There is no god

[jesper]

Stating the obvious would seem redundant. Sadly it's not.

Atheist bus campaign goes nationwide:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... n-national

I'm not sure what the word probably is doing there.

[alkis21]

I'm an atheist but I fail to understand the purpose of this "campaign". Unless they're offering free blowjobs or something.

[JamesHBeard]

I cannot accept that there is no god, especially when its a fact that the Jews killed his son...

[jesper]

I cannot accept that there is no god, especially when its a fact that the Jews killed his son...

At least you didn't use a capital G in 'god'. There is still hope for you.

[JamesHBeard]

By lack of proof.. there must be a god..

Humans cannot scientifically explain how the universe was formed, where it is stored and what lies beyond it.. and then what lies beyond that.. and ad infinitum.

Subsequently, something, somewhere, must be beyond the realms of human comprehension.. and therefore.. god exists.... in some form or another..

simple and logical really.

[dnielsen]

I'm agnostic, but I agree with Alkis. I should note that I find it perfectly natural and reasonable to either believe in some God, or to be an atheist.

The amusing thing for me is that, while many atheist often claim to be the only rational people, I often find them to be the least rational people for exactly this reason. The point is that they don't understand the valid scope of a belief like "there is no god". A sentence like "there is no god" (or "there exists a God") is a part of a person's world view, expressed like a postulate. This world view is, to me, nothing but a personal tool. It has no scope beyond that. It is, to me, simply immature to believe that any personal world view somehow corresponds correctly to The Truth (Whatever That Is Beyond Just A Part Of Some Other Meta World View).

To see it from a slightly different angle: It is, to me, immature, even childish, to go around and say: "My view of the world is CORRECT, and you are irrational if you do not share with me this view of the world." But this is actually pretty much what you do when you go around and say that "all world views that don't share this property X with my world view are wrong".

So, the statements "I believe in God" and "I believe there is no god" are similar, and this is what some atheists need to understand. The statements are both just a part of some personal view of the world and not by some divine or scientific intervention "True" and the only reasonable stance to take on the question of whether there is a god or not. They are a part of a tool/world view with which we grasp events in our lives and communicate with each other about them. It is immature to think that other people MUST be WRONG if they have a differently shaped world view (since it is immature to think that there is such a thing as a correct view of the world in the first place).

I do not find it unreasonable to preach a view of the world, and as such I don't mind people preaching their religion or their atheism (I don't mind preaching because there can be many ways to justify to one another that you really should adopt this or that world view). But as soon as an atheist says that I am somehow irrational because I do not share his atheism, I give up on him because he is simply too irrational to have a rational conversation with.

[JamesHBeard]

I cannot agree entirely with you mr Nielson.. only as far as.. where the is undeniable proof, categorical and reproducable.. you have to accept that viewpoint.. unless you can prove the entire opposite.. which is not possible by logic of proof provided already.

This is where religion falls apart.. as its all about a human genarated concept of "Faith".. rather than the use of facts.. which is what humans survive on.

[dnielsen]

Aha, but then again, my "problem" is that I don't "understand" (or, perhaps, don't accept) concepts like "an undeniable, categorical proof". To me, there is a big difference between:

1) "When you observe this objext X with me, you should really agree with me that it has property Y."

2) "It is True that absolute object X has absolute property Y."

1 is about sharing useful experiences and also about giving good advice to each other about how to keep on being able to communicate with each other. It could be something like "you could adopt this property called gravity in your view of the world, it makes thing fall to the ground, many people have adopted it in their world view, it is consistent with other common parts in peoples' view of the world and probably yours as well, and it will give you a useful answer to the question "should I jump out the window"".

While 2 is about saying something like "Gravity exists in Reality, and here is our Proof".

To me, 2 is a nonsensical and immature statement.

[jesper]

James, do you agree that there is at most one god?

A sentence like "there is no god" (or "there exists a God") is a part of a person's world view, expressed like a postulate.

To me these 'postulates' are very similar:

- There is no god
- Earth is round
- Dino Dini and Steve Screech created Kick Off 2(*)

I don't think these statements say must about my world view. They are facts to the extend that they are supported by overwhelming evidence or their opposites are supported by next to no evidence. If religious people would have to convince me about the existence of god they would have to provide overwhelming evidence. I don't see that happening since 'god is a matter of faith'.

(*) Incidently, former KO2 world champion Gianluca T believes that Dino Dino is God.

[Robert]

(*) Incidently, former KO2 world champion Gianluca T believes that Dino Dino is God.

ridiculous idea



We all know it's Camber. Just ask Alkis.

[dnielsen]

The statements are not entirely similar to me. Let's take the third one. Spelled out in full, I read it as:

"If we are/were on the same page with regard to what Kick Off 2 is, and who Dino Dini and Steve Screetch is, and what it means to create something, then we should really agree that Dino Dini and Steve Screetch created Kick Off 2."

The point is that there is so much supporting evidence to this claim in my world view that it simply is pointless for me to communicate with somebody who would claim otherwise. I could probably not adopt the opposite view without tearing apart a good chunk of my world view, and I would not be willing to do this unless I was presented for some truly sensational evidence.

But the situation is different for me with regard to the statement: "There is no god." First, claims of existence or non-existence are hard for me to grasp unless they are quite specific and situational. "There is a cheese in the fridge" is easy for me to understand. It means that if I go open the fridge, I can expect to find what my understanding of a cheese is in there. Likewise with the claim "there is no cheese in the fridge". I can easily imagine how to test and verify or falsify these statements, and how to convince others that they are reasonable or unreasonable parts of my view of the world, and why other people should also adopt these statements in their view of the world if we are to keep communicating meaningfully and with honest intentions. But, the absolute statement "there is no god" is much harder for me to grasp since it seems to imply that we are on the same page with regard to some kind of absolute "Reality upon which we can judge what is the Truth", a concept that makes little sense to me.

