So, the average person, who does not believe in most of the dozens or maybe even hundreds of gods they have heard of in their life, bases his or her disbelief on faith?
The op seems to be hung up on a percieved difference between “not possessing a belief in X” and “a belief in non-existence of X”
And indeed the two are not automatically the same thing. But once an individual has heard of a belief, such as of Loki, and one does not accept it as true, one has moved from the former to the latter. The difference is not as significant as is suggested.
Most strong atheists I have encountered merely take the position that the default state is nonacceptance of any belief unless evidence is sufficient to the contrary and that in this case “God” is a belief and “No-God” is not belief, it is default state no belief. No faith required to them.
Cegstar, in the end, once all the nitpicking is said and done, you are right. There are some people who believe beyond doubt that there is no God (of any name or flavour) and that no amount of hard evidence to the existence of God (if any is possible) will convince them of the existence of God. Those people do have “faith” in the inexistence of God. They are religiously atheists.
They are a VERY limited bunch who hold a truly irrational belief and shouldn’t be taken seriously. I do not believe we have any of those amongst our doper ranks.
Judging atheism on their virtue would be akin to judging theism (of any religion) on the virtues of Bin Laden (or any wacko televangelist). They are a radically extreme group that in no way represent the mainstream of that line of thought.
I would have to imagine so. I doubt most of them have thought about the issue as much as atheists.
God said he is the One god, thus there are no others. *
Sounds like a faith-based argument to me.
- Of course the beginning sections of the Bible (in my reading at least) said that there are other gods, just that none of them were worthy of worship since only YHWH created everything.
Sounds like one of the definitions of a strong atheist to me:
But whatever you think of **Thudlow’s ** and **tom’s ** examples, the fact remains that the definition quoted immediately above is a common one for 'strong atheist," and that’s one you need to deal with. I think you need to educate yourself on what these terms mean before you attempt to start debating them.
What is “the type of god that a deist believes in,” exactly? Please define your terms.
Many deists believe that god created the universe, and is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. Many atheists would say that the known laws of physics would rule out the existence of an entity with the power to create the universe, and which was all-powerful and all-knowing. Many would also say that the existence of evil and suffering in the world is evidence against god being all-loving. There is actually a great deal of evidence against the existence of the type of god many deists believe in.
Regarding Santa, even if most toys are made by toy companies, and most Christmas presents are not given by Santa, how does that prove he doesn’t exist?
Perhaps Santa exists, but does not have all the attributes he is alleged to have by devout Santians. Perhaps he is not responsible for the creation of toys, but merely distributes them. Perhaps he used to deliver toys, but has ceased to do so out of despair of finding good children these days.
Can you prove Santa doesn’t exist? If you can’t prove he doesn’t exist, then you are relying on faith to deny his existence.
I asked you what God you were talking about, not which God you believed in. Your OP mentioned God, and he. If you said gods, then this wouldn’t be a problem. Your use of the term God seems to indicate you don’t really understand atheism, which is not the simple rejection of the majority deity, but of all deities.
Some gods can’t be demonstrated to exist or not to exist by definition. Except that the concept of them might make someone feel good about a purpose of the universe, these gods are logically equivalent to no god at all. And the concept can exist even if the god does not.
Damn right I do. I don’t believe in the purple people eaters of Aldeberan IV - do you?
Indeed. Maybe some other world has a god who shows up once in a while, and who gets the science right in his holy book. As for us, the claims of knowing god made by the religious are clearly hooey, guesses about the nature of this god are total guesses, and we don’t have to act in any particular way to satisfy him. This god is also indistinguishable from a non-existent one.
I should clarify that I am using the term “deist” here in the sense I think Cegstar is using it, that is, someone who believes god exists, not in the sense of someone who believes in Deism. Deists in the narrow sense may not believe all of the things I listed (but most believe some of them).
Let’s talk about aliens. I think probably some alien exists somewhere, since it is a big universe, there are a lot of planets suitable for life, it seems that life can fairly easily develop, given the right conditions, and that intelligent life can evolve, given enough time and the right conditions. I don’t believe in any specific alien race living around any specific star, though the discovery of one wouldn’t shock me. So I think there might be aliens because we have some evidence, on our earth, that they are plausible.
You can split the class of gods into three parts. First is the deistic god, who by definition never interacts with us, and never will. Given that we don’t need such a god to explain the universe, I see no reason to believe in him. Tom Paine did, because he couldn’t understand the structure of the solar system without a god, but I suspect he’d change his mind today.
