Many atheists might be closet Deists!

[oldbadger]

I must be thick.
It's taken far too long for me to arrive at this proposal.
And on enquiry I discover that the question has been shouted for yonks and yonks and I never saw it.

Quite simply, if you believe that there is a reason for the existence of everything, then how can you be a fundamental atheist? It just cannot be good science!


Here's a small selection of other ideas on the question.......



There is no such thing as a true atheist - Heaven Net

www.heavennet.net/writings/atheist.htm
Here is why you are not really an atheist. ... If I were to say that there was no such thing as gold in China, then to prove my statement, I would have to search ...
Are There Really No Atheists? - Secular Web

infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/no_atheists.html
Some Christians maintain that there are no atheists. They believe, of course, that some people profess to be atheists. But according to them these people suffer ...

Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that's ...
www.science20.com/.../scientists_discov ... _not_exist...
6 Jul 2014 - This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that “atheism is .... While there is certainly growth in the number of bleak narratives being ...

[wiploc]

I must be thick.
It's taken far too long for me to arrive at this proposal.

Now that you've arrived at it, how do you intend to defend it?

Quite simply, if you believe that there is a reason for the existence of everything, then how can you be a fundamental atheist? It just cannot be good science!

- If there is a reason for the existence of everything, what is the reason for the existence of gods?

- What is a fundamental atheist?

There is no such thing as a true atheist - Heaven Net

A lie so obvious that it can be told only by people so depraved that they don't even care if they are caught lying.

www.heavennet.net/writings/atheist.htm
Here is why you are not really an atheist. ... If I were to say that there was no such thing as gold in China, then to prove my statement, I would have to search ...
Are There Really No Atheists? - Secular Web

So it is your position that, until you have searched the entire universe, you must believe everything? There is nothing that can be disbelieved before completing such a search?

That's nuts. And you claim atheism is unscientific?

[Divine Insight]

Even arguments that try to make out that no human can possibly believe that there is no God wouldn't help the Abrahamic religions anyway.

I don't believe it's a valid claim in any case. But even if it were that doesn't help the Abrahamic religions.

Paul made this same mistake. Paul tried to claim that it's "obvious" that a God must exist simply because the universe exists with all it's complex life, etc. And so he claimed that they are "without excuse" to not believe in his favorite religion.

But that's doesn't hold true in any case. Even if we had to concede that there must be an "Intelligent Creator", that conclusion wouldn't point to the Abrahamic God. In fact, it would do just the opposite. If we must believe that the universe had an "Intelligent Creator" that would actually rule out the Bible.

If we have no choice but to believe there must be an "Intelligent Creator" that would actually support various Eastern Mystical philosophies and religion, possibly Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, etc.

Heck it could even point to the Moon Goddess of Wicca since there's really nothing unintelligent about Her unless a person thinks that the Moon is actually the Goddess.

So even if we were forced to believe in an "Intelligent Creator" the Abrahamic religions would be on the bottom of the list of possible religions that might be true.

