Thoughts On Atheism and Faith

[ray3400]

So:

If we do not know everything, then there will always be a degree of uncertainty when it comes to the existence of God.
If there is a degree of uncertainty, faith would be required to the extent of which there is uncertainty, if one were to be able to make any absolute claim about God's existence.
Therefore, it is hypocritical for the strong atheist to judge a Christian for having faith, for they themselves depend on faith to attain their absolute certainty in their belief.
They can judge the degree to which Christians have faith, but it would be incorrect to claim they themselves do not have any faith.

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robvalueOkay, fair enough.

Not many people are asserting that. You're arguing with gnostic atheists only.

Interesting that you don't even think I should care about your God, though.


"You're using the word "faith" in many different ways, I'm not sure what your aim is."
In this case what I mean by faith is "one's ability to hold a belief despite a degree of uncertainty".
If one knows something for certain there is no need for faith. If one does not know something for certain, faith is required to varying degrees to hold a belief as true.


"In my opinion, absolute certainty, about anything, is unrealistic. We can just be certain beyond reasonable doubt."
This position makes sense, my purpose is not to doubt everything to the point of not knowing anything for certain. Many atheists (but not all), do express that they believe with 100% certainty that God does not exist.


"The theist is 50% uncertain? I think this is highly unlikely."
The point is, despite the extreme values given, faith is still required for the strong atheist position.

My aim is to show that what you call a "strong atheist" requires some degree of faith. Here is a refined version of what I'm proposing given what you've stated so far:

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Proposal:
The strong atheist position requires faith.

Given:
Question 1: Do you have an active belief there are one or more gods?
Question 2: Do you have an active belief there are no gods?

Position 1: Y, N: Theist (could be agnostic or gnostic)
Position 2: N, N: Weak atheist (agnostic) - since this position makes no claims of belief, it cannot claim to "know for sure".
Position 3: N, Y: Strong atheist (could be agnostic or gnostic)

Everyone is in one of those 3 positions by definition.


Conclusion:
Position 2:
Position 2 is logically consistent with not requiring faith because it makes no claims.

Positions 1 and 3:
God has not been formally proven or formally disproven, so there is a degree of uncertainty with positions 1 and 3.
Do to this uncertainty, positions 1 and 3 do inherently require faith.


Example:
Let's suppose the amount of faith required is proportional to the degree of uncertainty involved.

If the strong atheist has a 0.0001% uncertainty and the theist has a 50% uncertainty, then the theist requires 500,000 times more faith than the strong atheist.
The strong atheistic position requires faith nonetheless. The only way for the strong atheist position to be logically consistent and not require faith is to bring the uncertainty level down to 0%. This is impossible without a formal disproof of the existence of God.

Also, if it is impossible to formally disprove the existence of God, and we cannot assume that all things impossible to disprove are automatically false, then the uncertainty level will never reach 0%.

I will let a good man answer that better than I ever could:
https://youtu.be/QkhBcLk_8f0

Faith, as in belief based on solid evidence which makes the likelihood extremely high is totally different to faith about some unknown thing for which there is no credible evidence at all.

Everyone needs the former in order to function in the world. If you waited for absolute certainty, you'd be waiting forever. No one needs to believe in gods, based on flawed logical arguments and story books, in order to function.

Even if being a gnostic (strong as you call it) atheist requires faith, so what? I still don't get your point. Gnostic atheists are as unreasonable as theists? It's not a defence of your own position to say "You do it too!" Especially when it only applies to a very small subsection of atheists.

Even a gnostic atheist would usually consider any new evidence presented, however. A gnostic theist generally isn't interested in evidence, because there isn't any, and as such cannot logically review their position.

But thanks for conceding that some positions do not require faith. I do not need to be certain that there is no Yahweh, or Allah, in order to believe they don't exist. I carry on regardless. It is overwhelmingly likely they are fictional characters, which do not represent any actual creator accurately, if there is one. All my experience confirms this position.

"It's not a defence of your own position to say "You do it too!" Especially when it only applies to a very small subsection of atheists."

I'm not defending Christianity, I'm questioning strong atheism. I'm proposing the idea that "The strong atheist position requires faith.".

Again, many atheists (but not all), do express that they believe with 100% certainty that God does not exist.


I would assume that just as people shouldn't blindly follow Christianity, people also shouldn't blindly follow atheism. Believe it or not, many do in the secular world because it seems more convenient.

Most of you seem to have at least held you own beliefs to the same standard of skepticism as you do Christianity.

Anyways, I'm headed off this discussion. The purpose of this was not to "win", I personally think the mindset of "winning" and insulting others gets in the way of having a meaningful discussion. The purpose of this was to propose an idea out of curiosity, for entertainment and to learn more about what the atheist's perspective is regarding the topic.