That’s actually the subject of a fun anecdote I once heard in which an epistemology professor asks a student why they believe in God via the authority of the Bible. When the student answers with the circular logic you quoted, the teacher says, “I’m glad you’re going to be in this class for a whole semester.”

Fun stuff.

Dwight Sheldon Adams

Many of the arguments made about believing in God start with the assumptions god exists and use god to explain

A little bit off topic, but I read this earlier today, and it so perfectly captured a certain religious attitude, I just have to pass it on….

Scripture repeatedly asserts that God guided the hands of its authors. Therefore it must be true.

The bible is true, and i know it because it says it is in the bible, and since the bible is true, it must be….

As a final thought for today: Rationalism is a method, a process. If you engage the world rationally, even if you are doing so while believing in God or some other concept, you rational approach informed by skepticism of a variety of claims and so on, is the ideal antidote to blind faith.

Religion, per se, is not evil and is not a killer. Unbridled emotion which overcomes reason is, and both theists and atheists are vulnerable to it.

If you had been here since the beginning your perspective may by different. I have tried to argue from all points of view, and here writing from right to left yields much more stimulating entertaining threads. I agree with Shane, who knows what you are saying? I would downgrade anything you wrote by 1 whole grade simply because it is too long.

For what it is worth, I am of the mind that if God doesn’t exist then man would have to invent him, which he did say the atheists. Either way, the idea is here to stay.

All life retains some belief, atheists or not. Despite the fraud there are many here that still have faith in AGW.

the best we can do is admit that each of us is using axioms as a basis for belief.

An axiom is an already established or self evident truth. The existence of god is neither of these. You are simply wrong in this assertion. You continue to use the phrase as if you think it means that we are both basing understanding on faith. This is also simply wrong. Both definitionally, and as a reflection of my reasoning.

(the point is) whether religion is dangerous while atheism is not

Yet,

Christianity’s status as a religion is a moot point

That is an example of what I meant by inconsistency. If part of the point is a question of religions danger or lack thereof, then no, the status of christianity as a religion is not moot.

Once again, the terminological umbrella we use to define “religion” and “atheism” breaks down into human behaviors, which are promoted in a variety of ways. Which is my point, which you apparently have missed about a dozen times by now.

It was not a missed point. It is quiet simply wrong. As the quote goes, there will always be good people doing good things, and bad people doing bad things, but to get good people to do bad things requires religion.

If you want to continue to redefine every term used to suit your argument rather than use them as they are commonly intended, you are not actually engaged in conversation. As several people have pointed out, you seem to want to change the meanings of various words to the point that they mean nothing at all. Exactly how does this further understanding?

Religion is defined by faith, and faith is defined as belief without reason. So long as people are willing to believe things without reason they are going to be that much easier to get to do things without reason. Your failure to understand the difference between the two systems is not the fault of the systems, but your own personal lack of comprehension.

“I accept that God exists strictly on the basis of axioms. I believe he exists because I believe he exists. I admit that, and that it’s purely faith-based.”

To this I said: “You admit that the proof of god is that you believe in god.”

To which you reply:

No, I didn’t. You just think I did, because you apparently perceive that personal beliefs have to be translated into universal fact in order to be accurate

Do you know what the term “intellectual dishonesty” means?

Tell me, if your personal beliefs are not a universal fact in order to reflect reality, what exactly are they? They accurately represent what if not reality? Your belief only?

So your belief in god means nothing more than that you believe? Your beliefs aren’t meant to reflect reality in any way? You are content to simply believe anything even if it is demonstrably wrong? Do you know the term “clinically insane”?

Let’s say I’m an agnostic, and that you’re trying to explain to me how you have anything more than NOT knowing something as proof that I should commit. Pretend that the stupidity of theists isn’t enough, because you’re not trying to replace my faith with doubt, but my doubt with knowledge

Yet again, for the Nth time, you fail to understand the burden of proof. Lets assume you are agnostic. Fine. I have no interest in replacing your doubt with knowledge. I think the position is silly, and fails to consider that the unobservable and the non-existent look so similar. But as you wish. I already made the argument. You keep responding with your assertions that I have the burden of proof. What do you wish me to do except quote Cliff again. “I dont’ know how to respond to him/her without being insulting”? It is a stupid statement. My only response after showing this multiple times is that you must be stupid or you wouldn’t keep asking.

