A hypothetical situation that will help you understand atheists a little better, and perhaps yourself too...?

Question

If you lived in France and you had always heard that Copernicus discovered and conquered the Americas all by himself, lived to be 911 years old and singlehandedly built ever great city in America and gave them all of the laws and knowledge that made the United States great, and the people who told you this proved it by giving you a book that said it was the truth and that's the way it happened, does that make it true?

Is that REALLY how America was discovered, settled, and made into the great country that it is? Would you be surprised if someone thought that was a bunch of crap and decided to do some research and discovered that the Americans told a completely different story?

Would you say the person that did the research was wrong for believing what he found to be true, instead of sticking with the story the French book had put out there, even though the French book went against everything ever written by anyone else on the subject? Is the researcher wrong?

Answer 1

This is by far the best analogy of atheism I've seen on this forum.
Thank you for explaining it so succinctly.
While I am not an atheist, I certainly understand why you do not believe in any gods whatsoever, and I respect your desire for the evidence.

Answer 2

A good thought, and yes, the French book would be wrong, because the verifiable facts would not support the book's conclusions.

The flaw in your premise is that the verifiable facts supporting the re-searcher's findings against the book's assumptions are solid.

An atheist must take the stand that God does not exists, but cannot historically prove his assumption through solid research. Nor can the Christian (who, I am afraid, holds the burden of proof) verify through the scientific method that God does exists (at least to those who have not experienced His power in their lives).

Ironically, both hypothesis are based on the "faith" they have in the facts they choose to accept. The Atheist chooses to stand on what he knows to be "true" from his experience and research. The Christian does the same.

Both sides of the issue must be responsible for their own interpretation of what they observe.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, there is no way to get insistent believers to understand your analogy here. As someone above pointed out, they will consider your analogy "false" because of one factor: God. In their eyes, God is unarguable truth or fact. Whatever He said goes whether you or anyone else thinks it is right or wrong. In other words, it is absolute power, and there is nothing to discuss.

Interestingly, anyone who is smart enough to state that your analogy is false is also smart enough to recognize three things:

1) The Bible may in fact be the word of God, but it is written by man, and man is fallible. It is entirely possible that the word of God was not accurately represented. In fact, considering literacy rates at that time, it is likely.

2) An unquestionable truth is a fact. The problem is that the existence of God has not been proven to be a fact. Until that time (or until we disprove the existence of a god), the existence of a god is unknowable and unprovable. As logical fallacies will tell you (particularly the appeal to ignorance), just because there is no proof that something isn't so doesn't MAKE it so. And vice versa.

3) The last logical fallacy here is trusting in God without question. Logic and reasoning tell us to question all authority. That includes God.

Answer 4

I'm starting to understand the how and why of some atheists. Your example is a good one. Of course things are not quite that straight forward for your argument as an atheist, in my opinion.

In my view, your view is akin to my lawn mowing experience with my neighbor. I mowed their lawn a while ago. It was hot, their mower was sitting in their backyard, and I just mowed. They came outside after I had finished, saw that their lawn was mowed, and thanked their other neighbor. I was inside my house at the time, so I heard the conversation. The other neighbor said 'you're welcome.'

Not that its a big deal, and the other fella has mowed their lawn in the past, so its possible he thought he was being thanked for mowing their lawn the previous week. Either way, my neighbor was wrong. If they had investigated, they likely would have found the truth.

Of course you and I can use the same example for the reason behind our beliefs. But from my point of view, all of the arguments in support of Jesus are trumped by what he has done in my life.

Answer 5

You're not going to get a lot of Christians answering you, I'm afraid. A great post tho! (Can your wife really remain a Christian for long, being married to you? Ya know, my husband eventually came around to Atheism...!)

I like that, the more we know about "the world" - the more that French Copernicus Book becomes untrue. And that book about Copuernicus not only contradicts reality, history and all other books, it contradicts ITSELF and quite hopelessly.

Answer 6

really its like comparing apples with oranges...you know from past questions not all believers base their beliefs on books but faith. everything i was ever taught flew out the window years ago, i believe everyone ha a right to believe as they wish whether its absurd or not. the fact of the matter is men wrote the bible and tried to do justice by it, doesn't mean they were correct .knowledge in all faiths makes one mind stronger. i wish you could have my heart for one day to see and feel what i do so you can understand why i feel like i do....good luck

Answer 7

Its not about understanding Atheists, or at least it shouldn't be. What it should be about, is just understanding that no path is the right path for everyone, and no path is wrong for the person who follows it. Christians should not be trying to convert others, and Atheists should not be trying to get Christians to be atheists either. This is were New Agers have the edge over most other belief systems. We have our beliefs, and we are just as adament about what we believe, as anyone else...the difference is that part of our belief system is the understanding that every path is just as valid as every other, even if we disagree with it. In other words, we KNOW, that we do not have to agree with what you believe, and you do not have to agree with what we believe. We also KNOW, that God DOES NOT EVEN WANT us to all believe the same thing. God does not even care if you do not believe in God! Everyone needs to get over the idea that only one path can be right, and stop trying to get others to follow the path that you consider the only right one. New Agers do like to share what we believe with others, and we do suggest books that you can read, and just like everyone else, we are pleased when others read our suggested books and agree with our point of view. But, for us, the reason is a little different. For us, it is because then we can rejoice at finding a new like minded friend...someone we can talk to on our own level. But, we never regard a person who does not agree with us as inferior to us, and we never think of a person who follows a different path as wrong or damned. We just consider them to be on a different level! Not a better or worse level, just a different level. *sm*

Answer 8

It's all well and good, but that is only because you are assuming that all knowledge of God comes only from a book. What if after reading the book you did some research and found out that it was indeed true?

Answer 9

In that situation, yes, I would say the researcher and the French book were wrong.

Answer 10

in the event that they hadn't discovered to raid my extensive bookshelves via then, i could be somewhat disenchanted! i could element them to "The Christians" via Bamber Gascoigne And "The Case for Christianity" via Colin Chapman. the 1st covers plenty extra Christianity via geography and historic previous than is often theory approximately, and that i could advise the 2d to just about all and sundry, regardless of me being an atheist: besides as Christianity it has the applicable (impartial, so a methods as i will tell) summaries of purely about all the worldwide's substantial faiths that i've got ever encountered in one quantity, and stable communicate on the diverse subject concerns of assessing fact. After my new child had absorbed a number of that, we could talk.