Atheism is a faith.

[Bill Thompson]

Atheists seem to be instigators of the same logical fallacies that they accuse their detractors of. For instance, they use observational selection when they fail to admit that Darwin was not an atheist while they hold him up as their model. Also they fail to recognize that debunking any religion is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel and yet they are self-congratulatory in promoting this as a great achievement. Also they contradict themselves. Here is an example: "Nature did not select anything. Everything came about through a process of natural selection".

 

[Ginarley]

Atheists seem to be instigators of the same logical fallacies that they accuse their detractors of. For instance, they use observational selection when they fail to admit that Darwin was not an atheist while they hold him up as their model.

I don't know of too many atheists that hold Darwin as a model example of atheism lol - the point is he came up with the first feasible theory answering one of the most daunting unexplained scientific issues of all time - where life came from and how it got so complex. Since religion thrives on unexplained scientific problems, he was however a significant contributer to the atheist cause.

Also they fail to recognize that debunking any religion is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel and yet they are self-congratulatory in promoting this as a great achievement.

You are partly right - although remember a HUGE number of people think religion is truth. If it was really so easy then surely religion wouldn't exist... a key aspect to atheism is raising awareness of the ease of debunking religious claims, hopefully triggering some (or all!) people to open their eyes!

Also they contradict themselves. Here is an example: "Nature did not select anything. Everything came about through a process of natural selection".

Misquoting evolutionary theory is a common pastime for most people (especially creationists) and its common to get it wrong. Admittedly it's not the best sentence but poor grammar/word selection does not prove atheists contradict themselves either.

Also that sentence can actually be interpreted as correct in the sense that nature does not make a conscious act of selecting (implying design), rather natural selection operates entirely unconsciously by favouring the genes that are more likely to survive (survival of the survivors as some people call it).

 

[skeptic griggsy]

My signature says it all about theists.When they find us wrong , they show themselves fallaciously arguing generally. Besides Dawkins , we hav e Paul Kurtz, George Smith, Quentin Smith, Robin LePoidevin, Jordan Howard Sobel, Jonathan Harrism ,Michael Martin ,John Mackie and Graham Oppy.

 

[CapelDodger]

That I exist and have thoughts and can imagine things is definitely real. But the things I imagine are not necessarily.

For me the nature of consciousness or self-awareness is the hard question. I can't even picture a way science can get from physical processes to my sense of CapelDodgerness. Of the little I do know about it one thing is certain : it happens inside my brain. As Trickyness happens inside yours.

The fundamental mistake of woo-suckers is to imagine there's more to it than that, that since we experience consciousness it must be an aspect of the Universe at large. Thus the idea, say, of telepathy tapping into its consciousness-field. A sentient-centric view of the world that is clearly invalid.

You can have a real physical reaction to something your brain has concocted, for example, an adreneline rush when you think you see a ghost. The fact that the ghost was just steam rising from a manhole doesn't make the experience any less real.

Quite. This is the brain as machine with consciousness riding on it. The way I'd interpret such an event would be our pre-conscious image-processing leaping to a conclusion - that's what it's there for - about a moving shape, turning on the adrenaline to spark a reaction (without reference to the "chain-of-command" as we might naively describe it) and then the conscious mind coming up with an explanation for what just happened. A mature response might be "I'm jumpy tonight, must cut down on the coffee". A less mature one would be "I saw a ghost and that's why I became frightened. Heaven forbid that the consciousness isn't the one making all the decisions .

 

[CapelDodger]

It's not really that strange. Everyone is stunted in some way. I've just always focused on science and design and never gave thought to anything else. I just happen to be philosophically and emotionally equivalent to a 12 year old.

Hey joobz, come on, don't run yourself down. I can do that for you .

You've actively tried to get beyond what you see as personal limitations, and that's not nothing. Not by a long shot. Philosophy has a self-promoted high status in Western cultural life, it's hardly your fault you tried that route to a wider understanding.

To my mind you're far better off starting from science and design in understanding the ways of society and our peculiar species. Good literature, well-written history and the sayings of Mark Twain is what I'd recommend.

Don't ask me about literature, though, my emotional development stops at The Count of Monte Christo. First there's denial, then there's anger, then there's revenge, then life moves on.

 

[CapelDodger]

What is your evidence [that these are your own emotional responses to certain concepts] ? Evidence, not the philosophy that if it can't be measured then it doesn't exist.

Philosophy from me is not something you need to pre-empt.

Evidence the first : you appear to be very taken with your experience, so much so that you're actively swimming with alligators here to get that across. You don't seem at all repelled by these concepts of an involved god and perhaps an after-life.

Evidence the second : all the other people I've met who've had similar spiritual expreriences, none of whom has become convinced of something they didn't like. Quite a few of those experiences have been similar to, but not compatible with, yours.

