Posted by Hemant Mehta in A year ago, this site’s readers submitted a list of short and sweet answers to various questions atheists are often asked.
Now, I would like to compile a list of short, snappy, effective responses to arguments against atheism we always hear.
For example, “Being an atheist requires more faith than being religious.”
What other “arguments” like that are there?
How would you respond to those questions in a quick, non-philosophical sort of way?
Leave questions and responses in the comments.
Being an atheist requires more faith than being religious.
What the hell are you smoking?
In what way does it require more faith to believe what is demonstrably true than believing what cannot in any way be proved?
There is not one passage within the first two chapters of Genesis that are not contradicted by evidence and some are contradicted by other scripture in the same book. So I repeat: “Which beliefs need more faith?”
Well - a classic:
“Atheism is a religion too!”
Atheism is a religion the way “not collecting stamps” is a hobby.
Atheists have no morality.
So the only thing that keeps you from killing random people and raping random women is your belief in god?
And don’t you feel like such a looser for taking the easy way out.
Q: Doesn’t it take just as much faith to NOT believe in god as it takes to Believe?
A: As soon as you admit that there is a possibility that there is no god, I will admit that there is a possibility that there might be one.
Hint: There is, in my experience, absolutely NO chance that the true godbot can - ever - admit this. If they do, you (now dropping down from hard atheist to more “agnostic” territory) can continue the discussion, since you have just elicited wiggle room and you have a perhaps more accepting subject.
JC
“Atheism do not provide a world view that promotes hope.”
Aside from the fact that atheism is not a world view, many atheist subscribe to Humanism, which is a world view. The hope found in Humanism tries to be as realistic as possible because it puts hope in the abilities of people. This differs from religion, which can define hope in whatever outlandish ways they want.
“You actually believe in god. You’re just angry at him, that’s all.”
And so you’re just angry with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy?
And here’s a link to a wonderful list from De-conversion of a whole bunch of those catchphrases xians are always throwing at us, thinking they have us all figured out. Good source material for this.
Thank you for that, Ubi Dubium. :o)
Yes, thanks, Ubi Dubium! That’s the first argument that popped into my head when I read the post, but I’ve never been able to come up with a pithy response. Perfect.
As an atheist, I’ve been asked by Christians “Have you read the Bible?” (because in their minds, I couldn’t possibly be an atheist if I just sat down and read it), to which I’ve always answered, “Yes, I’ve read the King James Version and the NIV several times, front to back. How about you?”
Here’s a few because I’m feeling creative.
Christian: Being an atheist requires more faith than being religious.
Atheist: If, by faith, you actually mean “logic” or “reason”, then yes, I agree.
Christian: How can you be so sure that God doesn’t exist? Don’t you need to scour every corner of the universe to be 100% sure?
Atheist: No, I only need to look around the world today and be reasonably convinced that God, if he exists, is doing something seriously wrong.
Or, an alternative answer: So you telling me that I’m going to hell can be said without an iota of evidence? Wouldn’t you have to be entirely sure of that?
Christian: You’re just stealing morals from Christianity!
Atheist: You’re saying that like the natural principles of love and loyalty originated from the Bible…which they didn’t.
Christian: What if you’re wrong about the whole God question and it turns out that we’re right? Wouldn’t THAT put a dent in your ego?
Atheist: In my opinion, it’s about doing right, not being right.
“You just need to read the Bible more!”
OK - I’ll read the bible cover to cover, if you will read Origin of Species cover to cover. Do we have a deal?
(And if they agree - “Well, I’ve already read the bible cover to cover twice, so let me know when you’ve read Origin of Species twice.”)
Christian: You’ve made yourself into your own God.
Me: That’s ridiculous. I still believe in a Supreme Being, and that’s Mrs. micketymoc.
I also like:
Atheism is a religion the way bald is a hair color.
“God doesn’t believe in atheists”
errr, actually this one is tough. Anyone have a good witty response to this?
“Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.”
Or St. Paul was the con man. Or maybe you are.
@JewishAtheist -
Yes, I love the “bald” one too - it was in one of the poster contests here, so I didn’t use it.
This is fun! Hemant, this should’ve been a contest!
