Atheism Examined

Probably not on topic, but would you mind clarifying your response?

You're not aware that induction is a fallacy?I hate philosophy, and it's not my intent to turn this into a discussion of philosophy, but believe me when I tell you that one of the major problems facing philosophers of science is how scientific knowledge can be trusted when none of the steps in the scientific method can be logically verified. The "problem of induction" is part of this.Personally I answer the question simply - "because philosophy is bullshit." If philosophy can't figure out how to reconcile scientific knowledge with the logical fallacies, the failing is in philosophy.The problem of induction, according to Wikipedia, is basically that the only way to establish the effecacy of induction as a tool is inductively - it's always worked before. A little circular, don't you think? Nonetheless I conclude that if science and logic are in conflict, then it's logic that's wrong, somehow. I don't know what that makes me (aside from a really shitty Vulcan.)

then what about tentativity? we're pretty positive that the ball will drop when we let go of it. Not absolutely positive, right?besides, is it more effective to make generalizations or to test every single possible case? If science were completely deductive, methinks it would be quite stuck.

Oh no, I'm not disagreeing. The success of science is not in question, and quite frankly, I find philosophical concerns about its logical underpinnings kind of a waste of time.In my experience scientists doing work in science spare not a thought for the philosophy of science, except in the occasional, jocular "isn't it funny what they think over in the Humanities division?" kind of sentiment. (My wife, on the other hand, finds a lot of the arguments of philosophers of science maddening, and an insulting devaluation of her years of labor in her field.)Anyway I didn't mean to turn this into a thing about philosophy of science. As I said I'm aware that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" is the precise opposite of what is considered to be logical. To my mind, that has absolutely nothing to do with its utility in the real world.

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There is a reason why polls are showing that atheists are among the most distrusted people.

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Well, it makes sense if you think about it. By and large, atheists believe that life is purposeless. That which has no purpose makes everything else mean very little in the grand scheme of life. That means anyone who honestly believes that we live in a purposeless universe have no real motivation to hold strongly to any kind of moral value. That's why they distrust atheists. There's that strong atheism I was talking about coming out. If you declare absolute sentiments concerning God, the burden of proof is upon the claimant. I haven't made an assertion beyond telling you what I believe. You have taken your belief a step further, pointed out to you by several people, that you espouse strong atheism which leaves you with burden of proof to shoulder. Oh, stop you romantic, you. Your wife must be thrilled to hear how in her presence your endorphin's go wild. It is in light of the gospel-- that God is love. But even if it did not make such a statement, the fact that some things exist that cannot be explained strictly by naturalism is my reason for introducing it. I don't go around telling people about my Christianity either unless it bears some relevance to the topic. Nor do I tell people how they should live. That's God's job. I'm only the messenger. No.

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But what if God is not made of matter?

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What is love made of? An equally ambiguous statement. Would God be made of anything if He is not anthropomorphic or even corporeal in any way?

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Suppose that God dwells in the human heart (psyche).

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He's the one in right ventricle. Wave to him. Then what is God since virtually every civilization in human history has worshipped some form of God, whether by concept or by design. Atheists have no trouble understanding God in plenary? What is God then? You witnessed the effects of gravity, not gravity itself, just like watching the wind blowing through the trees is not seeing the wind itself. I thought I made that point clear in my previous post. Scarlett is made of matter. I assume you understand the premise that God is not. Your analogy would then render itself ineffectual. The law of non-contradiction says that two or more contradictory answers cannot both be right, so naturally only or none of those answers is the correct one. Being that you're quite fond of inventing the most ridiculous scenarios to explain your position, I thought you might appreciate some reasonable ones. In what way?

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"Somewhere at the back of my father's mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depth of his soul, there was an empty space that had once been filled by God and he never found anything else to put in it... At the centre of me is always an eternally terrible pain - a curious wild pain - a searching for something beyond what the world contains." -Bertrand Russell

again, the hell? Apparently feeling that living for the moment is important, and love of family and life, and all that other good stuff is irrelavent? Dude, life has a purpose. It's up to each of us to define that purpose. Most atheists do not think that life has no purpose, no meaning. See, it's not the "purposelessness" that gets people to mistrust atheists, its these kinds of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations that people have of us. You mistrust atheists because you think they think life has no purpose. You are wrong on that count. jeez. arguments from authority are crap, and you know it. And this is one massive argument from/of authority. he answered that question--a nonexistant bogeyman that makes people feel better.

Interesting progress in your topic Straggler. It sounds as if you folks need to start an 'atheology' council. Who knows? Perhaps one day you will organize into different denominations or meet in groups with like-minded people. Necessity is the mother of invention, no? As you have seen, that depends on who you ask. Many of the atheists I have met are proclaiming their stance in a rather nonchalant way which means 'I haven't much considered the topic'. It is not pure ignorance of God/s as in a baby, but rather like the response I would give if someone asked me if I like France. I would say 'I don't know yet. I haven't been there'. To take it further, one could conclude that they would like France based on what they know, or conclude that they would not, based on what they know. Both are faith-based, but with some reasoning behind them.Is it correct to say that, based on what you have heard or experienced about God and religion, you have reasons to feel that you would not 'like' to believe? And lack of evidence is one reason? I think that it is fair to say that based on my experiences, I 'like' God ideas. I can't imagine that if I had never heard of God or of France, the default would be 'dislike'. It is only honest upon learning to say 'I don't know' and then to find reasons to 'believe' we might or might not like the same. If agnosticism is not knowing, how long can we remain unsure? We are likely along the way to pick up some kind of reasons to formulate a tentative conclusion. In that case, atheists have 'reasons' to believe there is no God, and they are equally untestable as the reasons to believe there is. I don't mean to sound preachy, but this is where my thoughts led. We don't live in a vacuum. We can all honestly say we don't know, but how long can we say 'I don't feel, based on what I have seen, anything at all concerning God?'If most/many atheists consider themselves soft or agnostic towards God, doesn't this make you guys more against belief than against God per se? You don't like the idea of blind faith, or even reasoned out faith, in God or against God. Maybe you are afideistic? Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

