[karajorma]

atheism is the belief that there is no god(s).  Nada.  Does not exist.  Not the belief that there is no proof of such a being, but that there is proof that there is no such being(s).  Hence the a, meaning "not".

Wrong!

Find me an atheist who will flat out make any such claim. Even Dawkins has repeatedly refused to say such a thing. And I'd say that any definition of Atheism which excludes Dawkins is as idiotic as any definition of Catholicism that excludes all the popes.

[MP-Ryan]

Certainly, a generic sense of atheism among the public is that it takes the position that god(s) do(es)n't exist.  This would be why I typically call myself agnostic versus atheist because I simply believe that there is not (and probably never will be) enough data to make that determination on the principles of rationalism and science.  There are a lot of people who call themselves atheists and take the same position, but that is not what the public at large typically thinks of atheism, which is why you see all these conflicting definitions of terms.

As I like to explain it to some religious friends and family members:  I don't believe in [your] Judeo-Christian God and "His" creation of the universe, but I cannot rule out that something a human would view as a deity is responsible for the laws of physics as we know them, and the subsequent creation of the universe as we understand it.

That is a position I've always associated with agnosticism, but I'm willing to bit there are a fair number of self-proclaimed atheists even on HLP that agree with it.

[jr2]

atheism is the belief that there is no god(s).  Nada.  Does not exist.  Not the belief that there is no proof of such a being, but that there is proof that there is no such being(s).  Hence the a, meaning "not".

Wrong!

Find me an atheist who will flat out make any such claim. Even Dawkins has repeatedly refused to say such a thing. And I'd say that any definition of Atheism which excludes Dawkins is as idiotic as any definition of Catholicism that excludes all the popes.

Fail!

Eastern Orthodox. 

EDIT: Also:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheist   -"one who believes that there is no deity"

[Luis Dias]

Yeah, and that MP is 100% sensible, were it not for the fact that I also cannot rule out a giant bunny is responsible for the Creation, or Pasta for that matter. Or a giant banana. Hey perhaps what created this whole mess is a multitude of ant-like figures from another universe whose intelligence is expressed in the patterns of their wanderings. Perhaps the Creator is the Devil himself. Or Galactus. Or, why not, Primus, who hid himself from Unicron inside the planet of Cybertron...

I cannot rule out any of this, and the fact that there exist a trillion infinite different possibilities render the propositions we get from the christians and muslims, etc., patently ridiculous and most assuredly untrue, specially considering its inherent inconsistencies and the traces of imagination gone wild in every single one of their holy writings.

This is why, to me, calling myself an agnostic is also somewhat ridiculous, as if I was saying to the religious person , "hey, yeah that can indeed be the case, just as much as it can be not the case....", which is false. The actual probability of a christian being metaphysically "right" is preposterously infinitesimal.

[jr2]

I cannot rule out any of this, and the fact that there exist a trillion infinite different possibilities render the propositions we get from the christians and muslims, etc., patently ridiculous and most assuredly untrue, do you propose that there is no such thing as truth??  There are a trillion infinite possibilities that govern the makeup of your physique, and yet only one of them is true.  Are you patently ridiculous? specially considering its inherent inconsistencies and the traces of imagination gone wild in every single one of their holy writings.  Which you have read.  In their entirety.  And then re-scrutinized?  How about a little studying into some of the original language texts?  Is the answer to any of the above questions an affirmative??

[Luis Dias]

"Original"? That is surely an hilarious thing. And to answer that, yes, I have studied and read extensively on the fragmented tapestry that the "bible" is, and to refer to the "original" texts is something hilarious. There are thousands of "original" texts that have been scrapped, edited out, included, excluded, twisted, badly translated (the case of the young woman being wrongly translated to "virgin" woman is perhaps the most comical and known), and many of these changes were made for political and "moral" reasons.

There is no "True" bible, that is an oxymoron. There is a multitude of texts that have been collected and joined together, etc. Many of them are not even original stories from ancient hebreus, but mythical stories that have been copied and pasted from other places.

do you propose that there is no such thing as truth??  There are a trillion infinite possibilities that govern the makeup of your physique, and yet only one of them is true.  Are you patently ridiculous?

