I'm an atheist

[atheist2010]

So why should I believe in the christian god, or in any god?

[Canuckster1127]

Have you examined the Home Site? There is much material there. What is your response or where are you having difficulties with it?

[Silvertusk]

I am wondering what you are expecting from such a blank statement like that. From that one line alone I can conclude that you have not bothered to read any of the material on this website or others because that is basically saying why you can believe in God. If you disagree with the material - then that is a different matter. So have you read any of the material on this website?

Silvertusk.

[jlay]

Why?

If something is true, should you believe it? I'm certain you can figure that out without even having to examine religious faith.

If Christianity is false, then you should reject it. However, if it is the truth, and Jesus is who He says He is, and you are who He says you are, then you should rightly trust in it.

So the question isn't "why should you believe?" The question is, "is it truth? "

Based on your question I can see that you are aware that you exist, and are actually able to formulate the question in your mind. The question of, "Why?" Why should I believe. Why am I here. And please don't condemn our suspiscions of your sincerity. Because your statement exposes something about you. Although, the question in and of itself is evidence that you KNOW there is something beyond yourself, you also claim that you already KNOW who you are. Yep, you confessed, "I am an Atheist." You are saying you are something. That is a positive statement of what you believe. Not that you just lack belief, but that you have a set of beliefs, that you have determined as your worldview.
The next question is where will you go from here. Will you explore with sincerity what your mind is beckoning you to explore? Or will you work out of the, "I am an atheist."

What's it going to be?

[dyeager]

@atheist2010 So why should I believe in the christian god, or in any god?

An excellent question. Here's a short summary (not intended to be a formal proof, because by definition you can't prove the supernatural).

1. Atheism is illogical. You can't say no god exists unless you possess all knowledge, and exist everywhere in the cosmos (and outside it) at the same time. Atheists accept their dogma on faith, not facts or logic.

2. Evolution doesn't work and can't explain scientifically the origin of the cosmos.

3. Thus, a god (small g) must exist.

4. That god must explain the origins of the universe.

5. Reject all religions which can't answer #4 (i.e. Eastern Philosophy).

6. Narrow down the list and eliminate the inconsistent ones.

That's a short summary of a much longer piece at:

http://www.dyeager.org/book/atheism-agnosticism

It's up to you. You're free to believe or not believe as you wish. I wouldn't try and convince you to believe in God against your desire, only that atheism makes no logical sense at all --- you accept it on *faith* not reason, logic, or critical thinking.

Where you go from that point is entirely up to you --- if you choose to believe (on faith alone) no god exists, you'd better be right.

I'm sure if you have questions, ask away and you'll get lots of answers, if you're interested.

[Gman]

So why should I believe in the christian god, or in any god?

Everyone believes or worships something. In that regard everyone is religious. Some worship sports, others worship the stock market or money. Some may worship a famous author, actor or songwriter. And some may even worship themselves. The point here being is that man by default is a religious being... We cannot escape it.. So why worship God? Because of the greatness of His love... John 3:16. Love conquers all...

Make the wiser choice...

[Kurieuo]

So why should I believe in the christian god, or in any god?

You should believe something that is true.

[inducer]

Wow really? "evolution can't explain the origins of the cosmos"
First, evolution has nothing to do with the "cosmos" or its origin. Evolution describes the process of adapting to the ever changing environment through either; genetic drift, random mutations, gene flow or natural selection.

Second, to answer the original question - do your own research, have an open mind about others opinions and be critical.

We do not possess sufficient evidence to affirm that god does or does not exist - don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Just because we can't explain something doesn't mean that god did it.

My advice to you my friend is believe in yourself. When you hit a rut in the road of life don't turn to god, look within because when you come out of it you will know that you did it all by yourself. You will feel stronger and more self-confident that YOU were able to overcome something. Too many people these days give up and throw their hands in the air and pray that god will get them through something.

Can you honestly believe that someone knows the "truth" about god - you may and that is your belief. In the scientific community an accepted theory is still a theory, until evidence is presented to suggest that it is not valid anymore. The "Big Bang Theory" is just one of many plausible explanations to the origins of the universe. There are so many unknowns about the universe that we have not discovered yet. The one thing I find sad these days is the amount of closed minded individuals who sit on both sides of the fence.

