Do atheists have faith?

[free radical]

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What do you make of this

Quote
Faith doesn't require proof to be something you believe, knowledge does, they aren't one and the same. You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist. You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer, just in the opposite direction. Now that we've established that both Atheists and Christians are people of faith in something that none of them can prove true, what is there left to prove? You "know" you're right, they "know" they're right and neither can be absolutely certain that they're not wrong, that's why it takes faith./quote

http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories

 

[Ford]

I suppose this means I have "faith" that Thor does not exist?

 

[Valjean]

Only if you're an athorist.

I hate to open up this can of worms again but there's no way around it. Atheism is the default position. There are billions of things you don't believe in, many you've never conceived of, that require no faith.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist.

Exactly what are you trying to say, here?
That it's possible to be an atheist without evidence of the non-existence of any gods?
Or that it's flatly impossible to provide evidence of the non-existence of any gods?

You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer, just in the opposite direction.

However you meant your first statement, atheism is not the opposite direction of theism.
A theist who believes in, say, Zeus, may or may not also believe in Aesculapius, Agathe, Aidoneus, Alea, Apollo, Athena, Cybele, Cyclops, Demeter, Dionysos, Discordia, Enorches, Eukleia, Eukles, Geryon, Hekate, and so on. But just like the atheists, he disbelieves in Odin, Thor, Loki, Tyr, Ptah, Ra, Set, Bast, Amateratsu, Marduk, Tiamat, Corn Woman, Quezacoatl, the Clowns, the Twins, Chiang Hsien, the Angel Moroni, Archangel Michael, and all the Hindu gods and goddesses....

In fact, for the most part ANY theist is in almost full agreement with the atheist about 99% of the religions of man and the candidates offered for deities.

That's not the opposite direction, not with that much overlap.

You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer,

Are we? Is it a leap of faith, really, to lack faith? Can you SHOW this or are you just asserting it?

Now that we've established that both Atheists and Christians are people of faith i

I don't think you've really 'established' that, you made some conclusions based on erroneous assumptions, though.

 

[Tristan Scott]

Read something interesting on topix.com

What do you make of this

Quote
Faith doesn't require proof to be something you believe, knowledge does, they aren't one and the same. You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist. You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer, just in the opposite direction. Now that we've established that both Atheists and Christians are people of faith in something that none of them can prove true, what is there left to prove? You "know" you're right, they "know" they're right and neither can be absolutely certain that they're not wrong, that's why it takes faith./quote

http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories

Atheists don't believe gods exist, they don't necessarily believe gods don't exist.

 

[skepticalbip]

Read something interesting on topix.com

What do you make of this

Quote
Faith doesn't require proof to be something you believe, knowledge does, they aren't one and the same. You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist. You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer, just in the opposite direction. Now that we've established that both Atheists and Christians are people of faith in something that none of them can prove true, what is there left to prove? You "know" you're right, they "know" they're right and neither can be absolutely certain that they're not wrong, that's why it takes faith./quote

http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories

Whoever you took that quote from apparently doesn't understand the difference between not believing something and believing something doesn't exist - in other words the difference between atheist and anti-theist.

Show me proof in any of; god exists, the Earth is flat, fairies, time travel, anal probing aliens, leprechaun's gold can be found at the end of a rainbow, etc. and I will accept it. It is just a matter of not accepting something as real without some evidence that it is real.

 

[crispy]

Sure atheists can have faith, just not the BS argument he uses.

I have faith in love from my wife and kindness from strangers and many other things...

But so what? Whats the point? If he wants to claim atheism is a religion he's way off.

 

[DBT]

You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist. You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer, just in the opposite direction.

Equivocation in the hope of equating an unjustified belief in something that has no evidential support with absence of belief, something that is justified by an absence of evidence. No evidence gives no reason to form a conviction in the actuality of something has no indication of being actual.

It is the fallacy of equivocation used in the vain hope of being able to say "my belief is as good as yours'

 

[Cerberus]

Enough has happened to me advantageously through the years to convince me that I have a Guardian Angel - a non-religious one of course!

 

[DBT]

I have faith in love from my wife and kindness from strangers and many other things...

Presumably your wife gives you evidence of her love for you, so have no need of faith. You have built trust.

Trust, if earned, is not faith.

The kindness of strangers is an objective experience you have had, so you have no need of faith to believe in your experience of the kindness of strangers. You know that at least some strangers can be kind.

 

[bilby]

Fucking Sisyphus had it easy. He did the crime, and he is (allegedly) doing the time.

But atheists never set out to deceive anyone even once, and yet here we are again, pushing the same fucking rock, up the same fucking hill.

No matter how many times we rebut this stupid shit; No matter how carefully we explain why the dumb argument is dumb; No matter how often we do this, there is always a new clever-dick theist, who thinks he just invented the one killer argument that will, once and for all, convince the atheists that they are just as dumb as the theists; but who is too idiotic to grasp that proving that we are just as dumb as him would, even if achieved, be a less than completely impressive goal.

Yes, faith is fucking stupid. Yes, if we had the faith you have, we would be fucking morons. No, we don't have that faith.

Now can we please leave the rock at the top of the fucking hill for five fucking minutes??

 

[braces_for_impact]

I've never understood why theists use this argument. "Well sure I'm not rational and I'm using a flawed epistemology, but so are you!"

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I've never understood why theists use this argument. "Well sure I'm not rational and I'm using a flawed epistemology, but so are you!"

