Apparently there is no God vs I demand that there is no God

[aTOMiC]

I know a few Atheists and I believe that I understand the point of view fairly well. I've read Richard Dawkins and also believe I am at least somewhat familiar with the extreme or activist POV.

All belief systems have their fair share of moderates and zealots and Atheism is no different. I know Atheists that take the "live and let live" approach to the point that you would perhaps never know of their beliefs unless you pressed them on the matter. Others need no urging of any kind to discover their POV and still others take every opportunity to make certain there is no doubt in your mind where they stand and how wrong you are if you believe differently (Dawkins).



The point I'm not completely clear on is the idea that there MUST not be a God. Not "the evidence (or lack thereof) seems to show that there is no God" but "I forbid you to believe in a God to save you from your own stupidity!"

I know of the long history, both ancient and recent of despicable acts perpetrated by humans in the name of God however I am also of the belief that those humans chose to perpetrate those acts on their own and generally justify what they've done by evoking the name of a deity be it Odin, Zeus or George Lucas. "The Devil made me do it" and so on. I tend to believe that God (whatever that means to you) and a man made religion are two separate things. That of course is only my own personal opinion.

I also understand the opposition to obstructionist religions who influence legislation however I'm guessing the members of those groups would probably vote similarly whether they believed in God, a Spaghetti Monster or nothing at all. Which is also an unsubstantiated opinion of mine based on impressions not hard facts.

Aside from the religion angle, what is the problem with believing in a profoundly higher life form that is capable of forming universes? Why does that belief seem to be such an issue? If you follow some of the more speculative physical cosmological theories about "branes" and multiple universes you might be able to imagine a powerful extra-dimensional entity experimenting with forming or influencing the formation of universes for kicks. Imagine the closing scene of the first Men In Black film for a visual reference which is just one of an unlimited number of possibilities that fulfill the idea of God within a sudo-scientific framework.



I once posted on this site the question "Would it change your belief in God if it could be proved scientifically that there is an afterlife?" I've asked that question in different ways in different places and received some very strong responses. "Of course not! Whether there is an afterlife or not there is no God!" That reaction always surprised me. There isn't a shred of contrition in the statement. It implies that no matter what evidence is presented there MUST not be a God as if the very notion of it is painful to entertain.
That's the part I don't quite understand. Where does that adamantine position come from? Why is the existence of a higher power so distasteful? Not every Atheist was a former alter boy that was abused by a priest or a nun so most of these positions come from a different source than a personal distaste of religion.

I know with certainty that there are those believers who would maintain their faith unequivocally, no matter the evidence presented so its not a unique position to be sure but defending something is quite a different thing than defending the absence of something. At least that sounds clever when I write it. There may be no difference at all.

Honestly I think all of this comes down to belief systems that are extremely personal and subjective and the psychology of what drives individuals to become polemicists on both sides of the debate is far beyond my limited education and understanding.

Perhaps it is the presence of similar topics in this forum or the proximity of the approaching holiday season that has brought some of these ideas and observations to the surface. I rarely if ever post topics to the Close so I'm not quite sure what the motivation is.

The truth is God is everywhere. I hear his name shouted dozens of times by frustrated drivers while I'm battling my way through traffic every single day.

[michaelm]

I once posted on this site the question "Would it change your belief in God if it could be proved scientifically that there is an afterlife?" I've asked that question in different ways in different places and received some very strong responses. "Of course not! Whether there is an afterlife or not there is no God!" That reaction always surprised me. There isn't a shred of contrition in the statement. It implies that no matter what evidence is presented there MUST not be a God as if the very notion of it is painful to entertain.

I'm certainly not of the opinion that there absolutely cannot be a god ever, I'm more of the opinion that no one has ever given me any convincing reason to believe in any of the gods on offer.

I've also read Dawkins (although I haven't read The God Delusion), and I'm not sure that he is so adamant that there is, and absolutely cannot ever be a god, just that there is zero evidence for the existence of god. His approach is generally that he needs to dispel the supposed 'truths' that believers cite by pointing out their illogicality, or to provide commentary on the evidence or theories that remove the need for a god.

