₦airaland Forum

Wilgrea7:
Compliments of the season Sir. Once again I apologize for the delayed responses. I promise to address all relevant mentions soon.

Happy new year to you as well.

So I've understood all your points up until this particular point. And this is something I believe you've mentioned several times here. So I think it would be a good idea for us to further expatiate on it.

It's the idea that not believing in something, even though you understand the concept of it, is equal to saying that said thing does not exist. It seems to be a binary decision thing, where we are asked to affirm that something does exist, or that it doesn't.

I don't necessarily believe this to be the case. And as usual, please correct me if I'm wrong here, but you also seem to view the response "I don't know" as a sort of way to evade the burden of proof.

I sincerely do not see it that way. There are some things to which we have no knowledge about, and in such cases, an honest "I don't know would be sufficient".

The problem I have with the "God does NOT exist" statement, is that it makes a claim that seems like it's based on knowledge. Meaning "I know that God does not exist".

I believe I may have contributed to that issue. Upon rereading our discussion, I realize the way I used the term "believe" may constitute a category mistake. In one sense I used "believe" in the sense of agreeing with a theory and in the other in the sense of believing God truly does exist. I think of it now as a theory and practice distinction. I was trying to say that both definitions of atheism do not regard deity as practical.

Belief seems somewhat irrelevant here, considering we have evidence for a "higher cause" (once again, not necessarily a conscious one, or what people would consider a "mind, or anything in the religious sense" ). But then again, I wouldn't go as far as to describe this general concept as "god" because of what the name often implies.

I've been thinking about the "god" thing for a while, and it seems to lead me back to the question "why is there something rather than nothing?"... But i think this is a discussion for another day.

The latter part of the above is Leibnitz's cosmological argument. The former is rather curious to me, as I don't see how this higher cause could possibly be unconscious.

In regards to being called, or not being called an atheist, I have no issues with the names given to me here. My adoption of the title came after I was repeatedly called so here on nairaland.

Don't worry about it, you aren't an atheist in any true sense of the word. If you had been, we wouldn't have been able to have a discussion this long without slinging mud.

KnownUnknown, and with that I'll be wrapping up our correspondence. Barring the supernatural event that you develop startling intellectual abilities, you simply are not getting any smarter. Feel free to observe my discussion with Wilgrea7 when we continue. You might even continue to learn new words.

KnownUnknown:
I’m not an atheist. The supernatural or the so called “divine” is just a subset of fiction. Since gods are supernatural or divine, they are obviously fiction. Gods also do not appear outside of fiction, be it religious or profane, and their actions are extraordinary and unlike what actually happens in reality. I have no belief or unbelief in Thor and regard him as an extant work of fiction and same goes for El, the Mesopotamian fiction you call “God”.

Above is more of the unintelligent assumption that your position is properly basic. It will serve when I'm explaining to Wilgrea7 what I mean when I say that the average atheist (which you claim you are not; although this is just another demonstration of your not understanding English) is unable to conceive of the possibility that he is wrong. Note the emphasis above on statements for which you feel no evidence is needed for. Unsubstantiated opinions that the majority of people would disagree with. Yet, you simply state them, imagining yourself some profound thinker when you childishly believe without reason.

That’s a joke. If they came to the same conclusion naturally, they would believe the same thing. However, your opinion about gods is entirely dependent on your genealogy and geography.

I'm sure you don't even think up these responses or bother yourself to try to understand mine (it could also be that you cannot for genetic reasons). If you will, however, note above that you state that they "would believe the same thing" and shortly thereafter append "your opinion about gods is entirely dependent on your genealogy and geography". Assuming you are capable of understanding your own words (as it seems we cannot hope for you to understand mine), you will notice a contradiction. In the above quote you simultaneously claim that people do not believe similarly about deity, and yet they all believe in the existence of some sort of god.

They all believe the "same thing" if that same thing is that god exists in some form. This is exactly the point your quote above claims to be refuting. The impact of their environment is to be expected as that is the lens through which they filter their perception of the divine as well as their experience as humans.

It has never happened. No one comes to an opinion about gods on their own and like I said before, it is totally dependent on on your genealogy and geography. They have been and there are still atheistic societies and gods themselves were created by ancient people based personification of the natural world. No society came to the same conclusion so that’s just one of your baseless claims.

The bolded part above comes in spite of the warning I issued below:

I know this for a fact, because it already happened: fragmented and completely remote human societies all around the planet all came to the same conclusion (feel free to ignorantly point out exceptions).

That some people are subjective idealists does not mean that the majority of us don't know that matter really exists independent of mind. Subjective idealists are exceptions and their existence does not invalidate the claim that we simply know that matter is more than just an illusion. The same thing applies to the handful of naturally atheist societies.

All these is meaningless babble. Gods are obviously fictional and that is the only thing that is “self evident”

Thus spoke Zarathustra!

KnownUnknown:
The only reasonable thing you said is “don’t beat a dead horse further”.

Let's not pretend like you're smart enough to know.

Another reason why your analogy is senseless is the you can’t use something as apparent as a planet for your ridiculous analogy about the vague idea of god and your continued attempt to shift the burden of proof is farcical.

This is what I mean when I say you simply aren't very intelligent. I mean that as an honest observation and not an insult. It would be smart of you to wait for others to do the thinking and to simply copy and memorize what they say. The example given had a point, which you've scarcely addressed, instead choosing to attack it because you do not know how examples work or because you simply cannot wrap your head around the point. The last part quoted above is simply you insisting that your point of view is properly basic.

Both cavemen would be aware of planets by virtue of the definition, “wandering star”, your theist caveman does not have to rely on making claims without support. Both caveman CAN SEE the “wandering stars”.

The dimwittedness on display here is as amusing as it is frustrating.

Is “proper basicity” a synonym for “proper bullshit”? Or what does chemistry have to do with this?

No. Actually it is simply more vocabulary that you do not know and are too lazy to investigate. This is the second time you've failed to make an elementary inference: "proper basicity" cannot be about chemistry. Why would a human being even think that. Furthermore, you are as arrogant as you are uneducated, unable to ask for the definitions of terms you are ignorant of because it would expose the intellectual underclass you belong to.

KnownUnknown:
No, it is not the same thing. I didnot take a position of belief or unbelief about the existence of a non-defined “blue thing”. The “blue thing” is essentially meaningless because the person claiming it exists can’t even define it therefore I don’t believe the person’s claim.

You do not believe the other person's claim that the blue thing exists; therefore you do believe it does not exist. This is surprisingly simple logic, even for you and yet you fail to grasp it. Like a child, you want to play at words and suggest that you do not believe the person, but as I've demonstrated, belief in anything is binary (like being pregnant) inasmuch as you possess basic knowledge concerning it. You may oscillate between believing it and not as you learn more, but you cannot avoid one of these positions except by virtue of stupidity. Repeatedly claiming that the blue thing is poorly defined is only a justification for your belief in its inexistence, rather than the proof you imagine it is that you believe neither in its existence nor inexistence.

