The last time we had this discussion, someone made the point that atheist and theist both have faith based world views. The key difference is the faith of the atheist is tenative while the faith of the theist is dogmatic. On the face there is some of truth in that point.

However, for many atheist in this forum their belief that God doesn't exist can best be described as dogmatic. Now I'm sure they would just come back and say that atheism doesn't mean one believes God does not exist, rather atheism means one has no belief in God.

I believe you have lied numerous times in this post.

Please just splash out on a dictionary and look up atheism.

any points in particular?

I seem to recall the last time we had this discussion, you ran away.

No matter how much you would prefer the contrary, 'atheists' are not some generic group with entirely consistent 'world-views'. Any perspective is 'faith-based' depending on how far out of its typical shape you're prepared to bend 'faith' - 'faith' that naturally observable effects follow their causes, 'faith' that there exists anything to observe, etc. It's 'faith' beyond the immediately intuitive that concerns this discussion. Atheism can be (and, in my experience, usually is) an absence of faith, on the specific question of a god. It doesn't need to be a belief in the absence of a god (this should be stickied IMO, would save some time).

Since you agree with this statement, I think all atheists could do us a favor on this board and specify exactly what their beliefs are every time. Otherwise, realize that debate is basically impossible if we don't know what we are debating against.

Josh

Your phrasing makes it difficult for me to understand. Is your sentence above a "yes/no" statement? Or is it "either/or"?

Meaning, is it:

1.) which do you believe....creationism or evolution guided by God?

or is it

2.) Do you believe in creationism (which is a synonym for evolution guided by God)?

I don't know what the working definition of "creationism" is on this forum, so I can't tell. I'm not trying to be difficult here....I really just can't tell.

Josh (who regrets that his lunch break is over)

Meaning, do you believe that the world was created ~6k years ago with man in his current form (or some variant of this, I suppose), or do you believe that evolution occurred over millions of years and was guided by God. I assume that you believe one of these as a theist.

"Beliefs" about what?

I don't think anybody cares what we believe individually. Apparently we're all a bunch of misguided nits who worship science like it was a religion because we never paid attention in Method 101 at college/uni.

Ok, in a nutshell the big bang theory states the universe has expanded from some smaller denser state. Thats it. There is nothing about a singularity or primordial atom exploding...those things are just stuff people made up.

As we model the unverse back into time we run into a little problem. That problem is the universe becomes so dense and so hot that General Relativity breaks down. Basically the laws of physics as we understand them stop working. When we model the universe(make our theory), we basically jumpstart it at the point where the laws of physics begin to work....not at the beginning(thats why our theory is testible and falsifiable).

Now some fools believe in an exploding singularity/ primordial atom because if you extrapolate back far enough thats the logical conclusion. But is it? They fail by not realizing that in order to extrapolate back you have to know the rules of the system.

Give those fools two points on a line and they will extrapolate it back as far as you want...so they say. However they can only extrapolate it back as long as the rule for a line is "A geometric figure formed by a point moving along a fixed direction and the reverse direction." Tell them that definition no longer works and they sit dumbfounded.

Belief that the universe "banged" is faith based. There is no evidence to support it, there is no logic to support it(for in order to have logic one must have working rules). If your world veiw is built upon "a Big Bang started the universe" its just as faith based as the belief that God did it.

Flame away guys. I await to be burned at the stake for "scientific heresy".

I would like to suggest that despite your professed love for science, you do not understand it as well as you think you do.

It is an unfortunate situation in this country and time that it is as trivial as it is to obtain a degree in almost anything without actually understanding the subject at a fundamental level. Your idea that the big bang theory is unfalsifiable is completely ridiculous. Perhaps you do not understand what falsifiable means. Perhaps you could answer a few questions for me: What evidence led to the suggestion of a big bang event as a "beginning" of our universe? What would have happened if, years later, this evidence was found to be faulty or to be explained by some other mechanism?

What evidence led to the suggestion of an omnipotent creator entity? What has happened, years later, when this evidence was found to be explained by science?

The difference between the answers to these two sets of questions is the difference between scientific rigor and religious dogma.

Er...if you really believe in the big bang then you believe that beyond a certain point you don't know what happened, its unknown.

Obviously if someone believes in some cartoon version of the big bang where they know exactly what happened and why - they are using blind faith just like someone believing goddidit.

Im saying if you believe in any version of the big bang(outside the actual big bang theory which state the universe expanded from a hotter denser state) that belief is faith based. This includes the belief that the universe had a beginning or creation moment.

How many atheist do you know out there who's beliefs end when plancks temperature is reached? Most have no idea what that is. Most will say the universe banged and before that everything was unknown. The believe some sort of actual bang occurred even though there isn't any evidence or logic to support it. Thats a faith based belief.

Conflating 'faith' with 'ignorance' is neither accurate nor helpful to your cause.

That some atheists have a faith based belief regarding <X> is rather uninteresting isn't it? You could pretty much just point out that there are religious atheists to make that case, since being an atheist does not mean you are not religious.

umm no, this would be taken figuratively, or have a different interpretation. There are many statements that have been proven false, they're just no longer taken literally.

Give me any atheists to examine and I'm sure I could find in him beliefs that are faith based. Atheists are hypocrites when they criticize theists for faith based beliefs. Faith based beliefs are part of the human condition. And another thing...they are idiots when they post signs like:



How can you say "there's probably no god..." without the ability to compute the probability of the existence of God? Thats like my dog telling me roulette is a winning game for the player. If becomeing and atheist means I have to be a hypocrite and an idiot I don't want any part of it.

I want to have a logical and consistent world veiw.

Can you clarify what 'beliefs' are not faith-based?


Are you some college kid's AI project? The analogy algorithm is seriously weak, if so.

Stu has advanced this argument before. In short, he often refuses to define what he means by faith, and when he doesn't, he uses a definition which most people find ridiculous.

Atheism doesn't give you a "logical and consistent" worldview or a "hypocritic and idiotic worldview" - it just means you don't believe in god - whatever beliefs you might hold can be genius or bloody stupid.

Go ahead and pick the definition of "faith" we will use Inlemur. My argument will still stand or you will look outlandish for putting forth such a ridiculous definition for the word.

What are you doing when you say you think there is less than 1% chance that the God you believe in exists? Sounds like assigning a probability to me.

Atheism connotes a denial of the existence of God. At the very least it holds an active belief in God to be an invalid world view. Now read my thread about the emergence of the Omega Point God. Its conclusions are derived from what we observe in this universe. So far nobody has really criticized it. To become an atheist would mean that I would have to consider such a world veiw to be an extreme remote possibility.

However that worldveiw appears to be as plausible as any other put forth. So to be an atheist I have to almost completely abandoned a set of plausible world veiws and assume one which is equally plausible to the one I just abandoned. That seems like a silly way to approach the world. Do you agree?

Obviously I was being silly there.

Also I figured it was going to be you to point that out.