Thread: Question for Atheists.

Originally Posted by Mario92

Oh, sure, you have aggressive atheists. Still doesn't mean atheism is a religion. Not even close. Religion is defined as "a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny." Atheism still doesn't fit the bill even remotely. Also, unlike many religions, it isn't organized.

Religion is also defined as "a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects" . Seems like atheism could fall under that. Just from personal experience, and from this thread no doubt, when a religious person and/or zealot begins talking about their said religion, atheists do seem to band together and oppose him/her. I've also seemed to notice that atheists seem to talk about their "beliefs" more or just as often as religious people do, usually much more aggressively - but maybe that's just because I hang around with a lot of atheists

To take a page from standard debate, the burden of proof rests with the person making the claim of incredulity, which would be the religious. Until this claim is proven, there is no reason why the opposite party should believe it. In many ways, atheism is less a leap of faith and more a null position.

Originally Posted by Mark75

nope

If I (Religion?) told you there was an international crime syndicate (God?) consipring to steal your socks, you'd (Atheists?) probably think I (Religion)was insane and you (Atheist) would probably (rightly) be offended if I (Religion) told you (Atheist) your assumption that there was not such a crime syndicate (no God) was as unfounded and insane as my claim (There is a God).

I'm understanding that correctly yes? So what your saying is neither can prove anything?

So, yeah...see above

Originally Posted by Mark75

nope

If I told you there was an international crime syndicate consipring to steal your socks, you'd probably think I was insane and you would probably (rightly) be offended if I told you your assumption that there was not such a crime syndicate was as unfounded and insane as my claim.

So God could exist and he could also not exist.

Based upon that fact, let's just pretend he is real and limit our freedom and thinking as if he was real. Yeah, totally rational.

The inability to prove that something does not exist does not in any way mean that it requires proof to begin with. Fundamentalists (i.e., those that actually believe in Zeus [or whatever god people are silly enough to believe in these days]) are making a positive claim: "Zeus exists." This requires evidence. A negative claim is the default view for anything and requires no evidence. Mark75 illustrated this very well with the idea of an international crime syndicate devoted to stealing socks.

To preemptively repeat myself (Because we all know that it's going to be necessary):

The inability to prove that something does not exist does not in any way mean that it requires proof to begin with. Fundamentalists are making a positive claim: "Zeus exists." This requires evidence. A negative claim is the default view for anything and requires no evidence. Mark75 illustrated this very well with the idea of an international crime syndicate devoted to stealing socks.

The inability to prove that something does not exist does not in any way mean that it requires proof to begin with. Fundamentalists are making a positive claim: "Zeus exists." This requires evidence. A negative claim is the default view for anything and requires no evidence. Mark75 illustrated this very well with the idea of an international crime syndicate devoted to stealing socks.


The inability to prove that something does not exist does not in any way mean that it requires proof to begin with. Fundamentalists are making a positive claim: "Zeus exists." This requires evidence. A negative claim is the default view for anything and requires no evidence. Mark75 illustrated this very well with the idea of an international crime syndicate devoted to stealing socks.


The inability to prove that something does not exist does not in any way mean that it requires proof to begin with. Fundamentalists are making a positive claim: "Zeus exists." This requires evidence. A negative claim is the default view for anything and requires no evidence. Mark75 illustrated this very well with the idea of an international crime syndicate devoted to stealing socks.


The inability to prove that something does not exist does not in any way mean that it requires proof to begin with. Fundamentalists are making a positive claim: "Zeus exists." This requires evidence. A negative claim is the default view for anything and requires no evidence. Mark75 illustrated this very well with the idea of an international crime syndicate devoted to stealing socks.

"I see." said the blind man pissing into the wind, "It's all coming back to me now."

lul, anyway let me try this:

A team of astronauts go on a mission to Mars and come face to face with a Martian. Each one talks to it and the Martian leaves. The astronauts realize they failed to obtain any sort of evidence and fail to do so the rest of the trip. The 8 of them go back to Earth and describe what happened only to find ridicule. So in the end proof/belief is subjective?

Originally Posted by Cosmix

A team of astronauts go on a mission to Mars and come face to face with a Martian. Each one talks to it and the Martian leaves. The astronauts realize they failed to obtain any sort of evidence and fail to do so the rest of the trip. The 8 of them go back to Earth and describe what happened only to find ridicule. So in the end proof/belief is subjective?

