[gwd]

I think the more important question is, "How would I know if I were wrong?" As a thinking Christian, and I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong; I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong.

[Ensorceled]

> I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong

This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right?

I became an Atheist in large part because I took Latin my first year in high school and realized that the Roman's actually believed in their gods the same way that I believed in the Christian god. And I gradually realized that they had the same reason to believe that I did ... they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up.

> I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong.

I can't speak for Dennet, but for me it would just be ANY evidence: a verifiable miracle, proof of life after death, or meeting an angel/demon.

[knightoffaith]

>This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right?

I don't think this is really the right way to think about Christianity for many believers. C.S. Lewis says, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." It's not so much that Christianity is just another fact lying out there that we just happened to stumble upon, and now we use scientific tools to investigate whether it's true or false. No - it's a belief that shapes the very way we understand the world. It's a worldview. That's not to say that it's necessarily correct, but just that it's not a belief that we necessarily acquire in the same way we might acquire a belief about what 1+1 is or how many planets orbit the sun. It's much like how someone born and raised atheist doesn't hold their belief in atheism because of some evidence for that view. We can still argue about Christianity, atheism, or other religions, of course, that's fine - but it's not obvious that there's some inherent irrationality in asking "what could show Christianity to be false" instead of "what convinced me Christianity is true".

>they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up. This is true, but if the implication is that belief in Roman paganism is on just as firm intellectual ground as belief in Christianity, that seems unfair given the rich intellectual history spanning millennia of the latter to which the former isn't really comparable at all.

[Capricorn2481]

I don't have evidence someone is a psychic, but I have common sense that if they're predictions could apply to anyone, they are probably scamming me.

Just like if someone chalks up inconsistencies in the Bible to "God testing us" or the fact that the Bible has been edited repeatedly, picking whatever parts supported their authority at the time, that I'm probably being scammed.

Now Christianity is so fragmented and personal in it's belief system that to say "what evidence do you have that it's not real" does feel backwards. I have equal evidence in any religion as I do in Christianity.

[knightoffaith]

Well, inconsistencies in the Bible are traditionally chalked up to flaws in our interpretation of it. Maybe that sounds like a cop-out to you, but that's fine.

My point was not you, as an atheist, shouldn't ask "what evidence do you have that Christianity is true". Rather, my point was that a Christian, in thinking rationally, is not forced to ask "what evidence do I have for this belief?". You as a nonbeliever might see just as good evidence in other religions as Christianity, great, that's fine.

[edanm]

> No - it's a belief that shapes the very way we understand the world. It's a worldview.

For Christians. You kind of do have to grapple with the fact that billions of people do not have that worldview, and therefore you do have to compare the Christian worldview to the non-Christian worldview.

> >they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up.

> This is true, but if the implication is that belief in Roman paganism is on just as firm intellectual ground as belief in Christianity, that seems unfair given the rich intellectual history spanning millennia of the latter to which the former isn't really comparable at all.

Maybe that's the case with Roman mythology (though I don't have the dates), but what about Hinduism? Buddhism? Islam? Judaism?

All of these have comparable histories.

[knightoffaith]

>therefore you do have to compare the Christian worldview to the non-Christian worldview.

For the Christian, this is presumably part of asking "what would lead me to believe Christianity is false?". That is, asking whether other religions should lead one to conclude Christianity is not true.

>Maybe that's the case with Roman mythology (though I don't have the dates)

Well, more than just the dates, it's about the intellectual rigor of people thinking about the theology. There is no serious equivalent in Roman mythology to, for example, Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, which includes grappling with questions such as "Whether the existence of God is self-evident?", "Whether God is the supreme good?", and "Whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument?".

>but what about Hinduism? Buddhism? Islam? Judaism?

These are all fine traditions! Far and above Roman mythology. You could replace "Christianity" with any of these in my original comment, and it would still apply. There's a world of difference between "a silly belief that people held when they were a child and continue to hold just because of inertia" and "a serious belief with a rich intellectual history, though one among several other such beliefs".

[edanm]

> Well, more than just the dates, it's about the intellectual rigor of people thinking about the theology. There is no serious equivalent in Roman mythology to, for example, Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, which includes grappling with questions such as "Whether the existence of God is self-evident?", "Whether God is the supreme good?", and "Whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument?".

I'm genuinely curious - do you actually know this? Or are you just assuming this based on the age of the Roman empire, the fact that they were older generations, etc? Cause I personally don't know that much about it, but we know ancient civilizations grappled with these kinds of questions all the time.

> These are all fine traditions! Far and above Roman mythology. You could replace "Christianity" with any of these in my original comment, and it would still apply. There's a world of difference between "a silly belief that people held when they were a child and continue to hold just because of inertia" and "a serious belief with a rich intellectual history, though one among several other such beliefs".

Yes, but I think you misunderstood my meaning. I was saying, if you substitute "Roman Mythology" with e.g. "Islam" in the parent comment, you can't just as easily brush it aside by saying "there is not rich intellectual tradition there".

As a Christian believer, I think you do have to grapple with billions of people, some of them as smart and sophisticate as any Christian, who follow a different belief system. That's why you have to argue "from the inside" as it were about why Christianity is right - some reason it is more correct than any other belief, or that other beliefs are wrong.

An Atheist makes a simpler argument - all of these beliefs are wrong. That is applied equally and consistently to all the different beliefs. A Christian by definition agrees with the Atheist on 99% of religious beliefs - namely all non-Christian beliefs - and probably for the same reason (lack of evidence that they are correct).

[knightoffaith]

>I'm genuinely curious - do you actually know this?

I say this because there are no seriously-taken arguments for the Roman mythological gods (or anything like them) like there are for foundational beliefs of the other religions you mention (none that I have heard of in my studies, at least... I'd be very interested to hear them if they exist). And because the ancient philosophers - e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus - generally drifted away from popular mythology to something more akin to monotheism.

>Yes, but I think you misunderstood my meaning. I was saying, if you substitute "Roman Mythology" with e.g. "Islam" in the parent comment, you can't just as easily brush it aside by saying "there is not rich intellectual tradition there".

I see - I made that point about intellectual history there because the implication originally seemed to be that both Roman mythology and Christianity are just silly beliefs that people held as children and continued to hold because they hadn't thought about it. That isn't to say that that alone shows Christianity is true, just that it's a set of beliefs we need to take more seriously.

>As a Christian believer, I think you do have to grapple with billions of people, some of them as smart and sophisticate as any Christian, who follow a different belief system. That's why you have to argue "from the inside" as it were about why Christianity is right - some reason it is more correct than any other belief, or that other beliefs are wrong.

If Christianity was a conclusion reached after a set of rational arguments, you would be right. But belief in Christianity is sort of logically prior to rational argumentation. Of course, we have Christian apologetics, which make arguments for certain aspects of Christianity, but this isn't really the reason to believe so much as it is just motivation for people who think in more intellectual terms to take it seriously. Faith is beyond the domain of human reason - the Christian's belief is founded in a kind of immediate, self-evident spiritual experience that comes logically prior to arguments. We might still discover internal inconsistencies that might motivate us to rethink this worldview, of course.

This might sound kind of silly. But there is a point at which your justifications of your beliefs have to bottom out. Can you start with only naturalist/scientific premises and reach Christianity? No, even if you agree to Christian apologetic arguments, they will not get you to Christianity proper. In this sense, atheism, Christianity, and other religions are each in a kind of bubble that arguments alone can't let you escape from. It still makes sense to talk about internal consistency (inconsistencies should probably lead us to drop the system), but I don't think we can really make any progress by trying to argue about the foundational premises themselves, if that makes sense.

As for your final comment - Christianity does share a lot in common with other religions. It shares a lot with Islam and Judaism, the other Abrahamic religions. It's maybe not apt to characterize Islam and Judaism as "simply false" from the Christian perspective - there are significant elements of truth even though the overall system is false. This is true, I think, even for the eastern religions.

[gwd]

> This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right?

It sounds like maybe some people are taking this as a challenge from me to atheists. I'm not really; just like Dennet is in TFA, I'm talking about general principles for someone trying to live as a rational creature: each of us should examine our own beliefs, and not only ask "What if I'm wrong?" but "How would I know if I were wrong"? That goes for Christians and Hindus and Muslims as much as for atheists. "Take the plank out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck out of your brother's eye" and all that. It's specifically because Dennet is such a deep thinker and effective communicator that I genuinely wonder how he'd answer that question.

