# Explain this Atheist logic to me. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 25, 2009, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589 "2009-08-25T02:42:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/101 "2009-08-25T19:10:06Z")
All this argument that this “God” fellow is so incomprehensible to us puny humans, and yet there is this huge book chock full of descriptions of what he wants and expects from humans. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/102 "2009-08-25T19:13:32Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > If you need proof, you do not seek faith. If you find proof, you do not need faith. I don’t have faith in a God who would make Himself unavailable to me in spirit to get better press. Why would it have to be either/or? What prevents this upwelling of faith and love and warmth and stuff if God would decide to provide actual physical evidence of his existence? He can’t do both? Are we back to him creating the rock he can’t lift? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/103 "2009-08-25T19:28:04Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Why? What difference does it make? Well, like I said to **Grumman** , this might just mark a basic value difference. I suspect that because when trying to defend the claim, I find it difficult to say anything other than “Isn’t it obvious?” But I did then offer a kind of practical argument. Someone who values doing good just for its own sake (i.e., values it as basic) is more likely to go on doing good things than someone who values doing good just for the reward it brings or the punishment it avoids or whatever. The latter person’s dogooding is predicated on contingent facts about punishment and reward taht the former person’s dogooding is not predicated on. > [@](#): > > Doesn’t this contradict most religious assumptions? Wouldn’t this scenario require that virtually all revealed religious paradigms be wrong? Yes and yes, except I would strike the word “revealed”. > [@](#): > > It does not necessarily follow that the existence of God means that he has to dish out punishment and reward. If God really wants people to be good for its own sake, then the best thing to do would be to make it directly known that he will NOT give out any punishment or reward. Make it _impossible_ to be good with any expectation of reward. When I referred to “God” in my post I meant to be using the idea of God we get from most of the religions we’re familiar with in the west–a God who punishes and rewards. I do think, like you, that it’s not a necessary component of the concept of God. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/104 "2009-08-25T19:30:50Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > ``` > Why would it have to be either/or? What prevents this upwelling of faith and love and warmth and stuff if God would decide to provide actual physical evidence of his existence? He can't do both? Are we back to him creating the rock he can't lift? > > ``` ``` I certainly have no objection to the rock he cannot lift. Sounds like a black hole to me. But more seriously, don't think that knowledge and faith refute each other. I simply don't think that one is a path to the other. I don't want to cross a bridge built by someone who relied on faith that it would stand. I prefer engineers who use knowledge of materials, and structure, and good architecture. I doubt almost entirely those who wish to show me the physical evidence of God that they have. That evidence might well have given them faith. It cannot give me faith in God, only faith in the person who has the object. Idolatry. ``` [QUOTE=garygnu] All this argument that this “God” fellow is so incomprehensible to us puny humans, and yet there is this huge book chock full of descriptions of what he wants and expects from humans. [/QUOTE] Well, speaking for myself, the Bible is, to me, not a book about God, but a book about people who sought to know God. Fellowship, not Bibliolatry. Tris ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/105 "2009-08-25T20:38:09Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > “Common usage” doesn’t make something correct. Well it may not be the way you choose to define “religious faith” (belief without evidence), but it’s what is usually meant, and what this discussion is all about. If you want to have a discussion about your own definition, that maybe should be another thread. Take these following posts as examples: > [@Triskadecamus](#): > > If you need proof, you do not seek faith. If you find proof, you do not need faith. > [@lissener](#): > > I’m an atheist, but I disagree with this. This part of religious faith is completely understandable to me: it’s the very \*point \*of faith. What these folks are saying is that belief without evidence is somehow seen as a _good_ thing by religions. Not just that it’s OK to go ahead and believe even though there’s no evidence, but that the act of believing something in spite of its having no evidence is a virtue. I don’t get that. And back to this… > [@Triskadecamus](#): > > If, on the other hand what God wants is for me go experience love of the holy spirit of the person of the universe, then proof is an impediment. Evidence is not all physical, not all logical, not all reproducible. Science is a tool for understanding that which manifests in the physical world. I cannot wrap my atheist mind around what you’re saying here. If something doesn’t manifest in the physical world, then in what sense is it real? None that I can think of. A non-manifesting God is indistinguishable from a non-existent God. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/106 "2009-08-25T21:02:37Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > I certainly have no objection to the rock he cannot lift. Sounds like a black hole to me. It’s perfectly possible to lift a black hole (or at least, move it). That’s just a question of mass and distance. You could do it on your own, given a sufficiently small black hole. > [@](#): > > But more seriously, don’t think that knowledge and faith refute each other. I simply don’t think that one is a path to the other. I don’t want to cross a bridge built by someone who relied on faith that it would stand. I prefer engineers who use knowledge of materials, and structure, and good architecture. I doubt almost entirely those who wish to show me the physical evidence of God that they have. That evidence might well have given them faith. It cannot give me faith in God, only faith in the person who has the object. Idolatry. > > Well, speaking for myself, the Bible is, to me, not a book about God, but a book about people who sought to know God. Fellowship, not Bibliolatry. I can more or less see what you’re saying, but I still don’t see why faith (in a god concept) is such a good idea, and on the other hand, while I completely understand your mistrust of people who claim to have physical evidence of god, I don’t see why you would choose “blind faith” over “solid evidence”, given the chance. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/107 "2009-08-25T21:16:37Z")
