Are Atheists "Philosophically Limited"....?

Or you can look over that chasm of ignorance and say that there is no god, (atheism), or opt out and say as there is insufficient evidence and and and as a result you can't choose either option, (agnostic).If you are claiming to be an atheist you are choosing to disbelieve in any deity whether it is Zeus or the Christian God. Without an area of ignorance there is no place for atheism. I completely acknowledge my vast ignorance in the field but I think that there is a good parallel between QM and the tree falling in the forest. When the tree falls in the forest it produces air waves. It isn't a sound until some conscious life perceives it. In order for us to hear the noise the tree had to fall in advance of us hearing the sound. In QM the particle is an indeterminate wave until it is observed. In Brian Greene's book, (not a philosopher ), he describes a series of split beam experiments and then concludes the following, "It's as if a consistent and definite history becomes manifest only after the future to which it leads has been fully settled."
However your post makes the point that atheists are philosophically limited even though personally I don't think that is actually the case.

I don't think so.Look, do the experiment with two slits. Then do it again with detectors at each slit to see which way the particles go. Then do that again but turn your back so you can't see the results. Now there's no conscious being measuring which way the particles go. But you're still going to get a particle pattern rather than a wave pattern, aren't you? So it wasn't consciousness that collapsed the waveform, was it?

Seriously? I've been defending my position here for years. Get real, GDR. This is EvC, we do more than just stick to online definitions.I don't actively believe anything - whether there is or isn't a god. Just as you don't actively believe there are no unicorns. It is a matter of deduction based on a lack of evidence. You conclude what is likely or unlikely. So based on the evidence for unicorns, for example, you would say it is unlikely there are unicorns.Same goes for god or the supernatural. I can only say what is likely or unlikely based on the evidence.This is a deeper understanding of atheism that you won't find in an online definition. Sure, there is a level of agnosticism, leaning more toward atheism.I use the Dawkins scale - 1 being "I strongly believe there is a god" and 7 being "I strongly believe there is no god." Like Dawkins, and I would say many others here, I find myself to be a 6 "I don't know if there is a god or not, but based on the evidence it is unlikely."- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

How could we possibly know if we're not looking at the result?

Why would I do that when the only viable conclusion is "we don't know"? I might look and say "probably not god". I might conjecture this based on the piss poor history of theists claiming "god" only to discover they were wrong, again, every time, always, without exception. I can understand holding that "nature is in there, not god" as a tentative conjecture but not as a viable conclusion. To conclude "god", however, is a non-starter for both the viable conclusion reason and the history reason.And, yet, religionists insist on doing so. There has to be god somewhere, some evidence somewhere, so if it hasn't shown up in our knowledge then it must be in that chasm of ignorance, therefor there is god. QEDI haven't time now to go through the conjecture on the double slit experiments but 3 or 4 pages after that quote Greene touches on the answer. Is the particle-wave duality really only a binary choice?Edited by AZPaul3, : spln

But you won't know that there is a particle pattern until it is consciously perceived, however even then it is being measured by an experiment of a conscious being. The point is that the wave pattern exists until it is perceived or measured.

You are moving the goal posts again. Here is your earlier statement. You call yourself an atheist. Are you or aren't you? However you then go on to say: If you strongly believe that there is no god, (assuming that you mean an intelligent root cause for our existence) then you strongly believe that there are only natural processes responsible for all life forms. Then you are in the same position that I am in believing, or having faith in, a conclusion that we can't absolutely know to be correct.It goes back then to you believing that everything that we know is the result of a series of natural processes that exist as a result as a result of some other series of mindless processes....... and so on. You acknowledge that you believe that there is a small chance that you may be wrong, (as I do about my beliefs), but that is still the point on which you hang your hat.