I'm not sure what evidence was provided to me as a child that the world was round; but I had relatives who lived in Germany and Thailand, and at the age of 12 I'd actually flown to Thailand and experienced jet-lag. The "world is round" hypothesis satisfactorily explained my experience (both first- and second-hand, through people I knew personally) in a way that the "flat earth" hypothesis doesn't.

In the same way, the vast majority of evidence I had as a child to confirm what as taught about Christianity to me was experiential. But of course, all sorts of people from different faiths have religious experiences; how do I know that there's not some better explanation for my experiences -- either religious or reductive -- which will be more predictive (in the sense of getting better results more efficiently)?

> I became an Atheist in large part because I took Latin my first year in high school and realized that the Roman's actually believed in their gods the same way that I believed in the Christian god. And I gradually realized that they had the same reason to believe that I did ... they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up.

This seems a bit strange to me... so the Romans believed in supernatural beings, and the Christians also believed in supernatural beings (and of course so did the Greeks, and the Persians, and the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, and...); but instead of this being evidence that there were supernatural beings of some sort (with some people maybe being closer to the truth of the matter than the others), you decided this was evidence that there weren't supernatural beings?

Isn't that like reading several different conflicting scientific theories, and then deciding that all science is bunk?

Sorry I don't have the exact quote, but there's a place where C.S. Lewis points out that being a Christian, he's free to believe that people of other religions were partly right and partly wrong; but that when he was an atheist, he had to believe that the majority of humans were completely wrong about the most important questions in life.

If the entire world were atheists except Christians, wouldn't that be far stronger evidence against the supernatural? The fact that the Romans believed in the supernatural and the afterlife is evidence -- weak evidence, I grant, but evidence nonetheless -- that the supernatural and the afterlife exist.

> but for me it would just be ANY evidence: a verifiable miracle, proof of life after death, or meeting an angel/demon.

What would satisfy your requirements for a "verifiable miracle"?

It sounds like a lot of these might be very personal experiences. First of all, if you had a single experience of an angel, would that actually change your mind? Wouldn't you be inclined to believe you'd had some sort of hallucination (wondering perhaps if someone had slipped LSD into your drink or something like that)?

Similarly, once you had that experience and became convinced, how would you convince anyone else? Supposing there were another person who was exactly like you -- the fact that you were convinced you'd seen an angel wouldn't have any effect on whether they were convinced that angels existed, would it?

FWIW I know a lot of people who started out as atheists and became Christians, and although this sort of rational "apologetics" sometimes did factor into part of their decision, by far the biggest influence was personal experience: first with genuine Christians, then with with Jesus, through reading the Bible and worshipping him at church. I tend not to focus on that kind of thing in a venue like this, because it's the least logically sound reason; but if you're genuinely interested in having a personal experience to let you put Christianity to the test, that's what I'd look for.

As for me, I've got what I consider to be more objectively sound reasons to believe; but "“I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which however [this comment] is not large enough to contain.” Hopefully at some point I'll write it up in a way that's easy to link to.

[sdht0]

> each of us should examine our own beliefs, and not only ask "What if I'm wrong?" but "How would I know if I were wrong"?

The final arbiter is repeatable verifiable data. Everything else to subject to doubt.

So how would I know if naturalism is wrong? God could come down again in a public revelation and agree to undergo a scientific scrutiny His nature. Who can then deny His existence?

Lacking that, how do I know religion is wrong? Well, religion plays two roles: a source of strength in this world full of suffering, and an explanation for our existence. The former is necessary for many people and will probably never go away. But the second role has always been that of a "God of the gaps", with the gaps drastically shrinking with improving scientific knowledge. All arrows are point to a naturalistic explanation of the universe. So pending some strong "evidence", none of the religions seem to be correct in the second role. To me, it is better to say "we don't know yet" than accept something on "faith", especially when it comes with seemingly arbitrary commandments on practical matters of life.

> instead of this being evidence that there were supernatural beings of some sort

This is a good point. I think this would make sense if there was some sort of consistency in these claims. However, almost every religion assert their own mutually exclusive claims on how the world is, and wants us to take up those claims on faith. It is easier to consider these claims as wish-fulfillment of the first role I mentioned above, than any sort of proof for actual divinity.

[circlefavshape]

I myself am an atheist, but I gotta say that this is very well put

> so the Romans believed in supernatural beings, and the Christians also believed in supernatural beings (and of course so did the Greeks, and the Persians, and the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, and...); but instead of this being evidence that there were supernatural beings of some sort [...] you decided this was evidence that there weren't supernatural beings?

[palata]

Not the OP, but I would say that I do not see this as evidence of anything other than "humans have beliefs".

[Ensorceled]

There are millions of Harry Potter fans, is the Ministry of Magic real?

Humans are REALLY good a creating stories and investing in them.

[geye1234]

> As for me, I've got what I consider to be more objectively sound reasons to believe; but "“I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which however [this comment] is not large enough to contain.” Hopefully at some point I'll write it up in a way that's easy to link to.

I think Aquinas's essence-existence distinction, once one understands it (and understands and accepts its premises) is sound. It's impossible to summarise in a combox though, mainly because its philosophical background is very different from the place most people are coming from; so quite a bit of preliminary work needs to happen before it can be understood.

Aristotle's unmoved mover is also sound; there's one point of detail I'm a bit hazy about, but it the main it works. Again, some preliminary work also needed.

[Ensorceled]

> It sounds like maybe some people are taking this as a challenge from me to atheists.

Not at all, I'm engaging in good faith here.

> This seems a bit strange to me... so the Romans believed in supernatural beings, and the Christians also believed in supernatural beings (and of course so did the Greeks, and the Persians, and the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, and...); but instead of this being evidence that there were supernatural beings of some sort (with some people maybe being closer to the truth of the matter than the others), you decided this was evidence that there weren't supernatural beings?

This is a common misinterpretation. Rather it made me rethink why I thought Zeus was a myth and my God was real and that led to me realizing there was no evidence that God was real, I had been taking it on faith.

If there is one thing the explosion of popularity for fantasy stories has shown us is that it is really easy for people to invent the supernatural.

> If the entire world were atheists except Christians, wouldn't that be far stronger evidence against the supernatural? The fact that the Romans believed in the supernatural and the afterlife is evidence -- weak evidence, I grant, but evidence nonetheless -- that the supernatural and the afterlife exist.

Many people believe that vaccines cause autism. There is no evidence that it does and I don't lend the theory any credence. Lots of people believing in something says very little.

But at a basic level, religion has numerous aspects that make it useful, good and bad, to people in general and people in power in particular. Christianity has long been used to manipulate and control for instance; but it also provided community, a common moral code (again, good and bad), shared joy in weddings and births, solace in grief and purpose.

> What would satisfy your requirements for a "verifiable miracle"?

In an age where everyone has a very high quality video camera in their pocket the sasquatch, the loch ness monster and other such things have mostly disappeared but miracles have not appeared.

[gwd]

> Not at all, I'm engaging in good faith here.

OK, I think I see what you were getting at. The first thing you should do is ask, "Is there actually any reason to believe this?" I sort of took that as a given, because I went through that process in high school: "Is this something my parents believe, or is this something I believe?"

And that's certainly useful, but the problem is that you can find evidence for all sorts of things. It's simply not accurate, for instance, to say that "there's no evidence that [vaccines cause autism]". There is scientifically robust evidence against it; but there are tens of thousands of personally compelling "anecdata points" in favor of it. To wit: there are tens of thousands of people who had the experience that their child was given a vaccine, and within a month or so they noticed symptoms of autism. "X happened and then Y happened, so Y may have caused X" isn't a logical certainty, but it's certainly valid Bayesian operation to say that "there's a non-zero probability that Y caused X". If you eat something new and then you get sick, you would certainly do well to consider the possibility that the new thing you ate may have been the thing to make you sick; genes of people who did otherwise would quickly have died out in favor of people who do.

To believe in the scientific consensus over and against your own personally compelling anecdata point (and that of dozens of other people you've met online) takes a kind of faith in the unseen power of statistics (and the reliability of the all-too-well-seen scientific and medical establishments) which many people simply don't have.

There are loads of situations where there's implicit confirmation bias which makes non-things seem like evidence. Hence why it's important to move on to the second question: How would I know if this belief of mine were wrong?

> In an age where everyone has a very high quality video camera in their pocket the sasquatch, the loch ness monster and other such things have mostly disappeared but miracles have not appeared.

Really? I haven't looked, but I kind of assume that if I searched for "faith healing" on YouTube I'd see loads of videos of "miracles". Would this sort of thing count? If not, what kind of video would count?

(To be clear, my basic stance towards these would be skeptical as well.)

[epiccoleman]

I would be genuinely interested to hear what conclusions you came to - and I don't say that as a typical internet atheist waiting to pounce on some flaw in your logic.

