First of all, I have more in common with atheists than religious people, so my intention isn’t to come here and attack, I just want to hear your opinions. Maybe I’m wrong, I’d like to hear from you if I am. I’m just expressing here my perception of the movement and not actually what I consider to be facts.
My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth. I do agree that the concept of a God is hard to believe logically, specially with all the incoherent arguments that religions have had in the past. But saying that there’s no god with certainty is something I’m just not comfortable with. Science has taught us that being wrong is part of the process of progress. We’re constantly learning things we didn’t know about, confirming theories that seemed insane in their time. I feel like being open to the possibilities is a healthier mindset, as we barely understand reality.
In general, atheism feels too close minded, too attached to the current facts, which will probably be obsolete in a few centuries. I do agree with logical and rational thinking, but part of that is accepting how little we really know about reality, how what we considered truth in the past was wrong or more complex than we expected
I usually don’t believe there is a god when the argument comes from religious people, because they have no evidence, but they could be right by chance.
Congratulations, you’re an agnostic
My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth.
Atheism is not about truth, it is about belief. Atheists do not believe there are gods.
If an atheist says that it is an absolute truth that there are no gods, they are an atheist, but also a gnostic. Gnostics claim to know essentially unknowable things as truths.
OK, it still seems like taking sides to me when there’s no evidence one way or the other. I’d just say “I don’t know” and move on. No need to take sides on something that I’m clueless about, like what’s reality or its origins.
A human believing that God’s don’t exist based on reason is totally irrelevant, considering how limited human knowledge and reason is in these matters.
There is no third position here. You have to know whether or not you believe something. Either you believe it or you don’t.
Either you believe unicorns exist or you don’t. You can’t not know whether or not you believe they exist. You can not know whether or not they exist, but that is a different thing.
You have to know what you believe because it’s what you believe.
I think you can’t say this is a rule for every scenario. “Believe or not believe” seems to be an opinion of yours that I’m personally not bound to. I’m fine just accepting I don’t know something that is clearly outside of the grasp of my rational thought or logic.
I’m not sure why you guys keep comparing the existence of a god with unicorns or leprschauns. But ok, I’ll play along. Do I believe there are unicorns in earth? No, we have a pretty good understanding of the land of this planet. If you said “they live in another dimension” I’d just dismiss that because whoever said it has no clue about what “another dimension” is.
Bernard Russell used a teapot in space analogy to show that belief in something that may or may not exist and isn’t tangible to living doesn’t seem to be worth investing the effort of belief in.
Carl Sagan had a quote, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.
Christopher Hitchens had his own: “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
All of these are open-minded observations that can be easily changed with evidence that supports the religious claims. Which are lacking.
I agree with all of them. I feel both sides have the problem of belief. “May or may not exist”, as you said.
“Believe or not believe” seems to be an opinion of yours that I’m personally not bound to. I’m fine just accepting I don’t know something that is clearly outside of the grasp of my rational thought or logic.
Whether you believe something or not is not outside the grasp of your rational thought. Just… answer the question. That’s all it takes to know if you believe something, you take a moment to introspect and you say whether you believe it or not.
There’s also a difference between lacking a belief in a proposition and believing in the negation of that proposition. Lacking a belief in something (for example, any particular god) is not the same thing as believing that that god does not exist. Both are atheism, they’re just different kinds of atheism. “Strong atheism” and “weak atheism” are the usual terms to distinguish between them.
I’ll play along. When I ask myself that question I immediately answer “I don’t believe”, just because I’ve conditioned myself to answer that over the years. The same way I answered “I believe” when I was conditioned during my childhood.
My point is that choosing sides is a fallacy, it’s something very human though. Over the past years I’ve realized that I don’t need to take sides and that I’m better off accepting when I just don’t know something, just avoid having opinions about matters that I can’t understand.
But yes, I still answer “I don’t believe” internally. Hopefully I’ll learn to turn “I don’t know” into my instinctual answer.
You seem to think if you believe something, you have to hold that belief for a length of time before it becomes a belief. That’s not how believing things work.
If you don’t believe that there is a god for 10 seconds and then start believing again, you are an atheist for 10 seconds.
I honestly didn’t understand what you said there. I don’t believe a person needs to hold a belief for some time for it to be valid. Not sure how you arrived to that conclusion.