“If there is no God, there are no moral absolutes and we can do whatever we want with no regard for the consequences.”
Who said there are moral absolutes?
“You have no morals!”
If killing people is immoral only because God said it is immoral, then God could say wearing blue is immoral and that would be evil too. However, if God had a reason for declaring murder evil, and not the wearing of blue, then an atheist can use that same reasoning to come to the same conclusion.
(Not exactly quick and snappy, but I tried.)
I think it is notoriously difficult, as many “arguments” presented by Christians are brutally vague, equivocate like nobody’s business, commit countless logical fallacies, and require knowledge of a wide range of scientific fields.
Here’s my take. Religion is a means to deal with the fact that we’re very finite creatures in a world that is often hostile and difficult.
In other words, it is a way for people to deal with the reality that we’re all going to die. No insult to anyone younger than my 48 years, but often we don’t really think about death when we’re young. It’s like we just choose to ignore it.
I’ve seen this phenomena over and over again. The belief in “eternal life” is nothing more than the child wishing when blowing out the birthday candles that death doesn’t exist.
So, to the extent that you’re willing to say there is no “eternal life,” or no soul that reincarnates or whatever, then you’re a brave soul willing to face the fact that death might just be it.
So, to the extent that atheism says, “hey, this is it,” then it really takes more faith than belief in religion.
“Being so certain there’s no God is the height of arrogance.”
Answer: “Actually, being so certain there is a God, that you know exactly what he wants of you, that he listens to your every prayer, that he’s watching you every second, and that he inspired your particular holy book and not any of the others is the height of arrogance. Also, I’m only about 95% certain there’s no God.”
“you think we are all here by accident?!”
You claim to actually know how we all got here? The most brilliant people on earth wouldn’t lay claim to that knowledge.
Oh, gosh, doesn’t a simple “no” suffice? I mean, how does being an Atheist require more faith–that’s the antithesis of atheism! It is utter and entire LACK of faith!
Grrr….argh!
On forums I’ve seen people trot out some paraphrase of CS Lewis’ Trilemma: that Jesus was either Lord, Lunatic, or Liar. Few of these folks actually read CS Lewis but instead go for the tidbits that demolish the idea that Christ was a Liar or a Lunatic from derivative works by Strobel or Josh McDowell. Anyway, the snappy retort is to pose your own “Trilemma”. Jesus was a Man, Myth or Misunderstood.
(see, all the bits start with the letter “M” which is one step *beyond” their Trilemma so it must be a better argument. /sarcasm.
Not entirely. My Jewish parents would be displeased.
I’m pretty sure I coined this, or at least got to it on my own.
“If you don’t believe in a a God, why don’t you just kill yourself? Whats the point?”
Because my post-death schedule is empty. My pre-death schedule however, is still full.
A lot of them could use a short answer like “Arsehole”.
However, I think Cectic has a good approach, if one that might be lost on the other party.
Ha.
Well, if He was misunderstood, then we should renounce language as useless.
If He was a myth, so was Napoleon.
And, no one denies that He was a man.
A few commong ones for me:
“It’s arrogant of you to claim that you know that there is no God!”
I don’t claim to KNOW that, you’re the one claiming knowledge here - I’m simply pointing out that we we know of the world is consistent with there not being a God. But, if you want to talk arrogance, which one of us is making the claim that the supreme and almighty creator of the universe is looking out for them personally?
—————–
“You have no basis for morality without the Bible!”
Well, when you begin obeying the Bible and stoning disobedient children to death and killing people with bad eyesight who go to Church, then I might take what you say a little more seriously.
——————
“Without Jesus in your life, you must be so lonely and miserable.”
Ummm, I’m not the one who feels the need to try to frantically convince everyone else that I’m right. Are you sure I’m the one who is lonely and miserable?
——————-
“I know someone who was an atheist like you, but then they saw the light and were saved!”
Yeah, I know one person like that, too. Of course, I know twenty who used to be theists before they stopped and actually thought about the matter. Now they are all atheists.
——————–
“You just want to be an atheist so that you don’t have to think that God will hold you responsible for your actions!”