I've come at this from the other side many times and, though there's certainly a part of me that would like to, I just cannot find it within myself to believe that the human condition is explained in any way by Christian theology.

I've found a good deal of resonance in the mystical traditions of various religions - I'm especially a fan of some of the Jewish mystical stuff (e.g. Kabbalah and other portions of the long tradition of debate and interpretation of scripture).

But in spite of a lot of examination I've still wound up with, at most, a kind of "spiritual but not religious" attitude, which usually translates to, frankly, not much.

I've found myself somewhat jealous of people of faith, who can find some system of belief that seems resonant enough to provide comfort and a framework for living a good life - but also, frankly somewhat nonplussed that people can buy into these various theologies and not run up against the same "...really, that's supposed to explain all this?" that I do.

[knightoffaith]

Why is it that you think the human condition is not explained by Christian theology? To be sure, you don't mean "I think Christianity is false", right? It can be false but still explain the human condition.

[epiccoleman]

> It can be false but still explain the human condition.

Sure - and as a matter of fact, this is largely the angle I approach religion from these days - i.e. that we collected a series of parables, rules, and traditions that, when combined, lead to a "good life" (or, more cynically, provide competitive advantages to societies who adopt them in a sort of "memetic natural selection" paradigm).

But when I look at the mythology of Christianity, especially the parts of it that are mainstream and not parts of mystical or esoteric traditions, I don't find it to be a compelling enough story to base my life around (or at least, not enough to go and declare my faith in it every Sunday).

The central "myth" of Christianity is that humans are born into a state of sin and cannot reach salvation (Heaven, eternal life, or maybe more "mystically" a state of oneness with the Divine). And the myth goes on to state that God essentially allowed/caused humans to sacrifice his son to Him so that this original sin could be washed away and allow humans to be "saved."

It seems to me that this has very little explanatory power for the sorts of existential questions like "why are we here," "why are we conscious," "why is there so damn much other stuff in the universe".

As a story, there's a lot of appeal to me. Jesus as a role model, as an example of how we ought to try to be, has some good features (some bad ones too, but that's OK with me since I'm not taking the story as the literal word of God). I just don't know how people go from "this story has some nice features worth meditating on in a secular way" to "this story explains why things are the way they are and what we're supposed to do about it."

This is one of the things I find more appealing about Judaism, because there appears (to an outsider) to be much more of a tradition of grappling with faith, of trying to unpack the meaning of the "words of God" and relate them to the human condition. I'm sure there's some of that in Christian traditions too, but it was never a mainstream feature of the Catholicism that I grew up with.

[knightoffaith]

I don't know that the story of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection specifically is supposed to explain something like "why we are conscious", but here is my (somewhat shoddy) explanation of what Christianity says about the human condition:

The purpose of our life is to be in a loving relationship with God. This entails becoming who we are - becoming our true, ideal selves, who express our love for God through our lives, building the kingdom of God. This is why God has created us.

We cannot attain this full self-actualization without the help of God. Thankfully, in God's infinite love, He has given us His son, allowing us to attain salvation. Indeed, no matter how wretched and sinful one might think one is, because of Christ's sacrifice, nobody is beyond repair (see Luke 15).

>This is one of the things I find more appealing about Judaism, because there appears (to an outsider) to be much more of a tradition of grappling with faith, of trying to unpack the meaning of the "words of God" and relate them to the human condition. I'm sure there's some of that in Christian traditions too, but it was never a mainstream feature of the Catholicism that I grew up with.

I grew up as a Catholic as well, so I understand why you might think this. But I really do not think this is because of Catholicism so much as it is because of shallow education (possibly because it's hard to get someone to think deeply about these issue when they're young, and it's far easier for them to get them to be able to recite John 3:16). If anything, Catholicism is a highly intellectual tradition. I know Orthodox Christians and some Protestants actually dislike Catholicism because they think it is too rational, that they bring too much of human reason into religion when they should just trust in the traditions handed down to us. Catholicism, and Christianity in general, have a very strong tradition of grappling with faith and trying to understand how the words of God relate to the human condition. Like, it's quite surprising that your takeaway is that Christianity doesn't do this and that this is the reason you don't find it appealing because if anything this is a key characteristic of Christianity. 2000 years of people arguing about biblical exegesis, theology, Christology, etc. It is really a great shame that catechesis today is so poor that people like you who are genuinely open to it have come away thinking "These people aren't really grappling with their faith or seriously engaging with the word of God and what it means for us today."