Not being a Philosopher, who would rather hang than come to a conclusion, I conclude that you have a positive emotional response to the concept of a god and an afterlife.

There've been some recent brain-physiology advances in understanding the mechanics of spiritual experience, but I'm no expert in the matter. I'm pretty good at understanding people, though. People generally believe in what they'd like to be so.

 

[CapelDodger]

My signature says it all about theists.When they find us wrong , they show themselves fallaciously arguing generally. Besides Dawkins , we hav e Paul Kurtz, George Smith, Quentin Smith, Robin LePoidevin, Jordan Howard Sobel, Jonathan Harrism ,Michael Martin ,John Mackie and Graham Oppy.

And Tricky, The Atheist, Ginarley, thaiboxerken, and a host of others.

(I suggest you check your sig, it's coming up blank for me .)

 

[CapelDodger]

Also they contradict themselves. Here is an example: "Nature did not select anything. Everything came about through a process of natural selection".

This means - Ginarley touched on the subject - that there is no conscious entity called Nature, similar to a believer's sky-god, that carries out a selection process according to some intent. Natural selection takes place in the microcosm, every time loaded dice are rolled to determine who lives and who dies, who breeds and who doesn't. Evolution emerges from those myriad incidents. The organism with the dice loaded its way doesn't always win, but that's the one to put your money on.

As a statement, it's not terribly deep or mysterious. I like its conciseness but in that I'm not thinking, as perhaps Ginarley is, about how it appears from the idiot's point of view. Frankly, IMO, anyone too stupid to appreciate it is beyond saving. Anyone who's also stupid enough to deliberately reveal the fact in this arena is legitimate entertainment-fodder.

(I have to believe that to convince myself I'm not a bad person.)

 

[The Atheist]

As a statement, it's not terribly deep or mysterious. I like its conciseness but in that I'm not thinking, as perhaps Ginarley is, about how it appears from the idiot's point of view. Frankly, IMO, anyone too stupid to appreciate it is beyond saving. Anyone who's also stupid enough to deliberately reveal the fact in this arena is legitimate entertainment-fodder.

Seconded!

Need to find something to replace "natural selection" will fix that.

Suggestions?

 

[Tricky]

True, I should have been more clear. Being as honest as I can with myself the explanation that there was someone that I responded to is the best one, not that I was 'tricked' in some way into believing that.

Now I think it is a fair point to say where is the hard evidence because I feel that way if someone claims that ghosts exist, they talk to the dead, someone was healed at a service. If hard evidence were found for telepathy and it could be modelled and repeatable tests conducted that found it occured you would go, 'that surprised me', but now it is part of the observable, testable world so has ceased to be woo, but I don't think it would be necessarily life-changing (unless you could do it yourself perhaps!).

I'm not sure I get what you mean. Of course there are a lot of things that were formerly thought by many to be impossible (like television) which are now commonplace. One could even argue that they have been "life changing" since they have significantly altered our society.

But even so, when they were proposed, they were always proposed to be things that would be objectively verifiable to everyone. Sometimes spiritualists have proposed similar things, but so far, it has always been shown to be just plain old trickery. That has proven so true that these days that most of those who propose some sort of spiritual power rarely even bother to claim that what they assert to exist can be objectively verified. It is always something like, "you will feel it in your heart" or "you will hear the words, but no one else can".


It is so difficult to get any objectively verifiable spiritual claim that the Randi million cannot even attract sincere applicants.

I'm rambling 'cause I'm not sure what you intended to communicate here.

But I am saying that encountering God could be life-changing, and so much for the better. If you can, put aside all thoughts of the church, established and not established, and crap, boring or frightening and irrational services, and think instead of being quiet, stilling the emotions and the mind, controlling the breathing and waiting. Such an activity might be the start of something, and if not, it is good for the body to relax for a few minutes regularly! I am trying to contrast ghosts, for instance, which might be of interest to the mind only, with God, who could transform the whole of one's life (for the better).

I don't doubt for a second that accepting God as real can be life-changing for the better -- or for the worse (see stories of Slingblade and Roadtoad). That a religious catharsis can change your life is not really at question. The question is whether what you have accepted is actually real. If your life has been changed positively by accepting God, then I am very happy for you. A number of people here, including myself, can relate how their lives were improved by discontinuing belief in God. You might even say it was a life-changing experience.

That says to me, again, that it is your experience that changes you, not an actual God.

To try and experience God you don't have to pay anything or give control of your life to anyone but just be open to the possibility.

I am quite open to the possibility. In fact, I would welcome evidence of a truly loving God. I'm afraid that the God described in the Bible doesn't fit that bill, but I suspect that if there is a loving God, the Christians are very wrong about His nature.

 

[CapelDodger]

Seconded!

Need to find something to replace "natural selection" will fix that.