I just said that my instinctual answer isn’t one that matches my worldview clearly. When I say “I don’t believe” I actually mean “I have no belief/I don’t know”. I just need to train myself to say “I have no belief” which represents what I feel much better and with less ambiguity.
“Knowing” and “believing” are two separate things. There are plenty of theists who would say “I don’t know that god exists but I believe that it does.”
Yeah, in this case believing anything is worthless because we don’t understand the origin of reality. That’s my point. It’s fine to believe something when enough evidence has shown it is likely the case. It is not fine to believe something is true without evidence, or false because of lack of evidence. Specially when gathering evidence about it is nearly impossible with our current understanding.
Maybe the humble thing to do is to wait until we gather more evidence that supports or rejects these ideas.
Of course it’s a rule of every scenario. It’s a binary. There is no third position just like there is no third position between breathing and not breathing. You either believe something or you don’t. If you accept that you don’t know something, you can still believe it’s true. You can also believe it isn’t. You keep confusing belief and knowledge.
Again, not sure where that “it is binary” affirmation comes from. Is that what you believe? Or do you consider that to be an absolute truth?
There are some many things I honestly have no beliefs about. It’s like I’m a walking counterargunent to your affirmation.
Do I believe we live in a simulation? I honestly don’t know and I don’t know what to believe because I have no idea how reality works. Maybe? Maybe not? I honestly have no idea. How can I know if reality is real? I don’t know.
Is there a god? I don’t know. The question is too deep and if I said yes or no I’d be just guessing because I do not understand reality like that. There are things I do understand… how reality was created isn’t one of them.
There are some many things I honestly have no beliefs about.
That would be a lack of belief.
I honestly don’t know
For the hundredth time, knowledge is not belief.
Understanding is also not belief.
There is no end to things that may exist but are not provable. Where do you draw the line? There might be a toaster orbiting the sun.
Based on our understanding of human history, we KNOW that toasters were created on earth and that it is unlikely one is in orbit on the sun… This is based on knowledge. Even if based on knowledge, I could be wrong.
Now, what do you KNOW about the creation of the universe or the nature of reality?
This is my whole point. I’m not saying it is wrong to have solid opinions about some things. I’m saying it is wrong having solid opinions about things we really don’t understand.
There is no precedence for the existence of deities.
For belief in deities, yes, but not for their existence.
That is all we need to say if we believe in the existence of deities; prior plausibility.
Staying in the middle ground of “maybe, we don’t know” makes no sense, because it puts the plausibility one step further towards “yes” than is warranted based on the evidence we have.
“There is no precedence for the existence of deities”
What makes you think humans have the capacity to perceive or understand deities?
It feels like you guys are really not understanding my point. Please put human existence into perspective and tell me how much we really know. Now, how much is there to know?
It’s like a blind person saying color doesn’t exist because he can’t experience it. You see? Humans will live and die in the relative blink of an eye. Chances are we won’t really get to know what’s actually going on. Right now we don’t really know, so having any opinion about what’s happening based on lack of evidence is really pointless. We have no evidence for most things that are actually happening in the universe.
Sorry for my very late response.
In your example of color, there are people who can, and people who can’t see colors.
Is there any analogy between that and god belief?
Not just belief, because anyone can believe anything. I mean knowledge, or sensory input.
If no one can sense (detect) deities, then how can anyone say that there is one?
And if we can’t say that there is one, why would it be unreasonable to conclude that there probably isn’t one?
That is all I as an atheist believe. That, lacking any evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that there probably aren’t any deities.
All this talk about it being beyond our understanding sounds like begging the question if you can’t demonstrate it.
Yes, it is unreasonable to conclude anything when the subject is so out of our reach.
My point is that human perception, intelligence and understanding of the universe is comparable to a blind person and colors. Just because a blind person doesn’t perceive colors or has evidence of its existence, doesn’t mean that colors don’t exist. Just because humans aren’t intellectually capable of understanding the origin of the universe and the existence of a creator, doesn’t mean a creator doesn’t exist.
This whole “there’s no evidence” isn’t an absolute statement, it’s more like “humans haven’t gathered the evidence”. Humans haven’t gathered evidence for most of the things that are actually happening in the universe, and they are happening. We’re miniscule. We’re so small that we’re trapped in the observable universe, which is probably miniscule itself.
Yet, we stand tall and say aloud “I firmly believe this doesn’t exist because we, humans, haven’t experienced it”.
