Something I've seen quite a bit on Mumsnet is confusing me slightly

[GeorgianMumto5]

...I often read statements along the lines of, 'I'm an atheist because I there is no God,' and, 'I don't want my child to be taught about your fairy stories [religious teachings],' which is all fair enough but what's confusing me is, aren't these just people's opinions? One person can't provide definitive proof of the absence of a deity, anymore than another can provide definitive proof of the existence of a deity, surely? Or am I missing something?

This is a genuine query - I'm interested to know. I'm not trying to stir up arguments, although I'm happy to be argued with and told that I'm wrong.

As a person with a faith, I'd say it's all a matter of faith - either you believe it, or you don't. If I was without faith, I guess I'd say it's a matter of opinion. In any case, I don't get the absolute confidence people have that there is no God. I think there is, but I couldn't prove it and wouldn't think to tell another peson that I'm right on that topic and they're wrong. Where does all the certainty come from?

Actually, it isn't quite round, either, in the sense of spherical . And the idea that people ever thought it was flat is one of the most oft-repeated historical errors ever. Dante, for example, knew perfectly well that it was roughly spherical.

Also, and I almost hate to say this, there are a few pagans who identify themselves as Odinists. Not sure if I need a rant here about Himmler's efforts to revive the worship of the Germanic deities, or his scholarly institute for studying them - wackily, sickly...

So even the simple is complex, perhaps amusingly so. None of which is germane to your argument, or a refutation of your structural logic; just that atheists frequently mount claims which are actually not themselves evidentially supported, because they won't read any proper history and I find it mildly comic.

And there is also an interesting difference between your statements and those you make about god/s. What you cite as facts are cases commanding near-universal agreement. So too with pink unicorns; nobody has ever claimed to see them. But not so with god. Announcing that you want to shoehorn the latter into the former category won't make it so.

As an atheist, my view is that 'God' is something that exists only in the minds (or hearts or souls if you prefer) of people that believe in God.

God is something that is defined only by the religious texts that promote God. If I say to a Christian "Don't you find it amusing to worship a God who has an elephant's head and eight arms?" they will tell me that their god does not because it says in the Bible that god made man in his image, therefore god looks like a human being. Likewise, every aspect of how and what they believe god to be is defined by their interpretation of the bible.

This creates a further problem in that there are so many ways to interpret the bible: very few people who call themselves Christians believe that every word of the bible is absolute truth. Most believe that many of the stories, particularly in the old Testament are allegorical rather that literal, and that god didn't actually go around killing the families of his most loyal supporter, setting bears on young children for teasing a bald man, or turning people into salt. There are, however, people who do believe that god did these things. The many Christian sects do not agree as to who/what god is, let alone when you take into consideration the lack of agreement between the three major Abrahamic religions who are all equally sure they have got it right when it comes to saying what god is.

There is no concrete way of defining absolutely who or what god is. Even if you sat down two people from the same sect and asked them to define god and how he behaves you would probably get two slightly different answers. This means that either only one person in the whole world is right about god (which says a lot for the concept of god itself if only one person will have the benefits of believing in the right way) or that everyone who believes in god is right.

The situation that you then arrive at with the second proposition is that there is no 'right' way to believe in god, and there is no way of telling how he has acted in the past or will act in the future. If everyone who believes in god is equally right in their beliefs, they must all be equally wrong. The only way that you can fix on a definition to say "Yes, this is god" is by taking a definition of one believer, or by believing yourself. That ability to define god only arises because people have beliefs. Those beliefs only exist in the mind of that believer and nowhere else. The concept of god does not exist other than by how god is defined. Therefore god does not exist other than in the minds of those who define god.

So, as an atheist, I am prepared to accept that people hold a genuine belief in the existence of god and that god exists for them. However, god does not have an independent reality that affects me in any way. For me, god has no existence.

What then does disturb me is that some people hold beliefs that terrible things will happen to me because I do not hold the same beliefs that they do (my DSis has recently seen fit to tell me I am going to hell). Personally, I find it troubling that someone would hold those beliefs when there is no need to, and think it is nothing more than a reflection of her psyche.

"And there is also an interesting difference between your statements and those you make about god/s. What you cite as facts are cases commanding near-universal agreement. So too with pink unicorns; nobody has ever claimed to see them. But not so with god. Announcing that you want to shoehorn the latter into the former category won't make it so."

