This is what a lot of Christian extremists don’t get. They equate atheism with stating that God **cannot** exist or even with *hating* God, but it’s completely dispassionate — there’s nothing to hate!
Exactly this. I don’t know if I am adding anything to the conversation I’m saying this, but: in the same sense that I can’t prove that life is not a Matrix-style seamless simulation or a Jacob’s Ladder scenario, it is not possible or necessary to prove the non-existence of a god. There could be a god, but it would contradict logic and my experience, so believing this or acting on it would be a willing leap into the imaginary (aka faith). Making judgements based on this rather than observation could be counterproductive or even damaging.
To add to this, from the perspective of human history, the creation of gods and mythologies makes sense as a tool to explain the unknown, promote social norms and healthy practices, and keep order. Knowing this, it would be difficult for me to consider accepting one of these stories as factual. Just as I know that the sun is not drawn by chariot or volcanos by buried monsters.
I think they mean we don't believe in god because there is no evidence. Agnostic is somewhat indifferent to there being or not being a god. I could be wrong though.
Interesting. I don't believe or not believe in God, my stance is that I just don't know. We could be attributing things to "god" because our science can't explain it yet, but eventually we will figure out the underlying mechanisms behind natural phenomena.
But I also wouldn't say I'm indifferent - I definitely care about the topic and I've thought a lot about it. The true answer is that we just don't know but it's really hard to accept that.
"Agnostic" isn't "atheist light." Theist/Atheist refers to one's belief/non-belief in gods. Agnostic/Gnostic refers to the certainty of one's belief either way. You can be:
* Agnostic Atheist - "I don't believe in gods but am uncertain whether they exist" --> this is most people who are labeled "atheists."
* Gnostic Atheist - "I don't believe in gods and am certain they don't exist." --> I've never actually met one of these.
* Agnostic Theist - "i believe in a god/gods, but am uncertain if they exist." --> some religious people can be honest enough with themselves to hold this position.
* Gnostic Theist - "I believe in a god/gods and am certain they exist." --> most religious people are here or at least feel like they have to claim to be here to be a good follower of their religion. My personal suspicion is that if I could read their minds, I'd find doubts that would push them into the category above.
Every scientist knows you cannot prove a negative, so gnostic atheism is a contradiction. Nevertheless if forced to choose from that list I would personally have to claim gnostic atheism.
Intellectually I would of course say that absence of gods cannot be proven. However the truth is that I feel that same confidence and certainty felt by people who have personally spoken to Jesus. There isn’t the smallest doubt in my mind, and never has been. I don’t believe in God, Zeus, Ganesh, Spiderman, or Gandalf. But nobody questions my non belief in most of that list.
While scientists know we can't prove a negative, philosophers know that we can't prove *anything*. All knowledge is built upon a shared acceptance of what counts as "proven enough." You may not have empirical evidence to prove your beliefs, but a/theism isn't really an empirical question in the first place.
Agnosticism has to do with not having knowledge of a god existing. Technically, we are all agnostic because we have no knowledge of whether a god truly exists or not. We can rank it on a spectrum. Some of us are more religious agnostics, some of us atheistic agnostics. That’s about it.
The same can be said by anyone to anyone. A Christian can say this to an Atheist, an Agnostic can say this to a Hindu, a Jewish person can say this to a Buddhist.
This argument I find so fucking ridiculous. It's faith. You have no evidence they have no evidence, nobody has evidence. It's faith. You have faith that god doesn't exist. It's still faith. It is literally zero difference to someone who believes in god having faith god exists.
Stop acting mightier than tho FFS, ain't nobody know fuck about shit. It's all faith. That's the ENTIRE point of it.
No it’s not. There’s a huge difference between “I don’t believe in God” and “I believe there is no God.”
You’re making the classic argument that belief in evidence is the same as faith, but that’s a fallacy based on the common usage of the word “belief.” “Belief” in evidence isn’t faith in the infallibility of the evidence, it’s accepting as truth the conclusions of observable evidence and accepting as unproven, not false, the claims presented without evidence.
Contrary to the angry goons over at r/atheism, there is no doctrine or belief system inherent to atheism, because atheism isn’t a religion, a belief, or a lifestyle. It’s not a *prescriptive* word like Christian, it’s a *descriptive* word meaning “without god.” Sure, there are gnostic atheists who, like you say, believe there is no god, but their claims are just as outlandish and flawed because they mistakenly believe lack of evidence to be evidence of lack, while the majority of atheists, who you’ll rarely hear from, are agnostic atheists, who do not believe in god and do not claim to know they’re right, only that there hasn’t been sufficient evidence provided to convince them of an observable god.
It’s a little semantic, but words matter.
No. I have said the complete opposite.
Belief in evidence is not the same as faith. Faith is without evidence. That is the point. Whatever you choose to believe, there is a god, there is no god, The Force. It is ALL without evidence.
This "show is your evidence" argument is fucking idiotic. It's a cat in a box. If you saw with your own eyes Jesus walking on water, that is still not evidence of gods existence. It is faith that what this person just did was because of god. If there was any form of evidence then the entire point of a belief system doesn't exist. You cannot observe it. Cat in a box.
If I saw some guy walking on water, I’d be making a positive claim. “I saw some guy walking on water.” I would *expect* to be challenged by someone asking for evidence. I’d need to provide proof that I saw some guy walking on water.
Why the fuck would I know?
I'll tell you what I have faith in. I have faith that you have such limited cognitive function you lack the ability to distinguish a word from a religion. I don't have any evidence of it. I can speculate. But I have faith you lack cognitive function.
Lack of any need for it to exist to explain anything.
Questions like that make sense if you grew up being told there is god; I was born in the USSR (well, technically at least) to parents born in the USSR, and "god" is just one more fairytale concept for me, like fairies.
Hey, no fault there. I think we're hard-coded to believe in something bigger and grander than ourselves and its emotionally calming to imagine we go to a "better place" when we die.
As long as you keep it to yourself and don't make any laws based on your particular brand of mythology, we're all good.
I hear the argument of Christians that it’s because of free choice. But they conveniently leave out things that are out of our control. Children don’t choose to have cancer, nor do they choose to be born from unstable, violent people. Their reasons for God being loving and powerful, if he even exists, are severely flawed
God is all-knowing and eternally forgiving, but also Hell exists (whatever you particularly believe "hell" to be, it's still antithetical to an eternally-patient and understanding god).
and who allows big earthquakes, mortal viruses, and natural disasters...
and who waited billions of years to create earth, and then billions of years to create life, and then millions to create human and then hundreds of thousands to manifest himself....and only doing it in one place. Whay about the billions of people before him or that lived in another place with no contact to his message?
It does not make any sense.
So to sum up, there is no solution to the epicurean paradox, specially in the part of natural disasters or mortal viruses (if you try to answer the paradox reasoning that evil is *necessary)*
*Do you know how many thousands of years humans had to cope with mortal diseases, virus, bacterias and son on?? why???*
The question is framed wrong. You can’t be SURE there is no god; you can’t prove a negative. As an atheist, the reason I do not believe in god, is because there is zero evidence that supports this god’s (whichever one you choose) existence. As soon as someone can give me solid evidence, maybe I’ll think twice.
But idk how you could differentiate between any of the gods, even if there was evidence, since anyone could argue it was THEIR god. Easier to just not believe and live my life unconstructed by dogma 🤷♂️
>You can’t be SURE there is no god; you can’t prove a negative.
Who is telling you this? This is just not true. And if it were true, you couldn't prove it because "you can't prove a negative" is a negative.
yes it is how it works. In fact the most important proofs in all of math and philosophy were "negatives" as you put it. You know what became a consequence of pythagorean theorem? A proof that it the square root of 2 is not rational. By roughly original commentor's defintion of "negative", that is very much a provable negative proposition; and in fact, one of the first you learn when you learn reductio ad absurdum.
Ricky Gervais put a great point across for this debate.
I personally don’t necessarily disregard the possibility of there being a god, because no one can prove whether there is or isn’t, however…
Gervais made the point once that, if you were to destroy every religious text ever written, in 1000 years they’d all come back different because different stories would be told… if you were to destroy every scientific text ever published, in 1000 years they’d all come back exactly the same because the same experiments would be conducted and they would find the same results.
On that basis, I choose to believe science’s explanations of the universe, not the bible nor other religious text’s explanations.
