Questions To Atheists From A Deist

[Legion]

I don't really get why it's vacuous. All I meant was that if it exists, it's part of existence. A pointless distinction, sure, unless people are trying to distinguish between the "natural" and the "supernatural." It's all subsumed under the natural in my book. You know, like, even if magic does exist, it all boils down to the midichlorians. xD

It's turtles all the way down...

 

[Overcame Faith]

What is it that ultimately convinced you that there is no god at all? Why don't you believe in an non-intervening god? Is it all based around "bad stuff happens and no one does anything, so God doesn't exist" or is there a more intellectual reason?

 

There was a major difference from when I was a Christian and afterwards. And that difference was the starting point of my inquiry into the matter of whether a god existed. As a Christian, I started off with what I thought was the truth, that the god of the bible existed and it was from that starting point that my inquiry began. Like so many other Christians, I worked my way backwards from what I believed was the truth of the existence of god and invariably concluded that he did exist.

 

Once I left Christianity behind, then my mind was free from the Christian starting point and, for the first time, I could truly ask the question of whether there was a god. And to answer that question is the same as answering any other factual question. It starts with evidence. So, for example, if the question is does sasquatch exist, I examine the evidence and when the evidence is lacking, I conclude there is insufficient evidence for the existence of this big footed bipedal mammal. The question of whether there is a god is no different. Is there sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that some god or the other exists? And that question, like the existence of bigfoot, lacks sufficient evidence to conclude that one exists. But if there is such evidence, then I'm open to it.

[mymistake]

 

To be honest, the only reason I believe in a god at all is for one of the same reasons that Xtians believe in their God: I use god to explain things I don't understand.

 

My television is god. I will now go home and worship my television.

 

Well, you know your television always answers prayer. Sometimes when you pray to your TV you get what you want. Those are the times when your TV answers "yes". Sometimes when you pray to your TV the opposite of what you want happens. Those are the times when your TV answers with "no". Sometimes when you pray to your TV nothing happens. Those are the times when your TV answers "wait". Your TV does this to build your faith and patience.

[par4dcourse]

With the bizarro world of quantum physics opening up calling anything "supernatural" is a stretch.

[Guest Xtech]

Do atheists believe in anything supernatural? Does it just depend on the atheist?

 

It depends upon the person. Atheist is such a narrowly defined term that it describes lots of people with very different views on the world. Some believe in karma, some believe in the power of crystals, some believe 'everything happens for a reason.' Some Buddhists are atheist. Some other religions are atheist, or embrace atheism within their tradition.

 

Atheists simply do not believe in God(s). So it is not really possible to define atheists by anything other than that lack of belief in god(s).

 

Added: there is rich discussion to be had about the role of belief within an atheist's thinking. This can lead to getting real specific about what the definition of 'god' is. There are atheists who 'believe' in a life spirit that encompasses all of the universe. If that life spirit does not have a personification and a name, is it a kind of a god?

[JadedAtheist]

To start off, this isn't a bashing thread or anything like that. I just have difficulty grasping the concept of no god.

 

What is it that ultimately convinced you that there is no god at all? Why don't you believe in an non-intervening god? Is it all based around "bad stuff happens and no one does anything, so God doesn't exist" or is there a more intellectual reason?

 

To be honest, the only reason I believe in a god at all is for one of the same reasons that Xtians believe in their God: I use god to explain things I don't understand. If I could explain the whole universe (or other universes), I would likely end up as an Atheist, but I can't right now. Claiming that there is no god whatsoever is a very bold statement, but it is far from being a silly idea. I'm just trying to understand the reasoning of you all so that I can better relate to you.

 

Well, I knew the gods of other religions were man made so I couldn't believe in them. I tried working through the possibilities of God still existing albeit not being a personal God and after mulling over it for awhile I couldn't find a satisfactory way of believing one existed with the evidence on hand so I stopped believing. If something comes up, I'll change my mind but I simply can't just believe because it helps explains things. It actually needs to become plausible again in order for me to consider it.

