Could You Believe?

Great Debates
1

For those of you who are atheists, could you believe in God?

If one of you told me that there was a god of marshmallows, I’d laugh at you. But, even so, I think that if I tried, I could begin to believe in this marshmallow god, and soon start to worship it, and pray to it.

So, could you hardcore atheists “make” yourself believe in God? Is it possible for you to put aside all “logic” and feel that God exists? Obviously, there really is a God, so any feedback from Him that you feel would not be in your mind. You’d not be going crazy.

I just want to know if it’s possible. Could you allow yourself to believe.

If this never turns into a debate David, fell free to kick it to MPSIMS.

Adam

“Life is hard…but God is good”

2

Adam, I’m afraid that your example about believing in a marshmallow god shows how shallow a belief system can be. If that is all it would take to believe in something so silly, how can your belief in the Christian god have any depth?

3

I think that the mashmallow god and the hot chocolate god should get together…

Krispy Original – voted SDMB’s 19th most popular poster (1999)

4

This is exactly the point of the Invisible Pink Unicord or Stargoat churches. The point being you can substitute any being for a god and be just as adamant and have just as much evidence for the existence thereof. Since you could believe in a marshmallow god, why is the god you choose to believe in more credible than your obvious straw-god of marshmallows?

I can’t speak for any other atheist, but for me, No - I could not put logic asid. However, it would be trivial for god to make it logically apparent that he exists, so I could believe in god that way. If he appeared to me and I had no reason to suspect I was hallucinating (other witnesses would help) I’d be in the church of his choice at whatever schedule he’d set.

I’m going to be charitable and assume you meant that ‘obviously there is a god’ bit to be part of the hypothetical situation, as in ‘obviously there is a marshmallow god to help you believe in him.’ Otherwise, it’s a really silly thing to say.

Very easily. I just can’t change who I am by putting aside logic to do it.

5

This line of thought never occurred to me before, but now that I’ve given it consideration, I must conclude that there IS, in fact, a marshmallow god.

I challenge everyone here: Where, in the fossil record, do we find precursors to the marshmallow? Nowhere, I claim. It only stands to reason: Did marshmallows evolve, or were they created? If they evolved, there must be some fossil record of their evolution; I submit that there is no such record–marshmallows did NOT evolve, they were CREATED.

What more evidence do we have to base our faith on? Has the marshmallow god ever presented Himself to us, His worshippers, in the flesh? Of course: The Immaculate Confection is clearly documented in the movie Ghostbusters.

Need I say more?

6

Maybe you should read “The Atheist Religion” and “The Atheist (Non)Relgion Part 2”.

What makes you think that atheists disallow themselves to believe? I don’t sit here saying “I will not believe, I will not believe”. I have gathered evidence and made a decision. This decision is based on:

  1. My own personal experience.
  2. My own personal feelings.
  3. My own personal perceptions on God.

I can imagine that a god exists. What exactly do you mean by feel that God exists? Be very precise. My feelings, as above, is that God does not exist, so I think this needs clarification.

It is obvious? I thought that if God were obviously there than this would be contrary to Christian philosophy. Doesn’t that imply then that people do not accept God on faith? Doesn’t this imply that free will is an illusion?

Adam, I am open to ANY reasonable challenge or experiment. You supply what you want me to do, and I am more than willing to do it with an honest and open mind (I reserve the right of refusal if what you ask for takes an excessive amount of time or is contrary to my ethics). If you want me to attempt something lets hammer out the details.

7

tracer:

D’oh! I don’t know why I’ve put logic aside for so long until now. Remissive, I guess. Let me take a whack at it.

Let’s see…

If God were an eternal entity, seeing the beginning and the ending at the same time, He would not have used the mechanism of natural selection to create man because it takes too long.

If God were seeking love from free moral agents, He would eradicate evil by fiat, so that the free moral agents would be forced to love Him.

If God were seeking faith, He would make Himself completely unambiguous and put Himself in orbit around the earth.

If God were interested in a personal relationship with His people, He would speak to each of us at the same time in the same way because we are all just exactly alike.

If God were to manifest Himself in space-time to bring His Word to His people, He would select a remote unpopulated jungle, rather than the hottest political hotbed of the most ubiquitous empire of all time.

If God loved me, He would immediately fulfill every whim of my desire, shielding me from every consequence of my actions, just as I did for my own child.

If God existed and sought adoration, He would not have placed in my brain the capacity to contemplate Him.

There cannot be “life after death” of any sort or description. I know because I’m dead.

I am moral, not because there is some absolute moral code (“Be Perfect”) that serves as my standard, but because my genes “deeply care” about the survival of my species, and my species will not survive if I am an existentialist. My genes “know” this.

Thanks, tracer. Now that I’m not avoiding logic anymore, I understand it all much better. :rolleyes:

8

I propose the following challenge:

I will agree for one week (time negotiable, lets hammer out the details) following the start of the challenge to pray to God any specific prayer of reasonable length (negotiable, lets hammer out the details) twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. I will agree to spend an additional 5 minutes or so (I won’t time it) waiting for any reply or sign. I will, on my personal honor, swear to pray with as open a heart, mind and spirit as I can possibly do.

