I (Dave — John apparently wants to make it clear I’m the one who posted this) consider myself a devout athiest who came to it as a teenager after studying science, history, religion, the history of religion (something very few people learn about–quite eye opening), sociology, psychology and many other fields. Put it all together and I had the how and why religion developed, plus a more plausible, observable explaination of the universe to replace the theory that an invisible being created the universe. No God, god or gods required.
Atheists Put Their Faith In Ethical Behavior
Melissa and Chanse nibble on club sandwiches and french fries at a local coffee shop. To look at them, they’re just another young couple enjoying lunch on a weekday afternoon.
She wears stylish glasses, and her thick black hair is swept up in a ponytail; the only hint of a slightly rebellious streak is the tattoo that peeks from under her shirtsleeve. He is a slight, soft-spoken man with a laid-back demeanor and a full beard.
Melissa and Chanse are young atheists. They don’t believe in God. As such, they’re part of a small but substantial minority that swims against the overtly religious mainstream of America, a spiritual tenor that has grown more strident in recent times as issues of faith increasingly become entangled with politics and public policy.
“Right now, the fastest-growing religious identity in America is the nonreligious,” says Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).
Dave sez:
For those who think athiests believe in nothing, make sure to read the whole article.
I understand Galileo wasn’t very religious. He played along with following the Gospels as his sponsor and protector was the Pope. Failure to follow the church, in those days, was an invitation to the Inquisition, which Galileo was subjected and survived only through his sponsor.
Einstein was in a very difficult position. Though not as pronounced as during the 1950s, the “red menace” required all Americans to believe in God. To hold his position at Princeton he had already had the strike against him of being a Jew, he couldn’t risk being an atheist too.
I can’t comment on the others as I know too little of their lives. I did notice though that Chuck Darwin wasn’t included. Most religious converts like to promote Darwin as a religious guy. I also notice that Brother Mendal, who started the whole genetics field, is also missing. And he was a member of a religious order!
I think it is a false argument to categorically assume all scientists are atheists and all religious observers don’t do science. There might be a propensity for one over the other, but not a rule.
Here is the latest in non-athiest practices. When what you’re preaching just ain’t enough anymore.
http://www.wftv.com/sports/8141328/detail.html
I’m not trying to bust your balls Paul, but these scientist:
galileo
blaise pascal
johan kepler
james clerk maxwell
john von neumann
isaac newton
Lived during a time when the idea of there being a God was as much “fact” as the sun rises each day. I *think* for many of those scientist it never even crossed their minds that there might not be a God. They were expected to believe in God, and in some cases it was the law.
Now I’d like to see a list of great *modern* scientist that believe God.
On another note, I think it’s funny this is posted now, because I was just watching, and probably many of you were, the Nightline report on Kurk Cameron and Ray Comfort.
http://www.wayofthemaster.com/
Geesh, those are the kind of religious people that scare me. It’s not so much what they’re saying, as the look in their eyes, and their expressions. They look a bit loony.
Paul – Personally I like Diet Dr. Pepper. Not much diet taste there either. Must be something about root beer style sodas that cover up the artificial taste.
Cory >> I’ve been an atheist all my life, but I can’t say that the atheists I’ve known (including my parents) were much more logical or wiser than people of faith.
THANK YOU for saying that. I have been a religious person all my life and I can’t say that religious persons have an special superior qualities either.
Like I said in an earlier post, I believe that perception of spiritual reality is part of our brain structure. My perception of a spiritual world and your lack of perception is probably nothing we can ultimately control.
Now you probably think I’m deluded and I think you’re missing out on a valuable human experience. But it doesn’t inherently make one of us better than the other.
With a little humility, both worldviews can instruct each other. Einstein, of all people, has some terrific things to say about this.
Paul – Einstein was born more than 20 years before the turn of the century. The 20th century. I’d hardly call him “modern”. Besides:
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
Einstein believe in the idea of “mother nature” more than God. And his idea of mother nature is simply the way in which the physical world works. Physics, science, etc.
This coming from a man born during a time when most people were deeply religious, and yet he was borderline agnostic.