Do not estimate the allure of the False Equivalence fallacy. It gives an unwarranted sense of humbleness and pragmatism, without giving an inch in what they believe.

 

[Atheos]

Just one word: Santa Claus.

OK, that was 2.

 

[Artemus]

Read something interesting on topix.com

What do you make of this

Quote
Faith doesn't require proof to be something you believe, knowledge does, they aren't one and the same. You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist. You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer, just in the opposite direction. Now that we've established that both Atheists and Christians are people of faith in something that none of them can prove true, what is there left to prove? You "know" you're right, they "know" they're right and neither can be absolutely certain that they're not wrong, that's why it takes faith./quote

http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories

Not believing due to a lack of evidence is the same as believing despite a lack of evidence?

Uh, no.

 

[Shadowy Man]

You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist.

Tell me what you would accept as evidence of non-existence before you say I can't provide it.

 

[Kharakov]

Show me proof in any of; god exists, the Earth is flat, fairies, time travel, anal probing aliens, leprechaun's gold can be found at the end of a rainbow, etc. and I will accept it. It is just a matter of not accepting something as real without some evidence that it is real.

God is a time traveling anal probing alien that guards golden light outside of the spectrum of human vision, so has to be very short in order to do so (thus the Leprechaun reference). It's pretty obvious if you think about it....

 

[fast]

Read something interesting on topix.com

What do you make of this

Quote
Faith doesn't require proof to be something you believe, knowledge does, they aren't one and the same. You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist. You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer, just in the opposite direction. Now that we've established that both Atheists and Christians are people of faith in something that none of them can prove true, what is there left to prove? You "know" you're right, they "know" they're right and neither can be absolutely certain that they're not wrong, that's why it takes faith./quote

http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories

Faith is a kind of belief, and knowledge implies belief, but faith is not a necessary condition for knowledge while belief is, so an atheist's belief (strong atheist, for sake of argument) need not be a product of faith--or of the faith variety.

 

[Underseer]

Read something interesting on topix.com

What do you make of this

Quote
Faith doesn't require proof to be something you believe, knowledge does, they aren't one and the same. You can provide no evidence of anybody's God's non-existence and yet you are still an Atheist. You've basically made the same leap of faith of any believer, just in the opposite direction. Now that we've established that both Atheists and Christians are people of faith in something that none of them can prove true, what is there left to prove? You "know" you're right, they "know" they're right and neither can be absolutely certain that they're not wrong, that's why it takes faith./quote

http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories

How much faith does it take to not believe in faeries?

How much faith does it take to not believe in Santa Claus?

How much faith does it take to not believe in Zeus?

How much faith does it take to not believe in elves?

How much faith does it take to not believe in Odin?

How much faith does it take to not believe in vampires?

How much faith does it take to not believe in Hanuman the monkey god?

How much faith does it take to not believe in English-speaking planets?

How much faith does it take to not believe in skull-juggling psychic were-walruses from Pluto?

Then answer of course is zero, but it looks as though I have to explain why.

All of the above existence claims are non-falsifiable claims. This means they can't be disproved even if the claims are in fact false, but they can be proved if true. This is why the burden of proof has to be with the person making the positive claim.

You don't believe me when I say the above claims are non-falsifiable? Let's take faeries as an example. Yes, there are people who believe in faeries, but the belief was more common in the 1800s and before. If you tried to disprove faeries, there is an endless series of rhetorical games a faerie believer could play that always leave open the possibility that faeries exist despite your best efforts to disprove them. For example, he could say the faeries were in the cupboard while you were searching the shed. In order to disprove faeries, you would have to be omniscient, and thus able to search every square inch of the universe simultaneously.

Is it possible that I'm wrong about faeries? Is it possible that faeries are real? If I am going to be honest, I have to admit that it is possible, but frankly I am not going to lose any sleep over the question of the existence of faeries. Because there is no good evidence for faeries (plenty of bad evidence), there is simply no reason to take the claims of their existence seriously, and so I reject the claim that faeries are real. I do not need one ounce of faith to reject the claim that faeries are real.

However, your argument tells us something important about you.

You sought to discredit atheism by attributing faith to atheism, which shows that deep down you know that faith is a bad path to the truth. This means there is hope for you yet!

 

[Bacillus anthracis]

This tired and should-be-dead argument attempts to eliminate odds of a thing being likely.

Is there a god or some other force we can't see that created/has a purpose for us/etc.?

Maybe.

But it's would be like having faith in winning the lottery. Sure, there's a chance, but it would be utterly idiotic to go about making financial decisions based on one's faith in winning the lottery. And the lottery is definitely real. Real people win real millions every week or two. And once in a while, I'll actually buy a quick-pick or two. But that doesn't mean that I believe I'm going to win. Therefore, I don't go out and buy a Ferrari. I don't live my life like a millionaire. That's because I have no belief, no faith, that I'm going to win the damn thing. In other words, I actually play the lottery once in a while yet I have no actual belief that I'm going to win. It's like spending a dollar to fantasize for a few moments. Then it's over.

But faith in a god? The lottery entertains me for a few moments but it doesn't anchor me to an entire belief system through which I must filter my thoughts. But religious faith entertains and offers hope for a lifetime despite its constant disappointments and obvious contradictions; despite events constantly telling one that their faith is unfounded. When I don't win the lottery, I've lost a buck. But religious faith often takes away a lifetime of experiences and thinking that could have been had otherwise.