Atheists; Do you know EVERYTHING?

Question

Proving atheism is harder to do than proving the existence of God. The atheist says, “There is no God.” To know this for sure, the atheist must know everything, or the one thing he does not know may be the evidence for God. To say emphatically, “There is no God”, the atheist must be all knowing, a tribute of God himself. One might argue that if the atheist is all knowing, then he IS God, therefore he cannot be an atheist!
To prove there is a God, however, one can choose from many sources of evidence. (Something exists, therefore something has always existed... something cannot come from nothing; Scientific information is in the Bible written before some of these facts were "discovered"; The harmony of the Bible written over 1500+ years by about 40 different authors; The devotion of the apostles and profits to the point of death. If a hoax, why suffer?, etc.) To prove God, one can choose from one or many pieces of evidence.
So if you say "there is no God", prove it!

Answer 1

I think it's the same thing as you believing in God. Atheists believe there is no God, you believe there is a God. Make sense?

Them saying "There is no God" is just like a Christian saying "There is a God."

Same thing, but opposite. Heh.

Answer 2

I am Catholic, but I had to read this. Not a poorly reasoned question though I am sure an atheist will punch holes in it. As for proof, no one has ever been able to prove OR disprove the existence of God, and people far smarter than those of us here on yahoo answers have tried. That said, it is a matter of faith and whenever I try to think like an atheist, I keep coming back to this point: I am an atheist and am right, nothing happens when I die and all those theists wasted all their time but I will not know this because I am dead. If, as an atheist, I were wrong, then OH CRAP!

That said, I am a practicing believer, and my worst case scenario is the same as the atehists best case! Atheists always argue this point, but if were one of them, I'd be worried!

Answer 3

Alot of pretty words to prove a petty point.

You're correct that it takes more work to prove the absence of a god than the existance. It requires thought, logic, and evidence to prove his non existance, yet takes so little to say "yeah, there's a god". An atheist is bound to accept his place in a random universe and take responsibility for his actions, while a person of faith can just make the claim that "god will see me thru" or "the devil made me do it". One doesn't need to "know everything" to prove that there is no god, he just needs to be able to avoid a herd mentality.

What sources of evidence are there that god exists? Holy books are written by men, and revised. The Bible, itself was put together after being voted on by a committee. The fact that it has so many followers today only means that it had better PR than the others. You can't claim the devotion of the apostle's as proof...many gospels were turned down by the editorial committee as not fitting in with their views of which direction to take. Furthermore, how many of the cults active in recent memory, such as The Branch Davidians, the followers of Rev. Moon, or even scientologists, have followers/disciples/prophets as devoted as the biblical followers of Christ? Koresh's followers died with and for him...does that make his beliefs any more valid?

Calling it a hoax isn't quite appropriate either though. Religions as a whole were a means to:
a) explain the unexplained. Primitive man didn't have the scientific resources to explain why the sun set or rain fell, so they attributed it to a higher power.
b) establish rules, laws and morals for a civilized society. Man's most primal instincts are to breed and kill. If a supposed higher power handed down rules against both, you establish, with superstition as a basis, a moral precedent towards order.
c) a means to rise to power. During the middle ages, the church had as much, if not more power than the kings and queens of many countries. It enforced this power thru tactics of fear, death, and bribery. Wars were carried out in the name of gods. Thousands upon thousands of indigineous people were killed simply for refusing to believe in one god over another.

The bible in and of itself is an amalgamation of other religious works. Cain and Able are direct decendants of Set and Osiris. The resurrection is an update pertaining to the rebirth of Mother Earth from winter's death.

Instead of challenging an atheist to prove that there is no god, why don't you, with scientific evidence, not blind leaps of faith, prove that there is a god?

Answer 4

I'm a Christian, but I have to say, as I'm learning koine Greek (the language of the New Testament), the more I learn, the more disharmony within the Bible I find.

Agnosticism is a far more tenable philosophical position than atheism. A true atheist is silly, but someone who says that (s)he can't know whether there's a God is actually quite correct.

I believe in God. I do so as a matter of *faith*. If God were "proven" based on some kind of "evidence," then (a) everyone would believe and (b) faith wouldn't be required. But everyone doesn't, and faith requires *faith*--the "evidence" of things not seen, i.e. for which there is no sensory data.

Answer 5

There are a number of logical fallacies in this argument. You cannot logically
conclude that X exists because it cannot be proven not to exist. You cannot
conclude that if a person does not believe, that his lack of belief stems from
the gaining of ultimate knowledge or omniscience without logically concluding
from the same argument that the reason someone else believes is because of all
encompassing ignorance (no stone meant to be thrown, but it is the conclusion
of the line of thought to its most logical end)

If X does not believe in god it is because they are omniscient (all knowing)
then
Y believes in god because they are nescient (all ignorant).

