If I were an Atheist

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Rejection of positive claims doesn't negate lack of belief.

[The Reality Salesman01]

What tactic? Consider the following statement:

I don't believe in any gods.

What can else can be extracted from this statement other than the fact that there was an utterer of this statement, the utterer is aware of the word god, they acknowledged by pluralizing it that there's not just one version being solicited, and at the moment, they don't believe in them. Clearly they believe in something since they must believe that they are capable of credulity as they have just described a personal position of it in relation to an alleged entity that has been proposed to be worthy of it. They lack belief in gods.

Even if one made the assertion that "There are no gods" without being able to prove a negative, your inability to prove that there IS a God would only reinforce the negative position as the most reasonable option. Rather than prove there is no God, all one would need to do is show that there's no reason to accept the positive position, and the null position is the most reasonable. Your fighting a sentence rather than making an argument. You might want to spend some time reflecting on why it's so hard for you to make God sound reasonable when you don't get to tell people what their words mean. Just a thought.

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This.

http://youtu.be/sNDZb0KtJDk

[Drew_2013]

Hello Salesman,

This statement presupposes evidence to be the sole basis for religious belief. Surely you would admit that this is simply not true.

My statement is based on the fact that many religious beliefs and myths have been abandoned in light of strong evidence to the contrary. It is human nature to defend beliefs to which they have an emotional investment. This applies to scientific as well as religious beliefs. I believe (strictly opinion) most people would rather know and subscribe to the truth of a question.

Belief in Santa (if any sane lucid adults actually believed in such) can be easily disproved

In an argument, you should refrain from using tactics like this to gain favor. This is called "Poisoning the Well". Rather than offer an argument for your position, you've implied that one is not sane, lucid, or an adult if they oppose your position. You haven't given any reason to accept your position as the reasonable one. Instead, you implied that there are consequences for those that may object. That is not thinking critically. Let's edit that part out, and search for some substance in your argument.

I think you misread this. Its not belief in my opinion I was referring to, I was referring to belief in Santa. Do you disagree that most sane lucid adults don't think Santa exists?

First, I never described any of Santa's properties, you took those liberties without being prompted. When did I say anything about Santa delivering presents worldwide on Christmas Eve? You assumed that was the Santa I believed in, but it's not. That is just a Caricature of my belief. Aside from that, you didn't present this "preponderance of evidence". You made a baseless assertion that it is available and then claimed that you could use it to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your caricature of Santa does not exist. You didn't even refute your own version of Santa.

No you didn't describe properties of Santa but so what? If you type the word 'water' in a response would it be inappropriate for me to think your referring to a clear liquid found all over the earth? If by Santa you mean a mythical being to whom nothing is attributed to then I would agree that would be unfalsifiable but who thinks that when you type the word Santa? If you said tooth fairy would I be unjustified to believe your referring to a mythical creature who is alleged to give money for teeth? If we go down this ridiculous path when you wrote 'This statement presupposes evidence to be the sole basis for religious belief.' I could say just to make sure were on the same page what do you mean by statement? Presupposes? Evidence? I could say please clearly and carefully define every word you use so we can make sure were on the same page. What do you mean by caricature? Is the idea that Santa is a mythical person who is alleged to deliver presents world wide on Christmas eve a caricature? Isn't that what you were told about Santa at one time or another? Don't parents offer the existence of presents as evidence that Santa came? I didn't think (talking to a smart guy like yourself) I needed to refute not my version of Santa but the version that been around for a long time.

I don't share your belief, I don't recognize a difference. Don't you see that this begs the very question we set out to answer? If I am of the opinion that not only does your God not exist, but it would be impossible for any sane, lucid, adult to consider it as a possibility, why then ought I take your position seriously? You have to acknowledge that to someone who doesn't believe in mystical supernatural things, I am inclined to have the same attitude toward your God. Instead, I am trying to engage in a rational exchange. I assume you would like me to take you seriously, no? I am sure you do not want me to tell you that it would be a defamation of my character as a rational person to even entertain your position about gods. Do you understand the comparisons yet?

I'll wait for the apparently official definition of Santa which you'll provide. The version of Santa I'm familiar with is easily disproved and is why sane lucid adults who do believe we owe our existence to God don't believe in Santa.

If it's falsifiable, [God hypothesis] then you must know what you would expect to find if it were not true. Give me an example of this sort of evidence.

I wouldn't expect to find anything, I wouldn't expect you or I to be alive. I wouldn't expect living sentient beings to emerge from mindless forces that didn't plan or intend our existence. I wouldn't expect to find a universe governed by seemingly inviolable laws of physics and that those laws would result in stars, galaxies, planets (from second generation stars with the properties to create rocky matter).

