atheism is as invalid as theism

(nobody remembers the omnisoul so i changed the title)

i was about to write this in some other thread but, since i love to hear my own ideas so much, i got sidetracked and it wasnt really appropriate. then i realized that its been over a year since i provided us all with a perfectly logical form of christianity that doesnt rely on illogical fairy tales, the meaning of which we are not supposed to question. (what does god’s son dying have to do with my sins? and then i have to eat/drink him? why does god care so much if i trust priests who want my money aka “Have Faith”?)

atheists: i think the following is a 100% purely believable theory of god that explains why he created absolutely everything in the universe exactly the way that he did. if you read this post and you still “believe” that god doesnt exist, you have to ask yourself why you dont believe that he exists. is it because you have actual evidence that proves he doesnt exist? is it because you dont like the idea that god did this to you? or is it because there is a larger, metaphysical problem with the idea of a creator who exists outside of time and therefore doesnt also need a creator, himself?

the reason why god created the universe is the same reason why anybody ever created anything: he wanted to obtain some selfish purpose. we are his cogs, we do what our environment forces us to do because thats what he designed the environment to do. just like cog number two moves because of his environment (cog number one) pushing on his teeth, our decisions are influenced by our environment, free will or not. poor people dont commit more crime simply because they all happen to have evil free wills.

the environment told us one of two things, we either need to be selfless in order to create the most happiness for all, or we need to be selfish in order to ensure our own survival and prevent the genetic propagation of sub-perfect-humans who deserve to die, and at least dont deserve to have their needs fully supplied if those same supplies can make a righteous rich person slightly more comfortable.

why do i think the environment told us either of those two things? because those are the goals that humans have. if god had full control over the shape of the universe and wanted humans to do something specific regarding their treatment of others (which seems to feel like an important category of the decisions im faced with), then he either failed, or he succeeded in making us selfish, or he is on the path towards making us all selfless.

why does the shape of the environment seem to cause selfishness? thats obvious: our brains tell us to be selfish all the time. when we think about getting out of our comfy chair and helping homeless people, thats not dopamine you feel, its your brain desperately searching for a reason to not care about homeless people enough to leave your chair. i kind of enjoy giving up things that i dont really care about to people who i know care more, but thats because its easy for someone as rich as me to give up many things. and it is clear that at some point, higher up on the scale, being selfless is clearly more painful for me and will be avoided.

but i dont like selfishness. when i say the universe has been designed to cause humans to behave a certain way towards eachother, i have to say that its possible that it wants people to be selfish because thats the way people are. people arent selfless, they are selfish, so if god has been succesful in his mission as of 2006 AD, then his mission is to create selfishness. clearly.

but i think a few other pieces of evidence contribute to the idea that he eventually wants selflessness and has not yet been succesful. the main thing is an economic principle called the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility: when i eat one candy bar, it tastes good. when i eat the second, its still good but slightly less so. when i eat the one hundredth candy bar, even if it didnt hurt my stomach, it wouldnt really be that great, like buying ten TVs, or ten houses. the tenth one is not as valuable as the first one.

at some point, rich people get to the point where everything they buy is either an entirely new technology, or it is the tenth iteration of a joy that they have already experienced. and most new technologies really provide the same joy: “oo thats cool and makes my life slightly more convenient.” by the tenth time this happens, no matter what form the technology may take, its still less enjoyable than the first time. imagine buying your tenth tv and compare the joy you feel to the joy youd see coming from a poor person who never owned one.

so when a guy has a mid life crisis, this is him realizing that his money doesnt make him happy, even though he continues to obtain more and more of it. isnt it? what is it if it isnt that? ive never had one i dont know, but i cant imagine what else it is.

i also think that the main part of the mid life crisis is that your children dont need your help anymore. this illustrates the other piece of evidence that supports the idea that god wants selflessness. men who make tons of money are very happy because they know that their money is going to help someone who needs it. unless you want to force me to explain why you are wrong, do not tell me that they are merely living out their evolutionary DNA propagation because thats absolutely not what they are doing. (the selfishness of your genes causes your dick to feel good when you have sex, it does not cause the uncontrollable desire to have as many children as possible)

i need to get back to work so ill wrap this up: the omnisoul is the metaphysical manifestation of every soul, combined into one entity that “uses” the universe machine to recalibrate its constituent parts that have been knocked out of whack for some metaphysical reason. the universe machine causes the reharmonization of the omnisoul components (your souls) by placing each of them into various scenarios of varying motivation towards selfless treatment of fellow souls.

