The Argument from Non-Belief: What do you think?
149110
The principal flaw I found is in premise 1, and because of that, it actually invalidates the balance. The proper premise would be written:\n\n1) If the Christian God exists, He wants ALL humans to SEEK to know him.\n\nThe corrected structure of premise 1 is because the limitations of our terrestrial existence prevent us from having the ability to know Him (Biblical concept-a finite mind of finite understanding cannot grasp the infinite).\n\nThis, in turn, would change the balance as follows:\n\n2) If God exists (with omnipotence and omnipresence), He has provided sufficient evidence to cause mankind to seek after Him (Evidenced in the fact that there is ever any discussion anywhere about a Higher Being)\n\n3) Not ALL humans will choose to believe He exists.\n\nStatements 4 & 5 become irrelevant, based on the fact that men will choose to believe what they believe.  The flaw in most dicussions of this nature is that they begin with non-belief of possibility.  Most people who maintain a position of atheism or anti-theism refuse to accept a premise that there is something or someone they cannot know, and the logic that follows that premise is that they consider themselves to be the higher or highest being.
769794
As an agnostic I had once thought that atheism could be a belief\nbut no\nAtheists don't claim anyhing\nwhat they do is refusing the existing claims\nso atheism can't be considered as a religion\ndenying a claim is not a belief\nbut what I don't understand is how can they be such sure\nhow can they be sure that all the claims are wrong\nI personally don't make claims\nand don't totally deny all claims\nfor example: deists' claim seem rational: a supreme being not related to religions\nthis can be true\nhow can I completely deny this?\nhow can I be sure?\nI even can't completely disprove religions' claims\na theist, a deist, an atheist \nthey are all sure\nan agnostic asks: how can you be so sure, all of you?
534575
Back to the "leap of faith." \n\nPeople like you and I cannot accept that simply because the bible says something, that it must be true. However, there are billions of people who think otherwise.\n\nWe cannot accept this argument because it cannot be tested. They feel that they can accept it because reason has no place in matters of faith.\n\nThis is pretty much the whole issue in a nutshell.
1152309
With neither a belief nor a non-belief to back me up, I think there is the potential to do good or to do harm in each of us. \n\nI believe that we should do as much good as possible for its own sake, for the benefit of other peope, and for the our own benefit.\n\nI think there are more people who are capable of more good than the evil others do.\n\nDespite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart. --Anne Frank
392137
Yes. That's the trouble with BELIEF. You accept something on faith, whether it makes sense or whether there's any proof at all.
915923
None. \n\nTHERE IS NO PROOF THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST.  \n\nBut there is evidence EVERYWHERE that He DOES exist. \nWe see God in all that there is. There is evidence of him in all cultures. Some differ on who and what He his. But throughout history man of all ages and all cultures acknowledge a god. \n\nOne may not agree with all the natural things that point to God, all the history that points to God, all the people that point to God.....yet, and still, there is at least SOME evidence in these things to ANYONE that there is a god.\n\nWhen you weigh both sides, it  takes a fool to not believe in God.\n\nVirtually all our great leaders and presidents alike acknowleged God.  Our forefathers and foremothers, even the immediate fathers and mothers of of those that don't even believe in God; they believe(d) in God. \n\nConsider all the religeous scholars throughout the ages even unto this day, all the songs and hymns that have been written concerning God, etc. We could go on and on.  They don't all agree on many principles, but, they ALL agree that He is.  Somehow, all of these people are nuts and a few dim souls with enough free time to float around on Yahoo for several hours a day think they KNOW that God does not exist! I THINK NOT.  \n\nOne thing is for sure, some of them, before they die will come crawling to the God they denied;  the others will die wishing they had.\n\nIf we that believe in God are fools; then let it  be known that their ancestors, even mothers and fathers where even bigger fools.  Many of those that lived and died before us where fools.  Because they also believed.  But praise be unto God; they where not.\n\n"believe there's no proof"  . vs.  "believe the written testamonies and evidence everywhere"\n\nIt's a persons choice, but it takes a BONAFIDE FOOL to side with "no proof".\n\nThere is no "burden of proof" on anyone that believes in God to prove it to ones that do not believe in Him. The belief in God is ones OWN burden. Everyone only has their own burden to decide to believe or not to believe. \n\nI have no responsibility to prove Gods existence to anyone. Neither does anyone else have that responsibility.\n\n\nPeace
774326
Yes, if you didn't question His existance every now and then, then I would have to question whether you believe in Him or are just following what others have told you to believe. Questioning is a part of being human - curiostity, you must think logically and a lot of matters to do with good are not always logical, but I think that these matters are outside of our realm of understanding and I figure that it may be for the best. So yes I believe in God (don't really fear Him as much as some people) but I think it is healthy to question His existance to create a better, stronger belief.
