Thread: Athiesm is a faith

Like how the bible says the earth is only 5000 years old, you can prove that is false.

Well, it's only the most fervent literalists who believe the Bible even really says that. Apparently some theist with too much time on his hands arrived at that conclusion by counting up the Begats in the bible and assuming that a human generation must be about 20 years long and factoring in the 6 days to create the earth thing. This assumes that no Begats were left out and that everything the Bbile says is to be taken at literal face value. So all that can be disproven there is the absolute literal truth of the statement. Most Christians aren't literalists anyway.

I only present this because I believe any claims that can be disproved through science will prove to be equally spurious. Say what it may about literal "facts" presented in the literature of Christianity, science still cannot even make any claim concerning a being that is by definition not natural.

If God can create the universe and can exist before it did, then he would have no problems hiding evidence of his existence from pesky scientists.

Yea but if they said they knew something, and they didn't then you can prove they are wrong. And if you said god actively played a part in a historical event, and that event never happened, then it proves he didn't do anything. When you get to the point where the vast majority of a religion is proven wrong, then you start disproving that gods very existence.

If you pick the 5% of the bible that can't be proven either way and use that to say god exists, well that 5% god isn't what you believe in. Your concept of the god is wrong and your concept of that god doesn't exist. You could then try to claim that there is still a god, but it wouldn't be the god your worshiping.

Originally Posted by kookyinc

but you can't disprove the existence of something.

one can't really, really disprove the existence of anything.

How about logically impossible things? What about a triangle with 6 vertices where the angles add up to 395 degrees?

Originally Posted by kookyinc

We can counter your claim and suggest another color that your hand could have. But regardless, your hand exists. You can prove negatives, but you can't disprove the existence of something. What evidence would something not there leave to show that it isn't there?

You can demonstrate that claims made by people who believe in non-existant deity X can be explained by natural phenomena, and combined those explanations will reduce and eventually eradicate any reason to believe in such a thing, and practically disprove the existence of deity X. But even if that can be done, one can't really, really disprove the existence of anything.

I can say that there is no nail stuck through the center my hand. I can prove that such a nail doesn't exist. I look at my hand, and no nail. I have just disproved the existence of the nail See the thing is, when people talk about a specific god they lists traits it have and stuff. If you can disprove those traits then the item doesn't exist the way they claim it does. You can think of some instances where things might be extremely hard to disprove, however most people who worship a god says the god interactive with the earth and the people on earth. Those interactions are the points where you can show if some thing happened or not. You can't disprove god if he exists in another universe but if you claim he exists on earth and has a giant foot and stepped on someone and crushed him into the ground but there is no giant foot print and the guy wasn't crushed, you can prove that isn't true.

Again though, that's just knocking down things people have said about God or statements about him in the Bible. All that can do is make Biblical Literalism look stupid. But then people who believe in Biblical Literalism aren't too concerned with looking intelligent to begin with.

Originally Posted by stormcrow

How about logically impossible things?

Originally Posted by kookyinc

Lol but the question still remains: can we disprove the existence of a triangle with 6 vertices?

We can because by definition a triangle has 3 vertices and the sum of its interior angles are 180 degrees. A triangle with 6 vertices with the sum of its angles are 395 degrees cannot possibly exist and we can prove this a priori.

Not if it's a supernatural triangle...



And with that I leave this endless circular logic thread

Originally Posted by Alric

I can say that there is no nail stuck through the center my hand. I can prove that such a nail doesn't exist. I look at my hand, and no nail. I have just disproved the existence of the nail See the thing is, when people talk about a specific god they lists traits it have and stuff. If you can disprove those traits then the item doesn't exist the way they claim it does. You can think of some instances where things might be extremely hard to disprove, however most people who worship a god says the god interactive with the earth and the people on earth. Those interactions are the points where you can show if some thing happened or not. You can't disprove god if he exists in another universe but if you claim he exists on earth and has a giant foot and stepped on someone and crushed him into the ground but there is no giant foot print and the guy wasn't crushed, you can prove that isn't true.

