Atheism – The complete disregard of scientific fact

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by SentientBeyondDesign
I personally believe that a mixture of faith and science is needed.

Faith is simply believing things without evidence. If faith is accepted somehow as a scientific principle, then essentially any unsupported hypothesis would have to be considered equally as valid as evidence-based theory.

What scientific method reveals to us is that the universe operates just fine without our concepts of creators/deities/gods. This is often seen as an existential threat to the devout believer, and we end up with all manners of foolish science-deniers.

Well I cant agree with you here... my faith is based on quite a bit of tangible evidence in the form of historical accounts, geological excavations and fullfillments of prophecy's... the complete picture actually gives a nice foundation for the rest of my belief wich is from then built on (yes you're partialy right) faith.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Quadrivium
reply to post by traditionaldrummer

 

So where is your undeniable truth that a Creator does not exist?

One cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof is on those that claim invisible and/or absent entities exist.

This is a common myth, and a logical fallacy. Lawyers and people of reason are constantly proving negatives. The fact of the matter is that both theists and atheists are biased. The most logical stance is agnosticism.

Originally posted by unityemissions
One cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof is on those that claim invisible and/or absent entities exist.

This is a common myth, and a logical fallacy. Lawyers and people of reason are constantly proving negatives. The fact of the matter is that both theists and atheists are biased. The most logical stance is agnosticism.

HAHAHA and a new player joins the fray.... uhmm... gotta look up what agnosticism is....
well read up on it... so all in all you doubt everything? damn you'll be hard to convince

[edit on 18-5-2010 by faceoff85]

[edit on 18-5-2010 by faceoff85]

I'm reminded of Penn Jillette's essay for NPR...

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy — you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

reply to post by faceoff85


No. I know what agnosticism is. It's truly the lack of belief that atheism claims to have.

Originally posted by faceoff85
Well I cant agree with you here... my faith is based on quite a bit of tangible evidence in the form of historical accounts, geological excavations and fullfillments of prophecy's... the complete picture actually gives a nice foundation for the rest of my belief wich is from then built on (yes you're partialy right) faith.

Accounts and prophecies are not tangible evidence, although items from excavations are. None of these, however, establishes indisputable evidence for deities. It provides a basis for one's reasoning if one were so inclined to believe in such things (confirmation bias).

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by SentientBeyondDesign
I personally believe that a mixture of faith and science is needed.

Faith is simply believing things without evidence. If faith is accepted somehow as a scientific principle, then essentially any unsupported hypothesis would have to be considered equally as valid as evidence-based theory.

What scientific method reveals to us is that the universe operates just fine without our concepts of creators/deities/gods. This is often seen as an existential threat to the devout believer, and we end up with all manners of foolish science-deniers.

Science has only revealed to us dimensions and mechanics. It isn't the place of science to assert a why.

Why is inherently a thing of subjective interest. Beliefs aren't meant to be scientific. They are just that. Beliefs. They don't have to adhere to the scientific method or anything. Science can only prove things on the basis that science has decided things should be proven.

Faith is not a matter of science, so the pieces will not fit together.

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Science has not made it clear that things can function without the aid of a prime creator because up until now we have not come to know everything.

We have yet to prove, indefinitely, that there are no external resources at hand.

We have theories, backed by mathematics, only lacking physical proof at this point; that postulate a sea of universes with infinite configurations. Where all things could be possible.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by faceoff85
Well I cant agree with you here... my faith is based on quite a bit of tangible evidence in the form of historical accounts, geological excavations and fullfillments of prophecy's... the complete picture actually gives a nice foundation for the rest of my belief wich is from then built on (yes you're partialy right) faith.

