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Why atheism and atheists are just wrong

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
But with "God," we don't even know what we're looking for. Even if we did find "evidence," we still may not have sufficient knowledge to make sense of it or confirm it as reliable. If we're talking about some kind of entity which is large enough and powerful enough to create an entire universe literally from scratch, then it could theoretically be some entity which exists outside of our dimension and plane of existence.

This is partly why I lean heavily to ignosticism: that the concept of God isn't even well enough defined to make the existence question meaningful.

If so, it would be practically impossible to even produce one shred of evidence which we could examine or confirm on our current plane of existence. In the end, it's all just a big "maybe." Maybe this, maybe that - but no hard evidence, no direct knowledge. It's all just guessing.

So we have to get busy and define what in the world we are trying to say and only *then* address questions of existence.

Theology begins with guessing. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with considering all the possibilities.

Well, that is another issue. There are so many possible imaginary worlds to investigate all of them. That is one reason why testability is such an important tool in finding the truth. It eliminates a huge pile of basically meaningless possiblities.

But theology seems like it goes beyond that. Even if we get beyond the question of whether or not there is some kind of "God" who created the universe, theology also tries to attach some meaning or significance to it, to humans specifically. Theology often tries to attach a certain necessity or urgency for an individual human to find "God" and to accept that there is meaning, significance, and purpose in one's life (even if we don't really know what it is).

That's what theology does. It's not just a matter of considering possibilities. Maybe there is some extra-dimensional being far beyond our comprehension who created the universe for some particular reason. Maybe. But even if that's true, what does any of it have to do with us, here in this tiny little corner of this immense thing known as the universe?

That, for me, is when theology tends to go awry. It's one thing to operate from the assumption that "there is a God," but then to pile more assumptions on top of that is when it starts to go too far.

Exactly. If our universe was created by a super-dimensional teenager as an art project and then forgotten, what difference does it make to us humans? None that I can see.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I agree that we don't know. Given the circumstances of our present existence, there's no way that anyone can possibly know with any degree of certainty. I don't think we're at a stage where we can even begin to "look for evidence," since the very concept of God remains indefinable and indescribable - other than symbolic representations in literature and fiction.

At least with unicorns, we have some sort of artistic conception so that if anyone did spot one, they could say "Yep, that's a unicorn." Other people could also confirm it. But there's no record of that ever happening. If it's a creature that's said to exist on earth, then the earth has been sufficiently explored by now that if someone ever did spot a unicorn, we would have heard of something.

But with "God," we don't even know what we're looking for. Even if we did find "evidence," we still may not have sufficient knowledge to make sense of it or confirm it as reliable. If we're talking about some kind of entity which is large enough and powerful enough to create an entire universe literally from scratch, then it could theoretically be some entity which exists outside of our dimension and plane of existence.

If so, it would be practically impossible to even produce one shred of evidence which we could examine or confirm on our current plane of existence. In the end, it's all just a big "maybe." Maybe this, maybe that - but no hard evidence, no direct knowledge. It's all just guessing.
I agree with all of this. Except that we do know what we're looking for: the source, sustenance, and purpose of all that exists. We just have no idea if or what that would entail in relation to us.
Theology begins with guessing. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with considering all the possibilities.
It's not really "guessing", it's more speculating in hope, I think.
But theology seems like it goes beyond that. Even if we get beyond the question of whether or not there is some kind of "God" who created the universe, theology also tries to attach some meaning or significance to it, to humans specifically. Theology often tries to attach a certain necessity or urgency for an individual human to find "God" and to accept that there is meaning, significance, and purpose in one's life (even if we don't really know what it is).
That's just humans being human. Theology is the field of inquiry that allows us to express that part of ourselves most freely.
That's what theology does. It's not just a matter of considering possibilities. Maybe there is some extra-dimensional being far beyond our comprehension who created the universe for some particular reason. Maybe. But even if that's true, what does any of it have to do with us, here in this tiny little corner of this immense thing known as the universe?
Why wouldn't it? We are as much a part of existence as anything that exists. And so far as we know, we are the only part of existence that is capable of being aware of itself.
That, for me, is when theology tends to go awry. It's one thing to operate from the assumption that "there is a God," but then to pile more assumptions on top of that is when it starts to go too far.
One assumption or ten, what's the logical difference? It's still all speculation. The real question is how do the assumptions that we're making effect the quality and meaning of our life, and that of those around us?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Did you intend this to be comical? You could say the same thing about any unfalsifiable proposition, and come to the exact same conclusion if you used the same unreasoning approach. It's basically saying that if you make up a fantasy reality, so long as nobody can disprove it, go right ahead and believe it, if it suits you. On second thoughts, not comical, dangerous.
You don't seem to understand that as a human being, that is what you are already doing.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
How can you possibly learn anything when you already know everything there is to know? At the extremes of the spectrum of the atheism/theism debate there is unpenetrable ego. If only they recognised such commonality in approach. Yes the beliefs are on opposite poles, but the way it's approached has striking similarities.
They do, indeed, look very much alike, to me.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
You don't seem to understand that as a human being, that is what you are already doing.

