Belief and Knowledge

[Heywood]

I think God probably does not exist. If you call willingness to change my mind at the drop of a hat in the presence of a convincing miracle or even the right words from the right person, 'committment', I feel like you're trying to manipulate me in some way. Like slipping in a redefinition of 'lack of belief' as a 'lack of committment'. A belief is what you think is true. It doesn't require committment. I don't even think there is a choice involved, we HAVE to believe what we think is true. I don't believe God is real. I think God probably doesn't exist. I lack a belief that God is real. I lack a belief that God probably exists. I know you don't like the term, but you're never going to get us to agree to use different language as long as we think it's true that the language we're using describes our position the most conclusively and accurately. My mind has been changed before at least twice about the best defintion for atheist, through the introduction of new facts. Unless you have one of those, your choice is to suck it up and move on instead of dwelling on this sticking point, or keep going around in circles chasing your tail trying to get us to define ourselves in a way that pleases you.

You can have beliefs which contradict knowledge. There is a video in a thread around here of the Creation Museum's scientist...who is an astro physicist....who believes in a literal interpretation of Genesis while knowing it contradicts science. The man certainly has knowledge he is ignoring and choosing the believe somethings else.

We simply have no experience with lineages of life coming into existence via some natural process.....none....zippo.

I can't see any way in which this cannot be interpreted as an argument from ignorance.

Negative, I wasn't even arguing about God. I was arguing his analogy is flawed. His comparison that we know a murder happened even though we don't witness it is analogous to knowing abiogenesis happens without witnessing it simply does not follow. Why? Murder we have lots and lots and lots of first hand experience. Abiogenesis our experience or knowledge is none. We got some speculation and that's it.

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Currently after 37 votes, more than 50% of atheists believe the unproven and un-falsifiable hypothesis that life in this universe arose via some natural process and not from design.

Whats unproven or un-falsifiable about this hypothesis, specifically?

@Frodo. What generalizations do you think are warranted, specifically?

You can always claim its a process which exists or has existed....but just hasn't been observed yet. Its not something that can be proved impossible.

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Nevertheless, I have committed

That's probably the biggest difference between believers and atheists. There's no value in commitment on insufficient grounds. I'm not committed to any proposition that can't be rigorously defended through ample argumentation and/or demonstration. And thus far, every theist here has proven one thing: they utterly fail at that.

God probably exists
God probably does not exist.

If you are indifferent towards either of the above propositions...then yes...you lack a belief. If you are not indifferent, you have made a choice or commitment to favor one over the other. You have formulated a belief.

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It's also simply untrue: as I pointed out, we have experimental evidence that shows that the building blocks of life can form via natural processes.

We have evidence that carbon can form in stars. Is knowledge of nuclear synthesis of carbon knowledge about abiogenesis? It is not. It is knowledge of nuclear synthesis of carbon. Is knowledge of how pre-biotic components can form knowledge of abiogenesis? It is not....it is knowledge of how pre-biotic components can form.

The rest of your post is a straw man. I am not arguing that having no knowledge of abiogenesis is a reason to believe in God. I am arguing something completely different. I am arguing that if your basis of rejecting belief in God is a lack of knowledge of God, then you should reject a belief in abiogenesis as well. Why? Because we have 0 knowledge or experience with abiogenesis.

Personally.....I think it is okay....its not dirty....its not taboo....to believe in somethings of which you have no knowledge. But if your going to criticize me for believing in something which I have no knowledge....don't get butthurt when I point out you are doing the same.