First of all, I have more in common with atheists than religious people, so my intention isn’t to come here and attack, I just want to hear your opinions. Maybe I’m wrong, I’d like to hear from you if I am. I’m just expressing here my perception of the movement and not actually what I consider to be facts.
My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth. I do agree that the concept of a God is hard to believe logically, specially with all the incoherent arguments that religions have had in the past. But saying that there’s no god with certainty is something I’m just not comfortable with. Science has taught us that being wrong is part of the process of progress. We’re constantly learning things we didn’t know about, confirming theories that seemed insane in their time. I feel like being open to the possibilities is a healthier mindset, as we barely understand reality.
In general, atheism feels too close minded, too attached to the current facts, which will probably be obsolete in a few centuries. I do agree with logical and rational thinking, but part of that is accepting how little we really know about reality, how what we considered truth in the past was wrong or more complex than we expected
I usually don’t believe there is a god when the argument comes from religious people, because they have no evidence, but they could be right by chance.
Atheism doesn’t mean I know there are no gods. I suspect there aren’t, because religious claims about gods and reality don’t stand up to scrutiny. The more excuses you have to make for why reality doesn’t work the way you insist it should, the less inclined I am to believe you know what you’re talking about. Arguing for a prime mover or appealing to consequences doesn’t convince me either. I’m intellectually honest enough to say that I don’t have concrete knowledge that there are no gods the way I know there’s no money in my wallet, but not being able to prove there are no gods isn’t enough for me to believe that there are. Wanting to believe there are gods is no more useful than wanting there to be money in my wallet. It’s still a claim that requires validation, not a default assumption.
That’s agnosticism. Atheism is still a hard set belief. Agnostics know that they don’t know.
(A)gnosticism and (a)theism are orthogonal.
The former deals with whether or not it is possible to know for certain if god exists. The latter with if you think she does or doesn’t exist.
You can be an agnostic theist (you don’t think you can be sure god exists, but you think she does), a gnostic atheist, or any other combination.
The concept of “god” implies not being bound by physical laws. So science simply doesn’t apply here. We can never scientifically prove or disprove god’s existence, because if we could, then whatever we proved or disproved wouldn’t fit our concept of “god” anymore. It would just be another natural phenomenon that can be studied.
But our world functions very well without a god. If one does exist, it doesn’t seem to affect anything meaningfully and noticeably. So is it really a god if you can just ignore it with no ill effects?
And without any real proof of its existence, it becomes equivalent with any other explanation that may or may not be true and can never be proven, like the flying spaghetti monster or the invisible pink unicorn. It becomes meaningless and useless, so it can be discarded as untrue.
I agree, we will never know if it exists or not… So why should we believe something about it?
Isn’t “I know” much better than “I believe”?
Because that’s not how it works. You either believe or you don’t. This isn’t quantum physics, you don’t exist in some superposition of belief. You seem to keep ignoring everyone reminding you that knowledge and belief are two entirely separate things.
Just because you say “I don’t know” doesn’t have any bearing on your belief or lack thereof. You either believe or you don’t, it’s that simple.
It’s possible to have no belief, not sure why you’re saying there are only 2 options as if that was an absolute truth. In fact, some people have pointed out that atheism is lack of belief, Wikipedia says that.
Yes, knowledge and belief are different, I never said they are the same. My point is that knowledge is more valuable than belief. When there’s no knowledge, belief is worthless. We have no knowledge about a creator or the actual events of the origin of the universe, thus, belief is pointless. Whatever you choose to believe is just a very uncertain guess.
Why believe based on almost zero knowledge? Isn’t that as bad as what religious people do?
I believe that there is no god BECAUSE there is no evidence to support one. I base my belief on the fact that there is zero evidence. When someone makes a claim, it is the responsibility of the claimant to give evidence.
And again, either you believe there is a god or you don’t believe there is a god. It is a yes or no question.
There is zero human evidence about most of the things that are actually happening right now in the universe.
Sure, but nobody is making claims about the contents of the universe outside the boundary of what is observable. Or they are, and they are presenting it as theory and creating some sort of mathematical model to describe it.
Even then, those are still falsifiable, in that we could potentially test the validity of the mathematical model locally.
The concept of gods does not allow for any descriptions that could be tested. Last I check all real things can be described, that’s how we define real.
So this concept can’t be defined as real. If you get this far without concluding that it isn’t real, that’s a deliberate act of intentional ignorance.
Exactly, because we don’t have the means to prove or disprove it, we shouldn’t have any belief about it. A belief in this matter is just a guess based on personal preference. There’s no knowledge or evidence to back any position besides “I don’t know, I can’t know”.