Responding to the OP, the demand for evidence is virtually always a response to a God that is asserted to interfere with the world in some way. One that does miracles, imparts knowledge, causes blessings to happen. The demand hilights the fact that the persons who claim their God does these things are, basically, lying. They are asserting things as happening that simply aren’t. Gods that are _not_ asserted as interacting with the world are pretty rare. The typical response to them is “Why should we care about it, again?”, or some other attack based on some other aspect of the described diety or theology. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/108 "2009-08-25T22:25:08Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Otherwise, you’re kind of insisting that your god should be emcompassable by your human mind. Frankly, if I \*were \*likely to worship a god, I’d rather worship one that’s beyond my understanding. Meh. I understand what you’re saying, and it’s why I always think “What candidate would you like to have a beer with?” is a stupid question. But (the late) Stephen Hawking can distill some of science’s most complicated topics down to something a yutz like me can digest. Doesn’t make me respect him any less. The opposite, in fact. You’d think anything worthy of the title “God” could figure that out. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/109 "2009-08-25T22:47:09Z")
You don’t have to fully comprehend something to simply know it exists. The human mind can’t fully encompass the universe – we can’t even really comprehend the the single speck of dust we live on – but we know it exists. I’m not asking to fully comprehend God, just asking to see proof that he exists at all. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/110 "2009-08-25T23:34:17Z")
Forget full comprehension - the theistic theories that are defended by “God works in mysterious ways” or “Your atheist brain is too tiny to appreciate God’s bigness” are typically outright _nonsensical_. As in, they self-contradict, include overt logic failures, and usually _require_ you not to attempt to understand the big picture, because the dots simply don’t connect. It’s not a matter of “the details are too complex” - it’s a matter of “it’s already broken before we get _into_ the complexities”. Because of this, the claim that we’re too dumb to understand God comes across as quite hollow - even a complex plan can be summarized and still not become complete gibberish. Instead of that we have poorly-constructed theories that were clearly assembled from sound bites and platitudes and were never part of anything that made comprehensive sense. But we are still expected to swallow them, even if we have to become completely uncritical and unthinking to pull that off. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/111 "2009-08-25T23:58:52Z")
> [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](#): > > But (the late) Stephen Hawking can distill some of science’s most complicated topics down to something a yutz like me can digest. Damn, those [NHS death panels](http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/stephen-hawking-defends-care-in-the-uk/) act fast! Maybe it’s because he spoke up? ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/112 "2009-08-26T00:31:40Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Responding to the OP, the demand for evidence is virtually always a response to a God that is asserted to interfere with the world in some way. One that does miracles, imparts knowledge, causes blessings to happen. The demand hilights the fact that the persons who claim their God does these things are, basically, lying. They are asserting things as happening that simply aren’t. “Lying” is perhaps a bit strong – “incorrect”, “misinformed”, etc are reasonable alternatives. But yes, in general that’s my take on it too. > [@](#): > > Gods that are _not_ asserted as interacting with the world are pretty rare. The typical response to them is “Why should we care about it, again?”, or some other attack based on some other aspect of the described diety or theology. Well yes, because frankly it staggers the imagination and stretches suspension of disbelief beyond all possibility to postulate a hands-off watchmaker god, who on the one hand put a entire universal system in place billions of years ago that lead inexorably here without any further intervention, and yet on the other hand cares whether my clothes are made out of mixed fibres or who I sleep with. And since this is really about some people trying to control what other people do, then espousing a hands off god undermine their attempts at social control. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/113 "2009-08-26T00:51:51Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Oh, come now! You want a list of citations from the four Gospels? You may not buy into the historical validity of those accounts, any more than the Timaeus and Kritias prove the objective existence of Atlantis, but they’re legitimate cites to be adduced in support of a statement. This argument could only be true if indeed there was proof that the words were anything except the thoughts or words of an other human. We know that humans decided what God said or did. One can believe it or not, but is no proof of anything. One could ask: Did Jesus return in His glory with his angels as he is quoted saying He would in Matthew 16, or did some one make it up, or was Jesus wrong? If He did say this would happen, where are the 2000+ people living today? One can only use the Gospels etc. if they are trying to convince believers. What is the proof that the Bible is the word of God? ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/114 "2009-08-26T01:02:07Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > You say it as if a God would actually _want_ us to have faith for some reason (faith as in “belief without benefit of evidence”). But belief without evidence is so plainly a _bad_ thing, what could possibly be the motivation for God to want us to have it? Does God actually _want_ us to have poor critical thinking skills? Yes. Jesus acknowledged the man who saw him alive after the resurrection and therefore believed, but he praised the man who believed without seeing. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/115 "2009-08-26T02:26:40Z")
