Why do you not believe in God?

[Simon Moon]

You quoted the wrong person!

Fixed!

Thanks

[Jeffonthenet]

How do you define creationism? I think you are conflating creationism with believing God created the world. Likewise everyone who is feminine is not a feminist.

Creationism means that something (the universe, the world, life, etc.) was created by the God of Genesis. I assumed this was standard Christian dogma, since I’ve never met a Christian who didn’t believe in the God of Creation. Do you not agree?

I do believe that God inspired the book of Genesis. However, I don't think believing this necessities a literal interpretation of it. St. Augustine, probably the most influential Christian theologian, long before modern science (4th century A.D.), because of the context of Genesis itself took the days of Genesis to be non-literal.

I never believed based on them, and I cannot think of anyone I know who believes in God based on them.

Maybe. I’ve heard numerous arguments for an intelligent God of Creation, so I assumed that people were making those arguments for some purpose. Maybe they aren’t the sole reason for why people believe, but they must at least think it strengthens their argument for God – otherwise, why bother?

Certianly the people who make these arguments think this. But this is not all Christians.

How am I throwing God into the equation? I say that the way one best knows God exists is by personal experience apart from argument.

You’ve mentioned previously that God could have had a role in evolution, and I explained why I disagree. God doesn’t in any way inform our understanding of evolution. God is irrelevant and unnecessary in the argument. Now we’ve changed the subject to instead understanding God through “personal experience”, which is fine. Except, now I have to ask you: How do I understand God through your personal experience?

I am not throwing God into evolution. We can both affirm that evolution happened in the exact same manner. You seem to think from the data of evolution I infer God, and then conclude that this inference is unjustified. However, I infer God on other grounds, and from the properties of God and the data of science would conclude that God planned evolution to happen. I don't feel the need to say that God tinkered with evolution. I would say that he set up the dominoes so that the random mutations he wanted happened. This would be before evolution ever occurred, perhaps even at the big bang.

The personal experience aspect, I would be surprised if I hadn't mentioned in the first post because it is something important to me. I don't expect you to believe based on my personal experience. However, I do not think that you can likewise discount my testimony of personal experience as you have not experienced it. From my point of view, I would be more than happy if you went from being an atheist to an agnostic. I would consider it a step in the right direction.

Does your standard presuppose the reliability of your sense perception? If so it cannot demonstrate it without being circular.

I think it can. I can certainly rationally explain the means with which I get to the “truth” of something through logic and reason. But this isn’t “my” standard. This is a universal standard to which both you and I subscribe, since we are here engaged in a rational discussion, following those universal rules of logic.

Your evidence for trusting the reliability of your senses is presupposing them, because for you to know that I exist and that reason is universal you must observe the world through your sense perception. You must trust what you receive through your sense perception is actually real in order to have any data with which to argue for its reality.

The logic you quoted below infers that the cause is God from the necessary characteristics of it.

No. Such an inference would be illogical. If you start off with the assumption that God, by definition, is already the premise (the thing you’re trying to prove), then you’re begging the question. (See the previous 30-something posts regarding this argument).

I've talked with people about this before, and I don't have time to read 30 posts, so if you would like to make a point with me you need to make it yourself. I do not mention God in the premise. The argument is this,

1. Nothing can cause itself to exist
2. All space, time, material things began to exist at the big bang
3. Therefore, whatever created the big bang must not be space or in space, must not be time or in time, and must not be material.

A spaceless timeless immaterial being of immense power which created the universe sounds like God to me. I have read and responded in depth to your first post, now it is your turn to deal with the logic I presented here. You seem to be positing a "science of the gaps." All I use is the basic logical principle that something cannot cause itself to exist and the scientific evidence for an absolute beginning to the universe, and there is a good argument for God.

For the sake of moving past this, I’ll accept your argument and call the mechanism that created the universe “God.” Now, why does this mechanism care whether I worship it? In other words, you now have the duty of imposing the other characteristics of the Biblical God onto this universe-creating mechanism. I don't see how that's logically possible.

If you grant me this, in your own words you would have just admitted that God exists. As I said, I would consider this moving in the right direction. I don't think I can convince you that Christianity is true. I would say that believing that there is a God as opposed to believing that there is no God is a big difference and be happy with that.

