Lack of belief...

[EPH2:8]

Does the term lack of belief make any claims regarding the subject of the sentence? For example I lack belief in Santa clause. Am I making any claims regarding Santa clause? Does changing the subject of the sentence determine whether a claim is made or not?

[FWI]

[Replying to post 29 by StuartJ]

Just like folks of faith...

What makes you think that atheists don't have faith? They have faith that God/gods don't exist. This is the backbone of their belief system. OK! They have faith in a "lack of belief." (Whatever, it's the same thing). They would have to have faith in all kinds of beliefs, which they hold or defend. The truth is that the "lack of belief" or faith in God/gods determines what direction an individual will take in life. This is an indisputable factIt's all surrounded by a belief system.

We don't agree on a bunch of stuff.

What is this "bunch of stuff" or the different beliefs, which atheists hold?

But this whole "define an atheist" business is just a common ploy that takes the spotlight off a total absence of evidence offered of any kind for any god...

Here, we go again about spotlight. There, has been plenty of evidence presented that focuses on the existence of God. Yet, it doesn't fit into the guideline for what atheists will accept (or the box most want believers in God to be put into) or their belief system, which is nothing or no evidence will be acceptable. I have been trying to find out what type of evidence would be acceptable, but those who make such statements as yours, are silent. Why?

[Artie]

This is the backbone of their belief system.

Name five beliefs in my belief system.

[Tcg]

I have been trying to find out what type of evidence would be acceptable, but those who make such statements as yours, are silent. Why?

Because they are smart enough to know that you are the one making the claim that God exists and that it is therefore your job to support your claim.

The silence gives you a chance to step forward and present whatever it is you think supports your claim.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 18 by Divine Insight]

I am totally open to any evidence you can produce.

This is not what I'm referring to. You have made it clear that there is no evidence, which I could produce or any other human could that would convince you to change your position. What I'm asking: is there another source, which could? And, what would that evidence need to be?

There must be some type of hypothetical that could be appealing to your sense of being totally open to the right kind of evidence.

Ok, I think I see what you are trying to get at now.

Yes there are plenty of things that I would consider to be very compelling evidence for the existence of a God. Unfortunately none of those things exist in the real world.

1. Evidence in the Natural World

To being with, if the natural world was perfect and only humans were seen to have bad behavior, that for me, would be extremely compelling evidence for the possibility of a creator who created a perfect world where humans are guilty of misbehaving.

But that's not the world in which we live. So that evidence doesn't exist in this world. In this world if humans are removed from the world what would be left is a world where animals continue to prey on each other in violent horrible ways, and they would still be suffering from disease, genetic defects, natural disasters, etc.

So I certainly see no evidence to believe in any religion that tries to pin the blame onto humans for an imperfect world. And I also see no reason to postulate the existence of a "Perfect Creator" who designed animals to eat each other, etc.

In short, the real world does not provide any evidence for the existence of an intentionally designed world. So there is no reason to postulate the existence of a perfect creator.

More over, this is a kind of evidence that you cannot change. In other words, the evidence that I would need simply doesn't exist. It's not like you could argue that the world actually would be perfect if it wasn't solely for the bad behavior of humans. You simply cannot make that argument because it doesn't fit real world evidence.

So this is evidence I would accept, if it existed, but it doesn't exist.

2. Evidence in Religious Texts or Paradigms of an Intelligent God

Another thing I would find to be quite compelling would be if we had a religious paradigm that was actually intelligent and made perfect sense. IMHO, anything associated with the Hebrew Biblical Myths of a God are not only not intelligent, but they are actually embarrassingly ignorant.

Having read the Old Testament description of God I see a clearly man-made character that not only approaches problems in the same way as the ancient barbaric society that created him, but this God even fails to solve every single problem that he addresses.

This canon of texts even has this God drowning out humans in a Great Flood proclaiming that he is sorry that he had ever created them. This is a description of a God who is not only an extremely inept creator, but a clearly frustrated one as well.

Not only this, but these ancient myths require the additional postulation that an evil adversary of this God must also exist in order to make any sense. So to make excuses for why this God is having so much trouble they needed to invent a devil who's sole purpose in life is to thwart this God's intentions.

And yes, I feel that the rolling eyes icon is definitely warranted there.

Moreover, the whole idea that some evil demon is the one who is causing humans to misbehave seems, IMHO, to totally destroy their foundational idea that humans are the ones who cannot behave themselves on their own merit.

