Atheism doesnt require faith?

**yawn** Pascal's Wager, whatever.

This topic has been talked to death elsewhere.

 

Interesting pov but i'd have to disagree. Its easy to believe in nothing when there's no proof to refute you. Its a lot harder to have faith in the unseen. Athiest and Christians are both a know it all pompus group of people who love to tell people how to live and what to believe in and then want to insult you when you don't.

 

There are thousands of religions and various denominations that are practiced and have been practiced throughout human history. I think it takes more faith to believe that "My one belief is the true belief" than to say all of them are equally not true.

And if there is a God or a son of God (which there isn't) who is so petty and childish as to condemn someone to eternal damnation for not believing in him for the short time that they're on earth then I wouldn't want anything to do with them anyway.

 

A few follies:

1. God and Afterlife aren't mutually exclusive. You can lack the belief in the a god, and yet still believe there's another world or existence. Again, misconceptions rear its ugly head.

2. You're using Pascal's Wager, which is more or less a cop out answer to exercise your own feelings of not wanting to forget this existence and simply accept death. To be frank, all the dead people would find your sentiments, even Blaise himself, utterly ridiculous.

 

While I am no Christian, I am not stupid enough to believe there is no God either. Deep down in everyone's heart they know that there is something greater than themselves...some just don't want to submit to that greater being or His mindset, so they simply say He doesn't exist so as to justify being a god unto themselves to do and live how they want to live. This is the nature of man, thus the many religions and cults. Though I do not adhere to religion of any kind, I will not be stupid either. Anybody with any measure of sense knows that such divine order that we live in did not come about by itself no more than I came here by myself. Just as it took two humans coming together to bring me here, there was also a divine greatness that brought this beautiful complex world together. So yes, it does take MORE faith to believe there is no God, than to believe there is.

 

to me anything worthwhile takes conviction and faith whether its religion or atheism. it takes the removal of self-doubt to realize your commitment to whatever you believe. and that is not mutually exclusive.

 

EPIC FUCKING FAIL.

LOL so there are only two possibles? No chance at all for any other religions or other Gods to exist except yours? Truth is there are an infinite amount of possibilities after death because no truly knows what happens when we die. So you have one ping pong ball and there are and infinite amount of ping pong balls all with the chance of being right. Why should i be a Christian again?

Have all the faith you want to, until you have actual data that positively indicates some type of eternal life, good or bad, and that it is based on the teachings of Jesus you don't know anything. Heck what if there is a God and there is no afterlife??? Ever consider that??? I guess that isn't valid because it's not written down in a 2,000 year old text.


And will one Christian explain to me how i will burn in hell? I plan to be cremated, i won't have anything left to burn. In order to feel pain you must have a nervous system. To have a nervous system you must have body. No body + no nervous system=no pain. There are humans on earth right now that can't feel any pain, even in their current state hell would not cause them any pain at all, other than burning to death. Please support any and all assertions with verifiable evidence please.

 

Does it take more faith to believe there is no bigfoot than there is to have faith there is bigfoot?

I won't say that there is no God which i only define as the reason anything exists. Yes there is a "God" however I don't believe religions silly stories about what that reason is.

 

Is this a rhetorical question? That's a totally different equation...is it not?

In terms of staying of the subject on this thread, maybe the question should be...Does it take more faith to believe in something you've never seen vs something you have seen.

In that case, I would answer...it all depends on whether your life and final destination depends on it. Life is too powerful a substance to think there are no consequences in how we choose to live it. Yes, you are right...there is definitely a God and like you I choose not to follow Him according to a set of religious rules. But nonetheless, I will not be stupid in not acknowledging Him in all my ways.

 

No i didn't say there was a God under your definition, in the I said whatever is responsible for existence is what I'd call God. We it comes to explanations, the magic man in the sky theory has failed every time. It's probably some natural phenomena that we are not aware of yet. And there are consequences on how we live our life, but face them while we are on this earth.

 

Hmmm...I don't remember giving you a definition. God is beyond man's ability to define. He is definitely no "magic" man. He's not a man at all. He is a supernatural phenomena that (as you said) no one can even begin to comprehend the totality of. True, we do face those consequences here on earth, but certain consequences we will also face as we progress thru life on various plains of immortality.

 

What is the difference in that vs something that does not exist? Something that we can't explain, don't know anything about or comprehend is irrelevant.



And btw I said "natural" not supernatural. Supernatural explanations of anything have failed every single time. Once we found out what caused previously unknown things, it was due to a natural explanation. So there is no reason to assume magic (supernatural) with the origins of the universe or humans.

 

haven't read shiet here but to me Atheism IS a belief... you believe there is no god - that is a belief. If you are an agnostic, thats different because you don't have a view. That is just me.

 

I think the original statement was that being athiest requires faith not belief.
Belief usually requires some supporting evidence where as faith is pretty much all hope.

 

There are people who hold onto atheism as if it were a religion in and of itself, like Madelyn O'Hare. It should just be a belief in things that are either empirically proven (which is impossible) or can be logically inferred from the available evidence (I fall into this category). Some atheists act like they saw it demonstrated in a laboratory somewhere that there was no higher being.

 

That's the biggest misconception of all. Atheism simply means lacking the belief in a higher being. It's fundamentally different from believing that there is no god or gods. And secondly, it's more of a counter response to those who hold the belief in a higher power and say that God can be proven through factual evidence and through the scientific method. Case in point, Creationism and Intelligent Design.

These debates wouldn't come into fruition if people who believe in dualistic ideas can just accept that their beliefs are only personal, not factual and won't distort anyway factual data collected.

Lastly, god and religion (and atheism) are philosophical positions. And many of them are concepts, with god being a concept meant to satisfy what we lack in knowledge and make up for it with a concept known as spirituality. They require a great deal of faith since more of these individuals prefer to say that these arguments can be based on scientific evidence, which is the problem overall.

(Belief meaning saying something is real without any evidence)

 

Right. My atheism is a humanistic view that infers the non-existence of a higher consciousness based on the scientific method of inquiry, but I readily admit that there is no empirical 'God Test'. A belief in the existence/nonexistence of a higher power is an unprovable metaphysical absolute. But what I think is beyond dispute is the fundamentalist interpretation of the world's origins. We know it wasn't in 7 days and that man did not coexist with dinosaurs - lol. But don't tell the Quran burner in Florida or the Phelps ministry in Kansas or the Taliban, for that matter.

 

The beauty of the human mind is that we're capable of constructing ideas based on our fears of the unknown and the fascination of the nonexistent. We certainly don't know EVERYTHING there is regarding the known universe and what have you, but should we subject ourselves and submit to these ideas as though they can be true?

Our whole entirety are all based on concepts we've conceived. I guess, from my perspective, I do hold an existential humanist viewpoint in life, but still adhere to secularism in its highest regard. Philosophy has come a long way, but we tend to ignore fresh new ideas and still hold old world views most plausible, thus most accepted. You're correct that we can't "prove" the God Test, but we can deduce some ideas that go beyond the concept of God and often more plausible.

 

Agreed.