I gave you a scale where 7 was someone who would say "I believe there is no god" and explaining that I, and many, like Dawkins, would be a 6.I am an atheist, but I am not making the fallacy of claiming any absolutes. This would be the example of a 7 on that scale. You will find no atheist, by what I've read from them, here at EvC who is a 7.The above does not discribe me. No I don't. I just explained in two posts how I don't "believe" anything and mines is more a likely or unlikely position based on lack of evidence. NOT A BELIEF. GDR, please try to follow. It is NOT a matter of belief. I am not making the claim that I BELIEVE there are ONLY natural processes responsible for all life forms.Again: It is not a matter of BELIEFWhat I DO say is, it is UNLIKELY there is anything responsible based on the lack of objective evidence for anything supernatural or an intelligent agency.That is all. It is unlikely.- Oni

Well you could say that about anything. Obviously I don't know a thing unless I consciously perceive it, that's kind of the definition of knowledge. If that's all your point was, there'd be no need to drag quantum mechanics into it.But if you do want to talk about quantum mechanics, then in fact the wave can collapse without conscious perception, which is why when you turn back round you see particle pattern rather than wave pattern.

Why do the religious have so much trouble understanding this? It's been explained over and over, but somehow they have to equate it to their own beliefs.An atheist does not believe that there is a god or gods. That's it, nothing at all else. They don't substitute that lack of belief with something else, not science, not ignorance not stamp collecting - nothing.Think about what you believe about Father Christmas, a pleasant myth that excites children and gets families together at a particular time in a year. That's what an atheist thinks about your god.Have you got that idea? Please accept it for what it is, a non belief in God. Don't put any other meaning on it and don't assume you can equate it to any way that you might think about your God. The next time you try to tell us what we think, think of how you feel about the tooth fairy or leprechauns. That way you won't keep making the mistake that you're making again and again. Atheists find your beliefs literally - that's literally - as absurd as a belief in fairies and do not have to go further with the idea than that.

I accept the agnostic position that we can't know one way or the other, but we can come to our own conclusions about what we believe.Sure theists over the centuries have made claims that have been proven to be explained by natural causes but my contention is that there is an intelligence, which I call God, that is responsible for the natural causes themselves.I know I keep repeating this but we can choose which conclusion we consider to be more viable. It is either that life is ultimately the result of a fortunate combination of mindless particles or it is a result of a pre-existing intelligence. I maintain that it isn't reasonable to expect that intelligence and morality evolved from totally mindless origins? (It is possible that some of you may not agree with that statement. )

The above is from your earlier post and then you replied to my post with the following: I agree that from reading your posts that you are a six but you have misrepresented Dawkins scale of belief. (A fine disciple you are. ) Here is Dawkin's scale of belief from "The God Delusion".

quote:

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1/ Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: "I do not believe, I know."
2/ De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. "I don't know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."
3/ Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."
4/ Completely impartial. Exactly 50 per cent. "God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable."
5/ Leaning towards Atheism. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."
6/ De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."
7/ Strong atheist. "I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one."

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On that scale the you are a 6 and I am a 2. I agree that I can't know, and just as you claim that like yourselves other atheists on this forum fall into category 6 I suggest that the greatest majority of theists on this forum are 2's. As either atheists or theists world wide we all have a nagging doubt that we could be wrong. I agree that there are theists that are going to claim absolute knowledge but let's face it they would also agree that it's a faith. Faith is an oxy-moron with claim of absolute knowledge. Of course it's a belief. Why on earth are you so opposed to agreeing with that. I'm a 2 and you are a 6. We both have as evidence the world as we experience it and learn about it but have come to different conclusions about something of which we don't have absolute knowledge. You believe one thing and I believe differently. You believe that no intelligent agency exists and I believe that one does.

[qs=DR Adequate]But if you do want to talk about quantum mechanics, then in fact the wave can collapse without conscious perception, which is why when you turn back round you see particle pattern rather than wave pattern.[/qm]I'm in no way qualified to have this discussion but certainly as I understand it, the only other way that a wave collapses is by being measured by a device constructed by a conscious being.

I know that unequivocally that the tooth fairy does not exist so presumably you believe unequivocally that God doesn't exist making you a 7 on Dawkin's scale which flies in the face of what oni claims.

What? A different conclusion? An article of faith?I cannot argue an article of faith. You do not conclude the same as I. You do not think the same as I. One might think you are different.Based on this I must further conclude that the world goes 'round and that life with different people is very interesting.