Challenge for Atheists

[TheJackel]

Is it possible for the God of the Bible to reveal things to us in such a way that we can know them for certain?

No; the "God of the Bible" does not exist, therefore it is imposslible for it to reveal anything to anyone.

I will ask a simple layman question: How do you know the 'God of the Bible' does not exist?

If you say it's Omnipotent, it surely doesn't exist. It's a literal impossible self-contradiction. It's like saying a non-existing object exists when it doesn't exist. And one can not create that which one's self requires to exist. It can't create consciousness for example. It can't create a place for itself to exist in (it's own container) either, or what it's made of. it requires information just as much as we do in order to even know that itself exists, or to do anything like make choices or decisions.. It seems you need to me more clear on what you define as a GOD. Is it being more powerful, or being more intelligent than you are?  I keep hearing that "Knowledge is Power", and yet those that are slave to require it, and be in need of it are magically GOD's?..

I would agree that knowledge is powerful, but those that require it are powerless without it. Entities are not GOD's, and never will be.

[karadan]

The God of the Bible is all-knowing and all-powerful. Could this God, if He exists, reveal (show/tell/give) things (knowledge/info) to us in such a way that we could know (understand/believe) it for certain (100%)?

Nor have you shown how it is only your god's "existence" that enables us to have knowledge.  I've noticed that deer don't run off cliffs thinking they can fly.  Would you do so if you were an atheist?

I didn't think so.

That was wonderful.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I will ask a simple layman question: How do you know the 'God of the Bible' does not exist?

While I don't "know", the dearth of evidence is certainly telling.

[Asmodean]

I will ask a simple layman question: How do you know the 'God of the Bible' does not exist?

Because that is the default viewpoint. Because in nature, all gods I have ever heard of, including Yahweh the Nasty Overjew, are unnecessary. Unnecessary AND with no proof AT ALL to support their existence means that they don't exist. The certainty of that is not absolute, of course, but still very reasonable.

[elliebean]

Is it possible for the God of the Bible to reveal things to us in such a way that we can know them for certain?

No; the "God of the Bible" does not exist, therefore it is imposslible for it to reveal anything to anyone.

I will ask a simple layman question: How do you know the 'God of the Bible' does not exist?

Probably the same way you know that the gods of the pantheon don't exist.

[Whitney]

God, as described in the Bible, can't exist because the stories don't match with reality/history.  In order to come up with a plausible Bible god you have to consider a lot of the bible to simply be stories meant to teach a lesson rather than accurate accounts of god's actions....and then you are practically a deist by the time you are done!

[Achronos]

I will ask a simple layman question: How do you know the 'God of the Bible' does not exist?

Because that is the default viewpoint. Because in nature, all gods I have ever heard of, including Yahweh the Nasty Overjew, are unnecessary. Unnecessary AND with no proof AT ALL to support their existence means that they don't exist. The certainty of that is not absolute, of course, but still very reasonable.

I don't think that viewpoint can be so defined until later in life. One who is born can't merely reject God and of what grounds? I could say to you my default view was God does exist. My proof as a child? Look around you.

The problem I have whenever someone says they don't have to prove God doesn't exist, well that is fallacy because you would make a positive claim about the existence of God; He doesn't exist.

God, as described in the Bible, can't exist because the stories don't match with reality/history.  In order to come up with a plausible Bible god you have to consider a lot of the bible to simply be stories meant to teach a lesson rather than accurate accounts of god's actions....and then you are practically a deist by the time you are done!

Doesn't match with 'reality/history', please explain further.

[Asmodean]

I don't think that viewpoint can be so defined until later in life. One who is born can't merely reject God and of what grounds?

One who is in no way familiar with the concept of god, does not believe in it. We are all born atheists. Apatheists, actually, since newborns tend not to care much about the divine... Or oil prices... Or anything outside their immediate surroundings which has no direct influence on their food, warmth nd safety supply.

I could say to you my default view was God does exist. My proof as a child? Look around you.

You attributed existence to some magical alpha male in the sky..? Why..? You could have just kept it simple and said "I have no idea why a tree is a tree" until you had the knowledge and understanding required to make a better statement.

By the way, a child's position is rarely the default, since we tend to start as pretty blank sheets to be filled with all kinds of crap throughout our lives... And the "crap" is at its most influential when we are young.

The problem I have whenever someone says they don't have to prove God doesn't exist, well that is fallacy because you would make a positive claim about the existence of God; He doesn't exist.

This here CAN under certain circumstances be a good point, however, in debating me in particular, you will not hear a statement "god does not exist" unless you state or strongly imply otherwise first. Basically, if you say "(a certain) god exists", I'll say "I don't think so". Then, it is up to you to prove its existence. I WILL, however, state that a god, as described in the Bible, does not exist because it can not.