I would have personally been far more impressed by a story that had Adam and Eve rebelling against God directly telling God that they have no interest in being told what to do by God. At least that would have pinned the blame of rebelling square onto humans. As the story is actually written, humans were innocently "beguiled" by an evil serpent. And they even confessed everything to this God after the fact. An act that is supposed to warrant forgiveness and salvation. Yet they were condemned to punishment anyway.

In short, the story makes absolutely no sense at all and is simply not impressive. And I could go on addressing all the absurdities in the Old Testament tales. The flaws with the "Fall From Grace" and the "Great Flood" stories are only two examples of absolute ignorance. I don't want to try to post all the problems with the OT here since that would require a book about the same size as the OT itself.

The bottom line for me is that I would need to see an actual intelligent story of a God before I would find it compelling as "evidence" for the existence of a God. The OT doesn't even remotely meet that standard.

So again, I would find an intelligent religious paradigm to be compelling evidence for the existence of a God. But none exists. So you can hardly offer this up as an argument for God in this world.

3. Evidence in Religious Texts or Paradigms of a Sane God

As you can see I find the OT to already be unintelligent and non-compelling. In Christianity when we get to the NT we move beyond unintelligent to the totally insane, IMHO.

At least Judaism and Islam retain the original unintelligent God without proclaiming him to have suddenly going insane. But they already fail due to the extreme non-intelligence and ineptitude of their original God character. However, Christianity takes this original inept God and demands that he is also insane.

Christianity requires that I believe that this God decided to have himself (or a copy of himself) incarnated into the world through the virgin birth of a mortal human woman. This is already based on previous ancient superstitions that Gods impregnate women as a means of sending demigods to earth for some purpose. So it's not even an original idea. This idea was already accepted in mythologies long before this tale.

The entire story of Jesus is quite frankly utterly absurd, IMHO. To begin with, if this was this God's plan, then this plan could not fail (even though, in truth, this God had already failed at every previous intervention in the OT). But the idea is that if God decides to do something he cannot fail. Therefore if God's plan was to have Jesus never sin and be crucified as the sacrificial lamb of God to pay for the sins of mankind, then this mission could not fail. This is already problematic in that these stories have Jesus himself being "tested" by that old evil demon again, and supposedly passing because Jesus himself chose to pass these tests. But again, let's not forget that failure is not an option, so it can't be impressive that Jesus would pass any test required of this whole ordeal. So Jesus can't even be given any credit for having passed any tests of temptations to sin.

This entire story also requires that this God's own appointed and ordained priests have become totally corrupt and evil.

Yes, again, the rolling eyes icon finds suitable employment here. He we have a God who has already failed miserably to keep his own house in order. And how could this have happened? Where these priests possessed by evil demons? Is so, then why didn't Jesus just cast the evil demons out of the priests?

The story doesn't even make any sense. Jesus goes around casting demons out of everyone except these corrupt priests who are in charge of "God's House".

Give me a break! This story is utterly absurd.

Also, the whole story of Jesus is that he was supposed to be the "Promised Messiah" prophesied in to come by the Old Testament. But that Messiah was supposed to become the King of Israel and bring peace to all nations. Jesus never even fulfilled this prophesy. All he did was argue with corrupt priests, get himself crucified for blaspheme, and was then proclaimed to be the "Sacrificial Lamb of God" who died to pay for the sins of man. Something the original messiah was never prophesied to even do.

The story isn't even compatible with the original religion from which is became an offshoot. These stories even have Jesus rebuking commandments that the original God of the OT commanded men to do, all the while it has Jesus also proclaiming that not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass from law until heaven and earth pass away.

In short, the NT is not only insane, but it's not even compatible with the original religion.

Could there have been a religious paradigm that I might have found to be compelling evidence for the existence of a God. Yes, I can imagine such a paradigm. However, that paradigm only exists in my imagination and does not exist in any actual religious texts on earth.

So yes, there is evidence that could convince me of a God. But that evidence simply doesn't exist in the real world.

4. Even Personal Evidence would be Compelling.

If the claims made by these religions held any merit, that would at least give me some pause for thought. But even the claims don't pan out.

