Atheism Vs. Anti-Theism

[Ultrajoe]

I don't believe in Santa Claus.

Even when you see the posts that came before it that seems a little out of place.

Is this a deliberate attempt to lighten the mood of the thread?

Or an attempt to equate religion with the fat man?

 

[NeroScuro]

I think the functional word here is theorise, and as a scientist, I must inform everybody that a theory is different from a hypothesis by the simple matter that it has been experimentally tested. You don't think the theory of gravity is merely a hypothesis, do you?

I'm not sure if this was directed at me, but that's what I meant - the existence of life on Earth has been explained via the theory of evolution. I know what theory means in scientific terminology.

There isn't any real debate concerning how life originated on Earth (excusing any new evidence), but that doesn't mean there can't be a God. We still don't know how the universe originated (we have a 'when' and 'where', but not a 'why'), nor do we have a strong theory as to why the universal constants (speed of light, rate of gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, etc) seem to be perfectly aligned to allow complex patterns (life) to be given time to form. There are hypothesis of course (there are multiple universes, many incapable of sustaining life, for example) but no theory the scientific community can really agree on. Yet.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe there isn't a God. That's just a hunch though, and I wouldn't pass it off as scientific (as some people would and do), because it isn't backed up by any credible evidence.

EDIT: For the gentleman above, it's Ockam's Razor...

Wikipedia, font of all human knowledge that it is, seems fine with either Occam or Ockham. No Ockam (although I personally have no idea how his name was spelt originally, I was taught Occam).

 

[Nightfalke]

I really wish people would stop treating Science and Religion as opposites. Faith and Reason can and do live along side one another. I am a scientist and a Catholic.

"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth?in a word, to know himself?so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves." Pope John Paul II

Both Faith and Reason serve to find the truth. That is what science is there for, right? To delve deeper into how things work, why things are, and what else is out there. And that's the beauty of it all! The more science discovers, the more questions are discovered. The more questions that are discovered, the more we realize that we cannot know everything.

Faith answers questions Reason cannot. And Reason answers many questions Faith cannot as well.

 

[Alex_P]

Gentlemen, when we conduct the big-boy arguements can we please use the correct terminology and definitions?

Atheists do not subscribe to any standardised religious format. That is all it means. Agnostics do not believe in anything other than the natural world, although Theistic Agnostics subscribe to a religion morally without accepting or believing the central spiritual premises (such as God, reincarnation etc). Atheists believe many varied things but are joined by this one commonality.

You're describing atheists -- people who don't believe in supernatural beings. Atheists who still subscribe to the customs of a religion are, well, religious atheists. Agnosticism is the belief that the truth of various metaphysical claims is unknown or (in a stronger form) unknowable. "Theistic" or "atheistic" agnosticism most commonly refer to an agnostic favoring one belief-you-can't-prove or another.

EDIT: For the gentleman above, it's Ockam's Razor...

"Occam" is the conventional spelling. Or "Ockham" if you're referring to the place name.

-- Alex

 

[seqo]

Gentlemen, when we conduct the big-boy arguements can we please use the correct terminology and definitions?

Sorry to be nitpicky.
However, urm, what?

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismatheiststheism/a/AntiTheism.htm
Or, even the discussion of the difference in the Wikipedia entry (and, the etymology of the term)

Perhaps in your neck of the woods its not a term in common usage, however, it is far from being "non-existant".

For the record, I support PaintedDeath's view of human belief structures (and am fascinated by all belief structures, faiths and the mythos/history that surrounds them) - however, I tend to err on the side of atheism, and have always been an observer, more than someone that actively practises a religion.

 

[IronDuke]

Will someone please argue with my last post? Since noone did I will aim to be more contentious.

On the subject of science and religeon being opposites, I think they are somewhat polar: Science is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works. It isn't a far stretch to take this as the pursuit of truth about our existance. I dont think anyone can deny that this is what most scientists aim to achieve.

