Who is atheist?

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http://www.carm.org/atheism/positions.htm

You can say that, but why does anyone have to give any recognition of an exraordinary claim with zero proof?

Example.

Orbiting mars is a body the size of a basketball, composed entirely of chocolate cake. It is the home of the fairies that make it rain, and who also act as the punishers of unscrupulus used car dealers. I have proof, it rains AND every dishonest car dealer ultimatly dies, Proof that the fairies are powerful.

You cannot prove that it does not exist, therefore you must assume that it does. Or at least admit that it might.

Do you? Seriously. Can you say thats a possiblity?

Look up "proving a negative" sometime.

Proof is always the duty of the person making the claim, skepicsm the default. If you tell me that Mombo the magic monkey brings you toys to reward your goodness, expect me to be doubtful, and deeply suspicious you go to toys r us when people are not looking.


Disbelief is not a belief. Disbelief is an absence of belief. A rational knowlege of something is based on data, or at least an internally consistent theory, Faith is the act of beliving something without proof. And there is not one religion on planet earth that has a shred of non falisifiable, first person proof.

That faith and reason are the same thing is a lame assumption the church has been using for centuries in an attempt to devalue reason as an adjunct of faith.

That doesn't say much. All it proves that the idea of believing in god is equally as credible as not believing in it. I've read a lot of Christian propaganda sites, they really work hard to explain their side and iron out any ability to answer back without looking like you're making excuses. I've never said anything to say that I'm either right or wrong, but the only evidence they have is that more people believe in god so more have worked hard to look for evidence.

I don't have a problem with Christianity, but it's offensive when they're trying to take over the world by telling everyone who disagrees with them is wrong.

I'm not going to look for ways to explain it, me thinking there isn't a god is just as logical as you thinking there is one. And that's all that link proves. It's a matter of opinion.

That is the dumbest site i have seen. You could also give that argument about a whole bunch of things. Where is the evidence that the gods in greek mytholigy arent the real gods. Where is the evidence that i am not God. Oh i know i cant do miracles in front of you but the god you preach doesnt do jack in front of me either so you cant prove me as false by that same rationale. So dont be arrogant and accept me as your real god. I challenge this Christian god to a fight and if he doesnt turn up by midnight then im renouncing him as a fake and me as the real god. Im not able to prove my deity status and neither are my ignorant followers so just have faith in me instead. OK.

Believe me, there's a lot more where that came from on the net.

What gets me is how that site potrays everything it wrote as fact without any room for debate and the guy that wrote it probably smugly thinks he has proven non-religous people wrong without doing anything of the sort. If someone wants to be religous thats up to them but until they have any proof instead of dogma they should just accept that they have a faith and i dont but they cant prove their faith to be THE WAY so they shouldnt try to until they have hard evidence. It just makes them look silly.

Wow there's a lot of strawmen in this. And an inredible level of dishonesty.


Answers to positions held by atheists

| 1. There is no God
| 1. This is not a logical position to hold since to know there is no God means the person would have to know all things to know there is no | | God.
| Since he cannot know all things (if he did he would be God), then he cannot logically say there is no God.


Poor agument, I know Mighty Mouse inst real either, in much the same way. Saying I don't know everyting, therefore any unprovable statement is valid is absurd.

| 2. I believe there is no God
| 1. To say "I believe there is no God" is a conscious choice. Then, on what do you base your choice: evidence, logic, faith, or a combination of the | three?

|1. If evidence, then what positive evidence is there that disproves God's existence?

Sorry, its a claim, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, invisible beings that sit outside time and space who are seriously concerned with who I sleep with, and how I dress. and who have me slated for either eteranal cheering session or celetial barbecue pit is a prima facie abusurd.

| 1. There can be no such evidence since evidence is physical in nature (evidence is an effect and/or result of something in reality). How
| could evidence disprove God's existence who is, by definition, the creator of reality and separate from it?

How can you prove anything outside of reality? Or that there is amyhting OUTSIDE reality? Existence is, Middle earth is "outside reality too" Is sauron leading souls astray, do we go to the Grey havens when we die?

| (I am defending the Christian God as revealed in the Bible).

You want to get into the absurdities and contradictions of the christian bible I can do that too. Which version BTW? I'm assuming the king James?

| 2. Testimony is admissible in court as evidence, but no one can rightly testify that God does not exist.

Last I recall the existience of someone required legal proof, Try to get a Birth certifacte for a fictional character or your imaginary friend, the only reason god gets exempted is most of the judges are religious, or act it, or they are soon not jusges anymore. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing. :/


| 2. If logic then what logical proof do you have that negates God's existence?

