Halx

I say that atheists are always open to proof. They're always interested in fantastic things. Because they don't exist, wouldn't it be wild to see? Atheists are not fanatical. The semantics nazis are gonna drill me on this one, but I think atheists are just agnostics who have decided to live their life on one side of the line while they passively wait for something to come along to bump them off of their path - confident, though, that it will never happen.

As an atheist myself, I'm more than willing to hear someone else's case, but the statements I make about religion are based off of observation. Everything I've seen in my life can be explained without the use of god. Some people like to complicate the matter by insisting he exists. I can explain an occurrence in simple logical terms, meanwhile others dramatize it with religion.

A: Show me something I can't explain.
R: How did the universe come to be?
A: There are a lot of ideas, but its too early to say for sure.
R: The universe, in its greatness and mystery, was created by God.
A: Why do you have to jump to that conclusion? We don't even know half the facts yet.
R: If you have to wait for the facts, it shows that you have no faith.
A: In the past, people have used that same reasoning to justify things that we can now attribute to science and physics. I'd say its worth the wait.
R: God created science and physics.
A: See, now you're letting god take credit for something that was deemed unrighteous in the past. This is like a court case where the witness keeps changing his testimony.

The more you try to justify it, the more obvious it becomes.

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Martian

Right, but in that case your argument precludes atheism to begin with and thus doesn't really have anything to do with atheism. I'm also not to clear on how you arrive at your conclusion; are you arguing on probability? If so, I would contend that probability has no place in this discussion.

If it is your intent to show that 'God could be anything' is not a strong argument for atheism, you'll get no argument here. There are much better ones to be made, and that statement is better support for agnosticism than atheism. However, it does not invalidate atheistic belief, either.

But you've adopted the argument for your own ends, making it's origin irrelevant.

The difference may not seem like much to you, but it is significant. By defining God as the creator of the Universe you automatically exclude the possibility that the Universe has no creator, or that it's a self-created machine. Again, this excludes atheism, which is counter-productive in a discussion about atheism.

Actually, I would argue that atheists do use a very finite set of possibilities for God, having it narrowed down to the single possibility of non-existence.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

BogeyDope

Let me put it in other terms. I don't mean to say either atheism or mono/polytheism is bad.

Religion is based off of a system of beliefs that there is a higher, upper power. The key word there is beliefs, however. The idea that atheists think they are something special and that atheism is not a religion tends to make me scoff at their extreme arrogance and ignorance. There is no hard evidence either for or against the existance of God, so the fact that atheists think that atheism is not a religion is illogical. It is a belief, nothing more, that God does not exist. Remember kids, in science, you always test against the normal established laws, not the other way around [Some form of religion is the established norm in this world, so the fact that atheists say "prove to me God exists" makes me laugh hard].

What I was trying to get at is that in my eyes, atheist fanatics [by fanatic, I mean someone extremely devoted i.e. fundamentalist/devout/practicing. I probably shouldn't group those things together, but oh well] are just as bad as the religious fanatics they bash.


I have a long way to go in life. Someday I'll probably look back and this and say what a fool I was for denying God. For now, I stand neutral [agnosticism=win].

filtherton

I want to start an apatheist movement, but I think that it would be doomed to failure by definition.

Willravel

My lethargy movement had trouble getting off the ground, too. Or off the couch, for that matter.

KnifeMissile

Note that I was so badly quoted that I had to edit the post so that I can properly quote it. The emphasis is mine...

You said more than this. I know because I quoted you...

I still don't think you understand the argument because you're still arguing against a conclusion that the argument doesn't make.

If you read your original post, you're concerned that the argument doesn't make sense. I'm pointing out that you don't think it makes sense because the conclusion that you're refuting is not the conclusion of the argument. For your edification, the conclusion of the argument is that the burden of proof is on the theist to show that God exists. In and of itself, the argument is not a refutation of the existence of God...

It takes a lot more than a "set of beliefs" to constitute a religion...

To think that any belief (or lack, thereof) is a religion is to make the word pointless...

BogeyDope

Atheism is based off faith that there is no supernatural being. Religion is based off faith that there is/are one/many supernatural beings.

