"I Don't Believe in God"

“More consequences for thought and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other question.”-Mortimer Adler

Regardless of who you are, I can guarantee you one thing: as you reading these articles, you stand in one of three positions.
1. You believe in God (Theism)
2. You don’t know whether or not God exists, and may not care (Agnosticism)
3. You don’t believe in God.(Atheism)
Your perspective is dependent on this belief as its core, which affects your thoughts, which in turn affects your decision processes. More so than any other question, who you are is dependent on your answer to this question.
You got there by your own means, and for your own reasons. Before I go any further with this, however, let me make one thing clear. This article is not meant to attack you or your beliefs. I am simply offering this for your consideration: all I ask is that you look at it with an open mind, and contemplate on your perspective thoroughly. Examine yourself meticulously, and your own reasoning strictly.
What is a theist? Essentially, it is one who believes in God. Some believe because they have seen enough evidence to convince them of this. Some believe because they believe they have experienced a supernatural event that must have come from God. Some believe simply because their parents believed, and their parents before them. Whatever the reason, they believe.
“Don’t know, don’t care”. I remember in Sunday school, my teacher explained agnosticism to me in this way. I was twelve. Little did I realize at the time, but it would not be long before I myself took this position. I don’t think that it was so much that I didn’t know as it was that I just didn’t care. Funny how apathy can settle in so easily. What a dangerous state of mind to be in: to be apathetic. In apathy, there is no growth, no trial, no life; only atrophy. But I’m not sure that my Sunday school teacher was completely correct in his curious definition. Sometimes we care so much about not knowing, that we hide from knowledge. Think about it: If there isn’t a God, nothing changes. I can continue in my happy little world without having to worry about anything too…religious, shall we say? However, if there is a God, everything changes. People don’t like change. We tend to fear it, especially when the change is so monumental. Therefore, we hide from knowledge, wanting not to be confused by the facts.
There are two categories of agnosticism: The first we’ve already discussed. That is, the person who either doesn’t care or doesn’t want to know. Once you can break this fear or apathy, and open yourself up to the possibilities, you may decide that God does exist. You simply need to know the facts at that point. The difficult part is getting past the fear or apathy. This takes time, and a lot of work.
The second category is often referred to as complete agnosticism. Basically, it means that nothing is absolutely true. There is no right or wrong, only different perspectives; an intriguing notion in the way of philosophy. The problem is that the person who believes this is absolutely certain that this is true. I challenge anyone to debate this with a mathematician or a physicist. We know that perspective plays a role in the universe: quite a big one. Relativity shows, however, that perspective is assessable, and certainly that it can be compensated for.

Finally, the atheist claims,“I know that God does not exist. There absolutely is no God.” Even as a scientist, I was amazed at how many say this. There is so little that we know about the universe. So much more that we don’t know. The problem with saying for sure that there is no God is that in order to prove that there is no God, one must know all things, and must be everywhere at all times. Essentially, one must be a god in order to not believe in one, because the one thing they don’t know, the one place at the one time that they aren’t present may contain proof of God’s existence.
So the question is this: is there enough evidence that God does not exist? This comes down to the same question in favour of God’s existence. Where is the proof? Is it more logical to accept that there is a God, or to accept that there is not? In this section of the thread, we’ve only touched on two arguments, and said a few things that pointed to his existence. But we have only grazed the outermost layer. For more little tidbits of evidence, check out http://www.apologeticspress.org/ or http://warrenchristianapologeticscenter.com . There are many other sources showing the evidence of God’s existence. But this is a conclusion you must draw yourself. The trouble is, sometimes it’s not about logic. Sometimes it’s about emotions and past experiences. Sometimes it’s about philosophical questions and doubts. Whatever the reason, personal problems with faith in God are difficult to get around, and require much more than the evidence, or an article. It requires some serious personal, one-on-one time to work through.
Whatever your stance is, I hope that this the things we will look at in the future will either change your perspective on the subject, or at least opened up some curiosity about it. Please check out the links above, and read everything you can on the subject. If you have any questions or wish to talk about some personal issues with the existence of God, please email me at turner.logos@gmail.com.
Until then, good night, and may God guide you to His people.

