lack god belief?
By BourderHouse
@BourderHouse (749)
Philippines
March 6, 2007 10:57am CST
Atheists usually claim that they do not live by faith or what some people call "beliefs" but rather by reason and knowledge. I have often heard atheists say that they "lack god belief" but what does this mean?
In general, does a person who "lacks god beliefs" believe that no gods exist, or does it mean "having no opinion one way or the other" on the existence of gods, or does it mean something else?
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1 response
@aries_0325 (3060)
• Philippines
6 Mar 07
"good" and "evil" are words in the English language used to describe human actions, and sometimes non-human events. The concepts of "this is good" and "this is bad" are easily explained in evolutionary and biological terms. I recommend reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, he explains it far better than I could.
Let me give you an example of what good & evil is, and how the exact same actions can be described as good for one time period, and evil in another.
1. slavery: even the bible recognizes and condones human slavery. at one time in history slavery was not considered evil. Biblical authors, despite condemning even the silliest of human actions like eating shellfish, or wearing fabrics of mixed fibers, make no effort whatsoever to condemn slavery. In some OT passages, God(Yahweh) even describes the proper price value of a human slave and how long slaves should be kept and so forth. Yet, do you know a single Christian today who believes slavery to be anything other than evil?
2. witchcraft: in the middle ages, and even up until around 150 to 200 years ago, women were gathered (by Christians mind you) and tortured horrendously and often burned at the stake or otherwise murdered for being witches. Not only was this act not seen as being evil, it was seen as "good", a cleansing of evil. The same act today would be considered heinous, and barbaric.
Has Christianity changed, or have the concepts of what is good & evil changed? that is how "good and evil" work, they are social constructs used for the betterment of society.
Other than the concepts of good & evil, may I ask what else convinced you that a) a god was something more than an imagined being, but also that b) this god not only exists but is the Christian god of the bible?
As a rational thinker, surely you had some hard evidence that convinced you that a god exists. Are you sure one exists, or do you want there to be one to help you explain things you don't know the answer to?