Accounts and prophecies are not tangible evidence, although items from excavations are. None of these, however, establishes indisputable evidence for deities. It provides a basis for one's reasoning if one were so inclined to believe in such things (confirmation bias).

when mentioning accounts I'm talking about... lets say egyptian hyroglyphs supporting (in my case) biblical reports. or other written work supporting the happenings described in the bible... when I'm talking about prophecy's Its quite a bit more of an eyeopener for me... Something not biblical... I read this report about HOPI-prophecy's, there were 9 of em if I remember right... But those prophecy's described something we today can recognize... it talked about trains crossing the continent of america, it talked about spiderwebs of roads criss-crossing the country after that.. it talked about the sea turning black and everything in it dying cause of that. those are all things thousands of years ago people would not be able to imagine what it meant. something written down thousands of years ago wich is happening now is in my opinion quite evident of some sort of beforehand-knowledge. If everything checks out I find it reasonable to belief the rest of the story is true as well...

[edit on 18-5-2010 by faceoff85]

You can not prove or disprove atheism anymore than you can prove or disprove any god.

There is a distinction though that I personally feel needs to be made. There are many people here on ATS and elsewhere for that matter who believe the Earth was creationist in it's making.

Evolution with intentional creationist interventions thrown in along the way. Even a lot of so called religious people might agree here. However, what I am referring to is not some all knowing all powerful being who created it, but visitors way more advanced from another planet. They created life here on Earth and helped it along.

The Ancient Aliens series going on now sort of goes along with this theory. It could well also go along with Jewish, Christian and Muslim theories that man was created in gods image. Just that god here = space alien.

The bigger question is who created them. Who started this whole mess? We shouldn't group the universes creation along with Mans creation.

With that being said though, and to get back on topic, NO ONE can prove or disprove any god or ism at all for that matter out there. Atheist who are so dead set in their ways irritate me just as much as staunch Southern Baptists.

I personally have my theories..as I have outlined above, but it CAN NOT be proven at all by us at this time. There might be some out there who know the truth, and this might be why there is no disclosure.

Who created the creators? I have a very high IQ, but that question is where my brain shuts down.

Nothing can be proven about anything along these lines. And anyone who says it can or more appropriately probably that it HAS is an idiot unless they have access to knowledge that the masses do not have access to. Some people need something to believe in. I have to agree with John Lennon here though. "I just believe in me."

Wanting to believe or have a dopamine and norepinepherine releases in the brain ie being moved by the spirit do NOT constitute any proof.



[edit on 18-5-2010 by webpirate]

Originally posted by unityemissions
This is a common myth, and a logical fallacy. Lawyers and people of reason are constantly proving negatives. The fact of the matter is that both theists and atheists are biased. The most logical stance is agnosticism.

It is not a logical fallacy to dismiss the burden of falsifying someone's unsupported claims. It is the responsibility of the claimant to substantiate the claim, especially in areas such as metaphysics which is characterized by containing no evidence whatsoever.

Agnosticism requires little logic, and is biased against reason, evidence and decision making.

Unfortunately this whole discussion can not be debated rationally by most people because they let their beliefs get in the way of fact.

We once believed the Earth was flat too. Where would be still be if that was still believed to be true?

reply to post by webpirate


You know thats the one question I have broken my mind over loads of times... according to the bible god has no beginning and no end....

but I agree with you about the creationist intervention... the bible doesn't confirm nor does it reject evolution. it does reject man evolving from monkeys

Originally posted by webpirate
Unfortunately this whole discussion can not be debated rationally by most people because they let their beliefs get in the way of fact.

We once believed the Earth was flat too. Where would be still be if that was still believed to be true?

the bible (written 2000 years ago) said the earth was round and hanging from nothing... kinda funny ey?

Originally posted by SentientBeyondDesign
Science has only revealed to us dimensions and mechanics. It isn't the place of science to assert a why.

Huh? Many branches of science have provided many "whys".

Science has not made it clear that things can function without the aid of a prime creator because up until now we have not come to know everything.

And here lies the dimension of gods: that area which is outside the frontiers and limits of human knowledge and discoveries. This is just as convenient a claim as that one's god is invisible yet present. Those who claim their god is just beyond our discoveries face the challenge of constantly and eternally moving the goalposts as human knowledge advances.

Originally posted by faceoff85
If everything checks out I find it reasonable to belief the rest of the story is true as well...

