by Bloody Hotdogs! 697 Replies latest jw friends
"Atheist Faith" - please explain.....Cofty
Good morning Cofty!..
In order to be an Atheist you have to believe God does not Exist..
Since you can not Prove God does not Exist..
You need to have Faith God does not Exist..
.......................
... OUTLAW
Only if you take a pedantic approach to semantics.
I find the evidence for god to be paltry. I think there are many very compelling reasons to conclude no god exits.
No faith involved.
OUTLAW said:
Yes I will bet when I know the odds favour me..Or..
I`m in a life and death situation and really need to make a choice..
LOL!!..
I have no Idea if God exists or not..
It`s not something I would bet on either way..
That would require Faith..
Well, Xians would say you ARE in a life or death struggle for your SOUL, something far more important than your mortal life. But likely you or I don't believe THAT, right?
I was looking for a probability, but since you say you only bet when the odds favor you, does that mean you assume them to be equal, i.e. 50/50?
Regardless of your answer, fact is there's SO MUCH overwhelming scientific, logical, historical, etc evidence to indicate that YHWH as depicted in the Bible didn't create the Universe and doesn't exist, that it'd be foolish to bet on God's existence (we're into 10^12 territory, and that's me being being generous of the odds).
In my case, knowledge (which is repeatable, demonstrable) drives my faith/trust, rather than hope (which is a belief, as is Xian faith, grounded in nothing except one's hope that it's true). My faith is assured by observations, eg if I throw an object straight up in the air, I have faith that the object will return. I trust my brakes will work, since they've worked before, work for millions, etc.
Some want to conflate faith based on hope (which are beliefs) as being as equal to faith based on knowledge, as if believing faith IS faith, and believing is the same as knowing. That's flawed logic.
For example, humans can have false beliefs which persists despite evidence to the contrary, but knowledge-based beliefs MUST constantly be updated, based on the best-available evidence. In essence, faith based on knowledge MUST be a continuous-process improvement process, whereas relgious faith is STAGNANT, and free from challenge.
For my purpose, I've seen a TON of evidence which is compelling beyond a shadow of a doubt upon which to decide and act.
I've read enough of your posts to read your philosophy, and suspect you ARE acting upon fact-driven beliefs, and that's the point I was trying to make: many people claim to be agnostic simply to avoid the implications of being one of "those" evil atheists, and hide behind the cover of calling themselves agnostic just to avoid stating their knowledge-driven beliefs.
Perhaps it's my Bible-influenced distaste for hypocrisy speaking here, but I think there's room for hypocrisy in the atheist/agnostic World, as well as the community of believers. In other words, hypocrisy is NOT just for Xians!
(I'm not calling you or anyone else a hypocrit, just playing devil's advocate here, and giving everyone something to consider.)
That's not exactly right, Outlaw. To be an atheist, we only have to believe there is no evidence that a god exists, and that we will go with the evidence. It's not faith, but a measure of probability. When there is no evidence that something exists, then it is reasonable to conclude that something does not exist. I don't see any evidence that a boogie man lives in my closet (wish I'd known that as a child), so I don't believe it exists. Could there be a boogie man in my closet--on some plane---some dimension---or simply hiding? Well yes. But that doesn't really matter to me since it has chosen to keep itself hidden or not taken measures to show itself. Therefore, the possiblity that he exists does not matter to me. The weight of the evidence says he does not, and even if he did, it changes absolutely nothing.
If this god is out there, it is not worried about revealing itself. So while the possiblity exists, we have nothing to go on, and it doesn't even matter. If it did matter, it would introduce itself.
What would be the nature of such a god? Who knows? My tongue-in-cheek theory is that some teenager somewhere did a science experiment that was thrown into the garbage that became our univers. He doesn't know about us, and we don't know about him. But if he started the process to create our universe, knowingly or unknowingly, he would be our god. I think he was probably more interested in the girl he had a crush on.
It's not about faith, but about weighing the evidence. The evidence shows no god.
If we wander around believing in things when there is no evidence they exist, then the pool we would create could be endless. The fact is, there is as much evidence for a god as there is for a unicorn, yet most people don't believe in unicorns. Are they exercising 'faith'?
Atheist should be the default position, ie, the starting point of all young people.
Communists said the same thing. Worked real well.
Communists said the same thing. Worked real well.
LOL! Al Queada starts with the assumption that there is a god---that's working well too. What a silly little piece of logical fallacy. 
I know there so much evidence to suggest there is no God
And what evidence would that be?
(waiting for "Hitler was an atheist" to be played... Not true, BTW, and of course, all of the soldiers who were "just following orders" were not atheists, either.)
And what evidence would that be?
Suffering. But also the poor engineering of biology. Did you see the giraffe dissection? Very telling. I'll look for the video.
An argument against design.
