belief, existence-of-godGiven that atheism is generally defined as the lack of belief in God (or deities), and that the reason for this lack of belief is generally, according to atheists, the lack of rational evidence for the existence of God, are there any circumstances under which such “rational evidence” could be established, verified and accepted?
To put this more plainly, if God presented himself one day (in those terms as God is described in monotheistic religion), how would an atheist approach the issue of establishing whether the appearance and/or actions of this God rationally prove that it is indeed God and that God exists?
Simply: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Personally, I’d probably start believing a newly arrived God if they removed the sun from the sky, created a river of blood, emptied all the oceans of water, and raised the dead (and restored their health - no flappy skinned maggoty zombies, thanks).
AND if all of this could not be explained as natural phenomena.
Then.. well, there may still be some niggling thought that it might still all be rationally explained, but I think that I would probably lose my atheism at the point.
Of course it’s possible. Atheists can believe in God any time they want.
They’re just no longer atheists at that point.
I see atheism as the rejection of religion, where religion is the systemetic claim to a metaphysical, unfounded truth. Atheism makes no claim of truth.
Suppose, purely hypothetical, that the Christean god would suddenly be on Larry King live presenting undeniable evidence that he exists and that everything in the bible was true. Really strong evidence I mean, like DNA samples of adam and eve :).
At that point, belief in god is no longer religious (although worshipping him still would be, unless he specifically demands it on threat of the apocalypse!), and an atheist would/should have no problem accepting this reality. In fact, denial of god’s existence would then make you a theist…
Of course the atheist would not describe him as a god since a god is purely metaphysical, but let’s not get into details here.
Come on, this is silly — “God” is just a word. You know full well that if something very extraordinary were to happen in the universe, you’d jump and it and say “that’s my god”, but scientists won’t. We like to go a step further and ask questions about that supposed god, and no matter what unusual event it might be, we will eventually find out what’s behind it. In all likelihood, it will be a huge stretch to identify it with any of the gods of any human-made religions. Even if it were a sentient, conscious intelligence, you could of course call it “god” if you wanted to, but then you’d have to update your dictionaries to reflect that besides the religious meaning of “god”, it now has this new, naturalistic meaning which is quite distinct.
The precondition of that question “if god presented himself one day” implies the existance of god, which an atheist refuses.
If there is an reproducable, measurable observation of something, then an atheist (and an deist) wouldn’t call it god.
A god without miracle, without faith isn’t a god, but a profanity. Atheists don’t have problems with profanity, religious people have.
Well, I’m an atheist and I’ll admit…I believe in God. Only one though, I’ve only ever heard of one God that I can agree does, in fact, exist…without a doubt.
This one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philip,_Duke_of_Edinburgh
Now, when you understand why I can say both without feeling as though I’m contradicting myself, you’ll be a long way toward understanding why I’ll never be anything but an atheist.
I like how people are considering ‘believing’ in god if he should one day appear in front of their eyes. How come people assume that if there is evidence of a god that they suddenly become theists? is this not the fundamental sepperation of Atheism and Theism? one asks the questions and verifies, the other accepts.
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