Atheism isn't a belief?

Right on target, iano--at least the latter part: it has made me exquisitely sensitive to the phenomenon.You know, cognitive psychologists have learned how to induce the sensation of deja vu--you may have heard that before.

Thanks. With so much said, I needed to know specifically what you meant so as not to waste both our time going off down side tracks.This is the highlighted bit which you say refers closeset to what you see your position as. You mention Scientific Atheist however as your actual position. Should I assume that this means that, in addtion to lack of evidence for God (supernatural) you have the pull of science which explains the world in ways which don't require the supernatural. ie: a reasoned positive against God which pulls you from a neutral (agnostic type) position?The above is my definition of sweet S.A. Could you clarify if this is a correct working definition of you, yourself. Then we can get going.

A newbie no more I see....See you at "A reasoned proof of God" I hope

IM(possibly deluded)O, anybody can be deluded about anything at just about any time and there is absolutely no objective way to prove they are or aren't.
As far as the scientific method goes, it is there in order to make the best possible attempt to weed out those delusions. I think it works pretty well and has a very good track record. It isn't infallable though and there is always room for improvement. We all know that we aren't perfect after all and that is probably a good sign that we are doing something right.

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Anyone who is sane enough to recognizes their own insanity probably isn't genuinely insane in the first place.
However anyone who denies their own insanity is suspect.

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Quote utterly fabricated by PY just for the heck of it I have gone one further than that. I worship the all power God of Mass Spectrometry. Without ritualist sacrifices of chickens (and the odd undergrad when we can get away with it), the great and mysterious Mass Spectrometer that resides in the hallowed halls of my clean room just refuses to work properly. I must constantly tend to it in order to appease my chosen deity.

Can you see the problem when 'delusion' is just tossed out as an explaination for belief in God? A belief in God needs to be addressed with an open mind - not with derision. It's been around to long and deserves a little respect. Not that you disrespect - the above is fun but does point out problems with typical dismissive 'proofs'You don't mind if I rework this one too. We make a great team PY. We'll get to the truth together one of these days!!

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"..and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Acts 2:21)

very close but with a slight change in emphasis on this part. I specifically try to avoid any positive against God.
Imagine that you start with a level playing field of zero for God and zero for science then slowly build onto that through life experiences, reasoned logic and applied scientific method. It is impossible to ever drop below zero since that requires a degree of positive affirmation against one of the contenders. the values may only be zero or positive in favor of either option.My position is that the positives in favor of God still remain at absolute zero while the positives for Science are incredibly close to 100% but still not quite there.
In terms of a soccer match, Science is winning by 20 goals to none and we are in the last minute of extra time. God could still make an amazing comeback but the likelihood of it happening are infinitesimal.The exact way that I would reword the quoted sentance would go more like... Does that spell it out clearly enough now?

And that is why we can never know the absolute truth since we can never be sure if we are deluded or not.
There comes a point where we have to conclude that discussions of delusions are utterly pointless and just end up going round in circles.
The scientific method attempts to derail potential delusions by setting up a series of universally accepted rules by which evidence for anything is treated. In order for a delusional scientist to get anything through all the safeguards, it would be necessary for the entire scientific comunity to suffere from the same delusion.
Again this isn't perfect because we are all fallible. It is just the best that any of us can come up with. Find a genuine hole in it and we will all be happy to modify the method to plug it.On the flip side, the belief in an unknown and unknowable entity based on nothing but personal internal revalations that cannot be proven or even measured with any known scientific instrument, and an old book written by who knows how many different people and full of internal inconsistencies (I know you will say there are none of these) seems like the utter epitomy of messed up logic to me.The argument that there are far more Christians than scientists doesn't hold water either. There are more Muslams than Christians. What if they are right?
What about Hindus. I am quite sure that they are all every bit as certain in their beliefs as you are. They all know their own God/s are the right one.Somebody has to be wrong. From the outside, religion just appears to be nothing more than self delusion. If you want to believe bad enough you will find a way to do so. Maybe it isn't though. Who am I to say? I just want you to understand my perspective, not change your own.

