Shadowy Man

I guess the thing is that he probably views the lack of theism (as in the teaching of basic science in schools, or the attempts to remove religious speech from the government) as support of atheism, much like he sees the lack of a belief in a god as the belief in no gods.

enfant terrible

That is epistemiology, not metaphysics.

There is no difference between physicists 1 and 3. They are just using different units. If you think that is a metaphysical issue, you have a problem.

How could you be aware of a phenomenon that cannot be described by science?

You are violating your own rules. You stubbornly insist on "alternative explanations" when someone dismisses God, but you postulate that there could be something that "cannot be described by science" without giving an example of it. I challenge you to construct an example of such a phenomenon and an obstacle that a scientific description could not overcome.

How come?

I would agree with you on this point if you defined metaphysics properly. But you consistently misuse the term, so I doubt that you know what you are talking about.

ashe

Isn't it obvious? He wilfully ignores important points raised by posters, preferring to reassert his original flawed ideas even when they have repeatedly been denied and debunked by posters.

Just don't waste your time with this guy. He is trying to rile you up and is not at all interested in discussing the original topic.

If you pay attention, you will see that most posts to this thread are attempts to correct Charles' posts. But he consistently does not address the corrections and continues to hold the definition of atheist as a person who BELIEVES (without evidence) that God cannot exist.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that believing without evidence is what you would generally define as 'faith'. He is trying to hurt you by defining your position to include faith and then refusing to hear your denials of that definition.

Don't waste your time with this garbage thread.

Gawdawful

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
metaphysical

1 : of or relating to metaphysics
2 a : of or relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses b : SUPERNATURAL
3 : highly abstract or abstruse; also : THEORETICAL
4 often capitalized : of or relating to poetry especially of the early 17th century that is highly intellectual and philosophical and marked by unconventional imagery

I've highlighted in bold the definition I think Charles Darwin is referring to when he writes of atheism making metaphysical claims. This would involve an atheist making some sort of claim or theory about existence involving anything that is beyond what is perceptible to the senses. I disagree that any such claim is necessarily being made by being atheist, the atheist is exactly following the inverse of definition 2a by not believing in that which is beyond what is perceptible to the senses, no claims about existence are even necessary for that.

I found one of my k.d. lang CDs on my desk, outside of it's case. Any claim or speculation I might make about how it got there is, by that definition, a metaphysical claim, because I don't know how it got there and the reason for it being there is beyond the perception of my senses. I didn't see it materialize there or see someone place it there, I didn't even hear anyone play it or ask me if they could borrow it. My own memory fails me in this matter because the last thing I remember about it was that it was in it's case in its normal position on the shelf. What I say, however, is that it doesn't matter how it got there, the k.d. lang CD is on my desk until I put it away, providing I can find its case. However, I do believe k.d. lang herself does exist, because I can, with one of my senses, listen to her beautifully crafted songs, but this has nothing to do with how or why her CD is on my desk.

Another stupid analogy brought to you by:

Warren in Oklahoma

Jack the Bodiless

CD:
Nope, it is a FALSE statement. This point has been clarified many times.

...So why is it so important to you to pretend that this false statement is true?

It seems to me (and obviously, to others here) that you're carrying a lot of emotional baggage into this discussion. In particular, your pre-committment to the belief, not just that God exists, but that God is plausible: so plausible that non-belief in the God hypothesis is an aberrant belief-system that requires elaborate justification.

Our position is not merely that we don't believe there is a God. We also take the position that the God hypothesis is fundamentally implausible. There is simply no good reason to take it seriously. A magical intelligent being as First Cause makes about as much sense as a magical toenail clipping as First Cause. All the intelligences (and toenail clippings) we know about are the result of billions of years of evolution, and don't have creative powers in any case (no intelligence can will matter into existence).

It's blatant anthropomorphism, nothing more.

Jack the Bodiless

I would also like to ask why you consider Santa Claus to be unlikely? There's a thread on this topic: Santaism and Asantaism

Again, you seem to be carrying a big emotional committment here. There is an obvious alternative to the concept of an intelligent First Cause: a non-intelligent First Cause (or an uncaused Universe, or indeed an infinite range of non-God-based hypotheses, including a Magical Toenail Clipping). Therefore God is no more necessary than Santa.

And Santa is more plausible than God.

Bumble Bee Tuna

Game, Set, Match.

ANY question where I have insufficient inderstanding, I don't speculate. I just say "I don't know", and try to find out if I'm interested. So I guess I am free of metaphysics by your admission, though of course I'm still not sure what you mean by that. But since this topic is about atheism, and not me, and you've just conceded that yes, atheism doesn't entail metaphysics, you've just conceded the argument. Nice debating with you.

-B

Rusting Car Bumper

One can be a theist and not be religious.
One can be an atheist and not be religious.
One can be a theist and be religious.
One can be an atheist and be religious.

It's quite simple.

DC

Charles Darwin

You might want to check out "Cosmology from the top down" at

http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0305/0305562.pdf

It is a recent talk given by Hawking in which he candidly discusses the fact that every theory we've got now suffers from shortcomings. But no matter, his view seems to be that the hypothesis of design is a science stopper (hardly an unusual fallacy these days) and therefore all other theories, no matter how problematic, are justified.

Charles Darwin

I'm sorry to have ignored your question about how I'm defining "religion." That was probably because I've already spelt it out several times in this thread. You'll find it somewhere in the first couple of pages, and then later too. Basically, I'm defining it as any belief about reality that isn't empirically derived, but please see the relevant posts.