Your analogy is nonsensical. You calling one caveman atheist and the other theist when the discussion is about planets is senseless.

While I originally considered otherwise, I decided to label the cavemen as I did so even you could see the comparison I was making. I'm not surprised that you lead your refutation by noting such an unimportant point; I suppose you have to give yourself credit for the kinds of battles you can win.

A handful of planets can be seen with the naked eye so all one caveman has to do is show the other how to observe and explain phenomena. There is no belief or unbelief required because the issue can be settled by simple observation. The idea that the “theist caveman” would be calling it a planet and not a god is a joke.

Yet again, I'm unfazed by your lack of comprehension considering the arrogant brain-death that pervades atheism. You actually think I was talking about how best one can go about proving the existence of other planets to cavemen. You are wrong. I was talking about proper basicity and do not need a lesson in effective caveman communication. I will leave the quote below for you to gaze at and feel stupid:

Your piss poor analogy is because you are unaware that the five brightest planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - have been known since ancient times and can easily be seen with the naked eye if one knows when and where to look. So your “theist caveman” does not have to resolve to Christian apologetics and mealy mouthed bullshit to show the “atheist caveman” that planets exist.

The point of the example given, was that the atheist caveman believes the truth-claim: "there are no other planets", and feels no obligation to provide evidence to support this because he had never considered any alternatives prior to the theist caveman's challenge. The view is self-evident to him and that's that. Ironically, you continue your response by insisting that your point of view is properly basic:

You keep being disingenuous by trying and failing to shift the burden of proof from the people making claims about deity to those who don’t have to do nothing but point out the nonsensical nature of the beliefs

You cannot seem to grasp that we both bear burdens of proof in this argument as we are both making claims. You are stuck imagining a scenario where an atheist is approached by some proselytizer who alone bears the burden of proof by virtue of starting the conversation. In reality however they are both obligated to have evidence pointing them to their views regardless of whether they are arguing against people who disagree and even before they begin discussing these views with others. To put it so simply that you could hope to understand, I am asking why you are an atheist in the first place, with the caveat that you must include reasons pointing toward a godless universe and not just away from religion. I am also extending this question to Wilgrea7.

I should also add that the first sentence of the above paragraph isn't entirely true. I was merely being gracious. Nobody who believes in the existence of "god" (as I've defined the concept earlier in this thread) has to provide reasons for this belief as it is properly basic. Everybody comes to that conclusion naturally. For instance, if we take a number of people, wipe their memories and dump them naked on various uninhabited islands they will sooner or later come to the conclusion that "god" exists. I know this for a fact, because it already happened: fragmented and completely remote human societies all around the planet all came to the same conclusion (feel free to ignorantly point out exceptions). The reason for this is that the existence of god is self evident. We know that god exists just as we know that we exist. However, for the sake of kindness I will (and have) provided evidence that our common sense as a species is rational. It is time for atheists to do the same!

The second caveman does not have to provide proof that planets do not exist; that’s utterly senseless. It’s up to the first caveman who happens to know about planets to show the other where, when, what, and how.

To beat a dead horse further, the above is only true if the second caveman is not concerned with believing the truth. I suspect, however, that you truly did misunderstand the story I told. For emphasis: the atheist caveman is making the claim that other planets do not exist, much like modern atheists make the claim that god does not exist. Unless atheists are ok with believing lies then they have an obligation (to themselves at least) to have reason for believing as they do.

Lastly, I should note that your feigning ignorance about the definition of the term "god" is a shameful attempt at winning any argument. It is also not true. Not only have I pleaded with you to use a dictionary to enlighten yourself, I have also defined it several times already in posts on this thread, although not addressed to you. You should have left the thinking to the more intelligent atheist I was already conversing with.

KnownUnknown:
I don’t know about most people but I would never simply say “I don’t believe in” the blue thing.
I would say I don’t believe you ( the person making the claim) because “the blue thing” is probably nonsense.

You would still be saying you do not believe in the existence of the blue thing!

Here's a story to make it illustrate our arguments. The theist and atheist are like two cavemen who've spent their entire lives living between rocks, when all of a sudden one asks the other if he believes in the existence of other planets. Perplexed, the atheist caveman asks what a planet is (which would be understandable for a caveman as he doesn't have access to dictionaries or the internet or kind adults to ask).

After being brought up to speed on what a planet is, the atheist caveman rejects their existence on the grounds that he cannot sense them whatsoever. He spends the rest of his time saying things like:

"you claim I am wrong because I haven’t refuted a proposition that can’t be refuted. How does one argue against the nonexistence of planets?"

It does not occur to him that he, like the theist caveman, wants to know what is true and should question what positive proof he has for his belief. After all, he is making the unsubstantiated claim that "planets do not exist" and is at a loss for ways to prove it. Even worse, the theist caveman has provided evidence indicating that it is very likely there are other planets. The atheist caveman, however, is unfazed. He assumes he is right and has no obligation to himself to ask whether his view is warranted at all.

I am pointing out here that the reason the atheist caveman doesn't bother coming up with proof that planets do not actually exist is that he assumes that his point of view is the properly basic, neutral starting point. He believes he is correct from the start and just has to disprove the theist caveman's points to remain correct. Fortunately, Wilgrea7 has begun to understand me. Hopefully, you will too.

KnownUnknown:
That is disingenuous and he should ask you:
What is deity?
Can you show what a deity is?

This new ignorance schtick is already old. Other than distracting from more important points, what do you aim to accomplish by asking me to serve as a dictionary. The basic assumption that I and Wilgrea7 are operating on is that everyone involved in this debate has basic knowledge of the English language. If I use a term in some special way, I will let you know. Until then rely on Oxford's or Merriam-Webster's.

Assuming you start from the position of agnosticism, he should ask what you mean by agnosticism?

While this is just more willful ignorance, I will clarify that agnosticism as I used it is related to theism and atheism, rather than Gnosticism. This is a simple contextual inference. It is simply a relatively neutral starting point for us to discuss our beliefs without solely appealing to proper basicity. We assume that we know nothing about the existence of god (or whether there is a god) and propose and oppose the motion with our own points. This is different from the usual sport where the theist uses points and the atheist counters them like a penalty shootout. This is a complete match, with both teams trying to win by scoring goals and defending against others.

He does not have to prove anything unless you ask him:
What is this god that you lack belief in?

Why is that exactly?

No, that’s been disingenuous. The only assumption in these arguments is that “god” exists, which is a claim that the theist needs to prove.

While this point is irrelevant to the larger theme of your post, I couldn't resist referencing it. According to you, the assumption here is that "god exists" and yet this is something "the theist needs to prove". Maybe you cannot see how that doesn't make any sense.

While you are yet to point out your view on the matter in a complete and logical sense, I already suspect that you are committing the fallacy of appealing to ignorance because of the same proper basicity (or self-evidence) I've recently discussed on this same thread. When you do make your own points I will try to address them.