I hope you see my point now. An ant has no evidence of black holes, yet, they are. Yes, we have no evidence. No, we shouldn’t BELIEVE something based on lack of evidence.
The thing I love about science is that it is a tool, it isn’t concerned with questions such as “does God exist”. Atheists use science as the basis for a belief that not even scientists are concerned with. Science is a practical tool to increase our knowledge, it doesn’t take a stand on matters outside of it’s reach. Science doesn’t say “there are probably no gods because there’s no evidence”. That belief is not a direct result of the evidence we have gathered, that’s just atheism thinking science and evidence have more power than they do.
So again, yes, it is unreasonable to conclude something besides “I don’t know”.
So there is actually a valid critisism of Russel’s teapot, or toaster in this case, that there could be a detectable causality that put the object in orbit even if the object itself cannot be observed (such as a rocket to deliver it). However, this (minor) flaw in a popularized analogy does nothing to reject what the analogy represents: A stupid idea that cannot really be falsified, even though it is false (see what I did there?).
Atheist do not carry any belief in not believing (this even sounds stupid). We simply have come to the conclusion that there is no basis for believing in any particular denomination, nor some unspecific general one for that matter.
Yeah, I guess it really comes down to semantics.
Does “I don’t believe” mean “I believe there is no god” or “I don’t have a belief”? I think there is a very important distinction here. The first one says “based on my experience, I think it is unlikely there is a god”. The second one says “I really don’t believe anything about it, one way or the other”.
My point targets the first one. The experience and evidence built by humans is just relatively insignificant… This is my problem with this line of thought. “There is no evidence” doesn’t give any degree of confidence at all when it comes to this matter. There no evidence for most of the things that make reality exist, and yet here we are.
Atheists mean by the second that they find as little material basis for believing in god as in [insert whack theory here (teapot, spaghettimonster, etc.)]. We do make a judgement one way or the other, we say that our default position is not believing literally incredible things without proof.
The bar for what needs to be proven unless assumed false is higher the more that is claimed. Since god (especially to monotheistic denominations) are by definition the highest being claimed to exist, there is a huge burden of proof required for believing in it. Since there exists none, we choose to assume that the statement is false.
The reason we make all these stupid analogies is to hammer through the point that we, like everyone else, make a lot of assumptions that unproven things are false. The question of god is not really special in this regard, except for the historical and biological conditions that makes people inclined to believe in the fairytale absent of any good objective reason.
You used “not believing” in your explanation. Does that mean “I have no belief” or does it mean “I believe it is false”?
Edit: ah ok, so you choose to believe it is false. Yeah, I can’t agree with this. I do agree with having no belief at all. Assuming something is false because there is no evidence seems like a rushed conclusion to me. I understand the burden of proof falls on them, but the fact they don’t have evidence doesn’t make them wrong.
If you want to make conclusions about matters humans can barely comprehend based on your human comprehension, that would be something very human to do, so it’s understandable.
Atheism is nothing more than a response to the claim that there is a God of some sort.
Specifically, a response that says “I don’t believe you”.
That’s it. That’s the minimum position to be considered an atheist.
Yeah, it seems like there’s a wider spectrum of atheists than I expected.
I guess I disagree with a subset of the atheist community and people are bringing up the other parts of the community that don’t match what I disagree with.
My disagreement is mostly with the atheists that say “there is likely no god because there’s no evidence”. There’s no human evidence for most things in reality, yet reality exists.
I’m aligned with the atheists that say “I don’t really know, so I won’t waste time setting my mind to a specific belief”.
That’s agnosticism. Atheism is still a hard set belief. Agnostics know that they don’t know.
(A)gnosticism and (a)theism are orthogonal.
The former deals with whether or not it is possible to know for certain if god exists. The latter with if you think she does or doesn’t exist.
You can be an agnostic theist (you don’t think you can be sure god exists, but you think she does), a gnostic atheist, or any other combination.
The concept of “god” implies not being bound by physical laws. So science simply doesn’t apply here. We can never scientifically prove or disprove god’s existence, because if we could, then whatever we proved or disproved wouldn’t fit our concept of “god” anymore. It would just be another natural phenomenon that can be studied.
But our world functions very well without a god. If one does exist, it doesn’t seem to affect anything meaningfully and noticeably. So is it really a god if you can just ignore it with no ill effects?
And without any real proof of its existence, it becomes equivalent with any other explanation that may or may not be true and can never be proven, like the flying spaghetti monster or the invisible pink unicorn. It becomes meaningless and useless, so it can be discarded as untrue.
I agree, we will never know if it exists or not… So why should we believe something about it?
Isn’t “I know” much better than “I believe”?
Because that’s not how it works. You either believe or you don’t. This isn’t quantum physics, you don’t exist in some superposition of belief. You seem to keep ignoring everyone reminding you that knowledge and belief are two entirely separate things.
Just because you say “I don’t know” doesn’t have any bearing on your belief or lack thereof. You either believe or you don’t, it’s that simple.
It’s possible to have no belief, not sure why you’re saying there are only 2 options as if that was an absolute truth. In fact, some people have pointed out that atheism is lack of belief, Wikipedia says that.
Yes, knowledge and belief are different, I never said they are the same. My point is that knowledge is more valuable than belief. When there’s no knowledge, belief is worthless. We have no knowledge about a creator or the actual events of the origin of the universe, thus, belief is pointless. Whatever you choose to believe is just a very uncertain guess.
Why believe based on almost zero knowledge? Isn’t that as bad as what religious people do?
I believe that there is no god BECAUSE there is no evidence to support one. I base my belief on the fact that there is zero evidence. When someone makes a claim, it is the responsibility of the claimant to give evidence.
And again, either you believe there is a god or you don’t believe there is a god. It is a yes or no question.
There is zero human evidence about most of the things that are actually happening right now in the universe.
Looking through your other comments, it’s pretty clear you’re just arguing in bad faith.
Just because I’m arguing doesn’t mean it is in bad faith. I enjoy standing my ground and seeing what comes out of it. Otherwise it isn’t actually a discussion. I do feel some people are getting triggered by this, but I don’t care, I’m being respectful and explaining things the way I see them.
Maybe this is a bad habit of mine, but it’s when the good stuff happens. I’ve actually learned a lot through my stubbornness in this post.
Sure, but nobody is making claims about the contents of the universe outside the boundary of what is observable. Or they are, and they are presenting it as theory and creating some sort of mathematical model to describe it.
Even then, those are still falsifiable, in that we could potentially test the validity of the mathematical model locally.
The concept of gods does not allow for any descriptions that could be tested. Last I check all real things can be described, that’s how we define real.
So this concept can’t be defined as real. If you get this far without concluding that it isn’t real, that’s a deliberate act of intentional ignorance.
Exactly, because we don’t have the means to prove or disprove it, we shouldn’t have any belief about it. A belief in this matter is just a guess based on personal preference. There’s no knowledge or evidence to back any position besides “I don’t know, I can’t know”.
I don’t think because we haven’t figured out how to test it so far it means it is impossible to do so. We may just need to get a better understanding of reality.
Atheism doesn’t claim there is no god. You can’t prove a negative beyond “we’ve been unable to find convincing evidence that it does exist, therefore it probably doesn’t”.
Atheism claims there isn’t sufficient evidence that a god exists, therefore we don’t believe in it. That’s it.
If god shows up on earth and can prove being god, like idk by spawning a live dinosaur out of thin air, atheism dies instantly.
As a more concrete example: I can’t prove my glass of water won’t kill me. What I can do however is perform a series of tests and establish that it contains no known toxins to man, with the likelihood of it killing me being so minuscule I can be reasonably confident it is safe to drink. Bring me evidence people do die at an increased rate after drinking it and I’ll gladly reevaluate. But until then, I call it safe because evidence overwhelmingly tells me it’s safe.
If god shows up on earth and can prove being god, like idk by spawning a live dinosaur out of thin air, atheism dies instantly.
All that proves is that something in the universe can “spawn” a live dinosaur out of thin air. It doesn’t prove that thing is a god. It could be an advanced civilization that has mastered teleportation - which would merely be an advanced technology humanity doesn’t possess.
Said being still has the burden of proof to demonstrate with irrifutable evidence that it is a god. And even if it manages to do so, that doesn’t mean it is one of the gods spoke of in the bible. There’s more irrifutable proof that must be shown for that claim.
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That’s not a counter argument though. It’s just an interesting thought experiment that doesn’t relate to the above comment
Every fucking time I try and have a discussion with atheists, you’d think I’d learn by now.
Since no one is answering me and everyone is just blanket downvoting, it’s removed, the subs and every person in this fuckdamn thread is blocked.
