Christianity

What is the atheist's biggest objection to the concept of "God"?

Is it related to the idea that few witnesses exist? Or, is it related to the perceived tenacity of believers attempting to "win" them to belief?

First, there is the intangible aspect of God. It's a metaphysical entity, as such it cannot be sensed by physical means. This means that never will it interact with our eyes, our ears, our skin. This is the first thing, the fact it can not be proven and relies on blind belief.

Then there is the whole institution, the church. Let me tell you this, the first time I assisted to a religious rite was when I was about 13, I went to one of those reunions where people (mostly old people) sit on those long benches and listen to a priest singing and reading parts of Bible. Then they proceeded to eat little pieces of pastry (I know the term in French, it's "ostie"). I also know the name of that rite in French, it's "messe". I don't know the English term though. Anyways, I assisted to that and I was far from impressed. It made me think of video game geeks discussing their latest adventures, or talking about a TV series. That's what it looked like. I still remember, it was a few years back, comparing the priest to a cosplayer. You know, those people who dress up like their favourite anime characters.

It made me think. What possible advantage can building huge structures which serve no particular purpose give to a civilization? It did have an use. Priests in uniform read parts of their book in it. Great.

There is the fact that it cannot be proven, and the fact that everything people have done for it is useless. Huge buildings, cathedrals. Sure, they're pretty.

Also I wanted to say something about the crusades. People too often attribute it to religion. I think this interpretation is too shallow. Call me arrogant if you want. There are groups at all levels. There's the broadest and less debated one: humans and other animals (this is what a guy told me on youtube when I told him instead of protesting against abortion he should be worrying about factory farms, as a barely sentient infant, which is killed in a painlessly way, suffers much less than an adult cow or pig which endures the worst we have ever done to any sentient being, worse than the worst abuse on human slaves at a huge scale:
"You equate humans with beasts. You place any adult animal higher in hierarchy than a human baby. You are batshit insane. You are welcome to your madness." (word by word, here's the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEFWDYB0rWo)). Think about it. Have you ever even questioned the possibility of this differentiation being irrational and stupid? Our brains are not perfect. Maybe I'm the one who's wrong. Anyways, back to groups. Then there's one tier down, between sexes. This one is also very deeply anchored in our society. Just see, when talking of a person you say "He" or "She", "Woman" or "man", "boy" or "girl"... Only a few words are indifferent in gender, like "person". Then there's races, between asians, caucasians and africans. There's religions too, christians, islamics... Simply, people need to beat each other's face. Religion was a pretext. Were there no religion, another reason would've been found.

First, we need to start on a common basis... to do this, we need definitions to concepts that can be understood identically. After all, that's what "communication" is, an exchange of ideas/information using language introducing no intrinsic mismatch to concepts. Let me suggest some, and see if we can agree on them... I'll define some of them, here, in a non-standard way. [Routinely, though, I like to use the Merriam-Webster English dictionary, as found online at www.merriam-webster.com.]

1. True: the state quality of being consistent with fact or existence.
2. False: the diametric opposite, or contradiction, to True.
3. Truth: the collective of real things, events, or facts.
4. Falsehood: the diametric opposite, or contradiction, to Truth.
5. Perception: the fusion of sensory experience with any predilections (biases and axiomatic presumptions) an actor may hold. A key quality is its adherence to truth or falsehood, which is necessary to logical reasoning.
6. Perspective: the physical or mental viewpoint from which the actor observes and assimilates.
7. Actor: an observer, or a participant (as in an action or a communication).

Now, a question... Is English (or American English) your native language? I ask because translations from one language to another can be problematic, particularly when addressing idioms or ideas not familiar in one or the other. Also, your reference to certain terms (specifically, French) made me curious.

No, English is not my native language but I can understand it well enough. I'm French.

Other than that I agree with your definitions.

Just a point of information: Referring to your personal history recitation, the church I believe you attended was Catholic. The ritual of eating bread (wafer, “ostie”) and wine is the sacrament called “Eucharist” (Holy Communion, “messe”?)… Did they serve the wine to parish communicants at your church? I once visited a Catholic Mass during my youth, and only saw the wafer being given out to the congregation (with only the priest who served Mass partaking of the wine).

