Is the FACT that no God/god ever communicates with humans evidence that no God/god exists?

by Disillusioned JW 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Disillusioned JW

  PaddyTheBaddy (and others), I use the philosophical arguments in disproof of the existence of a god in forums in which there are those who believe in the existence of a god partly due to philosophical arguments.There are many Christians who are convinced that God does answer prayers (not just their own prayers, but anyone's prayers). Telling them the argument of divine hiddenness might help some of them to realize that a personal god does not exist.

  My motivations are likely similar to those of Thomas Paine in regards to why he wrote the Age of Reason (except he believed in a deistic god and hoped for an afterlife, though he did not belief everyone receives an afterlife) and why Victor J. Stenger wrote his books which promote atheism. I also appreciate that Richard Dawkins wrote his The God Delusion book. Interestingly Dawkins' book has become extremely popular in Arabic speaking countries, so much so that Dawkins decided to give away free downloads of his book in Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and Indonesian.

  See https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/20/richard-dawkins-to-give-away-copies-of-the-god-delusion-in-islamic-countries . It says the following.

  'Richard Dawkins is responding to what he called the “stirring towards atheism” in some Islamic countries with a programme to make free downloads of his books available in Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and Indonesian.

  The scientist and atheist said he was “greatly encouraged” to learn that the unofficial Arabic pdf of the book had been downloaded 13m times. Dawkins writes in The God Delusion about his wish that the “open-minded people” who read it will “break free of the vice of religion altogether”. It has sold 3.3m copies worldwide since it was published in 2006 – far fewer than the number of Arabic copies that Dawkins believes to have been downloaded illegally.'

  In addition to the above quote please see https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/03/13/translators-aim-bring-richard-dawkinss-books-atheism-evolution-muslim-audience/ . It says the following.

  '... a group of translators wants to get Dawkins’s books in front of a new group of religious readers: Muslim readers, in Muslim-majority countries where atheism is rare.

  “If you get enough people to talk about these ideas, if you convince people it’s okay to think about religion, to criticize religion — if you get a critical mass of people, you can probably change something, change the situation in these countries. … It’s a bit ambitious, but maybe not impossible,” said Jana Lenzova, director of the translation project. “I don’t mind what other people are, but I think they should have access to all the information so they can make up their own minds.”

  ... The translation project was Dawkins’s idea, inspired, he said, by two conversations he had — with a man who had translated “The God Delusion” into Arabic and claimed his illicit work was downloaded even more times than the number of copies the English bestseller sold and with a woman in Saudi Arabia who left her faith, her family and her country after reading the book.'
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  Disillusioned JW

  In chapter one of Victor Stenger's book called GOD: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist, the very first argument he uses is under the heading of "Lack of Evidence". In that section he says the following.

  "... as we saw in the preface, the overwhelming majority of prominent American scientists has concluded that God does not exist. If God exists, where is he? Philosopher Theodore Drange has termed this the lack-of-evidence-argument, .... Stenger later says that "... the very existence existence of nonbelievers in the world who have not resisted such belief [in God] is evidence against his existence. The problem of divine hiddenness is one that has taxed the abilities of theologians over the years--almost as much as the problem of evil ...."

  Chapter 9 of the book is called "Possible and Impossible Gods" and one section of it has the heading of "The Hiddeness Problem". In that section Stenger refers to the hiddenness problem in the form of the argument stated in handouts by Schellenberg. At the end of the section Stenger says the following.

  "The hiddenness problem relates most directly to the scientific arguments I have presented. If the theist attempts to refute my conclusions by claiming that God intentionally hides himself from us, then that God cannot be the personal, perfect loving God of liberal Christianity. However, there is another brand of Christian God." The very next statement in the chapter is the heading called "The Hideous Hidden God of Evangelical Christianity". In that section he paraphrases the statement of an evangelical (named Jeff Cook) as saying "...God does not wish to spend eternity with all human souls, but only the chosen few who, by blind faith in absence of all evidence, accept a Jewish carpenter who may or may not have lived two thousand years ago as their personal savior." The last paragraph of that section (and also of the chapter) says the following.

  "The existence of the Catholic, evangelical, extreme Muslim, extreme Judaic God who hides himself from all but a selected elite cannot be totally ruled out. All I can say is that we have not one iota of evidence that he exists and, if he does exist, I personally want nothing to do with him. This is a possible god, but a hideous one."

