# Atheism Is Not Scientific **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 17, 2014, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962 "2014-06-17T04:31:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/121 "2014-06-18T03:09:07Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Seconded. Well, three pages later I think we can call it a drive by. But why not join the fray? We’re talking about uneatable burritos that didn’t come from Taco Bell… (((:eek:))) \<— mind blown. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/122 "2014-06-18T03:11:28Z")
Drive by? I assumed Fender was working on his rebuttal. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/123 "2014-06-18T05:10:25Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Since God is a non-corporeal being, but manifested Jesus to interact with us, one could argue that God could in fact create a boulder so heavy that his physical manifestation could not lift it. Of course, once again, omnipotence is not a logically necessary element of the definition of God. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/124 "2014-06-18T05:11:52Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > Well, three pages later I think we can call it a drive by. But why not join the fray? We’re talking about uneatable burritos that didn’t come from Taco Bell… > (((:eek:))) \<— mind blown. No, no, no, no, no! The divine miracle would be **eatable** burritos from Taco Bell! The which have yet to manifest . . . ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/125 "2014-06-18T05:34:10Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > it’s a philosophical testbed. > > Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it? But do you mean hot in temperature or in scovilles? Because any microwaved burrito that remains intact will eventually cool to the point that it can be eaten. The other kind of hot, well, if Jesus was from Puebla, he could probably handle just about anything. ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/126 "2014-06-18T06:17:37Z")
I now realise that some people totally struggle to understand the simple English sentence “there are no gods or goddesses”. It’s not that difficult. You don’t have to tie yourself in knots of logic to unravel its mystery. Indeed, it is completely true, despite the fact that looking around this room I can see at least seven of them - they are quite decorative, and demonstrably do exist, despite me saying correctly they don’t! I know I am never going to prove to some of you that Merlin the Wizard is a character from fiction, and not the creator of the universe. I agree that for some systems of logic this simply cannot be proved. But it’s still true, for all useful definitions of ‘true’. Spooky, huh? And, I hate to break this to you, but anyone who is genuinely unsure if Merlin created the universe, because it’s just so impossibly difficult to know, is not someone whose judgment I can rely on. I wonder why we don’t have interminable repeat debates on the existence of pencils. Oh, that’s right, because “pencils do exist” is somehow not a controversial statement, despite all the same knotty problems of definition and logic. It seems like the most important difference between objects like pencils and concepts like the goddess are that pencils are real. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/127 "2014-06-18T07:16:12Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Lack of belief is not the same as belief in non-existence. You can’t prove a negative – there may be invisible green unicorns swimming in my breakfast cereal every morning, but how could I disprove it? Especially if they’re made of neutrinos. > > Also, how do we define “God” in this debate? [Deism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism) posits that God does exist, but all he/she did was create the world and then left it to its own devices. If that’s the case, then the lack of God’s evidence (since the Big Bang, at least) is perfectly in line with that hypothesis. Yet it would be foolish to presume that Deism MUST be true, based on that correlation. Belief in no god is different from the claim that one knows there is no god. Especially when the belief is provisional. We can start out with lack of belief. Then we can examine dozens of gods posited by humans throughout the centuries and find that there is not a shred of evidence for any of them. Isn’t belief that there is no god reasonable at this point? Especially when any god could prove himself to us at any time. The universe with a deistic god is identical to one without him, so there is no reason to believe in one. You might as well believe that the Star Wars galaxy is out there somewhere, Ewoks, Jar-Jar and all. If God ever shows up, I can change my mind. Until then belief in no god is perfectly reasonable, far more reasonable than the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/128 "2014-06-18T09:17:18Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It seems to me that very few people here are responding to what the OP actually said. > > If I understand correctly, the OP’s main point is that atheism is not a scientific claim because it is not [falsifiable](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Falsifiability). And I think he’s correct about that. Wait what? Here’s how you falsify my position of atheism - _prove that a god exists_. Demonstrate that a god exists, and you have falsified atheism. The fact that you have set yourself up in such a way that you cannot even in theory demonstrate a god’s existence is hardly _our_ problem. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/129 "2014-06-18T10:03:47Z")
Actually **Thudlow** I don’t agree but not quite for the reason **BPC** states, as such. The OP is not saying atheism is inherently unfalsifiable, but rather that it is unfalsifiable because atheists won’t say what it is they would accept as evidence of a god: > [@Not\_Freddy\_Fender](#): > > Most skeptics claim they’re atheists. > They do this because they “see no evidence” for the existence of God. > And yet, they never disclose what exactly what they would consider to be “evidence” for the existence of God. > Is it walking on water? Elimination of all pain and suffering in the world? Allowing everyone to live forever? > Seriously, I would like to know exactly what skeptics would consider to be evidence for God. So I don’t think **BPC** has quite the flavour of it in that the OP seems to acknowledge that atheism could in theory be falsified by proving a god exists but his accusation is that us atheists are slippery weasels who won’t be pinned down on what would constitute that proof. The real problems here are at least twofold. Firstly, as past threads on the subject