Ekklesia

Oop....that second link is actually http://www.warrenapologeticscenter.com/

Ekklesia

U will find out when your burning n hell

Yea imma be burning when I'm older too. In an atheist(: some r brn like dat

We can't either prove or disprove deity exists, but given what we do know we can conclude that an omnipotent, supreme deity has a very low probability of actually existing. Our universe is huge, with billions of galaxies and hundreds of billions of stars, all that is known and unknown has an almost 14 billion year history. In all honesty, we do not need religion and god to understand the universe and why we are here. Science provides answers that are solid in evidence, and provides revelations that are far more intricate, meaningful, and beautiful than what faith can offer. It's normal for us humans to wish that when we die there's a place we can go to continue to live on, and that there's a being that can help us and give us strength in life to face our problems. These ideas are comforting, but we must not give in to our desires to what we want to be true, instead we should continue to build upon the knowledge that is already known. Religion was used in times when there was much ignorance concerning the universe; now it is unnecessary in our world. Science gives us a glimpse into the "mind of God," figuratively speaking, of course. Let us drop the inconsistencies of superstition, and begin to thrive in the era of skepticism and rationalism.

lighter wrote:

U will find out when your burning n hell

Isn't it against your religion to judge others? Wait, isn't it a sin? And doesn't your book state that all sins are equal in the eyes of your lord? Yeah, I'll save ya a seat!

lighter wrote:

U will find out when your burning n hell

No need to be concerned.
This thread was started to promote an event at the West Ripley Church of Christ.

More info here http://www.topix.com/album/detail/ripley-wv/9...

Ripley Event>> Although you are correct that there is an event that we are hosting here in town, my intentions here are not to promote that. I've already accomplished that in the link you just posted (and thank you for making that available here). No, my purpose here is much more....long-term, shall we say?

By the way of advertisement, the event is free, and I'd really like to see you there, get to meet you in person, and discuss the topic with you in person. Yeah, that'd be really cool. But that's up to you.

Okay, WAN; as the other responses seem to be simply posted in jest, I'll respond to your post only, as the only one with a rational thought.(Not meaning to be insulting by that statement, just pointing out the obvious.)

First, for the record, I'd like to define a couple of the terms you used according to Webster's dictionary Webster, Noah. Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language. New York, NY: Standard Reference Works, 1956.):
Skepticism:
1.“The doctrines and opinions of the Pyrrhonists or skeptical philosophers; universal doubt; the scheme of philosophy which denies the certainty of any knowledge respecting the phenomena of nature.
2. In theology, a doubting of the truth of revelation, or a denial of the divine origin of the Christian religion, or of the being, perfections, or truth of God.
3. A critical attitude toward any theory, statement, experiment, or phenomenon doubt ing the certainty of all things until adequate proof has been produced; the scientific spirit.”
Rationalism:
1.“In philosophy, the doctrine which affirms that reason furnishes certain elements without which experience is not possible; opposed to sensualism or sensism, which affirms that all knowledge is derived from sense, and to empiricism, which refers all knowledge to sensation and reflection or experience.
2. In theology, a system of opinions deduced from reason, as distinct from inspiration, or opposed to it.”
Or did you really mean to say rationality, which is defined:
“The quality of being rational; the power or faculty of reasoning; possession of reason; reasonableness.?”
So that I know how to properly answer you on these, please indicate the definition you intended to speak of.

As to your first preposition, let's begin an analysis of your argument:

