I define myself as atheist. I take the default position that if you have some assertive claim about the nature of the physical world (for example, that it was created by a deity, that said deity observes us in some way, that when we die we have incorporeal elements of our inner being that transcend into an alternate existence) you need to support that claim with lots of evidence for me to believe it. Since no religion has any scientifically valid evidence to support it, I do not give the claims any regard whatsoever.
When you take the default position of only believing in things that have withstood falsification, you don’t really have to give credence to unfalsifiable claims and not much interest to claims that are easily falsifiable.
I think some people would classify me as agnostic based on the above, but I think in truth atheism just means you do not have any faith in a religion or God. I don’t think it has to mean you’re 100% sure of anything or that you’re actively working against established religion. I think people on both sides have tried to expropriate the term in those ways. Agnostic to me is just a wishy-washy thing where atheists who are afraid of oblivion try to keep some self-doubt there so they can have a minimal dream of an afterlife.
The closest I might come to having a “belief” is that I don’t believe anything is supernatural. If for example, Christianity is 100% true, I do not believe it’s because of supernatural phenomena. For example if souls are real, I believe they would have to consist of some form of matter or energy that so far we simply have no ability to measure. If Heaven is real it is a plane or dimension that even if it’s outside of our universe, we would be able to detect if souls could really travel there. If God could act upon our universe we could observes its effects. So if Christianity is correct I do not believe it is powered by supernatural powers, but it would instead be physical phenomena beyond our ability to measure or understand at present. But I couldn’t on any level accept there could be “legitimate” supernatural powers. The way I view it, if something exists or some power is possible of doing some thing, it has to exist under some form of the laws of nature even if in a way we don’t understand or under laws we don’t properly recognize.
Just because I know there are no gods doesn’t mean I think all religions are “false.” No, the rules for living weren’t dictated by a omnicient creator, they were made up and later altered by people. That doesn’t mean the rules are stupid or bad. The Commandments not dealing with religion are pretty universal, the current version of Jesus teaches a pretty good way to treat each other.
Getting a little slippery, there. I know what you mean, but there’s a difference between writing a book of moral and ethical statements, and taking that same book and claiming a supreme (and watching) being wrote it. The latter is false, IMHO, and does make a belief system based on it false no matter how much agreed truth is in the book’s content.
Maybe I am sitting on the fence, but when asked, I answer that as a matter of certain knowledge I am an agnostic. As a matter of belief, I am an atheist. I believe that there is no god, but I can’t prove it. I also believe that mathematics is consistent and the things I prove are necessary truths, but I can’t prove that either.
Aside from the old maxim that you can’t prove a negative, why should we have to? Why is there any burden whatsoever on those who disbelieve something with no slightest shred of supporting evidence, and a vast body of evidence against the notion?
I don’t care if a billion people believe it if not one of them can prove it, nor has been able to in the odd millennium or so of enlightenment.
I remember when I was a freshman in college, I met a girl who said she was an atheist. “Wow,” I thought, “I’ve met someone who’s my soul-mate, someone who thinks on an abstract level, and who dares to take a stand against the herd mentality of others.” So I asked her why she’s an atheist. “Well,” she answered, “Both of my parents are atheists, and I really never thought about it.”
I haven’t read the thread, and I’m sure that someone has covered this already, but here is my short take (for the eleventyeth time):
I am an atheist for two reasons:
No-one has presented any argument or evidence that I find credible and/or convincing as to the existence of any being that might be a deity.
Such characteristics as are often attributed to such putative deities are self-contradictory and/or in violation of many known and observable physical laws. Hence, such beings would be regarded as “supernatural”, a category I consider impossible.
Thus, I am an atheist by default, pending any change in these two conditions. I have an open mind, but I am not easily bamboozled. Other people are welcome to believe anything they want, even things that are arrant nonsense, as long as they leave me out of it. Such beliefs may make a personal relationship between them and me rather difficult, however, depending on how they regard my lack of belief in their fantasy.
Roddy
I admit it, it would be possible for a god to convince me that it exists.
Here are some clues:
First thing’s first. Show me. Appear, and do things that a magician simply cannot do. And here’s why that’s not unreasonable: You want me to be persuaded, I need persuading. I don’t want second and third hand information. First hand info only. Then, I’ll consider myself almost certainly insane or possibly poisoned/drugged or otherwise seeing illusions, but I’ll continue to listen with an open mind.