imagine you have a machine that, because of wear and tear, has parts that wobble and smash into eachother when you turn it on. fixing them is like sending them to ‘love your fellow machinery component’ camp.

when a soul is placed into a life of selflessness, he recalibrates himself into the large metaphysical entity and that entity then works more optimally. when a soul is placed in a poor person (if they ever even are which i want to doubt), they are merely being used for the purposes of motivating the selflessness of the others.

evil exists because without, there is no need for selflessness. god’s existence cannot be proven because what he wants from us is true selflessness for the sake of our fellow souls. he does not want us to know he exists because if we did, the motivation for our selfless actions would cease to be purely loving our neighbors and would be partially motivated by our desire to please or appease god.

does anybody think this theory is impossible? in order for you to be an atheist, dont you have to KNOW that what ive said is impossible? youre all actually agnostic.

i convinced my very atheistic uncle to admit that he was actually just as agnostic as i am, and i somewhat got him to indirectly admit that the only real reason why he would say he is an atheist is because the old fashioned theories of god we all know were totally silly and made no sense. he simply found it much easier to believe that when you die, you just die.

well thats not really a reason, and im extremely curious as to what his reason really is. what i really want to know very much is why you choose not to believe in god. we all know why people want to believe in it, but many people want to not believe in it, which doesnt seem to make sense.

if you feel that you are forced to not believe in god due to logical reasons, please explain them to me and i will surely be able explain why they dont necessarily exclude the possibility of god. and i wont even make up a new, perfectly logical theory every time, ill base it all on the one i just said.

Well I’m new to philosophy and you will blow my argument to pieces but I’ll give it a go Go easy on me! BTW These are no means my arguments but ones I have read and learnt. These are some of many argumnets why I am an atheist.

1. I don’t need to convince myself that none of the god-claims I have heard are true. It is the theist’s responsibility to convince me that his or her claims are valid, since it the theist – not the atheist – who makes the claims in this matter. Thus far, no god-claim that I have heard makes sense to me or can be disproven: I remain an atheist.

2. Since I am not making any claim, I have nothing to prove. All I ever do is raise doubts about theists’ claims. Since most theistic claims are extremely flimsy, I can often detect the flaws before the theist is even finished speaking. Admittedly, some theistic claims are very formidable, but this does not warrant my becoming a theist, it only means that I must actually do some work before I can dismiss those claims as not worthy of my belief.

3. I am not trying to convince anybody of the validity of the atheistic position. In a court of law if theres not overwhelming evidence in support of a given event then the person(s) are not guilty.

4. If God is all-powerful, why did he take 6 days to create the universe, resting on the 7th? Why didn’t he just snap his proverbial fingers and create everything all at once, and not need rest afterwards? Doesn’t sound so all-powerful to me.

5. Why does God care if he is praised? He is this all-knowing, super being, why does he care if we mere humans give him credit for creating the universe? Does he have a super ego?

6)Where did God come from? How did he get created? Why is it a valid argument to say that He “always existed”, but an invalid argument to say the same thing about matter and energy?

This is a start. I will add more or defend them if I can

Not at all.

You seem to think that atheism involves a positive assertion that god does not exist. This is not the only definition though.

Atheism can also be a lack of belief, while agnosticism means much the same but with a different attitude (an atheist of this variety may think God is extremely unlikely, and the agnostic thinks that we cant even speculate about the likelihood or else think its around 50%/50%).

In anycase, Im an atheist of the more narrow variety anyway. I do indeed make a positive assertion that god does not exist, on the following grounds:
Default attitude towards any particular belief is to reject it.
Only evidence should cause me to doubt this rejection.
Only when the evidence is substantial (ie. it is really evidence) could I be uncertain.
Only when the evidence outweighs the evidence for competing beliefs could I accept.
Thus, without evidence, I am not uncertain, I simply reject belief in God.

