Does Romans 1:18-20 create doubt for atheists?

[AgnosticBoy]

Many Christians interpret Romans 1:18 to mean that deep down we all know that God exists.

Romans 1:19-20

19 because that which is known about God is evident [n]within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21

In my view, the apostle Paul goes too far in claiming that non-believers know that the Christian God exists. However, if I'm to look for any validity in his statement, I find that I do have this feeling and/or need for something transcendent. That certainly is not enough to point to anything as specific as the God of the Bible, but it does point to spirituality, in general. One book that touches on this idea is The God Gene by Dean Hamer. Here's one review:

In Hamer's argument, spiritual experiences and religion are nearly universal human attributes. Hamer measures spirituality on a scale of 'self-transcendence', or the ability to see beyond oneself, a concept first introduced by psychologist Robert Cloninger. He draws a sharp distinction between spirituality, which is a personality trait that some of us have to a greater or lesser extent than others, and religion or belief in a particular god, which is a culturally transmitted expression of spirituality.

Hamer admits in his introduction that the volume is misnamed; he isn't talking about genes for being a god, but rather about those that predispose us to religion-neutral spiritual beliefs, experiences and interpretations. Spirituality is not controlled by the product of a single gene but is complex, involving many genes, each making a small contribution to the phenotype, combined with a very strong environmental influence.

I really want to know the following:
1. Did this feeling or sense or need for something greater play any role in leading you to religion or spirituality?
2. For the non-believer or atheist, are you aware of this feeling? Does it lead you to doubt atheism? (in my case, my doubt does not lead me to believe, but instead it drives me to search even more).

[Tcg]

My presumption comes from reading a few studies which find that we have a "predisposition" to accept God or spirituality and that this is widespread amongst the human population. I'm sure there are exceptions.

Of course there are which proves your claim of universality false. Widespread (which you've failed to support) doesn't equate to universal which you have claimed.


Tcg

[alexxcJRO]

Many Christians interpret Romans 1:18 to mean that deep down we all know that God exists.

Romans 1:19-20

19 because that which is known about God is evident [n]within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21

I really want to know the following:
1. Did this feeling or sense or need for something greater play any role in leading you to religion or spirituality?
2. For the non-believer or atheist, are you aware of this feeling? Does it lead you to doubt atheism? (in my case, my doubt does not lead me to believe, but instead it drives me to search even more).

1. I only had this feeling when I was ignorant and lacking seriously in knowledge and probably a heavy user of my right brain hemisphere. The sense of wonder and spirituality vanished as I become more knowledgeable in geology, cosmology, quantum physics, biology-evolution, genetics, philosophy, religion, logic and off course by starting to have a more healthy skeptical way of looking at things, using more the left hemisphere instead the right one.
Transforming from a ignorant, gullible, ridiculous, emotional driven youngster to the knowledgeable, skeptical, emotionally stable, logical Vulkan I am now.

Interestingly others beliefs vanished too like I was not any more prone to engage in conspiratorial belief, no longer a believer in ghosts, strigoi(Romanian folklore), poltergeists, auras, Yeti, zodiac sigs-astrology and many other nonsense.

2. I genuinely don't have this feeling now as an agnostic-atheist. Although I know I can't know that there is NO GOD(therefore agnostic) I genuinely, sincerely believe there is NO GOD(therefore atheist). I don't have any sense of doubt.
Although I am agnostic-atheist aka weak atheist when it comes to the general idea of GOD, I am a hard atheist when it comes to Yahweh-Jesus. The omni GOD of the bible does not only just not exist it is logically impossible to exist.

So talking about Romans is futile. A logically impossible being cannot be evident to exist.
Also genuine, sincere disbelief disproves the personal, omni GOD of the bible.

[alexxcJRO]

Trouble is, no one else has come up with a better explanation for the existence of anything, abstract objects, the fact that there is tractable order
in the universe, the beginning of the universe's existence, the fine tuning of fundamental constants and initial conditions to a degree well beyond that required for intelligent life
(initial entropy of the universe, anyone? We only needed a single supercluster at most, why is everything so un-entropic?), the origin of life, the origin of consciousness,
the existence of objective moral values and duties... the list goes on and on.

