Atheism=Faith

[lrkun]

I was attempting humour to note that granting the existence of God in order to equate two positions its a bit of a liberty (and I mean "bit" with a huge ammount of sarcasm)

I see. Sarcasm doesn't work in text you know. ^^ I understand now.

 

[Andiferous]

I don't take a stance on gods' existence, and I go by the default position held by babies and hamsters: god who? Sometimes I will justify to myself that god probably does not exist. That's not a truth claim. But to say I'm withholding judgment is inaccurate, because that assumes I'd judge anyway. Which I don't. You don't judge in the same way when you don't make truth claims.

As for me, no party can provide 100% accurate answer.

100% certainty would be to claim absolute truth. Yup. Anyone who makes claims of absolute truth is relying on faith. If atheists claim "god doesn't exist" absolutely, they likely do rely on some degree of faith.

To quote Slash from another recent thread:

Here's the only correct answer to the question:

Category error! Atheism is not a truth claim.

As he points out, most atheists don't make any truth claims, and their "beliefs" about the world and existence are founded on probabilities and experience.

You could look at this two ways:

(1) Everything is based on probabilities. Disbelief is only as true as everything else.
(2) They don't believe in god because evidence has yet to prove that he might exist. Their belief is similar to that of babies and hamsters. Basically, why would they believe?

Neither are really judgements. As monitoradiation pointed out:

If you answer "No" to the following question, you are an atheist.

"Do you believe that a god exists?"

How do you have "faith" for a lack of a belief?

I think you have the wrong idea about atheism. Then again, everyone seems to have their own spin on it.

 

[Andiferous]

I am not a atheist but some of my friends are and we always have an argument about the existance of God, but what i have come to realise is that most atheist belive in answers from science rather than religion.
But science and religion are completly different because science is based on fact and evidence while religion is based on belief and faith which athiest don't have that because they need evidence.

This is a hasty generalization. Atheists have belief and faith too. Atheists believe and have faith on the scientific method. Some believe and have faith in their family, friends, and humanity. Others believe and have faith in the law. What these atheists have in common is that they lack the belief or faith in a god.

I think it's possible everyone has some degree of faith, however faith =/=belief.

Faith is that blind space between evidence and truth. I don't think you can have faith in evidence, as faith is by definition belief without evidence. Isn't it?

 

[Aught3]

Re: Atheism=religion

I think atheism describes an absence of god beliefs.

Yeah but you still belive that there is no god(not you personally)

This is not directed at you OunknwnO you just made me realise something.

I'm sick of not being able to use the words belief and faith without having them thrown back in my face.

A belief is just a proposition that you hold to be true. There's nothing wrong with saying that you believe evolution explains the diversity of life or that you believe there are no gods. They're both propositions that I hold to be true and hence beliefs.

Faith implies more than mere belief, it means you have absolute trust in a person or an idea. Now I don't think there's anything wrong with having absolute trust in certain individuals and humanity as a whole. You can expect to be disappointed and hurt, but that kind of faith is worth striving for. On the other had because of my stance on the value of evidence in adjudicating between ideas, I could never have absolute trust, faith, in ideas. That's why I don't go along with religious ideas, there's no evidence for them and I can't simply trust them to be true - I just don't have that kind of faith.

Joss quote: "The enemy of humanism is not faith. The enemy of humanism is hate, is fear, is ignorance, is the darker part of man that is in every humanist, every person in the world. That is what we have to fight. Faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in god means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers."

 

[Andiferous]

Nice quote, there.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

I'm agnostic, and this subspecies agnostics:

Weak agnosticism (also called "soft," "open," "empirical," or "temporal agnosticism")
The view that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable, therefore one will withhold judgment until/if any evidence is available. A weak agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day when there is evidence we can find something out."

What do you think?

I think you're an agnostic atheist.

 

[lrkun]

I think it's possible everyone has some degree of faith, however faith =/=belief.

Faith is that blind space between evidence and truth. I don't think you can have faith in evidence, as faith is by definition belief without evidence. Isn't it?

No. Faith has many definitions, that's one of them.

1
a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2
a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3
: something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>
, on faith
: without question <took everything he said on faith>

Belief

1
: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2
: something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3
: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

I'm using the first definitions of both terms in my statement.

 

[Andiferous]

Yeah well, all definitions with the Oxford English dictionary end in "blah blah truth." PM me if you dispute me.

 

[lrkun]

Yeah well, all definitions with the Oxford English dictionary end in "blah blah truth." PM me if you dispute me.

I'm not disputing anyone. I only want to clarify my position as when someone isn't sure of that which I mean to share. ^-t

 

[Andiferous]

Yeah well, all definitions with the Oxford English dictionary end in "blah blah truth." PM me if you dispute me.

I'm not disputing anyone. I only want to clarify my position as when someone isn't sure of that which I mean to share. ^-t

Okay then. Well PM me anyways should you feel like it.

 

[australopithecus]

"The view that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable, therefore one will withhold judgment until/if any evidence is available. A weak agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day when there is evidence we can find something out."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

I think that for now this is the most accurate answer if you look at it from a rational point of view.


What do you think?