The second class is that of Gods somewhere else who have never gotten around to visiting. Since again no such god is necessary, and we have no evidence that there is one anywhere, I don’t believe in them either.
The third class are the gods who have dropped in, chatted with humans, and inspired holy books. As far as I can tell, the books thus inspired are filled with errors, there is no more evidence for one of these gods than another, and there is absolutely nothing that can’t be more simply explained by people making stuff up or being deluded. Maybe they made up gods for good reasons, maybe for bad, but I see no more evidence for a god dropping in than I do for an alien dropping in - less in fact, since the saucerites at least have their blurry pictures.
Since you’re new here, you may not be aware that moderators also act as regular posters. Their main function is to ensure that rules are not violated, and there is nothing whatever in the rules that prohibits condescension, as long as it’s not an outright insult. In fact, when one presents such ill-though-out arguments as you have been doing here in GD, such remarks become almost inevitable. If you don’t want to be condescended to, start making some more intelligent arguments.
Actually, it appears that you are the one becoming defensive. Most people here have simply been responding to your own remarks, and pointing out their logical inconsistencies.
In reality, this question is very unlikely to be asked by an atheist, since most atheists have come to the conclusion that god does not exist on the basis of evidence (or lack of it) and of reason. Faith, which is belief without evidence (not lack of belief in the abscence of evidence) doesn’t enter into it. Generally, only theists, who hold their beliefs without evidence, need to worry about faith or the lack of it. So this question is one that is only ever likely to be asked by a theist.
I didn’t say anything about being part of “a devout faith”. That gives the impression we’re talking about a big part of one’s life.
I’m simply asking if a strong atheist’s strong belief that no gods exist is faith based because it is a belief without evidence.
What I learned in another thread from nametag, is that inductive reasoning and empiracal evidence would lead me to believe that those things won’t happen. I don’t believe it’s fair to say that no gods exist based on inductive reasoning and empiracal evidence.
Again, I’m not talking about all atheists. I’m talking about those who “are those who accept as true the proposition, “god does not exist””.
For the purposes of this thread, atheists don’t have to explain why they don’t worship. Why does everyone want to get off the topic of the OP?
No. You are again describing a weak atheist.
For crying out loud, I’m talking about strong atheists that “accept as true the proposition, “god does not exist””.
No, it’s not. The bolded parts are the miconceptions. The non-bolded part which I quoted was meant to correct the misconception.
Did I say it didn’t apply?
Can we please try to focus on the type of strong atheism I’m talking about?
I’ll need you to explain to me what’s different about what I mentioned; I thought I was talking about the same type of strong atheism.
You’ve been told repeatedly, by both atheists and theists alike who have posted to this thread, that this is incorrect. I am not certain why you seem to be completely failing to comprehend the argument. It’s certainly been explained to you enough times. It would seem to be hopeless if you don’t get it by now.
But that’s exactly what many atheists would say, based on a lack of positive evidence for god, and the fact that the kind of entity proposed by many theists is not possible according to known physical laws. Because you “don’t believe it’s fair” doesn’t mean that’s not what atheists believe.
Almost everybody has been. You have yet to advance one valid argument in support of your OP, or answer the many objections to it that have been raised. Could you please focus on making some arguments to support your OP? And simply repeating the same misunderstandings and illogic over and over again doesn’t make them any more valid.
I thought I had in my last post.
Well, as I see it:
Faith = steadfast belief in something despite lack of evidence or even counter-evidence
Atheism = Lack of belief in a deity or belief that no deity exists
I can’t quite link these two as you have, because the lack of evidence against something unproven isn’t compelling. If there’s no evidence proving Zeus exists or doesn’t exist, why is it an act of faith to maintain Zeus doesn’t exist? If it is, then “faith” is reduced to uselessness. Under those conditions, if you want to say atheists have faith, knock yourself out because it means nothing.
I’d suggest it’s because the topic of the OP is unclear at best.
Is that a statement of faith? How is it different from a statement about Zeus or the tooth fairy or any other concept that lacks supporting evidence? How would it be different than a statement that rocks don’t float in water given a large quantity of empirical and inductive evidence that they sink?
I’m trying to, but as far as I can tell, your premise is either incorrect or meaningless, depending on how one chooses to define “faith”.
