The Case for Atheism

[Mister Agenda]

Mister Agenda,

Um, it was theists who believed in the 'small gods' too. Theism isn't just your version of things, it's merely the belief that some sort of God or gods exist. All their theisms are belong to you if you're not going to be more specific. Disproving other people's theism isn't favorable to theism.

My response was to the claim that scientists debunked the notion of gods such as the god of rain or earthquakes and such. In reality theists did long before scientists got around to it.

Believing something different isn't debunking something. That thing scientists did where they found out what actually causes lightning? THAT's debunking.

Argumentus Classificatious. In case you don't know that means its the fallacy that merely classifying an argument nullifies it or debunks it.

Identifying a fallacy within an argument doesn't prove the conclusion isn't true, but it proves the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. It proves the argument doesn't support its conclusion. There is no such fallacy as Argumentus Classificatious, where did you get it from? Are you thinking of the 'fallacy fallacy', which is inferring that since an argument contains a fallacy, its conclusion is untrue?

If in fact an argument is fallacious. Many atheists seem to think the fact it merely falls into a category qualifies it.

Argument from 'you identified a fallacy in my argument so you're wrong'. Really?

Argumentus Classificatious.

That's not an actual fallacy.

Presumably not because you're ticked off at God but because you don't think God exists.

Correct, someone who is ticked off at God would be a maltheist, I suppose.

I'll speak for myself, to be intellectually satisfied that we are not the result of a personal agent who caused and designed the universe and our existence I would want to have reason to believe some other non-God cause is as feasible and as likely to account for our existence.

Good for you.

Therein lies the problem, neither you or other atheists will cough up some more likely or probable cause or explanation for our existence.

When you say 'more likely or probable' you mean 'convincing to you, personally'. You find the explanations of cosmology and biology improbable, we don't. So stay a theist. You seem to be under the impression we want you to change your mind, but we actually don't care much. We didn't go to a theist forum to convince the theists. We're just entertaining yet another theist visitor daring us to convince them.

Tell me, are you as skeptical of naturalistic in the gaps explanations as you are of the God explanation? If not then make your case for why those alternate explanations are better.

Given we won't latch on to one of the proposed explanations until there's more confirming evidence for it, which there may not be in our lifetimes, our skepticism of the natural explanations should be obvious. They're better because they're based on physical evidence and math that works. That doesn't make them true, but it's a better explanation than 'I'll go with what Iron Age herdsmen thought'.

They do all kinds of things in the universe we live in when confined by very specific laws of nature. As for incredulity it's laughable that word is even in the bag of atheist arguments. It can be said of any argument atheists make against the existence of God is an argument from personal incredulity.

For example?

There have been several atheists on this very board that have said they don't categorically deny Gods existence, they simply lack that belief. If atheists themselves claim God may exist what's their beef with theists who do think God exists?

It depends on the atheist. I don't have a beef with theists, I think it's perfectly reasonable to believe what you were raised to believe and what everyone important to you believes. Generally, when we have a beef with theists, it's not because of what they're believing, it's because of what they're doing that they think their belief justifies. Noting the belief itself isn't justified by logic or evidence is just part of the argument against the actions. We generally don't start arguments with Quakers or Jains, you might notice.

in·cre·du·li·ty
[in-kri-doo-li-tee, -dyoo-] Show IPA
noun
the quality or state of being incredulous; inability or unwillingness to believe.
Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English incredulite < Latin incrēdulitās. See incredulous, -ity

Synonyms
disbelief, skepticism, doubt.

Antonyms
faith.

Notice the antonym for incredulity is faith. So when you say I am incredulous of the claims that mindess forces can bootstrap themselves into existence, create a universe with specific laws of nature that create life and mind from non-life and non mind why shouldn't I lack faith barring evidence such could and did happen? Its not as if any atheists I know of are making a case from facts. None in here are.

It's not your incredulity that's a problem. It's using your personal incredulity of the alternative as an argument that's fallacious. It would be like me claiming it's irrational to believe in God because it doesn't make sense. It not making sense to me isn't an argument against you believing it. It may make perfect sense to you. My personal standard of incredulity isn't a standard to which I can hold anyone else.

If atheists only lack belief God exists then as far as they are concerned God may well exist and be a viable explanation that accounts for the existence of the universe and humans, it's just not one they share. So if atheists themselves concede God may exist what gripe can they have with theists who do believe God exists?

No gripe for the belief. A lot of us have a gripe with Creation Science or Intelligent Design being taught in taxpayer-funded science classes when, at the very best, it's not established science.

Considering you as an atheist don't deny God exists you should say to the theist its very reasonable that you believe in God I just don't share your belief.

It's reasonable that theists believe, and a particular theist's personal experiences may be adequate justification for them. That doesn't make it a very reasonable belief. It's just as reasonable for people in a remote African village to believe their ancestors and witches account for pretty much all chance events between them, but the belief itself isn't reasonable. You pretty much have to believe it to think it's reasonable.

However if what you really think is that its unreasonable to believe in the existence of God then you should have at least as good or better alternative explanation that I don't need to accept on faith.

You're asking us to make an argument from ignorance. It being improbable that your belief is true doesn't oblige us to present an alternative that would please you. Nonetheless, centuries of effort by scientists have given us modern cosmology and biology as alternatives to your scenario. If that isn't sufficient for you, keep on believing. It's not like we're going to knock on your door to pester you about it.

You're living in a dream world if you think the majority of atheists sites, leaflets and promotions don't depict belief in God as absurd bizarre, crazy, fanciful, foolish, insane, nonsensical, preposterous and unreal.

Yet, most of us still won't claim no sort of God could possibly exist. That's different from claiming belief in God is unjustified, and showing why.

Many atheists have an agenda to remove the notion of God from society. Sure in a debate most atheists go to the failsafe mode of claiming its just a lack of belief but not elsewhere.

Many theists think if every military officer doesn't have the right to keep a Bible on her desk and every Courthouse can't display their version of the Decalogue, that the notion of God is being removed from society. But hundreds of thousands (at least) of American theists think mixing religion and government more than absolutely necessary is bad for religion as well as government.

There are 'strong' or 'gnostic' atheists who will go so far as to say God definitely does not exist, but since they're in the minority on every single atheist forum site I've ever visiited, I don't think they suddenly become the majority elsewhere. Critiquing bad arguments for God isn't the same thing as saying God doesn't exist.

ra·tion·al·ism
[rash-uh-nl-iz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
the principle or habit of accepting reason as the supreme authority in matters of opinion, belief, or conduct.

Fine then provide me with the rationalist basis for believing that mindless forces somehow came into existence with the right characteristics and laws of nature to produce intelligent human beings rather than telling me I'm incredulous if I don't agree.
[/quote]

I'd go with

1.A belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response.

but, close enough.

The rationalist position would be to not believe in a proposition until belief in it is sufficiently justified by knowledge and reason. I regard the God hypothesis to be insufficiently justified by knowledge and reason so I don't believe it. I find some current cosmological explanations for your questions plausible, but I don't believe them either, because it's multiple-choice and the evidence to support one over the other isn't in yet. Your need for there to be an answer doesn't mean one is currently available.

[Gnosis]

The burden of proof rests with the people who believe in god. Its up to them to prove that god does exist not for non-believers to disprove it. Which is funny because there is not one shred of evidence anywhere to indicate he does, which has been mentioned a few times already.

[Mister Agenda]

Thanks for bringing this up again. Would you give an example of something beginning to exist that can be traced back to its cause?

Sure, black holes begin to exist. There cause is when a super nova explodes and the remaining material contracts into a black hole. I suspect your leading up to something else but I'll wait for your response.

I suppose I am, but not trying to play 'gotcha', just trying to see what you mean by 'begins to exist' and your answer answers that. The reason I asked is that, for example, a black hole 'begins to exist' from matter and energy already present. It's possible our universe is a transformation of a previously-existing state of matter and energy, but I don't see how that helps the case for a personal creator.

Then what non-god cause is more justified and what is your justification? Otherwise I'm liable to think you're just biased.

Oh, I think you were liable to think that before you walked in. You repeatedly demand some other, better explanation; but there's nothing in logic that requires that if one explanation is unjustified that a better one must exist. Sometimes the most honest thing to do is admit an answer isn't possible at this time.

You know Mister Agenda, I think if I made this same argument to you in some other context you'd bang me over the head with it. This would be like saying if we didn't know how base balls came into existence it would be less miraculous to propose that base balls somehow created themselves because we know they exist.

Umm, I'm not saying we only know how the baseballs exist, I'm saying we know pretty much every detail of their formation back billions of years, and it's been natural causes all the way down, inferring that when we learn more about their origins they will still be natural ones isn't a miraculous claim compared to 'no, now it's not going to be natural causes anymore, it's going to be a personal creator god'.