I want the atheist (and the positivist) to admit that faith, axioms, and assumptiveness are necessary aspects of belief

You may as well want me to admit that the sky appears green to me. Faith, still, however often you have said it, has nothing to do with the claims I make as an atheist. You, despite my asking several times, have made no argument that I can see that it is otherwise. The closest you have come so far is:

1) Trust in senses.
2) Trust in human conception of logic (see challenge to Descartes “I think therefore I am” proof).

You don’t even have the most basic understanding of Descarte. Cartesian skepticism is exactly the assertion that the first example you offer is false, yet you claim they go together.

the First Thing argument recognizes that time must be finite

Must be finite? Is this assertion based on faith? Did you simply pull it out of your ass?

Mine isn’t a negative proof fallacy. I never claimed to have proof

Your full of shit.

Atheism is a secular religion

Is that not a claim? Is that not an assertion about the nature of belief, religion, and lack of belief?

Oh wait, I forgot. Your beliefs don’t have to have any actual reflection of reality in them. So whenever you speak in the future we should all simply assume that you are expressing your beliefs that have no import from reality? Very well…

In short, you offer no evidence of god despite claiming you see the burden of proof is on the theist, then spend most of your time trying to shift that burden. You claim that god is a matter of faith, which appears by your usage to mean “not based in reality in any way” and yet this is something that should “inform other forms of knowledge” as if simply believing something for no reason at all is knowledge. You also claim that atheism is based on faith, to which you appear to offer no argument except repeat assertions.

But the crowning glory certainly must be:

I at first wanted to avoid this cliche argument, but I decided I’d better use it:
Prove to me that love exists.

So god is nothing more than an internal emotion? A term for an emotional response? A linguistic utterance for a feeling?

And as a mormon you believe that is what wrote the book of mormon? An emotion?

Cheese and Rice you should have left that one alone. I was simply under the assumption that you were mislead, or simply failed to understand basic logic, but your entire argument can be summed up as “Whatever you want to describe love as, I bet I can find an equal phenomena in religious experience”???

Great, so all the bad things that religion has caused in human history are simply because people got emotional and you are a true believer in that emotion. And somehow that is “god.”

I believe in happiness, anger, frustration , love and a whole host of other personal experiences. No internal emotion can in any way shape or form be equated to be the creator of the universe.

As Matt said, “that does tend to strain the definition of theism somewhat.”

I would argue that Matt is being too kind by half. That is a definition of theism that adds up to nothing more than blind ignorance. If that is your support for being mormon you should have just taken the sage advice that it is better to be silent and thought a fool.

If that’s all that God meant to you – certain feelings that you feel and that other people share – then you’ll find no argument from any atheist. Indeed, some theists experience of religion essentially boils down to such a definition of God, though that does tend to strain the definition of theism somewhat.

Cliff–

I perceive no conflict in having an agnostic approach to logic (similar to my approach to politics, generally) and a theistic approach to my personal life. I’m sorry if that presents a contradiction for you. It doesn’t for me. To me, logic and faith are independent (albeit occasionally intermingling) forms of knowledge. I’ve known faithful people who derive their faith from logical processes. I pity them, for I feel that if I did the same (and if they did as they do with any degree of intellectual integrity), I would have to deny my faith. I don’t require a logical foundation for every decision I make, and I hope you don’t, either. Some things are superior when felt rather than merely reasoned.

