jmercer said:
That's part of what I really liked about luchdog's post - stating that "there is no God" really is an act of faith because there's no proof.
Just to pick a nit, it's luchog, no 'd'. Gaelic for "mouse".
Skeptically, all anyone can really say is "There is no conclusive evidence of God, therefore, while I acknowledge the possiblility of God, I withold judgement on the matter." To me, that's atheism.
Technically, that's agnosticism. Atheism according to standard definition would not acknowledge the possibility; or would actively chose disbelief in the face of lack of evidence. Withholding of judgement, but maintaining the possibility -- or asserting that the problem is essentially uknowable in the empirical sense -- is agnosticism.
The hardcore hijacking of the concept was courtesy of early Russian Communism, and was emphasized by Stalin and Lenin. Religion was seen as a threat to the beginnings of Communistic government in Russia because it provided a social strata independent of the government - not to mention a cultural link to the past. Therefore, it was ruthlessly demonized and "hard" atheism ("There is no god!") propagandized relentlessly to all the children and adults in the USSR for generations.
No so much that, since it was true atheism, according to the standard English definition. The real problem was that it was
militant atheism, backed by the power and will to enforce it as, not merely the dominant, but the exclusive worldview; resulting in persecution and murder. A problem when
any worldview becomes militant and achieves sufficient power to enforce it's viewpoint.
originally posted by
Part of the problem is confusing "proof" with "evidence". There is no proof for evolution, quantum mechanics or relativity. There is a hell of a lot of evidence for all three, along with all the other hard sciences. Likewise, there is no proof for the existence of God but some people believe that there is sufficient evidence that they choose to believe.
That's the key right there. There is no real "proof" of anything save self-existence. Everything else must be taken on faith.
But faith is not a binary value. Having faith in the existence of, say, rain is a small value. It's easy, since it's a common experience, shared by pretty much everyone. It rests only on the assumptions that the evidence of one's own senses, and the hearsay of others, is a reliable indicator of reality; and that it corresponds closely enough with whatever is truly real. That there is a fundamental physical reality, and that the map doesn't deviate significantly.
Faith in a diety is a much larger value; since it's based on evidence that is not so readily available to the senses, and is far more open to interpretation.
It all comes down to what you consider evidence; and how you interpret what you experience first, second, and third-hand. Many scientists look at a body of information about the universe, and interpret it as supporting the existence of some sort of creator deity; though not necessarily that of classical Christiantiy, that is the case more often than not. Others look at the same body of evidence, and find it insuffiient to support such a conclusion. In both cases, personal filters, preconceptions, and perferences colour the final judgement. To say that the atheist or agnostic view is more "right" is simply a value judgement. To say it is more "skeptical" may be more accurate; but again, there are natural limits to skepticism, and at some point skepticism must give way to faith, or we arrive back at pure solipsism (solipsism minus the "fudge factors" introduced by Descartes).
) and trying to establish what the practical consequences of being (or not being) a "true" skeptic are, and why it should concern any of us?
