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Are we allowed to make controversial topics now?
...I'm thoroughly agnostic. It's more rational than atheism IMO- as long as there is any measure of uncertainty, and even the most staunch of atheists will admit there are limitations to the understanding that can currently be created through modern physics, provided they understand it, anyway. However, I remain exceedingly unconvinced by all religion as well, which often has even less logical proof.
And yes, atheism is a belief structure, so in that way it is essentially similar to a religion. It's a doctrine of disbelief, even if it fails to provide further guidance on how to live one's life.
So the disbelief in santa is a belief structure? Or faeries or unicorns or anything that we have no evidence for?
The most rational stand to take is to disbelieve something until proven otherwise, otherwise we would have all kinds of crazy beliefs. Null hypothesis.
Every rational atheist is agnostic atheist, ín the same way we are agnostic towards faeries, pixies, unicorns etc.
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.
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"
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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.
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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.
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