As for the afterlife question, I would not answer it that way at all. If scientific evidence was provided, I would believe in an afterlife, but not god - one does not imply the existence of the other. If however, you provided scientific evidence for the existence of god, then I would believe in him/her/it (and have a few choice words to say over his/her/its lack of compassion and action towards believers who deserve a lot better from their creator!).

There certainly are people who are adamant that there is and can never be a god or gods, and I find that strange as they too have no absolute evidence for their point of view. Personally I find gods and organized religion anachronistic and I have little interest in either. There are far better things to spend my time on.

[Zarathustra]

Honestly, it's strange to me to hear others describing people like Dawkins as a zealot. He has a rational point of view, he talks about it with confidence, and he makes living writing about it ... what exactly is the problem? Anyone is free to ignore him or not buy his books.

I think the issue comes down to whether or not a person's views hurt the feelings of others. If there is a lack of reticence to speak one's mind despite the possibility of one's opinion being perceived as insulting, that person is described as a zealot or even a bully. But atheists don't go knocking on your door or getting in your face. They don't try to guilt-trip you into believing their views. Most people wouldn't hear our minority view if they didn't wander into threads like this, which are explicitly about atheism.

Truth is not determined by whether or not it is offensive. People like Dawkins--and myself--resent the fact that this is even an issue. If we were discussing something like the best way to build a bridge, and one group got their feelings hurt because we said magical suspension of gravity isn't going to work, you might understand our frustration. We resent that discussions of reality carry with them an unspoken expectation of limiting our language to a less accurate version in order to conform with the feelings of people who disagree (so that we won't be branded as heretics or zealots). It's not that I demand there is no god, but rather that I insist upon saying exactly what I think is true, without watering down my language to a less accurate version to accommodate feelings which really should have no part of the discussion. If you think magic is a key component to building a bridge, then go do it. But don't attack people who build bridges without magic as "zealots" for insisting that their way in fact works, and that it's crazy to even entertain the opposite notion.

People took offense at the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe. So what? They were wrong. It is their reaction which is unreasonable, not Galileo for insisting upon his opinion. Was he a bully? Was he a zealot? No, his audience was. The tragedy doesn't lie in their hurt feelings, but in how he was treated because of it. Should he have just kept his opinion to himself? No.

If we were talking about anything else, confidence in one's opinion wouldn't be an issue. If someone asked, "Would proof of an afterlife change your opinion about astrology?" it wouldn't seem problematic at all for someone to respond, "No. What does an afterlife have to do with the positions of planets determining our fate?" If there's an afterlife, that would bring its own sorts of questions and puzzles. Maybe it would prove that this life is a virtual reality, where we "respawn" after dying, like a video game. Maybe it would prove life is a dream from which we awaken. These are finite theories. God is infinite. It makes no sense to accept the most improbable theory first, when there are more likely theories to explore before you throw your hands up and call it an inexplicable miracle.

The issue is much larger than belief in God. The issue is superstition and irrationality in general ... a mindset that has poisoned humanity for millennia. God just happens to be the most culturally accepted superstition. If most people believed in astrology or a geocentric universe, the form of our debate would be exactly the same, and the confidence/insistence of people like me would be exactly the same. It's not that we are zealots about the idea of God. If anything, we're "zealots" about reality, and the fact that we have known the best way to explore it for more than 4 centuries now, and yet most people are still ignoring that discovery. Lots of us are still stuck thinking that a human-centric model of reality trumps the wildly successful model science/reason has given us. They do this by claiming, "Science/reason can't capture our humanity. There has to be more to reality, because I have these fuzzy warm feelings that makes me believe in spirits." But over and over, we keep learning the lesson that our personal feelings of importance are not determinative of the nature of reality. In fact, they mislead us over and over again.