You were critical of portions of church history as being hypocritical for Christians, or at least being cover for opportunists. I suggest that ALL faiths have had their moments. But, that doesn’t mean that the reasons why the services are conducted are worthless, or that the message communicated there touches some intangible concepts… We can get to that eventually, after groundwork reasoning has first been laid.

Now, back to the theme… Would you agree that the universe we live in is characterized by four dimensions, three of location (length, width, and height) and one of instance (time)? Some people might suggest a fifth “state”, one of action or rest. But, I think that this last is likely described in terms of the others, where action (or rest) is location modified by time. It is the object of mathematics to reduce relationships to the simplest terms. So, four fundamental dimensions and we have five senses… of which we are currently aware.

Have you had opportunity to attend any classes in either advanced mathematics or logic, perhaps introduced to Boolean logic? It would be useful to discuss some concepts using it as a foundation.

I believe God exists. No questions asked. However,there are some things wrong with how Christianity is portrayed. The Crusades were really not to honor Christ. Well, maybe a little, but I don't think that killing thousands of Muslims, most innocent aside from practicing the wrong religion, is honoring God.
And by the way, I think abortion is totally wrong. Who cares about animals? Well, lots of people actually, but they are not humans, like a baby. Studies have actually shown that babies feel pain when an abortion is done to them. It is murder.
Call me narrow-minded, my friend, but thats my opinion.

"What is the atheist's biggest objection to the concept of "God"?

Is it related to the idea that few witnesses exist? Or, is it related to the perceived tenacity of believers attempting to "win" them to belief?"

You will find atheists objecting to all of these. But shoot, I am Christian and object to the last one!

You will get a lot of different answers from different atheists. But if the situation is analyzed, basically, atheists have no personal experience of God and do not accept as valid any of the evidence presented for the existence of deity.

ALL evidence is personal experience: what we see, hear, touch, taste, smell, or feel emotionaly. Theists either have personal experience of deity or trust the experiences of those who say they do. Thomas feeling the nail holes of the risen Jesus had seeing and touch of deity. Christians trust that what is written about Thomas is accurate.

Atheists have no personal experience of deity. Their evidence, therefore, is that deity does not exist. They do not accept or trust the evidence of others.

Over the course of history, there have been hundreds of millions of people who say they are "witnesses" and have personal experience of diety:

"Therefore, before proceeding further, we shall give the floor temporarily to those who claim they have experiential evidence of God, and allow them to clarify what they mean by such evidence. ... However, when it comes to the nature of experience of the presence of God, there is an astounding degree of consensus. The following statements, in order to keep us as close to the source as possible, come not from the past but from our contemporaries, from persons with whom I have spoken directly. They are, however, echoed throughout the history and literature of religion.
"The experience is usually not 'spooky'. It sometimes, though definitely not always, might be termed 'mystical'. It doesn't for the most part consist of events which by their nature overturn or challenge the laws of science. (I've heard only one first-hand account of an event which, if it really happened, would be very difficult to explain by any process presently known to science.) The experience doesn't establish a hot-line to God, by which all questions are answered, all doubts set aside, and complete understanding is reached. ... People are quick to point out that, though they think their experience really is of God, it is, even at its clearest and best, only a partial, human, inadequate view of what God really is and what God is really doing. Experiential evidence sometimes comes in a flash, but it's more often the accumulation of more subtle experiences over a period of time.
"John S. Spong .... 'I do not mean to suggest that I have arrived at some mystical plateau where my search has ended, where doubts are no more, or that I now possess some unearthly peace of mind. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have only arrived at a point where the search has a validity because I have tasted the reality of this presence, if ever so slightly.'
"As to finding God initially, some say they came rather gradually to a realization that the God they'd learned about in books, songs, and from other people, is real. Others on the contrary battered the gates of heaven .. with very sceptical demands for answers, IF such a heaven existed. Their uncompromising intellectuality led them to try to pin God to the wall in ways that might be expected to elicit a lightning bolt rather than blessing. Their requirements for evidence and proofs were seldom met exactly as specified, but there was a moment in the process when they realized to their astonishment that they were wrestling with a real being who couldn't be contained in human descriptions or standards, not a concept or an abstraction. This God was something out of their control, something not fashioned in the image they had formed in their mind ...
"The testimony is of God's leadership being requested and and received at turning points where human foresight and knowledge were inadequate, and of God's leadership turning out to be exactly on target, though perhaps not in the direction one would have preferred. ... God has stopped some persons dead, when they did not want to be stopped, on the brink of serious mistakes. God has changes some in ways human beings can't change themselves even with allthe help of psychotherapy. God has made it possible for them to love the unlovable, forgive the unforgiveable. ... Has all this been 'spritual' help? Not according to these witnesses. God is a powerful and active God, interveining wherever, whenever, and through whatever avenue he pleases. The phrase 'the insidiousness of God' comes from a woman Episcopal priest. God's intervention is not always kind, gentle, or pleasurable. He refuses to play by human rules or indulge our desire to plan ahead. ... God does not always come at our calling, give us what we want, or even shield us from terrible pain or grief ... but God's forgiveness and love know no limits whatsoever.

