Yep. It's a belief structure that forms the opposite to, say, a child that believes in Santa/Faeries/Unicorns/whatever-obscure-fantasy creature. It's a stance that such things are irrational, as there is no proof leading to their existence, and therefore don't exist. Regardless of whether or not the child is wrong, it is still a belief.

But that aside, belief structure concerning fundamental processes have a bit more wiggle-room since there is further possibility that they function beyond understanding. While it is fully within our ability to reject the existence of, say, Santa based on the assorted physical impossibilities involved, it is much more difficult to disprove, say, the Tao based on similar logic because it involves processes we don't have concrete rules for.

edit: Sorry Mams, I was typing this when you ended the thread.


Last edited by Crenshinibon at 8:20 am, Aug 26 2009

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Reviews of my Work:
You are kind of boring - Blackorion
Congratulations! Ur an asshole! - tokyo_homi
Your awesome!!! - Cherelle_Ashley
NightSwan also said that she wanted to peg me, once, but I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or a threat...

Humans are weak minded in most cases and that is why leaving the fate of ones hand in a supreme being who controls everything is comforting even if one hasn't seen or he hasn't revealed himself at all. Also, Man is a social animal and hence he has an innate ability to meld into the crowd. There is a hell lot of group solidarity in religion and this why it is soo convincing.

I am an atheist. I hate religion only for one thing. No seriously only one thing. Take this away and I will respect religion like all other institutions of faith.

That reason is the unquestionable respect that religion is entitled to by default. One questions it; then one is screwed. We atheist have to justify ourselves for everything that we say on behalf of atheism or against religion. If we can't then by default our virtues are false.

Religion on the other hand relies on so called holy books. Ask why and they say because it is said do in gods book. And at the end of it all if they can't justify themselves they say - "god works in mysterious ways" >.>

Hmm.... *thinks of something sensible to say*

......

......

I don't give a shit?

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~Point & Squirt~

You are my new god.
I am your manager though.

No its not a stance where we say such things are irrational and therefore they dont exist.
The stance is we dont have evidence for them therefore we dont believe in them. Atheists in general dont claim absolute knowledge that a supernatural being dosnt exist.
Atheists in general are only saying there is no evidence for one, therefore we dont believe in one.

Once again atheists dont claim to know there is no such a thing as a god, just that there is no evidence for one and therefore they dont believe in one.

I just want to point this out- you're defining religion pretty narrowly here, and based solely upon your own experience. Remember that religion comprises groups other than just Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and that each religion is only dominant in certain cultures. 60% of Japan claims to be irreligious (though we can debate the extent of that due to the celebration of various festivals of Shinto origin and whatnot). Obviously no one is going to question you if you say you don't believe in God there.

As to the foxhole comment.... humans are opportunists. In the last second it isn't so much that a person believes in God then as that they hope something might save them. There's nothing wrong with that stance, but given the state of mind you have to question whether or not it's simply a manifestation of survival instinct. As Mams said, they wouldn't do anything if they weren't culturally familiar with any belief system that said they would be saved if they performed action X.

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Reviews of my Work:
You are kind of boring - Blackorion
Congratulations! Ur an asshole! - tokyo_homi
Your awesome!!! - Cherelle_Ashley
NightSwan also said that she wanted to peg me, once, but I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or a threat...

Crenshinibon
I get the feeling you think every atheist is saying they know for sure there is no god, since there is no evidence for one.

This however is no the chase, the overwhelming majority are whats called agnostic atheists, they dont believe in a god since they havent seen any proof for one. This however does NOT mean that they "know" there is no god, they simply dont belive in one since there is no proof.

I dont tend to believe in things that i have no evidence of, however this does not mean i claim to know for sure those things are untrue just that i havent seen any evidence therefore i dont believe.

Again just like with unicorns, i dont claim to know for sure no such creatures exist(somewhere in he universe or whatever), but since i have no proof for them in dont believe in them, i guess that makes me a agnostic aunicornist.
However claiming for sure they dont exist would be quite a ridiculous position to take.

No, no, I am well aware of this. What you seem not to understand, however, is that it doesn't matter to me. The position is still fundamentally one of disbelief, and even if it is based on conjecture, I find it to be a less rational one for the reasons I have previously stated. I find it a fallacy to make assumptions about the way a given system functions without sufficient knowledge of it, and the crux of the argument is that as modern physics (or any other form of scientific law) cannot explain the base functions of the universe completely, it cannot be used to make a rational conjecture about what is or what is not possible solely concerning such matters- additional or altogether separate laws may apply.

My statements with the unicorn were still defining a belief system- I wasn't attempting to make a comparison to atheism necessarily, and I apologize if I inadvertently left it unclear enough for you to misinterpret it that way. I'm glad, however, that we do agree that making an absolute statement would be a fallacy.


edit: Just to clarify here, agnostic atheists do make a fundamental conjecture with a null hypothesis. A null hypothesis is based upon provable laws- we can say that things aren't possible to begin with because we have a set that would reject the possibility otherwise. The problem is that those laws do not extend to the matter of... I'll call it the divine for lack of a better word- I'm sure there is one but it's 1am here- as, once again, we do not understand how it functions, and thus the null hypothesis is an invalid technique for evaluation.