Second, verify for me just how much you are not the God of the Bible, or any *other *supposedly holy book written by man. Because *that *guy contradicts himself too much to be *any *sort of being more intelligent than a bronze-aged man with very little formal education, let alone a superbeing. In fact, some of the things he says are downright stupid.
Answer me some questions. For example, since you obviously do *not *intervene in everyday life, and prayer is hogwash, and you don’t intervene in a crisis when people who believe in you rely on you the most, and not a single amputee has ever spontaneously regenerated a limb after believing deeply in you and asking for your help, and not a single rape victim has ever been saved by angels, just confirm for me that you *never *told anyone that if they prayed to you, you’d listen, or rather, do a damned thing to help. I just need that on record before we continue.
Explain why you intended for good people to suffer, or don’t care if they do.
Confirm for me that you do *not *torment people eternally for mortal mistakes or choices.
I’ve got other questions. Why appear now, for example? And the list goes on and on.
However, at this particular point in time, it will take that particular god itself appearing directly to me and for my conditions to be satisfied.
There’s nothing any of you fellow mortal human beings could ever do or say to persuade me.
Here’s another reason why it’s not unreasonable. No other god religion spread without these gods apparently appearing before humanity, or shall we say, the original preachers of that faith.
You see, they purportedly believe because they got the good, first-hand information.
Take the greeks, for example. They didn’t need to rely on faith. They supposedly got the direct knowledge, because their gods interacted with them on a regular basis. Supposedly.
Which was of course, completely contradicted by the direct knowledge gained by the Egyptians. And the Zoroastrians. And the Scandinavians. And the Germanic tribes. And the Indians. And the Chin peoples. And the Japanese. And the Native Americans. And the various African tribes.
All personal direct knowledge, all completely contradicted by what someone else said they saw. So who to believe?
Obviously we’d need something more than second hand information to be convinced. So why is no one ever given any?
And of course, if there have been thousands of religions since the dawn of time (and, there have been) then at least 999 of them are false.
Show me what’s so special about insane belief number 1,000. Still waiting, never heard one argument that was worth a sliver of a shred of a damn.
Almost every modern religion thinks it’s the one true religion, always with no substantive justification, just a lot of hand waving and wishful thinking.
Yeah, the only reasons they give for the others being wrong is that God so, and the proponents of the other religions are ignorant savages. They know that any logic applied would backfire.
I don’t know why it should make you any of those things.
Atheism is the default state for her as it is for most people. It has to be replaced with something else and that girl obviously had not come across anything particularly convincing so there is no need for her to think about it. Her world works just fine without adding a religious element to it…so what?
I’d say that perfectly describes me up to my early 20’s. My parents were Christian of some denomination or other, I was baptised and married in a church but actual belief in a deity was never something that I gave any serious thought to, nor my friends or close family.
I don’t know what I would have labelled myself then but “atheist and never really thought about it” seems accurate and perfectly reasonable to me.
Religions claim to know the answer to the question, in detail. Religion doesn’t stop at simply saying that a “god like” supernatural entity created the universe, they identify that entity. They tell very specific stories about the entity, claim the entity told historical people specific things, and took specific acts.
I’m personally willing to entertain the idea that a supernatural being caused the universe to come into existence. Jesus, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and all of the Biblical claims about God, what God has done and what God wants from us? Not so much.
Disclaimer: not an atheist myself, although my decision to identify things I understand with the historical & cultural use of the word “God” was not a compellingly obvious one to make and a case could be made for choosing NOT to so align myself.
First off, I think a person ought to be able to say “I don’t believe in God” and mean simply that they do not use that term, “God”, to refer to diddly squat. Meaningless term, as far as that person is concerned, unless they are specifically discussing someone else’s belief, in which case all meaning is derived from their understanding of what that other person believes when using that term.
Implicit in that is the notion that such a person has been exposed to the mainstream / conventional religious formulations and has said “Doesn’t make any sense to me”. Perhaps also that person has been exposed to a much wider swatch of less conventional / unusual religious and spiritual formulations and had the same reactions to those as well.
But asking an atheist “SO, are you utterly certain that all religions are false?” or “SO, are you absolutely sure that there is NO God by any description or understanding that can possibly be real?” seems patently unfair, a “gotcha” question. It’s akin to asking someone “Hey, are you saying I can’t possibly ever use the word Ishmakabibble to refer to something that’s real?” How the hell would I know how you intend on using the damn word? You could point to a stick and say “I name this stick GOD. Are you saying this stick isn’t real?”
