If I were an Atheist

[Drew_2013]

The Reality Salesman,

I'm not sure that you considered all the variables that make this an explanation for the disparity in numbers between Atheists/Theists that you referred to in the beginning. If it were true that there was an overwhelming number of religious people compared to Atheists, and it is true that popular ideas can be abandoned due to the evidence against them, it must also be true that for any popular belief that is abandoned due to contrary evidence, some understanding of not only the belief itself, but also what it means to critically examine the evidence and an aptitude for drawing rational conclusions from it. And if the ability and knowledge are required but also rare, then you could have a popular belief that is abandoned by the minority who possess the skills, while widely accepted by those who do not.

On the other hand if there was a preponderance of evidence that naturalistic forces alone caused the universe and sentient humans to exist, people would abandon theistic belief without any special skills, ability or knowledge. The problem is there isn't a preponderance of evidence and there certainly isn't any smoking gun evidence.

The disparity would make sense, and it wouldn't point to religious belief being any more valid.

Theism isn't a religious belief, I am a theist. There is no church of theism.

This is when Santa or another ridiculous idea can be useful in illustrating the fallacy they've just employed in place of reason. Obviously, most adults don't believe in Santa Claus, but what we are hoping Theists will realize is that nobody needs to disprove Santa Clause before it's justified to not believe in him. We are hoping that you think more about why that is, rather than allow yourself to be reflexively offended. To a Christian, I don't use Santa, I use Allah.

For someone who claims to think critically you haven't thought this through. Belief in Santa (if any sane lucid adults actually believed in such) can be easily disproved with an overwhelming preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that a mystical being doesn't deliver presents worldwide on Christmas eve. This doesn't demonstrate an unfalsifiable hypothesis it is a bait and switch tactic. I'll impugn belief in God by comparing it to Santa Claus. Secondly, the God hypothesis is falsifiable. All you have to do is provide a preponderance of evidence that mindless mechanistic forces can account for all we observe including something completely unlike itself sentient life. If there isn't such a preponderance of evidence then your counter claim is a belief claim true?

Can Christians prove that Allah does not exist? No. But, they don't believe in him, why? If they would spend more time reflecting on how they answer the question instead of what they think the answer is, these sorts of thought experiments would be a lot more productive. But alas.

You claim to be a critical thinker but you're still not thinking this out. The difference between the God of Christians and those who believe in Allah is a difference of opinion of the nature of God, both groups share a belief in God. There differences are theological in nature.

Mister Agenda,

After all I don't deny God exists either.

If you think that qualifies you to be an atheist, we can start referring to you as such.

No, if one doesn't deny God exists, it makes them a weak theist.

If the universe and humans weren't purposely caused to come into existence intentionally by a creator designer, then we owe our existence to mindless mechanistic forces that unintentionally caused the universe with the characteristics to cause stars, planets, solar systems and life to exist.

And that can't possibly be the explanation, because in that explanation, you're not the goal of existence.

It could be the possible explanation is anyone here going to make the case it is? Is anyone here going to site lines of evidence that supports that conclusion? I don't have disregard for that explanation, I just view it as second runner up.

How many times should we have to repeat what cosmologists have to say? And if it's not a false dichotomy, that should be easy for you to prove.

Do you mean the latest cosmological theories?

The former explanations explain 'how'. The latter 'explanation' is 'God did it'.

Whether 'God did it' or 'mechanistic forces did it' we still seek explanations of how it works and functions. Does 'Egyptians did it' cause to not seek how the pyramids were built? However as with the pyramids we can also ask why they built them.

There's no rhyme or reason why just the right God would exist to create this specific universe. Positing God as an answer to 'why is there a universe' begs the question of 'why is there a God?'.

So? I'm limiting my inquiry to why there is a universe and sentient beings.

I don't believe God exists.

That wasn't so hard was it?

If your lines of argument were sound, it would be global philosophical news. I have never seen you present anything that didn't rest on a logical fallacy or the assumption that you must be right. It's assumed that you find your own arguments convincing, but it's arrogance to assume that they are therefore sound. Do you make a lot of arguments which you then follow by announcing that you're right? Good arguments stand on their own, bad arguments exist to be destroyed.

Atheists will invariably respond with logical fallacy to any line of evidence that disagrees with their opinion. That is precisely why neither your opinion or mine matters in regards to our own arguments or counter arguments. The only fair judge of any debates or arguments are from impartial folks who are neither devout theists or atheists and whether you could convince them arguments I make are fallacious. Of course you think so.

And you don't see any dichotomy between acknowledging the existence of a Creator is neither provable nor disprovable with being convinced that your arguments are sound? If they were sound, they would prove the existence of a Creator.

The arguments I made were used to justify an opinion, the belief we owe our existence to a Creator. As you mentioned before of course I think there sound. The real test would be whose arguments persuade the undecided. Are your arguments against belief in God sound, if so do they prove God doesn't exist?

We'll still be a small minority in the USA but demographic trends indicate we'll likely be twice the percentage of the American population that we are today. It's another example of the USA being 50 years behind Europe in cultural trends. The EU is about 20% atheist, which is where the USA will probably be in 50 years. Still a minority, but a significant one.

If belief in a Creator of the universe were anywhere near as absurd as many atheists paint it they should already be the majority belief. If your arguments were sound wouldn't you persuade many more much faster?

What you don't seem to grasp is that we don't 'recruit' atheists.

Again theism is an opinion to the questions why is there something rather than nothing? Why does a universe exist? Why do we sentient humans beings exist? Are we ultimately the result of unplanned forces that somehow came into existence and unintentionally caused the conditions that allow our existence or are we the result of plan and engineering? You don't have to recruit anyone if you have a good solid case from evidence (something I'm always asked for) for believing the former. There in lies the problem and why atheists tend to attack theism because they don't have a compelling case. You can criticize the case I made for my belief in theism but at least I made a case and one from evidence.