Theists - I want to know what you think

[The Grand Nudger]

Every once in a while theres a kernel of corn in my piles of shit.  Ya just have to be ready to sift through it.  

[Edwardo Piet]

Surely you've seen people here say that even if god were proven to exist, they wouldn't worship. It's much more comfortable to not believe, than to believe but be in open rebellion.

You're conflating worship and belief there. Even if those people wouldn't worship (hence why they are anti-theists rather than atheists) they would still believe. Belief is not a choice. Either you are convinced or you are not. There is no such thing as refusing to believe (or choosing to believe) via 'open rebellion'. Belief isn't like that.

Personally I think it's irrational to say that you wouldn't worship a God that was threatening you with eternal hellfire. Just as it's irrational to say two people who are starving on an island won't try to each other. Moral stances only last so long before the survival instinct kicks in. Then again, you could say that your self, the real you, the you above the reptilian brain... wouldn't be choosing to worship. Like, choices out of instinct aren't really made by 'you' per say. So if that's all the anti-theist means then they're not irrational.

---

People convert, but usually it's based on emotion or intuition rather than evidence.

And I wonder why that is?

---

Yes, lacking belief in God is rational. You have not been presented incontrovertible proof to the contrary and as such a reasonable position to hold. However, such a position is a tacit admission of all kinds of gaps in your worldview--whether you know/admit they exist or not. 

There's no gap for atheists such as myself who believe in a first cause.

You may say there's a gap because we don't know what the first cause is.

But (1) Pretending to know what it is is not the correct response. (2) Is it really a gap if it's a gap that is perhaps impossible to fill? Perhaps there are some things that are unknowable? And perhaps the nature of the first cause is one of those things?

[The Grand Nudger]

Surely you've seen people here say that even if god were proven to exist, they wouldn't worship. It's much more comfortable to not believe, than to believe but be in open rebellion.

You're conflating worship and belief there. Even if those people wouldn't worship (hence why they are anti-theists rather than atheists) they would still believe. Belief is not a choice. Either you are convinced or you are not. There is no such thing as refusing to believe (or choosing to believe) via 'open rebellion'. Belief isn't like that.

Personally I think it's irrational to say that you wouldn't worship a God that was threatening you with eternal hellfire. 

I make it a habit not to bow down to people who threaten or extort me. Theres a rational reason for that..and also the a-rational brute facts of my disposition. Long story short....the hellfire bit is the least likely strategy that ends with me kissing someones ass, lol. The lord of creation is going to have to up his game...I;m already familiar with his type down here on earth.

[Edwardo Piet]

You're conflating worship and belief there. Even if those people wouldn't worship (hence why they are anti-theists rather than atheists) they would still believe. Belief is not a choice. Either you are convinced or you are not. There is no such thing as refusing to believe (or choosing to believe) via 'open rebellion'. Belief isn't like that.

Personally I think it's irrational to say that you wouldn't worship a God that was threatening you with eternal hellfire. 

I make it a habit not to bow down to people who threaten or extort me.  Theres a rational reason for that..and also the a-rational brute facts of my disposition.

My intuition is that if you were actually threatened by an all powerful deity with an eternity of maximum possible suffering... you'd soon change your mind.

[The Grand Nudger]

Your intuition would be wrong.  I don;t respond to threats..even existential threats, in that way. This is hardly a hypothetical in my case...though, I;d grant that some people obviously do.

[Edwardo Piet]

Your intuition would be wrong.  I don;t respond to threats..even existential threats, in that way.  This is hardly a hypothetical in my case...though, I;d grant that some people obviously do.

It's definitely a hypothetical because you don't actually believe the hellfire you are threatened with by humans is real. We're talking about a situation where you were threatened by an all-powerful deity who really did have the power to give you an eternity of maximum possible suffering.

[The Grand Nudger]

You;re forgetting my old life, Ham. Threats of harm and torture aren;t hypotheticals to me. The competence of the torturer is irrelvent. Any of them could have pulled it off, too.

---

I feel like it would be a long and convoluted aside about the rational justification of resistance in the face of inevitability.  Some of us will fight even if we can't win.  It's an exercise in futility, in one respect..but not necessarrily irrational or even -uniformly- futile.

[Neo-Scholastic]

There is no such thing as refusing to believe (or choosing to believe) via 'open rebellion'. Belief isn't like that.

Nonsense. You are confusing ends and means, i.e. choosing a belief versus holding it. Choosing to believe includes all the precursory activity leading to knowledge, such as fact seeking, challenging assumptions, reframing perspectives, and making a sincere effort to reflect about an issue...and then after all that choosing to accept it. When someone like alpha says that you choose not to believe, and he can correct me if I am wrong, he means that you are not taking a question seriously enough to consider other possibilities and/or not subjecting your current beliefs (or lack thereof) up for scrutiny, and even if you did find everything tilted in favor of a certain conclusion, even then, you could choose not to accept it. You cannot escape responsibility for your own choices, Hammy.

Yes, lacking belief in God is rational. You have not been presented incontrovertible proof to the contrary and as such a reasonable position to hold. However, such a position is a tacit admission of all kinds of gaps in your worldview--whether you know/admit they exist or not. 

There's no gap for atheists such as myself who believe in a first cause.[/i]

LOL. There is a whole host of gaps! The persistence of being, intelligibility, rational order, moral facts...the list goes on and on. Your only escape is to ignore the Principle of Sufficient reason and call everything for which atheism cannot even hope to address a "brute fact."

[SteveII]

Yes, lacking belief in God is rational. You have not been presented incontrovertible proof to the contrary and as such a reasonable position to hold. However, such a position is a tacit admission of all kinds of gaps in your worldview--whether you know/admit they exist or not. 

There's no gap for atheists such as myself who believe in a first cause.

There are many more gaps than first cause. Naturalism has problems with or explaining free will, consciousness, fine-tuning, biological life, even the question that if evolution selects for survival, how can we rely on our cognitive faculties to discover truth about the worldview where such faculties are not an expected outcome. 

You may say there's a gap because we don't know what the first cause is. But (1) Pretending to know what it is is not the correct response. (2) Is it really a gap if it's a gap that is perhaps impossible to fill? Perhaps there are some things that are unknowable? And perhaps the nature of the first cause is one of those things?

If you don't have a candidate now, you never will. You must admit an unknowable first cause. A gap in your metaphysical framework--a gap in your worldview.

[The Grand Nudger]

There are many more gaps than first cause. Naturalism has problems with or explaining free will, consciousness, fine-tuning, biological life, even the question that if evolution selects for survival, how can we rely on our cognitive faculties to discover truth about the worldview where such faculties are not an expected outcome. 

Naturalism doesn;t have any problems addressing any of those things..lol.  You may have problems believing that magic isn;t at play in all of those areas...but that's your problem, not naturalism;s.