You are assuming this "god is self evident" what proof shows gods existence? And which god? You ca't just say the Christian one, I know people in all faiths, all just as equally as certain they a e worshiping the "true" one. The only proof they have is the need to belive.

| 1. At best, logic can only disprove theistic proofs. Disproving theistic proofs does not mean there is no God. It only means that the proofs | thus presented are insufficient.

A defination of god would work, Simply put, religion tries very hard to keep "god" nebulous and undefined. Its very hard to examime a nebuous undefineable something that lives somewhere, Which is why religion has moved away from anthropmorphic being, and to existential deity

| 2. Logic can only disprove theistic proofs that are presented and negating such proofs is not a refutation of all possible proofs since no one |can know or present all possible proofs of God's existence. Therefore, negation of proofs does not disprove God's existence.

Yet you still have not proved anything. All it says is you can't prove a negative, onlly something thta exists can be proved to exist. Without proof, there is nothig at all, just wishful thinking.

| 3. If there were a logical argument that proved that God did not exist, it either has not yet been made known.

The philoshopical shell game again, they have no proof for their claims therefore they shift the need for proof over to people who won't belive an unsupported belief "aka a faith"

| If it were known then it would be in use by atheists. But since no proof of God's non-existence has been successfully defended by atheists, we can |conclude that thus far, that there are no logical proofs for God's non-existence.

There are plenty, both simple and complex, at least for any recognised definition of the christian god.

You want to get into correspodence with me we can get into that one, I have a doctors apointment in two hours and I'dd have to type forever to finsh that, but I'll go there too if you like.


| 3. If faith alone, then the position is not held by logic or evidence and is an arbitrary position.


Oh yes, reason is faith thereofore faith is reasonable.

| 4. If by a combination of evidence, logic, and/or faith, then according to the above analysis, neither is sufficient to validate atheism.

How do you validate a disbelief? You can't. You can only validate a belief. Atheism isn't claiming something, its skepticism of a claim.

| 1. To lack belief in God appears to be a defensive position since the assertive atheist positions are wrought with logical problems (shown above).

Even a second year THEOLOGY student knows how weak most of those arguements are. Most of them are logical loops demading thet the religious positoion has to be validated by the non beliver and shifts all burden of proof away from the people making the claim "There is a god" and demands that the proof for god be producced by the people who have no reason to belive that there is.

| If the atheist says he "lacks belief" in God, then it appears its goal is to maintain a position that is unattackable since then he has no position to attack.

There is a very strong postion, 2000 years of bloodshed and suffering in the name of another god of ancient mythology. Notice you never see "gods vengance" it always seems when god wants to punish "bad people" its never done by god its always done by proxies, shooting doctors, killing gays, burning schoolbooks or flying airplanes into buildings.

| The problem is that "lacking belief" in God is an intellectual position made by a choice to "lack belief."

You don't "choose to lack belief" you decide to use your ciritcal thinking skills and not belive in the absurd just to give yourself a sense of personal valuese or destiny. MANY atheists started out religious.

| Therefore, it is a position since it is the result of a choice. Any position held, must have reasons or it is not a position.

Ok, virtually all claims for an omipotent deity are abusurd and lack a shred of evidence.

This whole arguement so far has been an attempt to give reason faiths problems, and faith reasons legitimacy. You need better material.

| It would be nothing. The atheist who asserts that he lacks belief is asserting a position of lack of belief.

| 2. My cat lacks belief in God as does my computer. Are they also atheists?

Another denial of reason, neither is an abstract, rational being, your cat may think you PERSONALLY are a god, but that is disprovable, if you really think even the hottest Athalon processor is up to theolgy or philoshophy you dont understand either.

| Therefore, simply lacking belief is not a sufficient statement since it can include animals and inanimate objects.

Abusrd. See above, A baby is an atheist, because till it is indocrinated it has no religious beliefs.

| 1. Is this a choice you have made? If so, why? What made you not believe in God?

Oh yes, the poor dear does not belive, where did you lose the faith apporach?

| 2. Is there an intelligent reason that you do not believe in God? Can you please tell me what it is?

Lack of any proof, of any sort outside of a few old books? Any verifiable evidence or repeatable Tests?

Is there any intleligent reason TO belive in one?

| 7. Naturalism is true; therefore, there is no need for God.

Strawman, We are talking atheism not naturalism, not the same thing.

| 1. Naturalism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.