  To me, Stenger's GOD: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist book makes a vastly stronger case against believing in God than Dawkins' The God Delusion book.
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  PaddyTheBaddy

  In chapter one of Victor Stenger's book called GOD: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist, the very first argument he uses is under the heading of "Lack of Evidence". In that section he says the following.
  "... as we saw in the preface, the overwhelming majority of prominent American scientists has concluded that God does not exist. If God exists, where is he? Philosopher Theodore Drange has termed this the lack-of-evidence-argument, .... Stenger later says that "... the very existence existence of nonbelievers in the world who have not resisted such belief [in God] is evidence against his existence. The problem of divine hiddenness is one that has taxed the abilities of theologians over the years--almost as much as the problem of evil ...."

  Just because someone is a non believer at one point in time doesn't mean he or she is destined to an eternity of disbelief. Tom didn't believe until he got some blood on his hands. Maybe there is a time and a place for non resistant unbelievers to get what the are looking for.

  It doesn't surprise me that most scientists don't believe in the existence of God especially if this is primarily due to a lack of scientific evidence proving his existence. Science looks to understand the workings of the material world and everything in it. It can't make any definitive statements about anything non material which may or may not exist, for the simple reason that it doesn't have access to anything outside of the material world.

  If the material world has always existed, (that means it's eternal in the past) in one form or another, that solves the problem and science potentially will be able to explain everything. If however, matter hasn't existed eternally and came into existence, then it potentially came from a non material source. Matter can't bring matter into existence if it doesn't exist. This doesn't get you to God but it does get you to a non material reality.

  So God isn't the explanation for why the apple fell from the tree, science can tell you that. God is the potential explanation for why the apple and tree exist in the first place.
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  Disillusioned JW

  Energy can bring matter into existence and such happens. It happens by the energy 'condensing' into matter. Einstein's theory which includes the equation of E=mc2 says such and the aspect of energy converting into matter has been verified in scientific experiments. When atomic particles are accelerated to velocities near that of light, it has been observed that the particles gain mass. Not only that, but in 2014 scientists discovered how to turn pure energy into matter! See the new article at https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrodgers/2014/05/19/einstein-was-right-you-can-turn-energy-into-matter/ . The proposed process involves the smashing of photons of light together to produce electrons and a positrons. In 2021 the conversion of light directly into matter was achieved in a science experiment! See the news article at https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-generate-matter-directly-from-light-physics-phenomena-predicted-more-than-80-years-ago/ which says the following.

  "The primary finding is that pairs of electrons and positrons—particles of matter and antimatter—can be created directly by colliding very energetic photons, which are quantum “packets” of light. This conversion of energetic light into matter is a direct consequence of Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation, which states that energy and matter (or mass) are interchangeable. Nuclear reactions in the sun and at nuclear power plants regularly convert matter into energy. Now scientists have converted light energy directly into matter in a single step."

  The article says that a prior experiment, using a different method, also converted photons into matter. Regarding that experiment the article says the following.

  "One experiment at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in 1997 succeeded by using a nonlinear process. Scientists there first had to boost the energy of the photons in one laser beam by colliding it with a powerful electron beam. Collisions of the boosted photons with multiple photons simultaneously in an enormous electromagnetic field created by another laser produced matter and antimatter."
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  waton

  Energy can bring matter into existence and such happens. DJW

  IT DOES NOT JUST HAPPEN, THESE GREAT CONVERSATIONS HAPPEN IN INGENIOUSLY CONCEIVED SET UPS.

  WHAT MAKES YOU BELIEVE THE ENERGY TO MATTER EVENT, THE BIG BEGINNANG WAS DIFFERENT?
  sorry for the cap lock.
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  Zilgee

  Who told God does not communicate now? Governing Body keeps telling they know God's plans like destroying everyone at Armageddon etc etc. How will they not know if God did not communicate to them?
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  Disillusioned JW

  waton, 'those setups', as you refer them,were done ingeniously in order to overcome the fact that humans don't have access to the mind boggling amount of energy that existed at the Big Bang. But the experiment lend support to the cosmological scientific theory in reference to the very early stage of the universe. Before the Big Bang, there existed energy, perhaps as a singularity. Immediately after the Big Bag or during the Big Bang some of that energy transformed into subatomic matter and thus brought matter into existence.
  