I don’t think because we haven’t figured out how to test it so far it means it is impossible to do so. We may just need to get a better understanding of reality.
Looking through your other comments, it’s pretty clear you’re just arguing in bad faith.
Just because I’m arguing doesn’t mean it is in bad faith. I enjoy standing my ground and seeing what comes out of it. Otherwise it isn’t actually a discussion. I do feel some people are getting triggered by this, but I don’t care, I’m being respectful and explaining things the way I see them.
Maybe this is a bad habit of mine, but it’s when the good stuff happens. I’ve actually learned a lot through my stubbornness in this post.
Many atheists are technically actually just agnostics, including me. Agnosticism is essentially the belief of “I dont know for sure either way”.
I can’t give definite proof that there is no god like entity/ies out there who have designed reality, the cosmos, our planet and human form. However I do know that if they exist they made me with all these doubts and disbelief in established religious systems, and they sure as shit don’t need my veneration during my lifetime.
Technically, atheists are mostly agnostic atheists. They are not mutually exclusive. One is about knowledge (hence the ‘gnostic’ part of ‘agnostic,’ ‘gnosis’ means knowledge) and one is about belief (theism is a belief, atheism is the lack of that belief).
I do not believe in any gods, therefore I am an atheist.
I do not claim to know there are no gods, because I do not think that is something it is possible for me to know- I could be a Boltzmann Brain after all, therefore, I am an agnostic.
Being agnostic atheist makes sense to me. I just think the real atheists REALLY believe that there is no god, that the idea of God is false in every sense.
An agnostic atheist is a real atheist.
OK then just “atheists” without the agnostic aspect.
Those would be gnostic atheists.
Yeah, those are the ones I think take an extreme position about stuff we don’t really know. Even having any type of belief seems extreme to me, even if it is rooted in reason. Human reason is just too immature to have opinions about the origins of the universe of the existence of a god.
I think the humble thing is to say “I don’t know” without any belief. I don’t say religions are wrong, I just dismiss them because they have opinions about things they have no idea about, the same way I dismiss anyone with a belief regarding this matter.
without any belief
Lacking belief is atheism. If you mean ‘neither believing nor disbelieving,’ that is not possible.
Being attached to current facts is the rational thing to do. Of course they are going to become obsolete, but if a prehistoric man was convinced that black holes exist, it wouldn’t be a genius, but a guy with irrational beliefs. You can be "right’ for wrong reasons, that is not a valid reason to decide that current knowledge is worthless.
In the end you can believe in god if you want, but the rational thing is to not believe in god as long as there is no evidence of its existence. But of course not everything needs to be rational, and if believing in god makes one feel better about their life, why not. As long as it doesn’t impact others badly obviously.
Current knowledge isn’t worthless but it isn’t necessarily what’s true. Just keep an open mind about that and you might realize that you don’t really know what’s true. So, you don’t really know if there’s a creator.
Based on your experience and rational though you believe there is no god, but you don’t know. It is still a belief.
Again, do you hold a belief that there are no unicorns? No teapot orbiting Venus? No people with superhero powers? You see how this list could be practically infinite.
Are you going to hold all those negative beliefs in your head all the time? Worry about them? Live your life based on them?
Worrying about countless things that have no evidence of existing is a lot of work and pretty impractical. Hence why most non-delusional people with at least some critical thinking skills restrict themselves to only considering things for which there is some evidence.
Do you believe there’s no superposition because you’ve never seen a cat dead and alive at the same time?
Reality is more complex that these thought experiments. I honestly find the unicorn argument to be a mockery of what I’m trying to say but I’ll play along.
I do not believe in unicorns because they are supposed to live on earth, yet billions of humans have never seen them. There’s no fossil evidence, it was common for people to create mythical creatures in the past, we understand their origins through history…
You see, all of these things are clear human understanding. The existence and nature of reality isn’t something we can reason about like that. So you keep trying to establish equivalence between two different things. One is human and mundane, the other one deals with the origin of reality.
technically most athiests are agnostic but they think the probability of god, gods, supernatural, or whatever is so low as to be zero. Probabilities on the order of a specific photon from a flashlight hitting a specific atom in the air. something that makes a multiple lightning strikes or multiple jackpot lottery winnings or an extinction meteor hitting next thursday because we missed apparently did not notice it ti be everyday ordinary comment events. Its really hard to discuss how low the probability a particular athiest views it but in most cases someone who identifies as an athiest will have levels that you need douglas adams to truly express how low it is. For myself I used to identify as an agnostice because my agnosticism was such I thought of it as a coin flip. Part of my reasoning had to do with my faith in the logic and reasoning of man on a large scale. Anyway we have had the millenium and all its entailed humanity logic and reasoning wise and I now identify as athiest. I view the probability likely higher than most athiests but definitely well below any number a reasonable person would consider a non zero number in percent but maybe on the level of hitting multiple jackpot lotteries in short order.
