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

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 do not believe God exists" is simply a lack of belief. It need not mean any kind of opposing belief.

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave a moment ago:

FireGarden said:
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.
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DOC said:
How many martyrs have died for the Flying Spagetti Monster. Same goes for Santa Claus.
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Your claim is that faith is required to disbelieve. As far as the martyr count, the Muslims are probably ahead, but that has nothing to do with this issue. I am directly addressing the issue or your faith that the FSM does not exist, since you have told us that faith will certainily be required for disbelief.
 
DOC said:
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.
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Yes. Loyalty, by itself, is also not a virtue.
 
Mashuna said:
The FSM disapproves of martydom. Yet more proof of the noodly benevolence!
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Interestingly, No one has ever had to give thier life for FSM nor has anyone killed for FSM. Nor has anyone been tortured for FSM, put into slavery for FSM.....
 
Ava-GOD-ro

(or just "god" for short-- sometimes we tease him and call him The Holy GuacaMOLE cos' his name sounds like "avocado".)

A mole of god happens to weigh exactly as much as god weighs on the periodic table (I'm presuming he's 0 since he had to come before the big bang and thus the matter...including hydrogen #1.)
 
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DOC said:
How many martyrs have died for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Same goes for Santa Claus.
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joobz said:
Can you explain how someone dying for a cause relates to the validity of the cause?
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The fact that there were probably thousands of martyrs for Christianity doesn't prove the validity of of Christianity but it's one more piece of weight to add to the scale of evidence, Especially the many martyrs that died during the 1st century. You have to look at the total evidence for both Theism and Atheism. Each little fact adds weight and then you make your decision. Neither side (theism or atheism) can have perfect knowledge of the truth. That's where the faith comes in for both sides. When the martyrs look at the evidence they just see much more weight on the Theism side than most people do and that includes theists who might not choose martyrdom.
 
DOC said:
The fact that there were probably thousands of martyrs for Christianity doesn't prove the validity of of Christianity but it's one more piece of weight to add to the scale of evidence, Especially the many martyrs that died during the 1st century. You have to look at the total evidence for both Theism and Atheism. Each little fact adds weight and then you make your decision. Neither side (theism or atheism) can have perfect knowledge of the truth. That's where the faith comes in for both sides. When the martyrs look at the evidence they just see much more weight on the Theism side than most people do and that includes theists who might not choose martyrdom.
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RE: Bolded.

No, it's not. What it's evidence of is that people can be utterly convinced of something, to the point of being willing to die for it, not anything supernatural.
 
The Heavens Gate crowd died for their beliefs, and they believed in space aliens not gods.

The atheists don't believe in divine machinations, because there is no evidence of anything divine.

And each theist has their own brand of belief-- none of them have any measurable evidence for their claims of divine knowledge and every one of them is wrong according to some other person's beliefs. Per the evidence, none have more truth-value nor explanatory power than any other once you get to their "supernatural" claims.

There's one reality, but an infinite number of potential delusions about that reality.

In doing the math, I find the "belief" side wanting. I think the non-belief side is far more likely to be the winner when it comes to whether there are invisible immeasurable entities. Until there's evidence, there is no way to tell such real entities from all the imaginary ones people have been making up anyhow.

So, though your circular argument might work for a brain made soft due to marinating in faith for years, your logic fails utterly. Your "magic man" explanation has no more explanatory power than all the other invisible gods, myths, and imaginary beings that people have believed in over the eons. It's actually worse than the space alien belief, because, any sufficiently advanced species would be indistinguishable from gods to us lesser folks--just as we would seem to be gods with our knowledge and technology to people of eons past. Each believer has their own little confirmation bias as to why the story they've been indoctrinated to believe in is true-- but they all rest in on this bizarre idea that somewhere back in time some mortal got messages from some invisible guy (who is indistinguishable from a delusion) via some revelatory process (also indistinguishable from a delusion) and wrote it down in some manner (though we never seem to have these originals) to spread to future generations whom the invisible guy, apparently, doesn't feel like talking to (or not in any way that is distinguishable from a delusion anyhow)-and somehow today's believer just happened to be born into or stumble upon the right and true version of this story unlike all those other deluded and wrong people of eons past and present who believe in a false myth that comes from a long line of hearsay heresy.

