You are missing my point. Your version of my statement is unduly prejudiced in the way it is stated.
I presume you will now ask why do I think so?
Because you continue to present your questions as either obviously logical or obviously illogical.
I think I know why you are an Atheist - - because you have a very concrete world view that struggles with nuanced issues.
The existence of God is not a concrete subject matter, when you take into account the human response to the topic.
Again, why are you sweating it? You are the one claiming that your beliefs donât need to be logical.[quote=âgbrooks9, post:123, topic:35781â]
I think I know why you are an Atheist - - because you have a very concrete world view that struggles with nuanced issues.
[/quote]
I am an atheist because theists are never able to present evidence in these types of discussions. If believing through faith enriches your life, then all the more power to it. I just happen to be a person who sees no use in faith based beliefs. The best part is that we can all live peacefully in the society we have constructed together.[quote=âgbrooks9, post:123, topic:35781â]
The existence of God is not a concrete subject matter, when you take into account the human response to the topic.
[/quote]
I donât see why it couldnât be a concrete subject.
Again, I point out that you are using an absolute reference when you say that Theists âare never able to present evidence in these types of discussions.â
This is probably not true. What is true is that Theists probably cannot present Evidence that you acknowledge as Evidence.
Evidence, by anyoneâs standard, does not necessitate Proof.
Evidence is what a person uses to help them make a decision.
Someone with a less concrete point of view would not struggle so much with this use of the term Evidence.
People have all sorts of evidences, or reasons, for what they do. They rarely have No Reason, or No Evidence.
George
Implicit in the statement is that they have never presented this evidence in discussions I have been a part of, and that trend continues with this thread.[quote=âgbrooks9, post:125, topic:35781â]
What is true is that Theists probably cannot present Evidence that you acknowledge as Evidence.
[/quote]
What is true is that they argue over definitions of evidence without ever getting around to presenting evidence, just as in this thread.
Isnât that an argument from silence?
Perhaps the reason for the deathly quiet in this thread is that the horse already was whipped to unconsciousness just a few days before this discussion started. If you are that interested, you can read my views at The moral law and socialization thread
It is a failure to support a claim with evidence. I donât see how a claim should be accepted as true just because someone made the claim.
I am also not making conclusions based on the absence of evidence, which is the argument from silence. I am open to the idea that God could be the author of morality, but I need to see evidence before I will accept it as true.
Very good. We all celebrate those ideals together here and will continue in that I hope. Of course ⌠wanting something to be true doesnât by itself make it true ⌠a reminder we Christians are treated to often. But it is still completely devoid of scientific support. Thatâs why this is such a good example of why the âbelief in proportion to evidenceâ proposition fails (and should fail). It doesnât work for some (or even most?) of the important questions, and we are all very thankful that you and other atheists here are willing to set that failed conviction aside when it comes to issues like this.
Of course the agnostic professor (and sociologist, I believe) Jonathan Haidt does have a good answer to that which I can share if wanted.
You have already dismissed a broad area of information that you say cannot be evidence. As long you continue to dismiss the actual motivators for Theists as non-evidence, you will be dismissed as a philosophical bully.
You canât see anything that you wonât look at. I could copy and paste a bunch of stuff, but that would be repetitive and boring to everyone except you, and Iâm far too lazy to make that much effort this early in the a.m. Either way, not everyone here is interested in debating atheists. Count me among that group. There are dedicated sites and forums for that sort of thing. If that is what I wanted to do, I would be hanging out there instead of here. No offense.
Cool 
Of course ⌠wanting something to be true doesnât by itself make it true ⌠a reminder we Christians are treated to often. But it is still completely devoid of scientific support.
I think it has all the support it needs. I can see though that using the word âevidenceâ could be a bit of a problem here. Maybe âjustificationâ would be better. From another angle, I donât think the evidence is insufficient either. Iâm sure we can demonstrate that people want dignity, that people who are deprived of dignity suffer various negative outcomes, and the like. Do we need to though? This one just isnât rocket science from my perspective. Donât you want dignity? Do you know anyone who doesnât want dignity? The level of evidence we might require to support this belief is not high. That canât be said for a wide variety of other possible beliefs. I donât accept the notion that âbelief in proportion to evidenceâ âfailsââI think anyway it is more of an observation like Occamâs razor than any kind of law.
