also OP, if you're still about, get your chops around this:

Some of us deeper characters measure our level of success against more than a material yardstick of how many zeroes display on our screen when we check our bank balance or what college we attended.

Namely: not acting like a complete D-bag is very important, and by violating this unwritten code of conduct, you are overtly betraying the fact that you are actually not very successful at all, in the eyes of those who care about more than money and wealth.

Wow, it appears you removed your post, lew189. Anyways, I certainly haven't said that there definitely isn't a god - I've said I don't know. You have been saying that you 'know' there is/was a creator, over my objections.

Regarding the 'agnostic' question, sure, I'm an agnostic. I'm also an atheist. You're far from the first person on this forum to assume the two positions are mutually exclusive, and I have no doubt you won't be the last.

Very few, if any (Deorum?) atheist posters here claim either to know or to believe that there is no god. The standard position is absence of belief in a god.

You are basically defining "God" as Aristotle does as the Prime or First Mover. That is, as a result of certain metaphysical and physical beliefs, Aristotle postulated the existence of an initial cause (not in a temporal sense) to the universe. Later Christian philosophy identified this first mover as God (in Aquinas's phrase, "And this all men call God).

However, most educated atheists and agnostics (and, for that matter, theists) today reject the metaphysical and physical beliefs that led Aristotle to postulate an initial cause. Thus, the motivation for a belief in a first cause to the universe has largely gone away. Christians who continue to assert that there is such a first cause are usually relying on an outmoded metaphysical framework.

Of course, if you do continue to accept this framework, the step from an initial cause to the God asserted by Aquinas is as suspect as ever. That is, "God" as some force (like gravity?) is a very different picture from God as some discrete anthropomorphic entity. If you are defining God as the Tillichian "Ground of All Being," then fine, many atheists will end up also believing in God. But so what? How is gravity a comfort?

On the other hand, if your ground for faith in God is pragmatic, then fine, but I don't see the point of trying to convince atheists they are wrong. Seems like you should avoid places like this forum where your beliefs will be challenged. After all, you don't believe that God exists because you think it is true, you only believe that life is better if you believe that God exists. So you should really try to avoid intellectual discussion of this topic.

pretty much the only quote i'll ever need when it comes to questions of God:

"I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and in many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me." - Richard Feynman

I am not trying to convince atheists they are wrong, only that they are wrong to call themselves atheists. They should be calling themselves agnostic because they don't have a clue if God exists or not and it is disingenuous to say otherwise.

And, by the way, why don't you take a look at the title of the OP and the comments made by the OP in this thread and then ask yourself if an "intellectual discussion" is what is going on here. Thanks for the tip on what topics I should avoid, though.

That is an interesting quote.

It reminds me of the time I took my son to see the original Fantasia. We were watching the demon scene with the music from Night on Bald Mountain. He was around 5 years old and he leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I am not afraid of that big guy."

Obviously, if he had never said anything I would not have thought he was afraid.

A troll is a troll, and not to be used as a yardstick of legitimate posters. Any case, take a look at the responses OP received from legit atheists. Take a look at what the one legit poster (einbert) who sided with OP ended up doing (flouncing off in a huff after making a fool of himself).

I only read the first few pages, so forgive me if I'm repeating what's already been said.
Comparing belief in fairies to belief in God doesn't work at all as a reason to withhold belief in God. Beliefs are held (hopefully) because they best explain a given set of data, and belief in fairies explains nothing, while belief in God may explain quite a bit.
Note that some of these arguments are better than others, some may appeal to certain people, some may not, and all of them require an explanation (which, if you use the search function, I'm sure you'll find somewhere in this forum). I do not think they are all rock-solid; however, they certainly make it unlikely that theism is intellectual suicide, as the OP is so confident it is.
God is the best explanation for the universe.
God is the best explanation for life.
God is the best explanation for information.
God is the best explanation for apparent moral judgments.
God is the best explanation for aesthetic judgments.
God is the best explanation for the ability to have any epistemic certainty.

