Why won't God convince atheists?

[Hatuey]

Many atheists are so for valid and defendable reasons. Why would a punishing deity choose not to make himself known to reasonable people who do not believe he exists?

A decent god would know how to convince decent people to believe and care for him as he cared for those decent people.

What sort of god doesn't care to convince sensible people that he exists?

[Hamsaka]

[Replying to post 7 by Overcomer]

Paul put it this way in Rom. 1:18-20:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world Gods invisible qualities"his eternal power and divine nature"have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Paul insists here that the OP's claim -- a lack of effort or ability to convince nonbelievers (atheists) -- is wrong. That God has made his 'invisible qualities' sufficiently clear and understood. Examples of how obvious God has made evidence of himself aren't given by Paul, and I would be very interested indeed to hear some examples of how clearly and obviously God has made himself known.

God has made himself evident in nature and in an individual's conscience, but people choose to repress that knowledge. Therefore, there is no excuse for anybody to reject God.

You make reference to examples of how God has made himself known, but it would help me if you could give more specific examples. When I look around at 'nature', I am awed, but don't assume "God" in nature's awesomeness.

You assume nonbelievers 'repress' God's evidence in their conscience by choice. Do you assume this based upon Paul's statement above? Or something else? Either way, you provide additional information, using 'nature' and human 'conscience' to illustrate God's evidence. But you don't explain how these examples illustrate God's clear and obvious existence.

God has revealed himself and continues to reveal himself all the time. The fact that not everybody acknowledges him doesn't mean that he doesn't exist. Nor does it mean he hasn't provided convincing evidence of himself. It just means that some people will reject him in spite of the evidence for a variety of reasons

Perhaps you are overcomplicating this. In order to support your claim, you have to assume that some people will reject God in spite of the evidence 'for a variety of reasons'. In this you claim to know complex systems of denial operate in other people's heads, which isn't possible without a crystal ball .

A simpler version, an Occam's Razor version, is usually the correct one. That would be that God has failed to properly reveal himself to a bit under 5 billion of the humans he created who are surrounded by 'nature' and imbued with a conscience designed to automatically acknowledge him.

Or, many Christians are in error that their God loves everyone. Instead, he has only chosen a handful to be 'his' and could care less about the rest of us.

Or, a "God" such as this is only an old story that for some grim reason continues to be insisted upon long past its expiry date. Additional layers of rationalization are added year by year as the old story becomes less relevant in modern times.

[Divine Insight]

Paul insists here that the OP's claim -- a lack of effort or ability to convince nonbelievers (atheists) -- is wrong. That God has made his 'invisible qualities' sufficiently clear and understood. Examples of how obvious God has made evidence of himself aren't given by Paul, and I would be very interested indeed to hear some examples of how clearly and obviously God has made himself known.

Not only that. But the Biblical God would need to do far more than this.

Even if I accept an argument that this physical reality appears to be too complex or "awesome" to have been a mere accident of natural laws, why should this point to Hebrew mythology?

Or to put this another way, why would I not then assume that Zeus must be real?

Why the Biblical God?

I have many other very sound reasons for rejecting the Biblical picture of God.

Also, I'm totally open to the mystical God described by various Eastern religions and philosophies. I'm open to the idea that Taoism, or some versions of Buddhism might be true.

In short, I'm totally OPEN to the idea that a "God" my very well exist.

But that alone does not give me any reason at all to point to the Hebrew God as having been revealed.

So Paul is totally wrong.

There are many good reasons for rejecting the Biblical Picture of God. And people who reject the biblical picture of God are most certainly not "without excuse". To the contrary, they have very sound, rational, and sane reasons for rejecting the Bible.

There's actually no excuse to defend the biblical picture of God. It's a horrible picture of a God and there are many sound reasons for rejecting it.

[sf]

Food for thought on this topic:

Things that look like they were designed, probably were... If intelligence is an operative component of the universe, a science that methodologically excludes its existence will be susceptible to being trapped in an endless chase for materialistic causes that do not exist... Where there are sufficient grounds for inferring intelligent causation, based on evidence of "specified complexity," it should be considered as a component of scientific theories.

