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A recent survey conducted by University of Kentucky psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle found that up to 26 percent of Americans may be atheists. This study is designed to overcome the stigma associated with atheism and the possibility for closed atheists not to „go out“ even when speaking anonymously to pollsters. The full study is awaiting publication in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, but a draft version is available here. Some people think that a definition of „lack of faith“ of the atheist shifts the burden of proof onto the theist and requires him to prove the existence of their God. The truth is that the theist`s claim of a supernatural god with magical powers is an extraordinary claim and requires substantial evidence if it is to be logically believed. The burden of proof is on the theist, regardless of the definition of the word „atheist.“ „Atheism.“ Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism. Retrieved 17 October 2022. Given these different considerations in the arguments between faith, agnosticism and atheism, it is crucial to ask whether there is a good reason to believe that there is a personal creative reality that transcends the boundaries of space and time and transcends the world. Is there even a sufficient understanding of such discourse for such a reality to be the object of religious obligation? (You can`t believe or accept faith in something you don`t understand at all. People need to understand, at least in some way, what to believe in in order to believe it. If a person is asked to trust someone, they can`t do it, no matter how much they want to trust something.) From the middle of the second century, pagans regularly accused Christians of atheism.
In his first apology (c. 155), Justin Martyr responds to this accusation: „We are called atheists [atheoi],“ but at the same time admits and declares that „we are atheists as far as the gods (of the pagans) are concerned, but not in relation to the truest God“ (1 Apol. 6:1). „What sober person,“ Justin argues, „will not recognize that we are not atheists [atheoi] who worship as the Creator of this universe.“ (ibid. 13:1). He adds that „those who have lived rationally are Christians, even if they were considered atheists“ (ibid. 46:2). In his Second Apology (c. 161), Justin complains that Crescens, the pagan philosopher, wrongly describes Christians as „atheistic and ungodly [atheōn kai asebōn]“ (2 Apol. 3; the story is told in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 4.16.3).
Tatian (c. 160) also lamented that the Greeks excluded Christians „from civil rights as if we were the most ungodly [atheōtatoi] of men“ (Discourse to the Greeks 27:1). Athenagoras (c. 177) devotes several chapters to his apologies for countering the accusation that Christians are atheists (On Christians 4-30). How did we get here? Here is the man: How can it be explained? Atheism and atheistic philosophy have no adequate answers to these and similar questions. See also COSMOLOGY; CREATION; GOD. It can be argued that in order to avoid prioritism and dogmatic atheism, the existence of God must be considered a hypothesis. There is no ontological (purely a priori) evidence or refutation of God`s existence. It is not reasonable to decide in advance that it makes no sense to say that God exists. What the atheist can reasonably claim is that there is no evidence that there is a God, and in this context he may well be entitled to claim that there is no God.
However, it has been argued that it is simply dogmatic for an atheist to claim that no possible evidence could ever give a reason to believe in God. Instead, atheists should justify their disbelief by showing (if they can) how well the claim that there is no evidence to justify belief in God is received. If atheism is justified, the atheist will have shown that there is indeed not enough evidence to believe that God exists, but it should not be part of his job to try to show that there can be no evidence of God`s existence. If the atheist could somehow survive the death of his present body (assuming such a conversation made sense) and to his surprise could stand in God`s presence, his answer would have to be, „Oh! Lord, you have not given me enough proof! He would have been wrong and realized that he was wrong in his judgment that God did not exist. Nevertheless, given the evidence available to him during his earthly life, it would not have been unjustified to believe as he did. Since he has no such post-mortem experiences of God`s presence (assuming he can have them), he should say how things are going and given the evidence he actually has and can probably get that it is false that God exists. (Whenever you legitimately claim that a statement is false, you don`t need to be sure it`s false. „Knowing with certainty“ is not a pleonasm.) The claim is that this preliminary attitude is the reasonable position for the atheist. Global atheism is a very difficult position to justify (Diller 2016: 11-16). In fact, very few atheists have good reason to believe that this is true, as the vast majority of atheists have made no attempt to think of more than one or two of the many legitimate concepts of God that exist both inside and outside the various religious communities.
Nor have they thought about the criteria that must be met for a concept of God to be considered „legitimate,“ let alone the possibility of legitimate concepts of God that have not yet been conceived, and the implications of this possibility for the question of whether or not global atheism is justified. Moreover, the most ambitious atheistic arguments popular with philosophers who attempt to show that the concept of God is incoherent or that the existence of God is logically incompatible neither with the existence of certain types of evil nor with the existence of certain types of unbelief (Schellenberg 2007) will certainly not be sufficient to justify global atheism; for even if they are healthy, they assume that in order to be God, a being must be omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good, and as the character Cleanthes points out at the beginning of Part XI of Hume`s dialogues (see also Nagasawa 2008), there are religiously appropriate concepts of God that do not require God to have these attributes. The kind of God in which philosophers of non-existence seem to be most interested is the eternal, the non-physical, the omnipotent, the omniscient, and the all-benevolent (i.e., omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent). morally perfect) Creator God, who is worshipped by many Muslims, Jews and theologically Orthodox Christians. Let us call the thesis that such a God exists „omniscience.“ An interesting question, therefore, is how best to argue for atheism, which is understood locally as the thesis that omnitheism is false. The arguments against atheism can be summarized as follows: The vocabulary of atheism in late antiquity also includes the adjectives atheei, meaning „without God (or gods)“ or „without the help of the gods“, atheia (like atheotēs) means „unholy“ or „without respect for the gods“ and atheiastos, meaning „not inspired by God (or gods)“. „Why, what harm is there in saying, `Caesar is Lord [curious kaisar],` and offering incense“ (and other words to that effect), „and thus saving oneself?“ Now he gave them no answer at first. But when he persisted, he said, „I will not do as you suggest to me“ (Mart.
Poly. 8:2). The perspective taken in Ephesians 2:12 is not much different from what we observe in Acts, where Paul addresses the men of Athens on the Martian hill: „Men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in every way. For when I passed by and looked at the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with the inscription: „To an unknown God“. Therefore, what you worship as a stranger, I declare unto you“ (Acts 17:22–23). The men of Athens were very interested in gods and deities, as evidenced by the many statues, temples and inscriptions on and around the market square and the Acropolis.