How do atheists explain their faith-based disbelief?

[VitalOne]

Here, you are correct. As I've already stated, this is a determination of probabilities. And note that it is not foolish to err on the side of greatest probability rather, it's foolish to err on the other side. 'False until proven true' (as you put it) is the correct methodology for determining probability (which, interestingly, is also the entire reasoning behind your ability to discuss this online, viz.: technology).

No it isn't, what are you retarded? False until proven true is criminal court case methology by which the burden of proof is used ("innocent until proven guilty")...its an argument from ignorance and entirely illogical in science, but is used in court cases because it protects innocent people from being convicted....

Atheists and others CONSTANTLY bring up the argument from ignorance when it comes to abiogenesis "oh, no evidence doesn't mean its false"

Absolutely incorrect. An argument ad ignorantiam must assert A given the absence of evidence for not A. I make no such claim. I am asserting B, in favour of A. (Mind, this is me personally, an agnostic, not an atheist. If I were an atheist, then I would indeed be open to your charge. Regardless, you miss the point: to deny god simply because there is no evidence for not-god would indeed be foolish, only if there was no other option).

No, its not, I'm absolutely correct, your assertion is "something is improbable if its unverifiable" which doesn't make any logical sense, before electromagnetism was verifiable that didn't mean it was improbable, before atoms and electrons were verifiable that didn't mean they were improbable, thereby indicating that you're using EXACTLY an argument from ignorance...

You're not agnostic, you're a fake agnostic....otherwise you would simply say its unknown whether God, karma, heaven, hell, a soul, etc...exists but you say its improbable simply because its unverifiable, which is 100% irrational and illogical...

I lack the belief in the existence of god/gods because there is no evidence for such entities. I think it is possible that god/gods exist though I think it is unlikely.

Argument from ignorance

Think of a mythical beast that you think may have possibly existed at one time. I'm not mocking here, just trying to draw an analogy. Your opinion on that beast would be similar to my opinion on gods. Sure their existence is possible but, until there is evidence, I will lack the belief.

Not analogous...a mythical beast has completely different attributes, properties, and characteristics from God and also has no relation to existence or non-existence of God....its like a foolish man saying "well the theory of relativity must be false because some completely different theory, with absolutely no connection is false"

Faith is also unconditional trust (usually in an authority).

No, its defined as belief without evidence by atheists (like Dawkins) and theists alike...

This is typically how truth acceptance works amongst atheists:

...GENERIC IDEA OF GOD..................SPECIFIC CLAIM OF GOD
_________________________________________________
1 | Unknown.....................................Unknown
2 | Unknown.....................................False (based on evidence)
3 | Unknown.....................................False (based on faith)
4 | False (based on faith).................False (based on evidence)
5 | False (based on faith).................False (based on faith)

Most atheists (I would guesstimate in the 85%-95% range) fall under 1 and 2. The rest (a minority) fall under 3, 4, and 5.

For me, it was a good comprehension of subjective vs. objective, a good education, and the glaring absence of evidence + presence of contradictory evidence for all human claims of 'God'.[/QUOTE]
Whats the contradictory evidence?

Sorry you have it all wrong, an Atheist is not something that you so much are. Rather, it's something you are from a Theistic perspective. Ultimately the word only says what you're not, that the term "Theist" is not applicable to you.
the one, true definition of 'Atheist' is 'without belief'.

A-Theist.

The "A" prefix means without/non/aint got no.
As in....
Asexual=having no sex or sexual organs.(not a belief theres no sex organs)
Amoral=without morals.(not a belief it's not moral )
Apolitical=not political.(not a belief it's not political)
Atypical=not typical.(not a belief it's not typical)
Asymmetrical=not symmetrical.(not a belief theres no symmetry)
Atheist=not theist.(not a belief theres no god)

thats IT. no other assumptions can be made from it.

thanks to susan

Well I don't understand how it contradicts my definition...atheists have belief without evidence that there is no God...

3 lies.



3 more lies.

It's too bad you have to lie in an attempt to make your point.

Great faith-based attempts used in order to preserve the atheistic faith-based belief system...."oh you're just lieing, you're lieing, I can't explain why, but its a lie, its a lie, case closed"

ROFL!!!! These atheists crack me up so much

 

[Fathoms]

Based upon what?

Exactly. A faith vs faith debate is implicitly pointless and illogical. You can't really say one irrational belief is any meritorious than another. Although I do supsect that people who believe faith is a virtue really actually only mean THEIR faith is a virtue.

Correct.

So how do we decide which is the true proposition?

Absolutely.
Such is the way of the heathen.

Ah, so irrationality is only bad when it applies to people you don't agree with?

