# I have decided to become an atheist (hypothetical) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2008, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723 "2008-04-10T03:23:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/341 "2008-04-16T02:02:41Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Congratulations on solving all mysteries! [/QUOTE] I didn’t solve anything. I just pointed out that there’s no “mystery” here to solve; you haven’t specified any. And “Goddidit” doesn’t solve mysteries anyway; it just means that people shove the mystery onto God and claim that you can’t figure him out. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/342 "2008-04-16T03:05:29Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] I didn’t solve anything. I just pointed out that there’s no “mystery” here to solve; you haven’t specified any. And “Goddidit” doesn’t solve mysteries anyway; it just means that people shove the mystery onto God and claim that you can’t figure him out. [/QUOTE] “To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today” “It seems to me that God is a convenient invention of the human mind” “I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.” -Isaac Asimov ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/343 "2008-04-16T03:12:17Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] As you have already shown that you ‘don’t care’ what I have to say on the topic, there is nothing for me to say. You want me to just repeat your opinion back to you. I’m not going to do it, sorry. [/quote] This strikes me as a willful misreading of my question, which is simple enough. I’ll break it down: Does God exist, in some manner independent of the beliefs of theists? Does (or did) Zeus exist, in some manner independent of the beliefs of worshippers? If the answers to the above questions are different, why? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/344 "2008-04-16T03:19:27Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] This strikes me as a willful misreading of my question, which is simple enough. I’ll break it down: Does God exist, in some manner independent of the beliefs of theists? [/quote] Yes > [@](#): > > Does (or did) Zeus exist, in some manner independent of the beliefs of worshippers? No > [@](#): > > If the answers to the above questions are different, why? Because Zeus is a particular conception of God. God wears masks that are comfortable for the culture he is facing to comprehend. So there is God the ruler of the universe, and then there are gods, the cultural accretions used to describe God. God is not a name, it is a placeholder for a vast intelligence beyond our comprehension. More of a title, really. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/345 "2008-04-16T03:34:10Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Because Zeus is a particular conception of God. God wears masks that are comfortable for the culture he is facing to comprehend. [/quote] Doesn’t the first (or second, depending on tradition) commandment specifically address this, commanding followers to have no other gods before God? Is God commanding followers away from God? > [@](#): > > God is not a name, it is a placeholder for a vast intelligence beyond our comprehension. More of a title, really. If it’s beyond our comprehension, how can we believe people who claim to have comprehended or communed or communicated with it? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/346 "2008-04-16T03:40:00Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] Doesn’t the first (or second, depending on tradition) commandment specifically address this, commanding followers to have no other gods before God? Is God commanding followers away from God? [/quote] I see it more as moving from a smaller and more limited god to a larger one. Sort of a levelling up. > [@](#): > > If it’s beyond our comprehension, how can we believe people who claim to have comprehended or communed or communicated with it? Well clearly, YOU can’t believe them. Talking to God however doesn’t mean one comprhends his full nature, only that, “hey that’s God, I better do what he says because he is significantly more powerful than I can fathom.” Do you know the concept of a ‘gloss’? The screen you put over top of something that you can’t quite comprehend? You create a sort of chimera out of the bits you thought you understood? Well it’s sort of like that. You choose to assume that those bits of the chimera are unrelated and therefore toss God out. I assume that they are incomplete and just think that I am looking through a fuzzy lens. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/347 "2008-04-16T03:48:37Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Do you know the concept of a ‘gloss’? The screen you put over top of something that you can’t quite comprehend? You create a sort of chimera out of the bits you thought you understood? Well it’s sort of like that. You choose to assume that those bits of the chimera are unrelated and therefore toss God out. I assume that they are incomplete and just think that I am looking through a fuzzy lens. [/QUOTE] What “bits” are you referring to? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/348 "2008-04-16T03:50:57Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] What “bits” are you referring to? [/QUOTE] The bits that you work at trying to comprehend. Trying to define what God is for someone, you work at making models, but mostly those models are taken from things you comprehend and put over top of it. A gloss. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/349 "2008-04-16T03:56:19Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] The bits that you work at trying to comprehend. Trying to define what God is for someone, you work at making models, but mostly those models are taken from things you comprehend and put over top of it. A gloss. [/QUOTE] I’m sorry, have I given you the impression I was trying to define God for you or anyone else? I thought I was asking _you_ to define God. Do you have any other “bits” in mind? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/350 "2008-04-16T04:00:03Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] I’m sorry, have I given you the impression I was trying to define God for you or anyone else? I thought I was asking _you_ to define God. Do you have any other “bits” in mind? [/QUOTE] I don’t ‘define’ God, God defines me. If God is greater than the natural world, then all possible descriptions within natural terms are insignificant to describe God. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/351 "2008-04-16T04:13:49Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] I don’t ‘define’ God, God defines me. If God is greater than the natural world, then all possible descriptions within natural terms are insignificant to describe God. [/QUOTE] Are you _really_ surprised that an atheist doesn’t buy into this? I’m left surprised that anyone _would_. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/352 "2008-04-16T04:15:37Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] Are you _really_ surprised that an atheist doesn’t buy into this? I’m left surprised that anyone _would_. [/QUOTE] No I’m not surprised at all. It’s generally a conceit of atheists to think that there is something incomprehensible about atheism. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/353 "2008-04-16T04:16:34Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] I don’t ‘define’ God, God defines me. If God is greater than the natural world, then all possible descriptions within natural terms are insignificant to describe God. [/QUOTE] Kwai Chang Caine, is that you? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/354 "2008-04-16T04:19:54Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] I don’t ‘define’ God, God defines me. If God is greater than the natural world, then all possible descriptions within natural terms are insignificant to describe God. [/QUOTE] And saying that God’s larger than the natural world is defining him. And you are doing exactly what I said would happen; saying that God is beyond comprehension. If that’s so, then you shouldn’t talk about him, and shouldn’t pretend that God is a solution to whatever unspecified mystery you were talking about. It’s amazing, and amusing, how God’s comprehensibility rises or falls, depending on if the believer is trying to shut down opposition or use God as a justification. God wants this, God hates that - but ask questions and it’s “Oh, no, he’s beyond our understanding.” ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/355 "2008-04-16T04:24:33Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] And saying that God’s larger than the natural world is defining him. [/quote] So it is. You’re right. > [@](#): > > And you are doing exactly what I said would happen; saying that God is beyond comprehension. If that’s so, then you shouldn’t talk about him, and shouldn’t pretend that God is a solution to whatever unspecified mystery you were talking about. Why shouldn’t I talk about him? What unspecified mystery was I talking about before that I shouldn’t pretend God is a solution to? > [@](#): > > It’s amazing, and amusing, how God’s comprehensibility rises or falls, depending on if the believer is trying to shut down opposition or use God as a justification. God wants this, God hates that - but ask questions and it’s “Oh, no, he’s beyond our understanding.” It’s funny how you think that my views on God take your opinion of their validity into account. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/356 "2008-04-16T04:39:03Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Why shouldn’t I talk about him? [/QUOTE] He can’t be proven. He can’t be disproven. He can’t be described. His origin is unknowable. His purpose is unknowable. We can’t find any evidence of his existence. What the hell _is_ there to talk about? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/357 "2008-04-16T04:47:05Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] No I’m not surprised at all. It’s generally a conceit of atheists to think that there is something incomprehensible about atheism. [/quote] Like who ? I’ve never heard a single atheist say that. [QUOTE=mswas] Why shouldn’t I talk about him? What unspecified mystery was I talking about before that I shouldn’t pretend God is a solution to? [/quote] You shouldn’t bother talking about him if he’s supposedly so incomprehensible, because if he is there isn’t much to be said about him, or much to be gained by talking about him. As for which mystery, how should I know ? You are the one who’s refused to explain yourself. [QUOTE=mswas] It’s funny how you think that my views on God take your opinion of their validity into account. [/QUOTE] I think that the supposed incomprehensibility of God is generally nothing but a rhetorical tool, not something actually believed by most of the people who say so. If you are like most people who make such claims, then yes, my and other’s opinions are the whole point. And it’s not like you haven’t made plenty of claims about God in the past; you do seem to believe in selective comprehensibility, at the least. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/358 "2008-04-16T04:49:23Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] No I’m not surprised at all. It’s generally a conceit of atheists to think that there is something incomprehensible about atheism. [/QUOTE] That statement has no basis. You’re offering something that you freely admit is incomprehensible, yet claim it’s the fault of the person who doesn’t accept it. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/359 "2008-04-16T05:16:55Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] I think that the supposed incomprehensibility of God is generally nothing but a rhetorical tool, not something actually believed by most of the people who say so. [/QUOTE] Nah, it’s more of a fallback position. It’s a genuine part of the belief system, part of the dogma as it were. “…you do seem to believe in selective comprehensibility…” Part of the mystery! More seriously, these perspectives might be understood as a form of doublethink. Or, within the OP’s framework, if the threat of hell motivates moral behavior, it shouldn’t have much problem spurring on rhetorical positioning. Disclaimer: I haven’t read pages 2-7 of this thread. But there’s a genuine puzzle here. I would _think_ that there would be ample evidence that belief in infinite torture in the afterlife would encourage people to dot all i’s and cross all t’s. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Even if you believe the atheists’ contention that morality springs from evolution, one would think that threats of eyeball gouging (over and over again) would provide additional incentive for proper behavior. Yet how many heed Christ’s call for humility, charity and treating all others as one’s siblings? Instead we get legalisms and get out of jail free cards, despite His admonishments against exactly this sort of approach to morality. Again, it’s odd. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2008, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/360 "2008-04-16T08:18:16Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > If God is greater than the natural world, then all possible descriptions within natural terms are insignificant to describe God. So even if you hypothetically became an antheist, you would still be a theist? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723.md?page=19)