Dont believe in God?

Question

I was just thinking that those who say that they do not believe in God may be people of great faith in a sort of different way. They usually ask those who say the do believe to show proof. However would it not be equally valid for those who belive to ask those who who do not believe for proof of non-existance? As no proof on non-existance can be provided, I think we may safely conclude that those who do not belive have faith in the non existance of God. In other word they are guilty of the same short coming they attach to believers. They are affirming something not as a scientific fact, but as a matter of pure faith.

Answer 1

> EVERYBODY HAS FAITH
Actually, every belief requires at least a grain of faith. For example, you believe the sun will rise tomorrow, merely because it has always done this every day of your life. How do you know that the "laws" of physics won't suddenly change tomorrow?

You have faith in many things, despite the fact that you've only heard about them second hand in history books. The list goes on and on. Nothing is known with absolute 100% certainty, therefore one must always have some amount of faith.

These ordinary beliefs may rely on "faith", however in comparison to "religious faith", the amount of faith required is quite small. In fact, religious believers often maintain faith despite evidence that may contradict their beliefs. This is regarded as good "unwavering" faith.

> IS BURDEN OF PROOF ON THE BELIEVER?
You suggest that to have "non belief" one should be required to produce just as much evidence as one is expected to produce as a believer.

Imagine that I propose to you that an invisible monkey is swinging from my earlobes. Furthermore, this monkey (let's call him George) can predict the future and often tells me things before they happen. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what those things are, because George tells me that if I do, they won't come true. In addition, George doubles as the lead reindeer in Santa Claus' sled team every year. (Except you can never see him because he's invisible.)

"That's ridiculous" you reply. Why? "You have no evidence". Is it fair for me to require you to now place the burden of proof back on you, requiring you now waste your time proving the non-existence of George? Non-believers generally would say that the "burden of proof" lies with the person who proposes the existence of something. Thus, you are not required to spend any effort constructing detailed arguments of why George doesn't exist: you may legitimately demand that I come up with some positive reason for you to believe my theory.

> THE ROLE OF EVIDENCE
Well, let's not discuss the burden of proof, and let's suppose this is fair. You would probably be able to argue successfully by pointing out that there is no shred of evidence that supports my belief in George. If there is zero evidence for something, then the likelihood of it existing is zero. Likewise, there is no evidence for subatomic particles that are made out of velcro, so the likelihood of that being true out of any other of an infinite number of possibilities is one in infinity.

Evidence can come in many forms, and it doesn't alway require physically "seeing" something.

Out of the infinite number of "possible entities" (Invisible monkeys, gobblins, santa claus, etc.), which ones do you choose to believe in?

Think of it another way: as a practical matter, we simply cannot afford to go around believing any old thing. We'd never get anything done. So, we have to pick what to believe in. What's the criteria going to be, for you? Do you believe things because they're your favorite color? Do you believe things because you want or wish them to be true?

You believe in the ones that have some kind of evidence. It's quite simple. Otherwise you'd have to believe in everything, which is absurd and impractical.

Any time the existence of ANYTHING is posited in today's modern scientific world, evidence must be accumulated to support it's existence. This even goes for subatomic particles which can't be directly "seen".

> THE ANSWER TO YOUR "QUESTION"
So in answer to your challenge, the non-believer has a logical argument (that there is no evidence for God). This is not "pure faith". Pure faith is when you refuse to look at evidence, and simply assert your belief as truth.

Of course, not all believers hold their belief as a matter of pure blind faith. Many do, but not all. In any case, it's ludicrous to argue that non-believers do. In fact, non-believers present logical arguments in support of their non-belief. They show that there is no evidence for God. Evidence, on SOME LEVEL, is required for all rational belief.

In simplest terms then, THIS is the "proof" or "argument" that you demand: The fact that there is no evidence for the existence of God.

Of course, the actual debate is much more convoluted. But in a nutshell, the position of the non-believer is that there is no evidence for God's existence. This argument may not be correct--perhaps there actually IS evidence for God. I'm not trying to present an argument. I'm simply telling you what the argument is ABOUT, and pointing out that yes, non-believers in fact DO attempt to present "proof of non-existence". They do not rest on pure faith, as you suggest.

> WHY DO BELIEVERS CHANGE THEIR TUNE?
Having had these discussions over and over again in my lifetime, experience reveals an odd pattern. Believers often accept this basic notion of "evidence", then go on and attempt to show evidence for their belief (miracles, philosophical "proofs" of the existence of God, etc.).

However, when the non-believer dissects this evidence, they typically go through one by one, attempting to show that the evidence is unsupported. They attempt to show that supposed "miracles" are either lies or exaggerations; that the "God proofs" fail in their logic, etc.

At this point, the believer may begin to feel that their "evidence" is under heavy attack, and may not be buttressed by enough hard evidence to convince the skeptical non-believer. If they begin to sense that they no longer have any "objective evidence", something snaps...

Suddenly, something magical happens. The believer renegs on their original offer of evidence, claiming that the non-believer now needs to "prove" non-belief in some way OTHER THAN simply discounting this (failed) evidence. It is as if the believer has suddenly forgotten that they had previously agreed to use evidence in support of their theory. In addition, the "faith card" is often brought to bear at this point, which posits that despite the apparent contradictions or lack of evidence, believe is nonetheless validated by "faith".

Why? This is the subject of another question. Perhaps it will show up on Yahoo Answers.

Answer 2

I think that your question is a fine example of the strong hold that relativism unfortunately has on our culture today. Is it equally valid to believe or not believe something when there is no proof one way or the other? Of course not. Is your belief that undetectable fairies do not pull the earth around the sun equal to the belief of a person who thinks they do? When there is neither proof for nor against a proposition, it is always more valid to assume that the proposition is not true. Its called Occam's Razor.