All of these considerations should lead us to the following conclusions:

1. There is a fundamental "Source" of reality as we know it.
2. That Source is extremely different from the things in our experience.
3. That Source is less dissimilar to a mind/person than it is to anything else in our experience.

Unless, of course, you have an explanation for the above listed data that has equal explanatory power and can provide the same unificatory power as God. If you have to write uncashed
checks for half the stuff on the list ("science will explain it eventually, it always does"), use a multiverse for fine tuning, reverse the arrow of time at at the point of minimum expansion
to get a "big bounce" instead of a geodesically incomplete "big bang," and declare everything else to be "brute facts," then it's pretty obvious that your position doesn't have the same level
of explanatory power and scope that Theism does.

Assigning subjective, qualitive terms like "better" to a hypothesis and leave it at that instead of trying to prove your hypothesis as according with objective reality not just phantasmagorical whimsical imaginations is not very productive.
Engaging in speculative thinking is fun as an imagination exercise. But one cannot base his entire life on just that.
One can speculate that large-scale gravity governing galaxies because of dark matter will in the very distant future win the fight with dark energy and stop the expanding universe reversing the trend into a collapsing one going back to a singularity and then we get a bang again. A repeating process of creating universes. We being just one iteration in a long sequence of iterations. All this happening in a multi-dimensional multiverse with multiple universes and infinite parallel realities.

"No one has come with better explanation" therefore GOD.
One would think we would learned from our past mistakes.
Homo sapiens sapiens have done this error since their first appearance. Not very sapiens of us.
We have Ra god of the ancient Egyptians moving the sun across the sky(=explanation) cuz' "No one has come with better explanation".
We now now better. Earth orbits the Sun(this movement is called revolution) and spins around its axis( this spinning movement is called Earth's rotation).
Ancient Egyptians phantasmagorical whimsical imagination look silly now.

In thousands of years when great minds will find explanations for most if not all your points we will be looked as we look now at ancient Egyptians. Ancient people putting different silly concepts and gods forward to explain our gaps in knowledge, no different then the ancient Egyptians.

[TRANSPONDER]

Many Christians interpret Romans 1:18 to mean that deep down we all know that God exists.

Romans 1:19-20

19 because that which is known about God is evident [n]within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21

I really want to know the following:
1. Did this feeling or sense or need for something greater play any role in leading you to religion or spirituality?
2. For the non-believer or atheist, are you aware of this feeling? Does it lead you to doubt atheism? (in my case, my doubt does not lead me to believe, but instead it drives me to search even more).

1. I only had this feeling when I was ignorant and lacking seriously in knowledge and probably a heavy user of my right brain hemisphere. The sense of wonder and spirituality vanished as I become more knowledgeable in geology, cosmology, quantum physics, biology-evolution, genetics, philosophy, religion, logic and off course by starting to have a more healthy skeptical way of looking at things, using more the left hemisphere instead the right one.
Transforming from a ignorant, gullible, ridiculous, emotional driven youngster to the knowledgeable, skeptical, emotionally stable, logical Vulkan I am now.

Interestingly others beliefs vanished too like I was not any more prone to engage in conspiratorial belief, no longer a believer in ghosts, strigoi(Romanian folklore), poltergeists, auras, Yeti, zodiac sigs-astrology and many other nonsense.

2. I genuinely don't have this feeling now as an agnostic-atheist. Although I know I can't know that there is NO GOD(therefore agnostic) I genuinely, sincerely believe there is NO GOD(therefore atheist). I don't have any sense of doubt.
Although I am agnostic-atheist aka weak atheist when it comes to the general idea of GOD, I am a hard atheist when it comes to Yahweh-Jesus. The omni GOD of the bible does not only just not exist it is logically impossible to exist.

So talking about Romans is futile. A logically impossible being cannot be evident to exist.
Also genuine, sincere disbelief disproves the personal, omni GOD of the bible.