There is actually one sense in which this human-centric view is correct: humans are the only creatures we know in the universe who are capable of determining the nature of the universe through reason and explanation. If people truly understood the significance of this fact, it should replace all other forms of thinking we're special, because it's one we can actually demonstrate and use. We would have no idea how vast, intricate, and wonderful this reality is without it. Religion would have left us utterly ignorant of Creation. What's the point of having a "spirit" if we're as ignorant as the animals? Morality isn't enough. You can have that without a spirit. It teaches you nothing beyond the tiny sphere of your few acquaintances. Religion is so much smaller in scope than reality, and yet society still pressures us to limit ourselves for the sake of the religious. I reject those limits. That's all there is to it.

[aTOMiC]

Honestly, it's strange to me to hear others describing people like Dawkins as a zealot. He has a rational point of view, he talks about it with confidence, and he makes living writing about it ... what exactly is the problem? Anyone is free to ignore him or not buy his books.

I probably shouldn't have placed Dawkins and zealot in the same paragraph. There are far more extreme views to be had than Dawkins. He has a personality confidence akin to the fictional Gregory House or the very real Simon Cowell but his view are hardly within the realm of "kill all the Christians to save us from their incessant stupidity."

My original post was meant to explore the question: Why are some Atheists so annoyed by believers?

I get that the fraction of the religious above the waterline can be at best in your face and at worst sociopathic monsters so I understand that aspect of it but that's true of every demographic group given that they are made up of humans.

I'm just not sure why its so upsetting.

I mean look at it this way. If there was a heated debate between fans of the Green Bay Packers and the fans of the Chicago Bears about which team is the best and you couldn't give a crap less about NFL football why would you have any kind of emotional reaction or opinion about it one way or the other? I understand the moment tax payer dollars are used to fund a football stadium it becomes an issue for every tax payer but from a social stand point I don't see why it matters.

If I am in line at the grocery store and there are two people complaining about the cost of peas (I hate peas) I would simply ignore the discussion because I don't have a dog in the hunt so to speak. I have no interest in peas and I am content to leave peas out of my life entirely. There are discussions of peas all around me but I don't bother other people with loud proclamations that peas suck and you all should stop eating them I simply let the pea eaters do whatever comes naturally whilst I go on with my life. Of course if the government enacted a bill, sponsored by the Pea Eaters of America, that all vanilla milk shakes on Earth will now be replaced with mashed peas I would certainly be up in arms and will march on Washington and appear on talk shows denouncing the Pea Eating community for going too far.

Come to think of it if it came down to it, and peas were involved, I wouldn't be very different from Richard Dawkins.

I have much to think about.

[Zarathustra]

I realize that the more I type, the less chance my long-winded posts will be read, but there's one more important point to make.

"God" is not like any other concept. It has no definite meaning. No one knows what it means, even when they claim to believe in whatever it is. It's really a placeholder for our ignorance. It's where questions go to die. It's where people give up looking for answers. "God" is not an explanation. It doesn't explain anything, rather it's precisely where people have decided to throw up their hands and say, "Reason and evidence can't explain this."

So if I were to insist, "I will never be convinced of God," the most I would be saying with this utterance is that I refuse to believe that there is an end to our questions or our ability to find answers. It's not like saying you refuse to believe in any other particular entity, like a unicorn or gravity waves. It's refusing to adopt the arrogant/naive attitude of pretending like you have an answer when all you've done is given up questioning.

My view is the ultimate optimistic attitude, that reason and exploration have no limit to their ability to find answers. I'm not talking about any particular human's intelligence, I'm talking about the collective potential of intelligence itself, which can find ways to increase itself infinitely, either through the addition of more minds or the addition of more raw computing power, AI, etc. Intelligence is the beginning of infinity. Theism is the premature termination of it.

[I'm Murrin]

I don't believe that there must not be a god. I only believe there's no compelling reason to consider the possibility. If I hadn't learned of religions from others, the idea would never even have crossed my mind.

[michaelm]

If I hadn't learned of religions from others, the idea would never even have crossed my mind.

This is certainly one of my top reasons why blind faith is not a good reason to believe in gods.