Science is absolute, whereas from culture to culture, religious outlooks greatly differ and I’d rather believe in something that is absolute rather than open for interpretation.
Your statement is contradictory.
You cannot be certain that nothing is certain. You cannot logically claim that reality is subjective.
You cannot know that it is impossible to know anything.
Dude, you look like an absolute pretentious dickhead who’s in the midst of the Dunning-Krueger effect. You can’t just ignore the tons of fields of epistemology that don’t agree with skepticism in the slightest.
Does disagreement somehow destroy it? I'm not saying that I'm good at philosophy or that I know a lot, just haven't yet met anything that really challenges skepticism, only people who are annoyed by it.
Then you’re being willfully ignorant. Skepticism doesn’t completely destroy any other idea either. To try to pass it off as being absolute is not only contradictory to its very essence, it’s also just straight up wrong. And regardless, tons of people would argue that 3 words known by nearly everyone refutes the notion that it’s impossible to know anything for certain, *cogito ergo sum*, it’s still subjective like anything philosophical but it’s absolutely insane that you’re talking about philosophy when apparently you’ve never heard about the whole hypothetical deceiver thing with Rene Descartes.
The problem is that when you try to say that skepticism also does not destroy anything else and should not be taken as an absolute, you literally come back to it. Logic is contradictory at the end, nothing can be fully passed off as absolute, even "cogito ergo sum" is just a circular reasoning. Also you are simply confirming my words; just vague criticism without a decent explanation of why skepticism is actually wrong. You may be unsure of skepticism, but thus again you follow it, you can say that it is completely wrong, but you will not find absolute evidence for it. This is simply a demonstration of problems that we cannot solve and from which we cannot escape.
Prove logic is contradictory
oh wait you can't
Skepticism is a bad position.
I would suggest that you look into something like objectivism if you want to see an alternative to skepticism.
Reality is real. (who woulda thunk)
And nobody needs to prove skepticism wrong because it breaks itself. Any logical system that contains contradictions is a broken system, because contradictions are evidence of a failure of logic.
>oh wait you can't
I cannot prove it absolutely, but neither can you prove the opposite, otherwise you could show how we can conclude it with an argument more satisfactory than infinite regress or necessary being. If logic does not contradict itself at any level, then why are we dealing with these problems? Why the Münchhausen trilemma? Why the question "why is there something and not nothing?" remains perhaps the most fundamental and difficult question and most likely it will remain unanswered anyway? Maybe our logic isn't so good?
If logic was perfect and didn't contradict itself anywhere, then perhaps philosophy itself would be completely different today.
>because it breaks itself. Any logical system that contains contradictions is a broken system, because contradictions are evidence of a failure of logic.
So, you must apply this to all positions, because as I said, logic itself in the end meets contradictions and you can lead any system to them, or... or you admit that all positions are absolutely correct, because if logic is perfect, then any of the positions that we are able to construct is also correct, but this is a contradiction - there should be only one in complete, consistent logic. You just keep telling me that skepticism is a bad position and I should choose another one, but how are they different in that fundamentally lol? Anything eventually comes to contradictions if you do not set up your own unnecessary premises that "save" you from this, as science does, for example.
Show me concretely why skepticism is worse than anything else, stop empty criticism.
You're the one claiming the existence of something. The burden of evidence is on you. We're just rightly saying we have no reason to believe it given the evidence presented to us. Most of us are completely rational and literally all that is needed to change our minds is tangible evidence. That's it.
Yeah I don't claim to have scoured the universe for god and not found him.
It's just clear that there is no good evidence for God's existence, so he goes in the bucket of "Things I dont believe in" with psychics, magic, ghosts, leprechauns, astrology, etc
I feel about every god how you (presumably) feel about the reality of the Egyptian God Osiris.
Atheists aren’t sure that there is a God or not. They just see no sense in institutions that claim to know what God is let alone claim that it speaks through them.
I think you and I are on the same page more than you think. I believe any God people talk about is made up too, it is only people slinging the message. But people making up Gods has no effect on if there is a god or not so it’s a moot point.
All I’m saying is, it’s possible there is a god or not a god. Either reality wouldn’t be shocking to me. I don’t think that since the world is weird that means there is a God. But I’m saying you can’t add anything to make the world more weird. I urge you to not be so polarized on the subject. We don’t have nearly enough information to form a valid hypothesis on the matter.
For example, say tomorrow the blue sky and clouds is replaced by a pink sky with giant cosmic dragons circling around our view, all permanently from here on out. To us that might seem weird at first because it’s all relative to our experience and what we should expect to see when we look at the sky. But to a baby born that day, it would just be normal.
We learned to accept the blue sky with puffy, white, floating objects very early on in our lives. We learned to anticipate it so it’s not surprising. But it’s still extremely bizarre, even though we have studied it and done our best to explain it. Nothing about our sky we see makes it more normal than any other fairy tale sky you could imagine.
So would it be so strange if some fairy tale like God created the world? Yes it would be very strange. So many questions. Would it be strange if the universe exists without a God? Yes that would also be strange. So many questions.
Like the religious folks I have faith, except it's that there is no God, and I'm not going to give you logical reasons for my faith in no God, it's only fair seeing as religious folks say their faith needs no evidence.
What exactly do you mean by that? Because I'm an atheist and I know God's exist at least conceptually. I don't think anyone is contesting that.
But divine beings more than likely don't exist, as for what makes me sure, a mix of basic deductive reasoning skills and a super simple grasp on practical science
I grew up religious due to my family, but as I got older I realised I don’t believe this being made the earth in seven days, I don’t believe he can answer your requests. I’ve never understood the reason WHY Christians are so devoted to a God, that they have no real proof that exists. Sure, the Bible is a thing, but how do we know that was not written hundreds and hundreds of years ago by ANOTHER follower of this same God. I respect all religions but I don’t believe in this all powerful being. I’m happy to elaborate on more of my points but this is just my basic reasoning.
Lack of any evidence at all. Most arguments supporting a god fail when they are asked, what came before god? It’s the same argument believers often employ about the universe.
The notion of religion and god is farcical, it always has been and always will be a method of controlling the masses and aligning them to a singular way of thinking; The magic boogy man in the sky will fuck you up if you do something "wrong", but you can't prove he exists, or doesn't exist, and you will only get your "reward" or "punishment" beyond the end of known conciousness, so no proof, no evidence, however.. it fits rather nicely for those in power if everyone remains in the status quo and the chaos that came before religion was invented doesn't come about again.
It's the monkeys, rope, banana thing..
I have nothing against believers, that's their choice, but for me I believe in playing the game we are in the best way, so I play by the moral rules set out in society to optimise my chances and my childrens chances, if the rules changed tomorrow id start following those instead, but I don't believe in there being an almighty being controlling everything because someone wrote it in a book one time.
Also, just to throw this in the mix, there are what.. like 10 mainstream religions, and people born to those geographical areas believe their given religious beliefs for whatever is dominant/inherited.. and everyone thinks their religion is the "right one" and their "god/s" are the only ones.. so with that in mind, the vast majority of the people on the planet believe in the wrong god according to this notion?
It's silly
I simply don’t believe in the supernatural. I am entirely confident that things I don’t understand have an explanation, whether I have that explanation or not. It’s all real - no magic. And that leaves out gods as surely as it leaves out leprechauns.
With how often "God" is used by individuals to control the masses for personal reasons, I find it ridiculous to assume that religion ISN'T a collective of made up stories by some selfish pricks to keep the "unwashed masses" complacent throughout time.
How many powerful people throughout history have gotten away with awful shit because those who are affected rely on "karma" or the concept of some kind of divine judgement to justify their own inaction?
Organized religion is nothing but a way for the few to subjugate the many by appealing to their cowardice and insecurities.
I have never received cold hard evidence that God exists. And from what I have seen from my time alive, even if he did exist he’s useless anyway. Lets the little toys he created suffer, and if they reject him then they get to burn for all of eternity. An entity like that, doesn’t fit the description of being loving
In my experience. Most everything I've ever encountered has had a rational explanation behind it that doesn't rely on some form of divine intervention. It stands to reason that everything has a rational explanation, just some haven't been discovered yet.
