Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

by The wanderer 149 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  diamondblue1974

  According to my way of thinking, to deny the possibility that
  God exists is a closed-minded position. Simply, because if
  paranormal activity can be proven, who is to say that a high-
  er being does not exist.

  To me this smacks of circular logic similar to that used by JWs; I dont deny that a god might exist but in what form I am yet to discover...my belief or non belief in so called paranormal activity however has no bearing upon my belief in a god as such.

  I rather like Gadgets microwave analogy...good point.
• 

  fullofdoubtnow

  I consider myself an atheist these days.

  I cannot explain paranormal activity, but fail to see how this is evidence of the existence of god. If there is a god, and he loves humanity, as the bible suggests he does, why does he allow all the sufferring that has gone on for centuries when, if he is all - powerful, he could stop it easily?

  I don't want anything to do with a god like that.
• 

  Satanus

  To a borderline believer or a supersticious person, this is a challenge, because he is subject to fear. But, to an atheist it isn't a challenge. Myself, i feel very little need to defend and no need to spread my brand of belief/unbelief

  S

  Ps, i don't deny that there is some paranormal activity. However, the lack of evidence for the existence of the bible god within that activity has proved, for all intents and purposes, that the bible god does not exist.
• 

  Beardo

  As far as the paranormal "evidence" that you mention, James Randi has a $1 million offer to anyone who can reproduce these in a controlled environment. The offer has been around for years. NO ONE has even come close to winning it.

  @ Seeker4

  Sorry, but the supernatural world does not operate to entertain clowns like Randi. I know several people who have had bizarre and whacked-out encounters with what would appear to be otherworldly intelligences and whatever these things are, they will not perform upon command.

  One guy's camera would mysteriously stop working when a ghostly figure repeatedly appeared in his living room for instance and I know this guy has had some quite unusual encounters in his time and his girlfriend will happily back up all of his accounts.
• 

  V

  Likewise, my car only makes this certain knocking sound when my mechanic is not present. I think this is proof of gremlins.
• 

  Liberty

  Hi Wanderer,

  I'll start with your last point. Certainly no one can deny the POSSIBILITY that any thing MAY exist. There may very well be invisible pink unicorns floating in the miasmic ethers which hold my fate in their tiny hooves but which I cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. Such beings would all be beside the point however, since they are outside the realm of our natural world and beyond the scope of my senses I cannot interact or come to know them or understand or manipulate the otherwise random hold they may have upon me. In short, having faith in the existance of such unseen beings will ultimately do me no good and are hence a huge waste of time. Admitting that all possibilities are possible is very much like saying, "everything is up", it just is not very informative or useful.

  If God exists he has chosen to remain invisible and beyond the limited scope of human senses. If He demands something from us we are left ignorant of these demands by His total lack of communication. Any believer in any and all nonsense can claim that they know what these silent and invisible beings may want from us but we would then be left at their mercy having to believe in any and all mannor of religious/spiritual practices and traditions. Allah, Zeus, Thor, or any spirit beings for that matter are all equally possible but we must always take the word of some human prophet, revered tradition, and/or old books as our only evidence for their existence and what they may demand from us. Why is our Western European Christianity any better? I have been searching for most of my life for a "true" god and have come up confused and without any definitive proof that one is more real than any other.

  I may attempt to talk about your other points latter if time permits.
• 

  under_believer

  That website is crap. There is no well-documented, provable case of paranormal activity that has ever occurred, anywhere, ever.
  
  Prove me wrong. Don't link to a joke of a website. Show me the peer-reviewed scientific study about it.
• 

  daystar

  LOL@beardo

  I know several people who have had bizarre and whacked-out encounters with what would appear to be otherworldly intelligences and whatever these things are, they will not perform upon command.

  I know several people who will deny your claim. Though I doubt many of them are likely to separate themselves from the shadows long enough to try to prove something to you or to anyone else. As well, these experiences are subjective in nature.

  As for the rest of this thread, I reside in a fairly peculiar position in that I fully believe in the power of belief in any god to cause effects of one kind or another in a person's experience of life. On the other hand, I have no objective evidence that any such gods exist. I also don't have evidence that some planet entirely inhabited by pencil erasers does not exist somewhere out there.

  Now, people will say "this happened" and "that happened" as some sort of evidence that a god exists. Well, not IMO. It might be an indicator that something exists to have caused such an event. But that doesn't mean it's not entirely natural, but unknown at this time, such as lightning as mentioned above. We now know that gods do not physically stand on clouds casting about lightning bolts. We have harnessed the power of electricity, once considered by many to be a power of the gods. To those people, we would be those gods.

  I'm digressing a bit. The challenge? I'm sorry, but the burden of evidence is upon the person making the claim. The challenge is upon the believer, not upon the unbeliever.
• 

  daystar

  Likewise, my car only makes this certain knocking sound when my mechanic is not present. I think this is proof of gremlins

  ROFLMAO@V - Precisely!
• 

  sspo