Their eyewitness testimony would be very weak evidence since they are supposedly reputable people. On the other hand, their failure to get proof might call their intelligence into question. It would be far more likely that the trip to mars messed with their mind somehow so until better evidence was provided, I would be inclined to not believe it. Under the assumptions of the question, I would be wrong (though not wrong to require better evidence). And realistic, It would be a weaker negative belief on my part. More of a "I don't know if Martians exist. Maybe they do." kinda thing.

Try to imagine yourself being intelligent enough to realize that all sorts of people make all sorts of ridiculous claims (please stop reading until you can visualize this). Some of these ridiculous claims might be true, most of them probably aren't. You need some way to filter the truth out from the garbage. Just assume it's all garbage and wait for (or actively find) evidence that it's not. If it's the truth, then that evidence will be there sooner or later. So in the case of the Martians, I might have to deal with being wrong for a few years. This is no big deal, everybody's wrong about a lot of stuff in their life. Meanwhile, the people that are right about the Martians are going to be wrong about all sorts of other garbage that they believe based on incredibly weak evidence. So in the end, I'll still end up being right about more stuff.

Also, the example is a little disingenuous. You chose a concrete, physical encounter with a physically plausible entity. This is so different from the question of if Allah exists as to be ridiculous.

And your claim that belief is subjective is entirely tangential. Who cares about belief? I want to know what is. What evidence is acceptable is also subjective but much less so. Intelligent people will tend to largely be in agreement about what constitutes valid evidence as long as they don't "have a horse in the race."

PS. Nice avatar BTW, I used to have a strip I cut out of that exact same piece in my sig.

PPS. I guess what I'm saying is that when somebody that believes in any pretty sounding garbage that happens to come floating down the ditch is right, it's through pure dumb luck. They would be right no more often than a computer program that randomly selects statements to believe in (possibly less). On the other hand when somebody that applies the heuristics that I'm describing is right, It's because they mean it. It's like hitting a bullseye and claiming it's because of skill when there are darts all over the room (as in, stuck in the ceiling and the floor, behind you, in your friends forehead, etc.) vs. claiming that a bullseye is because of skill when it's in the middle of a nice tight cluster.

Could you not also flip that around and for a negative claim say "[those who do not believe in Zeus] are wrong." Now the proof lies in their hands doesn't it?

Originally Posted by Cosmix

Could you not also flip that around and for a negative claim say "[those who do not believe in Zeus] are wrong." Now the proof lies in their hands doesn't it?

No Einstein. This is a positive claim. "Those who do not believe in Zeus are wrong." The negative claim is "Those who do not believe in Zeus are not wrong" which dovetails nicely with the negative claim "Zeus does not exist."

You can make the negative claim, "Those who believe in Zeus are not wrong" which then leads to the positive claim "Zeus does exist" and so its truth is seen to depend on a positive claim. Looks like the fundamentalists are fucked again.

Religion is also defined as "a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects" . Seems like atheism could fall under that. Just from personal experience, and from this thread no doubt, when a religious person and/or zealot begins talking about their said religion, atheists do seem to band together and oppose him/her. I've also seemed to notice that atheists seem to talk about their "beliefs" more or just as often as religious people do, usually much more aggressively - but maybe that's just because I hang around with a lot of atheists

Sect - a subdivision of a larger religious group
>assuming once again that atheism is a religion before you've proved it.

Belief - any cognitive content held as true
>also assuming that all atheists hold the nonexistence of god to be true

Practice - habitual or customary performance; operation
>Implying atheists do things like go to church or hold atheist conventions once a week.

All this shit about atheists banding together
>implying a few superficial similarities make the two similar in other ways. By your reasoning, I could claim that dogs breathe and eat and take a shit every now and then, and therefore, they must be humans. And perhaps the atheists you know would stop talking so much if the religious shut their gobs for once and stopped waging war against basic human rights, like gay marriage.

And by your logic, I could argue that the Shriners are a religious group. They have a commonly defined "belief" in helping children with orthopedic problems. They practice these beliefs by gathering and donating charity, and also by carrying out the occasional ritual of riding small motorcycles in parades. They advertise their organization in these parades. And yet, there is no such fucking thing as Shrinerism. And they don't become a religion of Ashrinerists for not believing in shrinerism. Jesus tapdancing Christ.

I'm understanding that correctly yes? So what your saying is neither can prove anything?