Do we have a definition of your position then - as follows?Scientific athiesm:
Is the absence of belief concerning the existance of dieties, without the positive assertion that they do not exist. The S.A. claims:a) that given sufficient lack of positive evidence for the existance of God, nonexistance is most likely.b) that a reasoned positive (via science) towards a likelyhood for 'naturalistic explanations for everything' pulls the S.A. from a neutral (agnostic) position.Positionally, if God is -infinity and Everything is Naturalistic = +infinity then the agnostic is positioned at 0. The S.A. is positioned (for the reasons given in the definition of S.A.) somewhere positive of the position 0. Because EiN and God are at infinity the S.A assumes the position that they can never know for sure but can make, on the basis of a reasoned estimation, that the true direction is in the positive direction.Is this about it

Yup!
That is about as close as we are ever going to get. I like it and I think I will use it in future discussions.
It's been fun defining "Scientific Atheist". I think this is most likely a subset of weak atheist.This message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 08-19-2005 12:45 PM

I agree - which was the point of posing that all scientists are deluded. I won't claim that scientists are deluded if you won't claim (which I can't remember you doing) that all believers are deluded. If that's agreed then we may be able to look at other reasons for both sciences' and believers positions.This discussion can be incorporated into the SA position you hold - a defintion I posed elsewhere for your approval/modification. If you agree with the first point - no pointless references to delusions, then you would have to remove that word in the quote above. Derail what then? I would suggest that we could insert the following "derail (or remove) from the discussion any explaination for anything that cannot be explained in naturalistic and scientifically acceptable terms." This is reasonable enough as long as one is prepared to accept that in doing so, one has simply decided to restrict the the area of explanation to and only to the natural extent of things. One has excluded oneself from commenting on anything but the natural, scientifically investigatable world.Remember that the Fathers of modern science: Newton, Faraday, Linneaus, Joule, Morse et al, developed the principles of scientific method based on the belief that the universe was an ordered, logical and predictable place which reflected the character of a supernatural creator. Intrinsic in their thinking was the acceptance that Science was a LIMITED enterprise, whose sole aim was to discover what could be known about the natural elements of Creation. They accepted that above and behind the natural lay the supernatural and that all things ultimately found their source there. They and many scientists today accept that Science has nothing to say about non-scientific issues. Neither for or against. Silence. Science can have no postion on something is is not designed to observe nor evaluate.What is commonplace however (and understandable given Sciences achievement) is the belief that Science can make statements on everything. If something can't be demonstrated scientifically then it cannot be discussed in any rational way. But man was rational long before science came along. He didn't need science to be rational. Science however has moved into a position and holds that it has 'ownership-rights' on what constitutes or otherwise, the rational. It certainly cannot demonstrate this. This is a philosophical position and a rather wobbly, unfounded one at that.If there is a supernatural then Science is a useless tool to evaluate it. But rather than see this as the positon, science says not that the supernatural CANNOT fit, but that is DOES NOT fit. Thus, it IS NOT.In taking a position PY, the reasonable place to start is in the zero or equilibrium one and let the evidence pull you left or right. In posing the SA position and science as a push factor, may I suggest that the reason for that is as follows:Your thinking (you may agree) has been influenced by an enterprise which I have demonstrated is incapable of commenting on the supernatural. Yet it does comment, and very vocally at that (see EvCforum.net). And the message is a single one: nothing exists except the natural.You said Science was a push factor. I think that is as precise a description of what is happening as one could think of. Science is pushing you away from the zero position with words it is in no position to use "Everything can be explained naturally"

