Would it? I’d probably just assume I was in a lucid coma dream of some kind.
I like to use the room-with-one-door analogy, whenever talking about this topic.
Imagine, if you will, that all of humanity and the universe is a room. We can call this room “The Physical World”, where physical relates it to science and world is used very generally. There is one door to this room, and a person living in The Physical World can only exit through it by way of death, and, in addition, can never return back into The Physical World (at least not with any knowledge of that outside).
So, it is clear to see that no one and no thing can ever know with certainty what is outside of the Physical World. But seeing as how it is where everyone eventually goes, great debates rage over what lies beyond.
The Theists praise the door, hoping something good (and like the world they know) exists behind the door.
The Atheists curse the door, convinced that there is nothing of certainty or of Physical significance past the door.
The Agnostics realize they can never know, and instead ignore the door, focusing on the Physical World around them.
In my opinion, the theists are hedging their bets the best, but the agnostics are the most pragmatic (and efficient in terms of what they think about).
Thoughts? I doubt I was the first to come up with this analogy, but I can say I solely thought it up while arguing with some good friends one day.
And I hope this answers a close question to the topic: not how to convince an atheist of God, but how to convince an atheist that they are wrong in some sense.
How is that cursing the door, rather than simple disbelief in its significance (or, for that matter, existence)?
One of the more common views of atheists I see expressed by theists is that we atheists are always angry at stuff. We’re not.
At least I’m not.
I don’t know any atheist that curse the unknown and AFAIK most aren’t convinced there is nothing beyond it.
All the atheists I know feel the same way and are also agnostic.
How is believing in an afterlife hedging a bet? Are you talking about Pascal’s Wager? If so, read the rebuttals in the link.
You have given no argument to convince an atheist that he’s wrong in any sense. There’s nothing wrong about not believing in extraordinary claims that have insufficient evidence to back it up.
Actually, a great many, perhaps the majority of atheists are materialists, and don’t believe that there is a door. Just a bunch of fools who point at a blank wall, insist that there’s a door but can’t even agree what it looks like.
As pointed out, Pascal’s Wager doesn’t work.
It fails miserably.
I’m not sure that it does, though. Your analogy demonstrates that the ‘Atheists’ are apparently the most correct among the three groups.
But the analogy already establishes that this door doesn’t operate like any other doors. For one thing, people have to die to go through it. Theists might believe that something like the Physical World lies beyond, but that’s based on their familiarity with normal, nonfatal doors that really do lead to good places in the Physical World. But this door doesn’t work like that.
Your analogy already specifies that their conviction is correct: there is nothing of certainty beyond the door, and nothing of Physical significance (since it supposedly leads outside the Physical World).
Which is perhaps an understandable choice, but requires them to ignore the door. But your analogy already specifies knowable facts about the door: you have to die to go through it. It leads out of the Physical World.
Ultimately, the reality of your analogy seems to agree most closely with the beliefs of the Atheists. The door does in fact lead outside the Physical Universe, and no one can know what lies behind it. In order to believe what they do, the Theists and Agnostics have to ignore or make up facts about the door; whereas the Atheists do not.
I don’t follow this. What bet is being made or ‘hedged?’ In your analogy, everyone knows that they eventually leave the Physical World. Everyone knows that they die when they go through the door. Nobody has any certainty that the door leads to anything good (or indeed anything at all), and it ultimately doesn’t make any difference what a person’s beliefs are on the subject. Everyone goes eventually.
So unless a Theist decides that it’s better to go through the door right now instead of later, their belief isn’t a better or worse bet than anyone else’s. But if they decide to base their decisions in the Physical World on what they believe is on the other side of the door, it would seem reasonable to point out that they have no facts to back them up.
There’s a famous D&D adventure in which characters find what appears to be a teleportation device, and they can go through it one by one. In reality, it’s a sphere of annihilation. When you touch it, you don’t get teleported somewhere: you just cease to exist.
Some characters believe they can pass through it, and by trying to do so, they destroy themselves and any chance at completing the adventure successfully. Some characters ignore it and go on to a successful adventure. Which set of adventurers is hedging their bets better?
Daniel
Do Theists actually praise the door? Do they praise death? If they truly did, they would go through it as quickly as possible, which doesn’t happen except for a few odd cults.
Do atheists curse the door? I’m not aware of it. Those who accept evolution understand the benefits of death. Theists who believe in the Fall, however, are more likely to curse death, since it came from a mistake by Adam and Eve, and is not justified in any other way.
The real case is that the Theists chatter on about the other side of the door, “talking about things that they’ve never seen,” each set absolutely convinced they are correct despite the lack of evidence. Does that make sense to you?