If everyone else is always the asshole… you’re the asshole…
My conclusion given the world as presented to me and the information I have is that there is no God.
There also is no Thor, no Santa Claus, no miracles, no ghosts, no easter bunny, and no afterlife. These are my conclusions from my time alive. If information is presented to me that changes these beliefs I’ll change my conclusion. But for now, that is my conclusion. That’s all. I’m not stating that “no matter what, no matter what information is presented, there can not be or has there ever been a god!”, rather I’m saying that I don’t believe there are any gods. It’s just the conclusion from the evidence.
Your experience is irrelevant. Do you realize how little you know and how ephemeral humanity is? The human race will be gone in the blink of an eye.
This is exactly the type of argument I disagree with. Humans need to be more humble about how they perceive the universe. We’re like two blind men arguing about the existence of color.
The individual experience is irrelevant for the effectiveness of a medicine or the height of a building.
But of you want to have a own opinion, a (personal) believe or your own conclusion about a thing, then the things you have read and the ideas you have thought, so your experiences, are necessary and the only thing forming your believe/opinion/conclusion.
This can be wrong or changed, if the person recieves more information, like if they think their specific god has spoken to them, then their believe might change. Or they explain the fact in another way and still dont believe.
All of this is personal and not set in stone
It is possible to reasonably demonstrate there are no gods by disproving the opposite claim.
I.e. by disproving the claims by theists.
I do not claim there is no god, as hard fact. I do, however, see the absolute lack of evidence for a divine being as justification to believe that divine beings don’t exist.
Do you believe in Santa Claus? Leprechauns? Do you have the same concern with saying they don’t exist either? Gods and Santa Claus and leprechauns are all human constructs.
First of all there is no atheist movement. Not sure where that’s coming from.
Atheism establishes nothing. It is the default position. It is the religious who make the claim of a god and put forth no objective and independently, peer-reviewed evidence to support it. It is not the burden of atheists to bring anything to this debate.
So we keep to our default position.
You have this quite, quite backwards. If religionists would provide some actual tangible evidence of their god, that is scientifically verifiable, then we would be the first to change our position.
Strangely, religionists don’t seem to comport to that same, actual, open-mindedness and understanding.
Hm, I’ve talked with people who self-label themselves as atheists and they seem to be sure there is no god. Maybe I talked to the type of atheist that is just a minority.
In all these replies I’ve been told that most atheists just don’t believe anything and if that is the case, I’m aligned with that and now I’ve learned that I can consider myself atheist.
I just don’t waste time believing stuff that can’t be verified, one way or the other.
Yep, that makes sense!
That seems an oversimplification.
Afaik, atheism is more an absence of a belief in any deities. Sort of a “I do not believe that this is justified, based on the evidence I can currently see” rather than “I have definitive proof that no God or gods exist”.
Though like everything else - Christianity, politics, gender, which Star Trek meme community you enjoy visiting on the Fediverse - it is all things to all people, yet not equally so.
Most first-generation atheists are extremely angry at the religious systems & peoples that hurt them, so it is tempting to extrapolate that to the general definition that that is what atheism is, but that would be like saying that conservatives are uneducated (as in, mostly true, but yet… although…). Though I also think that this is less true than it was, e.g. fifty years ago (regarding atheism I mean, whereas for conservatism it is probably the other way around).
Switching now to talk about religion, I think that to the extent that ANYTHING is hypocritical, it proves that it is false. e.g. “pro-life” policies that kill people rather than affirm health, people who show up on January 6th to “defend” the Constitution but who actually attempted something that while very inept yet still solidly lay within the definition of a coup, religious
fruitcakesno yeah that’s actually what I intend here, nutjobs is another word, but also fanatics, who ignore the very teachings that they claim to be “holy” (Love one another, do not heap heavy burdens upon others, the worker deserves his wages, etc.; btw did you know that there was one group of people that Jesus literally hated? No not the people at the temple predating upon the poor & ignorant - yeah he whipped them and then moved on without giving them much thought later, while more generally he talked about such false believers A LOT, calling them e.g. “whitewashed tombs, looking good on the outside but inside full of rot and decay”), the list can go on and on.Yet the fact that bad examples of things exist does not negate that good examples of things can also exist. I love this verse: “Want religion that is pure & holy? Then take care of widows & orphans.” (James 1:27, essentially talking up socialist healthcare policies millennia ago) People who actually show kindness, gentleness, concern about human well-being, whether they be atheist or Christian or Muslim or Mormon (capitalizing those as proper nouns while the former is not?) or whatever, I don’t even care, I just stand with people who actually give a fuck. Especially over those fuckwits who claim to believe in one thing while simultaneously believing the precise polar opposite of that exact thing.
