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Why do so many of you blame atheists for not “choosing” to believe in god (or "choosing" to not believe in god)? We have not made that choice.
How does one just “choose” to believe in god, if they have not been convinced that “he” exists?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence if they are to be believed.
1)For example, if you read in a biography that Abraham Lincoln ate an apple everyday for breakfast, you probably would not even question this and would accept the claim.. People eat apples every day, so it is no skin off your nose to believe that Lincoln ate apples for breakfast. Sure this could be a false claim, but it is not unreasonable to believe it.
2)Now, what about the story of Lincoln being shot by John Wilkes Booth? Sure, that could be a made-up legend, but we do have evidence that he died and we know that humans who are shot, often die, so it is not unreasonable to believe this.
3)Now, what if people claimed that Lincoln died but came back to life inhabiting the body of his successor in order to finish out his term? Is it reasonable to believe that humans come back to life and then inhabit another person's body? Not without extraordinary evidence.
Claims #1 and #2 may very well be false, but I would have no problem believing #1 and #2 about Lincoln without much or any evidence. It is an ordinary occurrence that is not unreasonable to believe in because we know people eat apples and are shot everyday. However, if someone asked me to bet my life savings on my belief that Lincoln ate apples, I would not take the bet without doing some in depth research and finding proof of this information.
However, claim #3 would require extraordinary evidence to be believed. It is only with extraordinary claims that are outside of our realm of normalcy and experience, where I would require extraordinary (or convincing) evidence in order to personally believe it. In the above example, I don't reject that Lincoln existed, I just reject the claims that he inhabited his successor's body because this is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof. Likewise, I don't reject that Jesus existed, I just reject the supernatural claims about him without some kind of proof.
With that being said, how does one “choose” to believe extraordinary claims without something that convinces them of the claim’s truth? Without some kind of convincing proof or experience, how is an atheist expected to believe in god? My beliefs are arrived at based on something convincing me of its truth. I cannot just choose to believe out of the blue. Nothing has convinced me yet of god's existence, so I do not currently believe. It doesn’t matter if I “want” to believe in god (which I do), because my beliefs aren’t arrived at based on what I “want” to believe in.
So why do so many christians blame atheists for not being able to believe these "extraordinary" claims (about god/jesus), when in any other situation (not related to their religion), they would most likely not believe such claims either?
I mean, that the atheist evidence of the existence of God is available
If this evidence is available would you mind directing those of us who are atheists or even Christians who may be doubting their faith where it is located? After over three years on this forum no one has produced any hard evidence that would prove that God is real. If you are able to achieve this goal you're going to be on national news programs by tomorrow because no one in history has done it so far so you'd be the first.
Evidence of a God is all in the eye of the beholder, a person can look at a seedling sprouting and see God in its works, and another person can look at the same seedling and see nothing but a biological process taking place. If one seeks imperial evidence then one would have to ask the question, "What type of evidence do I need in order to be convienced?"
Beautifully said.
if theists can't understand this very simple logic, there is absolutely not hope for them.
Excellent job OP!
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Atheists win either way