If he was born 50 years later, I’m confident he’d be atheist.
If you wish to make a convincing argument to people, you shouldn’t start your exposition with a giant load of crap. Apparently, while other teenage boys were busy trying to get into the pants of the opposite sex, you were preparing your doctoral thesis on religion and its negative effect on society. You “who came to it as a teenager after studying science, history, religion, the history of religion (something very few people learn about–quite e’ye opening), sociology, psychology and many other fields.” Gee Dave, for most people, that would be life’s work study. You apparently came to your conclusions before you even hit twenty. Really nice to have that out of the way so early in life. Even more so, if what you say is true and you came to your conclusions as a teenager, then I say you are intellectually stunted. I believed many things as a teenager that I now know are full of crap. All people do. We lack the historical personal perspective to make informed intellectual decisions. But apparently, you are still trying to live in that teenage world and cling to your prior glory. Dave, don’t mock other peoples belief systems because you disagree with them.
You are just lucky you live in a country that believes in freedom of religion. If you lived in the middle east right now, who I might add liberals such as yourself believe are being persecuted by the current administration, you would be currently dead for lacking to acknowledge the existance of Alla and various other prophets.
“Dave, don’t mock other peoples belief systems because you disagree with them.”
John, don’t mock my beliefs just because you disagree with them.
I’m 51 now and everything I have seen, read, done, etc since being a teenager has done nothing except confirm the conclusions I reached then.
I’m curious where you think I’m mocking anyone else’s religion. I simply stated what I believe. Pointing out issues in another’s beliefs is not attacking, it’s what I would consider healthy discussion. If your beliefs are threatened by my stating mine, that’s not my fault. Should I withhold my opinions while ‘believers’ are free to state their’s?
And yes, I am thankful for living in a country where I can choose not to believe in what those in power want me to believe in.
@John H – I don’t know where you stand on the subject, or whether I agree… but well said! 🙂
– Sean
Babaganoosh,
>Thomas (#86) What then, would you say is the difference
> between an atheist and an agnostic? I usually sum it up like this:
That’s my point. There really is no such thing as an agnostic. In science, there is no such thing as hypothesis that “might” be true. Either a hypothesis is proven true or it is rejected as false. It can be false for a host of reasons including reasons as yet unknown but it is still considered false nonetheless. If you accept that the god claim might be true ignoring that there is no evidence to support it, then you are really a theist in disguise. As I said, it all comes down to whether you require evidence to accept the god claim. If yes, then you are an atheist. If no, then you are a theist of some sort.
“Now I’d like to see a list of great *modern* scientist that believe God.”
It’s not a list, but … “Can A Smart Person Believe In God?” – Michael Guillen – holder of 3 PhDs and former professor of Theoretical Physics at Harvard.
http://tinyurl.com/hoglm
“the only troll here is you, steve… you’re a jackass.”
Can you explain why I’m the troll and why I’m the jackass?! “American Soldier” started this entire discussion back in comment 43 when he said that all atheists are “miserable and cranky.”
All I did was disagree?! I gave reasons for my disagreement. Is that somehow worthy of “trolling” nowadays?!
You’re trolling because you’re sticking your nose in a disagreement between me and “American Soldier.” I’ve explained my reasons, i.e., atheists only have this life, so we cherish it. While religious nuts are too busy running around killing people to have any sort of fun, because they think their true reward is in the afterlife.
Show me an atheist who flies airplanes into buildings killing innocent people. Who kills abortion doctors. Who blows up federal buildings. Who protests against gay rights at funerals.
If you disagree. That’s fine. But when you continue disagreeing and name calling, you’re a troll.
> so, tell me. has einstein’s theory simply
> not existed for the past 80 or however
> many years it’s been, because it has been neither
> proven true, nor false?
Paul, I think it is you that is showing a bit of scientific ignorance. First, many of Einstein’s hypotheses have been proven prior to this experiment. Second, if you build something based on one of Einstein’s unproven hypotheses and it works, it adds credence to the accuracy of the given hypothesis even if you cannot test the hypothesis directly. Third, even if your device works, Einstein may have been right for the wrong reasons. As you mentioned, many inventions have been built based on the guess that one of Einstein’s unproven hypotheses was accurate. We may yet discover that Einstein was not entirely correct in one or more of his hypotheses but we will never know for sure without empirical evidence.