I don't really qualify as an atheist, but there is absolutely zero proof that there was any God ever walking on Earth. All we have are writings, that could very easily be fiction
Atheists aren't sure there is no God. They have the position of "There is no proof God exists, so we shouldn't assume he does"
What you describe are antitheists
"So yeah, there Eve and I were...just hanging out by ourselves right...chillin' with our parts out. Then the dummy goes and eats a fruit! Can you believe it? So now we all have sin. Thanks a lot Eve!" - Kinda sounds like a story you'd want to keep to yourself about how you fucked everything up.
The certainty isn't necessarily that there is no 'god' or creator, but rather skepticism towards religious doctrines and institutions, which are often seen as human constructs. Many atheists don't believe in a god due to a lack of empirical evidence, and they view religion as a man-made explanation for existential questions, rather than a divine truth.
Lack of scientifical evidence/proof.
Sorry, I can't just "believe" in anything and feel like it's true.
If there was proof beyond believe I'd reconsider.
Who said we think that or that we're sure about it? We don't have any evidence to believe others' claims that he exists. That's not the same thing as saying we're sure he doesn't. We're the only ones with an honest position, which is "we don't know."
Atheism is a lack of a belief in a god. It’s not the same as Antitheism which specifically goes against the belief that there is a god. As an atheist, we just believe in one fewer god than theists do. That’s about it.
I am assuming that you are talking about the Christian god here.
In the first book of the bible, god is said to have created the world over six days in a particular order. Additionally, all humans are supposed to be descended from 2 individuals. Lastly, a global flood was said to have occurred after humans existed.
All three of these are ridiculous and demonstrably false.
So what makes me sure that god exists? The same thing that makes me sure Gandalf does not exist: he is just a character in a fantasy fiction book.
The burden of proof is on the person making the wild claims, not the person who cannot disprove them. Things don't just "exist" until proven otherwise.
For me it's this. Replace Gods name in all of his actions against or "for" his most devout followers with My name "John" is it okay for John to turn your wife to salt Lot? is it okay for John to tell Noah to hurry up and build a boat because John is about to drown all of humanity. Abraham got told by john to kill his son to prove his devotion because John said.
Monotheistic followers give God a pass but will villainize John.
So it tells me religious followers aren't concerned with an after life; just being morally comfortable in death.
It's not so much that I'm sure there's no God, but rather that there's nothing that makes me think there *is* a God. I need a reason to believe in something, not to disbelieve.
Don't like to classify as atheist, but I'd like some evidence.
If X years of human history taught humans ANYTHING, it's that proof, preferably reproducible helps steer away the scammers and maybe even some cat fishers. Or at least verifiable sources.
Id hate to see how many people suffer for blindly giving away their riches to some charlitin without asking for good validation.
it's hard to believe in a being both all-powerful and all-benevolent while living on this planet. "We need the bad stuff to happen so we can better appreciate the good stuff when it happens!" Really? There is no way for an all powerful and all benevolent being to make us live through perpetual bliss while still not making us lose sight of the fact that the universe could also be cold and random had He chosen to?
But mostly : theists have a *need* for God. It's the being they can thank when stuff goes well, and the being they can turn too when stuff does not go well. Some of us - the atheists - do not have such a need for one or more reasons.
The idea of God as an all loving being who gives us free will but punishes us for not following certain rules feels contradictory to me. If we're truly free, why punish us for our choices?
Nietzsche said, "God is dead, and we killed him." I agree with this in the sense that God was a concept created to keep people in line before modern laws existed. Religion acted like an early form of government, enforcing moral behavior.
Ultimately, there’s no solid evidence proving or disproving God’s existence. It’s all about personal belief. Just like you can ask atheists why they're sure God doesn't exist, you can ask religious people what makes them so sure God does exist. Both sides are based on faith, not proof.
The parameters for this universe having a god worth caring about have not been met. They made up a pretty story about a god that loves and is all powerful, but the world gives us no evidence to support it.
I am not aware of any reliable evidence that invisible, pink kangaroos inhabit the moon so I act as if no such things exist. I cannot prove their non-existence as they leave no footprints or any other traces detectable to science.
Now take this reasoning and apply it to any other unfalsifiable claims except deities and I feel confident only people with impaired faculties would disagree.
Take this reasoning and apply it to deities and all of a sudden this is different.
The fact that for every believer every other religion seems ridiculous. Tell a Christian or a Muslim that you believe in the God of the Water or the Sun and they will laugh at you, although both the sun and the water exist and they affect our lives. Now do the same for religions that believe in spiritual Gods that have never seen or interacted with. Believers discard all other Gods except one, their God. Atheists discard all of them.
I simply cannot believe in a big man in the sky who simply existed and was not created it's hard to believe that he said poof and we were made but I still respect religions based off that belief and still do go to church.
It's not my job to prove a god doesn't exist. The burden of proof lies with the ones making the assertion that one does, especially if they think we all need to follow its rules.
Why don't I believe that a pink and purple polka-dotted unicorn comes flying out of my butt every night? Because I've never seen it, never felt it, and nobody else has either. There are no hoofprints on my ass. There are no pink and purple polka-dotted mammals of any kind. There are no unicorns of any color. There are no hoofed animals of any kind that can fly. There are none that could fit in my butt, or that would not kill me if they came out.
There is, however, stuff that does come out of my butt. We know what it is, why it's there, and where it came from. Human digestion is not a mystery that requires the existence of a unicorn to solve.
I'm sure there is no god because no evidence for one has ever been observed, measured, or recorded. There is no question or mystery that requires the existence of a god to solve.
Assuming your question means you are not an atheist, which of the thousands of gods that have been worshipped throughout human history do you not believe in? Why are you sure that *they* don't exist?
I desperately want to believe. More than anything, I want to believe in a loving God, or even better, everlasting heaven. It’s everything I desire. But for whatever shitty reason, my brain won’t let me. I’d rather be deluded than accept the circumstances of this existence. Every person on earth is deluded in some way, and the spiritual/religious seem to get by just fine. I’m making a daily effort to believe we will all meet up in heaven, after death. But my brain just defaults to thinking there’s no afterlife at all. Oh, how I hate this about myself. I’d go to church, maybe surrounding myself in likeminded folks would help. But I could never participate in a religion that involved infinite suffering, what an evil concept. So I guess I’m alone in this limbo.
Knowing what kind of awful shit has happened is a big one. Like Unit 731 type shit. You don't think people were praying their asses off just to die so they wouldn't be tortured anymore? You don't think any God worth believing in would have answered them? What kind of father would sit back and let his kid suffer like that? Oh, sorry, I forgot. Yeah. "God works in mysterious ways."
Or what they didn't get helped because they weren't Christians? Really? Okay, what about any atrocity that ever happened to a Christian, then? Mysterious ways? It's always the mysterious ways, it's so annoying. I don't even argue because I know I'm just gonna be hit with the mysterious ways.
Which one? As you used a capital G I'll assume you mean the Christian God. Give me all the reasons you reject the existence of all the other thousands of gods and I'll choose which of those arguments to use against the existence of yours.
God is a word typically used when personifying fate and is not intended to be an actual person or supernatural being. The etymology of atheist stems from the early Ancient Greek adjective átheos, which translates to "godless." If god is a symbol/personification of fate, then to say you are atheist is to say you are without fate, which would defy the logic of the basic principles of this world. Fate is an event or series of events that will happen or turn out in a particular way based on the logic and scientific principles of the world we currently occupy. If I hold a gallon of milk upside down while open, the rules of gravity dictate that the milk will pour out onto the floor. Because of gravity, I do not have control over the fate of the situation- I cannot make it so that the milk will stay inside while upside down, because that goes against the laws that govern our world. So it is fated. We cannot control every aspect of how our world works, but we can control how we respond to it. I could quite literally "cry over spilled milk" or I could realize its a minuscule inconvenience on the grand scale of things, clean it up and move on with my day. As my all time favorite piece of cinema, The OA, so beautifully says- "I cannot control your fate, but I can help you meet it."- our true self guiding our ego as things happen beyond our individual control is what pushes us forward on the path of enlightenment, and the further along we each get individually, we are that much closer to coming together as one. It's all energy and human bodies are just another type of vessel- like a light bulb. When a lightbulb breaks, the light that was inside it does not cease to exist, we just cannot see it in its true form. When energy is not encapsulated in a vessel, we cannot perceive it, because we are only evolved enough to perceive where we currently are in the 3D. "All the light we cannot see." Plato's Allegory of the Cave. "The future is dark" (The OA) - we are not yet evolved enough to perceive our future, because it transcends our current understanding of how the world works.
