Atheists, please read details carefully. Why do you believe you are right on your belief?

Question

If the Bible is false because there is no God and is man made and therefore fallible. Isn't Atheism man made, it should be false too. So according to the "law of non-contradiction", if something man made is prone to be fallible, which history tells us is true, why believe Atheism. Also, if you have decided to believe nothing because man made ideas are false, isn't this idea, which you hold to be true, really false as you have made it and is itself man made?

Please, no statements that science is always true, scientific mistakes abound.

Answer 1

I'll admit atheism is merely my best guess. But that seems to be our lot, to guess, since either A) God refuses to come out and say, unquestionably, that he exists, or B) God does not exist. We have to make do with the information available and our capacity to reason.

So, I start with ideas that I can be reasonably certain of. One: I exist. I'll bet I do. If I don't, I don't have a problem, other than thinking that I exist when I don't.

Two: Things around me, and other people, exist. Not too much of a leap, because the alternative is a pretty thorough solipsism. Saying I exist and you don't, especially to your face, seems to run counter to observation, experience, and common courtesy.

Three: People say God exists. Accepting #2 pretty much requires this, or humming loudly in church.

Four: People are fallible. Just watch 'em. Doesn't mean they're always wrong, just means that the possibility exists.

Five: God exists. This one starts to get dodgy. I've never observed God, and the charismatic miracles of the Old and New Testaments are pretty thin on the ground these days. Other observations can be explained just as well without positing a Creator.

By analogy, the four unobservable actors of a typical American childhood are an oversized rabbit who leaves candy on a Saturday night in Spring, a flying woman who exchanges coins for teeth, a merry old chap who breaks into your house to leave gifts, and a bearded guy-in-the-sky who directs where the invisible part of you goes after you die, to one of two inobservable vacation spots, for an infinite amount of time, based on whether or not you believe that he had a son who hung around in the boondocks of the Roman Empire for a few years back two millennia ago.

As you age, you are permitted, or required, to abandon belief in three of these four, quietly or not, with full approval of your parents who, just a few years ago, claimed that they all existed. The fourth, however, you are expected to believe still exists throughout your adult life.

I'd say the burden of proof rests solidly on God to prove that he exists. And I'd also say you're confusing fallible with false. Fallible, as I understand it, seems to mean that an outside observer cannot be certain of the truth or falsehood of a statement made by a fallible individual. I can't be sure about the Bible. It was shown to me by people, written by people, translated by people. Can't be sure about atheism either. But one requires me to believe in a being I've never observed or inferred the existence of. The other doesn't, so, for the moment, it's my best guess.

Answer 2

The bible is not false, it is fallible. There is a difference. Think of Homer. Troy turned out to be a real place. That seems to be true. Achilles might have been killed there by a wound to the heel. That is certainly possible, given the medical knowledge of the time. But this fact and this plausible statement still do not mean that Achilles was invulnerable to arrows anywhere but his heel. Its the same with the bible - there are parts that seem to be true, parts that are plausible, and parts that seem to be false (or even laughable).

Atheism is as fallible as the bible. Either might be proven wrong tomorrow. Zeus might fly down and appear on Good Morning America and we'd both be SOL.

Atheists tend to believe atheism because it is the easiest explanation for life, the universe, and everything. If we each flip a coin, I can look at the coin and say that it landed on heads or tails through chance and god didn't have anything to do with it. I can extend that logic throughout the universe.

For you, did god decide whether your coin landed heads or tails? If he didn't, then when does he intervene? why does he intervene? If, on the other hand, he does decide the coin flip, how can you tell? Can you pray and make it change? If you can't tell and you can't get god to respond then why do you think he is deciding the coin flip?

Answer 3

You make several illogical and contradictory statements, I know you think you are being "clever" and "deep", but you just sound confused and like you are trying too hard to be profound. You must be in college??

However, I agree with you that men are fallible. Since men wrote the bible, it is of course fallible.
since we are all men, EVERYTHING we have ever thought of, or created has the risk of fallibility, or being proved wrong.

My position is that god doesn't exist, I have seen no convincing evidence that god exists. If I become aware of convincing evidence for the existence of a deity, I will accept that I was wrong. It is not MY job to DISPROVE every silly idea that someone comes up with...from God, to Pink Unicorns to teapots orbiting the sun.

