I never got that. It always surprised me that some people who do not believe can get so hung up on those that do. Downright nasty at times.
Heaven Is Real: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife
- Thread starter Locutus
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I never got that. It always surprised me that some people who do not believe can get so hung up on those that do. Downright nasty at times.
I suspect this will be something we each will discover independently one day. If the words of the person experiencing it cannot be trusted, there can never be proof.
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.
Medicine may not be as esteemed as a field like biology, but a Havard educated neurosurgeon is nothing to balk at either. The point is that it helps put to rest the baseless claim that anyone who believes in God or the afterlife is "stupid".
I wouldn't suggest such people are stupid, some of them, including some people here, are obviously pretty bright. Far as I can tell, they're simply wrong. And there are plenty of plausible explanations for why intelligent people can be wrong. Read this book: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/thinking_an_unnatural_act/
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Absence of proof does not prove absence. Proving God exists is possible, its just never been done, which means nothing either for or against the existence of God.
In general, atheists tend to score higher in IQ tests than people with belief systems.
Religiosity and intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In general, atheists tend to score higher in IQ tests than people with belief systems.
Religiosity and intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Agreed, but if a claim is true proof ought to be there. If it's not, that's adequate justification for withholding assent.
Why? We continually discover news things about the nature of the universe, which implies we don't have all the facts regarding the true nature of the universe. The true nature of time, light, dark matter.... remain mysteries. Every time scientists devise a theory to explain the nature of the universe, its later been proven inaccurate or wrong.
Theists believes God exists. Atheists believe God does not exist. Fundamentally, both sides make leaps of faith rather than rely on proof.
While our abilities remain too primitive to solve the riddle of the true nature of the universe, the question of God's existence will remain a mystery. Likely many things exist that remain to be be discovered. God might be one of them.
Theists believes God exists. Atheists believe God does not exist. Fundamentally, both sides make leaps of faith rather than rely on proof.
While our abilities remain too primitive to solve the riddle of the true nature of the universe, the question of God's existence will remain a mystery. Likely many things exist that remain to be be discovered. God might be one of them.
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That's the nature of the scientific enterprise. As Isaac Asimov put it, people once thought the world was flat, then they thought it was a sphere, but if you think the latter is just as wrong as the former, you're more wrong than both.
Aw jeez, not that old argument again. Atheism is not a leap of faith, it has no real content at all, it's just a refusal to accept a claim on insufficient evidence. Everybody's an atheist to some degree. I suggest , for instance, that nobody believes in Zeus or Thor anymore, but in their day they had followers just as convinced as any contemporary Jew, Christian, or Muslim, and each of those groups bears a degree of atheism toward the claims of the others. By far the simplest explanation for such things is that all religions are human inventions and none of them are right. When you truly understand why you don't believe in Zeus and Thor, you'll also understand why I don't believe in the deity claimed to be common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We're all atheists, I just reject one more deity than most people do.
I think you're confusing adherence with a specific religion, with theism. Theism is the direct correlation to atheism, not religion.
Believing that a god exists doesn't require one to believe in Thor, Zeus, or the Christian god. One can reject the whole lot of those ideas, as a matter of fact, and still believe that the root of the human brain's inclination to perceive the presence of god, is, in fact, due to the presence of god.
Refusal to accept a claim due to insufficient proof would be agnostic, not an atheist who believes God does not exist. Agnostics make no leap of faith either way.
I am not an atheist - for one that is quite firm on what a words definition can be- you are using it improperly.
Atheism is not a leap of faith would be correct - Religious belief is based upon faith. No one can prove the other wrong or that they are right.
If you believe that the sun will rise tomorrow you are making the exact leap of faith that you need to make in order to believe that Thor does not exist. Less for the disbelief of Thor actually... but let us be fair.
It is absurd to call it a leap of faith to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, but the claim you are making is the same: absolute knowledge is impossible. If the correct position is to be agnostic about the sun rising tomorrow then agnosticism is just plain foolish. In the same way, it is foolish to be agnostic about Thor: Thor does not exist.
Now, rinse and repeat.
I don't think so, specific religions just provide useful examples and talking points.
Theism is the belief in a deity that created the cosmos and remains engaged with it, and is thus the position of all the major monotheisms, and in fact most religious belief systems throughout history, though most were polytheistic with one superior deity in charge. Deism maintains that the deity created the cosmos then disengaged, and thus rejects revelation as a means to knowledge. Agnosticism argues that these things are unknowable, in the extreme position that they're unknowable even in principle, not simply that we're currently just ignorant. Atheism rejects them all and says that on the basis of present evidence there is no deity, and that is my position. The tendency of the human mind to believe something is not evidence of its reality.
You almost certainly are with respect to a very long list of extinct deities, unless you've got a very peculiar belief system, and there are more subtle shades of meaning in the term than you're granting. Here's an intelligent discussion of it: atheism - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com
They've got the quote I was thinking about, too. I think it needs to make an appearance directly.
Why? Maybe it serves its purposes not to make an appearance. Maybe we are meant to discover the nature of the universe on our own, sort of like Star Trek's Prime Directive.
By the way, we know far more about the mechanics of our solar system than we do about the universe itself. So your @nalogy is flawed. Also a day will come when the sun doesn't rise... if our models are correct, our solar system has a lifespan.
By the way, we know far more about the mechanics of our solar system than we do about the universe itself. So your @nalogy is flawed. Also a day will come when the sun doesn't rise... if our models are correct, our solar system has a lifespan.
The mechanics of our solar system are much simpler. That is essentially like comparing protein folding to the working of an entire cell. Yet still, we have answers. I can tell you the shape of the universe, its basic constituents, its age, its early history, its evolution, the appearance of galaxies and stars. What questions do you have about it exactly?
When your answer to a question about reality is, "God did it!" then you have failed in your attempt to discover the nature of the universe on your own.
I'm not claiming God exists. I only claim that I don't know whether God exists. Until I have definitive proof one way or the other, I'm most comfortable sitting on the fence.