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If God Writes Something With the Stars...

As an atheist, would you believe in God if this happened?

  • yes

    Votes: 4 28.6%
  • no, I would search for or look out for answers the scientific method could provide.

    Votes: 6 42.9%
  • no. Other reasons.

    Votes: 3 21.4%
  • no, I would rather believe in aliens moving the stars, instead

    Votes: 1 7.1%

  • Total voters
    14

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
I don't think that my position is by definition intellectually dishonest.

I just explained to you why that is not the case.

It's what intellectual dishonesty means.

I only said that I would never change my mind about the very basic beliefs I hold.

Which is intellectually dishonest.

And intellectually honest position would be that you WOULD change your mind if new evidence / proof would require you to do so.

Stating in advance that you will be dogmatic in your beliefs and ignore and all evidence to the contrary is literally what intellectual dishonesty is.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
No, I wouldn't and the reason for that is because you can start asking other questions, which will ultimately lead to it being unreasonable or less likely to be caused by God.

The universe is huge and at least in my opinion it is much likely that there are other life out there. Given that we ourselves are evidence for the possibility of life in the universe, that open the option for it being done by some alien race. Which in my opinion would already be enough to bet on that being the most likely answer compared to that of God.

But let's assume that it was the actual stars and all possibilities of illusions etc. were removed. I still don't know how you would tell the difference between God and that of highly advanced aliens, simply using the message of the bible to deceive us for whatever reason?

Or maybe, considering chance, there is the possibility for the start to align to do that naturally, and why go with a God when you can go with Occam's Razor and eliminate the complication of a God.
 

thomas t

non-denominational Christian
I just explained to you why that is not the case.

It's what intellectual dishonesty means.
Intellectual honesty, as I see it, does not require anyone to be open to the impossible.
I hold it is impossible to disprove God.
So it's not dishonest from my side to never change my belief that he is there.
And intellectually honest position would be that you WOULD change your mind if new evidence / proof would require you to do so.
which is impossible, I think. You cannot present proof against the existence of a Creator God, I think.
I do not expect that the impossible might happen.
This does not have anything to do with being dishonest
Stating in advance that you will be dogmatic in your beliefs and ignore and all evidence to the contrary is literally what intellectual dishonesty is.
See above.
Atheists usually agree that you cannot disprove God.
So there is no reason to blame me for not being open enough to expect the impossible to happen and to potentially be confronted with proof against God.

The whole concept of intellectual dishonesty makes sense in a scenario in which it is theoretically possible to prove the existence or the absence of something.
 
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TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Intellectual honesty, as I see it, does not require anyone to be open to the impossible.

You're just digging a deeper hole here.
You don't know in advance what is and isn't impossible.

I hold it is impossible to disprove God.

Only because god is unfalsifiable. Just like undetectable graviton fairies.

So it's not dishonest from my side to never change my belief that he is there.

It is.
Also, your particular beliefs, as you have already expressed them on this forum, ARE falsifiable. And indeed CAN be falsified. You have gone through great lengths to try and defend the undefendable when it was pointed out to you how your beliefs concerning human history, geological history, biological history, etc are demonstrably false.

The whole concept of intellectual dishonesty makes sense in a scenario in which it is theoretically possible to prove the existence or the absence of something.

Realizing that there is no good evidence in support of your beliefs, is also a good reason to stop believing them.

We can't prove that undetectable unicorns don't exist, but it wouldn't exactly be a rational or an intellectually honest stance to believe they exist, right?
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
Would you believe him:
a message like "hey, believe Jesus, he is my beloved son!"... and let's assume for a moment there are no language issues.
So when God allocates the stars in a way that we read this message, would you believe in God then?

I'm asking all posters from the atheist side...

best regards
God is already so obvious it’s blinding.
 

thomas t

non-denominational Christian
I stay with my opinion that it is not dishonest.
You're just digging a deeper hole here.
You don't know in advance what is and isn't impossible.
That's my assumption that it is.
But wait...

Only because god is unfalsifiable. Just like undetectable graviton fairies.
so you too think that God cannot be disproven.

Realizing that there is no good evidence in support of your beliefs, is also a good reason to stop believing them.
according to you there is lack of evidence for the Creator.
In general, lack of evidence for him ...can also point to other hypotheses, in my view.
Such as a good and humble God unwilling to print "made by YHWH, finest" on every single detail.
Or a God whose evidence is undetectable for some.

We can't prove that undetectable unicorns don't exist, but it wouldn't exactly be a rational or an intellectually honest stance to believe they exist, right?
I don't care about them. I just ignore.

-----------------------------------
I don't think I was shown wrong in previous threads, btw.
You didn't provide a quote when it was that I was shown wrong according to you.
It's an empty claim. It is just your personal guesswork, I think.

It is only the very basic beliefs that I hold fast to. Not the ones that I consider falsifiable...

EDITED to change the third paragraph
 
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TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
so you too think that God cannot be disproven.

Depends on how said god is defined.

Vague unverifiable and unfalsifiable notions and concepts can't be disproven (or proven, or even only supported) no. Such things are in themselves, I'ld say, intellectually dishonest propositions. :)


I don't care about them. I just ignore.

Uhu.