The difference being (for any reasonable person this is ****ing obvious) that there are empirical evidences for empirical theories, while there are no empirical evidences whatsoever (BY DEFINITION) for metaphysical "truths". Further, I don't need to know the "fundamental truth", the "absolute truth" that explains my existence for my life to have any meaning. I will have none of that, because I know I cannot know such a bizarro thing about the reality. The things I know about what is real or not are contained and constrained inside the information and pattern-gathering activity that mankind has indulged for the past 10 thousand years or more. Nothing less, and nothing more.

Unless of course some god decides to talk to my head. If that ever happens though, I advise everyone around me to escape fast.

[MP-Ryan]

-snip-

If you claim to respect science, then (as NGTMR put it), you have to respect the principle that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - for any phenomenon or thing.

A person respecting the premise of the scientific method cannot make the claim that deities are false, merely that the objective evidence collected to date does not support their existence, the same as the evidence doesn't support bunnies, pasta, bananas, or Transformers being responsible.  But, once again, there's a big difference between saying the evidence doesn't support that hypothesis and saying they certainly aren't responsible.

You either respect the scientific method, or you don't.  If you respect it, then you cannot say simply that deities don't exist.  Nuance is required.  Science doesn't say that religious explanations are completely incorrect, it says that the evidence they are incorrect outweighs the evidence they are correct.

Sooner or later one of the various lectures a few of us have given around here on the scientific method is actually going to stick for some people, but it appears that it's going to be later.

[MP-Ryan]

As an aside:  for the non-native English speakers, particularly those who speak romance languages as their first language (this is not just aimed at luis, although he made me notice it most recently):

Strike the word "surely" from your vocabulary.  Most of you are using it incorrectly (or at least, awkwardly), and it lends an obnoxious tone to your posts that I don't think you intend.  Not to nitpick as I admire that you can speak/write in multiple languages, just trying to be helpful as far as conversational English goes.

Carry on.

[Luis Dias]

-snip-

If you claim to respect science, then (as NGTMR put it), you have to respect the principle that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - for any phenomenon or thing.

A person respecting the premise of the scientific method cannot make the claim that deities are false, merely that the objective evidence collected to date does not support their existence, the same as the evidence doesn't support bunnies, pasta, bananas, or Transformers being responsible.  But, once again, there's a big difference between saying the evidence doesn't support that hypothesis and saying they certainly aren't responsible.

Come on, I know you are being 100% honest, but this reeks of concern trolling about nitpicking details. Yes, technically, you are "absolutely" right. But if you go that path, you must also never speak anything like "Atoms certainly exist". Because they don't "certainly exist", it just happens that the empirical evidence is amazingly correlated with the postulation of such entities, but you can never be "sure", reality may be fooling you pretty hard.

Given the preposterous numbers of alternatives, I can safely bet with anyone (and apparently making a fortune here in HLP) that the universe is not ruled by a Transformer. And perhaps that bet is even safer than the one proclaiming the existence of atoms. That's my point!

You either respect the scientific method, or you don't.  If you respect it, then you cannot say simply that deities don't exist.  Nuance is required.  Science doesn't say that religious explanations are completely incorrect, it says that the evidence they are incorrect outweighs the evidence they are correct.

And it outweights so much that to say anything but "gods surely do not exist" is just taking semantics too damned seriously. I said it already: technically most atheists are agnostics, but people do not sciencespeak in their every day life. They speak frankly. And frankly, given the figures related, God does not exist. Period.

[Luis Dias]

Strike the word "surely" from your vocabulary.  Most of you are using it incorrectly (or at least, awkwardly), and it lends an obnoxious tone to your posts that I don't think you intend.  Not to nitpick as I admire that you can speak/write in multiple languages, just trying to be helpful as far as conversational English goes

Oh sorry, I can surely ahhhmmmm.... definitely see that happen .

[Herra Tohtori]

As an aside:  for the non-native English speakers, particularly those who speak romance languages as their first language (this is not just aimed at luis, although he made me notice it most recently):

Strike the word "surely" from your vocabulary.  Most of you are using it incorrectly (or at least, awkwardly), and it lends an obnoxious tone to your posts that I don't think you intend.  Not to nitpick as I admire that you can speak/write in multiple languages, just trying to be helpful as far as conversational English goes.

Carry on.

Inconceivable!

[LordPomposity]

Yeah, sometimes 'surely' comes across as the adverb form of 'most'.

[QuantumDelta]

As an aside (and to slightly stir the pot), this is why agnosticism is a better position for a reasoning scientist to take than [militant] atheism (of the Dawkins, etc variety).

Actually, when you get him down to brass tacks he rates himself as a 9(1-10 where 10 = no god, period, end of debate) on an agnostic scale, rather than an actual atheist.

