I think lack of evidence is a good reason for disbelief.

But what counts as evidence for God?

I think the burden of proof is on the atheist because something exists rather than nothing and I believe the existence of reality asks for an explanation. God is one explanation. Atheism means not believing in a creator of reality without a feasible alternate explanation.

If someone comes to believe that there are no mysteries about reality (consciousness/infinity/existence etc) than they may feel their atheism is justified. That is where atheism teams up with evolution and the big bang to claim there is no longer any role for God in reality which I view as faulty and more of a faith position.

"I don’t want to believe, I want to know." 
~Carl Sagan

I believe the existence of reality asks for an explanation. — Andrew4Handel

Two questions:
1. Why do you "believe the existence of reality asks for an explanation"?
2. Does this "explanation" beg the question (i.e. also requires its own explanation)?

But what counts as evidence for God?

You tell me your definition of "God" and I will derive from that definition "what counts as evidence for your God".

That is where atheism teams up with evolution and the big bang to claim there is no longer any role for God in reality which I view as faulty and more of a faith position. — Andrew4Handel

In many years on Christian forums, I have never seen an atheist claim that. Although I have very often read Christians who claim that they do. And those Christians will be generally be YECs and/or creationists.

If someone wants to claim that a god was behind evolution and created the big bang, then fine. I'll call that god Nature and they can call it what they prefer.

However...If they insist that it was God AND He sent His son who was born to a virgin to save us, created mankind especially, answers prayers, will accept you into heaven or send you to hell, has installed an eternal soul into each of us etc etc then I'll discount that because of a lack of evidence.

1. Why do you "believe the existence of reality asks for an explanation"? — 180 Proof

Because all around me things have causes. Cause and effect works and things don't pop into existence for no reason.

2. Does this "explanation" beg the question (i.e. also requires its own explanation)? — 180 Proof

There is no requirements on the explanation other than it explains something that clearly needs explaining.

We may find an infinite regress of reasons but we may not. However atheism is a non explanation in the face of something that is subject to reason and to forms of inquiry and explanation.

This is one of the reasons I don't describe myself as an atheist and came into conflict with atheists because I believe they misrepresent and under estimate the problems.

They make heavy attacks on Christianity but accept their own moral values on flimsy grounds and are seemingly unaware of things like the atrocities of state atheism that I have highlighted on this thread whilst making a big deal about religion causes wars and prejudice.

When I left Christianity I went quickly to nihilism because I accepted the problems of replacing a religious world view with anything meaningful.

I have edged back from nihilism since doing a philosophy and psychology degree and realising what we don't know and what are open questions. I had to read articles by Dawkins and Dennett as part of books we read on the implications of Darwinism and in Consciousness studies where you also encounter conscious state skeptics The Churchland's among others. That is where I learnt atheist were attacking things like conscious states, meaning and values in order to shore up atheism and pushing for determinism.

Because all around me things have causes. — Andrew4Handel

Quantum indeterminancy is "all around" every thing (i.e. QFT, quantum fluctuations). This is known with about nine decimal places of precision. Also, causality as such is not an explanation (i.e. what's the cause/s of causality? Oops! :yikes:).

We may find an infinite regress of reasons ...

... which does not explain anything. :eyes:

Consider: if "God" is conceived of as "uncaused" or "self-caused", why can't we conceive of what you call "the existence of reality" as uncaused or self-caused but without the non-evident middle man-"Creator" (as per Occam's Razor) instead? :chin:

that is where I learnt atheist were attacking things like conscious states, meaning and values in order to shore up atheism and pushing for determinism. — Andrew4Handel

You can't really shore up atheism. Scientism maybe. Atheism is simply that we don't accept the proposition god/s exist. An atheist might be a secular humanist or believe in the occult or idealism.

My atheism, as an example, is a simple. I have heard no good reason to accept the proposition that god/s exist. I have no sensus divinitatis so for me the notion of god's is incoherent and they explain nothing. You can't explain a mystery (existence or consciousness) with another mystery (god/s). God/s have no explanatory power. They are being used as a kind of hole filler to cover up the gaps in knowledge.

Because all around me things have causes. Cause and effect works and things don't pop into existence for no reason. — Andrew4Handel

Russell suggested the counterexample: each person around me has a mother, therefore the human race as a whole has a mother.

Cause takes place within the world. There's no demand that the world as a whole be caused. it might, but it might not.