By the way Iâd differentiate between âa beliefâ and âtrueâ.
Count me interested.
It is dismissed because it isnât evidence. Evidence has to be demonstrable, verifiable, and independent of the person making the claim.
Yet another post where evidence isnât presented.
Good points. We could probably also demonstrate that a lot of people would love to have a Ferrari, or their own personal island in the south Pacific with a yacht to get to and from. Does that demonstrate that they/we are entitled to those things? Yet I would insist that every human is entitled to dignity (and objectively so I would argue --and it sounds like you probably agree.) Yet science cannot deliver that entitlement. We can argue that we personally (and therefore other individuals too) would thrive better if given dignity. But evolutionary realities donât tell us that everything/everyone ought to always be thriving. Far from it â but it doesnât tell us ânoâ to that either. One tries in vain to get any sort of âoughtâ out of science.
Regarding what I had heard Haidt speak of in this Veritas Forum video (which I may have already linked to here in the forum not too long ago in another thread â Haidt is the second speaker after Keller) was that he [Haidt] called himself an âemergentistâ. Here is how he unpacked that.
He said there are at least two kinds of truth. One would be the universal propositions (I forget exactly what phrase he used --but I think Iâm capturing his meaning here). These would be, for example: pure liquid water boils at temperature X while under pressure Y. It is a truth that we could expect any different culture or alien civilization capable of making the measurement to hold also and to match our own. But another level of truth is what he calls âemergent truthâ. Here is an example: Gold is more valuable than silver. This truth can be (and in our present context⌠is) just as true as any other truth, but it need not have been and doesnât have to remain so. It is a fact that emerges with our culture as we develop economically in this world with its resources and as we have a hand in how our cultural economies develop. I think Haidt would (did) suggest that this emergent truth can be considered just as objectively true (for our present context anyway) as other truths. And in fact that was his way (as a non-believer) of addressing Kellerâs challenges as weâve been discussing those here. So he thinks of moral truths as emerging with our culture, and as carrying objective basis as such. I think that is an excellent clarity to bring into it that any Christian can whole-heartedly embrace (knowing that God uses both individuals and cultures), and of course like Keller we celebrate any occasion that we find any common basis for good morality. I think Kellerâs logic still is not de-fanged with this clarity, but like Keller and Haidt both, nobody here is interested in undermining a commonly held (for the moment) moral basis. In fact it is quite the opposite that we worry about â what belief system has the strength and resources to resist being undermined? Iâll be the first to admit that Christianity as a religion has failed that test numerous times before â but it also has passed more times than its detractors seem willing to acknowledge. Secularism too, has its spectacular failures. As to its successes ⌠? Too young to have had a fair trial yet?
Here is one more reaction to an earlier comment of yours that I think I forgot to make. You balked at my lumping in Secularism as another religion among religions. Again --being influenced by Keller (and sharing in his concern), here is what we see happening in the U.S. anyway. Religious people (in the stricter sense you and I agree on) are expected to check their religion at the door before entering the public square. We donât actually --to be sure, as doing so is really impossible anyway. But we are resented should this become apparent in our discourse in say a public university setting or classroom or in a public debate that is ostensibly supposed to be nonsectarian. Youâve probably seen the mocking bumper sticker: âCurb your god.â This is what all religious people are apparently supposed to do â leave those beliefs which are the most important and formational to them at the door before entering public discourse, under the authority of âseparation of church and stateâ. Only secularists are given a free pass on this. They, and they alone are allowed to bring their most cherished and foundational beliefs with them. If they worship science or anything else (provided they avoid using the word âreligionâ which is no problem for them of course) they can bring their beliefs (even their nonscientific beliefs!) to the floor in full force without fear of recrimination. Now, I exaggerate here to make a point. I do not really think Christians in the U.S. are persecuted (much --yes Iâm sure there are some) compared to what is going on in other countries and all through history. So Iâm not one to think that Christians (who have accustomed themselves to being the ones with power and privilege) after finding their hegemony challenged really have all that much right to scream bloody murder about it. But at the same time, I can understand that tug â that perception â that in many academic settings there is a hegemony that has worked the other way and has striven valiantly to hide itself behind an alleged separation of church and state. Unmasking that ânewâ hegemony is, I think, a sacred task to help restore health to our culture, and indeed as something of vital importance to the continuation of science itself. That is why I am at pains to call out secularism as just another â-ismâ alongside any other religion. [In all fairness I must point out that my son defends a more benign interpretation of âsecularâ than I have in mind here. Iâm jabbing against the more militant anti-religious sort.]
