If I were an Atheist

[robvalue]

It's hard work keeping up with it, you know?

I'd hate to get kicked out.

[Mudhammam]

Rob, watch it, buddy. Talking loose about our great Savior Evidence is blasphemous and I'm sure you know what happens when you commit the unforgivable sin against Holy Reason. We will be forced to excommunicate you from Disbelief!

[robvalue]

Shit, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it. I'll do 100 hail Dawkins right now.

Don't make me believe stuff.

[Ravenshire]

Because the preponderance of evidence favors the theistic hypothesis.

You make a baseless, bullshit assertion like this, without evidence...

has flat lined for decades...show me otherwise?

Then you demand we provide evidence to refute a claim you make.

Fuck off Tiny Tim.

---

I'll try not to wear out my welcome...

Too late.

Because the preponderance of evidence favors the theistic hypothesis.

You can keep making the same baseless assertion, but it doesn't get any more correct with repetition.

Make your case...I've made mine.

No, you haven't. All you've done is throw crap at the wall to see what sticks. So far, none of it has.

[Mr Greene]

Atheism isn't a growing movement because it isn't a movement at all. It's a belief. Not organized and not well funded. It is growing however. Just about every poll backs that up.

Not even 5% of the population (in the USA) claims to be atheist. I believe it has flat lined for decades...show me otherwise?

A 2001 survey directed by Dr. Ariela Keysar for the City University of New York indicated that, amongst the more than 100 categories of response, "no religious identification" had the greatest increase in population in both absolute and percentage terms. This category included atheists, agnostics, humanists, and others with no theistic religious beliefs or practices. Figures are up from 14.3 million in 1990 to 34.2 million in 2008, representing an increase from 8% of the total population in 1990 to 15% in 2008.[4] A nation-wide Pew Research study published in 2008 put the figure of unaffiliated persons at 16.1%,[57] while another Pew study published in 2012 was described as placing the proportion at about 20% overall and roughly 33% for the 18–29-year-old demographic.[64]

In Europe the picture looks a whole lot different. In my country for example 59 percent of the people identify themselves as in no shape and form religious. Also what have numbers to do with anything? There have been and still are very popular movements that proved to be wrong or despicable.

But they don't refer to themselves as atheists either correct?

Do not believe in any god or gods = atheist
Do you require a definition?

[Whateverist]

Not as amusing as he thinks he is, this Drew character. All bluster and condescension but still lacking any evidence or rationale for god belief. The term 'god' goes undefined as usual.

We are invited to grow a pair and make a straightforward counter claim. That would be convenient for Drew. Then we'd both be in the position backing a defenseless position regarding an undefined term. But there is no debate possible here. Drew is cock sure his 'god' is the biggest, oldest, most powerful intelligence in the universe who has nothing better to do than record your every wish and act as evidence on judgement day. Yes it sounds silly, hence the comparison with Santa Claus. However, Santa only has to bring gifts once a year to millions of believers. God has got to be constantly vigilant lest a single misdeed go unrecorded for every human being ever born. So 'god' wins the absurdity contest hands down over Santa.

[Mister Agenda]

How would I approach the debate were I an atheist?

1. Drop the ‘I’m a weak-atheist’ strategy.

Your arguments following only justify weak atheism. If it makes you feel better, I'm a strong atheist toward the literal version of God described in the Bible: how we got here is not as described in Genesis, there was never a global flood, the sun never 'stopped in the sky' to give Hebrews a military victory, there was never an Exodus, and the Jews were never enslaved en masse by the Egyptians. So the God who flooded the earth and plagued the Egyptians does not exist. Not to mention the theodicy problems. However the God of deism doesn't contradict observed reality or logic and could possibly be real, there's just no evidence that it actualy is real.

'Weak atheists' tend to be careful about what they claim. It's a personality trait. You're not going to change their personalities. Strong atheists sometimes try to argue that weak atheists wouldn't have a problem saying there definitely are no leprechauns...but actually, most of them would, in my experience.

[Whateverist]

Yeah, lets see .. can I make the claim that the God of the bible doesn't exist? Nope. But my opinion is that the god of the bible has been misrepresented by most of the people who claim to be xtians. A few manage to interpret a god from the bible which I would not flat out dismiss.

But I do dismiss all the usual fundy treacle as laughably naive and absurd. So will I put together a case against that interpretation? Sure, get in line. The Easterbunny, tooth fairy and Daffy Duck are ahead of you, and they've been waiting an awful long time. The urgency/importance of these cases are so low as to virtually guarantee I will always have something more worthwhile to do.

[GrandizerII]

I think it's ok to say you believe God doesn't exist. No definite certainty is being implied in this case. But to each their own, I guess.

[Esquilax]

There are many popular beliefs which in light of strong evidence to the contrary slowly in some cases die out.

And we happen to be in the slow dying out of theism. Why assume that this time it's just not happening?

I know many think of atheism as not a belief in anything but a disbelief only but that is rather a shallow view point.

Yeah, sorry, but I don't base my beliefs around what Drew approves of. The way atheists define their beliefs is not down to the opinions of some random theist. We know you think it's shallow, but the fact is that your reasons for thinking that are more due to strategic concerns and your own desire for certainty than anything real or substantive. You think it's shallow because you want atheists to be making a positive claim for burden of proof reasons. You want us to be employing the same certainty you do.

