Thirith on 21/6/2018 at 09:52
While I don't agree with the "religion=cancer" equation, I definitely don't agree with the equation of religiosity and altruism. There are too many strains of religion these days that have little to do with altruism and a lot with bigoted tribalism.
Thor on 21/6/2018 at 14:50
Very sorry for your wife. That is truly tragic.
The other thing I wanted to express is that atheism is faith as well. Is it less misplaced in health matters? For the most part, yeah, kinda. But that doesn't mean it's not misplaced / can't kill you.
But yeah, like scumble says, you're allowed to swear your guts out. Christian Science does indeed sounds like one of the most piece of shit cults anyone could ever subscribe to (sounds like they need a great cleansing, actually).
scumble on 21/6/2018 at 17:05
I'm not keen on the idea that atheism is the same as a faith. Humanism might be, but in itself atheism doesn't say anything about you being a particular kind of person. At least I'm not thinking I have faith in there being no God. It depends how you define it. I don't believe that everyone will be happier or better people by not believing in God. As Gray already said, people with silly beliefs can be the best people you meet. Being atheist doesn't have any ritual or church services etc. I'm actually a bit envious of my friend's church community as she gets a lot of support from it.
I understand why it does get referred to as a "faith" but I don't hang anything else off the term.
Gray on 21/6/2018 at 18:35
Atheism is not a faith, it is by definition the lack of faith, the word literally means "without gods".
If someone, like me for instance, says they "believe" in science, it is not the same as a belief in god(s) ("theism"). Theism requires faith in things that can not be proven, believing in things you've been told or read or somehow come up with in your own head and accepting it as truth. Science is about continuously reevaluating what is the most likely truth, or the closest to it based on observations and evidence. Observations can make you come up with a hypothesis (a way to explain how things MIGHT work), which you then try to test for, to prove and ALSO disprove. You go where the evidence leads you. If the evidence contradicts your hypothesis, you discard it and try to come up with a better one, you do NOT ignore evidence that contradicts your hypothesis. Once you have sufficient evidence to suggest your hypothesis is most likely true and hasn't yet been proven false, you call it a theory. A theory, contrary to popular public perception, is not just some random idea you pull out of your ass, it's been tested and not yet been disproven. The random ass idea can be the basis for a hypothesis.
A "soft" atheist, or agnostic, believes that we can't possibly know if there are any gods, given that we have no evidence to prove or disprove their existence. This usually covers most atheists.
A "hard" atheist is someone who actively denies gods. I can't quite be 100% certain, or a "true hard" atheist, but I find it extremely likely (say, 99.99% probability) that there are no gods, based on my understanding of science, history, religion, mythology and psychology and probably most importantly GROUP psychology, and I believe that gods were invented because people need them. I can't prove this, but based on my observations it seems the most likely case.
One common mistake made by people of faith is to assume that atheism is just another type of faith. It is not. It is the lack of faith, and while that concept may sound simple, if you have faith it might be difficult to get your head around what that actually means. It does not mean having faith in something other that you have, it simply means not having faith at all. It is a completely different way of thinking about the world.
This, obviously, is quite a short summary, people have been debating these issues for thousands of years and never tend to agree, and we're not going to fully resolve it here either.
Trance on 21/6/2018 at 18:54
Atheism is a single position on a single question: whether or not there are any gods. For me at least, the position I hold is the default state of belief in the absence of convincing evidence supporting a positive claim: I don't believe there are any gods, or at least none of the ones I've heard about. It is separate and distinct from a position based on faith, which supports a belief without being anchored to the state of the evidence.
uncadonego on 21/6/2018 at 20:22
Quote Posted by Thirith
While I don't agree with the "religion=cancer" equation, I definitely don't agree with the equation of religiosity and altruism. There are too many strains of religion these days that have little to do with altruism and a lot with bigoted tribalism.
But within your tribe, altruism is linked to an evolutionary drive towards inclusion.
Thor on 21/6/2018 at 20:51
Atheism is the belief that gods don't exist, by definition a form of faith. A lack of faith would be that you don't have particular beliefs (i.e. is Jesus God? Are my parents god? Is there no god at all? What a wonky definition this abstraction has gotten) by definition. And yeah, a-theism is the belief of no gods. Agnosticism is reserved for no particular beliefs.
Sulphur on 21/6/2018 at 21:04
So believing something doesn't exist means faith in, what? Its anti-entity? That's some pretty creaky semantic noodling. The absence of faith in something does not signify faith in its opposite: that anyone'd make this mistake implies a singularly one-dimensional and extreme way of looking at the world they live in.
Trance on 21/6/2018 at 21:33
Quote Posted by Thor
Atheism is the belief that gods don't exist, by definition a form of faith. A lack of faith would be that you don't have particular beliefs [. . .] by definition.
Can you direct me to the specific dictionary you're working from? That doesn't match any definition of the word that I've yet seen.
heywood on 21/6/2018 at 22:56
Faith is a different word than belief and I think faith is the wrong word in this case.
Otherwise, I agree with the point that I think Thor is trying to make. An atheist believes, an agnostic does not. I don't understand the need to believe. Based on my understanding of logic, the agnostic view is the more rational one.