No - we can base what we believe on objective (intersubjective) evidence.

ETA: there is a qualitative difference between the objective (intersubjective) world and our make-believe, it's how you know not to walk into solid objects or attempt to fly out of tenth floor windows.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
So, suddenly, God is an “extraordinary claim?” How is that? The concept of the Divine has been with humanity since the beginning. It has fostered and supported cultures, nations, races. It has overseen the building of empires. It has created architecture and art that have survived and influenced the arts for thousands of years. It continues to influence human thought and development. It seems to me that the “extraordinary claim” is the one that asserts that the Divine is hooey.

Nonetheless, you didn’t address my point. None of you has. Let me restate in hope that I might receive an acceptable and reasonable answer. Otherwise, I’ll have to conclude that your idea of non-existence is more far fetched that our idea of the existence of the Divine:

You acknowledge that beauty exists in spite of no measurable evidence. Yet you require measurable evidence for the existence of God. Why? What evidence do you seek? A body? An audible voice? What? A birth certificate, perhaps? A photograph? You who cannot define God, nor care to endeavor to do so require that which would support some definition. Doesn’t that sound absurd to you? That you require something that doesn’t fall under the parameters you have established? Doesn’t that sound a little like “stacking the deck? It smacks of a political ploy to me — one that allows you to keep propagating a belief disguised as “logic.”

I’ll be waiting.
Tell you what: As I did in an earlier post, I can show you things that are generally thought to be beautiful, and then we can discuss whether or not:
  • you concur that one or more -- or none -- of them is in fact an example of beauty, and
  • if you do find one that is an example of beauty, you will agree that beauty exists.

Then next, you can show me things that you suppose are examples (or even exemplars) of God, and:
  • I'll tell you whether one or more -- or none -- of them seems to me to be in fact an example of God, and
  • if I do find one that is, I'll agree that God exists.
So, here are a few examples of "beauty" to start with, then you can follow with some examples of God:

15360610675b8e6e8b52bd36.49629027.jpg man.jpg woman.jpg
 

ZenMonkey

St. James VII
The way I understand atheism is from the American Atheist Association:

"Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods."

Atheists who claim there is no evidence for the existence of God seem to have a very precise definition for the word "God". For these people, there is a presupposition God or gods must be a thing "out there" to be experienced like an object. Objects have definitions. Objects have limitations. Objects have boundaries.

The thing is every definition of the idea of God I have ever read in religious texts describes God as being infinite, without boundaries, and transcendent. However, presupposing God is a "thing" presupposes God has finite boundaries. Since only "things" can be experienced as real in the minds of atheists, there is a presupposition to what it means for God to exist. It's not just that there is no evidence for the existence of God. What atheists are really saying is there is no evidence for the existence of God the way atheists have defined what the word "God" means.

I think this is a fundamental problem with the way atheists think about God. I think for them to be true to themselves, they should not use the word God in any sentence as if they know exactly how the word God must be defined. I can't tell you how many times I've seen atheists use the word God in a sentence where the word God is an "object" with limitations to be experience in reality the same way you and I can hold and have an experience of an "apple".

As far as I am concerned atheists have it all wrong. There is no such thing as an objective reality. There are no "objects" and reality has a purpose. All the measurements made by human beings and their devices create arbitrary distinctions in language. These distinctions create abstract representations of reality. These distinctions are not real and are purely delusional. The word "reality" is not reality. In reality, there are no objects. In reality, there are only waves of energy in every possible direction where everything is connected to everything else. And as experiments in quantum mechanics have shown, at the smallest possible scale of measurement, nature is not made of material substance. But reality only exists as potential possibilities that do not become realized without some strangely spiritual element deciding something is being observed. The scientific evidence seems to suggest our entire reality is part of some kind of higher dimensional mind.