The point exactly.
You ignore everything that is inconvenient for the beliefs that you want to hold.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Would you believe him:
a message like "hey, believe Jesus, he is my beloved son!"... and let's assume for a moment there are no language issues.
So when God allocates the stars in a way that we read this message, would you believe in God then?

I'm asking all posters from the atheist side...

best regards

The stars are so allocated, so that even the Zodiac signs tell the gospel story . . . a ram, a bull, justice, a virgin, an enemy, water carried and borne, fish(ing for people), etc.!
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
I should clarify that I'm not saying that this event would be undeniable proof of God, there's always other explanations that could just as well be right. I'm only saying that probability wise, it seems more likely that God would be behind it than any physical explanations.
You would need to first establish that God is possible at all before I would find any argument based on the likelihood of God to be compelling.

This event would be something we consider physically impossible, the only other explanation is that it isn't really happening: it's an illusion created by technology beyond our understanding or everyone everywhere is hallucinating - both take the extra step to consider "this is not really happening" on top of the belief in something we have no proof of.
In the same vein, consider that assuming the existence of a monotheistic god also requires the existence of two mechanisms:

- something that would allow gods to exist
- something that would limit the number of gods to one.

Knowing humans exist and knowing we can be fooled doesn't help the case much because we don't know of any humans that are able to move stars or convince everyone they did.
Would they have to convince everyone, or would they only have to convince me? For all I know, everyone around me could be in on the con.

To imagine a human with extraordinary abilities or technology that we don't know exist is the same as imagining a God where beyond-comprehension tends to come with the name.
Is it the same?

You just finished saying how you think God is somehow beyond the physical laws of the universe. Do you think someone with extraordinary technology would be beyond the physical laws of the universe?

Maybe I chose 'undeniable' as the wrong word. There's no way we could know with 100% certainty that these stars actually arranged in this order unless we went up close to them and observed, but it still becomes relatively hard to deny if people in space and people looking through the hubble telescope are seeing the same thing.
This is touching on why I asked @thomas t to expand on his hypothetical scenario and explain exactly how we know that what he's assumed happened actually happened.

He hasn't bothered to do this yet, but one can always hold out hope.

The specifics of this matter, because the question of "how do we know?" ties directly into the question "how could our conclusion be wrong?"

I highlighted the important bits. If God exists, or something else non-physical, they can't be encapsulated in our understanding of things based on observations of the physical universe. These laws may strictly apply to all things we know of, but perhaps there is more than we know.
Then they are no physical laws.

"Mass and energy are always conserved" is a law. "Mass and energy either are or aren't conserved based on God's whims at the time" is useless and not a law.

Again: laws of science are descriptive laws based on observation. If our observations say that something isn't universally true, then the law is false... regardless of whether you attribute those contradictory observations to some god or another.

BTW: I'm still waiting for you to describe this God that you think is compatible with our understanding of the universe.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Would you believe him:
a message like "hey, believe Jesus, he is my beloved son!"... and let's assume for a moment there are no language issues.
So when God allocates the stars in a way that we read this message, would you believe in God then?

I'm asking all posters from the atheist side...

best regards
A question for you:

I gather you expect that if that happened, it would convince a lot of atheists.

I also gather that you think God has the power to do this.

... so why do you think God hasn't done it?
 

thomas t

non-denominational Christian
Depends on how said god is defined.

Vague unverifiable and unfalsifiable notions and concepts can't be disproven (or proven, or even only supported) no. Such things are in themselves, I'ld say, intellectually dishonest propositions. :)
I disagree.
It is not dishonest.

Uhu.

The point exactly.
You ignore everything that is inconvenient for the beliefs that you want to hold.
No. I do not ignore everythint that is inconvenient for the beliefs I hold.
I ignore these things like unicorns...
That's all.
Don't generalize here.
 

thomas t

non-denominational Christian
A question for you:

I gather you expect that if that happened, it would convince a lot of atheists.

I also gather that you think God has the power to do this.

... so why do you think God hasn't done it?
no, I don't expect that, honestly I expected the outcome as shown by the poll.
I'm often wrong in what I imagine could happen, but this time I was right though.

This is touching on why I asked @thomas t to expand on his hypothetical scenario and explain exactly how we know that what he's assumed happened actually happened.

He hasn't bothered to do this yet, but one can always hold out hope.
no idea.

EDITED to add last paragraph
 
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lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
I don't believe everything I see, hear, and experience unless they provide some benefit, moral importance, and change in my life. If it does not, regardless the reputation, what's in a book, on television, what people say or what's written in the stars will only catch my attention but so long.

To me, it has nothing to do with evidence. Evidence for many religions can pop up. That's irrelevant. If that god(s), whatever concept it may be, does not benefit my life and has no place, I will not choose to believe "in" it. Yes, if I knew that was god writing in the sky, of course I'd say that's a fact. However, does believing something is true mean you have follow what it teaches?

The important thing is what is the nature of this god, is it important to me, what does it say that would make me want to give it any attention? Miracles are a dime a dozen but without that connection, it is what it is.

Seems like a lot of work. Just make all Bible's start glowing, and become completely impervious to damage. Job done.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
You are avoiding the issue.

Huh?

You also defend your beliefs against evidence or arguments to the contrary.

There's a difference between arguing for your position because you think your evidence is better then that of the opposition on the one hand, and simply dogmatically asserting ahead of time that no matter what the opposing evidence is you'll stick to your beliefs no matter what.
 
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