In general, the burden of proof is on the believers regardless of the wording of the opposition though. Gods are an unnecessary concept in our day and age. They explain nothing without heavy usage of imagination and bring about more questions and suppositions than is healthy. Their existence is hypothetical to such a degree, that it can be called fictitious. As such, it's up to those who believe to prove otherwise.

For instance, you can say you don't believe in dark matter. Without an advanced physics degree, who could blame you?! And the burden of proof would lie with those who do. However, if you dispute a standing scientific fact or a massively supported theory, like gravity, evolution or Ohm's Law, however, THEN you would sit with the burden of proof to a negative claim.

[Achronos]

One who is in no way familiar with the concept of god, does not believe in it. We are all born atheists. Apatheists, actually, since newborns tend not to care much about the divine... Or oil prices... Or anything outside their immediate surroundings which has no direct influence on their food, warmth nd safety supply.

I would side with you on saying apatheism would be the better term, but is it so much as 'care' than it is the actual thought that would cross their own mind? Therefore they couldn't care about something with which they have no thought of.

You attributed existence to some magical alpha male in the sky..? Why..? You could have just kept it simple and said "I have no idea why a tree is a tree" until you had the knowledge and understanding required to make a better statement.

By the way, a child's position is rarely the default, since we tend to start as pretty blank sheets to be filled with all kinds of crap throughout our lives... And the "crap" is at its most influential when we are young.

There's this old saying: "An eccentric professor, thinking to have some fun with a small boy who was reading a Sunday school paper, said to him, “Tell me, my good boy, where God is, and I will give you an apple.”
The boy quickly looked up at the man and replied, “I will give you a whole barrel of apples if you tell me where He is not.”

All the terms used in the science books,"law," "necessity," "order," "tendency," and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm," "spell," "enchantment." They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way I can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.

This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales, because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. I have said that this is wholly reasonable and even agnostic. And, indeed, on this point I am all for the higher agnosticism; its better name is Ignorance. We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is.  Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.  Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are.  All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

But though (like the man without memory in the novel) we walk the streets with a sort of half-witted admiration, still it is admiration. It is admiration in English and not only admiration in Latin. The wonder has a positive element of praise. This is the next milestone to be definitely marked on our road through fairyland. Optimists and pessimists in their intellectual aspect, so far as they have one.  Here I am only trying to describe the enormous emotions which cannot be described. And the strongest emotion was that life was as precious as it was puzzling. It was an ecstasy because it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an opportunity.  The goodness of the fairy tale was not affected by the fact that there might be more dragons than princesses; it was good to be in a fairy tale.  The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom.  Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?

I WILL, however, state that a god, as described in the Bible, does not exist because it can not.

What leads you to this conclusion?

For instance, you can say you don't believe in dark matter. Without an advanced physics degree, who could blame you?! And the burden of proof would lie with those who do. However, if you dispute a standing scientific fact or a massively supported theory, like gravity, evolution or Ohm's Law, however, THEN you would sit with the burden of proof to a negative claim.

Dark matter and dark energy are fascinating, just the mere observation that our universe is accelerating its expansion. God created a universe so large that it would take a person between 200 and 500 billion years to travel around the universe at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). He created the world out of atoms so small that it would take the whole population of the world 180 million years to count the atoms in a cup of water, counting at one per second. If you were in a bit of a hurry you could count at two per second and only take 90 million years.

It's stuff like that which creates such an amazing sense of humility.

[Asmodean]

I would side with you on saying apatheism would be the better term, but is it so much as 'care' than it is the actual thought that would cross their own mind? Therefore they couldn't care about something with which they have no thought of.

An apatheist is per definition an atheist - as is someone who has never been introduced to the concept of god and has not come to a conclusion based on that. Atheism does not imply conscious rejection of the divine.

There's this old saying: "An eccentric professor, thinking to have some fun with a small boy who was reading a Sunday school paper, said to him, “Tell me, my good boy, where God is, and I will give you an apple.”
The boy quickly looked up at the man and replied, “I will give you a whole barrel of apples if you tell me where He is not.”

The kid disregarded the burden of proof, like most religious types do.

All the terms used in the science books,"law," "necessity," "order," "tendency," and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess.

Scientists assume, but do not present their assumptions as truth. Religious types do. A scientific fact, for instance, is a very difficult thing to intelligently dispute, as is a theory which is out of its infancy.

The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm," "spell," "enchantment." They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.

Sorry, which mystery are we talking about..?   Your description of how science - or scientists work is extremely inaccurate... To the point of ridicule, in fact.

This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales, because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement.

A child is programmed to believe what authority figures tell it. It was once, and often still is, the only way for the kid to survive and in nature, survival is the ultimate ideology.

These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. I have said that this is wholly reasonable and even agnostic. And, indeed, on this point I am all for the higher agnosticism; its better name is Ignorance. We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is.  Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

No. Not many people have forgotten who they are. Many people have simply not found their place in the world.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are.  All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

I'm sorry, but what exactly is the base for all this gibberish? No offence - it is pleasant to read, after all - but still..? How do you justify what you have just said?

