Also, in terms of this thread; I don’t think creationism has any place in science class. It’s not science.
I don’t think theists are more ignorant then I am, or that they are idiots for holding what they believe to be true. I disagree with them and I don’t precisely understand why they believe in God. Perhaps they have good reasons they can’t articulate or good reasons that I don’t understand or no reason and that’s what “God” wants; I don’t know.
Were I to think someone an idiot for not accepting what I accept-be it creationism/atheism/etc, then I can be charged with the exact same thing because I previously didn’t accept what I accept and accepted what they accept.
Even though I’m an atheist, I don’t find God belief ‘stupid’/‘idiotic’/etc. I don’t find it reasonable (to me, obviously), but I also don’t think that I’m the final magic man of what is true.
You’re mixing up “I believe” with “I reckon this is probably the correct answer, given available evidence and theories, and will act as such”. That’s not “faith” in a religious sense.
It’s an active thing if it takes a direct object. Disbelieving something means to actively reject it, not to say, “I don’t see any evidence to believe it.”
“Baldness is a hair colour” is a deliberate paradox to show the absurdity of the comparison. Baldness could NOT be a hair colour, therefore atheism could NOT be a religion. Get it?
This is a very very well-known phrase, Liberal. If I didn’t think so highly of you, your seeming incomprehension would appear, to me, anyway, like an intentional hijack. :dubious:
Bup, would you give it up already and quit being a douche? Atheism in Greek means “not theistic.” It just means a person who does not have a belief in gods. It is not necessarily a hard assertion that gods can’t exist.
Having no belief in something is a default position. It’s the starting point. When you are born you have no beliefs. You do not have an infinite amount of negative beliefs, you simply have no beliefs at all.
I’m not even sure that it’s meaningful to say that God can’t be disproven as long as no one can provide a falsifiable definition of “God.” It’s also not meaningful to tell someone that they have “faith” that an undefined nonsense word doesn’t exist. What exactly are they denying.
You can’t prove Blidgets don’t exist, can you? Does that mean you have “faith” that they don’t. From my perspective, I can’t really take a position on God because nobody’s been able tell me what that word even means. Asking me if I believe in God is like asking me if I believe in Blart. I need to know what Blart is. So far, no one’s ever been able to supply a definition so I can’t answer the question. I don’t know what I’m being asked.
I’m sure that you think you’re being clever and provocative with this tack about atheism being some sort of negative faith but it’s really a tired and unoriginal argument around here.
Atheists don’t believe in God the same way they don’t believe in Santa Claus. The assertion that Santa can’t be absolutely disproven might be true but it’s not meaningful.
And, as has been discussed on these boards before, newborns aren’t atheistic.
God is defined as an all-powerful, all-knowing, everlasting being.
Now does the question make sense?
Then go do something the fuck else. Nobody’s forcing you to post.
I don’t care what you call it, so long as you recognize there’s a difference between professing no knowledge of whether God exists or not, and believing God doesn’t exist.
Believing that there is no God is an act of faith. I’m not saying it’s a religion. Faith is not the same as religion. I won’t even call it atheism. I don’t care. Semantic crap is boring, and often leads to the tail wagging the dog.
Nope. You haven’t provided a definition, just a loose conglomerate of general attributes. Nothing in your definition is falsifiable or scientifically meaningful.
What is “God” made of? Where is it in the universe? What do you mean by “entity?”
I’m here to fight ignorance. Don’t take it personally. You should e grateful for the education.
That difference is usually articulated as “hard atheism” and “soft atheism.” Neither position requires any faith.
No it isn’t. Not anymore than believing that vampires don’t exist.
You’re the one who started this crap. It’s not as clever as you thought it was. Don’t feel bad. It happens to all of us.
His beliefs are independent from my beliefs. Nothing more, nothing less.
I accept/reject modern ideas regardless of whether or not Zeus is a real and honest to god god (I couldn’t resist either).
There are actually three Zeus’s that I know of, and they all happen to be dogs, not gods. (Can’t resist that one either) All three of them are kerazey!
Wasn’t there an experiment like this in Russia last century? If you took away the bread, then you are a dictator. If you took away the prayer, then …er um, just how are you going to take away the prayer?
I think you’re trying to get me to claim that my views/beliefs are superior over others, including yours…I tell you that neither are not, but they are my views/beliefs nonetheless regardless.
You would be surprised at the hidden meanings in the bible if instead of 7"days" being “168 hours” it really meant “an undetermined quantity of space aliens with ray guns.”
By the way, if I was scribing a scroll, and I had God as my editor… I’d hope the fucker’d catch me being as sloppy as to forget the span of a day.
“Finn!”, God would say, “A day is the ammount of time from when the moon rises to when it rises again. Whaddya, stupid?”
Maybe God was busy when someone was scribing Genesis.
Would you mind elaboration on what connections you see between hard science and the bible?
This isn’t all that surprising. As even (most) theists plant seeds when planting time comes, rather than praying for bread, I would expect there to be groups still dedicated to knoweldge.
Of course, the unscientific bit comes after all the data is collected an analyzed. Some sneaky bugger often works out what is really happening in reality (to within a good probability of being correct), and then claims that the Magic Panda simply caused there to be rules/reality/whatever.
Snuck that panda in the side door. Tricksy.
No, but I canprove that everybody who believes in God cannot be acting in accord with the key tenets of science, in this respect.
See, thing is, if I were to be writing about some jazz that God said; I’d want to get it as accurately as possible. You know, journalistic like, give all the details with none of the parable. What’d you want with people trying to sell second and third hand God anyways?
There’s no one religious climate in the states, although there are cetainly pockets of concentrated belief.
If you’d lived in Manhattan or Austin or LA I doubt you’d have been bombarded with any specific religious vibe at all.
Then again, I could be wrong.
The vocabulary of non-belief is rough and highly individualistic. There is little motive force for non-believers to organize about how they don’t believe. You also find few disagreeing atheists getting into bitter fights about the identity of atheism. Not only is the concentration of atheists too low but the absurdity of the activity generally collapses the activity into a parody of the activity.
I suggest that non-belief can be classified as weak or strong and can come in three flavors. The flavors are agnostic, atheistic, and apatheistic.
Agnostics do not know if God exists. A weak agnostic leaves it at that. They, personally, do not know if God exists. A strong agnositic believes that nobody knows if God exists, and more over nobody can know.
Weak atheists don’t believe in God. That is they, literally, lack any belief in God. A strong atheist believes there is no God. That is they, literally, believe in a lack of God.
Apatheists don’t care if God exists. A weak apatheist, personally, doesn’t care if God exists or not. A strong apatheist believes that it doesn’t matter if God exists or doesn’t exist.