The burden on atheists to which I refer is similar to the burden on wrong thinkers of the past. There was a time when all available scientific tools and known methods proved the world flat. This wasn’t a failure of science, but a failure of man. I say the agnostic position is the only logically sound one because it acknowledges possibility; in examining so vast a concept as the origins of all that exist, anything that proposes to be sure must accept a vast host of axioms. Atheism is more logical than theism, somewhat less faithful, perhaps (at least for some atheists), but it’s still the product of axiomatic thinking. Anytime one says “I know” or “it can’t be that” in regards to something that is vastly beyond the present perceptive capabilities of the whole race, they accept some of the burden of proof–proof that the absolute surety of their claim is warranted. For example, if someone says that there’s no life on other planets in the whole universe, they better darn-well have an explanation for their assumption. One example of a scientific conclusion would be that no life has yet been discovered sufficient to assume that life existed elsewhere. This leaves the doors of possibility open. In slamming them shut, atheism and theism are both overreaching.

To mitigate this tendency to overrach, I say that I don’t know that God exists. I believe that he does. And that’s good enough for me. I believe that it falls on me to find the ethical reasons behind what I perceive to be God’s moral dictates. It would be wrong for me (or any theist) to proclaim my beliefs came from the mouth of God, and therefore were infallible and could be imposed on others by law simply for that reason. You will notice that I never argue that “God said so” when discussing politics. Ken probably would if it wouldn’t bite him in the butt. I choose not to because I believe that anything that I believe God said can stand up to ethical analysis. If all I have to defend my position is that “God said so”–if I don’t have an ethical reasons–it isn’t my business to impose my beliefs on anyone.

Cav–

I believe that God is male, and that he has a wife who is equal in power and (perhaps; of this I’m not sure) distinguished (but not minimized) in role. This role, I think, is so vastly different than the simplistic approaches that we have to gender that it is nothing like what most Christians would imagine. I don’t believe that God’s wife had to have played with dolls when she was little in order to be properly femenized; or that she has to have long hair; or that she is beauty while God is strength, or most of the other assumptions of modern Christian patriarchy. The farthest I will go is to say that she bears the womb of creation, and that God bears the seed (nice and metaphorically vague, dontcha think?). Both have nurturing roles, both have protective roles. Where the rest of truth about the creators lies is a mystery to me.

I think that patriarchy is a matter of personal responsibility (I shudder to use that term, with how abused it is right now by the Christian right). As for my wife and myself, patriarchy means that we make decisions together, but that I bear the burden of their success or failure. Fortunately, I have a good wife, who steps forward and helps me to deal with the failure, and whom I welcome fully to share in the success. I don’t believe that patriarchy means at any time that I can dicate the course of our family’s future. In fact, more often than not, SHE is the one who makes the pronouncements about family policy!

I’m not familiar with the church’s “latest revelation.” If you refer to their complicity with anti-discrimination policy, I will say this: first, it’s not a revelation; second, I appreciated that they did that. I don’t foresee that the church will ever accept gay marriage or remove the concept of patriarchy (at least the term will survive), but I was very glad when they stepped forward and made it clear that gay people deserve just as much of a chance to succeed as anyone else. As some of you may know, I have long argued that marriage needs to be taken out of law and handed to the churches and other social institutions. If a gay person wants to be married, let them be married! Taking it out of law won’t change the sanctity of my marriage; keeping marriage in law and restricting its access has and will undoubtedly continue to damage the sanctity of other committed relationships.

Thanks for your comments, Cav.

Shane–

Yes, the first cause argument is self-refuting. I agree. But lack of proof of something doesn’t constitute proof of a lack of something. My point was that disproving theistic logic doesn’t innately prove atheistic logic.

you are stating that you don’t have the balls to get off the fence. I have less respect for that than i do for the theist. At least she makes a claim.

Making a claim about something superfluous simply to prove you have balls is idiotic. I believe in God. Does that make you feel better? My point is that there is no way that I can be proven or disproven, and the same goes for you. This is metaphysics, not science. My belief in God resides on unprovable axioms and has no impact on you–therefore it’s irrelevant. I can make a big show of faith, but what good will that do? My faith isn’t the subject of argument, because it’s rooted in principles which can’t be effectively argued. I won’t accept your axioms, you won’t accept mine; the best we can do is admit that each of us is using axioms as a basis for belief.

