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Atheism is the absence of belief »
Posted by: Radiofreeeuropa 2 years, 6 months agoWHEN I hear atheism mentioned it's followed by the bewildered statement, "How can you be sure God doesn't exist?" I would like to attempt to clear up a few common misconceptions about atheism. Namely that atheism requires faith, that outspoken atheists are "fundamentalists," and that agnostics are weak or non-committal while sel
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Radiofreeeuropa
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Comments: 77
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Neophile
June 9, 2007, 1:48 p.m.You would think this is a no-brainer, but I'm always surprised at how many faithful people fail to grasp this. And from what I've seen, it does seem to be an ignorance confined to faithful people.
Saying atheism is a religion is like saying bald is a hair color.
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blothbelt
June 9, 2007, 4:17 p.m.My only problem with self-proclaimed atheists is that more often than not, they are just as committed to "converting you" as any avid Baptist. I just tell either of them to kiss my a$$.
Agnosticism is a postion in which I am allowed to tell the truth, which is, "I don't know." If someone thinks they do, then get the hell away from me, you dogmatic freak. If someone can accept my lack of necessity to come to silly conclusions, we will get along.
I kinda like the idea of a spaghetti monster though; I am always hungry and I love Italian food.
My dad won't even discuss the subject as he feels it's a waste of brainpower and arrogant to think about things for which there can be no objective basis.
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Mutainia
June 9, 2007, 6:31 p.m.Atheism is a "positive view of life"? Maybe if you're young, successful, rich, and attractive with all the time in the world. Wait a few years, Mr. Atheist.
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cherev
June 10, 2007, 6:28 a.m.Everyone believes in some sort of G-D. It's just that some believe in the one they see in the mirror every morning.
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klementina
June 10, 2007, 6:58 a.m.I am atheist because I don't need a god in my life, I can't understand utility of religion in modern conditions of life.
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Unashamed
June 10, 2007, 9:14 a.m.Let's see, he titles his article "Atheism Is the Absence of Belief" and closes with "Atheism is not only a viable alternative to faith, it is, I BELIEVE, the most probable, most promising, and most positive view of life."
He also says atheism cannot be fundamentalist because they are unlike "radical Muslim and Christian fundamentalists who actively try to force their beliefs on society." There are many (not all) atheists trying to force their belief on society if we go by the posters to Netscape anytime the subject of belief in God(s) come up.
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zcaveman
June 10, 2007, 11:01 a.m.Why is this so complicated for some ppl? If you want to build something, what must be the first thing you do? Plan it! Something planned this, because it all fits together so well.
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FRICKANDFRACK
June 10, 2007, 11:49 a.m.Merriam-Websters definition:
Main Entry: athe·ist
Pronunciation: 'A-thE-ist
Function: noun
: one who believes that there is no deity
- athe·is·tic /"A-thE-'is-tik/ or athe·is·ti·cal /"A-thE-'is-ti-k&l/ adjective
- athe·is·ti·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb
So when the author states " It requires no active belief, neither affirmative nor negative".This statement is not consistant with the definition so I would posit the author is being either deliberately misleading about his religious belief or is not truly atheistic.Atheism by its unprovable belief there is no God is as much a religious dogma as a Christians unprovable belief there is.
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Dionys
June 10, 2007, 12:21 p.m.Sorry. This article is bunk.
Atheists have the greatest faith of all. The faith that they as independent beings possess all the knowledge needed to make a judgement as to the existance of a God/god/gods/goddess.
They have faith that they know better than anyone else alive, dead or those to come the "truth" of existance and being. They have faith that in the future there will be no change in the existance of their particular desire for "evidence."
I understand an atheist's desire to distance their beliefs from "faith," as it tends to make them look ridiculous when they criticize other peoples' faith traditions, but please. Atheism is as much faith as reason. It's nothing to be ashamed of.
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Spinward
June 10, 2007, 12:30 p.m.First, I am a Christian, not an athiest. Just as many Christians misuderstand athiest, many athiests misunderstand Christians.
This admittedly sounds rather weak, it is much easier to believe in God when science leaves too many "unexplained" phenomena. Have an inoperaperable brain tumor removed by prayer and it's hard to stay an athiest (this happened to my father).
Second, it's not the "onus" of the believer to do anything for the non-believer. The one who believes sees adequate evidence to believe, the other does not.
Third, true Christians are uninterested in forcing their views on anyone, which makes us pretty good neighbors. They earn 24% more money and are happier without bothering anyone. Why try to sell it?
Being a Christian provides a belief structure that lends peace-of-mind and the knowledge that even if you are wrong, you lived a good life.
If an athiest is wrong, the afterlife could be a disaster... and forever is one long time.
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Radiofreeeuropa
June 10, 2007, 1:20 p.m.I can not obviously speak for the author, but for me personally , any notion of sky dudes, flaming shrubbery, and the like, just isn't credible and is not anything that I would arrive at in my own experience of life. Why should I assume that any other living beings take on the universe is "better"?