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snowy

I've seen the word "religion" tossed around a lot in this thread in describing atheism, and I think it's worth defining what "religion" means:

From the Oxford English Dictionary.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

KnifeMissile

...and therefore? There's got to be more to your argument than this!

Here are two words you should learn: necessary and sufficient. Perhaps faith is necessary for religion but it's certainly not sufficient. Strong atheism (a popular term for what you're referring to) is not a religion. To give you an idea of how stringent this term is, even Richard Dawkins doesn't identify himself as a strong atheist...

BogeyDope

By definition, Atheism is a religion. There is a devout belief that there is no supernatural being, something that cannot, and will not be proven. The belief in no God requires just as much faith as the belief in God.


Here's something you should learn:

Weak atheism= BS term. It's the same as agnosticism, but they're idiots who want to be 'different'.

Strong atheism= Religious belief. Who are you to say that God does not exist? Can you prove it? It is based off faith and faith alone, that there is no universal super being.

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KnifeMissile

Only arguably, by definition #6 of the Oxford English Dictionary, and I suspect you didn't even know this before it was pointed out to you...

So, you think atheism requires... devotion? ...faithfulness? ...piety?

Atheism requires no fidelity, nor does it have any principles...


It depends on what you mean by agnosticism... Regardless of your feelings on the subject, this has no bearing on whether it's a religion...

Ustwo

Bzzzzz wrong but thanks for playing, we have a fine parting gift of turtle wax and the tfp philosophy home game.

Even the most outspoken and assholish atheist Richard Dawkins says that he is not 'sure'.

I can't say with 100% certainty there is no god. I would be less surprised if my children were really ET spies bent on world domination than there really being a god, but the possibility, no matter how infinitesimally small is still there that maybe there is some kind of god out there, though I'd be even more surprised, if thats possible, that such a god will be like any followed by the major religions.

So for me, I live a godless life, where I don't worry about heaven or hell, and eternal life is nothing but a fairy tale.

This is a far cry from most agnostics who like to hedge their bets.

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Willravel

Swing and a miss! Atheism is no more a religion than gentile is a race. It describes what one is not. It does not explain what one is.
This can't end well...
Ouch, 0 for 2. As Ustwo (an atheist, not unlike myself) said, they are quite different. Weak atheism describes a point of near-certainty regarding the non-existence of the divine. That which is without any evidence cannot be proven. That supports the weak atheist position that a sure belief in god is unreasonable and a belief that god almost certainly doesn't exist is the most logical conclusion.

Agnosticism? That's the stance that it's unknowable.

flstf

I think the last sentence in this comment relates to agnostics as well.

Master_Shake

As to every god I've ever heard about, I am convinced they do not exist. I suppose, in fairness, I can't be an atheist about gods that I haven't heard about yet. If you really want to claim a point against my atheism because I haven't dismissed the existence of a new religion to be formed in the future, then bully for you.

No, that's incorrect. I'm sure most atheists would happily convert to some religious sect if they could be shown evidence and proof that such religion is correct. As all evidence that has been accumulated points against the existence of any god, it requires no faith to be an atheist, just an understanding of the evidence.

__________________
-------------
You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

pig

I'm in a Jesus Tapdancing Fistfucking Christ mood all of a sudden. How many times must we do this song and dance? I've been thinking about this thing all day; fuck! Holy holy fuck!!! Atheism is not a religion. Quit trying equate it to one, so as to try to make a subtle assertion that the atheist is simply a hypocrite with rebel-without-a-cause syndrome. An atheist simply doesn't believe in a deity. Period. After that, there's a lot of other things an atheist might be. A nihilist. A humanist. A rationalist. A lot of stuff. What they are is someone who doesn't believe in a god. This really isn't that tough.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Yes, I've been drinking bourbon.

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Halx

I'd like someone to respond to my post. Or is it hard to argue against?

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Willravel

Your post is right. Of course, you're one of many atheists, though, so I wouldn't expect a quick response.

guyy

Why are christians so interested in what we think?

A. because they imagine themselves something like bodhisatvas, committed to ushering everyone to an enlightened state of being before taking leave of this existence, or this-like existences?

B. because the mere existence of other religions or non-religion exacerbates their own Doubt?

C. because they are working on their conversion merit badges?


Sorry, i'm not interested in the question of "god" -- whatever that is.