I think it doesn't answer the question. Agnosticism is a nice qualifier but nothing more, if an agnostic holds a faith in gods regardless of knowledge they are still a theist, and if an agnostic does not hold a faith in gods then they are still an atheist. I myself am an agnostic atheist because I feel it is the best and most honest position to take. I don't know if gods exist but "I dont know" doesn't answer the qestion "Do you have faith in Gods?" and until I see evidence to the contrary I hold no faith in gods, ergo, atheist. Gnosticism and agnosticism are not positions in and of themselves.

 

[YesIAMJames]

My take.

An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God. Personally I wouldn't try to convert anyone but I'd like to get people to at least question why they believe. I am an atheist because I haven't seen any reliable evidence of God. It's exactly the same reason I don't believe in the lockness monster or bigfoot. You wouldn't say someone who doesn't believe in them has faith would you? It's just there is no good reason to believe.

Of course I admit that I could be wrong just as I could be wrong about bigfoot but I'm not going to change my mind until I see some good evidence. Technically that does make me an agnostic atheist but that doesn't roll of the tongue as easily and my level of doubt is so low that I don't usually need to bring it up.

 

[Zetetic]

Re: Atheism=religion

I think atheism describes an absence of god beliefs.

Yeah but you still belive that there is no god(not you personally)

You position is that you have no evidence. You might like to consider yourself Ignostic, since you seem to have epistemic concerns about atheism. Check out the wikipedia article. The nice thing about Ignosticism is that it is much more epistemically aware and therefore much more clear and overt on this issue than standard atheism or agnosticism.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Re: Atheism=religion

I'm sick of not being able to use the words belief and faith without having them thrown back in my face.

A belief is just a proposition that you hold to be true. There's nothing wrong with saying that you believe evolution explains the diversity of life or that you believe there are no gods. They're both propositions that I hold to be true and hence beliefs.

Faith implies more than mere belief, it means you have absolute trust in a person or an idea. Now I don't think there's anything wrong with having absolute trust in certain individuals and humanity as a whole. You can expect to be disappointed and hurt, but that kind of faith is worth striving for. On the other had because of my stance on the value of evidence in adjudicating between ideas, I could never have absolute trust, faith, in ideas. That's why I don't go along with religious ideas, there's no evidence for them and I can't simply trust them to be true - I just don't have that kind of faith.

Joss quote: "The enemy of humanism is not faith. The enemy of humanism is hate, is fear, is ignorance, is the darker part of man that is in every humanist, every person in the world. That is what we have to fight. Faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in god means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers."

I try to avoid both words, because people so often commit equivocation fallacies around "belief" and "faith" and it drives me batshit bugfuck crazy.

People will equate my "belief" in the physical existence of chairs and cars with their "belief" in Magic Man in the Sky, and claim that I have religious-style faith anywhere that I can't claim absolute certainty, as though there's no difference between belief based on evidence, and belief based in nothing.

 

[Aught3]

I try to avoid both words, because people so often commit equivocation fallacies around "belief" and "faith" and it drives me batshit bugfuck crazy.

People will equate my "belief" in the physical existence of chairs and cars with their "belief" in Magic Man in the Sky, and claim that I have religious-style faith anywhere that I can't claim absolute certainty, as though there's no difference between belief based on evidence, and belief based in nothing.

I know what you mean, I tried explaining evolution as a belief to a creationist once. It did not go well. There are all sorts of words that seem off-limits when talking to the religious - it gets annoying.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I know what you mean, I tried explaining evolution as a belief to a creationist once. It did not go well. There are all sorts of words that seem off-limits when talking to the religious - it gets annoying.

The real issue isn't the words as much as the inherent dishonesty of theists when discussing religion. They can be honest 99% of the time, but as soon as religion comes up they become lying shit-weasels.

 

[Andiferous]

I know what you mean, I tried explaining evolution as a belief to a creationist once. It did not go well. There are all sorts of words that seem off-limits when talking to the religious - it gets annoying.

The real issue isn't the words as much as the inherent dishonesty of theists when discussing religion. They can be honest 99% of the time, but as soon as religion comes up they become lying shit-weasels.

Yes but, it's not clear to self-proclaimed atheists either. :lol:
Erm, I could go on, but I don't think doing so will make me very popular.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Yes but, it's not clear to self-proclaimed atheists either. :lol:
Erm, I could go on, but I don't think doing so will make me very popular.

No, please... do go on! After all, I'm a universally-recognized asshole, and I'm also hugely popular in some circles.

Of course, I could try to anticipate what you're going to say and counter it by noting that there's a difference between getting something wrong honestly, and intentionally twisting things. There's also a difference between not knowing because you are ignorant and don't realize, and because you are ignorant and willfully so.

just saying...

 

[Aught3]

Yes but, it's not clear to self-proclaimed atheists either. :lol:
Erm, I could go on, but I don't think doing so will make me very popular.

Don't self censor! If what you've got to say is true then we'll learn from it. If what you've got to say is false then we'll all learn from the public correction :twisted:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Don't self censor! If what you've got to say is true then we'll learn from it. If what you've got to say is false then we'll all learn from the public correction :twisted:

And by "learn from" you mean "enjoy pouring gasoline/petrol all over." :lol: