ossobuco wrote: I have have no interest in proving anything to you with any evidence.
Ossobuco,
I feel you there. Seems moot.
My only wondering is that this postulation that there is no gods must be backed up by something. If it is - it is not a lack of something it is a positive something.
TTF
It is you who think that not having faith needs to be supported. You don't seem to understand absense, void, or vacuum as concepts.
Back when I used to believe, I was lengthily instructed in various proofs of God's existence, which gave support to my faith at the time. Not having faith, however, is not itself a faith, it is a VOID, and doesn't, not being a faith, need a support system.
littlek wrote:I dunno, Think, I don't hear a lot about why believers DO have faith in god.
At least, no 'support' for it besides the bible, which isn't exactly hard data.
Theism is supported the same way as Athiesm - personal experience. (To say that you do not have proof for a faith in God is to say that you have proof not to believe in God.)
To me - my personal experience has led me to believe that it is more rational to have faith in God than not.
The hangup is that personal experience is only veridical for the experiencer. That is why the bible is no good reason to have faith - it is testable (just not necessarily repeatable) - and verifiable (just not independantly of the experiencer) - those are the good reasons.
TTF
I don't have proof of extra-terrestrial life, but I don't believe we'll never find it.
Theism is a learned behavior, I feel, and atheism is not neccessarily so.
ossobuco wrote:It is you who think that not having faith needs to be supported. You don't seem to understand absense, void, or vacuum as concepts.
Back when I used to believe, I was lengthily instructed in various proofs of God's existence, which gave support to my faith at the time. Not having faith, however, is not itself a faith, it is a VOID, and doesn't, not being a faith, need a support system.
Isn't the fact that you did not find these arguments to be valid - the proof you used to support your vacuum?
Void is an interesting comparison. It can be varified through scientific tests - meaning we have good reason to believe in the void - ofcourse we cannot view voids - but we can test thier effects. Athiesm is not testable, nor needs verification, nor proofs.
It is simply a statement that needs no support, verification, or proofs to exist. How can that statement bear any truth then?
TTF
littlek wrote:I don't have proof of extra-terrestrial life, but I don't believe we'll never find it.
Theism is a learned behavior, I feel, and atheism is not neccessarily so.
Religion is learned behavior - faith is not. Faith is the committment for inconclusive data.
TTF
A person has faith, because there is no observable object/subject to prove it. For example, I have faith that my wife is faithful to me. Can I prove it? No, absolutely not, but it's one thing I can believe in.
(Osso)It is you who think that not having faith needs to be supported. You don't seem to understand absense, void, or vacuum as concepts.
Back when I used to believe, I was lengthily instructed in various proofs of God's existence, which gave support to my faith at the time. Not having faith, however, is not itself a faith, it is a VOID, and doesn't, not being a faith, need a support system.
(TTF)
Isn't the fact that you did not find these arguments to be valid - the proof you used to support your vacuum?
No. They were valid to me when I believed. When I stopped believing the construct, I paid no attention to proofs. Validity of proofs has no interest to me.
(TTF)
Void is an interesting comparison. It can be varified through scientific tests - meaning we have good reason to believe in the void - ofcourse we cannot view voids - but we can test thier effects. Athiesm is not testable, nor needs verification, nor proofs.
It is simply a statement that needs no support, verification, or proofs to exist. How can that statement bear any truth then?
(Osso) I don't mean to be rude, but I have no concern whether you think my absence of faith is true or not.
And with that, I'll take my leave; I just wanted to explain my sense of the word "atheism", since it differs from yours by not including the word belief or faith, and thus doesn't call for supportive proofs.
Amen! I'm also taking my leave.
But I'm back. Just after I said that, I reread and noticed you mentioned the word postulate (there is no god). I'm afraid I don't postulate either (though I was once almost a postulant, that is, nun-in-waiting). I am simply minus belief.
TTF the question posed by this thread is very much what you are discussing and the answer is:
No, Athiests do NOT simply reject faith. There are many who have never even heard of the notion of gods, what would they have to reject?
Have you simlpy rejected Hasidism ?
Some atheists do have faiths of various kinds, but not ALL atheists. As is so often repeated, it is possible to be a-theist...without faith in gods.
ossobuco, what led you to your present state?
Heh, I was coming back here to take my leave as well. I had hoped for a discussion, instead we have the usual - a non-discussion.
Nothing led me to it precisely. It was more that the balloon (of my beliefs) stopped having air in it one day.
Edit to say the air was probably dribbling out for a few years before I had a sense of "aha!".
I didn't mean to make it a non discussion so much as to interject into an existing one for just a minute.
I'm not very interested in talking other people out of their beliefs, or into my absence of them, so I only check the threads from time to time, because I have a general interest in reading about other people's political, philosophical, or religious ideas.
As someone who has never had any faith I find your position interesting, in that I think you would find it much easier to explain atheism to religious people than I do, and also to understand how they can believe. Do you ever think about trying to drag people out of church and into the cold hard light of reality?
EorL, we cross-posted. But no, I haven't. People are, to me, all on some personal continuum of thinking in their own lifetime exploration; I usually give my opinion only when there seems to be a window for it. I am not particularly mocking of opinions or beliefs; although I'll grant you some political or territorial ones live in religious guise, mostly people are sincere at the time. I can be pretty adamant if they are stepping on my rights though.
Eorl -
Do you think that the people that have never heard of Gods are the same as people who have but reject them. Do you think people who have never heard of Gods can be considered athiests in the same way?
I don't think Athiests want to be considered as ignorant to the topic - they are not - they simply reject the proofs of the topic - and use these rejections as proof that of thier lack of faith.
TTF
TTF, as I mentioned, I didn't reject the proofs and thereby lose faith. After I lost faith, one day picturing the catholic church and its dogma as an immense concoction over time, I had no interest in proofs. Different sequence. I know I am just one person, but don't generalize that all use their dismissal of proofs as proof of lack of faith..
Not everyone is wrapped up in proving or disproving things, as in some classroom.
