Death is...

Evo

Atheism isn't faith. It's a term made up to label people that don't buy into religion or gods. For exmple, Joe believes invisible creatures roam the planet, I ignore Joe's belief, it doesn't take any faith to ignore something I don't care about.

Moridin

The general definition of agnosticism is that one is sure that 'one can never find out anything about the reality of x'. That, if anything, requires faith. Of course you can label it as 'weak agnosticism' which is basically 'I don't know right now'.

Werg22

But an atheist asserts that deities do not exist. The atheist takes a position, just like the believer.

Werg22

I guess it's worth pointing out the nuance; I deem myself as one who dosen't know if any after-life exists nor if it is possible to know.

Moridin

Atheism is Not a Denial of 'God'

Atheism is the lack of faith in deities (or arbitrary thing x), not the denial of deities (or arbitrary thing x).

Just because I have a lack of taste in chocolate ice cream, does not mean that I embrace the taste of vanilla. I could have the lack of taste in both, I could say that I do not care about the flavor or that I like another flavor.

JoeDawg

Taking a position on something is not equivalent to having faith in it. Having faith in something generally refers to a belief either 'without evidence' or even 'in spite of evidence to the contrary'.

I don't believe in Odin, for lots of reasons. I find that the description of Odin, that is generally given, is so unlikely and so unsupportable, that I have no problem denying that he exits. Odin-belief is ridiculous. That doesn't take faith.... if its a matter of examining evidence and coming to a conclusion based on the evidence. This is an important distinction, because if new evidence was supplied to me, something so overwhelmingly in support of Odin's existense, then I would need to re-evaluate my position.

If I had faith in the non-existense of Odin, evidence, for or against, wouldn't matter even a bit.

Oh and death is... the last thing I ever want to do.

Werg22

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?vi...archtype=exact

According to the Oxford Dictionary, I am going along the correct definition.

Disambiguation between faith and the taking of a position is not relevant here. What is relevant is that in many cases they are quite equivalent in terms of lack, or abundance thereof, support. For instance, if I were to invent a religion whose only assertion is God Exists, both acceptance and denial would be ultimately unjustifiable.

JoeDawg

Unless 'God exists' is a contradiction.

If all you say is that 'God exists', you are not really saying much of anything. What is a god? Which god? What makes him God? Where can you find this god? How do you know this is true?

I can say: "ewlfnavieiwfanfwelifwonwwfnaf exists". But to know if its true or not I would have to define it, and then, this is where you would need evidence, or faith.

If you said: "ewlfnavieiwfanfwelifwonwwfnaf exists", but refused to say more, or to justify your statement, its simply an unsubstantiated claim, with no worth, its either just sounds or scribbles.

Moridin

According to a few other dictionaries and texts, I am going to correct your faulty definition:

ATheist Myth: Isn’t not believing in any gods the same as believing there are no gods?
Dictionary Definition of Atheism
Online Dictionary Definitions of Atheism
Reference Book Definitions of Atheism
Definition of Atheism for Early Freethinkers
Definition of Atheism for Modern Atheists

There is a huge difference between strong and weak atheism.

The word atheist is redundant. No one has ever needed to define themselves as non-astrologer, or non-voodoo priest.

Werg22

This is not my point; I could have defined God however I wanted to make the claim substantial with everything I said still applying.

I understand.

JoeDawg

Then do so. I guarantee your everything will not apply, because I will demand proof that what you attribute to your god is true.

Werg22

Proof is in the eye of the beholder.

JoeDawg

So go ahead, show me what you have. If you can supply a concept of god that is not self-contradicting, many philosophers have tried, and verifiable evidence to support your claim that such a god could and does exist, then your claim does not require faith, otherwise believing in it requires faith by definition - faith is defined as belief without evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Until you support your claim, it requires either faith in the claim or at the very least in your ability to discern the truth of the statement: God exists.

I personally have never encountered a God definition that wasn't self contradicting, vague to the point of uselessness, and completely without evidence.

So now I've stated my biases....
If you have such a conception of god, I'd love to hear it.

laurelelizabeth

I honestly don't know, although I'd like to believe it's not oblivion. I think it might be something like reincarnation -- either you get reborn as another person/animal or in an entirely different world.

VikingF

"I honestly don't know", however if time and/or space (multiverse?) is infinite, then anything with a probability above zero should happen an infinite number of times, including the exact circumstances that lead to my existence.

Moridin

That is a big if. What makes you think that

i.) Multiverse idea is valid?
ii.) The existence of an afterlife is above 0?

VikingF

One thing is that it has explanatory power. The anthropic principle is a good example of this. It is easier to explain why the universe is as fine-tuned as it is if we accept the multiverse idea to be a possible solution. If our universe is only one of infinitely many, or atleast one amongst a vast amount of universes, and the probability of a universe like our to exist is nonzero, then it would appear somewhere sooner or later, and we would be bound to find ourselves in such a universe. It is also a respected idea which is included in many cosmological models, e.g. inflationary cosmology and LQC.


I never said that. The reason why you live today, is because the history of the universe happened the way it did from the beginning of it, and until the moment of your existence, right? And that history must have a nonzero probability of happening, since it actually did happen.