Atheists - Doubt Your Doubts

[nl]

Do atheists require a higher standard of proof in favor of Christ and Christianity than they do for their doubt and disbelief?

Is there a bias that accepts more easily one type of evidence and reasoning (away from belief in God)? Is there a bias that rejects more easily another type of evidence and reasoning (towards belief in God)?

Philosophical justification for belief in a god includes:

• Everything that exists has a cause outside of itself. Therefore, the universe must have a cause outside of itself (God)
• Life exists and has never been shown to originate from non-living things. Therefore, life must have a cause outside of itself (God).
• More

Evidence of Christianity includes:

• Sacred and secular histories (Josephus,etc.) dating back to the first century A.D.
• Many early manuscripts for the Bible going back within a few generations of the actual events.
• Evidence of Acts being written before the death of the Apostle Paul (circa 67 A.D.)
• The long history and endurance of the nation of Israel
• The long, diverse history and endurance of the Christian Church
• The faith and endurance of martyrs including early martyrs in the first century A.D.
• Long-standing observances such as the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles and the Lord's Supper
• Testimonies of the changed lives of Christians
• Fulfilled prophecy such as the virgin birth and Christ's birth in Bethlehem according to prophecies from Isaiah and Micah that were approximately 700-800 years old when they were fulfilled.
• Archaeological evidences
• More

Quote:

"The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is frequently what happens. In fairness you must doubt your doubts. My thesis is that if you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs – you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared." - Tim Keller, author of The Reason For God

 

[Susanna]

I think everybody requires a higher standard of proof in favor of whatever they don't believe.

 

[nl]

There are beliefs out there that could be doubted.

For example, some have held these beliefs:

• I believe that the impossible is possible (without God in the action)
• I believe in Santa Claus
• I believe in the Easter Bunny (and the Tooth Fairy)
• I believe in life from non-life
• I believe existence from non-existence
• I believe that my next lottery ticket (or other bet) is going to win the big prize
• I believe that my sports team is going to win the championship this year
• I believe in astrology
• I believe in one of the world religions other than Christianity.
• I believe in the power of make-believe

Meanwhile, some doubt items on this list.

• Jesus Christ turned water into wine
• Jesus Christ healed the lame
• Jesus Christ healed the blind
• Jesus Christ spoke a word and the Roman centurion's servant at a distance was healed
• Jesus Christ raised Lazarus from the dead
• The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ
• Christ's birth in Bethlehem
• Fulfilled prophecy concerning Christ's first coming
• Prophecy to be fulfilled as part of Christ's second coming
• Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke
• Luke wrote the Book of Acts
• Jesus Christ was crucified and died
• After three days and nights, Jesus Christ rose from the dead
• Jesus Christ ascended into heaven
• The Holy Spirit empowers true disciples of Jesus Christ

There are also doubts that could be doubted.

 

[Red_Tory]

Do atheists require a higher standard of proof in favor of Christ and Christianity than they do for their doubt and disbelief?

Is there a bias that accepts more easily one type of evidence and reasoning (away from belief in God)? Is there a bias that rejects more easily another type of evidence and reasoning (towards belief in God)?

Philosophical justification for belief in a god includes:

• Everything that exists has a cause outside of itself. Therefore, the universe must have a cause outside of itself (God)
• Life exists and has never been shown to originate from non-living things. Therefore, life must have a cause outside of itself (God).
• More

For the first claim:

1. Everything that exists has a cause outside of itself;
2. God exists;
Therefore, God has a cause outside of Himself.

I'd say the conclusion is obviously wrong. Which of the two premises is false?


The second way: you haven't accounted for the possibility of living beings having always existed. Do you think that "life" (i.e. a first living thing) was created at some point?

 

[nl]

For the first claim:

1. Everything that exists has a cause outside of itself;
2. God exists;
Therefore, God has a cause outside of Himself.

Everything that exists that we know has a cause outside of itself.

Do you know God?

 

[Red_Tory]

Everything that exists that we know has a cause outside of itself.

Do you know God?

What do you mean by "knowing" God in this sense?

I think I know that God exists, and that God has no cause. Hence I would also think the claim that "everything has a cause outside of itself" is false.

 

[nl]

What do you mean by "knowing" God in this sense?

I think I know that God exists, and that God has no cause. Hence I would also think the claim that "everything has a cause outside of itself" is false.

Agreed. God is Exceptional .

God would be the only Entity with a causeless existence living from everlasting to everlasting.

 

[Human]

Do atheists require a higher standard of proof in favor of Christ and Christianity than they do for their doubt and disbelief?

