What is the difference between Atheists and Non-believers?


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Matayu is offline Matayu Post #31  August 9,2011, 11:57am
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There is no atheist I know of that "ignores god's word." To be an atheist is to doubt the existence of god. I have not met a single person who believes in a god and openly defies that god.

Even satanists do not believe in god or Satan. Satanism is a form of atheism that is rebellious against the teachings of the church, and openly revels in those things the church considers sinful. As awful as the church makes satanism out to be, its more angst-y and likely to harm its followers than to harm the church itself.

Trust me, I'm an atheist, and I've done quite a bit of research on this topic, especially when deciding whether I did or did not believe a god exists. A great deal of atheists call themselves agnostic, or "not-knowing," and claim you can not know that a god does not exist because the very definition of a god defies the ability to confirm a god's existence (i.e. omnipotence).

I accepted this ideology for a great deal of time, but have changed my mind for a few reasons. First, the more you define a god, the less likely it is that he exists. For example, if the god in question created the world in 6 days, and we found out that the world was not created in 6 days, it invalidates this god. If you follow this reasoning all the way through, then if a god does exist he has no measurable effect on the natural physical world. Since I only believe in a natural and physical world, then I can not believe a god exists. It is as improbable as unicorns and Santa Clause. (Actually a unicorn would only require a strange genetic mutation making them more likely than god, but I digress...)

Forgive me for not elaborating on key points, but I'm trying to keep these posts from being very lengthy. In short. I am a gnostic "knowing" atheist "non-believer." These are the terms being used in modern theistic debates, so I suggest you become familiar with them if you are pursuing the subject. You must believe in a god, and therefore be a theist, if you are ignoring him.
 
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Matayu is offline Matayu Post #32  August 9,2011, 12:18pm
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Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Of course it won't. The question is meaningless. There isn't even a universally accepted definition for the word 'god'. Science depends upon logic. Postulate A + Postulate B = Conclusion C. Test. Retest. Retest ad infinitum, refining your postulates and experimental methodology with each cycle. The creator hypothesis fails in the very first iteration.
I would refer you to the Wiki Simple-English article on logic.
If we substitute the word "god" with "creator" then science can even go so far as to prove that the universe did not need a cause, and therefore needs no creator. I would refer you to a recent and upcoming series:
‪Curiosity: The Questions of Life - Season 1 Episode 1 Part 1‬‏ - YouTube
Curiosity, Episode 1, in which Stephen Hawking attempts to prove this very concept.

I get the feeling that Hawking did this because he is constantly lambasted by the church. He answers the question of a creator, and in doing so removes the only remaining reason anyone would believe in a god, if they take the natural sciences to their logical conclusion.
 
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Reverse_Dragon is offline Reverse_Dragon Post #33  August 10,2011, 2:00pm
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Matayu wrote :
If we substitute the word "god" with "creator" then science can even go so far as to prove that the universe did not need a cause, and therefore needs no creator. I would refer you to a recent and upcoming series:
‪Curiosity: The Questions of Life - Season 1 Episode 1 Part 1‬‏ - YouTube
Curiosity, Episode 1, in which Stephen Hawking attempts to prove this very concept.

I get the feeling that Hawking did this because he is constantly lambasted by the church. He answers the question of a creator, and in doing so removes the only remaining reason anyone would believe in a god, if they take the natural sciences to their logical conclusion.
Well put Matayu.

Without treading too deeply into the waters of modern physical cosmology, let me just clarify the science in one tiny way. There are particle interactions in the universe referred to as 'vacuum diagrams' in which a particle and its anti-particle are created in a way such that they are symmetrical, not in space, but in time.

In essence, one particle travels forward in time, the other backward, they meet in the middle and annihilate each other, releasing the energy responsible for their creation in the first place. I'm not saying the universe is one big vacuum diagram, I'm simply pointing out that the commonly assumed nature of causality is incorrect. Not every effect must be preceded by cause.
 
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AudioDad is offline AudioDad Post #34  August 10,2011, 2:28pm
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Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Of course it won't. The question is meaningless. There isn't even a universally accepted definition for the word 'god'. Science depends upon logic. Postulate A + Postulate B = Conclusion C. Test. Retest. Retest ad infinitum, refining your postulates and experimental methodology with each cycle. The creator hypothesis fails in the very first iteration.
I would refer you to the Wiki Simple-English article on logic.
Methinks the gentleman who comes late to the party has perhaps missed my previous posts.

In other words, the above reference is unnecessary as we're playing on the same team.
 
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Reverse_Dragon is offline Reverse_Dragon Post #35  August 11,2011, 9:14am
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AudioDad wrote :
Methinks the gentleman who comes late to the party has perhaps missed my previous posts.

In other words, the above reference is unnecessary as we're playing on the same team.
We are playing for the same team... but we aren't playing the same position.
 
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Reverse_Dragon is offline Reverse_Dragon Post #36  August 11,2011, 9:32am
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Diana_P wrote :
Great post, thanks.

Through my lens the existence of a design suggests a designer. That designer could be random happenstance; it could be a force, a thought, or it could be a loving Almighty Father. It could even be possibilities that we haven’t explored yet.

As you said, science pursues it from the angle of what the universe is and not what we want it to be, but that greatly limits the scope. Sometimes it takes employing the imagination to break the sound barrier or to discover that the world isn’t flat. Science isn’t looking for the human soul or for that matter, anything that isn’t detectable by our senses and the instruments we use to enhance them.

Likewise, religion doesn’t encourage questions and equates such curiosities as a kind of vanity.

Could it be that on an unconscious level we do know the answers. After all, we created the questions.
Thoughtful post Diana.

I must point out, however, that 'random chance' doesn't even adequately explain random chance. There is a common perception that natural law and evolution are tantamount to total chaos. This is simply not the case. Evolution (both natural and biological) proceeds through incremental change over countless species/events across incomprehensible spans of deep time. It is the product of emergence, natural selection, and the fundamental physical laws that govern reality. Not chance.

As for the parallel with breaking the sound barrier, we didn't break it through desire for the world to allow faster than sound travel. We broke the sound barrier through countless tests with minor variations until we discovered the aerodynamic regime of supersonic speeds. It was the work of mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and some very, very brave test pilots.

Can you site an example of something that cannot be experienced through our senses that nonetheless clearly exists?
 
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