For Athiests: If you were color-blind, and I tell you that there are different colors..?

Question

From your experience and perceptions, I am wrong or delusional. Millions of people around the world, present and past – MILLIONS of Christians, Jews, Muslims believe in God. You call us wrong or delusional. Can you not consider the idea that perhaps it is you that is blind to God?

Answer 1

i am not athiest, i'm a pagan. i find your question rather strange. i don't think you can compare the two. but that's not really what bothers me the most.

i think what bothers me is the attitude of your question. i think it must stem from some arguement with an atheist, or perhaps you feel personally affronted by some remarks on this site.

if you want to believe in god, i think that's wonderful. but if someone doesn't want to, let them be. even if they call you delusional. not all atheists attack christians, just like not all christians attack atheists.

Answer 2

You can consider the idea.


Literally...
When someone told me I was color deficient and didn't see right, I considered it. Apparently I do see things differently. I won't call it seeing things wrong.

When I was young, I got my family to go to church.

Suddenly, one day, I thought religion blinded my own perceptions of the world. You can be blinded form either point of view.

You can say there is no God, and suddenly you are going to have many angry people coming at you, saying you have no belief and are amoral.

You can say there is only one God and everyone must believe and suddenly--

In Belfast a wall separates two different religious groups so they won't kill each other.

There is so much terrorism in the Middle East today.

In China, churches are burned down as an effort to keep Christians away.

At school, people are held up in Biology classes because some people won't take a class that mentions evolution or even dinosaurs.

You get the picture? Religion isn't all helping others and finding love and justice. It can be as brutal as the rest of the world. If I'm not mistaken, Religion is what is and has been making the world so terribly brutal. It's at least a factor.

Maybe God is Dead and everyone has killed God through their neglect to find true meaning in anything. Everyone always manipulates their religion trying to make their way seem the best.

So consider the idea that you are blind to God, but in some ways it may be for the better.

Answer 3

I think science could explain colors to me, even if I was colorblind. I have hearing loss, and I understand there are sounds I can't hear.

I understand many people believe in god, and I think this is approximately the equivalent of having an imaginary friend that means a great deal to you. It gives people someone to have internal conversations with and fulfills a need for many people who don't find comfort with the world as it stands. I've had imaginary friends in my lifetime and I think I understand what people derive from it.

Because millions have believed or felt it does not offer proof of its existence - there are many things people have believed that were not true, and over time (and frequently through science) the belief changes. I have never seen any evidence that indicates there is a god, there are just people who want to believe in a god, and some people who unfortuantely are more comfortable if you believe in the same god that they do. I would be more than willing to look at evidence if someone had some - but mainly you hear people talk about the bible, which is not rational evidence, but a collection of stories, many of which are pretty horrific.

I heard or read somewhere recently that for people who survive disasters, they almost always credit god for their survival - but by the same token, that means their god didn't save the others. This makes no sense, yet you hear it all the time. If god has the ability to save people but selectively allows suffering, is this really the sign of an advanced, omnipotent and ominscient being? Doubtless, a person who survives a disaster has every reason to feel lucky and is if they may have a second chance at experiencing life and helping or adding to humanity, but giving credit to the being that is also credited with destroying the others? It is baffling to those of us who haven't found the need for a god in our lives.

Answer 4

LOL...nothing like a bad analogy.

For starters, why don't you consider what you yourself have said here. "MILLIONS of Christians, Jews, Muslims believe in God. " Yeah, and they're all at loggerheads with each other! Even within each religion, there are innumerable cults with violently opposed ideas. Sorry, but if you're putting that forward as a proof of God, then you have to account for the fact that none of you can agree on His most basic qualities.

But the problem with your analogy is this. The perception of color by the human apparatus is a scientifically demonstrable fact, even when it cannot be appreciated directly. "God" is not. The fact that millions of people share an abstract idea, with zero agreement as to particulars, doesn't establish anything. Everybody used to think the earth was flat, but that didn't make it so. But anybody who can't follow the train of logic that establishes the fact of color vision in the majority of humans is simply an imbecile.

Answer 5

So your saying some thing's wrong with me physical or mental? And that about 70% of all scientists is "missing something"?
I think it's the other way around. It's caused by inbreeding.
And why the argument of the numbers again.
The whole world has been thinking the world is flat for thousands of years, it's even in the bible.Later someone found out it was different, and the church didn't like that either. There are so many examples of the bibles flaws. Get to terms with the real world, you imagination has taken control over you.

Answer 6

For worshippers,

Just because a lot of people believed in myth doesn't mean it is the truth.

Before these religion were form, people believed in Zeus and the rest of his merry gods

The whole nation of the Chinese believed in Yu Huang Da Di and his merry gods.

The whole nation of Hindu believed in Bhamas and his band of merry gods.

The whole nation of Egypt believed in Ra and his band of merry gods.

The whole nation of ...... nevermind

now are they delusional or or they just blinded by faith?

Can you not consider the idea perhaps it you that is blinded by faith, and you are poisoned by unscrupulous indoctrination since young that there is a god and the god is Abraham's god? (I think not, you are too blinded to be open minded. Call me closed mined, I had read the Bible and the Koran, not the torah though, but that only tell me these religions are man made to control the mass public.)

Answer 7

The broken analogies are awesome. Unlike god, there is evidence that colors exists that even a color-blind person sees. For hundreds and thousands of years people thought the earth was flat. Does that mean that they were delusional? Yes. Does that mean that perhaps we are blind about the fact that the earth is flat? No.

Answer 8

A poor analogy. Nether the Athiest or the Theist can verify their claims. Perhaps only the Agnostic can hold any proper ground in this kind of argument.

Besides which you refer to religion. That is an entirly different kettle of fish.

What one believes is what one believes.

It should not be a judgement upon the other in this case.

As long as be do not harm one another we should respect these different beliefs as individual and intimate.


Peace.

Answer 9

There would be valid evidence that would prove my colorblindness to be factual. When you can come up with some valid evidence that religious dogma is factual this argument may have merit, till then you're just delusional along with the rest of the people who refuse to seek valid evidence and look for facts but instead live by 'faith'.

Answer 10

I see where you are going, it's a weak analogy though.
Colour blind people do see colours, just not all of them, and not in the same way. Many animals see in shades of grey, and some birds and insects can see ultraviolet.

I think it is more true that religious belief blinds believers to the way things really are.

The difference is we can scientifically prove that all the colours of the spectrum exist, whether ones eyes are capable of detecting them or not. People believe in all kinds of weird and "invisible" things. Do I have to accept all of them just because someone makes a claim? Do you believe in UFO's. Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Crystal power, magnetic healing, ouija boards, homeopathy etc etc. I'm sure there's at least one of those things I listed you wouldn't accept as real just because somebody else believes in it. I extend my scepticism to your invisible man in the sky as well.