And if it did, then... well, causes tend to be in terms of something else. X causes Y. But then one can ask what caused X; and so on. So whatever cause is proffered, the question repeats itself.

God is supposed to rid us of this by being uncaused. That's blatant question begging.

Then there are the possibilities of infinite regress and circularity, neither of which implies a contradiction.

And there are things which "pop into existence for no reason" in the quantum world. That this is even contemplated shows that there is no contradiction in something being uncaused. Indeed, if God is uncaused, why not the big bang or whatever other cosmology is your preference?

Atheism is, in any case, seperate from these considerations. It is more about certain cultural and religious practices than about cosmology.

...accept their own moral values on flimsy grounds... — Andrew4Handel

What grounds are they, then, that are shared by all atheists? That's a pretty shallow accusation.

You can't explain a mystery (existence or consciousness) with another mystery (god/s). God/s have no explanatory power. They are being used as a kind of hole filler to cover up the gaps in knowledge. — Tom Storm

:fire: Amen, brother!

:100:

Consider: if "God" is conceived of as "uncaused" or "self-caused", why can't we conceive of what you call "the existence of reality" as uncaused or self-caused but without the non-evident middle man-"Creator" (as per Occam's Razor) instead? :chin: — 180 Proof

I am not personally advocating God or gods as explanations. I am only asking for an explanation.

If there is a breakdown of casualty that undermines everything including reason and laws.

It is the equivalent of researching your ancestors and finishing at your great grandmother as if she appeared from nowhere for no reason. That would be an existential explanatory gap compromise your understanding of your self. We don't need to know our ancestors to assume they existed because of causality.

I personally don't think a god will appear as an explanation. But what a god stands for in an explanation is the equivalent of what a human stands to in the explanation of a piano. We created the piano. We are intelligent and can be asked about how we did it, our motives etc. We are the things that have, reasons, thoughts, mentally represent, use symbolic logic and so on. We can never ask the matter of the universe why it exists but we can ask intelligences like ourselves. It is the classic tension between the meaningless mechanism of mater and symbolic thought and mental representation in philosophy

You can't really shore up atheism. Scientism maybe. — Tom Storm

Atheism would be a less compelling stance without evolutionary theory because how would people explain the existence of billions of plants and animals etc?

Now evolution is considered to have explained biology now we have the problem of explaining minds. And some how the most prominent eliminative materialist and consciousness skeptics are prominent atheists. That is why I think they are trying to prop up atheism.

Mental properties fit the bill of things we considered supernatural. They are invisible, you can't see thoughts and dreams or words and beliefs in the brain yet they somehow cause actions. So they are ripe to be dismantled or to be deflated in the pursuit of expunging the supernatural.

I personally don't think a god will appear as an explanation. But what a god stands for in an explanation ... — Andrew4Handel

You're incorrigibly talking in circles, Andrew. :roll:

Cause takes place within the world. There's no demand that the world as a whole be caused. — Banno

You can't explain a mystery (existence or consciousness) with another mystery (god/s). God/s have no explanatory power. — Tom Storm

The quesrion of an 'ultimate explanation', especially in religious terms, is simply incoherent.

...accept their own moral values on flimsy grounds...
— Andrew4Handel

What grounds are they, then, that are shared by all atheists? That's a pretty shallow accusation. — Banno

Initially most atheists I have spoken to have accepted morality on no grounds whatsoever.

They just believe in moral entities and moral facts. They don't even feel they have to defend where there moral values came from.

Initially most atheists I have spoken to have accepted morality on no grounds whatsoever. — Andrew4Handel

You mean.... Atheist do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do! Oh, No!

They are half-decent to others without the threat of eternal damnation? Incorrigible!

So nature itself isn't grounds enough for natural beings to conceive of and practice morality (i.e. eusocial cooperation strategies). Why?

Atheism would be a less compelling stance without evolutionary theory because how would people explain the existence of billions of plants and animals etc? — Andrew4Handel

Personally I have little interest in attempting to provide what should be expert views on subjects like physics, biology or neuroscience that require significant expertise and knowledge unavailable to most folk (and me). I am not convinced we even have the questions right. No way does this lead to a magical man or aliens as creators of life, or whatever we might feel the need to fill the gap with.

Initially most atheists I have spoken to have accepted morality on no grounds whatsoever.