"Some direct quotes: 'My relationship with God has been by far and away the most demanding relationship in my life." "The Lord has been my strongest support, but also my most frustrating opponent." 'If I didn't absolutely know this is the only game in town, I'd sure as hell get out of it!' "The best evidence isn't some 'wonder' or 'miracle', and it certainly isn't success, happiness, or the peace of having my prayers answered in ways which suit me. It's the extraordinary, topsy-turvy, interesting course my life has taken since I've engaged in this -- once begun, virtually inescapable -- dialogue with God." Kitty Ferguson's The Fire in the Equations, pp 248- 251

"Studies have actually shown that babies feel pain when an abortion is done to them. It is murder. "

I'd like to see the citations for those studies. A 3 month old fetus doesn't have a brain and, therefore, cannot "feel" pain.

I would say a BABY is human, but a baby is born and outside the woman's body. Until then, I do not consider the fetus to be a human.

BTW, if you consider abortion to be murder, don't you also then have to investigate every miscarriage to see if criminal charges should be brought? You would also logically have to charge God with murder, since fully 25% of fertilized ova fail to implant. If humans make a machine that kills a lot less than 25% of the users, we bring them up on charges of murder.

The atheist does not believe moral compunction is grounded in a deity and so believes the ground for morality is a cultural mechanism that we are taught by family and society at large.
Because of this interpretation the atheist is free from a definition that traditional theism teaches us concerning the reason why we are moral beings and decipher between right and wrong. This conscience is therefore believed to be stamped in our being as we are created in the image of God.

Atheism doesn't believe this. If it did, it means you can't "decipher btweeen what is right and wrong" because morality is a "cultural mechanism". What is "right" in one culture could easily be "wrong" in another. Rather, atheism believes that morals are independent of God, therefore it is possible to figure out what is right and what is wrong.

This is actually the position of most theists. It goes back to the old question: is something moral because God commands it or does God command it because it is moral? If you take the first (as some theists do), then the ground for morality is how God feels on any given day. That's another form of relativisitic morals. Thus you can have God command genocide and that is "moral".

If you take the second, then you have absolute morals. But it also means that morals are independent of God and we can decipher what is right and wrong without God. God simply provides a shortcut.

Your not quite seeing the answer I was trying to provide. My intention is to say absolutely that there is no ground for morality without God. Atheists believe it is a learned formality but where they diverge from theism is to say they derive their support for a conscience from an outgrowth of an evolutionary response . This is absoulutely unwarranted. There is no way to prove that awareness of right and wrong comes from evolution. If you agree with atheists that this is possible then you fall into their fallacious trap. . Theists believe that morality is grounded in god. That we are moral is because we have been endowed with a conscience from above, from the Father of lights(James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down ...
And cometh down from the Father of lights - From God, the source and fountain of all light. Light, in the Scriptures, is the emblem ot knowledge, purity, ..
Would you not agree that our knowledge of right and wrong is from god and not from evolution? That moral judgement system innate in us is shared by all humans. Just because cultural differences exist does not necessarily mean that right and wrong is an seperate cultural experience that comes about through learned experience. It is endowed not evolved.

I know what your intention is. I am refuting the claim that there is no morality without God.

Nor do I say that "conscience" comes from evolution. SOME of our concepts of morality are due to evolution, but not all of them. For instance, surveys show that, if forced to choose between saving the life of a young person and that of an old one, nearly everyone chooses to save the young person. That is evolution based. So is our ability to detect cheating. That evolved as hominids became more social and dependent on one another. An ability to detect cheaters and cheating is essential to survival.

