Atheism is a faith.

Roboramma said:
I didn't say it was evidence that religion leads to violence more than other non-religious beliefs or ideologies.
I said it was evidence that people's beliefs influence their actions. Read back to the claim that we're discussing.
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It also does not show a significant difference between religion and none which is what we were talking about.
eta we were talking about a difference between a belief in god and other beliefs
 
Both:
"There is a god" and
"There is no god"
are "before the evidence" claims.
In this way they seem to have a superficial similarity.
The real question is why both are "before the evidence" claims.
 
Various fruit on a table represent various faiths, for example: apples for Christianity, oranges for Judaism, and peaches for Islam. An empty place on the table is not a fruit, an empty place on the table is not a faith. Therefore Atheism is the lack of fruit.
 
joobz said:
One other issue was that many atheists i've ran across in person tended to be arrogant SOBS. This is probably a poor selection since I probably ran across many more who were great, but didn't feel the need to force it down my throat.
I guess as a type of polarizing response, I had a disdain for atheism as for most theisms.
then coming to this website, I greatly enjoyed the debates on science, but reading the arrogant views of some atheists, it rewoke those feelings.


That's I guess it in a nut shell.
thanks for asking:o
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I think a lot of us went through such a stage. Again, not that this means that you'll turn out to be an atheist, too, just that it's not that unusual.

For years I didn't give a whole lot of thought to the issue. That sounds strange now, but when you don't live in a very religious area, or have a religious family, or hang out on atheist or atheist-friendly websites, it's amazing how rarely it comes up. Even now, outside of my time on the internet, it rarely comes up.

Anyway, during most of that time if you had asked me, I probably would have described myself as agnostic. I didn't really know any atheists (at least, as far as I knew), and I had the impression that atheists were all crusaders who thought they knew it all. I patted myself on the back for being so open-minded.

But the truth is, my views were't really any different then than they are now. I don't want to get sidetracked with debates about "hard" versus "soft" atheism, so the bottom line is that I eventually realized that (1) atheism isn't about claiming to know everything; (2) you can admit that it's theoretically possible for some sort of god to exist and still be an atheist; and (3) being open-minded about the existence of god (as in, being willing to consider any new evidence, to the extent there really is any new evidence coming in) doesn't make you a non-atheist, it just makes you an open-minded atheist.

Anyway, take that for what it's worth. Your mileage may vary, of course.

But also, don't get too hung up on how people act here. First, there are a lot of atheists here, and like any group of people, there are jerks among atheists. Ergo, there are going to be some atheists jerks here.

Second, even those (which hopefully includes me) who aren't generally jerks can get a little testy, or just come across that way. This place is an oasis of atheist-friendly in a world that doesn't really like us. Everywhere else (and here too, sometimes), we read about how we don't have morals, are arrogant bastards trying to ruin their holidays, corrupt their children, etc. etc. So yes, sometimes many of us get a little bitter and angry and let that show when we shouldn't. And in general, this forum is a tough place -- but in a good way. You're not going to get away with logical fallacies or fuzzy definitions or inconsistent statements or factual assertions that you can't back up. People will call you on it, and sometimes not as gently as you might wish. Hopefully that doesn't turn you off this place, because it's worth it.
 
LaPalida said:
Various fruit on a table represent various faiths, for example: apples for Christianity, oranges for Judaism, and peaches for Islam. An empty place on the table is not a fruit, an empty place on the table is not a faith. Therefore Atheism is the lack of fruit.
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It doesn't quite work out that way since all the fruit are organized religions. Lack of organized religion does not equate to atheism.
 
Various fruit on a table represent various faiths, for example: apples for Christianity, oranges for Judaism, and peaches for Islam. An empty place on the table is not a fruit, an empty place on the table is not a faith. Therefore Atheism is the lack of fruit.
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Dogdoctor said:
It doesn't quite work out that way since all the fruit are organized religions. Lack of organized religion does not equate to atheism.
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I think you're nitpicking the analogy a little. Throw some grapes on that table to represent disorganized religion, and the point remains.
 
Dunstan said:
I think you're nitpicking the analogy a little. Throw some grapes on that table to represent disorganized religion, and the point remains.
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What point? That atheists are driven by faith? If what you want to say is that there is no requirement of faith to be an atheist I will agree. If you want to say that all atheists don't have faith in their beliefs or don't have beliefs I will disagree.
 
Dogdoctor said:
What point? That atheists are driven by faith? If what you want to say is that there is no requirement of faith to be an atheist I will agree. If you want to say that all atheists don't have faith in their beliefs or don't have beliefs I will disagree.
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Huh? We're like ships passing in the night on this one.

I understood the previous poster's analogy to be simply that atheist is the absence of religion (i.e. the space on the table not occupied by fruit) rather than just another religion (i.e. another piece of fruit).

And for the fifty-third time in this thread (not specifically addressing this to you), the only entrance requirement to the atheist club is that you agree with the statement "there is no God." You can be a nice guy or a jerk, intolerant or open-minded, smart or stupid, etc.
 
To the extent that we have “faith” that the world is constrained to behave in certain consistent ways, that we can therefore obtain objective knowledge of it, and that everyday experience validates such “faith” on an ongoing basis, empiricism is itself a “faith.”

Does not then the assertion that atheism is founded on faith ail from the very disease it seeks to diagnose in atheists?