By your first clause, I assume you meant that we cannot prove scientifically that deity exists. If that is the case, then very good. I concur wholeheartedly: especially if we're discussing the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible (And for our purposes, I will assume we are exclusively). The Bible presents God as being spirit (John 4:24). Therefore, it would be illogical to attempt to prove the existence of God with empirical evidence, as a spirit is not physical.
As to the second clause of your opening sentence, I must say: this is quite the leap in logic.
You’ve gone from making the assertion that the evidence suggests a lack of deity to presenting your evidence (which itself is perfectly logical). Your evidence, however, is not so convincing: you presented that the universe is huge, that it has billions of galaxies and hundreds of billions of stars, and that it is almost 14 billion years old (13.6 according to the HST calculations, to be more precise.)
Yet none of this evidence leads to a logical conclusion that the existence of God is unlikely. Now, I realize that there is almost certainly some steps in your logic that you have not yet presented, but so that we may analyze them together, I ask that you do present your full argument.
Now, let’s analyze the argument you’ve provided. For the sake of analysis, I will attempt to break it down into a syllogism:
1. Science provides answers that are solid in evidence, and the Bible does not.
2. Science provides revelations which are more intricate, meaningful, and beautiful than what faith can offer.
3. Therefore, we need neither religion nor God to understand the universe and why we are here.
First, I need to point out that this is not a valid syllogism as it is not presented in such a way that the conclusion is implied by the premises. However, it would be unfair for me to expect that of you.(I do not mean to belittle you, my friend ... I simply mean that since I can gather that you have not been taught proper methods of logical argumentation, to expect that of you would be unfair. I’m simply pointing out some necessary facts.)
Now, as to your first premise, I would agree with the first clause. Science does provide answers (at least for the most part) that are supported by adequate empirical evidence. As you might suspect, however, I do not agree with the second clause. I wonder: what would you say if I were to claim that the Bible does indeed provide answers that are supported by adequate evidence?
As to your second premise, I must point out that you are arguing on the basis of aesthetics – an entirely subjective area of contemplation, and one that provides neither solid evidence nor a rational argument. Second, I must furthermore ask: can you rationally make a claim that you have fully considered all the answers provided by what faith can offer? If not, then what do you have that you can rationally compare with what science has to offer? On what basis do you make the comparison? Assumption, perhaps?
For the moment, I’ll stop here. Please answer this, and we’ll see where we go from there in our analysis.

Err....That's proposition; not preposition. I apologize. Not joking, I'm dyslexic. It tends to happen more in vocal speech, but from time to time it happens in writing too.

I mean rationalism by "a belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response."
And my definition for skepticism I am intending is "skeptic - a person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions."

I'm using the New Oxford American Dictionary to define these words.

First, I would like to comment on this statement. "The Bible presents God as being spirit (John 4:24). Therefore, it would be illogical to attempt to prove the existence of God with empirical evidence, as a spirit is not physical." But then is it illogical to claim something on such a large scale as a god exists without first having any sort of evidence whatsoever to support? Remember, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." There is no proof to support the ideas of god and spirit, unless you use books that are almost two millennia old, written by people with severely limited knowledge of the laws of the universe. One also always justifies their belief in deity by "personal experience" also, but this also does not hold any weight, for any supernatural occurrences any person can experience can be explained by natural processes (or problems) pertaining to the mind.

To understand the physical world we must use science. We must not make exceptions pertaining to god and superstition. I saw in your first comments that created this thread about there being many things we do not know and since we don't know them all we can't thoroughly say there is no god. Well...to say there is a god then surely you must know everything then, right? We can't use gaps in knowledge to justify god, but rather use the gaps for inspiration to one day fill them with valid, empirical knowledge. I don't know everything, but based on what I know of both religion and science I can honestly say that I believe god more than likely does not exist. I'll stand by this decision regardless of what religion may claim to answer for me. You can try to belittle my intellect as much as you want, but I don't jump to conclusions and claim there is when I have nothing telling me of the sort.

So, believe what you will, I'll take the path of certainty rather than faith. Good day to you.

Ahh, I see. Thank you for clarifying. Your appeal to both of these qualities implies that you believe that faith does not allow for them - I beg to differ. I would furthermore make the appeal myself, with the added appeal that faith be based on rational conclusions derived from adequate evidence.

Forgive me if I sounded as though I were belittling your intelligence: as I stated within my response, that was not my intent: but I must present an adequate case for faith - which means I must reveal the flaws in your assertions. Feel free to do the same with mine, with equal respect as I have for you, my friend.

Now, as to your response: the purpose of my assertion that one must have all knowledge to rationally make the claim of an atheist is simply to reveal the logical fallacy of the claim that one can know for certain that God does not exist; it is not adequate to be used as evidence of existence. In order to prove his case, the atheist must prove a universal negative. No, this is not the case with the theist. His responsibility is to present sufficient evidence to warrant the conclusion that God exists: which simply means having enough evidence to prove his case.

You, however, do not make the claim to atheism; but rather to agnosticism: the same claim I myself used to subscribe to.

You asked if it is logical to make the claim of the existence of God without evidence, reminding me of the anecdote that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I concur; it would be illogical, and the anecdote is quite correct. So what if I were to present you with such evidence? Would you examine it with me as objectively as possible?