Uh-huh…of course, you believe that the sins of all Christians, no matter how great (including murder, rape, child molestation, etc.) will be forgiven if someone simply believes in Jesus - but that someone who is truly a good person who works hard to improve the lot of others doesn’t believe, they’ll be tortured for eternity.
Umm, tell me again, which one of us isn’t being held responsible?
Well, actually there doesn’t seem to be any reliable historic evidence that there was a jesus christ as described in the bible. So a myth is a completly accetable description. There is a lot of reliable historic evidence that Napoleon existed. It would seem obvious that he was misunderstood or there wouldn’t be so much violence over what he said.
1.) We have no evidence that Jesus himself (if he even existed), ever claimed to be God. His later followers claimed he was God.
2.) If you think the historicity of Jesus is even in the same ballpark as Napoleon, you are truly delusional. While no writer—Christian or non-Christian—mentions Jesus until many decades after his supposed death, and not one shred of archeological evidence exists to corroborate his existence, we have tons of evidence for Napoleon.
3.) Many people deny he was a man. Lots of people think he never even existed to begin with. As I said, nobody mentions him at all until decades after his death, and no archeology confirms the gospels.
Christian: Have you thought about your immortal soul?
Atheist: As a matter of fact I have. Along with fairies, dragons and unicorns.
Christian: Are you a Satan worshipper?
Atheist: If I believed in Satan, then wouldn’t I have to believe in God, whom your book says is going to win eventually? Why would I pick the losing side?
Christian: Are you some kind of baby eating monster?
Atheist: Well…yes. I thought everyone knew that.
This is fun.
To the best of my recollection, barely half of Americans voted at all in the last presidential election. So slightly more than a quarter voted for him.
Some would say that country gets the government it deserves, but no one deserves that guy, and our PM isn’t much better (Harper).
I’ve had it in mind to go through the Bible and make a list of the contradictory moral commandments and the parts about human depravity and making a list of them, so I can turn it around on anybody who’d try to argue that atheism is nihilistic or that it somehow devalues humanity. At least, if I can get away from video games long enough…
So there’s my two cents. Of course, this argument works better if you’ve got the basic gist of the Old Testament memorized.
“God Loves You!”
“Then why doesn’t he ever call?”
“I’ll pray for you.”
“I’ll slaughter a goat in your honor.”
True story:
“I got you tickets to the Creationist Museum.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I promised to take the kids to the Aquarium that day. What day was that?”
Re: “not collecting stamps.”
I used to use that all the time, but I dislike the negative inherent in it, so I cast about for an alternative. “…Like bald is a hair colour,” is great. I came up with, “like sobriety is an addiction.”
I had a friend use the old, “without God, where do you get your morals?” I almost choked on my coffee. This was an intelligent, successful, business professional, yet he fell into the old canard without thinking. My response? I simply asked him if he thought I was immoral. He had to allow that I was not. (Only works for someone you know well.)
Ubi/ Your True story –HILARIOUS! I’m definitely gonna re-tell that
Misunderstood, like so many xians arguing over which translation of the bible to use?
Did Napoleon room with Jesus? Share a flat? Lovers? How exactly are they connected?
If he didn’t exist, then he wasn’t a man. So you can count me in the denying camp.
My answer is “Yes, even took a college course in it, taught by an ordained Benedictine monk while I was living on the monastery grounds. I’ve read much of the apocrypha too. What’s your point?”
I do not know if making jokes about eating babies is smart. We are dealing with people who either do not like or cannot detect irony or sarcasm.
Anyway…. Another is “You are just saying you don’t believe so you can do whatever you want.” That is not why I say I do not believe, but would that be a bad thing? Aren’t religious people in this country always yakking about freedom and how wonderful it is?
Granted, they do until they meet someone who disagrees with them or does something they don’t like. I think to a lot of people “freedom” really means “freedom to conform”. That to me seems like anti-freedom.
THEIST: Jesus was either lunatic, liar, or lord.
ATHEIST: You’re forgetting “legend”.
“You atheists are just as close- minded as religious fundamentalists.”
Is “No” a pithy enough answer?