Wilgrea7:
I think this is in regards to the word "God". It seems as though we define the word in different ways.

I'd also like to clarify that I used the term "god" differently from how I've used "God" in the past. As I have explained, "god" is the name of a set (in the mathematical sense) that houses every concept of deity. It is can be infinite or finite. It refers to the concept of divinity itself and different forms it may exist in. It is very much like the term "life".

On the other hand, God, I believe, is the actual existence of deity. A transcendent disembodied mind, infinitely qualitatively different from us. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omni-benevolent, necessary, existing in three persons and incarnate 2,000 years ago in the man, Jesus Christ who died that we may inherit everlasting life. I have avoided using "God" of late so my arguments work as general theistic principles.

Please pay no heed to this post other than as a clarification of how I've used my terms. It is irrelevant otherwise.

Wilgrea7:
It appears I defined my atheism as lack of belief in a specific concept, or inclination towards a specific concept of "God", while you defined it as rejection of the general concept, of "God" or what i would call a "higher cause"

No, I defined your atheism as the same thing you define it as above. I wrote that if you believe in the general concept of god, but not in the actual existence of any form of deity, then your atheism is the same as saying: "I don't believe in the existence of god" or "god does not exist". I use the term "god" here as the name of a set of every possible concept of deity including God, Allah, Vishnu etc. If you agree that the concept of deity is sensible but do not believe in any of the aforementioned, as well as the actual existence of any form of deity then you do not believe god exists.

Imagine yourself a disembodied consciousness touring the remains of our galaxy following some catastrophe that has led to the extinction of all life. You may accept that the concept is logical and could exist, but if you do not believe it actually does exist in some form then you would be saying: "life does not exist". Likewise your lack of belief in any and all specific forms of god.

For example, if for you, the word "God", in the general sense, is just another term for a "higher" power or cause (not necessarily a conscious or centralized one), then we're pretty much on the same page.

In my post titled "Questions I have about the existence of a creator God", as well as in several other occasions, I've mentioned that the idea of something like that is one i can agree with.

If that's what you mean by self-evident, then yeah. We totally agree.

In that case you are changing the definition of atheism in order fit yourself in. The above would conventionally be described as agnostic theism/deism: you believe in god, but are unsure of his nature. If you agree, we can stop calling you an atheist and simply move on to discussing the traditional concept of god and leaps of faith.

KnownUnknown:
@Wilgrea7
This is what I pointed out to you in a previous post or thread. Any observant theist would use this argument because the atheist is implying that the god exists and he just lacks belief in it and this because the theist’s argument is that the god exists and all that is required is belief. So your unbelief is merely a denial of existence of the god while their belief is an affirmation of existence of the god. But according to both positions, the god exists.

I am simply trying to get him to provide positive proof for the inexistence of deity. Assuming we start from the position of agnosticism and both have to prove our points (as it would be in any rational debate), the scales would swing massively in favor of theism. This is largely because the assumption in these arguments is usually that god does not exist and that the theist is making an outlandish claim that he needs to prove. The atheist simply sits and judges the performance, often shooting down the theist's proofs and imagining that he is demonstrating that god does not exist. It simply does not occur to him that he needs to provide evidence confirming his own position, rather than just tearing down other's. Like I've said before, this is because the starting assumption is that atheism is the natural state of things and the believer wants to disrupt the natural order, but must have just cause - in the form of proof - to do so.

Wilgrea7, after rereading my last post, I noticed that it is not only too long, but could also be confusing on several points. Consider this a TL;DR version.

My basic argument was that the existence of god is self-evident. Atheism as a philosophy is a truth claim against this properly basic truth and must be supported by positive proofs to be believable. I also explained how your definition of atheism as a lack of belief in god is the same thing as the belief that god does not exist. I continued to use "god" as a term encompassing every possible concept of deity; basically a set with members from different world religions and beyond. As for your contention that religion being ubiquitous does not prove the existence of god, I pointed out that this is a reversal of my view. I believe that the existence of god (being self-evident to humans) is the reason why religion is ubiquitous and not the other way around. I argued that self-evident truths are often paradoxical and difficult to prove, but that we have logical reason to favor them over alternatives.

Wilgrea7:
Beliefs vary wildly. Even the mere act of defining what the word "God" means proves this further.

Frankly, this is getting to be fun again. My argument is essentially that the existence of "god" in some sense is true, as well as self-evident and that atheism, which you purport to be the "lack of belief in god", but is commonly defined as the belief that god does not exist, is actually the latter definition regardless of which of the two we pick. It follows that if the existence of "god" is properly basic and you are making a truth claim -"god does not exist"- based on the latter definition of atheism, then you do have a "stance"; as well as the responsibility to defend your position.

---

I'd like to start by offering a few defeaters for your preferred definition of atheism. The statement that you (being an atheist) lack a belief in god is as absurd as it is untrue. Below is an admission that you do in fact believe (emphasis mine):

It is not to say that I don't believe "God" exists in any form whatsoever. Far from it actually. It's just that I currently lack any evidence to favor one concept of "God" above the other.

Your contention lies in our finetuning of the definition of "god", rather than the existence of god. What I struggle to understand is how someone who is unclear of the nature of something can be said to "lack a belief" in it. Could it be that you are using the phrase in some special (and wrong) way?

Take for example, the concept of life. Life exists in many forms: in plants, in cold and warm-blooded animals, as well as animals inhabiting various aquatic and terrestrial habitats and capable of varying levels of mobility. Assume with me the elimination of all forms of terrestrial life. In such a situation, if asked whether or not you believe in the existence of life on Mars, and you were simply unsure of the nature of life there, would you reply: "Oh, I lack a belief in life". That would be irrational. What you are trying to say is either that:

1.) You believe in the validity of the concept of life but not in the actual existence of a specific form of it due to lack of evidence supporting such a claim: "It is not to say that I don't believe "life" exists in any form whatsoever. It's just that no evidence has been given to support the existence of plant life on Mars". Unless you have your own belief in a member of the set constituting what forms life may take, your view is actually (2.) below. If you do in fact have a belief in a member of the set "god", then welcome to our side. It would be senseless to call you an atheist.

2.) You believe in the validity of the concept of life but not in the actual existence of any form of it due to lack of evidence supporting such claims. This, I believe is your view if we agree that the concepts of life and god are all-encompassing terms used to describe the many ways an entity could exist (this is the "set" described in (1.), above be it infinite or finite). In this sense, it could be said that "life" or "god" simply do not exist on your view, therefore rendering your special definition of atheism the same as the old one. This abstraction deals with the claim that you do not have an inclination toward belief in any definition of god and exposes that it is the same as plainly saying you do not believe in god.

---

Second, I will reiterate the proper basicity of my belief. As I've already said god exists. This level of information is available to us as a result of our perception of the world and is self-evident. Every human being will therefore know, comprehend or at least suspect it, just by virtue of existing. The quote below misses my point but is close to what I am getting at:

I don't think the idea that religious belief has existed for 200,000 years somehow validates the claim that a God, especially in the sense you describe, exists. So the idea that beliefs in a sort of God somehow validate some claim made by said beliefs, is something I just don't see. If anything, it seems to be a circular argument.