They just believe in moral entities and moral facts. They don't even feel they have to defend where there moral values came from. — Andrew4Handel

There may well be a lot of piss-poor atheists out there.

I don't think it is unreasonable to accept morality based on it being a code of conduct that generally works (no killing, no stealing, no lying, no cheating) and has evolutionary explanations like empathy, the benefits of cooperation, strength in numbers, the fact we are a social species. It's not all that hard.

If there is a breakdown of casualty that undermines everything including reason and laws. — Andrew4Handel

See Russell's "On the notion of causes".

Causal eliminativists argue that there is no metaphysical account of causation compatible with physics or compatible with the completeness of physics and, hence, that causal notions should, as Bertrand Russell (1912) urged, be expunged from the philosophical vocabulary. — Causation in Physics (SEP)

You're afeared of a Snark.

Russell suggested the counterexample: each person around me has a mother, therefore the human race as a whole has a mother. — Banno

Do we not all have an ancestral mother/female in common?
This is not usually how people reason though in my experience.

They have a rational common sense notions of causality, where they use reasonable assumptions and not wild extrapolations to negotiate the environment successfully . So Russell appears to be (as was his style) straw manning the general publics reasoning ability.

Cause takes place within the world. There's no demand that the world as a whole be caused. it might, but it might not. — Banno

It is not clear where causes take place. The world is a human perception and causation is a human perception. Our model of causation is not dependent on there being a world. For example we don't have a causal explanation for consciousness but we believe that it is in the world. What we want is an explanation of how X (The brain maybe) causes Y (Consciousness) we are not committing ourselves to wider picture of what exists in totality. Just looking for causal coherence and why X and Y occur or come to exist somewhere in some form.

God is supposed to rid us of this by being uncaused. That's blatant question begging. — Banno

The only relevance of gods here is that they are attempts at explanations and to some extent causal explanations.

We have numerous theories about who Jack The Ripper is but none of them are likely to be true but they are attempts to explain. So we look for an explanation of the Whitechapel murders we don't look for a non explanation. We don't settle for a well maybe nobody caused these murders.

So either atheists are not looking for an explanation for existence. Or they don't care or they believe science will one day explain reality mechanically or something.

There may well be a lot of piss-poor atheists out there. — Tom Storm

Would you class Christopher Hitchens as one of these because he appeared to take this stance

Would you class Christopher Hitchens as one of these because he appeared to take this stance — Andrew4Handel

He addresses the issues you raise about morality reasonably but without distinction. But he is not a philosopher and is more of a baroque polemicist. I would say he is a better atheist than many, but clearly has his flaws.

↪Andrew4Handel So nature itself isn't grounds enough for natural beings to conceive of and practice morality (i.e. eusocial cooperation strategies). Why? — 180 Proof

It depends on how you are defining morality. What does morality mean and where did you learn the notion from?
You seem to be assuming morality refers to something in the way people think God refers to something. We can use terms that don't refer to anything or don't have concrete references.

I grew up in a Plymouth brethren church and we had numerous moralistic rules. No radio. No Television no make up. No shopping on Sunday and so on. That is why I became a moral nihilist on leaving because I realised you can create numerous arbitrary oppressive rules under the guise of morality without a coherent reason but when you try and justify them they turn out to be dogmas imposed by force or coercion of some sort. Even the most mild seeming diktat becomes an imposition of someone else's values.

So either atheists are not looking for an explanation for existence. — Andrew4Handel

Scientifically-literate dis/believers abductively look for testable explanations within nature.

Do we not all have an ancestral mother/female in common? — Andrew4Handel

Here's the argument again: Each human has a mother, therefore the human race as a whole has a mother.

But on the contrary, the human race is not the sort of thing that has a mother. There is a category error going on.

Analogously, some claim each event has a cause, and that hence there must be a cause for everything as a whole. A parallel category error.

They have a rational common sense notions of causality, where they use reasonable assumptions and not wild extrapolations to negotiate the environment successfully . So Russell appears to be (as was his style) straw manning the general publics reasoning ability. — Andrew4Handel

What is the supposed argument here? That because we "negotiate the environment successfully", everything must have a cause? How is that supposed to work?

If cause were a vital feature of physics, you would expect it to be mentioned prominently in your favourite physics text, Bet it isn't. You'll be lucky to find a mention. Causation is an invention of philosophers and theologians, not scientists.