That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that since <insert claim here> cannot be proven and there is no credible evidence to suggest it is true, there's no reason to believe it.

Atheism is not the specific claim that the Christian god of the New Testament who created the Earth in seven days and sent his son Jesus to Earth to save humanity is false. There was not some archeologist who dug up an artifact that conclusively showed that specific story to be untrue.

Rather, atheism is what happens when someone tells you a crazy story they say is absolutely true and when they fail to provide any convincing reason as to why or how it could be true, you tell them they're full of crap. In every other topic but religion any half-sane person with even the slightest whisper of intelligence would side with the "atheist" in such a case.

When you say things like "neither side can prove it" you're sort of setting up an unfair contest. How do you prove there is no invisible magic man who purposefully avoids detection because he wants you to "have faith"? How would you disprove my crime syndicate example? You could investigate every person on the planet and I could simply tell you that you did not find them, since it's impossible for either of us to know exactly how many people are on the planet. Or I could say your investigation was not thorough enough. Or I could say they are magic and are purposefully avoiding detection. There are a million cop-outs I could invent to evade the fact that it is my responsibility to prove the claim I'm asserting is true.

Which raises another question. Why should evasive catch phrases like "I can't prove it and neither can you" be necessary in the defense of a claim that is true? Shouldn't it be a simple matter of explaining to other people how you know it to be true?

There seems to be two kinds of gods. There are the fairly well defined trickster gods which avoid detection. You'd have to wonder how anyone could even be aware of their existence given their amazing capacity and desire for not leaving any trace of it anywhere. Then you have the vague gods who are so poorly defined, they're impossible to disprove because no one even seems to have the slightest idea what they are. (But oh, they are certainly there. Somewhere. Doing... something...)

Originally Posted by acatalephobic

Two systems of thought, two methods of arriving.

Aren't they two halves of the same coin?

Originally Posted by Cosmix

Religion is also defined as "a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects" . Seems like atheism could fall under that.

Atheism is by no measure a set or system of beliefs and certainly has nothing to do with any kind of practices. Atheism represents the rejection of certain claims and nothing beyond that.

But that's all beside the point, really. This is yet another defensive semantic tactic meant to reflect criticism of religion in the absence of having anything meaningful to say.

@Cosmix, Off-topic but I want to apologize for being so rude to you. I was in a bad mood and it's easy for me to forget that not everyone that believes in a god is a creationist and non-creationist god-believers deserve respect as much as any other human.

@Mario92 I love your emotional outbursts on this subject, if you weren't an Atheist I could totally see you as a preacher

Originally Posted by Mark75

That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that since <insert claim here> cannot be proven and there is no credible evidence to suggest it is true, there's no reason to believe it.

Atheism is not the specific claim that the Christian god of the New Testament who created the Earth in seven days and sent his son Jesus to Earth to save humanity is false. There was not some archeologist who dug up an artifact that conclusively showed that specific story to be untrue.

Rather, atheism is what happens when someone tells you a crazy story they say is absolutely true and when they fail to provide any convincing reason as to why or how it could be true, you tell them they're full of crap. In every other topic but religion any half-sane person with even the slightest whisper of intelligence would side with the "atheist" in such a case.

When you say things like "neither side can prove it" you're sort of setting up an unfair contest. How do you prove there is no invisible magic man who purposefully avoids detection because he wants you to "have faith"? How would you disprove my crime syndicate example? You could investigate every person on the planet and I could simply tell you that you did not find them, since it's impossible for either of us to know exactly how many people are on the planet. Or I could say your investigation was not thorough enough. Or I could say they are magic and are purposefully avoiding detection. There are a million cop-outs I could invent to evade the fact that it is my responsibility to prove the claim I'm asserting is true.

Which raises another question. Why should evasive catch phrases like "I can't prove it and neither can you" be necessary in the defense of a claim that is true? Shouldn't it be a simple matter of explaining to other people how you know it to be true?

There seems to be two kinds of gods. There are the fairly well defined trickster gods which avoid detection. You'd have to wonder how anyone could even be aware of their existence given their amazing capacity and desire for not leaving any trace of it anywhere. Then you have the vague gods who are so poorly defined, they're impossible to disprove because no one even seems to have the slightest idea what they are. (But oh, they are certainly there. Somewhere. Doing... something...)

