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1382
rating
476
debates
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won
Topic
#6620
The lack of evidence for the existence of God is one of if not the weakest reasons or reason to be an atheist.
Status
Voting
The participant that receives the most points from the voters is declared a winner.
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Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Two weeks
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- Six months
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- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
1
1500
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1
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Description
The lack of evidence for the existence of God is one of if not the weakest reasons or reason to be an atheist.
Please quote exactly. Do not rephrase or reinterpret. Answer all questions directly. Failure to comply with all this is an automatic forfeit.
Disclaimer : Regardless of the setup for voting win or lose, The aim of this interaction, Is for those that view it, Learn and or take away anything that will amount to any constructive value ultimately. So that counts as anything that'll cause one to reconsider an idea, Understand a subject better, Help build a greater wealth of knowledge getting closer to truth. When either of us has accomplished that with any individual here, That's who the victor of the debate becomes.
Send a message for questions on the topic.
Round 1
Greetings.
What was your impression of the topic to draw you to accept?
I'm an atheist. I go about life without the belief that there's an omniscient being watching over mankind, punishing the bad and rewarding the good, all in their due time. Albeit I'm still a young adult and haven't been a member of any religion for a long period of time, I've frequented Metodist and Evangelical churches. For about 2 years, I attended church at least 1 or 2 sundays a month and bore witness to the faithful. That's some of my background.
My experience with the existence of god resides in scriptures and word of mouth. I have yet to see something that can inarguably be attributed to god's will that can't also be attributed to chance or explained with logic that doesn't involve the lord. Thus, I was drawn to argue against your claim.
Round 2
Alright well you believe that the gods of theism don't exist.
Unless you're agnostic, atheists believe that the gods of theism DON'T exist based on......no evidence.
But in the same breath look for evidence that they do in this why agnostics are more rational because they require more to be swayed. Atheists only require partial input.
This is why the reason of no evidence known, not no evidence period or absolutely but no evidence known to us that these gods exist is not substantial as in comparison to agnosticism.
That's pretty much it in a nutshell.
Often times in which you described, there are life experiences and emotions that sway us. Hence atheism, theism, deism.
It's very little to do with a thing called evidence at all.
Agnosticism concludes that there is nothing for or against as a non biased response.
Just speaking about your personal religious experience, more than likely something in that triggered to where you have swayed today.
Someone with the same could have been swayed the other way.
It wasn't a matter of proving or disproving anything. There's no sufficient basis either way you split it.
I'll add this last thing to end off this round.
In speaking with an atheist that made the claim without evidence by the way, the bible is false.
I asked what the evidence was. He said it is impossible for people to resurrect. Then he said along the lines based on the resurrection in the scriptures, it was highly UNLIKELY. Which now changes the scope of it ultimately refuting himself not truly having evidence at all.
So the basis of atheism has a very thin ground to stack anything up with.
I yield.
Outside of the two years I spent trying to integrate myself in a church, there was only one time I had set foot inside a church, and I was fairly young at that.
For most of my life, God was just a concept people used to explain events and there was barely any emphasis on that, from the places I frequent.
Lack of evidence doesn't always mean just "Prove to me that God exists and I will"
People who already have their own preconceived notions will have a harder time adjusting to a new belief that challenges what they already believe in. And that's what telling me that being an atheist for lack of proof is.
The norm is that you go to the hospital to get cured by a Doctor. You go to the police hoping to report or get an issue solved. And so on and so forth for other services.
While at church, I usually heard some testimonies where a person faced some life struggle, but prevailed either due to their faith or something that was made possible by it. Yet the same events could be explained by simple chance.
Some cases were: being shot at the battlefield and escaping a kidnapping (a very old person btw) by being saved by someone who traced their phone's signals. Landing a job after hours of praying. Persevering through misfortuntes.
All such events can have non religious explanations. Would this not imply that theism is not logical?
Perhaps it might be blasphemy to state the following: It's no different from saying that a random person you never heard about happened to save a sick mother from an illness, simply by deciding to do it. There are so many factors that are involved in an illness being eradicated that don't attribute to someone's touch.
