How can anyone say "God doesn't exist" ?

[Croc 0]

The question was, "Does God exist?" To extend it to every other possible question is absurd. As I said previously, we must constantly make assumptions about almost everything in our everyday lives. We cannot get out of bed in the morning without assuming the floor will support us. As a matter of fact, we don't know it for sure. (Termites could have eaten through the joists during the night.)



"We are here and we are now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine."

H.L. Mencken

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

[quade 3]

Croc

The question was, "Does God exist?"

If that is your question, then I must first ask, "what is your definition of God?"

Certainly "God" exists as a metaphor the same as "Santa." So in that case I'll say, "absolutely, yes."

However, if your definition includes the one and only all knowing, all powerful, creator of the universe as described in Genesis. Well, you're going to probably get some push back on that.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Croc 0]

Push back? I've taken no position on the question.

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

[quade 3]

Impersonal pronoun version of "you."

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[maadmax 0]

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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a A wise man would say "I don't know."

In the light of consciousness and its effects in shaping reality on the quantum level, a wise man may struggle with the concept of God and how one goes about finding Him. But only a fool says in his heart "there is no God" For those of us who have found God and experienced the qualities He adds to our personal experience, God is more real than the illusion we call reality.

...

[Dantes 0]

There are actually better odds that we live in a computer simulation. It sounds wacky, but do the research. If you want to invoke philosophy, I suggest that you check out Nick Bostrom's work.

Personally, I think it is naive to think that we will ever understand The Question. The word 'God' is just a placeholder for something much more interesting than a bearded guy who gets jealous if you worship other gods or say bad things about him.

If traditional religion's version god exists, and I get to meet him, I'm going to kick him in the nuts and make him apologize to humanity.

[Croc 0]

"Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think."

Werner Heisenberg

When Truth cannot be comprehended it becomes religion. We have fashioned the gods of religion as magnified human beings complete with pettiness, cruelty, vindictiveness and the neurotic need for praise. This gives us permission to behave in a like manner, especially "in the name of God". Because one has rejected such childish notions of God answers nothing. Perhaps God is beyond human comprehension, a Source, without attributes. Perhaps there is only One Thing in the Universe. Perhaps there never was individuality, only a story, a very compelling one, of being separate, which is just something we collectively invented.
Here's some logic for people who think logic will save them:

If I cannot imagine God, my imagination is weak.
I cannot imagine God.
My imagination is weak.

Great men in all ages, from Plato to Einstein, have been confounded by, as you say, "The Question." For someone to dismiss it casually is beyond naivety; it is hubris.

I have not heard of Nick Bostrom, but I will check him out.

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

[ibx 2]

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Here's some logic for people who think logic will save them:

If I cannot imagine God, my imagination is weak.
I cannot imagine God.
My imagination is weak.

The logical conclusion:
If I cannot imagine Harry Potter, my imagination is weak.
I cannot imagine Harry Potter.
My imagination is weak, and I can therefore not make a billion dollars writing books about him.


This is nothing but a diluted version of Anselm's Ontological Argument which has been ripped apart since it's inception.

[jakee 1,255]

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I disagree. I can assert that I have blue eyes. I know what I know.

Yeah? How do you know that when no-one's looking at you your eyes aren't brown?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[jakee 1,255]

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The issue becomes the null hypothesis. Take, for example, "God doesn't exist." This means God doesn't exist unless proven otherwise.

Then there's the other side: God exists unless proven otherwise.

"God exists" is not a null hypothesis.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[RonD1120 58]

Croc

Great men in all ages, from Plato to Einstein, have been confounded by, as you say, "The Question." For someone to dismiss it casually is beyond naivety; it is hubris.

"The Question" can be debated ad nauseam. The true answer is found in obedient behavior.

Do you, impersonal pronoun, have the courage to surrender to the Holy Spirit and ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart?

God knows your heart. You cannot hedge or play with the question. You have to ask in truth. You have to want Him in your life.

Do you want the path to love, joy and peace?