The argument that "conscience" comes from God is refuted by sociopaths. Why would God choose not to give them a conscience?

I take a third path: our knowledge of what is right and wrong comes NEITHER from God nor from evolution. It comes instead from our intellect and ability to reason. As I noted, if God commands something because it is right and forbids it because it is wrong, then right and wrong are independent of God.

Like parents with little children, God gave us a shortcut to morality. When my kids were little I, like all parents, commanded them "do not lie", "share your toys", "do not hurt other children", etc. My young (1-5 years old) children accepted that because I was Dad. However, the reasons I told them that were based in reason and understanding WHY those behaviors were moral. As my children got older, they could begin to reason out the morality for themselves. In the process, they realized that sometimes it is OK to lie. In fact, in a few cases morality DEMANDS that you lie. But those subtleties required them to have grown up enough to reason it thru and discover morality. I submit God acted very much as parents. When civilization was young, God provided shortcuts to what is moral behavior -- do not steal, honor your parents, do not give false witness, etc. Notice how specific those are. Later, as humans "grew up", the commandments became more vague and flexible: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, love your neighbor as yourself, etc. You can reason much specific morality from those general precepts. But you can also reason to the general commandments. Thus morality is independent of God.

Lucaspa,

Quote: "Nor do I say that 'conscience' comes from evolution. SOME of our concepts of morality are due to evolution, but not all of them. For instance, surveys show that, if forced to choose between saving the life of a young person and that of an old one, nearly everyone chooses to save the young person. That is evolution based. So is our ability to detect cheating. That evolved as hominids became more social and dependent on one another. An ability to detect cheaters and cheating is essential to survival."

Conscience is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit influencing the human being who is debating two courses of action - one in consonance with God's intent, and one opposite to that... Morality is a set of responses to such decisions (and codified in some form due to their value). The example of choosing to rescue an older person over a younger person is independent of morality. The decision to impose oneself into the situation and save at least ONE is based on morality - that a person should do for another what they could reasonably expect someone would do for them... That aside, the choice of WHICH person to save is a matter of expectation, not morality. Saving either person may preserve talent, knowledge, or experience - all of which are valuable. The elder person I would expect to have more practically gained experience. Does that tip the balance in favor of him/her? It might...

Quote: "I take a third path: our knowledge of what is right and wrong comes NEITHER from God nor from evolution. It comes instead from our intellect and ability to reason. As I noted, if God commands something because it is right and forbids it because it is wrong, then right and wrong are independent of God."

I'm confused - you seem to contradict yourself. Right and Wrong were an outgrowth of human desire which conflicts with God. He set the standard, not us. Since the author of the standard defined it, it is NOT independent of Him. It's referenced with respect to Him. Human intellect and ability to reason is notoriously flawed. That shouldn't be the basis for defining a set of values because the basis is then flawed.

The progression of human development ('growing up') didn't become more vague - they remained intact. The later appeal to reason to fill in the 'why, daddy?' gaps attempts to get the 'child' to be a self-starter rather than requiring constant supervision.

Morality (independent of God) would place the rules of behavior on a relative basis, and is not necessarily consistent between individuals. Not unlike physical Laws, moral 'laws' must be applicable globally for them to be of value. Globally defined morality (laws) permits societies to draft consequenses (punishments) for infractions. Society cannot function if everyone is running according to relative rulesets. It breeds chaos.

It is the refusal to be willing to submit one's life to Christ. It's just another exaltation of self over God - wanting to live life our way instead of Christ's way.

They are afraid to confess that they can believe in God's existence, according to probability, without having to lose their so cherished title of atheist. See for yourself that it is possible to believe in the probability that God exists
and still be an atheist.

Finally, Atheists Believe in God

The issue is a devolopment between knowledge and belief. To an Atheist, as far as I am concerned, to be sure that something exists, it means that he knows it. Therefore, he does not have to believe it. If he is not sure that something exists, he cannot say he knows it. But since he is supposed to accept its possible existence, he has no choice but to admit that he believes it.

The difference with the Theist is that, if the Theist does not know about something that he wants to accept as possible, he uses faith, which for the atheist would be anathema. Imagine an atheist accpting something by faith! Unheard of!