Yeah, that’s my problem. Whatever probability they assign to it would a belief. They don’t really know. As you said, everyone assigns a different probability to it, so who is right?
Isn’t just easier to accept ignorance instead of believing something that we can’t even begin to understand?
its the same for believers. crises of faith. sermons about doubt. All recognition the faith is not 100%. Its like telling theists you mainly agree with them but they should have a bit more doubt and accept more that there could be no god.
Yes, I’d tell them that if their faith wasn’t blind, which most of them agree with, so there’s nothing to argue there. The difference is that the belief of an atheist is rooted in reason. My point is that human reason is not advanced enough to actually grasp these matter, so having a rational opinion about something we can’t rationally understand is pretty strange.
technically most athiests are agnostic but they think the probability of god, gods, supernatural, or whatever is so low as to be zero.
This isn’t really true.
Agnostics believe it’s unknown (or indeed, unknowable,) whether god exists or not.
This is distinct from belief or lack of belief in god, an agnostic could also be a theist.
I never said theists could not be theists. I have another comment where I point out athiest or theiest everyone is pretty much agnostic. Some will claim 100% but anyone with even a smidge of intellectual honesty will admit to some chance that god does/does not exist.
And I’m saying that admitting a chance one might be wrong doesn’t change whether or not you believe one could know.
Saying “well actually you’re agnostic” is patently offensive. It’s like those Christian’s who insist you believe and just don’t know it yet.
It doesn’t matter if I’m cognizant that there’s a possibility I’m wrong. Being agnostic isn’t about maybe being wrong.
It’s about whether or not one believe’s god’s existence is knowable. And if god exists, then its existence is knowable.
fair enough although I called myself agnostic and did not feel it was 100% unknowable. In the situation a god appeared before me and adequately showed me proof then I would see it as being knowable. Im not sure what term I should have used being a person who felt it could or could not be.
It’s just two different questions. Do you feel we can know of god exists?
There are degrees, though. Hard agnostic beliefs are that it’s inherently unknowable, but there are softer “we don’t know yet” degrees.
Where you fall on that spectrum is up to whatever you believe.
I personally feel it’s improper to say we can’t know for sure. We can disprove the alternative thesis- that a god or gods exist. And if we do that enough, it’s reasonable to accept that there aren’t any.
Here’s Neil DeGrass Tyson on evidence of absence it’s part of a longer video, but this sums it up nicely.
First of all, I have more in common with atheists than religious people, so my intention isn’t to come here and attack, I just want to hear your opinions.
Welcome. Happy to talk with people rather than have to counter rhetorical attacks.
My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth.
Personally, I’m partial to the definition of Atheism as ‘Lack of belief in a God’ rather than ‘Belief that there are no gods.’ I fit both definitions but I think the first is more accurate and better represents most Atheist’s relationship with the truth value of the claim. Even for those of us who believe there are no gods I believe it’s a grand commonality between a super-majority of atheists that there’s some quantity of sufficient evidence that would change our minds… though quite likely the specific amount will vary from one to another.
But saying that there’s no god with certainty is something I’m just not comfortable with. Science has taught us that being wrong is part of the process of progress.
The way I see it most of the time scientific advancement doesn’t say our previous understanding was wrong, rather that it was incomplete. One of the better examples being Newtonian Physics and Relativity, Newton wasn’t wrong so much as his work didn’t account for special behavior under extreme circumstances. We do occasionally have counter examples such as miasma being replaced with the Germ Theory of Disease but this tends to be when a historical unscientific position is unraveled by a scientific explanation.
As-is I don’t see how any such gods that have been commonly claimed could exist as stated without them violating various scientific, and in some cases logical, laws. So, I feel quite secure in my position that these things that contradict our best evidenced understanding of the universe are not real.
I feel like being open to the possibilities is a healthier mindset, as we barely understand reality.
Sure, it’s worthwhile to look at the evidence against our own positions. But evidence is the key word here. The theistic position has yet to forward any noteworthy body of anything that would fit the definition of the word. They’re welcome to keep trying in perpetuity if they so wish but I’m not going to lend credence to the claim until such time as they are not only successful in finding something that is evidence but a sufficient body of it to outweigh what the claim is mutually exclusive with which already has evidence or they can by some means discredit the whole body of evidence against their claim and forward evidence for it.