This is of course not an argument about what is true (on evidence) or not but about whether we need the faith (true or not) because it is good for us. This is the familiar 'science robs nature of its's wonder'accusation directed at science/materialism, secularism?atheism. I feel that the sense of wonder actually increases as one gets a handle on the amazing nature of nature. It increases as ones' curiosity (assuming one has it) drives us (or me at least) to find out more and I am constantly fascinated and amazed by what I learn. I now see the idea of Nature as no more than a billboard for God as terribly limiting, both in scope, understanding and invitation to learn, because 'God' being the 'Answer to Everything' means that there is no incentive to seek answers. One may lose the cozy smug feeling of 'Godfaith is the only answer I need' but frankly I reckon we are better of without.

Even if science were to rob nature of its' wonder, there is more of that in art which is something (being a human invention) that science doesn't deal with, apart from maybe understanding the instincts that caused us to devise it.

There is an old apologetic that refutes the 'science destroys the wonder of nature' argument. I gather (1) that in Keats' poet 'to a nightingale', he waxes lyrical about the beauty of the evening star (Venus). But he reveals that he knows the scientific fact that it rotates around the sun. But that hasn't robbed away the sense of wonder and I would argue that understanding adds a whole new dimension to the wonder and reverence for nature that is still there, but it is given to nature and not to a mythical being or some less specific 'spirituality' as some kind of quasi - supernatural force.

I could argue (as analogy) that one might complain that the magic of Christmas is evaporated if one learns that St Nicholas was an Anatolian saint who used to gave gifts to children or some such, and that the red suit was invented by Coca cola as a marketing ploy and has NO traditional element. But of course it doesn't. It simply removes some misconceptions and adds a bit of interest to an otherwise inexplicable entity.

(1) I shall have to check but frankly I think Keats is a bit of a twit. 'Truth is beauty and beauty truth. That is all you know ans all ye need to know'. I thought that was rubbish when I read it as a kid and I still do.

[historia]

Unknowns are just that and evidence neither way and posit God as the default because no other explanation is known does not make God the default. That's the fallacy.

No one here has said that God is the "default."

Now I'm afraid you're the one committing a fallacy, in this case a straw man argument.

The whole thread is about God being the default of 'what explanation is there for everything?' as in Romans.

Paul's letter to the Romans was not a philosophical treatise on the 'default position' one should assume when asking questions about the origins of the cosmos.

Rather, in the passage quoted in the OP, he's making a passing observation -- as part of a larger argument about a completely different topic -- that even the heathens of his day possess a basic knowledge of God.

As James Dunn notes in his commentary, "The phrase here probably includes the sense of what is common knowledge about God," acquired either through learning or derived from an observation of nature.

Now, here, too, one might disagree with Paul. But his argument is not a logical "fallacy," as you claimed.

If you are going to say that the default of asking where everything came from is 'Unknown' then God is not the default, I would agree.

Sure. But the larger point that I'm making here is that Christian apologists like David -- or better yet those in a work like the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (2012) -- are not arguing that we must assume God is the best explanation for the universe, consciousness, etc., until one can prove otherwise. They are actually making positive arguments as to why they think that is the best explanation.

You and I may not agree with their explanations, or we might conclude that we don't know enough about the evidence to be certain their explanation is correct. But proposing an explanation for evidence is not, in and of itself, a "fallacy." An argument can be wrong or unpersuasive without being logically fallacious.

The two cases are different because the parameters of the election are known even if one disagrees with the interpretation.

I don't know what you mean by the "parameters of the election." But let me simply note here that we do not have certain knowledge about how many ballots were illegally cast in the 2020 election.

We can infer the likely answer -- very few -- based on the available evidence. But at this point it is effectively impossible to have certain knowledge about this event now in the past.

Now, you might want to contend that we have even less certain knowledge about the origins of the universe, and I would agree. But that is a matter of degree not of kind. Cosmologists hypothesizing the existence of a multiverse do so based on the same limited knowledge. Are their arguments also fallacies?