Right. I never actually claimed or even suggested that you were delusional. Only that you (or I for that matter) cannot objectively prove that you aren't.
If I did claim that you were then you could justifiably respond "No I'm not. You are." Then it would just go back and forth and get nowhere so I am happy to leave talk of delusions out of it. Agreed but just let me qualify that first by saying that the statement above was intended as an explanation of the way the scientific method deals with supposed (and sometimes real) delusions by filtering them out. The scientific method does have to deal with them.
That said, let's leave talk of delusion behind and move on. I can't speak for others but this is the way that I do science. Since science cannot measure the supernatural then it cannot comment on it one way or the other. I don't feel that Science has "ownership-rights" on what is considered rational. Nor do I feel that the majority of scientists would think so either though I am sure a few do.
What science has done is to tie down the definition of "rational" to a meaning that is possibly much narrower than it used to be. Within these definitions, any argument based on a non-objective proof is considered irrational.
Subjective proofs (if they can indeed be called proofs) are considered irrational because the cannot be shown to be real for anyone other than the one proposing them.
Objective proofs are the same for everyone and hence are rational. Absolutely. Since the supernatural does not effect the natural in any way shape or form, science cannot measure it. If it crosses over though, it should then be measurable. Poltergeists, telekinesis etc. Absolutely. Only by some. A lot of us still keep a tiny crack of our mind open to the possibility that some supernatural forces exist. I, for instance, have a very open mind about this. As I said before, I have had a number of personal experiences of the supernatural. These are of course entirely subjective and impossible to prove to others, but for myself I know them to be true.
This still doesn't bring me one iota closer to believing in God but I am not going to rule him out entirely. No I don't agree with this.
Science is pushing me away from the zero position because it has a very good track record of explaining things naturally, and for constantly finding ways to address things that it was previously unable to. It may not be able to answer every question right now but I see very little reason to suspect that it won't ever be able to address them. Maybe when the supernatural is taken into the fold of the natural and we fully understand it (everything becomes natural) then God will turn out to be measurable too. At that point we will know for sure won't we?

I'm inclined to think the answer will come sooner that when science has the answers. Death will be the decider I'm off home PY. It's late and the Guinness beckons. Will have a look through what you said thoughCiao

Many of the "founding fathers" you cite lived in times when to assert outright dismissal of religion was to court death or exile.Descartes, for example, furnished a famous proof of God's existence which required constant mental repeitition to remain effective: once seen as an evidence of faith, some philosphers since have seen his "as long as the tape is looping" proof to be a cleverly subversive parody.Science cannot address questions of faith--beliefs held without evidence. Faith cannot address questions of natural causality--demonstrable and replicable phenomena. True.Still, science is not locked in the lab. It is a way of knowing that has transformed our daily lives.For example, science--or even just careful, unbiased observation--can have a great deal to say about supernatural claims. If the good madam medium claims that the spirits are shaking the table, and careful observation shows that the good madam's knees are doing the shaking, the claim is debunked.If the claim of supernatural causality is shown to be superfluous, then the claim is empty. Assertions of the supernatural are insupportable where natural explanations are demonstrable and sufficient. That is why science has pushed the question of God back to First Cause, abstract intangible existence, and subjective experience: no evidence exists for supernatural phenomena. That is why the market in communion wafers to be buried in wheat fields, booming in Descartes' day, has fallen on such hard times.One can certainly validly argue that believers impact the natural world, but there is no evidence that any divine being does so. No claims of phenomena that defy naturalistic explanation have withstood scrutiny; so predicable is their failure that they are now rarely made, but this is not because science trespasses where it does not belong.A co-worker once reported to the institute's director that I was an Evil Genius. Having at last to admit she had no evidence, she responded, "See? There's no evidence! If that doesn't prove he's an Evil Genius, I don't know what does!" She was perfectly serious, too.

I wasn't asserting that.
True = not false. Therefore, if someone believes that X is true, nobody can make them believe that X is not false, as they already believe that. I wouldn't call them prerequisites, as none is required for a belief in Santa. Now, longing doesn't count, as that just leads to searching for anything that can fill the hole, and if an imaginary god fits, it'll be used. (and remember, an imaginary god cannot be differentiated from an actual one.) Now, hope and despair will work. Hitting rock bottom with despair, dropping the baggage, and the resultant highly elevated mood would seem to work best, as that's a severe change that can be misattributed to an external entity. So, if one has been exposed to the God-concept, that can be used as an explanation, and a belief in God can be gained that way. Yup. Just straight-up fear; and if you can't go running to your daddy, or your daddy is inadequate, a big sky daddy will fit the bill.I never asserted that belief is a prerequisite for belief. You did. I merely translated it to point out the flaw. Yes, it is; as it can be restated as, "God, if you are listening..."
Even, "God, if you exist...," assumes the existence of God.

Sorry for the delay in responding, iano. I've been trying to figure out how to answer your post.

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There is ample reason to think there may be a God.

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I can only say that if I agreed to this then I would not be an atheist -- I would be what is colloquially (to avoid argument with others on this thread) called "agnostic". But I am atheist because I don't think that there is much reason at all to think that there may be a god.