Besides this you dont have to really prove athiesm. Athiesm exists. Athiesm is
not a diety, it is simply a system of non-belief. It exists the same as any
religion. Whether or not it is a valid system does not make it any less an
existing system that people use.
As to proving their belief system the athiest would counter:
There is nothing to believe in, therefore there is nothing to prove.
(this is also not a very good logical argument because "there is nothing to
believe in " is also a postulate, and it is almost the exact faulty postulate
as any other religious argument that is begun.

As to why people suffer for what they believe in, and die in order to further
their beliefs, I do not know. I do know that dying for their beliefs only means
they really believed..but even that does not prove existance, after all it is
still belief...no one ever died for the facts.

PS I am not an athiest. Im just looking at the world in wonderment and trying
to make sense of it..

Answer 6

Notwithstanding the fact there are not "many sources of evidence" which proves the existence of God, the burden of proof is not on the atheist side. Besides, the implication is that theists know everything because "everything is possible through God," right? So, if you say "there is a God," prove it. Besides what you've been told is the truth, seriously and sincerely explore your religion and see what you come up with. I'm sincerely interested in what proof you think you will find.

P.S. Just because something is in a book does not make it true.

Answer 7

Atheists have as much faith as god-worshipers.
A god-worshiper believes there is a god or many gods with various powers.
An atheist believes there is not a god with powers.
They both have beliefs.
Atheism is not a lack of belief or lack of faith...they have faith that there is nothing to worship.
I am not an atheist but I don't think many atheists would feel they have anything to prove, nor that they know everything.
They don't claim to know that there is no god, only that they do not Believe that there is a god.
God-worshipers don't claim to know everything either (well some do but I call them extremists or fanatics, not main-stream, average, normal folks) they can only tell others what they Believe to be true, again with no proof.
If you don't need proof to worship a god (in fact having proof would eliminate the need for faith) then you don't need to proof to not worship a god either. You just go on faith.
Good Luck in your spiritual journey.

Answer 8

No, we cannot prove that god doesn't just as you can not prove that he does. If I made up a being that could do anything but you couldn't see him, you would not be able to prove it wrong. Your rantings are pointless if you think about it. There is not a single bit of proof that god exists. The bible has been changed many times in the last 1700 years and it was not written by god, but by a group of men 300 years after Jesus died. If anything, everybody should be agnostics because, we can not prove it either way.

You should learn more about your religion, you will not be able to convert us with questions like this.

Answer 9

Christians believe in God, aithests do not. Some people think Crest is the best toothpaste, others (like me) think Colgate is better. if people could learn to respect each others beliefs and opinions, even if they do not agree with them, the world would probably be a little better off.
also, though i am a christian and believe in God, the bible has been translated and changed so many times over hundreds of years that it contradicts itself and history. i personally dont rely on the bible for my religious beliefs. i rely on my heart and soul and the spirit of god, rather than the jigsaw puzzle "word" of God. the only way to know for sure if God exists or not is when you die. thats why its called FAITH. THERE IS RESEARCH AND PROOF ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ARGUMENT so no one can really ever know for sure until you are dead and gone. so believe what you want whether its in God, nothing, wicca, or little blue fairies or gnomes. in some fashion, its all the same. an athiests god is themselves. christians believe in a higher power. wicca is the belief in the masculine/feminane aspects of god(s). everyone has to believe in something, whether its a higher power, themselves, or little faries.

Answer 10

You're an idiot. The burden of proof lies on the one making the positive claim. Therefore, if you claim God exists, you must prove it. If I claimed an invisible pink unicorn lived in my backyard, it would be my burden to provide proof for its existence, not yours to provide proof it doesn't exist.
You cannot prove a negative. It's impossible. However, that does not mean you cannot logically claim a negative. I, for example, can claim that Santa does not exist. I can't possibly know this 100%, but I can still claim it because 1) There is a complete lack of evidence supporting his existence and 2) There is evidence that he doesn't (for example, his factory is not visible at the North Pole). It's the same with god.
Your evidence is flawed and obviously gathered from priests and apologetics. There is not scientifically correct information in the bible. There is, however, scientifically false information there (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html). The bible is also not "harmonious". The only unity in the bible is that it is so contradictary (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html).
For reasons why I don't believe in god, start with www.godisimaginary.com and www.whywontgodhealamputees.com

Answer 11

This is the kinda junk I was talking about in my question. Why do you care. It is real for you if you believe, and same goes the other way, if you don't believe it isn't real for you. There is no honest to goodness way to prove the existence if you don't believe. It all goes back to having the faith. So why try to prove, or disprove for that matter....

As for the guy who is smarter than Christians....those sort of comments are the ones that give Atheists a bad rep.

I think it was a Chinese proverb, he how knows all knows very little something to that effect.....