No one disagree's that mindless forces exist. It's how they came into existence, why they turned into a universe with the right characteristics to allow sentient life that is in question. The fact of their existence doesn't lead to any explantion for thier existence or for the laws of nature.

You're a little behind modern theoretical physics which actually does have hypotheses for the origin of the universe that account for its characteristics. Check out Hawkings and Stenger.

I could apply that same logic to life and intelligence, since life and intelligence is known to exist it is less miraculous to propose a known cause to an unknown one and we have observable, repeatable proof that life can cause life and intelligence can cause intelligence.

Yes, we KNOW life can cause life and we also know life hasn't always existed on this planet, and the oldest life we can find evidence of is also the simplest life we can find evidence of. Human beings start life as a single-celled organism, so we know a single-celled organism can give rise to intelligence.

Compared to mindless forces we are gods.

Stop breathing and see which one wins: Drew the man-god or mindless forces. A little humility before the awesome forces of the universe might be in order. 'Having volition' is not part of any definition of a small-g 'god'.

You're avoiding the point that a computer coming into existence at the hands of designers and engineers is far less miraculous than if mindless forces through time and chance untentionally caused one to exist.

You're avoiding the point that what enables us to determine the computer is man-made is how different it is from everything that's not. We know how we got to computers. We also know how we got to rocks and fish and birds and insects and so on. The way computers come to be is really, really different from how those other things come to be.

Another clue that would inform us its designed its the extremely close tolerance in which the constituient parts operate also known as fine-tuning.

And an interesting fact about living organisms is that they fine-tune themselves to their environments without need of a master programmer to alter their settings. Fine-tuning doesn't imply a tuner, it just means that if certain things were different, other things would be different, too.

And if mindless forces without plan or intent, design or engineering caused a universe to exist with the correct characteristics to create life and sentience we'd have to chalk it up to the most fantastic and fortuitious stroke of luck imagininable.

Lucky for us. On the other hand, the odds of getting a particular bridge hand are about six billion to one and it's kind of silly to say you couldn't have gotten the hand you're holding after the fact because it's so unlikely. If it wasn't that one, it would be another, equally improbable one. It's a misuse of probability to start with something that has happened and reason backwards that it couldn't have happened by chance because it's so improbable.

On the other hand if the universe was the product if design, engineering and planning no luck or miracle needed.

Imagine what the odds must be against there being a creator that wanted to create a universe and also wanted it to be one perfect for resulting in exactly us. It's not like a creator would HAVE to create exactly us, because then it wouldn't have had volition. If it was omnipotent, it could have created any universe conceivable, which would be an infinite number of universes, but it chose exactly this one; the odds are one in infinity...and in math, that's the same as zero.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'll speak for myself, to be intellectually satisfied that we are not the result of a personal agent who caused and designed the universe and our existence I would want to have reason to believe some other non-God cause is as feasible and as likely to account for our existence

Then you're in luck, because our existence is handily accounted for, readily and vastly demonstrated, down to the mechanism and even its underlying mechanics, with nary a single fairy accounted for anywhere - or even required.

Of course, you weren't being honest with yourself (or us) here, as this explanation is conveniently and simply available to you (and for your attempts at falsification or verification) but you choose to believe in fairies nevertheless.

"God" accounts for nothing, it doesn't even begin to offer an account for anything, it's a non-starter, an added word. You're partial to the word, that much is obvious. But lets at least try to be a little more candid, if only with ourselves..eh?

[The Reality Salesman01]

I'll speak for myself,

Ahhh! Who are you? nevermind...

to be intellectually satisfied that we are not the result of a personal agent who caused and designed the universe and our existence

You would need something other than you not having any justification for even suggesting such a claim, as it does not correlate with truth, experience and is not otherwise logically grounded?

I would want to have reason to believe some other non-God cause is as feasible

HUH? I'm gonna need you to explain how you have a particular knowledge of a particular God, and therefore have a particular knowledge about the sorts of things IT normally produces by which you must base this "feasibility" on. I presume that you can explain all of this right? If you have NONE...there is absolutely nothing "feasible" about it. It is not a logically grounded supposition, and is actually...unfeasible, and illogical. If you have no basis for that which a God can be credited for "creating", you have no grounds to insert it as a conclusion!

and as likely to account for our existence

How likely would you say such a claim is? 50/50? You seem to be avoiding the shadow of probability that blurs your assessment. Your claim is no more grounded than a person claiming they have a unicorn in their pocket. Improbable claims of all sorts can be rightly dismissed on the same grounds. A more intelligent approach would be to just say...There's an answer to the questions I have...I don't know what it is...and because I do not know anymore than anyone else, it would be impossible for me to invoke an answer, and then arbitrarily assign it any value of feasibility. I don't know what it is, but I also have ZERO reason to believe in this thing called "God", whatever it is...and so...I just don't know, but am open to new information that is grounded in reality and correlates with truth and verifiable experience.

I would want to have reason to believe some other non-God cause is as feasible and as likely to account for our existence

AHHH!!...lol, I'm really not trying to bust your balls here, but this statement is loaded with absurdity and contradictions. You never had a reason to use the word "God", you have no understanding or proof that such a thing exists or even what it could be, and yet you have no problem with accepting "it" as a super-natural, intelligent agent??...But, because NOBODY KNOWS...You are not obliged to throw in with the lot that admits it, but would rather make incredulous claims of Gods and their feasibility? I'm afraid you have a LOT of explaining to...starting with what reasons that any God theory is any more feasible than a celestial teapot.

[Drew_2013]

Rational Man

The burden of proof is on the religious person who is making claims. Atheists are atheists because we have not been shown any real scientific, logical evidence. Remember atheism is not a belief or a faith. It is a disbelief, it is a rejection of the claim that there is a god. The case for atheism is simply: you can't prove your claims

First point, I'm a non-religious person who believes in theism the belief we owe our existence to a transcendent being commonly referred to as God. I accept the fact I should offer reasons and facts to support that belief and I have made my case in this forum. Atheists have been shown circumstantial and inferential evidence that does in many cases lead a sane and rational person to conclude we are the result of plan and design. If as you say atheism is not a faith or a belief but is a disbelief and a rejection then that is a knowledge claim that God doesn't exist and therefore some other cause is responsible for our existence. However the majority of your weak kneeded fellow atheists in this forum won't even state for the record God doesn't exist. There only willing to say they doubt that claim.

Esquilax,

And just because an atheist claims to have debunked my arguments doesn't make them false.

No, but the information in those debunkings proves your arguments flawed. The same debunkings that you've ignored. And just continued asserting that what you're saying is true. Which has an interesting subtext.

I responded to the majority of objections which were merely opinions to begin with. As I said repeatedly, ultimately our respective arguments are decided by impartial and unbiased people, not participants in a debate. You don't get to debate something and also declare yourself the winner.

It means I don't believe current god claims until they're properly shouldered their burden of proof. So, in a way, yes; it means I'm intellectually honest enough to accept that I don't have the answers to every question, and that doesn't give me the right to just make up something that seems comfortable.

Barring smoking gun irrefutable evidence you can always say they have failed to shoulder the burden of proof. Theism is a belief just as naturalism is. Even though most atheists believe the universe and life is the result of mindless forces that didn't plan or intend our existence they also know it is very difficult to defend that belief.

Yes! Of course I don't know! And as much as you claim to, you don't either! None of us do, because if you can't show it, you don't know it! You believe that a god exists, you have formulated sufficient evidence for you to justify your own beliefs. That's not the same as knowledge, because knowledge is by definition something that can be demonstrated to be true. All I'm doing, is I'm not pretending that I know the answer to questions that we can't possibly come close to answering yet!

The problem is the word atheism and the claim to be an atheist in the popular lexicon (and dictionary definition) doesn't mean I don't know and is a confession of ignorance. To anyone on the street atheist means a person who doesn't believe God exists. Secondly, I've never stated theism as anything other than a belief based on circumstantial and inferential evidence. The truth is by claiming to be an atheist you promote the belief God doesnt' exist even though your unwilling to defend or support that belief.

Mr Agenda

Identifying a fallacy within an argument doesn't prove the conclusion isn't true, but it proves the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. It proves the argument doesn't support its conclusion. There is no such fallacy as Argumentus Classificatious, where did you get it from? Are you thinking of the 'fallacy fallacy', which is inferring that since an argument contains a fallacy, its conclusion is untrue?

I made it up [Argumentus Classificatious] in response to the notion that merely labeling an argument in a certain category makes it a fallacy. Almost all arguments fall into some type of argument. An Ad hom argument is a type of argument but in some cases is fully justified.


I'll speak for myself, to be intellectually satisfied that we are not the result of a personal agent who caused and designed the universe and our existence I would want to have reason to believe some other non-God cause is as feasible and as likely to account for our existence.