In Christianity the NT has Jesus proclaiming that those who believe in him shall be able to lay their hands on the sick and heal them. I found that claim to be totally false when I believed in Jesus. I also can't help but notice that it's not true for any other Christians as well. When people get sick, Christians don't simply lay their hands on the person and heal them, instead they call up all their fellow Christians sobbing and crying asking for "prayer requests" while their loved one continues to be sick and eventually dies. Then we all go to the funeral and pretend that the dead person must now be in heaven because God "called them" for whatever reason.

Again, the rolling eyes icon gets gainful employment here.

This religion also say that if I reject Jesus and this God, I must necessarily be an evil person who has chosen evil over good. I can absolutely assure you that nothing could be further from the TRUTH.

So as far as I can see, this entire religious paradigm has absolutely no credibility at all.

I'm certainly not going to see this paradigm as evidence for anything other than a very poorly written collection of superstitious tales.

So, yes, there are many things I would embrace as evidence for the existence of a God. The problem is that none of those things exist in this world.

If you could find an ancient book that proclaims the existence of a God and actually makes sense, I would love to read it. In the meantime, Hebrew mythology doesn't even come close to meeting that bar.

And then you still have the problem that the world is not perfect even when humans are taken out of the picture entirely.

In short the actual evidence that does exist, points to evidence that there is no intentional designer of this universe.

The evidence points to no God. That's the evidence that we actually have to work with.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Does the term lack of belief make any claims regarding the subject of the sentence? For example I lack belief in Santa clause. Am I making any claims regarding Santa clause? Does changing the subject of the sentence determine whether a claim is made or not?

I would say that the point that needs to be made by the statement "I lack belief in Santa Claus," is that such a statement does not itself represent a belief system. It's no belief system at all. No claim is being made. Conversely, atheism is not a belief system. It's simply the lack of belief in the existence of God/the gods. Although individuals who identify themselves as atheists may in fact have reached very well worked out conclusions on why they find the existence of God to be unlikely.

And on that note I would like to ask a question. Ephesians 2:8 reads:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

At best this particular passage represents Paul's personal opinion. At worst, no one really knows who wrote Ephesians. The authorship of Ephesians by Paul has of course been disputed, but the question remains the same. How does one person's opinion, or statement, come to represent the unchallengeable "Word of God?" Is it reasonable to accept that simply making a claim establishes the validity of the claim?

[Divine Insight]

I have been trying to find out what type of evidence would be acceptable, but those who make such statements as yours, are silent. Why?

Because they are smart enough to know that you are the one making the claim that God exists and that it is therefore your job to support your claim.

The silence gives you a chance to step forward and present whatever it is you think supports your claim.

I just answered FWI's question in my post #34.

There are plenty of things I would accept as evidence for the existence of a God. The problem is that none of those things actually exist in our world.

[wiploc]

All non-theists are atheists.

And why are they non-theists?

Because they see no reason to postulate the existence of a God.

That works for some of us, but not all. Unless, of course, you're using a definition of "postulate" that reduces your claim to a pointless truism.

[Tcg]

I have been trying to find out what type of evidence would be acceptable, but those who make such statements as yours, are silent. Why?

Because they are smart enough to know that you are the one making the claim that God exists and that it is therefore your job to support your claim.

The silence gives you a chance to step forward and present whatever it is you think supports your claim.

I just answered FWI's question in my post #34.

There are plenty of things I would accept as evidence for the existence of a God. The problem is that none of those things actually exist in our world.

Yes, I see that.

You went above and beyond as far as I am concerned. We'll see if the responses you get do the same.

[Divine Insight]

You went above and beyond as far as I am concerned. We'll see if the responses you get do the same.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "You went above and beyond".

Above and beyond what?

I try my best to have respectful communications with anyone who is seeking genuine communication. I don't see where attempting to communicate in a meaningful way is "above and beyond" anything. It's certainly not above and beyond an attempt to understand what the other person is saying, and clarifying my position.

Asking me what I would accept as evidence for the existence of a God is a valid question as far as I'm concerned.

After all, consider the potential scenario where a God actually does exist. What would you expect that situation might be like? I think that's a valid question. And if the answer is that it wouldn't be anything like the world we actually live in, then that's also a valid answer.

And meaningful communication has then been facilitated.

[Tcg]

You went above and beyond as far as I am concerned. We'll see if the responses you get do the same.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "You went above and beyond".

Meriam Webster describes it this way:

above and beyond idiom

Definition of above and beyond:

far beyond what is required by (something, such as a duty)
//He went above and beyond the call of duty.

I meant it in exactly the same way.