Atheism isn't a belief?

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.

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

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?

We all are at some point. that point would normally be defined as our birth. From there, we can only move upward. No not at all. I do however like your analogy a lot so I will continue with it.
In my case, a tour bus named "Religion" came along and began filling my head with stories about God and jesus. Pretty soon (well by about the age of 10) I began to see that this bus was just going around in circles and was being driven by a blind driver who couldn't see beyond the end of the street. He just kept turning left at every junction. Up some of the other possible turns I began to see tantalizing glimpses of answers beyond any that were available on my bus but when I asked why we couldn't go that way I was told that this bus had always gone on the same circular path and had no reason to ever change.
Pretty soon after that I opened the emergency door and escaped from the bus to nowhere then hopped on the first science bus that came along. This science bus may well never reach its final destination but at least it is always covering brand new ground. The ride is fascinating and is continually pushing onto new roads that have never been travelled before. In the far distance I can see glimpses of explanations for everything including first beginnings. I may never reach these places myself but I am content to know that others are already almost there. I don't (and never will) fully understand the complex science that they are working with as they clear a path for my bus to travel. Already they have a gravel path leading right back to the big bang and blueprints labeled "M-Theory" that point out ways to extend the path beyond it. Other paths are getting closer and closer to a place called "possible abiogenesis" but nobody has managed to get all the way there yet.
This is hardly surprising since the pioneers have only been exploring the path for a few hundred short years. They are constantly designing and building better vehicles to travel down these paths in an attempt to reach their goal. Given a few hundred more years I see no reason why the new roads will not be built to take the science bus all the way up to and well beyond these difficult to reach places.Meanwhile the religion bus is still going round and round in an ever decreasing circular path to nowhere with less and less bastions in which God can hide away from the revealing light of science. I am sure it will. I never expect to reach any specific destination since to do so will be tantamount to the end of my life anyway. To me, the concept of a life in which there is nothing left to learn is worse than death. Terminal boredom is my idea of hell.
One day I will most assuredly bid fairwell to my companions on the science bus. At that time I will be more than content to know that the bus will just keep going on its endless voyage of discovery with my children firmly seated in the front row.

I thought we were past this stage.
a-anything would be a bit of a tricky position would it not?
If you don't have any belief in anything then you can't even believe your own senses or that the universe exists at all.
That is just plain stupid. How the heck can atheism be a religion? It involves NO beliefs, just a complete indiference to god. If you call that a religion then so is a non-belief in Star Wars. Maybe that too really did happen in a distant galaxy, a long long time ago just like it says in the opening credits.
There is absolutely no evidence that everything isn't natural either. I think of the supernatural as just another part of the natural that we haven't really come to grips with yet. In those terms everything is natural. We have a pretty solid track record for uncovering new mysteries and bringing more and more into the natural. Just give me one good reason why there even has to be a dividing line. In Caveman days the line was at fire. Later it became the sun, wind and rain. These have all been brought into the fold so what real reason is there to think that we have to stop where we are now and define the boundary at this instant then say it can never change. That is pure BS IMO. No it isn't. It is simply extrapolating the future achievements of science based on past record. It is a perfectly scientific prediction with solid evidential footing. "Faith (or plumage if you prefer) don't enter into it" (John Clease: Parrot sketch)

RightAnd is it possible to "know" something to be true when in actual fact it isn't?For instance could I know that the sun is cold (absolute zero Kelvins) when in fact it isn't.Knowing something does not make it objectively true.

You are dead right. It always confounds me when a christian friend says "I know Jesus loves me." then another friend (Muslim this time) says "I know Allah loves me." Then the two of them spend the next hour arguing over who is right and who is wrong.
I used to work quite closely with a group of people of both persuasions and it would get quite interesting at times.

Just wanted to point out that you just made one though.
By your own reasoning you cannot say that man is absolutely unable to make absolute statements. It is self contradictory to say so.

Come on Ian. You know full well that I didn't mean that atheists are stupid. It is just stupid to say that they have NObeliefs (ie. a-everything). I firmly believe that the PC that I am using to write this message is real and is actually here. The proof of that is that answers to my messages just keep coming back to me along a little cable. That would be supernatural to somebody from a couple hundred years back. You certainly couldn't accuse me of being an a-PCist so as the set "everything" undoubtedly includes PCs, your premise of me being an a-everythingist is thouroughly falsified.
Beside that, A-theism only addresses the lack of Theism so why bring "everything" into it at all?As to your other point, many would argue that nature IS God so in that sense nature would be everything.How about we get back to some useful discussions instead of degrading down to this nit-picking stuff.

