Posted on 07/28/2013 8:22:20 PM PDT by Patriot Politics
A Question for Atheists: The Book of God's Existence Atheists maintain that rejection of faith is superior to practicing faith. However, despite this commonly held view, one may at least force an atheist to admit he/she is capable of practicing faith. Simply ask this question:
Suppose there exists a book simply titled "The Book of God's Existence" which, using formal logic and reasoning, proves the existence of God. However, if one who does not already believe in God reads this book that person is doomed to eternal damnation. Many prominent and vocal atheists have read the book intending to prove it wrong, but in each case they immediately become depressed believing their fate in Hell is assured.
You, as an atheist, are not convinced that the book is correct. In fact, you're almost certain that it can be proven wrong since you discover it is simply a modified ontological argument and have successfully found logical fallacies in numerous other similar arguments. What do you do?
There are only 3 valid actions that an atheist may take:
Refuse to read the book, but continue to deny God's existence. Refuse to read the book, but accept God's existence. Read the book. Each action requires a display of faith, either in God or one's self. Here's why:
1. If they respond with "I wouldn't read the book, but I wouldn't believe in God either" they express a blind faith that the book is fallacious without examination of its contents and in direct conflict with the evidence that every atheist who has read the book believes in God--even those who were most vocal about their non belief.
2.If they respond with "I wouldn't read the book, but I would believe in God's existence" they express a blind faith that the book is correct without examination of its contents and accept the testimony of those who have read it as correct without any real proof to validate their claims. Most importantly, however, they also express a faith in God.
3. Unfortunately, this is the choice most atheists would make. If they respond to the question with "I would just read the book" they express a blind faith that their intuition of the book's fallibility is correct without any evidence. Further, they show a faith that the testimony of all the atheists who read the book is misguided despite the fact that each person who read the book was a strong atheist before, most likely including others that had also successfully refuted other ontological arguments. However, the greatest faith they place is in their belief that they will not be damned to Hell for reading the book without assurance.
Final Thoughts
In the end, each person is "granted a measure of faith" (Romans 12:3) by God, and an atheist is no different. Despite the claims that they will not express any faith, they are quite capable of doing so in many different situations. This question is simply a thought experiment to point out that they are indeed capable of faith.
Gosh, you're right. The reason that water expands when it freezes must be an utter mystery to science.
http://www.iapws.org/faq1/freeze.htm
Then again... :-)
Okay, please explain to me why the Bible accounts of the Apostles aren’t sound evidence? They apparently are great evidence to one of the greatest lawyers of all time and an expert on evidence, Simon Greenleaf. He was not a Christian before examining the gospels from a legal evidence point of view. After his few month examination he was convinced enough that he became a believer in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
After examining every thread of information he could find he said in his book, The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined for the Rules of Evidence, that if any unbiased jury in the world considered the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, they would have to conclude that Jesus of Nazareth actually rose from the dead.
Why buy into laughable bullshit? It only grants credence where none is deserved.
Look, anybody can construct a false sophist choice that ignores all laws of logic and reason, uses equivocation (which this laughable conundrum does); so what?
It proves nothing - except that you might be able to snare the weak minded in your bullshit.
Look, you are entitled to your belief structure. I have no wish to try to engage you in a mind-changing discussion, why would I? Your beliefs are irrelevant to me. And you are welcome to them, go in peace.
I wonder why you feel compelled to try to snare others into yours. Are you insecure?
It is this only that gave me the impetus to post.
That is why ice floats on water, for which we should all be thankful because if water behaved "normally" many bodies of water would freeze solid in the winter, killing all the life within them.
Thankful? Thankful to whom? Who set the laws of nature so that water freezes and expands so the fish don't die each winter?
If water behaved "normally" (i.e. if water did what logic tells us it should when it freezes and contracts instead of expands). Not one of us on earth is powerful enough to invent this natural law or to invent this exception to the law - precisely my point.