If you present me with one of Einstein’s hypotheses and ask if I accept it to be true, I would say, “Not yet.” (Notice that does not mean, “Not ever” or “Not at all”). If you show me a tangible, working device based on the guess that said hypothesis is correct and again ask if I accept it as true, I would say that it is certainly more probable to be true, but we do not know for certain. There may be a host of other reasons why said device worked but it certainly looks promising.
> sheesh. there’s easily hundreds of thousands of hypotheses
> that “might* be true or false – they simply haven’t been
> tested yet. if hypotheses could only exist in a true/false
> state, then there wouldn’t be a little thing called
> “discovery”.
I’m sure there are billions if not an infinite number of hypotheses that “might” be true but have not been tested. “There “might” be an Easter Bunny” is an example. Until they are validated in some fashion, I withhold acceptance. Otherwise, any claim can be accepted without the slightest shred of evidence.
Further, you seem to be under the mistaken assumption that atheists completely discard anything which cannot be proven. Just as everyone else, every unproven claim is evaluated across continuum of truthfulness probabilities. Discovery is the process of evaluating those unproven hypotheses to determine which ones are true, which ones are false and which ones we simply don’t know one way or the other. However, to those in the later category, we should not accept them as true until we have evidence.
Unknown has a very real place in the world of an atheist. Thus, to the god claim, an atheist withholds acceptance until scientific evidence is presented. A non-theist (i.e. a theist) accepts the god claim even though no scientific evidence is available. Thus IMO, agnosticism is a subset of theism.
> a great many atheists are in fact
> hostile to the idea of god (for reference, see a good part
> of this very thread).
I suspect it would be more accurate to say that they (we) are hostile to the imposition of a god(s) creature belief.
> so, it’s not entirely accurate to say
> that ‘an atheist withholds acceptance until scientific
> evidence is presented’. i’d bet folding money there are
> many atheists that would reject any evidence if it were
> produced that proved the existence of god, because the
> belief that there is no god is just that – a belief. and
> people cling to their beliefs, even when shown that the
> beliefs are wrong (witness the many cases through history
> where someone has exposed a charlatan, and that person is
> cast out, rather than the charlatan).
To say that atheists would not accept a god claim even if empirical evidence were provided because they do not have faith is circular logic. Atheists reject the god claim because said evidence is lacking. If evidence were provided, then atheists (and theists for that matter) would most certainly “believe.” While it is true that people have rejected verifiable claims, you would have to agree that god claims most certainly do not fall into this category.
Further, if we can use empirical tools to detect, and establish the existence of said god(s) creature it is by definition part of the natural world. Thus, if someone were to provide such evidence it would be accurate to say that atheists would reject the notion that said god(s) creature was supernatural.
> i’m afraid i don’t understand your penultimate sentence. a
> non-theist accepts the god claim? backwards if you ask me.
It is actually quite simple. Atheists do not accept god(s) claims as there is insufficient evidence to establish their veracity. A theist is someone that accepts one or more god claims irrespective of evidence to support said claim (i.e. they have “faith” that they are true). Therefore, an agonistic can only really fall into one of two camps. If they think that there is insufficient evidence to support the various god(s) claims, even if they wish to keep their mind open to the possibility that those claims may eventually prove true, they are actually an atheist (for now). If they think that there is something out there even if it cannot be proven, then they are actually a theist (for now).
> of course, this all turns on the definition of god. and of
> course, many of the arguments against the ‘existence’ of
> god fail miserably when forced to define their terms.
Agreed. The greatest weakness in the god claim is a formalized definition of what this god thing is in the first place. When presented with this question, theists generally resort to “begging the question” type arguments.
Well I just had to see if this thread was still going. Sure enough, it is. Actually, it should be taken up in another forum somewhere, because I do really enjoy a good political / religious debate.
> a great many atheists are in fact
> hostile to the idea of god (for reference, see a good part
> of this very thread).
