Fair to say that atheists might be the biggest believers?

Atheists are like a evolution from the beliebers but not a final evolution.

Atheists don’t like gambling or odds, if you list a bunch of OBE’s and give them evidence demons are real, they are like…Doesn’t happen 100% of the time, there is a 10% chance there is a global conspiracy that all OBE’s are lies, there is a chance afterlife experiences were made by a global conspiracy of liars or all in the brain, If I don’t see it with my own eyes I don’t believe it because I need something to happen 100% of the time, like gravity, because my name is Thomas and I am a Doubter, a Doubting Thomas.

Now lets say that God is fake and doesn’t exist. Atheism still doesn’t give a satisfying solution of how consciousness came to be, why it is in this body, and where it goes in the future.

K: I have often asked believers this one question: OK, if you believe in God, where
is the evidence? Show me proof of any kind, that god exists…
I’ll wait…

Kropotkin

Okay they don’t like gambling or odds, their preference. Why do I like the music I do, I don’t know.

It does sound like you are at least holding consciousness up to the light. What’s wrong with that light merging with more a more wholesome light?

I get that you don’t want to be taken for a sucker by liars and global conspirators. Seeing life as the miracle is a way to end the search for categorical miracles witnessed by one’s own eyes.

IMO, evolution isn’t different from a god who never rested on the seventh marketplace day and who is still creating moment to moment. When I get tired of the preaching stink of mankind spiritualists, I like to think of a cavemen who has no words, who can only point at the sky with a pure wonderment that he can’t share verbally. He knows he his made of stars, he just can’t use that against other stars.

Show me proof that subatomic particles exist.

Ierrellus: Can a human who has not experienced all that exists confirm or deny the existence of a god who may be the sum total of all that exists? So you, P.K. have come to know all that can possibly exist given 40 years of personal knowing?
[/quote]
K: I have often asked believers this one question: OK, if you believe in God, where
is the evidence? Show me proof of any kind, that god exists…
I’ll wait…

I: Show me proof that subatomic particles exist.

K: The modern world operates with the use of subatomic particles…
for example, without subatomic atoms, you don’t have microwaves and
nuclear weapons and X-ray machines… without the use and understanding
subatomic atoms, the modern world doesn’t exist…

but say that isn’t enough for you, ok, go to an accelerator,
CERN or I live very close to the Stanford accelerator, i drive over it
every time I go south on 280, and they will show you subatomic
atoms with every collision… they take pictures of those collisions
and I have seen those pictures as you could if you simply use your computer,
which functions because of use and knowledge of subatomic atoms…

You might say that is not enough proof… well you can’t experience
subatomic atoms physically, but you can see their effect in our world
and beyond, so yes, subatomic atoms exist because we can use science
to predict their presence and we use science to create uses for them,
we use science in subatomic atoms to model and understand the
universe… without subatomic atoms, all our science and technology
would fail and given the successful state of science and technology, it is clear
our understanding of the universe is a correct one and that understanding
includes subatomic atoms…

you might say, but that is not enough, I want to physically see subatomic
atoms, you can, just google it and you will see pictures of it as it is
split by other atoms in accelerators like CERN and Stanford… not enough,
can’t help you there as then you are denying the obvious whereas
you can’t show me any proof of god, of any kind, and it doesn’t matter
how much you believe if you have no proof of any kind…

Kropotkin

Atheism implies the absence of something so really there is no belief whatsoever.

Nonbelief yes but no belief is implied.

P.K.,
You have provided me with a set of physical examples as evidence of sub atomic particles; yet you cannot seem to imagine that, given certain conditions, the existence of God might be proved. For anyone who is pure in heart and poor in spirit God can be experienced. You are born with a trinite psyche–body, mind, spirit. Looking for God though a single aspect of this trinity will not yield God’s presence. Hence the physical/mental way of seeing may provide me with evidence of subatomic particles, but cannot envisage God except as a cultural phenomenon that does not even describe the best of human morality. If you honestly search for God with all your being, God will find you.
Who is to say that God has not been looking for you for 40 years, but can’t be seen for your mindset?