I'll ask you the same question. What would you expect to find (if anything) given that mindless forces somehow bootstrapped themselves into existence (or always existed)? Would you expect such forces to produce sentient life?

I'll get to the rest of your post as time permits...

[The Reality Salesman01]

If the points I was making about Santa were snakes, they would have bit you. The glaring parallel is even in your responses. I want you to read your response to the Santa stuff that I wrote, but while you read your own responses while consciously reminding yourself that my intention is not to offend, pretend you're an Atheist and every time you read yourself referring to Santa, plug in God. If I were a theist, I could provoke an atheist to respond in the exact way about God as I was able to get you to respond about Santa. I want you to know that I agree that your Santa responses were perfectly warranted, I'm trying to get you to think about why you I instinctively responded in the exact way an Atheist would instinctively respond if God were the subject in question rather than Santa.

I gotta run some errands, and I will respond to your post and I will point out exactly what I mean if you havent spotted it by then.

One last thing, I want you to think about the things you plan on using for evidence against Santa and while you do, try to anticipate any room for me to wiggle out of it, because if there is, I will exploit the hell out of it.

You may want to think about the implications of your answer to my evidence question. If there can be no evidence to disprove something, how could there be any evidence to prove it? That's the first clue that your position is unfalsifiable. See ya later! Have fun

This IS supposed to be fun you know...

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Also, don't get too hung up on a particular version of Santa. If Santa doesn't exist, and is easily refutable, then it couldn't possibly matter what version I try to defend. Right?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Pandæmonium

This isn't a competition, drew. Demographics of religion and atheism differ wildly depending on the part of the world you're looking at or indeed the state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism

Studies on the demographics of atheism have concluded that atheists comprise anywhere from 2% to 8% of the world's population, whereas with irreligious individuals are 10% to 20%.[1][2][3] A poll by Gallup International, featuring over 50,000 respondents worldwide, recorded that 13% of those interviewed said they were "convinced atheists".[4] In Scandinavia and East Asia, and particularly in China, atheists and the nonreligious are the majority.[4] Globally, atheists and the nonreligious are concentrated in Asia and the Pacific with over 76% of all the irreligious or nonreligious residing in those regions.[5] In Europe, the nonreligious make up 12.5% of the population and in North America they make up 5% of the population.[5] In Africa and South America, atheists are typically in the single digits.[4]

I have noticed that some folks who've responded have taken surveys of folks saying there not religious and sliding them into the atheist group. A lot of people would consider themselves not religious if they simply no longer attend any organized church or religious group. Doesn't mean the disbelief or lack belief in the existence of God.

You're right re: bold, but my answer to the rest of your post is 'so?' As I said in the post you responded to, it's not a race. Demographics of atheism are both extremely hard to attain and also completely irrelevant mainly because there is very little official census data available for the vast majority of countries around the world. I can quite easily counter by saying a lot of people who are de facto atheists wouldn't necessarily define themselves in that terminology or are not defined in that way by the person/organization conducting the study. Nobody knows, so discounting it out of hand seems disingenuous. The wikipedia page even indicates that attaining consistent and comparable data on these demogprahics is next to impossible.

In several countries being an atheist is a capital offense, so obviously that skews any results from those areas. And that's discounting the problem of both stigmas attached to being an atheist and over the weight of legitimacy given to both official and non-official polls and data collection methodologies, with the latter tending to give higher instances of accuracy than the former in many cases. As...:

Are 50% of the English and Welsh population thus insiginifcant? Are large swathes of Northern America, Northern and western euorpe? Not even counting places like China?

No where in the article above does it suggest anywhere is 50% atheist. It claims 2-8%. Again I think your sliding non-religious into the atheist group.

...exampled here.

The article then hasn't consulted the BSAS conducted in 2012 which indicated that, from the sample taken, 50% were 'not-religious'. By that figure they indicate "50% are not affiliated with a church [or religion]". So does that mean that some of those people are in fact theists/believers? Yes, naturally. However they qualify with indicators that reveal a lack of religiousness and indeed belief through, for example, tiny rates of church attendance (14% of people who were religious visit once a week), whilst 56% of people of the sample have never once visited a church in a religious capacity. Of the 50% of people who indicated they weren't religious, 88% didn't go/or had never been to church in a religious capacity. So even inferring that the remaining 12% are in fact believers of some sort, and even presuming that of the 88% of the 50% there are some believers contained within, you're still hitting the statistical certainty that the biggest 'religious' demographic of the English and Welsh population being atheist. Indeed I would say that using composites like the above are the only real useful indicators in determining more accurate statistics on topics such as this.