According to the atheistic approach above, as far as I am concerned, he cannot say for sure that he knows that God does not exist, or he will be taken as a fool. So, he has no choice but to believe that God exists. If he knew for sure that God existed, he would not have to say that he believes in God. It stands the reason then, that atheists cannot be sure about anything or they will be taken by fools. In that case, he must believe that God exists, since he is not sure He does.
Ben

Every athiest is an athiest for different reasons,just as christans have different reasons for their faith.

I grew up in the catholic faith, attended catholic schools, was an alter boy for most of my teen years and taught sunday school to the little children in my parish. I was so involved in the church that my parish priest offered me a place in a seminary to study for the priesthood. I considered the offer very seriously but my parents were against it.

My parents offered to send me to europe to study my other passion, history and we came to an agreement. If after I had completed my masters degree I still wanted to enter the priesthood my parents would support my decision.

Six years later I gained my doctoral arts degree in history and was offered a teaching position. My passion had always been ancient history, specificly the transition period between the roman republic and imperial rome.

However I was offered post doctoral work to write a history of the inquistion in Italy. Sometime during the three years I spent reseaching the subject I came to realise the teachings of the church were floored, indeed a lie.

I broadened the research I was doing and I examined the history of other christan and related religions. All rang the same sour note when they were examined from a historians point of view.

It was a long painfull process for me but it was also very important to my development as a person and a historian.I began to see all religions for what they are, frauds.

They are all based on unscientific foundations. They deny the principles of provable science and they persecute anyone not involved with them.

For centuries the christan churches denied the place of women in society, in fact many saw woman as unclean. They harassed, tortured and murdered anyone not in line with their restrictive narrow minded beliefs and thoughts.

As I was completing my work the storms over the sexaul molestation of children by priest and ministers of every religion were breaking over europe and would soon spread to the USA and every other country on earth.

In response I saw churches harrassing and bullying victims into silence and if that didn't work they bribed the victims to keep quiet while protecting the offending clergy.

It was the last straw for me, faith in any organised religion is a fools view of the world.

There is no god so get over it.

Lucaspa wrote: "I'd like to see the citations for those studies. ***A 3 month old fetus doesn't have a brain and, therefore, cannot 'feel' pain.***"

For the asterisked phrase, see the following:
( www.buzzle.com/articles/brain-development-in-fetus.html )
This website article (by Loveleena Rajeev) states that brain formation is well along at 3 WEEKS.
( www.ehow.com/how-does_4923014_fetus-brain-development.html )
This website article (by Melody Hughes) confirms Loveleena's claim.

( www.livestrong.com/article/279081-nutrition-fetal-brain-development/ )
This website aricle (by Bridget Coila) confirms Loveleena's claim.

A nervous system that has sensors and a receptor through which to register sensations "feels" pain. You may not think it does, and a mute/inarticulate fetus not screaming out is NOT evidence of "LACK of feeling".

lucaspa wrote: "I would say a BABY is human, but a baby is born and outside the woman's body. Until then, ***I do not consider the fetus to be a human.***"

The asterisked phrase is convenient, though inaccurate. "Life" for the fetus begins when the ovum is fertilized successfully and begins growth. Given the nourishment it requires, it will continue to grow into a full-sized human being. It's HUMAN because the DNA and RNA which are coding its development came from human beings - not frogs, fish, or another parental pool. The DNA/RNA are HUMAN.

lucaspa wrote: "BTW, if you consider abortion to be murder, don't you also then have to investigate every miscarriage to see if criminal charges should be brought? You would also logically have to charge God with murder, since fully 25% of fertilized ova fail to implant. If humans make a machine that kills a lot less than 25% of the users, we bring them up on charges of murder."

Yes, it does require investigation. And the first link in that chain is the attending medical doctor (be he/she obstetrician, gynecologist, or surgeon). They are obligated to report any criminal or abuse conditions to the law enforcement authorities - unless, of course, they are complicit in the maltreatment of the fetus. And, no, we could not logically charge God with murder, because the implantation failures are due to HUMAN malfeasence (failure to properly implant for proper nourishment). And, in the case of DNA "engineering", using an 'old' helix which no longer is complete - also a HUMAN failure. God cannot be blamed for HUMANs trying to 'play' God.