That being said so long as there is measurable harm to come from theistic belief and the benefits of it are ephemeral I will be opposed to inflicting it on others.
I usually don’t believe there is a god when the argument comes from religious people, because they have no evidence, but they could be right by chance.
I don’t believe that that’s the case. To be no amount of assertion creates a chance that anything could be the case. What makes a chance is that an assessment of possibilities puts a known or estimable probability on it being the case.
If most atheists identify with “lack of belief” and not “believe God doesn’t exist” then I don’t have much else to say because I think that pretty much describes myself. I just don’t have a belief, I don’t support or reject.
I feel that even if evidence is not given, we can’t rule something as false. Let’s assume the idea of God wasn’t impossible to deny or prove. Do you think lack of evidence provided by humans, little animals who live in a dust spec for a relative short amount of time, gives you enough confidence to say “there is no creator”?
That is exactly my issue with atheism, that they think their human reason gives them enough capacity to take a position to something as complex as the origin of reality. It feels to me like an ant taking a position on quantum mechanics. It’s just outside of our reach. Anything we choose to believe, even if rooted in reason, is a wild guess.
The most rational thing to do is just to stop guessing. I feel if people accepted their ignorance more frequently instead of taking sides without actual knowledge, the world would be a better place.
Do you think lack of evidence provided by humans, little animals who live in a dust spec for a relative short amount of time, gives you enough confidence to say “there is no creator”?
For some generalized creator figure? I can’t disprove that, however I think Russel’s Teapot comes into play at this point. We couldn’t detect a porcelain teapot the size of a common teapot in stellar orbit between the Earth and Mars. So, currently, it would be impossible to disprove that claim, however there is also no reason to accept it. The burden of proof is on those who make these claims to support them, not on those who don’t accept them to disprove every claim they could posit.
For any of the creator figures I’m aware of non-deist theists claiming exist? At least of all those that I am familiar with they have self-contradictory stated natures, operate in logical contradictions, and perform impossibilities. In short: They don’t exist because for that not to be the case then the few things we can demonstrate to be true must be false.
That is exactly my issue with atheism, that they think their human reason gives them enough capacity to take a position to something as complex as the origin of reality.
The only times I’ve seen an atheist back their atheism just with human reason is when explaining logical contradictions about the asserted god. Most arguments I’m aware of use more than just logical contradictions in the opposing claim. More often than not I see them engaging with the proposed evidence for the claim and providing contrary evidence against it.
It’s just outside of our reach and anything we choose to believe, even if rooted in reason, is a wild guess.
We use the terms ‘rooted in reason’ and ‘wild guess’ to mean different things. To me a wild guess is made in the absence of reason or without regard to it while something that is ‘rooted in reason’ is about as opposed to that as is possible, a belief that stems only from what it well supported by evidence, reasoning, or most preferably both.
I’m not sure I take your meaning for ‘just outside our reach’. Are you stating that we’re close to it but not there yet or that it is categorically beyond our ability to reach such that we will never reach it?
The most rational thing to do is just to stop guessing. I feel if people accepted their ignorance more frequently instead of taking sides without actual knowledge, the world would be a better place.
I’m sorry but this comes off as somewhat disingenuous directed toward atheists. We’re not accepting the other side’s guess and generally also provide reasoning for that decision when prompted. Contrast with the theistic position of the assertion of some grand causer or creator and subsequent assertions that anything not yet explained rationally is somehow the work of this unsupported asserted entity.
Something rooted in reason can be a wild guess when the reasoning isn’t mature enough to handle the subject. This is a subject that is out of our reach.
As you already pointed out, not all atheists think “God doesn’t exist”. My last paragraph was aimed towards religious people and atheists that have a solid opinion. I don’t think accepting ignorance is something bad, I advice to do it whenever possible.
Saying “I don’t know” or “you don’t know” is much better IMO. In reality we don’t know and can’t know.
My last paragraph was aimed towards religious people and atheists that have a solid opinion.
Alright. Was thinking about this prior to seeing your reply and meant to apologize as on thinking about it your statement could be meant that way and now with the clarification doubt has further been removed. Sorry.
I don’t think accepting ignorance is something bad, I advice to do it whenever possible.
I agree that it’s not bad to accept legitimate ignorance however I don’t think it’s best practice to accept ignorance just because it’s one of the possibilities. Rather, I feel that ignorance should be the fallback position, over baseless speculation, when hard facts on a subject are insufficient in number and/or scope to paint a reasonably clear picture.