In the beginning man created god....
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DeadXXXManXXXTalkin
June 10, 2007, 1:25 p.m.forever is a long time''
rather, forever is the absence of time
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nu2007
June 10, 2007, 1:29 p.m.I think we always circle around the questions about the existence of god and a life based on a theist faith or one based on self-moral conscience. Certainly the former lifestyle must surrender to the belief of god, otherwise the foundation of their lifestyle is debunked. the latter lifestyle of course is more forgiving. You can live based on conscience and then one day you discover god and your lifestyle can be extended to include theist faith (actually when you really discover god physically, you shouldn't call it faith anymore because it is a fact already). Not implying which lifestyle is better but one point I want to bring about is where science comes to the debate of existence of god. Actually to say the existence of god can't be proven or disproven is a bold claim without scientific basis. You can say it has or has not been proven, but you can't say it can't be proven which imply you rule out any possibility of scientific proof in the indefinite future.
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FRICKANDFRACK
June 10, 2007, 1:43 p.m.Robocat, the problems in the authors article is they do not fit the definition of atheist such as this quote "It is no active affirmation that a god(s) does not exist."The authors belief system would seem to be more accurately described as being non-religious not atheistic,non-religious would be an absense of any position on the existance of God at all.
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nu2007
June 10, 2007, 1:46 p.m.Even in science, there are wealth of examples that this kind of "can't-be" statements were proven wrong.
"[Television] won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." -- Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.
"The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." -- IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.
"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever." -- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889
"It's a great invention but who would want to use it anyway?" -- Rutherford B. Hayes, U.S. President, after a demonstration of Alexander Bell's telephone, 1876.
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nu2007
June 10, 2007, 1:51 p.m."Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." -- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.
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Rhialto
June 10, 2007, 1:57 p.m.I am an atheist, however I disagree that it is a positive view of life in the absolute sense. It is possible for person to have a negative view on life and be atheistic. The author went to far on that assertion. The basic epistemological standard is that the onus of proof is on the person who asserts a positive.
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nu2007
June 10, 2007, 2:02 p.m.Science for sure won't concern about your lifestyle. You can worship a rock or a pokemon or no one, science would care less about that. But science can devise methods to probe the existence of god or existence of other unknown matters. I am not yet a believer of dark matter/dark energy/blackholes/11 dimensions, but science did use mathematics, telesopes, spectroscopes, etc. and some logical inference to predict the existence of these phenomena. Have you ever seen one blackhole by your eyes or using assisted tool directly? Whether they are truly the way as described by scientists probed them from billion light years away is to be confirmed or debunked later. The point is some effects from "something" can be detected even thought you don't see them in front of your face.
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nu2007
June 10, 2007, 2:12 p.m.So can science at the current stage be used to show the possibility of god? I think so. Some phenomena has been well documented in Bible, for example, prayers can heal disease. So we can devise experiments to prove its effectiveness. This is how we do to prove the effectiveness of many drugs. So why science all becomes useless when it comes to prove the effectiveness of prayers? By using statistical analysis, this can be proven relatively easily. Whether we want to prove it or not is our subjective matter. But science is all ready to prove this fact already. Just as the same way we prove the non-existence of ether in famous Michelson-Moley experiment, we can use the same principles to prove the existence of something based on their known properties.
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nu2007
June 10, 2007, 2:19 p.m.Why people so readily accept the scientific methods to show the existence of dark matters, but not any methods to show the existence of god? Is there any subjective conflict in mind that prevent people from taking the initiates to do these experiments? Whether it comes out fruitful answers is not important, what is important is the positive attitude to seek the truth, rather than just relying on faith of old scripture and lack of motivation to find ways to confirm them. See, this is not the problem of science, this is the problem of attitude. What are you afraid of to go this extra mile to confirm your faith if you so believe in it? When someone is skeptical about your work, won't you show them a demo to shut them up? Where is this attitude for religion? I think this is the attitude that upsets non-believers.
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FRICKANDFRACK
June 10, 2007, 2:24 p.m.Ahteism does fit the definition of a religion in two of the description of Merriam-Websters Dictionary.It is indeed a personal religious attitude and belief,it is a faith since an absence of a deity can no more be proven than the existance of one can.
2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
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Radiofreeeuropa
June 11, 2007, 3:20 a.m.I disagree. I do not profess to know what happens when you die or whether the universe has a creator or not, and if anyone tells me that they do, they are just liars. Religion's root word is "relic" by the way.
How can a disbelief in a system of beliefs be a belief in itself? Let's say you break a mirror and don't buy that for 7 years you'll have bad luck. Is your assumption that this superstition is not true, a superstition? It's the same thing.
There is no "Faith" involved in not believing virgins give birth, only the inverse requires "Faith".
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endtyranny
June 12, 2007, 8:06 a.m.This was an interesting post. As an agnostic, I sometimes have trouble understanding faith, particularly athiesm. I think because the militant faithful (extremists) are the loudest and most visible, my view of them is often muddled.
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