295530
Why should we have to "believe" anything? I agree..Ideas are better...What, are all of us so pretentious that we believe that the greatest minds ever have tried to figure it all out and couldnt, but what youve been "told" is absolutly true without doubt? What a narrow point of view!God forbid you have an original thought or question the sense of a taught doctrine, or you might be burned up in hell for an eternity by a God who defines himself as Love?\nHey in a world like the one we live in, who needs that kind of love? Ya know they talk about "religious war" well as far as I can see in all of history, every war has been over religion of some sort...over Beleifs, at least, for sure...One could speculate thay "belief" is the very cause of war itself...If people could just Concede that their "idea" is an opinion, as in fact it is, then maybe they could show more respect for those who have different ideas...No matter how much you believe in something it doesnt make it true or not true...No amount of faith in a lie makes it true, just like lack of faith doesnt make something Not true. People are like Cattle...And they're on a Drive...Go where the guys with the whips tell you!...But I wont
828514
There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy.\n\nEpistemological arguments for (or against) ontological claims are all doomed to failure, based simply on the nature of knowledge.  I believe it was Saint Patrick who held forth a shamrock and said "It is three, yet it is one.  It is a mystery."  And although I RATIONALLY agree with your question/statement, your philosophy, Horatio, leaves no room for mystery.  Which is why logical consistency never truly takes root in most human minds;  we desire the sublimation of rationality to the spiritual.\n\nFor the majority, it is not the logic of the belief, but the EXPERIENCE (illusory or otherwise) of the belief which is important.
769273
Makes sense to me.\n\nActually...under that definition, I might be the only person here who ISN'T an atheist.\n\nWow. That's a strange thought...
546799
Example:\n\n"Do you believe in a Supreme Being?"\n\nAtheist: "No"\n\nAgnostic: "There is no evidence either way, so I don't know what I believe." (translation into English: "No.")\n\nAgnostics are wimpy atheists more concerned about what others think than expressing their real opinions.\n\nAdditional comment:\n\nThe "why" is irrelevant; agnostics do not believe in a Supreme Being and are atheists.
350382
At first glance it looks like you are splitting hairs. But if you are splitting knowing from believing because know means to have indisputable evidence and believe means to strongly think something is true, then the answer is not that simple. We know things in every day life because we experience them. We sit in a chair because experience tells us it won't break. We can say we have faith in that chair but we don't go that far. That's silly. Of course the chair won't fall. It's something we know. However we believe that the North Pole is really up there but not because we have verified that through experience, but because the majority says it is up there. A lot of our knowledge is based on what the majority says is true and is continually verified by others. Now this brings up a question. Does a belief have to be held by the majority of people in order to pass from belief to knowlege? The first people who realized the earth was round had some hard sledding convincing others. In fact they were persecuted. All the time all the people thought the earth was flat; all the time a few thought the earth was round, and all the time that the majority thought the earth was round, through all these stages, the earth was always round. At first nobody knew that; then a few knew that; now  everyone knows that. It was always true. Belief did not make it true. The majority did not make it true. Is there a God? Look at the evidence. Does not make a difference what others believe. If you want to know what is true you will always find out what is true. If you have a bias, then all evidence will be processed in the mind to support that bias. So the question (does God exist), we have to want the answer that is true, not the answer we want. Atheists want the answer to be there is no God. But do Athiests know how much gold there is in the ground or how many grains of sand there are in the world? Of course not. Neither can they know there is no God. They would have to be God to know that. So an honest Atheist can only be an agnostic, not knowing.  Evolution would be true if all millions of the in-between or transitional life forms were in the fossil record. They are missing, all millions of them. So evolution is just as logical as throwing a bunch of metal on a flight line and presto a plane emerges. It won't emerge after five minutes, five hours, five years, five millenia. Airplanes are man made. Everyone knows that. Yet they use the above mentioned logic to say that trees, animals, fish, birds and people living on the only habitable planet, just evolved over billions of years. If the metal can't evolve into a plane after billions of years, what are the odds that in all this universe the earth's inhabitants evolved only on earth but nowhere else during all those billion of years? What makes sense to me is that a creator did all this. To me it is a belief but it is more than a belief. My inner self knows it to be true, and it disagrees with no logic or known fact.