[Guest wester]

Hello,

 

If you insist on having the universe as a made thing, then you turn it into an artifact. Thus you are also a "made" thing inside the big artifact. Big cause of western alienation and depression. You can find a good illustration of this worldview in the "Cube" movies from a few years back.

 

With these questions, you have already started to alienate yourself from the universe from which you came and of which you are a part. Get over it. Stop. You'll just send yourself straight to therapy which won't do you any good and they'll ultimately send you right back to the same place you started.

 

Come on home. The universe doesn't need to be a created artifact, like a machine or a clock or a super cube. It just is. Maybe always was and always will be. Maybe in hundreds of billions of permutations. Why pretend that there is "nothing" that you can oppose the universe with when there isn't nothing. There is this and this is you, my friend. Totally and completely you. Quit psyching yourself out . You are as much the creator as that which you believe to be god. Same for everyone else. In fact you recreate the universe every day when you wake from sleep as you have done since the day you were born. It's all one and the same thing. You are observing yourself. No division. No separation. No artifacts. No alienation.

 

As Bootsy Collins, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic used to preach-- "On the One"

Oi vay - now I need a coconut milkshake.

 

Enjoy your life. Cheers and Good Luck.

[ConureDelSol]

Thanks for clearing that up for me!

But, but, but... He just took advantage of an opening that I provided. And he gets all the glory. Life sucks.

 

Too slow!

 

Aww, well you both answered some of my questions, I just get confused when I quote too many people in one post...like I'm doing now...

 

I don't really get why it's vacuous. All I meant was that if it exists, it's part of existence. A pointless distinction, sure, unless people are trying to distinguish between the "natural" and the "supernatural." It's all subsumed under the natural in my book. You know, like, even if magic does exist, it all boils down to the midichlorians. xD

It's turtles all the way down...

 

 

I may have to get that tattooed somewhere. I KNEW turtles had something to do with this!

 

 

To be honest, the only reason I believe in a god at all is for one of the same reasons that Xtians believe in their God: I use god to explain things I don't understand.

 

My television is god. I will now go home and worship my television.

 

Well, you know your television always answers prayer. Sometimes when you pray to your TV you get what you want. Those are the times when your TV answers "yes". Sometimes when you pray to your TV the opposite of what you want happens. Those are the times when your TV answers with "no". Sometimes when you pray to your TV nothing happens. Those are the times when your TV answers "wait". Your TV does this to build your faith and patience.

 

Well, my TV has Fios...that God is cheap, glitchy and disappointing...

 

With the bizarro world of quantum physics opening up calling anything "supernatural" is a stretch.

 

Quantum physics tends to hurt my head. I am happy someone out there has some sort of grasp on it though...even if a lot of it is theoretical. I watched a Science channel special about teleportation and I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my head around the concept of how THAT works.

 

Hello,

 

If you insist on having the universe as a made thing, then you turn it into an artifact. Thus you are also a "made" thing inside the big artifact. Big cause of western alienation and depression. You can find a good illustration of this worldview in the "Cube" movies from a few years back.

 

With these questions, you have already started to alienate yourself from the universe from which you came and of which you are a part. Get over it. Stop. You'll just send yourself straight to therapy which won't do you any good and they'll ultimately send you right back to the same place you started.

 

Come on home. The universe doesn't need to be a created artifact, like a machine or a clock or a super cube. It just is. Maybe always was and always will be. Maybe in hundreds of billions of permutations. Why pretend that there is "nothing" that you can oppose the universe with when there isn't nothing. There is this and this is you, my friend. Totally and completely you. Quit psyching yourself out . You are as much the creator as that which you believe to be god. Same for everyone else. In fact you recreate the universe every day when you wake from sleep as you have done since the day you were born. It's all one and the same thing. You are observing yourself. No division. No separation. No artifacts. No alienation.

 

As Bootsy Collins, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic used to preach-- "On the One"

Oi vay - now I need a coconut milkshake.

 

Enjoy your life. Cheers and Good Luck.

