God doesn't seem to exist!

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Yes, do you believe in X. A theist will believe in God, and an atheist will not believe. To say that you neither believe nor disbelieve, because you simply do not have sufficient evidence or reason to decide one way or the other, means you are an agnostic. Atheism is not an absence of belief in God; it is the belief that God doesn't exist. That is the commonly-accepted, dictionary definition of the term 'atheism'. See: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism
but according to these people at http://atheists.org/activism/resources/what-is-atheism?,

"Atheism is usually defined incorrectly as a belief system. Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods. Older dictionaries define atheism as "a belief that there is no God." Some dictionaries even go so far as to define Atheism as "wickedness," "sinfulness," and other derogatory adjectives. Clearly, theistic influence taints dictionaries. People cannot trust these dictionaries to define atheism. The fact that dictionaries define Atheism as "there is no God" betrays the (mono)theistic influence. Without the (mono)theistic influence, the definition would at least read "there are no gods.""

According to whomever it was who provided this definition, we should not place our trust in dictionaries (especially the older ones), because they are tainted by "monotheistic influence", but what he/she fails to take into consideration here is the fact that what the dictionary has to say about a particular word is there precisely because the vast majority of, for example English-speakers, use the word in the manner in which it appears in the dictionary! Who are atheists to all of a sudden take it upon themselves to define words as they see fit?

It's the same now with the word 'nothing'. Apparently, 'nothing isn't nothing anymore' according to an infamous Lawrence Krauss lecture where he selects his own, personal definition of the term in order to buttress his own philosophical bias that we don't need God anymore to explain anything.

What real difference is there between someone who says, "I don't believe in God" and someone who says "I believe God doesn't exist"? If one does not believe there to be a God, one can safely assume they have good reasons for their claimed absence of belief, and one of those reasons will be that there is no God in their view, and according to reasons X, Y and Z (ex. a perceived incoherence to the idea, lack of physical evidence, existence of evil).

Yes, you are right, they should not state it as a self-evident truth, if only because for many people it isn't at all so self-evident. That's a mistake, one they make too often.

However, the point about God being 'uncaused' would have to apply if we assume for argument's sake there really is a God. When attributes are bandied about by theists (ex. God is eternal, timeless, transcendent et cetera), they are merely stating what God would have to be in order to qualify as being 'God'. Let's take transcendence as an example. God, in order to be such, could not be subject to the passage of time, the laws of physics, or anything else that applies to entities that exist within what we refer to as physical reality, if only because God was ultimately responsible for that physical reality itself. I've used the analogy before of a novelist who creates a fictional world populated with scenery and characters, and have said before that the author clearly does not belong within the story that he/she has imagined. The author is transcendent to that world, the rules that apply within the story do not apply to her.

Someone on the previous page linked to a Wikipedia article about abiogenesis, and this is what the very first paragraph has to say about the subject:

"Abiogenesis (/ˌeɪbaɪ.ɵˈdʒɛnɨsɪs/ ay-by-oh-jen-ə-siss[1]), or biopoiesis,[2] is the natural process of life arising from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds.[3][4][5][6] It is thought to have occurred between 3.8 and 4 billion years ago, and is studied through a combination of laboratory experiments and extrapolation from the genetic information of modern organisms in order to make reasonable conjectures about what pre-life chemical reactions may have given rise to a living system." (emphasis added)

The words 'thought', 'extrapolation', 'conjecture' and 'may' within the above quote don't make me feel very confident that we have this riddle solved yet, or that we will solve it within the near future. It's far, far too speculative an idea to take it as seriously as materialists tend to.

That is what you want to believe but the historical facts prove you wrong. It was indeed Aristotle who decided upon spontaneous generation, I suggest you do some research. And again it is you, not I spewing forth logical fallacies, again no one in the origins of life field suggests "life just pops out of mud etc" once again you are discussing the views of the pre modern natural philosophers, you know the ones who used the system of discovery that you and your so called "realist" friend champion.