But "It would be really convenient for me if you guys started believing something rhetorically weaker so I can argue against it," is not a good reason for us to entirely change what we believe. This is an entirely self serving argument you have here.

To be intellectually honest if atheism is true that no God exists then we owe the existence of the universe, life and mind to mechanistic forces that never intended such to occur including their own existence but it all came together unplanned through sheer happenstance.

Not necessarily. I see you're still swinging wildly to the contra-positive whenever anyone dares disagree with you, there. It's still a dishonest position; disagreeing with you does not entail belief in the exact opposite position.

If belief in God were as absurd as belief in Santa Claus you wouldn't have to make a case, it would collapse upon its own weight. You don't know of any Santa debate forums do you?

Again, the Santa question isn't reinforced as strictly as the god question is. Come back and talk to me when parents command their children to believe in Santa- generation over generation!- on pain of hell, and in some cases kick them out of the house when they fail to do so. But repeating the same false equivalency a second time doesn't suddenly make it a true equivalency.

Its an uphill battle in part because its leaves the mystery of our existence and that of the universe in as much of a lurch as ever.

I agree, and you are a prime example of why that is: your discomfort with not knowing, your desperation to even have a wrong answer, so long as you have an answer, and your unwillingness to admit that you don't know, even when that's the honest position, causes your resistance to atheism. But your ego isn't an argument against atheism, it's simply an indicator of the human character flaws that we all have, and that some of us are unable to surmount.

Secondly what evidence is there that mechanistic forces could bootstrap themselves into existence and then minus plan, intent or engineering degree could cause exacting laws of nature to produce stars, galaxies, solar systems, planets and ultimately produce something utterly unlike itself, life and mind. Most atheists will shrug and say we don't know how we got here or why that happened we just hold the notion it was a Creator in disdain and contempt. That is why its a non-starter and non-seller.

So you're saying that if we don't know something, it's impossible for us to determine the probability of putative answers? We don't know what is, so we're incapable of determining what isn't?

Perhaps you don't have a teenager but I can assure they test and often rebel against everything a parent says.

Which is why you get them when they're kids and lack the critical thinking skills to resist. And why you keep refreshing that training every week at church. And every day with prayer. And keep them insulated from outside perspectives by calling them evil.

I have met some atheist parents who were mortified there off spring became theists. Where did they go wrong?

I wasn't aware that anecdotes were data.

Do you think parents could persuade children to continue believing in Santa Claus?

If I had access to the same support system your god has, I absolutely could. I'd need to completely discard my scruples, but I could do it.

If you lack belief God exists and are justified in that lack of belief then why wouldn't you also have (just as an opinion) the belief God doesn't exist?

Because the former leaves me open to additional evidence changing my mind. I don't have any particular reason to outright deny, I just need more evidence than you're giving me to accept.

Over all its a losing strategy because as a theist I don't deny God exists but as a weak atheist you don't deny God exists either. We can't even debate the existence of God because you don't deny God exists.

Sure we can. You believe something I don't, and I don't think you've made any kind of case for it. What more do you need?

If the case in favor or atheism is so weak, so tepid that you can't even bring yourself to opine God doesn't exist how weak is that?

Again, expressions of certainty are not indicators of the quality of an argument. Why aren't you even addressing this point?

By the same token, evidently there is a severe lack of evidence in the non-existence of God so you won't render the opinion God doesn't exist.

So, now you're conflating "no evidence for a proposition," with "all evidence against that proposition"? You know there's three states to that scenario, right? There could be no positive evidence and no contradictory evidence, like when, say, we don't have enough information to properly formulate a response.

You're not only an a-theist you are an a-atheist as well. And its not that you reject the idea God doesn't exist...you just lack the belief God doesn't exist. See what I mean? That an absurd position (IMHO).

Sure, if I indulged your inane false dichotomy, it would be ridiculous.

I've debated this issue for a long time.

That's not an answer to what I asked.

I don't get to dictate, I do get to voice my opinion. That's what a discussion board is for no?

But the meat of your argument seems to be the strawman about what we should believe, rather than any evidence for your position. That's the problem.

Then your implying that parents actually know that God doesn't exist also but continue with the charade anyway.

No, not at all. It's a difference in how the belief is responded to, not the motive of the responder.

Is there enough evidence for you to render the opinion Santa doesn't exist or do you also just lack that belief due to lack of evidence of Santa's existence but maintain that Santa may in fact exist.

That depends, are we talking about Santa as people actually talk about him, or Santa as a direct comparison with god? Because in the former case, Santa doesn't exist. But if we're still using Santa as an analogy to god, then to make it an apt analogy then we'd also need millions of people willing to redefine what Santa is via theology over and over, to keep him beyond the reach of human inquiry and discovery. In that case, when people behave to Santa-questioning like they do god questioning, no, I couldn't say Santa doesn't exist, because it's impossible to disprove a moving goal post.

Do you believe that if parents didn't drop the Santa charade children would grow up into adults and continue to believe in Santa?

Yep. At least, many of them would.