It's not that there's a lack of evidence that God exists. It's that there's an abundance of facts that make God irrelevant to what plays out in the real world. Facts that suggest God is a global folklore.
Round 3
Ok , do you disagree or agree with all I stated last round?
I disagree. I can't prove that a person I've never met before doesn't exist, same for historical events, objects or supernatural occurences (Not even referring specifically to Gods in this point)
But if that said person, object or event defies that which I already know and experience, then it's sound to not believe in it. Which is why lack of evidence isn't just that, it's challenging already existing beliefs.
Round 4
If there is no evidence either way, if a subject hasn't been proven or disproven, is it more sound to be undecided in belief or believe it to be disproven by what you already know and experience which isn't absolute?
If there is no proof either way of any god of theism existing or not, why wouldn't be most sound to be undecided?
There's no confirmation of non existence at all. If there is, please share this with us .
My experiences aren't absolute, that is true. They are, however, the best guide for what I should believe in and follow. And not in the narrow sight of thinking everything I see and hear amd experience is the truth, no.
Gambling is one of the first things that come to mind when looking for something to explain my view. No one can prove that the next time I make a bet, I won't earn a million dollars.
A successful gambler would tell me to keep trying, and eventually I'll make it big so long as I don't lose hope.
An ex-gambler who bet their life savings and kept losing would tell you otherwise. That playing it safe is better than throwing away your lifeline.
There is no objective evidence against or in favor of theism. Each one of us has individual experiences that influences us in our choice of whether to have faith or not. It's up to individual interpretation.
And thus, an atheist asking for proof doesn't just come from the lines of "No evidence". It can also come from "This goes against what I already live with". I used the gambling example to try and explain this. It makes more sense to believe something which aligns with your life than to throw away experiences to make space for something you've never experienced.
So in that breadth, I assume that to you, it makes sense to believe God exists, despite not having concrete existence. Could you tell me why?
Round 5
We don't have anymore rounds to hash this out so I'll conclude with this.
If you want an expansion, let me know.
I can't separate absolute from the best.
You can say the best to you. But that's not "the best".
Especially of the possibility of being wrong. So much for "the best".
It's not the best. It's your best which is different.
This just points out how weak this stance is. Don't go with "the best to you", go with evidence.
There is no known evidence that these gods don't exist and to just believe they don't because the very best to you today is no known evidence is not good enough, not strong enough or the best when somebody can have evidence to show you wrong tomorrow.
"So in that breadth, I assume that to you, it makes sense to believe God exists, despite not having concrete existence. Could you tell me why?"
I can't tell you why. Why? I have never illustrated such a stance this entire topic. See, you really ought to focus more on making absolutes the epicenter because it'll make you more matter of fact than the very "best" as it is according to your life experiences. It'll make drop assumptions and get the facts.
Evidence doesn't work by subjective alignment. It works by itself without it. If you want to think evidence is just what makes the most sense to you, you'll be conflating a lot of theory, belief systems and etc. as fact.
This is why you don't assume that I'm saying that theism makes the most sense or more sense , so therefore.....
No I'm keeping it consistent all around.
Evidence evidence evidence evidence. Atheism nor theism, whatever, are weaker or less rational positions than agnosticism. They both are faiths.
The reason of, because of a lack of evidence to you and what is "best" to you is not as strong as absolute reality.
Think about it .
Peace be.
There's no absolute evidence in favor or against God's existence. Yet that doesn't mean it makes more sense to assume the stance of neutrality.
While science has yet to explain many phenomena, many of God's feats in the bible stand as fantastical, something that could only come up in fantasy books. So it is only logical to assume that he, too, may be a fantasy.
In that sense, the absolute workings of how life works, physics and all that, don't favor God's feats as realistic, and thus make his existence much less likely.
Parting the sea in two for a prolonged period of time? Healing the blind by covering their eyes and praying for them?
There's no evidence that swings either way, but logic swings in atheism's favor.
