Question about "faith"

[Simon Moon]

In other words, my atheism will continue, as long as theists continue to fail to meet their burden of proof to support their claims that a god exists.

In writing this, you demonstrate that you have a belief system.

Usually in philosophy, "I believe it" means "I hold it to be true." And a belief system is a set of things you hold to be true. 

I never said I don't have a belief system. I said, atheism is not a belief system.

Reading comprehension is a thing, you know...

Yes, I agree, belief is the psychological state in which one accepts a premise or proposition to be true, or likely true.

One of the things we hold to be true is: "what constitutes good evidence?" or "what would have to be evident to constitute proof?" These are not things that people are born with. They are learned. One person from one culture will hold it to be true that a dream constitutes good evidence, while someone from another culture will hold it to be true that evidence must always be repeatable empirical quantifiable science-type evidence. Each person has a set of values or standards of evaluation that he uses, and these are a part of his belief system. Mr. A believes that tradition and authority constitute good evidence, while Mr. B believes that such things are insufficient. That's belief.

When I use the term 'good standards of evidence', I am describing a method to demonstrate the truth of a claim. Please define what you accept good standards of evidence to be.

I don't care if some culture considers a dream good evidence, can they demonstrate it? If their dream does not reliably: predict events, describe shared reality accurately, (or whatever other thing they are claiming their dream is good evidence for), how is that good evidence?

Is using tradition and authority a reliable path to truth? How can it be, when there are, and have been, thousands of traditions and authorities, all different, and mostly contradictory?

So when you say that theists have never met the burden of proof, you are showing that you have beliefs about what constitutes good proof. 

Yes, I believe that good standards of evidence are that, which would demonstrate that their god claims are true, or likely true. What standard of evidence do you think would reliably demonstrate one of the various god claims is true?

2 Billion Christians use: tradition, ancient texts, authority, faith to come to their god beliefs, 1.5 billion Muslims use: tradition, ancient texts, authority, faith to come to their god beliefs, 1.1 billion Hindus use: tradition, ancient texts, authority, faith to come to their god beliefs, same for Jews, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, etc.

If theistic ideas of good evidence were reliable, how can they lead the entire population of the planet to vastly differing beliefs?

Do you sincerely believe that: tradition, authority, ancient texts, faith, etc have the same epistemological standing as: demonstrable, repeatable, falsifiable evidence, and valid and sound logic? Do you sincerely believe that the former are as reliable as the latter?

And since religious claims are seldom science-type claims, your beliefs about evidence constitute metaphysical beliefs. It is a statement of metaphysics to say that reliable knowledge from divine revelation is impossible, for example.

It is not my fault that a god or gods, do not understand good epistemology. As far as I can tell, either they are purposely hiding, they don't care if I know they exist, or they don't exist.

I never stated or claimed that "divine revelation is impossible". I am almost certain it doesn't exist, though. As soon as it is demonstrated to exist, I will accept it.

It is unreliable, though. How can it be reliable when: 2 billion Christians, 1.5 billion Muslims, 1.1 billion Hindus, etc, all have claims of divine revaluation in some form or another, and they all differ? Not to mention, that there are thousands of sects of Christianity alone, and many of them disagree in major portions of doctrine. So, even 'divine revelation' within one religion is far from reliable.

I am willing to believe it, as soon as it can be demonstrated. Until it is demonstrated, what should be my warrant to accept it as being true? I have no idea whether it is impossible or not. But, how did you determine that it is possible?

Please list any other circumstance, beside god claims and belief, where you think that some metaphysical method would lead to reliable results.

How would this metaphysical method reliably differentiate between all the different god claims, to show that one of them is more likely to be true? Or if any of them are?

Could this method rule out belief in other, none god related claims? Such as: bigfoot, alien abductions, Tarot, crystal healing, Jinn, ghosts, etc, etc? After all, all these types of claims could also be believed by methods that do not include demonstrable evidence, and valid and sound logic.

Funny thing is, many theists, will dismiss many if not all, of all these types of claims, for much the same reasons I dismiss god claims. Lack of evidence.

So you do have a set of beliefs, and this is intrinsic to your atheism. 

Yes, as I stated above, I do have a set of beliefs.

My atheism is simply not being convinced of theist claims that gods exist.

I do have a set of beliefs, that lead me to my atheism.

I have 2 presuppositions:

1. that there is a shared objective reality
2. the logical absolutes are true

Theists also agree with these presuppositions, but they add several more. like: god[s] exist, and there is a supernatural realm. Mine are much more parsimonious, or as William of Ockham stated, "entities should not be multiplied without necessity".

Among my other beliefs are: there is no warrant to believe an existential claim without demonstrable evidence, and valid and sound logic to support the claim.

I think that a lot of atheists would be improved as critical thinkers if they acknowledged their own beliefs and standards of judgment, rather than pretending that their minds are at some sort of default setting. They are not.

I don't think I ever ran across an atheist that believes this. But, there are tools we have, that can go along way to decreasing and/or eliminating our biases.