Now, going against what science tells us is the denial of truth. There is no grand conspiricy to void peoples beliefs by atheist scientists (infact many are religeous), only that over time we are discovering that the imagination of people some years ago is not truth, it is fiction. It's like santa claus, but no parents are there/willing to tell you it is fiction(though I could be that parent, if you'll have me). Christmas remains in all its glory; giving and "the christmas spirit" are still strongly present even though we acknowledge in our now wiser state as adults or even older children that santa claus himself does not exist, and was fiction to teach us lessons about being naughty or nice. This applies directly to religion, infact santa claus himself is of christian creation.

I don't want to feel superior because I don't believe in fiction as fact, but it is hard when religious retorts follow the same weak formula: "You can't proove he doesnt exist", as was said just above "nor do we have a strong theory as to why the universal constants (speed of light, rate of gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, etc) seem to be perfectly aligned to allow complex patterns (life) to be given time to form." this is coincidence, and you can try and deny it and reason for a higher power, but it comes down to this: take a telescope and look out at all the stars and planets around us-Pure coincidence would have it that out of trillions of possibilities, conditions would be just right for life in one of them. Even then conditions are not perfect, humans had to evolve to suit the earths climate-dinosaurs came and failed before us, and other lifeforms before them, and all the while the climate itself has been changing and so too have our ancestors to cope with the imperfect environment. We still must battle disease and virii in this lucky chance world we spawned on.

Now onto the complexities of life: evolution, something often denied by religion explains the complexity of lifeforms. Right there. Stop asking why and postulating that it must be the work of a god, it isn't, it's evolution and it makes a hell of a lot of sense. It explains why we have thought processes and are constructed the way we are, and why other animals remained in their less intellegent states because of a series of random factors. Humans came about because we adapted to bipedalism, and tool making, and incidentally from there we grew into the creatures we are today by the natural forces around us.

"But this is all gods work!" you say. Well no, thats taking the truth and calling it divine intervention to serve your own purposes. I can do that with anything. You say holy miracle? NO! I say, it was the gods of medical science. And calling the very, VERY rare "miracles" where people are spontaneously healed the works of god discredit the human body. Our bodies work sometimes in ways that are not fully discovered by science, and in this very random world, chance would have it that certain illnesses are beaten by the body when not expected to. But why then is it that only religious people experience these miracles? Because atheists are not so absurd that they would claim luck as the work of some imaginative being. It's not that such things do not happen to atheists, its that normal people do not claim it as something that it isn't, and so these "miracles" pass by under the radar.

And then when there is a natural disaster, the defence is always along the lines of "God works in mysterious ways", "it is gods will", well no, it's not, it is a series of randomly occuring events created by the physical (not metaphysical) forces of the world-and this is proven by science, meteorology and geology. The attempts to apply any event to gods will is outrageous, just as it is with the positive occurances.

I claim, it was my will that sank the titanic, I cause earthquakes, I create miracles-sounds crazy, but it's no less plausible than an entity never seen-with proof-by anyone having done it; atleast I exist. Hell even UFO conspiricy nuts have photo evidence (though strong chances are all are fake) to back themselves up, god has mass publication of stories like good old JK rowling.

What are atheists scared of? Asked someone earlier in the thread. Nothing, we know the truth. A better question is what are you scared of that has you denying truth? Perhaps that you cannot come to terms with your own existance if you truely are the result of evolved goo or apes, and that there is no afterlife? I am not scared of finding the truth because I know what it is, beyond shadow of a doubt. And if I took everything said in Lord of the Rings (thick with moral values too) as the truth, you would think me utterly insane: now look at yourself, look what you believe in, and tell me you are not flawed in logic.

 

[Simski]

I think we've had all of the points on this page on the pages past.

i'm sorry but i just can't call someone stupid because they beleive in something different to what i do, yes i am an atehist and i do so much so luv getting into arguments with my friends to pass the time, but it is unfair to call them "unintelligent" because they have a different beleif to what u do

I can defend my beliefs.
If they can't, they and their beliefs are stupid :/

No, you cannot defend your beliefs, nobody can.