Science may try to explain the exception but it can't change it nor explain where the wisdom came from to create this exception. Atheists try to use science to "prove" God doesn't exist and, in their folly, they actually produce more evidence that there is a cosmic intelligence that so structured the world to allow fish to survive winter.
The Earth’s ecological system isn’t stable. It’s changing all the time, many times very, very violently. Just ask the dinosaurs. There are constant changes in the climate, some severe. There are super volcanoes that have erupted in the past and will again. It is not random chance though. The laws of nature are not random. Processes are certain and universal. It is not chance.
There is nothing illogical about Hydrogen and oxygen contracting when they freeze nor water expanding when it freezes. Hydrogen and Oxygen are gasses and water is a liquid. It is not chance or a plan, just entities acting according to their nature.
You can believe what you wish but it would not be natural for one entity to always do x when encountering a natural phenomena and a second entity does the same when encountering a certain phenomena but a third entity which consists solely of the first two does just the opposite when encountering the same natural phenomena.
In fact, I have a difficult time thinking of any other situation in nature where this is true. Can you think of any two elements that expand when heated but the combination of both contracts when heated? I can’t.
You’re quite dismissive of something that, mathematically, violates extremely long odds - like the odds of Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson 999 times out of 1,000.
“You can believe what you wish but it would not be natural for one entity to always do x when encountering a natural phenomena and a second entity does the same when encountering a certain phenomena but a third entity which consists solely of the first two does just the opposite when encountering the same natural phenomena.”
Well it’s not true that I can believe what I wish unless I am not concerned with the truth. If I am then I have to believe what can be validated with logic and reason from perceptions of what exists. I don’t know why you say that the behavior of Hydrogen, Oxygen and water is unnatural when we know they do behave that way from observing them in nature. So, unnatural how? The fact is that when elements combine they take on different, often radically different properties. Sulfuric acid is made of Sulfur and oxygen. Sulfur can be used as a medicine and Oxygen keeps you alive. you can’t live without it. But if you breath Sulfuric acid or try to use it as medicine it will have dire consequences. Scientist do understand why water expands when it freezes and contracts when it melts and it is not a mystery at all but a result of the way the molecules align themselves when they become a solid. I am sure there are other examples of this with other molecules. I haven’t studied it so I don’t know what they are but even if water is the only chemical that does this it would still not be unnatural and it wouldn’t be proof of anything other than that water is unique in that respect.
“You’re quite dismissive of something that, mathematically, violates extremely long odds - like the odds of Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson 999 times out of 1,000.”
I dismiss all such arguments about the extremely long odds of the world being the way it is. It is silly to talk about the odds of something that has already happened. The odds are 100%. It is silly to talk about what the universe would be like if it were different. It is what it is and there was no chance of it being different. If the universe were different to the extent that life were impossible we would not be here to argue about it. The fact is that we are here and so the chances of life are 100%.
Here is something equally amazing. What are the odds that all of your ancestors would survive long enough to reproduce going back over 180,000 years. If any one of them had been sucked down in quicksand or fallen out of a tree and broken their neck or succumbed to one of the many diseases you wouldn’t be here. All of them had to survive and find a mate and be fertile so that you could be here. The fact that you are means the odds were 100%. The point is it is pointless to talk about what were the odds after the fact.
The fact is that the argument from design and the fine tuning argument and the cosmological argument have all be refuted, shown to be logically invalid, but people go on using them because they want to believe and they don’t care that they are fallacious arguments and useless as proof of God.
It does not take faith to not believe in god. It does take intellectual honesty and an intransigent mind. I have examined all of the arguments for the existence of God and found them to be invalid or inconclusive so that is why I don’t believe. I laugh when I see these threads about atheism being a religion based on faith. If it were true it would only prove that atheists were just as irrational as believers.
A bit of poetic license there, I think. I'm no more thankful or grateful for the laws of nature than I am that my great-great-great etc. grandparents happened to cause a chain of events that resulted in my existence.