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  Nephilim87

  What evidence were you looking for from God after you prayed? How about His word for evidence.
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  Disillusioned JW

  [Correction: In my post from a year earlier, on page three of this topic thread, where I said "There are many Christians who are convinced that God does answer prayers (not just their own prayers, but anyone's prayers)" I think I meant to say "There are many Christians who are convinced that God does not answer prayers (not just their own prayers, but anyone's prayers)".]

  Hello Nephilim87. I was raised from infancy as a JW, became baptized as a JW while I was an underage teen, was a regular pioneer for nearly 3 full years, was a ministerial servant for several years, and even gave some 45 minute long Sunday Public Talks in a Kingdom Hall. In about the year 2000 or 2001 I had major doubts about the WT and the JW religion and was burned out from the routine of the religion. I thus choose to become inactive as a JW (other than attending the Memorial and local JW assemblies and conventions for several years). That provided me with much more free time. I used much of that additional free time to read the entire Bible (and to study much of it), including the Apocryphal books found in the Bible canons of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Slavic Orthodox churches. I read all of it. I also read much of the book of Jubilees (it is part of the Bible of the Ethiopic Orthodox Church), all of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, portions of other Gnostic gospels, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and other books. To some degree I also increased my knowledge of of what scientists say pertaining to evolution.
  

  Reading the Bible, and studying it carefully in a critical manner, contributed greatly to me ceasing to believe in Jehovah. That is because I noticed numerous problems in the Bible. Learning certain things (from a person in an online forum) about how the geologic record clearly disproves certain key things about the Genesis chapter one creation account and of the Genesis account of 'Noah's' flood convinced me that Jehovah/YHWH God did not inspire those accounts or other parts of the Bible. That along with earlier numerous things I had learned caused me to cease believing in the existence of Jehovah/YHWH God. What I learned of the geologic record also convinced me that Jesus was wrong to believe in the Genesis flood account and in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, and that thus Jesus (whom the gospel book called "According to John" says made everything other than himself and God the Father) was not the son of God and not Christ.

  Regarding the question of what evidence I was looking for from God after I prayed, I left it in God's figurative hands (if he existed) to reveal the evidence to me, evidence of a kind which he knew (if he existed) would convince me. I never became convinced again of his existence, nor did I become convinced that some other kind of God, such as a deistic god, exists.

  But years later, for a number of days I was very nearly convinced that a deistic creator god exists (but not the biblical God nor any other alleged theistic God), due to me reading a book which I found out the WT had quoted form extensively in their Is There a Creator Who Cares About You? book (for a number of quotes of scientists). [I learned of the book as result of me making an intense concerted effort (after I had become an atheist) to discover the sources for the all of the quotes of scientists mentioned in the WT's Creator book (First Printing, copyright 1998).] The book is called Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God (Wonders, 1), by Fred Heeren, and the WT quoted form the First Edition of the book (copyright 1995 or 1997). It is written by a science journalist who is convinced of the Big Bang theory and now also of biological evolution (with the biblical God playing a role in the process) and he also evangelizes for Christianity and he digs up fossils. The book interviews multiple scientists. The latter part of his book argues for evangelical Christianity. The WT does not mention the name of the book nor its author in the WT's Creator book. You might like the book. I seriously considered buying a copy of the latest revised edition of his book.

  The book by Heeren severely shook my confidence in atheism and in scientific naturalism. I later regained my confidence in atheism and in scientific naturalism after I carefully read and studied certain scientific articles pertaining to the Big Bang and the rapid inflationary phase of the early universe, and as what existed before the Bang. One of the articles is published in Discover magazine. Other major factors which helped to me to regain my confidence were somethings I read in books by Victor Stenger regarding how an expanding universe makes room for localized order to come about despite the total entropy of the universe increasing.
  

  I discovered the WT's Creator book quotes from a number of books authored by scientists who are Christians making intelligent design arguments in support of belief in God, and that in a few of those books the scientists also promote evangelical Christianity.
  
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  road to nowhere

  It brings me to an indifferent or ? god. There is "stuff" in the universe. Was it always there, or made, and who,what,why. If someone made the stuff, who made the maker? If condensed energy where did it come from?