(bolding mine)
You’ve moved the goalpost. No one here said believing god don’t exist is the default position. Look at the quote by Der Trihs that you replied to in post #273. Disbelief is not the same as belief in the converse.
The opposite of Belief is not Belief.
Yes.
Yes. That is what atheism is. By the same token, if someone believes in an active god who cares about people, that person is a theist, no matter what his or her reasons might be for believing that, and no matter what that person believes their god wants them to do.
Now if you’re arguing why a specific human become or remain atheists (or much more persuasively, why that person won’t commit to some particular religion), then the questions of evidence, explanations of the natural world and societal pressures become important. And those questions can only be handled in the context of the time that person lived in.
None of the supernatural explanations of the universe I’ve ever seen have even been more than demonstrably false with the knowledge I have right now as a relatively educated person with some interest in biology, psychology, logic and physics.
All the other “religious” world views I know of just make naive equivocations like “god equals love” or “god equals the universe”, which I might agree with were it not for the baggage of using the word “god”.
The burden surely is not with me to prove that there are no gods. I can’t know that. All I can do is look at the evidence that I can understand which so far has not lead me to conclude any supernatural thing is even plausible. But if any believer is so much surer than I am, I really do expect them to come up with more than ancient texts and a load of rubbish.
I have absolutely no knowledge or background about an invisible pink unicorn that lives in my garage, or a flying being in the sky made of spaghetti.
Without any evidence whatsoever to the contrary, my position is to say that I believe no such entities exist.
Would you characterize your position that you simply have no idea about such entities?
I have just as much knowledge and background in an omnipotent being that matches the (granted contradictory descriptions) of the Abrahamic God. Everything I know about science and reality contradicts such a being. Without any evidence to the contrary, I believe that such a being doesn’t exist.
The problem is, if you accept that, then that is true for anything at all that I can make up - as long as it’s defined correctly. And I can make it very specific - and irrefutable - too; there’s an invisible incorporal being called Pierre that loves me and hates you and will make you burn forever in a lake of fire after you die (and possibly do some more unpleasant things to your kids too, why not) unless you give me 20,000 dollars every year.
I’m not asking you to state a definite yes or no answer to its existence (hey, it could be true), but is that being plausible at all?
If someone is making the claim that a god is or does something, then I have plenty of background knowledge. You’re acting as if the information about whatever god is completely independent of information about the world and it isn’t. Just as you know how people tend to name children, I know how the world tends to work. So when you posit that there’s a god doing X or God doing Y, I can compare that with my experiences, what I know of physics, the evidence presented, etc. to form a conclusion: “No, I don’t believe it.”
I missed this in my first reply but I just wanted to address this quickly:
First of all, there is a place called Poughkeepsie. Also, I know that beetles are abundant and I think that some of them click, but in any case there are insects that click, and there are plenty of insects eating decomposing matter. So, if someone tells me of some beetle with your stated characteristics, I’d tend to believe what they’re saying is probably true.
But that paragraph above means that this is not at all equivalent to a case where “I lack all background knowledge”. Not even close.
Ah–I thought he was saying something similar to this statement of SmartAlec’s:
In other words, I thought he was using disbelief to mean a belief in the converse. If he’s simply using it to mean a lack of belief, then I agree with his statement.
Superfluous, I have no belief in your extortionate Pierre, and I don’t concern myself with him whatsoever. That still doesn’t translate into a positive belief in his nonexistence.
And y’all are right about the background knowledge issue; it’s very hard to come up with an appropriate analogy here, because the claims about God are explicitly claims about a being that, if existent, would work in ways contrary to normal daily experiences. The question is, broadly, “Is it possible that things exist that are contrary to your normal (for very broad definitions of ‘normal’) understanding of the cosmos?” I absolutely think that’s possible, although for the broadest definitions of “normal” I think it’s unlikely. When you ask me about any specific non-normal thing, I’m going to think it much more unlikely. But I still have no evidence against it. I just won’t worry about its existence.
I think the problem here is that the claims about god - at least, the ones that are still being used by relatively sane believers - are the few ones that are left over after the onslaught of critical examination of the evidence. In my opinion it’s pretty telling that all of the remaining common claims can’t or don’t have any evidence for them and are also constructed in such a way that they cannot be disproved. I’ve already given an example of how easy it is to come up with those kinds of claims. What I’m still waiting for is any reason to believe those kinds of claims are reasons to believe in anything at all. And why I wouldn’t think the person making those claims isn’t just abusing the gullible for his own “worldly” gains.
So the national anthem is now “A naturalisitic explanation save the Queen”? 
FWIW, according to the most recent UK Census, 14.6% of people in England say that they have no religion, and 18.5 per cent in Wales.
First, I didn’t mention theologians, so your argument is a straw man.
Second, you say “If there is no evidence * at all*” but there is plenty of evidence for the existence of God/gods:
- The Sun, which travels across the sky each day because of Ra, Helios, or Apollo, depending on what part of the world you are in.
- Thunder, which is caused by Zeus, Thor, or Indra.
- Rainbows, which were created by Yahweh after Noah’s Flood.
- All of creation, created by the all-powerful Creator God.
Are you denying that the Sun, thunder, rainbows, and all of creation exist?
Oh, you have another explanation that doesn’t involve deities? Ah, so the evidence is the same but the explanation is different. Makes sense.
I agree that the Courtier’s Reply holds no weight at all.
To the uneducated, there is no evidence for heliocentrism, evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics, or a universe that is billions of years old. Actually, I’ve never actually seen any evidence for any of the above – I’ll only heard about it and read about it. Why do I believe what I hear and read? Perhaps because it makes sense to me.
There are intelligent people who think that it makes sense to believe in the existence in God. Are they mistaken? I think so. But I don’t have a simple air-tight argument for why they are wrong.