Ustwo

Actually I don't blame a true believer for trying to convert my heathen hide.

Think of it this way, if they truly believe their own faith, how can they not try to save me from the lake of hell fire and eternal damnation that is not being in gods holy presence?

If I was sure of such a thing I'd be trying to save you, and you wanting it or not would not matter, if I could save one, then I have done something wonderful.

Of course such people are a special kind of annoying, but I can empathize.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Martian

I'm not sure what's there to argue against. If I'm reading what you wrote correctly, you are an atheist because your own observations have lead you to that conclusion. The observations and/or beliefs of others lead to different conclusions, but that's going beyond what you said. You've made a statement regarding your own beliefs, which while interesting in it's own right, isn't really an argument to be countered.

Your hypothetical conversation is amusing but irrelevant.

If it is your intent to assert that the beliefs of others are wrong because of your observations, well that can be argued. I would start by pointing out that unless you yourself are omniscient, your personal observations do not necessarily incorporate all of existence and possibility. Therefore I would say that your conclusions, while they may work for you as a belief system, are really no more or less valid than the conclusions of anyone who uses any other belief system. Interestingly, I am currently engaged in some correspondence that mirrors (and could even be said to be inspired by) this thread. When discussing a similar point I mentioned how there have been individuals I've known of theistic bent who see proof of God everywhere, and was informed that this is unsurprisingly common among theists. While it's not a view I share, this is a view I certainly understand.

If we assume that your hypothetical conversation (which, granted, I'm only assuming is hypothetical to begin with) is intended as support of your argument, I would contend that you start it out by challenging the Generic Theist (I assume Christian?) off the bat to show you something you can't explain; in essence, you're asking to be shown God. While not an unreasonable request, this cannot be fulfilled. It's simply not possible, because finding or not finding God depends entirely on your own perspective.

Science cannot be used to support anything we don't have proof of. It's entirely empirical in nature, and anything that is unobserved cannot be said to have any scientific support. Therefore the belief that everything has a sensible scientific explanation doesn't really have any more validity than the belief that God did it. It's a belief, not a fact, and will remain so until we can say as a species that we know everything about everything, which is unlikely to ever happen.

To clarify, I am a dedicated agnostic, and as such treat all belief systems as equally valid. Please do not ask me any in-depth questions regarding Christian beliefs, as I don't have the answers.

EDIT - How can you not be? At worst it's a question of anthropology rather than truth. I understand irritation with proselytizers, but it's been my experience that they make up a relative minority of the theistic population, and when approached from a purely intellectual standpoint the question of God is fascinating whether you believe the answers or not.

No attack intended, I just have trouble understanding how anyone can not be interested in learning more about the world around them.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

MSD

I have plenty of interest in learning more about the world around me. I am interested in God and religion only to the extent to which belief in them influences actions.

I am not, however, interested in participating in the discussion of whether something for which no evidence exists is real or correct. The question of "God" is one of belief, and after years of finding that nearly everything I believed in was wrong and misguided, I found that is worth neither my time nor effort to believe in things.

Halx

Martian, I don't get it. You state yourself that finding or not finding god depends on your perspective. This is like leaving the decision to nuke Cuba to little ol' Mary-Sue Wilkenson from Kentucky. You'd trust a common person's intuition to conceive god and hold the conclusion of realist logic in the same esteem? I wouldn't trust another person as far as I could throw 'em, so they're gonna have to bring more to the table than a personal revelation for me to believe.

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guyy

Does the question of god lead to more understanding of the world? I'd say no. It's the wrong question.

Note that the question of the nature and existence of god are not the same as the anthropological questions about belief or religion as social institutions. Those are indeed important questions.

Lasereth

One time my grandpa was in the hospital after suffering a massive heartattack. I prayed for his safety and then he died.

Jinn

You didn't do enough Hail Marys, Lasereth. You need more FAITH!

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KnifeMissile

Your grandfather is safe... Safely dead! ...in heaven!

Willravel

Um, guys? I think Laser is describing when he lost his faith and his grandfather. That's probably not kosher to joke about.

Lasereth

It's ok, I actually thought it was pretty funny too. Reminds me of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson on prayer.

Hain

QFT.

I won't believe it unless enough names I trust are stamped, signed, or quoted in it.

Willravel

I don't trust names. I trust factual, verifiable evidence. I hope no one just automatically trusts what I say or post; always fact check because no one is right 100% of the time.

Yakk

Um, so if you take narrow definitions of a vaguely worded claim, you can manipulate it into saying something you want.

How is this interesting? I mean, other than demonstrating the fun of picking narrow definitions for terms?

Let X be the term that means "anything or nothing". Let Y be the term "anything, but not nothig".

Now say "God could be X" as opposed to "God could be Y". Both X and Y are decent working definitions of "anything" -- and when someone says something, it seems polite to use the working definition that is closer to what they seem to want to say, rather than to pick another working definition that makes their statement nonsense?



No, you made some nonsense about infinity being undefined.

You are also seeking to prove that there must be a god. The fact that your proof ... does not eliminate alternatives ... means that it isn't a proof.

You did it again. You took a term "anything", defined it narrowly in such a way that the other side's position was wrong, and then said "aha! By (my) definitions of terms, your side is speaking nonsense! Nevermind that if you very minorly tweak one of the words away from my personal definition that my argument is nonsense -- there is nobody behind the curtain!"

...

Second, here is a neat trick.

We have a random number generated by the following process.

First, we flip a fair coin. If it lands heads, the answer is 0.

If it lands tails, we then grab a plutonium atom. The random number produced is the number of seconds that it takes that plutonium atom to decay. And heck, we'll neglect quantized time for now.

Now, let's look at that random number. What values can it hold? An infinite number of different values! That plutonium atom can decay after any number of seconds.

It has a zero chance to decay at any one particular moment in time -- ie, at exactly pi seconds after we grab it, there is actually a zero chance that it decays. Note that it could still decay at that time, but the probability that it happens is zero. Gotta love probability.

It has a non-zero chance of decaying over any small interval of time. And it has a 100% chance of decaying eventually....

However, the random number generator I made has a 50% chance of returning 0, and it can return an infinite number of different possibilities.

So here we have a random process that can return any one of an infinite number of values, yet has a 50% chance of returning zero.

Why did I do this? To demonstrate that even if you have an infinite number of alternatives, you can still have a finite chance to produce a given value.

That 50% chance of a particular value can be made as high as one wants.

So no, demonstrating that there are an infinite number of "alternatives" does not mean that a particular case is impossible.

__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

Martian

That analogy doesn't really hold up. Belief in God doesn't kill people. Sure, followers of religion have done some really shitty things in the past, but atheists can be real assholes too. Mary-Sue Wilkinson might be a real a dick. Maybe she's part of the WBC and is a bad person. Or y'know, maybe she works for the salvation army. Maybe she's dedicated her life to helping those less fortunate (heart to God, hand to man and all that). And if she's a good person, why does it matter what she believes? Hell, for that matter if she's a bad person why does it matter what she believes? Groups like the WBC are a vocal minority and using them as a representation for all followers of all religions is a bit extreme, to say the least.

I'm not saying that you should believe. I don't believe, why would I suggest that anyone else should? All I'm saying is that there are billions of people worldwide who follow various religious doctrines, and to assume that all of those people are mindless sheep is something of a fallacy. Having spoken with a great many followers of different faiths, one thing that I've found is that those whose beliefs are religious in nature tend to have a much higher degree of variation in their exact answers than atheists do. Faith demands that sooner or later anyone who follows it has to ask the same questions as those who don't, and the answers derived are dependent entirely on what assumptions you work with.

I would posit that knowing the answers others have formulated for the question of God leads to greater understanding of those others, and thus does lead to a greater understanding of the world through the people in it.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

guyy

Then you're asking a different question.

If you're analysing religious discourse in this way, you aren't really contributing to it, but processing it after the fact, like Feuerbach, or a sociologist. I don't think you can say that you're truly interested in the question of god.