You can't prove a negative, and you can't prove the positive in this case, is what I'd say. You can't prove the merit of a disbelief in a thing that cannot be proven. It's an insane question to ask. IS there any proof for God like there's proof of the existence of atoms?

Is there a bias that accepts more easily one type of evidence and reasoning (away from belief in God)? Is there a bias that rejects more easily another type of evidence and reasoning (towards belief in God)?

You and I are proof that there is.

Philosophical justification for belief in a god includes:

• Everything that exists has a cause outside of itself. Therefore, the universe must have a cause outside of itself (God)
• Life exists and has never been shown to originate from non-living things. Therefore, life must have a cause outside of itself (God).
• More

Philosophically, this is a couple of statements based off only one philosophical paradigm of thought.

Evidence of Christianity includes:

• Sacred and secular histories (Josephus,etc.) dating back to the first century A.D.
• Many early manuscripts for the Bible going back within a few generations of the actual events.
• Evidence of Acts being written before the death of the Apostle Paul (circa 67 A.D.)
• The long history and endurance of the nation of Israel
• The long, diverse history and endurance of the Christian Church
• The faith and endurance of martyrs including early martyrs in the first century A.D.
• Long-standing observances such as the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles and the Lord's Supper
• Testimonies of the changed lives of Christians
• Fulfilled prophecy such as the virgin birth and Christ's birth in Bethlehem according to prophecies from Isaiah and Micah that were approximately 700-800 years old when they were fulfilled.
• Archaeological evidences
• More

Evidence of Christianity is not evidence of God; it is evidence of people historically believing in God.
Quote:

"The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is frequently what happens. In fairness you must doubt your doubts. My thesis is that if you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs – you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared." - Tim Keller, author of The Reason For God

The best defense of the merits of a belief in Christianity that I ever read was Alvin Plantinga's ''Warranted Christian Belief'', and just as with Keller's book, it ultimately failed to realize this; there need be no reason to justify an alternative belief to Christianity other than superstition or acquired, conditioned acceptance, since Christianity only ever seems to be defended by supersition based from acquired acceptance of things that aren't factual. I can defend belief outside Christianity by saying that Christianity is not part of what we know before Christianity has ever been presented to us; it becomes a belief, we aren't born with it. We are not born with the intrinisic knowledge of Christianity, thus assuming that it is the base standard against which all beliefs must be measured is unjusitified. Belief is essentially acceptance of something to be true. For a sane and rational individual, the closer any belief is to reality (for instance, my pen is blue vs there is a giant crocodile in the stars who rules the planet Zod), the more the belief is essentially 'believable' on a wider scale. It is much easier to convince someone that the pen is blue than there beign a giant crocodile overseeing the minutae of human behaviour. Many Christians argue this is because we are 'worldly' and tend away from God (which, to a cerebral fellow like myself just seems like a great spin upon the natural human tendency to believe the observable, toward guilt for doing so), when in fact it is nothing more than a result of sanity. To believe the pen was red, when it is in fact blue, would be a delusion; not sane.

What I am defnitely not saying here is 'Christianity is a delusion', but what I am saying is that it requires much more bias of belief than to believe the observable blue pen is blue. Essentially, I base my beliefs upon the weight of evidence, but of course the subjective experiences of my own life, my cogniive function, my personal emotions, my colour of perception and my relative valuation of various mental processes (whether I consider my sight more authoratative to my beliefs than my feelings, as one example) do play a large part in which beliefs I ultimately hold.

 

[ColinCat]

Agreed. God is Exceptional .

God would be the only Entity with a causeless existence living from everlasting to everlasting.

Ah special pleading.

Don't make a statement and then make a u turn when it comes to your argument.

Either everything has a cause or not everything has a cause. You can't have it both ways.

 

[ColinCat]

And in response to your first paragraph... Yes a higher standard of proof is required for supernatural claims.

Claiming I can jump requires a much lower standard of proof than claiming I can fly.

You'll believe someone else telling you they saw me jump, you'll accept that on hearsay alone.You'll want much better proof than hearsay if you were to believe someone telling you I can fly.

 

[JimmieD]

The best defense of the merits of a belief in Christianity that I ever read was Alvin Plantinga's ''Warranted Christian Belief'',

You're actually about the 2nd person I've ever run across that has read that. Have you read his entire trilogy ("Warrant and Proper Function" and "Warrant the Current Debate") as well?

 

[Red_Tory]

Agreed. God is Exceptional .

God would be the only Entity with a causeless existence living from everlasting to everlasting.

Hence it is not necessarily the case that everything has a cause, therefore the argument in your OP is false...?

 

[Red_Tory]

You can't prove a negative

It is possible to prove negative statements. 'Can't prove a negative' is a philosophy myth.

 

[ColinCat]

It is possible to prove negative statements. 'Can't prove a negative' is a philosophy myth.

Your signature is great lol

 

[Human]

It is possible to prove negative statements. 'Can't prove a negative' is a philosophy myth.

A lot of people seem to think theology and rhetoric are the same as philosophy and logic .... and that nuance and context have absolutely no relation to the threshold for evidential substantiation ... *sigh*

There's a really easy way to settle the point though; prove God exists.

 

[Human]

You're actually about the 2nd person I've ever run across that has read that. Have you read his entire trilogy ("Warrant and Proper Function" and "Warrant the Current Debate") as well?

No, because I found his arguments in 'Belief' to make a lot of unfounded assumptions on which he built his case, for instance, that voodoo can't be logically defended on the basis that its adherent gets inormation from their gods while Christian belief can. At that point, (after more than a few logical holes like this, albeit wrapped up with plenty of apparently substantiating but ultimately irrelevant sub-arguments that appealed essentally to the argumentum ad populum ''Christianity woulnd't be so popular if it were wrong ) I began to lose interest.

He does make a somehwat convincing case, as I said, but its a case made with logical fallacies deceptively wrapped in appeals to emotion; he tries to get his audience to accept the fallacies as truth, he doesn't actually address them. When I realized that, it became evangelism, not debate.

 

[nl]

Hence it is not necessarily the case that everything has a cause, therefore the argument in your OP is false...?

1. Everything that physically comes into existence is known to have a cause. Examples: Motor vehicles, ocean vehicles, aircraft, buildings, books, paperclips and pieces of paper have a cause.
2. The universe has physically come into existence.
3. Therefore, the universe requires a cause.

God is a Spirit and has not a physical body like men.

God is All-Mighty. Therefore, God provides the universe with a cause for its existence.

 

[Cycel]

I think everybody requires a higher standard of proof in favor of whatever they don't believe.

I am not sure I follow, Susanna. This is the elephant-headed god, Lord Ganesh.

Just so you know, I don't believe in Ganesh.

Are you arguing it requires excess faith on my part not to believe in this god, or do you think that I somehow demand a higher standard of proof for things I don't believe in? This doesn't seem to make sense. It is certainly not true of this god, in any case. To be honest I have not bothered to search for evidence of Ganesh's existence. I don't think it is worth my time. I reject Lord Ganesh even though I have not bothered to search for any evidence that he might existence. Would you say I am being close minded or do you think I am justified? Hindus would probably think I am not taking him seriously enough. I looked it up and apparently he is revered and loved by millions in India.

I just want to say, any Christian who thinks it requires a great deal of faith on my part not to believe in God needs to ask themselves how much faith it requires of them not to believe in Lord Ganesh.

 

[Cycel]

Interesting post Nl.

Do atheists require a higher standard of proof in favor of Christ and Christianity than they do for their doubt and disbelief?

I think one thing to keep in mind is that I have rejected the existence of Lord Ganesh even without looking into the evidence. If there is any. I also have rejected the notion that Mohammed is a prophet of God; and it is not just that I don't believe in God, I believe Mohammed is not worth my respect. The reason I don't require evidence to reject the claims of either of them is that I was not raised either Hindu or Muslim. The ideas they represent I have never felt allegiance toward.

Christianity, on the other hand, I was raised with. Even after becoming an atheist I still felt Christian. I suppose that is like a former Jew who is an atheist calling himself Jewish. It is a cultural thing. I have given up Christian belief, but I still hold some Christian values (that's an aside).

I have to tell you that I have internalized the notion that God does not exist. That means I really no longer need to seek proof. I have simply accepted His nonexistence. The evidence in my mind seems overwhelming. Have I answered your initial question?

 

[Cycel]

1. Everything that physically comes into existence is known to have a cause. Examples: Motor vehicles, ocean vehicles, aircraft, buildings, books, paperclips and pieces of paper have a cause.
2. The universe has physically come into existence.
3. Therefore, the universe requires a cause.

1. I'd say that is a very reasonable expectation.

God is All-Mighty. Therefore, God provides the universe with a cause for its existence.

This is where you are going wrong. You are taking this view because you are a Christian. The truth may be something quite different. It may be that the cause of the universe has nothing to do with God.

If you were a Hindu the conclusion following your 3rd point might be "Therefore, only Lord Ganesh can account for the universe." (Note: I don't know whether or not Lord Ganesh is seen as a creator god, but you get my point).