Constancy is not your strongest point perhaps.

Perhaps not. Consistency is difficult to maintain. I hope you aren’t assuming that I’m inconsistent simply because I’m capable of differentiating between beliefs I apply to my personal life and as those with which I govern my social relationships. FYI, it’s my belief in the former that largely governs the latter. I consider it an ethical and moral responsibility to guard my interactions with others so as to avoid harming them by imposing my misperceptions (however well-intentioned) upon them.

The issue here is not the integrity of my personal faith, but thanks, anyway, for the red herring; it’s whether religion is dangerous while atheism is not. I’ve said myself that religion is dangerous when used outside of the realm of personal faith, and I would add to that that’s its self-contradictory when it coerces conversion. My religion is MINE. I don’t have to make it everyone else’s, or demonize whole categories of thought in order to feel satisfied with my beliefs.

To use a term I heard from Rachel Maddow, the arguments on this page are tainted with “toxic certainty.” My equivocation is a refreshing breeze in a thread burning with the fever of being too sure. Shane and Cliff–you take a few threads of an infinitely large tapestry and propose to know the color of the whole. How small you and I are compared the the body of potential knowledge, and you think you can do anything more than merely “believe” in anything? Your self-proclaimed “knowledge” is as much a liability to you as such knowing was ever a liability to the most blustering pope.

The important difference is that eugenics does not equal atheism. Christianity is in fact a religion.

Christianity’s status as a religion is a moot point. The variability within Christianity virtually guarantees that there will be some “sexist female intellectual murdering pricks.” There will likewise be compassionate, virtuous people as well. If I cite them, is that proof that the whole category of Christianity is the best thing ever created? Of course not. My eugenics point was to say that statist doctrines which resided upon positivist thinking (which is one strong root of modern atheism, at least the shallow forms) quickly assimilated scientific theory to dictate atrocious policies. The burning of witches is NOT Christian; suspicion of witchcraft (or similarly perceived phenomena) and consequent punishments are ubiquitous in world cultures. Once again, the terminological umbrella we use to define “religion” and “atheism” breaks down into human behaviors, which are promoted in a variety of ways. Which is my point, which you apparently have missed about a dozen times by now.

The danger is NOT religion, as I said, but religious thinking. I’m not about to go murder an abortion doctor, burn a witch, or prosecute sodomy, even though I’m a religous person. This is because I distance myself from the psychological patterns that dogmatic thinking so easily dominates. Consider it a form of self-protection. I said Cliff was one of the most religiously-devoted atheists I’ve ever talked to. That’s because he is SO dogmatically sure about everything he believes–he does nothing to protect himself or others from his biases. It’s THAT kind of thinking, not membership in a church, that results in holocausts and witch trials and absolute subordination to a murderous dictator. Granted, membership in a church may make some people (in some churches) more susceptible to that kind of thinking.

Science has not yet discovered a way to observe the undetectable dragon that lives in my garage.

Point well-taken. Science doesn’t need to spend any time trying to detect such a beast. Of course, if a couple billion people over the course of millenia claimed to have seen it, it might warrant some investigation. And, as each new observational tool came into existence, revisiting the place might be a good idea. Even then, God is more complex and vast a concept than the undetectable dragon. Sorry, Shane, but substitution instances, outside of simple deduction, rarely work when the issue being analyzed is so vastly different in degree than the substitution that’s provided.

The problem here, imo, is faith-as-proof. Either you can axiomatically accept that faith is a form of knowledge, or you can’t. Of course, if you can’t, then you have to deny anything and everything. Why? Well, because faith in the authenticity of human experience, existence, and logic are the axioms upon which your beliefs reside. Everything we believe, every actionable motivation beyond strict instinct requires that an assumption be made somewhere–that faith be invested in something, even if it’s only the validity of sensational experience. Furthermore, Positivism doesn’t eschew faith–it simply restricts the forms of knowledge available at any given time. Is sensation provable, repeatable, testable? Ask a schizophrenic. They’ll have a different set of tests, repetitions, and proofs than you do. They’re just in the minority, so few people consider the potential validity of their observations.

