Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minority

[Bubba Grizz]

Free will.

Gotta have faith. Cause that is all we have.

[cadalano]

"Morpheus: God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgement and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary."
"JC Denton: No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera."
"Morpheus: The human organism always worships. First, it was the Gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgement of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realise truly omnipresent observation and judgement."
"JC Denton: You underestimate humankind's love of freedom."
"Morpheus: The individual desires judgement. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilisation."


i learned all about religion from video games

[vn_Tanc]

I believe in life before death

[Kaldaur]

I believe in Deus Ex. JC Denton was a Grade A badass.

[Sueven]

I'm seriously just trying to figure out what kind of evidence we have to assert that he does or doesn't exist.

You're looking at it the wrong way. There IS no evidence that would allow us to assert Gods existence or nonexistence (short of his coming down and showing off for us), so asking that question is meaningless. If you're interested in making an assertion that God does or does not exist, there are two questions which are appropriate to ask:

1. How confident must I be in my answer to assert God's existence or nonexistence?
2. On the basis of all physical and philosophical evidence, how confident am I that God exists or does not exist?

The answer to question 2 will NEVER EVER be 0% or 100% (unless you're into rounding numbers), simply because it is impossible to prove or disprove God, and this is what would be necessary for either of these answers to hold.

It's more of a linguistic question than a semantics question. At some point, we must make a jump from probability to assertion. Can I say, with perfect certainty, that, for instance, my computer exists? No. Why not? Well, my only evidence for believing in the existence of the computer is the data that is provided to my brain via my senses. According to that data, this computer exists. However, it's possible that my senses could be reporting data which is wildly and entirely fictitious, and I would never know. However, I am perfectly comfortable making an intuitive leap and simply believing that the data reported to my brain by my senses is based in reality, and as such, I'm perfectly comfortable claiming that my computer exists.

When you say "I assert X" you're saying nothing more than "I believe it to be very likely that X." For instance, "I believe it very likely that my computer exists," or "I believe it very likely that the Abrahamic God does not exist." The two statements are equivelant, the only relevant difference is how likely they are to be true.

What this all means is that the impossibility of proof does not, in any way, justify a retreat to uncertainty. That position is devoid of all content, incoherent, and intellectually regressive.

[Kaldaur]

Be careful, according to Kelgar you're mentally masturbating.

Your argument sounds a lot like Descartes in the fact that he never truly established that any of us were here, "I can never say with 100% that I exist, I only am aware of myself so I believe I exist" or something to that nature (it's been about five years since I read him, so it's fuzzy). And I totally agree. Which is my point altogether. Many people assert that God exists, as they have used testimonial from the ages past and the establishment of the church to tell them that God exists. Atheists assert that God doesn't exist based on their lack of seeing him directly or believing existence to be nothing more than proteins and DNA. Neither side has evidence outside of their own convictions, but both sides believe themselves to be on the side of, if not truth, then correctness. You say that arguments exist due to their likeliness of being true. I agree, but then I would say we have no way of accurately judging whether or not there is a likelihood of a god or deity existing. We are three dimensional creatures. Does that mean that there cannot exist creatures of any other dimensions? We have nothing to gauge something from another dimension, simply because we have no idea how to define the likeliness of a creature existing.
I still maintain that the universe is too large for us to categorize things as "if it isn't like us, it cannot exist". There is too much unexplained phenomenon out there waiting to be discovered for us to assert with a high degree of likeliness that we are the only type of life that exists. And, for the sake of arguing, that is the case, and we don't know all the fact about life in all its possible forms, then we can't make an assumption based on likeliness that a deity or powerful being created our world.

