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Is Atheism based on Logic or Faith?

Brainache said:
Where did God come from, if not "Nothing"?
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God 'came from' an idea, and is a natural aspect of evolution - of the process of evolution for a species which, while within an objective reality, each individual member of the species is subjective in nature, which seems to be a contradiction.

Essentially the idea of god developed from the process of evolution by which consciousness and its associate functions derive.

In reply to the spirit of the question, God (big 'G') didn't come from anything. Essentially this is what is 'God', although it is often associated with the god of the bible (and perhaps the quran?) which - if I recall correctly (at least in the bible) is said to claim it (he) is without beginning (or end). Thus the phrase 'its turtles all the way down' is perhaps misleading in its application.

Essentially that which is conscious and has a beginning will naturally wonder about questions related to purpose, meaning and rational expectation...survival and nurturing, which when done through subjective agency (within an objective reality) creates serious dysfunctional problems for all involved.
 
Scorpion said:
Taking only one issue from the opening post for the moment. It is quite clear that Rashad Khalifa edited the quran to fit his number 19 theory. He deleted verses 9.128 and 9.129 because they did not fit his theory. He claimed the quran had been altered. Thereby refuting the idea that the quran is the unchanging word of God transmitted from the time of Muhammad by people who have learned it all by heart.
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How was Rashad Khalifa able to delete the verses which you mentioned, if they are still there today?

[Quran 9:128-129]
 
Theism is the claim that at least one god exists. Atheism is absolutely everything that doesn't include that claim.

It can come by faith, by logic, by apathy, by ignorance, by essentially anything and everything that isn't "I believe in god/s."
 
My atheism is based on observation. I try to remember the difference between what I see and what I wish. You can call it faith, I suppose, insofar as it involves the "animal faith" that anything at all is real, but to make no distinction between that and what theists call faith is to count religious faith for nothing. You can call it logic too, I suppose, insofar as logic involves sorting out the difference between what you see and what you infer from it. But really it's neither. I'm an atheist by default. I see no god because I need none; because I am satisfied that the universe has no purpose and that nothing exists beyond it. Right now, though, it's lovely and I'm enjoying it.
 
Cainkane1 said:
I'll tell you one thing. If a god does exist he she or it certainly could care less about whats going on here on earth. Innocent people suffer and die every second of every day. Many of these victims die praying to god for help and then they die anyway.
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It would appear so, but since all the facts are unknown, it cannot be said for certain that this is the case.
More importantly, humans need to take up the caring for others and making sure innocent victims do not suffer if it is such a bad thing to allow it to happen (which I think you are saying) and many people pray to god for help because that is their only or final option. They wouldn't be praying to any invisible entity if it weren't for the fact that they are living on a planet where the predominance of selfish intention and manipulation are taught and rewarded.

Said another way, if everyone who now prays to deity were to renounce all such expression, they would not then suddenly be gifted with help from any other process.

So they pray.

And they die.

But we don't know if that is the end of them or not.
 
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ehcks said:
All that we know remains after someone dies is the physical changes they made to the world and the memories left behind in people who know them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xByO0jhtceY

Anything else is a result of the fear of death, the fear of not existing.
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Yeah but you don't know this to be true, there is no way to prove this understanding which you have describe, or the concept which is spoke of in the song you posted.

Expect Death
 
mikeb768 said:
Yeah but you don't know this to be true, there is no way to prove this understanding which you have describe, or the concept which is spoke of in the song you posted.

Expect Death
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He has more evidence for his belief than Muslims do for theirs.

He has the entire universe to aid his understanding, Muslims turn their backs to creation and worship the words in a book written by men. I think they are foolish to put so much trust in an old book.
 
Navigator said:
It would appear so, but since all the facts are unknown, it cannot be said for certain that this is the case.
More importantly, humans need to take up the caring for others and making sure innocent victims do not suffer if it is such a bad thing to allow it to happen (which I think you are saying) and many people pray to god for help because that is their only or final option. They wouldn't be praying to any invisible entity if it weren't for the fact that they are living on a planet where the predominance of selfish intention and manipulation are taught and rewarded.

Said another way, if everyone who now prays to deity were to renounce all such expression, they would not then suddenly be gifted with help from any other process.

So they pray.

And they die.

But we don't know if that is the end of them or not.
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So it appears that what you are saying is two things. First that deities are a guess, and second that the guess is based on wishful thinking in the face of human weakness. While it's true that there is no final decision on whether or not that guess is wrong, there seems little reason to believe it's right.
 
So Mikeb, where did god come from? If nothing comes from nothing, something must have created it? And, how do we know it is the god of your particular belief even if there is such a thing as god?
 
Brainache said:
He has more evidence for his belief than Muslims do for theirs.

He has the entire universe to aid his understanding, Muslims turn their backs to creation and worship the words in a book written by men. I think they are foolish to put so much trust in an old book.
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Yeah but the book is has consistently been found to be correct.
 
mikeb768 said:
Yeah but the book is has consistently been found to be correct.
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No it hasn't.

The sky is not spread out like a tent over the land. poetic as it is, it is not a valid Cosmological metaphor.

Maybe if he said: "The sky is void through which the world spins around the sun like a ball around the lip of a well", or something, you might have a point.

The quran is full of ancient misconceptions like that. It shows no deeper insight into the nature of the Universe than one would expect to find in any 7th century Arabian writings.
 
mikeb768 said:
Yeah but the book is has consistently been found to be correct.
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There are many correct points about Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons," but his claim that it's 100% historically accurate is false. It's a fantasy fictional story.

As is the Koran, Torah, Bible, and every other mythological text.
 
bruto said:
So it appears that what you are saying is two things. First that deities are a guess, and second that the guess is based on wishful thinking in the face of human weakness. While it's true that there is no final decision on whether or not that guess is wrong, there seems little reason to believe it's right.
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The only reason to believe the guess is right is due to the way humans presently do things although I cannot vouch that greed and selfishness are human weaknesses, they are fundamentally more useful in relation to the systems presently operating under human control, and thus 'easier' for people to do.

Short of stopping the world (example: in relation to biblical the version of this happening related in the bible [return of the messiah]) I cannot see how a 'final decision' can be reached as 'afterlife' is locked away from common human experience. There is simply no reason either way to believe any guessing is right or wrong.

I think that in relation to the thread question "Is Atheism based on Logic or Faith?" logic says there is no way to know for sure, faith allows for the belief that the guess (there is no god, gods, afterlife, continuation of personal consciousness etc) is the right thing to believe/have faith in.
 
Parsman said:
So Mikeb, where did god come from? If nothing comes from nothing, something must have created it? And, how do we know it is the god of your particular belief even if there is such a thing as god?
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We don't know where God came from? Although we do know the attributes of God which he has chosen to reveal to us.

Say, "He is God, [who is] One,
God, the Eternal Refuge.
He neither begets nor is born,
Nor is there to Him any equivalent."
[Quran 112:1-4]
 
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