Last edited by Crenshinibon at 9:44 am, Aug 26 2009

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Reviews of my Work:
You are kind of boring - Blackorion
Congratulations! Ur an asshole! - tokyo_homi
Your awesome!!! - Cherelle_Ashley
NightSwan also said that she wanted to peg me, once, but I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or a threat...

so the court of law should disbelieve your innocence until proven otherwise?

rationally one should accept any ones beliefs and let it end there, unless you are in such opposition to those beliefs that you demand change, then fight for it.

atheists aren't concerned with the immaterial. agnostics are.

physics has very little to do with metaphysics. physics explains data, that's it.

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lets skip school

No in a court just like with faeries we should dissbelieve their guilt/existence until proven otherwise.

There is a big difference between accepting that someone believes as they do and with accepting that belief as truth. I dont have a problem with ppls beliefs.

Science deals with things we can actually observe which is a good thing.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike"



Just because science cant explain everything(yet ) dosnt mean we can invent an answer.
If something proves the laws of science to be wrong in some aspect they will be changed thats how science works nothing is set in stone and unchangable.

If we actually want to have a reasonable way to discern whats real from whats not we have to operate with the null hypothesis that a claim needs something to back it up before we can believe that its true. If we wouldnt require evidence for claims ppl could just invent stuff up and claim it as truth.

I fail to see the reason to believe there exists a divine being just because we cant explain everything. Thats exactly what humans have been doing since ancient times, "We cant possible explain how ligthing is formed so Zeus did it".
If someone finds some actual evidence for the existence of a god sure ill believe it, until then i dont see a reason to believe in one.
I dont really see the big difference between FSM, the invisible pink unicorn or god(any god). Without evidence and without using the null hypothesis to discern the claims you can come up with anything you want and claim it as truth.

Last edited by blakraven66 at 10:54 am, Aug 26 2009

I don't "deny the existence of a god just as strong as religious people accept the existence of a god" because the way I feel is really natural. I don't go around, looking for reasons as to why God doesn't exist, I just believe that(I couldn't believe even if I wanted to, and I have.) Although I know the reasons and will use them in a debate, but with a believer it's moot, because with God, everything's possible, except for what they believe is impossible, of course. Like ghosts. Or Santa.

I'm not in a club that worships science, I don't pass fliers out, I don't condemn people for what they believe or think their beliefs are silly etc., etc., etc....And you could say that I'm being stereotypical and generalizing, but that's the thing. So many people label themselves, and if you don't stand for that label, then don't wear it. Humans need words like Christianity, Atheism, Paganism, but just because you believe in God does not make you an automatic religionist. With religion comes rules. And if you say that's bull, then you must be one of the people that pick what they want from the bible and ignore the rest.

If you're religious, your God's word should be law, right? I know plenty of 'Christians' that don't even go to church. There's a difference between being religious and having a simple belief in God, right?

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Ok am I the only one who finds the first picture weird? Standart logic - we need prof we have prof, atheist logic we need prof, the religion can't give us prof, but atheism still is wrong. And no 2000 years old book is no a prof, I can give you 1000 year old book that states that children are stolen in the nights by evil woman who eat them, but somehow people don't think it's the truth anymore. Or better 6000 years old scriptures that point out completly different gods, what also seems to vanish from prof category.
Anyways there are too many crimes religions have commited, to have any kind of rights to talk about having one and true GOOD GOD.



Don't you feel like betreying your beliefs by celebrating Christmas? 24th december was centuries celebrated as a Roman festival for Saturn, an then due some godly coincidence Christians started celebrating Jesus birth at the very same date.

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"Computer games don't affect kids....
I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
/Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc, 1989

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind" That s what Einstein believes in, and it s not coincidental that Newton, Bohr and S. Hawking all put their belief in what we called "God". Until now, it looks like majority of those who have the furthest vision of this universe, are not atheists. I am on the winning side, lol

The thing is, belief actually corresponds to our conceptual map of logical deduction, and the figure of the Almighty can be strikingly different from the original notion.That is a distinct tendency of religion, well, in a scientific thinking anyway.The most obvious case is the Einstein and Bohr 's debate about whether God would let us know the position of our existence in space time, Einstein couldn't take no for the answer, meanwhile Bohr didn't care much about it, he only saw the answer in the quantum probability equation disregard the underlying reality.Then, "God won't let us know because he doesn't know,either", that is what reality told us,lol the man who doesn't care, won.

I am not an atheist, well, but my figure of an Almighty isn't clear either. It s kind of a vague conclusion but anyone whose belief and intuition can reinforce their reasoning,is respected by me.
"The only real valuable thing is intuition" o_o well, you need to get the insight of a theory and you will see, what being stated is actually 65% correct.

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I really didn't want to post here, but what the heck...
Neither of the poll choices is reasonable enough...

I have nothing against "faith" or "belief".
People are entitled to a free mind, so they should use it.
What I don't agree with is religion, but that's a different story...

I don't believe in god. Especially not in a single god...
I've stopped trying to name or group myself, because I
honestly don't care.
Call it however you want.


Commenting on the posts here will just make me sound offensive, so I'll refrain from that.




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Hrodulf and Bjornolfr, you will not be forgotten.

And if the world were black and white,
you would be my rainbow in shades of grey.

Click 'n Play!

If I had a fantasy self, it'd be a tentacle monster.

My thoughts? Hm. I suppose prefer Antireligion more than Atheism.



Haha, same here. I don't feel like making anyone hate me today.

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