RE: Questions for both sides.
January 23, 2013 at 3:05 am
(This post was last modified: January 23, 2013 at 3:08 am by Ryantology.)
1. Is there an organized group of atheists that has a global presence?
Not that I know of.
2. For what reason do you go about and try to disprove the beliefs of the theists?
I don't attempt to disprove them so much as I attempt to demonstrate their absurdity. I do this mostly for the fun of it; I have no delusions that it will make an ultimate difference in the big picture. However, I became an atheist in part because I witnessed other atheists make arguments against my former faith that could not be refuted. I like to think that it can happen to other people. I am antipathetic to the dominant religions and I want to see their influence in the world evaporate.
3. Isn't the belief/knowledge that there is without a doubt no God/gods also faith based? ( I don't just mean the Christian God, but the existence of higher beings in general, and please don't bring up the stupid flying spaghetti monster argument).
Yes, but not all faith is equal. I have no doubt about there no being any gods because the likelihood of any gods existing is vanishingly small. It is the tiniest possible leap of faith to say "there is no god" when not the tiniest shred of credible evidence exists to indicate that any god does exist.
Having faith in any God requires a huge assumption all by itself, and requires a huge number of huge assumptions if your faith conforms to any particular dogma.
Basically, it is sort of like this: A theist has faith that they will win every lottery in the world every single day until they die (and this is me giving ridiculously generous odds for comparison's sake). An atheist has faith that this is not going to happen, even though it is not technically impossible.
Not that I know of.
2. For what reason do you go about and try to disprove the beliefs of the theists?
I don't attempt to disprove them so much as I attempt to demonstrate their absurdity. I do this mostly for the fun of it; I have no delusions that it will make an ultimate difference in the big picture. However, I became an atheist in part because I witnessed other atheists make arguments against my former faith that could not be refuted. I like to think that it can happen to other people. I am antipathetic to the dominant religions and I want to see their influence in the world evaporate.
3. Isn't the belief/knowledge that there is without a doubt no God/gods also faith based? ( I don't just mean the Christian God, but the existence of higher beings in general, and please don't bring up the stupid flying spaghetti monster argument).
Yes, but not all faith is equal. I have no doubt about there no being any gods because the likelihood of any gods existing is vanishingly small. It is the tiniest possible leap of faith to say "there is no god" when not the tiniest shred of credible evidence exists to indicate that any god does exist.
Having faith in any God requires a huge assumption all by itself, and requires a huge number of huge assumptions if your faith conforms to any particular dogma.
Basically, it is sort of like this: A theist has faith that they will win every lottery in the world every single day until they die (and this is me giving ridiculously generous odds for comparison's sake). An atheist has faith that this is not going to happen, even though it is not technically impossible.
