Religion of peace wants death for French first lady

[Metsfanmax]

Well maybe that's the difference then. I was brought up going to church every week, i got confirmed, baptised etc. And given what these religions tell us is at stake - an immortality of either heaven or damnation - it seemed to matter rather a huge amount whether god's existence was likely or not.

I won't deny that religion has a powerful draw attached to it - who wouldn't be afraid to disbelieve in God, given what is apparently at stake, if they didn't stop to think about what they were told? But when you recognize that they literally have no evidence to support their claim that what you do in this life affects what happens to you after you die (which, currently, is likely nothing), you have to divorce yourself from that idea. If you had never been told that idea until you were an adult and able to form rational thoughts for yourself, you would laugh it off as ludicrous and completely illogical. But we are brainwashed into this idea from a young age, and it's hard to shake off.

[heavycola]

Well maybe that's the difference then. I was brought up going to church every week, i got confirmed, baptised etc. And given what these religions tell us is at stake - an immortality of either heaven or damnation - it seemed to matter rather a huge amount whether god's existence was likely or not.

I won't deny that religion has a powerful draw attached to it - who wouldn't be afraid to disbelieve in God, given what is apparently at stake, if they didn't stop to think about what they were told? But when you recognize that they literally have no evidence to support their claim that what you do in this life affects what happens to you after you die (which, currently, is likely nothing), you have to divorce yourself from that idea. If you had never been told that idea until you were an adult and able to form rational thoughts for yourself, you would laugh it off as ludicrous and completely illogical. But we are brainwashed into this idea from a young age, and it's hard to shake off.

Quite so. There's the nub.
Now can we please get back to the imminent murder of apostate, defiled whore and all-round good-time-girl Carla Bruni-Sarkozy? Please?

[Snorri1234]

And rationality is not the same thing as reason, so don't conflate the two. Rationality is indeed the paradigm of only making choices that are based on reason, but it can't just be a tautological (and circular) argument; those reasons must be logical. Your assertion is equivalent to saying that "I have a reason to believe that atheism and agnosticism are the same, and since I have a reason it is therefore rational, thereby making my reason legitimate." The problem is that you don't actually have a real reason in the first place. There is no evidence for the claim that no higher powers exist, and therefore there can be no logical reason for believing the assertion that no higher powers exist.

...

The problem is that you don't seem to understand what reason actually is. It is completely and utterly rational to assume that no Gods exist. It's "based on the amount of evidence against almost every religion and their concept of god, we currently are of the opinion that no gods exist"

Atheism/theism is a binary thing. You either believe or you don't. Agnosticism is about the interesting philosophical question of whether ultimate knowledge is possible, but reason is not concerned with that. It's actually a pratical application for philosophy.


Let's put it this way: Reason is a type of thinking that helps you make conclusions from accepted premises. You are arguing that those premises are not neccesarily true, which is fine but not particularly helpful. You always have to assume certain premises, reason has the fewest, for any meaningful debates. (one implicit premise for example is that the other person actually exists, you could argue that that is not neccesarily true but it is very reasonable to assume it.)

[Snorri1234]

First of all, one might argue that you are not using “Reductio ad absurdum” in the first place, since you are not arguing the argument that there possibly exists a god to any extreeme form. One might argue that it is in fact a straw man argument. In any event, logical fallacies appear to the the bullwark of the strong athiest.

I sure as shit am using a reductio ad absurdiam when I say that the rational agnostic should also be totally unable to say whether faeries exist or not.

But let’s get back to your argument, or lack thereof. You stated quite boldly, “futhermore believing that they exist is in no way as rational as believing they don't.” This is quite true; if something is unprovable either way then it is just that. One can say “I can’t prove it but I think this is true.” One can also say “I can’t prove it so I think it is false.” One cannot say “I can’t disprove it but since I can’t prove it I know it is false.” The last line is a logical falacy.

Uh what?

The rational stance is not believing something exists till there is some proof. The fact that you ret-conned your deity into being undisproveable makes no difference.