 

Everything you have mentioned basically explains the general idea I'm arriving at. Though I've called myself deist I think a more appropriate term might be a "transitioning atheist" or something like that. The whole idea of a god being a personification has bothered me and I've seen myself as more ignorant than conclusive in that sense. I just read some books at the college library and that along with the immense help of this forum's members is helping me become content with a creationless universe.

[ConureDelSol]

Thanks for clearing that up for me!

But, but, but... He just took advantage of an opening that I provided. And he gets all the glory. Life sucks.

 

Too slow!

 

Aww, well you both answered some of my questions, I just get confused when I quote too many people in one post...like I'm doing now...

 

I don't really get why it's vacuous. All I meant was that if it exists, it's part of existence. A pointless distinction, sure, unless people are trying to distinguish between the "natural" and the "supernatural." It's all subsumed under the natural in my book. You know, like, even if magic does exist, it all boils down to the midichlorians. xD

It's turtles all the way down...

 

 

I may have to get that tattooed somewhere. I KNEW turtles had something to do with this!

 

 

To be honest, the only reason I believe in a god at all is for one of the same reasons that Xtians believe in their God: I use god to explain things I don't understand.

 

My television is god. I will now go home and worship my television.

 

Well, you know your television always answers prayer. Sometimes when you pray to your TV you get what you want. Those are the times when your TV answers "yes". Sometimes when you pray to your TV the opposite of what you want happens. Those are the times when your TV answers with "no". Sometimes when you pray to your TV nothing happens. Those are the times when your TV answers "wait". Your TV does this to build your faith and patience.

 

Well, my TV has Fios...that God is cheap, glitchy and disappointing...

 

With the bizarro world of quantum physics opening up calling anything "supernatural" is a stretch.

 

Quantum physics tends to hurt my head. I am happy someone out there has some sort of grasp on it though...even if a lot of it is theoretical. I watched a Science channel special about teleportation and I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my head around the concept of how THAT works.

 

Hello,

 

If you insist on having the universe as a made thing, then you turn it into an artifact. Thus you are also a "made" thing inside the big artifact. Big cause of western alienation and depression. You can find a good illustration of this worldview in the "Cube" movies from a few years back.

 

With these questions, you have already started to alienate yourself from the universe from which you came and of which you are a part. Get over it. Stop. You'll just send yourself straight to therapy which won't do you any good and they'll ultimately send you right back to the same place you started.

 

Come on home. The universe doesn't need to be a created artifact, like a machine or a clock or a super cube. It just is. Maybe always was and always will be. Maybe in hundreds of billions of permutations. Why pretend that there is "nothing" that you can oppose the universe with when there isn't nothing. There is this and this is you, my friend. Totally and completely you. Quit psyching yourself out . You are as much the creator as that which you believe to be god. Same for everyone else. In fact you recreate the universe every day when you wake from sleep as you have done since the day you were born. It's all one and the same thing. You are observing yourself. No division. No separation. No artifacts. No alienation.

 

As Bootsy Collins, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic used to preach-- "On the One"

Oi vay - now I need a coconut milkshake.

 

Enjoy your life. Cheers and Good Luck.

 

Everything you have mentioned basically explains the general idea I'm arriving at. Though I've called myself deist I think a more appropriate term might be a "transitioning atheist" or something like that. The whole idea of a god being a personification has bothered me and I've seen myself as more ignorant than conclusive in that sense. I just read some books at the college library and that along with the immense help of this forum's members is helping me become content with a creationless universe.

[SillyString]

If there was a god who created the universe, (any god, deist, Christian, etc...) then what created this god? Where did it come from? Naturally, this should be the question that we ask about a creator.

 

If someone suggests that a creator always existed, why can't we then suggest that the universe always existed? What need then is there for a god?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYrlqF-IW0

[VacuumFlux]

Part of why I consider myself an atheist is that a deity seems to be getting things backwards. A creator deity would be being more complex than the universe who creates something less than him/it/her-self. But one of the huge hurdles I had to get over when deconverting was understanding and accepting evolution, since until college I'd only been taught the creationist side of things. In the fundy world I lived in, people liked to say that some sort of "evolution" is happening... but it's that God made us perfect and complete and mutations are degrading the gene pool and that's why we have genetic defects. Evolution says the opposite, that life started out simple and is getting more complex, and that we have genetic defects because there was never any one/thing guiding evolution towards perfection (evolution isn't about getting better and better, it's merely about surviving long enough to breed fertile offspring, and any pain and suffering you go through in that process is irrelevant as long as it doesn't kill you off).

