God is defined, not described.

Using your meaning, I could know all the same stuff you claim to know about God

How do you work that out?

On the other hand, the actual position we find ourselves in is one in which we both, in principle, have the same access to information about God.

So what?

However, based on what we each know about God, you end up with belief, while I do not.

Sorry mate. There is no "end up with".
You begin with, and you develop. Whether theist or atheist.

The reason might, in theory, be that I know some things you don't, or vice versa.

So how is this relevant?

However, from what you have said, you actually don't believe in God for a reason.

I don't remember saying that.

From what you have written, it is clear that your belief is based on an a priori assumption rather than any process of reasoning.

From an atheist perspective maybe.
From what you have written, you are without God, and can only discuss God from that perspective.

No. I need to know the objective truth. Like I said, it may not be important to you, but it's important to me.

Go look in the mirror and tell me if you don't see a nose on your face.

As you are an atheist, you can only know atheist stuff, and atheist stuff is lacking.

What have I denied?

I'll point it out as you do it.

You are very selective about what you choose to respond to, and I notice that your general pattern is to ignore the hard stuff and to write one-liners in response to the rest. I also notice that you don't take points on board. You pretend you never saw them, and you revert back to your straw men, often in your very next post

Most of the time you spend giving idiotic summaries. It doesn't seem to register with you that it is quite rude to talk to others about a person while the person is in the room. So I just ignore it

You don't understand theism, or the subject matter of theism. You just soldier in ignorance. Most of the time you think you explained or responded to a point, but you haven't. Most times you don't understand the point, but you write heaps any way.

In short your posts are too long (though no Tiassa long sheesh!). You have this idea that because you think you have explained something, it is therefore dealt with. That flaw in character is quite amusing.

Just let you know in advance, I don't think I'm going to address all your points, in this post.

What attributes belong to God? And how do you know this?

Already explained.

No. You're a theist because you presuppose God.

No. It's as I said.

Atheism is a conclusion, not an assumption.

Atheism is the natural position for those souls who for whatever reason, want to reject, and/or deny God.

You might have a stronger argument for claiming I'm in denial if you actually gave me something to deny

I only need to speak from a theistic perspective, and you denial radar goes berserk.

Why does it matter what I think about the ways in which other theisms differ from yours?

I'm okay with that response.

All the battle here is to get you to accept what you have been told about atheists and atheism, instead of this straw-man version you've invented to make yourself feel more comfortable.

Don't worry your secret is safe with me.
When anyone asks what an atheist is, I'll give them one of the many designer labels. Do you have any favourites?

Firstly, I have told you time and again that I don't know whether God exists or not, but you keep ignoring that; it doesn't suit he straw-man image you have of atheism.

God does not exist, as far as you're aware, James. Unless God does exist.
That is a fact.

All the battle here is to get you to accept what you have been told about atheists and atheism, instead of this straw-man version you've invented to make yourself feel more comfortable.

Atheist = Without belief in God.
Theist =. Belief in God.
IOW an atheist does not believe in God.
What more is there to know.

Second, I completely accept that (some) people believe in God, and I am quite interested in what are the factors that lead them to hold that belief.

Why?

Third, it could be interesting to hear your theory on why atheists reject/deny God.

That is an entire subject by itself. But it can only a successful discussion, or debate, if atheist acknowledge that they do. Otherwise they are simply rejecting, and/or denying. An endless cycle.

If God was actually observed, I would be very interested to learn how that observation could be confirmed, for obvious reasons.

Why are you so adamant that God has to be observed in manner of your choosing, to perceived?

On the other hand, if God is merely defined, then my interest lies mainly in the psychology/culture/history/neuroscience/etc. that leads to the idea of God being so prevalent and persistent.

That's nice.
A bit like a little hobby, or something.

I view it from the point of view that we shouldn't accept things in the absence of any evidence. Blame my scientific training or mindset for that, if you like; I make no apologies for that.

You're an atheist first, James.
That's fundamental.

The only obvious characteristic of atheism, as far as I can tell, is a non-belief in God.

What other obvious characteristics of atheists do you have in mind?

Rejection, and denial of God.

The belief we're concerned about here is the belief that God exists.

That's your concern, not mine.

"Neutral" would be failing to have any belief as to whether or not God is real.

In this case, neutral is not admitting that God does not exist, as far as you're aware, but replacing it with "I don't know if God exists, so I can't say yeah or nay. So the burden of proof is on you because I make no claim.

But for the rest of your atheist life you argue strongly against any positive notions of God. You either mock or ridicule, or you accept such behaviour.

We can see right through you.

My explanation happens to be based on reason, while yours is based on a priori assumption.

Yours is based on ignorance of God, dressed up as reasonable.

You're an atheist.
No matter what information you acquire, it will always be filtered through atheism. You cannot help it.
If you want to change it, you have to stop being an atheist.