If you are going to denigrate modern theories and hypotheses at least have the decency to actually understand the proposals and the supporting evidence. It is surely a sign of weakness that you consistently repeat the the same fallacies time after time, even though these falsehoods have been patiently explained to you. Once again (hopefully if you read this enough the information might gain a foothold) life most likely evolved gradually and via many different steps of chemical, mineral reactions to a point where molecules self replicated, from his point complexity would have increased rapidly as would competition. I have a serious of lectures on the subject, if you are really interested in the field I would be happy to drop down to the library with them.

Either that or god just doesn't give a s**t about humanity.

Indeed. There is sometimes a matter of perception-bias; for some the world is full of evidence that supports the existence of God, to others practically any evidence will be insufficient. If we are intellectually honest there is an ideological filter in both cases; we interpret the evidence of the world around us in a manner based on a position that one is likely to have arrived at for altogether different reasons. The "religion as indoctrination" or the faith tradition does not appear to me to account for conversions, or those who like myself who may have had an interest in the spiritual that most emphatically was NOT pushed down my throat by my parents. Also why would siblings have different religious values? Children often rebel against their parents anyway, and frequently that may involve embracing philosophies, politics or faith traditions that they know may upset their parents, so as an explanation for the continuance of religious belief through time, and the very real influence for good and ill on history, this seems an inadequate explanation. I also would reject the notion that God can be reduced to an emotional state. Emotions are very changeable, and in point of fact there have been many times in my life when I at least have not felt like continuing with Christianity; I have a range of struggles with it, wrestled with these and occasionally with alternatives. Other times my faith has been lukewarm or dry. So no, this does not seem to me to be an adequate explanation. With the world as with sacred texts there is the matter of interpretation; humans can be either overly sceptical or overly credulous in assessing the truth or falsity of a spiritual or other truth claim. And I suspect that people's reasons for rejecting or accepting will be based on emotion, upon specific events in their lives; these are real circumstances. Speaking for myself, I would say that Christianity appears to make the best sense on a small scale of my life. That does not mean that all my issues with aspects have magically disappeared, but I have come to suspect that many such "reasons" were actually excuses based upon emotion, while the truth was what endured even when I might not feel like it was, could be, or should be true, so I slightly resent the bland patronising attitude that belief is emotional, rejection inherently rational. Reason is very important to me, and I am conscious of how changeable emotional states can be. That is not to say that they are in any sense not real or unimportant, but they would not provide a very reliable guide to coming to conclusions on grave matters such as this.

Last edited by AlexandertheSolitary on 04 Jun 2015, 2:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

Or humans frequently care neither for each other nor for God. Even if there were nothing more than an incentive to put a check on human evil that should not be sneezed at; I would argue that there is more to God than that. The problem of evil and suffering is an age-old one (many have raised the same objection before hand: if a perfectly good, wise and omnipotent being exists, why is the world full of suffering and evil?) which gets no easier as history adds to the list of man's inhumanity to man, woman and child, and while free will may explain the existence of manifold human evils, that still leaves the question of natural disasters and other suffering not directly or indirectly attributable to human agency. I believe we should avoid glib answers here, as however convincing an answer may appear in our head, it is unlikely to be very satisfactory (or appropriate) to give when faced with a real example of human suffering. I realise that I have not exactly addressed your point; better thinkers and writers than I have exhausted much time and ink addressing this question, and I am unlikely to succeed in a single post.

One thing though: where do concepts of morality and decency (cultural differences not withstanding) actually come from? Where indeed does awareness and intelligence come from? Now, there may be a number of hypotheses, but the notion that the entire Universe should randomly contribute to the development of beings who can even ask these sorts of questions does not seem especially probable; yet the existence of such beings as humans is a fact (unless we reject the evidence of all our senses and reason, in which case what grounds do we have for accepting the simplest fact about the world?) If we are to assume that the evidence for our own existence as self-aware relational beings capable of complex emotions and thought processes, of human civilization flawed as it can be, surely the onus is on the doubter to provide at least a hypothesis as to why the trend of the history of the Universe should lead in this direction, when if it were a matter of physical laws (and where do they come from?) only then the trend would be merely to entropy and collapsing back into chaos.