There are others that do not follow the 'best explanation' road; the most well-known would be the Ontological Argument, which is very misunderstood these days. It works well as an argument for the non-contingency of God, which, given other arguments, works in favor of theism. There are arguments related to religious experience, miracles, and so on.
I'm not going to explain each of these arguments here. This post is simply intended to do away with the ridiculous idea that theists are inherently stupid. Some are. Some believe in God simply because they were told to. However, there are good arguments for the existence of God.

Theism is not intellectual suicide.

Also, your arguments that theists are unintelligent are almost completely circular.

Why do you care what atheists call themselves? You don't even manage to say what God is. On your account to say that God exists looks about as meaningful as to say that x (i.e. a variable) exists.

Nope. This thread has not exhibited much of an intellectual discussion, so maybe it is safe for you here.

Agreed.

OK, then, I guess I will get into my personal beliefs, which I intentionally tried to avoid. I do believe in an omniscient being or force who is responsible for the creation of the origin and who may or may not actively participate in the events that have taken place since the creation of that origin. I believe that there are literally thousands of arguments to support this theory and that there are, by comparison, very few compelling arguments to support the claim that God does not exist.


Be nice. I don't think it makes me a bad guy or an idiot to believe what I do and I'm not here to troll or be a dick. I apologize if I've come off that way. I'm here because I found the title of the thread offensive and wanted to say so.

Why don't you tell me about what you believe?

The point about atheists on this site is a good one and deserves to be acknowledged. The overwhelming response from the atheist posters showed a lot of integrity and was appreciated.

But see, this means that when you say that you believe God exists, you mean something much more specific than Tillich's "Ground of All Being" or Aristotle's First Mover. Atheists are claiming the being or force that you are referring to doesn't exist. As for whether something else that neither you or anyone else is referring to by "God" exists, well...huh?

As for thousands of arguments...I agree that they exist. Unfortunately all the ones I've seen are bad or inconclusive.


Fair enough. I apologize for being rude.
You should be more specific.

LOL so you think Richard Feyman was afraid? He was asked about god and was responding to why most people find it necessary to believe in god.

So now you get to make up what people mean when they answer such questions and project your own fears onto them? Sweet.

I agree wholeheartedly that the God that most people talk about and read about in the Bible does not exist. I do believe, though, that there is a powerful force that created the origin and set in motion the course of events that have led us to today, with some kind of plan. I can't say if this force just set things in motion or was actively involved in shaping the expansion of the universe and evolution. I guess what bothers me about the term "atheism" is that it rejects the possibility that my view is possible. Maybe I'm just being childishly protective of my own opinion. That's possible and wouldn't be completely out of character.


I guess I'm just asking what you would throw out there as a plausible theory that would explain the origin and the series of events that we're familiar with (eg-big bang, evolution, etc.) throughout the history of the universe (or multiverse, if that's your bag, lol.)

No, it doesn't. This will be the third time I've told you this ITT. Please at least acknowledge the statement, whether you agree or not.

Uh, yes it does.

"In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities."- wiki.

OK, I acknowledge your statement and I disagree with it. I think that by calling yourself atheist, you are saying God doesn't exist. Why don't you just own up to that or, preferably, call yourself agnostic? You want to have it both ways and call yourself both for some reason that is beyond my comprehension, despite the fact that the word agnostic is a much better fit for what you claim your belief is. OK?

In a narrower sense than what, Gunth? Than the one being applied here?

Thank you, come again!

I am an agnostic because I claim no knowledge of the (non-)existence of god.

I am an atheist because I profess no belief in a god.

I am getting tired of pointing out that the two conditions are not mutually exclusive.

No AIF, it is not holding no belief in God that makes someone an atheist, it is rejecting the possibility that God exists.

Uhhh...you say that atheism is icky because you don't want people to say they know that your views are wrong, then when AIF points out that many atheists don't say that, you complain because they aren't saying it?

Bet?

I don't know what your God is, so I can't very well say that I believe it does not exist. What I can say is that I do not have any beliefs about it, including whether it exists--since I don't know what it is.
You want me to say that I believe in the big-bang and evolution? Okay. I do.

LOL what?

Is this the new thing you guys do now when you can't prove someone wrong. You make them wager on something in regards to God because you know they won't do it? If i am wrong just prove me wrong.