If you have sufficiently convinced yourself of the veracity of some religious claims then so be it. To those more critical there exists much else to find such claims falsifiable. The hard truth is that there exits no indisputable evidence in favor of any religious claims we know of.

Originally posted by faceoff85

Originally posted by webpirate
Unfortunately this whole discussion can not be debated rationally by most people because they let their beliefs get in the way of fact.

We once believed the Earth was flat too. Where would be still be if that was still believed to be true?

the bible (written 2000 years ago) said the earth was round and hanging from nothing... kinda funny ey?

Yes. It was well known in ancient societies that the earth was not flat. It only came into being "scientific fact" that it was flat by the same people or their descendants who decided what books would and would not be allowed into the Christian bible.

The dark ages and early to middle middle ages where a tragic loss of knowledge time period in history.

reply to post by webpirate


I basically agree with you in that a "creator" could more than likely be possible in the realm of science.

Infinite regress, AKA, "What happened before that?" Is a question that would ultimately cripple science and faith. The only issue is that faith willingly surrenders; while science would have to lay down its sword and shield and finally surrender that the universe just simply ... IS.

People also like to throw around the premise of "cyclonic existence", in which the ebb and flow of the universe is an affair of constant adjustments and changes on its own. Possibly repeating itself.

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However, a "cyclonic existence" poses the question of ... where did it all come from? Someone would say, "the materials where always there." Or something to that extent. Essentially hinting, ultimately, that something came from nothing.

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Some people believe that there was nothing prior to the initial expansion of space-time. I personally believe that is folly.

I believe time is a proponent of matter. Meaning that existing matter releases this process we perceive to be time. It's just rate of change which can be altered by energy regulation, ultimately increasing rate of change or decreasing rate of change. Creating the effect of time speeding up, or slowing down.

Space-time distortions like gravity wells and slopes, dramatic velocity; they merely give the perceiver the illusion that time is being altered.

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Or so I believe. Anyway.

Science will eventually hit a wall and settle, in some way or another, that some things are too great to perceive.

Though, science will ultimately try and spin it more eloquently.

"We have concluded that without perceiving every infinite configuration, we cannot know the nature of the beginning."

And the scientific world will sigh a deep and heavy sigh of defeat. Don't don't worry, science will have taken us very far, proving a great many things to be true.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Quadrivium
reply to post by traditionaldrummer

 

So where is your undeniable truth that a Creator does not exist?

One cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof is on those that claim invisible and/or absent entities exist.

Obviously you did not listen to the video. lol. I guess that is a scientific fact.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

If you have sufficiently convinced yourself of the veracity of some religious claims then so be it. To those more critical there exists much else to find such claims falsifiable. The hard truth is that there exits no indisputable evidence in favor of any religious claims we know of.

To bad you indirectly had to call me ignorant... for the rest I like our discussion. I am very critical and feel personaly offended. maybe something you should take into consideration (or you can read the bible to learn how to interact properly with people) -read: cynical joke-
For the rest of your comment the direct oposite aplies as well... there is absolutely no evidence to prove a universal deity does not exist. So we are left with what is most likely... hence the difference in opinions

but have you ever read about mount sinaï? how the top of that mountain is charred black? you know that the bible supports that black top? also something I always found strange is why are those sites always closed off and not researched (or atleast not that we know of)
www.squidoo.com...
[edit on 18-5-2010 by faceoff85]

[edit on 18-5-2010 by faceoff85]

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


Really? Science has proven why? So why does the universe exist. Not how. Randomized occurrence is NOT a why, it is a how. It explains to us the process involved in how the universe came to be. But it does not address the role of the universe. Why universes exist. If there is a specific purpose or reason behind why universes have come to be in the manner that they have?

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I mean science basically says everything happened for no reason. It just did. Things happened. Stuff was here, it was just sitting here, from no where. It didn't decide to come together, it just fell together the way it did because that is the way stuff falls together sometimes?

Science has yet to extract a WHY from anything. Science only deals with matter and energy, both of which are one in the same. Outside of this, science knows nothing else.