Do you believe in God

So why does this (much simpler and easier) standard apply to believers of "god," but not to believers of "no-god"?

 

Simply put:
Why can someone not state that "supernatural beings" are goofy. I don't believe in them.

How is it fraudulent? Must the paucity of belief in anything be investigated and sampled? By your own statement the person that believes in ghosts carrying chains around in his attic is more justified in his belief than the visitor that slept over and didn't.

 

Lots of people investigate ghosts all the time. It's a pretty active industry.

I think ghosts exist, yes. Not sure what for.

 

I think you're really missing it.

Personally, I'd rather know a nice person who claimed to be an atheist than a sincere warlock. I'm merely saying that twisted logic is still logic; atheism, to me, seems to be the rejection of mainstream religion without consideration for all religions. I don't know how you can consider all supernatural beings invalid if you don't even know who most of them are. If you claim to believe in the absence of something, don't you have to know what claimed to be in "presence" in the first place?

 

Alma, as you know, it's not really possible to prove a negative, so atheism is at a disadvantage from the get go.
However, the post attributed to Russell is apt.
I don't have an irrefutable theory for disproving the existence of god, just as believers do not have an irrefutable theory for proving its existence.
Does that make me an agnostic rather than an atheist? That's your point.
However, what if the believer admits there is no irrefutable argument for the existence of god? Does that make he or she an agnostic also? No.
Although I do not have an irrefutable argument to disprove the existence of god, I do not believe in the existence of god. I deny the existence of god. Therefore, I'm an atheist.
Your argument confuses belief in a particular religion with the more basic question: Is there a god?
I say no.
You and many others say yes, but belief does not necessarily entail worship.
Why you or anybody else chooses to worship and how the form of that worship is chosen, those are more interesting questions for examination.

 

I like you alma, so I really don't want you to feel assailed here.

Using your logic of the one God concept, if that's what your God demands, what about that person who rejects out of hand the CONCEPT of God because that's what their belief demands?

 

Oh, I don't feel assailed.

I'd argue that unless you covered the spectrum of concepts, I have no idea how you could reject them all.

Logically, it's a whole lot easier to say "this one thing is true because it tells me so" than it is to say "none of it is true because I've rejected it all."

I have many of these same issues with nihilists.

 

Belief in god and religion are not synonomous.
That's where you're off-track, Alma.
Not believing in god has only a peripheral connection to not believing in Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, voodoo, Santaria, new paganism, Wicca, or any other religion you name.
I have seen no empirical evidence of the existence of god and I've experienced no personal, spiritual or nonempirical evidence of god. Therefore, I have no reason to believe in the existence of god.
The trappings of any particular religion are not relevant.

 

I'd argue that unless you know what all the various belief systems say about encounters with a god, you do not know whether you've had one or not. That unless you know what all the reasons are, you do not know whether you have a reason or not.

Mind you, you seem like a pretty smart person who considered this issue very seriously. I just set a very high bar for atheists.

 

Nature is god.

 

I can't speak for atheists, because I'm not one, but I'll relate my experience to why I disagree with your logical concepts, alma.

I believe in God but I reject religions out of hand. I've tried three (Episcopal, Baptist, Lutheran) but I got weary of the journey and felt I no longer needed to examine other religions since I saw few differences between the three I'd tried (at least differences which meant anything to me...). My decision stemmed from a weariness with the journey, not from a logical examination of other religions.

Does my choice mean maybe there is a "right" religion out there for me? Maybe. But should I really have to try all the other choices -- Methodist, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, etc., ad nauseum -- before I can "logically" foreswear organized religion?

The concept, then, becomes no different for an atheist. If their objection stems from the concept of a God or supreme being, they're under no logical obligation to examine the very things they're rejecting, just as I'm under no obligation to try, then reject, say Quakerism.

And if the whole argument is based on logic, remember, we're attempting to apply logic to emotion, faith and belief. It's something you probably could do, mathematically, but why would you want to and what would be the point?

In my mind, atheists have made a very logical choice, rejecting a concept because they don't believe the premise, no matter how it's presented. You can present child abuse to me in a thousand different ways, but I'm going to reject it no matter how you dress it up. That doesn't make my rejection illogical.

Sorry...long and winding post.

 

Well, despite being a recovering Catholic I do believe in God.

I am of the traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs, but I do not believe in going to church every Sunday just to show my neighbors and family that I believe.

I also believe that Muslims, Jews and any other religion out there, which may be praying to Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, Haile Selassie, Shangdi, Zhu, Brahman, Ek Onkar, ect., are all looking in the same direction I am. They will not be denied Heaven because they don't use the same name of God that I do. We all believe in the same thing, just through different titles and methods or customs.

Yes, I believe in evolution. But in the sense that God created both the Earth we live on and the sky we gaze into on a beautiful day. The evolution I believe in comes after that, in the form of humans and animals adapting to the changing landscape that they call home.

But to keep things short - Yes, I believe.