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[jimmytavino 16]

i have often wondered,,,
did God create Man ?
or
Did Man create God ?

we NEED answers to scientific and philosophic questions that mankind has had for a million + years..

until we developed the ability to Deduce........and to USE the scientific process,
it was simply easier to go with the catch-all generic response which was..|
" The God(s) have made it so. You MUST believe.."

[Andy9o8 0]

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The question was, "Does God exist?" To extend it to every other possible question is absurd.

To not extend it to every other possible question is absurd.

[kallend 1,623]

Croc

The question was, "Does God exist?" To extend it to every other possible question is absurd.

You have it exactly backwards.

Let N be the number of claimed gods. (There may be some gods that are, as yet, unknown to us). Christians believe that N-1 of these are non existent.

Adherents.com claims to have figures for 4,200 religious groups currently existing on Earth.

Using the ratio of current population to the total number of people who have ever lived, we get an estimate of 63,000 religious groups throughout human history. (Only Homo sapiens' religions are being considered. It may well be that other hominids believed in god or gods, but it would be pure guesswork to estimate the number of gods they believed in.)

The modern dominant religions are monotheistic but they are few in number. Wikipedia lists 309 Hindu deities. The ancient Hittites claimed to have 1000 deities in their pantheon. So for a rough estimate of the average number of deities per religion, we'll take the average of these 3 figures, giving 440 deities per religion.

This gives an estimate of N = 28,000,000.

How many gods do atheists not believe in? Answer = N
For monotheists, the number of gods they don't believe in will be N-1, which, of course, will be very close to N. If the estimate above is correct, then (in some sense) atheists and monotheists only differ by 0.000036% in their beliefs.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Andy9o8 0]

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Atheism is a doctrine

Sorry, that's simply not correct. Any dictionary definitions (yeah, I've seen them) that deem atheism a "doctrine" reflect a non-neutral bias in the authors, and thus are incorrect. At its purest form, atheism is not a belief, it is simply an absence of a particular kind of belief. It's no different than, say, an absence of any belief in anything like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. That's not a "doctrine", or for that matter, or even a "belief" that those entities don't exist, it's simply an absence of any belief in the first place that such things exist.

People with religious or spiritual beliefs seem to have a defensive, almost desperate, need to define atheism as a form of "belief", and atheists as a form of "believers". I suppose that gives them some comfort. Nonetheless, at a core, foundational level, those definitions are simply not correct.

[jakee 1,255]

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Do you want the path to love, joy and peace?

I'm doing OK with that. When I want the path to tribalism, paranoia and intolerance I'll give you a call.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[normiss 622]

Very well and accurately stated.

[winsor 186]

kallend

***The question was, "Does God exist?" To extend it to every other possible question is absurd.

You have it exactly backwards.

Let N be the number of claimed gods. (There may be some gods that are, as yet, unknown to us). Christians believe that N-1 of these are non existent.

Adherents.com claims to have figures for 4,200 religious groups currently existing on Earth.

Using the ratio of current population to the total number of people who have ever lived, we get an estimate of 63,000 religious groups throughout human history. (Only Homo sapiens' religions are being considered. It may well be that other hominids believed in god or gods, but it would be pure guesswork to estimate the number of gods they believed in.)

The modern dominant religions are monotheistic but they are few in number. Wikipedia lists 309 Hindu deities. The ancient Hittites claimed to have 1000 deities in their pantheon. So for a rough estimate of the average number of deities per religion, we'll take the average of these 3 figures, giving 440 deities per religion.

This gives an estimate of N = 28,000,000.

How many gods do atheists not believe in? Answer = N
For monotheists, the number of gods they don't believe in will be N-1, which, of course, will be very close to N. If the estimate above is correct, then (in some sense) atheists and monotheists only differ by 0.000036% in their beliefs.

I understood that there would be no math.

[normiss 622]

IIRC, if you apply Jehovah's Witness maths, heaven was full a LONG time ago.
So 0 still = 0.

