Atheism as a belief

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No, to claim God is some sort of natural Force would be false though.

If the Bible is true this part of it should be true as well:

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse...
(Romans 1:20 KJV)

His presence is detectable through His creation even; this is called Natural Revelation and this verse was foundational for both Bacon and Paley. Natural Revelation may not be perfect because of the Curse, but it nevertheless speaks still today.

Any atheist that claims he KNOWS God doesn't exist doesn't know what he's talking about. Fortunately those kind of atheists are few and far between, even among the types you theists insultingly deride as "militant fundamentalist atheists." Nearly all atheists (including "militant" atheists like Dawkins) are also agnostics (and most agnostics are also atheists). I do not know any evidence of the existance of God, which makes me an agnostic. Because of that lack of evidence and do not believe in the existance of God, which makes me an atheist.

It is more accurate to say that deism/theism/Jesusism/jism fails to satisfy the demands of the scientific method.

It does not. It simply fails to meet the expectations of the scientific method.

It's not pointless at all. For example, a religious person may say, "your emotions and decisions are motivated by an invisible, undetectable substance within your body that powers your consciousness and is immortal." In answer, I could explain in detail, drawing from my extensive background, how emotions and decisions are actually formed, and what makes consciousness possible. It is perfectly relevant to the discussion, and religious people don't like to admit it.

Excellent, that means you know more than every neurobiologist, psychologist and AI researcher on the planet. So could you just give me the details, then I can design an AI implementation of them and become famous...

Seriously though, emotions and consciousness are mysteries that still haven't yet been solved by science. There are a million competing hypotheses out there, but no universally-accepted "theory of mind". The mind is so freaking complex that I suspect it'll be not decades, but centuries, before we can fully model it. And complete understanding might forever remain elusive.

you can believe that something does not exist, people do it all the time. it may be based on some science, but none of it is proven and will proabably never be proven. Every theory does not become a fact until it is proven. It is an unfasifiable argument to say god exists or not exists.

The point I am trying to make about atheism is that it cannot be proven by scientific methods either, I mean one could god created the strings in string theory or the atons that create us. It is a never ending argument and may stay that way for a very long time. I agree with your points.

Not being able to prove an unfalsifiable hypothesis is not the same as not being able to disprove an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Like I said before, there are an infinite number of unfalsifiable possibilities, but this does not mean that we have to consider them all as 50/50 chances. We can't disprove god, or zeus, or odin, or the flying spaghetti monster, or the brain in a jar experiment. But this doesn't mean we have to acknowledge that we feel any of these things carry any real possibility.

And for the record, the whole concept of atheism is flawed. Why would people be classified according to something they don't take part in? It doesn't make sense in the first place. You don't hear people going around calling people who don't have a favorite baseball team abaseballfans. The only reason we have to identify ourselves in the first place is because they keep asking us what our religion is on dating sites. Personally, I think religious people just think too much of themselves. It's like they all think the world revolves around their imaginary friend.

Quite wrong. Enough is known of physiopsych to place the origin of our thought processes firmly in natural cellular functions. It doesn't "disprove" anything, but it

Someone else is beating you to it...and fairly quickly, I might add. There is a fellow somewhere in California who is working on a "prosthetic" hippocampus. He's also done some very interesting work with "deep brain stimulation."

Misleading, and an appeal to ignorance to boot (you should be ashamed of yourself).



It would be more accurate (and far more honest, unless you are genuinely completely ignorant of neurobiology) to state that our understanding of these phenomenae is not perfectly understood. I invite you to open a few volumes of International Review of Neurobiology, which is a very important series on a breadth of subjects. It is written by and for neuroscientists, but the literature is far less dry than other materials I have found covering the same subject matter. It is delightfully comprehensive and wonderfully readable. Did I just give a positive review of a book? Yes, I did!

Of course. Otherwise, I would not assume that it is receiving serious study. A new idea is generated every five minutes. However, some have more credibility than others. You can learn more about many leading theories by reading International Review of Neuropsychology.

You would be surprised, then. Modern technology is allowing us ever closer glimpses of what is actually going on inside of the human brain. I expect major advances not only within my lifetime, but during my hopeful future career as a neuroscientist.

Wash your mouth out with soap, young man!

Until a few centuries ago, Christians tortured and executed people whose beliefs they thought were wrong. And they didn't stop until they were pretty much forced to stop.

And this is because Christians were persecuted and tortured themselves...

Don't religions learn?

Thanks Bollinger for helping me understand. I think it is best for me that I keep a safe distance from peolple like that.

You have to admit it is a good way to encourage people to become religious.

You said that with smiley faces and all, but I think it's best to take the debate right to them. That way, since they tend to be cowardly as well as stupid, they'll back down, and no blood has to be spillt. If you leave them alone and try to hide, eventually they're going to come after you.

That's my opinion, at least. Maybe I'm a little too pessimistic.

Umm...mostly, by other Christians if memory serves (the Reformation and all), and that mess was really more the fault of the Catholic Church than anything else. It was a lesson on why it's bad to mix religion with politics. Most of the stuff the Protestants did was more an offspring of some of them being a little bit...psycho. Not that they were bad as a group, though. I respect a lot of what the Puritans did, for example, even though they misbehaved later on.

It's very simple why Atheism is not a religion, nor a belief.

Athesim is the lack of a belief in God.

End of story.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Sorry...wait HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! !! !

Ok I'm good now. No they, by definition, do not learn. They adhere to millenia old texts supposedly untouched by malicious intent. Lol....we barely know what happened on 9\11, let alone 100, 1000, or 2000 years ago.

you believe there is no god . I agree It is is lack of belief in god.