Very interesting. Your conclusion that atheism reveals a belief in magic is quite poignant. And yes, you are correct - atheists tend to be a superstitious minority overall. Good point.

Typically, its the religious people who believe they posses absolute truth, the mark of the truly delusional. Obviously infinite knowledge is a lot more than can fit into the the pithy gray matter sponge inside of our craniums, so the proposition of God is rather loaded, and should be backed up with something substantial. When people say they think the universe was designed by God, what they really mean is that at some point, a magical super being made magic happen using magic. There is no way to use science or reason to test the claim that God exists. He is an amorphous and vague abstract that can be continually revised in order to evade self-evident rebuttals to claims of his existence. We are all supposed to just marvel at the complexity of the world and fill any explananatory gap with God. I will admit that I can't say if this same principle holds true in your bizzaro world. In the meantime, I invite you to take reading comprehension classes.

 

[Nutter]

... Great faith-based attempts used in order to preserve the atheistic faith-based belief system....

The atheistic priesthood has been thoroughly indoctrinated with the dogmas and tenets of their faith. Men and women of such faith will tend to be rabid and fanatical at times, however, we will take this into consideration when graciously assessing their proclamations.

 

[superluminal]

Well, having been called a "fool" by VitalOne now for many a post, I feel I can safely say, VitalOne... you are a completely ignorant nutjob and are summarily dismissed.

Sam,

I beg you, please explain "This is God ---> ." to me.

To the rest of you desperately trying to convince yourselves that we atheists are "just as bad as you are" regarding your reliance on faith as your world view, I find your herculean insecurity highly amusing.

What's funny is that the theists here say, in a nutshell (as all of you do) "we rely on faith since our god is beyond evidence or proof". And we atheists accept that. Simple.

We atheists say, in a nutshell (as all of us do) "we do not rely on faith since claims without evidence or proof are meaningless to us.

Then the theists try to (incredibly ignorantly) redefine words like faith and belief and evidence and proof and reason to bring us down to their apparently much more comfortable level.

How absurdly disingenuous of you god-fearing theists. I think "cowardly" is an even better description.

We define ourselves (as atheists) so simply that only a liar or an idiot could misconstrue our stance. Nice company you keep there, theists.

 

[superluminal]

The atheistic priesthood has been thoroughly indoctrinated with the dogmas and tenets of their faith. Men and women of such faith will tend to be rabid and fanatical at times, however, we will take this into consideration when graciously assessing their proclamations.

You are a complete nutter.

 

[spidergoat]

Woah, none of that showed how your atheism isn't faith-based or based upon belief without evidence...I mean you didn't even show to even the slightest most remote extent...you just used the argument from ignorance again, like most atheists do...they really think evidence causes something to become true....

Its just like I said before if someone say the many-worlds interpretation is definitely true or definitely false its both faith-based or based upon belief without evidence, the fact that the many-worlds interpretation is unverifiable and untestable only indicates that there's no way of knowing if its actually true or false, so the logical stance is to say that its unknown whether its actually true or false....

Evidence doesn't cause something to be true, but it is cause for belief. Before there is evidence, it is only conjecture, or a compelling idea, or an hypothesis.

There is supporting evidence for abiogenesis; the nature of DNA, the implications of evolution, and the Miller-Urey experiments. Therefore abiogenesis is almost certainly true, but there is still the slightest possibility of it being false. Science follows a progression, so even though some details we now think are true may be disproven, in general the present consensus is more true than the past consensus.

I don't say theism is definitely false, only that it is most likely false. Just like I can't say for sure there isn't a teapot orbiting Mars, only that the idea is so outlandish, and so unsupported by even circumstantial evidence (a crazy rich astronaut obsessed with teapots), that it is unreasonable to believe it.

Frankly, very little in science is believed with 100% certainty, but there are degrees of certainty.

 

[superluminal]

Evidence doesn't cause something to be true, but it is cause for belief. Before there is evidence, it is only conjecture, or a compelling idea, or an hypothesis.

There is supporting evidence for abiogenesis; the nature of DNA, the implications of evolution, and the Miller-Urey experiments. Therefore abiogenesis is almost certainly true, but there is still the slightest possibility of it being false. Science follows a progression, so even though some details we now think are true may be disproven, in general the present consensus is more true than the past consensus.

I don't say theism is definitely false, only that it is most likely false. Just like I can't say for sure there isn't a teapot orbiting Mars, only that the idea is so outlandish, and so unsupported by even circumstantial evidence (a crazy rich astronaut obsessed with teapots), that it is unreasonable to believe it.

Frankly, very little in science is believed with 100% certainty, but there are degrees of certainty.

Hey, arachnid-bovine hybrid dude, how many ways do you think we can present this simple concept and still be "misunderstood"? 100? 1000? I'll start taking bets...

