You claim that God does not exist.

Atheists, please define "God" in your own words.

You claim that He does not exist. So What and Who does not exist? Explain this to me.

The onus is upon you to justify your doubts.

 

I'm an atheist and I don't claim that at all.

 

Sorry, but then you are not an atheist.

Atheists believe "God does not exist" by definition. That's how everybody defines atheism.

 

Pfft. "Atheism" is a word meaning "weekday". For 6 days of the week are atheist, but 1 day is holy.

 

Well if you asked me if I believed in god, I would say no.

So yes, I am very much an atheist.

 

Man made being. Thus man creates his own idea of a god.

 

A possibility which is undefined and ephemeral, that cannot be explained or proven due to its nature. The idea that there might be something larger than me, directing or observing from somewhere.

The "Gods" of various holy texts cannot possibly exist as written, the laws of our reality prevent far too many aspects of what we term miracles as well as most of the stories presented as fact. There is no "Onus" to justify what you ask me to provide, as it is my own understanding and given to you freely.....though you did not truly wish to know, but instead wanted debate.

 

Interesting thread premise, havent you read 'The God Delusion'?

Anyway, typically atheists doubt the existence of an omnipotent personality or personalities that control, or have some influence over or simply created our lives.

The essence of that doubt springs from two main sources,

1/ lack of evidence, we cannot hear see or touch any such things. We can only imagine them in the same way we can imagine anything.

2/ A sense of the ridiculous, the existence of omnipotent personalities is essentially a ridiculous concept that throws up far more consequent questions that cannot be answered.

 

Then you do believe that God exists?

 

No. As I said, I'm an atheist.

 

Excellent question.

If they say the God of the Bible, then, they must do whatthe Jews have not been able to do, define the ineffable G-d that the Jews say they worship.
What the athesit is stuck with is his attempted arguments to show from the Bible that the G-d therein contradicts reasn, or his own Bible.

If they deny that Money is a God, or the Drugs that some people worship, or such concepts,... then they merely deny a rose by another name.

 

True...

Like Money makes Mammon the God for many people.

But what about The First Cause?

This was the creator of the Univese before man ever appeared on Earth.

 

The OP statement was "You claim that He does not exist.", and your response was "I'm an Atheist, I don't claim that at all." Well, if you don't claim that He does not exist, then you do not deny that He does exist.

 

1) So could Reality be a God, in that we can only define it to the exent of our mental model of what seems True

2) The Bible lists Facts which support the existence of some sort of divine revelation about knowledge that was totally unavailable to men in the past.
One example, such as emphatically telling us that the Cosmos had a definite beginning, was long unknown to us before 1940, when Hubble produced evidence for it.

So, Atheists claim that "the God of the holy texts cannot possibly exist as written" in their opinion?

 

The meaning of the word god (especially capitalised) varies hugely depending on context. It can be defined in more general terms, as a singular omnipotent being or even more generally as any super-human being though atheism is traditionally a reaction to specific theistic claims rather than an independent starting point.

Not exactly. Atheism is a description of a belief position - atheists don't believe any god or gods exist. It doesn't require a definitive statement that any god certainly doesn't exist, though some atheists can and do make such a statement. My personal logic is that we don't know but that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of any of the various gods or pantheons proposed I'm aware of. Belief isn't an active choice anyway - I couldn't just start believing in a god even if I wanted to, any more than a theist could simply stop believing.

I question the idea that atheists have any more onus to justify doubts than theists have to justify their faith though I can accept we all have the same onus to justify our individual stance, which I've done in brief above.

Of course, defining "god" (or even "God") is hardly an atheist only problem. Theists seem to struggle with a definitive definition, hence all the interpretations, sects and schisms within the major faiths. I'm not convinced they're in a position to expect a single definition from atheists if they can't present one themselves.

 

Sounds about right. God might exist. It might not.

But I have no reason to believe it does. So I don't.

 

You are an Agnostic.....welcome to the club.

Easily confused when the faithful call everyone who does not believe as they do an Atheist.

Agnosticism is the view that the existence or non-existence of any deity is unknown and possibly unknowable. More specifically, agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable.

 

I believe in Zeus. Prove he doesn't exist.

 

Yes. I am an agnostic, since I do not know whether a god exists or not.

I am also an atheist, since I do not believe one does.

 

It's the age old argument but the terms aren't mutually exclusive. Theism is about belief, gnosticism (in literal terms) about knowledge. They don't need to be directly linked, though there is a logical connection. It's a bit like height and weight.

The term atheist can be and is legitimately used to describe both people who explicitly state gods don't exist and people who "only" don't hold a positive belief in any gods. Like most words (as with the word "God" in the OP), the true interpretation relies on context.

Personally, I prefer to be defined as a "Joe" anyway.

 

Is the OP referring to a specific god?
Or one from this culture?

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/divinepharaoh.htm

 

That makes sense. One can have a belief, yet accept the limitations of knowledge.

That is a primary factor in Disbelief in religion.

 

LoL

That would make you a crazy, since Cognitive Dissonance is a mental condition where a person doesn't believe what he knows and visa versa.

 

The "claim that God does not exist," in the absence of any explanation for this short experience in this very strange place called the Universe is chancey, indeed.

Something seems to bring us into this life experience, and take us out of it.
People who believe that the cosmos is billions of years old, and that man arrived on the scene only recently, must certainly see that the Universe is immortal and will be here long after they are not.

By comparison, the Cosmos and the pentrating force behind its constant, ever unfolding suggests that it is almighty and immortal, while we are not.
Certainly, even for the so called atheist, this amighty is the God of the living, to which all must bow down and adapt to it, or become extinct.