No, I guess not. How about:
“Actually, I’m open to the possibility that my atheism might be mistaken. I can even give you a list of the kinds of evidence that would convince me that my atheism was mistaken. Now, can you tell me what evidence would convince you that your faith was mistaken?”
(Tip of the hat to Ebonmuse for this one.)
Someone’s done the work for you. Check out the Skeptic’s Bible. Very, very useful resource.
Question: There’s no such thing as atheism. If you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist then aren’t you an agnostic rather than an atheist?
Answer: *sigh* Get a dictionary. There’s a difference between lack of belief and lack of knowledge.
The King leprechaun also doesn’t believe in anyone who doesn’t believe in leprechauns.
Or
God must not believe in free will. I guess that means no one can be saved.
This whole thread is just like the old Mad magazine’s “Snappy answers to stupid questions”.
Question: Why are you not out killing and raping if you are an atheist?
Answer: Since this is the only chance at life we get, why would I want to deprive somebody else of their life. If the only thing stopping you from leaning out a window with a high powered rifle and shooting up town, then keep your faith.
Lewis Black says that he would like to have faith, but he has thoughts and that just screws up the whole faith thing.
What if you are wrong?
What if you are wrong?
Depends. What if we are both wrong and there is a deity out there that only accepts skeptics and freethinkers into heaven? I’m fine then, but can you really take that chance?
Rational arguments rarely work against theists, as they are (by definition) irrational. You can craft the most elegant and well-supported arguments possible, and theists will flatly deny their validity, usually by yammering something about faith.
So, you want a good, short answer against a Christian? Just point over their shoulder and exclaim “Oh crap! It’s JESUS!!!“. When they look over their shoulder, quickly walk away. c^_^?
well, the feeling’s mutual then…wait, did you just put me on a par with your god?…um…thanks?
Since this is the “Friendly” Atheist site, I dare to write here as a former atheist, current friendly theist. I’d just like to remind everyone that the question of God’s existence is really the most important one we have to answer, since it determines whether or not we find purpose in the universe. There is not really a competition between atheists and theists. There are arguments for God that involve no references to scripture of any kind. I invite you to read my post On the Breaking of Bad Habits Acquired in One’s Youth: Smoking and Atheism for something about my personal experience.
If God does not believe in atheists, and atheists exist, then that means God does not exist.
I assume, then, that you use your religion as an excuse not to believe in every other religion.
Jesus’s teachings are irrelevant to believing the doctrine pertaining to his divinity. The decision to not be Christian is lack of belief in the supernatural mentioned in the Bible, not the bad behavior of Christians or the maxims that Jesus allegedly stated.
It is not rebellious to not believe in something. If it is, you owe Zeus an apology.
“Atheism is a religion too!”
–If that is so, then when Christians disbelieve in Zeus, Ra, Akhenaton, Thor, Krishna and Zoroaster they actually have seven religions?
or
–If Atheism is a religion, what would not having a religion be like?
Nothing gets me quite as worked up as an imaginary argument.
“Being an atheist requires more faith than being religious.”
If you have less faith than I do, shouldn’t you be following me?
Pray for an increase in faith–then maybe you can be an atheist too!
[...]There’s a great discussion unfolding over at Friendly Atheist regarding religious people who flippantly dismiss atheists. The typical (unthinking) arguments are listed along with some good-natured atheistic comebacks[...]
[...] a great discussion unfolding over at Friendly Atheist regarding religious people who flippantly dismiss atheists. The typical (unthinking) arguments are [...]
Excellent comments here. Too bad that I too think that most theists won’t even think about the arguments.
Cafeeine said:
Wasn’t Akhenaton a pharaoh? Maybe you meant Aton?
Well, pharaohs were supposed to be ‘gods on earth’ no?
You are in fact correct, although the point would stand, as Akhenaton is a good representative of the religion.
“Without god there is no basis for morality.”
The Aztecs believed that their gods demanded human sacrifice, and lots of it. They were being extremely moral by their religious standards when they performed what our society would call murder. It appears that morality is malleable across cultures, whether or not there’s a deity involved.
(Either that, or just tell them to actually read what passes for morality in the Bible. Yeesh.)