I’m also not sure what you mean by “science of the gaps.” Can you be more specific?

It is something like saying that all gaps in our knowledge about the world will surely be filled by science in the future. It seems to me a sort of blind faith in science if it is applied to some things like the Kalaam as the scientific evidence as I understand it points to the fact that only a metaphysical immaterial being exists. Science investigates material physical reality and not immaterial nonphysical reality.

However, even if the Kalaam cosmological argument fails, and all others for God do too, all that would follow would be that we have no argument to prove God exists… not that we cannot know God exists or that he does not exist.

Yes. As far as I know, there are no arguments to prove the existence of any gods. But how else, besides reasoning and rational arguments, can you know that God exists? This is why I think, at least for now, a belief in god requires a great deal of faith.

[/quote]

As I have argued, I think we can know things apart from argument such as the reliability of our sense perception, the existence of the past, the reality of basic logical truths, and possibly causality as well. It seems to me that you, and all others, accept these things as true apart from argument. Likewise I think it may be one way how we know God.

There is also the fact of personal experience which it is possible to know God. I am not saying you must accept that I have had an experience of God, I am simply asking you to consider it as a possibility to know something apart from argument.

If you had gone to a far off country and spent time among a primitive culture, you would have experienced their culture. However, say that their tiny living space burned to the ground, and all evidence was gone of their existence. You would not need an argument to prove that their culture existed, and likewise with God, your only evidence would be your personal testimony of experiencing them. In this case, the experience would be your only evidence, and not argument.

Again, though, note that I am not trying to prove that I have had an experience of God, only that it is possible to know something by personal experience apart from argument.

[Whateverist]

I likewise do not accept God of the gaps arguments. However, I don't believe that all arguments for God are like this, nor do I believe that people need arguments to know that God exists.

I'll grant you that you do not need arguments to believe something but don't you think you need evidence and arguments based on such if you wish to convince anyone else to give up what it is they believe?

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I am not throwing God into evolution. We can both affirm that evolution happened in the exact same manner. You seem to think from the data of evolution I infer God, and then conclude that this inference is unjustified. However, I infer God on other grounds, and from the properties of God and the data of science would conclude that God planned evolution to happen. I don't feel the need to say that God tinkered with evolution. I would say that he set up the dominoes so that the random mutations he wanted happened. This would be before evolution ever occurred, perhaps even at the big bang.

The personal experience aspect, I would be surprised if I hadn't mentioned in the first post because it is something important to me. I don't expect you to believe based on my personal experience. However, I do not think that you can likewise discount my testimony of personal experience as you have not experienced it. From my point of view, I would be more than happy if you went from being an atheist to an agnostic. I would consider it a step in the right direction.

I think you are moving in the correct direction by integrating evolution with Christianity. There is no reason to read the bible in such a literal way as to have a problem with evolution. People just have to give up reading the bible as a reference book of empirical facts.

But what about the place of God? So long as we still imagine Him setting up all the dominos (and blinking them into existence to begin with?) then we place the universe as we know it as secondary to God. Not very intuitively appealing to me. Why couldn't God have a natural beginning within the pre-existing substrate, whatever that was? As far as I can see, the alternative is to imagine God blinking shit into existence. That way the knowable, measurable world is given an arbitrary and conditional status that will always seem suspect to me at least. From our very finite position it is hard to see how we should know the limits to Gods boundlessness.

[Norfolk And Chance]

This is my first post here. I’m an "atheist" and I’ve gotten renewed interest in the subject after I saw an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson recently, where he basically gave the same reasons for his disbelief that I have. I’m interested in finding out the reasons and arguments that other atheists have for their disbelief. Hopefully, it will inform my own reasoning. Here are three reasons for why I "don't believe in God":

Reason 1. God is an unverifiable idea: There’s no concise definition of god, so a god can be anything that believers want it to be. This means that the definition of god can change to evade falsification. For example, when Darwin discovered that species are created by natural selection, rather than the God of Genesis, the definition of the Biblical God changed. No one today worships natural selection, even though it’s the actual mechanism responsible for the creation of new species. However, people do continue to believe in the Biblical God. The fact that the definition of god can change prevents us from ever verifying a god's existence.