Until that happens, we're never going to see eye to eye.

The real difference is only that atheists don't have the God belief that theists have.

From one perspective, yes. But from all perspectives, atheists are without God.

A separate question is the one about whether God actually exists, objectively.

That needs to be discussed with people for whom "existence" is an issue.

Or you can discuss it with me, if I'm in the mood to. But right now I'm getting a lot more enjoyment getting to the nuts and bolts of atheism.

And you continue to fail to make any progress in showing that God exists/"Is".

You're waiting for me to deliver God to you?
You're an atheist James.
As long as you remain so, there is no God for you.
You need to shed the your atheism to change that.
Anthony Flew did, and he became aware of God. You can do it too.

Jan.[/QUOTE]
 
You need to believe in God BEFORE you can get any knowledge of God. That's why it's a fucking scam. No other area of knowledge requires believing as a prerequisite to being convinced by logic or evidence.
 
You need to believe in God BEFORE you can get any knowledge of God. That's why it's a fucking scam. No other area of knowledge requires believing as a prerequisite to being convinced by logic or evidence.
Well, except Scientology. And anything involving 'drinking the Kool-Aid'.

Oh wait. Those are cults too.
 
You need to believe in God BEFORE you can get any knowledge of God. That's why it's a fucking scam. No other area of knowledge requires believing as a prerequisite to being convinced by logic or evidence.

That would be like saying you need to be a theist, in order to become a theist. That doesn't make sense.

You have to accept God in some way, then it becomes easier.

There is no reason why you cannot accept, something about God.
Atheist like James, Sarkus, etc, make a point of accepting absolutely nothing about God. We are talking year after year.
As far as I'm concerned, that's not rational. That kind of rejection and denial, is purposeful, and intentional.

At least with you, you are honest, in that you accept that God does not exist, as far as you're aware, from what I have gathered over the years.

jan.
 
Atheist like James, Sarkus, etc, make a point of accepting absolutely nothing about God. We are talking year after year.
As far as I'm concerned, that's not rational. That kind of rejection and denial, is purposeful, and intentional.
Fair enough Jan.
Why do you not accept Santa? Why all the rejection and denial?



I'm not being facetious or mocking; I'm making a valid point. I am phrasing Santa as if he is real, and that apparently makes your shortcoming that you don't accept him.

This is called gaslighting.
 
Fair enough Jan.
Why do you not accept Santa? Why all the rejection and denial?



I'm not being facetious or mocking; I'm making a valid point. I am phrasing Santa as if he is real, and that apparently makes your shortcoming that you don't accept him.

This is called gaslighting.

Why do you assume I don't accept Santa?
I accept Santa, for what Santa is. Santa exist exactly in the way that he exists.
To ask if Santa is real, is to ask if the Santa that exists, was based on a real person. Did
a man named Santa Clause lived, and inspired the Santa Clause we know today.
That man named Santa, doesn't exist. Even if such a man did exist, he doesn't exist now.
So it's not even worth thinking about.

Santa, and God, are two different categories.
God does not exist, as far as you're aware, and you think theist make up and idea (Santa, Spaghetti Monster, The Force...), and call it God. That's understandable. I can see how it would appear that way to you, but it is nothing like how you think.

jan.
 
Santa, and God, are two different categories.
God does not exist, as far as you're aware, and you think theist make up and idea (Santa, Spaghetti Monster, The Force...), and call it God. That's understandable. I can see how it would appear that way to you, but it is nothing like how you think.
No matter how you categorize them, they're all Tulpas.
Tulpa is a concept in mysticism and paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers.[1] It was adapted by 20th century theosophists from Tibetan sprul-pa (Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་པ་, Wylie: sprulpa) which means "emanation" or "manifestation".[2] Modern practitioners use the term to refer to a type of willed imaginary friendwhich practitioners consider to be sentient and relatively autonomous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa
 
There is no reason why you cannot accept, something about God.
You mean other peoples' claims of what God is? Other peoples' unfalsifiable notions? Other people's unsupportable claims other than through question-begging or simply fallacious logic?

