Question for the Atheists.

[_malkie]

But you could choose to believe, right?

Yes.

Did I fall into a trap?

Regards,
MG

Predators. You have to be careful around these parts. <g>

Regards,
MG

Only you can say if it's a trap. (;=) I don't think I intended it as such.

My follow-up questions are:

1. If you have not (yet) decided/chosen, are you inclined to belief or disbelief?
2. On what basis might you decide/choose, assuming you eventually do so?
3. How do you manage to suspend your decision mechanism?
4. Do you expect that you will eventually decide/choose?

How much can you tell me about Brahman or any of the Eastern religion deities in respect to their nature, their being, their attributes?

I don't know much about these deities, but I don't believe in them (or in Thor etc) because I have no reason to do so.

Did I fall into a trap? (;=)

[_Dr. Shades]

MG, you said that you chose to disbelieve in Santa Claus when you got a little more mature.

Well, when you got a little more mature, why didn't you choose to continue believing in him instead of choosing to disbelieve in him?

Because of the information that I had processed and assimilated.

Good. Now you have the answer to your question. Now you know why we disbelieve in God: Because of the information we have processed and assimilated.

And I ask the question, "Why is it so difficult to believe in an all powerful god/being who created and is responsible for human beings on earth?

Simple: Because there's an overwhelming mountain of evidence that we evolved through means of natural selection entirely independent of any intelligent force, while on the contrary nobody has ever discovered a single shred of evidence that a God created us.

And as a corollary, that we are created in the image of God?

For two reasons:

1. Out of all the diverse species of life on earth, why should homo sapiens sapiens be the one lucky species that was created in His image? Why not any of the other species?
2. If He created us in His image, then why does a perfect being have all the same design flaws that we have? For example, why, in males, does the urethra pass through the prostate gland (making urination difficult or impossible if/when the prostate swells) instead of over or under it? For another example, why would God need to keep from slipping when grasping trees (the reason why our simian ancestors evolved fingerprints)? For a third example, why would God have eustachian tubes (the evolutionary remnant of our former gill slits)?

Here's more food for thought: If we were created in God's image, then just who is "we?" Homo sapiens sapiens? Does "we" include homo sapiens neanderthalensis, which was just recently proven beyond all doubt to be the same species as us, since we & they mated occasionally and produced fertile offspring? Does "we" include homo heidelbergensis, the species from which both homo sapiens sapiens and homo sapiens neanderthalensis descended? Does "we" include homo erectus, the precursor to homo heidelbergensis, who nevertheless looked extremely similar to us and thus are also in "God's image?" How about their own ancestors, homo habilis? Or their ancestors, homo ergaster? Just how far back do we go before we leave "God's image?" Australopithecus robustus? Australopithecus afarensis?

Ergo, no matter what date you roll the dice and arbitrarily decree that everything after that qualifies as what "God created," the fact of the matter is that a mere one year earlier there were populations that looked extremely similar (if not exactly similar) to the beings living during the date you randomly chose.

Take a while to digest all that.

[_beastie]

That's what I do have a hard time wrapping my mind around. The church part, yeah. But to come to the point where you lose all belief in God? I can respect that, but I honestly don't get why a person would become such an absolutest when it comes to disbelief in God. Agnosticism I get. Atheism I don't.

But to each his or her own.

My sympathies are with you in regards to some of the hard family issues you've had to deal with. At times life does suck, big time. But OTOH, life is also a beautiful thing.

Regards,
MG

That's because you misuse the term "atheists." That is what posters tried to explain to you earlier on this thread.

To be a theist or deist means that you have faith that God exists. It does not mean you have absolute knowledge that God exists.

Likewise, to be an atheist means that you have no faith that God exists. It does not mean you have absolute knowledge that God does not exist.

There is a very small subset of atheists who claim to KNOW God does not exist, as there is a very small subset of theists who claim to KNOW God exists. This subset is called "strong atheists." I've conversed with many atheists over the years on the internet, and only recall meeting one strong atheists. The other atheists on the board took issue with his absolutist stance.