[champu 1]

Andy9o8

People with religious or spiritual beliefs seem to have a defensive, almost desperate, need to define atheism as a form of "belief", and atheists as a form of "believers". I suppose that gives them some comfort. Nonetheless, at a core, foundational level, those definitions are simply not correct.

People who hold such beliefs also, in my experience, have no good faith interest in coming to an agreement with atheists regarding the possibility that a god may exist. Religious people have a very difficult time conceptualizing a god as distinct from their god(s) so when a religious person says a god it's not what they mean.

[cgriff 0]

Andy9o8

Sorry, that's simply not correct. Any dictionary definitions (yeah, I've seen them) that deem atheism a "doctrine" reflect a non-neutral bias in the authors, and thus are incorrect. At its purest form, atheism is not a belief, it is simply an absence of a particular kind of belief. It's no different than, say, an absence of any belief in anything like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. That's not a "doctrine", or for that matter, or even a "belief" that those entities don't exist, it's simply an absence of any belief in the first place that such things exist.

People with religious or spiritual beliefs seem to have a defensive, almost desperate, need to define atheism as a form of "belief", and atheists as a form of "believers". I suppose that gives them some comfort. Nonetheless, at a core, foundational level, those definitions are simply not correct.

So, to your mind, what's the difference between an atheist and an agnostic?

[winsor 186]

cgriff

***Sorry, that's simply not correct. Any dictionary definitions (yeah, I've seen them) that deem atheism a "doctrine" reflect a non-neutral bias in the authors, and thus are incorrect. At its purest form, atheism is not a belief, it is simply an absence of a particular kind of belief. It's no different than, say, an absence of any belief in anything like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. That's not a "doctrine", or for that matter, or even a "belief" that those entities don't exist, it's simply an absence of any belief in the first place that such things exist.

People with religious or spiritual beliefs seem to have a defensive, almost desperate, need to define atheism as a form of "belief", and atheists as a form of "believers". I suppose that gives them some comfort. Nonetheless, at a core, foundational level, those definitions are simply not correct.

So, to your mind, what's the difference between an atheist and an agnostic?

Agnostics apparently deem the issue to beyond the ken of mankind.

Atheists are willing to go with the odds (10^-100,000,000,000,000 = 0 for all intents and purposes).

[quade 3]

winsor

******Sorry, that's simply not correct. Any dictionary definitions (yeah, I've seen them) that deem atheism a "doctrine" reflect a non-neutral bias in the authors, and thus are incorrect. At its purest form, atheism is not a belief, it is simply an absence of a particular kind of belief. It's no different than, say, an absence of any belief in anything like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. That's not a "doctrine", or for that matter, or even a "belief" that those entities don't exist, it's simply an absence of any belief in the first place that such things exist.

People with religious or spiritual beliefs seem to have a defensive, almost desperate, need to define atheism as a form of "belief", and atheists as a form of "believers". I suppose that gives them some comfort. Nonetheless, at a core, foundational level, those definitions are simply not correct.

So, to your mind, what's the difference between an atheist and an agnostic?

Agnostics apparently deem the issue to beyond the ken of mankind.

Atheists are willing to go with the odds (10^-100,000,000,000,000 = 0 for all intents and purposes).

Or simply say so as to not completely shut out their "true believer" friends and relatives. A person can get by in a religious discussion by saying they are agnostic,but once they say they are an atheist the religious people tend to flip out.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[maadmax 0]

Quote

People with religious or spiritual beliefs seem to have a defensive, almost desperate, need to define atheism as a form of "belief", and atheists as a form of "believers". I suppose that gives them some comfort. Nonetheless, at a core, foundational level, those definitions are simply not correct.

Belief or non-belief in something issues up a set of criteria used to construct our individual realities. Believe or don't believe, you still use faith to construct your world view. In my construct I surrender to a Higher Power. In your reality, you decide what is good and evil.
...

[normiss 622]

I don't think that's always true.
Our "individual realities" tend to be based on life experiences in my opinion.
I have yet to see anything in my life experience to lead me to belief in any sort of "higher power".