Ahem, anyway there are multiple types of atheists. Some just don’t really care, while some are outright militant, and I understand both POVs. There are several sub-categories of atheist too - implicit vs. explicit, weak vs. strong (e.g. a child who hasn’t been exposed to religious ideas is a weak atheist, not having made a conscious choice to reject that category of thinking), positive vs. negative, etc. I’ll leave you with this interesting (to me) quote:
In fact, “atheism” is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist”. We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
The chances of any particular theistic belief being correct by sheer chance are beyond astronomical. Even if I believed there was a possibility of a deity (and that depends a great deal on exactly what qualities were ascribed to a divinity), I would be 100% certain it’s not what anyone currently believes.
Yeah, that chance might be low, but we’re not talking about religions here, we’re talking about the existence of a god or creator.
This seems to me like a categorical error. You speak about proof and facts, which are ultimately connected to the scientific method. Scientists often say “There is no evidence, that this happens/exists” (that phrase is important) and will disregard it, until there is evidence. That doesn’t make them close minded. Changes in knowlege are applied when they arrive, not through speculation without evidence beforehand. That way we can approximate the truth in our physical world. There is no scientific evidence of a god existing, so scientists disregard her, until such evidence appears.
Now you could say, that a god would exceed the physical limits of our world/existance. But then the whole scientific method becomes useless (as how would you get scientifical evidence for something outside of the scientific world) and you cannot speak about facts or truth or proof. This is the realm of belief, not science. And it will stay this way until a god would bridge over this devide.
So i would say: When talking about science, proof and facts, you need to stay in the reach of the scientific method. When talking about something outside of its reach (metaphysical), then its belief. Even you talking about the possibility of a god is a question about belief.
I think disregarding something isn’t the same as believing it isn’t possible or true. Disregarding something is just saying “we don’t have enough evidence to know”, not “I believe this doesn’t exist”.
So yeah, when talking about something outside of reason, I think we just shouldn’t believe in something.
Being attached to current facts is the rational thing to do. Of course they are going to become obsolete, but if a prehistoric man was convinced that black holes exist, it wouldn’t be a genius, but a guy with irrational beliefs. You can be "right’ for wrong reasons, that is not a valid reason to decide that current knowledge is worthless.
In the end you can believe in god if you want, but the rational thing is to not believe in god as long as there is no evidence of its existence. But of course not everything needs to be rational, and if believing in god makes one feel better about their life, why not. As long as it doesn’t impact others badly obviously.
Current knowledge isn’t worthless but it isn’t necessarily what’s true. Just keep an open mind about that and you might realize that you don’t really know what’s true. So, you don’t really know if there’s a creator.
Based on your experience and rational though you believe there is no god, but you don’t know. It is still a belief.
Again, do you hold a belief that there are no unicorns? No teapot orbiting Venus? No people with superhero powers? You see how this list could be practically infinite.
Are you going to hold all those negative beliefs in your head all the time? Worry about them? Live your life based on them?
Worrying about countless things that have no evidence of existing is a lot of work and pretty impractical. Hence why most non-delusional people with at least some critical thinking skills restrict themselves to only considering things for which there is some evidence.
Do you believe there’s no superposition because you’ve never seen a cat dead and alive at the same time?
Reality is more complex that these thought experiments. I honestly find the unicorn argument to be a mockery of what I’m trying to say but I’ll play along.
I do not believe in unicorns because they are supposed to live on earth, yet billions of humans have never seen them. There’s no fossil evidence, it was common for people to create mythical creatures in the past, we understand their origins through history…
You see, all of these things are clear human understanding. The existence and nature of reality isn’t something we can reason about like that. So you keep trying to establish equivalence between two different things. One is human and mundane, the other one deals with the origin of reality.
The biggest issue I have with your points are you can apply that same logic to all kinds of absurdity. Pick one or create one and it applies.
