The Black Vault

So Muslims aren't deluded then, and Allah is real?

What about those who believe in multiple Gods, not deluded either?

greeney2 wrote:No, Qmark said there is only one delusion, which is the delusion God does not exist! That would be you EH, not the rest of the world.

The best definition for a delusion I can find is: "a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact".

If Christianity is clearly true, then Muslims must, by definition, be deluded.

Now you and qmark are suggesting that it is only atheists who are deluded? How does that work, then?

What is the "reason", or "actual fact" that points to God being real? You guys must show that to make your case, I am waiting eagerly here to hear what it is! Oh, and if the existence of God is easily proven by "reason", or "actual fact", where does that leave faith, I wonder?

Methinks you guys have not really thought this through, and your argument is complete balls.

Now both Christians and Muslims however, match the definition of having a "delusion" perfectly, because their beliefs are clearly "fixed", and clearly resistant to any reason, as they are taken on "faith".

humphreys wrote:

greeney2 wrote:No, Qmark said there is only one delusion, which is the delusion God does not exist! That would be you EH, not the rest of the world.

The best definition for a delusion I can find is: "a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact".

If Christianity is clearly true, then Muslims must, by definition, be deluded.

Now you and qmark are suggesting that it is only atheists who are deluded? How does that work, then?

What is the "reason", or "actual fact" that points to God being real? You guys must show that to make your case, I am waiting eagerly here to hear what it is! Oh, and if the existence of God is easily proven by "reason", or "actual fact", where does that leave faith, I wonder?

Methinks you guys have not really thought this through, and your argument is complete balls.

Now both Christians and Muslims however, match the definition of having a "delusion" perfectly, because their beliefs are clearly "fixed", and clearly resistant to any reason, as they are taken on "faith".

I said, there is one delusion, but it takes many forms. Yes, one of those forms is Islam because the god of Islam is not the God of the Bible and that goes for any other religion or no religion at all.
Jesus said;
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

There you go greeney, qmark's comment does include Muslims as being deluded.

Qmark, by "God", you mean the God of the Bible specifically (YHWH), which means the large majority of the world is deluded for not accepting that particular being.

The Christians here seem to want to have it both ways. People like greeney and frrosted say, "billions of people believe in some form of God, how can they all be wrong?", and then you come along and say "billions of people don't believe in the right God, so they're all wrong, and deluded".

You are agreeing with what I have said all along, that whether the atheists are right or not, either way, a large percentage of the world is deluded, because you cannot just lump everyone who believes in a supreme being in the same group, because their beliefs differ vastly. The argument for God based on numbers of believers is therefore invalid. We could just as easily say "the majority of the world does not believe in YWHW, therefore he is unlikely to be real" - also invalid, in the same way.

humphreys wrote:Qmark, by "God", you mean the God of the Bible specifically (YHWH), which means the large majority of the world is deluded for not accepting that particular being.

Correct, as the verse above states.

humphreys wrote:The Christians here seem to want to have it both ways. People like greeney and frrosted say, "billions of people believe in some form of God, how can they all be wrong?", and then you come along and say "billions of people don't believe in the right God, so they're all wrong, and deluded".

I don't believe frrosted ever used numbers as "proof", but I will say that those who believe in a god are one step closer than the atheist, in that, they do not dismiss the possibility of a god outright.

humphreys wrote:You are agreeing with what I have said all along, that whether the atheists are right or not, either way, a large percentage of the world is deluded, because you cannot just lump everyone who believes in a supreme being in the same group, because their beliefs differ vastly.

From the Christian perspective, you can lump all those other ones together since they do not believe in the God of the Bible. Hence, one delusion in many different ways. Every Christian who believes in The Bible does believe that. There are not "many" paths to God.

qmark wrote:I don't believe frrosted ever used numbers as "proof", but I will say that those who believe in a god are one step closer than the atheist, in that, they do not dismiss the possibility of a god outright.

Not as proof but it has been suggested as evidence in favour of Christianity being true, and that argument is just as false.

Also, most atheists do not dismiss the possibility of a god existing.

I would say deism, pantheism and agnosticism for a start are closer to atheism than to Christianity specifically, and as for any belief that accepts multiple gods, that is barely closer to Christianity either.

The following saying comes to mind:

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
- Stephen Roberts

With Muslims it is a bit more of an even thing. While they do believe in a god, their belief system is vastly different to yours, and you'd have to ask "what is their evidence for Allah being real?". If they don't have any, which they can't really if he isn't real, then in what way does their belief in Allah make Christianity any more likely to be real? I would say that Islam and Christianity are so different that it is more likely for a Muslim to become an atheist or agnostic than it is for a Muslim to convert to Christianity, but that's just a guess.

I'm not fighting to get the Muslims on "my team", to be honest, you can keep them on "team god" if you want, I'm just showing how silly the numbers game is and how using the numbers of believers in a supreme being as evidence for the existence of the Christian God in particular is just plain silly.

If I were an atheist I wouldn't like to defend the statistics either, so the only way to defend your numbers, is saying the numbers are just "silly", instead of saying they are a accurate concencous, that 90% of the entire population on earth, are believers in God. Of your 10%, only half believe God does not exist, the other half isn't sure.

greeney2 wrote:If I were an atheist I wouldn't like to defend the statistics either, so the only way to defend your numbers, is saying the numbers are just "silly", instead of saying they are a accurate concencous, that 90% of the entire population on earth, are believers in God. Of your 10%, only half believe God does not exist, the other half isn't sure.

What percentage of people on earth believe in YOUR god, greeney?

You like to interchange the word "God" and "Christian God" so you can play these silly games where most people believe the same as you, but that's a complete fantasy. As a Christian, you hold beliefs that way more than half of the world thinks are wrong.

There is no belief system that more than half of the world agrees on, so the numbers game is a fallacy.

Your own argument defeats you.

How about we look at these statistics:

At least 70% of the world thinks Christianity is wrong. By accepting Christianity as true, you are going against at least 5 billion people, and the majority. The consensus is in greeney, and it says you're wrong. Those numbers are flattering to Christianity too, because a large percentage of "Christians" are not even going to be proper serious believers, even Christians agree with that. "True Christians" would probably only be about 5% of the world's population, and I'm betting other Christians here will agree with me on that.

humphreys wrote:Also, most atheists do not dismiss the possibility of a god existing.

I disagree. If atheists do not dismiss it outright, than they are agnostics.

qmark wrote:

humphreys wrote:Also, most atheists do not dismiss the possibility of a god existing.

I disagree. If atheists do not dismiss it outright, than they are agnostics.

Not true, this is a common misconception. Atheism means "without God belief", which just means that person does not hold the belief that God is real. Agnostics are atheists too, but agnosticism is traditionally more geared around the impossibility of knowing whether God is real or not.

There are also subsets of atheism. Strong atheists, which are far more rare, do state that God is definitely not real, but Weak atheists simply state that there is insufficient evidence to warrant God belief, but do not dismiss the possibility. Weak atheists are far more common. To make matters even more complicated, one can be a strong atheist towards certain gods but a weak atheist towards others.

In a nutshell, atheism is in its most basic sense a lack of belief in God, which is not the same as an outright dismissal, but some atheists do go a step further and claim knowledge of there being no God, like Richard Dawkins (although he may have altered his stance on this).

You're better off staying away from simplistic dictionaries and rather asking the atheists themselves what their position is, and this sums up the definition of atheism nicely:

http://atheism.about.com/od/definitiono ... erview.htm

This explains the difference between weak and strong atheists:

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismques ... g_weak.htm