So the amount of people who believe in something without proof is directly proportionate to how seriously you should take it? Even if the facts available still amount to exactly the same thing?

Does that work for conspiracy theories and alien abductions too? There's no proof whatsoever but people still believe in it, must we therefore give their beliefs some credit? A quick google search suggests people believe that Colonel Sanders was a member of the Klan and so KFC contains an ingredient that causes sterility in black men. Would we be being "dogmatic" to point out that is ludicrous?

Sieglinde -

I thought it was the ancient Greeks who first came up with the idea that the world is (roughly) round? Is that a myth? I'm not sure what your point is about modern pagans not worshiping Odin? The Vikings presumably did think Odin was real.. There are modern day advocates of homeopathy and HIV/Aids denialists ...the point is the fact that some people, at some time in history believed something does not give it a claim to intellectual credibility as an idea (although it can be interesting to study).

Yes you are right, I am somewhat simplistically dividing the world of ideas into 3 classes - those which are coherent and supported by the evidence, those which are not and those for which the jury is still out.

Any idea about reality that is well enough specified ought to be able to fit into one of these categories. Ancient ideas of gods fall into to the second category, and have therefore largely been discarded.

As I understand it the idea of god amongst modern believers avoids this by saying that it doesn't fit into any of these classes, but is a special class of truth claim whose veracity which cannot be tested by the usual means of coherence, evidence etc...you have to have faith. Well, invisable pink unicorns fit in that class too.

Well, the Greeks' idea is complex, too, but what i was refuting is the idea that medieval people believed the world was flat till Columbus disproved it; this is usually one of the factoids often cited to support the notion that medieval christendom was unscientific.

Odin - well, all I really mean, actually, is that belief or lack of belief in Odin is not altogether as done a deal as you say. Mostly, such assertions are questionable at best. I would not wish to see a widespread revival of Norse paganism, but it isn't impossible to imagine one. History doe snot operate as reliably or as evenly as Whigs want it to.

Murderofgoths - LOVE your name! - yes, actually. Part of empiricism is repeatability. In history, facts are really events that everyone agrees were the case. This does not of course mean that one cannot listen attentively to other paradigm-shifting or off-the-wall ideas, but all I really mean is that as long as a large minority believes in god/s, then the jury will remain out.

So yes, I do think it does fit your third category, Hima, in the sense of being an issue on which we have not yet arrived at a consensus, unlike with pink unicorns or fairies. You have made your call, but the human race as a whole is not yet willing to accept your view. This neither guarantees that you are wrong or proves that you are right.

Thistledew, I agree with you that faith is a personal interpretation and an essentially private matter. The problem we have is that many faiths do encourage not just outward displays of faith but also outward practice of faith.

As an atheist I am happy for other people to hold beliefs so long as they dont expect me to participate in any way including being an audience for their displays of faith.

The problem is that many faiths demand that participants go out and spread the word. Add to that the issue that many people of faith are just so damned certain that they are right that they cant see that the offence they cause by forcing people like me to be unwilling participants in their faith.

Ok, so if enough people believe KFC is part of a major conspiracy to stop black people reproducing then we should give them airtime and not point out that the chances of it happening are slim to none, even though there is no evidence (nor is there ever likely to be) to suggest that is the case?

Belief in something without evidence doesn't make it so. You can't wish something into existence.

"I do think it does fit your third category, Hima, in the sense of being an issue on which we have not yet arrived at a consensus, unlike with pink unicorns or fairies. "

Actually plenty of people believe in fairies. Maybe I'm dogmatic in my non-belief of fairies too.

Namingofparts, some religions seek to evangelise, such as Islam and Christianity; others, such as Judaism, do not.

If you believe something is true, then you live your life - your whole life, not just the bits out of sight of other people - in the light of that. I believe that love is the most important thing I can give my children, and I believe that members of society are dependent one on another. I don't live out those beliefs solely in my own home, but in the way I live my whole life.

Now, you may say that believing that love vital to child development is different in believing in the living God. Whether that is true or not - and I do not think, philosophically speaking, that these beliefs are as different as some would have them - because faith is in practice less about whether one assents to certain propositions than about what now one lives in the light of one's beliefs, they are in practice not very different.

Just as I try to live my life putting into practice my beliefs about love and about interdependence, so I try to live my life putting into practice the message of the gospel - in short, love God with all your mind, strength and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself. That's what Christianity really boils down to in the end, and that's in the end what is important.