 

Then there's physics. Part of the idea of physics is describing a vast set of things that exist and actions that happen by a small set of simple rules. Then you add in cosmology and the big bang, and it become something of a story of order developing out of chaos under the influence of a few simple rules and a lot of time. So I believe that "ultimate reality" is in the simple things, and complex things, like consciousness, are the result of lots of matter/energy interacting according to those rules. So I don't believe that I have a spirit apart from my body; I fully believe that my soul/self/consciousness is created by my material brain, did not exist before some stage of materialistic neural development, and that it will die along with my body.

 

So if there is any large, powerful, universal consciousness, which I don't see much evidence for, then I believe that it would have been created by the material world, not its creator. I do believe that large masses of human create a culture, a zeitgeist, perhaps even a collective consciousness, because I live in a culture that seems very powerful and outside of any single human's control. But culture doesn't exist without the humans living it, and we change it as much as it controls us. Sometimes I feel helplessly caught up in the waves of culture, of trends, of what everyone else is doing, even when I as an individual am not participating. So if I were to believe in a deity, I would belive in one that we have created, in the same way that we have created our culture, the same way that the laws of physics created the planets and stars.

 

Short answer: I see the properties commonly ascribed to deity as emmergent, not as a potential first cause.

 

Emotional answer: When I quit expecting something powerful and out there somewhere to fix the world, I take more responsibility for myself and end up healthier, happier, and more ethical. The concept of a deity to turn to is therefore detrimental to my living a good life.

[Mike D]

Assuming for a moment that reality was indeed "created", I don't know why a creator(s) need be referred to as "god". Also, if everything has a life cycle, then said "creator(s)" may have expired long ago.

 

Once I ditched the god-belief I started to question the nature of reality itself - I sometimes wonder if physical reality is "virtual", meaning there really is no spatial or physical reality at least not as currently think of it. Sort of like "reality" is just a non-physical interpretation of input to our consciousness. A thought isn't physical so it doesn't seem so far fetched to me. And if you remove the physical piece of the equation it kind of makes the whole concept of "creation" seem not applicable or just plain null.

[Eugene39]

If there was a god who created the universe, (any god, deist, Christian, etc...) then what created this god? Where did it come from? Naturally, this should be the question that we ask about a creator.

 

If someone suggests that a creator always existed, why can't we then suggest that the universe always existed? What need then is there for a god?

Assuming for a moment that reality was indeed "created", I don't know why a creator(s) need be referred to as "god". Also, if everything has a life cycle, then said "creator(s)" may have expired long ago.

 

What is quoted here is where I'm at with all this. Sometimes I wonder if God is simply a product of our consciousness. Then someone suggested to me that perhaps it is only possible to perceive God through our consciousness. IDK.

[Cubeless]

I was leaning towards deism as I lost faith in Christianity. Even as I considered the resurrection of Jesus less and less likely (not going into that), I still believed some kind of deity just had to exist; I couldn't accept the possibility that there might be no "great profound purpose" to the universe, and I had a few other arguments I thought were fool-proof. I thought that surely any atheist who just thought about these arguments for a few moments must agree a deity had to exist--surely they were fooling themselves if they thought there really wasn't a god.

 

I don't mean to hijack the thread into my own testimonial; I'm putting this out there to explain how I went from deism to atheism. I think it's relevant since it deals with several primary objections to atheism from a deist standpoint. I respect deism, however, and I still consider it to be one of the more benign forms of theism/quasi-theism, since it has no scriptures with which to justify idiotic behavior. I also consider its relatively vague and non-interventionist idea of God to be the only kind of deity I'd consider to have any possibility of actually existing, though I will now relate why I now consider it unlikely. (It's late at night and I'm not proofreading this; I hope there are no severe errors or confusing parts.)

