Slashdot Mirror

Atheism is a belief, taken on faith, even if it is in fact highly plausible, with the alternatives having very little support.

False: Theism is a belief in at least one god (specifically a 'personal' god, contrast to deism). Atheism is simply the 'lack of belief in a god', which isn't a statement of faith but rather a lack of faith.

(I am inclined to think that agnosticism is the only belief without faith, because it doesn't assert anything specific, but I could be wrong about that.)

Since agnosticism is about what is or is not knowable or known it is possible to be a an agnostic atheist (that is someone who does not believe in a god or gods but says that it is not knowable whether there is one) but also an agnostic theist (who believes there is a god, but isn't sure).

Dawkins himself suggested a scale from 1 (being certain there is a god) and 10 (certainty that there is not a god) and placed himself at 8 or 9, believing it quite unlikely that there is a god.

The labels are pretty confusing, and they're used variably, which is probably why you've misunderstood Dawkins' position on this. I suggest reading his work, probably beginning the God Delusion, as he has already addressed most of your criticisms.

Seriously, all you Pastas out there just need to grow up. You're doing more harm than good to your cause.

As an aside, Atheism is just as scientifically indefensible as any classic theism. Agnosticism is the only actual scientific viewpoint (sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it's true. Please stop trying to use science to justify what's just a typical generation rebellion).

teached by religions for hundreds of years.

Yes, surely all educated people must agree with fashionable anti-theism!

Richard Dawkins isn't a philosopher of religion. He's a biologist.

I'd take that as a positive thing. Biology is the study of something real. The philosophy of religion is the study of something which, while real itself, is based in pure fantasy. Certain aspects of the study of biology are also pertinent to the understanding of why we believe in fantastic things.

When he gets involved in claims about religion, he transgresses the rules of inquiry

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. What rules?

... and fails to continually re-examine his own arguments.

You have no idea whether that is true. Maybe he re-examines them every day, and finds that they are still as logical as ever?

Just compare the sincerity and humility of his late friend, atheist philosopher of religion J.L. Mackie, with Dawkins' wild demagoguery.

I don't think you quite understand what a demagogue is. "A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power". First of all, I would hardly describe athiesm as being popular compared to theism. I wouldn't see it as prejudiced either, but that is a rather subjective thing. Secondly, I would say that what he does is attempt to refute false claims, not make claims of his own. He makes no promises; that is something that religions do.

Wow, a sane post that is on subject. (Sorry - theism and chiro takes far to much of the page!)

I remember watching the space flights on television in school. All us little kids sitting there, "Ooooh!" "Ahhhh!" And, our teachers were oohing and aaahing right along with us.

And, I remember arguing against that space shuttle when it was first proposed, and publicized. The object of going in to space is to go into SPACE. Low earth orbit isn't space. A space plane that never had the capability of going into deep space was just a distraction from the real goals. Although they did carry out some scientific experiments aboard the shuttles, basically they were just so much bread and circus.

There have been some damned good posts made here in the past, suggesting alternatives to those damned shuttles. Space elevators, rail guns, bigger badder Apollos, and more. Today, I really think that private enterprise has the best possible chance of accomplishing anything in space. They better, or it will be China that finally leads the way.

Who wants to bet that China will have difficulty finding hundreds of serious volunteers to take that one way flight to Mars? If the top dogs in China say that a colony will be established, then it will, by God, be established. Unlike the United States, where seemingly intelligent men and women argue "Why?"

I'm no Trekkie, and I was only a Star Wars fan for a short time - but dammit, the future is in space. Mankind needs to get off it's collective ass, and get out there!

I bet next you're going to tell us how we are all born into a "social contract" that we never agreed to and have no recourse against, right?

You can always emigrate. Read Plato's Crito for a classical argument about recourse to the social contract (one the American founding fathers were well aware of).

freedom is a gift benevolently bestowed upon us by society and not self-evident, right?