Also includes people of many faiths who belive that their god "often christian" works through the natural world. Attacking naturalism says nothing about atheism.


| If all things were explainable through natural laws, it does mean God does not exist since God is, by definition, outside of natural laws since He is the |creator of them.


So natural laws are uninversal with ONE exeption? Why one exeption? natural laws work perfectly well without any gods. Yet god works rather poorly witout any natural laws.


| 2. Some might say that if all things can be explained via natural laws, then it means there is no evidence for God.

Yet another strawman,

Some may say that but thats not the stock postion of rational atheism, that there is no non disputable evidence for god is the basis of rational atheism. None at all. Sorry.

| 1. But, can all things be explained via naturalism? No, because naturalism has not explained all phenomena known today,

And religion has explained virtually none of it. Science makes the attempt instead of just stapling "goddidit" on everything.

The word is science, and it changes with new descoveries, over and over, in all fields, falth changes slowly and grudingly if at all becuse dogma questioned is soon dogma ignored or laughed at, and the church knows that, thats why they used to have blashpemy laws, so the church could ban difficult arguments and science they could not make fit the dogmas.

I'll snip the rest of "naturalism as its not the discussion here, atheism is.

I dont know where you pasted this from, but its poorly thought out, its written preaching to the choir, it works under the assumption tht the christian/religious postion is default proven and accepted, and that is not the case.

I'd like to take this further, but try to write, not just cut and paste.

http://home.inu.net/skeptic/atheism.htm

Here, try an example of the atheist postion beofore you go further, so you can see what atheism isn't first. Ten go from there.

I was a born again chrisitian once, I suspect you were never an atheist.

Looking forward to continuing.

Last edited by Tak on 08 Aug 2005, 5:14 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Good work. I wish I was able to explain it as well as you did.

I'm atheist, was for a time attending Humanist Society meetings, but gave up because to many people were totally anti-religion (and they liked to talk to me). I always wanted to know why God thought creation was such a good idea? If you are all seeing, all knowing then other than having an AI lab as a hobby, whats the point of creation? Anyway if your religion helps you then why not? Provided it doesn't lead to the sort of mass slaughter it often provides an excuse for, but then there will always be excuses.

Hang out in alt.atheism for a few years, most of them make me look like a beginner.



Tak
a#344

I never attend "atheist meetings" I do some online forums and usenet so I can keep up with what the religious Reich is up to, but what are you going to do at an atheist meeting? Sit around and revel in the fact god is still sort of a weak joke? Why bother? Would be like going to a "free from santa" support group.

If you wanted to know "gods opinion on something though you were hardly an atheist. : /

Humanism isn't confined to the theological field. Although many who claim to be Humanist seem determined to make it so. Religion (or at least religion as practised in the West of Scotland) sickened me from an early age. I realised that a belief system seemed to be central to most peoples lives, so I sought an alternative, only to find the same sort of people in different guise. I don't think I've come across anything to fill the gap ( I was supposed to be Catholic, and have now stopped looking.

you could always develop your own. i don't mean start your own religion, more that you can see what resonates with you, on a (for want of a better word) spiritual level. or even a gut feeling. of course, anyone who subscribes to any hard and fast religion will throw up their hands in horror at this suggestion, but you've already found them wanting, so it shouldn't distress you too much that they do

perhaps it's not a religion you're looking for at all - it could always be a philosophy. i happen to be a wicth because it meshes with my personal philosophy. but then, most Pagan stuff is eclectic, at the best of times (apart from the fundies, who are no better than any other fundies).

Id dance round a campfire naked with you vv wearing only the uniform we were born with and an animal mask (I think thats what pagans do and i want to leave something to the imagination). Though first we must find a sacrifice but luckily we are on the right site to find a naive virgin. We had better be discreet about our rampaging though because it looks like i have a rival for your affections in Robert N. Ponder not my love, let wild rivers run free, let the wind blow softly through the air like little musical elves in our ears, let the eagles fly high in the sky like big beasts of beauty and let nature take its course.

I have often wondered why people bother wasting time with "yes" or "no" to such unanswerables. I'd rather read a good book, sit under a beautiful tree, and live a fairly enjoyable life. Instead of a religious belief, I subscribe to a philosophy (in part) called Pyrrohnism. For those things which have no immediate answers, I learn to be content with not knowing. And thus I only seek to define these unanswerables if I enjoy doing so. Not because I need to know everything.

Good thing to live by. Almost like Greek Zen. Everyone could do with some more Zen.

*passes out some ZEN to everyone*