As an aside, no belief should be chosen (what reality do you prefer today?), and i dont think any atheists choose to not believe in god, its always for a reason they believe to be rational.

as far as i know, theism means you feel you have proof of gods existence. atheism would then mean that you have some proof or close to it of gods non existence. the atheist makes virtually the same impossible claim as the theist. the only one who doesnt make a claim is the agnostic, who hasnt made a decision as to whether or not he believes. the purpose of my post is to prove that we are all either irrational or agnostic.

and theres nothing wrong with being irrational as long as it cant possibly hurt anything. i like irrationally believing in god because its comforting to have a superdad who will take care of me when i die (that doesnt mean i believe it). but the idea of a warm jolly old man taking care of me when i die is surely a friendlier image than worms eating me without me even being capable of noticing. why do atheists prefer worms to love? that is, if they dont have conclusive proof.

all im doing is raising doubts about atheism.

these three are the same reason. i think you may be confusing agnosticism with atheism?

anyone who believes this is wrong. fortunately, it is possible to believe in god without believing the bible or believing anything that any priest ever said, ever. in fact, i think if you listen to a magical man in a dress, you will almost definetely hear the wrong story, because that man wants your cash. even if the friendly priests who you know today dont want your cash, the people who started the religion that they preach absolutely wanted your cash.

either that, or god really doesnt make the slightest bit of sense and really does care if you trust the priests who tell you about all of the nonsensical things he has done. that doesnt make any sense to me either. thats why i just made all that stuff up in the first post. i made up stuff that makes sense, and it just so happens that i cant find any way to explain it such that youll give me money. thats probably the main reason why no mainstream religions make any sense. theres no sensible way to explain that god wants you to give your money to the man with the funny hat.

i shouldnt have said christianity, i really just meant the golden rule, which is really the only thing that i think jesus wanted christianity to be.

he absolutely does not care. he actually would prefer it if you didnt think he existed. that way, when you do selfless acts, you do them purely out of selflessness, and not out of fear or love for god.

the brain function that is executed when you overcome your laziness and selfishness in order to make someone elses life better is specifically different from the brain function executed when you relieve yourself of the stress and finish your project before the deadline (project=charity, deadline=death) as if god were some sort of incomprehensibly enigmatic and dreadfully harsh project manager. god harvests that brain function, probably by sending molemen to burrow into your coffin and scoop out the selfless section of your brain. so cremation is strictly forbidden. unless of course we start running out of cemetary real estate, then we will change our centuries old doctrines, no problem. (thats a reference to christianity’s identical, yet somehow less sensical policy on the same issue)

i wouldnt say that he always existed, i would say that time is a concept that exists purely in this universe of matter and energy that god created. when you go fast or near a lot of gravity, time slows down. there is physical machinery that causes the effects of time to change and possibly even to stop altogether under extreme circumstances.

all we really have to say to explain gods timeless eternity is to say that he has always been travelling at the speed of light, which if you were to do so, would cause time to stop. since literally every particle in the universe is constantly traveling at the exact speed of light (even nuclear particles and electrons, who are circling, wobbling, bumping and meandering at exactly the speed of light, right?) relative to literally all observers, this sounds very elegant.

but its unnecessary. all we need to imagine is that time is purely a product of our universe, and that the god who created our universe does not live entirely within his creation. if the physical laws that we know are the sole cause of time, and god created all of those laws from nothing, certainly he could have created time from nothing.

without time, there is no such thing as cause and effect, and no need for anything to have an origin. in fact, it wouldnt even make sense to say that something created something else in a world without time. it would also not make sense to say that an omnisoul who lived outside of time can experience wear and tear and come up with the idea to cause a universe and to slowly repair itself over time.

but it doesnt matter if my omnisoul recalibration idea is possible with or without time. the universe where god lives can clearly exist without time, and therefore without cause and effect, because of the fact that time can possibly be purely a product of the physical laws that he created in this universe.

there really isnt any use in describing the omnisoul recalibration, it was just a possibility for the heck of it, what matters is the universe and the idea that we are accomplishing some metaphysical good that we are unaware of through our adherence to the natural stimuli and incentives provided by the natural structure of the universe and not the random, nonsensical fairy tales told by a man in a dress who wants your cash.

this is fun, keep it coming.

It does not mean we have proof but a disbelief. Its impossible to prove either way. But all claims are false until proven otherwise.

m-w.com/dictionary/atheism

I make no claims except that theists have no proof. Show me proof then I change my mind.

According to Einstein, nothing travels at the speed of light, its just not possible. ( I will provide link proving it if necessary )

prove it and i’ll believe it

Without time, do you mean no start and end of the universe?