And again I will ask you to show exactly what “faith” is involved in atheism. Certainly it is possible to be an atheist on faith, but it is at no point required. The atheist claim is made based on limited proof, yes, but it is based on evidence never the less. The theist can only claim, as you have done, victory by negative proof. Like your straw-man, that is not a valid argument.

Based on evidence? What evidence? Like I said, a lack of proof is a lack of proof, not proof. An atheist can claim that God hasn’t been found anywhere on Earth–at least where he’s looking, how he’s looking. This is so limited as to hardly be a basis for conclusion. Has he looked like I have looked? Let me illustrate:

“There are tiny little creatures, too small to be seen.”
“No way.”
“Sure there is. Look through this microscope.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“You’ll have to adjust the microscope.”
“No.”
“What? Then you’ll never see them!”
“I did what you told me to do, and it failed. You must be wrong.”
“Just look again!”
“Nope.”

Atheists are using the wrong tools: they’re using their own perceptions; they’re applying mathematical thinking to a process made up of far too many variables; they’re using logic on an inherently non-logical form of knowledge. If they pray, it’s more often than not to go through the motions simply to prove that prayer doesn’t work. They’re looking in the microscope without adjusting the lens.

Of course, this is an endless argument; I can always say that atheists haven’t looked enough, and they can always say that they have. Neither of us is necessarily right.

But I have proof of God. What proof, you ask? You can’t see it. You can’t take it, repeat it, or test it. But I’ve known people who don’t believe that love exists because they’ve never experienced it. Trying to apply physics methodology to metaphysics is sticky at best, and unlikely to yield reliable results.

None of this, btw, should be construed as “proof” that God exists.

Feel free to show me the examples of how atheism requires axiomatic thinking.

1) Trust in senses.
2) Trust in human conception of logic (see challenge to Descartes “I think therefore I am” proof).
3) From the above two most arguments (atheistic or not) which are not faith-based are derived. Trust in scientific “fact” is based on trust in human computational method and mathematical theory, trust in scientific discovery is based on trust in observational methodology which is based on trust in sensation.

Some of YOUR axioms:
1) “[Atheism] is the ground state as it were.”
2) You believe in Occam’s razor. Try Chatton’s aftershave. I try to use both.
3) “The creator god posits something far more unlikely than than a slowly evolving universe created by the simple interaction of physical laws.” Simple interaction? On this point, you and I share an axiom (the method of creation). Nevertheless, just to show that it IS an axiom, consider chaos theory, Heisenberg uncertainty, and the disagreement about probability mechanics.

Glendon has a few too. I’ll address those shortly.

My turn: show me how any idea or observation has ever been based on absolute, incontrovertible, unadulterable truth. EVERYTHING resides upon at least a few basic assumptions.

“why should i believe an impossible thing with no evidence rather than an unlikely one with some evidence.”

So you know 1% of the picture and you assume that your view must be so. I don’t mind you believing in atheism. I just dislike the intolerance of religion–and, of course, the way that 1% somehow becomes 100% when an argument starts, whether theist or atheist.

I have no answer to the atheist question, but to point out that we live regardless of evidence. Experience is as complex as quantum mechanics, and has so many facets that can’t be (or have yet to be) universally shared–to deny any and all of those is negligent. You live in a socially-constructed reality. What might you believe with the “proof” of yesterday or tomorrow?

Regardless, I’m not asking you to believe in God, and I’m not intolerant of you wanting to believe otherwise.

Again, the argument from ignorance is not valid. You are right, it is a cop-out.

That’s right. It’s a cop-out and an axiom. Equally cop-outish is the argumentum ad ignorantiam that no proof constitutes anti-proof. You found an alternative to theism. Good for you. Just remember that it resides upon assumptions of what God is and a limited stream of logic. All you can ever disprove is human assumptions about God, but those are infinitely mutable.