So you agree then that it is only possible to "know" something if it is literally true.
Do you also agree that if something like the statement that "God exists" is absolutely true for one individual then it must be absolutely true for all?If you do agree then your definition of "know" must match my own.I then contend that it is impossible to "know" something as this means that we are absolutely aware of an absolute truth. Further, it is not uncommon for several people to each claim to "know" a truth with absolute conviction but when they compare notes, their "truths" are contradictory, proving that they didn't actually "know" what they thought they did. At least all but one of them didn't. The question is Which one? (if any) Maybe I am not using the word "Objectivity" correctly. Here is what it means to me so let's see if you agree.
If something is objectively true or provable then it is true for all applicable instances. For example it is objectively true that if you heat Sodium in a flame it will always emit photons at specific wavelengths. This can be demonstrated at any place and time with the correct instrumentation.
If something is subjectively true then it is true for the individual who sees it but not necessarily true for others. An example of this would be that some might see the afore mentioned photons as yellow while others might see them as orange. If you have some kind of weird color blindness you might swear they are pink.Color vision is subjective as are personal experiences. You can't prove a color. You can't prove that you "know" god.
There is nothing theoretical about this. It can be demonstrated quite easily by the fact that you cannot (at present) show me any proof of god but I can very easily show you the proof of the wavelength of the Sodium spectrum if you come into my lab for a while. Actually I say there is no way at all to "know". Objectivity just means it is the same for all, not that it is 100% true. There is always that tiny sliver of a chance that the entire universe doesn't exist at all except in my own imagination.
Ooh! A matrix moment!

sigh.
I thought we had reached an understanding on this point when we hashed out the definition of Scientific Atheism. Why are you backtracking?
Are you still insisting that Atheism must include a belief in the non-existence of God?I already agreed with you that asserting the non-existence of God is just as irrational as asserting the existence of God. Of course it is. A-Theism = Without Theism = Without a belief in God. Pure and simple. Nothing else required. What is it with you and this fixation on beliefs. Why do atheists need something to replace God?
Newsflash! many of us have never even considered the beginnings of the universe or any kind of explanation for anything. A large proportion of the population of the world simply don't have the inclination or maybe (in some cases) the ability to learn enough about the universe to even care.
They simply LACK A BELIEF IN GOD
There is no gaping void that has to be filled with something in the absense of god. They are quite content and simply have no need of some god to make them feel better.I think maybe that as a believer in god, you feel that faith is something that we need to have. Maybe you can't get to grips with the fact that some of us just don't need it.
Who knows? I will spell it out one more time.

• I have no belief in nature!
• I have no belief in God!
• I do have belief that this computer is real, and so is my car, house etc.
• I do NOT have a belief that these things are all that there are in the universe. There may well be something more. I don't know and I don't particularly care.
• I have NO reason to even suspect that there is a god.
• I have NO reason to even suspect that the tooth fairy is real either. (and yes the two ARE comparable IMO)
• Up till now, science has quite satisfactorily explained everything. I don't see a reason to suspect this will change. This isn't faith or even belief. Just a strong reasoned probability.

Uh.. No! I don't think so.
Anything that is "possible" to happen must eventually have an impact on the real world. Once it does then science is all over it. If a ghost is sighted in an old ruin then that means it is generating photons (to be seen with). Photons are real and measurable so science can deal with them. Same with sounds and moving objects.
If god so much as moves a rock then we have got him. Until then it would appear that ramblings about some supremely powerful being who has never left so much as an unexplainable scratch mark on the world in 4.5 billion years of existence is about as feasible as a gang of chickens building a flying machine to escape their fenced enclosure.
"Them chickens is up to summat!"It is every bit as irrational to hold no belief in Star wars as it is to hold no belief in god.

Why would an atheist choose to investigate? period. Atheism has no affiliation with investigation. It stops dead at a non-belief in God.As I pointed out, You don't need to have a different belief in order to lack one in god.From my point of view, I DO choose to investigate but many don't have the inclination or the interest to do so. Your argument only addresses someone like me who actually takes an interest and is analytically minded enough investigate it. It is invalid against someone who simply doesn't care.As you may also have noticed, I DO NOT personally believe that there are limits to what science will be able to address. There are many scientists who actively and continually attempt to push back the boundaries. Thus the borders between science and the supernatural are constantly changing.
The Scientific Atheist (ie. people like me) does not attempt to define these borders and therefore has no beliefs that s/he is working within them.Therefore no belief and no faith.

I know atheists who just don't care enough to ask the question of why they don't believe. Theirs isn't a reasoned position. They plainly and simply can't be bothered with the whole question. Well that isn't surpising as everybody here obviously cares enough to make their voice heard. We are probably not a very good cross section of society to base this kind of classification on.What if you were to meet somebody who had lived their whole life alone in a cave and had never even heard of another human let alone the concept of God?
Would he be an atheist? Sure he would. He quite literally has no belief in a concept that he has never encountered.
Is he a-anything? Of course not. He believes in his cave, the ground, that he needs to eat when he is hungry and drink when he is thirsty.
Remember that to be an atheist you simply have to NOT be a theist. Apart from the fact that my answer here would have absolutely no bearing on atheism as it does not really address god at all, I think it is a completely unfair and biased question.
Do I believe in potential?
It isn't a cut and dried yes/no kind of question. A lot depends on your definition of belief.
If you mean blindly believing in something without evidence (a' la faith) then no I do not believe it.
If you mean believe as in "hold a tentative belief" as with a scientific theory with evidence to back it up but no absolute certainty then I would say yes.I normally equate belief with the first definition when I am involved in this kind of discussion and have also been involved in a number of threads where I have argued this point. Under this definition of belief = faith = certainty without proof, then my answer is a resounding NOHow the heck does Occams razor apply here? I am not adding any unnecessary complexity no matter what my answer is.

My understanding (admittedly based on nothing more than the science channel and a small amount of googling) is that superstring theory and several other competing theories were all based on 10 dimensions. Then somebody proposed "M" (membrane) theory based on 11 dimensions and suddenly all of the conflicting theories turned out to be exactly the same thing but with a missing dimension.
I could be wrong of course.