Good for you.

It is good for me and anyone to examine both sides of a question rather than hold one side to a standard and give the preferred explanation a pass. The claim of atheism, not just as a lack of belief dodge, but if true that we don't owe our existence to a Creator but instead owe the existence of the universe to mindless forces that didn't intend, design or plan our existence is at least if not more difficult to believe then the belief it was intentionally caused to exist. The fact you and many atheists refuse to defend atheism on that basis is because you know and I know there is precious little evidence to defend that belief.

When you say 'more likely or probable' you mean 'convincing to you, personally'. You find the explanations of cosmology and biology improbable, we don't. So stay a theist. You seem to be under the impression we want you to change your mind, but we actually don't care much. We didn't go to a theist forum to convince the theists. We're just entertaining yet another theist visitor daring us to convince them.

It is you who must not think too highly of alternative biological and cosmological explanations or you would be willing to say in your opinion God doesn't exist. Evidently in your mind the evidence against the existence of God and the evidence in favor of alternative explanations is so weak that even you as an atheist are unwilling to opine God doesn't exist and thats just stating it as an opinion. If as you say you don't find biological and cosmological explanations improbable, then you shoudln't have a problem with rendering the opinion God doesn't exist. Isn't this ironic? I am essentialy arguing with an atheist over the existence of God and it is the atheist who is unwilling to deny the existence of God. What I really suspect is your being disengenous and your using the weak atheist gambit as a dodge. I believe you are confident that God doesn't exist and some mechanistic non-god explanation for our existence will prevail you just don't want to make a case so you hide behind the weak atheist ruse. Why not? Its the best of both worlds you get to enter the thought into the market place of ideas that God doesn't exist while refusing to make the case.

Tell me, are you as skeptical of naturalistic in the gaps explanations as you are of the God explanation? If not then make your case for why those alternate explanations are better.

Given we won't latch on to one of the proposed explanations until there's more confirming evidence for it, which there may not be in our lifetimes, our skepticism of the natural explanations should be obvious. They're better because they're based on physical evidence and math that works.

So it's fair to say you lack belief in any existing alternative biological or cosmological theory just as you lack belief in the existence of God but you prefer such explanations (even if at the moment you lack belief in them) based on the notion they're based on phyiscal evidence and math. I based my conclusion on physical evidence and cited the fact the universe is explicable in mathematical terms and unlike weak athiests I made my case based on evidence. I have to think I believe more in theism than you do atheism. I think its fair to say you lack belief in atheism also yet you claim if I lack belief in alternate explanations (as you yourself apparently do) its personal incredulity.

It's not your incredulity that's a problem. It's using your personal incredulity of the alternative as an argument that's fallacious.

You mean my lack of faith in alternate explanations that even you lack faith in at the moment is a fallacious argument? You wrote...

Given we won't latch on to one of the proposed explanations until there's more confirming evidence for it, which there may not be in our lifetimes, our skepticism of the natural explanations should be obvious.

I see so its a fallacious argument from personal incredulity when I express skepticism of alternate naturalistic explanations, but you refer to your lack of belief in such theories as skepticism. You are a pretty slippery customer Mr Agenda...

It depends on the atheist. I don't have a beef with theists...

I don't see how you could since as an atheist (I use the term loosely) even you don't deny God exists, you don't subscribe to the belief, but you don't deny it either. I think the majority of people would be very surprised, even shocked to know there are atheists who don't deny God exists. That would be a revelation to most people...probably even some atheists.

No gripe for the belief. A lot of us have a gripe with Creation Science or Intelligent Design being taught in taxpayer-funded science classes when, at the very best, it's not established science.

I agree its not good science...by the same token there are ligitimate questions and critques that could be leveled at Darwinism.

It's reasonable that theists believe, and a particular theist's personal experiences may be adequate justification for them. That doesn't make it a very reasonable belief. It's just as reasonable for people in a remote African village to believe their ancestors and witches account for pretty much all chance events between them, but the belief itself isn't reasonable. You pretty much have to believe it to think it's reasonable.