Drawing an inference to an explanation even when you have very little evidence -- as you can see a fellow named TRANSPONDER doing in this example here -- may be ill-advised, but it is not a logical "fallacy," as you asserted.

[David the apologist]

That is incoherent. A 'god' could explain anything it wanted if it existed (which is perhaps why it ddoesn't() but an explanatory mechanism for the claim for a creative intelligence is not there. It just 'does it'.

Again, mechanisms are not required for fundamental types of action.

The electron -stuff Is the explanation for electric enery.

I'm not sure a physicist would agree with you. Nor am I convinced that there's "electron-stuff" beyond the energy contained in the excitation of the electron field that we call "the electron."

what you refer to is an unknown. Science may explain it or may not. but that an explanatory mechanism for energy exists is more than 'God'. Which explains nothing.

I am not saying that God explains the fact that fields are coupled to each other. I am claiming that field coupling is a fundamental interaction out of which all "mechanisms" must be built, providing precedent for God's action being equally fundamental.

Energy is matter doing stuff just as matter is energy not doing stuff.

That... that's not how physics defines those things.

Energy is the Noether charge associated with time translation symmetry.

Matter is a generic term for field-excitations (or "particles").

In any case, an under-informed answer to the question "what is energy?" does not constitute an answer to the question "what is energy made of?"

Not everything has to be "made of" something else. Just like not everything needs a "mechanism" to act.

material/physical Natural explanation are the default and not supernatyural.

But why, though?

Science is the study of what can be measured or controlled. Anything that falls in its purview may be called "natural." By definition then, the supernatural would be anything that cannot be measured or controlled.

Why should we assume, a priori, that explanations in terms of things that can be measured or controlled are better than explanations of things that can't be measured or controlled?

Even if so something would have to happen. The whole basis of the cosmic origins argument (Kalam) is that everything has a cause. To posit a god has no 'cause' or explanation of origin.

The Kalam argument relies on the premise that everything that begins to exist has a cause. Other versions of the cosmological argument identify different factors, but the basic notion is the same - some things are of such a nature that they require a cause, not all things can have a cause, therefore something is uncaused. Getting to God requires deriving the Divine Attributes from the fact that the uncaused thing is of a different nature from the caused things.

Since you like a financial analogous terminology. Science has dug the gold and silver that is the basis for a solid bank that is a global currency. Theism simply sold off fake banknotes that it called 'science supports Theism'. Such an example being your 'consciousness' is in the bank of Theism rather than the bank of science. Even if all the accounts were combined in one and philosophy is speculating in the market with 'dualism' (which I think will crash in time) it is paying nothing to the bank of God which is simply signing dud cheques while saying 'don't trust the bank of science. It has no idea how economics really works or what will happen to the market in the future'.

You say all that, but you don't make it clear what the analogates are.

In any case, you haven't addressed the fundamental problems: to the extent that science has "closed gaps" that people have "put God into," such "gaps" are ones that science itself created, and usually just opened up new "gaps" on a deeper level.

It's like someone who pays off one loan with money he got by taking out another one.

[alexxcJRO]

You say all that, but you don't make it clear what the analogates are.

In any case, you haven't addressed the fundamental problems: to the extent that science has "closed gaps" that people have "put God into," such "gaps" are ones that science itself created, and usually just opened up new "gaps" on a deeper level.

It's like someone who pays off one loan with money he got by taking out another one.

David the apologist:
"Trouble is, no one else has come up with a better explanation for the existence of anything,
abstract objects, the fact that there is tractable order in the universe,
the beginning of the universe's existence,
the fine tuning of fundamental constants and initial conditions to a degree well beyond that required for intelligent life
initial entropy of the universe, anyone? We only needed a single supercluster at most, why is everything so un-entropic?
the origin of life,
the origin of consciousness,
the existence of objective moral values and duties"

The fallacious trend and one clear obvious fundamental problem which seem to escape the religious is putting God in the gaps of our knowledge which started happening before the scientific method even existed.