257471
There is no one god, no argument with that. Does it prove that every single other claim by any religious system is false? Not necessarily. All the flaws you pointed out refer only to the axiom of single omnipotent entity. How about the collective of entitites who created the universe together, without actually creating the man, at least not intentionally? Just a suggestion, no brainwashing intended here.\nSome people have taken the modern science as a god of its own, and refer to it just as religiously as Muslims to their\ngod. I suppose this god has to be more benign, but that is not the point. How was Stonehenge built? The Pyramids?\nWhat happened a single second before the big bang? To my mind, science doesn't give satisfactory answers to those questions because it is intent on the materialistic view, rejecting the interactions of several kinds of energies.\nScientific assumptions are not invalid, they are just, in my opinion, part of the greater whole, of the science that encompasses everything that has been discovered, and more.\nIn the same way, I can see a seed of wisdom in certain religions, without accepting them as the whole truth.\nTo me, any inflexible outlook on the world, being totally monetheistic, or totally scientific, is inaccurate. Binary thinking, black versus white, is a the kids thinking mode. Adults ought to realize the world is more complex than that. And yes, there can be a Democrate who is a Republican. I would probably vote for such, because he would share some of the Republican opinions that I welcome, and some of the Democratic ones, that I would approve of.\n(Our problem is that there is no such person currently, we always choose one extreme or the other). T.S. Elliot said it's a property of the brilliant mind to contain two contradictory notions at the same time. At the same time, this is my own addition, inability to do so, is the trait of the younger mind. Not a worse one, just a younger one.\nThe fundamentalistic view of the Muslims is based on their inability to operate with complex notions. It is all about\nus versus the enemy, even if "us" happen to abuse us. Good versus bad, "we" being the good of course. And so on. Brainwashing is easier accomplished when the mind decids it wants simple explanations to anything, and is too rigid to accept any other. In main stream religions, Muslims are guilty of it more than most, no matter what the politically correct approach says. But they are not the only ones. Communists, Atheists, Democrates and other monotheistic religions are just as guilty of it, and there are many other kinds of thinking categorically.\nThe point is, don't dismiss everything, just because one crucial point of their creed fails. Or else, you're being just as inflexible in your mode of thinking as they're in theirs. Would you reject all mysteries of the world just because God doesn't exist? Would you believe in science as blindy as they believe in their god? What is then the difference between you? Are scientists not real people? Don't they write their dissertations to prove what they intend to prove? How many of them can be completely, inhamanly, objective when one of their baby projects is challenged? Some of them have simply different techniques of brainwashing. If they decide the string theory is looking good, how many scientific publications would be allowed that claim differently?  How different are some of them from the preaching pastors? Just food for thought, no attempt to convert, I don't really have anything to convert you to. LOL.
435344
"To those who believe, no explanation is needed...To those who don't believe, no explanation will do."\n\nNo human can make another human believe anything... but there will be a time when no one can deny the truth...\nGod Bless.
71582
if you trully don't believe, then it shouldn't matter. Are you concerned because you don't believe, but you're afraid of possible repercussions (which, if you don't believe, how can they be there?)  are you concerned for another's damned soul?  don't be,  cause they don't care...cause they don't believe..\nit's like saying, "I don't believe in Santa, but I'm leaving out cookies, just in case"..
625446
If I believed a thing was a myth, that would automatically mean I didn't believe in it.  If I believed in something, then I would automatically say it was not a myth.  Atheists believe God is a myth, Christians do not.  I think your question is a paradox.
819839
It's easy, no one can dispute the fact that I don't know something when I in fact don't. Admitting you do not know a thing when you don't is the highest form of truth there is. Assumption of truth with out proof is irrational.