Here's why I'm an atheist. But please challenge my position if you disagree! :)
Let's start with the definition of the label I've adopted here. I've taken it from Google's dictionary card:
The simplest answer to the question why I'm an atheist is that I lack belief in a god or gods. The reason for me to not believe is that I don't see any reason to do so - the claim that a god exists has not met its burden of proof yet and I've found no convincing evidence that would lead to me accepting it.
Keep in mind that a lack of belief in a claim is not an affirmation of the opposite. I am not saying or arguing that a god doesn't exists, but that the claim that a god exists is generally unreasonable and unsubstantiated. And when we don't have sufficient reason to accept a claim, we reject it until it can be substantiated. I reject a deity in the same way that I reject the existence of unicorns, leprechauns, the flying spaghetti monster or the idea that the universe was created when seven magical pixies entered into a polygamous marriage to save on taxes in Fairy Tale Land.
So can you convince me that I'm wrong in my assessment?
I'm not the kind of person that would like to stay in the echo chamber and be surrounded by voices of agreement all the time. If everybody around me agrees with me all the time, it would be much more difficult to find erroneous positions that I might be holding and correct them. That's why I would love to hear everybody's thoughts on my reasoning and especially people that think they can point any flaw in my positions. Even if you don't want to convince me of anything, but you are a believer, I would still like to hear what you think. Do you find my position reasonable? Why do you personally believe? What exactly do you believe?
Feel free to share whatever you feel like or ask me similar questions about my position or specific aspects of it. :)
Also drop me a comment if you are an atheist too!
When you say that your claim is not an affirmation of the opposite then you are not really denying the existence of God. If you can't prove the existence of God then you can't disprove it either. So I feel, you are neither a theist nor an atheist. Now tell me what makes you to count yourself as an atheist when you can't provide any proof to substantiate your claim for the non-existence of God? 😉
And why don't you like to call yourself an agnostic instead? 😎 Would like to know your perspective on this too.
Yes, I am not denying the existence of god, I'm rejecting the claim that a god or gods exist based on the fact that the claim is not supported by convincing evidence. If I was to deny the existence of a deity of some sort, the burden of proof for that claim would be on me and since that burden cannot be met, denying the existence of a deity with absolute certainty would also not be 100% substantiated.
I feel you feel incorrectly :P Keep in mind that
a-as a prefix meanswithout, notagainstoropposite. What is a theist? A person that has belief in a deity. What would a person without that believe be called? An atheist. That's what I am. Keeping in mind that it is absolutely consistent with the usage of the word (I made the definition into a large image for a reason), I think I can safely say I am absolutely warranted to use that label. There might be atheists that claim that they know for certain that a deity doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean that the label should apply to them only. Everybody without belief is without belief, right?This is not my claim. Not believing in a deity does not establish a burden of proof for a claim to its non-existence.
Please notice the definition of atheist I have put forward. It is about lack of belief in a deity, not about a belief that a deity is non-existent. The lack of belief in a claim is the rejection of the claim and when there is no sufficient evidence to justify the claim, then the rejection is justified. It based on the null hypothesis which simply states that we don't postulate connection between two things until such connection has been demonstrated. The fact that you can't establish the existence of something is enough to warrant a rejection, but is not enough to demonstrate that it doesn't exist. Let's try that same idea with another concept.
Can you prove that unicorns don't exist? You can't. Are you justified to not believe in them since there is no evidence for them? Absolutely. How come? Because it doesn't make sense to start believing any crazy concept with zero evidence. Think of any mythical creatures that you don't believe in. You reject it using the null hypothesis and if you are asked to definitively prove that the mythical creature doesn't exists, you will not be able to.
Because we are talking about belief and not knowledge and agnostic talks about not having knowledge about the existence of a deity. Both theists and atheists can be gnostic or agnostic. You might have belief or lack believe both with or without claiming to know with certainty. If I had to include knowledge into the equation I could ask the agnostic qualifier, but talking about knowledge when the claim is unfalsifiable is pretty much pointless. Sure, I'm an agnostic atheist compared to a gnostic one, but that has nothing to do with assessing how reasonable a god claim would be.
Additionally, if I just say I'm agnostic, that would kind of imply at least socially that I find both claims more or less on equal footing and that is by no means the case. I maintain that believing in a deity is unreasonable while not believing in a deity is absolutely justified despite the fact that proving the non-existence of such deity is impossible. Proof is required to establish its existence, not the other way around.
I could care less what one believes as all beliefs are just different roads to the same place. Even being an atheist is a belief and we all end up in the same place in the end, dead. What I care about is if someone is a good person and how they treat others, if they are good people that is all that matters. I am of Pagan faith if it matters
We are all certainly going to die, sure :) But what we believe in matters at least while we are alive.