I had always heard it defined as follow:
An Athiest believes we have all the facts and that these facts prove that there is no God without a shadow of a doubt.
An Agnostic believes that we don’t have all the facts to neither prove nor disprove the existence of a supreme being.
A theist believes that we have all the facts and these facts prove that there is a God.
Anyway, I wasn’t sure where I stood on all this after they unraveled the human genome and found that:
a.) It was much shorter than it should be if we did in fact evolve from lower animals - drastically so.
b.) There are some 243 genes which somehow magically “appeared” in the human genome as if they were inserted sideways via bacteria, and not via evolution as is with the case of all other animals.
That’s intriguing. So it looks like somebody (or somebodies) were tinkering with our genome… but nobody knows what to do with this knowledge.
Forgot to mention - they should make up a new word for someone who just plain doesn’t care.
A lot of people seem to think this, but frankly, I think it’s pretty much just evasive. Yes, lots of people don’t care. But those people, for the purposes of communicating coherent meaning, as opposed to just being hip and above it all, are still either theists or atheists regardless. Lots of atheists don’t care about the issue, and frankly, lots of theists don’t really care either. That doesn’t make them any different than women who don’t care that they are women. Not caring isn’t an excuse for not being clear about what’s what. That’s the essence of having good, consistent definitions for things.
We haven’t unraveled the human genome, at least in the sense of understanding it all clearly and what does what or comes from where. We’ve barely just started in that task.
Nonsense. While scientists have been surprised by how short the effective lengths of genomes are, there is nothing about that which suggests that we didn’t evolve from other life (note that talking about “lower” lifeforms is not really very accurate): it’s surprising insofar as we are learning a lot about how many genes can do how much. Genome lengths are not directly correlated with complexity. Some accumulate huge amounts of dreck, some are quite slim. The major differences we have with, say, chimps, seem mostly to be different numbers of repeats of the same often repeated sequences. There is not, in fact, some great size gap between us and our closest ancestors, nor they with theirs elsewhere in the animal kingdom, and so on.
While I don’t know anything about “243 genes” it’s been known for quite some time viruses insert themselves into other genomes. Bacteria exchange genes with other bacteria, and sometimes through viruses, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about them doing it directly with people. I think you’ll need to cite that.
The viral insertions (and deletions), by the way, are one of the many different lines of evidence that show that we evolved from common ancestors with the other apes. Those relatives have or don’t the virus insertions in JUST the right pattern to make perfect sense with what all the other fossil, morphological, geographic, and other genetic marker evidence tell us.
It isn’t knowledge, because at least your summary of it is false. No journal of genetics supports the idea that “somebody” has been tinkering with our genome in the way you say. You’ve simply misrepresented two issues in genetics.
Still … I nominate “apatheist”… But then it is unclear if that’s people who don’t care or that God doesn’t.
I explained it a few times. What you said in your last post was, “So, the average person, who does not believe in most of the dozens or maybe even hundreds of gods they have heard of in their life, bases his or her disbelief on faith?”
By that description alone, we can definitely gather the type of person you are describing is a weak atheist. Nothing suggests he is a strong atheist.
On the wikipedia article that Colibri linked to, the strongest statement made about weak atheists is:
“those who have made up their minds, deciding that the evidence doesn’t warrant belief”
^For the purposes of this thread, I’m describing a weak atheist as one who is absent in the belief in God or gods. I acknowledged a few times that absence of belief does not take faith, but I keep getting responses such as, “So if I don’t believe in Zeus, that takes faith on my part?”.
For the purposes of this thread, I’m describing a strong atheist (taken again from Colibri’s link) as:
“those who believe that God does not exist based on current evidence”
“those who claim to know that God does not exist”
^ Notice the first definition includes a belief, not merely absence of belief.
THEN THEY’RE NOT STRONG ATHEISTS!
I didn’t make an argument for anything. I asked a question and I thought it was best suited for this forum. There was nothing unintelligent about it.
No. many have become defensive taking this as a creationist/atheist debate, have been condescending, and defended their weak atheism needlessly, since my OP had nothing to do with it. If you need me to point out all of the examples of this, I will.
I disagree that an atheist may not ask this question, but why does it matter? Since it was asked by a theist, the way one goes about answering it must be done differently?
I have been stating that over and over. You feel the need to remind me?
If you don’t understand the OP by now, please stop wasting my time. I can’t reply to every post as it is.