Any atheists in here?

POSTED BY: BlackCollarBrowncoat
UPDATED: Sunday, March 12, 2006 20:19
VIEWED: 38267
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AURAPTOR

Sunday, February 26, 2006 3:06 PM

Non believer here as well.

You're welcome on this boat. Your God ain't.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

SERGEANTX

Sunday, February 26, 2006 6:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
No, because it's not a straight question. Your distinction is loaded with assumptions and not justifiable. For example, where do you put these statements in your terminology?

1. I don't believe in god.
2. God isn't real.

The first is a statement of non-belief, the second is a statement of belief with no evidence of any kind to back it up.

Ok, then I have to ask, what kind of evidence do you imagine as necessary to prove the 'non-existence' of a thing? What evidence could there be beyond the lack of evidence supporting its existence? This is the fallacy at the heart of the 'atheism as religion' argument. The burden of proof is on those who propose god's existence. If you choose to believe without that proof, that's faith. Refusing to believe something without proof isn't faith, it's the starting point.

To be clear, I'm not saying that logic and proof are the only paths to Truth, but I am rejecting the attempt to remove the distinction between rational conclusion and faith. It diminishes both concepts.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

CHRISTHECYNIC

Sunday, February 26, 2006 11:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
If you choose to believe without that proof, that's faith. Refusing to believe something without proof isn't faith

I agree with this entirely, but refusing to believe something exists is not the same as believing it does not exist.

I'm not talking about refusing to believe in something, I agree that that obviously requires no faith at all. However believing that very same thing does not exist does require faith, either faith in the evidence against such a thing's existence, or (if there is no evidence) blind faith.

Since we are talking about something that has no evidence against its existence the faith must be blind. That is very, very different from faith in evidence. I rarely even refer to faith in evidence as faith, and will not for the rest of this post.

-

As you say god is a thing that can not be disproved, there are several things like that.

For example something said by one of our resident atheists (which I agree with):
"Everything is within the natural world. If you find something you think must be outside nature, then the very fact you can see it, measure it, or observe it's effects on the world in any way means it is natural, even if you can't explain it."
That is a belief of existence, it claims that there is such a thing as the natural world that encompasses all phenomena. It can not be disproved, it is set up such that every time you find something that appears to contradict it you assume that it is part of nature until such time as you prove it is. If you never prove it is you just go on assuming it is.

So since nothing can disprove this statement, and it is a claim of existence, according to you the burden of proof is on those who claim that this thing exists.

No such proof has ever been offered. Not one bit, oh we can prove, assuming we take certain scientific axioms on faith, that a natural world exists. What we can not prove is that there is a thing meeting the definition of nature that encompasses all phenomenon.

Therefore, according to you, believing in this all encompassing natural world is an act of faith, which I agree with, but believing that this all encompassing nature does not exist is a rational conclusion.

Well if it does not exist then there must be things outside of nature, in this language such things are called, "Supernatural." So the people who believe in the supernatural are actually being rational?

I disagree with that, the people who say something does not exist, in this case an all encompassing natural world, in other cases such things as god and cause and effect, have just as much responsibility to support their position as those who believe such things do exist.

(Just try to prove the existance of cause and effect. Remember that to be an acceptable proof it must not use the concept it is trying to prove, thus you will have to prove it without using the concept of cause and effect. It can't be done. According to you the rational conclusion is that cause and effect doesn't exist. I do not hold to that.)

-

I have a feeling that you'll accuse me of mudding the waters, but god is just a concept. Whether or not that concept has a basis in reality (in which case a god exists) or imagination (in which case no god exists) should be tested the same way as any other.

If your logic can't be applied to other concepts: cause and effect, nature, objective reality and the like then why should we use it on god? Why does god get a special place?

If, on the other hand, your logic can be applied to those things then the rational conclusion is that none of these things exist, do you really believe that?

-

I think the rational conclusion is that you make a leap of faith if you believe in the existence or non-existence of anything that lacks proof either way. Obviously you disagree.

What I fail to see is how you can base so much on the totally unproved and non-disprovable belief in the existence of cause and effect and then turn around and say that the rational con

BRITET

Monday, February 27, 2006 6:09 AM

Quote:
I agree with this entirely, but refusing to believe something exists is not the same as believing it does not exist.