Reason 2. The evidence is illogical: Believers provide no explanation for how their gods work, so there’s no testable mechanism to demonstrate that their gods exist. For example, when Christians point to Creation as evidence of their god’s existence, they’re making an illogical connection between their god and that evidence. The rest of us can’t verify that their god actually created anything, unless we know exactly how their god creates things. Only then can we rationally weigh their explanation against their observations and potential evidence. For example, intelligent design advocates believe that an intelligent god created the bacterial flagellum because it is irreducibly complex (they argue that it takes intelligence to produce complexity), but they have never explained how a god creates this kind of complexity. Thus, we cannot verify that the bacterial flagellum is the product of their god’s handiwork, instead of some other mechanism. We just have to accept their "evidence" on faith alone.

Reason 3. God lives in the gaps: The belief in gods has never provided the correct explanation for the phenomena believers try to explain, so gods end up being the personification of our ignorance. These supernatural explanations are merely place holders until science can find the real cause of the phenomena. As Neil Tyson said, “God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”

That basically sums up my disbelief in god(s). So, is there still a chance that I can be saved?

I'm pleased to tell you that there is no chance whatsoever of you being saved.

As for your three reasons for disbelief, i concur completely and agree that it forms roughly the same basis of my atheism, only you described the reasons much better than I ever could.

I also have a reason 4 - it's all fucking bullshit.

[jerNYC]

I am not throwing God into evolution. We can both affirm that evolution happened in the exact same manner. You seem to think from the data of evolution I infer God, and then conclude that this inference is unjustified. However, I infer God on other grounds, and from the properties of God and the data of science would conclude that God planned evolution to happen. I don't feel the need to say that God tinkered with evolution. I would say that he set up the dominoes so that the random mutations he wanted happened. This would be before evolution ever occurred, perhaps even at the big bang.

When you state that, “I infer God on other grounds, and from the properties of God and the data of science would conclude that God planned evolution to happen” you are in fact, “throwing God into evolution.” The “properties” of God that you mentioned are vague enough to let you impose God onto evolution, the big bang, and any other natural process you please. However, you can’t actually explain God’s involvement in any of these phenomena. You can’t rationally explain how, “God planned evolution to happen.” This is merely an unsubstantiated claim and we just have to take your word for it that God was involved.

The difference between science and religion is that in science, when you make a claim, you have to provide a testable explanation along with it. This is the only way I have of verifying your claim. These explanations then build on one another and advance our understanding of the natural world. Religious arguments, on the other hand, do not follow the same rules. When you define God as vaguely as you have (spaceless, immaterial, timeless, and a being of immense power), you can use God to explain everything and anything you want - which ultimately explains nothing. By saying that God could have something to do with evolution because we can infer Him from a set of extremely vague values or because we can’t exclude Him from the process, theists are not in any way bettering our understanding of the actual process of evolution. God has as much to do with the process as Shiva, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. In that respect, God is useless to our understanding of the universe, since we still have to explain the actual processes behind these phenomena.

I don't expect you to believe based on my personal experience. However, I do not think that you can likewise discount my testimony of personal experience as you have not experienced it.

Yes I can. Claiming that one’s position is the right position because he or she possesses special knowledge that no one else has is the hallmark of religious thought. I on the other hand continually experience disbelief, but I don’t expect anyone else to take that into account when contemplating the question of god’s existence.

Your evidence for trusting the reliability of your senses is presupposing them, because for you to know that I exist and that reason is universal you must observe the world through your sense perception. You must trust what you receive through your sense perception is actually real in order to have any data with which to argue for its reality.

Again, I don’t understand this point. By “presupposing” I take it you mean that I’m assuming at the beginning of a line of reasoning that something is the case, which would ultimately make my case false. But the “presupposition” or begging-the-question fallacy is a rule of logic. In other words, you believe that by trusting in logic, I’m committing a logical error. This makes absolutely no sense to me. You’re trying to falsify, using logic, my position that logic is true. This is a paradox.

I know that “reason is universal” because here we are, having a reasonable discussion, following the rules of logic. If I were to assume that this wasn’t the case, and my perception was wrong and the rules of logic were false, we wouldn’t be here having this discussion.