Most atheists simply ignore all the evidence and implications of the evidence coming from measurements being done at the smallest possible scale. Atheists have an absolute dogmatic belief in philosophical materialism. To suggest the scientific evidence is supporting the idea that reality is strangely spiritual is completely taboo. It is the greatest possible blasphemy within their religion of philosophical materialism because it requires the atheist to do a complete overhaul of their entire belief system. Most atheist will not even admit there's and issue. The denial just goes to prove the age old adage, "A skunk can't smell his own stink."

O.k., I'll argue a position from an atheistic viewpoint ... may or may not be shared by others. I agree with much of your post, but disagree with a large portion of the premise. As in you targeted atheist and spoke about objectivity as opposed to subjectivity, and made claims that atheist always view god as objective, knowing they often defend an atheistic stance through subjectivity ... namely morals and what not. I get what you're saying ... we're creature who experience energy differently, but also objectively ... wait. You denied objectivity. So if there is nothing objective on which we base our views and it's all just subjective experience, then isn't there still an object from which we form our views?
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Okay -- but let's take your argument the whole way. If "God exists because people experience God," by your own argument, then you must also accept that every god, as has ever been experienced, must therefore exist AS EXPERIENCED. So all the gods we've heard of until now, by your reckoning, are equally real.
God is known by a thousand names and yet is unnameable.

The other wonder is why you think that "quantification" is some sort of test for reality. Are you married? What quantifiers did you (and how do you now) use to describe your wife's beauty when she was nothing more than a hopeful heartbeat and desire in your mind? Have any favourite music? How do you "quantify" what makes it better than any other? I just came from the opera, a performance of Puccini's Turandot, actually, and the music in Act III of Liu's death, and the grief felt by her master Timur, are some of the most beautiful things I know of. But I can't do any algebra around it. I have no spreadsheets that show why it's more beautiful than Gabriel Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine.

And more to the point, I would not even try
Atheists ask for evidence. Evidence usually consists of measurable data. This is the point I was trying to make. Y’all believe beauty and love exist, yet they are not measurable. Why can’t Hid be taken with same assumption that we take beauty upon?
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Go ahead and give me your definition of god and the verifiable evidence that you have for this god and I'll let you know if I have any good reason to believe in it. Thus far after 57 years of life, I have yet to come across anyone who can provide me with a definition and the evidence that I would require for belief. Let's see if you are any different.
"evidence"

What one understands from the natural word "evidence", one's own understanding not from a lexicon, please?

Regards
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Did I say that? I said the reason I am here is because of copulation
So, your parents didn’t particularly want you, or a family. But it was just sort of a happy byproduct of copulation? And it was simple, mechanical copulation? Or was there meaning behind the act, and hope for what it might produce, and the meaning that creating and becoming a family provides?

Families have meaning, to the extent that they do, because of the relationships between the people in them
So there WAS meaning, then. God is similarly found within relationship. In fact, the Trinity is an expression of just that: God-in-relationship.

Well, they certainly aren't true
They’re not factual, but they do speak to human truths.

I simply don't see myths as 'true'. I see them, potentially as useful literature. I see them as a good basis for comedy. But there is a HUGE difference between truth and what myths provide
There is an ineffable quality to human experience, much of which is really too deep, too profound for factual language to adequately address. Myth helps in that area.

And I am more than happy to deal with any number of dimensions you want
Sure, so long as you can remain on the fact-gathering level.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
It exists in the sense that our brains perceive it. It isn't something that exists independently of people. It certainly doesn't exist in the same sense that the chair I am sitting on does
But it does exist. Perhaps existence is the same sort of thing. Perhaps God doesn’t exist as a “thing.”
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
I don't know if atheists are defining God in any way. Atheists didn't invent "God," but the concept does exist in society. I suppose if no one ever invented "God," or if no one ever heard of "God" and the concept of belief simply didn't exist at all, then everyone would be "atheists," although they probably wouldn't use that particular word.
" "God," but the concept does exist in society"

When and where-from the concept came and who first mentioned it and in what land, please?
Please provide one's evidence in this connection, please?