Unfortunately, my friend, you seem to have gotten the causal chain backward. I am not saying that the ubiquity of religion is proof of the existence of some sort of god. I am saying that the self-evident reality that god exists in some sense is the reason religion is universal. I am saying that God exists and that we know this, just as we can individually know that we are not one another, as both are properly basic. However, we may not understand it, leading to the various misinterpretations and the need for a set of possibilities enumerating the concept of god, one of which may cohere with the reality that is God.

When my point is understood you will be accusing me of simply stating that my point is true and absolving myself of the responsibility to prove it. Until that becomes obvious to you, you have not understood me. However, I will add that while properly basic beliefs may be impossible or difficult to prove (for instance prove that either one of us exists to me), some evidence can be given to support the common sense they bely. For this reason, all our previous discussions aid in demonstrating the probability that what appears evident to us (the existence of god) is true.

---

Combining both points above, I am arguing that you are definitionally no different than the average atheist and that your point of view contradicts common sense and self-evident truth. The former means you are making a truth claim -"god does not exist"- and the latter means you have the burden of proof to demonstrate that this is in fact reality.

---

Now to deal with some other issues you raised:

Claims that a God is singular, eternal, uncreated, or the universe itself is not in any way self-evident. Which is why we've been asking the respective theist to prove their claims. And till now, we've seen nothing.

You are correct that the specific details of the existence of a god are not self-evident, just as the conditions surrounding our own existence cannot be said to be self evident either. This is why "Man, know thyself" is probably Socrates' most popular saying. Just as we know that we exist and that god exists, we come to know more details about both. Some of these details are themselves quite obvious and others are more probable than others. Worse still, some are irrational and cannot be true.

Also, the idea that we've always had this belief in a “God" for 200,000 years is one i disagree with. Because when you look back in history, you begin to see how different our beliefs are.

Buddhism is a religion today that doesn't acknowledge any sort of supreme deity. We also have several cultures, like the native Americans that are believed to have practiced animism.

Animism does not preclude theism or deism and when it does it is improbable, given our knowledge of the big bang and the necessity of a first cause. Buddhism adds irrationality to unlikeliness, by claiming that a form of causality is the ultimate cause.

Coming to "God". We don't know what it is. We don't know what it is supposed to be. We have several beliefs about what it means to be "God". All very contradictory. As far as knowledge on a God, we have none.

The last sentence is a blatant statement that you support the second option I gave in my comparison of the abstractions of life and god, confirming that your atheism is of the usual strain. I would say we have an idea of both things and the forms in which they may exist in reality. These forms are represented as members of the sets "life" and "god".

Atheism doesn't claim anything, so saying that it fails to prove something just doesn't add up. We've made no claims about this "God" you speak of. We're only asking you, the ones making the claim to prove your claims.

As I've demonstrated, atheism is a truth claim (against common sense) that god does not exist in some form. Your insistence that it doesn't make any claims is due to a faulty assumption that it is just the natural state of things and that we (non-atheists) consequently bear the burden of proof. While, that is precisely the opposite of reality, I am charitable enough to provide claims to support common sense, as long as you are able to prove that "god" does not exist (Terms and conditions apply).

---

Alright, that felt nice to type. I apologize for its length, though. I believe our disagreement will be reduced to rather small matters after this. Good night.

Wilgrea7:
I'm quite happy you've understood the point I was trying to make, at least to a large extent. Now it makes it easier to clarify my stance on "God".

It is not to say that I don't believe "God" exists in any form whatsoever. Far from it actually. It's just that I currently lack any evidence to favor one concept of "God" above the other.

Like I said in my previous quoted response, I'm not trying to deny that "God" could be one of these things. I simply don't know enough to say it is A instead of B. I don't know if the creator is a single deity or a pantheon, if it has another creator, if it is the universe itself, or separate from it, and so on.

it's not that I reject all of these. It's just that I lack any sufficient data to prove one above the other, or to disprove them all as you've requested.

I cannot disprove the idea of a God who is one with the universe, any more than I can disprove the idea of a God who is separate from it, or one with another creator, or a situation with multiple creators, and so on. it becomes a case of "Russel's teapot".

In case you're not familiar with it, it's a thought experiment, where someone is asked to disprove that there's an invisible/very tiny floating cup somewhere between earth and mars.

I'm sure you've already spotted the problem here. Russel's teapot experiment, makes a claim that's essentially untestable, and unfalsifiable. Similar to disproving one concept of "God" above the other, especially with our current knowledge. Which is why I've been eager to see proofs from people who claim "God" is one way, instead of the other.

My lack of belief is not from actively rejecting all concepts of God. It's simply saying "I don't know which is/could be right".

I hope this clears things up. If not, I'd be more than happy to answer more questions.

The attitude above is one of utter ignorance and is in stark opposition to your stance on why you debate religion. What you are saying is that you do not know or believe anything about god. By doing so, you hope to shirk having to defend atheism. Could it be that you sense its indefensibility? You know that it cannot withstand the scrutiny it subjects more stable philosophies to, so you abandon ship and become Wilgrea7, the confused theist at best or the reluctant agnostic at worst.

I will not allow you or any other atheists the luxury of not having to defend your own beliefs any longer. Now that I recognize this pattern, I will resist it by harassing atheists with questions about godlessness that they cannot hope to answer. I'm done playing away matches.

To set the stage for this, I'll address the principle behind the Russell's teapot abstraction. It touches at the heart of all atheist arrogance; the very substance that permits the boastful ignorance and stupidity all religious people have no doubt had to endure: proper basicity. This is the quality of all obvious or self-evident ideas. It is the attribute common to the set of all undefended and universally believed truths (for example, that I exist, or that people distinct from me exist, that I am conscious, that all that goes up on earth comes down (gravity exists), that Pythagoras theorem is correct etc.).

The problem here is that the assumption has been made by all atheists and unfortunately, most of us theists, that atheism is correct. This is the reason Christians have been amassing a 2,000 year old "Stack Overflow-like" theological library to defend the faith. Luckily, most of that effort is directed toward other Christians. The little that is intended for atheists is an attempt to swim in the irrational. We already know that a god exists. We have always known this, just as we have always known that we exist and that we die and that we are distinct from one another and that we are conscious. God's existence is self evidenced to the human race, hence the preponderance of religious belief of some sort throughout our 200,000 years of existence and the constant atheist nitpicking on the aspects of religious practice that do not suit certain moral tastes (the binding of Isaac and slaughter of the Amalekites to name a few), rather than on attacking the concept and existence of god. Morality itself cannot exist without god and yet we stubbornly hold on to it; it is built into our very consciences and yet it is irrational if we jettison the idea that a god exists.