I can generally sure of anything in my mind as long as I believe it. But it is a false belief without some sort of evidence to back it up. We can argue the fact that we can never be sure of something, but insofar as I'm sure of most things of which there is a great deal of evidence, I know that we have no way to gauge the existence or nonexistence of a divine being, simply because we have nothing to determine the likeliness of its existence. We have no experience with judging that type of life, we have no way of knowing the calculations and factors in determining the likelihood of a "God" existing. That is the central point of my argument. I'm not trying to say one way or another. The fact is, atheists and Christians can be as confident as they want; they have nothing to base that confidence off of except their own intuition or gut feeling, because we as human beings have no way of determining such an existence or nonexistence.

[Kaldaur]

And yes, Marbus, it's called "Who Watches the Watchers" if I'm not mistaken. A primitive alien sees Picard after a nasty accident and believes him to be a god after that alien is restored to health by Crusher. He then tries telling all his people about the god Picard. It's a really good episode, Season 3. Don't ask how I know, just leave it at the fact that I'm a nut for Star Trek.

[Sueven]

Your argument sounds a lot like Descartes in the fact that he never truly established that any of us were here, "I can never say with 100% that I exist, I only am aware of myself so I believe I exist" or something to that nature (it's been about five years since I read him, so it's fuzzy). And I totally agree.

You're missing my point. What I'm trying to say is that we need to move forward from there and recognize the implications of this for the rest of our knowledge. There's a reason that philosophers don't just sit around and ponder questions like "do I exist" and "is anything really real" all day. That reason is simple: We've accepted that there is an intuitive leap between argument and belief. In the most ludicrously ambiguous sense possible, we can't be certain about anything, from the existence of God to the existence of my computer. However (this is key) this fact does NOT stop us from forming beliefs. I've been stating this point for pages, and I don't know how to state it any more clearly. If you still don't understand what I'm trying to say, you should read a professional philosopher who's more articulate than I.

If you actually agree that we can't truly know anything, and to you this means that agnosticism with respect to God is mandated, then why aren't you an agnostic with respect to your own existence? Or the existence of your computer? Or the existence of the Atlantic Ocean? You're not an agnostic with respect to these topics because you have made an assessment of the probabilities of these statements being correct that is sufficiently close to certain for you to feel comfortable saying "I assert that I, my computer, and the Atlantic Ocean exist."

Kelgar is welcome to accuse me of mental masturbation and we can have a refreshing debate about it if he so pleases. However, keep in mind that there's a big difference between bullshit semantics and linguistic philosophy.

[Niffoni]

And yes, Marbus, it's called "Who Watches the Watchers" if I'm not mistaken. A primitive alien sees Picard after a nasty accident and believes him to be a god after that alien is restored to health by Crusher. He then tries telling all his people about the god Picard. It's a really good episode, Season 3. Don't ask how I know, just leave it at the fact that I'm a nut for Star Trek.

Some day, when those fucking DVDs finally drop from their retarded price, I shall own them. Oh yes. It shall be mine.

[Kaldaur]

No, I understood your point. I wasn't arguing semantics in previous threads, at least that was not my intention.

And Niffoni, yeah, Paramouth is a bitch for making them in the 100 range. They need to lower them so I can finish out ms DS9 collection as well as TNG.

[Sueven]

If you got the point I was trying to make, you would not say something like this:

You say that arguments exist due to their likeliness of being true. I agree, but then I would say we have no way of accurately judging whether or not there is a likelihood of a god or deity existing.

Either that, or you'd have to say we have no way of accurately judging whether or not my computer exists.

[Midnyte_Ragebringer]

Either that, or you'd have to say we have no way of accurately judging whether or not my computer exists.

Like, what is a computer anyway?

[Kaldaur]

The difference between asserting that a computer, which I can touch, see, and hear is real and the different between asserting that a god is real or not real should be clear. We can make arguments about a computer because our senses tell us it exists. What sense tells us of the presence or lack thereof of a divine? Because we cannot sense him, there is an argument for atheism. But that's why my argument was multilayered: not all things can be sensed, but it doesn't make them any less real. The rotation of the earth cannot be sensed by creatures on our planet. However, we knew it was rotating long before we sent spaceships up into orbit to tell us of the rotation. Sometimes, it takes a combination of senses and knowledge, or a rejection of one or the other, to make an assertion. With computers, we assert based on senses that a computer exists. We have neither the sense nor the knowledge to assert one way or the other than god exists or doesn't exist.

