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Is atheism a belief?
RE: Is atheism a belief?
Atheism isn't a belief. It's a relationship with reality.

Playing Cluedo with my mum while I was at Uni:

"You did WHAT?  With WHO?  WHERE???"
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
See I find that line annoying. I do get it. It’s a play on the Christian claim “it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship” line. But I do find it annoying for a couple reasons.

First, that atheists and atheism is the more intelligent position. And while I think that atheism is correct, in the same way saying the earth is round or the sky is blue is correct, I don’t think this is fair. A person who does not believe in god is not necessarily smarter, they’ve simply bucked mental conditioning. And failure to do so does not imply intelligence.

Second, it’s snarky. This is a personal peeve. Snark has a place, and irritation at theism is perfectly justified. But I still find the snark distasteful.
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
I think my position on God is the same or similar to most people here who identify as atheist agnostic. One of the main differences is that I don't engage in theists claims.
Im not focused on one particular claim of God like the Christian one. For me a God is any kind of creator.

What is the probability of there being some kind of God, creator, intelligent design?

Should the atheists answer be 0%?
If the answer is greater than 5% is the person an atheist still?
If the answer is greater than 30% is the person still an atheist?
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
(February 4, 2019 at 11:29 pm)Agnostico Wrote: I think my position on God is the same or similar to most people here who identify as atheist agnostic. One of the main differences is that I don't engage in theists claims.
Im not focused on one particular claim of God like the Christian one. For me a God is any kind of creator.

What is the probability of there being some kind of God, creator, intelligent design?

Should the atheists answer be 0%?
If the answer is greater than 5% is the person an atheist still?
If the answer is greater than 30% is the person still an atheist?

It's less than 0. 
A "creator" is an incoherent notion. 
A being cannot "act" ("create") in a timeless environment.  
Intelligence means a mind has to be working. A process.
There is not one shred of evidence of intelligence in the absence of a healthy functioning brain. 
It's all nothing but anthropomorphic projection.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell  Popcorn

Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist 
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
(February 5, 2019 at 12:24 am)Bucky Ball Wrote:
(February 4, 2019 at 11:29 pm)Agnostico Wrote: I think my position on God is the same or similar to most people here who identify as atheist agnostic. One of the main differences is that I don't engage in theists claims.
Im not focused on one particular claim of God like the Christian one. For me a God is any kind of creator.

What is the probability of there being some kind of God, creator, intelligent design?

Should the atheists answer be 0%?
If the answer is greater than 5% is the person an atheist still?
If the answer is greater than 30% is the person still an atheist?

It's less than 0. 
A "creator" is an incoherent notion. 
A being cannot "act" ("create") in a timeless environment.  

Yet time itself had a beginning. A timeless state led/caused/resulted in ours with time.

Quote:Intelligence means a mind has to be working. A process.
There is not one shred of evidence of intelligence in the absence of a healthy functioning brain. 
It's all nothing but anthropomorphic projection.

No, intelligence when it comes to a creator, tend to follow from acknowledging elements of reality possessing features associated with creative acts, like teleological elements, purposes and aims, foresight, meaning etc...

People can infer from such things, that we’re part of a created, or purposeful order, and their belief that there is a God, can be synonymous with this belief.
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
We have a tendency to confuse mans teleology with some cosmic teleology, as the bananaman did when opining on the cavendish.  We see order all around us, but the origin of that order is lost to us as a consequence of time and unfamiliarity.  We see the current social order, and decide that this is the natural order.  We see the current state of some forest, and confuse it for a primordial arrangement.  It's an honest but profound mistake.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
(February 5, 2019 at 8:32 am)Acrobat Wrote:
(February 5, 2019 at 12:24 am)Bucky Ball Wrote: It's less than 0. 
A "creator" is an incoherent notion. 
A being cannot "act" ("create") in a timeless environment.  

Yet time itself had a beginning. A timeless state led/caused/resulted in  ours with time.