 

[spidergoat]

If they possessed the capability of understanding it, they wouldn't be religious in the first place. I actually have no objection to irrational belief, as long as it's recognized to be so, or if they don't seriously expect other people to believe it, too.

 

[superluminal]

If they possessed the capability of understanding it, they wouldn't be religious in the first place. I actually have no objection to irrational belief, as long as it's recognized to be so, or if they don't seriously expect other people to believe it, too.

Well said. My thoughts exactly.

 

[VitalOne]

Evidence doesn't cause something to be true, but it is cause for belief. Before there is evidence, it is only conjecture, or a compelling idea, or an hypothesis.

There is supporting evidence for abiogenesis; the nature of DNA, the implications of evolution, and the Miller-Urey experiments. Therefore abiogenesis is almost certainly true, but there is still the slightest possibility of it being false. Science follows a progression, so even though some details we now think are true may be disproven, in general the present consensus is more true than the past consensus.

No, there's almost no evidence for abiogenesis, Miller-Urey experiments show that amino acids can form...amino acids are VERY different from RNA and the molecular machines we find in cells, the fact that you ignore this in order to preserve your atheistic faith is amazing...."Let's just pretend its the same, we don't need no f*cking evidence, we know it could've happened...checkmate"

Also, its been over 50 years and no one has shown these things arising from spontaneous chemical reactions, they can't even show the supposed phases in between from inorganic matter into the first living cells....why is this? Your ignorance surely surpasses all limits....you're probably relying on old science, you know like how in the 1920s abiogenesis made perfect sense because we hadn't known anything about RNA or DNA or the molecular machines in cells...

I don't say theism is definitely false, only that it is most likely false. Just like I can't say for sure there isn't a teapot orbiting Mars, only that the idea is so outlandish, and so unsupported by even circumstantial evidence (a crazy rich astronaut obsessed with teapots), that it is unreasonable to believe it.

Frankly, very little in science is believed with 100% certainty, but there are degrees of certainty.

Woah, just when you think someone's ignorance can't rise to an even higher degree...

First of all teapots orbiting Mars is completely unrelated (to the very highest possible limit) to existence of God...its not analogous at all....you can verify if this was true using satellites or telescopes, plus an absence of evidence when evidence should be present is evidence of absence, atheists have yet to point out where there's an absence of evidence when there SHOULD be evidence present....I don't know where you or your foolish atheistic friends grasp the notion that the existence or non-existence of God is related to if teapots orbit Mars....I mean what if I had told you the theory of relativity was false because I don't believe in some other completely unrelated theory that had no connection to the theory of relativity? You would say, well that doesn't really show how the theory of relativity is false, its unrelated...

 

[spidergoat]

Many of my close friends are religious. My friend the escape artist almost died recently, he was in a coma for two weeks and had to get a pacemaker installed and his thyroid gland removed. He said the experience really brought him closer to God. I don't know what that means, but if it helps him, so what? (I didn't even suggest what he thought of the notion that God gave him the malfunctioning thyroid in the first place).

 

[VitalOne]

If they possessed the capability of understanding it, they wouldn't be religious in the first place. I actually have no objection to irrational belief, as long as it's recognized to be so, or if they don't seriously expect other people to believe it, too.

Woah, amazing...you know that your atheism is 100% irrational and illogical right?

Clearly you lack all ability to understand logic and rationality...you really believe unverifiability = false...

 

[shaman_]

Good point Nutter, I still say that Atheism/Evolutionism are religions.

Is not collecting stamps a hobby?

 

[superluminal]

Woah, amazing...you know that your atheism is 100% irrational and illogical right?

Clearly you lack all ability to understand logic and rationality...you really believe unverifiability = false...

Trolling crank.

 

[superluminal]

Is not collecting stamps a hobby?

No. Stamp collecting is clearly a religion by any logic you can dig out of theist statements here. Bathing is a religion too. As is collecting coins. Or home remodelling, or... Wait! Everything is a faith based religion! How foolish us atheists were for ever missing such an obvious fact!

 

[VitalOne]

No. Stamp collecting is clearly a religion by any logic you can dig out of theist statements here. Bathing is a religion too. As is collecting coins. Or home remodelling, or... Wait! Everything is a faith based religion! How foolish us atheists were for ever missing such an obvious fact!

haha...cheap attempt that doesn't discredit anything I said (not even to the smallest, most infinitesmal degree)....its another typical atheistic tactic...when you're unable to address something just ridicule something and pretend it discredits it...

 

[spidergoat]

There is more evidence, however circumstantial, that abiogenesis took place than there is evidence for the idea of God. The lack of a clear Theory of Abiogenesis is perhaps why scientists still have some doubt about it. The implication of evolution means that the idea that only a complex creator could have done it is incorrect. Simple chemical processes lead to complex animals. It is reasonable to assume that the origin of life is a similar process.

