A few questions for fellow atheists

[St Leo]

I think true atheists are just the same as believers, you can't really confirm that god doesn't exist, just that most evidence points in the other direction.

Do I really need to post something about the non-existence of invisible and intangible pink dragons for the umpteenth time?

I question the existance of God, am I agnostic even though I follow an established religion?

Yes, you are. Most agnostics are agnostics because they approach the problem by assuming that God exists, intuiting that it doesn't, and then failing pathetically to prove the second while still assuming the first and being left in a mental limbo.

[St Leo]

I do not believe-that-there-is-no-god. I am, however, convinced, that there is no god, which is a totally different stance.
-Douglas Adams, interview as transcribed in Salmon of Doubt

I'm with DNA on this one.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
a·the·ist n. One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

That's American Heritage Dictionary. So anyone who does not believe in God is an atheist, as is anyone who believes there is no God.

So what's an agnostic?

I really want to know so I can officially say what I am.

[St Leo]

ag·nos·tic n.
One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.

[Frogman]

OK, perhaps its not so clear cut. We all agree though that atheists are more antagonistic toward the possibility that God exists than agnostics who are more accepting of the possibility of Gods existance but don't think he can be defined by any religion.

In my life I have been all over the map. Devout believer, to anti theist, to atheist, to agnostic and now a questioning theist.

In my anti-theist days I believed God existed, but thought he was real a$$hole. I hated God. Then I figured he just didn't exist. But then I wasn't so sure, all those anecdotal tales, and the concept of prophecy in the Bible and guys like Nostradamus made me think there was something more out there than we knew. So I went back to studying the Bible. It still doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but its socially convenient and I get to discuss some interesting topics with some good people. Its a book worthy of study so its not a waste, but there's a bunch of stuff that just can't be right. Surely God doesn't want just the stupid people.

[yavoon]

st. leo. occams razor is a nice idea, its not very hard tho. and certainly is easy to disprove. occams razor is like playin the odds in vegas. no1 sez ur gna win.

and obi here's how I sometimes imagine the bible when u make a comment about "well isnt the bible accurate."

I had ramen for breakfast
I had taco bell for lunch
I thot hey, "I'll call my friend" and she's like OMG I was just going to call u. and I"m like wow thats amazing, lets go somewhere.
I was studying and I felt weird and I turned around and this guy was staring at me.
I went to the vending machine but was 5 cents short so I asked this girl for money and she was cute and I asked her out, but she sed no.


there is a god. which is basically my attitude towards xtians who say "omg see the bible has some semblance of historical accuracy, there must be a god"

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Your inability to demonstrate what is "wrong" with my quoted statement clearly illustrates that it in fact

I would have thought it was obvious, but OK then, I'll explain. The value of pi is in no way central to the Christian faith - nor is it central to the passage in the text of the bible. If someone were discussing the UK health system and spoke of 'a country of 60 milion people' would you criticise them for getting the population wrong by 5%? Of course not, because their figure is not 'wrong' in the context they are discussing. The fact that you think it is "points to the crux of the problem".

I might add that 5% is a pretty good accuracy on the value of pi for such an old book. Saying that pi is 3 is actually correct to one significant figure. I am sure your like would have complained if it had been given to 10 significant figures. Perhaps you can give us pi with no error at all?

1. You are saying that atheists consist of 1% of the world's population? Where did you get your figure from?

No, I am saying that only a very small part of society have no beliefs what-so-ever. And "99%" was figurative (a bit like pi), meaning the vast majority - I would suspect the figure is much much higher.

2. Not that long ago people believed that lightnings were caused by angry gods.

I am sure that there are many scientific 'facts' of today that will be laughed at in a few hundred years. "Not long ago people believed that cosmic strings were caused by vacuum degeneracies."

3. You are Appealing to the Masses.

Not just the masses - I presume I am appealing to you too, or are you one of the people who hold no beliefs what-so-ever? (I don't think I have ever met one of those!)