Atheism is by no measure a set or system of beliefs and certainly has nothing to do with any kind of practices. Atheism represents the rejection of certain claims and nothing beyond that.

But that's all beside the point, really. This is yet another defensive semantic tactic meant to reflect criticism of religion in the absence of having anything meaningful to say.

So basically belief is purely subjective based on one's experiences. How can you provide tangible evidence for something that is intangible? What amount of evidence would ever prove to an atheist that there really was a God? If God materialized in front of you shook your hand and said "I'm God" would you merely explain that off as a hallucination?

For all I know there is a crime syndicate that steals socks. How could I ever prove there wasn't? Just because I've yet to experience it or know someone who has doesn't mean it's not out there; who am I to tell you that you're wrong? Why would I want to change your belief in the first place? Does your belief offend me that much?

Now, I don't belong to any religion (I was brought up Christian but abandoned those beliefs when I was 12) and I''m pretty sure my argument above could be used vice versa. There just seems to be no point in debates/arguments/threads of this nature because no side will ever dent the others belief system - it's all purely subjective.

When I was riding my bike home with my best friend one night we looked and saw the moon on the horizon when suddenly in roughly about 10 seconds it moved from the horizon to the center of the sky above. Now no one ever believed us and if it wasn't for both of us witnessing it I don't think we would believe it ourselves. But no matter how much information/evidence someone can come up to me with, I will never be swayed because I know what I saw as I experienced it. Same goes with what I know to be true about God/ The Universe/ Nature/ Consciousness because I have explored and experienced it.

This will be my last post in this thread as this subject is tiresome to say the least.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

@Cosmix, Off-topic but I want to apologize for being so rude to you. I was in a bad mood and it's easy for me to forget that not everyone that believes in a god is a creationist and non-creationist god-believers deserve respect as much as any other human.

No worries, I enjoyed your posts


Ps: What I believe definitely is not the end all be all as it changes through my own personal journey and experience. This thread has actually challenged my beliefs and helped me refine them further. I enjoy studying different religions as well as I think all can benefit one's personal growth. But then again I might not know anything at all.

Originally Posted by Cosmix

So basically belief is purely subjective based on one's experiences. How can you provide tangible evidence for something that is intangible? What amount of evidence would ever prove to an atheist that there really was a God? If God materialized in front of you shook your hand and said "I'm God" would you merely explain that off as a hallucination?

Most likely. People have been known to have such hallucinations. There's a pretty good explanation for how and why they can happen.

Originally Posted by Cosmix

For all I know there is a crime syndicate that steals socks. How could I ever prove there wasn't? Just because I've yet to experience it or know someone who has doesn't mean it's not out there; who am I to tell you that you're wrong? Why would I want to change your belief in the first place? Does your belief offend me that much?

You are a (and excuse me if I'm being too generous with my assumption here) human with a functional brain. There's being polite and then there's just being a mindless drone. If I were to honestly tell you that was what I believed without providing even a shred of reason for it would you really respect that? Because you shouldn't. It's just plain stupid. It's borderline insanity and there's certainly nothing wrong with calling it such.

As for why you might want to change my mind, maybe you just thought it was kind of silly of me to go around thinking such stupid things. Maybe if I started basing my entire life around it and making decisions for myself and for others based off it you might want to mention how stupid it is. You might be offended if I told you that based on these stupid things I think, you are an immoral or even evil person. You might take a little interest in the subject if millions of other people did the same, too.

Originally Posted by Cosmix

Now, I don't belong to any religion (I was brought up Christian but abandoned those beliefs when I was 12) and I''m pretty sure my argument above could be used vice versa. There just seems to be no point in debates/arguments/threads of this nature because no side will ever dent the others belief system - it's all purely subjective.

Absolutely 199% wrong. The existence of god is not subject to anyone's preferences.

I never had any doubts or second thoughts on the existence of god as the source of everything. Never thought of god as described in religions either, maybe only when I was a kid.

I've always been Atheist, simply because I never believed the lies I was taught when I was a child, and then I came to the point where I researched why I'd have this bullshit force fed to me, and learned the fucked up uses of religion on people.

I find it tragic that people believe in that shit, they're really limiting themselves, and getting taken advantage of. And they'll even try defending the bullshit they've been taught, consciously creating boundaries for themselves, but without actually realizing it.

It seems pretty organized to me if this part of the thread is the only part still going. I tried to have this conversation with someone once and, maybe it's just time for a new question.