However, there are some conditions:

  1. The person who gives me the prayer will be considered the challenger, and I the challenged.

  2. The challenger must spend the next week in their daily prayers to God asking for divine inspiration to come up with a prayer that will ultimately guide me to God.

  3. Since I have swore that I will do my best to be open minded, after the challenge if I receive no message arguments that I was not open enough will be flatly rejected. Posting such will be seen as cowardice and dishonorable. I will not do this only to have myself become the object of attack.

Anybody interested?

9

Sorry forgot 4)

  1. The challenger may after their week of prayers is finished decide to report that they have received no guidance. At this point, we can either start anew, or look for a new challenger.
10

Glitch:

I would be greatly honored if you will allow me to be your challenger.

11

ARG said:

Could I? Sure. As soon as I see the dead rising. Could I force myself to just because, for example, it would make me feel better? No. I second Glitch’s suggestion that you read the two threads he mentioned, as we went over this a few times there.

How dare you! What if I laughed when you told me about your god. Oh, wait. Sometimes I do…

12

Lib: Okay, lets hammer out the details. Do you want to change any of the specifics?

Also, I am willing to allow an optional 5th condition. It is up to you if you decide to use it or not.

  1. The challenger may recruit the assistance of any number of people to assist him through prayer. I.e. if you want to get people to pray that you will be inspired that is fine by me. It isn’t necessary to keep track of the number or any other specifics of the assistants.

Barring any changes to the specifics or any additional stipulations, I accept this challenge as presented. The challenge will begin when we both agree to all the specifics. So, if you agree with all of them please post your acceptance.

13

Glitch:

Will it be acceptable if the fourteen prayers is each different, i.e., Prayer One on the first morning, Prayer Two on the first evening, Prayer Three on the next morning, and so on. Also, may God stipulate that you are to be completely alone and isolated when you pray?

14

Both additional conditions are fine. I accept them both.

15

I do not want to be a wiseguy on this topic of all topics, but, on all traditional understanding of this sort of thing, from Paul on down, what God does when is a matter of His grace. Some time ago I suggested that Gaudere and David were doing God’s work in making us theists think through our assumptions and not coming up off facile, simplistic arguments or proof-texting as though it proved something objective.

Glitch, with his OSU philosophy and do-it-yourself-salvation ethic, has been one of the people who have helped me, at least, understand the other points of view better. I know every atheist reading this is going to see the following as a weasel, but I would think that the end result of what Lib and Glitch do is not up to them but to God. And He may have a purpose in having Glitch retain his present worldview for the nonce.

Nonetheless, you both have my prayers that the experiment will “succeed.”

16

Glitch:

I accept your challenge.

I will deliver the prayers to you, numbered and marked, all at once, here in this thread, on or before the morning of January 26, 2000, and leave you upon your honor to dispense them exactly as they are proffered. I will expect your report here in this thread when you are finished. God go with us.

17

When Glitch first posted his challenge, I rolled my eyes. I walked outside and felt God telling me to go back in and respond because the challenge was made by a man of great honor and profound humility.

I am taking this step purely on faith.

18

ROFL I am sending you a bill for $20.10, cost of new keyboard (20) + cost of paper towel (.10) to clean my monitor. I nearly fell of my chair.

I realize and agree that an earthly experiment concerning God is flawed before you even get out of the gate, but condition #4 covers, IMO, the “God doesn’t want Glitch yet” scenario. If God doesn’t want this experiment to proceed He should not give Lib any guidance, or even better, Lib will hopefully receive guidance that this whole thing is ill-considered. If you, Lib, get “a bad feeling about this” (to quote numerous people from Star Wars) please bring it forward.

So, if Lib receives what he perceives to be positive guidance I think we are left to conclude:

  1. God gave the guidance.
  2. God did but Lib didn’t get it properly.
  3. God doesn’t exist to give any guidance.

I’ll ignore option #3, because it really isn’t interesting as a part of this discussion.

Option #2 above works for me just fine, because I have said all along that personal contact with God is subject to human reasoning and perception (which is flawed and subjective).

Option #1 implies then that the experiment should “succeed”, barring a failure on my part.

19

Adam, as Glitch & David have pointed out, this has been covered pretty exhaustively. And you really worry me when you say that you could believe in a marshmallow god. I thought that you took your belief pretty seriously. Wouldn’t the god to whom you direct your prayers get more than just a little miffed? How would you reconcile that?

Poly:

I don’t think of it as a weasel. Actually, I think of it as a man of faith attempting to explain the possible actions of his deity.

Now, this experiment (is that term okay?) between Lib & Glitch sounds like great fun.

Waste
Flick Lives!

20

Poly said:

Um, what about free will? Wouldn’t God leave it up to Glitch to decide? Or does he control Glitch like a robot?

And wouldn’t it be a bit unfair to refuse to reveal Himself to Glitch and later penalize Glitch for not believing?