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Master Zen
I think true atheists are just the same as believers, you can't really confirm that god doesn't exist, just that most evidence points in the other direction.

They don't need to. Burden of Proof rests on the theists.

As for dictionary definitions, dictionaries give the most common definitions a lay person will see to the words. These definitions are not always the correct definitions, and indeed are frequently influenced by the biases of whichever editor was in charge of the dictionary at the time. Remember, to say that Atheists "deny the existance of a deity figure is presupposing that a deity figure exists.

Instead of rambling on more, I'm just going to be lazy and post this link. Surprised no one's posted it in here yet actually.

http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by St Leo
Do I really need to post something about the non-existence of invisible and intangible pink dragons for the umpteenth time?

It is that sort of comment which really pisses me off - not from the point of view of a Christian (which I am), but from the point of view of a scientist (which I am).

This sort of thing really needs to be taught in school (there should be at least some minimum level of scientific thinking taught I think, but that is for another thread ).

Right at the very beginning science makes an assumption: that the universe is governed by a system of laws and is inherently predictive (in a statistical sense). So that if I go away and devise a 'perfect' measurement (ie. with no measurment inaccuracies), I should, in principle, be able to predict the answer I get, statistically. In other words, I can say that I get the answer "500 eV" (or whatever) 27% of the time, "600 eV" 13% of the time, etc. It should not be such that the physical laws change on us in an unpredictable way.

This is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make because without it one cannot do science (by definition). And it is a reasonably good assumption - in physics, for example, it is perfectly applicable, and is used without thinking. But it is still an assumption, and a good scientist considers cases where his assumptions break down.

I would go further than that and say that we even have cases where the assumption does break down (although some might dispute this). I do not believe that I can, for example, build a predictive model of your behaviour in every sense, because I believe that you have free will - you chose to make that post, and were not forced to make it by the interplay of past events and physical law. Free-will violates the assumption. If it exists, then there must be part of the universe which is not governed by physical laws - which could be defined, if you like as 'spiritual'.

Also, fairly clearly, the concept of God (ie. an omnipotent being with free-will) violates the assumption. And presumably some non-predictive mechanism is requied to generate the non-predictive part of the universe (since theories like the Big Bang alone will clearly not do it). So we need an object with 'free-will' which created 'us' - sounds like God to me. I agree that it is a leap from 'spiritual' to 'divine' (ie. from the existence of a non-omnipotent being with free-will like me to the existence of an omnipotent one), but it is not a very big leap.

Of course, some people would claim that free-will is an illusion (which is a perfectly consistent argument), but I would claim that their belief that the scietific assumption holds for eveything, is a belief as unprovable as the existence of God.

God is certainly not in the realm of "pink dragons".

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh

Of course, some people would claim that free-will is an illusion (which is a perfectly consistent argument), but I would claim that their belief that the scietific assumption holds for eveything, is a belief as unprovable as the existence of God.

God is certainly not in the realm of "pink dragons".

Your argument however fails to address the fact that scientific assumption is not known to man in its entirety, we only know part of it. So you are falling into the same trap as saying that all the scientific assumption CANNOT prove must be work of the divine, which again is probably false since we are unable to explain all that science has in store for us.

BTW you just said you can't prove the existence of God. So why do you follow a religion?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Frogman
I think you are making up your own definitions.

Not so.

Main Entry: athe·ism
Pronunciation: 'A-thE-"i-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god
Date: 1546
1 archaic : UNGODLINESS, WICKEDNESS
2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity

Merriam-Webster

Note definition 2a corresponds to Weak (Negative) Atheism, or what Boris calls "Soft Atheism." Definition 2b corresponds to Strong (Positive) Atheism.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Your argument however fails to address the fact that scientific assumption is not known to man in its entirety, we only know part of it. So you are falling into the same trap as saying that all the scientific assumption CANNOT prove must be work of the divine, which again is probably false since we are unable to explain all that science has in store for us.

err... no. The details of the scientific theories are unimportant. Science cannot be non-predictive by definition. How can you have a predictive therory which doesn't predict anything?

