Saladin the Devout Athiest?

[warpus]

Atheism seems to be popular because if there is no God, everything is permissible. So an atheist can always say "who are you to tell me what to do?" An "ethical atheist" is an oxymoron. For God to be "dead" you gotta kill logic and reason first.

I perform good deeds not because I am afraid of God's wrath, but rather, because I am a good person and I enjoy making others happy.

If you need a supernatural being in the sky to watch you to be a good person, I must question how "good" you actually are.

 

[JBG]

EDIT: warpus, I did not see your update. Hear hear, I say! The following in response to Old as Dirt:

That is not entirely true. 99.9% of Atheists share many values which have been attatched to various religions over time because it struck people they were generally good ideas, i.e., as an atheist, although I believe the book you quoted from is one of the most brilliant works of creative fiction ever written, I still don't think it would be a good idea to commit murder, or to commit adultery, or, indeed, covet my neighbor's ass.

Just because atheists do not base their lives on a stone-age work of dubious accuracy does not mean that somehow that removes all restrictions from them. The whole problem stems from ancient man coming out of his cave one day and seeing a world so vastly and profoundly complex that none of the mechanisms he knew could explain it. His logical next step was, therefore, to assume that it must be magic. You try showing a combustion engine or a flourescent TV tube to an ancient Egyptian, and he'll think its magic.

Following over ten millennea of observation, reasoning and, most importantly, experimentation, we have gained a far, far greater understanding of the world and universe around us than any primitive cave-man could hope to, so the basic, ancient need to explain things away as magic or supernatural (or God) is much, much less relavent and in most cases, rather antique.

For example, we now know exactly how the eye works. Primitive man could not really hope to, for in order to do so he would have had to know all about light, nerves, impulses and how the brain interprets them. Thanks to the collective efforts of our entire civilisation we already have that knowledge recorded and accessible, so for one to understand the inner workings of the eye is a much less complicated procedure.

Around us, we have many examples of how different evolutionary strains produced roughly the same mechanism. You look at the eye of a fly, or a lobster, or snail, and each one has approached the problem differently. The problem of religion ultimately stems from small-minded people looking at something vastly complex - too complex, in many cases, for any human to fully comprehend - and through an innate species arraogance, says 'that's too much for me to understand so God must have made it'. That is simply not the case - just because a human being can't understand (yet) how the universe came into being or what the nature of light is, it palpably does not mean that simply on the basis of a lack of understanding it must be automatically attributed to some higher being, be it God, Jesus, Vishnu, Quetzalcoatl or the easter bunny.
This problem is further compounded by otherwise normal (although perhaps gullible) people falling into the trap of organised indoctrination, and in every single case, an otherwise perfectly rational, straight-thinking, interesting person suddenly has his mind capped with the notion of God, losing in the process an important part of our humanity - to take something seen as orthodox and questioning it to breaking point.

That, indeed, is one of the major merits of a lack of fundamental belief. Many religious people crow over the fact that scientists are always proving each other wrong - and that in fact is one of atheism's greatest strengths. No-one pretends to know exactly how something happens - it is a matter of trial and error, the forming of a hypothesis, and then proving it beyond all reasonable doubt. Most atheists do not cry themselves to sleep at night wondering how It all happened or whether they're going to go to hell - rather, we accept that it palpably did and then deal with the world on that basis.

And I find that assertion that atheists are amoral and (by inference) inferior deeply insulting - and I would find it so even if I were not atheist.

 

[offworld]

Atheism seems to be popular because if there is no God, everything is permissible. So an atheist can always say "who are you to tell me what to do?" An "ethical atheist" is an oxymoron.

Your morality hinges on the existence of god. Mine is independent. You do good only because you fear punishment. I do good because I want to.

For God to be "dead" you gotta kill logic and reason first.

Correct, that would mean believing there ever was a god.

 

[Drakonik]

Wow. Go to school for a few hours, and this has turned into a regular philosophical debate.

Well, I can't add anything more for now, so I'll just echo the sentiments of Warpus, JBG, and offworld. Atheists aren't any more or less ethical than a Christian, Buddhist, Hindi, or even Taoist.

