drive you that way?

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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Gauche wrote:SSBBJunky

Gauche wrote:

SSBBJunky wrote:

hmm, the christian one?

well as you said, even if he did appear himself to me, there's a greater chance that it's just a hallucination... so I guess what God could do to get me to believe in him is to strip me of my awesome math skillzz.

I can do that by whacking you in the head with a ball-peen hammer a few times.

please don't.. 

''Black Holes result from God dividing the universe by zero.''


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SSBBJunky wrote:Gauche


You're right. You should really have the procedure carried out by a professional.


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Evidence.

Evidence.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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If there is a multi-omni god

If there is a multi-omni god and it (he?) exists, and we do not have 1)a True Religion, b)Unshakable proof that god exists, god is either indifferent or malevolent. I mean, if we're talking about the same god that sends people to eternal torture for not believing in him.

For me, I'd say a bunch of flaming metallic pillars, all across the world, that are covered in a fire that gives off light but not heat (maybe the light could be unusual colored too); the pillar would be covered in writing unlike any other language, yet could be read and understood by anyone, and would contain instructions on what god wants or doesn't want.

If this happened, I'd say I'd definitely believe in god. And it wouldn't even mess with our free will; we'd have questions of how to honor god, not whether or not god exists. And this evidence would actually give proof of a *truly* just and good god, and one that knows what level of evidence would be required for incontrovertible proof.

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If you don't believe your non-belief then you don't believe and you must not be an atheist.


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jcgadfly wrote:The

jcgadfly wrote:

The comforting god is a construct for Christians who don't bother to read the Bible. Are you saying you'd believe because he's a dickhead? Would fear drive you that way?

 

No, his personalilty is immaterial to the question of his existence but many people who do believe in God believe because it comforts them while it also seems that some here do not believe for the very same reason. The question of if you like something or not says nothing about it's existence.

I fear God with the same zeal that I fear ogres and goblins. None at all.

So then do you not believe in things that exist?

Who says there's no atheists in foxholes?

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556caliberatheist wrote:So

556caliberatheist wrote:

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?

If God is an all-knowing entity, he would have to make me into an all-knowing entity as well so I could know that he knows everything. Otherwise how could I know that he is all-knowing?

But then if that happened, I would still wonder if I knew everything there was to know. So I can't know that I know everything. So I guess god is impossible living in the realm of logic.

 

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556caliberatheist wrote:A

556caliberatheist wrote:

A lot of the material on this site seems to be aimed at convincing theist to abandon their faiths in favour of atheism.

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?

There is no such thing in this universe.

Even if I saw god I'd assume I'm hallucinating.


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556caliberatheist

556caliberatheist wrote:

jcgadfly wrote:

The comforting god is a construct for Christians who don't bother to read the Bible. Are you saying you'd believe because he's a dickhead? Would fear drive you that way?

 

No, his personalilty is immaterial to the question of his existence but many people who do believe in God believe because it comforts them while it also seems that some here do not believe for the very same reason. The question of if you like something or not says nothing about it's existence.

I fear God with the same zeal that I fear ogres and goblins. None at all.

So then do you not believe in things that exist?

It depends on how you use the word "believe" - If you use "believe" in the same way I use "acknowledge", you and I have no problem. If something proves itself to exist I don't need belief in it as I would have knowledge of it. I don't have to fervently believe in 2+2=4 to make it work.

If you use "believe" as the theists do "love and obey his words without question", we will have difficulties.

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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556caliberatheist wrote:A

556caliberatheist wrote:

A lot of the material on this site seems to be aimed at convincing theist to abandon their faiths in favour of atheism.

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?

Without a definition of god, I really can't even guess what the burden of proof would be.  If you mean one of the common generic all knowing, all powerful gods who wants to be known, the ideal than an argument need be made in its favor contradicts its existence.  I don't deny the existence of the sun because it is so obviously there.  If there truly were an omni whatever god who wanted to be known, we wouldn't be having this discussion.


 

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Without getting bogged down

Without getting bogged down in semantics it seems that a few posters here have all the same logical fallicies that theists have. I have seen: some huge appeals to emotion:

jcgadfly wrote:

The Abrahamic God? I'm not sure if he proved himself to me I'd believe in him. I'd like my gods not to be bastards, thanks.

Madmax958 wrote:

...That sounds retarded and is ridiculously cruel to do to 42 kids. I would not worship this God no matter his existence or not. I would rather be friends with this guy's enemy, who must be much nicer.

So really I could never worship the same guy you do, but believe in him yeah if he just only appeared here on earth and I saw him. Btw he appears a bunch of times in the bible to quite a few different people. It also says that nobody has ever seen God though so idk.

By the way... I am an atheist too. There's a subtle hint in my name.

I think I was trying to point out that the arguments that atheist have for not believing are very similar to the arguments theists have for believing. To have sticky posts titled:

THEISM IS IRRATIONAL, VIEWS OF OUR COMMUNITY,
Questions about God... theists answer these!

