[OnTheRazorsEdge]

Michael wrote

Ahoy there! So you asked a few questions so far in this thread, and since I have about an hour to kill before I have to go to work, I figured I might take a crack at some of them. Apologies if this gets long-winded (I sometimes do that), but I do have an entire hour I need to do something with.

Michael...lol...long-winded might be a bit understated! ;-) But no worries, I really enjoyed reading your post and I am honored that you chose to spend your free hour responding to me. And I hope you had a good shift at work.

Michael wrote

Firstly, you don't purposely decide not to believe in something. Try it. Get up on your table. You there? Good. Now, choose not to believe in gravity, and walk off the table into mid-air.

No? That's because you can't choose not to believe in something. If you're here looking for us to give you reasons to decide to become an atheist, we can't. It doesn't work like that.

I don't think I agree with some of your statements here. So you're saying I don't have a choice in whether or not I believe in unicorns? And I don't have a choice in whether or not to believe in gravity? I mean, a person would be foolish to believe in unicorns and not in gravity, but he/she could have those beliefs, right?

In your example above, it seems that you are saying that my belief in gravity one way or the other will alter the result. So if I don't believe in gravity and I walk off the table, I should hang in mid-air and if I do believe in gravity then I should fall. But my belief won't change that outcome at all. Let's consider the two of us for a minute. I believe in a god and you do not. One of our beliefs is accurate. But our beliefs themselves don't have any impact on what actually is. If you don't believe in a god and it turns out that is the correct view, your lack of belief didn't make it so.

Apologies if I misconstrued the meaning of your example above. I'm not looking for reasons to decide to become an atheist. Rather, I just wanted to hear from you and others why atheism "works" for you. Like Simoon said in his earlier reply, he's heard a lot of arguments and none of them present a strong enough case.

Michael wrote

Actually, Santa (or father christmas) is a great analogy for religion.

This plays into the last part of my previous answer (ie the evidence we have points somewhere else). Let's look at the reasons you gave for not believing in Santa -

"he lives amongst elves at the North Pole, he has a flying sleigh with flying reindeer, he slides down chimneys". We'll add some more to that, too.




1) "He lives amongst elves at the North Pole" - So this plays into the whole "because we have evidence that points to it not being true" thing. We've been to the North Pole, and we've seen that Santa isn't there. Therefore he must not exist, right?

Well, this idea is just like The Firmament (aka the sky), which was at one time believed to be a hard "dome" that seperated Earth from heaven. Yep - at one point the idea was that god lived just above the sky.

Of course, eventually we got up there, and we discovered that no, that actually wasn't the case. No firmament, no heaven, and no god. So, God doesn't exist, right?

Of course that's not the case. This is when we get our first example of "shifting goalposts".
Ah, they say, Heaven must not be a physical place above us, but rather a spiritual one, another dimension, if you will.


So why, then, would us getting to the North Pole and not finding Santa be anything else? Santa's Shop, obviously, is a spiritual place North of the North Pole. That much is obvious, so not finding him at the North Pole does not mean he doesn't exist.

I guess I've never thought of Santa as a "spiritual" being (magical, maybe). But I see the point you are making with your analogy of the firmament. But I submit the idea of the "shifting goalposts" could be used against the atheist. Someone in this thread, quite possibly Simoon again, said that the case for a god hasn't met the burden of proof. But couldn't we say the same of the atheist argument? I mean, if an atheist is going to deny the existence of a god, then he/she would have to have knowledge of every place in the universe to affirm that no god exists in any of those places. But since that's impossible, it seems the atheists are stuck like the theists. Which I guess is why we're both in this forum!

Michael wrote

Now, I'm going to add one -

4) "He supposedly delivers presents to people, but we know that presents come from other people"


This is a big one, right? I mean that must prove beyond all doubt that Santa doesn't exist.

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

- Genesis 3:3 (KJV)



But as we know in the story, they ate the fruit, and didn't die, just as Satan told them. In fact, in that entire story, the only one who lies is god, whilst satan always seemingly tells the truth.


Ah, they say, but it is not literal death, it is a metaphor. It is a spiritual death, and therefore god was still telling the truth.

Maybe you've heard that being said about other parts of the bible - "Oh, you can't take that literally, it's a metaphor". We hear all the time in discussions. Anytime a literal interpretation doesn't fit within a person's worldview, it's obviously a metaphor, and they can continue to believe whatever they want to believe safely.

I find it interesting that you quoted the Bible and I think later in your post, you say that you've only been an atheist for a few years. Are you a Christian who has lost his way? If that's too personal, I apologize - curiosity got the best of me there.

But since you brought it up, let's explore this Biblical angle a bit. I think traditional Christianity holds that when God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden, he intended for man to be immortal. When A&E listened to the Serpent and defied God, this was the original sin and thus the Fall of Man. This is the point when death and disease was introduced to the world. And so reading on, we come to this:

And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

- Genesis 5:5 (KJV)


So yes, Adam (and Eve, though her death isn't specifically mentioned) most certainly did die. I assume that you assumed that they should have died at the first bite of the fruit but that clearly wasn't the case. So operating under that assumption, I guess you could then say God lied, but in my mind, that assumption should not be made.

Michael wrote

1) One, have you heard any arguments for the existence of a god (or gods) that have been at least somewhat convincing to you, and if so, what were they?


I've only been an atheist for a few years, and the biggest stumbling block for me was the old "We had to get here somehow" routine. Since I didn't know the answer to that, I assumed that the answer had to be some sort of god.

I now know two things - Firstly, not knowing the answer to something does not mean a god needs to fill it, and secondly, saying "We don't know right now" isn't the worst thing in the world.

Also there are plausible explanations for those things. Not proven beyond a doubt, but plausible enough.

I can definitely relate to this way of thinking. In fact, I'm pretty much the opposite of you. I was an atheist for most of my life and only recently came around to the idea of a god. And I agree; just because we don't know the answers doesn't mean that a god IS the answer. But for me, personally, I felt that it was a good fit. At any rate, it's pretty funny to discover that we've both flipped sides and kept the ledger in balance. ;-)

Michael wrote

2) Two, do you ever think you will be convinced that a god exists?

No, if I'm being honest. However I am open to the idea, and welcome people trying. I just don't think it will happen, given the level of evidence for a god that has been presented to me so far.



3) Three, if you had an opportunity to find out once and for all if a god existed or not, what would you want the answer to be?

Yes and no. I would love for there to be some sort of after-life, like another level in a video-game. I'd love to think that the adventure continues after we finish here. However, there is no reason to think that so I don't.

I would also hate to live forever. Think about how long eternity is. Now multiply that by 15,000,000,000,000 and you've only just begun eternity. It would literally drive you to insanity, and eventually all traces of "you" would be experienced out of existence.

No, I hope my existence is finite. I would like it to go on a little longer than it's probably going to, though.


Also - if a god were to exist, it sure as hell better not be any of the currently claimed "gods" - those guys are all massive dicks.

Well again, though I didn't agree with all aspects of it, I really enjoyed your post and I do welcome the discussion that is has bred. Thanks again for taking the time!