Why is it so easy to dismiss the existence of gods?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
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Why is it so easy to dismiss the existence of gods?

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Someone posed the question, "Why is it so easy to dismiss the existence of gods?"

Here's my answer:

It is easy to dismiss the existence of something supernatural, hence the term supernatural. Most people would not believe a religion's claims unless they were raised to believe it or something similar. They are beliefs held without evidence, which is why they are religious beliefs and not scientific ones. If there was evidence that made the claims believable, then it would be science not religion.

What do you think?
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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Re: Why is it so easy to dismiss the existence of gods?

Post by boagie »

Scott,

I think it is an excellent summation categorically. I assume with believers that they find reality just to harsh and prefer an alternate reality at the cost of rationality. The shear number of absurdities that must be imbraced once one has taken that first step is just mind boggling.
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Juice
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Post by Juice »

1 Corinthians

21For after that in the wisdom (science)of God the world (creation) by wisdom (science) knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

25Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (MINE)
How does one go about proving the existence of God?

Of course the Bible is pure hyperbole and mysticism so that book is out of the question.

And naturally since science can't find the source of gravity or decide on the meaning and purpose of time then science is just as ineffective in providing that proof.

Religions are diverse, cultural and dogmatic so no distinguishable truth can be obtained from there either.

So, what we can try is "LOGIC". The nature of empirical inference.

First let's dispel the presumption that God is supernatural. Not only is God not described as such in the Bible but any existence that exists whether discovered, yet to be discovered or undiscoverable is natural like the source of gravity or a reason for time.

The question posed is leading. Asking a believer to suppose how God can be dismissed assumes that God is "dismissable". And, since a question has been posed which does not dismiss God then naturally God cannot be dismissed without giving God some thought. Like gravity or time which are hardly given second thoughts exist whether we give them thought or not. So dismissing God is not as easy as proposed.
When everyone looks to better their own future then the future will be better for everyone.

An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
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pjkeeley
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Post by pjkeeley »

If God created the Universe, what created God? If it's possible that God was not created by anything, why bother positing God at all, since it's also possible that the Universe was not created by anything? In other words: if God exists in and of itself, why can't the Universe exist in and of itself?

So my answer is that God is not a logical necessity, and therefore, lacking both empirical and logical evidence for its existence, I reject it as a hypothesis.
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Post by Snarf »

It's easy to dismiss the supernatural mainly because life on this planet works exactly as you'd expect if there were no gods or God at all. If the planet spun backwards, day became night, people suddenly grew wings and flew, we could point to the gods as a reasonable explanation. As it stands, God is either dead or might as well be based on what we can see, touch, and test. The Problem of Evil is critical not because it looks like we have a cruel God, but because it looks like we have a God who isn't there at all. In many respects, that's a kinder view of God than being mad at him for what he didn't do. If he can't, that is much better than he won't, but from all evidence we have a world exactly like it would be if it just came into being and drifted off to do its own thing, unaltered by a divine being.

When pigs fly, God is going to be a very hot subject of study. Until then it's nothing more than the hopes and dreams of a species trying to comprehend what our brains simply weren't build to deal with. When we meet another species who also thinks they were made in the image of God, that is going to be one hell of a fight since probably all conscious species put themselves at the top of the list. Nothing could be more natural...
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Re: Why is it so easy to dismiss the existence of gods?

Post by Snarf »

boagie wrote:Scott,

I think it is an excellent summation categorically. I assume with believers that they find reality just to harsh and prefer an alternate reality at the cost of rationality. The shear number of absurdities that must be embraced once one has taken that first step is just mind boggling.
I used to think that people needed a buddy God, like a toddler's security blanket, but the numbers say differently. People believe in God because in their minds it just makes sense. They see design all around them and assume a designer, not putting together that is looks designed to us because we are part of the design, but it's a design without a designer and people have trouble understanding how that could happen. They see stars as bears and dippers, when they are nothing of the kind, but like any simple optical illusion, our brains impose an order on what doesn't have one. God fills in the "How could this happen" question and once you accept him as an answer, you can stop asking the questions and get on with making babies and plowing the fields.

Should those within the design be expected not to see design or to search for the designer? Well, evolution serves reproduction and continuation not truth, and that appears to be part of the design. God has evolved just like we have and there's nothing to say that he can't exist, there's just nothing to say that he does, but for those who believe most of them do because it just makes sense, it gives meaning, and comfort, etc., all good things when your true purpose in life is to crawl into bed and then care for what you create there.

God is a great answer, and almost without a doubt, dead wrong...
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Homicidal Pacifist
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Post by Homicidal Pacifist »

God can be found without the existence of a Bible.