The reason I have asked that you clarify your stance on God's existence it to trap you into doing what you should have been doing all along: proving it. You have no doubt noticed that atheists are routinely accused of hating a god they claim not to believe in. You have certainly been accused of being religious in your own sense since becoming an atheist. While these claims are made simply, they have become clichés for a reason which is that they bely the truth. Atheists do hate god, because they already believe in him. It is the human condition to know (and doubt) god's existence. As with everything else that being human entails, our intrinsic nature manifests in whatever condition we find ourselves, hence the popular saying that we are incurably religious and the countless gods and god-concepts you often write about.

Like our need for sex and social cohesion, competitiveness, jealousy and desire for our young to be safe and prosperous inevitably birth marriage in some form in every society, the human machine's acknowledgement of god must find fulfillment in religion. Attempts at repressing this need lead to the religious fervor of the modern atheist. You have written about your need to challenge religion yourself in a form of proselytizing hardly dissimilar to our evangelism. Anybody but the atheist in denial easily recognizes the smell of religion emanating from the angry, "small-g", snarky fumes he suffocates himself in.

Finally, to circle back to the teapot in space, it is not self-evident that such a thing exists and so the one claiming it does must prove it. He must bear the burden of proof. However, isn't god entirely unlike the teapot and more like space itself; more like the three-dimensional than a misplaced culinary artifact? It would be absurd that you ask me to prove space exists to you as we exist in it. We have never doubted its existence because it is self-evident to us. Likewise we do not doubt our own existences, even as we cannot "prove" them in any sense. The burden of proof therefore lies on the one making the unpopular and absurd claim (this is why solipsism is a philosophy and not its opposite; we do not need philosophy to know we exist). The burden of truth lies on the atheist's shoulders to prove that god does not exist, just as it would if we were discussing the existence of space.

Like all absurd positions atheism fails spectacularly at proving anything, which is why, when asked to defend it you uncharacteristically announce that you have been an agnostic theist all along and have just been waiting for the right moment to bring it up (see quoted post).

Wilgrea7:
I think there are a number of steps that would need to be put in place.

For example,

1) Proving that "God" is a single creator deity in general
2) Proving that the bible/Christian God is the same as the "God" who is indeed the creator of the universe
3) Proving the story of the fall, as well as other biblical stories to be true, which would then validate the need for any form of "salvation"
4) Proving that said God indeed came down in the flesh (as you've said)
5) Proving that the death and alleged resurrection does provide the aforementioned "salvation"

Either ways, I'd be more than happy to engage with whatever proofs you have to offer.

My own process is much simpler actually. I've thought about it some more and while, I cannot conclusively prove that God exists, I can certainly demonstrate that Christianity is evidenced strongly enough to be given due consideration and is very likely true. I believe the arguments I give will only need consider:

1.) Is it more probable that God exists than not? (I believe the answer to this is an obvious yes to us all, regardless of whether we deny it).

2.) If God exists what are the chances God is as described in the Bible?

3.) Did God incarnate in Jesus Christ?

Wilgrea7:
Yes. Finally. We agree. Although I'm a bit cautious of the wording “proving Christianity is true".

Mainly because to me, proving “the God of the bible" as the creator, and therefore arbiter of moral laws, and “proving Christianity to be true" are 2 somewhat related, but still different things.

But either ways, I'll be happy to engage with any sort of “proof"

When I eventually get around to this I will be proving Christianity to be true. Doing so would include proving that the God of the Bible exists, and that He became flesh 2,000 years ago, in order to save humanity. I will likely create a list of what I believe any Christian would agree to be articles of the faith and prove them to the best of my ability.

AuthenticKing:
While my view resembles that of a moral consequentialist, it's more complex than you think. If I were in the situation you wrote above, I wouldn't kill the Indian. I would (depending on how influential I am) find out the kind of disturbance these Indians are causing and whether they really deserve to be killed. I would do everything possible to ensure they are not killed.
While this might sound naively idealistic, it just illustrates how complex my view is.

You are right that it is naively idealistic, but more importantly, it misses the point. If you are left with no choice but to kill the Indian, you would have done a "good" thing from your consequentialist point of view. You have minimized the harm and are therefore in the right. On my view, the killing of the Indian would at best be a necessary evil. This warped moral perspective combined with the problems of geography, time, and probability make your view untenable and possibly self-contradictory. It is perhaps more dangerous than you understand it to be.

Well what use is this intrinsic view of yours if we don't see clear negative results of these actions you deem wrong even when it doesn't necessarily pose great harm to proponents involved? And not just that, sometimes sticking to these intrinsic notions could even create adverse consequences for proponents. Would you who hold unto intrinsic notions of right and wrong condemn a policeman who kills a hardened criminal who tries to escape after being caught or those who shot Osama bin Laden, the hardened terrorist or the woman who divorces an abusive husband who is at the verge of killing her?

Of recent, I've come to the conclusion that everything wrong with the world can be traced back to improper foundations in ethical philosophy. The above paragraph exemplifies my belief in a way I could only have hoped for. For instance, the sentence: "And not just that, sometimes sticking to these intrinsic notions could even create adverse consequences for proponents", seems to imply that people shouldn't perform moral actions in order to avoid "adverse consequences". Not only is this contradictory to your earlier "advancement" rhetoric, it is a clear demonstration of consequentialism blurring the lines between morality and amorality. It also unfortunately disregards human selfishness and the tendency to think anything an adverse consequence to avoid having to play good Samaritan.

The examples: "a policeman who kills a hardened criminal who tries to escape after being caught or those who shot Osama bin Laden, the hardened terrorist or the woman who divorces an abusive husband who is at the verge of killing her", present the slippery slope of consequentialist thought. You judge actions by their consequence, but fail to judge the moral worth of the consequences themselves. You view killing as moral based on what you assume the consequences to be. As a result you present the above examples, where immoral actions (on my view) have led to what you deem favorable states of affairs. How would you object to Bin Laden claiming that the deaths of American citizens in the 9/11 attacks were actually a better state of affairs. You and he both believe in doing things that would "advance" humanity and that the person dying is what makes killing good or bad.

In the end you are left with the useful fiction that the people you think should die or be divorced will lead to a better world (or state of affairs) according to you. The people you permit these evils to be committed against believe the same things: that their actions will lead to a better state of affairs and are therefore justified, if not good.

Intrinsic morality decries murder as evil regardless of intention. It may be necessary at times, but is still wrong and we aim to minimize it as such. I cannot say the same for your view.

This is all quite good. You explained that the concept of God differs depending on one's faith. I agree, to an extent. However, I'm asking, not for you to deny faith in any god, but to affirm your atheist stance. I'm talking about positive proof.

You've enumerated some ways god is understood in different philosophies. You do not believe in the existence of any such god. You do not believe that god exists in any form whatsoever. I'm asking why. I'm pointing out to you that your unbelief is unwarranted as you have the burden of disproving the existence of every god ever, or simply invalidating every form of the concept.

Wilgrea7:
I assure you, I'm most certainly not trying to cop out here.