Well, now that this debate is resolved, who here would like to hear the wonderful story of Dianetics? ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/116 "2009-08-26T03:30:52Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I cannot wrap my atheist mind around what you’re saying here. If something doesn’t manifest in the physical world, then in what sense is it real? None that I can think of. A non-manifesting God is indistinguishable from a non-existent God. To be honest, when it comes to defining what existence and non-existence really mean is such a bucket of philosophical worms I would not even begin to attempt to define them, much less argue on behalf of either. Faith is a part of my life. I have a fairly atypical religious outlook, though. I don’t think arguing or convincing are spiritually desirable. Does art exist, or only the plastic representations of reality? Can aesthetics really describe anything real? I have no interest in the concept of God. It is the person of God in which I have faith. And yes, I believe that such a person exists. I believe that Jesus existed, in the more prosaic sense with which you are familiar. But neither of those beliefs are essential to my faith. God loves you. It isn’t policy, it’s personal. You have to want it to happen to experience it, and you have to love. Love cannot be proven. It is not a part of physical reality. Demanding proof of God’s existence may well be philosophically significant, but it doesn’t . . . well, it doesn’t matter. My faith affects my life. God affects my life. He has not given me a message, or appointed me to any authority beyond affirming that He loves you. I can’t prove that. I know how frustrating that “argument” is in philosophical debate. Long ago, in this same forum I found out that what I say is utter foolishness, from the point of logical and rational understanding of the real world. I am untroubled by that. From the rationalist point of view, I should be dismissed without further consideration. To those of strong faith, I speak a warning. You cannot prove God’s existence, and your failure to do so might well lead someone away from His love. Beware. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/117 "2009-08-26T03:38:04Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > God loves you. It isn’t policy, it’s personal. You have to want it to happen to experience it, and you have to love. Love cannot be proven. It is not a part of physical reality. Demanding proof of God’s existence may well be philosophically significant, but it doesn’t . . . well, it doesn’t matter. > > My faith affects my life. God affects my life. He has not given me a message, or appointed me to any authority beyond affirming that He loves you. I can’t prove that. Why not Buddha? Buddhists feel the same way, perhaps more so even. (Perhaps not so, hence the need to test it and every other religion.) The only thing that separates you from them is that they were raised to believe in Buddha while you were raised to believe in God, looking at sheer statistics. Given that it can fairly well be shown that you’re basking in the glow of the placebo effect, there seems to be little difference between believing in God and simply convincing yourself to hold an optimistic outlook on life. Same end result, and you don’t have to worry about whether or not you’re going to Hell for using fiat money or not stoning homosexuals to death as you were told to. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/118 "2009-08-26T03:44:57Z")
**Sage Rat** My faith does not separate me from Buddhists. In fact, it does not even separate me from The Moral Majority, or the most didactic bible thumping burn in hell zealots of Christian religions. My faith joins me to them. And, as an aside, the Placebo effect has a demonstrable, measurable, repeatable existence, verified to the satisfaction of even hard core scientific review. It has nothing to do with my faith, though. 🙂 Tris ---
**Author:** ![recessiveMeme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@recessiveMeme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/recessiveMeme)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/119 "2009-08-26T04:10:27Z")
[QUOTE=Triskadecamus] God loves you. It isn’t policy, it’s personal. You have to want it to happen to experience it, and you have to love. Love cannot be proven. It is not a part of physical reality. [/QUOTE] I’m willing to acknowledge the possibility that I’m “doing it wrong”, but for me, love requires context. I’ve never been in a position to honestly love something intangible. If you told me there was a guy named Steve somewhere that can’t or won’t (we can’t be sure, Steve is mysterious) interact with anyone anywhere and that he _really_ loves me… I don’t think I’d have it in me to love him back no matter how much I might want to. Could you really love someone you’d never met? The same way you’d love a family member? As for love being “proven”, I’m not sure why it requires “proof.” Love is a profound affinity. I can’t prove that I love my wife any more than I can prove I like brown ales. All I can do is describe my subjective enjoyment of the people and things that I have directly experienced. I can’t experience God in any way and so, have no context in which to love Him and so, cannot love Him. Even if I want to. God has created a universe in which I quite literally cannot reciprocate no matter how much He loves me. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589/120 "2009-08-26T04:34:55Z")
> [@recessiveMeme](#): > > I can’t experience God in any way and so, have no context in which to love Him and so, cannot love Him. Even if I want to. God has created a universe in which I quite literally cannot reciprocate no matter how much He loves me. Well said **recessiveMeme** ; that very clearly and succinctly captures the way I too feel. And the kicker: if we assume an omnipotent deity who has engineered the universe in its present form, and all of us within it, then my (and your) being wired to be unable to subjectively experience God and reciprocate love is all part of some plan, isn’t it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-atheist-logic-to-me/507589.md?page=7)