Here are some reasons for not believing in the existence of God :

1. Lack of evidence - If proof of His existence were available, faith would be unnecesary. Believing something without proof shows a higher committment than otherwise.

At one point there was no discovered proof that the earth revolves around the sun, yet some believed it and turned out to be right when the evidence was revealed. (That might be a bad analogy but you get my point.)

Many things in this world cannot be proven and yet we believe them anyways because we have found logical some reason to believe them.

2. Some people have not found sufficient logical or emotional reasons to have faith in God - To them I say don't give up yet. Be skeptical but not blind.

3. Some people are weak and thus seek something higher than themselves - Some people do this in a completely irrational way.

Some, like myself, admit that they are weak (to some degree) and that yes they do need help, but are only willing to find that assurance through a rational search and a valid source.

4. Many religous people hypocrisize their own religoun and thus discredit it.

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ." - Ghandi

5. The problem of evil - Why would God allow so much suffering if He possesses the ability to end it?

Answers are as follows: He can prevent it but chooses not to because to do so would violate our free-will which is a very important thing to exist even when we misuse it. We are not His robots. Also, we learn from our mistakes. Or at least we should. That's the man-made evil issue.

The issue of natural evil (disease, storms, etc.) could be viewed like this... strength and higher understanding result from trials and tribulation. This is the idea of character building. If there were no problems, there would be no reason to improve our situation. Anything worth having is worth struggling for.

Also, suffering often brings people together in a way that otherwise they might not have felt so inclined. The existence of death makes us value life more. The possibility of your loved ones dying today compels you to try to ensure their safety. Live today like it was your last because it just might be.

Also, we couldn't help each other if their were no problems. No sickness = no doctors. And doctors are noble because they desire to help. (unless they're only in it for the money, but at least they're helping.)

Courage wouldn't exist if there were nothing to fear, etc.

Sorry for the long post.
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Post by Belinda »

Homicidal pacifist wrote:
Some, like myself, admit that they are weak (to some degree) and that yes they do need help, but are only willing to find that assurance through a rational search and a valid source.
But I am not weak because I cannot control the future . I am not weak because there is no real God , and no reality. I am not weak because for all my rational searching, in the end I know only what I perceive.I am strong because I accept all this.Water is stronger than rocks.
ape
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Re: Why is it so easy to dismiss the existence of gods?

Post by ape »

Scott wrote:Someone posed the question, "Why is it so easy to dismiss the existence of gods?"
Hi Scott! Great q!
It's so easy to dismiss the existence of gods only when we have first already found it easy to dismiss and have already dismissed our own existence in any way thru the supernaturals of self-Disrespect or self-Hate!
Proof:
Most people who do dismiss God's existence would disrespect and hate that God IF they thought he existed or if he did exist! And dis and hate that God even as presently nonexistent to them!
So that proves pre-existing pre-judice against the evidence: so not only don't they know but also they do not want to know. Even if he did exist, they wd deny his existence--just as some deny the existence of man landing on the moon!
So all we have to do is ask:
Do we love or hate who is nonexistent?
NB: There is NO reason to hate who does not exist since we love donald duck and hamlet and harry potter and robin hood and miss piggy and scaramouche and etc!:)

But when we have supernatural Love and R for self, it's automatic that we KNOW that God must exist-- since Love is the ONLY real proof of God, and especially because when we do check into it, we find God made the great green and ecological allowance for those who did not believe in his existence as substitionary examples of himself if HE did not believe in himself himself as per 1 JOHN 4:20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Example:
When I love or hate myself as an atheist, or love or hate an atheist, I am loving or hating God as a being who did not believe in himself---even tho it is theoretical!
Now only a supernatural being made supernatural by that supernat Love cd have come up with an idea like that!
qed.
Plus, religious claims are of themselves scientific when proved, and vice versa, as per:
"A universe with a God would like quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory." Richard Dawkins
Last edited by ape on July 28th, 2009, 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Juice »

pjkeeley-In the same respect that one can surmise that the universe exits as a phenomenon of self preconditional creation and non influenced determination to exist as it is observed to exist is the same argument that can be applied to the existence of God.

In other words if the universe exists without cause then the same logical inference can be applied to the existence of a God that is without cause.

Except the existence of God can be logically inferred by what is scientifically observed as empirical phenomenon existing in the product called the universe.
When everyone looks to better their own future then the future will be better for everyone.