Religion does not cause ethical correctness. The Aztec religion demanded human sacrifice daily to keep the sun rising. The argument seems to be that religion creates moral righteousness. So I guess this means that we need to sacrifice humans, because a religion says it's okay. I've got an idea of who should go first...

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Wow. Go to school for a few hours, and this has turned into a regular philosophical debate.

Well, I can't add anything more for now, so I'll just echo the sentiments of Warpus, JBG, and offworld. Atheists aren't any more or less ethical than a Christian, Buddhist, Hindi, or even Taoist.

Religion does not cause ethical correctness. The Aztec religion demanded human sacrifice daily to keep the sun rising. The argument seems to be that religion creates moral righteousness. So I guess this means that we need to sacrifice humans, because a religion says it's okay. I've got an idea of who should go first...

The problem is that how do you determine that we should NOT sacrifice humans, yeah it would cause a variety of problems, but so does a fair trial, or the abolition of slavery. The fact is you can't provide Evidence for the fundamental ethicalness of an act. You can provide evidence that tearing peoples hearts out will kill them but you can't provide evidence that killing people is immoral/unethical. (You can provide evidence that people don't like it, and wouldn't want it done to them... but the idea that all of us are morally equal, do unto others, etc. is a 'self-evident' claim... meaning we have No Evidence for it)

So with your definition of an atheist as the 'doubting' type, then they could not be ethical in the standard sense.

Now obviously this is not true there are plenty of atheists that people would chartacterize to some degree as moral, and that is because even a doubter must have operating hypothesis. Because proving something beyond all reasonable doubt is often impossible. And in some cases, any evidentiary proof at all (e.g. morality) is impossible.

So to the original point, most atheists are religious (although atheism is not A religion anymore than theism is A religion). At the very least the ethical ones are and their religion consists of their belief that there is a specific ethical type of behavior. (unless their ethical codes are merely habits picked up from living in a civilized society in which case they aren't really ethics)

 

[JBG]

How one defines 'ethical' depends entirely upon one's viewpoint. Western civilisation is almost entirely saturated with Christianity, so what a great many people see as 'ethical' ultimately comes down to what is prescribed or proscribed by the various forms of Christianity.

That said, over ten thousand years of civilisation have resulted in a farily comprehensive idea of what is generally socially acceptable. What is 'ethical' and what is 'socially acceptable' are two different things. Defining something as ethical is an entirely insubstantive and baseless act which varies subtly with each different person. However, defining something as 'socially acceptable' is something which is much more solid, as it relies on the established, common, and expected reactions of those around us.

It would, therefore, be much better to refer to what is or is not generally socially acceptable. Dancing naked on top of a car parked in the middle of a big shopping centre and shouting rascist slogans is not what is considered socially acceptable. However, buying a sandwich and giving it to a homeless or poor person is something which, in most circles, would be met with a good deal of approval from the social community.

 

[warpus]

The fact is you can't provide Evidence for the fundamental ethicalness of an act. You can provide evidence that tearing peoples hearts out will kill them but you can't provide evidence that killing people is immoral/unethical.

The reason you can't do any of these things with 100% certainty is because morality is relative. ie. There is no such thing as absolute morality, which is what the various religions would have you believe.

In western society though, tearing out somebody's heart would be considered immoral, unethical, and wrong. We, as a society, have deemed that such an act should not be permitted. This didn't happen because our top judges and thinkers consulted a magical database which contains all absolute moral codes and looked up "tearing out somebodys heart". It happened because we, as a society, deem murder to be wrong. Yes, it's relative and objective, but that's all we've got to work with.

So to the original point, most atheists are religious

If you really believe this to be true then you don't understand what the word "religious" means.

 

[JBG]

If you really believe this to be true then you don't understand what the word "religious" means.

Or, indeed, the word "atheist". BUY A DICTIONARY! Or, visit wikipedia. your call.

 

[Ranos]

The problem with this is that you do not take into consideration the fact that only the former must be a conscious choice, as we must begin in either a theistic or atheistic state, and logic and observation dictates that theism is learned rather than inherent.

<snip>

Not so. A child does not one day decide that he/she wants to speak and make a conscious choice to do so. The child sees and hears its parents speak and over the course of many months, begins mimicing the mouth movements and sounds and slowly developes the ability to speak. As it continues to experiment and as its mental abilities increase, it learns more words and better understand what those words mean.

