Do all atheists believe that the Abrahmic God be disproven beyond a"reasonable doubt"

M

Mr. Hamtastic

whackawhackado!
Registered Senior Member
Do all atheists believe this? If so, what is the accepted definition of a reasonable doubt that all atheists are using? Do you believe there is objective proof to disprove the existence or possibility of existence of any deity? If so, what is it? I will do my best to be open minded and respectful, if you will do the same. :)
 
I can't speak for all of them, but I think the Abrahamic God can be disproved beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm not sure if I could do the same with any deity.
 
Would you say that your reasonable doubt is the same as everyone else's? What would be your evidence to show this? Obviously, this doesn't need to be a book, perhaps a few major points should more than suffice.
 
Basically, the evidence for the absence of God is the absence of evidence where evidence should be found. We can address the given arguments in favor of God, and if they can be dismissed, we can dismiss the premise beyond a reasonable doubt.

1. Does prayer work? Studies show not.
2. Is the universe fine tuned for life? Stenger (a physicist) argues that it is not.
3. Is there any evidence of intelligent design in life? No, things look as they should if they evolved from simpler forms through a process of evolution.
4. Is god the source of morality? Studies show that believers aren't any better people than non-believers, and we can point to numerous incidences of religious violence.
 
Hmm. Interesting. Why should there be this evidence? As to the examples:

1. Are prayers orders for a god that they must follow?
2. One argues it isn't, some argue that it is. Seems unclear to me.
3. I have never really understood why evolution precluded the possibility of intelligent design. I'm intelligent, and I do some pretty weird things some times. That they are weird doesn't prove that I don't exist. It would be kind of cool if they did. Maybe you could explain this?
4. I'm not sure that a god's being the source of morality would really prove or disprove anything. Social pressures are pretty much the cause of morality. The question would be what hand such a being would have in creating society, and if it was no hand at all, would this preclude their existence?
 
1. No, but if prayers work at all, as the Bible says, then we should be able to detect, with a large enough sample, the effects of prayer in, say, healing the sick.
2. OK, but the Bible says this universe was created for us. A cursory glance at the actual universe reveals that it's full of space, rocks, and hazards to human life. Quite a waste if all we needed was a small solar system.
3. The details of certain life forms shows that not only are they weird, they are badly designed, if one were to design them given a clean slate. However, these features are understandable if they are the product of a dumb process like evolution, which cannot make sudden changes with no intermediate steps. Then notice things like diseases and human specific parasites that prey particularly on children. The God of the Bible could not be the source of these.
4. That's not what the Bible says. Where is the evidence that this source of morality really creates moral people? If God as a moral being has no hand in making a society moral, then he's not the Biblical God.
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
Do all atheists believe that the Abrahmic God be disproven beyond a"reasonable doubt"

Do all atheists believe this?
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I can't speak for all atheists.

As for me, I'm inclined to reject your "disproven beyond a reasonable doubt" phraseology. It isn't a matter of disproving anything.

It's a matter of not having any convincing reason to believe in Hebrew mythology's God. I've never seen any evidence or argument that would justify my treating that particular mythological figure's existence as a viable possibility. Right now, it's down there with space-alien conspiracies, hollow earth theories and stuff like that. Not 100% disproven, but not possibilities that I take seriously in my life either.
 
I think it is a matter of disproving it. It can be treated like a scientific hypothesis. It does make certain predictions about God's effects on the natural world which can be tested. Note that this doesn't apply to gods in general, only to those conceptions that come from a sacred text like the Bible.
 
I should probably add that I find it inherently unlikely that whatever it is (if anything) that accounts for the entire universe's being, billions of galaxies, is going to turn out to be a "person" with a psychology and emotions like our own. That seems like gross anthropomorphism to me, the projection of ourselves into the heavens.

It seems inherently unlikely to me that the ultimate cosmic principle would choose a particular human ethnic group to be "his people". It seems inherently unlikely to me that the ultimate cosmic principle would produce a set of "laws" like those in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

The depiction of the central "God" character in the Bible just isn't what I'd expect the entire universe's first cause and ground of being to look like or to be. What that mythological character does look like is an ancient Semitic tribal cheiftain blown up to a grand scale and then established up there in the sky.

Yahweh looks like Zeus, Odin or Indra to me, and I'd assign him a similar likelihood of actually existing.
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
Do all atheists believe this? If so, what is the accepted definition of a reasonable doubt that all atheists are using? Do you believe there is objective proof to disprove the existence or possibility of existence of any deity? If so, what is it? I will do my best to be open minded and respectful, if you will do the same. :)
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Do all Christians - or even all Catholics - believe whatever the current pope tells them to, without exceptions or holdouts? You probably cannot know what every Christian believes, without administering over two billion lie-detector tests.
It's even harder to guess what all atheists believe, since we have no infallible grand poo-bah, and must muddle through on our various independent intellects.
For me, personally, the same degree of doubt would suffice that's used in a courtroom - and i'd settle for the standard of evidence that self-styled Christians use to imprison and execute one another.
But many atheists insist on the far more rigorous scientific method.

