Do Agnostics and Athiests simply reject faith?

I think strict agnostics would say that they don't know how the accident happened period. They can hypothesize though.

Once homo sapiens was able to anticipate future events, the world became a very scary place. What if those rocks fall down the mountain and hit me? What if that bear takes my fish? What if another tribe invades my territory? What if my child gets sick and dies? What if that car loses its brakes and runs over me?

If such events were simply bad luck or fate there was no way to feel safe. However, if you believed in spirits or gods who could and would intervene to protect you, you need not fear fate. Of course you have to keep your gods and their priests mollified with prayers, sacrifices, gifts, or money but that is a small price to pay to live without fear.

A theist attributes good fortune and lucky escapes to God while ignoring the millions of times God fails to similarly intervene. All of the people who are killed or injured when God fails to provide the needed miracle are deemed evil, sinful, unworthy of God's grace, or their suffering is said to be part of God's inscrutable plan.

Agnostics do not reject faith, but do not find any of the so-called "evidence" for God to be sufficient for faith. They do not "believe" in any of the thousands of gods various cultures worship.

Not all agnostics believe that God cannot be known. Most think that if there is a God, it is quite capable of revealing himself unambiguously to the world but has not done so.

Atheists base their belief that gods do not exist on the lack of evidence for gods, the historical evolution of beliefs in various gods over time and among cultures, and the illogical beliefs people hold about gods and magical powers.

Faith is no longer required once you have sufficient knowledge of the world and how it operates. Physics provide us with absolute confidence that the sun will rise each morning and allows us to walk the streets without unreasonable fear of cars, but also gives us a healthy respect for potential dangers and how to avoid them.

Scientists simply believe that all natural phenomena can be explained without requiring magical gods, miracles, ESP, or any other unnatural interventions.

There are a lot of reasons why a car's steering linkage might break, and once in a while it would coincidentally happen such that a life is spared. Theists would call it a miracle, proof of God's existence while ignoring all of the times that no such miracle occurred and someone died as well as all of the times machines failed without endangering anyone.

Some people would attribute the broken linkage to telekinesis, fate, or luck (and when you think about it, we are all descended from those individuals lucky enough to survive and bear offspring, so evolution would tend to favor anyone with even the slightest ability to control the universe in their own favor).

Atheists, scientists and engineers insist that there is a natural cause for everything if we look hard enough. And of course an understanding of probability tells us that even very improbable events will happen given enough time.

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Well, maybe there is and maybe there isn't. There are certainly things that can be determined (heck, you've only checked with one metalurgist so far).
More importantly, there is absolutely no reason to start supposing that green men, gods, or ghosts were behind the events that took place.

Consider Achem's Razor which tells us that the simplest answer tends to be the correct one. Now, apply that to the scenario you provided. Do you think that the simplest answer is that a providential, omnipotent creator intervened to prevent the car from hitting you?

Clearly, there are simpler explanations. In fact, the answer you propose is even more complex than either green men or ghosts. Based soley upon the complexity of your proposed answer, it is not likely to be the correct one.

There is, however, a second and more-important part of your scenario. That is the assignment of meaning to events. The desire to explain events through the assignment of meaning is a way for the human mind to reconcile the limits of rational understanding. Instead of stopping at the point at which reason leaves one, the religious person takes the "Aquinian leap of faith". From here, things are understood through "grace". God makes it possible for you to have "truth", because of his love for those who adore him.

The differences in knowledge from reason and knowledge from faith are probably best laid out by St. Thomas Aquinas. I highly recommend that you read his thoughts on Reason and Faith.

As for the faith of the agnostic:

I think that "people of faith" become accustomed to always having an answer for everything, especially with regard to purpose and meaning. To you, it MAY SEEM (I don't purport to know your mind) that the agnositc bases his decisions on some other faith based knowledge, because you can't imagine functioning with such uncertainty. Without faith, how does the agnostic function?

Well, the answer is that at least one of us has learned to live with the knowledge of his own uber-ignorance. I suppose it comes from within each person to decide if you can handle that kind of truth. I can't really speak for anyone other than myself.

To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.

Re: Do Agnostics and Athiests simply reject faith?


What about cancer? What about natural disasters? What about Martha Stewart?

Christian's love to point at God's majesty when good things like the car example happen, but when they get cancer, god is either testing them or it is just their time. Selective Christianity really burns my ass. You know that the bible tells us not to approach women while they are menstruating, and to stone disobedient children. Selective Christianity really burns my ass.

Then why do so many scientists and engineers line up at church, synagogue and/or mosque every weekend??????

Overall I think you are propabbly on the right track but it's also interesting that so many atheists still believe in "luck", "fate", etc.. (which are still forms of faith) and so many that are highly trained in the sciences still participate in religious services/events.

As an atheist, I believe there will always be some things in our universe we will never understand. Some of the mysteries for me is the genius of some people that can't be explained; 1) Mozart was able to play the piano at three and compose music at six when most are barely able to learn the alphabet, 2) the savant's ability to do math in their heads faster than any computer, 3) why it seems many twins are able to 'feel' what the other is suffering from miles away, and 4) why electric energy can travel through wires.

I am inclined to agree with your main point, ttf; I used to belittle Christians who asserted that they believed in God because anything else was unthinkable to them. This attitude, I would point out, prevented them from really looking at the evidence, since they were predisposed to reject it.

Then I realized one day that I was guilty of the same thing; the existence of God is unthinkable to me, and I am predisposed to reject ANY evidence presented. I would like to think that I am open-minded enough to accept COMPELLING evidence, but this may not actually be the case.

I'm just not going to see divine intervention in any unexplained phenomenon. Others see it in every flower.

If I hear a voice in my head, I'm going to assume something is wrong with me. Others will obey the voices in their heads without hesitation.

While science and logic have dispelled much of what passed for religious truth in the past, the fundamental core of belief -the "why" of the universe- is as open to speculation as it ever was. The discovery of natural causes for every known event may alter the popular conception of God, but it does not disprove the possibility that, in some form or other, He may yet exist.

I am comfortable making what Frank would call my "guess", that no heavenly fathers or mothers were involved in putting us together, but I will acknowledge that a guess -based on my experience, observation, inclination, and, yes, prejudice- is all it is.

Re: Do Agnostics and Athiests simply reject faith?


The fine art of statistics.



This can be interpreted as miraculous, but I'm afraid I can't put up with any special pleading. Should that be miraculous then should a car swerve and run over five nuns and a toddler for similarly inexplicable reasons, that too must be miraculous.

However since such examples have yet to be brought to light with any degree of reliability perhaps we can leave such things in the realm of hypothetical speculation.



I think it's rare, the agnostic who says, "yes I know the stars moved across the sky to spell out, 'Yes I'm real' and that an angel appeared in front of me on the street and explained everything to me pausing only to resurect some dead nuns and a toddler on the sidewalk... but I still don't believe, God is unknowable".

Most agnostics just think she's unknowable based on the levels of crappy evidence we've been receiving to date. Few people's philosophical beliefs are based on the possibility of massive rapid change of the state of the world.



Anyone who doesn't appreciate the difference between

"I expect things to work in the future much the same as they do in past following to general scientific reasoning."

and

"God exists right and loves everyone but tortures 99.9% of them eternally, and had to have sex with his daughter to give birth to himself so he could sacrifice himself to himself to save the world from himself"

is a few screws short of a vodka and orange.



It's called prediction, under P in the dictionary. Other useful words consists of expectation and anticipation under E and A respectively. Expecting no evidence to be found is quite different from blindly ignoring evidence that contradicts a worldview.



Darling, everyone biases their evidence. It's part of being human, those who think themselves to be special and outside of bias are like extra heavy lampshades, they are dimmer than they should be.



Not at all. You must appreciate that there are two kinds of believers in divinities. There are those who having examined the evidence believe that there is a god and there are those who having believed in god have examined the evidence. These are entirely different types of "faiths".

Likewise there are two groups of atheists, who fit into the same two categories with the similar categories sharing the same kind of faith. The statistical distribution pattern between the two groups within believers and non however, I'll leave for you to decide.



Likening a group largely composed of reasonable scientists to a group largely composed of credulous emotionally oriented believers is liable to offend the former (and oddly enough occasionally the later). While there are atheists who have faith, and theists who do not, they are the rare and unusual breed in each camp.



People's beliefs influence their perceptions of events. This is not to say that a schizophrenic's perception is no more influenced than your average person. People do this to a greater or lesser degree than one another, based upon various factors. The methods of science are designed to keep this as far in the lesser side of the spectrum as possible... religion on the other hand tends to cavort in the greater side in a congo line type formation.



In my particular case it would be that atheist is spelled "EI" not "IE"... Much like their, for that matter. My opinion is contained above for your discerning eyes.

Hey!!!!


Could it be that as we humans have grown intellectually, we have aquired some kind of supernatural power, that let us do this off our own back.
like a power of belief. 'If you believe it will happen, then it might'
Kinda like the book the hogfather, but not that literal.

or is that silly?