[Midnyte_Ragebringer]

The difference between asserting that a computer, which I can touch, see, and hear is real and the different between asserting that a god is real or not real should be clear. We can make arguments about a computer because our senses tell us it exists. What sense tells us of the presence or lack thereof of a divine? Because we cannot sense him, there is an argument for atheism. But that's why my argument was multilayered: not all things can be sensed, but it doesn't make them any less real. The rotation of the earth cannot be sensed by creatures on our planet. However, we knew it was rotating long before we sent spaceships up into orbit to tell us of the rotation. Sometimes, it takes a combination of senses and knowledge, or a rejection of one or the other, to make an assertion. With computers, we assert based on senses that a computer exists. We have neither the sense nor the knowledge to assert one way or the other than god exists or doesn't exist.

With the sames senses you use to assert that a computer is real, you can use to assert that a God is not real.

[Kaldaur]

Right that's what I said in the first few lines. By using that argument, one can argue that God isn't real. However, my stance is summed up in the following liens about how we don't just use our senses to detect things.

[Sueven]

The difference between asserting that a computer, which I can touch, see, and hear is real and the different between asserting that a god is real or not real should be clear. We can make arguments about a computer because our senses tell us it exists.

How do we know that our senses transmit information that even approximates reality to our brain? Former posts have discussed this topic.

A hint: It's the exact same way that we get from any argument to any belief.

That is, we make an intuitive leap from our assessment of likelihood to an assertion.

Perhaps you think that the evidence against God is not convincing enough for you to make that intuitive leap, while the evidence for your computer (which would basically be equivelant to evidence that your senses accurately transmit information to your brain) is convincing enough. That is fine, and is subject to other discussions. What's important is that the same sort of intuitive leap is involved.

Perhaps you would say: Without sensory evidence, I am not able to make the intuitive leap from argument to belief. I would be willing to make assertions regarding the existence of something I can sense, but would refrain from making assertions about the existence of things that I cannot sense. In that case, I would ask what basis you have for believing in any sort of ethics or morality? An agnostic who asserts belief in ethical behavior but denies the possibility of belief regarding non-sensory questions is an agnostic with a blatant contradiction in his opinions.

[Kaldaur]

That's why I put in my argument the fact that not all our evidence comes from sensory objects. Could you elaborate on the non-sensory ethical issue? I'm not understanding what you mean.

[Kelgar]

Be careful, according to Kelgar you're mentally masturbating.

If a black light could highlight more than just real jism, everything here would be glowing at this moment.

Your argument sounds a lot like Descartes in the fact that he never truly established that any of us were here, "I can never say with 100% that I exist, I only am aware of myself so I believe I exist" or something to that nature (it's been about five years since I read him, so it's fuzzy). And I totally agree. Which is my point altogether.

You could simply be a figment of my imagination then. Would you mind if I were to take my figmentary 357 to see if the figmentary slugs would put figmentary holes through your figmentary body?

Many people assert that God exists, as they have used testimonial from the ages past and the establishment of the church to tell them that God exists. Atheists assert that God doesn't exist based on their lack of seeing him directly or believing existence to be nothing more than proteins and DNA.

Almost none of the atheists I know in RL or from other MBs come even remotely close to your oversimplified description.

Neither side has evidence outside of their own convictions, but both sides believe themselves to be on the side of, if not truth, then correctness.

That only applies if one accepts the parameters of how you defined "fact".

You say that arguments exist due to their likeliness of being true. I agree, but then I would say we have no way of accurately judging whether or not there is a likelihood of a god or deity existing. We are three dimensional creatures. Does that mean that there cannot exist creatures of any other dimensions? We have nothing to gauge something from another dimension, simply because we have no idea how to define the likeliness of a creature existing.

