I’ve always wondered what evidence an atheist would except for God’s existence. In my many interactions with atheists, it’s occurred to me that when they say they want proof of God’s existence, it means they want something tangible, observable and/or measurable. But even given this proof, as one of two things would most likely occur:
1.) Even if God himself descended from Heaven and performed some awe inspiring, Earth shattering, cosmos disrupting miracle, they’d claim that that while said incidence is unexplainable, that it doesn’t mean the one standing before them is God nor does it mean that God exists, as it could be the result of a currently unexplainable phenomenon or some other entity (such as a super advanced being from another world). Or
2.) They’d pass it off as a hallucination and either sleep it off or check themselves into a mental facility.
Ergo, it’s better to just believe what you want to believe and don’t believe what you don’t want to believe. In the end, we’ll find out who’s right. Unless the atheists are right, then we won’t find out because once we die nothing will happen.
What evidence could convince you that the creator of the world is a gigantic divine hamster who lives inside the planet and the Earth is nothing but a gigantic hamster wheel?
When someone makes an utterly ridiculous claim, people want pretty strong evidence for it. When that side of the debate has always been proven wrong or outright dishonest in the past, even more evidence is wanted.
The fact that throughout human history that’s exactly what such experiences have been (or outright fraud) contributes to such an attitude.
Except that one side, the religious side is ridiculous, incoherent and denies physical laws. You are pretending to a false equality between the two positions.
One of the key difficulties is that most religious people (all that I have discussed it with, and we have had long threads on this board) don’t know what their god is like anyway. You can’t say what evidence one should accept when you don’t know what you are looking for in the first place. Religious people have vague and conflicting ideas of the physical characteristics and powers of their deities.
Come up with a clear definition of your exact god and we would have somewhere to start.
If you told me that your god was a glowing pink being 50 feet high that could by waving its wand make the moon vanish and then a glowing pink being 50 feet high that could by waving its wand make the moon vanish turned up then I guess he would exist. And if everyone around me saw exactly what I was seeing independently and blind tests confirmed the moon had gone then I suppose that would overcome your second problem.
When you can come up with your definition, and something fitting that description turns up, we can talk some more.
More often however your particular objection is a moot point raised to suggest atheists would be unreasonable and can be therefore dismissed, long before they have actually been unreasonable.
Are you saying that if a person believes in (or has faith in) an other person that is a religion? It has always been my thought that religion needed some form of Deity. At least a higher power!
Suppose after death the body just decays, like any other animal, or burns up like a paper, and the atoms just become part of the universe again? would you call that an after life?
Please give me the characteristics of this god you would like me to believe in, and I’ll tell you what it would take for me to believe that she/he/it exists.
You say this like anything close to such evidence has ever been produced. Atheists have not ignored anything like this because it’s never happened. This whole angle is basically just whining.
Not the right response. OaBC doesn’t want an actual answer to the question-He wants to wonder what such an answer might be. This allows him the freedom to make up our responses to fit already his existing prejudices.
Higher power, yes. Deity (or deities), not so much – Buddhism, for instance.
However, one major difference between “regular” religion and atheism is the concept of morality. I’m not saying that all atheists are inherently immoral, but many act as if they have a devil-may-care attitude or that they’re not spiritually responsible for their actions. Naturally, most atheists are law-abiding citizens who give to charity and take care of their friends & family – but even that’s a restrictive view of the Big Picture, who we are as a society, as a species, and most importantly, what lies beyond the Great Unknown.
That’s really my basic point (as if anyone’s paying attention): Atheists assume that there’s no Life After Death. Once you’re dead & buried you’re gone forever, so your actions in this life ultimately don’t matter. What I’m saying is that’s a very bad assumption to make – not because of Pascal’s Wager, but because we do exist for a higher purpose, and that universal purpose extends way beyond providing for your children. God or no God – we exist for a higher purpose. (No extraordinary evidence required.)
Cool song, but I still don’t get the part about Martians eating cars & bars.
So does this afterlife last for eternity?
If so, my follow-up question is if after a billion years, wouldn’t the 80 or so you spent on Earth shrink to insignificance? Is there some mechanism to the afterlife where time has no significance? Is so, my follow-up question is what significance does an eternity of static unchanging existence have? I don’t see how you could have it both ways - either your afterlife is static (and thus meaningless) or nonstatic (eventually making your Earth-life meaningless).
This is exactly what I’m talking about. Rather than asking us how we feel about morality, you make a ridiculous assumption that is designed to make you feel superior. If you had bothered to ask(though it might be too much to ask you to listen), I would have told you that I have no reason to believe that there is an “afterlife”, so what I do in the only life I currently know to exist is the only thing that does matter.
This is an exraordinary amount of ignorance in two paragraphs. “Spiritually responsible?” What the fuck does that mean? “Higher purpose?” Cite?
Also, how about a cite that atheists are any less moral than people who believe in magic spirits? Are you saying that if you weren’t afraid of magic spirits, you would be less moral?
Not necessarily. You already brought up Buddhists. There are millions that are atheists yet believe in literal reincarnation as a natural process. The only thing you can say definitively about atheists is that they are without belief in the existence of God/gods.
And it’s not an assumption. Atheists on this board are generally without belief in life after death because it’s an incredible claim with zero evidence. Others believe there’s no life after death because consciousness resides in the brain and without a functioning brain, there’s no “you”. That’s an assumption in the way it’s an assumption that I’ll fall toward the ground if I jump off my roof.
This contdradicts your statement that “most atheists are law-abiding citizens who give to charity and take care of their friends & family.”
If the higher purpose can exist without God, what makes you so sure that an atheist wouldn’t agree? Are you sure any theist would agree with that statement? Are you going to tell us what your idea of a higher purpose that can exist without a God is?
Who cares if someone is spiritually responsible for their actions? I care if someone is physically responsible for their actions.
For example, fairly frequently theists will do something monstrous (flying jetliners into buildings for example) in the belief that their actions are justified by some higher spiritual purpose. Their emphasis on the spiritual over the physical causes them to disregard the real physical harm they do in the world. Killing people, even killing yourself, can be rationalized as a good and just course of action. What does it matter if you blow yourself up today if tomorrow you wake up in eternal paradise?
The cavalier attitude toward real-world pain and suffering that spirituality can encourage is one of the main evils of religion.
Pretty much, as long as you’re able to comprehend that Time itself is merely a temporal dimension; and for non-discrete objects, the Arrow of Time isn’t necessarily linear.
(ref: Stephen Hawking)
Of course there is, Dio. In layman’s terms, it’s called the Universal Mind. The process of life & rebirth is to join with that higher power, and escape this stupid, hellish world.
You keep asking for scientific “proof” for an inherently philosophical question. That won’t work – it’ll just keep you running in circles. Let me ask you something – is there any evidence I can give you, or that anyone else can give you, which you’ll accept without fail? I don’t think so. The journey is a grand mystery, and it’s each individual’s responsibility to discover his or her own personal truth. Not facts – truth.