But then you can make up excuses when reality disagrees. The nail is invisible and intangible. The footprint was covered up by the government/Noah's Flood/it's a metaphor.
I have to stop this, I'm feeling like an apologist for something that I don't even believe.

Originally Posted by stormcrow

Lol but the question still remains: can we disprove the existence of a triangle with 6 vertices?

I thought the rageface would be my admission of yes, we can, and I was dumb to not be more specific with my statements.

Though technically, you can get a 395° angle sum triangle in non-euclidian space. As the disgusting old man said to the foxy young lady, "you can get anything with those curves".

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

And with that I leave this endless circular logic thread

/insulted

Originally Posted by kookyinc

I thought the rageface would be my admission of yes, we can, and I was dumb to not be more specific with my statements.

Though technically, you can get a 395° angle sum triangle in non-euclidian space. As the disgusting old man said to the foxy young lady, "you can get anything with those curves".

Im not so sure about that although my knowledge of non-euclidean geometry is limited. I know that in hyperbolic geometry the sum of the triangles interior angles always add up to be less than 180 degrees. Also even in non-euclidean geometry a triangle still only has 3 vertices.

Yea but if you say the nail is invisible and prior to that you claimed to have seen it, then you have just proven you are wrong. And if you say only you can see it when can give you an eye test to prove that is wrong. They already have a set beliefs, if they use any excuses that conflict with that belief they are only proving them self wrong.

Originally Posted by stormcrow

Im not so sure about that although my knowledge of non-euclidean geometry is limited.

I think if you stick a triangle on a sphere, you can get a sum that big. But I'm not sure.[/offtopic]

Originally Posted by Alric

Yea but if you say the nail is invisible and prior to that you claimed to have seen it, then you have just proven you are wrong. And if you say only you can see it when can give you an eye test to prove that is wrong. They already have a set beliefs, if they use any excuses that conflict with that belief they are only proving them self wrong.

They're wrong about the properties that they noticed with their fallible human senses, but can't prove that the invisible intangible nail isn't there, just that its properties changed or someone perceived it incorrectly.
This discussion reminds me of this video, and like Darkmatters, I think Imma bail as well. I hardly see this discussion going much further. It was a fun, no doubt, but I have to go and do more productive things, like counting grains of sand and the like.

Then you just ask them how they know it is there. If they have no possible way of knowing it them self, then they are just making shit up. That is the entire point. You can claim something but if you have no way of knowing it yourself, then you just made it up. I can prove you made it up because you yourself admit there is no way you can know.

Originally Posted by kookyinc

I think if you stick a triangle on a sphere, you can get a sum that big. But I'm not sure.[/offtopic]

Aight then. But one last note, your right I checked and spherical triangles can exceed 180 degrees.

Originally Posted by kookyinc

They're wrong about the properties that they noticed with their fallible human senses, but can't prove that the invisible intangible nail isn't there, just that its properties changed or someone perceived it incorrectly.
This discussion reminds me of this video, and like Darkmatters, I think Imma bail as well. I hardly see this discussion going much further. It was a fun, no doubt, but I have to go and do more productive things, like counting grains of sand and the like.

You say that the discussion is not productive but you have been arguing for the existence of something that we cannot prove exists for a couple posts now? Puzzled. Personally I think the discussion about the limits of the scientific method, epistemology, and logically impossible things was vastly more fun that arguing over semantics like the first six pages of this thread. Ok Ill leave too since everyone else left.

But just to be the gadfly, it is interesting that you used Sagan's dragon argument. After what is the difference between an invisible nail and a non-existent one?

Originally Posted by Xei

So what you're basically saying is that you have so little in the way of actual arguments that the only things you can find to debate are artificial, semantic non-issues?

Okay, thanks for letting us know.

Holy shitballs...there's no way you just said that.
This has made my week.