Thanks for the tip. I’ve known about the Skeptics Annotated Bible for some time, but I would be using other Bibles to corroborate the verses.
Christian: “Without belief in God people would run around committing terrible crimes.”
Me: “I think you just gave us a very candid description of how you would behave if you didn’t think you have a policeman in the sky ready to punish you. While that shows your morals are very shallow and immature, at least you’re being honest about it.”
“Atheism/Evolution/Science is just a religion!”
No, atheism/evolution/science isn’t a religion; it’s a personal relationship with reality.
~David D.G.
Cafeeine:
Well frankly i completely forgot about that one, but when you allow deified people, it gets weird… Is it really that hard to accept existence of much of Roman emperors, which were also considered gods? Eg. “Do you believe in Hadrian?” After all, there’s evidence that all these praraohs and Roman emperors existed. And you bet they tried to get rid of every mention of Akhnaton after his death.
Statement: “Being an atheist requires more faith than being religious.”
Response: “No, I economize by combining ‘lack of faith in Jehovah’ with related lacks of faiths in all other gods and supernatural entities, resulting in less overall faith.”
Hi Bob Estes and welcome.
I am wondering if you’re going to keep posting here, or if you’re doing a one-or-two-off post. (I tend to get deep into conversations with new posters who have provocative questions… then they leave!)
Anyway, I hope you’ll stick around and have lots of nice in-depth discussions here. We can certainly use more thoughtful posters like you.
As far as your statement above goes…
You are assuming quite a few things in that statement. For instance, you are assuming that we CAN indeed answer that question…. it may be totally beyond us to answer it.
But moreover, I think you are making several unsupported assumptions within the question itself. First, that a universe WITH a god is actually a purposeful universe. There may be a purposeless creator ‘god’ or gods. There may be a god of chaos. The ‘god’ that created the universe may not in any way resemble a thinking being in any way we humans could recognize. Concepts like ‘purpose’ or ‘intention’ might not apply whatsoever to a being which exists outside of time. The creation of the universe may have been unintended or accidental. The creation of the universe may have destroyed the creator. It may have been actually an act of destruction of something that existed previously.
You are also assuming that a universe without a god is a universe without a purpose. There’s no way you can know that one either, but you conveniently assume it without stating that you are merely assuming it. Well, since I am part of the universe, why can’t I just have a purpose and then therefore the universe has a purpose (among many)?
You seem to think that believing that a god exists determines whether or not we find purpose in the universe. You are assuming that it is for us to find purpose in the universe. That is unsupported. I might very well assert that the most important thing is to find life in the universe. Or humor. Or chocolate. Or unicorns. Not everything we hope to find in the universe necessarily exists.
Simply signing up with a church doesn’t reorder the universe. Merely choosing to believe in a god doesn’t suddenly create purpose in the universe.
You seem to equate “purpose” with “God”. I think you’re playing fast and loose with some pretty nebulous concepts, and using one to smuggle in the other. I think you need to be more specific, because these assertions up to now are pretty slippery.
Define what a purpose of the universe would be. Let’s assume that the universe HAS a purpose. What is it accomplishing? How do we know that it is indeed accomplishing this task, and how do we know when it has accomplished this task?
We don’t know these things, and we probably will never know these things. I’m being honest with myself when I say “I don’t know”. I won’t join a church full of people who are sure until I’m sure as well.
Have you evidence?
It does get complicated, although Jesus would arguably fall under the same category. I can accept a human upon which the theistic deity is based without believing the supernatural claims of it.
Bob Estes said:
Hi Bob:) I read your blog/essay (quite articulate) and I have a question: what made you become a theist? was it because your previous ‘worldview’ (as an atheist) carried with it “the burden of purposeless mortality”? is that the main reason?
I ask because, although your blog post/essay is quite lengthy, you never really seem to touch on the specifics of what led to your ‘conversion’.
That’s sharp. Very sharp. Kudos to you
This one’ll probably only work for Brit atheists.
Christian: God hates fags!
Atheist: Good thing there’s a smoking ban then.
If God doesn’t believe in atheists, and here I exist as one example among many, God must have imperfect knowledge of the universe, and therefore not be God per your definition.