I also disagree with you that it is a healthier mindset to believe in essentially an unlimited amount of possibilities (unlimited because you can’t define an unknown in this case) but whether something is healthier or not is not a factual statement. It is just a subjective statement that is based too much on the individual and the mental status of that individual to determine if it is healthy or not. I could argue that it was unhealthy to believe in what I used to believe(specifically evangelical/Protestant Christianity) because of my underlining condition of dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder and depression, but that claim of being unhealthy doesn’t hold much weight because again, it depends on the mental state of an individual.
For myself, yes I am an atheist and yes if I come across evidence that convinces me differently then my views will change, but that doesn’t make my current stance any different or say weaker as some weak atheism(I find that term laughable), especially when I don’t have the knowledge of what that evidence would be to convince me.
Also remember, theories are believed to be true until proven wrong when it comes to science. The word theory is used differently in science then in colloquial type of discussions. So for example, just because we believe the theory of evolution is fact, that doesn’t mean we think a creation story myth is possible because we use the phrase, theory of evolution. I bring that up only because, the fact science has changed in the past doesn’t mean we can’t believe our current understanding as fact.
All good atheists are open to the possibilities, because we do not have atheism as a belief, but as a word to express that we are a=without + theism=religion.
Personally, even if a deity showed up and perform a miracle right before my eyes, I would not convert without a massive discussion because my personal moral compass would not allow myself to worship a being that holds so much power, but actively refuses to reduce suffering in such a large scale, but that is just me.
If it had a good reason such as being imprisoned by an evil deity and just having freed itself, and coming back to us to help us, then it would get my full support and belief, after some scrutiny of course.
I mean, I’m pretty sure if 20 gods descend from heaven, a lot of Christians would stop believing there’s a single god.
Being open to the possibilities doesn’t mean that you’ll change your mind once presented with irrefutable evidence, it means you’re not limiting your mindset to a single possibility until proven wrong.
Christians are not open to the possibilities because they live a religious life that assumes God exists. Until proven wrong.
Being certain of something, doesn’t mean that you’re closed minded. I am certain there is no God, as defined by any popular description I’ve heard in my life.
But if God themself, in whatever form, appeared to me, explained the situation and performed a few petty miracles at my request, I would then be convinced that they actually are God and that I understand the extent of their abilities and intentions.
I’d probably pop up in here and be like “ok, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out…” Because I assume most other atheists would rather know the truth, than prove that they’re right. Many of course would think I’m trolling, maybe a few would ask questions, maybe I’d eventually get one or two to believe me. I’d probably get better results if I could convince God that appearing to more people might help his PR, but, mysterious ways and all…
Anyway, I’m convinced because of the evidence before me, new evidence might lead to a new view, but it has to happen first. 🤷🏻♂️
How can you be certain about something related to the origin of the universe when we’re just little chimps on a rock. We’re clueless about something as complex as creation.
How can we be certain that we aren’t in the matrix? Or that my wife isn’t secretly plotting to kill me? or that I wasn’t adopted, or that my kids weren’t switched at birth, or that someone isn’t sneaking into the driveway every night and letting out a few pounds of pressure in my tires?
You have to draw the line somewhere. If you can’t assign certainty to some parts of your life, you’ll just spiral into a state of constantly questioning every possibility of every stimulus you encounter, and never being able to commit to anything without analyzing every possibility.
I have enough evidence to be certain of all the scenarios above. Until new information comes to light, I have absolutely no reason to question my stance on things I’ve come to a decision on.
All the things you said are mundane. The existence of a creator or the origin of reality is something much different to “is my kid an alien?”.
Just because you can’t be certain about something doesn’t mean you can’t be certain about anything. What I’m saying is that being certain about this particular thing feels like a monkey trying to have opinions about quantum computers. I’m sure the money is certain about the banana being tasty.
Are you certain we are not in a simulation? Isn’t the apropiare thing to do in that case to say “I’m not certain, thus I shouldn’t have any belief about it, because a belief is not based on facts”.
All the things you said are mundane.
I think the origin of the universe is mundane.
Whether it’s a deity’s experiment, simulation, or an island on a turtles back, my day to day life still functions the same. Like I said, give me a reason to be interested. When people claim to have found bigfoots remains, I’m curious, skeptical, but I want to know if there is new information. Frankly, God is just a mundane topic because I’ve heard everyone’s case, they’ve all been debunked, and nothing new has happened in thousands of years. I think there are lots of mysteries we have left to find, and I do think there are supernatural forces that we can’t yet explain, because of what I’ve experienced, but until people start rapturing, it’s not something I need to think about.