This is an old one. Our minds simply "cannot comprehend" God, god, or some other random supernatural being because of human limitations. I can't prove your assertion wrong, but then again it isn't an assertion which is worth any effort trying to disprove. Science and any truly rational person isn't interested in dealing with questions which deliberately divorce themselves from any viable method of finding answers. It's the age-old, backdoor, use-in-case-of-emergency excuse that religious people use when debating.

I still maintain that the universe is too large for us to categorize things as "if it isn't like us, it cannot exist". There is too much unexplained phenomenon out there waiting to be discovered for us to assert with a high degree of likeliness that we are the only type of life that exists.

Agree.

And, for the sake of arguing, that is the case, and we don't know all the fact about life in all its possible forms, then we can't make an assumption based on likeliness that a deity or powerful being created our world.

I already made a comment about this earlier.

I can generally sure of anything in my mind as long as I believe it. But it is a false belief without some sort of evidence to back it up. We can argue the fact that we can never be sure of something, but insofar as I'm sure of most things of which there is a great deal of evidence, I know that we have no way to gauge the existence or nonexistence of a divine being, simply because we have nothing to determine the likeliness of its existence. We have no experience with judging that type of life, we have no way of knowing the calculations and factors in determining the likelihood of a "God" existing.

I'll agree to a point. "God" (big G) can be both physically and logically disproven based on the "evidence" provided by organized religion.

That is the central point of my argument. I'm not trying to say one way or another. The fact is, atheists and Christians can be as confident as they want; they have nothing to base that confidence off of except their own intuition or gut feeling, because we as human beings have no way of determining such an existence or nonexistence.

You're overgeneralizing again. A minority of atheists believe as they do based on what they "feel". Most of these are the ones who were raised religious and left due to some RL shit that made them ask questions. As for the others, it takes absolutely no "intuition or gut feeling" to deny the existence of Adam and Eve and all the rest of the fiction in the bible.

Lastly, as expected, we're dickering over the definition of "existence". You choose to define it more vaguely while I do so in concrete terms.

[Kelgar]

Kelgar is welcome to accuse me of mental masturbation and we can have a refreshing debate about it if he so pleases. However, keep in mind that there's a big difference between bullshit semantics and linguistic philosophy.

It's clear that you're more experienced than Kaldaur at this type of discussion. I can more easily respect how you reach your conclusions than he. Would you mind clarifying IYO what the difference between bullshit semantics and "linguistic philosophy" is?

[Sueven]

Kelgar:

Really not all that much, I suppose. I'm not really well-read in linguistics, and I'd be hard-pressed to draw up a really good distinction, but I'd say something like this:

Arguing for agnosticism by saying that we can't prove the existence or nonexistence of God is semantic bullshit because it constitutes a manipulation of what we mean when we say we believe or disbelieve in something. 'Belief' is supposed to mean the same thing in the sentence 'I believe that God exists (or doesn't exist)' and 'I believe my computer exists,' but to assert that the latter sentence makes sense while the former does not entails using the concept of belief in different ways at different times. The argument only works because the meaning of a concept is being played with.

Discussing what we mean when we say we believe something is linguistic philosophy because it's an attempt to refine our understanding of a particular word and associated concept. The discussion is constructive in that it points out inconsistencies in usage and attempts to adjudicate between them, aiming at what the core meaning of the concept is.

Kaldaur:

Sure.

One common religious argument against atheism (or agnosticism) is that, without belief in a deity, there is no grounding for value or morality, and therefore no reason to praise or blame another for his conduct (although I argue that religion faces this same problem). Furthermore, ethics, like God, are only an abstract concept, not something that is physically manifest. Rules of ethics aren't even something that are (yet) objectively describable in the way that, say, laws of physics are.

Regardless, many atheists and agnostics (including myself) believe in ethics and take them very seriously. We do this because we have been convinced by the weight of argument and evidence. Personally, I justify ethics on consequentialist grounds-- I believe that there are certain rules and norms of behavior that lead people as a whole to lead happier, more productive, more dignified lives, and these rules are worth following because I place value in their consequences. Why do I choose to put value in this? Because of an intuitive leap. I have moved from argument to belief on this issue.

There are many possible values that could ground secular systems of ethics that are different than mine. The important thing is that I have some value or set of values that I consider worthy of constructing a system of ethics around.

The question "Why do you value X" is impossible to answer in a fully satisfactory way, because it is impossible to prove that our sets of values are justified. Similarly, the question "why do you disbelieve in God" is impossible to answer in a fully satisfactory way, because it is impossible to prove that God does not exist. This fact does not prevent us from forming values, and it should not prevent us from forming beliefs about God, or any other subject in which the arguments are convincing enough for us to be comfortable taking the intuitive leap.

[Kaldaur]

You're overgeneralizing again. A minority of atheists believe as they do based on what they "feel". Most of these are the ones who were raised religious and left due to some RL shit that made them ask questions. As for the others, it takes absolutely no "intuition or gut feeling" to deny the existence of Adam and Eve and all the rest of the fiction in the bible.

Fair enough. I'll leave this discussion to the pros of the current events forum.

[Sueven]

No reason to leave the discussion, you're thinking about things and refining your views (and forcing other people to do the same). That's very valuable, regardless of how comfortable the participants are at working with the concepts and arguments. My being critical isn't intended to offend you or force you out, just to make you think about your arguments (and the same goes for me, as I have to think about why I disagree with them).

[Midnyte_Ragebringer]

No reason to leave the discussion, you're thinking about things and refining your views (and forcing other people to do the same). That's very valuable, regardless of how comfortable the participants are at working with the concepts and arguments. My being critical isn't intended to offend you or force you out, just to make you think about your arguments (and the same goes for me, as I have to think about why I disagree with them).

Exactly the way one on these boards should view these threads.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Be careful, according to Kelgar you're mentally masturbating.

If a black light could highlight more than just real jism, everything here would be glowing at this moment.

Your argument sounds a lot like Descartes in the fact that he never truly established that any of us were here, "I can never say with 100% that I exist, I only am aware of myself so I believe I exist" or something to that nature (it's been about five years since I read him, so it's fuzzy). And I totally agree. Which is my point altogether.

You could simply be a figment of my imagination then. Would you mind if I were to take my figmentary 357 to see if the figmentary slugs would put figmentary holes through your figmentary body?

Many people assert that God exists, as they have used testimonial from the ages past and the establishment of the church to tell them that God exists. Atheists assert that God doesn't exist based on their lack of seeing him directly or believing existence to be nothing more than proteins and DNA.

Almost none of the atheists I know in RL or from other MBs come even remotely close to your oversimplified description.

Neither side has evidence outside of their own convictions, but both sides believe themselves to be on the side of, if not truth, then correctness.

That only applies if one accepts the parameters of how you defined "fact".

You say that arguments exist due to their likeliness of being true. I agree, but then I would say we have no way of accurately judging whether or not there is a likelihood of a god or deity existing. We are three dimensional creatures. Does that mean that there cannot exist creatures of any other dimensions? We have nothing to gauge something from another dimension, simply because we have no idea how to define the likeliness of a creature existing.

This is an old one. Our minds simply "cannot comprehend" God, god, or some other random supernatural being because of human limitations. I can't prove your assertion wrong, but then again it isn't an assertion which is worth any effort trying to disprove. Science and any truly rational person isn't interested in dealing with questions which deliberately divorce themselves from any viable method of finding answers. It's the age-old, backdoor, use-in-case-of-emergency excuse that religious people use when debating.

I still maintain that the universe is too large for us to categorize things as "if it isn't like us, it cannot exist". There is too much unexplained phenomenon out there waiting to be discovered for us to assert with a high degree of likeliness that we are the only type of life that exists.

Agree.

And, for the sake of arguing, that is the case, and we don't know all the fact about life in all its possible forms, then we can't make an assumption based on likeliness that a deity or powerful being created our world.