TL;DR - There's more to Christianity. Even if you haven't found anything I've said above interesting, it would probably be worth your time looking more deeply into it.

[epiccoleman]

I think I've been failing to express my biggest issue - entirely my fault. Trying to squeeze my problem into "it doesn't seem to address the human condition" really breaks down, because as you describe above, Christianity does have an answer for this.

As for the issue of spiritual exegesis in Christianity, I'm certainly aware that it exists, and a lack of it also isn't my real issue. I guess my problem, in short, is that the central theology of the death and resurrection of Jesus doesn't seem to ... add up for me, for lack of a better way to put it. I'm sorry in advance, because this is going to feel like a move of the goalposts from my first posts.

I am once again going to struggle to express this clearly, especially in the context of an HN post, so fair warning, but here's my best shot:

God - a being/intelligence/force with the capability of creating a universe - sacrificed his son / himself to himself in order to wipe clean the cosmic debt of sin of humanity. This was done as a gift to humanity, because without this sacrifice, humans could never attain salvation - which, in short, means the ability to become our true, ideal selves - to have a relationship with God, to reach a oneness with him.

It just feels so ... small, in a sense. That the whole point of Jesus was to thread some cosmic loophole in the rules that gave humanity a clean slate in terms of sin. Surely there has to be some bigger explanation? surely knowing everything we know about what it took for conscious humans to exist on this planet - how can I be satisfied with this explanation that the cosmic currency of the universe and God and conscious beings is sin and sacrifice?

Now - with all that said - clearly there's room for exegesis and interpretation here. I can start to wind together explanations - maybe the whole notion of the "sacrifice" is not the full picture. Perhaps the life and death of Jesus was less about paying off some cosmic debt, but more about some sort of change in consciousness of humanity. Without that story and the culture / religion that spun out of it, maybe we never could have reached that understanding of the divine that would let us have that full relationship with God. I can play the game of rationalization all day and come to conclusions that feel more satisfactory to me - but it all feels like "theory building" and I don't see the same urge to that kind of thing in the average churchgoer.

But as soon as I have to start playing these games, it seems to call into question the whole central notion of the theology, and I'm left scratching my head, wondering what I'm missing. Either way, as much as I'm open to the ideas and the sort of "secularly obvious benefits of religion," I'm still left in a place where I certainly don't feel comfortable saying the Creed every Sunday. (And this discussion doesn't even begin to get into other ideas of Christianity/Catholicism, like the Eucharist, or problems inherent to any theism like the so called "trilemma").

I'm not sure if all that will make sense, it's a difficult feeling to express.

Anyway, I've enjoyed the discussion. Since HN isn't the best platform for these sorts of long running threads, if you feel like continuing the conversation, feel free to find my email in my profile. I am fascinated by these sorts of debates and always enjoy finding someone to have them with in good faith. If not, that's ok too, either way, thanks for the chat!

[cksquare]

This is the tired kind of equivocating that's used by lazy Christians to claim atheism is a discrete and well-formed ideology. Atheism is just that, a-theism, a rejection of the notion of a supernatural dimension occupied by 'personal' god(s).

What evidence (or counter-evidence) do you suggest I present to show that my disbelief in Thor or Odin is wrong?

[gwd]

"Unicorns exist" and "unicorns don't exist" are both factual statements of which one can have a belief. Right now you probably hold one or the other. Sure, if you'd never heard of unicorns, such a thing wouldn't enter your head; but you have heard of unicorns, and thus you do have an opinion on their existence.

Similarly, if one lived all one's life in a rationalist bubble, and never even heard the mention of God or gods or religion or the supernatural, then perhaps one could not have an opinion on whether God exists. But that applies neither to you nor to Dennet.

How would I know that my disbelief in Thor is wrong? At a first cut, I'd need to have someone propose a more concrete proposition to evaluate; then I could try to evaluate it. But whatever that proposition is, it would need to be able to accommodate all that we've learned about the world and about science; it would need to be falsifiable; and it would need to explain the world in a more satisfactory manner than the alternative worldviews.

[cksquare]

"Unicorns exist" and "unicorns don't exist" are not factual statements, they are premises. Establishing the truth or falsehood of either has nothing to do with my opinion of the existence of unicorns--unicorns would not exist in spite of my fervent desire for them to be real, or if I just happened to think they were really cool.