K: and you say “under certain conditions, the existence of god might be proved”…
under certain conditions which are?..

believers tell me if I “believe” in god, I will then have the proof for god…
As neil degrasse Tyson is noted for saying, you don’t have to believe in science
for it to work, it works and exists, regardless of whether you believe in it or not…
science is independent of any belief in it… it exists regardless if we believe in it or not…
it doesn’t matter what kind of mindset you have, science will still exist…
science seems to be more real because it exists regardless if you believe in it or not,
whereas belief in god need to have a “certain mind set” or “certain conditions” to work…
religion operates with its conditions worked out by logical constructions like Aristotle
“unmoved mover” and not in reality… I shall explore this further in a post shortly in
my thread about space, time and the existence of everything… if something
doesn’t exist until you believe it, does it really exists?

Kropotkin

Right.
And then . . . ?

The existence of God is not dependent on your beliefs.
If God exists, then He exists even if you don’t believe that He does and even if you see no proof or evidence.

If God doesn’t exist, then believing in God won’t make Him exist.
:-"

And as they say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I love you. We love each other. You don’t need to be told that. What am I doin?

K: science exists and it doesn’t matter if I believe, but as you pointed out, “IF, god exists”
and god doesn’t exist, so it doesn’t matter if I believe or not…

so your argument is really just another logical argument for the existence of god without
any actual proof… whereas I can show you science and the effects of science and
do actual science experiments…whereas you can’t show me god and you can’t show
me any effects of god… that is the difference… I can show you science and you
can’t show me god…

Kropotkin

My argument was that your logic is faulty. I made no claims about the existence of God.
I simply stated that the existence( or non-existence) of God is independent of your beliefs - which is obviously true.

But I have no interest in showing you God.

Whether you believe in God or not is completely irrelevant to me.

Enter your house … close all the doors and windows … shut down all senses, memory, reason, understanding and so on … paraphrasing Lao Tzu

Apparently it took Siddhārtha Gautama 48 days and nights … some people work hard their entire lives to achieve this particular “state of mind” and never quite get there …

I like Ruth Barrows metaphor

“Surrender and abandonment are like a deep, inviting, frightening ocean into which we are drawn. We make excursions into it to test it, to see whether it’s safe, to enjoy the sensation of it. But for all kinds of reasons, we always go back to dry land, to solid ground, to where we are safe. But the ocean beckons us out anew and we risk again being afloat in something bigger than ourselves. And we keep doing that, wading in and then going back to safety, until one day, when we are ready, we just let the waters carry us away.”

I just can’t believe in the religions of so called gods. There could be superior beings but, their religions are deplorable.

We assign probability to every possibility based on data that we possess. The possibility that “God exists” has 0% probability so it’s safe to say He does not exist.

No need for responses such as “you can’t prove a negative” and “absence of belief isn’t the opposite belief”.

I recently saw a movie on Brooke Ellison story (about the first quadriplegic woman who went to Harvard), and in one scene where she’s still in deep coma after accident the doctor was worried that she may regain consciousness but not her cognition, and I wonder if the state of consciousness without cognition is the same state as Buddha mind.
Wouldn’t Buddha mind state, in a sense, be imitating brain damage? :-k

Zero probability is called ‘certainty’. (As is 100% probability.) :smiley:

It’s good that you are certain but you are in disagreement with the multitude of people who think that there is adequate data/evidence for the existence of God. :confusion-shrug:

K: You have defenders of the faith like Phyllo and others
and you have defenders of Atheism like myself…
ask yourself, whose side am I on and more importantly
ask yourself, why? Why is the belief in god so important
or why is the knowledge there is no god, important?

Kropotkin

In this thread, I have defended logic.

In other threads, I have defended the right of a person to decide whether God exists for themselves. I have also defended the right to religious freedom, and that includes the right not to believe.

As long as person conforms to standards of ethical and legal conduct, why should I care if he believes that Jesus/God spoke to him?