In the end, it really does not matter at this point if god exist or does not. If you believe in yourself there is no need to seek the divine. You are capable of living your life to your full potential. If you seek meaning, look around you there is meaning in everything.

P.S. If you are going to read the website, read another website that proves god does not exist and then formulate your question again.

[MarcusOfLycia]

@inducer:

Correction: we have no overwhelming 'Scientific' evidence either way. However, if the universe has a God as its Creator and He interacts with us, there are other methods we can use to identify His existence (however, I think the fact anything exists in the first place is a decent amount of evidence in the first place... since by definition the fact of existence is beyond natural - thus supernatural).

And, it matters entirely whether God exists or not. Perhaps you have no heard of Pascal's wager, but it provides an interesting pictoral representation of options and consequences regarding this fact.

However, the point I must disagree with you about most is your claim that 'there is meaning in everything'. Now, as a Christian who believes in eternal existence of the soul, I agree with this. If someone did not believe in eternal existence, meaning (even temporal meaning) is just not possible. I think an example is in order for this claim:

Imagine you had a drop of red dye. You dropped it into the ocean, let it mix for a long time, and then came back to try to find evidence you had done it in the first place. Given enough time and sophisticated enough tools, you could say that at some point, you would find evidence of it. What if the ocean were infinite? And, just for fun, imagine it wasn't a drop of dye but an ocean's worth. Could you find evidence then? Mathematically, scientifically, probability-wise, the answer is definitively "no". The definition of infinity is that anything not-finite is incomparable.

What does this have to do with anything? Replace the dye with all the "meaning" in the world. Replace the eternal ocean with eternal heat death in an expanding and slowly dying finitely large universe. Mathematically, there is -no- meaning, because for an eternal portion of eternity, there will be -no- life and -no- meaning. Any actions you take are ultimately completely useless. In fact, that would be a basic tenet of Deterministic Atheism anyway. If you are merely a complex biochemical computer, you merely process information and output more information and don't have free will, consciousness, or meaning anyway, just illusions of those things. And, if you somehow managed to accomplish more than anyone in the history of the universe looking back or going forward, you still die someday along with everything you've impacted... and thus you lose any evidence you were even here to begin with. Pessimistic? Why do you think Europe had a counter-naturalism "Romantic" era after the advent of atheism's attempt to separate (falsely) Christianity and science?

You should indeed have an "open mind", and you'll find that many Christians -became- Christians because of being open to new information. Christians developed science out of having open minds but God-focused attitudes.

[MarcusOfLycia]

I also didn't catch this the first time, but

You said:
"First, evolution has nothing to do with the "cosmos" or its origin. Evolution describes the process of adapting to the ever changing environment through either; genetic drift, random mutations, gene flow or natural selection."

That's true. No one is necessarily arguing with that, but Evolution does not fully account for the existence of life at this point (and likely never will), and the only theories that have to do with the origin of the cosmos are by definition outside of measurable science, thus beyond the physical realm, thus by definition supernatural. Its sad that some can claim an infinitely complex unknowable force (like the M-verse theory) and not see the parallels it has with Deism.

[jlay]

What do you mean we have no scientific evidence?

[MarcusOfLycia]

Was that to me? I said "overwhelming" since there is definitely scientific evidence. I think the biggest thing is perspective, since some things atheists see as evidence supporting their claim is seen by Christians as supporting ours.

[inducer]

@MarcusOfLycia:

What I meant about "everything has meaning" is that you can find fulfillment / meaning for yourself about anything. Example, I am typing up this reply it is meaningful to me because it stimulates my brain. Next, I am going to take out the garbage - that is meaningful to me because I am cleaning my house. I am going to do the best possible job I could for those two tasks.

I am not sure I understood your point about eternal existence. You said that you have to believe in eternal life in order for there to be meaning? Aren't you also saying that if eternity (infinity) exist then there could be no meaning? There appears to be a contradiction to me.

Also, I personally do not agree with Determinism because to my knowledge there exist true randomness. I am not sure what your background is but if you do some research you will find that particles on a sub-atomic level do move with randomness and therefore nothing is "predetermined".

Evolution is also not meant to account for the existence of life just a mere transformation of life. How life began is quite an interesting topic from a molecular biologists point of view. It is true that we have not truly understood how it first started but we are close. We can now synthetically make cells in the the lab by copying existing "blue prints" -imitation. A first step to understanding. Next, will come creation. We can already create bacteria that do particular tasks that we program them to do. The final step would be to create a cell from nothing and watch it grow.

Again I would not go as far as to call something outside our measurable science as supernatural. Just because we do not understand it doesn't mean we have to put in away in the god file.

I guess all I am trying to say is that we just don't know. Just because I do not personally believe in a Christian god doesn't mean I do not believe there is a possibility of a being outside my perception of him.

One more thing, I was actually surprised to find a site like this and to see how the perception of god has evolved. It went from a "man" living up in the clouds in heaven to a being outside of our possible existence, possibly existing in another dimension or out of phase of our perception. My point is that as our understanding of this universe changes, people realize that their interpretation of god has to change now to fit the current ideas of the time - otherwise god doesn't make sense.

[Legatus]

A quick and dirty method of deciding what religions are possibly true, see if they match basic knowledge. Example, some religions allow more than one wife, but do not allow more than one husband. Yet, the ratio of men to women is 50:50, therefore, their God cannot be the creator, since the creation does not match what their God said.

One can also do the opposite, do any religions match scientific fact, such that the writers could not have known these facts, but God could have? The bible, in genesis, does, see http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/model.html . How did people some 4000 years ago know about the big bang, planetery formation, etc? Answer, they didn't, so, who did, and how did it get into the bible?


lastly, there is this http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html . It seems that the universe had a big bang, all right, but do you know that the chances for it to come out the way it did are so VERY small that it appears to have been designed? In fact, it looks like that so much that scientists have been forced to invent an infinite number of universes to account for it, even though that idea has exactly none zip zero nada evidence to back it up. So the evidence that there is a God, the whole universe, ALL the evidence that there is, the evidnece against, zip zilxh zero nada. So if you want to believe there is a God, you have evidence, if none, you must disbelieve based on pure blind faith.

Lastly, from the above evidence, it says that if a God exists, it must not only be very powerfull, but extremely smart, able to make an infinite number of designes of universes, and then decide on the one that it wants, the one that works. Such a being must be extra dimentional, not made of matter as we are, since not even the fastest possible computer could do this. Thus, this creator, being so very strong and smart, and being non material, must not have any needs that we puny humans, on one small planet near one average sun in one unremarkable galaxy in a huge universe, could supply. In other words, there is nothing we can do for God that God could not do a million times better. Most religions, in fact all but one, state that you must do something for God to make God love you. But you cannot do something for God, in fact, you cannot even reach God, even if you could. Thus, most religions must be false. One exception, christianity. In christianity, it is not what you can do for God, but what God has already done for you. Thus, only christianity matches the way the universe shows a god must be.

Conclusion:
There is a God.
Your not it.

And that is the entire messege of the bible and the universe, all else logically follows from that.

[Kurieuo]

Also, I personally do not agree with Determinism because to my knowledge there exist true randomness. I am not sure what your background is but if you do some research you will find that particles on a sub-atomic level do move with randomness and therefore nothing is "predetermined".

I did not know that we were sub-atomic. And yet, we experience predictable outcomes via cause and effect at the atom level. Atoms that a built with sub-atomics.

One more thing, I was actually surprised to find a site like this and to see how the perception of god has evolved. It went from a "man" living up in the clouds in heaven to a being outside of our possible existence, possibly existing in another dimension or out of phase of our perception. My point is that as our understanding of this universe changes, people realize that their interpretation of god has to change now to fit the current ideas of the time - otherwise god doesn't make sense.

Have you got evidence for this evolution of god, or is this just what a lecturer once told you in class?