Also, I'd like to point out that your claim, "One also always justifies their belief in deity by 'personal experience,'" is erroneous. I have not, nor will I ever make the claim to a 'personal experience,' as you have spoken of. You are correct in that such a claim would be improvable, subjective, and have no bearing on this case whatsoever.

To understand the physical world, yes, I would agree that science (the method of presenting empirical evidence) is the only viable method. However, science is limited to that alone.
There are other forms of evidence beyond the empirical - there is historical documentation, for example. Would you not agree that if sufficient evidence of a claim can be established to support the claim, it is perfectly logical to conclude the validity of the claim? Would that not effectively prove the case to be true?

If you would agree, then by all means: present your case. Please answer my questions, and present your full argument for analysis, and we'll begin.

It's amazing what the mind can achieve with a little bit of faith, in anything

Greetings.

I understand you must make a case for faith, so I won't hold it personally when picking at assertions. May I also make a correction about my belief (or lack thereof.) Rather than my views being just agnostic, I ascribe to agnostic atheism. My claim is that deity can neither be proven or disproven at this current era of time. I do not believe in something without there being evidence for it, so that makes me an agnostic. With what we do know, however, I base my personal belief regarding deity, which is atheism.

Also with the comment about 'personal experience,' I was not aiming this towards you, but rather this is one of the much widely used reasons behind many of the people I've talked to who do believe. I'm simply stating that any claim using this as justification is thrown out the window to me. From what I can gain from your posts you do seem pretty reasonable, so I assume the evidence presented from your side wouldn't be so trivial.

I am highly curious of this evidence you speak of on your behalf. I do agree with you that with enough historical documentation one can say a particular claim can gain some validity. I really do not know of what historical documentations you are mentioning that would provide enough evidence to justify belief in god. The Bible is certainly no book that belief can have a firm, solid foundation, if your point is trying to provide proof of the Judeo-Christian God. The Bible is not even enough to prove of the existence of Jesus. The gospels were not even written until almost a century after the supposed date of Jesus' death. Along with this lapse in time, the story of Jesus also is very similar to the older dying gods in mythology, such as Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus, so on and so forth. The Bible also has many parallels to the older Mesopotamian mythological text, The Epic of Gilgamesh. This, in my eyes, makes the bible nothing more than another rehashed book of old mythologies compiled into a new form for a new culture and time.

When looking at historical texts, we have to take into consideration their overall validity. Holy Scriptures have no basis in fact whatsoever, and even if science can prove a couple claims that were written town in a text doesn't necessarily make the embodiment of the texts valid. From what I've read there really isn't anything about Jesus that was documented except for what was included in gospels that were either included or denied from the final draft of what we now consider the Holy Bible.

So, I ask of you to present this historical evidence that claims there is considerable enough proof to conclude god can exist, without the use of any religiously or mythologically themed scripture.

Okay, I'm glad you're willing to examine the case. Right now, I'm just getting ready to sit down with my wife to enjoy the rest of the evening watching Star Trek, so we'll begin with tomorrow. There is a great deal of material to go over, so we'll take it step by step, alright?

But please, when you're ready, I believe you also have a case for agnosticism to present to me.

Until tomorrow, I look forward to the challenge, my friend.

I hope you like the heat, cause your going to burn in hell.

Oh, and I almost forgot. My basic argument for the case is as follows. It will serve to present the whole of my argument for the case. Tomorrow, we will look at several, more specific arguments which will serve to prove the basic argument, which as stated previously is as follows:

1) If the Bible presents both the claims that the God it present exists, and that Jesus is the Messiah, the "Son of God," and if there exists sufficient evidence to prove that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, historically and scientifically accurate Word of God, then the God it presents must exist, and Jesus must be the Messiah, the "Son of God."
2) The Bible presents both the claims that the God it present exists, and that Jesus is the Messiah, the "Son of God," and there exists sufficient evidence to prove that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, historically and scientifically accurate Word of God.
3) Therefore, the God it presents must exist, and Jesus must be the Messiah, the "Son of God."

I realize this is not the best argument in the world with which to present the case for Christianity; but it is valid, and with the arguments to be presented, will prove to be sound. Hey, it's the best I could do in six minutes.

Anyway, until tomorrow.