Question for our Christian visitors

...are very similar although points reversed to those asked by Dr. Dino. I just think that atheists should hold themselves to a higher standard.

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That must be why you jumped

That must be why you jumped over my answer to you on the way to your soapbix...


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If God sees fit to leave me

If God sees fit to leave me a million dollars on my doorstep tomorrow, I will believe.


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556caliberatheist wrote:By

556caliberatheist wrote:

By the way... I am an atheist too. There's a subtle hint in my name.

Wait wut? Subtle?

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HisWillness wrote: He'd

HisWillness wrote:

 

He'd have to show up.

 

Preferably on Leno. With Barack Obama. On a Thursday. In June.

That would do it for me.

Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.

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Quote:Without getting

Quote:
Without getting bogged down in semantics it seems that a few posters here have all the same logical fallicies that theists have.

How'd mine measure up?

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Actually I had a giant list

Actually I had a giant list to go though (logical fallacies) but we had mission so I had to cut it short. I don't feel like doing it now because I may come off as personally attacking people, which I am not. I am merely pointing out that many atheists' arguments are about the same as theist arguments.

And come to think of it I don't even like the term "atheist" as much as I used to. I once off handedly debated a youth minister and he said "Well then, what religion are you?". Quick as light I said "Atheist". He brought up a good point that I have dwelled on since, he said "Tell me what you are, not what you aren't".

I am not as iron clad in my atheism as I believe many theist are iron clad in their theism. Certain plants and animals routinely challenge my brain like "There's no way that could have happened by chance". Our circulatory system alone is simply amazing. The last "good" argument I know of for the existence of a God would be the argument from design. So many things in the natural world look designed and it is very difficult for me to shake that sometimes. Don't misunderstand me, I know that evolution by natural selection is as sound as any idea in science but it is much easier sometimes to imagine it all to have been created.

Call that "the argument from personal apathy" if you will.

I would also like to point out that if a biological process could not be explained at all with evolution by natural selection that does not automatically grant the theist the intellectual victory.

Is anyone else ever challeneged in their own athiesm?

Who says there's no atheists in foxholes?

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Your name could mean that

Your name could mean that you regard yourself as the 556th theist from Calibera.

 

I mean, there's "subtle" and then there's just "fucking too subtle not to be just dumb".

 

I agree however with two elements of your argument. Atheism as a name is too suggestive of a "common movement" to be one to which I comfortably subscribe, myself. I am with Sam Harris on that one.

 

Also you are right to point out that many atheists tacitly reinforce theistic fallacial thought through their adoption of the same concepts and expressions in framing their repudiation of them. But then when you have such an endemic delusion as theism is, then this goes with the territory, I fear. In a perfect world there'd be no such semantic or conceptual traps for atheists to fall into since there would be no need for atheists for a start. There would still be sloppy thinkers however - that seems to be the way of it.

 

Best regards to the rest of you god-lovers up Calibera way. Give my regards to number 555. Once she got rid of the wimple she was right goer! (aaaah, the mammaries ...)

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Nordmann wrote:I agree

Nordmann wrote:

I agree however with two elements of your argument. Atheism as a name is too suggestive of a "common movement" to be one to which I comfortably subscribe, myself. I am with Sam Harris on that one.

I actually saw a video a few weeks back where Dawkins made the case to change the term 'atheist' to 'non-theist.' Though honestly it seems like a fine point to me. If it sounds like a movement, it will be treated as such- re-defined by god-believers of whatever flavor to mean 'the' atheism, rather than 'a very loose series of collection of people who don't believe in god(s).' Which is the problem that 556calibreatheist had with the youth minister.

The correct answer, BTW, is 'I don't have a religion.' You could talk about your philosophy, but unless you've got dogma + practices, you're not really talking religion.

 

Again, 556Caliberatheist: How did I do?

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If you don't believe your non-belief then you don't believe and you must not be an atheist.


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geirj wrote:HisWillness

geirj wrote:

HisWillness wrote:

He'd have to show up.

Preferably on Leno. With Barack Obama. On a Thursday. In June.

That would do it for me.

Ditto. I'm told that with God, everything is possible, so ...

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spike.barnett wrote:If God

spike.barnett wrote:

If God sees fit to leave me a million dollars on my doorstep tomorrow, I will believe.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I didn't get a million dollars. I guess there is no God...

After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.

The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
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556caliberatheist

Edit:

556caliberatheist wrote:

Without getting bogged down in semantics it seems that a few posters here have all the same logical fallicies that theists have. I have seen: some huge appeals to emotion:

Well, to be fair, I think if you questioned both of those people, they would admit without hesitation that this does not make God less likely to exist (unless your belief in God is based on an ontological argument, lol ). With these points, I think they're emphasizing the morality of Yahweh rather than the existence of a God in general. 

 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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spike.barnett

spike.barnett wrote:

spike.barnett wrote:

If God sees fit to leave me a million dollars on my doorstep tomorrow, I will believe.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I didn't get a million dollars. I guess there is no God...

Hank says you only get the million after you leave town.

 

"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray