What proof would a theist want, to stop believing?

[columbus]

Let me refine the OP a bit...

I was hoping to hear a bit about how believers might reflect on their own belief systems, the relationship they have with logic and evidence and how - for example - evidence in the world might cause them to rethink their belief.

I doubt you will ever get a substantial answer to the question.

IT IS WRITTEN:
You can't reason a person out of a belief that isn't based on reason.

People hold religious beliefs primarily because they prefer to believe them. The preference is usually at multiple levels. For instance, a Christian might prefer to believe that there is divine justice, that their afterlife will be great, that their family and community did not lie to them about God, and that they are smarter than all those people who don't believe as they do.

That is a lot of preference. Such people are unlikely to see evidence against, no matter how strong and obvious.

Tom

 

[Estro Felino]

It's more dangerous to have false beliefs than it is to have no beliefs. And the notion of a creationist god whose essence is beyond the realm of everything else is very provably false.

Well, honestly, my friend. I can't figure out what disastrous consequences having false beliefs can bring. I really can't. Maybe you could give me an example.

Christianity was spread in a historical period when it was absolutely necessary to destroy the selfishness and wickedness of Pagan Rome.
Thanks to Christianity, slavery was legally abolished.

 

[Riverwolf]

Interestingly enough, in the actual Marvel Universe (not the Hollywood version) Odin and his fellow Asgardians are actually gods along with many other ancient pantheons. The leaders of these (along with Odin) actually consider themselves something of a brotherhood. The weird thing is that being a god isn't all its cracked up to be in the Marvel Universe as there also happens to be a whole array of cosmic entities that make them all seem like little ants by comparison. On top of all of that, is a being named The Living Tribunal who embodies justice, makes all of those other entities seem like children, and has stated that its power comes from 'on high'. Which means behind all of it is a divine power.

'Tis very interesting, indeed. :yes:

I doubt you will ever get a substantial answer to the question.

What, my answer of "I don't know" isn't substantial?

 

[Parsimony]

Well, honestly, my friend. I can't figure out what disastrous consequences having false beliefs can bring. I really can't. Maybe you could give me an example.

The mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate cult comes to mind.

 

[Sir Doom]

I doubt you will ever get a substantial answer to the question.

Its unfortunate how often people try to ask leading questions and become frustrated when they don't get the answers they want to argue against. That's the only substance missing from the answers given thus far.

IT IS WRITTEN:
You can't reason a person out of a belief that isn't based on reason.

No, you can't. Or, more accurately, whoever wrote this wherever it is written can't. They are obviously morons, as well. What else would you reason someone out of?

People hold religious beliefs primarily because they prefer to believe them. The preference is usually at multiple levels. For instance, a Christian might prefer to believe that there is divine justice, that their afterlife will be great, that their family and community did not lie to them about God, and that they are smarter than all those people who don't believe as they do.

That is a lot of preference. Such people are unlikely to see evidence against, no matter how strong and obvious.

Tom

This is exactly how it works no matter what you believe.

 

[Riverwolf]

Christianity was spread in a historical period when it was absolutely necessary to destroy the selfishness and wickedness of Pagan Rome.

From what I've seen, Rome didn't change much after becoming Christian, at least from the perspective of my people. They were still highly imperialistic and Romano-centric, right up until the Western Empire's fall.

 

[columbus]

Well, honestly, my friend. I can't figure out what disastrous consequences having false beliefs can bring. I really can't. Maybe you could give me an example.

Christianity was spread in a historical period when it was absolutely necessary to destroy the selfishness and wickedness of Pagan Rome.
Thanks to Christianity, slavery was legally abolished.

Here in America the biblical belief was that God made some people slaves and others masters. Its in the Bible from Genesis all the way to the new testament. Google "hamite".

It is now considered a false belief by most Christians, but not all. Check out stormfront.org

False religious beliefs have caused huge damage to the human situation.

Tom

 

[Erebus]

In a related forum a theist asked what proof non-theists would need to change their minds...

Let's volley that question back to the theists...

What proof would you need to stop believing in your God or any God?

(For example I've heard the response "Well if they found Jesus' bones in that cave after all".)

I'd have to find either that Theism no longer served any purpose for me or that Atheism seemed to be more beneficial to me. So far I haven't come across an argument that I find to be a compelling enough reason to do this.
Proof doesn't really come into it either way. In part this is because I hold we can't know whether a supernatural deity exists. More importantly though it's because certain god concepts don't actually require a supernatural element and arguments over their validity usually end up as a semantic debate. In fact I've seen some people argue that Naturalistic Pantheism and certain forms of Deism are actually a subset of Atheism rather than Theism (I disagree personally, but that's not for this topic).
With this in mind, I found that a more pragmatic approach to Theism vs Atheism was preferable to an empirical approach.

 

[Sir Doom]

Here in America the biblical belief was that God made some people slaves and others masters. Its in the Bible from Genesis all the way to the new testament. Google "hamite".

It is now considered a false belief by most Christians, but not all. Check out stormfront.org

False religious beliefs have caused huge damage to the human situation.

Tom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixgf5SlvOB4

And that's all I have to say about that.

 

[ametist]

To stop believing in order to get to the level of knowing or in order to deny?
In either case, it is death. The proof that the death brings or doesnt. There is not much in life you can do to absolutely know or to absolutely deny, unless there is death without dying which is a paradox.

 

[Riverwolf]

Here in America the biblical belief was that God made some people slaves and others masters.

...

False religious beliefs have caused huge damage to the human situation.

Slavery's roots stretch back much further than even the oldest Biblical text.

Among the Germanic Tribes, there were three classes of people: Thralls (slaves), Carls (free men), and Jarls (Kings). I don't know of any religious reasons for that stratification.

Even in the Americas, the reasons for slavery was twofold: 1. free labor (which would later be replaced by automatic machinery), and 2. Eurocentrism. Neither of these are in the Bible.

Besides, any damage caused by so-called "false religious beliefs", as far as I'm concerned, are far outweighed by the good that they've done. We owe a large portion of our Western Civilization values, along with the roots of Western scientific understanding, to Christianity(beliefs that I think of as false), and what we don't owe directly to that, we owe to Pagan Greco-Roman and Celto-Germanic culture (which I think you'd call false).

 

[Windwalker]

What proof would you need to stop believing in your God or any God?

Proofs are matters for the reasoning mind. God is not known through reasoning, but through the heart. The question then should in fact be what would make me stop understanding God through the heart? The answer is simple, complete detachment from myself and from the world. What would cause this? Clinging to my beliefs, as opposed to be open to my heart.

 

[Windwalker]

Trifold synthesis is actually the origin of everything, it's no longer a mystery.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies

Technically it's expressed in everything but to understand requires some pretty deep thinking.

The beginning of wisdom is knowing you're an idiot in the face of the infinite mystery. Are you are really a deep thinker, or self-deluded?

I assume some people want to challenge this notion? I welcome any to do so. Of course I doubt anyone here knows what I'm talking about...

That may be because you're beyond Einstein? I'm sure you're thoughts are beyond us, but you may be surprised if you try.

 

[Windwalker]

Let me refine the OP a bit...

I was hoping to hear a bit about how believers might reflect on their own belief systems, the relationship they have with logic and evidence and how - for example - evidence in the world might cause them to rethink their belief.

Radically. In a word. That doesn't mean one detaches from what God is to them, it simply means they let go of beliefs and let them grow to integrate new information. That's not that hard actually. It's a shame so many feel it necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater, unable to differentiate that for themselves.

 

[Hawkins]

In a related forum a theist asked what proof non-theists would need to change their minds...

Let's volley that question back to the theists...

What proof would you need to stop believing in your God or any God?

(For example I've heard the response "Well if they found Jesus' bones in that cave after all".)

Religions provide a saying about what would happen after death. Religions make the answers explicit. Atheists are facing the same question but with an answer much less obvious even to themselves. They subconsciously believe with faith that "nothing serious would happen after death". Their this faith is rather based on that "the absence of the evidence now becomes the evidence of absence".

So the need of people not to believe gods of any kind is to scientifically prove that nothing actually happens after death.

 

[Glaurung]

What proof would you need to stop believing in your God or any God?

Falsify the canonical gospels and I will abandon Christianity.

 

[Bunyip]

Falsify the canonical gospels and I will abandon Christianity.

What do you mean by 'falsify' them? I'm sure that you are aware that there are a number of historical inconsistencies and contradictions - so you must mean something much more, so what is it?

 

[Glaurung]

What do you mean by 'falsify' them? I'm sure that you are aware that there are a number of historical inconsistencies and contradictions - so you must mean something much more, so what is it?

Falsify them as in prove beyond reasonable doubt that the central story of the gospels could not have happened. I've read them and I am not oblivious to the inconsistencies between the accounts, nor am I advocating that the gospels are one hundred percent historical reality in all their details, but that does not mean the central events reported by the gospels did not happen.

The validity of Christianity is entirely dependant on the events of the gospels. If there was no Christ then there is no Christianity.

 

[Bunyip]

Falsify them as in prove beyond reasonable doubt that the central story of the gospels could not have happened. I've read them and I am not oblivious to the inconsistencies between the accounts, nor am I advocating that the gospels are one hundred percent historical reality in their details, but that does not mean the central events reported by the gospels did not happen.

The validity of Christianity is entirely dependant on the events of the gospels. If there was no Christ then there is no Christianity.

Well that seems a moot point - there is so little evidence for the historicity of Jesus, proving it did not happen would be as unlikely as proving that it did. Thanks for the response.

 

[Glaurung]

Well that seems a moot point - there is so little evidence for the historicity of Jesus, proving it did not happen would be as unlikely as proving that it did. Thanks for the response.

According to you, yet despite this, the historical existence of Jesus is the majority consensus of the relevant historians and scholars who are qualified to comment about it. Are all these people just dogmatic Christians, or perhaps, just maybe, there is legitimate reason behind their opinion?