As for accepting "something about God": I think most atheists would agree that IF God exists/Is then God would indeed be the root cause of all that exists etc. What they don't accept is that God does exist/Is, but they also don't necessarily accept that God doesn't exist/Isn't. You see this as fence-sitting. It goes against your caricature strawman of what an atheist is.
Atheist like James, Sarkus, etc, make a point of accepting absolutely nothing about God. We are talking year after year.
On the contrary, Jan, both Sarkus and I, and undoubtedly others, accept many things about the concept of God, as applied to that concept. What we don't do is accept that the concept has an objective reality. It may do. We don't go as far as to dismiss the possibility. I for one simply do not know. For some reason you can't handle that, and rather than discuss that view openly, civily, honestly, you do everything you can to force upon them your strawman caricature of what atheism is.
Rather than complain that people don't accept what you say, Jan, perhaps you should look at what it is that you are willing to accept, and why you are willing to accept it. But instead you simply view other people's non-acceptance as being due to some nefarious agenda, some form of deliberate act of rebellion. You have zero interest in discussion while you have that mindset.
As far as I'm concerned, that's not rational.
But then thankfully we share different views of what is rational or not. Maybe you think starting from an a priori assumption that God Is is the height of rationality. I don't. Maybe you think following circular reasoning and accepting its conclusion as proof of the truth of the premises is rational. I don't. Maybe you think not admitting "I don't know" is rational. I don't.
That kind of rejection and denial, is purposeful, and intentional.
Of course it is purposeful and intentional: the purpose and intention is to remain within the confines of what we find rational. That does not stretch to having an a priori belief in an unfalsifiable claim. It also does not stretch to accepting things as true on the basis of circular argument.
It is not that we see the conclusion and therefore reject the arguments, Jan, but rather that we see the arguments, see the circularity, the question-begging, and so simply cannot accept the conclusion as a justified view of objective reality, no matter how much we would want the conclusion to be true.
But, again, we don't reject the conclusion as being false in and of itself. Only that it's soundness is unjustified in a manner we find to be rational, based on the premises presented. Circular arguments can still be valid but the conclusion is only as sound as the premises. And we do not accept the a priori assumption, the premise, that God Is as being sound, only that it's soundness is open for question. If that premise is in question, any conclusion using that premise, however validly deduced, is similarly open for question,
 
At least with you, you are honest, in that you accept that God does not exist, as far as you're aware, from what I have gathered over the years.
Because it is the default condition. The concept of God is made up and strictly a personal belief.
No two people believe in the exact same God, even if they agree there is only one God.
How is that possible? If there is only one God, He should be the same to everyone, no?

If there were a God, at least we should be able to agree that He should appear the same to all Theists. But, on the contrary, people's perspective of a God differs not just trivially, but varies so much that the bloodiest wars in history were fought over an individual Idea of what God is and who He favors, all this knowledge acquired from a book, a book so old, that no one really knows who wrote it or even if they were sane at the time they wrote it.
Theist...:confused:...:eek:...:leaf:...:rolleyes:...>_<
Atheist....o_O...:leaf:...;)...:biggrin:...:D
 
Last edited:
Why do you assume I don't accept Santa?
I accept Santa, for what Santa is. Santa exist exactly in the way that he exists.
To ask if Santa is real, is to ask if the Santa that exists, was based on a real person. Did
a man named Santa Clause lived, and inspired the Santa Clause we know today.
That man named Santa, doesn't exist. Even if such a man did exist, he doesn't exist now.
So it's not even worth thinking about.

Santa, and God, are two different categories.
God does not exist, as far as you're aware, and you think theist make up and idea (Santa, Spaghetti Monster, The Force...), and call it God. That's understandable. I can see how it would appear that way to you, but it is nothing like how you think.

jan.
^^^
God does not exist as far as you are aware. If you want to claim otherwise, show some frigging reason & evidence.

It is NOTHING LIKE YOU THINK. I can see how it appears to people who are able to believe nonsense. God does not exist as far as you are aware. It is extremely likely someone(s) made it up.

The only reason santa & god are so different is that the vast majority of people grow up & realize that santa is fantasy yet seemingly cannot realize or admit that god is just as much fantasy.

No matter what or how much you babble or what you believe or what you cannot understand, IF you were aware of an omnipotent god, we would all be aware of an omnipotent god or that god would be making itself apparent to some but not others, which is nonsense.
Somehow you came to believe in this crap without good evidence & once you believed, you do, say & think anything which seems to support your belief. Once you believe in something without proper evidence, nothing you say can be trusted. You may as well claim to believe in ghosts & goblins just because you say you are aware of them yet criticize those who cannot believe in ghosts & goblins because they have not seen proper evidence.
I do not believe in ghosts & goblins. That does not mean there are ghosts & goblins. I do not know whether there are ghosts & goblins but so far, it seems unlikely.
All this babbling about as far as you are aware is bullshit.
IF there is a god, it does not want me to know or it does not care whether I know or it is not omnipotent. PERIOD! Frigging end of story. In spite of your endless ignorant arrogant assumptions, I do not know whether there is a god, I do not see any reason to think there is a god, I see very much reason to think there probably is not an omnipotent god & I see no reason to believe that you are aware of any god.
The idea that there is a god which will not show itself yet everyone should believe in is just stupid. IF there were an omnipotent god that wants people to believe, it would SHOW ITSELF & leave no possible way to doubt instead of playing stupid mind games.
You will not even say why you claim to believe.

I accept god, for what god is. god exist exactly in the way that he exists.
To ask if god is real, is to ask if the god that exists, was based on a real person. Did
a man named god lived, and inspired the god we know today.
That man named god, doesn't exist. Even if such a man did exist, he doesn't exist now.
So it's not even worth thinking about.

It truly would not be worth thinking about if not for so many people believing without evidence & being afraid of those who cannot believe, the vast majority of believers which were brainwashed & frightened as children then as adults just could not find their way out of the coerced conformism.

You give no indication of your purpose unless it is to go where you think there are atheists so you can try to tell them what they are, what they know & what they believe, which of course is ridiculous.

IF you want others to accept there is a god, you need to say WHY you believe then present evidence of that being accurate. No more damn god is. Say WHY you believe god is.
Do you think you will ever convince anyone with your nonsense. It is much more likely you will become atheist than any of us will come to believe your absurdity.

<>
 
Last edited:
The only reason santa & god are so different is that the vast majority of people grow up & realize that santa is fantasy yet seemingly cannot realize or admit that god is just as much fantasy.
At least Santa spends money for pretty wrapped gifts......God demands money for empty promises.
If I had to choose, I'd take Santa every time.:)
 
You mean other peoples' claims of what God is? Other peoples' unfalsifiable notions? Other people's unsupportable claims other than through question-begging or simply fallacious logic?

As for accepting "something about God": I think most atheists would agree that IF God exists/Is then God would indeed be the root cause of all that exists etc. What they don't accept is that God does exist/Is, but they also don't necessarily accept that God doesn't exist/Isn't. You see this as fence-sitting. It goes against your caricature strawman of what an atheist is.
On the contrary, Jan, both Sarkus and I, and undoubtedly others, accept many things about the concept of God, as applied to that concept. What we don't do is accept that the concept has an objective reality. It may do. We don't go as far as to dismiss the possibility. I for one simply do not know. For some reason you can't handle that, and rather than discuss that view openly, civily, honestly, you do everything you can to force upon them your strawman caricature of what atheism is.
Rather than complain that people don't accept what you say, Jan, perhaps you should look at what it is that you are willing to accept, and why you are willing to accept it. But instead you simply view other people's non-acceptance as being due to some nefarious agenda, some form of deliberate act of rebellion. You have zero interest in discussion while you have that mindset.
But then thankfully we share different views of what is rational or not. Maybe you think starting from an a priori assumption that God Is is the height of rationality. I don't. Maybe you think following circular reasoning and accepting its conclusion as proof of the truth of the premises is rational. I don't. Maybe you think not admitting "I don't know" is rational. I don't.
Of course it is purposeful and intentional: the purpose and intention is to remain within the confines of what we find rational. That does not stretch to having an a priori belief in an unfalsifiable claim. It also does not stretch to accepting things as true on the basis of circular argument.
It is not that we see the conclusion and therefore reject the arguments, Jan, but rather that we see the arguments, see the circularity, the question-begging, and so simply cannot accept the conclusion as a justified view of objective reality, no matter how much we would want the conclusion to be true.
But, again, we don't reject the conclusion as being false in and of itself. Only that it's soundness is unjustified in a manner we find to be rational, based on the premises presented. Circular arguments can still be valid but the conclusion is only as sound as the premises. And we do not accept the a priori assumption, the premise, that God Is as being sound, only that it's soundness is open for question. If that premise is in question, any conclusion using that premise, however validly deduced, is similarly open for question,
^^^
Maybe you are trying not to be harsh but it is not a matter of different views. He is not rational. Unless he is lying, he has no idea what rational is. He should not be saying the word rational.

<>
 
jan-ardena said:
An atheist, as a person who does not believe in God, implies God Is,
If you cannot describe God, how can you define it?

Creative forces are all around us, so the definition of "Creator" is not sufficient to define God.

You have "wished" the existence of a God, but all you have created is a mental Tulpa. He exists by your "best guess", but no one agrees with your guess, so you cannot call it reality.

As Anil Seth observed our controlled hallucination (best guess) of "self" is a very fragile thing, because you have only yourself to confirm your physical state, but not your mental state.

There can be no "controlled hallucination" of God, no one can confirm your mental best guess.
 
Last edited:
You have a strange idea of Santa. He is not merely an idea; he is an immortal being. He exists now.
Why do you deny this?

You're right. I both reject and deny it.
I can't see him with my eyes, therefore he does not exist

The fool both say in heart, there is no Santa.
If that was in scripture, it would apply to me.
Let's look at some other biblical verses that I would gladly accept.


The wrath of Santa is being revealed from heaven against all the santalessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about Santa is plain to them, because Santa has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world Santa's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

We're it the case that Santa left obvious evidence to the point where I have no excuse for suppression, I would be in denial, which would force me to reject . Just like you are, and do.

Jan
 
Back
Top