I apologize for being so flaky about this. It’s not usually my style. I’m not trying to be obsequiously ambiguous or apologetic, but I find that because I believe that faith is a different form of knowledge than logic, logical discussions about it are always vague until they break down to specific constructs. The Bible, for instance, fails in a logical argument. But, in my view, the Bible is NOT God. Disproving a human construct isn’t quite the same as disproving the existence of deity. Logical assumptions about faith-knowledge tend to follow similar patterns.

In my statement about your understanding, I was actually referring to metaphysical phenomena, not observable phenomena. Things like emotions, gut instincts, concepts, impressions, deja vu, etc–things which are described by science with varying degrees of success, but which may never be fully described. You know that a diesel engine exists, but what do you know of its immaterial qualities? This supposing, of course, that there is such a thing as immaterial qualities.

You’re taking a very deductive approach at this. I haven’t been attempting to prove the existence of God. You’ve created a false dichotomy in assuming that proof for or against must exist and provide a sure conclusion. How many ways can I say that lack of proof for a thing doesn’t constitute proof for its antithesis? For your argument to succeed, you must assume a restriction in regards to which forms of evidence are valid, which forms of knowledge are valid, and that burden of proof is strictly polarized. You define yourself as correct.

I could introduce forms of knowledge and claim axiomatically that they are sure evidence, and we’d have a hayday. But I don’t think it’s effective to insist on a set interpretation of existence and evidence, and to believe that belief may only reside accurately on proof. Proof is so incredibly limited in its scope, as it deals only instantaneously with specific phenomena observed with specific observational methodology. Information may be extrapolated from it, but there’s so much more than merely proof and information that defines existence.

You admit that the proof of god is that you believe in god.

No, I didn’t. You just think I did, because you apparently perceive that personal beliefs have to be translated into universal fact in order to be accurate. I don’t tell anyone that God has to exist because I believe in him. I accept the burden of proof if I argue that he DOES exist on a factual or logical basis. That’s why I rarely argue that point. The proof of one thing or the other is unaquirable. It’s a faith thing. You wouldn’t understand.

Let’s try this: stop assuming that I believe in God, and that I have to prove to you that he exists. Let’s say I’m an agnostic, and that you’re trying to explain to me how you have anything more than NOT knowing something as proof that I should commit. Pretend that the stupidity of theists isn’t enough, because you’re not trying to replace my faith with doubt, but my doubt with knowledge. So tell me: what is your “some evidence?” Physical phenomena? Laws of Physics? Can you prove that the aspects of your proposed finite origins didn’t have an origin? Then where did they come from? The Planck Singularity, viewed as the origin of all, is simply a naturalistic permutation of “The First Thing.” We can find many of the same problems in it.

You ignore that surety requires a theory. You need a counterproposal, not just a denial of the opposition. It’s very easy to insist you’re right because the other guy’s wrong, but that’s a “told ya so” game, which never yields results in logic, science, or dialectic. Where would we be if the failure of a certain herb to affect a certain illness was considered proof that the illness was incurable? It’s my contention that you have nothing more convincing than “we don’t know” to back your conclusions, and that you’re translating it into false proof a la argumentum ad ignorantium. That we don’t know, and that the God-argument is more complex than can be resolved by physical evidence or logic alone is my point, exactly.

The fact that you want the atheist to admit that they fail to believe in something as a matter of faith is nonsensical.

No, I want the atheist (and the positivist) to admit that faith, axioms, and assumptiveness are necessary aspects of belief. Not belief in deity–that was your definition, and a poor one–but belief in things not evidenced–not proven. Its the absolutism of religious thinking that I dislike, not the particular belief. Both sides can be disgustingly smug (myself included).

Atheism, again, can be active or passive. Belief in the supernatural and superstition is quite natural, it seems, in most cultures. Belief in reason alone is usually developed, perhaps as a process of higher thinking. Of this I can’t be sure. Passive atheists are much closer to agnosticism, and that I don’t mind. Theirs is more of an inclination, sort of like the non-religious person who feels like there’s something out there that he’s not quite familiar with. Such people either remain agnostic or pick a side base on non-committed inclinations. It’s the active, insistent ones, who have the gall to act like the Pope and deny it. They bother me much more.