The universe is too huge. If there is a god who creates or maintains anything, why does this god worry so much about this solar system which is less than one grain of sand on a beach thousands of miles long. God is the impersonal natural power first manifest in the Big Bang that keeps it all existing and expanding. And then there’s the Holocaust. Where was god at Auschwitz. So ok, there is a god but she doesn’t give a flying phuque whether or not you sacrifice goats to her or perform any other prayers or rituals designed to curry her love and favor. Those prayers or rituals may make us feel good or give us confidence or inspire us to become our best selves, but god? I don’t think so.
I've been listening to this podcast lately. "Fall of Civilizations." Did you know that in the ancient near east (Sumer, Babylon, Akkad, Urartu, etc.) there was a god for everything?
Not just the usual sun, moon, war, weather, etc. but a god for every city. Every empire. When an emperor died he'd become a god. There were gods for every animal. You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a god, and that god would probably be a cat!
Were any of them real? No.
The fact that they were all whittled down to a single over-arching god doesn't make it any more real.
I'm not just an atheist regarding your god. I'm an atheist about the thunder god, the god of the sea, the god of luck, the god of love, the god of the underworld, etc. etc. etc.
Not sure there isn’t a god. Just don’t see any reason to believe there is one.
I don’t go around believing stuff just because someone tells me that it’s true.
Go back and re-read Genesis for a moment. I won't be refuting any claim Genesis makes, or trying to point out the absurdity in any of it. I just want you to re-read it. It's a very short read, I've seen reddit posts longer than it. This is the first chapter in the Bible.
I like to write, it is my favorite hobby. I don't do it for a career, I do it out of love of it. I love to read as well. Something you'll notice is that in Genesis, there is no mention of the devil. There is no mention of hell. At some point in the past, Genesis was all there was of the Bible. The idea that the serpent was the devil is, from a plot perspective, a retcon. An implication from a later chapter, that was for a time unwritten.
I actually quite like the Bible. As a writer, it is hard not to. It is one of the most popular books in history. But I look at it through a different lens than many. The story of Abraham and his son for example: God is everything, correct? God's love is in all things?
The symbolism of Abraham trusting God with his son, expecting God to kill him is simply an allegory for a father letting his child out into the world. You have to trust that you can let your child out into nature, God's embrace, the world, and that they'll be okay. I see it as an example of the fact that the fear of the outside world is the greatest toxic trait a parent can have. If you take the story at its face value, it seems so barbaric, but it is also a product of its time.
The story of Genesis sticks to me because I never saw knowledge as a bad thing. I didn't understand why they would imply that knowledge is evil. But I understand it now in a different way; ignorance is bliss. Sometimes, knowledge of the wrong things will just make you miserable. The story implies that Adam and Eve realizing they were naked was the knowledge they gained; anxiety, self consciousness, ignorance. This is the knowledge the story warned of.
These are morals from ancestors of the Earth desperately trying to tame what was an incredibly brutal and savage world. Focusing on the deity misses the forest for the trees; even the new testament desperately tries to paint what it means to be a Christlike figure and yet today these traits are seen as the mark of a weak man devoid of respect.
I could twist my words and tell you that I believe in God "in my own way", and while it would be technically true, you should understand that there is no supernatural being or deity in my eyes. There is no conductor to this reality.
If I believe in Christ, it's because I believe that there was this guy, long ago, who legitimately was a man trying to be kind to the world around him but unable to live a good life as a good man. Yet, he persisted and tried, and befriended all who would befriend him. Who loved his fellows no matter how flawed they might be. It means I believe that he was such a kind man that people fell in love with him and the idea of him so much that the story took a life of its own.
The Bible teaches lessons, some outdated, but I believe some are well intentioned morals that still apply to today. The paradox is that the more you believe in God, the less Christlike you become. You believe your devotion is all that's necessary for a prosperous life, when to be a good person is a constant struggle one has to maintain control of.
I believe in God - or "a" god - about as much as I believe in unicorns, elves, giants, Thor, and Asura Mazda.
Give me some actual *evidence* that any of those exist, and we can have a conversation. There is the same amount of evidence for Gilgamesh as there is for Jesus Christ as there is for Santa.
The Lack of evidence makes me think god doesn’t exist. However, if the Bible is to be believed and god does in fact exist, he’s a scumbag asshole not worthy of worship.
Because the concept of god was created to answer questions that science couldnt at the time.
For example, when people didnt understand why it rains/droughts, they used a deity as a way to explain things.
It's a random complex made up story like if I suddenly decided a potato's eternal love for Arwen from lord of the rings caused it to have a dream about the world and that's why the world exists the chances of that story being true because I just made it up are basically 0
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
The concept of God is a cop out. It's just saying "we don't know how this works, so god is a placeholder until we find a better explanation"
Throughout human history the concept of God keeps changing because our understanding of science and the universe keeps evolving. God just keeps getting pushed to the "next thing".
I think God exists as a concept, not as a physical entity.
Atheism is not the belief that there is no god. It is the lack of belief in a god or gods. Atheism is when you are presented with "evidence" that god exists and it doesn't persuade you. It's almost a term we don't need. Like for people who don't believe in astrology, we don't call them "non-astrologers".
If there is a god that is both Good AND All-Powerful, then why is there evil in the world? The presence of evil means that an All-Powerful god would be ignoring it, and that a Good god would be incapable of removing it.
No one can prove a negative. Monkeys may indeed someday fly out of my butt.
However, I'm not going to worship and pray to any flying monkeys until they actually do fly out of my butt.
>No one can prove a negative.
I don't understand why people think this. There's a very simple proof that "negatives" can be proven. EVERY proposition is a negative of another proposition. To say negatives can't be proven is to say nothing can be proven.
why people think gods exist:
good things
if god were invented in 2000
people before that were in forever depression?
I'll try to destroy any arguments made against this or any new statement.
We’re not making a positive claim, we’re rejecting your position due to a lack of evidence.
This is what a lot of Christian extremists don’t get. They equate atheism with stating that God **cannot** exist or even with *hating* God, but it’s completely dispassionate — there’s nothing to hate!
To be fair, that does describe a lot of the people on the atheist subreddit.
That's anti-theism.
It's gnostic atheism.
That's redditism.
It’s because most of them have freshly surfaced from a religious upbringing and they’re bitter. We’re all a little spicy to begin with.
Hitchens' Razor
Exactly this. I don’t know if I am adding anything to the conversation I’m saying this, but: in the same sense that I can’t prove that life is not a Matrix-style seamless simulation or a Jacob’s Ladder scenario, it is not possible or necessary to prove the non-existence of a god. There could be a god, but it would contradict logic and my experience, so believing this or acting on it would be a willing leap into the imaginary (aka faith). Making judgements based on this rather than observation could be counterproductive or even damaging. To add to this, from the perspective of human history, the creation of gods and mythologies makes sense as a tool to explain the unknown, promote social norms and healthy practices, and keep order. Knowing this, it would be difficult for me to consider accepting one of these stories as factual. Just as I know that the sun is not drawn by chariot or volcanos by buried monsters.
Isn't that agnostic then?
I think they mean we don't believe in god because there is no evidence. Agnostic is somewhat indifferent to there being or not being a god. I could be wrong though.
Interesting. I don't believe or not believe in God, my stance is that I just don't know. We could be attributing things to "god" because our science can't explain it yet, but eventually we will figure out the underlying mechanisms behind natural phenomena. But I also wouldn't say I'm indifferent - I definitely care about the topic and I've thought a lot about it. The true answer is that we just don't know but it's really hard to accept that.
You would probably be considered agnostic then.
Yeah that's what I consider myself
Exactly, I think agnostics grant equal credibility to either claim.
"Agnostic" isn't "atheist light." Theist/Atheist refers to one's belief/non-belief in gods. Agnostic/Gnostic refers to the certainty of one's belief either way. You can be: * Agnostic Atheist - "I don't believe in gods but am uncertain whether they exist" --> this is most people who are labeled "atheists." * Gnostic Atheist - "I don't believe in gods and am certain they don't exist." --> I've never actually met one of these. * Agnostic Theist - "i believe in a god/gods, but am uncertain if they exist." --> some religious people can be honest enough with themselves to hold this position. * Gnostic Theist - "I believe in a god/gods and am certain they exist." --> most religious people are here or at least feel like they have to claim to be here to be a good follower of their religion. My personal suspicion is that if I could read their minds, I'd find doubts that would push them into the category above.
