For Christians:If god exists why must you prove it?

[DBT]

Ask an expert

Nobody is born believing in the teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, etc, etc.

True but the notion that "people are born atheist" is false!

You become atheists i.e. choose to be atheist after some time, learning and gaining understanding . The obvious to say: Born with "nowt" experience or knowledge!

''Atheism'' is not a religion, nor is it necessarily an ideology. The word itself simply means someone who is 'without theistic beliefs' - which may include new born babies......or anyone who holds no theistic beliefs.

 

[abaddon]

True but the notion that "people are born atheist" is false!

You become atheists i.e. choose to be atheist after some time, learning and gaining understanding . The obvious to say: Born with "nowt" experience or knowledge!

''Atheism'' is not a religion, nor is it necessarily an ideology. The word itself simply means someone who is 'without theistic beliefs' - which may include new born babies......or anyone who holds no theistic beliefs.

Even if you said that a thousand times, "Learner" can only go on re-asserting his mistakes.

It's not only that he's too stupid to learn.
It's not only that he is so entirely a believer that he believes just anything he wants.
It's not only that he can't imagine anyone being an atheist except by rejecting God.

It's that this will go over his and most other theist's heads: Atheists get ideological but that doesn't make atheism ideological.

What "loudly" critical atheists do becomes "Atheism" for these believers. Because they can't make the distinctions necessary to understand it's not that simple.

There are agnostic atheists, antitheists, apatheists, igtheists. The varieties of philosophical stances among those persons are invisible to them. So to keep it super-simple for themselves, they turn all atheists into "deniers of God" with a shared worldview built up around that denial called "Atheism".

TLDR version: The distinction that the anti-religion behavior of some atheists is not the defining characteristic of atheism is invisible to theists.

 

[Lion IRC]

I see the atheist post count growing. All very interesting stuff about how non-stamp collectors don't ever defend the total inaction of non-stamp-collecting. (No global atheism conventions Jobar?

But with that growing word count, you're proving my point. You make it appear as if atheists are the ones who need to defend something. If you don't, then let it go and stick to the topic.

Your Op was very specific about some supposed obligation Christians have to prove God exists and allegedly getting hostile at those who aren't persuaded.
Name some self-professed Christian here at TTF who you believe interpret their Christian calling this way.

Have you heard any atheist threating you that you will BURN IN ETERNAL FIRE if you doesnt believe what he believes? Have you?

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

 

[DBT]

Ethics or moral standards need not be related to a belief in God.

 

[Rhea]

Have you heard any atheist threating you that you will BURN IN ETERNAL FIRE if you doesnt believe what he believes? Have you?

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

Seriously?

You believe that this life on earth is WORSE THAN BURNING IN EVERLASTING HELL?

Oh, and you’ve heard, “tons of atheists” saying this? Where? Do they knock on your door?

 

[Rhea]

Learner - please answer this.

I'm going to try to help you with this.

If there a robbery in my neighbor's house, and I didn't see anything, have I "decided" to not be a witness? Have I made a "choice" to not be a witness? Did I "make up my mind" to not be a witness?

Nope. I am not a witness. I didn't see anything. Fact followed by fact.

So Learner, which of these statements is true, then?

1. Have I "decided" to not be a witness?
2. Have I made a "choice" to not be a witness?
3. Did I "make up my mind" to not be a witness?
4. I am not a witness. I didn't see anything. Fact followed by fact.

 

[Underseer]

If you believe god exists and have faith in an afterlife, why must you prove it and why get hostile to those who reject it?

They only have to prove it if they want to say that it is true that god exists.



As Aron Ra says, if you can't prove it, you don't know it. That's why they get angry when people ask them to demonstrate that their truth claims are in fact true.

 

[Underseer]

Have you heard any atheist threating you that you will BURN IN ETERNAL FIRE if you doesnt believe what he believes? Have you?

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

You have the burden of proving Hell.

You've managed to commit a shifting the burden of proof fallacy and slipped in an appeal to consequences fallacy on top of that.

We do not have the burden of disproving your non-falsifiable claims, and threats don't make things true. They just don't.

- - - Updated - - -

Ethics or moral standards need not be related to a belief in God.

Thousands of years ago, the Euthyphro dilemma proved that it is impossible for any authority-based moral system to produce morals, and this includes every single religion. Belief in god can't produce morals or ethics, only demand obedience.

 

[Underseer]

Let me issue a reminder about the burden of proof and non-falsifiable existence claims.

I'm going to talk about fairies instead of your god because fairies are also a non-falsifiable existence claim, but you are not emotionally attached to claims about fairies and thus will be better able to evaluate the nature of non-falsifiable existence claims without your emotions getting in the way of clear thinking.