It is YOUR contention that something exists and has consequences on my life....I expect YOU to provide proof. You would expect no less of me if I told you I was getting telepathic messages from the invisible pink unicorn in my garage. You wouldnt' just take my word for it. Even if I had a book that I said was wriiten by the pink unicorn and that should be proof enough...he wouldn't lie, he's the pink unicorn. I think you would be skeptical, and ask me to supply something beyond the holy scripture of the PU


I THINK what you are trying to say that as an atheist, there is a chance I am wrong about god. Well yes, there is a chance, I think it is a vanishingly small chance however. However I am refering to some sort of "higher power". When it comes to the "god" of the bible, I know for a fact, with 100% certainty, that it is a myth, no different thant Zeus or Odin.

While "scientific mistakes abound", science is an emminently self correcting system. I should remind you that all of the mistakes made by science/scientists were found out and proven and corrected by OTHER scientists. Science isn't just a collection of facts. It is a body of knowledge built on the foundation of previous scientists. It is tested over and over to find flaws. The scientific method is simply the best way we have ever found to investigate the world around us, and try to figure out how it all works. It is, an approximation, and a work in progress, but it is objective and dispassionate.

There is more truth in one scientific equation than in all the holy books ever written.

Answer 4

Because Atheism is not man-made. It is just word that is based on scientific evidence in their not being a god.
This is a good question, I'll even give you a star for asking it. Most Christians just come on here and bash instead of asking intelligent questions like yours.
I am an atheist, but I don't think it is man-made. The word man-made means that it was 100% made up or created. Atheism is based on what facts we know to be true and has a solid foundation. Yes, science makes mistakes, but a majority of the evidence out there simply does not support the evidence for a god.
Thanks again for your question!

Answer 5

First, Atheism is not man made. It is not a thing or even a concept. It is simply a word people use to describe the lack of belief in something for which there is no evidence. Secondly, Atheists don't 'decide' what to believe or not believe in. If you have the courage to really think about, we are all born Atheists. The religious influences that turned you into a theist do not have the same effect on Atheists.

Answer 6

You're right, scientific mistakes do happen, but that does not change the fact that our 'beliefs' our based upon a large amount of evidence. Of the scientific theories, there are not many that are stronger than evolution, so strong that approximately 97% of all scientists, who study their lives on the subject, are convinced. Does this rule out a creator? Not necessarily, but it does rule out the creator of organized religions.

The Bible? Are you kidding me. If I were going to look for truth in organized religion the Bible is the last place I would look. If you know the history of the Bible, how and why it was written and collected, it is not exactly a place to look for truth.

The theories on the initial energy release of the universe are not as strong, and so it can not be determined with 100% accuracy how the universe came into being.

Answer 7

In my opinion there is no creator god because the existence of such a being is illogical based on the fact that nothing is inherently existent, all things are impermanent and always changing. If such a being existed, who was inherently existent it's illogical that something (creator being) could arise from nothingness, because even nothingness doesn't exist.

Also, by your logic, an infallible being would have to create something it wouldn't know (things that ARE fallible, which humans are), since knowledge comes from learning (which a self-existent, alone being couldn't do without some form of teacher, to arise and create something from nothing).

I could go on for hours with more examples, but that's my take on it per Buddhist logic and analytical study.

_()_

Answer 8

Atheism is a word that is man made, but an idea that exists outside of man. Does a rock believe in a God, no so thus it is now Atheist. Does a dog believe in God, no thus it is Atheist.

Atheism means lack of belief in a God. It is the natural state of our mind until we become aware of religion which promotes a God, or perhaps in some cases a build a religion that creates one.

Answer 9

Yeah, atheism is a lack of belief, which is a different beast entirely from belief. I admit the two are linked because one is the absence of the other, but it would be like saying that you don't believe people who say the earth is flat. The two thoughts are linked by the "flat-earth" idea, but it's not really like they're two different beliefs. Different beliefs would be if one person said, "flat earth" and the other said, "lumpy spherical earth."

I'm not saying that spirituality is insanity, but if you look through history, many religious folk have been characterized as flat-out crazy by their peers (many of whom weren't atheists.) Many religious people say their particular religion is true...but all the other ones are crazy. Atheists generally see religion as a delusion or hallucination or at best, a crutch or hypocrisy.

Your logic is messed up--if somebody thinks an idea is crazy, it's not a fallacy not to join a crazy belief system. Neither side has proof, so it's logical to believe or NOT believe. Nice try, but your argument isn't valid.

Answer 10

Atheism is not man made! It doesn't have a set of rules to follow, not all atheists believe the same things so therefore have no exact set of beliefs, its an open minded thing.

I'd like to know why this law of so called non contradiction doesn't apply to the bible!!