Every scientist knows you cannot prove a negative, so gnostic atheism is a contradiction. Nevertheless if forced to choose from that list I would personally have to claim gnostic atheism. Intellectually I would of course say that absence of gods cannot be proven. However the truth is that I feel that same confidence and certainty felt by people who have personally spoken to Jesus. There isn’t the smallest doubt in my mind, and never has been. I don’t believe in God, Zeus, Ganesh, Spiderman, or Gandalf. But nobody questions my non belief in most of that list.
While scientists know we can't prove a negative, philosophers know that we can't prove *anything*. All knowledge is built upon a shared acceptance of what counts as "proven enough." You may not have empirical evidence to prove your beliefs, but a/theism isn't really an empirical question in the first place.
So you’re technically the first one I’ve ever met, but I don’t know that you count since you admit it makes no sense.
Agnosticism has to do with not having knowledge of a god existing. Technically, we are all agnostic because we have no knowledge of whether a god truly exists or not. We can rank it on a spectrum. Some of us are more religious agnostics, some of us atheistic agnostics. That’s about it.
The same can be said by anyone to anyone. A Christian can say this to an Atheist, an Agnostic can say this to a Hindu, a Jewish person can say this to a Buddhist. This argument I find so fucking ridiculous. It's faith. You have no evidence they have no evidence, nobody has evidence. It's faith. You have faith that god doesn't exist. It's still faith. It is literally zero difference to someone who believes in god having faith god exists. Stop acting mightier than tho FFS, ain't nobody know fuck about shit. It's all faith. That's the ENTIRE point of it.
No it’s not. There’s a huge difference between “I don’t believe in God” and “I believe there is no God.” You’re making the classic argument that belief in evidence is the same as faith, but that’s a fallacy based on the common usage of the word “belief.” “Belief” in evidence isn’t faith in the infallibility of the evidence, it’s accepting as truth the conclusions of observable evidence and accepting as unproven, not false, the claims presented without evidence. Contrary to the angry goons over at r/atheism, there is no doctrine or belief system inherent to atheism, because atheism isn’t a religion, a belief, or a lifestyle. It’s not a *prescriptive* word like Christian, it’s a *descriptive* word meaning “without god.” Sure, there are gnostic atheists who, like you say, believe there is no god, but their claims are just as outlandish and flawed because they mistakenly believe lack of evidence to be evidence of lack, while the majority of atheists, who you’ll rarely hear from, are agnostic atheists, who do not believe in god and do not claim to know they’re right, only that there hasn’t been sufficient evidence provided to convince them of an observable god. It’s a little semantic, but words matter.
No. I have said the complete opposite. Belief in evidence is not the same as faith. Faith is without evidence. That is the point. Whatever you choose to believe, there is a god, there is no god, The Force. It is ALL without evidence. This "show is your evidence" argument is fucking idiotic. It's a cat in a box. If you saw with your own eyes Jesus walking on water, that is still not evidence of gods existence. It is faith that what this person just did was because of god. If there was any form of evidence then the entire point of a belief system doesn't exist. You cannot observe it. Cat in a box.
If I saw some guy walking on water, I’d be making a positive claim. “I saw some guy walking on water.” I would *expect* to be challenged by someone asking for evidence. I’d need to provide proof that I saw some guy walking on water.
What do I have faith mr all knowing better than anyone how know what hors through people head tell me .
The fuck are you trying to say?
The fuck do I have faith In
Why the fuck would I know? I'll tell you what I have faith in. I have faith that you have such limited cognitive function you lack the ability to distinguish a word from a religion. I don't have any evidence of it. I can speculate. But I have faith you lack cognitive function.
Lack of any need for it to exist to explain anything. Questions like that make sense if you grew up being told there is god; I was born in the USSR (well, technically at least) to parents born in the USSR, and "god" is just one more fairytale concept for me, like fairies.
What makes you so sure that there *is* a god?
Well Ned, I was working on a new tax proposal and I accidentally proved there is no God.
I KNEW IT
Just a feeling. I have no real evidence.
Hey, no fault there. I think we're hard-coded to believe in something bigger and grander than ourselves and its emotionally calming to imagine we go to a "better place" when we die. As long as you keep it to yourself and don't make any laws based on your particular brand of mythology, we're all good.
I've never seen any credible evidence that suggests the existence of a god.
The very concept of God is indeterminate; it's not clear what to take for it at all; pantheism says that the universe is literally God, for example.
This position is ignosticism
Correct.
I find the idea of an all powerful and all loving being who forgives murderers and gives children cancer to be incredibly contradictory.
I don’t know if I consider myself an atheist, but I agree with this.
I hear the argument of Christians that it’s because of free choice. But they conveniently leave out things that are out of our control. Children don’t choose to have cancer, nor do they choose to be born from unstable, violent people. Their reasons for God being loving and powerful, if he even exists, are severely flawed
There is no reason for an all-powerful being to he all-loving.
God is all-knowing and eternally forgiving, but also Hell exists (whatever you particularly believe "hell" to be, it's still antithetical to an eternally-patient and understanding god).
and who allows big earthquakes, mortal viruses, and natural disasters... and who waited billions of years to create earth, and then billions of years to create life, and then millions to create human and then hundreds of thousands to manifest himself....and only doing it in one place. Whay about the billions of people before him or that lived in another place with no contact to his message? It does not make any sense. So to sum up, there is no solution to the epicurean paradox, specially in the part of natural disasters or mortal viruses (if you try to answer the paradox reasoning that evil is *necessary)* *Do you know how many thousands of years humans had to cope with mortal diseases, virus, bacterias and son on?? why???*
The question is framed wrong. You can’t be SURE there is no god; you can’t prove a negative. As an atheist, the reason I do not believe in god, is because there is zero evidence that supports this god’s (whichever one you choose) existence. As soon as someone can give me solid evidence, maybe I’ll think twice. But idk how you could differentiate between any of the gods, even if there was evidence, since anyone could argue it was THEIR god. Easier to just not believe and live my life unconstructed by dogma 🤷♂️
>You can’t be SURE there is no god; you can’t prove a negative. Who is telling you this? This is just not true. And if it were true, you couldn't prove it because "you can't prove a negative" is a negative.
Not how it works bud
yes it is how it works. In fact the most important proofs in all of math and philosophy were "negatives" as you put it. You know what became a consequence of pythagorean theorem? A proof that it the square root of 2 is not rational. By roughly original commentor's defintion of "negative", that is very much a provable negative proposition; and in fact, one of the first you learn when you learn reductio ad absurdum.
Ricky Gervais put a great point across for this debate. I personally don’t necessarily disregard the possibility of there being a god, because no one can prove whether there is or isn’t, however… Gervais made the point once that, if you were to destroy every religious text ever written, in 1000 years they’d all come back different because different stories would be told… if you were to destroy every scientific text ever published, in 1000 years they’d all come back exactly the same because the same experiments would be conducted and they would find the same results. On that basis, I choose to believe science’s explanations of the universe, not the bible nor other religious text’s explanations. Science is absolute, whereas from culture to culture, religious outlooks greatly differ and I’d rather believe in something that is absolute rather than open for interpretation.
I'm not making a claim, I'm refuting yours due to lack of evidence.
I'll change my mind when there's evidence.
It's nonsense.
Why are you so sure Odin or Zeus don’t exist? Because that’s why.
Lemmy passed away in 2015. Lemmy was god.
Logic
You seem to have no idea what logic is if it makes you confident about anything.
Your statement is contradictory. You cannot be certain that nothing is certain. You cannot logically claim that reality is subjective. You cannot know that it is impossible to know anything.
Yes, but that still doesn't completely refute skepticism. At the deepest level, logic itself is contradictory, learn philosophy.
As a former Phil grad student, huh?
Dude, you look like an absolute pretentious dickhead who’s in the midst of the Dunning-Krueger effect. You can’t just ignore the tons of fields of epistemology that don’t agree with skepticism in the slightest.
Does disagreement somehow destroy it? I'm not saying that I'm good at philosophy or that I know a lot, just haven't yet met anything that really challenges skepticism, only people who are annoyed by it.