My reply to the challenge: " âNot believing in Godâ, is a religion like ânot collecting stampsâ is a hobby"
is as follows:
If you form anti-stamp collector groups and organizations â try to make sure that stamp collecting cannot be mentioned (or certainly not endorsed, anyway) in any public education settings, visit forums to ridicule and refute any of the more enthusiastic stamp collectors wherever they may be found, then congratulations! You succeeded in making ânot collecting stampsâ into not just a hobby, but a full-fledged movement.
Thanks for your continued discussion.
I donât think you could show people need a Ferrari in the way that they require dignity, though I admit I would like one 
If every person owned a Ferrari, that could actually cause all kinds of problems, potentially.
I donât see how anyone could be objectively entitled to itâor anything reallyâor see what could âdeliver that entitlement.â But I guess we both understand where we differ there. I would like to see the idea have the force of law behind it when feasible. I donât think evolutionary realities apply here, or I hope not at least Such ideas are the product of rational thought being applied to the human condition, IMO.
OK. I think we discussed something like this previously actually.
I have to think about that a bit. It sounds close to relativism. Gold is more valuable than silver because of factors like scarcity and demand, which indeed can change. I donât think basic principles of a good morality are subject to change in the same way. As an example, the relative values of gold and silver may have been quite different 200 years ago. But thatâs simply how things were. Itâs essentially devoid of meaning for us today. On the other hand, slavery was far more prevalent at the same time, and we have very strong reasons for calling that wrong in our day and age. These reasons were not totally unremarked upon even at the time, though a greater proportion of people would not have agreed.
Does that really matter?[quote=âMervin_Bitikofer, post:135, topic:35781â]
Again --being influenced by Keller (and sharing in his concern), here is what we see happening in the U.S. anyway. Religious people (in the stricter sense you and I agree on) are expected to check their religion at the door before entering the public square.
[/quote]
Itâs been a long time since I lived in the US, but Iâll deliver an anecdote of my own here. My wife is Taiwanese and we live here, and we have two daughters. Religion has not been a big part of their lifeâIâm not religious, and my wife is only in a looser way fairly prevalent among people here. We discussed many such ideas over the years, but as ideas. Not surprisingly I suppose, both my daughters would call themselves atheists, I think (itâs all good with me within reason ) Anyway, to the point. When she moved to the US to attend university, she soon told me that she had grown to hesitate to say openly that sheâs an atheistâshe tends to bow out somewhat by saying sheâs not really religious or the like. She found that peopleâs reactions were a bit much for her. This was surprising to her as nothing about her life here had really prepared her for that. Lest you think this was the Bible belt say, her school is in Long Island NY, which is, well, not the Bible belt So I will not try to deny your experiences, especially as much about the US is really foreign to me now. Having said that, I am somewhat doubtful about your depiction of the overall situation
As for church and state, these are pretty clear legal issues, though the boundaries are always being pushed and pulled I guess. Theyâre legal issues though right? Maybe thatâs too much of another conversation. I wonât even try to say anything about academia. Not a clue.
Thanks as well, always a pleasure.
Responding to where I asked âwhat belief system has the strength and resources to resist being underminedâ ⌠you responded:
It does to me, and to most of us I should think if we care about things like how political policy is settled on and how do we find a balance between respecting the dignity and/or privacy of individuals weighed against the security of society. Our morality is not just some nicety on the side. It dictates how we actually live.