Remember what? Your post distorts the meaning of the word “atheist” in a way that is similar to how some theists play with the word “religion”. It would take quite a few more words to demonstrate to you that you are wrong. Instead, I’ll just say this:
People are not born atheist.
For millennia before recorded time people were not atheist.
BTW, has anyone in this thread posted any dictionary definitions of “atheist”?
Here are some:
[ul]
[li]someone who believes that God does not exist Welcome to Macmillan Education Customer Support who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods. Home : Yahoo Academy Learning Center who believes that there is no deity http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheist[/li][li]someone who believes that God or gods do not exist http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/atheist[/li][li]unbeliever in God or deities: somebody who does not believe in God or deities http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861587466[/li][/ul]
But if you didn’t have knowledge of biology, psychology, logic and physics, would you still be an atheist? If yes, then how would explain what you observed in the world? Would you just say “I don’t know”?
In the absence of any contradictory evidence, supernatural explanations are very persuasive, and have been the default for thousands of years. But, as the amount of contradictory evidence increased, and better naturalistic explanations were formulated, supernatural explanations became less persuasive, more flawed, and eventually useless … for some people. And some of those people became atheists. Is that reasonable or am I missing something?
Certainly some people are frauds, no question. But there are some people who make the claims because they’re operating on faith, which appears to me to be a system of acting as though you believe in something until that act becomes indistinguishable from truth, out of a sense that it’s virtuous. Some people believe out of hope: they find the idea of a nontheistic cosmos to be appalling, perhaps in a way similar to how I find the idea of an all-powerful being who created this clusterfuck and keeps it going on purpose. And some people believe in a deity based on personal evidence: they believe they’ve spoken to a deity, or that certain events represent signs from that deity. I may find their evidence unpersuasive, but it’s entirely possible that if I’d had the same experiences as them (an experience, say, that seemed to be a communication from a deity), I might find them persuasive.
Yes, I would say I don’t know. I say so now regarding quantum physics and string theory. Even though I gather the evidence for quantum physics’ basic conclusions is pretty strong, I don’t understand it, though I have to take it in some way seriously because the conclusions are demonstrable. String theory as far as I understand is another beast and might be hardly scientific.
Anyway, I care about what I do know now, not about what would happen if I didn’t know it.
That’s reasonable yes. There are plenty of psychological reasons why people ascribe intent to natural phenomena, and “need” some kind of naturalistic explanation before they give up on supernatural ones. But as far as I can see, supernatural causes have always turned out to be misinterpreted natural causes. And the only reason we’ve got vaguely deistic arguments today is because of the progress of natural science. Not the other way around. If we give up a naturalistic world view, anything goes. If we think the universe is somewhat predictable, we end up with an “ultimate cause” argument for a supernatural being. And if that’s the case, fine - though there’s still no evidence that that’s a valid argument - but in any case all human religions so far have been completely wrong.
In my last sentence, I was mostly arguing against people who are proselytising, not general believers.
Or even, because it’s better to pretend to believe and promote belief for the benefit of society. I always get the feeling that Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher) does that when I hear him speak. I can sort of understand the feeling, but I think it’s just wrong, and very likely harmful in the long run. And it would still make you a fraud if you didn’t believe it yourself.
Quite honestly, in arguments with religionists, it is easier to defend “having no belief in gods,” rather than “believing there are no gods.” I subscribe to both beliefs, myself, but would rather defend the former than the later.
Here is one author’s take on it:
The atheist has nothing to prove.
*As an atheist, I have no belief in god–not in the Jewish god, not in the Christian god, not in the Muslim god and not in the Hindu gods. When comparing myself to a religionist, I like to picture each of us holding an old mayonnaise jar. Perhaps when you were a child you poked a few holes in the lid of a mayonnaise jar and collected insects for observation. But in this instance, instead of putting insects in the jar, picture it full of religious beliefs.
The religionist’s jar contains all of the beliefs of his religion. For example, a Catholic’s jar would include heaven and hell, a bearded man in the sky and his human son, virgin birth, walking on water, people rising from the dead, saints, miracles and the Pope as the infallible spokesperson for god.
My jar is empty.
Often religionists feel atheists should prove there is no god. Perhaps because they have been in power for so long, they think they can set the terms of the debate. But atheists have no belief in god. My jar is empty. I have nothing to prove. All of the shouting in the world will not change this fact. It is the religionist who has a jar full of beliefs. And the religionist lacks facts to support his beliefs. So he labels them faith. Religion requires faith because it has no facts.*
I don’t go to church with other atheists. I don’t communicate over the internet or spend time reading atheist sites and arguments. If it weren’t for an occasional thread, I would never even think about it. So how does that qualify as a belief system? It is an absence of a system . Atheists don’t spend any time thinking about or doing anything about religion.
Yes there are exceptions, but they don’t speak for the majority. There is no organization and nobody speaks for us.
I kinda disagree. I think the jar really holds your understanding of the underpinnings of the universe.
The jar the author wrote about doesn’t hold those things:
I’m not talking about religion. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I approach these topics with the assumption that no religion in the history of man has gotten it right. The flavor of God is impossible to argue for and easy to dispel. And it’s a conflation many people in these types of threads do quite often. The only way to have an intelligent discussion about a Creator God is to NOT imbue him with any attributes other than “Creator”.
I don’t think that’s quite right. Let’s say there are, as some have theorized, eleven dimensions. Let’s say, that if we had perfect knowledge, that man will never be able to operate or access, or even fully comprehend five of them. But that the Creator can operate in each and any of them as you operate in three. If that is the case, then it makes sense to say that God is both omnipotent and that he doesn’t violate the complete laws of physics.