BTW you just said you can't prove the existence of God. So why do you follow a religion?

It is very hard to go through life not believing anything at all. Do you not have any beliefs? (if you say you don't, you will have to prove it to me, because, frankly, I don't believe you! )

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
I would have thought it was obvious, but OK then, I'll explain. The value of pi is in no way central to the Christian faith - nor is it central to the passage in the text of the bible. If someone were discussing the UK health system and spoke of 'a country of 60 milion people' would you criticise them for getting the population wrong by 5%? Of course not, because their figure is not 'wrong' in the context they are discussing. The fact that you think it is "points to the crux of the problem".

I think you misunderstood what I said. My main thrust was not about the numerical value of pi per se, but the existence of a being that can change these constants at will is going to throw science out the window. I thought I was clear when I went on with two different values of pi.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
No, I am saying that only a very small part of society have no beliefs what-so-ever. And "99%" was figurative (a bit like pi), meaning the vast majority - I would suspect the figure is much much higher.

Hm, atheism is not "without beliefs," but "without theistic beliefs." There is a very significant difference.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
I am sure that there are many scientific 'facts' of today that will be laughed at in a few hundred years. "Not long ago people believed that cosmic strings were caused by vacuum degeneracies."

Physicists are dreadful, they are always so literal

What I was saying wasn't what we know about physics is etched in stone. Rather, what we don't know about nature is not something that cannot be known.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Not just the masses - I presume I am appealing to you too, or are you one of the people who hold no beliefs what-so-ever? (I don't think I have ever met one of those!)

Again, I am an atheist, that means I have no theistic beliefs. Of course I have other beliefs, such as what I sense about this world is a close approximation of the objective reality.

[Ben Kenobi]

UR:

I don't concede the point, I started from the first point since when I left earlier, working down to the newer points.

Lex Talionis:

If the original text does not have any reference to this Lex Talionis, as demonstrated by various other translations, why would it be in the NIV?

There are two possibilities. All other editions are messed up, or the NIV is. Since it is a lot less likely for the former to occur, I conclude that the NIV is a messed up translation.

Presupposes the point at hand, that the reference to Lex Talionis is not in the original text. There is no evidence for this position.

I ignored it for this reason.

Now, your later post.

It does. How could science exist if pi is one value when you are measuring it but another if you aren't?

What about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and all of Quantum Physics?

Actually, you have science like it is now. One science for one realm of Physics, and another for a different realm. Not hard.

Then again, just because a book or somebody said a miracle did occur doesn't mean what happened was in fact something that cannot be possibly explained by laws of nature.

No, but lacking evidence to the contrary, we have to examine the evidence we have, in the Gospels.

Aeons ago people thought that lightning came from the gods.

Well, come up with a scientific explanation for Christ's death and resurrection, then you might have a point.

[Ben Kenobi]

UR

Unless you hold that this god is transcendantal instead of interventionist, a clockmaker who just watches on after setting the world in motion. This, however, flies in the face of orthodox Christian doctrines.

Are you a Deist UR?

This presupposes miracles are impossible, that small violations of the Natural Law cannot and do not happen.

Jack:

The Tower of Babel also belongs in the "clearly false" part of Genesis.

For what reason?

Partly because of the lack of evidence from the Egyptian side (no record of Hebrew slaves or a sudden migration of slaves, not even one with pro-Egyptian "spin"), partly because of DNA test results showing no genetic difference between Israeli and Palestinian gene pools except the European genes they picked up after the Diaspora (i.e. no separate population arriving from elsewhere),

What about intermarriage?

Yavoon:
Essentially you are right.
If the bible is historically accurate, then I can present a substantive case for the existence of God.