For the sake of moving past this, I’ll accept your argument and call the mechanism that created the universe “God.” Now, why does this mechanism care whether I worship it? In other words, you now have the duty of imposing the other characteristics of the Biblical God onto this universe-creating mechanism. I don't see how that's logically possible.

If you grant me this, in your own words you would have just admitted that God exists. As I said, I would consider this moving in the right direction. I don't think I can convince you that Christianity is true. I would say that believing that there is a God as opposed to believing that there is no God is a big difference and be happy with that.

I accept that this God exists, since it was proved in your argument, but this God has nothing to do with the God of your religion. The God we proved is a mechanism that caused into existence all “space, time, material things …at the big bang.” It’s as god-like as any other mechanism that can be proved to operate in nature – from continental drift to natural selection. Why would anyone worship these mechanisms or grant them supernatural powers? I’m not sure that anyone would claim to experience a personal relationship with random genetic drift.

As I have argued, I think we can know things apart from argument such as the reliability of our sense perception, the existence of the past, the reality of basic logical truths, and possibly causality as well. It seems to me that you, and all others, accept these things as true apart from argument. Likewise I think it may be one way how we know God.

Like I explained earlier, I have no choice but to accept “logical truth” if I want to have this discussion. I do however have a choice not to accept a belief in the supernatural. My acceptance of “logical truth” has nothing to do with God, unless you can rationally explain otherwise.

If you had gone to a far off country and spent time among a primitive culture, you would have experienced their culture. However, say that their tiny living space burned to the ground, and all evidence was gone of their existence. You would not need an argument to prove that their culture existed, and likewise with God, your only evidence would be your personal testimony of experiencing them. In this case, the experience would be your only evidence, and not argument.

This is the classic disagreement between rational thought and superstition. In order to accept that this culture really existed, I would in fact need a rational explanation of their existence so that I could decide for myself whether it was true or not. I have no other way of knowing that your claim is legitimate.

Consider this: If I had gone to a far off country and spent time among a primitive culture, and they absolutely proved beyond any reasonable doubt that God doesn’t exist, and then their tiny living space burned to the ground, and all evidence of this proof was gone, would I not need that argument to prove what they said was true? Or would you just accept my claim that God doesn’t exist based on my personal testimony alone? Somehow I doubt that...

[The Grand Nudger]

Sounds to me like the idea of a god is superfluous in your explanation of our origins Jeff.

[Taqiyya Mockingbird]

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I am not throwing God into evolution. We can both affirm that evolution happened in the exact same manner. You seem to think from the data of evolution I infer God, and then conclude that this inference is unjustified. However, I infer God on other grounds, and from the properties of God and the data of science would conclude that God planned evolution to happen. I don't feel the need to say that God tinkered with evolution. I would say that he set up the dominoes so that the random mutations he wanted happened. This would be before evolution ever occurred, perhaps even at the big bang.

When you state that, “I infer God on other grounds, and from the properties of God and the data of science would conclude that God planned evolution to happen” you are in fact, “throwing God into evolution.” The “properties” of God that you mentioned are vague enough to let you impose God onto evolution, the big bang, and any other natural process you please. However, you can’t actually explain God’s involvement in any of these phenomena. You can’t rationally explain how, “God planned evolution to happen.” This is merely an unsubstantiated claim and we just have to take your word for it that God was involved.

The difference between science and religion is that in science, when you make a claim, you have to provide a testable explanation along with it. This is the only way I have of verifying your claim. These explanations then build on one another and advance our understanding of the natural world. Religious arguments, on the other hand, do not follow the same rules. When you define God as vaguely as you have (spaceless, immaterial, timeless, and a being of immense power), you can use God to explain everything and anything you want - which ultimately explains nothing. By saying that God could have something to do with evolution because we can infer Him from a set of extremely vague values or because we can’t exclude Him from the process, theists are not in any way bettering our understanding of the actual process of evolution. God has as much to do with the process as Shiva, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. In that respect, God is useless to our understanding of the universe, since we still have to explain the actual processes behind these phenomena.

I don't expect you to believe based on my personal experience. However, I do not think that you can likewise discount my testimony of personal experience as you have not experienced it.

Yes I can. Claiming that one’s position is the right position because he or she possesses special knowledge that no one else has is the hallmark of religious thought. I on the other hand continually experience disbelief, but I don’t expect anyone else to take that into account when contemplating the question of god’s existence.

Your evidence for trusting the reliability of your senses is presupposing them, because for you to know that I exist and that reason is universal you must observe the world through your sense perception. You must trust what you receive through your sense perception is actually real in order to have any data with which to argue for its reality.

Again, I don’t understand this point. By “presupposing” I take it you mean that I’m assuming at the beginning of a line of reasoning that something is the case, which would ultimately make my case false. But the “presupposition” or begging-the-question fallacy is a rule of logic. In other words, you believe that by trusting in logic, I’m committing a logical error. This makes absolutely no sense to me. You’re trying to falsify, using logic, my position that logic is true. This is a paradox.

I know that “reason is universal” because here we are, having a reasonable discussion, following the rules of logic. If I were to assume that this wasn’t the case, and my perception was wrong and the rules of logic were false, we wouldn’t be here having this discussion.

If you grant me this, in your own words you would have just admitted that God exists. As I said, I would consider this moving in the right direction. I don't think I can convince you that Christianity is true. I would say that believing that there is a God as opposed to believing that there is no God is a big difference and be happy with that.

I accept that this God exists, since it was proved in your argument, but this God has nothing to do with the God of your religion. The God we proved is a mechanism that caused into existence all “space, time, material things …at the big bang.” It’s as god-like as any other mechanism that can be proved to operate in nature – from continental drift to natural selection. Why would anyone worship these mechanisms or grant them supernatural powers? I’m not sure that anyone would claim to experience a personal relationship with random genetic drift.

As I have argued, I think we can know things apart from argument such as the reliability of our sense perception, the existence of the past, the reality of basic logical truths, and possibly causality as well. It seems to me that you, and all others, accept these things as true apart from argument. Likewise I think it may be one way how we know God.

Like I explained earlier, I have no choice but to accept “logical truth” if I want to have this discussion. I do however have a choice not to accept a belief in the supernatural. My acceptance of “logical truth” has nothing to do with God, unless you can rationally explain otherwise.

If you had gone to a far off country and spent time among a primitive culture, you would have experienced their culture. However, say that their tiny living space burned to the ground, and all evidence was gone of their existence. You would not need an argument to prove that their culture existed, and likewise with God, your only evidence would be your personal testimony of experiencing them. In this case, the experience would be your only evidence, and not argument.

This is the classic disagreement between rational thought and superstition. In order to accept that this culture really existed, I would in fact need a rational explanation of their existence so that I could decide for myself whether it was true or not. I have no other way of knowing that your claim is legitimate.

Consider this: If I had gone to a far off country and spent time among a primitive culture, and they absolutely proved beyond any reasonable doubt that God doesn’t exist, and then their tiny living space burned to the ground, and all evidence of this proof was gone, would I not need that argument to prove what they said was true? Or would you just accept my claim that God doesn’t exist based on my personal testimony alone? Somehow I doubt that...

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Excellent, outstanding post, jerNYC!!!!

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

nor do I believe that people need arguments to know that God exists.

Of course they don't. What they need is proof.

It's OK, I understand you are referring to the faithful. IE people who are unable to distinguish between personal certitude based on superstition and evidence based knowledge.

[Taqiyya Mockingbird]

You know what gets me about this whole business of theotards coming at us with their silly arguments from complexity, morality, kalam-ity and other batshittery? Like this guy above, those arguments aren't what convinced them to be x-tards, and only the credulous theotards find them convincing, and I have never seen one say that if they were to be convinced that these idiotic arguments were all bullshit, they would give up being x-tards and being convinced of their superstitions.

So what is the damn point of them even making these silly arguments up and wasting everyone's time with them, when they know that they are not going to take the lace of the evidence we know they don't have?

[CliveStaples]

Of course they don't. What they need is proof.

It's OK, I understand you are referring to the faithful. IE people who are unable to distinguish between personal certitude based on superstition and evidence based knowledge.

I'm gonna go Socratic on you.

Why do they need proof?