I can imagine lots of ways in which the world would be different if a superpowerful superbeing was around with the ability and will to shape reality for whatever purpose
Looking at your examples, they all seem to boil down to “things that violate this-world!ArisKatsaris’s intuitions about how the world works”. If you lived in a world were any of the things you described in your comment occurred you wouldn’t be impressed by them. To adapt the post I linked to: If you demand miracles, miracles won’t convince you.
If you lived in a world where any of the things you described in your comment occurred you wouldn’t be impressed by them.
What does being “impressed” have to do with anything? I’m talking about believing in someone’s existence.
I don’t deny the existence of the Pope. I don’t deny the existence of the American President. I’m not impressed by either but I don’t deny them. I don’t deny the past existence of dinosaurs. I don’t even deny the existence of King David and Agamemnon as historical figures. I make fun of the people who deny the existence of historical Jesus (or Socrates or Mohammed). So why would I deny the existence of God, if I saw a world that looked to me like it has more evidence about his existence than his non-existence?
You are assuming that I started looking this from a non-believer’s perspective, but it’s what made me an unbeliever. Back when I was at school I started by just disbelieving in the Genesis story because the world looked like it would look as if evolution was true—a God throwing around dinosaur bones to prank us was even more incompatible with Christianity than “look, it’s not meant as a literal story”. Then step-by-step, more and more things spoken by Christianity just didn’t seem to fit the world around me. Not the omnibenevolence and omnipotence of god, not the nature of the soul (why does the mind depend so much on biochemistry of the brain). By my college years only some unanswered questions about the mystery of consciousness or existence could be said to even be used as a hole to fit a relevant God in.
From “Christian” in my childhood to “Christian mostly but I don’t accept everything that religion says” in highschool, to “agnostic” in college, to “agnostic-leaning-atheist” in my post-college years, and finally having the guts to just say “atheist”.
I didn’t start from a position of disbelief which I found ways to maintain—I started from a position of belief which could simply no longer be honestly maintained in the face of the evidence.
Looking at your examples, they all seem to boil down to “things that violate this-world!ArisKatsaris’s intuitions about how the world works”. If you lived in a world were any of the things you described in your comment occurred you wouldn’t be impressed by them. To adapt the post I linked to: If you demand miracles, miracles won’t convince you.
What does being “impressed” have to do with anything? I’m talking about believing in someone’s existence.
I don’t deny the existence of the Pope. I don’t deny the existence of the American President. I’m not impressed by either but I don’t deny them. I don’t deny the past existence of dinosaurs. I don’t even deny the existence of King David and Agamemnon as historical figures. I make fun of the people who deny the existence of historical Jesus (or Socrates or Mohammed). So why would I deny the existence of God, if I saw a world that looked to me like it has more evidence about his existence than his non-existence?
You are assuming that I started looking this from a non-believer’s perspective, but it’s what made me an unbeliever. Back when I was at school I started by just disbelieving in the Genesis story because the world looked like it would look as if evolution was true—a God throwing around dinosaur bones to prank us was even more incompatible with Christianity than “look, it’s not meant as a literal story”. Then step-by-step, more and more things spoken by Christianity just didn’t seem to fit the world around me. Not the omnibenevolence and omnipotence of god, not the nature of the soul (why does the mind depend so much on biochemistry of the brain). By my college years only some unanswered questions about the mystery of consciousness or existence could be said to even be used as a hole to fit a relevant God in.
From “Christian” in my childhood to “Christian mostly but I don’t accept everything that religion says” in highschool, to “agnostic” in college, to “agnostic-leaning-atheist” in my post-college years, and finally having the guts to just say “atheist”.
I didn’t start from a position of disbelief which I found ways to maintain—I started from a position of belief which could simply no longer be honestly maintained in the face of the evidence.
It has to do with computing P(our universe|God exists).