Theist --> Atheist

But rejecting something does mean embracing its negation. Rejecting the existence of unicorns makes you a unicorn denier.

Anecdotal evidence is neither deductive proof nor scientific evidence. But it is evidence nonetheless. (Hrm, didn't I already say that? )

What's this? Save us from teh religious thread, zz!

In this sense, not everyone who believes in some concept of God is operating on faith alone. However, what they actually experienced is obviously subject to interpretation - another leap of faith.

Searching for God in the Brain

I am quite fascinated by the relationship (and/or conflict) between science and religion, both presently and historically. I think it requires at least some degree of compartmentalizing (as with any supernaturalistic concept) at least on a methodological plane?

Although a 2005 attempt by Swedish scientists to replicate Persinger’s God helmet findings failed...

So there is logic in choosing options rejected for conderation by science...esp depending on what possibilities one is willing to accept - a leap of faith no matter what the choice. It does not take an act of faith to recognize the logic.

What is the risk to benefit ratio of living as if God exists?

So according to Hurkyl, not believing and lack of belief are the same?

Well, according to Englush; "to believe in" and "to have a belief in" are synonyms, aren't they? ...

So say I have never heard of this thing that you believe in. Do I not believe in it or do I simply lack (belief or disbelief) in it?

What does my belief have to do with anything?

Anyways, if you don't know about X (even under a different guise), then obviously you cannot have a belief in X. Just as obviously, you cannot reject X if you don't know what it is.

What does my belief have to do with anything?

Anyways, if you don't know about X (even under a different guise), then obviously you cannot have a belief in X. Just as obviously, you cannot reject X if you don't know what it is.

Why do people think they have to give up a belief in God to believe in science and vice versa?

At his father's direction, Charles Darwin started university at 16 in Edinburgh, Scotland as a medical student. He showed little academic interest in medicine and was revolted by the brutality of surgery. He dropped out after two years of study in 1827. His father then sent him to Cambridge University to study theology. It was there that his life's direction took a radical change. He became very interested in the scientific ideas of the geologist Adam Sedgwick and especially the naturalist John Henslow with whom he spent considerable time collecting specimens from the countryside around the university. At this time in his life, Darwin apparently rejected the concept of biological evolution, just as his mentors Sedgwick and Henslow did. However, Darwin had been exposed to the ideas of Lamarck about evolution earlier while he was a student in Edinburgh. . . .

Besides, Charles Darwin, a strong propoenent of evolution, was a theist.

"What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to any one but myself. But, as you ask, I may state that my judgment often fluctuates. … In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind." (p. 304)

"I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic." (p. 313)

"With respect to the theological view of the question: This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically, but I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars or that a cat should play with mice... On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance." (p. 311)

By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported,—that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;—by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can hardly be denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories.

But I was very unwilling to give up my belief;—I feel sure of this for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.

[...]

Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the vague conclusions to which I have been driven. The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws. (p. 86)