'Luthon64
 
joobz said:
You are trying to poison the well(these people, poor grammar, playing with words) I've never claimed to be trying to discredit atheism. I'm trying to sort out my views. I really don't know where I stand.

But, Thank you for being polite and respectful to me.
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You don't even know what "poisoning the well" is. "These people" was just a reference to the kind of riff-raff with your thinking abilities, "poor grammer" is a description of how you write, and "playing with words" is exactly what you are doing.

Okay, maybe you are trying to sort out your views. But as they stand they're ridiculous, incoherent, and poorly thought-out...
 
If I can make a light-hearted remark that is not to be taken seriously, I have known some Indian and Brazilain women that make me feel that there is a god.

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...and that god must be a man.
 
Okay, I'm just thinking out loud (so to speak)


How far removed from one's personal description of god does a thing have to be before not believing in it doesn't require faith?

I can't see anyone claiming that it is faith not to believe in Russell's Teapot, so how far can you move the teapot towards god (okay, I know, but go with me here) before 'faith' (however you define it) is required?

(Edited - typos. Again)
 
This requires no further beating. The thing about this line of reasoning that amuses me is that it does not seek to invalidate atheism. It merely claims that atheism is as absurd as theism. That's the kind of thing you would expect from someone who knows he has lost.
 
Sushi said:
You don't even know what "poisoning the well" is. "These people" was just a reference to the kind of riff-raff with your thinking abilities, "poor grammer" is a description of how you write, and "playing with words" is exactly what you are doing.

Okay, maybe you are trying to sort out your views. But as they stand they're ridiculous, incoherent, and poorly thought-out...
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you are way off: poisoning the wellWP is exactly what happens when you make one assertion about me to discredit anything i've said;
you've related to my bad grammar and typos, therefore anything else I must say is wrong. You've made insinuations to my collusion with other "riff-raff" and therefore I must be wrong.
 
joobz said:
you are way off: poisoning the wellWP is exactly what happens when you make one assertion about me to discredit anything i've said;
you've related to my bad grammar and typos, therefore anything else I must say is wrong. You've made insinuations to my collusion with other "riff-raff" and therefore I must be wrong.
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False. As an informal logical fallacy, 'poisoning the well' occurs when one makes an unfavourable claim about a person, and then links this to the falsity of that person's claims. Commenting that someone has poor grammer is not, in fact, 'poisoning the well'. At least, definately not in the context it was applied in this situation. It was clear he was simply stating a fact. If he had said, however, "joobz has poor grammer thus his arguments shouldn't be take seriously", then it would be a case of this fallacy. He did not, and thus no fallacy occured. This is often misunderstood in a similar way that ad hominem arguments are misidentified (i.e. any personal attack is labeled 'ad hom').

Secondly, we have specifically shown why the ideas in the OP were false. We did not rely on any form of 'poisoning' nor any 'ad hominem' argument at all.

ETA: To clarify, "you have bad grammer thus everything you say is false" is a 'poisoning the well' fallacy. "You have bad grammer, and everything you say is false" is not.
 
I understand now how atheism can be seen as without faith. However, this is based off an ideality. It is the zero value on the faith scale. But like Temperature, pressure, achieving 100% efficient thermo cycles, this value cannot be reached in the real world.

Even basing your world view on logic, there are assumptions that are made that must be taken on faith. It must be taken on faith that any of the life questions of "why?" can be achieved through evidence based measures or faith in that these questions don’t matter. It must be taken on faith that humanity as a whole can seek its own good without a faith in something. It must be taken on faith that the multiverse model is wrong or that in the realm of possibilities multiverse there isn’t a chance for something more.

I don’t state that all atheists take to any or all of these examples, but the fact that these creep into the mind are why atheism isn’t devoid of faith and why I call it a faith.

Like in the table example, I do not believe you can truly clear the table of all the fruit, it’s juices, skins, stems…
 
Atheism (in spite of being an -ism) isn't generically a faith. It can be a faith position to an individual. We do have Atheists on this board that take their Atheism to that level of commitment. Ironically, they will most vociferously deny their position has anything of faith about it.
 
Taffer said:
False. As an informal logical fallacy, 'poisoning the well' occurs when one makes an unfavourable claim about a person, and then links this to the falsity of that person's claims. Commenting that someone has poor grammer is not, in fact, 'poisoning the well'. At least, definately not in the context it was applied in this situation. It was clear he was simply stating a fact. If he had said, however, "joobz has poor grammer thus his arguments shouldn't be take seriously", then it would be a case of this fallacy. He did not, and thus no fallacy occured. This is often misunderstood in a similar way that ad hominem arguments are misidentified (i.e. any personal attack is labeled 'ad hom').

Secondly, we have specifically shown why the ideas in the OP were false. We did not rely on any form of 'poisoning' nor any 'ad hominem' argument at all.

ETA: To clarify, "you have bad grammer thus everything you say is false" is a 'poisoning the well' fallacy. "You have bad grammer, and everything you say is false" is not.
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Now that seems to be a semantic issue. The well is poisoned through the inferrence. I do not doubt that the OP has been well debated. But to bring in you have bad grammar, you can't spell, oh "these people", while veiled, there is most definitely an attempt to further invalidate my views through those not related negative accusations.

regardless if they are true or not.:)
 
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