Regards
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
What, you are going to suggest that I have "felt God" and am now pretending not to? You would be very, very wrong on that score. I have felt hunger, and knew it. I have felt sadness, joy, mirth and I have perceived beauty and ugliness. I can distinguish kindness from selfishness with ease. But no, no God. Not ever.
But I have. Are you going to suggest that I haven’t— without evidence to suggest such?
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
That is a ridiculous statement. Any of a million things, in a moment, could have changed which sperm succeeded. A tiny delay, a shift in position, anything. And then that new person would be someone quite different than the one you are addressing now.

But it isn't which sperm got the job done that makes for meaning in families. It's the whole, complex, dynamical relationships that happened AFTER that moment. But your interlocutor was quite correct -- (s)he is here because his/her parents had sex. That's the ultimate cause of that individual's existence. And yet, it's very likely the least important thing about that person's actual lived reality.
And that meaning is, for me and others, where God lives.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Tell you what: As I did in an earlier post, I can show you things that are generally thought to be beautiful, and then we can discuss whether or not:
  • you concur that one or more -- or none -- of them is in fact an example of beauty, and
  • if you do find one that is an example of beauty, you will agree that beauty exists.

Then next, you can show me things that you suppose are examples (or even exemplars) of God, and:
  • I'll tell you whether one or more -- or none -- of them seems to me to be in fact an example of God, and
  • if I do find one that is, I'll agree that God exists.
So, here are a few examples of "beauty" to start with, then you can follow with some examples of God:

View attachment 33691 View attachment 33692 View attachment 33693
For me, there is beauty in all creation. And there is beauty in creation because creation is a theophany.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
" "God," but the concept does exist in society"

When and where-from the concept came and who first mentioned it and in what land, please?
Please provide one's evidence in this connection, please?

Regards

Well, the concept does exist. I don't know who first came up with it, though.
 

Kelly of the Phoenix

Well-Known Member
Am I the only theist who thinks the OP makes no sense? Why does magic need to be involved? Why is being of nature so bad?

Is wisdom falsifiable, or love ? Yet they exist.
How do you know?

Here's my question to you: If you think God doesn't exist, why are you attempting to debate what doesn't exist?
I take it you were the kind of student in literary class to argue that you can't know a fictional character's motivations and such?

For God to be God, God must such that God encompasses all existence.
Who said?

Ok. So let’s just concentrate on beauty, good, and hunger. Those aren’t emotions. Provide the math.
Like in studies where people look at faces of lots of different people and rate them?

Yes, but it’s better if we can find common constructs. We work better in community than we do alone.
Loner prophets in the bible didn't seem to think so.

This is why I hesitate to define a God. It’s just too big, and no one has the perspective.
So, what I'm getting from this thread is, if atheists don't define God, why are they debating it, but theists who can't define God can advertise such notions?

They can also be a great way to help us make meaning.
I like X-Men but I don't go around telling people to worship them.

It’s a shared experience though. It exists outside of just our heads.
Ever seen a video of a kid crying and suddenly the whole room full of kids is crying? Maybe nothing even happened to the first kid, but the whole room's wound up. Shared experience =/= objectively real.

It's an unfair game.
In America you can't bring religion into the classroom.
There are Sunday schools and other equivalents. Kids are in class to learn about reality. You can teach them your God concepts in a dedicated space.

and all its nihilist, sexual, drug addled
baggage.
There are studies showing that the Bible Belt has more of this than anyone else.

My stats below demonstrate that what we term "good"
changes.
In many of those cases, it's about changing BACK. We let a bunch of hypocritical prudes run our lives and it ruined them. It's like the stories often in the news where an anti-gay pastor ends up in a sexual incident or many with someone of the same sex. Just because your religious leaders said it was bad doesn't mean it is. In fact the louder they shout it, I'm willing to bet 10 bucks they'll be in the news soon.

One day someone who supports polygamy
will be "good" and someone who opposes it will be
called "bad" or "polyphobic" or whatever.
LOL. Haven't looked too hard at the bible, have you?

But you claim beauty exists — it’s a thing. Where’s the quantitative proof?
https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/gth/41/2/article-p107.xml?intcmp=trendmd&tab_body=pdf
Maybe the above will help.

Show me the formula. What does hunger weigh?
It's a trigger to consume sustenance. The body notes an empty digestive system. It notes a marked decrease in certain nutrients needed by cells throughout the body. This triggers hunger pangs in a functional body.
 
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