All this speculation, but no evidence that there IS a divine anything... and no evidence that any mortal ever could access it even if there was.-- Couple this with the reams of evidence that people are easy to fool regarding such beliefs--tons even die for such belief and/or kill for such beliefs. (Of course, they all seem to believe that the dead folks are going on to some next life, so I guess it's not really death after all.)

Thanks, I'll stick with the rational scientific side when it comes to understanding reality.
 
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DOC said:
The fact that there were probably thousands of martyrs for Christianity doesn't prove the validity of of Christianity but it's one more piece of weight to add to the scale of evidence, Especially the many martyrs that died during the 1st century.
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Are you claiming that the number of people willing to die for any cause supports the validity of that cause? Does this go for any cause or is it unique to christianity?
DOC said:
You have to look at the total evidence for both Theism and Atheism. Each little fact adds weight and then you make your decision. Neither side (theism or atheism) can have perfect knowledge of the truth.
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certainly. Theism is in constant disagreement with itself and is willing to fight itself and kill multiple times over for those disagreements. I'd say theism has little handle on the truth but is arrogantly willing to kill for it.
DOC said:
That's where the faith comes in for both sides.
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This statement doesn't follow your previous statement.
You have still not established that faith is needed to be an atheist.

DOC said:
When the martyrs look at the evidence they just see much more weight on the Theism side than most people do and that includes theists who might not choose martyrdom.
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There is no reason to assume the martyrs were rational in thier choice. Indeed, the heaven's gate example demonstrates that a willingness to die for a cause is in no way proof of anything regarding that cause.
 
DOC said:
The fact that there were probably thousands of martyrs for Christianity doesn't prove the validity of of Christianity but it's one more piece of weight to add to the scale of evidence,
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No it isn't. Unless you are willing to grant that the many martyres for other religious faiths are evidence of their validity. I've asked you this question before, but please tell us why the martyres of christianity are evidence of that faith's validity while the martyres of other religions are not evidence of their faith's validity?

Especially the many martyrs that died during the 1st century.
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Why are these martyres especially significant?

You have to look at the total evidence for both Theism and Atheism.
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OK, what evidence do you have for the existence of gods?

Each little fact adds weight and then you make your decision.
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"Facts" like your claim about martyrdom? All martyrdom does is demonstrate that people have certain beliefs, it does not evidence the truth of those beliefs.

Neither side (theism or atheism) can have perfect knowledge of the truth.
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In my experience most atheists don't claim to have such knowledge. Most of them have made the observation the there is no evidence for the existence of gods and that it is no more reasonable to assume their existence than to beleive in leprechauns or unicorns.

That's where the faith comes in for both sides.
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Is the observation "there is no evidence for the existence of leprechauns, therefor I have no belief in them" a statement of faith?

When the martyrs look at the evidence they just see much more weight on the Theism side than most people do and that includes theists who might not choose martyrdom.
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Seriously DOC, how do you figure that you are not defending the validity of the beliefs of Terrorists?
 
joobz said:
You have still not established that faith is needed to be an atheist.
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As long as you can't be certain that God doesn't exist, the absolute belief that God does not exist requires some faith. If you're 99.99 percent sure God doesn't exist, you still require 00.01 faith to be an atheist.

If you're 100% sure God (the intelligent Creator of the universe) doesn't exist then how did you determine that.
 
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DOC said:
As long as you can't be certain that God doesn't exist, the absolute belief that God does not exist requires some faith. If your 99.99 percent sure God doesn't you still require 00.01 faith to be an atheist.
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And exactly what makes you think that atheists actually have an absolute belief that God does not exist?
 
DOC said:
As long as you can't be certain that God doesn't exist, the absolute belief that God does not exist requires some faith. If you're 99.99 percent sure God doesn't exist, you still require 00.01 faith to be an atheist.

If you're 100% sure God (the intelligent Creator of the universe) doesn't exist then how did you determine that.
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Are you 100% sure the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist? How did you determine that?
 
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