The evidence is unnecessary

The atheist demands to see God before believing in Him. But here's the thing: If God is all-powerful, then he can make man believe in Him regardless of the lack of evidence.

The atheist, however, clings on the unfounded assumption that everything that exists must display tangible data of some sort. He knows that if he drops this assumption, there is a possibility of him believing in God.

But does the atheist really want to get over his own ego and submit to a higher authority? Or does he prefer to hide behind the excuse of a lack of evidence?

This begs the following questions: Is atheism a form of self-worship? Is it just another form of rejecting God?

 

God hates brown-nosers - what else can you say? God doesn't want to be worshipped - but he'll hang out
if you've got some good wine and a story. What could be more boring for a supreme being than to have a bunch
of fawning sycophants hanging around.

 

if God is all-powerful, he can have a son.

 

Jesus could reappear on earth tommorow, perform miraculous miracles, and most atheists would still reject him. Remember that it happened before when he was alive.

I would imagine that atheists and many governments would try to kill him even after he gave them the proof they always ask for.

 

Most atheists were once religious themselves. So as Goomba put it they had already submitted to a higher authority. Your proclamation is null and void.

 

How would they know it was Jesus and not a talented illusionist like David Copperfield or David Blaine claiming to be Jesus. If a man came up to you and claimed to be Jesus would you accept it or would you be skeptical. Every year there are hundreds of people claiming to be Jesus.

 

Not beleiving in blind faith, I have found what I percieve to be God all around me, my creator is the same power that created the universe I consider myself as a child of my creator and a son of GOD and you as my brother or sister. Atheism is just another search for truth, for some.

 

An atheist would get on his knees if he had his leg amputated but someone prayed that he would grow another leg and the next morning the atheist had his leg restored.

 

If this god plunges his arm and hand into the reality we are in physics should drip from it and such influence should be obvious to all.

Spooky: I wouldn't move to kill such a person however it would need to prove he was not just an advanced alien life form or something, remember if a modern special forced soldier went back to the stone age he would likely be seen as a god or emissary of the gods with his lighting stick and such to primitives.

thewrestler: Personal revelation isn't testable but how do you know your not delusional, many people think they are historical figures and believe it 100% for an example.

Alucard: I lost much of one foot, if it grew back it would be an impressive display of power but if the person praying did so to say Zeus then should I worship him then since Zeus did it?

 

The God you believe in specifically wouldn’t do that though (or at least is reported as having said so). Of course, it’s possible there is a different kind of all-powerful being who has made you and all the other theists believe in gods who don’t actually exist.

I hold the perfectly rational position that there is no point in treating a specific claim as true over any and all alternatives if we have insufficient evidence to reach such a conclusion. I accept that some kind of god or gods might exist but see no reason to accept the existence of one specific god while denying the existence of all others.

An atheist is just someone who doesn’t believe in any god or gods and label tells you absolutely nothing else about the individual. Everyone is an individual. The reasons, conscious and sub-conscious, that lead us all to our personal beliefs and wider world views will be many and varied.

Your accusation is no better than saying theists believe in creator and controlling gods because they don’t want to accept responsibility for their own lives or fear the unknown. It may be true of some theists but it’s not true of all and certainly not fundamental to the state of being theist.

 

That's the mechanism that an atheist is looking for. Assuming you are right, then we need a way to distinguish why this If God would have some to believe, some to not, and some to believe only partially. By mechanism, I mean why...and possibly how...if the why is insufficent?

Don't get all semantic on me, because this If God of yours could just as easliy be an If Not God. So let's not go gentle into that good night.

 

And you think Christians wouldn't?

 

I have yet to see a damned thing that proves the existence of a God. None Zip, Zero Nada and yes, evidence is necessary for most intelligent people.

 

If the atheist brain, experiences spiritual enlightenment, he does get around his own ego. For enlightenment involves transcending the ego, which is created by thought, and thought is the response of the known, which is memory.

But an enlightened person does not then create all these images of the gods, so he would never worship an image created by thought. For he understands what thought is. So, he could remain an atheist, if atheism is defined by not accepting what the brain, what thought has created, and then worships.

This would probably be then, an "atheist in the name of god" as Alan Watts once put it.

 

See what I mean?

If Jesus came down and parted the Atlantic Ocean people like you would probably blame it on climate change or anything other than a divine act.

 

It's called faith and those of us who have it know that God is real because He shows it to us everyday. God will give you the evidence you seek if you ask Him for it but He is not going to chase after you.

 

And if Vishnu came down in a great cloud and parted the Atlantic, would you bend a knee or find some way to rationalize that it was
actually the act of the god you already worship ... cuts both ways doesn't it?

 

I would become a follower of Vishnu then. I highly doubt that God would allow a divine being to go around parting oceans and stealing gods glory so that would mean he doesn't exist.

 

meanwhile you reject Christianity, cause you think its "irrational" and doesn't make "logical sense".

 

You are free to believe in what ever you wish, just as I am free not to believe in what you or your religion decide is God, your belief is based in faith, faith requires no evidence but neither is it relevant. When you step outside of faith and proclaim that your particular variation of God exists the onus is on you to provide tangible evidence to support that proclamation, your faith is not evidence or relevant.

I dismiss all religious views of God, I do not dismiss "God.", your religious views of God are no more correct or no more wrong than any other religious views, you simply have faith that your views are the correct ones, whether that faith is justified or even right remains to be seen.

 

No. To your questions.
Now if God is all-powerful, and can make anyone believe, he is also all-knowing, meaning he knows who will or will not believe. Yet does nothing to convince the unbelievers.
And since the word being used by you is belief, that means he can't make itself factual. And most atheists deal with facts in this regard, not belief.

 

Changing your story now. First it was "perform miraculous miracles" which is so open to interpreatation but if anyone actually parted the Atlantic Ocean then yes, that would be evidence.

 

So you convinced me. I will no longer be a self-worshiping atheist. I want to believe, but the problem is which religion do I believe in? Christianity is very popular in the US but it has so many different denominations. Should I be Protestant, Catholic or Eastern Orthodox? Then there is Mormonism. Heck, that religion was created in the US. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions and it's in the news all the time, so maybe that's the one I should go for? Or maybe I should get back to the roots and convert to Judaism? Or maybe I need to think more globally and look into Hinduism or Buddhism? There is also Wicca, Jainism, Sikh, Shinto and Zoroastrianism. So how do I decide?

 

An atheist has no belief in Gods of any kind. One less than you do. They don't want to see something that doesn't exist. They certainly don't see how anyone might want to see something invisible and undetectable by sound, smell, touch or taste, either.

 

Arthur C. Clarke said it best, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".