Positive Knowledge of God vs Negative Disbelief

General discussions about Christianity including salvation, heaven and hell, Christian history and so on.
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MarcusOfLycia
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Positive Knowledge of God vs Negative Disbelief

Post by MarcusOfLycia »

The topic title is probably a bit more sophisticated than the actual content I'm writing, but I figured it sums it up pretty well. Its bothered me for a long time that atheists treat their disbelief in God on the same intellectual level as a Christian's belief in God, and after thinking about it, I kind of came up with an analogy. Let me know if its of any use :D

Imagine that there's a box with a cat underneath it - the only cat to ever live in fact. I believe that cats exist because others have told me and I've accepted it on faith based on the fact that its reasonable and that I really want to own one. From the sound of it they're a lot of fun. Because I've accepted it, I can hear it meow. You see, people who don't think cats exist don't believe that the meowing could be caused by the cat, so they attribute it to the box or to their mind playing tricks on them.

An anti-cat believer comes up to me and suggests that my belief in the existence of cats is unfounded, irrational, and unreasonable. He suggests that since we've never seen the cat, it must not exist. I respond that I have positive evidence to believe the cat exists - I've heard something I can only attribute to the cat.

The overall point behind this scenario is that I think Christianity by default is more reasonable than atheism on the point of belief. I have positive evidence in the example that cats exist. The person who doesn't believe they exist has no positive evidence that they do not, only their interpretation of evidence that does exist. I think its more reasonable to base a claim on what one knows than to base an equally weighty claim on what one doesn't know.

Heh... now I need to know if any of that made sense.
-- Josh

“When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it, he keeps a very small stock of it within” C.H. Spurgeon

1st Corinthians 1:17- "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel””not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power"
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Re: Positive Knowledge of God vs Negative Disbelief

Post by Seraph »

[Begin devil's advocate mode]

Hmm, I sort of think that the analogy mostly sounds true in this case because in our real lives we know that cats actually do exist and know that they meow. In the anology, if it was the only cat in existence you wouldn't really have the evidence available that you hear it meowing because you probably wouldn't have ever heard a cat meow before.

What would happen if you changed it a little so that all you hear is rustling and snorting under the box, and people tell you that it contains the worlds only unicorn?

[End devil's advocate mode]
I am committed to belief in God, as the most morally demanding, psychologically enriching, intellectually satisfying and imaginatively fruitful hypothesis about the ultimate nature of reality known to me - Keith Ward
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