[Vraith]

sponsored by the Pea Eaters of America, that all vanilla milk shakes on Earth will now be replaced with mashed peas I would certainly be up in arms and will march on Washington and appear on talk shows denouncing the Pea Eating community for going too far.

Come to think of it if it came down to it, and peas were involved, I wouldn't be very different from Richard Dawkins.

Yea. I'm not "annoyed by believers" as such. I disagree...but that's not the same thing.
I'll argue...cuz that can be fun and interesting. Cuz arguing isn't always, or even mostly about "being right," it is a process/path in seeking/searching. It's certain actions taken that cause annoyance, or worse.
[[in many ways, logically/structurally, it's the same as the argument/distinction in other places about the difference between positive and negative rights]]

It's where questions go to die.

Heh...did you steal, paraphrase, or invent that? Whichever, I like it.
When folk say something like "science/reason/humans can't understand/explain it, therefore diety" there's the obvious problem, which diety, which has historically caused a bloody mess.
There's also the problem: "diety" isn't an answer nor an implied or necessary result/product of the first statement.
It's kinda like the joke,
"how many surrealists to change a light bulb?"
"Fish."
And the problem: "science/reason/humans can't"....well, how do you know that? We constantly begin knowing things we couldn't possibly have understood/explained before.
I think there is an awful lot of myth in the idea that we modern folk have lost, can't understand, or can't surpass the "wisdom of the ancients."

[michaelm]

I think there is an awful lot of myth in the idea that we modern folk have lost, can't understand, or can't surpass the "wisdom of the ancients."

I think we move on, or conquer our fears, or just drop those things that don't fit in with our voyages of discovery.

The only one we can't seem to shake is religion, although in some parts of the world it's certainly on the decline as people run out of excuses to ignore the ever-growing list of illogicalities and inconsistencies.

[Fist and Faith]

Gregor Mendel, Isaac Newton, Werner Heisenberg, and Francis Collins were as inquisitive, scientifically rigorous, and brilliant as pretty much anyone else you'd care to name. The devoted themselves to understanding what they believed to be the properties and characteristics that God created. And they did more than most people to advance our understanding of the universe's properties and characteristics. More than most atheists.

Niels Bohr, Peter Higgs, and Stephen Hawking did more than most people to advance our understanding of the universe's properties and characteristics. More than most theists.

Point being, it's not religious beliefs, whether extreme or none, that determine how much someone will want to understand how things work. Making a theist doubt his faith will not advance our understanding of the universe if he is not the scientific type. Making an atheist believe in God will not stop her from wanting to understand how the universe works.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I think this sums it up.

[Avatar]

Dawkins shoulda stuck to biology. Maybe he's not a zealot (maybe) but he's kinda a dick about it.

(Me being one of the atheists who doesn't really care what you believe, although I have passed through the intervening stages along the way.)

--A

[Zarathustra]

Gregor Mendel, Isaac Newton, Werner Heisenberg, and Francis Collins were as inquisitive, scientifically rigorous, and brilliant as pretty much anyone else you'd care to name. The devoted themselves to understanding what they believed to be the properties and characteristics that God created. And they did more than most people to advance our understanding of the universe's properties and characteristics. More than most atheists.

Niels Bohr, Peter Higgs, and Stephen Hawking did more than most people to advance our understanding of the universe's properties and characteristics. More than most theists.

Point being, it's not religious beliefs, whether extreme or none, that determine how much someone will want to understand how things work. Making a theist doubt his faith will not advance our understanding of the universe if he is not the scientific type. Making an atheist believe in God will not stop her from wanting to understand how the universe works.

You make some good points. However, Newton wasted vast amounts of time looking for codes in the Bible (not to mention writing nearly a million words on the subject of alchemy), when he could have been doing something just as revolutionary as his more famous discovery (Principia). So his spiritualism misled him. While it didn't completely hinder his production of perhaps the most important advance in the history of science, it was a mistake and monumental waste of time for one of earth's rarest geniuses.