Moreover, even if we had to believe in an "Intelligent Creator" that still wouldn't suggest than ANY known religion actually describes this Creator correctly. Maybe the real Creator of the universe doesn't have a religion.

~~~~~~

Finally the foundational argument is bogus anyway.

If EVERYTHING needs a reason, then that would include any "Intelligent Creator" that would exist as well. Therefore the "Intelligent Creator" would have had to have had an even more "Intelligent Creator" who created it, and so on,....

So these kinds of arguments don't hold water in any case. The buck has to stop somewhere. And if it stops with the God then that's when it becomes an invalid argument. So it can't stop with the God, it would need to continue on above God. God would need his reason for existing, and so on,.....

[rikuoamero]

Yes I might be a closet deist. As in, I cannot rule out the possibility of a deist entity/entities entirely. It doesn't mean I am a deist though.

Many atheists might accept a reason for all........

All what? I might accept a reason, provided that reason makes logical sense and is backed up by evidence. I won't believe someone who says that a magical fish created the universe by farting it out, because there is no evidence for such a claim.

Quite simply, if you believe that there is a reason for the existence of everything, then how can you be a fundamental atheist? It just cannot be good science!

That reason does not necessarily have to mean a god. It could be anything. It could be the magical fish I mentioned earlier. You're doing a false dichotomy here, where the only two options in your mind are either a god...or nothing.
Also, fundamental atheist? Not in my books. Define what a fundamental atheist is, because in my eyes, its an oxymoron.

There is no such thing as a true atheist - Heaven Net

www.heavennet.net/writings/atheist.htm

Yeah had a look at that page. It says at the bottom that its ideas came from Ray Comfort. That right there destroys any credibility you might have had with me. Ray Comfort is colloquially known as the 'Banana Man' who claimed that the banana is proof of a creator god because it fits into our hand. He ignored entirely the evidence that showed that the modern banana was cultivated to be such by humans.

If I were to say that there was no such thing as gold in China, then to prove my statement, I would have to search ...

Then quote me or another atheist on this site as saying there is no god. I honestly doubt you'll find such a statement. At best, I expect you to find "I don't believe there is such a thing as a god", which is a belief statement, not a knowledge statement.

Are There Really No Atheists? - Secular Web

infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/no_atheists.html

Given that your previous source was inspired by a man with a long history of very sloppy reasoning, I don't hold much hope for this link. Let's have a look anyway.
Oh boy. Van til? A presuppositionalist? All one has to do to see how horrible such a stance is, is to watch the Matt Dillahunty vs Sye Ten Bruggencate debate of 2014.
Your link is refuted not just because Van Til was a presupper, but also by me. I myself am the ultimate logical proof that your claim is false, because I am an atheist. I know for a fact what it is I do and do not believe, and not one single other person on this planet, past or present, has the standing necessary to claim otherwise.
Oh sure, you can claim I am lying about my belief...but if you're going to go that route, then there's no point in debating with you is there? At that point, you don't believe anything it is I say about myself, so I'm not actually a party to the conversation.
I also have to point out that your infidels link contradicts what your first link says. Van Til makes the argument that there are No Atheists. However...he didn't scour the entire universe, did he? Your first link, the heavennet link, mocks those who say "There is no God" by saying how could they back it up, if they haven't explored the entire universe. Well the same applies here. Van Til didn't investigate every person who claimed to be an atheist. He just makes the broad assertion, that there are no atheists.
Heck...did you even read the infidels link yourself? Here's it's conclusion

Conclusion

Are there really no atheists? No good reason has yet been given for NA and, until one is, we professed atheists have every reason to suppose that we really are atheists.

Wow. Just wow. You try to make an argument that there are no such things as atheists...and to support this claim, you quote someone who concludes that the NA argument is bogus.

Oh and your science20 link? It doesn't work. You didn't copy and paste the full URL. So I'm unable to read it.


Next time you have something to debate, think up an actual question or questions, give proper links for your sources and quote the actual relevant sections. You barely quoted anything at all. And for the love of your god...make sure that your sources don't contradict each other!

[oldbadger]

[quote="wiploc"
Now that you've arrived at it, how do you intend to defend it? [/quote]
.... debate?

- If there is a reason for the existence of everything, what is the reason for the existence of gods?

Looks like I might not be the only human on the planet to have 'not-arived' at obvious conclusions! But yiou're bound to be quicker'n me.......
You ask 'if there is a reason for the existence..... etc'. That's surely what science is all about, isn't it? And the answer to that question could easily be called 'God'.
Easy! So easy!

- What is a fundamental atheist?

Fundamenmtal = strict basis, such as written by atheists on another thread about atheist beliefs and non-beliefs.

So it is your position that................

No.......... at the end of my post I offered some other opinions........... and you missed that, didn't you.... ?
My position is writ larfge and clear on the thread's title.

[oldbadger]

Even arguments that try to make out that no human can possibly believe that there is no God wouldn't help the Abrahamic religions anyway.

True......... I have no concern about proving Abrahamic religions, although I am

extremely interested in Yeshua BarYosef's life and mission, historically.