An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
C. S. Lewis

Fight the illusion!
ape
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Post by ape »

Juice wrote:
1 Corinthians

21For after that in the wisdom (science)of God the world (creation) by wisdom (science) knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

25Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (MINE)
ape: Great quote!
God is the Great Fool in Love who loves fools and wisemen that don't believe in his existence:
even God loves himself as existing and as non-existing, and so God is an honorary atheist!
And God loves fools and wisemen who do believe in his existence!:)
So it is NO big thing and is NOT impressive to believe in God, and it is NO big thing and is NOT depressing to NOT believe in God!
qed.
"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise."William Blake
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools [who love fools] are right sometimes."
Winston Churchill

Juice:
How does one go about proving the existence of God?

Of course the Bible is pure hyperbole and mysticism so that book is out of the question.
ape: Hmmm, Juice, guess what? The Bible is one of God The Fool's best Book of Fools as in THE WISDOM OF THE IDIOTS by Idries Shah!
1 Corinthians 3: 18Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
So there is lots of proof of God's existence IN there all boiled down to and hidden in one word among all the trees of word: Love, the only word that loves all men!
"Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men," LOVE'S LABOURS LOST, Act 4, Scene 3

"I am two fools, I know, For Loving, and for saying so In whining Poetry."
JOHN DONNE, The Triple Fool
JUICE:
And naturally since science can't find the source of gravity or decide on the meaning and purpose of time then science is just as ineffective in providing that proof.
ape:
Exactly!
Juice:
So, what we can try is "LOGIC". The nature of empirical inference.
...The question posed is leading. Asking a believer to suppose how God can be dismissed assumes that God is "dismissable". And, since a question has been posed which does not dismiss God then naturally God cannot be dismissed without giving God some thought. Like gravity or time which are hardly given second thoughts exist whether we give them thought or not. So dismissing God is not as easy as proposed.
ape:
Xlnt!
It's like saying to atheists who don't believe in God:
"So Atheists do believe in the existence of no god?:)
[Ooops!]
Who or what is that god you don't believe in?
Please tell me about that god."
Even the Greeks were foolish enough to know that there MIGHT be some UNKNOWN God out there!
Acts 17: 22Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious[too religious].

23For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
ape
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Re: Why is it so easy to dismiss the existence of gods?

Post by ape »

boagie wrote:Scott,

I think it is an excellent summation categorically. I assume with believers that they find reality just to harsh and prefer an alternate reality at the cost of rationality. The shear number of absurdities that must be imbraced once one has taken that first step is just mind boggling.
Hi Boagie!
Do you mind listing one or any number of those sheer absurdities?:)
I am willing to make sure surdities out of them!
Here is AE chiming in encourage you:
"Now, even though the realms of Religion and Science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies.

Though Religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up.

But Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of Religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image:
Science without Religion is lame,
Religion without Science is blind.
"
Albert Einstein. [This] second [11]section is from Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941.
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Post by kk23wong »

I have given you the answer. See the posts.

How to deny my theory? It is the only way to dismiss the existences of the God.

If you are a philosopher, read it carefully. Philosphy is the doorway to the truth, no matter you agree with this statement or not.

The announcement of truth brings excitements to philosophers. If you are one of them, enjoy.

Thank you.
ape
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Post by ape »

pjkeeley wrote:If God created the Universe, what created God? If it's possible that God was not created by anything, why bother positing God at all, since it's also possible that the Universe was not created by anything? In other words: if God exists in and of itself, why can't the Universe exist in and of itself?
Pjk!
A trillion years or more from now when some other being I created in my image--cd be eagle or lion or cow or human or etc:)-- asks me, as God member of the God family, who made me, I will be able to tell him what all kids already know:
"God made me God in the 20th century!":)
pjkeeley wrote: So my answer is that God is not a logical necessity, and therefore, lacking both empirical and logical evidence for its existence, I reject it as a hypothesis.
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him." Voltaire
"But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no [one] anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma [but the Dogma of Love for all dogmas and for the dogma of no dogma] and no God conceived in [only] man's image; so that there can be no [wholly true] church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another."
AE. The article by Albert Einstein appeared in the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4. It has been reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, Inc. 1954, pp 36 - 40. It also appears in Einstein's book The World as I See It, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 24 - 28.
Last edited by ape on July 28th, 2009, 3:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Juice
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Post by Juice »

Food for thought for the willing and the sure;

There are a quintillion stars in the universe all performing the same function at various stages of a stars existence. The universe is born out of pure, undescribable, undefinable, energy and is in constant demonstrable modes of goal oriented creation. The universe is expanding and is excellerating faster. Thermodynamics and entropy are sciences of purpose. Purpose is conscious, purpose is awareness.
When everyone looks to better their own future then the future will be better for everyone.

An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
C. S. Lewis

Fight the illusion!
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