Thought I’d throw in my own two cents here. It’s because I’m atheist that I most certainly have no hostility towards God, or the idea of God. That wouldn’t make much sense now would it? Having hostility towards something you don’t believe exists, and if it did exists, wouldn’t change things.
However I do have some hostility towards organized religion. And it has nothing to do with their beliefs, it’s simply hostility towards any large organization that prays on people’s weakness in order to make themselves more powerful.
– Sean
Paul, you’re being obsessive about this. Are we getting to you?
I hate to do the reductio thing — especially since I sort of feel I’ve addressed this to you before. There is no scientific evidence of something ever coming from nothing. There isn’t anyone I’ve ever heard or read of — other than a psychotic or a believer who claims to have witnessed something coming from nothing.
But, then, you’re back to the three accepted steps of the scientific method: is this phenomenon measurable? It would have to be if something is the end result from nothing. Is it verifiable? Bringing in objective systems of measurement and record. Is it reproducible?
Yet, that is the philosophic root of ALL religions. No one else has to prove that a phenomenon DOESN’T exist.
RE: “god-creature”
You are obsessing about minutia. We have to have some means by which we can describe the thing in question. Most religions describe their deity(s) in anthropomorphic terms and thus the extension of “creature” is loosely applicable. However, I’ll grant you that there are religions such as deism which ascribe no such characteristics. How about god-thing/entity/phenomenon?
> heisenberg’s uncertainty makes it even harder to delineate
> the boundary between exists and doesn’t exist.
This is a misrepresentation of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Simply put, his principle merely states that there is a limit to knowing two things about a particle with accuracy: velocity and position. His principle says nothing about determining whether the particle exists for example. Before one can devise an existence test of course, we must first define that for which we are searching and that leads us back to what is this god-thing/entity/phenomenon which differentiates theists from atheists.
> the atheist denies that god exists in other words, rejects the idea that god exists
It would be more accurate to say that atheists reject the claim that such a thing exists based on lack of evidence just has scientific hypotheses are rejected for lack of evidence.
> can you imagine what would happen if a scientist stated
> that he was going to search for evidence of god? he’d be
> ridiculed
The primary reason for that ridicule is that he would be required to define exactly what he meant by “god”. Furthermore, in order to be scientific, he would have to establish that this god-thing/entity/phenomenon exists using purely empirical means. If that scientist were successful, said god-thing/entity/phenomenon would no longer be considered supernatural.
> you claim something doesn’t exist. but you refuse to look for it.
Here is your fundamental mistake. Atheists are not making any claims. Instead, they reject the evidence to support the theist claim about the existence of this god- thing/entity/phenomenon. The burden of proof always rests on the claimant. Thus, the burden of proof is on theists who are making the claim that this god-thing/entity/phenomenon exists in the first place. That is how science and critical thinking work.
> likewise, the greatest weakness of the rejection of god
> claim is a formalized definition of what god is in the
> first place. when presented with the question, atheists
> generally resort to argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy.
You are mistaken. This is a weakness of the theist claim. The onus is on the theist to establish that their god-thing/entity/phenomenon exists. Atheists are merely stating that so far all such theist claims have provided insufficient evidence to establish their veracity and thus are rejected.
“re 89, you’re repeating yourself. you already made those arguments.”
Yes I am. Much in the same way a parent repeats himself when speaking to a child who just doesn’t get it. The parent hopes that if he says it enough, just maybe a light will go off in the child and an understanding will take place.
All I want to know why I’m the troll even though someone else started the side discussion (or digression, however you want to put it.) If someone can irrationally criticize all atheists, why am I the troll for defending myself?!
Paul, just a little time out from the flaming. I wanted to email you directly but could not find an address on your site. I have NOT been deleting comments. There appears to be a bug in our server and my comments have been disappearing, even when I’m acting rationally! Sorry for the confusion.
And just to clear things up, I really don’t think all religious people are murderers or unhappy. I was just messing with American Solider when you got in the way. My full apologies please! I shoudn’t have carried it so far!
Yogurt and berries.
Oh I hope everyone isn’t apologizing and becoming friends now. Things were just starting to get good!