I don't believe it's a valid claim in any case. But even if it were that doesn't help the Abrahamic religions.

OK.... so you don't support Deism, fair enough.
Agaion, this thread does not seek to help the Abrahamic rehigions.

Paul made this same mistake.

Then he's brighter than I thought. But he was still a contract busting control freak imo.

But that's doesn't hold true in any case. Even if we had to concede that there must be an "Intelligent Creator", that conclusion wouldn't point to the Abrahamic God. In fact, it would do just the opposite. If we must believe that the universe had an "Intelligent Creator" that would actually rule out the Bible.

Very good. It does not point to the Abrahamic God. The words 'intelligent creator' are unhelpful...... simply 'The Reason for all' is much more accuratye.

If we have no choice but to believe there must be an "Intelligent Creator" that would actually support various Eastern Mystical philosophies and religion, possibly Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, etc.

I don't have any probs with that....

Heck it could even point to the Moon Goddess of Wicca since there's really nothing unintelligent about Her unless a person thinks that the Moon is actually the Goddess.

You keep on about intelligence.

So even if we were forced to believe in an "Intelligent Creator" the Abrahamic religions would be on the bottom of the list of possible religions that might be true.

All that intelligence again.
And, Yes, Abrahamic God would not benefit from Deist positions.

Moreover, even if we had to believe in an "Intelligent Creator" that still wouldn't suggest than ANY known religion actually describes this Creator correctly. Maybe the real Creator of the universe doesn't have a religion.

You have a fixation about intelligence, possibly?
But, I have no problem with a reason-for-all that has no particular interest in us.

Finally the foundational argument is bogus anyway.

Tell tyhat to the scientists who seek to look beyond our Unbiverse.....

[Divine Insight]

OK.... so you don't support Deism, fair enough.
Agaion, this thread does not seek to help the Abrahamic rehigions.

In that case you posted this thread in the wrong forum.

This is the Christianity and Apologetics forum.

You have a fixation about intelligence, possibly?

Does it make any sense to talk about a "reason" for everything without assuming that there is an intelligence behind the "reason"?

If so, then why would we need to assume deism to justify a "reason" for everything?

What's wrong with just pure secular materialism?

Maybe the "reason" for everything is because there exists vibrating "strings".

If you argue that there needs to be a "reason" for the existence of the vibrating strings, then you'd need to demand the same thing for a "deistic" reality (whatever that might even mean)

But, I have no problem with a reason-for-all that has no particular interest in us.

If the "reason-for-all" has no particular interest in us, then it wouldn't have had much of a "reason" to create us.

Sounds like pure materialistic strings to me. Are you saying that String Theory is a form of Deism?

Finally the foundational argument is bogus anyway.

Tell that to the scientists who seek to look beyond our Universe.....

I confess that scientists do often seem to have some pretty strange ideas. They also don't appear to be in a complete consensus of what science should even be based on.

Most scientists demand that only things we can physically measure should be considered to actually exist. Those types of scientists seems to favor theories like "String Theory" where it might be possible to explain everything based on some sort of physical vibrating "strings". (I'm personally not sold on that idea, but many scientists are).

Other scientists do consider a "supernatural" basis for reality. Some suggest that mathematics is the basis of all reality and everything physical somehow magically springs into existence from this per-existing mathematics that exists in some imagined non-physical "Platonic World".

Personally I don't think scientists have clue what's really going on.

The only thing I do know is that if there exists a "Creator" of our physical reality, that Creator itself would defy everything that we deem to be logical or reasonable anyway. So the idea that we could "reason" it's existence using our notions of logic doesn't make any sense anyway.

If there exists a "Magical Entity" then that's what it would be. It wouldn't be a mundane rational thing that could be understood in a meaningful logical way in any case. After all, as soon as it's understood and explained, then it's no longer "Magical".

Therefore, even if such an entity exists we could never show that it exists using reason or logic. It would be what we would consider to be an "illogical entity".

As far as I'm concerned even a pure secular materialistic world that is the result of some sort of vibrating "strings" would itself be "illogical". We might be tempted to say, "But the strings explain everything we see and experience!". But even if they did, we would have no explanation of how the strings came to be in the first place.

So even the existence of a pure secular materialistic world would be illogical and "Magical".

What we can say for certain is that our reality is indeed "Magical" and "Illogical".

But saying much of anything beyond that seems to be nothing more than pure guessing.

[dio9]

Could it be atheists don't believe in the God they imagine God to be. Atheists don't believe in the concept of God they have made. The consciousness they have cultivated says there is no God. You might say they have a will not to believe. If there is a God it is not in their consciousness. Perhaps God is not in their consciousness because God is not trying to prove anything. God said to Moses when he asked who should I say sent me ? simply "I am the God who is".

[oldbadger]

In that case you posted this thread in the wrong forum.

This is the Christianity and Apologetics forum.

...true...... I've already questioned whether I could post about atheism on this thread, and if the Mods want to move this atheist-deist proposal then ok.