If a child is brought up in a religious household, it will have that religions beliefs tought to it. At those early ages, it doesn't know that there are other ways to believe. This would also be the same for a child brought up in an atheistic household. When that child begins to understand and look at the greater world around it and be subjected to many different ideas and concepts, it will begin examine and question its own beliefs. Again, this is true of an atheistic child. There is no inherent belief in anything. Instinct is the only thing that isn't learned. The higher thinking of a human is not instinct, it is learned. Speach is learned and so is the belief in a god or the belief that there is no god.

I was not presented with any evidence of God dos NOT exist. Of couse, No evidence of God DOES exist, too. So why should I assume existence of God or somthing in such condition?
Let's call it anything, say "XYZ". I did not see any evidence of existence of "XYZ", and did not see any evidence of non-existence of "XYZ", too.
So I don't accepts existence of "XYZ" as fact or truth. You accepts existence "XYZ" as truth. The "XYZ" may be "GOD" or "UFO".

Disprove this:
I AM GOD. -or- I AM Sid Meier.

Do you have any evidence that I am not God or Sid Meier?
Why don't you believe that I am a God or Sid Meier?
What kind of evidence lead you to the conclusion that I am not God or Sid?

Lack of evidence ( either I AM God or I am NOT God), isn't it?

That proves nothing. One person may say that because you say you are Sid that you must be Sid. They take this on faith because there is no evidence. Another person may say you aren't Sid because you have given no evidenace that you are.

People who belong to a religion that worships a diety do so on faith. They require no evidence. People who are atheist require proof of something before they will believe in it. You say since there is no proof of a god, that I don't believe in one. That is a lack of belief. Even a lack of belief, though, is a belief. It is impossible to believe in nothing. You believe in the fact that there is no god that you are willing to discuss it, even down to the finest details, with a complete stranger. Many Christian denominations will do the same.

You put yourself in a very dangerous position with such an argument, as shown by zx1111. You force yourself into a corner where you have so many beliefs you didn't know about.

All of a sudden I make a claim that there was a guy that existed in Asia during the time to Socrates who taught similar philosophies. If someone comes along and asks you about it (and you've never heard of it) and asks why you believe he existed and you said you don't believe that, then by your logic, you MUST believe that he didn't. And then the person asks for proof he didn't exist. What proof do you have? What proof do you think you need to show? Did you really deny his existence? Or just say that you didn't believe in his existence?

Ranos, you must understand the difference in a) asserting the claim of an existence, b) making no assertion, and finally, c) making the assertion of a non-existence. They are three different things.

There is a difference between the discussion and your example. If someone came along and told me about this person, I would want to know details. If he just told me that that person existed and could give me no other details, then I wouldn't believe because I have nothing to go on. If he showed me documents referencing that person or giving information on that persons life, I would consider it. If the documentation was old, I would believe it a little more. If the document was new, I would want to know where the information came from.

This isn't a simple matter of believing something a stranger walks up and tells you. A person's beliefs in a god or belief in no god are developed over the course of their developement and can change throughout their life. A) would be someone who believes in a god, b) would be someone who is agnostic and c) would be someone who is atheist. A person can not know what they believe because there is so much information to go through that they can't figure out what they feels is true and what isn't.

Of course it's impossible not to believe ANYTHING. I believe that my name is Tom and that I won't fly out into space due to the gravitational pull of the Earth. These beliefs don't make me religious, however. Neither does a lack of a belief in God.

Lack in belief of God (as in the Christian God) means there are many other religions to believe in. Lack of belief in a god (meaning any possible form of diety) is the belief that there is no god. If you say I don't believe the Earth is round, that means you believe that the Earth is some other shape. There is no such thing as a lack of belief.

I disagree. Most atheists do not pursue their lack of belief in a God with any sort of zeal or conscientous devotion. Some do, but most don't.

Personally, I would rank my atheistic beliefs up there with "I like havarti cheese" and "I enjoy playing Civ4". They are just facts about my personality.

If a bunch of atheists started meeting every week, chanting "We are worthy!" and "The lack of God saves us!", distributing pamphlets, singing songs about Gene Roddenberry, and wearing silly hats, THAT would be a religion.

