Ask an Atheist

Diagoras,

I'm concerned with what you are trying to say meaning, what is the basis of your argument here and now. I've seen back and forth postings of Wikipedia definitions on what this word means or what that word means. I'm more concerned about what you are trying to say here and now.

 

 Dear Ron, I am asking you because you had asked for evidence. I am asking what kind of evidence will be good for you. That is a very fair question, is it not?

 Let me leave the living room evidence alone for a while and even forget about God too. Just tell me about love and pain and happiness and abstract things. Do you believe in them or not? Please tell me because I had asked you this thing before and reply is not given yet. Thanks. No hard feeelings....

 

Minuteman no offense brother but those are ridiculous questions to ask because they have become redundant in dialogue between theists and atheists. It is quite obvious athiest both on the scientific and secular levels depend on scientific empirical evidence to prove their claims so its obvious any atheist even with an amatuer's knowledge of science can google search your question and show you a diagram of atoms, protons, and electrons. Even if they couldn't show you they could claim to know they exist by scientific evidence.

Diagoras

I also think your statement was quite childish. It's almost like challenging God to appear before your eyes to prove to you that he exists. In the Qur'an there is something like what you've actually asked. For instance even if God suddenly appeared to you in some sort of humanoid form and spoke with you and showed you 'miraculous" signs there would still be some skepticism in that event. For one, you could have been dreaming but felt awake. Or, you could say that there were toxicfumes that seized your olfactory senses that caused you to become delusional or you could come up with some other grand excuse. Unless all avenues of your inquiries are satisfied atheist (or whatever you claim to be) will always be skeptical of the God claim but I think statements such as the one you presented reeks of logic. WHY? Because it is a ridiculous statement.

Edited by Israfil

minuteman wrote: Dear Ron, I am asking you because you had asked for evidence. I am asking what kind of evidence will be good for you. That is a very fair question, is it not?

Well, I've already suggested one kind of evidence that would satisfy me.  Here are a few others:
- If Allah had a radio station broadcasting the Quran continuously, in all languages, with an equal signal strength in all directions and everywhere on the planet, then I'd say that would be pretty strong evidence.
- If I woke up tomorrow morning and there was no more war, no more disease, no more poverty, and no more crime, then I would have to believe some supernatural power was at work.  (Actually, I'd settle for any one of those.)
- If the value of pi were calculated to several billion decimal places and the entire Quran were found to be encoded within that number sequence, then that would be convincing evidence.  (This suggestion courtesy of Arthur C. Clarke.)

By the way, Israfil is right in a sense that there would still be a small corner of my mind that retains a certain cautious skepticism. Yes, a massive fraud could be at work, or I could be hallucinating, or whatever.  But I could say the same thing about my belief in electrons and protons, or about my own existence, for that matter.  I could always be mistaken.  That is what being open-minded is all about.  It is that very skepticism about my present worldview that would enable me to accept the kind of evidence I have suggested above.  Otherwise I would simply say that nothing at all could convince me to change my belief.

Now, maybe you could answer my question: What sort of evidence do you have, that satisfied you about the existence of God?

Let me leave the living room evidence alone for a while and even forget about God too. Just tell me about love and pain and happiness and abstract things. Do you believe in them or not? Please tell me because I had asked you this thing before and reply is not given yet. Thanks. No hard feeelings....

Yes, I believe in them, but only as ideals or abstractions.  They are useful paradigms for understanding human behaviour, but they have no physical reality.  I can imagine God as an abstraction too.

Ron, also please let me know whether you believe that there are atoms and electrons and protons?? Do you believe or not? Thanks.

Yes, I believe that, because (as Israfil) pointed out) there is good scientific evidence for them.  By "scientific evidence" I mean reproducible experimental evidence, which has been independently verified by numerous people.