Perso's thread was locked which should have been posted here, so I thought I'd cut out the middle man and
respond here.
Quote by Persocom01After
some research into the facinating phenomenon of Atheism, I have come to an interesting conclusion. Firstly, I have found
that one of the main reasons why people choose to be Atheist is the desire to believe only in evidence rather than
faith.
"I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly
paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there
is no ground whatever for supposing it true." - Bertrand Russell
This is an interesting intellectual position that I have examined, especially as it deals with the question of origins.
Why is it interesting?
Put simply atheism is the most logical postition to take.
Quote: 1. Just because there is no examinable evidence of something
doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. For example, I leave a can of beer in the fridge, and leave home. When I
return an hour later, I find that the can of beer is missing. I automatically infer that someone must have taken my can
of beer. Now how did I do that? I come to that conclusion despite the lack of evidence because no natural explanation is
adequate for explaining my missing beer. Could it have been wind? No. Bird? Nope. Earthquake? Ridiculous. Therefore it
must have been a person! Of course, this is not to say that we should believe in everything but instead as Sherlock
Holmes observed, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth"
Your metaphor has problems. The evidence is everywhere.
1. Your beer existed, it was sitting in the fridge, you put it there.
2. You left the beer for a short amount of time
3. When you came back the beer was no longer in the position it was left.
This is what you have to work with. How do beers leave a fridge? Judging from the evidence the most likely explanation
is a person took that beer.
Now if you wish to use this as an analogy for believing in god you're missing some things. The beer was taken and
it's obvious it was taken, we'll equate that with life and the world, etc. (The things that are observed are
the missing beer). Then we assign a person to it, say we dust for fingerprints on the fridge and find yours and some
other person's, the other prints are probably the most likely suspect, we'll call him Evolution. Evolution is
supported by a great deal of irrefutable evidence, I don't think that's a stretch. God, we'll dub the
"Beer Napper", a person you've hypothesised about who goes door to door stealing beers and leaves no
trace of himself. Now your analogy seems to be falling into place.
So who's more likely, the Beer Napper or the Evolution guy? Well both are technically possible, the question is
which is more probable and actually happened. I guess the answer is up to whatever you wish to believe, keep in mind
though that if you have unwavering belief in the Beer Napper he will no longer take your beers.
Quote: 2a. The most interesting part comes when an Atheist is asked about
origins. By definition, an Atheist cannot believe that a supernatural existance was involved in creating anything in
this world. (because there is no examinable evidence) Now the way an Atheist fills this interllectual vacuum is to
ground his beliefs in scientific theory. The most common of which is Natualistic Evolution, (nothing supernatural)
however as science progresses it has become increasingly apparent that Naturalistic Evolution cannot account for the
incredible complexies of life. Take for example, the biomolecular processes that occur every day in one of the cells in
your body. IBM spent 5 years building a petaflop supercomputer under the project name "Blue Gene" just to
study them. http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/402/allen.html
The single process of protein folding alone takes anything up to a year for this computer to simulate. Yet in reality
how long does a biological cell take to perform this incredible feat? lLess than 1 second. The absurdity of the notion
that natural processes can result in the complexity we see in all life is expressed by evolutionist Franklin Harold:
"We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and
necessity [i.e., Darwinian evolution]; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of
the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
Note this he is obviously an evolutionist, however my point is adequate expressed. An Atheist who bases his belief in
Naturalistic Evolution bases it on a large amount of mere speculation. (the destestable notion of faith rears it's
ugly head here)
First of all calling the disbelief in the supernatural an "intellectual vacuum" is a bit disingenuous, but
I'll let it slide.
Now the problem with your stance is you clump fact with uncertainty and call the whole thing faith. You see, evolution
happened, what's under debate and what you're nitpicking are the MECHANICS through which evolution occured.
Science is still working on figuring out these processes but we certaintly aren't completely in the dark, there is
a great deal of evidence for natural selection and mutation. However, no matter how uncertain the mechanics of evolution
are it does not change the evidence that evolution actually occured.
To go back to the beer analogy, we're not exactly sure HOW this beer was stolen, but certainly it was infact
stolen. We have evidence that says someone opened the door and took the beer, but you say that the beer simply vanished
through the Beer Napper's beer stealing portal. Apparently the evidence for stealing the beer isn't enough for
you, and even if you had a tape of someone stealing it you'd find some way to reject it anyhow.
Quote: b. Now that doesn't deter most Atheists. So what if there
aren't any good explanations now? It does not rule out the possibility that one will be found in the future. While
this is true, it contradicts the common Atheistic stand that he only believes in things that have evidence. An even more
interesting thing is what often happens when asked the question of the origins of life or the universe. An Atheist might
respond in 2 ways:
i. Why does it have to be God who creates the universe? Can't the universe have always existed?
ii. I don't HAVE to believe anything. You can say you have no idea how life started and still be an atheist. You
don't even have to know what abiogenesis is.
The problem with i. is that scientists agree that the universe has had a beginning 13 billion years ago, so it
didn't always exist. The belief that the universe has always existed is not based on any observed evidence. Now
everything that has a beginning must have a cause. To say that the universe began by itself is a statement of faith in
itself.
For your universe thing, the big bang happened 13 billion years ago. What the big bang originated from could have been
there much longer.
As for abiogenesis, there is evidence that supports it. We only get closer and closer to creating life ourselves. Infact
a big problem is defining life, where's the line? Is a virus life? It can replicate and evolve. A prion? This only
further supports that life is a natural process and not some construction or miracle.
The evidence supports abiogenesis, judging from the evidence it most likely happened. I'm the most atheistic
atheist you'll ever meet and I have no faith in abiogenesis. It's belief is only held up by the evidence that
supports it, and if some other reasonable explanation comes up, supported by evidence, that is better than abiogenesis
then I will believe that that is the most likely explanation.
The belief that the universe always existed is just a hypothesis. Usually a method of explaining to someone like you the
fault in your reasoning. Using occam's razor, it's more logical to say the universe always existed rather than
to say the universe was created by god and god always existed. You're making up a magical entity to pass our
ignorance to. Either way you have the same problem, but the former makes more sense. We're not sure if the universe
is expanding, contracting, or pulsing but none of these have anything to do with a magical being called god. Just
because you don't know something doesn't mean you should make up creatures to fill in these holes.
Quote: The problem with ii. is that this stand can only exist in an
interllectual vacuum. Once one agrees with the idea that life has had a beginning 3.5 billion years ago, there remains
only 2 options: life began naturally (abiogenesis) or supernaturally. (God created) However an Atheist, by definition,
rejects the idea that life began supernatually. Thus taking the stand of ii. is only possible even with this knowledge
by commiting the logical fallacy of invincible ignorance. http://www.cuyamaca.edu/bruce.thompson/Fallacies/invincible_ignorance.asp
No one is refusing to listen to you. I'm even going out of my way to respond. Your invincible ignorance fallacy is
irrelevent and doesn't apply to anything here. Abiogenesis is supported by evidence, god is not.
Quote: Thus I conclude that the common Atheist stand of wanting only to
believe only in evidence is an ultimately indefensible position. The only logical position for an Atheist to assume is
to admit that he does require a certain amount of faith.
And here we have it. The purpose of your post. You don't try to raise your own religion to the logicalness of
atheism but instead try to lower atheism to the stupidity of religion. That's how sad your position is. Atheism
requires no faith no matter how you spin it. Deal with it.