The âforce of lawâ may have to serve as the only objective entitlement we have in common. But without that your âideaâ that you like will never be realized. It cannot be effectively in place if it only exists on the whim of each potential respecter of it. Just imagine this hypothetical scenario [from our own U.S. history]: a dark-skinned man remains seated on a full bus when a white man gets on â having to remain standing. The first man remains seated because the new arrival gave a nod and friendly smile. Great --heâs a decent chap. Then another white man gets on, but heâs a racist â so immediately the darker skinned man gets up since his ârightsâ have now disappeared, not being granted to him by the second man. We all here should agree that this would not be acceptable at all. Either all the people on the bus have rights to their seats or they donât. It should never be on the whim of those present (or if it is ⌠then we would truthfully say those rights are simply not functioning as such for them). So your good idea (that you would like to have force of law behind) simply evaporates unless it has something objective behind it (like force of law) that transcends you or me. Unfortunately âforce of lawâ doesnât long transcend culture so your likeable idea is still in danger of evaporation if it still depends on the whims of local culture which themselves may need to be answerable to something more objective.
Your anecdotal experience [of your wife] in the U.S. is a good reminder that while the atheist tribe is growing here, it is still a minority with fuzzy edges among all the agnostics or those who may be atheists but arenât ready to âcome outâ given the reactions they fear. There is still a lot of entrenched âChristianâ culture here â you are absolutely right about that. I do hear Europeans experience culture shock about how religious the U.S. is. You are also right that it varies, not only from one organization to another, but (for Universities, say) even from one college or department to another. One stereotype Iâve heard about a state university near me is that the English department was a hotbed of anti-religious faculty while some parts of the engineering college has a lot of entrenched Christian leadership. So it really does depend where you are even in academia. It may actually be true that some of the biggest âsquawkersâ against Christianity in the public square may actually come from liberal Christians (and that will be a whole bunch of us) reacting against perceived right-wing fundamentalism. So it isnât just atheists carrying the torches for secularism over here â not by a long shot. Coming from an Anabaptist background myself, I am steeped in the tradition of keeping the state out of church business (that was one of our driving agendas historically) â but that has recently morphed into keeping the church out of state business which (in my opinion) has much less Scriptural support or pedigree. But thatâs a whole 'nother discussion. Many of the other Christian brothers and sisters here come from vastly different traditions than me in that regard.
But back with your wife: Itâs too bad that people send those âdonât scandalize us by giving a wrong answerâ kinds of messages to visiting friends. I suppose we all do this some, but when we do we throw away our chance to get to know a person better effectively forbidding them to share anything outside of our own tightly prescribed boundaries. You are right that I wouldnât have expected that generally for Long Island. I suppose there too variety will be found.
Thanks for explaining yourself so clearly.
I guess I get what youâre saying more clearly now I think. My point was to think that we should care about the beliefs in themselves, and not necessarily the strength behind any belief system. Of course if you have confidence in your beliefs then you should not want them to be undermined.
Here, Iâll say I donât think so. I understand that your beliefs provide for this, but not everyone believes them. Even if you feel that they provide you and your community with an objective basis, I donât think they can for humanity as a whole. Yet good ideas do continue to have the force of law behind them. No law is unchangeable, true. But thereâs no unquestionably clear objective basis either, so I think weâll just have to muddle along and continue to do our best. I think that progress is being made in many areas. Iâm most negative about our treatment of the environment.
I believe it would be! I think our founding fathers, with the benefit of some ugly European history to work from, had the right idea on that score. I think we ensure freedom of conscience for everyone this way. The restrictions are limited to legislation. I do think you exaggerate greatly when you said earlier âleave those beliefs which are the most important and formational to them at the door before entering public discourseâ. At the point of legislation or jurisprudence, yes. Iâll stopâthis will probably be a very long conversation if we go on further I will look into AnabaptismâI know very little.
Sorry, I meant my daughter who attended uni there. FWIW, from her fully native-level English and accent, anyone would think she was just another American student.
[quote=âJohn_Dalton, post:139, topic:35781, full:trueâ]
I donât think you could show people need a Ferrari in the way that they require dignity, though I admit I would like one.[/quote]
Actually, I would like to trade in my dignity for the Ferrari.
For a little while maybe. Iâd settle for a Porsche.
I agree! A Ferrari is too ostentatious for my taste ⌠gimme a 911 any day.
âŚmy friends all drive Porches, I must make amendsâŚ
âLet your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.â -Colossians 4:6
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