Really, let athiests believe (or not believe) what they want. It’s their lives…
I know that although I believe in God, I really resent it when people try to preach to me. I hate it with a passion… I wouldn’t want anyone imposing their own beliefs on me and I wouldn’t want to impose myself on anyone either…
Suppose the stars stayed that way for at least one hundred years, and was written in all languages?
Monavis
Since life is a passed on thing,why is it different to think of an after life and not a pre-life? People do not want to die(and that is a good thing) so I think for many it is a calming thing to think of an after life.
Monavis
I agree and hate the preachers on both sides of the issue. I was just trying to see what the level of proof would be to convince a hard-core, dyed in the wool, grade A atheist. I knew that it would be something beyond visions telling them to lead the French against the English or a voice telling them to build a big boat.
Without reading this whole thread out of fear for my mental health, God is by definition unexplainable and unknowable. Atheism is founded on skepticism, that I don’t believe in things without explanation. So, I don’t think there’s any way for me to be convinced, really.
As I see it, there are two types of objections to the existence of God.
The first is the question of evidence. For a lot of folks, the evidence fails to establish the existence of God. To establish a creator god, you’d want to show the hand of the creator in a manner that had no other plausible explanation. Fro example, if it turned out that if you considered our DNA to be a tetrinary (?? four-symbol as opposed to binary’s two-symbol) mathematical code, and if you found that a complete genome consisted of a multiple of two prime numbers x and y, and if when you arranged the genome as an array x wide and y tall you got a picture of this guy, I’d consider that to be very strong proof that our species had an intelligent creator. But if you just point to the beauty around us and claim that it’s obviously evidence of a creator, I’m not going to be convinced.
The second question is simultaneously easier and harder: that’s the question of coherence. A creator deity raises the question of “Who created it?” If this question can be answered as, “The deity had not creator,” then I see no reason why we can’t answer the question of “Who created the universe?” the same way. That’s not a huge problem. A bigger problem comes when you assign the omni-traits to the deity, i.e, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. There are a variety of logical inconsistencies contained in these traits (e.g., if an omniscient being knows that it’s going to have spaghetti for lunch tomorrow, it is unable to choose to eat a taco instead, and is therefore not omnipotent, to vastly oversimplify the example).
This objection to the coherence of a deity admittedly doesn’t address your example very well, but it’s a common objection to the omni-everything god. To change my mind on this matter, you’d simply need to proffer a logically sound and convincing argument that these traits didn’t lead to fatal inconsistencies in the idea of an omni-omni god.
Daniel
Believing the “existence” of any “god” is quite mad.
You see, people were very strange, and crazy back then. Of course it was easy for a quick thinking Googly-Moogly man to subvert and subjugate the masses to his will.
Still going on today with all the TV religeo-babble.
That’s all it ever was, and you can’t change it just by saying it is real.
Try clicking your heels together three times…
Or, wish in one hand and you know what in the other, and see which one fills up faster.
Personally, I think it’s a byproduct of pattern-recognition skills. Seemingly-random stuff happens, we look for patterns, get tempted to claim the seemingly-random stuff isn’t random at all but springs from some controlling mind working from a definite plan… I guess that’s comforting to some, reinforced as it is in childhood.
I’m not sure why atheists don’t believe; could be as simple as not believing in what they cannot see or without hard evidence; or I know a few atheists who resent organized religion and have some real anger toward their own personal experiences with it.
I mean, even if God sent his only son to live among us, people still wouldn’t believe… oh wait, he already did that. 
It’s a matter of having faith which is a gift from God. The saying goes, with faith, no explaination is necessary; without faith, no explaination will do.
With faith, no explanation is given: without faith, knowledge is gained. With mythological stories, children are entertained.
According to the believers. I see no reason to regard Jesus as anything other than a long dead charlatan or loon, to the extent he really existed as portrayed and believed what he said.
Faith is an intellectual defect, not a “gift”. And that line is a good explanation of the fundamental emptiness and worthlessness of religion. Saying that you need faith to believe is no different than saying that there’s no reason to believe at all; it’s an admission that what you believe is empty of content; lies and delusions.
During the Battle of the Bulge a UFO landed right in the middle of Bastogne, an alien came out, and announced the way to achieve world piece and happiness. One of the companies in my Dad’s battalion was there, and I can post the message if you like.
You don’t believe me? You think I might have made it up 60 years after the event? You’re just a doubter who is resisting the wonderful message of the aliens.
Yes, perhaps my ancestors saw miracles and raising from the dead, and were so hateful of god that they ignored it and never bothered to write it down. Or maybe it is a pile of lies and shit.