 

One by one, my arguments and pseudo-arguments broke down for me--and I also came to emotionally accept what it would mean if no god existed. Long before I accepted the possibility that there might be no god at all, I gradually came to accept that there might truly be no life after death, and that I had to cherish every moment. This revelation is something I have callously ignored far too often, even to this day, but it nevertheless was important to my acceptance that if there was no afterlife, I could not change that fact by believing otherwise and I had to face all the possibilities. I was forced into this partly by learning more about the science behind near-death experiences. I had thought atheists just sort of ignored the existence of NDE's or thought the people relating them were liars; I'd never known there was a materialistic explanation for why those experiences happened.

 

The sense that existence itself had to have some super-important reason and that this reason had to be an intentional/conscious reason was something I eventually realized was psychological. I could not explain why the important reason the universe surely had for existing had to be the product of some kind of intentional mind. The universe must exist for a reason--but why must this reason be of a mental nature and not a simpler kind of cause-and-effect?

 

I also relied on the First Cause argument which went hand-in-hand with this sense--I thought that since science could never explain WHY there was something instead of nothing, since there would always be the question "why does it exist instead of not existing," God was a perfectly legitimate explanation. God could transcend physical laws and underlie the universe. But two arguments helped me realize the First Cause or "Cosmological" argument was simply bunk.

 

One is that it raises the question "what/who made God?" Previously, I had shrugged this off. Of course, God was the most fundamental existent thing there was--he didn't need a creator. But then I read an argument online that shocked me--shocked not only at its content but at the fact I hadn't thought of it before. If God could exist "fundamentally" without a cause (as something must) then why couldn't the universe in its earliest form exist fundamentally on its own? By Occam's Razor, I had to accept the explanation of God here was superfluous.

 

I was unsure whether there was life on other planets or only on Earth; I thought that if there was life only on Earth, that was surely implausible unless there was a deity. But I didn't know either way. I later learned that even low estimates and the rare Earth hypothesis propose that it is very probably that there is SOME other life in the universe and that life wasn't just a fluke but something which was practically bound to "emerge" from the universe.

 

I also knew that there were several "universal constants" which were within narrow constraints for life to exist, such as the strengths of the forces. I thought those forces were probably evidence of God's existence, that something out there wanted us to come into existence. I eventually wondered, however, whether those forces might be exactly as they have to be and that there was no "random force strength generator" or alternatively, whether life of some kind might emerge even with differing force strengths. I also later learned of the Multiverse theory, although I have never been completely sold on it since there doesn't seem to be much observable evidence; I need to learn more about this.

 

I eventually came to better come to terms with simply living in the world the way it is, without needing a vague sense of "divine purpose" or "meaning" which I realized didn't really mean much at all. I could be happy without them. After accepting a possible lack of afterlife, this was easier to accept. And the god I believed in gradually became less and less person-like, and more a force of nature. By the end of it, it was simply the first cause of the natural world, the universe in its earliest and most fundamental state that we may never fully understand.

 

But not yet. The existence of consciousness continued to seem necessarily immaterial. I was not familiar with David Chalmers (an atheist dualist) at the time, but I had thought of, by myself, some of his arguments and using them as a defense of a deity. I thought that no matter how complex a brain was, and even if everything in our mental processes corresponded to brain functions, surely it could not really FEEL like something unless there was some immaterial, supernatural thing--something that could defy and transcend all physical laws--the soul. In order to be consciously aware of the universe and not what I later learned Chalmers called a "philosophical zombie" (an idea I'd thought of before I learned about Chalmers) I thought the soul must be UNBOUND by any physical laws, because *stuff* that works a certain way will always be "stuff," never a thinking entity. Never the "ghost in the machine." And the soul, I thought, could not simply arise from matter, so it must arise from something else which is nonmaterial--the supreme soul of the universe, God.