Inclusion of intelligent causation in the scientific equation is not novel and has not impeded the practice of science in the past, e.g. Newton and Kepler, in an age when science was not constrained by a philosophical materialism, and by many current scientists who have remained open to following the evidence where it leads.
Donald L. Ewert

"Dr. Ewert received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Georgia in 1976. As a microbiologist, he operated a research laboratory at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia for almost twenty years. The Wistar Institute is one of the world's leading centers for biomedical research. His research, supported by National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, and Department of Agriculture grants, has involved the immune system, viruses, and cellular biology."

(taken from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/int ... ign?page=2 and http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/45 ... ld_L_Ewert)

[sf]

Because your god is able to convince atheists, why doesn't he?

He can and does when the time is right. I'm far from the only Atheist turned Christian.

[Divine Insight]

Things that look like they were designed, probably were...

We already understand how evolution works by natural laws. Therefore we already understand precisely how they were "designed" and the mechanisms that were responsible for the "design".

In short, there simply is no need for a "baby-sitting" designer God.

If there is any designer at all, the designer would have been the one who designed the laws of nature that allow things to evolve the way they do.

I don't think any scientist excludes that possibility. However, including the possibility does not automatically make it a viable conclusion. Instead all it can be is a "hypothesis". And at this time there is no way to test this hypothesis, therefore the hypothesis remains "unscientific" in terms of being falsifiable.

There is nothing anywhere in science that excludes this possibility. Nor would assuming this possibility to be true "explain" anything precisely because it can be nothing more than an unprovable guess at this point in time.

~~~~~

Finally, even if we entertain this plausible hypothesis (which many scientists actually do) this hypothesis points to the Eastern Mystical religions and spiritual philosophies, and away from the Abrahamic fables of an egotistical "baby-sitting" God.

So this argument doesn't help Christianity or the Biblical picture of God anyway.

Moreover, even if the Eastern Mystical views of God (or an intelligent agent) are correct, this wouldn't change our current scientific theories or understanding of the world anyway.

Evidently if there is an intelligence behind our physical reality it is an intelligence that had simply created the fundamental physics of our universe so that the universe could evolve all on its own without any need for the intelligent creator to intervene or "baby-sit" it anyway.

So this argument does nothing to support the Abrahamic picture of God.

This argument actually points to the Eastern mystical philosophies. And it's not even a strong enough argument to make any conclusions there either. It's simply an unprovable "guess" at this point. And there isn't even necessarily any good reason to suspect that this "guess" is true.

This is why atheists are perfectly reasonable to refrain from making this guess without any actual evidence for it.

I personally argue that the Eastern Mystics are at least reasonable for considering that this guess could be potentially true. I wouldn't say that they are being unreasonable for considering this possibility for reality.

However, people who want to use this argument to support their belief in the personified jealous baby-sitting God of the Bible have no justification for that whatsoever. This argument is not even remotely compatible with the God described in the Bible.

[Wootah]

Many atheists are so for valid and defendable reasons. Why would a punishing deity choose not to make himself known to reasonable people who do not believe he exists?

A decent god would know how to convince decent people to believe and care for him as he cared for those decent people.

What sort of god doesn't care to convince sensible people that he exists?

How does one prove who is sensible or not?

[ttruscott]

Many atheists are so for valid and defendable reasons. Why would a punishing deity choose not to make himself known to reasonable people who do not believe he exists?

A decent god would know how to convince decent people to believe and care for him as he cared for those decent people.

What sort of god doesn't care to convince sensible people that he exists?

Earth is not the time to choose for or against him - sorry, it is all over. HE could make robots of us all if that was what HE wanted but it is not.

Those who eternally rejected HIM will not get to ever share the heavenly bond with HIM because it is open only to those who want to be their by their free will and by their free will they eternally rejected him. Of course He could convince them if that was all it takes but a simplistic answer to the problem is not suitable to a complex problem.

You miss the mark on Christian thinking by lots, a whole lot...


miles even

[ytrewq]

Many atheists are so for valid and defendable reasons. Why would a punishing deity choose not to make himself known to reasonable people who do not believe he exists?

A decent god would know how to convince decent people to believe and care for him as he cared for those decent people.

What sort of god doesn't care to convince sensible people that he exists?

What kind of God you say? A non existent one most likely, and I am not being flippant.

It must be noted that in the time of the OT, Yahweh certainly made it his business to let everytone know he existed, and that he and he alone was the Boss, murdering all and sundry that dared to think otherwise or, even worse, worship competing Gods. Something has definitely changed between now and then, as we don't hear so much as a peep out of him these days, and there are plenty of very loud and active Blasphemers, just on this forum alone. Could it be that He has lost his potency? That does happen eventually to even the most potent of us, at least so I am reliably told. So the second most probable answer is a God that has aged and lost his potency, because he certainly let people know of His existence and power in earlier times. However, I think my first answer is much more likely.

[Divine Insight]

A decent god would know how to convince decent people to believe and care for him as he cared for those decent people.

This religion has convinced many people that if a person doesn't believe in this particular religion then they can't be "decent" people.

For me, this is one of the most immoral, underhanded, and deceitful tactics of this religion (obviously not a tactic of the follows of the religion). The followers of this religion are merely victims of this underhanded and immoral tactic.

Moreover, this tactic is common to both Christianity and Islam. These are the two most arrogant religions in the world. And the reason they have this trait is precisely because they are both based upon the same underlying "Jealous-God" scam. These "Jealous-God" religions necessarily need to make everyone who doesn't believe in their Gods out to be immoral people. Because they can't allow for there to be rational or just reasons to not believe in their jealous Gods.

The only way to make these religions work is to demand that anyone who doesn't believe in them has "knowingly and willfully" rejected their God. And those people necessarily need to be indecent, and unworthy people, because they will be damned. And these religions can't have their supposedly righteous jealous God damning innocent people.

For me personally, this is the Holy Grail of precisely why these religions are necessarily false. They are clearly man-made fables precisely because they use this immoral, underhanded, and deceitful brainwashing scheme to try to convince their followers that everyone who doesn't support the religion is necessarily an indecent person who deserves damnation.

You can't have decent people not believing in a God who damns people for not believing in him. The only way to make a religion like this work is to demand that all unbelievers are heathens worthy of damnation.

Both Christianity and Islam pull this stunt.

Although, many modern day "Progressive Christianities" are trying very hard to distance themselves from this obviously immoral and unholy position. Even Pope Francis refuses to support this mentality by having proclaimed that even atheists can go to heaven.

