I'll take a run at this. Please understand that I speak only for myself.
Philip wrote:This morning, I happened across a comment about challenging atheists, made by our good friend Bippy: "If I were you I would approach it in a different way. I would actually use an indirect approach to show them that atheism is truly a religion more then a position of logic, reason and science."
Calling atheism a matter of faith is a terrific way to irritate an atheist, but it's not much of an argument. It doesn't take any faith at all to reject dubious claims based on books from antiquity, and that's all it means to be an atheist. Theists have to claim that gods exist, assign them all sorts of powers and responsibilities, credit them with all kinds of wondrous acts and miracles, and worship them with all their might, all the while doing frantic mental gymnastics to try and make modern reality match up with ancient dogma. All that atheists have to do is not believe the hype. It's really pretty simple.
Philip wrote:Yes, atheism cannot know or prove how the universe began, nor how things previously non-existing and immaterial came into being and THEN organized themselves into massive marvels of engineering, functionality, on an unfathomable scale, from microscopic to galactic details. NO KNOWN/VALIDATED (and ALL necessarily SUBSEQUENT) scientific processes or analysis can account for this. And the great complexity, design and functionality - awesomely apparent at the very beginning, when previously non-existing things came into to being - are great evidences for the Intelligent Designer behind it all.
You're assigning all sorts of responsibilities to atheism, when in reality atheism has none. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in the supernatural. That's it. Atheism doesn't have to explain a thing.
Explaining the universe is science, not atheism. Furthermore, science actually has some pretty good explanations for all of the things that you mentioned, and "an Intelligent Designer" isn't one of them. That's not to say that they're guaranteed to be 100% correct with all of their explanations, but that's not a problem either. Science tries to figure stuff out, and when it gets the answer wrong it just keeps on looking. Science tends to get it right, sooner or later. By comparison, religion wrote down all the answers before reading the test, and it shows.
Philip wrote:Given the above, and given that ALL atheists and agnostics - especially those in the West and places that the internet touches - well know that Christianity, Judaism and Islam assert that not only is there a God - or what I call a "god" - behind the universe - but that if you get it wrong as to exactly who He (or "he") is, then your eternity will likely be terrifying, the punishment great, the consequences enormous. And so, especially knowing that vast millions of Christians assert the truth of the Bible - that dying without faith in Christ leads to eternal separation from God, punishment, hopelessness and darkness - this means that such atheists and agnostics realize that IF they are wrong about the God question, then they will be (are) DOOMED. But that if they are correct and there is NO God, then it really doesn't matter, does it? As the only thing that would ultimately matter are their lives before death. As forever afterward, they would share the dreams of rocks!
Eeek, it's Pascal's Wager!
I think that that question really does bother lots of young skeptics, and perhaps fear of damnation even pulls some of them back into the fold. I'm not sure that's much of an argument for a loving god, but that's a different issue.
For those of us who've lived a few years, given the matter some thought, and maybe taken a philosophy class or two Pascal's Wager is a lot less fearsome. Here's why -
First off, and this is the most important point, I
don't believe in gods, so I don't believe in heaven, hell, angels, devils, saints, sinners, miracles, and so forth, and I'm not intimidated by supernatural threats or by the clergymen making them. For me it's not a wager. I don't believe the claim. I'm not convinced that your god, or any other god, exists so I'm not worried about what he/she/it/they might do to me. I spend as much time worrying about Hell as you spend worrying about getting trampled by a herd of unicorns.
Besides that, no sincere Christian should ever use Pascal's Wager as an argument. It cheapens you, your religion, and your god. The god that Christians typically describe is majestic. He's perfect and all-knowing. He is love. The god that Christians describe when they stoop to using Pascal's Wager is a halfwit thug. Why is the majestic, all-knowing, perfect creator of the universe trying to extort me into worshiping him? Why not just awe me? And if this is about free will then what's with the extortion? And what kind of moronic god is going to be fooled by the kind of superficial compliance that he'll get from the people who worship him only to avoid punishment? Seriously, have some respect for your creator and stop making that argument.
Philip wrote:So, given the enormous potential consequences of getting the God question WRONG, atheists and agnostics (and other non-Christians), well know they need to have the answer to this question correct. They have to have a strong core belief that they are correct - which I would call "faith." One dictionary defines faith as: "Having complete trust or confidence in someone or something." Now, of course, merely having faith in a thing or a God (or god) does not change whether or not He (he) is a reality or non-reality. He (he or nothing) is either the reality or not. And faith is a gamble of playing the odds, is it not? The unbeliever must have faith that His spiritual/non-spiritual beliefs are valid and will never harm them - certainly not ETERNALLY. This is why so many atheists and agnostics spend vast amounts of time trying to disprove Christianity or that the universe required a God. As, psychologically/emotionally, they want to FEEL that they are correct, even if they can't prove that.
Why "he or nothing?" Are you honestly telling me that the creator of the universe has to have a gender? Why? It seems like he'd be a being of pure energy or something. That would make a lot more sense. Besides, the misogyny inherent in a conservative Christian worldview is one of the reasons that people are increasingly turning away.
Back on topic, I've always thought of faith as belief without evidence. It's impossible to disprove the existence of gods, basically because theists have had millennia to tweak the definition of the word until it was logically unassailable. That's okay. Word games don't concern me. There was a time when the people speaking them inspired fear, not because they were right, but because they were powerful and extremely dangerous. Come to think of it, that's what Pascal's Wager should have been - what if the clergy says you're wrong, nobody can prove anything either way, but they burn you regardless..?
Philip wrote:So, all unbelievers - even atheists and agnostics must have a faith - a core certainty that they have chosen correctly, as to the God question. And they well know this, surrounded by various theists and Christians. But I wonder, given the severe consequences IF they are wrong about the God behind Christianity, are they never stressed or worried about the possibility that they are wrong? Do they not think about that, or the horrific thoughts it should conjure? They also well know that they cannot physically or scientifically PROVE their non-theist beliefs, that their beliefs ALSO require faith. Even agnosticism requires a faith - not just that things are unknowable - but that remaining in the "things are unknowable camp" is nonetheless a rejection and lack of acknowledging God (or ANY god). The Bible calls such people unbelievers in the Lord, not just "unbelievers in anything specific or that is unknowable." And, so, it's not just important that the faith of atheists and agnostics be strong - for their eternal well being - it must be held in something that is actually TRUE. I don't think I could function if I thought I even "might" have the answer to that question wrong. And given the impossible option that ALL that came into being at the Big Bang, with great power, organization, design, functionality, with unfathomable scale of detail - to think ALL of that could happen, uncaused/without an Intelligence behind it all - that would cause me to have a crisis of faith about the enormous uncertainty of my unbelief (IF I were truly honest with the implications of it all). ESPECIALLY given the uncountable chain of uncaused miracles that would have been IMMEDIATELY necessitated by the beginning, content, organization, design, function and scale of the universe.
You're putting way too much weight on my inability to prove that gods don't exist. That's just semantics. Are you familiar with Russel's Teapot? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? The Invisible Pink Unicorn? The dragon in my garage? Eric, the magical god-eating penguin? All of them play the same semantic game, so their existence is just as unassailable as that of any god. That doesn't make them real.
And that's the thing - you have a big, scary idea, and you expect me to take it seriously because you do and you can't imagine otherwise. But I don't. Your big idea is just an idea. It can't hurt me.
I'm also noticing something else. It seems as though you need to live in an orderly universe that was designed by a creator, because the alternative terrifies you. I don't feel that same need for order. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to live in a universe designed just for me - but I see no evidence that that's the case and I can sleep at night without pretending.
