Philosoft

So what? A metaphysical belief does not a religion make.

I think Buddhism contains some supernatural (acausal) elements yet is fundamentally atheistic.

Why not? The default position can hardly include an assumed explanatory mechanism, can it?

So?

The notion that Ashley Judd will bring be breakfast in bed tomorrow is rather bizarre.
Again, how do metaphysics entail religious beliefs?

Gawdawful

To Charles Darwin (the poster, not the evolutionary biologist): I disagree that I must have belief in the metaphysical to be atheist, despite that I may indeed hold metaphysical beliefs myself.

Good call.

Hey! I'm at work with one eye on the five computer monitors on my desk. Someone has to keep the wheels of industry turning, they know not the hour nor the day of the week.

Hmmm, personal insults from a moderator no less. Geez!


Warren in Oklahoma, up all night keeping you all snug in your beds, safe and warm, or cool as the season requires.

Sue Sponte

Then perhaps you should heed the advice of the numerous posters who have already explained to you that they are not concluding that another explanation is better, but merely that there is not sufficient reason to believe in a God.

You seem stuck on this point and perhaps it would be helpful to go back and actually consider, rather than immediately debating in your mind, what people have told you.

If you don't understand the difference between having an active belief in the existence of something and failing to believe something exists due to lack of any logical reason to so believe, this thread will continue its hopeless circle.

Among a million other things, such as believing God did not invent Tic Tacs. Am I, therefore, "religious" in my views toward Tic Tacs? The conclusions you are forcing yourself to reach do not logically follow.

No, it isn't. I personally believe the world arose because a Gitmar and Lackning became confused during a round of Sibibi. Neither the Gitmar nor the Lackning are Gods and you can't prove otherwise.

Nonsense? Yes. And perfectly analogous to Christianity, once I write The Great Book of Gitmar and Lackning.

reprise

Dateless on a Saturday night, indeed. It happens to be Sunday evening here.

re "posting from The Future�" prise

Oh yeah, and what Sua said..

DMB

Charles Darwin: you have in fact raised a number of issues in this thread.

One is what being an atheist means. We are always having threads on this and the majority position here is always that

[size=large]an atheist is someone who does not believe in god(s)

NOT

someone who says that no gods exist[/size]

We are surely able to decide what we think without having you inform us from on high that we are or are not atheists according to your lights. I refer you to the many threads on what is meant by the word "atheist", since it is tedious to have to keep going over this. There are some strong atheists here who do say that no gods can exist, but they are not the majority. If you persist in asserting that you know what an atheist is and we don't, you are simply setting up a straw man.

Another idea is that if we do not have faith that a god or gods created the universe, then we must have faith in some alternative explanation. This really doesn't follow. I personally have no idea how the universe came to be. I don't dismiss it as an unimportant problem either. Nor do I have faith that science will ultimately know everything that is to be known. So I accept that there are some important unknowns. Given the progress that science has made in recent centuries, I would expect(=think it likely) that further progress in unravelling the workings of the universe would be made, but I don't have faith that they will be.

Then there is the idea that if we say we don't know how the universe originated, we ought to accept your god hypothesis. So if I hadn't arrived at a reason for the appearance of xmas presents and Santa was the only story offered to me, I ought to accept it if I didn't have a better alternative.

One is never obliged to accept a particular explanation, and certainly not if it lacks supporting evidence, just because one doesn't have an alternative one. It is perfectly respectable to say on the evidence so far, "I don't know what the explanation is, but I am unconvinced by your story."

crazyfingers

I suggest that you read up on the definitions of Weak Atheism and Strong Atheism. You can find the definition by typing one of the two terms into the search function at www.infidels.org

Weak Atheism and agnisticism are compatible with each other but they are NOT the same.
The blobs relate to the proposition that a god exists, not the universe. You have misinterpreted the analogy.

I am not denying the possibility that a god did it. I simply lack belief that a god did it. A lot of theists have a hard time with that distinction. I think that it comnes from a mindset that assumes that a god exists. Again, I suggest taht you go to www.infidels.org and read up on the distinctions between weak atheist, strong atheist and agnostic.

Eudaimonist

The issue about the origins of the universe is not a religious issue. It is a philosophical and scientific issue for which some have offered religious explanations. There is nothing intrinsically religious about the basic issue.

Vylo

Negative Athiesm which seems to be very popular on this board, dismisses God as a completely ridiculous concept. There is no religious belief in negative atheism because there is no diety to consider, anymore then you would consider a pink unicorn urinating fire on your roof at this moment.

I for the most part am a Positive Atheist. I reject the concept of most Gods or deities due to insufficient evidence of their existence. When faced with omnipresent, omnipotent, and/or omniscient deities, I take the stance of the Negative Atheist, as this type of entity would exist entirely outside the boundaries of our reality. If outside of our reality, it isn't real to to us, there is no way to prove or disprove its existence, so it isn't even worth considering.

Faith? If you mean belief in something despite lack of evidence, even atheists can be guilty of this, they just aren't when it comes to the concept of deities.

RevDahlia

I would like to know exactly what ChasD means when he says "religious".

enfant terrible

No, you are not. If you had any knowledge of cosmology, you would realize that you are asking meaningless questions.

May I ask how much physics you had in school?