Also, If God does exist, who are you to speak for what he believes in? I don’t recall it being mentioned in any holy scriptures that God doesn’t believe in atheists. Did he speak to you personally and tell you this information?
@Daniel:
Are you serious? I can’t quite tell, but before invoking Poe’s Law I’ll answer you:
Language is not useless. However, translating from oral history, to written Aramaic and Hebrew, to ancient Greek, to Medieval English, to modern English has been demonstrated to perpetuate multiple translational errors, rendering the text problematical at best. Not to mention the difficulty of selecting from multiplicities of sources, many contradictory. Which version of the Bible is your favourite?
So let’s modify your statement: Language is useless if you, the saviour, failed to write down a blessed word of your own and instead left it to people a generation or two behind you to write your legend down. You’d think that if His dad wrote a table of Commandments on stone that His Son would at least have left us a note.
We have considerably more evidence for Napoleon. I’ve seen his tomb. And the building he had built to house it is pretty convincing. We have portraits done from life, and we have clear and multiple historical (often unflattering) accounts by people who knew him as a friend, an enemy, a leader, and in other ways. Do you offer me such a mass of evidence? Can you show me the tomb of Christ? Even if it were empty, its existence alone would be compelling evidence.
As to denying that he was a man … um, I hate to tell you, but many people deny he was even a person.
Me, I reckon there might have been a teacher named Joshua Ben Joseph at one time. He may even have been wise–although his followers’ records are a bit garbled.
But his historicity is, if anything, more suggestive to me that he was just a guy, not divine–which again is something many people deny, and which lies at the real heart of the argument.
@Fr. Shaggy:
A big RAAAA-MEN! to the Harper statement. Why do you think no-one’s dragged his religiosity into the political spotlight? I can’t make it out.
@Bob:
Your post “On the Breaking of Bad Habits Acquired in One’s Youth: Smoking and Atheism” is mistitled. I had not to read very far before discovering this sentence:
You then go on to quote a few major modern atheists and discuss them. Badly, judging by the few segments I could bother to read. I was personally interested in your own spiritual journey (I already quit smoking a couple of years ago).
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t just the sheer massive length of the post that put me off. But your arguments, such as they are, mostly fit nicely into Daniel Florien’s hundreds of proofs. I commend them to you as a resource. You could have saved us both some time by simply annotating which ones you were using.
Near as I can figure, you compare your former atheism to your smoking habit, and claim that reading atheist books reinforced your atheism the way smoking reinforces identity and addiction, with selected quotes and discussion.
Well, reading your arguments tends to reinforce my atheism. You could safely have reduced the length of that post by chopping it to the final paragraph.
I’d like to point out, as both an ex-theist and ex-smoker, that I view theism the same way you do atheism. Each prayer I sent heavenward (without receiving verifiable or credible answers) reinforced my own sense of having a special relationship with my Creator. Every mass I attended boosted my sense of community. Likewise, every smoke I enjoyed with my friends powered both my sense of individuality and my peer-group membership.
However, I soon found that my individuality as a smoker was a lie. I was just another dupe. I came to feel similarly about Christianity. If parents smoke, the children tend to smoke. Only my dad smoked, but both my parents went to church.
Final observation:
I think I’ll let that stand as emblematic of your arguments.
Damn …
Short, snappy argument FAIL
Sorry, raging case of SIWOTI syndrome.
If I understand your excellent post, Siamang, your meaning here refers to a factual and objective reordering of the universe and purposive universe. I agree, but in the fictive, subjective sense of the universe believing does reorder the universe. What else could keep so many people in their faiths but a feeling that the universe has changed profoundly? For me, what the atheist needs to do, if possible, is to convince the believer that she/he is mistaking the one for the other.
You can argue that it determines whether or not we find a purpose to the universe, but to me the question does not affect whether we find a purpose in the universe, only whether the purpose is preordained by a higher power, or whether we find our own purpose in the universe.
Maybe we’re special because God created us in his own image, or maybe we’re special because billions of variables came together at the right time and place to ignite life on a hunk of rock orbiting a nondescript star in a nondescript part of a nondescript galaxy.