Where sufficient facts on a matter exist to show a clear picture exist I don’t believe it proper to accept an assertion of ignorance. Firstly because it’s false, we know at least some things on the topic, and secondly because it can be harmful, shysters leveraging ‘we don’t know’ to insert a baseless speculation paired with hawking a product or marketing themselves as a problem solver.
Yeah I totally agree. Accepting ignorance about things we actually understand would be impractical. Even if philosophically we can’t truly know if we actually know anything, practically we need to establish truths that work as tools to build more complex systems.
What I’m trying to say is that we don’t really understand much about the origin of the universe, so saying “I don’t believe there is a god because of lack of evidence” seems too harsh. Like, ok, we don’t really understand much about this topic, we don’t have evidence, how can lack of evidence help you make up your mind then? The humble thing would be to say “I don’t really know much about this because we don’t really understand this subject, so I can’t form opinions”.
I guess it’s just a matter of linguistics, I’m just realizing that “I don’t believe” means something different for different people. Personally I thought it meant “I think chances are there is no creator”. But for some people it means “I don’t believe in the religious ideas, even if I don’t believe the opposite”. For others it is “I have no belief one way or the other”.
So yeah, this is the problem with language. Sometimes ideas are more complex than words.
What I’m trying to say is that we don’t really understand much about the origin of the universe, so saying “I don’t believe there is a god because of lack of evidence” seems too harsh.
I don’t think many Atheists come to the conclusion based off of arguments about the origin of the universe. It appears to be more common that logical or ethical contradictions within theistic doctrine lead to its rejection.
For me personally it began with the divine hiddenness problem. Being raised in a faith that states its god wants a relationship with me and yet is wholly imperceivable to me. From there building with additional arguments such as the abhorrent ethics of their mythical figures when viewed from a frame of reference other than ‘they’re the good guys because their god said so’.
I think you are assuming more than is warranted. Why is it beyond our reach?
Something rooted in reason can be a wild guess when the reasoning isn’t mature enough to handle the subject.
Example, please. I would say when you start wildly guessing, it ceases to be reason. Speculation based on available evidence might involve reason, but a wild guess is, as far as I can tell, as lacking reason as possible.
This topic is the example. Just because you’re using your rational thought doesn’t mean you’re getting anywhere near an actual answer or having a better chance of answering “is there a creator”?
You can use all the reason you want, you just don’t understand reality with such depth that you can start scratching that question.
Schrodinger was using reason when he proposed his paradox… But he was wrong because he lacked knowledge. Without actual knowledge, logical thought can make sense but still be wrong. Reality is more complex than the conceptual abstractions our minds use.
I don’t have to make any wild guesses to say that I don’t believe there are any gods due to a lack of empirical evidence.
But then you’re still, and I think intentionally now, trying to claim that knowledge and belief are the same thing. They are not, and atheism is still about belief and not knowledge.
I realize you don’t like that, but that’s still what atheism means. A lack of belief. Guesses aren’t needed to lack belief in something. I don’t have to guess to not believe in werpreopwerwqop because there is no reason for me to believe it exists.
I don’t know why you keep saying I’m saying belief and knowledge are the same. They are not the same. My point is that belief without knowledge is pointless. See? Not the same.
Belief based on knowledge = good.
Belief without knowledge = not good.
Do I have knowledge about the creation of the universe? Do I understand reality? Do I know anything about a creator? No. Thus, I choose not to believe anything about it. Anything I choose to believe without actual understanding is just a guess.
Atheism doesn’t claim there is no god. You can’t prove a negative beyond “we’ve been unable to find convincing evidence that it does exist, therefore it probably doesn’t”.
Atheism claims there isn’t sufficient evidence that a god exists, therefore we don’t believe in it. That’s it.
If god shows up on earth and can prove being god, like idk by spawning a live dinosaur out of thin air, atheism dies instantly.
As a more concrete example: I can’t prove my glass of water won’t kill me. What I can do however is perform a series of tests and establish that it contains no known toxins to man, with the likelihood of it killing me being so minuscule I can be reasonably confident it is safe to drink. Bring me evidence people do die at an increased rate after drinking it and I’ll gladly reevaluate. But until then, I call it safe because evidence overwhelmingly tells me it’s safe.
What if I made the counter-argument “It doesn’t matter whether or not a supernatural being exists if living as if one does leads to a net positive in individual, and greater social life.”?
That’s not a counter argument though. It’s just an interesting thought experiment that doesn’t relate to the above comment
Every fucking time I try and have a discussion with atheists, you’d think I’d learn by now.
Since no one is answering me and everyone is just blanket downvoting, it’s removed, the subs and every person in this fuckdamn thread is blocked.