As you seem to be advocating, a believer in the undetectable fairies and a nonbeliever would have equally valid beliefs. The believer would not be able to prove the existence of the fairies, but then the non-believer can not disprove the existence of the fairies. Are you really going to say that both beliefs are equally valid? If so, you have to acknowledge that a large number of outlandish beliefs are valid.

Also, by saying that it is equally valid to believe or disbelieve any proposition which can be neither proved nor disproved, you undercut the idea of proof itself. The idea of proof rests on assumptions which themselves cannot be proved (that an observation is real and not imagined, that an external world exists, that natural laws do not change with time, that your memory is trustworthy, etc.) Almost all "proof" rests on assumptions like these which themselves cannot be proved or disproved. If you say that all beliefs are equally valid when there is no conclusive proof, you undermine the standards of proof themselves. My belief that a scientist's observations were hallucinated and the scientist's belief that they were not become equally valid, since neither can be "proved."

This is a prime example of the epistemic relativism which seems to be fashionable today. It may be fashionable, but it is not defensible.

Answer 3

I have plenty of beliefs, but they are all open to evidence. For instance I believe there is intelligent life on other planets. However as we have no good evidence to support that, I would not look down on someone who does not believe it. The jury is still out. I don't put my faith, so to speak, in the existance of aliens. But it seems reasonable to me that they would exist.

Absence of evidence is not *proof* of absence. But it sure isn't proof of existence either.

Unfortunately a lot of God-believers do not take that sort of 'the jury is still out' on their unproven beliefs. They think all should believe as they do--and that if they don't believe they are in denial or something worse. This is a big problem to unbelievers like myself. And they will hold onto this view no matter how good the atheist's arguments are--and they call this having 'strong faith'. I call it having 'closed mind'.

God just seems too much like what humans would make up in their myth making--and that is not the only reason I don't believe. There is no need to prove something doesn't exist before you can believe it doesn't exist.

Do you believe I have a dragon in my garage? Or do you need proof that it doesn't exist?

(For the record, I don't even have a garage.)

Answer 4

I like how you put that. So, as a deciding factor, the "proof" of it being, or not being, is lame. I personally, have to believe in God, otherwise, without that belief, nothing stands for nothing. All of this would not make sense. For example, I am the type of person that if I believe life came from the big bang, I cant accept that at that alone. I still believe that the bang was instigated and manipulated and fine tuned. There is such poetry to life, that I simply can not conceive it beginning from an apathetic ooze. There are so many serendipitous interactions that have so much impact, at just the right time, that I find it much harder to not want to give thanks to the brilliant composer. Internally, where there is an actual anatomic site, I feel God. I feel him, so I can not conceive of not knowing whether or not to believe he is there. In conclusion, I have to say that, for me, there is nothing out there but God, but I maintain the position soaly from what I know to be real for me. I don't know what the conditions, in which I wouldn't believe, would consist of, but it must be scary and dark.

Answer 5

I will suggest that as soon as you enter into the realm of belief (which is pretty much every 2 seconds in this world) you´ve squashed the only functional avenue of proof there is: Experience.

Belief is a whole lot less important than we think. The structure of beliefs are upheld in the the mind as thoughts that we have conditioned tendencies to agree with or not to agree with. that´s all that belief is. It´s a thought that has been mentaly agreed with enough times to be assumed true. The question of proof or no proof really doesn´t enter into things as the mind will reject what it doesn´t agree with even in the face of obvious proof and will accept apparent fantasy even though it has never been proven.

That´s the cool thing about the mind; no matter what it tells you, it´s full of sh**. My reason for saying that is that the mind only categorises and files away events in ones life so that it can attempt to protect us from possible recurrences of undesirable experiences. That´s it´s only purpose. to file events. We, however, give it the full authority it needs to remove the ability to EXPERIENCE the present moment by thinking about all these beliefs and past regrets and future worries.

No one needs a belief to tell them that the the brightest star from our perspective is the sun. but to a race of underground dwellers they would need legends and stories and a bunch of repetitive themes so they could go home and think about them long enough to form a belief system.

But that don´t make the Sun stop shining.

Answer 6

Belief in God demands faith in things unseen, unheard, unknown. Therefore, there is no proof of God's existence. As anyone involved in research knows< proving a negative hypothesis is impossible> So we can conclude that there is no way to prove either the existence or nonexistence of God>

Answer 7

Faith: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

You're right. You need faith any time you believe something you cannot prove. It would be completely valid for a christian to ask an atheist for proof of non-existence.

But at the end of the conversation, you're exactly where you started anyway.

Answer 8

You're referring to Strong Atheism, which is a minority of Atheists. To state that you actively disbelieve in God takes as much faith as believing in him. However, the more philosophical position is to state that there is no way of knowing whether or not there is a God, which means that the question has no meaning. And since there is no proof either way, the rational course would be not unbelief, but non-belief.

Answer 9

There is prove of god's nonexistence. For example, the extreme need for purpose in life is, so extreme that we create a solution, a supernatural being that created us all and has given all of us a predetermined purpose and free will. As ridiculous as it sounds, that was the best solution to the need. At least we still don't believe in a god of rain, a god of trees, etc...

Answer 10

I'm afraid your reasoning is faulty. to show you why suppose I claim that you have an invisible intangible goblin on your shoulder (so you can see it, you can't feel etc...) now according to your reasoning it requires just as much faith to believe that the goblin doesn't exist as to believe that it does.

Answer 11

It is inherently impossible to prove a negative, however, that is what christians ask atheists all the time.