I personally care what other people believe when it starts to affect the world and the society I live in. And religions are certainly a factor with a lot of impact. I care about how people treat each other a lot too and many religions have a negative effect on that as well. But this is no the reason I'm not convinced that a god or gods exist - I just think there is no good evidence to support that.
I guess it does, it certainly matter to you, right? :) I hope you wouldn't mind me asking what exactly that faith would entail for you and how you came to this belief. Hearing from people on things like this is one of the reasons for my post after all.
Faith to me is personal what I believe matters to me, but it shouldn't matter to others, just like what you believe matters to you. I personally can live and let live, sadly there are many who can not. For me, my faith is fluid, but I have more faith in old legends and stories about "gods and goddesses" than I do with this only one god stance. I also am not 100% sure if they were truly gods and goddesses or if they were not in fact some alien species that seeded the planet with Humans. All ancient civilizations have similar stories, so I don't think everything can be discounted into myths and legends. So when I use Pagan faith it is a fluid term for me, evidence could change how I look at things.
Thank you for taking the time to answer! The live and let live part is quite important and many people indeed struggle with it. But I also find a lot of value when people of different convictions discuss things and I see a lot of value in thinking about and determining what is and is not reasonable to believe. I do care about what the actual state of things is and we can't get to that if we pick assumptions at random.
If you are interested in evidence about the gods and goddesses of the past and what they might have and not have been or done and especially the idea that they seeded humans here, you might want to check out the genetic evidence. We seem to be too closely related to both our current relatives and to our common ancestors for there to have been a single game-changing and species-creating moment in our past. If somebody had tinkered with what we are as a species, our DNA should show that and my limited understanding of the matter is that the evidence there doesn't support that at all.
new discoveries are found all the time, so it just could mean they don't know where to look yet. Plus there is debate on RH negative and Positive blood lines being that proof. But the things is no one alive today will ever know because we were not alive then, and because of that there is no way of really knowing, unless there is some ancient recording device like DVDs or VHS some where that has created moving images of what took place, everything we believe is based off faith in something or another. Even if that faith is placed in man and science. No one will ever really know and I am okay with that myself. I focus on who people are not what they believe.
I know good and bad people of all faiths and beliefs, believing in something or nothing doesn't make someone a good person, it is their actions that make them a good or a bad person.
Oh, yeah, new discoveries are always a possibility and when they happen it's quite exciting. But in case of heredity, it's not really like we don't know where to look.
We already know which two genes lead to different types of RH negative blood antigens. In that sense, it's a pretty regular genetic trait. The fact that other species don't have that, but some of us do, just shows that the mutation appeared after we were no longer the same species. In that sense RH negative blood is not in any way different than having some people with blue eyes while the majority have dark eyes.
But we have another three-letter abbreviation - DNA :D (I really couldn't resist the pun :D) But yeah, not everything's unknowable, DNA reveals a lot about our origin and our exact place on the evolutionary tree.
Looking at evidence and ruling out explanations that contradict the evidence available does not require faith. Faith is belief in the absence of evidence. When there is sufficient evidence, it's not faith but a reasonable conclusion.
Of course! Did me sharing that I'm an atheist and welcoming a discussion if there would be any willing participants in any way implied that holding either position makes you good or bad. It's not an either-or situation. We can both examine how likely the god/gods claim is to be true and even disagree on that without that having any bearing on us being good or bad. I think most people out there do their best to be good and that of course includes people of all kinds of religions and convictions. Morality and the existence of a deity or deities are two separate issue, aren't they?
Hi, @rocking-dave, you've stimulated some fascinating interaction here already within only a couple of hours... Good on ya'! ;)
I particularly like the point @tecnosgirl has brought out:
I would like to slightly modify that excellent observation.
It is true that almost everything we believe is faith-based. Very little of what we believe is truly and solely based on our direct experience.
By and large, though, we do accept the testimony of history. We of course filter it based on everything else we know or believe. True "history" is based on eye-witness observations by people other than ourselves.
However, the earliest origin of all things (absent the objective recording mechanism @tecnosgirl posits) is not accessible to us by observation. If a creator-god exists, his or her historical account of creation, should such an account exist, would be our only source of information. Whether or not to accept it is an "act of faith" either way.
I'm also looking forward to reading your response to @xyzashu's excellent observation that you are more of an agnostic than an atheist... ;)
😄😇😄
Congratulations @rocking-dave! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPHi, Dave,
I've posted that article, FYI...
Thanks, I've read it already and I'll surely reply, possibly with some arrogance :P
Thanks, Dave. I would expect no less. ;)