We have much more information than they did, making it easier for us to shine the light of knowledge into those dark gaps deities supposedly reside in.
Logic < Logic + Information
That was then and this was now. Tom Paine, in The Age of Reason, clearly states that he is not an atheist, and that some god is required because he cannot see another way the Solar System could have such a regular structure. (He thought the Christian Bible was a hunk of junk.) But if he were alive now he’d know how this is, and might be an atheist. God was perhaps the simplest explanation hundreds of years ago, no longer.
I get along quite well with no “why”, so it is true. I’m not arguing that some people don’t feel the need for a why, in fact I’m saying that this is precisely why they believe.
There are plenty of reasons why people believe - not so many to think that the belief is true. Certainly not this one.
I agree with you. But, as your example points out, the existence of God explained something and then science came up with a better explanation, and a theist would probably have become an atheist because of that better explanation. That’s been my point.
So, you “get along quite well with no ‘why’” and yet you talk about “why they believe” and “why people believe”. :dubious:
I guess you need some “whys” and not others.
And yet a recurring theme is that atheism is merely the lack of belief in a deity. Nothing more, nothing else. Apparently, information has nothing to do with that conclusion. Nor do atheists require alternative explanations for those things that were explained from a theistic perspective. Nope, atheism is just the lack of belief in a deity. Nothing more, nothing less.
Are you suggesting that logic without any information has some value?
I think that you meant “Logic + information < Logic + information + more information.” I agree.
And, I think that’s the rationale for atheism.
I guess I’m just whyser than you. 
Of course not, because disbelief in gods or anything else is the default position to take.
Of course not, because such theistic explanations are worse than worthless. “I don’t know” is a superior alternative to “this logically inconsistent being that no one can see and for which I have no evidence did it!”
How do we/you know this?
There was a time that being able to talk to someone across an ocean defied physical law, yet when we learned more we saw that it really didn’t. What make you so certain that if we understood everything, that a Creator God wouldn’t fit into things logically? I guess it this all might depend on where along the curve to perfect knowledge you think we are. Do we have 1% more to learn. Or 99%?
In other words, God defies physical law, unless he doesn’t.
The easiest resolution to the apparent contradiction of God and the laws of physics is that God doesn’t exist.
Or, to be accurate, the contradiction between descriptions of God and the laws of physics, hence my earlier point that we have no reason to believe any human religion contains an accurate description.
For one thing, because God as typically described - omnipotent - by definition defies all possible, all conceivable laws of physics because if such laws applied he wouldn’t be omnipotent.
How do we know a talking duck wouldn’t fit into things logically? It’s a really stupid argument: “We don’t know everything, so this one particular thing that I believe in might be true after all. So there.” The problem, is that somehow you have taken your own belief system and elevated above all the rest. Unless of course you spend as much time thinking about a talking duck as you do about God, which your posts show no evidence of.
That maybe true for you, but my society in the UK is, at the very best, apathetic regarding religion. Most people I know are atheist and the media and society pretty much secular. So no denial needed. I admit that will cloud my thinking.
Correct, we don’t need the supernatural because we’ve expanded our understanding of what “natural” can do.
That atheism is not a belief
It doesn’t matter how intelligent someone is. If there is no evidence* at all* then the right thing to do is dismiss it out of hand. Sophisticated argument is all that theologians have. They twist words and concepts. They bulk out their arguments with tortured logic in the hope of making themselves seem smarter and their arguments cleverer. However, their theories are built on nothing.
but this is a rationale for the courtiers reply, which holds no weight at all
Agreed. It is the first thing they should be able to do, and at that step they fail.
I would word it differently. I would say that people* revert* to being atheists when the natural explanations drive out the supernatural ones.
Remember, people are born atheist and for millennia before recorded time they were atheist with regards to any of the abrahamic faiths.
Is there anyone in Poughkeepsie named Albert Smith? No, don’t look it up.
I think it’d be absurd to say, “No, I don’t believe there is.” What’s far more reasonable is to say, “I have no idea.”
That’s the default position.
But we have plenty of evidence that it’s possible for such a person to live there. It isn’t even an odd name. That isn’t remotely analogous to claims about magic sky people.
Is there an Easter Bunny? Do unicorns and fairies exist?
I don’t believe they do. Sure, it’s possible, but there is absolutely no evidence that these things might even exist.
Is your position really “I have no idea.”?
Is there anyone there named Hunnybunny Crinklepants Cadwallader?
You’re right wrt the second part of his statement, wrong about the first. Trihs knows that human beings exist, so do towns; he also knows – again by observation and experience – that human beings have names and so do towns, even funny sounding ones.
So, he has no reason to assume that the mentioned location or the person cannot exist; they might because entities belonging to the same classification do. But without specific knowledge, he can’t say for sure, so the default position is indeed: “I don’t know.”
A god, however, is something, that I’m sure, Trihs has never identified as an entity within the observable reality. He also doesn’t know of any evidence in favour of such an existence despite statements that claim otherwise. He knows, however, that the observable reality contradicts such an existence in many ways. Therefore, the default position is “No, I don’t belief.”
is there an albert Smith in Poughkeepsie who can blink me out of existence, see to my soul after I die, cure my son’s diabetes if I ask nicely, or create and populate a world?
I have no idea.
See, thats the interesting thing. The religionists have to reduce their god figure to a silhouette before they ask us if hes possible. We merely disbelieve. They denigrate his image. Blasphemy just so that we’ll say “Its possible”.
Is there some entity called Random J. Name in Poughkeepsie? Why yes there is, and Ol’ Randy is a paper tiger.
Let’s see. I have a lot of experience with human beings, and with their naming conventions. I use this background knowledge of similar entities to move past the default position of “I don’t know” to move to a position of “I don’t believe so.”
But the analogy is to an entity for which I lack all background knowledge. If we’re trying to include background knowledge in the analogy, we need to make that match, also.
Is there a beetle in Poughkeepsie that makes clicking sounds while it eats decomposing fungal material?
I don’t know.
Whether there’s an omnipotent entity, of course, requires me to form a belief about something that I have even less background knowledge of. I highly doubt such an entity exists, and I certainly see no reason to act as though such an entity exists, but my default position isn’t to say that I believe no such entity exists.