Atheists may really be as foolish as theists, especially when they try to deny God’s existence, but still believe in moral values, the intelligibility of the universe, a purpose for human existence, and so on…

Contrarily, folk are foolish when they think moral values, the intelligibility of the universe, a purpose for human existence, and so on are dependant on god’s existence. God-free accounts of ethics are readily available, science finds the universe pretty intelligable without the big guy and people find their own purposes or sign up for others (defend their country for example) all the time.

and how can there be moral values without an absolute standard of what is good and what is wrong? You choose arbitrarily what is good and bad for you without any reference?

And how do you explain the intelligibility of the universe?

Apologies for the off topicness (i have posted on topic, but havent been replied to yet).

Not arbitrarily, but not according to an absolute reference. A reference such as the “greatest happiness of the greatest number”, “greatest happiness for myself”, “whatever fulfils the evolutionary drives (helping self, family and species)”.

if it is the act of choosing between these standards that is arbitrary, it is no more so than choosing between the various absolute standards presented by the various religions.

Easily, the universe arose, and we arose to adapt to it. Obviously for a species such as ours to be successful we must adapt its cognitive structure so that it allows the universe to be comprehensible.

If you mean that “how could a natural universe ever possibly comprehensible to anyone?” then you are assuming that nature is the same as random.

Oreso,

would you say that there can’t be any real standard for what is good and what is bad beyond mere utilitarianism?

im not trying to prove anything except that atheism is not based on facts but feelings and opinions in the same way that theism is.

the feelings and opinions on which irrational theism is based include fear of death, love of fathers, slight interest in things that create eternal bliss, yearning for ultimate understanding and many other things that we can all agree are desirable. if you want to irrationally believe theism for these reasons, you can believe in the omnisoul because it seems to be logically possible in every way.

despite the possibility and obvious great possibilities of theism (not religion, theism), people also irrationally choose to say that they are atheist. those people do make a claim. they claim that god doesnt exist for some reason. i want to know what those reasons are that someone would use to prove gods non existence. the purpose of the omnisoul theory is to provide a mythology that isnt holier than swiss cheese, not to prove that its correct. because its very easy to find reasons to stop believing in the myth of jesus.

hey post off topic all you want, saved me the time of writing that exact response to fabiano.

dont you also equally reject atheism, since there is exactly the same amount of evidence? and wouldnt this put you in the 50/50 agnostic camp?

i choose to believe that the best thing for the world is to help poor people in need. it could be entirely true that god wants these people to suffer and die, and thats why he made the world around them the way it is.

Future Man,

May I suggest you read a major atheist organization’s statement about atheism before you tell us what atheism is. The word associated to a philosophical position should be defined by those who associate themselves with the word, not by their opponents. The opponents’ defining of the word would lead to strawman arguments against those who associate themselves with it. This should be obvious.

Logically it should be clear that the following propositions are not equivalent:

1. I believe X exists
2. I do not believe that X exists
3. I believe that X does not exist.

In colloquial use, 2 and 3 get confused. A way to distinguish 2 from 3 would be by this rephrasing: 2. It is not the case that I believe that X exists. OR I lack the belief that X exists.

Formally we would have

1. I believe X
2. ~(I believe X)
3. I believe ~X
   where X is the proposition “God exists” and ~ is the negation operator.

Suppose that X = “aliens” and consider which of the above you would choose. If you are of a skeptical scientific mind, you probably don’t believe in aliens because as of yet there is no proof. But you don’t deny their existence either, since it is quite plausible that life would have developed somewhere else in the universe. Therefore your position is 2: “I lack the belief that aliens exist” or “It is not the case that I believe aliens exist”.

The “weak atheist” position on God is exactly the same. The strong atheist position is 3: God does not exist. The difference it makes is that the strong atheist, if he indeed holds to his position, never has to bring the existence of God into his practical calculations. A weak atheist generally doesn’t take God into account in day-to-day living but might keep his eyes open to the possibility, just as a scientist might ignore the possibility of aliens in his day-to-day living but nevertheless keep his eyes open to the possibility of their existing.

The difference, then, between weak and strong atheism is practical as well as formal. Both the weak and strong atheist won’t avoid masturbation because some god prohibits it. But the weak atheist might be avoiding masturbation next week because he was converted by a powerful experience, a social movement, or a revelation. The strong atheist, by contrast, will never be persuaded to any religious position and will never stop masturbating (not for religious reasons anyway). Weak atheism merely indicates a lack of belief. Strong atheism indicates a denial of belief and thereby a resistance to belief.

