geoff

By the way, most of the statements in the "creed" were taken either verbatim from posts made by infidel participants or are approximations of them.

bonduca

But each poster speaks for themselves, at that moment. No one speaks for me but me, and I reserve the right to alter or refine my observations as I progress through life.

I have no atheist "creed," but it was kind of you to go to all that trouble.

Wyrdsmyth

There is no need or advantage in dogmatizing atheism, in giving it creeds or manifestos. How silly.

It is just a lack of belief in gods, or non-belief in gods, belief there are no gods, etc. however you want to say it is fine with me. As far as I can see -(x) is equivalent to (-x). That non-belief is all we atheists have in common.

In many other ways, we can disagree. As I've pointed out before, there is an atheist I know who believes in ghosts. He doesn't believe in God, but he does believe in an afterlife and ghosts. Go figure. I think that's totally absurd, and it's very clear that he and I don't share the same belief-system or worldview. I put ghosts and the afterlife in the same category as God, Santa, fairies, hippogriffs and all the other supernatural entities that I consider to be fictions created by men. I put aliens in the same category, for now, but many atheists disagree with me on this, as well. There are also atheists who believe there are aliens watching us, abducting people, and so on, and I don't believe in it because I don't think there is sufficient evidence to warrant belief in such things. As far as I know, all the 'evidence' is testimony or grainy video footage. I think it's all hoax and hokum. Yeah, I could be wrong, but until someone proves me wrong, I'm going to go on not believing in all of these fantastical entities -- they all go in the same storage bin labeled 'fantasy.'

So, I don't think you could possibly write a creed that all atheists would agree on. As you can see, atheism isn't a worldview but a single term that addresses as single point -- whether one believes there are any gods or not. It does not speak to a great number of other possible beliefs or views about how the universe is.

[ May 19, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

Secular Elation

Wyrdsmyth hit it on the nail.

For example, I am an atheist but am against abortion, and I've only met one atheist who feels the same.

I recall a quote by echnida,

Synaesthesia

As someone who has spent a significant portion of my life dreaming in bed, I most certainly do not assume the general veracity of sensory perception.

tronvillain

While I've already written a fairly complete response to the "creed" I will respond to this:
I am afraid that the question "Do you believe that truth can be rationally accounted for?" seems like gibberish to me. As far as I can tell, truth is simply accurate description of the world, and as such is something we attempt to arrive at based on our experiences. What more do you want?

geoff

I should have put it like this: How do you account for the way people arrive at justified true beliefs?

bonduca

Which people?

critical thinking made ez

Belief is pretty much whatever one wants to believe since beliefs by definition is not true knowledge.

Vorkosigan

Justified true beliefs about what? The nature of reality? See Giere's Explaining Science for that. "justification" is a subjective word. I assume something is justified to be little-T true when there is good evidence and argument to support, when others who are experts in an area subscribe to it, when it is a statement of fact and not values, and when competing ideas have been disproven or are unsupported. Other people may have different criteria for justification.

Ethically and morally I am a subjectivist, I can justify my positions, but can't make them "true" any more than I can wish Frodo into existence.

As for parts of the creed, evolution may partly explain why humans hold particular beliefs, but it does not justify them -- we might be evolved to have six wives at once, but whether that is morally right is debatable. The entire second paragraph would not apply to any atheist who was a Buddhist or other supernatural belief that denies gods.

"The most accurate and reliable method for acquiring true beliefs is the scientific method."

I do not believe scientific understandings are beliefs in the way you seem to be using the word here. Further, science only applies to the world out there, it does not say anything about morality, aesthetics, and other areas of human endeavor, although it may provide information that helps us to make or understand our judgements.

I am frankly suspicious of this creed. I doubt you are an atheist; this reads like a bad pastiche of Plantinga. So I wonder what you might be up to here. Care to elaborate on your goals? I'd be happy to discuss beliefs and justification, but only if I feel comfortable that some kind of strange subterfuge isn't going on. But if you want to discuss that, you should move over to the Philosophy forum.

Vorkosigan