Devotion is not necessarily the active pursuit of something but the feeling that you have about something that can't be easily changed. You say that you enjoy Civ 4. If I was to say that Civ 4 was the worst game in history, would you agree, would you disagree or would you just not care?

Let's use an analogy here.

Say that you really like cheese and you're a member of a "Cheese Lovers" club. You meet every week and discuss the wonders of cheese. Your group in particular believes that Gouda cheese is the best kind of cheese in the world. There are other such clubs around the country with different favourite cheeses - a club that prefers Feta over all cheeses, another that prefers Cottage cheese, and so on.

Now, assume that I hate cheese and I don't eat any of it. Would you say classify me as a cheese lover because my absence of love of cheese is a belief in cheese nevertheless?

I am assuming you are trying to compair organised religions to the clubs and atheists to someone who doesn't like cheese. The problem is that a religion doesn't have to be organised. A person can have their own religious beliefs that don't have to be shared by others. If they are devoted to those beliefs, then they are still religious. If an atheist strongly believes that there is no god, then they are devoted to that belief and could therefore be said to be religious.

 

[JBG]

He isn't SAYING it has to be organised! Organised religion doesn't come into the above argument!

And you are merely proving his point. Of the bit you quoted, read the last sentence. So you don't have to go through the gruelling task of casting your eyes upwards, here is that sentence:

"Now, assume that I hate cheese and I don't eat any of it. Would you, say, classify me as a cheese lover because my absence of a love of cheese is a belief in cheese nevertheless?"

Ranos, I'd consider rethinking your closing statement, bearing the above quote in mind.

Personally I'm a fan of cheddar.

 

[zx1111]

.....
That proves nothing. One person may say that because you say you are Sid that you must be Sid. They take this on faith because there is no evidence. Another person may say you aren't Sid because you have given no evidenace that you are.

People who belong to a religion that worships a diety do so on faith. They require no evidence. People who are atheist require proof of something before they will believe in it. You say since there is no proof of a god, that I don't believe in one. That is a lack of belief. Even a lack of belief, though, is a belief. It is impossible to believe in nothing. You believe in the fact that there is no god that you are willing to discuss it, even down to the finest details, with a complete stranger. Many Christian denominations will do the same....

Sure, I didn't proved that God does not exist or it is falsehood. What I proved is that existence of God is not fact or absolute truth. It is a idea or story believed by some people just like Greek Myth or Communism or UFO story.
What I saying is that nothing should be insisted as absolute truth without agreeable evidance regardless of it is religious matter or other earthly matter.
It is OK as long as they know it as such. I don't think that religious peple are foolish and I see nothing wrong with believing it. I respect their belief/faith as long as and as much as they respect my idea.
But Once religious believers start to accept it as absolute truth and try to force others to believe and convert and follow such myth, things can be messy. Some religious believer think that the their religion is absolute truth, superior religion than other religion, and more ethical than atheistic non-believer.
And they think that it is their duty to teach them THE TRUTH and that it is justifiable to make a war or doing something other don't want in the name of faith.
It is religious arrogance and source of many conflict, wars and hatred among people, I think.

 

[warpus]

Lack in belief of God (as in the Christian God) means there are many other religions to believe in. Lack of belief in a god (meaning any possible form of diety) is the belief that there is no god. If you say I don't believe the Earth is round, that means you believe that the Earth is some other shape. There is no such thing as a lack of belief.

No. A lack of a belief in God is a lack of a belief in God, not the belief that no God exists. There is a difference!

When I say "I have a lack of belief in God", I mean that I do not think that there is any sort of evidence, or that there is too little evidence, that God exists. It does not mean that I think that there IS evidence that NO God exists.

In my opinion the evidence (or lack thereof) seems to indicate that there is no such thing as God. However, I can't with certainty say "There is a God" or "There isn't a God". Since I'm not 100% certain about either point of view, I do not have a belief regarding God. I simply look at the evidence, analyze it, and make the conclusion that God does most likely not exist. There is no belief involved.

To use your round earth example, what about somebody who takes the following point of view: "I am not sure what the shape of the earth is because I do not have enough data to make a conclusion"?