I'm not talking about refusing to believe in something, I agree that that obviously requires no faith at all. However believing that very same thing does not exist does require faith, either faith in the evidence against such a thing's existence, or (if there is no evidence) blind faith.

Since we are talking about something that has no evidence against its existence the faith must be blind. That is very, very different from faith in evidence. I rarely even refer to faith in evidence as faith, and will not for the rest of this post.

B]

Fair enough I suppose, but the only thing you have to have faith in in order to claim “god does not exist” is your own perception, and your ability to make sense of the world and say/think meaningful things about it. If you're going to deny this, then you'd be forced mute in principle; you couldn't say anything about anything without being a hypocrite. I can't prove logically that God doesn't exist but there are a boatload of things logic can't prove but that you'd be a complete fool to deny or abstain from having a belief on. There is plenty of evidence that God doesn't exist, because there is no evidence he does and there is ample evidence that he (likely she, or more likely Them, at first) was a construct of humans/hominids, struggling under the burden of a rapidly-developed conscious Self to define and understand the world around them, that happened to be an extremely effective meme that evolved so perfectly and lasting for so long as to embed itself deeply in the cultural consciousness, such that it gains an aura of reasonability it deserves no more than do leprechauns, oracles or spontaneous generation. And when that notion is inculcated into children's worldview and personal narrative at such a young age, before the difference between fact and fiction is understood and statements or teachings of authority figures are encoded very strongly in the brain as fact and so persist later in life despite reason to the contrary, the notion becomes staunchly reasonable on an individual level in addition.
Experience and experiment strongly suggest that humans are at the most basic level no different from rocks and stars and that the phenomenon of mental activity is a remarkable emergent property of basic physical processes. There is no magic in it, there are just electrons going zzt zzt and the remarkable systemic complexities possible from elaborate arrangements of tiny binary switches. All we know about the world, and have tried and tested, indicates in spectacular (though admittedly incomplete) detail how this could all come about via the basic laws of physics and the whims of happenstance. There is no worthwhile evidence to the contrary.
Sure, I don't know what exactly happened or if anything “happened” or it makes sense to speak so, before everything went BANG and then fate took over. I don't know why it BANGed in the first place; could be a quantum fluctuation, or collision of two m-branes, or the dream of a deity sleeping on a lotus petal. But to suggest, because of this uncertainty, that flat-out denying the latter takes an act of faith equivalent to that of belieiving in it or any other religious view out there requires use of an extraordinarily broad definition of “faith” so as to make it essentially meaningless. I can't be sure my roommate wasn't just eaten by a bear a second ago, because I just saw him walk into his room....but to say this is thus based on “blind faith” is something I suspect you wouldn't subscribe to; you'd say it was based on evidence. The disbelief in god is no different.

FLETCH2

Monday, February 27, 2006 6:57 AM

Myself, I still stand with the big guy. I can't explain it because it seems at odds with my own more rational instincts. It's something I kind of know at a non conscious level and I simply can't explain it. It's like staggering through the dark completely blind and yet somehow knowing that someone is right there beside you keeping pace and that if you should stumble, you only need reach out and someone is there to catch you. I find that reassuring, even if it's my aim never to stumble.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Monday, February 27, 2006 12:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by britet:
Fair enough I suppose, but the only thing you have to have faith in in order to claim “god does not exist” is your own perception, and your ability to make sense of the world and say/think meaningful things about it.

This is only true if you begin with the assumption that god does not exist. Everything you said in this post is very well put, but it all hinges on the assumption that god does not exist. In order to claim that “god does exist” the only thing one need faith in is indeed one’s own perception, then everything you have said here would follow as evidence that god does exist. God is the hand behind the electrons that go “zzt, zzt.” God is the reason that gravity holds the galaxies and the solar systems together. God is the perpetrator of the Big Bang. There is plenty of evidence that god does exist, because there is no evidence that he doesn’t, and everything human beings understand to exist is a construct of human consciousness. Electrons don’t really go “zzt, zzt,” that’s purely a construction of your own imagination. Electrons, instead, exists as probability waves, but that’s also a construct. “Reality” is a slice of the universe bounded by certain wavelengths of light and sound vibrations and the boundary of opposing electrons interpreted by a consciousness that can only comprehend a certain number of dimensions. To claim that “god does not exist,” one must first assume that god does not exist, because no degree of rationale or perception will provide that answer for you. It is every bit as faith-based as the assumption that god does exist.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

HOTPOINT

Monday, February 27, 2006 1:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
To claim that “god does not exist,” one must first assume that god does not exist, because no degree of rationale or perception will provide that answer for you. It is every bit as faith-based as the assumption that god does exist.