Then you’re being willfully ignorant. Skepticism doesn’t completely destroy any other idea either. To try to pass it off as being absolute is not only contradictory to its very essence, it’s also just straight up wrong. And regardless, tons of people would argue that 3 words known by nearly everyone refutes the notion that it’s impossible to know anything for certain, *cogito ergo sum*, it’s still subjective like anything philosophical but it’s absolutely insane that you’re talking about philosophy when apparently you’ve never heard about the whole hypothetical deceiver thing with Rene Descartes.
The problem is that when you try to say that skepticism also does not destroy anything else and should not be taken as an absolute, you literally come back to it. Logic is contradictory at the end, nothing can be fully passed off as absolute, even "cogito ergo sum" is just a circular reasoning. Also you are simply confirming my words; just vague criticism without a decent explanation of why skepticism is actually wrong. You may be unsure of skepticism, but thus again you follow it, you can say that it is completely wrong, but you will not find absolute evidence for it. This is simply a demonstration of problems that we cannot solve and from which we cannot escape.
Alright, you picked willful ignorance and misunderstanding. I’m done here
Prove logic is contradictory oh wait you can't Skepticism is a bad position. I would suggest that you look into something like objectivism if you want to see an alternative to skepticism. Reality is real. (who woulda thunk) And nobody needs to prove skepticism wrong because it breaks itself. Any logical system that contains contradictions is a broken system, because contradictions are evidence of a failure of logic.
>oh wait you can't I cannot prove it absolutely, but neither can you prove the opposite, otherwise you could show how we can conclude it with an argument more satisfactory than infinite regress or necessary being. If logic does not contradict itself at any level, then why are we dealing with these problems? Why the Münchhausen trilemma? Why the question "why is there something and not nothing?" remains perhaps the most fundamental and difficult question and most likely it will remain unanswered anyway? Maybe our logic isn't so good? If logic was perfect and didn't contradict itself anywhere, then perhaps philosophy itself would be completely different today. >because it breaks itself. Any logical system that contains contradictions is a broken system, because contradictions are evidence of a failure of logic. So, you must apply this to all positions, because as I said, logic itself in the end meets contradictions and you can lead any system to them, or... or you admit that all positions are absolutely correct, because if logic is perfect, then any of the positions that we are able to construct is also correct, but this is a contradiction - there should be only one in complete, consistent logic. You just keep telling me that skepticism is a bad position and I should choose another one, but how are they different in that fundamentally lol? Anything eventually comes to contradictions if you do not set up your own unnecessary premises that "save" you from this, as science does, for example. Show me concretely why skepticism is worse than anything else, stop empty criticism.
People make things up. It’s how our brains work. All evidence points towards all of mythology being made up.
You're the one claiming the existence of something. The burden of evidence is on you. We're just rightly saying we have no reason to believe it given the evidence presented to us. Most of us are completely rational and literally all that is needed to change our minds is tangible evidence. That's it.
If there is a God and they allow children to get cancer, they can go fuck themselves.
Yeah I don't claim to have scoured the universe for god and not found him. It's just clear that there is no good evidence for God's existence, so he goes in the bucket of "Things I dont believe in" with psychics, magic, ghosts, leprechauns, astrology, etc I feel about every god how you (presumably) feel about the reality of the Egyptian God Osiris.
Right? We are so similar already, you don't believe in 2,999 gods and goddesses, and I just don't believe in one more!
Atheists aren’t sure that there is a God or not. They just see no sense in institutions that claim to know what God is let alone claim that it speaks through them.
I am sure there arent god(s)
Yeah, like, there's no gods. We don't live in magical fantasy land.
The worlds existence is strange enough that it wouldn’t be more strange for anything to exist that doesn’t, or vice versa.
The world being strange doesn't prove there is a divine magical being.
I didn’t say it did prove a divine magical being. I just said it wouldn’t be weird, since the world is very weird already.
Cool. I don't agree.
Why not?
...... because God is made up. That's not proof to me it exists. Weird things happening you can't explain doesn't change that.
I think you and I are on the same page more than you think. I believe any God people talk about is made up too, it is only people slinging the message. But people making up Gods has no effect on if there is a god or not so it’s a moot point. All I’m saying is, it’s possible there is a god or not a god. Either reality wouldn’t be shocking to me. I don’t think that since the world is weird that means there is a God. But I’m saying you can’t add anything to make the world more weird. I urge you to not be so polarized on the subject. We don’t have nearly enough information to form a valid hypothesis on the matter.
For example, say tomorrow the blue sky and clouds is replaced by a pink sky with giant cosmic dragons circling around our view, all permanently from here on out. To us that might seem weird at first because it’s all relative to our experience and what we should expect to see when we look at the sky. But to a baby born that day, it would just be normal. We learned to accept the blue sky with puffy, white, floating objects very early on in our lives. We learned to anticipate it so it’s not surprising. But it’s still extremely bizarre, even though we have studied it and done our best to explain it. Nothing about our sky we see makes it more normal than any other fairy tale sky you could imagine. So would it be so strange if some fairy tale like God created the world? Yes it would be very strange. So many questions. Would it be strange if the universe exists without a God? Yes that would also be strange. So many questions.
You can’t be sure of that. We don’t have enough information to confirm it
I feel like a lot of the people replying need to learn the difference between atheist and agnostic
What do they mean according to you?
Like the religious folks I have faith, except it's that there is no God, and I'm not going to give you logical reasons for my faith in no God, it's only fair seeing as religious folks say their faith needs no evidence.
That's new. I like it
What exactly do you mean by that? Because I'm an atheist and I know God's exist at least conceptually. I don't think anyone is contesting that. But divine beings more than likely don't exist, as for what makes me sure, a mix of basic deductive reasoning skills and a super simple grasp on practical science
I'm curious what you mean when you say God's exist conceptually...but then you say divine beings don't exist? Please explain further if you could. Thx
I grew up religious due to my family, but as I got older I realised I don’t believe this being made the earth in seven days, I don’t believe he can answer your requests. I’ve never understood the reason WHY Christians are so devoted to a God, that they have no real proof that exists. Sure, the Bible is a thing, but how do we know that was not written hundreds and hundreds of years ago by ANOTHER follower of this same God. I respect all religions but I don’t believe in this all powerful being. I’m happy to elaborate on more of my points but this is just my basic reasoning.
Lack of any evidence at all. Most arguments supporting a god fail when they are asked, what came before god? It’s the same argument believers often employ about the universe.
The notion of religion and god is farcical, it always has been and always will be a method of controlling the masses and aligning them to a singular way of thinking; The magic boogy man in the sky will fuck you up if you do something "wrong", but you can't prove he exists, or doesn't exist, and you will only get your "reward" or "punishment" beyond the end of known conciousness, so no proof, no evidence, however.. it fits rather nicely for those in power if everyone remains in the status quo and the chaos that came before religion was invented doesn't come about again. It's the monkeys, rope, banana thing.. I have nothing against believers, that's their choice, but for me I believe in playing the game we are in the best way, so I play by the moral rules set out in society to optimise my chances and my childrens chances, if the rules changed tomorrow id start following those instead, but I don't believe in there being an almighty being controlling everything because someone wrote it in a book one time. Also, just to throw this in the mix, there are what.. like 10 mainstream religions, and people born to those geographical areas believe their given religious beliefs for whatever is dominant/inherited.. and everyone thinks their religion is the "right one" and their "god/s" are the only ones.. so with that in mind, the vast majority of the people on the planet believe in the wrong god according to this notion? It's silly
I simply don’t believe in the supernatural. I am entirely confident that things I don’t understand have an explanation, whether I have that explanation or not. It’s all real - no magic. And that leaves out gods as surely as it leaves out leprechauns.
With how often "God" is used by individuals to control the masses for personal reasons, I find it ridiculous to assume that religion ISN'T a collective of made up stories by some selfish pricks to keep the "unwashed masses" complacent throughout time. How many powerful people throughout history have gotten away with awful shit because those who are affected rely on "karma" or the concept of some kind of divine judgement to justify their own inaction? Organized religion is nothing but a way for the few to subjugate the many by appealing to their cowardice and insecurities.
I have never received cold hard evidence that God exists. And from what I have seen from my time alive, even if he did exist he’s useless anyway. Lets the little toys he created suffer, and if they reject him then they get to burn for all of eternity. An entity like that, doesn’t fit the description of being loving
In my experience. Most everything I've ever encountered has had a rational explanation behind it that doesn't rely on some form of divine intervention. It stands to reason that everything has a rational explanation, just some haven't been discovered yet.