We have Ra god of the ancient Egyptians moving the sun across the sky.
We have Germanic ancient people who believed lightning, thunder, storms were a result of a deity called Thor.
We have gods of wind(kami) in ancient Japan.
We have people in Hippocrates time thinking epilepsy is divine simply because they didn't had any idea what caused epilepsy.
We have people like David now days putting Yahweh-Jesus forward as explanatory for the gaps in our knowledge(origin of life, universe).

Making arguments from ignorance/argument from personal incredulity/argument by lack of imagination("why is everything so un-entropic?", "initial entropy of the universe, anyone?") is always fallacious.
Because you/we are ignorant of certain thing does not mean the answer will not be known using science in the future.
Its also always possible the answer is unknowable.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems demonstrates it is impossible to prove everything.
God will always have holes to creep into.
This is not a defect of science but a fact of reality and only a problem for the religious who since the dawn of mankind have been putting god in smaller and smaller holes of knowledge.

Q: Do you ever wonder if your like the ancient Egyptians, ancient Germanic people, ancient Japanese, ancient Greeks repeating the same error?

They at least have an excuse. They lived in isolated pockets of civilization for the most part with very limited knowledge and education at their disposal.

Q: What is your excuse?

[brunumb]

The Kalam argument relies on the premise that everything that begins to exist has a cause. Other versions of the cosmological argument identify different factors, but the basic notion is the same - some things are of such a nature that they require a cause, not all things can have a cause, therefore something is uncaused. Getting to God requires deriving the Divine Attributes from the fact that the uncaused thing is of a different nature from the caused things.

The Kalam argument says absolutely nothing about God. One has to use sleight of hand and careful wordplay to get to "therefore God". Is "not all things can have a cause" even a verifiable, valid claim? Do you know? I'm guessing that "deriving the Divine Attributes" is equivalent to inventing stuff that somehow supports the idea that there is only one uncaused thing and that thing must be God.

[We_Are_VENOM]

Many Christians interpret Romans 1:18 to mean that deep down we all know that God exists.

Romans 1:19-20
19 because that which is known about God is evident [n]within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21

"Many Christians".

Sure, but more like this Christian (me).

I am the one who recently stated (and have been stating) that deep down, EVERY rational human being knows that God exists.

In my view, the apostle Paul goes too far in claiming that non-believers know that the Christian God exists. However, if I'm to look for any validity in his statement, I find that I do have this feeling and/or need for something transcendent.

You have this and/or need for something transcendent? Well, there is your God right there...

That is the Holy Spirit convicting you, calling you. Whether or not you accept the call is your choice, but it is a call, nevertheless.

That certainly is not enough to point to anything as specific as the God of the Bible, but it does point to spirituality, in general.

Yeah, because any monotheistic religion (Usually the Abrahamic ones), they all have an element of moral accountability to it...which is what most people would rather not deal with.

That is why mere spirituality is more appealing...because usually, that it is a way for the (un)believer to admit the nagging need for some sort of transcendence, without the moral accountability aspect tagging along with it.

You can't run it by me. I know the game and watch it unfold.

I really want to know the following:
1. Did this feeling or sense or need for something greater play any role in leading you to religion or spirituality?
2. For the non-believer or atheist, are you aware of this feeling? Does it lead you to doubt atheism? (in my case, my doubt does not lead me to believe, but instead it drives me to search even more).

It is Christ or nothing. That answers both questions.

[We_Are_VENOM]

The Kalam argument says absolutely nothing about God.

3. (Conclusion) Therefore, the universe has a cause (God).

Looks to me like it does.

One has to use sleight of hand and careful wordplay to get to "therefore God".

Careful wordplay? More like; it logically follows (therefore God).

Is "not all things can have a cause" even a verifiable, valid claim?

Um, the argument is not that "all things can have a cause". Nice scarecrow, though (strawman).



The premise is "Everything that BEGINGS to exist has a cause".

You do see the difference, don't you?

Do you know? I'm guessing that "deriving the Divine Attributes" is equivalent to inventing stuff that somehow supports the idea that there is only one uncaused thing and that thing must be God.

"...there is only one uncaused thing and that thing must be God".

Yeah, pretty much. That's what I got out of it.