Natural rights theory traditionally relies on a belief in a higher power who endows human beings with some rights regardless of what the community says. Theism isn't too popular these days, especially on Slashdot. Once you recognize there's no convincing proof of God for the people around you, the only defensible forms of political theory are the various brands of utilitarianism: you have these freedoms, because the community in general gets on better if you have them, not because they are somehow innate.

see why ur mum's face's definition simply doesn't work?

the theism of terror without relativity is ignorant hypocrisy.

you're an idiot.

I'm not going to argue semantics with you. Answer my point directly.

What point?

You seem to think that "atheism" is some kind of group or philosophy. It isn't, it is merely non-belief in theism, i.e. God. It does not represent any group, any philosophy, merely a lack of faith in a higher power. So either you are saying that people who don't believe in God are not persuasive about anything, or you hold this mistaken belief.

"Atheism", for people who self-identify as atheists (as opposed to "weak atheism": just not believing in a god and not making a big deal about it), most certainly is a philosophy. That group certainly includes Dawkins, who is the only person who I have said anything about. Also, you conradict yourself here: you say "It (atheism) does not present any group" yet refer to "people who don't believe in God", wich certainly sounds like a group definition to me.

I am an Atheist because I do not follow any religion or believe in God, but that says almost nothing about me. Philosophically I am a Humanist and find Humanist arguments compelling, so feel free to attack those if you like.

I don't know you, and don't give a shit about what you do or do not believe in. I'm arguing for the joy of arguing. And because I'm getting really tired of people who mangle both science and theology for ideological reasons.

Er, okay, well just because you only talk to idiots doesn't change anything. Personally I have never heard a compelling argument from any religion but I am at least open to the possibility that someone might be able to make one. You seem to think all non-believers are morons, but I can assure you I don't have the same prejudices against Christians. Some of them are clearly quite intelligent, they just don't convince me of their beliefs.

Actually, yes, it (only talking to idiots) does change a lot. As far as I can tell, Dawkins is every bit as stupid as the people he argues. No, I take it back: not stupid, just idiotic. Those are not the same thing: stupid means you lack intellect, idiotic means you don't use it.

Or do you think that Dawkins honestly believes that his books are going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced? Because otherwise he's just wasting his time (or, more cynically, raking in the dollars by preaching to the choir).

So what are you saying, that God has forsaken me by not sharing the only persuasive experience I can have to save my soul from damnation? Or that I need to try harder to believe, in which case I humbly suggest that if you try hard enough you may come to see the light and welcome the tooth fairy into your life?

No, I'm saying it's impossible to prove the existence or nonexistence of God(s) one way or another. Or the tooth fairy, for that matter.

For the record, I don't think that any God worth worshipping would "forsake" anyone. I wouldn't, and I'm just a man - and, for that matter, just a brother rather than father to all my fellow men.

In the Old Testament God seems to deal out direct punishment regularly, even going so far as to exterminate almost all life on earth with a big flood at one stage. Actually that is a good example of how modern secular societies have developed stronger moral values than God - we don't kill innocent animals by drowning if it can be helped.

Yes... And also promising it won't happen again. Also, the Old Testament should be understood as a product of its time - for Bronze Age barbarians, it's actually damn good. Of course we have moved beyond that since then, as we should have.

Now, I'm not saying all Christians believe that, of course. Many for whatever reason don't. The problem is that the Bible presents that as the kind of thing God does some times, and as a justifiable action on his part. It is very

I'm not going to argue semantics with you. Answer my point directly.

Go to any forum where atheists and theists debate each other and watch the arguments used. Are they persuasive?

You seem to think that "atheism" is some kind of group or philosophy. It isn't, it is merely non-belief in theism, i.e. God. It does not represent any group, any philosophy, merely a lack of faith in a higher power. So either you are saying that people who don't believe in God are not persuasive about anything, or you hold this mistaken belief.

I am an Atheist because I do not follow any religion or believe in God, but that says almost nothing about me. Philosophically I am a Humanist and find Humanist arguments compelling, so feel free to attack those if you like.