It's just that I think there's more to the question, especially when it comes to the definition of “God"

For example, the theist and deist, believe God to be a single creator deity, separate from the universe itself. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

The pantheist believes the universe IS God. The Panentheist believes the universe is A PART OF God.

A polytheist can believe in multiple eternal Gods, rather than just a single one.

Having engaged with multiple concepts of God, i always like to properly define what the word means to make sure we're on the same page.

When most people ask me if i believe in a God, they're often referring to a monotheistic/deistic concept, for which I hold no inclination towards.

Here's a recent response I gave to someone about my beliefs.

Wilgrea7:
I think you've misunderstood my position. I'm not making any claims as to whether the boy has a father or not, just as I'm not making any claims that a God/Gods does not exist.

To extend our earlier analogy, you are essentially saying you lack a belief that the boy has a father, or that you lack a belief in the existence of the boy's father. The latter is the same as saying the boy's father doesn't exist.

As for the former, let's say I inform you that the latest Honda flies. While you may have been unaware of the car beforehand, and therefore lacked a belief in it, you cannot remain ignorant about it any longer. You may be skeptical that the Japanese have created a flying car, but that only means you do not yet believe it. You would be putting off believing it until you had been presented evidence, but you would not "lack a belief" in it.

Wilgrea7:
I think this is where our definitions of atheism diverge. Atheism, as i know it, means lack of belief in a God. Not a claim that a God does not exist.

That's why we ask theists for proof, since they're the ones making the claims about a God

This is quite obviously a cop-out to evade trying to support an indefensible position. I could create a poll and ask every atheist on Nairaland if they believe God exists. They do not. Do you believe God exists?

You can't just lack a belief about a concept you are fully cognizant of. At best that would be an appeal to ignorance, but you are completely aware of God. Whether you like it or not, you subconsciously believe something about God. You either believe that God exists or you don't.

Even if you have lacked a belief until now, I am challenging you to make up your mind. Do you believe in God or not?

Wilgrea7:
Yes. Finally. We agree. Although I'm a bit cautious of the wording “proving Christianity is true".

Mainly because to me, proving “the God of the bible" as the creator, and therefore arbiter of moral laws, and “proving Christianity to be true" are 2 somewhat related, but still different things.

But either ways, I'll be happy to engage with any sort of “proof"

I should also add that you are the one with the greater task here. I have to prove that one man is the boy's father. You have to prove that the boy does not have a father whatsoever. You are the one who needs to investigate every possibility and strike them off your list.

This is related to something else I noticed: the lack of positive proofs supporting atheism. As a Christian, I am always playing on the away team, defending beliefs I find to be evidently better informed than the average atheist's (I have a 2,000 year library of tradition and scholarship; they have Dawkins and Nietzsche). If any atheist is truly interested in thorough study of any one religion they won't be able to stay atheists till Christmas.

AuthenticKing:
Mr Endtimer, I appreciate your insight on this. I haven't considered many of your points before but nevertheless, I still have my response to them.

I'm not overwhelmingly focused on the consequences of actions sir. As I wrote intially, I'm a humanist who forms his opinion on reason, rationality and empathy. I would like to cite some examples to be able to respond to your comments in the best way I can:
These are very simplistic scenarios but because I couldn't come up with better global extreme examples at the time of typing this, I had to stick with these.

You are definitely a moral consequentialist. The term means that morality is dependent on the consequences of actions, or the outcome of situations. For instance, the examples you gave:

Many of us agree that that it is morally wrong to lie, but look at this scenario: A boy is instructed by his father not to let anyone know he's inside because the father wants to rest and someone comes in wanting to see his father, should the boy abide by his father's rule and tell a lie or should stand by his 'moral standards' of not lying and tell the visitor that his father is inside thereby disturbing his father's peace?
Or the law of not stealing: What if in a family setting, the mother is very sick and their daughter discovers that the father has the money to cure the mother but decides to hide it (she knows where he's hiding it), let's also imagine that the father is a very aggressive hard-hearted person who would lash out the girl and the mother of the daughter exposes him. Should the girl keep silent and not steal the money or expose the father which could lead to deadly consequences or should she just steal the money smartly and ensure the mother gets sound treatment?

In the above you are saying that good and bad depend on the consequence of the children's actions. On your view their actions are good because their consequences are good. I will provide an example to illustrate my own view. Let's say you are travelling somewhere. When you arrive you see a group of Indians tied to a fence and some men in khakis standing, armed in front of them. You discover that these people are about to shoot the Indians for creating a disturbance. As a foreigner, you are given the option of killing one of these Indians yourself. If you do the rest of them will be released to mark the occasion. Assuming your only options are to let them kill all the Indians or to kill one yourself, what do you do?

Like in your examples, good depends on a better resulting state of affairs. In the above, it would be a necessary evil to kill the Indian on my view. It would also be evil to lie even when one's mother's life is at stake. I'm not saying not to do it. I'm saying lying is still morally wrong even when done to achieve a greater good. On your consequentialist view, the lies told are good and so is killing one Indian to save the rest.

I want to make it very clear: good and bad exist intrinsically in actions on my view. Lying and stealing are still bad when done to save someone's life. Killing the Indian is still wrong when done to save several lives. The actions following them may be good, but these actions are still bad when considered morally.

AuthenticKing:

Here are some additional issues with moral consequentialism. I have already mentioned the issue with time, so I will address moral responsibility, and geographical limitations.

Given your view that the morality of actions is dependent on their causal properties, rather than the actions themselves, you have set up a situation where what we do is of less account than the result of our actions. To take it further, who does what is also of fleeting significance. What matters is the state of affairs that actions contribute to. Hence the term 'consequentialist'; you are overwhelmingly focused on the consequences of actions and whether they subjectively contribute to human development, rather than the moral actors or acts themselves. To borrow terms from normative ethics, actions can either be considered morally right, wrong or neutral. I will now demonstrate that, on your view we will encounter geographical challenges as well as a moral dilemma invalidating the concept of doing good.

Given that there are only three states of moral actions everything we do must fall into one of these categories. I assume that, given your consequentialist inclination you would classify them as :

- Good: Any action whose consequence is the advancement of the human race.
- Neutral: Any action that neither contributes, nor subtracts from the present state of affairs.
- Bad: Any action that diminishes the welfare and/or progress of mankind.

The above classes constitute a fatal challenge for the consequentialist on the basis of moral responsibility. Moral responsibility refers to classes of actions that people ought to take on account of their "goodness". Given that these are actions, we can put aside the responsibility part and assess their morality independently. To address this let us consider our own actions:

Whatever it is you and I are doing now is hardly contributing to human advancement. Since we are not adversely affecting it, we are neither doing good nor bad. However, someone somewhere has just been shot or hanged unjustly. On the consequentialist view our actions did not result in a state of affairs better than the one preceding it on account of the evil occurring elsewhere in the world. This means that nothing we will ever do will ever be good as we have not contributed to a better state of affairs for all humanity. We have failed to cause human advancement.

On the other hand, the geographical problem arises if you attempt to disprove the above by stating that we are not to be held responsible for our actions not leading to consequences on a global scale. To do this you would be restricting the advancement of humanity to a local level. Local human advancement was the basis of the world wars. Worse still, on your view they could possibly have been right.

How can Christianity be the ultimate truth when it borrowed its truths from religions before it and added it's truth to make it religion seem to be the holder of valid truth?

I really don’t understand the point you’re making here. Please explain.

AuthenticKing:
I didn't explicitly say it makes it moral but nevertheless, I would want to know why it's an evil basis to ground morality.

...

Well, I concede to this. I would still want to know how advancing humanity is an evil basis to ground morality.

You’ll be pleased to know I’ve done so reading on your point of view. I’ll answer the quoted question with one of my own: what is your position on wars?

Rereading your responses, you are a moral consequentialist. On your view the morality of an action is contingent on the state of affairs resulting from it. This state must be one with no more people harmed than in the state preceding it.

However, the resulting state of affairs should also be one that advances humanity. As you can see, both conditions will often conflict with one another. Hence, my opening question on wars; a mode of natural selection that has played a tremendous part in the development of mankind. They cause harm, but ultimately lead to advancement. Another such issue is eugenics.

Additionally, your view has a troubling relationship with time. When does a person consider not causing harm; now or in the near future? Perhaps a few thousand years. We are at a deadlock as one can often only guess through probabilities whether or not his actions will cause harm. For instance, Hitler’s parents were immoral in the sense that they conceived and raised him (an action), which led to WWII. However, they were moral in the sense that his eventual defeat contributed to technological advancement and the creation of policies to prevent history repeating itself.

If something will cause harm to (and possibly kill) 10 million people, but may improve the lives of countless more, does it count as a bad thing in your book? This is the frame of mind of every Stalin and Pol Pot. Utopian idealism run amok, causing unbelievable suffering because right and wrong are based on harm calculus and advancement.

On the other hand, if we eliminated all pain and suffering (what you call harm), humanity would stagnate. We would die out extremely quickly. There is a balance I believe your philosophy cannot provide.

Even if morality is imagined as a scale, set by God's nature, it still doesn't exclude the possibility of God's nature, being something that supports an act we would consider, at least subjectively, morally wrong.

I want to use the example of the old testament and sabbath day workers, or people wearing mixed fabric. Let's assume for a minute that Christ never came to earth, neither was it in the Christian God's plan to ever send him down.

Well, you can’t criticize Christianity by telling me to imagine there was no Christ. However, I understand your point. I should also add that in spite of our disagreements, I’m sure a number of atheists and Christians here would agree on most moral issues in real life.

Wilgrea7:
I completely understand you, but I think I need to define my position on the "which God" argument, so as to not be misunderstood. And I think the best way to do it is with a simple analogy. I think I've given something like this here before.

Let's take a guy, who grew up without his father. One day, he wakes up to find 3 people at his doorstep, all claiming to be his father. Of course we know that they can't all be. We know only one person can be the father. But we also know it doesn't necessarily have to be one of the 3 people too.

All we know, is that by virtue of the biological processes required to procreate, he indeed has a father. the father could be one of the 3 men at his doorstep, or he could be someone else entirely, somewhere else.

I think the same analogy applies when thinking about a God. The question of "which God" isn't a question of just choosing one from the ones we have available. It's also accepting the possibility, that the "true God" (permit me using that phrase) could also not be among the ones we hear about today. But nonetheless, the identity of the "true God" needs to be determined.

The answer was right there in the post you quoted. All I have to do is prove that one man is the boy’s father. He cannot have more than one father, so if one of the people standing in front of him is his father, we need not worry about those absent. Likewise, all I have to do is provide evidence indicating that Christianity is the most probable path to God. If I’m right, there is no sense investigating lost religions or any other religion. Hence, it is relatively easy to pull off. All that has to be done is scrutinize one faith, rather than all of them.

ReubenSandwich:
My point is that a person doesn't have to believe in the existence of any God to be as honest, trustworthy, responsible, fair, caring, monogomous, faithful, pure and chaste as any person who believes in one, or to have as much of any other qualities and virtues that people associate with morality. Are you disagreeing with that?

No I’m not, but then again, we are talking about different things.

Thirdly, this is directly related to your claims about not killing being a Christianized form of morality, I have shown in my former replies, how Christianity borrowed from religions/cultures that existed before it and shown how it was really men that were creating these rules, you can check them out and read them and we can have a discussion about that.

I'll check it out although I suspect I can debunk it right now. If something is true and another religion managed to grasp it, it should be no surprise that Christianity also acknowledges it. Other religions have morsel of truths, but Christianity is the ultimate set of truth, hence some intersection is to be expected. To put it in Aquinas' words: "All truth is God's truth".

I'm not really appealing to what is moral and what is not moral but even though I do not agree with "objective morality" , what I see our society trying to achieve is what will enhance our human experience and extend it to other parts of nature. Beating one's wife or killing unbelievers might not be immoral (according to you) but for now, as long as it causes harm to individuals who suffer from it, it deprives of them the experience they would have had in the world and more importantly those who do so have no justified reasons for their actions, it's wrong .

You contradict yourself. You do not believe in objective morality yet state something to be wrong plainly. Your position seems to be that morals are grounded in advancing the human condition. Advancing the human condition does not constitute morality. You have the burden of proof to demonstrate that it does without making appeals to circular logic.

What of Christians that argued on whether slavery should prevail or stop some centuries ago? The both groups appealed to the Bible (with common sense and personal preferences). But which side prevailed? That which would advance the human race and make the society move forward. (This is just one example) It's the same result we would get if I disagree with another non-believer on what morality should be.

You have a very wrong view of history. You seem to be talking mainly about the American civil war. What made the north win was superior military facilities, not fighting to advance humanity. The point I was making is that those Americans could only ever debate whether slavery was right or wrong because they believed in an objective real set of moral values. You can have similar discussions with atheists since you are committed to maintaining the useful fiction that advancing humanity makes something moral (you may not know it but this is an evil basis to ground morality, I will provide examples some other time). What I am saying is that "advancing humanity" is a circular answer to "what makes something good?" because it assumes that "advancing humanity" is good. It is therefore circular.

AuthenticKing:
A God (or gods) who hasn't been visible and consistent in his commands throughout history. A God (or gods) who gives commands we find incredulous today. The theist's answer is just an unreliable shield to hold onto.

The first statement is wrong. The second betrays a lack of understanding of the topic being discussed and the groundwork we have laid so far. The third is a conclusion drawn from false premises.

It doesn't. The first point I made in this thread assumes a God whose objective moral laws are clearly well defined... And we still run into problems.

Hopefully you are not talking about the bacteria and toilet incident and this:

If a God decides that it is moral and good to boil all first babies in hot oil till they die, and humans consider that bad, are they wrong for doing so?