If everyone else is always the asshole… you’re the asshole…
If god shows up on earth and can prove being god, like idk by spawning a live dinosaur out of thin air, atheism dies instantly.
All that proves is that something in the universe can “spawn” a live dinosaur out of thin air. It doesn’t prove that thing is a god. It could be an advanced civilization that has mastered teleportation - which would merely be an advanced technology humanity doesn’t possess.
Said being still has the burden of proof to demonstrate with irrifutable evidence that it is a god. And even if it manages to do so, that doesn’t mean it is one of the gods spoke of in the bible. There’s more irrifutable proof that must be shown for that claim.
This seems to me like a categorical error. You speak about proof and facts, which are ultimately connected to the scientific method. Scientists often say “There is no evidence, that this happens/exists” (that phrase is important) and will disregard it, until there is evidence. That doesn’t make them close minded. Changes in knowlege are applied when they arrive, not through speculation without evidence beforehand. That way we can approximate the truth in our physical world. There is no scientific evidence of a god existing, so scientists disregard her, until such evidence appears.
Now you could say, that a god would exceed the physical limits of our world/existance. But then the whole scientific method becomes useless (as how would you get scientifical evidence for something outside of the scientific world) and you cannot speak about facts or truth or proof. This is the realm of belief, not science. And it will stay this way until a god would bridge over this devide.
So i would say: When talking about science, proof and facts, you need to stay in the reach of the scientific method. When talking about something outside of its reach (metaphysical), then its belief. Even you talking about the possibility of a god is a question about belief.
The biggest issue I have with your points are you can apply that same logic to all kinds of absurdity. Pick one or create one and it applies.
I also disagree with you that it is a healthier mindset to believe in essentially an unlimited amount of possibilities (unlimited because you can’t define an unknown in this case) but whether something is healthier or not is not a factual statement. It is just a subjective statement that is based too much on the individual and the mental status of that individual to determine if it is healthy or not. I could argue that it was unhealthy to believe in what I used to believe(specifically evangelical/Protestant Christianity) because of my underlining condition of dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder and depression, but that claim of being unhealthy doesn’t hold much weight because again, it depends on the mental state of an individual.
For myself, yes I am an atheist and yes if I come across evidence that convinces me differently then my views will change, but that doesn’t make my current stance any different or say weaker as some weak atheism(I find that term laughable), especially when I don’t have the knowledge of what that evidence would be to convince me.
Also remember, theories are believed to be true until proven wrong when it comes to science. The word theory is used differently in science then in colloquial type of discussions. So for example, just because we believe the theory of evolution is fact, that doesn’t mean we think a creation story myth is possible because we use the phrase, theory of evolution. I bring that up only because, the fact science has changed in the past doesn’t mean we can’t believe our current understanding as fact.
My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth.
Atheism is not about truth, it is about belief. Atheists do not believe there are gods.
If an atheist says that it is an absolute truth that there are no gods, they are an atheist, but also a gnostic. Gnostics claim to know essentially unknowable things as truths.
OK, it still seems like taking sides to me when there’s no evidence one way or the other. I’d just say “I don’t know” and move on. No need to take sides on something that I’m clueless about, like what’s reality or its origins.
A human believing that God’s don’t exist based on reason is totally irrelevant, considering how limited human knowledge and reason is in these matters.
There is no end to things that may exist but are not provable. Where do you draw the line? There might be a toaster orbiting the sun.
Based on our understanding of human history, we KNOW that toasters were created on earth and that it is unlikely one is in orbit on the sun… This is based on knowledge. Even if based on knowledge, I could be wrong.
Now, what do you KNOW about the creation of the universe or the nature of reality?
This is my whole point. I’m not saying it is wrong to have solid opinions about some things. I’m saying it is wrong having solid opinions about things we really don’t understand.
There is no precedence for the existence of deities.
For belief in deities, yes, but not for their existence.
That is all we need to say if we believe in the existence of deities; prior plausibility.
Staying in the middle ground of “maybe, we don’t know” makes no sense, because it puts the plausibility one step further towards “yes” than is warranted based on the evidence we have.
“There is no precedence for the existence of deities”
What makes you think humans have the capacity to perceive or understand deities?
It feels like you guys are really not understanding my point. Please put human existence into perspective and tell me how much we really know. Now, how much is there to know?
It’s like a blind person saying color doesn’t exist because he can’t experience it. You see? Humans will live and die in the relative blink of an eye. Chances are we won’t really get to know what’s actually going on. Right now we don’t really know, so having any opinion about what’s happening based on lack of evidence is really pointless. We have no evidence for most things that are actually happening in the universe.
