Atheism, the short lived idea?

[solja247]

You do realize there's zero evidence for unicorns, bigfoot, dragons, and leprechauns, right? Am I still supposed to just shrug and say "that doesn't mean they don't exist..."

I think the idea is more complicated than this, the idea of God is found in every culture, whether it be a Rainbow serpent or YWH. But we know that these things are made up, we dont know if God is made up. Santa was clever marketting by Coca-cola but God is much more complicated. You can say that God was an evolutionary tool to help us get to the next state, however, you dont have empirical evidence to back that up. I have empirical evidence that bigfoots and dragons dont exist, but God is on a completely different level.

No offense, but that is the most bullshit reason to not be skeptical. Every true skeptic I know is quite willing to change their mind in the face of hard evidence. The reason they don't say "eh...there's no evidence, but it doesn't hurt to believe it anyway" is because in some cases it CAN hurt. There's no evidence that vaccines cause autism, yet people are believing it anyway and now choosing to let their children risk horrible diseases we worked hard to cure.

I believe to be objective you cant be a skeptic. I have seen how some skeptics here say that X didnt exist because there is no empirical evidence (Neither is there for Socrates, they just chop and choose their skepticsm). Also if you reject the idea of X existing, you have already made your mind up that he doesnt exist. Its like the belief in Santa Claus, we dismissed this idea that Santa Claus was real with a belief, we were being as objective as we can be and we didnt see any reason to believe in Santa or to think he is real. This is how I propose we discern the 'truth' we start with a belief eg. There is a God, untill there is empirical evidence or strong arguments not to believe in a God, a belief is more objective and perhaps more rational. So Im not overtly skeptic because I would not be objective and I would go insane (I would question my own absolute existence)

There IS a reason to be overly-skeptical - especially of biblical figures. The second you put a person in a leadership role, you give them power over you.

Wow. You're easily convinced. It seems that you're going by the old mantra 'Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.' Well, sometimes it is. If we can reasonably expect there to be some historical evidence of Moses' existence, then not finding any surely suggests that he didn't exist. It isn't strong evidence, for sure, but it's enough to make you doubt. Doubt isn't an answer; it's just a default position when all the available answers are clearly bollocks.

Its enough to make me doubt, slightly. However, that doubt shouldnt become the answer, I have no reason to doubt that a man by the name of Moses didnt exist and was a leader of a clan called the Hebrews. I just disagree with Descartes, skepticism is not the answer.

Atoms are not nothing, and natural selection is not mere chance.

If the metorite did not crash into earth and destroy the dinosaur regime, about 40 million years or so would you be typing on your computer?