Big Dawg,
I can not challenge your "brand" of atheism. This was a general statement as to what is commonly accepted by atheists in general. Which you admitted. Therefore, the statement is not flawed, and the conclusion is correct. However, you still have a problem.
It's interesting that you feel comfortable telling a group of atheists what they all believe in.
You are wrong and Derek is correct. Atheism is disbelief -- or lack of belief -- in God and gods. This defintion, in various forms, can be found in the writings of many atheist organizations, and in books written by leading atheists. In fact, it would require no more work from you than looking up the alt.atheism FAQ at http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html Since I fear that you will not look it up, I will quote it for you:
""What is atheism?"
Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of gods."
I also recommend you look at some good articles on atheism which you can find at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/index.shtml
Consider doing your homework before telling atheists what they believe, or, for that matter, trying to teach cats to climb.
However, you still have a problem. The existence of the entities you listed has been disproven. The existence of a god has not.Nonsense. Derek listed unicorns, fairies, elves, goblins, and the Easter Bunny. Surely none of these have ever been disproved. Few people will believe in these, however, as we do not have positive evidence.
If you will repeat your assertion that (e.g.) fairies are disproved, I challenge you to come up with a formal proof for the universal non-existence of fairies.
Secondly, no matter how you spin your view, you are still holding to a universal negative, which still can not be proven. Since belief in God is widely held, it is up to the atheist to prove his hypothesis, not vice versa. Again we are left with the issues from the second half of my post. If one is to say that there is no god, one most become a god, therefore creating a self-contradiction.You seem to think you have posted logical arguments, when in fact you have just asserted some Christian slogans without evidence.
Atheists do not have to prove the non-existence of any gods. If positive evidence is lacking, that is sufficient reason for rational people to reject the hypothesis. Your attemt to shift the burden of evidence has failed.
As for your last statement, do not modern evolutionists hold that life came from water? Or is that you disagree with them too?Life on this planet almost certainly originated in water, yes.
Lastly, the atheist still has to answer the second part of my post. In order to rationally believe that there is no god, gods, or goddesses, the atheist must meet all those criteria. If that is the case and the atheist does declare no god, then we have a self-contradictory statement, and therefore illogical.Nonsensical assertions. Making a slogan does not make it true.
You could just as well say that you had to be a god to believe that Odin, Ba'al, Zevs or Vishnu do not exist. Atheists simply move to the logical next conclusion: the Jewish/Christian Yahweh/God do not exist either. Monotheists can at least be credited with being only one god away from the truth.
I have to point out, again, that atheists do not necessarily believe that God does not exist. They do not believe that God exists. The difference may seem subtle, but it is important.
Finally, it is not true that you cannot prove a (universal) negative. Sometimes existence has necessary consequences, that, when proved absent, proves a negative. For example, if someone asserted that a nuclear explosion had happened in my hometown this morning, I would be able to prove that this did not happen (I am here, for one). Likewise, if someone asserted that somewhere in the universe, there is an object of infinite mass, I can prove that this is untrue, since such an object anywhere in the universe would cause infinity gravity everywhere, and we do not observe that.
Gods are postulated agents, and since believers have been fighting a losing battle for centuries, God is now postulated to be invisible, transcendent, and depending on who you ask, outside time and the universe itself. As such, the God of monotheists is a bit hard to disprove.
The problem for Christians, though, is that their God is postulated alongside some necessary properties: omnipotence, omnibenevolence and omniscience.
First, omnipotence and omniscience are mutually exclusive. If God knows what he will do, and what everybody will do, for all eterntity, he will be powerless to actually change the future. If he changes it, he was not omnicient. If he cannot, he is not omnipotent.
Since this God leads to a logical contradiction, we can conclude that this God does not exist.
Second, an omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient God will always be knowing about suffering and evil, will always be able to stop it, and since he is all-good, he will always choose to stop it. Since suffering and evil exists, this God does not exist.
Thus, the God of Christianity (and other monotheists) is disproved.
At this point, apologists tend to perform a holy ritual known as handwaving. It usually consists of intriducing the word "free will" which is an orwellian thought-stop word for Christians, and then hope the problems briefly outlined above will disappear into thin air.
- Jan
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- "How do you write women so well?" - "I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability." (Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets")