Good news from the Barna Group, a Christian polling organization:
Atheism on the Rise
For Gen Z, “atheist” is no longer a dirty word: The percentage of teens who identify as such is double that of the general population (13% vs. 6% of all adults). The proportion that identifies as Christian likewise drops from generation to generation. Three out of four Boomers are Protestant or Catholic Christians (75%), while just three in five 13- to 18-year-olds say they are some kind of Christian (59%).
This was particularly interesting…
Teens, along with young adults, are more likely than older Americans to say the problem of evil and suffering is a deal breaker for them.
…as was this:
Nearly half of teens, on par with Millennials, say “I need factual evidence to support my beliefs” (46%)—which helps to explain their uneasiness with the relationship between science and the Bible. Significantly fewer teens and young adults (28% and 25%) than Gen X and Boomers (36% and 45%) see the two as complementary.
walto,
I believe in God based on the evidence I have observed and the sense of connection I feel. You have by default rejected the arguments presented by theists as inadequate.
You have been following arguments here for a long time. You are also a very intelligent and well educated man. On what basis do you reject the claims of those who make arguments for Gods existence?
Do you reject the belief in gravity? Its invisible, and some could claim its magical, yet most of us believe it exists based on inductive reasoning.
Fine. Good for you.
I don’t reject arguments ‘by default.’ If that’s your argument, I’m not sure how likely it will be to convince anybody else, which seems important to you. It doesn’t exactly require ‘rejection’ imo.
But you’re welcome to believe whatever you want as far as I’m concerned. If you’re happy, I’m happy.
walto,
Have you thought about theists arguments? Do you have an opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of those arguments?
I think that the strength of the atheist or agnostic argument is that we have not or are not able to directly observe God.
The weakness is the requirement to deny all the inductive evidence of the universe being the result of an intelligent cause and the requirement to deny the existence or validity of historical evidence of Gods existence.
I thought a little about some of them, particularly when I was in grad school. Every one I’ve studied in detail has been defective, although I admit that I didn’t take a lot of time on a couple of the mile-long plantinga arguments I’ve seen because they were very complex and I wasn’t interested enough to spend the time they would have required to dissect them. I doubt they’re any good, but I wouldn’t offer myself as an expert witness against them.
phoodoo,
Can you spot how many burdens that Walto has taken on here?
walto,
What about Aquinas arguments? Do you have any comments on their strengths and weaknesses?
phoodoo
I can. None. Why should I take your burden for you? You’re a big boy.
Yes. I’ve discussed those in prior threads. I haven’t changed my mind about any of that.
walto,
And your opinion is?
Negatory. You can go back and look up my particular issues if you’re interested. I’m not keen on rehash,
walto,
Can you point to the tread?
William,
It’s interesting, but not surprising, that whenever I bring up your own life as an example of the pitfalls of non-reality-based thinking, you ignore me.
See if you can summon the courage to confront your history instead of burying it.
colewd:
No that is not how this works, flying spaghetti monsters and fountains of youth aren’t the same thing as truth yet you treat them as if they were.
God is the foundation and cause for every thing else that exists including logic and reason.
If you think that you have another foundation that works just as well fine support that claim.
You just can’t take things like the uniformity of nature,the law of non-contradiction, the validity of your reason and senses as givens. Instead you need to explain how these things can exist on their own with out God.
Imagine if I was demand that you prove to me that gravity exists and at the same time presume that things with mass just come together by coincidence for no reason whatsoever.
Now imagine that when pressed as to why such an unlikely course of events would happen to be the case I said that if it did not happen that way I would not be here to observe it. or perhaps I might say that an infinite universe is bound to have an area of infinite size where things with mass just happen to come together.
Finally imagine that I smugly said that the concept of gravity violates Occam’s razor because a universe with gravity is not as simple as a universe where things with mass just spontaneously come together for no reason whatsoever.
That is exactly what you are doing when it comes to God.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
No one on the skeptic side is saying that things exist for no reason. That’s one of those easy misrepresentations made by a lot of theists.
We’re saying that you have to come up with good solid reasons, not made-up claptrap like a “God” that happens to fit just what you want. Gravity, of course, is nothing like that, it’s a force that was discovered to act highly regularly and predictably, so that one can calculate, say, the mass of a planet so long as you know the orbital period of a satellite. Cause and effect are highly constrained.
You have nothing like cause and effect with “God.” You just find some phenomenon and say that God causes it. Who cares? I may as well say that perfect essences cause it. It’s just as meaningful and just as meaningless.
Glen Davidson
fifthmonarchyman,
I completely disagree with that, fmm. And I point out that it’s nothing but a crass attempt at a burden shift. If you think God is required for truth that’s an argument you’ll have to (finally) make. You can’t assume it for purpose of burden-shifting. Same for reason, regularity, the kitchen sink, or whatever else you want to throw in. If you think you can show there’s a God, you’ll have to do it. It’s not required of doubters to show anything.