Devotion is not necessarily the active pursuit of something but the feeling that you have about something that can't be easily changed. You say that you enjoy Civ 4. If I was to say that Civ 4 was the worst game in history, would you agree, would you disagree or would you just not care?

I would disagree.

If you can convince me that my obsession with Civ4 is a religion, then you will have no trouble convincing me that atheism is a religion as well.

I am assuming you are trying to compair organised religions to the clubs and atheists to someone who doesn't like cheese. The problem is that a religion doesn't have to be organised. A person can have their own religious beliefs that don't have to be shared by others. If they are devoted to those beliefs, then they are still religious. If an atheist strongly believes that there is no god, then they are devoted to that belief and could therefore be said to be religious.

I agree that relgiion doesn't have to be organized, and you do have a very good point. If an atheist was sufficiently devoted to their belief that there is no such thing as God, I would categorize it as "religious" as well. HOWEVER, 99.9999% of atheists aren't devoted enough to be categorized as such.

Atheism in itself, is not a religious tendency. It's possible to make anything religious though, including atheism.

I refer you back to something I wrote earlier:

If a bunch of atheists started meeting every week, chanting "We are worthy!" and "The lack of God saves us!", distributing pamphlets, singing songs about Gene Roddenberry, and wearing silly hats, THAT would be a religion.

edit: add me to the cheddar fan club

 

[Zombie69]

Atheism seems to be popular because if there is no God, everything is permissible. So an atheist can always say "who are you to tell me what to do?" An "ethical atheist" is an oxymoron. For God to be "dead" you gotta kill logic and reason first.

Don't confuse morals and religion. Just because you don't have a religion doesn't mean you don't have moral principles. In fact, in my experience, atheists usually have much stronger moral principles than religious people, because the latter just accept what they're told without thinking of the implications.

As for your last sentence, i would say that for a god to exist, you've got to kill logic and reason first.

 

[Ranos]

He isn't SAYING it has to be organised! Organised religion doesn't come into the above argument!

And you are merely proving his point. Of the bit you quoted, read the last sentence. So you don't have to go through the gruelling task of casting your eyes upwards, here is that sentence:

"Now, assume that I hate cheese and I don't eat any of it. Would you, say, classify me as a cheese lover because my absence of a love of cheese is a belief in cheese nevertheless?"

Ranos, I'd consider rethinking your closing statement, bearing the above quote in mind.

Personally I'm a fan of cheddar.

Actually it does. He uses a cheese lover to represent a Christian (example only) and then puts that cheese lover in a club to represent an organised religion.

As for the last paragraph, he was trying to make the cheese lovers out to be religious people. That is not a good comparison. Religion would be the devotion that cheese lover has to his specific cheese. Someone who hates cheese can be just as devoted to their hatred of cheese.

Sure, I didn't proved that God does not exist or it is falsehood. What I proved is that existence of God is not fact or absolute truth. It is a idea or story believed by some people just like Greek Myth or Communism or UFO story.
What I saying is that nothing should be insisted as absolute truth without agreeable evidance regardless of it is religious matter or other earthly matter.
It is OK as long as they know it as such. I don't think that religious peple are foolish and I see nothing wrong with believing it. I respect their belief/faith as long as and as much as they respect my idea.
But Once religious believers start to accept it as absolute truth and try to force others to believe and convert and follow such myth, things can be messy. Some religious believer think that the their religion is absolute truth, superior religion than other religion, and more ethical than atheistic non-believer.
And they think that it is their duty to teach them THE TRUTH and that it is justifiable to make a war or doing something other don't want in the name of faith.
It is religious arrogance and source of many conflict, wars and hatred among people, I think.

I agree that some take their religion to extremes. If they want to accept their religion as absolute truth, that is fine. If they want to try and get people to convert to their religion, that is fine as long as it doesn't conflict with that persons rights. Someone who comes to my door every day to try and convert me would quickly get a restraining order against them.

Just as the existance of a god can't be proved, it can't be disproved either. I respect people who believe either way. That is completely up to them since we live in a free society. Anyone can believe what they want to believe and they can practice it any way they want to practive it as long as I don't feel it infringes on my personal freedoms.