Mine isn’t a negative proof fallacy. I never claimed to have proof. This isn’t a zero-sum game; one of us doesn’t have to “win” by proving the other one completely wrong. I’m ok with being unsure. Your argument is the fallacy, for you claim to be sure only because others are wrong.

Glendon–

Your whole first paragraph presumes to place specific expectations of behavior upon God. You should know better than to make that the basis of your argument. You’ve also vastly restricted your observational methodology. Haven’t we talked about axiomatic thinking enough already?

Of course, if you look at it in terms of social science, you will find that true believers tend to rate themselves rather high on the happiness scale. You find a stronger sense of well-being, in many cases. Of course, this is self-reported, so people might just be delusional. I’ve known quite a few “happy” bitter Christians.

You’re failing in your analysis of God’s impact on the lives of men is looking for testable, repeatable hypothesis–you’re looking for a miracle with a machine. Deus ex machina? Sounds fun. Hardly constitutes proof. To a material mind, though, it’s great evidence.

The formulation of the image of the theist in this discussion is rather interesting. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you all think that Christianity has somehow survived on the backs of nothing more than slack-jawed yokels. There’s quite a few scientists (40%, in one U.S. study) who openly profess belief in God. They must just be lab assistants.

The conflict in the perception of a loving God and the horror of the real world is not quite as irreconcilable as you think. It’s the classic opposition to the concept of omnibenevolence, and there exist a wide variety of explanations (some crap, some pretty good) about why pain exists in the world despite the argument of omnibenevolence. Once again, don’t place your assumptions about God (in this place his knowledge and motives) on him. You’re arguing against your own misconceptions, and nothing more.

So if atheism resides in a disbelief in a specific construct of God (and a pre-conventional one, at that), then I would say that atheism is idiotic. Its a pan-theistic concept derived from criticism of one small category in the total variety of God-theory? You’ve got to be kidding me! If that’s the summation of atheism, I don’t need to argue any more. You guys should all recognize that its hardly a path to truth. It’s more like being lost.

As you say, disbelieving in such a God is no leap of faith–but it’s not a condemnation of God-faith, either, as faith (axiomatic thinking) is the basis of all belief and all action. See my comments to Shane on this topic.

“God of the Gaps?” Simple answer–God doesn’t need to hide from scientific explanation, or exist outside of it. Besides–do you have any idea how immense the gaps still are? What–do you think spraying pesticide on a 1/4″ square of your rug is going to get rid of all of the cockroaches in the house of your intellect? sorry, but atheists have a long way to go if they expect to fill the gaps as a means of proving that God doesn’t exist.

The “Deist Prime Mover,” or clockmaker theory, is the essence of faith. It’s the most basic form, asking, as you say, nothing of God. There’s no reason to believe it–just faith. As such, it should have no ability to affect our motivations and actions. Anyone who believes this theory and uses it as an excuse for what they do is a charlatan.

I take the position that God and religion are matters of faith, and that they may inform other forms of knowledge, but not dictate their content. The average Mormon is very weak in that he can’t differentiate between religion, culture, and politics. He lets the image of God he creates in his mind decide for him about everything, instead of using God as a source of wisdom–as a kind of living record of knowledge which may be accessed at any time. Alternately, atheism is reasonable–but it can’t fight faith, not unless that faith is so specific (at which time it’s likely not faith, but supposed knowledge) that it’s self-defeating.

building buldings and hiring pastors and so on?

I could use this same argument to criticize government; e.g. if government is there for the welfare of the people, then how come it spends so much money building town halls and hiring secretaries and so on? Criticizing administrative expense doesn’t really prove much. The excessive expenses I oppose as well, but perhaps you miss the point that many religious people believe that locations can be holy–that they can be a place of peace, or an access point to God.

If God’s mysterious ways permit suffering we humans find intolerable and if God has the power to end such suffering and chooses not to, then what good is god?

