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Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke
- Thread starter Jan Ardena
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If baldness is not a "presence", how come you can spot a bald person in a crowd?
What you spot is the presence of the person. Without the presence of the person, there would be no absence of hair to notice.
I don't choose not to believe in God any more than I choose not to be Chinese.
Because god is cruel .
You are just falling back on the same weakness of argument in the vain attempt to avoid regression.
Buddhism has a field month (the extended version of a "field day") with these sorts of games. Basically it boils down to the notion (on or about, since there is a bit of play between schools of thought) that "true absence" doesn't exist (or, at least, is very difficult to approach), on account of having a "self".
If you want to really talk about the absence of a person (who may or may not have hair), then it becomes a question of "can you not spot an empty room, from an occupied room?"
Or if you want to run back in the opposite direction, "can you not spot a floor with no hair clippings, from a floor with hair clippings?"
Think of it this way : If you want to find an atheist meme on the internet, do you type something or leave the search bar absent?
Unless you have some other online platform where you strongly criticize many aspects of being Chinese, many people here will find that statement quite difficult to believe.
It isn't a question of whether the room is occupied or unoccupied. The question is: who occupies it. We have evidence for lots of occupants. God is not one of them.
We do not claim that that means God doesn't exist. It only means that we have no reason to think he's in this room - i.e. there's no reason to think he has any significance in this room.
I don't strongly criticize many elements of theism. On the contrary, this very thread is criticizing me, claiming I don't even exist. I'm just demonstrating that I do.
Ok, we can change the question if you want. We can literally play this game for eternity.
By what criteria do you know God is not one of them?
(Hint : the bit in bold refers to that pesky thing before mentioned in Buddhism that renders "true absence" practically impossible)
Do you want to try another question?
When you start using plural forms ("we" "us" "them" etc) you move even further away from the hope of establishing a "true absence".
So the next question would be "What are those reasons that make those in your group think that God is not in the room? What significance are you specifically noting to come to this conclusion?"
I mean, some reasons could be better than others, right? And what if there was another group that had ten times more reasons than whatever your group could muster? Suddenly there is so much .... presence!
As I've told you repeatedly, I do not claim to know that God is not one of them. I just don't have any reason to think that he is - the same way that I don't have any reason to think the Loch Ness monster is in the room.
Regardless of your notions of quality of criticism, we can at least vouch that you regularly criticize theism.
Feel free to reference the last post you made here where you criticized the chinese, and perhaps we can make a quantifiable comparison to the contrary.
If atheism is a mere absence of belief, why would that bother you?
If I started a thread saying "caucasian people who think they are not chinese do not exist" would it somehow stir something deep inside you to prompt you to come forth?
Who said it bothered me?
I'd come forward to point out the stupidity of any stupid remark. You can say I have a grudge against stupidity if you like.
So what would be an example of a reason that would make you think God was one of them?
If you don't have any of those reasons, you would know God was not in the room, since there would be no reason to think otherwise.
To get back to Buddhism 101, the mind is like a camera and cannot "unsee" anything. So even though "rabbit's horns" do not exist, we have experience of both "rabbits" and "horns" and can form some idea what those two words mean together. So despite a complete absence of experience with such things, one can still talk of reasons that would indicate its presence, so even in the case of rabbits horns, they are robbed of the opportunity of true absence.
So that spells out the conundrum of Buddhism : the mind has received so many impressions, so how do I go about removing those impressions?
But you could conceive of a room that could house a Loch Ness Monster (maybe a big one with a deep pool and a suitable mysterious "something" moving around in it). So you take the presence from the mind's camera (much like the "rabbit's horns) of what a room with the loch ness monster "is", compare it the room you have before you, and draw a conclusion based on such reasons to determine if you have such a room with the loch ness monster before you.
The moment you have a "self" that has been introduced to "the concept of a thing", is the moment it extinguishes the possibility of "true absence".
Sure, you can argue of the atheism of golf balls and gophers, that have a true absence of God. But the moment you take the plunge of entertaining ideas of "God is like this" or "God is not like that" is the moment you cross a threshold that renders "true absence" unattainable (at least, for as long as one has a "self" with associated impressions on the mind).
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Goldtop
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I hope to achieve to understand why there is no God for me. Why are others privileged to know this information while others are not? Why is it that just a minority of people know rather than a majority? In fact, why doesn't everyone know?
Evidence.
That's nonsense. The mind is very adept at misplacing images and photoshopping.
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Because you deny and reject God.
It's not about priveludge, it is about choice. You choose to reject and deny.
Also it's not about information. It is about acceptance.
Know what?
Jan.
Evidence of what specifically?
(If you say "God", again, at this stage, you are just spesking in non-sequitors)
Especially as they pertain to ideas, regardless whether we are talking about bananas, rabbits horns, the loch ness monster or God.
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