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Originally Posted by mixedmedia
Well, perhaps I have been misunderstood by you in this thread, but from my very first observation about faith in regards to atheism I have only intended to use the word to describe your belief in the non-existence of god not to label atheism as a religion. (I have taken exception to the subjection of words to serve one purpose before so perhaps this is just another example of that pet peeve.) But I do feel somewhat like I have been backed into this argument by your resistance to the use of a multi-faceted word which can very easily be attributed to a belief in anything.
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I have avoided the multi-faceted aspect of the word to avoid confusion. "Ah, you believe something too! All viewpoints are the same, I knew it!" They are not the same. Some are reasonable and some are ludicrous and I'm trying hard to show the difference...
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As far as your conviction that your belief is summed up as neatly as the law of gravity, I beg to differ. I understand that to you the truth of atheism is crystal clear, but to those of us who don't share your conviction and have witnessed similar declarations from those who are equally convinced of the truth of their own beliefs, I'm sorry to tell you this, but your conviction as expressed is only slightly more compelling. And, I have to say this and I don't mean it in a offensive way, I suppose your insistence that we should default to your understanding of things and move forward from there just as, for example, fundamentalist Christians do rubs me wrong way a little. As if to say because I don't believe in Santa Claus, I have no reason to not to be an atheist. Just as a Christian might tell me that because I have a conscience there must be a god. Surely you can see that your conviction begins and ends with you just as anyone else's.
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Well, I'm sorry if I "rub you the wrong way." I'm not trying to win a popularity contest here nor am I trying to win people over through charisma. I'm trying to offer a sober argument that's hard to deny. My conviction may "begin and end" with me but my hope is that common sense will not.
I don't know how literal your examples were meant to be but saying that our "conscience" is evidence of God makes as much sense as saying the colour blue is evidence of Him. Santa Clause and God are both fairy tales told to us by another person. If you can't see this then there truly is nothing I can say that can persuade you of anything you don't already want to believe.
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Okay...I take some exception to this statement, as well but I see it has already been addressed.
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Exception to what, exactly? You say it was addressed but
roachboy didn't say, specifically, what he took exception to so I'm left wondering. Was it my depiction of the chapter on metaphysics as "bullshit?"
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Buddhism is very specific about its purpose and not only that gives you a very specific roadmap to follow in order to fulfill that purpose.
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Okay, I'll remember this...
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And, as for myself, I don't feel I need to have purpose for my own life, I'm just open to the idea that perhaps there is a purpose for the existence of mankind. That's all. I have not given myself over to any belief other than the belief that there are things I don't know with certainty.
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Atheists also know that there are things they don't know with certainty. Atheism doesn't stop anyone from attributing some kind of meaning for mankind. Religion is simply not necessary except for those who need more in their lives than reality...
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Originally Posted by Leto
Precisely. This is exactly my contention. I have found that in these discussions, the terms, although basically understood, do not suffice. IF we are to discuss God, we must invoke the term 'faith', as there is no scientific proof to substantiate the idea. Exactly why the basic understanding that we are employing must therefore be extended to apply to atheism. There is no proof, either, that there is no God.
It seems to be common in the basic undestanding of the term faith, that it is only applied to theism, and not to atheism, even though the two perspectives do not require proof.
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Well, let me just say something that might come as a surprise to the people in this thread. I'm not looking for proof. Proof is too heavy a burden to be a reasonable expectation of people. I can't prove to you that
Australia exists. I'm just looking for a reason to believe in God. Anything even vaguely compelling will do. I have an open mind...
For a change of pace, I will try something new and adopt your meaning of the word "faith," which seems to be (and correct me if I'm wrong) the literal meaning of believing in something. So, I have faith that my TV remote control will fall to the floor if I let go of it.
As another side note (I seem to enjoy them), by definition, nothing in science is ever proven. Again, proof is something that pretty much only exists in mathematics. We merely have good evidence that some theory appears to model reality well or we don't. Some theories are better supported than others. Scientists have a lot of faith that the good theories are accurate while being more tentative with their faith for unsubstantiated theories. Bad theories are simply disbelieved...
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Kind of why I am insisting on a common definition. I want to apply the term faith equally to the two ideas, which better illustrates why I can argue to Charlatan that even though he is an Atheist, he employs the same degree of faith as a believer in God.
No i do not claim that non-belief is faith. I merely posit that acceptance of the existance of ANYTHING (God, absence of God, and spaghetti monsters) without scientific proof, requires faith. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just that within the scientific framework, faith has no definition.
And to summarize,
1) belief in God, requires faith. There is no requirement to prove that God exists.
2) belief in no God also requires faith. There is no requirement to prove that God does not exist.
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With my new found definition of "faith," what we are talking about, here, is a degree of faith. Things that seem self evident, like my falling remote control, hardly need any faith at all while fantastic things like men riding flying reindeer need much more faith.
It is my contention that it takes far more faith to believe in God than it does to not believe in Him. My approach to an argument will be that of common sense. This is, in fact, a new approach for me. I've been employing it throughout this entire thread and I will continue to do so 'cause I have faith (quite a leap, this time) that it can work. The notion of God, such as the Christian one, makes about as much sense as any other fairy tale. If I appear to harp on Christianity a lot, it's only because it is the most prevalent religion in my part of the word (as well as most of the posters in this thead) and the one I know best since I was brought up in it. It's hard for me to discuss specifics with other religions since I don't know them well or at all. I can expand on this argument but, for brevity's sake, I think it will actually do for now. I think we can all agree that events in the Bible are as contrary to common sense as any other fairy tale. Hopefully, you will agree that they are as believable and, thus, require more faith to believe than not...