If God was a doctor or a pill, this would make a lot of sense. What good is God? He’s good for comfort. He’s good for helping people make better of themselves and to face the harsh realities of the world. So what if he doesn’t heal your cancer? Christ didn’t free the Jews from the Romans, either. The point was to save our souls, not our bodies. Once again, you’re argument imposes a strawman shell on God.

A great many religious persons claim that religion and morality are inseparable

I agree that this is nonsense. The rest of your paragraph is noteworthy, but you take quite a leap when you condemn theism. Theism is an enormous umbrella. What you’re saying is that if your brother is a degenerate so must the rest of your family be. What about the good that happens? Atheists are severely underrepresented in prison? Can you show me statistics for this, which includes differentiating between those who merely profess to believe in God and those who act like it it matters? Christianity didn’t teach the criminal to commit a crime–poverty tends to coincide with a lack of education which tends to coincide with religious upbringing with tends to coincide with crime. Which of these is the cause, which the result? I would venture that most criminals who believe in God didn’t think about that when they committed the crime–they were just being human beings. Furthermore, you imply that reason and religion are mutually exclusive. This depends upon the form religion takes.

Mother Theresa’s actions served to support an existing oppressive economic system.

And there never was an atheist who did the same–or, for that matter, created an oppressive economic system. Charitable people, religious or no, will have the same chance of having this effect. Mother Theresa didn’t approach the problem systemically because she wasn’t a politician. There’s nothing about atheism that explicitly directs its adherents to seek the wiser path. In some cases, atheism promotes a lack of caring for your fellow man. why care when it won’t matter? LeVeyan Satanism (an atheistic religion) takes such an approach.

It’s funny how all the ills of the past are blamed on religion. If I recall correctly, religion was just as prevalent when good was being done as when bad was being done. To maintain religion’s condemnation, we have to suppose that no significant good occurred–that no great thinkers came about in science, government, and philosophy–except in rebellion from theism. Is it possible that the history of the past is a human history, not just a theological one? That humans are cruel to each other? That religion is one of many tools that has been used for good and evil? The vastly greater numbers of religious people will always make it seem like religion was the cause of history’s tragedies. Sort of like how men were more intelligent than women, more virtuous than women, and more evil than women for centuries and centuries. It wasn’t the failings of women, but their lack of exposure that created this historical trend; likewise, there just haven’t been enough atheists to get any really evil work done.

I oppose any idea–any God–if it is used to destroy what I believe to be ethical. Faith and emotion intermix so easily that they are oftentimes one and the same, and that leads to gross human error. This problem is not solvable by simple logical theses, or by scientific inquiry. Human beings will be evil and they will be good, and they’ll find a lot of justifications for both.

As a product of human motivations, theism can be seen as one answer to the human need for structure–for an explanation of apparent causality. This need for causality can’t be easily ignored; the First Thing argument recognizes that time must be finite, a problem not readily approached by any of the atheism arguments I’ve heard. We can call the beginning of time “the origin.” Theism answers this by supposing that there is a creator or creative force which is independent of the demands of causality. How does atheism answer this?

I at first wanted to avoid this cliche argument, but I decided I’d better use it:
Prove to me that love exists. What are the products of love? Certainly aren’t chldren, as Glendon frequently points out that many married, loving couples never have them. Is it devotion? How is that measured? Many Christians say that they are comforted by the fact that God never leaves their side. Whatever you want to describe love as, I bet I can find an equal phenomena in religious experience. So where’s the empirical or logical proof?

Ultimately, if the world is the same with or without God, as you suggest, then belief in God is superfluous. What we’re really talking about isn’t religion at all, but large, concerted belief systems with a concept of central authority. Whether centered on God or man, systems which use faith as a theme around which to organize mob power can be dangerous.

Glendon, I appreciate your recognition of the problem of blind faith. To me, that’s what this thread is really all about.

Everyone–

Thanks for the conversation. Sorry about the dissertation. Next time I’m going to respond to a lot less, as I think I’ve made msot of the general arguments I need to make.

Dwight Sheldon Adams