If theism isn't a reasonable belief (lets not play with words if it isn't reasonable then its unreasonable to believe it) then why are you unwilling to render the opinion God doesn't exist? Personally I can't think of any belief that's unreasonable to believe that I don't reject flat out and say I don't think its true. If some beilef is unreasonable I don't merely lack belief or decline belief I disbelieve it. For example I don't think its reasonable to believe that stars such as in astrology have any predictive value or influence on human behavior. If asked to, I'd be happy to make a solid case why I don't think its true, why I don't believe it and why I think its false and unreasonable to believe in. I suspect it's because given the evidence we do have and the lack of evidence some other cause is responslible its not unreasonable to believe we are the result of a Creator. You do realize belief in theism isn't just held by folks in remote African villiages but by people in all walks of life of varying degrees of eduction including (according to polls) 10% of scientists.

Since your comparing such belief to Africans in a remote villiage who believe in witches do you merely lack belief in such practices but are unwilling to deny there may be something to it? You're like many atheists who compare theism to belief in Santa Claus and Faires yet I assume you don't merely lack belief in such entities but you're willing to go out on a limb and render the opinion such entities don't exist, true? Of do you merely lack belief in fairies?

[Faith No More]

However the majority of your weak kneeded fellow atheists in this forum won't even state for the record God doesn't exist.

You say that as if it is a bad thing, making me believe that you have fallen into the trap of desperately needing to believe you have all the answers to life, a common theme among theists.

[pocaracas]

---

Rational Man

The burden of proof is on the religious person who is making claims. Atheists are atheists because we have not been shown any real scientific, logical evidence. Remember atheism is not a belief or a faith. It is a disbelief, it is a rejection of the claim that there is a god. The case for atheism is simply: you can't prove your claims

First point, I'm a non-religious person who believes in theism the belief we owe our existence to a transcendent being commonly referred to as God. I accept the fact I should offer reasons and facts to support that belief and I have made my case in this forum. Atheists have been shown circumstantial and inferential evidence that does in many cases lead a sane and rational person to conclude we are the result of plan and design. If as you say atheism is not a faith or a belief but is a disbelief and a rejection then that is a knowledge claim that God doesn't exist and therefore some other cause is responsible for our existence. However the majority of your weak kneeded fellow atheists in this forum won't even state for the record God doesn't exist. There only willing to say they doubt that claim.

Esquilax,

And just because an atheist claims to have debunked my arguments doesn't make them false.

No, but the information in those debunkings proves your arguments flawed. The same debunkings that you've ignored. And just continued asserting that what you're saying is true. Which has an interesting subtext.

I responded to the majority of objections which were merely opinions to begin with. As I said repeatedly, ultimately our respective arguments are decided by impartial and unbiased people, not participants in a debate. You don't get to debate something and also declare yourself the winner.

It means I don't believe current god claims until they're properly shouldered their burden of proof. So, in a way, yes; it means I'm intellectually honest enough to accept that I don't have the answers to every question, and that doesn't give me the right to just make up something that seems comfortable.

Barring smoking gun irrefutable evidence you can always say they have failed to shoulder the burden of proof. Theism is a belief just as naturalism is. Even though most atheists believe the universe and life is the result of mindless forces that didn't plan or intend our existence they also know it is very difficult to defend that belief.

Yes! Of course I don't know! And as much as you claim to, you don't either! None of us do, because if you can't show it, you don't know it! You believe that a god exists, you have formulated sufficient evidence for you to justify your own beliefs. That's not the same as knowledge, because knowledge is by definition something that can be demonstrated to be true. All I'm doing, is I'm not pretending that I know the answer to questions that we can't possibly come close to answering yet!

The problem is the word atheism and the claim to be an atheist in the popular lexicon (and dictionary definition) doesn't mean I don't know and is a confession of ignorance. To anyone on the street atheist means a person who doesn't believe God exists. Secondly, I've never stated theism as anything other than a belief based on circumstantial and inferential evidence. The truth is by claiming to be an atheist you promote the belief God doesnt' exist even though your unwilling to defend or support that belief.

Mr Agenda

Identifying a fallacy within an argument doesn't prove the conclusion isn't true, but it proves the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. It proves the argument doesn't support its conclusion. There is no such fallacy as Argumentus Classificatious, where did you get it from? Are you thinking of the 'fallacy fallacy', which is inferring that since an argument contains a fallacy, its conclusion is untrue?

I made it up [Argumentus Classificatious] in response to the notion that merely labeling an argument in a certain category makes it a fallacy. Almost all arguments fall into some type of argument. An Ad hom argument is a type of argument but in some cases is fully justified.


I'll speak for myself, to be intellectually satisfied that we are not the result of a personal agent who caused and designed the universe and our existence I would want to have reason to believe some other non-God cause is as feasible and as likely to account for our existence.