Personally, i'm not interested in proving or disproving the existence of deities: i see no reason why one god, demon, monster or spook should be more or less credible than another. These are projections of early humans' apprehension of self and the world; images and prototypes of man-in-control-of-his-world: creatures of myth. I don't believe anthropology can be studied with the same degree of objectivity as, for example, geology. Of course, i realize that both disciplines - along with biology, paleontology and astronomy - have signally failed to support any god story.
 
spidergoat said:
I can't speak for all of them, but I think the Abrahamic God can be disproved beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm not sure if I could do the same with any deity.
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Abrahamic God can not exist because he is stupid. Abrahamic God intervened to help Moses, but not Jesus? Give me a break. Me deity is the All Powerful Creator, and his countless children.
 
Never seen any reason to believe it in the first place as I've Never seen any evidence to disprove. :shrug:
 
All good points. How do any of you feel about the possibility that what you see as not evidence, is evidence to others? What makes those claims irrational, like someone claiming that they have "felt" or "been touched" or "spoken to" God? What is the problem with someone arguing they have "faith"? I mean, it's unquantifiable, unprovable, and really, undisprovable without direct cooperation.

Can it be enough that a person believes something is for it to be accepted as at least real to that person, though unprovable and irrational to others?

Why does lack of proof equal nonexistence? Spidergoat mentioned prayer not healing people, yet many people attribute healing and other "good" events as well as uncomfortable events to God as God's will, maybe a test to them, or maybe the right thing for someone else that they just don't like. I don't understand how the lack of measurable scientific proof renders prayer to have had no effect, when people give credit to it. Are we looking at delusion or something? Is this some sort of large scale psychiatric problem that, in time, might be diagnosed and treated?

Maybe my question is simpler, more philosophical. Just because God doesn't act the way you think God should act, does that mean God does not exist, in reality, or just to you?

If any of this comes across as offensive, then I have worded it poorly, and apologize. I sincerely do want understanding of the atheist position.

I have explored some time with atheism, personally, and the reason I chose to believe in Christianity afterwards is simply the fact that I can't see either proof nor disproof in pretty much anything anyone puts up as for or against the existence of God. If there is a God, I may end up in hell at the end of the day, anyway. But it pleases my psyche to think of dead loved ones as being in a better place, vs simply ceasing to be. That's just me, and I'm not trying to push it on anyone, just trying to say where I'm coming from and why I really am curious. I am not collecting data to send to the Jehovah's Witnesses on you or anything. (Hell, they terrify me.)

Thank you for your time and information.
 
I wonder, Ham, if you reject every rational argument presented to you, why you would bother to ask the question.
 
spidergoat said:
4. Is god the source of morality? Studies show that believers aren't any better people than non-believers, and we can point to numerous incidences of religious violence.
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Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

Just saw this the other day. Not that religious people can't care about others, but their motivations are different. One could argue the level of morality between people who do good just because it's good, vs the ones who feel they have to.
 
I only reject the arguments I perceive as irrational. I don't perceive all the arguments as irrational. The fact that God is highly improbable, I can agree with. A multi-dimensional omnipotent, infinite being giving a tinker's damn about one specific racial group in ancient history is kind of a stretch. It doesn't really disprove anything, though. I see it as a valid point and accept it. It's highly improbable for any given individual to win the lottery, too, but it happens. (It's a very light comparison, calm down.)

So, why ask the question? Why not? I'm not going to berate anyone for their beliefs, opinions, or anything. I may want explanation, but I'm trying to go into this with the mindset that I'm trying to learn how you think about it. If you want to know how I think about it, and have no intention of berating me for what I say, then please, ask. I'll tell you, and won't throw a bible at you, or tell you that you are going to hell or anything of the sort.
 
Yazata said:
I should probably add that I find it inherently unlikely that whatever it is (if anything) that accounts for the entire universe's being, billions of galaxies, is going to turn out to be a "person" with a psychology and emotions like our own. That seems like gross anthropomorphism to me, the projection of ourselves into the heavens.

It seems inherently unlikely to me that the ultimate cosmic principle would choose a particular human ethnic group to be "his people". It seems inherently unlikely to me that the ultimate cosmic principle would produce a set of "laws" like those in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

The depiction of the central "God" character in the Bible just isn't what I'd expect the entire universe's first cause and ground of being to look like or to be. What that mythological character does look like is an ancient Semitic tribal cheiftain blown up to a grand scale and then established up there in the sky.

Yahweh looks like Zeus, Odin or Indra to me, and I'd assign him a similar likelihood of actually existing.
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Sounds like an argument from personal incredulity, which is something I tend to call theists out on.
 
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