Why Atheists don't believe

1. I didn't think about it much at all until after I knew some history and psychology. In that context it seemed obvious where the ideas came from and just how meaningful they were. There may have been a period of time where I could have been called agnostic (but it was more likely a "never-crossed-my-mindist".The step to atheism is a "leap of faith" in that there is no evidence that can prove it is correct. It is just where all the evidence that does exist points to.2. Someone else said it: sure, it isn't possible or worthwhile to try to find evidence for everything -- it takes way too much time. However, what I do feel I 'know' offers a framework and what fits gets accepted with less evidence and what doesn't requires more. I'm also aware of a HUGE amount of "I don't knows".I do deliberately (perhaps perversly?) decide to believe things for which there may be no evidence and may be evidence to the contrary. Things like: people are basically nice and honest; good guys win in the end; there is always hope...I also believe some things as useful, but unprovable axioms: there is a 'real world' out there to learn about; it does now and always will behave in a comprehensible (if not constant) way.

Personally, I disagree with this statement. It is the LOUDEST so-called Christians who so show to the world but not, in my opinion, the majority.It seems the web as a whole and, perhaps in microcosm this site, that seems to bring out the worst sort of Christians disproportionately to their actual numbers. My daughter rarely frequents this site but there are enough examples of the kind of s-m,v i, i, b, e, u, i, o fools that you speak of on sites she does frequent to have her making some very derogatory comments about Christians in general. I have to remind her that her sample may be badly biased.

Q is no more or less reasonable than any other omnipotent being that is conjectured by humans.You are right, we don't KNOW anything about something for which there is nothing that CAN be known (by definition it seems). As many have noted: we see numerous individuals touting one or another higher form of sentience we see them as interesting as a sociological study they are otherwise uninteresting.Though I find the Egyptian pantheon a bit more interesting.

RR, you need to read more carefully. It is obvious what he is saying (or should be). More so when you read what many others have said.Thinking that the 2 statements are contradictory reflects a non-black and white approach. They are not contradictory at all. He may take one thing totally on trust (we should define terms more carefully) based on how important it is or the context or the source person. He may be utterly sceptical of something else based on the same things. He may also take something as pretty sure but do a bit of checking for other things.He is saying very clearly with those statements that he doesn't believe many, many things 100% but believes them well enough to act as it they are 100%.