Thats the whole thing about a universe we have no chance of fully comprehending, saying there's no god is as ignorant as saying there is one in the long run.

And yes, you can defend facets of your 'belief' quite easily, as can any religion you care to name. Just as there are facets both sides cannot explain there is much both sides can defend with certainty.

Calling others stupid because they cannot defend facets of their beliefs is like me calling others fat because they cannot fly.

Now, if i could do that while screaming down from the heavens as i flew loops through clouds, it would be fair.

I do very much so believe that everyone should be able to defend their belief.
if you claim that something exist, you should be able to prove that it exists (with evidence or theories) or else your point is invalid.

Calling someone fat because they can not fly is far from calling someone dumb for believing in something that has no proof or much logic behind rather than believing what does have proof and logic behind.

You may be correct that there is no way of proving that god does not exist due to the lack of evidence, much like there is (ironically) no way of proving he does exist due to the lack of evidence.
However if someone believes that there's dragons simply because we can't prove that there is absolutely no chance that there isn't, they're generally considered pretty naive.

 

[Alex_P]

And then their are the hardcore atheists that will spout scientific data disproving the existence of god, and all of that will always all boil down to, "You can't prove that god exists!", and I always tell them, prove to me he doesn't. You cannot. The same way you cannot prove to me that you are standing there right in front of me. This could all be a dream I'm having.

That's a good way to avoid a debate you're not interested in having, which works fine if someone is hassling you on the street or whatever. It's a way to avoid any debate, however. That's because it's a sophism.

In order to have any kind of constructive discussion about anything, you have to rein in this existential uncertainty.

In order to have any kind of constructive discussion about the certainty of the existence or non-existence of god, you have to step back from this existential uncertainty and compellingly argue that a statement like "There is no god" is meaningfully more uncertain than any other statement you could make, like "Both you and I exist."

-- Alex

 

[SecretTacoNinja]

Threads like this make me want to start worshipping Astarte or Athena, just for cathartic release from it all.

EDIT: Just for the record: Descartes, Augustine, and Lewis got the same reaction!

I've already joined the Church of the FSM =3

 

[Nightfalke]

Will someone please argue with my last post? Since noone did I will aim to be more contentious.

Asking someone to argue with you us a sure fire way to get them to not argue with you. Also, saying "Argue with me, or I will become more of a dick!" doesn't help much.

On the subject of science and religeon being opposites, I think they are somewhat polar: Science is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works. It isn't a far stretch to take this as the pursuit of truth about our existance. I dont think anyone can deny that this is what most scientists aim to achieve.

My only point will be this: Why do you think that Religion is not the effort to discover and understand how our world works, and thereby how we as people work? I would argue that both Science and Religion aim for the same goals. They are both tools in the same toolbox.

 

[IronDuke]

My only point will be this: Why do you think that Religion is not the effort to discover and understand how our world works, and thereby how we as people work? I would argue that both Science and Religion aim for the same goals. They are both tools in the same toolbox.

Because religion doesnt attempt to discover anything new, in general it tries to stay exactly as it was and resists change at every turn. I say it denies truth because if you tell a religious person scientific fact, they will more often than not attempt to discredit it. I also say it because the bible is MOSTLY fiction, therefore not truth, but taught as so.

I dont deny that people who take up religion may be seeking to find out more about themselves, or something along those lines, but religion is an unneccesary factor in that.

Not neccesarily argument, but any reaction whatsoever would appease me.

 

[Simski]

I will have to agree with Oddresin and say that while Science is meant to discover the reason for why everything is the way it is, religion is rather something to fill everything unexplained with simple (yet unreliable) explanations so that people who don't have the same strive for knowledge don't have to worry their lil heads about it.
Perhaps even worse, people who do strive for knowledge may be taught the wrong things.