Good for you.

It is good for me and anyone to examine both sides of a question rather than hold one side to a standard and give the preferred explanation a pass. The claim of atheism, not just as a lack of belief dodge, but if true that we don't owe our existence to a Creator but instead owe the existence of the universe to mindless forces that didn't intend, design or plan our existence is at least if not more difficult to believe then the belief it was intentionally caused to exist. The fact you and many atheists refuse to defend atheism on that basis is because you know and I know there is precious little evidence to defend that belief.

When you say 'more likely or probable' you mean 'convincing to you, personally'. You find the explanations of cosmology and biology improbable, we don't. So stay a theist. You seem to be under the impression we want you to change your mind, but we actually don't care much. We didn't go to a theist forum to convince the theists. We're just entertaining yet another theist visitor daring us to convince them.

It is you who must not think too highly of alternative biological and cosmological explanations or you would be willing to say in your opinion God doesn't exist. Evidently in your mind the evidence against the existence of God and the evidence in favor of alternative explanations is so weak that even you as an atheist are unwilling to opine God doesn't exist and thats just stating it as an opinion. If as you say you don't find biological and cosmological explanations improbable, then you shoudln't have a problem with rendering the opinion God doesn't exist. Isn't this ironic? I am essentialy arguing with an atheist over the existence of God and it is the atheist who is unwilling to deny the existence of God. What I really suspect is your being disengenous and your using the weak atheist gambit as a dodge. I believe you are confident that God doesn't exist and some mechanistic non-god explanation for our existence will prevail you just don't want to make a case so you hide behind the weak atheist ruse. Why not? Its the best of both worlds you get to enter the thought into the market place of ideas that God doesn't exist while refusing to make the case.

Tell me, are you as skeptical of naturalistic in the gaps explanations as you are of the God explanation? If not then make your case for why those alternate explanations are better.

Given we won't latch on to one of the proposed explanations until there's more confirming evidence for it, which there may not be in our lifetimes, our skepticism of the natural explanations should be obvious. They're better because they're based on physical evidence and math that works.

So it's fair to say you lack belief in any existing alternative biological or cosmological theory just as you lack belief in the existence of God but you prefer such explanations (even if at the moment you lack belief in them) based on the notion they're based on phyiscal evidence and math. I based my conclusion on physical evidence and cited the fact the universe is explicable in mathematical terms and unlike weak athiests I made my case based on evidence. I have to think I believe more in theism than you do atheism. I think its fair to say you lack belief in atheism also yet you claim if I lack belief in alternate explanations (as you yourself apparently do) its personal incredulity.

It's not your incredulity that's a problem. It's using your personal incredulity of the alternative as an argument that's fallacious.

You mean my lack of faith in alternate explanations that even you lack faith in at the moment is a fallacious argument? You wrote...

Given we won't latch on to one of the proposed explanations until there's more confirming evidence for it, which there may not be in our lifetimes, our skepticism of the natural explanations should be obvious.

I see so its a fallacious argument from personal incredulity when I express skepticism of alternate naturalistic explanations, but you refer to your lack of belief in such theories as skepticism. You are a pretty slippery customer Mr Agenda...

It depends on the atheist. I don't have a beef with theists...

I don't see how you could since as an atheist (I use the term loosely) even you don't deny God exists, you don't subscribe to the belief, but you don't deny it either. I think the majority of people would be very surprised, even shocked to know there are atheists who don't deny God exists. That would be a revelation to most people...probably even some atheists.

No gripe for the belief. A lot of us have a gripe with Creation Science or Intelligent Design being taught in taxpayer-funded science classes when, at the very best, it's not established science.

I agree its not good science...by the same token there are ligitimate questions and critques that could be leveled at Darwinism.

It's reasonable that theists believe, and a particular theist's personal experiences may be adequate justification for them. That doesn't make it a very reasonable belief. It's just as reasonable for people in a remote African village to believe their ancestors and witches account for pretty much all chance events between them, but the belief itself isn't reasonable. You pretty much have to believe it to think it's reasonable.