I must be having deja vu. I SWEAR I've heard this conversation all before a million times...

If Atheists believed in something that they hadn't yet proven, they would have faith. If they don't believe in something that hasn't been proven, they are simply refusing to believe it.

There you go guys, there's the answer. Do I win? (And this came from a *gasp* NON-ATHEIST! ZOMG.)

Well this thread seems to have gone off base that Atheism is indeed a faith. Must I reiterate? One can not have disbelief without affirming to faith of some degree. Zeus might exist I don't know but it seems unlikely however I have faith that he doesn't exist just as everyone else does.

One doesn't have "faith" that unicorns do not exist. They simply assume they do not until evidence to the contrary is presented.

faith: noun belief that is not based on proof He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

Since you cannot disprove God's existence, you are accepting non-existence. You cannot physically have faith in something that you assume doesn't exist, or faith in the assumed non-existence. The point is, there is no faith because atheism is not a belief in something without evidence. No evidence is needed to assume non-existence... in fact a lack of evidence leads to a conclusion of non-existence until proof arises.

Atheists don't believe in something lacking in proof. (see definition above.) Therefore, not a faith.

By ne-yo's logic, "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.

I think we have been through a fair bit of semantics, but also straw-man on the atheist's part.

Atheism may not be a faith in no-God, but it is not about that, it is about the atheist's faith in his own reasoning in itself as the final answer. It is often a faith that logic itself can encompass all truth, including the spiritual and the supernatural, or other areas untouched; even in times where the logic has nothing to rest on. It is then a faith that the God problem is "settled" once and for all inside the frames of reason, strangely enough - even it finally means something cannot be proven or disproven.

If one says logic itself requires no faith, that is in itself odd, because if so there would be no means to bring it into action. If the atheist didn't have faith in the scientific method, for example, he would not use it. I know I wouldn't. However the scientific method just cannot work on everything by its paradigm, not including the times where it simply does not have enough information to function.

It is not about faith in a whether a logical conclusion will be logical, but about faith in logic in providing all truth in the universe. If it wasn't taken to this extent about certain issues, then the atheist would prefer to remain undecided, and instead perhaps become agnostic.

The gnostic/theist might also know God and then look upon the atheist and see that he doesn't actually know that there is no God, but that he has invested his faith in science alone and knows only what he can deduce. It is a losing battle however, because that faith is burdened upon a limited set of tools; hence there will be issues within these topics that can neither be proven nor disproven, and yet somehow have an original reality.

Minor interjection for the kiddies still arguing about an issue that is easily resolved for everybody by just defining atheism clearly: depending on how you define God, there may be clear evidence against such a God, in which case atheism isn't a faith in either definition.

Originally Posted by greenhavoc

Holy shitballs...there's no way you just said that.
This has made my week.

Give an example of a debate I've had that rests on semantic non-issues.

> Calling greenhavoc out for the nth time
> Expecting a reply
> in 2011

This thread is probably one of the biggest mindfucks ever on this subforum. Perhaps the DNA one with Ne-yo and Darkwing was worse.

Originally Posted by MrBlonde

Either way atheist claim of not being a faith is not true. Everything takes belief whether you like it or not. You may believe Zeus doesn't exist however strong it maybe you also believe that the chair you are sitting won't vanish into thin air. People just like to "assume" these things and forget that it all takes belief.....it always does.

*posting this again :/*

might i state these are not the same

Belief Definition: An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.

Faith Definition:Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

so atheism isnt a faith

P.S: yet another thread that got completely fucked

P.P.S: I ignored every post in this thread except for most on page 1... incase what i said is irrelevnt now ://////////

Originally Posted by Marvo

This thread is probably one of the biggest mindfucks ever on this subforum. Perhaps the DNA one with Ne-yo and Darkwing was worse.

lol..wait.. what?

Dude don't hate on my super awesome Intelligent Design thread.

One more comment out of you about it and I swear I'll bump it...lol