Even if a God, who is the arbiter of good and bad exists, on what basis are we to say that it's definition of good and bad have to be the one we adhere to? If I choose not to boil my child in oil, that will be seen as bad as per the God's standard. But am I really wrong for not wanting to do so?

Why exactly do we need to adhere to this God's definition of right and wrong?

I already addressed this by pointing out that you wrongly assume morality is a 3-dimensional space, say a cube, and that God's morality is an arbitrary point in this space with coordinates (x, y, z). Morality as we've discussed is better imagined as a scale with maximum and minimum values at both ends, God's nature limiting the scale at the maximum end. Therefore God does not have a definition of right and wrong: He is instrumental in defining the concepts to begin with. However you choose to act is relative to God whether you accept it or not because your morality invariably falls on the scale.

Of course we run into obvious problems when we have several books, all claiming to be inspired by this said “God", and giving very conflicting messages. And that's to say nothing about the reliability of the “books" themselves.... Or things like “interpretation"

Like I've said before all one need believe is one god. Let me clarify: what you are demanding is a theistic argument. You are an atheist. This is a valid argument to have and we can have it if you wish although I doubt its productiveness. What I'm saying is that there is no morality on atheism and you will have to cross over (or at least honestly pretend to) to continue this argument for argument sake. My initial motive was to prove that morality exists in theism and that it doesn't on atheism. As such, I am reluctant to continue this discussion along these lines as I have accomplished that motive. To doubly clarify, I expected scrutiny of the level you subject Christianity to after you realized that atheism is morally subjective.

I don't see how the moral argument can stand undaunted, when the issue of “which God“ is yet to be resolved.

You are a smart person, so this should be easy for you. The obvious answer is that "the issue of which God" has nothing to do with morality on its face. If asked to prove which God is real, no one would assume that the argument being raised had anything to do with morality. You seem to be eager to argue about which God exists. This thread is already overloaded, but I'll add that it is relatively simple. All one has to do is prove that Christianity is true. Its exclusive claims would mean that its truth would necessarily invalidate every other religion.

Wilgrea7:
I would love to see a theist prove one God above the rest without any appeal to sentiment or subjective bias. Its something I've been interested in for a long time now.

Like I said, relatively easy. I can pull sources from 2,000 years of tradition and reasoning and be done with it. If you create a new thread for it let me know. Maybe, I'll create the thread myself when I have the time.

AuthenticKing:
The bolded is what Endtimer and many Christians have failed to understand. The things we know about morality today were not as a result of God or the Bible, but because Christians (and other people from other faiths or lack of), regardless of what the Bible says, chose to update their views based on recent data, findings and knowledge.

I’ll believe this when you provide an argument proving it.

ReubenSandwich:
I was thinking about what your main points in this discussion might be. As I understand it, your view is that believing in the God who created us and who knows and wants what's best for us, gives people a better way of knowing what's right and wrong than they can have without believing in Him. Am I understanding you correctly?

My point is that good and bad do not really exist without God.

AuthenticKing:
Reading your comments, I was looking at you as a sort of a Christian Deist, but after reading this particular comment, I'm changing my opinion, you're a theist, an Abrahamic one.

I used to kind of see 'God' this way but not exactly your way. I was not really taking the words of the Bible literally but grabbing the 'metaphorical' meanings from it. I didn't believe the God was real (I sometimes thought he was real but his words were adulterated in many ways) but now, I've seen the holy books for what they are: books written by men like you and I to explain what they didn't understand. Using the propensity for man to believe in a supernatural being, they created the concept of gods that suited their culture, time and personal desires and whims.

Even after discovering this, I could go on telling people to see God 'metaphorically' not literally, grabbing the useful lessons from the holy books and using them to live rightly and throwing out the nonsense but by doing this, I would still be contributing to the problem, helping humans to create a sort of morality that suits them and shielding this morality from being scrutinized by inserting a 'god' in it.

I rather appeal to reality.

First, there is no such thing as a Christian deist. Looking the term up will reveal that it’s hardly distinct from atheism as we know it. The primary practical difference is that it isn’t anti-Christian.

While there are several things wrong with the unsupported conclusions you stated in your post, I’ll just point out that if Paul and Jesus’ disciples were creating a belief system based on their time and culture, it would perhaps have been smarter to create one that wouldn’t have gotten them killed.

Some final thoughts for now.

- I've wrongly stated that atheists do not believe in objective morality. I was wrong. Most atheists simply believe that their view of morality is objective and clearly defines right and wrong.

- The title of this post is wrong. The consensus here is that the existence of a god does solve the moral dilemma. The question arising being which god? All the same, the moral argument stands undaunted. Perhaps we can discuss how we know which God on another thread.

AuthenticKing:
Again, I allude to Wilgrea7's examples... Take a look at Muslim majority countries and see how they kill apostates, gays, blasphemers, etc. How they beat their wives, etc. How they control people's lives, all these based on the fact that their god commands them to do so. You can't argue with these people because it means you're arguing with God himself, the supposed creator of the universe.

Another way we run into moral problems asides religious beliefs is authoritarian regimes, but it still falls in line with my point... Any form of appeal to authority, be it God, military leaders, religious leaders, parents, etc as a form of coming up with moral solutions is still problematic because anything, I mean anything can be justified as long as it's what that authority commands.

This is another good example of pseudo-moral indignation. AuthenticKing, what you are saying is very much in line with the the point I've been making in this thread. You condemn Muslim extremists as immoral because they do things you disagree with. What you don't understand is that those things are very much moral to them. Whether we like it or not there is nothing innately immoral about beating ones wife or killing unbelievers. We interpret these actions through our own moral lenses. You cannot convince them that your Christianized notions of morality are correct because they do not adhere to the Christian morality that you do. You and I only believe those actions are wrong because we were raised in Christian Nigeria. Telling them that those actions are wrong holds as much weight as their telling you that not killing apostates is wrong. In fact, your own position weighs far less because your positions are grounded in mere opinion. You think killing is wrong because you think it is wrong.

Were I a Muslim, I would resort to the Quran of Hadith to explain that their actions are wrong. As a Christian, I can challenge their morals by attempting to nullify their belief in Allah and converting them. As an atheist, you can only call them close-minded because they don't agree with something you've provided no proof of.

For the other authority figures (asides religious leaders anyway), we can challenge them. Either by usurping the military leader or giving the parents other perspectives to think about. But when it's God! It's just impossible to challenge it

What we are talking about is not whether you can organize a coup against God. To use your own terms we are talking about how we know what right or wrong themselves are, and how to ascribe them to actions. Theists here agree that God is the answer. Atheists disagree and provide no answer, other than what they just believe is right or wrong.

Were you and another atheist here to disagree on the morality of an issue, how would you go about convincing him? Would you tell him that his view would cause harm to other people and is therefore bad? What if he disagrees that causing harm to others makes something bad. What then? How does causing harm (or anything else you can come up with) tell us what good and evil are, without being a circular answer?