Why Atheists don't believe

Not so. I have oftened pointed out that scientific insight is a combination of the objective and the subjective. We alternate between the objective and subjective, back and forth, repreatedly, when we struggle with scientific problems.For example, when we collect data, and we seek to collect in as unbiased a manner as possible, we are striving for objectivity. But when we try to interpret these data, we form concepts and constructs in our minds that might be consistent with these observations. This is an entirely subjective process, but it must be 'proofed' (notice I didn't say 'proven') by constantly returning to an objective evaluation of the data and testing for conformity. Thus science has both an objective and a subjective component to its advancement, at least if you are a scientist seeking to advance it.Subjectivity is not to be eshewed entirely, but it must be recongized as an internally-derived construct. The problems with subjectivity only arise when we fail to recognize it or apply when objectivity is required, as for example in the design of an experiment or other empirical endeavor. Edited by EZscience, : spelling

No, because that's a moment when subjective expression of feeling is clearly warranted - and certainly expected on the part of your spouse.

That's hear-say anedoctal evidence. Doesn't count for much

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We believe it dwells inside us too.

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No they believe it's a seperate thing - it does not form part of the trinity.

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Perhaps study a bit more about it? There may be some misconceptions about it that you have.

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No - I understand the concept of it pretty well.

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I only asked you those question because you said you explored Christianinty. But I say there is still more to explore for you. I just want to encourage you to educate yourself more on it. It couldn't hurt you, you are impervious to being tricked.

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I've no interest in doing that.

Some people might think you're still kidding yourself. How would they know otherwise?

As children we have a propensity to believe what we are told. The default state is one of questioning. We believe what we are told because we trust out parents to tell us the truth.In our formative years we have little discrimination. We are afraid of the monster under the bed, or believe in Father Christmas. When we get older we compare our beliefs with our society and our experience. From here we discard the ones that conflict with our society or experience.Buts it's more complicated than that, what we learn growing up can in some people never change. You're stuck with what you grow up with. This can be seen Implicit and Explicit religiousity.Being exposed to xian concepts is the only way to make a xian. The default position is very definitely not belief in christianity. We may learn to believe in anything. But only to what we are exposed to.

iano Perhaps I am being thick here but exactly how does having the truth of a situation made apparent violate your free will?

How can one freely chose to disbelieve that God exists if one is given irrefutable evidence that God exists? It seems to me that once you have the evidence then choice to disbelief is no more.And any class of lesser evidence other than totally compelling can be explained away otherwise. Only tentitively of course - but tentitive is deemed sufficient to permit the choice for disbelief.{AbE} ...and if people were thus compelled to believe that God existed would you not expect them to react other than in a free-willed fashion. A pack of fearful forelock-tuggers is what you'd end up with.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Just to show you how vacuous your question is, I'm going to repeat but substitute in the word 'fire' for 'God'. There are many things that there are irrefutable evidence for, so according to you we don't have free will (I actually think that we don't, only the illusion of it).

Every religion makes some similar claim about why they are unique.

Jesus returns 161 million resultsSex returns 534 million resultsI guess I should worship the sex god.HAHAHAHAHAHA

It would be helpful if the word you inserted had the objective of having you believe it exists without interfering with your free will to disbelieve.But by accident you make a pertinant point. You have no (sane) way to disbelieve fire exists - right?. You have seen it with you own eyes. Thus You have no free will to disbelieve something you know exists. But you have free will to disbelieve something you don't know exists.Once you believe in God and get the evidence then you can no longer disbelieve in him. You now know he exists. The step over is made free-willingly of course...

hahahahahhah - I laugh not because of the result but because that's the first thing I did after reading Iano's post.However I gotJesus = 210,000,000Sex = 713,000,000

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It seems to me that once you have the evidence then choice to disbelief is no more.

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As is amply displayed on this very website, having been shown strong evidence in favor of something need not have any bearing whatsoever upon if someone decides to disbelieve something.The human brain is like that.

I think the example used was a right-before-you-eyes kind of evidence. If you've a time machine that we can hop into an fast forward back to watch evolution happen before our eyes then I'll book myself a place. What you offer -an inferred conclusion from science (which has been calibrated against the presumptions and assumption of...er...science) is not exactly what I had in mind.