Because I've rarely seen the former

Er, okay, well just because you only talk to idiots doesn't change anything. Personally I have never heard a compelling argument from any religion but I am at least open to the possibility that someone might be able to make one. You seem to think all non-believers are morons, but I can assure you I don't have the same prejudices against Christians. Some of them are clearly quite intelligent, they just don't convince me of their beliefs.

and short of a personal appearance of God(s) there simply aren't any persuasive arguments about their existence.

So what are you saying, that God has forsaken me by not sharing the only persuasive experience I can have to save my soul from damnation? Or that I need to try harder to believe, in which case I humbly suggest that if you try hard enough you may come to see the light and welcome the tooth fairy into your life?

there's a view that sin creates its own punishment without any interference from God

In the Old Testament God seems to deal out direct punishment regularly, even going so far as to exterminate almost all life on earth with a big flood at one stage. Actually that is a good example of how modern secular societies have developed stronger moral values than God - we don't kill innocent animals by drowning if it can be helped.

Now, I'm not saying all Christians believe that, of course. Many for whatever reason don't. The problem is that the Bible presents that as the kind of thing God does some times, and as a justifiable action on his part. It is very hard to twist that around and say God was wrong and should not have done it. On the other hand an atheist is free to evaluate God's actions without prejudice purely on their merits and the arguments people can make about them. There are arguments for and against, but at least I have a free choice.

Science requires lots of faith - at the simplest, faith in things like the permittivity constant. Why should it be that exact value? It's magic. We don't know why. Maybe it's God magic, maybe it's some other magic. There's no determinable reason why it is what it is. There's no determinable reason for the fact that in this Universe, times goes 'forward' and entropy always increases. IIRC it was Penrose who pointed out that it's completely reasonable for entropy to decrease and time to go the other way. Why is 2+2=4?

Then there's faith in the scientific method, and lots of other things.

Atheism requires as much faith as theism. Reconstructability theory and complexity theory show that no constituent within any system (such as the Universe) can ever determine conclusively whether there is an outside controller or not. It is fundamentally impossible, from first principles, to prove or disprove the existence of God. So it's just pride and hubris to look down one's nose at those who believe oppositely to you. For every 'proof' or justification you present, those who disagree have a counter. And vice versa. So be comfortable in your belief, and accept that those others have just as much reason to be comfortable as you.

Which raises an interesting thought, inspired by quantum mechanics - what if both are true? Perhaps "There is a God", and "There is no God", are both true? I think I just bent something!

Science is not derived from the writing of men? ... Tell me more of this Radiance which delivers Science deus ex machina.

"The idea that we can take seriously people's theism the majority of which is based on writings of ancient human beings in pre-scientific and pre-literate times is still ludicrous."

And yet we use their science without question.

"Being a theist does not equal being a creationist."

But most theists believe in things which they derived from writings of men, the mistakes therein which science shows are demonstrably not true. The source of most peoples theistic beliefs are not credible at all.

Theism is derived from the writings of ancient ignorant peoples. The idea that we can take seriously people's theism the majority of which is based on writings of ancient human beings in pre-scientific and pre-literate times is still ludicrous.

Not at all. A religious person believes something and will despite proof or the lack thereof. That's what faith is about. In the vernacular you might say you believe your car keys are on the table where you put them, but a million things including a sly tester could have moved them. When you look and see that the keys are not on the table you won't "believe" anymore. That's non-religious belief.

FYI, you can be an atheist believer in god. A theism is a specific thing and you can have a god without one. Therefore it's obvious an atheist does not "believe there is no god" or this could not be so.

Thus why atheism is more rational than theism. There is no proof of a god, so we can assume there is no god. Since that is simpler than assuming there is a god, it's probably correct.

Simply not believing in a god figure is not atheism.

So what would you call it? I think you fail etymology. Theism = belief in a deity; adding the 'a' prefix means you negate the meaning, ie Atheism = no belief in a deity. Just like apolitical, asexual, etc, etc.

You know, it's farcical that we have a word for people who lack a belief in a deity, yet we don't have a word for people who lack a belief in other mythical things. Where's the word for people who don't believe in unicorns? Or leprechauns? An even better question would be, why can't the theists just leave atheists alone, instead of trying to force their beliefs on them?