Martian

I'm not following your argument. Perhaps it would be helpful if you defined precisely what you mean when you say the 'queston of God,' since that term is somewhat vague. I interpreted it as a reference to the question of whether or not God exists, and what form he would take if the answer is positive. It seems I'm mistaken.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

guyy

I mean the complex of questions about the sacred that cannot be answered within our episteme. One deity or many or none? Theirs or ours? Jealous or forgiving? Bible or Koran? Old Testament or New? Luther or Aquinas... zzzzzzzzz....

If you are saying that we must pay attention to religious discourse because it teaches about humans, then it seems to me that you are more interested in social practice than the content of that discourse. Which is fine, but how is religion any different than anything else you might analyse?

There's always thesis 11 to keep in mind as well.

Hain

Of course. With the high-speed course society advances at, one can no longer validate ALL new information that is presented. How easy for me would it be to validate the existence of a quark, or prove mass can collapse beyond nuclei to form singularities, or find a raging psychopath and ask if he was touched improperly as a child... it isn't. However, enough scientists with respectable titles have proven it and then a bunch of other less known guys have validated it separately in hopes to disprove them.

As to what goes on here, again, there has to be enough evidence for me to believe, and even then I may just consider the "evidence" presented as nothing more than an amount of opinions.

Martian

Now you're getting it! I'm fascinated by these questions not because I think the answers other people have derived are 'correct,' as such, but because I find it equally if not more fascinating to learn how and why they believe what they do. From an analytical standpoint there is no real difference between religion and, say, entomology. Both amaze and astound me and in much the same way. I'm not part of these other religions, I don't believe what they do (although I certainly don't take issue with them believing it) but I want to learn about it just the same. You could, I suppose, argue that my interest is sociological in nature, but regardless of the root of that interest I am very much interested in these complex questions and the plethora of answers derived. My own beliefs cause me to approach these answers all on equal footing, including the answers of atheism. What I've discovered in my travels so far is that atheism is a belief system like any other. Where most belief systems use ancient teachings in the form of texts and oral traditions (which may not actually be oral in the strictest sense, as I've recently learned) atheism uses logic, a comparatively new teaching.

I don't understand how others can not be fascinated by these things. Then again, I also don't get how others can not be fascinated by stars or bugs or physics. I'm all about the pursuit of knowledge for it's own sake.

Thesis 11?

Could you explain to me how that applies to the current discussion? I'm not sure I get the connection.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

snowy

My father is much the same. He and my mother both emphasized learning about all faiths and religions, despite the fact that he is a committed atheist. He emphasized when I was a teen that I couldn't possibly consider committing to a belief system until I had explored all of them and learned what I could about all of them. As a result, my belief system is a mishmash of many traditions, with an overriding idea of tolerance and understanding of other beliefs--including my father's atheism.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Redjake

A couple of things come to mind here - this explains the whole situation for me better than anything I've seen:

Suppose we have the following four premises, which the Bible and most other bibles assume and/or preach:
1. God is omnipotent.
2. God is omnibenevolent.
3. God is omniscient.
4. Evil exists.

Why does evil exist????????

See? It just doesn't add up. Why does God allow for evil to exist? He is either a sick bastard and likes to watch us suffer, or he is not all-powerful. Simple as that. If He isn't all-powerful, He isn't a god.

Why does shit like this happen?

Was it really necessary to kill 225,000 people? Does God have a taste for the theatrics? A bit of the old ultraviolence? Jesus. (pun not intended)

God is a scapegoat. God has a reason for everything, people! Those two hundred thousand died for a reason, we may not understand it, but they all drowned because of a divine reason. By the way, the reason you won the lottery is because God was looking after you (and apparently not everyone else?). The reason your dog was ran over is because it was his time to go - no questions asked. The reason your church was burned to the ground was because God wanted you to rebuild it and become stronger. How come the preacher didn't win the lottery to make 20 churches to further the word of God? Because it's aaaaall part of the plan.

The plan is some fucked up shit - it's all chance. The dog got run over because he jumped in front of the car at the wrong time, the two hundred thousand folks drowned because of a natural phenomenon that caught them in the wrong place at the wrong time, the church burnt down because someone lit it on fire, and you won the lottery because someone has to.

All of this is the reason it's quite easy to ignore the infinite possibilities of God existing.

If there truly is a God, and he likes to watch us suffer, then I'd rather pretend He isn't real.

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