Why You Should Be Atheist

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

One thing we can agree on, however is that Zazzy's definition is something that religious people don't use. It's a fictional definition,

It's not a fictional definition, it's the second in the dictionary, however it strangely disagrees with mine, which was the first: the definition of faith as having trust or belief in a person, idea, or thing. I need that kind of faith. also, that kind of faith just springs up on me. I have faith that my chair won't fall over, then it starts to tip too far backward. Oops.

I've talked to a few religious experts and none of the ones I've talked to endorse this definition. Maybe some religious posters here can confirm or deny this.

Until then, I'm ready to consider that definitions of fictional concepts can occur in the dictionary.

After all, isn't God defined in the dictionary?

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I appreciate that you're trying to make a substantial post, but you're trading on too much bad logic here.

I can't dispute that your limited exposure might have led you to conclude the work is all "rationalizations and circumstantial fragments of data" (I'm interested to know what you are referring to specifically).

Well hell, if you've got proper evidence, then present it. This thread is called "why you should be an atheist," and if you have reasons why one shouldn't be, that's something that would advance the conversation.

But I can point out some very bad reasoning with your analysis of a theistic or deistic hypothesis. For instance, your trading on vague wording like "healthy chunks of the population".

Well, the majority of Americans seems to me like a rather hefty group. More than half of my native Australia is christian, not to mention all the other religions across the world; cumulatively, there are a lot of theists out there, regardless of whether I know the exact numbers or not, and the thing you presented in favor of this is that sometimes theoretical things turn out to be true before there is proof of it.

I agree with that, but I was pointing out that I don't think that's justification for the kind of religious machine the world currently has going on in it.

And your mistaken impression that the amount of time a claim remains unproven is indicative of it's truth value.

I never said that. You made a comparison, and I proceeded to show a kind of metric of how long these theoretical calculations go between being made and being proved. The fact that theistic claims have gone so long without being confirmed says nothing about whether they are true or false, but it is one factor among many that informs my atheism.

Not to mention the implication that the truth of a claim depends on peer-reviewed scientific publication. I mean, do you disbelieve your memories, or something someone tells you because it isn't peer reviewed? This is simply terrible reasoning.

You were the one that made the comparison between theism and the Higgs boson, not me. The fact is, I found that comparison flawed, so I pointed out some of the differences between the two concepts that make them incomparable; this is an entirely context-driven argument. These things aren't my go to arguments, but in terms of what you chose to present, they are my rebuttals.

If there exists a deity, and this deity is immaterial, no physical science is going to be able to "discover" it. Your fallacy here is called the category error.

So maybe stop comparing theistic claims to theoretical physics? Also, if this god is immaterial, how does one justify belief in it? Where is the point of contrast between belief in an immaterial theistic god and a delusional claim?

Moreover you assume testability is the mark of truth.

A mark of truth. These things always exist in a continuum. Do you think you could stop reducing my arguments to their most simplistic form before you respond to them?

Take a person named John who lived, say, 300 years ago. You can't test this agent's intervention in the world today- they've been dead for years. Does that mean they don't exist? Rubbish.

Well, it does depend on the claim, in a number of ways. Are you claiming that your god has been dead for years, or are you rather asserting a god that is still active in the world today, like so many theists do?

Moreover, our theoretical person named John? That's a mundane claim; we know people exist, we know they lived three hundred years ago, and we know that they are sometimes named John. What's the harm in believing this claim? In what way does it violate what we know about the universe?

Now, let's staple a few things onto our John claim: John created the universe. John has miraculous powers, impregnated a virgin via magic, and gave birth to himself. John created a worldwide flood that destroyed most of the population, etc etc...

Would you believe that kind of claim about anything else other than the god you happen to believe in?

You're halfway rational in making some of your claims. I get the feeling you're just not scrutinizing them enough, however, to see where they go off the rails and how to correct them.

Good thing what you responded to wasn't really my arguments, then.

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To me if God does not exist then this life is nothing.

Are you for real, or are you trolling right now?

Why not just respond to each letter individually? What way is this to have a conversation?