Why I am an athiest

@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Are you asserting nothing exists outside the universe?

No. I'm asserting that I don't know what (if anything) exists outside the universe.

@Moment-in-Time,

Quote:

O: but what POSITIVE proof do you have that Santa does not exist?

MIT: The proof I have is just plain common sense. Let's take a good look at the Christmas figure of Santa. He is supposed to fly in a sleigh with reindeer all over the world in one night and you and I both don't have to have proof that reindeer do not fly.

My general point is: we all believe in far more stuff than we're aware of.

Common sense you have, but you don't have material evidence that you have yourself been exposed to or been able to verify. I will admit that North Pole explorers have NOT reported a toy factory in the Artic, however hard they plowed this Santa-forsaken place, and I tend to believe North Pole explorers, or scientists in general. That includes zoologists who likewise have NOT reported any flying ability among raindeers.

I am aware I believe in science, not just because it works but at a deeper philosophical and human, personal, subjective level. I tend to trust scientists, generally, far more than politiciens or priests/rabbi/mullahs. So do most 'rational' people IMO, but the global warming deniers and my wife's favorite astrology columnist don't agree. Not sure how rational, GW deniers and my wife mix in the same sentence anyway. But that's just me.

How do you know you can trust your own common sense, for a start?

Don't take me wrong, I am not questioning your personal judgement, but how do we know our thought processes "work"? What if logic herself was sheer folly? A babling of morrons. We don't know that our mind "works", we assume it. We'd better do because we can't survive very long without believing whole-heartedly in this assumption that our human logic, and our common sense, say something valid and useful about this world.

Our senses too are given far too much credence, when you think of it. Everytime you dream, you experience how easily you can accept the stuff you "see" as "true" objective experience, while in fact it isn't.

We believe what our senses say, at least when we're awake. This is even our fundamental truth criteria. "I've seen it with my own eyes!" We naturally and instinctively believe our senses. Which is a good belief to have, most of the time but it can't really be proven and sometimes it doesn't work at all. Like when we drink a bit too much.

At the end of your story, I bet you just believed what the teacher and other kids were saying about Santa... Only later were you able to fully rationalize it.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

You wrote,

Quote:

but you don't have material evidence that you have yourself been exposed to or been able to verify.

Do you understand logic? Just wondering.

1 Reply

@FBM,

Quote:

Atheism is a belief like abstinence is a sex position.

Abstinence is really the left hand position.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

You know ed...well, nevermind.

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@FBM,

Clever

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Well, not really.

An all powerful, infinite supreme creator may be nonsense, but it is a lot less complicated then trying to wrap your head around what came before the universe if no such being exists.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Do you understand logic? Just wondering.

I do, and I believe in it. Do you?

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

what you are saying is that your belief is "subjective,"

Yes of course it's personal. Beliefs are stuff you, and not your brother necessarily, badly want to be true. So that the whole story of your life and your surrounding universe make sense. And we all need some of that to keep us moving. No great deed was ever achieved without a good dose of faith in something or another.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

neologist wrote:
Are you asserting nothing exists outside the universe?
No. I'm asserting that I don't know what (if anything) exists outside the universe.

Then I suppose the next question to follow must be: Could a unifying force exist outside the universe?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Man, you love making sweeping generalizations.

Quote:

Beliefs are stuff you, and not your brother necessarily, badly want to be true. So that the whole story of your life and your surrounding universe make sense.

This is utter nonsense, and raises belief to the level of religious fanaticism. While certainly some belief is religious in nature, not all beliefs are religious. For example, i believe that cross traffic will stop on a red light, and that therefore it is safe to enter an intersection without stopping when i have a green light. That's not necessarily always true, and i just barely avoided a serious accident one night when someone did not stop on their red light. But i continue to believe it based on the balance of experience--it's a safe bet, so to speak. People (reasonably) believe a wide range of things on an experiential basis, and most of them have nothing to do with profound questions of the nature of reality, whether or not there is a deity and cosmogony.

Quote:

No great deed was ever achieved without a good dose of faith in something or another.

