Any atheists here? Have you come to terms with your new reality? (page 5)

James Mixon

Thanks cofty. I just read about your remission on a five year post, that's great!!!

JRK

Life is a lot better without god, than when he was crammed down my throat. You just have to get used to it.

JK

slimboyfat

He never said God couldn't tell him anything, in fact, the man in the video said that he couldn't tell God anything about himself that God didn't already know. (If God really is omniscient.)

Yes that's what he said. Which presumes that because he "knows" that he himself doesn't believe in things for convenience, therefore it is a "fact" about himself, and that any God would also "know" the exact same thing.

It's as if the possibility simply hasn't occurred to him that it could be otherwise. He can't conceive that he could genuinely think that his beliefs are objective, and not based on wishful thinking, and yet he be wrong about that. It's as if he's never considered that his views may be based on wishful thinking on a level which he has not appreciated or perhaps is not able to appreciate. It's as if he thinks that God, even if he exists, couldn't possibly have a greater insight into his mind than he has about his own mind.

What if he were to say to God:
I never believed in you, but you know me God, I arrived at my beliefs honestly and never believed anything just because it was easy, but because that's the conclusion I honestly came to. You can't fault me for that God.
And God replied:
Well actually those beliefs performed this or that function in your overall worldview and enabled you to do this and that while believing yourself to be consistent. You may have believed you were acting objectively but you were fooling yourself in this way and for the following reasons.

Or indeed if God gave some other reply which contradicted his understanding of himself in some important way which we can't even imagine or begin to sketch out. Maybe not, but if it's almighty God we are talking about here, can we really rule out the possibility of a surprising or informative reply?

In reality there is a mountain of evidence that humans are extremely poor judges of their own motivation and limitations of their own knowledge. There is a deep irony involved in the fact that it is often those who claim to be the most ardent rationalists who are most reluctant to accept the clear and voluminous evidence for the frailty and limitations of the human mind.

slimboyfat

It's as if some people have simply never encountered surprises in life or have never read literature or even watched a good movie.

How often does it happen, even in mundane every day situations where: you think you've got everything worked out. You know all the details. You've thought about all the scenarios and all the logical counter arguments. You've covered absolutely everything. And then the event comes, or you meet a new person with a different perspective, or you find that you were wrong about some detail - and it changes everything. And it changes everything in a way that you simply couldn't even have imagined prior to the event, encounter, or new detail. Does that never happen? If it can happen in everyday life, if it's the basis for all good stories, then is it inconceivable that it could also happen in relation important to questions such as: is there a God and why is there suffering?

If we are going to imagine a scenario as awesome as an encounter with the almighty, it seems intelectually impoverished in the extreme, not even to leave open the possibility of a surprising outcome. To insist that we are going to be in a position to lecture God about how he got it wrong and that he will have nothing worthwhile to say in response. It tells us nothing about the ultimate questions themselves, about which atheists are in no better position to offer definitive answers than anyone else, and tells us everything about the closed mind of the person making the assertion.

https://youtu.be/y3WYZKXAdJU

cofty

is it inconceivable that it could also happen in relation important questions such as: is there a God and why is there suffering?

Nope

slimboyfat

That's agreed then.

cofty

Jesus explained very carefully that god is love and exactly what that love means in practice.

His words cannot ever be reconciled with reality.

We have all the relevant data, the evidence is in. The god and father of Jesus - the god who is love - does not exist.

slimboyfat

How do you know we have "all the relevant data"?

How do you know that an almighty being cannot see a logical solution where you see none?

cofty

Same reason I know the earth is not flat. We have all the evidence we need to be certain.

Drowning a quarter of a million men, women and children in a tsunami is not a perfect act of love as defined by Jesus.

Any atheists here? Have you come to terms with your new reality?

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