 

But while reading a philosophy book called "Questions that Matter" and its chapter on materialism, I realized--in spite of the anti-materialism and slight pro-Catholic bias displayed by the author--that if the soul wasn't physical...what was it? It had to be something! The soul had to have certain properties, and it had to have certain laws regarding how it works. That was just logically necessary. I realized the label of "supernatural" was meaningless; it meant it followed natural laws that weren't understood and which were not bound by the same physics. But it still had to, logically, follow some kind of physics, even if they were more complex than contemporary physics and somehow accounted for consciousness and free will. The soul must be made out of something, or else be a "particle" with consciousness--if it still had to follow some kind of physical laws no matter what, why, then, couldn't consciousness somehow arise from the physical universe?

 

At that point, just about all the arguments for God's existence seemed less than fool-proof. I had to accept there was a possibility that God did not exist at all. I went from 100% certainty to more like 70% over a few weeks from there. It was a bit of a shock, but really just the next step in a process that had been going on for years.

 

I later found more to object to about the very nature of God's proposed existence. If God didn't intervene in the world, why not? Was he unable or unwilling? Why create the universe at all? What was the point of it all? Perhaps unnatural evil was unavoidable, because of free will--but why do we have earthquakes and diseases? Why couldn't God design the world better? I realized the amount of natural evil was inexcusably high; it seemed very likely that if God could control how the universe started out, he'd have a greater ability to predict how it would end up than a scientist doing an experiment.

 

I also later realized the level of natural evil is inexcusably high even if we allow for free will. There was no reason, surely, we could not have been designed to evolve with brains that would be less predisposed to commit evil? Unless God was unable to provide for a better universe, bound by laws of logic. "The rock strong enough to support you must be hard enough to stub your toe." But I suspect God could have found a creative solution for this, and it remains baffling why he doesn't interfere. If he can create, why can't he interfere? I was already past that idea that everything happened for a reason and that trials and tribulations were for our benefit; I'd already concluded they were unavoidable and not part of God's will. But why couldn't God stop them, if he could create the universe? What are the extent of God's powers? I still wonder about these questions and I suspect there are rebuttals that could be made.

 

I eventually came to find it suspicious that so many people should be predisposed to believe in God. What an amazing coincidence, that we should evolve cognitive biases that lead us to believe in a deity that just so happens to really exist! Or did God design our biases? If so, then God wanted us to trust our biases, and I think this is anti-intellectual of him. I dismiss that idea. The only reason I can think of is that this bias was somehow unavoidable in the same way as our evil desires and earthquakes. But it all seems like very vague and strained excuses for an entity whose existence doesn't make a lot of sense, and which we would surely believe in whether or not it existed.

 

Well, that's all I've got right now. If I get any TL;DR's I will have learned my lesson.

[izzytheterri]

Just wanted to let you know that I really empathize with what you're feeling. It seemed downright impossible to relate to the world through anything but God colored glasses.

 

Forgive me if I'm completely off base, but it sounds to me like you realize that what's going on in your life isn't working for you (Christianity) and since you've identified with that for so long, you need to identify with something else, and you're reaching for Atheism.

 

To be perfectly honest, it sounds to me like you're Agnostic at this juncture in your life. There's nothing wrong with that, any more than there's anything wrong with identifying with a religion or identifying with Atheism.

 

Don't try to force yourself to believe or disbelieve something, when you've come to terms with your beliefs (or disbeliefs) and found a place to settle down on, you will know it and have peace about it and it won't be a struggle at all.

 

A good step before Atheism might be trying to get a different perspective on who "God" is.

 

For example:

 

Unity teaches that we are all God, and that Jesus was just a good man that was awake to the spark that each of us have in us. They "celebrate" Christ in the sense that we all have the Christ spirit in us, and that we simply have to realize it's potential.

 

Buddhism teaches that we have a higher self within us. Be it God, or be us God, it's there and similarly to Unity, we need to fully realize that self and move past our external self to achieve enlightenment.

 

My point is that there are a lot of other perspectives that may help you move to a place that you feel comfortable being. Again, forgive me if I'm out of line or off base, your words reminded me very much of myself and it really helped me find where I was comfortable by not looking at the world as "Christian or Atheist" but rather by exploring other perspectives.