A fairy believer can play an endless series of rhetorical games that always leaves open the possibility that fairies exist despite my best efforts to disprove fairies. For example, the fairy believer could say that the fairies were hiding in the cupboard while I was searching the shed and vice-versa. Thus, the only way I can conclusively disprove fairies is if I can search every square centimeter of the universe simultaneously, which I can only do if I am omniscient.

Since I am not omniscient, I cannot disprove fairies even if fairies do not in fact exist.

And that is the important point to remember about non-falsifiable existence claims. They cannot be disproved even if false, but can be proved if true. Thus the burden of proof has to be with the person claiming that the non-falsifiable thing exists and it is not reasonable to say that the non-falsifiable thing exists lacking evidence that the non-falsifiable thing exists.

I know you think this is unfair, but atheists don't have the burden of disproving the existence of the Christian Hell for the same reason Christians don't have the burden of disproving Vishnu. It has to be the burden of Hindus to prove Vishnu and it can't be anyone else's responsibility to disprove Vishnu no matter what.

 

[steve_bank]

Have you heard any atheist threating you that you will BURN IN ETERNAL FIRE if you doesnt believe what he believes? Have you?

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

What you imagine as hell I believe mostly came from Dante and a pope.

Like most of Christianity it was all invented by the RCC over a thousand years, little of it based in the gospels.

In the OT sheol was down under, and heaven up there.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Have you heard any atheist threating you that you will BURN IN ETERNAL FIRE if you doesnt believe what he believes?

Worse than that.

The answer to your question is, no, but he still wants to malign atheists....

I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.

If they're atheists, that's kind of their schtick, no?

Live like there's no tomorrow.

That's nihilism, not atheism. Plenty of atheists have retirement accounts, join frequent flyer programs, save for their kid's college, all requiring a tomorrow.

Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle.

The law of tye jungle is survival of the fittest, not the strongest. If you're going to lampoon evolutionary theory, and conflate it with atheism, at least get the basics right.

The meek inherit nothing.

How many times have you seen the meek actually inherit anything?

Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

Once again, that's not atheism. We can't say there uis no evil and still describe biblegod's eternal-punishment-for-finite-crimes as the act of an evil despot.
What we do say is that there is no objective standard for evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

It's TERRIFYING, but you still LOL at it?
I question your sincerity....

 

[Kharakov]

Have you heard any atheist threating you that you will BURN IN ETERNAL FIRE if you doesnt believe what he believes? Have you?

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

What you imagine as hell I believe mostly came from Dante and a pope.

Like most of Christianity it was all invented by the RCC over a thousand years, little of it based in the gospels.

In the OT sheol was down under, and heaven up there.

Spacetime is up, quantum is down under, and the entities who reside down under are Australians.
The real US is spacetime. Not the USA (the one I was born in is a parody of the real US). It's a sad parody. Ohh well.

 

[atrib]

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

I have been around a lot of atheists, and a member of these forums for a long time, and I have never heard atheists say any of these things you assert.

I haven't heard atheists preaching there is no hell. I have heard atheists state that they don't believe in hell because there is no evidence to support its existence, but that is not preaching. If I made the claim that I have a magical dragon in my basement, you would probably say that you don't believe me. That wouldn't make you an anti-magic-dragon preacher, it would just make you a rational human being. The burden to provide evidence to support a claim has always been on the person making the claim, not the other way around. Atheism exists only as a response to the nonsensical claims that theists make. If theists stopped believing in stupid shit and making stupid claims then atheism would not exist. I am sure you understand what I am saying, but that has never stopped you from making up stuff anyway.

Likewise with the other claims that you made up. In my experience Christians make up and repeat untruths all the time. Perhaps it is some kind of mechanism to help them cope with the fact that they believe in Bronze age fairy tales and they understand the absurdity of their position at some level.

 

[Elixir]

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

Above are the typical words of a desperate, lost individual seeking confirmation of the buoyancy of the straw to which he clutches.
I could spend a lot of time and type a lot of words about how, as an atheist, I am centered around a concept of "good" centered in my conditioned belief that kindness is its own reward, that I am effected by the feelings of others and blah blah blah - it mostly comes down to the golden rule, which is completely at odds with the behavior I see from the religiously deluded.
What purpose does it serve God, Jesus or any other object of worship, to deride and attempt to sway those who reject their theistic superstitions? Just ONE purpose IMHO: it serves in lieu of rational confirmation of the buoyancy of the frail straw to which the clutch. That's all.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Have you heard any atheist threating you that you will BURN IN ETERNAL FIRE if you doesnt believe what he believes? Have you?