If theism isn't a reasonable belief (lets not play with words if it isn't reasonable then its unreasonable to believe it) then why are you unwilling to render the opinion God doesn't exist? Personally I can't think of any belief that's unreasonable to believe that I don't reject flat out and say I don't think its true. If some beilef is unreasonable I don't merely lack belief or decline belief I disbelieve it. For example I don't think its reasonable to believe that stars such as in astrology have any predictive value or influence on human behavior. If asked to, I'd be happy to make a solid case why I don't think its true, why I don't believe it and why I think its false and unreasonable to believe in. I suspect it's because given the evidence we do have and the lack of evidence some other cause is responslible its not unreasonable to believe we are the result of a Creator. You do realize belief in theism isn't just held by folks in remote African villiages but by people in all walks of life of varying degrees of eduction including (according to polls) 10% of scientists.

Since your comparing such belief to Africans in a remote villiage who believe in witches do you merely lack belief in such practices but are unwilling to deny there may be something to it? You're like many atheists who compare theism to belief in Santa Claus and Faires yet I assume you don't merely lack belief in such entities but you're willing to go out on a limb and render the opinion such entities don't exist, true? Of do you merely lack belief in fairies?

---

You have a serious problem understanding the "I don't know" sentence.
I don't know how life came to be... and I don't assume goddidit. There are many, many possibilities... which was the one that happened in reality? I don't know!
I don't know how the Universe came into being... and I don't assume goddidit. There are a gazillion possible explanations... which was the one that happened? I don't know!
Had I lived 2000 years ago, I could say "I don't know how lightning works, but I don't assume goddidit". A static electricity discharge from the clouds to the ground... what do you know, goddidntdoit!!

And since you can't stand the fact that you don't know, nor does anyone else, you choose to accept the magical skydaddy myth that someone suggested to you sometime in the past.
I take the honest position: I don't know!
You take the gullible, non-thinking one... goddidit. Congratz, enjoy your made-up solution.
When you have some way of showing that it's the correct one, come back... until then, keep your delusion to yourself, please.... or suffer the ridicule of being called stupid, gullible, and another qualifier for your mentality...

[Esquilax]

Barring smoking gun irrefutable evidence you can always say they have failed to shoulder the burden of proof. Theism is a belief just as naturalism is. Even though most atheists believe the universe and life is the result of mindless forces that didn't plan or intend our existence they also know it is very difficult to defend that belief.

I'm not obligated to defend what other atheists believe, and I'm certainly not obligated to defend what you think other atheists believe, because... well, I'm absolutely willing to bet you're wrong, simply due to the fact that no two atheists have exactly the same beliefs, nor does atheism ascribe an actual cause to the universe. Atheism is a single position, a disbelief in the existence of gods. Not a belief that there are no gods, not the belief that the universe came about through naturalistic means, just that singular disbelief in theistic claims.

Now, there are definitely atheists that hold varying views about the origin of the universe, yes: but those views aren't atheism. And saying they are, over and over (and over and over and over) again doesn't make you correct, it just makes you seem incapable of listening to anyone who responds to you.

What you think atheists believe doesn't mean a single fucking goddamn thing. You are not the arbiter of reality; we will, and many of us have, told you what we believe. I've told you what I believe, and that's the only position I'm required to defend. Beyond that, if you want to keep building strawmen to attack, I'll just let you know that even if you manage to beat one of them, defeating a position I don't hold doesn't mean you've beaten me in a debate, and it definitely doesn't mean you've beaten the multitude of other atheists who've come here and told you what they believe.

The problem is the word atheism and the claim to be an atheist in the popular lexicon (and dictionary definition) doesn't mean I don't know and is a confession of ignorance. To anyone on the street atheist means a person who doesn't believe God exists.

If talking to you has proven one thing, it's that it's not my problem who misinterprets my beliefs based on dictionary definitions. Why on earth should it be?

Oh, and by the way? That man on the street position? I hold it: I don't believe that a god exists, and I don't know whether one exists. Those aren't mutually exclusive premises, and I have to ask you: what makes you think I would ever believe in something for which there is no evidence? If I don't know whether or not something exists, how can I be justified in expressing belief?

And if I can't be justified, then aren't I, as I've been saying, an atheist?

Secondly, I've never stated theism as anything other than a belief based on circumstantial and inferential evidence. The truth is by claiming to be an atheist you promote the belief God doesnt' exist even though your unwilling to defend or support that belief.

No. Sorry dude, but I'll let you know the positions I'm promoting, you don't get to decide them for me. Any "promotion" of the belief that god doesn't exist coming from me is solely down to misunderstanding or misinterpretation, willful or otherwise, from guys like you who apparently see no need to actually talk to me about the things in my head before they decide they know all about me.

If people want to be idiots around me, that's fine, but I'm not required to defend positions you think I ought to be holding.

[ebg]

Why I think