Hawking, while not a theist, is still prone to irrational fears about robots and AI. He thinks we need to fear technology ... the man who would be dead right now or unable to communicate without it. Perhaps his total dependency upon computers makes him irrationally afraid of them, but it's still a problem. He is terrorizing less informed people with his paranoid fantasies.

The point is that it's not just belief in God, but irrational thought in general, that's the problem (as I've stressed before). The fact that even the most brilliant minds can be prone to it should be a warning for us to guard against it all the more. It's not an elitist attitude to sound this warning. We're not just talking to the "dumbasses" as HLT's hilarious post suggests. We're talking to everyone, including ourselves.

Irrationality doesn't stop progress altogether, but it is certainly an opposing force, the friction which slows progress down. It's what every positive advance must fight against.

[michaelm]

Making an atheist believe in God will not stop her from wanting to understand how the universe works.

I'm not so sure that's the case. Einstein had huge problems with accepting quantum theory because he felt, in his words - "God does not play dice with the Universe". I wonder if Einstein could have accelerated the understanding of the quantum world had he not been held back from getting involved because of his belief in god?

[Vraith]

irrational thought in general, that's the problem (as I've stressed before).

Irrationality doesn't stop progress altogether, but it is certainly an opposing force,

Not so sure about that...I think we have to be very careful with that.
Because---well, I know you write. I'm sure you're aware of the "question writers hate most" [where do you get your ideas?].
But that's important here---where DO you?
We only have the slightest hints, pretty weak theories, on what imagination/creativity is and/or how it works.
But we DO know that, whatever is going on in the brain it is NOT the same state, patterns, or functions that happen during rational thought.
I know you play music...from what you've said you are capable of playing, you must be pretty good...so I assume you sometimes just jam, assume you sometimes alter cover songs/sections cuz it sounds better, probably write your own songs [I've never met a musician who also writes who doesn't put them together to write songs].
Is that rational thought? Again...it really isn't.
What I'm getting at [probably obvious by now, probably said it before] is that it isn't faith/belief itself, cuz that can be good, and is to some extent necessary even if it is PROVISIONAL belief [or contingent, and other varieties], it isn't irrationality itself [which also comes in "flavors"], cuz THAT is also good, and it is absolutely necessary. I don't think it overstates the case to say that without it we might possibly NEVER progress or learn, and we definitely would do so much much more slowly.

The varieties of belief and irrationality are, I think, integral to "spirituality" [which is really the other thread topic...].

The problem, the real core and conflict, and the thing that almost all religions utilize as a tool, the power/control structure, isn't really the faith, belief, spirituality, or irrationality.
It is one very specific flavor/variety of ANTI-rationality...and it isn't really [I suspect, I'd have to be a mind-reader to know] experiential like faith, or a jam session, or a poem creation, or awe at sad glory of a sunset or the joy violence of a thunderstorm...it is a DECISION taken to USE the ineffability of those things for other purposes.

The irrational can be USED in dangerous ways...but the fact and existence and nature of it is an essential element in both discovering TRUE things and creating NEW things.
What I think is [I mean this mostly metaphorically...but I think it is possibly close to literally so]: we have instincts, things our brain/body do reflexively, without thought. Intuition/creativity/imagination are, I think, instincts in the abstract.
I don't mean abstractions of instinctual things, like "one" is an abstraction of "one thing", I mean they are "instinctual acts" that take place in the abstract space/thought. [as if, while daydreaming, we were set upon by a mathematical tiger, we'd instantly leap to solve it with and equational bow...or perhaps vectorrunning away]

Some might say that those things aren't irrational, just a different kind of rational. I think that is warping the definition of rational, but I suppose the point/description could be so.

[michaelm]

I don't know that I would agree that they're irrational either. I think it's more true to say that they're rational within a limited scope of thought that has fixed and unmovable boundaries.

Rationalizing that supernatural beings aren't likely to exist requires either an upbringing without religion (or at least an environment where doubt is allowed free rein), or a life-changing event that makes one question the existence of deities where the benevolent creator role cannot be reconciled with the 'evils' of the world.