The difference is that an atheist or theist is convinced; the agnostic is waiting to be convinced one way or another (or in some stricter definitions does not believe that it is possible to know). And beliefs concerning God, by no means confined to existence or non-existence, appear to be held for a range of reasons. A number of people in several different camps (positions on this question) may simply not have given it much thought. Others may have struggled long and hard through their life before being persuaded of a position. Often people's decisions are influence by emotion as well as reason, because humans are complex (in some senses). Obviously we will all want to believe that we and those who agree with us are the rational ones; but that itself springs

It is also not a binary; there are a number of different atheistic and theistic philosophies and traditions. Typically a believer or unbeliever is not accepting or rejecting the claim of the existence of God in isolation, but embracing or reacting against a specific tradition. So, rather than simply asking for whether the world we live in provides evidence for whether there is or is not a being (or in some traditions beings) that might be described as God in one of the various senses that this word or its equivalents in various languages are used, people will also be considering the truth or falsity of whole religions. There is also the aspect of the evidence from those human adherents of various faith traditions (and various atheist philosophies) whom one comes into contact with through their words, new of their actions, or in person; how good an ambassador for their faith are individual believers?

There is also the historical evidence about founders of faiths, both their words and their actions.

Firstly Morals and ethics exist due to the need for collaboration and survival, they are also very dynamic and change dramatically over time.

Secondly who is to say that life is not common in the universe, it seems to me that this is likely as it is a matter of chemistry, physics, mineralogy etc and unlikely to be the result of supernatural forces.

And lastly we come to the old chestnut of Entropy. People who state that entropy denies complexity really do not understand how entropy works. Whilst the universe is in the process of energy equilibrium it is this very process that drives complexity. Let me be clear about this. Without entropy there would be no complexity. Once energy has evened out throughout the universe, then complexity will cease and the universe will undergo what is called heat death. well at least this is one scenario, ie heat death, but what is certain is that entropy essentially forces complexity to occur. Anyone who argues against entropy leading to complexity simply does not understand the physics involved.

The existence of God and of religion are separate questions. That various religions exist and have existed is a historical fact. Whether God exists or not is a question about a deeper reality or lack thereof, and the historical evidence can be read both ways. And many people at least as intelligent and rational as you, and often highly educated, have actually given a great deal of thought as to the logicality or otherwise of God's belief. And whatever the ideology, laws will impugn to some extent upon those who may reject them. For human society to exist, at least in a fallen or imperfect world, laws are needed. If belief were to have no effect upon how people behaved, that would include the positives as well as the negatives, and in any case if that were to be so I would struggle to see the point. If one is pursuing a faith tradition or philosophy, one surely ought to at least attempt to take its tenets seriously.

And the civilisation in which traditions about separation of church and state could arise did not emerge fully formed from the ether; there is a history to how these concepts came to be, and if you are to condemn the many real instances where human evil is inspired by at least an interpretation of a religion and use it as evidence for the prosecution, then surely it would be intellectually dishonest of you to pretend that it was a coincidence that some religious believers improved the world, when it was an actual motivating factor. You cannot select only the evidence from history that suits your purpose, anymore than your theological or philosophical opponents should be allowed to.