[StarSlayer]

I am serious... and don't call me Shirley

[Mr. Vega]

Science and religion do not deal with the same kinds of truth. To put forth religion as an enemy and opponent of science is to denigrate both. Because religion is founded upon the idea that there are other kinds of truth that lie outside the realm of scientific empiricism (science) or even pure rationalism (philosophy).

And to anyone who looks for the presence of existential meaning in science, and finds nothing but what and how, not why, this is a perfectly reasonable idea. Just because something cannot be reduced to observations of a sensory nature does not mean it does not exist. So believing in both scientific theories and religious beliefs that apparently contradict those theories need not be any contradiction at all.

Regardless of whatever idiocy that is perpetrated in the name of religion, the idea that it can contain real truth is not something that cannot be simply dismissed. Why is as legitimate a question as how or what.

So stop fighting, you two. Be content in your own domains.

[Luis Dias]

Didn't want to troll Valathil's thread, Maths' snide against "godrays" made me spill my evening milk. That was hilarious!

[Luis Dias]

Science and religion do not deal with the same kinds of truth. To put forth religion as an enemy and opponent of science is to denigrate both. Because religion is founded upon the idea that there are other kinds of truth that lie outside the realm of scientific empiricism (science) or even pure rationalism (philosophy).

Yeaaaah, which is just bull****.

Hey, I have an idea. I'll create a bunch of "truths" that are the silliest thing. But I will say that its "truth" is different from the scientific one and the religious one. Then it miraculously makes sense and is validated. And dare not science geeks make fun of me! I'll demonstrate with my own truthiness why they are only being bigoted and small minded. I'll make products that will cure cancer with water! Measles with small percentages of itself! Any disease with supernatural weeds!


Oh wait, ****, someone already had this idea....

And to anyone who looks for the presence of existential meaning in science, and finds nothing but what and how, not why, this is a perfectly reasonable idea. Just because something cannot be reduced to observations of a sensory nature does not mean it does not exist. So believing in both scientific theories and religious beliefs that apparently contradict those theories need not be any contradiction at all.

This is Alice-in-Wonderland cucoo logic. Look, it doesn't work that way. Let me help you, please pay attention.

Let's imagine a conversation. Here:

Me: Hey, howddoyado?
You: Fine and dandy.
Me: Hey, you know what? God exists.
You: Who's that?
Me: It's an all powerful being, omniscient, all loving, he created all this **** you see around us.
You: Man that's awesome. How do you know that?
Me: Magic.
You: Magic? What do you mean magic? Surely you have evidence going on for your hypothesis, I mean they are big assertions you are making here!!
Me: Nope. I don't need to. You see, my "kind" of knowledge is different from yours. To prove the existence of the simplest stuff like an atom, or a solid state of helium, etc., you need hard evidence, hard work, tons of people really banging up their heads in multiple dead ends until they slowly get to the correct answer.
You: Yeah, it's called the scientific method.
Me: Tough ****. I don't. I just make it up and sounds good, and I feel fine for believing it. And I made some self-consistent writings on it, so it must be true!
You: But that's not....
Me: That's not the scientific method! I agree! But this is not science, my friend, I call this "Religion", so your rules don't apply in my playground, you see?
You: Heeey isn't that cheating? Surely ...
Me: No it's not cheating, it's called Theology, and don't call me Shirley.

Regardless of whatever idiocy that is perpetrated in the name of religion, the idea that it can contain real truth is not something that cannot be simply dismissed. Why is as legitimate a question as how or what.

Questions are legitimate. Handwaved answers aren't. Specially if someone proclaims they have some special "relation" with the "ultimate" source of this truth.

So stop fighting, you two. Be content in your own domains.

I don't believe in NOMA, so your rules don't apply with me? (he, see? I just played your own game against you!)

[Polpolion]

This is Alice-in-Wonderland cucoo logic. Look, it doesn't work that way. Let me help you, please pay attention.

I take it you've never actually read Alice in Wonderland.

[QuantumDelta]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tw1tl/The_End_of_God_A_Horizon_Guide_to_Science_and_Religion/

Relevant to the overarching theme rather than the semantic one

[Luis Dias]

This is Alice-in-Wonderland cucoo logic. Look, it doesn't work that way. Let me help you, please pay attention.

I take it you've never actually read Alice in Wonderland.

Some months, every single day. To my kids.