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Do Most Atheists Know that science..... Part 2

With memories of Franko....

I've tossed a coin. I've not seen which way up it landed.

I don't believe it landed heads up. Does that mean I believe it landed tails up? No, it doesn't mean any such thing.
 
DOC said:
Being an atheist is believing God does not exist. If you can't be certain God does not exist, then it requires faith to believe He doesn't exist.
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-semantic nitpick-

No. Being an atheist means that you don't believe in any gods; there is no faith involved.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
You guys have mentioned that Lemaitre was a Catholic priest?
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I was tempted to bring up that last night, but I remembered that DOC is a fundie:

"See! Proof positive that the Big Bang is a Satanic lie! Everyone knows that Catholics aren't really Christians, but minions of the Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon!"
 
Mark Felt said:
-semantic nitpick-

No. Being an atheist means that you don't believe in any gods; there is no faith involved.
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DOC is using a tu quoque fallacy wrapped in lame Jack-Chick-tract BS. Typical for the brainless tripe commonly known as "apologetics."
 
joobz said:
That's not hard. Most religions do not view faith in the wrong god as virtuous.
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That's the whole point. Faith, in and of itself, cannot be a virtue--it must be accompanied by knowlege (of which deity is the correct one, at the very least). So if a theist's only answer to the question, "How can you be so certain that your god is the right one?" is, "Because I have faith," then the theist and the atheist are morally equivalent.
 
Prometheus said:
That's the whole point. Faith, in and of itself, cannot be a virtue--it must be accompanied by knowlege (of which deity is the correct one, at the very least). So if a theist's only answer to the question, "How can you be so certain that your god is the right one?" is, "Because I have faith," then the theist and the atheist are morally equivalent.
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I can't be the only one to find the idea that someone is morally superior to someone else because they follow the orders of someone that they believe will doom them to eternal suffering if they don't incredibly disgusting, can I?
 
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Mark Felt said:
I can't be the only one to find the idea that someone is morally superior to someone else because they follow the orders of someone that they believe will doom them to eternal suffering if they don't incredibly disgusting, can I?
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I doubt you'll find many atheists who disagree with you on that point. I'm not even sure how many theists would disagree.
 
Marcus said:
Chalk up yet another question Doc can't bear to answer, not matter how often it is asked, or by whom. How much faith he requires to disbelieve Zeus, Allah, and the Flying Spagetti Monster. Personally I think the FSM has the edge on Sky Daddy.
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How many martyrs have died for the Flying Spagetti Monster. Same goes for Santa Claus.
 
And that's why you believe in Jesus is it? What about Allah, then? He's got a whole heap of recent martyrs. And when/if someone martyrs themselves to the FSM you'll believe in that, too?
 
DOC said:
How many martyrs have died for the Flying Spagetti Monster. Same goes for Santa Claus.
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Can you explain how someone dying for a cause relates to the validity of the cause?
 
Prometheus said:
If both belief and disbelief in a god require faith, then faith cannot be a virtue, now can it?
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Faith is simply trust in the truthfulness of a belief or cause. Your point is kind of like saying if both the Gestapo and the American army had loyal members then loyalty can't be a virtue.
 
Mark Felt said:
No. Being an atheist means that you don't believe in any gods; there is no faith involved.
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Do you believe that there is no possibility that a God can exist? If you do, what do you base that belief on.
 
How many infidels have died because they don't believe in whatever the people calling them infidels believe in?

Atheists are infidels to all religions that have infidels.

Heck, Christians kill other Christians because they are the wrong "kind" of Christian.

Just because people are willing to die for a belief (see the Hijackers) doesn't make it true.
 
Humans have been inventing gods and other invisible entities (souls, angels, devils, thetans, sprites, harpies, etc.) to describe that which they do not understand for eons.

There is no evidence than any kind of consciousness can exist absent a material brain. If they can, then all of them are equally likely to be as true as any other. We no longer believe in gods that require human sacrifices or that control the weather (though I guess some theists do)--

The roles of all invisible entities become smaller and they all disappear as we find better explanations. We've evolved a brain to look for "agency" and "causes" of things-- this has been helpful in our survival-- but it also causes us to confuse correlation with causation to justify the beliefs we've been indoctrinated with. All gods of myths past have been explained away... so have all the other invisible entities... stuff once thought to be caused by demons, are now known to be caused by various mental and neurological disorders.

Your god is likely to be in the same boat, DOC. The questions is-- if your god is as imaginary as the Wotan and Zeus... would you want to know? And how would you know? No one has any way of being an expert on the invisible and immeasurable... and all gods are based on revelations from people who claim to be experts on just that. They are ALL indistinguishable from myths. Your god is indistinguishable from the FSM as far as the evidence goes.
 
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DOC said:
Do you believe that there is no possibility that a God can exist? If you do, what do you base that belief on.
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I agree that to answer that question with Yes requires faith.
However, It also requires faith to say that "There is no possibility that the FSM exists."


However, atheists don't often say "There is no possibility that a god exists." Rather they say, "There is no reason to believe in god becuase no evidence for a god exists."
 
I would like to thank articulett and joobz for articulating (heh) standard response #6.

It has filled me with joobilation (ew).
 
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