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

That's a terrifying dystopia compared to biblical eschatology.

Wait, how does using the Bible as a source get around the issue of deciding for yourself what is good?

Do you ever wear mixed fabrics? Do you believe that women should be allowed to work as teachers or hold managerial positions where there are men under them? Do you think that children should be stoned to death for talking back to their parents?

If you're against any of that, then you're deciding for yourself which Biblical rules get classified as good and which can be ignored.

 

[Kharakov]

Worse than that.
I've heard tons of atheists asserting (preaching) that there is no hell.
Live like there's no tomorrow. Survival of the strongest. Law of the jungle. The meek inherit nothing. Decide for yourself what is good and what is...wait! LOL there's no such thing as evil.

The meek do inherit something- the work that they do not get just returns for.

It's not a big mystery that all God belief is designed, by the rich, to cover up their own feelings of guilt at betraying their own kind. They want to be rich AND feel good, so "God gave it to me, the poor deserve to be poor". Not all of them have a sense of guilt. The really bad just don't give a fuck.

Any God belief among the rich (which includes a majority of those born in the USA), is betrayal of mankind. It's sort of like joining the US military- you're deciding to rip off everyone except those who are part of your in group.

It even has a built in excuse: the poor don't believe in God, so that's why they are poor, and that's why it's all right not to seek equality. They deserve to be poor! And because you are rich, you deserve to be rich.

God belief is the ultimate evil lie, used to feel good about lack of equality, and ignore the psychological consequences of continual inequality to those on the bottom.

Of course you'll have those who say "I really just don't give a shit, I like believing in God, and I know I have it good, and the corrupt US military makes it so you can never take it from me."

Fuck, I work for them, and I know I will be tortured if I do anything against them. They're all pieces of shit, but they have the power, and the poor (such as me) who are born poor know it. The illusion of good? Maintained by our smiles, that we put on under the threat of continual torture and violence. We have to smile. We have to act happy. Or else we get beat down even more.

Thank (non-existent God) I didn't have any fucking kids so they don't have to live the life I did. Fuck I hate these people.

Likewise with the other claims that you made up. In my experience Christians make up and repeat untruths all the time. Perhaps it is some kind of mechanism to help them cope with the fact that they believe in Bronze age fairy tales and they understand the absurdity of their position at some level.

Christianity is the ultimate evil: it's the "force others to deal with our shit, live the good life, and feel good about our actions to others at the same time" lie. They steal the "I do good for others" ideal, pretend like they follow it, and they keep the good things in life for themselves.

I mean, there are lots of leftovers, so if you're poor, there are some things you can get. But basically... Christianity is evil.

At least the corrupt can feel good. I do too, sometimes.

 

[steve_bank]

Yes. The basic message of the gospels suffer your burden, the reward is in an eternal wonderful afterlife. It was Paul or JC who said if you are a slave be a credit to your master.

JC did not recruit 12 educated middle class guys, it was fishermen probably illiterate or marginally literate.

The Christian god in Europe became an instrument of popular control. Thetening dmanation to an illiterate superstitious population would have been scary.

Today it has morphed into the god of the gospel of success. God wants you to be rich.

 

[Learner]

I think your algorithm has a glitch.
Do you think people are born atheists or not born atheists?

I hadn't slept well for a few days (rushing about organising things) so may have sounded a little deliriously glitchy .

I'd like to say born with the "image of God" built-in i.e. "born theist" but I don't think that will go well with this discussion.

 

[Learner]

You think I'm "mistaken" about my own life?
Do you have a colossal ego?

I did not call you a liar is my point.

Rule number one. When you find yourself in a deep hole, stop digging.
Sure, yeah, you didn’t call me a liar. You just said I was “mistaken “ about my own life story. Sure, sure. That’s better.

Keith asked me If I was calling you a liar. I said the worse I would do would say you're mistaken If at all. It would be about this particular discussion ...being mistaken with the conceptual context that it "does not require " making discisions about how one leads their life and how they end up.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I think your algorithm has a glitch.
Do you think people are born atheists or not born atheists?

I hadn't slept well for a few days (rushing about organising things) so may have sounded a little deliriously glitchy .

I'd like to say born with the "image of God" built-in i.e. "born theist" but I don't think that will go well with this discussion.

It probably wouldn't go down well, because it sounds kind of like bullshit. That's because atheist parents tend to have atheist kids and theist parents tend to have theists kids, which would suggest that the whole "image of god" thing is something learned from one's environment.