I’ve been following the thread and, frankly, I don’t understand this argument. Take the First Cause or cosmological argument. You realize, of course, that this has been around for a long time. We atheists have heard it before. In finding it not persuasive, we are saying (as has been pointed out) that it doesn’t solve the problem. If the Creator doesn’t require a cause, neither does the Universe. Or, rather, I would say, if we can’t way whence came the Creator, it doesn’t cause me upset not to be able to say whence came the Universe. IOW, as to creation, I’m an agnostic and calling it God adds nothing. This isn’t a belief. It’s the absence of belief. And, believe it or not, well thought out.
Both ways?!? It’s only one, and it’s the only possible position that’s well thought-out.
It seems that you’re thinking that there may be some as-yet-undetected causes that are behind what looks to us like randomness. That’s not it. The idea of hidden causes has been ruled out -at least, any hidden causes that also rely on causes happening before their caused effects. For more info, look up Bell’s Inequality. Stuff at the quantum level is provably causeless.
There are a couple of reasons why people can be weak atheists. First, they may not give a damn, and just lack of belief is good enough. These people probably shouldn’t be posting on Internet message boards about.
The second are those who have gotten convinced that the strong atheist position involves a claim to knowledge that no gods exist, and who feel that this position is unreasonable.
The third are those who have stronger criteria for belief than others, who may only want to believe if there is a very high chance of being correct. They may not be that sure.
But I’m not denying that the position of some atheists is not well thought out. Neither theism or atheism can claim that 100% of adherents believe (or not believe) for good reasons.
In general when we point to quantum foam or random fission events we get told that there must be a cause for all of them that hasn’t been discovered yet.
If there is anything we’ve learned, it is that God does play dice.
Yeah - show me a falsifiable god and I can pretty well falsify him. You can falsify whole sets of tri- or bi-omni gods also.
Most theists pick one god or one pantheon of gods. They disbelieve the existence of some other gods. (Some play the “I believe in all the gods” card, but I don’t believe them. That just makes it easier for me to come up with gods to disprove.)
It is very hard to come up with reasons why your god is real and the others aren’t real.
Atheists have it easy – they don’t believe in any gods at all.
Of course, the “well, I believe in a god, but I can’t define it or explain it in any way.” folks have it easiest of all…
I think that is typical of this board, condescending ignorant rubbish.
We don’t have it easy, stating a black and white position is when you have it easiest. yes that means atheists as well as fundys. The people who are humble enough to say “We do not hope to understand all there is” have a tougher time.
Atheists don’t claim to “understand all there is”. We just claim there’s no evidence whatsoever that God explains anything.
I can not off hand think of any topic of discussion where a black and white position is easier to defend than a vague one…
Wrong. Stating a position with evidence behind it is when you have it easiest. I can easily defend the black and white position “the Earth is a spheroid”. “God exists” is a black or white position, but since there’s no extraordinary evidence for this extraordinary claim, holding that position is not “having it easy” (If I’m correct in assuming what SmartAlecCat means by having it easy is that one can easily provide rational reasons for holding a position).
Atheists do have it easy because it’s easy to hold a rational position. There’s no evidence for the fantastic claim that gods exist therefore we are without belief. Easy.
Right, because atheists are right up there with fundies.:rolleyes: Not sure why you’re claiming atheism is a black and white position.
Have a tougher time with what? You realize many if not most atheists are humble enough to say that, don’t you?
I cannot hope to justify to you my belief in logical or rational terms, as this is the only way that you see the world I can never win. I really don’t care if I win or not, I just hope that you see the world as a wonderful place and love it as I do. If you do that, then that is enough. You see I am not about making you believe in a god, as I do not believe in a literal afterlife or hell.
There is no god or there is a god, is about as black and white as it gets. Not saying one is right or wrong but they are both ultimate views.
Your last comment is an insightful one, this is also my claim in regards to spiritual/religious people. Some are far out wack jobs and some of us are pretty close to what you would consider rational human beings. Remember the world is a bell curve not binary.
What’s it going to take to get through to you that atheism doesn’t require saying “There is no god”? Plenty of atheists (and maybe some theists) have made this point in this thread alone. For a refresher, check out posts 13, 27, 41, 50, 55, 79,…eh, I gave up looking for more examples at post 100.
The traffic light is either red or green. True, all the evidence says it’s red, but really, who can say for sure?
Of course there is an exception to my argument that everything needs a cause—otherwise I wouldn’t hold the position I do. It necessitates a special exception, and that exception is a Creator God. If you want to characterize the blaring obvious exception as a contradiction :rolleyes:, well, knock yourself out.
I’m not impressed. There’s nothing there that hasn’t been offered on these boards. By the way, where did the particle come from? Your back to a Creator God. You disagree fine. I don’t think there’s much point in pursuing this discussion any further.
Look at Post 477. I believe that he believes in the exception I laid out. If he doesn’t, he’s free to correct me.
the point is that there are two steps to the argument. One is to challenge someone on the claim that there is a god. The other is to challenge someone on the flavor of God they choose or the religion they practice. These two things are often conflated around here. I wish I had a nickel that someone attempting to argue against the existence of a God attacked a particular religion instead and thought he/she scored some easy points.
So, don’t you agree that that negates the “uncaused events do to happen, all the time, in QM” argument?
You got that from my saying I didn’t have enough information to even hazard a guess??
Why can’t the universe itself be the special exception?
I know the argument is not new. So what? In this post you claim to be an agnostic and and atheist. Can one be both?
As far as calling it “God”. Let’s say the universe was in fact created, but it was by a special particle. Would you bristle if I called it The Super-Duper-Creating-Eternal-Sentient-Particle?
If one believes that there was a “First Event”, calling it the “Creator” isn’t too much of a stretch, if one had never heard the term used as a name for the deity-of-choice in various religions, but switching the name to the Creator God gives the term further meaning that cannot be ignored.