Suggestions?

Not to accept your premise, but "stuff happening" springs to mind.

 

[RandFan]

I don't doubt for a second that accepting God as real can be life-changing for the better -- or for the worse (see stories of Slingblade and Roadtoad). That a religious catharsis can change your life is not really at question. The question is whether what you have accepted is actually real. If your life has been changed positively by accepting God, then I am very happy for you. A number of people here, including myself, can relate how their lives were improved by discontinuing belief in God. You might even say it was a life-changing experience.

That says to me, again, that it is your experience that changes you, not an actual God.

When I left religion it was mostly sad for me and the opposite of a catharsis. I kept going to church after I stopped believing in part because of the spiritual feelings that I had. But I knew it was based only on feelings. People got those feelings from believing so many diverse things and gods that it made no sense to simply accept any arbitrary belief system. Belief for belief's sake seemed to me to be false hope. To me it was a lie. I could as easily believe that Star Wars and the "force" were real and form a belief system around the Jedi Knight simply because it made me feel good.

I accept that others don't see it the way that I do and I don't say this to be offensive it's just that the argument of life changing experience makes no sense to me. I've had many "spiritual" experiences and many of those had nothing to do with church or god.

 

[Squishua]

The issue is a view on what atheism is compared to other religions.

To presume nothing else is out there requires faith.

I fail to see why "something else" equates to God.

The primary argument against this point is the Russell's Teapot analogy. However, I feel that it simply explains the absurdity of specific examples of god but fails to demonstrate why thinking there is nothing more (god like) isn't a faith.

It takes faith to think that some magical thing that cannot be demonstrated to exist does not, in fact, exist?

That makes every one of us filled with infinite faith, since there are an infinite number of concepts that cannot be demonstrated to exist! Since we believe leprechauns, unicorns, fairies, cyclops and the like are not real, we have faith in each disbelief!

The only problem is that the disbelief was reached as a conclusion.

Faith requires that no conclusions or weighing of eveidence be made.

Faith requires blind acceptance and the rejection of doubt.

Faith requires gullibility.

-Squish

 

[thaiboxerken]

Atheists seem to be instigators of the same logical fallacies that they accuse their detractors of.

Some could be, but I haven't really seen this particular phenomena in this forum.

For instance, they use observational selection when they fail to admit that Darwin was not an atheist while they hold him up as their model.

1. I don't know any atheists that hold Darwin as a role-model for atheism.
2. Darwin was an atheist.

Also they fail to recognize that debunking any religion is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel and yet they are self-congratulatory in promoting this as a great achievement.

It might be "easy" to show this to rational people, however, the debunking isn't so easy when trying to convince the irrational believers.

Also they contradict themselves. Here is an example: "Nature did not select anything. Everything came about through a process of natural selection".

Not a contradiction at all, as others have pointed out. This is a fallacy on your part, it's called an equivocation fallacy.


So, did you have any real examples of atheists using fallacious arguments?

 

[joobz]

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The only problem is that the disbelief was reached as a conclusion.
Faith requires that no conclusions or weighing of eveidence be made.
Faith requires blind acceptance and the rejection of doubt.
Faith requires gullibility.
-Squish

You don't need to use logic to reach a conclusion.
Weighing of evidence doesn't require the same conclusion to be reached.
Faith isn't without doubt. You can be filled with doubt, but still keep to your faith.

Gullibility is definitely part of it, but being without faith doesn't make you less gullible. If you actually believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Gullibility is definitely part of it, but being without faith doesn't make you less gullible. If you actually believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Having no faith means a person definitely is less gullible, because it means they don't believe for whatever reason. I doubt you have a bridge to sell.

 

[Mr Clingford]

Besides Dawkins , we hav e Paul Kurtz, George Smith, Quentin Smith, Robin LePoidevin, Jordan Howard Sobel, Jonathan Harrism ,Michael Martin ,John Mackie and Graham Oppy.

I was taught by Robin Le Poidevin when I read Philosophy and Theology at Leeds University!

 

[joobz]

Having no faith means a person definitely is less gullible, because it means they don't believe for whatever reason. I doubt you have a bridge to sell.

If you hold to the notion that you can't be duped, then you definitely have a faith in yourself which means you are gullible.

However, this is again using a translational definition of faith. I was referring to faith in a religion. that type of faith doesn't make someone more gullible in other areas.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I could as easily believe that Star Wars and the "force" were real and form a belief system around the Jedi Knight simply because it made me feel good.

Might I interest you in The First Church of Trek, the sci-fi religion that doesn't take all your money?

 

[The Atheist]

You can be filled with doubt, but still keep to your faith.

That's should be in the bumper sticker thread. If Kathy hasn't got that on her bumper, she should.

The theologians ultimate cure-all for the pox of reality upon christianity.