Nope, a timeless state cannot temporally do anything. And you didn't even point out why time had to have a beginning.
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
(February 4, 2019 at 11:29 pm)Agnostico Wrote: Im not focused on one particular claim of God like the Christian one. For me a God is any kind of creator.

What is the probability of there being some kind of God, creator, intelligent design?

Should the atheists answer be 0%?
If the answer is greater than 5% is the person an atheist still?
If the answer is greater than 30% is the person still an atheist?

To calculate probabilities, you would need more than one data point. We don't have that. We have exactly one universe as a data point.

The ONLY thing that can rationaly be justified from examining the only universe we are able to examine, is that the universe exists.

If you are claiming that the probabilities that our universe has the hallmarks of intelligent design, you have to have an idea of what a universe not created by a god would look like.

By the way, over 70% of all scientists are atheists (Leuba study) as of 1998. As you can see below, the study was repeated 3 times, and the percentage of atheists increased each time. So, as scientific knowledge increases, god beliefs decrease. Why are the experts in associated fields of science, not as convinced as you?

Belief in personal God 1914 1933 1998
Personal belief 27.7 15 7.0
Personal disbelief 52.7 68 72.2
Doubt or agnosticism 20.9 17 20.8

You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
(February 5, 2019 at 8:32 am)Acrobat Wrote: Yet time itself had a beginning. A timeless state led/caused/resulted in  ours with time.

You have no way of knowing that. Roger Penrose, (Hawking's friend) ("Cycles of Time") says you're wrong.

Quote:No, intelligence when it comes to a creator, tend to follow from acknowledging elements of reality possessing features associated with creative acts, like teleological elements, purposes and aims, foresight, meaning etc...

People can infer from such things, that we’re  part of a created, or purposeful order, and their belief that there is a God, can be synonymous with this belief.

Total bullshit.
"elements of reality possessing features associated with creative acts, like teleological elements, purposes and aims, foresight, meaning etc..."
.... ALL require a functioning healthy brain. Brains LEARN what those concepts mean and are, and apart from brains, the concepts have no existence. You have no mechanism for this nonsense. There exist no "elements" of reality which exist apart from brains in some metaphysical woo-sphere. You want to explain to us how the babies who died from thirst, starvation, cancer and disease yesterday are part of a created purposeful order ? There is no "order". When Reality is examined at it's fundamental level (what we now know about it), it's probablalistic. Sorry. There can be no such inference. Also the "inference" assumes that what appears to human brains to be "intuitive" is the way Reality works. It has been proven over and over it does not work that way. Is Relativity "intuitive" ? Nope. Is Uncertainty "intuitive". What can one infer from the non-intuitive math of Dirac's tensors ?

Not only can we make no inferences based on this universe, you don't *even* have a sample of one ... 95 % of the universe is unknown, (Dark Energy and Dark matter). Quantum entanglement is unexplained, other possible dimensions are not understood, .... you have no way to know anything about Reality apart from this one universe, and no reason at all to assume Reality works apart from this universe, as it does in this local part of this universe.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell  Popcorn

Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist 
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RE: Is atheism a belief?
Thanks Bucky for being the only guy who actually answered my question...
Less than 0%. So ud be a gnostic atheist?

The big bang theory goes on the premise that time and space began at that moment.

Simon moon
"To calculate probabilities, you would need more than one data point. We don't have that. We have exactly one universe as a data point."

Thats false. Probabilities are calculated in various fields using one data point

"If you are claiming that the probabilities that our universe has the hallmarks of intelligent design, you have to have an idea of what a universe not created by a god would look like."

Maybe u have to. Doesn't mean everyone has to.

As for scientists. Theism is a bad position to have and so is atheism cos it is a response to theism.
Especially in the soft sciences. Or theoretical sciences

A theist has his belief and will look around for evidence to support it.

An atheist does the same. Just look at the array of hoaxes put forward by science to try discredit religion. It's desperation.

College professors more concerned about holding lectures on religion than talking about science. Dawkins is a classic. For a theoretical biologist he talk way too much crap. Harping on about religion instead of doing science
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