We actually do not have conclusive evidence one way or the another as to extra-terrestrial life, concerning which I am agnostic, but would be delighted to find true. I do not see how that makes life any less marvellous. Point taken about thermodynamics. You say that "supernatural" causes are "unlikely" - based upon what? The concept itself is complex and debatable, and brings in an assumption. My point about complexity was slightly different. What is driving this development? There is no particular reason why we should exist, let alone be having this discussion. That our ancestors have each survived long enough to produce offspring has been very much against the odds. Why has intelligence developed? I appreciate that from your perspective I will already be committed to certain ideas based upon reasons that are distinct from the arguments that I am making here, but accept that the same is true of you. In both cases we commit to a position for whatever complex range of reasons brought us to our current stance, and maintained us in it when we might have considered following a different path (unless you have never wavered from childhood?) I have no way of knowing what the reasons were in your case, nor you in mine, but at least accept that if I hold to a position it is not mere sentimental attachment. I will try to think honestly about your arguments, and ask that you strive to do the same. At the same time, I am not going to reject One whom I have found to be true when I was false; so in a sense I am not being exactly neutral, but I do think civil questions should be treated seriously.

In port of fact, separate to the metaphysical question, if humans had not historically begun to wonder and question, and attempt to find answers, then civilisation probably would not have arisen in the way it as a matter of fact did - if indeed humanity is civilised.

My basic position on nature is that until all plausible avenues have been explored to explain natural events from a natural position the supernatural should not be given as a cause and even then the true answer is not God, rather we simply do not know. Now this does not mean if we were to discover a mechanism for creating universes that god does not exist, but it most certainly removes the need for god to exist to explain the universe, same goes for origins of life, evolution etc. Showing that something has a natural cause makes the existence of god less likely (essentially because gods are usually invented to explain the existence of natural phenomena)

With regard to life, yes it does seem incredible, almost ridiculously improbable even. But what if we were to find that it is commonplace throughout the universe? This would for starters remove the improbable tag. And yes whilst I agree with you we have zero evidence for life beyond our planet, this is hardly surprising given the size of the galaxy let alone the visible universe. I for one would be astonished if it was somehow shown that this planet is the only one with life.

You ask what is driving development, I would argue that it is entropy, change and time. The mistake that people make is they think development has a direction and therefore direction suggests a plan. As far as I am am aware there is no direction to complexity and evolution, rather it is dependent upon adaptation to a changing environment.

Scientists are perfectly fine with speculations that are in line with the evidence but not certainties. It is the religious people who insist on certainties.

So why not include God on the list of possibilities? Because God is a cultural construct, not a scientific hypothesis. From your posts in other threads I saw you had taken great pains to strip away as much religion-specific baggage as possible in describing God but even so, the very concept is still a cultural construct.

In addition Jannisy, he needs to realise that this is what good science is, hypothesis based upon a plausible concept followed by years of experiment against nature and even after many experiments have been found to support a hypothesis a rational mind should only accpet this as the best approximation so far. I can only imagine the outcome if researchers trying to untangle the process by which life continues had said "oh there are far too many possibles, far to many speculations, far to many what ifs" we would never have discovered DNA, genetics and all that has come with it. Thing is Lintar, as the search for DNA showed it is hard enough to discover biological processes when you have them in front of you, it is altogether a different level of difficulty when you are trying to replicate conditions some 3.5 billion years in the past. And yet despite your ignorant derision this is exactly what is being achieved. But it is entirely possible that we may never know the answer to the origin of life, not as you would have it because we are willfully denying gods role, rather because we may never be able to fully replicate the conditions. But mark my words, research will come up with ways to replicate life in the laboratory.

while I am on the subject of god I want to point out another fallacy that you and your ilk are guilty of. That people like myself hate the idea of god and heaven, that we do not want these things to exist. I am not a masochist, of course I would want to live in the contemporary ideal of heaven, why would I not. Why would I not want to live for ever in contentment, swathed in feelings of love and affection. The trouble is this is nothing but a man mad fantasy. The concept of god has ABSOLUTELY no evidence to support it. You have described people who agree with you as realist. There is nothing to suggest that what you believe has any semblance of reality. And this is why I do not support the concept of god, not because I reject the notion of a wonderful loving existence. I reject gods for the same reason and by the same criteria, that I reject all fantasies.

First of all, we don't believe in fairy tales. It's really as simple as that. We also don't 'believe' in multiple universes. We understand that our best view of reality may permit them. There is a huge difference believing in possibilities that the math suggests and some made up fairy tale...