If you don’t care and you don’t make claims about the existence of a creator, we’re on the same page. When there’s no evidence proving or disproving something, it isn’t logical to take sides.
No. You’re putting excessive burdens on this one topic that you REALLY care about.
I listed a bunch of examples of other things that I am certain of, but if I discovered new evidence, it would change my position. Let’s review:
I’m sure my wife isn’t trying to kill me. IF I find half a bottle of rat poison on the kitchen counter, and later she insists that I eat THIS SPECIAL BOWL OF CHILI JUST FOR ME. I’m not going to be as certain as I was before.
I’m sure there’s no God. IF he comes down, introduces himself and does some sweet magic shit or brings my favorite cat back to life, I’d definitely change my position.
But those things haven’t happened, and I do not think about the possibility of them ever happening, so I’m confident in my choices. I have no reason to doubt them.
This question is SUPER important to YOU, and YOU haven’t decided what YOU believe. Which is fine, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else needs to remain as uncertain as you. Once you’ve made your decision, you will be certain of it, until something makes you question your assumptions.
I have no belief. I don’t need to pick sides on a topic I have no knowledge about. With the limited understanding we have of reality, I think any outcome is equally likely to be true. I have no knowledge that tells me a creator exists or doesn’t exist.
“Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.” (Wikipedia)
I guess I’d be the first type of atheist if I were to use that label. Just lack of belief.
When there’s no evidence proving or disproving something, it isn’t logical to take sides.
That’s not true. If the proposed is absurd, it’s not logical to remain on the fence. The logical standpoint is to dismiss the claim until evidence is presented. Since no evidence was presented, the claim should be dismissed.
Theists weasel their way out of this by claiming you can’t “prove” god, but that’s a scientific error/logical fallacy. If something cannot be proven, it also cannot impact the world in any way, shape or form. At that point the question becomes entirely meaningless and should be dismissed as well, because god existing or not doesn’t change anything anymore.
You seem a little stuck on the whole “knowing” part. Consider this: do you know if the sun is hot? Science knows it is, but do you? You could choose to believe in the scientific evidence, that still requires some “belief”. After all, you’ve never actually touched the sun yourself. You know sunlight is hot on your skin, but can you infer from that that the sun itself must be hot? Maybe the invisible unicorn with a liver tumor is shining an invisible heat lamp on you when you stand in the sun. You can’t prove this isn’t the case, but you still know it’s bullshit. You know the sun is hot.
You can believe that the universe was created by an invisible completely absent sky-daddy who demands worship that created Earth in particular because we’re super-special in the universe, whose actions and values are perfectly encapsulated in insert-holy-book here, and obviously all those thousands of other holy books are complete nonsense. But to me, that notion is completely absurd. Therefore, I know that this isn’t the case, just like I know how Earth isn’t wrapped up in a giant snake, or how I know brains aren’t doughnut-shaped, or how I know that tomorrow my legs will detach from my body, grow legs themselves and run a marathon.
Perhaps ask yourself this: what do you know? Why do you know it? Can you prove that at no point in your chain of evidence a secret azure pony hasn’t messed with the evidence, or your memories, or anything else?
Your conclusion could be that you don’t know anything. In that case, you should reevaluate what constitutes “knowing” something for yourself. Then you should reapply your new definition of “knowing” to the question of gods existence. I think you’ll find it hard to come up with concrete reasons to treat that question differently from the other absurd hypotheticals I’ve listed. This lack of concrete reasons is why I know god does not exist. Otherwise, for me, “knowing” has no meaningful definition anymore.
That’s what I do, I dismiss the claim. But just because their claim doesn’t make sense to me I won’t assume they are wrong.
If something doesn’t make sense to me, doesn’t mean that thing doesn’t make sense. If something makes sense to me, it doesn’t mean it makes sense. If there’s no evidence to prove something, doesn’t mean that thing is false…
I just feel my place in the universe is pretty far away from absolute truths. I prefer the humble route of just saying “I just don’t really know, do I’d rather not believe based on emotions or shallow perceptions”.
There’s a lot we don’t or perhaps even cannot know, but I would not say that we (or rather the people in the various fields of science ) are “clueless”. There’s a ton that we do know to different degrees of certainty, and we learn more every day.
Yeah, we can be certain about some things. I don’t think humans with their current capacity can be certain about the existence or non-existence of the creator of reality.