The phrase "I was walking downtown" provides context to the phrase "and the protesters threw garbage at me" by making it understood that "the protesters who threw garbage at me" were a subset of all protesters where the protesters in question are the ones who are, like you, downtown at the same time.

In addition, "protesters" are a group defined by their acts, which must take place at a specific place and time, and have a specific motivation; that is, their act of protest is in response to something. No meaningful generalizations can possibly be made about "the protesters" meaning "all protesters everywhere" because nothing unites all members of that set.

This is apparent if you give your example without the context of "I was walking downtown" and just say "The protestors threw garbage at me." The likely response to this by any thoughtful reader or listener, if there were no other context, would be to ask you "which protesters" since this is not obvious.

The same is simply not true of the set "atheists". The set "atheists" is linked by "those who believe in atheism" (or rather those who don't believe in theism) and so the use of the definite article in the phrase "The atheists" quite unambiguously means "all atheists" without needing qualification or clarification or prompting any questions from an average reader.

no it's not.

Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

Why do you assume atheists ALSO aspire to the greater good of humanity?

Atheism isn't a religion, but it is a leap of faith nevertheless.

No it isn't.

You are basically saying, without any proof, that god doesn't exist at the same time as a preacher is saying, without any proof

For this to work, we need to make the assumption that god exists in the first place.

In actual fact, atheism is more an act of thought then an act of faith. An atheist will look at the evidence of gods existence, if the evidence is not sufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt that god exists then it is reasonable to conclude that god does not exit.

A theist is the opposite of this, theism requires a person to consciously ignore evidence to the contrary of a belief.

So in other words, atheism is a religion in the same way not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Not quite: Atheism; (A) = a root meaning without, (Theism) = belief in a god or gods. Together, "Without belief in a god or gods."

Agnosticism deals with knowledge; issues of belief are not predicated on knowledge. Individuals are either atheist, that is, they don't hold any belief in a god or gods, or they are theist, and do hold a belief or beliefs in a god or gods.

Agnosticism is not, and never can be, a middle ground. It's simply an intellectual blind alley. By definition, for any proposition without any supporting evidence, there can be no knowledge on the side making the proposition, or on the side having the proposition made to them. IOW, both theists and atheists are completely without knowledge WRT any god or gods. Claims != knowledge. Knowledge is supported by facts, reproducibility, evidence... you know, data. The claim for a god or gods is exactly equivalent to the claim for the Easter bunny. You've never seen one/it; I've never seen one/it; if I claim there is an Easter bunny, and you fall back on the idea that this claim is extraordinary, so if you're going to accept this, you want evidence of an Easter bunny, we've just established a perfect analog for the theist / atheist polarization. I'm an Easter bunny theist, and you're an Easter bunny atheist. But you'll note that there is no third position: neither of us really knows if there is an Easter bunny or not, so in the case of the theist, the position requires discarding the need for actual evidence, and for the atheist, it requires fitting the claim into the working, established worldview.

However: What the atheist generally has going for them is the scientific method, and huge amounts of data that show that extraordinary claims tend not to be (ever) validated; this establishes the reason that one should, absent very convincing evidence, begin with and maintain the position that the claims are, in fact, exactly equivalent to claims for Easter Bunnies, Flying Pink Unicorns, and Little Grey Men.

On top of this we layer the fact that religion is demonstrably an incredibly effective tool for social control, consequently an almost endless source of power, treasure and social position, and we've both established a good reason why it exists and persists, and obviated the need for anything extraordinary at all. Follow money, position and the power, and you'll find the root of almost all of man's most ambitious undertakings, within which religion surely ranks quite highly.

...kind of how Atheism is as much of a religion as religion itself?

Not really. You mean anti-theism and even then you have to define meanings, and it gets all messy, and then you have to determine their gnosticism and where they draw meaning and morals from...
Atheism just means someone lacks a belief in a god or gods.

Also atheism isn't a proper noun and doesn't need to be capitalized. =D