(There is, of course, the small matter if the historical legacy if Christian ethics. Without Christianity, we would not live in a world where love has the central place it does for us, and we would not live in a world where the respect for the individual assumed prime importance.)

"Without Christianity, we would not live in a world where love has the central place it does for us, and we would not live in a world where the respect for the individual assumed prime importance."

Seriously?

Yes.

One of the reasons why Christianity was so successful in its early centuries was because it stressed the value of each life, and positively welcomed those excluded from public life, from religious cults and those on the margins of socket - such as women, the sick and needy, and slaves.

The early Christians set up hospitals, unheard of in the classical world, and fed the hungry. A large number of the early adherents were women and slaves. And whereas the Greek and Roman gods were all about favour and power, the new Christian religion put love at the centre of its belief and practice.

What about the millions of people who live peace loving lives without Christianity. How do they manage it?

Why didn't god just start off with Jesus rather than building on the breath taking cruelty of the old testament with all sanctions for rape and slavery etc?

Because they live within the historical legacy of Christian ethics.

That's a fatuous caricature of the Old Testament.

math when you say that a child expressing strident opinions is probably suffering some upset, would that be only strident opinions that differ from yours. What if that child's opinions were pro religion. Would that be okay?

Fatuous? Let me get his straight, you are saying it Is it silly and pointless to point out the sickening violence in the OT Could you explain how it is silly to acknowledge the wildly different character of god in the OT to the one peddled by mainstream Christians today.

Nope, I am saying it is a fatuous caricature, a silly, one-dimensional and exaggerated view.

I'm happy to discuss the OT - although I'm aware of the many times that this has been attempted and it always ends with a lot of proof-texting on the part of the atheists, while the Christians try patiently to explain their historically and textually informed view.

So how is it a one-dimensional caricature when we refer to the very real bloody thirsty nature of the OT god but not one- dimensional to concentrate on NT parts that promote love and patience?

As an ex Christian I know how the conversation goes when the violence of the OT is bought up and the best one was 'I don't understand it but god has given me peace about it'. I now realise that just means 'I don't think about it'.

"Because they live within the historical legacy of Christian ethics."

So before Christianity there were no morals/good people? Don't be daft.

Sieglinde

""I do think it does fit your third category, Hima, in the sense of being an issue on which we have not yet arrived at a consensus, unlike with pink unicorns or fairies. "

When I chat to religious people the idea of god seems to slip backwards and forwards between the third and fourt class of ideas - I.e. something that we just can't be sure about yet (like the Higgs Boson particle) and something that will always be outside of the reach of human knowledge (like the Invisible Pink Unicorn) .... It reminds me of how homeopathy advocates will say "we don't know how it works yet, it needs more study" and then when studies show it doesn't work beyond placebo they say "it can't be studied with reductive methods like RCTs"

Of course there was morality before Christianity, and there were good people. But the moral systems were different, and what counted as good was different. And some of what counted as good would be unrecognisable to us as good.

Our society is shaped by Christianity in ways that go back deep into history; our system of morality is fundamentally Christian, even when we reject Christian belief.

It's history, innit.

HeadinHands, how about 'the bible is a heterogenous, complex set of texts, written over centuries by people whose ideas about God were changing and evolving, and that it reflects their changing and evolving understanding of God', and 'the OT is the story of the people of Israel's changing apprehension of their relationship with God, and of their understanding of his nature'?

Niminy - it just seems so odd - that a creator god clever and powerful enough to create the universe and life (through whatever roundabout means) should be so singularly inept at communicating his true nature to the organism with which he wants to have a relationship (particularly if this relationship is actually the whole purpose of the universe he created).

It just seems much more parsimonious an explanation that "god" is just one the many weird and wonderful ideas that human beings have come up with.

It's we that are inept. We get glimmers, intimations. Sometimes we misunderstand. When we do understand we have human-sized understanding.

I wouldn't have the gall to say that the God's purpose in creating the universe is to have a relationship with humans. His purposes are much bigger and more profound than I could ever fathom, even if I was the most profound person ever.

I wonder how many people of faith are prepared to accept that it is likely that a significant portion of their belief about their god is probably wrong, and that there is a risk that as a result they may go to the hell they believe in? Or is it only the non-believers and false believers that are running the risk of going to hell.

I don't know, personally, of any Christians who think that if you believe wrong things about God you will go to hell.