Saying "god made it that way" is always one hell of alot easier explanation to everything, although we can't prove that he did and neither will this help any of us to progress.

 

[sequio]

let the circle jerking continue.

 

[Good morning blues]

On the subject of science and religeon being opposites, I think they are somewhat polar: Science is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works. It isn't a far stretch to take this as the pursuit of truth about our existance. I dont think anyone can deny that this is what most scientists aim to achieve.

Science is the attempt to increase our understanding of the world through empiricism. Religion is the attempt to increase our understanding of the world through theism. They aren't opposites, they're separate approaches, each with their own advantages, disadvantages, and underlying, unquestioned assumptions.

 

[Simski]

let the circle jerking continue.

I wouldn't say that you're much better for trolling.

Make a point, or go away.

 

[sequio]

If i were trolling i'd say something like "All atheists are retarded." I was commenting on my own observation of the massive ego stroking taking place. The fact that you take my comment as trolling only re-affirms the idea that you have a massive ego.

 

[Nightfalke]

Because religion doesnt attempt to discover anything new, in general it tries to stay exactly as it was and resists change at every turn.

Religion is evolving as much as science is. I say religion, but I guess I should say Catholicism, because that is what I am talking about. There are different theories and modes of thought within the church just as there are within the academic community. Theology changes with the times as much as science does. Search for "Theology of the Body". It is a relatively recent train of thought within the Catholic church. As our understanding grows, so does our faith.

I say it denies truth because if you tell a religious person scientific fact, they will more often than not attempt to discredit it. I also say it because the bible is MOSTLY fiction, therefore not truth, but taught as so.

Straw man. Not going to bother.

 

[Simski]

If i were trolling i'd say something like "All atheists are retarded." I was commenting on my own observation of the massive ego stroking taking place. The fact that you take my comment as trolling only re-affirms the idea that you have a massive ego.

Well this has put me in rather much of a dilemma.
Nothing you've claimed obviously, my own claims.
If you wheren't a troll, you wouldn't have made a post that does not at all contribute to the subject, neither would it be offending to anyone reading it.
Yet again you confirm that you're a troll by slinging another insult at me.

Now the dilemma I spoke off:
If I had not responded to your post, it would mean I could not answer.
However since you're a troll, I'm obviously being trolled by doing so :/

Mjeh, I rather make a fool out of myself THAN LET SOMEONE BE WRONG ON THE INTERNETS.

 

[Archaeology Hat]

Nightfalke, you're a Catholic. The Catholic church is very different to the Creepy Protestant Churches of America (thats not to say all American protestants are creepy, just a sizable amount). Over the years, especially in recent times the Catholic Church has become considerably less lunatic friendly and considerably more inclusive. This is not to say that every Catholic is perfect, just that as a christian denomination they are considerably less backwards than alot of other denominations. Thanks, to a great extent to the leadership of the last Pope.

Alot of people see Christianity as an Anti-Scientific faith because vast parts of it are.

 

[Nightfalke]

Nightfalke, you're a Catholic. The Catholic church is very different to the Creepy Protestant Churches of America (thats not to say all American protestants are creepy, just a sizable amount). Over the years, especially in recent times the Catholic Church has become considerably less lunatic friendly and considerably more inclusive. This is not to say that every Catholic is perfect, just that as a christian denomination they are considerably less backwards than alot of other denominations. Thanks, to a great extent to the leadership of the last Pope.

Alot of people see Christianity as an Anti-Scientific faith because vast parts of it are.

Yeah, I know. But it is tough when I am lumped in with all those loonies. I try to do my part in educating and elucidating and enumnerating and elongating (I was on a roll, shut up...) those who ***** about Christianity.

That and I love busting out the "I'm a Chemist and a Christian." on people and watching their heads explode. Or even better "I support stem-cell research* and I'm a Christian."

*Stem cells harvested from non-embryonic methods.