Atheism simply refers to lack of belief. It does not refer to absolute knowledge. When I'm being technical, I refer to myself as an agnostic atheist. Agnosticism is a term that refers to the accessibility of knowledge. I do not believe any human being can know, one way or the other, whether a godbeing exists. That godbeing, by definition, is outside our recognition. Even if a being appeared to someone and claimed to be a god, we would have no way of knowing whether or not that claim was accurate. We would have to have godlike knowledge ourselves to ascertain the accuracy of that claim. Otherwise, it could be an alien who possesses superior technology using that technology to pretend to be god.

So the agnostic part means I do not believe anyone can know whether or not a godbeing exists. The atheist part means that I do not have any faith that a godbeing exists.

In short, you have created your own confusion by insisting on using the term "atheist" in a way that most atheists don't accept. In the way you're using the term, most of us would be termed agnostics. But that's not the way atheists normally use the term, at least atheists who've read anything on the subject.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I just want to know why MG continues to choose to disbelieve in Santa Claus.

[_Mad Viking]

Any evidence that would be a result of God revealing himself via another sensory mechanism besides the five senses. The thing is, each person is individually responsible for determining whether or not information can come from God via this means of delivery.

I can't speak for you.

Regards,
MG

You're being terribly inconsistent. You started off this thread saying that the only method of determining truth we have is our five senses. Now you're telling me I'm responsible to figure out how god is providing me evidence through some other means.

I don't have the patience for this type of hogwash. You claim there is evidence. I ask you to produce the evidence. You claim the evidence is what ever I will accept as evidence. Hogwash!!

[_thews]

Good. Now you have the answer to your question. Now you know why we disbelieve in God: Because of the information we have processed and assimilated.

Fair enough, but the origin of matter is a variable. Logic would dictate that something cannot come from nothing. This logic also applies to God, but only in this domain.

Simple: Because there's an overwhelming mountain of evidence that we evolved through means of natural selection entirely independent of any intelligent force, while on the contrary nobody has ever discovered a single shred of evidence that a God created us.

When you add "entirely independent of any intelligent force" to the above, it's based on opinion. To believe (or discount the variable) that matter somehow just *happened* and created the universe is one step, but to claim life was created through a random chemical process is based on a reverse engineered theory. This would make the complexity of our brains a byproduct of a random chemical process. Do you accept this random chemical process as more logical than the probability God had a hand in creating us? If yes, is "entirely independent" warranted based on the evidence?

For two reasons:

1. Out of all the diverse species of life on earth, why should homo sapiens sapiens be the one lucky species that was created in His image? Why not any of the other species?
2. If He created us in His image, then why does a perfect being have all the same design flaws that we have? For example, why, in males, does the urethra pass through the prostate gland (making urination difficult or impossible if/when the prostate swells) instead of over or under it? For another example, why would God need to keep from slipping when grasping trees (the reason why our simian ancestors evolved fingerprints)? For a third example, why would God have eustachian tubes (the evolutionary remnant of our former gill slits)?

Conversely, why are we the one lucky species with an advanced brain? Wouldn't logic dictate that if all life came from the same random chemical process, there would be many variants?

Here's more food for thought: If we were created in God's image, then just who is "we?" Homo sapiens sapiens? Does "we" include homo sapiens neanderthalensis, which was just recently proven beyond all doubt to be the same species as us, since we & they mated occasionally and produced fertile offspring? Does "we" include homo heidelbergensis, the species from which both homo sapiens sapiens and homo sapiens neanderthalensis descended? Does "we" include homo erectus, the precursor to homo heidelbergensis, who nevertheless looked extremely similar to us and thus are also in "God's image?" How about their own ancestors, homo habilis? Or their ancestors, homo ergaster? Just how far back do we go before we leave "God's image?" Australopithecus robustus? Australopithecus afarensis?