No. A lack of a belief in God is a lack of a belief in God, not the belief that no God exists. There is a difference!

When I say "I have a lack of belief in God", I mean that I do not think that there is any sort of evidence, or that there is too little evidence, that God exists. It does not mean that I think that there IS evidence that NO God exists.

In my opinion the evidence (or lack thereof) seems to indicate that there is no such thing as God. However, I can't with certainty say "There is a God" or "There isn't a God". Since I'm not 100% certain about either point of view, I do not have a belief regarding God. I simply look at the evidence, analyze it, and make the conclusion that God does most likely not exist. There is no belief involved.

To use your round earth example, what about somebody who takes the following point of view: "I am not sure what the shape of the earth is because I do not have enough data to make a conclusion"?

Read the above bold sentence. Coming to a conclusion about something for which there is no solid evidence either way, is a belief in that something. Using your above sentence, you believe "that God does most likely not exist." It doesn't matter how many words you use or how you phrase it, you believe.

Your use of my round Earth example doesn't fit your statement about god most likely not existing. Your example would be equal to, "I have no idea if a god exists or not and I have no opinion either way. That is agnostic. Lets say that Christians think the Earth is square and atheists thing the Earth is a triangle. You then would say, "Based on the evidence I have seen, I would say that the Earth is most likely a triangle."

If you can convince me that my obsession with Civ4 is a religion, then you will have no trouble convincing me that atheism is a religion as well.

I guess that atheism as a religion can be viewed either way. Since atheism has to do with the belief that there is no god, I would classify it as a religion. That is just my opinion.

I forgot to post earlier on the ethics and morality debate. Atheism has nothing to do with being immoral. There are people who proclaim themselves Christian and have killed people. Look at extremism in any religion. While our standards of ethics and morality are strongly based on religious teachings, that doesn't limit them to people who consider themselves religous.

 

[kingjoshi]

Again, I'll repeat this. Many Buddhists are atheists. You don't need to believe in God to be religious. You can still have a dogma and follow that dogma as a way of life. So warpus, your made up statistic of 99.9999% of atheists not being religious is WAY OFF.

And obviously, there are people that believe in God and are not religious, though they may be part of an organized religion.

-------
Regarding the round earth. Let's say Person A claims the earth is round. I'm person B. Person C asks if I agree with A. I say I disagree with A, that I don't believe it's round. That does not imply I have a belief on the shape of the earth! Yes, I do believe A is wrong, but that's not the same as me asserting a claim on the shape of the earth as my belief. You're implying that just because I don't believe that a particular God they define and believe in exists, that I automatically assert another position. I don't.

An agnostic that doesn't know automatically lacks a belief. That, by definition, is an atheist! If you don't think it's possible to prove, then you can still be a theist or atheist. but if you don't know, then you lack a belief in God and are an atheist. This part is binary situation. But within those that lack a belief in God, that can again be broken into two parts: a) those that deny God's existence and b) those that just don't know.

Hence I said that in philosophy, we generally group that as Strong atheists and weak atheists. You're either not grasping this, or willfully denying it.

 

[Jimbo30]

In past times, the lack of answers to what (nowadays) seem obvious and easily explained by science, meant that we simply had no alternative but to create a mystical being called 'God' in order to just cope with the sheer scale of life. At that time we knew less than 0.1% of the workings of the universe compared to now.

As time goes by and the human race evolves, we are becoming more comfortable with our place in the universe. What's more, we are realising just how BIG it is. With the most powerful telescopes, we can look back to what the universe was like not long after the Big Bang and see galaxies that no longer exist.

When we look at the sheer size of the universe, it's easy to think that we are insignificant. We live in an unremarkable place in the Milky Way galaxy. It's not like it's the center of it or anything...we're situated on a spiral arm in a very unremarkable place in the galaxy.

And...our closest true galactic neighbour is Andromeda. Andromeda is thought to be 50% larger than the Milky Way. In galactic terms, it's pretty close to us. However, Andromeda is not even close to being the largest galaxy in the universe.

There are billions upon billions upon billions of stars in the universe, many/most of which have planets orbiting them. The Earth is just remarkable because it supports life. The chances of this happening are so small that it takes billions upon billions upon billions of stars and planets for it to happen.