The teapot analogy works because we can't scan all of space yet to determine that it definitely isn't there. Unverifiability does not mean false. However, even if I can't prove the idea of God is false, it is similar to the teapot...obviously a human conception, obvious unlikely to be true, obviously stretches the imagination to the point of irrationality.

You are an atheist too, VitalOne. I could list hundreds of Gods that you probably don't believe in. I wonder why not?

 

[spidergoat]

Woah, amazing...you know that your atheism is 100% irrational and illogical right?

Clearly you lack all ability to understand logic and rationality...you really believe unverifiability = false...

99.9999% percent probability of being false is as good as false.

 

[shaman_]

Argument from ignorance

Argument from ignorance - "The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance" [1]) or argument by lack of imagination, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false or that a premise is false only because it has not been proven true."

I am not claiming that god doesn't exist. I am saying I will not believe that he does until there is evidence. Our opinions are really not the different VitalOne - You say that you neither believe nor disbelieve. I say (more accurately) that I don't believe until there is evidence and only then I will.

Not analogous...a mythical beast has completely different attributes, properties, and characteristics from God and also has no relation to existence or non-existence of God....its like a foolish man saying "well the theory of relativity must be false because some completely different theory, with absolutely no connection is false"

My analogy was not intended to prove/disprove god. I was trying to explain my position on gods in a way that a theist would identify with as they will have the same stance toward mythical beasts that may have existed.

But it is your analogy that does not hold. There is evidence to support the theory of relativity. If you wanted to compare two theories with zero supporting evidence then your analogy might be a valid one. My analogy is valid as I am comparing two entities which have (so far) zero evidence to support their existence. I'm not saying they never existed. I am saying I wont believe that either existed until there is evidence - which is the most rational approach.

No. Stamp collecting is clearly a religion by any logic you can dig out of theist statements here. Bathing is a religion too. As is collecting coins. Or home remodelling, or... Wait! Everything is a faith based religion! How foolish us atheists were for ever missing such an obvious fact!

Superluminal you are the only one who makes things clearer.

 

[VitalOne]

There is more evidence, however circumstantial, that abiogenesis took place than there is evidence for the idea of God. The lack of a clear Theory of Abiogenesis is perhaps why scientists still have some doubt about it. The implication of evolution means that the idea that only a complex creator could have done it is incorrect. Simple chemical processes lead to complex animals. It is reasonable to assume that the origin of life is a similar process.

There's also circumstantial evidence that God exists...I mean the same amount of circumstantial evidence that there was some intelligent cause behind reality is about the same amount of circumstantial evidence that abiogenesis occured..why don't you believe in an Intelligent Creator then? Its listed as 1/7 explanations for the anthrophic principle...

The teapot analogy works because we can't scan all of space yet to determine that it definitely isn't there. Unverifiability does not mean false. However, even if I can't prove the idea of God is false, it is similar to the teapot...obviously a human conception, obvious unlikely to be true, obviously stretches the imagination to the point of irrationality.

Actually, your analogy is still f*cked....first of all, its still true that teapots orbiting Mars has absolutely no connection to existence or non-existence of God....secondly we CAN have satellites there to see if teapots are orbiting Mars...it IS verifiable...so you're wrong all counts...

Also my point still stands, what if I told you I don't think the theory of relativity is true because I don't believe some other unrelated theory with absolutely no connection to theory of relativity is true? Does it show how the theory of relativity is false or unlikely to be true? NO IT DOESN'T, I wonder when these cheap atheistic fools will get this through their thick atheistic skull, I mean they've already ignored rationality, logic, and reasoning in place of personal incredulity "well you know it sounds like an imagination, it must be an imaginary fantasy then, it sounds like it, the way it sounds is all that matters...."

You are an atheist too, VitalOne. I could list hundreds of Gods that you probably don't believe in. I wonder why not?

Well if I don't believe in other gods its because they have different attributes, properties, and characteristics from the God I believe in....what an incredibly foolish argument...."I bet there's a lot of theories you don't believe in now. I wonder why not?"...you've now raised your argument to an even more foolish level

To summarize the atheistic tactic, you're using:
"Take two completely different things with innumerably different characteristics, properties, attributes, etc...and say 'Well if one isn't true, some how the other must not be either!!!!! Even though it makes absolutely no sense at all to say this, we can, why? Because we're atheists!!!'"

99.9999% percent probability of being false is as good as false.

Where'd you get that number from? "Oh let me see...whats a good number, oh I know!! 99.9999%....checkmate!!!"

Can you show me how you calculated this? If not, then please STFU