But let's assume anyway that I accept to consider adopting the statement "there is no god" in my world view. Fine, I can do that no problem. But, I can just as easily adopt the view point that there is a God and Jesus Christ is his son. The point is that I really have no compelling evidence either way, and that OTHER parts of my world view are equally consistent with either statement (UNLIKE the situation with Who Created Kick Off 2).

What I think atheists should do is differentiate between some statements:

1) "I believe there is no God."
2) "I personally have no evidence of the existence of a God."
3) "I find it very unlikely that anybody has any good evidence of the existence of a God."
4) "I believe it is impossible that there is a god, based on common evidence."

1 and 2 are quite personal. 3 is also quite personal. I can understand all these stances, and I find them rational and reasonable, even though I have myself only fully adopted 2. But I most certainly don't find 4 rational. An easy way to see that 4 is irrational is by considering the fact that Jesus Christ may walk the earth tomorrow and perform miracles. Since this is possible (in the sense that it is not in conflict with other view points we have adopted in our world views (apart from the fact that it is an unprecedented event in our lives, but note that the fact that something is unprecedented doesn't mean that it must be in conflict with our world view, for instance, at one point evidence of planets outside our solar system was unprecedented, just as evidence of extra terrestrial beings are now, and just as evidence of Jesus Christ is), it can't be impossible that there is a God.

One person or another may find it unlikely that we will ever see evidence of the existence of a god. But, note, even religious people can share this view! And, unlikely should also not be confused with impossible. And, note even that lack of evidence in itself does not mean proof of non-existence.

The only thing that the belief that "there is a God" seems to be inconsistent with is the belief that "there is no God". Just as with Extra Terrestrial beings, we seem to have no evidence either way.

Please note that these situations are different from the question of whether Tooth Fairies exist. We have made many concrete examinations of claims of the existence of Tooth Fairies, and in each and every instance, we found that the claims were inconsistent with other highly reliable evidence of the nature of the concrete situations. But we have never made any concrete examinations of whether God exists (and by the very nature of the concept of a god, such an examination cannot be limited to a concrete situation), and we have never made exhaustive examinations as to the question of whether there exist ETs (since we have not visited all parts of the world).

It is perfectly fine that atheists say "I will believe there is no god unless I am presented for some overwhelming evidence to the contrary". But, I would like it if "militant atheists" stopped saying that people are irrational if they don't adopt the same view-point "on the basis of there being no evidence to the contrary". Lack of evidence is just that, lack of evidence. It is not evidence of lack of existence.

There is evidence that DD and SS created KO2. There is evidence that the Earth is round. It would be difficult for us to discard these claims without tearing apart our world views. But it is hard to think of evidence that there is no god.

So you can say that the three statements are dissimilar in the sense that, for the first two, we can't adopt the opposite view points without tearing apart our world views. But we can easily adopt the view point that "there is a God" and still function fine in our daily lives. In fact, consider the two observations:

1) People tend to discard inconsistencies in their world views.
2) Many people believe there is a God.

Do these two observations not indicate that it is not irrational to believe that there is a God?

OK, I can understand why it would be difficult for strongly believing atheists to suddenly adopt the view point that there is a God. But then they should understand that this is solely due to the categorical nature of their world view, and not because there is some commonly shared evidence that has, so to speak, forced their world view to be in this way, and that they can't expect everybody else to share this view point with them. This is dissimilar to the question about who created KO2 or is the earth round. I would expect people to agree with me or I would suggest that they go see a doctor or open a book or stop waisting my time by arguing with dishonest intentions or really surprise me. But whether people would say to me that they believe in God, or say that they believe there is no god, I would say "fine, I understand where you come from, I just hope that you understand that it is not unreasonable to believe the opposite".

[Wonka]

I'm an atheist but I fail to understand the purpose of this "campaign". Unless they're offering free blowjobs or something.

The purpose of this campaign is obviously to show people that disregarding an improbable ideology is a very good thing. Let’s hope lots of young people see it who hate going to mosques and churches, the ones who attend the pointless places of worship just to keep their parents happy or what ever.

There are so many nutter’s going around drumming religion into peoples heads, so this campaign is just fantastic and we need to see much more things like this. It’s very good and inspiring that some people are brave enough to publicly denounce an imaginary man who lives in the sky.

[Wonka]

By lack of proof.. there must be a god..

Humans cannot scientifically explain how the universe was formed, where it is stored and what lies beyond it.. and then what lies beyond that.. and ad infinitum.

Subsequently, something, somewhere, must be beyond the realms of human comprehension.. and therefore.. god exists.... in some form or another..

simple and logical really.

It’s this kind of thinking that discredits religion even more. At least science explains much of what happens, whilst religion just bases it’s speculation on a medieval book that was produced by someone who was mentally ill. As soon as people say: “But there has to be a god. If there isn’t, how do you explain life and the universe itself?”

Well, that’s the whole point, it can’t all be explained. Much of it will always be left to our imagination; there are millions of possibilities. Therefore, a particular belief is indeed a very unlikely belief. What the bus says is absolutely right. There probably isn’t a god, so just enjoy your life! Absolutely brilliant! Simple logic really.