I can point into the sky and ask, “see that star over there … is there life on one of the planets that orbits it?” Clearly we cannot prove this false or true. One might say that they think the answer is false, but they cannot prove it. “Don’t know” is the logical answer given all the facts.

But we can prove it false or true, just not right now. The existence of life on another planet is not defined as unproveable.

By the way, did you just end your argument with the Fallacy of many questions?

Nope.

[Snorri1234]

OK third time:
YES. YOU ARE RIGHT. And so people like tzor post rubbish like this: 'logical fallacies appear to the the bullwark of the strong athiest'. If i declare myself to be an atheist, then I am being illogical. So boo yaa, sucks to be me, etc etc. But - it really, really doesn't matter. It is a meaningless distinction in any practical sense.
Unless you are tzor, of course, in which case you have obviously just proved the existence of god.

There's a reason I point this out: Atheists really do like to think that their view is more logical than that of religion, and I firmly believe that it is not more logical. Both sides have zero evidence to support their claims, and therefore both are equally logically wrong (the fact that religious people are obviously delusional notwithstanding).

Atheists are not more logical because being logical is not dependent on the truth of your premises but on the interplay of your premises. Illogical is when assumed premises contradict eachother. Logic is a way of seeing whether your set of premises is mathematically sound. (well, there is something to be said for religion quite often contradicting itself, but that's not all that relevant to this discussion.

Atheism is certainly the more rational answer though. Atheists are basically always rationalists to some degree. You could say that rationalism itself might not be true, but well shit that goes for everything and it's of no consequence.

The practical importance? We can all agree that religious people are stupid, but we don't need to defeat their belief to show it ;P

The thing is that there is a good reason to defeat belief if you think it causes harm. I sympathize with your stance, I once held it, but I've come to the conclusion that religion causes a lot of harm in the world. And while I can't be certain that getting rid of religion makes that harm go away, it's at least a safe bet that it's easier to stop harm if the religious justification disappear.

[Lootifer]

Athiests are only rational in the context of pre-existing religions/gods, not in hypothetical religions/gods.

For example it's easy for an athiest to say the god creationists worship doesn't exist because there is a perfectly rational argument behind it. However the thinking behind denouncing some misc. latent power (aka a god of sorts) that just flipped a switch (and then buggered off to where ever they came from) and the big bang happened is not rational because any kind of evidence is currently unknowable.

[Snorri1234]

Athiests are only rational in the context of pre-existing religions/gods, not in hypothetical religions/gods.

For example it's easy for an athiest to say the god creationists worship doesn't exist because there is a perfectly rational argument behind it. However the thinking behind denouncing some misc. latent power (aka a god of sorts) that just flipped a switch (and then buggered off to where ever they came from) and the big bang happened is not rational because any kind of evidence is currently unknowable.

It's also not particularly interesting. A power that caused the big bang and the big bang just happening are completely undistinguishable for any discussions, actions and beliefs.

I dismiss (not denounce) that idea because it's utterly pointless.

[2dimes]

Wouldn't dismissing it be the thought? Once you hit submit I think you've denounced it.

[Lootifer]

It's also not particularly interesting. A power that caused the big bang and the big bang just happening are completely undistinguishable for any discussions, actions and beliefs.

I dismiss (not denounce) that idea because it's utterly pointless.

And that's kind of the point. Agnostics say you can't know; there is a chance that there was some pre-existing godlike power pre-big-bang.

But why people claim athiesm is no different from theism is because you say: nah no gods, not now, not ever. Pointless or otherwise you are saying there is no higher power (no matter how distanced they might be from physical reality - as in previous example); agnostics merely accept the reality that we cannot possibly ever know.

Think of it as the whole faith crap, at some point, no matter how pointless, you are putting faith in the fact some god cannot possibly exist.

I am (as you can prob tell) agnostic, but as far as any modern gods goes i'm pretty close to being an athiest.