have shown, theists mostly don’t know what the frack the specifications of their god or gods are, and to the extent they do, they all contradict one another: there is no consensus. Secondly, many theists posit gods whose characteristics are such that their existence cannot be proven. For all that I doubt the OP has sufficient intellectual capacity to understand it, I think he/she actually points up something vaguely interesting: you can’t really be a universal hard atheist in the sense of holding a positive belief that no god exists because there is no definition of “god”. The statement that X does not exist, where X is an undefined variable, is unfalsifiable (and meaningless). All you can say as an atheist is that your belief that no god exists is - _for any particular provable god_ -scientific because your atheism is falsifiable. To the extent anyone posits an unprovable god, you can’t form a belief that that god does not exist on a scientific basis, but you sure as hell wouldn’t bother to pay it any mind. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/130 "2014-06-18T10:12:13Z")
What I’m saying has much in common with [Ignosticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism), which I would have invented myself (honest!) if it wasn’t for the fact that it had been invented already. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/131 "2014-06-18T10:46:38Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > Isn’t a fair statement to say that the concept of God is paradoxical and therefore cannot exist? This is the[theological noncognitivist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_noncognitivism) approach. Although that doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as **Princhester** ’s [Ignostic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism)… ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/132 "2014-06-18T11:56:20Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > To the extent anyone posits an unprovable god, you can’t form a belief that that god does not exist on a scientific basis, but you sure as hell wouldn’t bother to pay it any mind. Which brings us to a funny point about proving god. Those who are religious don’t have any problem defining god, he created heaven and earth in 6 days, rested on the 7th, he created Adam and Eve, flooded the earth, chatted with Moses, gave us the Ten Commandments, and his word is written down in the Bible. Until you talk about disproving his existence, then it’s all wibbly wobbly, he suddenly becomes a thoroughly generic supreme being, that atheists cannot disprove, thus their own highly specific god is “possible”. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/133 "2014-06-18T19:08:17Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Which brings us to a funny point about proving god. Those who are religious don’t have any problem defining god, he created heaven and earth in 6 days, rested on the 7th, he created Adam and Eve, flooded the earth, chatted with Moses, gave us the Ten Commandments, and his word is written down in the Bible. > > Until you talk about disproving his existence, then it’s all wibbly wobbly, he suddenly becomes a thoroughly generic supreme being, that atheists cannot disprove, thus their own highly specific god is “possible”. Naturally. Religious people are usually dishonest debaters. They lie - constantly and casually. Which is a pretty straightforward extension of their valuing faith over facts or logic - if they valued truth they wouldn’t be religious in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/134 "2014-06-18T22:54:09Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > He’d probably be confused and frightened by the machine, not to mentionn the cuisine from a land not discovered in his time. Hot Pockets are not a cuisine from anyone’s time ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/135 "2014-06-18T23:37:31Z")
> [@Princhester's link](#): > > Some philosophers have seen ignosticism as a variation of agnosticism or atheism, while others have considered it to be distinct. So it’s agnosticism or atheism for wiseasses. Works for me and it could really liven up Thanksgiving dinner. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/136 "2014-06-19T00:42:06Z")
I think it’s a bit like Pascal’s wager. It all sounds good till you realise you are being hoodwinked from the get go: Pascal starts from the position that the question is simply whether there is or is not a Xtian god. The reality however is there are infinitely more possibilities, it’s just that we are so surrounded by Xtian culture it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking it’s either the Xtian god or nothing. Similarly, classic agnostics or atheists are being hoodwinked from the get go into thinking that the question of whether or not there is a god is a reasonable starting point. We are so surrounded by theist culture which takes it as a given that there is this thing called “god”, that it is all too easy to assume that somewhere along the way the theists particpating in the debate have defined what they are talking about. The end result is that atheists and agnostics are all too easily swept past Step One (_WTF is this darn “god” thing you theists are wittering on about anyway?_) and straight into Step Two (_Does it exist?_). The end result is that all the endless discussion about Step Two is largely a meaningless castle in the air. If I had my way every single post by a theist on the subject of the existence of god on these boards would receive the reply “_what exactly are the defining characteristics of your ‘"god’_” and no other answer at all until that definition had been satisfactorily given. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/137 "2014-06-19T01:42:00Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > It would lack a turntable, yet still heat evenly. Cuz, god. If it heats popcorn without burning a bunch of kernels, I’m in. Let’s Kickstarter this baby! ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/138 "2014-06-19T01:50:47Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Hot Pockets are not a cuisine from anyone’s time Hot pockets contain the fires of hell! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/139 "2014-06-19T02:12:06Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Well, I see that SDMB never changes. Didn’t we have this discussion in 2000, then again in 2002, then again in…? Yep. This MB is troll-nip. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962/140 "2014-06-19T04:43:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yep. This MB is troll-nip. Seems more like trolls are dope-nip. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-is-not-scientific/690962.md?page=8)