Assuming that you believe in the miracles of the old and new testaments, how would such things be proven false? For them to be positive evidence for the existence of God, we should at least be able to imagine how we'd go about refuting them.

[backpackviolet]

> Right now you probably hold one or the other.

No, right now you probably have no opinion on the subject. And depending on context are perfectly willing to entertain either or neither. The world will be a much better place when people stop having opinions on things just because someone asked them to pick a team.

[gwd]

A reasonably mature thinker holds beliefs in terms of Bayesian estimates, and as Dennet says, one should always be willing to entertain evidence that contradicts your current Bayesian estimates. That doesn't mean you don't have beliefs.

[Jensson]

When you read a fantasy story you don't really think about whether it is true or not, if someone asked you then you would say it isn't true, but you never thought about it before prompted.

So for me the first time I really thought about whether god existed was in internet discussions. When I learned about the religions in school it was just a bunch of cool stories and cultural things, there was no need to think whether any of that was real or not. And when I got into internet discussions and first encountered religious people I wondered why they thought a fantasy story was real, but apparently you can't ask them that.

[knightoffaith]

Maybe there are some people you can't ask that, but of course, many are happy to deal with the question. And indeed, historically, theists have long engaged with questions about why their religion is true.

Anyway, unlike fantasy stories, religious people are led into belief due to things like people insisting that a religion is true, arguments that suggest that God exist, and spiritual experiences. Maybe this isn't convincing to you, but it's markedly different from a fairy tale.

[Jensson]

> people insisting that a religion is true, arguments that suggest that God exist, and spiritual experiences

I just never met such people irl so I have no idea what that is like. Like, having a bunch of people trying to gaslight you into believing in these stories feels like a nightmare to me, I can see why you would say you believe just to make the nightmare end.

The only very religious person I talked to about these things irl said that belief is a very personal thing and he didn't care about what others thinks or doesn't think. I think that is much healthier, and with such an approach you get almost no believers since there is no longer any pressure to believe things we wouldn't naturally believe in.

[knightoffaith]

I don't know what in my comment provoked such a negative reaction from you - maybe the word "insisting" came off as too strong? I really just meant to say that there are many people who seriously believe in religion, and you can't say the same for fantasy stories. If you're not interested, that's fine.

Anyway, they're not really "gaslight[ing] you into believing in these stories" any more than a climate change activist is doing that. They believe their stories are true and that it would have a positive effect on you and the world if you too were to believe in it.

[geye1234]

> What evidence (or counter-evidence) do you suggest I present to show that my disbelief in Thor or Odin is wrong?

There are no attempts at proof (that I'm aware of) for the existence of these mythical deities. There are several for the existence of the God of monotheism, which I believe to be sound, but will struggle to fit into a combox.

Further, the thing we imagine them to be is different in kind from the God of monotheism. There are sound explanations of why this is so, but (again) they won't fit into a combox.

See Edward Feser's Five Proofs for the Existence of God, and some of his other works, if you care to explore this further. Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and the like ignore, or grossly straw-man, these arguments.

[bglazer]

Personally, if there was an easily verifiable, continuous example of a phenomena that violated basic physics and it was arranged in such a way that it sent a clear message confirming the existence of a deity, then I’m easily done with atheism.

Like if the gases of a nebula got rearranged to spell out “God is real”, then sure yeah I guess they are real.

[palata]

I used to define myself as "agnostic", as in "well I don't know, right now I don't have any reason to believe in <choose your God here>, but if you could prove it I would obviously change my mind".

But then I changed my mind: now I believe that agnosticism is just a "shy" way of being atheist, somehow trying to say "I don't believe in a particular deity, but I can't commit to saying that I believe there is no deity". But that's the whole point of a belief: I could be wrong, and it would be okay to change my mind. A belief is not a proven fact.

So I am an atheist: I don't believe in any particular deity, and in fact I do believe that there is no such thing. But obviously if you proved my belief wrong, then I would change my belief :-).

[Scubabear68]

I think the very definition of Christianity is that you are accepting the creed on faith. There really aren’t any claims you can verify or falsify until after you die (or during the special time of the Rapture).

