What Is The Positive Evidence For Atheism?

It seems to me that it's considerably more accurate to say that it's based on faith that our senses allow us to correctly perceive the world around us and that our minds allow us to correctly reason and come to conclusions about the world around us. Given this faith in our senses and our reasoning, we conclude that a complete lack of evidence in the existence of god is sufficient basis for concluding that there is no god, just as a complete lack of evidence in the existence of pink unicorns is a sufficient basis for concluding that they don't exist.Now, if you wish to take the contrary position that either our senses do not allow us to accurately perceive the world around us, or that we cannot accurately reason and come to conclusions about the real world, you can certainly do that. But that's not nearly the same thing as saying it's all blind faith. Instead, it's saying that our faith in our senses and our reasoning is misplaced. We can then get into a discussion about whether that reliance is reasonable or not. But you cannot continue to claim it's all blind faith without exhibiting a staggering level of intellectual dishonesty.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Wow, the list of errors that you made in that one little post is impressive. Unless you define recently to include 20 years ago, you are wrong. You are wrong. My comment describes how atheists rely on their senses and their reasoning to conclude that there is not god. I made this point to refute the claim you made in a prior post that atheism relies on blind faith. Instead, atheism relies on senses and reasoning. Your third mistake. There is no other profession who lies less often in their profession than lawyers. If you can find another profession that routinely disciplines members, and sometimes bars them from the practice of their profession, for lying, point it out to me.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Quite true.Thus, given that most religions ascribe to their deity the ability and the tendency to use supernatural powers, the fact that no compelling evidence for the use of any supernatural powers has ever been found is evidence that no such being exists, exactly the same as the elephant in the next room that you can't see.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Yes, well, as I said earlier in this thread, for you to continue to maintain that atheists rely on blind faith after being clearly told the processes that atheists use is a staggering level of intellectual dishonesty.If your point is that both theists and atheists rely on their senses and reasoning to come to conclusions about the real world, you are undoubtedly correct. However, you seem to go from that proposition back to your original, and demonstrably disproven, position, that atheists rely on blind faith, apparently under some kind of rationale that if theists also rely on their senses and reasoning, we're just not going to count it when atheists do, or something like that. Since you don't really spell out your reasoning for ignoring atheists' use of their senses and reasoning, one is left to speculate how you imagine the argument goes.Perhaps if you spent less time on off target, erroneous, ad hominem attacks and more time thinking about your arguments, you could avoid such fuzzy-headed writing in the future.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'll take the absence of evidence supporting your position as an admission that you hold the view based on nothing more than blind faith.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Of course, we can see the flea, if we look closely enough. And we can design instruments that can detect the wind and gravity. Further, my point wasn't that god can be seen or detected directly, but that his existence can be inferred if we see evidence of actions that only god could have been responsible for.However, if what you meant to say was that god was completely undetectable in any way, including that there is no evidence of his existence through actions that only he could be responsible for, then there literally is no reason to believe that he exists. Sorry, but the point that you're trying to make is completely lost on me. This is the difficulty in arguing purely by analogy. You've got to make your point first, then use the analogy to illustrate the point if necessary. Making your point entirely by analogy makes it very difficult for someone to understand your point.In your hypothetical, it would be quite easy for me to demonstrate the existence of the color green. I could build an instrument that measures the wavelength of the light that comes off of different objects and show you the readings from that instrument that demonstrate that the wavelengths of the light that comes off a green object are different from that of a red object. Obviously you still would not be able to see the difference yourself, but you'd be able to understand that there was a difference.I don't dismiss the idea of miracles because I've never seen one. I dismiss the idea because I've never seen any credible evidence from any source that there ever has been one. I have also talked with a number of people who claim a belief in god, and listened to their reasons for doing so. I fully recognize that I have not had all of the experiences in life that other people have had, and recognize that it would be folly for me to come to firm conclusions about the nature of reality based solely on my own limited experiences. I understand that believers have their own reasons for believing. In some cases, I can easily dismiss those reasons as based on faulty reasoning (for example, that god must exist because he created the universe). Other reasons are more difficult or impossible to dismiss (for example, one's own profound life-altering spiritual experience). However, in no case have I ever come across another person's reasons for their own belief that I found compelling enough to accept as my own personal reason for believing.Certainly you not believing in the color green is insufficient reason for me to reject what I see with my own eyes. And, by the same token, me telling you that the color green exists may be insufficient reason for you to reject what your own eyes tell you. However, suppose 10,000 people, or 10,000,000 people, all tell you that they see the color green, and they can all give the exact same description of it. They can all describe different shades of green, and they can all discern one shade of green from another and agree on the differences between the shades. In that circumstance, it would be rather foolish of you to continue to deny that the color green exists, particularly if medical science can explain why you can't see it but others can.Now, compare that to god. Sure, lots of people, most people in fact, profess a belief. However, there is no general consensus about what god is like, what characteristics god has, what effects god does or doesn't have in the real world, how to talk to god, whether it's even possible to talk to god, what god does with us after we die, et cetera, ad infinitum. In fact, the list of the things that people disagree on about god is so much longer than the list of things that people agree on that one could make a compelling argument that the lack of consistency or agreement on the basic defining characteristics of god is enough for a rational person to conclude that such a supreme being could not possibly exist, for certainly if he did there would be a great deal more agreement about what he was like than there is.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat