Why Atheism?

[jcarlson]

or he could be looking for love, and since he can't see or smell or touch love, then love doesn't exist.

more importantly, there is no scientific evidence for it, so it doesn't exist. heh, i'm not sure there's even a scientific definition for it, so yup, it definitly doesn't exist.

 

If you want to modify your definition of god to equate it to the feeling of love, a feeling that originates due to chemical processes in the brain, doesn't exist outside of the brain, and is dependent on conscious beings to exist (as opposed to the other way around), be my guest.

 

Not much of a god, though.

[cypress]

 

I tend to agree whole heartedly with this sentiment. Sure, I may be wrong, but it's highly unlikely that I am.

 

This statement sounds like a metaphysical presupposition. I don't see how one can estimate likelihood. How were you able to determine the likelihood of your truth statement?

 

 

 

While people like cypress will tell you that you're simply looking in the wrong place, it's somewhat telling that they cannot even tell you where that place is. It's one big circular argument they make full of little more than bald assertions and obfuscation.

 

Am I? In a parallel thread I have provided two pieces of evidence for a creator of this universe and then life in it. We are unable to offer a natural alternative to mind for either of these pieces of evidence. So we can perceive the presence of the "fish" when one looks in the right place and that is not a circular argument and it is not assertion. If you disagree, by all means enter the discussion and show how natural causes operating today do generate fine tuned systems and digitally encoded functional information. I think your blinders are showing.

[iNow]

No thanks, cypress. I've dealt with you for long enough on other forums, and I know what a waste of time it is to engage with you. I'm not going to chase you down your tangents and off-topic non-sequiturs.

 

This thread is about why people have decided to be non-theist, not how natural processes explain cosmology or the ideas of abiogenesis. Let's stay on topic, shall we?

[cypress]

No thanks, cypress. I've dealt with you for long enough on other forums, and I know what a waste of time it is to engage with you. I'm not going to chase you down your tangents and off-topic non-sequiturs.

 

 

If you have nothing other than personal attacks against another poster then site rules suggest you should say nothing. This is now two posts of yours about my post with no substance, just attacks. If you are not prepared to back up your claims then it would be better to keep your personal opinions about others to yourself.

 

Several in this post have stated that there is no evidence that thi universe or anything in it was created. It is a false statement. Reject the evidence if you like and admit you are rejecting it but claiming there is none simply does not wash.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Claiming there is no evidence is a de facto admission that all evidence so far provided is unconvincing. Or, in other words, the atheists in this discussion are aware of supposed evidence for a creator, but they deny that it is convincing. This is apparent from their posts.

 

Furthermore, I have every reason to believe that iNow has already explained to you his positions at great length. Nobody makes 1200 posts on a science forum visited by iNow, many of those posts arguing that their is evidence of a designer, without getting very long and detailed explanations of his views.

 

Finally, I'd like to request that you stay on topic; this discussion is about why people chose atheism, not why they shouldn't. If you would like to convince them, do it in the appropriate venue.

[iNow]

Fair enough, I will from this point consider our differences resolved

 

FYI - It looks like you were ahead of the curve on this one, jcarlson, when differentiating proof and evidence. Well done, my good man.

 

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/the-evidence-against-god_b_682169.html

 

Even the most pious believer has to admit that there is no scientific evidence for God or anything else supernatural. If there were, it would be in the textbooks along with the evidence for electricity, gravity, neutrinos, and DNA. This doesn't bother most believers because they have heard many times that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

 

However, just repeating a statement over and over again does not make it true. I can think of many cases where absence of evidence provides robust evidence of absence. The key question is whether evidence should exist but does not.

 

<...>

 

In all of these examples, evidence for God should have been found, but was not. This absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It refutes the common assertion that science has nothing to say about God. In fact, science can say, beyond any reasonable doubt, that God -- the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God -- does not exist.

 

 

I suppose it's time to update how I use this phrase (when and if I do). I should instead say that absence of evidence is not proof of absence. Thanks.

[jcarlson]

FYI - It looks like you were ahead of the curve on this one, jcarlson, when differentiating proof and evidence. Well done, my good man.

 

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/the-evidence-against-god_b_682169.html

 

Even the most pious believer has to admit that there is no scientific evidence for God or anything else supernatural. If there were, it would be in the textbooks along with the evidence for electricity, gravity, neutrinos, and DNA. This doesn't bother most believers because they have heard many times that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

 

However, just repeating a statement over and over again does not make it true. I can think of many cases where absence of evidence provides robust evidence of absence. The key question is whether evidence should exist but does not.

 

<...>

 

In all of these examples, evidence for God should have been found, but was not. This absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It refutes the common assertion that science has nothing to say about God. In fact, science can say, beyond any reasonable doubt, that God -- the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God -- does not exist.

 

 

I suppose it's time to update how I use this phrase (when and if I do). I should instead say that absence of evidence is not proof of absence. Thanks.

 

 

Thanks for the link! Now I can brag to all my friends (jokingly, of course ) that I've been plagiarized by Victor Stenger!

[Mr Skeptic]

I can think of many cases where absence of evidence provides robust evidence of absence. The key question is whether evidence should exist but does not.

 

If evidence should exist but does not, that is contradictory evidence rather than absence of evidence.