First, to answer pocaracas: You are absolutely right, sir. My avatar is Vernon Fenwick from the 1980s TMNT series, April O'Neil's Cameraman.
I don't think you can put any one Atheist in a box with all the others. The love of free-thinking will produce varied results.
And so I fundamentally disagree with you, as I am allowed to do. I don't believe in trying to prove God. Saying that there is so much unknown out there that there had to be some kind of "spark", as you put it, is an unsubstantiated claim, however likely you may want to convince others that it seems. Since there is no evidence for that to begin with, we should not assert that God or anything else is the case. Investigating the great mysteries of the Universe is always a good idea, and if our studies produce an overwhelming supply of evidence that points towards something "supernatural", as you defined it, then there would be more reason to believe in it.
You brought up the point that it is our instinct to discover the wonder. I submit that the wonder is not necessarily god...it may not be the cosmic lottery either. For instance, if our planet was seeded by an ultra-advanced and intelligent alien race from another universe, should we label them as gods, or, if evidence was brought forth to prove their existence, should we instead concede the logical conclusion that they were just more advanced and understood more about the universe than we did? Reason (should) dictate the latter.
(June 25, 2013 at 12:38 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote:(June 25, 2013 at 12:02 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: I realize nowadays that it was a logical fallacy to do so, that saying, "I heard strange sounds, so it must have a been a ghost" was akin to saying "I don't know how the universe has such strict laws of physics, therefore God".
For me, it's a sense of wonder that I find compelling to find out more. How did "God" do it and, more importantly, how can we? Terraforming, going to the stars, it's all part of our potential, I believe. Further, I believe that was the intent, part of the divine spark of reason.
I suppose there's no rational reason to assume that God exists or there is nothing to "intend" anything. Perhaps all that came together in our evolution that made our civilization possible was just us winning the cosmic lottery. Still, it's an instinct I can't seem to get rid of (I went through roughly two weeks of trying. Seriously. I was asking myself what was wrong with me, why can't I be a normal atheist. I guess it was a crisis of non-faith).
Deism for me is just a truce between those instincts and my skeptical brain, a way for me to keep such a sense of wonder about the natural universe safely and strictly grounded in the natural.
I don't think you can put any one Atheist in a box with all the others. The love of free-thinking will produce varied results.
And so I fundamentally disagree with you, as I am allowed to do. I don't believe in trying to prove God. Saying that there is so much unknown out there that there had to be some kind of "spark", as you put it, is an unsubstantiated claim, however likely you may want to convince others that it seems. Since there is no evidence for that to begin with, we should not assert that God or anything else is the case. Investigating the great mysteries of the Universe is always a good idea, and if our studies produce an overwhelming supply of evidence that points towards something "supernatural", as you defined it, then there would be more reason to believe in it.
You brought up the point that it is our instinct to discover the wonder. I submit that the wonder is not necessarily god...it may not be the cosmic lottery either. For instance, if our planet was seeded by an ultra-advanced and intelligent alien race from another universe, should we label them as gods, or, if evidence was brought forth to prove their existence, should we instead concede the logical conclusion that they were just more advanced and understood more about the universe than we did? Reason (should) dictate the latter.