If water behaved "normally" (i.e. if water did what logic tells us it should when it freezes and contracts instead of expands). Not one of us on earth is powerful enough to invent this natural law or to invent this exception to the law
"Law"? I don't think you're using the term correctly as it's used in science...and as regards what logic tells us should happen, check out quantum dynamics. The "common sense" approach doesn't always work.
Science may try to explain the exception
I'd say it succeeded rather well.
Atheists try to use science to "prove" God doesn't exist
Science doesn't even address the issue of God's existence.
Well said.
I'm having trouble coming up a an analogous situation. Any book that threatens damnation depending upon whether or not certain people read it will simply be dismissed as utter nonsense in the first place by people who have no belief in Heaven, Hell, or souls. It might have some entertainment value, but it won't taken seriously.
Kind of like Chick tracts. :-)
So...a smart guy (and a lawyer, no less) is convinced of the Bible's authenticity.
At which point I point out smart guys who aren't convinced of the Bible's authenticity.
Now what?
Their unbelief comes from never examining the bible openly with the possibility the bible is right, and they were wrong. At least my example was a guy who was not a believer that actually took a fair shake at it and looked at the four gospels plainly on the evidence.
It’s not hard to find experts that dismiss stuff because they’ve already pre-judged something that doesn’t fit their worldview. Conversely it is very rare to find someone who does admit their lifetime of work and career was wrong.
I find that to be an extremely week answer. We know that thousands of family strains did not survive because, at one time or another, the reproductive cycle broke down or the only surviving child died. History is littered with examples. So the fact that my ancestors and yours were not among them only makes us blessed, not in any way better suited for survival than the ones who perished.
I can accept that the odds of anything that has already happened is 100% but it turns a blind eye to all the other more likely possibilities that should or could have happened. It's like saying the odds of me winning last night's lottery are 100% if I just so happened to have the right combination of numbers, ignoring all the millions of other lottery tickets which did not.
On this I totally agree since I was once in the same shoes. My conversion was not an intellectual argument because I am naturally a skeptic. It was a matter of lying still in my bed and thinking I was about to die.
But let's put this a different way. If you're right (assuming you do not believe in God) and I am wrong then I have lived my life as a fool who did not try to maximize every opportunity for my own hedonistic pleasure but instead tried to please the God I seek to serve. My reward will be to decay in the ground just like you will with no consequence as to whether I was good, evil, or something in between.
But what if I am right and you are wrong? The only difference between us two is that I accepted the plea deal to escape the eternal punishment for my sins through Christ's forgiveness and you did not. Then it sucks to be you. From man's viewpoint, it's not fair that some are punished and some are not but from God's viewpoint it is fair because I believed what God presented to me when I had the choice not to believe and my reward is His forgiveness. I don't deserve it but I got it anyway.
So, I suppose you could say I am hedging my bets in eternity. Never hurts to have friends in high places.
Please let me make sure I understand you correctly...are you dismissing even the possibility that someone could examine the Bible openly with the possibility that it is right and they are wrong...and then not believing?
But what if I am right and you are wrong? The only difference between us two is that I accepted the plea deal to escape the eternal punishment for my sins through Christ's forgiveness and you did not. Then it sucks to be you. From man's viewpoint, it's not fair that some are punished and some are not but from God's viewpoint it is fair because I believed what God presented to me when I had the choice not to believe and my reward is His forgiveness. I don't deserve it but I got it anyway.
Ah, Pascal's Wager...but what if Buddhism/Shinto/Islam/Rastafarianism/(fill in the blank) is right and you are wrong? What if God rewards skepticism and punishes faith? What if the only way to Valhalla is to die with a sword in your hand?
Pascal's Wager isn't falsifiable...and thus, is meaningless.
no, you do not understand me correctly. that is not what i said. i think that’s what you WANT me to say, and I didn’t say that.
look, it isn’t any skin off my nose if you believe or not, you seem to care more about arguing than actually doing what someone like greenleaf did. arguing is fine but it’s not an end in itself.
if this is all you want to do, i would just as soon move on and say, see ya later.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.