So there is actually a valid critisism of Russel’s teapot, or toaster in this case, that there could be a detectable causality that put the object in orbit even if the object itself cannot be observed (such as a rocket to deliver it). However, this (minor) flaw in a popularized analogy does nothing to reject what the analogy represents: A stupid idea that cannot really be falsified, even though it is false (see what I did there?).
Atheist do not carry any belief in not believing (this even sounds stupid). We simply have come to the conclusion that there is no basis for believing in any particular denomination, nor some unspecific general one for that matter.
Yeah, I guess it really comes down to semantics.
Does “I don’t believe” mean “I believe there is no god” or “I don’t have a belief”? I think there is a very important distinction here. The first one says “based on my experience, I think it is unlikely there is a god”. The second one says “I really don’t believe anything about it, one way or the other”.
My point targets the first one. The experience and evidence built by humans is just relatively insignificant… This is my problem with this line of thought. “There is no evidence” doesn’t give any degree of confidence at all when it comes to this matter. There no evidence for most of the things that make reality exist, and yet here we are.
Atheists mean by the second that they find as little material basis for believing in god as in [insert whack theory here (teapot, spaghettimonster, etc.)]. We do make a judgement one way or the other, we say that our default position is not believing literally incredible things without proof.
The bar for what needs to be proven unless assumed false is higher the more that is claimed. Since god (especially to monotheistic denominations) are by definition the highest being claimed to exist, there is a huge burden of proof required for believing in it. Since there exists none, we choose to assume that the statement is false.
The reason we make all these stupid analogies is to hammer through the point that we, like everyone else, make a lot of assumptions that unproven things are false. The question of god is not really special in this regard, except for the historical and biological conditions that makes people inclined to believe in the fairytale absent of any good objective reason.
You used “not believing” in your explanation. Does that mean “I have no belief” or does it mean “I believe it is false”?
Edit: ah ok, so you choose to believe it is false. Yeah, I can’t agree with this. I do agree with having no belief at all. Assuming something is false because there is no evidence seems like a rushed conclusion to me. I understand the burden of proof falls on them, but the fact they don’t have evidence doesn’t make them wrong.
If you want to make conclusions about matters humans can barely comprehend based on your human comprehension, that would be something very human to do, so it’s understandable.
Atheism is nothing more than a response to the claim that there is a God of some sort.
Specifically, a response that says “I don’t believe you”.
That’s it. That’s the minimum position to be considered an atheist.
Yeah, it seems like there’s a wider spectrum of atheists than I expected.
I guess I disagree with a subset of the atheist community and people are bringing up the other parts of the community that don’t match what I disagree with.
My disagreement is mostly with the atheists that say “there is likely no god because there’s no evidence”. There’s no human evidence for most things in reality, yet reality exists.
I’m aligned with the atheists that say “I don’t really know, so I won’t waste time setting my mind to a specific belief”.
There is no third position here. You have to know whether or not you believe something. Either you believe it or you don’t.
Either you believe unicorns exist or you don’t. You can’t not know whether or not you believe they exist. You can not know whether or not they exist, but that is a different thing.
You have to know what you believe because it’s what you believe.
I think you can’t say this is a rule for every scenario. “Believe or not believe” seems to be an opinion of yours that I’m personally not bound to. I’m fine just accepting I don’t know something that is clearly outside of the grasp of my rational thought or logic.
I’m not sure why you guys keep comparing the existence of a god with unicorns or leprschauns. But ok, I’ll play along. Do I believe there are unicorns in earth? No, we have a pretty good understanding of the land of this planet. If you said “they live in another dimension” I’d just dismiss that because whoever said it has no clue about what “another dimension” is.
“Believe or not believe” seems to be an opinion of yours that I’m personally not bound to. I’m fine just accepting I don’t know something that is clearly outside of the grasp of my rational thought or logic.
Whether you believe something or not is not outside the grasp of your rational thought. Just… answer the question. That’s all it takes to know if you believe something, you take a moment to introspect and you say whether you believe it or not.
There’s also a difference between lacking a belief in a proposition and believing in the negation of that proposition. Lacking a belief in something (for example, any particular god) is not the same thing as believing that that god does not exist. Both are atheism, they’re just different kinds of atheism. “Strong atheism” and “weak atheism” are the usual terms to distinguish between them.
I’ll play along. When I ask myself that question I immediately answer “I don’t believe”, just because I’ve conditioned myself to answer that over the years. The same way I answered “I believe” when I was conditioned during my childhood.
My point is that choosing sides is a fallacy, it’s something very human though. Over the past years I’ve realized that I don’t need to take sides and that I’m better off accepting when I just don’t know something, just avoid having opinions about matters that I can’t understand.