In terms of evolution, IMO, human beings are now barely into adolescence. There is still so much that we don't know about how the world works. I think that dys has gotten to the nub of the question. People are uncomfortable with the mysterious, the unknown (notice that I said "unknown", not "unknowable").

It is much easier. and less anxiety producing, for many people to cling to some netherworldly, non-rational explanation, than to admit that they don't know, and may never know, the answers to all the "big" questions, in their lifetimes.

I think every car that ever did anything, did it the way everything else in the universe does things...according to the laws of the physics of the universe. Thousands of cars drive past here everyday, not one of them does anything supernatural, I'm pleased to report.

That's sorta the point of being an atheist. You look for a logical normal reason and you generally find one. If you don't, you accept that you don't know without jumping to extraordinary conclusions about the nature of the universe based on the behavior of one dodgy car!

Oh, and once more....Atheists are a-thiests, those without theism. The only thing they all have in common is NO belief in gods. (NOT the same as "belief in NO gods")

As for "rejecting faith" .....personally my answer is "Yes absolutley".

I want to know how things are...and not be deluded by how I would like things to be.

I wouldn't mind being deluded. Its just im not. That's the problem.

Dear arw, I doubt very much humans have "grown intellectually" all that much since recorded history. We have more knowledge today - to be sure, but whether that can be interpreted to mean we have grown intellectually is questionable.

I consider myself an agnostic, but in truth I vacillate between personal belief and atheism.

I very much WANT to believe in a supreme being and an afterlife, but I just am not convinced. Faith aside, the hard evidence just isn't there.

I very much WANT to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, too; but no amount of wanting them to be real will make them real.

Re: Do Agnostics and Athiests simply reject faith?
The ThinkFactory

Assuming there is a God, He must be perfect.
A perfect being is perfect in all he does.
So, if God created the world, he created a perfect world.
That means, all events of the world are related in order to produce the perfection of the ALL. Even if an isolated event may seem to us wrong or unfair.
A miracle, by definition, is an action that changes the natural order of the world: no one would consider a miracle that I, living in Lisbon, have suffer no damages from a bomb explosion in Madrid. But if I was in the place were the explosion occurred, near someone who got killed, and I didn't suffer any injury, then I could consider the possibility of the miracle.
But then I would have to accept that God, through miracles, introduces "exceptions" in the natural order of it's perfect world. And doing that, he makes the world not perfect.
But we have accepted that God only can create a perfect world.
So miracles are impossible.

(as you have noticed, this reasoning is from Leibniz).

About faith.
I refuse God, because I think it is an empty concept. It doesn't mean anything. It has only a symbolic value, that anyone can fill according to his own wishes.
But when I say I have no place for God in my life, I don't mean I believe it doesn't exist. To say that some entity exists supposes we can give a definition of that entity. And, in the case of God, we cannot.
Existence or not existence are, in here, not the question . God is an empty word to be used according anyone perspectives.
So, how could I have faith? Religious faith is blind: is faith in the unknown, faith in what we cannot define or even express, faith in the absolute mystery (mystery created by ourselves).

TTF, I am a man without faith. My education, my father, helped me to be critical. I reject the religious faith, the faith in History of the hegelians and marxists, the modern faith in science and technology, so common in UK and US.

But why do you not express your own reasons to have faith? I remember our past discussions, and your philosophical knowledge. I think you should expose your perspective in this topic you have created.

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Val,

I find it interesting that you used Leibniz in your post. I perused his monadology yesterday, and it was difficult to sort through all of the god-oriented statements to find the philosophy within his work.

I, on the other hand, referred to Aquinas in my post, but you won't find a bigger proponent of Faith than he.

Most of the credible thinkers who have worked extensively in the realm of theism, faith (epistemic), and eschatology were either devout OR had to pay major lip service to the religion of the state for fear of reprisal.

The a-theist philosopher may, at times, deal with the possibility of god, but I'm not nearly as familiar with those examples.

I just thought it was interesting that we atheist types would pull ideas from religious thinkers.

I have faith in my ability to understand things. This is the presumption of naturalism and the power or science. It allows us to differentiate between the billions of worlds which exist in every persons' mind, and the one world in which we all live (yet can never completely know).

The "faith" of religion on the other hand, is a faith in something beyond your own ability to understand. It is an inherent acceptance of a personal inabiliity to figure out what's going on in the world around you. And worst of all, it's a voluntary choice to kneel and surrender. God help us.