Remember my friend who recently became an atheist? She had a facebook status talking about the null hypothesis. Someone left this.

Have you ever wondered why atheists spend so much time refuting something that they don’t even believe exists? My personal belief is that they want someone to convince them otherwise. To become free from the question of God. But that won’t ever happen because God created us to know him. He is actively pursuing you at all times and you will never be free until you respond…you will always be searching for reasoning. Next time ask yourself…could that little question, that little conscience that is always at the forefront of my mind….could that be God? Have you already seen http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/? I was actually just reading in Romans 1 yesterday about how God’s “invisible” qualities are made so clear that man is without excuse. This website lays those out pretty clearly. I also participated in a study in college about the validity of the bible and how, unlike any other transcript from that time, the stories recorded are recorded during the lifetime of the witnesses….no hearsay. Might be a different path to look down.

Let me help…

Have you ever wondered why atheists spend so much time refuting something that they don’t even believe exists?

Easy answer: because people use ‘god’s will’ as justification for a lot of behaviors/policies that negatively impact the well-being of others. Because we care about the suffering of our neighbors, we argue against irrational beliefs.

My personal belief is that they want someone to convince them otherwise.

I’d be happy to be convinced god exists. I simply won’t be convinced by bad reasons though, and this is all believers have ever brought to the table. Funny, since god could just pop down and resolve the question forever and remove the need for the debate. He’s not done this.

To become free from the question of God. But that won’t ever happen because God created us to know him. He is actively pursuing you at all times and you will never be free until you respond…you will always be searching for reasoning.

This is an unremarkable piece of word salad.

If god created us to know him, he’s done a very poor job of arranging for that, hasn’t he? Most of the world is not Christian, for instance. If he wanted a relationship with us and the best he could come up with was a system in which the vast majority of people throughout history, almost all of them earnestly searching for god’s true identity, are wrong, then he’s incompetent at best.

What’s more, plenty of research confirms that most Christians haven’t read the bible. I have. So have a lot of atheists (Pew study from September 2010 confirmed that atheists in general knew more about the various religions than the adherents of those religions). You cannot say we’re not open to knowing god, otherwise why would we read a book so full of irrelevant tedium that most of its followers haven’t read it?

The world you’re describing is a world where high school drop outs raised in church have an effortless bead on the deepest, most important truth, while people like myself and 93% of the members of the National Academy of Science are damned for our skepticism. This is not a world in which the god you describe exists. It’s not that we’re close-minded, it’s that so far the evidence is either non-existent or it sucks immensely.

Next time ask yourself…could that little question, that little conscience that is always at the forefront of my mind….could that be God?

It could be, but probably not. Hell, whenever my sock goes missing, it could be because of trouble-making fairies. Just because something’s possible, however, doesn’t mean that it’s plausible.

We know how the human mind sees agency in a lot of things where no agency is present, so anybody ascribing euphoric feelings to a god is far more likely making the same mistake that caused our ancestors to firmly believe that the planet Mars was literally the god of war.

Besides, if god really wants to know me, or if god gives the most minimal shit if we believe he exists, is nebulous feelings (likely the same type experienced when we meditate) the best he could do? Both you and I could come up with something better in a matter of seconds. Even appearing to a small group of people in a place woefully ignorant when compared to the rest of the ancient world (why not show up in China where they had invented the printing press?) and commanding them to go tell a ludicrous story bereft of any evidence to the rest of the world, though a terribly ill-conceived plan, would still be better than “god gave us fuzzy feelings.”

Have you already seen http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/?

The site runs the presuppositionalism argument. It’s terrible. When I’m in debates I start drooling waiting for my turn if someone starts using it.

It begins by citing the passage you talk about…

It is true that God does not need anyone, let alone this website, to prove His existence. The Bible teaches that the existence of God is so obvious that we are without excuse for denying Him.

If god’s existence doesn’t need anyone to prove his existence, including that web site, it’s kind of strange how the Christian church is predicated on people running around trying to prove his existence to others. The existence of that website, as well as this person’s reliance on it, is a bit of a curiosity as well then, isn’t it?

And god’s existence is so obvious that we’re without excuse? This is imply not the case. Even though there was once a time when nothing was explained, ever since that time quite literally everything we’ve explained has been found to be the result of mindless forces acting upon inanimate objects. All of it. The universe creates order all by itself, which is precisely the universe we’d expect to see if no god existed.

Anyway, last page of that silly website says…

Universal, immaterial, unchanging laws cannot be accounted for if the universe was random or only material in nature.

Why not? Why wouldn’t a godless universe operate under a set of rules? Natural forces produce order all by themselves, and the laws we’ve noted are simply our way of describing how the universe behaves. As long as it behaves consistently, we have laws. Where does god come in?

The Bible teaches us that there are 2 types of people in this world, those who profess the truth of God’s existence and those who suppress the truth of God’s existence.

The bible is simply wrong. There are also people, like myself, who aren’t suppressing a thing – we just think that the only arguments for god’s existence are lousy (like the presuppositionalism argument). The bible has asserted that something is the case that clearly isn’t the case. The bible is wrong.

The options of ‘seeking’ God, or not believing in God are unavailable. The Bible never attempts to prove the existence of God as it declares that the existence of God is so obvious that we are without excuse for not believing in Him.

I lack the vocabulary to capture the unmitigated silliness of that statement.

The options of seeking god or not believing in god are unavailable? Must be news to all the Christians out there seeking him, eh? And the option of not believing is unavailable? Um, bullshit? Every human being has that option. I don’t believe, so the bible is empirically false (one might also wonder how that idea syncs up with free will). The bible never attempts to prove god’s existence, yet you should still believe without proof. It’s obvious, which is why almost everyone throughout history has not been a Christian.

This is the best proof this person could lay out? Really? How could you possibly read that and say, “This sounds totally legit,” instead of saying, “Heavens, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read!”?

I also participated in a study in college about the validity of the bible and how, unlike any other transcript from that time, the stories recorded are recorded during the lifetime of the witnesses….no hearsay.

This is just flat out wrong. The consensus of historians is that the first gospel, Mark, was written around 70 AD at the earliest. Matthew and Luke, which gank about 60% and 90% of Mark verbatim, came later.

And even if that statement weren’t atrociously wrong, so what? How does historical accuracy have any relevance to supernatural claims? If I took a history book, compliant with all known historical fact, and wrote, “and Elvis rose from the dead” on the back page before republishing it, would that mean that Elvis rose from the dead? Of course not.

Right now there are new religions in the world that are writing their holy books. They will be historically accurate, not because their religions are true, but because they were written by contemporary writers during a period in history. Why would anyone think that proper historical fact lent even a slight credence to the other ludicrous claims in those books?

And, like I said, the claim that the bible is the product of contemporary authorship is just plain bullshit.

Might be a different path to look down.

If that path is full of crap arguments and wrong history, stick with atheism until decent evidence comes along.