It is not clear where causes take place. — Andrew4Handel

I quite agree, but that doesn;t seem to count in favour of your account. If you insist that every event has a cause, then you might at least allow that the cause be identified. Now you say they could be anywhere.

The world is a human perception — Andrew4Handel

It is? So now you side with Bishop Berkeley. You'll find precious few who concur with such idealism.

...and causation is a human perception. — Andrew4Handel

So there are no causes unperceived? Again, your idealism will not sit well.

Our model of causation is not dependent on there being a world. — Andrew4Handel

How does that work? Presumably the events one wishes to explain are in the world... that one billiard ball hits another, causing it to move, does seem to be dependent on there being billiard balls. Our idea of causation appears very much to be dependent on there being a world in which there are events and their consequences.

Whatever point you are attempting to make seems to be falling apart.

He addresses the issues you raise about morality reasonably but without distinction. — Tom Storm

I think he helped set the tone of the debate with this type of comment:

“I challenge you to find one good or noble thing which cannot be accomplished without religion.”

This is an example of him taking for granted that there are good and noble things which the moral nihilist is challenging.

It helped other atheists assert you can be moral without God without arguments. When the question really is does morality itself make any sense without God.

What is the supposed argument here? That because we "negotiate the environment successfully", everything must have a cause? How is that supposed to work? — Banno

It is evidence of the success of causal reasoning and helps us not to die. So it is by no means a banal process.

It depends on how you are defining morality. What does morality mean and where did you learn the notion from? — Andrew4Handel

The way I defined morality in the post you quoted from will do for the sake of this discussion. Why do you believe, Andrew, that nature doesn't ground a definition of morality like mine that has no need of 'supernatural support'?

The only relevance of gods here is that they are attempts at explanations and to some extent causal explanations. — Andrew4Handel

I don't see that at all. Even if you say 'God did it' we'd still want to know how. As we have done with evolution. And the formation of stars and black holes. And planets. And continents and seas and mountain ranges. We know the process. If all we get to the question as to how God did it is a shrug of the shoulders or an appeal to some divine snap of the fingers then that's not an explanation at all. That's something being used instead of an explanation.

I grew up in a Plymouth brethren church — Andrew4Handel

Ah. My condolences.

Have a think about Russell's comments: The notion of cause. It might show you a different way of thinking about such issues.

As for morality, why do we need reasons before we do good? Isn't that it is the right thing to do sufficient for our doings?

think he helped set the tone of the debate with this type of comment:

“I challenge you to find one good or noble thing which cannot be accomplished without religion.”

This is an example of him taking for granted that there are good and noble things which the moral nihilist is challenging.

It helped other atheists assert you can be moral without God without arguments. When the question really is does morality itself make any sense without God. — Andrew4Handel

Sounds to me like you are a bit stuck. That's fine. I've been there.

This site is full of good arguments (you have participated in some) for why morality transcends theism.

You seem to think morality is magic. I see no connection between god/s and how we conduct ourselves with others.

I'm in no position to plunge into Hitchens' oeuvre and drag out references; as I say he was a polemicist. Hitchens used to argue that the human race would not have got very far if tribes had no interdiction against killing, theft, lying and cheating. Hitch saw morality as a building block of group cohesion.

Humans are self-organising, value generating creatures, why would they not come to similar conclusions about how to manage territory, relationships, possessions, suffering, life and death?

If you insist that every event has a cause, then you might at least allow that the cause be identified. — Banno

I am insisting ona causal explanation which is somewhat different.

For example I could say "I studied social psychology because I am really interested in humans" That is what gets called a "reason giving explanation". It is causally satisfactory without positing a physical mechanism or strict mechanical substrate. It is also compelling and probably true. But it is not committed on the explanation being reduced to physics.

The world is a human perception
— Andrew4Handel
It is? So now you side with Bishop Berkeley. You'll find precious few who concur with such idealism — Banno

Stating that perception is constructivist and indirect does not amount to a commitment to idealism. But it is reality because how else can we form any knowledge about a reality without consciousness and perceptions?
Even physics posits the invisible sub atomic world is not similar or veridical to our perceptions.

Our model of causation is not dependent on there being a world.
— Andrew4Handel
How does that work? — Banno

Similar to how Maths and logic works using concepts. The concepts may be dependent on an external physical world but it is not clear how.
2+2 = 4 seems true in any possible world .