I already made a comment about this earlier.

I can generally sure of anything in my mind as long as I believe it. But it is a false belief without some sort of evidence to back it up. We can argue the fact that we can never be sure of something, but insofar as I'm sure of most things of which there is a great deal of evidence, I know that we have no way to gauge the existence or nonexistence of a divine being, simply because we have nothing to determine the likeliness of its existence. We have no experience with judging that type of life, we have no way of knowing the calculations and factors in determining the likelihood of a "God" existing.

I'll agree to a point. "God" (big G) can be both physically and logically disproven based on the "evidence" provided by organized religion.

That is the central point of my argument. I'm not trying to say one way or another. The fact is, atheists and Christians can be as confident as they want; they have nothing to base that confidence off of except their own intuition or gut feeling, because we as human beings have no way of determining such an existence or nonexistence.

You're overgeneralizing again. A minority of atheists believe as they do based on what they "feel". Most of these are the ones who were raised religious and left due to some RL shit that made them ask questions. As for the others, it takes absolutely no "intuition or gut feeling" to deny the existence of Adam and Eve and all the rest of the fiction in the bible.

Lastly, as expected, we're dickering over the definition of "existence". You choose to define it more vaguely while I do so in concrete terms.

For some reason, this post made me miss the Kelgar-Cthuldan team. Still have contact with fatpaladin(tm) ?

[Kelgar]

Well yeah. He's my best buddy IRL. As for being fat, he's dropped about 14 inches off the waist and is at around 340 (about 154kg). Yeah, that sounds pretty bad, but considering he has a 60 inch chest and tree trunks for legs, that's actually pretty good.

[Kelgar]

You're overgeneralizing again. A minority of atheists believe as they do based on what they "feel". Most of these are the ones who were raised religious and left due to some RL shit that made them ask questions. As for the others, it takes absolutely no "intuition or gut feeling" to deny the existence of Adam and Eve and all the rest of the fiction in the bible.

Fair enough. I'll leave this discussion to the pros of the current events forum.

Not trying to run you off. I just get tired of defending atheists from bible thumpers in other forums and get peaved reading the incredibly stupid shit they say (ie: atheists have no morals and are going to hell, believing evolution requires more faith than believing in God, etc). We're already strawmanned out the ass by them and seeing an agnostic, whom we're in a similar boat with, do something similar was a real pisser.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Well yeah. He's my best buddy IRL. As for being fat, he's dropped about 14 inches off the waist and is at around 340 (about 154kg). Yeah, that sounds pretty bad, but considering he has a 60 inch chest and tree trunks for legs, that's actually pretty good.

Good to hear - say hi to him from me! I didn't mean it in a derogatory sense, that's how we bantered ><

[Kelgar]

Ha ha. Yeah I know. He knows he's fat and has no problems playing off the "jolly fat guy" routine. He's been doing that for a long time.

[Kaldaur]

I've talked with Sueven, and I've come to the realization that I haven't found a way to coherently say what I want to. It just comes out as garbled goobeygook. That's why I was bowing out, I need to refine my message before I come back. I wasn't attacking atheism, far from it. I respect atheists, and I always laugh at the argument that atheists are anarchists/unethical/immoral creatures. Actually, many atheists I know are some of the greatest humanists you could ask for. Wasn't trying to attack, I just haven't reasoned out the whole proof issue yet, which is why at Sueven's urging I'm going to do some reading up on the issue. Maybe in another year I can come back and actually speak articulately.

[Canelek]

I believe I will go to the grocery store now and pick up some corn for my habenero corn muffins.

[Truant]

I believe I will go to the grocery store now and pick up some corn for my habenero corn muffins.

but the real question is.

DID GOD MAKE YOU DO IT?

[Boogahz]

I believe I will go to the grocery store now and pick up some corn for my habenero corn muffins.

but the real question is.

DID GOD MAKE YOU DO IT?

It depends on where he got the recipe!