(July 18, 2012 at 5:26 pm)nazra7 Wrote: Hello everyone. I have a question that I've been very curious about for awhile, and I'm opened minded to being persuaded one way or the other.
I'm sure you've all heard that it takes more faith to be an atheist than a theist, well I'm unsure if that is actually true.
So here is my question, well, there is actually two questions:
It seems that many atheists are atheists not because of evidence against theism but because of a lack of evidence for theism. Is this true?
If so, isn't there a little faith involved that there really isn't any evidence for theism that may have been overlooked or yet to be discovered?
Thanks in advance.
In general, atheism is a provisional position. As long as there continues to be a lack of evidence, reasoned argument and valid logic to support the claim that a god exists, atheists will continue to not believe the claim.
It does not require any faith at all to respond, "I don't believe you. Please support your claim for the existence of a god", when a theist claims one exists.
When speaking of particular religions, there is evidence against them.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
