A New Way of Looking at Atheism..

[Rhizomorph13]

(17th January 2012 16:59)thesummerqueen Wrote:  

(16th January 2012 01:21)Darwinian Wrote:  Garbage in, garbage out!

You can't explain that!!!

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The problem is that everything people attribute to an immaterial world is slowly yielding up evidence in a material world as being "mundane" (though no less fantastic.) So what now?

We should get our Wizards together to divine the magic purpose through neuromancy? Either that or astraly project into space to consult the alien intelligences living in the star Canis Major. I contacted them once but was fearful so they implanted a symbiote then left it to grow within my conciousness.

We could take mescaline and consult the Akashic Records through the dreamtime.

Or maybe we could make scientific discoveries through diligent evindence based experiments and cobble knowledge together with falsifiable premises that are then verified through said experimentation.

Other than that I'm not really sure how to proceed? Prayer maybe?

[thesummerqueen]

Naked rain dances. They reveal all.

[Napoléon]

(17th January 2012 16:59)thesummerqueen Wrote:  So what now?

We die.

[thesummerqueen]

We can't. I'm about to start experimenting with cookie recipes and I need you alive to try them.

[Mister Agenda]

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  Atheism is ,as we all know, a negative position towards belief in a deity or deities,

So far, so good.

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  claiming that the believer in god didn't base his belief on conclusive scientific grounds, and since this religious position is held regardless of science, therefore it can be considered unscientific or even a belief in a myth.

What? The only claim an atheist makes re: atheism is that he, she, or it doesn't believe in any gods. You've moved on to a criticism of of religous faith seamlessly, but there's a seam there.

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  if this understanding of atheism is true, then I might proceed to my point.

I have some bad news for you.

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  we can see that the validity of the atheistic position is assumed to be taken from the validity of science, thus appointing science to be the higher judge of the validity of any claim.

The validity of the atheistic position is taken from the assumption that the person claiming not to believe in any gods is being truthful.

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  How did we know that science is what evaluates every single claim?

It doesn't validate any claims. It falsifies some claims when they are at odds with observable reality, but the closest it comes to validating a claim is that it can establish that a reasonable person should accept it, provisionally.

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  we knew from the idea that everything in life is matter/energy,and science is the most reliable way to know matter, i.e. to know everything.

Well, it's the most reliable way to learn about anything that can be detected, anyway. Science isn't based on materialism, it's just that material is all it's been able to find, so far.

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  However, if we believe that life is not only matter/energy, that we live in two worlds physical and metaphysical, then science (i.e. material science) will still obtain its respected status, but only in the material world, because we can't enter the immaterial world with science‘s material tools.

It's nice that your dualism doesn't interfere with your respect for science as a method for investigating things that we can tell exist.

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  In the case of belief in the materiality of everything in life, and the case of belief in the material and immaterial worlds together, science has nothing to say. Scientifically, we cannot know whether life is only material nor material and immaterial. Therefore, the belief that life is only material is unscientific (but not necessarily anti-scientific).

In science, the null hypothesis must be disproved as most likely in order for a differing claim to be considered valid. The null hypothesis for an immaterial existence has not been disproved. It is perfectly scientific to assume the null hypothesis regarding immaterial (rather than the abstract) existence. I'm not sure the term 'immaterial existence' even gets off the ground as a coherent hypothesis. And the belief would be that there is insufficient evidence to justify a belief that life is not only material, which is true. Science could be wrong about that, but it's self-correcting, so if evidence is found to support an immaterial component (beyond the data stored in and software running on our biological computers) to life, then science will support that hypothesis.

(16th January 2012 01:13)a moment Wrote:  Since the belief that there is no immaterial world is unscientific, then it is unscientific to use science as the most reliable way to evaluate every claim. Therefore, atheism is an unscientific position.

Not believing that there is an immaterial world in the absence of evidence to support the notion is quite scientific. Actively believing there isn't one is more a personal choice than science, but since there is no requirement that atheists actually believe there is no immaterial world ( indeed, there are atheists who believe in ghosts and/or astrology) it cannot be said that atheism is an unscientfic position on those grounds.

That said, atheism is not a scientific position. It is an opinion on the existence of gods. No science required. If you don't believe, you are an atheist.

On the claim 'believing there is no immaterial world is unscientific' you've done a bit better job. Only problem is most atheists around here just hold the null hypothesis as the default until given adequate reason to believe it isn't true. Since we're just a subset of atheists, I would go with that as the rational skeptic position: it's an atheistic position but it's not the position of atheism, which only has a position on one thing.


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[technophobe]

I didn't use science as a basis for my disbelief in a deity. I was just a kid and was more interested in my pony and toy trucks than I was science. Science just meant more study time to me and I'd rather have spent that time playing.

Ditto going to church. I hated church and I loathed the people who went there from a very young age. My questions about their beliefs were basically met with a "sit down and shut up" attitude and when they did try to explain, it made no sense. It was as if they were trying to make me believe in another empty Santa Claus and I wasn't falling for that shit again.

So again, the premise that atheists arrive at the conclusion that a god cannot possibly exist through science is invalid. At least it is in my case.

[frankiej]

(17th January 2012 18:52)technophobe Wrote:  I was just a kid and was more interested in my pony

Say what now? You had a pony?

[JohnDG]

Atheist simply take in to account all the past religions that have come and gone over the millenias. All which have had a good and evil side to their beliefs, all had many witnesses and miracles which convinced them to hold their faith. Tell me over the next few thousand years will christianity be around? Or will it end up like every other religion as just the belief in myths while the current religion is correct.

[padraic]

(17th January 2012 17:16)thesummerqueen Wrote:  We can't. I'm about to start experimenting with cookie recipes and I need you alive to try them.

Mmm,cookies. I love nutties and home made short bread.

[Forsaken]

Another way to look at the OP...he is an idiot...