To deviate from your point a bit, why aren't there hairy cavemen still around? The earth is a big place and there's many types of four-legged animals ranging from mice to horses in size covered in hair. If things were as cut and dry as you present in the above, doesn't it make sense that Geico cavemen variants would also exist?

Ergo, no matter what date you roll the dice and arbitrarily decree that everything after that qualifies as what "God created," the fact of the matter is that a mere one year earlier there were populations that looked extremely similar (if not exactly similar) to the beings living during the date you randomly chose.

Take a while to digest all that.

I've heard that 99.5% of everything we know is based upon the last 500 years. In the slow-moving process of evolution, doesn't this strike you as somewhat out of place?

[_Milesius]

I just want to know why MG continues to choose to disbelieve in Santa Claus.

And I want to know why you continue to use that vapid analogy. Appealing to analogy is the weakest form of argumentation, so it behooves those who employ it to, at the very least, choose an appropriate analogy.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I just want to know why MG continues to choose to disbelieve in Santa Claus.

And I want to know why you continue to use that vapid analogy. Appealing to analogy is the weakest form of argumentation, so it behooves those who employ it to, at the very least, choose an appropriate analogy.

Hello Calculus Crusader,

Why do you continue to choose to disbelieve in Zeus?

V/R
Dr. Cam

[_Milesius]

And I ask the question, "Why is it so difficult to believe in an all powerful god/being who created and is responsible for human beings on earth?

Simple: Because there's an overwhelming mountain of evidence that we evolved through means of natural selection entirely independent of any intelligent force, while on the contrary nobody has ever discovered a single shred of evidence that a God created us.

There is evidence to support the theory that we evolved via natural selection acting on genetic variation. The evidence does not speak to an intelligent force either way.

For another example, why would God need to keep from slipping when grasping trees (the reason why our simian ancestors evolved fingerprints)?

This addresses the Mormon understanding of God's image (which is erroneous) but I'd like to ask you how one would go about testing the hypothesis in your parenthetical comment.

[_Fence Sitter]

And I ask the question, "Why is it so difficult to believe in an all powerful god/being who created and is responsible for human beings on earth? And as a corollary, that we are created in the image of God?

What's the big deal here?

Why are we constantly comparing a creator/god to characters in fairy tales and the good tooth fairy, easter bunny, etc.? It's like we're saying a god/creator can't exist because the tooth fairy and her imaginary friends won't let him. Like they're real or something. C'mon.

Letting imaginary childhood characters and spaghetti monsters get in the way and even playing a part in convincing us one way or the other in regards to belief or non-belief in a creator/god responsible for humans on earth is...silly. Almost childish in some respects.

For one thing, it's too important of a quest, the search for God, to let our imaginary friends throw us off track.

Regards,
MG

We seem to be avoiding each others questions.

I'll answer yours here but I would appreciate direct answers to mine.

Belief in an all powerful God seems easy. For me, recognizing that the likelihood that this all powerful God is our own creation is a bit more difficult because as humans we seem to 'choose' explanations that make us feel better about ourselves. I call it the religious bandwagon affect. My God can beat up your God sort of thing, your God created the world, well mine created the solar system, then the my God created the Universe and now my God has created all the universes. That the concept of God continually changes as we humans learn more about our universe(s) is evidence (in my mind) that He is a creation of ours not the other way around.

Comparing God to make believe characters is spot on for me because I believe God(s) are make believe characters themselves hence the repeated questions on why you believe in one God over another or why you believe in God and not Santa Claus or Zeus or Eastern deities and so on.

Now please, my questions.

What is it about all 'powerfulness' that is supposed to make God more believable than Santa Claus or even more believable than another God?

Why choose one God over another? I assume you believe in the Christian God and do not believe in any other. Why?

Why is belief in God as our creator more likely than belief in a natural (without divine intervention) evolution of man or even the chance that some alien race seeded our planet with organic matter millions of years ago?