By the same logic it would be a faith position to say that there is not an omniscient, omnipotent invisible pink unicorn watching everything we do.

An assumption that something does not exist until there is some evidence for it is not a faith position. A faith position is assuming something exists when there is no evidence for it

The burden of evidence falls to the one making a claim for the existance of something, not on the person who maintains its non-existance before that proof is produced.

...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

SERGEANTX

Monday, February 27, 2006 1:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by britet:
Fair enough I suppose, but the only thing you have to have faith in in order to claim “god does not exist” is your own perception, and your ability to make sense of the world and say/think meaningful things about it...

Thanky you, Britet - well put. That's exactly what I've been trying to say. Their goal (folks trying to equate faith and disbelief) seems to be to avoid the label of 'irrational'. They seem to want to claim that believing in god is no more irrational than not believing. That sort of takes all the meaning out of the word 'faith' doesn't it?

Then they keep clinging to this artificial distinction between the 'not believing' and 'believing not' - (ie "I don't believe in god. I believe god doesn't exist). The second is a nonsensical statement that they foisted on a hypothetical "Strong Atheist". There's never any point in 'believing' in the non-existence of something. As you pointed out its a matter of perception.

I wouldn't say, for example, "I believe I don't have a million dollars." It's just that I don't have that much money. There's no "evidence" that I don't have a million dollars, in a bank, somewhere, somehow. But by their reasoning I'm acting on faith to assume it's not there.

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
...To claim that “god does not exist,” one must first assume that god does not exist, because no degree of rationale or perception will provide that answer for you. It is every bit as faith-based as the assumption that god does exist.

I don't want to be a smart-ass, but have you considered where this sort of logic leads?

To claim that “[any insane proposition you can imagine] isn't true,” one must first assume that [any insane proposition you can imagine] isn't true, because no degree of rationale or perception will provide that answer for you. It is every bit as faith-based as the assumption that [any insane proposition you can imagine] is true.

Seriously, you're essentially saying that denying the existence of anything is just as much an act of "faith" as believing in god. We can use the word in that sense if you wish, but what's the point?

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

JAMESTHEDARK

Monday, February 27, 2006 2:26 PM

I don't know what one would properly call me. I am not an athiest, exactly, in that I do not strictly believe in God's non-existence, nor am I an agnostic, who is not particularly sure one way or another on the subject of the former. Perhaps, it could be best said that I spend as little time on the subject as possible. I don't disbelieve, nor believe; I just don't care.

Which is why I was particularly struck by Mal's line in the Big Damn Movie. You know the one? It's currently in my signature line.

--------------
I ain't lookin' for help from on high. That's a damn long wait for a train don't come.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Monday, February 27, 2006 2:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hotpoint:
By the same logic it would be a faith position to say that there is not an omniscient, omnipotent invisible pink unicorn watching everything we do.

Well if it really was invisible it wouldn’t be “pink,” would it?

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
To claim that “[any insane proposition you can imagine] isn't true,” one must first assume that [any insane proposition you can imagine] isn't true, because no degree of rationale or perception will provide that answer for you. It is every bit as faith-based as the assumption that [any insane proposition you can imagine] is true.

If there is no evidence to assert the truth or untruth of such an “insane proposition” then that would true.

You seem to assume that it is not true by defining the proposition as “insane.” So you would seem to be operating on the assumption that such a proposition is not true. If you operate on the assumption that a proposition for which you have no evidence to assert one way or another is not true, then you will probably draw the conclusion that such a proposition is not true, but that does not necessarily mean that it is not true. That is simply your initial assumption returned to you as a conclusion.

You cannot prove that a proposition is untrue simply because there is no evidence to assert its truth or untruth. You can assume that it is not true if you do not have evidence to support its truth or untruth, which is often what people do, but that is an assumption, not a proof.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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