Re proving that gravity exists, I take it that assumption has proved quite useful in places other than your church. But I offer no proof–I recommend a physics course or book and leave you to believe whatever the hell you want. It’s you who wishes to convert people, not me. You want a spaghetti monster I’ll recommend a sauce. You want Jesus, I recommend Samuel Butler and George Moore, but, believe it or not, your religious views are of very little importance to me. I may think they’re silly, but it’s your business.
Dunno. I think it had ‘five ways’ in the title. You can search for ‘Aquinas’ and find it, no doubt.
Pigeon droppings. At least those exist
God is truth
I don’t assume God for burden shifting I assume God because I couldn’t reason if he did not exist.
You on the other hand assume the existence of things like truth and the law on non-contradiction as givens. Simply because you want to burden shift.
You are not a doubter you are a denier. You don’t doubt God’s existence you claim that God’s existence is not necessary.
If I doubted that gravity exists I could be persuaded by evidence that it’s more than coincidence that causes things with mass to come together.
However if I denied that gravity was necessary no amount of evidence could convince me that anything more than coincidence was involved.
That is the stand you are taking.
peace
Cool, now all you have to do is explain how the existence of pigeon droppings will lead to truth and logic and reason etc.
peace
walto,
From Wiki
That bastard 🙂
Let me remind you:
Bird droppings work just as well as “gawd” as a foundation of knowledge. Deal with it, doofus
That is incorrect.
You will certainly grant that an omnipotent God can reveal stuff so that I can know it.
I would never grant that bird droppings could do the same
peace
That’s just cause you’re in denial. Bird droppings are TrVth, pigeon droppings simply happen to come with 14% extra truth in them
Walto,
It’s gotten so bad that now you have people putting forward “bird droppings as a foundation for knowledge”.
Don’t you think it’s time you put some effort supporting your case that God is not necessary. Do you really want it to be assumed that “bird droppings” is the best your side has to offer?
peace
Pigeons can shit on you so that you know for a fact that you’ve been covered in pigeon poo poo
Now you are making the same silly mistake that walto was with the fountain of youth.
Treating bird droppings as if it was the same thing as truth is certainly not something I would be proud of.
peace
At the time in my life the evidence looks most compelling for the Christian God, at some level, I almost wish the faith were not true. But the facts strike me as the facts, from Qauntum Mechanics, to Fine Tuning, to the Faint Young Sun Paradox, etc.
A lot of people find it easier to believe if they actually don’t read the Bible. Example from the net:
So what is one of the Old Testament passages and what does it say about the problem of evil?
If there is intelligent design in the germs that make plagues, then the Intelligent Designer looks exactly like the God of the Old Testament. So, in an odd sort of way, for that reason, the Bible had the ring of truth to me. Do I wish it weren’t so? Yes. I wish it weren’t so, but if the Intelligent Designer created plagues then He is exactly the Intelligent Designer that is described in the Old Testament, which Jesus claims is also the wrathful God of the New Testament who will send people to hell on Judgement Day.
However, that’s too much for most to swallow, so it’s not surprising the next generation are leaving the faith. As Keiths pointed out:
How do I know that I’m not dreaming?
peace
PS: is this really how you want people to think of you?
jeebus is da shit, Mary got impregnated by a pigeon, therefoar bird droppingzz are truth, y u no see da logic?
Do you need to take a nap and take this up later?
I’m thinking that you might regret an outburst like this in the morning 😉
a silly annoying Christian on the internet is certainly not worth going all cuckoo for cocoa puffs
peace
😉
peace
stcordova,
Sal,
Do you find the destruction of this world and the universe and the re-creation of a new one more appealing?
BTW: If we don’t have immortal souls, as I make the argument in my recent OP, what is God going to send to hell for eternity? I admit that quantum soul is still a slight possibility but even my kids don’t buy it… Eternal punishment doesn’t make sense to them… It’s inconsistent with God’s justice…
Bird droppings predict your breath would smell funny, that’s how
At no point have you ever explained how any of these things require God. You have simply insisted that they do. So, fine — you insist that they do require God, I’m perfectly happy to insist that they don’t. If you don’t need to explain your position, then neither does anyone else here.
Annihilation is certainly eternal punishment, there is no coming back from it.
peace
Sorry, but your post is largely nonsensical, fifth.
You at no point have ever explained how the coming together of things with mass requires gravity. Certainly coincidence is all that is necessary.
My position is simple, the existence of the Christian God can explain why there are such things as logic, truth and reason.
I thought that was clear………..your turn
peace
I’m not surprised that you would say that.
At least you did not bring up bird droppings 😉
peace
And that’s what most deniers of truth and self deceivers deserve… Why would I want some angry at God for “making” them like cats or get attracted to the same sex or animals be punished forever?