[geye1234]

This is false. There are thorough proofs (or, to avoid the success-word, attempts at proof) for God's existence. They are ignored or misunderstood by the popular atheists like Dawkins and Dennett. They are impossible to summarise in a combox or pithy comment but the information is out there if you care to look. [0]

There are also miracles with thousands of witnesses, most notably that at Fatima. The witnesses included not just Catholics, but also Protestants, atheists and those of other religions. https://www.basicincome.com/bp/files/Meet_the_Witnesses.pdf

[0] See Edward Feser's Five Proofs

[a_wild_dandan]

Personal revelation requires no faith. Such evidence might then rationally lead to belief, like any other anecdotal conviction. That it provides little external evidence is just unfortunate for the rest of us.

[felipefar]

That's not the definition of Christianity. Catholicism has a long philosophical tradition discussing the existence of God, and that tradition is far from refuted.

[Scubabear68]

I think you misunderstand.

There are no physical proofs available that Christian it is right. As I say, it is all based on faith and belief.

Several other religions also have long philosophical traditions that are equally plausible - or not - and for which no physical proof exists.

[a_wild_dandan]

Mathematical proofs need no physical evidence. They're saying something similar is accepted by some Christians. That's an internally consistent viewpoint. Us skeptics simply misunderstand their irrefutable logical proof.

[Scubabear68]

Math is a tool used to describe the universe, not the universe itself.

The map is not the territory.

[a_wild_dandan]

You appear to be shadowboxing an argument where no arguments were made. If anything in my observational comment strikes you as remotely controversial or contradictory to yours, something has gone awry.

[MeImCounting]

Thank you for saying this. This is very true and a perspective that is all too relevant to this discussion and many others.

[Ensorceled]

It is literally impossible to prove that god does not exist. It is not a disprovable statement.

I also can't prove Ra, Zeus, Thor, Unicorns, Ghosts, or Superman don't exist.

[knightoffaith]

Well, there are some atheists that argue that God's omnibenevolence is incompatible with the evils in the world, meaning God cannot exist (or at least, is either not omnibenevolent or not omnipotent, and if these are part of the definition of God, then God insofar as the term refers to something with at least these two properties, does not exist). Theists have responses to this argument, but the point is that the subject matter is something that can be rationally discussed.

[Ensorceled]

Sure, I've engaged in similar discussions in philosophy classes, but this was always about whether a specific definition of "god" could exist and lead to discussion like "can God make a rock so heavy even they can't lift it".

It never has lead to a point that proves God exists or not. Unless philosophy has moved way beyond my readings and I missed it.

[slothtrop]

Discussing, not doubting (Except as an exercise to criticize skepticism).

[Jensson]

> I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong.

Not sure what you mean, any clear sign from a god would apply here. You seem to believe that such a thing isn't possible making their position irrational, but then I wonder how you can still say you believe in a god? Do you believe that God can't intervene in this world?

But for example, if God manifested giant talking heads all over the world I am pretty sure atheism would disappear very quickly.

[a_wild_dandan]

The same evidence that you'd need for belief in other gods. He just goes one god further than you.

[Vecr]

I'm not sure what Daniel Dennett's current position is on action without free will, but assuming it's something reasonable, I'd consider it plausibly wrong if gassing hell and nuking heaven failed to produce the desired effect in a way that's almost impossible to fake.

[bettercaust]

Christianity is faith, not a model of reality, so it can't be "wrong" but nor does it purport to be "right". It comes down to whether or not you continue to believe in its tenets.

[kgwxd]

You have 0 evidence that Christianity is "right", whatever that even means. Provide just a tiny shred of evidence, and Dennet, along with the rest of us, will reconsider the position.

[viscountchocula]

Out of curiosity, what might that evidence Christianity is wrong be?

[jibalt]

"I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong"

I don't believe this.

"I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong."

Perhaps the reason you aren't aware that he has addressed this at length is that you don't have have his name right.

Also, as Chris Hitchens noted, religion poisons everything, including this thread.

[edanm]

You're being unnecessarily mean and confrontational, that isn't a good fit for HN.

You can take parent at their word that he's thought about it and engage, or you can choose not to engage. No reason to disparage them.

[jibalt]

No, you. I was neither mean nor confrontational, I merely expressed my personal skepticism. I could have gone into detail as to why his statement is implausible, but that would have been mean.

So as to minimize confrontation, I won't respond to any further provocation.

I will also note that religion is off-topic at HN, for obvious reasons.