I hope after all this you do not continue to make the same mistake FM.

sorry if i offended anyone. i define agnostic as anyone who doesnt know and hasnt made a final decision and is open to both possibilities due to the fact that there is no conclusive, believable evidence on either side. the point of the post is to prove that everyone either holds this belief or believes something irrational.

i assumed that strong atheism is the only kind because i still dont see the difference between weak atheism and agnosticism, except for the fact that weak atheism seems to come with a more cynical attitude attached, instead of mere uncertainty and open-mindedness. i dont think thats actually a difference.

dont you also equally reject (strong) atheism (as much as theism), since there is exactly the same amount of evidence? and wouldnt this put you in the 50/50 agnostic camp (that oreso defined)?

Perhaps there’s some further structure in the position of “weak atheism” that should be investigated. On one end, a weak atheist could be a searcher – someone who lacks belief in God but is actively investigating the possibility that he may become a believer in the future. On the other end, a weak atheist could be someone who lacks belief in God and has no interest in investigating claims of God (except perhaps to argue against them and persuade others of their falsehood). That type of weak atheist would be practically indistinguishable from a strong atheist. The only difference one would notice between them is that one says he lacks belief in God while the other says he believes God does not exist – a purely nominal difference in self-description. And of course there is a spectrum of interest in God claims between the two extremes that I’ve described.

I think the position of ‘agnostic’ you’re describing is close to the ‘searcher’ side of weak atheism. Someone who is ‘uncertain’ and ‘open-minded’ about a claim is basically saying that while they lack belief in the claim, they are interested in investigating the evidence for and against. That would be a ‘searcher’ weak atheist. I’m more on the side of no interest, the ‘practical strong atheist’. I wouldn’t call myself a strong atheist though, because I’m not completely uninterested in believing claims of God, just mostly uninterested and generally resistant. I suspect oreso is close to this position as well (?)

As to why I am uninterested and resistant to believing in God: I find it to be of little use and largely harmful to me. Others may find it useful to them to believe, and perhaps I find it useful that they believe to maintain the moral and social order. But it is impossible to form our beliefs purely on the basis of ‘facts’ or ‘evidence’, because facts are always informed and interpreted by our present beliefs. Therefore we make estimates, guesses, about which beliefs help and hurt. We try things and see how they go. I tried theism and atheism and I prefer atheism. If that’s ‘irrational’ then so be it. Fundamentally, science and life in general are about trying things and seeing how they go, then making educated guesses from the experience about where to go next.

ok then. lets not use the word atheist anymore.

3. I believe ~God

that position (which some might just simply call atheism) is either irrational or has found some factual evidence disproving the theory ive given above.

all people who may or may not call themselves whatever words they feel like, and who believe that god doesnt exist any slight bit more than you beleive that he does, i want to know your reasons, whether they are irrational or not, whether or not they take into account all of the specifics of the theory ive given.

because i think its wrong to believe that god doesnt exist just as much as its wrong to beleive that he does. because there is NO rational evidence either way. if you disagree, lets hear it

I gave two others too: hedonism and one from an evolutionary standpoint. Im from the evolutionary stand myself, i think our ethical instincts are derived from survival instincts designed to promote the self, the family and the species (as the genetic pool widens, its priority shrinks). There are some complications of course, but i wont bore you unless you wanna start a new topic or something.

Future Man

Thats not how i do my epistomology. I reject all beliefs without evidence, and this state is called atheism when it regards the belief in God.

I think the disagreement here is connotation more than anything. Agnosticism and Atheism are entirely compatible in practise (as neither considers God in daily life, but both could still be open to arguments for God’s existence).

FM, please read my edit above. My point is that since there are no facts outside of a particular worldview/set of beliefs/interpretation, all we can do is try different hypotheses, different ways of living guided by different sets of beliefs, and see which of them we prefer. If that’s irrational, well then there’s no such thing as rational under the sun.

I don’t see what good your theory is. Why should I care about it or consider it? What good will it do me?

“Not God” is not something you can believe in. “Not-God exists” is a silly statement.

Hows about this:
You can only believe things exist, or that they are the case, etc. ie. Belief can only be positive.

Just as the opposite of existence is non-existence, the opposite of belief is lack of belief, not some kind of negative belief.

The rest of it is merely an attitude to the belief, but doesnt change the belief itself.

So, “I believe god doesnt exist” is just “I dont believe god exists” but with added addendum “and I dont think its likely either”.