They refuse to acknowledge the obvious, let them lie to themselves and simply die without the possibility of coming back… The knowledge of not having hope is the greatest punishment… Good enough for my 12 and 14 yo kids…
J-mac,
For a change I’m at a loss for words. What would I tell a kid about what is in the Bible? I barely understand most of it myself, except to say, we should ask that God spare us from His wrath through the shed blood of Christ.
Bill, pay close attention. I’ve repeated this a million times, and I really doubt that you’re stupid. Here it goes: I would not say that predictability is an assumption I make that is fundamental to my arguments. I’m saying that you, yes, you, are bringing an absurd assumption to the table behind something that you think is “evidence” for the magical being you believe in. Got it? You bring the absurd assumption. You’re absurd assumption is that “predictability” has to be “explained.” That it must have a “cause.”
Here what I wrote, again:
Do you understand that? Pay attention. There’s a logic you’re missing. I cannot assume that predictability is fundamental. I have no option but to understand that “predictability” must be fundamental. Fundamental to existence itself. Why? Because anything else would be absurd. read again, and try very hard to understand why. Even your magical being would have to have a particular nature that makes “him” who and what he is (if “he” wasn’t the absurdity that it is, and thus could exist and existed). That’s what “predictability” refers to.
Think quite a bit. Don’t answer with more nonsense please.
That the physical universe is all that exists is not even implied in the fundamental “predictability” that we’re talking about. Anything, even a “non-physical” reality would have to have a “nature,” wouldn’t it?
Of course he has no burden to explain it. Do you agree that there’s a physical universe? Yes? OK, then you agree with walto. What he has an issue with is your imaginary friend. He doesn’t need to prove that it doesn’t exist. It’s you who believes in such a thing. It’s you who should offer evidence for its existence. Imagine. If we had to prove that all the imaginary characters of all mythologies and other fictions didn’t exist, we would never end, and it simply doesn’t make sense. Since we don’t experience them, or your particular one, then it’s your burden to prove that it’s real, not ours to prove that it isn’t.
That’s a weird proof, and you don’t actually get God’s existence from it I don’t think, but it does have the benefits of not being too complicated for the intelligent layman to follow, like some of his other proofs, and of not relying on any obviously nonsensical claims, as many of FMM’s posts do. Also, the premises are at least plausible.
I’m not prepared to assess its soundness, myself, but I repeat that I don’t believe you can get the existence of God from it without additional premises.
The stuff on predictability is interesting, entropy.
I just note that, If he hasn’t already done so, I predict that fmm will now say that what you’re calling predictability is precisely what he means by God, Truth, Reason, etc.
And, perhaps, you wouldn’t mind too much letting him call that stuff ‘God’ since it floats his boat. But then all the congeniality would likely end when he says it’s also Jesus Christ and did all the stuff involving rapes and fires and bleeding mentioned in the Bible.
So you keep saying. But you only do so by assuming that God is truth, etc.
We’ve all seen this movie before, and it wasn’t good the first time.
At no point have you explained why one must assume that God exists in order to know that our senses are reliable or that our reasoning is governed by norms such as the principle of non-contradiction. But since you’ve never given us any explanation for your assumptions, then I’m free to dismiss them without any further justification on my part. What has been asserted without argument can be dismissed without argument.
So everlasting existence in hell would be the gracious alternative for such folks 😉
peace
At no point have you explained why one must assume that gravity exists in order for things with mass to come together. Coincidence works just fine to explain why this happens
such is the strategy of the denier
I’ve explained my assumptions
I assume Gravity exists because it can explain why things with mass tend to come together.
I assume God exists because his existence can explain why things like truth and reason and logic exist.
If you are asking why gravity can explain why things with mass tend to come together just say the word and I will elaborate.
The same goes with why God can explain the existence of things like logic and reason.
just say the word
peace
The EAAN is not an argument for the existence of God — Plantinga himself doesn’t think that’s possible, which is the whole point of his God and Other Minds. His project is to show that theism doesn’t involve any “shirking of epistemic duties,” as he puts it.
The EAAN is supposed to show that unguided evolution is self-refuting, because someone who holds that her cognitive capacities are the result of unguided evolution has no reason to regard those capacities as reliable, and hence should not trust the outputs of those capacities, including evolutionary theory itself. So naturalism undermines itself in a way that theism does not.
Anyway, we’ve talked a lot about the EAAN in other threads — at least two, I think. I’ve said my piece about it for anyone curious. Needless to say, the argument is a total failure.
Sometimes kids, because they think in simple terms, can be the best at interpretation of things that we may think are deep…
BTW: I asked my kids 2 questions: why would Satan rebel against God if he knew the consequences?
Do angels have wings?
What to know the answers?
1. Satan thought he had found a loophole in God’s commandment to Adam and Eve. He thought, he had outwitted the Master.
2. Angels have no wings but they are just symbols of their ability to “travel” from one dimension to another…
Also they just told me that quantum no locality suggests that time and distance at subatomic level is an illusion….