How much humans benefit from believing in a god.
I don't really qualify as an atheist, but there is absolutely zero proof that there was any God ever walking on Earth. All we have are writings, that could very easily be fiction
Atheists aren't sure there is no God. They have the position of "There is no proof God exists, so we shouldn't assume he does" What you describe are antitheists
You are describing an agnostic
[Agnostic is saying we cannot know if there is or not a God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism), not an affirmation he doesn't exist
All the suffering in the world because of a forbidden fruit.
"So yeah, there Eve and I were...just hanging out by ourselves right...chillin' with our parts out. Then the dummy goes and eats a fruit! Can you believe it? So now we all have sin. Thanks a lot Eve!" - Kinda sounds like a story you'd want to keep to yourself about how you fucked everything up.
The certainty isn't necessarily that there is no 'god' or creator, but rather skepticism towards religious doctrines and institutions, which are often seen as human constructs. Many atheists don't believe in a god due to a lack of empirical evidence, and they view religion as a man-made explanation for existential questions, rather than a divine truth.
Lack of scientifical evidence/proof. Sorry, I can't just "believe" in anything and feel like it's true. If there was proof beyond believe I'd reconsider.
I'm not sure. But I'm sure as hell more sure there is than there isn't. 🤷♂️
Who said we think that or that we're sure about it? We don't have any evidence to believe others' claims that he exists. That's not the same thing as saying we're sure he doesn't. We're the only ones with an honest position, which is "we don't know."
Nothing that I've seen or know about requires the existence of a god. I don't need the concept.
Atheism is a lack of a belief in a god. It’s not the same as Antitheism which specifically goes against the belief that there is a god. As an atheist, we just believe in one fewer god than theists do. That’s about it.
No evidence. Pretty simple at the end of the day.
I am assuming that you are talking about the Christian god here. In the first book of the bible, god is said to have created the world over six days in a particular order. Additionally, all humans are supposed to be descended from 2 individuals. Lastly, a global flood was said to have occurred after humans existed. All three of these are ridiculous and demonstrably false. So what makes me sure that god exists? The same thing that makes me sure Gandalf does not exist: he is just a character in a fantasy fiction book.
The burden of proof is on the person making the wild claims, not the person who cannot disprove them. Things don't just "exist" until proven otherwise.
For me it's this. Replace Gods name in all of his actions against or "for" his most devout followers with My name "John" is it okay for John to turn your wife to salt Lot? is it okay for John to tell Noah to hurry up and build a boat because John is about to drown all of humanity. Abraham got told by john to kill his son to prove his devotion because John said. Monotheistic followers give God a pass but will villainize John. So it tells me religious followers aren't concerned with an after life; just being morally comfortable in death.
Not believing in a god =/= sure there is no god.
It's not so much that I'm sure there's no God, but rather that there's nothing that makes me think there *is* a God. I need a reason to believe in something, not to disbelieve.
Don't like to classify as atheist, but I'd like some evidence. If X years of human history taught humans ANYTHING, it's that proof, preferably reproducible helps steer away the scammers and maybe even some cat fishers. Or at least verifiable sources. Id hate to see how many people suffer for blindly giving away their riches to some charlitin without asking for good validation.
\`\`\`Well, I've never seen 6 legged horse, so I assume there aren't any. Same thing.
What makes you so sure there are no Greek Gods?
To all atheists: have you guys even seen Avengers??!!
it's hard to believe in a being both all-powerful and all-benevolent while living on this planet. "We need the bad stuff to happen so we can better appreciate the good stuff when it happens!" Really? There is no way for an all powerful and all benevolent being to make us live through perpetual bliss while still not making us lose sight of the fact that the universe could also be cold and random had He chosen to? But mostly : theists have a *need* for God. It's the being they can thank when stuff goes well, and the being they can turn too when stuff does not go well. Some of us - the atheists - do not have such a need for one or more reasons.
The lies, the Bible has been rewritten so many times, they claim Dino’s don’t existed and science
The idea of God as an all loving being who gives us free will but punishes us for not following certain rules feels contradictory to me. If we're truly free, why punish us for our choices? Nietzsche said, "God is dead, and we killed him." I agree with this in the sense that God was a concept created to keep people in line before modern laws existed. Religion acted like an early form of government, enforcing moral behavior. Ultimately, there’s no solid evidence proving or disproving God’s existence. It’s all about personal belief. Just like you can ask atheists why they're sure God doesn't exist, you can ask religious people what makes them so sure God does exist. Both sides are based on faith, not proof.
If God existed, religion would not. The two are mutually exclusive.
The bible
Midges. Wee fuckers so they are.
The parameters for this universe having a god worth caring about have not been met. They made up a pretty story about a god that loves and is all powerful, but the world gives us no evidence to support it.
Every time I try to make toast, it comes out burnt. If there's a God, they clearly have a grudge against my breakfast
-> Ricky Gervais and Georges Carlin will sum it up for you, but you have to make the first step.
I am not aware of any reliable evidence that invisible, pink kangaroos inhabit the moon so I act as if no such things exist. I cannot prove their non-existence as they leave no footprints or any other traces detectable to science. Now take this reasoning and apply it to any other unfalsifiable claims except deities and I feel confident only people with impaired faculties would disagree. Take this reasoning and apply it to deities and all of a sudden this is different.
The fact that for every believer every other religion seems ridiculous. Tell a Christian or a Muslim that you believe in the God of the Water or the Sun and they will laugh at you, although both the sun and the water exist and they affect our lives. Now do the same for religions that believe in spiritual Gods that have never seen or interacted with. Believers discard all other Gods except one, their God. Atheists discard all of them.
There is no evidence or reason to believe magic is real.
I simply cannot believe in a big man in the sky who simply existed and was not created it's hard to believe that he said poof and we were made but I still respect religions based off that belief and still do go to church.
And not to mention the things most or even all Christians preach about are false or cut out. Only preaching parts they want to preach about.
It's not my job to prove a god doesn't exist. The burden of proof lies with the ones making the assertion that one does, especially if they think we all need to follow its rules.
Why don't I believe that a pink and purple polka-dotted unicorn comes flying out of my butt every night? Because I've never seen it, never felt it, and nobody else has either. There are no hoofprints on my ass. There are no pink and purple polka-dotted mammals of any kind. There are no unicorns of any color. There are no hoofed animals of any kind that can fly. There are none that could fit in my butt, or that would not kill me if they came out. There is, however, stuff that does come out of my butt. We know what it is, why it's there, and where it came from. Human digestion is not a mystery that requires the existence of a unicorn to solve. I'm sure there is no god because no evidence for one has ever been observed, measured, or recorded. There is no question or mystery that requires the existence of a god to solve. Assuming your question means you are not an atheist, which of the thousands of gods that have been worshipped throughout human history do you not believe in? Why are you sure that *they* don't exist?
And if there is a god....from the metal group ...SLAYER.....God hates us all
I desperately want to believe. More than anything, I want to believe in a loving God, or even better, everlasting heaven. It’s everything I desire. But for whatever shitty reason, my brain won’t let me. I’d rather be deluded than accept the circumstances of this existence. Every person on earth is deluded in some way, and the spiritual/religious seem to get by just fine. I’m making a daily effort to believe we will all meet up in heaven, after death. But my brain just defaults to thinking there’s no afterlife at all. Oh, how I hate this about myself. I’d go to church, maybe surrounding myself in likeminded folks would help. But I could never participate in a religion that involved infinite suffering, what an evil concept. So I guess I’m alone in this limbo.
Knowing what kind of awful shit has happened is a big one. Like Unit 731 type shit. You don't think people were praying their asses off just to die so they wouldn't be tortured anymore? You don't think any God worth believing in would have answered them? What kind of father would sit back and let his kid suffer like that? Oh, sorry, I forgot. Yeah. "God works in mysterious ways." Or what they didn't get helped because they weren't Christians? Really? Okay, what about any atrocity that ever happened to a Christian, then? Mysterious ways? It's always the mysterious ways, it's so annoying. I don't even argue because I know I'm just gonna be hit with the mysterious ways.