But yes, I still answer “I don’t believe” internally. Hopefully I’ll learn to turn “I don’t know” into my instinctual answer.
You seem to think if you believe something, you have to hold that belief for a length of time before it becomes a belief. That’s not how believing things work.
If you don’t believe that there is a god for 10 seconds and then start believing again, you are an atheist for 10 seconds.
I honestly didn’t understand what you said there. I don’t believe a person needs to hold a belief for some time for it to be valid. Not sure how you arrived to that conclusion.
I just said that my instinctual answer isn’t one that matches my worldview clearly. When I say “I don’t believe” I actually mean “I have no belief/I don’t know”. I just need to train myself to say “I have no belief” which represents what I feel much better and with less ambiguity.
“Knowing” and “believing” are two separate things. There are plenty of theists who would say “I don’t know that god exists but I believe that it does.”
Yeah, in this case believing anything is worthless because we don’t understand the origin of reality. That’s my point. It’s fine to believe something when enough evidence has shown it is likely the case. It is not fine to believe something is true without evidence, or false because of lack of evidence. Specially when gathering evidence about it is nearly impossible with our current understanding.
Maybe the humble thing to do is to wait until we gather more evidence that supports or rejects these ideas.
Bernard Russell used a teapot in space analogy to show that belief in something that may or may not exist and isn’t tangible to living doesn’t seem to be worth investing the effort of belief in.
Carl Sagan had a quote, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.
Christopher Hitchens had his own: “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
All of these are open-minded observations that can be easily changed with evidence that supports the religious claims. Which are lacking.
I agree with all of them. I feel both sides have the problem of belief. “May or may not exist”, as you said.
Of course it’s a rule of every scenario. It’s a binary. There is no third position just like there is no third position between breathing and not breathing. You either believe something or you don’t. If you accept that you don’t know something, you can still believe it’s true. You can also believe it isn’t. You keep confusing belief and knowledge.
Again, not sure where that “it is binary” affirmation comes from. Is that what you believe? Or do you consider that to be an absolute truth?
There are some many things I honestly have no beliefs about. It’s like I’m a walking counterargunent to your affirmation.
Do I believe we live in a simulation? I honestly don’t know and I don’t know what to believe because I have no idea how reality works. Maybe? Maybe not? I honestly have no idea. How can I know if reality is real? I don’t know.
Is there a god? I don’t know. The question is too deep and if I said yes or no I’d be just guessing because I do not understand reality like that. There are things I do understand… how reality was created isn’t one of them.
It is possible to reasonably demonstrate there are no gods by disproving the opposite claim.
I.e. by disproving the claims by theists.
I do not claim there is no god, as hard fact. I do, however, see the absolute lack of evidence for a divine being as justification to believe that divine beings doesn’t exist.
Do you believe in Santa Claus? Leprechauns? Do you have the same concern with saying they don’t exist either? Gods and Santa Claus and leprechauns are all human constructs.
All good atheists are open to the possibilities, because we do not have atheism as a belief, but as a word to express that we are a=without + theism=religion.
Personally, even if a deity showed up and perform a miracle right before my eyes, I would not convert without a massive discussion because my personal moral compass would not allow myself to worship a being that holds so much power, but actively refuses to reduce suffering in such a large scale, but that is just me.
If it had a good reason such as being imprisoned by an evil deity and just having freed itself, and coming back to us to help us, then it would get my full support and belief, after some scrutiny of course.
The chances of any particular theistic belief being correct by sheer chance are beyond astronomical. Even if I believed there was a possibility of a deity (and that depends a great deal on exactly what qualities were ascribed to a divinity), I would be 100% certain it’s not what anyone currently believes.
Yeah, that chance might be low, but we’re not talking about religions here, we’re talking about the existence of a god or creator.
My conclusion given the world as presented to me and the information I have is that there is no God.
There also is no Thor, no Santa Claus, no miracles, no ghosts, no easter bunny, and no afterlife. These are my conclusions from my time alive. If information is presented to me that changes these beliefs I’ll change my conclusion. But for now, that is my conclusion. That’s all. I’m not stating that “no matter what, no matter what information is presented, there can not be or has there ever been a god!”, rather I’m saying that I don’t believe there are any gods. It’s just the conclusion from the evidence.
Your experience is irrelevant. Do you realize how little you know and how ephemeral humanity is? The human race will be gone in the blink of an eye.
This is exactly the type of argument I disagree with. Humans need to be more humble about how they perceive the universe. We’re like two blind men arguing about the existence of color.