Anecdotally I could go outside right now and almost almost guarantee that at least 50% of the people I'd come across would be atheists above and beyond 'not-religious'.

Ultimately this question comes down to how one defines a religion and indeed a non-religion. There's no easy or I would guess right answer to that question, at least none that I've come across. But a reasonable analysis of the data as presented converted into useful information would allow the reasonable inference of the above.


But again, to reiterate my initial point. This is irrelevant. It's not a race, just a fact.

[Ravenshire]

If I were an atheist (a real atheist that actually believes and claims God doesn’t exist)

(emphasis is mine)

It keeps getting pointed out to you that this is not a majority opinion among atheists. Please quit trying to tell us what we believe.

[Tonus]

I actually believe that god does not exist. I don't claim it very often because I am comfortable admitting that I cannot prove that god does not exist. As I point out from time to time, this is an issue that can be settled easily enough if anyone produces an actual god. And to be honest, if everyone who ever professed belief in god always seemed to describe the exact same god, then that by itself would be a pretty compelling bit of evidence. But not only have humans claimed belief in hundreds of gods (if not thousands, or even millions) over the course of our history, even the relative few that have been distilled over the centuries are viewed in thousands of different ways-- some compatible, some completely opposed.

I don't think the theist is asking me to believe that "a" god exists, or some powerful creative being exists. He is asking me to believe that his specific god... no, his specific version of his specific god exists. That's a pretty high hurdle to clear, and few even bother to attempt it, preferring to make one assertion after another instead. But the resolution to the problem remains quite simple: you get god to show up, and I won't have a reason to disbelieve.

[Whateverist]

When someone starts off a giant wall of text with "atheism isn't a growing movement" they are not making an argument for their position, they are merely arguing for the gang they subscribe to. All religions do this.

What's more, they are making an argument I will never read. Too many clues that nothing of consequence lies behind that wall to ever throw away the time it would take to find out for sure.

Instead of a tease followed by a labyrinth, I would suggest he just pick his main point and make it. If that goes well, he can make another. If the stupid isn't absolutely radioactive, I'll follow along. Otherwise, I'm done.

[The Reality Salesman01]

When someone starts off a giant wall of text with "atheism isn't a growing movement" they are not making an argument for their position, they are merely arguing for the gang they subscribe to. All religions do this.

What's more, they are making an argument I will never read. Too many clues that nothing of consequence lies behind that wall to ever throw away the time it would take to find out for sure.

Instead of a tease followed by a labyrinth, I would suggest he just pick his main point and make it. If that goes well, he can make another. If the stupid isn't absolutely radioactive, I'll follow along. Otherwise, I'm done.

I hope to one day acquire your wisdom. When you say things like that, I know you're right but I can't help but feel like a young dog who continues to chase the car while the wiser dog continues to explain to me why there's nothing of value awaiting me even if I actually caught it. I see nonsense, and I run it down (and more often than not, the nonsense lives on) but alas...here comes another one, and away I go!

[Drew_2013]

If I were an atheist (a real atheist that actually believes and claims God doesn’t exist)

(emphasis is mine)

It keeps getting pointed out to you that this is not a majority opinion among atheists. Please quit trying to tell us what we believe.

Okay so the majority of atheists believe God does exist....

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I actually believe that god does not exist. I don't claim it very often because I am comfortable admitting that I cannot prove that god does not exist. As I point out from time to time, this is an issue that can be settled easily enough if anyone produces an actual god. And to be honest, if everyone who ever professed belief in god always seemed to describe the exact same god, then that by itself would be a pretty compelling bit of evidence. But not only have humans claimed belief in hundreds of gods (if not thousands, or even millions) over the course of our history, even the relative few that have been distilled over the centuries are viewed in thousands of different ways-- some compatible, some completely opposed.

I don't think the theist is asking me to believe that "a" god exists, or some powerful creative being exists. He is asking me to believe that his specific god... no, his specific version of his specific god exists. That's a pretty high hurdle to clear, and few even bother to attempt it, preferring to make one assertion after another instead. But the resolution to the problem remains quite simple: you get god to show up, and I won't have a reason to disbelieve.

Tonus,

You call yourself an atheist so it would hardly come as a surprise to anyone that you believe God doesn't exist. I can't prove God does exist but I can and have offered evidence in favor of my opinion. The God I believe in is the God of theism.

The point is if neither side has enough evidence to prove their point then all the two sides have is a difference of opinion. If its reasonable to have the opinion God doesn't exist minus conclusive proof isn't it just as reasonable to believe God does exist minus conclusive proof? There is no reason for either side to act as if the other side are imbeciles or can't see the obvious or compare belief in the existence of God to mythical characters no sane people believe in.