Leaving aside the dubious nature of this claim, you fail to make a distinction between blind faith (believing without evidence just because one wants to) and informed faith, which relies upon one's experience and knowledge of human nature. That's the basic problem with all of the drivel in your post.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
Atheism is a belief like abstinence is a sex position.

Abstinence is really the left hand position.

??

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Clever

And on-target.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

An all powerful, infinite supreme creator may be nonsense, but it is a lot less complicated then trying to wrap your head around what came before the universe if no such being exists.

I'm sure it seems that way, but it is illogical to assert that the addition of a another complex item (a God) in any way simplifies the argument.

The actual meaning of Occam's Razor is an interesting read and Wiki is a pretty good starting point.

Wiki wrote:

Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor from William of Ockham, and in Latin lex parsimoniae) is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in logic and problem-solving. It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

And as I said in my answer to your previous question, Occam's Razor rules out the proposition that a "Creator" aspect of God is built into the nature of Nature because it is an additional assumption.

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:
neologist wrote:
Are you asserting nothing exists outside the universe?
No. I'm asserting that I don't know what (if anything) exists outside the universe.
Then I suppose the next question to follow must be: Could a unifying force exist outside the universe?

It could. But it probably doesn't (probability being determined by Occam's Razor).

Also bear in mind that when we try to fill an "unknown" variable which is as profound as something completely outside of our experience (outside of our Universe), that we should not limit ourselves to choosing between possibilities which we can perceive, but recognize that the highest probability is for something which we have not even conceived of yet (because there are probably more things about the outside of the Universe which we don't know, than things which we do know).

1 Reply

@FBM,

FBM: Atheism is a belief like abstinence is a sex position.

O5: Abstinence is really the left hand position.

FBM: ??

O5: i.e. the onanist position.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

. . . . you fail to make a distinction between blind faith (believing without evidence just because one wants to) and informed faith, which relies upon one's experience and knowledge of human nature. . . .

Thank you for that observation, Set.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

This is utter nonsense, and raises belief to the level of religious fanaticism. While certainly some belief is religious in nature, not all beliefs are religious. For example, i believe that cross traffic will stop on a red light, and that therefore it is safe to enter an intersection without stopping when i have a green light.

LOL. you must be this board's resident angry obfuscator...

Isn't your 'belief' about green lights more of an expectation than a belief? Many philosophical disagreements boil down to semantics. I was talking about religious and philosophical beliefs, not driving rules, and specifically defined beliefs as those things we hold true that are not supported by facts. This is not necessarily about fanaticism...

Quote:

Leaving aside the dubious nature of this claim, you fail to make a distinction between blind faith (believing without evidence just because one wants to) and informed faith, which relies upon one's experience and knowledge of human nature. That's the basic problem with all of the drivel in your post.

"Informed faith" is not really faith... It's just deriving patterns from experience and education. I'm talking of the uninformed one, the proverbial leap of faith.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

I am neither angry, nor have i indulged any obfuscation (do you even know what the word means?). Just because someone doesn't swallow your drivel doesn't mean that he or she is angry. I can see why you would want to classify this as semantics--after all, that idiocy you posted about belief as though it were never anything other than blind faith is otherwise indefensible. All people believe many things which are inferred, but not directly supported by "facts." (We can dispense for now the silliness of making assertions about "facts.")

First you deny that what i have described is any form of faith or belief, then you make a statement which distinguishes "blind faith" from other forms. You're trying to have your cake and eat it, too. My objection to the silliness you posted is that you make no distinctions about types of belief, and you attempt to ridicule my proposition while inferentially adopting the distinction. Your rhetorical skills are a mess.

If people "derive patterns" from experience and education (i know of no reasonable distinction between the two), but are in a situation in which they don't or cannot know what will transpire, they are operating from a belief.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5, responding to Setanta wrote:

. . . "Informed faith" is not really faith... It's just deriving patterns from experience and education. I'm talking of the uninformed one, the proverbial leap of faith.

You are talking of credulity

2 Replies

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