Why There is No Proof of God

What ‘assertions’? That God is sovereign, or are my accounts ‘assertions’?

Ah, edited to add. :slightly_smiling_face:

Sometimes we need to be shocked out of our status quo. :slightly_smiling_face: Eternity is at stake.

According to you at least. Surely you realize I don’t share that view. I’m afraid your efforts at persuasion are brash, unsupported and offensive. This isn’t a conversation I’m willing to have with you.

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Hello Dale,

Forgive me for being too rash the first time.

The best way to demonstrate the reality of God to anyone especially the hardened:is by a gracious, merciful approach that demonstrates the loving personality of God.

The following scripture should be helpful;

“And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Corinthians 2:4)”

The power is demonstrated in the transformed life of the believer that came about by the power of the cross. The believer demonstrates the power by his testimony and the display of the character of Christ which is the unconditional love of Christ.

We remember where Jesus approached the Samaritan woman at the well not by reminding her of her sins that she was already well aware of, but by approaching her with grace and mercy and informing her of the availability of the same.

The unbeliever in question is thus dealt with not according to his sins, but according to the character envisioned in him that would be brought about by the transformation if he accepts it. Instead of Jesus thus seen as judgmental, He is seen according to His mercy and readiness to redeem.

Jesus warned the pharisees that the love of God was not in them despite all of their religion. The unbeliever as well as anyone is drawn by displayed love and care. I hope this is helpful.

Earl

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That was not an assertion without any evidence provided.

Nor is this:

I have mentioned it above.

Why there is no proof of God:

  1. All the objective evidence of science only exists as a result of the space-time mathematical structure of the universe, otherwise known as the laws of nature. Therefore you cannot expect something which is not a part of that structure to provide any objective evidence of its existence.

  2. This is not to say that an all powerful God who interacts with the universe cannot make His existence more apparent than He has already. I don’t know that this could ever amount to conclusive proof that people would never find a way to discount. After all, there are people who discount even the evidence of science which is founded on written procedures anyone can follow to get the same result. But if God can interact with the universe as much as most theists believe, then it is reasonable to think God could do something which would convince most of those who don’t believe right now. So we can change the question to… why doesn’t God do such a thing.

  3. If God acts in our best interest then I think we can conclude that this would not be in our best interest. This conclusion is supported by the words of Jesus in Matthew 13, indicating that it is necessary that people be able to avoid the truth if they choose. So apparently, making us believe in that He exists is not God’s highest priority. I can think of several reasons why this might be the case.
    a. A look at our history reveals great deal of evil done by fanatical believers in the name of God. I therefore doubt that it would be in our best interest to strengthen the position of such people.
    b. All through the Bible, the importance of faith is a recurrent message. We can observe there are more unseen things, like love and justice, in which it is also important to have faith.
    c. It should also be observed that it would be very easy for an all-knowing all-powerful being to dominate us completely. Thus if God seeks a relationship of real love with us, then He has to be really careful that this does not happen.
    d. I think it is a demonstrable fact that a belief in God is not of benefit to all people. For a few, the belief in God is even part of a psychopathology. I think this must be the root cause of our separation from God since Adam and Eve, for the only reason a parent child relationship can be broken is when the presence of the parent in the child’s life isn’t in the child’s best interest.

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I attended a lecture that Kurt Vonnegut gave, and I was surprised at how angry he was at God.
Unfortunately, at the time my faith was not as informed as it is now, otherwise I would have been able to answer his argument, which was the problem of pain.

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That’s odd. It has been a long time since I read the book but I passages from it often come to mind. I never thought Bokonism was thought of as insulting, though I suppose it paints its practitioners as a little simple minded. But I find plenty in the underlying philosophy to admire.

Can you point me to what you find indicates that KV was angry with the Christian God?

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The idea that God desires our love from free-will instead of fear makes sense only if you let fear run your life. I know some people who are like that; others who are not.

So I’m not sure that fear is the issue. As Moses discovered after he saw the back side of God, his face had become so radiant that people asked him to cover it with a veil. They were scared, but he was not. Moses was in awe of God’s glory.

When I first understood the fine tuning of nuclear magnetic resonance that resulted in the stellar synthesis of carbon, I was so stunned with awe that I wept (see Barrow and TIpler’s “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle”). Years later, I had vision of God’s love for me (despite my sins), and it was so awesome that I wept even more.

Was fear part of the equation? No. Definitely not. At the same time, the awe the I felt was so overwhelming that I wonder if it would have overpowered any vestige of free will that I had left. OTOH, it wasn’t like I hadn’t decided much earlier to trust in Him.

The problem is that unless you’ve seen at least a sliver of that awe, it doesn’t make much sense.

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Hypothetically I have to agree with all you’ve written here. However God could still inspire love and meaning without being all powerful. I doubt anything is truly ‘all powerful’. But does it need to be? My wife inspires love and meaning in my life and she is definitely not all powerful. (Just don’t tell I said so.) As with the relationship with a spouse, a relationship with God fills in in ways that we alone are incomplete. Both inspire appreciation and devotion. Of course God knows more (without assuming omniscience) about both me and my world and so probably offers more growth potential.

