Darkness of angels -
You have to be careful when using the word ignorant. As you know, I made it clear that I meant it in the nicest possible way, as quoted in your post. Anyway to answer your question, I think that atheists are ignorant of the role of intuition in perception. I've had conversations in which the atheist acknowledges that intuition can be useful and even accurate, but only in certain areas, yet not in others. It's my view that intuition plays a far bigger role than atheists recognise. Just as it is perfectly possible to "sleep on" a problem and wake up with the solution, it is perfectly possible to have knowledge of things through intuition. If I asked you to prove that your intuition is or can be effective, you wouldn't be able to do it, yet it is common knowledge that intuition exists, and works. And some people have a more advanced intuition than others. So the question isn't does intuition exist and does it work, because it does both. And the question isn't can I prove what I claim through my intuition, as that is the kind of question that people don't tend to ask as it is not really possible to do that. So the question is : Given that intuition is effective, and given that it's not always realistic to ask someone to prove what their intuition tells them, why do atheists still insist on asking for the impractical and the impossible? We all know that my intuition of god's existence can't be proven, so the question is futile. I believe that when atheists ask such a futile question, all they're doing is reaffirming to themselves their prejudices. And all of that is what I think atheists are ignorant of. And that issue has never adequately been addressed by atheists.
The purpose of this thread, which I started, is to demonstrate how atheists react when challenged to convert theists. Now you say that I'm not open to be converted. But actually, whenever I've come across an argument against god's existence, I have given it sufficient and sincere thought. The fact that I haven't been convinced doesn't mean that I'm closed to the possibility. To say that the former equals the latter is to miss the point that I have another way of seeing things, as do you. So when I say that you will probably fail in making me an atheist, that is an expression of my current position and opinion, not a literal statement of fact, because who knows, you might just do it. I'm hardly going to say that you probably will succeed, am I? That would mean that I'm on the fence or having doubts. But that's not the case. Maybe you were expecting that a theist starting a thread saying try and convert me meant that I'm on the fence. No, that's not what it means, it means, I want to see if anyone can come up with an argument against god's existence which I could find convincing. I don't have to agree with you in order to be open to the possibility. In other words, if you fail to convince me, then I'm sorry but it means your argument wasn't convincing in my view. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't chew over an argument which I saw some potential in. It's just that to date, I've come across nothing remotely convincing. Even the god delusion has nothing, which I found surprising as Dawkins is a bright guy. I think his book should have been called "The Organised Religion's (mainly christian) God Delusion".
To use your words, I'm putting myself out there to be deconverted. But I'm not having doubts, so you're not going to find it easy, and so be it. Again, good luck.
You have to be careful when using the word ignorant. As you know, I made it clear that I meant it in the nicest possible way, as quoted in your post. Anyway to answer your question, I think that atheists are ignorant of the role of intuition in perception. I've had conversations in which the atheist acknowledges that intuition can be useful and even accurate, but only in certain areas, yet not in others. It's my view that intuition plays a far bigger role than atheists recognise. Just as it is perfectly possible to "sleep on" a problem and wake up with the solution, it is perfectly possible to have knowledge of things through intuition. If I asked you to prove that your intuition is or can be effective, you wouldn't be able to do it, yet it is common knowledge that intuition exists, and works. And some people have a more advanced intuition than others. So the question isn't does intuition exist and does it work, because it does both. And the question isn't can I prove what I claim through my intuition, as that is the kind of question that people don't tend to ask as it is not really possible to do that. So the question is : Given that intuition is effective, and given that it's not always realistic to ask someone to prove what their intuition tells them, why do atheists still insist on asking for the impractical and the impossible? We all know that my intuition of god's existence can't be proven, so the question is futile. I believe that when atheists ask such a futile question, all they're doing is reaffirming to themselves their prejudices. And all of that is what I think atheists are ignorant of. And that issue has never adequately been addressed by atheists.
The purpose of this thread, which I started, is to demonstrate how atheists react when challenged to convert theists. Now you say that I'm not open to be converted. But actually, whenever I've come across an argument against god's existence, I have given it sufficient and sincere thought. The fact that I haven't been convinced doesn't mean that I'm closed to the possibility. To say that the former equals the latter is to miss the point that I have another way of seeing things, as do you. So when I say that you will probably fail in making me an atheist, that is an expression of my current position and opinion, not a literal statement of fact, because who knows, you might just do it. I'm hardly going to say that you probably will succeed, am I? That would mean that I'm on the fence or having doubts. But that's not the case. Maybe you were expecting that a theist starting a thread saying try and convert me meant that I'm on the fence. No, that's not what it means, it means, I want to see if anyone can come up with an argument against god's existence which I could find convincing. I don't have to agree with you in order to be open to the possibility. In other words, if you fail to convince me, then I'm sorry but it means your argument wasn't convincing in my view. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't chew over an argument which I saw some potential in. It's just that to date, I've come across nothing remotely convincing. Even the god delusion has nothing, which I found surprising as Dawkins is a bright guy. I think his book should have been called "The Organised Religion's (mainly christian) God Delusion".
To use your words, I'm putting myself out there to be deconverted. But I'm not having doubts, so you're not going to find it easy, and so be it. Again, good luck.