[aTOMiC]

I don't know that I would agree that they're irrational either. I think it's more true to say that they're rational within a limited scope of thought that has fixed and unmovable boundaries.

Rationalizing that supernatural beings aren't likely to exist requires either an upbringing without religion (or at least an environment where doubt is allowed free rein), or a life-changing event that makes one question the existence of deities where the benevolent creator role cannot be reconciled with the 'evils' of the world.

I'm guessing, similar to Donaldson's "Creator", free will would be destroyed if said creator interfered with the course and progress of his/her creation rending the enterprise moot and therefore pointless. Which would explain why a bus full of nuns and infants would be allowed to plunge over a cliff to a tragic end. Its a bummer for the created to be sure but a huge benefit to the creation.

All of the talk about belief in a deity being a hindrance to intelligent thought is not without merit but is obviously not universal. Intellectual pursuit may very well be originally inspired by said belief. In my mind inspiration is an individual, personal process that finds its sources both externally and internally. A man made religion can still be a hindrance to intellectual thinking and personal freedom even today but a belief in God or a god may not.

IMHO of course.

[michaelm]

I'm guessing, similar to Donaldson's "Creator", free will would be destroyed if said creator interfered with the course and progress of his/her creation rending the enterprise moot and therefore pointless. Which would explain why a bus full of nuns and infants would be allowed to plunge over a cliff to a tragic end. Its a bummer for the created to be sure but a huge benefit to the creation.

If that is the case, why do people bother praying?

Either prayer is a waste of time as it never works, or god is not as benevolent and/or omnipotent as he/she would have you believe...

[Zarathustra]

Vraith, creative writing and musical performance aren't mistaken for explanations of reality. I'm not saying that humans should make themselves into robots. I'm saying that our determinations of the nature of reality should not allow irrationalism into the discussion. If Newton wanted to jam on the bass instead of spend 30 years thinking about alchemy, I for one would have loved to hear his jams.

I don't think we can assume that because we don't know where creativity comes from--now--that we'll always be ignorant of it. I think it might very well be explained at some point, and such an explanation will by definition be rational. The idea that it's utterly inexplicable (even if true) can only keep us from thinking about it and seeking answers. That does no one any good.

Music might not be rational thought, but neither is it chaotic, much less magical. I don't have to point out the mathematical nature of music. Order and spontaneity aren't mutually exclusive. This is perhaps the deepest mystery of our existence, the fact that accidental, purposeless processes lead to spontaneous increases in order. Just as it was once a mystery how life evolved without any Watchmaker, it's currently a mystery how creativity (and consciousness itself) arise as an emergent property from a lump of gray matter. Neither of these processes are illuminated by accepting irrational explanations.

Important parts of our lives are irrational, or at least arational. And that's fine as long as we realize these are purely subjective aspects of our experience. The problem only arises when we try to apply them to the world. The world isn't a song or a story.

[aTOMiC]

I'm guessing, similar to Donaldson's "Creator", free will would be destroyed if said creator interfered with the course and progress of his/her creation rending the enterprise moot and therefore pointless. Which would explain why a bus full of nuns and infants would be allowed to plunge over a cliff to a tragic end. Its a bummer for the created to be sure but a huge benefit to the creation.

If that is the case, why do people bother praying?

Either prayer is a waste of time as it never works, or god is not as benevolent and/or omnipotent as he/she would have you believe...

Heh. That is an excellent question. Why do people bother to pray? Well the folks that treat prayer like asking for wishes like a "The Genie of the Lamp" are the one's that will be most disappointed when their lucky leprechaun fails to deliver the goods. The people that realize that prayer is useful as an emotional balm are the ones that probably receive the greatest verifiable benefit. God hears all prayers. Well if there is a God then there's nothing particularly false about that statement. Thanks to the aforementioned free will factor said God is unable to physically act on your behalf. Theoretically of course. I'm not an expert on the subject.