I suspect the degree of apparent wished for by most atheists would be an extensive one on one during which we would be allowed to dictate the line of questioning with which we would interrogate God. But obviously that isn’t realistic. That which is less complete and more dependent (us) should not desire that sort of interaction with the only Being capable of leading one to greater completeness and understanding. Better to ask to be shown better questions than to badger God into confirming or denying the conclusions we start with…

Why did I know that Kurt Vonnegut was angry at God?

Unfortunately, this was a few decades ago, so I don’t remember the exact exchange, but during the Q&A, an Evangelical Christian mentioned God while politely questioning some quasi-theological point that Vonnegut had made during his lecture.

Vonnegut exploded, striding right off the stage towards the poor guy, and yelling angrily, “How dare you even think about believing in a god who causes so much suffering!” (or something like that) There was a lot more yelling which I don’t remember, but there was definitely lots of anger.

What I’d give to have had a smart phone with me then! :slight_smile:

OTOH, when I heard that he had died, the first thing I thought of was, “Boy, I wish I would have met him with the knowledge I have now.” On the third hand, he was smart, and had even more opportunities than the rich man’s brothers in Jesus’ parable.

It’s one thing to hear a parable about an imaginary person. Not sure how I’m supposed to handle the same situation in real life. One of the last scenes in Lewis’ The Great Divorce might give a clue. I hope.

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Well I certainly think there are logically incoherent understandings of this. In the other thread I explained that the omnipotence of God cannot include the power to do anything by whatever means you choose, for including such a logical inconsistency would only be the power we all have in our dreams.

I certainly think the emphasis on power (and knowledge) goes too far in much of Christian theology. After all the characteristics of the God you worship are naturally going to equal the things you value most – and that should not be power or even knowledge (which is ultimately just a form of power). But one good reason why we believe God is all powerful is that this is why we turn to Him when our need is greatest. But perhaps it should be remembered that power isn’t the answer to all of our problems and that quite often love is a better answer.

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I accept your eye witness testimony. Sounds like he was pretty angry with God alright.

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This is something that we atheists hear a lot, so maybe I can at least describe what this argument looks like from the other side.

First, we can’t be angry at a deity we don’t believe exists. If there is anger it is born of disagreement between the atheist and theist, and what the atheist sees as a lack of reasoning on the part of the theist.

As your paraphrase shows, Vonnegut is mad at the person for believing. Vonnegut is not mad at God.
As you state elsewhere, this comes down to the Problem of Pain which is a longstanding theological topic, and is outside of the confines of this thread. I hope this helps to shed some light on how atheists view this line of thinking.

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I see it as a privilege or act of grace. I am not sure I see it as an advantage as such. It is a means of understanding rather than a status or value.

Maybe it is just me, sorry

Richard

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I’m fine with that phrasing! Definitely it is an an act of grace and an unmerited privilege, but it is also certainly an advantage and of value when dealing with the adversary or my own sin.

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T_aquaticus wrote:

First, we can’t be angry at a deity we don’t believe exists.

Logically, you are absolutely correct.

However, we humans are not always logical.

In fact, experiments have shown that we are reasoning creatures, and we often make up the logical-sounding reasons after we have already made our choice (for non-rational reasons).

I personally know a few people who have admitted shutting out the possibility of God after they got mad at him for letting something terrible happen to them. They describe this process only after they returned to the faith (are they making up reasons again? Maybe. But I doubt it; it’s painful for anyone to admit being wrong).

Vonnegut is mad at the person for believing. Vonnegut is not mad at God.

Wikipedia says that Vonnegut called himself “Christ-loving atheist”, but that may have been later in his life, after I saw him. Voltaire, Oscar Wilde, and other atheists have taken the same path as they got older. Something about God being Truth and God being Love has a way of getting through, despite the failings of Christians.

this comes down to the Problem of Pain which is a longstanding theological topic, and is outside of the confines of this thread.

Unfortunately. :slight_smile:

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The problem of pain is one that is frequently used to that end, to rationalize a disbelief in God. (Or should I capitalize The Problem of Pain, too? :slightly_smiling_face:)

I am an atheist, and I am always open to changing my mind. It seems that different people have taken different routes through life. There are examples of Christians becoming atheists, atheists becoming Christians, Christians becoming Muslims, and so on. If nothing else, this is a sign of a healthy society that allows people to choose what they believe or not believe. Most importantly, we shouldn’t be using conversion rates as points on a scoreboard.

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The fact that people convert is not as important as to the reasons why they convert.

One needs to endure a certain amount of psychological pain in order to reject one world-view for another. What kind of argument can do that?

That is why, when I was trying to decide what the real story was with atheism and Christianity, I read many stories of people lives. The story of Madalyn Murray O’Hair was very interesting, but mostly sad. I mean, it made sense, from her point of view, but from outside, looking at the psychological pressures that she was facing, and looking at the extremely weak logical arguments that she made (even St. Thomas Aquinas made stronger ones) for the non-existence of God, her case was not logically convincing.

The stories of people who struggled with their same-sex attraction while also struggling with their attraction to the Catholic Church are also very interesting: especially Oscar Wilde and Eve Tushnet.