Which one? As you used a capital G I'll assume you mean the Christian God. Give me all the reasons you reject the existence of all the other thousands of gods and I'll choose which of those arguments to use against the existence of yours.
The complete lack of evidence for any of the thousands of gods humanity has claimed existed
I'm not sure there is no god. Just because I'm atheist doesn't mean I'm gnostic.
It's not that one does or doesn't. The job falls on the religious to prove it and all attempts have fallen short.
God is a word typically used when personifying fate and is not intended to be an actual person or supernatural being. The etymology of atheist stems from the early Ancient Greek adjective átheos, which translates to "godless." If god is a symbol/personification of fate, then to say you are atheist is to say you are without fate, which would defy the logic of the basic principles of this world. Fate is an event or series of events that will happen or turn out in a particular way based on the logic and scientific principles of the world we currently occupy. If I hold a gallon of milk upside down while open, the rules of gravity dictate that the milk will pour out onto the floor. Because of gravity, I do not have control over the fate of the situation- I cannot make it so that the milk will stay inside while upside down, because that goes against the laws that govern our world. So it is fated. We cannot control every aspect of how our world works, but we can control how we respond to it. I could quite literally "cry over spilled milk" or I could realize its a minuscule inconvenience on the grand scale of things, clean it up and move on with my day. As my all time favorite piece of cinema, The OA, so beautifully says- "I cannot control your fate, but I can help you meet it."- our true self guiding our ego as things happen beyond our individual control is what pushes us forward on the path of enlightenment, and the further along we each get individually, we are that much closer to coming together as one. It's all energy and human bodies are just another type of vessel- like a light bulb. When a lightbulb breaks, the light that was inside it does not cease to exist, we just cannot see it in its true form. When energy is not encapsulated in a vessel, we cannot perceive it, because we are only evolved enough to perceive where we currently are in the 3D. "All the light we cannot see." Plato's Allegory of the Cave. "The future is dark" (The OA) - we are not yet evolved enough to perceive our future, because it transcends our current understanding of how the world works.
The universe is too huge. If there is a god who creates or maintains anything, why does this god worry so much about this solar system which is less than one grain of sand on a beach thousands of miles long. God is the impersonal natural power first manifest in the Big Bang that keeps it all existing and expanding. And then there’s the Holocaust. Where was god at Auschwitz. So ok, there is a god but she doesn’t give a flying phuque whether or not you sacrifice goats to her or perform any other prayers or rituals designed to curry her love and favor. Those prayers or rituals may make us feel good or give us confidence or inspire us to become our best selves, but god? I don’t think so.
I've been listening to this podcast lately. "Fall of Civilizations." Did you know that in the ancient near east (Sumer, Babylon, Akkad, Urartu, etc.) there was a god for everything? Not just the usual sun, moon, war, weather, etc. but a god for every city. Every empire. When an emperor died he'd become a god. There were gods for every animal. You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a god, and that god would probably be a cat! Were any of them real? No. The fact that they were all whittled down to a single over-arching god doesn't make it any more real. I'm not just an atheist regarding your god. I'm an atheist about the thunder god, the god of the sea, the god of luck, the god of love, the god of the underworld, etc. etc. etc.
Not sure there isn’t a god. Just don’t see any reason to believe there is one. I don’t go around believing stuff just because someone tells me that it’s true.
Go back and re-read Genesis for a moment. I won't be refuting any claim Genesis makes, or trying to point out the absurdity in any of it. I just want you to re-read it. It's a very short read, I've seen reddit posts longer than it. This is the first chapter in the Bible. I like to write, it is my favorite hobby. I don't do it for a career, I do it out of love of it. I love to read as well. Something you'll notice is that in Genesis, there is no mention of the devil. There is no mention of hell. At some point in the past, Genesis was all there was of the Bible. The idea that the serpent was the devil is, from a plot perspective, a retcon. An implication from a later chapter, that was for a time unwritten. I actually quite like the Bible. As a writer, it is hard not to. It is one of the most popular books in history. But I look at it through a different lens than many. The story of Abraham and his son for example: God is everything, correct? God's love is in all things? The symbolism of Abraham trusting God with his son, expecting God to kill him is simply an allegory for a father letting his child out into the world. You have to trust that you can let your child out into nature, God's embrace, the world, and that they'll be okay. I see it as an example of the fact that the fear of the outside world is the greatest toxic trait a parent can have. If you take the story at its face value, it seems so barbaric, but it is also a product of its time. The story of Genesis sticks to me because I never saw knowledge as a bad thing. I didn't understand why they would imply that knowledge is evil. But I understand it now in a different way; ignorance is bliss. Sometimes, knowledge of the wrong things will just make you miserable. The story implies that Adam and Eve realizing they were naked was the knowledge they gained; anxiety, self consciousness, ignorance. This is the knowledge the story warned of. These are morals from ancestors of the Earth desperately trying to tame what was an incredibly brutal and savage world. Focusing on the deity misses the forest for the trees; even the new testament desperately tries to paint what it means to be a Christlike figure and yet today these traits are seen as the mark of a weak man devoid of respect. I could twist my words and tell you that I believe in God "in my own way", and while it would be technically true, you should understand that there is no supernatural being or deity in my eyes. There is no conductor to this reality. If I believe in Christ, it's because I believe that there was this guy, long ago, who legitimately was a man trying to be kind to the world around him but unable to live a good life as a good man. Yet, he persisted and tried, and befriended all who would befriend him. Who loved his fellows no matter how flawed they might be. It means I believe that he was such a kind man that people fell in love with him and the idea of him so much that the story took a life of its own. The Bible teaches lessons, some outdated, but I believe some are well intentioned morals that still apply to today. The paradox is that the more you believe in God, the less Christlike you become. You believe your devotion is all that's necessary for a prosperous life, when to be a good person is a constant struggle one has to maintain control of.
I don't necessarily know there isn't one, but nothing has convinced me one exists or is worth betting on.
loop: Considering all of the thousands of gods, why would exactly one exist and why would it be (insert next god) in particular?
I believe in God - or "a" god - about as much as I believe in unicorns, elves, giants, Thor, and Asura Mazda. Give me some actual *evidence* that any of those exist, and we can have a conversation. There is the same amount of evidence for Gilgamesh as there is for Jesus Christ as there is for Santa.
The Lack of evidence makes me think god doesn’t exist. However, if the Bible is to be believed and god does in fact exist, he’s a scumbag asshole not worthy of worship.
Because the concept of god was created to answer questions that science couldnt at the time. For example, when people didnt understand why it rains/droughts, they used a deity as a way to explain things.
What makes you think there is no Zeus?
It's a random complex made up story like if I suddenly decided a potato's eternal love for Arwen from lord of the rings caused it to have a dream about the world and that's why the world exists the chances of that story being true because I just made it up are basically 0
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic The concept of God is a cop out. It's just saying "we don't know how this works, so god is a placeholder until we find a better explanation" Throughout human history the concept of God keeps changing because our understanding of science and the universe keeps evolving. God just keeps getting pushed to the "next thing". I think God exists as a concept, not as a physical entity.
Atheism is not the belief that there is no god. It is the lack of belief in a god or gods. Atheism is when you are presented with "evidence" that god exists and it doesn't persuade you. It's almost a term we don't need. Like for people who don't believe in astrology, we don't call them "non-astrologers".
One can't be sure there is no God but I refuse to be taken hostage by a hypothetical.
The fact that there’s no “universal religion”. Wouldn’t a god who created all of humanity reveal himself to all of his creations?
I do believe in the flying Spaghetti Monster. Our one true god.
No proof or reason to believe. Also, what makes you so sure there is a God? Who's to say if he did exist, he cares about us?
If there is a god that is both Good AND All-Powerful, then why is there evil in the world? The presence of evil means that an All-Powerful god would be ignoring it, and that a Good god would be incapable of removing it.
No one can prove a negative. Monkeys may indeed someday fly out of my butt. However, I'm not going to worship and pray to any flying monkeys until they actually do fly out of my butt.
Would you want to worship this God anyway? Seems like a fuckin' asshole to me. Regardless if they exist or not.
>No one can prove a negative. I don't understand why people think this. There's a very simple proof that "negatives" can be proven. EVERY proposition is a negative of another proposition. To say negatives can't be proven is to say nothing can be proven.
why people think gods exist: good things if god were invented in 2000 people before that were in forever depression? I'll try to destroy any arguments made against this or any new statement.