You polled them and asked?No? I'm not prepared to accept your made-up assertions about "atheists by and large." I don't see where I used the term "absolute." Oddly enough, like myself, my wife is capable of both understanding the chemical basis of human attraction and appreciating the human experience of love.I guess it's funny how we wind up with people who share our outlooks on life. Actually, that's not so funny, is it? Like Sam Harris I think it's well past time to retire facile and false oppositions between feelings and rationality, etc. ...what?How can you not see the difference? Are you even reading my posts, NJ? I often get the sense that you aren't. He's the what in the right ventricle? I just told you. A comforting fiction.See? Simple to understand. That is gravity, and that is the wind.By your logic we never see anything at all; since it's only the reflected photons exciting cells in our retinas that we can perceive. If seeing the effects of something is not the same as seeing that thing, then truly, we never see anything at all.I'm of the opinion, largely, that most people's eyes do work, and they are able to see; not the least of which because so many people are able to perform tasks that are obviously sight-based. Clearly, in your blindness, you've come to the conclusion that everyone else is just as blind as you. In the way I just told you. Weren't you paying attention? You even quoted it.To repeat - the fact that you had to develop a whole paragraph of hypothetical situations to explain a single sentence offered as a clear and universal "moral absolute" refutes your own assertion that the morality of the theist is always clear and absolute.There's no such thing as a morality that is clear and absolute, because no moral code can encapsulate all possible situations. There's even a situation where we would conclude that a person has every moral right to kill another person, even though the killer is standing in the killee's own kitchen. A policeman, for instance, might be very justified indeed in killing a suspect in the suspect's own home, out of self-defense.I find your response disappointing in many ways. You've largely missed most of my points, probably when you cut up my post as though to reply to it line by line. I suggest you make an effort to understand my points as a whole rather than trying to interpret every sentence absent the context in which they were written.

Sure. I guess it would be a hasty generalization or the fallacy of composition. Agreed. Yes, I would think so.

I disagree, absence of evidence is never evidence of absence. In your example, we conclude that there is no teapot around Alpha Centauri because the evidence shows that teapots are a human creation while the evidence also shows that our current civilisation is the most technically capable humans have ever produced and that we don't have the ability to reach Alpha Centauri.By contrast if I claimed that there were asteroids in orbit around Alpha Centauri you'd probably agree it was likely because the evidence suggests that asteroids are created in large numbers by the processes that form stars.Finally, if I was to claim that the person or people who live at 24 Kensington Road in Coventry do not own a teapot you'd rightly conclude that we don't know either way because we have a genuine absence of evidence.

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By and large, atheists believe that life is purposeless.

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No, those are 'nihilists'.What many Atheists don't believe is that life's purpose has an external, "woo-woo" source.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

I have to agree. It would be an Argument from Ignorance to claim that absence of evidence is evidence at all.But you do hear this used, from both camps:1. There is no evidence to suggest God doesn't exist, so He does.
2. There is no evidence to suggest God does exist, so He doesn't.Personally, I feel that, regardless of whatever the truth is, one should never adopt a belief without evidence for it. That makes me a 'weak atheist' I think.Edited by Doddy, : can't spell!

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"And, lo, a great beast did stand before me, having seven heads, and on each head were there seven mouths, and in each mouth were there seventy times seven teeth. For truly there were seven times seven times seven times seventy teeth, meaning there were. . . okay, carry the three, adding twenty. . . plus that extra tooth on the third mouth of the sixth head. . . Well, there were indeed a great many teeth" - The Revelation of St. Bryce the Long-WindedHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

I claim that there is no evidence that god exists and there should be if he did therefore he doesn't exist.

I suppose it's too much to ask for you to give us an example of how one arrives at a "reasoned out faith" in your God. I'd love to see the thought processes described.You can, presumably, think up reasons for not actively believing in all the many historical Gods of many different cultures that you don't believe in. Reasons why you don't bother praying to the Inca Sun God, for example, or why you never bother making offerings to any Greek Gods.An easy way for people like you and Nem Jugg to understand the non-religious might be just by listing in your minds all the Gods you've heard of and don't believe in.We carry it just one small step further, and we don't believe in your version of the Jewish tribal God, either. Simple, really, when you think about it.

For my part; it's not so much that I don't believe in God, in much the same way that you don't believe in Zeus, I don't believe in your God because he doesn't have any place in the worldview that I hold to be true; namely I believe in a purely physical world and there's no place for the supernatural in such a world.