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RE: Don't tell a Religious person "There is no God"
October 24, 2015 at 12:45 pm
(October 23, 2015 at 11:35 pm)heatiosrs Wrote:
In my opinion, and in the best interests of helping other religious peoples understand our belief, I think people should refrain from saying "There is no God"
First off, this is how all religious people view our beliefs as. They think we "know there is no god somehow" and therefore, see it as a radical position.
Also, saying "there is no god" is inherently wrong, due to the fact that you can never know, most will agree that it is very unlikely, but a common argument is "How do you know", I think it's dangerous to say you "know" anything.
Most importantly, though, it offsets any argument you use it in, or any scenario interacting with a religious person that it is said. If you are talking to a moderate believer, even though they probably think they know god exists, they will still most likely claim "I am not positive". If you say this, you give the impression you are positive, you as well give theists an argument to use.
I guess.. What i'm trying to say even though this was poorly explained is that.. A large amount of theists see atheism as people who say "There is no god" hell, my Bible teacher listed that as basically the only trait of atheism. I don't think this represents a large scale of atheists beliefs. I'm not saying it's "50-50" or anything like that, but even people like Richard Dawkins-almost as far atheist as you can go-said he would say it is still a 99-1 percentage chance of god existing in some form. If you want theists to stop misrepresenting atheist beliefs, and have people come to a better and more peaceful understanding of them, we need to start saying "I Don't Know" as a go to response for the question of "Does god exist". Because no matter how far you lean to one side or another, you can never know for sure, you can say it's 1/1000000000000 chance, but you still don't know and need to profess this so that theists don't think your position is so radical.
I will make that claim after I hear their definition of "god". For some of the claims, you can actually say that particular "god" doesn't exist, like when the claim contradicts itself or is a bunch of contradictions mashed together.
But yes, most of time it's safer to say "I don't know" because it is normally the fastest way to get the believer off your back, and also saves you the trouble of bashing your head in a nearby wall.
Quote:To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.
- Lau Tzu
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