~~~~~

In fact, it is precisely this character trait of these Abrahamic religions that causes them to be such a huge controversy in today's world. The bottom line for both Christianity and Islam is that if you aren't respecting their "Holy Books" as basically the "Word of God", then you are fundamentally rejecting God and you are necessarily an immoral evil person who hates God and all that is good.

It sincerely amazes me that anyone can fall for these kind of obvious man-made religious paradigms and actually believe that some God could be behind them.

It's just unbelievable.

But that's what Christianity and Islam do. The condemn everyone who refuses to join and support their cults. This is a common tactic of cults. In fact, this tactic is actually illegal to do in cults. Christianity and Islam are the only cults that are currently allowed to actually get away with this.

If you were to form a cult and start emotionally threatening people that if they don't join or stay with your cult something horrible will happen to them, you could be arrested for that.

Christianity and Islam are exempt only because they have been emotionally terrorizing people with these threats and heinous accusations for thousands of years.

[Hamsaka]

Because your god is able to convince atheists, why doesn't he?

He can and does when the time is right. I'm far from the only Atheist turned Christian.

Does your conversion to Christianity from nonbelief imply God's ability to convince nonbelievers of his existence?

The reason I ask is that whatever happened to you, subjectively, to cause your conversion, may not have been the God you believe it to be. This almost sounds like a rude question, but let me explain why it's an honest one.

Subjective experiences of 'conversion' or 'awakening' are commonly reported throughout all of humanity through the ages. I'm not disputing this experience. I think there's enough evidence that it happens, and the experiences share a lot of similarities -- no matter the deity (or 'presence') that is revealed. Hindus will experience one of their deities, Buddhists one of theirs (some buddist traditions are nontheistic) and so forth.

I believe you that SOMETHING happened. But I can't buy the existence of a Christian God (as opposed to something else) as a source or THE source of such a conversion experience. This sounds really picky, I know.

I had a powerful subjective experience similar to conversion experiences. It lacked any hint of any god I'm aware of, and I love me some worth mythology -- those dudes had their pick of me but anyway, my experience changed me but not in specific ways I could compare to an atheist converting to Christianity, for instance. It was entirely religion or ideology-free lol! I'm telling about this in defense of being called overly picky for the sake of picky-ness, I have an honest inquiry in my question