Because even what we know may not be true. There's no reason to stop asking questions.
Why the belief?
- Thread starter praty
- Start date
The beliefs of some atheists may be faith, but you can't lump them all together. Which you persist in doing.
There is no "atheist philosophy, worldview, dogma or religion".
There is plenty of "atheistic philosophies, worldviews, dogmas or religions".
Why not? What can we hope to gain by continuing to ask questions?
Deeper understanding? :shrug:
What they all have in common is that they are atheists.
From a particular theistic perspective, that makes them all part of the same group, the differences being merely superficial. So from that perspective, those theists are right.
The question is why that perspective should be accepted as the ultimate one.
To what end?
Yup.
Except that Jan is wrong. As has been pointed out numerous times to him.
Knowledge for its own sake?
Why bother knowing anything?
So we can stop asking the same stupid questions again and again perhaps.
That's what I am asking you.
Me personally?
A mix of knowledge for its own sake and to improve my understanding of the world and how it works. Trying to get some sense out of it.
Nope. It's not faith, it's a reasonable conclusion based on the lack of evidence. It's also not absolute, atheists are open to evidence and are active participants in the dialogue.
Correct, they all share precisely one characteristic: they all lack a belief in God.
The differences are far from being superficial... some are religious: some not; some believe that God does not exist: some do not.
These two aspects alone are far from being "merely superficial" and thus why the grouping of atheists into one, and then to argue against the whole on the basis of an attribute that only some of them hold is fallacious.
You are in error to believe that jan, faith is never on the driving seat for atheism. Faith isn't required for not believing in supernatural, it requires only logical and scientifically oriented thinking. Science replaces private prejudice with publically verifiable evidence. We have faith in what other scientists say because we know their paper went through changes, revisions, criticism and thorough peer review.
Your idea of ''lack of evidence'' is insufficient as it cannot bring you to the platform of KNOWING whether or not God exists.
Your belief that your conclusion is ''reasonable'' is nothing but your own opinion, based on the idea that there lacks evidence, which neither here nor there in deciphering what IS and what IS NOT.
In short, you have no idea whether or not God exists, so your belief is based squarley on [blind] faith.
jan.
I agree.
But some theists do not seem to care about that. I don't know what to do in such a case ...
praty,
I agree that it doesn't have to be, but the type of atheism represented here is, for the most part.
Where is the logic, science, or oriented thinking, that shows the idea of God not existing, is superior to the idea of God existing?
How have you arrived at this conclusion via these disciplines?
That's not disputed.
We are discussing the existence of God.
Where are the scientific papers on this subject matter?
What has science revealed to us, that should convince us that God does NOT exist?
jan.
I agree that it doesn't have to be, but the type of atheism represented here is, for the most part.
Where is the logic, science, or oriented thinking, that shows the idea of God not existing, is superior to the idea of God existing?
How have you arrived at this conclusion via these disciplines?
That's not disputed.
We are discussing the existence of God.
Where are the scientific papers on this subject matter?
What has science revealed to us, that should convince us that God does NOT exist?
jan.
I don't know whether God exists or not, but there is no evidence for it, so it's unreasonable to assume it does. That's how reason is used to come to a tentative conclusion. This is reasonable with regard to a God apart from any religion.
When we start talking about specific ideas of God, such as the Abrahamic God, we can be much more certain.
You mean Occam's razor?
It is not the idea per se, but the redundancy of the idea.
In the human psyche the idea of God existing has certainly shown itself to be far "superior" but that speaks only for the idea and not the actuality.
For many it is the utter absence of God within what science has produced from its earliest days to the current day that leads them to their conviction.
For others, such an absence merely leads them to the rational conclusion not hold the belief that God exists, but are open to the possibility, however remote they might think it is or is not.
But I'm sure the lack of scientific papers on the non-existence of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy means you still believe in those?