Does it make any sense to talk about a "reason" for everything without assuming that there is an intelligence behind the "reason"?

Fair enough.... but where such Reason has no partiocular interest in humans (why would it?) then to identify the presence is enough for me. Bite sized chunks of info for me, please!

If so, then why would we need to assume deism to justify a "reason" for everything?

The reason for all is going to be so huge (by comparison with humans) that humans would be exceeding arogant to assume rights of justification of anything.

What's wrong with just pure secular materialism?

Because it's impossible.......... there is a reason for the existence of all, and if tortured sufficiently any scientist would agree...... D)

Maybe the "reason" for everything is because there exists vibrating "strings".

..... which strings came about.... how? Keep going.......

If you argue that there needs to be a "reason" for the existence of the vibrating strings, then you'd need to demand the same thing for a "deistic" reality (whatever that might even mean)

Demand? Any sparrow has as much right to demand answers as you or me. All we have any right to do is to acknowledge either Deism, Pan-Deism or Panen-Deism. A Buddhist might manage better with all this than me.

If the "reason-for-all" has no particular interest in us, then it wouldn't have had much of a "reason" to create us.

Wrong road. Wrong path. Wrong mindset (imo). Can your left eye ponder on why it's connected to your brain, or even exists? Many Deists would suggest that you are a part of the Reason-for-all, and if so, then I need to treat you with lots of respect. See? It's deeper than humans thinking that they're special, cos they ainn't.

I confess that scientists do often seem to have some pretty strange ideas. They also don't appear to be in a complete consensus of what science should even be based on.

Rhat is a massively important point. At this time, and probably for ever, scientists are in polite contention over the initiation of our Universe, let alone about what lies beyond.

Personally I don't think scientists have clue what's really going on.

The genuine ones would agree with you. As far as we reach, it goes further. Methinks its rather big.

The only thing I do know is that if there exists a "Creator" of our physical reality, that Creator itself would defy everything that we deem to be logical or reasonable anyway. So the idea that we could "reason" it's existence using our notions of logic doesn't make any sense anyway.

Perfect. Exactly so, imo.

Therefore, even if such an entity exists we could never show that it exists using reason or logic. It would be what we would consider to be an "illogical entity".

Don't worry about it..... just enjoy the ride. We certainly can never be destroyed, only mixed up again ............ enjoy the day!

So even the existence of a pure secular materialistic world would be illogical and "Magical".

HUmans made the word Secular, not any God, or Reason-for-all.
BUmble bees don't have to bother with religion as far as I know, and nor do I.... but meditation helps enormously, I reckon.

What we can say for certain is that our reality is indeed "Magical" and "Illogical".

But saying much of anything beyond that seems to be nothing more than pure guessing.

Very good. Yes.... guessing is a good word, but one thing is FOR SURE. THERE IS A REASON FOR ALL.

[Divine Insight]

Demand? Any sparrow has as much right to demand answers as you or me. All we have any right to do is to acknowledge either Deism, Pan-Deism or Panen-Deism. A Buddhist might manage better with all this than me.

Well, aren't you the one who is demanding that there must be a reason for everything?

Maybe a sparrow doesn't bother demanding that that there be reasons for everything.

By the way, I personally support Panentheism. But not for the "reason" you are arguing for.

I support it simply because there is nothing else we can be.

Wrong road. Wrong path. Wrong mindset (imo). Can your left eye ponder on why it's connected to your brain, or even exists? Many Deists would suggest that you are a part of the Reason-for-all, and if so, then I need to treat you with lots of respect. See? It's deeper than humans thinking that they're special, cos they ainn't.

When it comes to panentheism I know the reason for my existence. And it's not the least bit trivial either. I'm at least as important to all that exists as our brains are important to us. Therefore I see no reason to support your idea that humans might not be significant in terms of the "reason for everything". Although at the same time I would warn against thinking that a sparrow is any less significant.

Personally I don't think scientists have clue what's really going on.

The genuine ones would agree with you. As far as we reach, it goes further. Methinks its rather big.

That's exactly right. The most reputable and popular scientists all agree what we have no clue what's really going on. It's actually "atheists" who like to claim that scientists have a handle on things so they can appeal to science to support their atheistic views.

Don't worry about it..... just enjoy the ride. We certainly can never be destroyed, only mixed up again ............ enjoy the day!

I totally agree with you on this. If you came into existence once, you can surely do it again. I like what the Dalai Lama has to say on this, "If the Big Bang banged once, then it can surely bang again".

The idea that this reality is a one-shot deal really has no credibility. There is no "reason" to support the idea that an entire physical reality can pop into existence only ONCE and must be forbidden from ever doing it again.

I mean, who came up with that rule anyway?

That's a rather silly rule don't you agree?

BUmble bees don't have to bother with religion as far as I know, and nor do I.... but meditation helps enormously, I reckon.

I enjoy meditation too. It's cool.

I also enjoy shamanic journeying. After all, why waste a good brain? If I can fly through the fields of my imagination and enjoy the reality of that, it would be a waste to not do it. My imagination is at least as real as my own experience.

Very good. Yes.... guessing is a good word, but one thing is FOR SURE. THERE IS A REASON FOR ALL.

Tat t'vam asi.