Well, we have all those stars and planets and we have life, that is why I consider myself an atheist. We might even be unique in the universe. I personally dont think so, but I have no evidence to tell me otherwise.

Finding it kinda hard to believe in multiple gods fighting over the godship of our one little insignificant planet though. Assuming all these gods exist, I think they'd see my POV and won't send me to 'hell' because I'd wrongly come to that conclusion based on what they (if they exist) would surely come to the same conclusion, logically.

 

[warpus]

Read the above bold sentence. Coming to a conclusion about something for which there is no solid evidence either way, is a belief in that something. Using your above sentence, you believe "that God does most likely not exist." It doesn't matter how many words you use or how you phrase it, you believe.

I suppose I see a big difference between:

A. coming to a definite conclusion about something
and
B. coming to a fuzzy logic conclusion about something

I am absolutely certain that water freezes at roughly 0C and boils at roughly 100C at sea level. Christians are absolutely certain that God exists. Both of these "beliefs" are of type A.

On the other hand, I am *somewhat* convinced that our moon was created when a mars-sized object slammed into the earth. I can't say with certainty that this is what actually happened, but I estimate that the statement is likely to be right. How accurate the estimation is is beside the point... To give another example, the chances of me winning the lottery tomorrow are 1 in 14 million. I am fairly certain that I am NOT going to win, but I admit that it very well might happen. Both of these "estimations" are of type B.

Religious beliefs are always of type A. A Christian has never EVER said: "I am 85.2% sure that God exists". To Christians, God exists. This is not something that can be questioned. It is a 100% certainty. It is a definite conclusion, accurate or not. It's a belief.

To an atheist, the question of God's existence can be a belief (ie. "I am absolutely certain that God does not exist and I do not admit to myself that I could be wrong") or it can be a statement of type B (ie. "I do not believe in God's existence with 100% certainty (be it 20%, 5%, 75%, 95% or unknown)")

I fall into the second group of people. What I have is not a belief. What I have is a fuzzy logic statement about the possible existence of God. There is nothing belief-like about it. My thoughts on the possibility of the existence of God change dynamically from day to day, month to month, and year to year. Currently I do not think that there is any evidence to suggest that God exists, but this might very well change Friday night for a couple hours when I head out to the bars. Who knows...

The word "belief" can mean two entirely different things in different contexts. In a religious discussion, such as this, a belief will always be something that someone thinks to be true with absolute certainty. In common english the word takes on dfiferent meanings. We shouldn't confuse the two if we're specifically discussing religion.

As for the whole cheese thing.. I'll have to get back to that later, as I have many things to say about religion and cheese.

 

[warpus]

Again, I'll repeat this. Many Buddhists are atheists. You don't need to believe in God to be religious. You can still have a dogma and follow that dogma as a way of life. So warpus, your made up statistic of 99.9999% of atheists not being religious is WAY OFF.

I meant to say "99.9999% of atheists do not base their religious beliefs on the fact that God doesn't exist", forgetting that certain atheists might base their religious ideas around other concepts, thus wording my statistic incorrectly.

 

[EdCase]

Ever tried to carry water with a sieve?

Guess what, its pointless much like debating the God/No God question.Especially on an interweb forum.
Believe or don't...if it feels right to you, then it is right for YOU.
(The fact that I won't debate the existence of an omnipotent superbeing/beings drives my friends,and wife, nuts)

I simply have faith that my lack of "faith" is inconsequential in the grand scheme (or not) of things.

In short ..lighten up,live well and laugh a lot.You'll feel better for it

 

[Jimbo30]

In short ..lighten up,live well and laugh a lot.You'll feel better for it

Maybe. It's reckoned that people who believe in a god live around 5 years longer than those who don't. The reckoning being that there is less stress on them, because they believe that no matter what they do, there is a 'better place' that they are heading for anyway. Compare this to 'non believers', who's lives are generally shorter and often a bit more harsh (and I'm pretty sure enjoyable at the same time )

I'd rather live 5 less years and actually live a full life, knowing that the choices I made were mine. I'm so minded this way that I'd actually rather have a short life of doing what I wanted, than an eternity of doing what I'm told. That, to me, is 'hell'.