Atheism

Believing something you cannot prove is faith. You cannot prove there is no God --hey presto--your belief is a faith.

I cannot prove there is a God. Thus I don't believe there is a God. I don't know what I have said, here or elsewhere, that makes you think I believe there is a God. How the hell would I know anything about such a matter.

I believe we should proceed as if there is a God. You believe we should proceed as if there is no God. I have two sources of behavioural control. God and the law. You have one--the law.

Of course there is also tradition, customs and habits but our religious history means that they are derived from the belief in a God.

"I have two sources of behavioural control. God and the law. You have one--the law."

wrong answer.

I also have an inner compass that decides right and wrong...

(it is not derived from god)

spendi, It's nice that you are able to contradict yourself in one post:
1.
then

2.

Dream on Rockie. Your mind is an artefact. Derived from your culture. Which upholds, to a certain extent at least, the Christian God.

When did your inner compass appear on the scene?

Those two statements are not in the slightest contradictory ci. And I cannot imagine how you believe they might be.

your basic premise has been, without god there are no "morals".

I call bullshit.

I cannot prove there is no potato monster.
We should proceed as if there is a potato monster.

Sure! You can believe all you want, but most people with any common sense prefer some evidence before they dedicate their lives to the potato monster.

But you are not without God. You couldn't be. It's impossible in a culture with a God. Except for being outside the culture I mean.

atheists can absorb the culture and reject the god, no?

There's a difference spendi; we are surrounded by gods, but some of us understand why. Mostly, it's an accident of birth. Surrounded doesn't mean we necessarily believe in it. Christmas is a good example of that.

Yes. Assuming the PM is the source of our morals and we can use those morals for our betterment. What is betterment is a political matter.

Tangent warning!

There's an article in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine section about the state of the Catholic church in Ireland. Headline is "The Irish Affliction".

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Irish-t.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all

Very interesting, to me. Since it is a tangent, I won't quote a clip from it - well, except for one sentence that makes me laugh - (part of the atheist experience, ya know):

"last August, the Vatican introduced a change in canon law that will apparently make it impossible for Catholics to defect."

You're making an assumption that gods promote morals. First and foremost, laws promote morals. The proof is simple: people who believe in god(s) are the ones who break moral codes.

They even kill in the name of their religion.

They do do. But it's a trick to enable them to choose gratuitously. So they "can". But really they didn't ought to. How do you separate the Christian culture from the Christian God? They are as intermixed as a truck load of hundreds and thousands.

not my problem.

I don't need the christian god, or the muslim god, or the hindu god to see the morality in the message.

it's common sense from there...

Obviously it is impossible for Catholics to defect. Once they defect they are no longer Catholics. It's impossible for an atheist to defect.

Why would atheists defect?

Are you saying that it is impossible for you to have a defect in your understanding of God?

Some portion of catholics in Ireland still have faith in god but are leaving the church for reasons elaborated on in the article. One woman set up a website with a defection format.

They can't. The question doesn't arise.