But though (like the man without memory in the novel) we walk the streets with a sort of half-witted admiration, still it is admiration. It is admiration in English and not only admiration in Latin. The wonder has a positive element of praise. This is the next milestone to be definitely marked on our road through fairyland. Optimists and pessimists in their intellectual aspect, so far as they have one.  Here I am only trying to describe the enormous emotions which cannot be described. And the strongest emotion was that life was as precious as it was puzzling. It was an ecstasy because it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an opportunity.  The goodness of the fairy tale was not affected by the fact that there might be more dragons than princesses; it was good to be in a fairy tale.  The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom.  Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?

On and on and on we go... Were I not at work, I'd pick it apart sentence by sentence. Overall though, why not send a thanks-card to mom and dad for having sex your age plus nine months ago..? As for legs, thank your genes and your govertnment for not placing too many landmines outside your door. And that cab driver for not running you over... And evolution for not giving you fins in stead...  

What leads you to this conclusion?

The attributes of such a god being mutually exclusive for starters.

For instance, you can say you don't believe in dark matter. Without an advanced physics degree, who could blame you?! And the burden of proof would lie with those who do. However, if you dispute a standing scientific fact or a massively supported theory, like gravity, evolution or Ohm's Law, however, THEN you would sit with the burden of proof to a negative claim.

Dark matter and dark energy are fascinating, just the mere observation that our universe is accelerating its expansion. God created a universe so large that it would take a person between 200 and 500 billion years to travel around the universe at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). He created the world out of atoms so small that it would take the whole population of the world 180 million years to count the atoms in a cup of water, counting at one per second. If you were in a bit of a hurry you could count at two per second and only take 90 million years.

It's stuff like that which creates such an amazing sense of humility.

It's stuff like burden of proof that you completely disregard. You have made a ton of claims without substantiating but one.

[Inevitable Droid]

You have not explained to me how you know anything for certain. Please tell me anything you know for certain and how you know it to be certain.

I've decided to go back to what seems to be the underlying thought that started this thread; I.e., the notion that certainty is impossible, or is impossible without God, presumably such that, certainty of God's non-existence is impossible, or, certainty about anything is impossible except as grounded in revelation.  

I am 100% certain of nothing except that I perceive, think, emote, lust, and decide.  All else that I take for granted is either of a high probability but less than 100%, or else is accepted for reasons of utility and/or sanity.  Nothing in the plain fact that I perceive, think, emote, lust, and decide, logically necessitates God, nor do I perceive God, and so I have no reason to associate God's agency with the very limited range of phenomena, about which I can claim certainty.

As for taking things for granted if they have a high probability, I am comfortable with doing so, just as I am comfortable with taking things for granted for reasons of utility and/or sanity.

Alleged revelation will never do me any good because I will never attribute any event, however tremendous or unprecedented, as deriving from that which, not of nature, is author's nature, my definition for God.  Never.  No matter how tremendous or unprecedented.

The impossibility of being certain of God's non-existence doesn't bother me in the least.  That which, not of nature, is author's nature, is on principle unknowable to me, because my senses, and any technological sensing devices I might employ, can only probe nature.  That which is on principle unknowable to me, I reject on principle as having any legitimacy as a premise or assumption.

[Persimmon Hamster]

As others have noted, the OP has not made any more posts (anywhere) since the first 1.5 hours after starting this thread.  Hit and run!

that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.

Not that it matters, but through this paragraph, I shed all the respect you have managed to build with me over the course of your last posts   Your description of how science - or scientists work is extremely inaccurate... To the point of ridicule, in fact.

I felt the same way in "Faith is the Issue" when he said this about evolution:

...unless we have some doctrine of a divine man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution may turn them into uses. It will be easy for the scientific plutocrat to maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants will invoke the future evolution has produced the snail and the owl; evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, and no more light than an owl. The racist white employer need not mind sending a black to work underground; he will soon become an underground animal, like a mole. He need not mind sending a diver to hold his breath in the deep seas; he will soon be a deep-sea animal. Men need not trouble to alter conditions, conditions will so soon alter men. The head can be beaten small enough to fit the hat. Do not knock the fetters off the slave; knock the slave until he forgets the fetters.

[LegendarySandwich]

Is it possible for the God of the Bible to reveal things to us in such a way that we can know them for certain?

No; the "God of the Bible" does not exist, therefore it is imposslible for it to reveal anything to anyone.

I will ask a simple layman question: How do you know the 'God of the Bible' does not exist?

How do you know He exists?

[Achronos]

I am 100% certain of nothing except that I perceive, think, emote, lust, and decide.

Whilst this is true, but the discernment into what is good and bad also come into play.

[Asmodean]

Whilst this is true, but the discernment into what is good and bad also come into play.

Eh..? Good and bad are so imperfect constructs that it's not always a certainty which is which, even on a personal level.