What provides you with a sense of comfort when you get sad or upset?

Originally Posted by acatalephobic

It seems pretty organized to me if this part of the thread is the only part still going. I tried to have this conversation with someone once and, maybe it's just time for a new question.

What seems organized?

What provides you with a sense of comfort when you get sad or upset?

What am I sad about? What am I upset about? How serious is it? The scale goes from cranking Phish and smoking a fat bowl on one end to faith in my ability to cope with anything that happens to me untill I die at which point it doesn't really matter anymore.

It also helps to realize that all of existence¹ is just an illusion with no inherent meaning whatsoever.

¹ Of course something exists but we are quite thoroughly isolated from it by the imaginary universe that we construct in our head which includes things like taste, sight, love, desire, suffering, touch, money, etc.

Originally Posted by acatalephobic

What provides you with a sense of comfort when you get sad or upset?

The question implies that "sense of comfort" comes from outside, and I fundamentally disagree with this concept. Good feelings come from INSIDE. Sometimes, they are kicked off by something from an external source (e.g. finding out someone you were worried about is safe), but ultimately, the actual sense of comfort comes from inside. Your brain is an amazingly sophisticated drug factory. So if I'm sad/upset, it's just something I'm doing. When I feel comfort, happiness, bliss, euphoria, or anything in between, it's ALSO something I'm doing. I just don't need to rationalize it as "Jesus is watching over me" to feel good. I have more effective ways of doing it.

Also, I don't get upset about the fact that we're all going to die.

It was just a shot in the dark.

I was watching a new video by Stefan Molyneux and he said something rather interesting. Of course I had heard something similar to it before, but the way he phrased it was interesting.

"[Theists] are almost completely atheist, as they do not believe in the vast majority of gods that have existed throughout time," or something similar to that. I wonder what an absent-minded theist would say if you called them an "almost-complete atheist."

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I was watching a new video by Stefan Molyneux and he said something rather interesting. Of course I had heard something similar to it before, but the way he phrased it was interesting.

"[Theists] are almost completely atheist, as they do not believe in the vast majority of gods that have existed throughout time," or something similar to that. I wonder what an absent-minded theist would say if you called them an "almost-complete atheist."

Ahahahaha. He's got a point.

Originally Posted by sora12

Hello there.
I am interested in knowing when some of you who are Atheist became/ realized you were atheist and or how? (Sorry if I worded the question in a weird way.) Lately, I've been doubting my belief in God. I grew up all my life believing in him and I've never really given a second thought to his existence. So I just wanted to see if anybody went through a similar experience before they became Atheist and stuff like that.

You are probably confused--I would say certain of it. . . . .
You should first clarify in your mind what the word "belief" really means. You need words in your mind to distinguish between that which you are ignorant of and that which you know.

Also, if you should find evidence of what men call "God" some day, you have to make the same distinction, between myth, what you desire, and what you know. You were raised and live in a psychological environment that runs a great deall deeper in your own mind than you have probably ever contemplated.

Real evidence may be had, but only if your mind is up to it. The path to that evidence has always been in plain sight.

The problem still stands of the ends nowhere near justifying the means. The average natural disaster, war, or genocide only kills off a tiny, tiny portion of the global population. The difference is negligible, but the suffering created is immense. Over time, we're still boned. The areas hit hardest by these things tend to be the poorer regions with short average lifespans anyway. To make a lasting dent on global population (and a temporary one, at that), you'd have to remove roughly all of Africa.

Originally Posted by Mario92

The problem still stands of the ends nowhere near justifying the means. The average natural disaster, war, or genocide only kills off a tiny, tiny portion of the global population. The difference is negligible, but the suffering created is immense. Over time, we're still boned. The areas hit hardest by these things tend to be the poorer regions with short average lifespans anyway. To make a lasting dent on global population (and a temporary one, at that), you'd have to remove roughly all of Africa.

hey, better then nothing imagine non of this happened? and I wan't talking on grand scale. Those little things can make us last untill tech allows us to colonise other planets

Without those little things, there likely wouldn't be the huge-ass conflict in the middle east between Israelis and Muslims. Apart from that, everything else would be exactly the same. If we ever do reach our natural carrying capacity, we'll just be wiped out as fast as we create. One birth, one death. Overpopulation isn't going to drive us extinct. And planet colonization is at least several thousand years away.