I was about to comment on Bob Estes’ blog, but Metro got most of my points in.
Is Bob Estes out to prove the existence of some God, or God as Christians understand him?
Plus, why the smear linking atheism and smoking? You barely touch on smoking at all.
After looking into Lee Strobel and his “Half-Case For Christ”, I am pretty skeptical of people who claim to be former atheists.
Well, here’s one my Mom (who’s uber-Catholic) pulled on her husband (who’s an atheist):
My mom basically told him to come to church with her one Sunday a month.
To which he responded: Sure, if you’ll stay home from church one Sunday a month.
Of course, she was all like “No, that’s not how it works!!!” and was all offended. LOL, well, how do you think your atheist husband felt? Supposedly her purpose was not to try to convert him (yeah, right!) but to try to spend more time with him. Well, wouldn’t staying home one Sunday a month accomplish the same goal?
Metro, you nailed it with your final observation.
Bob Estes wrote:
To put it short and snappy: I prayed. Nothing happened. I’ve tried it several times, in several ways described by believers as the way to get certain results. When they failed, others told me I did it wrong. Must I repeat this attempt with each and every ‘god’ and ‘conception of God’ believed in by thousands of generations of humanity?
Because if you excuse me, I’ve got some living to do before I die. I’ll leave the chasing of ghosts to the Ghostbusters.
Replying to Siamang’s questions and statements:
No plans, no promises, as I have other things to do as well. But thanks for the welcome.
Yes, I agree that when we start looking, we can’t know whether an answer is attainalble. In my mind, I have found the answer, so I posed the question that way. I probably should have said “TRY to answer.”
Well, I think you’re getting into the orbiting teapot zone there. One can imagine many seemingly logical possibilities about the nature of God, but the examples you give are not consistent with the actual universe and its wondrous physical laws. Maybe that’s just the physicist in me talking. I see a universe that burst into being, then evolved with the formation of stars in which elements heavier than helium formed, and with planets around some of the stars, on at least one of which planets life came into being and evolved into more and more complex forms, finally reaching conscious intelligent life capable of posing the question of purpose. So, I am willing to make the assumption that if there is a Creator, that Creator has power and intelligence beyond our comprehension, but not in some bizarre way. I don’t know if you’ve read my post or not, but it touches on that.
That’s a conclusion I reached during my life. I don’t know that it was my original assumption. I know I used to try hard to convice myself that we made purpose and that that was enough, but it didn’t work. It’s not a question of logic but of inner satisfaction. If you feel the universe has purpose without God, you are feeling something I can’t, but there is no convincing logical argument to be made, just evaluating for yourself. My blog post dealt with quotations from a couple of well-known atheists (Dawkins for one) that looked for purpose in the universe (assuming materlalism, i.e. no God) and saw none.
No, there is a true answer to the question of whether or not the universe has purpose, so one person’s opinion, which could be right or wrong, does not change the answer by creating purpose. I don’t think that you can really choose to “believe in a god.” What I’m saying is that when one recognizes that God exists, then one at the same time recognizes purpose, since God would not have created the universe without a purpose, even if one’s understanding of the purpose is incomplete. At the same time, one feels that it was done out of love for creation. Now, while one can’t choose to believe, one can choose to be open to being convinced or not. Again, I refer you to my blog post.
There is no distinction to be made between God’s purpose for the universe and the purpose of the universe. So asking if the universe is accomplishing its purpose is the wrong way to put it. God is accomplishing God’s purpose through and for the universe.
You are starting to ask theological questions really. Once one recognizes that there is a purpose, then the next step is indeed to try to find out what it is and how one should order one’s own life to be in harmony with it. That’s the point at which one starts to look around at existing religions. God exists. One may have felt God’s presence in some way that was well beyond an intellectual decision that God must exist. To an outsider or to yourself at an earlier time any such mystical experience might be classed as pathological, yet you have to decide what it meant. One realizes revelation by God is not ruled out, and then there’s a new set of data to evaluate: that of the teachings and beliefs of existing religions. They have after all been right on the most important question.
I say the evidence that the universe was created by a supernatural intelligence is there in the workings of the universe, including the production of moral beings in it. You are not yet convinced of that, and I sense you are not quite ready to seriously consider it. I refer you again to my blog post, which is quite long.
My turn (@Bob):
Religion might determine whether we find purpose in the universe, but not whether we’re imagining it or not.
@Bob:
You seem to be making the classic, “You guys really believe in god, but you’re in denial” argument, and your subsequent use of the word “recognize” reinforces this impression. If one can choose not to believe in god, i think it’s implied that one can choose to believe. I think you might be saying that true faith doesn’t feel like a choice, and I imagine that in a world of so-called “true” believers, this might be true. However, in modern Christianity, doubt is welcomed as a strengthener of faith. The acknowledgment of such doubt means to me that many believers do, in fact, acknowledge the alternative to belief, and are thus choosing to continue to believe.
As is also often the case with theists, you are using the phrase “keeping an open mind” as a synonym for becoming a theist. I’m sure flat-earthers complain of a lack of open minds as well. What I mean, simply, is that one does not have to temporary believe something in order to realize that it’s a load of crap, and I think temporary belief –preferably, on your part, leading to permanent belief — is what you mean when you refer to an “open mind.”
Replying to Axegrrl’s question:
Well, I said maybe later… But here is a brief outline. Over time there got to be more and more things I couldn’t explain to my satisfaction in a purely materialist framework. One step was my realization that mathematics was a type of a non-material reality. I had no doubt that we made discoveries in mathematics about real but non-material objects, as a proof was a proof mathematicians could agree on. An even more important realization was that good and evil had an objective reality in the sense that whatever planet intelligent life happened to evolve on, the basics of moral behavior involving relationships between those moral beings would be virtually identical just as the basic conduct prescribed by all religions on Earth are the same. I’m not talking about food taboos, I’m talking about condeming murder, theft, lying, etc.
As a physicist, even without having read about the fine-tuning of physical constants in the universe so that everything just happened to work out to make life possible, I started noticing things myself. I remember the first one had to do with the strength of the so called weak force of particle interactions. I had always viewed it as an unimportant oddity until I pondered its role in the reactions inside stars. The action of the weak force is a necessary step in the the nuclear fusion reactions that power the stars, such as our sun. If it were just a little stronger, stars would burn out in a short time, and life would never have had a chance to start. It was as though this step involving the weak force had just been put in to regulate the rate of star burning. Thinking about it still gives me chills. My atheistic mindset was too strong for me to abandon it over that observation alone, but the fact haunted me, and many others joined with it to make it seem something funny was going on. I never was really convinced by the dismissive argument that said why of course the constants are just right for life, we’re here aren’t we? That to me is a typical atheist’s evasion. Then there were things like the music of Bach. Where was that coming from? The universe was so beautiful that that in itself seemed to argue for something beyond physics.
I’m talking about decades of being a hard atheist, so all these things kept kicking around in my mind, but shuffled out of sight most of the time. At a crucial point I read the Polkinghorne book I mentioned in my blog post, and his arguments just finished driving in a lot of nails I had already gotten started. From rational conviction that God probably existed came a final plunge into theism that was far from merely intellectual. On the other side of that experience I was a different person, and there is no way I could ever go back to being an atheist.
I was relieved of the burden of purposeless mortality at the time of my conversion. Was the burden the cause of the change? I can’t answer that question, and I can’t know to what extent I was guided to my conclusion (not coerced), though I feel I was.
Hope that helps, but I’ll probably say more on my blog one of these days.
Thanks for your kind words and approach.
Your “insight” about mathematics is difficult to follow. Of course mathematics is non-material and abstract: we made it up. It endures as a system of study partly because many types of math have real-world applications, and partly because it’s just interesting. The fact that we can imagine a non-material reality implies nothing more than the fact that we can imagine a non-material reality.
Why would they be the same? There’s absolutely no basis for comparison between us and purely hypothetical extraterrestrial cultures. They could be a hive-mind, with no notion of the individual, or they could embody infinite other possibilities. Your assertion that most religions prescribe similar moral principles also lacks a basis in reality. The so-called perfect set-up of the fundamental physical constants is trivially explained by the anthropic principle.
@ Bob Estes